The Stones of Nomuru

VI – THE FREEMARTIN

Shortly after Salazar returned to Nomuru, Ito Kurita came back from his visit to High Chief Miyage. Kurita reported that the contract with Bergen was not yet final, and that he hoped he had sown enough seeds of doubt to delay the proceedings.

"I did not see the High Chief himself," said Kurita unhappily. "He is most discourteous. He sent word that he had no time for aliens but would let me speak to an underling. It was most humiliating."

After the surveyors departed, the site of Nomuru saw the three assistants diligently shoveling and sieving at one of the test pits, while Salazar struggled to master the art of riding a juten. When he picked himself up from the ground for the second time, he said in Shongo to his riding instructor:

"Sensao, I shall never be able to ride this creature without what we call stirrups."

"Sati—" said the Kook, neck spines indicating puzzlement. "What is the Terran word again, honorable sir?"

"Stirrups."

"Satrapsa? And what be those?"

Salazar explained. The instructor commented: "Strange. We ride without these satrapsa and never fell off."

"I do not, like you, have claws on my feet to hold on with."

"Unfortunate creature! You must order these things in Neruu. Meanwhile, you must try again. Get back in the saddle and tell the juten: 'Go forward; turn left; turn right; halt!' "

"Very well." Mounted again, Salazar said to his mount: "Katai!"

The juten obediently paced forward. A riding juten bore a lead rope looped about its neck, but the rider controlled it entirely by vocal commands.

"Mai shida!" said Salazar, meaning "Turn left!"

The juten promptly turned right. Salazar, who had leaned to the left to brace himself for the turn, rolled off the juten's back again.

"Tomai!" he yelled after the departing beast, which stopped at the command. Bruised and battered, Salazar faced his instructor. "Sensao, what did I do wrong this time?"

"You said mai shida when you should have said mai shida." The Kook pronounced the two commands with different tones.

"But I used the low-rising tone in shida!"

"But, honorable sir, you forgot that, in that combination, the low-rising tone changes to high-level."

Salazar sighed. "I thought my Shongo good enough for most purposes."

"It is, honorable sir, for talking with us Shongorin. When you barbarians misplace the tones, we are intelligent enough to guess your true meaning. When you use the wrong status forms, we know that you do not mean to insult us and make allowances for your ignorance. Now mount again!"

Cursing a language that distinguished the words for "right" and "left" only by a complex system of tones, Salazar once more heaved himself into the saddle. This time he went through the drill without mishap. He had just halted his mount when he heard a cry of "Hurrah!" and saw Oleg Pokrovskii standing at the edge of the site, clapping. A cyhndrical box reposed at his feet, and behind him stood another Terran.

"Keit'!" called Pokrovskii, beckoning. "I got something for you!"

Salazar called, "Wait here, Sensao!" and guided his mount to the place where Bergen's fat construction superintendent stood. Pokrovskii opened the box and, with a flourish, whisked out a broad-brimmed straw hat. Handing it up to Salazar he said, "I owed you hat, because I ruined other. Try it on; had to guess size. This my assistant, Bill Kovelenko." He indicated his youthful companion.

Salazar acknowledged the introduction and donned the hat.

"Thanks, Oleg. When I dug in Mexico, before coming out here, they wore hats like this. Did you come all the way from Suvarov just to give me this hat?"

"Not exact. I wanted to see how dig was coming, because my boss in terrible hurry to get started."

"Has he a firm agreement with High Chief Miyage yet?"

Pokrovskii spread his hands. "Always he say, is so close as not to matter. Now let me see diggings. I admire de science."

Warily, Salazar, still mounted and guiding his juten by voice, led Pokrovskii across the site, detouring around test pits and explaining his work. "Here's the surviving top course of a Nomoruvian stone wall; notice the rusticated ashlars ..."

As they neared the pit on which the assistants were working, Pokrovskii suddenly cried: "Hey, who that?"

Salazar looked. "Another goddam Chosha!" he breathed. "Where the hell did I put the rifle? Better get off the site, Oleg, in case this fellow wants to take a head. Marcel! Fetch the rifle!"

"I left it back in the tent!" came Frappot's wail.

