Shikari: Shikari Book One Page 2

  Uncle Eb sent the m-mule first down the trail, then Tomás and Rigi. Uncle Eb followed along behind, looking and listening. He didn’t stop the m-mule until they reached the edge of the not-so-wild part of the forest. “Mule, at ease. Threat past.” The weapon disappeared back into the dark grey rectangular body section and the m-mule once more looked as if it was a simple old light-duty m-mule. Uncle Eb motioned for Rigi and Tomás to come close and he knelt on one knee. “I will not ask you to promise not to tell anyone about my m-mule’s little trick, but I would prefer that you did not mention it unless you think it is an emergency.”

  Rigi and Tomás looked at each other. It was not a promise, and Rigi could see why he wouldn’t want everyone to know about the weapon. Aunt Lee, for instance, would wail about having an armed m-mule around “civilized people.” “That’s fair. I won’t mention it, sir,” Rigi said.

  “I won’t either,” Tomás agreed.

  “Thank you. Tomás, you said you saw the striped lion outside the wall, and the horned digger. How far away is that from the Residence?”

  Tomás looked up at the leaf canopy and his lips moved. “Straight line just under a kilometer? No, ah, eight hundred meters, sir.”

  “You have good eyes.”

  He looked down and kicked at a rock-nut. “No, sir. But Kor taught me how to see like he does. He says I have a hunter’s mind and sense, and he lets me come with him sometimes. Please don’t tell my mother. She’d worry.”

  Uncle Eb took a deep breath and breathed out through pursed lips as he stared up at the leaves. “Does your father know?”

  “No, sir, but Master Sergeant does.”

  “Then I won’t say anything unless I need to.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  They returned to the cluster of small dwellings outside the main district of Keralita. Large flower and food gardens surrounded each house. They all had deep verandahs and two floors, but each bore a different shade of paint, except what Rigi called the Fancy House—it wore horizontal stripes of pink and green. Flowering plants that matched the walls lined the paths from the main road to the houses. Rigi knew that each flower also had a specific scent that matched the “sense” of the houses as well, but her human nose wasn’t sensitive enough to smell it. Tomás waved and hurried on up the road. His parents had a house closer to the main district because his father was one of the military commanders. Rigi’s parents just listened to people, and filed documents and made certain that what was supposed to be in the boxes coming and going through the spaceport were really in there.

  As Rigi and Uncle Eb crossed the entry sensor, Mar walked around the path beside the house, folded her forefeet together and bowed at the waist to Uncle Eb. He touched one hand to his forehead and inclined his body forward. Rigi inhaled and caught a faint hint of Mar’s //calm// scent. Rigi had told her governess that she was going with Uncle Eb, and Mar had not worried. When she worried, her scent had a sharp undertone, but different from her angry scent. Rigi noticed that Mar wore a clean, freshly starched apron. She’d supervised the laundry while Rigi was gone. That meant Rigi’s mother wanted Rigi very clean and tidy. Oh dear.

  “As promised, Miss Rigi is home on time, Mar.” Uncle Eb patted Rigi on the head. “I’ll be back later to discuss your observations, if I might.”

  “Please do, sir.” Because if he were there, she would not have to sit and listen to Mrs. Debenadetto talking about all the people Rigi know nothing about.

  After he left, Mar made a little pushing motion with the backs of her forefeet. “Yes, Mar.” Rigi led the way around the pale blue house to the back door, went in, left her boots in the boot-and-coat room, and climbed up to the second floor where she and Lyria shared a room. Lyria sat in front of a teaching unit, watching a vid on the history of fashion. Rigi took off her play tunic and leggings before darting into the washroom. She bathed quickly and dried. When she emerged, Mar had fresh under things for her, and a fancier long tunic and looser leggings, more like a divided skirt but not quite.

  Rigi sat and Mar puffed the lightest bit of scent into Rigi’s hair, then began combing it with the claw-like nails of her forefeet. “Did you have a good walk?” the governess asked, enunciating carefully. Her split upper lip and twisting tongue made human speech difficult, muting sounds like “b” and “p”. The Staré, like the human colonists, belonged to the mammal group, Rigi had learned in school. But where humans were placental mammals, the Staré were monotremes. They laid eggs in heated nests but nursed their babies and carried them in pouches, and had fur. All Staré had thick tails that helped them balance when they walked. The thick, flat claws on their long, broad two-toed hind feet could kill in a fight. Mar’s fur was a soft warm medium brown almost the same color as Lyria’s hair, with a bit of pale tan sprinkled into the haircoat.

