Harry Turtledove - A World of Difference

“By the first Omalo bud, yes, clanfather. That Gurtz! I’ll reel his-”

“Yes, do, but he’s taught you a lesson, too, hasn’t he, eldest.’?” Reatur watched Ternat’s eyestalks lengthen and shrink k surprise and confusion. “Simple enough, if you give a male something to do, always check to make sure he’s done it. Yot may sleep less on account of it, but you’ll sleep better.”

Ternat thought that over. He slowly began to regain his usual color. “I think you’ve found truth here, clanfather. Yes, I remember. And now,” he added grimly, “I’ll go and deal with Gurtz.”

“Don’t leave him too sore to work,” was all Reatur said. “After all, having made this mess, who better than he to set it right again? And I will want it set right again, and soon. If we lose any time cultivating the crops because of Gurtz’s blundering, what you do to him won’t be enough. I’ll settle the slacker myself, even if he is a bud I planted.”

“I’ll tell him you said so.”

“Yes, do.”

Reatur and Ternat went up the ramp together, the domain master lighting the way. While his eldest hurried off to deal with the luckless Gurtz, Reatur went to check on how the infant male budded from Biyal was doing.

“He will be a fine one, clanfather,” said the budling-keeper, a male named Sittep. “He is the youngest here, of course, but already tries to take food away from males a quarter of a season older than he is.”

“Bring him out. Let me turn three eyes on him.”

Sittep returned with the young male a few moments later.

Wriggling in his grasp, it was blue with fear. It tried to bite him, then voided on the two hands that were holding it. “A spirited budling,” Sittep said. His eyestalks gave the slow wiggle of resigned amusement.

“Yes,” Reatur said, admiring the budling-keeper’s patience. He stepped closer to give the budling the careful examination he had promised. It lashed out with the three sharp fingerclaws of one tiny hand. The domain master jerked an eyestalk back just in time. “He moves quickly enough, that’s certain. You said he’s been eating well?”

“Yes, clanfather-nothing shy about him at all, as you’ve seen.

Usually, with the very small ones, I have to make sure they get their fair share, but this one has no troubles there. He’s fast, he’s strong-”

“Good. We’ll set him to running down vermin in the halls,” Reatur said. Sittep’s eyestalks started to quiver again, then stopped, as if he were not quite sure the domain master was joking. “Never mind,” Reatur told him. “Seeing the new budling reminds me life goes on, that’s all. With the humans’ being here tying everyone’s eyestalks in knots, sometimes that’s hard to remember.”

“I understand, clanfather. The combination of the humans and the Skarmer would be plenty to make anyone worry,” Sittep said sympathetically.

“Aye, sometimes it all seems too much-“ Reatur broke off, embarrassed to have shown his mind so clearly to one of his males. Not even Ternat should have to listen to him maundering on so, let alone the budling-keeper, whose biggest responsibility was making sure his charges did not kill one another before they understood that they were not supposed to.

Just then, the budling did managed to break loose from Sittep.

It scuttled around like a berserk runnerpest until the budling-keeper and Reatur managed to catch it again. In that undignified ‘ process, it clawed Reatur twice and bit him once.

“With your permission, clanfather, I’ll put him back now,” Sittep said, holding the squirming, squalling budling a good deal tighter than he had a moment before.

“Go ahead.” Reatur was still working the hand the budling had bitten, trying to squeeze out the pain. “You’d think the idiot little thing would know who’d planted its bud,” he grumbled. “Or at least that you and I were the same sort of creature it was, not a couple of clemor out to run it down and eat it.”

“It’s still very young,” the budling-keeper reminded him. “I know, I know.” All the same, Reatur thought as Sittep returned the budling to its chamber, the foolish creature should have had more sense-but then, Biyal had never had much sense, even for a mate. Somehow Reatur was sure the budlings from Lamra, male and mates, would behave better.

He could only see if he was right, though, after Lamra was dead. He hated the idea of that, more than he had for any other mate he had known. Air hissed out through his breathing pores. Even without the humans, he would have had plenty to keep his eyestalks all knotted up.

“The boats are coming along excellently, clanfather,” Fralk told Hogram. “We have plenty of workers to put frames together and stretch hides over them. As you foretold, the prospect of work has drawn males from many straggling farms.” A little flattery never hurt, Fralk thought, especially when what he was saying also happened to be true.

Hogram, though, had been hearing-and discounting-flattery longer than Fralk had been alive. “By the time Ervis Gorge fills, I presume we will have made enough boats to send across as many males as we have planned.”

“Yes,” Fralk said confidently. Again, he was telling the truth-no point to lying about something Hogram could so easily check, and something where failure would make itself so obvious come the day.

“Good.” Hogram’s voice was dry. Fralk had to remind himself that the domain master was smart enough to think along with him. After a pause perhaps intended to let the younger male remember just that, Hogram went on, “Will the cursed things actually stay on top of the water once our males are in them?”

“Float, you mean?” Fralk brought out the Lanuam technical term as if it belonged in his mouth; he could see he had impressed his overlord. He beckoned with the arm opposite Hogram and called, “Panjand, Iverc! Bring up the basin and model. I’m ready to show them to the domain master now.”

The two males slowly came up from the back of Hogram’s reception hall. They carried the heavy stone basin between them, holding on with three arms apiece. One of Iverc’s hands slipped. The basin tilted until he could regain his grip. Water sloshed over the edge.

“Ah,” Hogram said, extending another eyestalk toward the advancing males. “I’d wondered why they weren’t using a vessel made of ice. Now I see.” His eyestalks wiggled. “Put water in ice and you won’t keep either one long.”

“No,” Fralk agreed, as respectfully as if Hogram had said something clever rather than coming out with a clich6. “Set it down here,” the younger male added when Panjand and Iverc brought the big stone bowl up to him.

The two males widened themselves to do as he asked and stayed in the posture of respect until a wave from Hogram released them. In one of his free hands, Panjand was carrying a small boat. He passed it to Fralk.

Fralk gently set it on the water. “You see, clanfather, it doesfloat. “ “So it does, by itself,” Hogram said. “But will it bear weight and still stay on top there?”

The domain master might reject the fancy foreign word with which Fralk enjoyed showing off, but he knew what questions to ask. “lverc,” Fralk said.

The male handed him the stickwork cage he had been holding in the hand away from Hogram’s eyes. A half-tame runnerpest scurried about inside. Fralk undid the lashings that held the cage closed. He reached in and picked up the runnerpest. Its tiny arms flailed at him, but it did not really try to claw.

“The runnerpest’s weight, clanfather, is about the same in proportion to this small boat’s capacity as that of a load of our males will be to a fullsized boat,” Fralk said. He set the little animal down in the boat. The unfamiliar sensation of moving on water made the runnerpest chitter with terror but also made it freeze in place where Fralk had put it.