Hellspark (26 page)

Maggy

!”

she repeated aloud, “Maggy, what’s wrong

?”

But there was no response from that link either.

Alfvaen stared at it and then at Tocohl with widened eyes.

Tocohl’s shoulders ached suddenly with remembered pain… the battering she had taken protecting

Sunchild. “I should have realized,” she said, “I took that much too hard!”

“Ish shan, are you all right?” All three of the stared at her with obvious concern.

She drew a deep breath. When she was sure she had her voice under control, she said, “I’m fine; Maggy isn’t. Something’s happened to her.”

Shielding her eyes from the wan light of Flashfever’s sun—because Maggy did not,—Tocohl threw her head back to search the sky, hoping for a glimpse, a flicker of light to tell her that Maggy was still secure in her orbit. All she could see were gathering storm clouds.

For a time, swift-Kalat held the arachne where it might see both Kejesli’s face and Dyxte’s rapid sketches of the front of layli-layli calulan

’s cabin. But Dyxte was losing his audience to Edge-of-Dark.

When Kejesli and Dyxte’s sprookje wandered away Maggy said, “Do you think Tocohl would be more interested in the sprookjes than in the landscaping?”

“I am,” swift-Kalat said, “I can’t speak for Tocohl.”

“That’s confirmation enough. I want to see what Edge-of-Dark is doing.”

Swift-Kalat set the arachne down and followed it.

Across the compound, at the foot of Edge-of-Dark’s cabin, all of the camp sprookjes jostled and shuffled each other, not daring to displace the humans—to see the flower art.

The intensity of their interest seemed to impress even Captain Kejesli, for he caught swift-Kalat’s arm as he passed. Drawing him just out of echo-range Kejesli said, “In Veschke’s name, swift-Kalat, show me an artifact or a language!”

“I showed you an artifact,” said swift-Kalat, with a snap of his forearm that made his bracelets clang with such authority that a dozen or more sprookjes and surveyors started and turned at the sound of it.

For all the effect swift-Kalat’s status had however, the captain might as well have been deaf.

Releasing swift-Kalat’s arm, he turned and stalked away, his beaded hair chattering at each angry step, to vanish into his quarters.

The crowd parted slightly to let Timosie Megeve ease his way from within. A wave of his pale hand encompassed sprookjes and humans alike. “I don’t know what this proves,” he said,

“except that they’re as bored as we are.”

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“Only that the sprookjes are interested in Edge-of-Dark’s flower art. It does not prove they have a flower art of their own. Still, it means that we could be on the right track. It should be interesting to see what the sprookjes make of Dyxte’s landscaping.” Smiling slightly, swift-Kalat craned past Megeve’s shoulder to watch as Maggy’s arachne claimed Megeve’s spot on the steps… like a small child at a parade, he thought.

Megeve snorted. “And who’s looking after the weather forecasting while Dyxte is messing around with sketches? We’ve got people out in the field.”

“John the Smith. Meteorology is his—”

“

Swift-Kalat

!”

His head jerked up as he sought the source of the shout. The arachne stood at full stretch, a number of surveyors peering at it curiously. From Maggy… ?

The arachne dashed down the steps and zigzagged through the crowd to splash to a stop before him.

In a surprisingly sharp voice, it said, “I can’t reach Tocohl. She doesn’t answer—neither does Alfvaen!”

“What?” Megeve gaped at the arachne in astonishment.

Swift-Kalat knelt in the mud. “Repeat that please, Maggy.”

“I can’t reach Tccohl or Alfvaen,” Maggy repeate The sharpness was no illusion.

“Something’s happened to them.”

“What was the last thing you saw?” asked Megeve quite calmly now.

“Nothing dangerous. No crash, if that’s what you mean. They were just flying along the river when the picture, the sound, everything

, cut off.” The anxious note was still in Maggy’s voice, but swift-Kalat was reassured by her words.

“Swift-Kalat can tell you how much equipment failure we’ve had on this world,” Megeve said.

“It’s probably only something gone awry with your receiver. Would you like me to take a look?”

As he stooped and reached, the arachne took a measured step back. “No!” it said.

“Nobody touches my equipment except Tocohl!”

Megeve splayed a hand at his throat, rose. To swift-Kalat he said, “I wouldn’t worry. They’ve got the transmitter in the daisy-clipper if it comes that.”

