It was earlier than she'd thought, the sun barely clear of the horizon, wispy patches of mist lingering in the shadows, damp glittering on every surface, an erratic breeze blowing from an icebox somewhere, licking at her ears and fingers. She hesitated on the steps, decided she might as well trundle on down to the harbor and wait for the others to show up.
Though this was the heart of the town, the street and the structures along it seemed as empty as the Hostel, as if everyone that lived there had poured forth with the rising of the sun and been swept away. Her Talent confirmed what her ears and eyes told her. No one there. Like Hasski said, work. What work?. Who knows. She began walking downhill, the heels of her boots loud on the paving.
Several large buildings had an official look; their doors (with totem forms in circular cartouches carved in deep relief) were closed and shades were pulled across the windows. The other structures were small rowhouses each sharing a common wall with the next, all of them turning a blind blank face to the street, one single window in each facade, round and set with stained glass and lead canes; it was opaque and tarry, like a mole on the brow of the house. The doors were painted in bright colors with a vertical row of black glyphs along the left side, announcing the family lines of those residing behind that door. If there were gardens or outside living areas, they were around back. There were no shops, no sign of a produce or fish market, not here. Kiskai had motorized vehicles of all sorts, as well as lift sleds and other fliers. No traffic on this street-though she could hear motors grinding in the distance and subdued noises of city living that came to her like sounds in a dream.
Halfway down she heard a child yell, then children's laughter, then silence. At least they weren't all working. She thought about that, shook her head. Maybe so maybe not.
This walk was a paradigm of her experience so far on Kiskai. Outside looking in, with never a clue to what was really happening. Despite the wide variety of her experience with almost-alien cultures, apparent similarities were still traps, and unless you were very careful indeed, it was so easy to misread everything. What you thought was happening, wasn't. In an odd way, it was easier to deal with complete strangeness.
She continued along her paradigm, nervously amused at the conceit but increasingly unhappy, cold inside and out. Alone. She didn't like being alone. When Ginny left her alone all that time, she walked out on him, herself, everything. She tucked her hands into her armpits in search of warmth. It was a large town, there must be ten, twenty thousand people here. Where were they?
When she reached the wharves and plunged into the noisy swirl of life there, she sighed with relief. There were three ships being. on and off loaded, wharfmen hauling crates and barrels and bales, exchanging incomprehensible comments on what she guessed was a game of some kind, talking in a local slang she hadn't a clue about, seabirds keening, cats squawling, assorted rodents hissing and shrieking, thuds and creaks from the ships and warehouses, intermittent roars from the crane mo-, tors and a crackle-sputter from small motorized flats darting about like startled waterbeetles. There were metal barrels with fires built in them, several portable cookshops with hot drinks and fried whatever adding their lot to the tapestry of smells, spilled spices, pungent woods, numberless, nameless THINGS redolent of mystery and mighthave-been. It was all lively and loud and built layer on layer atop the generic effluvium of salt sea shores.
She threaded through the anttrails of the lading crews, stopping and starting, a dance where she was doing all the work while her oblivious-partners went their way unimpeded and unconcerned. When she reached an empty wharf, she stopped to look around.
An old man sat there on a sacking pillow beside a pile of netting that was discolored and desiccated as a heap of dead leaves after three years rotting. His face was bristly with a two-day crop of stubble; he had a stained salt-andpepper mustache and straggly gray eyebrows, faded eyes of an indeterminate color somewhere between watery urine and weak tea. His coarse yellowish-gray hair was braided into a club that hung low enough to bump against his withered buttocks whenever he moved his shoulders. His legs would have been crossed at the ankle if he'd had ankles; one leg was gone below the knee, the other was missing a foot. A pair of shears, a ball of cord, and a shuttle lay on the planks beside him. As she walked toward him, he was pulling a hank of netting into his lap, inspecting it for holes, breaks, and frayed patches. He came across a ragged tear, took up the shears, cut away broken ends, then began the tedious process of mending the hole. He didn't seem to be working especially quickly, but he was cutting loose and pulling more net past before she reached him.
She dropped onto the wharf beside him, sat with her legs dangling over the edge.
He gave her one quick morose scan, then went back to staring out the mouth of the harbor, his bony hands working on their own with no prompting from him.
A seabird dropped like a stone, plunged beneath the surface, came up with a fish caught sideways in its beak. It paddled lazily on the small, subdued waves until it was in the lee of the wharf, then it tossed the fish up, opened wide to catch it as it fell. And squawked with rage as another of its kind came swooping by, stole the fish, and went flying off with it. Shadith laughed, the sound surprised out of her. She got a hooded look from the old man, a derisive twitch of hismustache that reminded her briefly of Rohant before he darted the kanaweh. The local said nothing, just sent a gob of spittle arching into the water.
Shadith scratched at her chin; old goat wasn't overawed by her godhood, not him; she was just some nosy foreigner. Sweet sweet xenophobia, almost made her feel at home, running into that again. "Town uphill looks like someone pulled the plug; where'd everbody get to?"
"Don't they work where you come from?" His voice was rusty, as if he spoke at most two three words a week; his hands continued their steady drive, servo-mechanisms with enough internal memory they didn't need help from the mainbrain.
"Now and then they did a bit," she said, "now and then. A bit here, a bit there."
His mustache twitched. Now that was almost a smile, bet it herniated his whole face. Should I push it? Na. Rohant old lion, get your butt down here, hanh?
She sat watching the fisherbirds soar and drop into the littered water, sometimes after fish, sometimes after bits of garbage bobbing on the low waves. From the scum marks on the piles the tide was a handspan below high and dropping. With three moons to mess things up, they must get different tides every day, the local ephemeris 71 be the size of an encyclopedia. No wonder we came at a creep the last part of the trip. One thing about being reared in a desert, you don't get a feel for things like tides. Talking about deserts and people brought up in them-crawl out of bed, you lazy cat, I'm tired of being kicked about, it's time we started taking hold.
A rusty, grating noise broke her from her thoughts, old man clearing his throat; she looked around. He set the shears down, let his hands rest on the net, still for once, as he fixed a malevolent glare on her. "Word is you workin t'night, singin on the comnet."
That was the first Shadith had heard of it, could have been something Rohant worked out… Without a word to me. Tsoukbaraim, I get my hands on him, nil rip those dreadlocks out one by one. Teach him to take advantage like that. No fool sells me, but this fool herself. Ahlahlah.
She clicked her tongue, shook her head. I suppose it could be the locals assuming things. We'll see… we'll see..
She blinked at the old man. "Sing for my supper, hmm?"
"Nought's free, Wanish." He dropped his eyes to the net, began working on the hole. "You and yours, you pay goin rates like eveh'one else." He said it with considerable verve and she knew she'd been wrong. He didn't question what she was supposed to be, he simply saw all authority types as outside himself, battening on him and his like leeches, with privileges he'd never have and they hadn't earned. Seeing her forced to work for her perks was something he contemplated with a vast surprise and a vaster satisfaction. If there were an appreciable number like him, Asteplikota's rebellion wasn't going to move like he thought it would. Idiot woman! this place may be revolting but it's not where the revolution's stirring. Hmm! if the lameness of a pun's any measure, I'm about as low as you can get.