Skeen's Leap

by Clayton, Jo;

  She dug a tube of hiprots out of her pack, about as tasty as eating rope, but adequate in providing energy and sustenance. After eating she got dressed again, feeling too vulnerable to stay naked though the underwear wasn’t close to dry, then she curled up in what was left of the sunlight, intending only to doze a while as her head dried. But that lingering warmth was seductive and the drain from the stimtabs overwhelmed her and she plummeted into a heavy sleep.

  DAY ONE ON THE FAR SIDE OF FANTASY.

  Skeen woke stiff and sore with nausea threatening at the back of her throat. Creaky as an old board, she thought, and groaned up onto her feet. She hobbled to the fountain and eased down on the basin’s lip. Blinking slowly she wiggled her toes, pushed her feet back and forth in the dew-wet grass. Here I am. Where’s here? Good question. No good answers. She yawned, blinked some more. Where do I go from here? No answer to that either. Pick a direction. She lifted a foot, bent her leg, rested her ankle on her knee and scratched lazily at her instep and between her toes. She stopped thinking about much of anything and sat slumped, relaxed, soaking up the fine morning.

  After luxuriating in laziness a while longer, she sighed and reached for her boots.

  She moved through the mountains all morning, going up around down, up around down, until she was dizzy with it, eating more of the hiprots paste as she moved so she wouldn’t have to stop or think about what she ate; she was heartily sick of the glop and about at the end of her ability to choke it down. Up around down, up around down, glimpses of quick brown movement across a meadow, uparounddown, raptors riding the thermals in lazy loops, uparounddown, a stream with fish in it, looked much like fish on any world she visited, circumstances dictating form here as elsewhere, uparounddown, Sessi, Yoech’s lost love, whatever, native? What would natives be like?

  Late that afternoon, the violet haze darkening the sky, she came around a curve on a mountain and looked out across waves of foothills at a broad valley that vanished into haze on the far horizon. A wide river lazed along the length of the valley, a smaller one joined it a short distance south of where she was standing, a walled city sat in the curve near where the rivers joined. Boats on both rivers, their sails brilliant patches of crimson, emerald and gold, spread like butterfly wings to catch the wind. The plain was a patchwork of fields, with groves, orchards, vineyards, pastures with grazing beasts of several sorts too far to identify, dirt roads, dust clouds kicked up by riders, wagons pulled by oxen, smaller puffs from walkers, a long packtrain. Definitely pre-industrial. That meant handwork; lots of artisans making objects that would be uniques once she got them to the other side of the Gate. Yoech knows his treasure, that’s sure. Scattered about in the middle of the fields were large walled houses, little huts snugging against the walls. Intensive cultivation but people seemed fairly thin on the ground. The groves interested her, some of them out by themselves, actually in the middle of row-crops, some of them in clusters like freckles on the back of a hand. Two or three giant conifers amid thick stands of shorter, broader trees, occasional glades, perhaps where a conifer had died, been cut down, something. Placid scene. She wrinkled her nose and slipped her darter from the snap-flap holster, checked the charge and the paralevel, slipped it back, hesitated a moment before snapping down the flap, but did it because she didn’t have anything immediate to worry about. A small shy rustle behind her. She chuckled. Unless a rabid mouse.

  The darter was an ingenious weapon that would not run out of ammunition as long as there was a puddle available. Battery powered, recharged by sunlight, it used water to make the darts, flash-froze them, forced them through a concentrated paralyzer and sent them flying with pooshes of compressed air, singly, or, with the slide of a switch, in a tight cluster. No range, anything over twenty meters was safe, but she trusted her wits more than the gun to get her away from any danger beyond twenty meters off.

  A deep breath, a shake of her body, then she started into the foothills, determined to get as far as she could before night dumped down on her. All her supplies were running low; the sooner she got to that city, the better.

  A DAY, A NIGHT, ANOTHER DAY OF DULL TRAVEL. WE’LL SKIP ALL THAT AND GET RIGHT TO THE NEXT EXCITING BIT.

