Shadow Man

The housekeeper was able to find a rover for hire—and a good thing, too, Warreven thought; he had no desire to see anything more of the Stanes—and he waited on the steps while the driver maneuvered the awkward vehicle up the long drive. The driver was stocky and good-looking, with a beardless face and a line like a scar at the corner of his mouth that deepened when he smiled. He held the door politely as Warreven climbed into the passenger compartment, then returned to his place behind the steering bar. He wasn’t too proud to take the tip the housekeeper discreetly offered, palming the assignats with the ease of long practice. Or maybe ρe was a mem, Warreven thought suddenly, looking at the other’s body, the straight, blocky lines, a solid cylinder from shoulders to hips. Certainly he was dressed as a man—almost aggressively so, if he was passing, trousers and tunic cut on exaggerated lines. But then, the odd-bodied had to pass, no matter what Temelathe said. Even Haliday passed at times, either as man or woman.

The driver edged the rover through the compound gates, past the mosstaas—a different foursome—lounging against the columns. The driver kept his head down as they slid past, eyes fixed on the road; Warreven nodded and smiled, enjoying the play of status. Then the rover had turned down the first main street, and Warreven saw the driver’s shoulders relax a little.

“Where to now, mir?”

Warreven sighed. Under other circumstances, he would head for Harborside, but tonight it seemed wiser to avoid the district. “Blind Point,” he said. “Just north of the light—I’ll direct you when we get there.”

The driver nodded. “No problem, mir.”

The rover turned again, onto the winding street that led down from Ferryhead to the edge of the Harbor. It was well lit, and lights showed in the upper windows and in the courtyard en- trances; there were people visible as well through those openings, men and women silhouetted against the lights. Things looked almost normal—but of course they would, in Ferryhead, Warreven thought. Ferryhead was where the Stanes—the White Stanes—and their allies lived, and all the rest of the clan officers who made their very good livings dealing with the off-worlders. Of course things would look—would be—normal: they paid the mosstaas very well to make sure it was true. Despite the almost reflexive bitterness of the thought, he was relaxing, the tension easing from his back and shoulders. There would be things he could do to counter Tendlathe, or, if he couldn’t, Haliday or Folhare would know who could.

Harborside itself seemed busier than ever, lights blazing on the docks, and on the bars and dance houses rising up the side of the hill. From this angle, the burned-out bars on Dock Row were invisible; there were just the lights, vivid and inviting. Even through the rover’s filters, the air smelled hot, heavy with feelgood and a dozen other compounds, and the sound of drums came with them. Warreven sighed, and saw the driver glance up into his mirror. “Sure you don’t want to stop, mir?”

Warreven smiled, meeting the dark eyes. “All my—friends—are at sea. I’d hate to be alone.”

The driver shrugged, one-shouldered, still looking in the mirror. “That could be fixed pretty easily.”

“I appreciate that,” Warreven said, and matched the faint, rueful smile he could see reflected. “But it was a hard meeting, I doubt I’d be good for much of anything.”

The driver shrugged again, both shoulders this time. “Blind Point, then, mir.”

They turned onto Tredhard Street, the rover’s engine groaning as it matched the incline. Warreven looked back, to see the ranas still drumming on their makeshift stage. The listening crowd seemed larger, too, and the mosstaas were nowhere to be seen.

“They’ve been at it all night,” the driver volunteered.

Warreven nodded again, settling himself against the padded seat. They had reached the intersection of Dock Row, and for a moment he imagined he could smell the ashes, the remains of the fire. The street’s power hadn’t been fully restored, either; there were gaps in the lines of light, and a number of the signs flickered and fizzed, throwing erratic shadows. The driver turned down the next street, heading north toward Blind Point, and Warreven was suddenly aware of gaps in the line of houselights, of glass shattered in front of every other house.

“What the hell—?” he began, and the shadows seemed abruptly thicker, shapes moving against the motion of the rover.

“Shit,” the driver said, and slammed the throttle forward. The engine snarled in protest, choking as the system tried to handle the rush of fuel, and then the ranas were all around them, tattered black robes dull in the uncertain light. One of them held a drum hoop—white as bone, white as fire, empty—while another held the white-painted frame for a ceramic gong. They stood frozen, a ring of white-faced, white-handed ghosts surrounding the rover, and then the drummer lifted a white-painted stick and began to mime a steady beat. One of the others swooped close and peered in the window by the driver’s face. The one carrying the gong frame gestured as though to strike it, and the ranas froze again.

A couple of them carried clubs held loose at their sides; at least two more carried the jointed lengths of ironwood that trail walkers used against unfriendly mountain spiders. They were blocking the street ahead of the rover; Warreven didn’t dare move to look back, but guessed that there would be as many behind the car. Then the one carrying the gong frame struck again, and the drummer took up the beat. The rana closest to the rover leaned toward the passenger compartment, and Warreven met the white-masked stare. The eyeholes were covered with tinted glass; he caught only the faintest sense of movement, of the shift of human eyes behind the dark lenses.

