9 Tales From Elsewhere 3

by 9 Tales From Elsewhere

  Luang, who had no gift for slapstick, settled for envy. She turned, walked stiffly down the corridor. She couldn’t imagine why she felt like weeping and was not about to anyone see her.

  ><><

  Celeste Luang turned over again, unable to get comfortable or drift off. Until recently, it wouldn’t have been her problem alone. But not now.

  “Al?”

  Brewster muttered, squirmed around to face her. “Can’t sleep?”

  ‘No. Sorry to wake you. But I can’t get a question out of my head, and the answer’s not in any computer file—I checked.”

  “About what?”

  “The kids. Their names, actually. I know their family names are from the women who donated the fertilized eggs. But what about their given names? People don’t name zygotes, Al. Especially when they’re about to be put into artificial wombs and shipped 20 light-years away!”

  “No, that’s true. Victor says it was the defense Computer—same one that picked which 100 ovums were ideal. Took the most popular names, excepting those already taken by one of us, and assigned a name to each ovum.”

  “At random? Completely arbitrary?”

  “Well, outside of gender, yes.”

  “That’s terrible, Al.”

  “You wouldn’t have thought so, nine years ago.”

  Luang snarled, but couldn’t say he was wrong. “They were just clumps of cells, nine years ago.”

  “Exactly. And we were just young hotshot officers, who needed troops to fight under us.”

  ><><

  She was proud of her morning class and as usual they did not disappoint. Roshunda’s team handled the maintenance cycle like seasoned vets. Damen and Ulf were dead-on in their payload calculations and Rachel-Lynn’s group realigned the rad sensors in half the allotted time.

  Celeste Luang praised them all, let them go early. She watched them break up into little groups, joking and enjoying each other’s company. They were 15 and she recognized the gleam in more than one set of young eyes.

  Nico Kananga appeared from nowhere, stood at her side. “I told you,” Nico reminded gently, “if anything, we should’ve started sex-ed courses sooner1”

  ><><

  Luang had taken to sitting in on J. N. Makarios’s history class. Today was a lesson of particular interest to all concerned.

  Makarios nodded to her, then triggered the viewscreens mounted in front of each teaching machine.

  “This is Japan, on Old Earth. And this, Hakata Bay, as it was in the year 1281. The Great Khan, Kublai sat on the throne of China and Mongolia combined. He dreamed of an overseas empire. So he built a great fleet to carry his invading army to land there. But the Japanese were ready, with 100,000 troops on Kyushu Island and another 25,000 in reserve on nearby Honshu.

  “This is an artist’s rendering of the defense wall and the fighting there. And this, the successful counterattack. And finally, the Divine Wind—the Kamikaze!

  “The invader’s fleet was wrecked, his scheme of conquest crushed forever.”

  Makarios looked from one teenaged face to the next, unable t0 say more. From the faces that could be seen peering over their screens at him, he and Luang both knew more was unnecessary.

  ><><

  “They’re as well-trained and as ready as they can be,” Pashto insisted, tossing a record chip aside in irritation. He leaned back in his worn chair, which had a loud and lived-in tendency to squeak. The Captain himself was old before his time—barely 49 but already grey and with each day that passed, more of that whitened hair was shed. “They’ve put in more time in simulators than we ever did!”

  Luang put her fingertips down on his desk, leaned toward him in defiance. “Our first solo flights weren’t flown in battle, against a real and deadly enemy!”

  “No,” Pashto admitted. “But at least we’ve got the data from the info-drones. We’ve had years to study the tactics and weapons the enemy has employed, do detailed analysis of the sensor readings. We’ll pop out, five days into the battle—but having had two decades to prepare.”

  “We can’t sacrifice our kids like this!”

  “’Our’ kids?” Cotonou asked, shaking her head. “Celeste. . . ”

  But it was Schaerbeek—cold and stiff-necked Dessima Schaerbeek—who spoke the greatest heresy of all. “Holes come in pairs, Skipper. An inbound and an outbound, close together. We could slam on the retros, soon as we were clear, pivot around and . . .”

  “Run for our lives?” Pashto said sarcastically.

  “Run for their lives,” Schaerbeek said back, but so softly it was clear her moment of weakness was already past.

