The Summer Queen

ONDINEE: Razuma Port Town

“Damme, it’s Kedalion!” Ravien leaned across the bar, his heavy blue-black hand catching the back of Kedalion’s collar and hauling him the rest of the way up onto a seat. “Has it been a round trip already, then?”

Kedalion Niburu straightened up on the high stool, rearranging his coat. “Thank you, Ravien, I think—” he murmured. He leaned on the bar, his legs dangling like a child’s over the edge of a seat that was nearly his own height. Being not much over a meter tall in a universe where most humans were nearly twice that height had its drawbacks; among its mixed blessings was the fact that very few people ever forgot him, even after six years. “You’ve got a memory like a servo. And a grip to match.”

Ravien snorted, and poured him a drink. “See if I remembered that right.”

Kedalion took a sip of the greenish-black liquid, and made a face. “Ye gods, right again,” he said sourly. “You mean to tell me this is still the best thing you have to drink?”

Ravien rubbed his several chins. “Well, you know, we’re lucky to get anything at all, what with the stinking breath of the Church Police down my neck all the time. I can get the sacramental wine on the black market, because it profits the Church… . But for a certain price, I could maybe find you something special.”

“Bring it out.” Kedalion pushed the cup back across the bar. “I made all my deliveries on Samathe. I’m feeling worth it.”

“Good man!” Ravien nodded happily, wiping his hands down the front of his elaborately formal and extremely unbecoming shirt as he started away toward the back room.

Kedalion leaned on the bar, looking out into the room, absently scratching the astrogation implants hidden in his hair. First a drink, then a room and a shower and some companionship… He felt a pleasant twinge of nostalgia, brought on by the completion of another successful run. Though maybe nostalgia was the wrong word for it. Relief was probably more accurate. He was a legal trader, but the people he did business with and for usually were not. It was an interesting life … and half his time was spent wishing he’d chosen some other line of work. He wondered, not for the first time, if he was trying to prove something to somebody. Well, what the hell— As far as he could see, that was what motivated the entire human race.

He let his gaze wander the subterranean room, taking in the reflective ceiling that hid the naked structural forms of someone else’s basement. Up above them was the Survey Hall, where offworlders who belonged to that ancient, conservative social group talked politics, gave each other self-important secret handshakes, and generally spent their evenings far more tediously than he planned to. He had wandered through a display of the latest Kharemoughi tech imports in one of their meeting rooms before arriving at the club’s hidden entrance; what he had seen of the Hall was severe and stuffy-looking.

The decor here, on the other hand, set his teeth on edge with its gleaming excess. He focused on the dancer performing incredible contortions as effortlessly as he would breathe, to the rhythmic, haunting accompaniment of a flute and drum, and the wild trills of a woman singer. This was the best private club he knew of in Razuma, and that wasn’t a compliment. There were no public clubs. The theocracy that was Ondinee’s dominant onworld government forbade even thinking about most of the things that went on here, and in other places like this. He had heard that all those things, and worse, went on all the time in the Men’s Orders that most privileged Ondinean males belonged to. But places where offworlders were welcome, and permitted to enjoy themselves, were as rare as jewels, and about as hard to find, even in a major port like Razuma.

The irony was that while it persecuted vice among its own people with a fervor that verged on the perverse, the Church also harbored—and let itself be intimidated by—the largest enclave of offworld vice cartels in the Hegemony. A large part of the local population made its living harvesting drug crops and doing whatever else the cartels needed done. The offworlder underworld made an enormous contribution to the Church’s economic and political stability.

The relationship was not without its complications, however, like most long-term relationships. Retribution was as much a part of the symbiosis as contribution. A politician or churchman who made too much noise about reform got a single warning—if he was lucky—and then a lethal sample of the offworlders’ wares. It was a system which made the cartels’ strange-bedfellowship with the Church lords work very well. He should know. He worked for them too.

Ravien came back with a bottle full of something that looked to be a decent shade of amber. He poured it into an ornate silver metal cup, and passed it across the bar.

Kedalion took a sip, didn’t gag, and nodded. Whatever it was, it was drinkable. “Better. How’s business been?”

Ravien made a noise like clearing out phlegm. “Wonderful,” he said sourly. “I could do ten times the business, if I didn’t have to be so careful. The bribes I pay would astound you, and still they raid me! But they’d close me down completely if I didn’t pay them. At least they’ve left me alone these past few weeks… .” He threw up his hands and stumped away, still muttering.

Kedalion shook his head, even though Ravian was no longer there to see the gesture, and went on drinking, searching the crowd for a familiar face. He’d take a few days off and then it would be time to start hustling for another job. It wasn’t that he’d need the money that soon; more that he’d need to get away from here. This world depressed him too much, reminding him more acutely than even Kharemough of how uncomfortable human beings invariably made one another.

The sound of tinkling bells and the heavy fragrance of perfume made him turn in his seat, as one of the entertainers insinuated herself against the bar beside him. “Ah,” she said, running slender ebony fingers through his close-cropped brown hair. “Hello, Kedalion. Have you missed me’.’ I’ve missed you.” She let the fingers trickle like water down the side of his jaw.

