by Eric Flint
“Ah,” said the captain, “And when and how is this done?”
“Either at the time of the service, or a time of the warlord’s choosing, or for great and signal services, in front of the clan, at the Tide of the Dead. Oh, and because Na’kalauf is a very traditional culture, such gifts are usually made in gold coin. Na’kalauf doesn’t hold with banks or credits.”
Captain Pausert pulled a face. “There goes another plan.”
Me’a looked at Captain Pausert with just the slightest hint of a smile about her face. She never showed much on that poker face, so that was a lot. “I am, as it happens, transporting quite a lot of gold, as I was returning there. Some I have an immediate need for. But having operated in the wider world I would sell some and take payment in a bank draft of Imperial maels. As long as it was transaction with a bank I could trust.”
“Like the Daal’s bank on Uldune?” said Pausert.
“Why, that is my own banker,” said Me’a. “I think I could trust them.”
The Leewit, Goth and Captain all looked suspiciously at her. It was the Leewit who spoke first, though. “You trying to pull some kind of stunt, Me’a?”
“Actually, no. For a start I think that would be foolish. I was given very explicit instructions—and a warning about what could happen otherwise—about giving you as much assistance as possible, by the Daal of Uldune. In person, by subradio. That doesn’t happen…except it did. My job as much as anything was always to be a step ahead of the Imperial authorities, to anticipate their moves. Anticipation is what I am good at. I guessed you would not know the traditions of Na’kalauf. I worked out that the gold might be useful. Besides, I wasn’t going to leave it on Cinderby’s World.”
The Leewit looked at Pausert. “Captain?”
He nodded. “Consider it done, little one. The Venture owes some of her wealth to your pack of cards.”
“And,” said Goth, “Karres kind of owes him too. So do the Illtraming, although collecting might involve going back there. But from Karres’ point of view I have about half a million maels in my purse. If you’ll take cash that is, Me’a.”
“Half a million!” exclaimed the captain.
Goth shrugged. “It started at a quarter, but a few people tried stupid stuff on me.”
“I would accept cash,” said Me’a. “Without trying any stupid stuff. There is also the matter of my own debt to the Leewit. I have been thinking about that. I am still free of pain. I am…”
“You and me are going to have a talk about that,” said the Leewit. “Soon.”
Me’a’s normal poker face showed dismay. “You mean…it’s not cured?”
“You are,” said the Leewit. “But it’s kind of more about what you said about this ailment being common on Na’kalauf.”
She grimaced. “It’s not common. It happens, though. As far as we know—knew—it was untreatable.”
“It’s treatable. Doesn’t even need me. But I have access to memories of healers going back all the way to old Yarthe. They’d never seen it elsewhere.”
“The cure would be of huge value to our people. Killing the child, and then parents killing themselves afterward, is the only way out right now. I was very late onset. It was expected I would kill myself.”
“Yeah. It’s kind of about that late onset,” said the Leewit, reaching into her shirt and pulling out her pet rochat. “You had one of these as a pet, didn’t you?” The animal squirmed free and jumped across to Goth.
“Yes. It died when I was young. I remember the fur making me sneeze, but I was very fond of it,” said Me’a. “You mean the disease comes from them?”
“Nope. It’s not strictly a disease. Complicated stuff, to do with your genes. In a way having one of these, making you sneeze…stops the body attacking its nervous system. Kind of like having little fights with your sister,” she looked at Goth, stroking the rochat. “Stops you having big fights with someone else. When your rochat died, the disease had nothing to stop it.”
Me’a sat there, her lips pursed. Then she made a little ksck noise and the rochat—which had been investigating Goth’s ear, leapt off her shoulder and bounded over to Me’a. Me’a sat there in her chair, stroking it. There were tears quietly trickling down her face. Eventually she said, “I loved my little Sklar very much. When she died, I said I would never let myself get that close to another animal.”
