Stellarnet Rebel

by J. L. Hilton

  Chapter Ten

  She was on an alien world, escaping accusations of terrorism, but all she wanted to do was enjoy the sweet clarity of the air and the amazing sunset. It was like a wall-sized vid, but filled her entire field of vision, and was more vivid than any simulation. She wanted to reach out and touch it, the crystal sun radiating amber fire through the clouds.

  The field before her was filled with huts, not bushes—the structures were woven, like overturned baskets, and none larger than her compartment’s main room. The mistake was easy to make, though, from a distance, because they were built of plant materials and covered with vines, leaves and flowers.

  J’ni saw only a few Glin, who noticed her right away. One called out in a sing-song chant that was echoed by others and relayed through the settlement. Several more Glin appeared. Like Duin, the front halves of their bodies were pale. But the colors across their backs varied, some darker or lighter, more green, brown or gray, than Duin. The tallest weren’t any taller than she, and they all had the muscled bodies of strong swimmers.

  What surprised J’ni were the children. She’d never seen so many in one place before. They outnumbered the adults.

  A female approached her. J’ni assumed she was female because of the baby in the fold of her bava, clinging to her exposed breast. The mother’s coloring was gray speckled with dark green, but the infant was pale. From what she saw, it looked like baby Glin had no color until they were old enough to walk. J’ni knew people with virtual or robotic children, and she had seen a few real-life infants before, but she was surprised by her visceral reaction to the baby Glin. She had the urge to touch the one nearest her, it was so adorable, but kept her hands to herself for fear of offending its mother.

  “Who are you?” the female asked in Glinnish. Her voice murmured soft and, as Duin would say, aqueous. The device translated.

  Genevieve O’Riordan with INC wouldn’t mean much to them, so she answered, “J’ni of Earth.”

  The translator said several words in Glinnish. Reactions rippled through the growing assemblage, in a language itself like the sound of water lapping at the shore or flowing over rocks. J’ni waited, unsure what to do or say next, and with a new appreciation of the depth of Duin’s daring, and his desperation, when he’d gone to her own people for aid.

  The female spoke again. “You have a Glin soul.” She pointed at J’ni’s pendant, but didn’t touch it.

  J’ni’s hand went to the nagyx. For a moment she felt a twinge of panic and wondered if Duin had violated a Glin custom by giving it away, or by giving it to a human. What would they do to her?

  But J’ni saw no animosity in their faces, only curiosity.

  “J’ni Nagyx Duin.”

  The voice came from somewhere beyond the Glin who were gathering as densely as the smart mob on Asteria, even without the benefit of the Asternet. The crowd parted, and those who didn’t move fast enough were whacked on the ankles by a very old Glin with a stick. The Glin’s large breasts swayed under the fabric of her bava as she walked, and she wore a kind of woven hat like a pile of colorful braids on her head.

  “Sala,” she said, gesturing to herself.

  “’Lo, Sala,” said J’ni with relief. She was glad to be with a friend, even one she hadn’t met yet. “Duin told me to find you and—”

  “Yes, yes.” Sala grabbed J’ni by the arm and dragged her away. “Come with me.”

  Murmurs of “J’ni Nagyx Duin” followed them as they walked. For an old Glin with a limp, Sala was difficult for J’ni to keep up with.

  “Where are we going?”

  “My house,” Sala said. “You need clothes.”

  “Oh, I appreciate that, but this dress will be good for at least another month.” J’ni wondered if she looked indecent, with her back-and shoulder-baring string ties, and form-hugging fabric. The skirt was mid-thigh, which was conservative by Earth standards. Most of the Glin were no more covered than she was. Some wore bavat wrapped in varying degrees of modesty, and some had pieces of clothing similar to Duin’s suit.

  Sala swept her eyes over J’ni, and snorted in a way that reminded her of Duin. Which made her wish he was with her. Her thoughts were interrupted by Sala’s ranting.

  “I’ll not have the soulbound to Duin of Long River, Hero of the Tah Ga’lin Uprising, Village Elder, Founder of the Freedom Council, Envoy to Earth, wearing a half a torn suit of… whatever that is. It looks like you got tangled in seaweed.”