Pokrovskii and Kovelenko were trotting away toward Salazar's camp. Kovelenko, younger and spryer, had sprinted far ahead. The Chosha set its juten toward the lumbering Pokrovskii. As Salazar watched, the Kook raised its huge pistol and fired, without effect. It holstered the firearm and drew a long, curved saber.

Salazar shouted: "Mai shida!" to his juten, hoping he had used the correct tone. To his relief, the dinosaurlike mount turned left. Salazar cried "Faster!" in Shongo and fumbled with his own holster.

The Chosha, bearing down on Pokrovskii, swung the saber high. Coming up behind, Salazar fired his pistol, but the jouncing gait of his mount caused him to miss. He fired again, this time at the Chosha's juten.

The animal tottered and pitched forward, throwing its rider head over heels. When Salazar halted his own bipedal beast with a shout of "Tomai!", the fallen juten was feebly moving its limbs and the Chosha was beginning to stir and sit up. Its saber stood upright in the turf, driven in half the length of the blade.

"Oleg!" called Salazar. Pokrovskii had already paused in his flight. Seeing the Chosha sitting on the ground, he started back toward it.

The Chosha staggered to its feet, saw Pokrovskii nearing with murder in his eye, and turned to flee. Pokrovskii grasped the hilt of the upright saber, pulled it free, and ran after the Kook, waving the weapon and shouting: "lditye syuda! Come here!"

The Chosha had run but a little way when it blundered into a test pit a meter deep. Pursuing it, Pokrovskii, propelled by momentum, tumbled into the pit on top of the Kook.

The others rushed to the pit. Salazar and Kurita hauled Pokrovskii out, while Kovelenko and Sensao, the Shongo riding teacher, gripped the arms of the Chosha and hoisted it out in turn. When the marauding nomad got its breath back, it set up a loud, discordant outcry. Salazar realized, from the captive's lack of a crest of small spines, that it was a female.

"Do you understand her?" Salazar asked Sensao.

"Aye. She protests our cruelty in nearly crushing her to death beneath that great fat Terran. She thinks her ribs are broken."

"Well, she was after Mr. Pokrovskii's head."

After translation, Sensao said: "She admits this but says that death would have been so quick that the fat Terran would have felt no pain. Besides, it would be an honor to lose one's head to so mighty a warrior as she."

After more speech from the Chosha, Sensao continued: "She asks what you mean to do with her? She says that she was supposed only to scout; but the sight of you aliens aroused her battle lust. If she goes back to Prophet Kampai, he will order her head cut off for disobeying orders and letting herself be captured."

"Tell her we shall have to consider the matter." Salazar added in English: "The rest of you, take her back to camp and tie her up. Don't leave her near anything she could use to get free, and take turns guarding her."

He turned to the instructor. "Sensao, please tie the jutens up and see to their food and water. Then join us in the tent; I shall want your services as a translator."

He started after the others, but Pokrovskii touched his arm. "Keit'!" he cried, seizing Salazar and kissing his cheeks. "I got to tell you something. Can I trust you tell nobody? Is important."

"Yep," said Salazar.

"Hokay, First, I work for Conrad, so I got to do what he says, like when we left you in cage. Was awful. I tried to change his mind but could not. Now, you good man and I like you, as well as saving my life."

"So?"

"So I got to warn you. Conrad not going to wait for signing contract with High Chief. Will soon send crew with bulldozer, to shape terrain for resort."

"If he does that before the contract is final," said Salazar, "Miyage may tell him where to shove his agreement. Kooks are sticklers for protocol."

"I know. But Conrad very impatient man. Says business with Kooks worse than with Suvarov government. Committees, administrators, procedures, appeals, delays. He not appreciate efficiency of our government."

"That's your damned Russian influence in Suvarov," said Salazar. "You think everybody should be cogs in a vast machine, with all the little wheels turning in mesh."

"Of course! Is price of civilization!"

"Sure, but you carry it to the point of lunacy. You got the idea from the Byzantine Empire and have followed it ever since, under the Tsars and under the Communists and under the Constitutionalists. Over-organization is the Russian national vice."

"Well, de supersalesmanship is American national vice."

"Maybe you've got something there, Oleg. And another thing. Tell Bergen the next time he sends a gang to interfere with my work, they won't chase my people off the site, like last time. If I have to shoot a few, I will."

