by Garry Ocean
His thoughts started to race again. “All right, calm down. This is not working,” he said to himself. “It’s impossible to understand everything immediately. I need to do it step by step. Let’s hope the city will clarify something. Cities usually are the centers of knowledge and technology. In any case, this was true on Earth. Let’s hope that here they have the same order of things. Great that we are heading there,” he cheered up immediately.
Along with Whisperer and Sith, to Nick’s great joy, Ron and Valu joined the party for the journey. Goby stayed in the village. His wife was pregnant and could give birth any time now. Rigo, thanks to Whisperer’s treatment, was slowly recovering. However, he was so weak that his participation in this journey was completely out of the question.
Suddenly, the valley was far behind them. The landscape sharply changed, without a noticeable transition. Just a short while ago they were stepping onto soft grass, and the cart’s wheels were rolling in it without a sound, not counting a slight creak. And now they are banging on a dry rocky ground. This sound must have taken Nick out of his world of thinking and reflections. He looked behind him. It was indeed so. The grass ended abruptly, as if cut off by a giant knife or some invisible wall was holding it back. And it was just like that along the entire road, as far as Nick could see. And everywhere the rocky lifeless ground was spreading in all directions. Nick even wanted to run back and examine this natural border but when he saw Sith’s indifferent face he decided to do his research on the way back.
Whisperer was half-sitting in the cart, leaning against the bags. His eyes were half-closed, as if he were dozing off. Sith was walking cheerfully on the right side of the cart, holding a long stick in his arms. From time to time, he would use it to hit the sloths’ scaled backs. Then they would move their heavy clutched paws a little faster. Ron and Valu were walking quite far ahead. Nick was the last one. As they had nothing else to do, he decided to use the time to extract information.
“Sith,” he called the boy out, “Have you ever been here before?”
“Of course,” the boy looked at him, surprised. “Once every ten years we all pass here. Before each Exodus. You are a strange one. Don’t you, steppe dwellers, have ever had an Exodus? No, that’s impossible. Perhaps you were sick then and remember nothing. Even how you got to the swamp. You were lucky that I had found you, otherwise you would have been finished a long time ago. Whisperer told me that if a man is hit on the head hard, he might forget everything. Do your remember anything like that, Nick? Perhaps, someone had hit you on the head and you forgot everything? Although if anyone had hit you on the head indeed, you wouldn’t remember even that, would you? Argh, you have confused me completely. But it seems like this is plausible. But you, Nick, don’t worry about it too much. Whisperer told me that sometimes it happens that the memory comes back later to some people.”
“Here we go again,” Nick thought. “As soon as you stumble upon something interesting, some nonsense starts to come out. For example, this mysterious ‘exodus’ of theirs. Everyone talks about it, but if you ask them, they can’t explain anything clearly. Give you some generic phrases with no meaning. Or like right now. Says, ‘you were hit in the head’ as a given.”
Sometimes Nick started to think that someone indeed had hit him on the head. However, now he had nothing to do, they had a long way ahead, it seemed like not just one day. And Sith could not avoid him like he always did. He wouldn’t run, pretending to have urgent matters to attend to as he always did when Nick was too persistent with his questions.
“Sith,” Nick started with an appeasing tone, “Perhaps you are right. I might have been hit on the head or perhaps I had hit it on something myself. And forgot a lot of things because of that. Right?”
“Right, and I’ve been telling you this all along,” the boy nodded in joyful agreement. Nick could see that he was quite pleased with himself. To think of it, he had given the right diagnosis to Nick on the first try. After all, he was not Whisperer’s apprentice for nothing.
“And I also heard from Whisperer,” Nick could play that game, too, “That people with such a… hmmm… condition need to be explained everything, like a little kid. Then there’s a chance they will remember everything faster.”
“Well,” Sith was clearly puzzled, “I am trying to explain everything to you all the time. Several times same thing. But then a day passes and you are at it again. Perhaps, you forget what I tell you? Like we are talking right now, but tomorrow you will be asking me about it again, right, Nick? I should ask Whisperer to take you to some healer in the City. Do you know what kind of healers they have? – The best. They will cure anyone. Whisperer knows many people in the City. Just as soon as we get there, I’ll ask him. I am not you, I won’t forget.
“Good talk,” Nick forced himself to smile at the boy. He took over the cart and started to walk in front of it in his long stride. “Even in the most complicated situation there are always some positive aspects, you just need to try and see them,” he remembered his father’s words. His father must have known what he was talking about. With his thirty plus years of experience in dealing with humanoid civilizations, he had to learn that first hand.
“And I didn’t really have a chance to talk with him that often,” Nick thought, suddenly missing his father dearly. “Even when he was home on vacation. Of course the home dinners when the entire family gathered around the table and talked about general things and trifles do not count. I could certainly use some of his advice now.”
