Amid the Crowd of Stars
Page 16
“Neh,” he answered. His beard and the hair that stuck out from under his cap were sprinkled with bright drops of water that fell as he pulled at the oars. “The spiorad beag are treating yeh to a gentle, calm day. ’Tis usually much worse.” Ichiko’s eyes widened at that, and Rí Angus laughed.
“Don’t let him fool yeh,” Saoirse said from the rear of the boat. “If it had been any worse t’day, Uncle Angus would have stayed home. This is marginal weather for a currach.”
“Ah, but Ichiko has to go back soon, and the weather is only going to worsen,” Angus retorted. “If yeh want to see how we fish, this is yer only chance unless yeh come back. And hopefully that machine of yers can fly in bad weather, or otherwise yeh’ll be here for at least two cycles.”
“You can predict the weather that well?” Ichiko asked him.
“I have me sources,” Angus replied. “And me own eyes and nose.” As Angus touched his forefinger to the side of his nose, the prow of the currach plunged into an oncoming wave. Green seawater splashed over the oilcloth jackets and woolen caps that Angus and Liam wore. Ichiko doubted that, despite the protection, any bit of the Inishers’ skin was dry. She also suspected they were all rather cold. At least her bio-shield kept her warm.
“Aye, we do. It’s the life in the sea itself that tells us.”
Ichiko heard Saoirse give a coughing laugh at that and she glanced over her shoulder toward her, but Saoirse seemed suddenly intent on the sail. Ichiko turned back to the Rí, who also seemed to be regarding Saoirse. “You can tell the weather by looking at the fish?” she asked him.
“Yeh can if yeh know what to look for,” he said. “It’s in the way they’re schooling and where they’re doing it, the depth they’re swimming at, or whether they’re in their usual places. All that changes with the weather. I think those that live in the sea can sense what weather’s coming from the currents in the water: how strong the flow is, how the waters are mixing, and whether the currents are coming from dorcha or solas. As cold as the water is now, it’s dorcha today.”
“Uncle Angus especially likes to watch the arracht and what they’re doing,” Saoirse interjected. Both Liam and Angus turned to look at her after that statement, and their glances weren’t kind.
The currach crested a wave and plunged down into another before Rí Angus replied to Ichiko. The movement lifted Ichiko’s rear momentarily off the plank that served as her seat. “The arracht can tell the Inish much, an’ we know how they feel about that,” he said. Ichiko wasn’t certain who he was talking to: her or Saoirse.
“Weren’t the arracht the source of a conflict between the Inish and the Mainlanders?” Ichiko asked him. “Minister Plunkett mentioned something about that to me, and I’ve read about it in the journals we have.”
“They were,” Angus grunted out, looking as if the words tasted bitter.
It was Liam who took up the explanation from Angus. “The feckin’ Mainlanders were slaughtering the poor arracht for oil and meat, much in the same way that yer own people slaughtered whales back on Earth until they were finally stopped. We stopped the Mainlanders from doing the same here.”
<“Your own people,”> AMI commented.
“On Earth, whale hunting was stopped because we felt the whales—or at least some of them—were too much like us,” Ichiko answered, looking from Angus to Liam to Saoirse. “We realized that whales are intelligent, self-aware creatures with a language and society of their own. Are you saying that the arracht are the same?”
Rí Angus’ face was stern. “I’m only saying that the arracht didn’t need to be treated the way they were. That’s all. Mebbe someday yeh’ll understand why. But not today. Today we’re bait fishing.” He pointed toward the nearest of the small Stepstones, where waves were breaking over shallow rocks. “That’s where we’ll find the wrigglers we’re after, so we can use them for bait when we fish for bluefins later. Liam, take us over there; Saoirse, yeh go ahead and drop the sail and get the anchor ready to drop.”
A few minutes later they approached the spot. Rí Angus gestured to Saoirse, who lifted a large rock tied by a rope to the gunwale and dropped it over the side, where it splashed once and vanished. Liam and Angus each lifted a large casting net from under the board that served as their seat, the bottom of the nets weighted with small stones. Saoirse moved carefully forward in the rocking boat to help them. “Yeh can see that the wrigglers are schooling here,” Angus told Ichiko. “All the ripples on the waves tell me they’re out there even if we can’t see them in this weather. Are yeh familiar with this type of fishing?”
