Irsud

by Clayton, Jo;

  “Kanuu … they shot her … caught me … Gammal … he fathered the last daughter … Gapp … the hag bitch was irritated with him for some reason … or she had one of her cruel whims … she enjoyed hurting people … some stupid reason … made him host the egg … Gapp … that’s her name … his daughter.…” His antennas dropped dejectedly and he swallowed again and again.

  Aleytys stroked the short crisp curls at the nape of his neck, then moved her hands over his shoulders, trying to comfort him with her touch. “Ai Burash, isn’t it odd. My world’s so far from here the distance loses meaning, but you and I … we’re more alike than you and these … these river pigs you called them. I’m going to get away from here. Come with me.”

  He dropped his hand on her knee, a tired droop at the corners of his mouth. “I’ve spent a lifetime in this place, Leyta. There’s no way out. The kipu knows everything that happens, maybe even knows what we’re saying right now. She keeps a tight grip on the country around here. Even if you could get out of the mahazh and out of the city, where would you go?” He pulled her hand down and turned it palm up. “Look, narami, what has this hand ever done?” He trailed his fingers across her pale gold palm and flicked her rosy fingertips. “Soft as a butterfly’s wing. And you want to go against an army?” With a shake of his head he closed the hand into a fist. “Even I’m stronger. This hand against one of the sabutim?”

  Aleytys stretched and yawned, pulling her captive hand free. “The slaver I!kuk spent some time polishing me so I’d get a good price. Burash, I fought my way across half a world, alone and pregnant. I got off that world and I’ll get off this.” She sat up and wriggled her shoulders, her eyes sparkling with determination.

  He flirted his antennas into a lively little dance. “One of the sabutim could tear you apart like wet paper.”

  “You said that before.” She lay back with a laugh and scratched along the crease beside her nose. “Mmmm. I’ll just have to be smarter.” She turned her head and looked lazily around the garden. Across the stream the mahazh rose like a great gray beehive, blocking out a big piece of sky. As she watched an oval shape leaped into the air from the flat roof. She poked Burash in the ribs. “What’s that?”

  He looked up, eyes following her pointing finger. “Skimmer.”

  Together they watched the disc shrink to a black dot between two cloud banks. “Do you see now how impossible it is? How far could you get before the kipu found you?” Burash kicked at the sand. “There’s no way out, Leyta.”

  She squinted at the roof, a thoughtful glint in her eyes. Then she shrugged impatiently and turned back to Burash. “Is there someplace very, very private where we can meet?”

  CHAPTER V

  Aleytys pulled the tapestry aside and confronted the guard.

  “Parakhuzerim?” The guard was a stone wall of indifference blocking the arch, the ornamental lance butted against her instep slanting in a long diagonal across her body. The single word—egg bearer—daunting in its implications hit Aleytys a solid blow, only the slight question lift at the end marring its heavy forthright rejection.

  Choking down the sudden surge of anger and damper-induced confusion, Aleytys tipped her head back and focused her blue-green gaze on the glittering black facets looking through her as if she were a ghost whose existence the guard refused to acknowledge. “I need to see the kipu,” she said sharply.

  The nayid pulled her thin lips into a disapproving knot of blue-purple flesh. Her antennas twitched back and forth. “Why?”

  “There’s something I need from her. She’s the only one can do it.”

  “What?”

  Spurred by anger and growing frustration Aleytys’ mind leaped to touch the guard, a lifetime’s unconscious conditioning overcoming her conscious knowledge of the futility of trying. Grimly she fought to regain control while the figure of the lanky horse-faced nayid blurred as her fierce battle with the damper blanked out everything but the turmoil in her head.

  After a minute she blinked slowly. Her voice uncertain, words slow and thick, she repeated, “I want to see the kipu.”

  “Not at this time.” The guard reached out to pull the tapestry between them. “The kipu does not sit to the public in the morning.”

  Aleytys thrust up her arm, blocking the nayid’s hand. “No. I need to see the kipu.”

  With her thin austere frown the guard considered Aleytys. The minutes dragged by. Finally she nodded, the faintest jerk of her head, wheeled, and strode off down the hall, her boots clicking rapidly over the slick blue-green tiles. Aleytys sucked in a long breath, heart pounding in excitement. She ran after the nayid, her bare feet counterpointing the crisp military rattle with a fleshy slap-slap.

