Crossing the Line (20 page)

 

From the seat of the hover, the ussissi village looked like a nest of eggs half buried in the soil. The fact that Shan had been told to meet the matriarchs here and not in F'nar told her that they were making some concession to the ussissi. That meant there was trouble brewing.

But as crisis summits went, this was a fine venue for one. Shan could see the perfect Easter eggs of domes as she approached, and they were Fabergé eggs, all brilliant color and intricacy. One flashed turquoise as she passed; another was fuchsia and silver, the next purple and ochre, a mass of swirls and dots and curves like the most extravagant paisley fabric. There were ussissi working on one and she turned to stare.

The creatures stared back. It was now impossible for her to break that meerkat association. They stopped as one, and they stared as one, and then they went back to shaping a new dome, paws—no, hands—working furiously to shape the wet plaster, pushing forward with staccato motions. She had no idea what supported that plaster, but she would find out.

“You don't come from this planet either, do you?” Shan said.

Vijissi was standing on the flatbed of the hover, nose pointed into the breeze with an expression of catlike satisfaction. “No, we also come from the World Before. They have always needed us, and we them. We dig, you see. We still do. Once we dug into hills and they would use the holes we left. Sometimes we would unearth tubers, and they liked those. We coexisted and they kept us safe and found water for us. Agreeable.” He snapped his head round and focused on something on the ground. “Ah, we stop.”

Vijissi slowed the hover down and stopped short of the row of fantasy eggshells. He leaped down and paddled around in the soil with his hands, then straightened up, clicking enthusiastically.

“Are you doing what I think you're doing?” Shan said. He looked like he had a handful of dates. They didn't grow dates here. And they were struggling.

“It is a courtesy not to do this in front of wess'har. You know how they feel about eating flesh.” He paused to palm the handful into his mouth. Now she knew why they had those perfect little needle teeth. “But we have to eat certain proteins, and they do not.”

“Lovely,” said Shan. “Still, no human's in a position to criticize. At least they're free-range.”
I never had to think about this sort of stuff when I was walking a beat.
Travel did broaden the mind.

For all its decorative beauty—and Shan was surprised that the wess'har tolerated that degree of visibility—the village was faintly medieval. There were no hardtop roads: that would have meant paving over lovely, diggable soil as well as disfiguring the natural environment. Vijissi parked the hover under a huge overhang of fleshy plant growth that looked much like an aloe plant that had been overdoing the steroids.

“Not very Targassat,” said Shan, nodding in the direction of the vivid collection of roofs.

“Temporary,” said Vijissi. “They'll decompose by the end of the summer. Mind your head.” He held his arm out rather formally in the direction of an impossibly small opening of a very fine slate-blue egg dome. Shan tried crouching to get in and then gave up and crawled through on her hands and knees. Having four legs allowed ussissi to keep their hands free very easily. She envied them as she got to her feet and found herself walking down into a depression not unlike a Bronze Age roundhouse but with much classier textiles. Domes or not, they were still warren-dwellers like the wess'har.

The smooth vault of ceiling was as exquisitely decorated inside as out, and the floor, studded completely with small colored stones and beads, was dappled with kaleidoscope patterns of light from small perforations in the roof. Apart from the floor cushions and the ubiquitous wess'har console, there was no visible concession to high technology.

Shan thought it all looked like a bugger to clean.

She crawled after Vijissi through another ussissi-height opening and found herself on all fours staring eye-to-eye with F'nar's most senior matriarchs. There were other wess'har females she didn't know and ussissi seated on cushions or kneeling around a table that looked like a bale of scarlet fabric.

Even Chayyas was there. She met Shan's eyes without the slightest hint that anything had ever passed between them. She seemed almost glad to see her.

“We are very disturbed by your news,” said Prelit. Shan had met her before, when she sought asylum in F'nar.

“Well, you've got twenty-five years to mull it over,” said Shan, and tried to scramble into a sitting position on the floor with as much dignity as she could. She crossed her legs and they all stared at her. It seemed only humans could do that. “Could we do the introductions?”

