Hellspark. Part 6

Now we'll have to run for it. Follow me!" and she was off, with Alfvaen at her heels. Tocohl dropped tothe ground, the arachne under her arm, and stopped, transfixed. Water sheeted on her spectacles-and Maggy compensated for the remaining distortion-as she stared up into the flash-filled sky, her ears filled with the roar of the rain.

"Hey! h.e.l.lspark!" Buntec roared over it. "I said move a.s.s, I meant move a.s.s. This is only the leading edge. From here on it gets worse!" A chunky hand grasped Tocohl's, and together they raced through the field of flashgra.s.s to the thick red mud of the compound.

Chapter Four.

SWIFT-KALAT CLAMPED HIS jaw shut, unable to respond to Ruurd van Zoveel's polite overtures in GalLing'-they served only to renew his memory of what van Zoveel had so misspoken.

Without a word, he took the towel van Zoveel proffered and focused his attention on drying himself from his dash through the storm. Again, he told himself that GalLing', being an artificial language coined for trade, had none of the reliability of Jenji. Again, he found it difficult to believe.

It wasn't until van Zoveel addressed him in Jenji that he was able to answer at all. Hearing the Jenji forms calmed him slowly. He chimed his bracelets in polite response, mildly surprised when van Zoveel did not follow suit. Of course, he thought, Zoveelians wear no status bracelets, but it disturbed him nonetheless. Even the youngest child makes the arm motion...

Their conversation continued in Jenji. The sound of it was enormously welcome but swift-Kalat found himself more and more discomforted. Something in Ruurd van Zoveel's manner disturbed him enormously; it never bothered him when he spoke to van Zoveel over the comunit but, here, in his presence... If only the man would sit down! swift-Kalat thought. For all his courtesy, van Zoveel seemed always to back away, and swift-Kalat felt obliged to follow.

Instead of sitting, however, van Zoveel paced nervously, his beribboned tunic fluttering. He offered a gla.s.s of dOrnano wine, as if the occasion were one for celebration; and swift-Kalat accepted, knowing it was not, but grateful because the acceptance took van Zoveel to the far side of the room.

Van Zoveel's furniture was plush and as gaudy as his clothing. Swift-Kalat chose a plump red and blue pillow near a low table and sat, piling smaller red and yellow pillows to support his elbow, as he'd seen van Zoveel do. It was far from comfortable, but it was better than following van Zoveel around the room.

Van Zoveel returned with the wine and handed him a sheaf of hard-copy as well. "That's my report,"

he said. "That is what I will have to give the captain. I thought perhaps you should read it."

"I need only read your conclusion." Swift-Kalat sat up to take the report. He leafed through to the final page. It read as he'd expected: "The sprookjes have no language as far as I am able to determine." He slapped the report closed and dropped it onto the table with more force than he'd intended.

Van Zoveel, pouring the wine, jumped; wine splashed. He finished the pouring carefully and wiped away the droplets. "I'm sorry, swift-Kalat," he said, not looking up, "I am unable to say otherwise."

This time the absence of van Zoveel's status bracelets-or at least the movement that would have set them ringing-struck swift-Kalat more forcefully.

"Something on this world is sentient." Swift-Kalat snapped his forearm sharply; his own bracelets rang emphasis of his words.

"Something has your reliability in its favor. I explained that to Captain Kejesli but the captain hasn't the ear to hear the distinction.-And I am unable to match your certainty. I am unable to say otherwise,"

he repeated.

"I made a formal application for a second polyglot, but Kejesli denied my request. My record is too good, he said-too good!-and he did not wish to go the additional expense of sending an automated message capsule." He spat, startling swift-Kalat (who had only read of and never seen the Zoveelian expression of utter disgust) with his vehemence, and finished. "There is nothing further I can do."

A peal of thunder rattled the wine gla.s.ses. Swift-Kalat put out a hand to steady his but did not drink."I thank you for your trouble," he said. "I did not know you had gone so far-"

"Ruurd?" From the comunit, Buntec's deep voice broke in.

