Hellspark (13 page)

Instead, she said, “I would introduce you properly, but maggy-maggy has no facilities for speech except through me. If you wish to greet her, please do. She will acknowledge the introduction through the vocoder in her arachne later.”

Layli-layli calulan made Yn formal greeting to Maggy.

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When she was finished, Tocohl crossed her ankles and sat before the Yn shaman. She held out the

“injured” hand. Her ruse was still worth the try, but it was not worth upsetting swift-Kalat if she was found out. “I was bitten by a sprookje last night. This morning… well, it’s infected, I think, and swift-Kalat tells me that’s never happened before.”

The shaman lit a jievnal stick and its piney odor filled the small room. She thrust the slender rod into her hair, took Tocohl’s hand gently in her own. For a moment, her dark eyes looked puzzled, then she said, “You did this to yourself? To my knowledge, there is no one in the survey team who could have done this for you.”

“Could have done what?” said Tocohl with puzzled innocence.

Layli-layli calulan’s dark eyes lit suddenly with amusement, and Tocohl dropped her gaze before that knowing scrutiny. “All right,” she said, “I was trained in the Methven rituals.”

“You are an adept,” said layli-layli calulan

.

“Not adept enough.”

Layli-layli released Tocohl’s hand and twisted the bluestone ring from her left finger. The rings, by

Yn tradition, prevented the accidental release of power. In reality, Tocohl suspected that the rings only worked because the Yns believed they worked—many espabilities needed a channel or focus or, in this case, a control.

The shaman held out her right hand and Tocohl laid her swollen wrist across the waiting palm.

The tip of layli-layli’s bare finger touched her injury with feathery delicacy.

Just for a moment, for the pure devilment, Tocohl concentrated on maintaining the dilation of the capillaries. Dark eyes met the Hellspark gold, and a trace of smile touched the corners of layli-layli calulan’s broad mouth. Then the heat in Tocohl’s wrist cooled, the swelling began to subside.

Activated by layli-layli’s espability, Tocohl’s cells found their normal pattern and set about to regain it. Against the shaman’s gift, Tocohl had no chance of maintaining the artificial illness.

The red faded to its original shade. Soon only the pinprick remained, and that too was healing rapidly.

Layli-layli calulan replaced her ring and said, “You too believe swift-Kalat. So did Oloitokitok.”

She took up the koli thread from her lap, and as she spoke, her fingers added knot after intricate knot to its tangled glitter.

“Long before you dreamed your first dream,”

layli-layli calulan began, in the manner of a mother telling a tale to a child, “there was a man named Oloitokitok who was not like other men. He thought and dreamed like a woman. He dreamed a dream so strong that it took him to a world no woman’s eye had ever seen…”

Listening to the Tale of Oloitokitok, Tocohl heard much that someone unfamiliar with Yn culture would have missed. The Yn were so gynocentric that only in the last hundred years had their men been taught to read. For Oloitokitok to have achieved as much as he had, he must have been very special indeed.

He had agreed with swift-Kalat’s assessment of the evidence, and he had chosen to gather evidence of the sprookjes’ sentience on his own. Although layli-layli calulan confirmed swift-Kalat’s observations about Oloitokitok’s manner on the day of his disapperence, Oloitokitok had told no one, not even what he planned to do or where he planned to go.

Tocohl wasn’t surprised. To the members of the survey team, Oloitokitok may not have been a token male but, in his own mind, he may have thought himself so. Given partial evidence in favor of the sprookjes’ sentience and a belief that no one would credit his opinion, he had quite likely chosen to gather such overwhelming evidence as to present a fait accompli that
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would force belief.

Now what evidence he might have had was lost with him.

As if echoing Tocohl’s thoughts, layli-layli calulan said, her voice harsh, hurt, “The dream was lost with Oloitokitok.” With that, she grasped the free ends of the koli thread and gave a slow, steady pull.

One by one, the glittering knots unraveled, until she held only straight bare line shining coldly between her outstretched hands. The tale was ended.

Tocohl gave a sharp upward jerk of her chin. “No,” she said, “I keep the dream.” She gestured at the string. “It’s true a single koli thread leaves no knots, but, alive, Oloitokitok would have knotted his thread with the beings of this world. Despite his death, it is still possible if you wish it.”

