Rediscovery (29 page)

David shook his head. “Hard to imagine that, but with one Ship’s-worth of people inbreeding for centuries, god only knows what you’d get. So if the poor little tyke is this
emmasca,
it’ll also be sterile?”

“Most of them are, but not all,” Ysaye replied. “I gather they won’t know until the kid hits puberty, because some of them actually turn male or female then. At any rate, it will be a nice chance for a celebration—and a priceless chance for you to make one of your precious culture tapes!”

As the conversation turned to the innocuous subject of the festival, and the gold mine of information such a festival would be, David forgot their earlier conversation.

The Midwinter Festival was held in the great hall where they had first been

welcomed. What had then seemed primitive and alien now seemed familiar and, in its own way, comfortable. The Terrans had learned to adapt to the climate, and if some of them breathed a sigh of relief now and again because they had their own centrally heated quarters to return to at day’s end, no one mentioned it openly.

Lord and Lady Aldaran (she heavily pregnant, and making a rare public

appearance) greeted all the visitors personally and bade them welcome.

“It’s like Christmas,” Elizabeth said with delight. “Even to the evergreens, and the smell of something like—like gingerbread!”

“Spicebread,” Lady Aldaran said, with a warm smile. She was a classic, fragile

redhead, pale-skinned and painfully thin despite the pregnancy, with masses of auburn curls that had been carefully arranged in an elaborate coiffure that looked as if a breath would disarrange it. It looked too heavy for her delicate neck. “You have this festival, too?”

“Something very like it,” Elizabeth replied. “To tell you the truth, every planet I’ve ever heard of has a midwinter festival of some sort. It seems to be human nature to want some kind of celebration when the sun is at its dimmest and the world is at its darkest and coldest. It’s almost always a kind of affirmation of hope or something like that.”

“And what is the occasion?” Lady Aldaran asked, curiously. “Here it is based

about the winter solstice.”

“Usually it’s the birthday of some god or other—” Elizabeth began, and then

blushed. “I beg your pardon. I hope you don’t take that as irreligious.”

“Hardly,” the lady smiled. “For the most part, we Comyn are not a particularly

devout lot. Personally, I have as much religion as the cat. We make a point to enjoy our festivals as heartily as possible, for whatever reason we are celebrating, and even the
cristoforos
have a saying;
the workman is entitled to his wage and his holiday.”

Elizabeth chuckled. “We have a saying like that, too;
the laborer is worthy of his
hire.”

David would enjoy adding this little saying to his data bank. It was interesting that there seemed to be several languages current here, although only the one continent was habitable, at least so far as the satellite photos showed. Unless there were people living somewhere under the snow, leaving no traces, this was all there was.

“We must trade proverbs later,” Lady Aldaran said, with a regretful smile that told Elizabeth how much she wished she had the leisure to do so now. “But I must see to my guests. The naming ceremony will be shortly.” Her expression softened. “Such a sweet child. Felicia has been very fortunate.”

“We christen—name—our children immediately,” Elizabeth observed. “It seems a

little strange to wait so long. It’s been six weeks, hasn’t it?”

“We usually do not name a child until we are certain that it will live,” Lady

Aldaran said, with a sad look in her eyes that made Elizabeth wonder if she had buried one or more little unnamed children herself. Or was she secretly fearful that her own child would not live so long? “This one seems healthy enough, though; generally if a child lives to this age, it lives at least to the onset of
laran.
This one is likely to do well, by everything we can judge. And such a little dear, never crying for more than a moment.”

It seemed strange to Elizabeth that Lady Aldaran should speak in such a friendly way about the child her husband had fathered on someone else. Stranger still that the lady should consider her erstwhile rival as a friend. But of course she could not say anything about it; she made a graceful remark about how fortunate it was that the child was thriving, and withdrew to join Ysaye. Lady Aldaran went to welcome a newly-arriving group of people with snow liberally decorating their outer clothes and boots.

Elizabeth noted that these newcomers seemed to be from another branch of the

Aldaran clan; from a place called “Scathfell.” Lady Aldaran greeted them warmly as they removed their snow-covered wraps and handed them over to be taken away by

servants.

