Irsud by Jo Clayton Page B

head in a tidy bramble bush. He smiled. White teeth flashed. Nostrils flattened. The yellow sun struck red-amber highlights from his dark dark skin.
    â€œThey do go on.”
    She accepted the overture, glad to turn away from the horror behind her. “Yes.” She almost smiled at the banality of her answer. Her fists uncurled and she could feel herself relaxing. “You’re not nayid. Who are you?”
    â€œFfynch Company Rep,” he said crisply. “Sombala Isshi.”
    She noted that he tactfully refrained from questioning her in return although his curiosity was clearly evident. “Ffynch Company?”
    There was cool speculation in his eyes as he examined her with almost insulting thoroughness, but still he refrained from asking her any questions. “Do you know the Companies?”
    â€œA little.”
    â€œFfynch Company operates in this sector. Look there.” He rested one hand lightly on her shoulder. She could feel the heat of it through the cloth-of-gold cloak. Again she felt a fleeting twinge of gratitude. She looked down, following his pointing hand until she was gazing at the flat roof of the mahazh. She saw the skimmers clustering there like fleas on a hairless hog’s back. “We provide skimmers and maintain them. Among other things.”
    â€œYou’re traders, then.”
    He smiled suddenly, widely, as if she’d said something that amused him. “In a way,” he said temperately. “May I ask you something?”
    She watched him for a while, feeling the flicker of chaos hovering. She yearned to reach out and read him, to break through his skilled facade, but she hastily clamped down on the urge. “What do you need to know?”
    â€œAbout you. If I’m not nayid, neither are you, lady. What role do you play down there?” He flipped a long-fingered hand with over-size knuckles turning the narrow digits into gnarled roots at the mahazh. He smiled his charming smile again. “To a trader all knowledge has value.”
    She thought about what she should say. An imp of mischief tickled her stomach. “I’m nursemaid to the new queen. In a way,” she said demurely. As the sacerdote’s voice once again boomed into a monotonous invocation she looked restlessly away and saw a massive column of smoke climbing suddenly next to one of the buttes. “What’s that?”
    It was his turn to follow her pointing finger. “Ha! The wild hiiri choose good time for a raid with the kipu busy here.”
    â€œWhat?” She peered at the smoke, working out distant indications of turmoil, brilliant flashes breaking through the purple-gray coils. A flicker of motion caught the corner of her eyes, jerked her attention to the mahazh. Three skimmers rose from the roof and darted off to the east. “Will they catch the hiiri?”
    â€œThey never have before. By now the raiders are scattered, sitting under shelter, laughing at the futility of the nayadimi effort.”
    â€œThey must catch some of them. Where’d they get those?” Her hand moved slightly toward the hiiri burning behind them. “Or the others down there still?”
    â€œThe hiiri sell their own.” He smiled cynically. “One tribe will fight another. They only started taking prisoners because they started getting a price for them. Before.…” He shrugged. “Ritual torture. My enemy is not my enemy only if he’s dead and his wife and his children and his brothers with him.”
    Aleytys shuddered. “I sometimes wonder why men are cursed with intelligence when they use it to such ends.”
    â€œDon’t ask me. Takes me time enough to justify my own existance.”
    Behind them the stench of roasting flesh was becoming oppressive while the chanting began again and went on and on and on and on until she ceased to hear it. Together they stood and let time flow over them in a sort of shared disgust. After a while