Joel Rosenberg - Ties of Blood and Silver

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TIES OF BLOOD

AND SILVER

Joel Rosenberg

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

Ties of Blood

and Silver

Joel Rosenberg

A SIGNET BOOK

NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY

NAL BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE AT QUANTITY DISCOUNTS WHEN USED TO PROMOTE

PRODUCTS OR SERVICES FOR INFORMATION PLEASE WRITE TO PREMIUM

MARKETING DIVISION, NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY, 1633 BROADWAY,

NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10019.

Cover art by Vincent DiFate

SIGNET TRADEMARK REG US PAT OFF AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA HECHO EN CHICAGO, USA

Signet, Signet Classic, Mentor, Plume, Meridian and NAL Books are published by New American

Library,

1633 Broadway, New York, New York 10019

First Printing, September, 1984

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

for Robert Lee Thurston

Acknowledgments

I'd like to thank the people who helped me both with and through this one.

During the writing and the rewriting, Harry F. Leonard and Mary Kittredge gave me much valuable

criticism—as did my editor, Sheila Gilbert, who still knows how to make something better. Any flaws in

the work are mine;, many virtues are theirs.

I'm also grateful to Cherry Weiner, my agent for this work, as well as Kevin O'Donnell, Jr., Mark J.

McGarry, Irene and Ken Herman—the best in-laws on the planet—and, most particularly, my wife,

Felicia. Many thanks, folks; your advice and support are always appreciated.

Extract from Delavesta's Revised Pocket Encyclopedia of the Thousand Worlds, Earth-Normal

Edition (New American Library, 2519; LOTW Call #NSR2404098.1):

Quikref: OROGA

Mass: 6.537e31 grams (1.094 x Earth's)

Density: 5.968 g/cc (1.081 x Earth's)

Radius: 6.395e8 cm (1.004 x Earth's)

Surface gravity: 1064.415 cm/sec2 (1.085 X Earth's)

Escape velocity: 11.77 km/sec

Year: 142.045 Earth days/

113.55 local days

Sidereal day: 29.942 hours

Oroga is the sole habitable planet of Kaufman's Other Star (Freusen Durchmusterung Catalog

#4322210351.093), a red Kl star with a luminosity of .252, mass of .725, and radius of .78 relative to

Sol…

Oroga's mean orbital radius is 7.176el2 centimeters—approximately .48 astronomical units. While the

diameter of the primary is roughly three-quarters that of Sol, its apparent size is much greater from the

surface of Oroga than Sol's is from Earth: Kaufman's Other Star occupies almost nine-tenths of a degree

of the sky, appearing to be roughly three times the size that Sol does from the surface of Earth.

The planet's orbit is almost perfectly circular; the eccentricity is only 0.00059… Combined with its low

inclination of 5 degrees, this makes Oroga virtually seasonless.

The atmosphere is breathable without either prosthetic aids or surgical modification… it is slightly richer

in oxygen than Earth's (26%), poorer in nitrogen (72%), and richer in carbon dioxide (.035%); it contains

large but not unhealthful quantities of argon, xenon, neon, and sulfur oxides…

The planet is 73% seas… Of the three major land masses, only a small portion of the most northern has

been settled by humans. The remainder are populated by t'Tant, the native quasi-sapient (see Appendix

for qualification)… Since the t'Tant have no established civilization, population estimates of the native

lifeform are based on orbital photo sampling… Estimates range from less than one billion to more than

1.5 billion.

