Escape from the Drowned Planet
Page 46
The facilities in the women’s bathing quarters were basic: hot and cold water taps, buckets to wash from, strong soap and well-worn wash rags and towels. But the water was abundant, a fact which did not surprise Kati after having ridden through RichWater; she understood how the place had obtained its name.
When the caravan had arrived in RichWater the day had not been as far advanced as it had been at their earlier overnight stops. There were still a couple of hours left before sunset and Yarm had taken advantage of that to lead the travellers, with the exception of the herder family who had left them at the edge of the town, through the business section of the town. There he had pointed out Lazo’s Inn, telling the crew that anyone who wanted to, could choose to spend the night there, as long as they had the coin to pay for the privilege, and that all could bathe at the Inn for a copper a head.
“I recommend doing so,” he had said. “There aren’t that many chances to wash properly on this road; you need to take advantage of them where they exist.”
“Or else live with the vermin,” Jocan had cried. “The lice! And the fleas!” He had winked at Kati who suppressed a giggle.
“Oh man, Jocan! Shut up! I’m scratching already!” Cay had groaned, drawing bursts of laughter from Matto and Jess.
“I think that we’ll all be at the baths tonight, scrubbing, scrubbing,” Matto had said, rubbing at the nape of his neck.
Yarm had pointed out other useful sights on the main street. There was a supplier of dry travel rations, as well as a stall selling fresh produce. It would make a nice change from dry rations for the evening meals of those who would be eating at the campground. There were a handful of the eateries and alehouses which seemed to be a fixture of all towns on this world, and a few shops that sold other necessities like shoes, clothing, dishes, pots, pans and so on. The town seemed rather prosperous to Kati; this was quite different from NearWater, the settlement that had been their first inhabited stopping place.
The reason for the prosperity had been easy to see during their ride through the town. There was plenty of water at RichWater, and soil that this water irrigated was obviously fertile. There were growing things all around: flowers, fruiting bushes and trees, seed bearing plants, vegetables, herbs; everything was lush and green. Kati was almost sorry that they were not camping, when she saw the campground; unlike every other camping area they had seen so far, this one was not an expanse of packed-down dirt. Here there was grass, and trees around the campsites; there was even a place where the campers could pick up wood for fires.
“Yeah, it’s the nicest campground we’ve seen,” Mikal said, as if reading Kati’s thoughts, “but I’m sure looking forward to sleeping in a bed.”
“I admit that my body likes a bed,” Kati agreed. “And we’ll be close to the baths.”
She had noticed on the Main Street that the townspeople were staying at a distance from the caravan. At first she had thought that perhaps they were shying from the strange Narra; before long she realized that, likely, it was just as much the scent of the unwashed, hard-ridden human bodies that they were avoiding.
At the Inn, it was clear that this was not a busy time for Lazo’s; the front clerk was exceedingly polite to them, even though they walked in hot and sweaty, hauling rucksacks of dirty clothes. A boy was immediately dispatched to see their Narra to the stables, and to feed, water and groom them. And the rooms they were assigned were comfortably big, if not palatial. Lazo’s maids could do their laundry overnight, they were told, there was a restaurant on the premises, and an alehouse next door.
“Some of the comforts of home,” Mikal muttered as he checked the mattress on the bed that he had tossed his rucksack on. “You know, I’m getting plenty tired of this travelling. And this stretch with all the tenting that it involves, seems to be the toughest stretch yet.”
“Unfortunately it’s the only way to get where we’re going,” Kati said from the door that connected the two rooms. “I suppose that you could have tried to work some Lamanian magic on that flyer that we broke into pieces on Sickle Island. I can’t think of any other way to speed up the travel.”
“That would have required a death-wish, and I guess that I didn’t have one since I’m still puttering along with the two of you.”
Mikal sat very carefully down on the edge of the bed and scratched one arm. “Jocan,” he said, “shall we head for the baths? If I don’t get clean soon I’m going to have that death-wish before supper-time.”
“Let’s go.” Jocan picked up his pack. “We can drop off our dirty clothes at the laundry at the same time.”
He grinned at Kati.
“I’ll bring him back smelling sweet, and in an improved mood.”
Mikal sighed and got up, grabbing his rucksack. “Well, smelling sweet, anyway,” he told Kati, grinning suddenly. “Glad I don’t have to wait for Chrys, like you do.”
“Hah, you’re happy that I have to wait, and therefore can keep an eye on things while you guys cavort naked in the water!”
“There’s not much to keep an eye on until they bring in the saddlebags, but it’s no doubt a good thing that there’s someone here to open the door when they drop them off. If you’ll be kind enough to keep that door between the rooms open until they do?”
“Yes sir!” She made a face at him and sketched a salute of sorts. “I will follow instructions, sir!”
He escaped, loping after Jocan who was already halfway down the hall. Mikal smiled to himself. He was not nearly as tired, suddenly, as he had been. Bantering with Kati always seemed to have a cheering effect on him.
