Part 22 (1/2)
”I'll take coffee.” Oilcan settled near to Tinker, fidgeting. ”How long will the tests take?”
Lain shot a glance toward Pony standing guard by the door. ”It's against the treaty to do gene scans of elves.”
”I'm not an elf,” Tinker growled, and dunked one of the strawberries.
”I know,” Lain murmured. ”But we can't let your guard know what we're doing.”
Tinker controlled the urge to glance toward Pony. ”Ah. Yes.” She nibbled at the strawberry, considering. ”Well, he seems to do what I tell him to do.”
Oilcan also studiously avoided looking at Pony. ”If we station him at the front door, then we can be in the lab unwatched.”
So Tinker finished her strawberries, moved Pony to the foyer, and went back to the lab to have her blood drawn.
”When we're done, I'm going to destroy the samples and the results.” Lain tied a tourniquet around Tinker's arm and swabbed down a patch of skin inside her elbow with alcohol. ”It's a whole little Pandora's box we're peeking into. You will not tell anyone-not humans or elves-about this.”
”We won't,” Tinker promised.
Oilcan echoed it, and then added, ”It's just for us to know.”
Lain not only took a blood sample from Tinker, but also swabbed the inside of Tinker's mouth, plunked out a hair, and then asked for a stool sample.
”What?” Tinker cried. ”Why?”
”Please, Tinker, don't be squeamish.” Lain motioned Oilcan to sit in the chair Tinker just vacated. ”The cells of the intestinal lining are excreted with the stool and are a source of DNA. I want to see how invasive this change is.”
Lain was just untying the tourniquet on Oilcan's arm when the doorbell rang.
”Oh, who can that be?” Lain grumbled. She put the vials containing the blood out of sight, and stuck a bandage on Oilcan's arm. ”Pull your sleeve down, Tink.”
The woman on the front porch looked familiar. She brightened at the sight of Tinker and said to Oilcan, ”Oh, wow, you found your cousin!”
”Yeah.” Oilcan actually looked sheepish under Tinker's puzzled stare. ”You remember Ryan. She's one of the astronomers?”
Oh yes, the one she'd tried to warn off the night of the cookout.
”I came over to see if there was any news.” Ryan waved toward the Observatory. ”I'm just getting done for the night, and I thought I'd check in before hitting...” She stopped and c.o.c.ked her head. ”You weren't always an elf, were you?”
”I've got work to do,” Lain announced into the sudden silence.
”No, no! She-she-” Oilcan looked to Tinker for help.
”Don't look at me,” Tinker snapped, then picked up on Lain's cue. ”I want to go to Tooloo's to stock up on some food I can actually eat. Do you want anything, Lain?”
”Actually, yes. See what she has in the way of fish. A dozen eggs.” Lain listed her needs as she crutched to the kitchen and returned with her shopping basket and a gla.s.s milk bottle that she held out to Tinker. ”A pint of whipping cream. And some fresh bread would be nice.”
Tinker took the empty return and wicker basket. ”I'll be back in...two hours?”
Lain nodded. ”That would be good.”
That left Ryan to be kept out from under Lain's feet. Oilcan blushed slightly at his a.s.signment, but indicated the dorms with a jerk of his head. ”Let me walk you back to the dorms, Ryan, and I'll explain.”
So they split up, each to their own task.
Pony insisted that Tinker sit in the back of the Rolls, so she hung over the front seat to give him directions to Tooloo's store. She noticed that he handled the car smoothly as he took it down the sharply curving hill of the Observatory.
”How long have you been driving driving?” Driving was an English word, since the nearest Elvish words implied horses and reins.
”Nae hae.” No years. The full saying was Kaetat nae hae, Kaetat nae hae, literally ”Count no years” but actually meant ”too many years to count”-a common expression among elves; it could mean as few as ten years or as many as a thousand. After a thousand, it changed to literally ”Count no years” but actually meant ”too many years to count”-a common expression among elves; it could mean as few as ten years or as many as a thousand. After a thousand, it changed to Nae hou Nae hou, or roughly, ”too many millennia to count.” In this case, however, Nae hae Nae hae had to be less than twenty years, since that was when the elves were introduced to modern technology with Pittsburgh's arrival. had to be less than twenty years, since that was when the elves were introduced to modern technology with Pittsburgh's arrival.
