Courtship Rite

by Donald Kingsbury

  “Storm Master, sir! How c’d you? A comely girl like that-un? Leave me have the appetizer. You c’n have the steak.”

  “She’d scratch your eyes out!”

  “Not me, sir!”

  “Follow me,” said Tonpa abruptly.

  Arap whitened. “Sir, if I’ve offended you…”

  “You have not offended me.” The Mnankrei priest brought Arap of the lesser clans into his luxurious cabin and set him down in the velvet seat by the desk, amused at the boy’s discomfort. Clan code did not permit a seaman to enter the Storm Master’s cabin and Arap had never been here before. He did not want to sit in the velvet seat but he obeyed orders. The room impressed him.

  “Shall I give the wench into your hands?” Tonpa teased.

  Arap was sweating. “We c’d all have a go at her, sir. Perhaps I c’d train her up not to fight too hard.” The sailor was growing appalled at his position. It was a trap and whatever he said was coming out wrong. A horrible suspicion was dawning. Their master was known to lead by the ear. “Sir, you’re not liable to assign me to butcher her? Really, sir, I lack skill in such art.”

  “You think of me in harsh terms, Arap.”

  “No, sir.”

  “I know exactly what you say about me below decks!”

  Arap mentally began to ready himself for keel-hauling. “Them’s only jokes, sir,” he said helplessly.

  “I’m assigning you to guard duty on this Teenae. The first watch you will only smile at her and do her silent favors of the smallest kind. Other seamen will discuss recipes with her in a somewhat bawdy way. When she is sufficiently terrorized, you will become very tender with her. Appear infatuated to the extent that you are willing to risk your life for her. Tell her your jokes about me; the one about how I bail a boat will do nicely,” he added wryly.

  Arap was near to fainting.

  “See that she knows you consider me to be a monster. Tell her our plans, exactly as they have been told to you.”

  “But, sir…”

  “Then help her escape.”

  “We’re to leave the wind have those legs?”

  “I didn’t say you couldn’t collect whatever gratitude she might offer. But don’t use force or I’ll give you fifty lashes. Wet your oar gently if you wet it at all.”

  “Sir, I’ve b’n set with the party to row ashore and burn the silos.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m to spill that in her ear?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “And I’m to take my way with her?”

  “If you’re clever. I doubt that you are. In any event she is to escape.”

  The illumination of day and then night passed dimly over the only nearby porthole. Smells in the dark cubicle where Teenae was chained sifted through the air and she could hardly see the man-boy who brought her food. He was the one who had been kind to her when the cook and his assistants were down making ribald jokes in very bad taste. She didn’t want to eat now but if only she could get those chains unlocked for a few minutes! “Please, if you take the chains off I can eat.”

  He would not do that, but he sat down beside her and fed her the gruel carefully. “Don’t be afraid of old Lace Beard. He never does much more’n keel-haul a man. Can’t stomach killin‘ even if it means a good meal. Course the men’ve b’n complainin’ ’bout the food and sometimes he gotta keep the peace. I’d be suspectin’ the worst he’d do is make you ship’s whore and then you’d be lucky ’cause I’d take care of you.”

  She backed away as far as the chains would let her.

  “For you, I’d even dunk a bath.” He offered the food again. “Don’t make such a face! We don’t get better’n this ourselves. Don’t to worry. He’s goin’ to let you go.”

  “Without my nose!” she sobbed.

  “It’s a pretty nose. Maybe he’ll let me keep it for a souvenir.”

  Teenae spat gruel at him but became infected by the great laugh as he had wanted her to.

  “What’d he say to you?” asked the boy who was taller than she. “A mean wind he is. He struts ’round on deck and makes pious sayin’s at us like as if we don’t’ve enough with settin’ and riggin’.”

  “He told me the Kaiel are rotten liars and Mnankrei are saints,” she laughed.

