Against That Time Read online

  But of Ribisan culture and life, little was known and less understood. Ribisans traded engineered goods and technology with the other members of the Confederacy. Often they occupied worlds in systems held by the other species that had no use for the gas giants that they savored.

  “It is obvious,” Maauro said, as we sat around the conference table, “reviewing the history of this species that the Ribisans have systematically controlled what the other Confederate members have learned of them. They have embassies and legations on Confederate worlds, yet there is little contact beyond the basics of trade and rudimentary military coordination.”

  “I heard a Ribisan symphony once,” Dusko offered. “It sounded like small animals being ritually strangled.”

  “I am surprised that the other Confederate species put up with this situation,” Maauro added. “The Ribisans seem to have gotten into the Confederacy by the adoption of the original Concord they were in with the Nekoans, Vanians and Skurlocks. None of whom had living memory of their dealings with them.”

  Dusko shrugged. “They do not generally compete with oxygen-breathing species for territory or resources. While they are members, few of us would ever see or communicate with one. We Dua-Denlenn call them the “ghosts at the party.”

  “So what now?” Jaelle asked

  “We await the individual Candace said would come to hire us,” Maauro said

  The next day, opportunity, of sorts, came knocking at our door when the monitor on Dusko’s screen lit up.

  “I take back my doubts about your advertising skills,” Dusko said. “A prospect has appeared. Perhaps this is Telberd?” ”

  “As if on cue, more cloak-and-dagger stuff,” I said.

  Jaelle looked a question at Maauro.

  “He is full of incomprehensible sayings,” Maauro responded, “but I believe he feels our visitor is here surreptitiously.”

  Great, two women telling me I’m full of it, I thought.

  “I’ll bring him in,” Dusko said.

  “Let’s meet him in the conference room,” Jaelle suggested, looking around our shop with its detritus of machinery and equipment. We followed her into the one respectable room we had, with its oblong table and frosted glass partitions, where we’d faced Candace. The window showed the field beyond, where a small, yellow ship was lifting off in the distance. We slipped into the comfortably padded chairs.

  Dusko returned with a short, slim young man dressed in fashionable form-fitting dark clothes. The newcomer followed the current fashion craze for skin dyes in the inner worlds and his skin was a glossy midnight black under a shock of yellow hair. He looked narrow-eyed at all of us as Dusko returned to the conference table.

  “This is Doman Telberd,” Dusko said, his face revealing nothing, before he joined us on our side of the table.

  Telberd’s eyes flicked to me. “Before I discuss anything with you people, I first want to know if you have had any dealings with Udexco?”

  “That would be a private matter,” Dusko replied.

  “What do you care who we work for?” I said

  Telberd’s lips thinned in anger and he stepped forward.

  “Do not approach closer,” Maauro said. She stared evenly at the slim man, yet something in that regard brought him up short.

  “Look, I didn’t come here for trouble,” he said. “But I have to know if you’re employed by Udexco. It bears on my own commission.”

  Maauro considered. “We have not been approached by them. Beyond that we will say nothing.”

  “Good,” Telberd, said, visibly relieved.

  “Why don’t you sit down and tell us what you want?” I said.

  Telberd pulled up the furthest chair. He was staring at Maauro, as if trying to figure out what she was. The crazes for dye jobs and cosmetic surgery had rendered Maauro’s claims of being a mutated human more plausible, but she was still unusual by any standard.

  “I’m interested in hiring you to find my older sister,” he began.

  “Who is involved with Udexco,” Maauro added.

  “Clearly,” Telberd replied. “I wonder if you are all I’ve heard rumored.”

  “What have you heard?” Maauro asked.

  “That you look like a girl but aren’t. That you breathe, but it’s for show. That few people cross you and are ever seen again.”

  “He’s Guild,” Dusko said.

  “Nope,” Telberd retorted. “Not even as much as you were, Dusko, and yes, I know who each of you are. I’m an independent. Mostly a gambler and courier but I do know Guild. That’s where I heard some fantastic rumors about a…girl…named Maauro.”

  “Rumors,” I repeated, deadpan, “can’t put much stock in those.”

  Telberd gave me a wolf-like grin. “Yeah. Whatever. Look, I have an older sister, named Diralia Shon. We lost our parents at an early age and she did her level best to raise me. But I wasn’t brainy like her. Didn’t like school and didn’t care much for being a corp-rat. She got the education and the good job. I got in trouble.

  “We both kind of cut legal corners; me in the streets, and her in a variety of companies that researched things the Confed government might not like.

  “Three years ago she took a job like that with Udexco. She was going out-system into Ribisan space to work on some project she couldn’t tell me about. It was big though, I could tell by how excited she was about it. She promised to stargram me regularly and left.”

