by Karen Lord
“Enjoying yourself, Joral?” I asked blandly, handing him the bottle.
He looked at it blankly for a moment and then, in response to my hand gestures, tipped some of the contents carefully into his mouth. His eyes widened slightly, and he made a considering moue.
“Piquant and refreshing,” he proclaimed, and handed it back. “I am finding the experience very educational. The Commissioner informed me that she already has a significant amount of genetic data for this settlement, and while the phenotype is mostly Terran, there are sufficient taSadiri genes in the population that a combination of selection and switching could easily produce a child of Sadiri appearance and physiology. Moreover, the anthropological data clearly show that a number of Sadiri traditions have been retained.”
“Is this festival a Sadiri tradition?” I asked, having drunk and passed the bottle to him again.
He took a good gulp, no longer shy, and returned it. “In fact, it is not. While it does appear to have a few features of certain ancient festivities—except with less blood and … um … other activities—its origin is Terran, specifically the festival of Carnival.”
“Farewell to the flesh,” said my linguistic self mockingly. “It needs to be followed by a fast to be true, not preceded by one.”
“I … do not understand.”
I passed him the bottle once more in apology and answer. He drained it. “This beverage is delicious. May I have another?”
I hauled another two bottles out of a nearby cooler and gave him one. He popped it open and immediately took a swig.
I looked down at the Savannah. “If we stay here for a couple more hours, we’ll get to see the fire dancing. That should be good. Oh, I forgot to ask—did you come to find me for a specific reason?”
Silence. I turned to Joral. He was contemplating the already half-empty bottle in his hand with a strange little smile. “Oh. Yes. Councillor Dllenahkh wishes me to tell you that after the festival, we will have a meeting with some of the elders of the settlement.”
“Joral, are you feeling all right?” I asked, concerned at the look on his face.
He turned to me and smiled fully, which completely freaked me out. “I feel fine, Delarua, just fine. I wonder if I should go down and try a bit of dancing. It doesn’t look that hard.”
I hit my comm immediately. “Nasiha! Something’s wrong with Joral! He’s smiling. I think he’s drunk.”
Nasiha spoke with her usual calm. “How much has he had to drink?”
“About four hundred mils of … something,” I stammered, trying and failing to find enlightenment on my bottle’s label. “There’s alcohol in it. Six percent.”
“That is far too little to affect a Sadiri,” she mused. “Can he still walk?”
“Ye-es—I’m not sure. Joral, stand up.”
He did so obligingly, canting on the incline of the berm with a stability that hinted at least at physical sobriety. “I feel fine! I am standing up. Tell her I am standing up!”
“Hmm,” Nasiha said. “Joral, return to the camp immediately.”
I escorted him back to camp, which is to say I herded him like an inexperienced sheepdog as he pinballed his way through the crowd, dancing from partner to partner. Nasiha and Tarik were waiting, and they immediately gripped him by the elbows and hustled him into one of the shelters. I followed them in time to see them wrestling him down onto a cot, still protesting that he was fine. They quickly took a blood sample, tested his breath, and looked at his eyes.
Then they looked at me accusingly. “This is not inebriation,” said Tarik.
“Well, don’t look at me,” I wailed. “Look at this!” I waved the bottle at them.
“Yeah, that’ll do it.”
I jumped. It was Tonio. I had been so preoccupied with Joral that I hadn’t noticed when he woke up and followed us. He stood casually in the entrance of the shelter, completely unworried by the scene before him.
“That’ll do it,” he said again. “It’s got fireberry juice in it.”
“And what,” said Nasiha severely, “is fireberry juice?”
“It’s like another kind of alcohol, you know? Kinda takes the edge off your emotions and calms your thoughts but doesn’t take out your legs or fuzz up your head. Mothers give it to their kids to settle them down, no worries. Works great on teenage boys, especially when they start to get … y’know.” He shrugged and flicked an expressive eyebrow upward while realigning the crotch of his trousers with a practiced cup-and-shake of his hand.
