The Summer Thieves Read online

  Looking back on Minka’s infrequent visits home during her University tenure, Johrun had to wonder if there had been a gradual progression toward her disarrayed state of this morning. Had he been so eager to see her during such reunions on Verano that he had overlooked any changes in her manner and comportment and attitude? He found he could not answer the question retrospectively with any degree of certitude.

  Whatever the case, she managed now to convey all the polished elegance, powerful aspirations, and strong-willed brilliance of intellect that had marked Minka during the years in which they had matured side by side. Perhaps only a subliminal fever gleam in her sapphire eyes betrayed her previous state of mind.

  And yet—there was no denying that such precision and nonchalance had been far away when Minka and her inexplicable companions moseyed down the ramp of the Bastard of Bungo a double handful of hours ago.

  Leading the parade, Minka had stumbled at the juncture of ramp and glascrete pad. She recovered sloppily and then, catching sight of her parents, had hurled herself into their puzzled embrace with a loud squeal. Taking the measure of the other family members as they stood in mute witness, Johrun saw that all were equally startled at Minka’s condition. They hardly knew how to react when, in turn, Minka plastered their cheeks with sloppy kisses and inflicted too-tight squeezes.

  When it came Johrun’s turn to accept her overly enthusiastic greetings, Johrun took the opportunity to whisper into her ear, “What’s the matter with you, Minka?”

  She made no reply, but instead bit his underlip hard enough almost to draw blood and definitely hard enough to elicit a yelp.

  Only Lutramella escaped these rough affections, with Minka actually recoiling from the silent dignity of the splice.

  When the prodigal had finished her greetings and stepped back, she finally thought to address the circumstances of her return, in an overloud slurred voice. But she directed her speech first not to the Veranonals, her kith and kin, but to her companions from the ship.

  “Well, pals, here they are. The family. Just like I described, right? And, and—there’s the lucky guy I’m gonna marry. And his folks. Say hello, y’all. C’mon, get acquainted!”

  The quintet of strangers did not have the good manners to appear uneasy. Nor did they introduce themselves. A couple merely raised their bottles in mocking half-salute.

  Minka grew exasperated. “Oh, hell, I gotta do everything! Alright, here goes. Pay attention now!” She rattled off the names in rapid-fire sequence. “Anders, Trina, Viana, Braheem, and Ox. And my folks are the Shoal—the Shoal—the Soldeveres! There!”

  Feeling somehow semi-responsible for Minka’s callous behavior, Johrun undertook more formal introductions. He stepped forward and extended his hand to the nearest fellow, a well-wrought athletic type with close-cropped black hair specked with crawling artificial silver mites which respected his pate’s exact perimeter. He wore loose billowy trousers in a harlequin pattern and a sleeveless umber shirt of form-hugging synthetic material that delineated an impressive musculature.

  “My name is Johrun Corvivios. My parents, Landon and Ilona. And my grandparents, Xul and Chirelle.”

  Of an age with Johrun, the young man addressed seemed to realize at last the awkward and even insulting deficiency of their entrance into what was supposed to have been a touching family reunion. He took Johrun’s hand firmly and said, “I’m Anders Braulio. We’re all classmates of Minka’s, fellow graduates of good old Saint Squared U. Our post-diploma celebrations, I fear, foolishly protracted themselves past the departure of the University shuttle, and so I offered to bring people home, since I had my ship handy. First stop was Verano. Minka did say she was very eager to return.”

  This last bit seemed blatant placation. Johrun looked to Minka to see if she would confirm the statement. But she had sat down unceremoniously, cross-legged on the grass, and was moaning softly and holding her head while her parents fussed over her.

  Anders continued, “Let me present my friends.” Johrun shook the hand of each in turn.

  Wearing a short polka-dotted frock, her auburn hair in rolls, Trina Mirid resembled one of Johrun’s adolescent dream queens, lush, vivacious, and eternally beckoning.

  Viana Salp affected a plainness of dress and style which did not completely conceal a gamin’s attractions, including probing brown eyes.

