The Silver Ship and the Sea

by Brenda Cooper

  He smiled up at me, a sad smile, an expression I’d never seen on his face before. “Bye. See you tonight. I’ll try to at least make it to the kitchen table by then.”

  “I’ll hold you to that.” I hugged him briefly, and left.

  I returned just in time for the first thunder to shake us all into cowering, to paint fear on the children’s faces all over again. We gathered them from the corners of the amphitheater and started marching them to the street, needing cover. We were across the street from the science guild hall when the rain slammed down like a wall, making it hard to even see the children it soaked. We counted noses inside the hall to make sure everyone was accounted for. Within a few minutes, dripping and worn-out parents started coming in to claim their tired children.

  Full dark descended before Kayleen found me in the nearly empty guild hall. “Gosh I’m exhausted.” Her fingers twisted through her hair, combing the damp locks, just like at the breakfast table this morning.

  I laughed. Even tired, Kayleen couldn’t be completely still. “Well, try managing sixty scared kids through a thunderstorm. They were as edgy as a trapped uncut male hebra, and they whined.”

  “You like kids,” she teased.

  “Sometimes.” I sighed and looked around. Only three children and one adult remained. They didn’t need me anymore. I reached for my coat. “Come on, let’s go. I want to check on Joseph. I was home a few hours ago, and he was talking, but he’s still weak.”

  “Nava wants to see us. She’s going to your house.”

  “You didn’t ask her about us living by ourselves, did you?”

  Kayleen grinned at me. “Of course not. She thinks I’m next to useless, at least most of the time. I bet she just wants to check on Joseph and see if he ‘works’ again. She made me work pretty hard today.”

  “How is the net?”

  We stepped out into the driving rain, heads down, walking fast. Kayleen’s big feet made extra splashes in the growing puddles. We were soaked in moments. She said, “The immediate perimeter is weaved all right, but the outside is mostly silent. Only a few nodes seem to be working. With so many quiet nodes, the farthest ones may not be able to reach us. There are big holes. Mom and Nava think the quake wasn’t even centered here.” She pointed up at the sky. “Satellite data has been pretty sketchy between clouds and electrical interference from the storm, but we had clear pictures yesterday. There’s damage all up and down the High Road, and some of the paths by the lakes look blocked, too.”

  We stepped carefully to avoid wide streams filling the low spots in the streets. “So did you hear from the roamers?”

  “No. We’re hoping it’s just the bad data net.”

  “Surely they’re all right. They’d have been outside.” I said it as much to reassure myself. “We’ll hear from them soon.”

  I had to jog to keep up with Kayleen, even tired as she was. As we stopped to take our mud-covered shoes off, I was grateful to be home. When I pushed the door open, I expected to see Joseph. Instead, Nava sat at our kitchen table like she owned the place, scribbling notes on her pad and talking into her radio. She didn’t look up. “Hi, Chelo. I checked on Joseph and he refused to come out.” She frowned. “He wants to hear what I have to say. I need you to dig him up.”

  I grimaced. “I’ll try. Let me change clothes.”

  She glanced up long enough to see how wet I was, but even then she hesitated, as if giving me a few moments went against her core self. She nodded, then spoke to Kayleen, “I have a message for you to take to Paloma.”

  “But—”

  Nava held out a folded note. “Go home and get dry. We’ll see you at the group dinner. Fifteen minutes.”

  Kayleen took the note, gave me a stricken look, then turned and went back into the storm.

  It took ten minutes to find dry clothes and convince Joseph, who emerged grumbling and shaky from his bed, that he had to listen to Nava. It wasn’t like Nava couldn’t have just gone to Joseph’s room to say whatever she needed to say.

  Once we sat down, she ignored us until she finished writing. Then she looked up at Joseph. “It’s good to see you can move, after all.” Her gaze switched to me. “Council met this afternoon during the worst of the storm. They elected me to run Artistos for the next six months; they’ll decide again after that. Tom and I are to move in here.”

  So we would have to move. Maybe Paloma would take us in. Or Gianna. Gianna was nice to us.

