“And then what about the sleeper ships?” It was Khafiya, of course. Wanbli turned to her with a hint of a smile.
“You really do care about those ships, in your own way, don’t you? Well, I think once we have trade, my home will be able to absorb a lot more people. Glad to, in fact. Southbay itself has less than one human occupant per five square kilometers. We can’t pay for them, but maybe you won’t need the money so bad in the future.
“You could bring all the sleepers home. All of them.”
He had their attention now. Even the crew of the Commitment stood frozen, attentive. Wanbli called the Protectors to his aid. He summoned the green twilights of home to be his shield. He surrounded his mind with the many-colored, weightless wings of the Elf Darter.
“Still, you can’t make promises for your own nation, let alone the planet,” DeLorca reminded him.
Wanbli laughed. “You still haven’t understood how much I’m asking of you. I’m not trying to sell you the idea of joining your way of life to ours. I’m telling you that together we have to sell them: the Council, the T’chishetti, the entire world.
“With the Wacaan you will have no problems, because we’re by nature gullible. Besides, we’ll be real owners of the station.”
DeLorca’s quick bark of laughter gave way to a very straight face. “Oh. So now we’re giving away everything.”
“No. I said ‘we.’ All of you and me. You will be Wacaan too.”
Garland Medicine-Bear made a choking noise.
“Just like that?” asked DeLorca. “I thought you were all red warriors.”
Wanbli shrugged. “All red, anyway. Until now.” He laughed again. “That was then. This is now.”
Edward Pierce was standing. His normal fairness was blotchy, almost blue, but he seemed to be paying attention. “You said, all the sleepers?”
“That’s exactly it, Eddie.”
Khafiya left DeLorca and touched Pierce’s hand. It was an awkward gesture. “Sleepers,” she said to Wanbli, “do not adjust easily into different society. It could be…”
“Out of the way!”
Ten meters off stood Captain Brezhner, and he had a gun,
which he was trying to aim at Wanbli. Khafiya was off to one side of him, and she shook her head in shocked denial of his intention.
Three, then ten pistols were trained on the Captain, but the Indians were reluctant to begin the firing, which would doubtless end in bloodbath.
Garland, standing off to one side, measured the distance for a leap.
Wanbli thought he could jump fast enough. Perhaps. But here was Victoria Whistocken sliding in front, daring the man to shoot her down, and if Wanbli moved now he surely would shoot…
Less than half a second, and then Edward Pierce flung himself forward off the dais, shouting, “No! No more killing!”
The Captain stepped back, stumbled and shot him.
Neither sleeper nor revivalist moved, numb with horror and surprise. Brezhner stood staring dumbly down at his own crewman. Only Wanbli had the power to go to Edward where he lay on his back, with a neat russet spot spreading over his khakis.
“Eddie?”
Pierce met his eyes.
“Eddie, don’t die. Hey?”
“It’s all right.” Edward was very composed. “I was a fool to be so afraid of it. Of the dark. Of a simple box. Every time…” He took a breath and winced. “Every time I close my eyes it’s darker than that.”
Wanbli pushed the limp hair out of the man’s face. “Yeah. You don’t have to be afraid of dying, but you don’t have to die, either. It’s only the stomach, Eddie. You can survive a shot in the stomach if you really want to. And you have to want to—all kinds of things are going to happen. Look, here’s the medics coming now: they were ready for you.” He let himself be shouldered aside by the technicians.
“Eddie. We can still have good times together. Even after all this. Don’t die, Eddie. You don’t have to.”
Edward’s eyes in the light of the assembly hall were gray-green, like the beautiful sky over Tawlin. They promised nothing, but as Edward was wheeled away, they were still alive and looking at Wanbli.
Victoria was at his shoulder. The crew of the Commitment stood where the last burst of action had left them. Some of them sat down. Everyone else was leaving. Wanbli stood there for a long time.
“What… what’s going on now? I lost track.”
“The big vote,” she told him, and he remembered.
“Oh yeah. That.”
The Sky of Home
To: Wanbli E. Wacaan
c/o Ship Big Ball 660 Pulsar North 137-11
East 489. Sub FTL Progress
From: Tawlin Akelind Hovart,
T’chishett Neunacht, BR. 2-98
Dear ’Bli,
Sweet girl’s gonads, fellow, I only asked you to find out about the station! No complaints, tho. Except you’re a fool to put those rock-headed kinsmen of yours in charge of the most lucrative disturbance our little economy has ever suffered. How will you keep them from getting all fleeced from under them? You won’t, you know. Winners keep winning. Losers keep losing. Together, we could have made it a paying operation.
You say it’s going to need alteration. Let me procure for you what you’ll need. If it’s on the NINETY-EIGHT I can get it. You owe me that much.
