Skeen's Leap

by Clayton, Jo;

  “No need to hurry.” He continued with his work. “If you think he’ll let us go up there without him, you’re dreaming. Here.” He gave her two sticks of soft white chalk. “And the this.” A pressure lantern. He got to his feet, dusted himself off, put his arm through the sling, eased it over his head, patted it into place. “Ready?”

  Hands full of chalk and lantern, waterskin bumping against her thigh, Skeen started up the scrawl of the scratchback, moving rapidly, knowing there was nothing waiting for her, but eager to see that nothing for herself. Pegwai followed more sedately, though his desire was scarcely less than Skeen’s. Machimim yelled at them, then came charging out of the fort ring and started up after them, cursing under his breath.

  The wrinkle was a broad ledge that stuck out like a pouting lip. Skeen moved to the edge of the lip and stood looking out across the brown landwaves that faded imperceptibly into a dusty yellow-brown sky, pausing to catch her breath and organize her thoughts before she plunged into the Gather. Pegwai stumped up to her, the faint sprinkles of sweat on his face and the redness of his dark skin evidence of his exertions. She smiled at him, lost her smile and looked quickly away. The cut along his jaw had healed, only a faint pinkness left, but it was suffused with blood now and looked like a ragged scarlet crescent; she saw the marks of her teeth with embarrassment and shame, as if she’d been suddenly exposed naked to the gaze of the klazits. She turned away from the empty landscape, pumped up the lamp and lit the mantle, then moved cautiously to the large flat oval opening; sometime in the not too distant past the funnel-shaped hole had been closed by a heavy door, deeply carved in bold curved forms. It was relatively intact, lay flat on the stone. Skeen held the lantern close. Those forms were at once totemic and linguistic—and resembled something she’d seen somewhere. The Stranger’s Gate? Of course, but that wasn’t it.… She hesitated, trying to catch the tail of the memory, then straightened and went on; poking at fugitive memories like that never worked. It’d come later or it wouldn’t. Pegwai hastened around her, held a small black instrument to his face, fingers flickering a pattern along the side. When he lowered the imager, she walked on, stepping over other fragments of carved stone torn from the stone of the walls. The sides of the broad entranceway were intensively decorated, panels of wood and stone arranged around glass inserts, some few still intact, the rest shattered to show a tracery of painted metallic lines on the back of the shards and some straggles of fine blackened wire.

  The corridor bent through a deep double curve then opened into an immense cavern, a wonderland of glass and metal, rooms like bubbles floating in webs of tarnished silver and blued steel. The vast arching hollow was filled with the sounds of running water, with gentle rustles, with bell chimes from long glass tubes swaying in the breezes that wandered through the spaces. She didn’t need the lantern. The Gather was full of light. A system of mirrors, many of them still intact, caught light directed onto them from outside through baffled boreholes, amplified it into a soft silvery glow, enough to illuminate the broken magic of the place. Beside her she heard the whistle of Pegwai’s indrawn breath. “What they took,” she said, “is trivial compared to what they left.” From where she stood she could see a thousand things she’d cut free and haul off if this were a world in her home universe and Picarefy waited outside with the androids set to load her up.

  “Hard to know where to start.” Pegwai rubbed his hand across his chin. “Lifefire, I could spend a year in this Gather and only begin the survey.”

  “I suppose we ought to dip into each section and make a rough plan of the way things are arranged.” She spoke absently, her mind invaded once again by that flickery uncatchable memory.

  Behind them, the guide leaned against the wall with bored indifference. The only secrets that interested him were those in men’s heads and between women’s legs, not those hidden here, living in these half-shattered artifacts. All this puttering about ruins made him intensely suspicious of the motives of these strangers, though that wasn’t his primary reason for being here.

  “It would take years to really strip this place,” Skeen said, “but it would be worth the time, so much to learn. Is there a chance the Lumat will invest that time?”

  Pegwai’s eyes caressed the ruins with an avidity equal to hers though not quite the same. “All I can do is gather images,” he said finally. “As many images and measurements as we can manage and hope they convince where words wouldn’t. Though money’s tight.…” He sneaked a glance at her, mischief in his eyes.

