Reading the Wind (Silver Ship)

by Brenda Cooper

  This time, Windy came in easily enough, although she remained nervous and kept her ears pricked.

  Liam started the fire while Kayleen stripped Windy’s packs and settled her into the corner farthest from the woodpile. I set up bedding for the three of us, carefully putting us all about the same distance from each other. Kayleen looked over at me, a pained look in her eyes. “You don’t have to do that. You can sleep with Liam.” She turned her face away. “It’s okay with me.” Her tone of voice belied her words.

  Liam, overhearing, glanced back at us both. “Kayleen.” He said it as if she were a child, and I sensed both concern and frustration. “This is fine for tonight. You don’t want to be alone. Well, you don’t have to be, at least not any more than we do.”

  Her lower lip quivered. “Well, why do we all have to be alone?”

  He blinked at her. “I’m not entirely sure what you’re asking,” he said, although I think he knew.

  I knew.

  As he looked at her, Liam’s gaze softened. I couldn’t read the emotions behind his eyes. Maybe affection, maybe pity. Maybe some of both. He’d point-blank asked her to be clear, and he watched her intently, patiently.

  Of course the problem would have occurred to him as well. But he was going back to lead his band. Even though most relationships in the bands were one man and one woman, some were two people of the same gender. But always two. The three of us being together made sense, and some of the things the townspeople had said about the altered they hated and fought implied more complexity in relationships. But we had never seen it.

  I, too, watched Kayleen.

  Her gaze flicked back and forth between the two of us. The longer she stayed away from town, the more like herself she became. The young woman standing here now, clutching her bedding to her chest, was my friend again, someone I knew. In spite of our awkward conversation last night.

  What she said was, “I love you both.” She paused, and the words sank in, sharp in their simplicity. Her eyes looked damp, but her chin was high. “I don’t want to be alone my whole life, and I don’t want to make Chelo alone her whole life. The other men, Bryan and Joseph, they’re gone. We don’t know if they’re ever coming back. So why do either Chelo or I need to be alone?”

  Liam looked over at me, searching for my reaction. I bit my lip, waffling again between the two choices that haunted me. Looking at her, at them both, I was pretty sure that the key lay between me and her.

  So instead of answering Liam’s unspoken question, I spoke to Kayleen. “You’re right. This is untenable, at least for long. But we haven’t given up on the skimmer, or getting home.”

  I waited, letting her absorb that much. She watched me, her gaze guarded and hopeful.

  I added, “How can we three all live together in Artistos or in one of the bands? We need to think about that.” Inside, I cursed myself for being a coward, for putting the choice off. But the risks! What if we tried this, and failed? What if we destroyed our friendships reaching for something more?

  Liam sat cross-legged, his chin on one fist, his braid falling down his shoulder. I had seen Akashi in the same pose more than once. Liam even sounded a little like his dad. “I’ve thought about it, too. I’m sure we all have.” He looked at each of us and we both nodded. He continued. “Three of us becoming a family, more than we are now”—his face reddened, and I felt my cheeks grow hot, too—“well, it’s an intriguing idea, and maybe someday it will work.”

  Kayleen’s eyes brightened, as if the answer gave her hope.

  Liam must have seen it, too. He shook his head. “Kayleen.” He waited for her to focus completely on him. “Kayleen, I can’t do this, not now. Not until … until we get home or decide we can’t.”

  She flinched, glancing quickly at me, pain flashing across her features, then she looked back at him. I understood his answer, but did she?

  His gaze softened some as she waited for his next words. “I … I didn’t know you before this. And I started out mad at you.”

  She nodded.

  “Now, you and I can at least be friends. Maybe we are, except we can’t be equal until you no longer hold us hostage.”

  Kayleen frowned.

  If we couldn’t get the skimmer to work, she had no way to change that. He didn’t quite say so though. He did add, “Until you’re healed.”

  Kayleen’s voice trembled. “I’m much better now.”

