Brightness Reef (36 page)

“They-they say you may take some humans with you, when you go.”

Besh had looked down at her with eyes the color of golden-brown gemstones.

“Who says such things?”

“I ... hear stuff. Rumors, I guess.”

“You should not believe all rumors.”

Had there been extra emphasis on the word all? Rety leaped on any excuse for hope.

“I also hear you pay good when folks bring things you want-or news you need.”

“That much is true.” Now the eyes seemed to glitter a little. From amusement? Or greed?

“And if the news is really, really valuable? What’d be the reward then?”

The star-woman smiled, a grin full of friendship and promise. “Depending on how helpful or precious the information-the sky’s the limit.”

Rety had felt a thrill. She started to reach into her belt pouch. But Besh stopped her. “Not now,” the woman said in a low voice. “It is not discreet.”

Looking left and right, Rety realized there were other patients around, and employees of the forayers-members of the Six serving as assistants in the aliens’ many enterprises. Any one could be a spy for the sages.

“Tonight,” Besh had told her in a low voice. “Rann goes walking each evening, down by the stream. Wait next to the stand of yellow boo. The one just coming into bloom. Come alone, and speak to no one you see along the way.”

Great! Rety had thought jubilantly on leaving the tent. They’re interested! It’s exactly what I was hoping for. And just in the nick o’ time.

All might have been lost if it had taken much longer to make contact. The chief human sage had decreed she must leave tomorrow, accompanying a small donkey caravan aimed up into the mountains, along with two silent men and three big women she had never met before. Nothing was said, but she knew the goal was to catch up with Dwer, and from there head back to the wilderness she came from.

No chance of that, she had thought, relishing tonight’s rendezvous. Dwer’s welcome to go play hunter in the forest. While he’s scratchin’for eats in the Gray Hills, I’ll be living high an’ mighty, up on the Dolphin’s Tail.

That was the constellation where, rumor had it, the forayers came from, although the crablike sage, Knife-Bright Insight, once tried explaining to Rety about galaxies and “transfer points” and how the route back to civilization was twisty as a mule-spider’s vine. None of it made sense, and she figured the old qheuen was probably lying. Rety far preferred the idea of going to a star she could clearly see-which meant she would someday look back at Jijo from the beautiful Galactic city where she’d gone to live, and stick her tongue out every night at Jass and Bom and their whole stinking tribe. And Dwer and the sages, for that matter, along with everyone else on this rancy planet who was ever mean to her.

All day after meeting Besh she had avoided the sages and their servants, seeking the clearings several arrow-flights to the west, where some pilgrims were trying to restore a few of the festivities of Gathering. Pavilions that had been taken down in panic were now restored, and many folk had come out of hiding. There was still plenty of tension. But some people seemed determined to get on with.life, even if just for a little while.

She visited one tent where craft workers showed wares brought from all over the Slope. Their goods

would have impressed Rety even yesterday. But now she smiled scornfully, having seen the bright machines the sky-humans used. At one panel discussion, she watched hoon, g’Kek, and human experts discuss improved techniques for weaving rope. The atmosphere was hushed, and few in the audience asked questions.

Nearby, a traeki ring-breeder displayed some flabby donut shapes with slender arms, eye buds, or stubby feet. A trio of mature traeki stood near the pen, perhaps pondering additions to a newborn stack they were building back home. Or maybe they were just browsing.

Farther along, in a sun-dappled glade, chimp acrobats performed for a crowd of children, and an all-race sextet played by a simmering hot spring. It all might have seemed quite gay if Rety didn’t sense a pall, spoiling the mood. And if she had not already hardened her heart to all things Jijoan.

These Slopies think they’re so much better than a pack of dirty sooners. Well, maybe it’s so. But then, everybody on Jijo is a sooner, ain’t they?

I’m going far away, so it won’t matter to me anymore.

In a rougher clearing, she passed much of the afternoon watching human kids and urrish middlings vie in a game of Drake’s Dare.

The playing field was a strip of sand with a stream along one side. The other border was a long pit filled with coals, smoldering under a coating of gray ash. Wisps of hot smoke wafted into Rety’s face, tugging painful memories of Jass and Bom. Her scars tightened till she moved a ways uphill, sitting under the shade of a dwarf garu.

