“How do you know?”
“Nothing tangible. Watching him. Stripping down those productions he did for Tra Yarta, you know, the Grand Sech. Some things he’s said, awake and asleep. Body language more than anything, though he’s very good at hiding what he’s thinking, that’s part of his professional training, isn’t it.”
“No proof?”
“None.”
“Not even in the Ridaar?”
“He wouldn’t let the Ridaar anywhere near him. Made me stow it while I was living with him.”
“Elmas Ofka wants him with us at Lift-Off. Without proof…”
“Oh.”
“Don’t fret it, I agree with you. My fa’ali clanks like a cracked bell when he’s around. Unfortunately that’s as intangible as your unsupported observations. He reports to our Hanifa regularly, feeds her suspicion, I don’t know how, I didn’t realize what he was doing until a few days ago.” She shook her head. “I’ll talk with Swar and Pels, we’ll watch him, if he tries anything,” she sighed, “maybe we can stop him.”
Aslan got to her feet. “Have you seen the Jajes? They were my excuse to come up here, so I’d better find them and see if I can get an interview.”
Kumari swung her feet around, stretched out on the pad. “They went toward that clump of trees down there by the hook inlets, I think those ancients remind them of home.”
“Maybe they’ll feel more like talking there.” She brushed her hair back from her face and started off, trudging along the lakeshore vaguely dissatisfied though she was glad she’d finally spoke her speech about Parnalee.
7. 25 days after the meeting on Gerbek.
Conference on Chicklet’s bridge: Quale, Pels, Kumari.
Quale scratched at his jaw, his eyes on the screen and the swarm of very assorted beings moving about outside. “How many we have so far? I haven’t bothered keeping track.”
Kumari called up the figures. “One hundred and twenty on the list, one hundred fifty altogether. You two keep acquiring extras.”
“Money total?”
“306,900.”
He grinned. “I could live with that.”
“Add in the targets in the Palace, it’s close to 400,000.”
“Which brings up why I had us meet. We can’t use the skips to clear out the Palace targets. We’d have to make, what? four, five trips even using both of them. Better to take the tug and get them in one. Which means we have to wait on that till the Hanifa is ready to jump. You talked with her this morning, Kri, what do you think? If we moved Lift-off forward say four days, make it tomorrow, could she handle the speedup?”
“Four days, what’s the point, Swar? Better stick to the schedule. If you feel like keeping clear of Kuzeywhiyk cities, we’ve got some targets here on Guneywhiyk.”
“I don’t see how you can say those sneezes with a straight face, Kri.”
“Practice, Swar. I’ve had to learn the Cousin Speech you babble in and Interlingue. If you knew the liquid crystal loveliness of Pilarruyal, you wouldn’t ask questions like that.”
“Mmp. All right, see what you can do about maps. The Proggerdi won’t be any help down here.”
“Which brings up something I think you ought to know. Day before yesterday I left Adelaar on the com and took a book up to the lake to get some rest and reading. Aslan followed me up there about an hour later. Listen…” She sketched out what Aslan told her.
Quale stroked his fingers along his moustache. “Chatting up the Hanifa?”
Kumari nodded. “Trust you to put your foot on the main point. Yes. Every night. Soon as you and Pels are gone. He’s talked our Hanifa into hiring him as a watchhound. We haven’t a hope of leaving him behind.”
“You mean she’d actually shut down Lift-Off if we refused to take him?”
“It’d be a tight call, but I suspect, yes she would. She never trusted us all that much and he’s been working on her.”‘
“You’ve been monitoring him, why didn’t you stop it?”
“Because I was too dumb to know what he was doing. Not until he’d been doing it long enough to really get under her skin. When I did, what was I supposed to do about it? If you can explain how, it’s more than you’ve done before this.”
“Shit.”
“Precisely.”
“Well, I suppose we do what we have to. And watch our backs.”
8. 26-28 days after the meeting on Gerbek.
Ayla gul Iltika, gul Mizamere, gul Pudryar, one by one Quale and Pels dipped into the Littoral cities of Guneywhiyk and pulled out slaves, some on the list, some of them extras they couldn’t leave behind without telling the world there were Outsiders on Tairanna.
Ayla gul Ukseme was the largest city on Guneywhiyk, in size as well as population; it was a confused sprawl thrown along the inner curve of a skewed half-moon bay. Out where the baywater mingled with the sea there were several Sea Farms, small offshoots of the elder Farms off the coasts of Kuzeywhiyk. There were dozens of freighters tied up at the wharves, linear clusters of one- and two-story warehouses, open-air markets that never shut down; beyond these were stores and Houses spread out along a web of winding streets which climbed over hillocks like horripilation on a cold man’s arms. When he saw the satellite fots, Quale swore fervently and nearly gave up on the city, but Kumari did some snooping and discovered that some of those on the list belonged to the Fehdaz who rented them out during the day and made sure they were back in the pen at the Fekkri by day’s end. Which was very helpful of him. Made it easy to locate them after dark.
The Fekkri was a massive pile with dozens of towers packed in clusters and a mooring post with a pair of midsized airships nose-locked one above the other. The pen was a small excrescence tacked onto the backside of the pile, a low structure with a waist-high parapet around a flat roof cluttered with bales, crates and assorted discards.
As Quale came in over the city, the air was heavy with damp and the promise of rain. The winds near the ground were tricky, gusts to twenty kph one minute, almost nothing the next, downdrafts with the drag of an octopus, updrafts that threatened to capsize the skip. As a final irritation, the pen’s roof was so cluttered with discards, the only open space available was over the trap. Quale landed the skip there and spent the next several minutes sweating and cursing under his breath as he and Pels shifted bales and useless scrap so they could move the machine off their entry point; they had to lift and carry and set down gently, no tossing, no rolling, nothing to make their lives a bit easier; they had to keep the noise down so one of the guards wouldn’t get a notion to check out why the rats in the rafters were so noisy that night.
He left Pels dealing with the lock and strolled to the parapet. On the way in as he was circling so he could put the skip’s nose to the wind and make a smoother, quieter landing, he’d seen crowds in the streets; quiet crowds, no yizzies, no counting coups, no fires, just hordes of people. Something about them bothered him; he wanted a closer look to see if he could figure out what it was.
The street that went past the pen was a broad tree-lined avenue. He saw half a dozen dark forms standing under the trees. They weren’t talking or even moving much. They simply stood and stared at the outer wall of the Fekkri. As he watched, several more figures came round a corner and joined them. By the time Pels summoned him, there was a small crowd down there, silent, motionless, eyes fixed on the wall in front of them. Spooky. He answered Pels’ hissing call with a tooth whistle and turned away, glad to have an excuse not to look at them any longer.