The Manassa River winds an endless path through the hinterlands of Nine Rivers. The Winston Commune occupies a small, small bend of it a hundred klicks from the city of Charic and the Confluences. It was there, at Winston, where I first met Darny Caples and later learned one of the many meanings of homecoming.
She stood on the crest of the slope just above the long warehouse by the wharf. Like all Returnist women, she wore a calf-length dress of drab brown homespun. What set her apart was the neatly wrapped bindle by her feet. She watched us maneuver our barge, Leander, into place against the wharf, with an expression of worried longing. She wanted out, a ride to Charic, maybe, but certainly away from Winston.
"Another runaway," my sister Rel said grumpily.
No other people were in sight. Returnists have as little to do with the rest of us as possible. They work their fields, grow kopfibre, corn, and other grains, bring the harvest to the warehouse, and leave it. The only cybernetic technology they allow for is the security lock on the warehouse that monitors who picks up the load, so payment--something they never shun--is guaranteed. I set our robots to work loading the holds and smiled at the girl.
Rel sighed. "I suppose you want to hire her? Just what we need is another cheap hand that'll leave soon as she knows what she's doing."
"Company's always welcome," Lor, my other sister, said.
Rel gave her a tired look. "Gam just wants to see if she'll touch with him, that's all."
"That's enough," I said. Rel and Lor had always been different, but since Mother had passed on it had gotten worse. Rel worried over money and timetables and grew more and more disapproving of anything resembling frivolity. Rel wanted to assume Mother's role, but she wasn't the oldest.
"Do I have to remind you what happened last time we hired someone on?" she asked.
"No," I said. "And it won't happen again."
"Two thirds of our shipment sold out from under us--"
"I said enough!"
I walked down the plank, onto the wharf, dodging a robot with a heavy load. So we'd been cheated, so what? We still had the barge, the river was long and wide, and no one was going to take it away from us. I was tired of Rel's nattering.
"Things would be different if Leander were all mine!" she called after me.
I walked up the path to where the girl stood. She eyed me suspiciously, but stood firm.
"I'm Gam Oltenner," I said, extending my hand. "I guess you want a job?"
She nodded. "Darny Caples." She shook hands quickly. I felt callouses on her palms.
"Fine. We have to unload the warehouse, fill the holds, and head downriver. We're going to Charic."
She nodded again.
"You're hired. Talk to Lor, stow your things, and do what she says." I thumbed toward the barge.
She nodded once more and hurried around me. She almost ran down to the wharf. Rel looked up at me with an angry glare and I returned a smile.
Lor had pulled off her shirt and was busy sorting bundles on the deck. Miller, our main coordinating robot, kept tally and redirected the servos according to Lor's directions. Lor was brown and muscular and the sweat gave her skin a silken sheen. She worked harder than any of us, as if she found sensual pleasure in physical labor. She stopped to talk to Darny, gave a couple of orders, then returned to her chores.
Darny disappeared into the wheelhouse and returned to the deck without her bindle. She took over Lor's job so that Lor could go into the warehouse and oversee there.
My sisters are as physically unidentical as two sisters can be. Lor is luxury, smooth lines of hard muscle, small breasts, and her entire face smiles. Rel is muscled, too, but long and sinewy, large breasts, and a thin, too-serious face. Darny kept eyeing them nervously as the clothes were discarded beneath the twin suns.
I went down into the engine room. In minutes I was covered in oil and grease, tuning the big motors, cleaning contacts, checking the various readouts. When I finished and came back up on deck the loading was almost done.
Darny sat beside Lor in the shade of the wheelhouse, sharing water. Darny's homespun was dark with perspiration. Rel was finishing the last of the paperwork in the warehouse when the committee from Winston appeared over the ridge. Darny's face went white and Lor frowned.
I walked down the ramp, not bothering with a shower, and went to meet them. There were five--three men and two women. The leader was a heavyset man with a thick white mane of hair and a thin wisp of beard.
"Good day," I said. "I'm Gam Oltenner, bargemaster of Leander. What can I do for you?"
"I'm Sage Mendolson," the leader said. His voice was heavy and calloused, like his hands. "I am Speaker of Winston. We want a young girl name of Darny Caples. Is she here? Have you seen her?" He glanced past me to Leander.
"We just signed her on as crew."
"We would have her back. She has no business here, with you. You'll return her to us."
Rel stepped up beside me, wiping sweat from her face with her shirt. The women blushed and Mendolson narrowed his eyes at Rel. Rel said, "We've already signed her on. We need the extra hand and you have no authority to break contracts."
"Understand," Mendolson said, looking at me, "we want no trouble with you. No quarrel. But what's ours is ours. Darny is ours. She's underage to begin with."
"I'll need to see proof of that," Rel said. "State birth records or even a parental genesis profile would do. Registered, of course."
"We don't keep such things."
I smiled. "Then we can only assume she's the age she says she is and liable for her contracts."
Mendolson looked uncomfortable. "We'll ... pay you for her. Or give you a replacement. Someone to take her place."
I glanced back at Darny, still beside Lor. I was intrigued now; I'd never heard of Returnists bartering like this. I hoped Rel was as curious as I.
"A contract is a contract," Rel said. She turned away and headed back to Leander. I grinned after her.
"Man, do something!" Mendolson said.
I looked at him blankly. "Rel's my supercargo and handles all our contracts. She's the business mind, not me. What she says about contracts I listen to. I'm curious, though: what's so vital about her?"
Without answering they all turned around and strode back up the hill.
"Remarkable," I murmured, then returned to Leander.
We secured the hatches and left the wharf in mutual silence. Darny kept looking from one to the other of us with the worried face of a child who can't tell where her scolding will come from. Out into the main current, Lor went to her and took her belowdecks to settle her in. When she reappeared on deck she wore worktogs and looked uncomfortable in them. I asked Lor later if it was much trouble getting Darny to change clothes.
"Had to threaten to knock her down and strip her myself," Lor said. "A body can't leave something and still hold onto it." Lor tossed the homespuns into the river.
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