“Drive,” he said, and leaned forward to punch the driver’s shoulder.

The driver shot him a frightened glance—there were ranas in front of the rover, and behind it, no place to go without running them over—and the rana pushed himself back from the rover’s side, reaching for something he’d held concealed in his ragged robe. Warreven caught a single glimpse of the length of chain—metal chain, stolen surely from the starport, five eight-centimeter-long links of polished metal—and punched the driver’s shoulder again.

“Drive, damn it!”

The driver hit the throttle again, and the rover lurched forward. In the same moment, the length of chain swept down, shattering the long side window. Warreven ducked away from the rain of glass, saw the driver duck, too, but the rover kept moving forward, picking up speed. The ranas dodged back, scattering in confusion, and the driver swayed upright again, sent the rover skidding down the narrow street. Warreven looked back, ready to duck again, and saw the ghost ranas standing in the roadway, miming laughter. Then the rover had turned the first corner, heading back toward the relative safety of Dock Row, and he straightened cautiously. He was shaking—he’d been lucky, the glass had missed him, but it had been close, too close—and leaned forward to touch the driver’s shoulder.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah, no,” the driver said, his voice shaken. “Maybe—I will be.”

Warreven looked into the mirror, saw the driver’s face reflected, marked with a line of blood. The rover swung around the next corner and turned onto Dock Row, into the flickering lights of the dance houses. “Pull over, let me see.”

The driver eased the rover into the curb, into the relatively steady light of a houselamp. Rather than risk the shattered glass that covered half the passenger seat, Warreven climbed out through the street-side door and came around the rover’s nose to peer in the driver’s half of what had been the window. Behind him, a few of the people who had been waiting in the doors of the bars and the dance houses moved a few steps closer, not knowing whether or not they would need to intervene. Warreven ignored them, stooped to lean into the empty window. “Let me see,” he said again.

The driver turned to face him. The breaking glass had scored a long cut from cheekbone to jawline, and the blood was still welling sluggishly from it; there was more blood on his shoulder, staining the pale fabric of his shirt. “It’s not so bad,” he said, and fumbled for something in one of the storage compartments. “I’ll be all right.”

Warreven eyed him uncertainly, and a voice said, behind him, “Is everything all right?”

He turned to face a big man, the sort of ex-docker the rowdier wrangwys houses hired to keep the peace. He was staring at the rover with a kind of detached curiosity, as though he were wondering if they were going to bleed on his employer’s property, or if they could safely be sent elsewhere. Warreven took a deep breath, wondering how to explain, and the driver leaned past him, putting his head out the smashed window.

“Belbarb. Thank the spirits it’s you.”

“Trouble?” the big man asked, looking at Warreven, and his hand went to the docker’s hook stuffed into his belt beneath the loose fabric of his vest.

The driver nodded. “Yeah, but not with him. We ran into a ghost rana, the bastards—they smashed the window into me.” He started to say more, winced, and pressed his shirt fabric against the cut. “Bastards.”

Belbarb nodded, looked from him to Warreven. “Are you all right, mir?”

“Fine,” Warreven answered, and shook his head, looking at the driver’s face in the light from the houselamp. “That looks like it could use a weld.”

The driver started to shake his head, but Belbarb said, “He’s right, Fisk, that does need some work. I think Marrin’s upstairs— you can leave the rover here, I’ll square the mosstaas.”

Warreven took a step back as the driver opened his door, wondering what to do. He wanted to get home, he had work to do in the morning, but he had no desire to brave the ranas again, at least not yet— Fisk stumbled, and Warreven caught his arm, steadying him. “Are you sure you don’t want to go to a clinic?”

“Marrin’s all right,” Fisk said, and Belbarb nodded.

“He’s an off-worlder, a medic, he—rents here. He knows what he’s doing.” His eyes swept over Warreven, across his chest and hips, came to rest on the metal bracelets. “You’ll be wanting a drink, mir.”

Warreven nodded. “Thanks. I’m Warreven. Stiller, of the Ambreslight mesnie.”

“Belbarb Stiller.” The big man nodded again, this time with approval, and stooped to take half of Fisk’s weight. “Come on, Fiskie, let’s get you inside. Illewedyr, go get Marrin, will you?”

Warreven followed them into the unexpected quiet of the bar. The music had stopped, drummers and a flute player standing idle beside the little dance floor, and the rest of the customers had gathered in fours and fives, muttering angrily. They were a mix of off-worlders and indigenes: another trade bar, Warreven thought, and leaned heavily against the bar. A thin, pale man with sun-darkened hands and face—Marrin, certainly—shoved his way through the groups to drop a medikit on one of the tables. The flute player did something with a control board, and one of the spotlights turned and tilted, catching the table in its light. Fisk sank into the waiting chair, and Marrin bent over him, muttering to himself. The noise rose in the bar again, angry voices tumbling over each other, and the bartender moved toward Warreven, her eyes still sliding to the table where the medic worked.

