by J. L. Hilton
His legs quivered and he staggered, grabbing her shoulder to steady himself. Her name was a low whisper in his throat, and his fingers ran through her hair, holding her against him. He throbbed between her lips and quickly grew too large for her mouth. But he wanted her in other ways.
Duin pulled her to her feet and into the lake with his suit still on, and was inside her before they were five feet from shore. With her legs and arms wrapped around him, he swam for them both. Every stroke that moved them across the surface of the water also drove him deeper inside of her.
“I don’t want this moment to end.”
“Time is a river, J’ni. It cannot stand still.”
“Then swim with me, forever,” she said.
“I will. We are One.”
He never separated from her, never withdrew to thrust, but stayed deep. Throbbing within her and undulating beneath her, it wasn’t long before he had her gasping, not for air but from the height of their passions. She was glad she had learned how to swim.
They were still alone when they emerged from the lake. While she dressed, he handed the bracers to her.
“These are yours.”
She took one and pulled it over her forearm. “They’re ours. I’ll reset the locator on this one. But you keep the other.”
He returned the bracer to his arm. “You are stronger, nagloim. Vivid. Striking. More alive, more familiar to me than ever, though we’ve been apart for two months. And you have more hair.”
“It grows, and I didn’t have anyone to cut it. Do you like my suit?”
His fingers traced the stitching of her vest and pants, then explored her backside. “It fits well.”
“You don’t need an excuse to grab my ass.”
He was all business, tugging at the edges and examining the seams. “Who made it?”
“Belloc and your mother.”
“Who’s Belloc?”
She ignored the question. He’d find out soon enough. “Duin, why didn’t you tell me Sala was your mother?”
“I grew too big to be carried on her hip a long time ago. How is she?”
“Very well, but busy. I help her as much as I can, but she’s hard to keep up with. Now I know where you get it.”
There was still no sign of Belloc or any of the other Glin as they walked toward the village. J’ni took a flute from her bag. The instrument was made from a length of hollow bird bone, with finger holes notched at intervals. It was decorated with floral carvings.
“Where did you get a pelu?” asked Duin. “That one is well made.”
“Belloc carved it for me.”
If Duin was wondering, again, who Belloc was, he didn’t ask a second time.
She played a short, haunting tune that was both pretty and sad. After a moment, she stopped and listened, then played it again. It was answered by another instrument, far off, with a deeper tone. The two songs merged and echoed through the trees, growing stronger as they came closer together.
Sala’s tippa came into view. Belloc was sitting in the shade beside it, under a flowering bush which J’ni planted there and coaxed up over the side of the woven structure. His was the answering harmony, played on an ooji, a kind of ocarina made from an animal shell. They played the tune through, together, one more time.
“Glin version of a locator,” she said, and put the flute away.
“And whom have we located?” There was an edge to his voice. J’ni wondered why his face was—unusual for him—blank.
“This is Belloc.”
Belloc addressed Duin. “Augla, Duin Nagyx J’ni.”
“Augla, Belloc.”
“Do I hear the Founder of the Freedom Council, or is it the wind?” asked a voice from within the hut.
“Sala!” Duin called to her. He pushed the vines aside and entered. J’ni stood in the doorway, watching as Duin grasped his mother in a hug and lifted her off the ground.
“Yes, yes.” Sala laughed. “Let go, you’ll break me.”
Duin set his mother down and she inspected him.
“Am I all here?” he asked, and she snorted.
“Is Glin free yet?”
“No.”
“Well, hurry up.”
“Yes, Sala. I’ve made more progress in these past few weeks than I’d made in all the months before. Because of J’ni.”
“What did I do?” J’ni asked. “I haven’t even been there.”
Duin took her hands in his and spoke in her language. “Without you, nagloim, I would still be standing on a pipe and Glin would still be dying and nothing would have changed at all.” He kissed her fingers. “But now, your blog is ranked in INC’s Star 20—”
“The Star 20? How many followers do we have?”
