Текст книги "Serpent's Reach"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

A large shadow appeared in the window, stopping her heart; it was Warrior—at least majat, wanting in. She opened the door, hand on the gun she had in her pocket, but it was in truth only Warrior, who sat down on the floor and preened itself of dew.

A little sugar-water more than satisfied it; it sang for her while it drank, and she stroked the auditory palps very softly in thanks for this.

“Others come,” it said then.

“Other blues? How do you know so, Warrior?”

It boomed a note of majat language. “Mind,” it translated, probably approximating.

“Is blue-hive not far, then?”

It shifted, never ceasing to drink, into a new orientation. “There.”

It faced down-arm from residence circle 4.

“Come that way,” it informed her, then reoriented half about. “Blue-hive there, our-hill.”

They would come an eighth of the way round the asterisk-city and up the wild interstice to the garden wall. And majat runners could cover that ground very quickly.

“When?”

It stopped drinking and measured with its body the future angle of the sun, a profound bow toward the far evening. Late, then. Twilight.

“This-hive hopes you remain with us, Warrior.”

It began drinking again. “This-unit likes sweet. Good, Kethiuy-queen.”

She laughed soundlessly. “Good, Warrior.” She touched it, eliciting a hum of pleasure, and went about her business. Warrior would of course do what the hive determined, immune to bribery, but Warrior would at least give its little unit of resistance to being removed, as valid a unit of the Mind as any other.

And the hive was reacting. She went about her work, schooling herself to concentration, but burning with an inner fire all the same: the hive…had heard her, regarded her. The approach through Kalind Warrior had had its imprint.

It was there again, the contact which she had lost. Nearly twenty years, and many attempts, and this one had taken: she had allies, the power of the hives.

All possibilities shifted hereafter. Being here, at the Edge, was no longer a protracted act of suicide, a high refuge, a place where enemies could not so easily follow: the circular character of events struck her suddenly and amazed her with her own predictability. She had run, a second time, for the hive.

It was time to attack.

v

House records had indicated a vehicle in the garage: systems in it seemed up and operable. Max and Merry both, by their papers, had some skill in that regard. “Go out,” she said, “and check it out by eye; I’m not inclined to trust housecomp’s word on it.”

They went. Citybank provided an atlas in printout. A sorrowfully thin atlas it proved to be, only a few pages thick, for an entire inhabited world. Newhope and Newport were thetwo cities, Newport seeming a very small place indeed; and the town of Upcoast was the other major concentration of population, only an administrative and warehousing area for the northern estates. The rest of the population was dotted all over the map, in the rain belts, on farms and pumping stations and farms which served as depots on the lacery of unpaved roads. Over most of the land surface of Istra was nothing but blankness, designated Uninhabited. There was the spectacular upsurge of the High Range on East; and an extremely wide expanse of marsh southward on West, marked Hazard, which given the habit of Istran nomenclature, might be the name of the place as well as its character. Small numbers were written beside the dots that were farms…2, 6, 7, and those in black; and by depots and by the cities, like-wise, but ranging up to 15,896 at Newhope.

Population, she realised. A world so sparse that they must give population in the outback by twos and threes.

In the several pages of the atlas, three were city-maps, and they were all of the pattern of Newhope. The city was simplicity itself: an eight-armed star with business and residential circles dotted along its arms and with wedges between wistfully titled Park… Park doubtless being the ambition. Reality was outside, over the garden wall, a sun-baked tangle of weeds and native trees which could not have known human attention in centuries. Newhope must have had ambitions once, in the days of its birth…ambition, but no Kontrin presence to aid it: no relief from taxes, no Kontrin funds feeding back into its economy, for beautification, luxury, art.

Most of the building-circles were warehouses: the two arms of the city nearest the Port were entirely that. There were local factories, mostly locally consumed equipment for agriculture, light arms, clothing, food processing. There were services and their administrations; worker-apartments for the ordinary run of betas; mid-class apartments and some residential circles for the mid-class well-to-do; and one arm was all elite residence-circles, like circle 4, which this house occupied. The highest ITAK officials lodged in circle 1, the lowest in 10. And the guest house was second circle of the eighth arm: the Outsider-mission’s residency, while ITAK officers were dead centre, zero-circle.

Useful to know.

There was a closing of doors upstairs. She heard footfalls, soft, wandering here and there. She punched time: the morning was well along.

The reflection in the dead screen showed her Jim standing in the doorway, and she pushed with her foot, turned the chair nearly full about.

