An older woman, plump and gray-haired, appeared from the twilight at the back of the room where a peat fire sputtered blue flames in the hearth. The left side of Iona’s face was marked with a large, irregular splash of plotch, much like that of her daughter Gráinne. She smiled at Saoirse as Gráinne ran up to her, stooping down to take the bolt of cloth from her. She tousled Gráinne’s hair. “Glad you’re back. It’s goin’ to storm soon, and I was afraid yeh all might get caught out in it.” She paused as she stood again, cocking her head. “Though I was hoping that perhaps yeh might be staying a bit longer.”
“Mam . . .” Saoirse sighed. “That’s not why I went to Dulcia.” I wanted to meet the Terran, and I did. I really want to go to Earth, Mam. I want that so much more than giving yeh grandchildren. But she hid those thoughts behind a scowl.
“Perhaps it should be. Yer not getting any younger, and I’d love to see a grand or three before it’s Gráinne’s time.” She unrolled a bit of the cloth and rubbed it between her fingers. “This feels very nice; it’ll make some fine clothes. Gráinne, why don’t yeh take the rest of the cloth from your sister and put it in the big chest in the sewing room.” As Gráinne took the folded wool and went half-running into the rooms beyond, Iona rubbed her hands on her skirt. “Did you see yer Terran, at least?” she asked Saoirse.
“Aye, I did,” Saoirse replied, her voice brightening despite her annoyance. “I had the chance to talk with her for a long time. She’s so strange and very different, but I like her, Mam. She’s not much older than me, and she’s so terribly thin, like they say most of the Terrans are, but she’s seen so much more than I have. She’s interested in the Inish, too, and she wanted to follow us out to the archipelago. Uncle Angus told her neh, that first we’d have to ask yeh for permission.”
“And how would yeh advise me to answer?”
Saoirse tried to read her mam’s face but wasn’t certain what she saw there. “She truly wanted to follow us. I think Uncle Angus made the right choice telling her neh for now, since probably the arracht would be frightened by that flitter of hers. I could bring her out in a currach if she’s willing, though.” That put an image in Saoirse’s head of a frightened Ichiko desperately hanging onto the sides of the boat in a heaving sea. She grinned at the thought, though she wasn’t sure that Ichiko would agree to that condition at all.
Iona nodded. “Bringing her out that way would be better, I agree. Yeh know how the arracht can be. Still . . . let me think about this and talk to Angus meself. Yeh may like this woman—and I do trust yer instincts, my dear one—but I’m not sure we can entirely trust the Terrans. Where is Angus? Still dealing with the mail and the children?”
“Last I saw, aye. He said to tell yeh that he has two letters for yeh: one from Minister Plunkett and another from Captain Keshmiri of the Odysseus. Oh, and one from Uncle Martin with Clan Lewis, too, so it’s three letters, I suppose. Uncle Angus and Liam have other supplies that need to be distributed as well—stuff from the ironworks, some assorted material for repairs and the like, and the meat I ordered for yeh from Clan Hearn. I imagine Liam will be bringing the meat packets up soon, if Uncle Patrick hasn’t already had someone else fetch them.”
“Good. I think we’re all a little tired of bluefin and tubers,” her mam said. She hugged Saoirse. “Thanks for bringing the wool. I hope Aoife Bancroft didn’t give yeh any trouble over it.”
“No more than I expected,” Saoirse told her. “But she said to tell yeh, next time, she intends to have a written agreement.”
“Aoife can say whatever she wants, but she’s the one who doesn’t like putting anything in writing. That way she can always claim that the other person is wrong. Besides, from now on it’s yeh who’ll be doin’ the bargaining with her, so yeh can put it in writing for her yerself.” Iona laughed and took Saoirse’s hand. “Come on, yeh can help me get the meeting room ready until Angus brings me the letters—the island council’s meeting is tomorrow at Low Third. And while we’re working on that, yeh can tell me why yeh didn’t find some nice young man in Dulcia. Or did yeh go off lookin’ for one of yer women friends instead?”
