Watcher's Web (11 page)

“The board can
meet without me. I’ll send Ilrith; she knows as much as I do. The
year reports are on my desk. I did them last night.” He rubbed his
cheeks. Smooth and hairless, Jessica registered. The line of lights
on the communication hub on the wall danced in front of his eyes.
Damn, he was tired.

Jessica
sent a thought,
Who
are you?

Daya
hesitated.

Could he hear
her?

The frown on
his uncle’s face had deepened. “But Daya . . .”

The woman, his
aunt, reached over the table, setting a bowl of steaming broth
before her husband. He smiled at her. “Thanks.”

She then came
to Daya, set the bowl down, stepped back, an expression of
disbelief on her face. “You’re not going to work like this,
Daya?”

His eyes
met hers, challenging.
Like what?

“You’ve been
drinking.”

Daya
pushed away a wave of irritation. So what? Yes,
zixas
had a potent smell; he’d wash and get
changed before he left. Big deal. He needed it to keep him awake.
All night he had spent going over the Network records Wonan had
given him. He had found one irregularity, well-hidden amongst
hundreds and thousands of data lines.

His uncle
fixed him with a stern look. “Is anything wrong?”

“No.”

“Where are you
going?”

“Picking up
someone.” He enjoyed the puzzlement in his aunt and uncle’s faces
and added, “When I come back, I’ll be moving into the apartment I
bought.”

“By yourself?
But what message will that give the workers? There is too much of a
housing shortage for people to live by themselves, even us.”

“I won’t be
alone.”

He
imagined leading the girl into the living room, which had a large
window that looked out over the central hall where lights glittered
in the fountain and people sat around the pond. He imagined
whispering her name, her
real
name,
not the name those people who had looked after her for the last
seventeen years had given to her. She would look up to him with
those dark eyes, so like his. Then he’d tell her all he knew about
their kind. He pictured her happy smile.

He had almost
lost hope when she had gone missing.

Jessica’s heart hammered. He was talking about
her.

A deep silence
fell in the kitchen. Children’s laughter drifted in from the hall,
where the oldest of Daya’s nieces and nephews were getting ready to
go to school. The nanny scolded them; footsteps thudded up the
stairs. A door slammed.

His aunt was
the first to speak. “What do you mean—you won’t be alone? Daya? Is
there a woman?”

Daya
shrugged, trying to push away uncomfortable feelings. He wasn’t
absolutely
sure
where
the girl was, and his interest in her was not of the nature his
aunt imagined.

His aunt
harrumphed and thrust the spoon in the pan with a too-loud clang.
“You could have told me about this earlier. I’ve been talking to
Ennai’s family again. It seems she’s sorry—”

Daya
snorted, perhaps with more anger than he intended. He knew his
uncle and aunt meant well and he appreciated how they had taken him
in, but they didn’t understand what it was like to be zhadya-born,
a freak. They didn’t have to put up with the resentment against his
high position at the company, the implication that he somehow
didn’t deserve it; they didn’t hear the rumours that he was
supposedly bending the minds of all the board members to his
will—something he couldn’t do, even if he tried. They didn’t hear
all the slanderous rumours about him; they didn’t have to pretend
not to have heard. They still thought, or hoped, that by entering a
contract with a
normal
girl,
he could have a normal life, but it was too late for
that.

“I told you I
wanted nothing more to do with Ennai. She may say she’s sorry, but
that wouldn’t happen to have something to do with my inheritance,
would it? She was pretty clear: she wanted children, so she was
going to negotiate a contract with another man to—look, why am I
even discussing this? I’m no longer interested in her.”

Jessica’s cheeks glowed.
Are you interested in me?

His uncle
chuckled. “So that’s what all this is about, huh? Daya’s in love.
No need to be so mysterious. Who’s the lucky lady and what’s her
name?”

“
I’ll
introduce you when we get here.” And whether it would be
that
type of relationship remained to be seen.
She didn’t know him; he didn’t know her. Not really, after all
these years. He shifted nervously. After all the taunting, he
wasn’t the type of person who easily opened up to others. Not at
all.

