The Burning Ground

Chapter 8

Shadith woke to the sound of voices, laughter, and the hum of lifters. Her head throbbed from the stale air and her muscles were cramped; she started to stretch, froze as she remembered where she was.

She listened a moment. She couldn’t make out words, but she relaxed anyway because the voices were easy and unworried, a good match for the emotional tone she was picking up from the passenger cabin above her. Her ringchron told her she’d been asleep for more than three hours which probably meant the flier was over the Wandel Sea at the moment.

She rearranged herself cautiously, did a few tense-relax exercises, closed her eyes, and sent the mindride searching. She brushed against a bird mind, slid into it, and found herself looking at the long blue heave of the sea and a distant glitter that she knew had to be the Fence.

She let the bird slide away and tried to work out what she’d do once the flier touched down, but the steady droning, the stuffy air, the futility of planning without data was a soporific mix, and she was soon mindsurfing through nightmare.

She woke again with the sudden glare of light, cursed herself for sleeping too long and sent stiff fingers after the stunner in her sleeve.

“What?” Orm’s voice, sounding irritated.

“What I said. Let that wait unless you feel like hoisting those bales about yourself. The ‘bot developed some kind of epilepsy and either won’t lift at all or hurls stuff over its shoulder. Bijjer’s working on it, but he won’t have it back together before tomorrow.”

Spitting out a curse, Onn slammed the hatch shut and went stomping off.

Shadith started breathing again.

When the outside sounds had faded, she got her supplies together, crawled over the padded bales, and eased the hatch open a few inches.

She listened for several minutes, but the only sounds she heard were the distant twitters of several birds, the whisper of the wind, and an abrasive hiss that she didn’t recognize until she looked down and saw the grit wind-driven across the stone floor of the place where the Cobben had parked the flier. A brief mindsweep confirmed what her eyes and ears had told her. She finished opening the hatch and jumped down.

The flier was sitting near the edge of an immense hollow wind-carved into the stone of the cliff face. A few meters to her left there were boxes and bundles piled in ragged dusty heaps on a floor of loading pallets. Some of them were covered by tarps, but most were abandoned to the wind, their padding tattered by the abrading grit. At the back of the hollow, protected by a sheet of transparent plas, a row of two-seater miniskips hung from clamps set into the stone, looking like a dozen witch’s brooms waiting for a Sabat.

She brushed away dust-clogged webs and chased off the minute arachnids that had spun them, then went after an assortment of fur-covered slugs with dozens of tiny legs, sending them scurrying into cracks and beneath the pallets.

After she’d got herself and her supplies cached in a nook behind the dustiest of the bales, she’ forced down some hipro paste and washed the aftertaste from her mouth with gulps of water. You’d think they’d have fixed this stuff by now so that eating it was a little better than starving. Gahhh. She pulled padding around her head and shoulders, leaned against the cavern wall, and began feeling about for eyes she could use to explore the area.

The light outside was fading, the day almost over in this part of the world. The bird was sleepy, wanting to find a perch for the night, but not fratcheted enough to fight Shadith’s hold. It wound upward in a rising spiral and rode the wind in circles over the Ptakkan camp.

This was the caldera of a large and long-dead’ volcano; dark green conifers grew on the slopes around the periphery, rising to an uneven rim that bit like black teeth into the darkening sky.

There was a round lake in the center, a clump of small wooden houses built in the Ptakkan style with much bright paint, dozeris of lacy balconies, huge windows, and cascades of arches, all of them connected by glass arcades. Beyond the houses there was a flat field paved with a dull red rubbery substance. Playing field? Drill field? Makes one wonder about Ptak military. Shadith grinned at the thought of polychromatic spectacle of a collection of marching Ptaks. The word uniform didn’t exist in Ptakkip.

