by David Bowles
“About Felipe. I want to put him in command of the Maliyas. He can oversee the rotation of crews off platforms in the Helios System and manage our operations on Oceania and New Mecca.”
The aging counselor spoke bluntly. “How’s your mind? You off your nut? Bato’s been working for us for what, six months?”
“What did you say?” Konrau said, his voice going cold but his eyes fulminating. “He’s my blood, kabrõ. Don’t you fucking forget that. You know how you loved Ria, Nestor? Did I ever say you were crazy because of that shite? No, right? Pinche ruko pendeho. Felipe’s accomplished shiteloads as a sicarito. Place him at the head of our boys in Helios.”
Nestor’s face had gone splotchy red, as if Konrau’s words were slaps. “You got to make him first.”
“You don’t fucking say.” The kasike held his anger down, let hard cold power flow from his lips. “La puta maje ke t’iso naser. He’s on his way. I want to hold the ceremony in two days. Line that shite up, hear?”
Nestor averted his eyes, silent and sullen. Konrau was reminded of the many pouting women he had despised down the years.
“Why do you ask me if you’re not gonna take my advice?” Nestor demanded in an exasperated tone.
“Most times your advice is okay.” The kasike gazed at the curving expanse of black rock above their heads. “When you’re wrong, I just ignore you. There a problem with that?”
“No, boss. Course not. I’m on it.”
“Pos, a mover el kulo,” Konrau said, snapping his fingers. “Shoot me the details once you hammer them out.”
Without a word, his counselor stood and left.
The silence in the yawning office brought tears of relief to the kasike’s eyes.
CHAPTER 23
The constructor bot glided noiselessly across the four-hundred-square-meter expanse of plascrete, smoothing and curing the slab that would serve as the foundation for Tenshi and Brando’s home. The bot slid around jutting rebar that within days would become support columns for the upper stories, avoiding the plasteel conduits that had been imbedded in the slab for plumbing, electrical wiring and communications connections. Tenshi stood in the shade of a temporary gazebo, her hand unconsciously drifting toward her abdomen as if to reassure the life that for the past six weeks had been gestating there. Catching herself in the midst of this ritual, she smiled, content. Except for sporadic terrorist attacks, none of which had left any casualties, the past four months had been the most blissful of her life.
Brando had stayed true to his word: while at the university, he took advantage of every opportunity to chat with other professors, especially Modupe, who’d become a sort of surrogate father. But once he arrived at their prefab trailer at the construction site, he lavished all his attention on Tenshi and her project.
“Hey.”
Tenshi turned, startled. She’d been so caught up in her thoughts that he hadn’t heard Brando walk up behind her. It was about 4 pm on a Thursday; the public transport had undoubtedly dropped him off in town and he’d walked the three kilometers to the desert’s edge, as was his custom.
“Hey, sweet.”
They exchanged a kiss, and he rubbed her belly.
“How are yall doing?”
“Fine. We got the slab done, you see?” She gestured at the expanse of wet grayness, and Brando gave a thumbs-up.
“Yeah, looking good. So, what, we get started on the columns next?”
“Got to wait till Saturday, let this cure well. Give me a hand this weekend? The crew will be off, lazy punks.” She’d gotten some of the folks from the fair job to help her here, but they squeezed her house in between other commitments.
“Of course I’ll help you. As long as you teach me what I need to do.”
“I always teach you, no?”
She patted his crotch with a wink. He laughed.
“Let’s go put in some practice, what say?”
Afterward, they lay in the dying light of dusk, side by side, hips touching slightly, sweat glistening redly with Higante’s final rays.
“Are you still happy about this baby?” she asked, turning to look at him. His hair was getting longer; she’d taken him to her own stylist in Station City, who’d given him the trendiest twists. He looked even more handsome than before, Tenshi reflected, feeling her nerves tingle again with an insatiable appetite for him.
