Braxi-Azea - In Conquest Born Part 7

3.

He was posing as a Bloodletter, a ritual killer. Thus far his natural Braxin arrogance had aided his disguise; in any other strata of society it would have focused suspicion upon him, but in the tight circle of the Hyarke his Braxin nature was quite at home.

These were men who talked of gutted bodies at the dinner table, and whose palates were best lubricated by human blood. They carried the weapon of their trade with them at all times, long and slim and sharp on all its metal edges. About their necks they wore medallions with the single legend, "As is the blood, so is the man." And they lived on top of society, needing only to ask for an item to receive it gratis, to mention a need and a dozen Darians would beg for the chance to fulfill it.

Varik was a capable man. The eight years he had devoted to learning Darian and to training in Hyarke combat had proven both successful and necessary. It was true that he lacked any insight into the blood-trance which allowed them access to their ultimate fighting capacity, but the ritual suited his violent nature and his superior Braxin musculature, despite the adaptive surgery which disguised it, gave him an edge which balanced the scales. And although the risk was high-one failure meant death-he found pleasure in the role he was playing.

Braxi was done with him, but he didn't know it. He had been a rebel and it was considered too dangerous to merely execute him, for those groups which rose against the Braxana- those few which were not crushed in their birthgiving-- knew how to manipulate a martyrdom and would not hesitate to do so. So they had trained him for a higher purpose, removing him from his cultural context to aid in the destruction of Azea, and thus had made it clear to his compatriots that all men have a price: even Varik would serve the Braxana. The others lost heart or nerve and were quietly murdered. Varik, seduced by the dual promise of adventure and elitism, was sent to Dari as a spy, in which capacity he had been successful. But the planet was also his tomb. Braxi's intercepted message had been no accident; Varik had fulfilled his mission and was being discarded. Azea would punish Braxi's upstart.

4.

Evening had come by the time Laun Set left the tavern. His body ached pleasantly from the attention of women and wine still fogged his thoughts, but his step was firm and even as he walked the Darian streets.

Night had fallen and darkness enveloped the city. Dari's three moons were shrouded in cloud-cover and did little but cast long shadows across the street.

From one of these, suddenly and silently, a human girl emerged.

"Out of my way, human!" He punctuated his command by spitting at her feet; nonetheless, she held her ground.

"Greetings of the Blood Night," she said in ritual Darian.

He tried to dodge around her, but she remained in his way. He had a momentary vision of sweeping his ada into aggressive position and forcing her from his path, and he smiled at the thought of that moonlit blade etching a white path through her alien insides. But reality did not allow for such things; the humans, d.a.m.n them, were not to be killed.

"Do you want something of me?" he asked finally. "Or is this some new sport?"

"I would like to talk to you."

"I have nothing to say to your kind."

He tried to push by her and in doing so brushed against her shoulder. As they came in contact he stopped, uncertain. Where had he been going, and why in such a hurry?

She moved away from him and the memory returned.

"You touched my mind!"

She nodded.

Against his will he was intrigued. "A telepath?"

She nodded. Her eyes were dark and wide and watched him closely as he considered. He'd had very little contact with humans and none with psychics. She was slight of build and appeared almost malnourished-hardly a threat to him.

And she was clearly not Azean, for she lacked the height and golden skin of that accursed race. What was a moment of conversation, anyway?

"Talk."

"Not here. In private."

He laughed, loudly. "You have nerve, human! Very well. Since you speak my language, I'll let you do it where you want. Follow me."

With the practiced eye of a Bloodletter he a.n.a.lyzed her walk. She kept up with him despite the disparity in their sizes. No one has ever allowed her her natural pace, he observed. And that stiffness is not right for a child, human or no. And the look in her eyes-I have seen that in Bloodletters just before the Hyarke.

He took her to a dark quarter of the city and into an inn. His ada proclaimed his status and the inn's owner jumped to serve him. Two women arose from their seats to offer themselves for his pleasure; one left a companion who nodded his understanding. Laun Set waved them away.

"Just a room," he ordered.

