The urban security patrolmen pulled up to the side of the house outside the gate and Rigi walked over to them. “I am Auriga Bernardi of the household.” She opened the gate and stepped out of their way, keeping her hands visible.
“Miss Bernardi,” the sergeant acknowledged. “Is there a problem? We got an auto-alert call.”
You can’t tell? Rigi’s rude streak asked. “Yes, sir. I found that man in the wombow shed. The wombow has been injured, cut by a blade. The blade is in the shed. I did not touch anything once I ascertained that the cuts were not life-threatening.”
“I see. Please call off the m-dog, Miss.”
“Martinus, release and stand down.” Martinus opened his jaws, removed his teeth from the man’s sleeve, and backed away. “Good dog.” Once she confirmed that Martinus was clear, Rigi told the sergeant, “He has recorders in him if you would like to download the data.”
The man’s eyebrows went up, or so it looked. His face shield concealed a great deal. “Really? Owen, download the dog.”
“Yes, sir. Miss, come with me, please.”
“Makana, Lonka, Shona, at ease, please.” Rigi didn’t want them accidentally getting hurt. Rigi stood and watched as the officer pulled the information from Martinus’s memory record. Behind her she heard Mr. Xiaolenk talking quickly and quietly to the sergeant, and she wondered what he was saying.
“I’m sorry sir, but that is not a crime under local statues.”
More hurried words, these a bit louder.
Corporal Owen coughed. “Miss, how long have you had this m-dog?”
“Six years, Corporal, but for two of those years I was on Home and the inner worlds and he stayed here. My father, Timothy Bernardi, had ownership until I turned eighteen.”
The corporal grunted. He looked at something on his data pad and grunted again. “That must be it. He’s an older model with some funny software bits. Thank you.” Rigi glanced at Martinus and didn’t see any blood on his jaws. Her shoulders relaxed. His tail rod wagged and she risked patting his head. The officers didn’t protest.
“So, Miss, what happened here?”
Rigi took a deep breath and didn’t quite tell a little untruth. “Martinus and I were doing a training exercise. As we started to go indoors, I heard a sound from the wombow shelter. We turned around and as I got closer, I smelled fear spray and heard Stodge, the wombow, scream. I opened the door and saw Stodge kicking at a man with a knife in his hand. I told Martinus to stop him. Once I saw that the man would not injure Stodge further, I turned to go fetch Makana, the Staré standing closest to the sergeant and Mr. Xiaolenk, but Martinus had already sent an alarm to the house and Makana got here before I could leave. I asked Makana and Martinus to escort Mr. Xiaolenk out of the wombow shed, then I settled Stodge and checked his injuries. I’m trained as a human and Staré emergency responder,” she added. “I came out and saw Lonka and Shona armed, and Lonka said that you had been called.”
The security corporal looked from the Staré to Rigi, then to Mr. Xiaolenk. “You know the man, Miss?”
“Not well. He called on the house three days ago, then left very angry because of a cultural misunderstanding. He thought my father had accepted his dower bid and Mr. Xiaolenk came to sign the property transfer papers. He, ah, expressed the opinion that a breach of contract had occurred and threatened to sue.”
“Not again,” the corporal sighed, so quietly Rigi almost didn’t hear him. “Thank you, Miss. Is it safe to go into the shed?”
“Yes, Corporal. Stodge can’t reach past the bar-gate. I left everything where it was.”
“Thank you.” He left and Rigi walked over to stand beside Makana. A second security vehicle had arrived and two uniformed officers appeared to be either carrying or dragging Mr. Xiaolenk to one of the vehicles. Rigi studied the marks in the dirt in that part of the lawn that never seemed to grass over and decided that they were drag marks. Mr. Xiaolenk didn’t sound as loud but neither had he stopped protesting.
Once he finished speaking with Lonka, the sergeant approached Rigi again. “Miss, it appears that your, ahem, visitor’s understanding of Crown law is inaccurate.” Under his professional words Rigi heard annoyance and irritation, and possibly something else. “He claims gross personal insult and the right to property equal in value to his outraged dignity and reputation, and insists that he has a claim to your person.” Now the sergeant sounded disgusted. “He admitted to trespassing, and will be detained on that charge until the justicar on duty looks at the testimony and your m-dog’s files.” He stopped and pointed at Martinus. “How long have you had that m-dog?”