Nasiha and Tarik looked at each other, then stared at Tonio. “Tell us more about this fireberry juice,” said Tarik.
“Well, here, try some.” The enterprising Tonio took a small flask from his pocket and handed it to Tarik.
Tarik opened the flask cautiously, poured a tiny amount into a clean sample cup, and sipped it. “Intriguing,” he commented.
Nasiha took the cup from him and drained the remainder. “Most interesting,” she agreed.
“But this makes no sense,” I complained. “Why would it make Joral more emotional?”
“Oh, forgot about that,” said Tonio helpfully. “Also removes inhibitions, like alcohol. Bit of a paradox. Feel less, express more.”
The two standing Sadiri were looking at him very curiously. “This calls for further research,” said Nasiha. “Can you take us to someone who makes this beverage?”
“Sure!” Tonio said cheerfully.
He went out, Tarik and Nasiha followed, and just as I was bringing up the rear, Nasiha turned and said pointedly to me, “Someone should stay with Joral.”
I grimaced. “Fine.”
Watching Joral very quickly turned into watching Joral sleep. I put him in the recovery position just in case some nasty after-reaction should occur and curled up on a nearby cot, listening bitterly to the shouts and cheers and drumbeats of the fire dance show I was missing.
A shadow appeared at the entrance. “Tarik?” I called out, tapping on a light.
“No,” came Dllenahkh’s voice. “Nasiha has just informed me about Joral’s condition. How is he?”
I sat up and yawned and looked over at Joral. “Still sleeping peacefully, it appears. Where are Nasiha and Tarik?”
A very strange expression came over Dllenahkh’s face. It was the look of a man who had seen things he could not unsee. “Dancing,” he said shortly.
I gaped. “Beg pardon?”
“They decided to test the effects firsthand by sampling the various beverages that contain the active ingredient. They are now … blending in.” A faint, cool disapproval touched his voice.
“Well, good for them, I say. After all that madness they put me through, I’m glad they’ve got the guts to experiment on themselves. But I still don’t get it. What’s the big deal about this stuff?”
Dllenahkh moved to pick up a handheld and came to sit beside me on the cot. “Perhaps a look at the data will clarify matters. Here is a summarized form of the data collected from the sensors during your experiment. And here”—he tapped and went to split-screen view—“is the summary for Sadiri data. Nasiha was the test subject, naturally, in order to maintain sex as a constant variable when comparing your readings.”
“These are Sadiri readings,” I said, tracing the line of data.
“Those are the markers of the biochemical reactions we experience during sensory input and processing, yes.”
“And these are mine,” I said, tracing a much lower set of values. “How do you live with that?” I asked with muted awe.
“Carefully. With meditation and strict adherence to the disciplines,” he replied. “But without this high neural sensitivity, we could not be who we are. We would not be able to pilot the mindships, nor could we sense one another, communicate with one another, form telepathic bonds with one another.”
I gave a slow nod of admiration. “Now that you’ve discovered the properties of fireberry, will you use it as an alternative to meditation?”
“It may serve for recreat
ional use, but I do not believe it is to be depended on in the long run. One might find oneself in a situation where the ingredients are not available. However, the disciplines can be taken anywhere that the mind goes.” He gave me a considering look. “Would you recommend this sense suppressant for regular use?”
I thought about it. I pondered Qeturah’s comment about how playing the hand she’d been dealt became for her a badge of honor. “That can only be an individual decision,” I hedged.
“Then let us consider a specific example. Would you recommend it for me, for example?”
“No,” I said finally. “Like you said, it’s who you are. I wouldn’t want you to be anything less than yourself. I don’t know if that makes sense, but there it is.”
There was a rustle at the entrance, and Nasiha and Tarik came in. They were glowing with energy but smiling only very slightly. I was a bit relieved. I had been afraid they might come in laughing or doing something shocking. Nasiha was carrying a small bowl in her hands.