She took a deep breath. “To think I just left Cinderby’s World because the business opportunities declined. I may have to go back. But I have sufficient contacts…they breed there, particularly in the tunnels. Strange that they should have such an effect.”
“Yeah,” said the Leewit with a very odd smile, the kind of smile that always made Pausert wary. “Very, very strange.”
“In the meantime,” he said, “we have a world down there, and I still need to know where I am setting you down.”
“The ever-practical Captain Pausert,” said Me’a. “I’ll give you the coordinates later—we’re on the wrong side of Na’kalauf at the moment. If you set me down, my guards can take a trade boat to their own Nuii. Then you can take Ta’zara to his Nuii. It’s relatively close—two days’ paddling. It’s a little faster by rocket ship. Come, Pa’leto. I think it is time we packed our things. We will be home soon.”
The guards said something to each other in their own language, and looked at her. She gave them a wry smile. “My men would like to respectfully buy passage to Ta’zara’s Nuii after they finish their contract, bringing me home. They claim that it will be easier sailing. It’s not that they wish to be there, to hear Ta’zara sing his brothers home, so they can say they were there. Not at all.” She shook her head. “So, Captain. Can we save you fuel? I am so kind. I will take a trading vessel home, and retain my men as guards until then.”
“And we’ll buy some of your gold off you, so you have less to guard. Just as kind,” said Goth. “You’ve been getting into bad company without me around, Captain,” she said, looking at Me’a.
Me’a laughed. “I was going to say ‘you have no idea,’ but given that Sedmon of the Six Lives wears a special cap to prevent the powers of the witches of Karres, I will merely say, ‘Yes, Your Wisdom, he has.’ And leave it at that.” She turned her eyes to her guards. “Can we go? I have things to prepare.”
As soon as the captain heard her cabin door shut, he turned to the Leewit who was feeding salty seaweed crisps to the rochat that had returned to her from Me’a’s lap. It was not sure it liked them. “Just what did you mean by ‘very, very, strange’? I noticed. I’ve learned to notice. There was salt in the sugar last time.”
The Leewit stuck out her tongue. “I haven’t done anything for ages. All this being responsible. But it is strange. The rochat…it gave Goth a disease too. The temperature she had. It might even have fixed her…possibly. If she hadn’t just clumping well come down the Egger Route. But it helped. And I found it gave Me’a a kind of treatment too. That was also working, except she wouldn’t normally let them near her. And Nady…that drug he was using should’ve killed him. Only he got a bug from his rochat. It’s something that needs a rochat to host it—but it helps the people that catch it from the rochat.”
“Pretty good bug. Good for all that ails you.”
“Yeah. Except for one thing. It’s not the same bug every time. Somehow the rochat is making some kind of variation, depending on what’s wrong. I’m not saying it does everything, but I tested it once I figured it out. It might make you sick, but it’s helping your body deal with things that’d kill you otherwise. Diseases just don’t work like that. There is something very strange about these little animals.”
“Very, very strange indeed.”
“Yeah. And that’s not all that is strange. When I look inside Tippi…she’s more like the tumbleflowers than people. I mean, like really alien.”
“Yes?”
“Really alien doesn’t have bugs that can live easily in humans. It just…” she rolled her eyes. “I haven’t even got the w
ords for all this yet! It doesn’t work like that. Just like the Melchin plant could sort of live in humans, but not breed.”
“It does sound like it could still be useful to the people with Me’a’s condition.”
“Pretty much fix it if they’re young when they get the rochats, and keep them. A good deal for the rochats. But that’s not all that’s odd. I asked Nady. He said rochats had always been around on Cinderby’s World. So I did some looking up of stuff. I kind’ve leaned on that detective inspector to let me look into the history vault. And yeah, in the reports, real early records record three animals. The tumbleflowers, the porpentiles and the rochats.”
“Maybe that’s where they come from. You said they were like the tumbleflowers on the inside, at the cellular level.”