“I don't understand.”

“Who are you all?”

Mestin indicated
isan've
to either side of her, equally fearsome-looking females but wearing very different clothing—a velvety purplish-black tunic, a heavy beige wrap, a saffron and lemon collection of layered waistcoats. It said they weren't from round here, even if they were still all the same amber chess pieces.

“Imeklit from Iussan, Hachis from Cekul'dnar, and Bur from Pajatis,” said Mestin.

“We're concerned about F'nar's handling of this,” said Imeklit. Shan had long since given up expecting a how-do-you-do from a wess'har. “We want to be involved in the solution. I don't understand why time is an issue. It is a threat: all threats are now.”

“So what do you think's happening?” Shan asked.

The wall of grim and unamused sea horse faces stared back at her. Their heads tilted at different degrees, but all their pupils had synchronized in that four-petaled flower that told her they were trying very hard to take her in. It might have been the lights sparking sporadically from her fingertips. Then again, it might have been fear and mistrust of an alien whose kin looked set on conflict.

“I'm not playing
gethes
word-games with you,” Shan said.
Remember, they respect outspokenness.
“I want to know what you think and what information you have, in case I don't have all the facts.”

It was one of the ussissi who spoke, a female with a black braided web of belts strung round her. “I'm Bisatilissi.” She was leaning slightly forward on her four legs, as if she were going to spring. “Your people have abandoned mine on that ship. We think you have taken yours off so they won't be killed when you destroy us and the isenj. Now you secretly send other ships without asking permission. It's clear that you plan to attack us.”

Who's in charge here, Mestin, you or the hired help?
Shan didn't think that degree of candor would help matters. “I can see why you'd think that,” she said. “First of all, they're not my people. I'm stuck here with you and I have a
jurej
who's one of you. I don't know why they've done what they've done, but I can find out, and then you'll have more information to make your decisions.”

“And you're confident you can find things out, are you,
gethes
?” said Bisatilissi. “Why should we believe what you tell us?”

They weren't all diplomatic like Vijissi, then.
Time to raise the game.
It was a damn shame wess'u was so short on profanities. “Oh, I can get answers out of anybody,
sweetheart,
” said Shan. “And you don't know a thing about me, so here's the first
fucking
lesson. You call me
gethes
one more time and I will come over there and cause you intense physical pain. Do you understand all the words in that sentence?”

Shan looked at the teeth. It was hard not to. Bisatilissi leaned ever so slightly further onto her front feet, and Shan noted with a sinking heart that every other ussissi in the room had done the same. Too late now: she put her hands on her hips, her right hand ready to draw her gun.
I'll survive. More or less.

“You are a very confrontational person,” the ussissi said, not conceding an inch.

But she didn't say
gethes.
“Yeah, and don't forget I'm
c'naatat
too. Fancy your chances?”

Shan had no idea how ussissi would attack but her instinct told her it would be a character-forming experience if they did. But she didn't care. She would
not
be challenged. She was sud denly angry to the point of lashing out. Then wess'har and ussissi alike inhaled as if they had smelled the same thing at the same time, which of course they had. Shan had outscented them again without consciously trying.

Bisatilissi settled back slowly on her haunches and the rest of them followed suit. “If you apply your aggression for Wess'ej, we will have no argument.”

“Count on it,” said Shan. “And you can call me Superintendent. I'll go back and see what my human contact has to tell me. Then I'll relay that to you.”

Shan nodded politely and walked out into the compound. She felt suddenly and completely wonderful.
I'm
c'naatat. She could do what she had to do and not fear the physical consequences. She had the
time
to do what she wanted to do. She had the
physiology
to do it. She could make a difference, a real difference.

And they needed her to do it.

“Whoa, nice one!” she said to herself, smiling at the thought. “Back in harness again.” And she was still savoring the idea of being thoroughly equipped for her task in life when Mestin emerged with Vijissi.

