Authors: Penny Publications
Tags: #Anthologies, #Science Fiction, #Anthologies & Short Stories, #Literature & Fiction, #Science Fiction & Fantasy
My hackles rise. I know much of unfairness, as the only one of Lowland race on the Cold Council—and also of hidden intent. My own is to use this
spaceport
to bring Human silver to the Lowlands, thus raising my nape-bitten race. If Parker scents true, this
Officer
Hada could ruin my hunt before its final pace. "When will she take foot in La-larrai City?"
Parker lowers his head. "She comes down by
shuttle
at the sunset hour. Your presence at her arrival would grant us Cold honor—and we might make sure of her."
Wauuunn! My skin tenses at the thought of ice-winds at sunset. My Lowlander's fine fur gives scant protection, and too little heat remains in my blood, so I'll need more—but how can I refuse? "Yes, I'll go with you."
Parker shifts feet in discomfort, almost like one of us. "Still, I wish we didn't need her. Majesty Gur-gurne would admit me if my Rank were high enough. As Councilor, couldn't
you
raise me enough to try?"
"Parker, you know it's impossible." I toss my mane. "I'll meet you at sunset, but for now I must return to Council, before Majesty grows impatient."
Too late: Majesty has gone out to choose his dinner, taking Council with him and leaving the outer door open on the stone walkway above the animal pens, where I must follow. My fear of shiver-shame rivals the cold—I should have stoked my blood hotter before I left my house.
Outside, sun lowers toward its set, blooding the snow-heavy peaks of the Dominator's Teeth against the sky. Majesty paces beside his lengthening shadow, with heavy beads of silver-glass chiming in his dark mane: royal ice that only he of most exalted Cold may bear. Below the stone walkway, a dozen horn-blunted urrgai have been separated from the mobs in the pens, lined up with their rumps within his reach. He comments on their quality while his submissive heavy-furred Councilors bob their noses approvingly.
No hunting pack, these!
Blunted now is the fierceness that incited their tundra ancestors to annex our lands. They depend on the urrgai that our Lowland Clans first bred tame, and their ancient hunt-calls have changed in sense, to Cold words proclaiming dominator status. Only in Majesty's exalted presence must the Cold words be used by all as they were long ago: the language of the ice-hunters.
"Ru-rulii! Bow-bow," Majesty orders. "Come, tell me of your Human petitioner." All along his dense-furred muzzle, Cold words shape the satisfied smile of the superior race.
I could bite him.
"Bel-belly, Majesty." I bow to haunches on the stones, lower my head. "Par-parker tells me that the new Human negotiator,
Officer
Ha-hada, comes tonight. Hint-hint: grant me your favor for the meeting."
Majesty makes me wait. No more than I expect, after that first debacle. But he hasn't expelled me from Council, nor shamed me through the Clans. He still entertains me in my pursuit of the
spaceport
.
Wind ruffles my mane-hackles, carrying no scent of spring-wake so soon to come. Instead it carries the scent of Councilors, the rank stink of Majesty's favor—also the tempting smell of urrgai. Hunger rouses as my blood heat wanes; soon it will turn savage.
"Bite-bite," Majesty offers insult. "These Humans beneath their adornments are pup-naked; they bore me."
I stay low. "Bel-belly: they offer silver, cloth, the unimaginable. They
fly
."
Majesty tosses his royal-beaded head. "Bite-bite: so they are like grouse; how pitiful."
"Hint-hint," I beg. "Their
spaceport
can be built on Lowland south of the riverport in Ro-roghell: a safe distance from here, yet well protected from any Barbarian incursion. Their offered price is tenfold generosity. Bel-belly: name a day when I may bring them before you."
"Bite-bite," says Majesty, without force. "Their talker Par-parker is Warm, speaks Warm."
With one snap he insults Parker, and insults me. Majesty is too Cold for patience: should we offend him even once more, he will exile Humans among the Barbarians who threaten the borders of our tribute nations.
But if
Officer
Hada succeeds? This Human
spaceport
promises riches wherever it is built! Majesty Gur-gurne cares nothing for Lowland; he will give it away with tail turned, and on Human silver, Lowland will rise.
