by S. L. Viehl
“Okay, Spotted Dog. You’ve got a serious case of anaphylactoid purpura, also known as Schönlein-Henoch purpura. The spots are caused by inflammation of the blood vessels beneath the skin.”
“What does that to me?”
“I don’t know yet, but whatever it is, it’s environmental and you’re highly allergic to it. Did your alien parent have any kind of a severe physical reaction while on Terra?”
“My father had to take Mother back to her home-world. She had trouble breathing. They left me behind with my Terran grandparents.”
Since he didn’t sound too happy talking about it, I let it go. “I’m going to start you on a series of shots. We’ll determine what exactly is irritating your derma, then come up with a counteragent. That should get rid of the spots.”
That was all the patients I was sent for the day. I went back to sit with Reever, and Hok limped in, carrying a heavy box of pharmaceuticals.
“Your drugs, Doctor.”
I checked through the collection, which according to the labels had been taken from a dozen different area hospitals. “Where did you get these?”
“Does it matter?”
“No. Why didn’t you report here today? I could have used some help moving some of this junk out of here.”
“The chief needed me elsewhere.” He shuffled toward the door.
“Tell the chief I need you tomorrow.” His limp seemed more pronounced today, and I frowned. “Are you in pain? Do you want me to check you out?”
“No. I am only tired.” He paused at the alcove’s entrance. “I’ll bring you the components for the dialysis rig tomorrow.”
“Good. Be ready to start your training, too.”
Hok delivered boxes of supplies and equipment to Medical every day after that, and generally stayed a few hours to assist me. Remembering how I’d screwed up with Vlaav, I took great pains to be a kinder teacher.
I started to move Wendell’s books out into the tunnel, then one of the boxes fell over and I picked up a perfectly preserved volume on surgical theory. I knew I shouldn’t have wasted time with it, but my curiosity got the better of me. Then I started sorting through the books and pulling out a few reference volumes. Nothing I could really use, but as reading material, they were utterly fascinating.
Hok and I built the dialysis rig together, and set it up beside Reever’s makeshift berth. Signs of kidney failure were already beginning to show in his daily scans, and I knew it was only a matter of time before I had to put him on the rig.
Milass and Kegide also made regular visits. I had the feeling the secondario only came to make sure I was working and to report back to Rico on my progress with the hybrids.
Kegide brought me things—food most of the time, but sometimes pretty crystals, pebbles, and one time a small brown feather he tried to stick in my hair.
At first I thought he meant to pet me, the way he did the cat, and grabbed his big paw. “Uh-uh. No scratching behind my ears.”
“He wants you to wear the feather,” Hok told me, then took it from Kegide’s hand and tucked it in his tunic. “No, brother. She does not want it.”
“I can wear a feather in my hair, if it makes him happy.” I’d have to sterilize it first, though.
Hok snorted. “You have shown no desire to be a part of the blood. Why would you lower yourself to emulate our ways?”
He’d made other, similarly snide comments over the past week, and I was getting sick of it.
“Look, pal. Unlike you and Man Mountain here, I was never allowed more than a brief and largely superficial exposure to my ancestral cultures. But just because I was raised like a ‘whiteskin’ doesn’t mean I hold them, or your culture, in contempt.”
“Is this the truth?” Hok swept a hand out toward the tunnel. “I see you among the blood, but you do not speak to them outside of this room. You eat our food and sleep under our protection and hear our songs, but you never offer thanks for any of them. You watch us with your whiteskin eyes, but you do not see who we are.”
“Huh?” The laugh I couldn’t help. “Wait a minute. I don’t recall being invited to any of your conversations, ceremonies, or whatever you call these little nighttime soirees.” I planted my hands on my hips. “And, in case it’s slipped your mind, my husband and I were brought here, and are being held here, against our will. I don’t think we’re going to be grateful to you for kidnapping and imprisoning us. Ever.”
“If you condescended to learn more about the blood, perhaps you would agree to stay voluntarily.”
Kegide gave me one of his beseeching looks. The same way he did whenever I was bordering on a knife fight with Milass.
Some of what Hok said made sense. It’s hard to be righteous when you haven’t considered the other guy’s point of view. Not that I’d ever consider staying here, when all I wanted was to get back to the Sunlace. “Okay. When’s the next dancing or singing thing?”
“Tonight we will celebrate a new marriage among us. You and Nilch’i’ are welcome to join us.”
A wedding. And I had nothing to wear. “Nilch’i’?”
“That is what they are calling your husband. It means ‘the wind,’ for the way he moves when he fights with a blade.”
“How is Chief Rico going to feel about me and The Wind showing up at this wedding?”
Hok gave me a twisted smile. “Who do you think wants you there the most?”
I wasn’t going to touch that remark with a ten-foot dermal probe. “What time, and which hogan?”
“We are going above, to the canyons. I will come for you when it’s time.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Topside
“I don’t want to try to escape tonight,” I told Reever as I helped him dress. Since I’d destroyed his tunic prepping him for surgery, I’d borrowed some clothing for him from Kegide. “You’re too weak to go running around the mountains in the dark.”
“I can make the journey.”
