The Farpool (37 page)

“God help us.” Chase definitely didn’t want
that. “I just want to know more about how they live. Go
native…whatever you call it. We came here to help. Kloos, I’m not
sure how much we’ve helped.”

Hearing that, Kloosee was thoughtful for a
moment. “I think you can help best when we deal with the Umans. As
for ‘going local,’ be careful of the Ponkti. They’re not like us
Omtorish. You can’t trust them.”

Chase started to say something but felt
Angie’s fin on his. Her eyes, even shrouded like a lizard’s, were
unmistakable.
Don’t, okay? Just don’t.
We’ve got a lot to learn about the culture here. Zip it for
now.

Chase reluctantly had to agree. Angie
was probably right. But they were missing an opportunity. He
resolved not to let any more opportunities like this slip by. And
he really
did
want to learn
how to lunge and thrust and move like those
tuk
players.

It was only a training match that Loptoheen
was engaged in but he found his partner a willing opponent and able
to deliver savage blows almost at will. Loptoheen had been
tukmaster of the kel once in his career and then declined and made
a triumphant return. He didn’t give up easily. With the crowd on
his side, he bore down and worked through his sets with mechanical
smoothness until at last he could deliver a few blows of his own.
And with these blows, Loptoheen’s superior strength showed. Time
and again, at the preventive points, Loptoheen slammed his opponent
with his tail or speared him with his beak, until at last, the
younger one was worn down and couldn’t complete the match. He
backed away, to jeers from the audience, and conceded to
Loptoheen.

The screen was lowered and re-strung for
another match while he rested. In the interlude, most of the crowd
had left the vicinity and were roaming elsewhere. That left
Lektereenah and Loptoheen together under the canopy, watching the
attendants work.

The Metah made sure Kloosee and
the
eekoti
had moved away, no
doubt heading back to their kip’ts. “You’re getting old,”
Lektereenah teased him. “Even sparring partners are too much for
you now.”

“Don’t believe it,” Loptoheen wheezed. He
gingerly applied cold disks to his skin, to stop the swelling of
several bruises. “Hekto’s still learning his craft.”

“He learns well. You must be an outstanding
teacher.”

Loptoheen smiled at her. “I suppose I am at
that. What brings you over to see a sparring match? Don’t the kelke
give you enough affection?”

“Shut up! Don’t be so insolent. I received
some interesting visitors a while ago. Non-kelke. Tekmetah-bound,
at that.”

“Tekmetah? Where are they from? What’s
happened?”

“They’re Omtorish, it turns out.
With
eekoti
visitors…like the
Umans at Kinlok, so I’m told. Ugly freaks, if you ask me. They
pulse confused, anxious, it’s hard to pulse them for long.
Something to do with that disturbance we heard about. Evidently,
all the destruction is being caused by some kind of strange machine
at the Notwater. That was the explanation given anyway. They
brought the
eekoti
here to
help them…through the Farpool. That
big
whirlpool interests me more and more. We could make use of
it.”

Loptoheen stopped applying the cold
disks and pulsed the Metah carefully. “
If
we understood how to use it. From what I
hear, the Omtorish try to keep that knowledge close. You act like
you believe all this nonsense.”

“Don’t speak like that to me, Loptoheen. I
won’t stand for your patronizing, not today. As a matter of fact,
they came to Ponk’et to trade for tchinting fiber. They want to
build some kind of shield against this Sound…we don’t hear it much
down here. But above the seabed, they say it’s wreaking havoc
everywhere. The repeaters even talk of it.”

“I’m surprised at you, Metah. How could you
give any credit to this? Have you nothing to do but follow Omtorish
rumors and stories?”

“I’ll cut out your tongue if you speak
to me that way again. They’re offering to trade in
potu
, Loptoheen. I’ve seen the
pearls myself.”

Loptoheen was skeptical. “And how far
do you think you can trust the Omtorish? Why even bother with them?
Let
akloosh
take care of
it.”

