“Sorry.” Lahks found the flat statement very sobering. “I’ll be as quick as I can. I have to send that message to the Guild and I have to spot where the flyer is kept. They got the small heartstone in your belt. That will pay for the flyer we’re going to steal. It’s also as good an excuse as any for what we were doing. We are hunters. We found what we wanted and came here to get a ship off-planet. I hope we can get released. It will make it easier to steal the flyer without raising an alarm.”
“Right, but who are you when you aren’t that—whhtever it is.”
“A young native guide. Look, quick.”
Stoat turned his head to examine a young man so typical of the standard native appearance that he was almost unnoticeable. “Good. You are Thessy, from Landlord Tholangi’s manor. I took a kid from there with me on my first hunt. He said he knew the ropes. He didn’t. He panicked. He’s dead. But they don’t know that at Tholangi’s, so Tanguli can check on you by radio. I—that is, Stoat—abandoned you [they already know that Stoat is an unprincipled bastard] and I—Kwambu—found you in a live cup and we hunted together. Oh, God!”
The last was wrenched from Stoat as he saw the young native disintegrate into the legged snake. He turned away again.
“They won’t come for us for four to eight tu,” Lahks said, ignoring Stoat’s distaste. “How’s the pain?”
“You endure what you must,” Stoat replied bleakly.
“How about a boost on that pain-killer? Would it help?”
Because he was in pain and the aftermath of the stunner had muddled his fine perceptions a little, Stoat turned angrily. He did not, at the moment, think Lahks’ joke was funny. But the long, flat body was bending toward him, and out of the fourth leg down a delicate, feminine human finger protruded. Stoat made an indescribable noise in his throat.
“Sorry,” Lahks said cheerfully. “I know it looks funny, but the stuff’s in a needle under my nail, and I wasn’t sure just how to use it in this form.”
Stoat closed his eyes and offered his arm. “Funny is not exactly the word I would use to describe how you look. I’m an old man,” he sighed. “Try not to do things like this to me.”
Lahks’ major problem was to get from the cell area to the radio room without being detected. It was all very well to be able to change into any form, but nothing short of invisibility would seem to help in this case. The legged snake would, of course, have to be abandoned. Lahks had not yet seen a domestic animal of any type loose in a dome. Perhaps on such a hard planet pets were too expensive a luxury, but the lack eliminated the possibility of wandering around in that safe disguise. To take human form was simple, but without clothing she would not go unnoticed for long.
Eventually Lahks moved along at random until her ears told her she was approaching a more frequented corridor. Then, at the corner, she made like a stone wall again, but in this case she extruded two pseudopods carrying her eyes. One eye remained in the corridor she was in; the other she extended into the cross corridor. She placed the eyes well above ordinary height because it gave her a better view of the corridors and because she hoped no one would notice them up there.
This maneuver was not completely successful. Although both eyes did see and transmit separate images, Lahks’ brain became a little confused about which eye was seeing what image. As a result, when a passerby did come along and Lahks leaped at him, she leaped into the wrong corridor. Fortunately, the man was so stunned at seeing a section of the wall grow two long, clutching human arms and precipitate itself onto the floor of the corridor that he simply stood and stared. This gave Lahks an opportunity to reconnect her eyes, refocus them, and correct her mistake.
Moments later the same man emerged from a storage closet near the cell area and strode somewhat waveringly toward the center of the building. Lahks was aware of a racking duality. On the one hand the constant shape-changing was sending her emotionally higher and higher; on the other hand, she knew intellectually that she might have very little time. The man in the closet would not stir, but if he were on a job, delivering a message, or expected somewhere, his absence would soon be noticed.
That seemed very funny, indeed. Just think of it. They would be looking for him and there were two of him to be found. A rather feminine giggle forced itself from his lips, and another man stuck his head out of a nearby open door.
“Tiensin, is there something wrong?”
“I’m dizzy. I don’t feel well,” Lahks replied, desperately slurring his/her speech as much as possible in an attempt to disguise the difference in voice and accent. Then, as no one else came to the door: she/he took a chance. “I have to go to the sending room. For the sake of the Powers that Be, head me in the right direction. I’m not sure where I am.”
With an exclamation of concern, this new man came out and, seeing Lahks waver on his/ her feet, put an arm around him/her. “I’ll take you.”
They moved off down the corridor, turned left, right, and left again. All the time an expression of deeper and deeper puzzlement was corroding the new man’s face, while Lahks, in Tiensin’s imitation body, was periodically racked with so violent an urge to laugh that she/he shook convulsively.