“Then it’s certainly mutual,” he said, feeling a grin spread across his face. She laughed. “I love you lightskins, the way you blush,” she said. Her name was Shalfaz, which was the name of the desert wind in the local dialect. She wasn’t young anymore, but she could still haunt a man’s dreams like the wind. Her body made music with every slightest movement, from the necklaces, bracelets, anklets she wore, heavy with the traditional clattering bangles and silver bells. She did not go veiled, since her occupation, though traditional, was hardly respectable, and her robes were of thinnest gauze, in brilliant layers like petals on a flower. “My room is empty—” she said. Her indigo eyes gazed meaningfully into his own light blue ones.

He scratched his stubbled jaw, still smiling. “Yes,” he said, and nodded, answering her unspoken question. “But have a drink with me first; it’s the first time Ravien has given me liquor I minded leaving. Let me savor the anticipation a little.”

She nodded and smiled too, bobbing her head in what was almost an obeisance. She sat down. “You honor me,” she murmured, as she saw what he was drinking.

“On the contrary,” he said, feeling uncomfortable as he realized she meant that.

She sipped the amber liquor and sighed, closing her eyes. She opened them again, looking out across the room. “What a strange night it has been,” she said, almost as if she were thinking aloud. “It must be a mooncrossing night. See that boy there—” She lifted her hand. “He was with me just since. But all he did was talk. He didn’t even take oft his clothes. He asked me to show him how I did some of my moves in the dance, but it didn’t arouse him. He was very polite. But he just talked.” She shook her head. “He always comes in alone, not with friends. I think maybe he’s some kind of pervert, but he doesn’t know which.”

“Maybe he misses his mother,” Kedalion said, following her gaze. “He’s only a kid.”

She shrugged, jingling. “He said he wants to leave Ondinee. That’s why he comes in here, he said, to look for someone who would take him on for crew. He’s been here every night for a week.”

“Oh?” Kedalion kept watching the boy, not certain why he did, at first. He saw a youth with Shalfaz’s midnight coloring, dressed in a loose robe and pantaloons of dark, bulky cloth. The boy’s long, straight, jet-black hair was pulled back in a ponytail; thin braids dangled in front of his ears. There was nothing about him that marked him as different from any of the dozen or so other local men scattered around the room—probably all hirelings of some drug boss, from their easy mingling with offworlders.

Unease. That was what made the boy different; he looked uncomfortable. It was as if he was uncomfortable inside his skin, uncertain whether it was showing the right face to the universe, or about to betray him. It was a feeling Kedalion recognized instinctively.

“Shalfaz,” Kedalion said, leaning back against the bar, “would you ask him to join us?”

She turned to him, her eyebrows rising. “You wish to hire him?”

“I wish to speak to him, anyway.” Kedalion shrugged, a little surprised himself. He was not impulsive by nature. “Maybe I wish to hire him. We’ll see.” He had had a partner when he started out, but they had gone their separate ways a while ago. Smuggling was a business that took its toll on the nerves, and after a while they had gotten on each other’s too much of the time. He had worked alone since then, but that had its own drawbacks, especially for a small man in a big man’s universe. He suddenly realized that he was tired; and he had never been a loner by nature.

Shalfaz left his side in a soft cloud of silver music. He watched her make her way across the room to where the boy was sitting and speak to him, gesturing at Kedalion. The boy’s head came up, and he rose from his chair almost in one motion to follow her back to the bar.

They had almost reached it when a hand shot out from a table full of local youths and caught Shalfaz’s clothing, jerking her up short. She tried to pull away without seeming to, and Kedalion could almost make out her murmured half-protests as she explained that her time was taken. The man’s answer was slurred and crude. The boy hesitated, looking toward Kedalion, and then turned back, speaking brusquely to the other Ondineans as he tried to take her hand. One of the men pushed him away. Kedalion watched the boy recover his balance with surprising grace, saw his fists tighten with anger. But he didn’t reach for the knife at his belt, only stood with his hands flexing in indecision as the drunken youth at the table pulled his own blade.

Kedalion slid down from his stool and crossed the space between them. “My guests would like to join me at the bar,” he said flatly. “I’d appreciate it if you would let them do that.” He hooked his hands over his weapon belt … realized with a sudden unpleasant shock that it was empty, because noncitizens were not allowed to carry weapons in the city. He kept his face expressionless, needing all his trader’s skill to ignore the gleaming knifeblade almost exactly at eye level in front of him. “Shalfaz—?” he said, with a calm he did not feel.

“You insult my manhood, runt.” The Ondinean with the knife jabbed it at Kedalion’s face, this time speaking the local tongue, not Trade. “Leave now, and keep your own—or stay, and lose it.”

Kedalion backed up a step as more knives began to appear below the table edge, hidden from most eyes, but not from his. He knew enough about young toughs like these to realize that if he pushed it they’d kill him; but even if he backed off now there was no guarantee they’d let the matter drop. His hands tightened over his empty belt, and he said numbly, “Neither of those choices is acceptable,” answering in their own language. He wondered how in seven hells he had managed to get into such a stupid position so quickly. The wine must have been stronger than he thought.

