Low Port Part 15

"The big lump has a tongue," sneered the thief. "Maybe I'll carve it out before I leave."

"Be still, Yajiro," said Ume, her voice sharp.

As the weasel raised the box, Yajiro tensed. He was tall and strong. Surely he could wrangle the knife away from this little man. Surely the G.o.ds were waiting for him to cast away his fear and put these evil men to flight. Surely...

The weasel opened the box.

And changed. Yajiro, saw him fall sideways and hold out his hand to balance himself, and heard Ume cry out and clutch at her throat. Her throat, but the real knowledge came to him from out of the weasel's eyes; the sly meanness and avarice had fled, driven out by a hard intelligence, a rising exultation.

With the merest glance into the box, the weasel snapped it closed. He stared straight at Yajiro. "It is done," he said. "I have what I need. I will be leaving now. Thank you for allowing me aboard your boat."

The old woman's body straightened with a jerk, still clutching her hands to her chest. When her voice came, it was little stronger than a whisper. "I am witched... Witched!"

Tsuru and the other two pirates turned to stare. Stronger, she pointed a finger. "She has robbed me of myself! How was it done? Give me the box!" She clutched at her chest, racked by a deep cough.

Yajiro could see the soul of Ume burning within the body of the thug, and hear her middle-born imperiousness in his voice as he snarled, "Silence! Be still!" The thief's body turned back to Yajiro. "Comfort her and keep her quiet. I fear the shock has chased away her wits."

Now Yajiro saw how cunning the plan of the hill-priests truly was. In her new body, Ume had only to go to Heian Kyo and gift the golden box to a n.o.ble-born, and soon she would be that n.o.ble. She could work her way up through the iron ranks of society as invisible as the wind, displacing souls into more lowly bodies as she went. In time she could be the Emperor, or his wife, or the Fujiwara. When she again grew old she could become her own successor. Her power would be without limit.

As the old woman's breath became shallow, dragged at ever more cost into her lungs, Yajiro looked up at the weasel's lean, hard body with its knife in one hand and golden box in the other, and saw the future with a terrible clarity.

The second oar lay along the spine of the boat. He s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and slammed it into the smaller man's ribs.

The last thing Ume expected in her new body was an attack from Yajiro. She cried out and tumbled, her knee striking the thwart. Yajiro threw himself the other way, to save the boat from capsizing, and the new jolt sent the box flying into the air. It turned end over end in a gentle arc and disappeared into the river with the merest of splashes.

Ume shouted and clutched her hair, a strangely feminine motion from so obviously masculine a body. The boy Tsuru dived into the water but came up quickly, empty-handed. The river was deep, and the box was gone.

The weasel's mind used the old woman's body to claw at Yajiro's face with a last surge of desperate energy, and died in midstrike, the breath rattling in his throat.

Ume leaned heavily against the mast, still staring into the gray water. "You have killed me. You have killed j.a.pan."

The thief's accomplices looked at each other. The boy scrambled back into the other boat, dripping again.

Yajiro held the old, dead body in his arms. "j.a.pan is too big for me. All I can do is lead the best life I can."

She looked at him, almost pleadingly. "I was doing what was right. You should have..." Her voice died away.

Aware of the cut-throats in the next boat, Yajiro could not say what he wanted to say. No, stealing bodies is not right. A man's body is his own. Everybody should die at their appointed hour, not earlier, not later. Killing your way through the years is not right.

He contented himself with the words, "Think of your sukuse.''

She shook her head. "I'm already d.a.m.ned." To her new henchmen she said, "Go back to Nakasu-ichi. I will follow later."

They looked as if they would argue, but she snapped "Go!" and they heard the voice of their leader and set sail, heading for the sh.o.r.e where the current was weakest and then flying upriver with the wind at their backs.

Ume stood there, knife in hand. "I wish I could make you live forever, to see what you have done."

"n.o.body should live forever," Yajiro replied. He sat quietly for a moment, holding the body, then put it aside and began to retie the cut halyard.

They sailed on to Kenno-ji.

Yajiro, tonsured and clad in a robe of saffron, did not recognize the man who knelt before him on the prayer mat at Kenno-ji. He took the stranger's gift offering and spoke a mantra before the other man raised his eyes and said, "I see you managed to find a still place within yourself, after all."