Layli-layli looked hesitant. Tocohl wondered how important Oloitokitok had been to her.

Looking down, she once again saw the chalice, the knives, the jievnal sticks. This time she registered them properly.

Layli-layli calulan was preparing to go into deep mourning—something only done for women, never for men.

When she looked up again, layli-layli placed her palms together, ring on ring, and said with quiet defiance, “He was my mate.” She used the my for relationship.

Tocohl held out both her hands, the strongest symbol of understanding and agreement available to her in the Yn mode, and clasped layli-layli calulan’s wrists in her own supporting grip.

Swift-Kalat was only partially relieved that Tocohl Susumo had sent him away. He needed the time to put his thoughts in order. The last time he had heard someone call another a liar in GalLing’, the ensuing fight had resulted in a death, so he was well aware of the potency of the word even in its unreliable Gal-Ling’ form. To hear it used as a greeting was more than he could handle. He found himself envying the Hellsparks their ability to deal with such rupturing of their social order. Having at last settled his thoughts on the matter, intellectually if not emotionally, he now wished he were back inside layli-layli calulan’s cabin, listening to the conversation between the two.

“Jaef! Jaef!”

Even though the sound was distorted by the shout from across the compound and a peal of far-off thunder, he knew it had to be Alfvaen. Of all the surveyors, she alone knew and had the right to use his soft-name. She raced toward him, heedless of the muddy water she splashed with every footfall.

Breathless, she drew up beside him—too far away, some small portion of his mind noted—and said in GalLing’, “Jaef, Kejes-sli’s-s readying an automated message capsule… He’s s-sending the report to

MGE now!”

It was deductively true: beyond her swift-Kalat could see the other surveyors coming from their cabins to gather before Kejesli’s quarters. The final report was a matter of ritual, requiring the presence of all those responsible. Except that Oloitokitok would not be present.

Still staring up at him anxiously, Alfvaen swayed suddenly. He shot out a hand to steady her, remembering as he did so that stress aggravated her condition. “Your medication, Alfvaen,” he said. She focused with effort on his face, then her eyes widened in an exaggerated manner and she reached for her pouch. He waited only long enough to assure himself she could stand on her own, then he released her arm to ring the chime beside the door to layli-layli calulan’s cabin.

He did not wait for an answer. Instead, he thrust his head inside, to find layli-layli calulan and Tocohl Susumo with their hands clasped.

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“Will you help?” Tocohl asked layli-layli calulan

. Wanting to hear the answer as much as she, swift-Kalat held his tongue.

Layli-layli calulan said, “By quarantining Lassti? That would give you time, not necessarily understanding.”

She said no more. Swift-Kalat felt he must make the urgency of the query clear. “Alfvaen tells me that Captain Kejesli is preparing an automated message capsule for MGE

now

,” he said.

Tocohl jerked her head back to stare at him. Releasing layli-layli calulan

’s hands with a few murmured words in another language, Tocohl rose smoothly to her feet.

Layli-layli calulan remained as she had been, her stare holding Tocohl in place.

She said, “Should I help creatures that were responsible for Oloitokitok’s death?” Spoken as it was in GalLing’, the question was directed at him as well, but he had no answer. The question itself was unreliable.

Again Tocohl dealt with the matter on a level he himself would not have been able to. She spoke one word only; the word was, “No.”

Catching him by the elbow, she ushered him out, stopped momentarily in her tracks to scan the compound, said, “Ah: Kejesli’s quarters?” When he confirmed that, she touched her fingers briefly to the ornate pin at her throat. “One more try,” she said, pausing to give Alfvaen a reassuring smile, then she squared her shoulders and strode across the compound, her cloak swirling like heavy mist in the light rain.

Swift-Kalat put his arm around Alfvaen’s shoulder, as much to comfort himself as to support her, and led her in the same direction. At the edge of the crowd, he heard Tocohl bark rapid-fire some dozen or so words, each with the sound of a different language to it. Heads turned in succession, and the crowd parted to let her through.

Without Tocohl’s skill at linguistic manipulation, swift-Kalat and Alfvaen found themselves stayed at the edge of the crowd. “I must get her to teach me that,” Alfvaen said, giggling despite her overall anxiety.

