Skeen's Leap (19 page)

Skeen scratched at her cheek and contemplated the smiling Balayar. Not so old as he was claiming, probably not more than a year or two older than her although that was a bit misleading considering her ananile shots. His body looked solid if a bit portly, his hands and wrists were firm and well-muscled; running a pen wasn't the only thing he did with them. Neck and jowls were plump but taut, nothing flabby about him. And his eyes had the gleam of a mischievous child, would probably keep that till the day he died. A bit chunkier than she preferred, but otherwise he was just the sort of man she fell hard for, a brainy little rogue, soul-brother, she'd swear it, to Tibo that rat. She looked away from him, flooded momentarily with the grief and pain she'd kept pushing away from the moment she walked out of the shuttle register. Tibo you baster … the words came mechanically, none of the wry energy they'd had before … wait till I get my hands on you, you.… She passed her hand across her face. “Very well, I will put into words what you expect me to say. Where can I find the Ykx?”

“The honest answer is I don't know. Even rumors of Ykx are scarce these days.” He fished among the papers and found another long coil of tape. “I ran a search for my own curiosity while you were reading. Disappointing. Only two reasonably plausible sightings in the past century.”

“Century!” Skeen leaned forward, scowled at the tape he was pulling through broad fingers. “That's not a whole helluva lot of help.”

“Shall I go on?”

“Yes, at least it's something.”

“Good. South of Suur Tanzik, that's the continent you're on right now, on the far side of the sea called Tenga Bourhh is the subcontinent Rood Meol. Chalarosh land. Mostly desert except for two fertile strips, north coast along the Tenga Bourhh, and a loop about a large freshwater lake the Chalarosh call the Coraish Sea. Could swallow both the lakes here and not notice them. Unfortunately, we've got no detailed maps of the interior; the Chalarosh are second only to the Funor in their unfriendly ways. Happily for your purposes, the sedentary Chalarosh in the fertile belts are more inclined to be reasonable and they control access to the interior. I'll gather what information we have about dealing with them and give it to you in a bit.” He cleared his throat, consulted the tape; Skeen got the impression he didn't really have to, but was buying time for some reason. It bothered her she couldn't decide what that reason was.

“There's supposed to be an Ykx Gather near the northwestern curve of the Coraish, in the mountains between the lake and the western desert. I must tell you, the last reasonably reliable sighting was over fifty years ago. Before my time here. A Lumat Seeker was given leave to map the coastline of the lake. An Aggitj extra named Doegri who did some fine mapping of the delta of the lower Rekkan. He had with him a small computer with direction and distance capacity, which had come into his hands in a regrettably irregular way. Rather beside the point, but it explains what he was doing and why he was alone (he wanted no company watching and coveting the computer while he was using it) when he came across a juvenile Ykx out on his first free soarings. The cub had pulled a muscle and had difficulty walking and with Chalarosh swarming around as they were right then, his lifespan was about a minute and a half. They're tough, but they're light, the Ykx, so Doegri had no trouble packing the cub back to his people. He was invited into the Gather and given a fine welcome, fed, loaded down with gifts, especially from the cub's family. He also got some good recordings of Ykx speech and enough translations into Trade-Min to give scholars here pleasant work since inquiring into the constituents of that language and how it reflects Ykx social life, but you're not interested in that. I'll call up a précis of what we've learned and the phrase book we've developed; you probably won't need it, most of the Ykx Doegri met were fluent in Trade-Min. That's the closest Gather site. The other is on the far side of the world, somewhere round the middle of Suur Yarrik, Lake Sydo area. It is not quite so … so reliable.” He looked away, tapped his fingers on the papers, making them rustle. “It comes from one Perinpar Dih, a cousin of mine with a well-deserved reputation for stretching the truth out of shape. He swore grand oaths that what he said happened really did happen and even Perinpar wouldn't foreswear himself on the hearthstone of his mother. He said he pulled a wounded male Ykx out of the Halijara Sea. He owns a two-master and is too restless to stick to ordinary trade routes. Which is why he was poking around in the Halijara, not a healthy place for an outsider. He took the Ykx up the Shemu River through Plains Min territory all the way to Lake Sydo and left him on the isle in the middle of the lake. He said it swarmed with Ykx. More Ykx on the cliffs around the lake. They gave him some gems and metalwork to pay him for his time and effort, then told him to get out and not come back. Plains Min were hanging about, looking hostile. He might not have made it to the Halijara without his escort, four Ykx soaring overhead until he got clear of the Min. If the Gather at Coraish is gone, the Lake Sydo gather is about your only alternative.”

