Fire Sanctuary

by Katharine Eliska Kimbriel

  oOo

  Teloa recognized him as he reentered the hospital and hurried to catch up. He had told her when he assigned her the task of scripter he wanted the tapes before she slept, but she had not been able to find him until now.

  When Tay reached the niche in the cave well, she rapped softly on her recorder. No answer. Drawing a deep breath, she peered around the rocks. He was there, seated on the blankets, his face pressed to his knees. She could tell he was shaking; and then she took a half step backward as she realized he was weeping. Men had not expressed their emotions freely back on Capricorn V. It had not been socially acceptable. And after that first bombing, there had been no tears left to weep. She could not bear it—Braan literally had had the future of his race dumped on his shoulders; it was not fair that he was not allowed to share his grief.

  She set the recorder at the foot of the blanket and stood, torn and uncertain as to whether any sympathy might be shrugged off angrily, or worse, misunderstood. Finally, she reached out and set her hand, feather-light, on his shoulder. They remained that way awhile, and then Teloa glided away to find the one person who might be able to help.

  Fortunately Roe was done with her story, and all Tay had to say was “Someone needs you” to get her attention. As the woman reached for her medical bag the Caprican stopped her and then led off in the cave’s direction.

  Tay stopped just short of the niche’s entrance, hesitant to show the way. “He needs someone.” Roe gripped her arm in passing and went in. Tay waited and checked carefully. Roe had sat down next to Braan and, without any attempt to get his attention, embraced him. Tay slipped away.

  Chapter Ten

  MT. AMURA, NUALA

  FIFTEENDAY, NONE

  Tay was rudely awakened by the cold. Shivering, she realized that the star had moved on and Zair had completely taken over the warm spot. She crawled over him and nestled between his paws, flopped over his ribs. He opened one eye slightly, made a soft woofing noise in his throat, and went back to sleep. Chuckling, Teloa stretched luxuriously, aware that it was mid-afternoon and time to get back to work.

  Work ... Every muscle groaned. She had known hard work on Capricorn V but nothing like this. Back home it had been a matter of economy. Now it was a matter of survival.

  They were still digging out parts of the city; Tay was amazed at how the defense shield lessened the effects of the lunas. But it was being done cautiously; off-worlders were restricted to the mountains for fear the luna radiation would upset their delicate balance with the planet radiation. The work had settled into a routine. Most people had been assigned responsibilities similar to their normal occupations; the others were salvaging important materials and stone from Amura and transporting them to the great mountain, across the Sonoma Valley. The supplies were being carried by hazelle wagon or solar car—the train line would be nonfunctional for some time.

  She heard a shout below and looked over the edge. Several men and women were racing triumphantly up the small, curving road the warriors had blasted out. She listened intently in the clear, still air, picking out familiar Nualan words, and gathered that they had finally found what they were looking for in the academy computers. Several university sessions ago, as a final project, a student had examined the feasibility of constructing a city inside a large mountain—Mt. Amura used as the example. Then it was an amusing way to handle a potentially boring assignment. Now they were attempting to do just that and had been seeking the plans since the bombing. The young man’s originals had been destroyed, but stored away in the academy computer were the duplicates—and now they had a design with which to begin.

  Teloa sat up and surveyed the mountain towering above her, trying to imagine what it would be like to live underground. There were ways to determine the safest places for light and air shafts....

  A rustling in the brush disturbed her thoughts. She froze, uncertain. Were there dangerous animals up here? Zair’s nose twitched, but he was too comfortable to rouse himself. Surely, if it was venomous ... Looking closely, she saw two bright eyes peering at her from under the bushes.

  “Well, hello there,” she cooed in her softest, most persuasive voice. The eyes disappeared. There was more rustling, but Tay could detect no sounds of retreat. “Do you want this warm spot? You may share it, come on. Zair is a sleepy thing, he won’t bother you.” Bright eyes gleamed at her once again.

