Courtship Rite by Donald Kingsbury

Author:Donald Kingsbury [Kingsbury, Donald]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780671460891
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 1983-09-15T04:00:00+00:00

35

One cannot take a coward on dangerous missions or trust one’s fortune to a fool. How then are cowards and fools to be employed? Fatten them while they entertain you. They are fodder for hard times.

From The Prime Compendium

VERY CAREFULLY FROM behind the sand bags Joesai pulled the wire attached to the thumb that tripped the hammer. The air cracked! Then: deaf silence. Neither Joesai nor Gaet breathed for heartbeats. They ran over and examined the acrid-smelling tube. It wasn’t split. A hole had appeared in the wooden target.

“God’s Streak!” said Gaet, jumping up and down like a boy.

Joesai roared with laughter. “By God! You just tell those og’Sieth to build something and they build it.”

Joesai opened the breach and put in another cartridge and screwed the breach closed. The cartridges had taken him a whole day to make. It was easy to use Shoemi’s Method to calculate the structure of an organic compound that would break down into gases with a sudden release of energy—but cooking up the compound itself was scary. Such molecules are fragile. In the end he had used two explosives, one to detonate the other. God had said nothing to suggest an appropriate explosive and he wasn’t sure that he had the right ones.

“This pressure tube has use in some ritual?” asked Gaet.

“God alone knows. It is used for putting holes in things.” The larger brother examined the hole in the wooden target with some care. A drill would have done much better. “I think it is mainly used to punch holes in distant people. A knife for cowards.”

“A killing tool?” Gaet was not sure how it could be used in such a fashion. Perhaps the tube could be set up so that someone tripped over the trigger wire.

“It is held against the shoulder. You pull the metal thumb with your forefinger while you keep the tube lined up with whatever you wish to hole. Do you want to grasp it in your hands for the next explosion?” Joesai enjoyed teasing his brother.

“Do I look the fool?”

Joesai was cracking up laughing. “Not a fool. Perhaps a coward? You’re not going to take God’s word that such is safe?”

“Suddenly I hear Oelita’s voice preaching atheism in my ear.”

“She has begun to talk to you?”

“Yes.”

“Same old bees in her robe?”

“She’s not going to change. Why should we all believe the same thing?”

“Why should we believe lies? Go ahead, believe a stone is a potato—but you’ll break your teeth! She signs contracts with Hoemei as if she were Kaiel. Ho. I grant you that she is as tough as the bi-wood that bends but cannot be carved. Still her mind is pudding.”

“She has a simple reverence for life that I respect.”

“She has a simpleminded reverence for falsehood. Before I leave I shall show her God. I vow that.”

“The Death Rite is ended!” said Gaet as a command.

Joesai smiled cunningly. “You would protect her from words?”

“Husband, she’s had enough,” Gaet pleaded.

“You pity her,” Joesai exclaimed in astonishment. They were creche and they did not pity.

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