Sharon Lee: Adventures in the Liaden Universe. Collaterial Adventures

He’d tried all the approaches he’d been taught—and several he’d invented on the spur of the moment—angling for any response at all.

And had been roundly ignored.

Yesterday, he had boldly stepped in front of a group of three, bowed low, as he had seen those small-shelled or shell-less bow when addressing those more magnificent than themselves.

The group split and detoured around him, unhurriedly, but with determination.

The path wound around an outcropping of rock and sloped toward the caves and valley floor. Val Con stopped to survey his prospects, idly twirling the reed.

Across the valley, people were about what he now perceived as their daily business. Four individuals were in the fields along the river, working among the growing things with long-handled tools vaguely reminiscent of hoes. Toward the center, a cluster of eight? ten? large persons were engaged in a certain choreographed activity, which could have been dancing, game-playing or military drill, across the river, large greenish shapes moved among the hulking rounded stones—dwelling places, so he thought: The town itself.

Just downhill from him now, though somewhat distant from the caverns and convenient to a nice flat rock, was a very large individual with sapphire glinting randomly from the tilework of its shell. With it were four small people, shell-less, and bumbling in a way that shouted children to him. The largest was scarcely taller than he was.

It is dangerous to approach the young of an isolate and perhaps xenophobic people—or, indeed, of any people. But Val Con’s observations indicated that he could easily outrun the adult, should it attempt an attack, and children are often curious…

So thinking, he walked down into the valley and sat atop the flat rock.

The guardian glanced his way, but turned its back, making no move to herd the smaller ones away. Encouraged, he crossed his legs and settled in to watch.

They were definitely children. They played tag, fell on each other, crowed loudly and shouted shrill, unintelligible taunts. Entertaining, but not particularly productive. The guardian still ignored him, and he nurtured a small flame of optimism as he felt in the belt for the stick-knife.

Best to put waiting to work, he thought, quoting one of his uncle’s favorite phrases. Slowly, attention mostly on the schoolroom party, he began to fashion the reed into a flute.

It was the first time he’d attempted such a thing, though he had read how it might be done, and he did not give it primary concentration. This may have accounted for the woefully off-key sound that emerged when he finally brought the flute to his lips and blew.

He winced, and blew again; moving his fingers over the holes to produce a ripple of ragged sound. His fourth attempt yielded something that could charitably have been called a tune, and he glanced up to see how the nursery was taking the diversion.

The guardian stood yet with its back to him, watching as three of the babies enjoyed a rough-and-tumble of wonderful ineptitude.

The fourth was looking at him.

Val Con brought the reed up and blew again, trying for the simple line of a rhyming game from his own childhood. The child took a step forward, away from its quarreling kin, toward the rock. Val Con repeated the rhyming song and began a hopeless rendition of the first ballad he had learned on the ’chora.

Fortunately, the baby was not critical. Val Con abandoned the attempt to wring structured music from his instrument and instead created ripples of notes, interlocking them as it occurred to him; playing with the sound.

The baby was right in front of him.

He let the music fade slowly; raised his head and looked into enormous golden eyes, pupils cat-slit black; let his lips curve into the slightest of smiles, and waited.

“D’neschopita,” announced the child, extending a three-fingered hand.

“D’neschopita,” repeated the Scout, copying inflection and pitch. He extended his own hand, many-fingered as it was.

A hand larger than either swooped out of nowhere, snatching the child from imminent contact, sparing for his abductor one withering glare from eyes the size of dinner plates. It dragged the protesting infant away, holding forth in a loud and extremely displeased voice.

Nurse, Val Con decided, shoulders drooping. Don’t touch that , he translated freely, giving his imagination rein, you don’t know where it’s been! It could be sick! Whatever it is. And look how SOFT it is! Probably slimy, too. Yuck.

He raised the flute and blew a bleat of raucous wet sound.

The big one spun, moving rather more rapidly observed in others of her race, dropping the baby’s hand and raising her arms.

Val Con grinned at her. “D’neschopita,” he said.

She hesitated; lowered her arms slowly—and spun again, reclaiming her charge roughly and driving the other three before, toward the safety of the center valley.

“TO CONCLUDE,” intoned the Speaker for the Trader Clan, “White Marsh feels that the Knife Clan of Middle River owes in the form of information regarding routes of star-trade. This, because the Knife Clan neglected to locate the being known as Silver Mark Sweeney and deliver the knife he commissioned, thereby denying the Trader Clan its fee of information, for sending this business hither.”

There was silence as the T’car digested the whole of the Trader Clan’s message. Out of the silence, Eldest Speaker’s dead-leaf voice: “Will you make answer, T’carais?”

The person so addressed stood away from the bench and inclined his head to the Elders in respect.

“It grieves me,” he began, “that the Trader clan of White Marsh would come before the T’car entire, citing wrongs, before they came to the Knife Clan and requested facts. However, it is done, and answer shall be made.

“It is fact that the Trader Clan brought Silver Mark Sweeney to the Knife Clan, from which he commissioned a blade appropriate to his size, We accepted the task, seeded the cavern and encouraged not one, but many knives of a size and shape that would be fitting to beings of Silver Mark Sweeney’s order. In the fullness of time, the blades were ready and the Knife Clan caused a message to be sent as instructed by Silver Mark Sweeney, stating this.

“He did not come to claim his knife.”

“It was the responsibility of the Knife Clan to search—” began the Trader Clan’s Speaker, with lamentable haste.

The T’carais raised a hand, reminding that it was his time now to speak, and continued in the midst of the new silence.

“The Knife Clan searched. And, when it was found that our manner of search is not efficient among the stars, we employed a skilled tracker of the clans of Men to perform this task for us.” He paused to consider how best to proceed. The Elders, wise beyond saying, were old. They did not always recall that to those yet mobile, change was…

“You must remember,” he said diplomatically, “how short-lived are the members of the Clans of Men. Where I engaged one to search, his heir reported failure to me, as his father had grown too feeble to travel. It was the belief of these trackers—and also myself—that while we encouraged and refined the blade, Silver Mark Sweeney achieved s’essellata and died.

“Thus, I commanded that the family of Silver Mark Sweeney be found, that the blade might be placed into the hands of his kin. Time passed, and when the first tracker’s heir came to me again, he leaned heavily upon his own heir…”

The T’carais sighed gustily.

“It seems that Silver Mark Sweeney was both kinless and clanless, as is not uncommon among that family of the Clans of Men named ‘Terran’.” He paused; signed summation.

“And so the knife is undelivered and the Trader Clan is bereft of its fee. It is to be considered that the Knife clan had also considerable investment in this venture. There is an entire room filled with blades refined, awaiting only handles and sheathes, all too small for our use.”