Skeen's Return (41 page)

Skeen snapped her fingers. The 'bot folded itself together, hiked itself up and rolled away. She got to her feet, watched until it reached the Roost's exit and squatted there to wait for her. In her chair again, she stroked a forefinger along the crease beside her mouth. “Like to earn another percent?”

“So so. That's quite a fee. For what?”

“Rallen. Tell me who sold you that Rallen ware.”

“Aaah.” He rocked in his chair, fingers tapping a shapeless tune on the arms. Then he nodded. “Fair enough. Tall, skinny, dark boy. If he swallowed a raisin, it'd show. Hadn't seen him before, but he was no novice. He knew pretty well what the stuff was worth and kept chipping at me until he got something near his price. He gave in a hair too soon, he was still that raw then, wouldn't do it these days.” He stared at the stained ceiling a moment, brought his head up. “Rostico Burn,” he said. “Rumor runs he came out of the Cluster with Imperials on his tail. Not unlike another skinny kid I knew some half a hundred years ago.”

“Any idea where I can find him?”

“I can ask around. You want me to do that?”

“Be quiet about it.”

“Skeen, you know the low road. Word is already out you're interested in Rallen. Tibo was busy while you were getting that hand regrown. Been half a hundred rumors zipping about since he asked the first question.”

“Cidder?”

“I don't talk to the man. None of my folk are on his payroll, I make sure of that. But he's got noses everywhere else. The minute I move on Rostico Burn, he'll know it. Tie it up with Rallen and go after the boy himself. He's really hot to get his hands on you, haul you back to the Cluster. You've rubbed his nose in it a time or two too often, Skeen. One of these days he might even risk going after you inside a Pit. Why do you keep fishing in the Cluster? Plenty of other places for Roon raids. I tell you, when you scooped out the Imperial Museum and got off with the Undying's favorite bits, shtoshi-mi, for a while there I was sure we were going to have Imperial marines scraping us down to bedrock. There were a lot of folk who stopped breathing until you let the Empire ransom its artifacts. There was even some talk of shunning you, but that went away when the fuss died down and the Pits could look back from peace and enjoy your twisting the Empire's tail. I doubt you know how close you came. Hunh, I doubt you give a fist full a shit. You ought to, old girl. Next time you do something like that, you could find yourself without any friends left.”

Skeen shook her head. “I know. I know. But don't you forget, I'm Cluster born and Empire bred. Every time I hit them and raise a welt, it's like ice on a burn.”

“Ice … hmm … you can't afford. Give it a rest.”

“I'll think about it.”

SHOOTOUT ON STARLONG WAY. TAKE ONE LIBIDINOUS MALE PIMP WITH DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR AND A LONG RECORD OF KILLS, PUT TOGETHER WITH ONE DELICATE LOVELY SHAPESHIFTER WHO DOESN'T KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENING BUT ISN'T ABOUT TO GO BACK TO DEPENDING ON ANYONE. NOW. IS THAT EXCITEMENT? DON'T BLINK. YOU MIGHT MISS THE ACTION.

or

WELCOME TO THE PITS.

Timka strolled along a street that continually astonished her, linked tiles springy underfoot, matte black rectangles on a metal web, clean and sweet-smelling (that astonished her until she saw the tiny 'bots that scurried about like mice sucking up trash almost before it fluttered down, and the larger 'bots that trotted off with drunken sleepers, dead bodies and anything else too big for the mice), a black sky overhead with occasional flickers of the forcefield that kept the air in and a glittering spray of stars. Moving around her on the street and gliding past her on the slidewalk in the middle of the street was a noisy eclectic mix of folk who seemed to share nothing but the air they breathed and sometimes not even that; she saw half a dozen tanks and atmosphere suits. She felt like a caged bird let out for the first time; some of her old fearfulness revived. It was a world where she didn't know the rules beyond the little she got from Skeen and Tibo, and there was a lot they never thought to tell her because they were too immersed in living the life to be aware of what they were leaving out. She was uneasy, nervous, exhilarated and thrilling at the tumble of wonders about her.

