A Liaden Universe Constellation: Volume I

by Sharon Lee

  His search gained him several small vials, a single cake-bar of the survival food he’d wrinkled his nose at in pilot training class, and an ironic appreciation of his situation. He had fought the ship to the plains, knowing it unable to survive a planet-fall in any of the world’s salty seas.

  By the seas, he might have found a mix of food and vitamins better suited to his off-worlder needs—but the scant beaches below the cliff-lined continents were all of shale and broken rock, and he had thought an inland grounding might preserve his ship.

  Choices made. Or as Verad might put it, this was the trail he found today.

  He unzipped the cake wrap, the burp of preservative gas letting him know it was still edible, and—though the sweetness of it was surprising—ate it as if it were a delicacy as he continued to rummage through the former larder.

  One more tiny container came into his hand—the last of the wide-spectrum antibiotics. He tucked it into his pouch with the others, pushed the door shut, and crept onward in the dark.

  As he moved, his back brain did the calculations: if he rationed himself to a single dose every three days, he could stretch the vitamins he needed to survive through one more migration cycle.

  At last, he gained the piloting chamber, where a single go-light glowed, faint. He inched forward and sat in the chair which, with its webbing and shock absorbers, had doubtless saved his life, and reached out to touch a switch.

  The stats computer came up sluggishly, the screen watery and uncertain. Despite this, he felt his heart rise. His ship was alive.

  Alive, yet mortally wounded. The distress beacon, its power source undamaged, gave tongue every six Standard hours, hurling ship ID and coords into the heedless chill of space. For two full turns of the Sanilithe seasons—almost three Standard Years—the distress beacon had called.

  With no result.

  A less stubborn man might by now have given up hope of rescue. He supposed, sitting there at the dim board in the shattered belly of a dead ship, on the eve of being either mated or cast out, that he ought to give up. Surely, the choices before him were daunting.

  Were he cast out of the Sanilithe and left to his own methods, he might hunt well enough to feed himself. Perhaps. Certainly, he could not expect any other nomadic, hardscrabble tribe to adopt him. It bewildered him yet, that Gineah had taken him in—undergrown, wounded, and without language as he had been.

  As to the probability of being Chosen at the fire—he considered that approached negative numbers. Worse, if he were, by some passing madness of the local gods, Chosen, he would forthwith have broken every nonfraternization reg in a very substantial book.

  The consequences of which were merely academic, unless he were rescued.

  And, surely, he thought, flipping his braid behind a shoulder and leaning toward the board, if he were Chosen, his underfed and nutrient-lacking seed would quicken no child among the Sanilithe.

  If he were, against dwindling odds, rescued, and left thereby the tent of his wife, she would not suffer. Her sisters would care for her, and share with her the profits of their tents, until all converged upon the wintering Dark Camp again, and she might Chose another hunter to serve her.

  And if he were Chosen and remained unrescued—well.

  The day’s trail did not always yield good things.

  He touched a key.

  The screen blanked, then swam back into being, displaying the last entry he had made in the log, on the night before the Sanilithe broke apart into its several Light Season bands and roamed far, gathering what foodstuffs could be wrested from the sullen land.

  Carefully, he placed his fingers on the pad and began, slow and hesitant over his letters, to type, giving as the date Dark Camp, Third.

  Last night, the final purification was done by the eldest and most holy of the grandmothers. Tomorrow night, I am to stand around the fire as a candidate husband, for the choice of any woman with need. If this chance comes to me, I shall seize it, in order to remain in proximity to the ship and to the beacon.

  If I am not chosen, I will be forced away from this kin-group. Should that transpire, I will shelter in the ship for the remainder of the Dark Season. Then, if rescue has not found me, I will attempt to reach the sea. If I make that attempt, I will record my plan here.

  I have this evening withdrawn the last of the nutrient drops and antibiotics from the emergency locker.

  He hesitated, his right hand rising to finger the length of metal in his right ear, which named him a son of Gineah’s tent, just as the heavy braid of hair identified him as unmarried. Married hunters, such as Verad, had their hair cut short, and wore the earring of their wife’s tent with pride in their left earlobe. Slade sighed, thinking that one might wish for a mating, if only to be rid of the braid.

