Author's note:
Thanks for your patience. It's been difficult to find the time to work on this story; and this chapter is the longest so far.
Chapter 14 carries on directly from chapter 13.
***
1The Cloner Fair
Two riders appeared at the crest of the hill overlooking the Cloner Fair.
It was a colourful scene. Rows of tents lined up across a large field, flying red, blue, green, brown, white and gold banners from their top-poles. These were the colours of the six tribes of Samothea.
Next to the tents was a market-place. Two lines of wooden stalls with striped sunshades surrounded an open square, with cooking stoves at one end and a large tent-roof at the other end, sheltering a dozen upholstered chairs from the strong morning sun. Women milled in and out of the stalls, handling the goods and haggling over prices. Other women cooked lunch, gossiping as they stirred their pots.
Beyond the market-place was the Cloner City: about thirty cubes grouped around a tall central building with a green roof. White plasto-concrete shimmered in the mid-day sun, giving the city the appearance of a mirage. A wide shallow river kissed the north edge of the settlement, sparkling silver as it flowed lazily to the delta, a mile to the west.
Just as some women at the fair noticed the riders, Megan's horse whinnied and stood rampant, kicking her front legs in the air.
"Show off," Ezra said.
"You know it," she replied, then she urged her horse on and they trotted down the hill toward the fairground.
Mirselene, Calliope and Solange were sitting together in a tent with its sides raised to invite in the mid-day breeze, enjoying a friendly bickering. Someone alerted them to the riders and they came out to look.
"It's Ezra and Megan," Solange said after a quick glance.
Mirselene squinted myopically at the horizon. She couldn't even see the horses, let alone recognise the faces of their riders.
By the time Megan and Ezra reached the tents, many women and children crowded their path, eager to see the new arrivals, who dismounted and walked the last fifty yards. Ezra fondly greeted everyone he knew (Megan reminded him to compliment the short haircuts of his friends - which, being a man, he wouldn't have noticed) and he gave a polite "Good morning" to all the others. The bold ones stared. The silly ones giggled.
When they reached the three chiefs, the women had formed a circle around them. Taking charge both by natural habit and the fond forbearance of the other chiefs, Mirselene pushed her way through the throng.
"What is it, Ezra?" she asked.
"Can we talk privately?"
"Of course. Come into the tent."
Solange's bedmate, Ash, helped Megan unload the horses and stow their panniers in one of the Herder tents. They led the horses around the edge of the camping-ground to the paddock, with its row of wooden troughs and shelters for the horses. On the way back they passed the children's play area, furnished with a climbing frame, a sand-pit and a maypole with brightly-coloured ribbons.
Megan had many friends at the Cloner Fair, who stopped her for a chat and slowed her progress back to the tent, where Ezra had followed the three chiefs. The tent had wooden benches with cushions, courtesy of the Cloners. Solange sat down next to Ezra and rubbed up close, putting her hand on his knee.
"Really, Solange," Mirselene said. "Is this the time?"
Solange graced the Woodlander chief with a shameless smile but thereafter sat nicely, knees together, hands folded chastely on her lap.
"Go ahead, Ezra," Mirselene said. "How's the salvage going?"
"It's been successful," he replied, "but we've met a problem. There was someone aboard the ship."
"Whom?"
"A woman. Her name is Yumi. She stowed away in one of the emergency escape pods."
"She's alive?"
"In suspended animation."
Calliope looked up.
"Which is what?" Mirselene asked.
"A medically-induced form of hibernation. Yumi is alive but it's like she's asleep and aging very slowly."
"Interesting," commented Calliope. "Tell me more."
"No time for that," Mirselene commanded. "Continue, Ezra, it must be something important to make you and Megan ride all the way here."
"There are some problems. On-board ship, the pod was using up its power, so we brought it ashore to charge up in the sun. It's keeping Yumi alive but I think it's best to revive her as quickly as possible."
"Will that be difficult?"
"The escape pod has the medical ability to revive her but things sometimes go wrong, so it's normally advised to perform the procedure in a hospital."
"We have no such thing," Solange said.
"What can go wrong?" Calliope asked.
"Heart-attack, stroke; any kind of organ-failure is possible. Yumi will be very weak."
"So what do you suggest?" This was Mirselene again,
"I want to look through the Cloner City, to see the medical equipment they have. Maybe some of it still works. After all, my laser pen works and I found working torches on my ship."