Nick suddenly looked at the situation from the other side. Any employee of the Contact Committee, starting with the last intern, and ending with Patrick O’Hara, would switch places with Nick without a second thought. Nick smirked, remembering his lecture course “Behavioral aspects of contacts with representatives of sentient humanoid race: Theory and practice.” He finished 40 hours of lectures and 100 hours of intensive course in hypnosis. The course presented a great number of recommendations from experts with the highest scientific degrees and most practical knowledge and skills. As well as memoirs of the space pilots who had discovered extra-terrestrial civilizations, the names of which Nick knew from his early childhood. It even described various funny situations during the first contacts. The course ended with a very short paragraph #747-A from the Space Travel Charter, which read, “When discovering on the planet any signs of activity (including older activity with no statutory date) of an extra-terrestrial beings, the traveler must leave the site immediately, having erased all traces of one’s presence.”
The following paragraph specified that the discovery must be reported to the appropriate authorities, i.e. Contact Committee or its nearest branch. In summary, one must run away immediately like from a plague, and let the professionals deal with it. Nick immediately concluded that this effectively erased everything presented in the course because no specialist or expert could predict how, where and when such a situation could occur and moreover what exactly needed to be done.
And now Nick is walking on a planet that was previously unknown, rotating around an unknown star, and next to him is a representative of a sentient humanoid civilization who is driving Nick crazy with his silliness. “I should recommend the specialists to develop an additional course on contacts. For about ten or better twenty hours. I even have a suitable title, ‘How not to look as a fool in the eyes of a 13-year-old humanoid.’ No, it’s better to replace the word ‘fool’ with a close semantic relative – ‘idiot,’” Nick thought and his mood improved.
Ahead of them, there appeared a small village. “That’s great, it is getting dark,” Nick thought, “Ron must have planned it so that we get here before the nightfall.”
When they approached with the cart, Valu had already negotiated the overnight stay with the locals. Ron was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps, he went inside one of the huts. Whisperer got out of the cart, groaning, and, cursing under his lip, started to rub his numb legs. Meanwhile, Sith unharnessed the sloths and led them to a stall in the backy
ard. Nich took a deep breath. The air was full of flowery smells and was a little sweet, just like in a honey field somewhere on Altay. “You can say whatever you want, but the environment is superbly clean here,” Nick stated to himself.
“Come over here!” he turned around to the call and saw Ron, who was standing on the porch of a wood house, waiving at them.
Nick took Whisperer’s weighty bag on his back and started toward Ron in no rush.
The house was a two-story structure, much different from the huts that were around it. It was much larger and more solid. It reminded of a large ancient inn or at least how Nick imagined it. Inside, there was a large hall on the ground level. In the middle, it had three long crude tables made of wood with very long benches on both sides. In each corner, there was a small table with large chairs. In the farthest dark corner there was a staircase that as Nick guessed led to the second level.
A hefty elderly woman with a long gray braid greeted them with a nod and silently went upstairs. Everyone took it as an invitation and followed her. Only Valu sat at a table, as if nothing else mattered, without even taking off his shoulder bag.
“Pak, my friend!” he yelled as loud as possible. “Last year, someone lost a bet to me for a wineskin of mead.
That same moment, a feeble man of an uncertain age with disheveled hair stepped out a secret door. “Valu, fatty, you are still alive? I was told the other day that you’d been eaten by a warthog. But I wouldn’t believe it, of course. No beast can digest a fat one like you!”
Judging by how they started to laugh and clap each other on the back, Nick understood that it was a long-overdue meeting of two old friends. Already upstairs, Nick heard the little man moaning, “Careful, you fat stinkh, you’ll break my bones!”
The woman, as silent as ever, showed the hunters to the two free rooms and rushed downstairs. One room was slightly bigger. It was decided that Whisperer, Sith and Nick would take it. The smaller room would be for Ron and Valu. Having dropped their modest bags right on the floor, everyone rushed to the dining hall. Nick heard his stomach growl as the pleasant aroma of fried meet was coming from the kitchen.
The dinner was great. Either the journey was too long or the food was too good, but they finished it quickly in one sitting. Then the owner, Valu’s friend, put on the table a wineskin with a golden liquid. The drink turned out to be very good. It tasted much better than the homemade brew that was made from the drunken tree in the Valley. Late at night, another group of hunters entered the inn. Listening to the joyful greetings, Nick guessed that these people were from the neighboring village. But they were coming in the opposite direction, from the City. They were excited and full of impressions. The tables were immediately put together, and the dinner continued with a second wind. From time to time, Nick would catch curious looks on himself, but no one ever addressed him directly.
“I heard you and your lads had sent Ulo, the Vakhs’ Elder, to the Departed?” asked one of them, looking at Ron.
“Yes, that is correct,” Ron confirmed unwillingly.
“When you reach the City, watch out. There’s a whole delegation of Southerners there. As we heard, they came to see the Guardians themselves. They demand justice.”
“Justice!” Valu interrupted the conversation. “These lying yellowbelly offspring had trapped us, and had it not been for the Foundling, our souls now would have been collecting the nectar on the Dominia.”
“Calm down, Valu. You are our heroes who delivered the mycelium. I just wanted to warn you. You do know that the Vakhs are quite revengeful. By the way,” he decided to switch the topic, “The City fortune-tellers are crying on every street corner about the unusually strong Exodus expected this time around.”
