The Burning Ground tst-2

by Jo Clayton

  Vourts sniffed. “No point in sarcasm, Tippi.” She scowled at her station, snorted, and pulled a thin black book from a crack between two monitors. “At my elbow, huh?”

  Shadith took the furslug across the ceiling studs until she found a crack above Vourts’ head, close enough so she could see the screen and read what appeared there.

  Vourts leafed through the book, found the page she wanted, and slid the book into a holder. She entered the first key, scowled as access was denied, tried a second, then a third. “Ah! Got.it. l(reecher prog, decided to forget the last two centuries. If it takes this much k’thar to make a simple course correction…”

  Interesting. Maybe useful. Hm. That’s enough here. Let’s see if the Cobben’s where I think they are.

  “… this all you’ve got?” The harsh, clipped syllables of the Sarpe. A rattle of stiff paper, something being passed from hand to hand.

  “It is a finely detailed map, Coryfe.” The Ptak’s voice was near a squawk from suppressed irritation. “Drafted from satellite phots, with data entered from extensive interrogations. There’s a copy for each of you on the table by the door. If you’ll look at these?”

  “What are they?”

  “Floor plans of the Houses where your targets sleep. You don’t have to worry about security, these are holy types. Your only problem will be getting them alone; they’re almost always surrounded by hordes of other religious. The envelope holds flat phots of the targets, plus flakes with as many images of them as wehave acquired over the past year, some are stills, others show them moving about. The page clipped to the envelope is a schedule of rites and other observances, where the targets will be on each night of the week and who will be with them. Unfortunately, because of the way we were forced to acquire this information, it is some months old. However, your targets do lead rather regimented lives, so that shouldn’t be too great a problem for you. To optimize the chance that the schedule won’t be interrupted by events-and to get a maximum reaction, there’s a Holy Day coming up. Four days from now. We suggest you do the job then.”

  “We were told to leave certain evidence…”

  “Ah. Yes. That has been assembled. I’ll bring it round tomorrow after you’ve had a chance to look over this material.”

  Sound of chairs scraping across the floor. Sounds of movement, one set of feet marching across the plasta matting. Sound of a door closing.

  Sound of a case opening. A click.

  Pain flashed across Shadith’s brain, transmitted by the furslug trembling in her mindgrip. She let it move away inside the wall until it was comfortable again, within the block instead of pinned at the border.

  A snort. “Like to shove that medo’s crest up his arse, teach him manners.”

  “Shut up, Yoha. He’s no worse than the others.”

  “Not saying much, that. Sarpe, do they really expect us to…?”

  “Don’t they always? Send us in blind, expect us to make like ghosts. Orm, get that map pinned down, and let’s get a look at what we’ve got to work with.”

  More sounds of shifting, chairs drawn across the floor, paper rattling.

  “Hm. The Brother of God, he’s in this huge pile right in the middle. Meya, that packet of plans, which one’s the big sucker?”

  Rustle of paper as the Cobben looked through the material handed them.

  “Third down. And calling it a plan is… tsah!”

  “I see what you mean. We’ll have to do our own scouting and that’s going to be tricky.” Sound of tearing paper. “Ugly zurl, isn’t he. Old frogface. Hm. We’ll need some of those white robes. About the only plus in this mess, those robes, they’ll cover a lot. Meya, Keyr, you’re the closest in size to these Imps. Best be you two doing the scout.”

  “All right by me. Lethe dust?”

  “Good idea, if you get spotted, we don’t want them remembering you. And since we’ll probably be dropping in next night, we also don’t want a lot of corpses stirring them up.”

  “We get a chance at him, do we take itT’

  “Good question. They want us to take out all three the same night. Given this slop…” slap of hand, faint rustle of paper “what do you think?”

  “I say we do it our way.” Feyd’s rumbling growl. “Do the Brother first, since he’s the hardest to get to. Wait a couple days, hit the Speaker. Wait another couple, maybe three days, hit the Arbiter.”

  “I like that.” Keyr’s quick whinnying voice. “Confusion makes things easier.”

