by Clayton, Jo;
“No moon?”
“Not even a collection of dust.”
“How’s their astronomy?”
“Look, I wasn’t doing a survey, I was skipping ahead of the local law and trying to make a sliver of profit. Not much of it, the little I saw. What have they got to look at? Can’t see any stars but their own. They keep track of the streaks of the Veil and how fast they’re heading through the rift, hobbyists watch comets and use hand-ground lenses to plot the orbits of the largest asteroids in the Belt. I didn’t see any dishes; either I missed them or they haven’t developed radio astronomy, they’re poor in the heavier metals, maybe that’s why. No long-range weapons, they’ve never had a war on Rallen, I know, it’s hard to believe, but the Rallykx are like that.”
“So. If I go into high orbit, it’s likely they’ll see me, but they can’t reach me.”
“Unless they’ve changed a lot in the past seven years.”
“Would they? Your impressions, that’s all.”
“No. Wrong mindset. You’ll be safe enough.”
“Skeen?”
“Geosynchronous, eh, Pic? I’ll feel better with you in sight, so to speak. Basepoint, hmmm, that lake in the Kinravaly Reserve, that’s what they call it, isn’t it, Ross? Where their high Poobah lives?”
“Gotcha. Consider it done.”
Tibo grimaced at Skeen. “Old broom, take it out when you need it, shove it in a closet when you don’t.”
Skeen ran her hands through her hair, turning it into wild spikes. “Who else can I leave?” Ti-cat lay curled up under a large bright-leafed plant dripping down one corner of the lounge, watching the two of them, Tibo on the divan, propped up on spare cushions, his legs crossed at the ankles, Skeen prowling restlessly about. She looked defensive, Timka thought, and her usually slow, melodious voice was shrill. “Ross? Be real.”
“Pic can handle herself, she doesn’t need a nurse.” He looked amused, but there was an interesting edge to the words. Timka lay very still, willing herself inconspicuous again. She had a suspicion that the prickly unease between these two was there because of the intruders into what had been a private space. Two acute, obstreperous individuals, both quick to resent any attempt to dominate them, they’d worked out a comfortable give and take that balanced the needs of both. A balance we disrupted, Timka thought. No room even for three, and now there’s five of us. Not counting Picarefy. Should I count Picarefy?
Sound of clearing throat, sound of clapping hands. Picarefy asserting herself. “Listen to the man, Skeen.”
“Butt out, Pic. Tib, I don’t want to turn Ross loose down there.”
“Don’t be silly, Skeen. Keep him in the shadows until you can smooth the Rallykx down if they need it, then let him do his thing. He’s got contacts you’ll never reach, he’s a clever kid and he’s got a heavy thing for you, he’s hot to show you what he can do.”
Skeen made an impatient sound, close to a derisive hoot. “He’s a con artist, Tib.”
“So? What’s wrong with that?”
“Aaaah! You are the most … most …”
“Handsome? No? Intelligent? Dashing?” He grinned at her.
“Pigheaded is more like it.”
The argument went on, intensifying to the point of violence where Skeen and Tibo were circling about each other like angry cats, carefully not touching. Timka watched the man, more interested in him for the moment. He’d been polite but cool to her from the beginning; she meant nothing to him and he was more than content to keep it like that. In a number of ways, he was very like Skeen; he shared Skeen’s attitudes toward money and pleasure, shared her aversion to exercising control over others (an aversion almost as powerful as his distaste for letting anyone control him). Much more than Skeen he was a watcher on the sidelines, getting a vast amusement out of the idiocies and idiosyncrasies of so-called sentients. Not a particularly endearing trait, but he was polite enough to turn his all-too-knowing gaze off you if he saw you growing uncomfortable under it. Unless you threatened Skeen. He was astonishingly protective of that tough resourceful woman, understanding her with an empathy that was the one thing he took pains to conceal from her, reading her moods and responding or not according to some interior set of rules Timka couldn’t fashion.
