Skeen's Return (37 page)

“Took your time.” The voice was hoarse, painful. “Watch those [sound: wobblyhiss, some clicks, partially inaudible]”

“Gotcha.” Skeen rolled onto her back, shaded her eyes with the stump of her forearm. She grinned. “I think they're finally learning a little, Petro. They're sure not about to get any closer.”

Rustles, a few rattles, some scrapings and the shriek of wood being pulled over rough rock. A mutter. Smell of burning wood. Lipitero pulled herself painfully from the shelter. One of her legs was crudely splinted with wood sliced from one of the smaller branches, tied on with strips of the robe she'd brought with her. Her fur was singed in several places, there was a suppurating burn on one shoulder; the pain must have been unendurable. Her eyes were sunken, dull; there was a gray film over the dark nubbly skin on her nose; even where it wasn't burned off, her fur had lost most of its gloss and was twisted into peaks.

Skeen rolled onto her feet, took a look at her and whistled. “You look like I feel after a three-day drunk.”

“Damn your smart remarks, Skeen.” Lipitero levered herself onto an elbow and struggled to bring her legs around. She stopped, lay panting, her pointed ears pinned against her head. “Haven't had a sip of water f' two days.”

“Ti, grow some hands and get over here.” Skeen unclipped the darter, set it on one of the boulders, dropped to her knees beside Lipitero. “Petro, this is going to hurt.…” She slid her handless arm under Lipitero's legs, her other around the Ykx's shoulders. With a grunt of effort, pushing off with her powerful leg muscles, she lifted the wounded woman onto her shoulder and started trotting toward the ship.

Again Timka hesitated. It wasn't the time to try something she'd been wondering about, but she couldn't resist showing off for her kind wheeling above. She concentrated, tried to remember some of the desperation of the fight in the Aggitj's room the night Domi was killed, then shifted. She looked at herself with satisfaction, laughed aloud and shook a clawed fist at them. She had the Pallah shape, but her fingers were stubbier with the cat-weasel's retractable claws and she had the cat-weasel's thick coat of gray and amber fur. She leaped from the boulder, scooped up the darter and ran after Skeen. This body was intoxicating; she had that superabundant energy and a lot of the cat's musculature, her senses were so acute she was nearly leaping out of her skin at the least unexpected sound. She bounded past Skeen, hit the water with a growl of intense disgust, pulled herself over the rail, swung around in time to take hold of Lipitero and lift her on board. She gave the Ykx to Pegwai who came silently up behind her, turned to help Skeen on board but backed off as the Pass-Through snarled at her. With a shiver of relief she shifted to her standard Pallah form—and nearly collapsed from exhaustion. Apparently she was going to pay heavily when she used that shift. She could remember, though, with a terrifying vividness how she'd felt when she made that change. There were powerful tugs fighting whatever good sense she had, telling her to go back to it, to feel again that surge of power, that—well, say it, Ti—that was demonic if you looked at it one way, god-like if you saw it another. Even though she knew a little longer in that state might have depleted her to the point of death. With a weary sigh she pulled on her robe, tied the tie and looked around.

The crewgirls were raising sail with the same energetic skill they showed in everything they did; Usoq was leaning on the wheel, watching his boat and the sky with an equal intentness. She steadied herself with one hand and bent her neck slowly because she was dizzy and her head ached.

The Min were still a disturbed swarm buzzing about high above them, showing no sign they intended to attack any time soon.

She eased her head up again, raised her brows at Usoq.

He grinned. “Burned a couple last time I was round these parts. Put your bunch and me together, looks like they don't want to bite.” Cepo came trotting past him and stood by the anchor winch. “Vohdi, ready?”

Her voice came back with a happy lilt even in the single word. “Ready, So.”

“Raise 'em.”

The Pouliloulou skimmed along the South Rekkah, with Timka, Skeen and Pegwai standing guard turn on turn, but the Min didn't attack. Most of them disappeared. Four stayed behind to follow them and make sure they didn't sneak off the ship and try losing themselves among the Pallah and the stray Min who were sprinkled about, salt to season the blander Nemin. Usoq drenched the coals and let the resin cauldron cool, but he kept the setup ready on deck, just in case one of the fliers succumbed to a brainstorm. The first night after the island brought more clouds streaming in, scumbling around; it didn't rain that night, but the morning was as dark as a night at moon's full and by afternoon the mast tip almost touched the clouds. By nightfall the winds were so strong and erratic, Usoq hove to and rode out the storm with bare poles and double anchors.

