“Slinging dung,” he agreed, feeling better. This girl was small; she was not really making fun of him; she was playfully teasing him. “Until I found a worm.”
“A whole worm?” she asked, round-eyed. “How did it taste?”
“A parasite worm. In the manure.”
“They don’t taste very good.”
“Now I’ve been a year in the stable. I don’t know a thing about riding.”
“Ha. You’ve watched every move the riders make,” Tune said. “I know. I started that way too. I wasn’t lucky enough to find a worm. I worked my way up. Now I race. Don’t win many, but I’ve placed often enough. Except that now I’m on loan to do some training. For those who follow after, et cetera. Come on—I’ll show you how to ride.”
Stile hesitated. “I don’t think I’m supposed to—”
“For crying in silence!” she exclaimed. “Do I have to hand-feed you? Get up behind me. Roberta won’t mind.”
“It’s not the horse. It’s my employer’s policy. He’s very strict about—”
“He told you not to take a lift on a robot?”
“No, but—”
“What will he say if you don’t get Roberta to your stable at all?”
Was she threatening him? Better her displeasure than that of his employer! “Suppose I just put you back on the horse and lead her in?”
Tune shrugged. She had the figure for it. “Suppose you try?”
Call one bluff! Stile stepped in close to lift her. Tune met him with a sudden, passionate kiss.
Stile reeled as from a body-block. Tune drew back and surveyed him from all of ten centimeters distance. “Had enough? You can’t lead Roberta anyway; she’s programmed only for riding.”
Stile realized he was overmatched. “We’ll do it your way. It’ll be your fault if I get fired.”
“I just knew you’d see the light!” she exclaimed, pleased. She put her foot in the stirrup and swung into the saddle. Then she removed her foot. “Use the stirrup. Hold on to me. Lift your left foot. It’s a big step, the first time.”
It was indeed. Sixteen hands was over 1.6 meters—a tenth of a meter taller than he was. He had to heft his foot up past waist-height to get it in the stirrup. He had seen riders mount smoothly, but his observation did not translate into competence for himself. Tune was in the way; he was afraid he’d bang his head into her left breast, trying to scramble up.
She chuckled and reached down with her left hand, catching him in the armpit. She hauled as he heaved, and he came up—and banged his head into her breast. “Swing it around behind, over the horse,” she said. Then, at his stunned pause, she added: “I am referring to your right leg, clumsy.”
Stile felt the flush burning right down past his collarbone. He swung his leg around awkwardly. He kneed the horse, but managed to get his leg over, and finally righted himself behind Tune. No one would know him for a gymnast at this moment!
“That mounting should go down in the record books,” she said. “Your face is so hot it almost burned my—skin.” Stile could not see her face, but knew she was smiling merrily. “Now put your arms around my waist to steady yourself. Your employer might be mildly perturbed if you fell down and broke your crown. Good dungslingers are hard to replace. He’d figure Roberta was too spirited a nag for you.”
Numbly, Stile reached around her and hooked his fingers together across her small firm belly. Tune’s hair was in his face; it had a clean, almost haylike smell.
Tune shifted her legs slightly, and abruptly the robot horse was moving. Stile was suddenly exhilarated. This was like sailing on a boat in a slightly choppy sea—the miniature sea with the artificial waves that was part of the Game facilities. Tune’s body compensated with supple expertise. They proceeded down the path.
“I’ve seen you in the Game,” Tune remarked. “You’re pretty good, but you’re missing some things yet.”
“I started fencing lessons yesterday,” Stile said, half flattered, half defensive.
“That, too. What about the performing arts?”
“Well, martial art—”
She reversed her crop, put it to her mouth—and played a pretty little melody. The thing was a concealed pipe of some kind, perhaps a flute or recorder.
Stile was entranced. “That’s the loveliest thing I ever heard!” he exclaimed when she paused. “Who’s steering the horse?”
