Liaden Unibus 02

by Sharon Lee

  "Indeed, indeed," Garad said hastily. "It was not my intention to malign the work, or to withdraw my support . . ."

  Idly, Seltin wondered what it was that Zanith held over the head of his cousin and co-conspirator, who was clearly of a timid nature, and none-too-adroit at any thinking that did not involve vines and vintages.

  Garad took a breath. "I would very much like to have a copy of the log, cousin," he said, with uncharacteristic firmness. "I have a number of test vines, and it is none too soon, perhaps, to try your findings in the field."

  Now, that, Seltin thought, startled, was actually sensible. Zanith believed in numbers, tests, and analyses, and tended to ignore the fact that the practical application of those results might be . . . difficult to effect. Extensive field testing of their findings—into several years—was only prudent before the system in place were declared obsolete.

  Not that anyone had asked her. Nor were likely to do so.

  "Very well then," Zanith said to his cousin. "I will transmit the log as soon as today's results are recorded. Test well—and you will find that what I have said is nothing more than truth. The universe is built on fact, cousin, not on magic."

  * * *

  The sunlight lay heavy on the vineyard. Despite herself, Seltin found her head drooping and her eyes slipping shut in the fragrant, friendly heat. The urge to lie down beneath the sample vine, curl up on the warm ground and go to sleep was—almost—overpowering.

  Surety of what Zanith would do to her if she should succumb to the temptation to nap kept her upright, though she worked as a woman in a dream. She had not been abused since the night of the Kapoori's kiss—the longest such time since Zanith vel'Albren had bought her bond. She did not question why he withheld himself from his pleasures; she tried instead to enjoy the gift of even so limited an amount of freedom—and not look beyond the hour in which she found herself.

  The two Kapoori had also been absent from her life since that night, though she dared to cuddle the promise the second had made her. Foolish it was, but it comforted her against the shadows of the future of which she dared not think.

  Snip, went the shears, and she added another specimen to her pile. That was enough, she judged, from this particular section. She slipped the shears away, bent to the basket—

  Perhaps the vines rustled. Perhaps, having been kissed, she had acquired an affinity for their presence. Either, both or neither—it really made no difference.

  Seltin straightened, turned to the left, and met the light eyes of the Kapoori who had first spoken to her, here in this very section of vineyard.

  "Good day," she said, surprised that her voice was calm, even cordial.

  "Good day to you, Seltin vos'Taber," the other replied, her smile as soft as her voice. "I trust I find you well?"

  "You do," Seltin said, and touched her tongue to lips suddenly dry before adding. "I am in the debt of—another of the Kapoori—I regret that I do not know her name. She succored me some nights ago. Please, if it does not offend, I ask that you carry my gratitude to her."

  "She is my next eldest sister and her name is Katauba. I shall gladly carry your words to her."

  Seltin inclined her head, then looked up. "There is something—" she blurted, and stopped, horrified.

  The other tipped her head. "Yes? And that is?"

  Seltin took a hard breath. "I—what are you called, lady?"

  "I am Pinori. But that was not what you had been going to say, I think."

  "It—was not . . ." She was shivering, her hand rose and she fingered the threads woven into her skin. She dared not, Zanith would kill her, by slow degrees, laughing all the while—

  Honor, she thought.

  She had been honorable, once. Before a frivolous accusation and a wrongful conviction had destroyed her faith in order and decency. Before she had been sold to a man who delighted in her degradation and pain. She was beyond honor now—or so she had told herself. Slaves cannot afford such things.

  And, yet—

  "It may be of interest," she said slowly, and her voice was by no means steady now. By no means whatsoever.

  "It may interest yourself and . . . Katauba . . . to know that Zanith vel'Albren and Master Vintner Garad hope to learn the ways and means of your . . . care of the vines." She was trembling, her stomach roiling. She could not, she thought, in panic, do this!

  She drew a hard breath. Yes, she told herself, I can.

  "That is the work they have set me to—the purpose of my sampling here." Her voice failed entirely, and she simply stood there, panting in terror.

