"Mmh, morbid," Tazmin Duwar said. "Sounds to me like you need a hot meal and a night's sleep. Let your liver sweeten."

"How long you been back?"

"I got here yesterday morning. I wasn't ferrying vips about like you, cousin.

One look at the looting there at the Palace and I thought hard times are coming and I better make sure we've got the stuff to ride 'em out, that it didn't walk out in some stranger's pouch."

"You see Herk?"

"Hard to miss. Wonder who did it?"

Karrel Goza stretched, yawned. "One thing I know, half Inci's going to claim they were in on it. Any hot water?"

"Started the boilers this morning. Bath?"

"Yeh. I cut the b.a.s.t.a.r.d down, I didn't like seeing him there. Dumped him in the Fekkri Court. I need to wash him off me."

Tazmin Duwar looked up at the clouds, ignoring another brief flurry of rain.

"Somebody's going to have to do something about him if the wind keeps on in this direction; another day or two and we'll be smelling him." He moved away from the pillar and followed Karrel Goza around the house. "What's happening in Gilisim? Did they ever find Old Pittipat or the Grand Sech?"

"Not yet. What's happening?" Karrel Goza stripped off his jacket and began undoing the fastenings on his shirt. "More of everything you saw before you cut out. More looting, more dead. People wandering around like they're walking in their sleep. We haven't begun to sort out who's what and where they belong, let alone identified the dead. The best guess I heard is as much as a third of us is dead somewhere around Gilisim. It's going to be a job, getting them buried. Elmas Ofka, her isyas and the Council from the Mines, they've got together with vips from the west coast and up from Guneywhiyk. Trying to work out how to organize things now there aren't any more Huvved and the slave techs are gone, most of them. It's a mess, Taz. Every one of them has his own idea how to run things. Bless the Prophet, Elli smoothes them down and getsthem to start making sense. Not that she's any saint herself; we're going to have to watch and make sure she doesn't take up where Tra Yarta left off." He pulled open the door to the bathhouse, went in.

Tazmin Duwar lit the lamps while Karrel Goza started the water running and finished stripping, then he came back and settled on the towel bench, his feet up on the coping about the tub. "You figure we going to get any say at all?"

Karrel Goza slid into the water, shivering as the heat closed round him. He settled his head on the neckrack, closed his eyes. "I've been thinking about that," he said. "What we get, we'll have to take. I did some talking with young Hayal Halak, him from gul Brindar. One of that woman's students, he was the one who told me the desolation/peace quote. He went inklin for a while before he came to the Mines, he loves the Great Families about as much as he loves Huvved. He picked up some ideas from that woman that sound good, the Greats won't like 'em, the Ommars either. I think Elli's going to back him; a lot of them off the Sea Farms might too, they don't want to see the Greats getting a stranglehold on trade. Isn't going to be easy. Toss me the soap, eh?"

"Here. Way things are, looks to me like whoever's ready first is the one who's gonna take it. Hay and his bunch got their shots planned?"

Karrel Goza soaped the washcloth, scrubbed at his arm. "Planned is one thing, doing is something else." He balanced an ankle on his knee, began washing his toes. "We've got numbers on our side. The Greats don't smell very sweet to a lot of people, they kissed too much Huvved a.s.s. We could lose it, though, if Brindars won't talk to Incers and Incers won't talk to Samlikkaners, and n.o.body talks to gra.s.slanders, you know how it goes. You, me, the rest of them who took the Warmaster, we've got credit we're going to have to spend." He switched feet and stopped talking.

Tazmin Duwar thought that over, then he nodded. "You'll have to give me the primer version," he said. "I was never much good at the books, but I tell you this, I can talk a tickler into giving it away free, sit me in a tavern and let me chat her up. Lot of folk out there need that primer same as me. I can get them to give it a hearing. Can't ask for more."

Karrel Goza splashed water over his face and hair, then climbed from the tub.

"Throw me one of those towels you're sitting on, eh?" He caught it and began rubbing at his hair. "I didn't get out much. You see any of ours in Gilisim?"

"Living or dead?"

"Ahhh . . . both." He wrapped the towel around him. "Come with me while I get some clean clothes."