Ichiko shook her head, and Angus picked up a rope attached to the middle of the netting. “This is the hand line,” he told her, slipping the loop at the end over his wrist. “Yeh loop the hand line and hold it in yer right hand—don’t matter if yer right-handed or yer left-handed like me. The hand line attaches to the braille lines, which go through this piece here, the horn.” He lifted the netting, showing Ichiko the skirt of the net to which the stone weights were attached. “The braille lines go all the way down to the stone line; they’re what makes the net close when yeh pull it up. And yeh throw it like this . . .”
Angus gathered up the hand line in several arm’s length loops in his left hand, then took the net a bit down from the yoke and looped it on the same hand. He gathered up about half of the stone line as well, holding the other half in his right hand. He rocked back once (a feat Ichiko would have found impossible with the motion of the boat) and threw the net, which spread out in a large circle and dropped into the waves. Angus waited a few breaths, then tugged on the hand line, pulling the net toward the boat. As the net came to the surface, Ichiko could see splashes from the creatures captured in the netting. Saoirse and Liam helped her uncle haul the net over the gunwale. Angus held up the net and shook it. A half dozen or more hand-sized, tentacled fish fell out into the water in the bottom of the currach: bright orange bodies with small heads covered with a hard, glossy black carapace. They writhed frantically, making faint hissing sounds.
Saoirse gathered them up and put them in buckets while Liam cast his own net. Angus grabbed one wriggler and brought it over to Ichiko. Short tentacles wrapped around his thick fingers. “Too bitter for most people to eat and too much work to prepare, not to mention that yeh really need a good set of grinders to chew them, if yeh ask me. Still, there’s some claim they don’t mind the taste, even if I’m not one. Bluefins love ’em, though, which is why we catch ’em. A couple casts and we’ll have enough to go lookin’ for bluefin. Here, yeh want to hold it?” He held the wriggler out to Ichiko.
She shook her head. “The bio-shield,” she said. “I wouldn’t be able to feel it.”
Angus grinned. “And yeh can’t smell ’em, neither.” He wrinkled his nose dramatically. “Yer lucky there.” He tossed the wriggler casually toward the bucket; the wriggler hit the lip and fell in. Saoirse was helping Liam bring in his net; she looked over her shoulder to Ichiko and smiled.
Angus watched as Liam emptied his net into the boat. “That should be enough for us to get a dozen or so bluefins for the compound’s dinner,” he said. “Saoirse, pull up the anchor, and we’ll go out a bit to the edge of the channel; the bluefins will likely be there today, and our visitor can see how they can bend a rod . . .”
* * *
Her Uncle Angus leaned toward Saoirse as they sat around the table eating the bluefins they’d caught and that Liam had cleaned before the bluefins were handed off to the day’s chefs in the compound’s kitchen and brought back to the table beautifully filleted and prepared. That is, everyone was eating bluefin except Ichiko, wh
o was instead sucking a pasty gruel through a tube snaking into her mouth from the wide belt around her abdomen. Saoirse thought Ichiko—who kept looking longingly at the heavy platter of bluefin—looked distinctly unhappy with her meal. “So, is this Ichiko like the other women yeh sleep with?” Angus asked Saoirse quietly.
Saoirse glanced at Ichiko, down at the end of the table next to Saoirse’s mam and Gráinne as well as several others of the Mullin clan, all of them engaged in their own conversation. Liam was seated next to Saoirse, pretending with little success not to have heard what Angus asked her or that he was listening to Saoirse’s response.
“Why are yeh on about this, Uncle? Yeh don’t know yer arse from yer elbow. She’s Terran and that’s an end to it,” Saoirse answered, as if that explained everything. She hoped he couldn’t hear the lie. “Even if that was something I’d like—and I ain’t saying it is or isn’t—yeh and Liam—I know yer listening, too, Liam—know as well as I do that we can’t even touch each other, not with that thing she has to wear. I’ve already told yeh that.”