“Yeah. Quite like. But…here’s the thing, Captain. What did they eat? I mean this little girl is really a greedy-guts, but they all eat. And Cinderby’s World has got nothing else.”
That was true enough. Cinderby’s World was effectively a pretty good place for tumbleflowers or porpentiles and not much else. “Must have come with one of the early spacers, I suppose.”
“Could be. But you know what else is weird? That cloth Goth was wrapped in—that’s rochat hair. I’ve been trying to find out where else they could come from. And it looks like Cinderby’s World or the Iradalia system.”
The captain’s klatha gambler’s prickle was raising the hair on his neck. There had to be a tie between all of these worlds. But before he could think much more about it, one of Me’a’s bodyguards brought a set of coordinates for their landing. He also brought something that probably wasn’t much use elsewhere that spaceships landed—a set of tide tables.
Calculating off those the Venture had about ten hours to reach her landing spot, and a further six hours before the first small returning tidal water would come into the lagoon around Ta’zara’s home village. With six moons, tides on Na’kalauf were complicated…and huge. The water would drop by nearly the full length of the Venture, standing on her tail fins. They really didn’t want to get the tide chart wrong.
The captain set the Venture down as lightly as a feather on the vast expanse of white sand around the feathery green trees of the little island. There was still water in the lagoon, but it clung to the edges of the reef, and there was plenty of near-flat beach to land on. There were two other ships there, too, and another set down a few minutes later. But what really struck the captain as he brought the Venture gently to rest was the line of people on the shoreline. Watching.
“They wait to see who has come home,” said Ta’zara, heavily.
“Uh. Do they know?” asked the captain. “I mean about the Megair Cannibals.”
“I sent word. They know.”
CHAPTER 16
The Leewit had spent a fair part of the ten hours successfully convincing her bodyguard that she was asleep, and instead sitting and talking to Me’a, learning a lot more about Na’kalauf, the clans, the honor code, the oaths, and just how everything worked on Ta’zara’s homeworld.
She’d clarified a small misunderstanding right at the start. Me’a had suggested she needed a translator, and the Leewit had been able to explain this was not the case, with a fine display of bad words that had Me’a’s two bodyguards struggling to keep straight faces.
“Do you know what you just said to me?” asked Me’a.
“Yes,” said the Leewit, smiling in a way that would have made the captain careful—but Me’a was not yet quite so experienced. “And I can say some more, if you like.” And did.
Me’a sat very still in her chair. And then started to smile. “Do you know how long it is since anyone last called me rude names, at least to my face?” she said in the language of Na’kalauf.
The Leewit sat down and answered in the same language. “A long time, I guess. They didn’t want to upset you, because you were crippled, and then, later, because they were too scared to.”
“I preferred the latter,” said Me’a, the smile vanishing.
“Yeah. I figured. But you don’t get either from me.”
“I am still adjusting to that. I am…not used to it.”
“Yeah. You’re kind of used to being the cleverest, most dangerous and frightening person around,” said the Leewit. “But I didn’t come to talk about you. I need know about the Tide of the Dead, and what I gotta do for Ta’zara. Because it needs doing right.”
“I would be glad to help.” She looked at the two guards. “In fact, I think we would be honored to help. If you two can stop laughing.”
That actually made them worse. But they both bowed, and when the first of the two managed to control himself, said that they too would be honored. So the Leewit acquired a lot of background about how the clans of the sea peoples worked, and just what she had to do.
* * *
The Leewit went along with Ta’zara to greet his clan elders in the Nuii, to be introduced as the one to whom he had sworn his highest oath, committing himself—and them, if he failed—to defend her. She greeted them—as only the Leewit with her klatha gift of languages could—as if she came from Na’kalauf. That was something of a surprise, plainly, a welcome one, but… The clan had known of the deaths of the squad, but it had been made fresh and raw by Ta’zara’s returning alone. So after the politenesses had been done, she stood up, and turned to Ta’zara.
