As if on cue, Kayleen stepped through the low-hanging branches. Bits of hay stuck in her hair and mud and hay caked the sides of her long shoes. Her feet were outgrowing them again. Eric, the shoemaker, would tease her about having to make a new shoe last already. No one on Fremont had feet as long or agile as Kayleen’s.
She stretched. “What a day. Mom made me count everything in two whole harvest sheds, and all the while people were bringing things in and rearranging everything. I had to count the corn bushels twice to get it right.” She flopped down on a bench without taking a breath or pausing. “I had to climb both hay shelters, too—the hebra grass hay and the timothy. I heard about your adventure—I’m glad you’re okay. Did you hear the roamers are on their way? I brought some twintree fruit and water. And you two look cozy. Where’s Joseph?”
Before I could respond, Joseph answered her last question himself by following her in. “Hi. Chelo, how’s your scratch? I brought some salve.”
“Thanks.” My cheeks flushed red as I stripped out of my shoes and pants, leaving only my underwear and a shirt barely long enough to cover them. Kayleen blinked and said, “Wow. That’s no scratch. You can walk with that slice in your leg?”
Joseph spread Paloma’s plant oil ointment over the cut, his fingers gentle against my torn skin. The salve sent fiery tingles deep into my leg, and I bit my lip against the pain, not wanting to cry out. It was hard enough to be the center of so much attention.
Bryan looked politely away while I struggled carefully back into my pants. “Well, no running for you today. Did you and Joseph figure out this key business yet?”
I sighed. “I haven’t told him about it yet. I didn’t want to mix it in with yesterday’s trip.”
Joseph flashed me a disgusted glance and I said, “Well, I was going to tell you. I just…I thought you’ve been getting enough pressure. The way Nava’s always on you.” I sighed and sat down carefully, looking Joseph in the eyes. “Jenna surprised me and Kayleen the day we were working gate five, trying to remesh the data nodes, right after the paw-cat came in. She told us to get you back in the data nets, that you’re ‘the key.’ She was really insistent, and seemed to think we should know what she meant. She didn’t say anything else useful.”
Joseph lay down on one of the benches, staring up at the roof of the tent tree. His lips tightened in a stubborn frown. “I don’t ever want to go back to riding the data nets.”
I took a twintree fruit from Kayleen’s stretched-out hand. “I know. But we need your help. Kayleen just can’t do it all herself.”
“Artistos did fine before we got here.”
“Tom said the same thing, but he also said we all pull together.” That was a colony rule. And ours, as well. Anyone violating the rule earned sharp tongues and difficult tasks from whichever guilds-master they served. “The nets have been much stronger since you started helping. Your work matters.”
Joseph kept his eyes on the graceful belled canopy of the tent tree. His jaws were locked tight. He was silent a long time, and then when he spoke his voice was soft and halting. “I know. But I don’t think I can anyway. Not now. I can’t relax enough.” He turned toward me. “I used to hear the data all the time, and I haven’t been able to since…”
“Could your system be burned out?” Kayleen asked. “Sometimes when I try three flows, I go deaf to the net for a while. Did such a big flow of data hurt you? Maybe you just need time.”
Joseph turned to her and put a hand out for a piece of twintree fruit. “Thanks. I don’t hear the nets, feel them, like I used to. I don’t want to.” He tossed the fruit carefully from hand to hand, like a ball, yelping once when a sticker penetrated the fleshy pad of his ring finger. “Don’t you understand? I couldn’t help them. Any of them. I heard them die and there was nothing I could do.” Tears glistened in the edges of his eyes, and he swiped the back of his free hand across them and turned his face away from all of us, gazing up at the green diamond leaves.
A minute passed before Bryan spoke into the quiet. “They would have known that. They knew you loved them. But what would Steven and Therese want you to do? They spent every waking hour worrying about everyone’s safety and needs, and now Tom and Nava are doing the same.” He paused, his brow furrowed. “Nava’s hard, I know, but you can adjust. I’ve had to. The Smiths resent me, but I still do what I need to do. And they do, too. It’s just harder.”
