Authors: Sheri S. Tepper
‘Tasmin Ferrence! As I live and sing, if it isn’t the wonder of Deepsoil Five! And your acolytes, too. Well, this is a surprise. I heard you were coming to Splash One, but I didn’t think we’d see you up here. Heard about that Mad Gap thing. Makes me feel like an absolute fool. Should have checked the old files on it someplace besides Splash One, but I never thought of it. Let’s see, you’d be Jamieson, wouldn’t you? Heard a lot about you.’ And the white-haired Master knuckled Jamieson sharply on the upper arm, grinning at him expansively. ‘And you’d be Clarin, the little gal with the astonishin’ bass voice, right? Heard about you, too. Word is that Tasmin Ferrence always gets the mean ones – bright but mean.’
Clarin submitted to the Grand Master’s fatherly caress with what Tasmin regarded as commendable patience. It was almost as though she knew him, or knew of him.
‘Tasmin, come meet some people! You know Gereny Vox, don’t you? Best mule breeder we’ve ever had and I’ve lived through six of ’em.’ The plain faced, gray-haired woman reached a hand across the table, nodding as Tasmin took it and murmured greetings. The Grand Master went on. ‘This here’s Jem Middleton. Jem’s the head of the Agri Division for BDL, heck of a nice guy, good welter player, too. You want to watch him if you ever get into a game, boy. And this other fella is Rheme Gentry. Rheme’s new on the Governor’s staff from off-world and still sufferin’ from Jubal shock. Good lookin’ fella, isn’t he? Lord, if I’d had teeth and hair like that, I’d of cut me a swath through the ladies. Not Rheme. Very serious fella, Rheme.’
The lean and darkly handsome man he referred to shook his head in dismay at this introduction, acknowledging Tasmin’s greetings with a rueful nod.
‘Now, want to sit in on the game? What about somethin’ to eat? What can I get you to drink?’
Tasmin could not keep himself from grinning. The Grand Master had that effect on people. ‘Thank you, no, Sir. I’m only here to deliver some papers to Jem Middleton from his manager out at Barrville.’
‘Damn that girl,’ Middleton growled, drawing great furry brows together in a solid line across his massive and furrowed forehead. ‘Always gettin’ her damn reports in on time. Now I’ll have to get to work.’
‘But since you’re here in Northwest, Sir,’ Tasmin said to the Grand Master, ‘perhaps you could arrange an introduction for me. To an Explorer knight named Don Furz.’
There was a silence in the room, only a brief one, not one of those appalling silences that sometimes occurred during social gatherings following some gaffe, but enough of a pause that Tasmin wondered whether he had put a foot wrong. His prearranged excuse could do no harm. ‘I wanted to express my admiration for the workmanlike way the Enigma notes were prepared. I had the honor of doing the master copy of the score….’
The silence broke. Thyle Vowe was all affability once more. ‘Ever met Don Furz?’
‘No, sir. I haven’t had that pleasure.’
‘Well, why don’t we find out where you can maybe find Don Furz. Gereny, would you mind?’
The roughly clad, gray-haired woman gave him a quizzical look and went to the wallcom. After a few muttered phrases, she returned, a puzzled, half angry expression on her face.
‘Don’s been sent on a short trip up to the Redfang Range and is expected to return tonight. Something about an alternate route?’ She exchanged a quick look with both Vowe and Middleton.
Thyle Vowe seemed very thoughtful at this, turning to rummage among the papers on the nearby table. Tell you what, Tasmin. The Redfang’s only a few hours from here. Why don’t you and your young friends ride up that way and meet Don? I’ll give you a map so you won’t go astray.’ He rummaged a moment more, than handed Tasmin a small chart, pointing at it with a plump, impeccably manicured finger. Take the road back of the citadel, ride straight east for about half a mile, then take this turning north. Stay on that road, and it’ll deliver you right at the foot of the Redfang canyon by the time it gets dark, if you don’t run into Don on the road. Better get a quick start.’ He was moving them toward the door.
Jem Middleton interrupted. ‘Just a minute, Ferrence. I wouldn’t want you to run into any trouble up that way you couldn’t handle. Rarest thing on Jubal, next to red meat, is crystal bears, but darned if I didn’t get word there’s been a crystal bear sighted up toward Redfang. You’d better take a stun rifle along, just in case.’ And he was on his feet, pulling a rifle out of a tall cupboard and thrusting it into Tasmin’s hands. ‘You can return it whenever you get back.’ Then they were in the corridor once more with the door shut firmly behind them.
‘What does he think he’s playing at?’ Jamieson demanded, outraged. ‘Crystal bears! Nobody’s seen a crystal bear for fifty years.’