  Tay dug around in her pockets for the remains of her secondmeal. Slowly pulling them out, she cracked some of the grains together invitingly. “Come here, curious one.” The beast slid into view. It was a tiny, furred creature, no longer than her forearm including its long black-and-gray ringed tail. It had a face much like a Terran fox, if a bit flattened, and a short, thick, wooly black coat. Its big scooped ears flicked up, listening to the grains. It sat up on its strong back legs—legs equally suited for speed on the ground or over jagged rocks—and twitched its long black whiskers at her. Tay couldn’t help but laugh, and the animal vanished. She waited, the grains on her flat, outstretched hand, and soon, out of the bush almost next to her, a tiny paw slowly reached. Tay carefully pulled her hand back, forcing the creature out. Finally she set her hand on a rock.

  There was a long wait. Then, seeing the woman did not move, the creature crept out, snatched a piece of grain wafer, and scampered back to its bush. It sat beneath the foliage, devouring the piece of wafer and observing her with its soft, dark eyes. Tay cautiously set another piece of wafer on her hand.

  “Poor thing, you must be starving,” she murmured. Time passed quickly as she set the remains of her meal in her hand and let the animal come get them. Finally it sat right by her hand and ate, now sniffing inquisitively at Zair. Teloa giggled. What kind of creature was this, that it had never seen a dog? It was no longer frightened by the sound of her voice, however, and nonchalantly walked up Zair’s side to his head and snuffled his ears. The big animal shook his head and tried to crane his neck around to examine his tormenter. Seeing that the little creature’s scent was beginning to excite him, Tay set her arm on Zair’s back to calm him.

  Too late. Zair jumped up and the animal leapt for Teloa’s sleeve. Running up her arm, it burrowed into her hood. Teloa froze, suddenly afraid it might bite her.

  It had no such intention. Peering around her ear, the creature cheeped once, a tikki-tikki noise, as if questioning her, and then proceeded to scold the dog from the safety of Teloa’s shoulder. She laughed in delight as the dog thrust his nose down to investigate. Seeing the huge head coming toward it, larger than its whole body, the animal ducked back into her hood. Teloa pulled at the collar, to keep from being strangled by its weight, and carefully stood up.

  “Are we friends? Would you like to visit my home and see if you’d care to stay? Let’s go take a look.” Teloa started down the narrow incline, Zair charging before her. Reaching the road, Teloa heard low, tense voices. She slowed, recognizing one of the voices as Braan’s. Carefully looking around into the mountain grotto, she saw him standing there, several angry synod members beside him and one young man before them all. As she approached, the young man turned and left the scene.

  The group was speaking Nualan, but she could make out a great deal of it. “This is dangerous, Atare ... we should follow him ... I trust no Dielaan dogs.”

  “And do what? Wipe out their encampment? Do not blame their tribe for the faults of one man and the folly of his immediate family. When the other elders read the information I brought back from Tolis, his plans are ruined. No messenger can change that. But ... send a tracker. Find out where he goes.” Braan sat down on a rock, suddenly looking tired. Seeing Tay, he smiled and nodded to her. “Words from Lars?” he asked, switching to Galactic for her benefit.

  “A few. Are you all right? You look pale.”

  Braan chuckled. “You are worse than Ronüviel.”

  “Not quite.” Roe stepped out of the grotto, moving up behind Braan to knead his back with her strong, delicate hands. “She is learning quickly. Someone
must watch you at all times. You push too hard.”

  “We have to if we are going to be secure come the sno— What in Mendülay’s name?” Teloa realized Braan was staring oddly at her, as if she had two heads. She had forgotten he never glanced casually at anything. What... ?

  “Tikki-tikki-tikki!” came a trill in her ear.

  “Oh! Just a friend I found on the ridge.” The creature crawled out of her hood and arranged itself on her shoulder, standing on its hind legs and surveying the group. It chirped once at them, as if to dismiss them, and began to groom itself.

  Braan laughed. Teloa turned to him with keen interest at this—it was the first genuine laugh she had heard from him since she’d met him. She smiled, pleased that he found the beast as amusing as she did.

