Crystal Healer (23 page)

By the time I had neatly arranged on the table the baskets of food the tribeswomen had brought, Reever returned with our packs. I scanned the food and found most of it to be edible, although two types of fruit contained an alkaloid that would have made me, Reever, and possibly Hawk very ill. I set those aside and asked Jylyj if he would mention to the tribeswomen that we could not eat them.

The Skartesh remained in a silent, sullen mood, but nodded and gathered a portion of the food before retreating to his kiafta. Qonja and Hawk did the same, leaving me alone with Reever.

He gave me a wary look. "Something happened while I was gone."

"These hide shelters make it easy to eavesdrop on one's neighbors," I said. "Jylyj heard me speaking with Hawk about him. He became angry. Qonja threatened to gut him. I protected him. It's over and done with."

Reever's mouth twisted and he put his arms around me. "I can't leave you alone for five minutes."

"Of course you can. I have my case now, and the next time something like this happens, I'll sedate everyone." I went to the table. "Come, sit down and eat. Were you able to contact your friend?"

"It took some time, but I finally established a secure relay with Uorwlan's ship," he told me, walking over to inspect the native foods. "She passed along some new information about the mercenary offering the bounty on us."

I retrieved some pouches of water from our packs. "How would she know that?"

"All of the traders in this region have been receiving regular signals from mercenaries and bounty hunters requesting information about us," my husband said as he sat down and sorted through a basket of nuts. "Uorwlan convinced one she has crewed with to tell her what he knows. It seems the bounty is being offered by a wealthy Terran with friends among the League. The Terran has been using some of their transports as lookouts."

As we ate, I thought of the League general responsible for the Jado Massacre and Cherijo's abduction from Oenrall. "You don't think Colonel Shropana is the one hunting us?"

Reever shook his head. "Shropana isn't Terran, and he's too afraid of what Teulon Jado might do if he crosses us again." He gazed down at the pieces of meat I offered him. "We have synpro rations in the packs."

"We did not kill these animals," I informed him. "The tribe did. It's very good. At least try it."

His expression turned cold. "You've already eaten some of it."

"One of the women offered me a taste. I saw no harm in it." I felt exasperated with him. "Duncan, using animals for food is no different than eating plants. Both are alive. Both must die to sustain the life of another."

"Plants do not have minds," he pointed out. "Animals do."

"I wouldn't say that to a Psyoran." I saw that he wasn't going to change his mind. "I suppose you don't want me to eat it, either." He gave me a pointed look, and I set aside the meat. "Oh, very well. I will eat only mindless plants and the synpro from the rations--and I will be very cranky about it, too."

He covered my hand with his. "Thank you."

We finished our meal while discussing the information Uorwlan had offered. We once more considered and discarded the idea that the bounty was being offered by Alek Davidov. Even if he had returned to the quadrant, he had known we were on Joren; he wouldn't have wasted credits sending mercenaries out to hunt for us.

"You are certain that the information your friend received is accurate?" I asked.

"No," Reever conceded. "But Cherijo was created on Terra, and her father must have kept some records about his experiments on her. If they were discovered after his death, they might have motivated another researcher to offer the bounty."

"You said what was done to make Cherijo was illegal," I pointed out. "That her creator even had laws written so that no one else would be permitted to experiment on humans, while he did so in secret."

"Times and laws change," Reever said. "Especially when the secrets of immortality are involved."

Something occurred to me. "What if they are not looking for Cherijo? What if they are looking for you?"

His eyebrows rose. "I am useful to them only as a tool to manipulate you."

"Joseph Grey Veil had time only to experiment on you before he died," I said. "If what he injected in you was all he had, then the chameleon cells in your body are the only ones in existence. They might have discovered that fact among his records."

"Squilyp said the cells remain dormant until some damage or illness occurs." Reever rubbed the spot on his chest where a drone on Vtaga had stabbed him. "In that state, they can't be distinguished from my body's natural cells. They wouldn't be able to find them to extract them."

