Skeen's Leap (37 page)
Authors: Jo; Clayton
One thing I knew without thinking much about it, I wasn't going to take Picarefy anywhere near that trap. My ship. I arranged to have some work done on her so I'd have an excuse to leave her, and I found another ship, one I could charter, much smaller and just this side of falling apart. It belonged to a singleton smuggler who wanted a rest but couldn't afford one; with his Mala Fortuna, general stupidity, and his crazy jury-rigged ship, he was just about tapped out so he grabbed at the chance I offered; he was so tired, he didn't care much even if I wrecked the thing and left him without wings.
I did some juggling, a lot more thinking, got a friend of mine to put in some time on the ship, tightening it up enough so it wouldn't drop to pieces around me, then I was as ready as I'd ever be. I'm sure you know that feeling. When you're stepping off the edge of everything riding half a straw, your belly's tied in knots and your skin is pricking all over and your breath catches in your throat and you think what the blazing hell am I doing here, but at the same time you've never felt more alive, more ⦠well, you know the feeling.
I won't go into details about what I went through getting that ship to the Heeren System. You've got some idea if you've ever tried to get somewhere in a leaky rowboat during a hurricane. What with one thing and another, I got where I planned to be some six months later. By then if you offered me a match and a stick of dynamite, I'd have taken you up on the offer and blown that miserable ship into scrap iron.
The thing was, though, the nature of the ship was its best protection. The others had gone after Tibo with everything they could lay hands on. Me, I crept along like a three-legged goat. Forcers out on a smuggler prowl stopped me a dozen times, but I had good papers and a lousy ship; no being in his, her, or its right mind would use that rust farm for anything dangerous. And my looks matched my ship. I looked like a half-molted owl gone senile; I was filthier than the ship and the ship had a stink to it that would choke a buzzard. The forcers who boarded me were extra careful to touch nothing, afraid they'd catch some sort of creeping crud. I'd wager the cost of this ship the ones who had to look at my papers had themselves fumigated as soon as they were back on their ship. Those Empire forcers had a high opinion of their abilities and it was not too greatly exaggerated. Thing was, those clever minds of theirs were also rigid mindsâthey couldn't think sideways. To consider me or my ship a danger was an insult they couldn't swallow. The last few times they came across me sputtering along, they just waved me on.
When I nosed into the system, I putted along from world to world, doing a little trading here, a bit more there, paying my fees, getting paper straight, never really sure the ship would get up once it was down, but for all its cantankerous nature and miserable appearance, she was a tough little tub. With a curse or two, a lot of assorted prayers to every god I could remember, and some basic will power, I kept the bucket flying until I got to the world I wanted and got plunked down where I wanted on that world.
I took my time once I was down, doing what I'd done the other six times. I'd spent half a year getting here, another quarter working my way to my goal; you might say I was on my way so long they forgot I was coming. Funny. I made some good finds and better trades; even without Tibo's stash, I came out ahead, but it was so damn tedious. Well, never mind that. I futzed about that world, a gray hag, too feeble to be a danger to anyoneâlooking, buying, sellingâand everywhere I went I left a sign behind, a sign from something I knew about him that very few others did.
He saw the sign and followed me for several days before he came from under and signaled me. We met when we both were reasonably sure no forcers or other snoops were watching. Not any sentimental coming together like the story books tell it, that's for sure, the way I looked and the way he felt, well, never mind. The big problem was getting him onto my ragged old ship. That bucket had hidey holes where no hole could possibly be; the owner told me about most of them, but even he didn't know them all. I spent a lot of that six-months' dip checking them out; whoever thought up some of those had a perverse mind. I wish I knew him; I'd like to spend a year or two listening to him talk. So once Tibo was on board, no forcer was going to find him. We kicked that around a bit. Tibo had managed to keep an eye on the main port, even got onto the apron to do some muscle work heaving crates about, watching how the forcers handled searches. Discouraging. They searched everything, even had some crude sniffers that picked up traces of live cargo. Twice they caught traders trying to smuggle out shalakuza eggs and sinka seedlings. That's what Tibo'd gone in for, Shalakuza Silks. Came from spinnerets on the shalkako larva, an arthropod that lived on the world where we were; it ate a single plant that had to be grown in the special soils of a single narrow valley. The powers wouldn't let any adult specimens of the shalkako, their eggs, or larva leave the world, nor any of the sinka trees. Naturally there was one damn huge bounty for anyone who could get them out, alive or dead. Smugglers were giving the powers fitsâwhich was why they set the trap.
