She swung her feet and stared out across the water, inventing maledictions for Ginny in half a dozen langues and trying to rhyme them inside and across those langues. She didn't want to think about what the songfest meant or why she was being squeezed into it, she didn't want to think about Ginny up there watching everything, jerking their strings, worse than that creep guard, she didn't want to think about him looking at her whenever he wanted to, whatever she was doing.
Sometime later there was a change in the noise on the working wharves; she twisted around to see what was happening.
Looming head and shoulders over the smaller locals, cats pacing beside him, Rohant came striding toward her.
She pulled her legs up, got to her feet. "'Bout time," she said.
He blew his nose into a handkerchief like a small tablecloth, tucked it over his belt, and glanced past her at the ancient. "Come on," he said. "Out there on the horn, I think." He pointed toward a pile of black rocks near the mouth of the harbor. "No ears and some sort of lookout, I can see the railings."
"Yeh, I got a thing or two to say."
He flared his nostrils. "Rat been telling tales?"
"So it WAS you sold me."
With Dyslaera courtesy keeping his teeth well covered, he grinned at her and ran the tip of his forefinger claw down her cheek, touching her so delicately all she felt was a faint tickle. "If someone had to play the fool, better you than me."
"Shithead."
"Make that mister shithead, sir, business agent."
"I'll do that. Soon's it rains up."
Cats pacing majestically behind them, they strolled to the end of the wharves, turned onto a flagged pathway and followed it to the lookout.
Shadith hitched a hip on the top rail. "Well?"
Rohant stepped over Nagafog and leaned on the rail beside her. "It was strongly suggested we contrive some way of paying transport and lodging with a hint they'd throw us back if we jibbed."
"Poor little naif, browbeaten by the local grubbers, I don't believe."
"Mebbe so mebbe so, thing is, this is a big enough deal there'll be Islander yips flying in."
"Flying
"What I like about you, kitcat, don't need to draw you diagrams."
"Flat out?" It wasn't really a question, merely a probe to confirm Rohant was thinking what she was. She chewed on a hangnail and scowled at the caked scum and decaying seaweed that marked the highpoint of the tides. It seemed obvious to her that the only chance they had was grabbing the fastest flitter they could find and making a run for the… what was it? the Kasta? whatever, and brute-forcing it, shooting their way in and rummaging for the skipcom. If she'd learned anything at all from her dealings with Ginny, it was that finessing was worse than futile. Everything they'd tried so far got them wound tighter and tighter in the web.
"We have a choice?" Rohant used the toe of his boot to massage Nagafog's ribs; the big male opened his mouth, let his tongue hang, and purred like a magnified kitten. Jealous, Magimeez came to her feet and stood rubbing her head against the Ciocan's leg.
"None I see. But it's so clumsy, so dumb." She wrinkled her nose. "Embarrassing even, devolving to primitive like this."
"Gets your back up, you can sit here and moan about grace."
"All I can see to moan about is it probably won't work. How you rate the chances?"
"Between null and nil."
"We see eye to eye on that." She flung her head back and glared into the cloudly blue arching over them. "To EYE to EYE to EYE." She shivered, hugged her arms across her breasts. "Where's Kikun?"
"Sleeping."
"Swamp thing took it out of him."
Minh
"So when's this singsing?"
"Short while after sundown, they've set aside an hour for us to fill, you mainly." He ran his boot toe along Nagafog's ribs, looked slyly round at Shadith. "There's a reception afterward. Touchy-feely for the yips. At least that's what I gathered."
She made a face at the sky, slid from the rail and brushed the dust off her behind. "Assuming Ginny doesn't decide to ground us, Kikun fades and acquires a flier while we're dancing our jig?"
"Nay. Assuming nothing. They try to stop us, we go through them."
"Them?"
"Whoever."
Shadith shivered. "I hate this."
"Don't we all." He dropped his hand on her shoulder, squeezed. "We do what we have to, Shadow."
"That make it better? Never mind. What happens the rest of the day?"
"You get a look at the broadcasting studio, then you get to figure out the program, then you get to rehearse."
"I get? Hanh! You're in this, too."
"Me?" He looked uneasily at her. "I run a business, not a dance troupe and I couldn't carry a tune if you wrapped it up and handed it to me."
She ran ahead a few steps, turned and danced backward, examining with exaggerated appreciation his big body and noble head. "Maybe not, but ahhh my dear, oooh my friend, what grand scenery you'll make."
"Hross-lan." He grabbed for her, missed as she skipped back, giggling. "Scenery, my foot." Scrambling after, her, he kicked into one of the flags, nearly fell over, but righted himself before he landed on his face.
She giggled again, prudently widened the space between them. "Foot, foot, talking of foot. Foot in mouth disease, foot in… uh!" She took another step back, fell over Magimeez who'd slipped around her and crouched on the flags, landed on her behind and temporarily knocked the wind out of herself.
Rohant scooped her up, threw her over his shoulder and strode off down the path, ignoring the fists beating on his back. When he reached the first wharf, he set her down. "Behave yourself, kitcat."
She balanced a minute between annoyance and amusement, then opted for laughter. "Just you wait, Ro, just you wait…" She inspected him, noted the sudden apprehension on his broad face and laughed again. "Come on, let's go inspect that damn studio."
WATCHER 5
The woman sitting at the sewing machine glanced up from her work, gaped at something across the dick-locking room. The worker next to her noticed the lessened noise, snatched a look, then began staring on her own. The infection spread. Then the first woman got up and walked out, leaving her machine and her work without a word, ignoring the shouts of the overseer. With the same intensity of purpose, the nineteen other women got to their feet and walked out.
The Nakiskwen Gospah scowled at the screens that took transmissions from his Na-priests and the kanaweh sleds they rode by courtesy of the Nistam who might be a brainless idiot but who had the survival instincts of a wolverine.
The roads were freckled with walkers, heading north, heading south, all of them bound for the Pilgrim Way.
He turned to the Na-priest standing beside him, black vizard pushed back, the exposed face more of a mask than the mask itself. "One thought one had kept the rumors out," he said, his meager features twisted into a scowl.
The Na-priest shrugged. "One has. One has canvassed the Confessors and the Wik priests. No whispers. None. Every Wik in the country is clean. Someone would have heard something about the tattlers if that is how word got through about the Avatars."
"If they are Avatars and not a fraud dreamed up to catch us napping. What news from your sources in Kwamitaskwen? One wouldn't put anything past that old buzzard."