All this time I had been holding Lajoolie in the dark. My one arm was wrapped around her back and my other was holding her hand, a position most suitable for giving comfort to a person who has recently been moved to tears. Now she let go of my hand; a moment later, I felt her arms curl around me, pulling me in until my cheek lightly pressed against her shoulder. "All men aren’t like that, either," she said softly. "Most of them try to be decent. The man who used you and killed your sister — he was the exception, Oar, you know that."
"He was an utter fucking bastard," I whispered. "And even though he’s been dead for years, he still makes me feel most sad."
"Obviously, he affected you deeply," Lajoolie answered with the ghost of a chuckle. "Do you realize you actually used a contraction? You said, ‘even though he’s been dead.’ "
I jerked away from her in horror. Then I started to scream. I screamed and I screamed and I screamed and I screamed; then I screamed some more.
Contractions
Here is why I screamed.
My own native tongue has contractions similar to those in English — inelegant short forms created by jamming words together. In the highest literature of my people, you can tell that characters are not well-bred when they use such figures of speech. Cultured persons always speak correctly; it is only the uncultured who treat the language with slovenly lack of enunciation.
This distinction impressed itself deeply on my mother. When my sister and I used contractions — which we did occasionally through carelessness or rebellion — our mother would chide us and say that good clever pretty girls should not speak sloppily. She herself never used contractions… until one day when I was twelve years old and Mother had a slip of the tongue.
You can imagine how Eel and I teased her about it. Mother hotly denied she said any such thing: "You girls must have dirt in your ears if you cannot hear what I say!" We had to go wash thoroughly, then do a number of unpleasant chores that were completely unnecessary, since all chores in our village were handled by automatic devices.
In a day or two, Mother slipped again — another contraction. This time Eel and I prudently did not point it out; but we caught each other’s eye and indulged in a moment of sisterly acknowledgment. We did not have dirt in our ears. It was our mother who had grown lax.
Such slips soon became a common occurrence… increasing to several times a day… then almost every time our mother spoke. Once in a while, when we did not feel like good clever pretty girls — when we felt like defiant clever pretty girls — we would use contractions ourselves, right to Mother’s face, just waiting for her to berate us. We were eager to cry back at her, "You use words like that all the time!"
Alas, our mother had ceased to notice; or more accurately, she had ceased to care. Her brain was becoming Tired. Indifference to enunciation was an early sign.
When we realized that, my sister and I swore an oath to the Hallowed Ones: we would never use a contraction again. We would speak with utmost precision, never letting ourselves get carried away with excitement or emotion. It soon became fierce superstition — that our brains would never grow Tired as long as we avoided untidy speech. Deprived of contractions, Senility had no chink through which it might enter our heads.
From that day to this, I had kept my oath. I had kept myself safe. I had never said the fatal words.
Now the spell was broken.
Or perhaps it was I who was broken. That is why I screamed.
18: WHEREIN I AM BRIEFLY UNCONSCIOUS
A Short Tussle
I remember Lajoolie holding me in the dark. I also remember fighting her, lashing out as I screamed and screamed. Under other circumstances it might have been an Interesting Struggle, revealing which of us was stronger. The blackness, however, proved the deciding factor — with no food in years and no light for photosynthesis, I rapidly exhausted the last of my energy reserves.
My only warning was a wash of dizziness, strong enough to cut straight through my frenzy. I attempted to say, "I am sorry, Lajoolie," but I do not think the words came out. Then my muscles went limp, and so did my mind.
Awakening
When I regained consciousness, the room was much brighter. The brightness came from dozens of glow-wands laid upon my body; someone had opened my jacket and stacked the wands on my chest, with more wands stuffed down my sleeves and others arranged along both sides of my legs. It was warm where they touched me — the pleasant heat of stones that have been baking under a summer sun.
I closed my eyes and basked. This light was not nearly so filling as the illumination in an Ancestral Tower — the towers were filled with many healthful energies far beyond the visible spectrum — but the glow-wands provided sufficient sustenance that I felt alive again… and I would get up very soon, after I had soaked in a bit more nutrition.
Someone said, "Did she move?"
The voice belonged to Sergeant Aarhus. When Festina and Captain Kapoor had headed in opposite directions, I could not remember whom Aarhus had followed. It dawned on me perhaps he had not gone with either party; perhaps he had remained unseen in the blackness, listening to Lajoolie and me speak. Was that not the behavior one expected of a zealous Security mook? Hiding in the dark. Keeping us under Covert Surveillance.
And what did he think we might do if left to our own devices? I asked myself. Did he fear we would damage a ship that was already broken? But perhaps Aarhus did not care so much about Lajoolie and me as he wished to guard baby Starbiter. The Zarett might provide our only way to call for help; therefore, the sergeant had posted himself to protect the child.
When I passed out, it must have been Aarhus who obtained these glow-wands. The sergeant would know where such items were stored; he would also be familiar enough with Royal Hemlock to find his way in the dark. I could imagine him staggering desperately through the blackness, mumbling to himself, "I must save Oar. I must save Oar. She is too beautiful to die."
I found myself wondering dreamily if Aarhus had fallen in love with me. After all, I was far more attractive than opaque human women… and far more charming as well, for I was not a mousy little thing eternally fretting about conformance with the dictates of society. Perhaps the sergeant sensed in me a Tempestuous Beauty who could never be Tamed.
Which is quite enough to make some men fall in love.
For a while.
Until something in the male head goes click and suddenly you are Just Too Much Trouble.
A shudder passed through me and I clenched my face in chagrin. All my life I had been most adept at devising delightful fantasies, pleasant reveries of Love and Romance. Why could I not do that now? As soon as I began inventing a tale of Aarhus in love with me, why did something in my brain bring the fantasy to a crashing halt: Foolish Oar, real love is not so carefree or so sweet?
Was this what it meant to have a Tired Brain? To find oneself unable to spin rosy dreams? To be constantly burdened by It is not so easy and You must not ignore certain facts ?
Most frightened, appalled, and desperate, I opened my eyes.