“First Officer Delarua,” she said with a touch of breathlessness, “we apologize for making you miss the festivities by asking you to watch Joral. Please accept this traditional regional dish as a token of our regret.”
I took it with a smile and a twinge of anxiety, but when I looked at it, it was familiar to me. A genuine grin spread over my face. “Thank you, Nasiha! I love chocolate decadence cake!”
I broke off a bit and put it into my mouth. Now, this was a drug worth taking. My taste buds positively hummed in bliss at the creamy richness. I closed my eyes and moaned.
There was an odd echo. I opened my eyes and caught Nasiha and Tarik watching me avidly, their palms pressed lightly together in a poor attempt at intimacy. There was a slightly guilty look on Nasiha’s face, but it was spoiled the next instant by a suppressed giggle. The two then exchanged a smoldering look and departed hastily.
My mouthful turned to ashes. I swallowed it with difficulty and set down the dish. “Perverts,” I said truculently. “Now I’ve lost my appetite.”
“Eat your cake,” said Dllenahkh, and there was definitely a tinge of amusement in the tone of his voice. “They’re gone now, Joral is asleep, and my shields are strong.”
NEVER FORGET
I hated talking to Qeturah about certain things, but for certain things she was the only source of information.
“She’s decided she hates me, hasn’t she?”
Qeturah looked down at her handheld. “I’m not privy to the counseling notes of this case.”
Liar. “Has she told Rafi not to write to me?”
She met my eyes at last. “I don’t know. But I do know that if you write to him, we will make sure that he sees it.”
I nodded and walked off before she could start on me again. I could write to my godson. That was all I needed to know. That made things easier.
Dear Rafi …
I had to write. I couldn’t call, because they were all under protection until the lengthy and thorough process of Ioan’s assessment and trial was concluded. Fergus had been right—the authorities hadn’t seen anything like Ioan on Cygnus Beta, and they weren’t about to take any chances.
Dear Rafi, how are you, how is therapy,
They’d probably read whatever I wrote. Analyze it too for both our sakes.
How are you all doing? I’m fine,
I grimaced at the handheld. After several efforts, the only unchanging bits of the message were Dear Rafi and Love, Aunt Grace. Perhaps I should just send that. Perhaps it was too soon. I could try again next week after I got back.
I tossed the handheld into my backpack and sealed it up. “Ready, Lian?” I asked the aide.
Lian, who was securing our shelter to a much larger military-issue backpack, gave me a narrow-eyed look. “This is a date, right?”
“Why are you harassing me, Lian?” I sighed.
“Payback?” Lian replied, wrestling on the pack with the ease of years of experience.
“At least I can’t be accused of fraternization.”
“Neither can I. Nor cradle snatching,” Lian said, taking it up a notch.
“Tonio is not that young!” I snapped defensively.
“He is not that old,” Lian countered, amused.
“Okay. I’m sorry if you interpreted my entirely professional attempt to warn you about being too friendly to Joral as a demonstration of inappropriate and frivolous interest in your social life. I believed I was acting in the best interests of my colleagues. Now, can we have a little détente here?”
Lian leaned forward, took hold of my face in both hands, and looked at me searchingly, all the while on the edge of laughter. “You are wearing kohl for a field trip. Forestry fatigues, boots, and kohl. What’s that for, hmm? To impress the elephants?”
Then Lian backed off, smirking, and left before I could think of a scathing rebuttal.
We had temporarily split up the team. Qeturah, Fergus, Nasiha, and Tarik were going to continue along the settlements of the grasslands, using the shuttle. And you remember Tonio, the guy who looked a little bit but not really like Ioan? It turns out he was a ranger, off duty for the festival but still very much a civil servant. Qeturah seemed to think it would be a good idea to ask Leoval to pull some strings and have him assigned to us as a guide and extra security. One of those serendipitous things I’ve learned not to question. So Lian, Dllenahkh, Joral, and I were going with Tonio on a side expedition into the forest uplands to the north. It was a place too thickly wooded for shuttles and too changeable for roads, so we were going to use a traditional, efficient, and proven form of transportation: elephants.
