A hand caught her under the elbow, supporting and steadying her. “Let me,” said a strange voice—ordinary, except for a faint trace of some accent she didn’t recognize. “No point in confirming Gentlesir Ulle’s worst suspicions, is there?”
It was the man in the beige coverall. As soon as she was solidly on her feet again, his hand fell away from her arm and he reached up to take the bottle of aqua vitae.
“Here,” he said, putting it into her shopping basket.
“It’s not going to help you any, though.”
The comment washed away any impulse toward gratitude she might have had. “I don’t need a sermon, thank you very much.”
He smiled briefly, but his eyes—hazel under dark lashes—remained serious. “Good. I’m not in the sermon business.”
“You couldn’t prove it by me.”
“Look,” he said. “Drinking purple rotgut until your skull pops isn’t going to keep you from seeing things and hearing voices. I know.”
How does he know … ? The shock of hearing her madness spoken out loud by a stranger made her sway and grab the shelf again. “Who the hell are you, anyway?”
“A neighbor of yours,” he said. “And somebody who can show you how to take care of your problem.”
She laughed roughly. “Right,” she said. “Tell me another one. That line’s so old it has moss on it.”
She turned her back on him and strode to the front counter, angry now at having the unexpected kindness spoiled by one more ploy like the ones she heard every night at Freling’s Bar. The anger buoyed her up, pushing her out of reach of Ulle’s nasty little thoughts and keeping her going all the way down the street and up the stairs to her third floor walk-up apartment.
Klea had already locked and bolted the apartment door behind her before she realized the most truly odd thing about the stranger: for the first time in days she’d gotten no assault of unwanted feelings and images, in spite of the fact that he’d stood closer to her than anybody ever got who hadn’t paid in advance for the privilege.
But he could hear my thoughts, oh yes he could, even when I wasn’t talking to myself like a crazy lady. Maybe he wasn’t just trying to get a freebie from the local hooker … maybe he does know how to stop what’s going on with my head … maybe … maybe … damn.
“Kid,” she said, “I think you’ve screwed it up again. One more for the list.”
There wasn’t anything she could do about it now. Moving slowly and carefully, she put the water-grain on the shelf by the stove, the bundle of greens in the cool-box, the marsh-eels in the freezer, and the bottle of aqua vitae on the table beside her bed. Then she stripped off her working clothes, stuffed them into the bag with the rest of her dirty laundry, and pulled on a plain white nightgown.
She took a clean glass out of the cabinet and carried it over to her bed, where she filled it as full of purple liquor as her unsteady hands would allow.
“And here’s to you, Klea Santreny … if the first one doesn’t do it, we’ll keep on trying until we get it right.”
In spite of Tarnekep’s worries, Jessan was able to convert the bank draft into Raametan cash without any trouble. A sign at the gate of the landing field advertised a nearby establishment specializing in currency exchange; the street directions, in ungrammatical Galcenian plus three alphabets Jessan didn’t recognize, suggested that it handled a wide range of customers.
The establishment itself, when Jessan located it, turned out to be a kiosk on a street corner. The shabby, wrinkled man on the other side of the counter appeared to be running the operation without the aid of any comps or comm links. The only specialized equipment that Jessan could see was a metal cash box. Without much optimism, the Khesatan unfolded his bank draft and spread it out for the money changer to look at.
“Can you change this?”
The shabby man squinted at the seal on the bank draft, then held it up to the sunlight to check the watermark. “Ophelan,” he said. He spoke Galcenian with an accent even worse than the interpreter’s. “Is real thing.”
“I know it’s real. Can you change it?”
The man nodded. “Cost you twenty percent.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Is best rate in town. No find better.”
“I’ve got half a mind to try,” said Jessan. “But I haven’t got the time. Twenty percent it is.”
The shabby man opened the cash box and tucked the bank draft under a clip with a sheaf of similar papers. He peeled off several dozen greyish blue chits marked on both sides with what Jessan supposed were Raametan characters and slipped them into an envelope.
