Off-Grid
The Tree House
It was astonishing how relaxing it was to chop vegetables.
Padi could cook, of course—scrambled eggs and toasted cheese sandwiches were specialties—but she was seldom called upon to demonstrate her culinary skills.
As a trader, her ability to order meals, correctly paired with beverages, sorbets, and side delicacies, where the courses flowed properly from first through last, was more important than her ability to stir a particular pot.
Aboard ship, of course, one depended on the kitchen. Padi had done her time there as an apprentice, stirring pots, learning basic tasks, safety procedures, and how to prepare such simple dishes as the cook deemed within her scope.
At home, there was also a kitchen and staff to call upon. If she should happen to fall hungry at any very odd hour, well—that was where her two specialties stood as allies.
Tekelia, however, not only knew how to prepare food, but enjoyed it, and was more than willing to make all their meals, if Padi so wished.
Padi had found that being in the kitchen while Tekelia prepared a meal afforded her a great deal of satisfaction, even when conversation was at a minimum. And if she was going to be in the kitchen, it seemed churlish not to offer what assistance she might.
After all, she could chop vegetables, stir pots, and clean up behind the cook. Indeed, those tasks were so far removed from her usual daily activities as to hold the charm of novelty.
To be in Tekelia’s kitchen at the end of the day, contributing to the making of their meal, was therefore not only a privilege, but a relaxation.
She sighed lightly as she scraped chopped vegetables from the board into the bowl with the back of the blade.
“Is that sorrow?” Tekelia asked, looking around from the stove.
“Regret,” Padi said, bringing the bowl over and setting it among the other prep dishes. “I have cut up all the vegetables.”
“There will be more vegetables tomorrow,” Tekelia offered consolingly.
“And I will be privileged to address them in their hour,” Padi said. “For now, however, I move on to secondary tasks.”
She leaned over to kiss Tekelia’s cheek, gathered up the used bowls, and carried them to the sink.
When she had first found that Tekelia cooked most meals by hand, she had wondered why, which had earned her a sharp glance from eyes that had been in that moment one brown and one blue.
“Because I am such an immensely powerful Talent, you mean? Shall I conjure my meals from the ambient?”
Padi tipped her head, intrigued.
“Is that possible?” she asked, and Tekelia laughed.
“I can pull energy from the ambient, if I have need. But nothing so satisfying as a meal. Or even cake.”
“So food must be prepared,” Padi said, nodding wisely. “I offer information: equipment exists that would release you from the greater part of the labor.”
“I’ve seen such equipment,” Tekelia said. “Be warned that we’re now approaching philosophy.”
“I love to discuss philosophy,” Padi said earnestly, and Tekelia laughed again.
“You’ll find the Haosa do many things by hand that might be accomplished by equipment, or by Talent. The reason is to remind ourselves that we are not only our Gifts; that we have other talents, and relationships beyond the bond we share with the ambient.”
“It keeps you grounded,” Padi said. “I understand, I think. After all, one of the attractions of coming to you here—aside your company, of course!—is that I may set aside Trader yos’Galan, meet people as Padi, and attempt activities at which I might prove less than competent.”
“I doubt I’ll ever see you as anything less than competent,” Tekelia said gallantly. Padi laughed, then, and the talk turned to other things.
* * *
“How was your day?” Tekelia asked, after they had carried their plates out to the porch and settled at the table overlooking the trees.
“Not so busy as they have been,” Padi said. She used her sticks to guide crisp, spicy vegetables to her mouth, and sighed in satisfaction.
“Jes tells me that the whole port inventory is almost complete. She expects to have the final report for the master trader by the end of the week,” she continued. “I just this morning finished the coursework to become certified as a route auditor, and sent the final test to be scored.”
She paused for a sip of wine.
“In that regard, my timing is apt. I learned from the master trader this afternoon that the qe’andra who will accompany me on the audit of the Iverson Loop is also expected to arrive by the end of the week.”
