Barac found the rampway he sought, leaning nonchalantly against its railing as the device, with its endless ranks of passengers, carried him down. He maintained a watchful presence in the M’hir. Once this had been his habit in order to spot those of his kind he was to contact. Now, he acknowledged grimly to himself, it would warn him. As self-proclaimed exile, he was fair game, outside the few laws held by his kind. And Plexis was reasonably popular with the Clan, particularly the upper floors with their quietly exclusive shops.
He checked the address on the sheet of plas in his hand. The place was sublevel 384, predominantly a wholesalers’ district, and 1/3 spinward, a section of restaurants and other entertainments; Barac could ignore the remaining coordinates until he was closer to his destination. He wasn’t at all sure what he’d say to Morgan, if the Human were there. Rael had secrets? Hardly likely to surprise the Human, even if Barac himself found it hard to believe of his luxury-loving, self-centered cousin.
“Sorry, Hom.”
Barac grunted with surprise as the being, a Human, knocked him sideways just as the ramp reached the next level. A nearby guard stirred, ready to intervene. Given the customer gold of Barac’s tag and the “here-on-business” blue of the clumsy Human, it would be the Human shuffled off to give an explanation.
Barac waved the guard away, glancing briefly at the Human—thin, bearded, and dressed in nondescript once-white coveralls, his work belt stuffed with gadgetry the Clansman couldn’t identify. “No problem,” the Clansman said graciously, fighting the temptation to check his own clothing for grease stains.
As he started to walk away, the incident forgotten, the Human caught up to him. “Sorry. Sorry, Hom. My foot slipped. Sorry.” His voice was an irritating whine, like a machine overdue for lubrication.
Unwillingly, Barac found himself drawn into responding; anything less would have been more noticeable than what had happened already. “Think nothing of it, Hom,” he said firmly. “Good day.”
Three quick strides into the flow of traffic put the Human out of sight behind a troop of Ordnex musicians and as easily out of Barac’s thoughts.
Chapter 19
MY sending to Morgan had had an unexpected but, as I thought to myself with disgust, perfectly predictable result.
I had been Judged.
My first intimation of a change in my status came when I woke and went to breakfast. The building was oddly quiet, no thunder of small feet, no reassuring drone of adult voices from the labs I passed on the way to the dining area. The place appeared deserted.
Full of my own determination to leave, I saw this only as a bonus. There would be time to grab a quick bite—I was starving after the night’s exertions at the arena and in the M’hir—before trying my luck at finding transport offworld in the Drapsk shipcity. If the Humans had left their building for some reason, their timing couldn’t have pleased me more.
The long table where we’d sat for supper was again loaded with plates, cutlery, and platters of food. I helped myself to a sweet roll, only then noticing the plates were half-filled. Steam curled above a cup of sombay near my hand. Chairs were pulled back as though their inhabitants had jumped up and run.
From what? And why? I sank my teeth into the roll, capturing a second one as I looked around. If there’d been an emergency—whether biologicals loose in the lab or fire in the kitchen—surely they’d have come for me, too. For some reason, I was still not alarmed. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about the Humans; it was more, I decided numbly, as though my decision to leave meant I had no ties left here.
So be it. Their disappearance would have to remain a mystery. I swallowed a too-hot mouthful of sombay from the nearest cup, then formed the locate I’d chosen: a branch of the walkway near the Makmora. I pushed . . .
And found myself staring at the abandoned table, reeling with the impact of power thwarted against a familiar prickly wall.
“Are you ready to go, Contestant Morgan?” came a voice I knew too well from behind me. I whirled to glare down at the Drapsk. “Don’t worry about the Humans. They ran outside to greet the transport bringing the plussard chicks—”
“What have you done?”
Skeptic Copelup looked insufferably pleased with himself. His plumes were bright yellow and spread wide enough to fill the doorway, his red tentacles fanned out in a perfect ring around his bud of a mouth. “It is what you have done, Contestant Morgan—forgive me—O Mystic One. You have succeeded in your quest.”
“What quest?” I growled, ready to use some of the sharper implements behind me if the small being didn’t get out of my way.
