The Burning Ground tst-2

by Jo Clayton

  Luca tapped her fingers on her knee, glanced from the map to Shadith’s face. “You’ve got a way in?”

  “Yseyl has. In will be easy enough. It’s getting out that may be something of a problem. I already told you what I’m going to be doing, but you need to know this-the minute I start interfering with the programming, over on Ptak-K’nerol they’ll know about it and they’ll be on the com yelling for the base Exec to do something. Urn. A corn is a kind of offworld radio. No way I can block that. So we’d better be prepared to deal with aroused, frightened, angry Ptaks. And they’ll have energy weapons. Unless we’re sneaky and successful at it, some of us could be killed before we reach the hollow and the flier. I want you to be thinking about that. Hm. Energy weapons…”

  Shadith shook a dull gray rod from her sleeve, a small thing, barely longer than her hand. “You see that rock where Zot was sitting? Right. Stay back and whatever you do, don’t get in front of me.” She flicked the beam setting to its finest mode, touched the sensor and sliced through the stone, then clicked on the safety. “You don’t think anything happened, do you? Khimil, go take a close look at that rock. Try to lift it and see what happens.”

  The rock fell in two pieces, the inside surfaces so smooth they shone like mirrors. The mal dropped them in his astonishment, then pushed at one of the pieces with the toe of his boot. “That thing wouldn’t pay much mind to flesh and bone, would it?”

  “Right. I doubt the Ptaks will use cutters like this, too much damage to their property. More likely they’ll have pulsers, sweet little things that’ll shake you into jelly without breaking the skin. I want you all to understand this before you commit to coming with Yseyl and me. All of you could end up very painfully and messily dead.”

  Syon closed his bright yellow eyes into slits, wagged his head. “Vumah vumay, it’s no worse than being clubbed or shot or bored to death.”

  Luca nodded. “If you really do bring the Fence down, who cares what happens after.”

  “I care,” Shadith said. “I intend to come out of this alive and intact. Look, from what Yseyl told me about you all, you’re good at sliding into and out of places without getting nailed. If we have to fight, we do, but I’d certainly rather not. Now.” She bent over the map. “Once we break loose, here’s how I figure we get out…”

  3. At the target

  Shadith wormed through the patch of brush that grew across the top of a long slant of scree, moving slowly so she wouldn’t shake the tops of the bushes. The morning was heavily overcast, with an erratic wind blowing, wind that set the branches swaying, the thorns on them snagging in her clothes and hair. She was soaked with perspiration by the time she reached a place where she had an unobstructed view of the base a couple of miles below.

  She snapped the glareshields onto the binocs, adjusted the focus, swept the field of view across the base. Nothing had changed; Ptaks wandered about, some were swimming in the lake, some working in the communal gardens, two young males in full mating plumes were doing a dance-fight while half a dozen others watched. Several times sleek female techs in white coats went into the Control Center, others came out. It was busier than before. She didn’t know what that meant. Trouble?

  She watched a while longer. A peaceful scene, no sign of; worry in any of the faces, or bodies.. Only that increasing flurry about the Center. She sighed: “Got to see what that means.”

  She gave the binocs to Luca with instructions on how to use them, told the others to take turns watching the base and getting familiar with the patterns of movement. “I want each of you to choose what you think is the best route to the lake; we’ll run through them as soon as you’ve all had your shot with the binocs. Zot, stay by me and keep watch, if you see or hear anything that bothers you, slap my arm.” She nodded as Yseyl raised a brow. “Yes, I’m going mindwalking for a while. There’re some things I need to check.”

  Stretched out on a blanket, arm over her eyes, she went feeling about in the walls of the Center for a young and lively furslug. She found her mount rippling along on its double line of tiny legs, climbing a stud in the wall, and sniffing about for woodchewers. He wriggled and fussed and nearly fell before she completed her hold, clicking his teeth in extreme unhappiness as she prodded him into climbing higher, then humping along a rafter till he reached the crack she’d used for observation last time.

