Shadowkill sq-3, page 23
part #3 of Shadith's quest Series
The sets landed neatly in front of each the players, three more small piles face down on the felt. Pulleet placed the remaining cards in the Sump by his Pen (a rectangle painted on the felt), tossed the opener into the Holse. He looked at his first set, folded them and placed them face down on the ledge before him, all his moves quick and neat and precise. He scooped up the dice, clacked them vigorously, and threw them out.
Three twos. A triple Blakkro. Without visible reaction, he swept up his cards, chose two, and set the third face down on the ledge. He laid the two cards face up in the Pen, seven triangle, three diamond, contemplated the backs of the other three sets and chose another card from the middle pile. He looked at it a moment, still without expression, laid it face up in the Pen, a three spot beside the three diamond.
It was a strong opening. The Lady had kissed both cards and dice. He looked thoughtfully at the coins on the ledge, took a gold ema and added it to the silver already in the Holse, took another ema, set it in the Pen, challenging table in a second level stake, moved an ema and two peras onto the number grid-table wager on the probable gap between his count and any other, high/low.
Tayteknas raked the dice over to Rose. She scooped them up, rattled and threw them and swore under her breath. One, six and seven. A Koetta. Bust. She couldn’t turn a card or put one down. Tick-tock, what to do? Shayss damn, think I have to count this Chapter a loser, still, let’s see what we can finesse. Get the rhythm back and not go down too bad. There’s still the Claiming round. More Vags have been pulled from the Sump than won straight out. Besides, I’m here for information, not prizes. She smiled with sweet confidence, took a pera and an ema and tossed them to the Holse. “Stay as,” she said and laid the set on the ledge.
Barangkaly scooped up the dice, flung them out with an expansive curl of his arm. Three Three nine. Bijjet. One of the highest throws possible.
Z’ Toyff, she thought, this how it’s going to go, everybody but me?
He beamed at the dice, flipped his cards over with an extravagant exuberance, dropped them into the Pen without bothering to look at them, danced his fingers over the other three sets, chose a card, flipped it over, shifted it to the Pen, chose another, started a second line in the Pen. Two Dancers, a clown, a Lancer and a seven sword. Takabul. Only a step from a sudden win. If his luck held through the Claiming round, he had this Chapter sewn. He tossed the ante pera and a push Ema in the Holse, lay down another two emas in the Pen, and spread a scatter of Peras about the Grid.
##
The play went on, Pass round, Claiming round, Pass and Claim for the four doubles of each Chapter. Rose went down badly on the first chapter, the dice were all right after the first round, but the combinations were miserable and nothing she could do during the Claimings was enough to make up for the weak Sets.
Barangkaly continued his expansive style and rode his luck to a win in the first Chapter, but went down and down on those that followed.
Second Chapter. Rose still had bad cards, but finessed a tie with Pulleet who she judged the second best player at the table.
Tayteknas was a steady though not brilliant player, Kahtik was tight, overly cautious, wasting opportunities. Rose relaxed. He was no threat. Uj was mostly cautious, but he had a propensity for wild chances that sometimes paid off and sometimes didn’t; he was unexpected, difficult to read-and she got a strong feeling from the others that it wasn’t a good idea to challenge him when his calls were questionable. Lice, she thought. One of the Papa Policer’s boys. Nikeldy was a plodding player. Negligible. He sweat a lot and lost consistently even with fair hands.
She won the third Chapter outright and after that could have won them all, she had the measure of the players and the rhythm of the game, but thought it wasn’t wise to clean them out, especially Uj. The fourth Chapter she split with Uj, the fifth she dropped out early.
They took a Nosh break between the fifth and sixth Chapters, the usual time. This was the time she’d come for, when the relaxation of the tension from the game also relaxed internal censors and a lot of good gossip got going.