Then, at some signal Elizabeth could not detect, the musicians ceased playing and everyone present gathered around the mother and child.

Lord Aldaran waited until he was the focus of all eyes, from the curious ones of the Terrans, to the approving ones of his own spouse. Then he lifted the well-wrapped baby from Felicia’s arms.

“I acknowledge this child Thyra as mine,” he said, quietly but firmly. “And I

pledge to assume responsibility for its support and care until it arrives at maturity.”

Then came the real surprise, at least so far as Elizabeth was concerned. Lady

Aldaran took Felicia’s child in her own arms.

“I acknowledge that this child Thyra, of my dear friend Felicia, is the true and acknowledged child of my husband Kermiac,” she said, gazing fondly down at the

child’s tiny face. “And as such, I assume responsibility for its nurture and care under its father’s roof, until it shall arrive at maturity.”

“Lady Aldaran is a saint,” someone muttered within Elizabeth’s hearing, “since

she above anyone must know that an
emmasca
child may not arrive at maturity until it is thirty, or even more. The ‘child’ may even outlive her as a child still.”

Elizabeth did her best not to show that she had overheard this, but that was a

startling revelation. It reminded her of something a friend of her mother’s, a great bird lover, had once said;
Never buy a parrot unless you have someone to will him to.
Would Lady Aldaran have to “will” the care of this child to her own offspring?

But Lady Aldaran was continuing, after laying the child again in its mother’s

arms. “I, Margali of Aldaran, in acknowledgement of this, present Felicia with this token of my affection.”

She reached out and placed a beautiful necklace of silver and the gems called

“firestones” around Felicia’s throat. There was some generalized clapping, during which the baby began to cry. Felicia opened her dress, with complete unselfconsciousness, and laid the child to her breast.

The baby began to suckle greedily, making little grunting noises like a happy

piglet, and everyone began laughing and talking.

Elizabeth could not take her eyes off the perfect little thing, like a pink and white doll. She watched the little mite nurse with mingled wonder and pleasure. Next

Midwinter
she
might have a child of her own—hers and David’s. It would be greeted with no such ritual as this, but it would be born under this strange sun, and it would be no less a native of this world than Felicia’s child.

She might name it, if it were a son, after the Captain…

She drifted off into reverie; Zeb Scott came and sat by Felicia, talking to her

softly.

“Oh, dear,” Ysaye said in her ear, waking her out of her daydreams. “This looks

like more than just a friendly chat.”

Elizabeth took better note of the way Zeb was leaning toward Felicia and nodded, a little troubled. “This could be a complication…I think you’re right, Ysaye. If Zeb isn’t already involved with Felicia, it looks to me as if he could become very serious, in a very short time. If he does—it could be very good for Felicia, Zeb Scott is a wonderful man. But it could mean some danger to our good relationship with Lord Aldaran.”

Ysaye seemed surprised. “How could it? Felicia isn’t married to Lord Aldaran—

or to anyone else as far as I know. Margali is due soon, and it seems to me that Felicia could be an embarrassment, then. Won’t he be expected to pay more attention to his wife and his legitimate child? Wouldn’t Margali and her relatives expect that much? I should think he’d be glad to have someone else take her—ah—off his hands.”

“I don’t think so,” Elizabeth said warningly. “It doesn’t seem to work that way

here. Customs are awfully different.”

Ysaye looked skeptical. “I don’t know if human nature is likely to change that

much,” she said. “After all, if there’s one thing we can take for granted in human cultures, it’s that there is a certain degree of possessiveness about ‘my man’ and ‘my woman.’ And relatives take a dim view of a relationship that might threaten the ‘true wife.’ Somehow, I don’t think this world is all that different.”

“Probably not,” said a familiar, but unwelcome voice. “I’ve never seen a lot of

difference in human nature across cultures. And isn’t it a shame, since human nature isn’t all that admirable.”

Even at a festival, Ryan Evans couldn’t keep his sarcastic and caustic wit from

coloring everything he came into contact with. Invited or not.

