Amid the Crowd of Stars
Page 5
An elderly, nearly bald man came through the open, curtained door at the back of the shopfront, beyond which Ichiko could hear other people talking as well as the sounds of heavy cutlery striking wood. The apron the man wore was smeared with blood and other stains that Ichiko was glad she couldn’t recognize. He wiped his hands on the filthy cloth as he entered. Neither one was improved by the effort.
“Ah, yeh must be that Dr. Aguilar from First Base,” he said to Ichiko, ignoring Saoirse standing at the counter. “Good to actually meet yeh. I’m Arthur Hearns, the proprietor here.” He started to extend his hand to her, then drew it back ruefully. “I forgot; yeh can’t actually touch us. I’m afraid Minister Plunkett didn’t tell me to expect yeh. Have yer ship’s cooks decided they need fresh meat? We have the absolute best there is.”
Ichiko shook her head and managed a smile. “I’m afraid not,” she said. “I was just chatting with Saoirse Mullin on the quay. She’s your customer, not me.”
“Ah. Saoirse, good to see you again.” His words were friendly enough, but there wasn’t much enthusiasm in them. “Yer here for that order, then.”
“I am,” Saoirse told him.
“I’m sorry, but t’ain’t ready just yet,” the man answered.
“Then can yer clanmates get started on it now?” Saoirse asked. “Rí Angus is leaving at Low Twelfth, and we may not be back for another three or four cycles since the bluefins are running lately.”
The man’s lips twisted in what might have been an attempt at a smile. He wiped his hands on the apron again. Ichiko could see that he wanted to protest. He glanced over to Ichiko, and she smiled back at him. He ran a thick hand over his bald scalp; it did nothing to improve things. “Two pounds now for the rush, and t’other two when yeh come back at Low Twelfth,” he told Saoirse.
“It’ll be a pound now, and the other two when we come back,” Saoirse told him.
Again, the butcher glanced at Ichiko. “Fine, then. I’ll have it for yeh at Low Twelfth.” Ichiko was certain that last sentence was directed to her rather than Saoirse.
Saoirse took a pound coin from her purse and placed it on the counter, nodded to the man, and headed for the door. Ichiko smiled again at the butcher and followed her out.
“Musha, what an old stook!” Ichiko heard Saoirse exclaim as the door closed behind them. “Look, thanks for chumming with me back there. Yeh made it easy for me.”
“He was lying to you.”
Saoirse laughed once more. “Aye, I knew that. I’m sure he has the package already made up and ready in his icehouse. He just wanted to see how fast and hard I’d dance for it, but yeh sucked all the fun out of it for him. I appreciate that. Yeh said yeh wanted to see how our society works? Well, now yeh’ve seen how it can be between Mainlander and Inish.”
“Why is that?”
Saoirse only shook her head. “That’s a long story, and Spiorad Mór knows I don’t understand all the details.”
“I’d still like to hear it.”
Saoirse shrugged. “Well, close to five millennia ago,” AMI translated, “Clan Mullin and Clan Craig had a severe falling out with several of the other clans and left the mainland to live out on the archipelago. I doubt anyone remembers exactly what that falling out was over—fishing rights, probably, and likely both sides had fine arguments for why they felt the way they felt. Memories of grievances can be long here. But the Mullins and Craigs have been on the islands ever since. We don’t hate Mainlanders precisely, and they don’t precisely hate us. In fact, some of them are quite civil overall, and there’s been some intermingling if yeh take my meaning. It’s just . . . we live differently than they do here, so . . .” Saoirse shrugged. “Look, why don’t we go over to Murphy’s Alehouse if yeh still want to talk? That’s where I’m supposed to meet my uncle and my brother. I can have some of their stout, and yeh . . . well, yeh can have whatever yeh can.”
* * *
Once in the pub, Ichiko watched as Saoirse slipped on her wire-rimmed spectacles again, making her eyes seem larger behind the lenses. “I have weak eyes,” she told Ichiko. “Out in the rain, sometimes glasses are more trouble than they’re worth, and on the boat there’s mostly lots of close work where I don’t need ’em,” she explained as she put them on.
Ichiko asked her about the clans, about how they raised the children since most of the time there wasn’t a parenting couple. “Everyone raises the bairns,” Saoirse told her. “A child’s mam does the bulk at first, of course, since her milk’s generally in, but everyone in the compound helps some. Babies around the age of fifty or sixty will usually stay in the compound’s creche with the other children until they’re old enough to have their own rooms—usually by the time they’re 200 or a little later. Uncles and aunts who enjoy working with children are in charge of the creche on a rotating basis: teaching the children, changing their nappies, and so on. The kitchens in the clan compounds are communal, so once the children are eating solid food, they can eat with their mothers and siblings or with any of the uncles or aunts or cousins if they want.”