I told him what Hok had mentioned—that teams of men—whiteskins—had sporadically been spotted in the general area above the tunnels. Then I added, “They have to be working for Joe.”
“Joseph will not capture us. I will be fine.”
“You will be dead if you don’t listen to me. We’ll just see how you get from this cavern up to the surface, and plan to make our own trip when you’re feeling better.”
“Cherijo.” He put his hands on mine and stopped me from lacing up the front of the decorated, animal-hide shirt I’d put on him. “You could go without me.”
I could have—that was the terrible thing about it. I wanted to get off Terra and back to the Sunlace so badly it actually tempted me.
I tugged on the laces. “Sorry, that would violate my marriage contract. Times like these, that little ‘until death do us part’ clause kicks in.”
“We have no such marriage contract.”
“Well, whatever the Jorenian or Hsktskt equivalent is, then.” I used a piece of suture silk to tie back his hair. “You need a haircut.”
He fingered my braid, which was so long now the end reached past my hips. “So do you.”
Once I finished his outfit, I started putting on mine. One of the women had brought me a two-piece dress called a bill to wear, and it took a minute to calculate exactly what draped and knotted over that. I liked the bold stripes and diamond patterns woven into the garments, which were both lightweight and warm.
“There.” I turned around slowly. “How do I look?”
“Like an Indian.”
“Then I must have it on right.”
Hok met us in the tunnel. He seemed to approve of my costume, then asked me the strangest question. “Doctor, are you having your menstrual cycle now?”
“No, I’m not.” Not exactly something I’d ever expected to be asked, outside of an examination room. But then, Joe had wanted to know the same thing. Was I that cranky? “Why?”
“Women who are actively menstruating are considered unclean and are not permitted to at
tend a wedding ceremony.”
Religious taboos. I will never understand them. “That’s really silly, you know.”
He gave me his equivalent of a shrug. “That is our way.”
I thought Hok would take us out to the central cavern, but instead he led us through the labyrinth of tunnels out to the old subway station.
“Why is everyone waiting?” I asked as we joined the others leaving the tunnels and walking toward the old transport system. “Don’t tell me you’ve got this thing running up to the surface.”
“We use the lift,” Hok said, and guided us around the rusting transports to a raised platform.
“The lift?” Then I saw something sliding back down the strange arrangement of mechanisms and machinery at the other end of the platform, and blinked. “That’s the lift?”
Hok nodded.
Somehow the tribe had cannibalized one of the subway transports, and rigged it on pulleys to slide up what had been some kind of mechanical stairway. When the empty transport came to the bottom of the stairway, it filled with people, who grabbed the main cables, which had been run straight through the transport, and pulled. By pulling the cables, they hauled the huge rusting box up the stairway.
“Just out of curiosity, how many people have to be in the lift to be able to pull it to the top?”
“At least ten.”
Which is why they went up in groups, and had no problem with me and Reever seeing how they traveled to the surface. There was no way we could do it by ourselves.
Two more groups went up before we had our turn pulling the lift to the surface. Even with twenty-five of us, it wasn’t easy. Reever kept giving me very intense looks. I knew what he was thinking—this probably would be our only chance to escape, unless we figured out how to get back to Joe’s lab.
While I knew if we tried, given his condition, the attempt might kill Reever.
The lift connected at the top of the stairway to a huge mechanical clamp, which allowed us to release the cables and get out before the transport was lowered back down. The last group to come up, Hok told me, would keep the transport locked in place until we returned from the wedding.
We got out onto another platform which led up a short flight of regular stairs. Sunlight filled my eyes as I emerged from there to the surface.
I was momentarily distracted by how wonderful it felt, simply to be outside again. The sun was just about to set behind the mountains, and although the temperature was on the cool side, just being able to stand without millions of tons of rock over my head was sheer pleasure. I lifted my face and closed my eyes, relishing the last touch of sunlight against my skin.
“I miss the warmth on my face, too,” Hok said, startling me.
Anyone who would rather live in a cave than on the surface, in my opinion, was crazy. “You don’t have to.”
He just gave another of his shrugs and started hobbling over the path that cut through the narrow canyon in front of us, toward a cluster of boulders. Reever took my hand and we followed him at a discreet distance. I checked behind us to see Kegide and some of the other Night Horse men bringing up the rear.
“We have to go now,” Reever said in a barely audible tone.
“They’re watching us.”
“Later, then. At the first opportunity.”
I scanned the surrounding area. Rocks, brush, scrub pine, and dirt. I hadn’t done much exploring of the region around my birthplace, but I knew there were thousands of canyons and trails in these mountains.
We had no food, no water, and no survival equipment. It was late autumn and that meant heavy frost. Even if we could steal what we needed from the surface community, we had no idea of where we were. We could be a mile away from The Grey Veils, or a hundred miles.
It didn’t present much danger to me. Besides being hardened after a year of slavery, I knew it would take a lot more than temperature and starvation to kill me.
I could get off this miserable world and get back to the Sunlace. But I can’t leave Reever behind.
There were also Joseph’s search teams to reckon with.
“We can’t. I don’t know where we are. You’re too weak, and I don’t have so much as a single lousy bandage on me. We’ll die of exposure if we try.”
