by Nōnen Títi
“I don’t know… How would we eat?”
Kunag frowned. Leyon disappointed him; he’d given the impression of not being scared of anything and now he made all these objections. “I thought you lived off the streets on DJar. This must be better; the food grows right under our feet. But if you can’t hack it, I’ll ask someone else. Maybe the girls won’t worry so much.”
Leyon gave him a thump on his arm before starting to run with a loud: “Whoa, look at that!”
It was a tree, a plamal, a huge pipe specimen with at least four kor of tubular extensions on a base the size of a town home.
“Be careful!” Kunag shouted in case it was all fake, but it wasn’t. Not one of the pipes shattered when Leyon climbed into the spaces between them and disappeared from view.
Kunag stood still. Maybe Kun DJar wanted them to stay here. This was almost like a gift.
“Look at this,” Leyon called. He had taken one of the pipes and bent it. It wasn’t as deep as Kunag had expected, seeing its length; it was only a cup and inside it was a tiny, bluish pod, which Kunag could only just catch when Leyon tipped the pipe even further. It wasn’t stuck.
“What is it?” Leyon asked.
“Weird.” It could be an animal, even an insect, or a bud for a leaf, maybe for a new pipe, or a seed for a fruit – anything. It didn’t seem like plant material, but on Kun DJar nothing was what it seemed. Leyon pulled the cup off the tube and put the pod back inside it.
“Are you crazy? It could have attacked you.”
“We’ll take them back,” Leyon replied.
They did, but neither Gos nor Nini could tell them what the pods were.
“Is it food?”
“Possibly, but maybe not for us.”
“How about letting us stay behind, so we can observe these things, see what they grow into?”
“You’re asking the wrong person,” Nini answered.
Kunag didn’t ask the right person, because he knew what the answer would be.
Walking up with Hani the next day, he probed her to find out if she wanted to go home.
“Not really. I like it here. I’m hoping we can all come back and live here.”
“How about staying behind?”
“I’d like to, but Maike won’t let us.”
“She doesn’t need to know.”
“…Just don’t do anything stupid,” Hani said, and walked on alone.
Leyon went straight to Maike with his request. “Just a few of us can stay here, while you report back to town.”
“No possible way. Nobody stays behind. My expedition returns the same as it left.”
“Nobody would miss me or even care. Nobody’s waiting there,” Leyon tried again.
“No.”
Kunag wished he didn’t have anybody waiting for him.
After another day they reached a small beach exactly where Nini said they would, even if no sound or smell had given away how close they were to the ocean.
This place was even more lush and more beautiful. There were root-like growths that reached as high as their knees and climbed like snakes over the surrounding land. Others were hanging down like curtains.
“If there was ever a civilization here before us, we’d never find it,” Yako said.
They made camp right on the beach. At night, the plamals glowed in the dark just like the eyecreatures did. The whole canopy seemed to be alight, swaying in the wind like a huge plate. That against the hazy red of Kun DJar’s sky was quite wonderful by itself, but to see it beside the ocean, with its own luminescence and pattern of motion, was totally amazing. It would be even more beautiful on a dark night. Kunag added that to his mental list of reasons to stay.
“This could be our new home,” Saski said. “We can be Kunjari people after all.”
With every day, more exciting life forms were discovered. With every day, Kunag was more sure he wouldn’t go back.
“Just imagine; we’ve crossed a whole continent on foot,” Doret said.
“That just shows you how small it really is. We could have never crossed Geveler in this short a time,” Marya replied.
“Yes, we could. North to south even, several times,” Nini told her.
As a source of food, this seashore was no better than the other side. There were plenty of small things, but nothing that resembled fish.
“It looks like that stuff we took from that lake,” Leyon said.
Kunag had forgotten about the box he still carried deep inside his pack, so he dug it out. The box was heavy. He held it up and looked from aside. Though it had been filled halfway with muddy slosh, now the entire box was filled and solid. “Do you want to open it?” he asked Leyon.
Leyon used his knife, staying as far back as possible. Kunag expected a stench from rotting material, maybe even something jumping out, but what he didn’t expect was to see the box filled to the brim with blue pods, like the one they had found inside the plamal and which Leyon still had in his pocket. As they were sitting on the sand, Kunag tipped the box over to release the pods. Amazed, they watched the entire collection move on their own accord towards the water, the one from Leyon’s pocket included. At the first touch of liquid they floated and drifted apart as if they were little bobbing kabins. A little later, they had all disappeared.
As this was the last day, the others joined them on the sand and, in a bit of a celebration mood, they all played. Leyon dug up a handful of seaweed, though he’d been told to stay out of the water.
“I thought this stuff was supposed to be really salty,” he said, trying some.
“There’s no salt in the sea, so it can’t be,” Kunag answered him.
What happened next probably saved Leyon from getting in trouble for fishing and eating the seaweed. “Say that again!” Hani exclaimed, jumping up, trampling her sandcastle as she pulled up her pack.
Kunag repeated that there was no salt in the Kun DJar seas – not much, at any rate. He told them what he’d discovered on that very first expedition.