  The shadows were long when she reached the road, the sun half-gone behind the mountains. She walked along it a short distance but when she was following it round one of the groves, she heard hoofbeats, a rider coming up on her. Following instinct to keep out of sight as long as possible, she took a swift sidestep, then another, sliding into the shadow under the trees. The rider came around the bend, riding unhurried—a young man, sub-adult, thick brown hair, matte brown skin, standard issue humanoid. Loose shirt, pulled together at neck and wrists with drawstrings, the cloth some natural fiber like silk, trousers of a rough dark brown cloth tucked into finely made boots that reached almost to the knee. He rode a beast that looked too big and powerful for him, carried a short whip, a longer whip coiled and tied behind his leg, spurs with wicked rowels strapped to his boots. He rode with that arrogant I-am-the-lord-of-all-I-survey mien she’d met too often before—rich man’s son, not old enough to hide his contempt for the rest of the world. She suppressed an impulse she’d never outgrown, a strong desire to stick pins in that kind of twerp, smiled at the thought of his rage if she darted the horse and dumped him in the dust, made him walk where he was going like one of the common kind, but she let him go on undisturbed.

  She strolled along under the trees, content but tired, looking forward to a hot meal and a tankard of ale in a noisy smoky tavern, maybe a little singing later on when the mood was on her and she could bury her non-voice in the noise. She glanced out at the road now and then, saw more young men much like the first, alone or in small groups, riding their tall horses with a total unconcern for the walkers they dusted or forced off the road. Made her more determined than ever to keep out of sight; this sort of society didn’t tolerate interlopers very well, at least the official part of it, though she was fairly sure of finding a welcome among the outsiders. If she was right about what she’d seen, there were a lot of similarities here to the arrangement on the world where she was born and raised.

  The grove pinched out. There was another larger one directly ahead. She moved quickly across the intervening space and plunged into the thickening darkness under the trees. The way the travelers on the road were beginning to hurry could mean that the city gates were closed at sundown or shortly after. Maybe it’d be better to wait for morning before she tried getting into the city.

  When she was deep into the grove, coming up on one of the small glades that peppered it, she heard loud crashing, the tramping of hooves, wild whooping, all of it rushing toward her. She jumped, caught hold of a limb curving overhead and pulled herself into the tree, climbed higher, and found herself looking down into the glade. She freed the darter, clipped the lanyard to the butt.

  A small figure burst into the open, stumbled, gasped, angled across the glade heading straight for Skeen’s tree.

  Shit, Skeen thought; she took out the darter, rested it on her knee.

  A small woman with a mass of curly dark hair tumbling about her shoulders, bunchy white blouse, a long dark skirt with bands of embroidery about the hem. Her feet were bare, her arms working; in spite of that damn skirt she ran like a spooked kanchi. She’d almost reached the tree when a horse and rider came galloping past it, knocking her off her feet. She scrambled up again, tried to dart past him, but was cut off by another whooping rider. Two more broke through the brush into the glade, trapping her inside their ring. They were boys, well into adolescence but far from adult. The woman’s head came up, she brushed a mass of curls out of her eyes, and glared defiance at them. With a snap of her wrist, she pulled loose a sleeve tie. One of the boys yelled something and rode at her. Moving faster than Skeen thought possible, she flung herself to one side, laughed shrill triumph, and snatched loose the other sleeve tie.

  A boy snapped a three-meter braided whip, caught her around the ankle, and jerke
d her off her feet.

  Skeen watched grimly. I should stay out of this, she told herself. Whatever I do, I’ll make enemies I probably can’t afford. The boy with the whip kept jerking the woman about, the other three flung themselves off their mounts and circled around her, slapping at her, kicking her, yelling things at her Skeen didn’t have to know the language to understand.

  She darted all four of them, watched with satisfaction as the whipboy fell off his horse and the others crumbled to the leafy dirt.

  The woman got to her feet, pushed her hair out of her face, wrist strings dangling. She went from body to body, touching each boy briefly. Skeen had a moment’s uneasiness, wondering if she’d poisoned the brats instead of merely putting them to sleep, then decided she didn’t care all that much.

  The woman straightened from the last body and turned to gaze at the tree where Skeen was perched. She spoke, a flow of sounds with a questioning intonation.

  Get away from here, you nit. Skeen scowled through the leaves at her. Go away before more trouble lands on us all. Take the gift fate gave you. Bona Fortuna. Bona. Bona.

