Fliers of Antares by Alan Burt Akers Page B

against the fabulous zorcas of my clansmen.
    So with some of my ill-gotten winnings I went to the zorcadrome to buy myself the best zorca I could.
    The zorcas of Djanduin are fine animals. But then, it is difficult to find a zorca that is not a fine animal, for of all the animals of Kregen, I believe, it is the zorca who most nobly fulfills its ancestral breeding. This is not to gainsay the superb quality of the vove, that fearsome steed of the Great Plains. But voves — real voves — are found only there in the natural state, while zorcas are found in many areas of Kregen.
    Passing the totrixdrome — as you know I have never been fond of the sectrix, the nactrix, or the totrix, or of any other of the
trix
family — and hurrying on with Khobo the So chattering away in my ear as he guided me through the throngs of people who seem forever to wander and push and shout through the markets of two worlds, we came out to a wide dusty space fenced in with lenken rails. A pair of zorcas were racing up toward us, having completed a circuit of the oval, and they were neck and neck. Even at speed like that a clansman can point a zorca, and the faults of both these were at once apparent. But a fat cortilinden merchant, sweating happily as he paid out golden deldys, bought them for his son, who looked as though a quick belt on the backside would suit him better than a zorca saddle. They were Lamnias, and so the merchant should have known better.
    “Rubbish!” Khobo whispered in my ear. He was a jaunty rogue, a carousing companion I had rescued from a brawl and who had stuck to me since. “I know old Planath the Zorca. He will not cheat me.”
    I grimaced at the name of Planath’s, for although it is common on Kregen for the occupation to decide the label — and very colorful that is, to be sure — there were places I knew where to be called anything at all to do with zorcas meant much effort and sweat, not a little blood, and general approbation from one’s peers. As for that genial rascal Khobo, he was called
the So
for obvious reasons. He’d been in the army and as a young man had had his upper left arm lopped off. As
so
is Kregish for
three,
thus Khobo was
the So.
    As I casually inspected the zorcas on display — for some reason I have always disliked the use of the word horseflesh for horses and zorcaflesh for zorcas — I was vividly reminded of what my father used to tell me as he doctored up a lame horse, or patted a strong chestnut neck, his eyes filled with the love of horses. It was with a nostalgic thought or two that I came at last to a magnificent pair held by two Djang grooms of Planath the Zorca’s establishment.
    “Wonderful animals, Notor, wonderful!” Planath babbled on, but cunningly. “See their quarters, their fetlocks, see their teeth—” At this, like two rat-traps, the lads opened up the zorcas’ mouths. “Both are guaranteed perfect! Never, I swear by Holy Djan Himself, have there been two such zorcas as these.”
    Khobo rolled spittle around his mouth and spat into the dust. He laid a finger on the soft nose of the larboard one.
    I shook my head.
    “This one, I think, Khobo.”
    At this everyone began to wrangle, thoroughly enjoying themselves in the dust and the summer suns-shine, having supple Djangi girls bring them beaker after beaker of that sherbet drink called parclear that tickles the nose and is a sovereign thirst-quencher. Khobo, I knew, had not spotted that tiny divergence in the shoulder blades of the zorca he chose so confidently. That one was a splendid snow-white and, indeed, was a magnificent animal. But the one I wanted, and would give no reason for so doing beyond a stubborn foolishness, was the one a clansman would have selected, for all that he was a dusty shabby gray color. But I liked the look of him, the bright light of intelligence in his eyes.
    “So you rush upon disaster, good Notor! Well, I can say no more!” And Khobo the So threw up his three hands in despair.