  He put his fingers back on the keys. When he had begun this log, he had filled it with observations of custom and language. There had been less of that, as odd custom became that code by which he lived, and the curiously nuanced language the tongue in which he dreamed. Likewise, he had previously recorded the weakness which came to him when he denied himself the supplements and ate only local food. There was no need to repeat that information for those who . . . might . . . read what he had been writting.

  He moved his fingers on the keypad, laboriously spelling out his name:

  Tol Ven yo’Endoth Clan Aziel Scout survey pilot.

  Then, as an afterthought—though he’d done the transliteration earlier in the report—he added one more typed line:

  Slade, second named son of Gineah’s tent.

  Slade stood, Arb on his right hand, Panilet on his left, before them the man-high blaze of the Choosing Fire. It was difficult to concentrate in the flame-swept darkness, for which he blamed the various brews he had been compelled to swallow during the purifications, as well as the chants and songs of those of the tribe gathered to witness the Choosings.

  Briefly, he closed his eyes, seeing the flames still, dancing on the inside of his eyelids. The day had begun at sunrise, with Verad rousing him from Gineah’s tent and hustling him, with neither meat nor berries to break his fast, to the far side of the encampment, where the hunters of the Sanilithe gathered, each bachelor under the patronage of a married man. Verad stood as Slade’s sponsor, for which he was grateful.

  There were prayers to recite, smokes to inhale, and strange beverages to drink. There was no water, nor tea, nor aught to eat. Still, he was not hungry and as the day with its duties progressed he found himself remarkably calm, if slightly lightheaded.

  At last the waning sun disappeared behind toothy Nariachen. Slade, bathed and oiled by Verad, shivered in the sudden coolness, his naked skin pebbling.

  “Drink,” his friend said, offering yet another horn cup. Obedient, Slade drank, feeling the liquid take fire in his blood. He handed the cup back, blinking to clear the tears from his eyes.

  Verad grinned. “That will put the heat of the hunt into you!”

  An aphrodisiac? Slade wondered, as Verad carried the cup away. It seemed likely—and too late to wonder to what lusty adventures the dose in the cup, meant for a broad shouldered and heavily muscled specimen such as Verad, might incite his shorter and more slender self.

  “Now . . .” Verad returned, bearing a strip of soft, pale leather. He showed the length between his hands. “Up with your arms, brother! I will dress you finer than any who will stand beside you.” He slipped the skin ’round Slade’s hips, wrapping it in an arcane pattern. “I took this one after last year’s Choosing, when Gineah had held you back from the fire, saying that next year was soon enough.” He worked swiftly, making the leather kilt tight.

  “One throw of the spear brought it down, and I asked my wife for the skin, for I had a brother-gift to make.” A final flourish and he stepped back, pride plain on his wide face, his grin displaying several broken teeth.

  “There, now,” he said. “What woman wouldn’t Choose you? That’s the question!”

  It was certainly, tho
ught Slade, slowly lowering his arms, a question. He looked down at himself. The kilt was . . . brief, and he suspected, from what seemed a very great distance, that he looked ridiculous.

  “Don’t be so long-faced,” Verad said, leaning forward and slapping him on the belly. “All muscle and lithe as a finoret, too! There will be Choosers brawling to have you!” Another broad grin, then a wave of the hand. “Turn around, small brother. I have one more gift to give you.”

  Careful on feet gone slightly silly, Slade turned, and felt his braid tugged, loosened. Heavy, his hair unwound across his shoulders—two long seasons of growth.

  “Like honey,” Verad crooned, and Slade felt a comb slip down the length of his mane. “You will glow in the firelight, like a star. The eyes of the women will be dazzled. Doubt not that you will be Chosen. And when you are . . .” The combing and Verad’s crooning whisper resonated weirdly in his head—or perhaps it was that last drink. Slade closed his eyes.