Two buildings were more utilitarian. The one nearest the playing field was a pitched roof chalet profusely balconied with shutters on the windows. Not a place where Ptaks would be comfortable. Cobben, she thought. Assassins’ Hall. The second was built close to the lake, almost touching the thick line of slim lacy trees that grew at the edge of the sand. It was a long wooden building shaped like a brick, painted white and set inside a tall hedge of thornbush. Part of it was storerooms. That was the section with the small square windows. Where the Ptaks. worked, the windows were fifteen meters by five, acid etched over the bottom third so outsiders couldn’t see in, but the light could come through. The roof above the storerooms was flat and held a bouquet of assorted antennas-and what looked like a Rummal shield generator. Last time I saw one of those was in the tech museum on University. She brought the bird spiraling lower until she could hear the warning hum and feel the faint tightness in the skin that she got when she or her surrogate passed close to heavy power. Control center, she thought. Where they manage the Fence and keep contact with their spies. I’ve got to get in there… The bird started fighting her, and she let it climb again.

There were a few Ptak children playing at the edge of the lake, an old male past his last molt sitting in the shade of the trees and watching over them. More Ptaks wandered through the arches and rockeries, the rapid patter of their high voices carried in broken bits by the wind currents to the bird gliding above them.

The contrast between the tranquillity of that scene and the images of the war reheated her anger at the Ptaks. They managed to ignore just what it was that gave them their comfortable life.

Distracted, she let the bird slip away, and the view vanished abruptly. She swore and began feeling about for land-bound eyes and ears, something that would get her into the Center.

The building was old, maybe even.as old as the Fence, and it had a colony of furslugs that might have been in there since it was built. Shadith slipped into a juvenile slug who was scuttling along through the thick gray dust, the humping wriggling gait considerably faster than it looked; he pounced on a bug like a plate with legs, crunched it down with a degree of smug satisfaction that nearly started her giggling.: He darted into.a hole in the wall, curled his legs under him and slid headfirst, chittering to display his enjoyment, into a maze of tunnels in the dirt. Round pink ears swiveling, nose twitching, he wriggled and humped along the tunnels until he emerged through the tangled roots of a thornbush. He found a patch of sun, flattened himself on the warm dirt, and went to sleep.

Shadith chuckled, shook her head, and went hunting for another mount.

“… katalcreen anomaly. Avo! Where’d you put the list, it’s ignoring the new string.” The tech was a female Ptak, a sleek brown hen with corrective lenses in gold frames perched on an arrogant nose. Shadith was so startled by those, she nearly lost control of her mount.

A small and very young male came from a glassed-in cubicle at one end of the workroom. “O Great Vourts, O Four-eyes of Immeasurable Power, if it was a fidd, it’d bite you. By your elbow.” He leaned against the doorjamb. “Anybody hear if the assessment passed?”

Another tech looked around from her station. “Don’t hold your breath. The Kasif snuffed the last seven tries, this’ll go the same way. Upgrades cost some, satellites more. This stuff still works, so why bother throwing away good coin for things you don’t need.”

Vourts sniffed. “No point in sarcasm, Tippi.” She scowled at her station, snorted, and pulled a thin black book from a crack between two monitors. “At my elbow, huh?”

Shadith took the furslug across the ceiling studs until she found a crack above Vourts’ head, close enough so she could see the screen and read what appeared there.

Vourts leafed through the book, found the page she wanted, and slid the book into a holder. She entered the first key, scowled as access was denied, tried a second, then a third. “Ah! Got.it. l(reecher prog, decided to forget the last two centuries. If it takes this much k’thar to make a simple course correction…”

Interesting. Maybe useful. Hm. That’s enough here. Let’s see if the Cobben’s where I think they are.

“… this all you’ve got?” The harsh, clipped syllables of the Sarpe. A rattle of stiff paper, something being passed from hand to hand.

“It is a finely detailed map, Coryfe.” The Ptak’s voice was near a squawk from suppressed irritation. “Drafted from satellite phots, with data entered from extensive interrogations. There’s a copy for each of you on the table by the door. If you’ll look at these?”

“What are they?”

