“Miniature thermit grenade,” he said, “tied to this.” He held up a blob of back plastic threaded on a chain, let it dangle in front of her a minute, then dropped the chain over his head. “You’re safe as long as you stay less than a kilometer from me. And as long as I’m alive. If I’m killed while that’s still in you, too bad. I won’t be worrying about anything or anyone after I’m dead.”

  She pressed her lips together, hugged her arms across her

  chest.

  He smiled lazily at her, calmly content with what he’d accomplished. “It’ll come out as easy as it went in when your time’s up.”

  “Oh, thanks,” she murmured. “How kind.”

  His smile escalated into a chuckle. He was very pleased with himself. “Come along, singer. You’ve had a hard day. Time to rest.”

  She started after him, then remembered Linfyar. She stopped, looked around. “Where’s Linfy?”

  “What?” He stopped in the door, turned his head, impatience limned in face and body.

  “The boy. My companion. He was here. Where is he?”

  “Oh. The freak. He started acting up, so I had him hauled out. He’s back in your rooms.” He didn’t wait for an answer but strolled out, knowing she’d follow.

  She closed her hands into fists, looked around at the carefully blank faces of the surgeon and his assistants. Then she followed him. There was nothing else she could do.

  Linfyar charged her and wrapped his arms about her in a desperate hug, nearly squeezing her in half. She freed herself, laughing, surprised and touched by the fervor of his greeting, glad the Ajin had delivered her to the door and left without coming inside, though not without locking her in.

  After he satisfied himself she was intact, Linfyar backed off, still vibrating with a harrowing mix of emotions. “What’d he do, Shadow? What’d he do?”

  “Creep was making sure I have to stick close to him.” She hesitated, uncertain about what to say; he’d better know, for it colored everything she’d do from now on. She sighed and told him what the Ajin had done to her.

  He went very quiet. Then he screamed, a harsh tearing yell whose only sense was in its sound, and started racing about the room in a frenzy, banging himself against the walls, the floor, anything that got in his way, shrieking obscenities and threats. She finally managed to catch and hold him, shocked by the strength of his slight body and the fury churning in it; it was as if all the things he’d let be done to him, all the tricks and little betrayals he’d used to stay alive, all the humiliations he’d suffered had come to a head at that moment, all that poison came spurting out of him. After a short struggle, he collapsed against her, muffling soft wails against her breasts, shaking all over, so hot he almost burned her arms as she held him tight to her, rocked him gently, until the shaking and the whimpering stopped. She held him awhile longer, held him until he pushed against her, wanting free.

  When she saw his face she was startled in a way she hadn’t expected. No tears. No signs left of his distress. Easy enough equation—no eyes meant no tearducts. Obvious. But she’d never thought of it, accepting him with as little understanding, almost, as the Ajin. She wrinkled her nose, watching him as he dug among the pillows on the divan and settled himself, hysteria passing like a summer storm, leaving little behind but a touch of weariness. He yawned, stretched, wriggled about, then demanded more details about the insert. “Let me feel it,” he said. “I want to feel it.”

  Shadith stripped off her tunic and let him feel the bandage, but stopped him quickly when he wanted to peel off the gauze and dig out the bomb. “You’ll blow us both up, imp. Besides, it hurts. I don’t want you messing with it.”

  He darted around behind her and began feeling the bandage again. “I can do it, I know I can.”

  She scrambled away from him, caught up her tunic and pulled it over her head. “Hai-ya, imp, calm down, will you? I mean it—you try anything like that, and ka-boom, kid.”

  “But I want to help, Shadow.”

  “You are helping, Linfy.”

  “But I mean …” He broke off as she laid her hand gently on his mouth.

  She took the hand away. “I know, Linfy. It’s hard sitting around waiting like this with nothing to do but fret.”

  “What do you want me to do, Shadow?”

  “Pay them no mind and sing when it’s time.” She switched languages, sang the next words as if they were a snatch of song: “I’ve got a plan, I think it can work, you know what I told you, he’s alive and he’s here. But it’s gonna take time, my friend, and it’s gonna take thinking and it’s gonna take remembering we can’t talk at all.” She added a few more sounds, meaningless noises, and stopped singing.