Saoirse pulled her hand away, planting her feet. “Mam, that’s my business, not yers. Sorry.”
Iona laughed again. “Well, the meeting room still has to be set up, whether we talk about yer lack of a sex life or not. So come on with yeh . . .”
* * *
Luciano looked tired and more than a little irritable when he finally called. While the background showed his quarters, he was still in uniform even though the clock next to her bed said that it was 02:40, ship-time. “Captain’s put you on night shift?” Ichiko commented, rubbing her eyes—she’d been asleep when he called. “What’d you do to piss her off?”
“Nothing. It was just an overlong briefing for the senior officers.”
“Oh. Something going on?”
“Nothing you need to know about yet.” The set of his mouth told her that it would be useless to ask anything more; he’d said all that he was going to say on the subject. “I hear you met some of the Inish earlier.”
“You and everyone else on-world and off- seems to have heard that.” Ichiko shook her head at Luciano’s suddenly raised eyebrows. “Never mind. I suppose I should be flattered that you’re keeping tabs on me. Yes, I met Saoirse Mullin, the daughter of Banríon Iona Mullin, and she introduced me to Rí Angus Mullin, along with the Banríon’s son Liam. Saoirse’s delightful, by the way, and very interested in Earth. She’s going to ask the Banríon if I can go out to the archipelago and study their society there.”
She saw Luciano’s face fold into a frown. “I’m not so sure that would be a good idea. Why not finish your work in Dulcia first? Then you can worry about going out there.”
“What aren’t you telling me, Luciano?”
“I’m just saying that the archipelago should wait a bit. Captain Keshmiri has sent a letter to the Banríon suggesting she come to First Base so we can conference with her. If I could tell you more than that, I would.”
Does this have something to do with the lost drones? she wanted to ask but bit back the question, worried that asking might get Chava into trouble for having mentioned them to her. “That means there is something more,” she said instead.
“I’m not saying there is or there isn’t,” Luciano said. “I’m just advising you to hold off on visiting the archipelago. If the Inish come to you, it’s one thing, but I have to ask you not to go there yet.”
“Ask me or order me? I don’t report to you, remember. Or are you saying that Nagasi would give me the same restrictions?”
Luciano shook his head. “I shouldn’t need to make it an order. Ichiko, I’m sorry. I don’t want to argue with you. I’m just . . . tired, and I’m sure you are, too. Can we table this until later when we’re both less exhausted? I do want to hear about this Saoirse Mullin and how you felt about the Inish after meeting them. Have you written up your report?”
“I have and AMI uploaded it. At least I hope so.”
“You hope so?”
“I’ve been having a bit of trouble with my AMI since I’ve been down here. But I’m sure the report’s been uploaded.”
“Then I’ll listen to it as soon as I can. As for now, I’m on duty in five hours and I can see you were already sleeping. My AMI gave me your message, so I wanted to make sure I got back to you.”
Ichiko felt her irritation start to dissolve. She took in a long, calming breath and let it out slowly. “I appreciate that. Go to bed, Luciano. We’ll talk more later.” I could tell him that I’d like to be there with him. I could tell him that I miss him. Instead, she gave him a forced smile.
She wondered if he ever had the same thoughts. “I’ll do that. And you can go back to sleep yourself. Later, then. AMI, log me off.”
The window displaying Luciano winked out. She sat there staring at where he’d been for long moments be
fore she stirred.
Legends And Routines
THE STORM ARRIVED JUST before Low Fifth bell, a strong one but hardly the worst Saoirse could remember. Still, she was thankful that Uncle Angus had insisted on returning. Otherwise, they would have been forced to wait out the storm in Dulcia, or—far more dire a possibility—their currach might have been caught out in winds shrieking like banshees, blowing blinding rain that pelted down as hard as thrown pebbles, with the likelihood of the currach being swamped and themselves drowning in a wild, cold sea. That was a fate that had taken many of the Inish over the centuries, and Saoirse was thankful for her Uncle Angus’ weather craft in timing the arrival of the storm.