In the meantime, Hani had taken her map and turned it upside down. She was excited, a state Kunag had not often seen her in. She pointed to some scribbled notes in the corner. “It says ‘Tikot drinks seawater’ and then something about the well. Don’t you see? Daili wrote this.”
Nobody saw what she meant until she calmed down enough to explain. “Daili must have found out that the seawater wasn’t salty, because Tikot drank it when we were at the seaside. That was right before the disease when we all worried about the water supply.”
“You mean Daili figured it was a safe source of drinking water?” Yako asked.
Hani sank back down with the map still in front of her. “I think she may not have had the time to tell anyone,” she whispered.
The playful mood was gone. Kunag stared at the red sea. All that water… It could have saved them, saved Dad.
“We head back tomorrow, the shortest route. The people need to know this,” Maike said.
“Don’t jump to conclusions. We’re not sure it’s safe. In the long run there could be something else in there that doesn’t agree with us,” Nini cautioned. “Remember that Tikot also didn’t survive the disease.”
“Why didn’t Jenet inform us?” Wolt asked.
“Because he didn’t know either. None of us did.”
“But I told him. I told all of them.” Kunag felt the anger come back; Jenet had laughed at him.
“But nobody made the connection the way Hani did just now. Like with everything else, we reasoned from what we expected and what we knew from DJar. We all took for granted that seawater is not drinkable. That’s the problem. People can’t look past what they know,” Yako said.
“But Jenet was a scientist.”
“Especially them, because they base their credibility on their learned knowledge and, thus, on what is already accepted as true.”
Marya agreed with him. “We have noticed that so many times on this trip and yet we’re still amazed. It wasn’t Jenet’s fault
, or Daili’s. They may have wanted to test it first, but then the well got contaminated.”
Her logic made sense, but it seemed such a waste.
The discussions about why and how went on, but Kunag walked away. The whole thing had made him angry all over again.
Nini stopped him and put her hands on his arms. “Listen, Kunag.”
The spikes of his hair made shadows on her pale skin. She made him feel warm, like Branag used to.
“Promise me you’ll come back to town with us. Once there, they will arrange for a new settlement. You can come and live here forever.”
“It wouldn’t be the same.”
“You could ask Tini and Jari to come too.” She didn’t allow him to pull away. “Don’t run, Kunag. Don’t do that to your mom and sister. It’s hard enough for them already. They need you.”
“I can’t help them!”
“Nobody can bring your dad back. Stop hiding. The disease hurt all the people, but time has moved on in town as well. It’ll be different. People will be happier.”
She was just saying that; Nini didn’t know any more than he did. Another disease and they could all be dead.
“Promise me you won’t make any problems, Kunag. You have to promise.”
“Yeah, okay,” he answered. He was no kid. He didn’t want her to say this.
“That’s not good enough. I want your promise.”
Her hands were still on his arms, insisting, so he promised. He couldn’t say no to Nini.
JUST A LITTLE TOO EASY
“Have you gone totally MAD?”Maike roared and slapped Sinti in the face. “How dare you keep that from me? Have you no sense at all?”
The prut had jumped over the edge of Nini’s cup when she’d startled from Maike’s physical outburst. The others were equally shocked.
“Whoa, Maike, stop! Sinti isn’t the one you should be angry at,” Yako said, jumping in to shield the girl who was cradling her face.
Nini left her cup and stepped closer.
“All the times she came running to me to tell me about something they did, but when it’s important she keeps her mouth shut!” Maike was yelling at Yako now.
Nini pulled Sinti away.
“I’m hurt.”
“It’ll be okay. Go get yourself a drink.”
Still flustered, Maike started gathering her mat and possessions. “We’ll go back, right now. We’ll drag them to town.”
Just a little while ago they had woken up to the light of Kun. This was the first campsite on the way home, about a day’s walk from the large clearing where they’d lived for two kor. Wolt had been the first to notice that Kunag and Leyon were missing. He’d found the map Kunag had made sitting on top of his own writing pack and then discovered that not only the boys, but their packs and mats, were gone. Sinti, unfortunately for her, had been the first to speak: “Leyon told me he didn’t want to come back with us.” That was when Maike had lashed out at her.
But Sinti wasn’t the only one to deserve the blame. “Maike, I also knew that Kunag wanted to stay behind. He said as much to me. I told him no and made him promise, but maybe I should have watched out for him.”
Maike straightened up, her pack in one hand, a shoe in the other. The look in her eyes gave away her surprise that Nini could stoop to Sinti’s level.
“I also knew,” Hani said.
“And me,” Gos added.
Maike dropped her pack and sat down.
“But just because they mentioned not wanting to go back doesn’t mean we knew they would just take off in the middle of the night,” Hani continued.
“Didn’t Leyon talk to you about it, even?” Marya asked.
“I’ll kill them. I swear. When we get back there…”
It was probably good that the boys had a whole night’s head start. Sinti was still crying. The rest of them stood around feeling lost.
“Wouldn’t it be better to leave them?” Wolt asked. “There’s no danger here; life is good. We’re seriously thinking of a new settlement. As soon as we get back to town people will start moving here.”
