The Marann (6 page)

“What are they?” she asked.

“We call them flutters,” he said.
“This kind can live only in cora trees.” He held out a hand and
reached out to one with his senses, holding its primitive emotions
captive. It flew onto his fingers and sang. She made a small,
delighted sound, clapping her hands in front of her face. He kept
the creature’s senses still, soothing it, and brought his hand down
to her eye level.

The little creature’s plumage
shimmered in vivid shades of red, blue, and green, punctuated with
bright white eyes and a black, conical beak. It gripped his fingers
with its four feet and fluttered its wings, a small, living jewel.
His human guest extended a hand to stroke its breast with a finger.
The flutter crooned, and a delighted smile came to her lips. The
Sural’s gaze fell on her face, and the smile captured him. A desire
to let himself sink into those startling, luminous eyes stirred to
life.

No
, he told himself. He loosed
his grip on the flutter’s senses and it flew off, scolding. His
guest laughed, her remarkable eyes following its progress through
the garden. He withdrew back into himself, reflecting. She could
not read him, he reminded himself. Humans were unaware of the world
outside their own senses.

A guard behind her flickered,
reminding him of the time.

“It is time for the evening meal,
proctor,” he said, turning to head for the refectory’s garden
entrance.

“What was that word?” she asked as she
fell in step beside him. “You used it before, in the audience
room.”

“A title we give to private tutors.
Proctor.
” He hid a smile. To educate his daughter, this new
tutor needed to communicate well with him. That she felt
comfortable enough to ask him a trivial question made a promising
start.

She mouthed the word, and then uttered
it under her breath, running through all its intonations and
inflections. She spoke with a pleasing accent, but although she
could understand him and make herself understood, she would need to
learn a great deal more of his language if she was to be his
daughter’s tutor.

He could think of no reason to disturb
the family tutor with such a short-term venture—a linguist with a
fair grasp of his language and an eidetic memory could become
fluent before the end of the season. He would teach her
himself.

“Well done,” he said as they reached
the refectory.

He led her into the large room, filled
with round wooden tables surrounded by elegant but simple wooden
chairs. Stronghold staff occupied many of the round tables, wearing
robes in the colors of their castes, from black to dark brown to
pale yellow to dark indigo. Their quiet conversation created a
pleasant background murmuring.

In the center of the refectory, on a
low dais, the long, rectangular high table stood. At one end sat
his heavy, elaborately-carved chair, with simpler chairs lining the
long sides. Tables laden with food trays populated one end of the
room, where swinging doors led to the kitchens. The new tutor
frowned a little.

“High one,” she said, “I need to
return to my quarters.”

He raised both eyebrows at her. “Is
there a difficulty?”

“My food scanner,” she said. “I need
it to tell me what I can eat.”

He nodded and signaled a servant.
“Bring it,” he ordered.

“Yes, high one,” said the black-robed
servant, disappearing. Since the refectory occupied the guest wing,
he reappeared only a short time later, holding the small,
thumb-sized scanner.

She accepted the device and tapped one
end to activate it. Engrossed in checking its settings, she failed
to notice that the Sural and every Tolari nearby winced. It seemed
human hearing could not detect the grating whine the device
emitted. The Sural made a casual gesture for tolerance and led her
toward the food, sensing the relief behind him when the irritating
sound moved away.

Trays covered the tables near the
kitchens, loaded with fruit, greens, individual bowls of a thick
soup, and grain rolls. Steaming carafes and empty mugs sat to one
side.

“This is tea,” he said, indicating the
carafes. “From a flower we grow in cool river valleys. Suralia has
many tea flower plantations.”

She passed her scanner over a carafe,
and a light on the device blinked green. This seemed to be a
positive finding, for with a smile, she poured herself a mug and
sipped at it.

“Wonderful!” she exclaimed.

He ventured a smile of satisfaction,
which elicited no anxiety from her, and moved along the rest of the
trays in turn. She scanned them all, finding a grain roll and a
piece of fruit that the device proclaimed safe. The soup, he
explained, consisted of vegetables and roots. The scanner flashed
red—toxic.

She juggled the food and the scanner,
but he took the tea from her to free up a hand. With a grateful
smile, she bowed her thanks. Then she turned her attention to the
scanner and, much to his relief and that of everyone in the
refectory, deactivated it.

“It is my honor,” he murmured,
accompanying her back to the high table. When he had settled her in
the chair at the left hand of his own, he went back to the tables
of food to select his own meal. In a low voice, he ordered a
servant to remove the new tutor’s device during the night and have
it repaired to no longer emit its irritating noise. Then, returning
to the table, he took his place in the heavy chair to find she had
waited for him to begin her own meal.

“A human custom, to wait?” he
asked.

Marianne nodded, taking in the amount
of food in front of him with disbelief. His eyes glinted as he
started on his meal, and she turned to her own. Mimicking the
eating habits she saw around her, she tore the grain roll in two
and took an experimental bite from one half.

The glaze was sweet, and the bready
interior delicious and herby, but moments later a
fierce
afterburn lit a fire in her mouth and throat. Gasping, she grabbed
her mug and took a long drink. The fire went out, much to her
amazement. She panted, catching her breath, glancing at the Sural
to find him regarding her with concern written across his
face.

“Are you in distress?” he
asked.

She nodded, then shook her head, then
coughed a little and started to laugh. “I will be all right,” she
said. She panted and fanned her mouth. “I don’t know the Tolari
word.”

“What is your word for it?”

“Spicy hot,” Marianne answered in
English. “Like a fire in the mouth,” she added in
Tolari.

