‘You should stay awake,’ Bondri suggested. ‘Chowdri is on his way here. He has a good tongue. We sing well together.’
The troupe of Chowdri joined them after dusk but before the night was much advanced. There were choral challenges and answers, contrapuntal exercises, long, slow passages sung by the two troupe leaders, and finally a brisk processional during which the singers tapped on their song-sacks to make a drumming sound. Chowdri had brought food. Chowdri was less amazed to see Vivian than Bondri thought he should be, and this occasioned some talk.
‘We have one, too,’ sang Chowdri importantly. ‘A very little one. Not depouched yet.’
‘A Loudsinger child!’ Bondri was incredulous. ‘A true Loudsinger child?’
‘My senior giligee found it in a body,’ Chowdri sang. ‘A female who was killed by the Mad One. My giligee went at once to find bones on the Enigma, before the gyre-birds came, and she found this little one, inside the woman, the way they grow. No bigger than a finger. We have sung that the taboo does not apply to such little ones.’
‘What did he say?’ Vivian asked.
Bondri translated.
‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘What does he mean?’
Bondri beckoned to his own giligee, who came forward and allowed Bondri to open its pouch and point within. ‘There,’ he sang. ‘In the pouch. This is the brain-bird of Favel. Here, also, grow the little ones from mating. Our females carry them inside for only a little time, not like you Loudsingers. Favel told me all about it.’
‘Brain-bird?’ she faltered.
‘Excuse me, Chowdri,’ sang Bondri. ‘My guest has a difficulty that I must correct before we sing further together.’
‘Males and females mate,’ he sang to her. ‘You understand this?’
Vivian fought down a hysterical giggle and told him yes, that she understood, that Loudsingers did a similar thing.
‘After a few days, the female seeks out the giligee and sheds the little one, like a little worm. The giligee takes the little thing into its pouch. The tendrils of the pouch close it in and give it nourishment. It lives and grows there. When it is big, it is depouched. It is a female.’
‘Always?’ she wondered.
‘Always,’ he said firmly. ‘We know it is not so with you, but with us it is always female. The female lives and is traded as a daughter to some other troupe and mates and does female things. Then the time comes her brain-bird cries for release. The giligee bites out the brain-bird and puts it in the pouch again. It grows again. This time it is male.’
‘Always,’ she nodded to herself in amazement.
‘Always. In every female there is a male waiting to grow. It grows up and mates and does male things. And when its own brain-bird cries for release, the giligee takes it once more. And this time, the last time, it grows to be a giligee.’
‘And when its brain-bird cries for release again?’
‘There is no brain-bird in a giligee. They get very old and finally die. Then we make an ancestor cup as we do for all, and put them beside a Presence and sing their songs.’
‘So Chowdri’s giligee has a human baby in it? You know whose baby that is, don’t you? That’s Tasmin’s baby. Lim’s brother. Tasmin Ferrence. The woman must have been his wife, Celcy. And Lim was there. Lim was on the Enigma. Maybe he didn’t die!’
Bondri turned away in some haste and began a burst of song, which his troupe joined, then Chowdri’s troupe, the two groups singing away at one another as though to compile an encyclopedia of song. When the melody dwindled at last and Bondri returned to Vivian, he looked very sad and old, his song-sack hanging limp.
‘He is truly dead. I am sorry, Lim’s mate, but he is truly dead. The giligee took some of his bone to make a bark scraper. Do you want his ancestor cup? I know it is not the Loudsinger way, but the giligee can get it if you want it.’
She shook her head, weeping. There for a moment, she had been full of irrational hope. Well. Miles was alive, and she was alive, and it seemed that Tasmin’s baby was alive also.
‘How long will the giligee keep it?’ she whispered.
‘Until it is done,’ Bondri sang, shrugging. ‘It is not nearly finished yet.’
‘Will … will the giligee give it to us – to Tasmin’s family – when it is finished?’
Bondri seemed to be considering this. ‘I believe it will. I will take debt with Chowdri’s troupe to assure it. In that way, the debt of Favel will be repaid to the family of Lim Terree. We have saved his wife and his child and his brother’s child. That is a good repayment.’
‘Repayment in full,’ the troupe sang. ‘Repayment at once, as Favel required. Proud the troupe of Bondri Gesel to have repaid a debt of honor.’
15
Maybelle Thonks squatted on her luggage in the small tender and stared across half a mile of slupping ocean to the spider-girdered tower in which the charred hulk of the Broumaster hung, readying for lift. The little boat in which she sat was packed with cartons and bags, all of which had been searched by BDL security men before they had been loaded. Maybelle had been searched as well.
‘For your protection, Ma’am,’ the female guard had sneered. ‘Sometimes people plant things on other people.’
‘How in hell do you think anyone could have planted anything there,’ Maybelle had hissed in her ear, shocked. ‘For the love of good sense, woman!’
‘Just routine,’ the guard had said, suddenly aware who she was violating.
‘You’ve been through my luggage, through my clothes, through my cosmetics. You’ve been all over my body like a bad sunburn. What the hell do you think I’m carrying, a bomb?’
‘Just routine,’ she mumbled again, handing Maybelle an intimate bit of her clothing.
Fuming, Maybelle reassembled herself and turned to check her belongings, which were now in a state of total disarray. She did a quick inventory of the jewelry
