Hidden in Sight (39 page)

Ersh.
I glared at my web-kin even as I wondered if there'd ever been a more ridiculous argument—or place for one.

Not in any memory I'd assimilated, that was certain.
Bad enough the three of us were roped together, but Paul was floating on his back looking like a rotting corpse about to explode, while Skalet and I hung in the water, our arms draped across his chest for support.

“We cycle, swim to cover—there have to be some rocks or barges in the harbor we can use for shelter. We rejoin Paul on the shore.” Something nibbled my toes and I drew up my feet, doing my utmost to avoid looking into the water. “There's definitely mass to spare in here,” I added somewhat breathlessly.

The warm, sun-bright waves of Prumbinat's ocean were carrying us inexorably toward her shore. From the look on Skalet's face, it was more likely those waves would switch direction than that she'd change her mind.
Not just her face
, I thought, wincing inwardly at the pain she must have endured to gain that set of three scars, parallel and deep, running from shoulder to breast on her right side. Ceremonial marks, made with a dueling claw. She must have stayed Human while they were inflicted, Human while they healed—carefully anointed to produce the maximum amount of scar tissue—and, as adamantly, continued to refuse to be anything but Human now.

Nor, she insisted, should I.

It didn't seem to be penetrating her bald skull that her preference meant two of us without means to stay afloat while fighting the line of breakers between us and shore, with only Paul immune from the peril of swallowing seawater until forced to cycle into something that could breathe it.

“I have an idea,” Paul informed us. Skalet looked startled, as though she'd forgotten our tiny green raft had a living core. Understandable, since the goggles had darkened to protect his eyes, leaving no external clues. I was surprised only that he'd waited so long to intervene, being somewhat used to my Human taking charge when our plans—altered—unexpectedly.

Paul's idea involved more technology than biology.
Given what had got us into the water in the first place, that was probably just as well.
He had me use the small knife from my belt—something that occasioned squirming over him and sinking all three of us for a moment—to reset the servo propulsion system originally intended to retrieve his suit, and presumably its occupant, from the Abyss. With the right timing, a lack of Busfish in our path, and some luck—my personal contribution to the plan, though I didn't tell Skalet—he felt the system should provide enough thrust to push the three of us through the worst of the surf and into calmer water.

I trusted Paul, who'd sounded confident. Mind you, he sounded confident whenever trying to convince me of anything I doubted, including his recent proposal to visit the Ycl.

Skalet had no reason to trust Paul or accept his plan. I expected her to argue—or at least express various dour opinions on our chances—while we waited to drift closer. Instead, she submerged herself so that only the arm holding onto Paul's suit, and her face, showed above the surface. I presumed this was to protect her skin from the sun. I'd experienced a severe reddening of the tip of my nose in this form once before and understood such caution.

“Make sure you're both secured,” Paul said after a few moments of stoic breathing, birdcalls, and the slapping of water against suit and skin. “It won't be long. Our speed's picked up.”

Judicious kicking kept us centered in the main channel leading to Gathergo, following the churning wake left by the Busfish. As we passed between the first set of tall yellow warn-offs—a somewhat pointless precaution since the surf made it impossible to see the warnings unless aimed straight at them—I could spot the Busfish's fin drooping beside the wharf, framed by rows of tethered Carcows. The beasts were waiting to pull long, segmented carts jammed with those passengers opting for quaint and unforgettable over convenient and odor-free. I hoped, as I spat salt water, that my companions were planning on the latter. I was all in favor of trying a mode of transport that wouldn't want to eat me.
Once we were on land
. Something my Human-self anticipated greatly.

It felt as though dry land was farther away than ever, despite the way the second set of warn-offs sped past our little flotilla of Humanity faster than the first. The channel was narrowing as it approached landfall, waves from the open ocean now funneling between massive break walls. Those walls of tumbled rock and coral, painted a predictable yellow, were part of the Prumbins' ongoing efforts to keep their Drossy herds from making landfall where they shouldn't, and from grazing on what the Prumbins would prefer to eat themselves. Not to mention walk on what they shouldn't and leave what they shouldn't behind.