  “Sometimes.” Orm’s slow drawl. “Sometimes not. CloKajhat give you any reason, Sarpe? I never heard any, just here it is, go do it like we said.”

  “All he said was he wants to blow the city apart, get the different factions shooting at each other.”

  “This isn’t our kind of thing, Sarpe. You know it isn’t.” Meya’s voice, light, rapid, unhappy. “I think we should put it to the vote, we finish this, then we tell Clo-Kajhat to go min his own chik and get back to Helvetia where we belong.”

  As a general argument arose, Shadith soothed the slug to sleep and withdrew enough of her attention to think over what she’d heard.

  Up till now she’d concentrated so hard on getting here, she hadn’t thought much about the difficulties of finding Yseyl, one small Pixa in a city full of Pixa and Impix. I have to get one of those maps. After they’ve left, maybe. Do I need to hear any more of this? No. I don’t think so.

  She woke the furslug and let it go humping off, then took another swallow of water and tried settling to sleep.

  Sleep wouldn’t come.

  Three people were targeted for death. She knew about it. It wasn’t her business. Digby would be furious. He’d warned her; if she went on working for him, she’d be bound to come across things that appalled her about their clients and she’d better make up her mind to ignore them. But…

  It wasn’t her business…

  “All right,” she whispered into the dusty darkness. “I don’t like Cobben, I never have. They aren’t clients. Ptak aren’t clients. I’m going to kick their little plans into moondust.” She thought about that a moment, shook her head. “Ah Spla, I’ll do something. Don’t know what right now…”

  She pulled the padding closer about her and this time dropped into a dreamless sleep.

  2. Linojin

  Shadith lay on a grassy flat high in the mountains above Linojin, a tarp pulled over her as camouflage against Pt-Mac-an cameras. She had her binocs strapped on and was turning her head slowly to scan the city, cursing her stupidity. Even listening to the Cobben grouse about their problems hadn’t prepared her for this.

  Linojin was big. There was that pile at the center. The Grand Yeson which translated roughly as cathedral, with its surrounding maze of small courts and arcaded walks, its spires like twisted horns and its extraordinary roof. Looked as if the tiles or whatever were squares of grass sod, the grass a brilliant emerald, rippling almost seductively in the brisk wind off the ocean. The steel lace of a broadcast tower in one of the back courts rose twice the height of the highest spire.

  Then there were the Religious Houses. Warrens filled with mals, ferns, and anyas, the members of each group dressed in identical garments which made their resemblance to ant swarms all the greater. And the common streets teemed with people, Pilgrims, tradespeople, workers, refugees. All looking alike, from this distance anyway. Same species. Pixa and Impix, different cultures, same shape. Stupid, stupid, not thinking what it meant when Yseyl went to ground in a Holy City where everyone was closely monitored by locals as well as the Ptaks through their spy satellites-where any kind of alien would stand out as if she were painted red.

  Disappearing in a polymorphic stew like Lala Gemali was simple, but this?

  The anyas were tiny, hardly more than a meter tall, their heads about at the shoulders of the ferns, heart-high to the mals. Even in one of those white robes there was no way she could pass herself off as a Brother. She was at least a head taller than the biggest of the mals.


  “Can’t go down there. Can’t ask questions. Shadow-girl, you didn’t think this through very well. Shays! There must be a hundred thousand of them. Maybe more. How am I going to do put my finger on one particular Pixa?”

  She turned the binocs on the Pilgrim Road, sighed as she saw the thin but continuous line of newcomers. More people to add to the mix. “Yseyl, ah my Yseyl, if I had your gift…” She smiled at the thought of putting on a face and shape to fool that lot, then shook her head. Wishes only wasted air and energy. “Digby’s right. If I can hook you for him, he can put that talent of yours to good use.”