Brando’s eyes crinkled with joy as he spoke.
“More than you can imagine. I’ve dreamed of being a father for years. You know, create another human being, form their mind, give them the tools to succeed and contribute something special to the universe. The most important task I could undertake, something humanity seems meant to do.”
“A pity so few of us can do it well. Just look at our families.”
“That’s the other part of it for me. The challenge of not making the same mistakes as my father and mother.”
“You’ll do fine, Brando. Nobody better qualified to be an appa than you.”
“And this little one’s lucky to come from an umma like you. One who will support him in everything he decides to do.”
“HIM? You sure it’s going be a boy?”
“Or girl, or omedeyo,” he added. “I’ll be happy to the core with whatever comes. Important thing is, the baby’s going be a mix of you and me. A symbol of this.” He gripped her hand and lifted it into a shaft of ruddy light. Their rings touched, and again she felt that almost imperceptible jolt, some sort of energy at the edge of her senses.
Tenshi pulled both their hands to her breast.
“I love you so much, Brando. You have no idea.”
He kissed her sweaty forehead.
“Oh, yes. Yes, I do,” he sang softly. “For that’s how much I love you, too.”
As the outer walls began to go up and the unusual shape of the house began to manifest itself, Tenshi began to get visitors. Word had spread that she would be designing and building the new Samaneino Teyopan next, so there was understandable curiosity about what she might create for them.
At first, the faithful would simply stand and watch as she and her crew programmed bots and guided them through their tasks, doing physically as much as they could in accordance with Tenshi’s building philosophy. Soon, however, the half dozen members of her community that regularly stopped by for an hour or so of observation began to ask questions.
“Why did you design such an elaborate edifice?” one satorijin ventured.
Wiping her brow, Tenshi tried to explain. “Scripture says that human artifacts are extensions of a creator’s aham, their blind accreted self. But that very fact makes them important. Crafting objects with our minds and hands, we can better see the shape of that self, facilitating the work of shamanchiwanga, of shattering and bricolage. For satorijin especially, complex designs move us quickly toward gnosis. Continued creation reveals the character of our new selves, aligned with our sparks. And then Hanga ra-Roho should follow with ease. Our nascent souls depend, the second Oracle declared, on more than just our meager flesh and limited minds.”
An omedeyo anshyano squinted at all this. “I understand that perspective, but why do work with your own body that constructor bots are better designed to handle?”
“It’s vital,” she said, twirling a hammer for emphasis, “that we make direct contact with the exterior world when reworking it to reflect our aligned selves. Machines get in the way of this hands-on search for gnosis.”
A few of her fellow townsfolk who weren’t familiar with Reformer dogma shook their heads and didn’t return. But others took their places, and she soon found herself spending an hour or so everyday elaborating on her ideas to an ever-growing, receptive audience.
The Dominians among them had spent their lives meditating under the influence of drugs and engaging in egocentric sexual escapades. This fresh, forbidden vision of the world fascinated them, as if they’d been waiting for years to hear the good news that their lives could be richer, broader, more satisfying in the present.
Before talking to Brando, Tenshi began organizing informal classes on everything from basic arts and crafts to design and construction. Calling in several saved-up favors, she managed to get seven experts from Station City to fly in for two hours every couple of days to help her out with the instruction.
When her husband realized what was happening, he got a little irritated. “Tenshi, we’re barely integrating ourselves into Kinguyama. I’m new to everything myself. Trying to navigate meditation on my own terms, using music and study alongside all these other overwhelming tools. You only just got reinstated. Aren’t we pushing our luck?”
Tenshi wrung her hands with frustration. “Precisely because you can’t see what I can see, Brando-chan, I need you to trust me. This moment has to be seized. Our society has to be transformed.”
“I get that,” he interrupted, “and I’m excited to help. Jitsu opening up to the rest of humanity? Good for everyone, in my book. But I look at you, at that swelling belly, and something happens to me. I feel protective. Jealous, even. You’ve made me a believer, a partner in this vision I can only glimpse, but I can’t help but put you and the baby above everything else.”
