Part 24 (1/2)

”Why are we looking at these things?”

Adelaar turned her head. ”The Brain searched out lifeforms, Hanifa. We have to see them all before we know if one could be Parnalee.”

The eyepoint continued to jump. More moles, bats, mobile fungi, other, less-identifiable life forms, things mutated into half-glimpsed horrors.

”This is wasting time.”

”No,” Adelaar said, ”we're finding out where not to look for him.”

The large screen went blank, flipped back to the schematic of the Bridge.

”I was afraid of that, he's in a blind spot somewhere.” She kicked the chair around, taped nervously at the arm. ”Probably listening to us.”

”Listening?”

”Were it me in his place, I would be. At the least, listening.” ”So where is he?”

”I told you. A blind spot.”

”Get the others up here. We'll do it our way, gridsearch this thing till we find him.”

”Fine. If you've got a year or two.”

”What?”

”How long would it take to search gul Inci room by room?”

Elmas Ofka frowned at the screen, one arm folded across her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, her fingers moving slowly up and down the biceps of her other arm. ”Then how. . .

”Let me think about that awhile. And see if I can do something about snoops.”

”Ah.”

Adelaar crossed her legs, tapped her fingers on the arms of her chair. ”The holding area for the prisoners is ready and Pels has set the tube to it. It's near one of the lifepod banks so your people won't have far to move them once you're ready to pop the pods.”

Parnalee smiled, lifted his gla.s.s in a salute. ”Clear them out, you oozy wh.o.r.e. Clear them all out, it's woman's proper work, cleaning house. Clear out yourself and leave me to fry.” He laughed. ”It's not going to happen, b.i.t.c.h.”

He stroked his free hand along the smooth black flank of the interface. ”Your time is coming, love. Wait a little longer, until they've licked up the vermin and I can move without running into strays.” He sipped at the brandy, his eyes on the lethal gray egg sitting on its mobile bed. ”A little longer, love.”

The Bridge cleared quickly. Aslan watched the raiders swagger out, chivvying the Bridge crew before them. The weight of a helpless rage and inturning violence had been lifted from them now that they had the Warmaster and she could no longer threaten their families and the land itself; should they happen across Parnalee, they'd tear him limb from limb, but it'd be (marginally) a more abstract action with overtones of justice, not simply the blood boiling up. There were small cruelties as they hustled their captives out, an elbow in the ribs, pinches on arms and b.u.t.tocks; mostly though, they cut at the crew with a cheerful contempt, a facility of tongue developed to work off anger at wrongs that the law or force of arms couldn't ... no, wouldn't right, the retaliation for the indifference of the Huvved Fehz to the suffering of the Hordar poor in the cities and on the gra.s.slands, to the pain of Hordar families forced off the land they'd worked for centuries before the Huvved came and claimed it. She cross hatched an area of the pad, no words left, not right then; the Ridaar was flaking this, that was enough.

Trouble ahead for everyone. These hill-and-gra.s.sers, they were what the Huvved had made them; when the war was over, when Elmas Ofka and those like her were trying to put the world together again, these raiders, bandits more than anything else, they were bound to be provoking, out of control, sources of instability, inviting a reimposition of the injustices that had created them.

They had to change. She sighed. It wouldn't happen. She looked at the crosshatching, a rambling nothing, started writing again, stopping, thinking, no longer noting impressions, being her father's daughter for a change, poet's daughter trying a poem of her own.

la le la la le la yesterday be gone away la le la la le la games we play words we say la le la la le la dead and done dry bones in a drying pond ripples pa.s.s beyond and gone la le la la le la echoes to relay replayyesterday la le la la le la dessicated dull and dry are you am I are we today nil and null reclaiming sway on and over yesterday la le la la le la goodby lover never hover can't recover yesterday.

She sighed, dissatisfied, and pushed the pad away.

Jamber Fausse stood beside Quale, watching Adelaar and Pels hunched over their consoles. ”There's this woman I know,” he said, ”had a kid, a boy. Time he was three he was taking things apart, see how they worked. Drove him near crazy when he couldna figure what did what 'n why. No one to school him, they were borderfolk, lived 'tween Chel and gra.s.s, family got broke up, the da, he was horned and headpriced, she took the boy down to Inci. He's dead. Built him a yizzy 'fore he was nine. Bitbits got him, shot away the pods, poured his firejuice on him and lit a match. This Parnalee of yours, you say he wants to kill Huvveds?”

Quale smoothed his hand along his beard. ”Yeh, but you wouldna like his methods.”

”Eh?”

”Why you think he wants this s.h.i.+p?”

”Since you be reading the man's mind, you tell me.”

”Work the sums yourself, he's after the hide of every Huvved on Tairanna and he doesn't give a handful of hot s.h.i.+t for Hordar, not being Hordar or having any ties groundside. You doubt that, go look at your dead down in Sleepers.

And he's cracked to the marrow. Talk to Aslan, you want the book on that, have her read her bonebreaks and bruises for you. For that matter, ask the Hanifa what she thinks. Way she's acting now, she got the point a time ago.”

”Point being don't trust Outsiders?”

”Long as you use your head, not your gut.”

Jamber Fausse took a long look at him, then strolled across to Adelaar.

”Yaba.s.s,” he said.

She started, looked round. ”A minute. Let me finish this.”

He waited, hands clasped behind him, watching lines of symbol and number flicker in and out so fast no one who didn't already know what they were could take them in. The schematic of the Bridge returned suddenly, the green lines overlaid with red. Adelaar contemplated them a moment, then looked over her shoulder, ”What is it?”

”What's this Parnalee know you don't know?”

Quale frowned at the screen. ”You've shut him out?”

”Right. He can't hear us now.”

Jamber Fausse looked at the screen, then from one Outsider to the other.

”What's he know you don't?”

She pushed the chair around so she didn't have to keep stretching her neck.

”Obviously he thinks he can take her away from me.”

”Can he?”

”How the h.e.l.l do I know? All I can do is scramble this Brain so radically he couldn't possibly straighten it out before she drops in Horgul.”

”You're sure?”

”I'm sure.”

Jamber Fausse looked down at his hands; he held them palms up, thumbs out, fingers cupped in fingers; he looked at them as if he read Parnalee's mind inthe lines and folds. ”He may be crazy, but he's no fool. Has to be something else.”