Hellspark. Part 30

He charged across the room, clearly agitated, and skidded to a halt beside her. "Tocohl. This place has suddenly become like festival. I have six h.e.l.lsparks waiting in orbit for permission to land, one of them a byworld judge by the name of Nevelen Darragh, who says you sent for them."

Despite the fact that he had kept his voice low, Alfvaen had awakened and heard it all. She sat up in her cot, wide-eyed and openmouthed, using both hands to fend off layli-layli's attentions.

Tocohl met her eyes, glanced away. To Kejesli, she said, "I did."

"All right then," said Kejesli, "I'll grant them permission to land."

Alfvaen slid off her cot to intercept him before he could reach the comunit. "Wait, Captain. I want to know-" She did not complete the thought. Eyes narrowing, she moved to Tocohl's side with quick, cautious steps; Kejesli followed, drawn by her manner. "Tocohl," she began.

"Yes," Tocohl said, "it's me they've come to judge."

"Then you're not a judge after all."

Tocohl glanced at swift-Kalat just in time to watch a look of horror spread across his face. To him, she said, "If you'll recall our conversations, neither you nor I ever said I was a byworld judge, swift-Kalat." The slight emphasis she placed on his status made him jerk reflexively. "You accused the sprookjes of the murder of Oloitokitok; you asked me to judge the matter. In my judgment, the sprookjes are innocent of blame. Your reliability is not in question."

He gave the matter careful thought, clearly turning over their several conversations on the subject inhis mind. At last he said, "Neither is yours."

That drew a laugh from Tocohl. "My reliability in Jenji may be fine, but in h.e.l.lspark I'm in serious trouble."

Kejesli, recovering at last from his gape, said, "What I choose to believe in Veschke's honor, Tocohl, is no reflection on your integrity." He glared about him as if expecting dissent, looked relieved when he received none, and went on, "You came at swift-Kalat's request to learn the sprookjes'

language. Nothing more need be said on the subject."

"That's also true," Tocohl said. "Those judges are here at my request. They already know what I did; I told them."

"You told them?" Kejesli gaped again. "But why?"

Drawing the arachne up to its full height, Maggy answered for her. "We pay our debts."

It fell to swift-Kalat and Buntec to ferry the newcomers into camp. "Byworld judges?" she demanded as she strode toward the hangar. "You expect me to believe Tocohl needed help? Why'd she send for more byworld judges?"

Swift-Kalat didn't answer. Phrasing a reliable response to that was more than he cared to risk; he had no intention of causing Tocohl Susumo more trouble than she had caused herself. Two steps later, he ran full-tilt into Buntec. He took a step backward, excused himself for having been so absorbed as to blunder into her.

Hands on hips, she said, "Swift-Kalat." In tone, it implied some sort of warning, as did her glare. But before swift-Kalat could repeat his apology, the glare turned thoughtful. "Okay," said Buntec, "let me see if I can phrase this right. Swift-Kalat, is there something going on here that I should know about?"

That he could answer. "Yes."

She made an odd gesture with her fingertips, perhaps coaxing, perhaps only an expression of impatience. "Give me a hint."

"Tocohl never said she was a judge." That had to be said first, for the sake of reliability, but having said it, he had no idea how to continue.

Buntec's eyes narrowed, then widened. Without warning, she let out an ear-splitting whoop, simultaneously slapping him on the shoulder. Startled, he drew back. "Buntec..."

But she was laughing. Wiping her eyes with her fist, she took a deep breath, sobered. "Ringsilver boots," she said, "I mighta known." Once more she planted her fists on her hips, glared back in the direction of camp. "So Old Rattlebrain found out and turned her in, did he?"

It took swift-Kalat a moment to decipher this. "No," he said, "Tocohl sent for the judges."

"She turned herself in?" In the distance, a single trader put down in the flashfield. Watching it land, Buntec said, absently, "That'd account for their timing. If she'd sent a message capsule just after she-arrived." Once again she slapped him amiably on the shoulder. "Well," she said, "let me see what I can do." Without explaining, she started for the hangar at a trot.

Swift-Kalat hurried after her. As she threw open the hangar doors, she said, "D'ya know why we need byworld judges?" Not giving him a chance to consider this, she answered her own question: "Context. And we're b.l.o.o.d.y well gonna see that they get all the context they can handle, and then some!"