“I’ve seen how yeh look at women yer interested in,” Liam interjected, “an’ it’s the same way I see yeh lookin’ at Ichiko.”
Saoirse was already shaking her head before he finished. “Liam, as I already told Uncle Angus, I don’t know anything about who or what Ichiko likes in that way, so how I feel doesn’t matter.” Saoirse took a bite of the bluefin on her plate. Liam chuckled to himself; Angus just watched her, his head tilted. After she swallowed, she gave a sigh. “Anyway, I do have women friends who are just my friends, y’know. Men, too. I’m content with Ichiko being only that: a friend.”
Liam laughed aloud at that and Saoirse glared at him. Her brother lifted his hands from the table, palms up. “When was the last time yeh were actually with a man, sis?” he asked.
“The last time I found one who didn’t feckin’ remind me of yeh, brother,” Saoirse told him.
Liam sniffed, but the grin didn’t leave his face.
“I spoke to Kekeki yesterday before we went out fishing,” Angus said. “She heard what yeh said about Ichiko and how, if the arracht need to know about the Terrans, they should talk to her.”
“And they should,” Saoirse interrupted. “How else will they know if the Terrans really are a danger to them or not?”
“Kekeki told me—emphatically—that she doesn’t want Ichiko to come out to the Sleeping Giant and wants the Terrans to know as little about them as possible. They’re afraid of humans in general and the Terrans in particular, since they have technology well beyond ours or theirs. Given the arracht’s history with us, I can’t say I blame ’em for feeling that way. She allowed Ichiko to come here only because you were with her. Otherwise . . .” Angus let the rest of the sentence dangle unsaid.
“Then Kekeki’s making a mistake,” Saoirse insisted. Annoyed, she spoke too loudly.
“Who’s making a mistake?” Gráinne’s high voice lifted above the table conversation, and Saoirse saw Ichiko, her mam, and everyone at the other end looking at them.
“Saoirse’s saying that I’m making a mistake,” Angus responded before Saoirse could react. “I thought that after we eat, we could take Ichiko out to help us pull in the pots for spiny walkers.”
“If that’s something Ichiko even wants to see, why can’t it wait until next cycle, Angus?” Banríon Iona suggested. “It’s nearly High Third already, and Ichiko’s already had a long cycle. For that matter, so have yeh, Liam, and Saoirse.”
“I suppose yer right, Iona.” Angus reached for his mug and took a long drink of ale. “Saoirse, we’ll wait until tomorrow. We can pull the pots then if the weather’s no worse, but first yeh should tell her how we do it so we’re sure it’s something Ichiko even wants to do.” Angus wiped his lips with the back of his hand, staring at Saoirse as if daring her to contradict him or say more. “I’m sure there’s other things yeh might want t’be asking her, anyway.”
Saoirse simply nodded.
* * *
After dinner, Saoirse helped take the dishes back into the kitchen, then went outside with her pipe. She walked out into the yard between the houses of the compound, the high grass still wet around her shins from an earlier passing shower, and sat on a lichen-spotted boulder, disregarding its dampness. She watched the smoke from the tree strands curl away into the wind, a milch-goat eyeing her from a careful distance. The clouds were dark above and moving fast in the sky. Saoirse could smell rain and see the gray curtains of it in the distance. Angus’ prediction that the weather was to worsen seemed about to come true.
Saoirse heard the door to the compound kitchen open, and she looked over her shoulder to see Ichiko stepping out. “Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” Ichiko answered. “Mind if I sit with you?”
Saoirse shrugged. Ichiko walked over toward her, the milch-goat bounding away as she approached. Saoirse watched the grass slide away from Ichiko’s clothing as if moved by invisible hands, droplets of water sliding down the unseen barrier. Ichiko sat alongside Saoirse, her body not quite touching the surface of the boulder and not touching Saoirse at all. The smoke from Saoirse’s pipe danced around her. “There was an old man in my village when I was growing up who smoked a pipe,” Ichiko said. “On Earth, people don’t smoke tobacco much anymore, but I rather liked the smell of the tobacco as it burned; the aroma was like a wonderful combination of sweet cherries and roasted tea leaves.” Ichiko laughed. “Not two smells you’d know, of course, and I don’t think I could describe them to you. I can’t smell your pipe, of course. What do burning tree strands smell like to you?”
