Awakeners by Sheri S Tepper

“Oh, we think you will. We’ve sent word by island messenger to all the settlements, east, west, south. The word is spreading among the island chains. Even the strangeys know we’re looking for it. The Gift of Potipur will be spotted somewhere, don’t fear.”

She went walking with the children. Cimmy and Mintel ran off into the woods, saying they smelled fruit ripening. Taneff stayed with her, leaping into the path, then out again, whirling about, seizing her by the hand to drag her, protesting, to the top of a pile of rocks.

“Ouch!” She bit the word off. “Damn, it, Taneff, that hurt.” There was a long graze on her arm where it had been dragged against the black stone. “I’m bleeding.”

Taneff stood, looking at her stupidly, saying nothing, shifting from foot to foot, a dark shadow moving behind the eyes, utterly unlike their usual expression. Then the eyes cleared, and Taneff smiled, a little uncertainly. “Sorry. I am sorry, Cindianda. I got carried away with the running and leaping, I guess. Everything in the village is so—so …”

“Circumscribed,” she offered with a wry laugh. “Orderly.”

“Well, yes. Lately it just seems to irritate me.” Legs stamping, wings held slightly away from the body, Taneff began to gyrate, a mockery of a dance. “I need to get it out of my system.”

Medoor Babji repeated this to Saleff with a laugh, “I’m glad to know it isn’t only among the Noor that young people get tired of order.”

Saleff received it in silence, with only a few murmured words of apology for Medoor Babji’s injury. “Yes. The young people need some excitement,” he said at last. ”We’ll have some dances.”

They had one two days later, drumming and a lot of very elegant prancing on a dance floor, all the young mixed in together, leaping and jostling. Among the crowd were half a dozen who were magnificent dancers, the feathers around their eyes flushed a little with the unaccustomed noise.

“Cimmy and Mintel are going to visit some kinfolk,” old Burg announced one morning, apropos of nothing. “Next island over. Would you like to go along?”

Medoor Babji allowed that she would. They left early in the morning, Sterf, Burg, Cimmy, and Mintel in a little, light boat with Medoor Babji perched in the stern like an afterthought, trailing her fingers in the water and humming to herself.

“I need to see some of my colleagues over on Jake’s,” Burg told her. “The Treeci are better with boats than I am, so I hitch a ride whenever anyone is going.”

“There are a lot of boats going,” she answered him, pointing them out, counting them off. Six boats from Isle Point, all setting out in various directions, all with young ones aboard.

“Bringing home the brides,” said Cimmy in a depressed little voice, at which Sterf said something sharp in admonition. Medoor Babji started to ask, but Burg shook his head at her. A taboo subject. Very well, she would not ask.

On Jake’s she went with Burg to meet the humans on the island, spent the day, the night, and a greater part of the next day doing so. They were many, garrulous, and eager for new faces and new information. Every word Medoor Babji uttered about Northshore was soaked up by an eager audience, and by afternoon her voice had given out.

Burg gave her puncon brandy and let her sit in a corner of the laboratory while he talked shop with his kinfolk. She dozed, warmly content after a night with almost no sleep. “Arbsen was here last week,” someone was saying to Burg. “Arbsen? She hardly ever leaves her room, except to walk with Taneff in the woods.”

“She was here, Burg. She wanted the blocker hormone.”

“That’s illegal. Unethical, too.”

“It’s only illegal for Treeci to use it, not for us to give it.”

“Don’t be silly. We live with the Treeci; of course we obey the spirit of their laws. Have you told Saleff? Have you told any of the Talkers?”

“Not yet. I was waiting for you to come over. You know the family.”

“I’ll talk to him. What did you tell Arbsen?”