Hellspark. Part 27

Still laughing, Edge-of-Dark stood and straightened. "I will close the distance, too. If we warn each other, look out for each other, we will make it."

"Yes," said Buntec, lifting her head and grinning. For a long moment, the two of them simply stood there grinning at each other across the small separating distance, then Buntec said, "Sunshine!"

"Yes," agreed Edge-of-Dark. "Would you give me a hand with my table and bowls, Buntec? The sprookjes need help across a distance too."

The two of them carried the small table down the steps to set it in the sunlight. Edge-of-Dark made a quick trip back for bowls and scissors and the rest of her odd paraphernalia.

Buntec leaned back, stretched her legs. When she sat up again, she caught movement at the edge of camp. "Your sprookjes are coming," she called up to Edge-of-Dark. There was no response. Well, it required none, thought Buntec, and settled in to watch the sprookjes appear in the flashwood and start to work their way through the fence.

She blinked suddenly and rose to her full height, shading her eyes and squinting. Surely she was imagining it-but she hoped she wasn't.

Those surveyors closest to the sprookjes turned, gave excited exclamations, tapped others. No, not imagining things. "Edge-of-Dark, get out here!"

Beside her, Edge-of-Dark responded only to her urgency of tone. "I'm here," she said, then absently, "I'll need to pick flowers. Would you like to come with me?"

Buntec dragged her eyes away from the sprookjes to glance down. Edge-of-Dark was contemplating her paraphernalia. Buntec caught her by the shoulders, turned her to face the sprookjes.

"Tell me," Buntec demanded, "tell me if you see what I see! Look at the sprookjes and then tell me if you need to pick flowers!"

And in Edge-of-Dark's widening eyes, Buntec found all the confirmation she needed. She turned again to the perimeter fence.

A dozen sprookjes were cautiously a.s.sisting each other through the barbed-wire barrier-and each carried an armload of brilliant blooms and leaves of all sizes and shapes.

Edge-of-Dark started forward, as if drawn by all that color and noise, but Buntec caught her shoulder. "Stay here. Stay here. They know where to find you." She stared again at the approaching sprookjes, sure beyond dispute that all would come straight to Edge-of-Dark. She sprang from the steps.

"I'm gonna get Maggy. She should be taping this."

Dazed, still caught up in the sight, Edge-of-Dark sat abruptly. "Yes," she said, "I should stay." She managed to tear her eyes away to look momentarily at Buntec. "They're coming! They've brought flowers!"

Buntec could feel her own fierce grin. " Your art they recognize," she said, for the pleasure of putting it into words. Then, still grinning, she started for the infirmary.

"I don't care," Maggy said, "I'm going to wake her. She'll want to see this." The emphasis was so startling that Tocohl at first thought herself in the midst of a particularly vivid dream, then waking and simultaneously catching the sense of the distantly heard words she realized she was hearing Maggy's voice relayed through her implant.

Buntec's voice, seeming equally astonished by the emphasis Maggy had put on the I, said, "Whatever you want, kid. Make your own decisions, take your own lumps."

"Lumps?"

There was a pause as Buntec sought a way to explain. "Take the consequences, good or bad.

Tocohl might not take kindly to being kicked awake, not even for this."

(Maggy?) Tocohl asked. (What's going on?) An image of Om im looking up flashed briefly onto her spectacles; from the angle, someone tall must have been holding the arachne above his head. "She's awake," Maggy told him, and rather smugly. I bet I sound like that when I deliver a fait accompli, Tocohl thought.

(Look,) Maggy said and showed her a crowd of surveyors and sprookjes, all jostling about in front of Edge-of-Dark's cabin. (The sprookjes brought flowers for Edge-of-Dark.) Despite the irrationality of the act, Tocohl sat up for a better view, noting with relief that at least sitting was no longer painful.

(Was I wrong to wake you?) Maggy asked, the smugness gone from her voice.

(No, Maggy. You did just right,) Tocohl told her and couldn't resist adding, (No lumps.) The smugness returned. "No lumps," Maggy informed Buntec.

In spectacles, a sprookje, cheek-feathers puffing, seemed to battle with itself, torn between careful handling of its bouquet and direct contact with Edge-of-Dark.

Edge-of-Dark watched it struggle for a moment only, then, with a sweep of her arm, cleared a s.p.a.ce on the surface of her table and took a step away, giving enough ground to tell the sprookje she would not attack it. The sprookje's cheek-feathers settled a little. Settled enough, Tocohl saw, for it laid its bouquet carefully onto the table and stepped hastily back.

The second sprookje did likewise. The third looked at the table, looked at Edge-of-Dark, and, fluffing all its feathers to twice normal size, it stretched out its arms to offer its bouquet directly to Edge-of-Dark.

Edge-of-Dark inched forward to take the gift, holding the chattering sprays as delicately as the sprookje had.

"Good for you," said Buntec-it was obviously she who held Maggy's arachne-and the sprookje echoed her. "How about that," Buntec went on, sounding twice as pleased, "you may be a pain in the b.u.t.t, but at least you're not chicken-s.h.i.t."

