Carefully Eerin twisted a short lever attached to the underside. Some type of winding mechanism, Mark decided. Then, standing, hin bent and spread long fingers to press the four corners of the board simultaneously. A low, powerful hum emerged.
A music box of some kind? Mark wondered. At Eerin's next touch, this time a gentle tap over a spidery-looking symbol in the center, the box began to play. The purity of its sound impressed Mark; each note was like a little bell.
The Elpind stood motionless for the first few notes, gazing distantly up at the stars overhead. Then, with an incredible leap straight into the air, Eerin was dancing.
Many heartbeats later, Mark realized that his mouth was still hanging open.
The agility, the pinpoint control, the amazing strength and power that the movements implied: he'd never seen anything like it, not in holo-vids of professional ballet, not in tough gymnastics contests ... not anywhere.
Mark himself was a good dancer. He was highly skilled, too, at the stylized, rhythmic movements that were the foundation of the self-defense training he'd taken for years; he knew how to think and move in patterns. But Eerin's dance was incredible. The intricacy, the quick repetitions, the grace with which every movement was made ... it awed him.
The music from the little board swelled out in high, reedy notes, wild and sweet and joyous. It was full of energy, like the Elspind themselves.
Pattern after pattern of rising notes repeated and crescendoed. The weaving of the rhythms was complex, but simple to follow, and Mark felt a response rise from deep within
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him. The notes called to him, quickening the blood in his veins. He found he had to consciously keep himself on the couch, that the music was practically pulling him into joining the wild dance. He perched on the edge of his seat, feet twitching.
Mark kept his eyes fixed on Eerin. With each repetition of the musical theme Eerin seemed to leap a little higher, whirl a little faster. Yet there was no sense of frantic exertion. Each movement floated, as if a feather danced. The dance was gracefully effortless and obviously fraught with deep emotion.
A piercing new note sounded, and Mark sensed that it signaled the
beginning of the end. Sounding again, it began a pattern of its own, moving in and out of the established melody, slowing the wild rhythm bit by bit. Then with a long trembling of the high, sharp note, it was over.
Eerin came back to the couch, eyes shining with energy and joy. Hin wasn't even breathing hard.
Mark hunted for words. "That was--that was worth getting up for!"
The Elpind nodded graciously, seeming to understand the depth of the compliment, coming, as it did, from a species that craved hours on end in a comalike state. Hin began unweaving the feathers, laying them carefully in the oblong case.
"Really, Eerin. I loved it, all of it!" Mark walked over to collect the music board and bring it back to Eerin. 'Tell me what it means. It's more than just a dance, isn't it?"
"It is a ritual, the most important ritual of the Elspind. The movements are learned by al , but each individual makes stylistic variations meaningful to hin. The sequences of movements that form the internal patterns are handed down from family to family. Any Elpind watching a Mortenwol can tell from which family line the dancer has descended."
"Are you telling a story in the dance, the story of your family? What does
'Mortenwol' mean? And what do you call that thing?" He pointed to the music board that Eerin was now tucking back into its protective covering.
"This is a kareen," Eerin replied. "No, the dance is not a story. Mortenwol means ... the best words are ... death dance," hin said calmly.
Mark recoiled as if he'd been struck.
The Elpind did not seem to notice. "It is performed each
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morning to greet a new day of life and to prepare the body and the mind should death come in the midst of that life. And there are other ritual times when the Mortenwol may also be danced. If death is imminent or inevitable, for example, an Elpind will dance the Mortenwol--or, if incapable of performing the dance, the Elpind has the right to ask any other Elpind to dance in hin's, heen's or han's stead."
"Death dance," whispered Mark, shocked. "Every day?"
"We Elspind live close to death," said Eerin serenely. "Don't humans wish to be ready when death comes?"
Mark was trying to get control of his emotions. This was an important part of Eerin's culture; it wasn't his place to criticize it. Interrelators were trained to understand, rather than judge. But death was hardly his favorite topic right now!
