Skeen's Search (19 page)

“My lice are smarter than hers, they've herded hers away from us, trust Borrentye for that.” Zuistro sighed again. “I'll miss him, but he says his apprentice is coming along very well indeed. Yes, I meant to lend him to you all the time. Come. I'm hungry enough to eat a grubber without washing it.”

In the year that followed the convocation of the Kinra, Rallen began to hum with rumor, a mosquito whine at first, hardly noticeable above the daily noises, but it grew rapidly in intensity and volume. We had ships once, we can have them again, the hum said. Where one has come, there one can go. We can soar again, WE CAN SOAR.

YEAR FIVE AFTER THE COMING OF ROSTICO BURN.

Veratisca spiraled down onto the ruined tower top. The night sky burned overhead; the Veils were brighter than last year, yet they seemed somehow frailer. Not bands that bound her head. She stretched her arms high as if she were reaching for the streaks of fire to shred them into ash and gone.

Excitement fountained in her. Her mind knew there'd been no real change but her body was rejoicing in a freedom that was as yet only a seed of possibility, a seed still unplanted. She took pad and stylus and wrote:

Barren soil

Too much bearing

ere this

Yet

Might-be is planted

Will-be germinates

Yes

In a scoop-walled ravine, hidden from the night sky by a great outslant of stone, three forms crouched about a fire drinking hot iska out of thick-walled mugs, talking in the comfortably weary tones of beings who have completed a hard but satisfactory day's work. In the dark behind them a thing moaned, but its sounds were faint and drained even of pain and after a short while ceased altogether.

Rallen crept closer to the Veils and completed a second turn about its sun Nepoyol. In the seventh year since Rostico Burn's precipitate departure, another alien stepped onto the soil of Rallen.

PART IV: THE CAMPAIGN

BACK TO OUR SEARCHERS. SKEEN INTENDED TO DUMP ROSTICO BURN AT REVELATION PIT, BUT HE APPEALED TO FAMILY FEELING, PULLED EVERY STRING HE COULD GET HOLD OF TO PERSUADE HER TO TAKE HIM WITH HER. AS A CYNICAL RASCAL WITH AN EYE OUT FOR PROFIT, HE TOLD HIMSELF IT WOULD BE A SIN AND A SHAME TO LET HIMSELF BE SCRAPED OFF LIKE MUD FROM A BOOT. BEING IN REALITY A THOROUGH-GOING ROMANTIC, HE COULDN'T BEAR THE THOUGHT OF BEING LEFT OUT OF THIS ADVENTURE. THE FOLK OF HADDA ADDA WOULD WHISPER ABOUT IT FOR GENERATIONS AFTER HE WAS DEAD, THE STORY OF HIS RESCUE OFF PILLORY, HIS RETURN TO THE CLUSTER WITH THE LEGENDARY SHEEN, TIBO THE LUCKY THIEF, LIPITERO THE MYSTERIOUS, AND TIMKA THE IMPOSSIBLE. IN SPITE OF HIS VENEER OF SOPHISTICATION, IN SPITE OF HIS MAULING BY LIFE AND THE DEPRESSING EVIDENCE HE HAD FORCED ON HIM OF THE INIQUITIES OF HIS FELLOW BEINGS, HE WAS PLEASED WITH HIMSELF, EXUBERANT IN HIS ENJOYMENT OF LIFE AND YOUNG ENOUGH TO THINK IN GRAND ABSTRACTIONS LIKE GLORY. SKEEN WAS IN THIS SEARCH TO PAY OFF A DEBT, TIBO BECAUSE HE WENT WHERE SHEEN WENT, SHARED HER DEBTS AS SHE SHARED HIS; LIPITERO WAS HERE TO SAVE HER ADOPTED GATHER AND HER OWN SOUL; TIMKA WENT ALONG BECAUSE SHE HAD NOWHERE ELSE TO BE AND MIGHT AS WELL AMUSE HERSELF. ROSTICO BURN WENT TO WRITE A NEW STANZA FOR THE SONG OF HIS LIFE.

Picarefy danced a deceitful jig through, around, up and over the patrolling ships of the Ancient Evil, the Undying Emperor of the Cluster, and at last nosed into the Veil where Ross had burst from it seven years before. Sensors screaming, speed reduced to a crawl, she dipped in and out of an insplit curdled by the overflow from the tangle of forces in normspace; backtracking Ross' route out, dug from his memory (he'd destroyed the trip flakes, he told them, the Buzzard's advice after he refused to sell them to him, and got himself the best block he could buy. I could work my way back if I had to and I wasn't about to let some bastard steal my life); with some trepidation he disengaged the block, let Picarefy put him under and pry those memories from his mind.