So suddenly Timka found herself blinking, they reached agreement. Tibo and Ross would stay in Picarefy for three days, then, unless something unexpected happened, they’d join the groundside party, leaving Picarefy to amuse herself spreading her flying eyes about, keeping watch over Skeen and sucking in as much data as she could.
They gathered about the screen on the bridge, looking at the lake beneath them, the rolling scrubland around it with its patches of forest, the complex of buildings that seemed more like calligraphy than architecture. At a word from Skeen, the viewpoint darted down until they could see Ykx walking and soaring about the buildings (one structure was halfway around the lake from the others and far quieter. An Ykx was pottering about in a large half-wild garden, another was stretched out on a lounge chair watching the first).
“That the place?” A touch of Skeen’s finger and a black arrowhead pointed toward the lone building.
Ross scratched at his nose. “I heard a lot of talk about the Kinravaly’s Garden; I suppose that’s it.”
Skeen moved the point of the arrow to an open grassy space beside the garden’s outer wall. “Pic, program that into Workhorse, that’s where I want to put down.” She laced her fingers behind her head, stretched, got to her feet. “We’ll make a loop round the world, buzz ’em low and noisy so they know we’re here.” She grinned. “Stomp around and stir up the natives.”
After they buzzed the first Gurn they had to go more carefully; Rallykx of all ages spiraled up to soar about them, riding wings or wind according to air quality and their own abilities. Skeen was flying the Roon harvester she called Workhorse, a powerful shuttle-tug nearly ten times the size of the Lander tucked into its belly.
Skeen raised her brows. “Yes, they’ve noticed us.”
Lipitero was breathless, unable to speak, the hair on her arms and along her spine erecting with the force of her emotion. Ykx everywhere, a world full of Ykx.
Timka yawned, beginning to be bored by this meandering trip. Skeen had planned a route that took them looping over all the major land masses, a long, tedious, essentially uneventful journey without a hint of comfort, hot, noisy, rough. The tug was built for strength, speed and maneuverability, not for an easy ride.
When they came back to the lake, Skeen put the tug into a tight hover-circle some hundred meters above the spot she’d chosen as a landing site, handed the Hailer’s pickup to Lipitero. “Speak your piece, Petro. Here’s hoping they listen; I don’t want to squash anyone when we land.”
Lipitero had worked out her speech with care, using the limited vocabulary she’d lifted from Ross, augmenting it with words from the Old Ykx she’d learned from the flakes the Remmyo had given her. Universal literacy, a longish lifespan, slow breeding and the conservative nature of the Ykx meant that language change occurred with the deliberation of glacial drift, but centuries do add up to real time if you have enough of them and Rallen was colonized a long long LONG time ago.
“Ykx of Rallen,” she said, “hear me. We will not harm you. We will not let you harm us.” She swallowed, closed her eyes. She’d meant to pause here, giving them time to react to the first words. She had to pause, want to or not, because her throat had closed on her. A cough muffled behind a hand, a few experimental workings of her mouth. She continued, “This ship (heavier than air flier) will (immediate future, less than an hour forward from the present moment) land in the open space (grass grown and uncultivated) on the out side of the garden wall. It is our hope (fervent wish accompanied by firm will) that we harm nothing other than the grass when we come down (controlled descent involving deceleration). We ask (favor of importance, a good conferred on speaker and listener) that all who hear me will keep clear of the ship by at least two of its diame
ters since there are powerful forces working around us that would endanger (throw about, break limbs, kill) any Ykx approaching too close to us. There will come a moment when we are committed to the landing and cannot abort. We must land, whatever (being, beast, artifact inclusive) is beneath us. I (female, beyond breeding years) will (immediate future, less than an hour forward from the present moment) come forth (leave this shell and become vulnerable). It is necessary (great urgency, a matter of supreme importance to the speaker) that I speak with the Kinravaly Rallen. I will come with bare hands, claws retracted, I will wait the pleasure of the Kinravaly Rallen.”
