Endless sweet soft ripples flowing from his hands, Ilaцrn watched the Ykkuval’s anger rise as his eyes moved over screen after screen of reports on the destruction the spores had caused. Reports of villages burned in retaliation. Empty villages. Reports from the fliers scouring the mountains with motion and heat detectors. No locals sighted, either species. Empty land, but out of that land, destruction rising.
Hunnar tapped a sensor. “Memur Tryben, I want you.”
Ilaцrn touched the strings, the music he made barely audible, hoping Hunnar would forget he was there. He wanted very much to listen in on this conference, but he didn’t know enough about the Chave to measure the weight of Hunnar’s decision to make his native Harp Master an ornament and a testimony to his status. The lowering of the sound level backfired, though, winning him a glare from Hunnar. Without changing expression, he gradually returned to the way he’d been playing before.
Hunnar relaxed, closed his eyes, began tapping his claws on the chair’s arm, not getting the beat quite right until Ilaцrn altered it to match the clicking of those claws.
A soft buzz.
Hunnar sighed and sat up. He tapped the sensor and when the door opened, waved the Chav who came in to the honor chair at the end of the desk.
The Security Chief glanced at Ilaцrn, his brow ridges drawn down. For a moment Ilaцrn thought he was going to protest, but the Chav’s eyes went dull as he slipped the Harper into the slot that Chave kept for such beings and forgot about him.
“We’re hemorrhaging, Tryben.” Hunnar waved a hand at the images frozen on the viewscreens. “I want it stopped.”
Tryben’s face went blank, his secondary lids glistening a moment before he caught hold of his temper and recouched them. “I hear, O Ykkuval.”
Hunnar made an impatient movement with his eating hand. “Pull your claws in, Memur. I’m not blaming you.” He flattened his hands on the desktop, his inner lids dropping till his eyes glistened as if they were greased. “Thanks to our illustrious Comptroller back home, none of us have the men or equipment we need.” He drew in a long breath, snorted it out. “Have you discovered what it was caused all the damage?” -
“Spores. From some kind of puffball thing. We had some trouble with it before. You remember? The Drudges’ dirtboards went crazy and stopped working and when we opened them up, it was like they were coated with sooty hair. Same thing. All twelve. No way this was an accident.”
“If they could do it out there, we’re vulnerable here. What are you doing about that?”
“I’ve got the tech working on intake screens and baffles with burnclean sections. Should be fitted up in a day or two. We’ve set tingler fields around the rest of the Crawlers and stepped up the sensitivity of the alarm systems. The hayv won’t get near enough to get their filth into the system.”
“So they’ll try something else. Hm. The locals in the camps know something, I can smell it on them. Haul in the headmen and probe them to their back teeth. I want to know what their grandfathers had for breakfast.” He paused, stared blankly past Tryben. “And pick up some of the vegheads. Try the probe on them, see what you come up with. I don’t expect much, but you never know when your luck might pop hot.”
“O Ykkuval, I’ll set that going immediately.” Tryben paused, straightened his shoulders.
In his corner Ilaцrn’s fingers fumbled and he almost lost the beat in his surprise at seeing that bloody-handed butcher nervous as a tadling at his apprentice trials.
“If the Comptroller would authorize the importation, I’d like to do an EYE sweep of the range.” The words were slow and heavy, the Memur’s gravelly voice devoid of inflection. “Ten fliers and two channels cleared for the pickup. It is the only way we can possibly find the saboteurs in all that forest and stone. Heat pickups, motion readers, and visuals just will not do the job. I suspect what we are looking for are small groups moving on foot, impossible to tell from grazing herds and other natural phenomena.” He lowered his eyes to his hands and waited for the answer.
“If they’d listened to me, you’d have had EYEs weeks ago. No. I won’t bother asking again. There’s no point to it. I can give you five fliers. With all these Crawlers down, we’ve got that much excess capacity. Pick your men, tell them to do the best they can, ash whatever shows up on the monitors.” A slash of his hand cut off the discussion. “Medtech Muhaseb. You’ve been watching to make sure he’s not slipping word out about the husk?”
Memur Tryben lifted his head, settled into the chair, the dangerous moment had passed. This was business as usual and he was comfortable with it_ “None of the techs working on the analysis have been given access to the com. Or to other techs. We’ve been monitoring them since you set up the project.”
“Hm. There was an interesting com call last night. Jindar ni Koroumak. Making noises like he wanted to be invited out here. Hunting, he said. What could I do? He’ll be here with his idiot followers in less than a month. Be prepared to have him nosing about the labs.”
“Ah. I see. Your interest in this is kept close, I guarantee that, and Muhaseb’s group is buffered. I’ll make sure he doesn’t get near them. News slipping out about the smoke is something else. The high that comes from burning the husks is common knowledge among techs and Drudges. You know how such things get about among the lower orders. Farkli the Drudge, the one who runs the lubbot, he’s complained more than once about the stink and the drain on his income. Seems the smoke suckers don’t drink as much as they did before.” Tryben flexed his arms in the Chav equivalent of a shrug. “Techs coming off duty will raid one of the Sleeping Grounds and bring back as much of the husk as they can conceal in their gear. They have enough sense to keep their smoke sucking for off-duty hours. So far, anyway, but it seems to be quite addictive, so that may change soon. At least half the techs working on the analysis are showing signs of smoke dependence.”
“Looks like we’ve got another Tirassci brewing. Kir and chich! As if I needed more trouble. How bad is it?”
“With our limited numbers here, it’s not surprising that nearly all of the subclasses have tasted smoke. Without rigorous tests, any numbers would be hardly more than a guess, but I’ll give them to you. Fifteen mining techs left. All have some degree of dependence. Six med techs. As I said before, four of the six are showing signs of dependency. Ten Drudges. Two of them got beaten for stealing Husk from techs. Most have no contact with the smoke. Twenty-four Guards. Six have drunk smoke on their off-hours, the others just get drunk. Six com and repair techs. All have tasted smoke. Two seem to be dependent, the others prefer Farkli’s yang. Early results of the med techs’ investigations seem to show smoke isn’t as destructive as Tirassci chaw. At least not so swift a decay of nerve cells. Hard to say. We’d need to test long term users and we don’t have any of those.”
“Hm. Set a trap at one of the Sleeping Grounds. The Harper says those that tend the place are addicts. Find an old Cousin hanging around because he can’t walk away from his habit, you’ll get your long-term study with enough crossover to be useful.”
“Ah. I’ll do that.”
They continued to talk for another hour and Ilaцrn sat in his corner, playing his wallpaper music and stewing with impatience. He had to get into the garden. What he’d heard was important, he had to get it out. He closed his eyes and began setting the news into Riddle Mode. Mesuch hunting mountain length, burning everything that moves. Repeat. Repeat. Trap at Sleeping Ground. Repeat. Repeat. Hunting and watchers. Repeat. Repeat. Leaders in the labor camps. Repeat. Repeat. Mesuch are coming to get them. Repeat. Repeat. Scrape their brains of everything they know. Repeat. Repeat. Anyone with secrets get away. Get away now.