Authors: Sheri S. Tepper
Unless – unless he decided he didn’t want them to leave at all, which might be safer for Justin in the long run. The three of them must have accumulated a considerable credit account on Serendipity by now – four millions or more, Justin estimated from what he knew of the take at the temples. The account wouldn’t be hard to tap if he set his mind to it, particularly if Bins and his colleagues weren’t getting in his way while he did it. Four millions or more was a nice bit of lagniappe.
He considered this for some time, along with thoughts about the armed Tripsingers, without quite making up his mind what he intended to do about either. His disappointment in his special servants was quite forgotten.
Word went out from Spider Geroan’s place, atop one of the older buildings in Splash One, that the spider was tugging on his web. The strings of that web, highly placed and low, twitched themselves nervously wondering if anything they had caught would be of interest to the spider. Though sometimes it was better to have nothing interesting at all than to have only part of something that Spider Geroan badly wanted.
One of Geroan’s webs shivered almost immediately.
‘It’s Price Zimble, Spider, Sir. Word is you want reports. I have nothing new of use, honored one.’
‘Surely you’ve talked to the Explorer knight since her return, services man.’
‘Only briefly, honored Geroan. She hasn’t sent for me since she got back.’
A long pause for thought. ‘You couldn’t possibly have said or done anything before she left that would have given her a clue we’d been talking about her, could you, Zimmy?’
‘Never, honored Geroan. Of course not. It wasn’t me that tipped her, if anything tipped her. It was something that happened in Splash One.’
‘Funny thing,’ murmured the Spider.
‘What’s that, honored Geroan?’
‘Some of my people went up to Redfang, Zimmy. Looking for the Explorer knight up there. Found her, too, just like you arranged for our friend Justin. Of course, you hadn’t arranged anything for Justin until you’d checked with me first, had you? Because the Spider’s webs only work for the Spider, don’t they? They don’t play the outside against the middle do they, Zimmy? Right?’
‘Right, Spider, Sir. I didn’t do a thing until you gave me the start, Sir. Then I did the orders Justin wanted. They were perfect, just perfect. Looked official, they did, Sir.’ Zimmy sounded more nervous than usual while talking to Geroan.
‘Funny thing.’
Silence.
‘My people found some other people up there, too. Some other people looking for the Explorer knight. Some other people who knew right where to look.’
‘She … she must’ve told someone she was going. She….’
‘Oh, I don’t think the Explorer told them,’ said the Spider. Funny thing. Isn’t it?’
Geroan disconnected without saying goodbye. Donatella Furz had evaded his assassin in Splash One. Had that attempt failed, perhaps, because Zimmy had said something to alert her? And had Zimmy sold information to Honeypeach Thonks? Information that was supposed to belong exclusively to Geroan? Perhaps Zimmy had outlived his usefulness.
But then again … Zimmy was a very good web into the Northwest Priory. A very good web to Chase Random Hall. Not a bad bit of web, everything considered. Perhaps he merely needed a bit of discipline. Spider Geroan found a bit of discipline often did wonders. He considered this for a time, deciding what kind and amount of discipline might be most effective, until his next web called to report.
This was a gemstone broker who worked in the vicinity of the fish market, who wanted to report a young man who had sold a firestone earclip.
‘Orange stones, nothing very special, but nice. Gave the kid a hundred twenty for the clip. I’ve got some gems almost like it. Close enough to make up another clip. I’ll get five hundred for the two, easy.’
‘Kid?’ queried Geroan patiently. ‘What kid?’
‘Tripsinger kid. A what-you-call-’em, acolyte. One of the young ones that doesn’t do trips by himself yet, you know.’ He went on to describe Jamieson in some detail.
‘From where?’
‘Didn’t say. He did say he wanted the money for passage to Deepsoil Five though. For a woman and a baby. Just chattin,’ you know the way they do, when they’re tryin’ to sell somethin’.’
‘What woman? What baby?’
The broker stuttered, ‘I c-c-could try to find out, honored Geroan. Could try. Don’t know much where to start, though.’
‘The acolyte came to you, why?’
The broker muttered again. ‘I d-d-dunno.’
‘Because he saw your place, stone-skull. That means he was nearby, in the area.’
‘M-m-maybe just havin’ some lunch. Lots of people come down to the market for the fish. You know.’
