The Burning Ground

2. Music and mouse ears

That night Shadith drifted along The Strip, absorbing color and noise through her skin as much as through eyes and ears; it was a garish gaudy tasteless mess and she loved it, a sensory overload energizing her, filling her with zazz. She’d painted her face, neck, and shoulders with swirls of black and white, pinned a crimson crest and horsetail to her brown-gold fuzz and wrapped her body into bright blue glittergauze. Her feet were bare, her toenails painted gold to match the fauxclaws she’d glued on. She moved in the beats of the clashing music, riding the whipped-up excitement of the crowd around her, mind shut down, eyes searching for something, she didn’t know what, just that she’d know it when she saw it.

She slashed her nails against a groping hand, laughed over her shoulder at the angry man, slipped away from him around a band of small brown Pa’ao Teelys, past a Menaviddan matron with a dozen miniatures of herself clinging to her stiff black hair, lost herself in a motley aggregation of Cousin types on a. guided tour.

Holoas swooped at her, whispered in her ears: Watch the rape and murder of a nomad tribe. Harnke’s Picture Palace has it all. See the secret orgies of the White Brothers. Harnke’s Picture Palace has sensearound, you’ll have every sensation as if it were you in the white robe. Learn what the Bond Sisters do in the heart of their Enclosure. Things so secret and perverse you won’t believe your senses. Harnke’s Picture Palace has group rooms or private viewing, whichever you prefer. Watch the torture and eating of an Impix anya. Bring a friend or meet a stranger with your tastes. Who knows what might come of it. Harnke’s…

When she moved from the set area of one holoa, another began its pitch, whispering, insinuating, enticing.

Her distaste for their wares started to gray down her pleasure, so she ducked into a dingier side street where there were more dangers for the unwary, but at least she’d be free of the whispers. The facades of the playhouses on this street were almost as garish as those on The Strip, with the delights inside flashed across the fronts like the painted flats in an ancient carnival. She tossed her crimson horsetail, danced to the music blaring from the houses, reveling in the slide of muscle on muscle, the vibration that shook her to the bone, wanting no praise or blame from outsiders, no intrusion on her enjoyment of herself.

For a while she was left alone, but the sensual energy in her body began to attract interest in ways she didn’t want, so with a touch of anger and some reluctance she stopped the dance and slipped through a holo-facade that proclaimed the virtues of the Utka-Myot Fight-o-Drome. Two srebs bought her a night’s membership and a battered flake reader that was set to lead her through the delights the playhouse offered.

She moved to the main public arena and dropped onto a bench beside the door to watch a firstcut knife fight. A man and a woman circled each other on the sand. They were quick and well trained, with a number of crowd-pleasing moves that were mostly spectacle. She smiled. Rohant would have wiped the sand with them in about thirty seconds, but she wouldn’t want to face either of them in a real right.

A hand settled on her leg, moved up her thigh, squeezing as it moved. She slapped the hand away and slid down the bench. The man’s face looked familiar, maybe one of those who’d started crowding her on the street.

He slid after her. “You shakin’ it real good out there, minka. Give y’ a good time?”

“Not interested, ‘spois. Leave me ‘lone and go find other meat.” She slid further from him along the nearly empty bench.

He followed, put his hand on her leg again. “Don’ be like that, whore. You sellin’, I buyin’.

“Haul ass, chyr.” She raked the fauxnails across the back of his hand. “Shove y’ chya at me, y’ pull back a stump.”

He cursed her, started an openhanded swing at her face. A metal claw clamped on his wrist, the arm of the peacer ‘bot under the bench, and its minimalist voice grated, “Stri king a cli ent is not per mit ted.”

She used the respite to leave the arena, annoyed with herself for dropping her wariness and allowing this stupidity to happen. Spla spla, it fit well enough into the persona she was throwing into the face of Ptak-sec, so no harm done. She shook the horsetail and laughed at herself. No one watching that bit of folly would possibly see her as a professional investigator on the job.

She looked into two more of the public arenas, found nothing that interested her, and left the fight-o-drome.

“You worry me, little Voyka.”

She scowled over her shoulder at the old man. “You following me round?”

“You aren’t hard to see, got up like that.”

“Not in the mood for sex, if that’s what you’re after. Just want to have some fun.” She moved her shoulders impatiently, put a touch of whine in her voice.

He clicked his tongue, shook his head. “Nothing like that, Voyka, just sayin’. You got any your poems in memory?”

“Some I set as songs. Why?”

“There’s this place down a bit closer to the lake. Man I know runs it. Lots of Ptaks go there, mind that?”

She shrugged. “Their world. So…” She saw the crewman emerging from the fight-o-drome looking ready to chew nails. “Um… let’s move on, hm? That’s a cross street where the shadows are, isn’t it?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Just a creep I had some trouble with.” She sighed, yanked the crest and horsetail from her head, and moved hastily around a clutch of Cousins coming from a playhouse. “Mood he’s in, I don’t want him anywhere round me.”

Shadith glanced at the holo, frowned. “The Hungry Harp?”

