WHERE TWO PLOTLINES CROSS, LIFE CAN GET MESSY FOR YOUR HEROES AND VILLAINS BOTH.

or

HOW THE HELL DID I GET HERE?

Skeen woke. Head a fuzzball twice its usual size, two little men taking turns hammering at her temples. Stomach churning. Stink of old vomit and stale urine. Cold. Hard. Stone under her. How.… She flattened her hands beside her and pushed herself up, moving slowly, careful not to jar anything vital. How … where.… She shuddered as sudden terror flashed through her. If her mind was so far gone that she couldn’t remember how she got here or where here was, if she couldn’t remember what she was drinking and where, then … Djabo! Blackouts now. There was a time when she lost hours, days—once, a full week. She was shooting heavy pilpil then. That was after old Harmon died and there was no one she dared trust near her and the world seemed wide and cold and empty. It was far easier to drift in the warm arms of pilpil dreams. Her drift lasted until a shipment of pilpil was intercepted and the dealers she could reach went short. She came down hard and when she bounced, she got all too good a look at herself and the world she lived in. She looked and she said, this is it, no more. A long, long time ago that was, a warning of what could happen that she took seriously. She’d never lost herself again, not even in her Pit Stop binges. Well, reason enough for that, she was enjoying herself too much to waste those hours on unconsciousness. Something about this world that seduced her into excess. No, Skeen, not the world. You. Face it. You’re terrified you’ll find out Tibo and Picarefy really did get together and betray you because if that’s true there’s nothing anywhere you can trust. Not even yourself. Especially not yourself. And there’s no way you can find out short of half a year. Months of slogging dangerous travel ahead. Months while you feel like you’re trying to run in glue. Accept it, Skeen, it’s not strange you’re chewing your fingernails off to your elbows. All right, all right, I can live with that. But I don’t remember, I can’t remember drinking that much, I stopped drinking too much a sennight ago, why can’t I remember? How did I get here … here? Where is here?

She looked around. A reddish gray light trickled into the cell through a long narrow tray slot about knee height, enough to give her the outlines of the place. Four walls, a ceiling and a floor. One door. Admirably understated. She grinned into the dark, that touch of humor like heat in her shivering body. A minimalist cell. She eased herself onto hands and knees (feeling a bit better but still very fragile), crawled to the door and peered out the tray slot, pressing her face close to the splintery planks. Frustratingly narrow field of vision, but off to one side she saw dark verticals close together and behind them a bumpy lump of blue-violet. She closed her eyes, digging back into foggy recalcitrant memory; the last time she could remember seeing Lipitero, the Ykx wore her blue-violet robe. She pressed closer to the slot, slid back along it to extend her view and saw a familiar pair of knees and part of a massive throne chair. With a sigh that had no surprise in it, she turned away from the slot and eased herself down until she was sitting with her back against the door. Angelsin. Forty devils gnaw her gizzard. How did she find out? Ah, why ask, you know how such things seep out; the only place to bury a secret and expect to keep it is in the heart of a sun, and even then if more than one knows it, forget it. It’s going to surface, that’s inevitable as entropy. Why should you think you could bag a secret as big as a mythic Ykx? Well, she hadn’t really expected so much, she’d just hoped to keep the noise down until the Company got away. Maggí, ah Maggí, get your butt up the river, will you?

She pulled her legs up. Left me my boots. She prodded at the right boot. No surprise. Knife gone. She pulled the boot off and felt around inside. Smiled. Picks and spare blade were still there. Made of a non-refractive resin, they flexed with the leather but were as tough as fine steel, the knife had a blade with an edge that could cut a thought in two; it was thin, a delicate stiletto with a leather hilt; it could turn a steel blade in a fight and slice a throat with ease but it was whippy and treacherous and hard to control, not your general utility weapon. Belt was gone, with her tool kit and darter. Angelsin, you take good care of those till I come for them. The wire saw was nestled in the waistband of her trousers, they hadn’t found that either. Well, it could stay there, no bars or chains to cut, at least not now. So. No blackout, Djabo be blessed, just Angelsin drugging us all. All? That’s not right. Chulji was out with his farmers and Pegwai was eating with his cousin … eh! If it was last night she did us. She rubbed at her ringless hand; the chron was gone. Fuckin’ thieves. How long have I been here? How long? How how how long? Body didn’t know. Time snipped out, ragged ends spliced. She wiped her hand along the stone beside the door. Damp. Underground. Could be the middle of the day up in the streets. Or the middle of tomorrow night. Any tomorrow. No, no. She flattened her hand over her stomach. Not that long. Likely a few hours, no more. She passed her tongue along her lips. Wonder if they’d bring me some water if I yelled loud enough?

Lipitero sat in the cage and gloomed at the distant wall where the cells were.

Angelsin hadn’t bothered drugging her, just sent in a swarm of children with a large net. When she was tangled so thoroughly she had nearly strangled herself, the children called a pair of Funor shorthorns; these hauled her to the cavern and dumped her in the cage. At a word from Angelsin, they slashed most of the net clear and went out.

Angelsin stood outside the cage, leaning on a cane. She watched Lipitero tear away the fragments of net. “Take off the robe,” she said.

Lipitero snarled, then started jerking the neck ties loose. There was no point in refusing; Angelsin would just call the hardboys back and have her stripped. She pulled the robe over her head and dropped it to the floor of the cage.

Leaning heavily on the cane Angelsin walked around the cage making murmurous sounds as she inspected Lipitero. When she was around in front again, she was smiling. “Put on the robe,” she said, then labored to the throne chair that lost size and impact the moment she sat in it. She clicked her tongue. Hopflea took the cane, tucked it behind the chair, then scuttled around to crouch by her feet. She gazed at Lipitero a long time, saying nothing.