"Bel-belly," I humble myself lower. "Majesty, the talker Par-parker shall not warm your presence. The negotiator,
Officer
Ha-hada, begs Cold audience."
Again Majesty makes me wait. Ice-wind penetrates my fur; I begin to feel it. If I don't find privacy soon, I risk being cast down among the Shiverers—
But now Majesty raises his hand to my mane, behind my ear. Hooking with his thumbs, he spreads his finger pads apart, strokes in favor-scent above the bronze beads that mark my Councilor's Rank.
"Thank-thank," I say. "Cold honor, Majesty. Bel-belly, the audience—"
Majesty interrupts, a laugh-howl to the harsh chime of royal ice. "Ru-rulii, bow-bow: go, welcome your Human, but I grant no audience today."
I bow my head. Parker will expect me soon; I must hide myself in safety, put cold and hunger at bay before I go to face what
Officer
Hada may bring. Once out of sight, I run full fours from the wind, back to my house to fill my need for molri.
Molri dominates my thoughts by the time I reach my house. I take the fat-lamp down from the urrgai-horn above my lintel, and light it at the drowsy log fire in my confronting-room. I unbolt my inner door and rush through my den rooms, where the walls are covered with tight-stitched furs against the invading cold. These walls replaced the battle gear I shed when Majesty Gur-gurne called me from the Barbarian front to create me Councilor in La-larrai City—but when I go outside to better my Lowland race, I need different armor.
In the flaying room, I open the ice-locker. Ah, the sight of hanging sides of urrgai, buolun! Hunger howls, fiercened by molri's delays. I could eat an entire beast at once, but mustn't yet; I push through to the back where my molri is stacked on the ice-blocks, take up three short sticks and crush them between my hindteeth.
A rise of slow pleasure dilutes the pain of chewing bitter wood. I quiver and weep as the sweet thaw moves outward. Molri at winter's end lacks potency to heat my resistant blood, yet if I sought stronger—in the mature bark the tanners use to stew their leathers—then death would snap me quick. One more stick. A risk, with so little left and no idea when spring-wake will bring fresh shoots. This one sends heat to my toes; also to my head, bringing agitation, but shiver-shame is the more serious danger tonight. A mouthful of herb to confuse the smell, and then out I go to find Parker.
I race through streets where the snowless winds have frozen mud to ice. My mouth aches. As pleasure fades the pain will worsen, along with aggression, hunger, exhaustion—but I could never raise my people without molri. My Barbarian victories alone could not keep me in Council if I were seen to shiver! Shiverers are demeaned and expelled from all worthy places of company, reduced to covering themselves with prey-fur in subversion of natural order. I had enough of that in puphood—so I chew my sticks, and go to meet Parker. This Human
spaceport
will allow me to land the quarry that has eluded me in a lifetime of hunting alone.
The sky yet glows when I find Parker on the flat land beyond the Stinking District. Parker insists the Human
shuttle
lands safest here, but I don't like it; it drags of my indigent years in Ro-roghell. I wonder that Parker's short nose does not object, as mine does, to the vermin-infested roofs of untanned prey-hide. My heart rushes with hot, irritated blood, and my feet urge to move—perhaps I have chewed too much molri.
"Rulii!" Parker calls. "I'm grateful you join me here."
I stand to match his height, shifting my belt-purse to my stomach. "Parker, I could hardly be elsewhere on such an occasion! I hope you are wrong about
Officer
Hada—and that she speaks Cold as promised."
Parker gives his strange flat smile of blunt teeth. "Rulii, I've never told you this, but I'm thankful for your kindness in speaking Warm to me."
Is this kindness? No; it's a compromise of ignorance! I don't know how to place Humans into natural order, for though Parker and I have gained some interdependence, I still struggle to place his Rank. Should I not self-lower before the Human wealth, and respect their promises, which are all my hope? "I show respect to rich Human offers, Parker. You might stand Cold if you chose."
"Dominate
you?
I don't think so. If I had
that
measure of skill in Aurrel language, our first negotiation would not have failed."