“What can I get you?” she asked, and seemed to catch some message from Belbarb. “It’s on the house.”

“Thanks,” Warreven answered. “Bingo, if you have it.”

Bingo was the strongest of the Haran liquors. The woman nodded and came back in a few seconds with a narrow glass half filled with the faintly cloudy liquid. Warreven drank half of it in a gulp, the stuff searing his throat, and took another, more cautious sip. “I suppose the mosstaas should be called.”

“Oh, æ,” Belbarb said, and lowered his bulk onto the stool beside Warreven. “We can call, but if they’ll come—or if they’d do anything once they got here—well, that’s the question, isn’t it? Fisk’s a dandi, and wry-abed to boot. Do you think they’ll work on this one? Would you pay for it, mir?”

Warreven flicked a glance at him. So Fisk was a mem, and even the protection of the bars, the safety Temelathe had been preaching, didn’t extend to calling in the law. But of course Belbarb was right, too: it was unlikely the mosstaas would do much for þim. “I will. I doubt it’ll do any good, but I will. And put my name to the complaint, if that’ll help.”

“I doubt it,” Belbarb said. “No offense, mir, but you’re one of us.”

Warreven sighed. “I agree, I doubt it’ll help. But I think you ought to get it on record.”

Belbarb glanced at the clock above the door, its round display showing the moon almost down, and the time floating above the star pattern. It was less than an hour to legal closing. “Let’s wait until Marrin’s finished, æ? Better all around.”

“All right,” Warreven said. The bar would be closing by the time the medic had finished welding the cut closed, and Fisk had had a drink or two to kill the pain and settle his nerves. Belbarb couldn’t risk calling the mosstaas without driving off the off-worlders who didn’t want to be known as players. Nothing would be gained by calling them earlier, anyway: if the rumors were true—and after tonight, he had no doubt that they were—Tend- lathe was protecting the ghost ranas, and the mosstaas wouldn’t argue with him. I wonder if he’s doing more than protecting them? he thought suddenly. Ten could have set this up, set me up…. It wasn’t a pleasant thought, and he was glad to push it away. The timing was wrong, and he couldn’t have known the rover’s route. He and Fisk had just been unlucky, and there was enough of that in Bonemarche to go around.

~

Clan-cousin: (Hara) technically, a man or woman within one’s own age cohort in the shared clan who is not otherwise related; in common usage, a man or woman of one’s clan to whom one feels some tie or obligation, but to whom one is not more closely related; the use of the term generally expresses a sense of affection and kinship between the people concerned.

Mhyre Tatian

Warreven was late that afternoon, arriving with the end of the early rain, an insulated jug in one hand, disks and link-board in the other. Ȝe was still dressed in the clothes 3e had worn at the memore, a dull bronze silk tunic with a faint, geometric pattern woven into its surface, and 3er usual loose trousers. Ȝer hair was pulled back in an untidy braid, and Tatian wondered—not without some envy—where 3e had spent the night. Warreven smiled as though 3e’d read the thought and set the jug on Tatian’s desk.

“Help yourself, it’s wiidwayk.”

“No, thanks.” To Tatian, the herbal brew tasted like sugared turpentine, though the indigenes seemed to drink it by the gallon.

“Suit yourself,” Warreven said. Ȝe unstoppered the jug and drank, then set it aside, saying, “I’m sorry I’m late. I had—kind of a busy night and slept in.”

Tatian wrinkled his nose as the smell of the wiidwayk drifted toward him. It seemed as though it had been months since he’d had a “busy night” of his own, since he’d broken with Prane Am, who still hadn’t gotten back to him about the interface box. “No problem. I’m glad you’re here, though. We need to get these papers signed.” He was pleased with the speed with which the terms had fallen into place, once he’d confirmed his interest.

“I know.” Warreven wrapped his hands around the jug, looked at it for a long moment. “The ghost ranas—on the way back from seeing Temelathe last night, a band of them broke in the window of my rover. Fisk—the man driving—got a nasty cut from the glass, and I ended up spending the night in a Harborside bar. And then I had to go to the mosstaas with him—no luck there, of course, but at least the complaint was filed.”

“Jesus,” Tatian said. “Are you all right?”

Warreven smiled again. “Fine—tired, but fine. And Fisk is all right, too. There was a medic there, an off-worlder, who took care of him.”

“Glad to hear it,” Tatian said. A player, he added mentally, automatically, but that doesn’t make him any less competent.

“There is something you should know,” Warreven said. “Before we sign, I mean. The Most Important Man wants me to, well, I suppose revise is the word, our contract, and he’s prepared to make it as hard as possible for you to go on doing business here if I, if you, don’t.”

