that it was nevertheless there struck me as a marvel. The thing was of crafted metal – surely it, which killed the living music in all it touched and stiffened music merely by its proximity, could not itself be a vessel for the music? I began to wonder if perhaps we of the Finefolk were not, in a way, even more ignorant of the Ironfolk: they at least are aware of the existence of the living music, even though they cannot know or understand it; whereas we have never known that their shaped-metal implements could have music at all. I still cannot decide if this was a great insight of mine, or if it was merely that my senses were deceiving me in my sadness for my dead flass.
We were in a bigger room, and there were others – no other Finefolk, of course, for this was not a room where our kind would normally be expected to go, but instead an Ironfolk place. They were in clothes like my guard's, but some had colored ribbons stitched to them, as if a cloud-blackened sky could be brightened by a paintbrush: the Ironfolk cannot see that dead colors are less brilliant than living darkness. The one who had brought me here held out the dead fragments of my harplet, the regretted trophy of his kill; he jabbered spoken-words whose meaning I could not care to understand, for I was trying to hear the silence of the mustard-yellow splinters in his hand.
One of the ones wearing dead ribbons beat me about the face with the heels of his hands, then clenched a fist to strike me harder – enraged, I think, that the blood coming from my nose was straw-yellow rather than a treacly red; but he was held back by a bark from another, and he dropped his arm to his side.
The beating had cleared my head; I made to thank my assailant, but was told curtly to hold my peace.
"We'll have to make an example of it," said the one who had spoken to my attacker and then to me. "Who knows how many others of the slugglies might be harboring instruments, like this one? We can't risk their starting to play the bloody things once we're in fastspace." He looked directly at me. "I'm sorry about that, buster."
For a moment he seemed partly to be one of us. Confused, I fluted some notes at him, imitations of living song, but it was clear he knew nothing of them. Then I tried spoken-words, but he told me once more to be quiet.
"Kill it?" said another. "Something dramatic? Feed it into a recyc and show the mess on holo all over the ship? Stuff the thing out a lock?"
The one who seemed to be their leader shook his head, which is the Ironfolk signal of negation. "No. We'll give it a pod. After we've left the Galaxy."
"But that's ..." began the one who had slapped me.
"Cruel. Yes. But with the veneer of clemency. There will be no blood. If it were seen to be killed, that just might be enough to trigger the slugglies into rising against us. There are nearly ten thousand of them, remember, Coutts. But that's not the main worry. I'm more concerned with what the passengers might think."
"Passengers – huh !" This was one of the others. He made as if to spit, but didn't. "Bunch of no-hopers. Cattle. Can't think why we don't just flush them out the locks. Save the cost of carrying them. No one would know."
"Silence, Wren." The leader spoke almost silently himself, his crude Ironfolk words harsh with sibilants, like a weasel moving rapidly through dry grass. "Some of the passengers – many of them – feel sorry for the slugglies, and the kids take to them. Easy enough when you see them here on ship, like pretty children themselves; the passengers don't know how they live on their homeworlds. The passengers don't know they're animals. The slugglies are too human. So we can't hazard this thing's death rousing sympathies in the wrong places. Yet we need to get the message through to its fellows. So we put it in a pod and send it off into space. Then we have an amnesty for a few days, so the slugglies can hand in any instruments they've managed to smuggle aboard, or
We were in a bigger room, and there were others – no other Finefolk, of course, for this was not a room where our kind would normally be expected to go, but instead an Ironfolk place. They were in clothes like my guard's, but some had colored ribbons stitched to them, as if a cloud-blackened sky could be brightened by a paintbrush: the Ironfolk cannot see that dead colors are less brilliant than living darkness. The one who had brought me here held out the dead fragments of my harplet, the regretted trophy of his kill; he jabbered spoken-words whose meaning I could not care to understand, for I was trying to hear the silence of the mustard-yellow splinters in his hand.
One of the ones wearing dead ribbons beat me about the face with the heels of his hands, then clenched a fist to strike me harder – enraged, I think, that the blood coming from my nose was straw-yellow rather than a treacly red; but he was held back by a bark from another, and he dropped his arm to his side.
The beating had cleared my head; I made to thank my assailant, but was told curtly to hold my peace.
"We'll have to make an example of it," said the one who had spoken to my attacker and then to me. "Who knows how many others of the slugglies might be harboring instruments, like this one? We can't risk their starting to play the bloody things once we're in fastspace." He looked directly at me. "I'm sorry about that, buster."
For a moment he seemed partly to be one of us. Confused, I fluted some notes at him, imitations of living song, but it was clear he knew nothing of them. Then I tried spoken-words, but he told me once more to be quiet.
"Kill it?" said another. "Something dramatic? Feed it into a recyc and show the mess on holo all over the ship? Stuff the thing out a lock?"
The one who seemed to be their leader shook his head, which is the Ironfolk signal of negation. "No. We'll give it a pod. After we've left the Galaxy."
"But that's ..." began the one who had slapped me.
"Cruel. Yes. But with the veneer of clemency. There will be no blood. If it were seen to be killed, that just might be enough to trigger the slugglies into rising against us. There are nearly ten thousand of them, remember, Coutts. But that's not the main worry. I'm more concerned with what the passengers might think."
"Passengers – huh !" This was one of the others. He made as if to spit, but didn't. "Bunch of no-hopers. Cattle. Can't think why we don't just flush them out the locks. Save the cost of carrying them. No one would know."
"Silence, Wren." The leader spoke almost silently himself, his crude Ironfolk words harsh with sibilants, like a weasel moving rapidly through dry grass. "Some of the passengers – many of them – feel sorry for the slugglies, and the kids take to them. Easy enough when you see them here on ship, like pretty children themselves; the passengers don't know how they live on their homeworlds. The passengers don't know they're animals. The slugglies are too human. So we can't hazard this thing's death rousing sympathies in the wrong places. Yet we need to get the message through to its fellows. So we put it in a pod and send it off into space. Then we have an amnesty for a few days, so the slugglies can hand in any instruments they've managed to smuggle aboard, or
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