  Liam looked at me. “Let time work. I’m not ready.” So now he and I were poised together at the top of the waterfall, looking to see how to jump.

  But we didn’t have to jump today.

  Windy shuffled and the fire crackled and we split apart, tending to the small chores necessary to sustain ourselves. As the sun lowered, shadows crept up the wall until they filled the entire cave. We sat by the fire, mostly quiet. Liam worked on a new fishing spear he was carving, Kayleen worked on a bigger halter for Windy, and I stared out over the dark valley below us, my back to the fire and to the other two, thinking about all the possible branches of our future. I did not want to die here.

  Mid-morning found us swimming across a wide river. Soaked, we swore we’d find a better ford the next day.

  About noon, we came to the north edge of Islandia, the sea side opposite the jagged teeth, for the first time. Red-rock cliffs banded with black and gray plunged hard and sharp into the water, and great blue-green waves crashed up the cliffs. Liam squatted on the edge of a bluff above a shallow inlet, looking at a cliff face opposite us. “See the bands?” he asked.

  Kayleen said, “Yes. Eruptions. Layers of eruptions.”

  I ran my eyes up and down the cliff. There must have been at least a hundred eruptions. I swallowed, looking back at the mountains, at the puffs of white steam that were the mountain’s hot breath.

  We walked along the cliffs, keeping a bit back, the crash of the waves giving rhythm to our movement. Ahead of us, still far away, the steam from the Fire River’s meeting with real water rose from the sea, white against the blue sky. The plume changed shape moment by moment, writhing and twisting, sometimes thickening, rising in a column, stretching at the top if it hit a wind current, other times separating into two or three wispy ropes.

  As the light began to shift to dusk, we still didn’t seem to be much closer. Kayleen pointed to a headland which jutted out farther than any we’d seen yet. “Let’s camp there. I’ll bet we can see the river at night.”

  Liam eyed the open ground uncertainly. “It’s pretty exposed.”

  Kayleen shrugged. “That’s good. Nothing will sneak up on us.”

  So we set up camp, finishing a quiet dinner as the sun fell behind the steam from the Fire River, shimmering in the mist and painting it gold. As the sky darkened, thin red streams of molten rock seemed to emerge from nowhere, dropping from the top of the cliffs down into the sea. Sullen orange, hot golds, sometimes reds, they brightened as the sky darkened. We watched the delta of the Fire River, far away, so brilliant and beautiful that it struck us silent. We scooted close to each other, with me in the middle. I held Liam’s hand, and Kayleen’s, and we sat that way for close to an hour. The night was warm enough that we had no need for the fire except protection, but eventually we grew sleepy enough to light it and choose watches.

  There was no more direct discussion that night about transforming our relationship. Instead we each seemed determined to talk of the wind against our skin, the differences between these valleys and the great Grass Plains of home, of the Fire River, of how our greenhouse might be faring against the birds without us, of whether or not the fire needed another log.

  Awkward as our words were, there was heat and uncertainty and hope underneath them. My skin burned when I looked at either of them, and my stomach grew light and feathery. Islandia’s hot blood seemed to run inside us, changing us the way it changed the land.

  Islandia itself seemed aware of our silent dilemma. Meteors streaked by overhead in three great clumps, and I imagined Gianna back in Artistos, tracki
ng them. A small earthquake rumbled under us in the middle of the night, passing quickly, but warning that such things lived around volcanoes.

  I fell asleep slowly, my nerves on fire, aware of every movement Kayleen made on first watch, of every time Liam turned in his sleep. I drifted near the surface of consciousness, twisting, cold and then hot, until Liam woke me to take the last watch. The fire, the Fire River, a carpet of stars, and three of our small moons kept me company. And wafting down from the hills nearer the mountains, the eerie calls of demon dogs.

  I woke the other two to break camp, and we kept going toward the Fire River. In just a few hours we found ourselves picking our footing carefully through a desolate landscape of sun-heated lava flows only occasionally punctuated with scraps of green as tiny plants struggled to survive. Long cracks required that we puzzle out the ground like a maze.

