Steal Across the Sky (7 page)

“I’m nowhere, Soledad.” He sat on a blanket in the middle of empty space, white on the ground under a white cloudy sky, out of sight of the village and in sight of absolutely nothing else. Chewithoztarel had a way of sneaking up on him, but not here.

“Aren’t the Kulari suspicious that you go off three or four times a day to talk to me? What do they think you’re leaving the village for?”

“I don’t know. They’re never suspicious, never curious.”

“You know, I would change places with you in a minute.”

“I know you would, Soledad.” He was conscious of overusing her name, of making it an anchor in the blank frustration of his days. She
was
his anchor. He didn’t want to commlink Cam, off having dramatic adventures on Kular B, and Soledad didn’t tell him much about Cam. She had tact, Soledad. Why hadn’t he slept with her instead of Cam, so typically brash and American, on the voyage out?

Because Cam looked a little like Gianna, even though no two women could have been more different, and Lucca had clutched at her like a drowning man.
Stupido
.

Soledad listened carefully to the translator uploads he sent as often as possible; she knew everything that happened—or, rather, didn’t happen, in this static environment—on Kular. She said, “I really do think you can manage this, Lucca. You’re stronger than you think.”

“Thank you. I better get back now. My ass is freezing.”

She laughed and clicked off. Bored—she must be so bored up there in orbit. But, of course, so was he down here. Hytrowembireliaz had said that spring would bring a trading trip over the mountains and, Lucca fervently hoped, a more complex and interesting society to “witness.” But Soledad had given him his coordinates on the planet; his shuttle had crashed pretty far north. Spring was a long time away.

Limping, leaning on his crude wooden crutch, he made it back to the village. Everyone was in the community lodge, where they spent most of the day. Shivering, Lucca crawled into his bed pile in Hytrowembireliaz’s hut, willing to trade lunch for privacy. But he wasn’t alone long.

Chewithoztarel bounced into the hut, bringing with her snow and cold. She sat at the bottom of Lucca’s bed pile and leaned toward him, grinning. One of her front teeth had fallen out this morning, and her gap-toothed smile might have looked cute to anyone who liked children more than Lucca did. Or who wasn’t so frustrated.

“I saw you!” the little girl said gleefully. “I saw you coming back from way over the hill! And Ragjuptrilpent saw you, too!”

Not Ragjuptrilpent again. Of all the parallel customs that could have evolved in Kularian childhood, why was the winner “imaginary friends”? But . . . what matter if Chewithoztarel had seen Lucca return from the plain? No one else would ever question him about it and she wouldn’t follow him, or if she did, he could just send her back. Kularian children were obedient to adults. Lucca’s private and sanity-saving contacts with Soledad could go on, privately.

Chewithoztarel said, “What is a ‘soledad’?”

SLEEP-TALKING. AN EASY EXPLANATION
. In some unremembered dream he had called out Soledad’s name, and Chewithoztarel had overheard. The
child denied this, looking a little frightened at Lucca’s savage expression, and he forced himself to smile. “I said ‘Soledad’ when I was asleep, didn’t I?”

“No. You said it outside. Ragjuptrilpent heard you. She told me.”

Lucca willed patience. “All right, she heard me. What else did she hear?”

“Just funny noises. Not real words. But you said ‘soledad’ many times and she remembered. What is a—”

“It is nothing,” Lucca said, and turned away. He didn’t like her listening to his sleep-talk. So often his dreams were of Gianna, who did not belong on Kular A, who no longer belonged anywhere in the universe.

Chewithoztarel said,
“Nothing
is nothing,” disgust and bafflement in her child’s voice.

The next time he went out on the plain, he called Soledad
amica
, which he had never done before. If Soledad was startled by this, she didn’t say so. Maybe she thought he was cracking up. Lucca said the word carefully and slowly, ten separate times. He had decided on it as he trudged out of sight of the village, and he had never called Gianna that. Or anyone else. It was a stupid and unnecessary experiment, but then, what else did he have to do with his brain?

When he returned, he found Chewithoztarel in the community lodge. She had just come in from building snow spikes, or whatever they were supposed to be, outside with her friends, and her little face was flushed rosy. Lucca sat down next to her.

“Did you have fun outside?”

“Yes! Did you see our
seclis
?”