  “How did you contrive to entrap that?”

  “I didn’t contrive. It came when I offered it some grain.”

  “More likely decided to come out of curiosity,” Roe threw in, gazing at the creature. “An akemmi. I have never seen one during the day, except in a lab. They are engaging little animals, are they not? And very wild. I have never heard of one allowing itself to be handled. Or herself—the color looks like a female.”

  “Well, it hasn’t really allowed itself to be handled,” Tay explained. “It’s been handling me, much like a climbing post. Maybe it thinks I’m a movable tree!” They all laughed at that as the crowd increased in size.

  “Maybe it has not heard that akemmi are afraid of humans,” Braan suggested with a wicked grin. “The bombing probably forced it down from the peaks. I have never seen one below the falls. It is a young one.” Liel had joined the gathering and now walked up to Tay carefully. The akemmi immediately stopped washing her paw and turned to the woman, hair on end, making horrendous spitting noises.

  “Hey!” Tay rapped her on the fanny with an index finger. Surprised, the little female subsided, still warily watching Liel. Tay apologized by rubbing the creature’s head with a finger. She began to curl into a ball, a soft humming coming from her throat.

  Liel started laughing. “She is protecting you!”

  “What will you call this ferocious beast?” Braan asked, standing and moving closer to keep from falling asleep under Roe’s healing hands.

  “Tikki, what else? That’s all she says.”

  “Truly amazing,” an elder murmured as he walked off. “It’s obviously never seen a human, so it doesn’t know it should be afraid!” The others began to drift away, Liel promising to seek Tay out later.

  “Braan.” He turned in Roe’s direction. “Do not evade the thought. What about Corymb?”

  “We will deal with him when he arrives. People are still trickling in; we have no proof he has known our location the whole time. No reason, no concrete reason to be suspicious.” Braan offered the akemmi a finger, which she licked experimentally. “His winning throw is fear. As people become more frightened, they will be more willing to listen to his racist propaganda. We must be sure that there is enough food and shelter for everyone, and that our troops are ready for the Fewhas ... or Axis. Or even pirates. Whoever tries to brave Nuala first.”

  “Is civil war coming?” Tay asked bluntly, feeling self-conscious. She had never spoken to Braan without his initiating the conversation. As an outsider, it did not seem her place.

  “The planters - what do they say?” Braan said instead. He scrutinized her, his gaze piercing. Tay looked away, studying the haze trapped over the valley. And what if the doomsayers were correct and the bombing had changed the climate?

  “It will be hard,” she finally said, her voice barely carrying to Roe. “There is contamination. The warehouses burned. We have no chemicals, and little seed.”

  “How much seed?”

  “Lars is writing it up. I’ll bring it to you s—”

  He gently took hold of her arm, turning her to face him again. “I want it in layman’s terms. The winter plantings?”

  “Most of them are in the ground.” Teloa looked up at him. “The deep granaries are fine—we shall be fed this winter. And we can plant in the spring. But the harvest will be small, even with optimum conditions. The entire yield here was apparently based on the hybrid seed and chemical infusion. Depending on the rest of the planet’s ... ability to raise food—”

  “What you are trying to say is that we shall be often hungry come next winter,” Roe broke in. But she looked uneasy as she said it.

  “Worse. If we are to maintain the proper nutrition level, there will be no more seed to plant. It will be eaten.” There was a tense silence.

  Braan was stoic. “So we survive all obstacles to die of the most simple—“

  “No.” The Atares faced Teloa. “Not necessarily. My planet was unable to use many of the major chemical fertilizers. We used instead a combination of various natural fertilizers, crop rotation—it was harder, but the yield was just as high.”

  “Could that be done here?” Roe asked.

