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by Sara Genge
Science Fiction, 20 pages.
Originally Published in Asimov's Science Fiction. March 2009, 2009
1 comment [Rate or Comment on this Story]
Raj lay prone on the canoe and stared at the horizon through the binoculars he’d stolen in the previous raid, careful to keep them shadowed with his hand. The second sun was about to set and the reddish light coming off the edge of the Tigahili Swamp threatened to reflect off the glass and give him away to the approaching caravan.
The first Swamp Elephants were barely visible with the naked eye, but with the binoculars, he could see their legs moving in slow but gigantic strides. From the distance, they looked like Jesus-bugs skimming the mud, but Raj knew that they stood taller than the sequoias that anchored their roots hundreds of yards under the surface. The swampiphant’s legs pierced the upper layers of silt, finding purchase further down as the mud served to stabilize their tremendous height. In Eldora’s low gravity, animals grew tall, but the inertia of the swampiphant’s mass had to be kept in check and mud did the job.
The caravan was well loaded and Raj grinned, thinking of the spoils. His trained eyes scanned the animals, gauging which would bellow, which would run. Normally, the last thing a bandit wanted was to start a slow stampede when he boarded a caravan, but Raj wasn’t in a normal mood. Last week, the Chief had made Raj and his mother sit in the sun for an hour while he talked to the old men of the council. Raj had not objected, but it had made him realize that maybe the Chief wasn’t the best person to lead the village. He didn’t have a heir and that meant that if he died, any young man could be Chief. Didn’t the Chief understand that the future of the marsh town lay not in wilted old fools but in the strong arms of people like Raj? It was time for change, and slow stampedes were dangerous. People could get killed in a slow stampede. Raj only needed to find the right animal.
He spotted a she-swampiphant carrying too much load. He could tell by the way her legs sunk into the mud below the knee. Maybe that was why she was skittish, but then swampiphant drivers tended to overload the animals they liked the least and fawn on the ones who behaved. Not clever, but typical. It would be easy to convince the Chief to go for that one. After all, the man who boarded the animal got the first pick, and she was the swampiphant with the biggest cargo.
Raj’s job was done; he should return to camp before night set in and the Merpeople came out to hunt, but he stayed a little longer, letting his gaze linger on the mounts. For other men, it was all about the chase and the money. For Raj, it was about the swampiphants themselves. He loved their graceful strides. Each time an animal lifted a webbed foot, mud flew out in a parabola, lingering in the air for a few seconds until Eldora’s light pull nudged it back to the ground. From where Raj was, the scene was serene and majestic, but he knew that things would get a lot dirtier once the swampiphants were closer and started spraying gobs of muck all over the place. More than one canoe had been sunk in this way.
He turned the canoe around and hand-paddled towards camp. After lying still for so long, it was a pleasure to exert the muscles in his back. Like all bandits, he had wide shoulders from paddling and grey-brown skin that made him invisible against the mud. His hair was darker than his skin and he kept it cropped short for freedom of movement. Around him, head-sized tulips were beginning to emerge from the half metre of water that covered the Swamp. He was thirsty and brought some of the murky water to his lips. Straining was for women.
Raj’s mother bathed him on the porch. She made him turn around more than was necessary, probably hoping that the young girls peeping out from the shadows would like what they saw.
“Any girl is better than no girl.”
He was used to his mother nagging, but today she wasn’t content simply expounding the virtues of marriage. Her voice dropped and she said something new. “You can’t be chief if you don’t have a wife to bear your children.”
Raj froze. Some things were best left unspoken, but hushing her was out of the question. The respect he owed his mother forbid him from saying anything.
His mother held his face up and applied the washcloth to his ears.
“It’s true, Raj. You never listen to me, but you must hear this. A Chief without a heir is an accident waiting to happen. Get married and make babies while you’re young and strong and can protect them.”
His mother helped him dress and he wrapped himself in a blanket and sat on the porch.
“I’ll tell Fana tomorrow that you’ve had hair on your chest for five years. Her daughter is older than you, but you are wise enough for an older wife.”
Raj stared at her in surprise. She was going to marry him off! She’d talked about marriage for years, but now she was going to marry him, and to Fana’s daughter no less.
“Not Fana’s daughter,” he grunted. It was undignified fo -- [End of Preview.]