Crudrat, page 20
“Kitchen work is a real profession, you nutless husk. Besides which, that may have been your idea Quy, but in reality you’ve just stuck us with another massive problem.” The Patrona paced about, back and forth. She nearly tripped over the murmel. Biskweet decided to sacrifice affronted dignity on the altar of safety, and leaped to settle at the foot of Maura’s platform.
“Now my bonded is a problem?” Quy narrowed his black eyes.
“Quy, you are a problem.” The Patrona rounded on him.
Asherat snickered softly at that.
Everyone turned to look at him, reminded of his presence.
“Should he be hearing this?” asked Quy.
“You have chosen to make this his concern.” The Patrona paused and examined at the three of them lying before her. “I take it you have settled your difference of opinion, even with the Crudrat’s interference?”
“Satisfactorily,” said Asherat.
“Be fair, Aunt,” said Quy, “she didn’t know she was doing anything wrong.”
“And yet I believe that, even had she known, she would have still done the same.” The Patrona looked to Maura for confirmation.
Maura shrugged. “That depends. Were there restrictions on the fight? Could Quy have died down there?” She looked at the Jakaa Nova.
“It was a fight to first fall, not to the death, so extensive damage was unlikely.”
Maura turned back to the Patrona. “Had this one known this, then it is unlikely this one would have interfered.”
“But not impossible.” The Patrona swirled about the room, robes flying, the fringe on her headdress jiggling in agitation.
Maura was moved to annoyance. “This one never agreed to live by your mysterious code in total.”
“You see?” The Patrona sighed. “There really is only one possible profession for her.”
Quy sat up straighter in his bed. His fuzzy white face suddenly looked desperate rather than angry. “You can’t possibly have completed the testing already!”
“Sometimes a role is obvious from the start, and no great amount of time is needed.” The Patrona went to stand next to him, looking strangely sympathetic.
Quy pleaded. “But she still has had no enculturation, no true instruction as to our ways.”
“I do not see that will change her behavior or personality all that much.”
Quy looked even more desperate. “Please, Aunt, give her a chance. She might be wari material. Don’t be so hasty.”
The Patrona looked Maura up and down. Maura, who barely made a protest, who sat silent and contained and observant. “She stole my knife, nibling.”
Asherat looked uncomfortable. “This one really should not be here right now.”
Manzanilla looked over at his prone form. “You also do not agree with my decision?”
“It is not this one’s place to have an opinion, Patrona.”
“But?”
“But, despite what this one once said,” he looked at Quy, “she has bartered well. Her behavior has been driven by confusion not malicious intent. She has prospects and possibilities you should not abruptly disregard on account of prejudice.”
Quy gasped at this.
“That will teach me to ask an honest opinion from a Jakaa Nova. You’d think thirty years of marriage to one might have taught me something.”
Maura was charmed by Asherat’s support. She grinned at him.
He winked back at her.
The Patrona sighed. “All of you, try to look at this from my perspective. She fights, yes, but not directly, and by her own admission is better at running away than anything else.”
Maura nodded at that.
Quy glared at her.
The Patrona continued, “She looks Wheel and she acts it, despite that culture’s obvious flaws. She will never fully integrate into Kill’ki society, no Wheel person ever could. She hasn’t the openness of spirit. Even her speech is cagey. Even now, as we talk back and forth about her future, she merely sits, watching. She will remember what she is told, but can she apply it? I hardly need tell you what profession caters to all these personality markers.”
“It is unfair!” insisted Quy. “This one petitions for six more days of testing. She should at least be fully healed before you render judgment.”
The large Kill’ki sighed heavily. “I always knew if you bonded you’d be impossible over it. You are correct of course. I concede the point. Besides which, my judgment will affect you too, nibling, and I think you should have time to prepare.”
Quy looked appalled at that. “Is this one under testing as well?”
“In a way.”
“Fantastic,” said Quy, with feeling.
His aunt shook her head, the headdress wobbled precariously. “I’ll return next shift to continue your instruction, Crudrat. Much good it will do you.”
With that she left the room.
Quy let out his breath in a loud whoosh. “She sure has her mind fixed about you, bonded.”
Maura could only agree to that.
Asherat looked at both of them, his red eyes sympathetic. “This one is deeply sorry for you both.” To Maura he added, “This one shall take this into consideration as your leathers are constructed. Modifications will have to be made.”
Maura bit her lip. She could only draw one possible conclusion from this discussion. “Is this one being sent to prison? Or the mines? Or something?” The atmosphere inside the medical lab had become very depressed.
“Worse,” gloomed Quy.
There’s worse?
“Killed?” she practically whispered.
“Countervail,” said Quy, quiet and somber-like, as though this explained everything.
At which point Korakay walked into the room.
“You always come visiting.” Quy was still annoyed by his aunt enough to snap at anyone. “Don't you have work to do?”
Korakay snickered. “You only say that because you don’t want me to see you all weak and injured. Poor little cub.” She patted him on the foot in a manner Maura was sure he found annoying.
Quy winced. “Thanks for that, friend.”
“Any time you want abuse, you just come to me.”
