Earthfall (Homecoming) (32 page)

It was going to be a mess, and somebody was going to be dead at the end of it, she knew that now, because she had never seen Vas with such a look of blank rage in his face before. She had seen Elemak like that, but Elemak was used to having such feelings and restraining them. Vas had no such practice.

On the way to Volemak’s house, she passed Mebbekew, who was staking out the hide of a goat that he and a couple of diggers had taken while hunting up in the hills this morning. “What’s the hurry?” he asked.

“You might want to come along and help,” she said. “Vas just found out about Sevet’s adultery and I think he might be dangerous.”

From the way Meb’s face went pale, Eiadh knew that Sevet had let more than one farmer plow in her field. “Not you,” said Eiadh. “He doesn’t know about you.”

“Who else?” he asked, baffled.

She laughed at him. “Are all the men as stupid as you and Vas? You all think you own the moon, just because you never see anybody else looking at it.”

Meb smiled. “So Vas is out to kill Elemak,” he said.

“I’m getting Volemak. We’ve got to put a stop to it.”

“Oh, and I’ll be right there to help, you can be sure of it. I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”

But Mebbekew did not follow her to Volemak’s house. Instead, still holding the heavy mallet in his hands, he tried to think where Vas might go first. The tool shed, no doubt, to get something to do violence with—Vas wasn’t likely to be a bare-hands sort of fighter, not if he had killing on his mind. He knew his limitations. So did Meb. Vas would have something sharp with a long handle. And Meb would have a very large mallet. Vas, being a proud man, would speak to his intended victim, call his name, face him. Meb, having no pride at all, would come up on him from behind. Or lie in wait and take him by ambush. Meb was not ashamed of this. He knew that in an open fight he was no match for a determined enemy. Fighting wasn’t a skill he had worked to acquire. He was meant to be an actor and, if there had been a real God and not just this stupid computer, Meb would still be in Basilica on the stage, making a name for himself and finding new women and new friends every night. Instead he was here in this filthy village living in dirt and covered every day with sweat and dust and mud and insect bites, and now there was a very angry husband and, whether the husband knew it or not, Meb was almost certainly the most recent man to sleep with Vas’s wife.

He will go to Sevet, of course. He’ll go home.

But at Vas’s own house there was no one. Sevet was gone. Off with the women. Oh, yes. Teaching, this was her time of day to teach the children, as if reading mattered anymore. What were they going to read? The latest story written by a rat in a hole? But it was saving Sevet’s life at the moment, so it wasn’t all bad, was it? Sevet was a very grateful lover. And she had acquired some skill during her heyday, so sleeping with her was a welcome relief after Dolya’s clinging, cloying, hungry, needy, selfish, clumsy….

Which was not to say that Meb minded sleeping with Dol whenever she wanted. Meb was still a young man, and now that Elemak wasn’t policing the adultery law anymore, nobody else seemed to catch on except the adulterers themselves. That was the nice thing about having laws enforced only by those who believed in them—they were not likely to suspect that the laws were being broken because breaking them wouldn’t even occur to their innocent little minds.

If Vas couldn’t get to Sevet, and if he didn’t know about Meb, then he’d certainly go for Elemak. That meant he was heading for the ship, where Elemak would be working with the hostage.

On his way there, though, Meb passed Obring’s house and saw that the door stood open, even though Obring would be sleeping late after having kept watch last night and—was it possible? Did Vas harbor resentment against Obring so many years after the fact? Or did Vas imagine that Sevet would ever have slept with Obring again, after that nasty evening when Kokor came in on them? Or was it simply that his wife’s new adultery refreshed the memory of the old?

Even if he was safely asleep, Obring would want to see the fun and Meb wouldn’t mind having another man with him for safety’s sake, even if the man was Obring and therefore unreliable and cowardly. I’m unreliable and cowardly myself, thought Meb, so I can’t very well hold it against
him
.

Meb stepped into the house. Obring lay on his bed, eyes wide open, hands spread across the wound in his chest, though it was doubtful he had died from that alone. It was the deep slice across his throat that no doubt finished him off. Very neatly done. The wound in the chest could have been from a pick or an axe. Definitely not a hoe. The throat wound made it definite, though, that it was a bladed weapon. One of the scythes. No. An axe. Edge enough to slice the throat, but powerful enough to crush its way into the chest. Poor Obring. Poor me, if Vas decides to take after me. An axe against a mallet? Perhaps I’d better wait until Father decides what to do, let Nafai go in with his magical cloak and give poor Vas a jolt.