  “No.” Pashto waved a hand in the air, a tired old man. ‘We’ve only got enough supplies for a one-way trip,” he said, as if this was his only objection.

  “How can I lead my ten into battle, knowing most won’t survive?”

  “They’re your squadron, celeste. And if it’s any comfort, you’re more likely to get through it than the rest of us—stuck on this antique. Those one-seaters are quick, hard to hit.”

  “Celeste,” Bat Cotonou said. Touching her friend’s shoulder. “There’s a colony of 200,000 out there, dying. They need trained fighter pilots. Like us. And now that we’ve had the chance to teach them, like the kids.”

  Luang nodded.

  Nobody begrudged her the tears she shed and before long, all four of them were weeping, unashamed.

  Zahir’s Planet, fifth world out from Canopus, was a week away.

  ><><

  There were four of them and they hovered about her protectively.

  Only four, Luang thought. Four out of ten! She blinked, past tears and drained of emotion.

  “Is this all?” she asked nobody in particular.

  Ulf stepped up, always the leader. “Stefan’s in hospital, but he’ll live, they say. Shaw’s got a chance, too. But Pru—”

  His voice cracked; he looked away and shuddered. Prudence Trod helm had been his first girlfriend.

  Damen and Tracy embraced him; Calvin Sing gestured for Luang’s attention. His plump face still reminded her of the first moment she had held his infant form, year before. “I’m so sorry about Brewster and Makarios,” he said. “We all are.”

  If she knew all about their friendships, quarrels and loves, they in turn knew all about her closest involvements.

  Luang nodded, squeezed his hand. “This wasn’t fair, Cal. Not to any of you. We were volunteers, but nobody asked you!”

  He shrugged. “War isn’t supposed to be fair, Ma’am. What’s fair about Lt. Silveira’s whole squadron going up in one burst of antimatter rockets, 40 seconds after they cleared the launch bay? Or everybody back on the ship==the Captain, Commanders, the flight crew and engineering staff—all of them, fatally irradiated by a malfunctioning cargo-drone’s explosion? It’s crazy. We’re alive, we won because of them. Because the Skipper put Hakata Bay into that last dive and blew her powerplant on impact with than hollowed-out moon!”

  “I’m sorry, Cal.” Celeste Luang’s chest heaved in a dry sob. “We had no right to do this to you!”

  “Easy, “ he said. The others were back around her now, nodding and murmuring, touching her. “We’re sad. But also proud. Of ourselves, of each other. And. . . of our parents.”

  “Parents? I don’t understand. None of you even know who—”

  “Not the anonymous egg donors,” Calvin said patiently then gently cupped her cheek. “Capt. Pashto, the others and, in my case, you especially. You became our parents. Best damned bunch of them 100 kids ever had, I think. So thanks . . .Mom!”

  THE END.

  RAVEN GROVE by Kurt Magnus

  PART 1

  Det and Yunis

  In Raven Grove the village commons bustled with preparations for the Blucap Festival, the only holiday they could still call their own. Some hung birch-bark wreaths, while others erected long tables and benches. Through the sounds of labor floated laughter, both the measured guffaws of men and the squeals of childr
en.

  Gourds brimming with homemade spirits circulated among the men. One such gourd found its way into the hands of Det, a bulky young man, maybe the biggest in Raven Grove. His teeth were crooked, and his right leg too, but his hands possessed great grace. Like his father, he fashioned tools.

  Yunis, his friend and neighbor, sat beside him, chewing becherum root. He was younger by a few summers, and was tall and athletic, with unruly blond hair. He smiled a lot, and talked too much, even if he didn’t have anything smart to say. He was dressed in his finest garb for the festival, an olive green tunic of dyed wool.

  Yunis pointed at the gourd with his nose. "You going to pass that or what?" He asked Det. All he got was a massive belch. They both chuckled.

  "It’s going to be better this year." Yunis said. "I can feel it,"

  Det nodded. "Not a cloud in the sky. And better yet, no missionaries from the Temple of Thanus.

  "No soldiers watching our every move," Yunis replied. "No outsiders at all."

  "The Temple garrison is probably steaming in Banner Fort, knowing that we’re holding a feast that they can’t rob."