After she'd downed a few sips of water, Lipitero blinked wearily at the anxious faces hanging over her, managed a crooked smile, then sighed and fainted. Skeen worked over her for some time, cleaning the wounds, injecting her with the last of her antibiotics, spraying the gray film over the worst of the burns. Teeth clenched, struggling against nausea, Rannah helped her. When the work was done, the Aggitj girl signed, bent down and stroked her fingers over the soft silvery down on Lipitero's cheek. “Will she be all right?”

Skeen twitched, bit down on her lip and swallowed the ugly comments that leaped to her tongue; no point in spewing her choler and anxiety on the girl's head. “Probably,” she said.

Pegwai came in with a cup of the soup he'd been brewing in the galley. He looked at Lipitero, then Skeen. “She should have this.”

Skeen smiled wearily. “Smells good. Is there more of it?”

“A pot still simmering.”

“Safe?”

“Usoq and the girls are busy. For the moment. Later, I don't know, I suppose we go back to staggered meals.”

“Well, then, old friend, you see what you have to do.” Skeen took the hot mug from him and moved back to Lipitero. “Take this, Rannah. When I lift her, you hold it to her lips and give her small sips.” She began rummaging in her pack, brought out the drug disc; she set it on the bed and turned the knob until she had what she wanted, pressed the disc to the inside of Lipitero's elbow and activated it. Lipitero stirred, blinked open her eyes. Skeen put the disc away, slipped her arm under the Ykx's shoulders and raised her. “Pegwai's cooked up some marvelous soup, Petro. Just you relax and drink. It'll make you feel more like yourself.”

The Pouliloulou slid into Spalit before dawn on the third day after Petro was taken off the island, sails reefed until the wind drove them barely faster than the current sought to push them, creeping along in fog so thick it was impossible to see more than a meter beyond the bow; both crewgirls were back on duty, moving more slowly, some of their vigor gone, having had only snatches of sleep on those three days. When Vohdi shouted wharves ahead, Usoq eased the boat toward the shore and brought her alongside the first with the sound of wood rubbing on wood but no more than that. The girls had mooring cables over the bitts in the next moments, the ship tidied to quiescence, and were back waiting for Usoq's orders before Skeen had time to yawn twice and scratch her head.

“No hurry, none at all,” Usoq said with a lazy amiability that didn't quite cover the rancor boiling under his surface. He was hating them pretty thoroughly at the moment, wanting control of the Ykx, not daring to try for her. “We'll be overnighting here. Too much the Rekkah's been for us, too much,” he smoothed his hand along the flank of the nearest crewgirl. “We need our sleep and meals we haven't cooked. Eh, Vohdi? And clean slippery sheets to slide between, ah, it's a healing just thinking about such things.”

“No doubt.” Skeen yawned again and went below to fetch the others.

The fog persisted all day, a dreary dripping day with the sun a faint cold glow that produced little light and less heat. Late in the afternoon Skeen left the taproom of the Spitting Split and wandered out to the riverfront. She settled on the end of a wharf, legs dangling over the edge, her feet dissolving in the fog. She couldn't see the water, but she could hear it, the melancholy sound suited her mood; the eruption of irritation that had plagued her the last few days had drained away, leaving her limp as boiled spinach in mind and body. She swung the feet she could see as dark blurs and brooded into the knotted fog.

Suddenly the end was so close she could see it. Suddenly. Three days upriver to Dum Besar. A day, a night and a day across the Plain, one more day through the Mountains to the Gate. A week. One fuckin' week and we'll all be dead or through to the other side. Ahhh, Djabo, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know what I … want. Tibo, why? Do I really want to know why? Ahhh, want, that's nothing. I don't want to know, I HAVE to know. Can't run away from this one, can you Skeen old girl? No room for running.