‘Shhhh,’ Clarin demanded. ‘Something’s going on here, Reb. Keep your mouth shut and your eyes open. Do you trust the Grand Master, Master Ferrence?’
Tasmin gave her a grateful look of concurrence. Something was indeed going on here. ‘Trusting the Grand Master would be my inclination,’ Tasmin replied, a little tentatively. The four people in the room behind them might have been playing welter, but those open, paper-stuffed cases argued they had been doing something else. As did the fact that some of the face-down hands had had four cards while others had had six. As for the rifle, Tasmin had only fired a stun rifle during the annual proficiency shoots. Rifles were not even routinely supplied to caravans any longer, though they had been standard issue some twenty years ago. The story about crystal bears was nonsense. No one had seen a crystal bear for decades. There was some question as to whether anyone had ever seen a crystal bear or whether they were entirely mythical, and everyone in that room knew it. Unless – one were to substitute
Crystallite
for crystal bear. In which case they had been telling him something without telling him anything….
‘Yes,’ he said in a grim decision. ‘I trust him.’
‘Well, then let’s trust him. Let’s do what he suggested.’ Clarin looked at the rifle with dismay. ‘We don’t want to walk around carrying that.’
‘Put it under your robe, Clarin. Yours is stiffer than mine. You can wait at the gate while Jamieson and I bring the mules.’ Tasmin shook his head at himself as he hurried away across the compound, turning back to see Clarin lounging casually against one wall, the rifle tucked behind her.
The mules were eager to travel after their half day in the trailer. When they had ridden far enough from the city that the rifle would not occasion comment, Tasmin fastened it to the rings of his saddle, trying twice before he got it right. Lord, no one except the military used rifles anymore.
‘Crystal bears,’ mumbled Jamieson, still seething. ‘Who does he think you are, Master? Everts of the Dawn Patrol?’ This was a favorite holodrama of Jubal’s children. ‘When was the last time anyone saw a crystal bear?’
‘There’s some doubt anyone ever did, actually,’ said Tasmin drily. ‘Fairy tale stuff. Early explorers claimed to find a lot of things back in crystal country. Crystal bears were just one of the menagerie. Some of the earliest explorers said viggies could talk and mice could sing.’
‘Well, they can,’ Clarin objected, patting her pocket. A muffled chirp followed the pat. ‘At least sort of. Why would Jem Middleton have had a rifle right there in his office?’ Clarin asked.
‘Exactly,’ Tasmin replied. ‘Why?’
They rode through ascending lands, scattered fields of human crops giving way to Jubal country, the ramparts of the Redfang rising before them as the sun sank behind their left shoulders and the road grew narrower and dimmer. After the last of the farms they passed no one.
‘No Don Furz,’ said Jamieson, giving voice to the obvious.
‘Do you get the idea that maybe the Grand Master and the others were afraid of that?’ Clarin asked.
‘The road tops a ridge just ahead,’ Tasmin answered, his voice carefully unemotional. ‘We’ll probably get a look down into Redfang canyon from there.’
From the ridge top, the road dropped into a basin surrounded on three sides by mixed stony outcroppings and the ’lings and ’lets of the Redfang, then curved to the right around a flat-topped pillar of stone.
There was someone on the pillar!
A gray clad figure scurried back and forth, toppling stones down the precipitous sides. Even from this distance they could hear the grunts of effort, the shattering rattle of stone on stone.
At the foot of the pillar, half a dozen shadowy figures were attempting to scale the rocky walls. The intent of the attackers was clear, and there was desperation in the movement atop the rock. As they watched, one of the plummeting stones tore a climber loose and carried him onto the shattered stones at the foot of the almost vertical face. Other climbers redoubled their efforts to reach the embattled one.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Jamieson yodeled ‘brother, brother, brother,’ the recognition call gathering strength from the echoes that cascaded in its wake, shattering the silence of the canyon, demanding that any Explorers or Tripsingers within hearing identify themselves. An answering cry came from the pillar top, telling them which side they were on.
Tasmin slid off his mule, dragging the rifle from its scabbard and throwing himself down behind a convenient looking rock. His best rifle scores had always been from the prone position, and he settled into the earth with a wriggle, flicking on the power switch and putting his eyes to the goggle scope all in one motion, tracking the lighted dot across the face of the butte. When it slid across one of the climbing figures he squeezed once, twice, then began tracking once more. One pull would drop a man. Two would keep him dropped for a while. He tracked and pulled again.
Jamieson and Clarin were clattering down the trail toward the pillar at a reckless gallop, the unshod hooves of the mules creating a cataract of echoes, a continuous thunder. The ‘brother, brother, brother,’ yodel, leaping the octaves to stir a threatening vibration from the surrounding ’lings, added to the cumulative rumble of avalanching sound that gave the effect of a mounted troop. At the base of the pillar the attackers broke and ran.
