by neetha Napew
The CIS representative’s expression had altered as he staggered to keep his balance. “It cannot so quickly perceive—‘
Another rumble, quicker, so that it appeared to be more emphatic.
“We weren’t supposed to get any aftershocks,” Braddock Makem murmured, thoroughly dismayed.
“Messer Anaciliact,” Sean began, smiling and with a little conciliatory bow, “I think it would be best if we took you to one of those special places where the planet communicates with us in its unique fashion. I believe it is quite ready to discuss the terms of its . . . use as a habitation and the uses to which its gifts may be put.”
“Don’t, I beseech you, Messer Anaciliact,” Torkel said, on the point of grabbing the hands of the CIS representative, who deftly avoided him, “go into one of those misty caves! It’s all hallucinogenic. You’ll believe anything.”
“Captain . . .”
“Fiske, Torkel Fiske.” The man’s handsome features were contorted with the urgency of his entreaty. “You’ll end up like them!” He gestured toward his father, Yana, Marmion, and Sean.
“My dear Captain Fiske, I am conditioned to reject any hallucinogenics and drugs, and trained to perceive illusions or spells of any nature,” Anaciliact replied with imperturbable and gentle reassurance. “I assure you I am well able to probe the substance of sentience in all forms of creatures to the exact degree of self-awareness and percipience. Now, if we may just proceed to wherever it is I may start my investigations?”
“This way,” Sean said, gesturing toward the door through which the CIS investigator had recently entered. “It’s a short distance from here but I believe—ah, Johnny, did your copter survive?”
“It did, Sean.” Johnny eyed Sean’s companion. “And it’s even fueled and ready to go.”
“Yana, where’s Clodagh? Sean asked, looking around the busy incident room. Then he noticed orange cats prowling discreetly or observing from the tops of piled cartons. “Never mind. She’ll be there.”
When they reached the outskirts of Kilcoole and Johnny circled the copter to land it close to the warm springs, Coaxtl and Nanook bounded out of the forest to await their descent.
They sat back on their haunches when they saw Phon Tho Anaciliact step down. He turned, slightly startled, then bowed with a touch of reverence in the motion.
“You are messengers?” he asked.
Occasionally that is our function, Nanook said. But we do as we please.
“As your breed always has,” Phon Tho said with another respectful bow.
You may follow us. The way has been cleared.
“Sean, the coo-berry . . .” Yana said as she saw Phon Tho following the track-cats toward the warm springs.
“Why did you think Clodagh, Sinead, Bunny, and Diego skived out of SpaceBase as fast as they could?” he asked her, taking her hand as he landed lightly on his feet beside her. “Coming, Johnny?”
“Sure am!” Johnny had helped Marmion, Whittaker, and Sally descend from the other side of the packed copter and now they all followed the leaders.
Dried stalks lined the path, but not a single live coo-berry tendril remained. Some might have been killed by Clodagh’s antidote, Yana thought, but the rest seemed to have simply . . . been swallowed up by the planet’s crust.
Oh well. Anywhere else that would have been incredible, but as always, Petaybee played by its own rules.
The track-cats deftly trotted across the stepping-stones to enter the gap between cliff side and cascade, the CIS arbitrator not a step behind them as they disappeared into the Kilcoole access area.
Mist was already forming by the time all had gathered, for Clodagh, Sinead, Aisling, Bunny, and Diego were waiting in the cave, having cleared the way. Clodagh smiled and gestured for Phon Tho to seat himself nearby, and he immediately assumed the very difficult lotus meditation position, back erect, hands with thumbs and index fingers meeting. Marmion settled herself with Sally and Whittaker. Sean and Yana seated themselves so that they faced Phon Tho.
That gentleman had a good long look at the wondrous colors and forms that were shortly obscured by the thickening mist, A slight smile curved his finely molded lips, and then he closed his eyes.
Sean and Yana, shoulders and thighs touching, experienced an overwhelming sensation of relief and total relaxation, of reassurance and goodwill: a sense of great achievement, although relief was the dominant feeling.
When the mist dissolved at last, leaving the ambient glow of the rocks in their splendidly delicate coloration’s visible, the relief still remained. Then all the participants turned their attention to Phon Tho Anaciliact.