The majority of the human population lives either in or within one thousand kilometers of Oroga's single

city, Elweré, although there are agricultural townships scattered throughout the inhabited continent. While

the last official census gives the population as 259,276, it counted only citizens, those who actually reside

in Elweré; residents of the areas immediately surrounding Elweré—Middle City and Lower City in the

local parlance—are not legally citizens of Oroga… nor are the workers of the valda and food

plantations…

The actual human population of Oroga is believed to be approximately four million. There is a transitory

schrift population, almost exclusively members of the metal-and-jewel-worker's schtann, who provide

handcrafted jewelry for the Elwereans. There are believed to be no other permanent sapient residents…

Elweré is a robust and successful trader in the Thousand Worlds marketplace, importing large quantities

of electronics gear, medicines, plastics, luxury foodstuffs… artwork, and building materials—the latter

due to political considerations as opposed to lack of resources, in view of the great quantity of untapped

ore deposits… Simply, the Elwereans prefer to have as small a local manufacturing base as is possible,

with most building done by work-contracted nonresidents. They can afford to indulge this preference…

While there is some export of local silver… the Orogan economy is supported by the export of valda oil,

the product of the beans of the valda plant (Xenocamellia neuvo valda). Treated valda oil is a superb

local and topical anesthetic for humans, preventing free (pain) nerve endings from activating; valda oil has

no known deleterious side effect.

Attempts to grow the valda plant offworld have been invariably unsuccessful, because of the plant's

para-symbiotic dependence on a large variety of local micro-and macroorganisms… Attempts to

manufacture valda oil via recombinant technologies have proved financially uncompetitive with the natural

product…

Due to the characteristic desire of the Elwereans for privacy in virtually all matters, Oroga's trade surplus

is not generally known, but is believed to be in excess of one billion Thousand Worlds Credit Units per

Earth year, perhaps greatly so.

Careful investment of the trade surplus by the Cortes Generale, the Elwerean parliament, may add

significantly to that sum…

CHAPTER ONE:

"We have to…"

"Anything, David?" Little Marie looked up at me, shuffling her bare feet on the sand. Idly, she picked up

a small pebble with her toes, then flipped it waist-high, catching it in a chubby hand.

Marie was better at most manipulations than I was. Put it down to inborn talent; I'd had ten more years

to work on my skills. One-Hand said that the difference between the two of us was a strong point in

favor of heredity over environment.

Whatever that meant. I guess he was talking about my Elwerie father. He didn't know who my mother

was. Some lower, of course. We didn't know who either of Marie's parents were, except that they must

have been lowers, too.

She let the pebble drop to the ground. "Did you get anything at all?"

I shrugged. "Just a little. Too damn little." I patted my tunic just above the waist, where I'd stashed the

purse I'd lifted off the tipsy Randian trader coming out of Alfreda's House of Pleasures. "I got a few

pesos, a ten-credit tweecie chit."

I didn't tell her about the Firestone ring I'd twisted off his finger. I don't know exactly why; I could have

trusted Marie. But I was going to add the ring to my cache, and I'd kept that secret, even from her. The

ring and the pieces there were just too Fine to give to One-Hand. Dammit, the ring was so pretty. I

couldn't bear the thought of seeing it broken up, the gold melted down, the stone sold separately.

No one in the market paid the two of us any attention. A couple of ragged children weren't unusual in the

Lower City markets; we were unnoticeable among the endless rows of ramshackle stalls huddled up

against the rainbow walls of Elweré like moss on a tree.

But just because I wasn't noticed, that didn't mean I wasn't noticing. When you're lifting, your eyes are as

important as your hands.

Away from the walls, at a stall set up next to the fountain in the center of the square, an overfed merchant

haggled with a mannafruit vendor.

Goddam talkative buzhes. They had been going at it since before I'd made my last run. The two could

have been arguing about any quantity, from the squeezings of a single fruit to several tonnes. When

money was tight in Lower City, every negotiation was protracted.

But maybe, though…

I nudged her. "See Arno's stall?"

Marie shot a quick glance without turning her head. "He hasn't taken his hand off his pouch for an hour. It

isn't fair."

I shook my head and tried to smile tolerantly. "Fair doesn't have anything to do with it. I wish you'd

forget you ever heard that word." I glanced down at my left hand, the thumb still swollen and purple from

One-Hand's last fit of anger. "And we'd better keep looking, or we're not going to make Carlos' quota

today."

"But if we can't make quota—"

"We have to make quota."

