Hellspark (22 page)

“Yo, Hellspark!” came Buntec’s bellow from across the compound. Tocohl turned, to see Buntec grab Edge-of-Dark by the hand and drag her along. The two arrived breathless with excitement, but before Tocohl could learn the reason behind it, Om im nudged her.

“Sprookjes,” he said.

Forgetting Buntec and Edge-of-Dark, Tocohl turned to stare into the brilliance of the flashwood. A

handful of sprookjes, disturbingly dark amid the sparkle, pushed through the chattering, tinkling foliage.

One by one, they squirmed cautiously through the great circles of barbed wire.

As each emerged and paused to preen the mud from its plumage, Om im named them, each in turn:

“Bezymianny’s sprookje, John the Smith’s, Captain Kejesli’s, Edge-of-Dark’s, Hitoshi Dan’s…”

He was quickly proven accurate. Those he had called Hitoshi Dan’s and Edge-of-Dark’s sprookjes made straight for Hitoshi Dan and Edge-of-Dark. The others passed on as if the little group of humans were invisible.

In turn, Om im ignored the sprookjes to pay court to Edge-of-Dark with a formal greeting.

Edge-of-Dark flushed pink from her hairline to the tops of her boots. “We’re old friends, Om im!

You don’t have to do that!” The protest was echoed by the sprookje Om im had designated hers.

Casting a frown at the creature, she stiffened and went on, “We’ve got something important…”

So did the sprookje. Edge-of-Dark’s frown turned to an open scowl and she jabbed both forefingers at the sprookje. “I can’t stand talking when that thing is around! You tell them, Buntec.”

“Botanic art,” said Buntec, and looked furtively around her, to see if the other sprookje would mimic her. When it didn’t, she went on to explain, in glowing terms, Edge-of-Dark’s flower art.

Tocohl listened with interest but she kept her eye on the sprookjes. They were beautiful indeed, their sleek feathers beaded with drops of water that they shook away in tiny discrete spatters, rippling first one set of muscles, then another. Their control was so remarkable that Tocohl wondered if each feather might be moved separately. Their gold eyes were intent upon the humans, but neither gave any indication of so much as hearing Buntec.

Hitoshi Dan did, his eyes sparkled with excitement. His first few words proved that Om im had correctly identified the second sprookje. “If that’s so,” Hitoshi Dan said—and the sprookje’s pace-keeping echo did nothing to dampen his enthusiasm—“how about landscaping?

That’s a botanic art too! You use whole plants rather than cuttings and your arrangement is… an artistically planned environment.” His circled arms implied base camp in its entirety.

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“Better than mud,” he and the sprookje said.

In concert, the two went on to explain landscaping at length. Buntec and Edge-of-Dark, neither of whom it seemed had encountered this art form, listened to their combined voices with growing wonder.

More sprookjes made their way through the barbed wire. Two more—Tocohl supposed them to be

Om im’s and Buntec’s—joined the little group, as intent as the first and, for the moment, as silent as

Buntec’s.

Tocohl looked again from Buntec’s sprookje to Hitoshi Dan’s. There were subtle differences in marking. On the feathers of one the brocade held more gold than brown, on the feathers of the other the loops-and scallops were deeper, more defined. Om im had a sharper eye than she, to be able to distinguish them at a glance, and at that distance—or his pattern recognition was better.

“I’m no expert on the subject,” Hitoshi Dan finished, “but somebody on the team must know something about it—landscaping is an art common to many worlds.”

“Hey!” said Om im sharply, and something behind Tocohl startled her forward by saying

“Hey!” just

as sharply and just as unexpectedly.

Tocohl spun at the warning. Her cloak swept a wide arc, caught suddenly as if snagged. Behind her, a startled sprookje let the edge of the moss cloak jerk from its fingers and backed hastily away.

(Sorry,) Maggy said, (your cloak’s in the way. I didn’t see it coming.)

“Speaking of botanic art,” Om im continued, in a lighter tone, one of relief, “doesn’t your cloak qualify?” He set his face, determined not to let the echo bother him, and waved off his echoing sprookje as it approached Tocohl from the other side. “That’s the most interest they’ve shown in anything.”

It was true, both sprookjes edged toward her and the other two showed signs of developing the same tendency. Keeping a wary eye on them, Tocohl held out her hand. “Lend me your knife, Om im.”

