Staré: Shikari Book Two

by Alma T. C. Boykin

  Rigi answered, agreeing to meet Mrs. D at Sigur’s Café. The café and coffee shop was not far from the spice market, and Rigi could do any shopping her mother or father wanted done on the trip, as well as leaving her monthly offering at the Temple on the way home. And it gave her a convenient and true reason for leaving if Mrs. D wanted to talk for too long. Rigi put the date and time into her calendar, then opened the next file.

  “Dear Miss Bernardi,” it began. “You will be pleased to know that the mapping phase of the Indria Project is complete. I will send you a preliminary copy, encrypted, in two days. Please do not release the information to anyone before the official date. Sincerely, Xian.” Rigi did a little dance in her chair, then cleared the message and cleared the file as well. After her sister’s snooping, Rigi never gave anyone a chance to read her correspondence, even by accident.

  “No, Auriga, I cannot think of anything. I will ask Shona when he returns from the holiday,” her mother said that night at supper.

  Her father frowned at his fish. “I am not entirely pleased with your meeting Mrs. Debenadetto, Rigi, but as long as it is in public I trust your judgment. Are you taking Martinus?”

  “Yes, sir. I would like for Makana to come as well, but Mrs. D specified that she did not want any of the Staré in our employ to attend.” Rigi did not stab the yellow peas remaining on her plate, but she wanted to. “Sigur’s does not cater to Staré tastes, as I recall.”

  “She demands full rights for Staré but she doesn’t want to be around them? That’s strange,” Cy observed around a mouthful of fish.

  Well, Rigi didn’t care to be around Staré when they ate either, not because of their manners but because of their physiology and anatomy. She doubted that had anything to do with Mrs. D’s request. “It may be because she has some questions about the Stamme. She and Mr. Smargad seemed to believe that the Stamme were imposed by humans rather than coming from the Staré themselves. That misunderstanding may have cleared over the past few months.”

  “I certainly hope so,” her mother stated. “The Stamme are quite different than the old caste systems of Home, I hope she realizes.”

  “There’s none so blind as will not see, my dear,” her father said. He held up a bit of fish. “Does this look odd to you?”

  The other three at the table leaned forward to get a good look. “No sir,” Cy said. “It looks like orange codlet, and the fish Mother brought home this morning was an orange codlet.”

  “I selected it fresh from the tank, Timothy, and watched them clean and steam it. All I added was the spiced butter.”

  “Hmm.” Her father ate the rest of the fish without comment.

  The next day Rigi and Martinus walked into Sigur’s Café promptly at two hours after noon. Makana had let Rigi know his feelings on not coming with her, politely but eloquently. Rigi had her hand-shooter in her special bag, Martinus, and common sense. She’d also left the wombow cart just out of sight of the café, in case Mrs. D had difficulties with such things. The distance wasn’t far enough for a flitter, and Rigi’s parents and brother saw no point in hiring a motor-transport when they had the wombow cart rental already paid through the end of the dry season. Rigi had become a bit fond of the cream-colored gelding, even if he was too curious about scents on the ground.

  “There you are, Auriga!” Mrs. Debenadetto waved from a corner table. Rigi nodded to the host and followed him to the table, then sat. Martinus lay down on her other side, out of the way of servers. She’d taken his furry tail off again, since Mrs. D probably would not understand her having a fur.

  “Good afternoon, ma’am.” Without her asking a milk-coffee appeared. “Thank you.” The temple was not far, and the waitresses knew neo-Traditionalist manners.

  “So formal,” Mrs. D tutted. “How is your family? I understand you have a new arrival?”

  “They are well, thank you, and yes. Paul arrived three months ago and is growing quickly.”

  Mrs. D’s eyes widened under their blue-green eyeliner. “Only three months? How can you bear to leave him at home? I’d thought you’d bring him in case he needed to nurse.”

  Rigi was torn between melting into the floor from embarrassment and commanding Martinus to leak on the woman’s leg. Her face burned and she counted to ten in Staré before answering in cool tones, “He is my brother, Mrs. Debenadetto, not my son.”