  It wasn’t a half of anything, it wasn’t torn, and it wasn’t seaweed, but J’ni didn’t protest. She was busy reading, and re-reading, the long list of accolades on the translator’s display. Hero of the Tah Ga’lin Uprising? Duin had mentioned the uprising a few times, but not his role in it. “Long River” was the translation of Willup W’Kuay. But, elder? She still had a hard time wrapping her brain around the fact that Duin was considered old. If he was old, what was Sala? Ancient?

  “He’s a hero of the uprising?”

  “He is one of those who journeyed beyond the edge of the Watershed, he and a handful of brave Glin from rivers, lakes and even the edge of the Great Ocean itself. They stopped the plague of monarchy from spreading across the world.”

  “And he’s the founder of the Freedom Council?”

  “It was his idea to have a council of elders share information and mobilize resources against Tikat,” said Sala. “I was certain they would try to kill him for it.”

  “The Tikati?”

  “The other elders. It was only his participation in the Tah Ga’lin Uprising, and the fact that they were eating his food, that compelled them to listen past ‘Perhaps if we formed a council…’ instead of throwing him into a river without his arms.” She laughed. “That was a dinner I’ll never forget.”

  Sala took J’ni inside her hut, and everyone else waited at least three paces from the doorway. The “door” was a curtain of hanging vines. Sala touched an orb hanging on the wall inside a mesh bag, and the hut filled with a dim, mauve glow. J’ni saw a few baskets around the edges of the room. The walls were covered with cloth sacks, bunches of vegetation, pieces of paper and objects J’ni couldn’t identify, either wedged or hanging from things wedged into the walls. The only furniture was a kind of nest made of layers of fabric stuffed with leaves and grass. It reminded her of the mounds of pillows and blankets in Duin’s compartment, so she assumed it was Sala’s bed.

  “Here, for you.” She handed J’ni a folded bava from one of the baskets. “I think this fabric matches your colors. You are pink and blue-green.” The cloth Sala handed her was dyed in rose and aqua hues and covered with interlacing patterns of iridescent threads.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “Put it on,” the Glin insisted, and stood there waiting.

  J’ni wasn’t sure how to wear it, but figured she would try wrapping it as Duin did.

  After watching her struggle for a few moments, Sala clapped her hands together.

  “Let me help.” She put down her stick and started untying J’ni’s dress. J’ni protested, but the Glin went on babbling a long stream of words while she stripped J’ni and redressed her like a doll. “Are you tired? No. Thirsty? No. I don’t know what you eat. I don’t know what I eat, here, either, to be honest. You have grass growing on your head. He likes that, doesn’t he? Turn around. You couldn’t keep him out of the marsh grass when he was a child, even after he was stung by a water wasp and he couldn’t move his arm for an entire mist night. Those are nice tits. You must be very proud of them. You have many children? Don’t worry, Duin will take good care of them. He was such a sweet child and loved babies so much, I thought he’d grow up to be a female, but I was wrong. Lift up your arm, here. Now, tuck this in. There you go.”

  When she finished, she held J’ni’s face in her hands and beamed at her. Then she folded J’ni’s synthetic dress, put it in one of the baskets, and hung J’ni’s bag on the wall. J’ni didn’t bother trying to explain that she had no children.

  “Th
ank you for the bava, and your help.” And for not wrapping it so my boobs hang out, she thought, recalling her earlier conversation with Duin about the Glin perspective on breasts, and thinking about some of the Glin she’d seen outside. Her bava revealed very little.

  “A bava is no good for swimming, but you can wear it until we find you a wallump suit.”

  “That’s all right. I don’t know how to swim,” said J’ni, admiring the fabric and wishing she had access to a mirror app.

  Sala listened to the translation and looked shocked. Then she laughed a great belly laugh. “Don’t swim? Do you eat? Do you sleep? Do you shit? Great Rain, Earth must be a strange place.”

  She shook her hands in the air. J’ni wasn’t sure what that gesture meant.

  “There’s much more water on Glin than on Earth,” J’ni explained. “There are places on my world where it doesn’t rain for days and days.”