“You certainly had your sleep this morning,” she said cheerfully.

“No, sera.”

She let go her breath, let pass the sera. “What, then? You weren’t meddling with the tapes, were you?”

“I didn’t remember them well. I tried them again.”

“For enjoyment. I thought you would enjoy them. Maybe learn something.”

“I’m trying to learn them, sera.”

She shook her head. “Don’t try beyond convenience. I only meant to give you something to fill your time.”

“What will you want for lunch, sera?”

“Raen I don’t care. Make something. I’ve a little more to do here. I’ll be through in half an hour. We should have staff here. You shouldn’t have to serve as cook.”

“I helped in galley sometimes,” he said.

She, did not answer that Jim strayed out again. Warrior met him: she saw the encounter reflected when she had turned about again, and almost turned back to intervene. But to her gratification she saw Jim touch Warrior of his own accord and suffer no distress of it. Warrior sang softly, hive-song, that was strange in the human rooms; it trailed after Jim as he went kitchenward.

“Sugar-water,” she heard from the kitchen, a deep harmony of majat tones, and afterward a contented humming.

The car functioned, with no problems. Raen watched the short street flow past the tinted windows and settled back with a deep breath. Merry drove, seeming happy with the opportunity. Max and Warrior, minutely instructed regarding each other as well as intruders, were guarding the house and grounds; but Jim she would not leave behind, to the mercy of chance and Max’s skill at defense. Jim sat in the back seat of the Eln-Kests’ fine vehicle, watching the scenery she saw when she looked back, with a look of complete absorption.

Doing very well with this much strangeness about him, she reckoned of him. Doing very well, considering. She smiled at him slightly, then gave her attention forward, for the car dipped suddenly for the downramp to the subway and Merry needed an address.

“D-branch circle 5,” she said, the while Merry took them smoothly onto the track for Center.

The program went in. The car gathered speed, entering the central track.

Something wrong whipped past the window on Max’s side. Raen twisted in the seat, saw an impression of stilt-limbed walkers along the transparent-walled footpath that ran beside the tracks.

Tunnels. Natural to majat, easy as the wildland interstices. But there were beta walkers too, and no sign of panic.

“Merry. So majat have free access here? Do they just come and go as they please?”

“Yes,” he said.

She thought of calling the house and warning Max; but Max and Warrior had already been stringently warned. There was no good adding a piece of information that Max would already know. The danger was always there, had been. She settled forward again, arms folded, scanning the broad tube, the lights of which flicked past them faster and faster.

“Majat make free of all Newhope, then, and betas just bear with it, do they?”

“Yes, sera.”

“They work directly for betas?” She found amazement, even resentment, that majat would do so.

“Some places they do. Factories, mostly.”

“So no one-at the Port found a Warrior’s presence unusual. Everyone’s gotten used to it. How long, Merry, how long has this been going on?”

The azi kept his eyes on the tracks ahead, his squarish face taut, as if the subject was an intensely uncomfortable one. “Half a year… There was panic at first. No more. Hives don’t bother people. Humans walk one side, majat the other, down the walkways. There are heat-signs.”

Redsss, redsss, Warrior had tried to tell her. Go here, go there. Redss pushhh.

“What hive, Merry? One more than others?”

“I don’t know, sera. I never understood there was a difference to be seen, until you showed me. I’ll watch.” His brow was creased with worry. Not so slow-wilted, this azi. “Humans don’t like them in the city, but they come anyway.”

Raen bit at her lip, braced as the car went through a manoeuvre, scanned other majat on the walkway. They whipped into the great hub of Central and changed tracks at a leisurely pace. There were human walkers here, swathed in cloaks and anonymous in the sunsuits which Istra’s bright outdoors made advisable; and by twos, there were armoured police… ITAK security: everything here was ITAK.

They whipped out again on another tangent. D, the signs read.

More majat walkers.

Majat, casually coming and going in a daily contact with betas…with minds-who-died. Once majat had fled such contact, unable to bear it, even for the contacts which gave them azi, insisting to work only through Kontrin. Death had once worried majat—azi-deaths, no, as majat deaths were nothing—but betas they had always perceived as individual intelligences, and they had fled beta presence in horror, unable to manage the concepts which disrupted all majat understanding.

Now they walked familiarly with minds-who-died, unaffrighted.

And that sent a shiver over her skin, a suspicion of understanding.

D-track carried them along at increasing velocity; they took the through-track until the lights blurred past in a stream.