He knew that he was developing very strong feelings for her. He did not want to be dishonest about his own emotions, so he did not try to deny them. But he was somewhat surprised at himself; he had expected to spend years mourning the break-up of his marriage. Yet here he was feeling strong affection towards this remarkable woman with whom he had found himself sharing a long trek across an unfamiliar planet. He had thought a number of times that it was a good thing that they had Jocan along; if that had not been the case things might have gotten too intimate, too fast. He did not want to cement the relationship before they had finished their journey and returned to Federation space. It was not fair to Kati, he thought, to bind her to him with close ties when she was entangled in a situation that was not of her own choosing. She had no choice but to depend on him for companionship. She was going where he was going, but to her it was not home. She would be faced with another new world, and a new life. He wanted her to be free to embrace that life—even while he hoped that she would want him to be a part of it.
*****
Left alone in her room, Kati dumped her pack on the bed, sorting out the dirty clothes, as well as the one outfit that she had saved for wearing after her bath, and before she had her laundry back. She took out her comb and set about clearing the tangles and sand from her hair. It had grown quite a bit since she was abducted. She sent a query to the granda; he informed her that she and Mikal had been on the planet for the equivalent of several months. They had escaped from Gorsh’s ship in the winter on the southern continent; winter should have given way to spring and summer there. That meant that they should be well into winter in this hemisphere, and heading north, they ought to be moving towards colder temperatures. Only the seasons did not seem to be all that differentiated on this planet; whether that was normal on this world, or something that The Disaster had brought about, she did not really know. Perhaps Yarm would know about seasonal travel; she would have to ask him, later. She did not expect to experience snow--although it was, perhaps, a possibility in the mountains in the winter—but heavy rains were all it took to make travelling on animal back a misery. Well, there was nothing to be done about any of that, although they would have to look into obtaining rain gear if and when wet weather became an issue. She sat on the one wooden chair in the room (so as to keep her filthy backside off the upholstered furniture) and combed her hair over the trash container to get the sand out, while th
inking about these things.
The arrival of the saddlebags took her half by surprise, even though she was primed for it. She jumped up at the loud rapping on the other room’s door, remembered what it had to be, and hurried to that door and opened it, only a crack at first, then wider, as she saw the groom, laden with the baggage.
“You ought to have a cart or something for a load that big,” she told the tough-looking man who stepped in, carrying the heavy bags.
“Nah, it’s actually easier this way,” he objected, “a cart would be a nuisance outdoors. Where do you want them?”
Kati did a swift survey of the rooms and decided that there was more space in her room for their equipment. There was an empty area where a second bed could have been; probably once, that room had been a double, too.
She led the groom into it; he followed her a little awkwardly, burdened as he was. He dropped the load on the floor where she indicated that he should, then looked at her guiltily when there sounded a clatter of tin dishes and utensils.
“It’s okay,” she reassured him with a laugh. “There isn’t anything breakable there. It’s not too smart to haul breakable things around when you’re travelling on Narra-back.”
She gave him a copper for his trouble and he left, thanking her profusely. Another sign, she thought, that business was slow. Tips were likely few and far between; once again she gave mental thanks to the Kitfi whose generosity allowed her to play the free-spending, tip-giving, travelling lady.
Then she turned to the task of opening up the saddlebags and separating out the towels, wash rags and blankets that she wanted to take to the laundry while there was an opportunity. She found some personal clothing items that the three of them had stuffed in the saddlebags, too; they clearly were in need of washing and she threw them into the dirty clothes pile as well. By the time she had the laundry ready she had a fair sized bundle wrapped up in one of the blankets, knotted so that it would be easy to carry.
Now she had nothing else to do but to wait for Chrys to arrive.
*****
“So, Kati, do you feel like taking the measure of this burg by sitting in the local alehouse for a couple of hours?” Mikal asked her after the three of them had entertained Chrys for supper at Lazo’s Restaurant, and the nightlady had left, collected by Taxom.
Kati had been gritting her teeth as she had watched Chrys hurry off with the sour whoremaster, wondering once again how the girl had ended up in his employ. Now she turned her eyes on Mikal who was watching her face, sympathy reflected on his.
“I guess we might as well, she said with a sigh. “Not much else around to divert us now that we’ve eaten. I don’t think there’s a library around where one could while away a few hours by reading. Coming, Jocan?”
“Sure, I’m coming,” Jocan responded. “What’s a library?”
“A repository of knowledge in the form of books, tapes such as the ones Marco prepared for us, and, well, however a particular world stores information.” Kati stopped for a second, and turned to Mikal: “How am I doing with the explanation, in Star Federation terms?”
“Not badly at all.” Mikal was grinning. “That last bit was a good save.”
“What in the world are you two talking about?” Jocan demanded, a touch crossly.
“On pretty well any world,” Mikal began in the tones of a lecturer, “sooner or later the amount of knowledge becomes too large for any human mind, however capable or enhanced, to hang on to. People develop ways of storing information independently of human brains; one of the first ways often being writing, although other methods are known too, such as patterns woven into cloth and pictures drawn on stone tablets. Once people have collected a lot of information in the form of writing or whatever, they often like to put it all together in one place so others can decipher whatever information they may want or need, when they need it. Such a storage place of information is called a library.”