“Teach you what?”

“I only recognized the Sheveschkem ‘Cheap tattoos!’ but I’ll bet all the others were the same—whatever a waiter says to negotiate a crowd with a tray of hot dishes.”

He stared down at her, fondly at first, appreciating the joke as she had found it, then he raised his eyes to stare into the distance, deep in consideration.

Tocohl had found something in layli-layli calulan

’s last phrase that she could answer, and that fact still concerned him. Could the question be answered in Jenji? Could it even be asked in Jenji?

He tried framing it carefully in his mind:

Should I help creatures that were responsible for Oloitokitok’s death

? But death in GalLing’ was ambiguous; it could mean “natural death” or “accidental death” or even “murder.”

Murder

, he thought. He patted Alfvaen’s arm absently and released it, to pace away from the noise of the crowd to follow the thought. He himself had told Tocohl the causes given for Oloitokitok’s death were unlikely. “What then killed Oloitokitok?” she had asked.

That was a question that indeed could be framed in Jenji… One to which he would very much like an answer.

T

HE CEILING IN the captain’s quarters had been lowered to conform to Sheveschkem spatial standards—no doubt to the extreme discomfort of most members of the survey team, thought Tocohl.

Generations of sailing had left their mark on Kejesli even here, as a need to keep the ceiling within reach.

Nothing better sustained balance below deck in stormy seas than a flattened palm against a ceiling. Under the circumstances, Tocohl had to suppress her own impulse to reach for the ceiling. “Captain,” she repeated, “all I’m asking is a few months’ grace.”

Alone with Kejesli, she automatically followed his lead and “danced” Sheveschkem, despite the fact that he spoke GalLing’ and she replied in kind. She spoke in GalLing’ because Kejesli refused to speak

Sheveschkem with her. She wished it weren’t so; she might have been more convincing in Sheveschkem.

She continued, “If you send your final report now…”

Kejesli tightened his grip on his desk, as any Sheveschkem captain might grip the bolted furniture for support. “Hellspark, you can stay as long as you wish. Half the survey has made a point of requesting your continued presence.” He was clearly not pleased about that. “If you find evidence—beyond swift-Kalat’s sleight-of-tongue—that the sprookjes are sentient, you can always appeal to the Comity’s courts.”

Tocohl’s hand swept to one side, a derisive gesture on Sheveschke. “It would take years in court—and by then irreparable damage may have been done to the sprookjes, to their world.

Veschke’s sparks, man, will you be responsible for genocide?” She shot the word at him, and he flinched.

Just for a moment, Tocohl thought she had struck home; both knew how Veschke would take such an act.—Then Kejesli stiffened and said, “I don’t know they’re sentient.”

“That should be sufficient reason to allow us more time.”

Kejesli’s knuckles whitened. “I rely upon what my people decide; and, in this case, all their evidence points to nonsentience.”

“—

All

?”

“We hire people to do specific jobs in specific areas. They have done them.” His beaded hair swung to the side, past stiffly set jaw.

No Sheveschkem sea captain could have said that: In an emergency, the cook lowers the mainsail.

Tocohl frowned, and saw Kejesli suddenly for what he was. He was a man trying not to be

Sheveschkem, without conscious knowledge of what being Sheveschkem actually entailed. He spoke

GalLing’ but danced Sheveschkem; he wore worlds’ motley, but lowered his ceiling. Not comfortable with the cultures surrounding him, he was no longer comfortable with his own, so he substituted the rule book for culture. If I can give him a way out by the rule book…

Under her scrutiny, Kejesli once more gripped the desk. “I would like to oblige you,” he said,

“one should always be obliging to Hellsparks… But in this case I cannot. The thunderstorms have already left us behind schedule. Now MGE has pressed me for a quick decision.”

He loosed his grip on the desk and rose. He did not reach for the ceiling; the storm was over as far as he was concerned. He had reached his decision. Tocoh knew she had lost the battle.

As he showed her to the door, it occurred to her that he had, at least, agreed to let her remain or Flashfever. Here, it might still be possible to follow Oloitokitok’s lead, and present a fait accompli.