  Pinori inclined her head. "We had deduced as much."

  "Yes," Seltin whispered, shakily. "Yes, of course. But have you also deduced that they intend to, to—" To what, she thought wildly: Dismantle? Deactivate? Cancel?

  ". . . kill you when they feel confident that the vines can be tended by themselves alone?"

  Pinori's light eyes changed, like dark wine swirling into a glass. Her fine features pulled tight, and of a sudden she did not seem so young, nor so comely—nor in any way human.

  Seltin swallowed, and abruptly knelt in the dirt, her legs abruptly too weak to bear her weight. She forced herself to speak another sentence.

  "Perhaps—forewarned—you may leave before this—before this terrible calamity comes to pass," she whispered.

  "Perhaps we might," Pinori said, and her light voice was as cold as snow. She looked down and it seemed to Seltin that she made an effort to smooth the anger from her face. She extended a hand, and lay it lightly on Seltin's hair.

  "You do the Kapoori a great service, Seltin vos'Taber. You will not be forgotten."

  She lifted her hand, turned and was gone, one moment there, and the next not, as if the vines themselves had swallowed her.

  * * *

  The lab again, and hers the only light in a sea of darkness. The log was open, awaiting her final notations; notations she was not yet ready to make. Her findings of this day were—not impossible, clearly, but surely unanticipated. Unprecedented.

  Yesterday, the sample vines had been healthy, heavy with fruit, their tannins and sugars quivering on the edge of maturity.

  Today, the vines were drooping, the fruits wrinkled. Her analysis had shown the sugars dried, the tannins soured, the vines themselves ill as if from blight, though if it were blight, it was one unknown to her or to the encyclopedia of the vine.

  This, she thought, is what the Kapoori can do, that we cannot. Lay waste to a vineyard in the course of one night, leaving no clue to either cause or cure? It was impossible. It was, Seltin thought, running her fingers through her already disordered hair—it was as if the thing had been done by magic—a pass of hands, a mutter of secret words, and hey, presto! the crop has failed.

  She was a scientist. Every trained nerve rebelled against such a thought, and yet, if not magic, than what?

  A breeze moved through the lab, ruffling her hair and bearing scents of growing things. She breathed in appreciatively, then spun, heart in her mouth, for she knew that the windows were sealed, the doors barred—

  The lights came up, slowly, nibbling at the edges of the dark like dawn, until the room was dim and cozy, like a garden on a comfortably overcast morning.

  Across the lab, now, came her master, though not as she had ever seen him.

  Zanith vel'Albren was a decisive man; he strode, he spoke firmly, he etched himself into the very molecules of the air. Not for him the hesitant step, the faltering whisper, the shrinking posture.

  The man who came down the room—he shuffled, and seemed not entirely in control of his movements. He had one arm thrown about the shoulders of—of a monster, plainly put: Tall, she was; her hair a brown and green tangle of leaf and twig; her fingers were long and gnarled like roots. Her face was sharp, and all covered in pale green down. She wore a short, sleeveless white shift, which revealed more than it hid of a corded brown body.

  All at once, Zanith came to a halt. He grabbed the vine woman's shou
lder and pulled her 'round against to him.

  "More . . ." he moaned, and she laughed, rich and intoxicating. She raised her stick-fingered hand and slid it into his hair, disordering it.

  "Greedy manling," she crooned. "You shall have more—and more than ever you would want."

  Zanith moaned again, in pain or in urgency it was impossible to tell. The Kapoori pulled his head down, ungently, and kissed him, hard, deep, and deeper still—then let him go all at once, and caught his arm, pulling him with her.

  "Come, the vines require such healing such as you alone may give them. Would you keep them waiting?"

  "Never," Zanith slurred, docilely following his captor. "Never keep them waiting."

  The Kapoori pulled him onward, straight to Seltin's table, and paused a moment, looking at her out of port-red eyes, set deep beneath wild brows.

  "You may wish to follow, Little Mother. The vines have a gift for you, as well."

