Reclamation

She caressed the pouch that held her namestones. All her life she had longed to be recognized for what she really was, and now it was happening. These Skymen with their naked hands and their ignorance of the Words of the Nameless treated her like a trophy. She should have been reveling in it, using it for all it was worth. But all she wanted to do was get home, get the stones back to her home and her daughter, where they belonged. There wasn't a minute that went by that she didn't wonder what would happen if she lost her life, lost the stones out here. Then she would not only have lied to Little Eye, she would have taken away her children's only hope of getting out of the mud.

Aria realized her knees were trembling. She turned away from the window and strode across the room.

Counters. Floors. The terminal. I'm not sure how much longer I can deal with these Skymen. I don't know how much longer I've got before whatever plans they have for the Realm come true. I've got to find out what they want and get back home. She saw all her children lined up before her mind's eye and swallowed hard against the pang of homesickness.

She slid the door for the sanitation cupboard and dug out the sponges and canisters of solvent. Can't go yet. Too much I don't understand. Her own words came back to her. A wave of exhaustion washed over her. Just too much. How has Teacher…Eric Born…managed to live out here for ten years without losing his mind?

Thinking of him was a mistake. His name brought the image of him to her mind, along with an absurd longing she'd managed to avoid finding words for.

Scowling at her hands, she bent to her work.

"G'wan! Get outta here! Move it!" Iyal swatted the backsides of the sandy brown cows indiscriminately with her prod. The beasts bellowed and jostled each other but they moved steadily toward the narrow gate where Jexid, the new intern from the Nuot Division, gave any of the balky ones an extra prod to funnel them up the ramp of the transport. Old Keyenar ki Oruat tapped each of the fat, stupid, carefully engineered beasts between the ears with the signature wand and checked its number to make sure only the cattle that had already passed inspection made it into the shipment.

Loading and herding the big animals was one of the things people still did better than the automatics. Nobody'd yet been able to program a cheap automatic with enough self-preservation instinct to get out of the way if there was a stampede.

A sharp whistle jerked Iyal's head around. One of the cows bawled and stamped its foot down. Iyal felt the shock up to her ankle, despite her steel-toed boots. She whacked the cow and cursed and at the same time she tried to see who the idiot was who didn't know they still hadn't managed to breed all the nerves out of the mountain-specific cattle.

Outside the fence Zur-Allenden waved at her frantically and beckoned, while pointing at her sedan chair unit with his other hand.

Ground beneath my feet, what does he want now and why can't he call me over the crashing terminal? She gave the cows in front of her an extra shove and hit the TRANSMIT key on her torque.

"Get an appointment, Allenden," she muttered through clenched teeth as she leaned sideways to try to keep a nervous yearling from squashing her side. It stamped edgily, missing her toes, thankfully, and moved forward.

Got to calm these critters down. Well, with the new configuration in the next batch…

"Iyal, I need to talk to you about your new…acquisition," came Allenden's voice through her translator disk.

"What acquisition?" Keyenar was cutting one of the cows out of the herd and prodding it toward the side holding pen. Iyal hooked her prod onto her belt and waved both fists in the inquiry sign and he held up three fingers. Wrong number. Nothing major.

Iyal brought her hands down. Understood. She snatched up the prod again to urge the cows forward. The press was easing as most of the cattle lumbered onto the truck. There was always a mild relief in being able to breathe freely again. Allenden was not allowing her to enjoy it, however.

"You know," said Allenden. "The woman."

"It shouldn't be that tough for someone named Zur-Allen-den ki Uvarimayartus to pronounce Aria Stone." The torque picked up her subvocalized words and relayed them to Allenden's translation disk. She hoped it also managed to accurately transmit her tone.