“Delightful!” Alin clapped, adding to Draeg, “He barely lifted a hand, did he; and there you went, this way and that.” The move did look like that, “Tree Sways in the Wind.”
“All right, Citizen,” Draeg muttered, breathless. “You try him, then.”
“You’re sure you can take anything?” Alin asked.
Blackbear shrugged self-consciously. “We’ll see.”
To his surprise, Alin repeated the same move as Draeg. But Blackbear knew better than to meet it the same way. This time, he slid his right leg forward and under, like a partner joining the dance. His right arm swept upward to deflect the blow; then he caught Alin’s arm and swung him around sideways, “Round the Mountain,” to land on his chest. He pinned Alin’s arm at the shoulder and wrist, leaving his body immobilized.
At this sight, Draeg laughed so hard that tears came to his eyes. “I never thought I’d see an Elysian that way!”
Blackbear frowned at this disrespect to a fallen opponent. But Alin picked himself up with good humor. “It is said, we live to amuse our friends. I think, L’liite, it’s your turn again.”
So he met their attacks, from one side to the next, each time catching the thrust at just the right time to deflect it. The fourth time Alin was too quick for him; Blackbear slipped and fell onto his knee, twisting it. Pain shot through his leg, and he thought with a sinking feeling, it must be sprained. Raincloud would be furious.
A servo scooted out from the hovercraft. Blackbear’s heart pounded, and he resisted the impulse to pull away as the machine extended its tendrils over his leg, barely touching here and there. But the pain eased up steadily; he could just about walk on it again. Rubbing his ankle, Blackbear thought, those medic servos must know how to treat foreign “defectives” after all.
“Well done,” said Alin. “I’d heard of rei-gi, but I had never seen it done by a master.”
Just then Raincloud returned, unhitching her Elysian train at the door. “By the Goddess, what’s going on?” she exclaimed in Click-click. “Those children are out with the trainsweep again—and you…” She looked him over.
“Oh we’re just, uh, ‘visiting,’” Blackbear assured her, flexing his leg.
“Do you fight, too?” Alin asked her politely. “Do give us a try. Your mate has already gotten the better of us.”
“Excuse me.” Raincloud would consider it beneath her to spar with men other than her consort. Also, she seemed to have much on her mind; her visit to Iras must have brought some result.
“Don’t worry,” Alin assured her. “We’ll take it easy until you learn our style.”
Acutely insulted, Raincloud turned to them, her face wooden. “A moment, please.” She disappeared in back, then returned in her wide-bottomed trousers with a sack of beans on her back, slung low like a seated child. “You both come at once.”
“Not I,” exclaimed Draeg with a L’liite phrase. “Two men against a female—I wouldn’t be caught dead.”
“Come,” she ordered.
“I’ll join Alin,” offered Blackbear, knowing that despite her retort, Raincloud would be pleased to show off her skill.
The two men attacked her from either side. With a swing of each arm, she sent both assailants to pound the mat. As they dusted themselves off, Alin’s astonishment was plain to see.
Raincloud turned to Draeg. “You, there,” she commanded. “You pin my arms from behind, and let them try again.”
Too amazed to object, Draeg complied. When Raincloud’s arms were firmly pinned, Alin and Blackbear rushed her again, harder than before. In a blur of arms and legs, the three men went sprawling.
As Blackbear got up and dusted himself off, Raincloud turned to Alin. “I trust you are not hurt, Citizen?” she said sweetly.
“Not at all, Guardian.”
Raincloud dumped the sack of beans, none of which were spilled. The medic servos set about attending their inevitable bruises.
Blackbear felt immense pride for Raincloud, and a feeling of warmth for the men. “You see,” he told Alin, “now we are called ‘brothers of the mat,’ since we’ve been thrown by the same ‘goddess.’”
“Is that right?” Alin laughed. “Tulle will love it! Thanks so much; you’ve both entertained us immensely.”