I'd been expecting all that. A year's not a long time to keep this kind of trap working. Would have been easier if we could have waited a couple more years, but the forcers were circling closer every day. He'd got loose a couple times just because he was lucky enough to look the right way at the right time. Just luck. That was all. And he was tired. Worn to skin and bone. Much longer and he'd just wear away to a wisp of nothing. Like I said, I'd been expecting things to be that hairy so I'd set up some habits on other worlds and this. I was a crotchety old hag suspicious of everyone and everything. Whenever I bought or traded for anything, I took delivery on the spot and escorted the goods back to a cubicle I'd rented, getting all papers and official stamps before I moved a step. Tedious and excessively cautious, but that fit my persona and beyond a few grumbles no one made any complaints about my methods; more important, none of the functionaries who processed the papers and the transfers saw me as anything more than a fussy, half-cracked old crone. I'd had enough time already to set the impression deep, so no one would think anything about me traveling about with crates on a jitney, and I had some special crates waiting for the right time. I told Tibo what I had and what I thought and we worked out a plotline that seemed like it just might get him past the sniffers.
Besides the Shalakuza Silks this world produced a cordial wine that was interesting enough to justify its liftcost. I wouldn't make a big profit unless I was lucky enough to hit a fad in cordials, but there was enough in it that no one would wonder why I was bothering with the juice. The cordial was fragile but not really difficult to transport if you took a bit of care. Hard usage would spoil it. I bought a gross of the bottles, had them packed with great care, hanging around and fussing until I nearly drove the packers into murdering me, and left the local inspector yawning. The crate was closed and strapped, the municipal seals slapped on, then the ultimas, then I had the crate shifted to a jitney. I took it to my section of warehouse and was just about as fussy, stowing it where temperatures and humidity were most open. I visited one more city, didn't find anything there, so I came back and wanted to load my ship.
Right away the forcers landed on me. They made me run everything, even officially sealed crates through their sniffer. I grumbled and groused and made as much trouble as I could without driving them too far. Got them hot and bothered and cursing me under their breath. Not aloud, because that would be breaking discipline and get them censured no matter what the provocation. They wanted very badly to catch me doing something illegal, so badly the thought shivered over their heads like heat waves. Of course there was nothing in the first group of crates they ran through the sniffer. Those crates and bundles had in them exactly what the invoices said. About halfway along, there was the crate of cordials. I really got agitated over that one, pointing out that the sniffer might upset the delicate balance of the flavors and leave me with some very expensive vinegar. I got so agitated and adamant about that damn crate, they watched it extra carefully as they put it through the sniffer. And the sniffer registered life present. A very small life, but a positive none the less. They hauled the crate off the rollers, exulting, shaking it up quite a lot, taking pleasure in the roughness. I was near foaming at the mouth, dancing around them, shouting at them. And while just about every forcer in the place clustered around the cordial crate enjoying my performance, the cargo laders for the port were passing the rest of my goods through the sniffer and hauling them over to the ship. I had a pair of android handlers, nothing fancy, but programmed to stow things the way I wanted and they got every crate, bundle, and barrel aboard before the forcers finished with the cordial crate.
I was spitting and twitching, shrieking and cursing in a dozen languages. The hotter I got, the more exultant they got. They pried open the crate and began pulling out those carefully packed bottles and finally came up with what had triggered the sniffer. A half-dead rodent smaller than my fist.
I was howling about suing the lot of them, complaining up their command structure as high as I could reach. The local commander had a couple of his men pick me up, slap some slave wire about my wrists and ankles. They carted me onto the old wreck. Told me to boot the thing out of the system and not show my ugly nose around there again.
Feeling a bit bruised, screeching at them over the com, I did just that; fingers crossed I lifted that bucket off-planet one last time and started booting out of the system.
Apparently the local commander got to thinking after I left, because he had three stingships stop me just short of Teegah's Limit. They searched the ship again, opened crates at random, while I sat fuming and calling every plague in the catalogue down on them and all their ancestors and all their descendants, legitimate or otherwise. Then he sent me off with another warning not to return that sounded as futile and stupid as he had to feel.
How'd I work it? I'm sure you guessed. Tibo was in a shielded crate two down after the cordial box. When he was working at the port, he noticed how the forcers sometimes let the remainder of a cargo be processed through the sniffers while they dealt with the suspicious boxes or bales. On busy days they didn't want to hold up legitimate traders and travelers. So we picked the busiest time of the busiest day, and I proceeded to irritate and distract them. If they were as good as they thought, they would have ignored me and stopped everything while they searched. They didn't. Well, that convinced me of one thing. They certainly had noses in the Pits. They were waiting for those they knew were coming, but not for me, because I kept my mouth shut. Not for a grotty old woman in a ratty-tatty ship. As for the second search, well, didn't I tell you about the hidey holes? Tibo rode to the Limit in one of the larger holes; the dismantled crate rode in another. After that if it looked like we were about to be fished out of skip, he popped back in the hole and sat out the search. It was a long slow trip back to Revelation Pit and we got to know each other a lot better.