  She caught the gleam and chuckled, then remembered the guide and bit back what she’d been about to say. She pinched his arm. “Let’s look about and get some idea how we’re going to work this.”

  They worked for a sennight in the ruined Gather—all that Machimim would allow them—Skeen sketching, noting down dimensions, making charts, Pegwai storing images in the multi-faceted crystals he loaded into the imager. Each night he projected what he’d taken and erased those that were unsatisfactory (delighting the Aggitj who’d never seen such a thing and waking envious desire in Machimim). Skeen took Pegwai aside the morning after the first showing and warned him to keep a tight hold on his equipment, otherwise it might disappear somewhere between the Gather and Atsila Vana.

  During the first few days Machimim had followed them about interrupting constantly to ask what they were doing, what was that they were holding, why were they interested in this other bit of debris. Since their answers were I don’t know, or it has an interesting look, or this is part of that and I haven’t the faintest notion what that is, he got rapidly bored with poking about and left them in peace. On the third day it was one of the klazits who followed them into the Gather; Machimim vanished and didn’t return until long after dark. Skeen was coming back from the stream, towel over her shoulder, when he rode in; she ignored him until he strode over, caught her by the arm, and shouted into her face, “Where have you been?”

  She jerked loose. “Bathing,” she said. “Something I don’t care to do in male company. Good evening.” She moved briskly away from him and went into the tent she shared with Pegwai and the Aggitj. Shit, she thought, he’s just stupid enough to get caught and then where’ll we be.

  Pegwai and Skeen worked long hours that sennight, doing their best to get as comprehensive an overview as they could, expecting any moment a horde of angry Chalarosh to descend on them with Machimim’s head on a spear, intent on acquiring their heads to parade about. The Ykx had a curiously skewed technology. They were deep into solid state mechanisms, but had almost no transport beside their ability to soar. Their living quarters were primitive, lit by mirrors; simple furniture built, it looked, with hand tools, not even nails but wood dowels and glue—rather odd looking but it had to accommodate those soaring skins that were attached to arm, side, and leg. There were a number of dun-colored blobs about which looked a lot like prak turds until Skeen picked one up. Triggered by the warmth of her hand, perhaps its oils, it changed. Opaline colors glowed and flowed along the mutating forms. She watched, entranced, until she heard the sound of boots behind her; hastily she set the thing down and watched it collapse.

  “What you got?” The klazit picked up the dull blob; it didn’t wake for him. His pointed ears twitched, his nostrils flared in disgust; he flung it at the wall and snuffled with satisfaction as it shattered and the shards flew all over.

  Skeen clasped her hands behind her, fought back the need to fling him after the loveliness he’d destroyed. “Don’t know,” she said. She tried to keep her voice calm, even, but his eyes narrowed for a moment and he looked dangerous. Deliberately he searched about, found another of the blobs and shattered it also.

  Pegwai came round the corner, saw her face, saw the klazit looking around for something else he could break. “What?”

  “That cretin is having a glorious time breaking things.”

  Pegwai exploded. With a flood of elementary Chala, he chased the klazit put of the Gather and shouted him into a huddle on the
lip. Breathing hard, he came stumping back to Skeen. “What did he break? Is it completely destroyed or can it be glued together?”

  Skeen was on her knees collecting the shards, picking them up, putting them down when they didn’t unfold for her. She pushed the hair from her face. “Impossible to tell you, you have to see.…” She pointed. “There in the corner, that thing like a turd.” She started to rise then sank back on her heels. “Bring it here, will you? I want to see if.…”

  Pegwai raised both brows, but he went to fetch the blob. When he lifted it from the debris, it began the shift and flow of form and color, this one primarily golden where the first had been keyed to green. Pegwai stopped in the middle of the floor and stared. After a moment, he began stroking the curves and found he could influence the shift with gentle pressure and prods of a finger. With a hiss of indrawn breath he squatted and set the thing down, watched it revert to its inert form. “He saw this and broke it?”

