The Daughter of the Sea and the Sky

by David Litwack

  Benjamin did his best to maintain it but insisted it was a losing battle. “I can lap the valves again, but that isn’t going to cure the piston slap, and I’ve already pulled the shims from the bearings. It’s only a matter of time before it beats itself into scrap. It needs to be replaced, or one of these winters the power will go out and we’ll all freeze.”

  Sebastian had Benjamin send out a special newsletter pleading for donations.

  To: Friends of Glen Eagle Farm

  From: Sebastian

  Subject: Ye Old Generator

  Dearest friends,

  Winter is coming to the Northern Kingdom and we need your help. Glen Eagle Farm requires a capital outlay we can ill afford, to buy a new generator to keep us warm when the snow falls. Here at the farm, we nourish the creative mind, but creativity only soars when the body is healthy, well fed, and warm. Please help.

  The response was meager, and mostly silence ensued.

  He’d always thrived on challenges, managing even the largest projects on time and under budget, but when Lizzie fell ill, she became his only project. Instead of managing construction, he managed her decline, trying to make the remaining time bearable for her, knowing he was destined to fail. When she was gone and he found himself alone after forty-one years of marriage, nothing seemed to matter. Friends urged him to get back to the office, to use work as therapy, but his heart hadn’t been in it.

  He’d felt as he had as a young man returning from the war, emerging down the gangplank of the troop carrier into the midst of a bustling city. He resented those around him who had no idea what he’d been through—their constant efforts to filch a little more money from each other, their quest to find a better restaurant or speedier car, their need to dream their insignificant dreams.

  Foolish people. After the war they trespassed on his madness. After Lizzie died they encroached on his grief. He went through the motions for a few months and then gave up.

  A friend whose sister had gone to the farm had recommended it as a place where he might get his life back together. When he arrived, he found it in shambles and had volunteered to help. The farm soon became his new project, one he could manage from start to finish, one that mattered.

  Now he worried it wouldn’t survive.

  When he heard the knock at the door, he welcomed the distraction—Jason dropping by for his interview.

  “Come in,” Sebastian said.

  The young man strode into his office carrying a bulky black case in one hand as if it were lighter than air. The young were like that, flowing through the physical world, flinging their bodies at life.

  He’d been that way too, flinging his body at the war, the last battle with the zealots before the Treaty of Separation brought peace. Now he moved more cautiously, afraid to fall and break a hip, but he flung himself at things in a different way. Emptying his bank account was an irrational act, leaving no safety net for his future, yet he’d gladly do it again.

  This young man probably had misgivings about spending so much time away from the office.

  “Good morning, Jason.” His upbeat greeting was only a little bit forced. “I trust you slept well.”

  Jason beamed, his face fresh and flushed. “Yes, I did. Better than I have in some time.”

  “The farm can do that to you. I think it’s the mountain air. Have a seat.”

  As Jason settled in, Sebastian flipped the stack of bills over onto their blank back sides. “You look like you just finished a run.”

  “I did. I jogged down to the reflection shelter and cut through the woods to that dirt road by the horse farm. Then I followed it all the way to the highway. Great place for a run.”

  “An early morning jaunt through the woods.” He stared out the bay window, envisioning a path from an earlier time. “Did you see their tracks?”

  “Whose tracks?”

  “The animals—their little footprints on the ground. I used to go for a sunrise walk myself before my knees started acting up. As a city boy, I loved finding the tracks they left in the dew, letting me know they’d passed this way.”

  The young man gaped at him as if he were an addled old man.

  Best to return to business. “Maybe later, after you’ve slowed down. Now, I understand you expect to work for the Polytechnic Institute while you’re here.”

  “If you let me. All I need is a quiet place with a desk, a chair, and a comm link.” He patted the black case. “This will do the rest.”

  “So Helena tells me. Some kind of experimental communications, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right. The latest technology. I’ll be able to share documents, data, and photograms almost as if I were there.”

