Skeen's Search (13 page)

The ghost of a shadow, Timka faded unnoticed into the darkness under the trees. As quietly as she could, she stripped off her clothing, tucked the bundle into a crotch partway up a tree, then shifted to cat-weasel and settled herself to wait until she was sure no one had noticed her desertion.

A skitterdisc shrieked a short distance off. Cidder looked away from Skeen. “What's that?”

One of the Kliu drew near, muttered something Timka couldn't hear. Skeen laughed. “They like this clearing and they don't like us. Nearly tore the place down last night. I expect we're cluttering up their dance ground and this is their week to party.”

Muscles knotted beside Cidder's mouth, but he showed no other sign the disdain in Skeen's voice found any target in him. Ignoring her words he left two of the Kliu on guard by the lakepath and herded his prisoners inside. To Timka's relief he didn't notice one of them had decamped; she pressed her muzzle against her paws to push back the whining cat laughter, but as the shelter's entrance irised shut she stopped being amused and began wondering what her coup had gained her. It's like that time in the caves with Angelsin, she thought startled, happening all over again.

She began prowling warily toward the path, intending to get the stun rifle back into her hands. Before she could do anything useful she had to be better armed.

The Kliu left outside were jittery and unhappy, twitching with every sound, backing nervously together whenever a skitterdisc shrieked. Timka was nervous herself; the screams were getting closer, putting a time limit to her efforts; she had to get the rifle and break the others loose before that herd arrived. Her muzzle wrinkled into a silent snarl, her long ivory whiskers twitched and jerked. The Kliu were clinging stupidly to the path and the tree where she'd set the rifle. Boneheads, you should be out in the clear so you'd have time to blow the beasts apart, go on, get! Naturally they didn't listen to her and continued to cling to the illusory shelter of the trees. She crouched belly to the ground fuming with frustration.

Skitterdiscs screamed, the sound crackling about under the clouds, call and response. Close enough to make the hair stand up along Ti-cat's spine.

The Kliu expelled gases through their eating mouths, bubbling farts of fear, gabbled at each other through their breathing mouths and rocked deeper into the shadow under the trees, looking for a place where they could huddle together and feel a bit safer. Timka watched them fidget off, willed them away away away, her mouth stretched in a fierce cat grin as they disappeared into the darkness. She crawled closer to the tree, moving slowly and as silently as she could manage across the knife edged grasses that grew in stiff clumps between the trees. You made your fatal mistake, Abel Cidder, you left these housepets out here instead of one of yours; you were too afraid of Skeen escaping you again, yes, that's it; she's managed it so often. She shifted her right arm into a tentacle like one of Henry O's and sent it gliding round the tree. She lifted the rifle, easy, easy, brought it back around. Slow and quiet, she told herself, slow and careful, don't you make a mistake, you can't afford it if you want to get off this miserable world. If you want to get home again. Sometime.

She crept awkwardly across the crumpled grass, knowing she left traces a blind man could follow, not worrying much about it, those Kliu were worse than blinded, they were blinkered, their attention resolutely elsewhere. When she felt safe enough, she set the rifle down and shifted to the Pallah cat-weasel so she'd have hands (and speech if she needed it).

One of the windows in the first of the small bedrooms was an escape hatch; it could be opened from the inside with no trouble and from outside with a bit of fiddling. While skitterdisc cries ululated more frequently around the clearing, call and response orchestrated into a crescendo of warning coming closer and closer, Timka chewed on her lip and struggled to find the latches that would let her into the shelter. She could hear a faint burring sound through the wall, rising falling intonations, pauses, thank the Lifefire, Cidder was still talking. She ripped the latches loose, clenching her teeth at the unavoidable squeals and scrapes; she peered in, the room was empty, she rolled through the opening, landed on her feet and stood poised, the stun rifle ready, listening.

Cidder was talking, that rich creamy voice rolling on and on, ordering Skeen and Rostico Burn pinioned, describing the facilities for extracting information at the Kliu headquarters.

Timak ghosted toward the open archway, staying close to the wall where she couldn't be seen. She waited until she heard feet scraping on the floor, the sounds converging. They were on their way out. She stepped into the arch and turned the rifle on them, the whiny twang filling the room and bouncing back at her, the stun field sweeping from side to side, mowing them down, taking Skeen and Rostico Burn with them. She jumped the fallen, raced to the exit. The sound of the rifle brought the outside Kliu running; she sprang through the door, got them before they could react, though that was closer than she liked, behind her the shelter began leaking air where a wavery beam from the hand weapon pierced the skin when the left side Kliu got off a pulse as he fell.