Tatian looked down at his desktop, at the screens scattered beneath the opaque surface. The profit projections lay on top, Mats’ shipping report beside it—they had export permits and starcrates for the most valuable goods, and Mats was reporting that the indigenous Export Control Office was asking only a few hundred concord dollars in extra “fees” to process the remaining permits—and he shook his head slowly. “So far, we haven’t had any trouble. And we always pay our way. What’s the problem?”

“Reiss,” Warreven said. “Or, more precisely, this case of ours, Destany and ’Aukai.”

Tatian snorted. After all the effort he’d gone to—after the chances he was taking, standing up to the IDCA, risking NAPD’s hard-won position on Hara—to be told that Warreven was backing out was too much. Warreven tilted 3er head to one side.

“I don’t intend to change my position,” 3e said. Ȝe laughed then, sounding genuinely amused. “I don’t like being threatened, and anyway, it’s not like I had any desire to run for seraaliste next year. I still want Reiss’s statement, and as far as I’m concerned it’s still part of the price. But I thought I owed you the warning.”

“Why?”

Warreven blinked. “I prefer to do business when people understand all the risks. Besides, I like you.”

“Thanks. But I meant, why stand up to Temelathe, especially now? Why does this case matter so much?” Tatian shrugged. “Look, I don’t want to be rude, but there are a couple of cases like this every year. Can’t you wait for the next one, if you want to make a point?”

Warreven looked away. The thick braid of 3er hair fell forward over 3er shoulder, and 3e worried at its end, twisting it between long fingers. The gesture seemed strangely familiar, and then Tatian remembered the woman he had been involved with on Joshua, long-limbed, long-haired Kaysa, who had done just that whenever she was nervous about something. It was no wonder he found Warreven attractive; 3e shared some of her tricks of movement and gesture.

“The truth?” 3e said, and let 3er braid fall back into place. “A lot of reasons, I suppose. I’m tired of waiting—after all, there’s never going to be a good time, by definition, right? And it’s not right. All Destany wants is to be with zher lover, that shouldn’t be this difficult.”

Tatian blinked, startled to hear the off-world pronoun, however badly pronounced, and Warreven sighed again.

“And on top of that, I don’t like ’Aukai. I’ve never liked ’Aukai. So I don’t want to give up on her case. And Tendlathe isn’t Speaker yet, no matter what he thinks he is. So, I’m telling you now, Reiss’s statement stays part of the bargain. If you don’t want to take the risk—if you can’t afford to stay in the game—” Ȝe spread 3er hands. “That’s your choice, of course.”

But you lose the harvest surplus. Tatian looked down at his screens again, at the numbers spread across the multiple files. Masani had already given δer opinion; the final choice was, as always, up to him. The numbers are too good, the profit’s too high to lose, he thought. If it’s a real problem, δe can transfer me next year, that ought to satisfy Temelathe—and I can’t say I’d be that sorry to get off this crazy planet…. He stopped then, remembering Masani’s words: “I spent eight local years explaining myself,’ δe had said, but it was more than that, more that no one, not the IDCA and Col- Com, not the indigenes, had been able to see δer as δerself. That was the other factor in the equation, the joker in the pack. The system, trade, the whole bizarre two-gendered Haran worldview, was simply wrong; Warreven was right, the IDCA spent too much time trying to manage trade, and not enough time facing the implications of the system they were trying to control. If they really wanted to deal with HIVs, they could spend more of their time and effort looking for whatever it was that gave Harans their immunity. “I don’t see any reason to change my plans,” he said. “Reiss has said he wants to testify. As long as that holds true, I’ll back him.”

“Thanks,” Warreven said softly, and then straightened, pushing the disks across the desktop. “Shall we get on with it, then?”

Tatian nodded, and ran his hand over the shadowscreen to bring the proper window to the surface. At the same time, the blockwriter whined to life, and he slipped the first disk into the reader’s slot. There were no changes to the contracts—they had been straightforward enough; it had only been Reiss’s testimony that made things complicated—but Warreven read through the last drafts a final time, head bowed over 3er screen. Then 3e nodded, and scrawled 3er name across the touchscreen, then added the codes that confirmed both 3er identity and 3er authority as seraaliste. The blockwriter whined again, copying the file and then sealing the disk, and Tatian allowed himself a sigh of relief. It was good to have them signed—good not to have to keep making and unmaking his decisions, good to be committed to this one. He said aloud, “I understand some of your offering is already in port?”

Warreven nodded, tipped 3er head to one side, the corners of 3er mouth turning up in 3er familiar almost smile. “I suppose you’d like to look at samples.”

“I would.”

“I thought you might,” Warreven said. “I spoke to our captain, he’ll be expecting us.”

They took the company rover over to Harborside, left it parked on Dock Row in an empty lot beside one of the bars. It was open, and Warreven spoke briefly to the manager, a thin, worried-looking woman, before coming back to join Tatian. “She says it should be safe there, even with a company mark.”