“Around four billion.”
“Duin, that’s epic.”
“Yes, but words alone are not going to defeat Tikat. Oppression and domination can only be dismantled the way they were erected—through action. But, words, truth, can bring about the attitudes necessary for action.”
“Has Earth agreed to help, then?” J’ni asked.
“Humans have a frustrating way of ignoring, or flat-out denying, the obvious whenever it doesn’t suit them.” Duin repeated the words to his mother in Glinnish. “I don’t know how they managed to survive for the past two-hundred thousand years with that trait. It would never work on Glin. ‘Oh, no, a garrablug has me by the leg. I think I’ll sing a little song…’ No. That wouldn’t work at all. So, no, I would not say that Earth, as a whole, is rushing to our aid. But a few important individuals, perhaps.”
Sala and Duin sat down on the floor of the hut as Duin explained in Glinnish how he’d been using J’ni’s bracers to take vids of Glin itself, and posting them to the blog. This was in addition to gathering intel on the Tikati bases, ships and movements for Colonel Villanueva and the U.S. government.
J’ni sat beside Duin. Belloc remained outside.
“The first significant Earth organization to contact me was PETA, which is dedicated to the well-being of non-humans. I was excited about that, until I realized they didn’t want to help us, they wanted to know about the animals on Glin. And while I appreciate their desire to save our food supply, we can’t really make much progress on that issue until the Tikati get out of the way.”
Duin waved his hand, as if brushing aside a pile of something unpleasant.
“I tried a different tactic for a while, and rather than focusing on Glin, I began to blog Asteria. As you did, J’ni, when you weren’t writing about Glin. I reported what I found, but also explained how the eyes of a Glin see these things. I wrote about the orphans, the murder rate, the involuntary medication of those deemed insane—as if there’s such a thing as sanity. Sanity, like ownership, is an illusion. I also wrote about the unauthorized colonists. Hundreds more unapproved blocks arrived after you left.”
“Where have they put them all?” J’ni asked.
“They started a second grid.” He switched back to English and gestured with his hand as if he were placing items in an invisible model. “The first block of Sector A in Asteria 2.0 connects with the last block in Sector Y of Asteria 1.0. But many of the new blocks lacked hardware and couldn’t be connected to the power grid, the Asternet or the recycling systems. I’ve taken video of the individuals who were living and dying in the thoroughfares.”
“Were? Past tense?” said J’ni.
“Several charities and human rights organizations got involved.”
“Has J.T. been paying you for all this Star 20 content? The pay scale at that level is astronomical.”
“Your blog took a leap in popularity the moment you kicked Seth in the face.” Duin chuckled. “Somehow, a vid of that was leaked onto the net. I have no idea how, because you were in the military zone at the time. It was not my doing.”
“But you’ve managed to keep my blog at the top for two months.”
“I only tried to do what you would do, to use the tools of the language and the Stellarnet as you show
ed me. You would have been blogging all of this, if you were there.” He spoke in Glinnish for Sala’s benefit. “My truth-telling attracted the attention of Amnesty Interstellar. They sent representatives to Asteria, to see the conditions there. I was able to obtain recognition of the Glin as an ethnic group deserving of right and protections. From there, I was finally able to get some acknowledgment from the United Nations. The council of elders on Earth,” he explained to his mother.
“Well, go then,” Sala insisted. “You can’t hunt a wallump from dry ground. Take J’ni to Asteria, and let me know as soon as the rest of us can come home. A swift and painful death to the enemies of freedom.”
“Anah,” agreed Duin. “I am eager to return.”
“Don’t you want to see everyone?” J’ni asked. “Nish is here, from Long River.”
Duin waved his hands. “I’ll be stuck here drinking gifts of water and settling disputes and doing everything but liberating Glin. No, we should leave right away.”
J’ni got up to pack. Not that she had much—her old dress, her drawings and notes. She wanted to bring some of the plants she’d been collecting, to show Dr. Geber and to blog about them. But, glancing around the small room, she realized it was all missing.