“You're starting to realize the power you have,” said Mestin, and smelled irritated. “
You
might not come to any harm, but think of what might happen to others.”

“I've spent my whole career doing that. And I do know about responsibility.”

“Yes, you do. I merely counsel caution.”

“Thanks. Point taken.”

“I will talk to Eddie Michallat with you.”

“You can watch, that's all. I do the interviewing.”

“But—”

“Mestin, I do the interviewing. I'm good at it. Okay?”

Mestin said nothing. They got in the hover and Vijissi drove them back towards F'nar. The spangled and glossed and rainbow-bright temporary egg domes shrank in the distance.

Shan inhaled the fragrances on the air and realized three things had happened that day. She had actually started to enjoy
c'naatat:
she had rebuilt her status and reputation anew in an alien society: and she had openly acknowledged Aras as her
jurej.

She hadn't even thought before saying it. It felt comfortable. It was something she could get used to. She decided to let the bizarre hormonal loyalties of
oursan
make the best of a bad job.

 

Eddie and Aras were still on the terrace when Shan and Mestin joined them. Eddie seemed completely absorbed by the view of the city. The sun was setting and the pearl coating had taken on a peach luminescence that was exquisite. Shan was getting used to that too.

“Great toilet, Shan,” Eddie grinned. There were empty cups standing around: Aras had clearly attempted to placate Eddie with the same substance that he knew worked wonders on her. Eddie's eyes were on Mestin, which wasn't surprising for someone who had never seen a matriarch close up before. She obviously beat the lights in Shan's hands for novelty appeal. “This is just breathtaking.”

“Make the most of the lavatory,” Shan said. “You won't enjoy the local version.” She held her hand out to indicate Mestin. “This is a civic leader of F'nar, Mestin Tliat Jasil.” The indefinite article still sounded odd: Shan was used to a fixed hierarchy,
the
leader,
the
chief,
the
Guv'nor. “I thought it might help if she heard what you had to say.”

Eddie held out his hand and Mestin actually took it, although she had never seen a handshake and so just gripped his fingers with an intensity that showed on his face. Shan bit back a smile. It was rather sweet. It was just sad that they had to meet under such desperate circumstances.

“I have made a meal,” said Aras, with a sigh in his voice that suggested he had been waiting longer than he liked. “Shall we eat now?”

They sat at the table. Aras, familiar with human digestion, had made two sets of dishes, one with ingredients imported from Constantine and one for wess'har tastes. Shan peered at the bowls and plates, pleased to be able to eat both with impunity. Aras leaned across her to place a bowl in front of her and sniffed audibly.

“You have been in a fight,” he said stiffly.

“Yeah, and I won,” she said, and grinned up at him. Then she realized Eddie was watching her, and killed the smile in case he thought she was going girly.

“I'd like to wash my hands first,” Eddie said, and went to the washroom. The assault of cup after cup of tea was having its impact.

As soon as the sound of running water smothered their voices, they talked in low tones.

“Have you been talking to him, Aras?” asked Shan.

“You told me not to engage in current conversation. So I told him about Mjat. That's long past and has no information he could use.”

“Anything else?”

Aras stared at her, and she could have sworn he was hurt. “You told me not to reveal anything current to him,
isan,
and I followed your orders completely.”

“That's okay.”
Isan.
She'd let it go. “Just asking.”

Mestin was watching the flow of conversation between Shan and Aras like a tennis umpire. “Ah, you cuffed him, then,” she said.

“No, and I never will,” Shan said sharply. Aras didn't break his gaze. “He's my
oppo.
It's not like that at all.”

There was no reason why any wess'har should have understood that archaic English word, but it tumbled out and Shan wasn't ashamed. He was her buddy, her partner, the bloke she worked with. There was no stronger attachment, neither love nor even the sexual relationship that had now improved immeasurably. Whatever he was, or she was, he was her complete equal, and she had never found one before in her life. It felt safe. She wasn't alone any more.