by Sharon Lee
“Well,” he murmured, and heard Cheever McFarland grunt behind him.
“Thought she was going to sleep.”
Pat Rin glanced at the big man, eyebrows up. “You think Natesa did this?”
“Well, sure, don’t you?”
“No,” said Pat Rin, looking ’round the room and considering its possibilities. “I think she had it done. I wonder what else has gone forth, as we were whiling our hours in pleasure?”
“Guess we could take the tour and find out.”
“We could,” Pat Rin conceded. “Or we could ask Natesa, which would be much less fatiguing.” He turned to look up the big man.
“Mr. McFarland, I am going to prepare for dinner. I don’t doubt that you are heartily sick of the sight of me and wish a few moments to yourself. I give you my word that I will not be assassinated before the dinner hour.”
Surprisingly, Cheever grinned. “Dismissed!” he said cheerfully and nodded. “See you at dinner.”
Blessedly alone, Pat Rin took one more look at the blue room, reminding himself to congratulate Natesa on the result, and went upstairs to dress for dinner.
***
THE MEAL ARRIVED in a surprising two courses. The first consisted of a plate of tinned soup for each, and a communal platter of crackers and cheese. This was removed by a main course of baked tubers under a spicy brown sauce accompanied by thin slices of meat braised with onion; fresh bread, butter, tea, and Autumn Wine.
“Much improved,” Pat Rin murmured, and heard Cheever McFarland chuckle.
“Improved ain’t the word. I’m thinking that the cook was after poisoning us last night, eh, Natesa?”
“Possibly,” she answered. “Just as possibly, he was frightened enough to have been thrown off his skill.” She sipped the wine cautiously, and Pat Rin saw her eyebrows lift.
“This is pleasant,” she said. “Have we a winery?”
“Alas. The bottle is a gift. And we are instructed that it is a fragile thing, not to be held far into the spring.” He moved his shoulders. “We are further told that this vintage originates in the country, and that sometimes as many as two dozen bottles make it into this territory, whereupon they are purchased by Ms. Audrey.”
“Ah.” Her face lit. “You called upon Ms. Audrey?”
“Rather, she called upon us. We had a very pleasant discussion over lunch in her house.”
“Where the boss here sweet-talked her into startin’ a bank—no, hold it, a mercantile association—since pawn shops ain’t good enough for him, and she tried to get him to promise to be boss for life.” Cheever forked a slice of tuber and looked at it meditatively. “’Course, that’s how it works here, anyhow, but she seemed of the opinion that his life was gonna be longer than most. Right taken with him, she was. Thought he was elegant.”
Natesa laughed.
“We have also,” Pat Rin murmured, “placed the Sinner’s Carpet at lease for six months’, Standard, at a rate of eight hundred cash per month.”
“Ms. Audrey, of course,” Natesa said. “No one else could afford it.” She paused, her head slightly to one side. “Indeed, I am surprised to hear that she can afford it.”
“A test of trust,” he said softly, finishing the last of his meal with real regret. “She must know if we can work together—which is what I must know, as well. Also, I believe that her smuggling operation is profitable.” He moved his shoulders. “So, we have progress upon the day.” He pushed his plate aside and reached for his wine.
“I have noticed the improvement in the front parlor,” he said, which phrase would have been entirely appropriate in the High Tongue, but struck the ear oddly in Terran, almost as an accusation.
However, Natesa, who spoke Liaden, seemed to have heard the commendation he intended to convey. She inclined her head politely and murmured that she would inform the staff of his approval.
“How’s house security?” Cheever asked then.
Natesa turned to him. “Like the meal, much improved. We are not impregnable, of course, but we are difficult . If tomorrow’s work goes as well, we will be formidable.”
“That’s good. What about the overheads? I can help out tonight, if you need it.”
“Thank you; assistance would be most welcome. There is also a . . . device . . . in the sub-cellar that I would like to have your—”
The door to the dining room opened just enough to admit a thin person dressed in what appeared to be the street standard: Ill-fitting trousers and shirt, with a second shirt worn over the first, as a jacket. This particular specimen also had a shapeless cap crammed down over his ears. He came two steps into the room, a flicker of shadow at his heels, and froze, eyes stretched wide in a pointed brown face.