"Yes, why is that?" Calliope asked.
"Don't deflect us, Sister," Mirselene interrupted.
"Actually, Mirselene, I'd like to answer Calliope's question. The reason I think my laser pen and the torches work is that they are very simple technology. Simple and robust. Such devices withstood the cosmic rays that damaged my more delicate engines and guidance system."
"And the emergency escape pod?" Calliope asked. "How did that keep working?"
"The pod is designed to be very robust and works by bio-mechanics and molecular nano-technology."
"Whatever they are," Mirselene said, a little impatiently.
"The point," Ezra explained, "is that the pod has little electrical circuitry, which may have been fried by radiation from the star Sothis. Also, the radiation one-hundred years ago would have been much more intense than now. It may be that some of the old-Earth technology that the Cloners have collected so avidly could work again. It's worth looking into."
The chiefs pondered this, then Mirselene pointed out something obvious.
"The Cloners don't do favours and they keep their Earthside technology to themselves. What can we give the Cloners to persuade them to help us?"
"They can have the escape pods," Ezra suggested. "Yumi's one won't be much use after she's been revived but the other one probably works. Also ..."
"Yes?"
"... they can have Yumi."
"What do you mean? She's not yours to give away."
"What I mean is that Yumi will fit in well with the Cloners. She's an engineer and a scientist. If anyone can get old-Earth tech working again, she can. Also, I think she'll appreciate the more comfortable kind of life the Cloners lead. You've often mentioned their luxuries."
Mirselene instinctively bristled. As the chief of the smallest independent tribe, she took for granted that any spare people would join the Woodlanders. Despite her tribe acquiring five new members in the last year (that is, Wildchild, Tamar, Eliose, Adarna and Freya), with three more on the way, plus a third-share of Ezra, yet it offended her swollen pride that Yumi should join the richest and biggest tribe, even if living with them would suit her better.
Mirselene began to protest but failed to get any words out before Solange, who read her mind faultlessly, deliberately interrupted:
"Will it be easy to get the escape pod here, Ezra? What will it do to Yumi?"
"The pod can roll or be dragged on a sled, even carried on a raft. I don't know what it will do to Yumi but it must be best not to move the pod again, if possible. There's no point in bringing it here if the Cloners have no better medical knowledge than Calliope or Parvinder."
"They have the medical text-book, of course," Calliope mused, "but I'm not sure they are better doctors than us."
There was a pause as this opinion was digested; then Solange again showed her instinctive ability to read minds.
"What aren't you telling us, Ezra?"
"Something important, Solange. ... I think Yumi is pregnant."
There was a general exclamation.
"Good lord!" said Mirselene.
"Good heavens!" said Calliope.
"Fuck me!" said Solange, adding: "Is it yours?"
"No," he said with clear conviction.
Solange smiled widely in evident disbelief.
"Immaterial at the moment, Sister," Mirselene ruled. "How many months pregnant is she, Ezra?"
"I don't know. She isn't showing a bump yet. The only reason I know she's pregnant is that the vital signs indictor on the pod reports two heart-beats, one very slow, the other a little quicker. I'm guessing she's less than three months."
"And is the child growing while she's in the pod?"
"Yes, but much more slowly than normal. Yumi won't give birth if she's still in suspended animation; but it's another reason to revive her as quickly as possible."
There was enough information now for the chiefs to have a meaty argument. They fell to discussing the problem while Ezra sat back and didn't interfere. The argument hadn't got far, however, before a messenger from the Cloner Chief scratched at the door post.
A pretty blonde teenager came into the tent.
"Madam Gloria sends her greetings," she announced, "and offers Ezra Goldrick the hospitality of the Cloner Tribe. Would you all care to take tea in the meeting tent?"
"Thank you, Hazel," Mirselene answered. "We will attend Gloria in a quarter-hour."
"Very good, Madam."
The girl curtsied and left.
Ezra waited patiently while the three chiefs quickly finished their argument and then made themselves ready to bring him to meet the Cloner Chief.
The meeting tent was on one side of the market square and was covered by a green tarpaulin. Loose swathes of thin red and yellow cloth hung in loops a quarter-way down each side, swaying in the cool wind that breezed down the valley from the mountains. It was the breeze that made the climate of the Cloner City the best in the tropical zone of Samothea.
