Old Mars

It was that sort of neighborhood. She pushed through the doors. Teyudza-Zhalt was usually to be found here when she wasn’t working a contract. It was a canal-side dive where the crews of the long-distance canal boats and the landships that sailed the desert plains and caravan traders down from the highlands hung out … and where the little sign with the glyphs reading Professional Practitioner of Coercive Violence on her table wasn’t at all out of place.

Silence fell as Sally entered the inner door, and heads moved to consider her.

“Vas-Terranan,” someone murmured—which was insulting, but at least subtly so.

There was a slight clatter as weapons were laid back on tables or holstered. The light had an unpleasant greenish cast; someone was underfeeding the glow-globes. The murals on the walls looked dusty and faded, outlining a big circular room on the ground floor of a tower more than half-abandoned. The adamantine stone of the floor was worn deep enough to show ruts in places, and it was set with circular tables cut in slabs from the perfectly circular trunks of tkem timber. They were nicked and battered, which took some doing with a wood that contained natural silica monofilaments.

The air was dry and cool, of course, but it somehow smelled of ancient ghosts and lost hopes and all the labyrinthine history of Zho’da, the Real World.

Teyud sat with a tiny incense-burning brazier empty and swept clean beside her, but leaving a faint musky fragrance in the air when you got close. She was playing atanj, left hand against right, and occasionally taking a sip from a globe of essence as she considered the moves of her pieces or threw the dice.

Beside the folding game-set her table held a bowl of sweet dipping sauce and a platter of black-streaked crimson flowers. She crunched one, swallowed, sipped, and inclined her head in Sally’s direction.

“I express amiable greetings, Sally Yamashita,” she said, in a voice that had an undertone like soft trumpets. “This match will be completed shortly.”

The Coercive was on the tallish side of average height, around seven feet, but the color of her huge eyes was distinctly odd, a lambent amber-gold. Her robe was of a reddish khaki, excellent blending colors nearly anywhere on the planet, but the hood was thrown back to show hair caught back in a fine metallic net. Hair and metal both had a sheen like polished bronze. She was slender, but not with the impression of birdlike frailty common among Martians. Unless the bird was a golden eagle, the type Mongols had used to hunt wolves with back in the old days.

Thoughtful Grace, the emperors of the Crimson Dynasty had called the tembst-modified warrior caste that had enforced their will and kept their peace. They were rare now that the Tollamunes controlled nothing except the old capital of Dvor-il-Adazar and its environs, but it wasn’t only Martian manners that ensured a ring of empty tables around Teyud.

Sally didn’t intrude on the game; they took their atanj seriously here. The Coercive threw the dice one more time, moved a Transport piece to the square of the left-side Despot, nodded very slightly, and began to pack the set away. When the pieces were in their holders she folded it shut and tucked it into a pocket in the sleeve of her robe.

“I profess amiable greetings in return, Teyudza-Zhalt,” Sally said.

She took one of the flowers and dipped it in the sauce. Amiable greetings included an invitation to share. The texture was slightly chewy and the flavor sort of like frangipani-scented sweet-and-sour pork; her stomach growled.

Murder and sudden death, but you still get hungry if you don’t eat … and I literally threw away dinner.

“Contractual discussion?” she went on to the Martian.

“You have recently been engaged in lethal or near-lethal conflict,” Teyud said thoughtfully. “You were struck by an anesthetic dart there—” She tapped the back of her neck. “You are not accompanied by the … unconventional canid. I request details; then we may discuss contract terms in accordance with degrees of uncertainty, calculable risk, and difficulty.”

They did, and in a marked concession to Terran custom, the mercenary shook hands to seal the deal; hers was firm and dry and extremely strong. It wasn’t the first time she’d worked for Sally or other members of the Alliance mission here.

“This will be an interesting task,” she said.

“I need to get my colleague back,” Sally said grimly.