The islanders had spent a few bells herding the sheepers and milch-goats into the barns for the duration—at least those that they could easily find, since they ranged freely on Great Inish—as the sky grew darker and searing, jagged lightnings strode across the water toward them. The furious gale howled as it tore through the black-rock crags of the island, churning the sea below into white, curling slopes of water that hurled themselves at the island to shatter into froth and foam on the implacable cliffs. Wind-tossed spray reached all the way up to the village. The rain was coming in sideways, so that Saoirse and everyone else in the compound had to close the window shutters against the tempest. Occasionally, they could hear the splat of some unfortunate wind-spider striking the shutters or the walls of the houses.
There were a few drips through the thatched roofs of the compound, especially those that were older and already in need of repair and replacement. Even in the Banríon’s house, there were pots and pans scattered along the floor that had to be periodically emptied. The white-crested chachalahs roosting deep in the thatch trilled their complaints about the weather—though Saoirse memorized the locations of the protests so she could set Gráinne and some of the other young cousins to gathering the eggs laid in their nests after the storm passed.
In the meantime, most of the clanfolk in the Banríon’s house gathered around the hearth in the large front room. A peat fire was blazing against the chill of the storm coming out of dorcha—the cold spaceward side of Canis Lupus’ habitable strip—the winds affecting the chimney’s draw so that aromatic smoke sometimes came wafting back into the room—not that it mattered, since most of the adult men and women were smoking pipes stuffed with calming tree strands and the air in the room was hazy with their own fragrant smoke. A jug of local poitín sat open on the table. Saoirse sipped at the liquor in her pottery cup as she listened to the talk around the room.
“This reminds me of stories about the storm that Seann Martin was once in, back when Clan Mullin had first come to the archipelago,” said her Uncle James, who was now a seann himself, a member of the eldest living generation of the clan. He took a long pull on his pipe and released the smoke, watching it curl away from his lips. “Seann Martin was out fishing with First Rí Liam that day—this must have been, oh, almost four and a half millennia ago now. Nephew Liam, yeh were named for our First Rí, as yer mam has undoubtedly told yeh. Ah, by all the tales about him, he was a fine man, was Rí Liam . . .”
“Yeh tell us this same story every time we get a storm, Seann James,” Gráinne said. A wave of “Shh”s and “Hush, child” followed from the various aunts and uncles, and the Banríon shook her head warningly at her youngest daughter. “Well, he does,” Gráinne said poutingly but then subsided, putting her hands in her lap and pressing her lips together.
Unflustered, James took another reflective pull on the pipe, then pointed the stem at Gráinne as he exhaled. “It’s the prerogative of the old to pass on the stories they know and the duty of the young to listen so they remember them and pass them on themselves when their elders have gone to their final sleep,” he said. “Now, as I was saying, Seann Martin was out fishing with the Rí and a few other uncles when this storm swept in all unexpected. Musha! I tell yeh it was bad enough here on Great Inish, the wind tearing away the thatch from the roofs that our ancestors had first built and the waves ripping huge boulders from the cliffs. Those on the island looked out over the sea thinking that the waves were as high as we are here in the compound, with the gusts ripping off the foaming tops and hurling them at the island. The lane down to the Strand had turned into a gushing, fast-flowing river.” Seann James stopped to set his pipe down and take a sip of poitín.
“And everyone was convinced that Seann Martin and the Rí were surely lost out on the sea,” Gráinne said, in a droll imitation of James’ quavering voice.
“Gráinne,” Saoirse said warningly though there were chuckles from the audience. Saoirse couldn’t blame them; the lines of Seann James’ story were well-worn into everyone’s memories.
