Astra

by Naomi Foyle

  Nimma’s voice was low and grim. Beside her, the Fountain light cast a lacy golden shawl over the Craft-worker Moon and her new Birth-Code son, Aesop. Moon’s cheeks were glistening. In her arms, Aesop’s face wrinkled as if he was about to cry, but instead he yawned and reached vaguely for his mother’s nipple. Moon lifted him up and buried her face in his belly.

  ‘Can you imagine Kali’s fear at that news?’ Nimma asked. ‘Everyone in Beltane knew that the murderous oil-sick gangs would soon arrive in their Yr Widdfa fastness. Although the community was miles off the road, four-wheel drives could easily traverse the terrain. They kept their guns at the ready and established lookouts and patrols. Then one evening the radio announced that the Yukay army was sending reinforcements to Yr Widdfa to subdue the super-gangs once and for all. Everyone living in the hills was to report to the nearest Safety Point, where army troops would protect them until the gangs had been dealt with. Travel was advised in the morning, because it was well known that the gangs caroused all night and didn’t wake until the late afternoon. Now, the nearest Safety Point to Kali’s community was a village at least four hours’ walk away. That evening the Beltane Gaians gathered in their Community Hub to discuss what to do. Even the children had a voice and a vote.’

  Nimma looked round the Circle. ‘What do you think, Or-children? Should Beltane have obeyed the government order?’

  ‘No way!’ Torrent, to Astra’s surprise, emphatically announced. From his place beside Moon, Russett, his Code-Shelter father, cast him a sharp look, as if to say, About time, boy. Stream, who was tracing Torrent’s abdominal muscles with her forefinger, didn’t look as if she cared an aduki bean about the fate of the Beltane Gaians. Astra snuck a peek at Congruence, but she was gazing soulfully at Nimma, shaking her head.

  No way. No way. No way. The younger children echoed Torrent gleefully, Spring and Tulsi shrieking so loudly Astra covered her ears with her hands. Hokma elbowed her in the ribs and she chimed in, ‘No way! No way!’

  Nimma waited for the clamour of agreement to subside. ‘That,’ she announced, ‘is exactly what the Beltane Gaians decided. If they left their land, the government might seize it. If they left their animals, the animals would starve or be butchered by the refugees. And besides, they hadn’t spent their lives building a new world just to jump when the oil junkies whistled. So they stayed where they were. Everyone dressed in combat clothes and those who could fight armed themselves with weapons: rifles, pistols and crossbows. For six days, nothing happened. But on the seventh day, the army arrived.’

  Astra stiffened. Everyone over ten knew this bit of the story from their Tablette history lessons. A bit of her didn’t want to hear it, but most of her had to listen and understand.

  ‘The army came in a host of jeeps, ripping up the mountain turf. Kali’s Code-Shelter father, Elphin, was on lookout over the Earthcastle ramparts, and he reported that there were about twenty vehicles, with three or four soldiers in each one, all wearing helmets and flak gear. The jeeps stopped in a semicircle in front of the ramparts and the lead officer spoke using a loudspeaker. He said that the army was here to protect Beltane. He asked the Gaians to evacuate their dwellings and in groups of five, enter the back of the jeeps so he could take them to the Safety Point.

  ‘The Gaians refused. Elphin had his own megaphone, and through it he told the army that Beltane would protect itself until the army cleared the roads of the gangs. If the officer wanted to leave a jeep and some soldiers behind, Beltane would feed and shelter them in exchange for their support. The officer replied that under the special powers accorded to him by the current State of Emergency Measures, he was now ordering them into the jeeps. And when the Gaians refused again, he sent his soldiers in to take them by force. There were nearly eighty armed soldiers against fifty-one Beltane adults and twenty-eight children, half of them under ten years old, with forty guns and thirty crossbows between them.

  ‘That was the Battle of Beltane, in which many brave Gaians defended our Mother. None had shed human blood before, but in battle they killed six slaves of the oil junkie government, losing twenty-two of their own number in return, including Kali’s Birth-Code-Shelter mother Ravena. But though the Beltane Gaians were prepared to fight to the death, the Yukay soldiers were well trained and well armed and finally they broke into the Community Hub and took the ten smallest Gaian children hostage. Kali saw it happen. She saw Peredur’s niece and nephew crying in the soldiers’ arms as they emerged from the Hub, and she heard the loudspeaker announce that the children would be taken away and any adult who wanted to join them should lay down his or her weapon. The rest should be prepared to lose their lives.

