When I have my first dream in the Klang tongue, I am so delighted that I wake up Seske from sleep to tell her about it. She stops me and asks me to define a word, and I realize I reached for the language in my awoken state as well.
“Do you think in their language as well?” Seske asks me.
“Nearly half the time,” I admit. “You?”
“Never. Not yet, anyway. You’re doing well.”
“You’ll be ready. Don’t fret.”
Tirtha’s final exam is only two days away. She’s having a small group of trusted friends over for dinner to test our skill. We will have to truly blend in. Become near invisible. With only 3,300 people, nearly every person knows everyone else. But toward the end of the Klang’s time on Adhosh, everyone was so focused on the dead and dying, it was almost possible that someone could have been overlooked. But if we are quiet, don’t make waves, if we stick to our backstories, maybe we’ll pull this off.
When I tell Tirtha my dream later that evening, she looks pleased. “You are ready here,” she says to me, tapping my temple. “Now we must prepare the outside.” She lays out clothes for me and Seske, traditional wear of a sheer blouse and slacks. There is a metal comb with a thick handle laying out with them. Seske’s hand comes down on my shoulder.
“Is that what I think it is?” she asks me.
“Ama Ravi’s comb,” we say together. Ama Ravi’s comb was equal parts prank and tradition. The comb was priceless, over three hundred years old, and had been the bane of every Contour class child since. At each Exodus, a new family was chosen to hold it, usually one that was in danger of falling out of favor with the ancestors. During the high holiday each year, the chosen family was forced to take down their braids and flatten their hair with the heated comb until it fell loosely down their backs. It was meant to signal a clean slate—a plead for forgiveness and a begging for favors from the ancestors to return them to good standing. If the family humbled themselves enough, smiled through the pain of burnt ears, then they could pass off the comb to another family. Those who kept the comb twice tended to fall out of favor altogether, and sometimes whole Lines were dissolved.
If I had a cowrie for every time my parents had threatened me with Ama Ravi’s comb, I probably could have bribed at least a dozen men into the Senate.
“No no no no no no . . . ,” Seske keeps muttering. “Nope. Nope. Not doing it.”
“We have to, Seske,” I say. “It won’t be too bad. You might like it. Besides, it’s not like it’s permanent. And this isn’t Ama Ravi’s actual comb.” It can’t be, right?
Seske stares at me a long, long while, then proceeds to cuss out every single one of my ancestors.
Seske
Of Second Chances and Third Asses
I extend my hand to Macario Talan, standing tall and meeting his gaze. I keep my smile tight, my eyes soft, my words delicately pronounced as I greet him. His skin is pale, even for the Klang, face clean-shaven, hair shorn. It is like staring into a sun. My eyes hurt, but I do not turn away. Tirtha has ground his importance into us. He is one of the Klang’s most prominent figures, a scientist in his former life aboard Adhosh, a baker now. No matter how we perform at dinner, we must not embarrass ourselves in front of him.
Macario Talan assesses me from top to bottom. His gaze is thorough, calculating. I worry over how I hold myself, how the lace of my baro falls to my knees. I wonder if I should have acquiesced to another pass of Ama Ravi’s comb.
“You wear our clothes,” he says briskly. “But you are not one of us.”
In an instant, everything I’ve learned falls out of my ears. I’m struggling to regain my composure when Doka comes up next to me. He introduces himself, speaking so clearly and eloquently, but I can’t keep up. I catch words here and there, nodding along as Macario Talan laughs at jokes I don’t understand. How can Doka be so much better at this than I am?
Our other dinner guests arrive, all dressed in thin layers of embroidered silks that straddle casual and formal. The iridescent threads shimmer, even in the dull lamp light. There’s Javis, a navigational specialist aboard Adhosh. His eyes are beady and darting, as if he’s used to communing with the grandness of stars and not the smallness of humanity. He’s working on establishing the camp’s first speculatorium—a small financial exchange that invests money in burgeoning businesses. There’s Gracie, director of health aboard Adhosh, who runs both of the camp’s underground health clinics. There are still trust issues between our people and the Klang, especially when it comes to medical interventions. And finally, there’s Maki, former astrophysicist, who’s taken up weaving. She boasts the most intricate shawl: an embroidered star map, deep black fabric with pinpoints of golden thread hanging upon her shoulders as though she’s bearing the weight of the entire sky.
“Tell us of your family,” Macario Talan says to me. “From what Sky Island do you hail?” His brow raises, a few silvered hairs among the black. He knows who I am, what I am, but I must still pass this test.
I swallow the lump in my throat. I’d practiced this line a million times. Their ship had originally launched from a great Earth archipelago called the Sky Islands. There were 307 of them, floating a half mile above where the many thousands of small islands their ancestors had called home had been long lost to the rising sea.