  “When you are Chosen,” Verad continued, “your wife will lead you to her tent. There, she will reveal a great mystery. A very great mystery.” The comb stroked downward, soft and hypnotic. “In the morning, she will cut away all of this honey-colored hair and you will return to us as a man and a husband.

  “Your wife will take you to the metal worker, and she will put the hot wire through your ear and twist it into the sign of her tent. Then . . .” The comb whispered down once more . . . stopped. “And then, we will hunt together as full brothers.” He snorted, for a moment the work-a-day Verad. “And you will practice with your spear until it is said truly that you never miss a cast.”

  Yes, very likely. Slade tried to say that, but it was too much trouble. Behind him, he heard Verad laugh, and felt a calloused hand on his shoulder.

  “To the Fire, Brother.”

  Slade opened his eyes, and glanced quickly to each side. Arb yet stood at his right hand. Panilet was gone. Chosen. Despite the heat from the fire, Slade shivered, and closed his eyes once more.

  Arb had long been Chosen, and the man who had stood beyond him.

  The Fire was a black bed upon which a few red embers kept vigil. Slade frowned at them, wondering laboriously if one of the witnesses beyond the circle would come and tell him to leave; if he would be brought his spear, and his tough hunter’s leathers, or if he would be cast forth weaponless and all-but-naked.

  His mouth was dry, his head heavy; his blood still warm from that last draught. Altogether, he thought painfully, he was in a dangerous and most discouraged state and ought by rights to simply curl up on the moss by the dying fire and sleep off the sorrows of the day.

  In the heart of the fire, an ember exploded in a rush of scarlet ash. Slade jerked—and froze.

  Walking swiftly across the trampled and vacant moss came a tall reed of a woman, her dark hair braided with feathers and flowers, her short robe of soft suede, her legs and feet naked.

  Forward she came, until he could see her face in what remained of the firelight. Wide, pupil-drowned eyes stared down at him from a bony, long-jawed face. Abruptly, she checked and looked wildly about, but there were no other hunters shivering and lachrymose around the dying fire. He was the last.

  As if the realization galvanized her, she jumped forward and grabbed his wrist. Her fingers were cold; her grip strong. Without a word, she turned and marched into the darkness beyond the fire. Slade, perforce, went with her; all but oblivious to exalting songs and catcalls from the standers-by.

  The sounds and warmth fell away behind them, and there was dust underfoot, her shape distant in the night, and her hand, unrelenting, to guide him.

  She came at last to a small tent in the next-but-last circle. Brusquely, she pushed the flap aside and ducked within, dragging him after, her fingers bruising his wrist.

  Inside, he was at last released, as his captor—his wife—turned to lace the flap. Slade looked about, finding the interior of the tent as cluttered as Gineah’s had been neat and shipshape. In the center, beneath the air hole, was the fire, banked for the night, bed unrolled beside it.

  He felt a hand on his arm and turned to look up into the face of his wife.

  In the relative brightness, he saw that she was younger than he had at first supposed—scarcely more than a girl, even by the standards of Sanilithe—her forehead high, and her jaw square. Her lean cheeks had been painted with stripes of white and yellow and red; those on her left cheek were smeared. Her eyes were the color of summer moss—gray-green—and very wide.

  Still, she said nothing to him, merely reached with hands that trembled to begin working the knot in his kilt. His manhood leapt, eager, and she gasped, the first sound he had heard from her, snatching her fingers away.

  Gods, Slade thought, his mind sharpening slightly within the shrouds of drugs and exhaustion. She’s terrified.

  “Wait,” he said softly, catching her hands. She flinched, and looked at his face—at least she did that—and did not pull away. “Wait,” he said again. “Let us trade names. I am Slade.”

  She swallowed, and glanced to one side. “Arika.”

  “Arika,” he repeated, struggling toward gentleness. “It is not necessary—”

  She pulled her hands free. “This tent requires a hunter.”

  “Yes,” he said, trying to soothe her with his voice, trying to ignore the increasing demands of his body. “Yes, I will hunt for the tent. But it is not necessary to continue this, now, with both of us tired and frightened.”