“I’ll tell you why,” said Lektereenah.
She waved the
tuk
attendants
away from the arena. They were momentarily alone. “Because
akloosh
is in the future and I am
speaking of what we could do now. Suppose we use this opportunity
to break Omt’or’s monopoly of the
potu
trade. Suppose we gain knowledge of how to
use the Farpool for Ponk’et…travel far and wide to other seas,
bring back
eekoti
who could
help us. Think what that could mean. When
akloosh
does come, we’d find Ponk’et in such a
dominant position that Seome would flow our way for ten
thousand
metamah
. Maybe
forever.”

“You dream like a midling, Lektereenah.
Your predecessor wouldn’t have been so gullible. Or naïve.
Honestly, I sometimes feel like you’d destroy
shoo’kel
for the whole world, if it got you what
you wanted.”

Lektereenah stiffened with anger. She shot
out at Loptoheen and speared him with her beak. He winced and threw
her off, not really surprised, and smirked at her.

“Keminee wouldn’t have been so impulsive
either.”

Lektereenah spoke now in a cold, thin voice.
“You remember what happened the last time you crossed me.”

“Very well,” Loptoheen said. “I didn’t think
a Metah should be doing things like that.”

“But when I had them bury you alive in that
cave, for trying to intimidate the Kel’em into changing the laws of
succession, you were frightened, for the first time in our life.
You didn’t think I would go that far, did you?”

“A needless display. It’s not enough for you
to have the power of a Metah. You’ve got to intimidate everyone
else with it too. Keminee was more subtle.”

“Keminee is dead! I’m the Metah now—me,
Lektereenah kim!
Kah
, I hear
her voice everywhere I go! Even her scent lingers!” She realized
that her screaming had attracted the attention of some uninvited
roamers. She pulsed them angrily until they darted off, then looked
back at Loptoheen. “Forgive me. But comparing me with Keminee
infuriates me. I know it’s wrong but I wish there was a way to
scatter her old scents. I mean no disrespect by that. Only that I
think it’s important to be able to forget things that should be
forgotten. And when I bring the Farpool to Ponk’et, such
things
will
be
forgotten.”

“No doubt, it’s the
tekne’en
drug. Keminee felt it was a burden too.
But the Metah has no choice.”

“I know that. In any case, I can do better
than Keminee.”

That assertion intrigued Loptoheen. He took
her armfins and held them together. “Just what do you have in that
ever-devious mind of yours?”

Lektereenah smiled and pulled away,
pleased with herself that she had captured his fascination again.
She went to the center of the
tuk
arena and waited for him to return, slowly, reluctantly,
enjoying his mounting curiosity. “Learning two things: the secrets
of the
potu
. And learning the
secrets of the Farpool. I can bring both to Ponk’et. Then you’ll
forget all about Keminee.”

Loptoheen stopped at the edge of the arena.
He refused even to pulse her any longer.

“Listen to me before you argue. The
Omtorish want to buy tchinting fiber from us. To build their
precious shield. We can use that. They’ve even admitted—Iltereedah
said so in her own voice, her own echoes—that they’re desperate and
when I suggested they might like to hire some of our weaving
em’kels to construct and emplace the shield, they liked the idea.
But suppose a few of our kelke were not just tchinting craftsmen.
One in particular I’m using as a spy inside their project. Suppose
they were curious enough to do a little roaming about Omtorish
waters and among the expedition as they put up the shield. Might
they not accidently come across the secret techniques of the
potu
? And the secrets of the
Farpool…how the Omtorish predict its timing, how they use it, how
they go through and back and somehow survive. Especially, what they
see on the other side. Perhaps I could even suggest that the fiber
used in the shield be woven in such a way as to ensure the shield’s
collapse at a strategic moment. The confusion would make obtaining
the knowledge less risky…and perhaps the Umans will even reward us
for that.”