  Seltin stared at her, and then at Zanith.

  "What have you—what have you done to him?" she whispered.

  The Kapoori laughed and Seltin felt her senses swim.

  "Only kissed him, Little Mother. You saw." She shifted, and placed one brown hand on the worktable. "Come or not, as you alone will it. In either wise, bear the thanks of the Kapoori with you."

  She inclined her wild head and passed on, guiding Zanith as if he were a child. Seltin stared after them until they passed down the row of tables and out through the door which should have been—which had been!—locked against the night.

  She bit her lip and glanced down at her table, giving a gasp as she saw what the Kapoori had left for her.

  A wide ceramic bracelet set with a number of gem-colored nodes. The controller, tuned to the threads woven into her skin, which Zanith vel'Albren had so delighted to use . . .

  She snatched it up and thrust it into her pocket. Then, heart hammering, she went after the Kapoori.

  * * *

  At first, laughter guided her. She moved carefully, stalking it in the dimness, noting that the vines shifted and danced among the shadows, though there was neither wind nor breeze.

  Perhaps, Seltin thought, they had merely been disturbed by the passage of the Kapoori and her captive. If that were so, then they were not so far ahead of her, she should catch them in a moment or two—

  That was when she heard the first scream, hoarse and horrible.

  Heedless of the danger, Seltin ran.

  The vines seemed to writhe out of her way, no stick or stone tripped her. There came a second scream, so near she would have screamed herself, had she any breath to spare.

  She was in an area of the vineyard where she had never been; the vines here were wild and unrestrained, heavy with fruit, the avenue thin and twisty.

  A third scream came, the avenue widened, and Seltin fell to her knees, horrified. Ecstatic.

  Zanith vel'Albren lay naked in the dirt, arms and legs spread wide, held by vines as thick as Seltin's forearm. The Kapoori who had led him to this place stood at his feet, her arms crossed beneath her breasts, her wild face merciless. At his head stood the one called Katauba, the vines Seltin had thought mere tattoo twisting and waving in the still air. Of the third Kapoori . . .

  "I am here," the light voice murmured in her very ear. "Have a care, Seltin vos'Taber; the vines are not always discerning."

  "What," Seltin whispered. "What will happen to him?"

  "Watch," the other said, and moved a few steps forward, toward the undiscerning vines, the grim Kapoori and the man, screaming and begging in the dirt.

  "Please, please!" he shouted in a hoarse and trembling voice. "Tell me what you want! Anything the House can give will be yours. Anything—"

  "We wish only to nourish the vines, Child of Flesh," the wildest of the Kapoori told him, in her rich, intoxicating voice. "It is what we do."

  "No!" Zanith shouted. "No, you cannot. . . ."

  "You believe the old tales, then?" Katauba asked him. "I had heard otherwise."

  "Please, I—I will give you a stay. I swear it! None will harm you or, or take you from your work while I—"

  Pinori gestured, a ripple of the fingers only, yet it drew Seltin's eye, and she gasped, heart stuttering, as she saw the vines creeping across the ground. A tendril slid across his chest, leaving a thin line of blood in its wake. Another slipped over his hip, and wrapped itself around his straining manhood.

  Zanith screamed again, wordless, and fought his bounds.

  "Best accept it," the wild one advised. "It will go easier for you."

  "Though it must be said," Katauba added, "that the vines treasure an exuberant spirit."

  More tendrils, more blood, and now his face was covered, the screams muffled, and the creeping vines sliding delicate feelers into his ears.

  Seltin gagged, and Pinori glanced back to her, her face showing nothing but friendly concern.

  "Come," she said, and put her hand on Seltin's arm, drawing her away from the impossible.

  ***

  On Balchiaport, in the Street of Epicures, a new sign hangs, crisp under the faintly blue light of midday: Kapoori Fine Wines and Custom Foodstuffs.

  Inside, two walls hold racked bottles; while a third supports a stasis-case displaying a few of those advertised custom foodstuffs.