His eyes, which had become a colorless, chilly gray, met mine. “We have to try.”
“No, we have to live. We can do this when we’re better prepared.”
The path abruptly shrank and Reever and I were forced to squeeze single file between the boulders. Beyond them a wide, flat expanse of land stretched out, hemmed in on all four sides by sheer vertical rock cliffs.
A cluster of larger hogans identical to the ones underground had been built in the center of the canyon. I could see the immediate appeal of the location—evidently the only way to get to it was through the concealed trail between the boulders, or from the air.
These people were Navajo, or at least descended from Navajos, but again they’d broken with tradition. From what I remembered seeing on the Four Mountains reservation, the traditionalists preferred to live far apart from each other over wide tracts of land. Here the hogans had been erected close together, and the sense of a tightly bound community was very strong.
Like a cult, I thought uneasily.
Corrals occupied by horses, sheep, and other animals lay behind each hogan, and there were signs of crops growing in small cleared areas beyond the village. Hok and the others headed for a specific hogan, at the far end of the community. Then, just before we arrived at our destination, everyone stopped and pretended to study the ground for several minutes.
“Definitely Navajo,” I said to Reever.
The bride’s family eventually came out of the hogan and greeted us. No hybrids here. Dressed in brilliantly colored, handwoven garments, our smiling hosts greeted and spoke with every guest individually, leisurely working their way through the crowd. Hok introduced me and Reever as whiteskin friends of the tribe.
The bride’s mother, who had the rather menacing name Veda Wolfkiller, gave me the once-over. “You don’t look much whiteskin to me.”
“I’m only half-white,” I said, repeating the lie Joe had told me since childhood. In reality, I had no idea if I had any Caucasian blood at all.
“What is the other half of you?”
I tried to keep a straight face. “Some Navajo. Mostly Apache.”
“Apache?” Veda’s eyebrows rose. “We know some Apache families. Perhaps they share blood with you. What is the name of your mother’s clan?”
Before I could try to explain my way out of that one, the bridegroom’s party arrived. Veda promptly excused herself and returned to the hogan. Hok stayed with me and Reever to explain what was happening.
First the bridegroom’s family presented the dowry gift to the bride’s family. This consisted of traditional gifts—rugs, blankets, silver jewelry, baskets, pottery, and a saddle—all beautifully worked and obviously precious. The groom and his family immediately went into another, larger hogan, to sit down by the fire, while the bride and her family sorted through the gifts.
I nudged Reever. “How come I never got any wedding presents like that when I married you?”
“Conventional Hsktskt union celebrations include sacrificing a warm-blooded animal. The newly united pair must drink the blood for luck.”
I cringed. “That’s a good reason.”
Veda Wolfkiller emerged from the hogan, carrying a beautifully woven basket, inside which was an equally elaborate clay pot. It held special ceremonial corn mush, Hok told me. She was followed by other female family members, bearing platters of food. They walked through the village to a large, obviously recently constructed hogan. Hok told us to follow them inside.
Bundles of dried corn cobs and beautifully patterned wool rugs lined the walls of the hogan. It was crowded, and a little stuffy, but Reever and I found a place out of the way by the door. As we watched, Veda handed her basket to her daughter, and embraced her. The bride then joined h
er groom on the opposite side of the fire, and with great formality presented him with the mush. Once that was done, she sat down on his right.
“Now the ceremony begins,” Hok said in a low voice.
My scalp prickled, and I felt a low, distinct sense of awareness hum over my nerves. Although I hadn’t seen him yet, Rico had to be somewhere close by, and he was … preoccupied?
My new empathic warning system proved to be right as Rico, dressed in an elaborate Navajo costume, abruptly walked through the entrance to the Hogan. He carried a wicker jug and a strange-shaped vegetable over to the wedding couple. As he approached them, everyone fell silent.
“Is that a squash?” I asked Hok in a whisper. Seemed like an odd wedding gift.
“No, a gourd ladle for the water in the jug.”
Rico handed the gourd ladle to the bride, then poured water from the wicker jug into it. The bride turned and poured the water from the ladle over her groom’s hands. She then handed him the ladle, and he repeated the same process with Rico for her.
“Now he will take out his bag of corn pollen,” Hok told me.
“You people sure have a thing for corn,” I said.
Rico removed a small bag, from which he pinched some pollen and squatted down to sprinkle it over the basket of mush. He did this from right to left, then up and down. After that, he made a circle of pollen around the basket, then tucked the bag away.
I made a mental note to test Spotted Dog for pollen allergies.
The chief stood and addressed the tribe. “If any here have protest to the turning of the basket, speak it now.”
Hok anticipated my question and said, “It’s symbolic of turning the minds of the bride and groom toward each other.”
No one had any protests to make, so Rico turned the basket of mush. “Take a pinch of the corn mush at the edge, where the pollen ends at the east,” he told the groom.
The groom took it, and put it in his mouth. The bride did the same. They continued by taking pinches of pollen from the pattern sprinkled around the basket, and eating that. When they were finished, there were sudden, startling shouts of approval from the tribe.