Joseph pulled the outer rind off in one strong twist of his wrist. The sour-sweet smell of fruit permeated the still air. “I like the kind of work I’m doing. It feels good to see something physical get done, to lay a pipe, and see water going through it. I feel better.”
It was a lie. He hardly ever smiled anymore. He just worked, and came home, and went to his room.
Kayleen practically spoke for me. “All right. I think Jenna meant something important. You’re the strongest one of us in the nets. I can’t do what you do. And Jenna doesn’t seem to be able to either. I don’t think she can feel data at all. She’s like Chelo. She has other gifts.”
Bryan said, “We don’t know that. We only know what we can observe, and what she tells us. Which isn’t much.”
I frowned, picturing Jenna standing with the dead paw-cat strung over her shoulder like a flour sack. “The first year we lived here, they hunted her. They would have killed her if they could have. I was only five, but I remember how much they hated her. Who knows what she hides, or why?”
The entrance bells chimed. Kayleen glanced at us, then proclaimed, “The roamers!”
Grins split all of our faces. Liam and Alicia. Story Night and then Trading Day. The deep tones of the gather-bell rang next, calling us to town.
Joseph and Kayleen jogged back ahead of us. Bryan stayed with me, walking by my side. I appreciated the kindness; my leg truly wasn’t up to anything more than a slow walk. He linked an arm with mine, supporting me, and the pleasure of walking with him made up for not being in town before the roamers reached the science guild hall.
As we crossed the Lace River, the sun touched the roamers’ wagons in Little Lace Park, illuminating bright yellows and oranges, colors chosen to show in satellite photos against the greens and grays of Fremont, so we could visually track them. The wagons looked like gaudy flowers from this distance. I stopped briefly, leaning on the bridge rail, watching the painted wagons, the tethered hebras, the few brightly dressed roamers who were still closing up, hurrying to town like we were.
By the time we reached the guild hall, we had to press in through a crowd. Culture guild servers passed among us. Old Chub and his wife, Kiki, bent but still moving, slowly carried trays of roasted djuri, leavened bread, and fresh corn. Chayla, who lost a hand in the war, balancing trays of slim glasses filled with the traditional wheat beer of Story Night. We were offered all the food we could fill our plates with, and one glass of beer each. Long rectangular tables filled the hall. Someone had brought in shiny green redberry leaves and lacy cream-colored saw grass tufts to decorate each table. I spotted Kayleen and Joseph protecting two empty seats for us near the front. Holding our plates and glasses carefully in the jostling crowd, we made our way up to them.
As we started eating, I leaned in to Kayleen. “Have you seen Alicia or Liam?”
She pointed to the stage. “Liam’s been moving around backstage, but he hasn’t stopped long enough for me to get his attention.” The roamers were the colony’s eyes and ears, wandering the continent for two things: scientific exploration, and foraging. The colony grew Earth-and Deerfly-based food. The roamers had learned, sometimes the hard way, which native foods humans could eat, like twintree fruits, and which would make us sick or give us fevers. They studied native plants and animals. Every year, they brought back djuri meat and dried nuts and seeds and fruit that they traded for corn, wheat, hay, chickens, and goats.
They also brought back stories. The whole town came, hungry for the feast and the knowledge.
The leaders of both bands of roamers milled about the st
age, bright and gaudy in their best ceremonial dress, wearing red necklaces for the East Band and gold ones for the West Band. The band’s names had nothing to do with directions; I’d heard they were based on two universities back on Deerfly (we only had one university here, run by the science guild in the cold hall every winter, the lessons culled from databases and roamer papers).
Before we finished half our meal, I spotted Alicia sitting with her adoptive parents, Bella and Michael, at a table on the far side of the room from us. She saw me, but looked away, avoiding my eyes. Her long dark hair lay in tangles across her shoulders and she wore thin, old clothes.
I forced my attention back to my food, wishing I could just walk up and talk to her. Her family treated her like a prisoner of war. She joined community events, but they kept her by their side. Our contact with her had always been limited.
