“Before we go, ma’am,” Riki spoke up. She’d had enough of being treated like an idiot. “I wonder if you can tell us what you’d make of the tracks. Just for reference.”
Tanya shot a quizzical glance at her and then frowned at the ground. “Like Jackson said. A mother spadehorn with offspring. I’d put the time at a few hours ago, around dawn.”
“Really?” Riki let a pointed edge creep into her tone and she received a sharper stare from Tanya in response.
“Is there something you want to add?”
Riki pursed her lips and shook her head with blatant insincerity. “No, ma’am.”
“Come on, Private Sadiq. Let’s have your thoughts.” Tanya’s tone was now challenging.
Riki shrugged, crouched by the tracks, and pointed. “It’s not a mother and offspring. Look here. The bigger animal. The front hoof marks are deeper than the back. It’s got a lot of weight on its shoulders. That’s a sign of a male. The prints are more even for the other one.” Riki estimated the size with her fist. “I’d say it was a young female. Three years old. Probably coming into season for the first time this spring.”
She took a pinch of soil from the edge of one hoofprint and rubbed it between finger and thumb. “The dew has soaked in, so the female came through well before dawn, and the edges are starting to crumble, so the time was about yesterday sunset. The male was a short while after. Its tracks are always on top. It’s following, and I can guess what it has on its mind. It would only be dangerous if you were another male spadehorn.”
Riki stood up and brushed the soil off her hands. “At least, ma’am, that’s what I’d have made of it. But you’re the corporal, and I’m sure you were right.”
While Riki had been speaking, Tanya’s expression had shifted between surprise and awkwardness, but with the final gibe it changed again to anger. The silence was broken by a faint snigger from one of the teenagers, quickly smothered. A noticeable flush darkened Tanya’s cheeks and her eyes narrowed. Riki fought to keep any trace of smugness from her face, but it felt good to have shown up the captain’s daughter.
Tanya’s lips compressed in a thin line and she drew a sharp breath. “So. You’re a wilderness expert?”
“Not really. But my gene mother was a fur trapper.” Riki shrugged. “I picked up a few things from her.”
*
The arrow thudded into the straw target, no more that a hand’s span from the center. Riki lowered her bow, smiling. She could not have picked a better time to turn in one of her best displays at archery. The score was close to her all-time record, and far better than anything the teenagers had managed.
Tanya stood to one side, marking down the results. Her face showed neither approval nor surprise. “Okay, Private Sadiq. That will do. We’re finished here. Go and collect the arrows.”
Riki felt a flare of anger. Do?
“What was my score, ma’am?” Riki knew the answer, but wanted to hear Tanya confirm it.
“Four hundred and six. It’s acceptable.” Tanya’s tone was neutral. She started to walk away.
Riki looked at her feet while composing her features. Two hundred and fifty was the standard for archery in the Rangers. Anything over four hundred should count as excellent, and even on a bad day, Riki scored well above average. Early training in hunting had given her that.
Riki lifted her head and addressed Tanya’s back. “I’m sure it’s nowhere close to what you could do, ma’am.”
Tanya looked back sharply. For a moment she met Riki’s eyes, acknowledging the challenge, but then merely tilted her head, as if agreeing. “Maybe. But my archery skills aren’t what we’re here to assess.”
“Well, before we go, perhaps you’d like to give us a display, ma’am. Just so we know what sort of level is expected.”
Tanya’s eyes narrowed in anger. “Two hundred and fifty is the regulation standard. Which you should know. You’ve passed. You don’t need a display from me.”
“But it would be nice, ma’am. Since I know you could do so much better than me.” Riki kept her tone innocent.
Off to one side, the teenagers stood uneasily, clearly sensing the confrontation underlying the words. Tanya made as if to walk away again and Riki felt a glow of triumph. The overrated corporal could not match her score and knew it. But then, Tanya turned back abruptly and held out her hand for Riki’s bow.