She struggled to switch her thinking to another track; since the Gate closed on her, she'd concentrated on reopening it, almost everything she'd done was directed to that end. There was still an effort to be made, but it was time, more than time, to start thinking about what she'd have to do once she passed back to the other side. I wonder if the Junks are still waiting for me. Does time here run at the same rate? No way I can tell till I'm back and see how many days passed there. Forget that. Waiting Junks. Nah. Gate's one way for most folk. Look what happened to me. Old Yoech must have been hanging about when another Pass-Through made the jump. Who knows why, it's the only way he could have come back. The Junks chase us, we disappear and never show up again, why waste their time hanging around. Satellites? No, I've been through that before, the sun's acting up too much, there's that much on my side. Three of us to get back into Chukunsa. Ti's no problem—she can just grow wings and fly in. Hm. Petro? Don't know, she's got a lot of instrumentation in that harness. We'll both be walking. How are we going to transport all this … this stuff we've collected? Take a horse through with us? That's a possibility. To sell the jewelry and artifacts, I'll have to get them into Chukunsa. Tchah! Easy enough for me to walk out, nothing on me to ring bells. Tibo's told me often enough not to jump without looking where my feet come down. Djabo's drippy nose, it's a mess. Hmm. Can't take it through the gates. Over the wall? Hah! Here's a thought. What's the use having a shapechanger around if she can't solve these little difficulties. Ti can carry quite a lot if she has time to rest and doesn't have to go too far. Another thought. She can go places no Junk could reach. Hm. Hide the jewels and things somewhere along the chasm walls. Once Petro and I've got a base, Timka can fly the stuff in. Have to work out the details. Might be a good idea to leave most of the stuff stashed until I locate a buyer. Mmm. Some kind of papers for Petro and Ti. Don't need much to get off Kildun Aalda, it's getting down again somewhere else. If I prostrate myself before her, will Bona Fortuna have a ship ready to go from Aalda port scheduled to touch at a freebase? I don't want to hang around once I've sold the jewels, bound to be questions.…

“Skeen.” The voice came out of the fog behind her, quiet and a little melancholy, startling her because she hadn't heard footsteps.

“Peg?” She started to get up.

“No. Stay there.”

She heard a soft grunt as he lowered himself, the thud of his knees on the planks, the pop of his joints, the whisper of his robe. His hands brushed her shoulders, were heavier on them as he smoothed his palms from her neck to her arms and back again. Heavy but gentle, back and forth.

“You're very tense,” he said. He squeezed her shoulder muscles, his fingers digging painfully into her.

“Hah.” There were a lot of things she could say. Too many. So she said nothing.

His hands stroked her neck, his thumbs rubbed behind her ears. Up and down. Hypnotic. They tightened on her throat, smooth fleshy noose. She couldn't breath, she didn't struggle, she let it happen. Gentle easeful blackness.

When she woke, she was back in the Inn, in her bed. Pegwai sat near the fire, watching the dying flames crawl across the coals.

“Peg?” Her voice was hoarse, her throat sore.

He turned his head. “It's been a while.”

“No privacy.”

“That too.”

“Too?”

“You understand me.”

Skeen sighed, winced. “You make me feel too much. It … bothers me. I couldn't cope with that and everything else going on. Peg, can you understand? I want smaller pleasures. I don't want to feel so much.”

“You're not coming back here. To Mistommerk, I mean. Once you're on the other side.”

“Peg, I don't belong here, I'm used to … oh, a life that's more, what, more enabled, ahhh, faster, not better—” The last two words came hastily, trailed off as he made an impatient gesture. “Say this, with a different kind of comfort, a different kind of problem. Look at me fumbling for words, but I can't really explain because you don't know both worlds. It's like trying to explain blue to a blind man. Oh shit, anything I say is wrong. No, I won't be back.”

“Let me stay with you. A last time.”

“Djabo.” Skeen moved restlessly on the bed, the too familiar darting burn flashing from groin to nipples. She tried a smile. “I don't know if Maggí or I should trust you with her daughter.”

“Skeen!”

“I didn't mean it.” She brushed her hand across her breasts, bit back a groan. “Trying for psychic pain, icing on the cake, ahh, gods, yes, Peg, yes.…”

Lipitero sucked in a breath as Skeen came across the room toward them, scratched and battered, one eye half closed. Before the Ykx could speak, Timka's hand closed on her arm. “Don't say anything, I'll explain later.”