Her daisy-clipper was first out of the hangar. As she pa.s.sed, swift-Kalat could see that she was speaking into the comunit. He hoped whatever she intended was clearer to her current listener. He hoped, as well, that whatever she intended would be of some help.

He guided the daisy-clipper toward the trader to ground it just behind Buntec's craft-he hadn't the skill to hover at the hatch the way she did-and slid from it to help his pa.s.sengers with their gear. From the amount of it, they intended something of a stay. For some reason he could not identify, this gave him a sense of relief-as if this implied deep consideration rather than hasty judgment.

Their introductions doubled this sense of relief. Nevelen Darragh had the white hair and lines of great age-something one seldom accrued without accruing experience to match-and piercing blue eyes that would miss nothing.

Geremy Kantyka looked mournful, as if he would have preferred to be elsewhere, although thedesign on his 2nd skin seemed to have been chosen to suit Flashfever. "I'm here as an onlooker," he explained in Jenji, "I'm an old friend of Tocohl's." Which, thought swift-Kalat, went a long way in explaining his mournful expression.

The third was a puzzle: there was something familiar about her but he could place neither her face nor her name, Bayd. The familiar was her stare of wonder at her surroundings. Geremy Kantyka had to nudge her twice before she took formal notice of swift-Kalat. "Bayd," said Kantyka once again.

"Sorry," she said, but her gaze was abruptly caught by the flashgra.s.s. "Is it always like this?"

"It's more impressive during a storm," swift-Kalat said. "This is a lull-for safety's sake, we should be going."

"Yes." Again the words were abstract in her wonder. Geremy punched her this time, causing Nevelen Darragh to laugh and say, "The woman who forgets her manners is Bayd Shandon, swift-Kalat.

Not a byworld judge." For some reason, this drew a laugh from Bayd Shandon.

"No," she agreed. "Not a judge. I'm here as a glossi"-swift-Kalat frowned at the unfamiliar term-"an expert in languages." Her forearm shot sharply down, proving the reliability of her statement.

She hefted her gear into the daisy-clipper and followed it, sliding to the far window to continue her gaping. The other two seated themselves in the back, and swift-Kalat climbed in beside Bayd Shandon with a renewed sense of relief. All three were h.e.l.lspark; all three spoke his language as if they had been born to it. That meant he could explain what had happened in Jenji. In Jenji, they could find no fault with Tocohl's actions or words.

The daisy-clipper rose from the flashgra.s.s, drawing a wordless exclamation of delight from the woman beside him. As he aimed the craft back to base camp, he glanced briefly at her. Her hand shot up to point: in the distance, lightning crackled into a stand of lightning rods-most likely, the one in which the sprookjes waited out the storm.

"Tocohl Susumo has made a start at establishing a pidgin to enable us to communicate with the sprookjes."

"A pidgin?" Bayd Shandon sounded astonished, as if he had somehow called into question Tocohl's reliability.

Swift-Kalat realized the implication. "The sprookjes," he explained, "communicate by ruffling their feathers. Tocohl and Maggy, between them, have developed a way to respond in kind, but the rest of us will have to make do."

"Ah," said Bayd, "that's better."

"Ruffles her feathers," said Geremy from behind him. His tone made it sound dire. "The talent runs in the family, Bayd."

"Which one, Geremy?"

When Geremy only grunted in reply, Bayd laughed again. And this time swift-Kalat took his eyes from the terrain long enough to have a closer look at her: the same red hair, the same gold eyes, the same chiseled features-though in Bayd they were sharpened as if an abstraction of Tocohl's.

"You are a relative of Tocohl Susumo?"

Bayd grinned at him, leaving no doubt. "Her mother," she said and in response to another grunt from Geremy, she added, "Don't let Geremy disconcert you. He would sound the same if he were being awarded his fifteenth status bracelet." She snapped her wrist down, and her laughter pa.s.sed for the ring of authority.

Maneuvering the daisy-clipper into its hangar took his full attention for the moment, but once it was grounded and stilled, he turned to Bayd Shandon. "The presence of byworld judges may call into question your daughter's reliability. I a.s.sure you I have no such doubts." He brought his wrist down, letting his bracelets speak for him. In the confinement of the daisy-clipper, the sound was shattering.

When the last of it had died away, Nevelen Darragh said, "This gets more interesting by the moment.

I look forward to hearing your account, swift-Kalat."