Saoirse shook her head and shrugged again. “Like burning tree strands,” she said flatly. She could feel Ichiko looking at her but didn’t turn her head.
“Everyone seemed to enjoy the dinner tonight,” the Terran commented finally.
“I suppose they did.”
“I wish I could have tasted the bluefin myself. It looked wonderful, but . . .” Ichiko’s voice trailed off. She looked up at the sky. “AMI tells me it’s getting ready to storm and that the bad weather should continue through tomorrow. So tell me. Is pulling in these spiny walker pots something I should make sure to experience before I go?”
Saoirse took a pull on the pipe. “Not really.”
“Then I’ll skip it and be heading back to First Base next cycle after I get up, since it’s about time anyway,” Ichiko answered. “By the way, who’s Kekeki?”
Saoirse coughed on the smoke she was holding. “Kekeki?” she managed to get out through the strangling fit.
“I heard the name plainly,” Ichiko said. “And so did Banríon Iona, I think. She certainly was in a hurry to talk about something else afterward. You and Angus weren’t talking about catching spiny walkers, were you? I can tell there’s something you’re not telling me, Saoirse. Is Kekeki one of the arracht?”
Kekeki doesn’t want Ichiko to come out to the Sleeping Giant and wants the Terrans to know as little about them as possible. Angus’ statement as well as her mam’s admonitions regarding the arracht all rolled around in Saoirse’s head as Ichiko was talking. She’s already heard about the arracht. Plunkett and his clan or one of the others would have told her what they know—and the arracht took out the drones the Terrans sent around the archipelago . . .
Ichiko was watching Saoirse as she struggled to show none of the internal turmoil on her face. A lie hides best behind a little truth. That was a saying she’d heard many of the seanns repeat—one of several aphorisms the clans had brought with them to the archipelago. “Aye,” Saoirse admitted. “Kekeki’s an arracht.”
Ichiko drew back, her eyes widening slightly. “The arracht have names? They talk?”
“They don’t talk.” At least not like us. “And only Kekeki has a name.” As far as I know. “Don’t yeh Terrans name yer pets, or wild animals yeh see all the time and recognize?” When Ichiko nodded, S
aoirse continued. “Well, Kekeki’s the arracht we see most often around here. She’s bigger than the others and has a really distinctive blue carapace with yellow spots. We call her Kekeki because that’s something like the sound she makes. That’s all.”
Ichiko didn’t look entirely convinced. “You said that Kekeki was making a mistake.”
“She was,” Saoirse answered. “Though hopefully she hasn’t. The arracht have a taste for spiny walkers, and sometimes they break open the pots we use and take the walkers that are in them. One of the Clan Craig boats spotted Kekeki near the Clan Mullin pot buoys earlier. They told Uncle Angus, so he wanted to bring in the pots before any of the arracht could bother them. He and I were having a disagreement about whether he needed to do that now or wait for better weather.”
Saoirse smiled, pleased with her impromptu fabrication. After a moment, Ichiko smiled back. “I’d love to see this Kekeki,” she said.
“Yeh might. Maybe next time yeh come out here.” The sentence ended with a rise, making it half-question and half-statement.
“Would you like that? Because I would. I’m fascinated by the archipelago and what all of you have accomplished out here.”
Saoirse felt her chest tighten, and her smile widened helplessly. She nodded. “Aye. I would indeed. There’s so much yeh haven’t yet seen that I could show yeh.”
“Then let’s plan on it.” They both saw a lightning flash and a few seconds later, a grumbling of thunder that shook heavy droplets of rain from the clouds. A blue-gray screen had fallen over the sea and the shoulder of the hill on which the compound stood.
“It’s going to hit any moment now,” Ichiko said. “We should go inside.”
Separation And Anxiety
NOT LONG AFTER LOW SECOND, everyone had eaten breakfast in the Common Room and said their goodbyes to Ichiko. The sky had opened up during the High hours and it was still pouring, with winds tossing the rain in all directions. Saoirse stood alongside Ichiko, watching her Uncle Angus and her mam approach.