  “Sounds impressive, Jason, but it gives me a problem. I have a hard and fast rule. No one stays at the farm without contributing. To do otherwise would be unfair to our other members. I’ve never made an exception, and I don’t intend to start now.”

  Jason lowered his eyes and studied his hands.

  Sebastian waited, giving him time.

  Finally, the young man looked up and met Sebastian’s gaze. “Helena mentioned your rule, and I’ve given it some thought. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to stay, Polytech work at night or early in the morning, and in between, rake leaves, mop the kitchen floor, wash dishes. Anything you ask.”

  Sebastian placed his elbows on the desk, made a platform with his hands, and rested his chin on them. “I was hoping you’d say that. Here’s what I’d like you to do. Most of our members are artisans or culinary people and are absolved from the upkeep of the farm. In fact, most of the maintenance and administrative work is done by a single person, and he could use a second pair or hands. Would you be willing to help him?”

  “Who’s that?”

  “You’ve already met him. Our jack-of-all-trades, Benjamin.”

  Sebastian watched Jason closely as he spoke, and caught an expected hint of a grimace, quickly controlled. A bad sign; the two would have to work together.

  “Oh, I know. Benjamin’s unusual,” he said, “but he’s a hard worker and has done everything I’ve ever asked of him. Just do what he tells you, and you’ll get along fine. Will you give it a try?”

  Jason shifted to the edge of his seat and leaned in. “And in exchange, you’ll provide me a place to do my work in the off hours?”

  “I’ve already asked Benjamin to set up space for you in his office. It’ll be tight for the two of you, but—”

  “I’ll take it.”

  Sebastian unfolded his hands, stretched the right one across the desk, and held it firm until the young man grasped it and gave it a shake.

  ***

  Jason followed Sebastian down a creaky corridor, while the managing director once again gave a tour. “The great house was built over three hundred years ago when settlers first braved the north country—a farming family, I think, by the name of Macintyre. A descendant of theirs still lives in Northweald and runs the Emporium. It was modest at first, just the foyer and my office, but they expanded it like a patchwork quilt, a new wing for each generation. The old girl’s cranky at times and a burden to heat, but we do our best to maintain her.”

  He stopped near the end, just before a back door opened onto a small porch. “On the right is a common room our members use to make calls to friends and family. On the left is your new home, where Benjamin works when he’s not maintaining the grounds.”

  Jason peered inside—the space wasn’t much larger than his cubicle at the Polytech, only big enough to hold two chairs and a table. On the table sat an older model text processor attached to a printer, and a hand-cranked mimeograph machine with an ink-fed drum. The usual office supplies clustered around these—reams of paper, a jar with plastic pens, a paper-cutter, envelopes, a sponge for sealing them, a roll of stamps, packing tape, and scissors.

  “Now,” Sebastian said, “where did Benjamin go?”

  The man Jason had met by Grandmother Storyteller poked his head out from underneath the desk
, a screwdriver in his hand.

  “Ah, there you are,” Sebastian said. “Look who I’ve brought.”

  Benjamin crawled out from under the table, scrambled to his feet, and made a cursory bow. A furrow formed at the corners of his mouth, exposing the tips of his teeth, apparently his version of smiling.

  Jason nodded, trying to be friendly, but the man barely made eye contact.

  “Good news, Benjamin,” Sebastian said. “Jason has agreed to use your handiwork in the off hours in exchange for being your helper in between.”

  Jason caught a nearly imperceptible movement as the man’s posture stiffened and the pointed teeth were tucked away.

  Sebastian paid no mind. “I assume you’ll take advantage of him in the best possible way.”

  Another small bow.

  “Wonderful. Then I’ll leave the two of you to your work. I have plenty to do myself.”

  When Sebastian was gone, Jason extended a hand to Benjamin, smiled, and said, “I look forward to working with you.”

  No response. His hand hovered unmet in midair until he withdrew it.

  Jason tried to draw him out. “Do you prefer to be called Benjamin, or is it Ben or Benji?”

  “It’s Ben-ja-min.”

  “Okay, Benjamin it is.”

