Once again Mira had to use the threat of her uncle’s displeasure to get us past the sentries. This time it took less argument, perhaps because Tasim went along with her request. The girl led us into the village while the sentries muttered. Tasim waited until we were through and then followed close behind us like he was our guard. As we entered, I tried to keep from staring, but I wanted to take in as much as I could. If the Fosaanians were so unfriendly to visitors, I knew I might not have an opportunity to come back.
There were torches set in the ground burning with enough light to illuminate the whole place, what there was of it. The more I studied the place, the more disappointed I became. It was completely quiet. The village was small and stark and barely appeared lived in. All the houses were exactly the same size, located in a precise pattern in a square around a larger building in the center. Each house had a lower sections made of stone, with woven panels for the walls and the roofs. They all had a strip of bright yellow color applied to the base of them.
“That’s the same color as the anguist,” I said.
“Yes, we paint them because it deters other creatures from coming into the houses. Nothing on the planet wants to be near an anguist, not even the tachesums. That’s why most of the creatures on Fosaan won’t eat the fruit of the splitpod, as you call it. It’s the same color.”
“What’s a tachesum?” I asked, struck by the unfamiliar word.
“Something you never want to encounter,” Mira said. “This way.”
A few elderly people and one younger woman sat on three-legged stools outside the buildings, all of them occupied with some sort of work. One old woman was sewing, the others either sharpening knives or polishing bits of metal. Everyone stared at us as we passed.
I didn’t know the total population of the Fosaanians, but I couldn’t imagine they were all crammed inside the houses, asleep or silent at this hour. No light or sound came from the center building either. Mira led us all the way through the village until it seemed like she was leading us back into the jungle. As we passed the last house, I could just make out tiny flicks of light from behind the almost solid screen of plants that ringed the village.
I could also smell something cooking in the distance, something spicy and unfamiliar. Whatever it was, it smelled good enough to set my stomach rumbling. Mira lifted a panel made of vines and led us through a tunnel of plants. This time we emerged into a whole other village, one full of people and activity. The buildings behind the screen were larger, and made of stone. A large building guarded by two sentries stood in the center.
I couldn’t believe it. “Why is your village divided like this?” I asked. “It’s like two different places.”
“Among our people we believe it is useful to conceal your strengths.”
“Mira, stop! You should hold your words.” Tasim sounded angry.
“Concealing from whom?” Decker asked. “Us? The Earthers? Has my father seen this?”
“The Earthers are not very curious about us,” Mira said, “As long as we collect the sulfur crystals without complaint, they don’t notice or care that we have a whole life of our own.”
“Mira!” Tasim was almost shouting.
“Oh, what does it matter?” Mira said. “I hate this. Why does everyone want to live in the past? I want to live in the now. Tasim, you should see what the Earthers have in their living quarters! There is no reason our people can’t live well too.”
Before I could ask more questions, cheering broke out on the other side of the main building where a group of young Fosaanians stood in a circle. I could see a glimpse of a girl in the middle of the crowd, a girl about my age, who took a flying kick at someone, leaping so high in the air it looked like she could fly. I heard an “umph” and knew the kick made contact.
As we drew closer, I could make out a boy on the ground holding his side. The boy motioned to two others in the crowd and they came forward and helped him up. “She must have quite a kick,” I remarked.
Mira shrugged. “Lieta is good. Very few of us like to train against her.”
“That was just training?” Decker asked.
The boy spoke to the girl, taunting her with sharp words in a language I hadn’t heard before. I should have realized the Fosaanians had another language besides Standard. Whatever the boy said made her so angry she rushed at him. Just as she reached him, he took his foot and hooked it around her leg, knocking her down. She wasn’t down for long. In seconds they were facing off against each other again. I thought the kid was an idiot for going back for more punishment. The girl, Lieta, wasn’t even breathing hard. Both were wearing the bracelets that Mira and Tasim had. Mira took hers off and put them back in the pouch on her belt as we watched. I still couldn’t figure out how they were considered weapons.
“Didn’t she just win?” Decker asked.
“No,” Tasim said, “You only win when your opponent can’t come after you. Lieta made an error. She took the victory of the body and forgot about the mind and the clan.”
It looked like Lieta was going to correct her error. She came in close and lightning fast to the boy, backhanding him across the face. The boy stopped in mid-attack for a moment like he’d been frozen. It was enough. She knocked him to the ground and put her foot on his chest.
“That’s intense,” Decker said. I thought I caught an admiring tone in Decker’s voice.
“What happened there?” I asked. “Why did he stand still?”
“It’s the sian,” Mira pointed to the stone on the back of her bracelet. “It’s a last chance weapon, because you have to be close enough to hit the attacker on uncovered skin. If you hit hard enough, the stone makes them unable to move for long enough to take them down, if you are lucky.”
“That’s bizarre,” I said. “How could a stone do that?” There was far more to Fosaan and the Fosaanians than I had ever realized. I couldn’t think of any reason a stone would have that kind of effect, unless it was highly magnetic or something.
“We heat them and soak them in … ” Mira began.