  I stood and poured some glasses of spiced, iced tea, sliding one to Telberd and another to Jaelle. “So no stargrams?”

  “No, they came steadily. Sometimes they were batched, as ships to that area weren’t that frequent.” He raised the iced-tea to his lips. I noticed his hand trembled slightly and he suddenly looked more like a frightened kid then the hard case he pretended to be.

  “Then something changed,” Maauro prompted.

  “Yeah, there was a lot less visual data, then even the audio dropped off and I got mostly text. After a while I realized that whoever was sending them wasn’t my sister. There were little things, expressions she used. Also, none of my grams to her were addressed in her return correspondence in any but the vaguest of terms.

  “She’s overdue to return. Udexco tells me the contract was extended but my sister and I have some codes between us so that we always know if the other one is okay. She’d have used one in a stargram or sent a message to me somehow. I think either they won’t let her return…or she’s dead.

  “I want you people to find out and, if possible, get Diralia out of whatever jam she’s in. I have the system coordinates for the planet that she’s on.” He leaned back, pushing away the tea and rubbing a hand over his face.

  “An expensive proposition,” Dusko said, “interstellar travel, enemies of unknown power and intent. How do you propose to pay for such an expedition?’

  Telberd nodded. “You’re right. I don’t have the credits for it. I’ll give you what I have: 80,000 credits. Diralia’s the only family I have. I may have other things that could be of value.”

  “It would be useful,” Maauro said, “if you were to serve as a source of intel for me on any Guild operations that concern us. Guild has learned to avoid me after many casualties and disastrous outcomes, but such lessons sometimes need to be re-taught. Our friend Dusko is no longer in good standing and our local contacts are few.”

  I sighed. One of these days I was going to bang proper negotiating into her armored skull.

  He licked his lips. “A high price indeed, Guild would nail my privates to your office door if they knew I was spying for you.”

  “That would be unfortunate for both you and the door,” she replied. “However, if you wish to help your sister, you will agree.”

  “Yeah, I know. It’s a deal.”

  “Think carefully on that,” Maauro said. “While I no longer destroy sentie
nt life casually, if you were to deceive, or fail me when you could have helped, I will pursue, overtake and destroy you.”

  “Everything she chases,” I added, “dies. It doesn’t matter how formidable, how fast or how connected.”

  Telberd swallowed and suddenly looked even younger. “Okay, no need to get tough. I knew you were serious people. I don’t need it proved.”

  I felt a brief stab of shame over menacing someone little more than a child.

  I consider the proposal, along with the high probability that, despite what Candace said, this could be an elaborate Guild trap. Telberd is not the sort of client that I envisioned for our agency, any more than Confederate Intelligence is, yet the expedition promises benefits.

  Beyond this is my concern for Wrik. Since Candace’s reappearance, Wrik has been moody and distracted. She is a witness on a past he would prefer not remember. Keeping him busy may be the best hope of warding off the cycle of depression he brings on himself.

  Truth be told, I too am restless. I have enjoyed many quiet nights watching the stars, sat near the fountain downstairs and listened to its water dance. I have sampled music and art in this young but cultured place. All my indulgences were enjoyed thoroughly, but I feel as if I should somehow be doing more— be using more of my abilities than I am.

  Wrik is aware that I am studying him and gives me a quizzical smile. It pleases me to see him smile and that tips the equation into finality.

  “Putting a family back together,” I say, “is a worthy goal.”

  The smile vanishes. Too late I make the correlation that I have reminded him of his severance from his own family. I am stupid, how could I have failed to realize that?

  He looks away, then back at Telberd. “Yes, it is. Whatever family you have is precious to you. Even,” he turns to regard me, “if it is not the original one that you had.”

  Relief floods through me. “Yes.”

  Dusko cannot roll his eyes as do humans but he makes the Dua-Denlenn equivalent of the gesture, as he often does when he feels Wrik and I are being overly sentimental. If he repeats it, I will pound his head on the table.

  “We’ll take the job,” Wrik says.

  Chapter Four

  Jaelle stood, limned by the moonlight coming through the window. I felt a slight shiver as I contemplated her silhouette. Her tail drifted high and her large bat-like ears were up; one was twitching. Most disconcerting was how her eyes would catch and reflect the light. Somewhere deep in my hindbrain a primitive ancestor was chittering abuse at me for sleeping with a lioness.

  Might be some reason for that, I thought drowsily. Jaelle had been known to bite and scratch a bit in the middle of having a good time.

  “Wrik,” she called softly.

  “Yes?”

  “Do you ever miss human females?”

  Uh-oh. Red Alert.

  I rolled up onto one elbow and looked at her. Her eyes flared in the moonlight as she turned back to me.

  “No,” I said after a moment.

  She gave me a skeptical look. “We fit together well, sexually, for beings from two different species. Certainly better than any other two I can think of. But it is different; there are things that we do not do for each other. Do you never desire a woman of your own kind?”