“You don’t need reins to steer a horse; haven’t you caught on to that yet? You don’t need a saddle to ride, either. Not if you know your business. Your legs, the set of your weight—watch.”
Roberta made a steady left turn, until she had looped a full circle.
“You did that?” Stile asked. “I didn’t see anything.”
“Put your hand on my left leg. No, go ahead, Stile; I want you to feel the tension. See, when I press on that side, she bears right. When I shift my weight back, she stops.” Tune leaned back into Stile, and the horse stopped. “I shift forward, so little you can’t see it, but she can feel it—hold on to me tight, so you can feel my shift—that’s it.” Her buttocks flexed and the horse started walking again. “Did you feel me?”
“You’re fantastic,” Stile said.
“I referred to the guidance of the horse. I already know about me.”
“Uh, yes.”
“Roberta responds only to correct signals; she has no idiosyncrasies, as a living animal might. You have to do it just right, with her. That’s why she’s used for training. So the horses won’t teach the riders any bad habits. You noted how she ignored you when you spoke to her from the ground. She responds only to her rider. She’s not a plow horse, after all.”
“She’s fantastic too.”
“Oh, she is indeed! But me—I do have two cute little faults.”
Stile was inordinately interested now. “What are they?”
“I lie a little.”
Meaning he could not trust all of what she had been telling him? Discomforting thought! “What about the other?”
“How could you believe it?”
There was that. If she lied about it—
Tune played her instrument again. It was, she explained, a keyboard harmonica, with the keys concealed; she blew in the end, and had a scale of two and a half octaves available at her touch. Her name was fitting; her music was exquisite. She was right: he needed to look into music.
* * *
Tune and Roberta began training the new riders. Stile returned to his routine duties. But suddenly it was not as interesting, handling the horses afoot. His mind was elsewhere. Tune was the first really attractive girl he had encountered who was smaller than he was. Such a little thing, physical height, but what a subjective difference it could make!
Today he was lunging the horses. Lunging consisted of tying them to a fixed boom on a rotating structure, so they had to stay in an exact course, and making them trot around in a circle. It was excellent exercise, if dull for both man and horse. Some horses were too temperamental for the mechanical lead, so he had to do them by hand. He simply tied a rope to an artificial tree, and stood with his hand on that line while he urged the animal forward.
Stile had a way with horses, despite his size. They tended to respond to him when they would not do a thing for other stable hands. This, unfortunately, meant that he got the most difficult horses to lunge. No horse gave trouble about feeding or going to pasture, but a number could get difficult about the more onerous labors.
The first horse he had to lunge was Spook—the worst of them. Spook was jet black all over, which perhaps accounted for his name. He was also extremely excitable—which was a more likely reason for his name. He could run with the best—the very best—but had to be kept in top condition.
“Come on, Spook,” Stile said gently. “You wouldn’t want to get all weak and flabby, would you? How would you feel if some flatfooted mare beat your time in a race? You know you have to exercise.”
Spook knew no such thing. He aspired to a life career of gra
zing and stud service; there was little room in his itinerary for exercise. He had quite an arsenal of tricks to stave off the inevitable. When Stile approached, Spook retreated to the farthest corner of his pen, then tried to leap away when cornered. But Stile, alert, cut him off and caught his halter. He had to reach up high to do it, for this horse could look right over Stile’s head without elevating his own head. Spook could have flattened Stile, had he wanted to; but he was not a vicious animal, and perhaps even enjoyed this periodic game.
Spook tried to nip Stile’s hand. “No!” Stile said sharply, making a feint with his free hand as if to slap the errant nose, and the horse desisted. Move and countermove, without actual violence. That was the normal language of horses, who could indulge in quite elaborate series of posturings to make themselves accurately understood.
They took a few steps along the path, then Spook balked, planting all four feet in the ground like small tree trunks. He was of course far too heavy for even a large man to budge by simple force. But Stile slapped him lightly on the flank with the free end of the leadline, startling him into motion. One thing about being spooky: it was hard to stand firm.
