Crossing the Line (7 page)

Chayyas had put a bullet in her. Shan just couldn't quite work out
where
yet. That was the problem with custom-enhanced hollow-tip rounds: terrific stopping power, the very best she could get made. She just hadn't planned on one stopping
her
.

“Can you hear us?” Vijissi asked. “You hit your head when you fell back.”

That explained a lot. Her left shoulder hurt too. She fumbled, feeling for wounds, and realized the shot had penetrated her upper chest. It had probably clipped her lung, judging by the taste of blood: she'd seen enough bodies in postmortem to work that out.

But
c'naatat
was practiced at injuries. It had played this game before, when an isenj round had penetrated her skull and Aras had bled his hand into her open wound to repair her. This was just meat, nothing as complex as a brain injury.
Easy peasy
. The symbiont flaunted its skill. It was patching her up before their eyes.

“I can hear you,” Shan said at last. She tried to stand up but thought better of it. Her audience rustled further away from her. Chayyas smelled scared, but she didn't say anything. Shan turned her head with painful difficulty.

It was a scene she'd seen many times before as a police officer. But it had always been someone else's blood sprayed over a wall, never hers. She stared at the spatters: the matriarch and her diplomat stared too.

So they were afraid of her blood.

Vijissi edged round her, bobbing his head, apparently staring at her jacket as if he didn't quite believe what was going on beneath it.

“So it
is
true,” he said, then looked away. “I mean no offense. But it's one thing to know this can happen and another to see it with your own eyes.”

Shan scrambled onto all fours and her sense of balance kicked in. All she had now was a headache, a stiff neck, and a strange smell of dust in her nostrils. Her gun was on the table. She reached for it and shoved it back in her waistband. And her jacket was ruined;
that
pissed her off. She could repair herself, but she couldn't get a new jacket out here.

Chayyas kept her distance, shutter pupils snapping from open petals to slits. “An astonishing thing,” she said at last, very quiet, almost distracted. “Extraordinary.”

“Yeah, terrific. It's my party trick.” If Chayyas was testing the efficiency of her
c'naatat
, it was a bloody stupid way to do it. But it had shaken her, that was clear. Shan examined the singed hole in her jacket for a few moments then gave up. She stared at her hands: there were no flickering lights. “Had your fun now? Can I go?”

“I had to see.”

“You've seen.” She gestured at the wall, suddenly more concerned whether the bioluminescence had stopped for good than the events of the last few minutes. “Are you going to clean this up, or do you expect me to do it?”

Vijissi kept looking towards Chayyas as if he were expecting some action from her. Shan had a feeling there was something else going on, something she didn't quite understand, and Chayyas seemed subdued. Maybe she'd never seen anyone's body parts splattered across the furnishings. It did tend to spoil your day.

Chayyas went to the door. A brief blast of double-song at painful volume made Shan's ears ring again. Then there was the sound of many rapid footsteps fading down the passage, and Chayyas stalked back into the chamber. She could understand
get the fuck out of here
in any language. She also knew she had Chayyas's reluctant but undivided attention.

“I hope you understand your side of the deal,” Chayyas said. “Because we'll hold you to it. You are wess'har now. You'll help us fight if need be. You'll do your duty as a matriarch. We expect a great deal from you, Shan Frankland—possibly more than you are capable of giving.”

Chayyas had suddenly become very still, not just at rest as a relaxed human might be, but utterly immobile. Shan had seen Aras do that a few times when he had been taken aback or alarmed. It was a strange thing to see. It was the small detail that made them more alien.

I can do it
, Shan thought.
I can bloody well do anything right now
. The relief of being in one piece was flooding her with elation and confidence, and she was ashamed of that. It was weakness. She shouldn't have been afraid. “I'll take Aras if I may.” Take him where? She had no idea, but it felt like time to stalk out having won the argument.

Vijissi tugged on her sleeve. “I think the phrase is ‘
quit while you are ahead
,' ” he whispered, and pulled her sleeve meaningfully in the direction of the door.

She followed Vijissi deeper into the maze of rooms that made up Chayyas's residence, feeling as if she were walking a heaving deck, and wondering how she would recount the events to Aras. And her jacket—shit, how was she going to get that repaired? There were suddenly a lot of wess'har about, mostly males, but also some females. They stared at her. She thought the novelty of seeing her alien face might have worn thin by now.