Buntec's words and echo seemed to rea.s.sure the others as well: each of the remaining sprookjes delivered its burden directly into Edge-of-Dark's arms, as if the act were a matter of pure course.

Edge-of-Dark, dazed and grinning from behind her armload of sprigs and vines and stalks, began to look like an artistic composition of her own design.

A hand touched Tocohl's shoulder, her spectacles cleared, and she smiled back at Om im.

"Megeve couldn't have stopped it," he said with enormous satisfaction. "He couldn't have killed enough of us to stop it."

"So I see." Tocohl tapped the frame of her spectacles with a fingertip. "But I'd like a closer look."

The spectacles instantly provided a close-up of Edge-of-Dark. "Thanks but no, Maggy, I mean I'm coming out."

Om im offered his shoulder for support. As Tocohl got to her feet, layli-layli calulan said, "I suppose there's no point in arguing with you?"

"None at all," Tocohl a.s.sured her, "but"-she reacted to the twinge in her side as she straightened-"I will take it easy."

"I think she means it," said Om im, lifting a brow at Tocohl in surprise. "That's less of an argument than we got from Maggy on the subject of waking you."

"Maggy doesn't have a pain in her side." But Tocohl released his shoulder and walked slowly to thedoorway on her own. The pain was there but no longer so bad she would be unable to function.

Om im thrust aside the membrane and bowed her into the sunlight, where she stood, dazzled by the confusion.

The sprookjes had been granted front row center at two separate shows. Edge-of-Dark made art of the plants they'd brought her, and beside layli-layli calulan's cabin, Dyxte was up to his elbows in the red mud, planting a stand of tick-ticks. Sprookjes gathered around both, paying such rapt attention that their echoing was only haphazard and intermittent.

Around each crowd of sprookjes, small knots of surveyors watched and recorded, trying for all their excitement not to startle or to distract the sprookjes.

In the hush their gestures and their movements shrieked cacophony. Buntec, now holding the arachne at waist-height, grinned from ear to ear, while Hitoshi Dan's grin began at the tips of his toes, shot his eyebrows up, and ran out his extended arms to spread the fingers of both hands wide. Kejesli shrugged one-handed. Van Zoveel first turned out his thumbs in puzzlement, then shrugged back at Kejesli with a down-turned palm. John the Smith jockeyed for position with Tryn Ilan of Dusty Sunday-who was only trying to find a better camera angle, not a.s.sert authority.

Tocohl closed her eyes, made momentarily giddy from the sudden full impact of it all. Her hand reached out, found Om im's shoulder beneath it.

"Ish shan? Are you all right?"

She opened her eyes. "For a fool, I'm fine." Grinning down at him, she added, "I know your secret.

And I'll bet you can't tell the sprookjes apart right now."

He obliged her by looking, first at one group, then the second, then up again at her, perplexed.

"You're right. They all look alike."

"They're too interested in Edge-of-Dark and Dyxte to worry about their toes."

"That's not much of an explanation."

"I know. But I've got to find Megeve's sprookje before I can give you a better one."

He looked again. "I can't help you."

Having finished planting his tick-ticks, Dyxte rose and came toward them, trailing his collection of sprookjes. "Good," he said to Tocohl, warming the perfunctory GalLing' with a thump of his fist to his heart, "you're awake. Would you be willing to sacrifice that cloak of yours in a good cause?" His sprookje echoed his request.

"For art's sake?" Tocohl said. She sighed. "There's not much left of it, but you're welcome to the remnants.-Inside."

He thanked her with a spread palm and slipped past Om im, who turned out two fingers and said, in surprise, "That's Megeve's sprookje, Ish shan, but it didn't echo you!"

"It doesn't recognize me in all this noise," she said, adding to herself, at least, I hope that's the explanation. This would take conscious effort, she saw, and again she released Om im's shoulder. Taking a step toward the sprookje the Bluesippan had indicated, she told herself, You're talking to a Maldeneantine: be polite. "Sunchild?" she asked.

"Sunchild?" said the sprookje, its voice overlapping hers.

"Thank Veschke," said Tocohl, and the sprookje, ruffling, echoed all the feeling she'd put into the phrase. Without considering the action, she reached out a hand to smooth down the risen feathers.

The sprookje's head dipped suddenly, beak flashing sharply down toward her hand. Tocohl felt the p.r.i.c.k of its "sample tooth." When it raised its head again, its feathers had already begun to subside, laying back smoothly against the body in long rippling waves. "You just wanted to make sure I was all right,"

she said and was echoed.

(It talked to you!) said Maggy.

(Not yet. So far that's just echo. Bring the arachne over if you will: I'd like to have as much tape on this as possible.) "Now how did you do that?" Om im said. Then, in a tone of admiration, "Never mind. Don't tell me.

It'd be like asking a magician where the doves came from. Go on," he urged, "I'll just stand here and appreciate the results.""Don't go overboard," Tocohl and Sunchild said, "I haven't got anything yet-except a d.a.m.n echo I could well do without."

Om im laughed. "You're never satisfied. First you're unhappy that it won't talk, now you're unhappy because it will."