“Kedalion, please go,” Shalfaz said softly. “I will stay here.” She moved closer to the man who still held her arm, her body settling against him.

“Slut!” He slapped her. “You don’t tell a man what to do. I choose, not you!” He shoved her away. She crashed, jingling, into the offworlder who had been leaning against the bar behind them, watching with casual amusement. The bottle the man had been holding fell and smashed, spraying them with liquor and bits of broken ceramic.

Kedalion dodged back awkwardly as the local youth aimed a kick at him. And then his vision seemed to strobe as the man Shalfaz had collided with suddenly exploded past her.

Before Kedalion could quite believe it was happening, the man with the knife was no longer a man with a knife—he was a man howling on the floor, and the offworlder’s foot was on his neck. “You want a fight—?” The, curved, jewel-handled blade was in the stranger’s fist, and he was grinning at the fury still forming on the faces of the other men around the table. He flashed the knife at them. “Come and get it,” he said.

Kedalion backed up another step. “He must be mad,” Shalfaz whispered. Kedalion, who had caught a flashing look into the man’s eyes, didn’t answer. Slowly he began to edge away, taking Shalfaz and the boy with him.

“Dopper shit,” one of the Ondmeans said, “there are six of us, and one of you. Do you want to kiss the sole of my boot and beg our forgiveness? Or do you really want your guts cut out of you with that blade?”

Kedalion glanced back, hesitating as he saw the offworlder’s smile grow thin and tight. “Sure.” the offworlder said, twisting the knife so that it caught the light. “Gut me. I’d enjoy that; that sounds good. Or maybe use it to peel my skin off a centimeter at a time…. But you still have to get this away from me first.” He leaned on the edge of their table, waving the blade at them, invading their space with fatal nonchalance. “Well—?”

Their stares broke and fell away from the hunger in his eyes. They looked at each other, their bodies unconsciously shrinking back from him. “The Foreteller has shown us that it is unworthy to kill the insane,” another man muttered. The blades did not go back into sheaths, but the men began to get up slowly from the table.

The offworlder snorted and stepped back, looking down at the man still sprawled on the floor. “You kiss my boot, you shit.” The bottom of his foot brushed the man’s lips in a not-quite-gentle caress. He shoved the man’s dagger into his own belt. “Then think twice about being an asshole in such a crowded room.”

The Ondinean scrambled to his feet, spitting and wiping his mouth, and joined his friends. “You will die for this!” His voice shook. The others put restraining hands on him, because they were surrounded now by the club’s security. Ravien himself stood beside the offworlder, putting a cautionary hand on his shoulder. The stranger shrugged it off. But he only murmured, “Yes. Sooner or later…” looking back at them. “Sooner or later we all get what we deserve.”

Kedalion joined Shalfaz and the boy at a table as far from the scene of the fight as possible, stopping only to collect his bottle from the bar. As he went he saw the club’s security herding the Ondineans toward the door. He noticed with some surprise that Ravien escorted the offworlder solicitously back to the bar instead of having him thrown out with the rest. Well, the man had lost a bottle. Or maybe Ravien didn’t want his private entrance marked by a litter of corpses.

The offworlder shot Kedalion a curious glance as he passed. Kedalion touched his forehead in a brief, wary acknowledgment, and the stranger gave him a surprisingly cheerful smile. Kedalion looked away from it, and went on to the table. He poured drinks for himself and the two Ondineans; noticed the boy’s stare as he handed a drink to Shalfaz. “You ever see that one before?” Kedalion asked her, gesturing over his shoulder at the stranger.

She nodded, still looking as unnerved as he felt. “He comes in often to watch the shows. He never visits anyone’s room, male or female. He is usually very quiet, and sits by himself.”

Kedalion took a deep breath, shaking himself out, and looked at the boy again. “So,” he said, somewhat inadequately. “Shalfaz says you’re looking for a way to get offworld.” The boy nodded, selfconsciousness struggling with hope on his face. “I can’t imagine why.” Kedalion glanced toward the door and back, his mouth twitching sardonically. “Why?”

The boy also looked toward the spot where the locals had made their forced exit. He made a disgusted face of his own in response.

Kedalion studied him, as unobtrusively as possible. The boy was small and slight compared to the men who’d just left, even though he still towered over Kedalion. Maybe he was tired of being bullied. “What kind of work are you looking for?”

The boy hesitated, and then said, “Anything,” meeting Kedalion’s stare. Kedalion half smiled, thinking that at least the kid didn’t ask for “honest work.” He probably knew how much of that he’d find in a place like this.

“What skills do you have?”

The boy hesitated again, his face furrowing. “I’m flexible,” he said.

“Physically or mentally?”

“Both.” A spark of pride showed in the boy’s changeable eyes.