The Shimmery had set up a Nosh table along the wall with local wines, teas, and a version of kaff which smelled to her like burnt toast. Rose filled a plate with fingerfood and a glass with the white varnish she was developing a taste for. It went well with the nibbles the Shimmery provided, cutting the force of the ghawang that the Rummer cooks seemed to put in everything. She sipped, chewed, circulated, mostly listening, contributing a nod of her head here, a murmur of agreement there, her ears stretched to catch anything remotely relevant to her search.
Kahtik signed a query, wondering if she might be free-tech also.
Effortlessly she returned an assent (aware of Uj watching both of them), stayed where she was as the freetech drifted over to her.
“Hunting?” His voice was high, flat; there was a scar on his throat from a wound that had almost decapitated him. With meatfarms available to anyone with an income like his had to be, she didn’t understand why he hadn’t had that scar fixed. Some kind of perverse pride in the narrowness of his escape?
“No, I just came off a job. Scratching an itchy foot. Anything around bigger than local?”
He grinned at her. “What’s the need if you’re not looking?”
She rubbed her thumb back and forth across her fingertips. “Never turn down a chance at cash.”
“I’m industrial design. What’re you?”
“Programs and systems.”
“Just as well you’re not in the market. Ain’t any, not here, not for that. Unless the Mimishay Foundation.” He ran his eyes over her, shook his head. “And they wouldn’t hire you.”
“Why not? I’m damn good, though it’s me who says it.”
“You’re female. They don’t hire women.”
“Their loss.”
“You play a helluva game.”
She winked at him. “Programs and systems. ’Tall helps.”
He glanced past her, flickered his fingers at her (in the twitter of the digits a take-care sign) and drifted off.
Uj moved around in front of her, sipping at a hot fruity drink. “New ’round here,” he said. He had a commonplace voice, under the paint an ordinary face; he was neither tall nor short, dark nor light, shadowman, his edges shifting with the shifts of the wind.
“Hmm,” she said. “Your ordinary tourist.” She inspected her plate, selected a small roll of meat wrapped round a piece of fruit and took a bite of it. “Um,” she chewed, swallowed. “This is good. What is it?”
Uj smiled, a grimace that bared his teeth and got nowhere near his eyes. “Babi slin,” he said. “Why our world?”
“No reason, just general wanderfoot.” She popped the rest of the babi slin into her mouth, chewed, and washed it down with a gulp of wine. “I finished a job here in the Callidara and decided to take a look round.”
“Not a trader, then.”
“No. Freetech. Programs and systems.”
“Looking for work?”
“Not really, this is playtime. Of course, if I got a good offer…” She matched his tooth-end smile.
“Visiting friends?”
“No. I don’t know anyone here. Footloose and fancy free. Mostly looking for games. I have a thing for Vagnag; it’s not that often one can get a really good game if one isn’t in the megagelder range.” She found another babi slin, bit into it.
“And this is a good game?”
She raised a brow. “Fair.”
“If you should happen to get an offer.
“Yes?”
“There are certain formalities.”
“There always are.”
“Yes. I see you’re experienced in this.” He put a peculiar twist on the word experienced that gave her a chill at the bottom of her stomach. “Come see me, I would be delighted to facilitate matters for you.”
“How kind,” she said. Sipping at the wine, she drifted off. Complications. Rather do without complications.
##
The play went on, Pass round, Claiming round, Pass and Claim for the four doubles of each Chapter. She played carefully, winning more than she lost, deliberately letting chances go by when Uj looked like winning. She wanted him to go away happy. Yes, and without too much interest in her. Again and again as the hours wore on, she felt his eyes on her, read speculation that was an uneasy combination of sexual and professional. By the time they reached the twelfth and traditionally last Chapter in a game like this, though she didn’t let it show, she was beginning to be very worried about how she was going to shuck Uj when it came time to leave. Might have to try outsitting him. Call on Hadluk’s tenuous goodwill or something.
As they moved into the last Chapter, Barangkaly dealing, the air was stale, the lubrinjah oil was low in the lamps and her eyes were stinging with the effluvium coming through the chimneys and the strain of trying to see by the dim flickering light. She inspected her first set, sighed. The cards were too good, a Vagnateka triad; it’d take a really foul chance at the dice to negate this, the highest combine available. It hurt her to think of breaking up a V-Tek, but there was no way she was going to win this Chapter.
