So Long Been Dreaming

by Nalo Hopkinson

  The Project at least held some promise. Ten underground libraries, scattered throughout the northern quadrants, biospheres of natural habitats, like they had been before the UC Weather Umbrella Initiative. Kage shivered. At least she didn’t have anything to do with that catastrophe. Like the frying pan into the fire, seed clouds to ease the drought brought on by the global greenhouse effect. Rains that washed out the continental agricorps, followed by a blistering drought that tore off the remaining topsoil. Kage pulled up a handful of grass, let the blades fall. But then, that’s what you get when the world is carved up by Corporations.

  But here, Kage leaned back, hands behind her head, looked up to the wispy vapour swirls that passed for clouds, under this artificial sun. She could smell the blossoming lilacs, hear the drone of bright and bumbling bees nestling among the buds. The Ark. Like life before the Corps, before the devastating environment regulation. But here, the birds, the flitting birds, the call of frogs in the riverbed, the chase of chipmunks in the orchard, everything in balance.

  Except they weren’t allowed to live in paradise. Maintenance, yes, and research, but limited impact. What did it mean, when they couldn’t stay in the biosphere, that their human presence undermined the very harmony which they worked so hard to preserve? Outside the bubble, they catalogued and controlled, guarding the seed libraries, upgrading the cryolock. Stanton had petitioned for a community garden, but Kiran, sticking to her rulebook, had overruled all the scientists. The sphere would not be contaminated. Which reminded her.

  Kage sighed, began to shamble towards the quarters. The air, so calm, so lush, not like the antiseptic, iron-tinged drafts pumped in from above, filtered and flushed, but here, a warm, living creature, tendril caresses. Kage grabbed a handful of grass, sprinkling it around her. She froze. The blades of grass had fallen but not scattered. She looked up. The trees, so calm, not a leaf fluttered. The river, too, had stilled.

  She turned, breath clutching her chest. The birds. Kage burst into a shouting run, jabbing at the comlink on her arm. She was rounding the air shafts when the explosion hit her.

  When Kage woke, her clothes were singed, the grass burning. Red Crested United uniforms swarmed around the river, pumping water topside, but she had not been spotted, not yet. She brushed her damp forehead, her hand bloody, comlink smashed beyond repair. She blinked, her temples pulsing with a dull, insistent pain. She’d been blown into a hollow, the tall grasses obscuring her from the soldiers. UC military – hostile takeover – they must have overrun the research branch, Kage thought, why else this carnage. And the others – Kage crawled to the service tunnel below the Observation Station. She could feel the earth beneath her shaking, the rumbling blast of a field detonator. Why? We have no weapons. If the others had made it to the evacuation checkpoint, there’d be some chance of saving something. Maybe they’d overlook the cryolock, if this was just a raid to line some commander’s pocket. A chamber breach could be sealed off and the biolab saved. But as Kage scrambled through the darkness of intersection five, she stumbled, sprawling, foot caught on –

  Kiran lay below her, comlink blinking.

  Relief flooded Kage, her choke of tears. Kiran, the architect of this sphere, she’d know where to go, where the others would be. Kiran, with her clicks and rattles, her protocols and procedures, she would know what to do. If they hid, they could wait out this battle, start over when the dust settled.

  Kage grabbed her by the arm.

  “Thank God –”

  But Kiran’s arm wasn’t there. Kage’s hand came away bloody. She held it against the light. The light, falling so dimly, she could barely see – half of Kiran’s face had been blown away. Kage scuttled back, legs kicking, thrashing, a scream crushed down in her chest. Kage, panting, sweat stinging her eyes, shaking, as she dragged herself beneath a buttress. They were a scientific ob station. Non-military. It didn’t make any sense.

  A blast shook the tunnel, obscuring her vision. Kage brushed off her tears. And ran.

  “I ran and ran and ran. Ran so long, dodging soldiers, fire, ran so I didn’t have to sit still.” Kage passed Hurston a bottle. “Eventually I hid in the air shaft, one of the auxiliary tubes, until the smoke cleared. They didn’t stay long, the soldiers, just another snatch and burn operation. We didn’t know, in the Ark, we didn’t know how bad it was topside. I mean, the civil war, the linkup just talked about containment. Bullshit.” Kage shook her head.