He rose from his lotus position with the special gracefulness of someone well accustomed to such a maneuver and smiled at them.
“This planet is self-aware in a manner I have never before encountered. It is an entity, a being with consciousness, and as such deserves the protection which is my prerogative. While it insists that it is no longer indentured to Intergal, it honors the obligation of life and will redeem itself in due course.” Then he turned to Clodagh. “You are named as one minister to its needs, and you, Sean Shongili, are another.” Then he looked curiously around, first at Sinead, then Bunny, until his glance settled on Yana. “Ah yes, it is you, Colonel Yanaba Maddock, whom I take with me to the headquarters of CIS to verify certain particulars in my report. As soon as communications are repaired, I shall give an interim report to my superiors, but in the meantime, I am authorized to evict the incumbent authority as inimical to the Subject Sentience. You who have lived long on Petaybee are requested to remain. I fear there may be some hardships yet for you to undergo until a proper authority can be framed to deal with such an unusual Sentience and the needs of its inhabitants.” His lips curved with wry humor. “But you are welcome, it would seem,” he said, smiling at Clodagh, Sinead, Aisling, Whittaker, Johnny, and Sean, “For without you, the Sentience would never have become truly aware of its potential.”
“And just what is that potential, Messer Anaciliact?” Marmion asked with one of her more radiant smiles.
He gave a shrug, opening his hands. “It is—boundless, it is—unchartable, it is—unfathomable, it is—“
Yana’s pent-up nerves of the last few weeks released in a short guffaw. “I think what Messer Anaciliact is trying to say is, ‘whatever’!”
The Sentience gave a tremor that might have been a laugh but certainly concluded the current interview.
“What songs we’ll make of this, huh, Bunny?” Diego whispered as people turned to file reverently from the cavern. Bunny smiled in agreement, just as a peculiar echo rang through the cavern. It repeated not the last words of Diego’s sentence, nor the first word, but the middle ones. As they turned to listen, the cavern played rainbows on its reflective surfaces and the echo sang back to them. in a voice neither Diego’s nor Bunny’s nor that of any human being they knew, “Songs we’ll make, songs we’ll make . . .”
1
Outside Kilcoole
Yanaba Maddock and Sean Shongili held hands in a darkness illuminated only by the glowing eyes of hundreds of animals and the flames of hundreds of candles. The drumming had stopped now, replaced by the sweet lapping of sliding water, the beat of many hearts and the breathing of many creatures. One pulse was louder than all the drums had been, one breath a wind that guttered and flared the candles with each respiration.
‘So how do we do it here?’ Yana whispered nervously to her love and the father of her unborn children. ‘Does the planet give me away or what?’
Sean smiled and winked, ‘No-one has that right but you, love. Let’s just say that the planet acts as witness and honorary best being.’
‘…best being,’ an echo sang from the cavern walls, ‘best being…’
He stopped walking and she stopped beside him. All she knew was that they were getting married, Petaybean-style.
She’d been so busy with her new duties as Petaybee’s administrator over the last two months that she ha
dn’t had enough time to enquire as fully as she would have liked into the rite or folkways of the Petaybean marriage ceremony before it was upon her. Sean’s niece, Bunny Rourke, one of Yana’s chief informants on matters Petaybean, had told her that it was a special sort of latchkay with a night chant at the hotsprings. Yana had attended the break-up latchkay when she first arrived. This occasion differed in that the night chant was at the beginning of the latchkay instead of at the end. As at all latchkays, there would be much singing, although probably more at this particular one. Both Sean and Yana were to prepare a song for each other. Songs were how Petaybeans celebrated or commemorated all their most noteworthy experiences. The mode was mostly either a rhyme scheme to some ancient Irish air or a free-verse poem chanted Inuit style to the accompaniment of a drum. Yana, whose heart was full but whose mind was too crowded with administrative details while her body was having to make physical accommodations to her pregnancy, had finally created her song. Other than that, she simply hoped that things would go well and allowed herself to be led through the proceedings by the people she had trusted more than once with her life.