Barangkaly threw and went bust. Koetta. He spread his hands. Out.
Shayss, she thought, that narrows the focus. And I’m last up this time. If Uj busts, out…
Tayteknas tossed the ante pera into the Holse, threw a one three six, Siettran. He dropped a ten heart into the Pen, set a pera beside it for the table, but stayed out of the Holse and off the Grid, passed the dice on.
Kahtik threw Siettran, inspected his cards, shook his head. “Out,” he said. He collected his cards, blended them into a single pile and set them on the ledge in front of him. Then he took out a square white cloth, wiped each of the coins in the piles beside the cards, tucked them neatly away into an inside pocket or perhaps a money safe sewn into his vest.
Uj scooped up the dice, sat holding them loosely in his hand, his eyes closed.
Autumn Rose tensed. If he busted…
He tossed the dice, smiled. Three fours. Triple Telvi. He examined his set, lay them down, and squared them. “Option,” he said, took up each of the three other sets and examined them, shifted several cards about, placed the sets face down on the felt. “Done,” he said.
Rose started breathing again. She looked around, saw Pulleet watching her. His mouth hitched up in a brief smile, matching his relief with hers. He touched the left top corner of his set, moved a pile of coins onto the left bottom corner, scratched at his chin.
She tapped her chin, lifted one coin, set it back without letting it clink. Well, well. Not a freetrader after all. Like me, a ringer. Good old Hadluk, hasn’t lost it as much as I thought, finessing himself a double cut. Pulleet had been playing the Table more than the Holse and had done comfortably well so far, though she thought none of the others realized just how well since he had a habit of stowing his wins away after each Chapter. He’d done better than her despite her Holse wins, done it on tiptoe as it were. Clever little man. She bubbled inside with laughter and relief, though she was careful not to let it show. They could be better slotted. Being 1-2 like they were they lost leverage. Still, the Claiming round was coming up, and with a little bit of luck they could make Uj think he was Fingers Harry himself. If he didn’t do something terminally stupid. Which he was quite capable of, he’d already done several moronic plays. Like this wasting a play just looking at his cards.
Nikeldy threw another Siettram, looked at his cards and the single pera remaining in front of him. He squared the set, dropped it on the felt. “Out.”
Pulleet threw seven six two. Marstori. A middle level pass. He dropped two cards in the Pen, a Dancer-Lancer combine. She smiled when she saw them. Good. With the clown and a hanged man she held, that was almost Vagnag. If somewhere in his sets Uj had a seer, a witch or a magician-or a wilder of necessary degree to depute for them, he could do a Major Claim, with the possibility of making a small, large, or double Vag.
##
Uj pulled out a small Vag and play went on.
He was exultant-but he didn’t forget her; he looked at her with a proprietary gleam in his eyes that sent cold chills down her spine.
He flew from triumph to triumph, face flushed, getting wilder and wilder, infuriating Rose and Pulleet who had a real struggle to win only the small secondary stakes and leave the Holse gelt for him.
Tayteknas suspected what they were doing, but he kept his hunches to himself, dropping out early or playing Table when he got the chance. The others plunged or teetered according to their natures.
5
Final Pass round.
Before the dealing began, the door opened and a cloud of Dasuttras came in with kaff and tea and small cloths dampened with scented water. Their palms were dyed pink; more dye was burnished into their nails. Dye-flowers were stamped on their bodies, a graceful spray spread across the swell of their breasts, single blooms in the center of the brow and on each cheek. They fluttered about the players, their filmy draperies whisper whispering, caressing whatever they touched. Three Dasuttras filled delicate porcelain cups with steaming local teas and set them on the ledge beside the players. Rose leaned back and let one of them have her hand while the other massaged her neck and shoulders. She closed her eyes, sighed with pleasure, the tension going out of her, drawn away by the warm wet cloths, the skillful fingers of the masseuse.
