“Yes, and he’s in the shed.”
She heard muted conversation in the background. Then the xenovet made a gesture of agreement. “I’ll be over in two hours. I have a set of vaccinations to give, and you are on my route to a routine health check at Macy’s cowlee barn.”
“Thank you very much, sir. I apologize for bothering you.” Creator and Creatrix be praised.
“I’d rather be bothered now than have to euthanize a wombow for untreatable infections that would have been treatable if dealt with early. Feng out.” Rigi sagged back in the chair. As she did, her bare foot found a chilly puddle from her skirt hem. Startled, she yeeped. She also decided to change clothes before eating. Once in working clothes, she used a rag to clean up the wet floor. Only when that had been dealt with did she venture to check in with Nahla. Thanks be, she’d been planning a late meal, so there wasn’t a waste of food because of being so late getting back.
“Nahla, I apologize for—”
The third Stamm female frowned and made forefoot shooing motions with the foot not stirring something. Rigi retreated, feeling very much as if she were ten years old and facing Shona. She slunk into the dining room and found a large, insulated tea urn and a plate of something under a cover. More hot drinks and the appropriate drinking vessel waited on the Staré table for Makana. Rigi poured tea, holding the cup in her hands and enjoying the heat before drinking. Her toes felt chill, she needed to pin her hair back up, and her worship-day dress would have to be cleaned carefully and soon, lest the mud stain the hems. She did not care to think about the condition of her boots, either. They’d need serious cleaning and oiling, then to dry slowly. She should have worn synthetics, not real leather. A second cup of tea eased the prospects before her, and Rigi ventured to look under the cover of the dish.
Hand pies! Rigi sampled one of the palm-sized snacks and discovered a warm mixture of spiced meat and vegetables. She could have hugged Nahla. Instead she poured a third cup of tea, selected a second pie, and sat down at the table, nibbling the end of the pastry and finding still-hot lemon-heart with n’card’mon. She closed her eyes and gave thanks for the day’s mercies, not the least of which was having hot things waiting for her and Makana. She heard Staré feet, and the sound of tea pouring, and of a Staré drinking. She kept her eyes closed and finished her pie. More drinking sounds followed, before Makana said, “Slowth is eating a little, Mistress Rigi, and the cart is put away. I replaced the items from the healing box.”
“Thank you very much, Makana. Dr. Feng will stop by later to look at Slowth and give him a shot if he needs one.”
“Very good, ma’am.” He murmured something in very quiet Staré to someone, and she smelled //curiosity/interest.//
She heard the sound of a plate on wood, then a second similar noise, and opened her eyes to find a fluffy, steaming thing in a casserole dish in front of her, along with a serving piece and a eating plate. A set of eating utensils appeared as well. Was it? Surely not. Rigi picked up the shallow serving spoon and plunged it into the dish. It was a soufflé! Nahla had outdone Shona! Rigi scooped more onto her plate and gave thanks, then took a bite. “This is excellent!” she said in Staré. “Nahla, very, very well done.”
Nahla, looking in from the kitchen door, ducked, ears tipping forward a little, and rubbed her forefeet. If a Staré could blush, Nahla would have, //pleased/hesitation/relief.// “Thank you, Mistress Rigi. I— I wasn’t certain it would work, since I’m not human.”
“Whatever you did worked perfectly, Nahla.” She’d managed the one thing Shona couldn’t. She’d moved softly enough in the kitchen to keep the soufflé from falling. “Ah, since you are here, and before rumors and the thumping network gets out of control, you need to know that if Master Tomás and I are called to go to the new settlement on Verdina, you can go work for Master and Mistress Trent, instead of trying to find someone else.”
Nahla’s ears drooped, she chewed frantically, and Rigi smelled //dismay/upset/worry.// “I cannot come with you?”
“You did nothing wrong, Nahla, and it would be better if you could, but you are too young. Only those older than sixteen years are to be in the first group. The Crown administrator set the rule, and I cannot challenge it. Neither can Master Tomás. The Trents have already said that they would like for you to live with them and cook, if you do not mind. You will still be paid, and have a cottage of your own if you want one, since the Trent house does not have a Staré section.”
