I was attacked by a book from a series I thought I was done with. In my defense, reading Victorian books tends to do this. Toss in articles about the biology of paleo-life, and an incident at my house that required removing everything from the tool chest to find the needed implement, and you can guess what my Muse did to me.

Pinches bridge of nose.

I’m supposed to be working on a short story, but apparently it needs to simmer a bit longer. So this jumped me during the Easter weekend. I actually had the opening paragraph already written. I’d done it two years ago, in order to get the muse to hush and leave me alone while I concentrated on a Merchant novel. I need to work on new things, to push myself so I don’t get into a comfortable rut and lose readers in the process.

Nope, says the Muse, you are going to go back to a world where the wildlife and bureaucrats fight over who gets to eat everyone else first, where the plants preemptively get even, where caste among the natives is genetic, and adventure is what the protagonist desperately wants to avoid. And where a garment failure at a social event can doom a husband’s career.

“My love, I can explain.”

Auriga “Rigi” Bernardi considered the array of field equipment—and the hide, brisket, and haunch of a wild leaper—on the back verandah of her home, the disheveled state of her spouse and his Scout partner, and nodded once. “Certainly dear.” She hand-bowed to Master Kor, “First-Stamm sir,” and continued up the steps and into the coat-and-shoe room. Some things she did not care to know. What Lieutenant Colonel Tomás Prananda of the Royal Scouts was doing cleaning wild game at home in early afternoon, surrounded by a star-liner’s worth of equipment and weapons, counted among those things. 

Rigi changed into house shoes and hung her jacket on the proper peg. Her sun-shade joined it. Makana, her second-Stamm guard and personal assistant, tended to Clio. The mottled-brown, spayed wombow obeyed him better, and Makana had politely shooed Rigi off to the house, as usual. She considered the lateness of the hour, her slightly empty mid-section, and the proximity of supper. “A bite to eat, art, then water. Art pays bills,” she reminded herself. She stowed her satchel with her current draft sketches in it in her workroom, locking the bag and tablets away out of habit. Korrina no longer tried to chew on absolutely everything, but some habits were best not broken.

“Supper will be marinated leaper haunch, Mistress Rigi,” Salmae, the mid-second Stamm child minder informed her as Rigi looked in on Korrina. The little girl slept. “Someone had a very busy morning.” //Weary/frustrated// brushed Rigi’s nose. Salmae also sounded a touch tired, suggesting that Korrina was not the only busy person. “Ray will go to Major Singh’s residence after school until five.”

“Excellent. Thank you, Salmae. Makana is seeing to Clio. First-Stamm sir is tending to something on the verandah.” 

“Yes, ma’am.” Salmae’s ears drooped, or did they? As lively as the recent cool, humid weather had made both wombows and children, and perhaps Kor, Rigi agreed with a touch of drooping. If they had, indeed, drooped. 

Rigi changed out of her visiting outfit and into a house dress, then went up the hall and through the family dining room to the small food room. Officially, the three-meter long hallway served as serving access for the kitchen to the dining and family rooms. Now it held a small table with dish warmers for little savories that could be eaten as humans and Stare desired, without anyone going into the kitchen and causing Stamm contamination. Rigi helped herself to cheese rusks and a brown, jellied something. The something proved to be preserved garyon, Shikhari’s native onion of sorts. Rigi spread a little on the rusk. The deep, mellow flavor of the jelly softened and balanced the sharp cheese Nahla had used on the rusk. A mug of hot tea from the human tea urn in the dining room finished restoring Rigi’s equanimity.

Refreshed, Rigi washed her hands, then stepped into her workroom. First she checked her m-dog, Martinus. She’d left him deep-cycling and recharging. He was back to eighty percent. Then she turned on the lights attached to the easel. Two days before, prior to the Day of Rest, she had finished the basic outlines of a pet leaper, Lili, and Caleb the wombow. The Sterlings had insisted on both animals being depicted together, but not to scale, “So Lili won’t feel slighted,” the elder Miss Sterling had announced. The family had paid three-quarter of the fee when the contract was signed. Still …

Rigi sighed silently as she removed the cover on her palette and chose a brush. Drawing wildlife out of their proper scale chafed. No, portraiture was not scientific illustration; yes, the client had the final say on the design within reason. The overlarge leaper gave her a somewhat apologetic look from the canvas, as if it sympathized with her. Caleb appeared to be contemplating mischief, a bit like Cuthbert, the gelding who had inspired himself to become a racing wombow. After Cuthbert had terrified Tamara while running with the cart, Rigi had put her foot down. He had gone to a racing wombow stable, replaced by a more tractable relative.

After two more glances at the holo of the leaper, and the hair sample the Sterlings had insisted she take, Rigi dipped brush in paint and began work. Slowly, long tawny ears with faint grey stripes down their length appeared on the canvas. Lili’s narrow muzzle shaded into a darker brown at the nose, except she had the most unusual pale grey stripes running from around her eyes to her nose, very faint. They reminded Rigi of the cheetah from Home, or the dog-like sprinting omnivore from Lim World, the one she could never quite recall the proper name of. Lili was a domestic leaper, not one of the wild species, but perhaps some of her genes failed to read the instruction file for expression. 

Rigi heard hopping steps from the hallway, and caught a whiff of //amusement/confusion// from behind her. “A feast of a leaper,” Master Kor enunciated in Common. Another puff of //amusement// and he departed. Since leapers averaged thirty to a hundred kilos, depending on species, and wombows weighed three hundred to five hundred kilos, Lili would indeed be the most unusual leaper in the created worlds, were she truly so large. Given Tomás’ muttered suspicions about the Creator and Creatrix using Shikhari as a testing ground for odd creations, and the statues they had found in Strahla City, Rigi would no longer be surprised to encounter such an enormous beast. She peered more closely at the left ear, then at the holo, and added the tiniest fleck of white to the inner surface, fading the pink. Yes, that matched. 

As she sat back, a soft chime sounded, and she carefully did not see Nahla easing into the room with a small tray. The tray held a pitcher of something and a human cup. The third-Stamm cook set the tray down on the table for such things, and slipped out once more. Rigi set her tools in their places and stood, stretched as much as decorum permitted, and drank. The water tasted both cool and warm. A peek revealed a slice of ginter at the bottom of the pitcher, to ease the chill of the day and the water both. Rigi still did not feel comfortable asking for food or drink when the staff had their own tasks, even though Kor and Makana both insisted. She failed her own Stamm duties if she did not ensure that she could provide for those of lower Stamm under her supervision. 

“I live it daily, but I do not understand,” Rigi sighed to herself. “Creator and Creatrix, forgive me, but your creation can be quite strange.” The Staré Elders had declared that she possessed the Wise Eye, Tomás the Hunter’s Eye. Tomás also carried a blade of justice, among the Staré, and they ranked among the First Stamm, the ruling Elders of Shikhari. Rigi drank more water, then set the cup down and returned to her painting. Stamm rules were more consistent and logical than human laws of manners and etiquette. No Staré changed Stamm between boarding a transport ship and reaching his colonial destination. 

Yes, things get worse before they get better. The wet is about to start, the wombeast migration is coming close, and a regimental dinner looms.

(C) 2025 Alma T. C. Boykin All Rights Reserved