Tenshi picked up a square of fabric and tied back her locs. Then she walked over to the com panel in their temporary home.
“What are you doing?” Brando asked, dumbfounded.
“Hang on.” She flipped through the contacts list, thumbed open a channel. In seconds, Meji Pishan’s face emerged from the console.
“Tenshi-shi. Brando-shi. How’s the construction going?”
“Well,” Tenshi answered. “But we need to talk to you about something. You’ve probably heard that some friends of mine in construction and the arts have started visiting the construction site to give impromptu lessons.”
Meji took a deep breath. “Yes. There have been a few complaints, but most teyopanjin are happy with what you’re doing. Some have asked my permission to participate, and I’ve told them all are free to join in as long as they also continue their daily meditation.”
Brando walked over to the console. Tenshi could feel the tension in his posture. He wasn’t happy that she had called the giya, but he was going to accept her choices. With some conditions, it seemed.
“Acharya-zin,” he began, “Tenshi has amazing ideas, as always, but I don’t think she can pull this off alone. It’s a lot of responsibility. Could you possibly get anshyano from your quadrant of the town who lean toward Reform to visit the construction site when the experts come, to help supervise and connect learning to the Path?”
Tenshi was take aback. That’s … a really good idea.
Pishan was already nodding. “Absolutely. I support what the two of yall are doing, and it’s only right that the leadership of Kinguyama get involved as well. I’ll round up the usual suspects, Tenshi-shi. You probably can guess their names already.”
The couple got past the moment of tension, and Tenshi’s plans began to bear fruit. By the sixth month of her pregnancy, she and a half-dozen anshyano oversaw the studies of nearly a hundred and fifty people. Brando had made the right call. With the help, she could also manage the final stages of their home’s construction.
Brando came home early one day to see the open-air learning in person. Tenshi turned from applying gesso to the exterior of the building to consider her husband. There was something strange in his expression. Tenshi suspected the worst, so she reflexively got defensive.
“What?”
He turned to her, eyes narrowing. “I’m just surprised. When I first got to this planet, everyone seemed like a zombie to me.”
“Listen to me, Brando.” She could feel her throat tighten with irritation. “You're a good man. A smart man. A brilliant linguist. But you're not better than these people. Just look at them: drugged and brainwashed all their lives by leaders more interested in power than in the creation of their people's souls. But they haven’t given up: they're out there every other day, struggling, learning, beginning to build new lives for themselves. You’re one of us now, but you come from a society where you were free to think, to explore. Some of your behavior was restricted, but not your ideas. These people have been cut off from everything for years, but that's not stopping them.”
Brando’s dark eyes went red with emotion. He scrubbed at his afternoon stubble. “I know it’s not. I’m proud of them, damn it. But I feel like I’m stumbling in the dark right now, Tenshi. Please understand. All you’re saying? I’m acutely aware of it. I’ve barely stepped onto the Path beside you. I don’t even know what Way I will take. You have yours, and I will help you walk it. But I … I think I need something.”
Tenshi softened immediately. “Of course. I’m sorry. I wasn’t listening. Love, the place to start is with a goal. Mine is to change the world. It’s a big goal, so I need lots of people’s help. Perhaps yours will be smaller.”
Turning back to the wall while he considered her words, Tenshi continued applying gesso in circular strokes upon the plascrete blocks that constituted the outer walls of their home, walls that curved impossibly onto themselves, defying logic and gravity.
“I do have a goal.”
Tenshi stopped, dumping her float into a bucket of milky water.
“What is it?”
“Make a real family. One that works. You and that little one inside you are my world, Tenshi.”
She wiped sweat from her forehead, the cords in her slender but powerful arms bunching up above the elbow.
Now or never, she thought, feeling a twinge of guilt but recognizing he had to be led to it this way.
