“Hm. The Brother of God, he’s in this huge pile right in the middle. Meya, that packet of plans, which one’s the big sucker?”
Rustle of paper as the Cobben looked through the material handed them.
“Third down. And calling it a plan is… tsah!”
“I see what you mean. We’ll have to do our own scouting and that’s going to be tricky.” Sound of tearing paper. “Ugly zurl, isn’t he. Old frogface. Hm. We’ll need some of those white robes. About the only plus in this mess, those robes, they’ll cover a lot. Meya, Keyr, you’re the closest in size to these Imps. Best be you two doing the scout.”
“All right by me. Lethe dust?”
“Good idea, if you get spotted, we don’t want them remembering you. And since we’ll probably be dropping in next night, we also don’t want a lot of corpses stirring them up.”
“We get a chance at him, do we take itT’
“Good question. They want us to take out all three the same night. Given this slop…” slap of hand, faint rustle of paper “what do you think?”
“I say we do it our way.” Feyd’s rumbling growl. “Do the Brother first, since he’s the hardest to get to. Wait a couple days, hit the Speaker. Wait another couple, maybe three days, hit the Arbiter.”
“I like that.” Keyr’s quick whinnying voice. “Confusion makes things easier.”
“Sometimes.” Orm’s slow drawl. “Sometimes not. CloKajhat give you any reason, Sarpe? I never heard any, just here it is, go do it like we said.”
“All he said was he wants to blow the city apart, get the different factions shooting at each other.”
“This isn’t our kind of thing, Sarpe. You know it isn’t.” Meya’s voice, light, rapid, unhappy. “I think we should put it to the vote, we finish this, then we tell Clo-Kajhat to go min his own chik and get back to Helvetia where we belong.”
As a general argument arose, Shadith soothed the slug to sleep and withdrew enough of her attention to think over what she’d heard.
Up till now she’d concentrated so hard on getting here, she hadn’t thought much about the difficulties of finding Yseyl, one small Pixa in a city full of Pixa and Impix. I have to get one of those maps. After they’ve left, maybe. Do I need to hear any more of this? No. I don’t think so.
She woke the furslug and let it go humping off, then took another swallow of water and tried settling to sleep.
Sleep wouldn’t come.
Three people were targeted for death. She knew about it. It wasn’t her business. Digby would be furious. He’d warned her; if she went on working for him, she’d be bound to come across things that appalled her about their clients and she’d better make up her mind to ignore them. But…
It wasn’t her business…
“All right,” she whispered into the dusty darkness. “I don’t like Cobben, I never have. They aren’t clients. Ptak aren’t clients. I’m going to kick their little plans into moondust.” She thought about that a moment, shook her head. “Ah Spla, I’ll do something. Don’t know what right now…”
She pulled the padding closer about her and this time dropped into a dreamless sleep.
2. Linojin
Shadith lay on a grassy flat high in the mountains above Linojin, a tarp pulled over her as camouflage against Pt-Mac-an cameras. She had her binocs strapped on and was turning her head slowly to scan the city, cursing her stupidity. Even listening to the Cobben grouse about their problems hadn’t prepared her for this.
Linojin was big. There was that pile at the center. The Grand Yeson which translated roughly as cathedral, with its surrounding maze of small courts and arcaded walks, its spires like twisted horns and its extraordinary roof. Looked as if the tiles or whatever were squares of grass sod, the grass a brilliant emerald, rippling almost seductively in the brisk wind off the ocean. The steel lace of a broadcast tower in one of the back courts rose twice the height of the highest spire.
Then there were the Religious Houses. Warrens filled with mals, ferns, and anyas, the members of each group dressed in identical garments which made their resemblance to ant swarms all the greater. And the common streets teemed with people, Pilgrims, tradespeople, workers, refugees. All looking alike, from this distance anyway. Same species. Pixa and Impix, different cultures, same shape. Stupid, stupid, not thinking what it meant when Yseyl went to ground in a Holy City where everyone was closely monitored by locals as well as the Ptaks through their spy satellites-where any kind of alien would stand out as if she were painted red.
Disappearing in a polymorphic stew like Lala Gemali was simple, but this?
The anyas were tiny, hardly more than a meter tall, their heads about at the shoulders of the ferns, heart-high to the mals. Even in one of those white robes there was no way she could pass herself off as a Brother. She was at least a head taller than the biggest of the mals.
“Can’t go down there. Can’t ask questions. Shadow-girl, you didn’t think this through very well. Shays! There must be a hundred thousand of them. Maybe more. How am I going to do put my finger on one particular Pixa?”
She turned the binocs on the Pilgrim Road, sighed as she saw the thin but continuous line of newcomers. More people to add to the mix. “Yseyl, ah my Yseyl, if I had your gift…” She smiled at the thought of putting on a face and shape to fool that lot, then shook her head. Wishes only wasted air and energy. “Digby’s right. If I can hook you for him, he can put that talent of yours to good use.”
She shoved the binocs up off her eyes and examined the map unfolded before her, its edges pinned-down with bits of stone. “So. I ask myself, why did you come here? The answer’s obvious, isn’t it. Those three the Cobben are targeting are the only ones who can use the disruptor to get more than a few people past the Fence. People will follow them. Believe them. Trust them. Not you, little thief. Hmm. Nothing interesting on the radio. No sudden interest in gathering people together. No excitement down there. You haven’t figured it out yet, have you? No one listening to you. No one believing you. Do you even believe you? Fairy gold, that disruptor. Pretty thought, but gone with the sunrise.
‘And ‘where are you? Not with the religious. And not with the Pilgrims. I don’t think you could stand that piety, little assassin. Not from what Cerex said. Among the hohekil. Most likely. That means the southwest quarter. All right, let’s take a look and see what’s there. Maybe I’ll get lucky again. After all, it did happen once.”
Shifting from map to city, city to map, she spent the rest of the afternoon identifying buildings and streets, locating the market, checking out gates, associating the data written on the map in minuscule glyphs of interlingue with the objects named. Always a chance that Yseyl would go walking down one of those streets the moment Shadith swept the binocs along it. Lightning could strike twice if the Lady decided to smile on her.
By nightfall the only thing she’d gotten from that continual scanning were eyes that burned as if someone had taken steel wool to them. She folded the map, rolled up the tarp, got the miniskip from under the bushes where she’d stowed it and flew cautiously back to the hollow where she’d made her camp. Still two clear days before the Cobben struck. She fixed a meal, then settled back to brood over what she’d seen and plot strategies for thwarting the assassinations.
She spent the second day scanning faces, because she couldn’t think of anything else to do, but saw nothing of Yseyl.
Toward the end of the day a powerful wind began blowing inland, driving black clouds before it. She could smell the sea and hear a faint humming that she couldn’t pin down until she looked at the broadcast tower and saw how it was quivering despite the cable stays that helped hold it upright. Those cables. She shouldn’t have been able to hear them hum this far away; it must be some kind of atmospheric freak.
Was Yseyl was still in Linojin? It was three weeks since she’d seen the little ghost walking along the Pilgrim Road, and who knew how long ago that scene was flaked?
“This is not working. I could sit here till this body rots and still not pick her out of that mess. Hm. If this was one of Autumn Rose’s games, she’d finesse. Force a move.