  Grinning, ears twitching, hands beating time on the pillows, Linfyar sang back to her: “Oh yes, we’ll do it, we’ll fool them like silly fish, oh yes, we’ll do it, I understand now.”

  She held out her hand, smiled when he took it, said in common Avosinger, “Besides, we’re getting good pay. Think about it, Linfy—five kilos of sweetamber and our passage to wherever we choose. Not bad, eh? Better than we usually get. So what’s a little glitch in the working conditions? Like the man said, it’ll come out as easy as it went in.”

  “Oh yeah,” Linfyar said; he slid off the divan, yawned and groaned as he worked his small body. He stuck his tongue out at her, danced away. “Not like that other time when we got stranded and if we didn’t stow away on that halfwit’s half-dead ship we’d be there still.” He giggled and dived past the velvet curtain into the bedroom.

  Brows raised, she stared at the swaying curtain. Wonder where he picked that up? Nine going on ninety, so help me. She yawned. Ai-iy, I’m beat. Linfy’s right. Might as well sleep—there’s nothing else to do.

  He was already asleep when she reached the bed, curled up in a small furry tangle of legs and arms. She nudged him over, stretched out beside him, lying on her stomach, her head on her arms. The anesthetic was wearing off and the middle of her back felt like a sore tooth; as the thought drifted through her mind, she giggled softly, drowsily. Odd place for a tooth. The giggle made her back muscles move and stirred the wound, so she stopped that and lay very still. A few breaths more and she was drifting into a dozing dream state.

  *Well, ancient child, you’ve landed yourself in a mess.*

  *Old Po’, what you know?*

  That you’ve got a bomb in your back. What are you going to do about that?*

  *Get rid of it when I’m ready to.*

  How?

  *Why don’t I leave that up to you? One of those spies you were talking about.*

  When?

  *Not for a while yet. Don’t want to make our conquering hero feel insecure.*

  You saw your friends.

  You knew about that obscenity?

  How could I not?

  You know about Kell?

  “How could I not?* (feel of amusement) Besides, you told me about the Hunters and the Vryhh the last time we spoke.

  *My memory’s a bit hazy, but I don’t recall your saying anything about any of this then.*

  You went to sleep on me.

  *Plenty of time before. Well, it’s done, no use wearing a rut in my head. Why don’t you talk to me other times? When I’m awake.*

  Good question, oddling.

  *Which means you aren’t going to answer it.*

  You got it.

  *What I’m getting is rotten jokes.*

  *Hard to do good ones in someone else’s language.*

  What are you?

  What?

  Should I say who?

  It would be courteous of you to assume a who rather than a what.

  *You’re the one invading a stranger’s head. Not me.*

  *Not because you didn’t try.*

  One eensy time.

  Mmm. Do you trust the Ajin to keep his word and take the bomb out?

  *Course not. What I expect he’ll do, if he doesn’t put me in that glop with Grey, he’ll take me someplace, Angachi maybe, and shove me out when the flier’s over two three kilometers off the sand so he can see me splatter when the bomb goes boom. Like he said, he’s a careful man.*

  *Ah, you softsiders, you busy little murderers. You’ll be the death of me, ah weh, you will. Unless, unless you’re part of me. Help me, ancient child, help me live, help Perolat and Tjepa, Awas and all the rest, stop this Sikin Ajin before he brings the bombs on us, the fire from the skies. Did you know, only a dozen others can talk with me like this—the rest hear me as siren song, a dream they long to find. Are there more like you out there, on those worlds beyond my reach?* (sleepy chuckle) *Not hardly, Old Po’, but yes, a lot of folks with gifts like mine.*

  You give me hope, ancient child, hope someday I can talk with all of my soft sides. If I have the time. Give me the time, little oddling.

  Time for what? Are you any better than the Ajin, driving these folk for your needs not theirs, playing with them, breeding them like pets, sucking them into you?

  The Ajin wants stasis, my oddling; what good would that do me? The Ajin wants slaves worshiping him; what good would slaves do me? Worship, what foolishness. I want friends to talk to, ancient child, my oddity. Is Perolat a slave? Dihann? Awas? Any of them? Not likely. What I want is time to bloom the latent powers budded in them. Make them more themselves, not less.