  “Maybe. If you’re asking could I do it, no—there isn’t enough time. It took a generation of experimentation to determine just how to adapt to our climate, soil and weather deviations. And we had Axis food imports until we could support our own people. We would all starve or kill each other in the fight for dominance over the harvest.” Tay felt very helpless. She had not intended to bring this up; not until the planters had thought of an alternative plan—any plan.

  “Can we help?” Braan replied.

  Teloa gave him a searching look. “Lars mentioned something I am curious about. He said, ‘If only we had the hands of the Cied.’ He seemed to imply that with its or their talents, we would be fine. What did he mean?” Was it her imagination or was Braan momentarily startled?

  It was Ronüviel who spoke. “The Ciedärlien. They are the desert dwellers. Among the people we have had many branches snap off the parent tree and take root on their own. Cied was one. Their people turned their back on technology after the first fall and chose to adapt to Nuala completely. They are totally self-sufficient, or could be, if they did not discourage their artisans, and deal with us primarily to get trinium, which is found in the mountains alone.”

  “Then they have no respect for you and would just as soon let you die?”

  “She did not say that,” Braan interrupted,” although you are not far wrong. The majority of the tribes have a relationship with the Atare house. My ancestors, unlike other city-state rulers, were not so foolish as to treat them as mere fanatics.” Seeing her confusion, he added, “Nuala has been a united people for only three thousandyear. Before, we were grand division of city-states, with a monarchy or prime minister and a functional parliament in each.”

  “Corymb?”

  “His family ruled Dielaan. We united under Sheel Atare Mindbender when famine threatened to devastate us. It was not a ... completely peaceful changeover, though the people favored it and forced it.”

  “At any rate,” Roe continued, “at the coronation of each Atare and at the marriage of each Ragäree and at the birth of the heirs, the tribes send representatives to pledge mutual trust and respect between ... basically the opposing life-styles.”

  “Are they really opposing? I mean, your people seem like a people who do things for themselves, you—“

  “But major conveniences are taken care of on a larger scale. A vulnerable scale. A great failing. But then, subconsciously, we may have wanted peace so badly we were better prepared for paradise than war.”

  “Then we can expect an emissary within a half year?”

  The Atares were silent a moment, astonished. “Yes,” Braan began slowly. “I suspect we are being observed. But to deal with our official visitors would only be the beginning. There is little for us to offer them, you see, and the famous Nualan altruism often stops at the desert’s edge. There are many tribesmen who would love to step in and take over our trinium mines. Others have private ambitions of their own.” Someone came up behind them, but Braan was undisturbed, so Tay did not turn. “And there are diffe
rent ... levels of Cied. Those of the deep sand mountains are a proud, fierce people, given to warring with their neighbors over the slightest insult. The middle tribes are usually friendly among themselves and others but, in a head-on confrontation, would support the deep people. Then, the waste dwellers, the Wasuu, and the Stigati ...”

  “Are marginally human” came Arrez’s voice. “Their wants and needs change daily. The danger they could represent, if aroused, is substantial.”

  Teloa turned and surveyed the high priest. “Could we go to them?”

  “Good question. An Atare might. The deep tribes would not accept anyone else. And the Stigati would surely kill any but the Ragäree.”

  “You’re safe. Why?” Teloa asked Ronüviel. Arrez had made the statement in Nualan, but Tay had understood the last line.

  “I am the house of Atare,” Roe answered simply. “It is my children who shall next rule, not Braan’s. And the people would rather take another high family as leaders than any other Atare but the one I carried; for example, Deveah’s son and Braan’s son would have just as legitimate a claim as my mother’s sister’s son. And that might bring on a blood feud.”

  “What about Liel?”

  “The eldest of the eldest,” Arrez said in Galactic. “Even if Liel had a child first, she is not the eldest daughter and only has a claim if Roe is barren. All royal lines are allowed one generation of solely female issue, you see, before the hierarchy must change. The prophecies say an Atare shall lead us all. May the day come soon.” He eyed Braan and spoke in Nualan. “You have called for a tribal council this evening, with the elders as well. I have information for you before then. Concerning Cied, as it were. And Baakche.”