Hidden in Sight (6 page)

Not that such details mattered when my Human's mind was, as he put it, made up and his gray eyes had that dangerously determined glint. “We need to know more about them.”

We were back at our offices, myself in Lishcyn form, which meant I could glare down at the Human over my ample—and very handsome—scaled snout. “You know all you need to know, “ I reminded him. “The Ycl do not leave their planet. No one visits theirs. It seems an equitable arrangement, considering you or any other member of the Commonwealth would constitute a most welcome addition to the menu.” At his scowl, I temporized: “Okay, so they wouldn't eat Tumblers—but Tumblers don't possess your fatal curiosity.”

“Without your web-kin, Fangface,” Paul countered, his dark eyebrows meeting in a frown, “you must hunt for your own information. The Ycl is next on the list for an update.”

“On your list.” I struggled to keep my voice down, feeling my large ears flicking back and forth in an instinctive search for potential eavesdroppers although Paul was always careful where he spoke so plainly. “I know all I need to know about the form,” I hissed. “I don't plan to socialize with other Ycl any time soon. Or at all, if I can help it.” There'd been that episode with Ycl mating pheromones, for one thing. A most—embarrassing—episode. Perfectly remembered, of course.

Another story edited for my Human web-kin.

Of course this didn't convince him, but Paul was finally forced to stop badgering me as our moving argument brought us to the area of the building shared by our employees, none of whom were aware that their employers had other identities or ambitions to risk predation for the sake of a bit of chemical slang.

No, to them, Paul was Paul Cameron, a rather fussy but accomplished freight manager—not Paul Antoni Ragem, formerly Alien Language Specialist on a Commonwealth First Contact Team. Just as well, given that Ragem was officially listed as missing in action and presumed dead over fifty years ago.

Me? I was known to employees and customers of Cameron & Ki Exports as Esolesy Ki, Lishcyn, art appraiser and linguist; someone they treated with significantly less respect than they did Paul. Not that I minded. For one thing, it meant I was included in office gossip, much of it quite useful in forwarding my education into the social interaction of other species. Paul would not have been impressed—which likely explained why I was included and he was not.

They didn't know me as a web-being, last of her kind—at least in Commonwealth space—sought by some as a monster and by others as the possessor of secrets. Very few at all knew such beings existed—that I existed.

Yet even that few felt like far too many, particularly today, when I floundered trying to communicate with the one alien I knew better than any other.

It had been our decision: to recruit a secret network of beings to feed us information. It had been Paul's, without my consent or knowledge, to recruit others, to make them aware of me, to be able to recognize me in several forms. My favorite forms, in fact. I might be polite about it—but Paul knew as well as I that I hadn't yet accepted this breach of trust from my first friend, no matter how impeccable his intentions.

My first friend. My best friend. But no longer my only one. I'd made another: Rudy Lefebvre—a fine and worthy being who was also Paul's cousin. Our paths had collided when Rudy chased rumors of Paul Ragem and found us both. We were neither the traitor nor monster he'd been led to believe, fortunately for all concerned. I had nothing but sincere respect for Rudy's ability to cause trouble, should he be so inclined.

He would have been a far more serious threat to our hidden lives than his superior, Lionel Kearn. Another who knew I existed. His feelings toward me were, at best, ambivalent—especially since our last encounter. Paul—well, I'd edited that story for his ears, too, on the logical assumption that if I didn't understand why I'd risked everything to contact Kearn, my web-kin wouldn't either. There might have been raised voices. There'd definitely be that look—the one which bore an uncanny resemblance to Ersh's expression whenever I'd apparently exceeded every imaginable means of causing her grief.

I shook off thoughts of those offworld, my concern here and now. A now in which Paul had evolved this ridiculous notion of somehow traveling to the Ycl system to observe firsthand the most deadly predators known to Ersh, a system definitely off-limits to any approach.

My Human had never truly appreciated the value of a dull life when protecting a secret.