  ‘Kali saw Peredur’s Birth-Code aunt lay down her crossbow and walk to the jeeps. Then, one by one, the Beltane mothers and fathers followed, surrendering to the Yukay army rather than let their children be taken away. Kali’s Shared Shelter mother, Rhiannon, walked that path. And when Peredur’s father shouted, Gaia is always with us, and laid down his gun to join his wife and children, Kali and Peredur looked at each other from across the Beltane pond. With that glance, they silently agreed that they would follow their families into the jeeps. For Gaia is not just in the land: She is everywhere, even in a cloud of petrol fumes, and She is within us too. When we protect ourselves and each other, we are also protecting Her.

  ‘So Kali and Peredur laid down their weapons and helped carry the wounded to the jeeps. One by one, the remaining Gaian warriors did the same, and the last to surrender were Kali’s Code-Shelter father Elphin and his Beltane co-founder, the maestro Code worker Hew Owen. As Elphin and Hew walked straight-backed across the field to join their comrades, the Gaians ululated their courage, and their farewell to Beltane. And as the jeeps roared back down the mountain, belching fumes of oil, the Gaians wept a blazing storm of tears, and Kali and Elphin and Rhiannon grieved hard the loss of Ravena.

  ‘But the army had tricked them. When the jeeps arrived at the Safety Point, the warriors were separated from the small children. The children were taken to a large tent and were never seen again. The warriors were put onto a bus and handcuffed to the seats. Behind them were men with tattoos and knife wounds: super-gang members, gagged, so they couldn’t speak. The soldier in charge of the bus told the Gaians that if they spoke to each other they would be gagged too.

  ‘The next day the bus drove to the coast and onto a huge ship, one of a small fleet anchored in the harbour. The ships looked like a pod of killer whales. They were painted with black-and-white chevrons and had enough room on the front deck for six buses to park, all in a row. Any windows you could see were small, their glass tinted black. The Gaians had no more freedom to lose. At last a whisper roamed round the bus: These, it hissed, were the Prison Ships.’

  * * *

  During the last part of the story Klor had gradually lowered the Fountain. The lightshow had dimmed to a coppery glow and Astra could no longer make out faces across the spray. The warm night air was clinging to her skin, Sprig’s slick little body was rubbing against hers, Hokma’s flank was hot as a brick wall in the sun, but Astra felt cold and alone. She wanted to escape – to stand, to stretch, to look up at the stars – but she didn’t dare move. The Circle locked her in its dark silence and somewhere high above her Ahn’s Kezcam was watching, etching its invisible constellations against the vast black sky.

  2.2

  Sprig took her fingers out of her mouth. ‘What’s a prism?’ she asked, so loudly the whole Circle laughed.

  ‘It’s a glass cell rainbows try to escape from,’ Modem called from the other end of the firepit. He was a great Teller because he could do that – make up wisecracks in a flash. Everyone old enough to get the joke groaned or clapped, and Congruence turned around to smile at him. It was one of those natural breaks in a story, and people stretched their legs or drank from their tubing or flasks. Klor raised the Fountain again so its cool mist could revive the Circle, and he brightened the lights to a lemon-yellow sparkle. Moon was laughing wi
th Russett and Stream was leaning against Torrent, finger-combing her hair. Astra darted a glance over at Ahn. He was looking at Congruence, his face uplit by the sickly glow of his Tablette screen.

  The older girl’s hands were folded in a mudra between her legs and her eyes were downcast – possibly because Stream was now nuzzling Torrent’s neck. But Ahn obviously thought Congruence was still lost in a deep listening state because with a circling chin movement he sent a Kezcam to hover in front of her. Astra could see why. The Fountain light coated the girl’s high cheekbones with glowing gilt firepaint, and her flame-armoured chest rose and fell rhythmically behind her falling hair. Behind her, Holaa and Ariel, the Asker’s guard of honour, echoed her posture. Ahn’s fingers whisked over his Tablette, directing the Kezcams to capture the trio from different heights and angles. Then with thumb and forefinger he spread open an image and cocked his head to inspect it.