Skeen nodded. “I see. Or I would if I knew more about this … world. I really need maps. Wouldn't mind a skimmer to cut the distance down.” A smile twitched her mouth. “Any idea what I can use to entice a favor? From that last, it seems they aren't eager for trade.”

“No, I'm afraid … no, we know very little about the Ykx. Should know more. We don't. Never seemed the right time to send a Seeker. Never enough to do all we want done. Never enough money. Or people. The right people. Maybe it's too late.…”

“Hm. Something you didn't say—how long ago did your cousin pick up the Ykx?”

He looked startled, then nodded. “Not quite ten years.” He spread his hands flat on the papers. “Shall we do a deal, Maneke Pass-Through?”

“I thought we had, Scholar Dih.”

“The gold bought you time, Maneke, nothing more. No answers but the ones I choose to give, no impedimenta but those I choose to pass on.”

“You've got a sweet racket here, I see that, but find my appreciation of it somewhat limited.”

“So is the scope; you understand, if we disappoint too many too often, we lose our funding.”

“Why do I have difficulty visualizing you as a huckster?”

He chuckled. “The innate sensitivity of your soul, Maneke. Timka told you about my visits to the Poet. What do you think I was doing there, enjoying his verse?”

“She didn't think it was so bad.”

“Oh, he has a certain flair with words and a nice taste in images, but nothing to say. And we praise his tropes and chide him for the times he's taken too easy a way out of a difficulty and we milk him for the money to provide a living for better poets than he'll ever be.”

Skeen glanced at her ring chron, mentally adjusting the reading to tell her how much time she had before sundown. An hour and a little over, say an hour to be on the safe side. No need to push, the boy would wait and what was a meeshy copper in the mega flow out of her purse. “Lay it out, Scholar.”

The black eyes beamed at her, guileless as a friendly puppy, warning her to hang tight to everything she owned including her skin. “Let me tell you about the Tanul Lumat,” he said. “We were established by the Funor Ashon. You look skeptical; fair enough, from what you've heard about the Funor they don't seem exactly like benevolent benefactors. They aren't. They had a much more practical reason for donating the land and the funds to get us started. They were the most organized and supplied of all the waves and they had the advantage of seeing what had happened to Nagamar and Balayar, how rapidly we lost the ability to repair and reproduce the spotty technology we brought through with us and they were determined not to follow our example. They were considerably better off than we'd been, plunging in a panic through the Gate as we did, but an assessment of their situation showed them that they had problems ahead and not so far ahead. No machines to make the machines and no one who knew how to make the plans to make the machines that made the machines, if you see what I mean. Thus the Tanul Lumat. Though they are fanatic about the purity of their bloodlines and the bloodlines of their cattle, they are as firmly convinced of the value of mongrelizing ideas. Put a clutch of idea makers together and let the ideas breed like fury. Thus the Tanul Lumat. And they aren't fussy about disciplines; a historian is as welcome as a chemist and a good glassblower is worth both put together. Thus the Tanul Lumat. Part university, part factory, part museum, part … well, I suppose you could call it boarding school and orphanage, part refuge for persons who fit nowhere else.…”

“A lot of parts.”

