by Peter David
“Impossible. The Thallonians wouldn’t limit themselves that way.”
Sh’nab gave him a very old look. “Of course they would—if they thought they’d profit by it. G’lyndr’s trying to push us out. Thallon is betting they’ll succeed.” The elder shook his head. “They want to be the sole power on Xenex. Danter and the Federation could threaten that. You dealt with Danter and the Federation. Case closed.”
“Bastards. Do they think the Federation gave me anything beyond a free trip around the sector and an earful of sanctimonious advice? As for Danter—they can crawl through the tangle-lands and Xenex still won’t deal with them. Truce is as good as they’ll get.” He scowled, then shook his head. “So Thallon is too stupid to realize that. We still have to block their plans.”
Sh’nab gave a tight little shrug. “No matter what, G’lyndr wins. If we turn them down we insult them publicly and start a feud. If we accept then the other clans know we backed down to them, and they gain a share of our political clout. But the marriage is the better choice—we can’t afford a feud so soon after the rebellion. Give the woman to G’nard. It’s a good marriage for her and a cheap marriage for us.” His eyes flicked away from D’ndai and back, as though he were weighing his thoughts and words very carefully. “It could solve…a number of potential problems. Catrine can’t exert much pull on us; she’s only a Calhoun widow, not a Calhoun daughter. They could have asked for one of your child-debt girls. Imagine having to deal with G’nard as your son-in-law.”
D’ndai took a deep breath. “What if I married her myself? Calhoun owes her child-debt, and An’dr was my friend. There’s obligation both ways. That should override any insult G’lyndr tried to claim, shouldn’t it?”
Sh’nab had turned a peculiar shade of pink. “You? Marry Catrine?”
“Yes, me.”
“You.” This time it wasn’t a question, it was a pronouncement of doom.
“I’m not exactly lirga dung,” he snapped. “I’m the Calhoun. I’m young, I’m healthy, I’m fertile—with plenty of debt children to prove it. And just once I’d like to sleep with a widow because I wanted to, not because tradition demanded it.”
Sh’nab shivered. “You want to sleep with Catrine? An’dr’s-widow-Catrine? That Catrine?”
D’ndai hated it when he blushed. It made him feel even younger than he was. “Um. Yes. I mean, I’d hoped…” He started pulling leaves from the honey-berry vine that ran up a tree next to his seat. “I always thought An’dr was a lucky man. But you don’t drool over your best friend’s wife. Then he died.” He shrugged, and tossed the leaves on the ground. “The traditional year seemed like long enough to mourn. I planned on asking her when I got back. That’s why I pushed to come home early.”
“Not early enough.” Sh’nab sat heavily on the far end of D’ndai’s bench. He knitted his hands together and scowled at the locked fingers. “You should have come home three weeks early instead of just two. She’s already petitioned Clan Calhoun for a debt baby.”
The words hit hard, deep inside where the bleeding wouldn’t show.
D’ndai rested his head on his hands, fingers threaded through his hair. “M’k’n’zy, of course. He was the only other Calhoun of rank. Is it too much to hope my dear baby brother treated her like a woman of value? Gods know, I’ve seen him lead girls into the shadows one evening, then treat them like beggars by next morning’s light.”
He could hear Sh’nab shift uneasily. “Er…They were only together one night. But Catrine has made no complaint.” Sh’nab sounded like a man trying to swallow a live sand mouse. D’ndai knew he was holding something back. He was fairly sure whatever it was, he didn’t want to know.
“No. She wouldn’t.” He stood, then, feeling wrung out but very clear-headed. “I’ll go speak with her. If she wants M’k’n’zy she’ll have him, if I have to hold a phaser to his back through the whole ceremony. If she wants me—I’m here. If she wants G’nard…”
“She can have him, too?”
“Not a chance,” D’ndai said, firmly. “If she wants G’nard I’ll just have to have him killed. That gloating excuse for a war boy won’t have Catrine so long as there’s a Calhoun alive to prevent it.”
“Um—she’s just a woman. Do you really want to start a feud over a woman?”