Kedalion laughed out loud this time. “That’s unique,” he said. “And probably an asset.” The boy was wearing the long, curved ritual knife all the local men wore, although his was plain and cheap-looking, like his clothes. He also carried a less common state-of-the-art stun weapon, partly concealed by the folds of his jacket. “You ever kill anybody?” Kedalion asked, wondering suddenly if that was why he was in a hurry to leave. But he remembered how the boy had hesitated, confronting the men who had accosted Shalfaz—not a coward, but not a hothead, either.

The boy jerked slightly, as if he had been insulted. Most of the young Ondinean males Kedalion had met fought knife duels as often as they smoked a pot of water weed together. Those blades weren’t for show; they could cut a man open like a redfruit. If it wasn’t for modern medical technology, Ondinee would be depopulated inside of a couple of generations. “I don’t want to kill people,” the boy said. “But I would kill someone if I had to.”

There was none of the glazed bravado Kedalion expected in the indigo eyes, but somehow he knew that the boy meant what he said.

“Have you killed people?” the boy asked bluntly.

“I don’t want to kill people either.” Kedalion shrugged. “I’m just a runner.”

The boy’s glance searched out Kedalion’s legs, hidden under the table edge.

“Not that kind of runner. As you can see, I’m not equipped for the odds.” For a second a smile hovered on the boy’s lips. “Just say I’m a trader. I transport goods from world to world. I travel a lot. I run an honest business. But I can’t say the same for most of my customers. My mother, rest her soul, would say I keep bad company. What’s your name?”

“Ananke.” the boy said, looking down. It meant Necessity. He glanced at Shalfaz, and back at Kedalion again. “I would like to work for you.”

“Do you have any tech training?” Kedalion asked, skeptical. The boy didn’t look old enough to have had much work experience.

“Some.” Ananke nodded earnestly. “I’ve been studying with the university whenever I can pay for an outlet.”

He had ambition, at least. Kedalion sipped his drink, noncommittal. “How do you support yourself?”

“I’m a street performer,” the boy murmured. “A juggler and an acrobat.”

Kedalion reached into the maze of pockets inside his long, loose coat, pulled out the huskball he had carried with him like a kind of talisman ever since he was a boy. He tossed it at Ananke with no warning. Ananke caught it easily, flipped it into the air, over his shoulder; made it disappear and reappear between his hands. Kedalion grinned, and caught it, barely, as the boy suddenly threw it back to him. “Okay,” he said. “You work my next run with me, we’ll see how it goes. At least it’ll earn you passage to somewhere else. I’ll pay you ten percent of the profit when we get there. You can make a start with that.”

The boy grinned too, nodding. “I have all my things here. I’ll get them—”

“Relax.” Kedalion put up a hand. “I’ve still got to find us a cargo. And besides, I just got here; I won’t be going anywhere for a while.” He glanced at Shalfaz. She smiled, and his bones melted. “Just be here when I want to leave.”

Ananke nodded again, looking at them with an expression that was knowing and somehow full of pain all at once. Kedalion remembered what Shalfaz had said about the boy, and wondered. Ananke began to get up from his chair.

“With my compliments,” a soft, slightly husky voice said, behind Kedalion’s back. “And my apologies.”

Ananke looked up, sat down again, surprise filling his face. Shalfaz shrank back in her seat, her hands fluttering.

Kedalion turned in his own seat, to find the offworlder who had challenged the Ondineans standing behind him. The man grinned disarmingly, taking in the tableau of mixed emotions as if he were used to it. He probably was, Kedalion thought. He was tall, but slender; Kedalion’s memory of the fight seemed to hold someone a lot larger, more massive. But there was no mistaking those eyes—bluer than his own, probing him with the intensity of laser light when they met his. The offworlder looked away first, as if he was aware of the effect his gaze had on strangers.

He set something down on the tabletop between the three of them—another bottle. Kedalion stared at it in disbelief. The bottle was an exotic, stylized flower form, layers of silver petals tipped with gold. Pure silver, pure gold… . Kedalion reached toward it, touched it, incredulous. Only one thing came in a bottle like that; they called it the water of life. It was the most expensive liquor available anywhere in the Hegemony, named for the far rarer drug that came from Tiamat, a drug which kept the absurdly rich young at unbelievable expense. The real thing was no longer available at any price, now that Tiamat’s Gate was closed for the next century. Kedalion had never expected to taste this imitation of it any sooner than he tasted the real thing.

“Apologies—?” he remembered to say, finally; he tore his eyes from the silver-gilt bottle to look up at the stranger again. “I should be sending you a bottle.” He shrugged, realizing that his own smile was on crooked as he looked into that face again.

The stranger grunted. “Ravien tells me I should have let you settle your own quarrel,” he murmured. “I made an ass of myself tonight. I’m not in a very good mood.” The gallows grin came back; “But then. I guess I never am.” his fingers drummed against his thigh. “Sorry.”

“Nothing to forgive,” Kedalion said, thinking that if the stranger hadn’t intervened, even the genuine water of life wouldn’t have been enough to revive him. “Believe me.” He looked at the silver bottle again, still not quite believing his eyes. He picked it up, almost afraid to touch it, and held it out to the stranger.

“Keep it,” the stranger said. “I insist.”

