Shadow of the Warmaster

2

Quale nudged the tug up tight against the monstrous flank; Adelaar danced her fingers over her consoles. Like some gargantuan sex organ the pimply surface extruded a rubbery tube; it reached out and touched the tug’s side, closing like a mouth over the freight lock.

Clutching sickbags the fighters swam through the tube. Quale gave them a lecture before they left. Thirty to forty percent of you will suffer nausea when you hit the tube and go weightless. Unless you want to swim through vomit, you’ll see your kin and your friends have those bags ready and use them if they need them and they will, believe me, they will. It has nothing to do with strength of body or mind. Ever been seasick? Multiply by ten. Uh-huh. And those of you out there looking superior, even if you’re never sick at sea, that’s no predictor of your belly’s state when the weight comes off. Take the bags and use them.

Comforted by the seasickness analogy despite Quale’s warning, Elmas Ofka expected to swim undisturbed through that relatively short distance between the artificial gravity of the tub to the artificial gravity of the Warmaster. She was furious when the first convulsions shook her; Quale had forced a sickbag on her, she’d tucked it out of the way behind her belt, now she got it up just in time to catch her first spew. She glared at Karrel Goza who was pulling himself along untroubled.

Contorted with spasms of vomiting, pale with fury, she yanked herself along the travel lines anchored to the tubewall, ignoring the gulps, coughs, groans of her fellow sufferers. In spite of her difficulties, she took less than five minutes to reach the lock area where she surrendered with a relief that didn’t lessen her annoyance to the comfortable grip of a familiar weight. She wrenched off the sickbag, glared around.

Carefully not smiling, Quale slid back the cover on a disposal chute and took the bag from her. He dropped it into the hole, stood back to watch as the rest of the force came swinging out of the transtube, landing on their feet again, their bodies celebrating the return to weight as they looked round the lock, a trapezoidal chamber large enough to accommodate ten times their number. The Hordar who’d succumbed to nausea dumped their bags in the waste chute, took mouthfuls of water from their belt canteens and spat it after the bags. With a minimum of noise and energy expenditure, they gathered into bands and isyas and waited for the order to proceed. Lirrit Ofka drifted over to stand beside Karrel Goza; she was pale and still somewhat shaky, but she managed a wan smile as she touched his arm in a gesture close to a caress. “Absurd,” she murmured, “we’re starting our war like a clutch of colicky babies.” She pinched him, sniffed. “Some of us.”

Elmas Ofka moved to the center of the lock, beckoned Jamber Fausse to her. He went onto one knee, she stepped up onto the other, holding his hand to steady herself. With a two-finger whistle, she called her people to her. “Time is,” she said; her voice filled the chamber with passion and triumph. She watched them as they sorted themselves out, smiled as she saw an alertness and a confidence born out of years of deadly exchanges, even the youngest who’d been an inklin in gul Brindar before he joined Akkin Siddaki’s raiders, a baby-faced thief with legendary fingers. “Drive chamber, go.” She watched the isyas and the bands move off behind Kanlan Gercik, swinging along in a slouching trot that covered ground with a minimum of effort. “Duty stations, rest area, go.” Two more squads left. “Sleepers, go.” She stepped down. “Bridge,” she said. “Let’s go.”

Aslan watched the squads peel off and slide away, the bodies fading curiously into a dimness that wasn’t shadow, the sourceless light cast no shadows, that was more like a thickening and darkening of the air itself.

It seemed to exaggerate every quality, to dramatize each of the individuals left in the lockchamber. Elmas Ofka was an odd combination of wargod and earth-mother; Jamber Fausse was chthonic, earth crumbling off him, about to burst into grass and weed, his men reduced to elemental shadows crouching at his knees; Karrel Goza and Lirrit Ofka were dangerously elfin, dark and unpredictable, unhuman; Churri was like that too, and not like, a coppery sprite redolent of a mix of malice and compassion ordinarily impossible but not here. Kante Xalloor was Dance incarnate with enormous eyes, her body singing a wry amusement at what was happening around her. Swardheld Quale loomed, no other word for it, big, somber, and for the first time, impressive. In spite of herself, she smiled as she thought the words, her lust for his body, she’d seen him as a quiet man, committed to nothing except money and even that seemed to provoke no great interest. No great interest in her either, though she’d been shedding signals around him like a kirpis sheds scales. She sighed, she’d been through this before, these stupid infatuations, she knew exactly how it’d go, whether she slept with him or missed on that, one day she’d look at him and wonder what the fuss was about; until then she was stuck with these palpitations and hot rushes. Parnalee… she looked at him, looked away. Black Beast, evil exaggerated; he terrified her more than any other person male or female she’d ever met. She started to wonder how all of them saw her and almost missed the Rau’s return. Light rolled like water off his short thick fur; he sank into that adhesive dimness, a shadow more solid than the twilight around him but still curiously nebulous, a demon familiar of the pleasanter kind. She smiled. Living up to his legend, she thought.

