by Tanya Huff
Torin draped the green scarf over zir hand. “Brown and orange? Together?”
“Brown to anchor.” Zir tongue moistened both halves of zir bifurcated upper lip. “Orange to warm. Here.” Zi stepped back and shoved the scarf in question toward Torin, but before she could take it, Craig grabbed it and draped it around Torin’s neck in a twisted mess.
“Oh, for . . .” The height difference was too great for her to fix it herself, but by the time zir impatient instructions had both scarves arranged to zir satisfaction, the fear had disappeared. By the time payment had been settled and zi’d explained how to reclaim the taxes using small words and short sentences, directions were no big deal.
“Okay, look . . .” The young shopkeeper waved zir tail to get their attention. “. . . you want Bufush’s . . .” Zir voice dropped and lengthened the vowels into what sounded like a low moan punctuated with an exhalation. “. . . you have to go all the way to where Cariberry cuts across Nult Way. This is Cariberry.” Zi waved a hand at the street. “Okay, so and then you go left on Nult . . . no, wait, right, go right on Nult until the casatrai shop, you’ll know it when you see it, it has a big casatrai in the window and it’s across from a row of three trim chairs under a canopy, but they’ll be closed because it’s nighttime and Mirlish won’t hire night help because zi says a good trim needs natural light, right? Anyway, go past the casatrai shop to the next corner and then go left until you get to where Sound and Fury used to be, it’s empty now, stupid building codes, then turn left again and that’s where the seconds start. I don’t know how far you have to go into the seconds because I don’t go into the seconds, do I? But Bufush’s is there. Somewhere.”
“Reminded me of Helena.” Craig threw an arm across Torin’s shoulders as they headed toward Nult.
“Pedro Buckner’s daughter?” Pedro was a friend of Craig’s. Another CSO. Actually, given the whole pirate incident, Torin amended, forcibly relaxing her jaw before her implant went off, probably not a friend anymore.
“Yeah, her.” The tension in his arm suggested his thoughts had gone the same way. When he laughed, Torin didn’t believe it, but she didn’t call him on it. “Teenagers are surprisingly species nonspecific.”
“Zi was afraid of me.”
“That’s new?”
“It is when I’m not trying to be frightening.” Zi was afraid and suspicious then dismissive and the other six were afraid and suspicious and Torin was used to being other—her career had involved being shot at after all—but this was different. She couldn’t fight back.
The metallic threads in the scarves were data storage, sound files that complimented the color scheme. The brown and orange looped loosely around Torin’s neck played a quiet rustle of wind through leaves that reminded her of home while Craig’s blue and gray came with a soft shush shush of waves against a shore.
Given the greater number of people, Nult Way was a popular boulevard. The open air cafes running down the center of the wide pavement served as many Niln and Katrien as Trun. Although Torin and Craig were taller than all three species, the overhanging signs, protruding second-floor additions, circles of overlapping yellow light, and the crowding of stalls made it difficult to get a line of sight on the casatrai shop.
::Casatrai: Trun basic, hanging bed large enough for family sleeping.::
“Like a hammock.” Craig sketched a half circle in the air. “People live tight on salvage stations; they’re useful.”
The two of them were attracting attention, the Katrien more obvious about their interest than the Trun or the Niln. The hair lifted off the back of Torin’s neck. She tabbed off her scarf as the whispers jumped ahead to a clump of all three races standing by a stall selling unidentifiable sticks and wire, furred and scaled tails in motion.
They were complaining about cost, Torin realized as they drew closer. Complaining about the taxes on what they sold. On what they bought. Complaining about the cost of waging a war.
“I hear wasn’t about anything in the end. Don’t know why we had to pay for it,” an elderly Niln muttered as they passed, blunt muzzle thrust toward them.
“Torin . . .”
She shook off Craig’s hand and faced the eight, no, nine noncombatants. Drew herself up to her full height, shoulders squared, and looked down on them. “You paid in taxes,” she said, her voice parade ground clear. “We paid in lives.”