”The Rolls were part of the treaty,” Pony explained. ”It required that the EIA provide quality cars for ze domou ani ze domou ani's use. All of his guard learned, as did husepavua husepavua and and ze domou ani ze domou ani, though not all enjoy doing it.”
”Do you?”
”Very much. Domou Domou lets me race, although lets me race, although husepavua husepavua says it is reckless.” says it is reckless.”
She directed him onto the McKees Rocks Bridge. The morning sun was dazzling on the river below. ”Who is husepavua husepavua?”
”Lifted Sparrow By Wind.”
The name sounded familiar, but it took her a moment to place it; Sparrow had been the stunningly beautiful high-caste elf at the hospice. Pony had mentioned her once or twice the night before, calling her just Sparrow.
”Is Sparrow...Windwolf's wife?”
He looked at her with utter surprise on his face, reinforcing her impression that he was fairly young. ”No, domi domi! They are not even lovers.”
Oh, good. Pony was giving her amazingly direct answers, something she hadn't thought possible for elves. Perhaps it had to do with his willingness to obey her-had Windwolf told him to do so? Or was it an offshoot of being young? ”How old are you, Pony?”
”I turned a hundred this year.”
While that seemed really old to her, she knew that elves didn't start into p.u.b.erty until their late twenties and weren't considered adults until their hundredth birthday. In a weird, twisted way, she and Pony were age-equals, although she suspected that he was much more experienced than she could hope to be.
”Is this the place?” Pony asked, pulling to a stop beside Tooloo's seedy storefront. To conserve heat in the winter, the old half-elf had replaced the plate gla.s.s with salvaged gla.s.s blocks. Somehow, though, she'd tinted the blocks, so the wall of gla.s.s became a stained-gla.s.s mosaic on a six-inch-square scale. Typical of elfin artwork, the picture was too large for a human to easily grasp. If one stood in the kitchenette and looked through the entire length of the shop, one could see that the squares formed a tree branch, sun shafting through the leaves, with the swell of a ripe apple dangling underneath. From the outside, though, one only saw the salvaged block and the muted colors in a seemingly random pattern-keeping the store's secrets just as the storekeeper kept hers.
The only nod toward advertising the store's function was painted under the length of the windows: Bread, b.u.t.ter, Eggs, Fish, Fowl, Honey, Pittsburgh Internet Access, Milk, Spellcasting, Telephone, Translations, Video Rentals. Of the words that could be translated into Elvish, the rune followed the English word. It mattered much to Tinker that she could remember standing in hot summer sun as the cicadas droned loudly, carefully painting in the English traced onto the wall by Tooloo's graceful hand.
”Yes, this is it.” Tinker slid out.
She hadn't considered Tooloo's reaction to her transformation. When the old half-elf saw her, Tooloo let out a banshee cry and caught Tinker by both ears. ”Look at what that monster did to my dear little wee one! He's killed you.”
”Ow! Ow! Stop that!” Tinker smacked Tooloo's hands away. ”That hurt! And I'm not dead.”
”My wee one was human, growing up in a flash of quicksilver. Dirty Skin Clan sc.u.m.” Tooloo spat.
”Windwolf is Wind Clan.” Tinker rubbed the soreness from her ears.
”All domana domana are Skin Clan b.a.s.t.a.r.ds,” Tooloo snapped. are Skin Clan b.a.s.t.a.r.ds,” Tooloo snapped.
Tinker winced and glanced to Pony. Thankfully, the exchange had been in English, but Pony obviously had picked up Windwolf's name and was listening intently. ”Don't insult him, Tooloo. Besides, if you'd just warned me, I might have been able to avoid this.”