“Minister Plunkett told me that a young Lupusian woman might start having children around . . .”
<385 or so,> AMI supplied.
“. . . 385 or so. You’re older than that. Do you have children?”
There were two empty pints sitting in front of Saoirse, with a third one that was half-full. Saoirse took a long swallow from it as Ichiko asked the question. The woman shook her head as she set the pint down again on the rough wooden table. Her gaze seemed somehow defiant as she looked at Ichiko.
“Neh,” she said flatly. “I don’t.”
AMI said.
“It doesn’t matter; I was just curious. After all, I’m . . .” She paused. <568,> came the answer from AMI. “. . . 568 in your years, and I don’t have children either.” Saoirse’s eyes were still narrowed, and Ichiko decided it would be best to change the subject. “So does this ‘Sleeping Wolf’ island in the archipelago actually look like a wolf resting on the water from the mainland?” Ichiko asked. “I haven’t had a chance to see it yet, though I’ve heard about it.”
The pub had become more crowded since the two of them had entered. “Can’t say,” she told Ichiko, “since I’ve never seen a wolf, only heard about them in old stories. I guess it might to yeh, though from Great Inish, it just looks like an island. But everyone’s called it the Sleeping Wolf, from the time the First came here, so I suppose it must.”
“The Mainlanders say that you treat the island like it’s a holy place.”
“Holy?” Saoirse scoffed. “There’s nothing religious about—” She stopped and waved her hand at someone behind Ichiko. “Uncle Angus! Liam! Over here!”
Ichiko looked over her shoulder to see two Inishers—one an older man with gray hair, the other nearly the same age as Saoirse, both with the same coloring. They already had pints of stout in their hands. They made their way through the tables to where Ichiko and Saoirse were talking in an alcove to the rear of the establishment, grabbing chairs from an adjacent table and sitting to either side of Ichiko. She could feel them staring at her, looking her over closely. She looked
at them also. Both men had large blotches on the skin of their forearms.
“Uncle Angus, Liam, this is Dr. Ichiko Aguilar from the Odysseus,” Saoirse was saying. “She’s here studying our society, and she’s interested in the archipelago.”
“Dr. Aguilar, eh? So yer the one the Mainlanders are all flapping their gobs about, the one who’s asking everyone questions and not answering any o’ theirs,” Angus said. His voice was graveled, though slower paced than Minister Plunkett and most of the other townfolk. Still, the accent was more pronounced, so Ichiko had to pay close attention to understand what he was saying.
“That would be me,” Ichiko answered, “though I’d prefer if you’d just call me Ichiko. And yes, I’m interested in the archipelago, as Saoirse said.”
“Yeh mean they haven’t warned yeh about us primitive Inishers?” Liam interjected. “They’ve told yeh that we eat our dead, certainly. It’s a sign of deep respect out on the islands.”
“Liam!” Saoirse said, slapping him on the arm. “Stop talking such blather, or she might start believing yeh. Ichiko, forgive my brother; his head’s completely stuffed with mince.”
Liam laughed—his laugh reminded Ichiko of Saoirse’s.
“Don’t worry, Saoirse. I can sniff out a tall tale when I hear one. But Saoirse’s right,” she continued, looking more at Angus than Liam. “I’d love to come out to the archipelago. When you leave, I could follow you in my flitter—”
“Neh.” The single word from Angus interrupted her with the same finality as Saoirse’s answer regarding children. He took a long swallow from his pint, his eyes watching her over the rim of the glass. He set it down hard on the table. “Yeh can’t. Look around yeh, woman,” he said, waving a gnarled, thick-knuckled hand to encompass those in the room, some of whom were watching their table intently. “The Mainlanders are like clams: those here in Dulcia and those in all their towns. They’ve erected safe little shells around themselves that they’re afraid to leave. They think we’re all ignorant and wrong-headed out in the archipelago, but they don’t see it’s the other way around. Even though they breathe the air here, they’re still blind and deaf to much of what this world offers. We’re not. And yeh Terrans . . .”
He gave a scoffing laugh and took a long drink from his pint, swallowing before continuing. “Yer hiding away in even tighter and thicker shells than the feckin’ Mainlanders. No offense, missy, but I can see all that fancy equipment yer wearing, just to keep out what yer type are all afraid of. Surely the people here have told yeh that, out in the archipelago, things like yer fancy suit tend not to work. That’s why even the Mainlanders stay well away with their noisy, stinking motorboats. They don’t fish near the islands because the islands don’t like ’em and too many of ’em have lost their lives out there. What if yer shield fails while you’re asking yer questions on Great Inish? So neh. Yeh can’t follow us because I don’t want to be responsible for yeh becoming stuck here just like us.”
“You may not be stuck here,” Ichiko began, but Angus was already shaking his head.