“Let me borrow that.”
Caught by surprise, Riki was slow to respond. Tanya all but snatched the bow from Riki’s hands, then pulled six arrows from a quiver on the rack, stuck them through her belt and went to stand at the mark.
Once her surprise had faded, Riki stood back, arms crossed. She was delighted to have drawn Tanya into a direct contest and eager to see how well she would do. And Tanya would have to do very well indeed to justify the dismissal of a four hundred plus score as merely acceptable.
Tanya’s back was toward Riki, her face visible only in oblique profile. The archer’s pose emphasized her slim, well-balanced build. Riki’s gaze ran over her in appraisal. There was no denying that the packaging was nicely put together, but looks were not at issue. The grin on Riki’s face widened.
Without bothering to fit a bracer to her arm, Tanya nocked the first arrow and raised the bow. In rapid succession, she put all six arrows into the center of the target. Riki felt the smile freeze on her face. Her best shooting had been made to look feeble.
Tanya lowered the bow but remained in position for a few seconds, staring at the target, then she turned and dropped the bow back in Riki’s hands.
Tanya’s eyes again met Riki’s, but this time with a sardonic glint. “My gene mother is the best archer in Westernfort. I’ve picked up a few things from her.”
*
Riki pushed open the tavern door and strolled in, happy to leave the miserable rain outside. The atmosphere in the taproom was lively. A fire burned in the hearth, adding to the lantern light. The twin scents of beer and wood smoke filled the room. Voices made a constant hubbub, overlain by the occasional laugh. Riki made her way to the bar and ordered beer.
With her drink in her hand, Riki faced the room and looked for somewhere to sit. The tavern was busy, but there were still plenty of options. After four days in Westernfort, Riki was starting to recognize faces, but there was no one she could call a friend. Then she saw three of her patrol comrades around a busy table at the side of the room.
Riki took a half step before spotting Tanya there as well. Of course, she would be with them, Riki derided herself. She had already discovered that Tanya was well liked and an essential part of any social gathering.
Riki slunk off to a space in a dark corner. As she crossed the room she caught snatches of a dozen conversations, some flippant, some intense, reflecting the daily patterns in the lives of the townsfolk. The tavern was the heart of the community.
Once settled, with her tankard on the table before her, Riki stared at the group Tanya was with. Apart from Rangers, several other women were present. The smiles told of friendly gossip and good humor, a band of friends relaxing after work and enjoying each other’s company.
Riki’s gaze shifted away and fixed on her drink. She’d had no friends in Ginasberg. Few children her age had lived there, and most wanted nothing to do with the town’s bad girl. The few who were not scared off by her reputation had been forbidden to associate with her by their parents, especially after Beth’s arm had been broken.
Westernfort had been her chance to make a new start, to put it all behind her. Riki’s lips tightened in a line. As if that could be possible with her unerring instinct for a foul up. Again she looked at Tanya, who was laughing and chatting. Tanya was good looking, and easy in company. She had a wide circle of friends, a loving family, and her mother was captain. She was clearly the center of attention. And Riki was back on the outside again.
Chapter Three—The New Corporal
Tanya put down her drink before she spilled any and then continued laughing with the rest. The sag
a of Dani’s lost glove was getting sillier by the minute, aided by various interjections from around the table.
“So who do you think had a hand in it?”
“She doesn’t think it was a hand. That’s what’s so worrying.”
Tanya leaned forward, about to add her own comment, when she caught sight of Private Rikako Sadiq on the other side of the tavern. The new addition to the patrol was doing nothing, just sitting alone, staring somberly at her tankard, but the sight was enough to put a dent in Tanya’s happy mood. The twinge of irritation was followed swiftly by even less comfortable emotions. Tanya turned back to her friends, but her thoughts stayed with Rikako.
