His ears tipped to the right and his lower jaw moved as if he were chewing. “Perhaps, Mistress, it would be easier to move the ‘some humans’ to the migration?”
Rigi imagined Major LeFeu running pell-mell ahead of several thousand strolling wombeasts and managed a faint smile. “Perhaps, Makana. Perhaps.” Oh, the cart. “And the cart still has not been greased. At the moment it is two rows over from where you left it, eight slots to the north.”
His ears tipped back and a bit of //annoyed/frustrated// burned her nose. She heartily agreed.
“I will see to it, Mistress.”
“Thank you.”
6
Discoveries
Rigi did not get her chance to begin her work for another week. The civilian settlers, human and Staré, moved to the proposed town site, leaving the military families in a smaller camp. With that “distraction,” as Mrs. Chang pronounced it, removed, the traditional military social circles returned with a seemingly pent-up fury. Rigi found ways to avoid Major LeFeu, but could not avoid the wives’ social events. “…And one of the civilian ladies, Mrs. D’Amato, says that she’s pregnant! She’s hoping to have the first human child born on this continent.” Major Chang’s wife gushed.
Rigi had already heard the news, but did her best to act as surprised and pleased as the other ladies present. Since she’d learned of the possible pregnancy through the Staré gossip system, called the thumping network, and she nodded and murmured something polite. She'd also heard of Mrs. D’Amato’s threatening some of the other civilian women if they dared become pregnant and deliver first. Beside her, Mrs. Stellare-Lowen frowned a slight bit, but held her peace. Rigi liked the captain’s wife. She was a little older than some of the other captains’ wives, and had a calm, soothing presence. Perhaps it came from being around a medical officer and needing to deal with what Aunt Kay called, “blood and things.”
As they were leaving the tea, Mrs. Stellare-Lowen stopped her. “Mrs. Bernardi-Prananda, your pardon if I am being forward, but have you made plans for the next Day of Rest?”
Off guard, Rigi stared at her, blinked, and tried to recall. “Ah, that is, no, ma’am. I have made certain that Makana will be able to rest as well if he so chooses, but nothing beyond that.”
“I thought that might be the case.” She smiled and lowered her voice. “Should you wish fellowship, please come before sundown. I have space for an overnight guest, and fasting in company can ease temptations.”
Rigi smiled back, trying to hide her overwhelming relief and appreciation for the generous offer. “Thank you very much, ma’am. I believe I will accept your most kind invitation.”
Mrs. Stellare-Lowen appeared relieved. “Excellent. I look forward to your arrival.” Rigi hand bowed as she would to any more senior member of the Temple, and Mrs. Stellare-Lowen made a small sign of blessing in return. Now that she knew what to look for, Rigi wondered why she had never thought about the other woman being a neoTraditionalist. She dressed modestly enough, in knee-length dresses over loose trousers, and wore solid colors with tone-on-tone embroidery. But then many of the settler and military women had shifted over to more practical, less fragile fashions when they came to the new settlement, and only two brave souls dared wear pastels. Those ladies also had the largest number of Staré staff to do their laundry, a luxury Rigi already missed. Yes, technology had made cleaning less onerous, but taking her things to the wash station, doing them, and returning to the tent remained a chore and took time Rigi preferred to use for more edifying or remunerative tasks.
Two days later, Rigi, Makana, and Martinus headed for the hills. Or more correctly, headed for the hill, a solitary blister of land that Rigi hoped would provide a good view of the military camp, the new settlement site, and everything else around. She’d grown tired of practice drawings and camp scenes. The early morning air smelled like it might rain later in the day, although only a few fine threads of pure white cloud crossed the light-blue sky. Slowth acted eager to get out as well. Rigi had to hold him steady as Makana finished getting the cart hooked up to Slowth’s harness, and vice versa. “You are a wombow, not a striped leaper,” she reminded the brown marsupial.
He tried to butt her with his broad head. “Mmbwaa.”
Her eyes watered. “Slowth, you need to brush your teeth more often. Or to eat white mint.” Wombow breath might just become her new go-to description of bad scents. Or perhaps she could use it as a curse word?
“Wooeef,” Martinus agreed from his place in the cart.