  “Good, then you will feel at home here.”

  J’ni doubted it. She’d spent most of her life in either a city or a space station, with Stellarnet access. For the hundredth time, she ran her fingers over her forearms and the memory of her missing bracers.

  “Sala, may I ask you another question?”

  “So long as it doesn’t break my last tooth to answer.”

  “Why do you call me J’ni Nagyx Duin?”

  “That’s your name. As his is Duin Nagyx J’ni. You are One.” She pointed to the pendant.

  “Is that like being married?”

  The old Glin made a face, and J’ni wondered if the translator had malfunctioned.

  “No, it’s not like being married. You could be married several times. But there is only one soul stone. Don’t you understand?”

  “I guess not.”

  Sala blew a burst of air over her lips. “He has his own way,” she mumbled to herself, shaking her hands again.

  “Duin tried to explain,” J’ni said, feeling the need to defend him, “but we didn’t have much time. He said that I am a part of him and he is a part of me, that we are connected, that I have grown into his heart like a j’ni.” As she recalled his words, she couldn’t keep the emotion from her face. “And I feel the same.”

  Seeing the look in J’ni’s eyes and hearing the yearning in her voice, Sala patted J’ni’s hand and her wrinkled skin creased even more as she smiled.

  “Sit,” she invited, settling herself on the ground and gesturing for J’ni to join her. Sala took a deep breath and explained, “Every Glin has a soul stone. Some are found by the mother when she is pregnant. Others are passed down in families. That one,” she pointed, “has been through many, many lifetimes. He has a very old soul.”

  J’ni placed her hand over the nagyx. “He gave me a family heirloom?”

  Tapping the translator, Sala shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

  “Special treasure, belonging to his family.”

  “Not to his family, it is his alone, even when he goes beyond the Last Wave. And it will be his again when he returns. Giving it to you is not marriage, it is an acknowledgment that you share the same soul. Marriage is a living arrangement, perhaps for a rain season, perhaps a lifetime, perhaps something in between. But the soul is forever. He is saying he is you. And you are him.”

  “If we are one soul, I think he is the better half of it,” J’ni said.

  The Glin’s face softened. “Remember, he feels the same way about you.” She squeezed J’ni’s leg with her webbed hand for emphasis. “Understand. Now you are on the Freedom Council. You are the elder of Long River. You are married to Ullu. Wrill, Tib, Sahash, Oon and Luin are your descendants. As you are mine.”

  J’ni heard the translation, but she had to re-read the display before she understood. Then she stared at Sala. The resemblance was in the face and the coloring. And certain gestures, which she had assumed were universal to all Glin, but had been passed from mother to son.

  “You’re his mom.”

  Sala laughed, and J’ni could hear the similarity there, too.

  “He is my fifth child, born during the spotted fish migration in the Rain Season of Tall Reeds. I saw his eyes, how he looked at everything as if he’d seen it all before, learned everything as if he had done it before. And I knew that was his stone.” She pointed to the nagyx.

  J’ni hugged Duin’s mother. The Glin held her, cooing and swaying as one might with a child. Which evoked old memories within J’ni, long submerged in time but not forgotten, when the worst terrors in the world could be cured by her Nana’s touch. For a moment, she almost felt that way again.

  “But, I thought his family was all taken away.”

  “They were.”

  “Not you,” said J’ni.

  “He left my family long ago, went off to make his own way soon as he could hunt. I lived in White River, where he was born. Now it is your turn to answer questions, please. What is Duin doing in that village of yours? And why are you here? The Finders brought me a message that you were coming, but that’s all they said. They don’t say much.”

  J’ni told Sala about the first time she saw Duin in the Colony Square. This Sala already knew something about, because she was on the Freedom Council and had participated in the decision to send Duin and the Tikati ship to Asteria. Standing up and speaking in the middle of a gathering was a common practice among his people, she told J’ni.

  “Well, it doesn’t work well with humans.”

  “With other humans,” Sala corrected, waving her hand at J’ni. “It worked with you.”

  “It’s my job to be interested in anything unusual.”

