A dim light swung in the damp-breathing dark, a globe-lamp at the wrist of an amaut, casting hideous leaping shadows about them. Aiela heaved to gain his feet and scrambled for the stairs, but they kicked him down again. He saw the amaut thrust papers into the hands of one of the humans, snatching the stolen kalliran pistol from the man’s belt before he expected it and putting it into his own capacious pocket.
“Ffife ppasss,” the amaut said in human speech. “All ffree, all run country, go goodbpye.”
“How do we know what they say what you promised?” one made bold to ask.
“Go goodbpye,” the amaut repeated. “Go upplandss, ffree, no more amautss, goodbpye.”
The humans debated no longer, but fled, and the amaut went up and closed the street door after them, waddling down the steps holding up his wrist to cast a light that included Aiela upon the floor.
It was Kleph, his ugly face more than usually sinister in the dim lighting. Cold air and damp breathed out from some dark hole beyond the light, an amaut burrow, tunnels of earth that would twist and meet many times beneath the surface of Weissmouth. Aiela had not been aware that this maze yet existed, but it was expected. He knew too that one hapless kallia could be slain and buried in this earthen maze, forever lost from sight and knowledge save for the idoikkheon his wrist, and amaut ingenuity could solve that as well.
“What are you after?” Aiela asked him. “Are you here to cover your high command’s mistakes?”
“Most honorable sir, I am devastated. You were given into my hands to protect.”
Aiela let go a small breath of relief, for the fellow did not reasonably need to deceive him; but it was still in his mind that Kleph had access to humans such as had attacked them at the port, and had just evidenced it. The little fellow waddled over and freed him, put his arm about him, helping him and compelling him at once as they sought the depths of the tunnel. Shadows rippled insanely over the rudimentary plaster of the interior, the beginnings of masonry.
“Kleph,” Aiela protested, “Kleph, I have to find a way to contact my ship.”
“Impossible, sir, altogether impossible.”
The squat little amaut forced him around a corner despite his resistance; and there Aiela wrenched free and sought to run, striking the plaster wall in the dark, turning and running again, following the rough wall with his hands.
He did not come to the entrance when he expected it, and after a moment he knew that he was utterly, hopelessly lost. He sank down on the earthen floor gasping for breath, and leaned his shoulders against the chill wall, perceiving the bobbing glow of Kleph’s lamp coming nearer. In a moment more Kleph’s ugly face materialized at close quarters around the corner, and he made a bubbling sound of irritation as he squatted down opposite.
“Most honorable sir,” said Kleph, rocking back on his heels and clasping his arms about his knees in a position the amaut found quite comfortable. “There is a word in our language: shakhshoph.It means the hiding-face. And, my poor lord, you have gotten quite a lot of shakhshophsince you arrived in our settlement. One is always that way with outsiders: it is only decency. Sometimes too it hides a lie. Pay no attention to words with my people. Watch carefully a man who will not face you squarely and beware most of all a man who is too polite.”
“Like yourself.”
Kleph managed a bow, a rocking forward and back. “Indeed, most honorable sir, but I am fortunately your most humble servant. Anyone in the colony will tell you of Kleph. I am a man of most insignificant birth; I am backworld and my manners want polish. I have come from the misfortune of my origin to an apprentice clerkship with the great karshGomek, to ship’s accountant, to my present most honored position. My lord must understand then that I am very reluctant to defy the orders of bnesychGerlach. But we observe a simple rule, to choose a loyalty and stay by it. It is the single wisdom of our law. BnesychGerlach gave my service to the ship in the port, and as you serve the lord of that ship, I am interested in saving your life.”
“You—chose a remarkable way of demonstrating it.”
“They have injured you.” Kleph’s odd-feeling hand most unwelcomely patted Aiela’s neck and shoulder. “ Ai,most honorable sir, had I the opportunity I would have shot the lot of them—but they will take the passes and disappear far into the uplands. If one wishes to corrupt, one simply must pay his debts like a gentleman. They are filthy animals, these humans, but they are not stupid: a few corpses discovered could make them all flee my employ in the future. But for the passes to get them clear of our lines, they will gladly do anything and suffer anything and seek my service gladly.”
“Like those that fired a shell among us at the port?”
Kleph lifted a hand in protest. “My lord, surely you have realized that was not my doing. But I am Master of Accounts, and so I know when men are moved and ships fly; and I have human servants, so I know when these things happen and do not get entered properly in the records. Therefore I am in danger. There are only two men on this world besides myself who can bypass the records: one is under- bnesychYasht, and the other is bnesychGerlach.”
“Who hired it done?”
“One or the other of them. No shakhshoph.It is what I told you: one chooses a loyalty and remains constant; it is the only way we know to survive—as for instance my own lords know where my loyalty in this matter must logically lie, and so I shall need to stay out of sight until the crisis is resolved: a cup of poisoned wine, some such thing—it is only reasonable to eliminate those men known to serve the opposition. I am highly expendable; I am not of this karsh,and therefore I was given to the lord in the port. I also was meant to be eliminated at the port; and now it is essential that we both be silenced.”
“Why?” Aiela had lost his power to be shocked. His mind simply could not grasp the turns of amaut logic.
“Why, my lord nas kame, if the population of this colony realizes the bnesychserves the other lord, it would split the colony into two factions, with most bloody result. We are not a fighting people, no, but one protects his own nest, after all—and the bnesychhas many folk in this venture who are not of karshGomek: out- karshfolk, exiles, such as myself. Such loyalties can be lost quickly. There is always natural resentment toward a large karshwhen it mismanages. And if it no longer appears the action at the port was on human initiative, it would be most, most distressing in some quarters.” He pressed his broad-tipped fingers to Aiela’s brow, where there was a swelling raised. “Ai, sir, I am sorry for your unhappy state, and I did try to find you before you wandered into a trap, but you were most elusive. When I knew you had entered the headquarters and when I saw the northside lights out, I acted and disposed my human agents at once, or you would be in the other lord’s hands before dawn.”
“Get me to the ship at the port,” Aiela said, “or get me a means to contact them, or there are going to be people hurt.”
“Sir?” asked Kleph, his squat face much distressed. He gulped several times in amaut sorrow. “O sir, and must the great lords blame those who are guiltless? See, here am I, out- karsh,helping you. Surely then your masters will understand that not all of us in this colony are to blame. Surely they will realize how faithfully we serve them.”
It was impossible to tell Kleph that the iduve did not understand the custom of service and reward, or that harm and help were one and the same to them. Aiela made up his mind to a half-truth. “I will speak for you,” he said, “maybe—if you help me.”
“Sir, what you ask is impossible just now, if you only under—”
“It had better not be impossible,” Aiela said.