“Also next spring we will begin restoring several brethren strongholds that will be of use to us. Especially the fortress Mahede. From Mahede it will be possible to mount year-round darkship patrols and up the pressure on the savages even more.”
Gradwohl tapped the screen with a finger. Mahede lay halfway between Maksche and Akard. She used a claw to draw a circle around Mahede. It was obvious that circles of the same size centered upon Akard and Maksche would overlap, covering the entire Hainlin rivercourse north of the city. The Hainlin was the main artery of the northern provinces.
“Meantime, this winter we will continue hunting the savages the best we can, with all the resources we can bring to bear. We must keep the pressure on. It is the only way to beat the Serke at their own game.”
Several senior silth disagreed. A murmur of discontent ran through the audience. Marika scanned faces carefully, memorizing those of her mentor’s opponents. They would be her enemies, too.
In the course of the discussion that followed, it began to appear that those who opposed Gradwohl’s scheme did so principally because it interfered with their comfort and their abilities to exploit their own particular demesnes. Several seniors of cloisters complained because they had been stripped of their best silth and, as a result, were having trouble maintaining order among their workers. Especially among the males.
The pestilence of rebellion was spreading.
“I suspect our problems with workers are the shadows of the next Serke move against us,” Gradwohl said. “It is unlikely that they expected me to collapse under pressure from the savages. The northern packs were expendable counters in their game. So will our workers be. But we will deal with that in its turn. The most critical task facing us is to make sure the northern provinces are secure no matter what troubles plague us elsewhere.”
“Why?” someone demanded. The shout was anonymous, but Marika thought the voice sounded like that of Paustch.
“Because the Serke want them so desperately.”
Once the grumbling faded, Gradwohl expanded somewhat. “I see it this way, sisters. The Serke appear willing to spend a great deal, and to risk even more, in order to wrest the north from our paws. They must have very powerful reasons for their behavior. If they have reasons, then we have reasons for taking every measure to retain our territories. Even though we do not know what they are.
“But I will find out what they are. And when I do, you will be informed immediately.”
More grumbling.
“While I am most senior none of this is subject to debate. It will be done as I have decreed. In coming days I will speak to each of you individually and have more to say at that time. Meantime, this assembly is adjourned. Senior Zertan. Paustch. I wish to speak to you immediately. Marika. I want you to remain here. I will call upon the rest of you as I have the opportunity.”
That was a dismissal. Silth rose from stools and began drifting out. Marika studied the groups they formed, identifying alliances of interest. She heard several seniors grumbling about being tied down at Maksche when they had problems at home demanding immediate attention.
Paustch and Zertan left their stools and moved forward to face Gradwohl. Marika remained upon her stool in the shadows, well away. The Maksche senior and her second did not need to be reminded of her presence.
Gradwohl said, “Mildly stated, I am not pleased with you two. Zertan. You are walking close to the line. Your problem is plain laziness compounded by indifference and maybe a dollop of malice. I will be here for some time now, watching over your shoulder. I trust my presence will lend you some incentive to become more ambitious.
“Paustch. For a number of years you have been the true moving spirit here in Maksche. You have been responsible for getting done most of what has gotten done. It is my sorrow that most of that has been negative. I have in mind several directives that you carried out to the letter but managed to sabotage in spirit. I cannot shake the feeling that I have clung too close to TelleRai since becoming most senior. My paw should have been more evident in the outlying cloisters.
“I will no longer tolerate undermining and backstabbing by subordinates. To that end, you will be transferred to TelleRai immediately. A courier darkship will be leaving at dawn. You will be aboard. When you reach TelleRai, you will report to Keraitis for assignment to duties there. Understood?”
Her entire frame shaking with rage, Paustch bowed her head. “Yes, mistress.”
“You may leave us.”
Paustch drew herself up, turned, marched out of the hall. Marika thought she might become trouble unless Gradwohl made further moves to neutralize her malice. Unless by its very nature her new assignment placed her where she could do no harm.
Gradwohl turned to Zertan once Paustch was outside. “Do you feel a spark or two of wakening ambition, Zertan? Do you feel you can become more productive?”
“I believe I do, mistress.”
“I thought you might. You may go, too.”
“Yes, mistress.”
Only the sounds of Zertan’s slippers disturbed the silence of the hall. Then she was gone, and Marika was alone with the most senior. Silence reigned. Lamplight set shadows dancing. Marika waited without fear, without movement.
Finally, Gradwohl said, “Come forward.”
Marika left her stool and approached the most senior.
“Come. Come. Not to be frightened.”
“Yes, mistress.” Marika slipped into the role she assumed with every superior, that of simplicity.
“Marika, I know you, pup. Do not play that game with me. I am on your side.”
“My side, mistress?”
“Yes. Very well. If you insist. How was your summer?”
“A pleasant break, mistress. Though the Ponath is colder now.”
“And going to get a lot colder in years to come. Tell me about your day on the town.”
“Mistress?” The debacle in the tradermale enclave had slipped her mind completely.