  The sun heated the rocks so it hurt to touch them.

  By noon, Liam called a halt. “We’re not going to get much closer.” Disappointment filled his eyes, but he was too much the roamer band leader to put us in the middle of danger he didn’t understand if it could be helped. We’d flown over this, and knew it was barely the edge of a huge empty charred place.

  “Well, at least we learned the next valley is like ours, and that there are plenty of grazers around,” I said. “And we saw the river.”

  Liam smiled.

  Kayleen simply looked relieved and turned Windy around and started right back, not stopping until we reached normal ground again.

  That night, we camped in the same spot, again watching the light of the river play with the dark sky. Rain soaked us, and we started back the next morning wet and tired. We chose to head up the valley to find a better ford through the deep river.

  We found a wide spot where the water wound slowly through banks lined with trees and big rocks, and waded in, the water cool around our ankles and then our knees. Liam led, with me behind him, and Kayleen and Windy trailing us. In the center, the water came up to my waist. I had to lean into the current to keep my balance. Ahead of me, Liam had already reached a shallower spot, and stopped to turn and watch us.

  The large shape of a hunting bird left a shadow on the sun-sparkled river. It dove, and I turned just in time to see Windy leap up in the air, balancing on the slick rocks with her back feet, screaming in fear. The bird came almost close enough to touch her before swooping back up. Kayleen fell, twisting sideways. Windy leapt past us, splashing me and Liam as she headed for the far bank.

  Kayleen called after Windy, her feet going out from under her as she struggled for purchase against the current. I reached out to her, but she slipped away downriver.

  Overbalanced, I gasped as the slippery river bottom gave way beneath me. I floated meters behind Kayleen, picking up speed as the deepening river tugged me mercilessly away from our ford.

  Liam yelled, “The bank! Head for the bank!”

  In front of me, Kayleen’s head bobbed and her hands flew up and down as she fought to stand.

  The current gripped me, forcing me near the center of the water. I floated with it, feet downriver, watching for rocks, hoping for a tree branch I could grab, trying to keep Kayleen in sight.

  The river narrowed and sped up, splashing over jagged rocks.

  Liam’s voice had gone faint, calling our names.

  My right foot slammed into a rock, twisting me, ducking my head under. Water filled my nose and mouth and I hit something hard with my left wrist while my right hand grabbed the slippery surface of a protruding rock. I clutched at it, fingernails scraping slippery moss, managing to spit out a mouthful of river water and look around wildly.

  No Kayleen.

  The center of the river frothed against rocks. The current took me again. I angled away from the center a little bit, and finally the current spit me into calmer water.

  Liam found me pulling my way onto the bank through long slippery roots. He helped me climb up and held me close. “Kayleen?” he whispered.

  I shook my head. “She’s below us.”

  We followed faint animal trails downriver, sometimes barely able to see the water, calling her name.

  It took twenty long minutes to find her floating faceup by the bank on our side, her torso caught in a long twisty root. Water streamed past her, spreading her hair out like a curtain. Blood seeped from a cut on her cheek and mixed with her hair.

  We clambered down into the water near her and Liam leaned down over her face. “She’s breathing.”

  She wasn’t moving.

  We lifted her gently from the water. Liam carried her to a small clearing, her head lolling against his arm.

  She didn’t wake as Liam set her down. “What if we lose her?” he whispered.

  There wasn’t an answer. My fingers touched the cut on her face and slid down around her head. They came back bloody from a scrape on her scalp. “I think she hit a rock.”

  Liam looked up from her feet, which he’d been straightening out. “She has some other bruises starting already, but I don’t think anything’s broken.”

  “We need the first aid.”

  “I know,” he said. “It’s in the packs.” On Windy’s back.

  “Did you see where she went?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I don’t want to leave you to find her.”

