Shadow Man (Paragons of Queer Speculative Fiction) (17 page)

Tatian sighed. He
didn't like secondhand bioware, less from any rational fears--risk
of infection or rejection--than a childhood terror of bodysnatchers,
the killers who had roamed the cities of Dodona, murdering for the
expensive implants people wore beneath their skin. The worst of the
gangs had been broken before he was born, but they had remained part
of Dodonan folklore. But the alternative was a clone, and even with
Am's help and advice, there was simply too much risk of getting a
defective part. "I'd rather get the real Inomata," he said, and
Am nodded.

"That's what I'd
do."

"Will you broker for
me? I'd take it as a favor, Am."

"All right." She
glanced sideways, consulting internal systems. "It'll be three
hundred--and I don't suppose you have it with you?"

Tatian shook his head.
"I can wire it."

"All right--" She
broke off as a door opened in the technician's shed, mobile face
drawing into a sudden frown. Tatian glanced over his shoulder,
curious, to see a tall mem in a sleeveless overall and a worn-looking
worksuit standing in the doorway.

"I thought we were
taking break together, Am," e said.
The accent was Haran, unmistakably, and the jealous note was equally
clear.

Tatian scowled, and Am
said hastily, "This is business, Mous. I'll be over in a
minute."

"Æ?" the
Haran said, with patent disbelief, and Am's frown deepened.

"Don't give me
this shit, Mous. I'll be in in a minute, okay?"

"Oh, yes,"
the Haran said bitterly, and closed the door with a thump.

"Going native,"
Tatian quoted, with equal bitterness, and Am glared at him.

"Don't you start."

"I thought you
were straight,
straight
as in liking men," Tatian said.

"I am straight," Am
said, but the words lacked conviction. "Mous, he..."

"e is a mem,"
Tatian said. "I don't care what e
calls imself, e's
a mem, and that makes you at the very least differently straight from
when you were sleeping with me."

"And what the hell
business is it of yours?" Am demanded. "You and I were
pillow-friends, and that's all. If I want something different, that's
my affair."

"You gave me a
hard time about going native," Tatian said. "Just because I
have to deal with the indigenes based on what they tell me they are.
But I'm not the one who's changed my tastes and not bothered to tell
anyone."

Am glared at him for a
moment. "All right, I'm di, I guess. Are you happy now? It's not
exactly what I expected either."

''I--" Tatian
stopped, shaking his head.
Adults
don't change their minds, he wanted to say, not about something as
important as this. And if they do, they tell people, and then they
apologize. And most of all, they don't harass me for doing exactly
what you're already thinking about doing. I don't do trade, never
have, it's not fair
-- He took a deep breath. "All
right. I suppose it's none of my business. But I've never played
trade, and you know it."

"I know," Am
agreed, looking away, and there was a little silence. "I'm
sorry," she said, after a moment, and looked back with a smile that
was more of a grimace. "I shouldn't've said that. It's this
fucking planet. Mixes everything up."

And that, Tatian knew,
was as close to an apology as he was going to get. "I'll wire you
the money," he said, and immediately wondered if he should have
said more.

Am nodded, her eyes
already drifting to the door. "I'll tell Cesar to hold the box
for me."

"Thanks," Tatian
said, and she gestured vaguely.

"No problem. I'll
see you around."

There was no
alternative but to take the monorail back to Bonemarche. He stood on
the high, bare platform, wishing that the knot of indigenes in
janitorial coveralls hadn't taken up all the narrow band of shade,
wishing that he had a parasol like the old woman in traditional dress
who waiting in solitary splendor at the far end of the platform. The
sun was veiled by high, thin clouds, but the heat was fierce in the
damp air; toward Bonemarche, the horizon was purple with the promise
of the afternoon storms. As the notice board began to flash,
signaling the approaching train, he thought he saw Eshe Isabon
hurrying up the ramp to the platform, but he wasn't in the mood for
company. He stepped back, putting a pillar between them, and was glad
when %e didn't seem to notice his presence.