And suddenly they whisked over to slow-track, braking, gliding for the D circle 5 ramp. Merry took over manual as they disengaged, delivered them up into a shaded circle free of traffic and pedestrians, a vast area ringed by a pillared overhang of many stories—which must outwardly seem one of those enormous domes. The summit was a tinted shield which admitted light enough to glare down into the centre of the well of pillars.

They drove deep beneath the overhand, and to the main entry, where transparent doors and white walls lent a cold austerity to the offices. LABOUR REGISTRY, the neat letters proclaimed, 50-D, ITAK.

It was the beginning of understandings, at least. Raen contemplated it with apprehensions, reckoned whether she wanted to leave the azi both in the car or not, and decided against.

“Merry, I don’t think well be bothered here. It’s going to be hot; I’m sorry, but stay in the car and keep the doors locked and the windows sealed. Don’t create trouble, but if it happens, shoot if you have to: I want this car here when I come out. You call Max every ten minutes and make sure things are all right at the house, but no conversation, understand?”

“Yes.”

She climbed out and beckoned to Jim, who joined her on the walk and lagged a decorous half-pace behind as she started for the doors. She dropped a step and he caught up, walked with her into the foyer.

The offices were unnaturally still, desks vacant, halls empty. The air-conditioning was excessive, and the air held a strange taint, a combination of office-smells and antiseptic.

“Is this place going to bother you?” she asked of Jim, worried for that, but she reckoned hazards even of leaving him here at the door.

He shook his head very faintly. She looked about, saw a light on in an office down the corridor from the reception area. She walked that way, slowly, her footsteps and Jim’s loud in the deserted building.

A man occupied the office—had heard their coming evidently and risen. It was modern, but untidy; the desk was stacked high with work. DIRECTOR, the sign by the door declared.

“Ser,” Raen said. He surveyed them both, blinked, all at once seemed to take the full situation into account, for his face went from ruddy to pale; a Kontrin in Colour, a man in impeccable innerworlds dress and with an azi-mark on his cheek.

“Sera.”

“I understand,” Raen said, “that there are numerous personnel to be contracted.”

“We have available contracts, yes, sera.”

“Numerous contracts. I’d like a full tour, ser—”

“Itavvy,” he breathed.

“Itavvy. A tour of the whole facility, ser.”

The smallish beta, greying, balding…looked utterly distressed. “The office—I’ve responsibility—”

“It really doesn’t look as if you’re overwhelmed with visitors. The whole facility, ser, floor by floor, the whole process, so long as it amuses me.”

Itavvy nodded, reached for the communications switch on the desk. Raen stepped across the interval and put out her chitined hand, shook her head slowly. “No. You can guide us, I’m sure. Softly. Quietly. With minimum disturbance to the ordinary routine of the building. Do you object, ser?”

vi

The Labour Registry was a maze of curving corridors, all white, all the same. Lifts designated sub-basements down to the fifth level; Raen recalled as many as twenty stories above ground, although the lifts in this area only went to the seventh: she recalled the overhang. They passed row on row of halls, a great deal of seemingly pointless walking with ser Itavvy in the lead. There were doors, neat letters: LIBRARY: COMP I: LEVEL I: RED CARDS ONLY.

She made no sense of it, had no idea in fact what she was seeking, save that in this building was what should have been a thriving industry, and in the front of it were empty desks and silent halls.

Itavvy paused at last at a lift and showed them in, took them to third level, into other identical halls, places at least populated. Grey-suited techs stared at the intrusion of such visitors and stopped dead in their tracks, staring. White-suited azi, distinguishable by their tattoos, stepped from their path and then resumed their cleaning and their pushing of carts.

Itavvy led them farther.

“I’m tired of walking aimlessly,” Raen said. “What do you propose to show us on this level? More doors?”

“The available contracts, sera.”

Raen walked along in silence, scanning doors and labels, searching for something of information. Periodically corridors branched of from theirs, always on the right. Inevitably those corridors ended at the same interval, closed off by heavy security doors. RED CARD ONLY, the signs said.

She stopped, gestured toward the latest of them. “What’s there, ser Itavvy?”

“General retention,” Itavvy said, looking uncomfortable. “If sera will, please, there are more comfortable areas—”

“Unlock this one. I’d like to see.”

Itavvy unhappily preceded them down the short corridor, produced his card and unlocked the door.

