Skeen's Return by Jo Clayton Page B

twice its usual size, two little men taking turns hammering at her temples. Stomach churning. Stink of old vomit and stale urine. Cold. Hard. Stone under her. How.… She flattened her hands beside her and pushed herself up, moving slowly, careful not to jar anything vital. How … where.… She shuddered as sudden terror flashed through her. If her mind was so far gone that she couldn’t remember how she got here or where here was, if she couldn’t remember what she was drinking and where, then … Djabo! Blackouts now. There was a time when she lost hours, days—once, a full week. She was shooting heavy pilpil then. That was after old Harmon died and there was no one she dared trust near her and the world seemed wide and cold and empty. It was far easier to drift in the warm arms of pilpil dreams. Her drift lasted until a shipment of pilpil was intercepted and the dealers she could reach went short. She came down hard and when she bounced, she got all too good a look at herself and the world she lived in. She looked and she said, this is it, no more. A long, long time ago that was, a warning of what could happen that she took seriously. She’d never lost herself again, not even in her Pit Stop binges. Well, reason enough for that, she was enjoying herself too much to waste those hours on unconsciousness. Something about this world that seduced her into excess. No, Skeen, not the world. You. Face it. You’re terrified you’ll find out Tibo and Picarefy really did get together and betray you because if that’s true there’s nothing anywhere you can trust. Not even yourself. Especially not yourself. And there’s no way you can find out short of half a year. Months of slogging dangerous travel ahead. Months while you feel like you’re trying to run in glue. Accept it, Skeen, it’s not strange you’re chewing your fingernails off to your elbows. All right, all right, I can live with that. But I don’t remember, I can’t remember drinking that much, I stopped drinking too much a sennight ago, why can’t I remember? How did I get here … here? Where is here?
    She looked around. A reddish gray light trickled into the cell through a long narrow tray slot about knee height, enough to give her the outlines of the place. Four walls, a ceiling and a floor. One door. Admirably understated. She grinned into the dark, that touch of humor like heat in her shivering body. A minimalist cell. She eased herself onto hands and knees (feeling a bit better but still very fragile), crawled to the door and peered out the tray slot, pressing her face close to the splintery planks. Frustratingly narrow field of vision, but off to one side she saw dark verticals close together and behind them a bumpy lump of blue-violet. She closed her eyes, digging back into foggy recalcitrant memory; the last time she could remember seeing Lipitero, the Ykx wore her blue-violet robe. She pressed closer to the slot, slid back along it to extend her view and saw a familiar pair of knees and part of a massive throne chair. With a sigh that had no surprise in it, she turned away from the slot and eased herself down until she was sitting with her back against the door. Angelsin. Forty devils gnaw her gizzard. How did she find out? Ah, why ask, you know how such things seep out; the only place to bury a secret and expect to keep it is in the heart of a sun, and even then if more than one knows it, forget it. It’s going to surface, that’s inevitable as entropy. Why should you think you could bag a secret as big as a mythic Ykx? Well, she hadn’t really expected so much, she’d just hoped to keep the noise down until the Company got away. Maggí, ah Maggí, get your butt up the river, will you?
    She pulled her legs up. Left me my boots. She prodded at the right boot. No surprise. Knife gone. She pulled the boot off and felt around inside. Smiled. Picks and spare blade were still