Empire of Bones (28 page)

An unmistakable look of speculation entered Sirru's gaze: relating to what? Jaya wondered. Suddenly uneasy, she took a step forward, ready to snatch the child away, but Halil stood as if entranced. Sirru's long hands cupped the boy's face for a moment, and the alien's eyes narrowed. Then, with a move-ment so swift that Jaya did not even see it, Sirru's sharp nails opened up the child's wrist. There was blood from palm to el-bow. Halil gave a sharp, startled cry and sank to the floor, his mouth working in shock.

Jaya sprang forward, but the alien was no longer there. He had dragged the child into the corner and backed him up against die wall.

"Sirru!" she cried. "Let him go. Let him go
now't"

A wave of fear, so strong it was almost palpable, made Jaya stumble to her knees. And though she struggled against it, she could not rise. It was not her own fear, but something imposed from without, goading her adrenaline into override action. Neutralized by Sirru, she could only watch helplessly. His own wrist had been injured, she saw as he pulled back the sleeve of his robe. She watched with horrified fascination as the skin of his arm began to pull back, crawling up his arm as if someone were rolling back a sock. Layers of muscle exposed themselves, followed by the slow seep of blood from a vein. It might have been arterial blood, but it looked too dark. He pressed his own bleeding flesh against the child's injured wrist, so that the blood mingled. Halil's eyes were wide, his mouth open in a silent rictus shout.

"Sirru," she croaked. Her throat felt as though a hand had closed around it. "
What are you doing
?" A stray memory snapped at her, of her room on the ship; the walls closing in on her, and pain.

Sirru was murmuring to the boy, and Jaya caught the soft drift of reassurance. "Sirru?" she whispered again, and the alien looked up. His face was filled widi pity. He sent:
Ifrustrationlangerlsorrowlwrongnessl

"What?"

/wrongness/incorrectness/failure/

The child's head was drooping. Sirru raised the boy's bloodstained wrist, which already seemed to have closed, and fastidiously licked it clean. Jaya stared, appalled and still un-able to move, but then Sirru's grip was abruptly released. Her calf muscles shook like jelly. She crawled as quickly as she could across the floor and reached out a trembling hand to the boy's throat.

"Halil! Are you all right? I won't let him touch you again."

The pulse was strong, though Halil was unconscious. Sirru's free arm, cleansed of blood, snaked around her waist and pulled her close.

"Don't touch me!" She tried to pull away, but his grip was too strong.

He gave her a reassuring pat on her forearm.

/good girl/finished now/better/order restored/

"What in the name of hell have you
done
?"

He squinted round so that he could look her in the face.

/why, healed/

He seemed surprised. She looked down at the child. Perhaps it was just her imagination, but the silvery striations of the disease appeared to be fading. Sirru drew a gentle finger down the child's cheek.

"Jaya?"

"Yes?"

/many?/

"What do you mean?"

He tapped the child's face.

/many?/

"Yes," she said, trying to gather her confused and angry thoughts and project the right emotion. "Many of them, Sirru. A lot of sick people."

The hope of a cure for Selenge, the whole reason for her need to keep the aliens close, returned with full force. Warring with it, however, was that later echo…
Healing and harvest
. How did those two fit together? If indeed they did. After what Sirru had just done to the boy, she was more con-fused than ever. Worrying over understanding like a jackal with a bone, Jaya shrank from the alien's grasp and sagged back against the wall with the child's head in her lap, so that they were sitting in a row: a family from nightmare.

17 Orbital/ Kasasatra

"Hurry up," Anarres hissed. "Someone's bound to notice what we're doing." She shifted from foot to foot in agitation as Nowhere One scrolled through the list of translation logs.

"I'm nearly there. EsItta…EsIttgi…EsIttikh! And here's the file for Arakrahali." He pointed to a vault in triumph.

"Only one person?"

"There was only one administrator on Arakrahali," the Natural informed her. "
A desqusai
named IrEthiverris. And a
kftaith
."

"But I recognize this vault," Anarres said. She looked around her, certain now that she had come here once before. "I'm sure this is the person that EsRavesh told me to erase."

"Interesting," Nowhere One said softly. He slid the storage container out of the vault. It was roughly the size of the palm of his hand, and fitted easily into the sleeve of his robe.

