Author: Joan D. Vinge
Category: Science
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His travels with Reede were neither as frequent nor—as far as he could tell—as hazardous to his health as his former solo runs. So far they had been offworld twice in the time he had worked for Reede. And the job paid a hell of a lot better, just as Reede had promised him. But the fact that he never knew what the trips were for—was never given even a clue about what Reede wanted, or got out of, those journeys—preyed on his nerves in a different sort of way; just as being stuck on Ondinee for the majority of his time, playing glorified chauffeur to a manic-depressive, did.
On the other hand, he’d discovered that working for Reede had a built-in cachet that protected him from the locals’ harassment, while it gave him access to places and pleasures he’d never dreamed this planet possessed. A world was a big place, and not all of Ondinee was like Razuma. Reede had taken them along to a mountain resort with views he would never forget, to a city on South Island where the sea was as warm as bath water and the color of aquamarines.
And then there had been the orbital habitat, with some of the best gaming simulators he had ever encountered. Kedalion remembered watching Reede play the games one night. It had been like watching free-fall ballet, the way Reede’s perfect reflexes and brilliant mind had made winning seem completely effortless. Reede had given them unlimited player-credit, and their losses had almost offset the amount he had won himself. But afterwards Reede had been in a foul mood, as if he’d lost instead of won, or as if, when you never lost a game, winning might as well be losing.…
And on the other hand, most of what they saw was still Tuo Ne’el’s thorn forest and citadels, or the streets of Razuma.
Kedalion searched the crowds for Ananke, who had wandered off into the square, trying to take his mind off circumstances. He spotted him—surrounded as usual by a squad of street urchins. They shrieked and trilled approval as Ananke juggled anything within reach, contorted his body with an acrobat’s absurd grace, and sang nonsense songs. He had taken to wearing a specially fitted leather glove on one foot, instead of his usual sandal; it was a spacer’s trick, freeing one foot for use in low-gravity environments. On most of the spacers Kedalion had known it was only an affectation. But Ananke’s physical dexterity made the boast genuine: even in normal gravity, he sometimes seemed to have three hands. Kedalion watched him with mildly envious admiration. He saw some of the adults who invariably gathered around toss out coins; Ananke left them lying in the dust for the children to pick up. They all knew that he worked for the offworlders—the money, and his disdain for it, were the proof of his prestige.
Kedalion shook his head, smiling briefly. He reached into a pocket and took out his huskball, tossing it back and forth from hand to hand. Ananke had proved to be quick and flexible, mentally as well as physically, just as he had promised; and knowing that his skill was recognized and appreciated had only made him work harder. Once they’d gotten past the fear that Reede would kill them one day on a whim, he had grown more comfortable with their new employment than Kedalion would ever feel. Ananke had gone from abject terror directly to a kind of blissful hero-worship that was probably a hell of a lot more dangerous. Fortunately his naïve fascination with Reede’s volatile mood swings seemed to amuse Reede more than annoy him. This was the kid’s homeworld, and having Reede’s protection covering him seemed to free him of some of his dislike for living on it.
Kedalion’s smile faded, and he sighed again, thinking nostalgically on the false comfort of youth. He straightened away from the hovercraft as his eye caught motion at the distant gate. Reede came out of it, slamming it behind him, and strode through the crowd in the square as if they didn’t exist. They flowed out of his path as obligingly as water. Kedalion watched him come, seeing red stains on his clothes and black satisfaction in his eyes. Kedalion felt all expression drain out of his own face. He looked away, calling, “Ananke!”
Ananke turned, catching a handful of various fruits as they fell from the air. His own grin disappeared; he waded obediently through the belt-level protests of the children, tossing the fruit to them as he walked back toward the hovercraft.
Reede reached it first, and nodded at Kedalion with a grunt that meant he was pleased with himself. He leaned against the craft’s door, cracking his knuckles.
“Feel better now?” Kedalion said, and regretted it instantly; sounding even to himself like a man chiding a child.
Reede looked at him, and raised an eyebrow. “Much,” he said. “Do you mind?”