  The proprietors are young women. Pinori specializes in the wines; her partner, Seltin, will produce any food you can imagine, and some beyond anyone's imagining. It is said that Seltin was once a slave; if you look closely at her throat, you will, indeed, see a rumpled scar, as if bond-threads had been removed.

  No one believes that, of course. But it makes for an interesting story.

  The Beggar King

  The front office of Triplanetary Freight Forwarding was empty, which he'd expected, considering. He hadn't called ahead, and they'd only known he was on his way, not when he'd arrive. Which turned out to be just as well, because he hadn't done all that good a job coordinating his arrival with local downtime; the cabbie who'd brought him from the shipyard had spent no energy at all hiding his surprise that any Terran would wander here by himself at this sunless time.

  The files . . . the front-office files were in order, up-to-date, and accessible to his code, which—given one thing and another—he hadn't expected. The boss' office, what he supposed he'd be calling his office for as long as might be, that was locked, which didn't mean anything except that staff was conscientious.

  He used the key he'd been given and stood to one side, shoulder against the wall, hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, while the door slid open and the lights came up in the room beyond.

  There not being any immediate hostilities initiated, he eased 'round the wall, hands still in his pockets, and stood just beyond the threshold, taking a long careful look at everything there was to see.

  The office was pretty much like he remembered it from his last visit, excusing the lack of clutter obscuring the expensive red wood of the desk, and the sharp, infuriating presence of Lela Toonapple behind it.

  "Well, now," he said conversationally, tarrying yet by the door. "Already you've outlasted Replacement Number Three. That ought to ease you."

  In fact, it didn't ease him in the least, nor was he a man who usually talked to himself, despite that being a common trait of courier pilots. Replacement Number One had apparently bought his ticket out by congratulating himself aloud upon entering this very office. The sound waves had triggered a razorfall rigged into the ceiling and, hey, presto! Replacement Number One was so much freshly bleeding meat. He fancied he could see a stain of dried blood, dull against the gleaming crimson wood. Fancy only, he assured himself; staff here was efficient, having been trained by Herself, who would never have tolerated bad housekeeping.

  According to the reports, Replacement Number Two had gotten herself done within ten planet days by a local bent on revenge, what they called Balance hereabouts. Occupational hazard, that was. Or not. He considered himself warned.

  And
, he acknowledged, finishing his visual scan and stepping into the office, the fact remained that each of the three replacements before him had gone their own road to meet death very soon after planetfall, the only obvious link between them that they'd struck Sector Boss Ailsworth as a threat to his position; enough of a threat that they'd been shuffled out of the high visibility zone and dropped in a place where, apparently, there was no advancement. Hard to know who to blame, there, if anyone—they'd all accepted the job, after all.

  Same, he admitted wryly to himself, shrugging his shoulder pack off and putting it on the desk, as Number Four.

  "Nice going, Clarence," he muttered, and pulled his left hand and the bug-finder out of its pocket. He scrutinized the read-out, with its cheery blue lights proclaiming safe-safe-safe, and set it down next to his pack. Sighing, he slipped the gun out of his right pocket, snapped the safety on and put it decently away into its holster.

  The temp was set a little low for his liking, so he kept the jacket on as he pulled the chair into a comfortable spot before sitting, adjusted the armrests so he wouldn't bang his elbows too hard because he knew he was one that used his armrests— ergonomics be damned—and bent over to bring the comp on-line.

  First file up was addressed to him. A roster it was, listing names and contact numbers for staff, couriers, day labor and such. It also gave the address and contact codes for the round-the-clock office, whose work he'd seriously not wished to impinge upon as his first act on planet. The second file was something else. He frowned, scanned through, then went back to the top, one hand already reaching for the desk-comm.

  He punched up the first number on the contact page; a woman answered, sounding surprised. Hers was, after all, a purposefully quiet office on a purposefully quiet planet.

  "Tora Belle here."

  "This is O'Berin," Clarence told her, firm and quiet. "Contact staff and let 'em know there's a meeting at headquarters when the port goes dayside. I want everybody here, sharp and ready to work."