“My ancestors hail from Tabon,” I say, the island of lost secrets and a technological haven. The Sky Islands were a lot like our Lines, though you picked your Sky Island based on those of your parents, or sometimes grandparents or great-grandparents if there was a better match. One of the islands would speak to your personality. So while siblings would sometimes share a Sky Island, more often than not, they didn’t. “We skirt the shadows, we raise the sky.”
Macario Talan nods, satisfied by my answer. I breathe a sigh of relief.
“And you, Rico, from what Sky Island do you hail?” he asks of Doka. Or Rico, I should call him now, and I do, when I remember. On the outside, I’m trying to assimilate, but my thoughts are not quite so malleable, hanging on to scraps of the past I’ve left behind.
Doka pokes his chest out. “Little Sahul, can’t you tell? Three of four grands hailing, my choice was obvious. Eyes skyward, hearts full. It was Little Sahul that built our engines. First three of our captains, Little Sahul. A Little Sahul xenobiologist was the first human to map the entirety of a Zenzee’s brain, giving us the ability to control our world and our destinies.”
“You are more Klang than any of us here,” Macario Talan laughs, clapping Doka on his back.
“They won’t fool any of us who gives a second look,” Tirtha says, proud but cautious. “But they will fool the guards around this place. If they keep their heads low, they should be safe to move around without much notice. They’ll need new homes. New families.”
Javis aims his darting gaze my way, though our eyes never meet. “How are you with numbers?” he asks.
“Numbers?” I reply.
“Math,” he says. “You’ve studied it, yes?”
“Yes, of course. Addition. Subtraction. Multiplication . . .” I fish for the word division but come up short. “. . . The other one. Percentages. Ratios.”
“Children’s math, then. No calculus? Trigonometry?”
I’ve learned fifty-two Klang cuss words, and it takes all my might not to use them. “No. None of those things,” I say quietly.
“How are you with children?” Gracie asks.
“I don’t hate them,” I say. I must be making a sour face, because she makes one right back at me. I reach for a less tepid response, wishing I had some anecdote about how I’d connected on some deep level with a child before, but I’d never really met any other than my own son, and I could barely stand to be in the same room with him. My cohort was now only starting to have children of their own, and obviously none of them had younger siblings, as they do here. We stuck to ourselves. The younger cohorts did the same. “Well, I appreciate them. Mostly from afar, but they are our future, right? Loud,
crying, snotty little blessings, with their pudgy feet. And angry fists, and—”
“Nena and Rico are both quick learners and would both excel at meaningful work,” Tirtha says before I can damage my reputation further. “Who could accommodate them?”
“Would they need separate dwellings, or are they willing to share?” Macario Talan asks.
“Separate!” Doka and I say in unison, our words perfectly matched on this matter.
“I can take Rico, then,” Macario Talan says. “He’s got the nimble mind of a baker.”
“And who will take Nena?” Tirtha asks.
The entire table is quiet. Am I that much of a risk? Did I not impress a single one of them? Finally, Maki raises her hand. “I could use someone to work the loom in the back of my store. She would not have to talk to anyone.”
I sigh in relief.
Maki’s children giggle at me. I was trying to tell them about one of my adventures with Adalla, but it seems I’ve chosen another wrong word. I am unsure which one. I go over my sentence in my head once more, then see the problem. I used the word for syrup instead of space.
“We jumped through the cold, emptiness of space,” I say again, and their laughter quiets down, ready for me to continue my story. I feel so far removed from those times; they feel more like fairy tales than memories.
I am a few years older than Karin, Maki’s oldest. She’s spirited and is in charge of running the loom, along with Farel who makes sure none of the fibers get tangled. Karin was studying to be a scientist back on Adhosh before the cascade failures, but those days are long gone. At times, she seems to long for that other life, but she’s never complained once in the four months I’ve worked here, and I catch glimpses of her brilliance in the complex embroidery she produces.
Now we have some time off, so I harvest pineapple leaves with the younger children, pulling long iridescent fibers from the lavender leaves that are about as tall as I am. I grab the next leaf from the pile, but when I go to tear the barbs off the side, one of them gashes my palm.
Farel jumps up and has a bandage ready. “Don’t worry,” he says. “It happens to all of us.”
“Thanks,” I say. “I wish I was as good as you were, though.”
“It takes practice,” Farel says. “We weren’t learning this too long ago. We had synthesizers make our fabrics up until about five years ago, but they wasted so much energy when our resources were thinning, so they were put to use for more critical fabrication projects.”
“Your mouth wastes too much energy,” says Karin. “You’re supposed to be looking over the loom.”
Farel jumps back up to his feet, makes a face behind his sister’s back, then says sweetly, “Yes, sis. Right away.”
Maki sticks her head through the beaded curtain. “Karin, I need you to run the front of the store for me for a moment.”
“I’m super behind on orders,” Karin says. “There’s no way we’re going to make the Holdover rush as it is.”
“Okay, Farel, come on.”
“I’m watching the thread,” he says.
“Have Otis do it.”