Lipitero walked into the thin cold sunshine, Ti-cat limber and lethal beside her. Behind her the brutal black form of the tug squatted like a spider, its hoists were legs drawn tight to its mass. Ykx soared above her and the Garden, a swarm of wasps smoked from their nest, but they kept their distance, wary of her, frightened by the promise of power in that monstrous beast of a flier. She wore a harness she’d designed for this moment, plain, with no weapons, only spyeyes, so Skeen could see and hear what she saw and heard.
There was a gate in the wall about a score of meters from the landing site. When Lipitero reached it, she hesitated, wondering whether it would be locked against her. She hoped not, she’d rather start this talk on a friendly basis. If Skeen had to burn the gate open for her, well she didn’t want to think about that. The gate was simple, planks of a velvety tight-grained wood polished by weather to a soft smoky gray. She flattened her palm on the wood, gave a short sharp push. The gate swung smoothly open, the hinges were oiled and silent. She stepped inside.
Two Ykx waited alone beside an immense tree that spread great russet limbs across a moss garden and a small noisy stream that came round heavy beams of roughcut unpainted wood which formed part of a structure that was mostly hidden behind clumps of bamboo, flowering bushes, trees and climbing vines, a stream that continued across the glade to pass under the wall a short distance beyond the gate. A quiet, peaceful place, filled with the music of the water, scattered trills of birdsong and the soft buzzing of hidden insects. With Ti-cat following half a meter behind her and slightly to one side, Lipitero crunched along a gravel path to a wooden footbridge. She stopped on the bridge and examined the two strange Ykx.
A stocky golden Ykx, no longer young but so astoundingly beautiful the breath caught in Lipitero’s throat when she looked at her. Her harness was ancient leather, worn and comfortable, patched in several places with leather thongs, probably by her own impatient hands. The lacing was hastily done, with no attempt at disguising the utilitarian purpose of the work. Her fur had been brushed sometime in the recent past but not since she’d done some pruning, if the bits of leaf and bark dusted along her forearms meant anything. She was smiling a little, deep glowing eyes watching Lipitero and Ti-cat with gentle amusement and considerable curiosity. Beyond all doubt, the Kinravaly Rallen.
At her side, a tall Ykx, female in her prime, couldn’t be much past her bearing years. A silver-gray like Lipitero. Stern handsome face. Sleek, rangy, strong. She stood at the Kinravaly’s shoulder, looking like she wanted to be a step ahead, her body interposed between the Kinravaly and Lipitero. Seething with a suppressed anger that found expression in the unnatural rigidity of her body, she fixed her amber-crystal eyes on Lipitero as if she dared the stranger to make a hostile move. Obviously she didn’t want Lipitero anywhere around the Kinravaly, strange scarred Ykx whose motives were suspect, who could threaten the woman she protected so earnestly.
Lipitero waited.
The gold Ykx smiled. “I am Kinravaly Rallen. You asked to speak with me.”
Lipitero spread her arms, letting her flightskins fall free, showed her hands, empty, claws retracted. “I am Lipitero the Bereft who come to speak for the last Gather on Mistommerk.”
“Bereft?” The Kinravaly took a step forward, ignoring the wordless protest of the silver-gray. Her ocean-deep eyes swept over the scars that marred Lipitero’s face and torso. “You’ve been hurt.”
“My children are dead, my kin are gone, my Gather lies empty and broken.” Lipitero felt uneasy with the contrast between the formality of her speech and the quick fluid response of the Kinravaly (words and body language both), but the Kinravaly’s accent and some of the words she used demanded hard listening and puzzling out at times; speech would grow easier as she grew accustomed to the accent, but at the moment she felt safest keeping to the most formal of exchanges.
“That’s a terrible thing. Do you come from Ysterai? No, of course, I mix myself up, you said Mistommerk. Is that a colony settled after Rallen? Do you have trouble there?”
