Sheri Tepper - Grass

“I thought you might know who she is,” Jandra said. “Or who she was. Surely she hasn’t always been like this.”

Kinny thought hard about it. There was something in the tilt of the girl’s head that reminded her of someone, but she couldn’t say who. No one in Commons, that was certain. “She must have come in on a ship,” she offered, having already been told that this was impossible. “Must have.”

“I keep thinking so, too,” Jandra agreed. “But Jelly says no. She was just there, on Ducky Johns’ back porch, and that’s it. Like she hatched there. No more memory than an egg.”

“What are you going to do with her?” Kinny wanted to know.

Jandra shrugged. “See if I can find her a home, I guess. Pretty soon, too. Jelly’s losing patience, having her around.”

Actually, it was not Jelly’s patience he was in danger of losing. Devotedly fond of Jandra though he was (and they two with an understanding about fidelity), the proximity of the girl’s body, lovely and uninhibited as some half-tamed beast, was leading him to worrisome desires.

“A week,” he told Jandra. “I’ll give you a week.” He thought he’d probably be able to control himself at least that long.

Rigo was determined to have a diplomatic reception. He was much encouraged in this by Eugenie, who was tired of the company of Opal Hill but who had no status which would allow her to go elsewhere. She could not even go to the Hunts. After the bon Damfels’ Hunt the Yrariers had observed three other Hunts; twice as a family, once with Fathers Sandoval and James along as guests. It was quite enough, as Tony said, to know that they were all alike. They had declined to observe more, and by doing so had confirmed the bons’ prejudice about them. By that time, however, Rigo had other things to think about. Some of the furnishings for the summer quarters had arrived along with Roald Few. who promised that everything would be completed in two weeks’ time.

“Draperies, rugs, furnishings, image projectors for the walls — everything. Everything elegant and of the highest quality.”

“Rigo wants to have a reception for the bons,” Marjorie told him.

“Hmmph,” snorted Persun Pollut.

“Now, Pers,” chided Roald. “The ambassador doesn’t know. During Hunt season, Lady Westriding, he’s unlikely to get anybody but second leaders and lower. People who don’t ride. Those who ride wouldn’t even consider coming, don’t you see?”

“We’d get Eric bon Haunser but not the Obermun?”

“That’s right. You’d get nobody at all from the bon Damfels’ except Figor. Obermum won’t go anywhere Obermun doesn’t. That isn’t done. All the rest of the family rides, what’s left of it.”

Marjorie stared at him, evaluating the open countenance before her. The man seemed without guile, and thus far he had treated her fairly. “I need information,” she said at last in a very quiet voice.

Roald dropped his own voice to a confidential level. “I am at your service, Lady Westriding.”

“The bon Damfels were in mourning when we were there.”

“Yes.”

“They’d lost a daughter. In a hunting accident. Eric bon Haunser has lost his legs, also, so he said, in a hunting accident. When I looked about me after that first Hunt I saw more biotic appendages than I would have seen in a year at home. I would like to understand these accidents.”

“Ah. Well.” Roald shuffled his feet.

“There are various kinds of accidents,” offered Persun in his soft, dry lecturer’s voice. “There is falling off. There is getting oneself skewered. There is offending a hound. And there is vanishment.” He said this last almost in a whisper, and Roald nodded agreement.

“So we understand, Lady. The servants at the estancias are kinfolk of ours. They see things; they overhear things; they tell us. We put two and two together to make forty-four, when we must.”

“Falling off?” she asked. Riders fell off all the time. Rarely was it fatal.

“Followed by trampling. If a rider falls off, he or she is trampled into the grasses. Until nothing is left, you understand.”

Marjorie nodded, feeling sick.

“If you’ve seen a Hunt, you’ve seen how a rider might get skewered. It doesn’t happen often, surprisingly. The young ones ride simulators for days at a time, learning to stay out of the way of those horny blades. But still, once in a while someone faints or a mount stops too suddenly and the rider falls forward.”

Marjorie wiped her mouth, tasting bile.

“Offending a hound usually results in the hunter having an arm or leg or hand or foot or two bitten off when he dismounts at the end of the Hunt.”

“Offending … ?”

“Don’t ask us, Lady,” replied Persun. “There aren’t any hounds in Commons. They can’t get into town, and nobody with any sense goes far out into the grasses where hounds’re likely to be. Close to the villages is fine, no hounds there, but farther out… those that go don’t come back. We really don’t know what would offend a hound. So far as we can tell, the bons don’t know either.”

“And vanishment?”

“Just that. Somebody starts out on the Hunt and doesn’t come back. The mount disappears, too. Usually a young rider it happens to. Girls, usually. Rarely, a boy.”

“Someone at the rear of the Hunt,” she said in sudden comprehension. “So the others wouldn’t notice?”

“Yes.”

“What happened to the bon Damfels girl?”

“Same as happened to Janetta bon Maukerden last fall, her that Shevlok bon Damfels was so set on. Vanishment. The way I know is, my brother Canon is married to a woman who’s got a cousin, Salla, and she’s a maid at the bon Damfels. Practically raised Dimity from a baby. Last fall Dimity thought a hound was watching her, and she told Rowena. Next time out, same thing. Rowena and Stavenger had a set-to, and Rowena kept the girl from riding any more Hunts that season. This spring, Stavenger took a hand and made the girl go out again First spring Hunt! Poof, she was gone.”

“Dimity, did you say? How old was she?”

“Diamante bon Damfels. Stavenger and Rowena’s youngest. Somewhere around seventeen in Terran terms.”

“The bon Damfels had five children?”

“They had seven, Lady. They lost two others when they were young riders. Trampled, I think. I’m sorry not to remember their names. Now it’s just Amethyste and Emeraude and Shevlok and Sylvan.”

“Sylvan,” she said, remembering him from the first Hunt- He had not been at any of the others they had witnessed. “But he wouldn’t come to a reception, because he rides.”

Roald nodded.

“There is the lapse.” murmured Persun.

“I’d forgotten the lapse,” said Roald in a tone of annoyance. “Here I am almost ten Grassian years old and I’d forgotten the lapse.”

“Lapse?”

“Every spring there’s a time when the mounts and the hounds disappear. Far’s I know, no one knows where they go. Mating time, perhaps? Or whelping time. Or something of the kind. Sometimes people hear a great lot of baying and howling going on. Lasts a week or a little more.”

“When?” she asked.

“When it happens. No exact time. Sometimes a little earlier in the year, sometimes a little later. But always in spring.”

“But doesn’t everyone on the planet know when it happens?”

“Everyone out here in the grasses, Lady. Tssf, in Commons we’d pay it no attention. Out here, though — yes. Everyone knows. If no way else, they go out to Hunt that day and no mounts or hounds show up. They know.”

“So, if we sent an invitation, saying — oh, ‘On the third night of the lapse you are invited to…’”

“It’s never been done,” muttered Persun.