Not for the first time
since he'd come to Hara, he found himself wondering why he'd
accepted this assignment. He could have stayed on Joshua, stayed with
Mali Kaysa--sane, sensible, man-straight Kaysa, complicated in ways
he understood. He closed his eyes, shutting out the white sky, the
dark horizon, remembering instead the lights of Helensport and the
cool nights when they'd walked home together from one of the clubs
or a show or even just from working late. He could almost feel her
hand cool in his, hear her laughter and the cheerful voice of the
demi couple, a woman and a fem, who shared the narrow garden between
their rented houses. They had thrown good parties, that pair, and he
remembered an image from one with special clarity: Kaysa with her
mahogany hair straight as rain, for once freed from its braid to flow
almost to her waist, standing in the blued light of the door lantern.
She had been watching a man and a woman, friends of hers from the
translators' office where she worked, going through the first
almost ritual questions, each trying to signal sexual interest
without going too far, just in case the other wasn't interested.

"You could've told
him she was man-straight," Tatian had said, and put his arm around
her waist.

"I'm not a
matchmaker," Kaysa had answered, and leaned companionably against
him. "Besides, this is more fun."

That memory had an
ironic feeling to it now, on Hara, where there weren't any rules,
or at least not ones that he could accept as normal, or even
reasonable. That party had been one of the last ordinary nights
before he'd been offered the Haran assignment--which paid too
well, offered too much chance of promotion, to refuse--and he clung
to the memory. The people had been sane, reasonable, ordinary, had
known who and what they were: it was something to hold to on Hara.

He found a seat in the
corner of the poorly cooled car away from the fading sunlight and
settled in for the ride back to Bonemarche, listening with half an
ear to the chatter of the half-dozen or so indigenes who shared the
car. Outside the window, the thick grasses rose and fell in the
rising breeze, the half-open seedheads of the flaxen tossing like
foam. The sky over Bonemarche was dark with clouds, and he saw the
first bolts of lightning streak from cloud to sea. The monorail track
was the highest thing on the upper plain, always vulnerable, and he
was relieved when the train negotiated the curves of the descent
without incident and passed between the first buildings, following
the Portroad into the city. By the time the train pulled into the
station at Harborlook, the first drops of rain were falling, leaving
damp patches ten centimeters wide in the dust of the platform.

He shared a ride back
to the Estrange with a pair of technicians from WestSiCo, who spent
most of the ride mumbling arcane shipping formulae. They reached
Drapdevel Court just as the rain was ending. The court was mostly
dry, for once, just a few puddles starting to steam as the clouds
broke, and he pushed open the office door without bothering to take
off his shoes. To his surprise, Derebought was sitting at the lobby
console, the privacyscreen unfolded along the desktop edge.

"I'm glad you're
back, Tatian, these--people--have been waiting to see you."

Tatian looked sideways
into the little waiting area, wondering what else would go wrong
today, and sighed deeply, recognizing the IDCA agents sitting on the
padded bench. "What do you want?"

Stevins Jhirad grinned,
and unfolded þimself from the bench. Þe was tall for a
mem--wasn't
much like the stereotype of a mem at all, Tatian thought, not for the
first time. Þe was too tall, too thin, most of all too quick of
tongue and hand, more like a herm than a mem.

"To talk to you, what
else?" þe said, still smiling.

"Talk away," Tatian
answered. NAPD's dealings with the Interstellar Disease Control
Agency were infrequent, but had rarely been profitable or pleasant.

"In private, if you
don't mind, Tatian." That was Kassa Valmy, rising easily to stand
by her partner. She smiled then, as though to rob the words of any
threat, but Tatian didn't feel particularly reassured.

"Is there a problem?"
he asked, and waved them ahead of him into his office. If there was a
problem, it wouldn't come from business, he added silently, was
more likely to be something personal--either his encounter with the
mosstaas
this
morning, though that seemed unlikely, or Reiss. Probably Reiss, he
thought, and closed the door carefully behind him, gesturing for the
others to take a seat.

Jhirad settled
þimself
comfortably in the nicer of the client's chairs, cocking one long
leg across the other, but Valmy shook her head. "I'll stand,
thanks. I've been sitting all day."