After sorting out the questions and puzzling out what the Kinravaly actually said, Lipitero dug for words. “Colony, yes. Settled not from Ysterai but from Tovazh. I am come a beggar from Sydo Gather to say this: The Gathers of Mistommerk are empty and Sydo is alone. We cannot exist alone. I am come to plead for colonists to fill the empty Gathers.”
“I see. We must talk about this more.” The Kinravaly turned to the silver-gray Ykx who was grinding her teeth with frustration. She looked up into the rigid face and smiled. “Zem-trallen, go reassure the Kinra, will you? Be sensible, my friend. Our visitor wants help, why should she harm me, what good would that do her? Go, before I have Sulleggen storming in here foaming at the mouth and demanding answers to questions I haven’t even thought of yet.”
The Zem-trallen clamped her lips together, threw a searing glare at Lipitero, swung round and stalked off.
The Kinravaly beckoned to Lipitero. “Come round to the patio, we can sit and chat there, be more comfortable. I’ve ordered some iska and cakes. Do you know iska? No? It’s a sweetish herbal decoction drunk hot or iced, very refreshing. We’ve been a long time apart, but I don’t think it would be dangerous to you. I’ve heard that the young alien who visited us a few years back ate and drank with Ykx and had no trouble from it. Hmm, was it him who guided you here?” She laughed suddenly, a warm accepting sound. “You probably don’t understand half of what I’m babbling.”
“That is true, Kinravaly.” Lipitero spoke slowly, carefully. “But I am growing accustomed to hearing you and understanding becomes easier. Please continue, but be patient with my thick head.”
The Kinravaly laughed again and continued a steady flow of conversation as she led Lipitero and Ti-cat to a covered patio looking down a long slope of grass and flowers. Carved wooden screens were placed about to block the wind and several braziers provided enough heat to keep them comfortable in spite of the chilly air. When Lipitero was seated, her feet on a low hassock, Ti-cat stretched out beside her, the Kinravaly pulled a bell cord, then settled herself in a worn old chair, her feet propped on a three-legged stool.
Anki came in with a heavily loaded tray. The Kinravaly took a cup of iska and sipped at it as the young Ykx brought a cup and a selection of wafers to Lipitero and set these things on a small table at Petro’s elbow, then glided out. The Kinravaly set her cup down, laced her fingers over her stomach fur. “Tell me why you are here. More detail now. Take your time, I will listen as long as you need.”
“It requires preamble,” Lipitero said. The iska warmed and relaxed her. I should take some plants back with me, if I can talk Skeen into carrying them. She closed her eyes a moment. The words were starting to come easier, but this chase between two similar languages was hard on her head, long habit came constantly out of the shadows to trip her up. “I do not know how much the Rallykx remember of the seedtime, the time when the colony transports were sent out?”
“There was an accident to the memory of our main computer, what we know of that time comes from the colonists who recorded what they remembered. The knowledge we retrieved that way, even the technical data, is more incantation than information. So. Assume we know a little of our history but that knowledge is spotty. Be sure that if you mention something unclear, I will stop you and ask for explanation.
“I hear,” Lipitero said. “You know nothing of what
happened after you left Ysterai?”
“There was no way to learn anything.”
“I see. There are hard things for you to hear. To get the hardest over with, Ysterai is ash. A lifeless cinder. Victim of a three-way war between Pallah, Nagamar and Funor. This happened less than a century after the Rallen transports vanished. I know little of Keelava and Tozeed. Skeen tells me she hadn’t heard of our species prior to her Leap through the Stranger’s Gate. Yes, yes. I’ll explain in a little, let me finish this first. As far as anyone knows, the only Ykx alive exist here on Rallen and in the Sydo Gather on Mistommerk. I told you before that Mistommerk was colonized from Tovazh which now has the name Kildun Aalda. There are no Ykx on Kildun Aalda.” She drank the last of her iska, sat silent as the Kinravaly brought the pot to her and filled her cup again.