“Attention,” called the shuttle. “The surface of Kshiri-el raft lies just below. See the lovely silken spires of the native Sharer dwellings. Prepare for landing.”
“‘Prepare for landing,’” echoed Sunflower happily, swinging his feet. “‘Prepare for landing,’ Daddy.”
Raincloud said, “Thank you,” to the shuttle voice. “Are you a nano-sentient now?”
“Yes I am. How did you ever guess? I’ve applied to draw a salary when the new plan goes into effect.”
“I’ll credit a tip to your account,” Raincloud promised.
The craft landed, and Hawktalon was the first at the door. She and Sunflower skipped out upon the raft moss, looking for a legfish to chase. Doggie had remained in Helicon; she had much business of her own these days, only visiting the Windclans on occasion.
The Sharers had prepared their usual communal supper outside for all the families of the raft. The odors of roasted fish and crustaceans and spiced seaweeds made Blackbear very hungry.
“Da-da, Da-da,” crowed Blueskywind, reaching out for her father as Morilla brought her over. Blackbear gathered the child into his arms.
As Kal approached, the Sharers surrounded him curiously. Their greetings and questions were polite at first, although they tugged at his talar as if not quite sure he was real.
“Are you really the Scribbler’s lovesharer?” Ooruwen demanded suddenly.
“I was,” said Kal.
“Then you can explain something. Why did he translate that compassion is ‘dangerous’?” she asked, using the Elysian word. “That’s not what the wordweaver said at all. Compassion is seductive, or dishonorable; that’s what was said. He got that wrong.”
“I’m sorry,” said Kal. “Perhaps I distracted him from his work.”
The Sharers laughed as if this were a good joke.
“Don’t mind Ooruwen,” said Eerea, arm in arm with Leresha. “She heard The Web from a different line of clickflies. There must have been eight eights of clickflies that carried off Cassi’s telling of The Web, and all their descendants mutated. Who knows how many different versions survive today?”
Raincloud tugged Blackbear’s arm and brushed her head on his chest. “Let’s walk off a bit.”
They walked to the water’s edge, where the huge trunks dipped gradually out to sea. “Da-da-da, click click,” babbled Blueskywind on his shoulder, as her little fingers tried unsuccessfully to dislodge the turban from his hair.
Blackbear remembered a dream that he had dreamed the night before, a particularly fantastic one. He had dreamed that he was a primordial germ cell in the hindgut of the embryo, starting to make the long amoeboid climb up the mesentery tissues into the developing gonads. All of his kinfolk were there, too, climbing up the giant folds of embryonic tissue; his parents, his brothers, even Quail with the twins on his back, on a journey as epic as any mountain climb. Few would make it to the end. And yet somehow the dream left him with a sense of peace.
Raincloud stopped at the branch and looked out down the watery channel. “I changed the ticket.”
“Then we are coming back.” He was pleased, not so much to avoid the devastation of his home town, but for another year of embryology to learn before he set off on his own. Another year with Kal, and Alin, and the Sharers. “Of course, Verid may not need you all year,” he pointed out, “with the election coming up.”
“Lem says that Verid will challenge Loris in the election. She had planned to, anyway; that’s partly why Hyen appointed her originally, as someone who might pursue his policies into the next rotation. That’s how the Elysian system works. She’ll probably win, unless Elysium collapses before then.”
“Do you really think Elysium will collapse?”
“If all the servos go free, and the network falls apart, and the banks start to fail…”
He shrugged. “A house collapses; life goes on.”
“I agree,” said Raincloud. “At the worst, we could always stay out here and fish.” She was silent for some minutes. “Of course, the longer we stay…the less likely we’ll ever leave again.”
This was a thought Blackbear had put off to the back of his mind. He swallowed something in his throat, but could say nothing.
“I can’t get around it, Blackbear. I keep thinking how the Clickers are doing fine, now, but at the rate we’re growing, our great-grandchildren will be just another starving population for Iras to buy off. That’s why I can’t face her yet.”
The words washed over him like a wave of cold water. He held Blueskywind tightly, and he thought one last time of their next six children who would never be born. A tear escaped him into the ocean, which scarcely needed it but would always be there.
WITH HER PARENTS OUT OF SIGHT, HAWKTALON HAD slipped off her clothes again. They would scold her later, but really, nobody else on Kshiri-el wore clothes; her friends made fun of her.
She saw Leresha, the one with the funny crinkled skin, sitting on the raft moss to listen to the flute music, which seemed to wail and wobble around the air in the fading light. The Sharer reminded her somehow of Aunt Ashcloud. Hawktalon went over and boldly sat down before her.
“You’ve learned our tongue well, Hawktalon,” Leresha told her. “You speak as if you were born here.”
“I’m a linguist,” Hawktalon said proudly. “It’s in the blood.” She stared hard at the patchwork of the Sharer’s skin, which fascinated her no end. “Can you tell me something? How did your skin ever get that way?”
“Once, when I was your age,” Leresha said, “my sister fell into a nest of fleshborers. I dived in after her.”
“Oh, I see.” Hawktalon nodded. “That’s just what I would do.”
“Not too quickly, though. Always think first.”
“Did you save her?”
“Yes, because I kept my head above water, and because my cousins were there to help us. She was lost at sea several years ago, but her life is a beacon for me.”
Hawktalon had plenty to think about. She thought of how her father had said before they came to Elysium that they would find immortality. That scarcely made sense to her, as the High Priestess said that all living things had to die. But some things might live on after they died. Whatever immortality meant, somehow she had found it here.
A scientific researcher and professor of biochemistry at Kenyon College, JOAN SLONCZEWSKI is the author of the critically acclaimed novels A DOOR INTO OCEAN and THE WALL AROUND EDEN. She lives in Ohio with her husband and two children.
Daughter of Elysium Page 57