  Arap glanced over his shoulder furtively. “Us underclan folk get to see the rope-deck. Saints. I’ll tell you. Do my soul a favor for the poor folk of Sorrow. You’re gettin’ off the ship and you c’n warn ’em. Next midnight we’re to shore and burnin’ the granary on the peninsula, so’s we c’n tack ’round and sell ’em wheat. That’s what we’re here for. Keel-haul the Stgal. Old Lace Beard can’t kill a tender meal like you, but he c’n starve a thousand without sheddin’ a tear.”

  She started to comment, and he slammed a hand over her mouth. “You want ’em to serve me for soup? Now how ’bout a little kiss ’fore I go?” He put his arm around her.

  “Don’t you touch me.”

  “What a silly pout for a chained-up girl to say.” He kissed her and it was the kiss of a large boy who had been too long away from home and was hungry to be tender to a woman. Death didn’t seem so close when somebody kissed you like that.

  “When is Oelita coming aboard?” asked Teenae.

  “It’s all set for after sunup.”

  “And when is Tonpa going to chop off my nose?”

  “Soon as the woman leaves.”

  “Why don’t you take off my manacles?”

  “You’re thinkin’ escape,” he grinned.

  “I’m thinking about my nose!”

  “I’d be skinned alive and rolled in salt, was I to unfetter you.”

  “You could always run away with me.”

  A pale beam from Scowlmoon reflected off the brig wall, so faintly illuminating her legs that the scarified design of them was invisible, leaving only the shape of legs like those of a young child. He felt his lust rouse. He could do what he wanted and there would be no painful consequences. Slowly his hand touched her thighs, caressing them, moving slowly down to the manacles, knowing that she would not stop him while he was close to doing what she wanted him to do. She remained silent. Excited fingers worked with the locks around her ankles. “I sh’dn’t be doin’ this,” he said hollowly.

  “The wrists, too,” she replied.

  “No,” he said.

  He put his arm around her as gently as he could and with all the care his hand knew, caressed her body. She sent him neither resisting signals nor encouraging signals. The total power of his situation annoyed him. Having that much power was never any fun. He wanted her to like him. Slowly he won her body, while he restlessly suppressed the surf of his own desire. Once, with a barely perceptible motion, she snuggled up to him. Triumph welled in the sailor. It was going to be worthwhile.

  “You smell funny,” she said clinically.

  Ashamed, he remembered that he hadn’t bathed. He moved away.

  “Don’t go away,” she said, alarmed.

  But he left in panic and found another part of the ship where he could wash himself in salt water. He scrubbed the important parts of him until they were red. Then he came back with some old blankets so that she could have a pillow and found her struggling with the hand manacles. She was crying.

  “You came back,” she said petulantly.

  “I got blankets to make you more comfy.” And he put the blankets on the deck and molded her into them and tried to take her, but she kept her legs closed.

  “How can I hold you if you don’t take off these damn hand manacles!” There was a thread of anger in her voice.

  He hurried to unlock them, and she held him and they maneuvered for a less awkward position and he held her tightly while his lust commanded him because he was afraid that she might run away too soon. “You’re a pretty woman. I c’d go for you. You’re the prettiest I’ve ever had.” He kept talking to her to try to make her feel loved the way women liked, and the more passively she took his thrusts the more talkative
he became. For a while he was swallowed up in his own pleasure but after the release came and he found this sweating woman in his arms, lying with her head tilted, her mind somewhere else, he grew affectionately worried. “What’re you thinkin’ ’bout, babe?”

  “About my nose,” she said quietly.

  She listened carefully as he told her how to escape. She had to wait until he was off watch. Then she had to count the next guard’s pacing. When he had passed the fourth time she was to count to fifty and then throw off her still unlocked shackles and push open the porthole, which Arap would have unlocked, and then jump into the sea and swim ashore.

  The time came. She counted to fifty by the thumping of her heart and made for the tiny hole in the side of the ship and slithered out, hanging for a moment by her fingertips before she dropped feet first into the moonlit bay. She had never swum before in water over her head, nor in anything bigger than a river pool. It did not matter. She was ready to fly if she had to.

