Crystal Heat

10

Shadith dropped the Backhoe into orbit around Bol Mutiar and breathed a sigh of relief as she finally cut the umbilical to the Dragoi. She could leave the ship parked here, hand it over to Lylunda when she got the woman offworld.

She inspected the globe turning beneath her. There was very little about the world in the memory files on the ship and she didn’t want to alert Digby just yet.

An island named Chiouti.

She watched the parade of islands sliding past below her and swore with considerable fervor. No cities, just villages, one or two to an island depending on its size. No landmasses more than fifty miles on the longest axis. Almost all of the islands in a wide band about the equator, the rest of the world wind-churned ocean. She had no local maps, not a clue which of those humps of,dirt might be called Chiouti by the people who lived there. “Looks like I unship the lander and do the lucky dip and hope I don’t have to spend the next ten years at it.”

She put the small lander down on one of the larger islands, choosing, as landing site a barren spit where the weight and heat of the lander would do least damage. When you’re ’visiting someone else’s home to ask a favor, you don’t break the furniture or kick the cat. She crawled out, circled the lander, and was pleased to see she’d made a neat set-down. Then she started walking south along the beach toward the small village nestling at the back of a halfmoon bay, trying to ignore an uneasiness that tickled at her like flies walking down her back.

She had a feeling of something watching her, measuring her-not hostile yet, but a sense of lurking danger. She tried a sweep with her reach, but there was nothing alive nearby except a few bugs in the sparse grass and shellfish under the sand.

The first people who came running to meet her were children, brown, happy, unafraid, throwing words at her she couldn’t understand as yet, though the pain in her head meant the translator was working hard to remedy that.

“A droo eoeo a mei.”

“A mei erra blyek.”

“A mehil erra tiang.”

“Diak a woman?”

“In bail like that mno er el?

“I think yes, I think she has tuttas. And look at the way she meraii.” It was the oldest of the girls; she giggled and went strutting ahead of them, shaking her small behind. After a few steps she grinned over her shoulder. “Men don’t walk like that.”

“You might be surprised, young woman,” Shadith said. The words came slowly, but they came. The accent wasn’t quite right, but she could see from the startled look on the girl’s face that she understood the words well enough.

“Then you are a man?”

“No. You had that right.”

“You come to trade?”

“I came to find an island. Chiouti. Have you ever heard of a place with that name?

“Chiouti? I don’t think so. Too bad you missed the Berotongs when they came by last month on their beronta. They sail all round the world and know just about every place.”

Shadith stopped walking. When the girl turned and came back to her, she bowed, straightened. “Blessings on you, young woman. You have saved me much trouble and travel. I will do as you say and seek out a beronta of the Berotong Pandai.”

“But you must come and eat with us. We’ll have games and stories and a fine feast to celebrate your being here.”

“I thank you for the thought, but my need is urgent. Greet your elders for me and say that I wish they would celebrate the joy that your words have brought me.” She bowed again, swung round, and ran for the lander.

“And I wasn’t exaggerating,” she told herself as she took the lander up to the edge of the atmosphere. She put the craft on autopilot and began a search of the ocean round the islands, looking for a beronta. “Which shouldn’t be so hard to spot. Big melanggas. Melanggas? Translator still on the job. Spla! Forcegrowing new dendrons is not a fun experience. Wonder what happens when I run out of room inside this skull. Does it explode on me? I can see it now. One langue too many and kaboom, the lady’s head’s a tomb. That what they mean when they say go out with a bang not a whimper? Tsah! I could work up a good whimper right about now. Ah! there we are. One beronta riding the waves.”

She increased magnification, frowned at the image on the small screen. “Kids! Hm. Looks like whole families travel on those things. Interesting, as that is, it’s got nothing to do with my problem. How do I talk to them? Should I wait till they make their next landfall? Probably best I do. This is not the most maneuverable of platforms. Right. We get a measure of average speed, see which island is the likely target.

Then we drop down and say hello. I really don’t like that place and I’d rather not spend more time there than I have to.”