Free Shaman by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff Page A

spirit bag stayed where it was, on its long, vivid necklace. In Human company he might tuck it away beneath the fabric of modern life, but he would keep it next to his heart. He was a good Shaman.
    He relaxed on the bunk and wondered how Vladimir Zarber was weathering his homeward flight. Maybe , he thought, maybe someday I’ll tell him what happened to his tooth...

Squatter’s Rights
Illustrations by the inestimable Nicholas Jainschigg
    Ray Bradbury (without whom I would probably not be a writer of science fiction and fantasy) has said that science fiction, far from being escapist, allows us to work out in projected futures problems that are with us today. The ownership of a hunk of land—whether it be a planet, a country, an oil field, or a graveyard plot—can lie at the heart of our biggest problems because we experience place as an element of identity. History is littered with our failures when it comes to resolving these place-identity issues—something that’s bothered me for a long time. What if, I wondered, the success of negotiating such difficult waters required that we literally walk in the other guy’s shoes?

One
    It was her second week on Velvet, and Danetta Price still couldn’t take her eyes from the largest window of whatever room she was in. Just now, she was in the living room of the colonial Governor’s suite, waiting for him to dress for dinner. An afternoon of successful trade negotiations had left her in a mellow mood perfect for enjoying spectacular views. And this view was spectacular. Beyond the curving window, the broad main avenue of Haifa stretched to the sharp boundary between town and country, punctuated by the golden glow of gravlamps floating serenely along its length. Its buildings stood, gleaming and gemlike, in a setting Sun—colors few Earth cities had seen shimmering in full light, muting in shadow. And beyond the buildings, Velvet.
    Greens almost too vivid to be appreciated by the human eye vibrated in field and furrow, hill and vale. The sky overhead was a furious shade of blue-violet, its hues more penetrating than the skies of Earth even at mid-day. It was always populated by at least a handful of large, dark blue-gray clouds. Currently, some snuggled up against the distant western mountains the colonists had dubbed the “Great Smokies.” They were heavy clouds—rolling up to a place and exuding mist the way a fat, gray cat exudes love while rubbing against its favorite pair of legs. They were beautiful.
    Beautiful, too, was the dark, fertile soil of Velvet. It ranged from oxide red through a color almost burgundy, to the richest, nightest black Danetta Price had ever seen. That, and the eternally twilight sky and those leaden puffs of cloud, contrived to make everything green look extraordinarily green. This contributed to the overall effect that you were living in a velvet painting—hence, the popular name, Velvet. Danetta sighed aloud as the Sun (Bronte, by name) sank to the horizon, pulling in its palette of colors.
    â€œAddictive, isn’t it?” asked a warm voice behind her. Danetta turned. Governor Joseph Bekwe stood in the doorway, straightening his neck-scarf and tucking one end fashionably back over the collar of his shirt.
    She answered the smile in his eyes and nodded. “I can’t seem to stop staring out of windows. It’s almost a relief when the Sun goes down.”
    â€œYou’ll have to take some holo-cubes back to Earth with you to remember us by,” he said.
    Danetta’s eyes went back to the window where Bronte was icing the clouds with flame, using up some left-over golds and oranges. She didn’t want to think of going home—going back to Earth, she corrected herself. She wasn’t honestly sure she thought of it as home anymore. She had no family there and she traveled so much that no place was home—or even like it. She had to allow that Velvet wielded a stronger