  I wondered where this was going, but I had painfully learned that as alien as we were to each other it was always best to take the questions literally and answer as honestly as I could bear.

  “Human males are monogamous by culture, not by nature. If you’re talking about mere sexual interest, then yes. If you’re talking about putting that into action, or about an emotional attachment, no.”

  “I see.”

  “But obviously you feel that something is missing.”

  “Not as you mean that, in terms of sexual satisfaction. Despite some physiological differences, you satisfy me as well or better than my own kind. Sex with Nekoan males can be rough and one-sided. That is just our biology and our sociology hasn’t quite overcome that.”

  “But…well, Wrik, this is a funny question, but how old are you?”

  I laughed. “God. Can it be that we’ve never discussed this? No, I don’t know how old you are either. I guess looking at you, I always assumed you were young and around my own age.

  “Even so, it’s hard to answer. Between cold sleep, time displacement in hyperdrive and the gravity and time distortion of our battle in the Artifact, I’m about thirty-two years from the time of my birth, but I’ve only lived about twenty-five of them.”

  “Ah,” she said, a little surprised. “You are a little younger than I expected. We both gained five years time when we were in the Artifact, but my true age is closer to thirty-two years.”

  “A sexy older female,” I said. “Lucky me.”

  “Our species are similarly lived, which is good,” she continued, evidently determined to be serious. “But there are some things about my kind that we should discuss.”

  I sat up.

  “Have you ever considered children?” she asked.

  I looked at the window and realized there was no escape there; we were too far off the ground. I sighed. “No. I never have.”

  “Really, so important an issue and you have never given it any thought?”

  Now it was my turn to frown. “You may recall that I haven’t done so well in family matters. That’s not something I want to inflict on a child.”

  “Perhaps you should consider some of the good things that you might give to a child, like kindness. You always doubt your courage, Wrik. Yet look at all that you have survived.”

  I looked away. I’d never discussed the details of my disgrace over Retief with her though she’d pieced together the basic fact that I had fled a battle over my homeworld, deserting my friends. I’d fled to Kandalor afterwards, the furthest place I could reach.

  After a few seconds she walked over and sat on the bed next to me. “Nekoan females tend to have children in their twenties and thirties. Our fertility is not long and complications are common in later pregnancies. I’ve been giving some thought to having children. I too have had my issues with family, but that won’t stop me from trying it. I always intended to have kits.”

  “Not something I can do for you,” I said, my mouth going dry.

  “Nor could I for you, which is why, if you wanted to have a human woman, or a child with her, I would understand. I would want our relationship to continue, but there would have to be room for these others.

  “I know that bonding is different for our kinds. The children remain with the mother, though they are part of the father’s clan. I did not have children before, as I had no intention of giving them up to another clan, nor of staying contracted to a male I do not love. You might say that I have been around humans too long. I want something different.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Kits of my own, that I’ll raise with your help. I want you to be my consort.”

  I lay a bit stunned. Consortship was something done between species. It left the partners able to marry within their own kind, but created a legal bond throughout Confed territory.

  “You’d still be free to marry in your own species,” she said. “I’d want her to be someone I like, of course.”

  “Wait, wait a minute,” I said, feeling things slip utterly and perhaps irrevocably out of my control. “Consorts? I guess I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

  “Do you ever?” she said with some exasperation. “Wrik I have never known anyone who spent less time thinking about the future than you. You live in survival mode, only worried about getting through the next few hours.”

  Probably true, I thought. Aloud I said, “Maybe I think more in some ways and less in others. Less in that I hadn’t really considered it, but more in that it never entered my mind that I’d need more than you to be happy. I don’t feel
the need for a human female in my life.”

  “Now,” she said. “But I find it hard to believe, unless humans are so unlike Nekoans, that this won’t be an issue in the future. On my side, what male I choose will be a temporary feature, to give me kits. Beyond that, males are not much involved in the raising of children and marriages among my kind are contract affairs usually only for a few years.”

  “Why do we need other people?” I began. “I truly had given no thought to kids. I mean, I suppose we could adopt some?”

  “Nekoan children are rarely available to be adopted unless a clan is wiped out in some fashion. We don’t have such arrangements.”

  “How about artificial insem—”

  Jaelle shot to her feet.

  We stared at each other for a few seconds before she sat down.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I guess there is no way … no way that you would know that such a thing is not done among my kind. Not even discussed. It’s for the lowest of low, rejects and outcasts.”

  Like us, I thought.

  “So, no. Impossible. I may be alienated from my father, a far lesser matter than being rejected by my maternal line, but my clan is a proud one. That cannot even be considered.”

  She smiled at me. “But don’t worry, Wrik, this will merely be about sex and children, not love.”