A second door lay beyond, similarly locked: they three stood within the narrow intervening space as the outer door boomed and sealed with a resounding noise of locks. Then Itavvy used his card on the second, and a wave of tainted air met them, a vastness of glaring lights and grey concrete; a web of catwalks.

The scent was again that of antiseptic, compounded this time with something else. Itavvy would too obviously have been glad to close the door with that brief look, but Raen walked stubbornly ahead, moving Itavvy out before her—no beta would have the chance to slam a door at her back—and looked about her.

Concrete, damp with antiseptic, and the stench of humanity and sewage.

Pits. Brightly lit doorless pits, a bit of matting and one human in each, like larvae bestowed in chambered comb. Five paces by five, if that; no doors, no halls between the cells…only the grid of catwalks above, with machinery to move them, with an extended process of ladders which could, only if lowered, afford the occupants exit, and that only a few at a time.

The whole stretched out of view around the curve of the building and far, far, across before them. Their steps echoed fearsomely on the steel grids. Faces looked up at them, only mildly curious.

Raen looked the full sweep of it, sickened, deliberately inhaled the stench.

“Are contracts on these available?”

“For onworld use, sera.”

“No export license.”

“No, sera.”

“I understand that a great number of azi have been confiscated from estates. But the contracts on those azi would be entangled. Where are they housed? Among these?”

“There are facilities in the country.”

“As elaborate as these?”

Itavvy said nothing. Raen calculated for herself what manner of facilities could be constructed in the sparsely populated countryside, in haste, by a pressured corporation-government. These facilities must be luxurious by comparison.

“Yet all of these,” she said, “are warehoused. Is that the right word?”

“Essentially,” Itavvy whispered.

“Are you still producing azi at the same rate?”

“Sera, if only you would inquire with ITAK Central—I’m sure I don’t know the reasons of things.”

“You’re quite satisfactory, ser Itavvy. Answer the question. I assure you of your safety to do so.”

“I don’t know of any authorisation for change. I’m not over Embryonics. That’s another administration, round the other side, 51. Labour doesn’t get them until the sixth year. We haven’t had any less of that age coming in. I don’t think… I don’t think there can be any change. The order was to produce.”

“Origin of that order?”

“Kontrin licensing, sera.” The answer was a hoarse whisper. “Originally—we appealed for a moderate increase. The order came back quadrupled.”

“In spite of the fact that there existed no Kontrin license to dispose of them when they reached eighteen. The export quota wasn’t changed”

“We…trusted, sera, that the license would be granted when the time came. We’ve applied, sera. We’ve even applied for permission to terminate. We can’t do that either. The estates—were all crowded above their limits. They’re supposed to turn them back after a year, for training. But now—now they’re running their operations primarily to feed their own workers…and they’re panicked, refusing to give them up, the permanent workers and the temporaries.” Itavvy wiped at his face. “They divert food—to maintain the work force and it doesn’t get to the depots. Our food. The station’s food. ISPAK has threatened a power cutoff if the estates go on holding out, but ITAK has—reasoned with ISPAK. It wouldn’t stop the estate-holders. They have their own collectors, their own power. And they won’t give up the azi.”

“Are the holders organised?”

The beta shook his head. “They’re just outbackers. Blind, hardheaded outbackers. They hold the azi because they’re manpower; and they’re a means to hold out by human labour if ISPAK follows through with its threat. Always…always the farms were a part of the process; azi went out there in the finishing of their training and shifted back again, those that would be contracted for specialised work—good for the azi, good for the farms. But now, sera, the estates have been threatening to break out of the corporation.”

“Hardly sounds as if these holders are blind, ser Itavvy…if it comes to a fight, they’ve the manpower.”

“Azi.”

“You don’t think they’d fight.”

Beta deference robbed her of an honest answer. Itavvy swallowed whatever he would have said; but he looked as if he would have disputed it.

“It hardly sounds as if they’re without communication on the issue,” Raen said, “since they’re all doing alike. Aren’t they?”

“I wouldn’t know, sera.”

“Only on East, or is West also afflicted?”

Itavvy moistened his lips. “I think it’s general.”

“Without organisation. Without a plan to keep themselves from starving.”

“There’s already been work toward new irrigation. The river…that supplies Newhope…is threatened. They expand—”

“Unlicensed.”

“Unlicensed, sera. ITAK protests, but again-we can do nothing. They feud among themselves. They fight for land and water. There are—” He mopped at the back of his neck. “Maybe two and three holders get together. And azi…muddle up out there. They’re trading, these holders.”

