Ammonite

Danner was glad T’orre Na was there. She had a working knowledge of the basic language, but the messenger’s accent or dialect was so thick Danner could barely understand one word in six. She made a mental note to ask Day which would be the most important dialects to learn—yet another thing Marghe could have helped them with.

After several minutes of question and answer, the messenger accepted a beer, tasted it cautiously, and put it down. Danner noticed she did not drink from it again. Not all natives liked beer, then. She was obscurely glad, though she could not have said why. Perhaps she was already experiencing the faint beginnings of the need to keep her culture separate, like all immigrant peoples on all worlds. For that’s what she and the other Mirrors and technicians were now—immigrants.

She listened harder.

It seemed that the messenger was uncertain about something, and the journeywoman was questioning her hard. Eventually, T’orre Na seemed satisfied, and had the messenger repeat something twice. She nodded and turned to Danner.

“The message goes like this. Marghe Amun, now of Wenn’s family at Ollfoss, to Danner, at Port Central. Greetings. I became ill with this world’s sickness during the Moon of Aches—that’s the Moon of Rain, as we would reckon it, some sixty or seventy days ago— and made myself with child thirty days later. The viajera Thenike and I will bear soestre next spring, I am well and happy. Give my regrets and apologies to the healer.” She repeated it while Danner taped it, for the record.

“Sehanol says the message knot came via ship to Pebble Fleet. Message stones were left by the banks of the Huipil by one of their herders and read by her daughter, Puiell. The stones had been disturbed. Sehanol thinks that some of the message may be missing.”

“Not the important part: Marghe got the virus; the vaccine didn’t work.” The end of everything. “ Marghe Amun,” Danner said slowly. “I wonder why she did that.” Perhaps the virus had affected the representative’s mind. Danner had heard vague rumors of Company personnel going crazy when they contracted the virus. They were usually the ones who died.

“Marghe Amun. And she’s with child. Soestre to the viajera Thenike.” Danner could not identify T’orre Na’s expression. It looked like something akin to wonder.

Sehanol said something.

“She wants to leave now,” T’orre Na said. “There’s work to be done in Scatterdell.”

Danner looked at Sehanol, whose eyes were very bright and who had obviously been following what they said. Danner spoke clearly and carefully. “Before you leave, Sehanol, I want you to know that you have my personal thanks and gratitude. If you and yours at Scatterdell need some small favor in the future, ask.”

“We will. You are gracious.”

T’orre Na punched the door lock. It hissed open and the native slipped through and was gone.

“Gracious indeed,” the journeywoman said to Danner, “considering that the message was already paid for.”

“I stressed a smallservice. And I thought it was important to cement good relations.” Now that they were here for good.

“You did right. Perhaps now that your circumstances have changed a little, you’ll be prepared to change your mind with regard to your other obligations in the north.”

“T’orre Na, I can’t, believe me. More than ever, I’ve too much to do here. I have to catch someone, a spy. It’s now or never. If she isn’t caught now, she’ll go underground. We’ll never be sure who we can trust again, I’m responsible for the evacuation of Port Central, just in case the Kurstdecides to eradicate this position. Nearly a thousand personnel and our stores and munitions have to go somewhere; and we don’t even know where, yet. I have to…” She pulled herself up with an effort. T’orre Na did not want to hear all her troubles. “There’s enough work here for every woman twice over—work that’s vital for our survival. I can’t, I absolutely cannot, spare anyone at this time. Please tell this to Cassil and the others of Holme Valley.”

“I urge you to reconsider. The Echraidhe are destroying herds and crops and people now. And trata is trata.”

“And if I don’t do all that needs doing here, right now, there won’t beany Mirrors to keep trata! Please, try and believe me.”

“Oh, I do,” T’orre Na said sadly, “but that makes no difference. Cassil needs help, you refuse it. You break trata. There is nothing more to be said.”

Chapter Fourteen

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