The People of the Wind Read online

  How shall a fierce, haughty, intensely clannish and territorial race regulate its public business?

  Just as on Terra, different cultures on Ythri at different periods in their histories have given a variety of answers, none wholly satisfactory or permanently enduring. The Planha speakers happened to be the most wealthy and progressive when the first explorers arrived; one is tempted to call them “Hellenistic.” Eagerly adopting modern technology, they soon absorbed others into their system while modifying it to suit changed conditions.

  This was the easier because the system did not require uniformity. Within its possessions — whether these were scattered or a single block of land or sea — a choth was independent. Tradition determined what constituted a choth, though this was a tradition which slowly changed itself, as every living usage must. Tribe, anarchism, despotism, loose federation, theocracy, clan, extended family, corporation, on and on through concepts for which there are no human words, a choth ran itself.

  Mostly, internal ordering was by custom and public opinion rather than by prescription and force. After all, families rarely lived close together; hence friction was minimal. The commonest sanction was a kind of weregild, the most extreme was enslavement. In between was outlawry; for some specified period, which might run as high as life, the wrongdoer could be killed by anyone without penalty, and to aid him was to incur the same punishment. Another possible sentence was exile, with outlawry automatic in case of return before the term was up. This was harsh to an Ythrian. On the other hand, the really disaffected could easily leave home (how do you fence in the sky?) and apply for membership in a choth more to their taste.

  Now of course some recognized body had to try cases and hand down judgments. It must likewise settle inter-choth disputes and establish policies and undertakings for the common weal. Thus in ancient times arose the Khruath, a periodic gathering of all free adults in a given territory who cared to come. It had judicial and limited legislative authority, but no administrative. The winners of lawsuits, the successful promoters of schemes and ordinances, must depend on willingness to comply or on what strength they could muster to enforce.

  As Planha society expanded, regional meetings like this began to elect delegates to Year-Khruaths, which drew on larger territories. Finally these, in turn, sent their representatives to the High Khruath of the whole planet, which met every six years plus on extraordinary occasions. On each level, a set of presiding officers, the Wyvans, were chosen. These were entrusted with explication of the laws (i.e. customs, precedents, decisions) and with trial of as many suits as possible. It was not quite a soviet organization, because any free adult could attend a Khruath on any level he wished.

  The arrangement would not have worked on Terra — where a version of it appeared once, long ago, and failed bloodily. But, Ythrians are less talkative, less busybody, less submissive to bullies, and less chronically crowded than man. Modern communications, computers, information retrieval, and educational techniques helped the system spread planetwlde, ultimately Domain-wide.

  Before it reached that scale, it had had to face the problem of administration. Necessary public works must be funded; in theory the choths made free gifts to this end, in practice the cost required allocation. Behavior grossly harmful to the physical or social environment must be enjoined, however much certain choths might profit by it or regard it as being of their special heritage. Yet no machinery existed for compulsion, nor would Ythrians have imagined establishing any — as such.

  Instead, it came slowly about that when a noncompliance looked important, the Wyvans of the appropriate Khruath cried Qherran on the offenders. This, carried out after much soul-searching and with the gravest ceremonies, was a summons to everyone in the territory: that for the sake of their own interests and especially their honor, they attack the defiers of the court.

  In early times, an Qherran on a whole choth meant the end of it — enslavement of whoever had not been slaughtered, division of holdings among the victors. Later it might amount to as little as the arrest and exile of named leaders. But always it fell under the concept of deathpride. If the call to Qherran was rejected, as had happened when the offense was not deemed sufficient to justify the monstrosity of invasion, then the Wyvans who cried it had no acceptable alternative to suicide.

  Given the Ythrian character, Qherran works about as well as police do among men. If your society has not lost morale, human, how often must you call the police?

  None who knew Liaw of The Tarns imagined he would untruthfully say that he had threatened to rip Avalon asunder.

  VI

  Where the mighty Sagittarius flows into the Gulf of Centaurs, Avalon’s second city — the only one besides Gray which rated the name — had arisen as riverport, seaport, spaceport, industrial center, and mart. Thus Centauri was predominantly a human town, akin to many in the Empire, thronged, bustling, noisy, cheerfully, corrupt, occasionally dangerous. When he went there, Arinnian most of the time had to be Christopher Holm, in behavior as well as name.