  J’ni explained her blog and the Stellarnet.

  “It was more than curiosity,” Sala said. “You felt him pull at you, like water going over a fall.”

  She was right. J’ni recalled that feeling of falling into Duin, when he touched her for the first time.

  “I offered to help him reach more people, important people, on Earth. I had hoped to gain sympathy and motivate some action to help Glin, but instead we were assaulted.”

  Sala wanted to know every detail. Rather than being distressed, she seemed thrilled to hear how her son and J’ni had defended themselves in the thoroughfare, and intrigued that humans were affected by the zap. Glin, she told J’ni, were immune to it. Which explained why the shock poles hadn’t stopped Duin in Blaze’s office.

  “And these muck worms are still hunting you? Duin sent you here until he could dig them all out?”

  “No, they’ve already been caught and imprisoned.”

  “Imprisoned,” Sala repeated, fear and awe in her voice. “That seems harsh. Beat them with a boat paddle until they stop moving. They would behave better.”

  J’ni would not have preferred beating to imprisonment. But considering how Duin’s body dealt with injury, perhaps the threat of physical harm wasn’t as dire to a Glin.

  “The reason I’m here is because my own government wants to send me away, to a prison in the Solar System.”

  “No, why?” Sala was indignant.

  J’ni told the rest of the story, how her compartment was destroyed and she was blamed, how she was put in a cell, and how she’d escaped.

  “Will they try to imprison Duin?” Sala asked in a whisper, as if saying it too loud would make it happen.

  “I don’t think so. My government wants me, not him.”

  “You are One.”

  “Humans don’t see it that way.” J’ni wondered about the implications of the nagyx. On Earth, a husband wouldn’t be imprisoned for the actions of his wife. To what extent would the Glin hold her responsible for Duin’s actions, or expect her to act like Duin?

  Raised voices outside the hut attracted Sala’s attention. She got to her feet, grabbing her stick and waving away J’ni’s attempt to help her stand.

  “I suppose I should introduce you, or they will be out there all night, getting along like eels in a puddle.”

  “How do eels in a puddle get along?”

  “Not goo
d,” said Sala. “Glin are not used to living so close together, in such little space, with so few resources. They can’t stay out of each other’s way.”

  J’ni followed Sala outside. A misshapen moon had risen to bathe the field in burgundy light. The Glin conversed, sat, ate or played with children while they waited. But silence spread like a slow ripple away from Sala’s hut when J’ni appeared.

  “J’ni Nagyx Duin,” Sala announced, and made an arc through the air with her arm. Her strong voice carried far, with the same sort of theatrical flair that Duin possessed. “She is a human, from Earth, the world of great philosophers who swim through the sky ocean and who are not afraid of fire.”

  Sala waited for her words to be repeated in whispers and carried all the way to the Glin on the far edges of the gathering. Then she waited as the inhabitants of Meglin conversed. There were so many different conversations, J’ni’s translator spit out gibberish until Sala raised her arms for silence.

  “She is a Truth-Teller. Her voice is heard in every Earth village, her words repeated for all humans to hear. She tells them about our water and our oppression. And as a result, she is preyed upon by the enemies of liberation. There are those who want to imprison her.”

  These words touched off an angry reaction, and again several discussions and comments flowed between the Glin. This time, J’ni thought she heard Duin’s name, and Tikat, several times. The translator picked up some shouts of awah na glem, “Water and freedom!”

  Someone called out a question. “Will the Tikati come here, looking for her?”

  J’ni glanced at Sala. Duin’s mother had not said the Tikati were after J’ni—it was assumed. She wondered if Sala would correct them.

  “Tikati cannot reach us here,” Sala answered.

  A young Glin in a glittering green suit pushed forward through the crowd. J’ni could not tell if the Glin was male or female.

  “I have a question,” said the Glin in a tone that was clearly snide even if J’ni couldn’t understand the language itself. “Is Duin a king of Earth now, as well as king of Glin?”

  That caused a vicious reaction from Sala and the others. J’ni was afraid Sala would fall over, the way she waved her stick. Others yelled at the youth, who glared at J’ni with lurid contempt.