Van Zoveel excused himself and activated the screen. "Could this wait, Buntec?" he said. "I have company."

"No, it can't. You gotta come sweet-talk the captain in his native croak," Buntec said. "You remember Tinling Alfvaen? She's here-"

Swift-Kalat came instantly to his feet. Unable to restrain himself, he clapped his hands sharply above his head, bracelets clashing triumph. He strode to join van Zoveel.

Buntec acknowledged him with a wave. "She's here with a h.e.l.lspark," she said, repeating the words that had been lost to swift-Kalat's joy. Then she went on, her indignation rising in proportion to their enthusiasm, "Old Rattlebrain tried to keep 'em from landing. Now he wants 'em off planet just as soon as they've delivered their mail. But we need 'em-we need something after the trouble we've been through!-and native croak always makes a difference, Ruurd. You know that!"

Van Zoveel began a polite refusal, but swift-Kalat said, "We'll come." He turned to van Zoveel and said, in Jenji, "Would you accept the a.s.sistance of a h.e.l.lspark polyglot?"

"Yes, of course!-Of course, we'll come!" There was no need to translate for Buntec. The screen was already dark.

h.e.l.lsparks made Rav Kejesli uncomfortable.

As a young man on Sheveschke, Kejesli had haunted the streets at festival time looking for the traders to the thousand worlds. He'd found them no different from anyone else he knew. Oh, they dressed differently, that was certainly true, but they spoke Sheveschkem, they acted like Sheveschkemen. They were a disappointment.

It had taken Kejesli fifty years to make his first jump away from Sheveschke-in search of real differences-and there were the h.e.l.lsparks again. Only this time, they were not like Sheveschkemen; they were like Jannisetti, Apsanti, Bluesippans, or like the Yns, the Zoveelians, the Maldeneantine. They were more alien than he could have imagined-or could accept.

He shuddered. What would this one be like, surrounded by a survey team composed of such variety?

Bad enough dealing with so many aliens. He accepted that as part of the job: the Comity insisted that as many cultures as possible be represented on a survey team-to widen the scope of its knowledge and to broaden the range of its available working data. Besides, a planet Sheveschkemen loathed-this one, for example-might well be attractive to natives of some other world.

But to throw a h.e.l.lspark in on top of it all? How would she choose which culture to be?

Perhaps this Tocohl Susumo would simply be h.e.l.lspark, whatever that might be. Kejesli was not sure he wanted to know.

In any event, he was not about to allow her to interfere with his career. MGE would not approve of an outsider meddling in one of its surveys.

He poured himself a second cup of winter-flame from the warming pot, then hesitated. For a moment, he thought to join one of the conversations scattered about the common room but he had already overheard one such and its topic was Tinling Alfvaen. That was not one he had a desire to discuss. He returned to his seat in the far corner of the room.

A tooth-jarring clap of thunder signaled that the storm had broken in earnest. His hand jumped, winter-flame slopped red and gold across the tabletop. Involuntarily following the sound, he glanced at the ceiling. A wave of vertigo made the base of his neck p.r.i.c.kle. Forcing his glance down, he wiped away the sudden sweat-then used the same cloth to mop the spilled winter-flame, trying to concentrate on the action alone. Buntec and Alfvaen and this h.e.l.lspark had not yet come. The thought that they too might meet the same fate as Oloitokitok...

The more he tried to tell himself that other survey captains had lost team members, the more he felt responsible for Oloitokitok's death. This was his third survey, and the first time he had lost a surveyor...

unless one counted the twelve that had contracted Cana's disease. No, he wouldn't count them-they lived and Oloitokitok was dead.A shout of laughter jarred Kejesli from his thoughts. He looked up in time to see Buntec, Alfvaen, and Tocohl Susumo burst through the door, spattering water about them. The membrane slapped wetly behind them, and the h.e.l.lspark laughed again. Her evident joy in Flashfever's weather made him suddenly angry.

After greeting the startled Vielvoye cheerfully, she placed an arachne on the ground beside her, dried her spectacles and replaced them, and reached up to twist water from her hair. The arachne unfolded a set of improbable stiltlike legs and immediately began to explore, but Kejesli could not take his attention from the h.e.l.lspark. Their brief conversation by screen had not prepared him for the intensity of her presence.