“Enough!” Tasim shouted, cutting her off.
Tasim’s shouts made everyone turn their attention to us. There was silence and then a murmur of voices grew. Several adults came out of the houses, as if the change in the sound of the voices outside had alerted them to trouble. A group of younger Fosaanians started toward us, but Mira called, “Not now. We’re waiting for my uncle. We’ll wait in here.” She pointed to one of the houses, and I was glad to go in. It was too strange being the center of so much attention.
Once we were inside, I couldn’t contain my interest at the chance to see the contents of a Fosaanian house. It was very dim, but from what I could tell, the furniture was minimal, made of plant material, and all of it looked uncomfortable, like no one spent much time just hanging around inside. There was no clutter, nothing like the stuff I had strewn all over our unit, except for a collection of crystals and rocks lined up on large chest. A second room behind a divider of woven fibers revealed some narrow beds, but that was it.
A movement from the corner caught my eye. A white feline, bigger than an Earth house cat, jumped off one of the beds and stretched, fixing its gaze on us as it did. It padded over to Mira and jumped up on the table next to her, butting its head against her arm. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There were no mammals of Fosaan and there never had been, not even before the Apocalypse. I’d read the entire list of known species. Where had this creature come from?
“It’s a cat,” I said.
“Wow, brilliant observation.” Decker rolled his eyes.
“I don’t know this word, ‘cat’.” Mira said. “Narween is a felal.”
“Do you mean felis?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No, I don’t know that word.”
“Felis is the Standard scientific name for cats, for felines, but I don’t know this species.” I moved over to the cat and held out my hand to pet it. “You don’t underst
and, Decker. There aren’t supposed to be any cats on Fosaan. There are no indigenous mammals here at all and never have been. Mira, where did you get it?”
The cat’s tail whipped toward me and wrapped around my arm, squeezing it so tightly it was painful. “Hey, stop!” I tried to back away but the cat dug in its claws. I thought if I didn’t find a way free from it, my fingers would explode from the pressure.
Mira tapped the cat on the head. “Stop, Narween! Be good.” The cat’s tail gave one last squeeze and then went slack. It threw a baleful look at me and then jumped off the table.
“Sorry,” she said. “Narween doesn’t like strangers.”
“That’s no ordinary cat.” I rubbed my arm, trying to remember if I’d ever read about a cat species with a death grip tail. I knew I hadn’t, because I’d remember something like that. “Where did it come from?” I asked again.
“We’ve always had felal.” Mira sounded puzzled.
“A few survived the Apocalypse,” Tasim said.
I wished there were more Fosaanian records. How had a creature like this been overlooked by zoologists? And surely if there had been one type of mammal, there would be others. The felal looked at Decker, who backed up and stood by the door.
“How much longer do you think it will be?” Decker asked. I could tell the animal made him nervous.
“I told you it could be all night,” Tasim said. “Why don’t you just leave?”
“Are you hungry?” Mira asked. “I am.” She didn’t open up the carryall, but instead went over to a small cupboard and pulled out some pieces of flat hard bread and a clay crock. “Here, you dip the bread in the mashed fruit.” She held out both to me.
I took a piece of bread and dipped it into some sweet-smelling pulp, then tried to take a bite. My teeth nearly broke off. No wonder her sister couldn’t eat it.
“You must wait for the fruit to soften it,” Mira said, smiling.
Mira and I were the only ones who ate. Decker and Tasim stood staring at each other like they were just waiting for one to make the wrong move.
An awkward silence fell on the group until I heard children’s voices. “Those sound like children cheering. Do they train too?”
“The younger children are listening to the storytellers,” Mira said. “They are doing a retelling with mankins … I think you call them puppets.”
“I’d like to watch,” I said.
“You won’t understand what they are saying,” Tasim said. “They tell the story in an ancient language of ours.”
“Let’s see it anyway,” Decker said, striding out the building, ignoring Tasim’s protests.
I followed Decker to the other end of the village, Tasim and Mira trailing after us. We passed a huge stone fireplace blazing with flames. One man added wood to the fire while the other held some sort of metal rod in it. “That’s a forge, right?” I said to Mira. “I read about those in a history about Earth.” It all clicked together. “That’s where the blades came from, right?”
She just looked at me, frowning, and then Decker asked, “Is your uncle the leader?”
Mira glanced at Tasim and then said, “No, he is the vice commander. The commander is my grandmother.”
“Why don’t you just invite them to become one of us?” Tasim started to storm off, but then stopped and came back, refocusing on Decker like he had to keep watch on him. Mira led us to a spot in the rear of a crowd of children seated on the ground in front of a large wooden frame with a woven cloth as a backdrop. The puppets were large and made of painted fabric mounted on sticks.
Tasim was right about the show. I couldn’t tell what was going on beyond some big creature attacking Fosaanians, who fought back. Even in small scale, the thing was kind of horrifying. It walked upright and was sort of like a big lizard, dull orange in color, but it had a lower jaw that stuck out with lots of teeth. The worst were the eyes. There were two protrusions on either side of its head, each with a large yellow and black eye. The creature could also use its forelegs like a human, or like a bear, swiping at things and scoping up one tiny sacrificial Fosaanian and then tossing him aside.