Thanks a lot, Rob, he thought bitterly.
"Mark?" Eerin was staring at him. "Don't humans wish to be ready when death comes? What do they do to prepare?"
Mark sank back down onto the couch. All the energy and lightness he'd felt watching Eerin dance had fled; he was tired and depressed.
"Humans do wish to be ready," he said after a moment's thought, trying to answer Eerin's question honestly. "But very few ever are. Some religions have rituals, but usually they occur after the person dies. Most humans'
preparations are financial or legal, to provide for their families. To dwell on the idea of death every day would seem morbid to a human."
"It does not seem morbid to Elspind."
He looked thoughtfully at Eerin. "I know. That music you played ... it was happy!"
"Do humans dance?"
"Sure. Most do, anyway. I love to dance, myself."
"When Mark dances fast and free, does Mark feel afraid?"
"Well, no."
"Sad?"
Mark shook his head.
"Because dancing drives out the negatives, brings up energy. It leaves one strong and clean. Full of life, Mark."
"That's my point!" the human protested. "Full of life. Not ready for death."
"Death is a part of life. Mortenwol celebrates the whole of
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the pattern." Eerin blinked. "Can we have breakfast now?"
Mark heaved himself off the couch. "Sure. I'm trying to understand, Eerin, but to me, death just isn't something to celebrate."
"No," agreed Eerin, making an obvious effort to slow hin's usual exuberant rush toward food. "It is each day of life that is the happy occasion. The joy of Mortenwol each morning is that hin is alive to dance it again. It is also a commitment to give hinself gladly to life that day. That includes the part of life that is death, if it should choose that day to come. No one can separate them."
I can. Out of deference to the Elpind, Mark didn't say the words, but he felt oddly betrayed, not knowing why.
"It is all tied together: the dance, the music, the feathers," Eerin continued, oblivious to Mark's mood. "The feathers are more than decoration. They come from the tails of the Elseewas. That translates to 'Shadowbird.' " For the last word, Eerin abandoned Mizari to combine two of hin's limited supply of English words. Without teeth, the "sh" sound definitely lost something in the translation.
Eerin switched back to Mizari. "This beautiful, multicolored bird lives in the mountains of my world. Their feathers are rare, so they become family treasures, handed down from generation to generation. They are priceless; no amount of money can buy one. It is a sign of hin's family's rich heritage and high esteem that hin was given six to have for hin's very own," Eerin finished with pride.
Mark was glad to pursue the seeming change of subject. "Why are the feathers so scarce?" he asked. "Has the bird been hunted too much?"
"No. Hin's people do not eat flesh, and rarely hunt unless in the case of a rogue predator. It is forbidden to kill an Elseewas, Mark. Their feathers can only be found, not taken."
Eerin stopped talking for a moment as they entered one of the dining areas.
The Elpind waited impatiently, hopping a little from foot to foot, as the human got his food.
When they were seated at the table, the Elpind continued, "The Elseewas is an important symbol to Elspind. The adult bird lives only six days. We
feel a certain kinship to it, since the Elpind adult lives only six years, at most, after the Change."
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Mark wondered how Eerin could sit there, calmly eating and speaking so matter-of-factly about what seemed to him to be a tragically early death. It's normal for them, he reminded himself again. I can't judge the Elpind culture by my feelings. Remember, understanding, not judgment.
"Six days?" he said, carefully neutral. "That's not long."
"The Elseewas grows very rapidly, mates, hatches one brood, then dies,"
said Eerin. "But it sings so marvelously and dies with such grace and passion that it symbolizes the way we, too, wish to live and die."
The Elpind's golden eyes grew faraway and hin stopped eating for a second.
"Elspind say that to see the death of an Elseewas changes one's life forever.
Hin has never been so fortunate."
Mark didn't want to ask, but he had to. "How do they die?"
"They drown."
"Drown? A bird?"