Elizabeth turned and put on a mask of politeness. “Why, Ryan,” she said coolly. “I didn’t know you were back from— what was it—the Dry Towns?”

“Dry
Towns is right,” Evans answered. “Nothing but desert, and a more

inhospitable set of settlements I hope never to see. Rotten climate, barbarians one step up from cave-dwelling— it’s enough to make me lose what little faith in human nature I have.”

David showed up in time to rescue her from having to make a polite response.

“Well, the fact that they’d settle in such a place at all says something for human nature,”

David responded cheerfully. “At least about undiscouragable optimism.”

“Optimism.” Evans snorted. “Well, you can have them, optimism and all. I must

say though, Kadarin seems to have been born to be an agent. He speaks several of the languages, and he already knew a lot of the people, so at least they didn’t murder us on sight. Most of them even took him for one of their own kind.”

David lit up. “I wanted to talk with you about that; do you have some tapes of

their languages?”

“Some,” Evans replied. “Probably not anywhere near as much as you and your

computers want. They were damned hard to get—you wouldn’t believe how difficult it was to get people to talk to us. Curiosity seems to be at a low ebb out there; they’re the most insular lot I’ve ever seen.”

David didn’t seem to be surprised. “I suppose that’s to be expected of a desert

culture,” he pointed out. “Just surviving takes almost all of your resources, and a stranger may represent a real threat. Certainly a stranger is a drain on
your
resources, and hospitality could be deadly to you. Clannishness is only a part of it.”

“Good point,” said the Captain, joining them. “Glad to see you back, Evans; I’ll want to see your report first thing tomorrow.”

“I can give you the gist of it in a few words,” Evans replied. “Very damn few. I gather that trade with the Dry Towns from the rest of the world is pretty minimal.

Mostly what comes out is a few plants and botanicals and mostly medicinal. Precious metals, nil;
ordinary
metals, nil. Same as the rest of the planet, I gather. In fact, sir, damn-all to report. I could just as well have stayed here in—hmm, not exactly comfort, but I could have spared myself a few saddle-sores.”

The Captain grunted, clearly disappointed. “Nothing for the Empire, then?”

“Apart as I said, from some possible medicinal plants, not a thing. Unless you’re interested in exotic drugs.” Evans grinned. The Captain frowned.

“You know how I feel about that. Drugs should stay where they originated.”

The laws governing the import and export of potentially addictive substances

were varied. In general, they were interdicted, with the laws of individual governments taking precedence within their sovereign space. For the most part, they were

unbelievably harsh. Every local government had the right to prosecute the shipper who brought interdicted drugs into their sovereign space, which made it an extremely expensive proposition for anyone smuggling them in. Not only could the smuggler

himself be punished, but the ship owner as well— often by the loss of the ship itself.

So within sovereign space, it was possible for extreme restriction, but outside it was another story. Some people would have liked to outlaw every single mood-altering substance no matter how mild, right down to caffeine and chocolate, but the difficulties of enforcing that were overwhelming, especially in the face of places like Keef and Vainwal, which had no laws to speak of on that subject.

Empire policy was that laws in interstellar space should be minimally restrictive; prohibitions were kept to an absolute minimum and were narrowly and harshly

enforced. The few prohibited drugs were limited to those on the harmfulness index that were several degrees above mild feelings of well-being.

The Captain had his own feeling about how much harm that kind of minimal

“supervision” did; Elizabeth and Ysaye shared his feelings. Evans, however, obviously didn’t.

He was an open proponent of the kind of
laissez-faire
attitude found on Keef and Vainwal. True, these planets attracted a certain kind of tourist. True, those tourists were warned and informed of the risks. And for the most part—at least, officially—there was no one forcing those drugs into anyone’s unwilling body. There were rumors, of course, of addicts made against their will, and forced to pay with their bodies for the feeding of their habits, but those were only rumors, and no one had ever been able to prove the truth of them. That was Evans’ justification for his attitude. He was scornful of what he called “authoritarianism” and “paternalism.” He claimed that there was no harm being done; whatever was going on, he said, was limited to consenting residents and visitors, and would not go off-planet.