A shiver
went through Jessica’s mind.
Who are you?

But her
connection slipped away, like a bright dot of light gliding along
the strands of the web. She fought to hold on to it.

No. Stay
here. Tell me who you are.

Control
slipped further.

*     *     *

“No.” She
reached and grabbed Ikay’s hands. “Tell me who you are!”

He didn’t
listen. Reality rushed back. The tribe. Thousands of eyes on her,
many of them staring. Had they seen the man, too? Did the web
connect to him through Ikay?

Images rushed
through her mind. A dark cave, long shadows trailing over carved
walls. A ceremony. Ikay standing on the beach, surrounded by
females from the tribe. In the golden sunlight, she held aloft a
bowl with steaming noodles and meat balls inside. She set the bowl
down in the sand, and retreated up the beach. Making an offer.
Waiting, but no one came.

The strands of
the web faded.

People
were getting up, yelling and shouting. They whipped their tails,
and made frantic gestures with their hands.
Avya.
That word surged around and around.

Jessica pulled
her knees up to her chest, not wanting to be part of the uproar,
not wanting to be noticed. She didn’t understand; she wasn’t sure
if she wanted to understand.

Something warm
and hairy snaked over her shoulders: Ikay’s tail, pulling her
closer. She spoke, her old voice soothing, stroked Jessica’s
shoulders and caressed her skin.

Chapter
10

“A
NMI
.”

Jessica
stirred. Something firm and hairy touched her arm. She rolled onto
her back. Ouch. The floor under the thin mat was like concrete.

Afternoon
light, warm and golden, filtered through a slatted wall, over rough
timber floors and rows of humps—thighs, backs, buttocks—on sleeping
mats. Arms draped over waists, tails curled around legs, heads of
braids with glittering beads, shoulders and backs marked with zebra
stripes or leopard spots.

Ikay sat on
her knees by the side of her mat, folding a thin sheet and placing
it under the pillow.

Jessica
struggled to sit up and rubbed her leg muscles. Her head throbbed.
Her mouth tasted like raw sewerage.

Ikay got to
her feet in a cat-like movement and beckoned. Jessica pushed the
thin cover aside. A soft breeze tickled her naked skin, still
sticky and greasy from the white and black paint applied to it last
night. She rubbed her upper arm, but the stuff was very
resilient.

She clambered
to her feet, her first steps wooden. Oh, her legs ached.

Now where the
hell were her clothes?

Not next to
her mat. Not anywhere else between the other mats, or on someone’s
body.

Damn it.

And yesterday,
she had lost her backpack, too. With her spare clothes, and her
first-aid kit, and her rope and tools and everything that might
provide proof, however feeble, that she had come from Earth.

She picked up
the thin sheet. It was too big to use as sarong, and when she
folded it over, it was too short.

Double damn
it.

Well, bugger
that. Everyone went in their birthday suits here, so apart from the
usual stares, she wasn’t going to attract attention for not having
clothes on. She flung the cloth down. Never mind that if ever she
got back home she’d need clothes. Lucky it was late spring in
Australia, huh? Not too cold. Summer on the way. Why worry about
walking in the nuddy when there was that little problem about how
she was going to get back in the first place? Her eyes pricked.

She joined
Ikay on a ramp which led from the sleeping gallery into the large
hall. There was a silent throng of striped bodies on the other side
of the floor. A smell reminiscent of porridge drifted from a
steaming pot from which a young boy scooped long white things into
bowls. His eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, and every now and then
he yawned, showing his rodent-like teeth. Well, look at that. These
Pengali were a lot like people—they got hangovers, too.

Ikay pressed a
bowl into Jessica’s hands.

The white
things were noodles, bluish and slightly transparent. They were
slippery like wet spaghetti and kept escaping the small tongs
Jessica was given to eat them with.