Liam had it better, maybe better than we did. Although we didn’t know much about his gifts, he had a reputation for inventing useful tools, and seemed well respected. He had been adopted by Akashi and Mayah, the leaders of the West Band. Akashi kept him busy, so maybe he just didn’t have time to sit with us.
One of the old women who ran the culture guild clapped for people to clear tables. I tipped my glass and finished the last of the beer, enjoying the warm feeling the rare treat left in my stomach. The babble of conversation in the room trailed off. People shifted chairs to find the best view of the stage. Children up to about ten years old settled on the floor in front of the stage, giggling and whispering among themselves.
Akashi walked up to a microphone at the end of the stage. He was tall and slightly bent in around the shoulders, probably fifty or more years old, and his gray hair hung in a long braid behind him. He wore a red and black performer’s costume, with white and tan beads and shells sewn into the shoulders and along the hem of his loose pants. His dark skin showed the kiss of sun and wind over an olive complexion. His dark eyes sparkled with warm pleasure. Even the children quieted as he cleared his throat.
“I suppose the first thing you want to hear is the earthquake. I will tell only our story. The East Band will tell their own in its turn.” He paused, looking around the room, gathering attention with his intense gaze. “The day shone bright and sunny, the heat making us sweaty and sleepy and content. We were pulling our wagons through the high summer pastures. Luckily, we rode on a wide flat trail.” He paused. “The ground rumbled, then stopped.” His hands, parallel to the floor, demonstrated the shifting earth and then stilled, opening up. “We breathed a sigh of relief. Then, as if a giant hand squeezed the rocks and path under us, everything twisted and jerked all at once. Our children cried. The hebras who pulled our wagons threw their heads up and pranced. Two took off running, and the wagon they pulled fell.” He pantomimed with his hands, drawing a fast line across the air in front of him and then showing a sudden stop and a sideways jerk. “One of our favorites, Twisted Beard, broke a leg, and had to be killed.”
The look of pain that flashed briefly across his face reminded me of Jinks.
“Twisted Beard’s partner, Rocky, kicked so hard in her traces she bruised a leg and we had to lead her by hand for five days. We were scared. We lost much of our data, including direct access to you, and we were afraid for two days that we would find Artistos leveled. The data networks remain shredded. The gaping holes left us feeling vulnerable until we could return here.”
Bryan and I shared a quick glance. I looked over at Joseph, but he was studying his feet intently.
Up on the stage, Akashi continued, his voice filled with solemn notes and sadness. “The hard part was getting here. We would have returned a week ago, except we had to move rocks off of the High Road to make a wagon track.” Now he looked down at the ground. “We are sorry for your losses, but grateful that Artistos is now returned largely to itself, and that most of you are here with us.”
The crowd murmured and shifted, a kind of quiet agreement.
Akashi brightened. “But of course, that is not all that happened to us. We bring you stories of three new beasts and one new flower, and we bring you wagons laden with meat and dried berries and herbs. Trading of our bounty for yours begins at dawn. But first, let us relay the gifts of our stories.” He looked down at the children just below him. “And which story would you like first? The dragon, the snake, the bird, or the flower?”
The smallest boy, Jali, threw his hand up in the air.
Akashi nodded at him.
Jali drew himself up as tall as his little five-year-old body could go, and said, “Dragon please,” in an awed voice.
Akashi laughed. “So you shall have the dragon first.”
The roamers loved to tease us, we who lived behind our boundaries, while they wandered the wilds of Jini, open to tooth and claw, relying on themselves and each other even more than we did. They loved jokes. We leaned forward in our chairs, eager to hear about dragons. Much here was named after similar items from other human experiences, but of course, Fremont’s native life was truly different. Near-elm was not elm. Dragons would not be dragons.
Akashi began with dragons, however. “Many of you have heard the old myths of Earth. How winged and fanged lizards with whirling eyes, bright red or blue scales, and bellies of fire protected treasure hoards from greedy humans. You might even think that Fremont itself is like a fine dragon, with a belly of fire that bursts forth from her string of volcanoes. You might wonder, lying abed after any earthquake, if it is the stomach of Fremont rumbling, digesting its fire, perhaps causing the very ground to twist to turn in discomfort.”