Warreven sounded less than certain, and Tatian sighed, thinking of his budget if he had to get the rover repaired. Still, his predecessor had bought the rover on-planet; it wouldn’t be impossible to replace, he thought, and turned to look across the roofs of the Embankment to the docks below. The clouds had burned off, and the afternoon was unusually clear. Sea and sky were blue, flecked here and there with white, and the pale wood and stone of the Gran’quai itself seemed to glow in the harsh sun- light. The market in the foreground was almost empty, only the food sellers and a few vendors with carts snugged up to the power points on the southern perimeter; the rest of the stalls were empty, just painted white lines marking their divisions. The rana band was still there, though, still dancing on its makeshift stage— only two drummers now, and a woman who held a flute—as was the audience. That was larger than Tatian had remembered, maybe fifty or sixty people, most of them wearing the bright ribbons that Warreven had said meant they were members of the band. There were dockworkers on the edge of the group, conspicuous in their faded, practical clothes, and more were watching from the Gran’quai itself.

“I don’t see the mosstaas,” he said aloud, and Warreven glanced back at him. A few strands of hair had worked free of 3er braid and clung damply to 3er forehead.

“Over there,” 3e said, and pointed. “By the Customs House.”

Tatian looked again and saw three people—all men, by the look of them—standing in the arched doorway. They didn’t seem to be doing anything, but people were giving them a wide berth, and then, there was the empty Market. “Trouble?” he asked, and Warreven shrugged.

“I don’t think so. Come on.”

Ȝe led the way down a narrow street—no stairs this time, but the pitch was still steep enough that Tatian wished there had been steps. They crossed the open Market, the drumming, a steady, even beat that kept the dancers moving in easy patterns, loud enough to drown conversation. Tatian felt the looks as they passed, the shifts of expression that registered an off-world presence, and for the first time, he was aware of the weight of the ironwood dockers’ hooks that hung at people’s belts. More people carried the tall sticks, ordinary wood rather than the fire-tempered ironwood, wound with multicolored ribbons: Not as deadly as the hooks, Tatian thought, but effective enough in a brawl. They seemed peaceful enough, however, mostly caught up in the rhythm of the drums, but he was still glad when they crossed the wide stone ledge that marked the edge of the Market and came out onto the wood of the Gran’quai.

The dock was crowded, the usual mix of sailors and dockers and factors, but not as busy, most of the dockers standing idle, clustered around their machines or beside the heaps of cargo. Halfway down the dock, hot air shimmered over a crane’s engine compartment, and a little further half a dozen men and women wrestled a gangplank into place while the ship’s captain watched from the stern rail, dividing her attention between the dockers and the ranas in the Market.

“We’re down here,” Warreven said. “Berth seven.”

Tatian nodded, squinted through the sun along the row of ships. In the strong light, the colors bled together; it was hard to tell where one ship ended and the next began. He shaded his eyes with one hand, picked out a shore barge, broader beamed than the rest, riding high and so nearly empty, and then a snub-nosed coaster, its wheelhouse painted with a crowing cock. The image was startling, on Hara, and then he remembered that one of the Captain’s symbols was the rooster.

Suddenly, someone shouted behind them, a high, wordless cry of anger, and Tatian swung to see a fibreplast-walled cargo shay turning into the open space of the Market. A second shay followed, pulling to a stop a dozen meters from the first. Their cargo spaces were filled with dark-helmeted mosstaas, maybe twenty men in each; the sun glinted dully from their fibreplast riot shields. Tatian caught his breath—there weren’t enough of them to take on that crowd, not easily; people were going to get hurt— and then a single man, shoulders badged with the five-feathers badge of a commander, swung himself down out of the lead shay. He started for the makeshift stage, striding without haste across the Market, and the crowd made way for him, sullen, conscious of the other mosstaas waiting in the shays behind him.

“God and the spirits,” Warreven said. “He’s brave enough.”

“Stupid,” Tatian said, and heard his voice tight and frightened. They were trapped on the Gran’quai; if the mosstaas charged the crowd, they would have nowhere to run, except back onto the quay itself. He heard engines behind him, glanced over his shoulder, and saw smoke belching from the engine compartment of the nearest coaster. Clearly, its captain had come to the same conclusion, and was ready to cut and run. Another engine burped to life, and then a third.

The mosstaas commander had reached the platform and swung himself up easily. The drummers stopped, their song petering out into a last ragged flurry of notes. The flute player stepped back a meter, giving him room, but made no other move.

“You’re in violation of the laws governing political assemblies.” The mosstaas commander’s voice carried clearly: either the platform was miked, Tatian thought, or he had brought his own loudhailer.

“We’re not political.” That was the flute player, her voice as clear as the commander’s. “We’re a rana, nothing more.”

“I know her,” Warreven said. “That’s Faireigh—she’s a chanter, one of the important ones.”