Kedalion grimaced. “Better him than me, I suppose.”
Reede laughed. “Damn right.… Don’t sulk, Niburu. Ozal will be crawling around on all fours by tomorrow. And he’ll never, ever fuck with my product again.” He shrugged, loosening the muscles in his shoulders, and pulled at his ear.
“Ananke!” Kedalion shouted again, an excuse to look away, an excuse to raise his voice. He saw with some annoyance that Ananke had gotten sidetracked into an argument with a group of boys who had begun tossing something cat-sized back and forth in imitation of his juggling. Kedalion recognized the shrilling of a quoll in distress; heard Ananke’s voice rise above the general laughter as he tried to catch the animal they were throwing like a ball across farther and farther stretches of air. They angled across the square, drawing him away from the hovercraft.
Reede’s head swung around as the animal began to shriek in terror or pain. He stood motionless, watching the scene; muttered something to himself about being a stupid asshole.
“Ananke!” Kedalion shouted again; feeling his stomach knot with disgust, not sure whether it was the scene in the street or Reede’s reaction to it that angered him more. “You bastard,” he muttered, looking back at Reede before he started out into the square himself—just as one of the boys shouted, “Catch this, juggler!” and pitched the wailing quoll into the air in a long arc. Ananke ran and leaped after it, futilely, crashing into the low ceralloy wall that rimmed the neighborhood cistern. Ananke barely kept himself from falling in as the quoll flew over his head, down into the depths of the spring-fed tank.
Kedalion stopped moving as he saw the quoll go into the cistern. Ananke hung motionless over the wall, staring down into the tank like a stunned gargoyle.
Someone pushed past Kedalion, jarring him; he saw Reede run out across the square to the cistern. Reede climbed onto the wall, stood looking down into the depths for a heartbeat, and then jumped.
“Edhu—!” Kedalion gasped. He began to run. Ananke was still hanging over the cistern’s rim, staring down into the well in disbelief as Kedalion reached his side.
Kedalion peered over the rim, just able to see down to where the water surface lay in the deep shadows below. He blinked the sunlight out of his eyes, heard splashing and panic-stricken squealing echo up the steep seamless walls. He saw Reede in the water far below, struggling to get ahold of the floundering creature. At last Reede clamped it in both hands and shoved it inside his shirt, kicked his way toward the steps that spiraled down the cistern’s interior.
Women and girls with water jugs balanced on their heads stood gaping as he hauled himself up out of the water onto the platform where they had gathered; they backed away as he staggered to his feet and started the long climb up the steps. Kedalion and Ananke watched him come, with the animal held against him, still struggling futilely.
Reede reached the street level at last, his eyes searching the crowd. Kedalion hurried forward, with Ananke trailing behind him. “Reede—!”
Reede turned at his voice, waited at the top of the stairs until they reached him. He wasn’t even breathing hard, Kedalion noticed—Reede had more physical stamina than any three men. But water streamed from his hair and clothing, his arms and chest oozed red from the scratches and bites the frantic quoll had inflicted on him in its struggles.
“Bishada!” Ananke cried, grinning with awe and gratitude. “You saved it—”
Reede read the expression on the boy’s face, and his own face twisted. “No. You saved the fucking thing,” he said. He reache
d into his shirt and dragged the animal out, slung it at Ananke. “Here. You know the rule by now. You save it, it belongs to you. It’s your responsibility. Not mine.”
Ananke took it into his arms gingerly, keeping its long, rodentine teeth away from contact with his hands, protected by the layers of his robes as he held it against his chest, murmuring softly to it. He glanced up at Reede again, for long enough to murmur, “Thank you.”
But Reede’s attention was somewhere else already. He moved away from them abruptly, shoving past a couple of locals to pick someone out of the crowd of curiosity seekers. He caught the boy by his robes and dragged him forward, pitched him over the cistern’s rim almost before the boy had time to scream in protest.
Kedalion heard the boy’s scream as he went in, and heard the splash as he hit the water far below. The motion had happened almost too fast for him to recognize the victim as one of the quoll’s tormentors, the one who had thrown it into the cistern.