“It is unanimous. Clean your teeth properly after your next meal, please.”
Makana took the guide lines from her and Rigi climbed into the cart. It was higher off the ground than the city cart she’d had in NovMerv, and the retractable metal and composite step required some force to get closed from inside the vehicle. Makana waited until she finished, then climbed into the Staré driver’s seat, arranged his tail just so, and released the tension in the guide lines. Slowth didn’t exactly charge for the exit, but he certainly stepped out briskly, tossing his head a little before settling into a fast walk, tail flipping back and forth.
The corporal at the gate of the camp made note of her direction and escort. “Are you armed, ma’am?”
“Yes, Corporal.” She lifted the rifle-style beam-shooter stowed on the seat beside her. “I also have a hand-shooter, and my driver is armed as well. I have permits for both of us.”
Relief filled his voice as he stepped aside and allowed them to pass. “Very good, ma’am. Please report any hazards upon your return.”
“I shall do just that, Corporal.” Makana ear bowed as they passed. Rigi returned the large shooter to its brackets, wondering as she did if bringing back a pelt and packaged meat counted as a report. No, because a young, well-fed leaper probably did not count as an official hazard unless it was being pursued by something large and angry. And the Tradition did not permit her to eat the meat of predators unless it were a matter of survival.
The cart bumped along the track. Rigi looked avidly left and right, up at the sky and down at the plants beside the dirt path. After two kilometers, Makana directed Slowth off the main way and onto a side-path, one that in Rigi’s opinion failed to warrant the map’s label of “improved.” Granted, there were no boulders or trees in the right-of-way, which could be considered an improvement from scrambling up a pristine hillside. Even so, whoever had “made” the path obviously did not intend to ride a barely-sprung cart up it. By the time they reached the stopping place Rigi had chosen, she was regretting not bringing several liters of fresh wombow milk. They’d be churned completely into butter by the time she returned to camp, at this rate!
Rigi got out of the cart and did not sigh with relief. Not even after she found a nice leafy and harmless plant to hide behind for a moment. She just could not understand the women who took care of their needs in front of their Staré servants. No, they were not human, but it was still grossly rude, at least to Rigi’s way of considering such matters. Rigi slid the strap of her art bag over her shoulder, collected the big shooter, and followed Makana farther up the hill. He’d given Slowth a nosebag of something as well as tying him to a sturdy tree. They’d stay within sight of the cart, just in case a predator appeared, but Rigi did not care to walk back to camp if Slowth decided to nibble something, leaned too far, and rolled down the slope. Martinus followed behind, scanning for wildlife.
They did not go all the way to the top of the hill, just far enough that she had an excellent, unobstructed view of the landscape. Rigi opened a sketchbook, found the right pencil and sharpened it, then let her hand and eye start to work. She didn’t really think about what she was doing, just letting the picture appear on paper. Once she had a very general depiction in order to show the overall setting, she initialed the page, turned to a fresh sheet of paper, and focused her attention on the camp and settlement, and the terrain behind them.
The mountains—rugged hills, or whatever the geographers called them—bothe
red her like an itch or mild sting under her clothes. They were there; not bothering her sufficiently to justify trying to explain herself, but enough to distract and irritate. Something… Rigi let her hands move, trying to absorb the scene, not focusing on any one detail but taking in the sense of the place.
The long, rounded ramp of land under the army camp and new settlement stretched from the mouth of a pass eastward toward the green, gentle sweep of the coastal plain. The mountains curved, or would curve on a map, framing the scene. Trees anchored the broad ramp—a thin, needle-leaved kind Rigi didn’t recognize. Clumps of grass gave the land a green and brown hue, and she idly wondered about the rise under her feet. Probably another erosional lump of some sort. Behind her, she heard Makana making an odd sound and smelled //curiosity/concern,// while Martinus beeped quietly, indicating that his sensors had registered a large animal. “Does something come?” she asked in Staré.
“Yes, Mistress. Plant eater like a kitfeng but closer to the ground and rounder.”
“I’m almost done for the moment.” Her hand added some shading and a touch of contrast, a hint of curved line just beyond the low end of the slope, the toe as geologists called it. The drawing felt done and she initialed it and started closing the sketchbook, turning as she did. “Ah. That is a large kitfeng indeed.”