There was a gasp of objection from Hitoshi Dan that sounded still more horrified in the beaked mouth of his sprookje. “Hellspark!” said Buntec, “I thought you, of all people—”

Om im laid the hilt of his knife in Tocohl’s outstretched palm.

Buntec repeated, “You of all people,” this time in quite a different tone. “Mighta known,” she muttered at her sprookje, who agreed in an identical mutter, its cheek feathers puffing.

Tocohl lifted the edge of her cloak and slipped the knife through it, cutting four pieces. She flipped the knife first blade up, then blade down, and returned it to Om im with a generous bow.

That done, she held out the first bit of cloak to the sprookje she’d startled, Hitoshi Dan’s. First in

Gal-Ling’ and then Hitoshi Dan’s language, she told the sprookje, “My name is Tocohl Susumo.

Please accept this with my compliments.”

The sprookje said nothing, to her great disappointment, but she continued to hold the bit of moss cloak extending from between her fingertips, so that the creature might touch it without touching her.

The puffed feathers along the sprookje’s cheeks slowly deflated and the creature stepped cautiously forward to examine, then snatch, the piece of moss.

Tocohl watched as it stared (happily?) at its prize, then she turned to the second sprookje
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and repeated the process in Bluesippan. As before, the sprookje said nothing but accepted the tuft of moss from her fingers. Tocohl sighed and went doggedly on, in Vyrnwyn, in Jannisetti.

Each time she met with the same result: a silent but accepting sprookje.

“They know it’s a gift!” said Om im, voicing it for the rest. His sprookje echoed the words, giving

Tocohl the impression that it too spoke for its companions. Om im gave the creature a sharp look but went on, “I don’t know if that feather-puffing is sprookje-surprise or sprookje-pleasure, but—look!—they’re each keeping the piece you gave them!” Then, with something like satisfaction in his voice, he added, “If they aren’t intelligent, my blade has no edge!”

“I can vouch for the blade,” said Tocohl. “You tried an exchange of gifts once before…”

“We did,” said Hitoshi Dan (and sprookje), “and they ignored what we offered. Maybe they didn’t recognize what we gave them.”

“Perhaps they didn’t,” Tocohl agreed. To Buntec and Edge-of-Dark she added, “Now we have some new avenues to explore.”

Buntec grinned at the Vyrnwyn. “Move ass, Edge-of-Dark,” she said, “Let’s get to it.” Her sprookje repeated Buntec’s command with the same emphasis; this time Buntec laughed.

As she dragged

Edge-of-Dark away, their sprookjes, tufts of moss still clutched in their hands, followed—one still echoing Buntec’s laughter.

In the hour that followed, Tocohl, accompanied by Om im, van Zoveel, and their sprookjes, met and introduced herself to each of the sprookjes that came into the camp, with no success in any sense. Ruurd van Zoveel gave her a demonstration of his own sprookje’s ability to mimic by running through twelve different languages. The sprookje had, without accent (or rather, with the same accent—that dictated by the sprookje’s beaklike mouth), repeated every single one accurately. Yet when Tocohl tried the same thing the sprookje remained silent.

Most of the surveyors envied the silence, she discovered. Although Hitoshi Dan and swift-Kalat would speak in the presence of a repeating sprookje, the others would not except in necessity: the result was irritating as well as frustrating. Flashfever’s irritation index was singularly high in more ways than one, Tocohl thought, as frustrated by the sprookjes’ silence as the others were by their volubility.

Yet, as she sat in the misty sunlight and gazed into the flashwood, she felt the world had more than sufficient beauty to compensate for the trouble it caused.

Ruurd van Zoveel, Om im, and their respective sprookjes kept silent company beside her.

Edge-of-Dark had vanished into the flashwood to pick leaves and flowers for a demonstration for the sprookjes, and Hitoshi Dan had appointed himself a delegation of one to find a surveyor who knew something about landscaping, so far without any luck.

She turned her attention back to the sprookjes, who watched their humans with proprietary interest, as if waiting for an opportunity to speak. Their feathers rippled with the intensity of their concentration.

Why do they never volunteer a word? Tocohl wondered. Maggy volunteers information to the point of distraction. She smiled to herself at the thought. New definition of sentient: that which gives unsought advice.

It struck her that Maggy had been uncharacteristically quiet. (What’s swift-Kalat up to, Maggy?) she subvocalized.