  “No. The sculptures didn’t come to life for him, just you and me.”

  “Two gone. Lifefire!”

  “Yes. If he picked up another, I’d have cut his stupid throat.”

  “Just as well you didn’t. I’ll talk to Machimim tonight. Either they keep their hands off, or the klazits will have to stay outside. Umm, we won’t mention these, I think.”

  “Huh! Peg, if you did, I’d think you’d gone soft in the head.”

  “Hm. A blanket. Yes, cut into squares and wrapped around them … safe from breaking that way. And they won’t activate, at least I hope not. If Machimim saw that.…”

  “Right.”

  Pegwai spoke to Machimim and Machimim tore a strip off the klazit, but he refused to station the guards outside the cavern. At least they kept their hands to themselves after that. Weren’t happy about it. They resented the reprimand from Machimim, were nasty to the Aggitj who knew nothing at all about what happened, took to breathing nasally down Pegwai’s neck, watching Pegwai and Skeen every minute, cat at mousehole, waiting for the slightest off-color act. Even when Skeen went for her bath, she had to take the Aggitj along to stand guard. Djabo only knew what those subnorms would try if they got her alone.

  Bored with poking about the cavern, ostracized by the klazits, the Aggitj roamed about the slopes, moving for the sake of moving, sometimes hunting coneys and larger game to supplement the interminable dried fish, porridge, and honeyed nuts. Machimim warned them it was dangerous to go wandering about country they didn’t know, they might hand their heads to a nomad hunter if they were unlucky. But he put no restrictions on them; he was having trouble enough keeping order in the camp since he was gone most of the day snooping about the countryside.

  On the fifth day Skeen noticed a suppressed excitement about the boys. They were up to something. She thought about calling them on it, but there was never an opportunity to speak without Chalarosh ears flicking nearby. The klazits weren’t supposed to know Trade-Min, but she was beginning to think they’d played her for a fool and weren’t nearly as ignorant as they pretended. That night as she was returning to camp from her bath, she put her hand on Hal’s arm and drew him into step with her. “There’s an Aggitj settlement in Atsila Vana,” she murmured.

  The moon was up and bright enough to show her the puzzlement on his face. “Yes?”

  “Seems to me a spy’s not worth much if he doesn’t know the language of the folk he’s spying on.”

  He thought about that a moment, then he grinned and patted her arm. “Gotcha.”

  She left him at the opening in the circle, stood a moment watching the four boys trotting away. Must be delayed mother instinct. Have to take something for it; get rid of this infection fast or I’ve got a plague on my hands. Shaking her head, she ducked into the tent and crawled into her blankets. Two more days. She wriggled about trying to find a comfortable position on the hard earth. Djabo bless, I wish we were leaving tomorrow. This is a waste of time, there’s nothing here for me. What in Mistommerk will make the Ykx open the Gate for me?

  “Rallen,” she cried.

  “What?” Pegwai came across to her, looked at the small metal plaque she was holding. Waves of a soft pastel blue hardly darker than the material were flowing in interference patterns from her fingers. Dark blue lines flickered in and out of existence, a simply sketched figure of a soaring man. “That’s a lovely thing.”

  She didn’t hear him. She was light years gone, sitting in the Roost waiting for the Buzzard to finish with another client. In his workroom because he trusted her and she didn’t want company. A pile of artifacts on a table. Playing with them to pass the time. A metal rectangle cold and heavy in her hands. Watching waves of pale blue wash out from her fingertips over glyphs, yes yes, like those on the door and the figure of what she thought then was a winged man. Angel or demon. She closed her eyes, tried to recall what else the table held. Yes yes. I’m sure of it. A dull dun blob. I remember wondering what that was going with the other things. Why would the Buzzard buy a coprolite? What else, what … Djabo, how long has it been? Four years? Five? No, almost seven years. Buzzard came in, saw me playing with the plaque. Rallen work, he said. Rallen? I said. Don’t ask me, he said. Kid who sold me the stuff says that’s the world name, won’t say where it is. What kid? I said. He grinned and asked what I had for him. Rallen. Rallen. Somewhere on the other side, there’s a world where Ykx still live. Yes. That wasn’t from any ruin, none of it. Rallen.…