"Suit yourself."
Tatian sat down at the desk and touched the spot that lit the desktop
screens. Nothing popped to the surface, neither urgent mail nor
internal files requiring instant attention, and he ran his hand
across the shadowscreen, transforming the display to meaningless
geometric patterns. "So what can I do for you?"

"I hear you had a
busy day," Jhirad said.

Tatian glanced at
þim:
the
mosstaas
,
then. "I suppose."

"Bribing the
mosstaas
in broad daylight right in the middle of the Souk," Valmy said, and
gave another broad grin. "Even for Hara, that's ballsy."

"I don't see any
Harans objecting," Tatian said, after a moment. "Or are you here
on the chief's behalf?"

Jhirad snorted. "Godchep
Stiller wouldn't care if you paid off a murder in his
office, as long as he got his cut."

"True," Tatian
said. "So..."

"A friendly warning,"
Valmy said, and Jhirad frowned.

"Not even that. Call
it advice, Tatian--and friendly advice, too."

Tatian said nothing,
waiting, watching them across the desk-top that ran with color.
Jhirad and Valmy had been on Hara for nearly two hundred
kilohours--better than sixteen local years, four standard
contracts--and in that time they had gotten a reputation as tough
but honest. If they were offering a warning, or advice, whatever they
wanted to call it, he would be a fool not to listen to them.

Jhirad seemed to take
his silence for consent. "Local politics are going to be
complicated this year. You don't want--none of us off-worlders
want to get involved in it. You can't win friends, not this time."

"Call off Shan
Reiss," Valmy said, and didn't bother to smile this time.

"What's your
problem with Reiss?" Tatian asked. "It was me who paid off the
mosstaas
today."

Jhirad gave is
partner an irritated glance. "Reiss was, is already involved,
and not just in politics. He's speaking for a man who wants to
emigrate, he's one of the witnesses who'll swear that Destany hasn't
done trade for the required twenty kilohours."

"That would be
Reiss's business," Tatian said. "And yours. And it's all
legal. I never knew you two to be so concerned with one emigration
case before. So tell me what's really going on."

Valmy laughed softly.
"Your point."

"Thanks,"
Tatian said, and waited.

"What's going on
is, the local authorities have asked that we intervene," Jhirad
said. "The request comes from the highest level."

Tatian stared at im
for a long moment, unable to believe what he'd heard. Temelathe Stane
was notorious for keeping the Concord authorities at arms' length,
for insisting on the absolute independence of the indigenous
institutions. For him to ask for help--to request that the IDCA
intervene in an emigration case--was almost unimaginable.

"Our bosses,"
Valmy said, "would like to establish the precedent."

"I bet they
would," Tatian said.

"What they--what
we want," Jhirad said, "is for Reiss to withdraw his
statement."

Tatian's eyebrows rose
in spite of himself. That was the last thing he had expected from
these two; Valmy and Jhirad had always treated trade cases fairly,
within the Concord's laws, and they didn't usually back down if they
thought their superiors were making a mistake. On the other hand,
Temelathe had never asked for help before. "Why?"

"Shan Reiss has
more friends among the Modernists, and in the Black Watch, Stiller
and Black Casnot, than anyone needs right now," Jhirad said.
"And the case is sensitive. Destany Casnot is being sponsored by
Timban 'Aukai, who's heavily into trade."

Tatian nodded. "I've
heard of her."

"Who hasn't?"
Valmy murmured.

"Tendlathe is
really opposed to trade," Jhirad went on, "which would be
more useful if he wasn't also opposed to us--off-worlders in
general, I mean, not just the IDCA."

"That's nothing
new," Tatian said.

"No. The problem
is, they--Destany and 'Aukai--are going to be represented by local
advocates, and they've picked a group that's downright notorious for
defending people in trade. The word on the street is that one of the
three--"

"Haliday Stiller,
if you know that name," Valmy interjected.

"I do." The herm
who tried to challenge gender law, Tatian thought, and lost.
Warreven's partner.

"--is just looking
for a case that will let 3im
challenge the whole gender system." Jhirad smiled again, the
expression wry. "You may begin to see our problem."