‘Maybe for fish. But maybe looking for someone. Maybe found someone. Start by asking if there was a Tripsinger around your place looking for a woman and a baby.’
Another of Geroan’s webs was a cleaning woman in the citadel at Splash One. She came in person, desperately full of bits and pieces, hoping something would satisfy the Spider.
‘The Tripsinger from Deepsoil Five had two sets of robes with him, and so did each of the two acolytes, Spider, Sir. Underwear, tunics, socks, boots, and spare boots. Worn, too. Like they’d been living on the country for some time. Skinny mules. Like they get when they set settler’s brush for a long while. The machines of the acolytes had Deepsoil Five labels. His machine did, too, butthat’s a funny thing, he had two of them.’
‘Two of what?’
‘Two machines. Music machines, like they carry to make the Tripsongs. He had two. One like the ones the kids had – like all the regular Tripsinger boxes, with the citadel label on it and the warning against unauthorized use, you know – and a different one. I looked it over, but it didn’t have any label on it.’
‘Describe it,’ asked Geroan, his interest piqued. This fit in nicely with Justin’s suspicions.
‘It was greenish instead of gray. It had two handles on the sides instead of one on top. The keys and dials and things opened up on a fold-down panel, three folds. The regular ones just have two and they fold up, not down. And the speakers fold out on top, not on the sides, like the regular ones do.’
‘Nothing else? No words, trademarks, maker’s tags?’
She shook her head.
‘And they went where?’
‘Northwest City. The acolyte, the boy, he found a truck that was going there. I was cleaning the hall and heard him say so.’
Geroan nodded his thanks, and the woman left, relieved. She expected no payment and rejoiced merely to be let alone for a time by Spider Geroan.
After that, Geroan simply sat, hands folded on his belly, thumbs moving in endless circles around one another as he thought and plotted and thought more.
It was late afternoon when the follow-up call came from the gem broker.
‘The Tripsinger was lookin’ for a woman named Vivian Terree. She had a kid, a baby. You want ’em?’
‘Find out where they are. Find out if they’re planning to leave Splash One. Let me know.’
There were other calls, back and forth, as the Spider tugged on other webs and the information flowed in, culminating in a final call to Harward Justin.
‘The Explorer synthesizer that Donatella Furz reported missing seems to have ended up in Tasmin Ferrence’s possession.’
‘A Tripsinger?’
‘He had an Explorer model, green, two handled, with a threefold panel. At least he had it when he turned up in Splash One. I don’t know where it is now.’
Harward made note of this, along with the fact that the Tripsinger had been looking for a specific woman and child. Then he sat, putting all the information together.
Donatella Furz had had an Explorer box with a special translator insert. That box was now in the possession of a Tripsinger from Deepsoil Five. Lim Terree had died near Deepsoil Five. Tasmin had come hunting for Terree’s wife and baby. Tasmin had shown up, armed, in time to help Donatella Furz escape a very well laid trap.
Connections. Nine times out of ten, it was safest to assume complicity whenever there were connections.
The time was growing close, very close. He could conceive of only one source of threat to his plans. Not the Explorers. They were under control. The Tripsingers, however, could be trouble. So far, there was only this one man – Tasmin Ferrence. Just one. If there were more….
Anything Justin did would have to be done at once. He had trusted to underlings too many times already. And so had Spider Geroan.
Besides, there was all that money on Serendipity.
He summoned a trusted secretary. ‘Get hold of Chantiforth Bins and make an appointment for him to see me early tomorrow morning. Then call Spider Geroan and ask him to be here at the same time.’
His last call of the night was to the satellite surveillance teams. By morning, he would know almost precisely where Don Furz and her new friends were to be found.
In Deepsoil Five, Thalia Ferrence had adapted reasonably well to the presence of her sister, Betuny, who had arrived from Harmony with scant possessions. Since her arrival, however, Thalia had acquired the habit of strolling off several times during the day and almost always at dusk to the low wall that separated the shrubby garden of her house from a narrow roadway and the brou fields beyond. When she had been much alone, she had ached for company. Now that her sister had come to keep her company, she ached to be alone. Betuny was all right. She cooked well enough, old recipes from their childhood that Thalia relished as much for the nostalgia they evoked as for their slightly disappointing flavor. Betuny maintained the house well, too, being scrupulous about keeping each thing in an accustomed location so that Thalia would not stumble or fall over unexpected barriers.