“Brando my sweet, I share that goal with you. But it’s time you found another. One that complements mine.”
“How? I mean, you want to teach them how rebuild their lives, not how to speak Unified Chinese or how neural patterns correspond to words.”
She put her hand on his arm. Ebony on walnut, she thought, imaging them briefly as trees whose branches and roots had begun to entwine, like the story of Feather Boy and Thorn Girl from Domina’s journals.
“Do you remember when you asked what I wanted to do with the fairgrounds once the fair was over?”
“Oh, yeah. You said I’d be interested in it.”
“I didn’t think it’d happen so soon, but here we are.” She took a deep breath. “Brando, I want to start a school. A school for everybody, Pathwalker and off-worlder both. Where they can learn the point in living, what’s good and worthwhile in life. Yes, a school, my love. And I want you to run it.”
“Run a school? But I don’t know a thing about administration.”
“You know how to teach: running a school can’t be much harder than making sure the instructors teach the way you know they should, right?”
Brando stood in thought, her hand still resting on his arm. She could feel the racing of his pulse through his biceps.
What if he says no? Ah, I’ve miscalculated, haven’t I?
“I’m reminded,” he said, his eyes gazing into the distance, “of Gio Cereghino, the dean of the university in Milan. Everyone hated his management techniques. And for a young assistant professor, I was really vocal about how ridiculous certain university protocols were. I even wrote an editorial, detailing changes that should be made. I probably would’ve been pushed out if I hadn’t accepted the job here.”
Brando looked back at Tenshi. She saw curiosity in his eyes. Excitement, even.
I knew it! I knew he had it in him. Come on, umpenzi. One more step.
“Maybe I could run a school. I mean, I’d never thought about doing any administrative work, but, wow. My own school? My own methods? I could learn what I don’t know. Always wanted to be at the cutting edge of things.”
“Ah, sweet Brando, it looks like you’re gonna get that wish, aren’t you?”
He looked her up and down. Tenshi w
as suddenly aware of how very bespeckled by stucco she was.
Brando grinned like a devil.
“First class I’m going to offer: how to apply gesso to the building and not your face, clothes and hair!”
Tenshi frowned, grabbed a glebe of plaster, and began to chase him round the yard.
CHAPTER 24
My water just broke. Come home.
Brando’s lenses flashed the emergency-coded message in the air in front of him, and his heart started pounding.
“Okay, class. That’s it for today. My wife’s about to give birth, so I’ve got to run. Be enlightened!”
As luck would have it, there was a rental transport parked near the university. Brando thumbed payment onto the door and jumped inside, barking the coordinates to the autopilot and immediately messaging his mother-in-law.
She’s fine, Shemejinim. Local aransa Kanan Rongoa is here. You’ve both made all the right preparations. Your home is finished. Just come be by her side.
After what seemed lifetimes, the rental set down right outside Tenshi and Brando’s residence, and he rushed inside. A pallet had been spread out on the freshly tiled floor of the living room, and Tenshi squatted in the middle of it, sweat-drenched and in obvious pain. Beside her knelt Inyoni Onamata. Behind her stood the midwife, hands on Tenshi’s shoulders.
“Brando-yi,” his wife gasped, clenching and unclenching her hand at him. Hurrying to her side, he took her rigid fingers in his.
“I’m here, sweetheart. You’re doing great.”
Tenshi nodded and shushed him, her muscles tensing as another contraction hit. Brando was powerless to do more than just be there, but he knew it was an important role. Pathwalker customs concerning childbirth struck him as quaint and perhaps even dangerous. Another man might’ve insisted Tenshi go to the hospital in Station City, where the procedure would be over quickly in a fully sterile environment. But Brando was on the Path now. He would respect the customs. And he had sworn to dedicate his life to lifting this woman up, however small he might appear to others in her shadow. He could be quiet now and hold her hand.
