Taking a step toward me, Zammis’s face assumes a threatening expression, its voice hushed and charged with menace. "Please understand that everyone on Friendship considers Willis Davidge to be possibly the most valuable being in the universe. If anything should happen to him―anything―we would not understand."
I reach out my hand and poke Jeriba Zammis in the chest, causing it to stagger back a step. "I have carried death in every pocket since I was born, Jeriba Zammis. Threats do not frighten me. Still, should you make another such threat, my response will not be quite so measured."
Undev Orin, attempting to insert itself between us, says hastily, "Yazi Ro, I believe the Jetah simply wanted to remind you that you are not on Amadeen now."
My heart forces the words from my mouth: "I am always on Amadeen,"
I turn and face the column of red blobs, ease my breathing, and think what I would do if circumstances required me to take a loved one and throw it into company with an insane killer. Slowly I take my bag from my shoulder, remove the copy of the Koda Nusinda, and face the Jetah. "My mission, as you call it, is to deliver this copy to your Uncle Willy. The next move will be his."
Jeriba Zammis studies me for a moment, looks at the manuscript, then raises its gaze and asks, "Did my parent warn you about calling Davidge Uncle Willy?"
"Yes."
Zammis looks at a time readout above a blank entertainment screen in the corner of the area opposite the column of blobs. "We were supposed to pick up a relative as well, but Falna was not on the ship from Earth."
"Estone Falna," adds Orin with obvious pride, "Graduated Jetah from the Talman Kovah, 'do Timan from the Ri Mou Tavii on Timan, magna cum laude from the University of Nations College of Medicine, deputy of the Jetai Diea. It will someday follow Jeriba Shigan as Ovjetah."
"Possibly," says Zammis as it faced me. "Orin’s enthusiasm often obscures its view of reality. If Falna wanted to become Ovjetah, it should have remained at the Talman Kovah. Instead it hops from planet to planet collecting degrees. As Orin mentioned, among Falna’s many accomplishments is graduating from the University of Nations College of Medicine. I suppose we’ll have to address Falna as ‘doctor’ now." Jeriba Zammis frowns and glances toward the passenger concourse. "I can’t understand why it wasn’t on the ship from Earth."
"It didn’t say it was going to be on that ship, Jetah. There is another ship today from Draco," offered Orin. "Perhaps it will be on that."
"Falna is coming from Earth," replied Zammis. "Why would it be on a ship from Draco?"
"The Talman Kovah is there. The Jetai Diea. Its mentor, Jeriba Shigan," pointed out the retainer. "In any event, Falna did say it wasn’t certain when it would arrive and it would make its own way out to the estate."
"Nonsense," states Zammis. "If we have to meet every ship from everywhere for eternity, there will be a familiar face here to greet Estone Falna." Zammis nods toward my garments. "Are those the warmest clothes you have."
I frown at the question. "Yes."
"Very well." Zammis turns to Orin and says in English, "Let’s get it in the air, Flash. Do we have enough time to hit Binswanger’s, bring Yazi Ro to the estate, and still have Alri Gan make it back to the port to meet the ship from Draco? Should we send another car?"
"I’m sure we have enough time, jetah."
Zammis nods. "Excellent. Tell Gan to make for Binswanger’s." Turning to me, it says, "You need something warmer."
"I am warm enough."
Orin and Zammis both laugh, and after a pause, Orin glances at Zammis. "Binswanger’s?"
Zammis nods. "Binswanger’s."
Orin bows and leads us out of the waiting area to a set of thermal doors made of glass. Outside the doors is a brilliantly illuminated tunnel, different kinds of vehicles passing by the doors. Innocent-looking clouds of ice dust hang in the air as they move by the glass. A sleek, gleaming red vehicle is parked in the tunnel, waiting, and inside the doors another retainer, Alri Gan, waits. Gan wears a hooded coat with two additional coats draped over its arm. Orin takes a coat, helps Zammis on with it, then puts on its own coat. They are thick, covered in some kind of leather with hoods and gloves attached. I think that I would suffocate from the heat in one of those, then Gan signals the doors to open.
Before I take a step, I am stunned by the cold. My breath steams and I feel the surface of my exposed skin burning. Each breath inhaled is a fiery draft from hell. The areas of my body that are covered feel as though they are being pierced with knives of ice. I can feel my skin and muscles contracting in the cold.
Gan hurries us into the vehicle, and I sit in the warmth, my eyes tightly shut, allowing the soft upholstery to cuddle me as I hug myself. I hear the doors close and the whine of the engine, then feel a gentle pressure as the vehicle accelerates and grows even warmer. I risk opening my eyes and see that Gan and Orin are seated in front and I am in the rear with Zammis seated on my right. I look through the window next to me and we are out of the tunnel flying far above the frozen, wind-punished cityscape of First Colony. There are buildings the tops of which poke through the otherwise unbroken blanket of snow and ice. A shudder rattles my body and I turn to see Jeriba Zammis examining me.
"Binswanger’s ?" it asks.
I nod in defeat. "Binswanger’s," I answer.
Alri Gan lands the craft in a tunnel at the base of a huge structure that looks like an enormous glittering ball sitting on the ice. In one last blast of cold, we leave the craft and enter the place where we are met by the owner, a thin, balding human named Abraham J. Binswanger, who escorts us and waits upon us personally.
Binswanger’s is a many-leveled wonderland of riches, each level connected to the others through a complicated web of moving walks and sliding stairs. To me it seems like the land of the Irrvedan must have seemed to Uhe and the starving ancient Mavedah, like the Promised Land must seem to the humans. Coats, hats, boots, shirts, sleeping clothes, undergarments, child clothes, baby clothes all of it new. Scents, jewels, furniture, pictures, machines for transportation, entertainment, work and business, tools, farming implements and supplies, flowers, equipment and uniforms for sports, and towers and towers of books, none of them ever having been opened.
I touch the books and ache to fill my mind with the contents of them all. Before entering Binswanger’s establishment I never saw a new book. Here I think I feel something of what the ancients must have felt when they discovered the universe.
There are copies of the English translation of The Talman. I turn a copy over and on the back is a picture of the human, Willis E. Davidge. His hair is dark turning to gray, great streaks of gray in his beard at the corners of his mouth. In the picture his mouth is open in laughter. Next to those books are maps and brochures advertising tours of the cave where, during the war, USEF fighter pilot Willis E. Davidge and Drac fighter pilot Jeriba Shigan made their home and Shigan’s child Zammis was delivered by the human. I point at the brochure and turn to Jeriba Zammis. "Is this Zammis your nameparent?"
Zammis looks at the brochure and grimaces. "It’s terrible how they’ve commercialized the area. Yes, this was my nameparent." It looks at me, eyebrows raised in resignation. "That’s why Uncle found another cave far from here, and why we moved the Jeriba estate closer to it."
"Another cave? The human still lives in a cave?"
Zammis smiles and nods as its eyes focus on treasured memory. "Yes," it answers. "The human still lives in a cave."
I look back at the leaflet and see that part of the tour includes the original gravesite of Jeriba Shigan and Shigan’s parent, Gothig. This fighter pilot, then, was the nameparent of the Ovjetah of the Talman Kovah.