Hellspark (10 page)

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As a young man on Sheveschke, Kejesli had haunted the streets at festival time looking for the traders to the thousand worlds. He’d found them no different from anyone else he knew. Oh, they dressed differently, that was certainly true, but they spoke Sheveschkem, they acted like

Sheveschkemen. They were a disappointment.

It had taken Kejesli fifty years to make his first jump away from Sheveschke—in search of real differences—and there were the Hellsparks again. Only this time, they were not like Sheveschkemen;

they were like Jannisetti, Apsanti, Bluesippans, or like the Yns, the Zoveelians, the Maldeneantine. They were more alien than he could have imagined—or could accept.

He shuddered. What would this one be like, surrounded by a survey team composed of such variety?

Bad enough dealing with so many aliens. He accepted that as part of the job: the Comity insisted that as many cultures as possible be represented on a survey team—to widen the scope of its knowledge and to broaden the range of its available working data. Besides, a planet Sheveschkemen loathed—this one, for example—might well be attractive to natives of some other world.

But to throw a Hellspark in on top of it all? How would she choose which culture to be?

Perhaps this Tocohl Susumo would simply be

Hellspark

, whatever that might be. Kejesli was not sure he wanted to know.

In any event, he was not about to allow her to interfere with his career. MGE would not approve of an outsider meddling in one of its surveys.

He poured himself a second cup of winter-flame from the warming pot, then hesitated.

For a moment, he thought to join one of the conversations scattered about the common room but he had already overheard one such and its topic was Tinling Alfvaen. That was not one he had a desire to discuss. He returned to his seat in the far corner of the room.

A tooth-jarring clap of thunder signaled that the storm had broken in earnest. His hand jumped, winter-flame slopped red and gold across the tabletop. Involuntarily following the sound, he glanced at the ceiling. A wave of vertigo made the base of his neck prickle. Forcing his glance down, he wiped away the sudden sweat—then used the same cloth to mop the spilled winter-flame, trying to concentrate on the action alone. Buntec and Alfvaen and this Hellspark had not yet come. The thought that they too might meet the same fate as Oloitokitok…

The more he tried to tell himself that other survey captains had lost team members, the more he felt responsible for Oloitokitok’s death. This was his third survey, and the first time he had lost a surveyor…

unless one counted the twelve that had contracted Cana’s disease. No, he wouldn’t count them—they lived and Oloitokitok was dead.

A shout of laughter jarred Kejesli from his thoughts. He looked up in time to see Buntec, Alfvaen, and Tocohl Susumo burst through the door, spattering water about them. The membrane slapped wetly behind them, and the Hellspark laughed again. Her evident joy in Flashfever’s weather made him suddenly angry.

After greeting the startled Vielvoye cheerfully, she placed an arachne on the ground beside her, dried her spectacles and replaced them, and reached up to twist water from her hair. The arachne unfolded a set of improbable stiltlike legs and immediately began to explore, but Kejesli could not take his attention from the Hellspark. Their brief conversation by screen had not prepared him for the intensity of her presence.

She strode to the center of the room, her silver cloak trailing rivulets of water. There she stopped. In a single turn that focused the attention of every surveyor present on her, she seemed
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to him to take in everything, and to pronounce judgment. He waited, terrified of the verdict.

Om im Chadeayne, the team’s geologist, was suddenly on his feet. “Hellspark!” he said.

“Hellspark, what news?” He crossed to her in a few quick strides and stood before her, his hands on his hips, his head cocked expectantly upward. Om im was tall for a Bluesippan, but he came only to this woman’s elbow.

Tocohl Susumo held out a palm. “News for news,” she said.

“Hah!” said Om im, touching a finger to his brow. “Yes, payment there will be. Always payment for a

Hellspark. But first, a cup of winter-flame.” He snapped his fingers at Vielvoye, who was nearest the warming pot, and Vielvoye scurried to bring a fresh cup.

The Hellspark looked at the cup, and then at Om im, warily. “—And the payment?” she said.

Om im clapped his hands, drew them expressively down to indicate the space she occupied.

“Your presence, Ish shan, is more than sufficient pay for a cup of winter-flame.”

The woman bowed low, sweeping the ground with the edge of her cloak. “Tocohl Susumo is my name,” she said.

