Part 21 (1/2)

”Don't fret it, I agree with you. My fa'ali clanks like a cracked bell when he's around. Unfortunately that's as intangible as your unsupported observations. He reports to our Hanifa regularly, feeds her suspicion, I don't know how, I didn't realize what he was doing until a few days ago.” She shook her head. ”I'll talk with Swar and Pels, we'll watch him, if he tries anything,” she sighed, ”maybe we can stop him.”

Aslan got to her feet. ”Have you seen the Jajes? They were my excuse to come up here, so I'd better find them and see if I can get an interview.”

k.u.mari swung her feet around, stretched out on the pad. ”They went toward that clump of trees down there by the hook inlets, I think those ancients remind them of home.”

”Maybe they'll feel more like talking there.” She brushed her hair back from her face and started off, trudging along the lakesh.o.r.e vaguely dissatisfied though she was glad she'd finally spoke her speech about Parnalee.

25 days after the meeting on Gerbek. Conference on Chicklet's bridge: Quale,Pels, k.u.mari.

Quale scratched at his jaw, his eyes on the screen and the swarm of very a.s.sorted beings moving about outside. ”How many we have so far? I haven't bothered keeping track.”

k.u.mari called up the figures. ”One hundred and twenty on the list, one hundred fifty altogether. You two keep acquiring extras.”

”Money total?”

”306,900.”.

He grinned. ”I could live with that.”

”Add in the targets in the Palace, it's close to 400,000.”

”Which brings up why I had us meet. We can't use the skips to clear out the Palace targets. We'd have to make, what? four, five trips even using both of them. Better to take the tug and get them in one. Which means we have to wait on that till the Hanifa is ready to jump. You talked with her this morning, Kri, what do you think? If we moved Lift-off forward say four days, make it tomorrow, could she handle the speedup?”

”Four days, what's the point, Swar? Better stick to the schedule. If you feel like keeping clear of Kuzey-whiyk cities, we've got some targets here on Guney-whiyk.”

”I don't see how you can say those sneezes with a straight face, Kri.”

”Practice, Swar. I've had to learn the Cousin Speech you babble in and Interlingue. If you knew the liquid crystal loveliness of Pilarruyal, you wouldn't ask questions like that.”

”Mmp. All right, see what you can do about maps. The Proggerdi won't be any help down here.”

”Which brings up something I think you ought to know. Day before yesterday I left Adelaar on the com and took a book up to the lake to get some rest and reading. Aslan followed me up there about an hour later. Listen. . . .” She sketched out what Aslan told her.

Quale stroked his fingers along his moustache. ”Chatting up the Hanifa?”

k.u.mari nodded. ”Trust you to put your foot on the main point. Yes. Every night. Soon as you and Pels are gone. He's talked our Hanifa into hiring him as a watchhound. We haven't a hope of leaving him behind.”

”You mean she'd actually shut down Lift-Off if we refused to take him?”

”It'd be a tight call, but I suspect, yes she would. She never trusted us all that much and he's been working on her.”

”You've been monitoring him, why didn't you stop it?”

”Because I was too dumb to know what he was doing. Not until he'd been doing it long enough to really get under her skin. When I did, what was I supposed to do about it? If you can explain how, it's more than you've done before this.”

”s.h.i.+t.”

”Precisely.”

”Well, I suppose we do what we have to. And watch our backs.”

26-28 days after the meeting on Gerbek.

Ayla gul Iltika, gul Mizamere, gul Pudryar, one by one Quale and Pels dipped into the Littoral cities of Guneywhiyk and pulled out slaves, some on the list, some of them extras they couldn't leave behind without telling the world there were Outsiders on Tairanna.

Ayla gul Ukseme was the largest city on Guneywhiyk, in size as well as population; it was a confused sprawl thrown along the inner curve of a skewed half-moon bay. Out where the baywater mingled with the sea there were several Sea Farms, small offshoots of the elder Farms off the coasts of Kuzeywhiyk.

There were dozens of freighters tied up at the wharves, linear cl.u.s.ters of one- and two-story warehouses, open-air markets that never shut down; beyond these were stores and Houses spread out along a web of winding streets which climbed over hillocks like horripilation on a cold man's arms. When he saw the satellite fots, Quale swore fervently and nearly gave up on the city, but k.u.mari did some snooping and discovered that some of those on the list belonged to theFehdaz who rented them out during the day and made sure they were back in the pen at the Fekkri by day's end. Which was very helpful of him. Made it easy to locate them after dark.

The Fekkri was a ma.s.sive pile with dozens of towers packed in cl.u.s.ters and a mooring post with a pair of midsized airs.h.i.+ps nose-locked one above the other.

The pen was a small excrescence tacked onto the backside of the pile, a low structure with a waist-high parapet around a flat roof cluttered with bales, crates and a.s.sorted discards.

As Quale came in over the city, the air was heavy with damp and the promise of rain. The winds near the ground were tricky, gusts to twenty kph one minute, almost nothing the next, downdrafts with the drag of an octopus, updrafts that threatened to capsize the skip. As a final irritation, the pen's roof was so cluttered with discards, the only open s.p.a.ce available was over the trap.