  The corridor ended abruptly in an uncurtained arch. The nayid vanished around the corner. Stomach tightening with the outriders of panic, Aleytys ran full out and skidded through the arch just in time to see a polished black boot disappear upwards behind the central core of the stairwell.

  The stairs crawled up and around in a white worm hole, the plaster ceiling a single handspan above the reddish knobs on the nayid’s stubby antennas. After a half dozen turns scrambling up steps meant for legs twice the length of hers, Aleytys was trembling with fatigue, her left leg cramping around the half-healed wound.

  By the time she stumbled out onto the second floor corridor’s scarlet tiles she was limping badly and panting like a wind-broke horse. She leaned against the wall and scowled at the departing nayid who strode mechanically away, her straight spare body cosmically indifferent.

  Aleytys rubbed her thigh absently, feeling the twitching jerk of the muscles. Sighing, she limped as quickly as she could after the retreating figure.

  Two guards, hefty hard-faced amazons wearing deep-red tunics, stood on either side of an arch hung with a crimson tapestry. The blue-green guard halted in front of them, stood rigidly erect, and brought the butt of her lance down with an audible thump. She waited for the senior of the guards to speak.

  “Your business?” Cold eyes flickered past the blue guard, resting for a minute on Aleytys as she limped up to them.

  “The Parakhuzerim to see the kipu.”

  The red guard frowned, intensifying the angles of her hatchet face. “You have spoken for time?”

  “No.” The single syllable was leached of all expression. “The Parakhuzerim demanded.”

  “I’ll see.” The red guard pushed the’ tapestry aside and stepped briskly through the arch.

  Aleytys glanced up at the blue guard’s immobile face, shrugged, wandered over to the wall to take the weight off her quivering leg. The floral design burned red into the white wall tiles went up and over the arch in a convoluted pattern of leaf, flower, and vine that turned constantly back on itself in an intricate tracery like the background on the tapestries hanging in the bedroom. She traced a bit of the pattern with her finger then looked with puzzlement at the remaining guard. Strange, she thought. How can such … such … things as they produce this delicacy of line?

  The guard came out and held the tapestry aside. “Come,” she said brusquely. “The kipu will see you.”

  Beyond the curtain the room was half a large octagon whose side walls were lined with machines cased in cold gray-green metal interrupted by flickering dancing lights and a nayid-eye-level tier of screens, some alive with land unrolling like a ribbon beneath a hawk’s gaze, some with static images of interior rooms, some black eyes of greenish phosphor. More red guards stood or sat before the instruments, their velvety tunics glowing strangely sensuous against the harsh lines and textures of the metal.

  Gathered around a massive table set across the angle opposite the arch a motley scatter of nayids turned their goggle-eyed faces toward her so that she walked alone, feet scuffing louder and louder on the crimson tiles, toward a ragged line of cold alabaster masks. In the center of the standing figures, dominating them with the cold force of her personality, the kipu sat rigidly erect, hands resting lightly on the highly polished red-brow
n wood, antennas flicking in tiny irregular jerks.

  “This is a busy time for me.” The kipu’s fingers tapped rapidly on the wood. The corners of her mouth jerked down as her glittering black eyes fixed on Aleytys, her nostrils pinched in as if a bad smell irritated them. “Well?”

  “I want …” Aleytys shot a rapid glance at the kipu. “I want Migru.”

  “Migru?” The kipu’s impassive face broke into a startled looseness, waking a secret glee in Aleytys. “How did.…” She frowned and started over. “Never mind. Why?” She snapped her mouth shut, then continued slowly with some difficulty finding words. “We’re different species with different evolutionary histories. There is no possibility of interspecies fertility. Even … even copulation.…” Her mouth twisted in disgust. “Even that seems unlikely.”

  Amusement frolicked in Aleytys until she nearly lost her grip on its tail. Lowering her eyes demurely to the floor, she said, very softly, “Oh no. He pleases me. He’s proved.…” She paused deliberately, once more sneaking a sly glance at the kipu.