While Skeen and Tibo combined with Picarefy to outwit the traps of Cidder's kind, perhaps Cidder himself (though that was less likely since they got away a bit too easily to have that Hound sniffing after them), while Lipitero brooded alone, too fratchetty to endure company, while Timka prowled about in cat-shape or slept away her boredom, Rostico Burn nosed about the ship. Picarefy told Skeen about his prying during one of the short intervals of straight-flight and they had a quiet laugh together. Picarefy was far too complex and too illogically arranged for the cleverest mind to understand her even in her parts; Skeen had long ago given up trying to comprehend what was happening as Picarefy built herself bigger, only warning her that if anything went wrong there was no one anywhere who'd have a hope of fixing her, so she'd better build in one helluva lot of redundancy. Take the organic brain as model, Skeen said, then giggled at the loud brrruppp that was Picarefy's answer to her suggestion. But Picarefy had taken her advice, providing abundant redundancy and repair mice that scurried endlessly about the sprawl of the brain, repairing any small breaks, replacing parts and acting as guard dogs against interference from the outside. (A short time before the ill-fated trip to Kildun Aalda, when Skeen was arguing about the need for some expensive new components the cost of which would seriously cut into her playtime and send her on the hop after more Roons, she was moved to shout: Who owns who here. You've got the papers on me, Picarefy said, but I prefer to think of us as partners. Neither of us can live without the other. Mmf, Skeen groused half-seriously, let me know when I'm redundant so I can make other plans.)

“No moon?”

“Not even a collection of dust.”

“How's their astronomy?”

“Look, I wasn't doing a survey, I was skipping ahead of the local law and trying to make a sliver of profit. Not much of it, the little I saw. What have they got to look at? Can't see any stars but their own. They keep track of the streaks of the Veil and how fast they're heading through the rift, hobbyists watch comets and use hand-ground lenses to plot the orbits of the largest asteroids in the Belt. I didn't see any dishes; either I missed them or they haven't developed radio astronomy, they're poor in the heavier metals, maybe that's why. No long-range weapons, they've never had a war on Rallen, I know, it's hard to believe, but the Rallykx are like that.”

“So. If I go into high orbit, it's likely they'll see me, but they can't reach me.”

“Unless they've changed a lot in the past seven years.”

“Would they? Your impressions, that's all.”

“No. Wrong mindset. You'll be safe enough.”

“Skeen?”

“Geosynchronous, eh, Pic? I'll feel better with you in sight, so to speak. Basepoint, hmmm, that lake in the Kinravaly Reserve, that's what they call it, isn't it, Ross? Where their high Poobah lives?”

“Gotcha. Consider it done.”

Tibo grimaced at Skeen. “Old broom, take it out when you need it, shove it in a closet when you don't.”

Skeen ran her hands through her hair, turning it into wild spikes. “Who else can I leave?” Ti-cat lay curled up under a large bright-leafed plant dripping down one corner of the lounge, watching the two of them, Tibo on the divan, propped up on spare cushions, his legs crossed at the ankles, Skeen prowling restlessly about. She looked defensive, Timka thought, and her usually slow, melodious voice was shrill. “Ross? Be real.”

“Pic can handle herself, she doesn't need a nurse.” He looked amused, but there was an interesting edge to the words. Timka lay very still, willing herself inconspicuous again. She had a suspicion that the prickly unease between these two was there because of the intruders into what had been a private space. Two acute, obstreperous individuals, both quick to resent any attempt to dominate them, they'd worked out a comfortable give and take that balanced the needs of both. A balance we disrupted, Timka thought. No room even for three, and now there's five of us. Not counting Picarefy. Should I count Picarefy?

Sound of clearing throat, sound of clapping hands. Picarefy asserting herself. “Listen to the man, Skeen.”

“Butt out, Pic. Tib, I don't want to turn Ross loose down there.”

“Don't be silly, Skeen. Keep him in the shadows until you can smooth the Rallykx down if they need it, then let him do his thing. He's got contacts you'll never reach, he's a clever kid and he's got a heavy thing for you, he's hot to show you what he can do.”

Skeen made an impatient sound, close to a derisive hoot. “He's a con artist, Tib.”

“So? What's wrong with that?”

“Aaaah! You are the most … most …”

“Handsome? No? Intelligent? Dashing?” He grinned at her.

“Pigheaded is more like it.”