Feeling like a side of meat, not knowing what to do, how to react, Lipitero looked away—then stiffened. The cavern was a huge knobbly thing, filled with shadows; most of the torches were set up close about the cage and the chair and very little of the light reached as far as the walls, but she could see dark shapes carrying in other shapes. She counted these new prisoners. One, two, four, six. Skeen, Timka, the Aggitj. Chulji was spending the night out with his farmers, Pegwai must be with his cousin. The Boy? She looked around. Not here. She glanced at Angelsin; the huge Funor woman was watching the parade with a brooding satisfaction. Lipitero closed her hands into fists, a tightness in her throat, a deep ache between her shoulders. She sold him—that wombless mistake sold the Boy to the Kalakal. Or killed him. She watched the limp forms carried into the cells, one to each cell, the doors slammed shut, the bars dropped into the clamps. She pulled her hands inside the robe and slid her fingers along her harness. Cutter. Lift field. Shunt. Stun beam. One by one she counted them off, the operations worked into the metal decorations that seemed only ornament. Tiny weapons, tiny aids, powerful but limited, Lifefire, so limited. She had to make a plan somehow. Had to free Skeen even if she couldn’t free herself or the others. Nothing must stop Skeen finding Rallen and bringing Rallen Ykx to shore up Sydo Gather. To open the Gate, to free the Ever-Hunger if she needed the defense, Skeen didn’t need her, only her harness. She squeezed her hand about one strap; the node there was modified so Non-Ykx hands could trigger it if need be, she’d insisted on that. She closed her eyes and visualized the flight of Ykx moving through the nights over Suur Yarik, shadows against the moon, heading for the Fellarax Gather caves near the Gate, caves abandoned millennia before when the Waves started coming and the turmoil in the Mountains made life too uncomfortable there. The Remmyo had arranged the flight because he couldn’t in conscience agree to release the Hunger unless there were Ykx in position to corral it again before it devastated Mountains and Plain. Another reason for preserving Skeen, ten members of the shrinking Gather put in jeopardy, if Sydo lost them for nothing.… Something, I have to do something. It was painful to realize how little she knew about the otherWavers and the Pass-Throughs. Until the desert Chalarosh had swarmed into Coraish Gather she’d lived a contented but circumscribed life, knowing nothing of the great outside, wanting to know nothing of the folk that lived there.

When the slaughter was over, she crawled from beneath a pile of bodies—dead Chalarosh, dead Ykx, dead adults, dead children—her fur matted with blood, feces, urine, stomach contents let out through slashes. For hours, dazed, too shocked to grieve, she hunted through the dead for her children, for anyone at all left alive. She found her children huddled in a wall niche meant to hold a zocharin and a flower; her son’s head was smashed, his small body shattered, mingled with the butchered body of her daughter. She touched an arm; she thought it belonged to the boy but couldn’t be sure. Cold. The cold entered into her. She walked away, no longer looking at the dead, no longer caring if any besides herself still lived. She walked away and went out onto the lip. For a long time she stood staring out into the desert, then she sat and waited to die. She expected to fade as Ykx had faded before, separated from the Gather, staked out for torment in Chala clanspace. She sat all day waiting for the fade to start, but when the cold evening shadows crept over her the only emptiness she felt was hunger. She scrambled to her feet and screamed fury and frustration into the darkness, but there was no answer, not even an echo. She flung herself off the lip, meaning to let herself tangle in the downdrafts and crash on the stone below, but a freak blast of cold wind swept over the mountains, caught hold of her and automatically she extended her flightskins and rode that wind on and on, out over the desert, on and on. She was in a state of shock, the only thing she knew was she could not let herself fall here, could not give her life to the Chalarosh as if she were ripe fruit falling into their bloody hands. When the wind faltered, she exerted herself and spiraled up to catch the highwinds. On and on she went, hunger a beast gnawing at her belly, occupying the whole of her mind, or that part of it the thirst-fire left free.

She soared all that day, strength draining from her, a slow leaching that blurred her eyes until she saw nothing but a blue haze surrounding her, that blanked her mind until hunger and thirst were a distant thing hovering about her but not part of her. The highwind blew her on and on; she left the desert behind, she left the rind of farmlands behind, she glided out over water. Aware, she might have loosed that wind and drowned, but she had left purpose somewhere in the desert and was a leaf on the wind, mindless as any leaf. Late in the afternoon on the second day the wind turned capricious, dropped her, caught her, dropped her yet lower, caught her again, then vanished altogether. She plummeted toward the water. Shocked out of her numbness, her body worked desperately to save her; she felt the powerful drive of a will to live she had not known was in her. But the long flight had weakened her; she was too feeble to do more than sketch at attempts to catch an updraft and rise again. The water caught her trailing feet and pulled her down.

When she woke she was in a Balayar fishcanoe. The young men working it had bathed her face and trickled water into her, then the cordial all Balayar kept for times when the boat was far out and there was no wind. Drop by drop they got that rich sweet liquid into her and coaxed the lifefire within from ashes to a crackling blaze. She was alive and knew she was going to keep on living; the time was past when she could have killed herself.

They asked her no questions when they saw that she would live; they went back to their lines and nets, working with a noisy cheerfulness, a mixture of joking and song that fed strength into her as surely as the cordial did. They cooked her one of the fishes they tumbled like oily silver rain into the well of the boat and the youngest of them fed it to her bit by bit, chatting without expecting any answer, telling her about the girl who had him dying from love and exasperation because she was a darling, a pearl among pearls, but she would flirt with every cousin he had, even Jikkitoh who was too young to have any notion what girls were for. He didn’t seem unduly alarmed about her wanderings, nor upset by the distinct possibility she’d choose one of those cousins over him. There was this other girl a couple of islands over who could dance fire into the blood; he didn’t like her as well as Meromerai, but maybe that was because he didn’t know her as well. He stroked the soft silver fur on Lipitero’s arm, taking so much pleasure in the feel of it and how it changed color with the angle of light, that she could not feel insulted or ashamed at being handled and found herself seduced into an unexpected pleasure in the durability of the body that had brought her so far, a satisfaction with the shapes and textures of that body. This astonished her. She smiled at the boy. He laughed and handed her the bowl. You’re fine, he said, I expect you’d like to do this for yourself.

