He replaced that flake with the first of the mosaic flakes and watched the snippets recorded there from her time in the ship’s hold.
The fools had left her conscious for at least a month. They had made her sick and filthy and they had ground her helplessness into her-as they had done with him-meaning to make her an easier victim. And as they had done with him, they had completely misread her.
He watched Shadith come awake, watched her struggle to clean herself and fight off cold, fear, sickness.
She lay blank-faced after that, staring at nothing.
He knew what she was doing, by bitter experience he knew. She was mind-riding, using ship’s vermin to hunt out everything she could discover about her captors. She was listening to crewmen and Captain, sucking in data and storing it against future use.
And she was planning.
What the Omphalites saw as near catatonia, he recognized as the intense activity of a brain he had learned to respect.
He tapped his tongue against his teeth when he saw her face change suddenly. Her mouth dropped open, her eyes rolled back in her head. She was concentrating so intently, she looked idiotic. She is doing it, he thought, she is doing it right in front of me.
Her face changed again, slackening as if the energy had drained out of her.
She stopped caring for herself.
Two days later she went deeply unconscious.
Alarm bells rang.
The Omphalites scooped her up, ran her though the ottodoc and dropped her in stasis for the rest of the trip.
He sighed and removed the flake. She must have included a trigger to resurface the hidden memories when the danger was past. He spent a few moments wondering what the trigger was, then let it go. It was not important.
He went through the interrogation sequences one last time, spectator to a superlative performance. Such a deadly dangerous child. And Omphalos has no notion of it. None at all.
Find her. Yes. Trigger that memory. Yes. Set her at Omphalos. Yessss. And kill her when it’s over, before she kills me. Yes.
They are dropping her into contract labor. Where?
They already think I am warped about her. Let them think it; keep picking at them, make them so tired of my agitations they tell me what I need to know.
He ejected that flake and began sketching possible avenues of attack on the Pandai of Bol Mutiar. He was smiling as he worked.
Miralys/Digby 1
1
Miralys prowled about while Digby floated languorously in his bubble pretending to be exhausted by her energy. He was in a puckish mood and the room reflected this. Every time she turned around, the place had changed on her so she was threading her way through prickly columns of colored light or tripping over a newly materialized piece of furniture or a plant in a pot, or something so esoteric it was only marginally recognizable.
The third time that she bruised her shin, she hissed, laid her ears back, and stood glaring around until she found what she thought was a chair. She kicked at it, scuffing the toe of her boot. Solid. But when she lowered herself to the seat, the chair melted under her, dropping her into a sprawl on the floor. She growled, straightened herself up, folded her legs, and sat where she was; it was safer that way, he wasn’t likely to melt the floor under her. “Why don’t you grow up, fool!”
He chuckled, the pickups taking the breathy sound and playing it around the room. “You’re beautiful when you’re angry, Toerfeles.”
She snorted, then smiled reluctantly. “All right, so I feel a bit better now. What’s this about, Digby? You didn’t ask me here to pat my shoulder and listen to my sorrows.”
“Two pieces of information. Not much in themselves, either of them, but suggestive.” With exaggerated grace he swung round in his bubble until he was sitting cross-legged like Miralys. “One of my Ops…” his black eyes sparked with laughter, “a character named Woensdag, one of Frittagga’s more successful offspring, if you accent the OFF,” his lids drooped again and he sighed, “by some odd coincidences which I won’t bother describing, happened across one of Seyirshi’s customers,” he looked blank a moment, listening to voices inside his head, “a type called Olom Myndigget. We’re reasonably sure he was at Koulsnakko’s for the auction. He’s home now. Curiously unsinged for someone who’s been through a Nova burn. Woensdag couldn’t hang about, but I’ve sent another Op in, see what she can find out. Considering the ships that left before the burn and the reappearance of Myndigget, I’d say there was a possibility at least that Rohant and the others are still alive.”
Miralys closed her eyes, rocked on her buttocks, her breathing harsh as she fought for control. She wanted her Ciocan back, she wanted that passionately, compulsively, she’d spend every cent Voallts Korlach had to get him back, but she wasn’t a fool or reckless, there had to be a real chance; this wasn’t it. Not enough. “What’s the second thing?” she said.
“Someone’s been sniffing around me. I know the sniffers, but I don’t know who hired them or why. I’m working on that. Any unusual interest in Korlach?”
“I don’t know.” She rubbed at her eyes, drew her hand hard over her headfur. Her petal ears were pricked high, her spine was straight and taut. “I don’t know. I’ve been… distracted.” She extruded her claws, stared down at her fingers. “The attacks on us have stopped. Last one was two months ago. Seyirshi wouldn’t have called off his dogs, not unless he was made to or dead.”
“Right. I’ll send an Op across to look around. Rizga, I think, yes, she’s been out of therapy for a month and getting itchy.”
“Rizga. She was the one with Hannys and her team? On Louat 4, right?”
“Right.”
“Good.” Miralys got to her feet. “Hannys will be pleased. We’ll see what there’s to see, hmm, I’ll give it a week, right?”
“Right.”
Digby closed his eyes and watched her stride out, vigor back and purpose in the forward set of her ears; he followed her until she’d left the building, then let his visualization drift. He liked Miralys and had grieved to see her so poorly. That was changed now. Much better. His mouth twitched, his eyelids fluttered as he shifted his attention and plunged deep into his ties, doing his own devious investigations through the city networks and the planetaries.
Shadith In Shadows:
1
No memory and a new name
Stench.
Unclean bodies packed in a small, bare, room with icy breezes wandering everywhere.
Where?
What am I doing here?
Who am I?
Who AM I?
WHO am I?
She curled up, knees against chest, thumb in mouth, eyes squeezed shut.
Her head hurt.
Who am I who who am I who am I who…
Women were talking beside her, around her, women and girls.
She was afraid of hearing what she didn’t want to hear and tried not to listen, but she heard them anyway. Their voices were like the odors of their bodies, inescapable.
Where is this place…
What…
Girna or something like.
Aghirnamirr..
So you so smart so what you doin here…
So what’s it like, this Aghawatsis…
Cold as Hoobi’s Hell, that’s what…
Diggin in the dirt, that’s what…
Field work…
What’d ye think, frega, you’d be sitting round sucking tit? Didn’t they tell you unskilled, what you think unskilled mean? Grubbin, that’s what.
No choice…
Yeh…
No choice at all?
You sign up? You did? (Laughter, harsh and bitter.)