“Here,” he said, holding out the envelope to Jessan. “Don’t spend all in same place.”
“I’ll try my best to spread the money around properly,” Jessan assured him. Tucking the envelope of Raametan money inside his shirt, he made his way back to the open-air diner.
Tarnekep was still there, an untouched glass of beer at his right hand and an empty skewer on a plate in front of him.
“It’s not lizard,” he said as Jessan sat down. “Lizard tastes better. Have you got the cash?”
“Right here with me,” Jessan said. “Now, if we can just figure out which are the large bills and which are the small ones …”
“Most of the worlds this close to the Net use Ninglin notation,” Tarnekep said. “The Prof had a bunch of comp files on the Mageworlds back at the base, and I transferred them to ship’s memory before we started this run. I haven’t had time to look at any of the language stuff, but I think I can count from one to twelve well enough to handle the local money.”
“Fine,” said Jessan. He took out the envelope and gave it to Tarnekep. “You figure out the bill.”
“No problem,” Tarnekep said. He riffled through the contents of the envelope and pulled out a chit, and then two more chits with a different set of symbols on them. He kept on talking as he did so. “This should do it … by the way, we’ve got a passenger for the first leg of the run to Ninglin. Fellow wants to ride along and get off at Cracanth.”
“Is that legal?”
Tarnekep raised an eyebrow. “Do we care?”
“I don’t want to give our conscientious friends back at the Net an excuse to lock us up and forget the code.”
“Don’t worry. What our friends don’t know won’t hurt them—and besides, nobody cares if we haul passengers between planets, just as long as we don’t try to sneak them back across the Net. It’s part of the local trade, and the pay is good.”
“I’m sure it is,” Jessan said. “But is it safe?”
“Maybe.” Tarnekep smiled. Jessan recognized the sharp, challenging expression that meant the captain had already weighed the risks and decided to ignore them. “And maybe not. But I didn’t come here because I wanted to play things safe.”
V.
WARHAMMER: HYPERSPACE TRANSIT TO CRACANTH NAMMERIN: NAMPORT
THE PASSENGER showed up at first light the next morning. He was tall for a Raametan, and neatly dressed in clothes no more than three or four years out of fashion on the other side of the Net. He’d brought along a leather carrybag and a battered metal footlocker, but no other luggage.
Jessan met him at the foot of Warhammer’s ramp. “I take it you’re the gentlesir who’s riding with us to Cracanth?”
“That’s right,” the man said. “Vorgent Elimax. Who’re you?”
The passenger’s Galcenian wasn’t up to educated standards—far less the equal of the captain’s elegant native-born speech—but Jessan felt certain Elimax had learned it somewhere within the boundaries of the Republic. The thought did not rouse in him any disposition to be trusting.
“People call me Doc,” he said. “Come along and I’ll show you to your cabin.”
Jessan waited until Elimax had picked up the carrybag and the footlocker, then turned and started up the ramp without waiting to see if the man followed. He led the way to the ’Hammer’s passenger quarters—actually one of the un
used compartments in crew berthing—and opened the door with a touch on the lockplate.
“Here you are,” he said. “The bunk doubles as an acceleration couch. Stow your gear in the compartment over there, then strap yourself in and stay strapped until we make the jump to hyperspace. After that you can unstrap and make yourself at home.”
Elimax looked at the bare grey walls of the compartment. “How long will it take to get the Cracanth?”
“Long enough for you to get tired of the trip,” Jessan told him. “You have a taper in the bulkhead over there, and a holoset with a bunch of canned entertainment vids. The head’s behind that door. Don’t use it unless the gravity’s on.”
“What about meals?”
“I’ll bring you a tray from the galley when it’s time.”
Elimax frowned. “Don’t I get to look around the ship?”