D’ndai grinned a sharkish grin. “Why not? G’lyndr and Calhoun have been swapping women for centuries: bride raids, seductions, husband-slaying, treaty trades. We’ve been feuding over the results for all that time. Why stop now?”
D’ndai took the time to bathe and dress in his best before he set out. It was a familiar route, but one he hadn’t walked often since An’dr’s death.
“Hey, Calhoun—going courting?” a woman shouted as he passed. She was a classic Calhoun matron: gap-toothed, tough as sandal straps, and able to gut a Danteri soldier or a fowl for the stew pot with equal competence. She looked him over appreciatively. “Looking tasty, chief. Very tasty.”
“As are you, O star of my skies,” he called back, politely if untruthfully.
“Tell my husband that,” she responded, a bit bitterly. “He needs to be reminded.”
“He is a fool, then,” he laughed, and passed on his way.
D’ndai had longed for Calhoun while he’d been gone: he’d felt dwarfed by the wealth and the overwhelming development of the Federation and Danter. Now that he was home all he could see was that his people were poor, the buildings shoddy, the streets packed earth, the land outside town arid and bleak.
The women who’d called out to him, and all Calhoun’s people, were D’ndai’s patrimony. Every choice he made would affect them—including who he married. During the rebellion he’d been able to ignore that. Who knew if he, or anyone, would survive another day? Now he had to live for that woman as much as he lived for himself. The thought was not cheering.
A feud could destroy Calhoun. Maybe Sh’nab was right—maybe it was best to give Catrine to G’nard. As Calhoun he could command her, no matter what she wanted.
D’ndai stalked along, kicking a rock ahead of him, looking for some way to satisfy his duty without sacrificing his own desires—or Catrine’s.
“I hear you’re having trouble with Clan G’lyndr,” a Danteri-accented voice said at D’ndai’s elbow.
D’ndai had spent too long fighting Danteri: He had the man pinned to a wall with a knife at his throat before he recalled Xenex’s victory, or the treaty he’d just signed.
“What do you want with me, Danteri? Make it quick—I’m a busy man, with important things to do.”
“More important than your planet’s future?” the man asked. He raised a finger and pushed D’ndai’s wrist until the knife no longer touched his skin. “I just want to talk, Calhoun. I’m Warain—Warain of the DEA.”
“Danteri External Affairs.” The name felt nasty in his mouth—like rancid grease mixed with rotten egg. Dedicated to off-Danter concerns, the DEA on Xenex had functioned as the intelligence branch of the military. “A Danteri spy.”
“Only a diplomat. Spies get a bigger budget and much more exciting weapons. Diplomats get more women, though—we get more practice being charming.” When D’ndai failed to laugh, Warain sighed deeply. “I’m sorry I surprised you. I hoped we could speak before the Boy General convinced you I was—what did he call me? Oh, yes: the bastard spawn of a Danteri deserter and a lirga sow. I could be a good ally against G’lyndr and Thallon.”
“I don’t ally with Danteri,” D’ndai growled. He stepped back and sheathed his knife.
The man stayed where he was, leaning on the whitewashed wall of the building—a wall covered with graffiti and stained with urine, with unpatched cracks so deep D’ndai could have hidden an entire arsenal in their shadows. He was a small man, and slender, dressed in the loose cream tunic and trousers affected by Danteri civilians. His hair was clubbed back into a latinum clasp, a latinum stud set with a glowing green stone graced one ear, and his shoes were so supple they made D’ndai think of women�
�s wedding slippers. Yet Warain of the DEA was not someone he wanted to underestimate.
He could hate a man so soft and deadly. He could also envy him. What was it like, to be so elegant, so powerful, to play such dangerous games?
“But you do ally with Danteri,” Warain said, gently. “You signed the treaty: Danter and Xenex are now equals, determined to promote peace, trade, and the well-being of our peoples.” His light voice expressed an infinity of irony laced with amusement.
“We’ve promised to stop killing your soldiers if you stop sending them.”
“That too.”
“That’s enough. Xenex doesn’t need more from Danter.”
Warain looked incredulously up and down the street. “Pardon, but you need a universe of things from somewhere. Sanitation systems, weather control, water generators for irrigation works. Libraries, schools. Power grids. Hospitals. Tractors. You might as well get those things from Danter.” He smiled a thin, wicked smile. “Sharp dealing is the best revenge, Xenexian. Just think how you can make us bleed.”