The translator didn’t recognize the word, but Lucca nodded. “Yes. Very nice. Did Ragjuptrilpent help you build it?”

Her dark eyes widened. “No! She was with you!”

“Of course. With me.”

“She likes you,” Chewithoztarel said with her gap-toothed grin. Her mother called to her and the little girl jumped up, but Lucca put a hand on her arm. He kept the personal shield turned off all the time now; these people were not dangerous.

“Chewithoztarel, did Ragjuptrilpent hear me say ‘Soledad’ again?”

“I don’t know. I have to go now, Lucca, Mama wants me.”

He released her arm and she bounced off. But then she threw over her shoulder, “Oh, she just told me. You didn’t say ‘soledad.’ You said ‘amica.’ Bye!”

She ran to her mother, and he sat there, shattered and, all at once, unexpectedly afraid.

TELEPATHY. IT WAS THE ONLY THING
his dazed mind could come up with. This must be what the Atoners had sent him here to witness. Had it evolved everywhere on the planet, or just here? Had it evolved at all? It must have, and he could see certain evolutionary advantages . . . better coordination of hunting parties and . . . and . . .

His thoughts shimmered like heat waves in the vineyards of home. He couldn’t seem to fasten onto any one idea, couldn’t seem to follow it logically through—Could these people read his mind? Was that why they were so reticent with each other: privacy taboos to compensate for no mental privacy?

No, there was still Chewithoztarel. If she could read his mind, she would have seen the image of Soledad and not had to ask what a “soledad” was. So she hadn’t seen into his mind. Perhaps the telepathy was language dependent, which would explain why all she had was a word, no images . . . or did she—What if the ability only came with puberty? Or maybe disappeared with puberty? Or if . . .

He couldn’t think. This was too large, too all-encompassing. It smothered his thinking, like snow smothering grass on the steppes. He needed to tell Soledad, tell Cam—Did the telepathy exist on Kular B, too? He needed to—

He needed to think. And he couldn’t seem to.

Nor could he get away to commlink anyone. It had begun to snow in earnest, thick white sheets that made even the closest huts invisible out the lodge window. Lucca would get hopelessly lost if he tried to go out on the plain. And if he went to Hytrowembireliaz’s hut, that monster child would surely follow. He would have to wait to spill this amazing news.

The dancing and foot stomping had resumed. Lucca sat in his corner, leaning on his wooden staff, watching the dancers. The women
leaped as exuberantly as the men, their short hair crackling around their faces, their red teeth flashing. What did they know, what could they do, that he could not—and what did it have to do with the Atoners’ self-alleged crimes?

IT MADE NO SENSE
. Aveo wanted to
walk
to the capital.

They lay on their beds in Escio’s tent, Aveo still asleep, in the very early morning. The naked little slave girl had crept in with water practically the second that Cam sat up and stretched on her pallet. The girl must have been lurking outside, which made Cam uncomfortable. Had she been there all night? The tent was warm enough, but most likely outside had turned cold, with no blankets and no clothes.

“Hello,” Cam had said, but of course it was in Pularit and the girl didn’t understand. She put down the two heavy pails of water, one by Cam’s pallet and one beside Aveo’s, and scurried away before Cam could rise.

Was Cam supposed to bathe in front of Aveo? Not going to happen. But she did turn off her shield to wash her face, neck, and hands, by which time the girl was back with two bowls. This time Cam caught her by the arm and held her fast.

“Cam,” she said, pointing to herself and smiling like an idiot. “You?”

The girl trembled. Up close, she looked even younger, maybe no more than twelve or thirteen. Cam caught the pungent odor of semen.

Son of a bitch
. Escio? Most likely. Every terrible story she’d ever heard of slave owners’ abusing their “property” raced into her mind, followed by a hatred so bilious she could taste it on her tongue.

Aveo awoke. “Let her go, Ostiu Cam. She’s frightened of you.”

“It’s not me she should be frightened of! That bastard raped her!”

Aveo looked puzzled, and Cam realized that they’d hardly given the translator any vocabulary for either “raped” or “bastard.” Or maybe Aveo just looked like that because he was part of the same rotten society that sold children into sexual slavery.