It sounded a bit too easy, but he was right.
“No way. I have to get them back to town.” Maike stood up and restarted packing.
“You can’t force them, Maike,” Yako said.
“Oh yes I can.”
Yako took the pack from Maike’s hand to make her pay attention to him. “They’re old enough to take care of themselves. They just want to stay a little longer.”
“What if someone stayed with them?” Wolt asked.
“No. Town is waiting for your report as well as for the drawings. No, damn it, we’re going after them.”
“I wasn’t meaning me,” Wolt clarified.
“I could stay. I’d like to explore the place a bit more,” Hani offered.
“No possible way.”
“Why not? What have I got to go back for – Daili or Branag?”
“What about Laytji?” Nini asked her.
“She’s with Jema anyway. Please, Maike?”
Maike frowned. “You alone with two boys. Then I’d be really worried.”
But with that answer she gave away that she was now also considering the possibility. She looked at Nini. “Could you handle them?”
Nini wouldn’t mind staying; she had come to really like this place. “What will you tell Irma?”
“If the colony is going to be split, we’ll have to split the medical staff as well, Nini.”
Marya and Yako both offered to stay behind as well, but Maike said no. She wasn’t going back with only half her team.
An hour later they all said goodbye. “I’ll come back soon and I’ll bring your stuff,” Marya promised.
“Tell Jema to come, and Benjamar,” Nini answered.
“When you find those boys, you tell them I’ll be back and they’ll have it coming yet,” Maike said, but she had tears in her eyes.
“I guess after having been so close together for so long, everybody feels like that a little,” Hani said when they stood watching the others walk away. “I’m kind of glad not to have to go trotting up and down those mountains again,” she added.
“Me too,” Nini agreed.
The two of them packed up and headed the other way, back to where they’d come from the day before. Unlike the expedition, they knew what they would find. What would town be like? Another disaster could have struck. Nini was pretty sure that was Kunag’s greatest fear, but now they wouldn’t find out for a very long time. DJar with its many continents had no secrets. Here a few mountains kept their existence apart.
“Let’s see what they’re doing first; find out if they planned this,” Hani suggested as they neared the clearing with the two trees. There was no doubt this was where the boys had returned to, but Nini started to worry when there was no sign of them.
“They’ll expect Maike back. They must be hiding somewhere,” Hani said.
It wasn’t hard to find them in the north field a little later. They weren’t exactly quiet. Nini and Hani made camp in the main clearing, but made sure to be out of sight early the next day. The boys returned there very cautiously, searching for evidence of having been followed. From their hideaway in a tiny cave to the west, Nini and Hani could hear them talk.
“Maybe they didn’t notice we were gone.”
“Of course they did. They probably didn’t care.”
“Of course they cared.”
Hani stifled a giggle.
On the second day the boys moved their things back to the main clearing, less cautious now. Then they left it to go into the south forest. Kunag must have wanted to show Leyon his creatures. They stayed away a long time and then went to their mats without having eaten anything. Hani and Nini had some dried food while waiting for them to fall asleep. “Time to surprise them?”
Between the two trees and far enough away from the sleeping boys, they made their own camp. Before Kunup Hani started a small in-ground fire and Nini prepared a hot drink and prut
the way she’d learned from watching Marya. Together, they waited for it to wake the boys.
Kunag was the first to sit up. It didn’t take him more than two fractions to look around, jump off his mat and kick Leyon awake. Whether it was the hot drinks or just curiosity, but Leyon came over almost immediately. “Where’s Maike?”
“Why?” Nini asked.
“Is she here?”
“She’s not far.” That, of course, depended on what you considered ‘far’.
“Is she angry?”
“She’s furious.”
Leyon scanned the area. He was worried. Good.
Kunag took a bit longer before coming over. He avoided looking at Nini.
Hani poured them a drink and told them to sit down instead of stand there “like a couple of lighthouses. You must be starving after two days without food.”
“Do you mean you were here last night when we went to sleep?” Leyon asked.
“And the night before in the field.”
Nini leaned back against one of the trees and let Hani have her fun. Leyon caught on and grinned. “So Maike isn’t here then?”
Hani explained what had happened the morning they’d discovered them gone. “Now you’ll have to prepare this place for a whole settlement of people,” she finished.
Leyon answered that wouldn’t be a problem. “So what exactly did Maike say?” he asked Nini.
“She told me she’d be back and she’d make sure you’d be sorry you ever learned to sit down.”
For just a brief moment there was a glint of doubt in Leyon’s eyes. Then he laughed out loud. Nini had liked him ever since that time right after the storm when he’d gone out of his way to get her everything she needed; he was all noise and jokes, but he had a good heart.
Kunag was only interested in the cup in his hands. He was struggling. Leyon’s problem was with Maike; he might still get in trouble later, but Kunag’s was here, now. He felt guilty for breaking his promise, for disappointing Nini. Now that he was allowed to stay he couldn’t be happy about it.
Nini looked at him deliberately, so he felt it, willing him to acknowledge her.
He resisted for a while before lifting his head. “I’m sorry.”