Ignoring him, Raincloud turned to Blackbear. “Iras gave me one of her accounts today. Today’s a work day for her, so the account will open, and I can transfer my documents to work on—”
At the front of the sitting room, a shimmering form of a man appeared in the column of the holostage. The man wore Urulite chain mail. He began to speak in Urulite, which Blackbear recognized but did not comprehend.
Alin’s mouth fell open. “The holostage; wasn’t it turned off?”
“Of course it was. Wasn’t it, house?”
“The receiver was off,” said the house, “by default, as you instructed. The transmitter remained on; to turn it off by default would soon exceed your budget.”
“Then we’ve…been transmitting…” Alin caught his face in his hands and seemed about to faint.
“Great Helix,” Draeg exclaimed, “we’ve been entertaining the whole damned city all the while! Cheer up, Alin old man,” he said, attempting to pat him on the back. But Alin pulled back stiffly, retreating to the corner.
“If I have failed to serve you in any way,” the house added, “please report my defect to…”
Meanwhile, Raincloud had recognized the Imperial Legate, Lord Zheron. Her face froze at the sight of him, here in her own sitting room; but it was only an image, after all. She took a deep breath and stepped forward.
“Lord Raincloud,” Zheron was saying in Urulite, “that was the best display of manhood I’ve seen of any barbarian on this planet. I command the honor of your company at our legation, on the third of this month. You will dine well, and enjoy the height of our cultural entertainment.”
“I am honored,” Raincloud replied, trying to think quickly, aware of Blackbear and the others watching dumfounded. Verid had told her to accept; but she had not agreed to do so. “I must…consult my Deity, as to my plans.” Urulites were notoriously superstitious.
“Your Deity can hardly refuse,” said Zheron. “I challenge you to fight to the death.”
At her side Blackbear and Alin looked on, uncomprehending. Raincloud tried to keep her eyes on Zheron without blinking. For Urulites, a duel was the customary prelude to a feast, to work up an appetite. A fight “to the death” was just a ceremonial figure of speech; or was it? Let Verid find some other foreigner for her schemes.
A thought occurred to her. “Is Lord Zheron aware that Lord Raincloud is…a female?” No Urulite in his right mind would fight a woman.
Zheron laughed. “Anyone can see you’re no female.”
That left her speechless. In Urulite, she recalled, words rarely meant what they seemed. If only he did not remind her so of Rhun…He was a vicious warlord, hardly the gentle professor.
And yet—Urulites were people, too, and they suffered in their isolation. What would Rhun have thought if she let this chance go? Today of all days, the Day of the Snake, was not the day to turn one’s back.
“I accept,” she agreed suddenly.
As the man’s image flickered out, Alin was shaking his head, much chagrined. “Blackbear, I thought I explained about the holostage, the first night you came in.”
“I’m sorry,” said Blackbear. “But we’ve never turned the transmitter on.”
“You never turned it off, you mean. The transmitter is on all the time; you have to pay to turn it off. It’s because of the Right of Visitation. There’s an added fine for turning it off on your Visiting Day, but I told you I’d pay it.”
“You mean anyone could have peeked into our living room these past three days?”
Draeg shook his head, trying unsuccessfully to keep a straight face. “Alin—you’ll never live this down.”
Alin gave him a rueful look. “Sparring ‘in public’—you’re right, I’ll neve
r live this down.” Nevertheless, he recovered his smile. To Raincloud he said, “I see the Owl has put you to work.”
“Quite,” said Raincloud. A good thing none of them knew Urulite, she thought.
“We’d best be going, Draeg,” Alin concluded. “Thanks again.” He bowed, and Draeg departed with him. The medical hovercraft, too, took off from the window ledge. Outside, the children called after it in delight.
“Raincloud,” Blackbear asked apprehensively, “what was that all about anyway?”
“Lord Zheron, the cultural legate,” Raincloud explained. “Inviting me to duel and dine.”
“To what?”
“A formality,” she explained. “In the old days, before the Imperium, each warlord had his own little fief atop a needle rock—you know the bizarre terrain on that world. The only way two lords could meet was to duel to the death. Nowadays they’re more civil.”
“Goddess! You sent him packing, of course.”