Or,
a sudden and highly alarming notion upset the contents of my delicate fifth stomach,
Paul was still looking for ways to risk his own.

 

As usual, when Paul and I were in the midst of a disagreement, something put all arguments in perspective. This time, it was a message waiting at my desk.

I started reading it so I had an excuse to ignore whatever Paul began to say, rather vehemently, as he closed the door to gain privacy. As I reread it for the third time, for no reason whatsoever since the words were hardly likely to change in shape or meaning, I was aware on some level that he'd stopped arguing about the Ycl and now waited silently, in front of my desk.

Softly, for my sensitive ears only. “What's wrong?”

I ran my tongue tips over the inlaid gems of my right tusk, but the habit was no comfort. “There's been an incident,” I said, doing my best not to crush the slip of plas in my four-fingered hand.

Behind me was a wall, decorated with artwork from our employees' offspring centered around an unlikely still-image of a Ganthor Matriarch in full battle gear accepting an artistic merit award from a stack of Noberan Iftsen. Like Paul and I—and the award, to be truthful—this wall was other than it seemed. Behind it was another room, much larger, filled with machines and communications systems tirelessly collecting and sorting a vast array of information.

Information like this.

“An incident? Where? What kind?”

I shook my huge head, knowing what he was likely thinking. “Nothing about another web-being. Or Kearn. But it's connected to me. There's a missing person—a Tumbler.”

“Picco's Moon,” he breathed, and sank into his chair, knowing as well as I that species was constrained by biology and temperament to one small hunk of orbiting stone.

Not just any hunk of orbiting stone. “Picco's Moon,” I repeated, hearing the flatness of my own voice. “The Tumbler was last seen climbing Ersh's mountain. Given the fragility of the species, and the slopes involved, the authorities are treating this as an unfortunate accident. They probably won't search for a body. Tumblers,” I paused, trying to be delicate, “tend to fracture.”

“Why there? I thought Tumblers respected your property.”

I sighed. “This was apparently a being after your own heart, Paul. A risk-taker. But there's more—” I handed him the slip. “The flyover the authorities conducted found something else.”

He read quickly, then looked up with alarm. “Who the hell's mining your mountain?”

 

The operation wasn't legal, of course. Paul sent tracers through our system, tracers that multiplied outward, shunting through dozens of false origins before they converged like strands of a net over any com traffic in or out of Picco's Moon over the past year. There were reports of ships evading custom checks, an increase, it was thought, in the smuggling of Tumbler gems.

I hoped it would prove to be something so innocent.

I owned Ersh's mountain, an ownership part of me knew was foolishly dangerous, since it was a potential clue to any who sought a history to Esen-alit-Quar—not to mention the dozen forms of me registered as sharing that ownership. It had to be some ephemeral weakness; I had no other frame of reference for the compulsion I felt about the place.

But Paul knew I had no choice. All that remained of Ersh—Ersh herself—was that mountain. She'd chosen to spread her mass within its rock, to die in order to evade our Enemy. In some way, the mountain remembered being her.

So my Human watched without comment as I cued up the listings for travel to Picco's Moon—poring over schedules for something inconspicuously already in motion; failing that, hunting for ships currently assigned but whose captains might be persuaded to change their plans. I didn't have to look up to see his disapproval. The ears of this form were more than capable of detecting the deepening of each breath, the way he held it in, as if planning to burst out in argument—doubtless sensible in nature and one I'd totally ignore—and then released that breath with a low mutter.

We knew each other well.

“There are a couple of ships that might do,” I said finally. “I can work something out, if you can look after that ...” I paused to wave vaguely in the direction of the outer office.

“That.” Paul lifted a brow. “Let me guess. You want me to find a logical reason to take a trip outsystem in the midst of our busiest shipping schedule ever, abandoning a dozen crucial negotiations and probably setting back the company by—conservatively—four years.”

I shone a tusk at him. “Perceptive being, aren't you?”

“Es ...” Whatever Paul wanted to say turned into a sigh of resignation.