The mosstaas commander shook his head. “I don’t see a singer. This is no rana, people, either you go home quietly, or we’ll disperse you ourselves.”

There were shouts from the crowd, quickly quelled, the first instinct for defiance hushed by more sensible neighbors. Faireigh glared at the mosstaas, hands on hips, a big gesture, nicely calculated. Then, slowly, she turned back to the microphone. “You hear the man, we’re not a rana—we’re violating the assembly laws.” There was a shout of protest at that, and she lifted her hands, quieting the crowd with a gesture. “I won’t say you don’t have a point, but we’re not the violent ones here. We don’t want to see the innocent hurt, or even threatened. We’re willing to go—but since the man wants a song, I’ll sing us out, this time.” She took a deep breath, began before the mosstaas commander could protest, her clear voice cutting easily through the confused noise.

“Our boots and shoes are all in pawn—”

The crowd caught up the next line, a ragged, angry chorus. “Go down, you blood-red roses, go down.”

Tatian caught his breath. He had heard the song before—it was a long-haul chant, something the sailors used raising anchor or hauling lighters along the coastal canals—but he’d never heard that note of snarling fury before. Warreven threw back 3er head and laughed aloud, the long braid dancing across 3er back. “Oh, she’s good, Faireigh is, there’s nothing they can to do stop her.”

“You hope,” Tatian said.

“Not a thing,” Warreven said, and bared teeth in a suddenly feral grin. “It’s an old song, old as Earth, everybody knows it doesn’t have anything to do with politics.”

“The foreman says, before I’m through,” Faireigh sang, and the crowd answered instantly.

“Go down, you blood-red roses, go down.”

“You’ll hate your mother for having you.”

Behind her on the platform, the mosstaas commander stood with his arms crossed, trying to look as though he was in control of the situation. Warreven opened 3er mouth and added 3er clear contralto, slightly off-key, to the chorus.

“Oh, you pinks and posies.

Go down, you blood-red roses, go down.”

Tatian glanced warily at 3im, then back at the stage as Faireigh lifted her hands to encompass the singers.

“It’s growl you may but go you must.

Go down, you snow-white roses, go down.”

The crowd staggered in its echo as people realized belatedly what she’d said, and Faireigh swept on.

“If you growl too loud, your head they’ll bust.”

This time, the chorus came clear, all the pent-up anger displaced into the changed words. “Go down, you snow-white roses, go down.”

“Oh, how stones are roses,” Faireigh sang—as if anyone needed it made any clearer, Tatian thought, and glanced quickly sideways. The mosstaas still stood unmoving, penned in their shays.

The chorus was a savage affirmation. “Go down, you snow-white roses, go down.”

Faireigh waited for the last voice to die away, then bowed to the mosstaas commander—the irony was visible even from Tatian’s distance—and climbed down off the platform. The drummers followed her, instruments tucked awkwardly under arms, and the crowd made way for them as though they were royalty. Already, the people on the fringes, on the Market side and by the makeshift stage, were starting to edge away; the crowd was dispersing, as ordered, but on its own terms. Tatian shook his head.

“There’s going to be hell to pay for this one,” he said.

Warreven looked at him, still smiling. “Maybe. Probably, even. But it’s been a long time coming.” Ȝe took a deep breath, looking back at the people moving away from the stage.

“Warreven!”

“Haliday?” Warreven tilted 3er head to one side. “I might’ve known you’d be here.”

The herm grinned back at 3im. “How could I miss this? Damn, Faireigh’s good.”

“She is,” Warreven agreed, and glanced at Tatian. “I don’t think you’ve met my partner, Haliday. Mhyre Tatian.”

“Not properly,” Tatian agreed.

“I saw you at the memore,” Haliday said, and held out 3er hand. Tatian took it, studying the newcomer. Ȝe was rather ordinary, for the herm who had challenged Hara’s gender laws in the planet’s courts, a stocky, brown-skinned person with close-cut dark hair and wide, prominent cheekbones. Not as handsome as Warreven, Tatian thought, and was startled by his own response. Haliday released his hand, looked back to Warreven.

“Raven, I need to talk to you.”

“Can it wait?” Warreven tilted 3er head toward the off- worlder. “We were here to look at the surplus samples.”

“It’s important,” Haliday said. “I wouldn’t interrupt if it weren’t.”

Warreven sighed. “I’m sorry, Tatian. The captain—Aylese, his name is—knows to expect you, he’ll show you what you need.”

Tatian stared back at 3im, wanting to protest, recognizing the futility of it. He would do well enough with the ship’s captain, anyway, in some ways better without Warreven to explain away discrepancies between the labeling and the actual product. It was just—it was dangerous to stand up against the mosstaas right now, when trade was coming into question. There was too much at stake to risk everything in the streets, too much chance of losing…. He saw Warreven smile again, saw the same glee reflected in Haliday’s plain face, and couldn’t find the words that would convince either of them. “Be careful,” he said at last, and wasn’t surprised when Warreven looked blankly at him. “Just—be careful.”