Om im returned the bow with equal extravagance. “Om im Chadeayne of Bluesip,” he said, taking

Kejesli by complete surprise. He had thought them old friends from Om im’s initial reaction.

The crowd continued to converge on her, as excited as children with a new toy. Everyone wanted a look. Not everyone, he corrected—Buntec was talking earnestly into a comunit, and she was probably passing the word, something she did well. Now only he and John the Smith had not joined the crowd.

John the Smith, Kejesli recalled, was from one of the Navel Worlds, close to the main centers of civilization. Those worlds no longer needed the independent traders, not the way the people of the

Extremities did. Obviously, John considered himself too sophisticated to court Hellsparks.

Kejesli was mildly annoyed at the thought.

Another burst of thunder combined with nearby movement caught Kejesli’s eye, and he turned to find the arachne poised beside him like a hunting farrun that had found its quarry. He stared back at it, surprised that it did not leave when its inspection was completed. A moment later the Hellspark stood before him, and the arachne was once again on its way.

“With your permission, Captain?” She gestured at the chair facing him. Her gray cloak, still glinting silver droplets, cascaded softly about her as she sat. She pushed back a tangle of red hair made darker by Flashfever’s downpour.

The tangle caught momentarily. Only when she had tugged it free did he see the cause of the snag: a pin of high-change was thrust through her cloak!

His first thought was that she must be mad—only the desperate would choose to take that risk—but for all his sudden stare he could find nothing desperate in those gold eyes, and nothing mad either.

Instead he found something disconcertingly familiar. He had seen those gold eyes somewhere—

He found himself fingering the pin of remembrance in his vest lapel. He had worn it not for Veschke but for remembrance of Oloitokitok.

The Hellspark’s gold eyes followed his fingers. He knew she could tell from the pin’s design that it was four years old, that being the last time he had attended the Festival of Ste. Veschke. She smiled, indicating the pin. She was Sheveschkem at that moment. “Don’t worry,” she said,

“I’ve tracked in

enough of Veschke’s blessing from this year’s festival to cover us both.” Thrusting out a foot to show him that it was covered with red mud, she went on, “I assure you only half of that is local.”

Surprised to find that it did reassure him, he looked at her face again—and realized why she had
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seemed so familiar. He had seen those gold eyes a thousand times in his youth, smiling triumphantly from an icon that depicted Veschke’s burning…

He suddenly wished for John the Smith’s sophistication—or his ignorance.

Where else but on a survey where his ship had not been blessed, where else but on a world he had given the ill-omened name of Flashfever, could all these things coincide? The death of Oloitokitok, Alfvaen (deny it as he would, he was responsible for the twelve of Inumaru as well), and this woman with the pin of high-change. Veschke was renowned for her sense of humor.

He fought the imagery: all he had to do was send a report to MGE and he could leave this world. He made a conscious effort and his hand dropped from the pin of remembrance.

Tocohl Susumo smiled at him again. She raised her cup, made Veschke’s sign with her left hand, and said. “To Veschke!”

“To Veschke!” he repeated, without intending to, and drank with her.

By the time Tocohl rejoined Alfvaen, the crowd had doubled in size; Buntec beamed at this result of her handiwork. Amid a cheerful pandemonium of greetings in a dozen different tongues, Tocohl spoke quietly to Alfvaen in Siveyn, “We have a local day’s grace. Speak to your friends—perhaps they’ll put some pressure on Captain Kejesli for us.” Alfvaen set to the task, drawing aside first one member of the survey team and then another.

Om im poured Tocohl another cup of the scarlet and gold drink, then, as if he were the aide of a prince, he presented the surveyors to her one by one.

(Maggy, keep a file of faces and names.)

(I always do,) Maggy responded as Tocohl greeted each surveyor in his or her native tongue with due respect to ritual. To Dyxte ti-Amax, she bowed; to Vielvoye ha-Somol, she respectfully tipped a nonexistent hat; both were Tobians but ha and spoke different languages. Hitoshi Dan, she greeted ti with a soft version of a whistle that had originally developed to be heard for several miles. And to

Timosie Megeve, the Maldeneantine, she raised her left hand, crossing it with her right. Before he could reply, Alfvaen suddenly reappeared at Tocohl’s side.