Vijissi peered round doors and jerked his head back, chittering to himself, until he found a room that appeared to suit his needs and he beckoned Shan in.

It was empty. Three connecting doors led off deeper into Chayyas's maze, one of them covered with a vine-patterned damask-like fabric in peacock and royal blues. Vijissi sat her down on a ledge cut into the wall and made a semblance of a stop gesture with both paws.

Hands
, she reminded herself.
Not paws
. Shan sniffed hard, trying to get rid of the rasping smell and dappled shape of dust. Scents now felt like textures and looked like colors, and colors had flavors and texture and sound. She had noticed a growing synesthesia over the past months; it didn't appear to be a wess'har characteristic.

“You wait here until I find Aras,” said Vijissi. “I would not be proud that you forced Chayyas to back down.” Shan couldn't tell from his tone if he was being spiteful or simply helping her through the uncertain territory of wess'har politics. “You have made a very dangerous move.”

“Oh, because she'll have my arse some day?” She was back on familiar ground for a few moments. So someone new had her on their bugger-about list. So what? “She can come and have a go if she thinks she's hard enough.”

“I thought you might have understood what you were doing.”

“I did. I was bargaining for Aras.”

“We can smell it, you know. They can
all
smell it.” Vijissi sniffed in a rapid staccato like a little machine gun. Shan tried too, but the rasping dusty odor seemed to have temporarily numbed her newly acquired wess'har sense of smell. “That was very foolish indeed, but maybe you are more ambitious than we thought.”

“What, for Chrissakes?”

“You have deposed her. Chayyas has surrendered her authority.”

“Look, I didn't know. I had no bloody idea. Will you
listen
to me, for Chrissakes?”

Shan had a habit of pacing around that now annoyed Mestin very much. Her rooms were small and the woman took up a lot of ground: she would have to learn to be still. Shan paused in front of Nevyan, fists on hips, shaking her head occasionally, no doubt astonished at her own foolish actions. Mestin decided she would make it a priority to find alternative accommodation for her. A few months ago she might have cuffed her. But this was now neither subordinate female nor
gethes
. This was a dominant matriarch, whatever her external appearance.

“How many times do we have to tell you that what you intend is of no consequence?” said Mestin. “You've challenged Chayyas and she has ceded dominance. That's all there is to know.”

“Just because I faced her down over the grenade?”

“It's pheromonal. She can't help her reaction.” Mestin was aware of Nevyan beside her: she was staring at Shan, utterly mesmerized. “You said yourself that you noticed your own scent when it happened.”

“Jesus H. Christ,” said Shan. “Just because I got stroppy with her? So what are you going to do when a human army shows up and gives you a frosty look? Surrender?”

“They are wholly human and so we have no biochemistry in common. You, however, are not.”

The reminder seemed to silence Shan. She dropped her arms to her sides and sat down on the bench that Nevyan had piled with
dhren
fabric to make it comfortable for her. “I take it an apology would be out of the question?”

“The reaction has taken place. Chayyas has lost her hormonal dominance. Intended or not, you're now senior matriarch in F'nar.”

Shan held up both hands, palms out. The claws were gone, Mestin noted.
C'naatat
was even more bizarre than she had realized. “No,” Shan said. “Abso-bloody-lutely
not.
I'll have a crack at most things, but not politics. And I don't have the right to do it, let alone the training.”

“Then you leave us in temporary disarray, and you have no right to do that either.”

“Then give me a solution.”

“Where's your grenade?”

“Aras took it off me for safekeeping. What about you? Don't you want the job?”

Shan still knew far less about wess'har than Mestin had imagined. She was still ascribing human motivation to them. “Nobody seeks seniority. It is a duty, not a prize.”

“Okay, will you do it?”

“If necessary.”

“What do we do, then? Slug it out?”

“You can simply ask me.”

“Why didn't you tell me that earlier?”

“You misunderstand our ways. You would have thought I was seeking an advantage.”

“Very well, Mestin—please will you take over in place of Chayyas? There. Is that it?”

Mestin cocked her head in deference and felt both relief that she had stopped an unpredictable alien from shaping F'nar's future and dread that she had taken on a task she felt barely able to handle. Nevyan would smell that at once. She wondered if Shan had enough of a command of her rapidly changing hybrid senses to know that too.

