North Wind Read Online Free PDF Page B
Author: Gwyneth Jones
they clung together, Lord Maitri cradling the child in the curve of his body, as he had done long ago. Goodlooking drew away, shoulders lifting in a tremulous smile.
he pleaded.
Maitri smiled and nodded. “Come then,” he said lightly. “My brave child. We’ve time to console those artisans, before we change for prayers.”
Goodlooking laughed: suddenly freed from a net of stinging slights. Nothing could cloud these last sweet moments of their intimacy. He would remember this day, lives from now, when Lord Maitri came out of kindly duty to tell the librarian what a wonderful job he was doing.
Dear Maitri! Praise!
iii
Sid jogged through the blurred, furry walled passages, losing quarantine to the nibblers underfoot and the tiny mouths in the air. Aleutian commensals of every size—tools, notepads, domestic appliances, furniture, bustled around him; from things like viruses to things as big as dogs and cats: the life of every one of them derived from the body chemistry of some Aleutian. Their main hall, where they ate and socialized, had been the dining room when this was a human-type hotel. There was a display case by the doors, holding some reproductions of paper pages, which he’d been told were from the hotel register. Labels in English, translations in their illegible script, explaining nothing. Virginia Woolf…. Who she? Above the repro paper sat the mug shot of a scrawny geezer with jug-ears, done in low relief on a sheet of gold. It looked modern to Sid, but Maitri said it came from the old ruins. Sid didn’t know if the gold was real.
Silent domestics were laying up tables. It looked grand and archaic, like a civic banquet: and it was fairly grand, though everything was disposable. In Aleutia there was no snob value in having durable housewares. The snob value was in having your famous housekeeper down with you from the shipworld, with a repertoire of exquisite designs stored in his glandular secretions. The old hotel was full of splendid Aleutian furnishings—rich wraps, throws, hangings, couches, stools, video equipment: all of it alive, all of it liable to vanish and be replaced overnight.
The food was probably equally fancy. But their food ranged, in smell and appearance, from baby diarrhea to snot soup. Humans could eat it. But you wouldn’t do it for fun.
The Silent were not slaves or possessions. Not they! They were employees, colleagues, executives in the private company that was an Aleutian household. There was no mechanical reason why they didn’t speak; nor were they elective mutes. It was something switched off, he’d been told, in their mind/brain, so that what humans called normal language was a blank.
The Aleutians would put it the other way round. To them, everything in the Spoken Word: syntax, metaphor, he made his excuses and left, was there in the Common Tongue. The Spoken
Word, you might say, was an odd, extravagant way of talking. After evening prayers, the company would congregate in the hall for supper. Then they’d clear the floor and dance. That was something to see: when they had their formal robes on over the eternal overalls, the colored and patterned living stuff melding and parting as they pranced around. After the dance, which often had no accompaniment but the rustle of their robes, they’d settle to their music. Maitri’s company included some talented people, but the Silent were the best. Being Silent didn’t mean you couldn’t sing. When they got together in ensemble, their mouth-music made the hairs on Sid’s nape stand.
The aliens didn’t appreciate most local music. Whatever you tried on them they said the same: too clogged, fibrous, tight, over-designed. Too many notes, basically. But Maitri, who was so deft at knowing what everyone wanted, had dug out one of his souvenir tapes: something called “Around the Parlour Piano,” involving a bunch of Victorian-dressing history fans. Everyone adored it. The
Maitri smiled and nodded. “Come then,” he said lightly. “My brave child. We’ve time to console those artisans, before we change for prayers.”
Goodlooking laughed: suddenly freed from a net of stinging slights. Nothing could cloud these last sweet moments of their intimacy. He would remember this day, lives from now, when Lord Maitri came out of kindly duty to tell the librarian what a wonderful job he was doing.
Dear Maitri! Praise!
iii
Sid jogged through the blurred, furry walled passages, losing quarantine to the nibblers underfoot and the tiny mouths in the air. Aleutian commensals of every size—tools, notepads, domestic appliances, furniture, bustled around him; from things like viruses to things as big as dogs and cats: the life of every one of them derived from the body chemistry of some Aleutian. Their main hall, where they ate and socialized, had been the dining room when this was a human-type hotel. There was a display case by the doors, holding some reproductions of paper pages, which he’d been told were from the hotel register. Labels in English, translations in their illegible script, explaining nothing. Virginia Woolf…. Who she? Above the repro paper sat the mug shot of a scrawny geezer with jug-ears, done in low relief on a sheet of gold. It looked modern to Sid, but Maitri said it came from the old ruins. Sid didn’t know if the gold was real.
Silent domestics were laying up tables. It looked grand and archaic, like a civic banquet: and it was fairly grand, though everything was disposable. In Aleutia there was no snob value in having durable housewares. The snob value was in having your famous housekeeper down with you from the shipworld, with a repertoire of exquisite designs stored in his glandular secretions. The old hotel was full of splendid Aleutian furnishings—rich wraps, throws, hangings, couches, stools, video equipment: all of it alive, all of it liable to vanish and be replaced overnight.
The food was probably equally fancy. But their food ranged, in smell and appearance, from baby diarrhea to snot soup. Humans could eat it. But you wouldn’t do it for fun.
The Silent were not slaves or possessions. Not they! They were employees, colleagues, executives in the private company that was an Aleutian household. There was no mechanical reason why they didn’t speak; nor were they elective mutes. It was something switched off, he’d been told, in their mind/brain, so that what humans called normal language was a blank.
The Aleutians would put it the other way round. To them, everything in the Spoken Word: syntax, metaphor, he made his excuses and left, was there in the Common Tongue. The Spoken
Word, you might say, was an odd, extravagant way of talking. After evening prayers, the company would congregate in the hall for supper. Then they’d clear the floor and dance. That was something to see: when they had their formal robes on over the eternal overalls, the colored and patterned living stuff melding and parting as they pranced around. After the dance, which often had no accompaniment but the rustle of their robes, they’d settle to their music. Maitri’s company included some talented people, but the Silent were the best. Being Silent didn’t mean you couldn’t sing. When they got together in ensemble, their mouth-music made the hairs on Sid’s nape stand.
The aliens didn’t appreciate most local music. Whatever you tried on them they said the same: too clogged, fibrous, tight, over-designed. Too many notes, basically. But Maitri, who was so deft at knowing what everyone wanted, had dug out one of his souvenir tapes: something called “Around the Parlour Piano,” involving a bunch of Victorian-dressing history fans. Everyone adored it. The
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