Tasmin tracked a fleeing shape, pulled, tracked another, and pulled again before the remaining attackers were lost behind a forest of crystal pillars. Crystallites? They were very quiet for Crystallites. By the time Jamieson and Clarin reached the pillar, all the attackers had disappeared. Tasmin stood up, brushing gravel from his chest and belly, and restored the rifle to its scabbard, noting with angry but somehow detached astonishment that the intensity dial was set to ‘kill.’ He hadn’t set it there. He hadn’t touched it. Regulation setting was ‘stun.’ Always.
At the foot of the slope, three people moved among the fallen. Clarin, Jamieson, and the shadow figure from the top of the bluff who had come down to join the acolytes. Tasmin mounted and rode to join them. As Tasmin drew nearer, he saw it was a woman who was turning one of the fallen bodies face down with a gesture of anger or dismay. She came toward him, golden hair fluttering in the light breeze, dark blue eyes fixed angrily on his own.
‘I wish to hell you hadn’t felt you had to kill them all!’ she announced.
Then, with surprise, ‘You’re Tasmin Ferrence, aren’t you? Your acolyte said “Ferrence,” but I didn’t make the connection.’ And then, surprisingly, ‘I hope to hell you’ve got my music box.’
Tasmin was gaping at her when Jamieson said ‘Master,’ in the tone of an adult interrupting the play of children. He was peering over their heads in the direction the fleeing attackers had gone. ‘I hate to bring it up, but the noise back in those ’lings indicates they haven’t gone away. There were at least ten of them, Sir, and with due respect, you only dropped four.’
‘You think they’re coming back?’
‘I don’t think all that hollering presages imminent departure.’
‘The Explorer expresses her thanks, Tripsinger,’ the woman said. ‘My mule’s over behind that rock, and the best place for us is back in the range, quickly.’ She ran toward the mule, and they followed her, hearing the noise building behind them as they went. ‘Those bastards caught up with me right after I came out of the range,’ she shouted over the noise. ‘There were only four of them at first, but then they seemed to drop out of the rocks like gyre-birds off a ’ling. I only had time to get up on that pillar. Two minutes later, they’d have had me. Or, if you’d been two minutes later, they’d have had me anyhow!’
Only when they were halfway to the range did Tasmin notice the typical Explorer outfitting of both beast and rider and realize who she was. ‘You’re Don Furz?’ he exclaimed.
She gave him a quick look. ‘Who did you think?’
‘I didn’t know Don Furz was a woman.’
‘I won’t be anything long if we don’t get back into the range. Your mules aren’t soft-shod. We’ll stop just inside.’ She kicked her animal into a run, and they trailed after her, entering the range between two bloody towers that hummed and whispered ominously. ‘Pay no attention to them,’ Don shouted. ‘They won’t blow if we hurry!’ She galloped on, making a quick turn to the right, then to the left, pulling up in a shower of gravel.
‘Get your mules shod, quick,’ she said, pulling the cover from her Explorer’s box and unfolding the panels around her waist and across her thighs. ‘We’re going down that canyon to the left. The Password is new. I just came up with it this afternoon.’
‘Then they can’t follow us,’ Jamieson said with satisfaction as he stretched soft shoes over mule hooves.
‘They may try,’ Clarin contradicted. ‘They weren’t making any noise before, but they’re certainly making it now.’ A cacophony of shouts, chants, and religious slogans echoed in the canyon behind them.
‘There weren’t any witnesses before,’ Don said. ‘Now there’s the possibility we may get away and talk about this. They want us to believe they’re Crystallites.’
‘You don’t think they really are?’
‘Those bodies weren’t dressed like Crystallites, and they weren’t half starved like the Crystallites I’ve seen,’ Don commented impatiently. ‘Finished? Good, come along behind and I’ll get us through.’
She rode toward a branching canyon, stroking the music box as she went. Her voice was good, not up to Tripsingers’ standards, of course, but then it didn’t need to be. Explorers rarely sang their way past the Presences, and in any case it didn’t take a great deal to get a single person and mule through most places. Tasmin noted with amusement that Clarin was taking notes on her own machine as she rode. He watched her expression, fascinated. The music was there, on her face. Her eyes moved, opened, shut, swung one way and then another as though she saw the notes. Her mouth pursed, opened, widened, pursed once more as it tasted the music. Her hand snapped up and to one side, then back again, all unconsciously. It was like watching someone struggling – perhaps struggling to give birth? Or to conquer something, possess something. Or to be possessed by something! That was probably closer, and Tasmin wondered what his own face looked like when he sang.