“Wait,” interjected Maura, as it looked like they’d just leave that word hanging, with no support, and use Korakay’s entrance as an excuse to move on. “What’s countervail?”
Korakay was startled out of her good humor. “Why would you be discussing such a thing?” She looked from Asherat to Quy to Maura. “Well, this one sure stumbled into the wrong conversation. Here this one finished her shift, and thought she’d check up on the murmel and little blue here, only to find you two have been at it as well. And what are you all doing? No cheerful talk of the latest textiles, or the dinner menu, no you’d rather depress yourselves with terrible prospects.”
She settled at the end of Maura’s platform, petting the murmel.
Quy explained. “The Patrona wants my bonded to go for countervail. Her mind’s made up. She’s dead set against the Crudrat, has been from the start.”
“Wonder why?” replied Korakay sarcastically. “She is, after all, your bonded. You’ve never caused the gens anything but trouble. What’d you expect?”
“Well…” Quy didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence for Maura was fed up.
“What. Is. Countervail?” Maura’s voice, sharp and shrill, cut through the conversation like a blade.
“Wow,” said Asherat, “the lady’s got some impressive wind emitters when she chooses.”
Quy blinked in amazement. The murmel looked very impressed.
“Countervail is what the Kill’ki do with cowards.” Only Korakay would be so blunt. “Countervail is where we put the dishonorable. Those who cannot live by a warrior’s code. Those who cannot bond to the greater community. It is our best solution when there are no others.” She spread her big paws in a sort of shrug.
Asherat added, “They are the infiltrators and the spies, the subterfuge makers and the assassins.”
Quy said bitterly, “They are wari’s rejected and unworthy. The psychopaths.”
“But they are useful.” Korakay may be blunt, but she was also less emotion riddled about the word than Quy.
Less with negative, and more with concern.
“They are needed,” added the Jakaa Nova.
“They just aren't much liked or respected,” Korakay again.
Quy and Asherat looked at Korakay curiously — there was an edge of bitterness to her tone.
“This one has a brother who had to take to the vail,” she said.
Maura processed this information and breathed a long held sigh of profound relief. “Oh, is that all? No problem, then. This one is used to all that stuff. Sounds like being reject, made to run and hide all ticks.” Gloriously familiar. She actually smiled.
The others appeared perturbed by this reaction.
“You know, the Patrona’s own son went in for countervail. Voluntarily. Or so goes the family doggerel,” said Quy.
“He told us he was going for fostering!” said Asherat, shocked.
“That’s right, you were friends.” Quy looked guilty. “This one should not have said.”
Asherat tilted his head to the side. “No, it makes sense. He would suit the lifestyle. Remember, we Jakaa Nova are more open to the vail. We’re less particular than the Kill’ki about how we fight. So long as we get to fight.”
Maura made the connection. “You’re on about the Patrona’s son with Dr Sillous?”
“You would think she’d be a bit more forward thinking about things, given that,” said Korakay
The others nodded.
Maura asked for clarification. “His having gone to become a countervail, that’s bad?”
Quy shrugged and looked pointedly at Asherat. “It certainly would be an embarrassment to the gens, should it become common knowledge.”
Asherat merely rested his cheek on the slab. “This one will not tell.”
Maura was beginning to understand. It was just like when a progenetor child rejected the implant. No one was ever happy. Perhaps the Kill’ki were not so different from the Wheel after all. Countervail was obviously the Coalition’s form of reject. Would it be as all-over bad? she wondered. Couldn’t possibly. Nothing could be all-over bad in this floating ice city, where they put food out for anyone to take. Nothing.
“The Patrona wants this one to take on a countervail position? Or train for one?”
“Looks like, despite all logical objections.” Quy wrinkled his nose.
Korakay stood and came up to put a hand on Maura’s shoulder. It was meant to reassure but Maura started. No one had yet touched her in affection. “You will do fine there,” insisted the Kill’ki.
“Does this one have to do fine or is just surviving good enough? This one seems to be best at just surviving.”
“To tell you the truth, we don’t know. Countervails keep themselves to themselves.”
“Will Biskweet be allowed with me?”
“You could claim him as a symbiotic necessity. No one knows all that much about Wheel rejects, even Dr Sillous. They might not question.”
Hearing his name, the murmel squeaked at them.
“Your first priority,” insisted Quy, “should be to convince my aunt that you are better than countervail, that you have other virtues. Push to become wari instead. You have a little time, it might be just enough.”
“How’s that done?”
“Quy, the Patrona is awfully stubborn.” Asherat spoke as though he knew this from personal experience.
“It is possible.” Fuzzy was petulant, as though he knew how unlikely Maura was to convince the Patrona against a preferred course of action.
Maura was tired of being ignored. She took a breath to yell again.
Quy raised a paw. “No need. How’s it done? Well, you must act more like a wari.”
“You must be strong, and tough, and direct, in both speech and action,” said Asherat, proudly.
“You must fight with honor,” added Korakay.
“And you must not run, or dodge, or flip about the way you do.”
Maura’s head bounced amongst the three of them as they talked.
“You must not give insult unless you are in the right.”