  I looked around. It was midday, the time when most predators slept. But there was plenty of cover nearby to hide dangers. I stripped off my soaking-wet shirt and held it to Kayleen’s head. “I don’t think there’s any help for it. We can’t carry her all the way back. Not like this.” We were on the right side of the river, but there remained either a trip up the twisty path to the cave or a longer, slightly easier hike back to the sea and then up Golden Cat Valley. “Maybe Windy will be looking for us. She doesn’t like being separated from Kayleen any more than Kayleen can stand to leave her.”

  “I won’t go far.” He leaned in and kissed me, then bent down over Kayleen and kissed her cool, white forehead, his brow furrowed. A few moments later, I heard him calling for Windy.

  I bathed the blood from Kayleen’s cheek with a strip of my shirt while I held the rest tight against her damaged scalp. Her eyelids fluttered once but didn’t open.

  Liam’s voice seemed far away. Birds began to talk in the trees near us. A flock of the red seed-stealers landed on a branch, chattering and watching, curiosity all over their thieving faces. I waved my free hand at them and they flew up and away, a crimson flock of flowers disappearing toward the river.

  I wished them back, worried as the sound of birdsong in the nearest trees stilled. What was out there?

  Kayleen groaned, and I called her name, softly. “Kayleen. Kayleen. Wake up.”

  She groaned again, twisting her head in my hands. Her eyes opened and she put a hand to her cheek. “Stings.” Then her eyes widened. “Windy! Where’s Windy?” She pushed herself up to sit. “And Liam? Are they okay?”

  At that moment, we heard Liam’s voice calling out, “Chelo?”

  He emerged, leading Windy. The packs were canted slightly on her back and runnels of blood covered one ankle. He glanced at us, making sure we were okay, and said, “I found her caught in a pile of trip-vine.”

  Only then did I notice that his hands were bloody, probably from freeing the hebra.

  My right ankle throbbed, but I had already proven I could stand on it. So I did, righting the packs and pulling out enough medical supplies for three people and a hebra.

  An hour later, we began a limping slow walk through the late afternoon, heading for the cave. Evening clouds bunched above us, blocking the light from the moons, threatening rain before we found shelter.

  That was three close calls. Four, if you counted landing at all. Our luck couldn’t hold forever.

  PART FOUR

  A COMPLEX PLANET

  20

  A TEST

  Morning sun streamed over me as I struggled to empty my being of everything except awareness of the potted rainbo
w-flower shoot in front of me. Marcus wanted me to be the plant.

  As in to notice nothing else.

  Data from the garden flowed all around me, not coming in, not touching me. I could relax in its presence, reach for it if I wanted, but it could no longer reach for me. I knew the compound well now. I’d run the seven-kilometer perimeter, tasted the data inside until I could read everything but the security system, at least as long as I didn’t go too deep or too far away. When I tried, I still felt nauseous, which made Marcus raise his eyebrows and tease me.

  Marcus had told me this morning that since I could shield easily, I could go out with him. I supposed he meant an accidental brush with the public data stream wouldn’t double me over.

  We hadn’t left Marcus’s compound, and I’d been here almost seven weeks. The prospect of going someplace new kept dragging my attention away from the tiny plant.

  I focused again. The plant’s five silvery green leaves each ended in a wicked, tiny tip. It smelled faintly sweet, tough to distinguish from the stronger scent of the soil. It did not give off its own data, but nanomolecules mixed into the dirt and water sang to each other constantly, faintly, a melody of dirt and root and leaf and air and water.

  I closed my eyes, watching the data structures the nano made, the elegant play of reporting. I knew, now, that it was all nanotechnology married to biology—even in me, the receptor. The stories in the garden data were told between invisible nano in the dirt and water and air and invisible nano in my blood, which married biological structures in my brain. Wind Readers read the wind of nanotransmitters.

  I read the stories the plant told me.

  Looked at one way, I saw the plant as a whole—the shape and the vector of its growth. Turned again, data structures illuminated water flowing up tiny threaded roots to feed the leaves. Strange that such a small thing—something I would never have noticed on Fremont—had such complexity, such beauty to its tender life.