  “I went back in. They were all dead, some blasted, some shot running. The rest they just lined up and pulled the trigger.”

  “Yeah,” Hurston spoke in a monotone. “They came down through the freight tunnel, blasted through the chambers. They torched our seed libary, slaughtered our bio reserves. Then they wiped their asses with our field data. What a waste.” Hurston took a swing of the bottle, winced.

  “Easy on that,” Kage cracked. “Even rocket fuel doesn’t have a cleaner burn.” She turned to the console.

  Hurston studied Kage, this little rat’s pup. Everything about her was small. Feral and furtive, she had survived, twisting through the bowels of this city, right under the Eye. Hurston just had to ask. “So how did they catch you?”

  Kage looked away. “I made it topside, pretty banged up, half starved, half scorched. Smoke was billowing out of all the shafts. Red flag for miles, you know, for scavangers, a trawl. Got caught by a torch gang, slumped the line to the eastern board, then I was traded to Caravan. Dragged here. Altzar bought me when I was barely skin and bones. But she doesn’t know about this.”

  Hurston leaned forward. “She knows you’re Tech.”

  “Yeah, but she won’t sell me out.” Kage smiled. “I make her life too easy.” Kage paused. There was more to it than that, she knew, but this wasn’t the time nor the place. “Like I said, she’s okay, but I don’t tell her anything. She’s smart, but none too bright.” Kage faced her, her eyes flickering over Hurston’s face. She placed her hand on Hurston’s shoulder. “You should sleep.” Kage stood.

  “Altzar –”

  “I can handle Altzar. Rest.”

  No way I’ll be able to sleep, Hurston thought as she leaned back on the bunk. She watched Kage retreat to the console in the corner. Hurston took a deep breath, feeling her ever-present weariness surge to the surface. She clawed back, her mind snapping clear, a habit of survival: on the line you never slept. But here? How much could she trust this little pup?

  Hurston’s eyes fluttered. The world spun heavily, her legs sinking into the mat, her head, swamped by churning fears that exhausted themselves in the battle for supremacy, she floated, desperately hanging on to that edge, until finally, eyes closed, stomach full, she sank into a clear, uncluttered sleep.

  As Hurston slept, Kage’s mind raced. What she needed: clothes, rations, Ident scan. She’d have to keep an eye on Hurston. It wasn’t unknown that the traders snatched back their goods before taking off to the next market. But after that they’d be free and clear.

  Then the work would begin.

  What would she tell Altzar? Her impulse, as always, was for the truth. She laughed inwardly. Suicide, the easiest way out of this cesspool. Yet Kage was not so sure. What was it about Altzar that made her trust her? Altzar never asked questions. What kind of soldier was she? But a soldier never asks why, just points a gun and blasts away.

  It was more than that, Kage knew. Altzar had been the first human face she had seen since the destruction of the Ark. On the Caravan, Kage had only been barter, a piece of meat traded, trucked from post to post. Altzar had chosen her, saved her from death on the line. She didn’t beat her or rape her, not like some of the other Corpsmen with their seconds. Altzar’s demands seemed reasonable, a benevolent master, yet still a master. Kage checked herself. She mustn’t forget that. Not when someone has the power to swap you to the fleshbowls in exchange for promo or trancers, or sell you down the line. Kage was still a slave, always a slave. But this place, the mindfuck of this place, you needed an emotional retreat, or a stabl
e if not safe anchor. This prison stripped you of everything you were and what you took was what was given. Identification with your captors. The Eye, the fucking Eye, chipping away at your soul. Kage realized she depended on Altzar’s silences, her distance, her stony self-sense. That and the promise of the Ark.

  What would she tell Altzar? Something she would understand. For Kage had spent years watching that meza third class gunnar. She would give her a sliver of the truth. That Kage was lonely. And that she had chosen Hurston.