She stayed with the Balayar for two weeks, gathering strength of mind and body; they were a contented folk, their lives at once simple and complex, changing yet mostly the same, repeating patterns their ancestors had repeated, the rebellious and the misfits going out on the trading ships that came from the larger islands, coming home and going out again. They found her a wonder and pleasing to have around; Balayar babies were delighted with her fur, they crawled over her knees and cuddled in her flight skins; their sleek round warm bodies comforted her and let loose her grief. The Balayar gathered about her, patting her, listening to her laments, singing wordless tenderness and understanding to her. They wanted her to stay with them and she was tempted, but after those two weeks had passed, knew she could not. She needed Ykx around her for her mind’s health, and she was honest enough to admit that she did not enjoy living with the Balayar; she missed the comforts of a Gather, the stimulation of Ykx who talked about something more than fish, sex and infants, and most of all she missed her studio and workshop and the crafting of delicate electronic gear for the use of the Gather and for her own pleasure. Sadly, but with that deep understanding of need they had always shown her, the Balayar went with her across a narrow strait to a tall island, a desert of stone and ash; she rode in the canoe that had picked her out of the sea, crewed by the same young men who brought her in. These youths made a cradle for her out of cord and climbed with her to the top of the cone (they climbed as well as they swam, reading the stone like they read water). They squatted and began singing a farewell song they’d made for her that was a mix of sadness and excitement. She hesitated, waiting for them to be done, but after a while they waved their hands at her, telling her to leave while they were singing. She felt for the wind, took hold of it and leaped into it. The sound followed her as she spiraled up and up. During the last turn, she snatched a look at them. They were dancing precariously on the lip of the cone. Down below, the little boats that had come with her were filled with Balayar waving energetically, singing. Snatches of sound came up to her as she started the long soar north and west.

The healing that was the gift of the Balayar babies slipped away from her on that endless increasingly desperate flight across the ocean; even the Balayar cordial could not keep her blood stirred to a living heat. She retreated as she’d done before, shut off mind and let body carry her; if it wanted to live, it would get her to the Sydo Gather with life enough left to power its engines.

Arrive she did, a ghost with flesh. For a terrible while, she existed in a half-life where turn and turn about either everything about her was unreal and she couldn’t touch it or she herself was a nightmare drifting through things that couldn’t touch her. She made everyone around her uneasy, unhappy, uncomfortable, but the Sydo Ykx would not put her out of the Gather; that was not their way.

After an especially depressing day, she left the intricate caves of the Gather and went to the rim of the cliff above the mouth, sat where she could look out across the lake. I can’t continue like this, she thought. I should go away; they won’t make me go; I should take it on myself to go. She felt a powerful revulsion drive up through her body and knew she couldn’t make herself leave; if she left she would surely die. At the front of her head she wanted that surcease; she was a walking wound with the kind of pain no one ever got used to. At the back of her head, though, where her will was, where her body spoke, she clung with an equal determination to life.

Sometime near dawn a cub came climbing up the scratch, went past her without seeing her and went scrambling up a clump of boulders dangerously close to the lip of the cliff. He stood teetering on the topmost rock, flapping his soft little flight skins. Chewing her lip to keep fear from spilling out, moving as silently as the ghost she’d been, she eased onto her feet and crept up behind him. He crowed with delight as the sun peeped up behind the lake, waved his arms and tottered precariously. She snatched him off the rock and cuddled him against her chest; she was trembling with relief but the cub was loudly indignant. He screamed with frustration and fought against her hold. The hot hard-rubber body, all knees and elbows, banging into her broke a hard thing inside her; she didn’t realize this at first, just kept on soothing him, cooing calmness into him. When he was quiet she took him down the scratch into the Gather. His mother was darting about searching for him, turning out the whole Gather with her cries of grief. She was very young for having a cub that age, her youth and inexperience intensifying her grief at losing her baby, her joy when Lipitero gave him to her. She bubbled with a wordless gratitude, then turned and ran away, shouting out the cub was found, he was all right, the naughty boy was found and fine.

Lipitero watched her vanish around a curve. She touched her lips, outlined them with the tip of her finger because she was astonished to find herself smiling. The dawn outside was slipping down the mirror ways and turning the Grand Round into a bright warm soup that dripped into her veins. Yes, it felt like that as she suddenly knew with a clarity which matched the clarity of that light that the cub was her child, that the cub’s young mother was her child, that every Ykx in the Sydo Gather was her child; she was buoyantly, extravagantly, indescribably happy. The glow didn’t last, but the half-living half-dead state she’d been drifting in was gone forever—unless that monster Angelsin destroyed Skeen and with her, Sydo’s hope.

Angelsin was talking at her, something about why she was traveling with the Company, was she a captive, that sort of thing, but Lipitero let the noise wash over her without listening to it. Skeen. Ah, Skeen, what do I do? Wake up, Skeen, do something. She slid down one of her magnifiers, sacrificing some of the light to bring the far wall closer and sharpen her focus. Twelve doors. Twelve cells cut into the stone. Twelve cells, the farther cells filled, but who was where?

A shout. An Aggitj. Ders, poor boy, waking up alone and in a panic. The four shorthorns acting as guards gathered outside one of the cell doors, third along from the end; they yelled insults in at Ders, banged on the door. A quieter voice cut in, soothing, comforting. Domi. Yes. As usual, busy calming his nervous cousin. Two of the shorthorns starting cursing him and pounding on his door also, second from the end.

Something was happening at the door to the sixth cell from the end, behind the backs of the guards. A dark serpent’s head came through the tray slot, then about a handspan of body; the head swayed, the tongue flickered at the, noise. A moment later the serpent oozed with smooth deceptive speed through the opening, its chin touched the cavern floor and it began gliding away, its mottled coloring so close to that of the stone Lipitero had trouble following it. More and more snake emerged.

A spate of whistles, rapid bursts of unintelligible speech, laughter. Lipitero whipped around. Street urchins, Angelsin’s Ants, were running from several of the side holes, the cave chamber magnifying and replicating their noise until they seemed a hundred, but when she counted them, there were only a scant dozen. As they passed her they flashed her a bouquet of gestures; though she was unfamiliar with this particular language of the hand, she was comfortably certain the signs were the most obscene in their vocabulary. She snapped thumb against midfinger, flung her hand away and up to show them her contempt. Forgetting her enhanced eyesight and the distance to the cells, she waited tense with anxiety for them to notice the serpent; she kept her head turned resolutely away from the cell, although she couldn’t resist a few rapid glances that way and a plea under her breath for Ders to keep up his clamor. When the snake’s tail flicked out, she had to stiffen herself against her relief, then duck her head to hide the smile she couldn’t stop spreading across her face.

Ders quieted. The Funor guards milled about for another few minutes then went back to their desultory pacing in front of the cells.