“No,” Jessan said. “This is a working freighter, and we’re not set up to carry passengers. If we let you run around loose, you might do something stupid like falling into the hyperspace engines by mistake. Then you’d be dead, and the captain would be angry because he’d have to suit up and scrub out the mess.”
Klea woke, sweating, in a lightless room.
This is all wrong. It shouldn’t be so dark.
She sat up in bed. The aqua vitae weighed her down, swaddling her like a heavy blanket. She still couldn’t see anything.
My eyes are open. I think.
She brought a hand up to her face, moving slowly under the pull of the aqua vitae, and touched her eyelids.
Open. I’m blind.
A kind of sluggish panic rose up in her at the thought. She reached out for the aqua vitae on her bedside table.
The bottle wasn’t there. Neither was the table, nor—her groping fingers told her—the bed itself. She didn’t know what she was sitting on, except that it was hard and level; or where she was, except that it was dark.
Maybe I’ve already gone crazy. Maybe this is what crazy looks like once you get there.
Off in the distance, or at least in what felt like the distance, a light flicked on and began to burn with a steady glow. Relief flooded through her, and she sat for a while just watching. Gradually she became aware of sound in the darkness, a murmur of voices somewhere out there with the light.
She stood up and walked toward the sound. The light grew closer and became a cool whiteness, suffusing an area where dark, hooded figures gathered in a circle. The voices came from them, hushed words passing back and forth in a language she didn’t understand.
At first she thought that the dark ones had no features—only a black opening under their hoods. Then she saw that what she had believed empty was in fact a mask, a featureless visage molded from hard black plastic. In the circle of watchers, no one would ever need to recognize a neighbor’s face.
Watchers … why do I think they’re watching something when they can’t even see me?
As if in response to her thought, the black-robed circle seemed to expand and take her in so that she stood with them, seeing what they saw themselves: in the open space at the center of the circle two of the masked ones fought one another, gripping short black staves in their gloved hands. The air shone around them like an aurora, in flares and surges of many-colored light that somehow combined to make the clear white glow she had seen from far away.
Klea knew, somehow, that the two who fought had been doing so for a long time. No anger came from them, only mingled feelings of exhaustion and pain. Yet she knew that this fight would continue until one of them was dead.
Where am I? she thought. What is this?
As soon as her mind framed the words, she realized that the question was a mistake. The ones in the circle hadn’t noticed her before; all their attention had been given to the two who struggled so wearily. But they had marked her now; the low murmur of voices rose to a strident, angry babble, and the masked and hooded figures began closing in around her.
“No!” she cried out in the darkness. “No—stop! I have to get out!”
The hooded figures pressed closer. Then, abruptly, they were gone, all but one who stood with her in silence, washed by a lingering pale remnant of the circle of light.
She knew him, she knew she knew him. She reached out a hand and pulled the mask from his face.
Hazel eyes looked back at her. It was the young man from the grocery store on the corner. Her fingers loosened on the mask, and it fell from her hand without a sound.
She wet her lips. “Where are you … ?”
He shook his head violently. “There’s no time. Run. Save yourself. I’ll try to keep them from getting you.”
Without warning the colored lights were back again, and the man from the grocery was gone. Only the faceless ones remained, watching her from eyes hidden beneath dark masks. In silence they moved closer, tightening the circle around her.
I told you once already: go!
The voiceless shout came out of nowhere, but it had the snap of command to it. She turned and ran.
The masked ones followed. She lengthened her stride, but it was like running in a nightmare—she couldn’t get away, and the blackrobes were gaining on her.
The nearest one grabbed her arm, and she awoke.
In the dark interior of the captain’s cabin Beka lay half-asleep, listening to the ship around her. Warhammer had jumped into hyper shortly after leaving Gefalon Spaceport at local dawn, and the deep roaring of the realspace engines had been replaced by the steady, almost-inaudible hum of the hyperdrive. The ventilation system sighed gently, and the myriad electronic devices that kept the ’Hammer functioning underlaid everything with their own subliminal background music.