Tekelia sipped wine and looked at her over the rim of the glass.
“You’ll be leaving soon, then?”
“I expect so, yes. Unless there is other work for me here. When it was decided that I would be the one to take the route audit, the master trader assumed that he would be on the port, rather than supervising from the Passage.”
Thinking back to that conversation, she frowned.
“Also, I believe there’s something else, though he hasn’t said what it is.”
“I believe I’ve learned there’s often something he hasn’t said,” Tekelia commented.
Padi grinned.
“Now you see what it is to be a master trader.”
“Well, he’ll tell you when you have a need to know.”
“Oh, no doubt there.”
Tekelia laughed softly and slanted a glance in her direction.
“How long will you be traveling, when you go?”
“I’ll be auditing the Long Loop. Trader Isfelm assures me that it’s not nearly so extensive as the name suggests.”
“Of course,” Tekelia murmured.
Padi ate another bite of her meal, which really was very good, and considered the direction of the conversation. The fact that she would be leaving Colemeno had never been a secret. Still, she found herself somewhat wistful when she thought of leaving Tekelia, even as her eagerness to meet this next challenge buoyed her.
It was nothing less than the truth, that she had been born to trade. For as long as she could remember, she had wanted to be a trader, and in due course a master, one in a long line of yos’Galans traveling the stars for the betterment of commerce, and the profit of Clan Korval.
Indeed, she had so much wanted to be a trader, that she had very nearly done herself irreparable harm by locking away Talents that she had seen as endangering her preferred future.
Well, and she had proved herself, earning the garnet ring that marked her a full trader—not so very long ago—and coming to Colemeno as part of a team intending to open markets long made inaccessible by Rostov’s Dust, and to build new routes in an expanding section of space.
She had not expected to find heart-ties here, nor this sudden alignment with her Gift. If she was honest, she scarcely knew how to properly honor everything she was becoming. The only thing she was certain of was that it would not do to lock this complication away, and pretend it did not exist.
She would, she thought, speak to Father. His melant’i was so very complex, surely he would be able to offer her insight.
It occurred to her just then that she had been wholly wrapped in her thoughts for some time, and that the silence between herself and Tekelia was not as easy as it often was.
She looked up to find that Tekelia had finished the meal, and was watching her.
“Your pardon,” she murmured. “I am remiss in asking after your day.”
Tekelia smiled.
“Well played, Padi yos’Galan. My day was tedious. I spoke to my seconds at Visalee, Deen’s Fallow, and The Vinery, who have asked the Haosa at those locations if they would like to have a voice on the Council of the Civilized, and a part in ruling the planet.”
A droll look followed this.
“I know you’ll be surprised to learn that this is a contentious topic.”
Padi laughed, and put her empty bowl on the table.
“You are of two minds yourself, as you told me,” she pointed out.
“And I remain of two minds—or possibly three. The sheer amount of work that will be necessary to create a Council of the Whole—Civilized, Deaf, and Haosa together—is enough to daunt even Bentamin.”
Bentamin was Bentamin chastaMeir, the Warden of Civilization, Tekelia’s cousin, a Civilized Talent, as they had it on Colemeno, where the Haosa were dignified as Wild. Tekelia was Speaker for the Haosa because, as Padi had gathered, no one else had wished to take up the role of intermediary with Civilization.
“The second question—ought the Haosa voice at the council table be mine—is not nearly so contentious,” Tekelia continued. “If I’m mad enough to undertake such a thing, no one will stop me.”
“Then it seems the first question is resolved by the answer to the second,” Padi said.
“Not quite. I may go to the table with the goodwill of my cousins everywhere. What remains at question is—will I represent them, or only myself?”
Padi frowned.
“Why would the Haosa choose to withhold themselves, now that opportunity has been offered?”
Tekelia sighed.
“For a very long time, Civilization has scorned—and feared—the Haosa. Not only that, but the manner in which many of us arrive off-Grid—cast out, and in most cases, cut off from family and friends—teaches a profound distrust.”
