Seeds of Earth (19 page)

Inside, Chih was confronted with the walls of a narrow passage just tall enough for his companion. The inner wall was cluttered with niches, hinged flaps, shelves, pullout storage racks, and two long sleeping compartments set into the lower half. Kao Chih flung his kitbag into the lower recess and went forward after the Roug, who was still talking.

'... but has a new environmental unit and sufficient basic supplies to keep us nourished for the maximum estimate of six days. Ah, and I believe that this craft's Henkayan designation translates as
Castellan,
and although we are not armed we possess some detection countermeasures .. .'

His voice tailed off and his head dipped a little. By now they were both strapped into the cockpit couches, while a rumbling came from outside as the massive inner doors closed to seal off the dockside. A whine of servos then a thud and hiss signalled that the hatch behind them was closed.

'My apologies, Pilot Kao,' the Roug said, his voice subdued. 'But I must confess to a certain anxiety about the task ahead.'

Kao Chih stared at him. 'I'm not sure I understand, noble Tumakri - you have flown one of these before, yes?'

'Oh yes, my appraisal was more than satisfactory. It is just that I have never travelled beyond the borders of our system, and my briefing suggests the possibility of a perilous voyage.'

'In what way perilous?'

'Due to the clandestine nature of our mission, we cannot proceed via the main tier-ports. Sendruka agents and machines will be alert to any Humanlike species, and even the presence of a Roug may be enough to raise suspicions, therefore the authorised hyperspace conduits will be closed to us, which means that we have to use illegal ports and purchase course schemata from unlicensed dealers. I have been given several detailed itineraries and a few linguistic enablers, as well as the names of trusted intermediaries who have been told to expect us. Our onboard navprocessor is already imbued with our first destination and the autopilot will guide us out. Hopefully, this is sufficient preparation.'

There was a sudden roaring rush as the outer bay doors cracked open, venting the atmosphere in a pale burst of flash-frozen vapour. There was a slight jolt, then the sensation of motion, acceleration pushing Kao Chih back as the scoutship
Castellan
shot out from the great irregular mass of the Retributor. Seconds away, attitudinal thrusters came to life, sending them along a shallow trajectory away from V'Harant. Once they were a set distance from the gas giant, the flight systems would bring the hyperdrive online and take them into the many-tiered continuum of hyperspace.

'So, Tumakri,' Kao Chih said with forced cheerful- ness. 'What is to be our first port-of-call?'

The Roug took a small oval documenter from a waist pouch and read from its screen. 'Blacknest: an illegal way-station engaged in illicit commerce and the harbouring of a variety of outlaws, pirates and other transgressors. It is located in the Qarqol deepzone just beyond the Erdindeso border, and we are to exercise ... great caution at all times.'

'Ah yes, standard operating procedure,' Kao Chih said casually, ignoring the nervy panic that seemed to radiate from the Roug. 'Nothing to worry about - when we get to this Blacknest we probably won't even have to leave the ship. I imagine your people's contact there will have everything in hand. Just sit back and relax ...'

And I'll try not to think about what Great-Aunt Mei said to me earlier ...

Less than an hour ago, in his parents' house, he had just finished a bowl of rice and vegetables and was digging his old kitbag out of a chest when a finger had prodded his shoulder. The finger was attached to Great-Aunt Mei, who studied him with her hawkish black eyes.

'I heard that old fool Wu got up and singed Tan Hau in front of the Roug - is that true?'

'Indeed it is, Great-Aunt, and quite a sight it was . ..'

To his surprise, her stern, wrinkled face had then broken into a gleeful, gap-toothed smile.

'Heh, he always knows too much, old Wu, so all he can be is the wise fool!' Then her features had grown sombre. 'And how are
you
feeling, boy? Frightened?'

'I'm excited, Great-Aunt! - it's a great adventure . . .'

'Adventure, hah! The young always fail to see the whole of the road ahead, so off they rush. But then, you don't know enough to be scared, which makes you a young fool.' Then she had grasped his shoulder, pulling him closer. 'Listen to me, boy - pain will come to you, hurts and wounds the like of which you have never felt before. You must fight and kill them or they will eat you up, like hungry river serpents!'

Leaning back in the copilot couch, he watched a shielding layer of hexagonal platelets roll out across the cockpit viewpane, preparatory to the hyperdrive jump.