  SECTION III

  ALLEGORY

  The following two stories are largely allegorical. “The Grassdreaming Tree” by Sheree Renee Thomas is a twist on the tale of the ever-familiar schism between parents and children, told from the point-of-view of a group of black colonists. “The Blue Road: A Fairy Tale” by Wayde Compton shows the contorted shapes we become as we’re forced to live according to the dictates of the powerful.

  A native of Memphis, Sheree Renée Thomas is the editor of the anthology series Dark Matter, winner of the World Fantasy Award and named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her short stories and poetry appear in Mojo: Conjure Stories, Role Call: A Generational Collection of Social and Political Black Literature & Art, Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam, Meridians: feminism race transnationalism, 2001: A Science Fiction Poetry Anthology, Obsidian III, Cave Canem, African Voices, Drumvoices Revue: 10th Anniversary Anthology, and Renaissance Noire. She is a 2003 New York Foundation of the Arts Poetry Fellow and recipient of the Ledig House/LEF Foundation Prize in Fiction for Bonecarver. Her work was also nominated for a Rhysling Award and received Honorable Mention in the Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror: Sixteenth Annual Edition. She teaches at the Frederick Douglass Creative Arts Center in Manhattan and the Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College, and is currently leading Eldersongs, an oral history poetry project, and other works designed to uplift, engage, and enlighten the community. For more information, email wanganegresse@yahoo.com.

  The Grassdreaming Tree

  Sheree R. Thomas

  That woman was always in shadow; no memory saved her from the dark. True, her star was not Sun but some other place. Nor did she come from this country called life. Maybe that’s why she always lived with her shoulders turned back, walked with the caution of strangers – outside woman trying to sweep her way in. The grasshopper peddler, witchdoctor seller, didn’t even have no name, no name. So folks didn’t know where to place her. For all they know, she didn’t even have no navel string, just them green humming things, look like dancing blades of grass. They look at her, with her no name self, and they call her grasswoman.

  Every morning she would pass through the black folks’ land, carrying her enormous baskets. These she made herself, ’cause nobody else remembered. And they were made from grass so flimsy, they didn’t even look like baskets, more like brown bubbles ’bout to pop. What they looked like were dying leaves dangling from her limbs, great curled wings that might flutter away, kicked up by a soft wind. Inside the baskets, the grasshoppers fluttered around and pranced, blue-green winged, long-legged things. The click-clack, tap-tap of the hoppers’ limbs announced her arrival. A tattoo of drumbeats followed the grasswoman wherever she went, drumbeats so loud they rattled the windows and flung back shades:

  Mama, the children cried, Mama, look! Grasswoman comin’!

  And the hoppers would flood the streets. Their joy exchanged: the grasshoppers shouted and the children jumped, one heartbeat at a time. The woman would pull out her mouth harp and put the song to melody. The whole world was filled with their music.

  But behind curtains drawn shut in frustration, the settlers suck-teethed dissatisfaction. They took the grasswoman’s seeds and tried to crush them with suspicion, replacing the grasswoman’s music with their own dark song – who did that white gal think she was? Where she come from and who in the world was her mama? Who told her she could come shuffling down their street, barefooted and grubby-toed, selling bugs and asking folk for food? The white ought to go on back to her proper place. But the bugs are so sweet, the children insisted. The parents shut their ears and stiffened their necks: No, no, and no again.

  But the children didn’t pay them no mind. The grasswoman’s baskets were too full of songs to forget to play. One little girl, hardheaded than most, disobeyed the edict and devoted herself to the enigmatic grasswoman. Her name was Mema, a big-eyed child with a head like a drum. She would wake early, plant her eyes on the cool window pane, waiting for the grasswoman to walk by. When the woman would come into view, Mema would rush down the stairs, skip hop jump. Bare feet running, she’d fly down the road and disappear among the swarm of grasshoppers spilling from the great leaf baskets. The Sun would sink, a red jackball sky, and still no word from Mema. Not a hide nor a hair they’d see, and at Mema’s home, her folks would start pulling out their worries and polishing them up with spite.

  Running barefoot, wild as that other.