  The nayid leaned tautly against the high carved back of her throne-like chair, her hands pushing stiffly against the edge of the table while her thin pointed face had a withdrawn look as if she divorced herself both mentally and physically from anything that smelled of sex.

  Aleytys filed this as a possibly useful betrayal of weakness and went on briskly, lifting her head to stare eye to eye with the seated nayid. “He’s proved himself capable. I want him.”

  The kipu shifted uneasily in her chair. “I don’t believe …” She hesitated and looked down at her hands. Aleytys saw her start then fold them precisely in front of her. “Another could serve as well.”

  “No!” Aleytys straightened her body, her laughter turned grim. “My people don’t trade our lovers about like playing cards. I want him and only him.”

  “No!” The word leaped from the mouth of the nayid standing to the right of the kipu. Aleytys glanced at her, surprised first at the interruption, then at the grotesque bulk of the speaker. She was the first fat nayid Aleytys had seen, a blubbery mass of flesh, repellent, sickening. Her pudgy face twisted into a malevolent scowl as she looked rapidly from the kipu to Aleytys. “The sarasipu is already set.”

  The corners of her elegant nostrils twitching in a faint betraying tic, the kipu ignored the fat one’s outburst and gazed thoughtfully at Aleytys. “I suppose it’s possible.” Translucent inner eyelids slid momentarily over her protuberant eyes. She leaned back again, her body more relaxed, tapping her small square teeth with her thumbnail.

  “You should have drugged her. I told you.” The fat one’s husky querulous voice broke into the kipu’s musing.

  “Belit Asshrud.” A kind of weary patience crept into the kipu’s deep rich voice, an indication of contempt flaying the fat one until she quivered under the lash. In a brief flash of irrelevant wonder, Aleytys thought, that voice … it’s one of the keys to her power. Then she focused again on the conflict between the two nayids. The kipu’s antennas were jerking back and forth in an impatient flick-flick that said stronger than words how unimportant she found the fat nayid’s wishes and advice. “That was the council’s decision. You know why. I myself have explained why we don’t drug her. More than once, if you remember. Do I have to do it again? It shouldn’t be necessary to remind you.…” Her words lashed the bloated face into twitches of pain and fear. “Of the need for discretion.”

  A sudden shrill giggle jerked Aleytys’ intent gaze from the kipu. Standing at the left of the chair a young nayid grinned maliciously at Asshrud. She had a gawky unfinished look, a round face marred by a spoiled self-indulgent softness.

  “Why not put Lisshan in Migru’s place?” she said, then giggled again, jigging restlessly from foot to foot.

  “Yes.” The kipu swung back. Nostrils flaring slightly as she curbed her descent into the fringes of emotion, she wrote rapidly then tore the sheet off the pad and thrust it into an embossing machine. She slapped the lever down, pulled the sheet free, then skimmed it across the table to a red guard, this one older with a seamed rugged face and crisply curling gray hair. “Sukall.”

  “Im, rab’ kipu?”

  “Take that to the sacerdote Harran.”

  “Im, rab’ kipu.” She slapped her lance butt against the floor, wheeled and trotted away.

  The kipu folded her hands and settled her face into a chill alabaster mask. She spoke slowly, rolling the liquid syllables over her tongue as if she enjoyed the taste of them. “It is done. Migru is assigned to serve you. Lisshan will serve the dead.”

  “No!” Asshrud’s face quivered in meaty agony. She stumbled against the table as she moved to confront the kipu sending the massive legs squealing several inches. “No. I forbid it.”

  The kipu smiled. Her long reptilian fingers tapped gently on the tabletop, neat square nails clicking faintly against the hard wood.

  “He’s mine.” Asshrud straightened and repeated the words, trying to infuse strength into her faltering voice. “He’s mine.” But the fire washed futilely against the kipu’s calm. Asshrud looked ridiculous in her quivering agony. She knew she looked ridiculous, but the agony was real. Aleytys felt a faint sickness in the pit of her stomach and looked away from the scene.