“Trading?”

“With each other. Goods. Azi. Moving them from place to place”

“You know so?”

“Police say so. Azi—are more on some farms than we put there.”

Raen looked over all the cells, as far as the eye could see. “Weapons?”

“Holders—have always had them.”

She walked forward, slowly, the little boxes shifting past. The ceiling weighed upon the senses. There was only grey and black and the white glare of light, no colour but the shades of humanity, all grey-clothed.

“Why,” she asked suddenly, “are they walled off one from the other? Security?”

“Each is specifically trained. Contact at random would make it more difficult to assure specificity.”

“And you get them at six years? Is it different from this, the young ones?”

The beta did not answer. At last he gave a vague shrug.

“Show me,” Raen said.

Itavvy started walking, around the curve. New vistas of cells presented themselves. The complex seemed endless. No walls were discernible, no limits, save a core where many catwalks converged, a vast concrete darkness against the floodlights.

“Do they ever leave this place?” Raen asked as they walked above the cells, provoking occasional curious stares from those below. “Don’t they want for exercise?”

“There are facilities,” the beta said, “by shifts.”

“And factories. They work in the city factories?”

“Those trained for it.” Perhaps Itavvy detected an edge to her voice. His grew defensive. “Six hours in the factories, two at exercise, two at deepstudy, then rest. We do the best we can under crowded circumstances, sera.”

“And the infants?”

“Azi care for them.”

“By shifts. Six hours on, two of exercise?”

“Yes, sera.”

Their steps measured the metal catwalk another length. “But you’re not sending these out to the estates anymore. You’re more and more crowded week by week, and you’re not able to move them.”

“We do what we can, sera.”

They reached the core, and the lift. Itavvy used his card to open the door, and they stepped in. SEVEN, Itavvy pushed and the lift shot up with heart-dragging rapidity, set them out on that level with a crashing of locks and doors, echoes in vastness.

It was otherwise silent.

All these levels, she began to understand, all these levels were the same, endless cubicles, floor after floor, the same. Seven above ground. Five below. And there was silence. All that space, all those cells, all that humanity, and there was nowhere a voice, nowhere an outcry.

Itavvy led the way out onto the catwalk. Raen looked down. These were all small children, six, seven years. The faces upturned held mild curiosity, no more. There were no games, no occupations. They sat or lay on their mats. Same grey coveralls, same shaven heads, same grave faces. At this age, one could not even tell their sex.

None cried, none laughed.

“God,” she breathed, gripping the rail. Itavvy had stopped. She suddenly wanted out. She looked back. Jim stood at the rail, looking down. She wanted him out of this place, now, quickly.

“Is there a door out on this level?” she asked, perfectly controlled. Itavvy indicated the way ahead with a gesture. Raen walked at his unhurried pace, hearing Jim following.

“What’s the average contract price?” she asked.

“Two thousand.”

“You can’t produce them for anything near that cost.”

“No,” said Itavvy. “We can’t.”

It was a long walk. There was nothing to fill the silence. She would not hurry, would not betray her reaction, disturbing betas whose interests were involved in this operation, stirring apprehensions. Nor would she turn and look at Jim. She did not want to.

They reached a door like the one on third—passed that and its mate into sterile halls and light and clean air. She breathed, breathed deeply. “I’ve seen what I came to see,” she said. “Thank you, ser Itavvy. Suppose now we go back to your office.”

He hesitated, as if he thought of asking a question; and did not. They rode the lift to main, and walked the long distance back to the front offices, all in silence. Itavvy had the air of a worried man. Raen let him fret.

And when they three stood once again in the beta’s office, with the door closed: “I have an estate,” Raen said, “ridiculously understaffed. And a security problem, which affords me no amusement at all. How many contracts are available here?”

Itavvy’s face underwent a series of changes. “Surely enough to fill all your needs, Kontrin.”

“The corporation does reward its people according to the profits their divisions show, doesn’t it? All these empty desks…this isn’t a local holiday, is it?”

“No, sera.”

Raen settled into a chair and Itavvy seated himself at his desk. Raen gestured to Jim, and he took the one beside her.

“So,” she said. “And the number of contracts available for guard personnel, azi only?”

The beta consulted the computer. “Sufficient, sera.”

“The exact number, please.”

“Two thousand forty-eight, sera, nineteen hundred nine hundred eighty-two males, rest females; nineteen hundred four under thirty years, rest above.”