“You’re sure? With both Tocohl’s and Alfvaer communication broken off simultaneously?”

“That’s why I’m sure. Nothing could cut off both the same time, except a defect in that”—he indicated the arachne with his toe, and it shied back a step farther—“or in the main part of the computer

Megeve finished.

“He’s wrong,” said the arachne. “I’m fine; Tocohl isn’t.”

“If it will reassure you, swift-Kalat,” Megeve said, “we can contact them on the main transmitter.”

“Yes, please,” said swift-Kalat, and Maggy sprookjelike, echoed the request. They trailed Megeve swiftly across the compound to the common room, where he seated himself at the console and punched the code for the daisy-clipper. After listening to the earpiece for a moment, Megeve took a flat case of tools from the pocket of his oversuit and began to dismantle the transceiver.

“Something’s wrong with this one, too,” he said disgustedly—and glanced at the arachne as if it were responsible. To swift-Kalat, he said, “And the fault is definitely with this equipment, swift-Kalat. Stop worrying; as soon as I get this back together, you can talk to your precious Siveyn and Hellspark.”

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“How long will it take?”

“I have no idea, but I can work faster if nobody’s breathing down the back of my neck.”

“I don’t breathe,” said the arachne, unmoving.

“I meant you, too,” said Megeve, and Maggy’s arachne—after a bob and a “Your pardon!”—followed swift-Kalat outside.

Swift-Kalat had intended to return to the sprookjes still crowded about Edge-of-Dark, but he found he could not keep his mind on them. The arachne, instead of resuming its place on the steps, stayed at his side. From that vantage point, it could see nothing but the backs of various legs.

Curious at her sudden apparent loss of interest, swift-Kalat wondered if Megeve might not be right.

Perhaps some failure in the arachne… ? “What are you doing, Maggy?” he asked.

“Thinking.”

“Thinking about what?”

Tocohl’s voice issued abruptly from the arachne’s vocoder. “Once a thing happens twice, you must think about it three times.” Then Maggy added in her own voice, “This has happened three times, to three separate communication devices. If Tocohl does not return in twenty minutes, we must search for her.”

“Why twenty minutes?”

“Contact was broken when the daisy-clipper was twenty minutes from camp. Tocohl will discover the loss of contact and return here to see if anything is wrong with me. If she does not, she cannot.”

“Are you sure of that?” swift-Kalat said. Not only could the question be asked in GalLing’

without giving offense but often the question had to be asked in GalLing’.

Maggy answered it by repeating all of her previous statements in Jenji, assigning a degree of reliability to each. “If she does not, she cannot,” Maggy finished; the arachne raised one spindly appendage and snapped it down.

The gesture was awkward—the arachne’s joints were unsuited for it—but it gave the ring of authority to her words. There was nothing wrong with a computer capable of such reliability of speech.

Swift-Kalat stared thoughtfully at the reflection of his own status bracelets in the puddle of water at his feet. “I see,” he said, and then fell silent. This had happened three times, she had said, assigning the statement to her own experience. In his experience…

Four times. In his mind’s eye, he watched as Timosie Megeve repaired the transceiver—not now, not today—but on the day Oloitokitok disappeared. There had been no locator signal, no emergency signal. Oloitokitok, so convinced of the sprookje’s sentience, had died. What then killed Oloitokitok?

To categorize two separate events as one as he did, perhaps improperly, would lead to deductions that, if false, were dangerous to speak. Yet he could not close his mind to the implications of the theory.

He had to find a way to test it.

“Come, Maggy. We will not wait the twenty minutes,” he said, and without waiting for a reply he started toward Kejesli’s cabin.

They found Kejesli playing a somewhat reluctant host to Dyxte, who was saying, “But the penny-Jannisett that grows in the local flashwood isn’t large enough. Now, if I take one of the daisy-clippers out into deep flashwood—it’s only about a fifteen-minute trip—I can get the perfect plants!”

Beaded hair rattled in agitation against the backrest of Kejesli’s chair. “No,” he said, “you’ll wait until

Megeve has fixed the main transceiver. It’s bad enough we’ve got one party out there unable to call in; I

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won’t send a second one out until the communications are restored.”

“The deep flashwood you’re referring to, Dyxte,” interjected swift-Kalat, “is that where we first found the sprookjes?”