Kati giggled. “Your explanation isn’t any clearer than mine was,” she protested. “Just more pompous.”
“I give up on the two of you sometimes,” Jocan said disgustedly. “Couple of know-it-alls who can’t explain themselves so as anyone can understand it.”
“Ah, ‘tis a pity he doesn’t have a node to clarify things for him,” Mikal stated grandly.
“I’m glad if your node clarifies things for you, Mikal,” Kati told him. “Half the time mine confuses me further.”
“Yeah, well, probably if I had that granda stuck in my head, I’d be confused, too,” Mikal conceded. “Here we are at the local Alehouse. See the sign? Thanks to the books Kati bought in Delta and we studied on the ship, I now know that the meaning of that sign is more or less: ‘here you can sit in comfort and consume mugfuls of ale’. Fascinating, isn’t it?”
“I have a feeling the two of you consumed too much wine during supper,” Jocan said, looking from one to the other with some aspersion. “You are behaving rather childishly.”
“I think that we’re just a touch drunk on being off Narra-back, and not having to spend the night on the ground,” Mikal said lightly. “Don’t worry, Jocan. We’ll be back to our serious selves by tomorrow morning when we hit the trail again.”
“But let us go in and begin our anthropological study into the night life of the Narra-herders in the town of RichWater,” Kati said as she pushed the Alehouse door open.
The three of them entered a noisy room.
They had barely made it inside when they already were hailed. Matto, Cay and Jess were sharing a table with Yarm, and already Cay and Jess were hauling another table next to theirs, and setting chairs out for them. A comely young waitress met them at the table, ready to explain to them the intricacies of the various local beers but Jess was banging his mug on the table and insisting that they had to try the amber ale, so all three of them agreed to give it a try.
“No reason not to,” Mikal said to the waitress. “We’re not familiar with any of them and Jess’s recommendation is as good as any.”
She left to fetch their orders and Kati slid into the chair which Yarm was holding out for her. She looked at the young men’s flushed faces and laughed.
“Looks like you’ve been here a while, at least the three of you lads,” she commented. “Here’s hoping that you don’t find yourselves with hangovers when it’s time to get on Narra-back tomorrow morning.”
“Don’t worry about us,” Matto said cheerfully. “If we have to ride feeling lousy, we’ll ride feeling lousy. Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“I figure that I’ll be able to get them out and back to the campground once the three of you head for bed,” said Yarm, with a wink. “So I’m counting on you folks to call it a night at a reasonable hour.”
“We can probably do that,” Mikal said cheerfully to Jocan’s raised eyebrows. “Really, Jocan, Kati and I can do a quick turn around and start behaving sensibly as soon as it becomes necessary.”
“What? You we’re annoying your chaperone?” Yarm’s eyebrows were up. “That I would have liked to have seen.”
Jess was hooting.
“Oh, is Jocan your chaperone?” he wanted to know. “Not old enough to be consenting adults, the two of you, huh?” He snorted.
Kati saw Mikal’s face close up and felt a sudden surge of irritation wash over her—only she had no idea who she was annoyed at. At Jess for implying the subject of sex? Or at Mikal for refusing to deal lightly with it? She drew a deep breath and caught hold of the tail of her temper. It was best not to act like an idiot.
She turned her attention to Yarm and changed the subject:
“You were going to tell me about the Narra-herders, well, what you know about them. This seems like a good time to hear about them since the three of us were thinking of this stop at the Alehouse as an opportunity to study the locals.”
“You want to know about the herders,” Matto said loudly, “you should be asking me. I’ve got relatives among the herders although I’d never think of myself as one.”
They were interrupted by the waitress who brought the three orders of amber ale and, after collecting coin from Kati, took further orders from the young men at the table. Yarm was nursing his beer; he obviously had no intention of travelling with a hangover. Kati felt a tiny bit smug, able as she was, to ask her node to ensure that any excess alcohol that she might consume would be metabolized without any ill-feeling on her part. She sternly reminded herself that it was pure luck that she had this advantage. Stupid arrogance, she told herself, was a luxury that she could not afford. She had “places to go and promises to keep”.
By the time Yarm was ready to start talking, Mikal’s face had relaxed. Kati was relieved but she set aside all her thoughts and feelings about Mikal, and concentrated on what Yarm had to say.
“Like I said the other night,” Yarm began, “I don’t know all that much about the Narra-herders—only what I’ve picked up in my attempt to figure out this whole business of Narra-cloth production and marketing.
“I do understand that the herding and grazing of the Narra began after The Disaster. Until then, the Narra were nothing more than curiosities, living in marginal grasslands at the southern tip of this continent, and nowhere else. After The Disaster, they spread their range even as the southern part of the Northern Continent dried up and the people disappeared. At some later time, it occurred to somebody that these animals were about the same size as runnerbeasts, and that they were very well adapted to living in dry, hot conditions; perhaps they could be used to do runnerbeast work in the desert. Experimentation took place. It was discovered that, with certain caveats, the Narra made excellent riding animals; in fact, they were better behaved, more docile and intelligent than the ordinary runnerbeasts. They began to be used for riding and hauling by the folk who were left at the margins of the desert and in the oases.