Across the hot sand of the square, an Elwerie walked through the crowd. He was a youngish one, maybe

forty or so—just about my age, perhaps. It was hard to tell; they don't leave Elweré without wearing their

masks, and their defensive harnesses mask their normal posture.

But we didn't bother Elweries. Nobody bothered Elweries. Their harnesses' circuits could detect an

attempted lift as easily as a potential attack, and the twin autoguns mounted on the harnesses' shoulder

pads would treat a lift the same way. You can't argue with or distract a barrage of two-centimeter

silcohalcoid projectiles.

While the Elwerie made his way through the crowd, a t'Tant fluttered by overhead. Several of the

children around us stopped their endless game of tag long enough to pick up rocks and throw them

skyward.

Not that the rocks came close to the low-flying t'Tant; their ability to fly comes only partly from their

leathery wings. The rest comes from a levitating ability that was strong enough to fling the rocks back at

the t'Tant's would-be tormentors.

One stone went astray. It came near enough to me to trigger my reflexes; I caught it with my left hand.

My bruised left hand.

"Damn." And damn One-Hand, too.

I shrugged. It was daytime; it wouldn't be dark for a few hours. T'Tant, while gentle, clownish, and

distant in the light, turn savage in the dark.

Over at the foot of Joy Street, a schrift walked into the market. People moved quickly out of its way. It

was a huge creature, easily twice my height, its gray skin hanging loosely on its massive frame.

Schrift always looked strange to me; their proportions are all wrong. Their forearms and lower legs are

disproportionately long; the extra joints in their fingers make their hands look broken.

The schrift's head was almost featureless: no hair or protuberances, only holes for its ears, and twin slits

of its nasal openings.

And the eyes. The eyes of a schrift always scared me. They glowed purply, even in the daylight. I

wouldn't have ever wanted to see them in the dark. The mouth was a horror of teeth, rows and rows of

finely pointed white needles.

"David!"

"Don't even think about it." This schrift wore a massive jewel-inlaid necklace. The gold alone must have

weighed half a kilo. And then there were diamonds, and a gorgeous firestone—the firestone, all by itself,

would have been worth tens of tweecie chits, hundreds of Elweré pesos.

"Marie, you never bother a schrift. Ever." Other than a gray hempcloth breechclout, the necklace was

the schrift's only clothing. But why the breechclout? As I understood it, even other schrift wouldn't care

what sex it was—why bother? "Remember One-Hand saying that their reflexes are faster than ours?"

"Yes."

"He wasn't lying that time."

Confidently, she smiled up at me, cocking her head to one side to flip the hair out of her eyes. "I can take

him, David. Honest."

"Listen to me, will you? You can't."

I had to stall, to keep her talking just for a few moments, until the schrift had made its way through the

market, and had moved out of sight. Marie would have tried to take it on, more for my sake than for her

own.

"It's an alien, little one. Not like us." I put out a hand and stroked the fine hair at the back of her neck. If

she tried to run, I could grab her hair.

Maybe I had a half-sister, up in Elweré. Maybe not. But even if I did, even if I had been legitimate, and

raised as an Elwerie, I couldn't have cared more about her than I did about little Marie. Nobody else

ever trusted me.

"And you can't distract it," I went on. "Its mind doesn't work the same way ours do. That thing"—I

started to point my chin at it, but caught myself—"that thing could pick you up, bite your head off, and set

your body down—all before you finished clipping through the chain around its neck. It's got a faster

reaction time—so you leave schrift alone. Got it?"

She glared up at me with the petulance of a child who has been told no. "I'm hungry. Can we break for a

while and get something to eat?"

I looked around the market. There really weren't any likely prospects. Too many of the people were as

poor as we were, or worse. And it wasn't worth the risk of hitting on those who didn't have much; not

only were they more likely to be on guard, but the payoff was so damn low.

It was all because of the Elweries. They called themselves Elwereans, but they were just Elweries to us.

They had cut back on hiring lowers, both for work in the valda fields and in Elweré proper.