He raised one hand, holding out a small boxlike device I hadn’t noticed until now. “Right off the scale. Most impressive. Simply the strongest readings I have ever recorded.”
I felt an inner shock as I finally, stupidly, understood. The Drapsk did know about the M’hir. They knew enough to use technology to monitor it, to somehow measure my sending to Morgan last night. They were capable of blocking my movements through it at will, whether on the ship or here.
Their search for magic took on an entirely unamusing and threatening light. “Why do you hunt magic, Copelup?” I asked, suddenly sure this was the right question.
“Ours has been lost,” he answered promptly, if cryptically, hurrying forward to take my unresisting hand in his smaller, warmer one. “Now come. Ask your questions as we go, O Mystic One. It’s time we returned to the city. The Festival is about to begin.” He paused and I felt a feather’s touch on my cheek. “You have a vital place in it. The Makii were quite right about you, quite right,” he muttered, pulling me with him. “You may just be the one.”
Predictably, my promotion to Contestant and confirmed Mystic One hadn’t loosened the Drapsk’s tongue on anything of major import. As we endured the windowless return trip by an identical transport to the one which had brought me to the Makii border town only yesterday—at least heading in the direction I wished—he told me about the scheduling of the Contest, in two Drapskii days, but not what the Contest would be. He assured me it wasn’t dangerous, then sucked all of his tentacles for an alarming amount of time. And, finally, I learned who I was supposed to compete against.
Or rather what. “The planet?”
“There will be other sapient beings competing for this privilege, selected by Tribes less fortunate or perceptive than the Makii. But yes,” Copelup admitted, “for you, the main competition will be Drapskii itself.”
I mulled this over for a moment, distracted by a growl from my stomach. Not enough breakfast and far too much secrecy. “You aren’t,” I asked suspiciously, “proposing some kind of outdoor endurance test, are you?”
Copelup hooted, a new sound from a Drapsk. As he continued doing this, loudly, for some time, I decided to ignore him, standing and pacing around our featureless compartment.
Finally the hoots were replaced by what sounded remarkably like hiccups. “My profound apologies, Mystic One,” the little being gasped. “I had no idea you had such a sense of humor.”
“Neither did I,” I replied, despite knowing any sarcasm was wasted. “You could answer my question.”
A single hoot made its way out before Copelup gained control of himself. “No. It is not a physical trial, Mystic One. All will begin and end within the city. You’ll see.”
I ran my fingers over the smooth, soft wall of the compartment, wondering if I dared remind the Drapsk I had no intention of participating in its competition or Festival. Morgan was out there, somewhere, being driven to recklessness and danger by the rage I’d shoved into his helpless mind. I had no time or desire to entertain these creatures at their Contest.
No, I wouldn’t bother with words. And there were other ways to leave a world than through the M’hir. This transport would take me conveniently near them.
Given I could make my way through a city of Drapsk.
INTERLUDE
Morgan took his time, checking the goods displayed on the countertop in front of him as though the relative quality of antique table linens was the top priority of his day. Finally, he chose four at random and waved his ident disk at the proprietor of the small store, who blinked all three eyes in apparent surprise at having made a sale. By the dust, the linens had been there since Plexis opened for business. “Deliver to this address, packed for vacuum stowage,” Morgan ordered. Then he took a few steps and started the same process again before a towering stack of used footgear. Behind him, the proprietor crooned to itself, a happy sound punctuated by the occasional cough as its tentacles stirred up more dust. Whirtles were sensitive to particulates. This one probably wore a respirator when its store lacked customers.
There.
His lips pressed together in satisfaction as Morgan caught another glimpse of his tracker in the corner of one eye.
Big, humanoid. He’d make no assumptions about species. Spacer coveralls, but with a gold customer patch on the cheek. The coveralls had sharp creases along the leg. Brand new, then. “Two dozen pairs,” Morgan announced calmly, sending the proprietor into obvious ecstasy. “Same address. I know a collector.”
As the Whirtle humped forward to start dismantling a display that likely hadn’t been touched since it was first prepared, Morgan continued casually: “Do you have any more?”