  The woman spoke again, different words, different rhythm, still a question.

  Dead or not, those baby shits will be missed. Get away, dammit, so I can cut out myself.

  The woman thought for a moment, then she tugged loose the neckstring, pulled the blouse over her head and threw it down. She undid the lacing at the waist of the skirt and kicked out of that. Naked (Skeen gaping, wondering what the hell was going on) she ran out of the glade. Skeen blinked, then settled herself to wait a while.

  Time passed. She began to think about dropping to the ground and heading straight for the river. Maybe she could find an empty hut.

  A flap of wings. Large bird close by. Skeen looked idly about, shrugged. She slid the darter into the holster, unclipped the spring lanyard, snapped the flap down, and reached for the trunk.

  A rustle overhead. She started to look up, caught a glimpse of black fur, heard a snarl, then something soft and powerful slammed her head into the trunk.

  I ONLY WANTED A HOT MEAL AND A BIT OF DRUNKEN CHEER. HOW DO I GET MYSELF INTO THESE MESSES?

  or

  THIS IS ONE HELL OF A WEIRD WORLD.

  Skeen woke belly down over a saddle, the stench of horse thick in her nostrils, her head throbbing in time with every step. Darkness around her thick as the horse stink. She suppressed a groan and began testing the rope coiled around her arms.

  The horse stopped walking. Sounds of creaking leather, the soft scuffle of feet. A warm hand flattened itself against Skeen’s forehead. A force came suddenly from that hand, a blow that addled her brain without quite knocking her out again. Her nausea increased, her brain itched furiously, she struggled to move, to free herself. This was too much like the time she was really stupid and let the Widowmaker get hold of her and use a brainprobe on her. Terror flashed through her with that memory, she began struggling wildly.

  The hand pulled away, but Skeen was barely conscious of that because funny things were still going on in her head. Her struggles were making the horse nervous; it was sliding about, snorting, jerking its head up and down. A voice. Speaking to the beast, soothing, gentling. “Hoosh ah hoosh, quiet now be quiet.” Deep rich female voice, almost singing the words. She wasn’t talking to Skeen but what she said reached through the panic and quieted her as well as the horse.

  “Hang onto the stirrup,” the woman said. “I’m cutting you loose. You don’t want to fall on your head. It’s had enough bangs for one day.”

  Another shock, a minor and welcome one. Language transfer, an organic version of sleep-learning, faster and a lot harder on the poor abused brain. Skeen went limp. The woman was right, her head was sore enough, no use trying for a record. The knife was briefly cold against her arm. The coils of rope fell away. She flexed her hands, then grabbed for the stirrup leather as footsteps went away, circled round the beast’s tail. A moment later a small hand touched her leg—she felt the warmth of it through the eddersil—and the rest of the ropes slid off. Cautiously she walked her hands up the stirrup leather, pushing herself over and off the saddle. She caught hold of the cantle as her knees buckled, pulled herself upright; in spite of the pain shooting from her ankles to bang about her head, she was content to be in one piece, content to wait for the next thing to happen.

  They were in the foothills somewhere, in a hollow between two grassy swells. Low in the east a gibbous moon was rising, a part-eaten round of mold-threaded cheese. Last night it’d been close to midnight before the moon appeared. Looked like they’d been traveling for hours. Djabo’s horny toes, all that damn, walking wasted.

  “I couldn’t leave you with the Pallah Chalapeer,” the woman said. “They’d have put trackers on you, got you no matter where you went.”

  Skeen stepped away from the horse, stood rubbing at her wrists, angry and wary. “Chalapeer?”

  “The boys. More importantly, their fathers.”

  “I take it I wouldn’t like what happened when they caught me.” She kept her voice cool and flat.

  “Pallah aren’t kind to strangers. Especially strangers who interfere with the pleasures of the highborn. Why did you?”

  Skeen shrugged. “Enjoying themselves too much, creepy little gits. What now?”

  The woman’s face was unreadable. “Nothing. Go where you want. If you’ll take a bit of advice, stay clear of Dum Besar. The city.”