  ‘She’s a good Teller, isn’t she, dready-girl?’ Hokma reached over and tugged playfully on Astra’s dreadbead. Frigging Gaia. It wasn’t a light pull.

  ‘She’s okay,’ Astra muttered, squirming away. Her stomach was twisting, and not from the story. Ahn still had a Gaia bond with Hokma but he never visited Wise House when she, Astra, was there; he never invited her to his office to see his blueprints, never even stopped her in Core House to ask about the Owleons, let alone sent a party of Kezcams to film her. Ahn pissed her off – but if she ever tried to talk to Hokma about him, Hokma would just say, ‘Oh, you know Ahn,’ as if that was that. Why did Ahn get to act as if no one else existed? Or was supposed to be about working and living together, wasn’t it?

  Around her, Shelter parents were giving each other shoulder massages or shifting heavy children from one lap to another. Meem was sleeping now – she could never make it through a whole Fountain story – and Yoki was hugging Nimma while Peat glugged from his tubing. He still held the Or record for glugging, and was possibly aware that one of the Kezcams was recording his current heroic effort. As he wiped his mouth, the Kezcam winged in Astra’s direction but it didn’t slow down. Controlling an urgent desire to stick out her tongue and cross her eyes, she unfocused her gaze and let it pass. When it had moved on, she plucked at her dread, pulling it down in front of her face and twiddling the oak bead between her fingers. After a year of what Nimma called ‘whining’ and Astra called ‘a campaign for hair justice’ she’d finally got permission to make just one loc. Meem had helped backcomb, twist and bead it, and now it was fat and heavy, a black cat’s tail on the side of her head. Nimma couldn’t shut up about it, though. She was always frigging lamenting it to her friends. At least Hokma liked it – but she would, wouldn’t she? Hokma’s own hair was usually uncombed and carelessly tied back in a knot these days. She could at least dread it too – Astra had even offered to do it for her – but she always said she couldn’t be bothered.

  ‘Chill out, sweetie.’ Hokma handed Astra a summer-fruit-ice from a freezer bag one of the Shelter mothers was passing round. Well, it was hot. She tucked the dread back behind her ear, accepted the ice and pressed the frosty paper wrapping to her cheek. Some adults were sucking vodka ice cubes and chatter rippled around the Circle. Behind them all, their trunks lit up like beaten yellow gold, the tall pine trees stood like vigilant Shelter parents watching over children in a playpit.

  Astra peeled off the paper and stuck it in Hokma’s waiting hand. She took a bite of the fruit-ice, letting the lump of frozen raspberries pucker her tongue. How did adults know that what they were doing was right? They were supposed to ask Gaia for help, but did they? Did Ahn? He had designed Birth House, but did he ever go inside it? He hadn’t been one of the team who’d taken Elpis back into Gaia’s womb, that echoing chamber where all tonight’s words were travelling, up the path from the Ancestors’ Place. The Birth House doorway was waiting for everyone. There was room enough in the soft earth of the hillside for everyone in Or. But did Ahn want to join them there? He probably thought he should be returned to Gaia at the Boundary Congregation Site, in a chamber all to himself.

  Raspberry juice was dripping down Astra’s arm; she licked it up and stuck the fruit-ice stick in Hokma’s hipbelt.

  She shouldn’t have attracted her Shelter mother’s attention. Hokma looked round in annoyance. ‘Straighten up,’ she ordered. ‘You’re always so hunched.’

  I’ll sit how I frigging well want to sit! Astra was on the verge of yelling. But Klor clapped three times and the Circle fell silent again. ‘Thank you, Sprig, for a very good question,’ Nimma said, beaming in Astra’s direction. ‘A prison is a building with locks on all the doors where the government keeps people they believe to be dangerous to others. Here in Is-Land we have very few prisons because we have no desire to hurt each other. Apart from a few Non-Landers, our prisons are nearly empty. But in late Common Era Yukay, many people were poor and were forced to steal, or were sick and put in prison instead of given treatment.’

  Astra knew all this, of course, but she forced herself to listen. She didn’t want to miss the rest of the story because of Ahn. Anyway, Hokma was right: Ahn was Ahn, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. He brought money into Or with his commissions, and that meant he could forget his own Birth-Code-Shelter mother’s name if he wanted to.

