When the tayshil turned, both her lips and her whiskers seemed to twitch. Lynn dug out some coins, held them up, and caught her breath as the farmer’s spindly fingers twined about her wrist, the scar bristling the fur along her left cheek. “We have a truce, human, so heed me: go back to your settlement and do not return for the next three days. That’s all.”
She let go of her wrist then, poked through the coins, and held one up as change. Lynn took it slowly, and the farmer’s lips twitched; she gave Orel a quick poke, and Lynn barely had time to brush her metin before she had slipped away.
Lynn stood for a moment, then moved to the side of a water seller’s cart, slung off her pack, and squatted down to load her vegetables in. “Orel, can you contact Malcolm and Keshia? See if anything weird’s happened to them today.”
She’d gotten the shurtri in and was making room for the eggplant when Orel said, “Mistress, they do not respond.”
Her hands froze. “Try the Conovers.”
“I have, mistress. All frequencies are blanketed with static, even those normally used by tayshil broadcasting.”
She was turning to him, a “What?” on her lips, when the ground shook, and black smoke blossomed into the air above the warehouses that ringed the marketplace. More rumbles, and smoke began pouring up all across town.
Shouts slapped at her neural link, “Kill the invaders!” and groups of tayshil in beige vests rushed howling from the warehouses, clubs in their hands, knocking shoppers to the ground, leaping at the booths. Another string of explosions, and the smoke covered the sun, a sudden twilight falling.
Through the rising screams, Lynn could just hear Orel’s buzzing voice: “Mistress! Quickly! We must take shelter!”
“What’s going on?!”
“Unknown! But I would rather not be here in the center of it!”
Something whizzed overhead, dropped into the middle of the marketplace, and flame started licking up from the stalls. Lynn grabbed her pack and took off for the road out of town.
The smoke was spreading along the ground now, making it hard to see. “Is this the right way?!” she had to call more than once, shattered booths looming out of the darkness and making her change direction.
“As far as I can tell, mistress,” Orel would reply, sometimes adding, “Bear left, if you can,” or “Around to the right here, mistress.” Finally, she heard, “I believe we are nearly to the warehouses, mistress. From there, we can—” His voice broke off, then hissed, “Mistress! Shapes ahead!”
An abandoned booth lay in pieces to her left; Lynn jumped into it, peered out through the cracks, and saw several tayshil come running out of the smoke. Firelight glinted from the ears of one, and Lynn realized it was Mr. Chonik.
They ran past, and Lynn was just about to stand and wave when one of their heads exploded, dark glop spraying forward as the figure fell. Lynn saw Mr. Chonik spin sideways, liquid spurting from his stomach, then he folded up and dropped onto the roadway.
A group of tayshil in vests came racing up then, two with tubes that she recognized as tayshil guns. One fired into the smoke after Mr. Chonik’s companion, and the other placed his weapon against the head of the still-twitching Mr. Chonik.
Then lights sprang on, cutting through the smoke from the other end of the marketplace. They converged on the group, and two heads blew up; Lynn heard bullets ping past, and she threw herself down into the wreckage. The lights dashed over the gaps in the boards, more shots rang out, then the spots streaked away through the haze.
It took her a moment to uncurl, to get to her knees and peer over the booth’s remains. In the dull glow of the smoke, Lynn could see six tayshil bodies sprawled, only Mr. Chonik’s still with a head. Lungs stinging, eyes tearing up, Lynn could only stare, her knees and elbows frozen.
Out among the bodies, though, something was moving. Lynn blinked; a metin was creeping onto Mr. Chonik’s shoulder, its eyestalks waving. A high keening voice came to her then, words tickling her neural link: “Alone, bereft, a ghost flitting fitfully, I am dead and yet I live, alone, bereft, a ghost flitting fitfully, I am dead and yet I live, alone…”
“Orel?” she finally got out. “What’s happening?”
“I do not have enough information, mistress.”
“Me, neither.” The voice was still whispering in her shunt, the same phrase over and over. “Is that the metin?”
The rachnoid leaned forward. “Metin do not talk.”
“Well, I’m hearing something. Aren’t you?”
“I am. The metin… it appears to be speaking what might be some archaic form of—”
“Great.” Lynn dropped to her hands and knees and crept out from the wrecked booth.
Orel’s legs grabbed tight at her shoulders. “Mistress! What are you doing?!”
“Getting our information. Hang on.” Other than the wavering voice, all she heard was a crackling now and again: either guns firing or wood burning. Lynn did her best not to think about the things that stuck to her hands as she crawled to the bodies, glad she couldn’t smell anything but smoke. Teeth gritted, she skirted around to Mr. Chonik’s side.
The metin had made its way to his leg, its voice repeating in her neural link: “…I am dead and yet I live, alone, bereft, a ghost flitting fitfully, I am dead…”
“Okay,” she whispered to Orel. “Talk to it.”
His bristly hair dug at the back of her neck. “Mistress, I have no idea what to say.”
“Fine. Just translate, then.” She lowered her head. “Mr. Chonik, can you hear me?”
She heard Orel’s translation, then a faint voice saying, “No, I can hear nothing. I will never hear anything again.”
Lynn blinked. “Then how did you hear my question?”
“I didn’t.” The metin stopped on Mr. Chonik’s lower knee. “I am but a ghost flitting fitfully.”
Orel buzzed in her ear. “My apologies, mistress. Its syntax is changing even as it speaks. It seems to be using two different constructions: one for itself joined to Mr. Chonik, and a second for itself now.”
“Great.” Lynn held out a hand. “Former Mr. Chonik, will you come with me?”
The metin waved its antennae a bit more, then raised its two front legs. “Do you offer sanctuary?”
Lynn licked her lips. “Yeah, I guess I do,” she said, but she stopped when she didn’t hear the phrase translated. “Orel, tell him we do.”
The rachnoid fidgeted on her shoulder. “Perhaps, mistress, you should reconsider.”
“What? Why?”
“The phrase which I rendered as ‘sanctuary’ has a ritualistic sound to it. We are entering unknown social areas, and I do not wish for us to become tangled in matters too deep for our understanding.”
“Uhh, Orel, I don’t think we can get tangled any deeper.”
“Mistress—”
“Orel, this is Mr. Chonik! Or, at least, what’s… what’s left of him…” She forced herself to swallow the lump in her throat. “We can’t just abandon him! And, c’mon, what about all your metin questions? I mean, the answers are right here in front of us, if we can get it back to the settlement!”
The rachnoid buzzed. “I thought this was your day off.”
Lynn flicked a finger. “Offer it sanctuary already.”
“As you wish, mistress.” Through the neural shunt, then, Lynn heard: “Yes. I offer you sanctuary.”
The metin touched her fingers. “I accept. A ghost can do no more.” And with that, it began creeping up her arm.
Lynn watched it, her neck tingling. “Orel, the ghosts in Mr. Chonik’s stories. Do you think—”
“We ought not to jump to any conclusions, mistress.”