The initial antagonism between them was not fading. If anything, the reverse was happening, but it should not be an issue. No rule said that everyone in a patrol had to like each other. Tanya knew all she had to do was be fair and ensure that patrol morale was not affected. All Rikako had to do was obey orders. Yet it did not feel so simple.
Niggling self-doubts picked at Tanya’s thoughts. Her promotion had been little more than a month before. Twenty-two was young to become a corporal. Everyone assured her that she deserved the rank, and it had nothing to do with her mother. But in her own heart, Tanya was unconvinced. Perhaps there had been no direct manipulation, but were people expecting her to become a second Chip Coppelli? And did the force behind her hostility to Rikako come from hearing her own fears voiced aloud?
Tanya chewed her lip. Maybe she had let the taunts get under her skin, but Rikako Sadiq had clearly taken an instant dislike to her and seemed intent on stirring up ill will between them. It might become a serious problem. Gerry Baptiste had briefed Tanya on the new recruit’s record. Tanya was amazed she had been allowed to join the Rangers in the first place, let alone remain. On past performance, Rikako might well do something stupid and potentially dangerous.
Should she discuss the matter with her mothers? They were both Rangers, with experience of command. They must have dealt with troublesome subordinates in the past. Maybe they could offer advice. Tanya pushed the idea aside. If she was to justify her rank, she could not go running to Mommy every time she had a problem. She had accepted the promotion. She had to do the job.
Tanya took a mouthful of beer and tried to force her mind back onto the tale of Dani’s glove.
*
Sergeant Baptiste strode into the barrack room. “Okay. We’ve got our orders.”
Lunch had just finished, and archery practice was scheduled for that afternoon. Riki had been taking her bow from her locker. She glanced over her shoulder. Around the room, the Rangers stopped their preparations and looked expectantly at the sergeant, waiting for her to continue. Riki put her bow back and shut the locker door.
“We’ve been put on the southern marches. The weather is looking good and the snow has gone from the passes. We leave at dawn tomorrow. You’ve got this afternoon to ready your kit. Inspection is a half hour before sunset, in the stable. Any questions?”
There were none. The announcement had been expected for days. Everyone knew the rotation was due to go out, watching for trouble from the guards and meeting any heretics who were fleeing the Homelands. They would be away for four months. The only question had been over which section of the Wildlands 2B Patrol would cover.
Baptiste nodded. “Get to it.”
The Rangers made a general move outside, heading along the path to the lower valley. Riki followed at the rear, but after a few dozen meters, her footsteps slowed and then stopped. Her kit was in good order. It was a lesson from her gene mother. You never knew when a crisis might hit, and alone in the wilds, nobody would come to your aid. Your equipment was what could save your life and you kept it in nothing less than perfect condition.
Riki knew her routine maintenance was better than for most others in the patrol. Maybe they needed half a day to get ready. She did not.
Riki turned toward the kitchens. A family of moggies lived there, and the mother had just given birth. By the time she returned, the litter of young would no longer be kittens. Riki wanted to say good-bye before she left.
*
The tawny colored kitten pounced on the straw, missed, tripped, and rolled into one of the others. It then decided that its sibling’s tail was more fun and chewed that instead. Riki laughed and tapped the second kitten on its rump with the straw, thus claiming the attention of both. They scrabbled after the lure. A third kitten joined in, but this one ignored the straw and went straight for Riki’s hand.
Riki pried its small teeth off her fingers. Luckily, the saber fangs were not yet grown and had not broken her skin. She grasped the small body around the ribs and lifted it up level with her face. The kitten chirped at her.
“You don’t want to bite me. It would make you ill.”
The kitten chirped again and tried to reach her nose. Riki put it back with its siblings. The mother was lazing nearby. It yawned, revealing the adult fangs that certainly would break human skin. However, the older moggy was wise enough not to try. Riki reached over and scratched its head.