Lipitero pushed her hood back a little and watched Angelsin. The Funor woman leaned into the armrest and bent her head so one of the ragged boys could whisper in her ear. The others squatted on the rich furs spread about the foot of the great chair, waiting their turn to climb its side and whisper their reports. Lipitero risked a longer look toward the shadows beyond the line of cells; the serpent was out of sight; even with all of her lenses in place she couldn’t see anything but the forests of stalactites and stalagmites, the irregular bulges and hollows of the walls wherever they were visible. Timka had gotten herself into hiding quickly and thoroughly, though what she was going to do now.… Lipitero sighed with frustration, huddled in her robe, fingers moving restlessly over her weapons; all she could do was wait and be ready to back up Skeen or Timka when they acted. She looked from Angelsin to the cells and back. Stay alert, she told herself. She scowled at Hopflea who was prowling about the chair; he vanished behind it and apparently settled on the furs there because he didn’t appear again. Wait, she told herself, I should be good at that, I’ve done so much of it.

Timka woke sick and sore. Automatically she shifted to cat-weasel, then to rock leaper and back to Pallah, losing the nausea and bruises along the way. “If this is what Skeen feels like, I wonder she ever.…” Drugged. We were drugged. Angelsin. Using her fingertips and the faint bleed of light from the tray slot, she explored the cell. A bare box chiseled from stone. No way out but that heavy plank door. Nothing in here but me, not even fleas. Me and a stink. Must be older than me, that stink. Annoyed, she moved to the door and dropped to her knees by the tray slot. Directly across from her, about a hundred meters off (she could see details that far away because of lamps bound onto setpoles, a double handful of them burning with vigor, placed at several different heights so there were no spots of concealing shadow) she saw a cage with a blue-violet lump inside. Lipitero. That explains some of this. Furs on the stone to the left of the cage. Hopflea crouching beside another of those giant throne chairs, Angelsin’s feet and knees, one forearm with attached hand. What a mess. A dark blur moved past the slot. She blinked, then realized there were guards pacing back and forth in front of the cells; when she listened for them, she could hear the scrape of their feet, their voices as they exchanged grunts or strings of words she couldn’t understand because the echoes mangled them too badly. All of us? No. Not Chulji. Angelsin’s reach covers South Cusp, she wouldn’t go beyond, not when she has an Ykx in her hands. Chulji’s loose. Until he comes back. Due in tomorrow night. If we haven’t got away by then, Lifefire! Pegwai? Depends on how long it’s been since supper. She sighed. It doesn’t matter, Ti. If one gets out, we all do. She drew back, sat on her heels and scowled at the tray slot. She could get her arm through it up to the shoulder. She stretched out her arm and looked thoughtfully at it. When she was a child running the forest like a wild thing, she’d handled a lot of snakes but she’d never thought of learning the serpent shape, too slow for one thing. She dropped her arm, closed her eyes and tried to remember.

Ders began to howl. The Funor guards converged on his cell, yelling, cursing, kicking at the door. Domi called out, his voice soothing, repeating familiar words over and over as he struggled to calm his cousin. Again Timka couldn’t make out the words, but she didn’t need to. She blocked out the noise and concentrated more intensely. In her desperation, she achieved a serpent of sorts. She didn’t know how to move, even simple breathing required immense effort, but eventually she got her head up, her ribs working and crawled to the door. She managed to get her head and a bit of body through the slot, then discovered that her serpent eyes were incapable of resolving forms more than a few paces off and color was a vague memory. However the pits above those feeble eyes were giving her an astonishing amount of information about the location and distance of live bodies, their heat like a shout against the cold of the stone and her flicking tongue brought her messages of fear and anger along with the sour stench of unwashed bodies. She took a while to start processing the data pouring into her receptors, but she grew rapidly more proficient and in a short while acquired enough confidence to start wrestling herself through the slot. The snake was growing easier to handle, but she hadn’t the time to let herself sink into it and learn it thoroughly, she had to get out before the guards came back and caught her. She’d never tried such a slapdash shift and was in a state of mild panic that intensified when her mid-section, her thickest point, nearly jammed in the slot. At the same time the waves of anger, the vibrations of the shouting and blows were all decreasing in intensity, a warning that the guard could come back any minute. At the cost of burning pain and a feeling she was suffocating, she muscled herself free, then moved as quickly as she could along the stone.

After a few seconds of awkward exhausting crawl, she hissed with disgust at her stupidity and shifted to cat-weasel, then padded rapidly toward the deep shadow beyond the end of the cells where (Lifefire be blessed!) wasp-waisted columns and stone teeth were thick as the roots of some monstrous tree, stalactites and stalagmites in grotesque and garish profusion. She slid into the shadow with a flood of relief that turned her bones to jelly, stood shivering while the clamor at the cells died away as Ders settled into a (probably temporary) calm and the shorthorns went back to their desultory pacing. When she recovered, she moved silently through the teeth and columns until she found a reasonably dry niche behind some waxy looking stalagmites; she settled herself so she could see Angelsin and her chair and beyond her the cage where Lipitero crouched. Fine, she told herself. I’m free. What now?

Angelsin was busy with a clutch of her Ants; one by one they climbed the side of the chair, clung to the arm and whispered for several minutes in her ear. Working her shoulder muscles, her claws, in a physical expression of her satisfaction, Timka watched the exchange, the intent faces of the children. Her slither through the slot had gone unnoticed … she broke the thought as she saw Lipitero’s head turn, then twitch round again. Looking for me. Lifefire grant she’s the only one who saw something. What now? Yes, what can I do … at any minute Angelsin could finish with the Ants and send for one of the prisoners—a touch of what Skeen called Mala Fortuna and it would be Timka she called for. Timka shivered and started to panic when the Funor woman lifted her head and looked around; the lamplight turned her horns to butter ivory and the points looked dagger sharp, her arms were big around as a man’s thighs and as powerful. No sag, little fat. Lifefire!

Hopflea wandered into sight, moving through the children crouched on the furs. He came around behind the chair (it was set about two meters from the cave wall on a natural dais that was the driest place in the chamber), reached out and flicked Angelsin’s cane into a lazy swing, then vanished around the other side. A few minutes later he was back among the children. He drifted over to the cage and stared at Lipitero. He seemed to whisper something, but the Ykx made no sign she heard him. Another moment’s fidgeting, then he ambled off toward the cells.

Timka went back to watching Angelsin.

