Authors: Sheri S. Tepper
‘Ah.’ Blanchet was sympathetic. ‘Well, you’ll enjoy the evening more, perhaps.’
‘Oh, Lord,’ she replied, ‘I hope so. It’s always good to see Fabian. She’s fun.’
And Fabian was. She told stories of the ‘fringe people’ that made Don alternately laugh and cry; made outrageous conversation with the waiters who delivered their crisp cooked vegetables, wonderfully flavored with strips of broiled fish and fowl; and ended the evening in reminiscences and general conversation. As they left the restaurant, Don said, ‘Damn, I forgot my bag again,’ and Fabian laughed. ‘You always have, every time I’ve ever been with you, so I picked it up for you. Here.’
And back to her room again, duty done. Same procedure with the purse as last night. It was the first chance she had had.
The note was in the bag. Under the bedcovers she read the tiny letters.
‘Note received. Terree’s brother, Tasmin Ferrence, said to be on way to ’Soilcoast. Has music box. I will contact. Careful.’
And the curvy line that made the signature. Chain, or CHAIN, if one wanted to be accurate. The investigative and enforcement arm of the PEC, that was CHAIN. Donatella spent a futile moment wishing that CHAIN was indeed present on Jubal, in force, rather than merely represented by one fairly powerless former employee.
Back to the note. Careful. What did that mean? Careful. Of course she was careful.
Still, the single word appended to the note made her uneasy. Instead of falling immediately asleep as she usually did – as all Explorers did if they wished to be properly concentrated on each day’s task – she squirmed restlessly in the noisy dark, staring at the lights from the saloon-cum-amusement park across the street. Refracted through the beveled glass of her windows, the lights made red-purple lines across her bed. There were the sounds of a crowd outside, little muffled by the closed windows. The bustle of people moving along the avenue, shouts of revelry and of annoyance, replies, laughing or threatening or haranguing. Like those fanatics. She remembered the burning Crystallite, eyeballs crisping through a curtain of fire, and set the thought aside with a shudder. Think of something else. Think of Link. Link with his face so carefully controlled. No accusations. Not for years. And yet she would be lying to herself if she thought he had adapted. Of course he hadn’t. He was still the same Link, trapped, trapped forever, and she as trapped without him.
If only. If only she had a hundred thousand chits. If only she could get a hundred thousand chits. He deserved it. BDL owed it to him.
She could not rest. She was not even sleepy. If she had been even drowsy, she might not have heard the sound, so tiny a noise, a click where a click didn’t belong.
At the window in the bathroom. Opening on an airshaft, as she recalled. Three stories up.
She did not wait for the click to be repeated. Explorers did not wait. Those who waited, died. Instead, she rolled out of the bed, heaping the covers into a vaguely body-shaped roll behind her, and stood behind the open bathroom door. She had no weapon. A mental inventory of the room yielded nothing of use. The bathroom now, yes. There were useful things there. Spray flasks of various things: dry-wash, antiperspirant, depilatory. She visualized where she had left them, the dry-wash on the edge of the bath, set aside, not useful here in Splash One where there was plenty of water. The antiperspirant was in the cabinet. The depilatory was on the back of the convenience, where she had sat to do her legs and the back of her neck. An almost full bottle.
The click was repeated, this time with a solidly chunking sound as though something had given way. The latch on the bathroom window, no doubt. She began to breathe quietly, deeply. Whoever was breaking in would listen for that. Deeply. Regularly. Breathe.
The figure came through the bathroom door so silently that she almost missed it. Only the movement across the bars of light betrayed it. On feet as silent, she slipped around the door and into the bathroom, feeling for the flask, the barest touch, not wanting to make a sound. She picked it up carefully, her face turned toward the room, trying to see in the intermittent flares of livid light.
The figure was at the bed. It leaned forward, reaching. No knife this time. Something else. A growl, almost like an animal as it realized she wasn’t there. It turned toward the switch, and suddenly the room was flooded with light. The hooded figure spun around, saw her, lunged toward her, and she sprayed the depilatory full in its eyes, falling sideways as she did so.
It made no sound except a gagging spit. It kept coming, blindly, reaching for the place she had moved toward. Bigger than she. Stronger, too, most likely. It was like a deadly game of feely-find. The creature couldn’t see, but it could hear her. She went across the bed in a wild scramble, then out the door into the hall, leaving it open. The stairwell was directly ahead of her. She breathed, ‘No, no, don’t,’ just loudly enough to be heard, then stepped sideways and knelt by the wall. As the maddened figure rushed toward her voice, she stuck out her foot, and the careening shape plunged over it, headfirst down the stairs. Don darted back into her room and shut the door.