They were past the casatrai shop before the whispers started again.
Craig stayed close and kept silent.
The Katrien and the Niln weren’t even Elder Races. They were Mid Races, like the Rakva, joining the Confederation after it had been established but before the war. Torin had . . . well, Craig had . . . Fuk it. As irritating as the Katrien reporter was, Presit was a friend. How would the Katrien vote if it came to it?
“You can’t fix this, Torin.”
“I know.”
“Pisses you right off, doesn’t it?”
“Shut up.” She moved closer until their hands brushed together as they walked. “Let’s go recon the shit out of Bufush.”
The left turn at Sound and Fury—windows boarded shut with actual boards, the door sealed with liquid lock—took them onto a street too narrow for stalls and carts, the pavement a uniform gray without lines of random color. Although all the overhead lights were working, they didn’t seem as bright. After a moment, Torin realized that was because the surfaces were streaked with bird shit.
Seconds as per the young scarf seller, meant secondhand. Clothes. Furnishings. Toys. Tech. Why not grave goods stolen from a H’san cemetery that could start another war?
Bufush’s lights were on, the door was open, and security eyes compensated for the absence of the shopkeeper.
“Hello?” Craig’s voice got lost among the floor-to-ceiling shelves, piled high with junk. The good news was that the ceiling was about four meters up and they could stand inside the shop. Not always a given with the shorter races. Torin’s ride in a Katrien ship had given her a choice between sore knees and a cracked skull.
She glared up at one of the eyes. “We’d like to speak with the proprietor.”
“We’d like to give the proprietor an opportunity to fill zir pockets,” Craig added, tucking his chin over her shoulder. He shrugged when she ducked out from under him. “Zi might be more chuffed to see us if zi knew why.” Then he tucked his mouth up by her ear and breathed, “And you sound like a Warden.”
She wanted to snarl that she’d sounded like a Marine, but Craig wasn’t responsible for her mood, so she took a deep breath instead, let it out, and got her head back in the game. Sounding like a Warden in a shop that sold illegal artifacts wouldn’t get them the information they needed. She touched his chest lightly in thanks before turning and scanning the shop.
Two minutes. Three. No answer, no proprietor.
“Zi’s likely at the back. With the good stuff.”
A nod to acknowledge Craig’s experience in resale, and she stepped between the first set of shelves. “What keeps people from stealing the stuff at the front?”
“Other than the eyes?” She could hear the shrug in his voice. “Could have something to do with how much of it’s crap.”
About six meters in, the shop spread out, using the space behind the neighboring storefronts, although the floor-to-ceiling shelves made it impossible to get a line of sight and determine the exact parameters. Reaching up, Torin tugged on one of the protruding metal loops and, when it held her weight, went up three. At a meter five off the floor, she dropped, landing as lightly as boots allowed.
“Go back far enough,” she said in answer to Craig’s raised brows, “we’re arboreal, too.” If it came to a fight, she needed to know she could access the high ground. Torin unhooked a protruding wire from her sleeve and tucked it back into the tangle on the overloaded shelf. “I’ve been on stations that looked less chaotic after having been
taken by the Primacy and then retaken by the Corps.”
Craig flicked his thumb over the ridges in a piece of plastic pipe and frowned at the line of black under his nail. “How badly do you want to yell at someone to clean this up?”
“Pretty badly.” It smelled of mold and dust and probably sweaty Trun. Closing thumb and forefinger around the plastic handle on a metal drawer, she half hoped for a reaction. The little gray fukkers deserved to spend time in the midst of such useless debris. “I’m impressed anyone found the biscuit warmer in this.”
They passed groaning shelves and thematic piles. They doubled back twice, then cut through a long rack of funky smelling fabric. About the time Torin began indulging in fond memories of calling in air strikes, they finally emerged into an area better lit and visibly organized. The shelves were now about a meter and a half high, still taller than the locals, but no longer out of reach. Glancing up, she noted the security eyes were both more numerous and more obvious.