“The Landlord sent you with a private message, I suppose,” the new man said finally. “Otherwise, I would go for you. Tiensin, something is wrong, very wrong. You are no thinner, yet your body is without substance. You must see the medical at once.”
At this, Lahks nearly doubled up. Since Tiensin was at least a third larger than she was herself, her density was necessarily reduced as her volume increased because her mass had to remain constant. She/he was saved from the necessity of reply by an opportune arrival at the sending room. At the door his/her helper stopped in the empty corridor to urge again that Tiensin go to medical at once. Lahks promptly felled him with a neat rabbit punch and stashed him in the nearest storage closet, bound and gagged. Then she/he returned and tapped on the sending room door. When the door was opened, Lahks stepped inside, shrank half a meter, and struck the sending operator behind the ear with carefully controlled force. Ordinarily she preferred not to resort to physical violence because it left aftereffects, but she felt the need to conserve her fingernail supplies of narcotics.
After a little fumbling with the unfamiliar, old-fashioned sending unit, Lahks punched in the code she had been given and the tone identification of the homing device she would set up. Because she had no way to encode any further information, she sent pick-up time—10 sd or any time after that—in clear, hoping that the time period would be meaningless if the other coded material could not be deciphered. Finally, she punched the button for automatic repeat and automatic wipe-out as soon as the sender was shut off.
All that remained to be done was to ensure as long a sending period as possible. Lahks opened the door a cautious crack and peeped into the corridor. No one was coming. A quick reconnaissance permitted her to spot still another storage closet, and soon the sending operator, comfortably but firmly gagged and tied, was reposing in it.
Now for the flyer. Thus far she had been lucky, but increasing and decreasing her size had further elated her spirits. Lahks, keeping a tight rein on herself, determined to take no chances. She waited in the sending room, her eye to a crack in the door. As soon as she saw a man in the corridor, she stepped out and leaned negligently on the wall.
“Tiensin,” the new arrival said, “what . . .”
It was as far as he got. Lahks stepped swiftly forward, touched his throat with one of her little needles, and produced a will-less slave. “Come in here,” she said. When the door was safely locked, she added, “If you must speak, speak softly. On this paper draw a diagram of the inside of this dome and show where the Landlord’s bedroom is. On this other paper, draw all the domes in the Landlord’s manor and show especially where the flyer is kept.”
After the sketches were complete, and Lahks was sure she could follow them, she said, “Come with me.” And went out, locking the sending room door from the inside by inserting a thinned and elongated finger to touch the mechanism from the outside. Finally, she escorted her fourth victim to still another storage closet. This was necessarily some distance away, the closer ones being already occupied, but since the new victim was walking on his own feet, it made little difference.
Unfortunately, they met one man who asked Tiensin sharply what he was doing there. Sighing a little, Lahks hit him. The fourth victim carried the fifth to where he was bound and incarcerated, then farther along obligingly allowed himself to be stored. I had better not do anything else, Lahks thought as she made her way back toward her cell, or all the Landlord’s men will be lying around in closets.
This notion fascinated her in the unstable emotional state she was in. By the time she had reached her cell and turned first into the snake to bring Stoat the plans she had already memorized and then back to a native boy in her own cell, she was giggling fitfully while she calculated whether there would be enough storage closets to house all the men, and, if there were not, what positions would be most comfortable for them for double occupancy. Since Lahks knew neither the number of people in the dome nor the number of closets, the calculation, to say the least, was tentative.
Fortunately, nothing passed except time, and enough of that passed to restore Lahks to relative sanity. She was still in good spirits, but no longer bordering on the irrational. It occurred to her that stability of form was not natural to a Changeling and that it might be both a strain and a depressant. Then it would have been the need for stability of form that had permitted her to be serious enough to become a Guardian trainee. That was important. If she wished to continue a purposeful life, it would be necessary to ration her use of her Changeling ability. But there was another alternative—a life of unending joy and exaultation without sorrow or pain, a life of pure laughter literally without care.
Lahks was very grateful when the sound of steps in the corridor recalled her to the problems of the present. The choice between two good things is always more agonizing than any other. There was no need, however, to concern herself with that choice now. First it was necessary to stay alive long enough to make it.
A guard in a rather elaborate uniform—the first uniform she had seen on this planet, where windsuits with simple tunics under them seemed to be the sensible rule—looked in. Lahks, as the native boy, was sitting quietly with her head in her hands. He ordered her up and told her she was to be taken to the Landlord.
“Like this?” Lahks inquired.
“Why not? It is a very good way to be,” the guard responded.