The moggies were small versions of mountain cats, and as with their bigger relatives, humans were poisonous to them. The cat that attacked Beth could not have eaten her, but it was straight out of hibernation, groggy and starving. It must have pounced on the first moving thing it saw. Unfortunately for all, this happened to be Beth. Usually the animals’ sense of smell warned them off. A healthy cat only attacked women or farm animals when provoked. No doubt it would have realized its mistake, but only after Beth was dead.
Animals could be divided into two mutually poisonous groups. Apart from the lethal effect of eating anything from the other group, the main distinction was that one group reproduced by the interaction of males and females, and the other was exclusively female and reproduced by the healer sense—the psychic ability possessed by some women. In the case of farm stock this took the form of cloning. For humans, the skills of an imprinter were needed.
In the Homelands temples, the Sisters taught that the reason for the two distinct groups had to do with souls. According to their doctrine, all unique creatures had souls. Imprinters, by the sanctified power of the Goddess Celaeno, were blessed sufficiently with the healer sense to step inside the DNA of a cloned embryonic cell and imprint new sequences, taken from the mother’s partner. Thus, humans were unique and had souls that went to Celaeno after the body died. Since it would be sacrilege to eat anything with a soul, farm animals were simply cloned, requiring a far lesser degree of ability with the healer sense.
However, the cloners could not get near to wild animals, nor were there enough to cover all the wilderness, so these animals had been given a non-divine method of procreation. However, the combining of male and female DNA meant that each individual was genetically unique. To remove the temptation of eating something with a soul, the Goddess had made wild animals poisonous to humans.
Riki fixed her eyes on the moggies. The trouble was, when you looked at it with the benefit of the heretics’ skepticism, the Sisters’ explanation made no sense. There was no reason for male moggies; anyone could touch them, cloners included. Riki stroked the mother again. And what was the point of cloned livestock being poisonous to the cats? Why were predators allowed to eat other wild animals, including their souls? Yet if it was okay for snow lions to eat fenbucks, why was it wrong for dogs?
The heretics’ explanation had fewer holes. The heretics claimed that humans and all their livestock had originally come from another planet. This world was thus alien to their biology. Much of the vegetation was edible for the imported animals (although not all; spadehorns and fenbucks happily grazed on plants that would poison cows or sheep) but the complex animal chemistry of each group contained elements that were deadly to the other.
Furthermore, the heretics claimed that the off-world species had also originally had two sexes, but the males had been unable to survive on the alien planet. The healer sense had been engineered into people so that they could con
tinue to reproduce without need of two sexes. According to the heretics, the colonists were able to do this because they possessed such astoundingly advanced science that it allowed them to redesign life forms—a science that had now been lost.
As a final sacrilege, the heretics said that the Goddess Celaeno herself was no more than misremembered folktales of the ship the colonists had built, using their science, to carry them between the stars.
Riki frowned. Since arriving in Ginasberg, she had made a point of maintaining the worship of Celaeno, but she was no longer sure if she truly believed. She had blamed the heretics for destroying her home and had decided that she would have nothing to do with their ideas. Refusing to give credence to the beliefs had also been one more thing she could argue with her mother about—not that there had ever been a shortage of topics.
The memory made Riki’s frown deepen. Now that they were no longer living in the same town, it was easy to see how many of her words and actions had been prompted by a desire to upset her mother. It was immature and definitely not a good way to plan out her life.
Maybe she should make a start by reconsidering her ideas about Celaeno, because the heretics’ version of things explained the moggies very nicely. According to the heretics, moggies were an indigenous species that had been domesticated so they could catch the vermin that would otherwise infest the grain stores. They had to be a native species so they would not be poisoned by what they caught, and therefore they had males.
Riki looked at the male moggy, and for a moment toyed with the idea of human males. How would they look? And what would it feel like to meet one? Riki thought about the spadehorn tracks, the male pursuing the female. When out with her gene mother she had seen various examples of wild animals’ mating behavior. It was always dependent on the time of year, and scent generally played a large part.
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