Makana leaned over and whispered something into Nahla’s closest ear. The other ear straightened up a little. He added some words, and Rigi thought she caught a male //calm/humor/comfort.// Nahla’s ears came almost back to their starting place, and the chewing motion slowed. She nodded once and returned to the kitchen, coming back with a plate of larger hand-pies that she set on the Staré table. Rigi thought she heard the word “tam” and shifted her chair just a bit, so she could pretend tam was not being served in her dining room. She finished the single-serving soufflé and excused herself, still not looking toward Makana, lest he be chewing.
The xenovet inspected Slowth and gave him a precautionary shot for bite-rot. Afterwards, Rigi found Makana back in his little office, working on something on his computer. “Makana, thank you for calming Nahla,” she began.
“Mistress, it is nothing. She is young, she does not need to learn that the Elders are not all perfect yet.” His ears drooped back a little. “First-Stamm sir cautioned that Nahla might need to find another Wise to assist, and it is good that she is cared for. Otherwise he asked that I see if she might find a mate, even though she is young.”
Rigi felt her jaw trying to drop and caught herself just in time. She wanted to demand how Kor could even think such a thing, how the males dared to force so young a female to mate, how they could possibly imagine that Rigi and Tomás would permit it. Except if Kor did such a thing, they could not stop it unless Nahla balked, and she would do no such thing. Anything a first Stamm ordered or requested, she would comply with. And Rigi and Tomás were not Nahla’s guardians, although she was under age even by Staré rules. They needed to change that, or to have a guardian appointed. Hmm. “You have just given me an idea, Makana, one that might solve several difficulties. Thank you.” She darted into her own work area before he could answer, quickly logging into the legal information network and hunting up guardianship rules.
Two days later, Rigi presented Nahla with two sealed envelopes. “The darker one is a guardianship contract, Nahla. Capt. Prananda and I are now your legal guardians, in lieu of family, with Korkuhkalia as Elder of record. If we are away, Lexissol and his parents are your guardians, and anyone who wants you to serve her must have their permission, if Tomás and I are away.” Nahla ear bowed and tucked the envelope into the pocket in the modesty apron over her pouch. “The paler envelope is a work agreement. You need to sign it, or make your mark, but it shows that you have been hired by the Trents and are not without support.”
“Do I do this now, Mistress Rigi?”
“No,” Rigi assured her. “Only if Capt. Prananda and I leave for Verdina. The Trents agreed, and they have deposit rights to your account, or rather Lexissol does, and they will pay you for any time you work for them, if Capt. Prananda and I are away.”
Nahla held up the light tan envelope. “This one if you leave, the other one keep but is good always?”
“Yes.”
The wave of //relief// almost knocked Rigi over. She found out why that evening. Tomás commed. “How fares Slowth?”
“Stubborn, spoiled, and otherwise fine. His leg is healing well, no signs of infection yet.”
“Oh good.” If relief had been visible, his image would have vanished from the screen behind the cloud. “At least one thing went right this week.”
“Ah, a Subala got lost or eaten because of lieutenant’s brilliant plan?”
He laughed. “Not yet, but please do not give the universe ideas. No, I have confirmation that you will be invited along to the settl
ement on Verdina. One of the Elders is furious because it seems that Nahla’s secondary guardian insists on her working for him and refuses to allow her to hire out, citing her age. The guardian’s parents are backing the guardian and have threatened to invoke some odd tradition in order to keep Nahla ‘in the family’.” He made quotation marks with his fingers. “Or perhaps I should say Tradition.” He winked.
“Oh my. I can just imagine. I had not realized that the adoption was de jure as well as de facto.” Lexi had persuaded the Trents to take him in when he was a hopling, that much Rigi knew, but she hadn’t realized that they’d somehow managed an interspecies adoption. Well, if anyone could find a way, it would be not-exactly-retired Crown Command Sergeant Major Trent and Mrs. Trent.
Tomás raised his hands, fending off the implied question. “I do not want to know. This is Uncle Eb and Lexi, and Aunt Kay.” He lowered his hands. “Slowth will come along, as will Makana if he agrees. I’ll send you a packing list, but you need to plan for three months without resupply. I’ve opened my pay account to you, in order to obtain get art things if you can find them. Transport will be air and sea both. Plan on minimal tech, just the basics plus a settlement shield, for three months.”
