never told anyone, and he hadn’t understood. Not about Fess, not about Lilla, not about the day she’d gone away from Scaery to marry Phaed Girat and had seen the hem of her robe moving across the little dark spatter on the floor. Not how those small dark spots had become the symbol of their marriage, of everything between the two of them.
“No Gharm in my songs,” she said to herself now on the porch of her sisterhouse in Settlement One, where she stood listening to Saturday Wilm’s voice floating on the evening air. No Gharm, no voices crying between the stars, no magic, no more music. Her throat was too full of baby Maechy, lying still in the street. Her heart was too full of the spatter of Fess’s blood that no one had ever washed away.
• China Wilm heard Jeopardy come in and clatter off to his room. She filed the last of a corrected pile of hybrid-yield reports and turned off the information stage after sneaking a quick look at its time pulse. Daywatch seventeen point two. Workdays, which began at this time of the year around daywatch five or six, were considered to end at daywatch sixteen or seventeen. Daywatch seventeen was time to knock off, pushing dusk, but still early enough to walk down through the settlement and take a look at the old temple.
She hadn’t been particularly interested in the temple until Jep brought her the wood sample and asked what it was. His question made her remember something she’d read about dendrochronology, an ancient system for determining the age of buildings by dating the wood in them by seasonal growth rings. Why not, just for fun, find out when the temple had been built? Nobody knew, which made it a rather exciting idea. She could build up a tree ring sequence from local samples. It would make an interesting activity to fill in her spare time for a while, maybe she’d get an item for the Archives out of it, get her name recorded for posterity.
Besides, it would help her not think about Samasnier Girat. Some days it took a good deal of energy not to think about Sam, but she was determined to keep him out of her head, and out of her bed. As it was, without him, things were peaceful. With him, things were impossible. She had been through it before, more than once, and was determined not to go through it again, even though she was eaten up with curiosity over this new game Sam had, if it was a game. Walking around half the night, shouting at nothing out on the hills. Challenging dragons, Africa said. One of the herdsmen had encountered him early one morning on the western ridge and reported that Sam hadn’t known him, hadn’t even seemed to see him, but had gone by him with a heavy club, a broken-off branch raised to strike, veering away only at the last minute as though deflected by something, or someone. The herdsman had come back to the settlement at top speed, not bothering to inquire after reasons. He’d told Africa, of course—Africa was his Team Leader—and Africa had told China, wondering what it meant. Not that she expected China to know what it meant. China had never known what Sam meant.
China gave herself a quick looking-over before she left her sisterhouse. Her hair lay properly, in a fluffy black cap over her unlined brow. Her face was clean, and her clothing was neat if not stylish. Not that anyone in the settlement was stylish. Stylish was a word grandmothers used about clothing in some other place, some Phansuri city, in some former life. Even at Central Management they weren’t stylish, though China had heard they were sometimes sexy. Which meant naked, China assumed. Skin showing. Maybe tits, or upper legs. China sometimes tried that in front of the big mirror, a gauzy scarf here, another there, lots of self showing. Sam would go crazy. Do it in public, though, and earn the disapproval of the entire settlement council! Time for baby making, yes. Time for sexiness, no. Though some people were. Sam, for instance. Very, very sexy.
Samasnier,
“No Gharm in my songs,” she said to herself now on the porch of her sisterhouse in Settlement One, where she stood listening to Saturday Wilm’s voice floating on the evening air. No Gharm, no voices crying between the stars, no magic, no more music. Her throat was too full of baby Maechy, lying still in the street. Her heart was too full of the spatter of Fess’s blood that no one had ever washed away.
• China Wilm heard Jeopardy come in and clatter off to his room. She filed the last of a corrected pile of hybrid-yield reports and turned off the information stage after sneaking a quick look at its time pulse. Daywatch seventeen point two. Workdays, which began at this time of the year around daywatch five or six, were considered to end at daywatch sixteen or seventeen. Daywatch seventeen was time to knock off, pushing dusk, but still early enough to walk down through the settlement and take a look at the old temple.
She hadn’t been particularly interested in the temple until Jep brought her the wood sample and asked what it was. His question made her remember something she’d read about dendrochronology, an ancient system for determining the age of buildings by dating the wood in them by seasonal growth rings. Why not, just for fun, find out when the temple had been built? Nobody knew, which made it a rather exciting idea. She could build up a tree ring sequence from local samples. It would make an interesting activity to fill in her spare time for a while, maybe she’d get an item for the Archives out of it, get her name recorded for posterity.
Besides, it would help her not think about Samasnier Girat. Some days it took a good deal of energy not to think about Sam, but she was determined to keep him out of her head, and out of her bed. As it was, without him, things were peaceful. With him, things were impossible. She had been through it before, more than once, and was determined not to go through it again, even though she was eaten up with curiosity over this new game Sam had, if it was a game. Walking around half the night, shouting at nothing out on the hills. Challenging dragons, Africa said. One of the herdsmen had encountered him early one morning on the western ridge and reported that Sam hadn’t known him, hadn’t even seemed to see him, but had gone by him with a heavy club, a broken-off branch raised to strike, veering away only at the last minute as though deflected by something, or someone. The herdsman had come back to the settlement at top speed, not bothering to inquire after reasons. He’d told Africa, of course—Africa was his Team Leader—and Africa had told China, wondering what it meant. Not that she expected China to know what it meant. China had never known what Sam meant.
China gave herself a quick looking-over before she left her sisterhouse. Her hair lay properly, in a fluffy black cap over her unlined brow. Her face was clean, and her clothing was neat if not stylish. Not that anyone in the settlement was stylish. Stylish was a word grandmothers used about clothing in some other place, some Phansuri city, in some former life. Even at Central Management they weren’t stylish, though China had heard they were sometimes sexy. Which meant naked, China assumed. Skin showing. Maybe tits, or upper legs. China sometimes tried that in front of the big mirror, a gauzy scarf here, another there, lots of self showing. Sam would go crazy. Do it in public, though, and earn the disapproval of the entire settlement council! Time for baby making, yes. Time for sexiness, no. Though some people were. Sam, for instance. Very, very sexy.
Samasnier,
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