The Whirtle hugged itself. “In the back room, perceptive and wise customer. There are crates and crates and crates.” It realized this might have sounded more of a complaint than opportunity and amended: “All very rare. All pieces exclusive to this shop. Would you—would you care to view them?”
“Absolutely,” Morgan announced, giving the being a gentle push in the right direction when it seemed paralyzed with joy. “Lead the way.”
And out the corner of his eye, he watched a big, humanoid figure in spacer coveralls fade back into the crowd outside the store, becoming just another silhouette in the night-dimmed concourse.
Chapter 20
MORGAN had never explained to me the source of his more arcane skills. For instance, I didn’t know why a trader with his own ship would need to know how to open other being’s locks. I was only grateful he’d bothered to show me.
The Drapsk, for all they loved architecture without corners or visible technology, still needed doors within their buildings—especially, I thought dryly, in buildings they intended to use as prisons. Oh, the suite of rooms was luxurious enough, and no one had so much as implied I couldn’t leave when I wanted. But there was the small matter of the locked door.
A locked door had a mechanism I could deal with—maybe.
I didn’t know how long I’d have before the Drapsk returned. On our arrival in the city, Copelup and I had been greeted at the transport terminal by the same trio of unnamed Drapsk who had delivered me to him. The Makii, Captain Maka and his officer, Makoori, were conspicuously absent. I found I missed them, granted they were unlikely to sympathize with my desire to desert their Tribe.
My escort had taken me to what might have been the Drapsk version of a hotel. Certainly the main floor had walls that bulged outward to hold what appeared to be a series of restaurants, all deserted, and odd little cubicles I thought might accommodate biological necessities as on the Makmora, but which turned out to be communication pods.
We’d taken a lift to the floor I was on, a process I watched as closely as I could without making myself obvious. The controls were simple to operate; the trick was discovering how the Drapsk coaxed the panel from its hiding place inside the wall. I memorized the short sequence of rapid taps the creature gave, hoping there was nothing more sophisticated than the code. A biosensor would stop my flight in an instant.
First, however, I had to pass through this door. I’d tried the M’hir, very carefully and with a disquieting sense of exposure. I had no idea how sensitive their devices could be. It was irrelevant. However they locked me from the M’hir was as effective here and now as before.
But the lock on the door was another matter. I rapped experimentally on the wall around where the door had been—Drapsk-doors tending to vanish politely and with disconcerting completeness when closed—and was rewarded with an open panel within seconds. The switch and lock were, as I’d expected, inconveniently free of ways to access their underlying mechanism. No matter. That’s what plumbing is for, I recited Morgan’s instructions to myself as I swung the length of metal I’d detached from the workings of the fresher in the bedroom stall, smashing right through the remarkably fragile material of the switch.
Fortunately, this was an ordinary room, with an ordinary lock meant more for privacy than prisoners. I’d counted on that. As my second assault caused an arching and burning-plas stench, the door sighed open, the lock quite rightly set to release as a safety measure in the event of power failure or fire.
I didn’t care which, the result being the same. I grabbed the bag of supplies I’d scrounged from the room during my hours there, before peering out the now-open door into the hallway.
Empty.
The Clan part of me hesitated, longing to release a tendril of thought, to confirm what might wait around the corner leading to the lift. The Morgan part of me decided this was silly, since I couldn’t sense the Drapsk anyway, and propelled me forward in a bold, confident stride that would hopefully confuse any being looking for an escaped prisoner.
I made it to the lift, its door opening automatically as I approached, although my heart leaped into my throat as I expected to see Copelup and several of the taller Drapsk march out. I didn’t know what kind of physical restraint the Drapsk would be willing to use to keep me here, and I didn’t intend to find out. I liked the annoying beings and was disturbed to imagine harming one, even in self-defense.
The controls responded to my tapping, assurance the Drapsk hadn’t bothered to install species-specific biosensors. This implied either they felt no need for such security against non-Drapsk, something their care with the Scats didn’t match, or that this building regularly housed non-Drapsk, making such sensors more of a problem than an aid.