  Defense business now required it. He was not astonished at becoming a top officer of the West Coronan home guard, after that took its loose shape — not in a society where nepotism was the norm. It did surprise him that he seemed to be doing rather well, even enjoying himself in a grim fashion, he who had always scoffed at the “herd man.” In a matter of weeks he got large-scale drills going throughout his district and was well along on the development of doctrine, communications, and supply. (Of course, it helped that most Avalonians were enthusiastic hunters, often in large groups on battues; and that the Troubles had left a military tradition, not difficult to revive; and that old Daniel was on hand to advise.) Similar organizations had sprung up everywhere else. They needed to coordinate their efforts with the measures being taken by the Seamen’s Brotherhood. A conference was called. It worked hard and accomplished as many of its purposes as one could reasonably hope.

  Afterward Arinnian said, “Hrill, would you like to go out and celebrate? W-we may not have a lot more chances.” He did not speak on impulse. He had debated it for the past couple of days.

  Tabitha Falkayn smiled. “Sure, Chris. Everybody else will be.”

  They walked down Livewell Street. Her arm was in his; in the subtropical heat he was aware of how their skins traded sweat. “I… well, why do you generally call me by my human name?” he asked. “And talk Anglic to me?”

  “We are humans, you and I. We haven’t the feathers to use Planha as it ought to be used. Why do you mind?”

  For a moment he floundered. That personal a question… an insult, except between the closest friends, when it becomes an endearment… I suppose she’s just thinking human again. He halted and swept his free hand around. “Look at that and stop wondering,” he said. Instantly he feared he had been too curt.

  But the big blond girl obeyed. This part of the street ran along a canal, which was oily and littered with refuse, burdened with barges, walled in by buildings jammed together, whose dingy facades reared ten or twelve stories into night heaven. Stars, and the white half-disk of Morgana were lost behind, the glare, blink, leap and worm-crawl of raw-colored signs, (GROG HARBOR, DANCE, EAT, GENUINE TERRAN SENSIES, FUN HOUSE, SWITCH TO MARIA JUANAS, GAMBLING, NAKED GIRLS, LOANS, BUY… BUY… BUY… ) Groundbugs filled the roadway, pedestrians the sidewalks, a sailor, a pilot, a raftman, a fisher, a hunter, a farmer, a whore, a secretary, a drunk about to collapse, another drunk getting belligerent at a monitor, a man gaunt and hairy and ragged who stood on a corner and shouted of some obscure salvation, endless human seething, shrilling, chattering, through engine rumble, foot shuffle, raucousness blared out of loudspeakers. The air stank, dirt, smoke, oil, sewage, flesh, a breath from surrounding swamplands which would there have been a clean rotting but here was somehow made nasty.

  Tabitha smiled at him anew. “Why, I call this fun, Chris,” she said. “What else’ve we come for?”

  “You wouldn’t—” he stammered. “I mean, somebody like yo
u?”

  He realized he was gaping at her. Both wore thin short-sleeved blouses, kilts, and sandals; garments clung to wet bodies. But despite the sheen of moisture and the odor of female warmth that he couldn’t help noticing, she stood as a creature of sea and open skies.

  “Sure, what’s wrong with once-in-a-while vulgarity?” she said, still amiable. “You’re too puritan Chris.”

  “No, no,” he protested, now afraid she would think him naive. “Fastidious, maybe. But I’ve often been here and, uh, enjoyed myself. What I was trying to explain was, uh, I, I’m proud to belong to a choth and not proud that members of my race elect to live in a sty. Don’t you see, this is the old way, that the pioneers wanted to escape.”

  Tabitha said a word. He was staggered. Eyath would never have spoken thus. The girl grinned. “Or, if you prefer, ‘nonsense,’ ” she continued. I’ve read Falkayn’s writings. He and his followers wanted not one thing except unmolested elbow room,” Her, touch nudged him along. “How about that dinner we were aimed at?” Numbly, he moved.

  He recovered somewhat in the respectable dimness of the Phoenix House. Among other reasons, he admitted to himself, the room was cool and her clothes didn’t emphasize her shape as they did outside.

