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In an instant, Jory stepped behind the man while his hands were still trapped under the man's back-turned wrists. Jory dropped into a spread-leg stance that made his center of gravity lower than the other's. By leaning forward and subtly shifting his hip, Jory threw the man, and the man landed with a thud on his side. Jory stepped on the stick so it couldn't be lifted against him. "What other tricks can you show me, you oaf, before I make you into fish food?"
"All right! Let go!"
"You have one instant to tell me why I should. Or I should break your neck and move on." Jory was still panting from his run, and he looked nervously from side to side.
"I can save you, Master!" To call a human Master was mockery, but this bandit was sincerely trying to curry favor.
"I don't believe you."
"Let's head for Kusi-O."
"You must be crazy." But that was where he was headed anyway, to die, impaled on the space port's locked and steel-studded wooden gate. Driven by the need to move on, Jory let him up.
The man gathered his stick and fell in again. "I'm sorry, Master, I'm a simple sort, and my mouth gets me in trouble."
"You are a fool, and here I am beside you."
"Who is the greater fool, Master?"
"You have a point there." Jory could close his eyes and still inhale the fragrance of Ramy's berry perfume. He remembered the silky feel of her skin, and the aroused pungence of her tongue.
The man whispered: "My name is Yedy. I come from Anamo, outside Kusi-O."
A territory of ruffians, Jory thought, known everywhere on the island of Oba. Kusi-O, interstice between Oba and the universe. Sluice of evil.
"There is a price on your head, Master. Lord Ramyon has sent runners in both directions on the Great Road."
"Thank you for information I already know."
"I must ask a favor of you before I go any further with you, Master. Will you stop a moment?"
"Oh what is this!" Jory said, stomping his feet impatiently, while Yedy felt around Jory's head with nimble fingertips until he found the hard round plates at each temple. "Ah! Just as the gate mouse said. You have the unborn horns."
Jory shoved him away and resumed a fast walk. "I have always had them."
Yedy walked beside him, pressing against his side, so that Jory had to keep pushing him away. "Master, it is something that makes you desirable to somebody in the Kusi-O and may save your life."
"You are delivering me to the Kusi-O?"
"Only by your leave, Master."
"You risk your life by even speaking with me. The price must be great."
Yedy's smile was sly, his eyes closing briefly in cagey admission. "It is so. But I cannot drag you there against your will."
Jory calculated desperately. What kind of trap was this? "Who wants these unborn horns of mine, and why?" He rubbed his hands on the rough, ringed surfaces that occupied a half a palm's width circle before and slightly above each ear. They were like hair or fingernails. It was part of him, but without feeling. A sharp blow to the head during stick practice with the retainers had once made the cuticle around these giant thumbnail things bleed, but other than that they were simply always there and he hardly ever thought of them, anymore than he thought of his toenails. Human girls had made fun of him and, though he'd bedded some over the kjirs, refused to stay with him.
Could this be a ruse? Was Yedy a procurer for some criminal element? But they would want young boys, not men nearing 240 mendz—the tool by which human women subversively kept track of time during the centuries since humans had been reduced from conquerors to being slaves at best, or hunted and killed throughout the Galaxy—a span, as legend had it, of over 10,000 mendz by now.
Yedy replied: "Both things are secrets I don't know and therefore regretfully cannot reveal, though you should esteem my honesty."
"All right, I'll grant you that much."
"I was a teacher before I fell on hard times."
"A teacher of what?"
"History."
Jory's interest perked. He remembered a night of murder and riot, but also of high discussion and noble words. "Do you know anything of a certain society, ruffian?"
Yedy nodded slowly, breaking into a triumphant grin. "The Twelve Moon Society, perhaps?"
"Yes!" Jory almost yelled and grabbed the man by the shoulder. "Does it still exist?"
"Ohh...there are rumors. Then again, it may be swamp gas to assert such things. Or else, if true, they would not advertise, not after their heads decorated the Obayyo from Ramyo to Menshu, your uncle's among them."
"Stop riddling me, you fool, or I'll hoist you." Why was the man so infuriatingly vague?
Yedy spoke soberly: "There are beings from many worlds in the Kusi-O. I have seen them. Great hairy beings who captain starships. They come down with their boats to collect cargo. Sometimes they want something special. They don't say why. It is deadly dangerous for a human to be in Kusi-O, and I do not ask questions. I keep my mouth shut. And so will you?"
"How will we get in?"
"Yes, I will be by your side. How we get in is for those who specialize in that thing, who can hoodwink the emperor's road police and the constables in Anamo, not to mention the Fril cops on the other side."
Jory had only seen Fril one time—they were almost never permitted outside Kusi-O—and that had been at the imperial court. Fril were humanoid, bipedal, two-armed, but they were more snake. They had fine shimmering scales all over their bodies. Their body color was silver, stippled with small and large yellow scales. Jory remembered admiring their bright, almost faint coloring as they stood to one side in long transparent robes while Lord Ramyon made audience with the emperor. The Fril, who were the officials and doers of all things in Kusi-O, came from another planet in this system. They were peaceful and honest, and fiercely devoted to their gods, which kept them pure. They were ideal keepers for the sluice of evil that could easily poison the Oba society, which had swallowed Kusi-O into its belly as a Shurian swallowed the proverbial mushroom. This saying referred to eating a tiny mushroom of one kind, thinking it to be tasty and filling, only to discover one had swallowed its sister type, which contained a poison so deadly that feudal retainers tipped their arrow heads and sword blades with it. By the time the eater realized the mistake, one was half dead. Many a disgraced official had used that very mushroom rather than slice his entrails out in duello. The Oba feudal system trusted the Fril to maintain an unchanging status quo. The Fril cops, if they caught a human or a Shurian inside Kusi-O, would turn them over to the Obayyo police at the Anamo gate inside the great concrete drum wall. The gate was called Return of Property to Rightful Owner.
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