"They fly out over a body of water and perform a ... well, we call it a dance. It is an incredibly acrobatic effort. Parts of the Mortenwol symbolize that last flight. Then, when the bird is spent, it plunges into the water. Some speculate that it dies in the air and merely falls, but those who have seen it say that isn't true. They say the Elseewas seems eager for its last adventure and dives to find it."
All of a sudden this talk of last flights and death plunges was too much for Mark. "Uh, excuse me, I'm through," he said, getting up to ram his tray down the recycling chute with more force than necessary.
He turned around to find the Elpind studying him carefully. Mark cleared his throat.
"Uh, we've got advanced first-aid training this morning. If we go now, we can practice a bit ... you know, name the items in the kit for each other ... before the instructor gets there."
Eerin waited until they were in the hall before hin spoke.
"The CLS team that prepared hin to leave Elseemar warned of this. They told hin not to speak much of our culture's way of facing death because it would seem callous to many. They said the young of most species often have not even seen death yet."
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Mark stopped. "You talk like there are dead bodies lying around everywhere on your world." He could not keep the bitterness out of his voice. "Have you experienced death personally? Lost someone you love? Believe me, I have."
"Hin has seen death," replied the Elpind calmly. "One of hin's siblings died in infancy, when the gland that produces the juvenile hormone began to function. It is a risky time. Another died during the Change, which is not uncommon. And hin's parents died, of course."
Mark stared at the alien. "What do you mean, of course?"
Eerin regarded him incredulously. "Hin told Mark the adult Elspind die within six years of the Change. Thus, after the parents bear the young, it falls to the oldest siblings to raise the younger, until all are through the Change. Every family goes through two stages, a parent-family, or 'pinlaa,' and a sibling-family, which is called a 'pinsa.' A pinlaa prepares for as much as two years for the coming deaths of the han and the heen so that all is done with dignity."
"I'm sorry," Mark muttered. "I should have realized."
The Elpind regarded him sympathetically, evidently realizing his distress.
"Mark has watched a family member embrace death?"
Mark nodded numbly. "First my father. I was very young; I hardly remember.
But"--tears welled up despite his efforts to control them--"just a few months ago, my mother ..." He trailed off, unable to finish.
Eerin's voice was kind. "Did Mark make a fine farewell ceremony? Mark said humans have death rituals."
The young man shook his head. "I wasn't there," he said in an agonized whisper. "I wasn't with her ..."
Eerin reached out and awkwardly patted the human's arm. The golden eyes were troubled. "Hin will speak no more of death. It is time to go for lessons."
Mark blinked rapidly and took several deep, steadying breaths. Dammit, Kenner, get hold of yourself! This is no way to relate to a nonhuman culture, by creating taboo subjects!
"No, it's all right," he said as soon as he could trust his voice, "I should have realized about your parents when you told me about your lifecycle the other night. And anytime you want to talk about the Mortenwol, or the Elseewas, or anything
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else in your culture, you go right ahead. We've got to learn about each other, that's what you're here for, right?"
"Yes."
"Well, your ways are what work for you, and if every Elpind knows hin's going to see hin's parents die ... well, if dancing helps you prepare for that, then dancing is the thing to do. If I could have prepared for my mother's death"--Mark's voice trembled--"it would have helped me, I know."
Animation came back into Eerin's eyes. "Mark Kenner will be a great interrelator," hin announced firmly.
The Elpind turned away and headed down the corridor with hin's customary skips and hops without seeing Mark shake his head soberly. The human followed, wondering whether he should tell Eerin of his plan to leave StarBridge once this project was over.
It would be too hard to explain, Mark decided. And it really didn't matter anyway. Negatives, Mark was discovering, had little claim on Eerin.
Three days later, once again in the observation dome and once again after the Mortenwol, the subject of life and death on Elseemar resurfaced ... but this time it was Cara Hendricks asking the questions, during her formal interview with the Elpind.
