Shadow Man (Paragons of Queer Speculative Fiction) (33 page)

"
Our
boots and shoes are all in pawn--
"

The crowd caught up the
next line, a ragged, angry chorus. "
Go
down, you blood-red roses, go down
."

Tatian caught his
breath. He had heard the song before--it was a long-haul chant,
something the sailors used raising anchor or hauling lighters along
the coastal canals--but he'd never heard that note of snarling
fury before. Warreven threw back 3er
head and laughed aloud, the long braid dancing across 3er
back. "Oh, she's good, Faireigh is, there's nothing they can to
do stop her."

"You hope," Tatian
said.

"Not a thing,"
Warreven said, and bared teeth in a suddenly feral grin. "It's an
old song, old as Earth, everybody knows it doesn't have anything to
do with politics."

"
The
foreman says, before I'm through
," Faireigh sang, and
the crowd answered instantly.

"
Go
down, you blood-red roses, go down
."

"
You'll
hate your mother for having you
."

Behind her on the
platform, the
mosstaas
commander stood with his arms crossed, trying to look as though he
was in control of the situation. Warreven opened 3er
mouth and added 3er clear
contralto, slightly off-key, to the chorus.

"
Oh,
you pinks and posies
.

Go
down, you blood-red roses, go down
."

Tatian glanced warily
at 3im, then back at the
stage as Faireigh lifted her hands to encompass the singers.

"
It's
growl you may but go you must.

Go
down, you snow-white roses, go down
."

The crowd staggered in
its echo as people realized belatedly what she'd said, and Faireigh
swept on.

"
If
you growl too loud, your head they'll bust
."

This time, the chorus
came clear, all the pent-up anger displaced into the changed words. "
Go
down, you snow-white
roses, go down
."

"
Oh,
how stones are roses
," Faireigh sang--as if anyone
needed it made any clearer, Tatian thought, and glanced quickly
sideways. The
mosstaas
still stood unmoving, penned in their shays.

The chorus was a savage
affirmation. "
Go down,
you snow-white roses, go down
."

Faireigh waited for the
last voice to die away, then bowed to the
mosstaas
commander--the irony was visible even from Tatian's distance--and
climbed down off the platform. The drummers followed her, instruments
tucked awkwardly under arms, and the crowd made way for them as
though they were royalty. Already, the people on the fringes, on the
Market side and by the makeshift stage, were starting to edge away;
the crowd was dispersing, as ordered, but on its own terms. Tatian
shook his head.

"There's going to
be hell to pay for this one," he said.

Warreven looked at him,
still smiling. "Maybe. Probably, even. But it's been a long time
coming." Ȝe took a deep
breath, looking back at the people moving away from the stage.

"Warreven!"

"Haliday?" Warreven
tilted 3er head to one
side. "I might've known you'd be here."

The herm grinned back
at 3im. "How could I
miss this? Damn, Faireigh's good."

"She is," Warreven
agreed, and glanced at Tatian. "I don't think you've met my
partner, Haliday. Mhyre Tatian."

"Not properly,"
Tatian agreed.

"I saw you at the
memore
,"
Haliday said, and held out 3er
hand. Tatian took it, studying the newcomer. Ȝe
was rather ordinary, for the herm who had challenged Hara's gender
laws in the planet's courts, a stocky, brown-skinned person with
close-cut dark hair and wide, prominent cheekbones. Not as handsome
as Warreven, Tatian thought, and was startled by his own response.
Haliday released his hand, looked back to Warreven.

"Raven, I need to
talk to you."

"Can it wait?"
Warreven tilted 3er head
toward the off- worlder. "We were here to look at the surplus
samples."

"It's important,"
Haliday said. "I wouldn't interrupt if it weren't."

Warreven sighed. "I'm
sorry, Tatian. The captain--Aylese, his name is--knows to expect
you, he'll show you what you need."