Pat Rin tipped his head, considering this apparition. He was young—a boy only; at a guess, several Standards younger than Quin—and bore himself with the tentativeness one might expect of a smaller and weaker “extra”—those who loitered in crowds on street corners, and were available for such day-labor as might manifest.
“Good evening,” he said gently to the wide, frightened eyes. “I am the boss.”
The boy nodded vigorously, and abruptly reached into his pocket. Pat Rin tensed and forced himself to relax, which was wisdom, for what came out of the pocket was a tuber. The boy held it up, and then touched it to his chest.
“What the—” began Cheever, but Pat Rin held up a hand, watching the wide eyes watch him, watch his face, with such intensity that—
“Wait,” he said. “I think that this is Jonni, who gardens on the roof.”
The boy nodded so vigorously this time that his cap came off his head and tumbled to the floor between his boots. He made no move to pick it up.
“And I also think,” Pat Rin continued, “that Jonni is deaf.”
The boy nodded again, his snarled black hair, released from captivity, flopped in his face.
“Deaf?” Cheever blinked. “But they can implant—” He cut himself off on a sharp sigh. “Right. Surebleak.”
“Indeed.” Pat Rin frowned. There was something he had heard, once—perhaps from Val Con?—that the deaf on low-tech worlds often developed a sign language for use among themselves, which, while diverse as to culture, were each built along the lines of Old Trade, with its emphasis on the concrete over the philosophical.
Tentatively, he moved a hand in the ritual greeting.
Jonni cocked his head, his eyes suddenly on Pat Rin’s hands, rather than his face. His own hand—the one not holding the tuber—rose, touching fingertips to lips and descending, palm up, and stopping at chest level.
Not the sign he had used—not quite. He repeated the boy’s truncated version, and earned himself another enthusiastic nod.
“So.” He sighed, and moved his hand again, showing first Cheever and then Natesa. He said their names, clearly, keeping his face turned toward Jonni, so the boy could read his lips, then drew a circle in the air with his index finger, signing “protection”.
Jonni frowned briefly at that, then suddenly grinned. He dropped the tuber into his pocket and used both hands to mimic pistols.
Diverse as to culture, indeed, Pat Rin thought, and tried the sign for “service”.
But this proved beyond Jonni’s ability to translate; and after a few frowning moments, he gave it up with an exaggerated shrug.
“Just so,” Pat Rin said, slowly and distinctly. “Why have you come to me?”
That met with comprehension, and produced a veritable storm of signs, the single one Pat Rin recognized having to do with growing—or growing things. Quite possibly the unfamiliar signs were technical terms, invented to describe specific plants.
Pat Rin held up a hand, palm out. Jonni’s hands faltered; fell.
“Tomorrow morning,” he said. “We will go to the garden and you will show me. Is that soon enough?”
Jonni nodded.
“Good. Tomorrow morning at . . .” He ticked the time off on his fingers and heard Natesa sigh behind him.
Once more, Jonni nodded, then offered what was apparently his version of “good-bye”—a mere reversal of “hello”—recaptured his cap with a swoop, and vanished out the door before Pat Rin could return the courtesy.
“Tomorrow morning at two hours past dawn?” Natesa asked, resigned.
“It would be best to tend to it before I leave for the store,” he told her earnestly. “And tomorrow will be an early day because of the necessity to deliver the Sinner’s Carpet to Ms. Audrey’s house.” He tipped his head. “You needn’t come with me, you know. He scarcely looks able—or inclined—to hurl me off the roof.”
“True. However, he may easily have friends who are very able and desperately inclined.” She rose, and sent a meaningful glance at Cheever. “Mr. McFarland, if we are to tend the overheads, now is the hour.”
“Yes’m, I see that’s so.” He frowned at Pat Rin. “Gwince is your security this shift. Try not to do anything to scare her, OK?”
Pat Rin inclined his head, stiffly. “I will do my humble best, Mr. McFarland. Within reason.”
