The Nutcracker Coup Read Online Free PDF Page A

different constitutions for them-and an entire book of speeches by Martin Luther King.
    Oh, god. I just realized...maybe it is my fault. I’d forgotten till just now. Oh. You judge, Nick.
    About a week later Tatep and I were out gathering wood for some carving he plans to do-for Christmas, he says, but he wanted to get a good start on it-and he stopped gnawing long enough to ask me, “Marianne, what’s ‘human’?”
    “How do you mean?”
    “I think when Clarence says ‘human,’ he means something different than you do.”
    “That’s entirely possible. Humans use words pretty loosely at the best of times-there, I just did it

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    myself.”
    “What do you mean when you say ‘human’?”
    “Sometimes I mean the species homo sapiens. When I say, Humans use words pretty loosely, I do. Rejoicers seem to be more particular about their speech, as a general rule.”
    “And when you say ‘human rights,’ what do you mean?”
    “When I say ‘human rights,’ I mean Homo sapiens and Rejoicing sapiens. I mean any sapiens, in that context. I wouldn’t guarantee that Clarence uses the word the same way in the same context.”
    “You think I’m human?”
    “I know you’re human. We’re friends, aren’t we? I couldn’t be friends with-oh, a notrabbit-now, could I?”
    He made that wonderful rattly sound he does when he’s amused. “No, I can’t imagine it. Then, if I’m human, I ought to have human rights.”
    “Yes,” I said, “You bloody well ought to.”
    Maybe it is all my fault. Esperanza will tell you the rest-she’s had Rejoicers all over her house for the past two weeks-they’re watching every scrap of film she’s got on Martin Luther King.
    I don’t know how this will all end up, but I wish to hell you were here to watch.
    Love, Marianne

    ###
Marianne watched the Rejoicer child crack nuts with his Halemtat cracker and a cold, cold shiver went up her spine. That was the eleventh she’d seen this week. Chornian wasn’t the only one making them, apparently; somebody else had gone into the nutcracker business as well. This was, however, the first time she’d seen a child cracking nuts with Halemtat’s jaw.
    “Hello,” she said, stooping to meet the child’s eyes. “What a pretty toy! Will you show me how it works?”
    Rattling all the while, the child showed her, step by step. Then he (or she-it wasn’t polite to ask before puberty) said, “Isn’t it funny? It makes Mama laugh and laugh and laugh.”
    “And what’s your mama’s name?”
    “Pilli,” said the child. Then it added, “With the green and white beads on her quills.”
    Pilli-who’d been clipped for saying that Halemtat had been overcutting the imperial reserve so badly that the trees would never grow back properly.
    And then she realized that, less than as a year ago, no child would have admitted that its mama had been clipped. The very thought of it would have shamed both mother and child.
    Come to think of it...she glanced around the bazaar and saw no less than four clipped Rejoicers shopping for dinner. Two of them she recognized as Chornian and one of his children, the other two were new to her. She tried to identify them by their snouts and failed utterly-she’d have to ask Chornian.
    She also noted, with utterly unprofessional satisfaction, that she could ask Chornian such a thing now.
    That too would have been unthinkable and shaming less than a year ago.
    Less than a year ago. She was thinking in Dirt terms because of Nick. There wasn’t any point dropping him a line; mail would cross in deep space at this late a date. He’d be here just in time for
    “Christmas.” She wished like hell he was already here. He’d know what to make of all this, she was certain.
    As Marianne thanked the child and got to her feet, three Rejoicers-all with the painted ruff of quills at their necks that identified them as Halemtat’s guards-came waddling officiously up.
    “Here’s one,” said the largest. “Yes,”