A small boy cried, then ran back to his mother.
Akashi leaned back, affecting a relaxed pose. “Well, and there were other dragons on Earth—insects with long bodies like broken twigs and even longer wings called dragonflies. And dragon-fish on Deerfly; red and blue eels with fins like wings and faces like pictures of dragons from Earth.” Now he smiled. “So what kind of dragon might we have found here?”
The room was quiet. Even the children had fallen still and silent.
Akashi gestured toward the back, and Liam came forward through a curtain, pulling a cage behind him. Liam was tall like us, strong, but not as broad as Bryan. A shock of blond hair hung over dark eyes, and a long blond braid twisted like a white rope against his nut-brown skin. The cage, covered with a yellow-gold cloth, was as tall as Liam, and long enough he could have stretched out inside it.
Some of the children on the floor crowded the stage and others scooted away. We were close, and we stayed put.
Akashi scanned the crowd, a master storyteller drawing a few moments of waiting toward forever. Finally, he gestured to Liam, who whisked away the red cloth with a flourish. “Behold the dragonbirds.”
Two birds filled the cage. Really. Filled that huge cage. The brightest and most colorful birds I had ever seen, as if all the red and green of the Lace Forest in fall had been concentrated in two near-mythical beings. They stood as tall as Bryan, as thin as Kayleen. Their heads shimmered blue and green, and each one had bright red circles in the green fluffy ruffs around long necks. A few red circles adorned each wing. Their bellies were redberry-leaf green, and their tails a multitude of lighter greens shading to dark gray-brown. Instead of perching like most birds, they stood upright on two tall thin legs.
Akashi spoke. “And now Liam will show you how we missed them.”
On cue, Liam came out pulling yet another contraption behind him: a planter with redberry bushes almost as tall as he was. He pulled the planter right behind the cage, and the birds disappeared. I blinked. Squinting, I finally made out the birds. They now looked exactly like redberry bushes, except a bit brighter.
Light applause broke out, and a woman’s voice from somewhere behind me asked, “How did you find them?”
One of the children asked, “Where do they live?”
“Have you seen more?” another child asked.
Kayleen piped up. “Why do you call them dragons?”
Liam
caught my eyes and grinned. Akashi held up his arms to forestall more questions. “Liam saw them first.” Liam beamed while Akashi continued. “They live at the edges of a lake we named Dragon Lake, at the top of Small Fish Mountain. Yes, there were more. Once we learned to flush them by moving and calling out, we counted at least fifteen pairs. Like twintrees, they seem to always be paired, and to stay close to each other. They live at the very edges of the lake, their feet in water, right where the water plants give way to the redberries. We have not seen them before. And we call them dragons because of the red, like fire, that flames around their necks and colors their breasts.”
Eric’s five-year-old daughter Sudie asked, “Why did you bring them here? Won’t they miss their families?”
Akashi smiled at Sudie. “Excellent question. We brought them to show you of course, so you can learn about Fremont.”
Sudie looked appeased and settled back, staring happily at the bright birds.
Akashi kept his eyes on her. “We will take them back as soon as we leave here, so they can winter wherever their kind do. For that very reason, we will be here just a few days. But now, before we show you the snake or the flower, we will yield to the East.” He gestured toward Ruth, who led the East Band, and then he himself pulled back the dragonbirds, leaning into the job, making a show of it, while Liam pulled the redberry bushes quietly and easily from the stage.
Ruth was tall and thin, slightly younger than Akashi, with a full head of dark hair streaked with gray and a narrow face. She walked purposefully to the stage, and began right away, without Akashi’s showmanship. Her voice was tight and slow, as if she were struggling to control her emotions. “This was a difficult summer for us. We started off well, but early on we lost one of our own, my nephew Varay.”
The crowd murmured. We had heard about Gene, but not Varay. I remembered him vaguely, a young man, about Alicia’s and Liam’s age, with huge dark eyes that always seemed to watch us curiously.
The Silver Ship and the Sea Page 7