  The woman had enough manners to look embarrassed and she covered her brilliant ruby colored lips with her fingers. “Oh dear, I apologize Auriga. I misunderstood what I read, and I thought he was yours.” They both sipped their drinks, and Rigi let the rich cowlee milk coat her palate before swallowing the hot blend. “I’m sorry. I know better than to trust initial reports.”

  “It was an honest mistake,” Rigi soothed. “Apology accepted ma’am.”

  “Thank you.” They drank more of their coffees. “Auriga, I wanted to speak with you about a difficulty I am having that you might be able to assist with.”

  “I do not know what I can do, ma’am.”

  “You speak Staré and seem familiar with how they operate, to use a rather cold word,” the older woman began, frowning and playing with a bit of the fringe on her otherwise snug black cuff. She still favored Home styles and colors, Rigi sighed, wondering how uncomfortable the close-fitted blouses and slacks would feel during the worst of the warm season. “The Staré school is going well, at least for the children from the so-called upper Stamms. The other children do not seem to want to study or to learn, and my teachers are becoming quite frustrated. How can we convince their parents to work more closely with their children so that they can advance?”

  Oh dear, Rigi groaned inwardly. Did Mrs. D understand anything about Staré and the Stamme? It appeared not. Rigi groped for the right words to use and the best way to use them without offending Mrs. D. “Ah, I see how that could become most frustrating, ma’am. Is there a skill in particular that they seem unable or unwilling to master?”

  “Reading and writing, either Common or Staré. They learn their names, and basic adding and subtracting and so, but complicated things, or reading passages and writing longer things? Nothing. It seems as if a wall rises in their minds. Is there a teaching technique the Staré of the upper classes use that the working class don’t have access to?”

  Rigi put her fingers over lips, thought, and took a deep breath. “Ma’am, there is no special teaching technique that I have heard of, although scents do play a role in most communication of every day matters and emotions. I am not familiar with scents for abstract topics. And Staré do tend to have a more oral information-culture than humans, or did until four generations ago, if I recall correctly. Perhaps part of the difficulty is that written communications are simply so new that literacy is not seen as especially useful yet.” Given the jobs lower Stamm Staré did, advanced math served no purpose, and neither did reading literature, but Rigi doubted that Mrs. D understood that it was the cause and not the effect.

  “That would make sense then, but not now.” She tapped teal fingernails on the cool silver table top. “It does give me something to use for outreach, though, thank you. But what about the current children in the classroom?”

  “Ma’am, I work most closely with members of the fourth and third Stamme, and have some acquaintance with individuals of the second Stamm. They prefer spoken to written communication, and many have perfect memories for spoken and sung information. The only Staré I know who regularly use computers are third Stamm, although fourth Stamm members seem to like basic data pads, the heavy-duty kind with claw-resistant screens.”

  Mrs. D tipped her head to the side after sipping her drink. “And have you given—you call them fourth Stamm—these people computers and instruction?”

  “If you mean me personally, no, ma’am. I’m not a teacher. I would have to ask my father if his office has ever done something like that, since there are fourth and fifth Stamme in the department.” Rigi tried to remember if Lexi had ever used the computers, but she coul
dn’t recall, and he was high third anyway, so that didn’t count.

  “That reminds me. Auriga, how can you identify the Stamms so quickly? Is it the colors and patterns on people’s aprons and wraps that signals their rank?” Mrs. D accepted a plate with a small sandwich and several cookies. Rigi leaned back and the young woman serving them set a light blue plate down in front of her, then refilled the milk-coffee. Cheese rusks, a sausage rusk, and two of those little jam-filled micro-tarts that Shona never made beckoned to her, and Rigi breathed a quick blessing and thanks before nibbling the sausage rusk.

  “No, ma’am, it is the fur color and size of the Staré themselves.”

  Mrs. D seemed to choke, and she stared, one hand at her collar, color draining out from under her skin. “Color ranking? That’s illegal!”