  She gave him a quick workout, muscle against muscle, as a kind of long-distance patting, then settled him at the hole, his small bright eyes, predator sharp, sweeping the room below, his bare pink ears twitching and swiveling until they drew in the sound of Ptak speech.

  “… see what it’s really like if we want more funding?”

  “Vourts, what you want done with this checklist?”

  “Anyone see number eight password files? I just about sifted the dust already.”

  Vourts adjusted her lenses, waved away the plastic covered sheet the other tech was trying to hand her. “Chitatri! That thing looks like a swarm of krees pissed all over it.

  Print up a new copy and find a see-through that doesn’t look like it’s been here-since year one.”

  “Where’s that ‘bot? There’s a pile of kree shit in this drawer deep enough to drown in.”

  “Eight? Isn’t that the one Tippa spilled the tasse of likken on at the year turn party? Ate through the cover and glued half the pages together. Should be paperwork on that somewhere around. Avol”

  “‘Bot’s blown a bearing, Torml took it over to shop to see what Bijjer can do. Either wait or dump it yourself.”

  The young mal leaned out the door to his cubicle. “Hah?”

  “You got the workup for eight?”

  “Anybody remember which closet has the paper stores?”

  “Number two, you gant. You think we want to haul tail feathers farther’n we have to? Parts in one, paper in two.”

  “Bearing? How in…”

  In spite of the verbal clutter, the cleanup was going quickly and efficiently enough, perhaps because the workers were limited to the techs with access to this building. By the time the Base Exec arrived, Shadith was seething with impatience. In all the chatter she still hadn’t picked up any reason for this activity.

  The Exec was a plump and self-important Ptak, a jowly male whose crest had a wet slickness as if he’d overdone the feather cream.

  Vourts shooed the techs into a dusty, grubby line along the wall and joined them there, those anachronistic lenses glittering in the glare and doing a fair job of concealing her eyes.

  The Exec nodded at them, but didn’t speak as he stalked to the workstation at the end of the row. He pulled up a privacy shield and proceeded to enter his override key, three linked words in tripptakh, the broken word babble invented by parents for talking over their chilclren?s heads. Shadith tucked ‘the sequence into memory and watched with amused astonishment as-he called up lists of passwords, eyes-only files, access logs, and other artifacts of the techs’ daily activities. With slow, labored touches on the sensor board and constant consultation of the notebook at his side, he changed the file names into more tripptakh. When he finished, he grunted with satisfaction, logged off, and lowered the shields. He got to his feet and snapped his fingers. As the techs broke the line and went back to their cleaning, he wandered about the room, kicking at debris and running his finger across surfaces, sneering at the dust he picked up.

  At the door, he turned. “The Col-Kirag will be here in two hours. Vourts, you and Ke’ik will be on duty here, go get cleaned up. Rest of you, I want this place spotless by the time that flier lands. And I’ll expect you to be on line with the honor guard ready for inspection. Drill Field. We won’t be making her climb ladders. For your ears only, my sources say she’s on a royal tear, some local git has been putting out antiwar songs that are making the tourists nervous, at least they were before she blocked that part of the feed. And that Cobben that fell over its feet and did zip that they were supposed to-they screwed death duties out of her and she’s looking f
or hide to chew on.”

  Shadith sat up, rubbed at her temples.

  A hand touched her arm. Yseyl held out a mug of tea. “Thought you might like this.” She waited till Shadith got down a few swallows, said, “Anything interesting?”

  “Think so. We’re about to be the benefactors of a bit of luck I can brag I set up. The song that got you and the rest of them. And a warning I slipped in.” She swallowed a gulp of tea. “Ah, that’s good. It always feels like a gift when doing the ethical thing turns out to be good tactics.”

  Yseyl raised her brows.

  “Never mind. Just a stroke for my soul.” Shadith finished the tea and set the mug beside her. “Time to concentrate on the practical. There’ll be a juiced-up flier on that open ground by the lake. Very convenient. Means we don’t have to head for the hollow which cuts the escape route nearly in half. And if we have a staying rain tonight, we could all get out intact.”