A dreadful thought struck Rigi. “Dear, I will have a stove to cook on, yes?”
He stared, blinked, and seemed to look past her shoulder. “Ah, I think. Yes. You will not be cooking over open flames, or turning a whole roast leaper or wombeast on a spit.”
Rigi tried to picture spit-roasting a thousand-kilo wombeast, standing on a ladder to baste it. Her mind threatened to break along with the cooking equipment. “Thank you, dear, I am reassured.”
5
New Lands, Old Irritations
Rigi’s finger itched to sketch, but that would have to wait. For now she looked around the site of the temporary encampment and wondered how something so precisely organized and ordered could turn into such chaos. Beside her, Makana acted as if he were chewing sugarstalk, jaw working furiously, ears tipped to the left, upper lip raised a centimeter or so. On Rigi’s other side, Kor stood, forelegs crossed like a human, ears back half way and muttering something Rigi couldn’t quite catch under his breath. Slowth fussed behind her, and she turned to see what bothered him.
A human male in civilian clothes stomped toward them. Rigi pivoted and took a firm grip on Slowth’s headstall, then patted his shoulder, soothing him. “You, move that beast and wagon. Who told you ‘at you could—Oh.” Mr. D’Angelo recognized her and the others at last. He blinked, then ran a hand over his thinning grey-brown hair and frowned before smoothing his bristly mustache. “You’re blocking the way, Mrs. Bernardi-Prananda.”
“Am I? My apologies, sir. I was told that the main road followed the shoulder of the rise, not the crest. Come,” she tugged on Slowth’s headstall. He stepped out with a will, and Makana had to move quickly to hop into the driver’s seat and catch the guide lines. Rigi stayed with Kor as Makana drove the small wagon down the track to where she’d been assigned to set up, on the edge of the camping area, between the military and civilian divisions near the Staré section. Kor's //irritation/disdain// stung her nose and Rigi agreed. Of all the people to have to come to settle, the D’Angelos were the second-worst possibilities, in her opinion. She kept that opinion to herself, not even voicing her concerns to Tomás or Kor. They had more than enough to do, scouting and looking at the new landscape, trying to find any wombeast travel routs and “other biological hazards,” as Major LeFeu and Mister Phongson Canmonchi described it. Because of her official position as medic and expedition artist, someone had already set up Rigi’s tent, a plain tan structure. Little streamers on the peaks of the roof announced her capabilities as a medic for both Staré and humans.
“It is hoped that the troopers did not confuse your materials with those of the others,” Kor stated. He looked around, ears twitching, eyes scanning the landscape, never still as he took in their surroundings.
“No, sir. I shudder to imagine what would happen if Mrs. D’Angelo opened a crate of candied star-stem rind, thinking it contained her clothing.”
The tickle of //humor// made her feel better. Kor had been especially intense recently. Rigi suspected that it was not simply the tension of scouting a completely new landscape that irritated him. For that matter, she was not pleased with the humans and some of the Staré chosen or who had volunteered to relocate to the new settlement. Something about the sea and the mountains bothered her. The relative proximity of the volcano, lurking out of sight two hundred kilometers to the north, did not soothe her nerves. Perhaps it was simply being near so many people who had no idea what living without modern amenities required that rubbed her fur in circles, as the Staré phrased it.
Slowth had reached the bottom of the little ridge and Rigi could see Makana slowing him and directing him away from a small, leafy tree and back onto the path. “That has not changed,” Kor sighed. “Thanks be for predictable wombows.”
“You’ve found one, sir? Where? Is he for sale?” Rigi ventured to joke as they walked down an animal trail. Below them, they saw the D’Angelo wagon with a six wombow hitch trudging along the vehicle road. At least he’d greased the axels this time, Rigi sniffed. The dark blue wagon creaked but didn’t scream, and the wombows seemed willing, not needing the go-fast stick. Around them, green grass and brush led down to a flat area dotted with orderly rows of tents in three sizes. A shield generator squatted in the center, and she could see tan-clad figures moving around it as the soldiers and technicians finished checking everything. It would not be turned on until after nightfall, allowing everyone time to get into the protected area. She wrinkled her nose, thinking of all the other things that would also have time to get into camp. Four different wombow corrals held beasts in all colors and patterns of wombow, mostly geldings and females. No settlement needed too many intact males, and Rigi wrinkled her nose again as she recalled the messes full males could instigate if their owners did not train them properly.