“The transtube’s operational,” Pels the shadow said, “Adelaar’s punched the command through.”

“Good.” His eyes narrowed to slits, Quale scratched at his short dark beard, pushing his fingers along his jawline. “One last time,” he said. “Let Pels and me go ahead so we can make sure the way’s clear.”

Elmas Ofka’s head went up and back, her eyes glittered. “No,” she said.

Quale shrugged. “Pels, lead off. Soon as the tube decants you, do your thing. Be careful, huh? I’ll be out soon as I can manage. Hush, Hanifa, you saw him work and you got me as hostage.” He looked round, beckoned to Karrel Goza. “Take three of your fighters and follow him.” He waited until that four was formed up, then tapped Elmas Ofka on her shoulder. “Hanifa, you and your isyas and your…” he grinned at Jamber Fausse, “your bodyguard, you’re next. Churri, you and your friend follow them. Parnalee.”

Parnalee shook his head. “Last,” he said.

Quale looked at him a moment, then he shrugged and turned to Aslan. “You’re it then, follow the dancer. I’ll follow you.”

Aslan nodded; she’d have preferred a few more bodies between her and the Proggerdi, but with Quale behind her she felt safe enough.

“All right. Go, Pels.”

The Rau led them through corridors round as wormholes, gray, ashy dead-colored holes, even the air was the color of death, holes thick with gray sound-absorbing dust, dust-heavy cobwebs, rat droppings, the discarded housings of dead insects. Aslan trotted after Churri, watching dust drifting down over him, gradually leaching the color out of his body and his clothing. By the time she’d turned a few bends right and left and switched from one wormhole to another to a third, she was thoroughly lost and a gray ghost herself, in a line of gray ghosts, trotting through dust, age and ugliness, her hand over nose and mouth to keep the worst of the clutter out of her lungs, her brain busy-busy, honey-sipper busy with image and sound.

She ran up on Churri’s heels before she noticed he’d stopped walking.

The door was a squared oval bent to conform to the curve of the wall; it was pulled out and pushed away and weak gray-yellow light struggled out of the opening. Aslan followed Churri over the raised sill into a round chamber like the inside of a tincan. The kind of ships she usually traveled in didn’t use tubes like this; you rode in minicarts or you walked. She peered around Churri’s shoulder and watched Xalloor step through a vaporous throbbing darkness, moving slowly until only the lower part of her left leg was visible on this side; abruptly that was gone, one instant there, then whipped away. Without missing a step Churri went after her. Shivering with excitement and fear, Aslan followed him.

Soft pudgy giant hands seized hold of her and took her instantly elsewhere. She felt no acceleration, only the pillowy gentle hold. She was deaf and effectively blind, all she could see was a red-shot silvery gray shimmer.

The hands set her down on a small platform hardly large enough for one person to perch on; immediately ahead of her she saw a familiar pulsing cloud. She plunged through it and emerged into another tincan; she stepped over the raised sill and found herself standing in something that was part corridor, part atrium, part multiplex chamber five hundred meters long, perhaps a hundred wide, whose ceiling was so high overhead it was lost in the dimness peculiar to the light in this ship. Quale flashed past her, swung round, his eyes on the tube exit. He waited for one minute, two. Aslan moved away a few steps, turned to watch, a cold knot forming in her stomach as the seconds slid past and Parnalee didn’t appear. Quale checked the chron set in a ring he wore on his thumb, then he swung to face Elmas Ofka. “All right,” he said, “is this some idea of yours?”

Elmas Ofka glared at him, her suspicion matching his. “Or yours?”

Xalloor poked her elbow into Churri’s ribs; from the corner of her mouth, she shot at him, “Do your stuff, poet, or we’re gonna have a war right now.” She caught hold of Aslan’s arm. “Hush,” she whispered, “anything you say just makes things worse. She been primed not to believe you.”

“Hanifa,” Churri said, his voice making a minor magic of the word; she switched her glare to him, softening it automatically as she realized who was speaking. “Just one thing, make of it what you want. It was Parnalee’s choice, coming last. None of ours. Looks like he had plans he wasn’t telling anyone.”

She thought that over, clamped her mouth so tightly her lips disappeared; no more talking, that was the message. Let’s get on with this, that was the other message as she swung round and faced the great bronze doors that sealed off the bridge.

