“Yes, ma’am.” Rigi accepted a cup of milk-coffee from Lonka. “Thank you, Lonka.” He presented her with a plate of eggs, sausage, fresh bread, and added a bowl of breakfast pudding—with ginter? She sniffed after he moved away. No, something warmer smelling but still spicy. The large breakfast meant that they would be visiting but not having dinner with Mrs. Patel-Chang, and Rigi mentally adjusted what she had planned to wear. The mornings were still a touch cool, but if they were leaving at dinner, the sun would be full up and warm. Her burgundy dress with the split underskirt would do, since the light-weight material balanced out the dark color. And a scarf, perhaps, just in case it decided to be windy or dusty.
Siare carried Paul’s bag, Rigi had her small visiting satchel, and her mother brought the usual mother things along with Paul. Martinus looked a bit glum wedged into the back of the wombow cart with Rigi and Paul’s traveling carrier. Paul seemed to need an exceedingly large number of accessories when he traveled Rigi, thought yet again. Then she imagined what would have happened if he’d had The Diaper Incident with nothing fresh to change into or ways to clean him. No, thank you, Rigi shivered. All of Sogdia would be fussing at her and her mother if they had to drive back to the house from the opposite side of town with The Diaper.
Makana and Lonka had been sent to do heavy marketing while the ladies were away, Rigi recalled. She wished he’d come along, but her mother had refused and apparently Makana feared Mrs. deStella-Bernardi more than he worried about the words of the first Stamm. If so, Rigi thought he showed excellent judgment.
Her mother handled the large cart and paired wombow hitch better than most men, and they moved quickly through the edges of Sogdia, past Rigi’s old school and the Staré Place of Refuge, around one of the mixed market areas, into a different residential district, just east of where Benin Petrason had lived. Rigi still cherished the memory of the last meeting between her mother and Mrs. Chin-Petrason, when her mother had politely, calmly, without raising her voice, torn Mrs. Chin-Petrason to shreds in a most ladylike way. Rigi longed to master the art. The warm sun on her shoulders warned that it might be a stormy afternoon, but the air felt dry for now. Once more Rigi wondered how it was that humans could cross star systems and master wormhole jumping, but still could not predict weather more than two days ahead of time.
They passed into an older block of houses with lots of large trees and ornate gardens that dated from the first settlement. Paul fussed a little and Rigi found a bottle for him. He latched on with a will and all but pulled it out of her hand by suction alone. She smiled and rubbed his soft, plump cheek with one finger. He drank half and seemed satisfied, so Rigi found a towel and tucked her scarf into her bag, draped her shoulder, and burped him. Actually, the cart did the trick, and as they went over a bump, Paul outgassed quite nicely and acted pleased with his accomplishment. Rigi just hoped the towel had caught all the excess. White milk on burgundy would be rather obvious. She set Paul back into his carrier-basket and secured the travel straps, folded the towel and tucked it away, and put the bottle back in the little warmer-fresh keeper just as they arrived at Mrs. Patel-Chang’s house.
A sixth Stamm female took the wombows and held them as Mrs. deStella-Bernardi got down from the driver’s seat. Rigi waited until Siare had climbed down as well, then handed her Paul’s travel bag, his other bag, and the carrier. Martinus hopped down with a thump, and Rigi followed a bit more decorously.
The visit went well. Rigi listened, answered a few direct questions, and let her mind drift a bit here and there. As they left, her mother announced, “I need to stop by the general market.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Siare’s lower jaw worked back and forth, and her ears dipped a little to the rear. “Mistress deStella-Bernardi, is safe?”
The question brought Rigi up short, and she turned to look at Siare. Her mother seemed to be thinking, because she waited for another block before answering. “I am not going far in, just to the seller of baby things.”
“Yes, Mistress deStella-Bernardi.”
Rigi wanted to stay with the cart and sketch, but her mother had other ideas. “No, Auriga, I want you to help me select some things for Paul and for Lyria’s girl-to-be.”
“Yes, ma’am.” As she walked in the warm sun, Rigi smelled market smells, and heard the normal sounds of the general market, one of the few where humans and Staré both had shops. A goodly number of humans and Staré bustled around, most carrying bags or baskets or pulling small carts. A few humans pushed large things on anti-grav floats. The scent of something fried caught Rigi’s nose for an instant until she saw the sign announcing “Special today! Tam patties- three for five!”