  Nava cleared her throat and shifted in her chair. “We’re to take over your guardianship. You’ll live with us, here.”

  I glanced at Joseph. His face was impassive, but I knew him well enough to read the set of his body. Even sick and shocky, he stiffened at this news.

  I took a deep breath. This was too fast. “I was hoping we could live by ourselves. There’s plenty of housing, and we’d be out of your way. Wouldn’t it be better for you to have the whole house?”

  Nava looked at me evenly, her jaw set. “You still need to be watched. Lyssa suggested you will do better in your own home.”

  I clamped my jaw shut, holding back. This was not the moment to take her on. It showed in every part of her stiff body language. If we had to live with her, this would be a good time to say thank you, but I just couldn’t make myself do it.

  She pushed herself up from the table. “Coming to dinner?”

  I shook my head. “No, I think Joseph’s too weak. I’ll fix him something here.”

  “Suit yourself.” She left, leaving her papers on the table.

  The storm pounded the roof with a fury wind all night. Hot hard rain drummed against the leaves outside my window, a backdrop to difficult dreams of Therese and Steven lost in a sea of stones.

  I woke to a clear dawn. A light breeze carried the scent of mud and water in through chinks in the windowsills.

  That day, I took care of children again. I struggled to find a way to feel good about living with Nava while I managed a team of nine-and ten-year-old children, picking up soaked and shattered tiles and stacking them in wagons. Maybe living with us would change Nava’s mind. Knowing the enemy would help us. We could earn her trust. I didn’t believe any of it, except that Tom would be good for Joseph. Maybe. All I really knew about Tom was that he was kinder to us than Nava, polite. But he wasn’t like Paloma, not a champion. He hadn’t really seemed to notice us much. Just after lunch, Gianna limped up to us, smiling softly at me.

  Pain and exhaustion marred her thin face. “We heard from the roamers. Both bands. They’re all right”—she pushed back her long hair—“except that Gene Wolk died in the quake. But we were afraid we’d lost more.”

  Gene used to carve all of us children little wooden trees and people. “I…I’ll miss him,” I stammered.

  One more death to add to the list, one more face I’d never see again. At least Alicia and Liam were okay. “Are you okay?” Gianna asked.

  I nodded. “As okay as anyone right now. Joseph’s having a hard time.”

  “I’d heard that. I hope he’s better soon.” She smiled softly at me and limped away.

  When the end-of-shift bell finally rang, my head hurt from thinking too hard and my shoulders and back blazed with pain from stacking tiles.

  That evening, Joseph could walk without falling down. It hurt; he pinched his lips tightly closed and his eyes watered. We dressed carefully for the funeral in deep blue shirts, the formal color of Deerfly, and now of Fremont. It used to be the color of ship’s uniforms on Traveler. I brushed his black hair back from his eyes, but his face was still white and dark circles pooled under his eyes. He managed a small smile. I held him close and whispered, “I love you.”

  He whispered back, “I love you, too. Let’s go. I’ll make it.”

  As we walked, a deep red-gold sunset softened the wide wooden planks of the Lace River Bridge and sent light motes dancing along the top of the tiny wavelets as water rounded rocks.

  People gave us room, walking around us, uncomfortable with our grief, weighte
d down with their own. We crossed the narrow Stream Bridge and took the muddy path toward the orchard. As we passed the smelter and woodshop, the path lights snapped on, making our way past the edges of the orchards easier. By the time we arrived at the funeral clearing, beads of sweat stood out on Joseph’s forehead.

  I had been to funerals before, we all had. This was different, it was my people, my guardians, and I hated every step. I was grateful that almost no one spoke to us, and grateful that they came. About half the crowd wore the formal deep blue. Others clearly came directly from work; dirt streaked their faces, their clothes were damp and their feet muddy. Hilario came, his head bandaged, led by his tiny blond sweetheart Isadora.

  Gianna stood as greeter, dressed in formal blues, handing each of us who had lost a direct family member a white ribbon to tie around our upper arm. She hugged us as she gave us our ribbons, her eyes red from tears. “I’m so sorry,” she murmured in my ear. “I believe in you and your brother, and I know you have it hard sometimes, especially now. I’ll help you if I can.”

