“Just something I made,” she said.
“Why?” he asked. “What’s it good for?”
She shrugged again. It was good for just being what it was, and if he couldn’t see that, to hell with him.
He’d been staring at the stuff in her room ever since he arrived. As though it held some kind of message. Some kind of code, maybe. She was becoming fairly annoyed with him.
“So, when are you going to decide?” he asked.
“I’ve decided,” said Fringe, thankful he’d stopped looking and started talking. “I’m still a little ambivalent. Partly because you didn’t tell me everything. I’m a good Enforcer and I like being trusted. You should have told me about the petition things.”
“Zasper told you!”
“He did, but you should have. Despite that, I’ve decided to go, provided the terms of the contract are recorded and approved.”
“They are.” He smiled at her, an invitational smile.
“When, then?” She ignored the invitation.
“I guess in a couple days.” He sighed. “I’m like you. Ambivalent. I’ve been fooling around, thinking there should be somebody else going with us, thinking someone might show up. Well, maybe there’s someone else, but not here. Not anywhere near. Not that I can get a sniff of.”
“Maybe on the way,” she suggested.
“Likely,” he assented with a gloomy face, glancing at her from the corners of his eyes. The woman was like a good bow, all shiny curves and elegant tensions, making his hands itch to stroke her, bend her. There weren’t all that many women Danivon lusted after, not that many he enjoyed, but those he enjoyed seemed to enjoy him too, so it wasn’t as though he expected some one-sided thing she’d come to regret. But this Fringe Owldark gave him not so much as a twinkly look, not she! She was all quiet-faced business and no joy. Still, he couldn’t misread that tilt to the head, that glance, that tension…. Could he?
She, meantime, was thinking that even gloomy the man set off drums inside her. Tumty-tumty-tum. Rotten little drums, making her feet twitch as though they wanted to dance, so she’d let them and find herself danced right over some precipice. Enough of that, Fringe Owldark.
“So, who do we start with?” she asked in her calmest voice.
“Five of us. You, me, Curvis, and two people from the past. Their names are Nela and Bertran Zy-Czorsky, and they’re joined people.”
“What the hell is that? And what do you mean, the past?”
He described Bertran and Nela, their oddity, their odyssey, making it dramatic for her amusement. Though who knew what would amuse this one!
Fringe succeeded in visualizing this unlikely concatenation only with some revulsion. “They’re going to get parts cloned and be unjoined before we start out, I hope!” she said with fervor.
He shook his head. “Takes too long. Later. When we get back. Disconnecting them’s the price I offered them, like I offered you twice standard. None of you get paid up front.”
“Then I sincerely hope there’s no danger where we’re going, Danivon Luze, for these folk sound like a real handicap to me.”
“There’s that,” he admitted. “Nonetheless….” He stroked the medallion at his neck.
“Your nose says not.”
He smiled, surprised. “My nose says not.”
The motion of his fingers drew her eyes to the medallion around his neck.
“What are the plans so far?” she asked in a practical voice, staring at the thing he was stroking. Talk of dragons! He was wearing one around his neck, a toothy monster ridden by a robed figure. Man or woman, she couldn’t tell.
“We fly to Tolerance. Bring your ceremonials along because you’ll need them for your initiation as a CE.”
“Oh, shit,” she groaned, half under her breath.
“Can’t serve as a Council Enforcer without being initiated,” he said firmly. “It isn’t done.”
She grimaced, throwing up her hands. She hadn’t thought about the initiation as Council Enforcer. Damn. She hated that. Attending solemnities was the worst thing about being an Enforcer, even though it was only a semiannual obligation. She liked parade, that was fun, but ritual made her teeth itch, her legs twitch.
Danivon went on, “From Tolerance, we go to the Curward Isles, and from there to Panubi by boat. We could fly, but the twins need to learn the local language, and that’ll give them time to pick up a smattering. Then once we get to Panubi, we’ll go upstream by riverboat, taking care of routine items as we go.”
“What do we travel as? Enforcers? Traders? Explorers? What?”
“Now it’s interesting you should ask that question,” he said thoughtfully. “Boarmus says we’re not the first to go looking around Panubi. Enforcer types have gone there before. I thought it might be better if we didn’t make a big thing out of being Council Enforcers, at least not when we got near the unexplored parts, and when I mentioned it to the Zy-Czorsky twins, they suggested we travel as a sideshow.”
“As a what?”
Danivon attempted to explain a sideshow, fumbling for a concept that he only partially understood. Eventually she got the idea, telling herself that the rest of the party were freakish enough, though how she herself would fit into such a pattern eluded her. When Danivon eventually took himself off, saying he’d return on the morrow, she still hadn’t figured out how she’d fit into a troupe of oddities.
Her best talent was with weapons, but knife throwing or target shooting would call attention to her Enforcer training. Unarmed combat was likewise out. It had to be something else, something that would appeal to the ignorance and superstition rife in low-category places, but not anything overtly violent.
A late-afternoon sunbeam fell through the tall windows to bring one of her machines to life. Bright bits rose to the top, plunged down, disappeared, only to appear again, rising. The movement was relaxingly repetitive, yet irregular enough to be enjoyably
