Shadow of the Warmaster

by Jo Clayton

  “You’re a cautious man. I wouldn’t have thought it.”

  “I never saw a deader who looked like he was having much fun. Move it, will you, I’ve got another stop to make tonight.”

  4. LEDA ZAG.

  Place: Raz EFKLARA MARKAT at the southern edge of the Grass, the western lobe of the Duzzulkas.

  Headprice: 7000 gelders.

  A hand clamped down hard on her mouth; close to her ear, a male voice whispered, “Listen.” Interlingue. She relaxed and moved her head slightly to let the intruder know she’d heard. The hand came off. “One Nameless wants you back. You want to come?”

  She sat up cautiously. Enough moonlight filtered through the slats to show her the man beside her, him who thought he was her master; he was lying with his eyes cracked, his mouth sagging half open. She poked at the soft flesh of his upper arm. He didn’t change expression or move. “Stunned?”

  “Yes. Well?”

  “You really need an answer?” She threw the covers off her legs, slid from the bed. “Let me get dressed.”

  She was tiny, maybe a hand taller than Pels; her breasts were suggestions, her pubic hair a few silky threads. She looked about twelve, but he knew from the data provided by ti Vnok that she was over a hundred; her genes had been scrambled to keep her a pedophile’s darling. She moved quickly about the room, selecting what she wanted to wear, shoving jewelry and bibelots into a sack, not a wasted movement. She was back in moments, her eyes glittering, the loot bag slung over her shoulder; she was dressed in a loose robe that swayed about her ankles; it had long sleeves cuffed at the wrist and a high neck; she’d pulled on soft boots, her feet made no sound on the floor. “Let’s go.”

  Altogether I collected twenty-seven slaves from the Duzzulkas and three transfer stations. Then I began on the cities of the Kuzeywhiyker Littorals.

  Night after night, explaining who I was and what I was doing and why I was doing it, packing individuals of assorted shapes, sizes and dispositions into the skip and keeping them happy until I decanted them at the Base. In the shelters Kumari stocked and policed, the numbers increased in drips and spurts. It was coin piling up for us, but it was also hard labor, boring, sometimes dangerous, mostly sitting in an overloaded skip, freezing my tail and wishing for a coat of fur like Pels and sorry I ever got into the rescue scam. It was coping with Adelaar who was fretting about her business and what was happening to it without her, it was soothing the Hanifa, who got more nervous and mistrustful as each day slid past. Blessed Kumari, she kept them both off my neck as much as she could. The days did pass. Day by interminable day, they passed. Never again. Never ever again. I was not in love with pain. Or sweat work. But I’d given my word and I meant to keep to it.

  5. ILVININ TAIVAS, SUKSI ICHIGO, SHNOURO, SLEED TOK and others not on the list.

  Place: AYLA GUL SAMLIKKAN, eastern Littoral.

  Headprice: ILVININ TAIVAS: 5000 gelders; SUKSI ICHIGO:1500 gelders; SHNOURO: 2500 gelders; SLEED TOK: 1000 gelders.

  The city was burning when I brought the skip down low over the rooftops and tiptoed around clots of trouble until I managed to slip onto the roof of the pen at the textile factory. The streets were thick with homegrown guards and Tassalgans shooting sprays of pellets at the yizzies whining overhead and scrambling away from gouts of fire as the inklins retaliated. Gangs of youngers were screaming words that didn’t exist in the vocab I learned from, darting across housetops and through alleys behind the men in the streets, running dangerously close to count coup on them, scrambling yip-yip-yip away around corners or leaping from roof to roof, waving the paint guns they’d modified to squirt acid drained from eksasjhi veins, the eksasjhi being a lethargic crustacean that lived in the shallows all along the east coast. It left a knotty purple scar that marked the head coup for all to see and silently gloat over, it was briefly agonizing and did not do much for the target’s eyesight if it happened to spatter into his eyes. A hit on the head and the yell was yipyip ya TEN. A hit on a torso was yipyip ya ONE. No scar, at least none visible. A leg was five, a hand six. Houses were burning, men were burning, inklins shot out of the sky were screaming as their firetanks burst over them and they burned or lay with shattered bodies among the bodies of the men they fought, children fell from roofs or squirmed and screamed in the hands of men who beat on them with limber gray prods.