“You visited the brethren enclave, did you not?”
“Yes, mistress.” Now she was disturbed.
Her reaction was not well concealed. Gradwohl was amused. “You had quite an adventure, I gather. No. No need to be concerned. The protest was an embarrassment, but a minor one, and a blessing as well. Am I right in assuming that the male Bagnel is the male we brought out of Akard?”
“Yes, mistress.”
“And you are on friendly terms? He kept the fuss to a minimum.”
“He thinks I saved his life, mistress. I did not. I was saving myself. That the others were saved was incidental.”
“The fact is seldom as important as the perception, Marika. Illusion is the ruling form. Shadow signifies more than substance. Silth always have been more fancy than fact.”
“Mistress?”
“It is not important whether or not you made an effort to save this male. What signifies is his belief that you saved him. Which in fact you did.”
Marika was puzzled. Why the interest in Bagnel?
“You have been away for a while. Living in rather primitive, difficult circumstances. Would you like another day on the city?”
Yes, she thought excitedly. “I have studies, mistress.”
“Yes. I hear you have added your own regimen to Dorteka’s.”
“Yes, mistress. I have been studying flying, space, and —”
“When do you sleep?”
“I do not need much sleep, mistress. I never have.”
“I suppose not. I was young once, too. Are you learning anything?”
“There is not much information available, mistress. Most paths of inquiry lead to dead ends where tradermales or other Communities have invoked a privilege.”
“We will find you fresh sources. About this Bagnel.”
“Yes, mistress?”
“Will he accept a continued friendship?”
Warily, Marika replied, “He invited me to return, mistress. He told me I should ask for him, and he would see th
at there was no trouble.”
“Excellent. Excellent. Then go see him again. By all means.”
“Mistress? What do you want?”
“I want you to cultivate him. The brethren are supporting our enemies for reasons we do not understand. It is not like them to compromise their neutrality. You have a contact. See more of him. In time you might learn something to help us in our struggle with the Serke.”
“I see.”
“You do not approve?”
“It is not my place to approve or disapprove, mistress.”
“You have reservations then?”
“Yes, mistress. But I cannot say what they are exactly. Except that the thought of using Bagnel makes me uncomfortable.”
“It should. We should not use our friends. They are too precious.”
Marika gave the most senior a calculating look. Had she meant more than she had said? Was that a warning?
“Yet at times greater issues intervene. I think Reugge survival warrants pursuit of any path to salvation.”
“As you say, mistress.”
“Will you pursue it? Will you cultivate this male?”
“Yes, mistress.” She had decided instantly. She would, for her own purposes. For information she wanted. If some also fell the most senior’s way, good. It would keep the cloister doors open.
“I thought you would.” The most senior’s tone said she knew Marika’s mind. It said also that she was growing excited, though she concealed it well.
Perhaps she could read minds, Marika thought. Some silth could touch other minds and steal secrets. Was that not how a truthsaying worked? And would that not be a most useful talent for one who would command an entire unruly Community?
“I will tell Dorteka to let you out whenever you want. Do not overdo it. You will make the brethren suspicious.”
“Yes, mistress.”
“There is plenty of time, Marika. We will not reach the time of real crisis for many years yet.”
“Yes, mistress.”
Gradwohl again expressed restrained amusement. “You could become one of the great silth, Marika. You have the proper turn of mind.”
“They whisper behind my back, mistress. They call me doomstalker and Jiana.”
“Probably. Any of us who amount to anything endure a youth filled with distrust and fear. Our sisters sense the upward pressure. But no matter. That is all for today. Unless there is something you want to discuss.”
“Why do we not make our own darkships, mistress? Why depend upon tradermales?”
“Two answers come to mind immediately. One is that most sisters prefer to believe that we should not sully our paws with physical labor. Another, and the one that is more close to the honest truth, is that we are dependent upon the brethren in too many other areas. They have insinuated tentacles into every aspect of life. If they came to suspect that we were trespassing on what they see as their proper rights, they might then cut us off from everything else they do for us.
“There is an ecological balance between male and female in our society, as expressed in silth and brethren. We are interdependent, and ever more so. In fact, I suspect an imbalance is in the offing. We have come to need them more than they need us. Nowadays we would be missed less than they.”
Marika rose. “Maybe steps ought to be taken to change that instead of pursuing these squabbles between Communities.”
“An idea that has been expressed often enough before. Without winning more than lip service support. The brethren have the advantage of us there, too. Though they have their various bonds and subbonds, they answer to a central authority. They have their internal feuds, but they are much more monolithic than we. They can play one sisterhood against another.”
“Find ways to split them into factions,” Marika said from the doorway. And, “We built our own ships for ages. Before the tradermales.”
Gradwohl scowled.
“Thank you, mistress. I will visit Bagnel soon.”
II
Grauel and Barlog were beside themselves when Marika announced another expedition to the tradermale enclave. They did everything possible to dissuade her. She did not tell them she had the most senior’s blessing. They gossiped. She knew, because they brought her snippets about the Maksche sisters. She did not doubt but what they paid in kind.
