Howling Stones (13 page)

“Their saving grace is that they never last long. I give this one another fifteen minutes, max.”

He turned away from the arc of windows and blinked. Lightning was now flashing frequently enough to have a strobing effect. In response to his query Fawn assured him that everything was properly grounded and shielded, both inside and out.

“Besides,” she added with a grin, “Ascela has told me that my house is under the protection of her weather stone and immune from serious damage.”

A wind-tunnel strength gust of wind rattled the triple-paned windows and he flinched involuntarily. “Some protection!”

“Consider what it might be like without it,” she argued. “Consider, also, that the houses of Torrelauapa, though they’re constructed wholly of woven matting over
vine-bound frames, never seem to suffer any serious damage from these storms.”

He looked at her sharply. “I’ve seen analogous primitive structures survive worse weather than this. It’s a matter of simple but sound engineering, not magic.” The windows shook again.

“I don’t doubt that for a moment.” She looked away, back out at the storm. “Still, it’s amazing when you consider that all their intricate garden trellis- and latticework manages to survive intact, as well. So do those of the other villages.”

He strove to make himself sound stern. “I saw the sacred, magic ‘weather stone.’ It’s a rock, plain and simple.”

She replied without looking at him. “Didn’t the Curies say something similar?”

Together they watched the mastorm rage. After a while he commented, “You said that Ascela is willing to talk about the history and use of the weather stone.”

She nodded. “Frequently. The problem lies in acquiring sufficient cultural referents to understand her. Most of what she says has to do with kusum, not meteorology.”

“I think it would be useful to know more about the life and work of a stone master.”

She eyed him speculatively. “With an eye toward persuading her to accept Commonwealth teachings on the subject of weather, and thereby endorsing a formal alliance with same?”

He pursed his lips. “The possibility has suggested itself.”

“Pulickel, right from the start I suspected you might be guilty of intelligence. But I never imagined you being devious.”

“It’s nothing of the sort,” he protested indignantly. “I merely seek opportunity wherever it presents itself.” A
slight smile parsed his fine, delicate features. “See, it’s part of my kusum.”

For fully five minutes the wind held at one hundred and twenty kph, with gusts topping out at over one-sixty. From the first blast of the brief, wild, mad storm to the last, twelve centimeters of rain fell at the station gauge.

Throughout it all a small part of him, usually shunted aside, was screaming, shouting, declaiming at him that while an intense, even romantic tempest was raging outside, he was restricting his conversation with the most beautiful woman he had ever seen to matters of meteorology and native culture. This overlooked and largely ignored portion of himself grumbled insistently about why, instead of wondering at the way the storm was rattling the station, he did not put his arm around her shoulders and put aside the matter of local weather conditions entirely. The notion, as thoroughly as the reality, stayed buried deep inside him.

They remained apart, separately contemplating the mastorm, which by now had begun to dissipate as rapidly as it had first burst upon the island.

Unlike the humanx station on Torrelau, the more extensive AAnn complex on Mallatyah consisted of half a dozen interconnected buildings. Prefabricated and ferried in by hevilift skimmers, they had been buried in sandy soil facing a small, curving beach. Only the upper third of each structure showed above the gently undulating loam, while the passageways and subsidiary modules that connected them lay completely beneath the surface.

The complex faced a sheltered lagoon that lay on the northeast side of the island, protected from the main thrust of prevailing mastorms. Higher ground would have been safer still, but contrary to AAnn preferences and architectural aesthetics. No AAnn would choose to live in jungle
when an expanse of clean, open sand was available. Indeed, following the installation of critical structures, the first secondary project had been the construction of recreational facilities in and about the traditional sloping pit.

Proximity to the sea did not bother the servants of the Emperor. While no match for humans in the water, they were infinitely better swimmers than the thranx, and particularly enjoyed wading in the sandy, tepid shallows. Aside from the isolation, the atmosphere at Mallatyah base was nearly homelike.

