Radix

With angry chomps he finished the apple and dismissed the fear. Too late to be tailtucked, he told himself, though he was still spellbound with dread.
He flicked the core out of the window and fixed his mind on Jeanlu again. Perhaps she would have some brood jewels for him. Maybe some kiutl she wanted moved. It would be a start, a way to earn some zords. Maybe enough for him to buy a new name—to join a craft's league and become a carpenter. He was still young enough.
One hand low on the wheel and the other groping in the greasy bag of beef strips, Sumner thought back to his first experience with brood jewels and kiutl—and Corby. He laughed softly at himself, remembering his ignorance, his initial fear—
He was sixteen when he went to see Jeanlu again. It had been five years since his last visit, but he remembered the route exactly. Everything was as it had been, except that now there was a neat round hut with a blue tile roof beyond the tamarind trees and the crater pool.
When he got out of his car, Jeanlu was standing in the doorway. She waved happily, and the timidity that had been building in him since he left McClure dissolved. He had wanted to see Jeanlu again for a long time. He needed answers to some questions that had been bothering him, but he had been too afraid of the voors to seek her out. He wasn't sure if she would be living in the same place, and he worried that the two voors who had kidnapped him might be around. But one day, that seemed not to matter. He was bigger and smarter. And danger had become a lot more familiar— something his dread needed. So he had driven out, and now here she was, older-looking, her hair clawed with gray, her face lined, but as beautiful and gracious as he remembered her.
"I've been expecting you," she said as he stepped up the cedar steps. She was wearing a sacklike dress of ruddy brown that dropped to her ankles and was wide open at the sleeves. "What took you so long?"
Sumner looked at her quizzically. He was a head taller than she now, and she looked small and frail.
"I've been trying to get you here for the past week."
The interior of the cottage looked smaller, too. Every-thing was where it had been, only the dense curtains of drying herbs, flowers, and roots were gone. In their place were hundreds of small, delicate-looking ornaments. They were deep brown and black and obviously woven from the dried plants. To Sumner they looked like trinkets: circles, stars, all manner of geometric shapes, from rectangles and squares to the intricate oddity of a latticed cone within a latticed cube within a latticed sphere.
She offered him a chair. "How about something to eat or drink?"
Sumner fought back an immediate surge of hunger. "No thanks." He remembered the almond pastry spiked with the aphrodisiac.
"You think I'd hurt you?" She tightened her face with mock-annoyance.
"I came to ask some questions," Sumner replied, stick-ing to his plan to be absolutely straightforward with her. "But you said you've been trying to get me here?"
"Not to hurt you. Relax." She removed a bone-white plate from the stove. It had sliced green peppers and strips of fish on it. "Redfish sizzled in tangerine juice. I think you'll like it."
Sumner couldn't turn it down, though he had already promised himself that he would refuse anything she offered him. It was very good—tart with a sweet afterglow. The crisp peppers were perfect between bites of fish. "My questions can wait," he said around a mouthful. "Why did you want me here?"
"I have something for you." She reached behind and took a large bundle of black crushed leather from one of the shelves. When she unwrapped it, he saw three packages inside covered with faded chamois. She arranged them next to each other on the table. "These are retribution, or a gift, if you will, for your part in the creation of our son."
Sumner glanced at the packages and then looked up at Jeanlu.
"Yes," she said. "We have a son. I've named him Corby."
Sumner began to speak, but she raised a hand. "There's so much to do today, there's no sense dragging this on and on. I know what you're thinking. Let me answer your questions."
Sumner sat back, swamped with uncertainty.
"I called you here because I want you to participate in a timeless ritual that will probably make little sense to you. It may even frighten you. But it means a lot to Corby, and I beg you to be patient and accept my assurance that no harm will come to you."
Rauk! Sumner wriggled in his chair. He hated being manipulated, and the fact that he had been called here by a power beyond his comprehension only made his dread that much worse.
"Please relax." Jeanlu smiled, and for the first time Sum-ner noticed that the gold flecks in her eyes had expanded since the last time he had seen her. Her irises were like polished gold rings rimmed with turquoise.
"It's a custom among voors," she continued, "for the child to experience the lives of its parents. Because both Corby and I are voors, he's known my life since before he was born. But to him, you're strange. He knows you only through your chromosomes. Fortunately, considering how violently you live, you're still alive, and now may be his only chance to know you directly. In exchange for your coopera-tion, I'd like you to have these."
She carefully unwrapped one of the packages, revealing a small triangular ornament similar to the many geometric shapes dangling throughout the room. "It's a stalk charm. I made it myself from plant fiber. That's my job—working with sunlight."
"Your job?" Sumner asked, trying to move his mind past his anxiety.
"Yes. Every voor has a specific function. Mine is crafting stalk charms—forms of shaped-energy that we use for differ-ent purposes. This particular shape is called an Eye of Land. It wards off influences that are detrimental to its possessor."
The stalk charm was a tight weave of brown, yellow, and green fibers with a faded red flower netted at its center. He held it in his hand, and its nubbled texture pleased him. Coming away with gifts was more than he had expected when he traveled out here. Suddenly his mind was swarming with questions, but the idea of shaped-energy reached the tip of his tongue.
"Each shape has its own potential," Jeanlu responded. "Geometry is essential—from the molecular bonds in your cells to the star-bridges. But just how this particular shape works requires an understanding not only of geometry but of plants. And there's no time for that now. Trust me."
She unfolded the second package, the largest one, and it crackled as she nudged it toward him. Inside was a thick sheaf of crisp leaves the color of dried blood. "Kiutl," she said. "When you drink the tea made from these leaves, you'll understand better what it is to be a voor."
Kiutl! Sumner winced with excitement. Kiutl was a psiberant, a telepathic drug from the far north that voors smuggled south. It was much coveted in Masseboth society— but because telepathy was anarchy to the government, kiutl was outlawed. On the black market the quantity of voorweed before him would make Sumner a wealthy man. It was virtu-ally impossible to keep his mind off the vellum shirt and the snakeskin ankleslung boots he had been coveting for months. He tore his eyes away from the red leaves and stared at the final package, wondering what it was, knowing that very little could compare with what was already before him.
Jeanlu handed the package to Sumner to open. It felt heavy and hard in his hand, and he opened it curiously. When he saw the vapor-blue stone within, he sucked in his breath. The jewel caught the light and warped it into a luminous star whose fine, bright threads of energy thinned out and re-formed with the quivering of his hand. "A brood jewel," he whispered.