Janat Kagan Hellspark

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(Check a tourist guide to Y and I ll fill you in later, Maggy.)
Tocohl turned to swift-Kalat. His forehead was beaded with sweat. It is a
ritual greeting, she said.
I apologize for the mistranslation.
Swift-Kalat jerked his head from one to the other. In my culture, he said,
it is an insult of the highest order.
I am aware of that. I said, mistranslation, Tocohl repeated. The Yn word
means both lie and
dream it only becomes a problem when you try to pick an
equivalent in GalLing . There no is equivalent in GalLing , but dream
is much closer to its emotional meaning.
She could see him make a visible effort to replace his emotional reaction with
an intellectual one.
Then he pointed to Tocohl s swollen hand. She was bitten by a sprookje, he
began.
Tocohl interrupted. Your pardon, swift-Kalat, but I must speak to layli-layli
calulan alone.
Gratefully, swift-Kalat accepted the dismissal.
When he was gone, layli-layli calulan said, You are not alone with me.
Tocohl was startled. Either layli-layli calulan was sharp-eyed enough
to have seen the muscle twitch that signaled her subvocal exchange with
Maggy, or she was relying on her shaman s espabilities.
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No, admitted Tocohl. She tapped the implant. My partner, the maggy-maggy
lynn listens as well.
Because she now spoke Yn, Tocohl used the my that signaled personal
relationship rather than property, which in Yn culture included males as
well. That was how she thought of Maggy, she realized, as both her partner and
female. She had also translated lord into the Yn doubling, quite
unintentionally giving her equal status with layli-layli herself. She made a
mental note not to introduce Maggy as a demonstration of
state-of-the-art after all.
Instead, she said, I would introduce you properly, but maggy-maggy has no
facilities for speech except through me. If you wish to greet her, please do.
She will acknowledge the introduction through the vocoder in her arachne
later.
Layli-layli calulan made Yn formal greeting to Maggy.
When she was finished, Tocohl crossed her ankles and sat before the Yn shaman.
She held out the
injured hand. Her ruse was still worth the try, but it was not worth
upsetting swift-Kalat if she was found out. I was bitten by a sprookje
last night. This morning& well, it s infected, I think, and
swift-Kalat tells me that s never happened before.
The shaman lit a jievnal stick and its piney odor filled the small room. She
thrust the slender rod into her hair, took Tocohl s hand gently in her own.
For a moment, her dark eyes looked puzzled, then she said, You did this to
yourself? To my knowledge, there is no one in the survey team who could have
done this for you.
Could have done what? said Tocohl with puzzled innocence.
Layli-layli calulan s dark eyes lit suddenly with amusement, and Tocohl
dropped her gaze before that knowing scrutiny. All right, she said, I was
trained in the Methven rituals.
You are an adept, said layli-layli calulan
.
Not adept enough.
Layli-layli released Tocohl s hand and twisted the bluestone ring from her
left finger. The rings, by
Yn tradition, prevented the accidental release of power. In reality, Tocohl
suspected that the rings only worked because the Yns believed they worked many
espabilities needed a channel or focus or, in this case, a control.
The shaman held out her right hand and Tocohl laid her swollen wrist across
the waiting palm. The tip of layli-layli s bare finger touched her injury with
feathery delicacy.
Just for a moment, for the pure devilment, Tocohl concentrated on maintaining
the dilation of the capillaries. Dark eyes met the Hellspark gold, and a
trace of smile touched the corners of layli-layli calulan s broad mouth.
Then the heat in Tocohl s wrist cooled, the swelling began to subside.
Activated by layli-layli s espability, Tocohl s cells found their normal
pattern and set about to regain it. Against the shaman s gift, Tocohl had no
chance of maintaining the artificial illness.
The red faded to its original shade. Soon only the pinprick
remained, and that too was healing rapidly.
Layli-layli calulan replaced her ring and said, You too believe swift-Kalat.
So did Oloitokitok.
She took up the koli thread from her lap, and as she spoke, her fingers added
knot after intricate knot to its tangled glitter.
Long before you dreamed your first dream,
layli-layli calulan began, in the manner of a mother telling a tale to a
child, there was a man named Oloitokitok who was not like other men. He
thought and dreamed like a woman. He dreamed a dream so strong that it took
him to a world no woman s eye had ever seen&
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Listening to the Tale of Oloitokitok, Tocohl heard much that someone
unfamiliar with Yn culture would have missed. The Yn were so gynocentric [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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