Kedalion looked into his eyes, and didn’t argue. He pulled the bottle toward him, his hands proving its reality again, and unset the seal with his thumb. Sudden fragrance filled his head like perfume, made his mouth water, filled his eyes with tears of pure pleasure. “Ye gods,” he murmured, “I had no idea…” He passed the bottle around the table, letting the others touch it with awed hands, breathe in its essence; watching their faces.

Kedalion realized that the stranger was still standing beside him, taking it all in, with something that was almost fascination in his own eyes. “Join us—’?” Kedalion asked, not particularly wanting to. but feeling that he could hardly do anything else, under the circumstances. The service unit under the smooth onyx-colored table obliged him, spitting out an extra cup.

“Not my poison,” the stranger murmured. He shook his head, unkempt fingers of brown hair brushing his shoulders. Kedalion started to breathe again as the man began to turn away; but the man shrugged abruptly, and turned back. He pulled out a seat and sat down. “I’m Reede,” he said.

Kedalion made introductions, trying not to look like a man sitting next to an armed bomb. He poured water of life for himself and the two Ondineans, somehow managing not to spill a drop, even though his hands weren’t steady.

He stole another glance at Reede, wondering how the other man had come by something like this bottle, and why he was willing to give it up so casually. It was a rich man’s gesture, but Reede didn’t look like a rich man. He wore nondescript black breeches and heavy dockhand’s boots, a sleeveless jerkin dangling bits of jewelry and flash—souvenirs. Not an unusual outfit for a young hireling of some drug king. Reede’s bare arms were covered with tattoos, telling his life history in the Hegemony’s underworld to anyone who wanted to look close enough. There was nothing unusual about that, either; the only thing odd about the tattoos was that there were none on his hands.

Probably he was another smuggler, looking for work, and this bottle was a flamboyant way of advertising his services. Just what they needed; competition. But Kedalion intended to enjoy Reede’s generosity anyway. Even though Kedalion didn’t advertise, his reputation for reliability was usually enough to get him all the work he could handle. “You a runner?” he asked Reede.

Reede looked surprised. “Me? No.” He didn’t say what he did do. Kedalion didn’t ask. “Why?” Reede asked, a little sharply, and then, “You need one?”

“I am one.” Kedalion shook his head.

Reede nodded, easing off. “I knew your name was familiar. Your ship is the Prajna. That’s a Samathan word for ‘God’—?” He raised his eyebrows.

“One of them,” Kedalion said. “It means ‘astral light,’ actually. It’s supposed to bring luck.” He shrugged, mildly annoyed at having to explain himself.

“It seems to work for you.” Reede’s mouth twitched. “You have a good reputation. And you had your share of good fortune tonight.” He spoke Trade, the universal second language of most people who did interstellar business. Everyone here in the port spoke it; even the boy Ananke handled it well enough. It was easy to learn a language with an enhancer; Kedalion spoke several. It wasn’t easy to make a construct like Trade sound graceful. And from what he had seen tonight, Reede was the last person he would have expected to manage the feat. He glanced at Reede again, wondering where in hell somebody like this came from anyway. Reede looked back at him, with an expression that was close to thoughtful “So ‘honor among thieves’ is the code you live by?”

Kedalion smiled, hoping the question was rhetorical. “I only wondered how you came by this.” He raised his cup of the water of life in a toast; its scent filled the air he breathed. The silver liquid lay in the cup like molten metal, waiting.

Reede shrugged. “I got it at the bar.”

“From Ravien?” Kedalion asked, incredulous. “That bastard.” He pointed at his own bottle. “He claimed this was the best he had; he’s been serving me swill for years.”

Reede grinned ferally. “He does that to everyone. You just have to know how to ask…” He fingered the expensive-looking jeweled ear cuff that dangled against his neck; jerked it off suddenly, as if it was burning hot, and flung it down on the table in disgust.

Kedalion looked away nervously. “Uh-huh,” he murmured. He wondered how old Reede actually was; sitting here he had begun to realize that the other man was much younger than he had thought. Reede had a strikingly handsome face, and surprisingly nobody had smashed it in yet. But it was the face of someone barely out of his teens—hardly older than Ananke, and a good ten years younger than he was himself. The thought was depressing. But maybe Reede was just baby-faced; his punk-kid looks were peculiarly at odds with his manner and his apparent status. Kedalion decided that whatever Reede’s real age was, someone who lived like that was not likely to get much older.

Reede sat moodily biting his thumbnail. He noticed Shaifaz staring at his castoff earring, and flicked it across the table at her. She picked it up with long, slim fingers that hesitated slightly, and put it on. She glanced at him, her expression grave. He smiled and nodded, and slowly she smiled too. Ananke watched them silently; he barely seemed to be breathing.

Kedalion let out his own breath in a sigh, and lifted his cup again. “Good business,” he said, offering the toast, savoring his anticipation. The two Ondineans raised their cups.

“Good fortune.” Shaifaz gave the answer, still fingering her new earring as she lifted her cup.