“I can see that,” Padi said, reaching for her wine glass. She sipped, and looked out over the trees.
“Do you know Majel ziaGorn?” she asked eventually.
“I know of him—the Deaf Councilor.”
“And the trade mission’s liaison,” Padi added, bringing her gaze from the trees to Tekelia’s face. “I don’t pretend to know Colemeno history, and I am aware that your cousin is the Warden of Civilization, who very likely can advise you, but—”
She paused, frowning.
Tekelia sipped wine, and when she did not speak again, prompted, “But?”
She half-laughed.
“It’s the trade, you see. So much of what I do is making connections, building networks…” She shook her head. “I’m meddling.”
“Not in the least,” Tekelia assured her. “I gather you think Councilor ziaGorn might be able to advise me?”
“Possibly. Despite not knowing Colemeno history, I do know—from Councilor ziaGorn—that the Deaf have not always had a voice in Civilization’s deliberations. He may have a perspective that is closer to the current situation with the Haosa.”
“A perspective that’s not available to Bentamin. I see. Should I just—call him, do you think?”
“It would be my very great pleasure to introduce you, and I do mean that precisely,” Padi said. “I fear I am a hopeless case.”
Tekelia considered her from eyes that were grey and amber.
“You’re a trader, surely?”
She laughed. “That, too. I made no secret of it.”
“True.” Tekelia sat back and raised the wine glass.
“Our next lesson with Dyoli is tomorrow night, I think?”
“It is. Will you join us for the evening meal, before?”
“I’d like that, but I’m afraid there’s a complication. Eet would like to deepen his acquaintance with Lady Selph.”
Padi raised her eyebrows.
“That’s hardly a complication. I will of course consult the lady’s preference, but assuming that she is willing to entertain Eet, you merely need to bring him. They can visit in her residence, and you may join us at the table.”
“Eet,” Tekelia continued, “wishes to introduce his children to Lady Selph, since they had, so I gather, figured largely in their first discussion.”
“I see.” Padi drank the rest of her wine, and put the glass on the table. Eet’s children were Torin and Vaiza xinRood—twins—who had in the course of their eight Standards lost not only their mother, and their mother’s partner, to violence, but had lately faced violence themselves, as one of their own cousins had attempted to murder them. They were not so much shy as wary, and who, thought Padi, could blame them?
“We might arrange a tray for norbears and twins to share,” she said. “Or the visit might take two parts, with Eet and Lady Selph visiting privately while Torin and Vaiza eat with us. After the meal, they might be presented, and the conversation go forward.”
She paused to again consider the trees, before looking back to Tekelia.
“Unless the children will be made uncomfortable eating with strangers, and outworlders, too?”
“I’ll ask them what they’d rather,” Tekelia said.
“A marvelous plan! You may let me know what they say when I give you Lady Selph’s answer to Eet.”
“More wine?” Tekelia asked.
“That would be pleasant,” Padi said, rising. “Let me clear the table.”
“Let me,” Tekelia murmured. Bowls and sticks were gone in an instant, and were stacked, as Padi knew by now, neatly in the kitchen sink.
She would not have attempted such a ’port, out of concern for the dishes, but Tekelia not only possessed a strong Gift, but had extremely fine control.
Crossing to the rail, she looked up into the dusky sky, where the Ribbons were just rising.
“Your wine, trader,” Tekelia murmured.
She turned to take the glass.
“Thank you.”
“It’s my pleasure,” Tekelia said, leaning beside her and looking up in turn.
“I’ll miss this,” Padi said softly, pressing her shoulder against Tekelia’s.
“The Ribbons?”
“Oh, certainly, the Ribbons!” she said. “As well as the trees, and the breeze; the village, your very audacious cousins—all of them!—Aunt Asta—”
She turned to look into eyes blue and green, before leaning forward to kiss a brown cheek.
“And you. Most of all, Tekelia.”