  While Pels drifted about the cluttered roof, checking the shadows, making sure no guards or homeless grasslanders were sleeping up there, we didn’t want some local waking up at the wrong time and yelling, I crouched by the trap, set the pick working on the lock, then I settled on my heels and looked around. No yizzies buzzing over this quarter; the nearest noise was half a dozen streets away and moving off toward the bayshore, but there was nothing to keep the inklins away. If they took a notion to fire this place, they could be here in seconds. Nothing clears the sinuses like knowing you’re not just a fool, you’re a damnfool.

  Kumari cornered me after the last dip and told me there was chaos in the east. Take two skips, she said, one for backup, and someone to watch them while you’re breaking loose the targets. I know you don’t like to double the risk on long hauls, but you can separate the two skips, go in mirror arcs, it’ll make the run longer, maybe you’d have to find cover and spend the day somewhere, what of it? Irritating to find she was right. I’d have passed on this one, but this dip was worth ten thousand gelders, besides, one of them was Ilvinin Taivas; the Helvetian Seven were hot to get him back, him and Leda Zag. I had her, I needed him. Ah well, it was a mess, but none of my business; I’d seen the backwash from disturbances in other Littoral cities, but they were closer to Base and we were able to stay outside until the fires died down, the injured were carried off, and the fighters on both sides went home. These should have cleared out by this time, it couldn’t be more than an hour or two before daylight, but no, the fools had to keep on killing and getting killed.

  The pick buzzed. I pulled it off. “Pels.”

  “Yeh?” He materialized beside me; I jumped, that little spook was hard to see even when you knew where he was.

  “You mind going down the hole alone? If Luck takes a hike, some maniac on a broom might take a notion to barbeque the skip.”

  “No sweat. Only a couple of guards and Kumari said they’re usually half asleep.”

  “Don’t count on that tonight. Hmm. Take a buzbug and yell if you hit trouble.”

  Pels growled, sniffed. “If it’ll make you squat happier, li’l mama.”

  “Here.” I held out the pick.

  Pels looked at it, shook his head. “Snooper cameras inside, Kumari spotted them. I’ll have to pop the lenses and that’ll start bells ringing somewhere. I’ll use the cutter on the chains, it’s faster. When I give a whistle, you have the skip ready to hop.” He tapped me on the shoulder. “A minute,” he said and trotted away.

  As Pels fished in the toolbox, I lifted the trap and clamped it open; I shook it, made sure the spring would hold and turned in time to take one of the matched pair of buzbugs.

  Pels worked the bug through the fur on his throat, screwed the plug in his ear. “Don’t massacre too many infants,” he said and dropped through the hold.

  I pasted the phone on my throat, pushed the plug into my ear and touched the bug on; I winced as Pels’ breath came roaring into my head, threatening to blow my eardrum. I tapped on the AFT which I should have done before I stuck the thing in my ear, head dead, yes, I wiped the tears from my eyes. With a faint chuff-chuff in my head, I got to my feet and inspected the roof. There was a fat tapering chimney a little taller than I was, several padlocked sheds, half a dozen blocky bins, stacks of drums, huge spools, piles of scrap lumber, bales of fiber; the flat space behind the parapet was a kind of storage area for anything the factory wasn’t planning to use anytime soon, all of it throwing complex shifting shadows in the double moonglow. The fires that spread along the waterfront and the slum areas near it put hard edges on those shadows; the black square hole of the open trap s
tood out stark against the pale roof. Made me nervous. I salvaged a chunk of two-by-four from a scrap pile, laid it across one corner of the hole and lowered the trap on it. The skip was squatting like a dark toad in one of the open areas, far too visible for my peace of mind, but I couldn’t do anything about that except hope if the yizzy inklins came close enough to see it, they’d think it was something belonging to the factory. I dropped onto the roof tiles, sat with my back against the chimney, some broken boxes beside me to thicken its shadow and break my silhouette. The launch tube balanced across my knees, a clip in the slot, I waited.