  Yunis agreed with a nod. "Yeah, but I’m sure they’ll make up some special tax or something." Det started to respond, but Yunis’s attention was stolen by a young lady in the commons frolicking with the children. She was tall, with a mass of curly auburn hair, and not as thin as some of the other girls her age. "Think I should gather up Tahnin and the others?"

  "Get her, then bring our blucaps. I’ll find Feden and Jamila."

  Det said with a smirk, "Where do think they eloped to this year?"

  Tahnin noticed them and waved brightly, making Yunis smile ear to ear. "Better this year," he mumbled to himself.

  Det departed with an awkward and uneven gait toward the south end of the village. As he walked through the commons, villagers darted past carrying baskets and firewood and their largest black kettles. For the upcoming feast, each family brought their most coveted recipe, and more importantly, all the bluecap mushrooms they’ve gathered over the past moon. Det couldn’t help but to spy on the others’ yields. Some gloated while others apologized, but it was a friendly competition, and in the end, everyone shared. Yet he brimmed with confidence. He and Yunis had traveled farther than most, almost to the Little Fork River, to find the rarest mushrooms in the Hills of Bech.

  At the south end of the commons he was flagged down by an old woman. She looked like a shambling mound of gray rags, so bent that she spoke to his toes.

  "What is it, Ao Dama?" he asked, gently. As the communal mother of the village, Dama had integral role in the festival. She alone could create bluecap essence, a powerful brew made only in Raven Grove. Again she mumbled, and Det put a broad hand on her shoulder and bent down to hear.

  "The cicadas," she said, clearly this time.

  "What do you mean?"

  "You haven’t noticed?"

  "Notice what?" Det looked around, puzzled. "I don’t hear them."

  "Yes, my son. They’ve all left."

  "Huh." Det stood still for a moment and looked into the tall poplars and ashes that surrounded the village like a fence. He heard the faintest whisper of the summer wind and the distant sounds of the festival being put together behind him, but no cicadas. Det thought back to festivals of years past, and easily imagined the familiar undulating drone.

  He tingled with excitement. For most of Det’s memory, nothing much happened in Raven Grove. He was accustomed to hard work: hunting small game in the forest, fashioning tools, working of the tired soil. Despite the foreign occupiers at Banner Fort and the mandatory worship at the Temple of Thanus, Raven Grove got by quietly, through sacrifice and kindness and the strain of one’s back. Finally, after all these years, something was finally happening.

  Det’s daydreaming ended when Dama gripped his arm. Her dry, hard finger harbored surprising strength. She straitened up to look him over with milky eyes.

  "Did you find it?" she whispered hoarsely. "Did you find the special place?" Det just smiled in agreement.

  "The Grove rewards the faithful."

  "We are almost ready," he said.

  Without taking her eyes off Det, she calmly whispered, "Hush, my son. The false shaman is coming."

  She shrank back down into a pile of rags and wandered off, muttering. Bardet, the village cleric, waved hello.

  He was small and thin, of middling years, with limp short brown hair. Though an occupier, he actually lived in Raven Grove, and as such was the conduit between the villagers and the United Dorthanion soldiers at Banner Fort. The thoughts and hopes that still swirled through Det’s head left him nervous in the presence of the foreign holyman. As usual, Bardet was nervous too.

  "Det, hello." He smiled and rubbed his hands together. "About tonight’s, um, celebration… do have fun. But remember that everything under the Eye of Thanus will be accounted for in time."

  Det unconsciously looked up into the sky, but the moon-like beacon of Thanus was drowned out by the bright sunshine.

  "Of course, Ao Bardet."

  "And I want you and the other boys awake during tomorrow’s rites. It is a very important lesson."

  "We won’t let you down."

  "I’m not accusing you of anything." He held his hands out, palm up. "Just keep the Principles in mind. You won't regret it, that I can promise."

  "We’ll be good, Ao Bardet."

  "Alright. Light lead your path."

  "And the Light lead yours," Det replied, being careful not to sound facetious. The cleric moved on, intent on meekly warning the villagers about the spiritual consequences of their traditional ceremonies.

