Jo Clayton - SQ 3 - Shadowkill

Shadowkill

Shadith’s Quest, Book 3

Jo Clayton

1991

Headings done. Spell-checked. Read troll – end.

TRAITOR TO THE BLOOD

The door slammed open and Pirs came striding in. There was a bloodstained bandage on his head

and another on his arm. His face was so tight with rage that the bones seemed to be leaping against the

skin. He nodded perfunctorily at his father, went bounding up the steps to the second table, nodding

tightly at his wife, grabbed hold of Kulyari’s arm and jerked her from the chair. Ignoring her protests, he

took her up the short flight of stairs to the main dais, flung her to the floor in front of Angakirs. “I will not

have this THING in my house. She called my moves to my enemy and I was brought near to death. She

is traitor to the Blood.”

Kulyari was so startled by all this that at first she could only grasp and struggle; she was frightened

now. “No, no, lies, no,” she cried; she pushed up onto her knees. “It’s lies, all of it, I didn’t ... the Blood,

no ....” Without trying to get up, she swung round and held out her arms toward Rintirry. “Tell them ...

Rintirry shoved his chair back, came round the table.

Kulyari let her arms drop, her mouth widened into a triumphant smile.

He caught hold of her hair, jerked her head up and cut her throat. “Traitors die. That’s what I say.

Jo Clayton has written:

The Diadem Series

Diadem From The Stars

Lamarchos

Irsud

Maeve

Star Hunters

The Nowhere Hunt

Ghosthunt

The Snares Of Ibex

Quester’s Endgame

Shadow of the Warmaster

The Duel Of Sorcery Trilogy

Moongather

Moonscatter

Changer’s Moon

The Dancer Trilogy

Dancer’s Rise

Serpent Waltz

Dance Down The Stars

The Skeen Trilogy

Skeen’s Leap

Skeen’s Return

Skeen’s Search

The Soul Drinker Trilogy

Drinker Of Souls

Blue Magic

A Gathering Of Stones

The Wild Magic Trilogy

Wild Magic

Wildfire

The Magic Wars

and

A Bait Of Dreams

Prolog

1

Shadith woke in the hold of a ship.

She was lying on a pallet, canvas, something like that. Naked. Half frozen.

Sometime before ... while she was out ... she’d been beaten ... raped ... brutally ... she was torn,

septic, she could feel the heat of the infections, the blood oozing from the wounds.

She lay in filth and stench, she hadn’t been catheterized, just left where they threw her.

She’d been fed, watered, there were tubes taped to her face, running into her nose.

They wanted her alive, but broken.

They. Who?

Ginny?

She shifted position slightly, felt feces squishing under her.

When she had her stomach in order, she looked around. Stasis pods, dozens of them, hundreds, all

around her. She reached.

The lifesparks in those pods were dim; most of them she couldn’t recognize, but Rohant was there,

nearest her. Azram. Tolmant. Nezrakam. Kinefray. Tejnar. Ginny.

Ginny?

She looked more closely at the strangers, picked up a faintly familiar “smell,” connected it to one of

those clients she’d watched glide past her when she was in that corridor.

Ginny and his clients. Prisoners?

What’s happening here?

Prisoners or passengers?

Ginny wouldn’t tolerate stasistime. I know him. This isn’t his ship. He wouldn’t go anywhere on

someone else’s ship. I know him.

Prisoner. It has to be prisoner.

Who?

Never mind. Time for that later.

Her hands were fettered, but she had a little play in the filament that joined the cuffs.

Her feet were free.

She rolled off the pallet, used her feet to push it aside, then drew herself up so her hands were close

to her nose. She pulled the tubes free.

It was painful, sickening, but she got them out. She used the water tube to wash herself.

It took a long time, but she managed to get her body reasonably clean.

She was cold, half frozen, the chill from the metal she lay on struck up through her flesh into her

bones, but she was clean.

Using her feet, she got the pallet turned over, the bottom side was filthy and stained, but hospital

hygienic compared to the mess she’d been lying in.

She clamped her teeth on the water tube, used her feet and knees to find the food drip and maneuver

it into her mouth, then she slid the pallet over and stretched out on it. It was warmer and softer than the

floor, not much but enough. She sucked on the food tube and began to feel al-most human.

Kikun, she thought suddenly. I didn’t touch him. Or Rose. Dead? Or what?