The body was now stout with middle age, and the arm muscles turned plump, but the eyes would never change. Yajiro took the knowledge deep and found he was glad she still lived. "Ume. Do you still keep the name you were born with?"

"In my soul, perhaps. Whatever you thought, years ago, I would always have been Ume in my soul."

Yajiro thought for a while, mindful of his breathing and att.i.tude. Then he said, "The plum blossom cannot withstand the strong wind."

Ume shrugged.

"Do you hate me still, then? Was I wrong?"

"You were wrong, but I do not hate you," said Ume.

Yajiro smiled. "How was it, at Heian Kyo?"

"I never got there. I cannot leave my soul-" Ume gestured at the river "-too far behind me. I trip, I cannot walk, I forget to breathe. I toss a pebble and when I reach to catch it, it has already fallen. It is like the birds, when we see them fly and a heartbeat later we hear the sound that has shocked them into the air."

The priest considered that, and nodded.

"There is a colony of the mad on the road. I helped the monks wash and keep them. It is good, sometimes, to spend time with the mad."

Yajiro inclined his head. "You have lived as a woman with the wise, and as a man with the mad." A pa.s.sing monk kept his features firmly serene. "From whom did you learn the most?"

He did not expect an answer, and Ume did not give one. They sat in silence as the day drew into evening. Finally, Ume said, "So. You did not return to teach the Ninefold Path to your village?"

"These are the last days of the law," said Yajiro. "I do not wish to meet the tiger in the marketplace, and know that he lives because of me. I do not want my family to know from whence my stillness comes."

And he stared into Ume's eyes, until the night came.

THE PILGRIM TRADE.

Mark W. Tiedemann

Tussig's alarm chirred behind his ear and he bolted for the ruined wall that separated the abandoned barrack from the quay. As he jumped over the edge of eroded polycrete, he saw the buddle's geodesic fade as the chameleon mode came on. Everyone else in the buddle-Tussig's four sibs and three pars-scrambled for cover.

He landed off balance and slid down the uneven slope of detritus grown up against the wall. His boots rattled against the jagged shards of ancient trash and he almost fell. He recovered gracelessly and scurried along the uneven quay toward the storm drain that jutted from what had once been a waste processing node attached to the barrack.

To his right, the Mana.s.sa River stretched to the opposite sh.o.r.e. The residential sections of Charic mounded above the sh.o.r.eline, blue shadowed by distance, a few bright yellow lights accenting the sameness. Further downriver the Confluences roared where three of Nine Rivers' great arteries met and mingled, unseen but loud. Here, muddy brown water laced with blue and green tangles of growth lapped at the slowly disintegrating shelf.

Tussig tapped the bone behind his left ear to shut off the nagging alarm as he reached the big pipe. It would have been useful if Raja can had managed to tinker it back to full range so the buddle could communicate, but the alarm mode had been the best the buddle's prime par could do.

In the sudden stillness, Tussig could hear boots on the opposite side of the wall, even treads, three or four people. Tussig climbed into the pipe, hands sinking into a few centimeters of humus, and got to his feet. The drain was large enough for him to stand upright, but he still hunched within it as he made his way in.

The far end of the pipe let out into a square roofless chamber. The walls still showed the shadows and holes where equipment had been removed. Except for a thick layer of dirt on the floor, the room was empty.

"-pain the a.s.s, what I say."

"Quit complaining so much, will you, Sidge? Gets old."

"I suppose you like coming down here to fix s.h.i.t that shouldn't even still be here."

"I said-"

"Both of you shut up."

The voices echoed round the broken maze of the compound, amplified weirdly everywhere. So at least three techs had come this time. Tussig worried at that. Four had come the first time to reseal the dispenser Raja can had jimmied. After that, only one had returned every third or fourth day. He would cuss as he reinstalled the seal, knowing perfectly well that he would have to come back when it was jimmied again. Three times he had come alone. Now there was a group again. That usually meant more than just a reseal.

"f.u.c.ken nids," one of them said.

"I said-"

"I heard, all right!" Then: "I just want to know why they have to break it every time."

"They have to eat and they don't have our special tools and expertise," another said.