“They all thought that, aye,” James continued, unperturbed, “though none of them were about to speak it aloud, for fear some malevolent spiorad beag, overhearing them, would decide to make it come true. Yeh can’t be too careful with the spirit people, after all. But all the clan was praying silently for them.” He picked up his pipe again, tamping the tree strands in the bowl with a yellow callused fingertip, uncaring of the glowing embers. His arms and neck were liberally marked with the plotch, even down to his fingertips. Even more than the pipe smoke, Seann James smelled of the herbs and potions that—as the herbalist and healer for Clan Mullin—he and his assistants prepared in his laboratory higher up the slope. “They didn’t know it, but the storm had driven Seann Martin’s currach toward the Sleeping Wolf and the rocks around it. The Rí couldn’t control the boat: the sail was nothing but tattered rags, the centerboard had been lost, and though everyone was rowing as best they could, the sea was far too strong for ’em. The currach was taking in seawater over the gunwales from the waves as well as from the pouring rain. They were already half-swamped, and they had lost all hope of making Great Inish even if they could have seen the island through the weather, which they couldn’t.”
As if on cue, the wind picked up momentarily, rattling the shutters and causing the fire in the hearth to shudder. “Yeh see, Gráinne,” Saoirse said, “the Spiorad Mòr must be listening to the Seann’s story, too.”
Gráinne’s eyes went wide as their mam laughed. “G’wan, finish yer tale now, Seann,” Banríon Iona said, putting her pipe back in her mouth.
James took a bit of straw from the hearth, lit it from the fire, and put it to his pipe. He released another cloud of blue smoke. “Well, Seann Martin, Rí Liam, and all the others in the currach believed they were about to die when they saw the jagged black teeth of the rocks before them. They could also see the writhing forms of a pod of nasty blood feeders breaking the surface around them, lurking and waiting, ready to rip apart and devour any of our people who went into the water.”
Saoirse saw Gráinne’s eyes widen even further at that as Seann James’ lips drew back and he made gnashing motions with his gap-toothed mouth before putting his pipe stem back in his mouth.
“But the arracht had heard their wails and seen their plight,” he continued. “They swam out from their caves beneath the Sleeping Wolf into the full fury of the storm. They attacked the blood feeders with lightnings arcing from their own bodies until it looked like a second storm had erupted just below the waves, killing several of the blood feeders outright and driving off the others. Now the Seann and the Rí saw the arracht’s tentacled arms rising from the waves around them and thought that an entirely new and awful fate awaited them, since so many fishing boats from the mainland had been lost out here and some that had returned had spoken of monsters that had somehow stopped their motors, nearly wrecked their boats, and almost dragged them down. Clan Mullin and Clan Craig were no different and no better than the Mainlanders at that time; they’d slain the first arracht they’d seen when they came to the islands, thinking them monsters as dangerous as the blood feeders themselves and worth killing for the meat and the oil they could take from their bodies. So everyone was screaming and wailing from the doomed curr
ach as the arracht grabbed them with their tentacles and pulled them down into the sea where they all believed they would surely be drowned.”
“But they didn’t drown,” Liam said in a hushed voice.
Seann James nodded slowly, puffing on his pipe to keep it lit. “Neh, they didn’t,” he said. “The arracht brought them into their caves within the Sleeping Wolf, tossing them—coughing and throwing up the salt water—onto the dry ledges there. They could hear the storm raging outside through the cavern tunnels that led up to the surface of the island. They could see the cave also, for there were glowing algae living on the cave walls, and there were the arracht staring at them from the water with their eyestalks and helmeted heads. No one realized it then, but Seann Martin, Rí Liam, and the others had been given the plotch through their contact with the arracht. This was the beginning of the close relationship between the arracht and we Inish. The survivors climbed out from the caves the next day and were found by boats from Great Inish. They told them what had happened and how they’d been saved. In gratitude to the arracht, we swore never to hunt them again and never to allow the Mainlanders to do so, either. Ever since then, the arracht and the Inish have lived together in harmony.”
Around the room, people were nodding their heads at the end of the story. Rí Angus lifted his cup. “To the arracht and the Inish,” he said. “We are always and forever friends.”
Amid the Crowd of Stars Page 7