"Why not. I've got to get back to feeding the stock, but they can wait a bit, they're not as hungry as they were." He picked up one of the lamps. "Goza Ommar's dead." He touched Karrel Goza's shoulder, patted it lightly, then pushed the door open. "Melter, not much of her left but I knew it was her and I told the deadwagon who she was. We'll have to go through the back, I've got the other doors locked. Duwar Ommar next to her, same thing."

"Prophet!"

"Yeh. Melter. Left her face alone. Told them about her too." He held the door open for Karrel Goza, went round him and up the back stairs, holding the lamp high to light the dark narrow enclosure, glancing over his shoulder from time to time, talking while he climbed. "Ollanin, dead, all three, Goza, Duwar, Memeli. Saw my sister Avy and the Memeh' Ommar. Alive." He waited on the landing, then went along the hallway to the corner room Karrel Goza had lived in from the time he got his license to fly. "They'd corralled a clutch of youngsters, had them out collecting our folk; I expect most of those still alive will be back here by tomorrow noon." He stepped aside and let Karrel Goza work the pinlock and open the door, then followed him into the room and set the lamp on a table by the bed. "Ylazar Falyan showed up at Sirgun Bol yesterday with a couple of pilots from the Mines; like us, Prophet be praised, they missed out on the Surge." He perched on a ladderback chair, folded his arms on the top splat and rested his chin on them."He looked around for mechanics, found me settling in here, hired me to go over a couple of the airships. Worked on the best till about midnight yesterday. He says he's going to use them ferrying Incers home."

Karrel Goza looked up from his trouser laces. "I left Windskimmer at one of Sirgun's masts, I didn't see anyone there."

"Took off for Gilisim this morning. Must've left before you got here."

"Ah." He went poking through his drawers hunting for a clean shirt, found one and shook it out, then loosened the laces and pulled it over his head. "Big of him."

"Yeh. He's praying real hard no one senior shows up and in the meantime making points for himself so he can keep his hold even if one does. I expect he'll make it, he had the backbone to get out and over to the Mines when Herk started tightening down."

"Hard to say." He padded to the dresser, peered at himself in the mirror.

"Getting old, eh?"

"Twice as old as I look and that's older than time."

"You and Lirrit Ofka still going to wed?"

"Soon's we get a moment." He dragged a comb through his hair; the damp had tightened the curls into knots that made him swear as he worked them loose.

"Marrying out or she coming in?"

"I don't know. Who knows anything these days. We decided to see how things shape up before we jump one way or the other." He looked over his shoulder at Tazmin Duwar. "Might not be any more marrying in or out."

"Things going to change that much?"

"You don't sound very happy about it."

"Well, everyone likes to be comfortable and change is always full of burrs and bites."

"You really want to go back to the way it was?"

"Nuh. Yeh. I don't know. I want it to be comfortable like it was. I want to know what's going to be happening tomorrow and a week from tomorrow and tomorrow next year. Yeh, I know better, but you'd better remember too, Kar, there's a lot and a lot out there like me in those that're still alive. Don't get too fancy for us, eh?"

Karrel Goza dropped on the bed beside the shoestool, set his foot on it and bent over to put on his sandals. "You feeding the animals," he said. "What else needs doing?"

"Just about everything, I didn't have time yesterday or this morning for much but meals for me and the fourfoots. Looks like our folk dropped whatever they were doing where they were doing it and took off when the impulse hit."

Karrel Goza switched feet. "Mess?"

"Could be worse. Left the fires going, the place could've burned down.

Prophet's hand on us, it didn't, they just went out when the coal was gone."

Karrel Goza stood. He yawned, moved his shoulders, clasped his hands behind his head and stretched; the shirt tail he hadn't bothered tucking in lifted in the cold draft coming through the door. He shivered, found an old sweater and pulled it on. "Outside first. Starting to feel like snow."

"Yeh. How long you going to be here?"

"Elli wants me back by tomorrow." He waited till Tazmin Duwar was outside with the lamp, then he pulled the door shut and reset the lock. "She says the serious fights should be starting about then and she'll need all the backing she can get." He let Tazmin Duvvar go ahead with the light. "You said you thought most of our folk will be here by tomorrow?"

