by Sharon Lee
THE STARLIGHT HOTEL sat on its corner, dark walls showing glitters and swirls of silver and pale blue deep inside, like looking out an observation port and seeing the starfield spread from one end of night to the other. Cantra was standing in the dim, recessed doorway of a closed dream shop. She’d been there for some time, just one shadow among many, watching the entrance to her lodgings. Jela and the Batcher were watching the back door, the Batcher having refused to be parted from the pair of them after they’d shaken the dust of The Alcoves off their boots.
It was beginning to look like prudence was its own reward. Whoever had her linked with Pilot Jela only had a face, not a name. And certainly not the location of the lodgings, rented only hours ago with such high hopes. She gave herself a couple heartbeats for wistful consideration of those hopes, then shrugged it all away. Staying alive was more important, as Garen used to say, than staying sane. Not that Garen had been anything like sane, as far as Cantra had been able to observe. There was something about the Rim that was unproductive of sanity. It was the weird seeping in from the Deeps that did it—that’d been Garen’s theory. Cantra’s was simpler: Rimmers made Rimmers crazy.
The past, again. Like she didn’t have enough present to occupy her.
Shaking her head, she slid out of the doorway and ambled down the walk, one eye on the Starlight. People continued to enter and exit, and there were no signs at all of anybody waiting at stealth.
Directly across from the front entrance, she paused, then quick-walked across the street when the traffic thinned, and jogged up the wide steps. The door slid open and she stepped jauntily into the lobby, heading for the lift bank just beyond the desk.
Abruptly, she swung to the side and approached the desk, fingering a flan out of her public pocket.
“Change this for me?” she asked, slipping the coin across the counter.
“Surely,” the clerk said, and counted out a certain number of qwint and carolis. “Will there be anything else?”
The guard on the lift bank was looking at her. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as she swept the coins into her palm, and saw his lips move slightly, as if he was talking into an implanted talkie.
“That’s all, I thank you,” she said to the desk clerk. She dropped the coins into her public pocket, turned and walked back toward the front door, not running, not hurrying, though she could feel the guard’s eyes boring into her back.
Out the door, walking calm, down the front stairs, with a little jog in the step, finally slipping into the crowd moving along the public way. At the corner of the building, she left the crowd and dodged into the shadows, heading for the back entrance.
Very shortly thereafter, she was behind the generator shed, in concealment that was a bit thin for three.
“Got it?” Jela asked, though he must’ve seen she didn’t.
“Abort,” she said. “Watcher on the lift bank. He saw me and reported in. Nothing in the kit that can’t be replaced.” For a price. “Now what?”
A small silence, then.
“My lodgings,” Jela said. “Then a strategic retreat.”
“If they’re on me, they’re on you,” she argued. “Time to cut your losses.”
“There’s something at my lodgings that can’t be lost,” he answered, and there was a note in his calm voice that she didn’t find herself able to argue with. “Cover me?”
“I can do that.” Had to do it, he having performed that same service for her. She looked over to the Batcher woman, silent and attentive by the edge of the shed.
“Time to go home,” Cantra told her. “This is more trouble’n you want.”
“This humble person will remain in the company of the pilots,” the Batcher said—a repeat of her earlier communication on the subject.
“This humble person,” Cantra said, sharp, “belongs to whoever’s come into being master. Which ain’t neither of us.”
The Batcher crossed her arms over her breast. “This humble person will remain in the company of the pilots,” she said, making three on the evening.
“It’s her life,” Jela said, rising up onto his feet.
Technically not true. On the other hand, as long as neither of them damaged, killed, or moved her, the law had nothing to say to them.
“Makes no matter to me,” Cantra said. “We better go, though, before unwelcome company finds us here.”
“Right,” said Jela and faded into the dark. “Follow me.”
JELA’S LODGINGS WERE back toward the shipyards, in a plain boxy building formed out of cermacrete. The surface showed cracks and a few craters, which gave witness to its age. Inside, Cantra thought, it was probably more of the same—clean and spare. The showers would work, the beds would be sleepable; service and questions both minimal. Transient housing, that was all. She’d stayed in places just like it herself, more than once. She owned some surprise to find Jela quartered here, though. She had him pegged a couple notches higher up the food chain.
In addition to the front door, the back door, and two side doors, there were a good many giving windows, all rigged out with safety nets. Three bridges connected the hostel at varying levels to a larger building next door, which on closer inspection proved to be Flight Central, where those pilots who found themselves to be respectable went to register the news of their being on-port, and whether they was wishful of taking berth, or had a berth on offer. There’d be eatables and a local info office; scribes, brokers, moneychangers, shipwright, and honest folk of all stripe. She’d been in two or three like establishments, over the course of her career.
Could be it made sense for Pilot Jela to bide close to work and news of work. She hadn’t asked him where he was next-bound—and there was still that vexed question of what sort of pilot he might be—having somehow received the impression that the answer would’ve been an uninformative shrug of those wide shoulders.
Which line of thought did produce an interesting question: Where was Pilot Jela going, once he had recovered his unlosable? She had the Dancer, the Batcher had her master’s home, which she’d see sooner or later. But Jela? If he didn’t have a berth, it was going to be hard going for him on Faldaiza Port.