There was
, I thought,
a lot to be said for Rigellian sheep.
Beginning with their being too small to accidentally sit on their shepherd.

Not that this was the optimum moment to ponder agriculture. The three of us were tied together with the filament originally intended to keep me tethered to Paul. The lack of slack wasn't a problem, since we wanted to be as hydrodynamic as possible once the propulsion unit was engaged. What was a problem was the way Skalet and I had to gasp for breath between drenchings. Supposedly Paul was doing his best to be a stable life raft, but at times I thought he was deliberately testing the lungs of this form by tumbling down the leeside of each wave.

All too soon, we approached the narrowest point, where the pent-up waves heaved into a tortured landscape of white-capped mountains, with the added bonus of a significant undertow grabbing any foot dangling too low. This maelstrom approach suited the Busfish and Drossy, giving the huge creatures a necessary boost over the submerged sandbar that had originally protected this part of the coast. The Prumbins had considered dredging a channel, but leaving the sandbar as an obstacle had proved the only way to slow down approaching Busfish. Always a concern.

So this was it
. I took a deep breath, holding it and Paul as Skalet set off the propulsion system. I lost the breath immediately as my view of the waves ahead became much too intimate, an alarming blur of froth and blue-green as we plunged straight through. The tie around my waist dragged me along, but the water's force tore at my grip on Paul. My left hand came loose.

A hand clamped over my right wrist, holding it firmly against Paul's suit as we kept moving forward.

Ersh knows how I avoided cycling
. The urge didn't come from our apparently suicidal passage through the channel, although it should have. No, what risked my self-control was the feel of Skalet's hand performing such a—Human—act.

We were in daylight again, so quickly I felt disoriented. The waves were tamed back into long, gentle swells, their power diluted as they spread the width of the harbor. Our momentum kept us moving on the crest of one, right on target.

“We're clear. We made it.” I saw no reason for Paul to sound as though he was gasping for air, since I was the one with seawater burning her sinus cavities.

Skalet, who'd been looking ahead, said, “Wait.” Something hit my leg. Her foot. She was kicking to slow us down.

Obviously, there was something not quite right with my web-kin.
I hauled myself on top of Paul's suit to see what she was doing. “Getting to shore was the idea—”

“Not there. Not anymore.” Her breathing was ragged as she put more and more effort into altering our course.

“What's happening?” this from Paul, who was stuck on his back and facing the way we'd come.

“Give me the knife.”

“Not until you—”

“Then you cut him free of the suit, fool, so he can swim! Hurry!” Skalet began to swim in earnest, awkwardly, pulling the rest of us using the line around her waist.

There were many things that made me stop and think about my actions. That snap of command in Skalet's familiar voice wasn't one of them. I began slicing the fabric of Paul's suit with frantic haste.
What had she seen in that glimpse landward?

My Human helped, ripping loose the fasteners and tossing aside the goggles. I cut free the line binding us together before Skalet could tow him underwater. With a final struggle, Paul pulled himself out of the suit, which sank as he released it. He ducked his head below the surface, washing what appeared to be lines of dried sweat from his face and hair. Then we both relaxed, treading water, preoccupied by the sight of Skalet's thin white arms appearing and disappearing as she swam steadily away, parallel to the beach.

We turned to look at each other, I for one delighted to see a face instead of goggled and distorted eyes. A tired face, that nonetheless smiled at me. “Are you all right?”

“Ask me again on dry land.” As if that had been a signal, Paul and I looked toward shore.

There should have been something ludicrous, almost harmless, about a group dressed in black uniforms moving among colorful tourists on a tropical beach.
There wasn't.

“If those are Kraal,” I protested, “why is Skalet avoiding them?”

“Does it matter?” Paul asked grimly. “You can't swim much longer.”