The crashing sound brought colleagues and visitors out into the hall. Don joined them, sleepily tying the belt of her robe. ‘What was that noise? Did you hear it? What happened?’ Voices from below were raised in incredulous excitement.
A man. Must have fallen down the stairs. No, a man’s body. He’s dead.
What was he doing in the Chapter House? Did anyone know him?
Why was he dressed that way?
A thief? Who would rob a Chapter House? Explorers didn’t carry valuables.
The excited interchange bubbled on while Don half hung across the bannister, staring at the black lump on the floor below. Someone had removed the mask, and a blankly anonymous face stared up at her with dead and ruined eyes. Someone who had known where she was. Someone who had known she was alone. How fortuitous for someone that the intruder had broken his neck. Now no one could ask him who had sent him.
Three mule riders approaching Splash One early one morning from the direction of the Mad Gap would have been enough to attract the attention of the locals. Three mule riders followed by a small swarm of Crystallites, all of whom were hooting, cursing, and throwing mud, was enough not only to attract attention but to bring the nearest military detachment into overwhelming action. The Crystallites were promptly face down in the mud they had been using as ammunition, their hands and feet locked behind them, and tranquilizer guns were being applied unstintingly to various exposed portions of their anatomies.
‘Sorry about that,’ the Captain in command of the group said to Tasmin, offering him a clean towel from the riot wagon. ‘They’re getting worse all the time. If the Governor doesn’t act soon, our commanding officer, Colonel Lang, probably will. Hope it won’t be too late.’
‘How late would it have to be to be too late?’ asked Clarin in a bitter voice, trying to get the mud out of her curly hair with scant success. ‘That last mud ball had a rock in it.’ A red lump the size of a hen’s egg was rising on her forehead, and she looked as disheveled as she did angry. ‘Our Master, here, preferred we not use our whips on them.’
‘I saw your troop coming,’ Tasmin said to the officer in a mild voice. ‘I thought we could outrun them until you arrived.’
Jamieson was regarding the prone figures vindictively, running his quirt through his hands. Tripsinger mules were so well trained it would be unthinkable to use quirts on them; the device was merely costume. Despite this, Jamieson’s intent could be read in his face.
‘They’d love it if you took the whip to ’em,’ the Captain said, gesturing his permission. ‘Do, if it’ll make you feel better. They consider that quite a mark of holiness, being beaten on. That’s why we use the trank-guns. They hate that. Keep ’em tranked up for ten days or so, force feed ’em, then turn ’em loose fatter than they were. They just hate it.’ He spat reflectively, as Jamieson unobtrusively put the quirt out of sight. The officer held out his hand. ‘Name’s Jines Verbold.’
Tasmin took the proferred hand. ‘It’s good to meet you, Captain Verbold. I’m Tripsinger Tasmin Ferrence. These are my two acolytes, Reb Jamieson and Renna Clarin.’
The Captain nodded to each of them. ‘Did I misread something, Master Ferrence, or did you three just come down the hills from the Mad Gap?’
‘We did. Is there something wrong with that?’
‘I didn’t know anybody could get through the Gap.’
Tasmin expressed amazement. ‘I used an old, old Password, Captain. I suppose it could have been lost, though that’s hard to believe. It’s been in my library since my father’s time, maybe even his father’s. I think it’s an original Erickson. It never occurred to me it wasn’t generally known.’
‘Well, that’ll be news to please some people I know of. They’ve had people trying the Gap, trottin’ up there and then trottin’ down again, for about the last year.’
‘It’s those crazy key shifts in the PJ,’ said Clarin thoughtfully as she rummaged in one pocket. Something moved beneath her fingers, and she scratched it affectionately. ‘And those high trumpet sounds. They aren’t anything you’d think of, normally.’
‘And how Erickson thought of them, God knows,’ laughed Tasmin. He felt a rush of sudden elation. Despite the mud-flinging fanatics, the incident was an omen, a favorable omen. Things were going to go right in Splash One. He was going to find out everything he needed to know. The weight of mystery would be lifted. There would be no more questions. He turned to the acolytes, wondering if they felt as euphoric as he did to be at the end of the journey.