“Counting confiscated azi, or are these on the premises?”

“On the premises.”

“A very large number.”

“Not proportionately, sera.”

“Who usually absorbed them?”

“Corporation offices. Estate-holders…it’s wild land out there.”

“So a great number of those tangled contracts in custody in the country…would be guard-trained, wouldn’t they?”

“A certain number, yes, sera.”

Itavvy’s eyes were feverish; his lips trembled. He murmured his words. Raen reckoned the man, at last nodded.

“I’ll buy,” she said, “all two thousand forty-eight. I also want sunsuits and sidearms. I trust an establishment which sends out guards sends them out equipped to work.”

He moistened his lips. “Yes, sera, although some buyers have their own uniforms or equipment.”

“You’ll manage.” She rose, walked about the office, to Itavvy’s extreme nervousness, the while she looked at the manuals on the counter by the comp unit. She looked up a number, memorised it, turned and smiled faintly. “I’ll take the others as fast as you can train them. Those tangled contracts…if you’ll check tomorrow, you’ll find the matter cleared and the contracts saleable. I trust you can quietly transfer azi from there to here as spaces become available.”

“Sera—”

“The children, ser Itavvy. However do you substitute for—human contact? Do tapes supply it all?”

Itavvy wiped at his lips. “At every minute stage of development…deepstudy tapes, yes, sera. The number of individuals, the economics…it would be virtually impossible for a private individual to have the time, the access to thousands of programs developed over centuries to accomplish this—”

“Eighteen years to maturity. No way to speed that process, is there?”

“For some purposes—they leave before eighteen.”

“Majat azi.”

“Yes.”

“And moving them out without programming—as they are—”

“Chaos. Severe personality derangements.”

She said nothing to that, only looked at him, at Jim, back again. “And more than the two thousand forty-eight…how long does it take for training? On what scale can it be done?”

“Minimally…a few days.” Itavvy shuffled the papers spread across his desk, an action which gave him excuse to look elsewhere. “All channels could be turned to the same tapestudy—easier than doing it otherwise. But the legalities—the questions that would be raised on this world—they’d have to be moved, shipped, and ISPAK—”

“You know, ser Itavvy, that your loyalty is to ITAK. But ITAK is a Kontrin creation. You are aware then of a-higher morality. If I were to give you a certain—favour, if I were to ask your silence in return for that, and certain further co-operations, you would realise that this was not disloyalty to ITAK, but loyalty to the source of ITAK’s very license to function.”

The beta wiped at his face and nodded, the papers forgotten, his eyes fever-bright. He looked at her now. There was no possibility of divided attention.

“I’m creating an establishment,” she said very softly, “a permanent Kontrin presence, do you see? And such an establishment needs personnel. When this process is complete, when the training is accomplished as I wish, then I shall still need reliable personnel at other levels.”

“Yes, sera,” he breathed.

“The great estates, you see, these powers with their massed forces of azi—this thing which you so earnestly insist has no organisation—could be handled without bloodshed, by superior force. Peace would come to Istra. You see what a cause you serve. A solution, a solution, ser, which would well serve ITAK. You realise that I have power to license, being in fact the total Kontrin presence: I can authorise export on the levels you need. I’m prepared to do so, to rescue this whole operation, if I receive the necessary co-operation from certain key individuals.”

The man was trembling, visibly. He could not control his hands. “I am not, then, to contact my superiors.”

She shook her head slowly. “Not if you plan to enjoy your life, ser. I am extremely cautious about security.”

“You have my utmost co-operation.”

She smiled bleakly, having found again the measure of betas. “Indeed, ser, thank you. Now, there’s an old farm on B-branch, just outside the city, registered to a new owner, one ser Isan Tel. You’ll manage to find some azi of managerial function, the best: its housecomp has instructions for them. Can you find such azi?”

Itavvy nodded.

“Excellent. All you can spare of them, and all of the guard-azi but two hundred males that I want transferred to my own estate…go to the establishment of Isan Tel. Provisioned and equipped. Can you do it?”

“We—can, yes.”

She shook her head. “No plural. You. Youwill tend every detail personally. The rumour, if it escapes, will tell me precisely who let it escape; and if there is fault in the training—I need not say how I would react to that, ser. You would be quite, quite dead. On the other hand, you can become a very wealthy man…wealthy and secure. In addition to the other contracts, I want half a dozen domestics to my address; and ser Tel’s estate will need a good thirty to care for the guard-azi. Possible?”