Stellarnet Rebel

by J. L. Hilton

  “I’ll fillet your tongue!” Sala bellowed, and the rest of her words were lost in the roar of angry voices that overwhelmed the translator.

  “Quiet, please!” J’ni yelled into the device, but the translation couldn’t be heard. So she tried lifting her arms, as Sala had done.

  Silence fell, save for the ongoing noises of the restless younger children.

  “I want to hear this Glin,” J’ni said.

  “She asks dangerous questions,” insisted a muscular, sage-colored female who was clothed in fitted wallump pants and a vest.

  “I don’t fear questions, I don’t fear answers, I fear ignorance,” said J’ni.

  “Her accusations insult you,” said another Glin who wore a bava wrapped around his waist and legs, forming a kind of trouserlike garment.

  J’ni was a little surprised that Duin’s liberty-loving people were so intolerant of a few words. “If you want to be a free people, that includes the freedom to speak, whether you like what you hear or not.”

  Voices murmured through the settlement, carrying her words along.

  “Are you a queen of Earth?” asked the impetuous young Glin in the green suit.

  J’ni laughed, which seemed to surprise everyone including her interrogator. “No.” J’ni shook her head. Meh, said the translator.

  “When will Duin let us return to our place?” Our place was the literal translation of Glin. The display also offered the alternative Our selves when Glin referred to the inhabitants.

  “Duin does not rule me,” declared the sage-green Glin, and others agreed.

  “We are here because the Finders offered us sanctuary and we each accepted,” said Sala. “But Eb has forgotten. She would you rather be back on the relocation ships in the sky ocean, on her way to the prisons of Tikat.”

  “This is just another kind of prison,” said Eb. “We are not free here. We cannot build our homes where we wish, we cannot hunt what we wish. I would kill myself if I knew my spirit would return to the water of Glin. I cannot fight Tikati from here.”

  “When it’s time to kill Tikati, I’ll tell Duin where to find you,” J’ni said.

  It was meant as sarcasm, but they took her at face value. The gathering swelled with excitement. Several hissed “Shh!” and J’ni didn’t think it meant the same thing to them as it did to humans.

  “Earth is going to help us?” Eb asked, her hostility replaced by enthusiasm.

  But meh was the answer to that question, too, as far as J’ni knew. Unless something changed after Duin completed his mission for Blaze.

  An expectant stillness fell, silent and tense, and she could feel the hollowness of the air waiting to be filled with her answer. It had to be the right one.

  “Anah,” J’ni said. “We will.” It was a prophecy more than a pledge, and she hoped that Earth would not end up making this “Truth-Teller” out to be a liar.

  Duin’s people rushed forward to surround her, and Eb was lost in the crowd. J’ni was welcomed by some who said they were friends of hers and glad to see her again. They related stories and pieces of information that she didn’t understand, but she assumed Duin would. Several hugged her. Others offered her water in cups that were not glass, nor plastic, nor ceramic, J’ni didn’t know what they were. She took only sips, after the first few offers, else she would soon float away on a river of her own making.

  She and Sala sat down in the grass, and every so often a child would climb into her lap while J’ni spoke with the parents. Remembering how Duin treated Mose’s orphans, she tried to do the same, holding the children, talking to them, playing with them, and allowing them to look at the translator or touch her hair. They had a carefree way about them that cheered her, even though so many of the adults were anxious or forlorn.

  “Have you found your family?” asked one Glin with a mottled gray-green coloring similar to Duin’s, though the pattern was different.

  She assumed he meant Duin’s family—which, as Sala said, was her family, now, too. “There’s been no trace of Ullu, the children, or anyone from Long River,” she answered. Which made the eyes of the inquirer whiten in sadness. She placed her hand on his arm in a sympathetic gesture. The Glin surprised her by grabbing her and hugging her, then disappearing into the crowd.

  “That was Nish,” Sala said, as if that explained everything. Which it didn’t at all. She tried to recall if Duin had mentioned Nish before. She’d never be able to remember all of these names and faces without bracers and proximity IDs.

