Of a Note in a Cosmic Song; Part Three

by Nōnen Títi

  Benjamar marked the spot in his mind. Would there be time to get some people to have a look? It was still early, but the days were short.

  The walk back was easier. He could follow his own footsteps in the flattened bulbs. Trying to find Tini, he walked west, but at what used to be the workshop he found only Branag, looking for pieces to salvage. “All the tools, the last two generators, all the equipment, the wind turbines; everything is under there,” he said.

  “We’ll dig them out and start over,” Benjamar answered.

  “I don’t see how. I honestly don’t see how.”

  “Keep thinking, Branag, You’ll come up with something. Where can I find Tini?”

  “She’s gone looking for Jari.”

  “Jari is missing? Since the storm?”

  “No, since this morning. They had a fight. Something about Tini making towns like she had children. They looked good to start with but then they fell apart.”

  Branag sat down in the middle of the mud and put his head in his hands. “I tried to tell Tini to ignore it, but she went looking anyway. And it does seem everything is going wrong since we got here. I counted on those generators; the two big ones burned up in space and now the last ones are buried in mud. How will we survive?”

  “We need Tini to start looking at designing new homes, Branag. Food and shelter first. Tell her to come find me at my place around Kundown.”

  Benjamar told himself to keep going. Now that the need for immediate action was gone, he also started feeling lost. There were so many problems to solve, and he was getting tired. He found Daili at her home with the two girls. “Daili, I’m going to need your advice. Are you up for a walk?”

  She didn’t answer; she was sitting on a chest, face in her hands, much like Branag had earlier. The girls shrugged; they weren’t sure what to do.

  “Where is Kalim?” Benjamar asked.

  “He’s bringing Tikot to the landers,” Laytji answered.

  So they were all okay. Benjamar explained about his walk. “It may be a better place.”

  “I should have realized,” Daili said, without looking up. “I gave the okay. I told Kalgar the land was good enough. I’d seen the lake on the scan, but I never thought.”

  “Stop blaming yourself, Daili. Aren’t you the one who always says, ‘shed your water and start over’?”

  “She does,” Hani answered.

  Benjamar looked around. They had made themselves a little shelter. “Is Kalim okay or is he also blaming himself?”

  “He’s okay, I think,” Hani answered.

  “Well girls, if you’re going to stay and help, you may as well get started.” He told Hani where he’d last seen Branag and that she’d have to help him out. “Ask questions, get him thinking. Make a list of anything that can be taken out of SJilai, and I mean anything. All that can be disassembled for use as building materials or tools. Everything. Then he needs to concentrate on preserving the water supply and protecting the cattle. The generator can wait. Can you handle that?”

  He told Laytji to go and find Frimon, Roilan, Wentar, and anybody else with a special interest and have them make a similar list, and then to take the request to Frantag so he could make sure the lander would keep enough space for a large team of technicians.

  The girls left, eager to be useful. He had already noticed that yesterday; people were glad to be given something to do. Maybe these young people were what was needed to get the rest moving again. Too many adults were taking blame.

  “You’ll have to get up and start over, Daili. That’s what it will be like on Kun DJar. This is not going to be the last problem, or the last disaster. It can get worse and every time you’ll have to get up and start again. Everybody has to. It’s the only way.”

  “I know,” Daili answered. “I know.” But she didn’t get up.

  Benjamar knelt to be at her level, so she’d look at him. “Come on, Daili. I need your help in this. It isn’t your fault. Nobody questioned your opinion about the land and if I’m correct, you were not the one who decided on this location.”

  “I don’t know this land, Ben.”

  Benjamar hesitated. Daili wasn’t some young girl he could order around; he was neither her comate nor her boss, but it was too easy to let failure take over in a situation like this. He could not let that happen. He took her arm and straightened up. “Get up. You’re coming with me. I need your opinion.”

  She didn’t resist. He pushed her gently along, out of the settlement, going south. He kept a good pace. For one thing, the day was half over and he needed to get there and back before dark. For another, it was good for a depressed person to get some physical exercise. Once he reached the area he pointed out what he thought were the strong points of the location. “There’s a river down south, close enough to use, but we’d be out of its overflow area on higher ground and with plenty of space to build and food for the cattle. Further away from the landers, but, let’s face it; we won’t need those anymore. And there–” he pointed to the dunes that lined the coast “–should be enough wind for Tini’s windmills. Of course, I’m no expert.”

  Daili slowly turned in all directions. “What about the mud?” she asked.

  “Good point. We’ll have to carry it here. Like people did long ago; many hands rather than machines. If they could do it, so can we. The cattle could help.” He let her take a look around while keeping an eye on Kun for the time.

  “It might be good to have people in two different places; it would reduce the risks,” she said.

  “Now you’re talking. So keep thinking, Daili. If there is something wrong with this place, we’ll find another.” He told her to remember the location and take a team of experts tomorrow. “As many as possible; integrate everybody’s know-how into a workable plan. Nobody builds a town on his own.”

  “Do you order everybody around like that?” she asked.