Reede came back to them, not looking right or left now, his face expressionless as he glanced at the quoll. It had stopped struggling and was burrowing into the folds of Ananke’s sleeve, making anxious oinking sounds, almost as if it were trying to become a part of his body. Ananke stroked its bedraggled fur as gently as if he were touching velvet.
Reede moved on past them, the motion signaling them to follow.
“Reede—” Kedalion said, catching up to him with an effort.
“Drop it,” Reede said, and the words were deadly.
“—Are we going back to the citadel?” Kedalion finished, as if that were what he had intended to ask.
“No.” Reede looked away; looked down at himself and grimaced, shrugged, looked away again. “I have other business to tend to. Drop me in Temple Square. Take the evening off; I’ll call you when I’m through.”
“You better tend those bites,” Kedalion said. “The gods only know what that quoll—”
Reede looked down at him, his irritation showing. “Don’t worry about me, Niburu,” he said sourly. “I’m not worth it.”
“Just worrying about my job,” Kedalion muttered, trying to bury his unintentional display of concern as rapidly as possible.
“I thought you hated this job,” Reede snapped.
“I do,” Kedalion snapped back.
Reede laughed, one of the unexpectedly normal laughs that always took Kedalion by surprise. “If I die I’ve left you everything I own in my will.”
Kedalion snorted. “Gods help me,” he murmured, half-afraid it might even be true. He unsealed the doors of the hovercraft.
Reede grinned, climbing into the rear as the doors rose. He sat down heavily, obliviously, his clothes saturating the expensive upholstery of the seat with pink-tinged water. Kedalion got in behind the controls; Ananke climbed in beside him. Ananke was still carrying the quoll, which had buried itself in his robes until all that was visible was its head pressed flat against his neck, sheltered beneath his chin. It still made a constant burbling song, as if it sought a reassurance that did not exist in the real world. Ananke clucked softly with his tongue, and stroked it with slow hands. He glanced up, as if he felt Kedalion’s eyes on him; his own eyes were full of an emotion Kedalion had never seen in them before, and then they were full of uncertainty.
Kedalion smiled, and nodded. “Just don’t let it shit all over everything, all right?” He took them up, rising over the heads of the streetbound crowd and higher still, until even the flat rooftops were looking up at them. He could see the pyramidal peaks of half a dozen temples rising above the city’s profile; he headed for the one that he knew Reede meant, the one near the starport that the local police had driven them into one fateful night. He tried not to think about that night, without much success.
He brought the flyer down again, settling without incident into an unobtrusive cul-de-sac near the club where they had all first met. The Survey Hall still occupied the address above its hidden entrance. Reede often came to this neighborhood, although what he did here was as obscure to Kedalion as most of his activities were.
Reede got out again, saying only, “Do what you want. I’ll call you, but it won’t be soon.”
Kedalion nodded, and watched him move off down the street with the casual arrogance of a carnivore. Reminded of other animals, he turned to look at Ananke; at the quoll, lying against Ananke’s chest like a baby in folds of cloth, only muttering to itself occasionally now. “How did you do that?” he asked.
Ananke shrugged, stroking its prominent bulge of nose with a finger. “Quolls are very quiet, really. You just have to let them be.” The quoll regarded him with one bright black eye, and blinked.
Kedalion half smiled. “You could say the same about humans.”
“But it wouldn’t be true.”
Kedalion’s smile widened. “No. I guess not.” He glanced away down the street; Reede had stopped at a jewelry vendor’s cart near the corner of the alley.
“I want to go to the fruit seller.”
Kedalion popped his door. “Go ahead. You heard the boss: Do what you want.”
“You’re the boss, Kedalion.” Ananke grinned fleetingly, his white teeth flashing.
Kedalion shook his head, not really a denial. “Since when do you have an appetite for wholesome food?” Whenever they were in town Ananke lived on keff rolls—bits of unidentifiable meat and other questionable ingredients, rolled in dough and fried in fat, all so highly spiced that pain seemed to be their only discernible flavor. “Is the fruit seller young and pretty?”