The stench of scent-sickness reached her just as the screams and panic began. Staré and humans rushed toward them, and she heard voices calling, “Scent sickness! Run! She’s full in!” Siare and Rigi grabbed her mother and tried to pull her into one of the shops before the shutters came down.
Clang thunk. Clang thunk doors slammed shut and shutters dropped. Mrs. deStella-Bernardi, holding Paul, staggered. “My shoe, I’m—” Rigi caught and lowered her mother so she didn’t fall. The gut-twisting stench of scent-sickness washed over them, every scent a Staré could make in one wash of madness.
“Martinus, guard!” He turned, facing a third Stamm female wielding a butcher’s ax. She staggered and swung the weapon, screaming and attacking anything that moved.
“Run,” her mother ordered, shoving Paul at Rigi and Siare.
“Disarm!” Rigi commanded, pointing to the sick female. Martinus surged into motion. The female swung at him one-forefooted, and he grabbed the neck of the ax, pulling it out of her grip and returning to Rigi and her mother. “Drop. Good dog!” He dropped the ax and returned to guard.
“No, Rigi, run!” Her mother cowered, trying to give Paul to Rigi and Siare as the screaming female staggered closer. “My ankle, take Paul!”
Before Rigi could make a decision, Siare moved. She lunged to the side, drawing the sick female’s attention, and then she attacked. Rigi had never seen Staré females fight, and she stared, slack-jawed, too surprised to move as they clenched, then went hind foot to belly, grabbing ears. If the sick female bit Siare or bled on her, Siare might fall ill as well, and Rigi prayed, staying between the females and her mother, with Martinus beside her. Tufts of fur filled the air and the females rolled back and forth. Rigi ached to command Martinus to fire, but didn’t want to accidentally hurt Siare or to reveal his secret. Her mother got to one knee, balancing with Paul’s carrier, and Rigi helped her stand, then begin limping toward the wombow cart line. Paul seemed unconcerned and waved at Rigi.
“Aiiieeeeekaaa!” The motion caught the eye of the sick female and she broke loose from Siare, hopping toward Rigi and her mother. Oh, for her hand-shooter!
A larger dark shape slammed into the sick female, and Rigi heard a thump and a cracking sound like that of Shona breaking open marrow bones. The bitter stench of death made her cough, and Rigi turned to see the sick female lying still on the cobblestones, her head facing the wrong way, neck broken.
“Thanks be to the Creator and Creatrix,” Rigi breathed. “And may they have mercy.”
“Siare?” Her mother said.
Rigi got her mother and Paul to a bench. Makana and Lonka had found them, and they shielded Mrs. deStella-Bernardi while Rigi and Martinus went to Siare. Siare moaned as she tried to stand. “Lonka, we need a healer,” Rigi called. “Please, don’t try to move, Siare. Mother and Paul are safe with Makana and Lonka.”
“Cuts?” she asked in Staré.
Rigi looked over the grey female, checking everything she could see. “No cuts, no bites, no blood,” she assured Siare. “Your hindfoot is bent too far.”
“Yes,” //pain/relief/fear.// Siare rolled onto her other side and tried to stand again, but couldn’t balance, and Rigi had to catch her greater mass. Lonka and a strange male bustled up to them and pushed Rigi out of the way, but politely.
&nbs
p; “Miss Rigi, did you touch?” Lonka asked.
“No, except to catch when she fell.”
“Ah, good. Thank you.” Rigi got out of the way. She’d not broken Stamm.
Lonka and the fourth Stamm male helped Siare to her feet, or rather foot, and eased her over to a Staré bench. Rigi rested a hand on Martinus. “Martinus, stand down, good dog.”
“There they are!”
“She’s dead!”
“Another murder!”
A dozen humans raced toward Rigi and the three Staré, followed by twice as many low Stamm Staré. Rigi smelled a gush of //anger/fear.// Several of the Staré waved clubs.
Rigi didn’t think, didn’t hesitate. Instead, she fled into the maze of the market, Martinus at her side.
