Shadow Man (Paragons of Queer Speculative Fiction) (26 page)

By the time he left
Voska's, it was late enough that he called a rover to drive him
back to the office in the Estrange. He paid the driver, a skinny man
in cheap flaxen gauze, fifteen grams in metal to wait in the parking
alley behind NAPD's section of the building, and went inside,
feeling slightly guilty. It was uncomfortable being this much richer
than the general population; even on Antigone, his last station
before Hara, he hadn't felt so out of sync with the rest of the
world.

Derebought had left the
databutton on his desk, along with a print of her first-run results.
Even allowing for error and misunderstanding, and the inevitable
shifts in demand and price, the total was enormous. Tatian refolded
the papers and set them aside as carefully as if they held the
harvest itself. He had underestimated by almost two million. If they
took the contract, NAPD would nearly double its profits. Or more.

He flicked the external
switch to restart his system, waiting in the silence of the empty
building while the machines whirred to life. When the desktop screen
lit, a bright orange message reminded him that it was less than an
hour to his scheduled conference with Masani, and he fiddled with the
shadowscreen to invoke the comm management program. He checked the
parameters--all as they should be, just the same as they had been
the last time--and flipped the program to standby while he went over
Derebought's figures a final time. Even at their most
conservative--
improbably,
impossibly conservative
, he thought, though
superstitiously he would never have said that aloud--the profits
remained worth the risk. He would warn Masani of Valmy's and
Jhirad's visit, of course, and their threat--and Isabon's
warning, er suspicion that they might
be right--but he couldn't imagine turning down this chance. And the
Old Dame had never refused a challenge in er
life.

The system chimed then,
signaling the preliminary signals from the port. Tatian recalled the
communications program and waited while it matched channels and
input/output checks. Finally, the screen cleared, displaying the
familiar codes of a transsystem link, and the wallscreen opened.
Masani looked out at him, expressionless, a tall fem, raw-boned, with
harsh lines from the hard weather on a dozen different planets and
dark, farsighted eyes. The visuals were only fair, static hazing the
edges of the screen, haloing the central images with little rainbows,
but the audio was much better, Masani's voice nearly as clear as on a
transcontinental linkup. e listened to
his summary, demanded a copy of the preliminary assessment and
whatever else Derebought came up with on later runs, and then fixed
him with er fierce stare.

"So everything's
wonderful, except that the new
seraaliste
wants Reiss to make a report, sorry, a court statement, that the IDCA
has explicitly told you to kill."

"Yes." Tatian
watched the image warily, er face and
moving hands haloed by rainbow static. He wanted this contract, he
realized suddenly, wanted it more than was entirely reasonable--but
enthusiasm was appropriate, he told himself, when there was this much
money involved.

"And the IDCA
wants to kill Reiss's statement because Temelathe asked them to get
involved, and Temelathe wants it killed-- why?"

"I don't know for
certain. My best guess--" Tatian spread his own hands,
deliberately scaling the gesture to the limits of the comm package,
repeated what he'd said before. "From what Valmy and Jhirad
said, I think Warreven's partners want to use this case to force a
general discussion of trade. And that means gender law as well, how
many sexes there actually are. None of the
mesnie
s
are real comfortable with that, and Tendlathe, who's a bit of a nut
case, as far as I can tell, is working on them to keep things just
the way they are."

Masani's mouth
twisted. "And Tendlathe is confirmed as Temelathe's heir?"

"Yes," Tatian said
again.

e snorted. "But
Warreven thinks he doesn't really have the support." e
looked away then, expression suddenly sad. "I remember when I
first came to Hara, everyone assumed I'd do trade, because I'm a fem
and I had my own company. Then the indigenes decided I was a woman,
so I spent about ninety-seven kilohours, eight local years, having to
explain myself to everyone." e
shook er head, shook erself
back to the matter at hand. "All right, I don't like trade, and
I don't have a problem with NAPD being known to be involved in this
case if it's meant to break trade. Temelathe knows where I stand on
that. But I especially don't like the IDCA telling me what I can and
can't do when I'm not breaking any laws. So. Does this Warreven
really have this much to offer?"