  His skin a splendid mahogany, sporting the distinctive facial hair patterns associated with the Obligates of Cofferkey, Braheem Porter seemed impish, barely restraining immoderate deviltries.

  Clearly Ox Nixon’s genome—whether baseline or sartorized —placed him far from the median of human genotypes. Nearly seven feet tall and correspondingly bulky, he boasted a low brow ridge, teeth like a horse’s, and blunt-fingered hands big as cake plates. His outfit seemed to have been patched together from heterogenous animal skins. The pressure of his grip, though obviously restrained, felt to Johrun like getting caught in a hydraulic press.

  The other family members came to the fore now and greeted Minka’s school chums. Patriarch Brayall Soldevere said to Anders, “Are you of the Braulios on Puddingstone?”

  “None other.”

  “One of your uncles was here just last year. Zerb Braulio.”

  “And a splendid time Uncle Zerb had, never ceasing to regale us with his daring exploits afield under your guidance. I think he bagged at least two cryptosyntrips.”

  “No, four!”

  “When Uncle Zerb discovered I was friends with Minka, he asked if I could get him a discount on his next stay.”

  “Tell your uncle his room and food are comped when next he visits!”

  After his rude start, Anders had become the soul of charming bonhomie. Johrun disliked him immensely.

  However, Johrun was glad to see tensions diminishing. But his relief was derailed at the sounds of Minka, on hands and knees, copiously vomiting. He hurried to her side, but Arne and Fallon already had the situation under control. They gently hustled Minka away for her restorative treatments—first stop, one of the resort’s doctors—while Brayall Soldevere dealt with these unexpected new guests, who, after expressing no desire to hurry off, were invited to participate in the full seven days of celebrations.

  And now here they all sat at the same long table. Although, thankfully, the graduates had been assigned places down at the far end—where, Johrun noticed with some slight guilt at her placement, also sat a quietly observant Lutramella, the only one of her kind present. The wedding crashers seemed to be having a good time, regaling their more staid seatmates with stories and commentary that must have been droll and humorous, judging from the laughter that flowed. At one point Ox Nixon awed the crowd by chewing and swallowing the perdurable shells left from a serving of green oysters from the Hoatzin Littorals. His rumbling voice carried all the way to Johrun. “Ox need more calcium for strong bones!” Johrun assumed he was acting the savage. If not, the University of Saints Fontessa and Kuno had let their matriculation standards slide abysmally.

  The whole dinner, once anticipated keenly as the kickoff to a splendid week, had swiftly become an almost unendurable trial for Johrun. He had dreamed of the moment when Minka would be by his side once more, when they could converse privately and sweetly, taking up all their old ways, before assuming their public roles for a week as two scions heading for the altar, the culmination of three generations of striving for the perfect union of families. And certainly fate would favor them with a free hour or so each day where they could renew the lovely carnality they had enjoyed as teens. In Johrun’s dreams, the week was to have been a pre-honeymoon honeymoon.

  But instead, if tonight were any gauge, the next several days would find Minka acting strangely un-Minka-like, with the presence of her school buddies casting a spanner in the works. Johrun vowed to fight the disruptions of schedule and atmosphere with all his might.

  Finally the sit-down portion of the meal ended, with all the diners adjourning to an adjacent salon, the Red Claw Room, for cordials
and sweets.

  Johrun knew this room intimately, as he did the entire extensive Danger Acres holdings. Spending half of each year with the Soldeveres, he had roamed all through the rambling lodge, from big public lobby to stockrooms and kitchens, laundry, and quarters for the help. First, as a child, playing with Minka; then, as a teen, helping out with various assignments from the Soldevere elders, until he knew the operation of Danger Acres almost as well as he did the requirements of running Sweetmeats Pasturage.

  Not that he was as thrilled with the resort’s demanding clientele as he was with the brainless herples.