What in the world will they do with a murderer?

Meb heard some loud talking far away, near Volemak’s house, but he ignored it and headed swiftly into the ship. Vas is in a hurry, and Elemak is waiting. What deck does he have the digger on? Should have paid more attention. Elemak will be glad if I get there in time to save his life. And if I don’t, I might still be able to set up a little ambush for Vas. That’ll solve Father’s problem very nicely, if the murderer turns up pleasantly dead.

Elemak and Fusum were verbally sparring, arguing back and forth, Elemak speaking the digger language, Fusum doing the best he could with the human words. It was part of the deal they had worked out with each other. Fusum would teach Elemak the subtlest nuances of language if, in the end, Fusum also understood whatever it was the humans said. “If you’re not gods,” said Fusum, “then your language isn’t sacred and it’s no sin for me to learn it, right?” And Elemak could only agree.

Fusum had nothing like Elemak’s skill or practice at learning languages, however, and he had spent most of the morning being resentful and sullen about the way Elemak rattled off eloquent sentences while Fusum could only stammer his way through the most rudimentary answers. Every now and then he would erupt in a torrent of arguments in his native language, only to fall silent at Elemak’s superior smile and return to struggling with the human speech. The sounds they made—like skymeat, half their sounds were. Like animals. Or so Fusum said, whenever he gave up and raged for a few moments.

Elemak enjoyed it all.

Until the moment that Vas appeared in the open doorway, a blood-soaked axe in his hands. This was not in Elemak’s plans for today. “What have you been doing with that axe?” asked Elemak. The sorry bastard couldn’t have killed Sevet already, could he? She’d be teaching right now—he wouldn’t do it in front of the children, would he? And who told him? After all these months, why did they tell him
now
?

“I planned to kill you anyway,” said Vas. “Because of how you stopped me from killing Obring and Sevet back all those years ago. I never forgot how you humiliated me, Elemak. But this—sleeping with Sevet. Why didn’t you just screw one of the digger women, if Eiadh wasn’t letting you into her bed? That’s your style, isn’t it, Elemak? Rutting with helpless little barbarian animals?”

Elemak spoke in digger language to Fusum. “I don’t suppose there’s anything you can do to help, is there?”

“Talk so I can understand you!” demanded Vas.

“What, haven’t you been studying the diggers’ language like a good boy?” asked Elemak.

Meanwhile, Fusum had figured out how to answer Elemak’s request in human speech. “I’d like to help you but the crazy man has the axe.”

Vas looked at him coldly. “Very good decision, rat boy,” he said. “I don’t much care whether your brains end up on the floor or not.”

“Actually,” said Elemak—again in digger language—“he’ll kill you as soon as he kills me, and then he’ll say that you were the one who hit me with the axe and then he struggled with you and got it away and killed
you
with it.”

Fusum glared at him and answered, stubbornly, in human speech so Vas could understand him. “The axe is already bloody. He’s already killed somebody outside the ship.”

“Who did you kill, Vas?” asked Elemak. “Anyone I know?”

“Obring,” said Vas. “I took his throat out. After I smashed into his heart.”

“How appropriate. To shatter his heart as he shattered yours.” Elemak laughed. Not because he didn’t believe Vas would kill him. On the contrary, he was quite prepared to believe that Vas would try, and given the fact that Elemak was in a weak position, sitting on the floor with no particular leverage, there was a good chance Vas would fell him with a blow before he could attempt any kind of response.

“It’s funny to you?” asked Vas.

“And sad, of course. Poor Sevet. Once I’m dead, she’ll be back to having to make do with your clumsy occasional efforts at lovemaking.”

“I’ll kill her, too,” said Vas.

“And then who? Everybody else, for instance? You’re doomed, Vas. You should have been more clever. You should have bided your time.”

“I’ve already bided my time long enough.”

“You should have made it look like an accident. Or better yet, you could have made it look as though you tried to
save
my life. Take us one at a time, not all at once with an axe. And you have Obring’s blood on your clothes. Very clumsy, Vas. They’ll have to kill you for it, you know. Can’t very well let a murderer run loose.”