Quale glanced at his chron again. “Take cover,” he said. His voice was low, but pitched to carry. “Ten minutes before Adelaar opens her up for us.”

The grand Atrium had an angular egg shape with exits like liver spots spattered through every sector, ramps and handrails focused on what was now the floor, sealed-hatch storerooms, undedicated alcoves with no barriers at their portals, small rooms, large rooms, the few she could see into apparently as empty as the greater area, holes, nooks, recesses, stalls, coves, pockets, a hundred different receptacles breaking the smoothness of the metal walls. Aslan followed Churri and Xalloor into a small closet area with empty shelves and bins lining the walls; Karrel Goza and Lirrit Ofka crowded in with them; guarding Elmas Ofka was their first duty and their desire and staying close to the Outsiders was part of it. Aslan hid a smile. Duty didn’t dampen their excitement, their impatience to get on with taking the ship. She edged away from them and stood a step back from the entrance and to one side so the darkling air and the wall shielded her from observation; like all the other doorways she’d encountered in the ship, the sill was raised shin high, perfect tripping height, was that the purpose? Two of Jamber Fausse’s band looked in but decided this closet was already too crowded; from the sound of their voices, they went to ground in the next nook that’d hold them. Elmas Ofka, Jamber Fausse and the rest of his band chose yet other waiting places. Quale vanished somewhere and the Aurranger Rau transformed himself into a ripple in the dimness and went flickering about, nosing into whatever took his interest, unlocking hatches, poking into bins and drawers, going a short distance down some corridors, running up ramps to check out others. After she discovered how to estimate where he was, she watched the band of light and let her mind drift where it wanted to go, sliding contentedly through level upon level of metaphor and symbol. She’d read about the Raus and their talents and she’d heard a dozen tales about Pels and his pranks (though she’d discounted those, knowing the tellers too well to credit their accuracy); watching him at work was endlessly fascinating. She’d thought of him earlier as a sort of benevolent demon in the bowels of this malevolent beast of a ship, as a magister’s familiar, Quale being the magician/master; she’d been playing games with image and word, but her imaginings were beginning to seem more accurate than she’d suspected. She checked the Ridaar. No need to slip in a new flake, not yet.

Where she stood she could see the entrance to the Bridge, an oval like the rest of the doorways but larger. Much larger. The door was laminated bronze with an antique patina and the Imperatorial sigil in onyx calligraphy on a silver shield. Impressive, but they had its key and that key was her mother, Adelaar sitting out in the tug, playing her nay-saying tunes through the tap. At the proper time, she’d send a command bouncing through the satellite, down to the mainBrain and up again through the slavelink into the shipBrain. Open the door. And the door would open.

She could hear the ship breathing, the hushed whirr of fans that pushed the cleansed and constantly renewed air through the web of conduits; she could hear clicks and creaks and feel a subliminal hum through the soles of her sandals. A mite in the gut of an immense indifferent beast. She moved closer to the door and saw the invisible turn visible, pip-pop unroll the curtain, shape the beast from shade to solid, magic hardening into mundane. Pels kurk Orso, graduate engineer and living toy. She watched the flow of his broad black hands as he used a silent sign talk to argue with Quale. I wonder what that’s about? The exchange ended. Pels shrugged, rippled out again and went back to his snooping. Quale crossed the chamber at a rapid trot, stopped beside one of the exits.

Two guards came sauntering along the corridor attached to that exit, chatting as they walked; their voices came ahead of them, announcing them before they appeared. A hard nervous hand on Aslan’s arm pulled her away from the door. Karrel Goza dropped to a crouch, his pellet rifle ready. The guards, a pair of Tassalgans, appeared and turned away from the Bridge, started to turn back as they realized what they’d seen-Swardheld Quale standing there, a stranger in the ship. Before they completed the turn, their faces went slack and they dropped into a heap, one falling on the other.

Quale replaced his stunner, checked his thumbring. “Time,” he said.

Lirrit Ofka moved swiftly past Karrel, ran to join Elmas Ofka; Karrel Goza looked at Aslan, Churri, Xalloor. “Go,” he said. “I’ll follow.”

Xalloor moved with her awkward dancer’s grace past Aslan, muttering as she went, “There’s hardly enough trust around here to gild a snort.”

Pels was momentarily visible, solid, focused on the great bronze door, his chunky body quivering with an eagerness as great as that she saw in the Hordar who had a much bigger stake in the outcome. He must have done things like this a thousand times before; that didn’t seem to matter. Like me, Aslan thought, how I get when I step out on a new world.

The door snapped open.

