surrounding both of them. 'Steck and I won't harm anything,' Rashid went on. 'We just want to observe your ceremony tomorrow.'
'You can't,' Bonnakkut snapped. 'Steck was banished twenty years ago, legal and proper. And Cappie said you claim to be a scientist. That's against the law too.'
'All these laws against
Steck said, 'The Patriarch was not noted for his hospitality.'
'I'm prepared to be lenient,' Bonnakkut said in an unlenient tone of voice. 'If you leave immediately, we'll let you go.'
'Oh, very generous.' Rashid rolled his eyes.
'Otherwise, we'll kill you here and now.'
If those words had been said by anyone but Bonnakkut, I might have held my tongue; but I'd hated him ever since he was a twelve-year-old girl who shoved my sheet music down an outhouse hole. I couldn't pass up the chance to rub his nose in his inadequacies, even if it meant siding with outsiders. 'Come on, Bonnakkut,' I shouted from the cover of the bushes, 'you can't make a dent in these two. Stop pretending to be effective and escort them back to the cove. Let the mayor and council sort out this mess.'
Bushes rustled on the far side of the clearing and Bonnakkut stepped out. In the darkness, I could only make out his silhouette: massive shoulders, massive chest, massive ax held in one hand. 'So,' he said, pointing the ax-head at me, 'look who's become a Neut lover. Why doesn't that surprise me?'
'It surprises me,' Steck said, craning Its Neut neck to peer at me. 'Where'd you find this sudden streak of common sense?'
'The solstice dance breeds common sense,' Leeta answered, saving me the trouble of an excuse. 'The dance puts things in perspective.'
'And while we're brimming over with perspective,' Rashid said brightly, 'shall we go to Tober Cove?'
'Taking you to the cove would start a riot,' Bonnakkut replied, planting himself and his ax squarely in front of us all. 'We don't want riots.'
'Neither do I,' Rashid assured him. 'I'm one hundred percent in favor of tranquillity. You're some kind of local town guard?'
'I'm Bonnakkut, First Warrior of the Tober Warriors Society. I protect the peace.'
'Hence, the repetition of 'warrior' in your official title,' Rashid murmured. Then in a louder voice, he said, 'I happen to be carrying an official peace offering for the leader of the local constabulary. This seems like an excellent time to pass it on.'
Without waiting for a reply, Rashid reached into a pouch on his thigh and pulled out something I couldn't see in the darkness. 'This,' he told Bonnakkut, 'is a classic Beretta Model 92F automatic. You know what that is?'
'A firearm,' Bonnakkut said. 'A pistol. It shoots bullets.'
'Indeed it does. It holds fifteen 9mm Parabellum cartridges, and Steck has another sixty rounds in her luggage. The powder and primer are guaranteed fresh. You could probably sell each bullet for twenty crowns on the black market in Feliss City. As for the gun itself… what would you say, Steck, five thousand crowns for a mint condition 92F?'
'It depends whether buyers in Feliss know anything about guns,' Steck replied. 'A lot of so-called collectors can't tell the difference between a perfectly maintained pistol like this, and some rust-eaten thing that will blow off your hand when you try to fire it.'
'You're giving me the gun?' Bonnakkut asked, not quite tuned up to pitch with the conversation yet.
'No, he's not,' Leeta said fiercely. 'The last thing Tober Cove needs is a new way to hurt people. Shame on you, Lord Rashid, for bringing it.'
'A responsible man like the First Warrior will only use the gun for reasonable ends.' Rashid held out the weapon to Bonnakkut, butt first. 'Here you go.'
'Is this a bribe?' Bonnakkut asked.
'Yes,' Leeta replied.
'No,' said Rashid, 'it's a peace bond. To show I support the laws of Tober Cove and those who enforce them. Go ahead, take it.'
'Don't you dare,' Leeta ordered.
But cautiously, Bonnakkut shuffled forward, holding his ax at the ready in case… well, I don't know what he expected Rashid or Steck to do, but whatever it was, they didn't do it. They stood placidly while Bonnakkut reached out, took the pistol, and hurried back away.
'This gun actually works?' he asked.
'Just point and click,' Rashid answered. 'I left the safety off because I knew you'd want to try it.'
To no one's surprise, Bonnakkut fired at Rashid.
The bullet made a blindingly bright flash and an exceedingly loud bang at both ends of its trajectory. The flash coming out of the gun was yellowy orange. The flash on Rashid's end was violet: a huge mauve-tinted blaze that fizzed and crackled after the initial impact, spitting molten drops of the bullet's lead. Casually, Rashid reached out a booted foot and tamped out the flames where the red-hot spatter had lit the pine needles on the ground.