At any given time the installation might be occupied by a dozen or more specialists and technicians, whose combined efforts were directed toward inveigling the resident Parramati into signing a formal treaty of alliance with the Empire. Their natural impatience demanded even more restraint in negotiations with the locals than that required by Fawn Seaforth and Pulickel Tomochelor. The uniquely diffuse nature of the Parramati hierarchy had driven more than one AAnn contact specialist to distraction.

Only the comparatively pleasant ambiance of the site made assignment to Mallatyah station tolerable for any length of time, provided one ignored the uncomfortably high humidity. As for the resident jungle, it had been razed to a respectable distance around the complex.

Presently, a disgruntled group of techs were cleaning up from the previous night’s mastorm, gathering debris and dumping it in tagalong carryalls for later disposal. Two of the partially buried buildings had suffered minor damage, which another crew was engaged in actively repairing.

It wasn’t the mess that discouraged them so much as the depressing regularity of the brief, intense weather disturbances. They occurred year-round, regardless of whether it was the dry or wet season, and the danger they
presented prevented anyone from ever relaxing fully. This was more emotionally than physically taxing. Besides, the need to continuously do repair and clean-up work cut into time better spent on research and social diplomacy.

Essasu RRGVB was as frustrated as any of those under his command. While no anticipator of miracles and fully cognizant of the special problems establishing formal alliance with the locals entailed, he still felt that the pace of progress was too slow. It was further frustrating to know that according to the reports he had received, the single human female the Commonwealth had assigned to Torrelau was doing no worse than his entire staff.

And now it appeared that the human delegation to the Parramat archipelago had just been doubled.

He couldn’t understand it. Aside from having a smooth, bare epidermis instead of shiny scales, the seni looked far more like the AAnn than they did humans. Both species possessed long snouts, vertical instead of round pupils, large feet, and tails. A seni would fit into an AAnn space-suit far more readily than a human, provided the gear was proportionately downsized to fit their much smaller stature. Compared to the average human, the AAnn looked positively senilike.

Yet so far, physical similarities had not proved an advantage in negotiations. A few contact specialists were crediting the locals with unexpected sophistication in their dealings with both sets of offworlders, but Essasu refused to countenance it. As far as he was concerned, the Parramati were simply showing the stubbornness of the true primitive.

And as if the recalcitrance of the natives wasn’t frustrating enough, there were these damnable, damaging recurrent storms to deal with. He’d found himself wondering on more than one occasion how the single human
female managed to keep her far more exposed installation operating efficiently in the face of the periodic tempests. It couldn’t be the basic design. Other, unknown factors had to be at work.

Not that discovering them was a priority. It was merely a cause for puzzlement. A sibilant hiss emerged from between his teeth, his kinds’ analog of a chuckle. Perhaps she has mastered a weather stone, he thought amusedly. The hiss faded. Offered the opportunity, it would give him great pleasure to gift the human with a different sort of stone—preferably one dropped from a great height.

None of which he betrayed during their occasional exchanges of communications, which were invariably conducted in an air of stiff politeness if not outright courtesy. From the first contact she’d shown herself to be indifferent to subtle sarcasm and insult. This suggested a lack of sophistication that immediately placed her beneath his serious notice. Her presence was an irritation to be tolerated—until it could be properly cleansed.

About the new human he knew little save that he was a highly regarded specialist come all the way from Earth itself. That suggested a more worthy opponent. Like all his kind, Essasu liked nothing more than a good fight, be it physical or verbal. As soon as time permitted he would have to call this new human and test him. It would be intolerable to have to kill him before learning what sort of person he was.

The humans couldn’t be allowed to succeed, of course. If they somehow managed to secure a formal treaty of alliance before his people did, it would mean an end to any hope of personal advancement or promotion. His family name would be extended, a form of syllabic mortification. And that would be the least of his abasement.

He wasn’t worried. His team would succeed long before the humans. The AAnn had superiority in numbers,
resources, everything. It was only a matter of time. Patience was one of the hardest things for an AAnn to master, but to his credit, Essasu was trying.