  J’ni stifled a yawn. Sala saw it and started yelling at the other Glin.

  “Go! No more gathering! Go swimming! Good-bye!” Duin’s mother got to her feet and shooed them away with her walking stick.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.”

  “We’re the ones being rude, J’ni Nagyx Duin. You are exhausted. You swam a long way, through a great storm, to get here.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Sala!”

  J’ni rolled over and squinted at the doorway of the hut. She saw the thin, gray light of dawn through the curtain of vines. It would be her twelfth Wandalin sunrise, but days were different here. By her estimate, it was about a week Earth time. Her natural rhythm was out of sync with the shortened cycle of the Finder planet and she had fallen asleep only an hour before.

  “Esh Sala, beb leda shaloo najed.”

  “Meh! Pawah!”

  The tone of the voices made her scramble for her translator. Her touch brought it to life.

  “Is Elder Sala inside?”

  “Let me go!”

  “Shut your mouth.”

  “You thief.”

  “Wait!” J’ni called out in English, then repeated the Glinnish translation several times while she wrapped the bava around herself.

  Outside, she found a group of Glin dragging a captive by his arms and legs—and he wasn’t making their task an easy one. J’ni thought she’d met everyone. But not the Glin they carried. This one she would have remembered. Where the others were colored in greens or browns, this one was dark blue.

  As he thrashed and tried to free himself, his simple black wallump suit shimmered with silver highlights. The shirt hung open at the neck, and lacked all of the buttons and embellishments of the garment Duin wore. The pants reached just below his knees. And this Glin was barefoot. She could see his deep sapphire color on the back of his ankles and exposed calves.

  “Where is Sala?” One Glin stood aside from the rest, brandishing a large knife. The blade looked like the long, serrated tooth of an enormous animal and was affixed to a leather-wrapped handle.

  “Who asks?” It wasn’t meant to be a challenge. Duin’s mother was the elder of Meglin, and kept track of everything that happened in the refugee camp. She would want to know if anyone was looking for her.

  “Ga’Duhn,” said the knife-wielding Glin, gesturing to himself, “r’naw hunter and son of Elder Plub of Green River.” The device gave no translation of r’naw.

  “She’s not here, Ga’Duhn. She’s attending the birth of Panna’s child.”

  “Great joy,” he said, in the casual way a human might say, “Congratulations.”

  “We don’t need Sala,” said a Glin with blood clotted around his nose and a fresh black eye. He held the captive’s left arm. “I saw him with it, so did Bool.”

  “But the question is one hand or two,” said Ga’Duhn.

  “We can start with one, then take the other if Sala agrees,” suggested a female whose arm squeezed the captive’s throat. When the blue Glin tried to protest, she choked him into silence.

  Ga’Duhn waved his arms in an exaggerated shrug. “Hold him, then.”

  This required the assistance of several onlookers, who piled onto the frantic Glin in order to keep him still. Ga’Duhn bent over the captive’s arm with his knife.

  J’ni dropped her translator to grab Ga’Duhn’s wrist with both of her hands. “What are you doing?” The translator repeated her words from the grass.

&nb
sp; “He is a thief. I am taking his hand.”

  She recoiled at the thought. “You can’t chop him up!”

  “I can.” Ga’Duhn nodded his head at the others. “So long as I have enough help. He is strong.” He laughed.

  J’ni didn’t find it funny. “Is this how Glin settle disputes? By mob justice?”

  “Glin do not steal from Glin,” said Ga’Duhn. “It cannot be tolerated.”

  “Steal? How could he steal?” she asked. “You don’t believe in ownership.” As soon as she said it, she wondered if all Glin held this belief. Perhaps customs varied from those Duin described to her.

  “We own what we hunt, what we use and what we make. I made this knife. And my uncle died hunting the r’naw which gave this tooth.”

  The captive tried to cry out, but his voice was indecipherable to the translator.

  “Let him speak.” J’ni repeated it twice in Glinnish before the female released her grip on his neck.