The big Terran just shook his head, and followed Natesa out of the room.
On the verge of following, Pat Rin paused, his eye drawn . . .
The cat was sitting upright beneath one of the extra plastic chairs, tail wrapped neatly ’round its toes, ears forward-pointing and interested, eyes glowing like molten gold.
“Well,” said Pat Rin and went gracefully to one knee, extending a finger in greeting.
The cat considered options, leisurely, and at precisely the moment Pat Rin thought to withdraw his hand, stretched up onto its toes, walked from beneath the chair and touched the proffered finger with a flower pink nose.
It was, Pat Rin saw, the precise cat that had startled Natesa in the pantry that morning: Brown, with several broad, uneven stripes of black down its washboard sides, and another down its spine. Its tail was slightly fluffy, as was the rest of the cat, and also striped brown-and-black. It was not by any means a handsome cat; rather a brawler, if its ears were to be believed, and Pat Rin all but wept with joy to behold it.
“Well,” he said again. “I don’t doubt but that you’ve come to thank me for protecting you from Natesa’s skill.”
The cat blinked, strolled forward and stropped forcibly against Pat Rin’s knee. Lightly, prepared to snatch his hand back at the suggestion of a claw, he stroked the brown-and-black back. The tail went up, the cat arched into the second stroke, and there was heard a momentary grinding sound, as if someone were drawing a whetstone down a blade. Pat Rin smiled, stroked the cat a third time and, reluctantly, arose. The cat looked up at him, yellow eyes molten.
“Duty calls, and her voice is stern,” Pat Rin told it. “I must to the office. You may come with me, if you like, or you may return to your own duties, in the pantry.”
So saying, he departed the dining room, collected Gwince from the other side of the door and went upstairs to his office, where Natesa found him, some few hours later, having resolved both the overheads and the matter of the device in the sub-cellar.
He was slumped over the desk, his head resting on an open book, pen fallen from lax fingers, an ugly brown and black cat curled on the floor by his knee, eyes slitted and yellow. Natesa drew a sharp breath, heart squeezing, then saw his brows pull together in a frown at some upstart dream, and sighed. He was asleep, nothing more. Silent as an assassin, she went forward.
He had been writing—black ink across the grayish pages of his so-called log-book. She glanced at the left-hand page, expecting to see code-words, or some arcane language of symbol and nuance . . .
He had chosen to write in Trade, very simply, the smooth lines of his hand drawing her eye even as she told herself that this was not hers to read.
Surebleak, Day 308, Standard Year 1392
My name is Pat Rin yos’Phelium Clan Korval. I write in Common Trade because I do not know who you will be, or from what world you will hail, who will come after me. I will begin by describing the circumstances immediately preceding my residence upon this planet. I will delineate the Balance that must go forth, and the reasons for its going forth. I will put down, as best as I am able, those things from other log books and diaries that may illuminate my actions and necessities.
Let it begin.
On the planet Teriste, in Standard Year 1392, Day 286, a messenger of the Department of the Interior brought me word that the entirety of my kin were killed—murdered by agents of this Department.
I will herein name the names of my kin, lest they are forgot, and I will say to you, whoever and whenever you may be, that it is only I, Pat Rin, the least of us all, who is left now to carry Balance to fruition . . .
DAY 50
Standard Year 1393
Dutiful Passage
Lytaxin Orbit
LINA HAD AGREED to meet him over tea in the library at the end of his piloting shift. The necessity of retrieving the whisker from his quarters put Ren Zel a few moments behind the appointed time, and he found her at table ahead of him, teapot steaming and two cups standing ready.
“Well-met, shipmate,” she said with a smile, that having become a joke between them, over the years of their acquaintance. Despite the concerns he brought with him from his shift, Ren Zel felt his mouth curve upward in response.
“Shipmate,” he responded, slipping into the chair opposite her, and inhaling the fragrance of the tea. “Ah.” His smile grew wider. “Shall I pour?”
“If you please. I find myself remarkably indolent this hour.”