She eyed him wickedly. "Let's try a second experiment, shall we?" Sunchild agreed vocally. "Let's see what happens when I go from Maldeneantine"-and here she shifted stance and position-"to Bluesippan... and keep on talking."

For the first time, she heard a catch of hesitation in the sprookje's echo-just at the moment she shifted from accommodating a speaker of Maldeneantine to a speaker of Bluesippan. "Now," she and sprookje said together, "go ahead. Say something, Om im, I dare you."

"Dare me..." he began, completely puzzled. Then his mouth snapped shut as he realized Sunchild had echoed him as well. "By my blade," the two of them said together, "what have you done to me?"

"Not me," Tocohl a.s.sured him, rea.s.sured to find the sprookje still echoing her as well, "Sunchild."

She grinned at the sprookje, feeling as ruffled in her excitement as Sunchild so obviously was. "You catch on quick," they said, as if to each other.

Dyxte, trailing the moss cloak, paused on the threshold to look down at them. "It talks to you!"

Sunchild did not echo him. Tocohl frowned at the sprookje, waited until Dyxte had reached the bottom step, and shifted into ti-Tobian. Sunchild's eyes widened. "Yes," said Tocohl as Sunchild and a second sprookje-Dyxte's-both echoed her, "but you see how complicated this echo business can get."

"You've got two echoing you now!" Dyxte said, then threw a protective arm across his face at the realization that the same two had echoed him as well. "Oh, no!"

Om im glanced up at her, clearly wondering what would happen if he spoke. With the touch of a finger to the tip of her nose, she urged him to try. "Testing," he said cautiously, "one, two..." The same two sprookjes echoed him. "Now you've really done it, Ish shan," all three said accusingly.

"I'm afraid so," Tocohl admitted. Behind her a chorus of sprookjes sounded the same regret. "Let's see if we can get Sunchild inside"-she winced at the amount of echo as another sprookje joined the chorus-"where I'll have only one to deal with."

Dyxte, with a wild look at her, bundled the cloak under his arm and made for layli-layli calulan's cabin. Two of the sprookjes hesitated only a moment before following him. Sunchild remained, still staring solemnly.

It turned at the arrival of Buntec, Maggy's arachne, and van Zoveel and its eyes widened.

"Veschke's sparks," said Tocohl, seeing the look-attention drawn back, the sprookje echoed her-"I wish you wouldn't!"

"It's true!" said van Zoveel. "It echoes you!"

To her relief, it didn't echo van Zoveel. "Inside," she said and Sunchild seconded that.

Buntec set the arachne on the infirmary's bottom step, where it immediately skittered up to the door and rocked impatiently. "Lumps," said Buntec, clenching a fist in its direction, "you're about to learn the literal meaning of lumps."

The arachne stopped its rocking instantly and bobbed deferentially. "Your pardon, Buntec," Maggy began.

"Don't worry about it. Just don't do it. It drives me up a wall."

Maggy lowered the arachne a fraction of an inch, just enough to appear greatly interested, and said, "Really?"

Buntec rolled her eyes at Tocohl, sighed, and said, "Kids." She climbed the steps and held the door, toeing the arachne inside. Tocohl made the various shooing motions that gestured first Bluesippan, then Zoveelian in.

Then she took a deep breath and, hoping Sunchild would remember, held out to the sprookje an imaginary length of moss cloak. The sprookje came forward, took the imaginary end, and followed her to the threshold.

There it stood, feathers ruffling. Om im said, "This isn't a daisy-clipper, Sunchild. By my blade, Iswear it won't crash." Echoing his words, Sunchild entered the infirmary.

"It echoed you too!" van Zoveel said. "How... ! How ... ?" He rocked impatiently at her side.

"Lumps?" said Maggy, directing her query to Buntec.

"Probably," said Buntec, with a glare at van Zoveel, "in about three minutes if he doesn't cut it out.

I've warned him about it..."

As if fascinated, the arachne trotted a yard or so away, the better to get a full-figure view of van Zoveel and Buntec. The movement drew a surprised glance from van Zoveel. "She's waiting for me to deck you," Buntec explained. "She wants to record it for her files."

Van Zoveel stopped his rocking abruptly. With visible effort, he held his body still, but the ribbons on his tunic still fluttered his excitement. "Tocohl," he began.

"No lumps?" Maggy sounded disappointed, and knowing how unusual it was for her to interrupt, Tocohl decided that was an indication of how disappointed.

"Some other time," Buntec said, "I'm sure."

That was enough to satisfy Maggy. To satisfy van Zoveel would not be so easy. She stood quietly for a long moment, then she turned and greeted him, with Sunchild repeating each word, in Zoveelian: "May the sun warm you in the cold wind."

Ruurd van Zoveel responded automatically: "May the wind cool you in the hot sun." This time the sprookje echoed him.

With a whoop of delight, Buntec clapped van Zoveel on the shoulder. "Now you've got two, Ruurd!" In her burst of enthusiasm, she added, "Make it do me, Tocohl."

Tocohl grinned. "Are you sure?" The sprookje echoed her. "It's more trouble than it's worth."