Read Online Shadow Man (Paragons of Queer Speculative Fiction) by Melissa Scott - Free Book Online Page A

revealing a meter-and-a-half-square flat screen. A red dot
appeared, indicating the camera position; Tatian slid his finger down
another control, fading it to near-invisibility, then flicked the
control away. Glyphs swam across the base of the screen, and then a
face appeared, a stocky, dark-skinned woman with a Norssco badge at
her collar, the camera dot centered like a misplaced caste mark
between her eyes.
    "Can I help you,
ser?"
    "Ser Mhyre Tatian,
for Tillis Carlon."
    "Ah." The woman's
eyes flickered as she consulted some internal display. "I'll
patch you straight through, ser."
    That was a good sign.
Tatian waited while the screen went blank and then reformed to reveal
Carlon sitting at a desk that very nearly matched his own. A line of
icons flickered in the upper left corner of the screen--security
programs currently running, save-file protocols in effect, nothing
out of the ordinary--and Tatian noted them with one corner of his
mind, intent on the image in front of him.
    "Tatian." Carlon
sounded distinctly relieved.
    "You said I should
call."
    "Yes. I thought I
owed you an explanation."
    Tatian nodded once, and
Carlon gave a smile that was almost a grimace. "Wiidfare asked me
to come in then, said he'd had some one cancel an appointment.
We--I've been having a little difficulty with our residency
permits lately."
    From Wiidfare, or from
ColCom and the IDCA? Tatian wondered. Norssco had always had a
reputation for doing trade in a big way. Not that people of Carlon's
rank were involved--at least, not that much--but Norssco employed a
good seventy-five or eighty junior staff, secretaries, technicians,
backcountry brokers, most of whom supplemented an inadequate income
by selling permits to players. But that was none of his business, as
long as Carlon wasn't interfering with NAPD. "So have we," he
said, voice neutral, and Carlon's smile widened briefly.
    "Sorry to hear it."
    "Wiidfare offered me
an extra permit, with the usual string attached," Tatian said. "I
hope he didn't get any ideas about that from you."
    Carlon shook his head.
"If there are any extra permits, Tatian, I want them for me."
    "One other thing,"
Tatian said. "I will take it very badly if Norssco reps show up in
the peninsular mesnie s.
Clear?"
    "I--" Carlon
stopped, closing his lips tight over whatever else he would have
said. "Clear enough. I don't appreciate threats, Tatian."
    "It's not a
threat," Tatian said, and smiled. "It's a promise."
    "Clear," Carlon
said, face grim, and Tatian broke the connection. He leaned back in
his chair, watching the panel slide closed again over the flat
screen. Norssco would bear watching now, at least until after the
harvests that were due at Midsummer had all been delivered, but it
had been important to state NAPD's position as explicitly as
possible.
    He reached for the
shadowscreen again, trailed his fingers through the varying
sensations, cold and hot, rough and smooth, adjusting the desktop to
a more comfortable working configuration. Lanhoss Mats, the shipping
wrangler, as well as Derebought's partner, had left a long, thickly
annotated file updating his projections for the weeks following the
harvest--storage space available, accessible, and already rented,
and the ships scheduled to land and the backup craft available.
Tatian sighed, looking at it, but dragged it to the top of the file.
The sooner he looked through it, the sooner he could turn it back
over to Mats, and he tapped the icon to open it.
    The soft sound was
echoed, more loudly, from the doorway, and a familiar voice said,
"Derry said you wanted to see me?" Tatian pushed the file away
with some relief. "Yeah. Come on in."
    Shan Reiss seated
himself warily in the visitor's chair. He was young to be NAPD's
chief driver, and looked younger, so that Tatian frequently had to
remind himself that Reiss had been born on Hara, and knew the
backcountry as well as any indigene. He was a thin, tall man, all
whipcord muscle, brown skin burned darker by the