“Warrior. I give you leave to remain and speak with your kin. I am honored to have met your clan.”
One of the old women got up. “You will honor us by joining us at the feast of the living and the dead?”
The Leewit had had this explained to her. “Yes,” she said. “My warrior has no comrades to recount his deed and battles. As his Ta’taimi, even though I am not of the sea people, I claim the right to do so.”
There was a collective “ah!” at that, and two of the other elders got up and escorted her back to the Venture.
“That went very well,” said Me’a.
“How did you know?” asked the Leewit.
“Your escort. If it had gone badly you would not have had one; if it had been so-so, one young man or woman. Good, one elder. Very well, another. You got three: the war counsel, and the old war chief and his brother. Anyway, you said the right things. I am more practiced at reading their faces than you are.”
“How do you know?” asked the Leewit. “You were back here. I could have called them tree-bollems with unhappy rumbly tummies for all you know.”
“Spy ray,” Me’a said cheerfully.
“Huh. You’ve got a fat cheek. So: Can we see what’s going on with Ta’zara and the clan?”
Me’a raised an eyebrow, but flipped out a screen from the arm of the wheelchair.
* * *
In the twilight the same three elders came to fetch the Leewit, along with Ta’zara. The captain thought he looked tired and strained, but that was not really surprising. The rest of them had to remain back on the beach away from where piles of dry branches were being piled for the feast fires. “When they have recounted the deeds of their living and the dead, someone will be sent to call us to the feast,” explained Me’a. She sniffed loftily. “The food won’t be as good as that of my Nuii, of course.”
Darkness fell on the atoll. Na’kalauf’s sun sank into the sea, and the last redness of it faded behind the dark bulk of the island. The white sand was dim in the starlight. By strict instruction there was not as much as an atomic lamp burning in the ships. The only sound was the distant surf breaking on the outer reef.
And then, somewhere, a lonely trumpetlike sound started. It was enough, the captain found, to start the hair on the back of his neck standing up. The horn call got faster and louder.
“The war call. They call the spirits of dead warriors back across the reef,” explained one of Me’a’s bodyguards, quietly.
Then there was silence again. And then a single drum beating. Then a second, and then more, and more, and more, as the fires on the dry sands of the lagoon were kindled
. “Each family beats the drum for their own dead, answering the call. When a Nuii has no one to answer…then its dead are forgotten. Lost. Now, they are home. Now the warriors will sing, and the honor feast will be prepared. Ta’zara must sing for his lost brothers. He will give what tokens he has of them to the lagoon, so they may watch over it. It is hard because he has little from their last battles, and he did not see them fall.”
“Well, at least he doesn’t have to tell them about them getting eaten,” said Goth.
Me’a laughed. “That wouldn’t worry them. The sea people used to eat their enemies too, you see. These days it doesn’t happen much. But it was only cowardly enemies who were not fit to eat. In case you caught the taint from the meat,” explained Me’a.
“No wonder he dealt with the Megair Cannibals so well,” said Goth darkly.
“Hush. Your little sister has just stood up and claimed the right to speak for the living.”
* * *
In the circle of firelight the Leewit felt very alone, standing up in front of all these people she didn’t know. She wasn’t used to making pretty speeches. Giving them a nice collection of insults in bad language was more what she was used to. Then she realized that Ta’zara had gotten to his feet too, and was standing there, still her bodyguard for life, still the man who had reached through his own breaking to try to defend her. This was as needed as fixing broken bones or bleeding wounds, which was what she did. She was a healer. She could do that well. She could do this well. She had to.
So without embellishment she told some of the adventures in dealing with the Megair Cannibals. She told of his fight with the Melchin’s mind-controlled thugs and how he fought, although he was injured and wounded and saved her and her sister. She described in great detail his fight and conquest of Gwarrr the great eater, the Megair Cannibal chief, and his taking control and leadership of the Megair fleet, where he expected to die.
