Authors: Jo; Clayton
Skeen's Return (46 page)
Skeen rubbed at her knee. “It'd be handy if the Eye would tell us where Rallen lies.”
Hopeless stretched and yawned, scratched at her stomach. “Eye tells what Eye wants.” She smiled vaguely in Skeen's direction, went back to watching Timka prowl. “Give her to us,” she said.
“Ask her. She's no slave of mine. She'll do what she pleases.”
Ti-cat came gliding into the small glade, crossed to Hopeless. She made a sound like a cross between a purr and a hiss, set a foot just above Hopeless' navel, extruded her claws enough to prick, then went stalking away, tail switching in whip snaps back and forth.
Skeen chuckled. “You've just been turned down.”
“Hylattis! she understood me.” Hopeless sat up, wrapped her arms about her legs. “I keep forgetting she's more than beast.”
“The body might change, the mind doesn't.” Skeen looked after Ti-cat, frowned. “I'm not sure that's right; degree of intelligence doesn't change, but I think the nature of the beast influences her outlook. Hmm.”
“Where is your other strange one?”
“Petro?” In the workshop making more modifications on Picarefy. The two of them, you can't pry them apart.” She sighed. “I'm divorced, Hopeless, that's what it is.”
“To be saving a species.” Hopeless sighed with pleasure. “If we manage this, Skeen, if we really can do it, maybe I'll think about another name.” She looked ecstatic and just for an instant madder than the Virgin. The look faded, she couldn't sustain the effort. “You're going to pull Rostico Burn out of Pillory.”
“Looks like I have to.” Skeen sighed. “Otherwise I could hunt the Veil for a century and come up empty.”
“Virgin has found a transport. Needs some fiddling, we'll take it round to Chanix and have Maskin run his tentacles over it; he works fast. Where should we meet?” She thought a moment. “And when?”
“Rallen's somewhere in the Cluster, not much question of that, and there's Abel Cidder to think about. Picarefy ran a plot for me when I managed to get her attention,” Skeen chuckled, “and came up with three Pits that won't mean too big a swerve from the Pillory/Cluster line. Nymph's Navel, The Orphanage, Revelation. I know the Navel, I never got to Revelation and made The Orphanage just once. I've got no preference. Pick one.”
Hopeless thought a moment. “No,” she said, “no reason I can think of to choose one over the others. VIRGIN!”
A Disembodied Voice whispered beside them: “Revelation.”
“Skeen?”
“Fine. Anything I should know about the place?”
“It's more a pimple than a Pit. Not much there. A small multiverse, some trading posts, a fuel dump. And the Hermit. Virgin and him have had some long loud arguments, you'd swear they're ready to chew each other into hamburger, but they enjoy it. Fun to watch.”
Better you than me, Skeen thought. “How long will the fiddling take?”
“Maybe a month standard. What about you?”
“I can't see how I could do the dip under three months standard, travel times included.”
“No chance you can ransom him and save this?”
“Tibo says not. Mamarana thinks we can, she's offered to put up part of the price. Trouble is, she's hostile to anything I do, better we let her go on thinking that's the way we're handling it.”
A Disembodied Voice spoke beside Skeen's ear. “Good. Cidder is sniffing close to Mamarana's webs.”
Skeen tried not to twitch. She'd been here enough to become accustomed to the oddities, but the Abode more often than not was too weird for her comfort.
“That's settled then. Three months after Picarefy unties here, we'll be in Revelation with the transport, waiting. We'll wait another two months before we give it up and go on to something else. Agreed?”
“Agreed. Um ⦠watch out for Cidder.”
“The Eye will take care of that.” Hopeless laughed. It wasn't a happy sound. She stretched out again on the pseudo-moss and closed her eyes.
Having nothing more to say, Skeen got to her feet. “Ti-cat, let's go home.”
“Well, Pic?”
“The Ykx were a sneaky lot, Skeen. If the Ralleners are like them, you better watch out. When Petro saw the schematics Hopeless brought over, she laughed. Said Kliu screens are so coarse she doesn't see how they keep anyone out. The Lander is finished except for the engines, they have to be reset, and Petro says she can use some extra hands. Which means you, Skeen, or Tibo. Timka won't do. Nor my remotes. Takes a feel we just haven't got.”
“Can we get started while we're working on the engines? It's seventeen days to Pillory. Makes me nervous hanging around like this, Djabo's twitches, I hate, I loathe, I abominate deadlines.”
“I'm fueled and reamed out, that's all right, but I made a package deal with Patipsa for supplies and half of it's still to come. Tipsy promised on his father's nose I'd have the rest by tomorrow.” Picarefy's lights danced and there was laughter in her voice. “I said I'd turn Ti-cat loose on him if he let us down.”
“Tomorrow,” Skeen said. She ran her hands through her hair, fluffing it out from her head in spikes. “Tomorrow.” She looked at her hands. “I think I'll take a bath.”
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jo Clayton (1939â1998) was the author of thirty-five published novels and numerous short stories in the fantasy and science fiction genres. She was best known for the Diadem Saga, in which an alien artifact becomes part of a person's mind. She also wrote the Skeen Trilogy, the Duel of Sorcery series, and many more. Jo Clayton's writing is marked by complex, beautifully realized societies set in exotic worlds and stories inhabited by compelling heroines. Her illness and death from multiple myeloma galvanized her local Oregon fan community and science fiction writers and readers nationwide to found the Clayton Memorial Medical Fund.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1987 by Jo Clayton
Cover design by Andy Ross
ISBN: 978-1-5040-3846-1
This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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