"Oh!" said Pokrovskii, looking solemn. "Then I got to tell you one more thing. The construction crew have order, if you interfere with them, to kill you; and boss don't mean it as how-you-say number of speech. He say, never mind laws of Terran Federation. Don't apply in Kook lands; and Kooks, if one Earthman kill another, won't interfere. You interfere if you saw two porondus fighting?"

"Thanks for the warning," said Salazar. "I've never killed a fellow Terran, but I daresay I could learn. Now we'd better question the prisoner."

As they followed the others toward the camp, Pokrovskii swished the Chosha saber through the morning air. "Is like Cossack shashka. Fine souvenir!"

The Chosha, wrists bound, stood in the center of a circle of seated Terrans. Sensao interpreted for the prisoner, and Salazar translated from Shongo for the other Terrans. Sensao reported:

"She says that, if you kill her, she hopes it will be quick. If you wish to cut her head off now, she is ready."

The prisoner bowed her head low, presenting the back of her scaly neck. Despite her brave words, Salazar saw from the rippling patterns of the spines on her neck that she was frightened.

"Is tempting," said Pokrovskii, fingering the saber.

"Waste not, want not," said Salazar. "Perhaps we can find a better use for her." He switched to Shongo. "Sensao, ask her if, since her fellow tribesmen now regard her as dead, she would like to change her allegiance."

"She says she would, if you will become her new chief. She said you must be a great chief, from the way the other aliens obey you."

"Good thing she didn't see me after my fights with Bergen," muttered Salazar. "Do you know the rituals, Sensao?"

"Well enough, honorable sir. The Kampairin can correct any errors."

"What is her name?"

"She is Oikisha, daughter of Kussiti, granddaughter of Danjan. She is an onnifa—a barren female leading a warrior's life."

"Ask her if she will swear by the spirits of her ancestors and by her immortal honor to take me as her liege lord and be my faithful liege man?"

"She say she will, honorable sir." Salazar noted that the pattern of the Chosha's moving neck spines now betrayed feelings of hope.

"She must understand, first, that she will have to learn Shongo. She cannot serve me if we must communicate through an interpreter."

"She will do that, honorable sir. If you hire me for my present pay, I will teach her."

"Also," added Salazar, "I want her on my visit to the Empress, as servant and bodyguard."

"She will faithfully perform those duties, assuming that you will likewise meet your obligations toward her."

Salazar said to the others: "This will be a tedious business, taking at least an hour. We have to mix drops of each other's blood and all that sort of thing. Why don't you go eat your lunch while Sensao and I struggle through the ritual?"

The other Terrans assured Salazar that they would be interested in the ceremony; but, after listening for a while to the archaeologist and the two Kukulcanians exchanging groans and gasps and shrieks, they drifted away to the mess.

After lunch, Pokrovskii and Kovelenko set out on the hike back to Henderson, from where they would take the railroad to Suvarov. Salazar spent the afternoon on the dig, leaving Sensao and Oikisha in the camp. While the onnifa scrubbed the painted symbols from her scaly hide and painted on a new set, mostly white and yellow stars and sunbursts to symbolize her new allegiance, Sensao drilled her in the rudiments of Shongo.

When Salazar returned to the camp, he told Sensao: "One more day of riding practice must suffice. The day after that, Oikisha and I shall set out for Machura to see the Empress. Can you buy Oikisha a cheap but serviceable riding juten in Neruu, and another for baggage?"

"I can, honorable sir; but what about your satrapsas?"

"I shall order them; but until our return from Machura I must rely upon my saddle."

After dinner, Salazar wrote up the day's results and composed a work schedule for his assistants over the next few days. When he entered his sleeping compartment, he found Sensao sitting on his folding chair. The Shongorin rose, saying:

"Honorable Doctor Sarasara, Oikisha has asked me to learn when you wish to copulate. What may I tell her?"

Salazar's jaw sagged. "God in Heaven!" he exclaimed before changing to Shongo. "What makes her think that I want any such thing?"

"Oh, sir, it is a rigid custom among the Choshas. It is part of the mutual obligations between an onnifa and her liege lord; they copulate as often as desired whenever the liege lord is without his lawful mate. Oikisha asked me if you had a lawful mate. I told her that I understood you did not; so Oikisha stands ready to perform her duty."

