Lamarchos Read Free

moved once again against her palm. “Not one but four.”
    She chuckled. “Four out of one. Thrifty.” Then she sobered. “One of us—one will kill.”
    â€œWe hear. It is known. There is already blood.”
    â€œAh.” The pleasure soured in her. “I feel there will be more. It sickens me.”
    â€œNot your doing, forget it. Life and death are both parts of the whole, one flowing into the other, death and life.” The speaker smoothed his small, black hands over his stiff, springing whiskers.
    â€œAh.” She sucked a breath deep into her, expanding her stomach, then let the air slip out in small bundles until no more would come. Sitting in silence she felt warm in the energetic approval of the Lakoe-heai. Warm in spite of the thickening mist that threatened to break into rain again, and happy to be out of the artificial womb of the ship, happy to be in touch with the earth and the world’s life. Once again, she grew aware of the complex hierarchy of smells that matched the interweaving of life sparks. They rose in a glistening crescendo even to the clouds where unseen birds circled and soared among the drifting minutiae of the aerial bacteria that spread across the sky in brightly colored swirls.
    After a dreamy, timeless time she sighed and stirred. “Then I may play at being gikena?”
    â€œSister.” The small voice gleamed silver in her ears. “Be what you are.”
    She frowned. “I don’t understand.”
    Laughter circled joyously around her, hidden in thunder that boomed through the clouds, filled with a whooping amusement that brought images to her mind of soap bubbles bouncing wildly through bright spring air. The speaker animal snuggled against her stomach, ears flickflicking in response to the forces whirling wildly around them. The small voice spoke again, filled with amusement. “Sister, you are gikena born.”
    â€œBut I’m not born of this world.”
    â€œSister.”
    The word suddenly had meaning for her. “You call me kin?”
    â€œSister.”
    Aleytys looked dreamily down at the tiny beast curled in a ball of white and russet fur against her stomach, his head tilted back so the black eyes met hers, the look of intelligence startling in his beast face. She sighed and slid her hands under him to lift him back on the ground.
    Tiny, black fingers closed around her thumb. “Keep the speaker. He is necessary to the gikena. Keep him with you while you walk our paths.”
    â€œI thank you, Lakoe-heai.” She stumbled a little over the word, repeated it. “Lakoe-heai. I bless you for your friendship.” Cuddling the speaker against her breast, she lurched to her feet on stiffened legs, feeling the presences circling proprietorally around her, then retreating gradually as she stumbled toward the ship, shivering with sudden chill. When she put her foot on the lowest rung of the ladder they were only a vague ripple in her awareness, an intimation of an interest so distant she could sense it only when she threw her own awareness out toward the horizon.
    Quietly happy, almost tranced, she clambered heavily up the ladder, hampered by the speaker until he moved up onto her shoulder and clung to her hair so that her hands were free. As she stepped into the lock the rain came down again in impenetrable sheets that played on the nerves like clumsy, hurtful hands.
    Stavver thumbed the plate, starting the ladder sliding home. “Well?”
    â€œYes.” She drifted past him, tapped open the inner lock, and ducked into the interior of the ship.
    Stavver picked up her abandoned batik and shut the outer iris. He caught up with her in the cabin as she bent over her son’s improvised crib, letting the small furry beast settle himself beside the sleeping baby.
    â€œAre you crazy?” He stepped past her and reached for the speaker. “That’s a wild animal. No telling what diseases it