Lahks’ training in sociology supplied the reason for the guard’s expression before she could betray her true unfamiliarity with Wumeera’s customs. Of course, in a group where women were few and cloistered, men would be bisexual or even exclusively homosexual. Lahks cast a speculative glance at the guard. This might provide an easy path to what she sought. She coyly lowered her eyes but did not move away when the guard’s hand brushed her flank. Their arrival at the Landlord’s audience room prevented any further intimacies or suggestions, but Lahks was satisfied. The seed was planted.
It was apparent from the relative indifference with which Lahks was questioned that Stoat had already been interviewed. Because it should have been impossible for them to have concocted any story together, the fact that Lahks’ answers tallied with Stoat’s was proof of innocence in Tanguli’s mind. Furthermore, he had their heartstone. Indifferent, since no alarm concerning the missing men had yet reached his ears, the Landlord gave orders that Lahks’ and Stoat’s gear be returned and they be set free. Suits and packs were tossed on the floor from a side chamber and Stoat himself was propelled from it so ungently that he fell, sprawling.
For a few moments Lahks was fully occupied (as a modest young man should be) in donning stillsuit and windsuit. Then she looked at Stoat and gasped. His face was a mass of bruises and blood, his eyes swollen nearly shut, his lips torn. A rage so violent flooded her that her inbuilt defenses went into action automatically. Her body froze and the ever-ready finger slammed the black button down.
Emotion eliminated, the correct responses to the situation were easy. Stillness melted into a barely perceptible shrinking away from Stoat and became a movement toward the guard who had brought her in. At first he did not move; however, after Tanguli had growled a warning at Stoat about remembering who was Landlord and who was less than dirt and had left the room, the guard picked up Lahks’ pack and handed it to her with a smile.
“Why do you stay with that black man?” he asked her.
“I. . .” Lahks hesitated, cast a coy glance at him under his/her lashes, cast a reluctant glance at Stoat, and shrugged. “He saved my life. He offered me a half stoneshare. It was better to be with him than alone in the wilderness.”
The guard put a possessive hand on Lahks’ arm. “You know that in this cup and all others the law is that stones belong to the Landlord. He has no stone now. And here you are among your own people. Stay with me.”
Lahks moved a trifle closer, his/her face downcast. “I would like to stay, but . . . he did save me, and in his way he was kind to me.” He/she hesitated a little longer, glancing up appealingly again. “Could I come back? If I just went with him to the town to see him lodged and tell him I wish to part from him could I come back?”
“Yes,” the guard agreed. “That would be best. Come back later.”
“When you are free from duty?” Lahks smiled suggestively.
“Yes, indeed,” the guard agreed heartily, realizing that if the new boy came back before he was free, one of the other guardsmen might steal the first sip of nectar. “After the eighth tu,” he said, preening a little. “Ask for Tangu.”
Meanwhile Stoat had climbed slowly and painfully into his suit. He was obviously in pain and had to kneel to get his pack on his back. Lahks glanced at the guard again, sighed, and went with reluctance to help Stoat to his feet. Occasionally she had to steady him as they made their way toward the outer gate, but it was only a duty-bound gesture that showed the guard how eager he/she was to be free of this responsibility.
Outside of the manor the two walked in silence until the domes of the town hid them and the droms that followed them from any possible view from the manor. The indweller recognized that no further emergency existed and the black button was released.
“What happened to you?” Lahks cried, pulling Stoat to a crouch and tearing open her pack to get at the aid kit. “Get rid of those pads. Your identity is established. The blackness is enough to carry it.”
When he could speak, Stoat sighed, “Sometimes I despair of our species, Beldame. I do not know how old I am—millennia, anyway. I do not know how often in those thousands of years I have met greed and injustice, but still I have not learned.” Then he chuckled. “It started reasonably. I did not think it natural to let him take our heartstone without any protest, so I blustered a little. Then when he stated the law, I changed off to whining and that was all right, too. And then”—the smile on the bloody lips twisted wryly—“he said that since I had committed a crime by finding the stone, it was forfeit without recompense. I am afraid I lost my head and said what 1 thought.”
“Doubtless it was salutory. I doubt that Landlord Tanguli has heard the truth about himself often,” Lahks replied as she finished swabbing Stoat’s injuries and began to apply plastiskin.
Anger flickered in the dark eyes. “Salutory for him, but not for us. It gave him an excuse to fine me. He took everything. We have not enough left for a night’s lodging in the hotel. Then, of course, I flung away the wisdom of centuries and tried to attack him. I am surprised, really, that they did no worse to me.”
“Are you really injured? I saw with what difficulty you moved, but I fell into such a blind rage when I first saw they had hurt you that the indweller took control. Then 1 could feel nothing and could only act in the way the indweller decided would best resolve the emergency.”
“The indweller?” Stoat said uncertainly.