Free The Witling by Vernor Vinge Page B

strange cold room, he confessed that he couldn’t teleport any more than she could. You’d think he was admitting to some terrible disease; poor guy, in a way perhaps he was.
    That admission was just further evidence that the Azhiri needed no super-technology. Sure, they had simple crafts—ironworking and such-but all the fantastic things they did were applications of the “Talent” most of them were born with. She hadn’t really been convinced of this till she saw what passed for toilet facilities among the upper classes; the fixtures were carved from marble and quartz, yet the wastedisposal system was no better than a common outhouse.
    All in all it had seemed safe to tell Pelio that no members of her race could teleport. And her admission had made the kid look so … happy.
    Through the leaves and tree trunks she saw a flicker of yellow. The path wound on another fifteen meters, then opened onto a clearing set in the hillside. By the moonlight she saw a large cabin done in the usual stone-and-timber style—but this building had a doorway hacked through one wall. The flickering light from within painted a yellowish trapezoid on the mossy ground.
    As she stepped into the fresh-cut doorway, Ajão Bjault looked up from the wall torch he had been examining. “Yoninne!” After a day filled with gray-green faces, his chocolate skin and frizzy white hair looked incongruous. The old man’s gaze flickered from Yoninne to the two Azhiri who still stood in the darkness beyond the room. “I didn’t hear you coming up. Are you all right?”
    Yoninne smiled. Ajão’s hearing was so bad he would probably miss the crack of doom. She stepped into the room. Behind her, she heard the two guards retreat. “I’m fine. Just fine.”
    The other looked at her a bit strangely. “How do you like this place?” he said. “They brought me here just before sunset. Quite an improvement.” Yoninne looked around. Like most isolated buildings she had seen that day, it had only one room, with a transit pool in the center. Pelio had been as good as his word: their new apartment was nowhere near as opulent as his quarters, but it looked comfortable enough. Yoninne curled up on one of the pillowed chairs and suddenly felt very tired in a kind of satiated way. Supper had been good . The lead and mercury in the local “edibles” would be lethal in the long run, but they certainly didn’t affect the taste of food.
    Ajão still had a puzzled expression on his face. “I’ve been trying to make these torches burn brighter,” he said. “They’re not just simple pieces of wood. They have a wick structure … .” He stepped back from the torch’s wall bracket and peered out the doorway into the darkness. Then he turned back to Yoninne, “I don’t know why I’m so cautious; they don’t understand a word I’m saying.” Now that she looked at him more closely, she realized he was tired and jittery. And still he had the air of being unable to believe what he was seeing. “Did you have any luck, Yoninne?”
    “Luck?”
    He frowned. “The maser, Yoninne. The maser.”
    “Oh, no. But don’t worry, we’ll get it some other …” Her voice stuttered into silence, and her peaceful mood vanished as abruptly as if she had been slapped in the face. She understood now the puzzled look in the other’s eyes, and realized just what he was seeing: Yoninne Leg-Wot, the stubby, flatchested pilot. She looked down at herself, saw the thing she had called a dress—a short green kilt, barely large enough to hold her wide hips. She had been running around like a fatassed fool all day. Leg-Wot bounced onto her short legs, felt a hot flush of humiliation rising to her face. And this senile bastard just stood there pitying her.
    “God damn you, Bjault,” she choked out as she stumbled across the room to the lavatory alcove. She yanked the curtain shut and ripped off the skimpy kilt. Her flight suit was still damp, but she pulled it on with a few quick