As the cup touched Kedalion’s lips, a loud sudden noise made him jerk around. The rest of the room seemed to turn with him. a hundred heads swiveling at once, looking toward the club’s entrance. And then chairs were squealing on the patterned floor and the crowd found its voice, the room became a sea of shouting, cursing motion.

“Son of a bitch,” Reede muttered irritably. “A raid.” He leaned back in his chair, folding his arms in resignation, like a man waiting out an inconvenient rainstorm.

Kedalion exchanged glances with the two Ondineans, not feeling as sanguine about the outcome. He had never been present when the Church Police raided a club, and never wanted to be. He had heard enough stories about their brutality toward offworlders—that it was even worse than their brutality toward their own people. The Hegemonic authorities were supposed to have jurisdiction over noncitizens, but the Church inquisitors seldom bothered to notify or cooperate with them.

A half dozen armed, uniformed men stood in the entrance, blocking it off, searching the crowd as if they were looking for someone in particular. Kedalion felt the habitual cold fist of paranoia squeeze his gut; realizing that in a crowd like this it was monstrous egotism to think they were looking for him, but not able to stop the sudden surge of fear.

And then a local man stepped from between the uniformed police—one of the youths Ravien had thrown out of the club. He pointed. He pointed directly at Kedalion.

Kedalion swore, sliding down from his chair as Shalfaz and Ananke rose from theirs. Reede looked toward the entrance as he noticed their panic. “You better get out of here—” He was already on his feet as he spoke, beside Shalfaz, taking her arm. “You know another way out?”

She nodded, already moving toward the back of the club, with Ananke on her heels. Kedalion started after them; hesitated, turned back to grab the silver bottle off the table. He plunged back into the sea of milling bodies like a man diving into the ocean; he was immediately in over his head, battered by the surge of panic-stricken strangers. Cursing, he fought his way through them in the direction he thought Shalfaz had taken, but the others were lost from sight.

Hands seized him around the waist and dragged him back and up. He struggled to break the hold, aimed a hard blow at his captor’s groin—

“Goddamn it!”

He realized, half a moment too late, that the man was not wearing a uniform.

Reede swore, doubling up over him. “You asshole!” He straightened with an effort, holding Kedalion under one arm like a stubborn child.

Cursing under his breath, Kedalion let himself be carried ignominiously but rapidly through the crush of bodies, through a maze of dark tunnels, and finally out into the reeking back-alley gloom. The others stood waiting, fading against the darkness. Reede dropped him on his feet.

“Go, quickly,” Shalfaz said, waving them on. “I must get back.”

“But—” Kedalion gasped, with what breath he still had in him. “Will you be safe?”

She shrugged, her body going soft with resignation. “I am only a woman. I am not held responsible. If I let them—”

“No!” Ananke said. “Don’t! Come with us.” He pulled at her arm almost desperately.

“The earring,” Reede said. “The stones are genuine. Buy them off. You know the customs.” She nodded, and he shoved Ananke out into the street. “Get moving.” He jerked Kedalion off his feet again.

“Damn it, put me down!” Kedalion swore as Reede began to run. “i can—”

“No, you can’t.”

“Goddammit, I’m not—”

“Yes, you are. In big trouble. Complain about your injured dignity later,” Reede hissed, looking back over his shoulder as he heard shouting. Light burst on them from up ahead, lancing through the mudbrick alleyway between building walls; they collided with Ananke as the boy skidded to a stop. “We’re trapped!” Ananke cried, his voice going high like a girl’s.

Reede glanced up, at something beyond sight, and grunted, “They’re high tracking us.” He turned and forced them into the narrow tunnel between two buildings, out into a small open plaza; all Kedalion could see was mudbrick and shadows, all he could hear was the sound of angry voices shouting at them to stop. He shut his eyes. Any minute Reede would go down to someone’s weapon, and this grotesque ignominy would reach its inevitable conclusion—

They slammed through the high double doors in a mountain of building facade, into the vast cavern of its interior, the befuddling darkness barely defined by the glow of countless candles. Up ahead of them a wall of hologramic illumination burst across Kedalion’s vision—a thousand views of paradise painted in light, rising to an ecstatic apex, a finger pointing toward heaven like the pyramidal structure of which it formed one wall.

“We’re in a temple!” he gasped. “Can we ask for sanctuary?”

“From the Church Police? Who do you think they work for?” Reede muttered He dropped Kedalion onto his feet again and hesitated, searching the candlelit darkness. There were still a few worshipers prostrating themselves before the high altar and the radiant images of light. He turned back as the heavy doors burst open behind them. “Lose yourselves,” he said. “I’ll draw them off… . Hey! Police!” he shouted, a warning or an invitation, Kedalion wasn’t sure.

“Reede—” Kedalion began, but Reede was already bounding away, silhouetting himself against the blinding light. “Gods! Come on.” He nudged Ananke forward through the forest of candelabra, hoping that they could fade into the random motion of bodies as people picked themselves up from their prayers and scurried toward the exits. He pulled on the boy’s arm, forcing him into the crowd. Ananke followed like someone in a trance; Kedalion felt the boy’s body tremble.