Kor snorted, mimicking a human. “We go out the day after tomorrow. I for one relish the prospect.”
Rigi wished she could go along, but Mr. Canmonchi had been firm—no civilians out of the settlement until the military had finished surveying, and most certainly no women could leave the safe area. Safe being a relative term, of course. Rigi patted her aunt’s garish, military-strength hand-shooter in the holster under her skirt. She’d modified the pockets to allow her to reach the weapon quickly. She was not supposed to have such a thing, since nothing could get close enough to camp to threaten the people there. Aunt Kay and Uncle Eb had been—insistent. Personally, Rigi suspected that the local wildlife had not gotten the comm call and had also missed the holo-vid presentation. And then there were things like scent-sick Staré, rut-maddened wombows, intoxicated humans and Staré… She sighed a little. No matter where they went, people were people, with people problems.
When they reached the bottom of the ridge, Martinus trotted up. Someone had put a piece of paper under the collar he now wore, and Kor removed the page, and read it, then released //resignation/irritation.// He enunciated carefully in Common, “If you will pardon me, it appears that my plans for supervising the wombow beauty pageant have been preempted.” Rigi felt her eyes bulge with surprise at the joke.
“Duty before pleasure, sir.” She hand-bowed to him as he departed, leaving her with Martinus. The m-dog wagged his tail rod and pivoted so he walked beside her. Neither Major LeFeu nor Mr. Canmonchi had been pleased with Martinus coming, but Rigi had been firm, as had Lt. Colonel Morgansi. They’d also balked at Makana sharing quarters with Rigi and Tomás. That was, until Kor, his twin Tortuh, and two other first Stamm Staré let it be known that he was under their orders to protect Rigi. Makana's having a separate, semi-detached tent and eating with the other Staré at the appropriate canteen had mollified the humans somewhat. Rigi had heard muttering from some of the other civilians and from the military wives about her having only one servant of her own
. Since the manners books said nothing about how many servants per rank, Rigi had shrugged and pretended not to have heard.
She reached the tent in time to help Makana finish unloading the last of her and Tomás’s supplies from the wagon. It really was too bad they couldn’t keep the wagon when they returned to NovMerv, Rigi sighed. It was so much lighter but sturdier than the wooden cart, even if it didn’t have changeable seats or the extra little boxes for storage that the cart had. She carried a padded bag with her pastels and charcoals in it in one hand and balanced the third box of her sketchpads on the opposite hip. Makana had tied the door open, so she just ducked, and wiped her feet, then found “her” corner once her eyes adapted. She’d clean the floor and put the boot-box out only after they finished arranging everything.
She added her box to the stack, then arranged the bag of pastels and charcoals in a protected nook, out of the way of the males and where, perhaps, no one would knock it over. She didn’t work all that much with those media, but one never knew. Since she didn’t have her full electronic art suite with her, they’d give her more options. At least she’d finished the third wombow portrait in time, and the owner had not wanted digital copies. The family sub-renting the house had been happy to leave her art computer where it was, since they did not need nearly as much space. Now she just had to get things sorted out here. Rigi wondered as she swept some bits of gravel out the open door-flap if the leadership had settled on a name yet. Eventually “here” would have to change. Tomás had assured her that the initial proposal of Leopoldiville had been denied on some rather vague grounds. Why anyone would want to saddle a new town with such an ill-omened name escaped Rigi, although she had agreed that there were worse options.
She wasn’t pregnant. She still felt disappointed, but also a little relieved, since being with child and exploring a new continent might not work well together. Her physician had assured her that not conceiving instantly after marriage was normal, and that she and Tomás did not need to rush things. She was only twenty, after all, and he was twenty three. She giggled a little, still, remembering Tomás’s expression when she’d asked him if he had explained to Kor and Makana the “facts of life” as humans experienced them. Apparently he had not, and found the prospect of discussing such things rather distressing, given the colors he’d turned and the spluttering, hemming, and hawing, that had followed her inquiry. She’d not pushed the matter.
Woman's Work: Shikari Book Four Page 7