Serpent's Reach

“Max, seize him,” Raen said.

Mundy sprang to escape; Max was as quick as the order, and fetched him up against the car, rolled with him to the pavement. Majat were at hand, Warriors. Jim himself made to interfere, but Raen put out a hand, restraining him.

Mundy struggled and cursed. Max shouted for human help, and several more azi arrived on the run.

It needed a struggle. “Don’t harm him,” Raen called out, when it began to look as if that would be the case; Mundy fought like a man demented, and it took a number of azi to put him down. Cords were searched up, all with a great deal of confusion. A shooting, Raen decided, watching the process, would have been far simpler; as it was the police at the gate wanted to intrude: she saw their lights down the drive, but the gate would keep them out, and she reckoned they would fret, but they would not dare climb a wall to investigate.

Mundy was held, finally, hands bound. He cursed and screamed until he was breathless, and lay heaving on the pavement. Max and another gathered him to his feet, and Raen stepped back as he spat at her.

“I’ll keep my word,” she said, “eventually. Don’t try me, Tom Mundy. The worst thing I could do is send you back. Isn’t it?”

He stopped fighting then.

“How long have you been infiltrating?” she asked. “How many years?”

“I don’t know. Would it make sense I’d know? I don’t.”

“Keep him under guard, Max. Don’t take your eyes off him. one of the basement storerooms ought to be adequate. He won’t wantloose down there. Constant watch. See to it.”

They drew him into the house, and through it. Raen lingered, looked at the disturbed Warriors, whose mandibles clicked with nervousness. “Wrong-hive,” she explained in terms they would understand. “Not enemy, not friend, wrong hive. We will isolate that unit. Pass this information. Warrior must guard that-unit.”

They spent a moment analysing those concepts, which were alien to the hive. A stranger should be ejected, not detained.

“That-unit will report if it escapes. We will let it go when it’s good that it report.”

“Yesss,” they said together, comprehending, and themselves filed into the house, nightmare shapes in the Eln-Kests’ hallway.

She started to go in, realised Jim was not with her, and turned back, saw him standing by the car, saw the blank horror on his face. She came back, took his hand. From inside the house came a scream of hysteria. She slipped her hand up to Jim’s elbow; decided to walk round the long way, beneath the portico, past the corner, within the walkway to the back, where there was quiet.

“I amazi,” Jim said.

She pressed his arm the more tightly. “I know so. I know so, Jim. Don’t distress yourself. It’s been a long, hard day.”

She felt the tremor, wordless upset.

“The fall of the dice,” she said, “was a fortunate thing for me. But what a place you’ve come to.”

“I am azi.”

“You do very well at it.”

She walked with him out the arch into the back garden, into chaos, where guard-azi tried to set their supplies in order, where nervous Warriors stalked among humans and touched one and the other. It was pitiful that the azi did not object, that they simply stopped and endured, as no betas would have done, although they were surely afraid. Raen moved among them, sorted Warriors away from humans, nodded to Merry, who began hastily to motion his men into the shelter of the azi quarters. There was no hesitation among them.

The doors closed. Thereafter majat ruled in the garden, and majat azi scampered out the back door, naked, having shed their sun-protections, with their mad eyes and their cheerful grins, their ready acceptance of the touches of Workers and Warriors. They had come to help, and plunged quite happily into the excavations underway in the garden.

“They’ll want feeding,” Raen said. “They’re our responsibility. Jim, go locate the domestics. Have them cook up enough for the whole lot. The majat azi will prefer boiled grain. There look to be about fifty of them.”

Jim murmured agreement, and went, tired and shaken as he was. She watched him at the azi quarters gather up the six in question, watched him shepherd them across to the house, fending away the persistent majat azi. He managed. He managed well. She was able, for a moment, to relax…lingered, gazing on the shadow-forms of majat, the blue lights of the azi winking eerily in the shadowed places of the garden, where the tu

“Worker,” she said when one passed near her, “how far will the tu

“Blue-hive,” it said, which was answer, not inanity. A chill went over her skin. She surmised suddenly that there were tu

Mother accepted; Mother had ordered. The hive reached out to embrace them and protect. She wrapped her arms about her, found the lights shimmering in her vision.

There was a freshness in the air, of moisture and evening. A little drop fell on her arm and she looked up, at a sky mostly clouded. There was another rain coming. It would hardly trouble the majat, or their azi.

She wandered inside finally, as domestic azi came out, bearing foodstuffs, hastening for fear of the majat, to the kitchens in the azi quarters.

One remained in the house kitchen, under Jim’s direction, preparing a different meal. “Thank you,” Raen said to them both; she could have eaten azi porridge without compunction, so tired she was; but she was glad when a good di

The hive was about her. The song began. She could hear it in the house, illusory and soft as the rainfall, as old dreams.

Then she thought of the basement, and the cup hesitated at her lips; she drank, and began reckoning of other things.

Of Itavvy, and promises; of Pol Hald; of Tallen.

Of the Family.

There were messages upon messages. Comp spat them out in inane profusion; and she sat and searched them, the while thunder rumbled overhead.

One was ser Dain. MY HUMBLEST APOLOGIES. THE ARTIST IS SER TOL ERRIN, 1028D UPCOAST. There was more, mostly babble. She rubbed her eyes, took a sip of coffee, and entered worldcomp to pull a citizen number, to link it with another program.

One was Pol Hald. NEWPORT IS DISMAL. MY SUFFERING IS EXTREME. REJOICE.

She drank more coffee, sinking into the rhythms of the majat song which ran through the house, nerved herself for intercomp. The dataflow never stopped, world to station, station to station, station to world, jumping information like ships from point to point. Data launched could not be recalled.

She called up the prepared program regarding contracts, and export quotas, the oft-denied permits.

GRANTED, she entered, to all of them.

In an hour the board would be jammed with queries, chaos, the deadlock broken. Cerdin would not know it for eight days.

She called up the city guest house, and drew a sleepy outsider out of bed. “Call Tallen,” she said, using her own image and direct voice, which she had not used on Istra.

Tallen appeared quickly, his person disordered, his face flushed. “Kont’ Raen,” he said.

“I’ve an azi,” she said, “who knows you. His name is Tom Mundy.”

Tallen started to speak, changed his mind. Whatever of sleep there was about him vanished.

“He’s not harmed,” she said. “Won’t be. But I want to know how long this has been going on, ser Tallen. I want an answer. How much and how many and how far?”

“I’ll meet with you.”

She shook her head. “Just a plain answer, ser. Monitored or not. How far has the net spread itself?”

“I have no desire to discuss this long-distance.”

“Shall I ask Mundy?”

Tallen’s face went stark. “You’ll do as you please, I imagine. The trade mission—”

“Is under Reach law, Kontrin law. I do as I please, yes. He’s safe for the moment. I’ll give him back to you, so you needn’t do anything rash. I merely advise you that you’ve done a very unwise thing, ser. Give me those numbers and I’ll do what I can to sort things out for you; you understand me. I can act where you can’t. I’m willing to do so…a matter of humanity. Give me the numbers”