On the trip from the Tank Farm, Skeen said: You'll be cheated. Expect it till you learn the ropes. Don't feel hurt or stupid, you're just ignorant, a thing that's easily cured. Unlike stupidity. It's a game. You'll see. Believe me, you've got advantages that will knock them out once you start playing. That crazy body of yours throws off drugs and poisons every time you shift, and I'd wager a tangler wouldn't have a prayer at holding you. The only reason the darter got you was I could put them in you faster than you could shift. Don't let anyone know that. It's a weakness. Put your head to it and work out a way of compensating if you can. Um … lot of different weapons out there. Look, will you let me do some testing? We can set Tibo's stunner on low and see what it does to you. And Timka said: I caught the edge of the stunner Petro used on Angelsin and nothing drastic happened. And Skeen said: Better you know for sure than be sorry and dead on a guess. Tibo's stunner did nothing but slow her a little, even on its highest setting, her nerve arrangements were too different, though after a full minute at that setting she felt the interior tremble which warned of Chorinya, the uncontrolled shifting that could exhaust and kill a Min. And Skeen said: You're fairly safe in a Pit Stop. The trouble is when you're Pallah, you're pretty much standard female mammalian biped and you look like a breath could blow you away. Too tempting. Other than working girls, the spread in the Pits is weighted to the male and some of those males have the idea that they've got the right to grab what they want when it's got two legs and a cunt. And Timka said: Let them try, they'll pull back a stump. And Skeen said: Well, a Pit's a funny place, different ones have different rules. Make sure you know what the rules are before you do anything drastic. There are protection guilds in every Pit, you pay their fee, they give you a badge and if anyone bothers you, you yell for help and it comes. If it comes too late for your life, too bad for you and too bad for whoever attacked you; the badge transmits the stats of the attacker to the Guild computer and they go after him, eye for eye, tooth for tooth tenfold. If you're robbed, they take ten times the amount out of the robber's hide. If you're raped and knocked about, they sell the man to the Tank Farms where he's kept alive and used to provide spare parts to the Flesh Welders. If you're dead, it's an even exchange, his life for yours. That kind of thing. The only caveat is be sure you're not the aggressor; in that case they return the fee and take their badge back, they're not about to let some bloody-minded fool pull them into a feud. And Skeen said: When you want fast answers on rules and customs, find the nearest computer outlet, a one perc chip will get you a rundown.

Timka wandered around the roads and slideways that wound through this bubble that was one in a necklace of bubbles about a greenish sun, gawking at what seemed an endlessly varying assortment of species; before she stopped counting she'd tallied more than a hundred. Slightly over half could be called bipedal and tended to have sensory organs at the apex of their forms, the rest went from chitinous multipedes to soft and all too often oozy gastropods. She ambled into and out of dozens of establishments and gawked some more at the kaleidoscopic confusion of things for sale and lists of services offered, cautiously avoided other structures that looked interesting but too dangerous at the moment. She walked until her feet were sore and her body yelled for food, then worked back to Starlong Way and the eating place called Xochimiyl. Skeen said: You'll like it or you won't, the food is good and the view is something else.

The portal was delicately carved openwork, the wood a rich brown with dark streaks running through it. It swung open as she approached, wafting a subtle, pleasantly acrid perfume her way; she stepped into a cavernous atrium that smelled just enough of cool green and damp earth to wake in her a yearning to be back in the Mountains working in Aunt Carema's herb garden. As she hesitated, uncertain what to do next, a small blonde woman came from behind one of the larger plants, an elfin creature dressed in layered gossamer robes that shifted like leaf shadows about a slim childlike body. “Welcome to Xochimiyl,” she said. “My name is Briony. How may we serve you?”

They must choose them as much for their voices as their looks, Timka thought, that one makes synspeech sound like flute music. Serve me? Is this one of Skeen's questionable jokes? If this is a funny whorehouse, I swear I'll shave her head so she matches Tibo knob for knob. Aloud she said, “I'd like food and something interesting to drink.”

“Of course. We have several nodes open now. Have you any preferences?”

“A friend of mind said something about a view …?”

“You will want the Island room then. One small precaution, despina, do you suffer from motion sickness or vertigo?”

“No.” Timka blinked. Vertigo?