Add to that Amos van Ingstrand's increased standard bribe for work in Elweré, and the result was

trouble in Lower City. Except for Joy Street, damn near all the money in Lower City came from Elweré.

Too little money, of late.

I took a moment to total the day's take, added it to the likely profit from another run or two down Joy

Street, and decided that I didn't like the sum. Not at all.

I patted the back of her head. "Carlos is going to beat us if we don't make quota." Which was true.

One-Hand accepted no excuses.

Marie frowned, then brightened. "It might be easier to work on a full stomach." She patted herself on the

belly. "Really, it might."

I gave up. "It might, at that. Mannafruit?"

She nodded. "Big ones?"

"Sure."

Arno the mannafruit vendor and I had a standing deal: I didn't hit on his customers until the victim was

well away from the stall, and he would sell me small quantities of mannafruit at cost.

We both cheated, of course; that's the way things worked in Lower City. I had no way of knowing what

Arno's cost really was, and Arno didn't know about Marie. I had no intention of telling him.

"All right, little one. Meet me at the foot of Joy Street—we'll try to work some offworlders. But don't you

start until I get there."

She nodded, her small face almost glowing as she smiled up at me. "I know I could take an offworlder or

two, if I had a little food." She emptied a pitiful handful of coins from her inside pocket and dumped them

in my hands. "Don't spend it all."

"Will you please get going?"

She left, scurrying across the sand-strewn stones like a lizard running for cover.

I kept my distance from the buzh at Arno's stall, going so far as to stand on the customer's left side,

ignoring the purse on the other side of his robes.

Finally, Arno wiped his hand on his apron and stuck it at the buzh. "A fair deal. I'll deliver tonight."

As the merchant left, I moved over in front of Arno and rested my elbows on the counter, propping my

chin in my palms. "Really, Arno—a fair deal?"

Arno nodded solemnly, wiping a few beads of sweat from his glistening scalp. "And a reasonable profit,

David, considering the times. How is your business today?"

"Not good. I need a couple of fruit, but I'm a bit short of coin…"

Arno shook his head. "No credit. I'll sell to you at cost, but that's the best I can do. Business isn't all that

good."

"But people still need to eat."

"True. I do manage to sell a fruit or two, here and there."

"Arno, you would sell your w—" I caught myself. Rumor had it that Arno had been forced to sell his last

wife to a valda planter.

As the mannafruit vendor angrily belted his apron tighter around his waist, I kept my eyes off the box of

fruit on the rough wooden counter, each juicy yellowish sphere half the size of my head.

"Look," I said. "We have a deal. I left him alone. I didn't—"

"Pfah. You couldn't. He isn't the sort to be distracted. He kept his hand on his pouch the whole time he

was here. And as far as our deal goes, I could turn you in to van Ingstrand's Protective Society. I'm

supposed to get something for my taxes."

I smiled. I had him now. "And if I told him how you've been cheating on your percentage? If I showed

him facts and figures to prove it?"

"You couldn't—"

"Are you sure, Arno?"

"Three pesos."

I shrugged. "Fair enough." The three pesos wouldn't make enough difference anyway. Marie and I would

have to have almost a record afternoon now if we were to avoid One-Hand's fist.

I dug my right hand into my tunic and pulled out three copper coins. "But the fruit had better be big,

Arno. And fresh."

As I handed over the coins, Arno grasped my wrist for a moment, visibly thought better of it, then let go.

Just as well—for Arno: I'd already retrieved my blade with my right hand. Another second, and Arno

would have been missing a few tendons.

"Sorry, David." He tsked. "I just wanted to see how bad it is. He's been beating you again."

"He's scared, Arno. And so am I. Things are tight."

"But your hand." Arno shook his head, slowly. "It has to slow you down. And that can't be any good."

It did, but I didn't want Arno to know that. So what if he sounded sympathetic? In Lower City, sympathy

could turn vicious, without the slightest warning.

