Every stop seemed to include a quick conversation and gossip exchange, if the householder was waiting by the mail box. Lee suspected he was what humans would call a character. He spat out the window a lot and seemed to go on a long time without Gordon needing to add anything to the conversation to encourage him. Besides his formal deliveries he was happy to take less formal freight. At one stop he loaded a tray on the tailgate with hot pies, to drop off three stops down the road. At another he loaded a foam board box of puppies, for a stop on the way back. Gordon had to tell Lee they were Earth life, when she thought they were local.
Lee thought she was beyond further surprise, when a fellow tied a goat to the tail gate to be led at a trot to a neighbor.
"Does he get any extra pay at all for doing all this?" she finally asked when he had to get out at a stop.
"When he makes the rounds after the Mid-Summer festival, he will get so many tips and gifts he'll go back in with the truck as full as when he started. I'll leave him a little something here on the dash when we get dropped off. It wouldn't do to hand cash to him, like it was a fare. And you don't think all those pies from the widow made it down to the ranch hands do you? I can still smell at least one back there."
"Seems like a pretty good job to me."
"It is. But it's seasonal and he doesn't get paid when the back country is snowed in. If we need something in winter, something important like medicine for one of the kids, then we'd have an air car literally drop it off at the keep. Only way they'd clear a spot of snow and land one, is if they needed an ambulance. Thankfully I've never seen that done."
"Why didn't we just hire an air car to drop us off, since it's nice weather now?"
"Just like your phone, that would be just a little too fancy. Air cars are expensive even to rent. People who've never had a ride in one would think we were showing off."
The road had been smooth and big enough for another vehicle to pass, although all they saw away from town was one Derf, on some sort of earthmover with a big scoop on the front. But soon she saw why the mail truck was so high off the ground and had such big clunky wheels. The road narrowed down to one lane and then a couple kilometers later, when they passed a long fence with a gate, it turned into two tracks, with a hump in the middle where the grasses and weeds thrived uninhibited. A couple times Lee was sure she saw something moving in the high grass. In a few fields the grass was lodged over in patterns, like something had trampled it down.
They climbed for a long time, parallel to a stream, until the high grass gave way to flowered meadows of short growth and the stream instead of being an even flow, tumbled noisily over naked boulders. There was a cairn of rocks beside the track and a shipping container that must serve as a jumbo mail box, with nobody waiting, but the driver stopped. He gave Gordon a couple envelopes and a small box.
"Welcome home and give my regards to your grandma," the driver said.
"I will. You may see us in a week or so going out," Gordon said, arranging their luggage to be easy to carry.
"Be pleased to have you. Having company is always better than driving alone."
The ruts leading uphill were so faint Lee was sure they didn't see much traffic. The hills were covered with leafy, ankle high growth, thickly spotted with small flowers of many colors. There were just occasional clumps of stunted trees all pushed to the same side by the wind. The direction they were headed was back-dropped by distant mountains, high enough they had no vegetation on the high slopes and the very peaks had snow in what was obviously late summer.
"You best ride, or you'll be too tired to be civil and meet folks when we get there," Gordon suggested. Lee didn't argue and mounted up when he bowed.
"How far?" she asked.
"And are we there yet?" Gordon teased. "We'll be most of the afternoon, less if I ran, but I'm out of shape and not used to this altitude anymore. It's only about eighty percent of the partial pressure of oxygen we run in the ship. You might like to chew on that last food bar if you want. My folks eat a late breakfast that is well past and supper won't be for awhile after we get there."
"Is there some ceremony we'll have to do for you to adopt me?"
"We just have to announce it to everyone. There is no certificate or anything, but the older ladies who keep family records will start making entries about your dealings in the clan. So there is a paper trail if somebody asks. That's the same way we marry - a couple go around and announce to everybody that they are married now. There's nothing you folks, well maybe not you, I mean socialized humans, would call a ceremony. They often do it in the Fall Festival when clans get together for slaughtering and berry time. You'll be expected to contribute when you visit home and that gets noted in the books too. There are often a few family in the city, working for cash money."
"If somebody suggests you help with something you really should do it, unless it's beyond your capacity. If it is just tell them. Some might not understand how much you can lift, or how long you can keep going. We'll make an offering of money, but they don't suggest how much and we can afford to do it easily. In fact we don't want to get carried away and kick in so much we make others feel bad who don't see much cash money. There's something I should probably tell you too."
"Hmm, as in, There's-Something-We-Need-To-Talk-About?"
"No, not that serious, the clan, even the senior ladies who keep the books, know I'm an explorer. And I'm sure they know I've made some good money. All they have to do is consult the web mirror to find out what the voyage rings mean and I've been home since I added the Blue. When I came home after the Blue, I kicked in a chunk of cash that was a substantial piece of the hold's gross income for a year. But they have no idea I put all the rest of my shares off the blue, into a full partnership with your parents. So they may assume I was just crew, working for normal bonuses. They have no idea I'm sure, the scale of payout a third of a Greenie would mean."
"Well, I'll just keep that our little secret if you want."
"Thanks Lee. I'd rather keep it private."