'Before you try that again,' Rashid told Bonnakkut, 'I'll remind you, each bullet is worth twenty crowns, and when they're gone, they're gone. So make up your mind: do you keep stinking up the forest with pricey gunpowder, or do you escort Steck and me to Tober Cove?'
Bonnakkut stood still for a moment, weighing the gun in his hand. I could guess what was going through his mind. Tober Cove's patron gods hated firearms. It was said (by both the Mocking Priestess and the Patriarch's Man) that Master Crow and Mistress Gull might boycott Commitment Day completely if any gun lurked within a day's ride of the cove. On the other hand, Bonnakkut must have wanted that gun the way a beetle wants dung. He wanted to strut with it. He wanted women to show fear and men to pucker with envy. He wanted word to pass down-peninsula all the way to Ohna Sound: First Warrior Bonnakkut of Tober Cove has himself a Beretta.
And he's not afraid to use it.
'For heaven's sake,' Leeta said, 'put that wicked thing down.'
'It scares you, does it?' Bonnakkut asked.
'Of course it does. And on Commitment Eve too! Give it to your fastest runner and rush it off Tober land before Mistress Gull and Master Crow get angry.'
'It would be faster to put it on a boat,' Bonnakkut replied. 'If the mayor decides it's necessary.'
'Ah,' smiled Rashid, 'we're going to let the mayor decide. I love the chain of command. By all means, let's see this mayor of yours. I've brought something for him too.'
'No good will come of this,' Leeta said darkly.
'Stop muttering,' Bonnakkut told her. 'You were the one who chewed us out for wasting arrows; you should be happy we've stopped. We're going back to town so the mayor can sort everything out. Discussion and negotiation… aren't you always saying we should solve problems through discussion and negotiation?'
'I'd prefer less negotiation,' she answered, glaring at the pistol in his hands.
'Why expect consistency from a woman?' Bonnakkut asked no one in particular. Then he turned to face the bushes and called, 'Fall in, men. We're taking them back to the cove.'
As members of the Warriors Society emerged from the darkness, Bonnakkut made a show of shoving the pistol into his belt. Rashid winced. 'Steck,' he whispered, 'show the First Warrior how to put on the safety before he does himself an injury.'
SIX
Leeta led the way home, milkweed pods clacking. Bonnakkut's three warriors followed her — Kaeomi, Stallor, and Mintz, all of them bullies when I was growing up — then Rashid and Steck.
Rashid kept his arm around Steck's shoulders as they walked, even in places where the trail was narrow enough for them to be knocking heels. He obviously wanted Steck close enough to be covered by that violet glow that grew out of his armor. Rashid was wise to take precautions — if Steck ever stepped out of the glow's safety, Bonnakkut would certainly pump bullets into the Neut's back. Since I was walking behind Steck, and Bonnakkut marched behind me, I was just as happy that Bonnakkut never got an opening to use his bang-bang: I was straight in the line of fire. When the trail widened enough to walk three abreast, I caught up with Rashid and Steck, so I wouldn't be sandwiched between the Neut and that gun.
'Hello again,' Rashid said cheerfully. 'How are you feeling? All recovered from the tear gas?'
'I'm all right.' In a lower voice, I added, 'It's too bad you used that stuff on me instead of Bonnakkut.'
'Back at the creek,' he replied, 'you and your lovely companion were close to perforating my Bozzle's liver — I had to take drastic action. But in the clearing, Steck was safely under my force field, so we could afford to wait things out. Besides, I have my helmet off. If I started playing with gas, I'd gag with the rest of you.'
'It would serve you right,' I said.
'Don't grouch,' Rashid chided. 'You just said you're feeling fine. Now tell me more about yourself and Tober Cove. How old are you?'
'Twenty,' I answered.
'So you'll Commit to a permanent sex tomorrow?'
'That's right.'
'And have you really alternated sex every summer since you were bom?'
'They don't change sex their first summer,' Steck put in. 'Mistress Gull is too tenderhearted to separate babies from their families. Infants aren't taken till after their first birthday.'
'Fair enough,' Rashid shrugged. Turning back to me, he asked, 'Were you born a boy or a girl?'
'A girl,' I answered.
'So you became a boy in the summer when you were one year old, a girl when you were two, a boy again when you were three…'
'That's how it works,' I said, trying to sound bored. This wasn't the first time I'd had this conversation. In all the world, our little secluded village was the only place where the gods allowed children to switch sex each year… so whenever I went out of town to play, I could expect questions on the subject several times an evening. Yoskar, the carpenter with whom I had that dalliance — he had asked me again and again. Had I really been male the year before? Would I really be male