I was excited at the prospect, but when we arrived at the mahouts’ village, I was a little surprised.
“They’re a bit … small,” I said in puzzled disappointment, resting a cautious hand on the shoulder of the elephant assigned to me. It wasn’t much taller than a large-sized cart horse. It flapped its ears at me in a friendly fashion and winked its small, long-lashed amber eye.
Lian smiled at my expression. “These are forest elephants. The savanna elephants are the largest of the species and the ones you see most in the holovids.”
I was still excited. Big or small, elephants are elephants, after all. Just before we mounted, when I was sure no one could see me, I quickly kissed the shoulder of my beast and murmured, “Hey, sweetie.”
“Hey, darlin’.” That was Tonio, appearing suddenly by my shoulder. He gave me a laughing look that suggested he was either amused by or attracted to women who kiss elephants for no good reason. Or both.
When not under the influence of alcohol or fireberry, Tonio was witty, cheerful, and sharp with a kind of suppressed electric energy. Even better, he was looking less and less like Ioan to me. He wore a short hooded cape that was nonregulation but very useful under the dripping trees, and occasionally, when he turned his head a certain way, it framed his strong profile in a way that called attention to his mouth. Well defined, curving, with a fullness to the lower lip that cried out for a biting kiss—a very nice distraction.
And then I’d look away again to see Lian watching me and quietly laughing.
In addition to freely mocking me, Lian was generally more talkative than usual. “This is where my mother’s people come from. There are legends of remote monasteries where the monks walk on water and fly through the treetops.”
Tonio rolled his eyes, not with sarcasm but with pure mischief. “This is where my father’s people come from, and there are tales of huge stone statues which point, using one appendage or another, to the secret entrances of ancient temples. There are also reports of intricate, anatomically correct carvings on the walls of those temples which demonstrate the sixty-two approved sexual positions of the Marriage Code.”
I looked away hastily, biting my lip against laughter. Lian would tease me about always laughing at the things Tonio said.
Our first river crossing occurred within minutes. The elephants, being excellent swimmers, got across quite happ
ily by themselves, using their long trunks to snorkel through the deep water. The two-legs passed dry-shod over a small footbridge of rope and wood, and apart from the dubious joy of riding wet elephant, it worked very well.
The second river crossing was nothing like the first.
“Where’s all this water coming from?” asked Lian, looking at the cascading run in dismay.
It was too flat to be called a waterfall but too steep to be an ordinary riverbed. There were two footbridges: a high one placed well above the churning water, strung from tree to tree upstream, and a lower one whose planks were ominously wet, resting directly on the riverbanks. The water flowed more placidly there, with greater depth and fewer rocks, but when I got closer, I gulped. The bridge was not a bridge; it was a lookout over a huge waterfall.
“We will take the high bridge,” the mahout announced.
Joral looked up at the loose sag of the swaying, fraying ropes. “The high bridge does not appear to have been maintained for some time,” he noted.
“The low bridge is too dangerous,” the mahout insisted. “We will swim with the elephants.”
Ordinarily, I would say listen to the man. His land, his river, his elephants, right? But that turbulent current was not at all reassuring.
Tonio shrugged. “I prefer to stay dry,” he announced, and stepped lightly onto the low bridge. It gave a tiny sway, revealing that it was not wood but rope that connected the bridge to the bank landings, but he reached the other side easily. Joral and Lian quickly followed his example. By then, the mahout had ignored the general rebellion against his advice and was swimming over with the elephants, paddling easily near the head of his own beast. Dllenahkh looked at me, his eyebrow quirked in a “well, aren’t you coming?” expression. Still with slight misgivings, I went before him onto the bridge.