She cracked an eye and sneaked a look at Uj, suppressed a grin. Lord of all he sees, she thought. Shayss damn, that’s a pretty child playing with his neck. She opened her eyes wider.
Hadluk was standing in the doorway looking amused. He met her eyes, tapped his temple in a two finger salute, and stepped out of sight.
He was a snake, but an honest snake, give him that. The way Uj was snorting at his attendants, he was going to have little interest in fooling about after her. Probably. Well, well…
6
She slid unnoticed from the room as Uj preened himself before the Dasuttras, enjoying the minor triumph of sweeping Last Chapter. Nikeldy was chewing his large bottom lip as he tapped notes into a cardfile. Barangkaly, gone morose, stared at a wall, now and then stroking his thumbnail down one or the other of his rattail mustaches. Kahtik stood withdrawn, concentrating on his coins, wiping them carefully with the white cloth before restowing them about his person. Tayteknas tossed down a cup of lukewarm kaff, wiped at his mouth, and checked his clothing to make sure he left with what he had when he came in. None of them noticed her departure.
The taproom was noisy now, filled with men and Dasuttras, three servers behind the bar, none of them Hadluk.
“This way.” Pulleet cupped his hand around her elbow, turned her back into the hall and nudged her along it to a door in the end wall. He knocked once, said, “Payday.”
The door swung open.
Hadluk was sitting behind a table that doubled duty as a desk, loading penciled notes into an interface. He looked up, the distorted side of his face emphasized by his smile and his tiredness. “Sorry about that,” he said. He was speaking to Autumn Rose. “I didn’t know Uj was coming till he showed. Thought you’d pick up on him, but if you didn’t…” He shrugged. “Just in case,” he nodded at Pulleet, “I called in a favor.”
She dropped onto a backless chair. “Lice?”
“Big lice. Collector.”
“Taking a double skim.”
“Way it goes.”
“He’s busy now.”
“Not for all that long. He’s short-time in the sack, a wham-bam and good-bye.” He turned to Pulleet. “How is she? Still got it?”
“Yup.”
He pulled his hand across his mouth, frowned down at it. “Been thinking,” he said. “You cleaned?”
“Pretty much. Not flat, but limping. I have passage off-world, if that’s what you’re on at.”
“Nope. Wanta meet. Neutral ground. Angatine chapel?”
“No.” She didn’t explain. “You get watersick?”
“No.” He looked down at his hands, ran the edge of a thumbnail down the paper he’d been reading. “Not a bad idea, that.”
“Right. We can have ourselves a picnic on one of those rocks out in the bay. When?”
“Tomorrow. I’ll do the food, you just be there. Gaunga wharf.”
“I’ll be there-out on the water, watching. You pick your island and I’ll join you.”
“Better that way, yes. You really haven’t lost it, have you?”
“So we all should hope.” She dropped the sac on his desk, waited while he counted out his cut. “Anything I should bring?”
“Got a mute cone?”
“I do indeed, battery operated.” She reclaimed the sac. “See you when.”
When she turned to pull the door closed behind her, she looked back. The two men were nose to nose, Pulleet talking rapidly, his hands fluttering, Hadluk listening so intently he wasn’t aware of anything but the voice murmuring into his face.
7
“Two maybes,” she said.
Kikun was withdrawn, a shadow curled in the window-seat. She wasn’t sure he heard her, but she went on. She was mostly talking to herself anyway, trying to get things straight.
“There’s something called the Mimishay Foundation. I think it’s on one of the other islands. They hire techs, but they don’t hire women. Could be Omphalos under camouflage. If the Institute is into ransom, they’d need a cutout in case they’re traced. Could be a thousand other things.”
Kikun stirred. “Mimishay. Sai has a file on them.” He was silent a moment. “I only saw the directory and that by accident; one of the exwhores accessed it for something else and I was looking over her shoulder. That is not my Gift, Rose, working akurrpa machines. Lissorn and his crew taught me to play with them, but working is something else. I smell danger on this one. Time comes, if there’s need, you’ll have to do the thing.”