  A band of nomad Chalarosh were hanging about. Late on the sixth day they came up to the fort. The leader talked to nervous klazits while others of the band wandered about poking into everything, kicking at the blankets in the tents, jabbing knives into the sacks padding the cart that carried the foreigners, prying up the tarp over the supply cart, taking the lids off all the waterbarrels. When they were finished looking into every cranny big enough to hold a rat, they went charging up the scratch trail; the Klazits grinned at each other and slipped away into the brush, not wanting to be there when the intruders came back by the camp.

  The Aggitj watched all that, snorting with disdain as they saw the klazits vanish. When the nomads stomped into the cavern and went crashing about searching for something, the boys followed them looking curious and secretly amused. Skeen watched them and worried. They had it, whatever the nomads were searching for. They knew what it was and they had it squirreled away somewhere. She cursed under her breath, then wrenched her mind away from those beaming idiots and frowned at the panel in front of her. It was in fragments. She’d assembled them, fitting the bits together using the design carved on the front. A complex ideogram. Possibly the Ykx thought in multileveled gestalts that interacted with a complexity that defied translation—like the Hon(ishlyad) ap onor ep ideor (kohl)noh? The ideograms, if that they were, made powerful designs with interesting resonances even to her alien eyes. Areas of intense multi-level design. Areas of clearspace or space interrupted with a few simple lines. A visual and tactile people. The designs felt as complex and interesting and pleasurable as they looked.

  She’d always liked this part of her profession, the careful measuring and recording of the sites; she never had enough time to satisfy herself, not even as much as she had here. The rest of it was a bore, best done as quickly and efficiently as she could manage, cutting away and packing up those parts of the ruin that seemed most salable, working at top speed, the two or three days at most she could spend there wherever there was. Sometimes she thought she’d like to join a dig and turn academic, spending a decade or two excavating a ruin and studying the people who’d built those structures and lived their lives among them, but that was usually only when she’d struck something especially intriguing and she had to wrench herself away before the local forcers landed on her. Most times she knew very well that such a life would drive her to madness and murder.

  She heard crashes too loud to ignore and looked up from her sketch. One of the Chalarosh had thrown a chunk of stone through a glass rectangle and was pulling it out of a wall so he could look
into the cavity behind it. The Aggitj were watching with lively interest. Djabo bless, the Chalarosh were still ignoring them. Whatever it is you’ve got, you cheerful young idiots, be careful. Careful and clever. She sighed. They didn’t have a clever bone in their handsome heads.

  Seventh day. Departure set for just after the noon meal. Skeen and Pegwai collected all the mobiles they could find, tied them up in bits of blanket and tucked them into their riding cart. Machimim insisted on inspecting the packets, cut open several chosen at random. He stared at the ugly things, nose and ears twitching. “Why take these … these unclean objects back to Vana?”

  “Because we don’t understand them,” Pegwai said smoothly. He took the mobile back, being careful not to touch it except through the blanket. “We are going to assay them and do other tests to see why the Ykx kept them lying about.”

  “Why don’t you just find an Ykx and ask?”

  “Where? No, it’s becoming increasingly clear that there are few if any Ykx left on Mistommerk.”

  Machimim watched Pegwai bind the bundle shut. “Better you than me,” he said.

  They spent the moming loading the wagons. Machimim wanted Pegwai’s packs put in with the camp gear, but Pegwai was adamant about keeping them close to him. “An oath,” he said. “Not something I can trifle with.”

  The nomad band rode back and forth out in the yellow haze, but didn’t come into camp again. In spite of that, they were an ominous presence that affected everyone, even the Aggitj who were jumpy and unhappy and silently stubborn every time Skeen frowned at them.

  The dust cloud that marked the nomad presence moved parallel to the carts as they started back the way they’d come, keeping pace with them though the carts moved along hardly faster than a brisk walk.