13
Out of Chaos, a Clue
“Good dog,” Rigi panted. She wasn’t dressed for running, and leaned against the wall, a stitch in her side, feet sore. She’d never wear another pair of shoes she couldn’t flee in ever again. At least they weren’t those fashionable sandals with heels and thin straps, she thought. She’d have broken something besides her common sense. Rigi listened for more sounds of riot or pursuit and heard nothing. Thanks be, she prayed, pushing off the wall. She needed to rest, somewhere quiet, without being seen, where she could comm for help and a ride home. Rigi looked up and blinked.
She’d run to the Place of Refuge, the Staré worship center just beyond the edge of the market. She recognized the walls, and saw a military vehicle’s front end hiding around the corner. Could she? She could ask at least. Rigi brushed herself off, looked once more for pursuit, and limped across the road to the gate. She’d pulled a muscle. A large third Stamm male glared at her, and she full-bowed. “Please, I seek shelter for a moment,” she asked in Staré.
“Wait.” He stepped back into the gateway and to the side. Rigi put her hand on Martinus’s head. He made her feel better. She didn’t want to walk all the way back to the house, and she hadn’t brought the small bag with her credit-tokens in it, so she couldn’t hire a cart and driver. Another thing I will not leave home without in the future, she decided. Maybe she should see if she could get a token-box welded onto Martinus? No, he wouldn’t like that.
“You may enter the forecourt,” the guard said.
Rigi removed her shoes and socks since she didn’t have shoe covers, then stepped on the sun-warm tile of the clean-swept forecourt. It seemed much larger than she remembered, but six years before it had been full of Staré, gathered to listen to the recitation of the account of the turning of the First World into the Second. The sweeps of blues and light brown tiles on the walls remained as before, and Rigi found a shady spot near the wall, tucked in her skirts, and sat. Martinus sat as well, then lay down beside her. Rigi closed her eyes and said a prayer of thanks for quiet and refuge.
She heard footsteps and opened her eyes. A pair of human legs in military trousers stood beside and slightly behind a very dark Staré wearing a beautifully embroidered and beaded modesty apron. She tipped her head back and found Tomás Prananda, eyes wide, looking down at her, along with a stocky, night-black Staré. Rigi bowed to the first Stamm elder from her seated position. He’d permitted her guest right, and she honored him.
“You seek refuge?”
“Yes, honored Elder,” she said in Staré.
He leaned closer and sniffed, studied her, and sniffed again. “You smell of fear and danger and all smells.”
“Yes, honored Elder. I fled the market after a scent-sick female ran amok through the mixed market. She is dead, but trouble followed her passing.” Now that Rigi could stop and think, running away may have been the most foolish thing she could have done. Makana and Lonka had to care for Siare, as well as her mother and Paul. Rigi should have gone to her mother, have told Martinus to attack the humans and club-carrying Staré. She looked down at the tiles and stone covering the courtyard.
“What trouble, Miss Bernardi?”
She looked up at Tomás. “I don’t know, Lieutenant. Siare attacked the sick female after Martinus disarmed her, took the ax she was swinging.” Rigi rested a hand on the m-dog. “Makana broke her neck, the sick female, after she hurt Siare and then came after Mother and me. Siare broke one hind foot, but no cuts or blood that I could see, and no bites. Lonka and a fourth-Stamm male helped Siare to a Staré bench after I got Mother and Paul to a human bench. Mother hurt her ankle when the sick female came, couldn’t run, so we had to fight. Then I heard shouts about another murder, and saw some humans running toward us, and low Stamm Staré with clubs. I didn’t think, I just ran and Martinus came with me.” She looked down again.
“Scent sick? What Stamm?” the elder demanded, releasing //concerned/irritated.//
“Third, honored Elder, full in sick. All could see and smell, and everyone fled the market ahead of her. She had a meat ax.”
Tomás gulped and seemed a little pale under his tan. He must have heard stories about scent-sickness—everyone had. Humans seemed immune, but when a Staré became fully scent-sick, the only thing to do was get clear until someone could put the afflicted out of his misery. Rigi had heard or read of three other cases in the past twenty years. She discovered that her hands had begun shaking and she tucked them under her crossed legs.