Chapter 11
The path climbed between two hills, the taller with a stone ruin. It perched on the summit of the hill, like a hat, gate gone, the breach an empty notch in the circle pointed at the saddle.
"What was that up there?" Lee asked.
"A watch outpost for when the clans would war. They could see the eastern approaches to the keep and signal with fire if the enemy approached."
"But you said you haven't fought like that in the last twelve hundred years?"
"Yes and that wall is a lot older. If oral history is to be trusted, the eldest Mother says it is four thousand years since bowmen stood on those walls."
"I'd like to come back before we go and climb up there."
"You should ask the ladies leave. They have a reverence for such places. They never allow them to be pulled down for the stone and when Earthies asked to dig the site they refused."
"If they do dig it they should make sure the things are kept here. From what I've read in my lessons some archaeologists are little better than grave robbers."
"That's what they feared. The eldest said the things would be there to dig in another thousand years as well as today, they're not going anywhere and if they haven't decayed in four millennia they won't in five."
At the top of the notch, between the two hills, a valley was visible stretching back into the foothills of the mountains. A few dots of color were clearly buildings and there were squares and rectangles of different colors marking cultivation. The notch wasn't truly a pass like in the great mountains. It was just a saddle between hills that gave them a vantage point.
"That's home," Gordon told her with a sweep of his arm. "Red Tree is as far as you can see back to the mountains and deep into the hills north and south. It's all downhill from here. The Keep is just inside the dark raised area down there where the trees start again." He didn't speak again for awhile and picked up his pace on the slope to something that approached a six legged trot.
&nbs
p; Little things started looking different as they worked their way down off the heights. Where there were woods, there were no windfall or dead limbs littered. On one of the last small hills they passed before the flats, a single pole had an antenna and solar panel at the top, likely a radio repeater station. There were cairns of rock here and there and occasional piles all jumbled that didn't make any sense to Lee.
They started passing out-buildings and work-shops for a kilometer, before they came in sight of the keep. The keep proper was a stone circle, on a rise like the fort on the hill they had passed. It, however, still had its gates and they were metal faced and looked like it would take a great deal to breach them. The buildings inside were earth sheltered and housed the vital shops and storage. That still left lots of work buildings and private dwellings outside, scattered widely among the trees. Even though they had walked in, there was an all wheel drive truck similar to the mail truck, parked under a shelter without side walls.
There were lots of people walking about, some carrying things and a couple with wheelbarrows. Several locals greeted Gordon, or stopped to touch hands with him along the way. One old Derf sat on a ledge to the side of the gate, that seemed to be put there just for him. Lee had never seen a Derf old enough to be streaked with more silver than brown, but he was huge, towering even over Gordon and stood with powerful grace that didn't match the silver. He had no emblems or uniform, but the huge modern weapon he wore hanging on a combat harness proclaimed he was the guard of the gate. It looked suitable for engaging main battle tanks.
If anything survived his fire, the bronze ax in his belt had a curved cutting edge on each side, as long as her forearm, with a shaft Lee doubted she could circle with both hands. The perfectly polished golden face of the ax was covered with complicated engraving and the bottom of each outside arch had a nasty little curl with its own cutting edge, that looked disturbingly like a can opener. All the action videos in their ship library showed Earthie Marines in powered armor as the ultimate fighting machine, but Lee suspected that hook was designed to open such armor like a tin of fish.
The old fellow embraced Gordon. With eight arms that was a lot of embracing, but they all seemed to find some place to go. Lee was astonished that the older Derf was a full head higher than Gordon. He must massed closer to a full ton, than to Gordon's seven-hundred plus kilos. His true arms went over Gordon's shoulder's easily, so everything was offset upward a notch and they meshed smoothly.
"And you are Lee," he stated with certainty, when they parted.
Lee made a gesture of respect with her palms turned in, but he wasn't having any of that formality and scooped her up in a hug. Other than the oversized weapon hard between them it, was a warm and welcoming gesture.
Nose to nose he informed Lee with a low rumbling voice that he should be addressed as William, then he stopped abruptly and turned her to the left and his eyes got big staring at the green gem hanging there. He looked closely at Gordon for confirmation and held Lee out straight armed to stare at her in wonder.
"Aiyeee! You hit the big one you did!" He proclaimed much louder.
"Will - don't make a fuss," Gordon insisted, looking around embarrassed.
"Don't make a fuss," he said, with a prissy little voice for Lee's benefit and rolled his eyes for her. "Go on in and meet folks. I'll see you again at supper." He sat her down straight armed, like she weighed nothing.
There were lots of Derf busy with unfamiliar tasks, scurrying about the large room when they went in. It was obviously a dining hall, but the tables were busy now between meals with other tasks. A couple young girls seemed to be separating nut meats. Another was making something small, with wire and pliers.
The table by the fireplace was no different than the rest, except the three Derf sitting there elbow to elbow were the center of all the activity, every move in the room somehow orbiting around them and everyone's eyes making an occasional surreptitious glance, to see if they were being watched by any of the three. The action transformed the simple wooden bench into a throne.
