Free Ammonite by Nicola Griffith Page A

exactly; it meant trade as the first step on a journey whose outcome was uncertain—an opening gambit in a game that might continue for generations. Trata could be between two people, between two or more kiths, or between several communities. Frequently it was all three, each exchange resonating with another in the web.
    The baby squirmed and Cassil switched it to her other hip. “If I give you food, or good boots, a woman might say to me, ‘Cassil, if you had given me that food, I would have made you two fine hangings for your lodge, and given you first pick of my next catch. But you gave it to that stranger woman and neither of us has gained anything from each other. Tell me, Cassil, what did this stranger woman give you in return?’ And what would I say to that?” The baby wriggled again, more determinedly this time. Cassil jigged her up and down, gave her a finger to suck.
    Marghe was acutely conscious of her fatigue, the ache in her muscles, as she opened her empty hands. “My kith is large and very powerful.”
    Cassil regarded her a moment. “Then why not return to your large and very powerful kith for more supplies?” Because they might not give me any more, because Dormer might not let me go again , Marghe wanted to shout. Because I am utterly alone on this world . She had nobody; no kith, no kin, no community.
    Danner, Letitia, Cassil… they all sat in the center of a webwork of colleagues, friends, lovers. Family. She was alone, and scared. All she had was herself and her breathing exercises and her FN-17. Sitting here, across from a woman secure in her own community, all of that came home to her. She was alone on a strange and dangerous world, and she knew it showed on her face, Cassil tilted her head. “You are an orphan here,” she said softly, and touched Marghe’s cheek with the tip of one finger.
    The warm, dry finger against her cheek pulled memories up from the well: her mother laughing and throwing away a batch of burned bread, saying, Never mind, we’ll buy some; ripping the computer plug from the wall, furious with some review; making her a fan from yellow tissue paper when she had a fever, then folding it up into a paper hat when she realized it wouldn’t work. Her mother singing a nonsense song, telling her stories of Macau, and of Taishan where she had been conceived; trying to smile before she died. It hit her all over again: she could never come back from Jeep and tell her mother how useful her organizational techniques had been in analyzing her notes for publication; she and her mother could never share tea and a funny story of misunderstandings with an alien people. Her mother was dead.
    Marghe found herself hunched over, arms wrapped around her stomach; they were wet. She was crying. Fatigue, she told herself; her blood sugar was down. She breathed, hardly hearing Cassil moving around, tucking the baby into a blanket on the sleeping shelf, poking the fire into a blaze, swinging the dap kettle over the flames. Busy alien sounds. Water rumbled in the stone pot.
    She felt the warmth of Cassil standing over her and turned her head, then took the worn square of cloth and wiped her eyes in silence. She thought about Danner saying I don’t know how else to prove my faith , of Kahn saying I know how rough it is, coming down alone . She had thrust their offers of friendship back at them.

    Then she thought of Hiam, and of the Kurst , and of Danner’s unspoken certainty that the Mirrors would not be leaving Jeep. Here, now, with Cassil, she had a chance to help them, in her own particular way, at the same time as she helped herself. Trata was the key.
    Cassil put two steaming bowls of dap between them. “So,” she said quietly, folding her hands, “you’re an orphan.”
    Marghe did not want to distract them both by trying to explain the concept of father . She nodded. Her face felt hot and swollen. “But not entirely alone. I have been… adopted, into a rich and powerful kith, but