She went painstakingly around the hold once more, touching each of the lifesparks. They were all

there, except Lissorn who was dead. Ginny was there. His clients. And this time she located Ajeri the

Pilot. All there but Kikun. And Autumn Rose.

He slipped them.

Clever little lizard. Took Rose with him. I hope. Unless she’s as dead as Lissorn.

He’ll come after us, I know it. Yes.

All right.

They mean to break me any way they can.

Let them try.

2

She lay and listened, using the ears and eyes of spiders and other small vermin.

She lay and thought.

Slowly, carefully she began building THE PLACE THAT COULD NOT BE TOUCHED.

Slowly, carefully she withdrew HERSELF within THE PLACE, pulling memory and everything else

vital to who she was inside the armor she’d built to protect herself from the interrogators that waited for

her.Mindwipe waited for her, where her memories would be evoked then unreeled and dissolved. A

competent tech could strip a mind clean in a few hours, yet leave the organic machine intact, the basic

intelligence unmarred—or mostly so—ready for reprogramming and resale.

COME COME, SEE THE FINE BARGAIN. ONE FLESH MACHINE, FEMALE, FRESH

FROM THE USED BODY SHOP.

She hid from the Probe and dreamed another life for her-self, leaving it for THEM to find.

Yes, you creeps, you’ve got the body, but that’s all you’ll get. Break me, will you? You can

try, then you watch your asses, they’re mine.

She set the wake-trigger, (KIKUN: See Kikun and Know Again) then she closed the last gap in the

wall of THE PLACE and slept.

Chase: Autumn Rose And Kikun Break Free And Start The Long Trek After

The Fiends Who’ve Taken Their Friends

1

A faint sting. Then PAIN!

Autumn Rose came swimming out of fog into a prickly awareness that she was in deep shit and there

wasn’t much she could do about it.

A hand dropped on her mouth.

Her eyes cleared and she saw Kikun’s face, shining or-ange eyes ringed with white. He was in a

panic, but con-trolling it.

He brought his head down near hers, whispered, “Can you walk?” Despite his caution the whisper hit

the walls and the vaulted ceiling and came back to her as muted clicks and hollow oos, melding

uncomfortably with the scrape of his boots, the clatter of something against metal.

Her face went hot and tight. She’d stunned her own foot trying to get a guard, it was such a stupid

thing .... She didn’t bother answering him, just concentrated on seeing if she could move her toes; her

boots knocked against the hard floor covering, her pants leg brushed heavily over the thick black cloth of

the robe she wore, the sounds multiplied by that goertafl’cht echo chamber, startling her, giving her an

adrenal jolt that helped clear some of the fug from her head.

Right foot, fine. Left leg below the knee might as well be a block of wood. She bent her left knee,

sighed with relief. As long as she had the knee, the rest didn’t matter. She pushed his hand off her mouth.

“Can’t run races,” she muttered at him, “but I can get it going. What ....”

“Not now.” He straightened, stepped back, stumbled over the body of a dead guard, caught himself,

shivering at the noises his feet made.

She rolled onto her knees, thrust her hand at him. “Help me.”

He eased his shoulder under her arm and pushed up. Small-boned and shorter than Rose, with the

racy leanness of a garden lizard, he didn’t look as if he could lift an un-dersize cat, but she came off that

floor so much faster than she expected, she nearly went over on her face.

He got her limping along as fast as she could manage and guided her through the guards’ bodies,

across the anteroom, and into the shiny tarted-up corridor beyond.

She helped as much as she could; what she’d seen before she went down was coming back to her,

giving her cramps in her stomach and a powerful urge to get the hell out of there.

Stun rifle held with deceptive casualness under his right arm (where he could get it up and

working in half a breath) the merc strolled toward them. “Now, friends, you know better.

The room’s not ready yet, just turn yourself around and come back tomorrow.”

Shadith yelled and shot him.

The Dyslaerors shot before her yell died out and the other mercs went down.

An alarm started yelping.

The instant Shadow yelled, Azram got his arms around one of the metal benches and

charged the opening, getting there before the metal doors could slide shut: he dropped the

bench on the slide tracks and went plunging through as the doors kept trying to shut,

whining and slamming repeatedly at the bench. Shadow jumped the dead and went

running after him. Lissorn went screaming past her, tearing off his cowl, clawing out of

the robe. He’d forgotten everything but Ginny.