  The place had live service. She ordered a catflower cocktail. He didn’t. “C’mon,” she said: “Unbuckle your shell.”

  “No, thanks, really.” He found words. “Why dull my perceptions at a happy moment?”

  “Seems I’ve heard that line before. A Stormgate saying?”

  “Yes. Though I didn’t think they used drugs much in Highsky either.”

  “They don’t. Barring the sacred revels. Most of us keep to the Old Faith, you know.” Tabitha regarded him awhile. “Your trouble, Chris, is you try too hard. Relax. Be more among your own species. How many humans do you have any closeness to? Bloody-gut few, I’ll bet.”

  He bridled. “I’ve seen plenty of late.”

  “Yeh. And emergency or no, doesn’t it feel good? I wouldn’t try to steer somebody else’s life, of course, nor am I hinting it’s true of you — but fact is, a man or woman who tries to be an Ythrian is a rattlewing.”

  “Well, after three generations you may be restless in your choth,” he said, gauging his level of sarcasm as carefully as he was able. “You’ve knocked around quite a bit in human country, haven’t you?”

  She nodded. “Several years. Itinerant huntress, trapper, sailor, prospector, over most of Avalon. I got the main piece of my share in the stake that started Draun and me in business — I got that at assorted poker tables.” She laughed. “Damn, sometimes it is easier to say things in Planha!” Serious: “But remember, I was young when my parents were lost at sea. An Ythrian family adopted me. They encouraged me to take a wandertime; that’s Highsky custom. If anything, my loyalty and gratitude to the choth were strengthened. I simply, well, I recognize I’m a member who happens to be human. As such, I’ve things to offer which—” She broke off and turned her head. “Ah, here comes my drink. Let’s talk trivia. I do get starved for that on St. Li.”

  “I believe I will have a drink too,” Arinnian said.

  He found it helpful. Soon they were cheerily exchanging reminiscences. While she had doubtless led a more adventurous life than he, his had not been dull. On occasion, such as when he hid from his parents in the surf-besieged Shielding Islands, or when he had to meet a spathodont on the ground with no more than a spear because his companion lay wing-broken, he may have been in worse danger than any she had met. But he found she was most taken by his quieter memories. She had never been offplanet, except for one vacation trip to Morgana. He, son of a naval officer, had had ample chances to see the whole Lauran System from sun-wracked Elysium, through the multiple moons of Camelot, out to dark, comet-haunted Utgard. Speaking of the frigid blue peace of Phaeacia, he chanced to quote some Homeric lines, and she was delighted and wanted more and asked what else this Homer fellow had written, and the conversation turned to books.

  The meal was mixed, as cuisine of both races tended increasingly to be: piscoid-and-tomato chowder, beef-and-shua pie, salad of clustergrain leaf, pears, coffee spiced with witchroot. A bottle of vintage dago gave merriment. At the end, having seen her indulge the vice before, Arinnian was not shocked when Tabitha lit her pipe. “What say we look in on the Nest?” she proposed. “Might find Draun.” Her partner was her superior in the guard; she was in Centauri as his aide. But the choth concept of rank was at once more complex and more flexible than the Technic.

  “Well… all right,” Arinnian answered.

  She cocked her head. “Reluctant? Id’ve guessed you’d prefer the Ythrian hangout to anyplace else in town.” It included the sole public house especially for ornithoids, they being infrequent here.

  He frowned. “I can’t help feeling that tavern is wrong. For them,” he added in haste. “I’m no prude, understand.”

  “Yet you don’t mind when humans imitate Ythrians. Uh-uh. Can’t have it on both wings, son.” She stood. “Let’s take a glance into the Nest boozeria, a drink if we meet a friend or a good bard is reciting. Afterward a dance club, hm?”

  He nodded, glad — amidst an accelerating pulse — that her mood remained light. While no machinery would let them take part in the Ythrian aerial dances, moving across a floor in the arms of another bird was nearly as fine, perhaps. And, while that was as far as such contact had ever gone for him, maybe Tabitha — for she was indeed Tabitha on this steamy night, not Hrill of the skies.

  He had heard various muscular oafs talk of encounters with bird girls, less boastfully than in awe. To Arinnian and his kind, their female counterparts were comrades, sisters. But Tabitha kept emphasizing his and her humanness.

