“Spun into yarn and woven, the fur makes excellent soft blankets, coats, and sweaters—as long as you like gray. I’ve tried a few dyes, but the fur won’t hold the color. Dyes bleed out really fast.”
Quite the talker, Darmaine would probably explain how to synchronize a chronometer when you asked for the time. But since Amity knew nothing about her new world, she was eager to learn everything she could.
“Where are the hornigers kept? I didn’t notice any pens. The only ones I saw were wild.” Did someone wrestle a horniger to the ground on the tundra and give it a buzz job?
“We don’t have any here. Haven Ranch and Shelter Retreat have domestication programs and send us the fur. We spin it into yarn and then weave it into fabric. Half of the product goes back to them as payment, and Artisan’s Loft keeps the other half for our use and to sell.” She plucked at her wide-sleeved, nubby gray tunic.
“You wove your sweater?”
“Crocheted it, actually.”
“People still do that?”
“And knit. Needlework was a lost art until I resurrected it from old Earth vids. I teach a weekly class, mostly for Artisan’s Loft folks, but I sometimes get students from neighboring villages.”
“You can earn a living doing that?” she asked skeptically, donning her business hat.
“Good galaxy, no!” Darmaine laughed. “You couldn’t crochet fast enough to make it worth your time. Our profit comes fromthe fabric and the blankets. I teach needlework as a hobby. It’s relaxing, and it gives people something to do during the long winters—you know, the entire year.” She laughed. “Something to do besides hump liketurpacs,that is.
“If not for the fact that many couples are of mixed species and genetically incompatible, we’d be experiencing a huge baby boom,” she said.
Amity didn’t think she’d encountered anyone as frank as Darmaine. The sex lives of Artisan’s Loft residents were not something she wished to discuss with the boss she’d just met. “Don’t hornigers get cold after shearing?” She hated to think of an animal, even a nasty-dispositioned one, shivering in the frigid temperatures.
“There’s a two-month period in the middle of the cold season, when it’s almost tepid. All the shearing is done in the first two weeks of the warm-up, which gives the fur time to regrow a little. And they don’t shear all the way to the hide.”
“How many weavers work here?”
“Counting you?”
“Yes.”
“Two.”
Amity blinked. “You’ve been doing all of this yourself? How do you handle the workload?”
“Poorly. I’ve been falling behind, which is why there are so many bins of fur. The customers I owe fabric to have been getting impatient. I had a helper until two months ago when he transferred to another village.
“The horniger domestication programs are small—they can only shear so many animals, given the time and weather constraints, but the weaving is more than what one person can handle. I told Lucento if he didn’t get me help soon, I would cut him off.”
TMI.Amity almost choked.
“No more sweaters until he got me an assistant!” Darmaine said.
“Oh, a sweater!”
“What did you think I meant?” Humor glinted in her eyes.
Amity undid the toggles on her coat and removed it, feeling warm, partly from embarrassment and partly from the heat being thrown from the massive herb cake stove.
Darmaine pointed to a rack that Amity suspected were horniger antlers. “You can put that there.”
“You use horniger for everything, don’t you?” she said after hanging up her coat.
“The animal is critical to the viability of the settlements and the founder’s mission to provide a safe haven to people who need one. It provides food, clothing, heat, one day maybe transportation. If every item we needed for survival had to be brought from another planet, the cost of colonization would be prohibitive. The founder is filthy rich, but even he doesn’t have enough cred to provide for all our needs. He transports people here, maintains the security dome over the planet, and arranges for basic necessities like the domiciles, but after that, it’s up to us whether we thrive or fail.
“Hence, we must be self-reliant by working hard and living off the land and using its resources. Action builds character and confidence, which many refugees need after having lost everything. We are not victims; we are survivors; we are thrivers.
“Currently, we can produce enough fabric and yarn to meet the needs of Artisan’s Loft residents and the ranches that provide the fur, with some left over to sell to nearby villages. I’d like to expand sales to all of Refuge—and then export and sell to the galaxy!” Her eyes lit up with capitalist fervor.