A wave of change passed over Pels, erased him. The ripple in the air moved swiftly ahead of Quale as he ran onto the Bridge, his stunner humming softly. T’pmmmm, t’pmmmm, t’pmmmm, Aslan heard as she hung back, waiting for this bit to end, it wasn’t her idea of a good time. T’krak’k’k, t’rak’k’k. That had to be pellet guns. She looked at Xalloor, grimaced. The dancer lit up with one of her flash-grins, let the babies play, she mouthed. Fffft, ffft’t’t’t, fffft, isya darters. Poison, she thought. Some babies. When they stepped over the sill, half the Bridge crew were collapsed at their stations, dead or stunned, the rest were standing or sitting, staring with dull incredulity at what-is-impossible.

The Huvved Captain sat in a swivelchair that was raised higher than the rest and out in the middle of the chamber where the occupant could see everything taking place at the various stations, a massive kingseat, squatly powerful, with lights like jewels on the boxy arms, sensor pads useless as jewels because Adelaar had managed a minor coup and put through a demand-command that tied up most of the input available to the shipBrain, a move made necessary because this noble Captain knew all about defending himself from rebelling crews, though he had only the most rudimentary idea of the other powers under his hands. He was tall and firmly muscled with a patina of softness beginning to blur the clean outlines of his body. His face was plucked and painted into a dainty mask, his straight fair hair was plaited with gold and silver wire, arranged into loops and swirls until it was more like a minor sculpture than something that grew on a man’s head. He wore a yoss silk tunic and trousers, both dyed a lustrous black and over them a sleeveless robe woven in one piece by one of Tairanna’s premier weavers, a tapestry in black and silver with touches of aquamarine and olive, a heavy, extravagantly beautiful creation. Muscles bulged beside his mouth and his long silver nails were pressed so hard against the chair arm that several of them had cut through the padding and two had broken off near the quick.

“On your feet, babe.” Quale snapped his fingers, pointed across the room. “Jamber, Karrel, get the rest of them over there, against the wall. Pels, we could use some slavewire.” He frowned at the Huvved, lifted his stunner. “You can walk or I can drag you.”

The Huvved glared at him, didn’t speak, didn’t move.

“Your choice.” Quale thumbed the sensor, waited until the Huvved collapsed, then climbed onto the chair, got a handful of braids and jerked, then he jumped down, stripped the beautiful robe off and straightened up holding it. He looked it over. “Nice,” he said. “Hanifa, local work?”

Elmas Ofka’s eyes were bright with hostility quickly veiled. “Shopping? Is this the proper time, Yabass?”

“We take our profits when they come, Hanifa.” He tossed the robe over the arm of the kingseat. “If you have many weavers who can produce work like this, you’ve got a treasure here. I give you that bit of information as lagniappe, it’s worth what it’s worth.” He stooped, grabbed a handful of hair and dragged the Huvved across the room.

Aslan watched, amused at her own reaction to this and at the disapproval on Churri’s face; the poet wanted drama, not two traders arguing mildly over markets and somebody’s weaving skill. It wasn’t the sort of thing that made great legends. Good thing Mama isn’t here yet, this could degenerate into a bidding war, not the shooting kind. She glanced at Xalloor, caught her laughing at them all; she grinned back, then started a tour of the bodies and the wounded. There were very few dead; Quale and Pels had stunned more than half before the guns and darters got busy. She looked round, indignant; nothing was being done about the wounded. She met Xalloor’s eyes, mimed winding a bandage about her head. The dancer nodded and grabbed hold of Pels as he went trotting past, a coil of slavewire in one hand. “You know something about this…” She waved her hand in a quick expressive circle. “Where’d Lan and me find ourselves some medpacs?”

Pels wrinkled his black nose. “Try the panels by the door, they’re stores of some kind. Hey, Quale, you got the pick?” Quale dug into his belt pouch, tossed the rod to him, then went back to what he was doing. “Here, run the blunt end over anything that looks like a lock.”

While Aslan and Xalloor poured on antisep and slapped bandages on whatever happened to be bleeding, Jamber Fausse’s fighters were snipping sections of slavewire and packaging up the stunned, the intact and the not too badly wounded, and trading jokes as they hauled their prisoners across to the wall and stacked them like firewood. Elmas Ofka glittered with triumph, stalking back and forth across short distances with the feral impatience of a hunting cat. Quale moved over to the comstation. “Pels, it’s time to call Mama.”

Adelaar’s face appeared in one of the smaller screens. Quale set his hand on the Rau’s shoulder. “We’ve got the Bridge. You can turn loose the tap.”

“Give me three minutes to shut down here, then open the shuttle bay.”

“Consider it done.”