  “I have the feeling that’s all I’ve been doing these last few days, those who sit down and refuse to get up again. Listen, Daili: everybody has suffered from this storm. Nothing is lost if we get up and start over. Think of the girls. We’re building their future.”

  She took his arm on the way back. “I don’t know what this colony would do without you.”

  “The same thing it does now, Daili; make the best of it.”

  In town, they found Kalgar sitting on top of a stack of prefab material that had been collected. Benjamar once more explained what he’d been thinking, and urged Kalgar to get some runners to go to all streets and assemble people for an announcement, in maybe two hours’ time. The people needed a task to focus on: Not just a few, but all of them; groups or teams to concentrate on specific issues. “Make a strong speech. People shouldn’t accidentally bump into each other – they need to be brought together.”

  “If you say so, Benjamar. I’m not sure anymore. I feel like I’m running after events rather than being in control of them.”

  Benjamar sat down next to him to rest his legs. “Don’t let it get you down. We have no choice but to take control and plan ahead. I’ll do the planning, but you’ll need to organize the troops.”

  “Yes sir,” Kalgar joked. “I admire you, Benjamar. You were the first to stand up and get people back on their feet. You definitely got me up and I’m grateful for it.”

  Everybody kept making him compliments, but Benjamar was tired of talking. “I’ve had my share of sitting down, Kalgar. I had someone help me back to my feet after Jitsi. We all have our time. That’s why we’re in this together and not alone, and why I’m now going to have a rest and leave it up to you, because I’m exhausted. See you in two hours.” There was no good place to lie down for a proper sleep, but he could rest against his mat.

  Kalgar held his speech three hours later by the light of the small moon. He made it clear they needed people with ideas, regardless of their background or experience. As long as it worked, all input was okay. He assembled teams of interested people to each focus on a different task and make a l
ist of what they’d need to come from SJilai. Those lists were to be ready by early morning. One team would go up to SJilai and disassemble her. Others were to focus on retrieving things from the buried town, securing a water supply, temporary housing, food-testing, sewage, building, transport, location, engineering, farming, and the sharing-out of clothing for those who had nothing left.

  Once in action, Kalgar was a master at his skill, as they all were. It helped raise new hopes and gave people a feeling of belonging, of purpose, even if they had no shelter, no food, and no dry clothes.

  Benjamar left with some optimism. Maybe Nini was right: Kun DJar had issued a warning. Maybe the people would listen to her.

  Story Telling

  The sea was still foaming red at the mouth, having swallowed what it had been given by the wind: the library; the basis of their civilization. All that was left was the small bundle of papers Rorag handed Jema; muddy, cracked, smudged, and hastily piled together, their content indecipherable. Everything the settlers once were had been in those prints: their knowledge, their history, and their purpose. It would be forgotten.

  Jema wasn’t the only one to feel this way. She’d seen Daili, after the speech last night, looking toward the washed-out library site. Jema had wanted to go to her then, to say how sorry she was about everything, but all she’d done was watch, like she had watched the site herself, just after the flood, not knowing where to turn. That was, until Frimon had pulled her away. “You can weep over the prints and make your hands work at the same time,” he’d said.

  So Jema had spent the first day shovelling mud with about a set of others, doing together what had seemed impossible at first – making a dam to redirect the water. The second day she’d been recruited to collect sand from the dunes to make a filter for drinking water, because the well was polluted. She’d not questioned Frimon’s know-how, glad for something to do in this larger-than-life chaos.

  Last night, Frantag had given her the order to return to SJilai because the children needed to be kept busy. She’d not argued with him either; he had enough on his mind right now and he was entrusting the children to her. She had packed a small bag and left the chest for Tiya to watch over. Nor had she objected to the arrangement Leni made when Jema asked her to keep an eye on Anoyak, who wanted to stay and help. Leni had won his trust and Jema trusted Leni to know what she was doing. So Anoyak would stay with Frimon while Rorag and Kisya would go with Jema. Leni had ignored the protests from both the children and Frimon about that last part. In a hurried exchange, they’d said goodbye this morning before descending into the crater.

  A large team would leave the planet while the town was being rebuilt; besides the injured there were half a set of adults, most of them technical people, one of the nurses and two pilots, along with five kor of children ranging in age from two to thirteen. As Kisya pointed out, she and Rorag would be the oldest and it wasn’t fair. They could have stayed and helped.

  The only two-year-old was Kristag, Wilam’s son, and Wilam wasn’t pleased when he saw Jema. However, it was Pina who’d decided Kristag should be away from the cold and she wouldn’t change her mind, though she didn’t want to go up herself. Jema didn’t try to convince her, nor did she express her inability to understand it: She just took the toddler into her arms and promised to be careful. Jema didn’t know most of the other kids, who’d been too young for Learners during the journey: A new generation. It made her feel old.

  Aryan did little more than tell them to strap in and be quiet and brought them back to SJilai without a problem. He disappeared with the message that the light-dark sequence would be four hours each to maintain a normal Kun DJar rhythm. All people would live on Habitat Two, which had been kept partially heated for the sake of the few remaining seedlings, but it felt cold and empty when they were left standing there. A man took charge, assigning jobs and rooms. A woman went to collect drinks for them all; food wouldn’t be available for days.