The huntresses became suspicious soon after they left the cloister. “Marika,” Grauel said after a whispered consultation with Barlog, “we are being followed. By huntresses from the cloister.”
Marika was not pleased, but neither was she surprised. A silth had been set upon by rogue males not a week before her return from the upper Ponath. “It’s all right,” she said. “They’re looking out for us.”
Grauel nodded to herself. She told Barlog, “The most senior protecting her investment.”
“We’ll be watched wherever we go,” Marika said. “We have a friend.”
“One is more than we did have.”
“Does that tell me something?”
“Did you know that we were not supposed to come back from the Ponath?”
“We weren’t?” The notion startled Marika.
“The story was whispering around the barracks here. We were sent out to build that blockhouse behind the most senior’s back. We were not supposed to get out of it alive. That is why Paustch was demoted. It was an attempt to kill us.”
Barlog added, “The senior councillors here are afraid of you, Marika.”
“We survived.”
Grauel said, “It is also whispered that nomad prisoners confessed that our blockhouse wasn’t attacked once they found out who the keeper was. You have gained a reputation among the savages.”
“How? I don’t know any of them. How could they know me?”
“You slew the Serke silth at Akard. That has been bruited about all the Communities, they say. The one who died had a great name in her order, though the Serke aren’t naming it. That would mean admitting they were poaching on the Ponath.”
“I love this hypocrisy,” Marika said. “Everyone knows what the Serke are doing, and no one will admit it. We must learn the rules of this game. We might want to play it someday.”
“Marika?”
Grauel’s tone warned Marika that she had come too far out of her role. “We have to play the silth game the way it is played here if we are to survive here, Grauel. Not so?” She spoke in the formal mode.
“I suppose. Still...”
Barlog said, “We hear talk about the most senior sending you to TelleRai soon, Marika. Because that is where they teach those who are expected to rise high. Is this true? Will we be going?” Barlog, too, shifted to the formal mode.
Marika shifted back. “I don’t know anything about it, Barlog. Nothing’s been said to me. I don’t think there’s anything to it. But I will not be going anywhere without you two. Could I survive without touch with my pack?”
How could she survive without the only meth she had any reason to trust? Not that she trusted even them completely. She still suspected they reported on her to curry favor, but to do that they had to stay close and remain useful.
“Thank you, Marika,” Barlog said.
“Here we are. Do not hesitate to admonish me if I fail to comport myself properly.” Marika glanced back. “Any sign of our shadows?” She could have gone down through her loophole and looked, but did not care enough.
“None, Marika.”
“Good.” She touched the fence lightly, examined the aircraft upon the field. Today the airstrip was almost naked. One small freight dirigible lay in one of the cradles. Two Stings sat near the fence. There were a couple of light craft of a type with which she was unfamiliar. Their design implied them to be reconnaisance or courier ships.
She went to the desk in the gateway building. The same guard watched the same vision screen in the same state of sleepy indifference. He did not notice her. She wondered if his hearing and sense of smell were impaired, or if he just enjoyed being rude to meth from the
street. She rapped on the desk.
He turned. He recognized her and his eyes widened. He sat up.
“I would like to speak to Assistant Security Chief Bagnel,” Marika told him.
He gulped air, looked around as if seeking a place to hide, then gobbled, “Yes, mistress.” He hurried around the end of his desk, down the hallway leading to the airfield. Halfway along he paused to say, “You stay here, mistress.” He made a mollifying gesture. “Just wait. I will hurry him all I can.”
Marika’s ears tilted in amusement.
The guard turned again at the far door, called back, “Mistress, Bagnel is no longer assistant chief. He was made chief a few months ago. Just so you do not use the wrong mode of address.”
“Thank you.” Wrong mode of address? What difference? Unless it was something the nervous guard had let carry over from the mysteries of the tradermale brethren.
She supposed she ought to examine the relevant data — what was known — if she was going to be dealing with Bagnel regularly.
Time enough for that later. After today’s encounter had shown its promise, or lack thereof. “Grauel, go down the hall and keep watch. Barlog, check the building here, then watch the street.” She stepped around the desk and began leafing through the guard’s papers. She found nothing interesting, if only because they were printed in what had to be a private male language. She opened the desk’s several drawers. Again she found nothing of any interest.
Well, it had been worth a look. Just in case. She rounded the desk again, recalled Grauel and Barlog. To their inquisitive looks she replied, “I was just curious. There wasn’t anything there.”
The guard took another five minutes. He returned to find them just as he had left them. “Kentan Bagnel will be here shortly, mistress. Can I make your wait more comfortable somehow? Would you care for refreshments?”
“Not for myself, thank you. Barlog? Grauel?”
Each replied, “No, mistress,” and Marika was pleased with their restraint. In years past they would have chastised any male this bold.
“You called Bagnel Kentan. Is that a title or name?”