Quale landed the skip there and spent the next several minutes sweating and cursing under his breath as he and Pels s.h.i.+fted bales and useless sc.r.a.p so they could move the machine off their entry point; they had to lift and carry and set down gently, no tossing, no rolling, nothing to make their lives a bit easier; they had to keep the noise down so one of the guards wouldn't get a notion to check out why the rats in the rafters were so noisy that night.

He left Pels dealing with the lock and strolled to the parapet. On the way in as he was circling so he could put the skip's nose to the wind and make a smoother, quieter landing, he'd seen crowds in the streets; quiet crowds, no yizzies, no counting coups, no fires, just hordes of people. Something about them bothered him; he wanted a closer look to see if he could figure out what it was.

The street that went past the pen was a broad tree- lined avenue. He saw half a dozen dark forms standing under the trees. They weren't talking or even moving much. They simply stood and stared at the outer wall of the Fekkri. As he watched, several more figures came round a corner and joined them. By the time Pels summoned him, there was a small crowd down there, silent, motionless, eyes fixed on the wall in front of them. Spooky. He answered Pels' hissing call with a tooth whistle and turned away, glad to have an excuse not to look at them any longer.

He followed Pels through the trap, went down a steeply slanting ladder to a dusty littered storeroom. It's door was locked, but a quick jab of the autopick took care of that. The EYEs k.u.mari had run through here reported that there were three sleeping cells, four slaves in one, three in each of the others, ten in all. Seven of them were on his list. If Luck had been a trifle kinder the targets would have been in one room waiting for him, but this was her night to be a b.i.t.c.h.

While Pels stood guard, he slashed through the bolt and pulled the first door open. ”Listen,” he said, ”You want out of here? Right. Is there one here . .

.” he looked around; no jajes so he didn't bother reading those names, ”called Roereirein Lyhyt or Ikas Babut se Vroly or Touw se Vroly?”

”I am Touw se Vroly. Ikas Babut is my mate, he sleeps the next cell over.” She was an attenuated figure with a grace even weariness and the wear of servitude had not yet taken from her. He heard a faint clash as she pushed a pair of armbands up past her elbow, by the pallor of the metal they were silver or platinum. She looked around, caught up a shawl and draped it over her shoulders. ”What of the others here?” Her arm bands clashed again as she made a wide curving gesture that took in the other two females in the cell, a Froska and a small shadowy figure with more hair than features.

He crossed to her, set the pick working on her collar lock. ”What I'll do, I'll unlock the collars and the other two can stay here or leave by the street door, whichever they prefer. If they want they can give me their names and homeworlds and the names of kin I should notify, or you can do that later if you know them. I can't take all of you, the skip just won't hold that many.”

Next cell. ”Ikas Babut se Vroly, Roereirein Lyhyt?” The third in the cell was a Miesashch tetrapod with the jitters, his split hooves tick-tackingaggressively against the floorplanks. ”I'll unlock the collars on all of you.

You, despois,” he told the Miesashch, ”can stay here or leave by the street door whichever you prefer. If you want you can give me your name and homeworld and the names of kin I should notify. I can't take more than those on my list, the skip just won't hold that many.”

Next cell. ”Weggorss Jaje, Otivarty Jaje, Krathyky Jaje, Imagy Jaje? Good. The Bialy Vitr think highly of the Bond Jaje, they have offered one thousand gelders for the return of each lobe of the Bond, there are four Jajes in my camp already, eight thousand in my hands when I set you all down on Helvetia's pavements. Be a.s.sured I shall take very good care of you.”

There was a spate of whispering among the Jajes, they were using their highest register; the fugitive sounds tickled his ears and gave him the beginnings of a headache. The boldest of the four moved a step toward him, a velvety black female invisible in the twilight inside the cell. ”This one is Otivarty Jaje.

What is the calling of the Presence who speaks us?”

”Swardheld Quale, s.h.i.+p Slancy Orza out of Telffer.”

More whispering. Otivarty stepped away from her Bond again. ”The calling is known, the word is acceptable, we will come.”

Quale started for the storeroom and the ladder, his seven hustling along behind him, anxious to be out of there. Equally anxious, the extra three hurried the shorter distance to the street exit; the Froska had Quale's cutter, she sliced through the lock tongue and began lifting the bar.

Pels was in the storeroom already and on his way up the ladder. Quale shooed his herd of ex-slaves through the door and was about to follow when he heard a rumbling mutter, then an exclamation of shock and fear from the Froska as the door was wrenched from her hand and sent cras.h.i.+ng against the wall.

Blankfaced muttering Hordar came stomping in, hands like claws reaching for the outsiders, mouths open, lips fluted to produce a whistling growl, eyes wide with no one home behind the s.h.i.+ne. The extras took one look at them and ran the other way. Quale waved them past him, played his stunner across the front rank of the mob. Five Hordar fell. The Hordar behind them marched over them, stomping heedlessly on them, crus.h.i.+ng them.