  Jema gathered the kids in the old children’s home. After the mats were brought in and each had chosen a place to put theirs, Jema sat down with them in the mealsroom, at a loss for how to pass the days without supplies, toys, or food. The children were still shaken by the events of the last few days and the sudden separation from their families. Some had a parent on board among the demolition team or the injured, like Ilse and Doret’s father, Kolyag. Only Kristag, too young to understand what had happened, seemed at ease; he didn’t walk yet and played on the carpeted floor where she put him with some of the toys Pina had sent along. He would sleep in Jema’s room.

  Jema started by having the children take turns saying where they had been during the storm, what they had seen, and how frightened they had been. It helped to listen to each other. They’d all known the drowned boy. During this, Jema learned that three of the children had lost a parent; she’d have to pay extra attention to them. They’d not only be shocked, but grieving as well. Two were brothers whose mother was one of the injured in the infirmary. The other one was an eight year old girl, Sarika, who had lost both her parents when their home had washed away from Second Street. She had nobody left. When telling her story, Sarika focused on how she’d gone for help, but didn’t mention any feelings.

  Before dark, Jema had the children with a parent in the infirmary go over for a visit. Kristag was surprisingly calm and went to sleep without a problem. So did Sarika. It was the older ones who lay awake, worrying about those on the surface. The night felt long, even if it wasn’t.

  The next morning, she asked the children what they would like to do during the moons of waiting for the new town to be ready. Some ideas came, a few of them good. Her attempt to copy Kiren and play games with them on the field didn’t work out. They were hungry and that drained away their energy; they’d need food to be able to run. It also made them irritable and tearful. Jema spent the day solving squabbles, comforting, and keeping Kristag busy. In the evening she tried to tell them a story; there were no prints to read from so she made one up. It didn’t catch their attention. Only later did she see why: a lost nobi from a creature park which roamed around the city and ended up wreaking havoc in a fancy dress shop were alien concepts to these children, five years after leaving DJar.

  The second day was little better, but by the third day there were foodbars. From then on they found a bit of routine. By the end of the first kor most of the children were more relaxed. The emptiness of the deserted kabin made place for a quiet luxury. A lander went down with one of the pilots carrying food supplies and some other basic needs.

  With energy back in their bodies, the empty habitat streets became a great racetrack on which the children used the mats as sleds. The stairs were climbing frames and the empty buildings places for hide and seek. To the children’s disappointment and Jema’s relief, the swimming pool had been drained. Occasionally one of the adults came to visit them, but most of that first moon Jema had only the children to talk to. She sat down with the two boys and Sarika a few times, but while the boys talked about their father and seemed to cope, Sarika neither expressed sadness nor any need for attention.

  What Jema did hear from the others was that Aryan wasn’t pleased about them taking the kabin apart, and because of that, nobody heard any news from the surface. “Did anybody ask him?”

  “Listen, if any of us so much as dares go into the bay, we get our heads bitten off,” Jema was told.

  Aryan may have been the pilot and have a right to be unhappy about being here, but it wasn’t fair. The children were entitled to some news. They’d not asked to be sent away, so if nobody else was willing to go in there, it would have to be Jema. She asked Flori to watch the children and went to the pilot bay.

  “We would like to know how the weather is down there. Just to know if the people are okay.”

  “The weather is fine. No more storms,” Aryan answered without turning around.

  “Any idea how long it will take?”

  “They said a station. That is a Kun DJar station, not a SJi
lai station.”

  He wasn’t biting her head off, but he wasn’t going to be much help either. “Can you at least keep us informed? A lot of children worry about their families. They have a right to know.”

  “And I have the right not to be disturbed,” he answered.

  “Only if you volunteer some news so now and then.”

  He turned around. Jema was reminded of the caricature Kunag had made of him, with his beard down to his feet. It wasn’t quite that bad, but his hair was long and uncombed.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, thinking that he might be depressed. After all, this kabin had been his baby. A depressed person could be a danger to himself, but in this case also to the rest of them.

  He answered yes and could she just get lost? “As long as you don’t hear otherwise, everything is fine. No news is good news.”

  So she left. Maybe he was just no good at waiting. He needed to be where the action was.

  During the next moon. the children started losing interest in the games they’d been playing. Flori, having only a few patients left, came to see them more often, as did Kolyag, who hobbled along on one foot with makeshift crutches. He cursed himself for his stupidity, for leaving Elsa down there to do all the work, and for being of no use up here. That wasn’t true, though; he was a great storyteller and entertained the children on several occasions. His stories were of crops and cattle, of angry storms and little creatures that were neither plant nor animal. He came up with the words “plamals” and “animants”, which left the children free to use their imagination.

  Since their arrival, Jema had been given some paper and writing materials which the demolition team had come across – anything they found that could be of use to the children they brought her. Encouraged by Kolyag’s stories, she asked them to design their own planet. What would it look like? Most of them drew lots of plants and animals. Only one or two had any wish for cities or DJar technology; she talked with them about that. All they wanted was to be back with their families. The children had been happy on Kun DJar.