Autumn Rose swore and ran after him, went down as she tripped over a dead guard,

stayed down as the rest of the Dyslaerors stepped over her.

Rohant roared his own rage as he got stuck in the gradually narrowing space between the

doors as they beat at and crushed the bench between them. He freed himself and plunged

inside.

Rose rolled onto her knees.

A hand grabbed her ankle.

She twisted around, shot along her leg, swore again as she hit her foot as well as the

guard.

She pushed up, went limping to the door. She crawled over the bench, swung herself

inside, her leg dead from the knee down.

Lissorn was racing toward Ginny, stunner forgotten, claws out. He was only a few steps

away, but the man wasn’t moving; he stood watching unperturbed near the front rank of

the pulochairs. It seemed to Autumn Rose he was more interested in the degree of his

attacker’s rage than in any danger to himself. Directing his own death? Ginny Seyir-shi’s

last and best?

No.

He raised a hand.

Four cutters flashed from overlooks, hit Lissorn in mid-stride.

For an instant the Dyslaeror was a black core in the furnace where the beams met, then

they winked out and there was nothing left, not even dust.

Rohant roared, his great voice filling that room. He lifted the stun pistol.

The other Dyslaerors spread in a broad arc, converging on Ginny.

Shadow stood at the edge of the bidfloor, staring at Ginny. He turned, nodded at her,

started to lift a hand .... Autumn Rose shivered, touched her head ....

A hand closed on her arm, small, warm ....

Pulled at her ... no ... she couldn’t move ....

Oppression ... her head, her head ....

Things moving slow ... ly ... slooow ... ly ... slooow ... lyyy.

Blackness ....

Nothing ....

She remembered and understood. Null vibrator—they must have triggered it when they went

charging in. Or Ginny had ....

Null-field. She bit her lip, her head wasn’t working right, field must be operating still, on low power

to keep the lid clamped down.

Kikun. The Null hadn’t affected him. Odd. What’s hap-pening? Who’s doing this? Ginny? He

went down, I saw him go down. That means diddly. He killed Lissorn. Why’d he kill Lissorn if .....

The corridor was empty. She was surprised at first, then annoyed at herself. Kikun wouldn’t be

taking her along here crippled up like she was in her head and leg if the way wasn’t clear. Clear for now,

but not for long .... There was a powerful urgency in him, he was almost carrying her. Shayss damn, my

head’s not working. She couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything, mind skittering about hibbity

dibb-ity.

He hauled her out onto the gallery, dragged her a few feet along it and pushed through ragged

draperies into a room thick with rat droppings and cobwebs and the kind of smell you get down an alley

on any skidder road.

“Egya cill’haiya, Rose. Missuk shai gavan cillahai’.”

She stared at him, the syllables sliding off as if her brain were waxed to a high gloss and

impermeable. Slid off and fell dead—echoes were paralyzed in here, like everything else in this catafalque

of a room.

He hissed and shook her. “Dyslaer,” he breathed. “You know it.”

“Oh.” She forced herself to concentrate. “Say again.” She stumbled over the Dyslaer words,

repeated them. “Say again.”

“We have to have a ship, Rose. We have to get out of here.”

She rubbed at her head. The stench was hideous, every breath gave her stomach spasms, and her

knee was hurting more by the minute. She shifted her stunned, leg; moving eased it a little. Think, Rose,

think. “Shadow ....”

“She was too far in.” His eyes glazed over. “I had to leave her. If we’re taken, there’s no one to

follow ....”

“Follow who?”

“Does it matter?”

She brushed at a bit of dusty cobweb clinging to her hand, shuddered as she saw the desiccated

corpses of half a dozen spiders. She loathed spiders. “There’re the Capture Ships out beyond the Limit.

We could call one in.”

“No.”

She heard the anguish in his voice and didn’t press. “I’m fogged, Kuna, I don’t know ... what’s

happening?”

“Don’t you understand? I don’t know. I don’t know any-thing.” His slitted nostrils fluttered, the

muscles of his face worked under the soft loose skin. “I’m following voices ... no ... it’s not ... I’m not ...

listen to me. We have to get out of here.” The panic was beginning to break through his control.

“Klar, ’s klar, Kuna. Calm down. Let me see ....” She looked at her robe. It was filthy with dust and

thick soft webs, but those would shake off well enough. The privacy fields in their cowls were

gone—from the burns on her neck which were starting to hurt like bites from the devil, the Null must

have shorted hers out when she went down.