Pointing to the doorway, Alfvaen said anxiously, “There’s swift-Kalat.”

Tocohl laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder. In Siveyn, to avoid offending Buntec, Tocohl said, “Toes. Don’t move: let him come to you. And stop worrying—he’ll appreciate your attempt even if your execution isn’t perfect.” Unobtrusively, she took the added measure of placing a set of her own toes where Alfvaen would stamp them if she backed away from swift-Kalat. It was an old Hellspark technique for helping a child remember her proxemics.

“Swift-Kalat,” Om im announced, smiling up at Alfvaen, “I can hear him chiming this way.” His smile faded before her obvious anxiety. After a second’s consideration of the problem, he reached for

Alfvaen’s elbow, with the clear intent of escorting her, as shy as she might be, to swift-Kalat’s side.

Tocohl, blocking his hand with her own, said softly, “No.” He gave her a curious look but drew back his hand and patiently folded his arms to wait with them.

Of the two approaching men, Tocohl thought, the smaller would be swift-Kalat: his skin was a rich glowing red, almost the color of Dusty Sunday glass; bracelets gleamed the entire length of his forearm, jangling cheerfully. Tocohl had never seen a Jenji with quite so many. (Up to his elbows in silver,) she said.

(What?)

(Jenji expression for very, very smart,) she explained. (Now I see why.) The other man, dressed in a tunic flamboyant enough to coin a Jannisetti phrase, was unmistakably

Zoveelian.

The crowd parted just enough to let the newcomers through. Quietly, in GalLing’, swift-Kalat
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said, “Alfvaen, I’m so glad you’ve come. I’m so glad you’re safe.” Then he strengthened his words with Jenjin emphasis, snapping his forearm down so sharply that his bracelets clashed and rang as he moved closer.

Alfvaen had learned her lessons well: as he passed the point Alfvaen’s culture considered the proper distance for general talk and closed in to the comfortable position for his own, Alfvaen tensed slightly but did not step back. Right down to her toes, she greeted him in perfect Jenji. “I am so glad to see you

,”

she said, snapping her bare arm down for emphasis of her own.

There was no chime of bracelets, but swift-Kalat more than amply compensated for the lack. His sharp intake of breath told both Alfvaen and Tocohl that Alfvaen’s attempt was a complete success.

Swift-Kalat’s eyes and smile widened in delight.

Alfvaen smiled back shyly and, with this encouragement, went on to make proper introductions.

She assumed, Tocohl saw, that Ruurd van Zoveel spoke Jenji as well as she. The polyglot spoke excellent

Jenji, but that was all; he was clearly ignorant of both proxemics and kinesics. Tocohl automatically switched to Zoveelian to reply to his greeting and then returned to GalLing’ out of courtesy to Om im.

“We have a day,” she said.

Swift-Kalat looked at Alfvaen in distress, and van Zoveel exclaimed, “A day! What can you do in a day?”

Tocohl smiled. “Change Captain Kejesli’s mind,” she said.

“It can be done, Ish shan.” Om im craned toward the door and said in his own tongue, “If Buntec was willing to call Edge-of-Dark, her feelings run high on the subject.”

Tocohl followed his look to the latest arrival and raised an eyebrow in surprise. No worlds’

motley for this woman! Her 2nd skin was an unavoidable exception and that was transparent to minimize its intrusion. Everything else about her was pure Vyrnwyn high-born, from the feathered crown interwoven in her black hair to the tips of her fingers and toes, polished dark green to match her victoria ribbon.

That made sense of Buntec’s threat to tip darts and hunt Vyrnwy. Buntec might have been able to deal with bare feet—but the outright perversion of polished toenails would have tried the most cosmopolitan Jannisetti.

Tocohl said, “Now that’s what I call getting off on the wrong foot.”

The joke stood in Bluesippan and Om im laughed appreciatively. Then he said, “We were chamfered by a moron. He gave us each a stack of hard-copy and told us to read it. With some people, that’s not sufficient.”

He glanced again toward the door, “We’ve tried to talk to Edge-of-Dark, but…” He threw up his hands and, still in his own tongue, added, “I tell you, Ish shan, with the exception of the old-timers, this team gets on together about as well as flot and eggri.”