Another child had pulled himself up the rungs set into the wood and knelt on the chair arm, leaning intimately against Angelsin as he whispered; furtively he stroked her arm and shoulder as she inclined her ear, a familiarity she tolerated with monstrous maternalism. The Ants were her children whom she protected and consumed. Like the cat-weasel whose form Timka wore and knew so well. The female had a short but furious heat. At the end of it, exhausted, she snarled the males away from her and made ready her den; with her fearsome clever forepaws she scythed down swathes of grass and mouth-carried them to line the hole. Then she went on a killing spree, burying what she couldn’t eat in the dirt of the den. Her litters were born into that miasma released as she dug up and ate the putrefying meat—huge litters—fifteen, twenty, sometimes even thirty. Gradually, as the days passed, operating on some logic or trigger that no Min studying the beast had ever fathomed, she began eating her kits. One by one, she chose the discards from among the mewling squirming mass of hot fur. One by one she ate them until after a month, two kits—three at the most—were left. If two, one was always a female, one always male. If three, two would be female and the third male. Always. No matter what ratio of male to female existed in the original litter. Timka wrinkled her blunt muzzle and twitched her whiskers in a rapid flash of humor. Hopflea was Angelsin’s remnant, her cherished one. Who’d be the next in that brood? You are my chosen ones, you are my favored until you disappoint me, unless you disappoint me, be careful not to disappoint me. Walk warily but not too warily, obey me in all things, show initiative and wit, but not at my expense. Too much dependence and I will eat you up, too much independence and I will cast you out to be eaten by the wolves. Dance on the highwire, my poppets, keep me sweet with your capers and beware, the time will come when despite your pretty ways you please me no longer. A time will come when you must be ready to run or be eaten. Look about you. Are you the oldest of the Ants? Then beware, my pretty, protect yourself, my love.

She let the Ants pat her and stroke her and she gave them silver bits and taffy and smiled at them and told them how clever they were and sent them, chattering, giggling out of the cavern.

Hopflea came ambling back, his arms full of Skeen’s gear; he settled behind the chair, sitting cross-legged on the furs piled there and began exploring the pockets in the belt, fiddling with the contents until Timka wanted to scream. She didn’t know what those things were, but was sure they were dangerous and probably fragile. Skeen would be furious if that idiot broke them. He tucked everything back where he found it, began playing with the darter. He shook it, frowned as it sloshed. He fished out one of Skeen’s picklocks and began prying at every crack. Timka locked her teeth—stupid little twit, you’ll wreck it—breath hissed through tight nostrils, claws scraped over stone. He put the pick away, shook the darter again, peered down the front end. Timka tensed, but the slideplate was clicked home over the sensor spot and he never managed to dislodge it. He set the darter aside and began fiddling with the cutter; the cover over its firing sensor defeated his prying fingers, though he did manage to get the cap off its business end. He peered into the aperture, tried to get at the jeweled lens that glittered inside, then threw the enigmatic little cylinder onto the furs and picked up the money pouch; counting the coins inside was obviously a more satisfactory experience. He fondled them, piled them onto his thigh, counted them again and with evident reluctance slipped them one by one back in the pouch.

The last child she could see climbed from the chair and pattered away into the dark mouth of the nearest out-passage, the sound of his feet fading swiftly. Angelsin stirred, sighed, turned her head; she said something but the echoes scrambled the words so badly Timka couldn’t catch a single syllable. Hopflea gathered up Skeen’s gear, set everything where he’d found it, searched out the cutter and tucked it away, climbed up the chair’s side and dumped his load in Angelsin’s lap. She began picking through them much as he had, murmuring to Hopflea, raising her voice to push questions at Lipitero, questions the Ykx ignored. Lipitero sat silent, huddled, the silky blue-violet cloth draping in graceful folds over her body, pooling around her on the floor of the cage.

Timka curled into a knot, tail wrapped around her muzzle. The cold of the stone was seeping into her in spite of her heavy belly fur; she thought she felt it chilling her brain, she couldn’t decide what to do now that she was loose and able to act. Skeen wouldn’t dither about like this. She seemed to know this sort of thing as if it were imprinted so deeply in her bone and blood she didn’t need to think. How comforting that must be, how simple. Timka found herself starting to boil with resentment, envy, a sense of futility; she closed her eyes, locked her forepaws over her face and struggled to calm down. I’m fighting with ghosts I’ve created for myself. Ghosts. Her envy of Skeen’s competence and her despair at her own ineffectiveness were distortions of a far more complex reality. She was laboring against years of conditioning and doing not so badly at it. Stop biting your own tail, Ti, get on with some positive thinking. You don’t have to depend on anyone, even Skeen. You’ve proved that. You’re wasting time you haven’t got. Think! She lifted her head, yawned, flared her whiskers, opened and closed her eyes and kneaded at the stone, these small actions stirring the sluggish eddies in her brain as she began assessing the difficulties ahead of her.

Four Funor shorthorns, clumping about before the line of cell doors, were too far off to be an immediate problem, especially if she could get hold of the darter, but they’d have to be taken out fairly soon. The children were gone. For the moment. Lifefire solo knew when they’d be back. Hopflea. Treacherous, yes, a nasty fighter. Take him first? He’s the most mobile, the most dangerous. Angelsin. She looked formidable, well, she was formidable, but she couldn’t move fast … no, no, can’t count on that. She stretched her mouth in a cat grin. As Skeen would say. If Angelsin was angry enough, who could guess what she would do.

Hopflea listened, his body limning the intensity of his concentration; he nodded, climbed down the chair and started toward the cells.

Timka came onto her feet in a quick and utterly silent surge. She hesitated a second longer to make sure he wasn’t headed for the passages. No mistake. Going for one of the prisoners. She went leaping from behind the stalagmites, covering the distance to the chair in great silent bounds.

A shorthorn yelled.

Timka gathered herself, leaped and landed in Angelsin’s lap. Claws retracted, she slapped at the Funor woman’s face, then doubled up and closed her teeth on the belt with the holstered darter.

Angelsin’s arms whipped around her, surprising her with their crushing monstrous strength, frightening her; before she could react, she was nearly dead, Angelsin’s steel fingers digging into her body, driving for the S’yer that held her life, the master control of her malleable body. Pain. She was burning. She squawled and lashed out with claws and teeth but she couldn’t get any purchase or put any power behind her blows; she did some damage to the massive arms. She could smell blood, but not enough, not nearly enough, most of the time she was clawing air.

Sound like cicada scrapings. So odd and unexpected it got through to her though she paid little attention; her life was burning out of her; Angelsin’s hand were digging deeper and deeper. Cicada scrapings. Louder.

Angelsin’s arms went slack. Her hands fell away.