“Floor plans of the Houses where your targets sleep. You don’t have to worry about security, these are holy types. Your only problem will be getting them alone; they’re almost always surrounded by hordes of other religious. The envelope holds flat phots of the targets, plus flakes with as many images of them as wehave acquired over the past year, some are stills, others show them moving about. The page clipped to the envelope is a schedule of rites and other observances, where the targets will be on each night of the week and who will be with them. Unfortunately, because of the way we were forced to acquire this information, it is some months old. However, your targets do lead rather regimented lives, so that shouldn’t be too great a problem for you. To optimize the chance that the schedule won’t be interrupted by events-and to get a maximum reaction, there’s a Holy Day coming up. Four days from now. We suggest you do the job then.”

“We were told to leave certain evidence…”

“Ah. Yes. That has been assembled. I’ll bring it round tomorrow after you’ve had a chance to look over this material.”

Sound of chairs scraping across the floor. Sounds of movement, one set of feet marching across the plasta matting. Sound of a door closing.

Sound of a case opening. A click.

Pain flashed across Shadith’s brain, transmitted by the furslug trembling in her mindgrip. She let it move away inside the wall until it was comfortable again, within the block instead of pinned at the border.

A snort. “Like to shove that medo’s crest up his arse, teach him manners.”

“Shut up, Yoha. He’s no worse than the others.”

“Not saying much, that. Sarpe, do they really expect us to…?”

“Don’t they always? Send us in blind, expect us to make like ghosts. Orm, get that map pinned down, and let’s get a look at what we’ve got to work with.”

More sounds of shifting, chairs drawn across the floor, paper rattling.

“Hm. The Brother of God, he’s in this huge pile right in the middle. Meya, that packet of plans, which one’s the big sucker?”

Rustle of paper as the Cobben looked through the material handed them.

“Third down. And calling it a plan is… tsah!”

“I see what you mean. We’ll have to do our own scouting and that’s going to be tricky.” Sound of tearing paper. “Ugly zurl, isn’t he. Old frogface. Hm. We’ll need some of those white robes. About the only plus in this mess, those robes, they’ll cover a lot. Meya, Keyr, you’re the closest in size to these Imps. Best be you two doing the scout.”

“All right by me. Lethe dust?”

“Good idea, if you get spotted, we don’t want them remembering you. And since we’ll probably be dropping in next night, we also don’t want a lot of corpses stirring them up.”

“We get a chance at him, do we take itT’

“Good question. They want us to take out all three the same night. Given this slop…” slap of hand, faint rustle of paper “what do you think?”

“I say we do it our way.” Feyd’s rumbling growl. “Do the Brother first, since he’s the hardest to get to. Wait a couple days, hit the Speaker. Wait another couple, maybe three days, hit the Arbiter.”

“I like that.” Keyr’s quick whinnying voice. “Confusion makes things easier.”

“Sometimes.” Orm’s slow drawl. “Sometimes not. CloKajhat give you any reason, Sarpe? I never heard any, just here it is, go do it like we said.”

“All he said was he wants to blow the city apart, get the different factions shooting at each other.”

“This isn’t our kind of thing, Sarpe. You know it isn’t.” Meya’s voice, light, rapid, unhappy. “I think we should put it to the vote, we finish this, then we tell Clo-Kajhat to go min his own chik and get back to Helvetia where we belong.”

As a general argument arose, Shadith soothed the slug to sleep and withdrew enough of her attention to think over what she’d heard.

Up till now she’d concentrated so hard on getting here, she hadn’t thought much about the difficulties of finding Yseyl, one small Pixa in a city full of Pixa and Impix. I have to get one of those maps. After they’ve left, maybe. Do I need to hear any more of this? No. I don’t think so.

She woke the furslug and let it go humping off, then took another swallow of water and tried settling to sleep.

Sleep wouldn’t come.

Three people were targeted for death. She knew about it. It wasn’t her business. Digby would be furious. He’d warned her; if she went on working for him, she’d be bound to come across things that appalled her about their clients and she’d better make up her mind to ignore them. But…

It wasn’t her business…

“All right,” she whispered into the dusty darkness. “I don’t like Cobben, I never have. They aren’t clients. Ptak aren’t clients. I’m going to kick their little plans into moondust.” She thought about that a moment, shook her head. “Ah Spla, I’ll do something. Don’t know what right now…”

She pulled the padding closer about her and this time dropped into a dreamless sleep.