She's really good, Mark thought, watching her work. Overhead the stars provided a stunning backdrop, and since the transparent plas-steel dome went all the way to ground level, he could look out across the asteroid's rock-strewn, desolate surface, lit only by the starlight. He turned away from the disturbingly close horizon, bounded by the mountain peaks of the Lamont Cliffs, to look down at his friends as they sat together on the floor, cross-legged.
Cara's camera hovered over her shoulder, but she seemed oblivious to it; her whole attention was focused on Eerin. As a result, the Elpind had also forgotten the camera. Cara is the most fascinated listener hin has encountered here, the young man realized, amused. And Eerin is loving it!
Mark was relieved to find himself more relaxed than he'd thought he might be. He'd dreaded the idea of losing his composure again, especially in front of Cara, when the inevitable
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discussion of Elspind and their death rituals surfaced. At first he'd planned to absent himself.
But his interest in alien cultures that had given him the dream of being an interrelator in the first place had won out over his unease, and now Mark was glad. It helped to be nothing more than an observer--it wasn't the same as discussing the painful topic firsthand. He was learning a lot about the Elspind that he hadn't known.
"What is your home like, Eerin?" had been the young journalist's first question.
Eagerly the Elpind had described Lalcipind, "Beautiful Gathering Place of the People" in the foothills of a great mountain range: the simple homes nestled beneath the tall trees on the hillsides, the clear, swift-flowing rivers that ran down into the lush valley below where the crops were grown. Eight walks-under-the-sun-and-under-the-moons away lay the sea. Eerin had made the journey once to gaze upon its endless expanse from the top of a steep cliff that dropped straight down to the rocks and the heaving water.
There were deserts on Elseemar, too, the Elpind told them. These vast stretches formed a wide girdle of hot, arid land that bordered the mountain ranges on the central continents.
"Tell us about your people's First Contact with the CLS" was Cara's next request.
Mark knew the story from the CLS's viewpoint, but was fascinated now to hear it from the Elpind's. "Eight years ago a Heeyoon scout ship suffered life-support failure and made an emergency landing on Elseemar," Eerin said.
"The WirElspind, our governing body, decided to welcome the Heeyoon ...
&
nbsp; and in the ensuing years, they and the other CLS representatives have since opened the portals to the universe for hin's people."
Hin is so poised! Mark thought. The realization brought back to him something he'd almost overlooked in getting to know the Elpind; that Eerin was a visiting head of state, accustomed to sitting on the Council and helping to make decisions affecting an entire planet.
"I know that you weren't born at the time of the first encounter, but can you describe the mood of your people at that time?" Cara asked.
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"Hin has heard the Tellings from that time," Eerin said, then went on to explain that at first the strange beings with their magical-seeming tools had seemed godlike, but that the Heeyoon and subsequent CLS visitors had been careful to dispel any such notions. "It was a shock for us to realize that we were not the only ones," Eerin said. "Hin's people experienced both fear and wonder."
"Some CLS members have criticized the Heeyoon crew for not leaving your world as soon as they realized it was inhabited by intelligent beings, since by their continued presence they ran the risk of bringing unwelcome change--some have gone so far as to call it contamination--to your world.
What is your opinion on that, Eerin?"
"Hin's opinion is one with the WirElspind--the Great Council--in thinking that the CLS contact is a good thing for our people. Someday it may be possible to trade with other worlds. At the moment, Elspind value the cultural interchange between our world and the CLS representatives. We are
learning a great deal." Eerin regarded the journalist unblinkingly. "Hin values the opportunity to learn, Cara."
The journalist nodded. "What about the other Elspind? How do they currently feel about the CLS contact?"
"The Elspind--our name means 'People of Life'--support the government in its decision," Eerin said, obviously choosing hin's words with great care.
"But there was trouble on Elseemar recently," Cara pointed out. 'Trouble from a group of Elspind, correct?"
"Not correct," Eerin said firmly. "Those who caused the trouble were not the Elspind, but the Wospind--the People of Death. Outwardly they appear like us, but inwardly their minds and hearts are in conflict with the People of Life."
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