Keys and directions were delivered to him. The human child, he noticed, was staying discreetly in the shadows. But as she walked across the lighted floor to follow him, a wave of exclamation marked their progress.

The room was small and was meant to be rented by the hour. Not until they were both inside with the door safely closed did he face her again.

Her eyes were wide and bright, the dark gray of unpolished steel. Her hair, the color of fresh blood, hung braided down her back. Her skin was so pale he would have been surprised to learn that she had ever been out in the sunlight.

"Now that you've done such wonders for my reputation," he snapped, "what is it you want?"

She moved until she stood with her back against the door. "First things first, Bloodletter. All out in the open. I'm an Azean."

He looked her over, then laughed unpleasantly. "No. I may not be human, but I know what Azeans look like."

"Would you like to see my racial papers?"

He tightened. "Get out of here."

She stayed where she was, her body blocking the door. "No. I want to talk to you, Bloodletter-but not under false pretenses."

"If you're Azean, I have nothing to say to you. So if you don't leave, I will."

He moved toward the door, but she refused to get out of his way. For a moment he nearly lost control and struck out at her. But he was not that much of a fool; to strike out at a child of Dari's conquering race would be an invitation to political execution.

And something in her expression impressed him, more so when he realized what it was.

She would be doing the same thing even if the law didn't protect her, he realized.

"You'll listen to me," she said firmly. "And then I'll go. But by Hasha, you'll hear me out first!"

He glared. "I spit on your Firstborn."

"I know. That's irrelevant."

He studied the raw nerve in her eyes and knew he could respect that. "All right,"

he said finally. "I'm listening."

She smiled; there was cruelty in the expression. "I'm hunting a man, Bloodletter, and I want your help. A Braxin, here on Dari."

He laughed derisively. "I'm not interested in your Azean-"

"Posing as a Bloodletter."

A cold stillness settled over them.

"That's not possible."

"I'm afraid it is."

"No. An alien in the Circle . . . it couldn't happen."

She shrugged. "As you wish."

"He's fought?"

"At least once since I've been here. And he didn't feel inexperienced."

"You . . . sensed this?"

"Oh, yes. I focused on him days ago."

"Can't you find him the same way?"

She shook her head. "There's a difference between picking up a combination of Braxin psychology and active violence, and knowing exactly where it's coming from. I can only focus on him in the first place because of an . . . affinity . . . I have for his mindset. Telepathy has its limitations, and my training is far from complete."

"So. The Azeans need our help."

"No, Bloodletter. Not the Azeans. Only myself." She took a deep breath, and he thought he could feel the intensity within her: his imagination, of course. "I'm hunting. And I need local a.s.sistance."

Laun Set considered. The thought of working with a human was repellent to him, but the alternatives were loathsome. A human fighting Darians in the Circle defiled the proud Hyarke tradition. And as vehemently as he detested Azea, Laun Set knew that under Braxin rule the Hyarke would be the first thing to go. No- better Azea than that.

"What do you want me to do?" he asked at last.

"Listen." She smiled her triumph, and in that moment looked nothing like a child. "I'll tell you."

5 "I have that information for you, Starcommander."

Torzha looked up from her lists. "Thank you-just leave it with me."

Two days. Two local, very long, useless days. She had seen a Hyarke and her most basic question had been answered- she was certain the Braxin would have some connection with that ritual. No other subculture on the planet offered what that one did to one raised among the enemy; of that she was certain. Then again (she thought for the hundredth time), Braxi could have been cunning enough to antic.i.p.ate her and to do the unexpected. No. Cunning, yes-but also vain. A Braxin would never pose as a pa.s.sive, downtrodden nonhuman. Everything about the Hyarke appealed to the Braxin mentality and it would be the first place a Braxin spy would choose to a.s.similate. But that still left the whole planet. . . .

Her office was busy tracking down the names of all Dari's Bloodletters, along with their vital statistics. It was not an easy job. There was no central register to which these men belonged, and, in addition, their population changed nightly as the Hyarke continued to take its toll. One man she had suspected had died while she considered his records. And for that matter, did they know for a fact that the Braxin wasn't already dead?

