CHAPTER V
Nomad Native
NO!”
Thorkild Sean looked into his father’s eyes. “I don’t see
what you have to say about it,”
“Are you out of your mind?” Thorkild Elof shook his head like an angry bull. The beard -and the maned hair of a ship elder swirled white about his shoulders. “I’m your
father.”
Something in Sean stirred then. Ilaloa’s fingers closed taut around his. Looking down, he saw fear in the big violet eyes, and remembered how far apart he and Elof had grown in the last four years. He straightened his shoulders.
‘I’m a free crewman of the Nomads, and I do as I please.”
“We’ll see about that!” Elof swung about, lifting his voice. “Hal! Hal, come over here, will you?”
Joachim Henry stood watching the people of his ship file into their boats. It was a long straggling line-men still disheveled and hilarious from the Mutiny. The married women proceeded with careful dignity, most of them holding babies; the younger girls and boys looked wistfully back at the valley.
“Sean,” whispered Ilaloa. He tightened his arm about her slender waist, feeling her tremble. The long silver hair streamed wildly from her head-with its fine clean molding and white skin and enormous eyes. But he felt the terror deep within her.
Joachim heard Elof’s sbout. “Now what!’ be grumbled. He gave his kilt a hitch and strolled to the argument.
“Hello, Elof, Sean,” be nodded. “Who’s the-” He caught himself. “The native lady?”
“This is Ilaloa.” Sean’s voice was strained. Joachim’s eyes lingered appreciatively on the female.
“What d’you want’ He gestured with his pipestem at the line of embarkees. “I got enough to do, nursing them back onto the ship. Make it short, will you, lads?”
“It can be,” said Elof. “Sean here wants to take this native along. He wants to marry her!”
“Eh?” Joachim’s eyes narrowed in a mesh of fine wrinkles. “Now Sean, you know the law.‘s
“We’re not offending native notions,” the boy threw back at him. “Ilaloa is free to come with me if she wants.”
“Your father?” Joachim spoke softly to her. “Your tribe? What do they have to say?”
“I am free,” she answered. Her tones were the sweetest sound he bad heard in a long time. “We have no-tribes. Each of us is free.”
“Well-” Joachim rubbed his chin.
“What’s going on here’ “
It was a woman’s voice, low and even, and Joachim turned
to the newcomer with a feeling of relief. If he could let them argue it out to a decision of their own, perhaps he could keep clear of the mess.
Besides, he liked Nicki.
She walked towardo them with the long swinging stride that was a challenge in itself. She was blonde, as tall as many men, and strongly built; there was a supple flow of muscles under her smooth, pale-gold skin. She walked over to her brother-in-law and looked into his troubled countenance.-
“What’s wrong, Sean?”
A slow smile of greeting lifted his mouth. “It’s Ilaloa,” he said. “We want to go with the ship-together.”
Nicki’s blue-eyed gaze locked with the infinite violet of the Lorinyan’s. Then she smiled and clapped a hand on the slim -white shoulder. “Be Overcome, Ilaloa,” she said. “Sean’s
been needing somebody like you.”
If proof had been required, Joachim would have considered that sufficient to destroy the malicious gossip about Sean and Nicki. LandloLiper MacTeague Nicki had been eighteen, an average Nomad age for marriage, when her father and Elof arranged for her to wed Sean’s younger brother Einar. The alliance had been tempestuous; then a landslide on Vixen killed Einar.
His widow was left in an anomalous position, a Peregrine and Thorkild by virtue of marriage, but without children to bind her to the family. Normally, Elof would have acted as her father and arranged another husband for her, but she had rejected the whole idea with an almost physical violence. She lived man-fasbion, working for herself as a weaver and potter, and even doing her own trading on planets they visited. And the most irritating part of it, as far as the community was concerned, was that she did very well.
After his own divorce, two years ago, Sean had moved in with Nicki. They had separate rooms and respected each other’s privacy. Under Nomad law, marriage was forbidden to them as members of the same ship; and tongues had been wagging ever since.