The eldest greeted Gordon with a string of names, that Lee realized near the end must be his formal name. She was embarrassed she'd never learned even the short form and wished she'd picked up on it faster and really listened from the start.
"Sit, have beer and tell us your news and what adventures you've had."
"Thank you," Gordon eased down and slapped his knee with the usual gesture he made to invite Lee to sit there. Otherwise she'd be sitting barely able to see over the table edge. She scrambled up and sat there, grabbing the table edge to steady herself.
"This is my daughter Lee. She is the most important reason I'm back now. I really have need to go on to Luna and Earth, but by way of Derfhome is the easier road if I'm not mistaken. I want to announce her kinship to the clan, before we need to make the same claim to the Earthies, given their strange bureaucracies and ideas."
"Are you sure Earthie officials might not swallow the whole easier than me?" asked the eldest. "I feel a bit pushed to have you amble in here with no warning and plant her in my face, braced on your knee like a toddler, hung with a gun."
Lee suddenly realized they were alone in the hall, all the busy workers having exited in hast as soon as the old woman started talking. They all apparently knew her voice well enough to know there was some controversy and to get out of the line of fire.
"She can't help her size any more than you can." Lee could hear in his voice that Gordon was surprised by the unexpected hostility, but he didn't display any anger himself. "Her mother full grown was maybe a hundred millimeters taller and she'd have needed a pad or a knee, to see above the board and talk with us too. As to her weapon, that same mother was the one who armed her a half year ago and I was not consulted or advised on that, any more than you were. She showed up one morning at breakfast armed and nobody deemed it worthy of mentioning to me either. Was I supposed to disarm her once she was in my care?"
There was silence at that, because it was a great shame to be disarmed. It was permanent and only done for the strongest of reasons. It usually was the same as saying a person was of diminished capacity and would never assume any responsible position in the community.
"Let's hear if she has a voice of her own," the matriarch said and switched to English. "Why, little person, should I believe you are responsible enough to carry a weapon into my household?"
"Well, I haven't shot you yet, have I?" Lee answered sweetly in perfect Derf.
It probably would have been better if the next-to-oldest female at her elbow and Gordon hadn't both got a good laugh out of that.
"And why is that such a mark of restraint?" she asked humorlessly.
"Because you were quick to disrespect my dead mother who armed me, without the burden of knowing her. You accuse Gordon of foolishness for allowing it to continue, if not of actually setting it up to provoke you. You rob me of the welcome I expected as kin and instead I find hate on your face, which I can read very well even if I am human. And the diminutive - 'little person' - was not a term of endearment from your lips. Unless you question other Derf that come here about their wearing arms, how is it anything but bigotry?"
"How dare you speak to me like that in my own hall?"
"Because I'm right and you are wrong. And if the facts of it weren't that plain you'd challenge what I said, instead of how I said it."
"Do you realize I could challenge you for calling me a bigot? That's why children are supposed to learn the consequences of their words, before assuming the responsibility."
"I sort of wondered if it played the other way. Could I challenge you for being one?"
"Then why don't you?" she snarled.
"Because I assumed the challenged party gets to choose weapons like humans do. If you chose axes I'm chopped liver. But if you get all emotional and are stupid enough to give me the choice of weapons, well, I'm a lot better shot than you might imagine and a much smaller target than you. I do believe if I can pick hypervelocity pist
ols I can kill you," Lee said, with a smile.
The next-to-oldest, laid a true hand on the older one's lower hand, whose massive claws were sunk into the table edge. "When is the last time you shot a pistol, dear?"
"It has been a few seasons," the older woman admitted reluctantly.
"Really? I don't think I've ever seen one in your hand. As amusing as it might be to see the spectacle of you two blazing away at each other, if you don't recuse yourself from this matter, I am going to ask my daughter to join me in calling for a vote of no confidence in your headship."
"You've never acted like you wanted the job before," she said.
"So now you find ulterior motives in me too?" she sighed. "I've never wanted the job anymore than anyone else who is sane. You've just never acted like an idiot before. But when you decide to speak foolishness you don't do it by half measures, you do it twice in as many minutes."
The old woman sat and blinked for a bit, thinking it through. "If you have lost confidence in me over this, I can't see pretending it didn't happen and everything is as before. Neither will I force a vote on the matter," she said voice strained. "I'll make myself useful in accounting and such. You poll among the women and consult the men what their feelings are and pick a third. It's time for me to retire."
"I'll consult you too," the younger one said. Which was as good as saying she accepted the resignation.
The eldest got up and walked away without looking back.
"Well girl, your freedom to speak has certainly made for a whirlwind entry, hasn't it?" The new head lady remarked to Lee.
"No ma'am, I can't see that," Lee told her quizzically.
"I'm almost afraid to ask, but could you tell me why not?"
"Yes ma'am, Gordon told me that if someone asked me a question as a child, I could either direct them to ask him as my guardian and they had to accept that, or I could choose to answer. Answering doesn't really show you as a child or adult. That has to be decided separately. But I could only be held accountable for my words if I'm an adult."
Family Law Page 9