“Six years, Sergeant. He was originally my father’s. Father gave him to me when I came of age.” Which was officially true, if not entirely honest.
“Huh.” The man shrugged under his body armor. “That probably explains it. He looks different from the other civilian m-dogs I’ve seen. Bigger. Most are,” he held his hands chest-width apart.
“Yes, Sergeant. Father was the Company import supervisor on Shikhari at the time he purchased Martinus.”
“Ah. That makes perfect sense, that and the age of the unit. Thank you, Miss.” She signed the data pad under Lonka’s mark. The corporal emerged from the shed as she did. He carried the knife in a clear evidence bag, and the men left.
“Thank you,” Rigi told the males. “Thank you very, very much. I’m sorry this happened.”
A stout //puzzlement/relief// cloud engulfed her. “Miss Rigi, why sorry? Human male attacked, we defended.” Makana made it sound so simple.
“Correct. And if my bread dough fell, I will ask permission to use shooter on intruder,” Shona declared before hop-walking back to the house.
If it falls, I think Father and Mother will give you permission to shoot him, Rigi thought toward his back. She didn’t say that, though. Proper young ladies didn’t— Oh shed fur and dirty nappies, Rigi sighed. She’d shoot Mr. Xiaolenk herself, preferably in the behind end with those dissuader pellets the plantation owners used on bird flocks. “Thank you,” she said again. “I believe I will put Martinus on the charger, and then if it is not too much trouble, Lonka, I’d like some tea in the family room. No,” she changed her mind. “Mocha please.” The thick sweetness sounded heavenly.
“Wooeef.”
“Just so,” Makana observed. “Is Stod-geh injured badly?”
“No,” Rigi waited until she got up the verandah steps to say more. She was having trouble staying on her feet—her knees wanted to buckle. “The cuts are not that deep, and they need to bleed clean, in case the knife had poison.”
The pungent //outrage// made her eye water. “Very good, Miss Rigi.”
She and Martinus got as far as the family room. Then Rigi staggered, caught herself, and thumped hard into her mother’s chair. She couldn’t stop shaking. Martinus put his head on her leg. “Woo?”
“Woo. G-, g-, good dog.”
Lonka peered in, disappeared, and returned with a heavy mug as well as the mocha pot. He poured a cup, ear-bowed, and left. Rigi got it to her mouth without spilling, somehow.
The next day Rigi finished reading the document. She took Martinus onto the verandah and cleaned him from muzzle tip to tail-rod knob, and lightly washed his carnifex-leaper tail fur. As she worked, Paul played in a portable pen, taking advantage of the warmth and fresh air. Siare had set up the pen, carried Paul out with one forefoot under each chubby arm, and set him into the play area with an air of determination and mission. “You stay, Taul. Do not climb out. Do not dig out. Stay.” She then marched back indoors. The window of the nursery opened full height and Rigi smelled heavy cleaning begin. A few minutes later Siare dragged a full basket of bedding and other things out onto the verandah, shook one forefoot claw at Paul, and marched back indoors. More heavy cleaning sounds and smells followed, and Rigi wondered just what her brother had managed to accomplish, and if she ought to ask. He seemed content to walk back and forth in the confines of the heavy-sided pen, looking out and occa
sionally tossing a toy at his sister. Rigi tossed them back in, trying not to hit him.
Thump! A small stuffed wombow hit her in the head as she was putting the cleaning brushes back into their case. “Right you,” she said under her breath. She picked up the wombow, knelt on the other side of the pen from her giggling brother, and lightly tossed it so the toy landed right at his feet.
“Whee!” Back flew the wombow. Rigi caught it and returned the serve. “He! he he he wheeeee! ‘Womwo!”
Rigi caught the toy. “Wombow, Paul. Wombow.” Toss.
“Womwo! Womwo womwo womwo!” Fling! The toy sailed over her head and slid to a stop against Martinus.
“Wooeef?”
Paul called “Wooeef! Wooeef!”