  “Yes, Mar, we did. Uncle Eb found two plants that he needs names for, that are new to him.”

  Mar made the rolling sound that, with a hint of dusty smell, meant a soft chuckle. “Ah, Mister Eb is a great word hunter indeed. What will he do if he ever runs out of new words?”

  “Move to a new place and start over? I don’t know.”

  “Words make him wise.” A whiff of sharpness, of //certainty and finality.// Mar’s statement was fact, one Rigi should not argue with. And for the Staré it was the pure truth. The higher one’s Stamm and the greater rank and status one held, the more one remembered, and the older the knowledge. All the colonists learned that early on, and Rigi and Lyria had grown up navigating the Stamme and human hierarchies guided by humans and Staré alike.

  Should she tell Mar about the striped lion? No. “Uncle Eb’s m-mule caught a trace of horned digger, but it was a kilometer, two walks, away and departed.”

  Mar tied the end of the braid with a piece of green ribbon. “They move with the coolness. Only one, Miss Rigi?”

  “Yes, Mar.”

  A puff of powdery //thinking// scent. “Might be too old to keep up with group or a young one looking for new group. I will tell Eenjan. Herds in the hills are rare. Can mean things to the wise.”

  Rigi tried to remember who Eenjan was. Oh, that’s right, he guarded the gardens and orchards. He was second Stamm, and he also acted as farm manager. He was a friend of the First Sergeant, too.

  “Stand please.” Rigi stood and turned around so Mar could inspect her. “Good. Your mother’s guest will be here soon.”

  Rigi found her sketch pad and a pencil, sat on the padded seat molded into the frame of the window, and began drawing the ring-wall. Her art teacher preferred for his students to use electronic media, but Rigi couldn’t get the stylus to make the lines she saw in her mind. The graphite stick behaved far better, and she could shade without having to switch tabs and tools. Her father said that older students had access to electronic pads that acted just like her paper and pencils, but she didn’t quite believe him. If they did, then why was all the senior art at the central educational building plain-line and simple color? So she drew on paper and sent images to her teacher. She glanced up to see if Mar was watching this time, but she’d gotten busy cleaning Rigi’s play shoes. Mar sometimes made odd scents when Rigi drew things, like portraits of Staré.

  “Don’t you make pictures?” Rigi had asked once.

  Mar had made a complicated gesture with her forefeet and had shaken her shoulders. “First Stamm, second Stamm, powder pictures of colors for the Great Days. Then wind and water take to the next world.” She’d given off a very firm //ask no more// and Rigi had contented herself with that. Mar did not look closely at Rigi’s work, unlike some other people.

  “Are you making things up again? You know you’re not supposed to do that until third year art.” Rigi looked up as Lyria wagged one finger at her. Her older sister stood with one hand on her hip and reminded Rigi of a catch-um tree, the ones that used hook-like seeds and sticky resin to attach seeds to passing animals and spread them for kilometers. “Your study plan is to learn the mechanics and laws of art and drawing
from life, and then move to imaginary.”

  “Uncle Eb showed me a holo of a rock formation someone found, and I’m trying to match the light fall and shading.” It was mostly true. Saying mostly-true things to avoid trouble worked better than saying not true things. Rigi’s memory wasn’t good enough to keep track of too many not true things.

  “Oh,” Lyria sniffed. At almost sixteen she knew everything her younger sister was supposed to do, or so she acted. “And Mrs. Debenadetto has arrived.”

  “Thank you.” No matter how irritating Lyria was, Mar would swat them both if they squabbled in their room. And her big flat forefeet stung when they hit Rigi’s rump. Rigi put away her sketchbook and pencils, made certain her tunic hung straight, and followed Lyria down the front stairs to the receiving room. Every house on Shikhari had one, or at least every house and dwelling that Rigi had visited or peered into had one. Neither humans nor Staré liked having others wandering through their living places. Because it was a cool season house, this had small windows set high in the wall to let in light and also keep in heat. Lyria stood in the doorway until their mother called, “Come in.”

  “Mrs. Debenadetto, my daughters Lyria and Auriga.” Lyria bowed and Rigi made a half-curtsey. “Lyria, Auriga, Mrs. Debenadetto is a friend of Colonel Australi’s wife and assists with a number of charitable works on Home, including schools.”

