Hellspark (46 page)

Later, my ass.”

This last was delivered in Buntec’s phrasing but it was Maggy’s voice. And the stalking tirade had brought the arachne to the foot of the bed at the same moment as layli-layli and Om im reached it.

Only Tocohl saw that the expression on layli-layli calulan’s face was not the result of Maggy’s speech. Maggy bobbed the arachne hastily. “Your pardon, layli-layli

,” she said. “Om im, you were supposed to remind her about the rings.”

Layli-layli calulan

, who had been twisting her right ring angrily, dropped her hands to her sides and forced a smile. “I was only twisting, Maggy. I had no intention of taking it off. Certainly not as a result of anything you said.” She scowled, and it was as startling as her smile could be. “I agree with your sentiments. But bear in mind that Tocohl was told ‘Later’ by the judges—and so was I.”

Tocohl raised a brow in surprise. “So,” she said, “we all get to stew in our own juices.” The realization brought all the tension back to her frame and Maggy, reacting no doubt to the sensors, brought the arachne back to her arm as if to comfort her by its physical presence. Well, yes, Tocohl thought, glancing aside at it; I just taught her that and it does work.

She bent her arm protectively about the arachne.

(Tocohl,) said Maggy privately, (I have to say something now, not later.) Tocohl gave her full attention. (I don’t like this,) Maggy went on. (This feels the way it felt when I couldn’t contact you.)

(I know, Maggy. I’m scared too—but at least we can talk to each other this time. That makes it easier to live with.)

There was a pause of consideration. (Yes,) said Maggy at last. (At least until the judges decide about you. And I’m very scared about that.)

For all that happened in the days that followed, they seemed to Tocohl to pass with painful slowness.

Maggy’s behavior had taken an uncharacteristic turn—not surprising, Tocohl supposed, in light of the attitudes the survey team brought to bear on the panel of judges—but Tocohl took it as evidence that

Maggy was as frightened as she professed to be.

When Nevelen Darragh requested Tocohl’s tapes, Maggy stalked the arachne away. Her voice sulky, imitative of the tone Kejesli had taken to using with the judges, she said,

“Get stuffed. You wouldn’t let me see your files.”

Shocked, Tocohl dropped to one knee beside the arachne. “Your pardon,” she said to Darragh hastily. “Maggy,” she began, not quite knowing what to say beyond that.

Darragh’s eyes crinkled. Smiling reassurance, she too dropped to her knee to face the camera eye directly. “Then I propose a trade, Maggy.”

“Forget it,” said Maggy, “I don’t do business with—”

“Maggy.” Tocohl had no idea how that sentence would have ended and didn’t want to know. “In the first place, showing Nevelen what happened in context certainly won’t hurt. In the second place”—she touched the arachne lightly—“I trust you’ll make a canny trade and get something
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useful to both of us from it.”

“Like what?” This time Maggy sounded interested.

Tocohl spread her hands. “I leave that to you. It will be good practice.”

“You want me to? You’re sure?”

“Context always matters, Maggy. In Darragh’s position I’d want it very badly.”

“Okay, if you say so. But if she wants it badly, I’m gonna deal high.”

“Good for you.” And Tocohl found herself exchanging a smile with Nevelen Darragh as Maggy stepped the arachne forward to indicate her willingness to accompany the judge.

Tocohl did not kibbitz Maggy’s negotiations; she would have to learn sometime. To her surprise, Maggy did not volunteer any information about them beyond the observation,

“Nevelen Darragh is a mean trader.”

“Then I hope you learned a few things from the experience.”

“Yes,” said Maggy. But from then on she kept the arachne close by Tocohl’s side, dogging her heels even when there was no need for a separate presence.

A long series of thunderstorms kept meetings with the sprookjes brief and intermittent, but with

Tocohl and Bayd working in silent concert, knowledge of the language had progressed to primitive sentences in both Tocohl’s pidgin and the sprookjes’ own native language. Darragh, it turned out, was as good as Tocohl or Bayd, once she dealt with an established language.

Learning that reassured Tocohl:

Darragh would be more than competent to handle any need for judgment that might arise between the sprookjes and their newfound neighbors.

“Better a judge that speaks the language than one who relies on a translator, even if the translator is

Bayd,” Tocohl observed to Om im as they waited out yet another storm in his cabin.