“And do you have objections to any particular food categories or allergies that would discommode either you or us?”

“None.”

“I must tell you your answers have been recorded, despina, a needless precaution I'm sure. Follow me, please.”

Timka sat in a malleable chair that tucked itself around her, supporting her in unobtrusive comfort at a free-form table that curved about her so she wouldn't have to stretch for anything, chair and table on short silky realgrass, a small rose arbor behind her, a graceful willow tree beside it whose limber branches flickered about her, pointed leaves painting elegant shadows that drifted across and around her in ever-new configurations, all of this on an oval island that wandered about among many similar islands in a room that seemed open to the nothingness beyond the Pit Stop, a nothingness with stars that glittered above and below her, that made the triteness
sea of stars
a reality with nothing trite about it. She drank cold green wine, ate strange green vegetables and an odd flat fish with fungus dressing that melted on her tongue like nothing she'd tasted before. She ate slowly and watched the other patrons of Xochimiyl float past, a slightly less astonishing mix than that on the streets outside. Twice strange males and once a strange female rode the drift-ways to her table, but she shook her head, not wanting company or any of the complications it might bring, and they went away again. She finished the meal with a pot of hot tea.

When the dishes had been cleared away except for the tea things and she was on her second bowl of tea, feeling warmly replete and happy with the world, a third man came up to her, a big man, dressed in black, head to toe, a shouting extravagant black, he was young, with a chiseled, handsome face, but something wrong with it, something bothersome, something not quite sane. He tapped at the table, sat in the chair that unfolded from the grass and smiled at her.

She sighed and set the bowl down, annoyed that he was spoiling her mood, annoyed that she had to return to alertness and be ready to defend herself. “Go away,” she said. “I don't want company and you block my view.”

His smile broadened and still didn't reach staring green-brown eyes. Animal eyes with nothing behind them. “I am Hested Vanker.”

“So? You're not transparent. Go away.”

“I want you. Name your price.”

She looked over, thinking: yes, I have changed, I'll never sell myself again; she felt a rush of pleasure at the thought.

He caught the flash of it and misread it; he leaned toward her. “Well?”

She thought about insult, decided that anything she could bring herself to say would be so feeble as to be an insult to herself. “Your pardon, despois, you have made a mistake. I have no price. I am not interested in your offer. Have the courtesy to leave.”

“I will have you at the price you quoted. Nothing.”

She laughed, still annoyed, but amused a little in spite of her irritation. He was so sure of himself, so placidly arrogant, he was a joke, a not-so-funny clown. Her laughter died to a soft chuckle at the sudden rage it brought to his face. That rage was swiftly smoothed away. He sat silent, waiting. “I'll tell you what you get for nothing,” she said. “Nothing. A fair trade, wouldn't you say? Win a little more by leaving me; take my gratitude with you.”

“I declare challenge,” he said, his voice blaring loud enough to draw eyes to the table. “Your body or my life. The game begins beyond the door.” He stood and stalked off, his dignity a bit impaired by the eccentricities of the driftways.

Ah, Timka thought. My education begins. Find out the rules, Skeen said. Find a computer and buy the answers. She signaled for Briony and asked for the check, then began thumbing credit chips from the moneybelt Lipitero had made for her. The cost of the meal astonished her, but Skeen had been generous. She might be nearly broke, but she wasn't about to let that worry her. Timka was looking forward to the time when she'd share some of that insouciance; she could counterfeit it in situations like this, but she had a knot in her stomach as she looked at the chips piled on the shell tray, a small mountain of them needed to pay for the relatively simple meal she'd just enjoyed plus the tip that Skeen told her to add on. Briony was saying something about hoping she'd enjoyed the meal and the ambiance of Xochimiyl's Islands; Timka looked up, interrupted her. “Can you sit with me a moment?”

“Certainly.” She slid gracefully into the chair Vanker had left extruded, rested her hands on the table, waited with friendly, alert but impersonal interest.

“You heard the man Vanker?”

“Yes.” Briony permitted herself a touch of sympathy, a delicate sigh.

“What is this challenge thing? What is required of me?”

Briony smiled vaguely, looked down at the pile of chips in the tray, then lifted her pale green eyes to Timka. She waited.