Loptoheen circled the arena restlessly—you
could pulse him thinking—his stomach a mass of bubbles. He stopped
by a feeding pit and reached in, pulling out a tongpod claw, which
he sucked on thoughtfully.

“Lektereenah, this is too dangerous.
Wouldn’t it be better to leave the Omtorish to
Vish.
Do you think even for a moment that it’s
so simple to acquire something they’ve guarded jealously for so
long? No. There’s no sense in hurrying
akloosh
. It will come. What can we gain from
this that will not be ours after the
akloosh
?”

“You’re pretty timid for a
tuk
master, Loptoheen. And ignorant.
You live with Keminee’s scent because she was afraid of you. I’m
not. The
tuk
players had real
power in the kel when she was Metah but now the
tuk
dancers are only one among many em’kels. To
have so little influence…doesn’t that gall you now?”

“We tuk’te have survived many Metahs. This
whole plan interests you because it makes your scents stronger than
Keminee’s. You’re afraid of her effects on the kel and she’s been
dead for fifteen mah. Lektereenah, you ask the impossible. A strong
scent is eternal. You can’t scatter the past; you can’t make the
kelke give up part of themselves. Keminee, Eelandrah, all of them
exist. You can’t destroy them no matter what you do. You can only
join them.”

Lektereenah let her insides seethe with
anger. It would have been safer to pulse an explosion. “Not only
the Metah will benefit from all this,” she hissed. “but all of
Ponk’et. The kelke will abandon all other scents and memories when
I’m done, you can be certain of that, Loptoheen. I want to enjoy
the fruits of
akloosh
now and
not when it pleases Shooki.”

“Lektereenah—“

“Be silent for once and listen to me!”
She glared at him, daring him to pulse back. “You will pose as my
select
tekmetah
, responsible
for this mission of assistance to the Omtorish. The em’kels will be
under your authority—and you under mine. You’ll see that as much
information about Omtorish
potu
culturing techniques as possible is obtained,
surreptitiously, if you can. And you will see that this great
shield they want to build never works. It must fail at a strategic
moment.”

“I can’t offend Shooki by doing this.”

“Then I will see that you are stripped
of the title
tuk
master and
shame-bound to me for the rest of your life. I know you too well,
Loptoheen. You live for
tuk
—that’s your whole life. Speak of memory to
me and as you do, remember how it was when I disciplined you. Has
time weakened that humiliation? The injured pride? You lost
shoo’kel
for many mah over that,
didn’t you? Personally, I don’t think you’d survive that kind of
disgrace again. Do you?”

Loptoheen roamed a great distance from the
arena, so far in fact that Lektereenah had difficulty pulsing him.
He turned about and came charging back, swooping by a half beat or
so from the Metah. He flippered to a violent halt.

“I’ll do what you
want—
this
time. And when it’s
over,
Affectionate
Metah,
tuk’te will take this to the kelke. I’ll see to it that
ootkeeor
is flooded with the truth.
Repeaters will sing of nothing less. The people will know
everything.”

But the threat had no effect on her.
“By that time, the wealth of the
potu
will have long since turned their minds
from such matters. And
we
will own the Farpool.”

Loptoheen hovered overhead, poised as
if to strike. His dorsal was rigid. “You’re a menace to the future,
Lektereenah. The kelke won’t put up with this much longer. I’d be
saving
shoo’kel
if I killed
you here and now.”

Lektereenah enjoyed the scent of fear. She
rose to meet him and they bumped beaks. “There’s no stronger scent
than that of a martyred Metah.”

After Loptoheen had left, Lektereenah
summoned Tulcheah to the Metah’s chambers. The half-breed Ponkti
came zooming up to the pavilion from deep in the rear of the vast
cavern. It was clear she had been coupling, with more than one
male, Lektereenah decided. A mixture of musky scents…not altogether
unpleasant. Strong males, too, she figured. Tulcheah liked strong
males.