“Even then, politeness is your best first choice.”
“You must show the Patrona that you are willing to learn.”
Asherat added, “That you have a personal code of ethics. That you are a noble person with grounding in pure rationality of purpose.”
“But,” said Maura, “This one has none of those things. This one does not even know what they are.” Why, she wondered, is the world always trying to make me into something different? She was bound to disappoint these people. Alien or not, she had come around to thinking of them as friends. She hated to disappoint them. She’d been better off with only the murmel and Rees, at least they only expected her to be a crudrat.
“The only thing this one is good at,” she insisted, “is running and dodging.”
Quy shook his head. “Nonsense. You showed excellent strategic thinking when you broke me out of prison on that ghastly spaceport of yours. You took to the whale’s guns like you were born targeting. Korakay has been training on that instrument for days now and you are still better than her.”
“But that was all in aid of running and dodging,” insisted Maura.
“Space it Quy, you really do have a countervail on your hands. Your aunt is right.” Asherat looked at Maura with interested, if slightly censorious, eyes.
“How many times,” muttered Quy, looking like he wanted to leap off the slab and strangle the Jakaa Nova, “does this one have to tell you to shut your mouth?”
“Stop it, both of you,” Korakay spoke staccato in her annoyance. “We’ve got to help Crudrat here. What is it that makes someone not a countervail?”
The three went back to brainstorming.
Maura tried to pay attention, but she couldn’t keep the refrain from her traitorous mind. Once again, someone was insisting she become something she was not.
18
Want sympathy? Go to your bonded. Want help? Go to your gens. Doctors are for healing.
~ Coalition Proverb
During the next shift all three were discharged from Dr Sillous’s stone domain. Maura figured she’d miss the surgeon. So far he was the only full-on sensible person aboard the floating iceberg.
It turned out she didn’t see much of any of them for the next six spins. True, she saw Quy at night, but she was usually exhausted down to the bone, and could manage no more than a few words before collapsing onto her mat. Sometimes she saw Korakay or Asherat during shift breaks, but the Patrona was always near, and they seemed nervous about casual talk in proximity to the highest-stock in Pikillacta. Asherat still came to instruct her on Jakaa Nova ways, but only for a few ticks each spin, and always with Manzanilla there, testing her. It was limiting.
The testing was, frankly, odd. Mostly Maura trailed after the Patrona on shift duties. This took up all Maura’s ticks, every shift. She no longer worked the kitchens. She missed the snacking, but not a lot else. Instead, first tick of first shift she had to show up at the Patrona’s den and spend the day with the leader as she went about her routine.
As a result, Maura was learning much on how a space city was run. She was pretty certain she could now make her way about every nook and cranny of the whole icy place. But she didn’t quite suss where the testing came in. She did as she was told, and tried to remember the tenets her three friends had thrown at her in the medical lab. Showing willingness to learn was no problem, for she was. But to be openly bold was against her nature. Her physical abilities were secret weapons, best hidden behind a veneer of quiet timidity. She’d not had to fight again, with honor or without, but given the general scuffling of the Kill’ki, she’d no doubt another fight would come soon. That it, too, would be a test. She was unflaggingly polite, to the point where the Patrona began to look on her with a diplomat’s suspicion.
Maura didn’t mean too, but she overheard the Patrona discussing her with Dr Sillous. The massive Kill’ki could not find fault with her small blue shadow, but was convinced that fault was there in that air of quiet reserve that proved Maura was always watching, always waiting, always seeking weakness, counting the seconds, measured and alone.
She said, “It is not wari. Nor is it any other profession I can source. Only countervails keep such consistent stealth and secrecy. Only countervails keep such stillness in their souls.”
Dr Sillous murmured something in reply that Maura couldn’t hear. He must have asked after Maura’s curiosity.
“I instructed her to ask about anything, no matter how silly or trivial. But her questions are not the questions one expects of a newcomer. She wants to know: Where does breathable air come from? How does the invisible ceiling work? Why are there invisible ceilings at all? Why is the city on ice? Where did the ice come from? How cold is our home world? Where is our home world? How big is the Coalition? Why are we Kill’ki in charge of other races? Why did others join? Was it voluntary?”
Dr Sillous replied, “These are all valid questions, indeed. Many with interesting answers.”
"But they are not the questions envoys normally ask. Crudrat does not ask about the workings of the government, or the etiquette of the culture, or the relationships of individuals to the group. She did not care to hear of mythology, or religion, spousal unions, or child rearing. She wants none of the stories that form the tapestry of Coalition life and society. It is as if she sees only the loom, and not the textile upon it. An observer, not a participant. No interest in integrating. It is weird.”
Dr Sillous said, “Perhaps is is her culture?”
“Or perhaps she really is a spy.”
Maura was stung, until then she had no idea of the impression she gave to others. I merely enquired of what interests me. A right certain mistake. She did not think that even her questions might get tested. But after that, she did try to direct them more towards the tapestry of Coalition life, as the Patrona had called it.
“Does anyone know anyone else’s true name? Do you even have them?” she asked at one point, figuring that had to count as culture.