Oh. Something else. Tibo's stash. He didn't send the call. Someone up in the powers did that, had a bright idea of extending the trap and getting rid of the smugglers that were giving them fits. Tibo's stash turned out to be mainly illusion. He sent a lot of coin to his huge family and he lived high. He hadn't the price of a tramp's bone when I busted him loose, so I was pleased to manage a small profit off my trading. He did know where I could find some Achelarian ruins, hadn't done anything about them because he wasn't a Rooner; we formed a partnership, him providing the site and a strong back, me the ship and the expertise. That worked out so well, we stayed together for the next five years.
(Skeen stopped short of telling Maggà about Tibo's betrayal; he was hers to curse, no one else had a right.)
MaggÃ's tale:
When I was a child I ran with my brothers. Our father was a scholar of sorts; given the choice he'd have been happy to spend his life at the Tanul Lumat, but he was Asach har Aloz and had no choice. He left the running of the stead to his wives. My blood mum, his third wife, died when I was born and he almost had me killed, but the other two mums wouldn't let him. I was the first girl. If he didn't want trouble marrying off his sons, if he wanted to keep them from being cast out as extras, he needed trading clout. After a long interval he married again and I had two new sisters. Took the pressure off me and kept the other mums busy. They didn't exactly forget about me, but limited their interest to seeing I was kept clean and fed. The twins, who were two years older, took over for them once I was let out of the nursery and adopted me as an honorary boy. As much, I suppose, because all three of us were in our way blotches on the family book of lives. Boy twins. A double birth was a curse, an evil omen, besides meaning two extra mouths the Father could never marry off onto some other family. And Me, I was a mother killer, a big baby coming near a month late. Ucsi, Ishri, and me. After a few years they managed to talk the older boys into accepting me. I learned everything they learned from reading and writing, to tracking kisbyas that had attacked the herds. Eldest Brother the Heir Yoncal made me a bow and was as proud as a rooster with a flock of sleek hens the day I matched him shaft for shaft. By the time I'd reached my fourteenth year I was brown and rough and had a tongue like a dungviper when I was attacked. And if my tongue didn't back the serf off, I could fight hard and dirty.
Time caught up with me. My courses started. I knew pretty well what was happeningâthe mums had got that much through to me, though I wouldn't learn the other things they tried to teach me. My sewing was knots and gaps. Dance and deportment, ah well, just say I was most times out riding with the herds. Cooking, yes, the boys made me learn enough for me to be camp cook so they wouldn't have to. I complained because I thought it wasn't fair, but they reminded me I was just a girl and if I didn't want to do the cooking and cleaning up, I could stay home where I belonged. Ah well. I tried messing up a few times, burning things, but Yoncal wasn't stupid; he spanked my behind pink and I didn't try that again.
Time. You want to hold it back, you want to stop the changes, but you can't. My body betrayed me. I hid what was happening as long as I could. I knew my freedom was gone the moment the mums found out.
How right I was. One of the serving maids saw the bloodrag before I could hide it and told the mums. My life changed totally. They kept me in the house until I was nearly crazy. They scrubbed me and buffed me and bleached me until the tan and calluses were gone. I looked in a mirror and didn't know myself and didn't like what I saw. I was watched constantly, never had a moment alone. Every fussy little woman's skill I'd run out of learning was crammed down my throat. Everything I valued about myself was viewed with loathing and forbidden to me. I tried to hold on, to cling to what I knew was good and right, but even my brothers abandoned me; it was as if I'd caught some disease that they were afraid would rub off on them. I was confused and miserable. My body was stretching and reshuffling itself. For some reason I started growing again and shot up nearly three spans that year and turned skinny as a stripped sapling. That was bad enough but my breasts grew, too, and my hips broadened and I thought I looked grotesque. My sisters sneered at me and the mums were angry at me all the time and Father was shut up with his books. He didn't care a snap of his fingers about any of his children. He didn't know anything about his sons; he talked to them on the holy days, asked the required questions in a voice without interest or energy; otherwise he never came near any of us. Ah well, I can't even remember what he looked like, he doesn't matter at all. The ones I knew were the mums and my brothers and sisters. And they all tried to make me into the thing women were supposed to be. I hated it, I hated everything, myself included. But I didn't know the words for what I was feeling, I didn't know any arguments I could use to convince anyone that what they all were doing was wrong. For me it was wrong. After a short rebellion that got nowhere, I gave up. No one understood what I was trying to say, at least that's what they told me. They told me all this was for my good and the good of the family.