  Det shrugged it off, like he did the rituals at the Temple, like almost everyone else in the village. There were a few that bought into it, like Feden’s aunt, and the merchant’s family. But none of Det’s family did, and none of his friends. He genuinely didn’t mind the young cleric, as he was timid and harmless. Past clerics were not always so.

  The Temple was the only stone structure in the village, and was built on the backs of his grandfather’s generation, a fact that the villagers had not forgotten. They attended the ceremonies, but only out of fear of the Temple’s garrison and its aggressive Captain, Esvon. Though Raven Grove and the Hills of Bech was a forgotten corner of United Dorthanion, the Captain took his job very seriously.

  Feden's home and workshop marked the village's southeastern corner. Like most Raven Grove homes, it was made of turf with a slightly pitched thatch roof. Feden’s door was open, so he peered inside. Empty. But there were sounds from the kitchen area out back. There, Feden’s aunt was feverishly grinding tubers for the feast. "Seen Feden?" he asked.

  "No, he’s probably running around in the Grove with Jamila." If she was right he'd have a hard time finding them in the expansive forest south of town. "And if you don’t get out of my way, I’ll put you to work on this grinder!"

  He knew she wasn’t joking. Whistling, Det turned back toward the commons.

  Feden and Jamila

  Jamila pretended to hide behind a young maple, though she was sapling thin herself. With a broad smile she darted to a better hiding spot. Her straight black hair swung despite the still air, weighed down with colorful clay beads. She found cover behind a wider tree.

  "You’ll never escape if you keep giggling." Feden stated, feigning severity. Then he jumped from his own hiding place. With a squeal she darted off.

  Jamila was sixteen summers old and slightly built, with dark eyes and small features. She was well known in the village for her wit and quick tongue. Feden was short and less athletic than his peers. His hair was short and brown and his intense hazel eyes betrayed internal deliberation, if not chronic worry.

  Both were expert navigators of East Playground, a portion of the Grove east of the ruined mill that descends toward Gravel Creek. Ever since they were allowed out of their mothers’ earshot they had plied the trails, played games of their own invention, and named the landmarks of their yout
h. On the way down they passed the Reaper, a creepy old sycamore tree, and Fat Lady, a moss covered boulder of an obvious shape.

  Despite being in the middle of his nineteenth summer, Feden never tired of tramping around in the Grove. But now it served as a welcome hideaway for him and Jamila. There love was no secret, but the village offered little privacy. She lived with her mother and father and young brothers on a farm by Peeker hill, and Feden lived with his aunt and his work as a leatherman. The community was accepting, but nosey. The Grove had no eyes, and gossiped only a little.

  Jamila let him catch her. He squeezed her tight.

  "Do you think they’re waiting for us?" she asked.

  "They can keep waiting. This is the only time we’ll have together all day." He kissed her twice, with her back against a smooth birch tree. Then Jamila turned her face.

  "Feden..."

  Following her gaze, he found at the top of the hill, near the edge of the village, two staring United Dorthanion soldiers. He turned his back to them and mouthed korso, a word in the old tongue, the forbidden language of Raven Grove, that meant both enemy and foreigner. Trying to look casual, the pair walked back up the hill.

  "They won’t do anything, sweet bean, not today." Feden whispered. "Bardet wouldn’t let them get away with it."

  As they passed into the village, the soldiers glared like owls, lips flapping, but they were too far to hear. Feden burned inside knowing that they were thinking about Jamila. Two years ago Luba, the cooper’s only daughter, was assaulted. Although the guilty soldiers were identified, they were never really punished. Nothing really changed.

  Feden’s right hand clenched Jamila’s, and his left clenched an imaginary handle of a phantom sword. Like the old language, weapons were strictly banned. The foreigners wielded iron and brass, while the villagers could muster only wooden rakes and shovels.

  Jamila saw his discomfort, and whispered into his shoulder, "Forget about them, if just for today. Let’s just go to the festival."

  Feden agreed, but still ground his teeth until they rounded a ridge and passed out of their sight. His spine shivered as the weight of four needles lifted from his back. Sure, they looked at her, but he suspected that they were also interested in him, or rather, his potential. As the village leatherman, he had the tools to craft more than belts and sandals.