Spook moved over, trying to shove Stile off the path and into a building, but Stile shoved the horse’s head back, bracing against it. Control the head, control the body; he had learned that principle in martial art, winning matches by hold-downs though his opponents might outweigh him considerably—because their greater mass became useless against his strategy. Few creatures went far without their heads.
Spook tried to lift his head too high for Stile to control. Stile merely hung on, though his feet left the ground. After a moment the dead weight became too much, and the horse brought his head down. Other stable hands used a martingale on him, a strap to keep the head low, but that made this horse even more excitable. Stile preferred the gentle approach.
At last he got Spook to the lunging tree. “Walk!” he commanded, making a token gesture with the whip. The horse sighed, eyed him, and decided to humor him this once. He walked.
Every horse was an individual. “Spook, you’re more trouble than a stableful of rats, but I like you,” Stile said calmly. “Let’s get this over with, work up a sweat, then I’ll rub you down. After that, it’s the pasture for you. How does that sound?”
Spook glanced at him, then made a gesture with his nose toward the pasture. Horses’ noses, like their ears, were very expressive; a nose motion could be a request or an insult. “Lunge first,” Stile insisted.
Spook licked his lips and chewed on a phantom delicacy. “Okay!” Stile said, laughing. “A carrot and a rubdown. That’s my best offer. Now trot. Trot!”
It was all right. The horse broke into a classy trot. Any horse was pretty in that gait, but Spook was prettier than most; his glossy black hide fairly glinted, and he had a way of picking up his feet high that accentuated the precision of his motion. The workout was going to be a success.
Stile’s mind drifted. The girl, Tune—could she be right about his destiny? There were stringent rules about horse competition, because of the ubiquitous androids, cyborgs, and robots. Horses had to be completely natural, and raced by completely natural jockeys. The less weight a horse carried, the faster it could go; there were no standardized loads, here. So a man as small as Stile—yes, it did make sense, in Citizen terms. Citizens did not care about serf convenience or feelings; Citizens cared only about their own concerns. Stile’s aptitude in the Game, his intelligence in schooling—these things were irrelevant. He was small and healthy and coordinated, therefore he was slated to be a jockey. Had he been three meters tall, he would have been slated for some Citizen’s classical basketball team. He didn’t have to like it; he worked where employed, or he left Proton forever. That was the nature of the system.
Still, would it be so bad, racing? Tune herself seemed to like it. Aboard a horse like Spook, here, urging him on to victory, leaving the pack behind, hearing the crowd cheering him on … there were certainly worse trades than that! He did like horses, liked them well. So maybe the Citizen had done him a favor, making his size an asset. A lout like the stable hand Bourbon might eventually become a rider, but he would never be a racer. Only a small person could be that. Most were women, like Tune, because women tended to be smaller, and gentler. Stile was the exception. Almost, now, he was glad of his size.
And Tune herself—what a woman! He would have to take up music. It had never occurred to him that an ordinary serf could create such beauty. Her—what was that instrument? The keyboard harmonica—her musical solo, emerging as it were from nowhere, had been absolute rapture! Yes, he would have to try his hand at music. That might please her, and he wanted very much to please her.
She could, of course, have her pick of men. She had poise and wit and confidence. She could go with a giant if she wanted. Stile could not pick among women; he had to have one shorter than he. Not because he demanded it, but because society did; if he appeared among serfs with a girl who outmassed him, others would laugh, and that would destroy the relationship. So he was the least of many, from Tune’s perspective, while she was the only one for him.
The trouble was—now that he knew he wanted her—his shyness was boiling up, making any direct approach difficult. How should he—
“One side, shorty!” It was Bourbon, the stable hand who was Stile’s greatest annoyance. Bourbon was adept at getting Stile into mischief, and seemed to resent Stile because he was small. Stile had never understood that, before; now with the realization of his potential to be a jockey, the resentment of the larger person was beginning to make sense. Bourbon liked to make dares, enter contests, prevail over others—and his size would work against him, racing horses. Today Bourbon was leading Pepper, a salt-and-pepper speckled stallion. “Make way for a man and a horse!”
