Heroes Adrift by Moira J. Moore Page A

maker.
    Everyone started moving. Some leaving, some disassembling the practice gear and carting it away.
    An older woman picked her way to me, easily avoiding the flow. She was dressed in the same manner as the younger women, and I had to admire her bravery and self-confidence. “I am Corla,” she said. “I read the future.” Zaire save me. “I can share my tent with you and your husband.”
    â€œOh, we’re not married,” I said.
    â€œNo matter. Many don’t bother. That does not impair the invitation.”
    Before I could explain that wasn’t exactly what I meant, Fin—a broad middle-aged man who still managed to carry off the scanty garb—approached. “We have enough spare fabric to fashion a sort of tent for you,” he rumbled in the deepest voice I had ever, ever heard. “It might scar the eyes, but it will keep the sun off.”
    â€œThank you. That is so kind.”
    Karish was then spirited away by Fin. I spent the rest of the day introducing myself to people, those who weren’t out performing. They were, as a whole, a talkative bunch, and uncomfortably inquisitive. They wanted to know all about why we were there. I stuck with the same story I’d used in front of Karish—searching for long-lost family—with no embellishment, certain that they were questioning him as well. When they pressed me for details, I praised the beauty of their tattoos or asked them what they did for the show.
    I learned that there were thirty people in all, adults and children, performers and handworkers. The troupe had belonged to Atara since her mother, who had owned it before her, had died, and they spent all their time traveling from settlement to settlement, performing for coins. As the island was rather small, it seemed to me that the show would end up visiting the same settlement twice in a year, perhaps more. The solution to that was variety. All performers were pushed to constantly change their acts. And the performers themselves were not constant. A couple of rope walkers had left the troupe a few stops back. This was one of the reasons Atara, whom everyone called Ma, was so quick to take us on. We were new, and as Northerners we would draw an audience by our mere presence.
    Day slid into evening, and Karish found me sitting under the ovcas—what they called the extra flap suspended beyond the entrance of the tent—with a young girl named Glynis. His hair was ringed with sweat and there were streaks of dirt across his face and his bare torso, not to mention caked under his nails. And yet he still managed to look good. Regular freak of nature, he was.
    Of course, it might also have had something to do with the gleam in his eye and the odd glow about him. I was immediately suspicious.
    â€œWhat have you been doing all day?” he asked.
    â€œUh, nothing,” I admitted, immediately afflicted with that most useless of emotions, guilt, because it was obvious he had been working like a dog.
    He grinned. “Nothing?”
    I nodded, wondering why he thought that was something to smile about.
    He chuckled. “Come along, then.”
    I took my leave from Glynis, who apparently found my manner amusing and giggled in response. I followed Karish through the camp, where most of the performers had returned and were showing signs of packing up. He led me to the edge of the camp, to a tent that was even more eye sticking than the others, each side a different color and pattern, the roof a faded, distasteful green. It was smaller than the other tents, and it had no ovcas.
    â€œThis is our tent,” he announced with palpable pride.
    I smiled at him. “You put it up.”
    â€œI did.” Hence the glow. “I mean, Fin showed me how and helped me, but I did most of it.”
    The jokes that sprang into my brain, all about the likelihood of this effort collapsing or being blown away, were strangled into silence for being inappropriate