Two contestants arrived-a human boy starting at the north end of the field and a burly urrish middling at the south-sauntering and hurling insults as they neared the center, where two umpires waited.

“Hey, hinney! Get ready to take a bath!” the boy taunted, trying to swagger but hindered by his left arm, which was trussed back with cloth bindings. He wore a leather covering from crotch to chin, but his legs and feet were bare.

The young urs had her own protections and handicaps. Tough, transparent junnoor membranes stretched tight over her delicate pouches and scent glands. As the middling drew close, she tried to rear up threateningly- and almost fell over, to the amusement of onlookers. Rety saw the reason-her hind pair of legs were hobbled together.

“Silly skirl!” the urs shouted at her adversary, regaining her balance to hop forward once more. “Vavy skirl gonna get vurned!”

Along both boundaries-beyond the coal bed and across the stream-crowds of other youths gathered to watch. Many wore leather or membrane protectors, hanging jauntily open, while waiting for their own turn in the arena. Some boys and girls smeared salve over livid reddish streaks along their calves and thighs and even their faces, making Rety wince. True, none of the burns looked anywhere near as deep or wounding as her own. No blisters or horrid, charred patches. Still, how could they risk getting scorched on purpose?

The thought both nauseated and queerly fascinated Rety.

Was this so very different from her own story, after all? She had known that standing up to Jass would have consequences, yet she did it anyway.

Sometimes you just gotta fight, that’s all. Her hand lifted briefly to touch her face. She regretted nothing. Nothing.

Some urrish spectators also bore marks of recent combat, especially on their legs, where swaths of fur had gone mangy or sloughed off. Strangely, there wasn’t any clear separation along race lines-no human cheering section versus an urrish one. Instead, there was a lot of mixing, preliminary sparring, and friendly comparing of techniques and throws. Rety saw one human boy joke with a middling urs, laughing with his arm on her sleek mane.

A sizable group of zookirs and chimps screeched at each other in excitement, making wagers of piu nodules and pounding the ground with their hands.

Some distance beyond the coals, Rety saw another makeshift arena being used by juvenile traekis with newly wedded rings, engaged in a different kind of sport with g’Kek youngsters so light and agile, they spun wheelies and even lifted to stride briefly on their rear pusher legs. That tournament seemed to involve a sort of rolling, whirling dance. Rety couldn’t make out the point, but clearly the pastime was less violent than Drake’s Dare.

A pair of qheuen umpires—one gray and one blue—awaited the two contestants in the middle of the sandy strip. They carefully inspected the human’s sleeve for weapons, then checked the middling’s teeth for caps on her scythelike incisors. The blue qheuen then backed away into the stream while the gray extended armored legs and, to Rety’s blinking surprise, stepped daintily onto the bed of steaming coals! From then on it kept shifting its weight, lifting two clawed feet at a time high above the fuming surface, then switching to another pair, and so on.

After ritually-and warily-bowing to each other, the boy and middling began circling, looking for weakness.

Abruptly, they sprang at each other, grappling, each trying to push, twist, or throw the other in the direction he or she least wanted to go. Now Rety saw the reason for the handicaps. With both hind legs tied, the urs could not stomp her opponent or simply power her way to victory. Likewise, the boy’s strong, agile arms might throttle the middling, unless one was bound to his side.

“drak’s dare! drak’s dare! yippee yooee!”

The tiny, squeaky voice startled Rety, coming from much closer than the crowd of shouting onlookers. She swiveled, seeking the source, but saw no one nearby till a tug on her tunic made her look down.

“pouch-safe? yee talk! you me pouch-safe and yee talk you!”

Rety stared. It was a tiny urs! No bigger than her foot, it danced delicately on four miniature hooves while still plucking at her garment. The little creature tossed its mane, rotating a sinuous neck to peer around behind it, nervously, “yee need pouch! need pouch!”

Rety turned to follow its anxious stare and glimpsed what had it terrified. A sleek black shape crouched in the undergrowth, panting slightly, a lolling tongue hanging between rows of sharp white teeth. At first, Rety felt a shock of recognition, thinking it was Mudfoot, grouchy old Dwer’s funny companion in the mountains. Then she saw this one had no brown paw patches. A different noor, then.