A skitterdisc screamed, so close it might have been beside her. She started, the hot-wired nerves of this form driving her into wild bounds as she swung round, hunting for the beast that made the cry, but the clearing about the shelter was still empty. She fought for calm, loped under the trees and reclaimed her clothing, reclaimed also the Pallah form. She could think better as a Pallah and she was going to have to do some quick hard thinking.

Weary and frightened she returned to the slowly collapsing dome, dragged Skeen and Rostico Burn out. She touched Skeen's face, pushed her head about, clicking her tongue as she felt the flaccidity of the muscles. She didn't know how long the effect would last. She looked at the bodies, she looked at the wrinkled folding dome. A large cold drop hit her in the middle of her head, another hit her shoulder. The wind was beginning to rise and the night was noisy with shrieks and creaks. She looked around, shook her head. “Stupid.” She dragged Skeen and Rostico Burn back into the shelter, came loping out a big cat, the combox in her mouth, and raced off into the darkness.

She dropped the dolly's strap, swung up the rifle as two skitterdiscs came rushing at her, dropped them as she had their cousins, grabbed the strap again and raced for the Lander. She'd knotted some of the Kliu harnesses together and tied them down, but Skeen and Rostico Burn flopped about on the bed of the dolly. The rough ride down the track had loosened some of the knots. She worried about losing them when she could spare a moment to think of it which wasn't often.

The herd's forescouts had come tottering into the clearing as she was leaving it, they'd sounded their whining shrieks and set at her, a lurching clumsy flinging of their limbs that looked impossibly awkward but carried them forward with a speed and impetus that made them formidable fighters. Timka shot the leaders then plunged on along the lake path, the dolly jolting behind her, slowing her with its drag and the need its mass placed on her to shorten and thicken her legs yet more. Skitterdisc scouts came at her, popping out of the darkness, out of the busy small noises of the night, silent until they were on her, shrieking, drooling, all teeth, claws and ugliness.

By the time she reached the shore she was bleeding on arms, shoulders and thighs and her head was throbbing from the twang of the stun rifle, the howls of the skitterdiscs; Skeen and Rostico Burn were nibbled at, Burn more because he had more bare flesh available to their claws.

The Lander had stripped off the camouflage webs, her lock was open and the lift ready to drop. Timka dug into Skeen's belt (she was relieved to find it still wrapped about one of the straps; Skeen would skin her if she left the darter behind, or her tools), used the cutter to slice through the straps that held the two bodies onto the dolly. A blue-white light blade slashed past her shoulder and she heard the scratch thump of more skitterdiscs as they ran for shelter. “Thanks,” she called. “Drop the lift. We need to get out of here.”

As soon as the lock was closed, while the Lander was humming busily about her, Timka strapped Skeen and Rostico Burn into the chairs and got her own cushions ready. She thought a moment, then found some spare wire and wound it about Burn's wrists and ankles. She found the pulse in his wrist, sighed with relief as it beat strongly under her fingers. She circled round, checked Skeen, stood beside her facing the lights dancing across the panels (she was still uneasy talking to a no-face like this, uncertain about its limitations; Skeen called the Lander
her
, but Timka couldn't think of that complex of wire and metal and crystal as anything but an
it
.) “How soon can we get out of here? Do you have to wait till Skeen can pilot you? We'll have half the Kliu on Pillory sitting on our necks if that's so. Unless you can tell me a way to wake her faster.”

“It would be better not to interfere with the recovery.” The Lander's voice was a pleasant countertenor, suggesting either male or female, whichever the listener chose to hear. “There are flakes from the coming in, route and instructions from Skeen; it is possible to retreat along that line as far as the outermost orbit of the guardmoons, but beyond that there is uncertainty. What degree of stun? Maximum? Skeen will most likely be recovered by then or soon after. Do you wish to start now?”

“Yes, yes. You can do the shields? This time the Kliu know we're here.”

“It is noted; the shields are integrated into the drive unless Skeen orders otherwise. It would be prudent for you to take your place, Timka; if you must speak, you have the combox; it will be heard no matter what else is happening.”

Timka nodded, hesitated, then decided the Lander had sensors enough and intelligence enough to interpret the movement of her head. She curled up in her cushions. “Go.”

They burbled up off the surface, spiraling slowly out of the atmosphere, skimmed past a moonfort and came to rest an AU farther out.

Skeen blinked slowly, smiled with satisfaction as she looked round and saw Rostico Burn coming awake in the other chair. “Ti?”

“Yup.” Timka rose from her cushions and moved round to lean a hip against a bit of unimportant instrumentation.