Timka rolled off her lap, fell onto the furs piled up around the chair. She didn’t wait to catch her breath or discover what had happened, but shifted immediately to her Pallah form and scrambled frantically until her hands closed on the belt. She whirled onto her feet, ripped the holster flap open and caught hold of the darter’s butt. With a continuation of that movement, she swept her arm in a whipping arc that flung holster and belt off the barrel’s end, flipped off the cover plate and put darts into the shorthorns running at her, bellowing; they fell away and she darted Hopflea before he could skitter into more solid cover.

She stood a moment holding the darter stiffly in front of her, then she dropped to her knees as her legs lost all strength; shaking with relief, she let her arms drop, the darter fell cold and heavy on her thigh. Her fingers had the strength of wet paper; they opened and let the darter slide away; it fell onto the fur without a sound and lay tilted against her foot. Lipitero was yelling at her, her name over and over; the Ykx sounded distant, weak, as if she was so far away her voice barely reached Timka. She was rattling the bars of the cage, that sound penetrated the haze, made Timka’s head ache, but she couldn’t raise the energy to do anything about it.

Cicada scrapings. She twitched, moved a hand; her shoulder prickled, arm and hand went numb, for one startling moment it seemed to her a part of her body had vanished; she straightened up, fighting the lethargy that was like chains wrapped around her. Something heavy fell against her.

Gradually her shaking stopped and the heaviness began to flow away. After a few deep breaths, she lifted her head. There was a solid weight pressing into her side but she ignored it as she gazed blankly at Lipitero.

The Ykx was busy at the cage door. With a soft exclamation filled with satisfaction, she pushed at the bars and the door swung open. She came swirling out, her robe fluttering in the local breeze about her vigorously moving body. She brushed past Timka who smelled the sweet bite of her fur and the subtle soapy aroma of the fluttering silk. She scooped up the darter, stepped back so Timka could see it. “How does this work?”

Timka moved her shoulders, pleased and rather surprised to find her strength returning. “Point the long cylinder, touch the dark glassy spot near your forefinger.”

She watched as Lipitero lifted the weapon, held it at arm’s length and put two darts into Angelsin. The big woman was bleeding sluggishly from the scratches on her arms and her skirt had a few rips in it, but overall, Timka had done very little damage despite her frantic struggles. She stared at Angelsin, thought about the cicada sound. “What happened?”

Lipitero didn’t answer her. She’s good at not answering, Timka thought. The Ykx turned a rapid circle, scanning the cavern, as much of it as she could make out, then faced Timka. “Can you move?” Impatience sharpened the words.

Timka sighed and lurched onto her feet. One of Angelsin’s Ants fell past her; she’d missed seeing him somehow. She blinked, touched her toe to the fingers frozen about a short ugly knife. Lipitero stepped around her, put a dart in the boy. “Nice weapon,” she said. “How long will they be out?”

Timka rubbed at her arras, shivered; it was cold and dank in this huge chamber in spite of the heat put out by the lamps and she regretted the loss of the cat-weasel’s thick fur. “At least an hour, probably longer. What was that noise? You got them off me. Thanks.”

Lipitero tapped at her chest with a long thumbnail very like a claw and produced a muffled metallic click. “Stunner,” she said. “Fast but only a short time relief, enough to catch your breath. The effect passes off somewhere around five minutes.” She looked over her shoulder at Angelsin. “Short range too, I didn’t know if I could reach her; Lifefire’s blessing I did. If you’re feeling shaky now, I probably clipped you with the spray from the beam.”

“Doesn’t matter, she was killing me.”

“Formidable, that one.”

“Eh, Petro, I’ve never been so scared.” Timka sneezed, shivered. “Let’s fetch the others and get out of here.”

Lipitero nudged the darter’s barrel up and down the side of her face as if she scratched an itchy thought. “Complications,” she said slowly. “We’ve got to decide.… Get your clothes and let Skeen and the Aggitj loose, I’ll keep watch here.” She tapped the darter against her thigh. “Ah … it might be a good idea to hurry, I’m feeling.…” She didn’t finish the thought and didn’t need to.

Skeen stood with hands on hips, examining Angelsin. A half-smile lifting one corner of her long mouth, her yellow eyes laughing, she turned to Timka, raised her right eyebrow.

Timka tugged nervously at her blouse. “She had the darter in her lap with the rest of your gear. I thought I could get it and get away.” She rubbed a fold of cloth between thumb and forefinger, embarrassment mingling with a remnant of resentment. “I didn’t think she could move that fast. Petro stunned her or I’d be dead.” She stared at her feet and felt like an inept child.

Skeen laughed. “That’s one of the great secrets, Ti, having good backup around for the times you screw up. Me, I’m pleased as hell you and Petro did all the work getting us loose.” She turned slowly, her laughter fading as she surveyed the dozens of dark holes pocking the arching sidewall between clusters of stalagmites and stalactites. “Djabo! What a maze.” She stamped around and scowled at Angelsin. “Do we have to wake her to get out of here?”

Lipitero held out the darter. “That’s not important; if we get lost, Ti-cat can nose our way up.” She started kicking about in the furs. Looking for the belt, Timka thought; she frowned, trying to remember where it had flown to. “Seems to me this puts a knot in our plans,” Lipitero said. “Ah.” She scooped up the belt, stood holding it in one hand while she fluttered the fingers of the other at the comatose Angelsin. “Otherwise we’ve got to do something about her. I haven’t the vaguest notion how to handle her, Skeen. She’s got too many ways of striking at us. I strongly suggest we get away before the mountains land on us. Any ship going anywhere.”

Skeen chewed on her lip, scowled at Angelsin. “Another port I might agree. I could always leave a message with the Aggitj at the Slukra, they’d see Maggí got it. But.…” She glanced round at Lipitero.

Timka recognized the half rueful, half sassy look Skeen got when she was about to say something possibly hurtful and certainly true.

“Truth is, you’re the problem, Petro. You’re the one puts the rest of us at risk. Here anyway. This slaveport. Look what happened where we’ve at least got maneuvering room—on a ship, well, I don’t want to put that much temptation on someone I don’t know. No. We have to wait for Maggí.”