Tatian stared back at
3im, wanting to protest,
recognizing the futility of it. He would do well enough with the
ship's captain, anyway, in some ways better without Warreven to
explain away discrepancies between the labeling and the actual
product. It was just--it was dangerous to stand up against the
mosstaas
right
now, when trade was coming into question. There was too much at stake
to risk everything in the streets, too much chance of losing.... He
saw Warreven smile again, saw the same glee reflected in Haliday's
plain face, and couldn't find the words that would convince either
of them. "Be careful," he said at last, and wasn't surprised
when Warreven looked blankly at him. "Just--be careful."

Jackamie
: (Hara)
literally "boyfriend"; always a very casual term that can
easily become an insult
.

Warreven

He watched Tatian walk away
down the length of the Gran'quai, golden hair vivid in the
sunlight, looked back at Haliday with a frown. "I should be going
with him. This better be important, Hal."

"It is." Haliday
took his elbow, turned him toward the Market. "There's going to
be a meeting of all of the Modernist groups, and all of us
wrangwys
.
The way the
mosstaas
dispersed the crowd, God and the spirits, we've got our chance.
That was too blatant, even for them, stopping a perfectly ordinary
rana when they haven't made an attempt to track down the ghost
ranas. This is something everyone can rally behind."

Warreven nodded,
feeling the excitement rising in his chest. Haliday was right, this
might be the thing they needed to bring the people who weren't
interested in the odd-bodied's problems, who pretended trade didn't
exist because it made them uncomfortable to think too much about it,
onto their side. The
mosstaas
had overstepped: Faireigh's rana had been well within the limits of
custom, if not strictly of law, and they had been silenced--but
these ghost ranas were outside both law and custom and were allowed
to act. "It could work," he said, and knew his tone belied the
cautious words.

"It will work,"
Haliday said, fiercely. "The meeting's tonight at the twentieth,
at Bon'Ador."

"Then why--"
Warreven began, and Haliday waved the complaint away.

"We--you and me and
Folhare and Lunebri and Illewedyr and anybody else we can find--need
to start putting together some ideas for proper ranas. Something we
can show them, give them something to start off with."

Warreven nodded. "You
want me to find Folhare?" It was a good guess; everyone knew they
were old friends.

"If you could, that
would be great."

Warreven nodded. "I'll
try. She'll be working--at the workshop, I mean, not trade."

"She's more likely
to listen to you," Haliday said. "I don't think she likes me
much--" Ȝe broke off
then, eyes fixing on something, someone on the far side of the
Market. Warreven followed the direction of 3er
gaze and swore under his breath. The man standing between two empty
stalls, just where the shadow of the Customs House touched the foot
of the Embankment stairs, was unmistakable, and, as unmistakably, he
had seen and recognized them, and started across the empty Market to
meet them.

"What the hell is
Tendlathe doing here?" he said, and Haliday spat on the stones at
3er feet.

"I can't talk to
him, I can't even be civil to that bastard."

"Fine," Warreven
said. "I'll talk to him. You go on, get everybody together, and
I'll meet you--where?"

"My place," Haliday
answered, already walking away. "Or Bon'Ador, if it gets late."

"I'll be there,"
Warreven said, and advanced to meet Temelathe's son.

"Warreven."
Tendlathe stopped a meter from him, lifting a hand to shade his eyes.
"Was that Haliday?"

"Yes." Warreven
kept the sun behind him, grateful for even that petty advantage.
Tendlathe looked tired, heavy shadows under his eyes, and his beard
looked as though it hadn't been trimmed in days. Warreven allowed
himself a moment of satisfaction--after the night before, Tendlathe
had no right to look less than tired--then brought his emotions
under control. He had been stupid to let Tendlathe bait him; he
wouldn't let it happen again. "What brings you to the Market,
Ten?"

"I might ask you the
same question." Tendlathe turned so that he was out of the sun and
stood beside Warreven, looking back toward the Embankment and the
bars of Dock Row above it. The burned-out shells of the bars made a
conspicuous gap in the orderly row, and Warreven made a face, seeing
it, thinking of the ghost ranas.

"I had business
here--I am
seraaliste
now, remember, thanks to your father."

"So you're going
through with that contract?" Tendlathe asked. His voice was mild,
deceptively so, and Warreven lifted an eyebrow at him.

"Yes, I'm going
through with it. I told you that last night. I'm not going to
change my mind."