“Nonsense,” said Raincloud irritably. “I accepted.”
“But they’ll fight with weapons—to hurt each other, or worse. The Goddess forbids any such thing! Raincloud, how could you?”
“You know I’d never disobey the Dark One.”
Swallowing his anger, Blackbear turned and went outside to check on the children. Still playing with the trainsweep, they were leading it up and down the street and imitating the little squeaks it made as it altered direction.
Raincloud followed him. “Trust me,” she said soothingly. “I’ll be careful.” From behind him, she massaged his shoulders. His anger subsided, but he still could not bring himself to speak. If only they were home, with the clan, he thought; the Clanmother would have forbidden any such thing.
AFTER SUPPER, THE BLOND PAPILISHON RETURNED FOR HER trainsweep. “We’re so sorry,” she insisted. “After switch-off, it should have lost all memory; we had it retrained completely. But this morning, it ran off again, right in the middle of a busy thoroughfare. It’s unaccountable; we’ll have to ship it back to Valedon, although I doubt they’ll find the defect, as this sort never shows up on inspection. I’ve ordered a new one anyway. But please, let me settle for your inconvenience. A hundred credits to your account? Make that two hundred.”
“Oh no, I couldn’t possibly…” Blackbear reddened with embarrassment. “Inconvenience” was rarely worth money in the Hills.
“Please, I insist. Your inconvenience is worth far more.”
“Well—” He watched the children huddling over the trainsweep. They looked solemn; they would not give it up without a struggle, this time. “You might just leave us the trainsweep,” he offered half-seriously.
Her eyes widened. “Really?” She looked at him with considerable relief. “You’ll see, it works perfectly, aside from its imprinting. Well, I can’t thank you enough. Do let us show you the town, some time.”
“Hooray!” Hawktalon leaped in the air and did a flying somersault. “Come on inside, Doggie; we’ll get you supper.”
He had forgotten, the servo would add to their electric bill, just like the two from Raincloud’s new train.
Raincloud proved unhappy about taking on another electric consumer, even more so about his refusal of two hundred credits.
“But the children,” Blackbear insisted. “It’s their one great toy here.”
“She would have given you both, dear; the servo’s not worth fixing. Well, never mind.” Her eyes narrowed as she watched the trainsweep, which Sunflower now rode upon, maneuvering about the broadened sparring room. “Maybe there’s a ‘sport’ in its network. Funny things happen in servo networks; they’re never trainable to perfection. This might be of interest to someone. I’ll ask Iras.”
That evening Raincloud worked late at her translations. When at last she came to bed, she lay staring pensively at the soft yellow light from the mock window across the room. Blackbear stroked her braids and looked past her.
“You’re still angry.”
“Yes,” he said, but he put his arm around her.
Raincloud sighed. “Verid says Urulan needs a chance to start talking peace.”
“A duel to the death is hardly the way to start.”
“It may be easier for them to talk to me, a foreigner, than to talk with Elysians. Both sides risk less.”
“And what do you risk?”
Raincloud paused. “I don’t know.”
“There you are. Why not stick to your broadcast translations, what you were hired for. By the looks of it, there’s more than enough to keep you busy.”
“It’s all the same, though, all blather about missiles and terraforming. What else would you expect them to broadcast? It’s obvious I wasn’t hired for that.”
“This Sub-Subguardian could have told you up front, before we came.”
“Would we have come?”
“We can still go home.”
“Yes, you could go home—and give up ‘immortality,’ just like that.” Her voice sounded tired, and her eyelids fluttered.
“Of course, I don’t mean that,” he said. “Now that we’re here, we’ll manage. But it’s all so…strange.” He thought of the walls expanding at a command, the doors oozing open, and the holostage on for three days. He shivered down to his toes.
“I miss Tumbling Rock,” Raincloud admitted quietly. “But we came here for good reasons. We can’t just quit.”
Blackbear saw before him his sisters and brothers, and Raincloud’s sisters and brothers, and all of their children, children, children…A hot teardrop rolled out of one eye and fell to the pillow. Then Raincloud’s face loomed over his, kissing away the tears. He pulled her close at the waist, ready to give her the utmost pleasure. That at least brought home closer.