Which concern was none of hers. She was well out of it just as soon as the good pilot picked up his kit and was away. Which event she hoped would come about quickly.
“So,” she said to Jela, who had been quietly and intently regarding the building from his place next to her at the mouth of a convenient alley, the Batcher hovering behind them both. “How do you want to play it?”
“I’d like you and our friend to wait here,” he said slowly, like he was just now working out his moves. “I’ll go by the Central’s bar and see if any of my acquaintance can bear me company. Company or solo, I’ll go in by one of the bridges, and by-pass any left to guard the lift bank, the desk or the call-clerk. Bridge access is limited to those who have a key.”
“They’ll have set guards on the bridges, too,” she pointed out.
“Likely, but not proven. I’m counting on the guard at the bridge being less able than those at the more likely places.”
“Could get messy.”
He grinned, not without humor. “It could, couldn’t it?”
She gave him his grin back, and jerked her head at the building. “Coming out the same way?”
“Depends on how many they are and how they’re deployed. Might have to go out a window, though I’d prefer not to. There are a couple of interior routes that would serve me better, and I’ll aim for one of them. What I want you to do is give me cover when you see me. If you don’t see me in an hour, then it’s probable you won’t and you’re free to strike for your ship.”
That was cool and professional. She tipped an eyebrow at him. “You got an idea who’s responsible for all this, I think.”
This time the grin was thinner. “I have too many ideas of who might be responsible. What I don’t have is a reasonable way to filter them, and I’d rather not be used for target practice in the meantime.�
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He sounded seriously put-out by recent events, for which she blamed him not at all, being just a little annoyed herself.
“We got a problem of scope,” she said, nonetheless. “Whoever’s after having a chat with us thought enough of themselves to kill eight Batchers and a freewoman back at The Alcoves, not to say your piloting brother. The reason they’re after me is because of you, not the other way around. If one of your ideas is more likely than another, I’d appreciate hearing it.”
He sighed and pushed away from the wall. “If anything comes to me, I’ll let you know,” he said. “An hour. If I’m not out, jet.”
He faded out of the alley. Cantra put a cautious eye around the edge of the concealing wall and saw him already well up the walk, one of a group of law-abiders moving purposefully toward Flight Central.
She thought about swearing, and then didn’t bother. Her curiosity bump was unrelieved, but she’d live. Once this business here was settled and she was back on Dancer, the game, whatever it was, ceased to be important. Faldaiza wasn’t a regular stop, though it wasn’t unknown, either. Whatever ruckus she was currently enjoying the fruits of would die out completely between tomorrow’s lift and the next time she hit port.
She hoped.
Behind her, she was aware of the Batcher’s quiet breathing.
“You,” she said, not gently.
“Pilot?” The Batcher stepped forward to take Jela’s place next to her.
“You got a name?”
“Yes, Pilot. This humble person is called Dulsey.”
“You heard what Pilot Jela said, Dulsey? He’s figuring it to get dangerous hereabouts within the hour. Now’s your best moment to scoot along home and make a bow to the new master.”
“This worthless one heard what Pilot Jela said, and what you yourself said,” Dulsey answered in her inflectionless voice, “and understands that danger may soon walk among us. The new master will not easily forgive one who had been favored by the previous master and then allowed her to be slain.”
“Huh.” Cantra considered that, one eye on the street. Jela was going up the stairs to Central, his shoulders silhouetted against the building’s glow.
“If you get yourself killed,” she said to Dulsey. “It’s nobody’s fault but your own.”
“This humble person is aware of that, Pilot.”
HE BEGAN TO WORRY about the time they stepped off the bridge into the third floor hall of the Guard Shack, so called because it had been a garrison back in the First Phase, before the sheriekas had retired to regroup.
He’d crossed the bridge in company with three pilots known to him from the Central’s bar. Two were port security, on rotation, the third a gambler who spent most of her time dicing with new arrivals at a discreet back table. She was on easy terms with the cops, as she wasn’t technically operating on-port, and found Jela a challenge, since he would neither dice with her nor bed her.
“There was a lady asking for you at the bar today,” she said as they approached the bridge. “Shall I be jealous?”
Jela grinned. “More than enough of me to go around.”
She’d laughed, and the two cops, too. They all mounted the steps and started across to the Guard Shack, the lighted deck throwing weird shadows ahead of them.
“What did she look like,” Jela wondered, “this lady?”
“Do you not know?” asked the gambler playfully. “Surely, she would not have come without invitation. It was a sorrowful woman, indeed, who heard that you had not been seen so far this day.”
“There are so many, it’s hard to keep track,” Jela apologized, to the loud appreciation of the cops. “Let me see . . .” He feigned considering thoughtfulness, then snapped his fingers. “It was the bald lady with the long-eye and the demi-claws, I’ll warrant.” He sighed wistfully. “It’s too bad I missed her. She’ll punish me proper, the next time we meet.”