~

Jackamie: (Hara) literally “boyfriend"; always a very casual term that can easily become an insult.

Warreven

He watched Tatian walk away down the length of the Gran’quai, golden hair vivid in the sunlight, looked back at Haliday with a frown. “I should be going with him. This better be important, Hal.”

“It is.” Haliday took his elbow, turned him toward the Market. “There’s going to be a meeting of all of the Modernist groups, and all of us wrangwys. The way the mosstaas dispersed the crowd, God and the spirits, we’ve got our chance. That was too blatant, even for them, stopping a perfectly ordinary rana when they haven’t made an attempt to track down the ghost ranas. This is something everyone can rally behind.”

Warreven nodded, feeling the excitement rising in his chest. Haliday was right, this might be the thing they needed to bring the people who weren’t interested in the odd-bodied’s problems, who pretended trade didn’t exist because it made them uncomfortable to think too much about it, onto their side. The mosstaas had overstepped: Faireigh’s rana had been well within the limits of custom, if not strictly of law, and they had been silenced—but these ghost ranas were outside both law and custom and were allowed to act. “It could work,” he said, and knew his tone belied the cautious words.

“It will work,” Haliday said, fiercely. “The meeting’s tonight at the twentieth, at Bon’Ador.”

“Then why—” Warreven began, and Haliday waved the complaint away.

“We—you and me and Folhare and Lunebri and Illewedyr and anybody else we can find—need to start putting together some ideas for proper ranas. Something we can show them, give them something to start off with.”

Warreven nodded. “You want me to find Folhare?” It was a good guess; everyone knew they were old friends.

“If you could, that would be great.”

Warreven nodded. “I’ll try. She’ll be working—at the workshop, I mean, not trade.”

“She’s more likely to listen to you,” Haliday said. “I don’t think she likes me much—” Ȝe broke off then, eyes fixing on something, someone on the far side of the Market. Warreven followed the direction of 3er gaze and swore under his breath. The man standing between two empty stalls, just where the shadow of the Customs House touched the foot of the Embankment stairs, was unmistakable, and, as unmistakably, he had seen and recognized them, and started across the empty Market to meet them.

“What the hell is Tendlathe doing here?” he said, and Haliday spat on the stones at 3er feet.

“I can’t talk to him, I can’t even be civil to that bastard.”

“Fine,” Warreven said. “I’ll talk to him. You go on, get everybody together, and I’ll meet you—where?”

“My place,” Haliday answered, already walking away. “Or Bon’Ador, if it gets late.”

“I’ll be there,” Warreven said, and advanced to meet Temelathe’s son.

“Warreven.” Tendlathe stopped a meter from him, lifting a hand to shade his eyes. “Was that Haliday?”

“Yes.” Warreven kept the sun behind him, grateful for even that petty advantage. Tendlathe looked tired, heavy shadows under his eyes, and his beard looked as though it hadn’t been trimmed in days. Warreven allowed himself a moment of satisfaction—after the night before, Tendlathe had no right to look less than tired—then brought his emotions under control. He had been stupid to let Tendlathe bait him; he wouldn’t let it happen again. “What brings you to the Market, Ten?”

“I might ask you the same question.” Tendlathe turned so that he was out of the sun and stood beside Warreven, looking back toward the Embankment and the bars of Dock Row above it. The burned-out shells of the bars made a conspicuous gap in the orderly row, and Warreven made a face, seeing it, thinking of the ghost ranas.

“I had business here—I am seraaliste now, remember, thanks to your father.”

“So you’re going through with that contract?” Tendlathe asked. His voice was mild, deceptively so, and Warreven lifted an eyebrow at him.

“Yes, I’m going through with it. I told you that last night. I’m not going to change my mind.”

“You’re making a mistake, dealing with these people,” Tendlathe said.

“It’s hardly Stane business, it’s our contract,” Warreven said, deliberately misunderstanding, and Tendlathe scowled.

“It’s Stane business, my business, because it’s politics. The system works as it stands—works very well, Raven, especially for your kind. I don’t know why you have to try to change it now.”

Warreven looked at him, silhouetted against the stage platform. The mosstaas commander was crouched on one corner, talking to a pair of troopers. “But it doesn’t work, Ten. You know that as well as I do.”

“It works well enough,” Tendlathe said, and sounded almost conciliatory. “We don’t need changes, not if it brings in the off-worlders.”

“Are you crazy?” Warreven glared at him. “We’ve already changed. We’ve been dealing with the off-worlders for exactly a hundred years, of course we’ve changed, only the system hasn’t caught up with us. And it’s breaking down because people like you won’t admit it.”

Tendlathe shook his head. “No, the system’s breaking down because people like you—” He waved his hand, the gesture barely indicating Warreven’s body. “—gellions, halvings, you don’t, you won’t admit there’s something wrong with you.”

