Shadow Man (Paragons of Queer Speculative Fiction) (3 page)

"Tendlathe's
partner," Isabon said, and grimaced. "Sorry, wife."

Tatian nodded.

"I wonder what
Temelathe is making of all that," %e went on. "I mean, if the
dynasty's going to continue, he's going to need a grandchild."

"A grandson,"
Tatian said. He still wasn't completely used to the system, found
himself insisting on the gendered words as if that would help him
understand.

"Whatever." Isabon
reached for %er quarta and took a long swallow.

"It's not really a
dynasty," Shraga said. "There must be somebody else in the clan
who could take over, if Tendlathe and Aldess don't have kids."

"I can't see
Temelathe letting the position go to anyone out-side the direct
line," Isabon said. "In fact, I wonder if the indigenes would
accept someone who wasn't a direct descendant."

"Do you mean of
Temelathe, or of that Captain of theirs?" Tatian asked.

"Is there any
difference?" Isabon grinned, and Tatian nodded.

"True enough. Still,
I'm surprised they haven't had kids by now."

%e shrugged. "For my
money, he looks like a herm--Tendlathe, I mean. Which would explain
a lot."

It was a common and
constant rumor, circulating through the Nest and the off-world
community on the average of once every four-and-a-half kilohours. "It
doesn't really matter," Tatian said, and bit back the rest of the
sentence.
It doesn't
really matter what he is, as long as the indigenes say he's male
:
that was stating the obvious, and in any case he was tired of dealing
with the oddities of the Haran system. Let the Harans deal with it,
he thought--no, let Temelathe deal with it. It's his son and his
dynasty: his problem, not ours.

"Another game?"
Shraga asked, and reached for his beer. "Isa owes me a chance for
revenge."

"Sorry." Isabon
shook %er head, glancing sideways as %e triggered %er implants,
calling up some display visible only to %erself. "I have to work
tomorrow."

"I thought you had
tomorrow off," Tatian said.

"I did," Isabon
answered. "But then I heard there's a textile fair in the
Ferryhead market. I'm curious to see what's on offer."

Tatian nodded,
accepting the excuse, and switched off the queens-road board. The
fields that shaped it and formed the playing pieces collapsed, and he
began to roll the now-limp board into a tidy cylinder.

"How can you make
money exporting that stuff?" Shraga asked, and reached for a wedge
of flatbread. He broke off a manageable piece and dug it into the
relish, then said indistinctly, "I mean, doesn't mass alone eat
up half your profits?"

Isabon gave another of
%er austere smiles. %er company was small, but growing; in five
years, Tatian thought, %e would probably pass NAPD on the
gross-profit list. He was just glad %e didn't run a rival
pharmaceutical company.

"It would--it does,
on the biggest pieces, the premade things, quilts, bodices, other
clothing, and we don't buy much of that. We only take the best for
the art market. But the silk isn't that massy, and it sells very
well. The same goes for flaxen."

"But--"

Isabon shook her head.
"Sorry. Anything more is trade secrets."

Shraga lifted his hands
in instant apology, and Tatian slipped the dice and the random-box
back into their cases. "Are you doing anything tomorrow, Shraga?"
he asked, and the other man shrugged.

"I took the day, too.
I'm going to sleep late, eat real food, play a few games of
basieball, and then I'm going to watch a vidik on the big screen
downstairs."

"Want to hit the
Glassmarket before the vidi-show starts?" Tatian asked. "There's
going to be drumming and a dance."

"I don't plan to
leave the Nest tomorrow," Shraga said. "That's my idea of a
holiday." He set his beer aside--empty already, Tatian saw--and
stood, stretching. "And, since I have such strenuous plans, I think
I'd better get my beauty sleep. It was a good game, people."

"See you next week?"
Isabon asked, and Shraga shook his head.

"I'm off to the
Estcote--three days in Estaern, and then four on the road, bouncing
around the Delacoste
mesnie
s.
I'm free the week after, though."

"That's good for
me," Isabon said, and looked at Tatian.

He touched the input
pad between the bones of his right wrist and flinched as a wave of
static rose from the failing connection. Static danced in front of
his eyes, but resolved itself almost instantly to the familiar
scheduling grid. "I'm free then, too. It's your turn to host,
Shraga."

