Walking a Larger Border Part Two
She stood on the hilland waited for the Imshee to come out of its ugly ship. Tuk and even ka-ranked traders could deal with the difficult strangers at this point, so she resented being summoned as if she were a youngling being asked to come to the temple. She was a Grandmother, one respected for her ability to negotiate with others. She was far too busy to deal with the trading needs of the strangers. And she questioned the intelligence of traders if they could not understand the needs of one stranger.
The Imshee came down the ramp from its strange conveyance, its many limbs moving in that jerky motion that she found so distasteful. She struggled to identify any markings that would make one Imshee recognizable from another, so she suspected they may have equal difficulty recognizing Rownt. To save the stranger the embarrassment of asking for a Grandmother who stood in front of it, she started down the hill to introduce herself.
In the seasons since they had begun to trade with the Imshee, the world had changed at an uncomfortable pace, and she held the blame for that. If she had not insisted on walking the border and understanding these strangers, she would not have opened the door to trade.
When she was halfway down the hill, she called out. “I am the Grandmother you sought.” She reached the bottom of the hill and waited for the stranger to approach her.
It stopped a good distance from her. “We and we greet to Grandmothers,” the Imshee's translation machine offered.
She wasn't sure whether the Imshee were incapable of using singular pronouns or if they wished to send greetings to the temple Grandmothers. With strangers it was difficult to tell. She found she missed the days when all of the creatures with whom one could have a conversation were Rownt. She waited until the Imshee used words which were worth responding to. The traders had suggested that the Imshee wanted something , but they had been annoyingly silent on what that might be.
The stranger tapped the ground with its front claws, reminding her of those formidable weapons. She had never seen an Imshee hunt, but she was old enough to respect the danger of the possibility even without seeing it with her own eyes. “We and we and other we send invitations to you and many yous whom hunting you.”
She widened her eyes. Perhaps the traders had some cause for confusion if this was how the Imshee were communicating. “I do not understand.” That should get the Imshee to state their cryptic request more clearly.
The stranger shivered. “You and you, we and we on ships.”
A visceral disgust washed through her at the idea of walking into their strange ship. She couldn’t prevent her nostrils from narrowing. “I do not want to be in a ship,” she said slowly and deliberately. As a Grandmother, she would walk anywhere in her territory, but the ships were not her territory, and she was not comfortable going into a machine that performed the impossible feats that the Imshee machines managed. Some of the Grandmothers were trying to understand how something which was so heavy could rise into the air, but she had no interest in ever understanding something so illogical.
The Imshee slammed the ground and shivered so that its long hair waved like grass in a storm. “Rownt are hunters.” The Imshee chittering almost drowned out the translator voice.
“I hunt,” she agreed. She was as capable of taking out a kawt now as she had been at a hundred.
“We and we invite many Rownt hunters.”
Frustration made her twitch her tail. If the stranger understood that insult, they did not react. “Do you have a predator that you would wish us to hunt?” She needed clear answers.
“Yes.” Perhaps it was arrogance on her part, but she could almost imagine a relief or an eagerness in the Imshee's frenzied motions. But perhaps she was trying to imagine an emotion which did not exist in the strangers.
“What would you have us hunt?”
“Adversaries.”
The Imshee had never used the word adversary before. That applied to Rownt who were in competition for the same resources, and that the competition had become violent. She could imagine no reason why she would ever participate in an Imshee battle for resources. Whether one Imshee came or another, or whether the Imshee stopped coming to Prarownt at all, she did not care for the most part. She certainly had no interest in what might pass for Imshee competition.
“I am uninterested in Imshee adversaries.”
“Adversaries wrong word.”
She disliked Imshee gravely. “Then choose the correct word.”
“Rownt lack word. Adversary is not Imshee adversary. Is adversary-stranger to Imshee. Adversary-stranger to Rownt. Rownt hunters in ship.”
Perhaps these Imshee were like a farmer who hired a hunter to take out a difficult predator who stalked her herd. If so, she was still uninterested. “Imshee can fight Imshee adversary-stranger. Rownt stay home.”
That caused a great twitching in the limbs. She drew herself up straighter and touched her waistband where she had a new-style weapon based on Imshee technology.
“Adversary-stranger of Imshee equals adversary-stranger of Rownt.”
