Harry Turtledove - A World of Difference

The box had a handle. Tied to the handle was a thin string. “This is what we came for,” Ternat said. “We have to be careful now, so we don’t break it on the way back.”

The other end of the string was nowhere in sight. Ternat knew that eventually, back toward the Skarmer side of Ervis Gorge, it would join a cord, the cord a rope, the rope a thicker rope, and so on by increments until it linked to the massive cordage of the bridge that would once more span the gorge.

His small band, though, could scarcely have moved that massive final rope, let alone hauled it back to the stones to which it would be attached. Thus the lighter precursors: getting them to the attachment point, where a good-sized crew waited, would be easy.

“What are you going to do with the box?” a male asked.

“Keep it,” Ternat replied at once. “It can be part of Hogram’s first payment to get his miserable males back, and if he doesn’t like that, too bad. Maybe our humans can tell us if it’s good for anything besides their funny music.”

“Me,! don’t know that I want to be linked up to the Skarmer anymore, not after this summer,” a male said.

“We can always cut the rope again, you know,” Ternat said. “Not till we get all those cursed hungry Skarmer out of our domain,” another male put in. “I know we’ll be fat this winter with what Hogram’s sending us, but it’s only right. We’ve been thin up to now, what with them eating up so much of our food.”

“And Dordal’s,” said yet another, who had accompanied Ternat on the raid into the northerner’s domain. “Let’s not forget all those greasyfat massi we brought back with us. Hogram’s males didn’t complain about the way they tasted.”

“Hogram’s males weren’t in a position to complain about anything,” Ternat said. “They’re just glad we’ve fed them at all. And do you know what? They’re lucky we have.”

The band shouted agreement. Ternat still wondered if keeping the prisoners alive had been a good idea. Had the humans not urged otherwise, he was sure Reatur would have massacred the Skarmer. The ransom the domain master was squeezing out of Hogram was more than enough to pay for the cost of maintaining the captives, but was it enough to compensate for having to look at them all through summer and fall, enough to compensate for remembering all the damage they had done, the lives they had taken?

Ternat did not know; where was the scale on which to balance such weights? Reatur had accepted. His eldest, trusting him, supposed that was good enough.

He lifted the string. “Come on. Time to go home.”

“Here,” Sarah said, dumping the jingling metal clamps in front of Reatur. “I, other humans show you now, many times, how to use to save mates. Wish I had more to give you. Use as you think best. Often, I hope.”

Her shiver had nothing to do with the cold, though the weather was down to Minnesota winter and heading straight for Antarctica. Half a dozen clamps, as many as she could spare from her medical supplies. The thought of doing, say, an appendectomy in freefall on the way home gave her cold chills, but far worse was the thought of what happened to all mates on Minerva, and how those six little clamps could help. She wished she had six thousand, or six million.

“I will use them, Sarah,” Reatur said. “I have spoken with you of the sorrow of the mates, have I not?” She nodded. “Yes, Reatur, you have.”

“I thought so. Males have felt it for as long as there have been males and mates. Now I have a chance to get free of it, the first of all my kind. I will take that chance. I also wish you had more clamps. But perhaps it is for the best this way. These clamps will end by changing our world as much as the spring floods change Ervis Gorge. Like the floods, such changes should start slowly, I think.”

Sarah nodded again, this time reluctantly. “Likely that is wise.” To her, even one mate’s dying without need was tragedy worse than the sorrow the domain master knew when such death was inevitable. On the other hand, she knew that turning such a basic of Minervan life upside down overnight would bring plenty of dislocations of its own. If anyone could safely steer between extremes, she thought, Reatur could. He had a knack for finding the right questions to ask; maybe Lamra got it from him.

Now he came up with another one: “Might we also use these clamps to keep alive, say, eloc mates as well, to keep our herds large?”

Sarah rubbed her chin in consideration and discovered she could barely feel it. “If no mate-no mate of your people-will drop budlings before you can take clamps off animal, then yes. Otherwise no, if you want to save own mates.”

“Ah,” Reatur said. “That is sensible. Yes. Well, Sarah, I will say that all this has worked out better than I thought it would. Lamra has been, if not accepted, at least tolerated by my males. And the more mates we have who survive budding, the greater the chance the males will have to get used to them.”

“I hope so,” Sarah said. She had her doubts, though. Lamra was unique and, being unique, created scant antagonism. Some of Reatur’s males, in fact, regarded her with almost superstitious awe. That would change when saved mates grew common. How it would change, Sarah was not sure. But if Minervans reacted like people, it probably would not change for the better.

The domain master cut into her thoughts. “I understand you humans will be leaving soon.”

“Yes, before too much snow drifts around, uh, flying house.”

Then Reatur surprised Sarah. “Why not wait until the snow begins to melt next spring? I would like to have you stay.”

She bowed. “I thank you, but no. Cannot do. Not enough of our food, for one thing. Also have to leave before certain time this winter, no matter what.” Orbital mechanics, she knew, meant nothing to Reatur.

He sighed. “You do what you must, of course. But I will miss you.” He widened himself to her.

She bowed again. “I miss you, too. All us humans miss you.

But must go back to our home.”

“Maybe you will come back one day?” Reatur asked.

Did he sound hopeful? Sarah wondered if she was reading too much into his voice. She didn’t think so. “I like to see you again, like to see your eldest again, like to see Lamra again.” That thought did warm her, despite the worse than icy chill of Reatur’s castle. Then reality returned. “Other humans come one day, Reatur, I think. I hope so,” she said sadly. “But not us, not me. Hard for us to come here-will be turn of other humans next time we do.”

“Let it be as it will, then.” The domain master wiggled his eyestalks, catching Sarah by surprise. “Tell the humans back at your home that I am sorry I broke their fancy picture-making machine, all those years ago. When I saw it, I thought it was a monster. When I saw you humans, I thought you were monsters, too. But it is not so.”

“I tell them, Reatur.” Sarah felt tears come into her eyes.

Angrily, she brushed them away with the back of her glove. They were worse than foolish, she thought-in this weather they were dangerous. Just what she would need, trying to explain to the domain master how and why her eyelashes were freezing together.

“Good. Thank you once more also for the clamps, and for flying so bravely against the Skarmer with the rifle”-an episode Sarah would have been happy to forget-“and thank you for Lamra.”

Sarah bowed very low this time, again fighting back tears. “Reatur, Lamra makes for me this long trip worth doing.” Even if, dammit, she added silently, I wasn’t there when the budlings dropped. She didn’t think she would ever stop kicking herself over what she had been doing some of that time. Much too late to change it now, though.