Skeen's Search

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Skeen's Search

Jo Clayton

SKEEN—THE EARLY DAYS

Abandoned on Kildun Aalda in the city Chukunsa (she doesn't know why but suspects her companion Tibo ran off with her ship), running low on credit, Skeen sneaks out of the city looking for a hidden ruin she can plunder and thus buy her way off Aalda so she can go after Tibo and roast him over a slow fire. The Honjiukum who control access to such ruins set a saayungka pack after her and chase her into a dry-bones valley. She is captured by a force that draws her into a doorway that turns out to be a Gate into another Universe.

While exploring the new world she lands on (Mistommerk), Skeen is drawn into a conflict between two shape-shifting Min (natives of Mistommerk), twin sisters called Telka and Timka, then discovers that the Gate has closed on her and she can't get back to Kildun Aalda with the loot she has gathered. Timka suggests she seek out the Ykx who were the original makers of the Gate and presumably knew how to work it.

Pursued by Telka and later by vengeful Chalarosh assassins, collecting an assortment of companions (a Balayar Scholar, four Aggitj exiles, a Skirrik youth intent on winning his wedding jet, a Chalarosh boy who's the last of his clan, the others have been wiped out in a feud), Skeen and Timka search for the last Gather of Ykx on Mistommerk. During the journey Skeen discovers a connection between the Ykx of Mistommerk and Rallen, a world populated by Ykx in her own universe. The Ykx are dying out on Mistommerk. They need new blood to keep existing here. Skeen uses this knowledge to buy their help opening the Stranger's Gate.

SKEEN—THE SAGA CONTINUES

Down to a handful of silver, Skeen and company (a new member in it, an Ykx called Lipitero), leave Lake Sydo and go downriver to a city called Cida Fennakin. While they wait there for a ship's Captain (and owner), Maggí Solitaire, they earn their living in various ways while Skeen hunts for someone local and unloved to burgle for traveling funds. The owner of the Inn (the Funor Ashon outcast Angelsin Yagan) where they were staying got ambitious and tries to sell them to a number of groups (Telka and her fanatics, Chalarosh assassins, Fennakin Funor slavers) interested in them, drugs them, throws them into dungeon cells while she negotiates for the price she wants. They escape, hold Angelsin prisoner until Maggí Solitaire arrives. Everyone but Skeen, Timka and one of the Aggitj exiles, Domi, sails with Maggí; they stay behind to get the coin to pay passage for the company.

In the house of Nochsyon Tod the slaver, Skeen is attacked by guard dogs, one hand badly torn; she manages to put darts in them and gets away with the loot. After some more difficulties she and Timka reach the small boat Domi has acquired with them and take off downriver after Maggí. The bitewound throws Skeen into a deep fever; even after they reach Maggí's ship she does not respond to care and what medicines Maggí has. Skeen sinks deeper and deeper and comes close to dying. Pegwai the Balayar Scholar and Timka get together and agree they have to cut the hand off. They use Skeen's laser cutter, sear the wound; that works well enough to bring Skeen back to consciousness and she uses her own antibiotics to suppress the infections, recovers quickly and begins the process of learning to live one-handed.

They run across Chalarosh seeking to kill the Boy, Sea Min after their hides, especially that of Timka, angry Nagamar in coastal swamps, members of the Company peeling off to tend their own affairs until only Skeen, Timka and Lipitero are left. They continue moving toward the Gate, finally coming against Telka and her small army of followers who are waiting in ambush for them as they reach the Mountains and near the Stranger's Gate. Lipitero the Ykx looses the Ever-Hunger on the Min army, opens the Gate. They elude the Min, the Ever-Hunger and jump the Gate. Telka is waiting there, attacks Timka (both are in the shapes of big cats, nearly identical big cats), Skeen darts both of them. When she looks closer, she knows Timka; with Lipitero's help she tosses the other cat back through the Gate and Lipitero closes it down. Tibo is waiting there; he took Skeen's ship off to protect it from Abel Cidder who was nosing around, came back to Kildun Aalda to pick up Skeen and has been hunting for her since. The four of them (Skeen, Tibo, Timka and Lipitero) slip back into Chukunsa and off the world, on their way to find Rallen and persuade Rallen Ykx to follow Lipitero back through the Gate.

SO. WHERE ARE WE NOW? BETWEEN THIS BOOK AND THE LAST, SKEEN HAS SPENT A MONTH AT A TANK FARM REGROWING HER HAND AND HAVING THE LAST OF HER CREDIT REMOVED WITH SURGICAL PRECISION. TIBO HAS BEEN BORROWING AGAINST FUTURE PROFITS AND OLD FAVORS, SCOOTING ABOUT HERE AND THERE CHECKING WITH HIS SOURCES FOR INFORMATION ABOUT RALLEN AND ABEL CIDDER. TIMKA HAS NESTED INTO ONE OF PICAREFY'S SLEEP TEACHING PODS AND HAS BEEN PLOWING THROUGH INFORMATION SUMMARIES ABOUT THIS UNIVERSE SHE'S LANDED IN HALF-UNWILLING, TRYING TO CONVINCE HERSELF SHE CAN LEARN TO LIKE IT. LIPITERO AND PICAREFY HAVE BEEN ENGAGED IN INTENSE DIALOG, THE YKX HAS JUST ABOUT MOVED INTO THE SHIP'S WORKSHOP AND HAS BEEN CREATING ITEMS FOR PICAREFY'S PLEASURE AND HER OWN, SOMETHING TO PASS THE TIME WHILE THEY WAIT FOR SKEEN. IF YOU NEED REMINDING ABOUT EVENTS IN PREVIOUS BOOKS, WELL, TURN BACK A FEW PAGES AND READ THE UPDATE, THE REST OF YOU FEEL FREE TO DIVE RIGHT IN.