D’ndai shook his head. “I may be M’k’n’zy’s older, dumber brother, but I’m not that dumb. We’ve seen your idea of trade: Danter takes, Xenex suffers. I don’t think that’s changed.” He walked away without waiting for a response.
Warain’s words followed him. “The Federation is too distant to be a good trade partner. Thallon will happily throw Calhoun to G’lyndr, if it buys them monopoly. You need us, and Danter needs you. After three hundred years our economy’s tied to yours.”
“Start learning to untie knots, Danteri.”
“You’re bound to us, too.”
“Not for long.”
“You won’t find a better market for your harish or your lodoen crop. Danter’s economy’s in a tailspin since you cut off our supply. You have leverage, if you’ve got the guts to use it.”
D’ndai didn’t answer. He couldn’t deal with Danter. He’d had three great goals ever since his father had been killed: Take care of M’k’n’zy; watch over the clan; and fight Danter.
Now the Danteri were defeated, M’k’n’zy was leaving—and what the clan needed most was a healthy, thriving Xenex.
His world spun around him like sand around the eye of a dust devil.
He had to deal with all of it. But he had to deal with Catrine first and worst.
He’d known the house for most of his life. As a boy he and his older friend An’dr had chased poultry around the dusty yard while his father and the other men sat in the shade of the scant-leaved arona tree drinking home-brew. When he was older he’d picked up assignments there: He ran messages for the rebellion. He delivered weapons. He reported conversations heard in the market. But it was only after his father’s death that he’d learned how much of the rebellion had been run out of the little four-room house.
He raised his hand and knocked.
There was no answer.
He considered leaving. Instead he walked to the side of the house and opened the gate leading to the yard behind.
Catrine was lying on a reed chaise under the old arona tree, eyes closed, hair knotted carelessly up off her neck. Her dress was simple and light, suited to the hot summers of Calhoun. Her fingers were fanned protectively over her belly. Her skin, hair, white dress, all seemed to glow in the shade of the tree.
She opened her eyes.
The silence stood between them. At last she said, softly, “You came back early.”
“Not early enough.” He shifted, miserably. “You went to M’k’n’zy for your debt child.”
She heard the question he didn’t ask. She rose and walked slowly toward him, looked calmly into his eyes, her head high.
“M’k’n’zy wasn’t An’dr’s near-brother. I never held him while he cried for his father—or let him hold me while we both cried for my husband. There’s already too much between us, D’ndai. Your brother never even noticed me. He was too taken up with his own vision.” She smiled, then, regretful. “He is beautiful, brilliant, he is a son of Calhoun and owed me what I wanted—and he was not you. I could ask of him what I couldn’t ask of you.”
She was almost six years older than he was. When he’d been younger it had seemed like an impossible difference. She had been the adult wife of his adult friend.
“An’dr was lucky,” he said.
“I was lucky. I still am.” She looked toward her house. “I think I’ll move away from Calhoun. There will be fewer memories.”
“Do you love M’k’n’zy?”
She laughed then, in frustrated amusement. “I can’t have him. His future’s too tempting for him to stay here, married to an aging widow, raising a child in another man’s name. He’ll never threaten An’dr’s memory. He’ll never occupy my life.”
“But do you love him?”
She sighed, and D’ndai’s heart broke. “I love him like I love the camp songs of the rebellion: as something scarred, and lovely, and sad.”
“But you will never marry him.”
“No.”
“V’rdan of G’lyndr wants you for his son, G’nard.”
“If I’d wanted to marry again I could have done so.” He could hear a sharp twist of pride in her words. “I am not so old, or poor, or of such ill reputation that I could not have my pick. I choose to stay as I am.” Her hand strayed again to caress her belly. “I will have a child to carry An’dr’s name. I need no more.”
“G’nard is heir to G’lyndr.”
“You are the Calhoun of Calhoun. M’k’n’zy is the Boy General. I want none of you.”
“They’ll make the clan pay for the insult.”
She touched him, then, her hand tracing the line of his cheek. “You’re the Calhoun. You’ll find an answer.”