  Silence. The woman didn’t move. Skeen clasped her hands behind her back and watched the moon float up. She wants something from me. Good. Where there’s a want, there’s a price. I didn’t get into this for the love of running.

  The woman surrendered and broke the silence. “You can come with me if you want.”

  Skeen said nothing. She watched the moon.

  “There’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”

  Skeen smiled. “I’ve got no pressing engagements elsewhere.” She thought a moment, decided she’d better make something clear. “And I’m open for hire.” She swung into the saddle, looked over her shoulder. “My name is Skeen. Let’s go.”

  “I am called Telka.” The woman moved past Skeen and mounted the other horse, managing the long full skirt with an ease Skeen found impressive; she made a note to be wary round this one, her small size and delicacy was a snare and a delusion. Telka started out of the hollow after calling Skeen up beside her. “I am Min,” she said. She spoke with a careful colorless precision, as if she were reading the words from a paper in front of her, as if she were afraid something about her would leak out with these words. “Those in Dum Besar are Nemin. Not Min. I think you are a Pass-Through. Most everyone speaks Trade-Min no matter what Wave he belongs to.” She glanced at Skeen but when she got no response, went on talking in that neutral voice. “The first Nemin to Mistommerk were the Ykx; they made the Gate and brought the Ever-Hunger. They came in streams and clots and spread over the world; the Min were not alarmed because they took land no one wanted and kept to themselves.” She sighed; “But every hemicycle after that another Wave came through the Gate, pushing Min off their own land, pushing and pushing.” Feeling crept into her voice then despite her efforts to suppress it. “Chalarosh. Balayar. Funor Ashon. Nagamar. Aggitj. Skirrik. And the Pallah who were the last wave, twenty hemicycles ago.” She cleared her throat. “Since then only singlings have come through. Like you. No telling when the next one.”

  Hemicycle? Skeen thought. Mmm. Ah. Half a century. Telka went on talking in that soft expressionless voice, but Skeen stopped listening. She’d heard this tale a hundred times before, more than that, heard it in beery mutters or drugged mumbles, heard it from thieves and murderers and slummers out on a tear, boasting the heritage that seemed their only claim to self-respect. Ancient resentments cherished like only children. She was bored with it the first time, she was bored with it now. Folk who nursed ancient grudges and didn’t get on with living sounded like clones of each other no matter how different the details
of their stories or the shape of their bodies. Mmm. Eight waves through the Gate, knocked back to horsecart life when their tech wore out. The eightfold way to treasure, ripe for plundering for one who knows how to come and go. Which right now I know shit about. She smiled at herself. But I’ll learn, I guarantee. She tuned in to Telka wondering if the Min was saying anything important, tuned out again. Grudges, huh! What a waste of time and energy. Either get rid of them or forget them. She grinned. Me, I don’t cuddle grudges. Tibo you baster, you’ll find out once I get some financing. If you’ve sold Picarefy to get your hide out of hock, you’ll find out how fast and definite I get rid of grudges. She straightened her mouth and began listening to Telka again.

  “… it’s only the Ykx who know how and why the Gate works, the few of them left—most are dust on the wind.” Telka pressed full lips together, her rather heavy brows lowering into a frown. “I should tell you,” she said finally, “there are many among the Min of Mintown who won’t welcome you, even though I sponsor you.”

  Didn’t expect they would, Skeen thought, and you’d be out of sight, lil darlin’, didn’t you need me. She patted a yawn, scratched at her palm, looked up. “Why?”

  “You’re Nemin. Where there’s one, there might be many. Min fear another Wave.”

  “If my guess is right, that won’t happen. Honjiukum are keeping a hot eye on the sun, it won’t catch them sitting.

  “What?”

  “Timing. Hemicycles. Length of time since Kildun Aalda was last colonized. Looks to me like when Aalda’s sun belches, the Gate opens.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re likely to get another flood of refugees any time soon.”

  They had moved out of the foothills into the mountains and were riding along the bank of a creek, following a sketchy trail that gradually grew steeper and steeper until Skeen looking ahead began to wonder how the horses were going to negotiate it; about six lengths before a small and rather lovely waterfall, Telka turned into a dry ravine whose bottom sloped gently downhill, the crumbling stone walls rising higher and higher above their heads.