"It would be," the
other man said, but grinned. "I'll have a four-pack just for you,
Tatya."

Tatian laughed,
acknowledging the offer, and touched the sequences that unlocked the
main door. Shraga let himself out, waving, and Tatian closed down his
implanted system, feeling another wave of cold static rise to break
over his shoulder.

"You should get that
seen to," Isabon said.

"I will." He didn't
add--he didn't need to add--that it was hard to find technicians
on Hara who were both competent and affordable. And the system was
his own; NAPD would pay for the surgery, but not for replacement
parts.

Isabon gave a knowing
smile, and took another sip of %er quarta. "So, you're spending
an evening at the Glassmarket. Going with Prane Am?"

"We're not seeing
each other at the moment," Tatian answered. And maybe not ever
again, but that really wasn't Isabon's business.

"I'm sorry," %e
said. "I hadn't heard."

Tatian couldn't help
raising his eyebrows at that. Hara's off-world community was small
and intimately connected, practically incestuous.

Isabon shrugged. "People
don't gossip to me, Tatya. Nobody told me."

%e left a silence more
compelling than a question, and Tatian found himself filling it after
all. "It was the usual thing. She thought I was going native,
playing trade on her. And then I heard from Kaialis that she's
seeing some mem up at the port."

"I thought she was
man-straight," Isabon said, startled.

"She was when we were
dating."

"I'm sorry."
There was another little silence, and then Isabon sighed and put
aside %er empty bottle. "Kaialis isn't the most reliable person
around anyway. It may not be true."

"I know." Tatian
managed a smile that was almost real. "I just don't need my life
to be this complicated right now."

"Ah, the joys of the
Midsummer contract," Isabon said. "I don't envy you druggists."

"And I don't envy
you at the Quarter-days," Tatian answered. He worked the door
controls for %er --using the wall box, this time--and depressed the
latch.

"See you in two
weeks," %e said, and the door slid shut again behind %er.

Left to himself, Tatian
slid the rolled-up board and the boxes of dice and number generators
into their place in the storage cells that filled the inner wall, and
then gathered the empty bottles and fed them one by one to the
apartment's recycling system. He re-wrapped the flatbread, poured
the relish back into its jar, and tucked them both away in the narrow
cabinets. Then he went back out into the main room, and crossed to
the single large window, dragging Isabon's chair back into its
proper place as he went. He unlatched the curtains and drew them
back, so that only the sunscreen remained between him and the glass.
He could feel the day's heat radiating inward and released the
screen as well. It slid up into its housing, and he had to look away
for a moment before his eyes adjusted to the brilliance. His
apartment faced east, over-looking the city of Bonemarche--his
choice; the other option had been to face the starport, and he had
known he would be homesick if he could see the shuttles leaving. He
looked out between the two towers that made up the Nest, the
Expatriate Housing Blocks One, Two, and Three, across the maze of low
buildings tot he Harbor proper. The sky was white with haze, the red
spire of the lighthouse at Blind Point all but lost in the milky
radiance.

He had not particularly
wanted to think about Prane Am, or Jons Kaialis's gossip: it was
bad enough to be falsely accused, but worse to think that Am might
really be doing what she had charged him with. He slapped the window
controls, lowering the sunscreen again, and turned to the media
console as the fierce sunlight dimmed. Rather than risk the implant,
he pulled out the little keypad, paged through the menus of his
personal datastore until he found the file he wanted. He flicked the
shadowscreen to retrieve it and reached for his bottle of quarta,
settling himself on the couch opposite the display screen. Codes
flickered, mere sparks of light, and then the main screen windowed.
Lolya Masani, the Old Dame who had built NAPD, looked out at him, %er
dark face drawn into a frown. Of course, it was rare to see Masani
smile: he thought he had seen it twice, once when be hired him, and
the second time when he had brought in the Uldamiani job against all
odds.

"Welcome to Hara,"
%e began, and Tatian braved the failing implant to speed-search the
file. A progress bar appeared, going from green to red, and the face
in the screen writhed soundlessly until he'd found the section he
wanted.