  “I have always been called Benjamin, not Ben or Benji. My mother called me Benjamin. My father called me Benjamin. Everyone calls me Benjamin.”

  Jason pictured a boy being teased during recess—”Ben-ja-min, Ben-ja-min”—in schoolyard sing-song, and wondered how many fights that had caused.

  “Well, Benjamin....” Jason tried to banish the sing-song from his head. “You maintain the farm’s equipment as well as the grounds?”

  “I’m not one of those prima donna artists,” Benjamin said. “I do whatever Sebastian asks of me.”

  “Like what?”

  “Weed the flowerbeds, arrange the stones that line the paths, send out newsletters to the friends of the farm.” He glanced up, perhaps to see if Jason was impressed. “And I hunt in season to provide food.”

  “Really. What do you hunt?”

  “I’ll bag a couple of bucks a year,” he said, “and a few does too. It saves Sebastian money, and everyone loves fresh venison.”

  “Are you a good hunter?”

  “Better than I am a handyman. I learned all the tricks as a child—how to stalk my prey, how to position downwind with the sun at my back and, most importantly, how to hit what I aim at.” He shuffled to the window and pointed. “See that top window of the barn?”

  Jason looked out and nodded.

  “That’s the quilting room. From there I could pick off a squirrel dashing across the front lawn.”

  “Is that so?”

  “That’s so, Jason.” His lips twitched, and the points of his teeth showed again. “Take it to the bank. I’d hit it every time.”

  ***

  Jason found Benjamin to be hard working and intelligent, but eccentric, a self-absorbed man with a braying laugh that often burst out at inappropriate times. The two would never be friends but might make passable colleagues, at least for his stay at the farm.

  Benjamin had learned all he knew about machine repair from reference manuals that sat on a shelf above the work table. He spent the bulk of his time on that and grounds maintenance. But he was most proud of his role as overseer of the Friends of Glen Eagle Farm.

  “I publish a newsletter once a month,” he said, “more often if something special’s going on. I write the articles, format the pages, and paste in pictures of the artwork we hope they’ll buy. Then I run off the copies and fold them, address the envelopes and stuff them, stick on the stamps, and take them to the post office in town. We had fewer than forty friends when I started. Now it’s up to two hundred fifty-seven. In the spring and the fall, we hold a reception for them so they can see the fruits of their generosity.

  “But it’s never enough for Sebastian. He wants more friends to sustain the farm. I recruit them when I find time, especially from universities like yours, but lately, nothing seems to move the numbers.”

  “Have you tried advertising?”

  Benjamin straightened. Though a slight man, he seemed to grow a few inches. “This is Glen Eagle Farm, Jason, a special place. It’s not some country fair.”

  A few months seemed suddenly like a long time. Jason thought it best to change the subject, and pointed to the small white box mounted on the wall above the desk. “Is the comm link live?”

  “I hope so, but I just installed it and haven’t had a chance to test it yet. Sebastian only told me about you this morning. Fetch me my tool box.” He gestured to a metal box on the floor.

  “No need,” Jason said. “I can test it from this.”

  He opened the black case and pulled out a plastic box not much bigger than Benjamin’s text processor, but with a larger screen embedded in its front and a more complex keyboard folding out below. A black cable snaked out from its back.

  After laying the device gently on the desktop, he borrowed Benjamin’s screwdriver and attached the cable to the comm link. With the flick of a switch, the screen sprang to life and words appeared:

  Welcome to the Polytechnic Institute Network

  Please Sign On

  Jason’s hands hovered over the keyboard, and he typed Jason-Adams. When the system prompted for a password, he slid the pointer over to the appropriate field, but when he caught Benjamin peering over his shoulder, he paused to turn a dial and darken the screen. Only then did he finish typing.

  “What was that all about?” Benjamin said.

  “Security. I had to enter my password.”

  He brightened the screen again and typed:

  To [William-Jackson@Polytechnic-Institute]. Hi, Bill.

  Benjamin placed the flat of his hands on the desktop and let his weight rest on them. “What are you doing now?”