Spook spooked at the loud voice. He leaped ahead. The lead-rope jerked his muzzle around. The horse’s body spun out, then took a roll. The line snapped, as it was designed to; a horse could get hurt when entangled.
Pepper also spooked, set off by the other horse. He careened into a wall, squealing. The genuine imported wood splintered, and blood spattered to the ground.
Stile ran to Spook. “Easy, Spook, easy! You’re okay! Calm! Calm!” He flung his arms about Spook’s neck as the horse climbed to his feet, trying to steady the animal by sheer contact.
Bourbon yanked Pepper’s head about, swearing. “Now see what you’ve done, midget!” he snapped at Stile. “Of all the runty, oink-headed, pygmy-brained—”
That was all. A fracas would have alerted others to the mishap, and that would have gotten both stable hands into deep trouble. Bourbon led his horse on, still muttering about the incompetence of dwarves, and Stile succeeded in calming Spook.
All was not well. Stile seethed at the insults added to injury, knowing well that Bourbon was responsible for all of this. The horse had a scrape on his glossy neck, and was favoring one foot. Stile could cover the scrape with fixative and comb the mane over it, concealing the evidence until it healed, but the foot was another matter. No feet, no horse, as the saying went. It might be only a minor bruise—but it might also be more serious.
He couldn’t take a chance. That foot had to be checked. It would mean a gross demerit for him, for he was liable for any injury to any animal in his charge. This could set his promotion back a year, right when his aspirations had multiplied. Damn Bourbon! If the man hadn’t spoken sharply in the presence of a horse known to be excitable—but of course Bourbon had done it deliberately. He had been a stable hand for three years and believed he was overdue for promotion. He took it out on others as well as on Stile, and of course he resented the way Stile was able to handle the animals.
Stile knew why Bourbon had been passed over. It wasn’t his size, for ordinary riders and trainers could be any size. Bourbon was just as mean to the horses, in little ways he thought didn’t show and could not be proved. He teased them and handled them with unnecessary roughness. Had he been lunging S
pook, he would have used martingale and electric prod. Other hands could tell without looking at the roster which horses Bourbon had been handling, for these animals were nervous and shy of men for several days thereafter.
Stile would not report Bourbon, of course. He had no proof-of-fault, and it would be contrary to the serf code, and would gain nothing. Technically, the man had committed no wrong; Stile’s horse had spooked first. Stile should have been paying better attention, and brought Spook about to face the intrusion so as not to be startled. Stile had been at fault, in part, and had been had. Lessons came hard.
Nothing for it now except to take his medicine, figuratively, and give Spook his, literally. He led the horse to the office of the vet. “I was lunging him. He spooked and took a fall,” Stile explained, feeling as lame as the horse.
The man examined the injuries competently. “You know I’ll have to report this.”
“I know,” Stile agreed tightly. The vet was well-meaning and honest; he did what he had to do.
“Horses don’t spook for no reason, not even this one. What set him off?”
“I must have been careless,” Stile said. He didn’t like the half-truth, but was caught between his own negligence and the serf code. He was low on the totem, this time.
The vet squinted wisely at him. “That isn’t like you, Stile.”
“I had a girl on my mind,” Stile admitted.
“Ho! I can guess which one! But this is apt to cost you something. I’m sorry.” Stile knew he meant it. The vet would do a serf a favor when he could, but never at the expense of his employer.
The foreman arrived. He was never far from the action. That was his business. Stile wondered, as he often did, how the man kept so well abreast of events even before they were reported to him, as now. “Damage?”
“Slight sprain,” the vet reported. “Be better in a few days. Abrasion on neck, no problem.”
The foreman glanced at Stile. “You’re lucky. Three demerits for carelessness, suspension for one day. Next time pay better attention.”
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