Free Flowercrash by Stephen Palmer Page B

their laps, listening and jotting down notes. Nuïy noticed that many of the clerics were blank eyed, their drugged minds at one with the sounds of the networks. Others simply drooled on their cloaks, or twitched like dreaming autodogs. Understanding that their minds would simply miss the subtleties of electronic information if they avoided the trance state, Nuïy wondered if he too would need to take Deomouvadaïn’s drugs.
    He was sent back to the dormitory. Again Drowaïtash tried to persuade him to talk, but Nuïy responded coldly. “The Recorder-Shaman wishes me to take extra lessons in the capturing and recording of information. That is all. It is for the good of the Green Man.”
    He felt under his pillow for his yellow hat. It was gone.
    Frantically he searched his bed and the area around it. All five youths were watching him now, so he stopped and confronted them. “One of you has hidden my hat. That was a gift from the Green Man. You are insulting him.”
    Mehmatha guffawed. “So what? Maybe the Green Man made it vanish to teach stuck up boys a lesson.”
    Nuïy frowned. “I need it tomorrow.”
    “We don’t like stuck up boys,” Mehmatha continued. “You think you’re above us, better than us, when you’re really a moron. We don’t like morons.”
    “Yeah,” Awanshyva agreed. “And there’s three of them in this room.”
    Nuïy declared, “You have misread the situation. I am not above you, and I do not consider myself above you. Rather, I am totally apart from you. There is no connection. I simply share a dormitory with you.”
    They did not reply to this. Nuïy had spoken with glaring eyes, in his most intense manner. They found this uncomfortable.
    “Now,” he said, “I will have my hat when I begin work tomorrow. One of you has hidden it. Where is it?”
    He looked at all three of the other gang. Mehmatha’s eyes flickered to his left. Like a hawk Nuïy turned his head to see where Mehmatha had looked, a movement that startled them into taking a step back. The table under the cracked window. Nuïy walked over and rifled through the drawers, finding nothing, but when he checked behind the table he found his hat stuffed into a hole. This display of what seemed supernatural luck made the quiet trio falter. Mehmatha growled, “C’mon, lads,” and left the dormitory.
    Nuïy also marched out. At Deomouvadaïn’s door he knocked, but there was no answer. He waited, considering what had happened. He recalled exactly which herbs were which in the garden. Hurrying into the section devoted to poisons, he chose a herb and, covering his hands with a cloth, plucked five leaves. Then he ran back and made for the entrance to the main Tech House, where he asked for Deomouvadaïn.
    The old man was not pleased at being disturbed. “What d’you want, leaf?”
    Nuïy presented his hat. “I fear for its safety. Would you temporarily keep it for me?”
    Deomouvadaïn frowned. “Why?”
    “Other leaves tried to hide it.”
    Deomouvadaïn snatched the hat. “All right. Now go away.”
    Back at the dormitory, Eletela was at the kennels, leaving only Drowaïtash free. Nuïy asked him, “Would you get me some floorsoap so I can wash the floor? It stinks around here.”
    Grumbling, Drowaïtash agreed. With trembling hands, Nuïy pounded the five leaves in water, making a sticky paste. The few drops of fluid he poured into the mug of water beside Mehmatha’s bed. Then he washed his utensils and his hands, and waited for Drowaïtash.
    That night Mehmatha was taken ill with stomach convulsions. Raïtasha and a cleric carried him away. His sweating skin was white, his eyes rolled, and he vomited bile.
    ~
    Next day, Nuïy began lessons in the Tech House. Deomouvadaïn seemed concerned by something, leaving his responses short and his lessons vague, but the day passed and Nuïy learned about listening to the networks, the types of plants, and how to focus listening leaves. But that evening in the dormitory he