  (sigh) *Don’t sell so hard, Old Po’. Me, I’ve got no choice. But I sure wouldn’t turn down a bit of help now and then.*

  (vast relief) I like you, ancient child. Before you leave perhaps you can find time to come visit me and we can talk without the pressure of time and need.

  *I’d like that. And, hey, call me Shadow. Oddity and ancient child, huh, I’m getting very tired of those.*

  (warm amusement) *Go to sleep, little Shadow; I’ll find you a surgeon, just call Old Po’ when you’re ready.*

  Tikumul.

  Grasslands stretching away on three sides, a low bank of clouds beyond the low coast range, white fleece against the blue of a vast sky soaring above a flat featureless land, a sky that filled the eyes and left little space for the endless shimmer of the grass.

  The k’shun in the center of the village.

  Dust everywhere, no clovermoss to keep it down.

  Families, single men, shifting restlessly about, talking in small groups, killing time until the Ajin arrived. Children running about, shouting, chasing each other. Trucks ringing the k’shun, women setting out earthenware bowls on braced tailgates, chewy yellow gancha grain, meaty stews, fowl bits fried in batter, crisp stir-fried vegetables, steaming pitchers of spicy belas. Under the trucks, tubs of ice with kegs of beer, ale, and hard cider.

  The women working at the trucks took time off now and then to gossip with friends they hadn’t seen face to face for months, only on the com circuits, friends they wouldn’t see again for more months.

  A hay wagon in the middle of the k’shun. Someone had hung a painted tarp about the sides and set a truss of straw at one end. It waited.

  The grasslanders waited with the same stolid patience.

  The grasswinds blew golden whorls of pollen into the sky and let it fall again, covering everything and everyone with a misting of yellow that the sun turned to glittering gilt.

  The Ajin arrived an hour late, greeted with shouts and laughter and much excitement. As he passed through the crowd to the wagon, mothers and fathers lifted their younger children to their shoulders so they could see the man who dared to rebel against the government. Shadith walked behind him with Linfyar trotting half a step ahead of her; she felt battered by the exuberance around her and wondered how much they were committed to him and how much he was simply entertainment, an excuse for this get-together. They took the minor risk of coming to hear him—would they take the major risk of fighting under his leadership? She began to understand more clearly the reason he’d spent so much time and effort on her. She was there to find the fervor in them and heat it up, to wake the anger in them and turn it to the Ajin’s benefit. That thought was a sour taste in her mouth. She watched Linfyar scramble up onto the wagon bed, followed him, stepping from hub to tire to flat. I can’t do it … ah, no, why bother trying to fool myself? I’m here. I’m going to do what he tells me and hope I can finesse a little self-respect out of this mess. A little forlornly she listened as the Ajin began speaking.

  He was different out here, his weakness gilded over like the farmers’ faces. He was a powerful speaker with an instinctive grasp of things that reached deep and moved his listeners. He spoke to them of home and children, of hard work, of savoring the fruits from that work. He spoke quietly at first, but built to passion, and for that moment at least he believed fervently in everything he said. Truth was raw in every word, and the grasslanders felt it; she felt them responding. It was almost funny—the slickest thief on Pajungg praising the virtues of hard work and meaning what he said with every fiber in his body. Like the mercenaries, he knew what he knew, but exempted himself from his strictures. She hunched her shoulders, hugged herself and felt miserable.

  He roused that crowd until they were cheering, whistling, stamping, then quieted them, introduced Shadith and brought her forward. She settled herself on the straw and began playing the harp, starting quietly, as the Ajin had. There was a spark of recognition somewhere in the crowd; one or more had been in Dusta and heard her sing. Linfyar settled at her feet and eased his whistle into the flow of the music. She began singing, using a pattern poem she’d written during the week the Ajin gave her to let the incision heal, a song like the other croons in the ancient Shallal tongue. She was nervous; this was the first time she’d departed from memorized patterns, and she didn’t know if it would work. For her soul’s sake, she was trying in a subtle way to undercut what he was doing to these people.