“Oh, I know yeh Terrans have sweet tongues that give us all the optimistic words we want to hear, about how mebbe some of us can go back to Earth once we can prove we’re not going to infect your planet with bloodworms or the Gray Threads or the Wasting. Or mebbe we can establish trade between our worlds since now yeh promise never to abandon us again. That’s all well and good, but I won’t believe it until I actually see it happen, and neither will anyone out in the archipelago. Tell me, Dr. Aguilar, can yeh guarantee me that Saoirse here can visit Earth if she wants to go—because I know that’s what she thinks she wants more than anything: to leave the islands and travel to Earth.”
Saoirse’s eyes had widened behind her glasses, angrily staring at her uncle. From outside, they heard the first peals of Low Twelfth from the Pale Woman.
“Uncle Angus, yer being rude to my guest, and I don’t like it,” Saoirse interjected. “And I don’t like yeh telling her what yeh think I want. It ain’t yer feckin’ place to do that.”
Angus’ eyebrows lifted slightly. “I’m only talking the truth here,” Angus replied.
“Neh, yer talking yer own prejudices,” Saoirse answered, “and I want yeh to apologize to my friend Ichiko.”
Ichiko saw Angus glare at Saoirse while Liam covered a smirk by drinking from his pint. Then the man’s expression softened. He looked at Ichiko and audibly exhaled. “My niece is right, and I’m sorry. I’ve been rude, and I hope yeh’ll forgive me for that.” He paused, a forefinger sliding along the edge of his pint glass. “But I still won’t have yeh coming out to the archipelago,” he continued. “I don’t want the responsibility.”
“No one would hold you responsible,” Ichiko told him. “I’m willing to assume whatever risk there might be.”
“Which is fine for yeh, but . . .” Angus answered.
“Uncle . . .” Saoirse said, and Angus heaved another put-upon sigh.
“Let me talk to yer mam,” he said to Saoirse, then turned again to Ichiko. “Yeh know we have to do that first. The Banríon can decide. If she says aye, then . . . Does that satisfy yeh both?”
Ichiko and Saoirse nodded simultaneously. “Then that’s where we’ll leave it for now,” Angus said. “Saoirse, did yeh get the cloth and talk to Hearns?”
“I did,” she answered. “I have the cloth and Hearns should have the meat ready for us by now. We can pick it up on the way to the quay.”
Angus nodded. “Then let’s finish our drinks and be off. I can smell a new storm coming in, and we should get back before we lose the good wind.” Angus lifted his pint and drained it, as did Saoirse and Liam. They all stood.
Ichiko followed them out.
There Is Another World, But It Is In This One
ICHIKO STOOD AT THE quay’s edge as the trio readied their currach for the journey back, packing the supplies they’d bought and the Rí’s full mailbag. The clouds were low over Dulcia Head and still drizzling rain; Ichiko watched Saoirse remove her spectacles, wipe them carefully, and put them away again under her oilcoth jacket.
Thumb touched finger, but it remained stubbornly lit. Ichiko thought to her AMI.
Liam and Angus put their oars in the water and Saoirse unwrapped the bowline from the quay’s hawser. She tossed the coiled rope into the bow and stepped in after it. Ichiko watched her easy, natural movements. The trio pushed away from the quay as Liam and Angus began to pull in earnest at their oars. Saoirse waved to Ichiko; she waved back.
Ichiko watched them until they reached the mouth of the harbor and Saoirse raised the sail, which billowed out as it caught the wind. The currach began to cut more of a wake in the harbor’s relatively quiet water, then started to bounce as it reached the harbor’s mouth and the choppier open water
there. The rain began in earnest, large drops bouncing from the repellant surface of the bio-shield. Ichiko went to her flitter.
Out over the open water, she could see Saoirse’s boat far below, still in the harbor’s mouth. Well out near where the horizon of the sea blended into the gray curtains of rain, two faint, darker shapes lurked, perhaps 15 to 20 kilometers out.
The windshield of the flitter shimmered once, then the contrast deepened. Yes, Ichiko realized, that one to the right had to be the Sleeping Wolf. She could see how it had received its name. That rising headland was the muzzle, with a “paw” stretched out alongside. Two sheer peaks were the ears of the beast. The back of the head fell to the spine, before lifting again into what imagination could see as a resting haunch, with a low tail stretching out behind to the right.
Ichiko stared at it, as well as the faint shapes of the Stepstones to the left of the Sleeping Wolf, and the vague bulk of Great Inish further off in the distance between the two. A speck in the gray expanse, Saoirse’s boat was now just past the tip of Dulcia Head.
It was tempting to simply disobey Rí Mullin and go out to where the archipelago waited. Half an hour, ship-time, maybe a little more, and she could be there—far faster than Saoirse with her uncle and brother could make the trip. Almost, she gave the command.
Almost.
Instead, she shook her head, looking again out to the Sleeping Wolf.