"Try me." I settled my blade more firmly between the middle and right fingers of my right hand. It was

practically invisible, but one swipe could open his throat. "Just you try me, Arno."

He ignored the threat. "Why do you stay with him, David? Why? If you need money, I could use some

help around here."

It was none of Arno's business, and besides, I really couldn't have answered. I didn't even know the

answer. Maybe it was because Carlos One-Hand was the closest thing to a parent that I'd ever had, that

I could remember. Maybe it was out of fear of what the old man would do to Marie if I wasn't around.

And maybe it was that One-Hand and Marie were the only stable things in my life.

Maybe, maybe, maybe. "Just give me the fruit."

"That's good." Marie peeled back more of the thick yellow skin and took another bite of the purple pulp

below, using her free hand to wipe the dripping juice off her chin and into her mouth.

"Not so fast," I said. As though I should criticize. I'd already eaten mine on the way over, and taken

several longing looks at hers. "Make it last." I leaned back against the wall of a house at the foot of Joy

Street.

Joy Street was a mixture of hard-bitten business establishments and fantasy—the fantasy carefully

preserved for the advantage of the hard-bitten business establishments. Little of it was for the benefit of

lowers; few in Lower City could afford the coin for professionally supplied exotic pleasures.

That made it hard to work. Since only Elweries and offworlders could afford most of Joy Street, both

Marie and I would be out of place, and noteworthy.

But at the foot of the street, the facade crumbled. Just a bit: the two-story stone buildings didn't look as

clean; the beckoning holos sometimes flickered and went out.

"Some possibilities ahead." Marie took a final bite of her fruit, licked at the inside of the skin, and

dropped it to the dirt.

I looked up. Coming down the worn steps of a marble building, under a strobing holo proclaiming that it

was the house of all pleasure, were three men in the blue-and-silver uniforms of the Thousand Worlds

Commerce Department. All looked sated; the tall, chubby inspector in the middle was positively

weaving, the two others taking turns supporting him down the steps.

I considered it for a moment. "They could have been picked clean."

"No way—they've still got their rings."

Well, maybe they had some coin. It was worth a try, at least. "How do you think we should play them?"

I'd already decided that, but Marie liked the illusion of having a choice. I guess we all do.

"Silly. Please-help-me, of course. What kind of story do you want to use? Steerer?"

"I'm too ragged." I gestured at my tattered, yellowing tunic. Which was really too bad. In a more

prosperous time, I could have pretended to be a steerer for one of the houses, and picked their pockets,

lifted their rings, wallets, and knives while supposedly helping them find another place to spend their

money. "Nothing fancy. Keep it simple. Just babble—and watch your timing. Don't cut and run until

they're focused on me."

I took a deep breath. Damn, but it still didn't get less frightening. There was another side to it, too—lifting

was perversely exciting. "Are you all set?"

She unclenched her right hand, just enough to let me see the silvery gleam of the tiny curved blade she

held flush between her second and third fingers, only a sliver of the convex edge showing. A thief's blade

is not an easy thing to use; it has to be kept almost totally concealed.

"Go ahead." Marie lifted her chin. "I'm not a baby."

I pulled back my hand and gave her a firm slap on the cheek, my palm cupped to maximize noise while

minimizing damage.

Screaming in pain and fear, Marie ran toward the three inspectors. "Help me, please—he's going to

hurt me."

I paused for a scant heartbeat before running after her. "Come back here, you…" I puffed and panted

after Marie. Of course, I could have outrun her, but the point of the exercise was to catch up with her

after she reached the inspectors.

The lead CD inspector didn't quite know what to make of the tattered little girl who ran blindly into him.

"What the hell?"

He was a big man, and the five hashmarks on his right sleeve made me more than a little nervous. It

wasn't impossible that he was experienced enough, salty enough, to pick up on what was happening.

Just be careful, little one, I thought.

I stopped a few feet away from the group, balancing myself on the balls of my feet.

"Give her to me. I'll pull the little bitch's head off."

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