They could pull the cowls forward and avoid lighted ar-eas, it might be enough.

“You have your tools?” She shook her head. “Of course you have or you couldn’t ’ve popped me

awake. Any idea where the nearest shuttleport is? Vision or whatever, we’ll run with it.”

He dropped to a squat, closed his eyes, pressed his hands hard against them.

She went to the door, stood beside it listening. Heavy silence. Not even the scratch and scrabble of

vermin. She could hear her own heart beating, could hear Kikun’s too-rapid breathing. Then a sound like

a door closing, a clang of metal against metal. Footsteps. Someone talking, word fragments, scattered,

nothing she could make out.

A hand closed round her arm.

She started, swallowed a yelp.

“I see it,” he whispered at her, the see hissing against her ear. She flinched, she didn’t much like

snakes. “Let’s go,” he said, pushed past the torn curtains, and scurried off along the gallery.

Rose grimaced, limped after him, catching up with him when he stopped at a gate into the

pneumotube system. He reached for the caller.

She caught at his arm. “Wait,” she said. “What about alarms?”

“If there are, there are.” He pulled loose, tapped the square. “You want to walk a thousand kays?”

“Nothing closer?”

He made a small irritated hiss, but didn’t say anything. She tried a grin, small to match his hiss. “Be

kind, Li’l Liz, and consider it the Null-effect.”

2

Kikun took her on a twisting, roundabout route across the gutted worldship.

Between pneumotubes, he tugged her along faster and faster, ignoring her protests, tossing her over

his shoulder when her left knee threatened to fold on her, lifting her over nulled-out Holers lying where

they fell when the vibrators went off, pushing her into murky stench-filled side ways when the sounds of

men walking broke the eerie stillness.

She never saw them.

She had a feeling of soft secret doings all around her in the dust and decay, but she saw none of it,

only the sprawled bodies of the Holers.

There were no alarms going off. Nothing.

“Whoever’s doing this thinks he’s bagged the place,” she said aloud.

Kikun hissed again and she shut up. All right, you’re right, Li’l Liz. Shayss damn, I feel like I’m

drunk and I didn’t even have the fun of getting there.

Kikun propped her against a wall. “Almost there, Rose. You wait here till I check it out,” he

whispered and glided rapidly away, vanishing into the murk of the dusty, long unused sideway.

She slid down until she was sitting on the crumbling mat, Kikun gone from her mind the moment he

turned the cor-ner. As the colored lighttubes painted a patchwork of bright transparent shadows on her

and the newly oiled floor around her, she shook her head, trying to shake the fog out. It didn’t work, just

made her dizzy. She hauled up the robe, then her trouser leg and began massaging the muscles from knee

to ankle. Riding in the cars had eased up on her knee some, but her leg wouldn’t be right till she got time

in an ottodoc. Her flesh felt like clay, cold and unresilient, as if it belonged to someone else. Z’ Toyff!

Got to get out of here.

“Rose ...”

“Ah!” She scrambled onto her feet, struck out.

Kikun caught her arm, stopped her. “Rose!”

She looked up at him and remembered. “Shayss damn, Kuna, don’t DO that to me.”

“Sorry, Rose, I forgot.”

She sputtered, the laugh startled out of her; it echoed back along the narrow curving corridor and

made her angry at herself. Slips like that could get them all killed.

“It’s all right, Rose. There’s no one around to hear.” He pulled her onto her feet, got his shoulder

under her arm. “No guards, no nothing. Let’s go, Op. Shuffle-shuffle.”

##

The lock’s inner door gaped open, the cracks around it clogged with ancient crud. Kikun lifted

Autumn Rose over the rim, helped her negotiate the crumpled flooring as they moved toward a heavy

metal plug with three tube caps lined in a row across it. He hauled her to the one on the left end, cycled it

open, and tossed her in.

As she passed from the argrav field into the .00 some-thing gravity of the tube, she lost traction,

caught hold of a tugline, and began hauling herself along the tube. Behind her she heard the soft whine as

the cap irised shut, then the line jerked repeatedly as Kikun started after her.

##

She eased into the pilot’s seat with a sigh of relief, picked her leg up and set it in place and with

automatic skill locked the crashweb about her. Having forgotten him again, she twitched as Kikun slid

into the co-seat. “One of these days you’ll give someone a heart attack, Kuna.”

“Oh, no.”

“You seeing any snags ahead?”

