Hellspark (48 page)

For a long moment, Vikry turned his enormous gold eyes on layli-layli calulan

, his feathers a jumble of activity.

Tocohl would have reached to smooth the feathers but she did not know if Vikry was familiar with the pidgin and she had no sprookje for reassurance. LightningStruck did it for her, adding the pidgin gesture as well, with a glance at Tocohl to see if she understood. Tocohl turned her thumbs up and simultaneously had Maggy ripple a yes.

Hesitantly, Vikry moved toward layli-layli calulan

. “Oloitokitok good,” Tocohl interpreted, “Oloitokitok very good.”

“Yes,” said layli-layli calulan

, turning her thumbs up in agreement with the sprookje.

“Oloitokitok gave Vikry this,” Tocohl went on, still translating, as Vikry held out the short length of cable to layli-layli

.

(It’s a piece of superconducting cable,) Maggy put in privately. (Expensive gift!) (Thanks,) said Tocohl, and she continued aloud, “He wants to know if you want it back, layli-layli

.”

“Tell him if Oloitokitok wanted him to have it, then I want him to have it,” said layli-layli calulan

, motioning in pidgin that the length of cable was his. Tocohl did the best she could in sprookje, but she was glad to see Vikry had already gotten the idea.

Vikry went on, in both pidgin and sprookje simultaneously. “Oloitokitok good,” Tocohl translated again, “Vikry thanks you. Vikry gave—I wish we had some idea of tenses—yes, gave

Oloitokitok something—something like cable? I didn’t get that. Did you, Bayd?”

“No, I didn’t.” With Maggy’s assistance, Bayd rippled green and gold stripes asking Vikry to repeat himself.

Superconducting cable, Tocohl thought as she watched. They gave me moss for moss—

“I still don’t understand,” Bayd said, signing it as well.

“LightningStruck,” said Tocohl, in GalLing’ and sprookje simultaneously, “you and I spent two storms in good/safe plants. Tall plants. What do you call them?”

LightningStruck made the same riffling of feathers that Vikry had made. “You’ve got it!” Bayd said.

With Maggy repeating the riffle, Tocohl asked Vikry, “Oloitokitok gave you the cable, and you gave

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Oloitokitok lightning rod?”

Thumbs up and another riffling, this time across the chest. “Lightning rod and cable—the same!”

Tocohl translated triumphantly.

Thumbs went up all around, everyone happy to have gotten that straight, but Tocohl felt a chill run up her spine. (Odds on Megeve jumped again,) Maggy reported.

(I know. Now we ask a few nasty questions.)

She addressed herself to Vikry again, translating as she went. “Oloitokitok good. Oloitokitok give you cable, you give Oloitokitok lightning rod.” Thumbs up on each. Inexorably, Tocohl went on, “Megeve see you give Oloitokitok lightning rod?”

Vikry again turned thumbs up. Om im growled in Bluesippan, touching the hilt of his knife.

Layli-layli calulan

’s face turned grim. A handful of the other surveyors, catching on to the implications of Vikry’s report, stirred restlessly.

“Go on,” Tocohl said to the sprookje, “then what happened?”

She’d gotten the idea of continuation across, for Vikry picked up the story from there. “All excited,”

Tocohl translated, “Megeve and Oloitokitok make… beak flaps with… no, I don’t…”

Seeing her confusion, LightningStruck stepped in and demonstrated, by parroting Tocohl’s last few words. Then she repeated the feather rufflings that were, unmistakably, the sprookje for

“verbal speech.”

“Beak flaps with safe thunder,” Bayd said. “Ah! Distant enough thunder that you needn’t worry about lightning and needn’t shut down your ears!”

(What is it?) Maggy asked. (You just spiked on every sensor. Are you all right?) (Help me out, Maggy. I’m going to make another guess.) Tocohl touched Vikry gently on the wrist to make sure of her attention. Speaking aloud as she went along, Tocohl began, “Vikry.

Oloitokitok gave you cable. You gave Oloitokitok lightning rod. Megeve saw. Megeve and Oloitokitok very excited. You show me Megeve and Oloitokitok.”

LightningStruck riffled her feathers to sign that she did not understand.

“You give Oloitokitok lightning rod.” Tocohl shifted to a stance that mimicked Vikry’s and made her an imaginary gift. “What do Oloitokitok and Megeve do? How do they move?