Timka looked round at the shadowy spaces of the great chamber. Maneuvering room for sure. Echoes murmured over every word spoken here; it was getting so they murmured over and around the words in her head. The long difficult night was turning eerily unreal; she was tired, she was filled with a low-grade anger that only time would bleed away, she was getting more and more impatient with Skeen and the silent Aggitj who stood a short distance off, waiting with that amiable patience of theirs for someone to decide something. For the first time she doubted Skeen’s ability to deal with the mess they were in; for the first time she was painfully aware of Skeen’s tendency to alternate between terrifying rashness and an irritating obsession with safety where she fussed for endless moments, even hours, overproviding emergency exits in case something went wrong. Timka wanted to shout at her, get on with it, Skeen; she didn’t because she didn’t quite know how to do that getting on.

“Well,” Lipitero said, “that being so, what do we do?” She held out the belt, took back the darter for a moment while Skeen buckled it on.

Skeen clipped on the lanyard, stood a moment, hands on hips, looking around at the fallen, finishing with the huge slumped figure of the Funor woman. “Hal.”

“I hear you, Skeen ka.”

“You think you and your cousins could lift her,” she nodded at Angelsin, “back up to the chek?”

Hal wrapped his hand about a lamp pole, shoved at it, nodded with satisfaction as the tough wood resisted. “Cut us two of these and let Lipitero lend us that robe, we could make a stretcher.” He grinned. “Be some heavy, but …” he flexed his biceps, “we got practice hauling barrels of saltfish.”

Ders giggled. A quick skipping step took him to Angelsin’s side. He lifted her meaty arm, let it splat down. “Yip-yip, can’t carry her, we can always roll her up.”

“Why bother.” Hart’s voice was gruff, his words clipped. “Cut her throat. Save a lot of trouble. You don’t want to do it, I will. Scum like that shouldn’t be let live.”

Skeen opened her mouth, closed it, made the tight little sign with her left hand that Timka read as don’t bother arguing, he won’t understand you and you haven’t got the words to convince him. She’d seen that sign several times before when Skeen had given up on her; what brought it on now was something Timka couldn’t answer. She agreed with every word Hart said, it seemed to her the best solution would be to cut that massive throat and hide the body for the short time they’d have to wait. What was Skeen doing? Did she have some weird idea she should defend this monster? Timka got a strong feeling that for a brief moment she and the others were on the far side of a glass wall that had come down between them and Skeen, that Skeen was seeing all of them as enemies, though why she felt that she didn’t know. I’m so tired I’m hallucinating, she thought.

Abruptly Skeen relaxed. “Bad idea, Hart. I take it you’ve never seen what happens when a boss like Angelsin either vanishes or is killed. Soon as the news got out—and it would, my friend, the moment her lines of command went slack and that wouldn’t take long—there’d be at least half a dozen contenders for her place. In that kind of war there aren’t any neutrals allowed. You dance with one side or another and hope you pick the strongest. And there’s more shit could land on us. She’s got uphill connections, Hart; what if they decided to close the port and wipe out the Cusps?”

“Why should they? For something like that.” A stubborn growl in his voice.

Skeen sighed. “Think a little, Hart. She’s too open about what she is, what she does, like she’s flaunting herself in their faces. She might be outlaw but she’s not out of touch. She runs South Cusp for them, keeps order, collects taxes, lets them keep their hands clean while they make a juicy profit from her acts. Hai!” She slapped her forehead. “No rants, Skeen, this ain’t the time.” She dug into her tool kit, took out the cutter and knelt by one of the taller lamp poles. “Be ready to catch, Hal.” She sliced the cutter beam through the wood close to the stone, watched him steady the pole. “Angelsin can’t move fast.” Timka made a sound in her throat, Skeen grinned over her shoulder at her. “Not on her feet, you’ll admit that.” She moved on her knees to another long pole. “Ready for the second, ’ware the hot oil.” She leaned into the pole, cutter ready, waited until Domi was there to catch it, then sliced it loose. “And she’s vulnerable; let someone get the idea she’s being mauled about and having to take it, she’s done. Depends on how good she is at keeping her temper, but maybe we’ve got a thin chance there.” She cut the lamp off the first pole and set it on the stone beside the furs. “If we can maneuver this so no one knows what we’re doing to her, if we can make her believe all we want is to get the hell out without getting burned, then maybe, just maybe we can keep the lid on long enough for Maggí to show up.” She dealt with the second lamp, then stood back and watched as the Aggitj cut strips from the tough blue-violet silk and bound Lipitero’s robe of concealment onto the poles. “It’s going to be a nervous few days, that’s for sure.” She slapped her forehead again. “Djabo! I am not thinking. Time. Time. What time is it? Anybody got an idea?” Not waiting for an answer, she started feeling in her belt pockets, then poked about in the pouch. “Ah.” She slid the ringchron onto her finger, glanced at it and smiled. “Well. Not too bad. About two hours past midnight. That gives us plenty of time to get set before we have to face the world.”

“Skeen, aren’t you forgetting something?” Timka nudged the Ant with her toe. “This one. Hopflea. The shorthorns. What do we do with them?”

Skeen made an impatient gesture. “You want to do some throat cutting … No!” she shouted as Hart started toward the boy. “I was joking. Put them in the cells, we can let Angelsin deal with them later. Yes, I know, probably comes to the same thing, but she’ll be happier if we let her handle things like that. Believe me. Better she doesn’t think she’s completely helpless. No. It is not good tactics to make her desperate. We want her to cooperate, not dig her hooves in and decide to take as many of us with her as she can. Of course she’ll be plotting the minute she wakes up; I want that. It’ll keep her from doing something precipitate, like ordering her Ants to swarm us, calling in her hardboys to back them up; she won’t do that unless she’s pushed into it. I think I’m shifty enough to thwart her, for a while anyway. Um. Bring Hopflea over here. We’d better have him up there too; he might be missed. He shouldn’t weigh much, you think you could carry him, Petro? I’d like Ti-cat running scout ahead while I guard our rear. Good. Weil, let’s get moving. Sooner we’re settled in, the better I’ll like it.”

They found the Boy curled up with the Beast, both deep in drugged sleep, locked in a small room that opened off Angelsin’s bedroom.

Angelsin was laid out on the bed like a corpse for a wake except that her long three-fingered Funor hands were placed one over the other on her diaphragm and rose and fell with each breath. In this huge and gaudy room only one lamp was lit, throwing most of it into shadow. Skeen and Timka sat without talking on a plump bulging backless sofa pushed against one wall. Out of sight, moving in and out of the other rooms, searching them, poking through Angelsin’s secrets, hunting out the hidden exits from this fortress suite, Pegwai and the Aggitj had slipped into wild humor and made the silences ring with laughter and jokes and shouts of discovery. The thick walls were eaten into termite lace by the secret ways Angelsin had gouged in them, evidence of the value she placed on her hide.