“Oh, but of course! Let the Departed Gods come back on us!” Valu feigningly rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. “Like you don’t know the City folks? They always panic for no reason! I have a nephew, my cousin’s son, who works at the City forge. So, he told me that after the Exodus the City residents wouldn’t come out of their houses for a month, not to mention leaving the City wall.”
Everyone started to laugh, either at Valu’s good joke, or, more probably, at himself. Everyone knew that the husky had out-of-wedlock children in all the villages of the Valley, and perhaps even beyond. And Valu invariably called them all nephews and nieces.
“Well, I don’t know, but the works in the towers are already at full steam. And the ferry guardsmen are checking everyone like they never did before. There, they made Ruby take everything off to his underwear.”
Everyone laughed again.
“And then what? Did Ruby show them his poison-spitter?” Valu added oil to the fire.
It seemed the roof would crack from the laughter. Nick did not even notice how he started to laugh with everyone else. Being among these simple, good-natured and brave men, he stopped feeling lonely for a moment.
“Of course, it’s too bad we won’t see the First Exodus celebrations,” one of the hunters said after a little while, when everyone stopped laughing. “Perhaps, you will get lucky. Do you have a place to stay at the City?”
“Oh, we’ll find kind people,” Whisperer answered as elusively as always. And then he addressed the inn owner, “And where’s your daughter? I brought her a healing infusion and an ointment.”
A shadow crossed the inn owner’s face, but he called his wife right away, “Lola, please call Niya here.”
“Don’t you know what time it is now? The children are long asleep!” she barked.
“And I thought she was mute,” Nick thought to himself.
As if overhearing him, the woman started to scold the hunters, “Are you going to sit and drink here till the morning? And then tomorrow you won’t wake up!”
“Lola, how long do you know us?” simultaneous hunter’s voices started to say. “She is quite a fighter, Pak, that Lola of yours! How do you live with her for so long?”
At that moment, Nick felt someone’s stare on him. He turned around a saw a girl. She was standing under the staircase, hidden by its shadow, and looked at him attentively. Nick felt uneasy. She had an unusual look. Her large pear-shaped head and a small fragile body were so out of harmony with each other that he couldn’t hide his surprise. But what surprised him the most were her huge eyes taking half of her face. The girl had a long braid. It took Nick some time to realize that this probably was the owners’ daughter.
“Niya, my girl, come here!” Whisperer noticed her as well. “Don’t pay attention to these dumb foresters,” he nodded at the hunters. They all laughed loudly but then cut it out when they saw the girl.
The girl, without a shadow of embarrassment, came up to the table, and looking one of the hunters straight into his eye, said, “What you are carrying from the City, throw it away. Or better yet, burry it as far away from people’s homes as possible.”
The hunter, even though drunk, became as pale as a wall.
“Niya, cut it out, why do you have to scare honest people,” Lola interrupted.
“What is good in the City, is evil here! Burry it!” the girl repeated stubbornly.
“Yes, ma’am, you are right, we’ve been sitting here too long,” said one of the hunters, getting up from the table. “Men, let’s go, we have an early start tomorrow.”
The hunters, mumbling the words of gratitude to Lola, one by one started to climb upstairs. The one who the girl had warned about something went outside without saying a word. Ron, complaining about his drunk head, got up to his room, but not before asking Sith to check on the sloths before he goes to bed. And only Valu and the owner, seizing the opportunity, took the unfinished wineskin and made themselves comfortable in a corner of the dining hall.
“There, Niya, as always you are at it!” Lola waved her arms in feigned disappointment. “Why don’t you let good people relax as they deserve it.”
She seemed to have forgotten that just a minute before that she herself had been trying to get the drunken hunters go to bed. Lola kissed
the girl on her disproportionally large head and started to clean up the tables.
The three of them stayed. Niya climbed into Whisperer’s lap and made herself comfortable, looking at Nick attentively. Nick could see genuine interest in her eyes, even some flicker of recognition mixed with distrust. Nick did not know how to react and just smiled at her. The girl let out a deep sigh, as if she was waiting for his smile to breath out, and said, “So here you are, Big Man!”
Nick threw a puzzled look at Whisperer as if asking for his support. The old man was sitting with an absent look and half-closed eyes, as usual. Nick did not know how to handle children. He had no younger siblings. His parents must have decided not to have a second child because father was always traveling for long business trips. Nick smiled at her again and said, “Have we ever met before, young lady?”
“No, we have never met before, Big Man,” Niya answered, looking at him with no fear.
Suddenly, Nick felt cold sweat on his back, as he realized that he just had talked to the girl in Russian. It must have been the effect of the good mead that made him switch to his native language.
“What did you say?” Nick was piercing her with his eyes.
Niya continued to stare at him with no fear or emotion. Her huge eyes, as it seemed, were pulling him into their abyss. He sharply shook his head, trying to get rid of the hallucination.
“Yes, it is you indeed,” the girl said mysteriously.
“What am I?” Nick asked stupidly.
Instead of an answer, the girl took his hand, and, squeezing it in her little palms, looked at him imploringly, “Show them to me. I know they exist. Sometimes I see their twinkle in my dreams.”
Nick panicked inside. He could not understand what this strange little girl wants from him.