My arm twinged, reminding me of what had happened to Cherijo when the Hsktskt had tried to brand her with a slave identification. "They could if they first tortured you."

Both of us had little appetite after that, so I packed away the food and performed a quick survey of our packs to ensure that none of our equipment or supplies had been removed. As I was separating what I would need for the next day's trek, Reever inspected the inside of the kiafta, and retrieved a piece of hide that had been left under the sleeping platform. He brought it to the table and began studying the many symbols embedded in the fur.

"The oKiaf use a modified form of pictographs as their written language," he told me. "Each symbol is representative of a concept rather than literal translation of a spoken word."

I noticed the three-sided symbol repeated over and over on the hide. "Qonja said the triangle symbol must be important to them. He called it a triad, and noticed that they also group many things in the encampment in threes."

"Trinities or triads are common in many primitive belief systems," my husband said. "They are usually represented by a central deity, a representative of the common people, and an intermediary figure. On Terra, the cult of Christianity worshipped a paternal God, his half-human son, and a Holy Spirit. The Jorenians hold sacred the Mother of All Houses, Tarek Varena, and the path they forged together." He glanced at me. "You rarely speak of Iisleg beliefs."

"Daevena is the goddess of women, and Kette is the god of men," I told him. "The people do not worship them together, and there are other, minor gods, but Daevena and Kette are the two central deities. I suppose the vral represent an intermediary. They were believed to be sent by both gods to reward courage by restoring the brave to life."

Reever eyed me. "I have no faith, Jarn, but I would not deny you your beliefs."

"The skela, miserable as they were, insisted that Daevena watched over them. I saw no evidence of that, but it was simpler to go along with what they believed." I shrugged. "Faith demands a great deal of the believer. I have paid my respects to the goddess through prayer, but I could not bring myself to sacrifice an animal to her. I could not see how giving her my food would make my life better, especially when I was hungry."

My husband took one of the recording units we had brought to take images and measurements, and took several images of the symbols on the hide. He then isolated the images of the symbols themselves and wired a wristcom to the device.

"Do you think the translator will read them for you?" I asked, amused.

"No, but it will download into the unit's memory every corresponding pictograph in the translator's database. Not all languages are spoken, and some symbols are almost universal." He adjusted some of the settings, put the results on the image display, and began to read. "It has matched seven symbols: tribe, promise, stranger, three, one, death, eternity."

A chill inched over my skin. "Is it some sort of death threat to strangers?"

Reever consulted the hide. "The symbol for death is not connected to the one for the strangers. It's imprinted beside the eternity symbol. They are the only two that appear together."

"Death equals eternity?" I guessed.

He rubbed his chin. "That, or eternity dies."

Reever continued to work on decoding and translating the hide symbols while I prepared a medical report of what little I had observed regarding the health of the tribe. By the time I finished, I was surprised to discover that Reever had made little progress.

"It could be a prayer," he said. "The tribe promises to find or nurture or safeguard strangers, and in return the triad will ensure that time or the world or the universe does not end."

"Jylyj can't read their language, but he can ask what it means," I suggested. "Why don't we bring it to the gathering?"

"The hide was deliberately concealed," Reever said. "If the tribe sees that we have removed it without asking permission, it may be considered a serious discourtesy." He placed the hide back under the stone platform. "Many of the same symbols are etched into the kiafta hides. I can ask Jylyj to obtain a translation of some of them."

We took a few minutes to change into the thicker, warmer garments the Elphian had given us to wear at night. Reever also brushed out and rebraided my hair, and knotted his own at the back in Jorenian warrior fashion. When we stepped outside into the cold twilight, Qonja and Hawk also emerged.

The Jorenian, accustomed to a much warmer climate, visibly shivered. "I can see why the tribe gathers around a fire at night."