“You know they'll believe you.” They might have believed me, if it hadn't been for a few too many—creative—situations in the past.
None
, I thought rather wistfully,
were completely my fault
, but our staff typically failed to take that into consideration before hiding their keys, shaking their heads, then calling Paul for confirmation anyway.

“I'll do my best. Meanwhile, you keep out of trouble.”

I made a great show of rearranging the piles of plas on my desk, saying virtuously: “I have work to do.”

“Out of trouble. Please.”

“Hadn't you better get busy inventing our excuse?” I said sweetly, resisting the impulse to stick the tips of my tongue out at him. “Sooner you do, sooner we can get to the bottom of this and be home again.”

Had I known how wrong I was, I would have stopped Paul in his tracks.

Otherwhere

 

 

RUDY Lefebvre—former starship captain in the Commonwealth, former Botharan Patroller, former . . . well, his résumé made interesting, if unlikely, reading—knuckled the sleep from one eye, while keeping his other open and focused. The weariness of his body was nothing more than an aspect of his current job: spy.

Not that a Human back didn't complain after five standard hours spent crouched against a wall, positioned so a face could be pressed to a brick that hadn't been part of the original construction. Rudy tightened and eased various muscles along his spine automatically; never enough to stop the aches, but enough to prevent full cramping. He hoped.

He had devices installed elsewhere: worms inside comps, tattles leeched to com systems and their transmitters, sniffers dormant on ceilings until their targets arrived.

Rudy blinked both eyes and pressed closer, giving a silent grunt of satisfaction.
But nothing
, he thought,
matched seeing for yourself
.

The other side of the brick looked into one of Urgia Prime's ultra-private meeting rooms, the sort commonplace in most shipcities. They were leased by traders and others forced to negotiate in transit—particularly those who lacked the mutual trust involved in using a vid. Expensive place for a chat, unless you considered privacy to be more than a luxury. Rooms like this were regularly swept for any eavesdropping device and contained the latest in anti-snoop technology. Those using the rooms had to take written notes, if they wanted a record of their own. No other devices would function.

Rudy enjoyed the irony that the room's original designers hadn't considered the ultimate low-tech combination of patience, a good memory, and a willingness to share space with scurrying invertebrates. Perhaps one day he'd sell them the concept. Of course, had the designers been Kraal, rather than D'Dsellan, the space within the walls would have been laced with poison gas as well as dust. Some cultures were just too paranoid for anyone's good.

Meanwhile, the Human was content, if confined. The first three meetings he'd watched had been less than memorable—unless one fervently wished to corner the insignificant marfle iced tea market, cared passionately about an upcoming auction of Feneden artwork, or believed any prediction claiming interstellar commerce was on its last legs and it was time to buy dirt-side storefronts before prices soared in response to the collapse of the economics of known space.

Ah, but the fourth meeting. That had been the reason for Rudy's giving up a perfectly lovely day's sailing for one spent as insulation. It wasn't for profit, though he knew information was more valuable than any real estate or fabric. Rudy was here at the request of a friend.

He could picture her now, as if his memory was as picture-perfect as any web-being's. Tousled auburn hair with hints of red, ancient eyes that couldn't decide if they were hazel or green, both belonging to a fragile wisp of a Human child who barely came up to his shoulder. A child who was not a child, with sufficient personality for six beings wrapped into one. Esen-alit-Quar.

Rudy grinned in the dark, knowing exactly how Es would react if she knew this remained his mental image of her. Not that he planned to ever say so, but he was reasonably sure Paul suspected. No harm done. He respected Esen for what she was, cherished her for what she did, and, like Paul, protected her in every way he could.

His grin became a smile, stretching dried lips. Another reason to endure imprisonment in plaster: Paul, Esen's first Human friend and her remaining family. Rudy's family, too, restored to him not only alive, but true to every memory and hope, despite the lies that had been spread about the Human “traitor” and his “monstrous” companion.