  “Letting my colleague know I’m connected. I’ve tied into the network and am linking our machines.”

  He waited, and after a few seconds new words scrolled down the screen, though Jason had typed no more.

  Benjamin pressed down harder until his knuckles turned white. “How did you do that?”

  “I didn’t. That’s Bill Jackson back at Albion Point replying to my message.”

  Benjamin’s eyes grew wider as he realized what he was seeing.

  Jason couldn’t resist, and typed:

  Bill, send me a document.

  Moments later, a document rippled across the screen, the tenets of the Republic, the standard treatise about pursuing a rational life for the benefit of all. Embedded in the text was the ubiquitous image from the land bridge, the statue of the Lady of Reason with her torch held high. Jason heard a quick intake of breath behind him.

  “How did that picture get into the document?” Benjamin said.

  In answer, Jason pulled a second device from his case, this one appearing like a sleeker version of Benjamin’s printer. With a twist of a screw, he connected it to the encomm. Then he glanced about the room.

  On a bookshelf behind Benjamin lay a pile of old farm newsletters. He grabbed one, pausing to admire its cover, and then fed it into a slot in the new device.

  He pressed a button and a motor whirred. Light leaked from the edges of the newsletter. Gradually, a photogram displayed in layers on the encomm’s screen. It showed the great house in autumn with the mountains behind. Green pastures and trees filled the valleys, brightly colored foliage graced the slopes, and snow covered the summits.

  Jason typed:

  Check this out, Bill. My new home.

  After a moment, new words appeared on the screen:

  Document received. Lucky you, Jason. Looks great.

  Jason turned, expecting to find Benjamin impressed. Instead he caught him staring at the encomm like a man making plans.

  ***

  Late that night, Benjamin paced the confines of his cabin and let his mind race. He didn’t like Jason and had no desi
re to work with him. This so-called man of reason talked down at him like his father used to. ‘You’re a Thorndike, Benjamin, not a damn peasant. It’s time you became reasonable, abandon your foolish notions, and make something of your life.’

  He’d make something of his life, all right, but something worthwhile, something more meaningful and lasting than money or power. He’d had some success but was limited by his remote location; spreading the word was difficult. He had to sneak the special mailings in a few at a time to keep Sebastian from noticing the increase in postage.

  Then came Kailani, as if sent by Lord Kanakunai himself, a golden child full of faith and blessed with a spirit bright enough to enlighten the soulless.

  Now an even greater gift had arrived—Jason, the man of reason, and the miracle device his reason had produced. Jason possessed resources Benjamin lacked, resources he could use to further the cause.

  He’d do as Sebastian asked—take Jason under his wing, work him hard and make him earn his keep. At the same time, he’d learn new ways to attract more believers. Once he’d been shown how, he’d sneak in late at night, after a worn-out Jason had gone to bed, and take advantage of the device.

  He shoved the cot aside and yanked off the loose board he’d cut away to create a hiding place, knowing someday they’d come to search his room. From inside the wall he withdrew a scroll that held the list of names, a list that was still too small.

  The irony of it: a nonbeliever would show him the way. He felt a stab of remorse. Is this the way to paradise? He tossed the scroll into the air and caught it, then put it back into its hole.

  A nonbeliever would show him the way. No matter. The Lord worked in mysterious ways. The end would justify the means.

  Chapter 17 – The Spirit of the Wind

  Helena strolled alongside Kailani, holding her hand and swinging it in rhythm with their stride. The day was perfect for their outing, the air crisp and clear. Both kept checking the tree line on their right, searching for the marker Sebastian had described. Kailani could barely contain her excitement, and Helena was much the same.

  Jason prowled ahead. Of the three, only he had yet to adapt to the slower pace of the farm. While she and Kailani were making jewelry, he’d been slaving away at the menial tasks Benjamin assigned him, all the while still putting in long hours for the Polytech. It left scant time for sleep and no time for them to be together. He never complained, but his shoulders seemed to slump more each day.