Read Online IronStar by Grant Hallman - Free Book Online

Kirrah
wondered, testing one unlikely substance after another? Thank you, Akaray, and
thank you, whatever ancestor of yours first risked his life making this
culinary discovery, without benefit of bioassay. And hosannas to the
discoverer of those tart juicy white berries hiding in pods under that low
bushy plant, I’ll remember that leaf shape .
    With stomach appeased, if not fully
satisfied, Kirrah was able to review their earlier verbal exchange in light of
the wristcomp’s analysis. While scarfing another few pods of white berries.
Several options scrolled up its small screen, to Akaray’s intense but dignified
interest:

 
    

 
        · tribe name (14)
    · “male child” (8)
    · “human” (6)
    · unknown (3)

 
        · “child of” (22)
    · “from” (19)
    · part of other structure, or unknown (12)

 
        · tribe name (20)
    · family name (17)
    · location name (13)
    · mother’s name (9)
    · other (9)

 
        · “son of” (25)
    · “child of” (13)
    · part of other structure, or unknown (5)

 
        · location name (22)
    · family name (19)
    · tribe name (17)
    · father’s name (12)
    · mother’s name (3)
    · other (27)

 
    Malame’thsha.”
    accuracy.

 
    · “alert!” (64)
    · “stop” (23)
    · “poisonous” (9)
    · unknown (4)

 
        accuracy.

 
    Yeah , thought
Kirrah, I’d go with those choices… or possibly “eeyu” means “Look out for
the Swamp Monster, you stupid tourist!”. Hmm, come to think of it, I bet
“Irwua” is the local name for the Big Green Net out there . The pond was
quite calm at the moment, almost inviting: reeds swaying gently, bird-analogs
piping and chuckling, that low clucking sound was coming intermittently again,
from somewhere in the dense lower bushes.

 
    “Okay, Akaray, let’s have a closer
look at that Grass Weasel you tangled with”, she muttered, packing a dozen
reedbulbs and several handfuls of white berry pods into a small mesh bag.
Akaray watched closely as she flagged the location of the pond in the
wristcomp’s Inertial Nav screen, then folded the photoelectric sheet she had
carefully recovered from the site of her recent baptism, and checked her
weapons and equipment. Kirrah paced back along the length of the decapitated
Grass Weasel, her lips pursing at twenty meters, eyebrows rising in amazement
as she reached the apparent nether end, some thirty-five meters from the ruined
neck. The thing’s skin was tough and rubbery, and it sported a three-centimeter
coat of curly green… hair, she supposed, an exact match for the faintly
yellowish green of the not-grass , right down to the lighter, yellower
tips and edges of individual strands. The aft five or six meters of the thing’s
body was flattened like an empty coat sleeve, still nestled into invisibility
among the dense strands of not-grass. Stubby ten-centimeter legs every meter
and a half gave it purchase in the ground cover. What remained of the head
sported a dozen tiny eyes arranged in a circle around the mouth, a thirty-five
centimeter circular cartilaginous opening set with three-centimeter
meat-shearing teeth. Yeah, and its flesh is toxic, too .
    “These are really quite impressive
predators you keep here,” she mused, wondering how a nearly-naked boy had
managed to survive hidden in the reeds for so long. Or had he? How long had
he been here? And why was he hiding, and what was an eight year old boy doing
out here by himself, anyway? “Don’t you have a tribe or something?” she
wondered aloud.
    The subject of her speculation gave
a small tug on one hand, looking up earnestly at her:
    “Or’eeyu snath, marathlauma, ma”