  This room, like the entire resort, expressed a carefully cultivated sense of wildness and primitiveness that concealed sophisticated luxury: the combination of roughing it and being coddled that the patrons most desired. The architecture of the lodge featured seemingly untempered natural surfaces of wood, stone, glass in rustic lines, with seemingly handmade furnishings. But all was cunningly fabbed, and the chairs, couches, stools, baths, and beds featured pampering ergo-squirm tech, and individual climate-control could modulate even the perfect Verano temperatures for those who might desire their private quarters to conform to their home worlds.

  The walls of the Red Claw Room hosted numerous trophies representing a fraction of the prey that was hunted at Danger Acres, from the nano-taxidermied heads of bog wolves to elaborate mosaics formed from the fangs of the flying anomalocaris. Leather-covered banquettes and small pedestal tables completed the scene. The dinner guests soon arrayed themselves into small conversational groups as wait-staff in the lodge’s colors of orange zest and basalt grey circulated with the drinks and tidbits.

  On a small platform at one end of the salon, a band began to play: brass, woodwinds, and electric baglama. The signature sound of Loftin’s Invigorators. A few frisky partners and triads began to dance in the clear center of the room.

  Johrun tried to cut Minka out from her crowd, but she ignored his tactics and plonked herself down practically on the lap of Anders Braulio, who reacted in an entirely too-intimate handsy fashion.

  “What a wild week!” she exclaimed. “One day we’re skylarking on Irion, despite that horrid phagoplasm plague, and the next we’re crossing the maddening mystical marches of the interbranes. And finally, I’m home.” She grew sober, deflated, a light departing from her eyes. “Home,” she repeated dully, as if the word represented an entirely alien concept.

  “Minka,” urged Johrun, not attempting to conceal his actions from her cohort, “step away with me, please, just for a moment. I have so much to say just to you.”

  “Oh, later, Joh dear, later. Once I’m settled. I haven’t been back more than a few hours, and my brain’s still all awhirl from the transition.”

  “What you need,” offered Anders, “is something a little more potent than these wan aperitifs.” Anders unpocketed from the jacket of his newly fabbed mint-green formal wear a slim flask. “Try this. It’s vision-cactus rakia from my homeworld. Guaranteed to relink a synapse or three.”

  Minka eagerly downed a slug, and then the other students— Raheem, Ox, Trina, and Viana—staged a mock scrum for possession of the flask.

  Disgusted, Johrun stepped away. Surely Minka’s somewhat pardonable irritability would soon subside, and a good night’s sleep would restore her to wholesome affability. And she had called him “dear” after all.

  Through the open windows and doors wafted the scent of the Verano night on the continent of Karst Notturno: spices, florals, animal pheromones. Johrun meandered through the chattering crowd, receiving with as much grace as he could muster all the congratulations of the guests. These were the friends of his parents and grandparents, and Johrun knew most of them only by swotting up on their Indranet profiles. He really had no pals of his own age, and had contributed no names to the list of attendees.

  Johrun came upon Lutramella almost by accident. He had been thinking that she might need some companionship, as the only splice in the welter of humans. But instead he found her at the center of a raptly attentive group of four or five folks of impressive mien. Though still barefoot, the splice wore a suit of rich brocade, all lime green and scarlet threads depicting the imaginary children’s book landscape of the Slumbering Realm. Despite being well into her chimeric middle-age, she exhibited an admirable posture. Her alert expression reminded Johrun of all the times she had winkled out some small misdeed he had been seeking to conceal.

  One fellow—an academic by manner and looks, a lofty stigma which he shared with his peers—was speaking. “But how can you reconcile the Chimera Revolt on Trosper X with their ostensible adherence to the ethical precepts promulgated by Thomas Equinas?”

  “Very easily. You are interpreting those texts from a human perspective. When you read them in light of transgenic code-shifting, they invert, and their support for rebellion becomes obvious.”

  Lutramella’s human audience began passionately debating her remarks, allowing Johrun to signal her to accompany him.

  “Excuse me, esteemables, but I am called away.”