His first hyperdrive jump.

He leaned back, hands gripping the armrests.
Well, Great-Aunt Mei, I may not have been scared then, but be assured that I am now!

19

KAO CHIH

On approach, the rogue port Blacknest looked vaguely intestinal, like the digestive tract of some huge, grotesque monster. Within spidering meshes of metal frameworks, silver, grey and blue flexitube corridors spread in coils and undulations, connecting polyhedral modules of various sizes that were embedded in the mazy tangles like geometric tumours. The blocks and cylinders of the original station were still visible beneath the improvised accretion of past newcomers, and it was from the largest conglomeration that a substantial docking hub protruded on a squat tower.

'Is that where we're going?' Kao Chih said, studying the hub's busy traffic on the long-range imager, comparing it to the Roug orbital, Agmedra'a.

Tumakri, his Roug companion, peered closely at the multicoloured symbols on his small console screen, hesitantly touching a few with one dark, spindly finger. 'It seems not, Pilot Kao,' he said in his dry, papery voice. 'At first we were, but now we have been redirected to a secondary landing stage. Our syncsystem is already plotting a new guide-path.'

He looked round at Kao Chih, who smiled and nodded. 'That sounds reasonable - the main docking hub looks pretty busy,' he said, trying to sound both relaxed and businesslike. Soon after exiting hyperspace in the Blacknest vicinity, Tumakri had given him a linguistic enabler, a package of Human-configured nanobio receptors in the form of a translucent golden pill. In half an hour he was able to understand and respond in the Roug tongue, and by the time the illegal port was in visual range he was bordering on the fluent, with the result that Tumakri's erratic mental state became even more apparent.

'So tell me, noble Tumakri, who is the intermediary we are supposed to contact here?'

'One Rup Avriqui, a Voth procurer - I have since determined from our notes that in addition to providing the course data for the next stage of our journey, he will also be accompanying us. I have already sent three advice requests on the frequency tag shown in the itinerary, but thus far no response. This does not seem normal to me . . .'

Kao Chih shrugged. 'Perhaps their protocols are different in these matters, or custom ...'

He was interrupted by a brief staccato chime from the comm panel, then a string of syllables whose intonation varied between flat, nasal and flutelike. There was a momentary jarring sensation in his mind, like sounds and symbols colliding, then suddenly he was hearing the Voth's words and understanding them. Most of them.

'... again to present my egremini apologies for this lapse in finsterral communications. Disturbance between rabble factions is the cause but our mezgurid business remains viable. If this addresses to the noble Tumagri and Gowshee, please to respond.'

Kao Chih and Tumakri looked at each other for a second before the latter spoke.

'Have we the honour of speaking with Rup Avriqui?'

'This is so, exalted clients-of-unrivalled-lineage.'

'Do you have the .. .'

The Voth cut him off. 'Forgiveness I beg, exalted one, but it is not wise to speak of important matters over an unsecured channel. Once you disembark, my lugosivator will bear you both safely to my hold, where we shall continue our dialogue. I bid you the short and temporary farewell.'

The channel abruptly switched to the ready-cycle's bland, atonal warbling, and Tumakri blinked.

'It seems that he is expecting to meet both of us, Pilot Kao.'

'Indeed, friend Tumakri,' he said. 'But the truth is that my appearance is distinctly un-Rouglike, and we cannot take the risk of my being recognised as Human in a place like this.'

'Yes,' said Tumakri, slumping down into his couch. 'I was hoping to persuade you to undertake the encounter by yourself, somehow ...'

Kao Chih leaned forward, amused. 'In that case, we shall have to be creative, perhaps even inspired. What did you bring in the way of spare clothing?'

'A standard long-excursion miscellany,' the Roug said. 'But almost none of it will fit you...'

'Not to worry,' Kao Chih said, getting up. 'It's the details that matter, so we'll have to have a good rummage through the storage lockers . ..'

Nearly an hour later grapple-nets were hauling the fast-courier
Castellan
in beside two larger vessels that were moored to a gimballed docking duct. A flexitube concertinaed out to fasten its mouthlike seal around the smaller craft's hatch. On opening the hatch they found a prismoid dock ID tied by a length of finefibre to an eyehook, drifting in zero-gee. After a weightless clamber through the grubby, much-patched transfer tube, then along the docking duct, squeezing by all kinds of passengers coming and going from other ships, Kao Chih and Tumakri finally emerged in some kind of lobby. The Roug wore an ankle-length, sleeved cloak of a thin, grey material that clung from neck to waist, while Kao Chih had opted to don the emergency environmental suit but without the helmet. Around his head he had wrapped bandages from the medikit, being careful not to obscure the dark, faceted goggles he had put on beforehand.