PART I: THE SEARCH

SCENE: THE BUZZARD'S ROOST, SUNDARI PIT.

A long oval room filled with tables, glass cases, crates, bales, alcoves with viewscreens and reasonably comfortable chairs (several not made for bipeds' behinds); shelves cover most wallspace, gaps where things have been taken away, otherwise a chaotic collection of small items. The room is cluttered, dusty to a reasonable degree, but gives an overall impression of richness, variety, the excitement of maybe-treasures. It is a very good room to be in
.

SKEEN ENTERS.

She is followed by a small stubby 'bot carrying the things she is here to sell or put out on consignment
.

Skeen picked her way through the clutter on the floor to the small cleared space tucked into one end of the oval, shielded from view by some ceiling high shelves, the 'bot whirring frustration behind her as it rose on extensible braces and drew its wheels into a tighter configuration, balancing precariously as it turned and twisted along the narrow paths between boxes, bales, and piles of miscellaneous debris. She rounded a set of rickety shelves, stopped and stood, hands clasped behind her, watching the solid old man probing at a crusted object with an antique steel tooth scraper. He was a big man with broad, blunt-fingered hands that should have been clumsy but weren't. “Ta, Buzzard,” she said.

He looked up, made a sucking sound, tongue against teeth. “So so,” he said, a wheeze in his voice. An instant decrepitude slicked over him as he got ready for hard bargaining. “Back already?”

“Dropping by. Got a few things you might find interesting.”

He set the conglomerate aside, tucked the scraper into his shirt pocket. “So so, what you got?”

Skeen snapped her fingers. The 'bot whirred past her, stopped beside the desk, opened and extended his topknot pack into a long thin display shelf, with the contents tucked into transparent boxes, visible but temporarily untouchable. “Nothing very old, but interesting, that you'll give me once you see this collection.” She clicked open a box, took out a heavy gold chain, solid links alternating with open circles set with odd dull gems; spreading it on the desk before him, she said, “Take a close look at the chasing. Hasn't been any work like that since the Nagamar worlds were ashed. You know I prefer to provide onsite fots and anecdotal background, but that's not possible this time; you can name me as source for whatever that's worth, but my name's the only documentation you'll get … um … I can say this, I've found a tiny remnant of Nagamar still alive.” She grinned at him. “And a couple other remnants. Pallah and Skirrik.” After running a soft cloth over them, she set the Poet's swords down beside the chain. “These items are for sale outright.” 'She began setting out the bijouterie and bric-a-brac she'd picked up with the swords and slid smoothly into the cross talk of bargaining.

Skeen settled into the chair the Buzzard summoned for her and sighed. “You're a hard man, Buzzard.”

He looked up from the film he was wrapping about a sword, grunted and went back to twisting the film tight. “Hot air and foolishness,” he said. “You screwed your price out of me, no pity for a poor old man trying to make a meager living.” Eyes the color of dried blood laughed at her. “What else you got?”

Skeen brought out the lumpy objects from Coraish Gather, set them on the desk.

“So so. Rallen work. Now where did you get that, shtoshi-mi?” He took up the lump, let it warm in his hands. The dun blob changed; opaline colors glowed and flowed along the mutating forms, primarily green and gold with flickers and sudden flares of purple and crimson, no configuration of shape and color ever exactly repeated the whole time he held the blob. He clicked tongue against teeth. “Consignment, percentage for me?” When she nodded, he relaxed. “A wonder,” he said, “much better than its mates you saw here a while back.”

“Not Rallen work.”

His eyes narrowed to slits. “Another remnant? Rumor says you went to Kildun Aalda, looking for a way to take on the Junks.” He set the change work down; it began to fade and after a few minutes was once more imitating a squashed dun turd. “You have a source?”

“Buzzard, now I ask you, am I going to tell you or anyone?”

“Hmm. Are you?”

“Hard. Hard. Adamantine man. Look at this first.” She began spreading the Min jewelry across the desk, putting the sweetamber pieces together in one corner. “You've never seen any work exactly like these or heard of it.” She lifted one of the larger pieces of sweetamber. “Warm this in your hand, no, it's not going to shift shape, hold it awhile then take a sniff.” She watched his face, laughed when his eyes snapped open and his breathing turned ragged. “Doesn't matter the species, as long as they have a minimum body warmth and live in an oxygen atmosphere, you get an effect. I've been told it's different for different species.” She shrugged. “I wouldn't know about that. Where I got it everyone seemed to prize the stuff.”