“Nothing focused. Be careful, but move as fast as you can.”

“Right.”

##

A red light flashed in front of her the instant she cut loose from the tube. “Alarm,” she said.

“Somebody noticed.” She was working as she spoke, swinging the shuttle about, sending it toward the

gaping outer door of the lock. “Or maybe it’s automatic,” she said. “With a little luck ....”

The port was near the top of the worldship where the shuttles could jump in and out without getting

tangled in the web of tubes linking the central mass with the ring of much smaller derelicts.

Autumn Rose booted the shuttle into a reckless arc over that ring, came down to the central plane

and darted for the skeletal marina that Ginny had provided for his bidders.

She circled the marina, put it between her and Koulsnak-ko’s Hole, then pooted along behind the

ships, looking them over for size and conformation, talking absently as she kept her eyes fixed on the

scanner. “We want a small ship, one that doesn’t take a big crew, two reasons, we couldn’t han-dle a

big ’un and a small crew’s probably in the Hole, not lying about to make misery for us. And we should

get one that can put down onplanet so we don’t have to depend on landers, who knows where we’ll end

up. So, a small hot ship. None of these. No ... no ... ah! there’s one that might do if we can’t find ... ah!

Red light’s gone out, don’t know whether that’s good or bad. Ah ... ah ... yes! Don’t think we can do

better than that one.” She centered the small sleek yacht in the screen, enlarged the image. “What do you

think, Kuna?”

He shivered. “Do it. Something’s stepping on my shadow, Rose, breathing down my neck. Hurry.”

“Right.” Autumn Rose took the shuttle closer, nosed it around until it hung beside the yacht, lock

nuzzling against lock. “Well, now it gets hard. Be helpful if I had one of Digby’s trick boxes, but I don’t,

so we go with what we have. Let me see ....”

She began playing with the sensor pad, stopping occa-sionally to watch the screen. Nothing

happened. She mut-tered to herself and went back to work.

Kikun closed his eyes, his face went slack, idiotic. After a minute his fingers began tapping a complex

rhythm. And a moment after that he produced a singing drone-melody to go with the rhythm.

Rose swung around, stared at him, then swore and touched on the recorder.

His hand went still. For a moment it lay on the arm of the co-seat like a discarded bit of weed. Then

he began again, went through the whole sequence a second time. He stopped the tapping and the

droning, worked his fingers, opened his eyes. “That’s it.”

“What? Never mind. I know what it is. Aburr Uchitel’s Aubade. I doubt there’s a soul in settled

space who hasn’t had it played at him in some lift or another. Why?”

“It came to me.”

“Oh. Shayss damn, we need the Singer ... mm ... maybe not. You know anything about music?”

“Dinhast. Nothing beyond.”

“Oh. Well, let’s see ....” She fed the recording into the shuttle’s tiny brain, cast it at the ship.

Nothing happened.

“Shayss!” Clicking tongue against palate, she listened to the recording again. “If it’s not the tune,

maybe he’s play-ing games with intervals ....” She went to work on the recording, running it through such

permutations as the simple-minded shuttle brain would allow, matching the re-sults against what she knew

about key-psych and the param-eters of amateur efforts along that line. She had a feeling it was amateur,

any passkey twitched from such a collection of stale-isms as Uchitel’s Aubade had to belong to a

mind-set far removed from the life views of the math techs she knew, the ones who made a profession of

locking things away.

She came up with a run that was so familiar it was almost comic. She tried it. No. He’s a hair

smarter than that. Or she. Whichever. Shayss damn, I wish I had .... She glanced at Kikun who lay

inert, eyes staring at things she’d never see—and didn’t particularly want to.

No help there. She pulled the possibles onto the screen, frowned at them, glanced at her ringchron.

Time was pass-ing. Right. The complicated one. Fussy. Canon of a kind. Stupid kind. Goerta b’rite,

let this work. She cast the new recording at the ship and wiped the sweat off her face as the lock

hummed open and an otto-docker caught hold of the tiny shuttle, eased it toward the gap.

“Wake up, Kuna my Liz, we’re in.”

3

Kikun drifted about the bridge, touching things, sniffing at them, occasionally standing with his eyes

closed, swaying a little, humming softly under his breath.

Rose glanced up from the control pad she was studying, frowned at the screen. “Hey, look at this.”