She’d never seen anything both lumpy and graceful before. The tan and white hump-shouldered reptilian grazer—she hoped it was a grazer—stood as tall at the shoulder as Makana’s head. The strange beast’s slender head appeared out of proportion with the stocky body and comparatively short but slender legs. The slightly pointed ears twitched and the creature swished a thin tail as it rapidly chewed something, working its narrow lower jaw in a circular motion. Rigi opened the book again and quickly roughed out the beast. It seemed content to watch her and Makana. They in turn observed the reptile. “Do you see any more of them?”
“No, Mistress.” A whiff of //concern/wariness// passed her nose, and Rigi let her hand keep moving as she searched left and right for signs of motion in the brush and grass. “If the work is done, perhaps retiring to the vehicle might be in order, ma’am?”
“Agreed.” She noted the colors, initialed the quick drawing and tucked the book away into her satchel, freeing her hands. She picked up her larger beam-shooter from the sapling she’d leaned it against and confirmed the safety, then began wending her way down the little hill. Makana hopped behind her, keeping watch over the new reptile. It followed them, pawed up some of the grass that she’d crushed by standing on it, and crouched to eat. Rigi smelled Makana’s //relief/ease of tension,// and agreed whole-heartedly. Grazing or browsing animals, in her experience, did not leap off of roofs and attempt to eat humans and Staré.
They stopped the cart near a small brook. Rigi tested the water for biological hazards that might affect wombows. It passed, so they unhitched Slowth and let him drink. He sniffed the water. “Mbwaa?” He sniffed again, then lunged, almost dragging Makana into the stream in his eagerness to get to the water. Makana growled something rude in Staré. Slowth did not care about the possible calumniation of his ancestors and drank happily, stub tail practically spinning like a rotor. While he drank, Rigi studied her drawings. The overall impression of the land held nothing of interest, but when she looked at the more detailed sketch of the camp and settlement, something caught her eyes. Once Makana had hitched Slowth back in place, Rigi said, “I’d like to look at the base of the area where the settlement is, where the long hill touches the flat ground.”
His ears tipped to the right and he considered her request, and her, eyes narrowing until he looked almost sleepy. “Very good, mistress.” He held Slowth until she and Martinus were back in the cart, raised the step for her, and got in his own seat, then waited. Slowth did not move. Makana twitched the guide lines, and after some snorting and grumbles, Slowth began trudging along, acting as if they were imposing mightily upon him. He picked up the pace when they reached the main track, not quite bounding along but acting more like his usual brisk self. Makana turned him east, away from the camp road, and down a well-worn dirt path. The land sloped gently enough that it felt almost level, except that Rigi noticed the soil changing color, from a dark grey to rich red-brown. They passed some of the spindly trees and Rigi sat up, looking left and right, trying to catch a hint of the shape she’d seen from the hill. She peered from her seat toward the hill, then north, calculating.
“Here, stop when you can, please Makana.” He tugged on the guide lines, then directed Slowth off to the inside of a curve in the road, into what appeared to be decent grazing. Slowth certainly took it to be such. He stopped abruptly and attempted to bury his head in the grass. Rigi and Makana both sighed, then climbed down. While Makana fussed at the wombow and looked for hazardous plants or creatures in the thick verdure, Rigi and Martinus walked a few meters down the road, then crossed to the outside of the long curve. The plants appeared just a little different, a little thinner, more herb-like, with more woody-stemmed plants and not as much grass. Rigi found a pocket-light in her bag and crouched, shining it at an angle across the meter or so of odd soil, then dug up some of the dirt with her bare fingers. The pale-brown dirt felt gritty, and glinted as if ground-up minerals or glass had been mixed in. Rigi stood, but walked bent over, looking for just the right place. She caught sight of a bit of something blue, stopped and pointed. “Martinus, dig.”