"Laza said he'd bring them, favor to me if I'd work without pay since he's short of coin. You want me along?"

"Yeh. If you're going to be persuading people to back us, you ought to know what you're talking about."

The room was filled with slow moving shadows from the dying fire and wandering warm drafts mellow with the smell of the mulled cider steaming on the hearth.

The long window was closed but unshuttered, its embrasure was padded on thebottom and sides to make a comfortable windowseat; it had thick yunkhide tacked over the padding, rubbed to a deep glow by decades of soaping and sitting. Karrel Goza was stretched out in the window, sipping at a mug of cider, listening to the rain drum against the gla.s.s. Taz was right, he thought, morbid doesn't make it. He was exhausted, sore and deeply content.

The emptiness that was desolation in the morning now seemed to vibrate with possibility. An emptiness waiting, wanting to be filled. He sipped at the cider and thought about that a while and after a while he stopped thinking altogether. Tomorrow could wait until the sun rose. Now was hot cider, red fire and the steady beat of the rain.

265 days std. from home and heading back. In the Split.

I went out to the Belt and brought Slancy back, put her down on the plateau, then we started loading. I got the ex's together and made my speech about how rough it was going to be riding in the hold for some three months while we were insplitting to Helvetia. I told them if they wanted to miss out on that, I'd take their names instead of them. They could wait for a more comfortable ride; I'd leave them shelters and a miniskip so they could get around. I didn't want unhappy pa.s.sengers; taking that many people I knew s.h.i.tall about into Slancy made me very nervous; being trashed and rescued didn't turn any of them into angels. I told them the food was going to be ship-basic which they'd get sick of very fast; there wouldn't be water or any other way of taking a bath, so they'd be pretty ripe when they walked out of the hold; most of all, life was going to be very very boring. Insplitting was bad enough when you had something to keep you busy. Sitting around and staring at the hold walls was something else. I didn't get a single taker; they wanted out of there, the sooner the better.

A few of them I knew something about, I brought up front. Stowed them in the crew cabins so I'd have some shooters back of me if there was trouble. Aslan and Adelaar, of course. N'Ceegh and his boy, along with the weapons he skipped over to the Mines to collect which I impounded for the duration, not that I didn't trust him, he and Pels got on like long lost brothers, I just didn't want that much firepower wandering around loose. Churri the Bard and his girlfriend; both of them were oldtime survivors, besides I kind of enjoyed baiting Adelaar. The Omperiannas; k.u.mari had a pa.s.sion for music of all kinds, that's why them. The rest brought the shelters in and set them up in the hold, got them organized in sectors like they were out under the trees, improvised screens for privacy areas; they worked almost like they were 'droids with the pattern imprinted. It was a smooth loading, surprised me a little till I thought about it. These weren't your average thumb-fingered boneheads, Bolodo skimmed cream for them.

Two hundred sixty-five days std. out of Telffer, according to ship's log, we lifted off Tairanna and headed for the Limit.

As soon as we dived, Pels activated the squirtlink, sent the squeal to ti Vnok's receptor, giving him the pa.s.spartout so he could get hold of the data packet, letting him know we had Leda Zag and Ilvinin Taivas so he could tell whoever was interested and stir us up some heavy support. The squeal was too short to trigger ears and even if someone got lucky, there were no tags on it to identify either end. The cover was down, I hoped it'd be thick enough to turn the knives waiting for us.

The trip went better than I expected.

Adelaar disappeared into Slancy's workshop with my home stats to get a start on redoing its security. This time I made sure Kinok kept ves tentacles out of her business. I swept the shop and removed all suspect foliage; like most of us, when it comes to someone outside the family, ves ethics get a bit shaky.

Ethics aside, pulling her string about Churri was one thing, she got nasty on the verbal end and gave me a good flaying when she felt like it, but on thebusiness end, she was a wall; she knew what she wanted and what she didn't and no jabs would shift her; if she didn't want snoops watching her work, that's what she intended to get or she just might decide to ditch that part of the deal and more than ever I wanted her touch dressing up my house. Funny, having lived so long and semi-voluntarily acquired a body and with it a definite end to that life, I was beginning to appreciate the fragility of . . . well, everything.