  “Not color alone, ma’am, no. Other markings, size, temperament, they all combine, but fur color and size are the two main ways. After a while you learn the general Stamme, and within those there are finer gradations based on family connections and marriages. Some skilled people are granted a sort of honorary higher rank because they are so talented. I work with a tailor who is fifth Stamm by birth but is considered high third by skill.” Rigi kept her voice calm and matter of fact, and sipped her coffee, then had one of the cheese rusks. She liked Shona’s better, but this one had a nice tang to it. What kind of cheese did they use?

  “Still, that’s illegal. That’s the worst sort of discrimination, going by appearances. How can the Crown permit it?” Mrs. D sounded as if she were going to cry, her voice wavering as she wrung her hands. The little silver bracelets on her left arm chimed softly.

  “The Stamme predate human arrival, ma’am. According to the Staré creation story, the Stamme date to the creation of the current world. The oldest, wisest families are smaller and darker, more heavyset. By tradition, the clever, trade minded people of the second Stamm are a little taller and paler, and the youngest families are the largest and palest, the eighth Stamm.” Rigi finished her tangy cheese rusk before adding, “People joke about a tenth Stamm, but it does not exist. It is a bit like telling PolkWorlder jokes.”

  “How cruel! Who did they learn it from? Surely the first scouts and colonists did not have that great of an effect on native culture and society.” She drank her coffee and devoured the sandwich. Rigi wondered how Mrs. D could not comprehend what Rigi was trying to explain. “You are the fourth person who has said something like that, Auriga, so I understand that you must believe it, but who began such a horrible thing? And to blame the Staré, ugh.” She waved her hand and the bracelets chimed again. “No wonder the Staré who have not been around humans want nothing to do with us.”

  Ay yae yae, I give up. Rigi made a noise that could be taken for sympathy and possible agreement, then ate the first tartlet, allowing it to melt on her tongue. The waitress had selected two with dark fillings, not the bright red that most people preferred, and the cool spicy flavor cut the rich buttery crust. Rigi could have eaten them until she burst. Instead she had more of the coffee, enjoyed the second tart, and wondered once more why Shona couldn’t make them, the size of his forefeet notwithstanding. On the other hand, trying to keep Staré fur out of the shells if he did them by forefoot instead of using a mold . . .

  “Oh yes, on a happier note, can you improve this, Auriga?” Mrs. D took a printed image out of her bag and set it on the table, then slid it at Rigi.

  “Ah, do you mean technically, or topically, ma’am?” The quality of the picture was not good, but that could be because images from three-D holos never printed well, no matter how fancy the printer and software conversion packages were. Fuzzy lines and heavy shadows blurred the details of the image of the Staré, who seemed to be holding something.

  “The focus seems wrong, dear. He should be pleading, or looking defiant. Instead he seems to be painting or carrying a brush.” The teal nail tapped the offending forefoot. “That should be a broken chain.”

  “Pardon me.” Rigi pulled a pocket enhancer from her bag and extended the lens, then looked again, turned on the little light in the handle and studied the image. “It does seem to be a brush, ma’am. You have good eyes.” In fact, it was a bad copy of an advertising picture she’d seen several years before near the cargo distribution and transport loading district. Rigi bit the tip of her tongue, because the ad in question was for a type of painting equipment so simple even seventh Stamm could use it and get good results, or so the make had claimed. Mrs. D would not be pleased. Neither was Rigi, for different reasons entirely.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am.” She looked up at Mrs. D. “I can’t really improve on this without completely redrawing and manipulating it. And to do that I need written confirmation of use and modification permissions, so I do not accidentally violate Crown laws about intellectual property.”

  Mrs. D’s eyes seemed to bulge. “But its for the Staré!”

  “Yes, ma’am, but were you in the inner systems when the Crown prosecutor found Xenospecies Preservation Club guilty of abuse of intellectual property?”

  “Ah, no.”