There was also a large three-sided puppet thing, not a person or an animal, that wasn’t doing anything. It was remarkably similar to the shape I had drawn on the wall at the ruin and to the tattoo on Mira’s cheek.
“Are those lizards, or whatever they are, really that big and that ugly?” I whispered. Without mammals as predators, some extremely large lizard creatures were reported to have developed on Fosaan. I really wanted to see one, but hadn’t been able to find much information about where they lived.
“The tachesums are much bigger in real life,” Mira said. “They made the figure of it too small.”
I thought maybe I didn’t want to see one so badly after all.
“What’s the story about?” Decker asked.
“Not much,” Tasim said. “It’s very dull.”
The lizard puppet made some loud hissing and clicking noises and then killed or wounded one of the Fosaanian puppets. The rest of the puppets fell back, then surged forward to pick up the now prone injured one. One remaining puppet launched a furious attack on the creature, leaping on its back and stabbing it in its throat. The children must have been waiting for this, because they erupted in a loud cheer. The victorious puppet climbed on top of the dead lizard puppet and acted as if he was giving a speech. The other puppets did a celebration dance. Red sparks exploded in the air behind the figures like miniature fireworks.
“Whoa! How are they doing that?” I had never seen a puppet show with fireworks before.
“One mankinner is heating up the sulfi crystals and then throwing them. The crystals break down when they get too hot.”
“Is the sulfi the same as the iridium sulfide the researchers need?” Decker asked. “Isn’t it too valuable to waste on a puppet show?”
“It’s only value to us is for torches and things like the story.” Tasim shrugged. “We have much of it. If the Earthers think it is valuable, that is nothing to us.”
“I thought you said this was a dull story. It looks exciting to me,” I said.
“It’s just something that happened in the past,” Tasim said.
“What did the hero puppet climb on? That three-sided thing?”
“Mira!” A harsh voice sounded behind us. I had time to see a look of fear flicker across Mira’s face before I turned to locate the voice.
Chapter 6
Our youth train to be strong, so that they are worthy of the clan, and it makes one proud to see them. We have so little else now, that I do not question the rightness of the training for most of them. I do wonder if we should give more weight to the importance of the mind, especially to the youth with the intelligence to use it. Are those who lack in strength, yet strong in mind, so worthless?—Erimik, historian of the Family
Mira’s uncle strode toward us, a fierce scowl on his face. He was accompanied by two younger men on either side of him, their hands resting on the weapons strapped to their sides. As the three came forward, all the other Fosaanians except Mira and Tasim fell back, forming a circle. I had never paid much attention to Mira’s uncle when the man worked for Mick at the station. It was almost as if this man were another person. He walked differently here, quickly and confidently, like he was used to people getting out of his way.
The man stopped inches from me, the sulfur smell radiating strongly off him. I instinctively took a step back. “What are the Earthers doing here?” the man said, his mouth drawn in an angry line. I resisted the impulse to move even farther away, not wanting to look afraid. The man’s eyes were so pale they were almost white. I shifted my gaze to the scar on the man’s forehead, red and jagged puckered skin red over an indented spot. There was a matching scar on the side of his head, as if something with a very large mouth had tried to bite down on his skull. Even though I could feel the sweat running down my back, I felt cold.
Mira slipped bet
ween her uncle and me, in a space so small the curls of her hair touched my face. “Uncle, the person who runs the depot has locked himself in,” she said. “And all the other Earther adults are on the space station and no one can communicate with them from Fosaan.” I could see Mira’s whole body trembling, like she was terrified to speak up, but her voice didn’t waver.
“You didn’t tell us that.” an elderly man from the crowd said.
“The Earther at the depot is unimportant.” Ansun said, taking Mira by her shoulders and moving her to the side without even looking at her. Once she was out of the way, the man just stood there looking at me. I noticed Ansun’s sash didn’t match the rest of them. It had the same three-sided shape of the object from the puppet show worked into it. I realized Ansun, Mira and Tasim were the only ones with tattoos on their faces, but I didn’t suppose this was a good time to ask why or what the shape meant.
“Grandfather, some of the Earther children are afraid.” Mira addressed the older man now like she was appealing to him to do something. “The younger children.” The man frowned and turned to the crowd like he was looking for someone.
“Mira, be silent!” her uncle barked. “There are matters which you do not understand. We’ll talk later about why you were even at the station.” He motioned to the two younger men accompanying him and then at Decker and me. “Detain these two.”
The men moved forward and I took another step back. Mira’s grandfather said, “Let them go, Ansun. They’re just children.”
The two stopped on either side of Decker and me. I wondered if we could make a run for it. It took me only an instant to decide we couldn’t. There were too many people pressed too close together.
“This one is more than a child, or at least he thinks he is,” Ansun pointed at Decker and then spat on the ground. “He likes to give orders, not take them.” I hoped Decker was smart enough not to respond. I had a feeling Ansun was just waiting for a reason to take Decker down.
Station Fosaan Page 7