The predator raised its head and leered at the tiny urs, taking a step, then another.

On impulse, Rety scooped up the quivering prey and slipped it in her leather hip-pouch.

The noor gave her a look of puzzled disappointment, then turned to vanish in the shrubs.

Cheers, boos, and excited snorts made her look up in time to see the human contestant tumble through a cloud of billowing ash. To Rety’s amazement, the boy was not instantly set ablaze but rolled erect, dancing from bare foot to bare foot on the coals, swiftly but calmly brushing embers from crevices in his leather garment. He waved off the gray qheuen, who had hurried protectively to his side. The youth ran a hand along his collar one more time, then sauntered across more glowing cinders back to the sandy arena.

Rety was impressed. Slopies seemed tougher than she’d thought.

“hot-hot, but not much heat!” the little voice squeaked from her pouch, as if pleased by her surprise. All memory of flight from the hungry noor seemed forgotten, “boy make boo-boo. slip and fall, but not again, not this boy! he tops! watch silly hinney get wet!”

Rety wrestled with her own amazement, unable to decide which thing dumbfounded her more, the contest below or the entity in her pocket, providing running commentary.

Combat won her attention as the young human launched at his opponent once more. Whatever his mistake the first time, the boy seemed bent on making up

for it as he bobbed and weaved, then leaped to catch a handful of the middling’s mane. She snorted and snapped, pushing vainly with both slim handling-arms to break his grip. She tried lifting a foreleg to tug with its stubby grasping paw, but that just left her teetering dangerously.

“drak’s dare!” the tiny urs shouted gleefully, “drak say to Ur-choon. you-me tussle, tussle ‘stead of kill!”

Rety caught her breath.

Oh, I remember now.

She had heard the legend when she was little, told round the campfire by one of the old grandpas. A tale that died with the old man, since Jass and the young hunters preferred exaggerated retellings of their own exploits over stories of life beyond the mountains.

To Rety’s best recollection, there once had been a man named Drak-or Drake-a hero mightier and bolder than any human before or since. Once, when Earthlings were still new on Jijo, a giant urrish chieftain fought Drak in a wrestling match. For three days and nights they grappled, pounding and tearing at each other, making the ground shake, drying up rivers, ripping all the countryside between a fiery mountain and the sea, till both volcano and ocean vanished in curling steam. When the clouds finally cleared, a bright region glowed from horizon to horizon with all the colors one could paint by mixing urrish and human blood.

Then, out of the smoke and mist, two heroes strode forth-he missing an arm and she a leg-leaning on each other, inseparable from that day forth.

While there would be more wars between the tribes, from that day forth all were fought with honor, in memory of Drak and Ur-choon.

“watch!” the little urs called.

The boy faked a leftward lean, then planted his right foot and heaved. Snorting dismay, the urs could not keep her greater weight from pivoting over his hip, sailing head-over-withers to crash into the nearby stream. There came a shrill sigh as she floundered, slipping in the mud. Finally, the blue qheuen surfaced behind her, using one clenched foot to give a helpful shove. With a grateful cry, the middling dove into the sand, raising plumes of dust.

“yee! go roll in hot ash, silly hinney! sand too slow! hair gonna rot!”

Rety gazed down at the tiny urs. It was no baby, as first she thought. Somewhere she recalled hearing that urrish newborns stayed in their mothers’ pouches for a few months, then were spilled by the dozen into tall grass to fend for themselves. Anyway, infant urs couldn’t talk.

It must be a male! Rety saw that its throat and muzzle looked unlike a female’s, lacking the flashy neck colors or pendulous cloven lip, which explained why it could speak Anglic sounds a female could not.

Back in the arena, the boy crouched for a third round, but the urrish youth lowered her head, conceding. The human raised a red-streaked arm in victory, then helped guide the limping loser off the playing field. Meanwhile, two new contestants flexed and stretched, while helpers trussed their handicapped limbs.

Wistfully, Rety watched the human kids, joking with friends from the other septs. She wondered how the boy had managed to get just slightly singed by the coals-but could not bring herself to approach with questions. They might only laugh at her unkempt hair, her uncouth speech, and her scars.