"You're stealing that?" Anarres said, wide-eyed.

"That was the whole point of the trip." Nowhere One closed the vault. "Let's go."

"But who is it?"

Nowhere One smiled at her. "IrEthiverris' First Body. I want some answers about Arakrahali, and there's only one person who can give them to me."

Together, they hastened out of the chamber containing the vaults and back along the corridor. But as they reached the docking bay, someone stepped in front of them, towering over Anarres and the Natural.

Beneath a robe encrusted with orna-mental wire, the being's skin was a deep black, like a bruise, and his eyes were a startling light lavender. A spiny crest rose along the crown of his head and he had long, attenuated fin-gers. He spoke in a high whistling voice.

"Madam! I am overseer of this facility. I am Uassi SiMethiKhajhat. I have been looking for you. My
hessirei
gate-keeper told me that you were seeking me. I fear you have be-come lost."

His lavender gaze flickered over Nowhere One. The Natural, with an anxious glance at Anarres, sidled back into the shadows.

"Come with me," the overseer said. He turned, flicking a hand toward the Natural as he passed. Anarres caught the tail end of a stinging hail of pheromones. Nowhere One gave a brief hiss of pain.

"Maintenance people! Always getting in my way," the overseer snapped. He led her through a maze of corridors, to what was evidently his private chambers. "Sit down. Now. I did not summon an
apsara
.

Why have you come to see me?"

Anarres, thinking fast, noted the encrusted wire of the overseer's robes and the waxed sheen of his face.

She saw that die spines of his crest were inlaid with metal grooves, and that the long claws were polished to an obsidian shine. Anarres cast her eyes modestly toward the floor and murmured, "We
apsarai
gossip among ourselves. Word has got around about the Weapons Caste." Taking a risk, she whispered,

"You see, normally I am affiliated with the
fyaithoi
, but—"

"
Khaithoil"
the overseer snapped. "A vile people. I will not permit them on this facility, higher caste though they are. They are constantly requesting access, but I baffle them with bureaucracy, divert them with security checks." His crest rose at this evidence of his own cleverness.

That explained why EsRavesh had initially sent her here, then. "So I'm sure you understand why I might seek the com-pany of someone more…" Anarres reached out and drew a finger down the overseer's arm. "…
enticing
." She caught her lip between her teeth and gazed up into SiMethiKhajhat's lavender eyes.

The overseer's spines prickled with pride. "You are a con-noisseur, then! What a delight. We understand one another, I can see. Let us dispense with the formalities and begin. I pre-fer to initiate my first sexual act with Fourth Position, moving on to Sixth as we become more familiar with one another." He indicated a set of bonds attached to the floor. "I am also fond of the use of artificial restraints. How about you?"

Anarres sighed—but rather this than capture. Silently praying that Nowhere One had found somewhere to hide, she turned to the overseer and smiled. "That sounds wonderful."

A considerable time later, Anarres rose from the couch and retied the laces of her dress. She glanced down at the slumber-ing form of the overseer and wondered whether her lie about gossiping
apsarai
might actually be true. SiMethiKhajhat cer-tainly had some interesting hobbies. A year or so ago, Anarres might have been shocked, but after EsRavesh, anyone seemed acceptable. She had to find Nowhere One, but first, it seemed worthwhile to take a look around the overseer's private cham-ber. If he kept files, they did not seem to be here. Quickly, she searched through the racks of robes.

SiMethiKhajhat's ward-robe was even more extensive than her own had been, and Anarres entertained a pang of regret for all her lost clothes. She'd probably never see her house again. But if that meant being free of the
fyiaithoi
, it was worth it.

In an annex, she found an equipment deck. A communica-tion harness hung on the wall and, after a moment of indeci-sion, Anarres slipped it off its hook and rolled it up into a thin coil of mesh. Hadn't Nowhere One said that the Naturals' own pilfered technology was antiquated? This was a transla-tion orbital; presumably its communications array would be powerful enough to reach other worlds? Though she was not sure, she folded the mesh into her sleeve and crept stealthily out of the chamber.

To her immense relief, Nowhere One was loitering by the entrance to the docking bay with a service-brush. His quills flared up when he saw her.

"What happened to you? I've been worried out of my mind!"

"I'll explain later. We have to go."