She strode to the center of the room, her silver cloak trailing rivulets of water. There she stopped. In a single turn that focused the attention of every surveyor present on her, she seemed to him to take in everything, and to p.r.o.nounce judgment. He waited, terrified of the verdict.

Om im Chadeayne, the team's geologist, was suddenly on his feet. "h.e.l.lspark!" he said. "h.e.l.lspark, what news?" He crossed to her in a few quick strides and stood before her, his hands on his hips, his head c.o.c.ked expectantly upward. Om im was tall for a Bluesippan, but he came only to this woman's elbow.

Tocohl Susumo held out a palm. "News for news," she said.

"Hah!" said Om im, touching a finger to his brow. "Yes, payment there will be. Always payment for a h.e.l.lspark. But first, a cup of winter-flame." He snapped his fingers at Vielvoye, who was nearest the warming pot, and Vielvoye scurried to bring a fresh cup.

The h.e.l.lspark looked at the cup, and then at Om im, warily. "-And the payment?" she said. Om im clapped his hands, drew them expressively down to indicate the s.p.a.ce she occupied. "Your presence, Ish shan, is more than sufficient pay for a cup of winter-flame."

The woman bowed low, sweeping the ground with the edge of her cloak. "Tocohl Susumo is my name," she said.

Om im returned the bow with equal extravagance. "Om im Chadeayne of Bluesip," he said, taking Kejesli by complete surprise. He had thought them old friends from Om im's initial reaction.

The crowd continued to converge on her, as excited as children with a new toy. Everyone wanted a look. Not everyone, he corrected-Buntec was talking earnestly into a comunit, and she was probably pa.s.sing the word, something she did well. Now only he and John the Smith had not joined the crowd.

John the Smith, Kejesli recalled, was from one of the Navel Worlds, close to the main centers of civilization. Those worlds no longer needed the independent traders, not the way the people of the Extremities did. Obviously, John considered himself too sophisticated to court h.e.l.lsparks. Kejesli was mildly annoyed at the thought.

Another burst of thunder combined with nearby movement caught Kejesli's eye, and he turned to find the arachne poised beside him like a hunting farrun that had found its quarry. He stared back at it, surprised that it did not leave when its inspection was completed. A moment later the h.e.l.lspark stood before him, and the arachne was once again on its way.

"With your permission, Captain?" She gestured at the chair facing him. Her gray cloak, still glinting silver droplets, cascaded softly about her as she sat. She pushed back a tangle of red hair made darker by Flashfever's downpour.

The tangle caught momentarily. Only when she had tugged it free did he see the cause of the snag: a pin of high-change was thrust through her cloak!

His first thought was that she must be mad-only the desperate would choose to take that risk-but for all his sudden stare he could find nothing desperate in those gold eyes, and nothing mad either.

Instead he found something disconcertingly familiar. He had seen those gold eyes somewhere- He found himself fingering the pin of remembrance in his vest lapel. He had worn it not for Veschke but for remembrance of Oloitokitok.

The h.e.l.lspark's gold eyes followed his fingers. He knew she could tell from the pin's design that it was four years old, that being the last time he had attended the Festival of Ste. Veschke. She smiled, indicating the pin. She was Sheveschkem at that moment. "Don't worry," she said, "I've tracked inenough of Veschke's blessing from this year's festival to cover us both." Thrusting out a foot to show him that it was covered with red mud, she went on, "I a.s.sure you only half of that is local."

Surprised to find that it did rea.s.sure him, he looked at her face again-and realized why she had seemed so familiar. He had seen those gold eyes a thousand times in his youth, smiling triumphantly from an icon that depicted Veschke's burning...

He suddenly wished for John the Smith's sophistication-or his ignorance.

Where else but on a survey where his ship had not been blessed, where else but on a world he had given the ill-omened name of Flashfever, could all these things coincide? The death of Oloitokitok, Alfvaen (deny it as he would, he was responsible for the twelve of Inumaru as well), and this woman with the pin of high-change. Veschke was renowned for her sense of humor.

