Fire in the Sky

2

Frowning a little, As/an watched the pony train vanish round a clump of trees. She had wider latitude than usual on this collecting run; University was tacitly willing to see her do a lot more than record, but would take a very dim view of her if she got carried away, so involved with the locals that she embarrassed the Regents. She sighed. Shadith knew that, but she wasn’t a Scholar and would never be one, her blood ran too hot. As mine does, they keep telling me. Phra, I don’t like being a Company snoop which is what I am if you tear off the pretty wrapping. To work, Scholar, get to work, no telling how long this window will last before the Chave decide it’s time to purge us.

“My name is Budechil. It’s a word from the old tongue, out of the time before the Fior came. It means Harmony. That thing will remember what I’m saying? Show me.”

Aslan shifted the Ridaar, clicked on the replay. An image of Budechil crafted of colored light sat opposite the original, spoke the recorded words.

“Ihoi!” Budechil came heavily to xe’s feet, stumped across to the image, passed xe’s hand through it, then looked at the hand for a long moment before xe went back to xe’s chair. “And who will see this?”

“One copy will be registered in University Archives for Scholars to study, a second will be left here with a reader so that your budlines a thousand and a thousand years on will see you and hear your stories.”

“Meringeh! So what should I say?”

“Let’s start with you, who you are, what you do. You’ve already given your name, we can go on from there.”

Budechil tapped xe’s tongue against xe’s chewing ridge. “Glaaaa gla, talking is such a natural thing, why do I suddenly find words skittering away from me?” Xe closed xe’s eyes, rubbed the fingers of xe’s left hand along the arm of the backless chair.

For several moments xe sat there silent, then xe opened xe’s eyes and started speaking again, slowly at first and then more easily. “I am Budechil the caцpa coper. Budline Chil-choдdd. I am the Line Elder for the moment and direct the Chil-choдdd lands of Ordumel Alsekum. I say for the moment because I feel the Heaviness of the Change coming on. Next spring when the melodach ripens, I will begin the eating and by summer’s end will take my place on the Sleeping Ground. When I am Eolt, I will not have the sioll bond, I do not have enough music in my soul and I have not got close to a Fior. I think we will have a bond in Alsekum. Young Glois and Utelel of the Bud-line Lel-beriod seem to be building a music that has promise of being glorious. That is a good thing. It has been too long since Alsekum gave an Ard and a singing Eolt to Bйluchad.

“I have budded five times. One died of the Withers before drop-off, one was chopped and eaten by the chorek. The year those two dropped was Chel Dй cursed for sure. They were same-summer buds; it was as if the dead one called the living. Two of the living are Denchok, one is in bud, a single bud which is more fortunate and easier to live with. The youngest was a late corner, on the dying edge of my bud-time. Xe has been sickly and has stayed close to home and close to my reng. Ah, that too is an old-time word. It means the organ that feels tenderness and love; it is the same as crof which is what the Fior use as well. The Fior are Bйluchar now as much as the Keteng and they do things we can’t, our life is richer because of them, but I still like to remember the time before, when Bйlucharis had no words for man and woman, for birth and copulation and so many other things that I have seen and known but do not understand.

“I’ve had to learn something about this business, dealing with caцpas as I do, breeding them and raising them, learning their seasons, when to separate them and when to keep them together. It’s hard, though, to contemplate thinking people doing such things. I an filled with delight when I think that Keteng need not go through such contortions to continue the species.”

Aslan leaned forward, lifted a hand to catch xe’s attention. “Would you care to talk about that? A Keteng would not need the explanation, but the Scholars would like to hear your voice on this. If it is a private thing and you’d rather not…”

Breath catching in the odd hiccupping sound of Keteng laughter, xe rocked forward and back on the cloth seat of xe’s chair. Xe caught xe’s breath, patted at the mat of lichen on xe’s chest. “Pardon me, Scholar. I’ve always found Fior fussiness silly, and it amuses me that you would think there is anything private about a dusting of spores.” Xe dropped xe’s hands onto xe’s thighs, the thin long fingers tapping lightly at the heavy dark blue canvas of xe’s trousers.

“It is like this. In the month Kirrayl when the sun comes back overhead and the year begins, an Ordumel Circle gathers at one of the Dumels and holds a Kirrataneh. All day there is feasting and music and talk talk talk; there are people you haven’t seen since the last Kirrataneh and won’t see till the next. It has to be a night when the wind is soft and there is no rain or that year’s spores are wasted. When the sun goes down, the Denchok gather on the dance floor, the Eolt are overhead to sing, the drummers are there to beat the heart faster and faster. You dance from the sun going down till the sun coming up. The fires that light the floor are perfumed with a thousand and a thousand essences. You dance till your spore sacs pop and dance some more while your kesamad open out and expose their sticky linings to catch the tiyid raining down on them and dance yet more in the joy of the getting time. There is always a first to pop, and you pray Chel Dй will not choose to make you that one, because you will be teased without mercy for the whole rest of the year. Once the first has sprayed xe’s spores, all the spores are released. The pip-pop-pop grows louder than the drum beats. You dance in the rain of the tiyid and the pleasure of it is beyond words, something only an Ard and Eolt can express.” Xe sighed and was silent for several minutes, then xe said, “I don’t feel like talking anymore. Another day, perhaps.”