Something strange was emerging from the top of the worldship. A blob of glowing white fog wobbled

out of the lock, separated from it, and floated pulsing and flickering above it. A black speck arced over

the blob, cast a line at it, and began towing it toward the marina.

As it drew closer, she saw dark objects floating in the plasm. Bodies. Hundreds of them. “Weird.”

Kikun ambled over, stood behind her, his hands on the back of her chair. “Yes,” he said. “I see.

What is it?”

“I don’t know. Never saw anything like that. Never heard of it either.”

He leaned closer to her, she could feel his breath against her neck. “Shadow’s in there. Alive.”

“Oh.

“We have to follow that.”

“Can you? On your own?”

“I don’t know. For a while, maybe.” He moved away. She swung the chair around, scowled at him.

He’d gone across the room and was sitting cross-legged on the carpet, his back against the

wood-paneled wall. His eyes were closed, but he felt her watching and cracked them to look at her. “Be

ready,” he said.

She snorted, turned back to the control bank.

Sweet ship, as nearly idiot-proof as anything she’d come across. The previous owner must have

liked to pilot himself now and then, maybe when he was going places he didn’t want people to know

about. Like here.

She disengaged the tethers, walked the ship on pressors from its slot. With a wary eye on the blob,

she eased the ship along behind the others tethered in that row until she was drifting at the sunside of the

tieup, fingers crossed that the ship the tow wanted was down the other end.

Yes. Yes. That big sucker. Z’ Toyff, they came prepared for a hefty cargo. Whoever.

Followed by two smaller ships, the large transport moved free of the marina, sucked in the blob as

soon as it was clear, then the three ships hung together without moving or giving any sign of life for ten

minutes, twenty, thirty ....

Abruptly they shot up, arcing high over the marina, head-ing for the sun.

So what does one do now? Digby, Digby, wish I could call you. No. We’ll play this out first,

there’s no time. No time ....

Autumn Rose waited until they dropped out of sight, then went after them, hanging far enough back

so they wouldn’t spot her.

Kikun sang to himself. He’d found a clipboard some-where and was slapping at it, drumming himself

into the hunt trance, getting the Spirit Hound ready to go snuffling on the trail of the ships running ahead of

them.

A flare behind them.

She read the monitors. Not the sun. Must be Koulsnak-ko’s blowing. Bastards set it to go Nova.

She shivered.

Goerta b’rite for Kuna’s visions.

The ships ahead hit the Limit and dropped into the insplit.

With Kikun’s song and his drumming filling the bridge around her, she dropped after them.

Prisoner 1: Ginny In Chains

1

Two men came through double doors, walked toward a workstation on a dais; its screens were

retracted, the sensor pads shrouded in plastic covers. Their footsteps echoed hol-lowly on the black and

white squares of the marble floor.

It was an immense domed chamber and they were alone in it.

There were other workstations, smaller and less complex, ranked around the walls, over fifty

stations, closed down now, hooded and silent, chairs empty. This was a holiday, a rest day for everyone

but them.

The one with the manacles on his wrists and the leg irons was a little man with thinning gray-brown

hair combed across a bald spot, a forgettable face and eyes like dead leaves. Ginbiryol Seyirshi, prisoner

and not liking it—though he didn’t let his anger surface. His hands hung at his sides, relaxed, loosely

curled, as he stepped onto the dais and stood beside the lefthand seat, waiting with an ap-pearance of

mild interest for something to happen.

The other was an Omphalite, muffled in heavy black robes with a cowl shadowing his face. A big

man, twice Ginny’s size. There was arrogance in the set of his shoulders, in the boom of his distorted and

deepened voice. He set a hand on Ginny’s shoulder, pushed him down into the seat, and closed more

fetters over his arms and legs.

##

The Omphalite settled himself before the operations con-sole, brought a screen humming up and

spreading before them, waved a gloved hand at the image that appeared when he tapped a sensor at the

center of the board. “There she is, your ... ah ... nemesis.”

The contempt and mockery in those words ate at Ginny, but he gave no outward sign of this.

A young woman with matte brown skin and hair a mass of bronze springs sat in a narrow cell staring

into the lens. On one cheek she had an outline of a hawk acid-etched into her skin, an elegant brownline

drawing. She looked tired and fearful, her eyes were red and still teary, though she’d stopped crying. She

was twisting her hands together, re-peating the same motions over and over.