Vikry show me

Oloitokitok. LightningStruck show me Megeve.”

The two younger sprookjes riffled at FineGarden. Tocohl couldn’t tell if they were asking

FineGarden’s permission or if they were asking her to explain Tocohl’s request. Whichever it was, Vikry at least turned back and turned her thumbs up.

“Good,” signed Tocohl. “You show us Megeve and Oloitokitok.” (Tape this, Maggy.) (You think I’m as dumb as Garbo?) Maggy had already moved the arachne to a position that afforded her an unobstructed view of the two sprookjes.

(Sorry, Maggy,) Tocohl said. (If this works, we can’t afford to miss the chance to record the result.)

The two sprookjes made a fine show of smoothing their feathers and readying themselves, then once more Vikry turned her thumbs up.

(It might not work,) Maggy began—but the two sprookjes had already changed manner. Vikry took on the proxemics and kinesics of an Yn male with an accuracy that would have astonished even a native dancer of the language. From

Layli-layli calulan

’s whitening face, Tocohl knew that the sprookje had caught much of Oloitokitok’s individual
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manner as well.

LightningStruck—too slender, too small—was nonetheless the image of Megeve in every movement.

The sprookjes clacked their beaks, apparently in imitation of the two humans speaking to each other.

No sound came out—Tocohl had expected none—but she could read the sequence of events in their movements.

Oloitokitok waved something triumphantly in his hand. He started for… yes, he must have started for base camp, urging Megeve to follow quickly.

Megeve—angry and fearful—caught him by the tips of his feathers.

His excitement barely controlled, Oloitokitok turned to face Megeve. Megeve made beak flaps.

Oloitokitok watched him, his great gold eyes widening.

Megeve made more beak flaps. Oloitokitok quieted, deflated, then sagged—into a posture that shrieked humiliation. As Megeve made yet more beak flaps, Oloitokitok resigned himself to failure.

To Tocohl, they might just as well have spoken the words: Megeve had convinced Oloitokitok that their evidence would not be accepted.

She was not the only one who understood. Beside her, Om im spat out a curse in Bluesippan and grasped the hilt of his knife. Tocohl gripped his shoulder and he quieted, but the hand on his hilt did not loosen.

In silent anger, they watched the remainder of the sprookjes’ dumb show, fighting to comprehend the sense beneath the movement.

At last, Megeve made beak flaps at Oloitokitok that buoyed his spirits. Together the two of them set off for base camp: Megeve still angry but no longer so fearful, Oloitokitok in anticipation.

“That was how he seemed,” said layli-layli calulan

, “the day before he d-disappeared.” Her scars of office stood out against the pallor of her cheek. “Ask them what happened next.”

“What then?” Tocohl signed, but both sprookjes had already returned to their own individual stances.

In sprookje, Vikry explained that they had seen nothing more that day. A storm had forced them to take shelter for the evening. The next day, when the weather was safe, they returned to the camp.

LightningStruck followed Megeve out to the hangar but Megeve had—here LightningStruck ran out of understandable signs and showed them—Megeve had raised something heavy to threaten her with it.

“Megeve not safe,” she signed again, showing the red warning of a thrust-out tongue for emphasis.

Vikry agreed. When he had followed Oloitokitok out to the hangar shortly thereafter, Megeve had frightened him away too.

The sprookjes could show little more. From a distance, they had seen Megeve give something to Oloitokitok. Then two daisy-clippers had left together. That was all.

“No more beak flaps from Oloitokitok,” Vikry finished.

“No,” said Tocohl, her hand still clenched on Om im’s shoulder. “That was the last anyone heard from him.”

There was a long grim silence that was broken at last by Nevelen Darragh. “You have your witnesses, layli-layli calulan

.”

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Layli-layli calulan

, with the calm of an empty suit of iron armor, said only, “Yes.”

“Tocohl, may I borrow your blade?”

It took Tocohl a moment to realize that Darragh was referring to Om im. “Of course,” she said, relinquishing her grip on the Bluesippan’s shoulder. Her hand ached. “Your pardon, Om im,” she muttered hastily. She got a brief glancing smile in return as he stepped forward to bow to Darragh.

Darragh smiled at him. “You know the drill, Om im. Call court in the common room in”—she consulted her own computer briefly—“one hour. Any cases dealing with the world known as Flashfever may be presented at that time.”

“And presiding?” Om im asked.