I spat out a mouthful of water. “I'll cycle and tow you,” I offered, already preparing to leave this form, with its tired legs and tendency to sink.

“No.”

“You, too?” I sputtered in disgust. “There's mass everywhere—”

“Esen, she has a reason for staying Human—for wanting you to do the same. Let's not second-guess her or the Kraal.” Paul, as at home in water as any primate could be, took off his footwear and tucked them in the belt of his pants. Then he rolled over on his stomach, looking as comfortable as if he'd been on a mattress. “Hold onto my shoulders. Careful not to—” I eased up and Paul resurfaced. “—push down,” he continued.

“Thaddaway,” I offered helpfully, as my Human steed's arms began to dig into the Prumbinat Ocean with a reassuringly steady rhythm.

Although there was nothing reassuring about following Skalet as she fled her adopted culture.

Otherwhere

 

 

THERE was a Port City on Picco's Moon, consisting of a necklace of prefabricated aircar and tug hangers loosely arranged around a trio of buildings on stilts. The stilts served the dual purpose of allowing passing Tumblers to ignore the existence of the buildings—which had somehow been built over one of their most commonly used roadways—and made it feasible to host meetings between Tumblers and nonmineral beings on the ground floor, had such meetings ever been held.

The two larger buildings belonged to Crawdad's Sanitation Ltd.: one was the windowless and heavily guarded warehouse where the officially sanctioned collection of ritual leavings, from the ground floor and other, more secret locations, were sorted for buyers offworld. The other possessed windows that were usually curtained against Picco's lurid orange and contained luxurious living accommodations for those doing the guarding, collecting, and sorting. The top three floors were devoted to sanitation inspectors and their vehicles, since locating new deposits of ritual leavings was a chancy thing that depended on patterns of Tumbler movement.

The shipcity itself was an open and reasonably busy one, the Tumblers unable to comprehend why a sanitation company would want a monopoly on shipping. So Crawdad's was forced to welcome independent brokers interested in bidding on smaller or damaged stones. In the spirit of making the best of things, the sanitation company did open a bar for spacers, justly infamous for the dilution and cost of its drinks.

The third building held the maintenance personnel and equipment required to keep starships—and spacers—moving. Unlike other remote and bleak postings, there was a long list of applicants for even the most menial tasks here, individuals drawn by rumors of easy wealth. One of the most popular was that you could sell the soles of your boots—and accumulated gem dust—for a small fortune. As Crawdad's owned the boots and all rights to any dust, debris, or dirt—however faceted and valuable—newcomers learned to be grateful for the percentage of sales Crawdad's granted each worker. Or became poachers.

There was law, of a sort, on Picco's Moon, if you counted a Port Authority that divided its time and resources between resolving docking disputes, rescuing and prosecuting crashed gem poachers, or acting as local guides so entrepreneurs and traders didn't wander into one of the local and quite toxic Tumbler garden spots. No one was fond of cleaning up the result, especially Tumblers.

Chief Constable Alphonsus Lundrigan could have been in charge of Picco's Moon's Port Authority since the just past Eclipse or since alien ships first landed. Few Tumblers were able to identify separate species let alone individual members. If asked, however, Tumbler Elders would have chimed themselves pleased, overall, with the efforts of the flesh-burdened to keep their own out of the way. Before recent events, that is.

Tumblers, it turned out, were not so different from nonmineral beings. At the first sign of serious trouble, they were quite capable of finding out who was in charge and who should be responsible.

The only problem
, Alphonsus grumbled to himself,
was he was neither.

The shipcity had grown since he'd last stood at this viewport. As it had last night, and the preceding true day. And the ones before those. The docking tug operators were becoming adept at packing them in. It was easier since no one seemed in any rush to leave. There were ships on every scrap of properly level pavement, including what had been tug lanes. Now, from where he stood, the entire winding expanse of the Literiai Plateau was a maze of starships. If he squinted through the port from the side, it could almost be a forest.