  I held her back, squeezing her hard, wanting to hold on, but the next person stood in line and I turned away from her to help Joseph tie on his ribbon.

  There must have been nearly a hundred ribbons; parents, brothers and sisters, life partners, and children. Everyone with a ribbon stood in the first circle around the wooden pyres. Jonas, Mary’s husband, stood near us, his face a mask of stoic calm except for the tears trailing down his cheeks.

  The wood looked dry; it must have been stacked since the storm. A team had been up the High Road and returned with three more bodies, all they could find, or reach. Therese, Mary, and Rob. The bodies were draped in long blue shrouds. Someone had thrown yellow flowers on top of Therese’s shroud. It was a gift that the faces of the dead were covered. I wanted to remember them all alive and active and smiling.

  Five tall pyres clustered together, and around them, five cones of wood for the missing dead; we would honor everyone.

  Full dark fell. We turned, facing outward, watching the living watch us. “This is your remaining family. They embrace you in your grief,” Nava intoned from somewhere to our right. Electric light came from behind the crowd, so we saw silhouettes, rows and rows of them, then bright lights, and behind them, green trees dotted with red fruit. The light evening wind blew toward me, and I smelled apples and the fiery metallic scent of the smelter, which could not be shut down for something as simple as a funeral. Not when the colony was in crisis.

  Nava continued. “We are gathered to mourn the passing of our leaders, of Steven and Therese, and of eight other brave souls. Gi Lin…Mary…Rob…Hans…AnnaLisa…Barnil…Thang…Jackson.” As Nava spoke each name, a moment of silence trailed behind the name before she began the next.

  When the list was complete, she said, “We will miss them all. This is the largest funeral since the war.”

  I swallowed, uneasy. We reminded Nava of the war. It was a dim childhood memory to us, but many adults still felt losses from the war sharply; loved ones killed by our original parents, by our real people—and they hated us for it, as if we had pulled triggers. Some passed their fears to their children, and so Garmin and a few others hated us. The war was our unwelcome shadow and I didn’t want it here, not at this funeral.

  But as Nava continued, she said, “We should take this as a reminder that we are at war with Fremont. We will stand together in our fight, and we will win. We will rebuild all that has been broken in Artistos, and we will go forward and rebuild the families that are broken.”

  In the short silence she left then, I thought of her new leadership. Was there anything except politics in her assumption of care for me and my brother? I thought not. We were symbols of Therese and Steven’s life. The previous leaders had us so Nava would have us. White-hot anger threatened to rise up alongside my grief, but I pushed it down. This was not the time.

  Tiny fires sprang to life; ten funeral torches. Tom carried one to me, a stick as long as my arm with a flame burning at its top. His face seemed to dance and sway in the firelight. “Light the pyre behind you for Therese and Steven, who loved you both well.” He switched his gaze from me to Joseph. “Stand with your sister. Use the fire to cleanse and purify your grief.”

  Joseph nodded, his eyes fixed on the fist-sized fire, his hand clutching mine. We stood until all of the torches were delivered.

  Drums sounded.

  The signal.

  Joseph and I stepped forward together, and I lowered my hand, touching the bright torch to the corner of stacked wood nearest me. Flame leaped from the torch to the dry wood, rising fast, and I handed the end of the burning brand to Joseph. He hesitated a moment, then with a low moan, he clenched his teeth and tossed the entire torch up high, near Steven’s covered body. Heat drove us back, step by step, until we touched the crowd. I felt Bryan’s arms around me, looked to see Kayleen cradling Joseph.

  Flames licked hungrily at the bodies, rising against the dark sky until they blotted the stars from view. I made myself watch even though it hurt to see. The peculiar smell of burning flesh filled the air. The crowd murmured behind us, a jumbled weave of singing, babies crying, wails of pain, and the drums. Joseph and I were silent, watching the flames leap and dance until they blurred behind my tears. We stood that way, the four of us together, staring at the fire for hours, until it finally burned to red-hot ashes.