Two hours earlier Kilcoole’s premiere couturiere, Aisling Senungatuck, had arrived with the gown she had created for Yana - rabbit hides crocheted together with woollen yarn in a long, panelled design with a flared skirt, scooped neck and long sleeves. The crocheted lace inserts were heavily decorated with beads made from scavenged wire and the little Petaybean pebbles found in certain streams. Tumbled, polished, and drilled, the stones were lovely and translucent. The gown was yellow, the Petaybean wedding colour, Aisling explained, &lsquot;Because most of the plants make yellow dye.&rsquot; The rabbits were contributed from the collecting places of all the village hunters. Sean’s vest was a darker shade of the yellow, trimmed with beaver fur and blue and white beads.
Now the motes of light formed a circle around the two, and Clodagh Senungatuck, Aisling’s sister and village healer, stepped into the centre with Sean and Yana. Yana noted with some amusement that as many of Clodagh’s orange striped cats as could crowd around her feet did so, their eyes eerie and iridescent in the candleglow.
‘Sean Shongili and Yanaba Maddock, we’ve come here because we understand you got somethin’ to say to all of your friends and kin here where the planet hears you best, is that right?’
‘It is,&rlquo; Sean said. ’I have a song to sing for you all.’
‘Sing for us,’ soft voices said from the shadows, accompanied by an underlying rumble of throaty feline purrs, the whicker of the curly-coats, and the affirmative yips of the dogs.
‘Sing,’ the echo said.
Yana had no idea how many bodies were clustered into the cave that day. The line seemed to stretch clear back to the village and included every man, woman and child, horse, cat, the larger track cats, everybody’s dog teams. She could have sworn that she saw wild game emerge from the brush and join in the procession just before Clodagh led them into the darkness of the cave behind the hotsprings waterfall.
Sean cleared his throat. The candleflame shadowed the chiselled planes of his face and softened the outline of his mouth as he began speaking.
‘Yanaba, she met the enemy
Coming to us, she met friends as well And honoured them.
She met me, and I met love.
Aijaiji.
‘With her friends, here around her
With her lover, I who take her hand,
For these people and this world embracing us
She met the enemy again and again.
It is in her name to do so.
Aijaija.
‘Yanaba, who knows my aspects
Yanaba, who has my heart
Yanaba, who honours my world and my people
Yanaba, who carries our future in her body
Yanaba, you are already part of my life
Yanaba, you already possess my heart
I tell you this here, with our world as witness,
I want you with me for ever.
Ajai.’
Yana’s mouth went suddenly dry. Something soft and furry rubbed against her bare ankles. Her stomach gave a heave and she wondered could the baby be moving so soon, pushing her to speak. She took Sean’s hands as much for support as encouragement and clung to them so tightly that she was afraid she’d leave bruises, except that he returned the strong grip. That gave her the courage she needed. She felt suddenly light-headed and needed to hold on to him to keep from floating to the top of the cave.
‘Sean Shongili, my truest friend and love.
Here I am, a woman whose only song
Was of war and death.
How can I sing what I feel for you?
You gave me life when I was dying,
A home when I had known none in
Many years of wandering,
A family when all of mine is dead,
A life to bear
When I thought I could give only death.
You showed me a new world and
Invited me to make it my own.
‘And I do.
In old songs by better singers
They say, “You are all the world to me.”
I say so too.
Sean Shongili, you are all the world to me
And the world to me is you.
I love you. Take me as I take you.
As they used to say on Earth, “I do.”
Sean took her in his arms then, and kissed her, letting his body rest against her belly which, although firm and a bit fuller and rounder than usual, wasn’t that noticeable yet.
Then Clodagh clapped her hands and everyone dispersed leaving Yana and Sean alone in the cave but not in darkness. As the candles departed, a warm soft glow pulsed throughout the cavern and he eased her to the rock which seemed to melt into a comfortable bed as she and Sean made love. They always enjoyed that occupation but here, now, in the cave, where the planet was also part of this communion, she felt as if she had never before been so consumed by the passion that always fired up between them in the act of love. Sean felt it too, for his hands were tender, possessive in a fashion she would once have resented, exciting in ways she had never experienced. The climax was so extraordinary that she wept and knew, from the wetness of the cheek he pressed hard against hers, that he also had been rocked by the intensity of their consummation. For a moment, she thought she had died.