He started slowly, scraping away the dirt with his ceramic-metal claws, then moved a little faster when Rigi did not speak. “Good Martinus. Stop.” He stopped and backed out of the way as he was programmed to. “Hold, Martinus.” He opened his jaw and she gave him the light. The jaws closed gently, just firmly enough to hold the light steady. “Good boy.” Rigi moved to the side of the shallow hole, tugged at the blue thing, then pulled her knife out of the sheath on her belt and prized her find free of the dirt. It was a piece of cobalt blue tile as wide as the palm of her hand and twice as long as her hand. Bits of whatever it had been affixed to still clung to the rough side. “Release,” she ordered, taking the light back and shining it across the dusty tile. It glittered just a little despite the dust, and Rigi did a few clumsy dance steps before she tucked the find into a glassine bag. Then she pulled a special device out of the bottom of her art bag and set it on the ground beside the hole, pushing three buttons in sequence before moving a meter away from the bright orange oval case. It recorded the exact location of the spot, then took a tiny sample of dirt.
While it whirred, Rigi and Martinus walked farther away from the road, then turned back to look the direction from whence they had come. She crouched and studied the land, then stood again. “It curves, whatever it is,” she told her m-dog. “And it seems to be rather large, if all the plants are on top of the remains and it is uninterrupted.” She folded her arms, considering her observations. “And Dr. De Groet will want to excavate every last millimeter by hand to a depth of two meters at least.”
“Wooeef.”
“Me either. And I’m certain that Tomás and Lexi will concur most whole-heartedly, given that they would be the ones doing the digging.” Lexissol was not out of shape by any means, but he had become a very urbanized Staré, or so she’d decided after watching him drag himself up the ladder in the test trench and all but ooze back to the vehicle at Big Trees village. They’d almost had to pour him out of the runabout once they returned to camp. She giggled a little at the memory. Lexi had not complained, at least not where Kor or the other Staré might hear him, but he certainly did not plan future employment as a ditch-digger.
“Woo?” He seemed to be looking past her, away from the road, and pivoted to face that direction. “Woof!” Something large moved just behind an isolated copse of broad-leaf trees.
Rigi backed toward the soil analyzer, undoing the tie-down on her hand-shooter as she moved. The instant the orange oval beeped, she scooped it up. “Martinus, come!” He trotted to her, eyes still brown, but on alert. She backed a few more meters, bu
t when nothing followed, she turned her back to whatever it was and hurried to find Makana and Slowth.
“Graaaaurrrrrp,” belched from behind her. Makana stared past her, ears flopping to the sides then snapping straight up. He lunged for the cart, grabbing his large beam-shooter. Rigi trotted toward him, then cut to the side at his frantic forefoot gesture, clearing his line of fire. She spun around and gasped as a stocky, low-slung bird lumbered toward them. It had a thick, short beak, a thick neck, and enormous claws on its four-toed feet. The green and brown plumage blended well with the local plants, part of Rigi’s mind observed. The rest of her hurried past Makana and grabbed Slowth’s headstall so he wouldn’t bolt. “Graaaauuuuurp!”
The thing straightened up and extended claw-tipped wings. It was not as stocky as it had appeared, and it seemed to be coming closer. “Lothar, guard.” The heavy-duty shooter emerged from the m-dog's back and his eyes shifted to red. Makana raised his shooter and Rigi heard the safety snick off. The bird opened its beak and charged.
“Woof!”
Makana fired, Martinus fired, Rigi ducked, Slowth jerked his head, and Martinus threw himself at one of the thing’s legs.
Crunch snap thud.
“Bwaaaa!” It took all of Rigi’s strength to keep Slowth from bolting as the bird collapsed. Dust puffed from its feathers. It did not move.
“Good Lothar, down Lother, down Martinus, good boy, very good boy,” Rigi called. The heavy-duty shooter retracted into his back and he trotted to her side, mouth bloody and a bit of something hanging from one cerami-steel fang. “I’m going to have to clean you again, I can tell.” Coming into camp with that sort of accessory would probably upset most of the ladies and some of the men. When nothing more happened, Slowth calmed down enough for Rigi to relax her death grip on his harness and headstall. Makana had approached the bird and began examining it. “Is it a terror-bird?” she called. He did not respond immediately, and she wondered if he’d heard her over the thudding of her heart.
Woman's Work: Shikari Book Four Page 9