  She shoved the binocs up off her eyes and examined the map unfolded before her, its edges pinned-down with bits of stone. “So. I ask myself, why did you come here? The answer’s obvious, isn’t it. Those three the Cobben are targeting are the only ones who can use the disruptor to get more than a few people past the Fence. People will follow them. Believe them. Trust them. Not you, little thief. Hmm. Nothing interesting on the radio. No sudden interest in gathering people together. No excitement down there. You haven’t figured it out yet, have you? No one listening to you. No one believing you. Do you even believe you? Fairy gold, that disruptor. Pretty thought, but gone with the sunrise.

  ‘And ‘where are you? Not with the religious. And not with the Pilgrims. I don’t think you could stand that piety, little assassin. Not from what Cerex said. Among the hohekil. Most likely. That means the southwest quarter. All right, let’s take a look and see what’s there. Maybe I’ll get lucky again. After all, it did happen once.”

  Shifting from map to city, city to map, she spent the rest of the afternoon identifying buildings and streets, locating the market, checking out gates, associating the data written on the map in minuscule glyphs of interlingue with the objects named. Always a chance that Yseyl would go walking down one of those streets the moment Shadith swept the binocs along it. Lightning could strike twice if the Lady decided to smile on her.

  By nightfall the only thing she’d gotten from that continual scanning were eyes that burned as if someone had taken steel wool to them. She folded the map, rolled up the tarp, got the miniskip from under the bushes where she’d stowed it and flew cautiously back to the hollow where she’d made her camp. Still two clear days before the Cobben struck. She fixed a meal, then settled back to brood over what she’d seen and plot strategies for thwarting the assassinations.

  She spent the second day scanning faces, because she couldn’t think of anything else to do, but saw nothing of Yseyl.

  Toward the end of the day a powerful wind began blowing inland, driving black clouds before it. She could smell the sea and hear a faint humming that she couldn’t pin down until she looked at the broadcast tower and saw how it was quivering despite the cable stays that helped hold it upright. Those cables. She shouldn’t have been able to hear them hum this far away; it must be some kind of atmospheric freak.

  Was Yseyl was still in Linojin? It was three weeks since she’d seen the little ghost walking along the Pilgrim Road, and who knew how long ago that scene was flaked?

  “This is not working. I could sit here till this body rots and still not pick her out of that mess. Hm. If this was one of Autumn Rose’s games, she’d finesse. Force a move.

  The broadcast tower.

  She stared at it.

  A song. Maybe a song cycle. Cover all bets. Shop it round the coastal cities, get them to play it., send the call out as far as it’ll go. Wear one of those Brother robes with the cowls. Antiwar songs. One of them talking to Yseyl. She must be getting frustrated about now, trying to find a way to use the disruptor. Hm. She was stalking and killing arms dealers before she went off with Cerex. Bloody little creature, more than a bit crazy, killing to stop killing.

  She must have cached the disruptor before she came into Linojin. She certainly didn’t have it with her in that scene where she was walking barefoot on the Pilgrim Road. Well, it’s what I’d do. And it means I have to get my hands on her if I want that thing back. Hm. She can be talked into things. Cerex did it, I have to figure out how I… hm… maybe… nice if I can combine the two things… warn the Cobben’s targets and set my trap…

  She gathered herself and went back to her camouflaged camp as the first raindrops began pounding down.

  3. Radio show

  “Who are you?”

  “You don’t need to know that. Which one of you’s the technician?” :It’-was a small room, filled with unlikely looking gadgetry, clumsy stuff she could just barely recognize from experiences in her first life. The lighting was harsh, provided by two bare bulbs in ceiling sockets. One of the turntables had a reddish-brown disk on it with an arm moving across it. She could hear a faint hiss but no other sound. One mal sat before the turntable, an earphone harness on his head, the other stood with his back against the wall, clutching a cup of congealing tea. Both of them kept glancing at the pellet rifle in her hand, then looking away.

  “Why?” It was the seated mal who spoke. He shoved a phone off his ear and swiveled his chair about till he was facing her, using his body to cover the subtle move of his hand toward the standard of a microphone.

  “Don’t opt for dead hero, mal. Put both hands flat on your thighs.” She waited until he complied. “Why? I want you to record some songs for me.”