My fifteenth year passed. I never saw my brothers any more except now and then passing through the halls and the critical looks they gave me, well, the ground dissolved under my feet. Nothing was solid. Nothing was real. I gave in. And because I couldn't be half-hearted about anything, I made the mistake of trying to be small and dainty and feminine. But I was large and clumsy and my temper was uncertain those days, and even more uncertain when I finally understood that no matter how much I wanted it, I couldn't be the charmer they were trying to make me. Couldn't. All my life till then there'd been nothing I really wanted to do I hadn't been able to learn and do. I could ride anything I could mount, pull a bow almost as strong as Yoncal's, track a kisbya over solid rock. I could braid ropes, throw a bull kova by twisting his tail, well, I needn't go on with that, you get the idea. I tried, but deep down I didn't understand what they wanted, I couldn't feel it. My sisters, young as they were, seemed like they were born knowing what I couldn't learn. That made everything worse. I ignored them when I was running with the boys, let them see how much I despised what they did. Now, well, they were just getting back at me for all that. I was in their world now and I was no good. They made me feel it, oh yes.
My sixteenth year passed. My body settled down and rounded off. I was much too tall, but I got some meat on my bones and even turned a bit pretty, though I still had a very insecure grasp on what feminity was all about, at least as it was defined in Boot and Backland.
The mums started carting me around the Rudssas, sort of semi-auctions where nubile daughters were shown off to potential husbands. The other Ashanku sent their sons or came themselves if they were looking to add new wives to their steads.
If I kept my mouth shut, and the mums made sure I knew what a hell I'd have at home if I didn'tâif I kept my eyes modest, laughed delicately and daintily at Asach jokes, and murmured idiocies that the mums made me memorize along with the appropriate situations to use themâif I did all these things, the mums thought they could settle me with some degree of credit. I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted. I thought if I could attract someone like Father who'd more or less ignore me and let me go my own way, I wouldn't mind that so much. And I was curious about sex. I knew about animals, I'd helped in the breeding chutes though the mums were outraged later when they found out about that. There were one or two Ashanku who seemed interesting and others who seemed cold enough for me as they looked over the girls like buyers inspecting kova heifers at an auction. Which really wasn't all that different, if you thought about it, from what our mums and other mums were doing with their daughters. But none of the likely ones paid any attention to me. I was too tall, too sullen, I looked and felt stupid. They didn't want intelligence, at least not girls that let it show, but liveliness and a degree of wit were necessary to attract them. I had neither and I wasn't pretty enough to make the lack unimportant.
We went from Rudssa to Rudssa and my constant failure corroded my soul until I feltâah, even thinking about it now twists my gut. Yes, even now when I know quite well how stupid it all was, how cruel and distorted it was. Even now I remember and I ache for that child. What other standards did she have to measure herself against? The lessons of your youth sink deep. These days when some fool says
look at that fat cow trying to be a man, pitiful isn't it
, the rage rises in meâthe words are an insult to everything I am, takes a while to pull myself together and get things into perspective and recognize the envy and spite and inadequacy behind those words. I want to stop reacting to things like that, but it still hurts, Skeen, that child is still inside somewhere aching because she failed and failed and failed again to fit herself into their idea of her. Enough of that. Brandy does that to me, I get sentimental and soggy. Where was I? Ah! Toward the end of summer, when the mums were beginning to despair, the Asach Keesh began sniffing around me. He wasn't exactly ugly, just old; that didn't bother me too much, it was the things that oozed from his eyes and tainted his touch that turned my stomach. I didn't understand what I was seeing, but it made me want to run away and hide. He sat by me at one Rudssa, touching me fairly chastely when he was in the light, but the thing in his eyes, the wetness at the corners of his tiny mouth made even the properest touch an obscenity. He was at the next Rudssa and took me into the dances where he mauled me as much as he could without making himself too obvious. By the end of that Rudssa I was as close to fainting as I've ever been because I knew for sure he was going to ask for me. I didn't know what to do. I tried to tell myself that I was worth more than fifth wife to an ancient smelly wreck, but he was a wealthy, touchy, important man. Even if he wanted to, even if he cared about me, Father wouldn't dare offend Keesh. And he didn't care; to disturb him with my fears and loathings would be useless. Worse than useless, it would only make my sale that much surer. By the time we got back to our hold I had a high fever and was shaking with chills and vomiting even after there was nothing left in my stomach. I gave the mums and the maids a hard time, though that wasn't deliberate. It just happened.