  She stiffened at that, and awkwardly reached for his hands, looking sideways into his face.

  “I—there is nothing to fear, inside my tent,” she said, haltingly. “Slade. There is no harm here. I am—Tonight, I will teach you a mystery which will, will bond us and make us stronger for the tent.”

  A set piece, poorly learned, he realized, holding her cold fingers. And all honor to her, that her first thought was to soothe his fears. He smiled, carefully.

  An unmarried hunter of the Sanilithe was a naive creature. He learned of the mystery of sex on the night of his Choosing, from the woman who had Chosen to become his wife. It was that same wife who would later decide how many children the tent might rejoice in—and a married hunter was not at all certain quite how those children came to be. Verad spoke of seeds, but in the context of a fruit eaten, perhaps from a tree known only to the erifu of women.

  Though obviously herself terrified of the upcoming mystery, Arika would be scandalized to find that her new and unshorn husband came to her fully tutored. Still, Slade thought muzzily, he was the elder here, and it was his duty to ease her way, as much as it was hers to ease his fear.

  “First,” Arika said, breathlessly, slipping her hands away. “We must remove these skins . . .” Her fingers were at the knot again, somewhat steadier. Slade left her to it and reached to the laces of her robe. She froze.

  “What do you?”

  He smiled again, as guileless as he might, in which endeavor he was no doubt assisted by the drugs.

  “If we must remove the skins, it will go quicker, if you remove mine and I remove yours.” He affected a sudden shyness, dropping his eyes. “Unless there is some reason in erifu that I should not . . . ?”

  She frowned, as if trying to recall a long-ago and not-very-well attended lesson. Finally, she jerked a shoulder—the Sanilithe negative. “It does not offend erifu. You may continue.”

  Continue he did, taking care with the laces while she fumbled with his kilt. He did not wish to reveal her too soon. Best, if they became naked and equal in the same moment.

  He felt the knot at his hip loosen all at once, slipped the last of the lacing free and slid his palms over her shoulders, easing the garment up, just as the kilt fell unceremoniously to the floor. Softly, he smoothed his hands down her back, slipping the robe down and off, to pool about her feet.

  She visibly swallowed, her pale eyes moving down his body in quick glances. Obviously, she hadn’t the least idea what to do now.

  Slade stepped forwar
d, lifting a hand to her hair, stroking it back to reveal an exotic and enticing little ear. He heard her gasp, but she had heart, did Arika. She slid her fingers into his hair, silking it back to reveal his ear. Greatly daring, she ran her finger ’round the edge and he felt his blood flare as he copied the motion, then stroked the line of her jaw. She followed his lead, her fingers moving in a long stroke down the side of his neck.

  He cupped her breast, she ran a light hand down his chest; he bent and put his lips around one pert nipple. She gasped, back arching, and it came to him that erifu would have required that she also drink the Choosing drugs, to be ready to welcome the new husband in fullness . . .

  “Slade,” she said huskily, and her hands were in his hair, drawing his face up, her gray-green eyes looking deep into his. “We—should lie down.”

  A good idea, he thought, before one or the other of us falls into the fire.

  He stretched out beside her, and she touched him, tentative fingers warm now, and indescribably exciting. He moaned, and pulled her to him, exhaustion burning away into the brilliance of passion.

  Slade opened his eyes to a tent wholly unfamiliar, a heavy weight pinning his arm to the sleeping mat. Carefully, he turned his head, and discovered his wife, Arika, deeply asleep, her head on his shoulder, hair tangled with last night’s passion, lashes sooty smudges on her thin cheeks. In the spill of morning light from the fire hole, her face was achingly young.

  Surely, he thought wildly, surely a child of this age ought to be with her tutor and not roistering about in the darkness, soliciting strange men into the service of her tent?

  He drew a hard breath. The Sanilithe came quickly to adulthood, and quickly to old age. Gineah, revered grandmother that she was, with two daughters and a hunter-son, all grown and mated—Gineah had between fifty and fifty-five Standard Years. On the planet of his birth, she would have just reached the height of her powers, with another thirty to fifty years before her . . .