Hawk went to Jylyj's kiafta and called out to him, then looked inside before returning. "He's not there."

I felt a twinge of guilt. Had my conversation with Hawk offended the Skartesh to the point that he would avoid us? "Perhaps he went ahead."

"Why would I do that?" Jylyj appeared out of nowhere, his dark eyes glittering. "Come. They are waiting."

We followed him to the center cooking pit, which had been cleared of pots and piled high with seasoned heartwood. The flames were already climbing up the sides of the stacks and blazing brightly; I felt the heat on my face from twenty paces away.

The tribe had assembled around the point of each spiral in the fire stones, most of the females sitting with their children on hides stretched over the ground while the men stood or moved freely around the fire. I heard only male voices at first, but then caught the quieter murmur of the women as they spoke to the children.

All of the tribespeople fell silent as soon as they spotted us approaching, until the only sound I heard was the crackling of the fire.

Jylyj led us to a place between two spirals where an unadorned hide had been placed, and indicated that I should sit. Reever stood behind me as I sat down, tucking my legs to the side as the tribeswomen did.

A rather noisy procession from the chieftain's kiafta distracted everyone, and I watched as several men in elaborately arranged furs led the chieftain to three large stones used to shape a low platform. Rather than sit on them, Dnoc gestured for the older female following him to sit down, and then strode up to the fire, casting what appeared to be a handful of soil into the flames. It must have been something else, for it caused a wide plume of fragrant purple smoke to billow up toward the sky.

Dnoc began to gesture and speak, and Jylyj again translated his words for us.

"We offer our thanks for another bountiful day, and our hopes for a peaceful night. The people are one with the land, and the land nourishes and protects the people. We ask for blessings on our women and our children, and good weather and luck for our hunters. For the respectful strangers who have come to us, we ask your care and guidance."

Dnoc ended his short speech by tossing another substance onto the flames that this time produced a sizzling burst of golden sparks. This seemed to signal the end of the formalities, for the tribesmen began moving around and speaking among themselves, while the women retreated briefly into the shadows before they returned bearing baskets and platters of food, which they spread out on the hides.

Several of the women brought food over to us, and shyly handed each offering to me. I thanked each female using the words in oKiaf that Jylyj had taught me, which seemed to please them.

After helping themselves to the food their mothers had set out, the tribe's children all left their family groups and gathered around an elderly male, who shook out a hide and attached the carved wooden rings sewn to its upper corners to two of the prong weapons that had been driven into the ground. I watched, fascinated by the firelight that played over the fur, which seemed to shimmer with its own light.

"May we go closer to the old one?" Reever asked Jylyj, who nodded. My husband held out his hand to me, and helped me up from the hide before we followed Jylyj.

We stayed at the edge of the group of children, some of whom gave us curious glances before turning their attention to the elderly male. From here I could see that the symbols rubbed into the hide had been also painted with different colored pigments that contained tiny particles of a reflective material.

"The old male is one of the tribe's storytellers," Jylyj said. "Everything he says is also recorded on the hide. This is how they teach the young ones to understand it."

"What story is he telling tonight?" Reever asked.

"Chetere's loneliness."

The name seemed familiar to me, although I didn't know why. "What does
Chetere
mean?"

Jylyj thought for a moment. "The name is difficult to translate, as it is a person and a thing and a state of being. Outsiders who have heard the story often call him the Star Wolf."

The elderly storyteller waited until all of the children grew still and silent, and then in a deep, dramatic tone began to speak. Jylyj whispered his translation:

"Before the time of living things, there were only stars and emptiness. Nothing moved or grew or breathed. What was then became sad, because the hollow was made to be filled. The lonely stars came together and brought forth the first one, the golden-touched, he who would be the tribe. They called him Star Wolf, and set him upon the world that would be his, and everything he touched moved and grew and breathed. The stars looked down upon the abundance and were glad. They told their son that he would live forever in the abundance, and they would watch over him.