Even more than the soft, regular breathing of Nyls Jessan, lying deep asleep beside her, the sound of Warhammer in undisturbed hyperspace transit gave Beka a feeling of security. Dirtside troubles couldn’t touch you in hyperspace; even other starships had to catch you before you jumped or wait until you came out again. “In hyper, the only problems you’ve got are the ones you bring along with you”—her father had told her that years ago, when she was still a gawky adolescent barely big enough to reach all the controls on the ’Hammer’s main panel.
I didn’t know what he meant back then. But I do now.
It was one of those problems that kept her from relaxing completely, even in sleep. The passenger from Raamet had looked like a good deal when he showed up in the off-port diner: a lot less mass than a regular cargo, in return for a lot more cash. He probably was a good deal, too. Even Mageworlders—if Elimax really was a Mageworlder, which Jessan claimed to doubt——could have legitimate reasons for traveling between planets.
Just the same, she thought as she drifted off, there’s a stranger on my ship. And this isn’t the time to be careless.
The beeping of an alarm brought her back awake in an instant. She sat up and saw a telltale flashing orange on the far bulkhead.
“Damn,” she muttered. She flung the sheet aside and strode across the cabin to press the security plate next to the telltale. A section of the bulkhead slid aside to reveal an array of monitor readouts, a duplicate of the “ship’s status” display in the ‘Hammer’s cockpit.
Most of the readouts showed a steady, normal green. One section, however, was bright orange—“Damn,” she said again.
“What’s up?” said Jessan from the bunk behind her.
“Better get dressed,” she told him. “There’s non-atmospheric gas in the air over in crew berthing. And somebody down there is fiddling with the lock on the door.”
“The passenger,” Jessan said. “Shall we go tell him this isn’t going to work?”
“Why disillusion him? Did you bring the Prof’s pocket holoprojector along on this trip?”
“It’s right here in the toys-and-entertainment drawer.”
“Get it out. When our passenger shows up, we’ll be ready.”
Klea lay shaking in bed for a moment, amid a tangle of sweaty sheets. Her left arm w
as twisted and caught in a fold of the cloth. Outside the window of her apartment, the late-afternoon sky was darkening on toward night. Soon it would be time for her to go to work.
The man in the store had been right, she concluded wearily. The aqua vitae hadn’t helped, and she might as well not have slept at all. She got up, turned on the heat under a saucepan of water on the stove, and went to take her shower.
In the tiny bath cubicle, she soaped and lathered herself well, making her body clean before the evening’s work. The hot water washed the dried sweat of her nightmare away along with the soapsuds. When she was done, she turned off the water and stretched out an arm for her towel.
The movement brought a twinge of pain; her left arm was sore where she’d dreamed that one of the black-robes had grabbed her. I must have twisted it in the sheet, she thought.
She looked at her forearm, small-boned and narrow-wristed, with the pale scars of long-ago cuts across the flesh where the bangle bracelets usually lay. Yes, she had a bruise coming, all right. The purple blotches were already showing up on her skin like so many fingerprints, and she was going to have to wear a long-sleeved blouse tonight. No sense in giving Freling’s customers the idea she liked getting beaten up—enough of them thought of that all on their own.
When she came out of the shower, the water in the saucepan was hot. She made a cup of ghil, then dumped a handful of water-grain into the steaming cup to soak while she finished dressing. Ghil-and-porridge was farmer food, but it was nourishing and cheap, and she’d grown up on it.
After she was dressed, she ate breakfast, then washed out the cup and saucepan in the sink. She was putting the dishes in the rack to drain when she staggered suddenly under the weight of a dreadful apprehension—a formless, heavy darkness that came pouring down on her like water out of a bucket.
… help … lost … pain …
Starpilot's Grave: Book Two of Mageworlds Page 7
