"You're a nice child, Shadow, there's heart to you. I don't know what your home is like; being it produced you, it must be a pretty good place to live."
"Why do I get the feeling that's a eulogy over my corpse? Come on, Mee, you're not my mama, curb those hormones, huh? What I don't know could hurt the hell out of me."
"Know. That's the problem. I don't KNOW anything. Just rumors. Stories. Last Pakoseo Year was a long time ago, no one remembers it. My grandmother wasn't even born yet." She pushed at her hair, made a face at Shadith. "All right, all right. Calm down, will you. And eat while I'm doing this or I stop right now." She waited until Shadith started spooning up the soup, sighed, and started talking again. "Story is there are always Avatars, sometimes more than one set of them. There's holy dances and holy songs and at the Culmination there's the Sacrifice."
"To coin a phrase, I see." Shadith broke the toast in half, sat holding the smaller bit. "That's how the Gospah keeps his grip on things, right?"
"You got it."
"Come on, come on, give." She popped the toast in her mouth, rubbed her thumbs rapidly across her bunched fingers. "The whole thing," she said thickly, "not just a hint."
"The Avatars return to Oppalatin."
"Aaah! Details, woman. How?"
"Remember, you asked. The story goes there's a mock battle, not so mock where you're concerned, you three. You're tied to stakes and the stakes are piled round with oil-soaked wood. There's singing and music and someone cries out that you go willingly to the Father of All. And they light the fire. And when it's over, they gather the ashes and take them up in a flit and drop them over the heads of the Pilgrims and everyone goes home, edified and sanctified."
"Oh, yes. We'll see about that." Shadith drained her cup, pushed the chair back. "I'll sleep on it a while, see if I can come up with something."
Late that night, hours past midnight, she found Miowee's daughter lying curled up on a mat at the foot of Makwahkik's bed.
WATCHER 11
Asteplikota opened and shut his hand, pressing and releasing, pressing and releasing the padded spring his therapist had given him so he could build up muscle to replace that sliced away by the cutter beam. "I don't know," he said and looked curiously at his brother. "I don't fully understand them, I never did. You want a guess, they were trying to get home. Medd. Not selling out to the Nistam."
Kiscomaskin vaulted onto the stone balustrade that went round the terrace at the back of the merchant's house where they were staying for the moment, ignoring the chasm at his right hand as he walked along the lichened stone with careless ease; showing off was one of several childhood habits he'd never shed-especially when he was alone with his elder brother.
He came back, stood with the vanishing sun setting his hair on fire, his hands clasped behind him. "Does it matter? You know Ayawit, he'd find a way to co-opt them, no counting their inclinations and Intentions. He would and he has. You're a reasonable man, Aste my oste, that's your weakness. And you like people too much. That's another."
"And you're not reasonable and you don't like people? If that's true, why are'you doing all this?"
"It's a scam, Aste. Look at the way we're living." He waved his hand at the house and the wild extravagant view. "Were you half this comfortable when you were beating history into stoneheaded Kawas and Kisars?"
Asteplikota shook his head, smiling fondly at his younger brother, not believing a word of what KIscomaskin had said, judging him by himself and by the oldtime wit he remembered when Kisca was a brilliant but erratic scholar, filled with fervor for the righting of ancient wrongs. "You could be sitting at Ayawit's right hand, brother. Have you forgotten his fancy for you?"
"Not half." Kiscomaskin shuddered, swayed, jumped hastily down. "Enough of this silly game. We have to take them out fast, brother. People are getting confused and dispirited, watching Ayawit parade them about. She was on the comcircuit, that girl of yours, singing for them like she sang for us. A week ago. I've been getting shit in the face ever since. The Opla-cursed Judges want to know what's going on. We could lose a big part of our funding. They have to die and we have to find a way to blame the Nistam for it."
"Kisca my oste, get her away from them, she'll be more useful alive. If you can't get them all, at least take her, It'll break the set, that's all you need."
"Can't do that, Aste my oste. Be hard enough to pull off an assassination, kidnapping is out of the question."
"They'd help, if you could get to them. I've seen that girl work. It is amazing what she can do."
"So you say, little brother. I can't take the chance. Besides, it's already started." He looked up, frowned at the clouds gathering overhead. "I'm leaving for the Main less than an hour on. I probably won't be back before the Culmination. You take care, you hear?" He closed his hand tight on Asteplikota's uninjured shoulder. "Don't stay out too long. It's going to rain, I don't want you catching pneumonia."
CELL 4
Late at night in the Nish'mok's personal quarters on the fourth level of the Kasta, a small sleek cat darted from behind a leather divan, ran like black water along the wall and crouched by a cluttered worktable, ears pricked, whiskers twitching. When she was satisfied the silence was going to continue unbroken, she jumped lightly onto the table and nosed through the papers, files, cassettes, and other items scattered about on the polished wood until she found Makwahkik's keypac. She batted it onto the carpet, then stalked tail-high to the board beside his computer outlet. Her tail jerking side to side, she crouched and nosed at the pad, then she raised on her toes and batted at the onswitch. When screen went bright and the outlet started humming she jumped away, then dropped to her stomach and crawled cautiously back; moving awkwardly because control was being forced on her from outside, she hit other keys, entering the Nish'mok's password. When she was done with that, she licked vigorously at her sides, looking up repeatedly at the screen until the run was finished.
Shaking her head angrily, the rider on her brain irritating her more and more, she settled to work, tapping instructions into the outlet, shutting down the security network over certain selected areas of the Kasta.
She stared at the screen until it flashed the endsignal, then she exited the program, turned off the outlet, and leaped to the floor. For several moments she raced wildly about the room, playing with ghosts, then she bit at the keypac until she had it secure in her mouth and went trotting around behind the divan. The POV slid after her, caught the tip of her tail as she vanished into a heating duct whose loosened grill she'd clawed aside.
"Amazing what the girl is able to do with that peculiar Talent." Ginbiryol Seyirshi scratched behind the simi's small round ears; the Pet sighed with pleasure and flattened himself against his owner's chest. "One would think that its scope would be quite narrow."
Ajeri Kilavez crossed her legs and jiggled her foot. "One would think," she said Her voice was slow, slurred, and there were dark circles under her eyes. She wasn't used to endphasing under this much pressure, especially without Puk as balance, and it was undermining her confidence in herself. More important, it was eroding her confidence in Ginbiryol.
He looked swiftly at her, as swiftly away, and seethed with hatred for that interfering girl. Voallts had insulted him and he was going to destroy them for it, but there was none of this corrosive rage in that, it was prudence more than anything else; he didn't leave enemies behind him. Her he wanted in his hands, his own hands. Urgently, passionately, he WANTED her. He glared at Cell 1; Shadith was stretched out on the top bunk ostensibly asleep, her face a map of her efforts, grimacing, twisting, continually shifting expression. He was tempted to send the mercs after her, but he resisted, it would throw everything into chaos; he might get some good footage, but he couldn't control the outcome. Let the Schema run its course, let her play the role he chose for her. That would have to do him. He set the simi aside and swung the chair around to take a look over other developing scenes.