“Quolls only eat vegetables and fruit,” Ananke said, glancing down.
Kedalion shrugged and nodded, watched him get out and wander off in the direction of the square, passing Reede, who was haggling with the jewelry vendor. Kedalion had never seen Ananke show any real interest in either a woman or a man, and that was strange enough. The kid seemed to be pathologically shy, to the point of never letting anyone see him undressed—something which could get damned inconvenient in the crowded quarters of a small ship on an interstellar voyage. Maybe that explained his problem, or maybe it was only another symptom of whatever the real problem was.… He supposed it didn’t really matter what Ananke’s problem was, as long as he did his job and didn’t go berserk.
He stretched and got out of the hovercraft, securing the doors behind him. He thought about Ravien’s club, remembering Shalfaz. He hadn’t gone back there for a long time, after what had happened to them that night. And when he had, it had been after two trips offworld with Reede. More than nine years had passed at Ravien’s, while only two had passed for him. Someone had told him then that Shalfaz had retired. She’d gone into the somewhat more respectable profession of dye-painting—decorating the hands of wealthy, daring young women with intricate designs for weddings and feast days. He was glad for her, but he missed her. And he sure as hell didn’t miss the drinks, or the atmosphere, at Ravien’s. Maybe he’d just go get himself some early dinner.…
He made his way around the rear of the craft, heading for the square. As he glanced back, checking it over a last time, his eye caught on something that lay glinting in the dust. He went back and picked it up. It was the white metal pendant set with a solii that Reede always wore—he called it his good luck charm. The quoll must have broken the chain in its struggles, and the pendant had fallen out of his clothes.
Kedalion glanced down the street, saw Reede’s back turn as he started away from the jewelry vendor’s cart. “Reede!” he called, but Reede went on around the corner.
Kedalion started after him down the narrow street, not even sure why; telling himself that handling Reede’s lost charm made his own superstitions itch. He reached the corner, ignoring the jewelry seller’s singsong wheedling as he looked past the cart at the open square. After a moment his eyes found Reede in the crowd, as the flash of dangling crystals danced across the stark black of his vest-back.
Reede was not moving fast, which meant there was half a chance his own short legs might catch up with
Reede’s long ones. Kedalion pushed on, keeping to the edges of the unusually heavy crowds. The air reeked with incense. It must be some sort of feast day, for so many people to be out in the square, damn the luck. But he was gaining on Reede, slowly, and he called out his name again. Reede glanced back, but Kedalion was hidden by the crowd.
Reede went on again, walking faster. They were nearing the place where Ravien’s club was located. For a brief moment Kedalion wondered if he was headed there—he swore under his breath as he saw Reede turn off suddenly into a passageway between two of the buildings that ringed the square. He kept his eyes fixed on the spot until he reached it, and ducked into the same entrance, below a peeling archway. The shadowy access was so dark after the brightness of the square that he had to stop a moment, blinking until his eyes adjusted. There were ancient flagstones under his feet, featureless walls with no openings on either side of him, so close together that he could almost reach out and touch them. Reede was nowhere in sight.
Kedalion went along the passage, doggedly, unable to stop now until he had found out where Reede had gone. The passageway ended abruptly at a featureless metal door. He pushed on it; to his surprise it let him in.
The corridor beyond it was startlingly clean and modern. Inset glowplates gave him dim but sufficient light as he moved along it, more confidently now, until he reached another set of doors. The doors slid back at his approach, opening on a meeting room. He stopped dead as the people gathered there turned to stare at him. He stared back, taking in the glow of datascreens around a torus-shaped table, the hologramic display at the table’s core, the startling contrast among the faces seated around it or still standing together near the doorway.
Half a dozen of them had ringed him in already, looking down at him with the eyes of Death, before he had time to realize he had made a mistake that was probably fatal.
“Are you a stranger far from home?” an ebony-skinned man wearing the robes of a High Priest asked him.