Flesh and Gold

F L E S H and
Gold

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

FLESH AND GOLD

Copyright © 1998 by Phyllis Gotlieb

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Edited by David G. Hartwell
Designed by Nancy Resnick

A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.
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New York, NY 10010

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Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gotlieb, Phyllis.

Flesh and gold / Phyllis Gotlieb.—1st ed.

   p. cm.

“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”

ISBN 0-312-86523-6  ISBN 978-0-312-86523-8

I. Title.

PR9199.3.G64F57 1998
813' .54—dc21

97-29852
CIP    

First Edition: February 1998

Printed in the United States of America

0  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

For the First Readers:
Calvin Gotlieb, Donald Maass, David Hartwell,
Virginia Kidd, John Robert Colombo,
Terence Green, Elisabeth Vonarburg,
Ursula Le Guin

PROLOGUE  

Khagodis:
Nohl and Ferrier

“My knife is missing,” Nohl said.

“What does that matter?” Ferrier turned his eyes from the smoking volcanic peak on the horizon to the east and watched the waters of the bay dancing in glints of light from the lowering sun. On Khagodis the air is so thin that the stars are sometimes visible in daylight; now in the flaring blue Ferrier could see three of the system's other worlds. He had hooked the oxygen tube into the corner of his mouth and it bubbled slightly.

Amber lights glinted on Nohl's scales. With a pearl talon he flicked away an insect buzzing near his eye and looked down at the thin figure whose head came to his elbow. Ferrier was wearing white against the equatorial heat; his short jacket was closely fitted, and had double-breasted black buttons. Nohl was thinking that Ferrier's eyes were like the buttons, fixed and sharp on white skin. A thin skin over arrogance and greed.

“I lost it down there.” Nohl nodded at the folding waves
and at the same time clawed at his shoulder harness as if he expected to find the knife there; his stunner had not been taken. “I went because one of them had a foot caught in the sprigweed—when I came up it was gone.”

“Think they'd know how to use one?”

“They would know. They already use pieces of shell for cutting, and sharpen them, too. Sometimes they catch fish with them, by slashing, but those are not dangerous to us. A real knife . . .”

Ferrier said, “If one of them's got it you ought to know who.”

But Nohl did not like to admit that he was no longer quite so powerful a telepath as he had been. Even some of the best Khagodi ESPs grow weaker with age in the sixth sense as well as others. He hunched his bulk down at the edge of the steep bank and steadied it with his tail. “Kobai knows where everything is.”
:Come here, Kobai!:
He sent the message silent and deep, deep enough so that the Khagodi standing guard farther down along the bank moved forward. Nohl shrugged him away.

A whorl appeared on the surface before him, and two hands parted the waters: a head rose between them. The head was hairless and dark red; under the brow ridges the eyes were dark and sharply alive through the transparent sealed lids. The face was fine-boned, a woman's. Kobai snorted to clear the brine from her nose, spat and swallowed air. She grinned up at him.

“Yes, Lord Upthere?”

I know all the time Big Om stole that knife, he don't hide it from us his own Down-people, think him some big man that Big Man Om, flub his lip and go cross-eye, poke-poking the women, See Me Big Om. Don't know we take a look and see he is not so big, and kind of dumb.

About knife, yes. Way we-people get a knife is, if the Up-people drop it down. Then they put to mind: where is my knife? and call around everywhere, don't care what you are doing, weaving the net or eat or make the in-out. They ones talk with the mind and the mouth sound, not with the hands like us under the water. Sometime I think they are not so bright either. They sure are deaf. Yes I can make with mouth by swallow air, go burp-burp, the kind of way they do. But I don't like to put my head through the skin of my world and make dumb noise. Because then I got to think so hard what the word are I don't talk good. Like now, gentle ones.

Yes, yes, I go on. Where I was? Big-lord say,
Pay attention you Folk, my knife is lost
.

You think I tell, or Siko or Pers, about Big Om and this knife? No, honorables. We do not give away even the kind we have no use for. He never do us harm except for pushing his this-here at us.

So we say,
No, no, great ones, it is not here
. Let them guard their own knives.

That one big upside-Lord who likes me—he is not a bad fellow—he puts his mind in my head and says,
:Come on, Kobai, you know everything, so you must know who has the knife.:

And I give back,
Nononono Lord Big One Upthere, I would never touch a knife
.

:Kobai,:
says he,
:you are funning me. I think you are all hiding Om.:

I don't give him a funny answer because he is all right. But that Om, he has to be so big. I think that time he got bit by the sharptooth make him one wild man. He only want to make a pretend fight in the water with silly Usk and all the crazylegs around the place, but he got the demon in him from that bite and he dive deep and pick up a chunk of the gold that get washed smooth and shiny down there, jump up
most out of the water with one great whack of his tail and shout in this loud thoughtvoice like we hear in the mind from them up there,
:You like your fine gold all so much you take this and keep it and let me keep one own small knife!:

And he throw that chunk let me tell you, so hard!

But he don't shout nor he don't throw no more, never.

An instant of tableau: a jet of blood leaping out of the throat of the dark red figure half-emerged from the placid waters of the bay; the thin dark Solthree with gun lifted in one hand, the other to his bruised temple; the scaled Khagodi staring down at him, hands raised and open. On the horizon one volcano spits a jet of red fire.

The spurted blood fell slapping the water while the astonished face, hairless and gaping, slipped down and away, the huge eyes lingered at the surface for a moment and were gone.

“Stupidskin!” The Khagodi flicked the gun out of Ferrier's hand. The watchman had aimed his stunner but did not fire. “What have you done?”

The thin dark man caught up his gun quickly and arced it up toward Nohl's heavy jaws, heard the sudden movement of the guard behind him, and replaced it in its sling. “Taught them a lesson, that's what.” He rubbed the bruise on his temple again and kicked at the lump of gold near his foot. “They try anything they'll get it again . . . Nohl, you are a frightened little man.” He picked up his broad-brimmed hat and put it on his head; it had an esp shield set into it.

Nohl had never wanted to know what was in Ferrier's mind, but now he stood watching him a moment, scratching an irritated spot near his gill-slit and thinking how if that shield had been removed a few moments earlier Ferrier might have been lying dead, brainburned by two furious Khagodi, and perhaps Om would be alive. “I believed you
had some modest store of intelligence. These people would not have hurt you.”

The waters of the bay began to pucker and glitter with points of sunlight. Hands rose from it, twisted, snapped fingers, and made lewd gestures. The domed heads pushed out glistening, the huge eyes bulged, lips on the water's surface made cracking blurt sounds. The body of dead Om rose from the water on the arms of his people in a gesture of defiance as the lifted hands of the others slapped the surface. Ferrier's fingers sought his gun once more. The sweat stood out on his upper lip and ran into his beard shadow.

Nohl said,
:Get down, all you Folk! Go about your business!:

The eyes turned on him sullenly. He was not a bad one, no. But his friends were demons.