“Cidder?”

“No doubt he's waking up about now unless the skitterdiscs ate him, and I doubt they did, he looked like too tough a mouthful.”

Skeen unsnapped the straps, touched a control and sat up with the chair. “When I saw it was just the two of us in there, I thought you'd come up with something or other Cidder was going regret.” She examined the schematic in the viewscreen, stopped talking while she entered instructions, then she settled back and examined Timka. “You don't look different. What did you do this time? Melt?”

“One thing about traveling with you, Skeen, a person keeps learning new things if a person doesn't want to get stomped. I can now shift to a ghost's shadow. Something no one feels like looking at or thinking about.”

“Well, aren't you clever.”

Timka grinned at her. “Aren't I just.”

“If Cidder is awake now, he's going to be sure he's cursed.” Rostico Burn had contrived to free himself from the straps and bring the chair upright. “I don't understand any of it, but I prefer my situation to his, poor old Hound. Ahhh, I hesitate to bring my little difficulties into this discussion, but this wire is damn tight and I'm dryer than a hot day on Rabesk.”

THREE DAYS TO KILL GETTING BACK TO THE BELT, ANOTHER HALF DAY PROWLING THROUGH THE ROCKS TO THE PLACE WHERE PICAREFY WAITED. I COULD DO THE MAGIC QUICK CUT AND IGNORE THOSE DAYS, ONE OF THE BENEFITS OF TELLING A STORY RATHER THAN LIVING IT. HMM, I THINK INSTEAD I'LL USE THIS INTERVAL TO FLESH OUT ROSTICO BURN'S PAST. PICTURE THE INTERIOR AS SOMETHING LIKE THE INTERIOR OF YOUR BASIC TV; PICTURE YOURSELF AS ONE OF THOSE ENTERPRISING COCKROACHES THAT USE A TV AS THEIR EQUIVALENT OF A CONDOMINIUM AND YOU'LL HAVE SOME IDEA OF LIFE IN THAT LANDER. A LITTLE STORY TELLING CAN LIGHTEN A LOT OF TEDIUM AND TAKE SOME OF THE CURSE OFF ENFORCED PROXIMITY. BETTER TO TALK THAN TO GET ON EACH OTHER'S NERVES TO THE POINT WHERE DISMEMBERMENT LOOKS LIKE A BARELY ADEQUATE RESPONSE TO INSULT.

Tors (Skeen's homeworld) and Lingaba where Rostico Burn was born and raised were companion worlds captured by a multiple star (six elements in all) in a nearly catastrophic passage not too long after life had begun to develop on Tors; when the system settled down there were still some stubborn lichens and small mobiles clinging to the churned-up surface of Tors and sufficient spores had been leached over to Lingaba to kick that world out of its pristine sterility. When the system was discovered in the early days of the Empire, Tors was a lush green world, a little too hot, but filled with fiercely competing life-forms of which the most intelligent was a cat-like predator with remarkably dexterous forepaws. Given a few more millennia these beasts might have made the leap to sapience, but they had the misfortune to be in direct competition with a far more ruthless and efficient predator. By the time the new Torskan population (fugitives from worlds the first Emperor was bludgeoning into submission and fitting into his Empire machine) had multiplied sufficiently to control the temperate portions of the landspace, there were no more caterills, only specimen skeletons in museums and rumors that a last pair haunted the hills of the far north. Finally Tors was rediscovered and absorbed into the Empire. The Consolidation Wars had destroyed a lot of databanks and more than one scout report had been lost; it took a while to chase down those lost worlds and rather longer to convince them they'd fare a lot better under the aegis of the Undying. The Torskans who held the threads of power in what had become a stratified feudal society were reluctant to let go, then not so reluctant when the Imperials showed no sign of pulling the rug from under them as long as they paid their taxes and kept the plebs in order. The rebellious were ruthlessly weeded from the population, exiled to Lingaba and left to make whatever they could out of that austere and unwelcoming world. By accident of topography and the nature of the settlers, Lingaba had a considerably looser social organization and a far less radically skewed distribution of wealth. It also had a force of Imperial troops garrisoned there and an Imperial governor with veto power over anything he didn't like, but for the past two hundred years all or almost all thought of rebellion had been thoroughly squashed out of the one-time rebels. Since Lingaba was rich in minerals scarce on Tors there was considerable trade between the two worlds and some contact between branches of the various septs though Torska generally considered Lingaban crude, crass and untrustworthy while Lingaban saw Torska as a treacherous snobbish bigot strangling in the knots of his history.