“Bishada!” Ananke cried, grinning with awe and gratitude. “You saved it—”
Reede read the expression on the boy’s face, and his own face twisted. “No. You saved the fucking thing,” he said. He reached into his shirt and dragged the animal out, slung it at Ananke. “Here. You know the rule by now. You save it, it belongs to you. It’s your responsibility. Not mine.”
Ananke took it into his arms gingerly, keeping its long, rodentine teeth away from contact with his hands, protected by the layers of his robes as he held it against his chest, murmuring softly to it. He glanced up at Reede again, for long enough to murmur, “Thank you.”
But Reede’s attention was somewhere else already. He moved away from them abruptly, shoving past a couple of locals to pick someone out of the crowd of curiosity seekers. He caught the boy by his robes and dragged him forward, pitched him over the cistern’s rim almost before the boy had time to scream in protest.
Kedalion heard the boy’s scream as he went in, and heard the splash as he hit the water far below. The motion had happened almost too fast for him to recognize the victim as one of the quoll’s tormentors, the one who had thrown it into the cistern.
Reede came back to them, not looking right or left now, his face expressionless as he glanced at the quoll. It had stopped struggling and was burrowing into the folds of Ananke’s sleeve, making anxious oinkmg sounds, almost as if it were trying to become a part of his body. Ananke stroked its bedraggled fur as gently as if he were touching velvet.
Reede moved on past them, the motion signaling them to follow.
“Reede—” Kedalion said, catching up to him with an effort.
“Drop it,” Reede said, and the words were deadly.
“—Are we going back to the citadel?” Kedalion finished, as if that were what he had intended to ask.
“No.” Reede looked away; looked down at himself and grimaced, shrugged, looked away again. “I have other business to tend to. Drop me in Temple Square. Take the evening off; I’ll call you when I’m through.”
“You better tend those bites,” Kedalion said. “The gods only know what that quoll—”
Reede looked down at him, his irritation showing. “Don’t worry about me, Niburu,” he said sourly. “I’m not worth it.”
“Just worrying about my job,” Kedalion muttered, trying to bury his unintentional display of concern as rapidly as possible.
“I thought you hated this job,” Reede snapped.
“I do,” Kedalion snapped back.
Reede laughed, one of the unexpectedly normal laughs that always took Kedalion by surprise. “If I die I’ve left you everything I own in my will.”
Kedalion snorted. “Gods help me,” he murmured, half-afraid it might even be true. He unsealed the doors of the hovercraft.
Reede grinned, climbing into the rear as the doors rose. He sat down heavily, obliviously, his clothes saturating the expensive upholstery of the seat with pink-tinged water. Kedalion got in behind the controls; Ananke climbed in beside him. Ananke was still carrying the quoll, which had buried itself in his robes until all that was visible was its head pressed flat against his neck, sheltered beneath his chin. It still made a constant burbling song, as if it sought a reassurance that did not exist in the real world. Ananke clucked softly with his tongue, and stroked it with slow hands. He glanced up, as if he felt Kedalion’s eyes on him; his own eyes were full of an emotion Kedalion had never seen in them before, and then they were full of uncertainty.
Kedalion smiled, and nodded. “Just don’t let it shit all over everything, all right?” He took them up, rising over the heads of the streetbound crowd and higher still, until even the flat rooftops were looking up at them. He could see the pyramidal peaks of half a dozen temples rising above the city’s profile; he headed for the one that he knew Reede meant, the one near the starport that the local police had driven them into one fateful night. He tried not to think about that night, without much success.
He brought the flyer down again, settling without incident into an unobtrusive cul-de-sac near the club where they had all first met. The Survey Hall still occupied the address above its hidden entrance. Reede often came to this neighborhood, although what he did here was as obscure to Kedalion as most of his activities were.
Reede got out again, saying only, “Do what you want. I’ll call you, but it won’t be soon.”
Kedalion nodded, and watched him move off down the street with the casual arrogance of a carnivore. Reminded of other animals, he turned to look at Ananke; at the quoll, lying against Ananke’s chest like a baby in folds of cloth, only muttering to itself occasionally now. “How did you do that?” he asked.
Ananke shrugged, stroking its prominent bulge of nose with a finger. “Quolls are very quiet, really. You just have to let them be.” The quoll regarded him with one bright black eye, and blinked.
Kedalion half smiled. “You could say the same about humans.”
“But it wouldn’t be true.”
Kedalion’s smile widened. “No. I guess not.” He glanced away down the street; Reede had stopped at a jewelry vendor’s cart near the corner of the alley.
“I want to go to the fruit seller.”
Kedalion popped his door. “Go ahead. You heard the boss: Do what you want.”
“You’re the boss, Kedalion.” Ananke grinned fleetingly, his white teeth flashing.
Kedalion shook his head, not really a denial. “Since when do you have an appetite for wholesome food?” Whenever they were in town Ananke lived on keff rolls—bits of unidentifiable meat and other questionable ingredients, rolled in dough and fried in fat, all so highly spiced that pain seemed to be their only discernible flavor. “Is the fruit seller young and pretty?”
“Quolls only eat vegetables and fruit,” Ananke said, glancing down.
Kedalion shrugged and nodded, watched him get out and wander off in the direction of the square, passing Reede, who was haggling with the jewelry vendor. Kedalion had never seen Ananke show any real interest in either a woman or a man, and that was strange enough. The kid seemed to be pathologically shy, to the point of never letting anyone see him undressed—something which could get damned inconvenient in the crowded quarters of a small ship on an interstellar voyage. Maybe that explained his problem, or maybe it was only another symptom of whatever the real problem was. … He supposed it didn’t really matter what Ananke’s problem was, as long as he did his job and didn’t go berserk.
He stretched and got out of the hovercraft, securing the doors behind him. He thought about Ravien’s club, remembering Shalfaz. He hadn’t gone back there for a long time, after what had happened to them that night. And when he had, it had been after two trips offworld with Reede. More than nine years had passed at Ravien’s, while only two had passed for him. Someone had told him then that Shalfaz had retired. She’d gone into the somewhat more respectable profession of dye-painting—‘ decorating the hands of wealthy, daring young women with intricate designs for weddings and feast days. He was glad for her, but he missed her. And he sure as hell didn’t miss the drinks, or the atmosphere, at Ravien’s. Maybe he’d just go get himself some early dinner… .
He made his way around the rear of the craft, heading for the square. As he glanced back, checking it over a last time, his eye caught on something that lay glinting in the dust. He went back and picked it up. It was the white metal pendant set with a solii that Reede always wore—he called it his good luck charm. The quoll must have broken the chain in its struggles, and the pendant had fallen out of his clothes.
Kedalion glanced down the street, saw Reede’s back him as he started away from the jewelry vendor’s cart. “Reede!” he called, but Reede went on around the corner.