"The sea-harvest
has been very, very good this year," Tatian answered. "There
may be--hell, there will be some exaggeration, either in the grade
or in the total quantity available, but we've already factored that
into the estimates. The
seraalistes
don't dare play too fast and loose with the numbers, not if they
expect to keep doing business with us."

"Certainly," Masani
agreed, with a slight, unpleasant smile, and Tatian remembered too
late that e had traded on Hara for ten
years. "But does your Warreven know this?"

That could give me
nightmares if I let it, Tatian thought. He said, "Yes. I think
3e's more knowledgeable
than 3e lets on."

"Not too much more, I
hope," the Old Dame said, and Tatian smiled dutifully. e
sighed, looked down at er own screen,
er blunt-fingered hands sprawling
across er desktop. Every movement
sparked a rainbow, so that e moved in a
cloud of refracted light. "So you think it's worth fighting the
IDCA on this one."

"I do,"
Tatian answered. "We're well within the law--hell, what they're
asking is illegal, not anything we're doing. And I don't think we're
going to see another surplus like this for another forty-three,
forty-four kilohours."

"All right,"
Masani said. "We'll do it. I'll warn the accountants to expect
the buy. Get me the final figures as soon as you have them, and I'll
sign the drafts. I assume 3e'll
want a metal payment?"

"Not decided yet,"
Tatian said, and e grunted.

"There usually is.
Remember, we need at least five hundred hours lead time for that, and
seven fifty would be better."

"I will."

"Good. And,
Tatian. Nice work."

e cut the
transmission, leaving the screen streaming with multicolored static,
before he could respond to the unexpected praise. He touched the
shadowscreen and watched the shutdown procedures flicker across his
desktop, wincing at the charges that appeared in the accounting
screen. Interplanetary communication was painfully expensive; at this
rate, he thought, he had maybe three calls left for this budget year.
He entered the codes that accepted the charges and authorized
payment, then made a note in his private file to recheck the
communications budget, just to see where the money had gone. There
had been two calls when Derebought isolated the guafesi, and-- He
deliberately shut off those thoughts. It was late, and he was tired;
better to deal with that in the morning, he thought, and flattened
his hand against the shadowscreen. The machine flashed a last quick
series of queries, but he kept his hand flat until the last light had
winked out. He flipped on the main security systems, with their
seventy-second delay, and walked out the back door to the parking
alley.

The rover was still
there, the driver curled in his compartment like a mouse in its nest.
Tatian tapped gently on the window, and the thin man woke instantly.
He came upright in the same moment, eyes focusing first on his board,
and then on Tatian himself. Seeing him, the driver relaxed, and
reached across to open the passenger door.

"All done, mir?"

"All done,"
Tatian answered, and climbed into the passenger compartment.

"Where to, then?
Going dancing? I know some good places, even for an off-worlder."
The driver looked at him in his mirror, his grin showing badly
patched teeth.

Tatian shook his head.
"Not tonight. Just home--EHB Three."

Everyone knew the
compounds where the majority of the off-worlders lived. The driver
nodded, and slipped the rover into gear. Tatian leaned back in his
seat, aware for the first time of just how tired he was. Not that it
was that late, really--barely past two--but it had been an active
day. And, he admitted, with a quiet smile, an exhilarating one. If
everything worked out, if he could keep the IDCA at arm's length and
trade Reiss's statement for the surplus contract--well, at the
least, he would certainly earn one of the Old Dame's generous
bonuses, not to mention put himself well ahead in the promotions
stakes.

The rover slid out of
the alley, turned onto the ring-road that carried traffic around the
maze of linked courtyards that made up the Estrange. From the top of
the slight hill, he could see between the buildings to the harbor;
the lights seemed brighter than usual there, and he wondered if some
of the harvest was in. Then he realized that the light wasn't steady
and was much too orange for the usual working lights.

"Fire?" he
said, and the driver slowed.

"I heard sirens
earlier, mir," he volunteered. "They were heading toward
the docks--toward Dock Row, the north end. Do you want to take a
look?"