  Rigi did her best to look grave and concerned, as well as sympathetic. “They meant well, they truly did, and had the best of intentions, but they took someone at their word that the images he gave them were his to distribute, and they used them in their literature and in a book about xenospecies conservation.” Rigi shook her head. “Unfortunately, the real holder of the license for the images saw them and sued. The Crown found XPC guilty of theft and fined them several hundred thousand credits. They had to close two rehabilitation centers and a refuge and lost several major donors.” Rigi finished her rich coffee and hoped that the sidetrack worked.

  “But that won’t happen here.” Mrs. D set her jaw, a determined look on her face, dark eyebrows pulled low to her nose. “We are doing this for a good reason and no one can claim otherwise.”

  Rigi counted to fifteen this time. The cheese seemed to sit like rocks in her stomach. “Motive does not matter in this type of law, ma’am. I’m sorry.”

  “So you won’t help.”

  “I will help if you secure permissions, or if you commission me to do a new design to your specifications. I can’t in good faith take this image and work with it without the permissions. It is illegal and it would violate my membership in the illustrators’ organizations.”

  “Luminous was right.” Ice filled Mrs. D’s voice, and she shoved her chair back with a scraping clatter, almost hitting the window behind her. “You are as blind as the others. I’d thought better of you Auriga Bernardi. Perhaps it was just as well that young Benin didn’t associate with you.” She snatched up the picture, knocking her cup over in the process, took her bag and stomped off, almost knocking a waitress’s tray out of her hand in the rush.

  Rigi caught the cup before it fell off the table, counting to twenty and biting her tongue to keep from saying something quite rude. Mrs. D had not left money, and Rigi suspected that she’d not given the young woman serving them her credit information in advance, either.

  A little later that day, Rigi knelt in the Temple, bowed twice to the images of the Creator and Creatrix, and breathed deep of the cool air in the dark room. She let her eyes half close as she exhaled then inhaled once more, catching a hint of a memory of the incense from the last worship celebration. Then she began to sing an invocation and petition for inner peace and discernment, followed by thanks for the day and praise for the gifts and glories of the worlds. When she left half an hour or so later, she felt much calmer and her headache had almost disappeared. It helped that the Guardian allowed Martinus to come with her.

  The headache returned full force when she had to stop for a protest. “What is going on, sir,” she asked the company security officer directing traffic.

  “Rumor has it someone attacked some Staré on their way back from a market, insulting them and hurting a female with pouchling. These people are protesting that and the lack of investigation. You’ll need to go south, ma’a
m, then continue on your way to the residential district.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  What next, she wondered as the wombow trotted along the cart path, his feet making a soft pad’thump-pad’thump-pad’thump on the firm, moist dirt. Never mind, she hurriedly whispered. She didn’t really want to know.

  11

  Maps and Accusations

  Rigi closed her eyes and recited a prayer for safety and trust, followed by several hymns. She also clutched the sides of the seat, hoping that Jaihu didn’t notice. Makana probably did, but Cyril appeared oblivious, which suited her just fine. She trusted Jaihu’s piloting skills completely. The weather, on the other hand, scared her silly.

  The flitter dropped several meters and she heard beeping. It bumped up, slithered sideways and back, and dropped once more. Makana made a sound that she took as an indication of his discomfort with the flight. She heartily agreed. At least they were in clouds that did not seem to include lightning and hail. The flitter dropped another few meters, and Cyril exclaimed, “Whee! Isn’t this fun?” Rigi wanted to thump her brother on the head with her datapad, but that required releasing her grip on the seat cushion, which she refused to do.

  They landed at NovMerv in a light rain shower. Rigi did not kiss the ground when she got out of the flitter, but she certainly intended to walk home if the weather did not improve greatly, meaning she wanted clear blue skies and the nearest clouds no closer than the equator! “Wow, that was fun,” Cy laughed, grinning and stretching as Rigi unstrapped Martinus and let him out of the cargo section. “Better than some of those g-flip rides we did in training.”