Chapter 20: Kamura
In the hour before dusk, Jak left to risk one last trip to the market to buy food and water for the journey. The barge would leave that night so it could arrive at the first farms at dawn. While he was gone, Kamura joined Tessa in her bedroom as the little Veloran went through her wardrobe searching for clothes for the two of them to wear. Kamura sighed. Tessa might not own as many clothes as she’d expected, but all her things were beautiful. Unfortunately, most were much too short for the tall Terran.
Handing Kamura a pair of soft, knit pants and a pair of leather boots, Tessa said, "Here, these trousers should do if you tuck them into the boots."
The boots were knee-high, made of some sort of supple reptilian hide, and looked similar to the ones that Jak wore.
"The boots are lamnan hide," Tessa said as Kamura stripped out of her shift.
She felt awkward being naked in front of a woman of rank different from her own but judged it unwise to make her feelings known, so she just donned the clothes Tessa handed her as quickly as she could.
"A lot of people wear work boots like these. I bought these and another pair similar to them to wear when one of my clients thought we should go camping on his estate."
Kamura tugged at the boots and found that they were cut loosely so that a pull on the ties could adjust them. She was glad she had small feet. They were the only thing about her that was close to Tessa’s dainty size. The boots were crude, and the fit was far from perfect, but they would serve her better than her ruined evening sandals. Tessa caught her frowning at them.
"Never mind how they look," the Veloran instructed. "The important thing is that they’ll help with your disguise. Yes, disguise," she said firmly when Kamura glanced up at her in surprise. "They’ll be looking for a tall, well dressed, young woman. We’ll show them a not-so-tall, scruffy, young man."
Kamura supposed it made sense, so she didn’t protest when Tessa took the white shift that Jak had bought for her and cropped it to mid-thigh, turning it into a sleeveless tunic with a ragged hem. The fabric she’d cut off went to form a band that Tessa helped her wrap around her chest to hide her breasts. Kamura pulled the tunic over her head as Tessa examined her with a frown on her beautiful face.
It wasn’t fair, Kamura thought; even while frowning, the woman looked more beautiful than Kamura had on the best day of her life. And she was far, far from that day now. She’d looked in the mirror in the bathroom and seen a battered stranger staring back at her. A med center could repair the damage—she hoped. She glanced down at herself. She supposed she could pass as a boy, she thought; she certainly didn’t look much like a member of Kamura, Recorder and Daughter of the Family Mobutu.
"Close enough," Tessa conceded. "We leave at dusk, so if we braid your hair and tie it back, you’ll pass as a boy in the dim light, at least until the barge gets underway. Sit over here while I do your hair," she ordered as she dragged one of the carved wooden chairs out onto the small, shady balcony.
"I want to thank you for talking Jak into taking me to Tekena," Kamura said as she followed her out. The balcony was covered, and no one could see them out here.
"Is that what you think?" Tessa looked at her, and Kamura had the impression that the delicate woman was weighing what she had to say. "I didn’t tell Jak to take you to Tekena. I told him to kill you."
Kamura realized her mouth was hanging open, and she closed it abruptly.
"To kill me?"
She searched Tessa’s beautiful face and found it hard; not angry, not hateful, but still just as hard and cold as stone.
"There’s no way the two of you could have survived the trip to Tekena, and I was trying to salvage what I could. He’s my pilot. Mine. And I’m not giving him up so some spoiled girl can enrich her already wealthy Family."
"Then why—"
"Why would he agree to go when he knew he’d die? For the credits. Not for himself, but for me. He was willing to die so that I could leave Shadriss." Tessa drew in a deep breath, as if to keep from saying too much. "But then I found out that the two of us are caught up in one of Bolon’s games, and the only way for either of us to survive is to make this trip together."
Bolon, that was the name of the local crime lord, she remembered. She shook her head; it didn’t matter. What mattered was that this woman, this woman who’d been helping her dress, who wanted to braid her hair, this woman had advised Jak to kill her. The information was like a pail of ice water thrown in her face.
"You told him to kill me!"
"And dump your body in the Ur to feed the banderri," Tessa added.
Kamura shivered. A school of the carnivorous water beetles would have left nothing, not even bones.
Tessa sighed. "Of course, being Jak, he was as impractical as always, so I had to think of a better idea. And I did. If that mobbie chief has kept his word, all three of us may live to leave the dust of Shadriss behind." She patted the back of the chair. "Now, sit girl, and let me fix your hair."
Somewhat to her own surprise, Kamura obeyed. She was quiet as Tessa’s nimble fingers began braiding her hair into the multiple braids favored by most of the men of Shadriss. The small, beautiful woman whom she’d dismissed as a mere courtesan had been ready to kill her. She had never so misjudged another person.
Belatedly, Kamura realized that Tessa probably understood a lot more than she’d supposed on first meeting her. In many ways, the Hired Companion reminded her of Grandmother Mobutu. Both were intelligent, practical, and ruled by a ruthless core of determination that let nothing stand in her way. Not even murder. Still, Tessa’s hands were gentle as she gathered Kamura’s many braids into a tail at the back of her head and tied it with a piece of soft leather.
"There," she said, "You make a pretty boy. But don’t speak once we’re outside, or your voice will give you away."
"I understand."
She was sure that Tessa didn’t know about the omniphage and the threat it represented to everyone on the planet—possibly to all of humanity. Which meant that she didn’t know that Jak might be part of an omniphage cluster. And after what she’d learned today, Kamura realized that she could never tell her.
If Jak was a host, could the omniphage spread from Jak to Tessa? That was something they hadn’t learned, despite so many of the explorers of Family Mobutu giving their lives to find out all they could about the sentient bacteria.
But she kept her worries to herself as they finished packing the clothes and other items that Tessa judged suitable to take with them. The beautiful silks with their elaborate embroidery weren’t making the trip, she noted. The clothes Tessa had selected were the plainest and most practical she had. When the Veloran began stripping the jeweled bracelets from her left arm, it suddenly came home to Kamura that Tessa, like Jak, was leaving her old life behind her. She watched as Tessa divided the bracelets into two piles.
"What will you do with the ship when you have it?" Kamura asked as Tessa begin stitching the bracelets onto two long strips of soft black cloth. "Where will you go after Tekena?"
Kamura saw a new expression on Tessa’s face as she answered. The little courtesan had a dreamy look, softer than any she’d displayed so far.
"We’ll go anywhere and everywhere," she said. "No boundaries, no limits. We’ll be free traders . . . out on the fringe. There’ll be plenty of work for a small, fast ship out on the border."
"Plenty of danger, too," Kamura observed. "I’d think that’s something you’d want to avoid."
Tessa shrugged, her fingers busy. "Risk is part of life. Jak and I are good at dealing with risk."
"And you think he’ll stay with you once the two of you are off Shadriss?"
Tessa looked up from her work with narrowed eyes.
"I’m sure of it."
Omniphage Invasion Page 20