“Saul, he’s the owner, he says if you have to have everything explained, you don’t belong there.”

“Mm.”

The old man chuckled. “Come along, Voyka. You can buy kaf or wine at the bar; if you want something else, it’s likely hanging in the shadows.”

Inside was dark and smelled of the herbs in the smoke drifting from the torches in gilded cages scattered about the long L-shaped room, hanging on chains from ceiling beams, swaying in the breeze from the coolers, torches that cast confusing, multiple shadows over the faces of the people seated at the tables. There was a. small stage with a guitar, a flute, and a keyboard sitting on chairs as if they watched the watchers.

Saul was a round little man with eyes so pale they seemed bleached in a face the color of charcoal; he was bald on top but wore his fringe of long gray hair in double plaits tied off with leather thongs. He had a wide, thin-lipped mouth that was never still, squeezing together as he listened to the old man, a corner twisting up, then down, lower lip sucked in, then both lips pursed, then moving from side to side.

When the old man finished, Saul turned his head, called, “Zaddo.”

A man came through a beaded curtain, tall and thin with straight blond hair hanging loose. “Huh?”

“Talk to her.” Saul jerked a thumb at Shadith. He touched her arm, pointed at the stage. “You got fifteen minutes. Zaddo here plays keyboard. Get up there and tell him what you want.”

Shadith fixed the red crest in her hair again, moved with the elaborations of the tune she’d whistled for Zaddo; when she was ready, she sang, playing with the words, turning them to fit the music:

“I am fathoms deep

In love with dark

I fill my mouth with night

And drink the absence

Of the light

Dense and stark

I think

I will not endure

The pure white silence

Of the day

I will sleep the bright away

And rise

With the moon

To reprise

The melodies of night.”

Five songs later, hoarse and weary, humming with the praises of her audience, quite pleased with herself and starting to wonder if the old man was really a spy or just a whacked piece of beach wrack, Shadith ambled back to her boardhouse.

After a long hot shower and a pot of caloury tea to soothe her throat, she stretched out on her bed and went hunting for ears so that she could listen to the Cobben.

Sound of a door closing. Feet, sighs, grunts, a thud as one of the Cobben knocked something onto the floor.

“Meya, you’re drunk!”

“Am not. ‘F you’d turn the light up.”

“Heb, you stink like a whorehouse. Where were you anyway?”

“Whorehouse.” Sound of honking snigger

“Ta-tse, how’s the talent?”

“Talented. Sarpe, you back?” Hebi’s growl loudened to a shout, then he answered himself. “Hunk Guess she is, looka that, shield’s on.”

Sound of door sliding open. A confusion of footsteps, sound of yawns. Sarpe’s voice had a post-orgasmic muting of its usual harsh edges. “So you lot are back”

“You getting shy, Coryfe?”

“Don’t be more of an idiot than you have to, Feyd.”

“Any news?”

“Clo-Kajhat finally came through with what’s on his alleged mind. More than just strangling some hapless git. He wants Linojin brought into the war: The tourists are getting bored with the sniping, he needs something big to get their juices going.”

“Huh? Don’t get it, Sarpe. How’n Tarto’s Hell we supposed to do that?”

“He’s targeted three mals. The Holy Piz who plonks that Temple thing. ahh, Brother Hafambua, Humble Haf the preaching mal, the jinners go round licking up the sweat where he walks, they think he’s so righteous, then there’s a Prophet Speaker called Kuxagan, got a mouth on him could talk you into a spate of celibacy, Heb, need I say more? The third’s the hohek leader, the one they call the Arbiter, name of Noxabo. He keeps the peace between Pixa and Impix, which is something I wouldn’t like to try. CloKajhat figures we do ’em and fix it like one of the other factions killed ’em. That should stir the pot real nice.”

“So when we getting started on it?”

“Day after tomorrow; be ready to catch the boat for k’Wys straight up noon.”

After she let the mouse run free, Shadith lay on the bed staring at the ceiling. The horns of this dilemma had very sharp points. It wasn’t her job, it wasn’t her war. Why should she feel pushed to get to those people to warn them? And who said they’d believe her anyway? And yet…

Finally, tired of the ruts she was running in, she shoved that problem aside and began to consider how she was going to explain disappearing after that performance. Ah Spla! I STILL haven’t gotten into work mode. Or stayed in character. Doing what comes naturally will have to wait till the job’s done, or I’m going to mess up worse than this some time soon. She sighed. If the old man isn’t a spy, just a nice old guy who’s convinced himself I could be a daughter or something like that, he’s going to make one big fuss when I stop showing up. If he is a spy, I’m in the soup for sure.

She laced her hands behind her head and lay scowling at the ceiling. Say I write him a bit of thank-verse, say I’ve met this neat guy and we’re going to do some snuggling, so he shouldn’t fuss if he doesn’t see me for a couple weeks. Give the thing to Saul, tell him to pass it on. Just stupid enough an excuse he might even believe it; the way I’ve been acting, it’ll be right in character. She sighed and turned to working out the final details of stowing away on the Cobben’s flier.