  In a rush of breath, he said, “I entreat the judgment of Elder Duin of Long River, through his soulbound, J’ni Nagyx Duin, Truth-Teller of Earth.”

  When the captive caught her eye, all of his terror and misery shot like lightning across the space between them and hit her with a jolt. Her stomach lurched and her hands began to tremble. In an effort to remain composed, J’ni tried not to look at him as she spoke. She was not a stranger to legal proceedings—her father was a lawyer. But these were Glin. Sala was the one who usually settled disagreements.

  “You want my judgment?”

  Ga’Duhn looked at her, and at the nagyx she wore. Then he agreed. “Anah.”

  “Anah!” cried the captive, and the others released him. With an agile twist, he sprang to his feet, tense and wary.

  “Who are you?” she asked the accused as she retrieved her translator from the ground.

  “Belloc.” He offered no titles, no family connections, no watery home, no history.

  Upright, he was inches taller than the others, and taller than J’ni. Unlike Duin or the inhabitants of Meglin who were in constant motion—always walking, gesturing, swaying, babbling, like the rivers where they lived—now that he was released, Belloc possessed an extraordinary stillness. Most of the refugees had come from the same area of Glin, from rivers connected to Willup W’Kuay, in the region Duin referred to as the Watershed. J’ni wondered if Belloc was from some other part of the planet. Perhaps the edge of the Great Ocean. His light and dark coloring resembled a combination of deep blue waters and white sands. She’d seen those sorts of places in vids and simulations.

  She also couldn’t help noticing that Belloc was stunning. She hadn’t found the Glin attractive in general, except Duin of course, and that was because she loved him so much. Yet this one was lovely to look at. Not just in color, but in form, face and movement. He was handsome as hell.

  J’ni reminded herself that beauty was not an indicator of goodness, and was determined to be an impartial judge.

  “Belloc and Ga’Duhn, I hear you.” It was what she’d heard Sala say in similar situations. The phrase indicated acceptance of her appointment as their judge, and that she would do nothing else until a settlement was reached. It was like banging the gavel to begin proceedings.

  “I made this knife,” said Ga’Duhn. “I hunted this r’naw with my family, and it killed my uncle, Uglup. See, that is his name, carved there in memorial.”

  Ga’Duhn held up the blade and pointed to the inscription. J’ni examined it, but could read very little Glinnish, so she asked several bystanders to verify the name and Ga’Duhn’s connection to it.

  “Where was the last place you saw the knife?” she asked.

  “I keep it here.” Ga’Duhn thrust it into a sheath in the front of his suit. “Before the light returned, I realized it was gone.”

  “Not very long ago,” she noted, glancing at the sunrise.

  “Ooli and Bool.” Ga’Duhn indicated the Glin with the bloody nose, and another with a badly bruised leg and a limp. “They saw it in his hands.”

  The two Glin acknowledged the truth of his statement.

  “How did this knife come into your possession?” she asked Belloc.

  “I found it in the lake,” he answered.

  Ga’Duhn smiled when he spoke, but his words were harsh. “You are a liar and a thief.” To J’ni he said, “I want his hands.”

  Indignant, Belloc demanded, “I want his eyes, they see evil where none exists. I want his tongue, it insults me.”

  Several of Ga’Duhn’s friends protested. J’ni raised her hands for quiet.

  “You saw it in his hands, but did you see him take it from Ga’Duhn?” she asked Ooli.

  “No, I did not.”

  “Did you see him take it from Ga’Duhn?” she asked Bool. Again, the answer was no. She turned to Ga’Duhn. “Did he approach you and take it? Like this?” She reached out and took the knife from him, herself.

  “No,” said Ga’Duhn. “If he had, his hands would be in the river already.”

  J’ni grimaced at the foulness of that thought. “Then when, and how, do you think he took it from you?”

  “In the lake. He swam past me.”

  “Swam past you? How could he take it without you knowing?”

  Ga’Duhn snorted and said with begrudging admiration, “He’s very fast.”

  Were Glin really that fast? She didn’t know. Even if they were, it didn’t prove anything. “Did anyone see Belloc take this from Ga’Duhn?” she asked, holding the knife aloft.