  ‘During the start of the Dark Time,’ Nimma was explaining, ‘Yukay prisons became so crammed full of people they couldn’t fit in even one more. So the Yukay government converted old navy aircraft carriers and battleships into prisons and docked them just offshore at designated harbours. Kali and the Beltane Gaians had heard about these ships on the radio, but they had never seen one before.

  ‘On the Prison Ship, the Gaians were split up again. The fifteen Beltane women, including Kali, Rhiannon and Peredur’s mother, were held on the upper deck with the female gang members, most of whom were teenage girls who were bruised and howling for their men and their make-up bags. The men were taken down below. Gaia is with us, Kali called as Peredur and Elphin and Peredur’s father were sucked down the stairs to the belly of the ship. She didn’t know then that she would never see them again. She was afraid and grieving sorely, but she was alive, and she knew she needed to be strong for the mothers who had lost their children to the army. So she didn’t let herself think about the future. She lived, as Gaia asks us to, in human harmony with the evolving moment.’

  At the sound of these wise words, agreement hummed around the Circle. Human harmony was what every Is-Lander was working towards, every person was one note in a chord that sang Gaia’s beauty. But at the same time Astra was becoming aware that human harmony wasn’t exactly like musical harmony. It was similar, in that it created an overwhelming sense of belonging, but it wasn’t predictable, wasn’t something you could create just by pressing keys. You could be working or playing or eating with people and feel nothing special, but the next day you could do exactly the same things and you might suddenly experience that feeling, even if you were baking hot or your limbs ached. Human harmony was tranquil and shimmering, and it grew as you became aware of it, but if you mentioned it, the feeling popped like a soap bubble. She felt it most often with the Owleons and Hokma at Wise House, where she didn’t have to speak and the feeling could expand until she almost floated away inside it.

  Beside her, Sprig reached out for Astra’s hand and she took Sprig’s fingers in hers and let the child clamber into her lap. Hokma rubbed her back again. Good girl, her Shelter mother’s palm said. The Security shot meant children experienced harmony more easily, but Hokma said it wasn’t a deep harmony because they were tuned to each other so strongly they couldn’t experience other dimensions of belonging in the world. Astra was usually out of harmony with the Sec Gens: she was bored by their repetitive games – they never got any better at them – and frustrated by their simple acceptance of everything they were told. But Hokma said that human harmony evolved and one day she would realise that in Gaia’s endless symphony her one special note did chime with her Or-siblings’ chord.
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  Right now the human harmony in the Circle was so strong Astra could almost hear it. The soft plashing of the Fountain, the whispers of the trees, the faraway creaking of the crickets in the valley, they were all subsumed into its frequency. This was the time in a Telling when the story had claimed not just every listener but Gaia Herself.

  ‘Over the next week,’ Nimma continued, ‘more women joined the upper-deck holding cell: first another clutch of gang-girls, then a group of Socialists who had tried to warn people away from the government’s tent cities, and finally, ten Gaians from a community called Firefly. Each woman was given a bunk and a blanket, two meals a day and if the guards felt like it, an hour on the open deck for exercise. Some of the Gaians kept wearing their combat clothes because they were still at war; some of them went sky-clad as an act of resistance. Together they began a journey circle, chanting and drumming, softly at first, when the gang-girls threatened to attack them, but then, after it was agreed that each group could make noise for two hours a day, more loudly. In their turn, the gang-girls sang pop songs and power ballads, mostly out of tune, though two or three of them had beautiful voices, and sometimes when they sang tears would shine on the pretty faces of the others. The Socialists chanted slogans from Great Collapse campaigns and then gave loud speeches on the global political situation, making sure that all the other women could hear their views.

  The Socialists, you see, didn’t believe in Gaia worship or even in singing and crying. They believed in organised protest. They said they had the right to a lawyer and a fair trial; some had even memorised the telephone numbers and email addresses of solicitors sympathetic to their cause. But when they demanded these rights, the guards just laughed. Then the Socialists would get angry and bang on the door with their fists, and the gang-girls and the Gaians would count that as part of their noise time. The rest of the women knew that the State of Emergency had devoured their rights the way a whale swallows plankton. Everyone was scared, but no one was surprised when the Prison Ship’s engines growled into life and the vessel set out to sea.