Tatian shook his head,
though he was tempted. "Just home," he said again, and
thought the driver looked disappointed.

"Right, mir, EHB
Three it is."

"Thanks."

There was more traffic
on Tredhard Street, most of it going away from the harbor. Tatian
squinted through the doubled glass of passenger compartment and
driver's screen and thought he saw barriers pulled across the road at
the base of the hill, barring traffic from the Harbor Market. People
in uniform were standing there, not firefighters in their silver, but
the dull black of the
mosstaas
;
he imagined he could smell smoke in spite of the rover's filter,
but couldn't see the flames.

"Something's
burning for sure," the driver said. "In Dock Row, it looks like."

Tatian nodded, still
staring down the badly lit street. If it was in Dock Row proper, the
off-world warehouses should be safe enough, since they stood at the
north end of the street, clear of the Market. Dock Row itself was
mostly bars and dance houses--the center of trade, he realized
suddenly, and shivered in spite of the warm evening. If someone was
striking back at trade, Dock Row and its bars were a good place to
begin. He shoved the thought away. There was no point in speculating
until he knew what had actually happened--for all he knew, someone
had been careless with a stove, or lightning had struck, some natural
disaster. In the mirror, he saw the driver shake his head.

"I'm going to have
to go the narrow way, mir, by the Soushill Road."

"Fine," Tatian
answered, and a moment later they were in shadow again as the rover
turned onto the smaller street. Soushill Road was mostly small shops,
chandlerys and hardware, and the occasional software broker or
satellite tracker, all closed down against the night. Even the
streetlights were out; only the occasional dot of an alarm system
glowed in the corner of a doorway. The driver muttered something and
switched his lights to high.

Then, from nowhere,
came the snarl of an engine. A massive shay shot from an alley and
swung skidding into Soushill Road. The driver swore, jamming on his
brakes, and Tatian caught himself stiff-armed against the partition
separating him from the driver's compartment. Pain flared in his
arm, along the lines of the faulty implant. He caught a glimpse of
the shay's open body, of the dozen figures in it, black-robed,
black-hooded, faces hidden by blank white masks like the faces of
unfinished dolls. One of them lifted an empty ring, also white, white
as bone, lifted a white feather-tipped stick and mimed striking the
empty air, as though he--she? e? e?
3e?--beat an invisible
drum. He was still drumming, white-gloved hands holding the empty
drum frame overhead, as the shay skidded around another corner and
vanished completely.

"What the hell was
that?" he demanded, and cradled his arm against his chest, trying
not to jar the implant box.

"I--don't know,
mir. Never seen anything like it." The driver's voice was
frightened, and the eyes that met his in the mirror were wide and
staring. "Never at all."

You're
lying
, Tatian thought, and could not have said what made
him so sure of it.
But
whatever they were
--he conjured the black-robed shapes
again, the white masks and gloves and the invisible, frantic
drum--
whatever they were,
whoever they were, you knew them
.
You
knew what they meant
. "Take me home," he said aloud,
knowing better than to press the issue, and leaned back against the
padding. Reiss would know, or Warreven; he would ask one of them in
the morning.

Odd-bodied: (Hara)
colloquial generic term for herms, mems, and fems.

8

Mhyre Tatian

The fire on Dock Row made the
narrowcast news on both the port and the local channels. Tatian set
the system to search-store-and-replay and watched the stories as he
dressed, but there was no mention of the black-robed figures. The
local channels displayed vivid pictures of silver-suited
firefighters, bright against the flames, but said little about damage
or causes, noting only that two bars had burned and no one had been
reported killed. The port system named the bars--Tatian didn't
recognize either of the names--and estimated that the damage would
force them out of business. The newsreader, a plump, pretty woman
with an expressive voice, carefully controlled, added that the
mosstaas
was
looking into the cause of the fire. Which means, Tatian thought, that
it was arson. He saw again the figures in the back of the shay, the
white hands and the white drum, and wondered if they'd had anything
to do with it. They had certainly looked menacing enough, but on
Hara, who could tell?