"A moment later he announced, ‘This woman is the child's true and rightful mother, the woman who bore him,’ and he pointed to the woman on the left. ‘The sheens prove it.'
"No one knew why Rawl spoke of sheens, but it's sworn by all who were there that that was his word, or one very like it.
"When he had made his announcement, the other woman flung herself at his feet, confessing that it was true, that her child had died and she had taken the other in its stead, and the Adjuster bade her rise and stop weeping.
"'I cannot give you back your dead child,’ he said, ‘but I can give you another just like it. Bring me the remains of the dead child.'
"And the woman ran behind her house and began scraping at the dirt where she had buried her babe.
"The Adjuster followed, and the dirt flung itself aside at his gaze. He reached out and pinched the dead child's arm, then returned it to its grave.
"'In three days,’ he said, ‘I will bring you your child.’ And he vanished.
"The people wondered mightily at this, and for three days they spoke of little else. Most of them doubted that even a Power could create a new child without a mother's womb, and certainly not in three days; some ventured to guess that Rawl had gone to search the world for an orphan to take the place of the lost infant.
"But lo, when the three days had passed, the Adjuster returned with a baby in his arms, and the child was newborn, and in fine health, and was in every way the exact image of the poor dead boy that lay behind the house, with hair and eyes and features just the same.
"'A clown,’ the Adjuster said. ‘This is a clown of the one that died.’ He handed the baby to the dead boy's mother, and then he vanished again.
"But the odd thing is that the Power's prophecy was wrong, and when the boy grew up he became a fine blacksmith, and not a clown at all."
– from the tales of Atheron the Storyteller
Crystal shimmered white in the air above the terrace, and Lady Sunlight stepped down onto the pavement. A polychrome torrent of flying sparkles poured after her, glittering in the sun, and a golden-furred creature the size of her hand leapt out beside her, nose up and alert.
“Hello!” she called. “I'm here!"
“Hello, Sunlight,” a hoarse voice replied.
She turned, startled, and found a short man dressed in black standing at one corner of the terrace, where he had been admiring the view to the west. A thick black disk perhaps a dozen centimeters in diameter hovered above one of his shoulders, and a black-furred and bat-winged creature glared at her from the other. A small feelie vine was wrapped around his wrist.
“Oh, hello, Rawl,” she said. “I didn't know you were here."
“I'm here,” he replied.
“I can see that,” she said, annoyed. She shifted her shoulders, drawing her flowing polychrome gown more closely about her and sending her insectile aerial circus into an uproar. “Is Sheila here yet?"
“She's inside,” Rawl said, jerking his head toward the gleaming windows.
As he spoke one of the transparent panels vanished, and a tall, handsome woman in a brown body-suit leaned out, brown hair stirring in the breeze. Music spilled out around her, the mellow droning of an ancient Fomalhautian mood piece, and the accompanying images swirled behind her.
“Hello, Sunlight!” she called. “I'm glad you could come!"
“Hello, Sheila!” Sunlight answered, waving gaily. “I wouldn't miss it! I brought some flutterbugs to brighten up the place!"
“Well, then, don't just stand there, come on in, and bring them with you! You, too, Rawl; Autumn House is now officially open."
“It isn't autumn yet,” Rawl said, as he turned away from the panoramic view of the western foothills and the desert beyond. The floating disk spun slowly, and faded from sight; his creature blinked slowly and curled itself up to his neck. The feelie vine stroked his wrist soothingly.
“Oh, I know that,” Sheila said. “But I felt like coming up here a little early this year. It's just another hundred hours or so, anyway; that's close enough. Come on in!"
When his inhuman passenger was secure on his shoulder Rawl strode across the terrace with calm assurance. Lady Sunlight hesitated.
“Sheila, who else is here?” she asked, reaching down to scoop up her golden-furred companion.
“No one, yet,” Sheila replied, momentarily puzzled. Then her expression cleared. “Oh, you mean Geste. I haven't gotten hold of him yet; they tell me he's out bothering the natives again. I don't think he knows I came early, so you should have a couple of days-local days, at the very least-before he gets here."
“Good!” Lady Sunlight said.
Rawl passed her on his way to the house. “They aren't natives,” he said, almost to himself.
“Oh, certainly they are,” Sheila retorted. “They were born here, weren't they? They've been here for thousands of years, so they're natives now, and it doesn't matter where their ancestors came from."
“Yes, it matters,” Rawl insisted, as he stepped into the lounge.
“Well, yes, it matters,” Sheila admitted, annoyed, “because they're human and not extraterrestrials or artificials, but damn it, Rawl, they're natives now, and we need some term to distinguish them from our own little expedition."
Rawl just shrugged at that, and gestured for a drink. A silver dish-actually a small, self-aware machine, akin to his own disk-shaped device-that floated in mid-air appeared, a ball of crystalline fluid held in a field above it.
Sheila helped Lady Sunlight into the house-not that she needed it, but simply as a gesture of welcome. The glittering flutterbugs scattered across the lounge, transforming the seething Fomalhautian imagery to something much quicker, more cheerful and more scattered. The music changed to match, improvised by the household machines, and an odor of cinnamon and new grass wafted through the room. “I wish you and Geste got along better,” Sheila said.
“Oh, sometimes I wish we did, too,” Lady Sunlight replied, sighing as she settled into a floating red chair. A feelie vine offered itself to her ankle, but with a gentle twitch she sent it away. “We did once, you know-we were lovers for about a decade once. But he's just so childish and immature with his stupid pranks! Do you know what he did? He…"
Sheila, sinking into her own seat, cut her off. “Yes, I do know, dear, because he came and told me about it himself, and you shouldn't hash it over again."
“I suppose he was bragging about it."
“No, he was apologizing, explaining why he wouldn't be able to visit at the same time you did for awhile."
Rawl sipped his drink through a pseudopod of force, and asked, “What did he do? I hadn't heard."
“Oh, this isn't anything new,” Sheila said before Lady Sunlight could speak. “I told you about it. It was almost three years ago, now."
“Oh, that,” Rawl said, shrugging. “Nothing."
“Nothing!” Lady Sunlight exclaimed.
“Nothing important,” Rawl amended.
“Maybe not to you, Rawl, with your damned high ideals, but it's important to me when some young idiot ruins a party for some stupid joke that he should have outgrown before they ever let him leave Terra!” She settled back, stroking her tiny pet. The creature chirrupped softly.
“Is Geste Terran?” Rawl asked with mild curiosity.
Lady Sunlight hesitated. “Is he?” she asked Sheila.
Sheila shrugged. “I don't know,” she said. “I never worried about it."
“Housekeeper, is Geste Terran?” Lady Sunlight demanded of the ceiling.
“I'm sorry, my lady, but that information is not in any of the household records. Shall I ask the mother ship?"