This time they did not sleep afterwards or dress as they left the cave to join the throng waiting outside at the thermal pools.
Cheers and laughter greeted them from the people and animals in the springs’ three pools. Overhead the stars and moons, real and man-made, lit the sky while the candles planted along the sides of the pool garlanded it with ribbons of light. The big cats sported rather clumsily in the water while the dogs fetched various things thrown by their masters. The smaller cats sat disdainfully on the edge of the pool. Yana laughed when one of the curly-coats took a running jump and dived into the pool making a whale-sized wave that swamped the shore and wet several disgusted felines who began furiously to lick themselves dry.
Then Sean pushed her in and a moment later, a seal appeared among the splashing, laughing, naked company. This activity continued till daylight and was the merriest, raunchiest festivity she had ever attended. Periodically, someone would hoist themselves out of the water and run bare-assed to the baskets beyond the candles to fetch something to cram into their mouths before diving back into a pool. Fortunately, all the food had been prepared in bite-sized portions, was easily chewed and swallowed, or was fruit that wouldn’t be harmed if it got wet.
At daylight, everyone went ashore and dressed and walked limply home except Sean and Yana, who rode double on one of the curlies while Bunny led the village girls who spread flower petals and seeds on the path before them.
‘I’m starving,’ Yana muttered up into Sean’s chin.
He nuzzled the top of her head. ‘Good, you’ll like this part then. The feast was prepared before we left. But don�
�t eat so much or you’ll be too full to dance with me afterwards.’
‘Dance? You have to be joking! My legs feel like noodles. Umm, noodles. Do you suppose Clodagh made hers? The ones with the smoked fish and dried tomato sauce?’
‘I have it on good authority that she did. Is all you think of your stomach?’
‘I’m eating for two!’
‘So you are. Forgive me,’ he said, lifting her down from the curly-coat’s back.
During the feasting, she had ample chances to rest and gaze into Sean’s eyes and messily feed him and receive food from him, also part of the wedding protocol. The food was arrayed in the middle of the meeting house, and Sean and Yana as well as the other adults sat on benches along the wall while Bunny led the youngsters of Kilcoole in offering them food.
Meanwhile, everyone occupied themselves by singing the songs they had written for Sean and Yana. Bunny sang of her first meeting with Yana and their wild ride down the river. Sean’s sister, Sinead, told how she knew Yana would be one of them from the time she went on her first hunt. Adak sang of the hiding of Sean in the snocle shed with Yana, and making frequent clandestine trips which the powers that be did not know anything about.
Even Steve Margolies, now residing in Kilcoole with his partner, Frank Metaxos, and Diego, sang of how Yana and Sean had reunited him with his family. And Yana’s neighbour across the street had a hilarious pantomime song about Yana throwing Colonel Giancarlo out of her cabin with the burned fish. That was one of the few songs rhymed and sung to an old Irish air instead of chanted to drums. Clodagh said she believed the tune went originally to a song called ‘The Charladies’ Ball’.
As the other young people began to clear away the empty serving plates, Diego took his newly crafted guitar and joined the drummers, Old Man Mulligan on his whistle, and Mary Yulipilik on her handmade concertina. All together, they wheezed up a quite respectable dance tune.
Sean took Yana’s hands in his, led her out onto the floor and then swung himself opposite her at the top of the cleared hall. Two by two came Dr Whittaker Fiske, who had returned especially to dance at the wedding, partnering Clodagh, followed by Sinead with Aisling, Moira and Seamus, Bunny and her sister Cita, Frank Metaxos and Steve Margolies, Liam Maloney and Bunny’s cousin Nula to form a complete reel line. Captain Johnny Greene, who had extended his shore leave for the occasion, had Captain Neva-Marie Rhys-Hall from SpaceBase as his partner for the dance in another reel line while his fellow copter pilot, Rick O’Shay, gallantly led old Kitty Intiak on to the floor. Orange cats tiptoed daintily to the food which had been put on the side for them, while the dogs went home to their kennels to eagerly await scraps from the feast. Track cats lounged by the doors and on top of the roof and the curlies grazed in the last of the green fields left by the unusually long, warm summer, now turning to fall.