"Huh! Maybe if they did, they wouldn't be nids."

"That occurred to you, did it?"

"Hey, what's your problem-"

"Both of you shut up. I won't say it again."

Silence, then, except for the tapping and shifting of work being done.

"All right," one of them said. "Let's clean them out now."

"I still don't like this."

"You like your job, don't you? Now shut up and start scouring."

Tussig resisted the impulse to run. He pressed back against the cold wall of the drain and tried to listen more intently. His ears began to hum, a high pitched, directionless presence.

Someone shouted. Tussig jumped back from the opening of the drain pipe as if touched by a sudden current. Then he heard the distinct heavy snap of a stunner. One movement prompted another and he staggered back to the other end.

He gazed out at the river and for a few insane moments he contemplated swimming it.

"Hey!"

Tussig did not look back. He leapt from the pipe and ran up the quay. He had not explored much beyond the ruin of the factory and had no idea what lay at the far end of the crumbling pier, nor even how long it ran. He dodged the holes and larger cracks deftly, sprinting a jagged course, adrenalin carrying him effortlessly, breath loud inside his head.

He wondered later how much further he had to go when abruptly he sprawled onto the polycrete and slid, all feeling gone from his limbs. He barely felt the sc.r.a.ping across his cheek and jaw.

Stunner, he realized, trying to stand. Nothing responded. Consciousness seemed discontinuous, an on again off again phenomenon with big chunks of time cut out. That was good, in a way, since he lost all sense of duration. He ran, he fell, he waited, someone turned him over. He wondered vaguely why he was still conscious at all.

Tussig stared uncomprehendingly through the clear faceplate hovering above him at a woman-he thought it was a woman-with a wide face and small, harsh eyes. Thin lips pursed into a moue that made radiating lines around her mouth.

"One down here," she said.

"Where?" Tussig asked.

"Shut up," she said and prodded him with the toe of her boot. He barely felt it, somewhere along his thigh, but he was uncertain which one. She frowned. "All right," she said then, grumpily.

She straddled Tussig and grabbed him beneath the arms. Suddenly his head swirled sickeningly as she heaved him up, up, and across her shoulder. He found himself gazing down at the polycrete, then, as she carried him back along the pier. Distantly he felt nauseated, but he did not throw up. He knew if he were not so numb from the stunner he would, but this way he was only uncomfortable.

She turned off the pier and carried him down a narrow aisle between two relatively unbroken walls, then into another open area.

She stopped, heaved, and tossed him to the ground. He slapped the pavement across his back. Feeling was beginning to return and it almost hurt.

"Hey, careful," someone else said. "That's a child."

It's a nid," the woman said. Then: "Or is it family, Bryce?"

"Both of you shut up," a third voice said. "d.a.m.n, you two are a pain to work with. Is that all of them now?"

"How should I know?" the woman snapped.

"Check!"

She hissed angrily and moved off. "...don't we just bury 'em under the new construction, they like it here so much..."

The third tech moved away down another corridor.

"s.h.i.t," the one called Bryce said.

Tussig's back stung now and he could feel his legs. He blinked, realized even as he did that he had been unable to for several minutes. Tears came rapidly, shattering the clarity of his vision, and he tried to raise a hand to wipe at them.

"Take it easy," Bryce said. "Here."

A big hand worked under Tussig's shoulders and pushed him up. His eyes cleared enough to see the canteen being offered. He reached for it, missed, and tried again, seizing it with both hands. He raised it carefully to his mouth and drank. After three swallows, he choked. Cold water sprayed, ran down his chin.

"Slow," Bryce said. "Not all your muscles will be working the same way. Give it a half an hour and you can guzzle."

Tussig looked up at the tech. He recognized him. Heavy man, dark skin and pale green eyes. He sat beside Tussig, his helmet rolled down into the collar of his environ suit, shaven pate decorated with brilliant azure, crimson, and gold tattoos, and stared into the ruins around them.

On the ground lay two of Tussig's pars-Kess and Shimmer-and three of his sibs-Dal, Pelu, and Roshalon, all languidly unconscious. Stunned. Shimmer had a cut across the scalp. They had been dropped where they lay, like baggage.

Raja can and Fera were missing.