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crowd.
They freed Sol and a woman I didn’t know next, and then it was my turn.
The touch of the grunt’s hand on my shoulder made me suddenly panic. I don’t know if it was some kind of phreak transmitted in the touch, something in the air as the grunt came close, or simply that it felt wrong to have a powerful clawed grip on my shoulder.
I let the thing guide me forward through the crowd, up one step, then another, until I stood before the commander.
Close up, she was a daunting sight. Her skin was ribbed and deeply indented, its hue shading from vivid orange to dark umbers and browns. Some of the studs and hooks on her face barely pierced the rough skin, but others were buried deep. Her eyes were black, glassy, so that you could not tell where she looked, except that they flitted constantly, the skin around the sockets pulling and twitching as the eyes moved. She smelled of sulphur and old urine, so potently that I had to struggle not to gag.
I held my left arm up, exposing the inner wrist, and let one of the grunts scan me.
The grunt with the scanner twitched twice, clicking, “!¡ confusion error... confusion error ¡!” over and over. At a prompt from the chlick commander, the grunt calmed and said, “!¡ identity ¡! Reed Trader 12, authorised all indigene and mixed zones.”
I stood quietly.
The commander leaned towards me, and it was all I could do not to let its aura of phreak-stink reduce me to a quivering, terrified wreck.
“!¡ suspicion | frustration ¡! This one does not look like Reed Trader 12,” she said. She stabbed a scaly paw at my chest, striking me so hard that I staggered. “Reed Trader 12 was female.”
I met the chlick’s look.
Softly, I said, “I am Reed Trader 12. I was just going about my business when–”
The same scaly paw flashed across my vision and I staggered again, my face numb, my ears ringing, the metal taste of blood in my mouth.
The chlick commander barked an order and the grunt seized my arm and scanned my wrist again.
Just then, I remembered the first time I had been caught, that night at the checkpoint: the confusion in the grunt’s face when my pids had contradicted its own recognition of me.
I looked at the chlick commander, its colour shifting to a more fiery pattern.
Protocol won. There was a flash of her arm again and I expected another blow, but instead she was gesturing, dismissing me.
A grunt pushed me roughly, and I almost staggered into the jagwire. That would have been a quick end for me and perhaps somehow an end that would have been acceptable in the aliens’ strict moral framework: an accident, a twist of fate, not a deliberate act at all.
I caught myself, straightened, glanced back at the commander only to see her glassy black eyes fixed on me, turned away again. Calmly, I stepped through the gap in the corral and was free.
Chapter Three
I DIDN’T HEAD straight back to Cragside Ipp. I knew better than that.
I didn’t head for Sol’s meeting point, either; I’d done my bit already. I didn’t even know where they were to meet, although I could guess: our nest-mother could be a bit predictable in her planning.
Instead, I went to the Swayne and walked along its embankment, choosing my route carefully to avoid the proscribed main streets. The river was wide here, as it twisted like a snake through the city. This stretch of bank had been raised and cut straight, though, no doubt by some alien settler for long-forgotten reasons that must have made sense at the time.
Chantran market stalls lined the embankment, and out in the water, families of tilelias skipped and played, flashing silver and black and filling the air with their wailing.
The sixth would strike soon, and then it would be a race to get back before curfew, but for now I was good to catch my breath.
Across the river, I could see a marina, all sleek speedboats and cruisers of alien design; the river was not human territory. Beyond that, a sprawl of
They freed Sol and a woman I didn’t know next, and then it was my turn.
The touch of the grunt’s hand on my shoulder made me suddenly panic. I don’t know if it was some kind of phreak transmitted in the touch, something in the air as the grunt came close, or simply that it felt wrong to have a powerful clawed grip on my shoulder.
I let the thing guide me forward through the crowd, up one step, then another, until I stood before the commander.
Close up, she was a daunting sight. Her skin was ribbed and deeply indented, its hue shading from vivid orange to dark umbers and browns. Some of the studs and hooks on her face barely pierced the rough skin, but others were buried deep. Her eyes were black, glassy, so that you could not tell where she looked, except that they flitted constantly, the skin around the sockets pulling and twitching as the eyes moved. She smelled of sulphur and old urine, so potently that I had to struggle not to gag.
I held my left arm up, exposing the inner wrist, and let one of the grunts scan me.
The grunt with the scanner twitched twice, clicking, “!¡ confusion error... confusion error ¡!” over and over. At a prompt from the chlick commander, the grunt calmed and said, “!¡ identity ¡! Reed Trader 12, authorised all indigene and mixed zones.”
I stood quietly.
The commander leaned towards me, and it was all I could do not to let its aura of phreak-stink reduce me to a quivering, terrified wreck.
“!¡ suspicion | frustration ¡! This one does not look like Reed Trader 12,” she said. She stabbed a scaly paw at my chest, striking me so hard that I staggered. “Reed Trader 12 was female.”
I met the chlick’s look.
Softly, I said, “I am Reed Trader 12. I was just going about my business when–”
The same scaly paw flashed across my vision and I staggered again, my face numb, my ears ringing, the metal taste of blood in my mouth.
The chlick commander barked an order and the grunt seized my arm and scanned my wrist again.
Just then, I remembered the first time I had been caught, that night at the checkpoint: the confusion in the grunt’s face when my pids had contradicted its own recognition of me.
I looked at the chlick commander, its colour shifting to a more fiery pattern.
Protocol won. There was a flash of her arm again and I expected another blow, but instead she was gesturing, dismissing me.
A grunt pushed me roughly, and I almost staggered into the jagwire. That would have been a quick end for me and perhaps somehow an end that would have been acceptable in the aliens’ strict moral framework: an accident, a twist of fate, not a deliberate act at all.
I caught myself, straightened, glanced back at the commander only to see her glassy black eyes fixed on me, turned away again. Calmly, I stepped through the gap in the corral and was free.
Chapter Three
I DIDN’T HEAD straight back to Cragside Ipp. I knew better than that.
I didn’t head for Sol’s meeting point, either; I’d done my bit already. I didn’t even know where they were to meet, although I could guess: our nest-mother could be a bit predictable in her planning.
Instead, I went to the Swayne and walked along its embankment, choosing my route carefully to avoid the proscribed main streets. The river was wide here, as it twisted like a snake through the city. This stretch of bank had been raised and cut straight, though, no doubt by some alien settler for long-forgotten reasons that must have made sense at the time.
Chantran market stalls lined the embankment, and out in the water, families of tilelias skipped and played, flashing silver and black and filling the air with their wailing.
The sixth would strike soon, and then it would be a race to get back before curfew, but for now I was good to catch my breath.
Across the river, I could see a marina, all sleek speedboats and cruisers of alien design; the river was not human territory. Beyond that, a sprawl of
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