“I wonder how much of this is illegal.” Craig poked at a ceramic cylinder.
Torin grabbed it before it could fall off the shelf. “As long as they’re not selling weapons, I don’t really care.” She’d been scanning the shelves for familiar shapes, in whole or in part from the moment they’d entered the shop.
“Little chance of that this far into the Core . . .”
He fell silent on her signal and they retreated behind the last of the higher shelves. She cocked her head, straining to target the muffled noises. Not random . . . a voice. High-pitched. And furious. When Craig leaned out and pointing toward a closed door in the far wall, she nodded. The voice was coming from behind the door and getting louder. Closer. Close enough for the occasional word.
“. . . fool . . . being . . . don’t . . . here!”
“Katrien,” Craig murmured. “Sounds pissed.”
“Don’t they usually?”
The argument had come close enough they could hear the low thrum of a Trun, also angry but unable to get much of a word in edgewise—pretty much the default in Torin’s experience with the Katrien.
Then the door Craig had pointed out opened just far enough for an elderly Trun to slip through, followed by a loud and distinct, “Liar!”
Zi slammed the door shut, thumbed over the lock, and sagged against the painted wood while small fists banged on the other side. When the banging finally stopped, zi straightened, stared out over the long wooden counter in their general direction, and said, “How may I help you, Visitors?”
The Trun’s lips pulled off zir teeth as they emerged, head and shoulders higher than the shelves now between them. Someone who hadn’t served with the Krai might even think it was a welcoming smile.
Torin didn’t.
FOUR
THE TRUN’S FUR WAS A SHORT, DUSTY BROWN, with gray streaking zir square muzzle and tail. Zi wore a long, faded blue vest with an eclectic arrangement of pockets, some visibly bulging, and a single plastic ring in one ear. Beckoning them forward, zi looked like every bad cliché of a potty old junk dealer, but zir gaze never left them and Torin knew a threat assessment when she saw one.
“Please, Visitors, come closer.”
Craig laughed his bullshit laugh. He was the sales, she was the muscle. “Come closer, you don’t bite?”
“That has yet to be established.” The old Trun’s smile was blandly sincere.
Given the security, zi’d been aware of them since they’d entered, had made assumptions watching them navigate the maze, and was now in the process of adjusting those assumptions based on actual interaction. Zi was the first Trun Torin felt she understood. Zi might be as speciesist as those fukheads on the street, but zi wouldn’t let it show unless it served zir purposes.
The path around the shelves was less maze-like but still convoluted enough that it took three, maybe four, minutes to walk to the counter. Sized for the Trun, the shelves were approximately hip-high on them both and seemed shorter given the height of the ceiling. A hard shove proved them secure enough to go over if it came to it—four to seven seconds from the counter to the less exposed part of the shop when taking the direct route. They’d be no protection against even small arms fire, but there were enough of them a shooter would need to be up close and personal.
Core planet or not, zir smile was bland enough that Torin wasn’t ruling out shooters. Varga had been able to get his hands on black market weapons and he was an idiot. More to the point, she’d never believed thieves had any honor at all.
“So . . .” Zi spread zir hands, stopping their advance before zi had to crane zir head back to meet their eyes. “. . . I am Bufush.” Trun pronunciation drew the vowels out. “How may I help you, Visitors?”
Torin remained just back of Craig’s left shoulder, weight on the balls of her feet, hands loose at her sides.
Craig mirrored Bufush’s position. According to the Justice briefings they’d been forced to sit through, it made people subconsciously feel more at ease. As maneuvering officers toward the required response was one of the jobs of the senior NCO, Torin had found that particular briefing a strange combination of fascinating and redundant. “My employer is interested in purchasing rare antiquities. She saw a ceramic piece in a . . . friend’s collection and discovered it had been purchased originally from you.”