I toss my mane. "Ar, do not pretend modesty, Parker. You were diverted from your work to become
translator
; you didn't expect to act as language teacher when Majesty would not admit you to audience! Never deny that you speak Aurrel." Indeed, he speaks too well; even the first day I met him I felt the measure of his years here. Whenever I look at his strangeness, I fear our Warm speech makes us sound a pair of gutter-hounds; yet when I listen blind, we seem littermates, such is this talker's skill. I do not know to love or cringe, that a foreign creature can nudge me so close.
Parker smiles again. "Rulii, no matter what happens tonight, you must know that my best prize in this negotiation has been meeting you—you are a good
friend
."
Friend?
Parker has explained this word to me: a close person, not skin-close as a littermate or consort, but closer than huntmate, because
friend
implies interdependence without Rank. Interdependence without Rank! I didn't believe it possible until I saw him send the failed Human negotiator away—dismiss a superior, yet himself remain unscarred, unshamed. Then I scented how small is my understanding of Humans, and of him. How can he call me
good friend?
"I don't know," I say. "I tried to beg audience for
Officer
Hada today, but could not."
"It's for the best. I am sure you will succeed another day."
His trust makes me nervous, restless. Somehow I think this Officer Hada will be easier: she shall dominate us both as Rank demands. I wait for natural order to descend from the pale-touched sky.
"Rulii," Parker asks suddenly. "Do you feel well?"
Wauuunn! I, well? Gums sore, blood impatient, stomach snarling? An instant I want to curl and weep; but looking at him, I show my teeth. "Why do you ask me this?"
"I'm sorry." Parker shows me his hands: short, stiff, single thumbs placed far to the side; long, long, soft brown fingers ending in covers like pale coins instead of claws.
Hand-showing, a Human submission move. But the rest of his body speaks anxiety.
"Rulii," he says. "You've given unexpected gifts to my own project here. My
scientist
huntmates have struggled to win contacts among your people, but you have helped us to learn Aurrel ways and nature as none other before."
I toss my mane. "You demand little, Parker; it is easy to satisfy you."
"So you've told me." He breathes deep, shifts feet. "Except, we found—well, we made more discoveries than we looked for, after you permitted our
imaging
, and gave us of your hair—" He looks away to one side. "—and your blood."
"Discoveries?" I ask. "But blood is blood, of one color whether of Councilor, Shiverer, Tributary or Barbarian."
"Ahm—then let us speak of it later." Still he shows anxious: watches me from eye-corners, and hides his hands in purses at his hips. He often hides his hands when they feel chill;
clothes
may serve Humans like fur, I think, to warm as well as to allow these flat-muzzled, unpatterned creatures to distinguish one another. This time, though, it is body-talk, and his stance troubles me. Should I fear, as he does?
I hear an ear-paining whine, and soon the
shuttle
comes down on our sleeping soil. Parker runs toward the thing, but to me its sound shrieks
run
—I wait till it quiets, walk to flank Parker as the door opens.
Hada, a tiny female, emerges from strange light. So different from Parker! Her mane is beautiful, long black streaked with gray—but her face? So flat it seems impossible.
"Welcome to you," says Parker, Warm and respectful. Perhaps because of his suspicions, he doesn't use ‘belly to you,' the submissor's greeting—yet his body submits as his words do not. He curves his spine, lowers his head. "
Officer
Jasmine Hada, word of your skills comes before you, and we are honored."
"Belly to you," I add, bowing also, but too tense to fall to haunches—how fortunate that Humans prefer to stand. "I am Rulii, of the Cold Council. Eagerly I have awaited your coming, honored Hada."
Hada speaks, Cold words in a high sweet rowill-song voice. "Thank-thank: you do well to meet me here, host Councilor Ru-rulii. Your sponsorship grants us Cold honor in our pursuit of richer trade through this territory of stars."
Perfect!
Wrong
.
Her speech turns my stomach as even the Barbarian dialects do not—I cannot think why! I try to respond, but she flickers one hand up to her head, gesturing an ear turned toward Parker. "Bow-bow," she says. "I favor you, Par-parker, for the language information you have given me. This opportunity gives me deep pleasure."
The word ‘pleasure' in my ear spikes need through my spine; my stomach pangs.
"Thank, Hada," Parker says. "I wonder—" He looks at me. "Rulii, what's wrong?"
What can I say? I lower my head, showing sorry. "Parker, the Cold words of honored Hada strike me strangely."