Shadowkill

##

The play went on, Pass round, Claiming round, Pass and Claim for the four doubles of each Chapter. Rose went down badly on the first chapter, the dice were all right after the first round, but the combinations were miserable and nothing she could do during the Claimings was enough to make up for the weak Sets.

Barangkaly continued his expansive style and rode his luck to a win in the first Chapter, but went down and down on those that followed.

Second Chapter. Rose still had bad cards, but finessed a tie with Pulleet who she judged the second best player at the table.

Tayteknas was a steady though not brilliant player, Kahtik was tight, overly cautious, wasting opportunities. Rose relaxed. He was no threat. Uj was mostly cautious, but he had a propensity for wild chances that sometimes paid off and sometimes didn’t; he was unexpected, difficult to read-and she got a strong feeling from the others that it wasn’t a good idea to challenge him when his calls were questionable. Lice, she thought. One of the Papa Policer’s boys. Nikeldy was a plodding player. Negligible. He sweat a lot and lost consistently even with fair hands.

She won the third Chapter outright and after that could have won them all, she had the measure of the players and the rhythm of the game, but thought it wasn’t wise to clean them out, especially Uj. The fourth Chapter she split with Uj, the fifth she dropped out early.

They took a Nosh break between the fifth and sixth Chapters, the usual time. This was the time she’d come for, when the relaxation of the tension from the game also relaxed internal censors and a lot of good gossip got going.

The Shimmery had set up a Nosh table along the wall with local wines, teas, and a version of kaff which smelled to her like burnt toast. Rose filled a plate with fingerfood and a glass with the white varnish she was developing a taste for. It went well with the nibbles the Shimmery provided, cutting the force of the ghawang that the Rummer cooks seemed to put in everything. She sipped, chewed, circulated, mostly listening, contributing a nod of her head here, a murmur of agreement there, her ears stretched to catch anything remotely relevant to her search.

Kahtik signed a query, wondering if she might be free-tech also.

Effortlessly she returned an assent (aware of Uj watching both of them), stayed where she was as the freetech drifted over to her.

“Hunting?” His voice was high, flat; there was a scar on his throat from a wound that had almost decapitated him. With meatfarms available to anyone with an income like his had to be, she didn’t understand why he hadn’t had that scar fixed. Some kind of perverse pride in the narrowness of his escape?

“No, I just came off a job. Scratching an itchy foot. Anything around bigger than local?”

He grinned at her. “What’s the need if you’re not looking?”

She rubbed her thumb back and forth across her fingertips. “Never turn down a chance at cash.”

“I’m industrial design. What’re you?”

“Programs and systems.”

“Just as well you’re not in the market. Ain’t any, not here, not for that. Unless the Mimishay Foundation.” He ran his eyes over her, shook his head. “And they wouldn’t hire you.”

“Why not? I’m damn good, though it’s me who says it.”

“You’re female. They don’t hire women.”

“Their loss.”

“You play a helluva game.”

She winked at him. “Programs and systems. ’Tall helps.”

He glanced past her, flickered his fingers at her (in the twitter of the digits a take-care sign) and drifted off.

Uj moved around in front of her, sipping at a hot fruity drink. “New ’round here,” he said. He had a commonplace voice, under the paint an ordinary face; he was neither tall nor short, dark nor light, shadowman, his edges shifting with the shifts of the wind.

“Hmm,” she said. “Your ordinary tourist.” She inspected her plate, selected a small roll of meat wrapped round a piece of fruit and took a bite of it. “Um,” she chewed, swallowed. “This is good. What is it?”

Uj smiled, a grimace that bared his teeth and got nowhere near his eyes. “Babi slin,” he said. “Why our world?”

“No reason, just general wanderfoot.” She popped the rest of the babi slin into her mouth, chewed, and washed it down with a gulp of wine. “I finished a job here in the Callidara and decided to take a look round.”

“Not a trader, then.”

“No. Freetech. Programs and systems.”

“Looking for work?”

“Not really, this is playtime. Of course, if I got a good offer…” She matched his tooth-end smile.

“Visiting friends?”

“No. I don’t know anyone here. Footloose and fancy free. Mostly looking for games. I have a thing for Vagnag; it’s not that often one can get a really good game if one isn’t in the megagelder range.” She found another babi slin, bit into it.

“And this is a good game?”

She raised a brow. “Fair.”

“If you should happen to get an offer.

“Yes?”

“There are certain formalities.”

“There always are.”

“Yes. I see you’re experienced in this.” He put a peculiar twist on the word experienced that gave her a chill at the bottom of her stomach. “Come see me, I would be delighted to facilitate matters for you.”

“How kind,” she said. Sipping at the wine, she drifted off. Complications. Rather do without complications.