He fought the imagery: all he had to do was send a report to MGE and he could leave this world. He made a conscious effort and his hand dropped from the pin of remembrance.

Tocohl Susumo smiled at him again. She raised her cup, made Veschke's sign with her left hand, and said. "To Veschke!"

"To Veschke!" he repeated, without intending to, and drank with her.

By the time Tocohl rejoined Alfvaen, the crowd had doubled in size; Buntec beamed at this result of her handiwork. Amid a cheerful pandemonium of greetings in a dozen different tongues, Tocohl spoke quietly to Alfvaen in Siveyn, "We have a local day's grace. Speak to your friends-perhaps they'll put some pressure on Captain Kejesli for us." Alfvaen set to the task, drawing aside first one member of the survey team and then another.

Om im poured Tocohl another cup of the scarlet and gold drink, then, as if he were the aide of a prince, he presented the surveyors to her one by one.

(Maggy, keep a file of faces and names.) (I always do,) Maggy responded as Tocohl greeted each surveyor in his or her native tongue with due respect to ritual. To Dyxte ti-Amax, she bowed; to Vielvoye ha-Somol, she respectfully tipped a nonexistent hat; both were Tobians but ha and ti spoke different languages. Hitoshi Dan, she greeted with a soft version of a whistle that had originally developed to be heard for several miles. And to Timosie Megeve, the Maldeneantine, she raised her left hand, crossing it with her right. Before he could reply, Alfvaen suddenly reappeared at Tocohl's side.

Pointing to the doorway, Alfvaen said anxiously, "There's swift-Kalat."

Tocohl laid a rea.s.suring hand on her shoulder. In Siveyn, to avoid offending Buntec, Tocohl said, "Toes. Don't move: let him come to you. And stop worrying-he'll appreciate your attempt even if your execution isn't perfect." Un.o.btrusively, she took the added measure of placing a set of her own toes where Alfvaen would stamp them if she backed away from swift-Kalat. It was an old h.e.l.lspark technique for helping a child remember her proxemics.

"Swift-Kalat," Om im announced, smiling up at Alfvaen, "I can hear him chiming this way." His smile faded before her obvious anxiety. After a second's consideration of the problem, he reached for Alfvaen's elbow, with the clear intent of escorting her, as shy as she might be, to swift-Kalat's side.

Tocohl, blocking his hand with her own, said softly, "No." He gave her a curious look but drew back his hand and patiently folded his arms to wait with them.

Of the two approaching men, Tocohl thought, the smaller would be swift-Kalat: his skin was a rich glowing red, almost the color of Dusty Sunday gla.s.s; bracelets gleamed the entire length of his forearm, jangling cheerfully. Tocohl had never seen a Jenji with quite so many. (Up to his elbows in silver,) she said.

(What?) (Jenji expression for very, very smart,) she explained. (Now I see why.) The other man, dressed in a tunic flamboyant enough to coin a Jannisetti phrase, was unmistakably Zoveelian.

The crowd parted just enough to let the newcomers through. Quietly, in GalLing', swift-Kalat said, "Alfvaen, I'm so glad you've come. I'm so glad you're safe." Then he strengthened his words with Jenjin emphasis, snapping his forearm down so sharply that his bracelets clashed and rang as he moved closer.Alfvaen had learned her lessons well: as he pa.s.sed the point Alfvaen's culture considered the proper distance for general talk and closed in to the comfortable position for his own, Alfvaen tensed slightly but did not step back. Right down to her toes, she greeted him in perfect Jenji. "I am so glad to see you,"

she said, snapping her bare arm down for emphasis of her own.

There was no chime of bracelets, but swift-Kalat more than amply compensated for the lack. His sharp intake of breath told both Alfvaen and Tocohl that Alfvaen's attempt was a complete success.

Swift-Kalat's eyes and smile widened in delight.