“Oh no.” Rigi stood, retrieved the toy, and handed it to Paul. “Wombow.”
“Womwo wooeef?”
Through the open window Rigi heard a snorting, whistling sound suspiciously like a Staré female laughing. She leaned to the side and caught a glimpse of Nahla helping Siare clean and rearrange the nursery. “Wombow, Paul. Say ‘wom-bow.’”
“Womwo.” He nodded once and folded his arms, the perfect picture of stubbornness.
“You got that from Cyril.”
He smiled, frowned, grunted, and smiled again. “That, however, is yours and yours alone young man.” Rigi straightened up and went to the window. “Siare, where are Paul’s nappies and changing mat?”
“Already?” The upper-fourth Stamm Staré came out onto the verandah and lightly patted Paul’s rump. “Already. Hopling, do you not let your food rest before emptying your stomach?” She picked Paul up and whisked him inside. Rigi returned several tossed toys to Paul’s play space, then took the cleaning kit and stowed it back in its cubby in the coat-and-shoe room. A sixth Stamm rough-carpenter had made a set of bench-cubbies that fit under the main sitting bench, and the household stored various cleaning supplies, tools, and mud-shoes there. Nahla marched onto the verandah from the kitchen, set a large bowl of slipper peas down on the Staré work-table near the kitchen door, went inside again and returned with a smaller bowl and a sigh. She sat on the Staré bench and started shelling the peas, using one claw to slice open the reddish-brown elongated oval husks and another to push the dark purple peas into the second bowl. She left the husks in a pile on the worksurface. They would get added to Stodge’s afternoon meal. Wombows loved slipper-peas as much as humans and Staré did, Rigi recalled, which was why slipper pea growers were some of the few farmers who used only machines in their work. Apparently even muzzled wombows managed to cause a lot of trouble between the rows of plants. Siare returned with Paul, plunked him back into the play space, and sat down beside him, working on sewing or something like that. Rigi and Martinus returned to Rigi's work space upstairs.
How to put her thoughts into words that would not burn up the comm transmitters, she wondered? Rigi decided to pretend she was writing to the former governor, Theodaulf. After the formal heading and address, she began, “After having read the document in question, I feel safe in reporting that I find the authors’ understanding of basic Staré questionable at best, and their comprehension of native cultural ways to be exceedingly lacking in depth.” She read it aloud. Yes, that was the proper tone. “A more detailed analysis follows, but to summarize, over half of the accounts bear no resemblance to accounts provided by the Staré Elders, either those of Sogdia, or of the Southern Landmass, or of the Indria Plateau community. The authors’ insistence that the Staré have no concept of ‘cities’ prior to the coming of humans is incorrect. The authors draw on outdated theories that on-world research and interviews have proven to be inapplicable to Shikhari. Although the Staré Elders and other Staré have only permitted the publication of the most general summaries of their ancestral beliefs and oral histories, those contradict three-fourths of the material in the authors’ work. The authors’ dismissive tone and failure to present their sources or to properly document well-known linguistic uncertainties further compromises the academic and cultural value and accuracy of this manuscript.”
Rigi imagined herself reading the words to a group of students and professors. Yes, that sounded professional without being nasty. She’d saved a copy of a book review from the xenoarchaeology journal as an example of how not to behave in print, and had re-read it before starting the manuscript. She mentally compared the two, went back and reworded one phrase, then launched into her detailed list of errors and mis-translations.
“I am tempted to wonder if the individuals who wrote that document had ever set foot on Shikhari, except I saw both of them with my own eyes on multiple occasions, sir,” Rigi told Uncle Eb two days later, following a day of rest. She and Uncle Eb had gone walking in the park, Martinus close behind, while Aunt Kay and her mother went shopping for mid-dry-season dresses. The flowers in the park made sweeps of crimson, scarlet, white, brilliant yellow, and dark orange, with tall stands of fire-tongue grass bending in the light breeze. At least a dozen children and a handful of hoplings played in the park running and hopping, climbing on the two “forts” and swinging or playing on the balance rockers. There should have been more hoplings, and Rigi felt a lump form in her throat. Nahla should have been there too, not watching Paul or working with Shona.