"--two things that
fuck up people on Hara," Masani said, "and those are sex and
drugs. Drugs--you know my policy. You play in the illegal marts,
you're out. I can't afford what a run-in with Customs, or ColCom,
or the IDCA would eventually cost me, and don't kid yourself that
you'd make enough to cover the fines. You want to fish in that
pool, you do it outside of my company. That's my final word on the
matter." %e drew breath then, and the fierce stare eased a little. "The
only gray area I'm prepared to see is where new drugs are
concerned. You find something interesting, you bring it in, develop a
product, and I'll back you to the hilt--as long as you file the
proper papers, and keep me informed. I'm not averse to
recreationals as long as I have lead time to get Legal to clear it.
But make sure you keep me informed."

There was more, but
Tatian touched the implanted pad again, dragging the file forward a
little farther.

"--sex," Masani
said, "and sex is likely to be the biggest problem. Now, everybody
knows the facts about Hara. They were settled late, right at the end
of the First Wave, and then when the First Wave collapsed, they were
one of the colonies that got lost in the chaos. So by the time we
reestablished contact, we'd pretty much resolved all the issues
around hyperlumin-A, and they'd never even heard of the problem.
Which means that, while they look normal enough, they only admit to
two sexes. And that's where the problem comes in. The indigenes
don't understand our expectations, and we don't understand
theirs. You can meet a perfectly normal-looking person of your
personal preference--because, remember, they actually
have
five sexes, they are normal human beings that way--but if that
person's an indigene, they won't know how to respond. And neither
will you."

Tatian lifted his
bottle in silent toast. It had taken him most of the first year to
learn to look not at bodies when he met an indigene but at the
clothing that signified "real" gender.

"Now, if that were
the only thing, I wouldn't bother doing more than mentioning it,"
Masani went on. "You're all grown-ups now, and if you want to
fuck things up for yourself, that's your business. But I will not
have my company involved in trade. Hara attracts a lot of players
from the Concord Worlds. They've found a whole planet just as
abnormal as they are, and they're willing to pay for sex. They'll
pay the indigenes in metal, and anyone with a backcountry exploration
permit for the use of it. This is illegal, and the IDCA runs patrols
and spot checks and does everything it can to stop it, so you will
get offers. People will try to buy your landing permits, your
exploration permits, your housing vouchers, anything that will give
them an excuse to go into the city. And I won't have it. Anyone
caught playing trade will be fired. No appeal. Do trade, and you're
out."

%er face softened
again. "This is not to say that I care what you do yourselves. As
long as you're not selling NAPD's rights, you can screw what you
like and in whatever combinations. One thing Hara has going for it is
no native HIVs. I know you're going to meet indigenes who are
attractive and intelligent, and I know some of you are going to fall
in love, and that's fine. But I want you to remember a couple of
things before you let yourself take this too seriously. Hara's a
funny world, with funny morals; you may find yourself doing things
here that you'd never think of doing on any of the Concord Worlds.
And the people are even stranger. So my advice to you is, whatever
you do on Hara, don't take it off-world with you."

There was more but
Tatian flicked the screen off again. Masani had been one of the
people who had built NAPD's Haran business in the first place, and
%e clearly knew and loved the planet. And %e had been right about one
thing: people felt free to do things on Hara that they would never
dream of doing at home. Trade existed everywhere in the Concord
Worlds, of course; in the Concord, it was more a matter of how much
space each world allowed it, and how much the players were looked
down on, how much they had to hide their tastes. The Concord was
relatively rigid in its roles, its acceptable sexualities--it had to
be, with the dozens of HIVs that circulated among the planets despite
the IDCA's best efforts at control.... But there were always people
who didn't fit in, always some desires that weren't fulfilled.
The biggest group were the ones who couldn't quite accept the new
roles that came with the five sexes, the ones who looked back to the
good old days when there were only two genders, two roles, two
complementary parts to play. Even if those days had never truly
existed, it was still a compelling image to a certain minority, and
in Hara, those people had found their sexual paradise. On Hara,
players could always find someone of the sex they desired who was
willing to play boy to their girl or girl to their boy, regardless of
actual sex and without the complications of Concord society. In
effect, Hara was a whole world that practiced boy/girl trade, and it
was no wonder that even the most secure and normal people found
themselves occasionally doing something outside their norms.