“It would be easier if you’d marry me—or M’k’n’zy,” he added, bitterly.
“Marrying one of us would allow G’lyndr to save face.”
“No.”
“I could command you.”
“Could you?” Her eyes laughed.
He sighed. “No.”
“Then go,” she said. “I am only your first dream, not your last.”
“M’k’n’zy can marry her,” D’ndai said to Sh’nab. The two men were sitting in the cabin D’ndai had lived in since his father’s death, getting drunk. It seemed like the right thing to do. “For once he can do what I tell him, and marry Catrine.”
“Sometimes I wish I belonged to any clan but Calhoun,” Sh’nab said, mournfully. He topped off their drinks and leaned into the leather back of his chair. “Calhouns are so stubborn. She won’t marry him. He won’t marry her. He’s got Starfleet on his mind, and…” He gritted his teeth, then said, cautiously, “He’s not ready to marry, Calhoun. Please, believe me—the boy’s nowhere near ready to marry.”
D’ndai’s temper shattered. He rose, braced his hands on the table, and leaned so close to Sh’nab that the elder was forced farther back in his chair. “I don’t give a damn if he’s ready!” He straightened, ignoring the way the room spun. “I’m tired of running the world to suit the Boy General. Whatever M’k’n’zy wants, M’k’n’zy gets. Arms out of nowhere, soldiers from thin air, money for bribes. He has visions—I turn them into reality. He gets the glory—fame, honor, Federation officers begging him to go be a genius for them instead of Xenex. Any woman he wants. I get nothing but responsibility. This time he can be the responsible one. Better him than G’nard.”
“She won’t marry G’nard, either,” Sh’nab moaned. He shot back his drink, and quickly poured himself more. “Calhoun, forget Catrine. She’s making you crazy.”
D’ndai just reared his head back and hollered—a shout he’d perfected over years of bluffing men older and larger and more experienced than he was.
“M’k’n’zy! Where is my baby brother?! Somebody fetch the Boy General, or I’ll have you all shaved bald and sent to the Pit to chase visions.” He could hear the scurry of feet in the chief’s compound as oath-men scrambled. He nodded and fell into hi
s chair. “Can’t forget her. I love her.”
Sh’nab laid his head on his arms and moaned. “I could have been a stable boy. I could have tended lirga. Instead I’m liege man to the damned Calhoun of Calhoun.” His fingers hooked into his thinning hair. “I thought I did the right thing. I thought, D’ndai is gone, and he’s tired of bedding widows, and the woman asked for M’k’n’zy. Why not let the boy do An’dr’s widow a good turn? But it’s never easy when you’re dealing with the most sand-squall-perverse family on Xenex. First M’k’n’zy is…whatever. And now you’ve gone crazy. I think that today I will die. It will save me a lot of trouble in the years to come.”
D’ndai stared at the door, waiting for M’k’n’zy like a predator waiting for a desert lizard to come out of hiding.
It wasn’t long before the boy arrived.
D’ndai loved M’k’n’zy. He admired him. He’d given a substantial portion of his life to raising his brother, protecting him, supporting his insane—and insanely successful—campaign against the Danteri.
Looking at the young man, though, it occurred to him that he didn’t like M’k’n’zy very much. It’s hard to like someone who’s smart, handsome, outrageously successful, popular, romantic, idealistic—and completely clueless where lesser mortals are concerned.
“You got her pregnant,” he said. It was hard to get the words out.
M’k’n’zy jumped, and looked reproachfully at Sh’nab—or at the balding top of the man’s head, for that was all that showed. “What did you tell him?”
“Nothing. I told him nothing,” Sh’nab snarled.
M’k’n’zy didn’t look reassured. “Nothing?”
“Nothing you’d care about.”
“Oh.” M’k’n’zy looked at his brother. “You are talking about Catrine?” he asked. There was something wary in his eyes, a hesitation in his voice.
If D’ndai had been less obsessed, he might have wondered at M’k’n’zy’s panic—or at Sh’nab’s evasive response. All he cared about, though, was that M’k’n’zy seemed more like a child caught stealing sweets than a grown man soon to be a father.