  They took a taxibug to the Nest, which was the tallest building in the city, and a gravshaft to its rooftop since neither had brought flying gear. Unwalled, the tavern was protected from rain by a vitryl canopy through which, at this height, stars could be seen regardless of the electric lunacy below. Morgana was sinking toward the western bottomlands, though it still silvered river and Gulf. Thunderheads piled in the east, and a rank breeze carried the mutter of the lightning that shivered in them. Insectoids circled the dim fluoroglobe set on every table. Business was sparse, a few shadowy forms perched on stools before glasses or narcobraziers, a service robot trundling about, the recorded twangs of a steel harp.

  “Scum-dull,” Tabitha said, disappointed. “But we can make a circuit.”

  They threaded among the tables until Arinnian halted and exclaimed, “Hoy-ah! Vodan, ekh-hirr.”

  His chothmate looked, up, plainly taken aback. He was seated at drink beside a shabby-plumed female, who gave the newcomers a sullen stare.

  “Good flight to you,” Arinnian greeted in Planha; but what followed, however automatic, was too obvious for anything save Anglic. “I didn’t expect to find you here.”

  “And to you, good landing,” Vodan replied. “I report to my ship within hours. My transport leaves from Halcyon Island base. I came early so as not to risk being detained by a storm; we’ve had three whirldevils in a row near home.”

  “You are yare for battle, hunter,” said Tabitha at her “most carefully courteous.

  That’s true, Arinnian thought. He’s ablaze to fight. Only… if he couldn’t stay with Eyath till the last minute, at least I’d’ve supposed he’d’ve been in flight-under-moon, meditating — or, anyhow, at carouse among friends — He made introductions.

  Vodan jerked a claw at his attendant. “Quenna,” he said. His informality was a casual insult. She hunched between her wings, feathers erected in forlorn self-assertion.

  Arinnian could think of no excuse not to join the party. He and the girl seated themselves as best they could. When the robot rolled up, they ordered thick, strong New African beer.

  “How blows your wind?” Tabitha asked, puffing hard on her pipe.

  “Well; as I would like for you,” Vodan answered correctly. He turned to Arinnian and, i
f his enthusiasm was a touch forced, it was nonetheless real. “You doubtless know I’ve been on training maneuvers these past weeks.”

  Yes. Eyath told me more than once.

  “This was a short leave. My craft demands skill. Let me tell you about her. One of the new torpedo launchers, rather like a Terran Meteor, hai, a beauty, a spear! Proud I was to emblazon her hull with three golden stars.”

  “Eyath” means “Third Star.”

  Vodan went on. Arinnian glanced at Tabitha. She and Quenna had locked their gazes. Expressions billowed and jerked across the feathers; even he could read most of the unspoken half-language.

  Yes, m’sweet, you long yellow Walker born, Quenna is what she is and who’re you to talk down that jutting snout of yours? What else could I be, since I, growing from cub to maiden, found my lovetimes coming on whenever I thought about ’em and knew there’d never be any decent place for me in the whole universe? Oh, yes, yes, I’ve heard it before, don’t bother; “medical treatment; counseling.” — Well, flabby flesh, for your information, the choths don’t often keep a weakling; and I’ll not whine for help. Quenna’ll lay her own course, better’n you, who’re really like me… aren’t you, now, she-human?

  Tabitha leaned forward, patted one of those arms with no heed for the talons, smiled into the reddened eyes and murmured, “Good weather for you, lass.”

  Astounded, Quenna reared back. For an instant she seemed about to fly at the girl, and Arinnian’s hand dropped to his knife. Then she addressed Vodan: “Better we be going.”

  “Not yet.” The Ythrian had fairly well overcome his embarrassment. “The clouds alone will decide when I see my brother again.”

  “We better go,” she said lower. Arinnian caught the first slight musky odor. At the next table, another male raised his crest and swiveled his head in their direction. Arinnian could imagine the conflict in Vodan — dismiss her, defy her, strike her; no killing, she being unarmed — and yet that would be a surrender in itself, less to tradition than to mere conventionality — “We’ll have to leave ourselves, soon’s we finish these beers,” the man said. “Glad to’ve come on you. Fair winds forever.”