Amid the Crowd of Stars by Stephen Leigh

Author:Stephen Leigh [Leigh, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DAW
Published: 2021-02-09T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Saoirse put the com-unit in the drawer under her bed, placing it in the boxed collection of seashells she’d put together as a child. The earpiece she left in, making sure her jaw-length hair was down over it. She went into the clanhouse kitchen from which she could hear people talking. The low voices she heard went silent as the wooden floor creaked under Saoirse’s weight. Her mam was sitting with Rí Angus and Rí Keane of Clan Craig at a wooden prep table scarred with ancient knife cuts. A pot of tea sat in a woven cozy in the center of the table, and the trio all had their hands wrapped around steaming mugs, the smoke from their pipes draped in the air. Their faces swiveled toward her as one as she entered.

“When is that Ichiko intending to come back here?” her mam asked, taking the pipe stem from her mouth. Saoirse suppressed a surge of guilt, wondering if they suspected she had the com-unit and this was a clumsy trap. “I plan on coming back to First Base within the next cycle or two . . .”

“I have no idea,” she answered. “For all I know, Ichiko’s wandering around Dulcia with Minister Plunkett, or still at First Base, or back on their ship. Or maybe she’s gone to one of the other towns to see what they’re like.” She shrugged. “Yeh know as much as I do, Mam. She’ll be here when she gets here. Or are yeh planning to tell her she’s not welcome to return?”

“There’s no need to take that kind of tone with us, Saoirse,” her mam said, frowning.

Rí Angus sighed. “Saoirse, yeh know why we’re concerned. Kekeki made it clear—”

“Kekeki allowed Ichiko to come here,” Saoirse interrupted before he could finish. “I already told Mam about that. Surely, she’s told the two of yeh already.”

“Aye, she has,” Rí Keane spoke up, exhaling a cloud of blue-gray aromatic smoke before setting his pipe down on the table. “And I suspect Kekeki made the decision only because yeh were with the woman. If the Terran had been alone, she’d be food for the spiny walkers.”

“And if that had happened, Rí Keane, we’d now have a whole flock of angry Terrans here on Great Inish, trying to figure out why their stupid machine crashed,” Saoirse replied heatedly. “Or worse, they’d have smashed Great Inish from orbit and killed the lot of us for Ichiko’s death. So yeh should all be glad Kekeki was wise enough to change her mind, no matter why she did so. As for me, I look forward to Ichiko coming back here. I think that—”

Saoirse stopped in mid-sentence. A new voice intruded, not that of anyone at the table but one that sounded only in her head: Kekeki. Looking at the others, she knew they were hearing it as well. “We would talk with Saoirse about this Ichiko. Alone. Saoirse, yeh should come to us.” And with that statement, the sense of connection with the arracht vanished.

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