The judges had taken up residence in the common room, and by unspoken agreement, the surveyors socialized elsewhere—generally in the infirmary, with layli-layli calulan

’s blessing. Rib healed, Tocohl had long since decided she’d get more sleep on the cot Om im offered, even though her feet hung off the end of it.

Alfvaen thrust her head in and said, without preamble, “Maggy, Bayd arranged it for us to spend the storm in the lightning rods with LightningStruck.” That, they had learned, was the name of the sprookje

Tocohl had dubbed Sunchild; it carried more a sense of “reckless” than “brave” and suited her admirably. “If you want to join us, come now.”

“No,” said Maggy, without hesitation, “but thank you.”

Alfvaen frowned briefly at Tocohl and then, after a quick glance over her shoulder at swift-Kalat’s eagerness, she shrugged after her own fashion and vanished.

Tocohl said, “I’m surprised at you, Maggy. You won’t miss a thing here if you send out the arachne…”

“I want to see you. I can’t see you through your spectacles.”

Om im leaned to one side to consider the arachne. “Stubborn,” he said, “I’ll bet I know where she gets it, Ish shan.” To Maggy, he added, “It seems to me you might be interested in the activities of the judges.”

“Buntec says they’re doing exactly what Tocohl did when we first arrived: reading the files, watching the tapes, asking questions. She’s waiting for them to con Edge-of-Dark, she says.”

Om im laughed. “Maybe they have and Edge-of-Dark hasn’t caught on yet. John the Smith still hasn’t touched his blade to how Tocohl trained him to stand on my safe side.” At Tocohl’s look of inquiry, he added, “I asked Bayd; she asked Maggy.”

“You didn’t tell John the Smith.”

“Of course not,” said Maggy primly, then giving credit where credit was due, she added, “Bayd and

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Om im didn’t think that would be a good idea.”

“I agree. Better he thinks it a matter of prestige than one of hazard. We wouldn’t want Om im to get

an undeserved reputation for violence.”

“By all means,” Om im said, “let’s keep it to a deserved reputation for violence.”

Maggy stepped the arachne closer. “Was that a joke?”

“A small joke, but what else would you expect from someone my size? And you both need a little cheering.” He brought his gaze level to meet Tocohl’s. “Stewing in your own juices is one thing, but with four judges stirring the pot and Buntec throwing in spice by the handful—”

“Buntec? Have I missed something?”

“Maggy may have missed something: she can’t tape visuals for you from a hand-held like this one.”

He gestured just enough to remind her that Maggy’s hand-held was still at his belt.

“Buntec told

Windhoek—the one who looks like he’s sucking a lemon?—Buntec told him that to charge you he’d have to charge the entire survey team for contributory negligence and creating a public hazard.”

“Oh, Veschke’s sparks,” said Tocohl and laughed in spite of herself. “She didn’t really?”

“She did. And Edge-of-Dark backed her up. I wish you could have seen Windhoek’s expression; it went well past the sucking a lemon stage.”

“You want to see?” Maggy said. “I didn’t miss it. I was watching with Geremy and Garbo. I didn’t know it was funny though.”

“By all means, let me see.” And when Maggy had played through the sequence for her, she laughed loud and long. Windhoek’s expression was all that Om im had promised. “Buntec chooses her targets well,” she said, when at last she had caught her breath.

“That was funnier the second time,” Maggy said. “Most things aren’t. Why is that one?”

Tocohl gave this the consideration it deserved. “Part of it was actually seeing Windhoek’s expression. Part of it was relief—Maggy, I was afraid you’d stopped socializing altogether. I was worried about you.”

“Oh,” said Maggy, “because I keep the arachne here?”

“It hasn’t left my side for five days.

Have you been talking with Geremy and Garbo all this time?”

“Since yesterday.”

“At least to members of the survey team and to Bayd and Geremy,” Om im confirmed. “As for the judges”—he grinned—“well, she used a spate of Sheveschkem on Windhoek that turned Captain Kejesli a remarkable shade of green. He’s been muttering the same words under his breath for a week. Maggy may not have been talking, but she’s certainly been listening.”

“It was her not talking that concerned me. Even insults are something of a relief.” She eyed the arachne sternly and added, in warning, “As long as you don’t make a habit of it.”

