01. Spirits of Flux and Anchor (3 page)

Matson was a stringer in his mid-thirties, which meant he was a very good stringer indeed in an occupation that often saw you dead in the Flux while still in your teens or twenties. He'd been around a lot in his time, and he still enjoyed the constant challenges of the job.

He'd left his duggers and mules at the clear spot at the western gate. At the moment he was dead- heading, and he hated like hell to do that -- all expenses and no profits. This particular Anchor's census, though, should make up for it. He'd heard

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that only one other stringer was close enough to take advantage of the bargain, and that meant a good deal of business. Usually there were so many stringers you had trouble even filling your local Fluxland orders and paying back your I.O-U-s for the quarter, but here, even with a small census, he'd wind up with half the crop.

It did not trouble him to deal in human beings, just as he also dealt in gold, silver, various manu- factured goods, and anything else that was in de- mand in one place and surplus in another. While he lived by a strict personal moral code, this was the way of World, a system he'd been brought up to accept and believe in and, since "right" and "wrong" are always defined by the culture of a place, this sort of traffic -- for which there was good socioeconomic justification -- was simply taken for granted.

It was a good two days' ride from the Anchor wall to the capital, and a pretty boring one at that. Farming Anchors were perhaps the least interest- ing of all, all the more so because these people considered themselves free and autonomous. Theirs was a happy little worldlet, and most would never leave nor want to.

They were as domesticated and spiritually dead as their cows, he thought sourly.

He amused himself by playing mental word games and by double and triple checking his mne- monic tricks that allowed him to keep all his orders, requests, I.O.U-s, and accounts in his head. Perma- nent records were dangerous to a stringer's freedom, too, even if you could keep decent account books in the Flux.

Still, it would be good spending a couple of days in a real city, one that was what it looked like and wouldn't change or dissolve on you because of a paranoid wizard's bad dreams, and to sleep in a

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nice, comfortable bed, drink some decent booze, and maybe fool around a little.

He reached the city before nightfall, and went immediately to Government House to register him- self and then paid the usual brief courtesy call on the local temple, writing out his specific require- ments for their perusal, while also dropping off a box of the local Sister General's cigars. It always paid to do a little homework before coming in to a new town.

Next he went over to Main Street -- dull name for the entertainment district, the kind of name you'd expect a bunch of cow herders to come up with -- and checked into a decent hotel. Capital districts were always nice if only because they alone had electricity, which included hot and cold running water and in-room baths. Since the hotel was taking care of his horse, he quickly stripped and ran the bath water, then slipped into the hot tub. It felt really good. He never realized just how many minor muscle aches and pains he lived with until they were taken away. About the only trou- ble was, they always made the damned bath tubs about a finger's length too short.

Still, he leaned back, lit a cigar, then reached over and picked up the small pile of papers he'd been given at his two prior stops. One set was a bunch of orders for various goods the Anchor needed, and these he would either try and fill or, if a better trip came along, he'd pass along to some other stringer going this way for the usual finder's fee. Also included was a smaller list of what was usually called "desired personnel," and those were more high-ticket items. He might find and arrange transport for the two needed gunnery instructors, although why they needed them for this place was beyond him, but he suspected that they were going to have to pay and pay big and actually hire by enticement the electrician with experience and the

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civil engineer, and they'd be damned lucky if they got either one at any price. Anchorfotk didn't like to travel in the Flux at all, and for good reason. Making it worth the while of this level of skill to travel would cost them before, during, and after- Still, he'd see what he could do.

He had only raw numbers on his own outgoing goods. They would have to check their census and see how many of the unlucky losers fit what he needed to fill other orders. He liked the numbers, though. A hundred and six to go out, fifty-six fe- males and fifty males, split between two stringers. True, he'd have to make a good stab at filling the Anchor's orders, but he liked this kind of arrange- ment. No up-front outlay and-the goods came on consignment.

After bathing, he unpacked a bit and rummaged through his pack to find civilized clothing. Although he'd be here three to five days, he did not even glance at the drawers and closets in the room. He never unpacked any more than he had to, the quicker to make a getaway if it were ever needed.

Dressed in the same manner as when he arrived, but with all clean clothes save hat and boots, he rearranged his belt, removed the shotgun holster and its deadly occupant and clipped on a knife in its scabbard and the bullwhip. He liked the bull- whip -- it had such an intimidating effect on the locals, particularly the self-styled toughs.

Finally, he shaved, all except the moustache. It was still just coming in, but he'd been suffering lately from a series of runny noses and decided that a moustache was the best local cure for a constantly chapped upper lip. Finally satisfied, he left his room and went down to the street, looking first for a restaurant and a good meal. Before he was ten meters down the street, though, he stop- ped, seeing a black-clad figure riding in on a spot- ted horse. The second stringer had arrived.

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"Arden!" he called out. "Good to see you'"

The horse stopped and the rider stared for a moment. "Matson? That you? Well, I'll be damned!"

She was several years younger than he, but still tough and long on experience. She was tall, lean, and lanky, but well proportioned, and if the strain of the job showed as much in her face as it did in his it made that face no less pretty, and while she hadn't bothered to put on a wig as yet to hide her shaven head, her oval face seemed complimented by its very baldness. She jumped down off the horse and walked over to him. "It's been a long time," she said softly.

He nodded. "Tuligmon, two years ago."