“We do not have this
concept.”

She shrugged. “I can become accustomed
to it.” She drew her brows together as she examined the piece of
fruit she had brought back from the tables near the kitchen. It was
purple and about the size of a man’s clenched fist. “How do I eat
this?”

The Sural offered a hand, and she
passed it to him. He demonstrated where to start peeling and
started it for her before handing it back. “Peel half, then eat,”
he advised.

She followed his directions and,
taking caution from her experience with the grain roll, took a
small first bite. Her eyes popped at the sweet and unusual flavor.
“Sweet,” she said. “Like a
banana
.” She took another bite,
nodding and smiling as she chewed.

The Sural gave a satisfied nod and
picked up his soup, drinking from the bowl. He alternated the soup
with substantial bites of grain roll, which he often dipped in the
soup first.

“Do you have—” She paused, searching
for words. “Small tools to eat food? Or small flat trays to hold
it?”

He lifted an eyebrow at her, smiling
and shaking his head. She returned to her grain roll, eating small
bites with liberal amounts of tea. Despite the heat-reducing
properties of the tea, the spiciness added up. She leaned back with
her tea after finishing half the roll, her stomach’s complaints
reduced to something she could ignore.

The Sural stared at her, sipping his
own tea, his eyes studying hers. She tried and failed to hold back
a grin. Even aliens, it seemed, couldn’t help noticing her
eyes.

“Do you think you will be content here
among my people, proctor?” he asked.

She leaned back to think. As tiring
and overwhelming as the last two days had been, she wanted to
bounce out of her chair and dance. She had gained the Sural’s
acceptance where others had failed. “Yes, I believe I will.” The
answer surprised her. “I’m glad I came.”

He gave her a sharp look. “Did you not
want to come to Tolar?”

“Well,” she began, shifting in the
chair. Had she given it away somehow that she hadn’t wanted to
leave Earth? Anxiety jabbed her in the stomach. “Well.”

The Sural seemed to focus on her. She
fidgeted with her unfinished roll.

“Do not fear me,” he said, his
expression becoming serious. “I will never harm you. I have pledged
my life on it to your government.”

“You can send me away,
though.”

“I have said you may stay. I neither
give nor change my word at whim.”

She paused. If she said the wrong
thing… she didn’t know if she’d spark an interstellar incident.
“I—” she started.

The Sural waited. He seemed to have an
inexhaustible supply of patience… so far.

“I never wanted to leave Earth,” she
murmured, looking down at her hands.

His face lost some of its
impassiveness. “I understand what it is to love one’s homeworld,”
he said.

She gave him a quick glance, then
looked back down to her hands and nodded. “It was a great honor to
be chosen for this mission.” She took a breath. “But I never sought
it.”

“Why then did you come?”

“Central Command chose me. I didn’t
have a choice. My government said if I came and you sent me back,
there would be no...” she searched for the word and didn’t find it,
“bad actions.”

The Sural went still. “Repercussions,”
he said. His voice had gone flat.

“Repercussions,” she repeated,
nodding. “But if I refused to go, I would regret it.”

“They threatened you?”

Marianne looked up. His face betrayed
nothing, but he seemed… outraged.

“Not exactly. Central Command does not
threaten. It’s bad—” she couldn’t find the word, “—reputation.” He
shrugged a shoulder, appearing unsure what she meant. “They make it
clear it’s in your best interest to...
um
... accept their
offers.”

The Sural took a long drink from his
mug and set it down. He stared at her—no, he stared
into
her, with a penetrating look that seemed to pierce her soul. She
shifted in the chair again and looked away.

“Do
you
wish to tutor my
daughter?” he asked, after a time. “Do you wish to stay of your own
accord? If not, I can send you back to your Admiral and request
another candidate. Perhaps Central Command will then send me a
tutor who desires to stay.”

She started a little. “It was hard to
leave the life I built for myself in Casey,” she said in a soft
voice, “but it isn’t that I don’t
want
to be here now. I
never planned to leave Earth—I never planned to leave Casey—my
hometown—but...”

Her eyes drifted to the garden
windows. It wasn’t so
very
different here. Tolar had trees,
flowers, something like grass, even birds. She set her jaw. If she
left now, she’d never know if she could have made a go of it. She
drew a deep breath and looked him in the eye.

“Yes, high one. I do want to stay and
tutor your daughter.”

“Excellent!” he said, with a smile she
thought might be warm beneath his chilly exterior. He gestured with
his hand to include the whole room. “My home is your
home.”

Mi casa es su casa,
she
thought, stifling a relieved sigh.
Crisis averted.
It seemed
to her she’d come close to dismissal twice. This assignment might
end up harder to keep than she thought.

Her gaze wandered back to the windows,
to the tree where she’d startled the colorful, bird-like creatures,
the flutters. Their chatter drifted in through the open garden
door, sounding like budgies. She shook herself.
No. He said he
doesn’t change his mind lightly.

“Does something else trouble you,
proctor?”

She pulled her attention back to the
Sural. He stared at her, brows drawn together, concern darkening
his mahogany eyes.

“No, everything is fine,” she said,
picking up the half-eaten roll and taking a bite. She chased it
with tea to neutralize the spiciness. Tolari bread would take some
getting used to.

He didn’t let it go. “You seemed
distressed by your thoughts.”

“I have a lot to think
about.”

“Because you left a great deal
behind.”

She tried not to flinch and failed.
That struck home. Her friends, her house, her job—even all those
Christmas presents. Central Command had allowed her to bring none
of it with her. “I miss...” she inserted the English word,
“Christmas.”