For once, swift-Kalat wished she had spoken in GalLing'. Unlike his own language, GalLing' would have made a clear distinction between an informal telling and the testimony of a trial. Not that he would have spoken differently in either case but in GalLing' her choice of word would have given him anindication of her intentions. To ask her to repeat herself in GalLing' might imply that her Jenji was inadequate and he had no wish to impugn her reliability. Regretfully he let the matter go and led the three through the gusting rain and into base camp.

He paused for a moment at the perimeter fence, wondering where to take them. He decided against the infirmary. Then, seeing Buntec urge her party into the common room, he followed, hastening his steps as the rain quickened.

He ushered them in and found them towels.

"... That's right," Buntec was saying to her charges, "I'm not giving formal evidence so you're not listening, but that's not going to stop me from saying it anyhow." She glared at Kejesli, set her fists at her hips, and raising her voice so that it carried to Darragh and Kantyka and Shandon as well, she went on, "If you find Tocohl guilty of impersonating a byworld judge, when she risked her a.s.s to give the sprookjes a fightin' chance, then you don't deserve the t.i.tle yourselves."

"Buntec," snapped Kejesli, half rising from the table at which he sat, his knuckles blotched from the effort of gripping its edge, "that's enough."

Buntec glared back. "That's Kejesli," she said, half introduction, half insult. Under the heat of her glare, something softened in Kejesli's face, although his hands remained tense. "For now," he added.

"Then I'll save the story of Edge-of-Dark's boots for later," Buntec said, her own tension gone as quickly as it had come. Turning back to the newcomers, she invited inquiry with a tap to the top of her boot and a broad grin. An answering grin from one of the newcomers told swift-Kalat she'd found a listener. He was curious himself, although he knew Buntec's accounts were more fiction than truth, however careful she was in his presence.

"Swift-Kalat," said Buntec-again her manner of delivery made it something more than an introduction-"who will tell you true whether you hear it or not." It was some form of challenge she leveled at the newcomers. "He was the one who told us the sprookjes were sentient. Not his fault we were too stupid to listen and too bone-lazy to check it out."

She swung her hand to indicate the others. "Yannick Windhoek. Harle Jad-Ing. Mirrrit."

Yannick Windhoek was a sour-faced man. He scowled at Buntec, scowled at swift-Kalat, then greeted swift-Kalat in lightly accented Jenji. Zoveelian, like Ruurd, thought swift-Kalat, but, unlike Ruurd, this man was trained in what Tocohl called "the dance." His movements caused no discomfort; it was only his grim demeanor that worried swift-Kalat.

The other two were more rea.s.suring. They held hands like a couple of courting ten-year-olds.

h.e.l.lspark both, they greeted him in perfect Jenji. Mirrrit, the woman, was tall and slim and elegant, with penetrating brown eyes. Harle Jad-Ing-he was Buntec's listener-to-be-was small, bright-faced, eager.

Still, such impressions gave swift-Kalat nothing he could speak of reliably. He laid them aside, awaiting further information, to introduce the three who had come with him. And then was forced to repeat himself as John the Smith, Hitoshi Dan, and Vielvoye-a glance at Buntec's welcoming grin led him to believe she had been the one to notify them-entered and gathered, still dripping, to examine the newcomers.

For a moment, the crowd held a festive air, as if it were nothing more than the excitement of new faces after three years of the same. Then Kejesli pushed himself forward. "Tocohl Susumo is recuperating in our infirmary," he said, taking Darragh for senior, possibly because of her apparent age, and addressing his edict to her. "You will see her when layli-layli calulan, our team's physician, so permits."

Geremy Kantyka's morose expression took a sudden turn for the worse. Bayd Shandon frowned, made as if to speak, but was preempted by Nevelen Darragh, who spread her hands and said, "As you wish, Captain, although it was she who called us here."

"What's more," said Tocohl's voice from somewhere at the rear of the crowd, "now that they're here they won't mind a few weeks waiting. It's the trip that's costly, not the time spent on Flashfever."

Hitoshi Dan and John the Smith parted, then pushed farther to each side, to allow pa.s.sage to Tocohl, with Om im at her right. Tocohl's face brightened. "Hi, Mom! What did they catch you at?"

"Curiosity." Bayd grinned back, mirroring her daughter's manner. "Geremy told me. I thought I'dcome along and see just what sort of trouble you've made this time." She looked thoughtfully at Om im, seeing something that swift-Kalat could not. "Is that necessary, Om im?"