  “Huh?”

  She could feel the surge of curiosity that almost overcame his fear. “That’s a studio on the far side of that window, right?”

  “Right. What kind of songs?”

  “Laments, my friend. Hohekil songs.” She glanced at the disk revolving slowly on the turntable. The business end of the pickup had progressed very little since she’d walked in. “You’ve got about an hour there, haven’t you.”

  She felt his annoyance. He wanted to lie, but he didn’t quite dare. Not yet. “Just about,” he said.

  “Should be plenty of time. Besides, it’s way past midnight. I doubt you’ll get many complaints about a bit of dead air. What’s your name?”

  “Kushay.”

  “And yours?”

  “Habbel.” His voice was sullen. He was considerably younger than the other mal, an apprentice perhaps. “All right, Kushay and Habbel, I want you to listen carefully. I don’t intend harm, but I do mean to sing my songs for people to listen to, even if only the few who are out of bed tonight.”

  “You’re not Impix or Pixa. Why are you doing this?”

  “Say that I’m moon mad, inn?”

  “What makes you think we won’t shave the master once you’ve gone?”

  She laughed. “I trust my gift, Kushay. You won’t want to throw them away. I’ll give you a sample.” She repeated a few of the vocalizations she’d gone through before coming here and when she felt easy, she said, “The first song is called Thela Mal.’

  “We dance at the jerk of puppet strings worked by feathered Ptakkan fingers, (her voice sobbed over fingers, putting anguish and anger in the syllables, then dropped to a hush for the next line) playing out our games of war for the watchers’ ghastly pleasure. (pleasure was soft and drawn out, controlled fury)

  Oh, the joy that killing brings!

  The joy the joy that killing brings… (the sibilant at the end of brings hissed then softened, melting into the next line)

  But the thrill so briefly lingers

  Our burning blood cries out for more.

  Let us be lavish with our gore

  Fill the Ptakkan purse with treasure

  Inflame the watchers’ endless leisure

  Kill until Pix and Imp are gone

  And this song’s forever done.”

  As he understood the nature of the song and her voice crept under his skin, Kushay shivered. When Shadith was finished and Habbel started to speak, he raised a hand to stop him. “You said songs.” His voice was hoarse. “Like that?”

  “Yes. Like that. And the profit’s all yours. Moon mad, remember? All I want is for those songs to be heard as widely as possible.”

  “Habbel,
take her into the studio. Help her get set up. I’ll run the board.”

  “Kush, Brother Umbula won’t like…”

  “Listen to me, Hab. You have any idea how much Icisel or Gajul and the rest will pay for a voice like that? And we don’t say word one she isn’t Impix or Pixa, you hear me?”

  “… and this song is called ‘Children of War.’

  “Child of the hill,

  Child of the city, why do you kill, with absence of pity?

  Blood taints the land till only weeds grow and the only one pleased is the carrion crow.

  Your children demand food you can’t find.

  The farmer who tills is smoke on the wind.

  Friend murders friend and families decay.

  Child of the city,

  Child of the hill, with half of us fled and the other half dead, who will repay the blood that you spill?”

  When she’d finished the other two songs, she turned to face the window. “That’s done. Put on another master, please. I have an announcement I think you’ll need to record and pass on.”

  “What’s this?” His voice came through the grill with an eerie mechanical aura to it.

  “I promise you it’s important.”

  “All right.”

  When she got the signal, she drew in a long breath, let it trickle out.

  “I am one who will not countenance what is being done here. What I say is truth, the proof will come on the night. Assassins have been sent to Linojin. These are their targets:

  The Holy Brother Hafambua.

  The Blessed Kuxagan the Prophet Speaker.

  Noxabo, Arbiter of the Hohekil.

  On the Night of the Unshelling, twelve strangers come to kill. And not just to kill but to lay blame among the factions of Linojin. Those who Fenced you here wish it said that the Prophet Speaker ordered one death and the Arbiter another two and so on till each is blamed for the other’s dying. Those who Fenced you here have sent them to destroy the peace of Linojin.