“You’ll be dead first,” said Vas.

“Oh, definitely. That’ll make you feel
much
better as they—what, strangle you? Drown you? Maybe Shedemei has some drug that will carry you off painlessly in your sleep. You can dream of me as you croak out your last breath.”

“I’m not afraid to die,” said Vas.

“That’s too bad,” said Elemak. “Because I am. Do you know why? I’m afraid there might be a life after death. I’m afraid I might have to go on living, only without this very comfortable body. What if I’m reincarnated? What if I come back with a body like…
yours
?”

He said this last with as much loathing as he could muster. It had no effect.

“I’m not going to let you goad me into taking an un-considered move,” said Vas. “I know you’re sitting there imagining ways to take the axe away from me before I can smash your head in with it. But why should I aim for your head? There are your legs, spread out like the limbs of a tree. I can chop through a five-centimeter branch with a single blow—think I can do as well with your ankle?”

“No, I don’t think you can,” said Elemak.

“You think you’re quick enough to stop me? From a sitting position, you arrogant fool?”

“I don’t have to stop you,” said Elemak.

“Good thing,” said Vas. “Because you can’t.”

“But Meb can,” said Elemak. “He’s standing behind you with a very large mallet, and I think he’s planning to drive your head down into your shoulders like a spike.”

Vas didn’t even bother to turn around. “As long as you’re conjuring up demons to frighten me with, why not have it be Nafai?
He’s
the only real man around here anyway. I’m not afraid of Meb.”

“I quite agree with you,” said Elemak. “Meb is only frightening when he’s behind you with a mallet. Most of the time he’s a worthless little digger turd. But Meb, it won’t work. You can’t drive his head down into his shoulders, not a soft little head like Vas’s. It’ll burst open like a melon first. Splash all over the room.”

“Don’t fantasize about my head,” said Vas. “It’s your legs that are going to go.” He raised the axe above his head.

“If it’s any consolation to you,” said Elemak, “Meb’s been sleeping with Sevet, too.”

Vas hesitated, not swinging the axe, not striking the blow.

Elemak went on talking. “Your poor wife is apparently lonely enough to settle for anything that pretends to be male, even Meb, who isn’t brave enough to smash you from behind after all. What’s the mallet
for
, then, Meb? A cure for rectal itch?”

Meb looked back at him with loathing. Elemak knew that he just
hated
being taunted and manipulated.

“Oh, Meb,” said Elemak. “Just swing the damn thing and have done.”

So he did. Meb turned out to have a much stronger swing than Elemak had expected. But Elemak
was
right about the splashing. It got really nasty, especially after Vas hit the floor and Meb kept right on pounding on his head with the mallet, three, four, five times, until the head was pulped and bits of brain and bone were spattered all over the room. Of course, as soon as Meb calmed down and could look at what he had done, he threw up, as if somehow Vas’s head had exploded all by itself and not because he mashed it. But Elemak didn’t much worry about Meb. It was Fusum who fascinated him, as he picked bits of Vas’s brains off his naked body and ate them.

“Don’t get a taste for that, Fusum,” Elemak said in digger language.

“Not much different from peccary brains,” said Fusum. “I already
have
a taste for those.”

“If you ever harm a human, Fusum, I’ll cut you into tiny pieces.”

“Even Nafai?” asked Fusum, taunting him.

So Fusum had picked up on the conflicts within the human community—even with Nafai up the canyon most of the time, trying to teach the skymeat how to farm.

“Especially Nafai,” said Elemak. “He’s mine.”

Meb had stopped throwing up. “What were you saying? I heard you mention Nafai.”

“Oh, Fusum and I were just saying what a pity it was that the one useful act you will ever perform in your life was wasted on Vas.”

“Wasted?” asked Meb. “I killed my friend to save your life and you call it a waste?”

“I would have stopped him before he touched me,” said Elemak. He didn’t know whether it was true, but he was fairly sure Meb would believe it. “And as for Vas being your friend—I’m not going to weep for you. Not with the smell of Sevet still on you from last night while he was on watch.”

“Shows what
you
know,” said Meb. “Last night I didn’t have time for Sevet. After all these months of pestering, I finally gave in and let Eiadh make love to—”