Fire in the Sky

2

Marrin heard the hissing whispers and smiled as he recognized them. He didn’t turn as the scuff of bare feet told him Glois and Utelel were edging into the workroom, just kept at his work refining the map of Dumel Alsekum, drawing on the lightpad, his crude lines cleaned up and made elegant on the screen.

They edged up until they were leaning against him, watching the marks he was making on the pad, seeing how they were changed on the screen. “What’s that?” Glois said.

“It’s a map of the Dumel. I’m putting in where people live and the kind of gardens and trees they have. See, this square with roundish corners is the Everything Shop and I put a smaller square on top for the place where your friend Likel lives with xe’s family. Those marks there are the names of xe’s Parent and sibs.”

“I know what maps are. How come it looks different up there?”

“There’s a bit that thinks in there and it knows what I want so it does it. There’s a bit that thinks in all our machines.”

“Oh.”

Marrin set the pen down, swung his chair around and scowled at the pair. “It’s the middle of the day, why aren’t you in school? You know what I told you.”

“Ah, Aide Mar, it’s Rest Day. And it’s first Seibibyl and that means it’s Summer now and us Sekummers we getting ready for a biiiig party. And we got chased, so we come here and anyway we found out some stuff you maybe want to know.”

“Ihoi, we did,” Utelel said, his lighter voice as filled with triumph as Glois’. “There’s this Fior swampie, his name’s Sabhal, he carves stuff; you know, like crogalls, he makes hinges so their mouths come open and even sets in bitty teeth from something, I dunno what’s got teeth that little, my Parent buys stuff from him for my sibs and me, so he knows us pretty well and…”

“And you go round the Dumel when you try to explain anything, Utta. He want to go see Ut’s Parent, ‘cause xe can talk to Met ‘n Tas for him, he don’t like officials and won’t go round them. We got him to talking to us ‘cause Ut’s Parent is busy with Summer Day business. He forgot what day it was and he almost run off when Ut tells him. Anyway, what he said was, there’s a funny looking mesuch fossicking around in the Marishes. Like a big crogall with xe’s snout pushed in. Anyway, the mesuch, he’s got this weird stick thing that flies and he’s messing around with choreks and giving them these things like our mesuch got, you know, fire comes out one end and burns through just ‘bout anything. Sabhal, he says the choreks are getting real stirred up, like you kick into a mutmut nest and they go running round like crazy. Sabhal, he says one bunch of ‘em nearly set Marish on fire, burn down all their bothys, and if it didn’t rain woulda took a lot a grass and trees with ‘em. Anyway is that the kinda thing you want to know?”

“It certainly is. Chorek with cutters, that’s not a happy thought. Have you talked to Ut’s Parent yet?”

Utelel shook xe’s head, the orange and yellow flowers dancing with the movement. “We just heard and we come here first.”

“Well then, you’d best scoot along and take the message like Sabhal wanted you to. Tell them that you told me and that I’m passing the word on.”

Glois wrinkled his nose and looked at Utelel, but before he could say anything, Duncan Shears walked in.

He raised his brows when he saw them, but didn’t comment. “Here, catch.” He tossed Marrin a flake in a portable reader. “List of parts the Goлs swore he’d send us. His signa included. Haven’t had a smell of ‘em. I want you to get hold of the Molyb Oschos, see what’s holding things up. Use the authorization on that to build a fire under him if he’s dragging his feet.”

“Right. By the way, I’ve just learned that the Chave have an agent over here passing out cutters to the chorek. Think I should get hold of Security there and let them know?”

Shears scowled. “How sure are you?”

“Pretty damn.”

“I’ll give a call to the Scholar, let her know. If she decides better not, she can get through to you on the jit’s com. Button up before you leave, but don’t worry about the alarms. I’ll set web once you’re out.” He glanced at the two young Bйluchar, sighed, and went out.

“Gonna take the, jit? Take us with you, Marrin, hunh? Give us a ride, huh huh?”

“No way, my young friends.” He powered down the port, tapped on the datalock and got to his feet. “Besides, you have something you’ve got to do, remember?”

“Ahhh, we can do that anytime. Ut’s Parent don’t want to see us now, xe said xe don’t want to see us, said it loud.”

“Well, you’ve just got to change xe’s mind. Look, Glois, I’m a target, like all the rest of us from University. Any shooting, it’s going to come at me. You want me to have to live with knowing I’ve got one of the people I’m supposed to be studying killed?” He lifted the jit’s keypack from the hook by the door, shooed the still protesting pair outside, pulled the door shut behind him. “And I’m really serious, Ut, Glo. It’s important that your officials know what the swampie told you. It could save lives. That’s on your shoulders. Now you go and do right by your folks.”