Jamieson evidently felt something. The boy’s face shone with interest as he looked down onto the city. During their travels, he seemed to have become less preoccupied with the girl he had left behind and increasingly interested in where they were going and what they were doing. Or perhaps it was the girl who was with them, although Tasmin had not seen him make any obvious move in her direction. Still … propinquity. An excellent remedy for absent friends, propinquity – although it would be hard to know whether Jamieson had been encouraged or not, Clarin being so self-contained. She was an inveterate pettifier – Tasmin would have bet she had a crystal mouse in her pocket right now, one she’d caught stealing food from the camp. She was friendly and always thoughtful, but cool. Tasmin had come to appreciate her during this trip. He approved of her restrained manner, her calm and undemanding demeanor, though he did so without ever considering what that approval implied.
‘I said,’ the officer repeated, breaking in on Tasmin’s thoughts, ‘I said, where are you staying?’
‘The citadel,’ he replied, almost without thinking. Where else would a Tripsinger stay but there, among his own kind? ‘If they have room for us.’
‘Do you know your way there?’
‘Not really. I’ve been in Splash One before, but it was years ago, when I did a lot of trips to the Coast.’ This city looked nothing like the smallish town he remembered. This city swarmed, bubbled, erupted with ebbs and flows of citizenry, trembled with noise. ‘Thank God for one hundred meters of Deepsoil,’ he murmured only half-aloud, intercepting Clarin’s empathetic glance.
‘It’s amazing, isn’t it?’ she agreed. ‘I saw it two years ago on my way down from Northwest to Deepsoil Five. I think it’s doubled in size since then.’
‘Well, it’s enough changed that I’m going to send a man with you as a guide,’ the Captain told them. ‘There are Crystallites in the city, too, and they consider anyone in Tripsinger robes as targets of opportunity. I’m in charge of a stockade of troublemakers, a whole disciplinary barracks full, and I swear they’re less trouble than these damn fanatics. I suggest you leave the mules in the citadel stables after this and wear civilian clothes in town. It’s not foolproof protection, since they may recognize your faces, but it’ll help.’
‘What are we allowed to do,’ Jamieson asked, ‘to protect ourselves?’
‘Anything you bloody well can,’ Verbold replied. ‘Up to and including killin’ a few of ’em. Like I said, once the Governor gets off his rounded end, we’ll have a clearance order on ’em and that’ll put an end to it.’
‘Clearance order?’ Clarin asked.
‘For the maintenance of public safety, yes, Ma’am. The relocation camp’s already built, down the Coast about ten miles. Power shielded and pretty much escape proof. Put ’em in there and let ’em have at each other if they have to have at somebody. Everyone knows it has to be done. What’s keeping his excellency is beyond us – all of us. Somethin’ devious no doubt.’ He pulled a face, begging their complicity. It had not been a politically astute thing to say.
‘Any rumors about the delay?’ Jamieson demanded.
‘Oh, there’s always rumors,’ the Captain said, turning away brusquely. He had said too much. Besides, they knew what the rumors were: The Governor was being given a share of the pilgrimage money; he was being paid off by the fanatics.
Tasmin shook his head at Jamieson, and he subsided. Tasmin did not want to discuss planetary politics or the Planetary Exploitation Council here on the public way, surrounded by soldiers who might repeat anything that was said, in or out of context, accurately or not. What the Captain chose to say was the Captain’s own business, but Tasmin had a lifelong habit of caution. He leaned from the saddle to take the officer’s hand once more. ‘Thank you, Captain. I’ll tell the Master General of the citadel how helpful you’ve been.’ The Master General of the Splash One Citadel was also the Grand Master of the Tripsinger Order, Thyle Vowe. Favorable mention to Vowe was not an inconsiderable favor, and the Captain grinned as he stepped back and saluted them on their way.
They reached the citadel without further incident, were welcomed, then lauded when it became known that Tasmin had come down from the Mad Gap with a long lost Password. There was good-natured teasing of the citadel librarian, some not so good-natured responses from that official, followed by room assignments for the travelers, provision for cleaning the clothes they had with them, and obtaining more anonymous garments to be worn in town. Grand Master Thyle Vowe, it seemed, was at the Northwest Citadel and would not return for some days. Tasmin wrote a note, including some laudatory words about Captain Verbold – including his probable political sympathies – and left it for him. It was late afternoon before all the details were taken care of and Tasmin could get away.