Churri and Xalloor got together with the Omperi-annas and began working out a new act; they figured that the publicity from the Return of the Disappeared and their connection with it made them a draw the bookers couldn't ignore.

k.u.mari figured the same thing; she was going to finance the tour if they came up with something she liked. Since they kept trying out parts of the thing on the ex's in the hold, they kept the pa.s.sengers happy and entertained. Which made me happy.

Aslan was something of a surprise. She worked on her reports a lot, but not all the time. I hadn't paid much attention to her back on Tairanna, too busy being irritated by this and that, I suppose, and too tired from flying all night digging out the targets; you want another excuse, I've got this tendency to focus on what I'm busy at so I don't see much of what's around me, peripheral images shoved outside my periphery, if you know what I mean. She looked a little like her mother around the eyes and mouth, but her coloring was more dramatic, her features heavier . . . no, that's not the word.

Stagier. More dramatic like the coloring. The bones showed and they were what a sculptor called good. She photoed better than she looked in person, well, better's not the word either, she was prettier in the stills, but a lot of the personality got lost. I remembered Adelaar saying Shuh! she's my daughter and I love her, but even I wouldn't call her a beauty. She's not all that s.e.xy either. To be honest, Quale, she's a boring person. Just goes to show, Mama don't know everything she thinks she does. It was a friendly time. Pleasant waking up and feeling her warm beside me. More than pleasant when she woke up.

She enjoyed s.e.x more than anyone I can remember knowing. Laughed a lot, made me laugh with her. I was almost sorry when Slancy chimed to let me know she was ready to slip back to reals.p.a.ce.

354 days std. out of Telffer. Helvetia.

We came up nose to nose with three destroyers and a gravity sink that nailed us; poor old Slancy couldn't wiggle a fin.

Before I had time to start sweating, the mainscreen lit up. Helvetian perimeter patrol logo announcing who was out there, then someone who ordinarily walked in more exclusive circles. I knew that sour smile and the face it was tacked onto, though he didn't know me and probably didn't want to.

The only time we actually met I was sharing someone else's body. Malurio Marchog, the Seven's Enforcer. Cattwey of the Hel-vetias. I relaxed. Home free, I thought.

"Swardheld Quale," he said, proving me wrong about that much; he knew my face.

Courtesy of ti Vnok, no doubt.

"Marchog Cattwey," I said, showing I have my sources too.

"Permission to come aboard," he said.

Polite b.a.s.t.a.r.d. What he meant was open your gd lock before I gd pull the gd thing off its hinges. Well, I asked for Helvetian cover, now I pay for it.

"Permission herewith granted," I said. "Want me to send a boat over or you providing your own transport?" That was a bit of sw.a.n.k; with the sink out there focused on us, we couldn't s.p.a.ce a fart.

He ignored it. "Helvetian rules apply out here as on the ground," he said.

"Crack your forward lock, portside."

"I hear you, Marchog Cattwey." It sounded like he was coming over himself, which was a bit of a surprise. Apparently that pair of rescuees down in the hold were more important than we'd thought. Old ti Vnok, he slipped up this time; on the good side maybe, but definitely a miscalc. He's going to have to work to live that down. I crackedthe lock, sent k.u.mari to make sure N'Ceegh didn't have some hold-outs tucked away; I wasn't sure how much he knew about Helvetian rules and how seriously the Seven took them. I left Pels at the com and went down to the portlock to remind the Helvetians as tactfully as I could that this was my ship and we were outside the Limit, in so-called frees.p.a.ce. They'd probably be polite enough to listen without snickering. Even Marchog.

The inner hatch opened and I dumped the speech fast. Six pretors trotted through, shoved me against the wall, no malice, just getting me out of the way. They split, three on each side, dark, ma.s.sive, huge, as intimidating as two-leggers in battle armor ever get when they're not actually coming at you.

I sucked in my gut and waited.

A mirror-sphere about two meters across floated from the lock, moving along half a meter off the floor at a pace about that of a man out for an afterdinner stroll. It stopped in front of me; I thought it was inspecting me though it's hard to tell what's going on inside something when you're staring at a funhouse version of yourself smeared across the outside. "The people, where are they?" It had a deep ba.s.s voice that oozed with authority.