  That made sense, Rigi decided, looking at the older woman’s close-cut clothes and closed-in posture. People from Home sat and dressed closed until they learned that Shikhari had more than enough room to move around. Benin Shang Petrason still sat closed, shoulders and arms pulled in tight, but he always said he was going back to Home as soon as his parents could find a way. Rigi’s mother wore a loose dress with long, loose sleeves that only tightened at the wrist, and an underskirt to give her dress even more fullness. On Shikhari no one gave her a second look, but Rigi remembered the hard stares and cold words she’d heard on Home. The visitor also wore perfume—far too much by Shikhari standards—in a scent that broadcast //helpless/befuddled/confidence/ring flower// and something else Rigi didn’t quite understand. The blend confused her nose.

  Mrs. Debenadetto studied the sisters. Then she smiled with her mouth. Her eyes stayed a little suspicious and chilly. “Good afternoon Lyria, Auriga. How old are you?”

  “I’m fifteen, ma’am, and my sister is twelve.” Rigi nodded, keeping her hands clasped in front of her. People fresh from Home thought that was better than letting your arms hang at your sides, and Rigi wanted to make their guest welcome.

  “So polite!”

  Rigi’s mother smiled and tipped her head a little to the side, pointing to the smaller couch. That was the cue for her daughters to sit. Their mother and Mrs. Debenadetto sat in comfortable chairs facing each other, with the refreshment platform hovering between them where it could easily rotate to serve either adult. As Lyria and Rigi took their places, two smaller refreshment platforms floated into the room and took positions at each end of the couch. Mrs. Debenadetto touched the large pendant on her necklace with one hand and looked surprised. “You still use dienst-servos?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Debenadetto. My husband prefers to keep most of the staff with him, so only the girls’ governess and a few other vital servants travel with us.”

  “My. Archer said that you were a Traditionalist, but I had not realized he meant your husband as well.”

  Rigi’s mother took it with good grace, as always, at least in public. “You will find far more Neo-Traditionalists on the out worlds than within the Home systems. We are second-wave diaspora.”

  Their guest’s light orange eyes lit up with understanding. “Ah! Thank you, that explains a great deal.” She helped herself to more tea, and Rigi’s mother gave a little nod, allowing her daughters to serve themselves and drink as well. The delicate, faint scent of ginter and lemon-heart told Rigi that their cook, Shona, was making fruited cakes and fruited wombow for supper. “So. Acherna, my brother says that you are the head of the parents’ association within the educational center?”

  Rigi’s mother smiled a little as she sipped her own tea. “I am flattered but I fear His Excellency exaggerates. I assist with parent-instructor communications but I am not the leader. That is, hmm, I believe Mister Tekesti is president this term.”

  “You rotate leadership? How unusual.”

  “It seems the best way to keep as many parents as possible involved and prevents the association from growing stale.” Mrs. Debenadetto’s perfect half-circle eyebrows pinched together and she frowned as Rigi’s mother continued, “New leadership helps encourage new ideas and growth.”

  “Now I understand. The word ‘stale’ is not usually used in the context of people.”

  Her mother made a soothing gesture and said, “It could be a dialect usage that has developed here.”

  “Ah.” After several sips of tea and a small bite of cake, Mrs. Debenadetto turned to look at Lyria and Rigi. “Auriga, what grade unit are you in?”

  Did she mean year set? “I am in the twelve-year set, ma’am, first tier.”

  “And what is a tier?”

  Rigi looked to her mother, who nodded. “Each year set is divided into tiers based on innate skill and academic effort, ma’am. I am in first tier academics and fourth tier physical skills.” She’d grown almost eight centimeters the past year and sometimes her feet and elbows did not go where she wanted them to go.

  The artistically curved eyebrows pulled together and their guest’s eyes narrowed. Her lips pursed. “Hmm. You are very self contained and mature for a girl your age, Auriga. That is not always a good thing.”

  Rigi wanted to ask why not, but noticed her sister glaring at her and kept her question inside.

  “You said that you were interested in the organization of the parents’ council, Mrs. Debenadetto?” The adults talked school things and parental involvement and Rigi wanted to move or to ask to be excused. She needed to finish drawing the wall while the memory was fresh.

  Perhaps the Creator and Creatrix had heard her thoughts, or the Luck God did, because the visitor chime pinged quietly. After a moment, Mar tapped on the doorframe. Mrs. Debenadetto’s face changed to an interesting pink as Mrs. deStella-Bernardi asked, “Yes, Mar? Who comes?”