  Laughing with her, sharing her daring, her sisters danced among the golden whorls of pollen. The new song brought them even more intensely alive. She let herself relax and threw herself into the pattern, singing love of land and home, love for everything that ran on that land and flew in the air above it, love for their families and their neighbors, singing love of freedom and need for self-respect, reinforcing everything in them that made them sturdy, stubbornly independent, walking a tightrope as she struggled to satisfy herself and confuse the Ajin about what she was doing. Yet when she finished the pattern poem and saw the rapt faces, she was afraid of what she had done; she had tried to insulate them against him, but there was nothing precise about the patterns, not before and not now when she hadn’t sufficient data to judge the responses. She settled back and watched the Ajin take them in his hands and work them back into a frenzy with hatred of the Colonial Authority and the fumbling ignorant homeworlders who tried to run Avosinger lives, then he switched keys and painted a warm golden picture of life after independence, finishing with a low-key call to follow him when the time was right. His flier swooped down, hovered a handbreadth above the wagon bed until the Ajin and the rest of his party were inside, then it darted away.

  Half an hour later church enforcers descended on the village, scuttled futilely about, irritating the folk there and winning more converts to the Ajin’s cause than his speech and Shadith’s croon.

  In the days that followed, they zigzagged across the grasslands and the coastal savannas, touching down at town after small town. Seteramb. Simbelas. Debaua-ben. Perkunta. Winds weep. Sulata. Tobermin. Hatti-hti. Dubelas. Dabatang. Even Rhul and Rel just across the bay’s mouth from Dusta. Stirring up the locals, skipping out ahead of angry and frustrated enforcers, sometimes with hours to spare, sometimes in a desperate scramble into the treetops where the enforcers feared to follow. Several times they returned to base, where the Ajin saw reports of the rising anger in the villages, the hardening opposition to the Colonial Authority. For the first time he was keeping hold of more than a tiny core of supporters. He began working harder, going farther and faster, pushing Shadith and Linfyar close to exhaustion, riding a stronger and stronger high. And by some peculiar twist of his psyche, he began seeing Shadith as a talisman, his good-luck charm. “You’re my luck,” he told her and stroked her head, missing the flare of anger in her eyes. “Soon, yes soon, the time comes soon.”

  She was afraid he was right and wondered how she could reconcile herself to her part in it. Toward the end of the third nineday, she’d had enough of exhaustion and self-loathing. She waved her hands in his face, showing him her battered fingertips. “No more,” she said. “Listen to me, I’m croaking worse than an arthritic frog.”

  He smiled at her, patted her hands. “Magic little hands. Would a nineday do you, Fortune’s Child?”

  “It would help.”

  “It’s yours.” He chuckled. “I’ve work waiting for me that will more than fill the time. And it would be as well to let the church calm down. Don’t want them yelling for help from home.”

  Shadith wandered unchecked through the base, speaking to no one, only waving and passing on when a technician or a mercenary called her name. She was Ajin’s luck; none of them would dare touch her or stop her from going where she wanted. She stayed away from the Ajin as much as she could, though he liked to have her near so he could touch her. Nothing sexual in it, there was that small blessing, but she hated those careless pats and strokes. I’ll have a dozen ulcers before I’m through, she thought, but kept a firm hold on her temper and said nothing. A thumbstone, that’s what I am, a bunch of worry-beads, a wela’s foot to rub for luck. Bad enough, but, ah, if only he’d keep his fuckin mouth shut. He talks to me much more like I’m a half-witted infant, I’m going to … oh god, I don’t know. Damn. Damn. Damn. Grey’s so close and there’s no way I can think of to get to him.

  She thought up plan after plan, but nothing had a hope of working. Time pressed in on her. She had only these nine days to do something; after that he’d have her on campaign with him, then fighting his idiot war, and no way she’d have enough free time to think of some way to break this stalemate. Three out of the nine gone already, and her head felt like solid bone. Ear to ear. Linfyar kept out of her way. Slept most of the time. That irritated her, though she tried not to take her irritation out on him; it wasn’t his fault she had a billiard ball for a head. Then there was the ultimate frustration. She could see half a hundred lines of attack—if she had still been inside the diadem and had the use of Aleytys’s body and her talents. For a dozen years she’d helped Lee develop and hone those talents, and had had the use of them when her knowledge and training were needed. No more. Never again. I boasted about my wits and my long training in survival. Hunh. Maybe the Ajin’s right to treat me like a feeble-minded twit. Fourteen thousand years’ experience. Still, most of that was spent gathering dust in that stinking RMoahl vault.