“I'll announce the decision.” Mestin stood up and trilled at the top of her voices for Aras to come and join them. He loomed in the open doorway, far too big for a male and far too alien, Vijissi behind him. He had a little blue glass bowl of
netun jay
in one hand and an expectant scent; that was inevitable, she accepted. Whatever form he had taken, Aras was still enough of a wess'har male to find a strong and aggressive female completely irresistible.

His eyes never left Shan.

Neither did Nevyan's. Mestin was beginning to feel invisible. She was also concerned that her daughter, who was hers to educate, was settling on a
gethes
as a role model.

“Thanks,” said Shan, and took the
netun jay
from Aras. She smiled at him, all teeth, completely distracted for a brief moment while her gaze went from his hips up to his face. Then she seemed to realize she was doing it and looked away, her expression suddenly neutral. “You okay?”

“Of course,” he said.

Mestin interrupted. “You'll still need to stay on Wess'ej for your own protection. And you have utility for us. You did agree to serve this world without reservation.”

“Yeah, I did.” Shan bit cautiously into one of the cakes and then ate the rest of it in one mouthful. She was still glancing occasionally at Aras, and it was a very different eye movement from the one she used when she looked at Mestin. It didn't bode well. “Am I under house arrest?”

“I have no idea what that is, but you're free to go where you please on the planet. Where you'll live is another matter. I have empty rooms—”

“I have rooms too,” said Aras.

“Make what arrangements you wish.” Mestin didn't know quite what
c'naatat
could do between species, but the warning had to be given. Shan was paying Aras too much attention. “But please don't breed. I know it's cruel to say that, but you both know the dangers.”

“Whoa, what—” Shan began.

Aras cut her off. “We understand the burden we carry,” he said.

Shan simply looked at him and her lips pursed as if she was about to speak, but in the end she said nothing. Mestin guessed that Shan had little idea what was happening to her and that she had—for once—been surprised into silence. The two
c'naatat
exchanged glances. Mestin could detect nothing beyond Aras's agitation and arousal.

It was unimportant. As long as they were bonded, she cared little how they felt about it. Two unmated adults would create unrest in F'nar society,
c'naatat
or not. She watched them go and turned to Vijissi.

“I would like you to look after
Shan Chail
when she appears to require it,” she said. “And whether she welcomes that aid or not.”

Vijissi paused, bit on a
netun
with a dramatic snap of his teeth, and hissed like escaping steam.

“I shall,” he said.

 

Utility
. Aras considered the word.
Without reservation
. There was a time when he had been told that too—several lifetimes ago, and not quite in those words, but it had been just as unqualified, and equally simple to accept. Difficult times made those decisions easy.

He thought of Cimesiat and all the other
c'naatat
troops who had made the honorable decision to end their abnormal lives, and wondered if he would have agreed so readily if he were asked to serve again today.

Shan was subdued. She walked a little way behind him. As they passed along the pearl-walled terraces to his old home, wess'har paused to greet him with trills, pointing him out to their children.
C'naatat
troops had been heroes. Nobody here forgot that.

And he was the last of them.

“You're really angry with me, aren't you?” Shan said.

“No. Not at all.” He glanced over his shoulder: she smelled very good indeed, wess'har good, and that was a fragrance that had not beckoned him in centuries. He tried to ignore it. It wasn't fair on her. “But you've been here less than sixty hours and you've already destabilized the city government and ousted a senior matriarch. I dread to think what you could achieve in a season.”

“Is that a joke?”

“Yes.” Maybe he could sit her down and explain things to her. Perhaps Nevyan might. “Why did you confront Chayyas?”

Shan made that puffing noise of annoyance. “To stop her frying you, of course. Did I have an alternative?”

“Perhaps
waiting
to see what would happen?”

“Yeah, and it was
me
she put a hole through.” There was a slight tremor in her voice. “I made the choice and I'll live with it.”

Silence. But her anger only made her more powerfully appealing. They carried on their way around the caldera, a progress slowed by more wess'har stopping Aras to say how
significant
, how
wonderful
, it was to see him. Most had never actually seen a
c'naatat
before, let alone one as extraordinarily different as Aras. Their hero-worship stopped short of actually touching him.

His rooms were at the far end of the top terrace and looked out not only on F'nar but also to the arid bronze landscape outside the caldera. It had taken him years to cut it out of the escarpment a little at a time and line it with stone fragments. When he pushed on the entrance door, thick with the deceptive glamor of undisturbed
tem
deposits, he half expected to see a family in residence. But he suspected nobody would occupy a
c'naatat's
home, however long it had been abandoned.