HE STORM RAGED through the night but it was not the storm that kept Tocohl awake. Bayd had accompanied the party and she put the time to good use, conferring with Tocohl through Maggy.

Tocohl had the easier time of it, for Maggy screened out most of the blinding light and the deafening thunder to convey only the sprookjes and Bayd’s commentary.

“I’ll take the next storm watch,” Tocohl said. “I wish I’d thought of that sooner; it would have saved us a lot of time.”

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There was a pause as Bayd waited out the thunder. “It’s hardly a matter of neglect. This is not something I’d volunteer for more than once. If there is a next storm watch, you’ve surely got it. Most of us are only here because we wanted to see if it lived up to Buntec’s lurid description.”

“And?” Tocohl prompted, amused.

“Buntec didn’t tell the half of it.”

Again there was a momentary silence from Tocohl’s vantage point; again Tocohl knew from the sharp reactions of those nearest Bayd—Nevelen Darragh and swift-Kalat—that Maggy had blotted out another thunderclap. The sprookjes sat content, excited only by Bayd’s questions and answers. They had already learned that thunder and lightning distracted her, although neither Bayd nor Tocohl could tell

if they understood why.

Given the ruffling of their feathers, Tocohl thought there was a good chance they were speculating on the subject among themselves. She could only make out a phrase here and there, and the one that recurred most often was “strange sprookje.”

When the sound faded back in, Alfvaen—Tocohl saw her at Bayd’s glance in her direction—said, “Bayd, I’m just curious, but do they have any trouble telling you from the other Hellsparks? When they talk about me, Om im says, he can always tell because they look like me for just a moment.”

“No, they can tell us apart better than we can them. They’ve had to give us names, though, which they continue to use. Random syllables don’t translate well into sprookje, and Tocohl and I decided it was safer for us to learn sprookje before we confuse the issue again by trying to teach them a purely verbal language like GalLing’.”

“What sort of names?” The voice was swift-Kalat’s, Bayd turned to give Tocohl a view of him through dimming rain and said, “Remember that they weren’t aware each of you was from a different culture. When they discussed you among themselves they referred to you with a proxemic and kinesic overlay that defined each of you unmistakably; in practice, you were

‘the Jenji,’ Kejesli is ‘the northern Sheveschke,’ Dyxte ‘the ti-Tobian,’ and so forth.”

“Oh, is that all,” said Alfvaen, sounding disappointed.

For Bayd’s ear, Tocohl said, “She was hoping for something more romantic.”

Bayd took the cue and said, “You got an actual name, Alfvaen. You, they call

‘One-Who-Was-Poisoned.’ It took us three days to puzzle that one out. We kept being distracted by the Siveyn overlay they used and didn’t realize they were being more specific than that.”

Alfvaen looked from Bayd to LightningStruck, suddenly embarrassed. “Oh, Bayd! Can you tell

LightningStruck that I didn’t mean to hurt Tocohl, so she won’t be afraid of me?”

“She’s not afraid of you,” Nevelen Darragh said, in such a way that Alfvaen was fully reassured by the sound of the statement alone, and once again Tocohl too was somehow reassured by the judge’s perspicacity.

“How about you?” Alfvaen asked. “If I understand this correctly, Tocohl simply would have been

‘the Hellspark.’ But so are you and Bayd and—”

Bayd laughed. “What they use to signify Hellspark is any behavior that compromises between two or more cultures.

Tocohl is now officially known as

Strange-Sprookje-Hellspark-With-A-Crest-Like-The-Sun-On-Penny-Jannisett, and I got dubbed all of that plus ‘Newly-Arrived.’”

Alfvaen turned widening eyes on Darragh who smiled and, making the Siveyn gesture of formal self-introduction, said, “Strange-Sprookje-With-A-Crest-Like-Frostwillow, at your
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service.”

Alfvaen began a smile—but it froze and faded. Crossing upturned arms at her wrists, she said only, “I

understand.” The gesture said in no uncertain terms that the two of them were barely on speaking terms but that Alfvaen would be civil.

Bayd turned swiftly, granting Tocohl a view of Darragh’s reaction: a swift upcurling of both hands that said, Give me time to prove myself.

“The best she could do, under the circumstances,” Tocohl commented, for Bayd and Maggy only. It was not sufficient to soothe Alfvaen; Tocohl could see that rigid control set in muscle by muscle. “Bayd,”