  5. Into the valley

  The wind shifted and a spatter of rain caught Shadith in the face. She wiped her eyes clear and moved forward again, running bent low, two steps behind the child Zot who was ghosting along as silent as the older locals. It was a dreary night, heavily overcast, the wind erratic, sometimes there, sometimes not, the rain a weak but steady drizzle, just enough to make them all uncomfortable and the footing difficult. A grand night for sneaks, though. The Ptaks were inside where they were comfortable, warm and dry. No one would be out in this unless he had to.

  She straightened when she reached the darkness under the trees at the edge of the Drill Field, took the disruptor case from Yseyl, and watched with amazement as the Pima fern shimmered into a patch of mist and trotted toward the flier. Little gray ghost? I was closer than I knew Digby will skin me bald if I let this one get away. Nine dealers down the drain, so Cerex said. Didn’t know what hit them. I can see why.

  Yseyl used the stunner. The field burned against Shadith’s reach, like touching nettles it was. Twice. A sense of quick purposeful activity. Then a lull while she waited.

  Shadith tapped Luca’s arm, pointed.

  The rain was coming down harder as Luca, Wann, and young Zot ran toward the flier; even though they lacked

  Yseyl’s gift, in the darkness they were only visible if the watcher knew where to look. When they reached the flier, there was a sudden flare of pale grayish light, a moonlight through clouds effect as Yseyl opened the hatch. Three dark shapes crossed the light, then it shrank and vanished as the door swung shut.

  A moment later Yseyl was back. “They’re in and ready,” she muttered. “I gave Luca Cerex’s stunrod in case there’s trouble.” She took the disruptor from Shadith. “Your job next.”

  They reached the thorn hedge without trouble. Even the nightbirds were huddling in their nests.

  Bending over the cutter to shield it from the rain, Shadith shortened the blade and used millisecond bursts to slice through stems of the thornbush so they could clear a narrow path through it, angled so the cut wouldn’t be easily visible from a short distance off.

  When the six of them were inside the hedge, standing up to their ankles in sloppy mud, Shadith reached through the building. The strengthening rain hammering against her arm, she touched Hidan’s shoulder. “I read two. You?” she murmured.

  +Two. In the place with the big windows.+

  “Right.” Shadith leaned toward to Yseyl. “Third window from the end. There.” She pointed at one of the storeroom windows. “Center the hole over that.”

  Yseyl activated the disruptor.

  Because the Ptaks felt no need to provide visual clues to the shield round the Center, to the eye nothing seemed to be happening-and Shadith’s reach only gave her a vague sense of agitation. She closed her eyes and scanned the field again. With the additional concentration she could read faint ripples in the field plane, flowing about a circular opening the size of her hand. This is going to be a problem: tWhen I scan, I can’t see t e.window; when.I see the window, I can’t read the field.

  Hidan gasped.

  Shadith swung round to face xe. +What?+ she signed, making the signs large so they’d be visible.

  +A hole in nothing. I can thin it growing.+

  Interesting. +Tell me when it stops growing.+ She took the climbing pole from the break-in kit she’d clipped to her belt, gave it the prescribed twist, and held it away from her as the memormel took its primary shape. When the form was stable, she set the base on the ground and waited.

  +Now.+

  “Is the whole window clear?” She pitched the words to carry above the hiss of the rain.

  +Yes. By at least a handspan.+

  +Good.+ She lifted the pole. “Hidan, warn me if this thing gets too close to the edge of the opening.”

  The pole touched the glass. Holding her breath she opened the jaws of the clamp on the end and began easing them toward the sill. Inch by inch, down and down until the jaws touched the wood. She glanced at Hidan.

  +Still clear.+

  “Good. If the pole gets less than a handwidth from the edge, stop me.”

  Hidan nodded.

  Glancing repeatedly at the anya, she clamped the jaws on the sill, began tilting the pole downward, slowly slowly slowly-until the base end was jammed into the mud. She let out the breath she was holding, nodded her thanks to Hidan, and triggered the lockdown plate. When a hefty shove at the pole failed to move it, she wiped the rain off her face, stepped into the first half-stirrup, then went running up until she could touch the glass.