  The salt water closed around her head and she bobbed to the surface, hearing cries from the upper deck. Her plunge had been seen. For one heartbeat she felt what it must have been like for her husbands to grow up in their creche, outwitting the death trials. Terror and hope. Then her o’Tghalie mind took over. This is what she had been bred for. This was a problem. Without even knowing how she did it, her body created a powerful swimming stroke that pulled her through the water at minimal energy cost.

  17

  The carnivorous nota-aemini will never attack one of its own kind and so that innocent and delicious beetle known as the false nota-aemini has prudently disguised itself to resemble its enemy. Yet life is too restless to allow a solution to exist for long. The narkie, a much smaller prey of the nota-aemini, now has a subspecies which imitates the harmless symbiotes of the false nota-aemini — but in order to survive this new home, where none of the narkie’s natural foodstuffs exist, it has developed a taste for its host’s brains,

  Rial the Wanderer, as dictated to his daughter Oelita

  GAET RODE THE FIFTH model of the gossamer skrei-wheel through Kaiel-hontokae, attracting stares and a wake of children who followed him for blocks on end with their high excited laughter. The tri-wheel had independent suspension for its two front wheels and nine gears in a compact gearbox plus a rudder wheel larger than on earlier models. The frame had been extended and was capable of carrying freight.

  Sometimes Gaet had to lift it over obstacles, but it was well suited to the mountain roads maintained by the Ivieth. It was not the latest model. The best creators of the local og’Sieth clan were already working on a stripped down bi-wheel for rapid personal transport which had no suspension and was evidently capable of maintaining a vertical balance by gyroscopic action similar to the forces that balanced a top. Progress was being delayed by a problem with the new lightweight gears which should have worked well but in practice had an unfortunate tendency to jam and even snap.

  The journey through the city reminded him of nothing so much as the shoulder-hitching he’d done on the backs of Ivieth runners as a child, except that on a straight stretch of the main road he could reach a terrifying speed that was faster than any man could run. He had been told by Benjie, the og’Sieth’s local craftsmaster, to give his skrei-wheel a rough workout since much more information about its wear modes was necessary before they dared put the device into production. It wouldn’t do to have fifty of them that all needed the same replacement part every week.

  The buildings rushed by and the children couldn’t keep up and he kept to the streets between the hills of the city. He was thinking, as he took the cobblestone bumps, that if such vehicles became as common as footwear a man might not have to spend so much of his time away from his wives.

  Ah, wives! There was his motive for hurrying! He was going to be glad to see Noe again. With Teenae away and Kathein interdicted and so much work to do, Hoemei and he had been reduced to near-celibacy.

  Gaet left his skrei-wheel unattended outside the walls of the Great Cloister of Kaiel-hontokae. In a city where even the petty criminals were eaten and used for leather, theft might happen but it was no great preoccupation of the populace. The Great Cloister curved halfway around the base of a small hill, a formidable stone building. It was a Kaiel sanctum and the root of their technology. None but the true Kaiel walked within. After kneeling in the sacrarium and offering a prayer to the God of the Sky, Gaet headed straight for Noe’s cell. A faint odor of solvents was in the air. His walk took him past an ancient stained-glass window and rows of stone pillars. He had to climb stairs and walk through one wing of the building to get to yet a third wing.

  On tiptoes he entered Noe’s room, which was fully equipped because she, as did many Getans, maintained several residences. She was asleep on large yellow and blue dyed pillows that took the shape of her body. He thought that perhaps he would not wake her, perhaps he would just delight in being with her for a few moments and then leave. Hoemei had mentioned how short of sleep she was.

  “Hello,” she said lazily.

  “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  She motioned with her body for him to come to her. “My nap is over. I need your shaft to wake me up.” Slowly she began to undress him while he lay with her, but she gave up and let him finish, and then pulled him under the blankets.

  “Mmmmm… you’re cool,” she said deliciously.

  “You’re warm. I feel like a loaf of bread being baked.”