Two years, hey? That hard to keep the old boat centered on a string? Still, it’s nine years before we expected the Cynthia model. (We’re trying to sue. With a refund we’d really be in the pink.) Can’t you give your old father figure the exact numbers? I won’t tell anyone. You bet I won’t. Split the profit down the middle.
Oh. Forget that father-figure bit. How in sizzling was I to know I’d upset you with a little joke? I mean, you’re the original stone-face and all that. And anyway, you’re bright enough to be my son. Must be nurture, not nature, after all.
In answer to your questions:
Your damn clan council gave in about your revivalists—out of ignorance, I think. (Nobody who knows anything likes revivalists. Didn’t you know that?) But it is still debating whether a naturalized Wacaan will be eligible for sire- or dam-promotion. Old farts, this council of yours. They want me to be content with one paint. Tapering down, they say. So what if I get squeezed in the taper?
Regarding what’s-her-name—your honey—they might make an exception. If national gov’t leans real hard. Or you could both be T’chishetti. Wouldn’t you like that? We all love you here. Even Rall, sadistic bitch that she is. You could have your valves permanently opened. Be like me.
This doc is going to break me. End.
Tawlin.
Wanbli was still thinking about that letter when the sunlamps shut down. Victoria was watching him idly. “Your people don’t have permanent—uh—connections?”
He stared. His body radiated heat. “Connections? You mean the valves?”
“No. I mean husbands and wives.”
“Oh.” He was very aware of Victoria’s nervousness. “Paints don’t, as a rule. Not all Wacaans are Paints, by any means. But it’s Clan Council that decides who has babies by whom.”
“That’s tyranny,” she stated.
Wanbli flopped his shoulders against the padding in a reclining shrug, leaving Victoria no one to argue with. He considered a few more minutes under the tanner. She stopped his hand as it approached the controls.
“The pills are more effective if you want to keep your color up,” she said.
“This is closer to sunlight, though. I like to imagine I’m home.” He sat up and scratched through his black-red hair. “I’m never warm enough.”
“Pretty hot in Southbay?” She tried to be casual, but Wanbli glanced up sharply.
“Nicely hot. And hotter still up by Tawlin. How about the place you come from?”
“Came from.” She had a small habit of correcting his Old Ang grammar, not knowing the mistakes were on purpose. “Wyoming is not really a tropical climate.” He was still staring
. “But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t… get used to the heat, Wanbli. Don’t worry.”
“Oh, I’m long past worrying,” he replied sincerely and took her hand in his.
Wanbli Elf Darter SON OF DAMASC Branch-of-Flame
c/o Ship Big Ball
660 Pulsar North Merid. 99-02
East 406
Hovart Clan Council
Hovart, T’chishett Neunacht, BR. 2-98
Wanbli
We have received your poetry and have recited it aloud in Council and now must consider it. It is not objectionable but you must not think of it as alternative morning salute. You may make us station-keepers. You may make us wealthy. You may free us of our servitude to the goldmen. But you cannot make us change what is basic to our people.
After long debate, we have decided to award you sire-promotion. This is not to be interpreted as an endorsement of all your actions of the past year. If this Whistocken woman is found unobjectionable, there will be no problem with acceptance.
Mychael Irradiate
Chief of Council
Wanbli rattled and rippled the uncreasable gram-foil. Sire-promotion. Though he’d expected it (demanded it, truth be told) it felt good. He only wondered how he would explain to the medics the valves that were already wide open. He’d think of something.
His smile began softly, reminiscently, but after a few moments it blossomed into a smirk.
Out of the black and shining vault,
The black void, the shining night,
To the golden mother, painted with light,
We were born out of the belly of our father
To the grace of two mothers,
Bright beads on the Strings.
We are like all others who live.
We are Wacaan.
We are the big ones.
We are the small.
We live ten thousand years.
We live a day.
Our lives are a single learning.
We are those who remain people.
We are Wacaan.
We are outlaws and we are presidents,
Teachers, saints and whores to worlds,
Defenders and betrayers at one stroke,
We are Wacaan.
I invoke the six directions upon this morning.
I invoke all life-giving suns.
I invoke the moons and their little sister, our guardian,
Who is my own little sister.
We are of the people of the sky. We are Wacaan.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
R. A. MacAvoy is a winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Among her novels are Tea with the Black Dragon, The Grey Horse, and three novels—Damiano, Damiano’s Lute, and Raphael—that are published under the titled Trio for Lute. She lives in northern California, where she is at work on her next novel, The Lens of the World.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1989 by R.A. MacAvoy
Cover design by Open Road Integrated Media
ISBN 978-1-4976-0261-8
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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