  Her daddy picked his switch and held it in his hand. Only her mama’s soft words brought relief to the little girl’s return. Hours later in the fullness of night, her daddy insisted on a reason, even if it was just the chalk line of truth:

  Where she stay? Did you go to her house? Do she even have a house?

  Her dwelling was an okro tree. She laid her head in the empty hollow of its great stone trunk. Mema told them the tree was sacred, that God had planted its roots upside down so they touched sky.

  Daddy turned to his wife, pointing the blame finger at her. See, the white’s been filling her head. That tree ain’t got no roots. Whole world made of stone, thick as your head. Couldn’t grow a tree to save your life.

  The girl spoke up, hoppers hidden all in her hair. It’s true, Mama, it’s true. The tree got a heart and sometime it get real sad. The old woman say the okro tree can kill itself, say it can do it by fire. Even if nobody strike a match.

  Mama just shook her head. Daddy roll his eyes. Stone tree dead by fire?

  Child say, It’s true.

  What foolishness, the mama say and she draw her daughter close to her, tucking her big head under her chin, far and away from her daddy’s reach. Then the man left, taking his anger with him, and he handed it over to the other settlers. At the lodge, they all agreed: the grasswoman’s visits had to end. They couldn’t kill her – to do so would offend the land and the children and the women, so whatever was done, they agreed to give the deed some thought.

  Next day, the grasshopper seller returned. The drumbeats-of-joy wings and legs swept through the air. Even the settlers stopped to listen. Spite was in their mouths, but the rhythm took hold of their feet. After all, that white was bringing with her such beauty none had ever seen. None could resist her grasshoppers’ winged anthem, nor their blue-greened glory, shining and iridescent as God’s first land. The sight was like nothing else in this new and natural world. They’d left their stories in that other place and now the grasshopper peddler was selling them back.

  The folk began to wonder: where in the name of all magic did she get such miraculous creatures? Couldn’t have been from this land where the soil was pink and ruddy, and no grass grew anywhere save for under glass-topped houses carefully tended by the science ones. They had packed up all their knowledge and carried it with them in small black stones that were not opened until they’d settled on this other shore with its two bright stars folk just looked at and called Sun ’cause some habits just hard to break.

  And where indeed? Whoever heard tale of grasshoppers where they ain’t no grass? Where, if they themselves had already brought the most distant of their new land to heel?

  The grasshopper peddler only answered with a chuckle, her two cheeks puffed out like she ’bout to whistle. But she don’t speak, just smiling so, skin all red and blistered, folk wonder how she could stand one Sun, let alone two. They began to weigh their own suspicions, take them apart and spread them in their hand: Could it be that white gal had a right to enter a world that was closed to them? And how
she remember, old as she is, if they forget? But then they set about cutting her down: the woman lived in trees, nothing but grasshoppers as company, got to be crazy laying up there with all them bugs. And where they come from anyway?

  Whether it was because folk couldn’t stand her or they was puzzled and secretly admired her strangeful ways, the grasswoman became the topic of talk all over the town. Her presence began to fill the length of conversations, unexpected empty moments great and small. The more people bought from her, dipping their hands in the great leaf baskets, the more their homes became filled with the sweet songs of wings, songs that made them think of summers and tall grass up to your knees, and bushes that reach out to smack your thighs when you walk by and trees that lean over to brush the top of your hand, soft like a granddaddy’s touch, land that whispered secrets and filled the air with the seeds of green growing things.

  Such music fell strangely on the settlers’ ears that bent only to hear the quickstep march of progress. In a land of pink soil as hard as earth diamonds, it was clear that they held little in common with their new home. And could it be that the grasswoman’s hoppers were nibbling at the settlers’ sense of self, turning them into aliens in this far land they’d claimed as their own? Or was it that white gal at fault, that non-working hussy who insisted on being, insisting on breathing when most of her seed was extinct, existing completely outside their control, a wild weed of a thing, and unaware of the duties of her race? The traitors who traded her singing grasshoppers for bits of crust and crumbs of food hidden in pockets, handed out with a side-long glance should have known that after all that had been given, as far as they had travelled, leaving the dying ground of one world, to let the dead bury their dead, there was no room for the old woman’s bare-toed feet on their stone streets.