Ikay’s
fighting Amazons were already eating. Alla wolfed her food down and
then took her knife from her belt, and proceeded to clean her nails
while sitting cross-legged on the floor, her back straight as a
cattle prod. Her black hair in tight braids glistened with oil. A
single drop ran down her forehead.

Maire ate much
more slowly, droopy-eyed and slumped over her bowl. Every time she
yawned, which she did a lot, a teardrop formed in the corner of her
left eye. Eventually, it grew so big it ran down her cheek. Alla
scowled at her.

If Jessica
closed her eyes, she could hear the deep drumbeats and see Maire in
the heaving mass of bodies clutching the waist of some young male.
The smell of Pengali male sweat—fishy and stale—still lingered in
her nose and so did the pungent stench of Pengali urine and semen,
or both. By the end of the long night, most Pengali had been drunk
and all over each other, cheering and whistling at bestial grunts
of males having their way with females, watched and cheered on by
the entire tribe. All night, Jessica had remained as close to Ikay
as she could, until the light outside grew blue and everyone
retired to the sleeping galleries.

A soft breath
of air tickled her skin. Dora had come up next to her. In her arms,
wedged against her stomach, she carried a basket of woven reeds
from which drifted the smell of spiced meat.

Alla and Maire
climbed to their feet, Maire with much groaning, which earned her
another scowl from Alla.

It seemed they
were going somewhere. Frankly, anywhere would do, as long as she
didn’t have to attend another orgy. She followed Ikay and her
Amazons out the entrance, past the guards into the forest.

Golden
afternoon light tinted everything yellow. Animals buzzed in the
trees.

Jessica
followed, her steps clumsy. Her feet were too soft to walk on the
leaf litter of the forest floor. Every muscle in her body screamed
its protest. Leaves and branches brushed against her naked skin.
Her eyes pricked with fatigue and tears of frustration. She felt so
helpless. With the bushwalking and abseiling and canoeing she did
with school, she thought her bush survival skills were good, but
what was she without clothes, without shoes and without regular
food, all those things humans of the 21st century took for granted?
It would take her weeks to build up enough energy and skill to even
contemplate leaving the tribe if they let her.

They arrived
at the beach. The sand was soft under her feet, still warm from the
day’s heat. The smell of fish wafted from the drying racks, mingled
with the more gentle whiff of mud and the ever-present minty
smell.

The suns hung
low over the horizon, cloaking the opposite bank in a glow of
gold.

A number of
boats lay in the water. Young females hauled baskets with brown
lumpy things up the beach. Others had collected nets of white waxy
flowers, which floated in a string behind one of the boats.

A whistle
echoed over the water. Another boat had rounded the bend into the
lagoon. The occupants, three older females, all pushed off the
bottom with sticks. A couple of younger females on the beach set
down their loads and helped the boat ashore. Tied at the back hung
the biggest fish Jessica had ever seen. It was an eel-like
creature, its skin dark green. The pointed head sported formidable
jaws, dagger-like teeth poking out at odd angles. It stared into
nothingness out of a lifeless eye, the pupil slitted like a cat’s.
It was at least twice as long as the boat.

And she had
been so stupid to think that she could swim to the island city? If
these things lived in the water, that sounded like an exceedingly
stupid idea. Another avenue for escape cut off.

Jessica
started when Dora touched her shoulder.

Ikay sat in
the bottom of a canoe at the water’s edge. Alla waited on the
beach, the stick in her hand, and Maire held the bow, standing in
knee-deep water. Maybe they were taking her to the city after all.
Oh hell, she hoped so.

As the boat
glided across the lagoon, again with Dora pushing, Jessica looked
over her shoulder. The females on the beach had all produced glass
knives and were cutting the skin from the eel, peeling it away from
the white flesh.

The canoe
rounded the bend, bringing the solar plant into view, its “eyes”
dark and lifeless now the suns had dipped below the horizon. Like
yesterday, a line of boats lay in the water, all filled up with
bags. A female with a stick sat in each boat. More still stood on
the muddy beach, shouting and whistling at the Amazons. Tails waved
and cracked like whips, communicating their wordless signs.