“Fine,” Warreven said, through clenched teeth. His good intentions evaporated, fueled by the anger and the fear of the night before. “Treat it like it’s my fault for being born. But I do exist, we exist, halvings—” He broke off, angry that he’d used the old word, substituted the creole terms, awkward on the tongue. “—herms, mems, fems, and we’ve existed since our people left Earth. You can’t possibly believe it’s sin, unresisted entropy, whatever the vieuvants are calling it these days. Hyperlumin is mutagenic, it made us—space travel made us, you can’t go FTL without the drug.”

“That’s what the off-worlders say,” Tendlathe said. His face was tight and set behind the thin beard. “It’s their excuse. But we don’t have to be like them. We’re not the same.”

“We’re not that different, either,” Warreven said. “You talk like they’re aliens or something.”

“They are,” Tendlathe answered. “In every way that matters, they are aliens. That’s what this is really about, Raven, don’t you see? We aren’t like them, and we can’t become like them. We, what we are, is too important, we’re all that’s left of what people, human beings, are supposed to be, and if we change, that’s lost forever.”

Warreven stared at him for a long moment, shook his head to hide the fact that he had no idea what he should say. He could smell dried broadleaf kelp, wondered if a crate had broken open somewhere along the Gran’quai. “We’ve already changed. We’re the same species,” he said at last, and wasn’t surprised when Tendlathe shook his head.

“Not anymore we’re not. And I refuse to believe that they are human.”

“You’re fucking crazy,” Warreven said.

Tendlathe laughed. “I’m right. Right for Hara, anyway, right for us. Just because I recognize the truth doesn’t make me crazy.”

“If they’re not human,” Warreven said slowly, “what does that make me, Ten? I’m a herm, that’s real, I’ve got tits and a cock and a cunt, and what does that make me?”

“You can pass for a man,” Tendlathe said, after a moment. “You can make the effort.”

“Pass for human,” Warreven said bitterly. “Fuck you, Tendlathe.” He turned away, blind angry even in the relative shade, started toward the stairs that led to the Embankment. Tendlathe’s voice floated after him.

“I meant what I said, Warreven.”

Warreven swung around, seeing the dark shape against the sunset sky. “So did I.”

He took the long way to Blind Point, as much to give himself time to calm down as to avoid the streets where the ghost ranas had been seen. At the fountain that marked the intersection of Hauksey and Blakelams streets, he stopped and scooped water from the pool, splashing some on his face before he drank. The fountain on its raised triangle of land was quiet, as quiet as the Harbor Market, and he seated himself on its broad ledge, looking back toward the sea. Normally, the little square would be full of vendors, selling everything from sweetrum to feelgood and doutfire, but today there was only a thin herm with a half-empty basket of flowers. She was dressed like a woman in thin, clinging trousers and the traditional tight-laced bodice, carelessly stuffed to make her breasts seem larger than they were. From where he sat, Warreven could see the outline of the pads beneath the fabric. She saw him looking, and turned toward him, tucking her basket under her arm.

“Æ, brother, did you come from the Market?”

Warreven nodded, not moving.

“I have friends there,” she said, “and I worry.”

“They should be all right,” Warreven said. “I was there. The mosstaas shut down the ranas that were there—” He bit down hard on his own anger, seeing the same shock reflected in the other’s face, and continued more calmly. “Nobody was hurt, though, everyone went peaceably.”

The flower seller sighed, and set her basket between them on the lip of the basin. “That’s good news, brother.” She reached into the water, cupping a double handful, and drank noisily. She shook her hands, water still running down her chin, and said, “I heard there was going to be trouble. But I also heard that Temelathe told the mosstaas hands off.”

Warreven hissed between his teeth, the country sound that indicated incredulity. “I wouldn’t count on it, my sister.”

The flower seller shrugged, wiping her hands on her thighs. The fabric clung, sweat-damp, outlining thin legs. Warreven was suddenly aware of their shape, of the fullness in her— 3er—crotch, and the breasts padded to fill the too-large bodice. It had been years, it seemed, since he had looked at another halving, another herm, besides Haliday, and really seen the bodies that mirrored his own. And even Haliday had always seemed more man than herm or woman, if only because they’d been boys together…. And Haliday was right, he realized suddenly. They couldn’t pass, none of them, no matter how much they tried, at least not well enough to satisfy Tendlathe and the people like him.

“If they haven’t done anything,” the flower seller said, “it might be true.”

“They haven’t done anything yet,” Warreven said, and 3e grinned, revealing a missing tooth at the side of 3er mouth.

“And I don’t intend to count on that, my brother.” Ȝe hoisted 3er basket, resting it on 3er narrow hip—a woman’s gesture? a human gesture?—and stepped gracefully off the edge of the fountain.

He didn’t watch 3er go, suddenly, coldly, afraid.

~

Jillamie: (Hara) literally “girlfriend"; always very casual, and can easily become an insult.