All at once she flashed on a sudden image of
herself and Lucca naked in his bunk aboard the Atoner ship and her saying, “You’re too innocent, Lucca.” Because despite his having been married, his sexual repertoire seemed a lot more limited than hers. But Lucca had laughed and said, “I’m innocent? Oh, cara, you have no idea how much you don’t know about the world outside Nebraska.”

Aveo said, “Let her go, please.”

“Not until I at least get a name for her! She’s not an object!”

Aveo said something to the girl, who replied shakily. Aveo said in Pularit, “Her name is Obu.”

“And tell me how to say thank you in her tongue.”

“Dzazni.”

“Dzazni, Obu,”
Cam said, and released her. Obu looked as if she’d been slapped. She ran out of the tent.

Aveo said, “We could debate slavery, Ostiu Cam, all morning, but it would be better if you ate your breakfast. We have a long walk ahead of us.”

“Walk?” she said blankly.

“To the capital. Did we not agree last night that you wish to go there, that Cul Escio conceives it as his duty to take you, and that I am to translate?”

“But not walk! We can go in my ship, of course.”

“Ah, you call it a ‘ship,’ not an ‘egg,’ ” Aveo said.

That was what the translator had decided to call it. For a brief moment Cam felt adrift; she didn’t understand the sounds she mouthed, and it was really the Atoners, through their translator, that were in control here. Then the unpleasant sensation passed. She possessed the translator, and the shuttle, and her personal shield, and no one on Kular could force her to do or go or be anything she didn’t choose.

Aveo, looking patient, said, “The ‘ship’ would, I think, frighten the king.”

“Frighten him? Why?”

Aveo said, “He does not possess such a miracle himself.”

Of course not. Cam had the impression that Aveo was saying much more than his actual words. She had that impression a lot, and she didn’t like it because it made her feel stupid. He was a difficult old man.

Aveo struggled to pull himself off the pallet. Cam saw the flailing movements of his thin body and pushed away pity. This was not some pathetic old geezer in a nursing home. Aveo was smart, wily, and patient. She had learned that much last night, as he taught her to play kulith.

He said, “We cannot go in your ship. It’s impossible.”

“Why?”

“Many reasons.” He reached for his bowl eagerly, like a man who hadn’t eaten well in a long time. “First, Cul Escio will not travel without a heavily armed guard; we are at war. Second, I doubt he would set foot in your ship because he could not control what might happen there. Third, if that egg from the sky landed in the capital, King Uldunu Four would immediately conclude that you are very dangerous and should be killed.”

“He can’t kill me.”

“He can kill me.”

It was said calmly, without drama, but Cam felt a shiver along her neck. Somehow she had become responsible for Aveo, and maybe for Obu as well. Nothing she had planned on. She said grudgingly, “How long a walk is it?”

If he felt triumphant, it didn’t show. “Five days.”

“Then there must be a lot of open country around the capital.”

“Yes. Ravaged, but open.”

“Then you and I will go in my ship to within one day’s walk of the city and wait for Escio and his troops to join us there.”

He stopped eating, a piece of some breadlike thing suspended in his hand halfway to his mouth, and stared at her. “You . . . and I?”

“Yes. That way you’ll be safe and we’ll get there faster. You can’t tell me that you can keep up with those soldiers, Aveo. You look like someone who just got out of the hospital.”

“The . . .”

“Like someone who’s been sick a long time.”

He didn’t answer. Into the pause Cam said, “And Obu. She comes with us, too.”

He ate the last of his bread, after sopping up the last of the juices in his bowl. “Ostiu Cam, you have missed the point of kulith last night.”

“
Kulith
? What does that have to do with anything?”

“It has everything to do with everything. I thought you understood. You played fairly well, for a beginner, so—”

“I played chess in high school.”

“—so I thought you understood. You cannot rush too fast at the opposing army, or you will lose.”

“Oh, rats, Aveo, that’s just a game.”

They stared at each other in mutual incomprehension. Then Cam got another idea. “Obu—does she belong to Escio personally? Or to the army?”

“I don’t see the relevance of this.”

“Just tell me! Who does she belong to?”

“To Escio, I imagine.”

“Then I can buy her from him, right?”

“
Buy
her?”

“Yes! I can make him an offer.” She had trade goods on the ship, valuable things that Atoners had supplied. Her mind became fired with the idea; she could set at least one slave free. Maybe even more.