He watched the youngsters drag off along the shadow-dappled walkway, then went to the main workroom and stuck his head inside. “Dunc, how about letting me trade for a heavy-duty stun? Don’t want to sound too nervous, but cutters floating around makes me sit up a bit.”

“Done. Let me get to the cache…” He palmed the lock box open, turned back the lid. “Hm. Another thing… come over here, I’m going to load you down with a few telltales. Won’t do much, but maybe could give you some warning.”

“Did you get to Aslan?”

“She’s in the middle of an interview, but I set the flasher going so she’ll be coming through any minute now.”

Marrin swung into the jit, set the telltales on the shelf in front of the stick, then took a good look round to make sure Glois and Utelel weren’t anywhere near. He sighed. He liked that pair, they reminded him of himself and a cousin of his. Wonder how close we came to getting ourselves killed? he thought with a pleasing sense of nostalgia only possible because he had no intention of going near his homeworld again. And how many times. He started the jit, backed it from under the tree, and started around the outside of the Dumel. Now that he was out of the workroom, he could hear the voices, the snatches of music, could see the pennants being raised and now and then catch the wisps of aroma from the food and the mulled cider being heated in a vast pot outside the Meeting House.

As he turned into the road, he started the telltale and immediately punched the volume lower when the beeper went into hysterics as a laughing dancing chattering band of Keteng came round a grove of oilnut trees. They heard the beeping and milled about the jit for a while, clapping their hands and shouting Summer blessings at him. As they broke off and headed for the Dumel again, two meloach with bright blue flowers on their heads and shoulders grinned at him and tossed a handful each of sugared nuts into the jit.

Smiling and crunching on a nut he picked off the seat beside him, Marrin sent the jit humming along the road, his worries forgotten for the moment. He liked this world. No doubt it had its dark side, but he’d come up in a world that was mostly dark side with only small flashes of light and he felt very protective of places like this. Aslan wanted to preserve the brightness so later generations could retrieve it; he was more like Shadith, he wanted to stop the plundering now. He thought about Shadith and the things he’d heard about her, rumors and jealous bitching both. Thought about the restrictions of the Scholar’s life which were starting to bear down on him.

He wanted enough Voting Stock to have University as homebase even if he didn’t go for Scholar at the end of his training-which meant he had to restrain his actions and keep inside the rules for another decade or so while he played politics with his sponsors so he could get onto the projects that brought him the stock. Which also meant he’d better not revert to early training and go play commando raid with the Chave Enclave as target.

The handcom’s bell jolted him back to the present. He tapped it on. “Ola here.”

“Marrin, Duncan just told me about your young friends. We’ll decide what to do about that tonight, till then silence is best.”

“Right, Scholar. Will do. Out.”

His thoughts kicked along to the intermittent beeps from the telltale as the jit hummed past fields with large beasts in them and the occasional Keteng or Fior herder drowsing in the sunlight. The road itself was empty now, the Bйluchar coming to the celebration in Alsekum were mostly already there.

Half an hour from the village, the open fields grew smaller and smaller; there were groves of nut and fruit trees, also occasional woodlots filled with shadow and cut-glades where thickets of young trees were bright green patches between the darker trunks of the mature stock. Excellent ambush spots, his mind informed him and he started tensing again, though the telltale had gone quiet once there were no more herds to trigger it.

The woods grew denser as he neared the bridge over the Debuliah River, an arm of the Sea Marish reaching along its north bank. The road turned into a causeway above stagnant, weed-filled water, and the trees closed in around the road. Over the hum of the jit’s lifters he could hear angi-song and the occasional splash from a crogall or some other water monster too cold to register on the telltale. By the time he reached the approach to the bridge, he was so tense a sudden burp on the telltale sent him reaching for the stunner. A glance at the telltale gave him distance and direction. He stopped the jit, swept the beam at full stun through a 180 arc, dropped the stunner on the seat beside him, and jammed the accelerod as far to the right as it would go.

When he saw the glimmer of the Enclave forcefield, he slowed, tugged a k-rag from the doorpocket, and wiped at the sweat on his face. He loathed cutters and he’d had enough of assassins a long time ago. Muttering anathemas under his breath, he headed the jit toward the Enclave gate, wondering if he’d just put a stray caцpa to sleep or pinned a swampie or did anything more than dunk a few fliers in some murky water. At least it wouldn’t be anyone heading to the ‘Clave to trade. The paved ground was empty and there were no barges tied up at the landing today. Rest Day. Summer Day. Just as well.