It was empty. It was also completely clean and smelled of freshness and water. Someone had been in to prepare it for him. There were
evem
tubers on the open shelves and a variety of boxes beside them.

Shan followed him in. “How long did you say you'd been away?” she asked.

He calculated briefly. “Just over a hundred and twelve years.”

“You've certainly got a loyal home help.”

“I don't know who did this and I probably never will.”

Shan seemed overtaken by delighted surprise. “Humans break into empty houses and loot them. Wess'har break in, do the housework and leave groceries.” She laughed, a totally artless peal of laughter. It was rare to hear her do that. “You lot are going to put the likes of me out of work.
Amazing
.”

“We have a sense of communal responsibility.”

She wasn't mocking them, he knew. But she still had a lot to get used to. He slung his pack onto the hip-high chest that served as a table and pulled out a knife, glad that she had brightened for the moment.

“I'll cook dinner and then we'll talk, yes?”

Shan watched him warily. “Yeah. I do have a few questions.”

F'nar was not Aras's home. He wondered if he should have headed north, to Iussan on the Baral plain, where he had been born—born
normal
—and where people hid their homes as carefully as he had hidden Constantine from view. It was devout Targassati country; or at least it had been, centuries ago, before he left for the last time. F'nar society was less rigorous and more conspicuous in its habits. It was soft. You didn't have to look hard for evidence of its existence. But it was probably a more sensible choice of home for humans easing their way into wess'har life.

Shan appeared to have worked out that there were few rooms by human standards. While he sliced the
evem
, she paced from room to room as if calculating something. He had excavated only as much space as he needed, and that meant a main room where the living and cooking and reading was done, a cleansing room, and a small alcove for storage.

“Mmm,” said Shan, looking round with a carefully blank expression. “Studio living. Nice.”

It was a warm evening and he was already missing the crisp winter in Constantine. He left Shan to examine the vegetables and fruit and went to clean himself in the washroom while the
evem
soaked in broth. When he came back out, squeezing the water from his long braid, she was attempting to make sense of the foods in the crate. It was clear that being helpless wasn't something she was used to. She couldn't even activate the cooking range: she peered at it from every angle and her face became flushed.

“I have a hell of a lot to learn,” she said. “And not just wess'u.”

“You serve those raw,” he said helpfully, and took a bunch of green bulbs from her. “Why not watch me?”

“I should be making myself useful.”

Aras prised her fingers off the cooking implements and steered her towards one of the benches. “Sit and watch.”

“I know you're pissed off with me. I can't do more than apologize.”

“I am
not
angry with you.” It wasn't anger she could smell, but he had to pick his moment to explain that to her. This wasn't it. “My actions brought us to this point. Not yours.”

He was ashamed of chiding her for impatience. She had been willing to trade her life for his, however foolish that was. And he had been a fool too: he had robbed her of normality and peace and home when he thought he was saving her life.

“But you came for me,” he said.

“Eh?”

“You didn't abandon me. You were as good as your word.”

Shan looked down at nothing in particular. She did that to disguise the times her eyes betrayed her apparent calm. She wasn't very good at it, although
gethes
might have been fooled. It was the same look she had when he had first told her about being a prisoner of war, a kind of painful embarrassment. “Yeah, well, I never could stay out of a fight, could I?”

“It was a very dangerous and foolish thing to do.”

“You're welcome. Glad I could help.”

“Why do you take such risks for me?”

“You're a good man, Aras. You're also my only friend.”

He watched the
evem
as it simmered and rolled slowly in the currents of the yellow-stained water. He recalled sitting on a plain on Bezer'ej telling Shan about the
c'naatat
parasite for the first time, ready to cut her throat with his
tilgir
if she looked likely to betray the knowledge to the scientists of
Thetis
.

She never knew the thought had crossed his mind. She had trusted him. Not confessing that to her carved a constant pain in his chest.

He glanced back at her. Her normal don't-piss-me-about expression, as Eddie called it—set jaw, unblinking gaze—melted for a few seconds into a slight smile.

Why her?
Why save
her
? Mestin had asked him, and he wasn't sure until that moment. Now he knew. She filled almost every void in his distorted life: his instinctive needs, so long suppressed, were being met. She was a little girl, an
isanket
, in need of care and education; she was an equal, a house-brother who could provide comradeship; and she was—whether she knew it or not—an
isan
, a physically powerful matriarch who was the source of protection and life in the family.