“I am certain that she will,” the gambler said cordially. “And the moreso when she finds you’ve been seeing another on the side, and she a mere port tough, with a gun on her hip and no more finesse than to bellow your name in a public place, as if she were calling a hound to heel.”
Jela eyed her. “She did that? Not one of mine, then. My ladies are always polite.”
“Even when they’re punishing him,” one cop told the other, to the loud delight of both.
“Did she leave a name?” Jela asked the gambler under the cover of the cops’ laughter.
“She did not,” the gambler answered, looking as serious as he’d ever seen her. “She did however state that she was the envoy of one Pilot Muran.” She looked up into his face, her being a tiny thing. “This is bad news, I see. Should I have given it earlier?”
He shrugged and manufactured a rueful grin. “It wouldn’t have changed anything.”
“Ah,” she said wisely, and then said nothing more.
By that time, they’d reached the end of the bridge. One port cop stepped forward and used his key, he and his partner ducking beneath the gate as it started up. Jela and the gambler passed through next; he had to bend his head to clear the spiked ends, she walked, head high, beside him.
He was sure of his weapon, and of his companions. The one who had been set to watch for him was about to have some trouble.
Except—there wasn’t a guard. No one overt or covert watched the end of the bridge or the hallway stretching away into the inhabited regions of the Guard Shack. His ‘skins likewise failed to warn of any mechanical snoopers.
“You were expecting someone?” the gambler asked, with the fine perception that assured her success in her chosen field.
“I thought there might be someone here,” he said slowly, and added, “ . . . related to the lady who missed me at the bar.”
“That would have been unfortunate,” the gambler said seriously, and one of the cops looked over her shoulder at them and paused, putting a hand out to stop her partner. “But perhaps not as unfortunate as it could be. Where else might they seek you?”
“His room,” said the first cop, and looked to the gambler. “How ugly was that particular customer?”
She considered, head tipped to one side. “She was indelicate,” she said at last, “in the extreme.”
The cop slapped her partner on the arm. “I’m going down and collect that money the pilot owes me,” she said. “He says he’s got it in his room and I believe him.”
Her partner pursed his lips. “I don’t like you going with him alone,” he said. “What if it’s a set-up? I’ll come along and keep an eye on you.”
“Think you’re my mother?” the first cop asked.
“Think I’m your partner,” the second answered, which seemed to clinch the argument, for the first cop shrugged and looked over to the gambler, who smiled brightly.
“As this may be the only opportunity I have to behold the good pilot’s bed, I will of course accompany you,” she said gaily, and skipped forward, Jela trailing behind, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stirring.
“I met some of the lady’s relatives earlier today, and seen their work more recently still,” he said, as the four of them continued down the hall toward his quarters. “They’re nasty, they’re sloppy and they seem to be numerous.”
“In which case,” the gambler said. “We hold the advantages of pure heart, neatness and quality.”
“Our duty,” said the second cop, who might have been talking to his partner or to himself. “Our duty is to enforce the peace.”
They followed the curve of the hall and Jela stretched his legs, taking the lead as they came closer to his rooms. He wasn’t really surprised to find the gambler keeping pace with him.
“This could get bad,” he said to her, softly. “Or it could be nothing.”
“Let us then hope for nothing,” she murmured in return, “and carry loaded weapons.”
THERE WAS NO ONE watching the door. His ‘skins noted an anomaly as he approached the door, key out. He paused, but no warning so
lidified. Sighing, he slipped his key out and went forward, the first cop at his side. The gambler continued down the hall and took up a position near the lifts. The second cop moved back the way they had come, slipping into the convenient shadow of a drinks dispenser.
Jela used his key, pushed the door open and went with it, moving fast and low, gun out and aimed—
At the tree in its pot next to the open window, precisely where he had left it that morning.
“Everything fine?” the cop asked from behind him, and he straightened up slowly, letting the rest of the room seep into his awareness. It looked all right—his kit rolled and ready where he had left it, the book he’d been reading last night on the table under the lamp, the bed as tight and as shipshape as he had made it that very—
“Someone’s been in,” he told the cop, frowning at the rumple on corner of the aggressively smooth coverlet.
“They take anything?” she asked.
“Appears not.” If they’d been after info, he had it on him. He didn’t touch the sealed leg pocket where his log book rode, and frowned again at the rumpled cover. His ‘skins were still insisting on that anomaly. He moved across the room, stood to one side and yanked the privacy curtain back.
The ‘fresher was empty. He sighed, crossed the room, picked up the book, slid it into the kit, slung the kit over his shoulder and went to the tree.
“I’m leaving,” he said. “I’m feeling exposed.” He hefted the tree—bowl and all. The tree had found its new life good; it was full of leaves and the girth of its trunk had increased. These things filled Jela with a sort of wondering joy, except when he had to carry it.
“Not conspicuous or anything,” the cop commented. “Back slide?”
“I’m thinking that’s best.”
“We’ll escort,” the cop said. “Let me alert—”
From the hall came the sound of a bell, and then the gambler’s light, clear hail—followed by a single shot. Jela stumbled, fighting a lifetime of training that would have him dropping the tree and running forward. His duty—
His duty.
“Go!” snarled the cop. “I’ll cover you!”
