Semley's Necklace by Ursula K. Le Guin

Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

“Well,” said Rocannon, “now at least we know what she is.”

“I wish there were some way of knowing who she is,” the curator mumbled. “She wants something we’ve got here in the Museum, is that what the trogs say?”

“Now, don’t call ’em trogs,” Rocannon said conscientiously; as a hilfer, an ethnologist of the High Intelligence Life-forms, he was supposed to resist such words. “They’re not pretty, but they’re Status C Allies. . . . I wonder why the Commission picked them to develop? Before even contacting all the HILF species? I’ll bet the survey was from Centaurus—Centaurans always like nocturnals and cave dwellers. I’d have backed Species II, here, I think.”

“The troglodytes seem to be rather in awe of her.”

“Aren’t you?”

Ketho glanced at the tall woman again, then reddened and laughed. “Well, in a way. I never saw such a beautiful alien type in eighteen years here on New South Georgia. I never saw such a beautiful woman anywhere, in fact. She looks like a goddess.” The red now reached the top of his bald head, for Ketho was a shy curator, not given to hyperbole. But Rocannon nodded soberly, agreeing.

“I wish we could talk to her without those tr—Gdemiar as interpreters. But there’s no help for it.” Rocannon went toward their visitor, and when she turned her splendid face to him he bowed down very deeply, going right down to the floor on one knee, his head bowed and his eyes shut. This was what he called his All-Purpose Intercultural Curtsey, and he performed it with some grace. When he came erect again the beautiful woman smiled and spoke.

“She say, Hail, Lord of Stars,” growled one of her squat escorts in Pidgin-Galactic.

“Hail, Lady of the Angyar,” Rocannon replied. “In what way can we of the Museum serve the lady?”

Across the troglodytes’ growling her voice ran like a brief silver wind.

“She say, Please give her necklace which treasure her blood-kinforebears long long.”

“Which necklace?” he asked, and understanding him, she pointed to the central display of the case before them, a magnificent thing, a chain of yellow gold, massive but very delicate in workmanship, set with one big hot-blue sapphire. Rocannon’s eyebrows went up, and Ketho at his shoulder murmured, “She’s got good taste. That’s the Fomalhaut Necklace—famous bit of work.”

She smiled at the two men, and again spoke to them over the heads of the troglodytes.

“She say, O Starlords, Elder and Younger Dwellers in House of Treasures, this treasure her one. Long long time. Thank you.”

“How did we get the thing, Ketho?”

“Wait; let me look it up in the catalogue. I’ve got it here. Here. It came from these trogs—trolls—whatever they are: Gdemiar. They have a bargain-obsession, it says; we had to let ’em buy the ship they came here on, an AD-4. This was part payment. It’s their own handiwork.”

“And I’ll bet they can’t do this kind of work anymore, since they’ve been steered to Industrial.”

“But they seem to feel the thing is hers, not theirs or ours. It must be important, Rocannon, or they wouldn’t have given up this time-span to her errand.

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