A Liaden Universe Constellation: Volume I

by Sharon Lee

  “And after he is healed,” Gineah—shrewd Gineah—murmured, “he will be returned to the tent of his wife.”

  The Scout considered her. “The grandmother knows better than that, I think,” she murmured. “Between the erifu of the Sanilithe and the erifu of we who are not the Sanilithe, there is a . . . disharmony. We are each correct, in our way, but not in the way of the other.”

  In her basket, Kisam awoke and began to cry, and Arika rose to go to her. Slade watched them for a moment, then looked back to the Scout.

  “It is possible,” he said to her bland and subtle eyes, “that the addition of a third erifu will balance the disharmony and allow health to bloom.”

  She raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

  Slade leaned forward. “Take this tent to the sea. I will give you a message for my mother and my sisters.” And for Scout Headquarters, he thought.

  “The sea will not aid you. It—” The Scout frowned, looked to Gineah. “Grandmother, I apologize for the breach of courtesy, but I must speak to Slade in the tongue of his mother’s tent.”

  Gineah moved a hand. “Speak, then.”

  Yet, having gained her permission, the Scout did not at once speak, and when she did, she spoke the language of home as slowly as if it, too, were uneasy on her tongue.

  “I had seen your log, and your determination to gain the sea, were you turned out. Not a bad plan, in truth, Pilot, excepting only that this world lacks those things which your body must have in sufficient quantity to sustain you. I have done the scans and can show you the results. Those who are born to this world, they have adjusted to the lowered levels and function—as you see. You, who were bred upon a world rich in nutrient—you can only sicken here, and die.”

  So, then. Slade took a breath. “Our daughter will die soon. A few days, now.”

  Comprehension lit the Scout’s bland eyes. “You have been giving the child your supplements.”

  “What would you?” he said irritably, the words feeling all odd angles in his mouth. He sighed. “If I must go, then, allow them to come. My wife, she is—a Healer of a sort, and frail. Perhaps home will heal her, too.”

  The Scout paused, head to one side . . .

  “Slade.” Arika was back at his side, Kisam in her arms. “What does this woman say?”

  “She says that the sea will not aid us.”

  Arika frowned. “The sea? What do the Sanilithe have to do with the sea?”

  “I thought that the erifu of the sea might bring the child of our tent to health, and myself.”

  She bent her head, her hair falling forward to shroud their child. “The little bottle,” she whispered. “It is almost empty?”

  He reached out and stroked the hair back from her face. “You knew?”

  “I woke in the night and saw you give—it is a medicine from your mother’s tent, isn’t it? She shares the erifu of your blood.”

  “Yes,” he whispered, stroking her hair. “Arika—come with me to my mother’s tent.” From the corner of his eye, he saw the Scout start, but she held her tongue. He knew the regs forbade just what he proposed. Damn the regs.

  Arika raised her head, showing him a face wet with tears. “And then I will die, sooner than my gift would eat me.”

  He glanced to the Scout, saw her incline her head, very slightly, and lost her face in the wash of tears. He bent forward and gathered his heart into his arms.

  “Arika . . .”

  “No. Slade.” Her arms tightened, then loosened, as she pulled away. “You must take our child, make her strong, so that she may do the work of our tent—and yours.” She reached to his face, smoothing away the tears with cold fingers.

  “It is the trail, hunter. The only trail that is given.”

  He stared at her, unable to speak. She rose, and he did—Gineah and the Scout, as well.

  Arika held their daughter out; he took the small burden, numbly.

  “Commend me to your mother,” Arika whispered, then spun and was gone, out of their tent and into the night.

  He moved, meaning to go after her—and found Gineah before him. “I will look after her, Slade. Go, now.”

  In his arms, his daughter whimpered. He looked down at her, and then to the Scout, standing patient and silent by the fire.

  “It is time, then. My daughter and I are ready.”