"You're making a
mistake, dealing with these people," Tendlathe said.

"It's hardly Stane
business, it's our contract," Warreven said, deliberately
misunderstanding, and Tendlathe scowled.

"It's Stane
business, my business, because it's politics. The system works as
it stands--works very well, Raven, especially for your kind. I don't
know why you have to try to change it now."

Warreven looked at him,
silhouetted against the stage platform. The
mosstaas
commander was crouched on one corner, talking to a pair of troopers.
"But it doesn't work, Ten. You know that as well as I do."

"It works well
enough," Tendlathe said, and sounded almost conciliatory. "We
don't need changes, not if it brings in the off-worlders."

"Are you crazy?"
Warreven glared at him. "We've already changed. We've been
dealing with the off-worlders for exactly a hundred years, of course
we've changed, only the system hasn't caught up with us. And it's
breaking down because people like you won't admit it."

Tendlathe shook his
head. "No, the system's breaking down because people like you--"
He waved his hand, the gesture barely indicating Warreven's body. "--
gellions,
halvings
,
you don't, you won't admit there's something wrong with you."

"Fine," Warreven
said, through clenched teeth. His good intentions evaporated, fueled
by the anger and the fear of the night before. "Treat it like it's
my fault for being born. But I do exist, we exist,
halvings
--"
He broke off, angry that he'd used the old word, substituted the
creole terms, awkward on the tongue. "--herms, mems, fems, and
we've existed since our people left Earth. You can't possibly
believe it's sin, unresisted entropy, whatever the
vieuvant
s
are calling it these days. Hyperlumin is mutagenic, it made us--space
travel made us, you can't go FTL without the drug."

"That's what the
off-worlders say," Tendlathe said. His face was tight and set
behind the thin beard. "It's their excuse. But we don't have to
be like them. We're not the same."

"We're not that
different, either," Warreven said. "You talk like they're
aliens or something."

"They are,"
Tendlathe answered. "In every way that matters, they are aliens.
That's what this is really about, Raven, don't you see? We aren't
like them, and we can't become like them. We, what we are, is too
important, we're all that's left of what people, human beings,
are supposed to be, and if we change, that's lost forever."

Warreven stared at him
for a long moment, shook his head to hide the fact that he had no
idea what he should say. He could smell dried broadleaf kelp,
wondered if a crate had broken open somewhere along the Gran'quai.
"We've already changed. We're the same species," he said at
last, and wasn't surprised when Tendlathe shook his head.

"Not anymore we're
not. And I refuse to believe that they are human."

"You're fucking
crazy," Warreven said.

Tendlathe laughed. "I'm
right. Right for Hara, anyway, right for us. Just because I recognize
the truth doesn't make me crazy."

"If they're not
human," Warreven said slowly, "what does that make me, Ten? I'm
a herm, that's real, I've got tits and a cock and a cunt, and
what does that make me?"

"You can pass for a
man," Tendlathe said, after a moment. "You can make the effort."

"Pass for human,"
Warreven said bitterly. "Fuck you, Tendlathe." He turned away,
blind angry even in the relative shade, started toward the stairs
that led to the Embankment. Tendlathe's voice floated after him.

"I meant what I said,
Warreven."

Warreven swung around,
seeing the dark shape against the sunset sky. "So did I."

He took the long way to
Blind Point, as much to give himself time to calm down as to avoid
the streets where the ghost ranas had been seen. At the fountain that
marked the intersection of Hauksey and Blakelams streets, he stopped
and scooped water from the pool, splashing some on his face before he
drank. The fountain on its raised triangle of land was quiet, as
quiet as the Harbor Market, and he seated himself on its broad ledge,
looking back toward the sea. Normally, the little square would be
full of vendors, selling everything from sweetrum to feelgood and
doutfire, but today there was only a thin herm with a half-empty
basket of flowers. She was dressed like a woman in thin, clinging
trousers and the traditional tight-laced bodice, carelessly stuffed
to make her breasts seem larger than they were. From where he sat,
Warreven could see the outline of the pads beneath the fabric. She
saw him looking, and turned toward him, tucking her basket under her
arm.