“Yes,” said Dyxte and swift-Kalat turned to the captain.

“That’s where Tocohl’s party was headed. Maggy”—he gestured at the arachne—“lost contact with them, too. She believes something has happened to the party. We must take one of the daisy-clippers and find them.”

“Absolutely not.” Again, the rattle of beads. Kejesli stubbornly gripped the edge of his desk.

“Megeve tells me there’s something wrong with that—thing. You know we have had a great deal of trouble with our probes, swift-Kalat, and that one has been poking around outside during a thunderstorm. I’m not surprised it’s behaving oddly. You, and Dyxte, will wait until Megeve has the transceiver fixed.” His gesture was one swift-Kalat had learned to interpret not only as final, but as a dismissal as well.

Swift-Kalat tried to frame the thoughts that concerned him into words, but found himself unable to do so without creating so frightening a truth that—with a shudder, he turned and left.

“Whew,” said Dyxte when they were out of the captain’s earshot. “He wasn’t this bad on Inumaru! I

wonder what’s biting him?” Swift-Kalat darted a look at Dyxte, who added, “An expression, I didn’t mean it literally.—Is it true that the arachne has lost touch with Buntec and the others?”

“Yes,” said swift-Kalat. He wanted to say more; the possibility of misspeaking prevented him from doing so. The pennants that hung from layli-layli calulan

’s cabin, dry for this brief moment, snapped gaily, caught his eye, and suggested a possible course of action.

Tocohl and layli-layli calulan had calmly called each other liars. A mistranslation only, Tocohl had assured him, yet if the Yn term included the Jenjin meaning of the word, then perhaps a shaman had the ability to deflect the danger of misspoken words.

It was the only course of action open to him. He would try speaking to layli-layli calulan

.

A hand caught his elbow, brought him up short. “She’s in mourning, remember?” Dyxte said, having read his intent correctly. “We aren’t supposed to interrupt her.” Releasing his elbow, Dyxte thrust his hand straight into the air, as if to protect himself from some overhead threat.

“Unless it’s an emergency?”

he said; the sudden concern in his voice made the gesture seem one of emphasis—or fear.

Swift-Kalat stared at him. Even that was beyond his power to voice. To claim an emergency might be to doom the party.

Alfvaen

! “I cannot say that.”

“You look it,” Dyxte said.

“Swift-Kalat…” The arachne tapped at his calf delicately. “Will it help Tocohl if you speak to layli-layli calulan

?”

“It might, Maggy. I don’t know what else to try.”

“Then I will arrange it.”

“Wait!” said Dyxte. “You can’t go in there either.”

“Your pardon for the correction, Dyxte ti-Amax,” Maggy said, “but your ignorance is no fault of your own. You were chamfered by a moron; everybody says so. I’m female. As such, I have sufficient status to call on layli-layli calulan even in her time of mourning.”

With that, the arachne darted off, sending up a shower of mud all the way across the compound,
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to stretch for the chimes at the entrance of layli-layli calulan

’s cabin. A moment later, it disappeared inside.

As she paused on the threshold of layli-layli calulan

’s cabin, Maggy checked it all through once more. She fervently wished that she had someone, Tocohl or even Alfvaen, to discuss it with—especially after Megeve’s remarks about her sanity—but she could see no flaw in the plan.

She could not speak to swift-Kalat about it, that she knew. Swift-Kalat could not lie, Tocohl had said, and her memory banks backed up that statement; but she, Maggy, could lie for him. Hadn’t Tocohl told her to lie to Kejesli? And didn’t layli-layli calulan approve of lying?

Once again, she ran swiftly through all of her stores related to the Yn culture. The plan was eighty percent good. Given that layli-layli calulan was an atypical Yn shaman, that was the highest rating she could give it. If it would put her into contact with Tocohl again, it was worth the risk.

Maggy had never before been out of touch with Tocohl for this long.

Maggy struck the chime.

Layli-layli calulan did not answer, but having made the decision, Maggy could not turn back. She pulled the membrane aside and stepped quietly into the cabin, relieved that she could find nothing in her data stores to indicate that a shaman’s curse would work on a mechanical device.

As at the time Tocohl had first visited the cabin, the Yn shaman sat cross-legged on her blue mat.