The Elder seemed to be considering her and Martinus. He cocked his head to the side, ears slightly split front and back, as if listening to two things. “You are the female called wise, the one who lived as hopling with the foreign Staré?”
“Yes, honored Elder. Others say I have the wise eye, but I am not truly wise.” If she were wise, she would have stayed with her mother and Paul to protect them from the humans and low Stamm Staré.
“Come.” The first Stamm Elder turned, as if expecting her to follow. Tomás offered her his hand and she got to her feet. Martinus came along as well, and his metal claws made a little clink clink on the ground until she whispered for him to mind his feet. The claws lifted and he moved silently. A glance told her that Tomás had pulled covers over his boots, and she wondered why he was here. Was one of his soldiers in need of spiritual aid?
They passed beside the porch of the inner Refuge, instead going down a shaded side passage into a smaller, cool courtyard with a little fountain and benches. “Sit.” The wooden benches shaded from black to white, eight sets, and Rigi and Tomás sat on the white, the lowest Stamm. The Elder disappeared, leaving the humans alone in the inner courtyard. Rigi’s fingers itched to sketch the scene, but manners warned her not to. This might not be a place the Staré wanted humans to know about, since humans only entered the forecourt, and then only when invited for special occasions.
They listened to the splashing and lapping of the step-fountain and the soft quiet. “Your day sounds as interesting as mine has become, Miss Rigi,” Tomás said at last. “I was sent to inquire about reports that the Elders have requested all Staré in the military to resign to protest the continued Company and Crown presence.”
“Ah, perhaps I am in error, but wouldn’t that be a senior officer’s task?”
“It would be, if they spoke Staré as well as I do, and—” He shook his head a little as a second Stamm female brought a seat and set it in front of their bench, then left. The Elder returned and sat, upwind of them, Rigi noticed, so that he would not be contaminated by their scent. Someone would probably scrub and purify the bench they sat on once they left. Or break it up and burn it.
The Elder studied them in silence for what felt like hours. At last he nodded once. “The hunter and the wise seer. You have been spoken of.” Was there anything the Staré didn’t talk about, Rigi wondered? Probably not, especially not if the thumping network were a quarter as efficient as the human gossip vines. “You find the spirit places of the First Ones.”
“Yes, sir.” Tomás spoke and Rigi nodded her assent.
“It is also said that your forefeet show what the eye does not understand.” He looked at Rigi as he spoke.
How to explain? “Yes, honor
ed Elder. My drawings lead and others’ eyes follow, finding signs and patterns of the spirit places.”
“And you are hunters both.”
“Yes, sir,” Tomás replied.
“Yes, honored Elder,” Rigi agreed, “when needful.”
The elder turned on his seat and made a beckoning motion. Two younger first Stamm carried a table into the courtyard. On the table Rigi could see a long piece of something with images on it. The white had an unusual trim—a seam in the middle, and six large tags of material on the edges. It was made of two hides, she realized, white-tanned hides decorated with pictures. The Elder stood and the female who had brought his seat moved it back, making room for the table between them. “See the spirit villages. We, the Elders, had lost the meaning of this treasure generations gone. Your eyes led us to understand it once more.”
What did he mean? Rigi and Tomás studied the artifact. It looked a bit like a pattern of drawn lace work, with stars and rings connected by faint lines. Tomás blinked, leaned forward, and leaned again, careful not to touch the thing. He snapped upright, opened his mouth, closed it, and nodded his head toward what he’d been staring at, not pointing with a finger. “Rigi, look.” he stood and let her get close.
A ring with a set of tiny squares in it caught her eye. The pattern looked familiar, itching her memory. She straightened up and traced a wavy blue line at “her” end of the table with her eyes, following it up to a ring, then three more rings, a rectangle, and then a ring surrounded by green and brown shapes. That ring had a tiny blue dot in it. Water in the woods? “It’s a fountain! This is Fountain Site, and you found Stela!” She blurted. “This is a map of the spirit villages, where the First Ones were.” Oh she wanted to draw it, and her hand started moving toward her visiting bag and the small pad inside the front pocket. Then she stopped. This was not a human thing.
Staré: Shikari Book Two Page 20