  I watched the firefight move farther from us and breathed easier; the thought of having to shoot children out of the sky put a sour taste in my mouth, though that wouldn’t stop me from blowing the tailfeathers off any snooping yizzy even if it meant I’d send shrapnel through the body of its pilot. I listened to Pels breathe and thought I’d been in some lousy situations before but I couldn’t remember any this bad. Children fighting a war their elders funked. No, not fighting, destroying to scratch an itch, to drive off futility. Hanifa, I thought, if this goes on much longer, what you’ll get when you win won’t be worth the price. You and Pittipat are birthing a generation of killers and vandals and they won’t settle into model citizens once the battles are over.

  “Snoops,” Pels breathed into my ear, “audio and video. Three of them in the ceiling where I came off the stairs. I popped them, probably set off an alarm. One guard on the stores level, got him; another round the corner just ahead.” A breathy chuckle. “The maffit is farting like a misfiring engine. Fui! Be doing the world a favor when I hit him. A minute.” The breathing didn’t change; slow and steady, little hunter stalking his prey, go Pels! “Got him. And there’s door 5. Tsa! more lenses.” A moment’s silence. “Got them. Five minutes, then we’re on our way up.”

  As I listened to Pels go through the routine speech, picking up echoes of the targets’ responses, I looked out across the burning city and felt a deep relief that I was going to be getting out of this. I got to my feet and took a step toward the trap.

  A darkness huge and ominous dropped through the shredded clouds. Light beams walked across the city, seeking out and touching the yizzy inklins. Dainty delicate killer blades darting out to touch and kill, clearing the sky. The inklins tried to run, they scattered like leaves in a whirlwind, but it did no good, the lines of light rotated out with an awe-full precision, touch and fry, immense and eerie lightshow.

  I swore; it wasn’t fair, dammit. “Pels, trouble up here. Stay where you are. Pittipat’s brought the Warmaster down.”

  “Huh?”

  “I know. Swatting a fly with a maul, but it’s happening. No way I can take the skip up; the Warmaster’s knocking everything out of the air.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeh.”

  “Ah, what about the skip? It’s not airborne, is it safe?”

  “Haven’t a clue. Hmm. If it weren’t for those snoops…”

  “Yeh. We got to get out of here before company arrives.”

  “Let me think… um… the Warmaster is concentrating on the waterfront, most of the trouble is over there. I think you’d better try the streets. Go south and west, make your way out of the city. Watch out for lice.”

  “Better them than frying. What about you?”

  “Sit it out, I suppose, till the ship leaves. She won’t hang around after she’s finished. You go to ground as soon as you’re out of the city. First fair cover you can find. Me, I’d take to the forest somewhere round the river. If you do, don’t go in too deep, I want to use the bug to locate you.”

  “Swar.”

  “What?”

  “Can you get to the skip without exposing yourself too much?”

  “Yeh.”

  “Thing is, the scanners on the Warship can pin a flea… “

  “A throw of the dice, eh? She spots it or she doesn’t.”

  “Yeh. Get the spare com, I don’t feel like walking home.”

  I had to laugh. “Point to you, furface. But I won’t move till you’re clear. Give me a whistle when you’re a few streets off.”

  Silence for a moment, only the chuff-chuff of his breathing. “A couple things I want to do before I leave. Give me a commentary, huh. What’s happening up there.”

  “The ship has finished clearing the sky, her nose is over the harbor now. I can see gouts of steam so I suppose they’re going after boats or swimmers.” A mutter from Pels was a faint background noise to what I was saying; he’d turned the volume down so he could talk to the targets while he listened to what I was saying. “She’s going out farther, that’s one huge mother, Pels, her belly’s still over us here, the tail is out in the hills where the rich folk have their houses. Wait till you get a look at her. Hmm. Whatever she was after, she got it. She’s starting to swing around; it’s going to take her a good half hour to finish that turn. Hunh. She just picked off something else, I can’t see steam this time. It’s pretty far offshore, might even be one of the Sea Farms. If it is, Pittipat’s going to have more trouble on his hands than a few juvenile delinquents. Hmm. She’s stopped the massacre, for a while away. You better get a move on, Pels.”

  “We’re on our way. Better not transmit for a while. I’ll keep the plug in place, wait on your beep. Luck, Swar.”

  “Keep your nose cold, teddybear.”