Kedalion glanced back as people in the scattering crowd cried out, to see Reede scramble up onto the gold-crusted altar, climbing higher among its rococo pinnacles in an act of unthinkable desecration. Ananke gasped in horror, and Kedalion swore in empathy and disgust as the black-uniformed figures of the police closed in on Reede.

And then Reede leaped—throwing himself off of the altar into the embrace of the light, into the wall of heaven.

Kedalion heard a splintering crash and stopped dead, gaping in disbelief. The image hadn’t been a hologram at all—it had been a wall of backlit glass. Now it bore a gaping black hole where Reede had gone through it into the night outside. Kedalion groaned, beyond words to express what filled him then.

He stared on again, but too late. Armored hands fell on his shoulders, wrenching him around and into the embrace of a body manacle; a volley of blows and kicks drove him to his knees, retching.

The police dragged him outside, with curses so graphic that he couldn’t even translate most of them … or maybe they were promises. Ananke staggered beside him, bloody and dazed. Something was digging into his ribs beneath his jacket—the silver and gold flask of the water of life. Sweet Edhu, he thought, I’m going to die. They’ll kill us for this. And I never even got to taste it. A gasp of hysterical laughter escaped him, and someone slapped him hard.

Behind the temple, in a glittering snowfall of broken glass, the rest of the police were gathered around Reede’s sprawled body. Kedalion thought with a sick lurch that they’d killed Reede already. But as he was dragged closer he saw them haul Reede up, his face bloody but his eyes wide open, and knock him sprawling again into the field of glass.

Wanting to look away, Kedalion kept watching as a man who looked like an officer pulled Reede to his feet, shaking him. “You think that’s pain you feel, you whey-faced filth’? You don’t know what pain is, yet—”

Reede stared at him with wild eyes, and laughed, as if the threat was completely absurd. Kedalion grimaced.

“Take him to the inquisitor,” the officer snarled, gesturing toward the police ground-van waiting across the square. Reede did not protest or resist as they hauled him roughly toward it. “Take them all!”

Reede looked back as the officer’s words registered on him. He stiffened suddenly, resisting the efforts to force him inside. Something like chagrin filled his face as he watched the police drag the others toward the van, and saw their own faces as they were dumped beside him. “Wait—” Reede called out, and ducked the blow someone aimed at his head. “Elasark!”

The second officer, who had overseen Kedalion’s capture, turned toward them abruptly, away from staring at the gaping hole in the glass wall of the temple. “You—’?” he said, registering Reede’s presence with something that looked like disbelief. He swore, and broke off whatever he had been going to say next. He came toward the van, stood before Reede for a moment that seemed endless to Kedalion, before he turned away again, his eyes hot with fury. “Let him go.”

The other officer, the one who had knocked Reede down, let out a stream of outraged protest that Kedalion could barely follow. The first officer answered him, in Ondinean as rapid and angry, in which the names “Reede” and “Humbaba” stood out like alien stones. He finished the outburst by drawing his finger across his own throat in a blunt, graphic motion. “Let him go,” he repeated.

The other officer didn’t move. The rest of the police stood sullenly glaring at him, at the prisoners, as Elasark turned back and released the manacle that held Reede. No one moved to stop him.

Reede climbed down out of the van, shaking himself out. He turned and glanced up at Kedalion and Ananke, looked back at Elasark. “Those two work for me,” he said.

Elasark stiffened, and the sudden hope inside Kedalion began to curdle. “The window will be repaired perfectly inside of three days,” Reede said. “You will receive a large, anonymous donation to the Church Security Fund.” Slowly Elasark moved back to them and released their bonds, his motions rough with barely controlled rage as he shoved them down out of the van. He shouted an order and the police climbed inside, without their prisoners. The doors slammed and the black van left the square, howling like a frustrated beast.

Ananke stood watching silently until the van was out of sight. And then his eyes rolled up and back in his head, and he collapsed in a billowing heap of robes. Kedalion crouched down beside him, glad for the excuse to sit as he lifted the boy’s head.

“Is he all right?” Reede asked, looking more surprised than concerned.

“No,” Kedalion said, the word sounding more irritable than he had intended “But he will be. Are you?”

Reede wiped absently at his lacerated face, no! even wincing. Kedalion winced Reede studied his reddened fingers in mild disgust, as if it were paint staining them, and not his own blood. He wiped his hand on his pants. “Sure.” A bark of mocking laughter burst out of him as he looked away across the deserted square in the direction the van had taken. “Stupid bastards.” he said.

“You just saved all our lives,” Kedalion murmured, well aware that the Church Police were anything but stupid; and equally aware that there couldn’t be more than half a dozen people on this entire planet who could do what he had just seen Reede do to them. “You don’t have to be so goddamn casual about it!” His voice was shaking now. He reached into the numerous pockets of his coat, and found the one with the silver bottle still safely inside it.

Reede looked at him, and shrugged. “Sorry,” he murmured. But there was no comprehension in it.

“Goddammit,” Kedalion muttered again, still glaring at Reede as he struggled to pull the bottle free. He unstoppered it and took a large mouthful of the silver liquid heedlessly. He gasped as it slid down his throat with an almost sentient caress, bringing his shock-numbed body back to life from the inside. “Gods,” he whispered, almost a prayer, “it’s like sex.”