She grinned. "How sweet' You remembered!"

"How could I forget? You beat me out of some of the best damned merchandise I've seen since I started stringing."

She laughed. "Well, no contest this time, unless a couple of wild card stringers show up. Good stuff here and it's all ours, my dear."

"Well, since we're not competitors this time, what do you say to a night on the town? Um, such as it is, anyway."

"You're on! But let me check in and get cleaned up a little first."

"I'm not starving. I'll wait for you in the hotel bar."

He'd first met Arden years ago, when she was just out of her teens and he was a big, experienced stringer in his mid-twenties and anxious to show off to the younger generation. That was over in Anchor Mahri, a depressing factory land half a world from here. She'd been such a sexy, wide- eyed innocent, hanging on his every word and vamping him constantly, and he'd started regard- ing her less as a stringer than as just another barroom girl with not much future. She'd hung

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around with him while he'd made some of his calls and discussed orders and deals, and he hadn't thought much of it. She'd even moved into his hotel room.

Of course, one morning he awakened to find her gone, and thought little of it, until he made his rounds to firm up his deals and found that she had been there first. Not just to one, but to every damned account on his list -- and with a better offer and a take it now or forget it style. She'd taken note of every single item of business he did and every offer under discussion and beaten him by just the exact deal that would make them switch. She'd given him one hell of a sour stomach and a worse wallop in the pocketbook, but he also ad- mired her gutsy style. He was pretty sure after- ward that, given a day alone with a recalcitrant prospect, she would wind up owning his business.

She also had a quick mind, a superbly trained body and the reflexes to make it work for her, and more talent with the Flux than anybody he'd ever met. She could hold her own in any fight, and he'd heard the stories of some of those as well.

She joined him in about half an hour, having washed up and changed into her city clothes. They were still stringer black, of course, but made out of some tight, clingy material that seemed to form- fit itself to her body and make her seem, while fully clothed, almost naked. At least it left very little to the imagination. She also wore her dress boots, with the heels so high it gave her the sexiest walk in the world-

"Well? Shall we go?" she prompted.

He nodded and signed the tab. "I guess steak would be the best in a place like this. At least farmers make good home-grown beer and booze."

They barely noticed the stares and nervous looks they got from those they passed. Stringers were used to such things, and both Matson and Arden

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were experienced enough that they no longer even got the slight charge from knowing they were feared by all the "decent" folk of Anchor and Flux. Like monarchs, they tended only to notice when such reactions were absent.

The food was good, and perfectly prepared, al- though the wine was lousy. While the beer and booze were good, this was clearly not grape country. They relaxed with shop talk, mostly telling tales of good and bad experiences and filling one another in on people and places the other hadn't been to, at least in a long time. Neither, of course, dis- cussed future plans or routings -- she would never give away anything by reflex, and she'd sure taught him long ago not to, either. So it surprised him, after dinner and after checking out a couple of inferior bar shows, when she said, "You know, I've been thinking of quitting for a while. Going to a Freehold and contribute while there's still time."

That stopped him. "Huh? You?"

"So what's wrong with me?"

He chuckled. "That would take too long to list, but it's all mental. No, I just can't see you taking off all that time and becoming a mama to a scream- ing kid, that's all. I think you'd go nuts."

"Most mothers do, I'm told. But, you know. I've been a lot of places and seen and done a lot of things. I'm very well off, so that's not a problem, and it's one thing I've never done."

"You've never cut off your left arm, either. But if that's the way you feel, why not just do it? You could have any man you want."

"Uh huh. And there's one I have in mind who, I think, will make half of the best new stringer in a century. I decided that fate would make the deci- sion if I met him again in time, and it looks like I have."

He stared at her. "You're serious?"

"I'm serious. I made the decision the moment I

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saw you, riding in here." She flashed him her patented evil grin. "I already arranged with the hotel to share your room."

He thought of the sheets of business documents there and felt a mild chill. She caught it and laughed. "Yes, I saw them. Want to see mine? The same stuff. We're not competing here, remember?"

He smiled and shrugged. "Okay, then. The shows here are pretty lousy anyway."

She smiled and patted his bottom. "Let's go put on our own, then. The next few days are exactly the right time for it."

Bending to fate, he followed her back to the hotel.

4

TEMPLE

"Where ya goin', Cass?"

She stopped and turned to see Dar and Lani. Dar was a big, strapping farmboy with a tan com- plexion set off by flaming red hair, while Lani was a pretty, tiny -- shorter and lighter than Cassie by far -- and extremely overendowed young woman. Cassie's father had once cruelly joked that Lani got not only her own attributes but the ones that were supposed to go Cass as well. Both had been in her class through school; Lani was a little more than a month older than Cass, Dar just a week younger than she.

Cassie would have liked Lani to have been as short in brains as she was endowed in beauty, just to provide some symmetry to life, but the truth was it was Dar who was rather slow -- one teacher had used the term "vacuous" -- while Lani was quite bright and in line for a scholarship to teacher's training or perhaps into agricultural research. It said something about the beauty that. while she could have had any boy not only in the commune but probably in the entire Census, she had chosen Dar, whose mind was nil but who was certainly pleasant and cheerful and, like so many large men, uncommonly gentle, but who was also, from all reports, rather well endowed himself.

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Both were simply too nice to stay mad at, and Dar had been one of those boys who'd always been a friend.