To the man in the fuchsia uniform standing beside the fuchsia-blanketed unicorn Neeva now repeated her question. “Rqel The Ancestors ? “
Acorna’s normally serene aunt was clearly so taken aback she’d shouted without meaning to.
The fuchsia-clad man rubbed his temples and grimaced in pain. Very slowly, as if he was unaccustomed to speaking aloud, the man said, “Yes, Vme()haanye Neeva. It is the wish of the Ancestors that you and your crew ride upon the backs of these Ancestors to Kubiilikhan. It is traditional.”
“Traditional? Since when? I am not aware that we ever rode upon their backs since-well, since the Linyaari race began.”
The man rubbed the area around his horn, as if continuing to block pain, and said, “It has become traditional over the past ghaanye and a half, VLie()haanye. Since the Ancestors noticed that in the continued absence of flitters, our spacefarers have been walking into Kubiilikhan from the spaceport. The Ancestors feel that this lacks dignity. They feel that a lot of twolegged creatures simply walking down the road to the capital provides no sense of circumstance or occasion befitting the importance of our spacefarers.”
“Now that is odd,” Melireenya said. “Back on the home world, the Ancestors never quite approved of spacefarers. Such dreadful things had happened to them in space, you know.”
“During the evacuation, madam, the Ancestors became aware of the important functions those who brave the perils of space fulfill these days on behalf of our people.”
“I don’t understand,” Acorna said, feeling a little like the girl who had fallen down a rabbit hole in a rather odd old story she had once read while aboard her uncles’ mining ship. “The ki-iln here are our Ancestors, and they want us to ride them because there are no flitters? Why aren’t there any flitters? Isn’t it awfully hard to get around on the planet just walking or maybe riding on-on the Ancestors?”
Aagrom lirtye, who was in the group of people rounded up by messengers to go to the viizaar’s house, spoke up. He demanded of her as if she were stupid, “How much room do you think a space fleet has when it has one chance only to evacuate an entire planet full of people and the essentials for helping them survive? Flitters are large. They take up vital room that is better used by other cargo. They are easily replaceable. Organic creatures are not.”
Acorna couldn’t help herself. She had to reply to that. “Of course the living must come first, sir. But wasn’t it difficult to settle the planet without some sort of small scale ground transport?”
“We had steps, ramps, and ladders … and we had feet, young lady!” the scientist said. “And each transport ship had a shuttle fleet which was perfectly adequate for transporting people and supplies to various locations around the planet as necessary. Our current dwellings and devices are quite sensibly easily portable, and as a people we’ve always kept the complex machinery we require in our home environment to a minimum. Flitters were, during the chaos of the evacuation, simply a convenience that took up room we needed to transport the Ancestors to our new home. The Ancestors, after all, are sentient beings. They could hardly be left to the nonexistent mercies of the Khieevi.”
He shook his head at the general stupidity of his fellow beings and allowed an attendant to lead him to his designated Ancestor.
“And afterwards,” someone said in a small voice, “even though the council did get around to ordering flitters eventually, they’ve been on back-order for almost an entire ghaanye.”
“I don’t quite understand,” Acorna said. “You mean it’s been three years and you haven’t even started replacing them?”
“It’s all right, dear,” Neeva told her. “You need not understand everything right away. There will be plenty of time to explain later.”
“I’m just surprised that… never mind. Since the Ancestors wish to make such a sacrifice, please tell them I am deeply appreciative,” Acorna said, dipping her own horn toward the unicorn. She turned back to Neeva and whispered to her in a quiet aside, “It was just a surprise that the Linyaari have no more mundane form of ground transport when they have such a glorious space fleet.” She indicated the ships neatly docked nearby, so many fanciful eggs in a crate.