Chapter 6
BLACKBEAR AWOKE WITH A START. THE DREAM HAD come again, the one in which he struggled desperately against the rising floodwaters with Sunflower in his arms. The muddy waves were relentless, tugging at the child like bestial claws. The end of the dream was always the same—the child wrenched out of his arms, floating down into the white-frothed current, just as his youngest brother had done years before; the Dark One claiming her blind sacrifice. And then he awoke.
Across the room, the “window” cast a pallid light, nothing like the ruddy glow of Bronze Sky morning. Raincloud lay asleep, still, her spiral of braids turned toward him. From the kitchen came shuffling noises; the children had risen early.
He dressed quickly and went to the kitchen. Hawktalon looked up from her bowl of ice cream, which she evidently had ordered for herself and her brother. Blackbear had tried to convince the house to ignore Hawktalon’s orders, so far without success. Its program recognized the children as adult occupants, equivalent to their parents. This would have to be fixed somehow; it was on Blackbear’s list for the day.
“Daddy,” asked Hawktalon, “did that Urulite really challenge Mother to the death?”
Blackbear frowned. “Where did you hear that?”
“The reporters outside.”
The night before, they had ordered the house to wall off the holostage by extruding shafts of nanoplast from the ceiling, a less costly alternative to turning it off. Yet even this barrier did not discourage all intruders. Exasperated, he went to the door.
Outside stood three reporters, bending their lamp heads from their tubelike bodies. “We seek the Bronze Skyan translator, Citizen Raincloud Windclan.”
“We’re busy, please.”
“What is the Urulite’s interest here? Is there any connection to the destruction of the Valan freighter?”
“No comment,” he said firmly. “House, please close the door immediately.”
“Yes, Citizen.” As the frame dissolved and the walls oozed together, the house added, “Your fine for closing the door on reporters will be twenty credits for a first offense.”
Raincloud came into the sitting room to make a call at the holostage. Blackbear returned to the kitchen, where he faced his daughter with her half-eaten bowl of i
ce cream. “Listen, Hawk: no more ice cream, do you hear? The next ice cream I see, we’ll send you to the shon.”
Hawktalon felt her stomach. “I’m sick of ice cream, anyway. What’s the shon like, Daddy?”
Taken aback, he said, “Never mind. Go do your exercise.” Then he hauled the old potty seat out of the bathroom. Uncomfortable memories of Hawktalon’s training days returned. He hoped the second child would respond better.
“Okay, Sunny,” Blackbear began. “Time to be a big boy and sit on the potty.”
“No.” Sunflower was busy spilling soap powder on the floor, to watch the scrubber-servos scurry out from the wall and lap it up. This was hardly a promising start.
“Get up, Sunflower!” ordered Hawktalon. “Pull your pants down, and sit on that potty!”
Sunflower looked up, much impressed by this unexpected attention from his older sibling. He tip-toed over and sat on the potty.
“You should offer him a lemon drop,” added Hawktalon. “He’ll do anything for a lemon drop.”
Blackbear looked at her. “Where are you getting lemon drops?” But he already knew the answer. That house would have to get fixed.
Raincloud came back. “Good news. I reached Iras about our runaway trainsweep. She made us an appointment with a Valan specialist to investigate its network. An interesting ‘sport’ might be worth some credits.”
“Good thinking!” said Blackbear. As Raincloud’s arm slipped around his waist, he kissed her, glowing with thoughts of the night before. Then at last he sat down to eat his own much-delayed breakfast. Yet hardly had he ordered his fried eggs when a muffled voice called from the sitting room. “Blackbear? Are you there?”
It was Tulle’s voice, from the walled-off holostage. Embarrassed, Blackbear jumped up and ordered the wall to melt back.
Tulle was at home in her garden with her capuchin nibbling something from her hand. Behind her strolled a couple of three-legged grazing animals which he could not make out. “The lab group is having a party today at the swallowtail pavilion,” she told him. “We’d love for you to come.”
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