September was not moving, simply staring motionless at the sheet of snow-dusted white where it ran up against the walls of the canyon. It was unusual to see him in such a reflective, downright pensive mood.
“Still in the egg?” The thranx phrase had long since entered the burgeoning roster of interspecies colloquialisms.
“Mmmm? Oh, hello, young feller-me-lad.” How oddly quiet he was, Ethan thought, as he turned his attention back to the ice. “No, not in the egg.”
“What are you thinking about?”
“My brother. Leastwise, the man who was my brother once.”
“You mentioned him before, a long time ago.” Ethan sat down alongside the mountainous form. “You said, ‘I had a brother, once.’ I didn’t understand what you meant by ‘once.’ ”
September’s mouth relaxed into a grin. He was watching the antics of two furry beetle-sized creatures. They were performing a miniature ice-ballet, skittering smoothly about where the shore met the frozen river.
“I suppose technically we’re still brothers. Once born one, I guess you’re stuck with it. Haven’t seen him in twenty, twenty-five years. I’ve done a lot of growin’ up since then. Sometimes wonder if he has, though I doubt it.”
“If you haven’t seen him, then how do you know he hasn’t, as you say, done any growing up?”
“You don’t understand, feller-me-lad. Sawbill, he was born bad.” Long minutes of quiet passed. September raised his gaze from skate-bugs to skating clouds racing overhead. “Got himself into a rotten, stinking business much too soon. That’s a part of it.”
“What kind of business?” September hardly ever talked about himself, and then always in his joking manner. To find him both loquacious and introspective was rare enough that Ethan forgot his original reason for seeking out the big man and probed on.
“He dug too deeply into… well, put it brief, he trained himself to become an emoman.”
Ethan knew of the men and women and thranx who sold emotions. Their status was only marginally legal, and what they sold was usually best left hidden away in the darker sections of hospitals. Commonwealth law guaranteeing so much freedom kept them from being closed down, though it could not prevent the occasional killing of one who grew too bold, or remained in one place too long. The social side-effects of their profession being what they were, few chose it as a life’s work. An emoman (or woman) rarely grew rich. There were other satisfactions to the profession, however, which induced a few to practice it. That gave rise to the saying that the most likely candidate for an emoman’s trade was himself.
“There was a girl,” September continued, rushing the words as if anxious to be rid of them. “There’s always a girl.” He chuckled in a bitter, bad-tasting sort of way. “I was interested in her, too much so. I was very young then. Sawbill was also interested in her… as a customer, and in other ways.
“We argued, we fought. I thought… anyhow, Sawbill sold her something he shouldn’t have. She wanted it—it’s a free galaxy. But he shouldn’t have done it. She was—repressed, I think’s the best way o’ puttin’ it. What Sawbill sold her made her unrepressed. Anyways, she overdosed herself. She—” his expression twisted horribly, “became somethin’ less than human but more than dead. Voluntarily turned herself into a commodity. Not a lynx or somethin’ decent like that, but something lower, beneath vileness, who—” He stopped, unable to continue.
Ethan wondered if he dared say anything. Finally he spoke as softly, gently as he could. “Maybe if you could find her now. She might’ve changed, tossed what she was engulfed by, and you could—”
“Lad, I said she overdosed herself. She didn’t follow instructions. Happens all the time to those who make use of an emoman’s merchandise.” There was a mountainous sadness in his voice.
“When Sawbill finally stopped supplyin’ her, she hunted up others who would. I can’t find her because she’s dead, lad. To me and most o’ the worlds, anyway. She just sort of got eaten away from the inside. Not physically. That I might’ve been able to cope with. The body did just fine, ’til it got used up too. By the time that started, her mind was long gone.” He turned his attention back to the ice.
“I hope she’s dead, Ethan. Should’ve done her a great kindness and killed her myself. I couldn’t, but as I told you, I was very young then. Everything Sawbill did was perfectly legal. He was always very careful about that. Probably still is, whatever he’s doing.”
“But couldn’t you have stopped him, legal or not? The man was your brother. Couldn’t he see what he was doing to the girl?”
“Feller-me-lad, emomen have their own code, their own set o’ morals. ’Cording to his way of thinkin’, he wasn’t doing a thing to her. She was doin’ it to herself. Commonwealth law sides with him. Emomen’s drugs have never proven addictive, not like something such as bloodhype, say. They’re big on legality. Not morality.”
“How can you act legally and not morally?” Ethan wanted to know.
September laughed, looking with pity at his young friend. “Feller-me-lad, you don’t know much about government, do you? Or law.”
“Government—that reminds me.” Ethan hastened to change the subject. He’d tunneled too deeply into another’s soul and had entered hollows he now wished he’d stayed out of. “How are we going to make our discoveries known to proper Commonwealth authorities without letting anyone cover them up?”
“So you’re finally as suspicious of Trell as I am, feller-me-lad?”
“Almost.”
“Good enough. Never trust an official who smiles that much.”
“He knows everything that happens in Brass Monkey. We need someone who can command a closed beam for off-world transmission.”
“Isn’t—anyone,” September grunted. He seemed hard at work on the problem, having already forgotten the moody discourse of moments ago. “Wait now.” He rose, towered over Ethan. “Ought to be one office that can send closed messages.”
“Don’t keep me guessing, Skua. Trell’s Commissioner, and he can—”
“Think a second, feller-me-lad. Brass Monkey’s large enough to rate a padre.”
Being only ah occasional church-goer, and less religious than most, Ethan hadn’t thought of the local representative of the United Church. No one, least of all a comparatively minor functionary like Trell, would dare tamper with a sealed Church communication.
“Now that that little gully’s crossed, let’s go back and see if we can’t help put our ship back together, eh, young feller-me-lad?”
They left the shore and headed toward the icerigger. The fifth and final duralloy runner, the steering skate, was being hoisted into place at her stern. Ethan snatched a surreptitious glance at his companion. The patina of indestructible confidence had returned to his expression, only slightly tarnished.
Skua September had turned out to be as vulnerable as any human. His huge frame simply gave him greater depths in which to hide his passions.
With typical lack of formality, the Moulokinese prepared no noisy demonstration to greet the return of the Slanderscree. The townsfolk went about their everyday business and the shipwrights who’d helped replace wheels with runners returned to their yards. Officially, the sole ceremony consisted of minister Mirmib and two aides meeting them at dockside.
“Landgrave Lady K’ferr Shri-Vehm bids you welcome again to Moulokin, my friends. Our breath is your warmth.
“There will be a feast tonight to celebrate your unexpected but nonetheless welcome return, at which time you may further enlarge on this wondrous history you have made for us.”