The argument went on, intensifying to the point of violence where Skeen and Tibo were circling about each other like angry cats, carefully not touching. Timka watched the man, more interested in him for the moment. He'd been polite but cool to her from the beginning; she meant nothing to him and he was more than content to keep it like that. In a number of ways, he was very like Skeen; he shared Skeen's attitudes toward money and pleasure, shared her aversion to exercising control over others (an aversion almost as powerful as his distaste for letting anyone control him). Much more than Skeen he was a watcher on the sidelines, getting a vast amusement out of the idiocies and idiosyncrasies of so-called sentients. Not a particularly endearing trait, but he was polite enough to turn his all-too-knowing gaze off you if he saw you growing uncomfortable under it. Unless you threatened Skeen. He was astonishingly protective of that tough resourceful woman, understanding her with an empathy that was the one thing he took pains to conceal from her, reading her moods and responding or not according to some interior set of rules Timka couldn't fashion.

So suddenly Timka found herself blinking, they reached agreement. Tibo and Ross would stay in Picarefy for three days, then, unless something unexpected happened, they'd join the groundside party, leaving Picarefy to amuse herself spreading her flying eyes about, keeping watch over Skeen and sucking in as much data as she could.

They gathered about the screen on the bridge, looking at the lake beneath them, the rolling scrubland around it with its patches of forest, the complex of buildings that seemed more like calligraphy than architecture. At a word from Skeen, the viewpoint darted down until they could see Ykx walking and soaring about the buildings (one structure was halfway around the lake from the others and far quieter. An Ykx was pottering about in a large half-wild garden, another was stretched out on a lounge chair watching the first).

“That the place?” A touch of Skeen's finger and a black arrowhead pointed toward the lone building.

Ross scratched at his nose. “I heard a lot of talk about the Kinravaly's Garden; I suppose that's it.”

Skeen moved the point of the arrow to an open grassy space beside the garden's outer wall. “Pic, program that into Workhorse, that's where I want to put down.” She laced her fingers behind her head, stretched, got to her feet. “We'll make a loop round the world, buzz 'em low and noisy so they know we're here.” She grinned. “Stomp around and stir up the natives.”

After they buzzed the first Gurn they had to go more carefully; Rallykx of all ages spiraled up to soar about them, riding wings or wind according to air quality and their own abilities. Skeen was flying the Roon harvester she called Workhorse, a powerful shuttle-tug nearly ten times the size of the Lander tucked into its belly.

Skeen raised her brows. “Yes, they've noticed us.”

Lipitero was breathless, unable to speak, the hair on her arms and along her spine erecting with the force of her emotion. Ykx everywhere, a world full of Ykx.

Timka yawned, beginning to be bored by this meandering trip. Skeen had planned a route that took them looping over all the major land masses, a long, tedious, essentially uneventful journey without a hint of comfort, hot, noisy, rough. The tug was built for strength, speed and maneuverability, not for an easy ride.

When they came back to the lake, Skeen put the tug into a tight hover-circle some hundred meters above the spot she'd chosen as a landing site, handed the Hailer's pickup to Lipitero. “Speak your piece, Petro. Here's hoping they listen; I don't want to squash anyone when we land.”

Lipitero had worked out her speech with care, using the limited vocabulary she'd lifted from Ross, augmenting it with words from the Old Ykx she'd learned from the flakes the Remmyo had given her. Universal literacy, a longish lifespan, slow breeding and the conservative nature of the Ykx meant that language change occurred with the deliberation of glacial drift, but centuries do add up to real time if you have enough of them and Rallen was colonized a long long LONG time ago.

“Ykx of Rallen,” she said, “hear me. We will not harm you. We will not let you harm us.” She swallowed, closed her eyes. She'd meant to pause here, giving them time to react to the first words. She had to pause, want to or not, because her throat had closed on her. A cough muffled behind a hand, a few experimental workings of her mouth. She continued, “This ship (heavier than air flier) will (immediate future, less than an hour forward from the present moment) land in the open space (grass grown and uncultivated) on the out side of the garden wall. It is our hope (fervent wish accompanied by firm will) that we harm nothing other than the grass when we come down (controlled descent involving deceleration). We ask (favor of importance, a good conferred on speaker and listener) that all who hear me will keep clear of the ship by at least two of its diameters since there are powerful forces working around us that would endanger (throw about, break limbs, kill) any Ykx approaching too close to us. There will come a moment when we are committed to the landing and cannot abort. We must land, whatever (being, beast, artifact inclusive) is beneath us. I (female, beyond breeding years) will (immediate future, less than an hour forward from the present moment) come forth (leave this shell and become vulnerable). It is necessary (great urgency, a matter of supreme importance to the speaker) that I speak with the Kinravaly Rallen. I will come with bare hands, claws retracted, I will wait the pleasure of the Kinravaly Rallen.”