“Byworld Judge Tocohl Susumo.”

Tocohl opened her mouth but nothing came out. Across the way, layli-layli calulan met her eyes, and gave a crisp, satisfied jerk of her head.

“S- sumo?” Tocohl said, her voice harsh with the effort.

su

“

Su sumo, it is. I heard it, too, Ish shan—and you’ll remember that I can hear the difference.” Om im made her a sweeping bow, looking up from the very bottom of it to raise a gilded brow at her impishly.

When he straightened, he called out in ringing tones: “Court called. Court called. One hour from now in the common room. All cases dealing with the world known as Flashfever may at that time be presented.

Byworld Judge Tocohl Susumo presiding.” With a final flip of the eyebrow, he strode away jauntily to deliver his message to the rest of the camp.

Stunned, Tocohl could say nothing to the queries of those around her. She noted only in an absent fashion that Alfvaen, fierce but proud, turned them all away. Standing frozen in an eddy of movement, Tocohl said to Maggy, (But I’m not

—I never wanted to be a byworld judge.)

(I don’t understand,) said Maggy, (you were willing to let them think you were.) And at last Tocohl understood. It was at that moment that Nevelen Darragh stepped to face her and

Tocohl said, “Yes, I do understand. You mean to make me pay the debt.”

“You cannot be a byworld judge in name only. One way or the other, you must take the responsibility as well.”

Tocohl’s glance followed Darragh’s to rest on the arachne, Maggy’s only visible presence.

“The choice is yours,” Darragh said.

There was no choice. If four byworld judges found her an acceptable colleague, then only her own lack of willingness stood in the way. And to turn down that responsibility was to deny her responsibility to Maggy, which she could not do.

“I pay my debts,” said Tocohl.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Darragh said with a smile, “though I expected no less.” She laid a comforting hand on Tocohl’s arm. “We do give advice to our younger judges, you know. If you need any assistance in this matter, any of us will be glad to help.”

“Thank you,” said Tocohl, as relieved as Darragh had intended her to be. “You can give me a hand with the sprookjes, then. It’s not going to be easy, explaining to them what we’re doing.”

“Tocohl?” It was Alfvaen. Still puzzled by it all, she frowned slightly and said, “I don’t understand.

Are you a judge or aren’t you?”

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“I am now.”

“Oh!” Maggy spoke up at last through the arachne at her feet. “I understand! You invented Byworld

Judge Tocohl Susumo!”

“It would seem so.” Tocohl smiled at Darragh, then knelt to face the arachne. “Do you understand what that means?”

“I’m not sure…”

“It means you and I stay together,” Tocohl said, and from the arachne Maggy let out an ear-splitting whoop of joy.

HE COMMON ROOM was once more filled to capacity when Tocohl arrived at the appointed hour. This time the tables had been pushed aside in favor of loose ranks of chairs, all facing a single table at the end, behind which was one last chair. Beside that stood Om im—dressed, she realized, in the finest of his finery. Bracketing him, but at a discreet distance, were four other empty chairs.

As she followed Maggy’s arachne in, Om im touched the hilt of his knife to her and said, loudly enough to make himself heard over the general tumult, “Court called on Flashfever.

Byworld Judge

Tocohl Susumo presiding.”

Tocohl felt her face grow hot as the surveyors turned en masse to stare at her. Behind her Harl

Jad-Ing said softly in Hellspark, “Courage, Tocohl. The hardest walk is the length of the room.”

“Besides,” Mirrrit added, “you brought it off the last time. It ought to be easier now that it’s official.”

The crowd, murmuring noisily, parted in waves to let them through—Maggy’s arachne, Tocohl, and the four judges behind her, legitimizing her by their presence. “See here, Tocohl,” Kejesli began as she reached a point almost to the fore, “I demand to know what this is all about. As captain of the survey, I

have a right to—”

Yannick Windhoek, as sour-faced as ever, said, “Tocohl Susumo, fourteen years an apprentice, has risen to judgment on Flashfever. May she fly with Veschke’s sparks.” He touched the pin of Veschke at his breast and, mouth agape, Kejesli touched his own in response and fell back silent.

Without thinking, Tocohl too touched the pin of high-change in the folds of her hood, only then realizing its significance. (That’ll teach me to take risks with religions,) she said to Maggy.

(We took the risk,) Maggy reminded her, using the Hellspark tight-we for emphasis.