They had an uneasy wait for the next raft, but boarding was not a problem. Anarres, now known to be the consort of the overseer, did not have to show her pass again. Within the space of an hour, they were once more standing on the landing ledge in the hot, soft darkness of Khaikurriye. Anarres leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes.

There was a sudden confusion behind her. An alarm began to shrill, but it was a moment before she realized that it was inside her body. It throbbed through her, reverberating up and down her bones.

"Anarres!"

She turned.

"Come with me." Nowhere One grasped her hand and dragged her along the ledge. She tried not to look down. The alarm sent weakness through her body, causing her to stagger.

"What's happening?" she cried.

"I don't know. Maybe your recent client's found his mesh missing." He motioned toward the far end of the ledge, and Anarres stiffened. The beings moving toward them were im-mense. Indigo carapaces glittered in the lamplight; pincers twitched.

The Natural hissed, and Anarres stumbled as they raced around a corner. She caught a brief, vertiginous glimpse of the ground, a very long way below.

"I've got you." The Natural's hand was clamped around her arm. "
Now
." Grasping her around the waist, he stepped off the ledge into thin air. Anarres cried out, then found that they were not falling. They had stepped into an airwell, and were now proceeding swiftly downward. The glistening shaft of a building towered up alongside the well; spines arched from its sides. Squinting up into the night, she could see their pursuers slide forth into nothingness. They resembled a pair of long-legged crustaceans tossed from a high building.

"Can't we go any faster?"

"No. But neither can they." The Natural gestured below. "Look. See that barge?"

She could feel his pointed chin resting on the top of her head. They were nearly level with the gliding air-barge; its navigation lights sent a beacon through the darkness. The Natural was pulling at her dress, tugging it outward.

"What are you
doing}"

"Moving us."

Slowly but surely, they were drifting to the edge of the air-well. Nowhere One gave a tug at his ballooning robes, and then there was a blast of air like a punch in the face. Finally, they were falling. The barge seemed to rush up from below, piloted by a very startled face. The air was knocked from Anarres'

lungs as they hit the arch of air that sealed the barge, and then the deck. Nowhere One was already crawling to the front of the barge, knocking the pilot aside. The pilot's hiss of wrath was abruptly silenced as the Natural elbowed him in the throat and the pilot sprawled across the deck. The barge veered and turned and Anarres, who had only just gained her feet, was knocked backward by the sudden acceleration.

Peering over the side of the barge, she saw that the landing ledge had receded to a tiny slit in the distance, with the great wing of the raft hovering above it. The barge veered between towers and domes, beneath the immense span of bridges. The whole hot world smelled of growth and growing, the air satu-rated with the green fragrance of night-plants. Nowhere One steered the barge higher. Tides of information drifted by, pheromonal eddies snatched by the wind and carried upward on the wells of the world. Anarres looked back for signs of pursuit, but the backdrop of the city was simply too huge for anything to show. By degrees Nowhere One took the barge lower, until they were sailing over the temeni below. This part of the city was grim: bleak, barren land interspersed with ru-ined domes and abandoned towers. It smelled of dust. With a rush of hope, Anarres recognized the Naturals' Quarter.

The barge dropped sharply and wobbled to a halt several feet above the ground. Nowhere One deactivated the air shield, then leaped to the bald earth below.

"Quickly. We don't know who might be watching."

Anarres raced after him toward the shadowy shelter of a ruined pod. When they reached its sanctuary, Nowhere One leaned against the curving wall, his chest heaving. Suddenly Anarres, too, was breathless.

She sank down until she was crouching on the ground, and Nowhere One collapsed beside her, reaching out to take her hands. She could feel the weight of the capsule in his sleeve: the First Body of IrEthiverris, last and only administrator of Arakrahali.

And then four stilted figures moved out of the shadows.

18. 't4ranast/ lemple or Dimja

What is your opinion ofjaya's Second Body
? asked Ir Yth. Sirru was sitting cross-legged on a mat, holding a bowl of tea. It was one of the few substances here that he found straightforward to digest; most other things seemed to require an inordinate level of processing in order for no waste to be produced. Ir Yth would eat only ground rice, and appeared to be living off her own inner resources; already, her plump face was beginning to look a little drawn. Sirru glanced at the
raksasa
with interest and considered her question.