“Hmm.” Uncle Eb looked ahead of them, his hands clasped behind his back. “I am not certain but what Mr. Petrason, while physically present on Shikhari, never really left Home or WemWorld. Mrs. Chin-Petrason certainly did not. They are the only people I know of who had only human staff, no Staré, for which I am grateful.”
“Indeed, sir.”
They walked around the corner and had gone several meters before he said, “I apologize for not taking up the challenge of working on that document. I let my personal distaste of one of the authors override my duties. I know how to set my feelings aside in order to evaluate materials, but I chose not to and left you with a most distasteful task. I’m sorry, Miss Rigi.”
Rigi took a long breath. “Thank you, sir. It was distasteful. It was also,” she exhaled. “Educational. And I should not have been surprised that, ahem, the second party would find Petrason’s writings and incorporate them into his own, for his own purposes. That they were published so quickly and spread so widely does lead me to some questions that I believe I do not want answered, sir.”
“Indeed. There is something afoot that gnaws, irritating but not so great that I can easily tell what or where it is.” He shook his head. “Not that a polity of eight planets won’t have at least one person acting foolishly at any given moment, and that only counting the humans. Speaking of which, have you heard anything from Kor recently?”
“No, sir. Capt. Prananda said he was forceful, eloquent, and most descriptive in stating his opinion of certain human political and academic developments.”
They rounded the next corner and Uncle Eb gave her a shrewd look. “According to Lexi, Kor ran out of epithets in Common and Staré and asked him for a few more, just to have available if needed.” Then he sighed a little. “He should have asked Kay.”
“Uncle Eb, how could you propose such a thing! The Elders’ Council might collapse in their seats from shock if they heard what Aunt Kay said about the inspector who passed the timber on that corner of your verandah addition.” Rigi covered her mouth to keep from giggling as she fought to maintain a straight face. The wood had horrible sap pits in it, so bad that one of the main supports for the north corner of the porch had broken during the first good rainstorm. Aunt Kay, according to family rumor, had threatened to serve the remains of the posts to the builder for supper if he did not replace them forthwith, using the high quality materials for which she and Uncle Eb had paid. Or so rumor had it.
“An excellent point, Miss Rigi. Lexi says he only gave Kor a few of the milder ‘colorful adjectives’ that he’s encountered in his lexical compilations, nothing truly vulgar or inappropriate.”
“I’ve observed that certain Staré colloquialisms lose a great deal in translation
, given that scents cannot be converted into Common.” Rigi smiled. “That and certain vulgarities do not cross cultural lines. Or so I’m told,” she added quickly. Proper ladies did not have mental dictionaries of rude words.
“No indeed, Miss Rigi. Telling a Staré that his sire had crossed salt water . . . I fear only puzzlement would ensue.”
“Or telling a human that his mother was eaten by a tree-draper.”
“Eaten by a tree-draper? That is new.”
“Two hoplings were having a fight at the wombow parking line at Blue Star market. Makana and I shamed them into going back to their dams.” She glanced around and lowered her voice, “One called the other stupider than eighth Stamm, and he said the first one’s father was so dumb he was eaten by a tree-draper.”
Uncle Eb laughed. “Ah, yes. And then the fur flew?”
“It did indeed. Makana and I broke up the spat before they spooked the wombows and caused real trouble.” Something caught her eye and she stopped. “Oh. Do you mind if I make a quick sketch, sir?”
“No. In fact, I’ve never seen those before. I wonder how much trouble they are to grow?”
As Rigi took out her little pocket sketch-book and a pencil, Uncle Eb walked around to the other side of the plantings to see if the plants had a tag. A thick layer of tiny, round, pale-green leaves grew from the woody stems, as thick as Rigi’s index finger. A cluster of blue-purple flowers as big as her two-fists clung to the end of each stem, attracting bright red and yellow beetles that darted from flower to flower. Each individual flower had to be no larger than the bead in her necklace, Rigi guessed. She didn’t smell anything, but a number of flowers from this part of Shikhari only released perfume at night. She made notes of the colors and sizes as she drew, jotting things on the edge of the page.
Stamme: Shikari Book Three Page 15