The trouble was that now it would not be his father selecting potential mates for him: no, from now on it would be his brother Maco, with perhaps a little advice from Bo. Maybe the women on this very trip had been invited with that in mind – although Peri was sure Maco would sample the wares before allowing his inferior brother anywhere near them.
All this, and the lingering uncertainty over his destiny, was hard to bear. He seemed to lose confidence. He had no desire to mix with the others, had nothing to add to their bantering conversations. And as he lay in his skin sleeping bag, with the warm presence of his favourite spindling close by, Peri found his thoughts returning to Lora.
He hadn’t forgotten the surge of helpless longing he had felt as he studied her demure face, her carelessly glimpsed figure. She hadn’t said a word to him, or he to her – and yet, though she was just a servant, he sensed there had been something between them, as elusive yet as real as an Effigy, there to be explored if only he had the chance. And how he longed for that chance!
In his obsessive imagining, Peri constructed a fantasy future in which he would seek out the girl. He would show her his life, perhaps fill the inevitable gaps in her learning – though not too quickly; he rather liked the idea of impressing her with his worldliness. They would grow together, but not through any seduction or displays of wealth: their Effigies would call to each other, as the saying had it. At last they would cement their love, and much of his detailed imagining centred on that.
After all that, well, he would present their liaison to his family as an accomplished fact. He would ride out their predictable objections, claim his inheritance, and begin his life with Lora . . . At that point things got a bit vague.
It was all impossible, of course. There were few hard and fast laws in Foro; the community was too young for that, but it went against all custom for a Shelf man to consort with an Attic servant, save for pure pleasure. But for Peri, a romance with Lora would bring none of the complication of his liaisons with women from the town, none of the unwelcome overlay of inheritance and familial alliance – and none of his brother’s gleeful manipulation, for this would be Peri’s own choice.
Elaborating this comforting fantasy made the days and nights of the hunt easier to bear. Or at least that was so before Maco, with almost preternatural acuity, figured out what Peri was thinking.
It was a bright morning, a couple of weeks after the hunters had set off. They were running down a small herd of wild spindlings, perhaps a score of the animals including foals. Here the Shelf was heavily water-carved, riddled with gullies and banks, and the southern cliffs were broken into round-shouldered hills. The party was galloping at top speed, their spare mounts galumphing after them, and they raised a curtain of dust that stretched across the Shelf.
The spindlings’ six-legged running looked clumsy but was surprisingly effective, a mixture of a loping run with leaps forward powered by the back pair of legs. The spindlings’ six-limbed body plan was unlike those of most of Old Earth’s land animals, including humans. But then, so it was said, the spindlings’ ancestors had not come from Old Earth. Unladen, the wild spindlings were naturally faster than their hunters’ mounts, but, panicking, they would soon run themselves out.
Maco rode alongside Peri. He yelled across, ‘So how’s my little brother this morning?’
‘What do you want, Maco?’
Maco was very like his father when he had been young – dark, handsome, forceful – but already he showed traces of Buta’s corpulence in his fleshy jowls. ‘We’ve been talking about you. You’re keeping yourself to yourself, aren’t you? Head full of dreams as usual – not that there’s room in there for much else. The thing is, I think I know what you’ve been dreaming about. That serving girclass="underline" Lora. Your tongue has been hanging out ever since the funeral . . .’ He clenched his fist and made obscene pumping motions. ‘Is the thought of her keeping you warm in your sack?’
‘You’re disgusting,’ Peri said.
‘Oh, don’t be a hypocrite. You know, you’re a good hunter, PeriAndry, but you’ve a lot to learn. I think you will learn, though. You’re certainly going to have plenty of opportunity.’
Peri hauled on his reins to bring his spindling to a clattering halt. Maco, startled, rode on a few metres before pulling up and trotting back. Their two panting beasts dipped their long dusty heads and nuzzled each other.
Peri, furious now, said, ‘If you’re talking of my inheritance then tell me straight. I’m tired of your games.’
Maco laughed. ‘You’re not a very good sport, little brother.’
Peri clenched his fists. ‘I’ll drag you off that nag and show you what a good sport I am.’
Maco held up his hands. ‘All right, all right. Your inheritance, then: in fact it’s one reason I organised this hunt – to show you what I’m giving you.’
‘What do you mean?’
Maco swept his arm wide. ‘All the land you see here, across the width of the Shelf – all this belonged to Buta. Our father bought the land as a speculation from a landowner in Puul, the last town, half a day back. Right now it’s got nothing much to offer but wild spindlings and scrub grass . . .’
‘And this will be mine,’ Peri said slowly.
‘It’s a good opportunity,’ Maco said earnestly. ‘There’s plenty of water in the area. Some of these gullies may actually be irrigation channels, silted up and abandoned. Good farming land – perhaps not for our generation, but certainly our children. You could establish a House, set up an Attic in those hills. You could make your mark here, Peri.’
‘This is a dismal place. My life will be hauling rocks and breaking dirt. And we’re fourteen days’ ride from home.’
‘This will be your home,’ Maco said. As he spoke of Peri’s inheritance, Maco had seemed to grow into his role, sounding masterful, even wise. But now a brother’s taunting tone returned, sly, digging under Peri’s skin. ‘Perhaps you could bring your little serving girl. She can make you pastries all day and let you hump her all night . . .’
Peri blurted out, ‘It is only custom that keeps me from her.’
Maco let his jaw drop. ‘Hey – you aren’t serious about this foal, are you?’
‘Why should I not be?’
Maco said harshly, ‘Kid, she lives in the Attic. Up there, for every day that passes for you, ten or twelve pass for her. Already months have gone by for her . . . I know from experience: those Attic girls are sweet but they turn to dust in your hands, until you can’t bear to look at them. Already your Lora must be ageing, that firm body sagging . . .’
If it had gone on a minute longer Peri might have lost control, even struck his brother, and the consequences would have been grave. But there were cries from across the plain. Peri saw that the party had backed the family of spindlings into a dry gully. Grateful for an excuse to get away, Peri spurred his mount into motion.
The spindlings, cornered, clustered together. There were more than a dozen adults, perhaps half as many colts. They seemed helpless as the hunters closed their circle; old and young, in their panic, they puked lumps of faeces from their mouths in the spindlings’ unique manner.
But then four of the adults craned their necks high in the air, and their heads, three metres above their bodies, turned rapidly. With a whinny the four broke together, clattering up the gully’s dusty wall. The movement was so sudden and coordinated they cut through the hunters’ line and escaped.
The spindlings’ long necks were an evolutionary response. On Old Earth, time passed more rapidly the higher you went, a few hundredths for each metre. The spindlings were not native to Old Earth, but they had been here long enough for natural selection to work. That selection had favoured tall animals: with their heads held high, the longer-necked were able to think just a little faster and, over time, that margin of hundredths offered a survival advantage. Now these accelerated adults had abandoned the young, old and feeble, but they would live to breed again.