The clock on the wall began to sing in the poetic-aesthetic mode, with a tone like the grief of diamonds:
Hours like sandOn the shores of a bitter seaFlow on waves of time;Twelve hours have passedSince last the SunRose in blind majesty;It shall yield heedless to nightIn one more—“Bit him, emphatic mode! Bit, bit, bit him!” Satemcan said viciously, snarling … literally. “I bit the intruder on the territory of my social reference group!”
“Yes, you did,” Sally said patiently, patting the canid on the head.
“I will—future-conditional intentional case—bite him again, emphatic mode!”
You couldn’t just say you absolutely would do something in the future in Demotic; the assumptions built into the structure of its grammar forbade certainty about uncontrollable events. Satemcan was coming as close to that as possible.
The canid wasn’t looking at his slightly scruffy best; the areas over his wounds were naked and glistening with the pseudoskin that covered them. He was moving well enough, though, and the medical tembst used organic glues to hold things together internally. They’d be absorbed as the accelerated natural healing took place.
And there was a crazed look in his reddish eyes. Not a happy camper, Sally thought. Well, neither am I.
“Canid,” Teyud said. “Can you track these individuals?”
“Yessss,” Satemcan said, all business for a moment.
He began to walk away from the apartment building, nose working as his deep red tongue came out to lap over it. After a moment he sniggered, which was something to see:
“He-he-he-he! Here they triggered an antiscent aerosol. I express derision! Utter futility! My exceptional sensitivity and practiced skill easily uncover the scents of blood and fear pheromones.”
He trotted on. Teyud was keeping her eyes up, watching for movement on the low rooftops without seeming to strain.
“Intriguing,” she said softly. “This resembles minor-unit confrontation tactics more than most private commissions.”
Martians weren’t any braver than Terrans, on average; they were just more straightforward. Teyud was, though. They’d worked together before, and it could get stressful. But right now, Sally didn’t give a damn.
“I express regret at the risk you must undergo,” Sally said.
The Coercive didn’t look around, but there was slight surprise in her voice:
“I chose to be involved.” Thoughtfully: “You vas-Terranan are the first new thing to come into the Real World in a very long time. Working with you is less demoralizing than sitting and contemplating the time when the Deep Beyond spreads over the final cities and the last atmosphere plants wither.”
“It will be a long time before that happens, too,” Sally said; it didn’t bother most Martians much.
She was checking their six; it would be difficult to detect a tail, but not impossible.
“Not so long as the time that has passed since the date when the First Emperor reigned,” Teyud said. “Ah, your canid halts.”
“Here,” Satemcan said, casting around under the feet of irritated pedestrians. “Multiple trails, but the freshest leads into this structure.”
“Oh, shit,” Sally added, as the canid looked up with tail waving, expecting praise. “Ah … good job, Satemcan.”
The glyphs on the building read:
Cooperative Agency for Aggrandizement, Zar-tu-Kan Franchise.
“What are we going to do?” she said. In English: “Here at Yakuza Central?”
“I recommend following the exhortation on the walclass="underline" Enquire Within,” Teyud said.
The waiting room was a large arched space; it had a rack for scrolls, which was the equivalent of a stack of magazines, and a vending device for essences. And there were advertising posters on the walls:
Have you lost the desire for self-preservation but lack the fortitude for conventional suicide? Then consider tokmar addiction, the most subjectively pleasant form of slow dissolution for individuals with your psychological malfunction! Initial samples available gratis!
Or:
Few satisfactions equal the excruciation of those who have antagonized or superseded you. Indulge spite and envy! Our specialists …
“It’s not the differences that are really disturbing, it’s the goddamned similarities,” she muttered, avoiding the helpful illustrations. “Or maybe it’s both. We do the same stuff, but they’re so fucking up front about it.”
Satemcan had his ears laid back as they entered; he must be getting a snoutful of unpleasant scents far too faint for human or Martian nostrils.
“Apprehension,” he whined. “Fear.”
“Did they come through here?”
“That way,” he said, pointing with his nose.
That way was effectively the receptionist’s desk, the one with a helpful sign:
Past This Point Those without Authorization Will Be Killed without Warning.
“You wish?” the receptionist said.
Then he took in Teyud, and Sally could see his pupils expand. He brought his hands out of his sleeves and laid them carefully flat on the table.
“You wish, most refined of genome?” he repeated—this time using the honorific mode.
Three Coercives in black robes stood behind the slab of gray smooth stone, and she thought there were probably more in the offing. This was thug central. It was some consolation that their eyes were traveling between her and Teyud with a certain nervousness; she’d been here long enough to read Martian body language well. It gave her an advantage, since the locals she dealt with didn’t have nearly as much experience with Terrans.
It’s bullshit that they don’t have emotions, whatever those Far Frontiers episodes say. They’re just less self-reflective about them.
Sally took a deep breath; she wasn’t entirely confident of getting out of here alive, but the odds would be much worse without Teyud.
“My residence was attacked …” she began.
When she had finished, the receptionist blinked at her and bent to whisper into a grille. Teyud’s ears pricked forward; so did Satemcan’s. A tendril extended and the receptionist plugged it into his ear. The conversation that followed went entirely silent; he nodded several times, then extracted the intercom thing (or possibly data-retrieval thing) with a plop and spoke:
“Three independent Coercives contracted with a third party for the operation you mention four days ago, through our employment placement service, with the usual finder’s fee. They also purchased tactical information on your habitual schedule. Early this morning they returned here with a vas-Terranan prisoner, whom they turned over to the third party. They then purchased fairly extensive medical care for bone fractures, burns, and canid bites and departed Zar-tu-Kan bound for Dvor-il-Adazar. We will not sell you their identities because their affiliation contracts contain a nondisclosure clause.”
International Union of Thugs, Local 141, she thought bitterly. They’ve had a long time to come up with rules to cover every contingency.
The receptionist blinked; evidently Sally’s expression was showing more than she wanted. Earth-human body language wasn’t exactly the same as Martian, but it wasn’t impossibly different either for basics like humor or anger. The problem was that each species found the reasons for the other’s emotions weirdly opaque. Add in that Martians had only one language and one set of social rules and hence were unaccustomed to dealing with different reactions, and crossed wires were more common than not.