To find Lina indolent was to find an impossibility. Ren Zel filled a cup, and passed it to her. She cradled it in her hands and lifted it to sample the aroma. Ren Zel poured a cup for himself, and leaned back in his chair, likewise enjoying the sweet steam, and then taking a bare sip, teasing his tastebuds with the complex notes of the beverage.
“So,” said Lina eventually, putting her cup aside. “How may I assist you, shipmate? Have you been dreaming again?”
“In fact, I have,” Ren Zel murmured, setting aside his own cup and reaching into his pocket for the sampling tube. “And, when I woke, I found that dreaming had produced—this.” He placed the tube before her on the table, then sat back, with an effort.
“I . . . see.” She picked the tube up and turned it this way and that in the light. “A singularly handsome specimen. Found in a dream, you say?”
“In the aftermath of a dream,” Ren Zel said, slowly. “I woke—or dreamed I woke—and felt the weight of a cat on my chest. I raised a hand to stroke it—and realized of a sudden that a cat was—not possible, so that I woke in truth.” He waved a hand at the tube. “And found that whisker caught in the coverlet.”
“I see,” Lina said again, her eyes on the whisker. “And was there a dream before the dream of the cat?”
“Two,” he said promptly. “First was the battle-dream. I woke from that and read until I nodded. There was another dream, then. Within it, a . . . shipmate had come to me with the same dream, of the fleas and the—solution we undertook to save ourselves. I soothed her as best I might and sent her to her own rest. And then—”
Lina raised a hand. “Did you recognize this shipmate?”
Ren Zel considered that, then shook his head, Terran-wise. “Indeed, it was only that she had the memory upon her, and stood so very distressed, for ship and crew . . .” He moved a shoulder. “But, after all, it was a dream.”
“Just so.” Lina touched the tip of her forefinger to the tube’s seal. “May I?”
“Certainly.”
And so she had the whisker out, and settled back in her chair with it held close between her two palms, and her eyes closed.
Momentarily ignored, Ren Zel retrieved his teacup and sipped, recruiting himself to patience.
“I know this cat . . .” Lina murmured, her voice slightly slurred, as if she spoke in her sleep. Ren Zel froze, cup halfway to his lips, unwilling to break the Healer’s trance.
“I know this cat,” she
said again, barely more than a whisper. “It is . . .” Her face changed, tightened; her eyelids flickered, flew open. She sighed and shook her head gently. “To my knowledge, this cat has never been on the Passage.”
With which, she picked up the tube, reinserted the whisker, resealed the top, and leaned forward to place the whole before him.
Ren Zel lowered his teacup, looking from her careful face and opaque eyes to the tube and its captive wonder.
“It had seemed,” he said eventually, and with utmost care. “that . . . trance had produced more information regarding this cat.”
“Had it?” Lina recovered her cup and sipped.
And whatever that information might have been, Ren Zel dea’Judan was not to be made a gift of it. He bit his lip, staring down at the tube, concentrating on breathing. He had counted Lina among his friends . . .
“You think me cruel,” she said. “Friend, acquit me.”
He looked up, saw sympathy in her eyes and raised a hand. “Then, why—?”
She shifted, setting her cup down. “Tell me, has there been a return of that phenomenon such as Shan reported, when he found you on Casiaport?”
He blinked, bought a moment of thought by putting his cup down.
“Certainly not. Why should there have been?”
She moved a hand, soothing the air between them. “Forgive me; I meant no offense. It was merely that Shan had said you were in trance, and foretelling . . .”
“I was wounded,” he said, more sharply than he had intended, “and raving.”
She was still for a moment, then inclined her head. “As you say, Pilot.”
Ren Zel flinched. “Lina . . .”
“Ah, no—” She bent forward and put her hand over his where it rested next to the damned tube. “Peace . . . peace. Friend, you must understand that it is . . . difficult to know the correct path to take with you. We have on this ship three not-inconsiderable Healers—one a full dramliza—and you remain beyond the touch of all, shielded so well that none of us may so much as reach forth and give you ease of ill dreaming.” Gently, she patted his hand and withdrew.
