“What is their problem?” he muttered as a piece of rotten rind skittered past his foot.
Kwarive fiddled with the loop antenna. “They think it’s some new kind of health inspection.”
“Well, that makes sense.” Darvin aimed a halfhearted kick at his other tormentors. “Flap off, you little imps!”
“Great,” said Kwarive. “Now they’ll go screeching to their mothers.”
“Yes, it’s their mothers I’d like to speak to. These kits should be in school and not skulking around the — wait a minute.” Something had buzzed in his ears. “Back a step. Hold it there. Rotate.”
The buzz came back. One side of the antenna faced a blank wall, the other an alleyway.
“Down there.”
The buzz grew stronger as they hastened down the alley. Around the corner of the far end stood a small cart, laden with bricks. The trudge who stood between its handles looked at them with a brighter gaze than most of his kind. When his master returned from a nearby refreshment stall, the trudge bent his back to haul without demur. As the cart moved off, Kwarive turned the antenna. The trudge was the source all right.
“Follow it?” Kwarive asked.
“Not this one,” said Darvin.
“Why not?”
Darvin wasn’t sure why not. “Too risky. We’re not trying to intervene. Not until we know more.”
Kwarive shrugged. “You’re the one carrying the wireless.”
They walked on down the street. Lined on one side with stalls, it was a narrow shelf along the bank of a rivulet at the bottom of the Second Ravine. Lichens and fungal growths splashed garish scarlet and cyan circles on the cliffs and the wet ground. The stream, normally sluggish, was spring-spate swollen, sediment-brown, lapping the banks. As they followed it upstream the goods became ever shoddier: trappings in cracked leather, malformed pots with glazes in colours Darvin didn’t have names for, electrical implements with rusty components and dusty handles, cages of listless flitters. At least here the wireless apparatus drew no attention. It looked like something they might have come here to sell.
The earphones buzzed, but faintly. Darvin glanced at Kwarive and raised a finger. They stood facing the torrent for a moment, mud under their heels, vile suds hissing and popping around their toe-claws. Kwarive pointed a diagonal finger across her midriff.
“That way.”
They turned and walked a few eights of paces on, looking at every stall and trestle, until they came upon a table stacked with barred boxes. At first glance it looked like another stall of flitters, live prey for small children. Then Darvin noticed their thick fur, sturdy limbs and odd, baby-like faces.
“Trudge kits,” breathed Kwarive.
The old woman behind the stall rattled her bony wings. “That they are,” she said. “Healthy and uncut. Train them from small, it’s always the best. Nice young couple like you, any of these’ll be well tamed by the time your own kits come along, just don’t feed it live meat, that’s what I always say, you hear some terrible stories sometimes, that Queen forbid may happen to you, but don’t you worry, it won’t, because…”
Kwarive let her prattle on while moving the antenna about in front of the wooden cages. Darvin waited until he was sure from which the buzz originated, then nodded. Kwarive pointed. “I’ll have that one, please.”
As the old woman shifted boxes she noticed the looped wire and the radio.
“What’s that you’ve got there, dears?”
“The very latest thing,” said Kwarive. “An etheric dowsing box. To pick up good-luck vibrations.”
“Don’t hold with that there etheric dowsing, dear, that’s Southern superstition, that is. But if it works for you, who am I to say, young people these days…”
As she spoke the woman deftly knotted a string handle around the box. “Fifty selors,” she said.
Darvin fumbled out the money.
“Thanks,” said the vendor, counting the scrip and tucking it in her belt. “Well, best of luck with that one. I’ve found him a bit of a handful myself.”
They walked back down the path, each with their own load.
“Etheric dowsing?” Darvin asked, as soon as they were out of earshot.
“It was something I made up,” said Kwarive.
“It’ll be all the rage,” said Darvin.
The box stood on a shelf in Kwarive’s museum annexe room. Among all the bones and stones, skins and pickled scraps, it didn’t look out of place. The small black animal inside it clutched the bars with tiny fingers and peered out with big eyes. It stank somewhat. It didn’t scratch itself much, and it licked its fur a lot. This seemed reassuring about its health. Every so often Darvin waved the aerial in front of it, while holding one earpiece to his ear. It always buzzed. He still found it hard to believe. This belonged with the weird tales in the Anomalies Room.
“So what are you going to do?” asked Kwarive. “Dissect out the transmitter?”
“Gods above!” said Darvin. “Don’t say things like that. Not where it can hear them, anyway.” He leaned toward the cage and crooned: “Don’t you listen to the naughty lady, she won’t hurt you, I won’t hurt you, will I? No, no, no — ow!”
He rubbed his nose where a tiny claw had scratched it. “Oh, you nasty little beast!”
“Iodine,” said Kwarive. “Now.” She unstoppered a bottle and dabbed Darvin’s nose with a rag. “There.”
“Thanks,” he said.
“Well, what are your plans for this bit of a handful?”
Darvin eyed the cage. “Treat it with kindness,” he said. “Talk to it. See if it talks back.”
Kwarive snorted. “Men!”
“You have better ideas?”
Kwarive passed him a pair of thick leather gloves. “You wash him in the sink,” she said. “Use the rock-oil tar soap. I’ll clean out the cage.”
A few minutes later she added, without having to look around: “With warm water.”
Sitting wrapped and restrained in a hand towel, its ear fur still bedraggled, the trudge kit looked almost cute. Darvin considered the appearance deceptive. Kwarive pointed proudly at the box, now scrubbed down inside and lined with fresh straw. The whole room reeked of disinfectant soap.
“Well, Handful, what are we to do with you now?” said Darvin. “Oh, I know. Back in the cage with you.”
He stroked the top of its head with a gloved finger. To his surprise the kit rubbed back, rolling its head so that the stiff fingertip seam scratched behind its ear.
“Mmmm…” it said in a small throaty voice.
“I suppose that’s a response,” said Kwarive. She picked up the still wrapped animal. “It’s disturbing how much he looks like a human kit.”
“How old is it anyway?” asked Darvin.
“About a year, I’d guess. About the age human kits start talking.”
“I remember,” said Darvin.
Kwarive sat the kit down on the straw in the box and tugged to remove the towel. The kit mewled and clung hard to the rough cloth.
“Oh, all right,” said Kwarive. “Hang on to it if you want.” She closed and locked the cage door.
“Maybe it’s cold,” said Darvin.
“Or maybe he just wants to feel held,” said Kwarive.
“You think it misses its mother?”
“Maybe.”
“Just don’t ask me to cuddle him.”
“He must be lonely.”
“Hungry, too,” said Darvin.
“Well, don’t stand there,” said Kwarive.
When he’d come back with a scrap of raw meat and a small slice of fruit, the infant trudge had fallen asleep. Darvin slid the food through the bars. The trudge’s nose twitched but it didn’t waken.