  Reaching Johrun’s side, Lutramella took his arm in hers, just as when he was a child, then smiled, keen incisors prominent. They exited the Red Claw Room and followed a gravel path among cinnamon-scented shrubs and plashing fountains. No one else was about. Overhead the wealth of the cluster’s stars paraded their rainbowed glories, cumulatively casting almost as much radiance as a moon. Under their light, Lutramella’s fur resembled flocked velvet.

  “I am enjoying the start of your wedding week, Joh.”

  “So I noticed.”

  “I wish you were too.”

  “What makes you think I’m not?”

  Lutramella said nothing, forcing an eventual admission from her ex-charge. “All right, I confess. I’m having an awful time. Who wouldn’t feel dismayed when his blushing bride returned home spiked to the gills and with a gaggle of boorish friends in tow? What am I to do, Lu?”

  “I suspected her focus on the good things she left behind during those four years away might be wavering, Joh. That’s why I asked how often she had written. But don’t despair. Now that Minka is back, I’m certain the old rituals and sights and sounds and feelings will bring her around to her former self.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  A gentle bending of the path reoriented the walkers to face the resort again. The extensive building, with its many wings and rotundas, all alight, seemed a ship at sea. Johrun suddenly felt weary and adrift. Moreover, his condition seemed to have lasted forever, and have no end in sight. The last time he could recall feeling normal and happy was when he had launched himself from the Salazar Escarpment a few days ago. Everything since had been confusing and dire.

  Trying to shake his black mood, Johrun asked, “Where did you learn to converse in that fashion? You awed those stuffed shirts. They were hanging on your every word.”

  Lutramella looked down at the ground, then back up. “I am a free splice now, am I not? Thanks to your infinite kindness.”

  “Yes, of course. And don’t mention that trivial deed of mine again.”

  “And the laws state that any infractions I incurred as chattel are thereby excused by my new status, so long as the violations involved only those special prohibitions specific to unfree splices, and no generalized criminal offenses?”

  “You have summarized everything very accurately.”

  “In that case, I feel I can tell you the truth. Ever since you got your first vambrace—you were three years old, I think—I have been using it as well. At night, with me beside you when you slept—oh, so soundly my tired little Johrun slept and dreamed!—I would employ your open window on the universe. Your continuing biometrics kept it forever logged on. I muted the sound, dimmed the display, and turned on captions. How to read, of course, all splices are taught, to make us better able to navigate the human world. In this manner I have educated myself. At no small cost. Since many mornings after too little sleep I had to drive myself to my duties. But I n
ever gave less than good service, did I, Joh? And the prize was worth the price. Although for the past several years—when you matured, when we did not share our quarters—I have been bereft of such learning. This has been an excruciation. So much goes on every day in the Quinary, and there is so much to know!”

  Johrun felt disconcerted by this revelation. Not precisely peeved, but again unmoored. “Is that why you asked to share my room the other night? To use my vambrace again”

  Lutramella halted and turned to catch Johrun’s gaze with her own. Her dark hybrid eyes captured flinders of the stellar panorama above.

  “I never thought of such a deed, nor touched your vambrace that night. I only wanted to feel that the bond which we had always shared before was still alive.”

  Johrun said nothing. But in response he sent his fingers to play a short passage on his vambrace. Lutramella shifted from foot to foot, but otherwise showed no unease at what might be the initiation of severe penalties against her for her illicit education, despite any disposable legalities arguing otherwise.

  Johrun’s vambrace split apart along its organic underseam. He peeled off the wide Indranet cuff.

  “Hold out your arm, Lu.”

  She did as he asked. Johrun fastened the device on her, and it snugged itself to her dimensions.

  “It’s registered to you now. I just prepaid ten years’ Indranet access. I’ll get a new one for myself when we go back inside.”

  Johrun was not prepared for Lutramella’s collapse. She crumpled to a furry pile on the grass at his feet. Alarmed, he hoisted her up—she weighed so little compared to a human— and walked her around until she had recovered.

  Back on the porch of the lodge, in the light spilling from inside, Lutramella could not tear her eyes away from her new possession. But finally she cast a beaming look at Johrun, hugged him, kissed the tip of his chin, and ran inside.