In the morning I was called to my Father's public room and he told me what I was expecting to hear. I knew it wouldn't do any good, but I tried to say no, I tried to say listen to me, I'll die before I let him touch me. My Father closed his ears to my voice; he left the room, untroubled, unmoved, forgetting about me as soon as the door was shut. The mums wrestled me away and later had me beaten and locked up and fed a meal a day of bread and water until I was dizzy with hunger and fear. They went at me every day. I had to do this for the family, they said, for your brothers, for all of us. If we broke off now, the Asach would declare feud on us and start a war that would wipe the family out. Keesh was rich and powerful, with many serfs and younger sons married to his daughters and his acres stretched ten times the breadth of the har Aloz lands, and they were in the rich lowlands not up here in the niggardly hills. I tried to tell them how I felt, but they wouldn't hear me any more than my father would. I could get used to him if I tried, I could get used to anything if I really tried; it was woman's fate to suffer, nothing I could do would change that, no point in thinking it would. I was going to Asach Keesh har Tosso. I could make it easy on myself by submitting or I could fight and find out how weak and helpless I was, how futile I was. How stupid. You're not stupid, the mums told me; use your head, learn how to fool him and get what you want that way. I told them he made my skin crawl, but they just kept saying you can get used to anything. They wouldn't look at me when they said it, and I understood finally and completely that they were helpless and every word I said hurt them and the only defense they had was to deny the hurt and invoke the image of the suffering silent woman who was nonetheless extremely powerful through coaxing and manipulation. I stopped arguing. I recognized the futility of depending on anyone for help. I tried to reconcile myself to what had to be. And vomited everything I ate for the next week. For two days I had raged, for seven days I tried to conform, for two more days I racked my brain for some way out. By then I knew I couldn't do it, I simply could not endure that man's touch. There was no one who would listen to me or take my part in all of Boot and Backland. I would have to leave Boot and Backland. At first the thought terrified me. I had no money, no knowledge of the world outside Aggitj holds. I did know how to ride and hunt and live off the land. But winter was coming soon and before the fist snows I'd be shut into Keesh's hold. I thought about killing myself, but I didn't want to die. I thought about killing Keesh, but I'd heard far too many stories about what happened to self-made widows. I wanted to live. But how? Har Aloz steading was high on the slopes of the Spine, but Asach's lands were down close to the coast. Somehow I had to break free of my guards when I was being hauled to my lovely bridegroom, get to a port, and use my bride gifts to bribe my way onto a ship. And try to keep from being raped and collared. I had no illusions about pretending to be a boy. I'd lost a lot of weight, and I hadn't done any physical training for almost two years. My muscles were soft as butter and about as responsive. And in spite of the past weeks of misery my breasts and hips hadn't reduced their obtrusiveness one hair. I stayed up all night plotting and in the morning I looked so weary, so dull and dispirited, it was easy to convince the mums that I was ready to accept my fate.
They watched me still, not trusting my meekness, but I was free to go where I wanted as long as I stayed in the women's quarters. They tested me, let me go outside, let me rideâas long as I kept a guard of three serfs with me. I continued to show listless and exhausted and finally they relaxed. Everyone relaxed. Yoncal patted my shoulder and told me I'd have a splendid time, Keesh's stables were famous from Toe to Tip. Titur began teasing me about being a fine lady, wagered I'd be running the women's quarters and making the other wives hop before the winter was out. My sisters fingered my wedding robes and were nearly slain with envy. Everyone acted like this was the finest event since lifefire was a rushlight.
Except the Twins. Ucsi and Ishri were destined to be called Extra however well all their sisters married. They had followed Yoncal's lead at first and treated me like he did. But they'd ridden as escort with the mums and me to too many Rudssas to have any illusions about how happy I was going to be. That was a sly move to see if the boys could attract dowered daughters in spite of their being twins. Apart they were beautiful boys, far prettier than me. Together they were a wonder to behold. But even that extraordinary beauty couldn't overcome their bad luck in being twins. Single births ate enough of the Father's substance and the taking of multiple wives generally meant far too many mouths around even though only one woman in three was fertile and only one woman in five could produce as many as three living children. Because twins were apt to produce more doubles they were always called as Extras and driven beyond the borders. They'd seen my misery and weren't blinded by family needs; they'd held my head and helped the mums clean me up after that last Rudssa.