(He is examining the golden scoffers found dead near Oloitokitok’s body for sprookje bites and garbage plants.)

(What’s a garbage plant?)

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Maggy flashed a brief image on Tocohl’s spectacles of a refuse heap. Long, silvery-gray filaments, like algae or seaweed, grew from it. (This,) she said, (swift-Kalat says to tell you,) and here the voice shifted to that of swift-Kalat himself, (“The common name is garbage plant because we have only found them growing on our refuse. Until Oloitokitok’s death, that is. They take several components poisonous to the indigenous wildlife and break them down, rendering them harmless.”)

There was a brief pause—Maggy was evidently putting together several bits of conversation rather than relaying one as it happened—then swift-Kalat’s voice continued: (“So, if there are no sprookje bites, there are no garbage plants. If there are sprookje bites, as on Oloitokitok’s body and on two of the golden scoffers, there are garbage plants. We may be able to verify that with a simple experiment.

We give the sprookjes access to the remaining golden scoffers and we observe.”) This last remark was evidently a simultaneous transmission, for Alfvaen’s wave caught Tocohl’s eye, and Tocohl looked across the compound to see Alfvaen emerge from swift-Kalat’s cabin.

She placed a small table at the foot of the steps, then darted back up to sweep the membrane aside for swift-Kalat.

His hands were full of stacked boxes which he carried down the steps to place on the table.

Maggy’s arachne squatted on the top step, ready and waiting to observe.

Alfvaen crossed to Tocohl who said, by way of greeting, “I know. Maggy’s been keeping me posted.”

“Now if you could only teach her to scratch backs…” said Alfvaen, grinning.

“Do you want your back scratched?” asked Maggy, from the hand-held on Alfvaen’s belt. “I will send the arachne if you wish.”

“Oh, no!” said Alfvaen, somewhat embarrassed. “My arm’s not broken, Maggy. I was just making a joke.” She canted an arm behind her and scratched self-consciously.

“I don’t understand jokes very well,” said Maggy, sounding apologetic. “Should I laugh?”

Tocohl cocked her head to one side and, after consideration, said, “No. Not now—the laughter has to come at a specific time to have the correct effect.”

“Okay. Sorry, Alfvaen. I hope I will do better next time.”

“No need for an apology, Maggy.” Alfvaen looked around for something to smile at reassuringly, and settled for Tocohl’s spectacles. Tocohl thought that an admirable choice.

Maggy said in her ear, (Will you explain later, please?) (Yes,) said Tocohl. She watched inquiringly as Alfvaen reached again, apparently involuntarily, to scratch at her back.

Seeing the look, Alfvaen said, “It was seeing all those garbage plants, even though the ones on

Oloitokitok hadn’t broken through the skin yet—the whole idea makes me feel crawly all over.”

Tocohl spread her hands in sympathy.

“Garbage plants?” said Om im and sprookje, and Tocohl let Alfvaen explain.

“Hey!” said Timosie Megeve. “What are you doing?”

Buntec looked up, unabashed, from the innards of the largest daisy-clipper, a smear of graphite across her face.

“I thought I’d give the Hellspark our grand tour, as long as I’m going out to look for evidence of grafting. You know as well as I do we’ve been up to our asses in equipment failures—no, no!—no reflection on you! I just thought I’d check things out beforehand as a precaution. Why take chances?”

She closed the service panel with a snap, wiped her hands and—in response to Megeve’s pointing finger—her face as well.

“Why the big one?” the Maldeneantine asked.

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“Because I haven’t flown the big one for weeks, and I want to give the flashgrass a thrill. Why not the big one? That’s a gorgeous machine, you gotta admit.” She patted it affectionately on the prow.

“True,” said Megeve, “but I do wish you’d keep your fingers out of it… after all, that is supposed to be my job.”

“I’ll try,” said Buntec seriously, “but it’s not gonna be easy.” She gave a wistful glance at the daisy-clipper and said, “See you later—I’m off to find the Hellspark before Flashfever comes up with another gully-washer.”

She left him with a grin at his bewildered look and trotted happily back to the compound, where she found Tocohl trying once again to get Om im’s sprookje to respond to Bluesippan—to no avail.

“How’s about checking out the wild ones, Tocohl? I’m just about to go graft-hunting in some of the places we’ve seen the high-class sprookjes—you know, with the crests?” Her hand swept above her head in graphic explanation.