Alfvaen smiled back shyly and, with this encouragement, went on to make proper introductions. She a.s.sumed, Tocohl saw, that Ruurd van Zoveel spoke Jenji as well as she. The polyglot spoke excellent Jenji, but that was all; he was clearly ignorant of both proxemics and kinesics. Tocohl automatically switched to Zoveelian to reply to his greeting and then returned to GalLing' out of courtesy to Om im.

"We have a day," she said.

Swift-Kalat looked at Alfvaen in distress, and van Zoveel exclaimed, "A day! What can you do in a day?"

Tocohl smiled. "Change Captain Kejesli's mind," she said.

"It can be done, Ish shan." Om im craned toward the door and said in his own tongue, "If Buntec was willing to call Edge-of-Dark, her feelings run high on the subject."

Tocohl followed his look to the latest arrival and raised an eyebrow in surprise. No worlds' motley for this woman! Her 2nd skin was an unavoidable exception and that was transparent to minimize its intrusion. Everything else about her was pure Vyrnwyn high-born, from the feathered crown interwoven in her black hair to the tips of her fingers and toes, polished dark green to match her victoria ribbon.

That made sense of Buntec's threat to tip darts and hunt Vyrnwy. Buntec might have been able to deal with bare feet-but the outright perversion of polished toenails would have tried the most cosmopolitan Jannisetti.

Tocohl said, "Now that's what I call getting off on the wrong foot."

The joke stood in Bluesippan and Om im laughed appreciatively. Then he said, "We were chamfered by a moron. He gave us each a stack of hard-copy and told us to read it. With some people, that's not sufficient."

He glanced again toward the door, "We've tried to talk to Edge-of-Dark, but..." He threw up his hands and, still in his own tongue, added, "I tell you, Ish shan, with the exception of the old-timers, this team gets on together about as well as flot and eggri."

Tocohl grinned: in Bluesippan mythology, the battle between flot and eggri was responsible for the second destruction of the world. "How long has it been since she's visited home?"

"A good ten years," he answered. "Why?"

(Maggy?) Tocohl said privately, raising a finger to hold off Om im's question. (Look through your records and pull out some stills of Madly of Ringsilver-pick only those where the background is blurred-and hold them until I ask for them.) By the time she had finished speaking to Maggy, Edge-of-Dark had joined their company, but Om im's look told Tocohl quite clearly that his question was not forgotten, simply postponed.

With much solemnity and ceremony, Om im presented her. Tocohl took the hand Edge-of-Dark extended. She kissed it formally, said, "I am indebted to Om im Chadeayne for his kindness in making you known to me."

"I too am indebted to Om im Chadeayne," Edge-of-Dark responded. In GalLing', she went on, "It is a pleasure to be in discriminating company once again. Like most of your people, your dress is decidedly eccentric"-she eyed Tocohl's moss cloak with jaundice-"but your manners are unfailingly impeccable."

Tocohl laid a hand on her breast and inclined her head. GalLing' suited her just fine for this minor bit of business. "I imagine this must be a great trial for you," she said, "I see you have not been back to Vyrnwy for, oh, five years at least."

"Almost ten years, now.-How did you know?"

"Come now! Styles do change." Tocohl laughed, "If you think my dress eccentric, you should seewhat high-born Vyrnwy wear these days!" Tocohl gestured at Edge-of-Dark's clothing and said, "Not that I suppose it matters much-this is perfectly suitable for surveying."

Edge-of-Dark flushed as deep a red as swift-Kalat. "Tell me," she said, "describe it to me."

"I'm not much at description. I could show you some pictures, if you'd like."

"I would," said Edge-of-Dark eagerly and Tocohl finished, "Tomorrow, then... if Captain Kejesli grants us the time. (Maggy, we're going. Bring the arachne.) Today I am here on business and I must deliver my messages."

Still flushing, Edge-of-Dark offered her hand again, this time to take hasty but formal leave of Tocohl.

Sparing only the briefest of embarra.s.sed glances for the others, she hurried to the door and out into the thinning veil of rain.

"Little b.u.g.g.e.r's really rude today, even by her standards," Buntec said. "Wonder what bit her a.s.s?"