  “You’ll be sorry for that, you apostate Scav.”

  “I hope. On your way, babe.”

  “Rrrr.”

  The hum in my ear broke off. I dropped into a squat, my back against the chimney. The ship continued to turn, slowly, ponderously, so huge it obscured a quarter of the sky.

  A whistle in my ear. “Gotcha.” I eased to my feet, set the launch tube against a box. Glancing repeatedly at the ship, I edged around the chimney and walked slow as a weary sloth from junk pile to pile of junk, staying in the deepest shadows as long as I could, breaking my motion at irregular intervals, using everything I knew to avoid alerting a watcher, whether that watcher was a program or a man. The wind swept over the roof, carrying past me the stench of burnt meat, faint cries from the wounded, hoarse yells from the hunters in the streets below me. The air was cleared of fliers, but the ground fight was going on, more deadly than before, there were no yipyips, no more coup games, these were rats slashing at rats. I crept a few steps, stopped, went on, until I was crouching beneath the skip below the toolbox. The Warmaster was still turning, dark, silent, massive, no more lightblades though. I eased out, got the box open and dug around for the spare handset. For a cold moment I thought I’d gone off without it this time, the ready-check was so automatic I could have been careless, then my hand closed on the padded case. Pels must have moved it when he got the buzbugs. I lifted it out, slipped the strap over my shoulder, pulled the box shut. I looked up. Still turning, measurably closer.

  I patted the skip, shook my head and started rambling back toward the chimney. When I got there, I picked up the launcher, looked from it to the Warmaster and had to grin.

  A moment later I lost all desire to laugh, the lightblades were out and rotating, wider beams this time, cauterizing the city; where they passed, the crowded tenements and warehouses exploded into ash and steam. One minute, two, three, four. The barrage stopped, the Warmaster continued drifting south.

  For a breath of two there was a hush. Nothing was happening, in the air or in the streets. Then, as if it were a kind of joke, a last giggle after the great guffaw of the slum clearance, a skinny little light needle about as big around as my thumb came stabbing down close enough I could feel the heat leaking off it. It hit the skip, melted her into slag that ate rapidly through the roof and dropped in a congealing cascade through the floors below, starting more fires as it fell.

  The Warmaster began to rise, lifting so fast it sucked air after it, creating a semi-vacuum and then a firestorm as air from outside rushed in. Fire roared up out of the hole in the roof beside me. I had to get out of there. I slung the tube�
�s strap over my shoulder and ran for the rope ladder coiled near the front parapet. I flipped it over and went down in something close to a free fall. I had a moment’s regret for the slaves still chained in there, but there wasn’t anything I could do, the place was a furnace by the time I hit ground. Besides, with all the death in this city tonight, it was hard to feel horror or anything else over a few more corpses, however grisly their end.

  Stunner in my hand, I ran through the dark streets. No one tried to stop me. The few Hordar who saw me, looking from windows or crouching in doorways, were shocked into inertia, too afraid, too horrified to do anything but gape. In a section with taverns and small shops I rounded a corner and came face to face with a Tassalgan who was hunting inklins or anyone else he suspected of treachery, which seemed to be just about everyone not Tassalgan. I stunned him as soon as I saw his dark wool uniform, blessing the amnesia effect of the charge; I was clearly not Huvved or Hordar and I didn’t look all that much like an escaped slave. I glanced back before I went round another corner and saw ragged children swarming over the downed guard. A wiry boy drew a knife across the Tassalgan’s throat and howled as blood spurted over him; he and the other children fought over the blood, wiped their hands in it, licked it off their palms, off his neck. Off the pavement. Hanifa, Hanifa, how are you going to civilize little animals like that? The boy looked up and saw me. I took off. I avoid weasels and all such vermin; they can kill you because they don’t know when to give up.

  It took me almost an hour to work my way out of the city; it was a big place, bigger than it looked from the skip, and I had to move more warily once I got into the suburbs; there were guards on the walls and they were trigger happy. I picked up some shot in a shoulder, a hole in my leg that missed bone and most of the muscle but hurt like hell and a new part over my left ear, bullet whizzing by entirely too close. By the time I made the park south of town, I was losing blood from my shoulder and my leg and feeling not so good.