  “Mister Ebenezer Trent, ma’am.”

  Rigi’s mother smiled. “Please let him in.” She turned to Mrs. Debenadetto. “Mister Trent is one of the colony’s great scholars. He is most generous with his time when his duties permit.” She stood. Rigi and Lyria did as well, and Mar bowed when Uncle Eb walked in. He now wore very proper trousers, shirt, waistcoat and jacket, and carried a leather satchel. Rigi guessed it was snap-back leather and wondered if he’d killed the big hunter reptile himself. “Good afternoon, Mr. Trent.”

  “Good afternoon Mrs. deStella-Bernardi, Ma’am,” he inclined a little toward the guest.

  “Mr. Trent, Mrs. Elaine Debenadetto is a guest of Governor Archer visiting for the season from Home. Mrs. Debenadetto, Mr. Ebenezer Trent is linguist and xenologist, formerly with the Constella’s Own Regiment.” Mrs. Debenadetto seemed uncertain what to do when Uncle Eb extended his right hand, then she shook it.

  “It is always a pleasure to welcome new visitors to Shikhari,” Uncle Eb said. “Mrs. deStella-Bernardi, I apologize for intruding, but I would like to borrow Miss Auriga for a few minutes, if she can be excused.”

  The visitor’s eyes went wide and she leaned back in her chair. “What for?” she whispered.

  “Miss Auriga has an excellent memory for plants and the settings in which they grow. I have a new type that I need identified, and I’d like her to sketch where it was found, so I can have a better start to learning the name.” He sounded calm and unconcerned, but the hand holding onto the satchel handle had tightened its grip until Rigi thought she saw bone through his tanned and age-spotted skin.

  Lyria pouted as her mother smiled. “Certainly, Mr. Trent! You may use the rear verandah, where the light is better.
Auriga, you are excused to assist Mr. Trent.”

  Rigi stood, half-curtsied to their guest, and bowed to her mother. “Thank you, ma’am.” As soon as she and Uncle Eb left the room, she scampered up to her room to get her sketchpad and pencils, then met him on the deep rear porch. Mar and Shona had turned on small warmer boxes beside two of the seats in a sunny area, and Uncle Eb gestured for Rigi to be seated. As she found a clean page in her sketchpad, he removed the plant specimen that he’d collected earlier from his satchel, along with some hard copies of something.

  “Stop,” he said as she flipped past the wall drawing. “Finish that, first, please Miss Rigi.” Having him nearby seemed to make things easier and her fingers danced and the graphite seemed to flow onto the page, making the wall and its shadows appear by magic. He sipped tea and watched carefully. After a few minor erasings and additions, she decided that she’d captured the wall and she initialed it, showing that she’d completed the work. Then she turned to a fresh page and looked up, pencil in hand, ready.

  “This is an infrared image of where I found the plant,” he said, handing her the printed picture. Rigi looked at it. A thin finger pointed to something. “That’s where the plant came from, per the m-mule’s recording locator. What do you see here?” The finger moved a bit east.

  Rigi looked at the picture, frowned, blinked and looked more closely. If the plant was from there, then the ruins should have been… but they weren’t. Infrared should have shown the name stone because nothing grew on it, and should have shown the lack of trees in the “garden” area. Instead it seemed to be a forested blur. She met Uncle Eb’s ice-blue eyes. “I don’t see anything unusual, Uncle Eb.”

  He smiled and nodded. “A bit of a mystery, yes?” He winked and took the picture back, then presented her with the plant, and an additional leaf that had not been sealed into a preserving envelope. Rigi studied the narrow dark green leaves, felt their sharp rib and noticed how they fit into the bright red central stem. It smelled sharp and a little fresh, like an affirmation of a correct answer. She added it to her mental list as “red-stemmed yes-plant.” Rigi nodded once, closed her eyes to pull up the memory of where she’d seen the entire plant, and then began to sketch. Since she wasn’t interested in making it holo-realistic, she worked quickly, drawing first the original that had been beside the trail, a chest-high bush with long, graceful mainstems, and then adding in the shaggy-bark tree and some ground-cover that she’d seen from the trail. The shaggy-bark’s dense leaves kept too many other bushes from growing in that area, and Rigi could see why the thing had caught Uncle Eb’s eyes.