“And even so not near the whole. I haven't mentioned the Seekers and the mapmaking, the navigating instruments of all sorts we produce, the experiments with metals, the medicines, the surgeons and physicians—well, the list could go on for a while yet, but that's sufficient to give you some idea what the Tanul Lumat is. Knowledge is the reason we exist and in large part, knowledge is the commodity we sell. We have to eat. We go on begging rounds like the dinners with the Poet. The Funor Ashon continue to subsidize us but only provide sufficient to underwrite food and drink and the maintenence of the buildings. The children we train, the Seekers we send out, most of our experiments—all these things we have to fund ourselves. Sometimes the families or communities that send children to us pay fees, but a gifted child without resources is welcome also and we must provide for our old. Fees such as you paid are a very small almost infinitesimal part of our income. We beg; we make mirrors, goblets, windowpanes, what have you in our glassery; we forge fancy swords …” he grinned suddenly, “like those you stole from the Poet.” He held out a hand, showed her several burn scars on his palm and forearm. “I've spent more than a few hours in the forges. Our looms are famous for the quality of their weave and the woven patterns; the Skirrik Scholars are especially adept at weaving. We are busy busy busy—there's never enough time for the work that brought us here. Never enough Seekers out mapping and noting the changes in the way folk are living, the impact the waves are having on each other, the impact of the occasional Pass-Through, well, you must see what I'm saying. Each century a little more is saved, but lifefire alone knows what is lost. The Ykx could be gone tomorrow and we know nothing—NOTHING—about them.” He sighed and leaned back. “That really is enough. I wanted you to understand how strongly I feel about what I'm going to ask you.” Another smile, rueful and self-deprecating. “A sorry huckster I am, giving you all the advantages. First, my part of the bargain. I will see you accredited to the Tanul Lumat as a Seeker. That will give you sufficient background to keep folk comfortable around you and explain why you are traveling. The Lumat has a lot of goodwill to call on in a lot of places. No funding. Things are too tight, they're always too tight. It's you who'll have to provide … well, that later. I'll get you the best maps we have, some that aren't available to the being who walks into the office. I'll get you a précis of the latest information we have about the state of the world. Much more current than that in the book you read. I will arrange your passage on a trader that'll take you down river and across the Tenga Bourhh. I will get you an introduction to the authorities in Atsila Vana who can give you permission to travel into the interior of Rood Meol.”

“And what do I do for all that?”

“Two things.” He leaned forward again, his eyes fixed on hers. “Before you leave, you spend as long as it takes to tell us everything you know about the Stranger's Gate and tell us everything you know or have guessed about the Min.”

She nodded. “Reasonable.”

He flattened his hands on the table. “And when you leave Oruda, you must take a real Seeker with you. We must know about the Ykx.”

She choked down a laugh. One more beast for her menagerie. Funny, he really seemed to think she'd balk at this. Maybe she would have yelled and kicked and spouted platitudes about she traveling fastest who traveled lightest, but she already had four Aggitj and a Min, what was one more? The magic goose, she thought. How many fools will glue themselves onto me before I leave this crazy world? Still, best be cautious, he could stick you with a real loser. “Agreed,” she said, and was hard put to swallow a giggle as he relaxed, “provided we get along. I'm not going to travel with some git who irritates me just by breathing.”

“Me,” Pegwai said, with a nervous grimace meant to be a smile.

“What?”

“I've been a Seeker many times before, young woman. I have friends and acquaintances that will be useful to both of us. I'm healthy and not stupid. Why not me?”

“Why not indeed. Fine with me, given two qualifications. I like things loose and easy, but in a pinch, I'm the boss. I say hop, you turn into a twitchy flea.”

“She who pays the fiddler calls the tune. The second condition?”

“I see what you meant about the funding. Would you feel morally outraged at traveling with a working thief? That's the second condition. No preaching or prying.” She laughed at the expression on his face. “How did you think I was going to provide for six besides myself? I'd far rather steal than whore and preference aside, I haven't the temperament or physical qualities for that line of work.”

He ran bright eyes over her face and form. “I wouldn't say that. There are men who like their woman lean and fiesty. Not enough, I suppose. And there's always the matter of that temperament.” Laughter in his voice, then a question. “Six?”

“Count 'em. You. Timka the Min. The Aggitj extras, Hal, Hart, Ders, and Domi. Last time round my fingers that makes six.”

“You couldn't talk some of them into waiting here for us to come back?”

“No.”