  3

  Jenna and the Paw-Cat

  As first light poured in the windows the next day, I answered a knock on the door. Stile stood awkwardly, holding two small red-clay urns filled with ashes from the fire. His eyes held a hint of cool appraisal as he handed them to me, one arm moving freely and the other one jerking and slow, a war wound. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

  “Thank you.”

  He nodded, turned, and walked quickly away without looking back.

  Joseph and I tied our white ribbons around the stout necks of the urns. I set them on the windowsill in my room. Someday, we would return our parents’ ashes to Fremont’s soil. For now, the containers were dour reminders of our loss.

  That afternoon, Nava and Tom moved armloads of their personal things into the house, into Steven and Therese’s old room. They felt wrong in the house; too taut, too driven, too cold. They provided for our needs, but the sole focus of conversation was recovery from the earthquake. I was glad they left early and returned late, overseeing the rebuilding from dawn to long after dusk. When they were home, we stayed in our rooms whenever we could.

  Joseph pleaded sick and stayed home for days, even though he now walked normally and no longer slept all day. Still sullen, he napped in his room, or took short walks, avoiding the daily life of Artistos. He continued to shun the data networks.

  I missed Joseph’s laughter as much as I missed Steven’s teasing and Therese’s gentle smile.

  On the morning of the third day after the funeral, Joseph and I were having a light breakfast before I went to work. Just as we were finishing, Nava came in and sat down across from Joseph. She had pulled her hair tight behind her head and her green eyes looked determined and intense. “Joseph, you need to work today. We need you.” She took a long sip of her habitual morning tea. “You can choose to work with Paloma and Kayleen on the data networks, or you can accept whatever other assignment I give you.”

  Joseph met her eyes and said evenly, “What else would you have me do?”

  She leaned toward him, her mouth drawn tight. Her words came out clipped and short. “Artistos’s safety depends on the early warning system you helped us develop. It is your duty to maintain it.”

  I held my breath, waiting for his response.

  His eyes stayed on hers as he said, “I can’t do it. I won’t.”

  She let out a short exasperated sigh. “Consider yourself reassigned to the builders guild until you change your mind. There’s a crew working on the water reclamation plant this morning.”

  I grimaced inwardly, but stayed out of the conversation. Force n
ever worked well with Joseph; he needed time and patience.

  Bryan had the most strength, but we were all stronger than original humans. Joseph threw himself into the manual labor, working hard, perhaps burning away his losses in sweat.

  But he did not love it. His eyes never danced at the idea of work. He no longer drew diagrams of networks in his spare time or touched nodes purely because he could. Fixing sewers gave him a physical outlet for his loss, but it was not fun for him.

  To placate Nava some, I partnered with Kayleen and Paloma myself as they struggled to fix the data networks without leaving Artistos. Much of the work wasn’t Kayleen’s at all, but Paloma’s, using standard data readers. I knew the rhythms of repairing nets from being beside Joseph when he did the same things; this felt like working with the blind and the half blind. Joseph was that much better.

  The boundary had two parts; a physical gated wall that guarded Artistos on every side except the cliffs and parts of the river, and a companion string of wireless devices, a virtual fence that sent information to the boundary bell. The wireless boundary ran along the top of every wall, every gate, and crossed every river and stream, making an uneven circle of comparative safety around Artistos. Data pods sensed heat and motion and size and read ID tags, so the bell knew to ring differently for paw-cat, for hebra herd, for human entrance and exit. Everyone except Jenna had an ident chip that alerted the boundary to our passage in and out.

  Nearly two weeks after the quake, the four of us sat silently at breakfast. The bell rang for a paw-cat. It took me a second to recognize the tones; it had been two years since a paw-cat came to town. Nava and Tom pushed up from the table and ran outside. Joseph and I glanced at each other, then followed, watching over our shoulders nervously as we headed for the park.

  Tom and Nava and seven or eight others were huddled in conversation when we came up to them. A handful of other adults were approaching. I overheard snippets of talk. “…east boundary…hebras?…armory for stunners…children inside.”