He imagined the human female’s soft, scaleless neck beneath his fingers, the sharpened points of his claws digging into the flesh, the thick red blood spurting. It helped him to relax.

Turning, he peered out through the long, narrow window set just above ground level. Beyond the down-sloping sand he could see the pale blue of the lagoon, backed by azure sky and a few isolated clouds. Within the office it was pleasantly hot and dry. Buried in the ceiling, dehumidifiers hummed efficiently, working around the clock to give the station’s living quarters the desiccated feel of the deserts of home.

The door rustled insistently. With a rueful hiss, he turned from the window to face the portal as it parted to admit Piarai, his first assistant.

“The damage is not too bad. The nye grumble, but we have suffered far worse storms.”

“Bad enough.” Essasu curled up in the bowl-shape lounge that fronted his work pillars. “They should have placed the installation entirely under ground.”

Piarai responded with a gesture indicative of third-degree commiseration accompanied by overtones of second-degree understanding.

“There was no precedent for it.” The second-in-command did not add an honorific. The difference in rank was not enough to require it, and Essasu was not yet of the nobility—though everyone who worked under him knew of his aspirations. Truly, these differed little from their own.

Anyway, at a posting as obscure and isolated as Mallatyah, protocol tended to suffer.

“That is so,” Essasu agreed. “Unless we suffer more
severe damage, we cannot properly request reconstruction. So we are forced to chew constant irritation.” He squirmed in the lounge, enjoying the feel of the gritty surface against his back.

Loungeless, the first assistant squatted. “What do you think of the new human?”

“I prefer not to think of him. What I do think is that it is time we did something about the humanx presence here. If we can do nothing about the weather, perhaps we can remove a more tractable irritation.” His eyes glittered, the slitted pupils narrowing.

Piarai’s enthusiasm was muted. “Is that wise?”

“Not only do I think it wise, I deem it imperative. Now that a second human has come, others may be soon to follow. Best to halt this inclination to enhancement before it spawns a greater infestation still harder to excise.”

Tilting back his head, he gazed at the ceiling, which had been designed to resemble the early morning sky of his home world. Carefully placed points of light duplicated familiar constellations while a single rust-hued moon gleamed not far to the right of his visitor’s head. The pleasant vista never failed to soothe his liver.

“What do you have in mind?” Piarai waited expectantly.

Essasu lowered his gaze. “The humanx station has survived many mastorms, but it is not invulnerable. Surely successive blows have weakened it.”

The first assistant made a perfunctory fourth-degree gesture of comprehension. “I see your thinking. You wish to eliminate not only the personnel but the installation itself. Is it truly necessary?”

The movement of Essasu’s lips conveyed second-degree insistence. “Their presence here is a burr, their progress an embarrassment. Our contact specialists have enough to do without the added burden of competition
weighing constantly upon them. I am convinced the time has come to remove that.” He gestured importance.

“Something must happen first to the inhabitants of the humanx station and then to the structure itself. This something must occur discreetly and unnoticed by talkative locals.” He picked at his teeth. “During severe weather would be the best time. It would provide impenetrable cover.”

Piarai was visibly alarmed. “Surely you cannot be thinking of putting a readjustment party on Torrelau in the midst of a mastorm? Even the best stabilized floater would be hard-pressed to make the journey.”

“I know that.” Essasu shifted again in his lounge. “The readjustment party will stand ready to depart at a moment’s notice. At the first sign of an approaching mastorm, they will move at maximum speed to Torrelau. It is a high, rugged place and offers ample room for concealment. According to the reports there are areas where even the locals choose not to go.

“I am thinking particularly of certain high sea cliffs on the east shore that the natives find negotiable but unattractive. A cut in the enclosing reef there allows large swells to break against the rocks, making fishing or any other gainful activity difficult. An expertly piloted float craft could make the approach and land atop the cliffs. From there a landing party could make its way unseen and on foot to the site of the humanx station.” Teeth flashed. “Cleansing should not take long.”