The short pause Craig tucked in before friend was genius, Torin realized. Competing collectors would pay a lot more.
Bufush cocked zir head. Mild interest at best. “Discovered?”
“Eventually.”
Veiled threat with full deniability. Torin was impressed. In a just universe, she’d have had more chances to see Craig negotiate while he was still a CSO. The thought of watching him go toe-to-toe against Staff Sergeant Bouyer at salvage acquisition was . . . distracting. She couldn’t afford to be distracted. Not with a large area they didn’t control not only behind them but between them and the exit. Not when they were speaking with someone who’d had eyes on them since they’d entered the shop. Someone who they knew had broken at least one law.
“I sell many pieces of collectible ceramics,” zi said. “What specifically is your employer looking for?”
“Specifically?”
Both ears twitched. “Specifically.”
“H’san.”
And both ears stilled.
“H’san antiquities,” Craig expanded. “Grave goods.”
Zi spread zir hands, palms up, keeping the backs in contact with the countertop—to keep them from visibly shaking, Torin assumed. Clever. This was not, as Hollice would have said, zir first rodeo. “It is illegal to sell H’san grave goods.”
“My employer is aware of that and is willing to pay for the inconvenience.”
“Illegal, not inconvenient, Visitor.”
“My employer will pay a significant amount . . .” Craig held up his slate, screen toward the Trun. “. . . for a more impressive piece.”
Zir left ear twitched. Zi recognized the biscuit warmer.
“She’s willing to pay enough for her piece to be the last piece you sell.”
“That would be . . .”
Craig moved his thumb, and Torin knew the image of the biscuit warmer had been replaced by a large number.
Both ears twitched.
“That would be a very . . .” Zir tongue, like the lips just visible under the edge of zir fur, was purple. “. . . fair price, Visitor. But it doesn’t make selling such items less illegal.”
“Ah.” Eyes on Bufush, Torin couldn’t see Craig’s smile, but she could hear it in his voice. “We’re not Wardens.”
If asked, the Wardens would support the denial. Vehemently.
“So you say, Visitors.” Behind that entirely neutral response, Torin knew Bufush weighed the chance they were lying against the size of the number Craig had shown him. The number won. Hands still on the counter, zi shifted, mouth ha
lf open so only zir bottom teeth showed. “Unfortunately, I have nothing in stock. But, if you’ll give me your contact information, I could inform you if a piece came in that would suit your employer.”
“Excellent.” Craig held out his slate.
And waited.
At the point where Torin had begun to worry they’d missed a cultural cue, Bufush finally blinked. “Oh. Of course.” After an I’m just a harmless old being pantomime of muttering and patting zir pockets, zi pulled out the smallest slate Torin had ever seen. Zi tapped the longer side, muttered something she didn’t catch, and held it out as a pale purple, three-dimensional geometric image rose above the screen. “Touch your device to the matrix, Visitor. They should sync. Should,” zi repeated a little dubiously.
She’d seen the hard light slates advertised, but even Ressk and Alamber had shied away from the cost. However, Bufush’s didn’t exactly cater to a luxury clientele and, from what she could see, this particular slate looked like a tool rather than an expensive toy. Another reminder that life was different in the Core.
The pattern flicked blue, then red, then purple again.
“Surprised that worked,” zi admitted, returning the slate to a bulging pocket. “I’ll message you the moment a new piece comes in. I can’t promise when that’ll be; I have no control over the supply.” Zi rubbed a finger against the zir muzzle, pulling one side of zir bifurcated upper lip far enough to expose the points of yellowing teeth. “It might be better if you wait somewhere where you’re less visible.”
Craig snapped his slate back onto his belt. “We’ll be ass in the air tomorrow. Maybe the day after. My employer appreciates your discretion.”
“As I do yours, Visitor. If ceramics are the extent of your employer’s interest . . .”
“Currently.”
“Then may I show you the way out.”