  “Mmmmm…” She went back to sleep but a corner of her brain that stayed awake persisted in arousing him and they made love, she less and less passively, until she cried convulsively and sat up, hugging herself with her arms.

  “What are you doing in the city? I thought you were in the mountains?”

  “I’m chasing ball bearings.” Gaet laughed.

  “Hoemei said you were making wagons. I didn’t believe him. He said they were light enough for two men to lift.”

  “I can lift one myself. They’re fast. We are going to have fifty of them built, maybe seventy, in time for the coastal famine. But only if I can find the craftsmen to provide those damn ball bearings.”

  She giggled. “Only Hoemei could get you to do trade clan labor.”

  “Only Hoemei could get you to work at all,” he retorted.

  “I must say dallying in the temple beats administering the labors of fifty juveniles fresh from the creches. The Cloister is a human pressure cooker! There is so much to do!”

  “Getting anywhere?”

  “You can bet your coins we are! I have them working in ten parallel teams. They are terrified of me. They think I’m going to make soup out of them if they don’t overachieve. Guess who saved us weeks of work?”

  “I brought you some honeycakes in case you were awake.”

  “Is that all you ever think of? Making me fat so you’ll have more to hold? You never listen to me.”

  “All right, who saved us weeks of work?”

  She munched on her honeycake. “Our betrothed.”

  “Kathein?”

  “No. Oelita. We were requisitioning samples of the wheat-eating underjaw and before we got the order out, they arrived by way of an itinerant glassblower. Oelita seems to be an observant woman. She collected some a while ago and gave them to a renegade Stgal priest who breeds detoxified profane vegetation. He was worldly enough to send them to the Cloister here. Oelita also had written out an amazingly detailed description of the underjaw life cycle.”

  “Do they contain human genes like Hoemei maintains?”

  “They certainly do. It is an unbelievable crime. It’s Judgment Feast for the Mnankrei. We’ll have to break the whole clan to a lesser status, maybe destroy it.”

  “You’ll wear Scowlmoon’s crescent for a necklace before you see that happen. It’s impossible. They tried it with the Arant and we’re here.”

  Her eyes blazed. “We’re Kaiel — not Arant!”

  He laughed. “I see you believe our forged history.”

&nb
sp; “They let too many of you atheists out of the creches!” Noe was above all an aristocratic patriot.

  Gaet did not bother to remind her that the creche had been essentially an Arant idea or that the God-made ectogenetic machines on which the Arant heresy arose had probably existed and been destroyed during the terrible crusade. Instead he changed the subject. “I figure Sorrow can hold out for one season against the Mnankrei. They have enough reserves for that. If the underjaw is still an abomination by then, the Stgal are doomed.”

  She grinned smugly. “We already have the underjaw control ritual. It is not yet God smooth, but it will be.”

  “That’s fast work!”

  “I’m a fast woman,” she flirted. “Why do you think you fell in love with me after one heartbeat?”

  “You mean it wasn’t your family money?”

  “Don’t you remember? It was right after I offered you that purple drink,” she teased, licking the honey from her fingers. “Extract of slave pituitaries.”

  “That’s what you plan for the beetles, to spike their drinks?”

  “We need only to synthesize three artificial genes.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “The underjaw carries up to a hundred tiny symbiotes in its cervical carapace which are its only source of the alalaise it needs to power its wings during migration flight. When underjaws overgraze, the population begins to die. A dead underjaw triggers the sexual phase of the symbiote whose larvae thrive on the corpse. In their winged phase they find living underjaws and as the under-jaws become symbiote-saturated, a migration begins. We’ve found a way to use the human protein in the deviant underjaw to trigger the sexual phase of the symbiote while the underjaw is still alive so that it is eaten alive. The larvae mature and find other underjaws. If the new underjaw is of the Mnankrei-synthesized variety, then the sexual phase begins again instantly. If not, the symbiote establishes a normal relationship.”

  “Clever. Who thought of it?”

  “Me, you oaf!” She cuffed him. “When I was reading Oelita’s description of the life cycle. Get dressed. I’ll show you.”