“I like a man who knows what’s really important,” Reede said sardonically.

“If you think I was going to miss a chance to drink this, after all that’s happened tonight, you’re crazy,” Kedalion snapped, beyond caring by now whether Reede really was crazy. “Who the hell are you, anyway?” Not really expecting an answer to the question this time, either.

“I work for Sab Emo Humbaba,” Reede said, picking his teeth. “Therefore the police and I have a kind of symbiotic relationship.”

“A lot of people work for Humbaba,” Kedalion said. “I’ve worked for him myself. But the Church Police don’t scatter like cats when I say so.”

Reede sighed, and looked pained. “My full name is Reede Kulleva Kullervo. I’m Humbaba’s brains. I head his research and development. If anything happened to me….” He shrugged meaningfully. “You know who the real gods are, around here.”

The name sounded familiar, but Kedalion couldn’t place it. He stared at Reede, trying to picture the tattooed lunatic in front of him at work in a sterile lab somewhere, peacefully accessing restricted information, datamodeling illegal chemicals inside a holofield. “No …” he said, shaking his head. “Bullshit. What are you really?”

Reede raised his eyebrows. “What does it really matter?” he asked softly.

As long as he had the power. Kedalion looked back at Ananke, still lying sprawled on the pavement, and took another swig from the silver bottle.

Ananke opened his eyes and sucked in a loud gasp of panic. He let it out again in a sigh as he realized where he was, and registered their faces. Kedalion kneeled down and fed him a sip of liquor from the silver bottle, watched his stupefaction turn into bliss, and grinned at him. Ananke pushed himself up until he was sitting alone.

“You mean,” Kedalion turned back to Reede as the realization suddenly struck him, “you could have done what you did here back in the club? We didn’t have to run—none of this needed to happen, no chase, no desecrating a temple, no scaring the shit out of the kid here—?” And me, but he didn’t say it.

Reede shrugged. “Maybe. But in the chaos, who knows? ‘Accidents happen,’ like they say around here.” His bloody grin crept back. “Besides, this was more fun.”

“Speak for yourself,” Kedalion muttered. He looked away from Reede’s molten gaze as he got stiffly to his feet.

“Well, let’s go,” Reede said, watching as he helped Ananke up.

Kedalion hesitated, suddenly uncertain. “Thanks, but I think we’ve got other—”

“Other plans? But you work for me now.” Reede folded his arms, and the grin grew wider on his face.

Kedalion looked at him, and laughed once, remembering what Reede had told the police. A joke. “I quit,” he said, and returned the grin.

Reede shook his head. “Too late. You drank my liquor. I saved your life. You’re my man, Kedalion Niburu.”

Kedalion went on staring, trying to read the other man’s face; suddenly feeling cold in the pit of his stomach as he realized that Reede was actually serious. “You need a runner—?” he asked, his voice getting away from him for the second time tonight. “No. Not until I know what you really do,” he said, with more courage than he felt.

“I told you what I really do.” Reede lifted a hand. “Ask around. Access it, right now.” He shrugged, waiting.

Kedalion felt a strange electricity sing through him, knowing as suddenly that there was no need to check it out. Everything Reede had told him was completely true. “I don’t much like drugs …” he said, somehow able to keep looking Reede in the eye.

Reede glanced at the silver bottle still clutched in Kedalion’s hand, and his mouth twitched. “Everything’s relative, isn’t it?” Kedalion flushed. “But what I make and where it goes are not the point. I’m looking for a ferryman. I need a personal crew.”

“Why us?” Kedalion said. “You don’t know me … I don’t even know him.” He gestured at Ananke.

“You’re a landsman—you’re from Samathe, so am I. Maybe I’m sentimental. And I know your reputation. I’ve already checked you out. You’re trustworthy, you have good judgment, and you deliver.”

“What happened to your last ferryman?”

“He quit.” Reede smiled faintly. “He couldn’t stand the boredom.”

Kedalion laughed in spite of himself. “What was this tonight? My audition for the job?”

Reede grinned, and didn’t answer. “I need somebody I can rely on… . Like your style. What do you charge for a run?”

“That depends …” Kedalion named a sum that almost choked him.

“I’ll double that on a regular basis, if you work out.”

Kedalion took a deep breath in disbelief. He hesitated, and shook his head. “I’m flattered,” he said honestly. “But I don’t think I’m up to it.” He glanced at Ananke, watching the mixed emotions that played across the boy’s face while he looked at Reede. “Come on, kid.” He started away. Ananke followed him like a sleepwalker, still looking back at Reede.

“Niburu,” Reede called, “You may find it exceptionally difficult to get the kind of work you want from now on, if you turn me down.”

Kedalion stopped, looking back. His mouth tightened as he saw the expression on Reede’s face. “We’ll see about that,” he said, not as convincingly as he would have liked. He turned his back on Reede, and started on again.

“Yes,” Reede said, to his retreating back. “I expect that we will.”