It was almost three years since Ginny had first seen her; she’d looked about fourteen then. Despite

the stresses and strains of the time since, she seemed hardly older though she had to be nineteen or

twenty. Bone structure, he thought, and that baby skin. And playing the child. He didn’t believe any of

what he was seeing; he’d learned better. “Kill her.”

The Omphalite snorted. “She’s nothing,” he said. “A front for that sauroid. A pawn. That creature

was the real source of her so-called powers.”

Ginny turned his head, stared a moment at the shadow under the cowl, the black jut of the voice

distorter. You are a fool, he thought, but he didn’t say it. He went back to gazing at the girl.

“No profit in killing a strong young thing like that,” the Omphalite went on. “She’s due for mindwiping

tomorrow, then we’ll put her into a labor levy and sell her services such as they are.” He paused,

contemplated the image. “We thought about training her as a courtesan, but she didn’t catch the fancy of

anyone here and she’s not pretty enough to be worth the trouble. Strong back and clever hands, that’s

her forte. Just recently we acquired a contract labor com-pany, Bolodo Neyuregg Ltd. It was forced out

of business because a ring of Execs were caught dealing in outright slavery. Caught, hnh. Foolishness.”

He clasped his gloved hands over the solid curve of his belly. “We have reorgan-ized the company and

gotten it reinstated with Helvetia. It’s proving a very profitable addition to our portfolio and a useful dump

for products our Interrogators have finished with.” Contempt crept back into his voice. “Since you’re so

nervous about that chocho, we’ll flake her mindwipe for you. Watching her drool, you’ll see you can

forget about her and concentrate on your work.” He touched another sensor and the scene shifted.

A Dyslaeror was prowling about a cell, his fury almost tangible. Rohant the Ciocan.

“Magnificent beast, isn’t he.” The Omphalite flashed images of other Dyslaerors onto the screen,

ending with the dark glowering Tolmant. “Aren’t they all. Along with the four we captured during the

attack on Betalli, these are the first Dyslaera we’ve managed to lay our hands on. In-teresting creatures.

Dangerous. Which makes them all the more valuable. Rohant the Ciocan. He and his woman run Voallts

Korlach, you know. We want that business. Very profitable. Excellent reputation. Access to places we

haven’t been able to touch, you understand.” He grunted. “Stub-born beasts. We tried the probe on two

of the younger ones. One of them’s dead, the other might’s well be. Vegetable. They seem to have some

twists in their heads our savants haven’t seen before. Perverse. One almost feels it’s delib-erate. Which

reminds me, our chief Savant will be visiting you in a day or two, give him everything, you know about

the Dyslaera. Hnh. They’d make magnificent guards, very decorative and maybe even effective.

Assassins perhaps. Think what we could charge for them if we could guarantee conditioning and control.

We can start with these, but we’ll have to have more of them. We need to know how to avoid stirring up

that cohesiveness and bloody-mindedness they show when one of theirs is attacked. Or perhaps we

could learn to transfer that loyalty to us. That’d be good.” He tapped the sensor again.

“That’s a tracer Op called Samhol Bohz, he’s a native of Ekchua-TiHash, interesting world, I’ve sent

a small expe-dition to see what we can pick up there. This obsession of yours, Seyirshi, it’s proving

immensely valuable to us. We acquired Bohz in that attack on Betalli; he was leading it. Works for

something called Excavations Limited, the pro-prietor of which is one Digby no-last-name

no-planet-of--origin. Digby. My chief Interrogator thinks the name’s a pun, shows the way the blitsor’s

mind works, something he thought up when he started his business. Odd man, if you can call him a man

these days. Tied to his kephalos with more fibers than a Paem bud to ve’s parent. Stays in his nest, never

goes out except by holo. Can’t get at him. Which is the point, I suppose. He’s beginning to be a

nuisance, but we have to leave him be until we have more data. We’re thinking of programming Bohz and

sending him back to scavenge for us. Maybe, maybe not. Depends on what we can wring out of him

here. Whatever, there’s always the labor levy. One way or another, he’ll make us a profit. We have

expenses, you know, we can’t afford to waste anything. Besides, recycling is a virtue, yes? Talking about

prof-its ....”

He began pulling up images of the rest of the prisoners, commenting on each. Some were to be

milked of everything they owned and killed. Those with positions of power in their home spheres would

be given blackmail poisons, tai-lored parasites or other addictions, according to the assess-ment of the

Jo Clayton - SQ 3 - Shadowkill

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