The Burning Ground

3. Morning after

Head throbbing in sync with the caller chimes, Shadith groaned and groped until she found the shutoff and the wake-up call went silent. She lay a moment, her face buried in the pillow, flickers of memory running through her head. Did I really strip to the skin in that cheechirrie dump and dance with a pack of rats I ‘ticed from the conduits? Oh, Spla Ha!

She moved her legs over the edge of the bed and pushed up till she was sitting with her head in her hands. Her mouth felt like the tail of an old jack’s ragship. She straightened her back, sucked in a long breath. Mistake. The stink of sex and smoke and stale drink and who knew what else churned her stomach into instant rebellion.

She lunged up and reached the fresher just in time.

When she joined Autumn Rose in the lobby of the ottotel, she was neat and clean and ready for business. Rose smiled at the dark blotches under bloodshot eyes, but said nothing, just moved out with a brisk beat of her boot heels on the pavement. Shadith closed her eyes a moment, then grimly followed after her.

Marrat’s OverSec was an ancient Blurdslang; his three rheumy eyes were set so deep in warty folds of tissue that an occasional gleam was the only evidence he was awake and alert. His nutrient dish was larger than most and closed in, his tentacles rested on the cover in contemplative loops. Around him, shut into cubicles of soundproofed glass, much younger Blurdslangs worked over sensor boards or watched plates, the hair-fine fingerlets at the end of their handling tentacles busy at notation and half a dozen other tasks; the Blurdslang mind was more than capable of doing several things at once.

The Elder’s age and status made him unwilling to attempt the usual approximation of interlingue most Blurdslang spoke. Instead he held a voice cube in one of his manipulators, the fingerlets wriggling like a nest of worms over the surface sensors, producing words in a sweetly musical voice that seemed to amuse him; when the cube spoke, his horny lips flexed and shifted in the silent dance of Blurdslang laughter. “You will make your copies here, and we will review them before they leave our hands. It is only because of Digby’s reputation for magisterial silence that we have bowed to Sunflower’s pressure and allowed this. We ask that you destroy the flakes once you have no more use for them.” He paused and waved a tentacle tip at Autumn Rose.

“It will be done.”

“Good. The room is prepared, access to the hours in question has been arranged, there is a supply of blank flakes in a recorder. Any questions?”

“The reviewing of the flakes can be accomplished in the room assigned?”

“Ah. That was not envisaged, but certainly can be arranged while the two of you are viewing the originals.”

“Then we need to get started.”