“Where are my papers and things?”
Sala pointed to a basket by the door. “There. I told him to add the bava, too.”
“Him” meant Belloc, who must have started packing for her as soon as he saw Duin.
“Thank you, Sala.” J’ni kissed her cheek.
Sala ran her hands over J’ni’s face and shoulders. The Glin’s eyes grew thick and milky. “Go, go away, I’m tired and I need my sleep,” she said, turning to the wall.
J’ni put her arms around Sala and hugged her, then carried the basket out the door. As Duin stepped over the threshold, his mother grabbed him by the arm. She touched her heart and then touched his forehead.
“No matter the outcome of this,” she said, “I am proud of you. I have always been proud of you.”
“I know, Sala.”
“No, you don’t. The time will come, it always does, when you will be frustrated, be less than you want to be, do less than you want to do. And you will think less of yourself. But I won’t think less of you. Know that, Elder Duin.”
As Duin embraced his mother, J’ni glanced at Belloc and saw that his eyes were filmed over with Glin tears. She knelt down beside him. “Thank you for packing for me.”
Belloc didn’t reply. She had already thanked him a thousand times, for a thousand different things. And he had already told her a thousand times that she didn’t have to.
She was ecstatic to see Duin again and couldn’t wait to return to Asteria. While Wandalin was beautiful, she missed the Asternet, her blog, toilets, humans and the comfort of familiar food. But the thought of saying good-bye to Belloc tore her up inside, like the pain of shifting through space. Her own tears rose up in her eyes. Looking through them made everything seem to glimmer.
“Belloc.” She reached out and touched his knee. A drop escaped her eye and fell. His hand snapped out and he caught the tear, clenching it in his hand.
Duin picked up the basket. “We should go, J’ni.”
“Just a moment. Please.” She ran her hands over her bracer, activating the camera, and recorded a brief vid of the village. Then she recorded Belloc.
When she stood up, so did he.
“I hope you’ll be able to return to Glin, soon,” J’ni told him. “Then maybe I can visit you. Or you could visit Asteria.”
“Anah.” Belloc turned from her to Duin and held up his palms. “These hands were spared by the judgment of J’ni Nagyx Duin. And so I gave them to her. By nagyx, they are yours as well.”
Duin looked back and forth between J’ni and Belloc. Again, Duin had that blank, unreadable expression. He looked at Sala, and their eyes held for a moment. J’ni wished she knew what was going through the minds of mother and son.
Then Duin thrust the basket into Belloc’s outstretched hands. “As you say. Here.”
Belloc hefted the basket onto his shoulder and followed Duin. J’ni stood there for a moment, watching them both walk away without her, feeling something significant had happened, but she had no idea what. Then she ran to catch up with them.
“I think you’ve done enough for me already, Belloc,” she said.
“Never,” Belloc replied.
“Wouldn’t you rather stay here?” she asked.
“Meh,” he replied. No. It was only one word, but a world of feeling in it.
J’ni worried that Duin might get the wrong idea about her and Belloc. “But, he can’t come,” she said to Duin in English. “They wouldn’t let him into the colony.”
“He’ll have to be quarantined for a few hours and spend some time with Dr. Geber, but I don’t see why not.”
“Where’s he going to live when we get there?”
“He could build a hut in the garden.”
“What’s he going to eat?” she asked.
“We’ll buy his food,” said Duin. “As we buy ours.”
“What’s he going to do?”
Duin halted and gestured for Belloc to lower the basket. Removing the lid, he rummaged around, then asked J’ni, “Where’s the translator?”
She pulled it out of her shoulder bag. Duin pushed a few buttons on it, then thrust it into the front of Belloc’s suit and continued walking. The device echoed Duin’s words in Glinnish.
“He’ll learn your language, to begin with, and I will teach him to fly the Tikati ship. I need a co-pilot.”
