Free Skeen's Return by Jo Clayton

the time you need to learn the woffit, I don’t want you going in until Pyaday …” she stopped herself, “don’t you think?”
    Timka chuckled, tapped the back of Skeen’s hand. “Pyaday’s fine. You want me to hunt up a boat we can use?”
    â€œYou know anything about boats?”
    â€œAbout enough to tell a mast from an oar, enough to know we want one that floats.”
    â€œIdiot.”
    â€œSeriously, I’d take one of the Aggitj, Hal or Domi for choice. Domi told me once he was crawling around in boats before he could walk.”
    Skeen slid back in the chair until her head was hooked over the top rung. She yawned, used both hands to scratch at her head, flutter her hair. “You’ll have to stick pins in me to get me out of bed come the morning.”
    Timka glanced at the window. “Which isn’t that far off. The Balance is up. Which by the way and don’t ask me why reminds me about Angelsin. She watches us.”
    â€œShe watches everyone.” Skeen pushed up out of the chair and began stripping. “Her Ant Pack are all over. One or another of them watches us every day we perform. I figure she’s one of the local bosses and is keeping an eye on the take.”
    â€œI think it’s more than that.”
    Skeen hung her tunic on a peg, looked over her shoulder. “Why?”
    â€œDon’t know. Like you and the garden.”
    â€œHm. I’ll think about it. But if she’s planning something, she won’t have much time and she mightn’t know that; I paid for another fortn’t this morning.”
    â€œI keep thinking about Lipitero.” Timka glanced at the still mound on the narrow cot pushed up against the far wall where the shadow was so deep the forms of cot and sleeper were only dimly visible.
    â€œPetro hasn’t said anything to me about snoopers.”
    â€œNor me. But she’s nervous, I can’t be mistaken about that.”
    â€œCould be she’s getting cabin fever shut up all the time in this room. No, no, I believe you. Soon as I have a spare minute I’ll see what I can find out.” She stepped out of her trousers, chuckled. “If you promise to clean up after me again.”
    â€œSkeen.”
    â€œNo, no, I was only joking.” She yawned. “Djabo, I am too tired to sleep, I think. Well, only one way to find out.”

WHILE PEGWAI WAS COPING WITH THREE ADOLESCENT PALLAH BOYS WHOSE CHIEF DELIGHT SEEMED TO BE THINKING UP INANE TRICKS TO PLAY ON HIM, TRICKS SO BRAINLESSLY INEPT THEY SOMETIMES EVEN SUCCECDED, WHILE CHULJI WAS IMMERSED IN RUST AND SMUT AND ROOT ROT, WHILE THE AGGITJ TOTED BALES AND HAULED BARRELS, WHILE LIPITERO CARVED AND SIGHED, WHILE TIMKA AND SKEEN PERFORMED BY DAY AND PLOTTED AT NIGHT, THINGS WERE HAPPENING ABOUT THEM THEY KNEW NOTHING OF AND ONLY GUESSED AT LATER, LOOKING BACK ON THAT HECTIC TIME.
    or
    SKEEN FORGETS THE WARNING AND TIMKA ACQUIRES THE RIGHT TO SAY I TOLD YOU SO.
    This is how it might have been, what a fly planted on the cavern wall might have seen and heard.
    â€œHopflea, rub my knees,” says Angelsin. This is one of those nights when boneache occupies her head until she finds herself losing track of the strings she must pull to keep her puppets dancing.
    The small Funor boy brings over a footstool; with practiced ease he slides his hands under her instep (slimfinger curled to protect it) and lifts her foot onto the stool. He waits, kneeling, looking elsewhere until she slides her heavy skirt up to bare the massive knee. For some minutes he kneads the flesh around the misshapen bone, then he jumps to his feet with the celerity of his namesake and goes into the nearest of the cells cut into the wall of the cavern. He reappears a moment later, rolling a gum-wheeled trolley with a deep bowl on it crouched amid coals, sending up clouds of steam. He positions it beside Angelsin, kicks a brake in place. He uses a wooden forceps to