"I evidently did not know native customs so well as I thought," said Salazar. "But Sensao, such copulation is impossible, because of the physical differences between our species. If I tried to meet Oikisha's expectations, the result would be no pleasure for her and severe pains to me."

"I am sorry, honorable sir," said Sensao. "If you cannot meet your part of this obligation, she will consider her oath to you cancelled and resume her allegiance to Prophet Kampai. Since you are Kampai's foe, for having escaped from him and killed some of his people, she must try to slay you. If she succeeds, she must then return to her tribe, although she knows that they will kill her forthwith."

Salazar pounded his forehead with the heel of his hand. "What in the name of your ancestral spirits shall I do?"

"Sir, the most practical course would be to take your pistol and shoot Oikisha."

"Ugh! I don't like that course, either. Let me think."

For some moments Salazar sat, staring. Sensao stood immobile. At last, looking at the new poignette on his wrist, Salazar felt the stirring of an idea. He glanced at the time, looked up Kara's home number, and pressed the buttons to call her. Kara's voice came thinly out of the little instrument: "Hello?"

"It's Keith," said Salazar. After amenities, he asked: "Has your story on the hunting trip appeared?"

"Would you believe it, McHugh refused to run it? He wants me to rewrite the piece to make Conrad Bergen look like a hero, instead of the rat I showed him to be. Several of Conrad's enterprises advertise in the News, and McHugh's afraid of losing the revenue."

"I should have shot Bergen during the hunt and called it an accident. But that's not what I called about."

"Well?"

"I'm leaving in two days for Machura, to beard the Empress Gariko—that is, I would if she had a beard. Could you come along? It'll be a great story for your paper if I pull it off; I don't think even McHugh could bottle that up."

"Why—I don't know, Keith. You've taken me by surprise. I need time to think ..."

"Sorry, but I've got to leave the day after tomorrow. You'd have to start for Nomuru in the morning."

"Why me? Phil Reiner actually speaks their croak, and native affairs are his job."

"No, Kara; this has to be you."

"Why? If you've got any romantic notions, forget—"

"No, no! This is an emergency ..." He told of the capture of the female Chosha scout, her change of allegiance, and the duty unexpectedly thrust upon him. "Do you know what a freemartin is? It's a sterile, physically abnormal cow. The Kooks have the equivalent."

The poignette snickered. "Why not give her a try? The Reverend Ragnarsen would disapprove, but the poor man is probably dead."

"Kara, aren't you familiar with the Kooks' anatomy? You know what happens to a pencil in a pencil sharpener. The long and the short of it is that I've got to have a nominal mate for a few days; or else I have to shoot Oikisha. She's only trying to do her duty."

"Why don't you shoot her? You didn't mind killing some of those Kooks who pursued us."

"A battle is one thing; but shooting a captive in cold blood, and a female at that, is another. You know I'll kill when I must, but my heart's not in it. And if I fool around long enough, trying to figure a way out, she says she'll have to kill me."

"Why not make Galina your 'nominal mate'?"

"God! Do you think those biddies on the University's Committee on Coercion and Harassment would believe it was nominal? Besides, Galina might get ideas of her own. One very-much-younger girlfriend will last me a lifetime."

"Who else is going with you?" she asked.

"Just Oikisha. I can't take Marcel or Ito away from the dig."

"In other words, we'll be by ourselves for all practical purposes. Look here, Keith, is this a ploy to get me into bed with you? Because if it is, you can go jump—"

"No, no, Kara! I don't do things like that."

"You didn't use to; but I can think of other things you didn't use to do, either."

"Oh, please, Kara! I've paid my penalty. I promise not to lay a finger on you—at least, not without permission."

"You mean, a finger or any other organ!"

"Okay, a finger, toe, ear, or any other part. I need you, just as you needed me on that hunt."

After a long pause, the poignette said: "All right, I'll come."

"Good! Can you get here tomorrow?"

"Unless I break a leg or fall into the Sappari."

"And don't forget to bring a gun!" Salazar turned to Sensao, saying, "Tell Oikisha that she is misinformed. I have a lawful mate, who will arrive tomorrow to accompany us to Machura."

"What about tonight, honorable sir?" said the Shongorin.

"I am too fatigued to perform my tribal duty tonight, and thereafter there will be no occasion for it. Good-night!"