Chapter Thirteen
“If you ever get lost… Belloc? Belloc!”
“An—” Belloc stopped himself from speaking Glinnish and replied, “Yes.”
“I said, if you ever get lost,” Duin tapped the wall, “touch anywhere, like this.” A map of the colony appeared. “You understand maps, don’t you?”
Belloc was trying to watch J’ni and listen to Duin at the same time. He wasn’t doing either very well, because the humans kept distracting him. There were so many. He thought the Glin were numerous on Wandalin, but that was a trickle compared to the ocean of beings here, pouring past him, moving, swirling, rushing around him. Many had pictures on their skin and clothes, and to Belloc’s wonderment, some of the pictures moved. And their colors—they weren’t patterned like Glin, but their hair, eyes and clothing were every color he’d ever seen, and some he hadn’t. A few had clothes, hair or skin designs that were the same color as Belloc. No Glin was his color. Not even his mother.
Duin punched him in the arm to get his attention.
“Guh?” Belloc said, and heard the translation from the device tucked into the front of his suit. He repeated the Earth word. “What?”
“Do you understand maps?” Duin would only speak to him in English. He said Belloc would learn faster that way. “I know you can’t read this language, yet, but you can use the translator if you need to. Look here.”
Belloc stared at a human who had several silver spikes sprouting from his face.
The elder Glin grabbed Belloc by the back of the head and shoved his nose to the wall. “That little blue dot is where we are standing in relation to the rest of the colony.” Duin pointed at the dot on the wall, near the tip of Belloc’s nose. “These lines are the hallways and thoroughfares, and this square is the Colony Square. See these here? Those are the letters and numbers of the sectors and blocks around us.”
“There are so many,” Belloc said in Glinnish.
“Yes, well, that’s why I’m showing this to you. One thoroughfare looks much like another. I didn’t know how to use the walls when I first arrived and I spent a lot of time being lost. Look, you can also do this—” he moved his fingers over the wall, “—and get a keyboard and a prompt. Type my name or J’ni’s to contact one of us. I’m spelled D-U-I-N. She is spelled G-E-N-E-V-I… never mind. Just remember D-U-I-N. Go on, touch the letters.”
Belloc touched the symbols on
the wall as he was shown and Duin’s bracer chimed. When Duin lifted his forearm level with his face, an image of him also appeared on the wall. Belloc touched the picture of Duin. The picture moved when Duin moved, which surprised Belloc and he pulled his hand away.
“My bracer has a camera.” Duin pointed to a spot on his device, and for a moment his image disappeared from the wall. When Duin moved his finger away, his image reappeared.
“Camera.” Belloc repeated the Earth word. There was no Glinnish translation.
“A camera is like an eye. What your eye sees goes into your brain.” He thumped Belloc on the head. “What this eye sees goes into the Asternet.” He thumped the wall.
Duin moved his bracer and images of the Colony Square, J’ni and Belloc appeared on the wall. Some of the humans waved and said, “’Lo, Duin.”
“’Lo.” Duin nodded and smiled at them.
Everyone in the colony seemed to know Duin and J’ni.
“Are you an elder here, too?” Belloc asked.
“No.”
“Is J’ni?”
“Am I what?” J’ni stuffed her new clothing into her bag. Belloc didn’t understand why she needed more clothes, since she had her mellump suit and a bava. J’ni said they were worth too much to wear all the time, and would attract too much attention. Belloc understood the desire to avoid attention. He’d been trying to avoid attention all his life. But he didn’t understand why the Glin clothes would be so good that she wouldn’t wear them.
“An elder,” Belloc said to her. “You are not old, but you are important.”
J’ni moved to another vendor. Duin and Belloc followed her, and the images captured by Duin’s camera moved along the wall with them until Duin turned them off.
“I’m not that much younger than Duin,” she told him. “And I’m not that important.”
Belloc doubted both.
“But you’re right,” she said. “For humans, age has very little to do with importance. How old are you, Belloc?”