"The hold, despois," I said, being as polite as I knew how. Great G.o.d, I was thinking, one of the Seven? Hooo-eee, talk about your heavy support.

"Lead," it said.

Very careful to keep my hands in view, I moved past the pretors and started for the dropshaft. I heard the guard clumping into position behind me, the sound echoed by a second s.e.xtet coming out of the lock; somewhere back there Marchog was moving up to the Bridge with his own pretors; he wouldn't leave Slancy in our hands, not with one of the Seven aboard her. I didn't like it, But I certainly wasn't going to kick up a fuss. All I could do was hope this was a temporary dispossession.

The hold smelled like a roadshow zoo; I suppose Faceless in his sphere got filtered air, but I didn't, it was enough to choke a goat. He drifted out to the middle and hovered there, reflecting the faces or whatever turned up to him. "You were slaves?" The ba.s.so burred out and bounced off the walls.

Some of them knew what they were looking at; whoever didn't was getting the word fast if the hissing that spread through the hold meant what I thought.

The Kakeran Posa Ala was the first to answer. He set his hands on his hips, glared up at his distorted reflection. "Klaan vem!" he growled. "Bolodo man put a kujjim collar round my neck. Five kujjim years and n.o.body did s.h.i.t till Quale there come for us."

Dey Chomedy and Leda Zag came elbowing through the thickening crowd about Posa Ala, the tall one opening a path for the little.

Dey Chomedy stomped her foot and growled, then shouted up at the sphere, "Bolodo men took me off my mountain, took me from my nest; they did not ask my consent, they did not pay my price. Seven years the masters milked my sweat and drank my tears and nothing did they pay. Was I slave? Ssss. Show me Bolodo man, let me take my pay from his flesh and his sweat and his blood."

Leda Zag tapped the tall femme's arm and was lifted to her shoulder. "So it was with me, despois, I traveled to a place for rest but I did not reach it.

Before I reached it, a gas bomb filled my flickit; when I woke, I was in a scout on my way to Weersyll and beyond. For three years I mourned one dearer to me than the beat of my heart, for three years I suffered, until the man Quale and his companions took me from my servitude. It has not been easy coming home, not easy for me, not easy for any of us, but we suffer these small travails gladly because we are going home."

I kept my face very straight and serious, though I enjoyed that little speech; we spent most of a warm afternoon up by the lake d.i.c.kering over her fee for her affirmation of my n.o.ble contribution to her freedom. I was kicking back half the reward, to be paid into her dainty little hands the day I got it, golden gelders, coin not credit.

After that the rest of them yelled their anger, a confused hammering of sound.

Even the mirror-sphere seemed to shudder and I was wondering if I'd get out ofthere with hearing intact.

"Quiet." The ba.s.so boomed out, hammering back at the yammer in the hold.

"Enough!" He had the advantage of amplification, but it was several minutes before he broke through and my collection of ex-slaves simmered down a bit.

"Helvetia has heard you," he said. Big of him. "She will expedite your arrival and provide housing for you until this matter is cleared up. She will provide means of contacting your kin or other individuals concerned about you."

Hmm, I thought, such generosity. Looks like they've already got a strangle hold on Bolodo's a.s.sets and want to keep the noose tight, they can't let the thought get round that they're playing with client's gelt. They ought to pay Adelaar's expenses and double for a bonus, what a lovely present she's dropped in their little laps. I kept my face immobile and my hands clasped behind me, but I was beginning to enjoy this quite a lot.

"Helvetia asks only," the sphere boomed out, "that you agree to testify as to the circ.u.mstances of your abductions. Bolodo Neyuregg Ltd. is actively contesting the claims relayed to us by an agent of Swardheld Quale. Because we may invoke certain clauses in the Contract Bolodo Neyuregg Ltd. signed with us, in order to put several executives of that Company through Involuntary Verification, it may be necessary for some of you to pa.s.s through the Verifier and otherwise make identication of such individuals. If that is possible and within your knowledge. You will be compensated for the time and the harrowing of your emotions."