  There were murmurs, but no one came forward.

  “The evidence is circumstantial.” She wasn’t sure if the translator would have that word, so she elaborated. “Coincidental.” Did it have that word, either? “You offer no proof that it was stolen.”

  “He offers no proof that he found it,” said Ga’Duhn.

  “The burden of proof is not upon him,” she said, giving the knife to Ga’Duhn. “You have your knife, but you want his hands, as well. To have them, you should offer truth in exchange, not assumptions.”

  Several spectators made comments of agreement.

  “A thief would not have held the knife in his hand at the lake, for all to see,” she said. “A thief would have hidden it. And a guilty Glin would not demand your tongue and eyes for being insulted.”

  “Then your judgment is against me?” said Ga’Duhn in disbelief.

  “No,” J’ni said.

  Ga’Duhn’s cohorts seized Belloc again. He offered no resistance, but the sorrow and resignation on his face were heartbreaking.

  “Nor is it against him. My judgment is against the Tikati. It is they who accuse all of the Glin, who have oppressed you all, who have frightened you all, until you not only distrust them, but you distrust each other. It’s the Tikati who owe you, all of you, their eyes, for seeing evil in you, and their hands, for stealing everything from you. They have taken your water, your villages, your food. Don’t let them steal your sense of community, or mercy, or faith in each other, too.”

  She turned to Belloc and Ga’Duhn. “Do you accept my judgment?”

  “Anah.” Belloc breathed the word in a sigh of relief. He shook off the hands which held him.

  Ga’Duhn seemed a bit disappointed and confused, but accepted. “Anah.”

  The onlookers dispersed.

  J’ni wanted to sleep. She ran a hand through her hair and wondered what it must look like. Perhaps the hairless Glin wouldn’t know she had bed-head.

  Belloc stood there looking at her.

  “I think you’re free to go,” she said.

  “I am not.” He fell to his knees, thrusting his hands at her. He spoke with great feeling, in a voice as beautiful as the rest of him, and his eyes turned white with emotion. “Without these hands, I would never eat again. There is no one who would feed me, I have no one here. I would never touch. I would never…swim…again.” The last words were choked out in a sob.

  Glin had rapid healing, but they didn’t regenerate enti
re limbs. She took a step closer to console him. “Belloc, you’re safe. They’re not going to hurt you.”

  “This I swear by all the water in the world. I would not have these hands without the judgment of J’ni Nagyx Duin, and so they are yours.”

  “Mine?”

  He pushed his gleaming white palms at her. When their eyes met this time, there were other emotions that shot through the air between them. Longing, sorrow, hope, trust, awe. She felt them. Or felt him feeling them, which gave her an uncanny shiver. J’ni rubbed her eyes. She was tired.

  “Alright, Belloc. You’re welcome. I’m going to go back to bed and hope nothing else wakes me up.”

  “Of course.”

  Leaving him on his knees, she returned to her mat on the floor of Sala’s hut.

  ***

  It was twilight when J’ni awoke again. Sala was in the hut. All was well with Panna’s baby, she said, offering several gruesome details about the labor that J’ni would have preferred not to hear.

  “Is it a boy or a girl?”

  Sala snorted. “We won’t know that for several rain seasons.”

  J’ni noticed a shape crouched in the doorway. Another of Sala’s endless visitors. “There’s someone outside.”

  “There is,” agreed Sala. “He’s been there all day. Says his hands belong to you.”

  J’ni went to the doorway and pulled back the vines. Belloc jumped to his feet.

  “Why is he still here?” she asked Sala.

  Duin’s mother shrugged. “Because he didn’t go away?”

  “Why are you still here?” she asked Belloc.

  “So no one would disturb you.”

  “Was there something else you wanted to ask me?”

  “No.”

  She waited for him to offer an explanation, but he didn’t. “Then, why are you here?”

  “So no one would disturb you,” he repeated.

  “I know you’re really glad that your hands weren’t cut off, but you don’t owe me anything.”

  “I owe you everything.”