Read Online At the Mouth of the River of Bees: Stories by Kij Johnson - Free Book Online
Authors: Kij Johnson
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surface. We travel as we need while Ping moves under us. It does this slowly, taking a lifetime to move from Night so far to the west, past Dawn and n’dau into Noon, where it is said that stones explode from the heat, and the air can melt flesh from bones. If we stopped traveling, we would move into Noon with the ground we stood on, but to do this would be absurd. To stay still is to slip from n’dau.
We were far from n’dau. The sun rode too high in the sky. The shadow that dogged my heels was too short. We had wandered so far from n’dau because we had found a broad ribbon of Earth grasses and shrubs rooted into the soil left over from a Dawn meltwater river, dried now to a marshy trickle. The horses could eat the native vegetation of Ping, but the grass from ancient Earth was best for them and so we let the herd graze noonward.
We wanted colts so we set up the estrus tents; using a water clock, we placed the mares in darkness for one emptying of the water clock, then out in the light for another, then back in the dark tents. After we had done this for a while, the mares went into heat. Our stallion went mad with lust and after fertilizing many of them ran amok, in the end killing himself by falling into a ravine on his way to the gelding herd, which was several leagues to the north.
It did not matter. We had fifty mares in the mare’s herd and thirty-five foals, fourteen of them male. It would be simple enough to trade for another stallion when we came back to our people. The horses of my family’s herds were famed for their beauty and small sturdiness; these would be worth a lot back at one of the traveling trading fairs or at Moot.
But we had not traveled much during the mares’ pregnancy, and the planet did not stop its eternal creeping toward Noon. And now we snarled at one another, sick of the food we had, sick of each other, cranky with the wrongness of it all. Time to return to n’dau.
My brother Ricard finally agreed. When the sleep time was over we would turn dawnward again. But I was too hot to sleep, too impatient, so I walked among the mare herd.
Foals and their dams scattered at my passing. They seemed listless and irritable from the heat and the stagnating water, but they were fat and healthy, and their coats gleamed through a thin sheen of dust. I checked several horses for things I had recently treated. The blazed black mare’s right flank, ripped by tearthorn bushes, showed a dark shiny scar that was already blending into her hide. The small gray mare’s newborn foal had been attacked by feral dogs before I had found them and returned them to the herd; the filly’s shoulder was deformed by a bite but she moved easily. She would probably never sell. Still, her blood was good and as long as she could keep up, she should be a good broodmare.
The sorrel mare’s was the last foal not yet born, and due very soon. Her belly was a huge copper-colored bloat. She shifted awkwardly from foot to foot but she let me handle her without resisting, too heavy and hot to care. Her mouth membranes were pink and healthy-looking, and her eyes were clear. When I thumped her abdomen, I felt movement, a sharp thump back.
I heard a distant bark: one of my dogs, no doubt chasing birds far from camp. A second dog took up the sound. I looked out toward them, toward Dawn, and saw dark shapes.
My uncle’s wife Brida and I started shouting at the same time. “Riders!” We ran toward the camp. “Strangers dawnward!”
The tents had been quiet, dogs sleeping in the short shadows. Now my family ran to the central work area, and the dogs danced nervously about them. The three children in the family clung to their parents. Ricard had been sleeping in one of the tents; bare-chested and squinting in the light, he gestured and we all armed ourselves with knives and swords and spears.
“The dogs,” he said to me.
I nodded and pulled my whistles from my sash. They were a handful of silver tubes bound together with
We were far from n’dau. The sun rode too high in the sky. The shadow that dogged my heels was too short. We had wandered so far from n’dau because we had found a broad ribbon of Earth grasses and shrubs rooted into the soil left over from a Dawn meltwater river, dried now to a marshy trickle. The horses could eat the native vegetation of Ping, but the grass from ancient Earth was best for them and so we let the herd graze noonward.
We wanted colts so we set up the estrus tents; using a water clock, we placed the mares in darkness for one emptying of the water clock, then out in the light for another, then back in the dark tents. After we had done this for a while, the mares went into heat. Our stallion went mad with lust and after fertilizing many of them ran amok, in the end killing himself by falling into a ravine on his way to the gelding herd, which was several leagues to the north.
It did not matter. We had fifty mares in the mare’s herd and thirty-five foals, fourteen of them male. It would be simple enough to trade for another stallion when we came back to our people. The horses of my family’s herds were famed for their beauty and small sturdiness; these would be worth a lot back at one of the traveling trading fairs or at Moot.
But we had not traveled much during the mares’ pregnancy, and the planet did not stop its eternal creeping toward Noon. And now we snarled at one another, sick of the food we had, sick of each other, cranky with the wrongness of it all. Time to return to n’dau.
My brother Ricard finally agreed. When the sleep time was over we would turn dawnward again. But I was too hot to sleep, too impatient, so I walked among the mare herd.
Foals and their dams scattered at my passing. They seemed listless and irritable from the heat and the stagnating water, but they were fat and healthy, and their coats gleamed through a thin sheen of dust. I checked several horses for things I had recently treated. The blazed black mare’s right flank, ripped by tearthorn bushes, showed a dark shiny scar that was already blending into her hide. The small gray mare’s newborn foal had been attacked by feral dogs before I had found them and returned them to the herd; the filly’s shoulder was deformed by a bite but she moved easily. She would probably never sell. Still, her blood was good and as long as she could keep up, she should be a good broodmare.
The sorrel mare’s was the last foal not yet born, and due very soon. Her belly was a huge copper-colored bloat. She shifted awkwardly from foot to foot but she let me handle her without resisting, too heavy and hot to care. Her mouth membranes were pink and healthy-looking, and her eyes were clear. When I thumped her abdomen, I felt movement, a sharp thump back.
I heard a distant bark: one of my dogs, no doubt chasing birds far from camp. A second dog took up the sound. I looked out toward them, toward Dawn, and saw dark shapes.
My uncle’s wife Brida and I started shouting at the same time. “Riders!” We ran toward the camp. “Strangers dawnward!”
The tents had been quiet, dogs sleeping in the short shadows. Now my family ran to the central work area, and the dogs danced nervously about them. The three children in the family clung to their parents. Ricard had been sleeping in one of the tents; bare-chested and squinting in the light, he gestured and we all armed ourselves with knives and swords and spears.
“The dogs,” he said to me.
I nodded and pulled my whistles from my sash. They were a handful of silver tubes bound together with
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