“Tell me something, Skeen.”

“Hmmm?”

“When Hart wanted to slice Angelsin, you nearly exploded. Why?”

Skeen was silent for several more minutes; Timka began to think she didn’t mean to answer. Finally the long thin woman stirred, lifted a hand, let it fall. “That word,” she said, “that attitude. Scum. Not even people. Us. Well, maybe not Chulji or Pegwai.” She spoke slowly, pausing frequently to dig out the word she wanted. “I suppose the Aggitj don’t feel it either. Their people threw them away like trash, but they’re … um … accepted well enough out here, though if they went home … I don’t know, that could be different too … when Hart said that, it cut at me.…”

“Skeen! There’s no comparison between you and that … that eater of filth. She’s a monster. She’s evil. A beast. This world would smell better if she was wiped off it.”

“Of them all, I thought you might … um … see what I’m saying, Ti.” Skeen’s voice had a dull sadness that Timka found oppressive and to a large degree incomprehensible. Skeen passed her hand across her eyes, slapped it down against her thigh. “It’s like … um … choosing sides in a game, Ti. My style might be different, but Angelsin and me, we’re on the same team. The Scum Team. The ones respectable types sneer at and stomp when they can. When you say wipe her away because she is what she is, then you’re a hairline off from doing the same to me.” Her hands were working, her tongue flicking out to follow the line of her lips as she struggled with what she’d not put in words before. “Pit Stoppers aren’t a sweet bunch, Ti; to say true, we’re a godsawful collection of misfits, murderers and thieves. The excrement of the universe.” A small tight grin, not much humor in it. “You take ’em as they are, or take yourself off. You ought to know there’s lots worse than Angelsin sitting in seats of power—think about Telka—Angelsin at least takes care of her folk and she doesn’t expect them to kiss ass for it. Pegwai calls her a monster and I suppose she is, I don’t know … I don’t know.…” She moved her shoulders uneasily, got up off the sofa. “I’ve heard of saints, but I’ve never met any.” She walked with quick short steps to one of the barred windows, pushed aside the heavy lace curtain and stood staring out at the night sky.

Timka frowned at the stiff erect back. For her, the difference between Skeen and Angelsin was broad and glaring. A chasm. And she was indignant at Skeen for implying there was a tie between her and Timka and that creature. Lifefire, she confuses me, she thought. There has to be some order, some rank of values. I can’t live in the kind of chaos you imply, Skeen, and I don’t believe in it. No. She smiled. Haven’t I seen you despising and loathing this, that and the other? No universal acceptance in you, graverobber my friend. Hmm. It’s that word. Scum. That’s what bothers you. The dismissal in it. So easy to … yes, I think I see. What Telka’s trying to do with me, that’s why Skeen thought I’d understand, turning me to a beast that other Min won’t fuss about hunting, slaughtering. Still, me and Angelsin? I’ll never accept that. But I begin to see the other thing. What Skeen didn’t quite manage to say. I deserve to live because I desire to live. I deserve what I’ll never be able to command as my right. I deserve to exist simply because I do exist. The attack on Angelsin is an attack on me. Timka pushed up off the couch and moved to the foot of the bed where she stood for several silent minutes contemplating the sleeper. Her lips twitched. She started laughing.

Skeen swung around. The curtain fell in place behind her. “What’s that for?”

“I’ve been thinking about what you said.” Timka stretched, rubbed at her back. “And I’ve been thinking about the dead along our back trail.” She hitched a hip over the footboard and laughed again. “Wouldn’t it be lovely if she woke up and came charging at us and gave us a really satisfactory reason for removing her? No fuss about words, no fuss about worth, just she lives or we live. A nice clean uncomplicated choice. Pop! and it’s over, all settled.”

Skeen nodded, her face drawn and grim. “It’d settle a lot of things. Us, for one.” She moved along the bed until she stood gazing down into the Funor woman’s broad pale face. A swift bend, a thumb lifting an eyelid, then she swung around to face Timka. “She’s still under, but I don’t know for how much longer, there’s a lot of meat laid out there. Djabo’s weepy eyelids, I’m about done, I need some sleep. Ti, go hunt out Pegwai and see if the two of you can come up with some stout rope, or something else strong enough to hold that much muscle. And take Hopflea and stuff him in a closet somewhere. Be sure it’s not one with a trick exit in it; better tie him too.” She yawned, “Have Domi do the knots. You said he’s a sailor, he should be able to thwart that ancient baby’s tricks. Remind him Hopflea’s got lots of experience squirming out of tight spots.”

Dawnlight filtered through the heavy lace curtains. Timka dozed in an oversize armchair, her feet tucked under, mind and body relaxed, drifting in that twilight region where nightmare and strokes of genius lived. Skeen’s slow breathing went on for several minutes until her breath caught in her throat; she blinked slowly, then pushed up and looked around. She brushed at her face, swung her legs around and slid off the couch, started stretching and bending, moving quietly, the only sound the soft brush of the eddersil against her body. Timka roused, watched her sleepily without bothering to move, blinked in time with the whispered grunts as Skeen swung through her exercises.

Angelsin snorted, shivered, tried to move, went still as she understood the pull of the ropes that tied ankles and wrists to the bed posts. She lifted her head, looked venomously at Skeen, but said nothing.

Skeen kicked at the footboard, made it boom. “Some things I want to make clear. One. You made a bad move tackling us, now you pay for it. Two. You know better than me how many down here would go for your throat if they thought you’d sprained your wrist a bit. Three. You try going for us all out and what you’ll get is a bloody mess. You won’t do us and you’ll announce to the world how we’ve done you. Four. You’re not going to have time to get organized. We’ll be out of here in a day or two. Five. If you’re reasonably intelligent, you’ll keep your temper on a low simmer and let it off kicking ass once we’re gone. That way you won’t lose anything you think is important. Six. I want to buy a temporary peace and the coin I plan to use is your life. I won’t off you unless you make me and I won’t let the others touch you. Seven. You push us and you’re dead. The minute it looks like we’ve made a bad bargain, you go. That’s it. Keep quiet until I’ve set out how we’re going to handle the logistics of this mess. When I’m finished, then you can have your say.” She grinned tightly. “Yelp all you want, but don’t waste my time too much.”