  Standing forgotten in the jostle and jar between the two nayids she felt suddenly sorry for Asshrud. She sensed vaguely, remembering her own troubled childhood, the agony of a fat ungainly child growing to repulsive adulthood in a place where all the others were lean and elegant. In spite of herself Aleytys felt the urge to soothe and comfort, but the damper interfered. It sent her mind reeling into confusion. She closed her eyes until the damper allowed her once again to spare attention for the scene in front of her. For the first time she noticed the nayid male hovering beside Asshrud.

  “… Gave him to me. You know it.” Asshrud fumbled for the male’s hand, tears washing down her pudgy cheeks. She began to plead. “Don’t take him away, rab’ kipu. Please don’t take him away … Mother … she gave him to me. Please … Lisshan is mine. I need him. Don’t.…” She broke down and sobbed pitifully, angrily.

  “You can show me your deed of gift?” The kipu’s nostrils flared once again and her thin lips pressed tightly together. “She let you use his services to quiet your whining whenever it got on her nerves.” She wasn’t tasting the words now, she was spitting them out like bitter seeds.

  Asshrud gulped and struggled to control her distress. “You could take another,” she blurted.

  “No, this obsession for your mother’s bed slave.…” The kipu hesitated, searching for the word she wanted. “Is nauseating. And the example you present.…” She raked her eyes over Asshrud’s body.

  The unhappy nayid flinched from the contempt in her gaze.

  “These are difficult times,” the kipu went on, her voice icy. “We must all sacrifice the unnecessary, belit. Sabut!”

  “Rab’ kipu?” A red guard, one of the anonymous huddle by the wall, stepped briskly to the table.

  “Take Lisshan and prepare him.” She flipped a finger at the pudgy male who looked increasingly sick. He tried to retreat behind Asshrud’s bulk, then recognized the hopelessness of resistance and went numbly with the guard.

  Asshrud followed him out of the room with her eyes, her face heavy with the agony working in her. She turned a blank glittering gaze on Aleytys. “You … you … I’ll pay you.”

  “You forget yourself, belit.” A slight slick oiling of satisfaction tainted the words.

  Asshrud wheeled, knocked clumsily against the table, but she didn’t seem to feel it although the table shifted sever inches. “And you … why?” She stretched out quivering hands. “Why do you always strip me bare?”

  The kipu drew back and brushed the tips of her fingers fastidiously together. “Belit,” she said coldly. “I think you would feel more yourself in your own quarters.”

  Asshrud looked at her again, her face full of impotent hatred, then she waddled around the tab
le and stumped slowly out of the room.

  Aleytys watched her go, pity once more strong in her. Not even a dignified exit, she thought. What a cruel thing … to be so ugly, so offensive to the eye that no one would take your deepest hurts seriously.

  “Belit Gapp!” The kipu’s sharp voice broke off Aleytys’ musing. That name, she thought. Where did I hear … ah! She shuddered. Burash’s brother’s child. She ate her father when she hatched from his flesh. Like the old one will do me. Aleytys looked at the immature nayid and shuddered once again.

  Gapp sauntered around her end of the table, an impudent grin on her blunt features. She stopped beside Aleytys, looked her up and down, like a horse trader judging the merchandise, then put her arm around Aleytys’ shoulders and hugged her against her hard body. “You going to let me have this one? Favor for favor?”

  With an exasperated sigh the kipu leaned forward and considered the untidy slouching figure.

  Trying unobtrusively to free herself, Aleytys found time to notice that the subtle antagonism between the kipu and Asshrud was not present here. The kipu even exhibited a kind of indulgent fondness that one might give a spoiled but favorite child.

  “Belit Gapp, as last-born you have a duty.”

  “Yeah.” She pulled Aleytys around with careless strength, eyes moving up and down her body. Gapp let the fingers of one hand slide carelessly from Aleytys’ neck to her waist, ignoring her quiet attempts to free herself.

  “Gapp!” The word lashed suddenly through the young one’s preoccupation, bringing her around so that she faced the kipu. “Release the Parakhuzerim.”

  “Oh.… come on. Let me have her.”

  “Gapp!”

  Aleytys shuddered, Gapp’s touching hands bringing nausea sour into her throat. She rubbed her arms absently. When I get back, she thought, I’ll take a bath. I’ll take two baths.