  A suction cup in the center of the wide pane, four quick slashes with the cutter; a shove, and-the way was open.

  Syon eased the pole into the empty storeroom, propped it in a corner and squatted beside it, a rifle across his knees, his eyes on the window.

  Shadith pulled the knitted cowl over her head, smoothed it down, checked to make sure her eyes were clear. She glanced at the other hooded figures, squeezed the latch and eased the door open, slipped out into the hall and ghosted down it.

  Shadith was several steps beyond the doorless arch that led into the workroom before the two techs noticed her. She stunned them, ran to Avo’s office, located the keybook Vourts had used, and hurried back to the station with it.

  While she leafed through the pages until she found the one she wanted, Khimil and Nyen dragged the techs away from workstations, tied their wrists and ankles, gagged and blindfolded them. Hidan stood guard at the door, sweeping round with xe’s thinta, ready to whistle a warning if anyone came.

  Shadith entered the Exec’s override and began the tedious process of making sure none of the base cardkeys or access codes would breach the shield and open the door; the accretions were even worse than she’d suspected and tracking down all the files was a pain, though it did give her a feel for what she’d have to claw through when she began working on the satellite programming. Outside, the rain drummed against the windows, the wind wailed and whooped round the corners. Inside, Nyen and Khimil’s boot heels were loud on the composition floor as they hurried about, gathering everything flammable they could find and dumping it on and around the other workstations. They spoke now and then, voices subdued.

  At first all these sounds were distracting, but as Shadith worked her way deeper into ithe Ptak system, they faded until she was no longer conscious of them.

  5. The Holy Child

  The sound of the door shutting woke Thann from troubled dreams. Xe’s anyalit wriggled protest as xe sat up, so xe pushed a finger into xe’s pouch for the infant to gum on. The babbit’s eggteeth had fallen out and the new set wouldn’t come in until the sixth month of the pouch year.

  Isaho was gone, her covers thrown back, her clothes still folded on the stool at the foot of her bed. Sleepwalking again? Out wandering around somewhere wearing nothing but one of the starchy white nightgowns that Mercy Fisalin brought her clean each. night? Thann rubbed the heel of xe’s hand against xe’s right eye, then the left, then drew xe’s palm across xe’s face, trying to wake up enough to decide wh
at xe should do.

  With a sigh, xe gave a last rub to the babbit’s gums and freed xe’s hand. Xe forced xeself up, pushed xe’s feet into xe’s sandals and pulled on the hatchry robe, fingers fumbling at the buttons that closed the neck opening. Xe couldn’t count on the Mercys to notice Isaho and bring her back; they were asleep or busy at their prayers and meditations. If Isaho got outside… Xe could thin the Pilgrims out there, hundreds of them, marching in endless circles about the House, chanting the shimbils, muttering blessings on the Holy Child. They frightened xe. The walls were too thick, and they were too far from the hospitality wing of the House for xe to hear them, but even so xe couldn’t escape the terrible intensity of their yearning. If Isaho got outside and they saw her…

  Xe thinta searched, touched Isaho, and started after her, as close to running as xe dared, the slap slap of xe’s sandals loud and intrusive in the empty corridors. Dark corridors, lit by tiny oil lamps set a maximum distance apart.

  ***

  Light flared ahead of xe.

  Xe could thin Isaho coming toward xe. And Mercys. Dozens of them. As if the House were emptying itself. Xe pressed against the wall and waited.

  Isaho came round the corner, one of her hands nestling inside the Grand Mercy’s. In the other she held a glass candle lamp, the flame of the candle casting odd upside down shadows on her face. Her eyes had that stony sheen that terrified Thann whenever xe saw it, and her lips were curved in a tight triumphant smile.

  The other Mercys followed, two columns of them, hands gliding through the Praise Songs, the shadows they cast dancing across the walls, dancing across Thann as they swept past xe.