Unsurprisingly, the customs lists had been of no use whatsoever. She had asked for clarification on one entry, more out of curiosity than anything else.

"We couldn't get much on her," the secretary continued. "The Inst.i.tute has her files locked up tight."

"That's all right. This will be fine. Thank you."

When he left, she glanced idly through the notes; then stopped, her eyes narrowing. She started to read more carefully. The child had come from the Inst.i.tute with Medical Clearance-somehow Director li Pazua had convinced offi- cials that a journey to Dari was required for her mental well-being. Yet she had come alone, a mere child on a hostile planet. Potential ratings high, intellectually and otherwise. Transcultural ratings in seven combinations-well, that was to be expected from a telepath-in-training. Parents high in Security . . . the great Darmel lyu Tukone, no less. They were poisoned by Braxins when she was six.

(She remembered the incident, did not remember there being a child. Then again, hadn't there been some scandal with that pair? Yes, and over a child.) Then she had suffered from psychosomatic blindness, for five years. Ending- Torzha read the date again, startled. Twenty days ago? But the Inst.i.tute on Llornu was ten days' travel from Dari-that would mean she had regained her sight and immediately begun traveling here.

And she had been seen at a number of Hyarke rituals.

With sudden determination Torzha closed the folder and called her a.s.sistant back in. "Find out the exact whereabouts of this . . ." she consulted the file ". . .

Anzha lyu. And get me cosmetics, a wig, clothing, et cetera. Bad enough being human here, without being Azean also."

He bowed his respect and left to obey. She leaned her elbows on the desk and mused: unrelated? She doubted it.

6.

Dawn cast long shadows across the Circle. The packed earth had been dampened the night before and now was ready for combat.

Safe behind her dark complexion and Suakkan clothing, Torzha surveyed the crowd.

Row after row of Darian flesh filled the stands, fidgeting in impatience. Here and there a human sat-Rahnese, on vacation; Ikna, doing sociological research.

There were a few Azeans present who had been stationed on the planet long enough to know how to act-or at least they thought they did. The seats next to them were left empty until there were no other seats left to fill.

And the child was there.

Un.o.bserved from across the arena, Torzha studied her. She had put in magnifying lenses under her Suakkan irises and now tensed to bring them into focus. The girl was small and delicately boned, sickly if one a.s.sumed an Azean standard. But there was no reason to do that; genetic proportion to the contrary, her appearance was solidly alien. Perhaps she was also not as young as she looked-what standard was one to use in judging?

The Bloodletters had come into the Circle.

The girl's clothing was a nondescript mixture of Imperial and Darian-no doubt an attempt to fade into the background without antagonizing the locals. She wore nothing to indicate her power. Was this because she didn't want anyone to know or simply because she hadn't yet earned the symbolic red cord with an FT rating?

So many questions-and no easy answers.

It was a long Hyarke and Torzha endured it. She found the entire ritual distasteful to an extreme and its cultural glorification repelled her. She had no love of blood and had seen quite enough of it in forty years of military service to last her a lifetime. She feigned enthusiasm, though, to guarantee her safety-the Darians had no tolerance for objective observers and on a number of occasions had killed such in blood-frenzy. The fact that Ebre might avenge her death by obliterating the entire planet was no subst.i.tute for continued life; she leaned forward as they did, shared their tension, and gasped in concert with the thousands about her when the spectacle merited such response.

She was not sorry when it ended.

The local fighter-she recalled his name as Laun Set-was victorious, and fellow Bloodletters came to rub drugged oils into his body. That interested her far more than the combat. Apparently they managed some mental state in which the body functioned in overdrive, being faster and more dexterous than normal and completely denying fatigue. When the ritual was over, the mental support collapsed and the body was simply overworked and abused; without drugs to ease the transition back, one could easily die of overexertion.

The child was not leaving. Torzha noticed with surprise that she had remained in the stands as the general populace filed obediently out. She had meant to catch her outside the stadium and talk to her there, but if the girl was staying through the Sharing then something unusual was up. Torzha backed into a waiting shadow to watch.