And since Tumakri's itinerary notes had warned of Blacknest's imperfect eco-cleanliness they were both wearing small breathing masks. For Kao Chih, heavy gloves and boots completed the hopefully convincing non-Human picture.

There were three turnstile gates at the lobby exit, each with a queue of arriving sophonts, most of whom were bi-, tri- or quadrupedal: did swimmers, crawlers and fliers have their own docking areas, he wondered. A buzz of conversation enveloped them, voices conversing in all manner of whoops, whistles and words, while the air was a swirl of odours. In a hubbub like this, Kao Chih's linguisitic enabler tended to lie partially dormant, only translating when he focused on a particular voice or when someone spoke clearly and from close by.

He had prepared himself for a long wait, based on his observations of similar entry procedures on Agmedra'a. But it soon became clear that new arrivals were being processed with haste by three anxious Henkayans in dimpled blue uniforms. Each was using one pair of stubby arms to pass a fan-snouted sensor over each lifeform while the other pair dealt with forms and charges.

Then it was their turn. As the gate attendant began waving his handheld sensor at Tumakri, he took one look at the prismoid dock ID and said:

'Smallboat berthnetted, minimum fee seventy keddro.'

Tumakri produced a slender black credit stem, banded in gold.

'You may deduct from this,' he said.

'Nogood, nogood,' said the Henkayan, jerkily shaking his head. 'Creditransfer network offline, you mustpay keddro now or returnship.'

'But this ...'

'Nogood, nogood! Yellowfists here soon - pay now or leave!'

Tumakri swayed on his feet and Kao Chih steadied him with an outstretched hand.

'What's wrong?' he said. 'Don't tell me you didn't bring hard currency.'

'I do have such, but it is supposed to be for later in our journey.'

'If you don't pay the man, we won't be able to meet Avriqui and there won't
be
any more journey.'

Clearly unhappy, Tumakri dug into a waistpouch and surrendered four glittering black triangles, three inlaid with gold, one with crimson. Their dock ID was imprinted with a strange curlicue pattern and they were each presented with a blue plastic tag embossed with a string of symbols before being hurried out into Blacknest Station itself.

The corridor floor was covered in a dingy grey ridged matting, as was the ceiling, which was also a floor. A variety of sentient creatures was bustling along the gravplate pathway that ran the length of the ceiling, most of them, Kao Chih noticed, hurrying in the same direction. Then as he watched, several yellow-garbed figures leaped out from the overhead pedestrian flow, as if taking a collective nosedive towards the floor. Fearful cries went up from the gate attendants 'Yellowfists! Yellowfists!' - and Kao Chih then saw the tethered lines on which the newcomers swung through the air to land clumsily before the transit lobby entrance. Regaining their feet/paws/hoofs, they pulled out slot-nosed sidearms and gestured threateningly at the attendants.

'Time we were elsewhere,' Kao Chih said, grabbing a near-paralysed Tumakri and dragging him along the half-deserted corridor. They had just reached the next corner when an odd, jingling voice spoke:

'Masters Gowchee and Tumagri? ... up here, good sirs.'

Kao Chih looked up and saw a boxy, yellow cart with six fat wheels and a telescopic pole tipped with a cluster of glittering lenses which were angled down at him.

'Indeed we are,' Kao Chih said cautiously. 'You are ...?'

'I am Master Avriqui's number 2 lugosivator - I am to take you to his hold straight away. If you step onto the sidepath and join me, we can be quickly under way.'

The lens arm pointed to a strip of grey matting that curved off the main corridor into a recess and up the wall, joining the one directly above. Without delay, Kao Chih stepped onto the branch path, feeling his stomach bounce a little as he adjusted to walking up the wall then stepping onto the ceiling strip. Behind him, Tumakri groaned, holding on to the sides of the recess as he followed. The yellow cart had seating within a curved, transparent carapace. Flexible doors popped on either side and moments later they were strapped into sideways-facing bucket seats as the vehicle sped away from the chaotic scenes further back.