But Betuny chattered, commenting endlessly on everything, and Thalia found herself wearying of her sister’s voice, wanting nothing, neither food nor a neat house nor company, so much as silence. Betuny had a theory about Lim’s death. Betuny thought she understood Celcy’s character. Betuny considered it wicked of Tasmin to have gone off like that. Betuny philosophized about the Presences. Betuny knew a way to raise the money to have Thalia’s eyes fixed – every day a new commentary or a new plan, each more fly-brained than the last, each day the same voice, going on and on and on.
So, Thalia had announced her need of a few moments’ meditation from time to time, flavoring the announcement with a spice of religious fervor, and Betuny had manners enough to accept that, albeit reluctantly, though she could not really respect it. She had, however, gone so far as to drag out an old chair and put it in the corner of the wall where Thalia could find it easily. Thalia could sit there for an hour at a time, musing, her head on her folded arms atop the low barricade, listening to the soft sounds of doors opening and closing, women calling children in to supper or to bed, the shushing pass of quiet-cars, and more often than not a chorus of viggies sounding much closer than she remembered hearing them when she could see.
There were few loud or aggressive sounds, and the voice that accosted her from across the wall one evening came as a shock even though she had heard the slow gravelly crunch of feet approaching down the road.
‘Are you Thalia Ferrence?’
She nodded, uncertain. It was a cold hard voice, not one she recognized, and she was very good at recognizing voices.
‘Tasmin Ferrence’s mother?’
She nodded again, paralyzed with fear. Had something happened to Tasmin? She started to ask, but the voice went on relentlessly.
‘Are you blind?’
She bridled. ‘That’s not a nice thing….’
‘Never mind. I see you are, lucky for you. You have a daughter-in-law? A grandchild?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘My daughter-in-law is dead. And the baby she was carrying.’
‘Not Tasmin’s wife. The other one. The one who changed his name. Lim’s wife.’
She could hardly speak in her eagerness, her joy, her disbelief. ‘Lim had a wife? A child?’
‘You didn’t know?’
‘No. I didn’t know. Where are they?’
There was a snort, more of annoyance than amusement. ‘That’s what I was going to ask you.’ Then the crunch of retreating feet.
‘Wait,’ she cried. ‘Wait! Who are you? How do you know?’
No answer. Nothing but the usual soft sounds, the far-off chorusing of viggies. She rose to feel her way along the path and into the house. She was, after all, the widow of a Tripsinger and the mother of another. There were certain courtesies that the citadel ought to be able to provide. After considering carefully what she would ask – no, demand! – she coded the com and asked to speak to the Master General of the Citadel.
She found it strange that although he did not know about Lim’s wife or child, he had many questions to ask about the man who had told her of them.
The troupe of Bondri Gesel had come far from the slopes of the North Watcher – Silver-seam and all relevant honorifics – when the senior giligee approached Bondri while keening the preliminary phrases of a dirge. Words were hardly necessary under the circumstances. The old Prime Priest was barely able to stagger along, and even when they carried him, they had to jiggle him to keep his breath from catching in his throat.
‘Bondri, Troupe-leader, Messenger of the Gods, one among us has a brain-bird crying for release.’ So sang the giligee.
Bondri sagged. ‘Prime Priest Favel,’ he hummed, subvocalizing. The giligee wagged her ears in assent. Well, there was nothing for it but to halt for a time. The Prime Priest deserved that, at least. Every viggy needed a quiet time to set the mind at rest and prepare the brain-bird. ‘We make our rest here,’ Bondri sang, leader to troupe admitting of no contradiction. The giligee was already circulating among the others, letting those know who had not the wits to see it for themselves.
‘I am glad of a rest,’ the Prime Priest warbled, breathily. ‘Glad, Bondri Gesel.’
‘So are we all,’ Bondri replied gently. ‘See, the young ones have made you a comfortable couch.’ He helped the old viggy toward the low bench of fronds, which the young ones had spread on a shelf of soil overlooking the valley beyond. From this vantage point one could look back on the Tineea Singers, the Ones Who Welcome Without Meaning It, arrayed against the sky, almost equidistant from one another and too close for easy passage among them. The Singers had gained their name in immemorial times; no viggy worth his grated brush bark would try to sing a way among them, though young ones sometimes dared each other to try. The song that worked for one did not work for the next, and they were too close to separate the sounds. The Loudsingers had a way to get through, but the only safe viggy way was around.