It was Tocohl who answered: "It was, for one cut." And Bayd frowned sidelong at Kejesli. "I heard you were recuperating, but I a.s.sumed Captain Kejesli..."

"Captain Kejesli wasn't entirely." Tocohl touched her side. "Broken rib. Maggy's holding me together with bailing wire."

From behind her, Maggy corrected, "I tightened the 2nd skin where layli-layli calulan told me to tighten it. She should be lying down." Nudging its way past John the Smith, the arachne stepped warily to the fore, as if to defend Tocohl, then said, "Geremy!" and darted forward to stop at the woeful man's feet. "Tell Tocohl to sit down, at least, then introduce me to Judge Darragh before Tocohl forgets again.

Hi, Bayd! Long time no see!"

"Veschke's sparks, Tocohl-sit down before you fall down-what have you been feeding her?"

Geremy picked up the arachne to set it on a table, drew a chair for Tocohl, looking hangdog at first one, then the other. Tocohl sat, Om im still at her right hand.

Maggy said, "I don't eat."

"Ha!" said Buntec. "You scarf up everything in sight, kid. You eat info the way a Jannisetti hog eats hogchow."

"I don't get it."

"We feed 'em by the shovelful," Buntec said, "they suck it up the same way."

Bayd said to Geremy, "I think you just had your question answered: a diet of pure Jannisetti. Long time no see to you too, Maggy-and this is Judge Darragh." This time Bayd Shandon made the introductions all around.

When she had finished, the arachne settled in the circle of Tocohl's arms, tilted upward, and said, "Are they real judges, Tocohl?"

Buntec guffawed, along with two or three others, notably Bayd and Om im. The rest, swift-Kalat included, stiffened, not appreciating the implications of the question. But Tocohl laughed too, long and hard, until she had to bring up a hand to press against her side.

"Was that funny?" Maggy demanded.

"The emphasis was," Tocohl said, wiping tears from her eyes. "And how would I know? You're the one with a list of byworld judges."

"Could be their fathers."

To this Tocohl seemed to have no reply. It was Nevelen Darragh who leaned forward and said, "Would your list have voice signatures, Maggy?"

A rude noise issued from the arachne's vocoder and to it Maggy added, "I can match any voice signature, without half trying."

Tocohl eyed Darragh with a look that was clearly sympathy. "Nice try," she said.

"Only one way to tell, Maggy," Buntec said. "There's an old Jannisetti proverb-" She fixed Darragh with a gimlet eye. "If it looks like a judge and it acts like a judge, then it is a judge."

"Oh," said Maggy, "but what does a judge look like?"

Buntec spread her hand. "Take a good long look at Tocohl," she said. "Now you know as much as I do."

The arachne tilted up at Tocohl once more, as if to indicate that Maggy was doing precisely as instructed. "I rather think," Tocohl said, "it's not that simple." Laying a hand on the fat body of the arachne, Tocohl raised her eyes to meet Darragh's. "Might as well finish what you started," she said, then tensing, "I come for judgment-"

Yannick Windhoek snorted. "d.a.m.ned overeager kids," he said, scowling fiercely, and Tocohl turned to look at him, startled. He went on, "I haven't even had my lunch yet, and she wants a judgment. Never give a judgment on an empty stomach, child. It's the surest way to make mistakes."

Nevelen Darragh glanced sidelong at Windhoek-from his vantage point, swift-Kalat thought he saw the corner of an amused smile but couldn't be sure-and then she turned to face Tocohl again. "As you so rightly pointed out," she said, "the trip is costly. Once here, however, we are hardly pressed for time.Give us a few weeks to acquaint ourselves with this world before you make demands of us."

"Yes, of course," said Tocohl, seeming chastened but no less tense for the temporary reprieve.

"Oh, good," said Maggy, "that means you can go back to bed and heal some more. Make her go back to bed, Bayd."

"What makes you think I have any more influence than you do, Maggy?"

"Geremy then," Maggy said, "he can check her rib."

"Don't tell me the doctor here is a quack!" Geremy said.

"Layli-layli calulan is an Yn shaman," Maggy corrected, reverting momentarily to her previous prim tone. "Honestly, Tocohl, I don't know where he gets these words."

Geremy Kantyka stared at the arachne, his eyes wide with astonishment. Tocohl burst into laughter and swift-Kalat could almost see some of the tension drain from her frame.