Skeen's Return by Jo Clayton Read Free Book Online Page A

away and stepped onto the bricks of the ringroad, heading for the first of the shops.
    He bought and sold, sold and bought, moving slowly along the curve of the oval; the sun rose and shadows shortened and children came from everywhere to dance in rings about him, the rings changing each time he returned to the brick paving. They clapped their hands and chanted magic syllables at him; it was charming and annoying. He managed to ignore them and went patiently from shop to shop. By noon he’d finished two-thirds of the circuit, had tagged a dozen Thwarters and was near perishing of hunger.
    He stepped from a silversmith’s shop and stood irresolute, looking about for the nearest eating place. A long line of children wove toward him, dancing hand in hand. They swung about him, closed the circle and chanted:
    Fai nay, fai nay, kik lon doan
    Prauto, prauto, tris eh own
    then they danced a high energy circle about him and chanted again:
    Fai nay, fai nay, kik lon doan
    Prauto, prauto, tris eh own
    the circle whizzed about him a second time and they chanted a third time:
    Fai nay, fai nay, kik lon doan
    Prauto, prauto, tris eh own
    and a third time the circle wheeled, but this time, as soon as the circuit was complete, they broke apart and darted away in a dozen directions like drops of split mercury, high wild silvery giggles bubbling out of them.
    One child remained at his side, a young boy, shy and lovely as a faun, his crystalline eyes the pale green frozen into pure ice. Vitrivin knew he should get on with his rounds and finish his tagging, ignoring all this nonsense. Kid games, nothing more, he told himself, forget it. His intuit alarms were throbbing but he ignored those. It was almost done, he was almost on his way back to the ship; his meatmen were out and working by now, he’d soon be gone from this spooky world. He took a step, then turned to gaze down at the boy, a forced smile stretching his lips.
    The boy watched him with grave and disconcerting interest.
    â€œWhat was all that about?” he said.
    â€œOh, it’s just a game we play,” the boy said.
    â€œAh, well, that’s fine. What is the purpose of the game?” he said.
    â€œWe catching you,” the boy said.
    â€œOh.” Vitrivin thought about pushing it further, but decided not to. “Where is a good place for the noon meal that’s close by so I won’t waste time?”
    â€œMemo Julso sells sammitches and salads. They good, um um.” The boy rubbed his belly and made a large gesture of licking his lips. He caught Vitrivin’s wrist and tugged. “Down along two steps. You buy me a bratta, huh huh?”
    â€œWhat would your mum say to that, eh, boy? You shouldn’t take things from strangers.” He spoke with heavy jocularity, a distilled essence of adults talking down to children, adults who had forgotten how to be children, adults who had forgotten childhood so completely they couldn’t remember how to be alive.
    â€œMemo IS ma mum,” the boy said. He grinned at Vitrivin, patted his wrist. “Come, come, one sniff will tell you I’ve said true, even if it is my mum.”
    Vitrivin let the boy pull him along into a half-walled garden that opened onto the brick roadway and looked across it at a tree-framed section of lawn and a small tumble of water.
    About halfway through his sammitch he heard bells and looked up. That skinny girl was back. She came dancing onto the grass, carrying strings of silver bells that rang when they bumped together, and dropped lightly on the center of the patch of grass, facing west, and began unthreading the bells from their carry cord. He chewed stolidly and watched with greedy interest as she set the bells about her knees.
    She lifted the largest, rang it briskly, chanted: An draa po disss tis a a a koo ayyy ye an drup o diss ti yess hem oh hem all a gay.… There was more, much more of that and winding through it the singing of the