“It’s a seawell pattern, Mama. Otis can’t keep up with that.”
Maki’s eyes slowly find their way to mine. “Nena,” she says. My new name still catches me by surprise. “Can you mind the store for me while I’m away?”
“I . . . I don’t—”
“It’s simple. The prices are all marked. Just stand behind the counter and smile and try to be helpful. I’ll be gone thirty minutes at most.”
“You’ve got this,” says Karin. The younger kids nod with their big grins. I’m not sure if they really support me, or if they’re eager to see what mistakes I’ll make next.
“Okay,” I say, then venture into the front of the store. It doesn’t smell like the damp musk of pineapple up here, which is a nice change. Instead, it’s flowery and sweet. The baros Maki sells are all made to order, but there are a couple sample garments hanging near the front door, thin white blouses that shimmer when they catch the light just right. Scarves take up the rest of the floor space, dyed every color.
Maki gives me a set of too-quick instructions, then leaves me alone in the store. I’m so nervous, I’m sweating. I practice my backstory in my head, recite my vowels. Fix my posture. My smile. I’m ready.
Finally, a customer walks in. She runs her hand down the front of the baro, finger tracing along the delicate lapel. She looks at another, then another.
“Can I help you?” I ask.
She looks up at me, startled. “Where’s Maki?” she asks.
“Running an errand. I’m looking over the store for her.” I’ve got my backstory primed, but before I can get out a single word, the woman has lost complete interest and has turned back to the baro that’s caught her fancy.
“Do you think she could make one of these for me before Holdover?”
I pull out Maki’s job list. “It looks like there are a couple spots left. Can I sign you up?”
“Yes, please.” She gives me her name and I make an appointment for her to come in for measurements. She leaves happy, and I’m beyond elated as well. I’d passed. Didn’t stumble on a single word. I’m so glad Doka pressed Tirtha to let us make new lives for ourselves. And now look at me: a new family, a new job. It’s been hard, but I think I’m finally ready to say goodbye to the old me. Maybe it had been a fairy tale after all, the characters all figments of my imagination.
The beads in the front door rattle, and a figment steps right into the room with me. I freeze.
Adalla. She walks past me without even looking up and heads to the back where we keep our best scarves. She browses them, her back toward me.
“Do you have anything like this, except in blue?” she says, still not looking in my direction.
“Sorry, ma’am, but no.” I pitch my voice an octave lower, making sure to lay my accent on thick. There are in fact a few dozen scarves finished up yesterday still in the back room, but I know if I went back there to look, I would never find the courage to come back out.
Adalla hems and haws a few moments longer, then selects a deep teal scarf and sets it on the counter in front of me. It is the same hue as our Zenzee’s blood, same hue that had stained our sheets on so many occasions when Adalla had missed a spot while bathing. I keep my head down, eyes on the scarf. I flip the tag. “That’ll be twenty-four shell money,” I say.
As Adalla fusses with the shells in her purse, I dare to glance up at her. Her naxshi is different. The pit that’s been in my stomach starts rolling so hard, I think it’s going to knock straight through my ribs. She’s gotten remarried. To the Admore Line. Presdah Admore, most likely, from the cohort ahead of ours. Many of her parents are physicians and scholars, and she was on the same path, from what I can remember. Studying to be a cardiologist, fixing human hearts. I’m happy for Adalla to have found such a solid Line after what she’d been through. I tell myself this over and over, hoping that soon I’ll believe it.
Adalla places the cowries in my hand, her fingertips gracing my palm.
I know I should be quiet. I shouldn’t risk it, but I do anyway. “So, is this purchase for a special someone?”
“My law-mother. Well, sort of. It’s complicated.”
I put the cowries in the till, then fold the scarf up into a neat triangle. “Well, I hope she enjoys it. And I hope you shop with us again.” I hand the scarf to her, eyes still cast down, but our fingers touch this time. I hang onto the scarf a second longer than I should, waiting for some kind of spark to pass between us, then finally let it go.
“Thank you,” she says, then leaves the store.
“You’re welcome, Adalla,” I say, barely a whisper, and not until I’m sure she’s long gone.
I rush into the back, look at Karin. “I can’t do it. I can’t go back out there,” I tell her. “You do it. Please?”
“You’re doing fine, Nena. Just take a couple deep breaths. Mama will be back soon.”
M
y breath saws in and out of my lungs. “You don’t understand. I can’t. I . . . I think I’m having a panic attack.”
Karin stops weaving, failing to catch the dowel. It clacks against the floor. She comes over to me and squeezes me tight. “Are you okay?”
I shake my head. “There was a customer. A woman . . .”
Karin nods. “Deep brown skin, sparkly blue paint on her forehead. Bought a teal scarf?”
“Yeah, how’d you—”
“Seske,” Adalla’s voice comes from behind me, saddest word I’ve ever heard come out of anyone’s mouth.
Daidi’s bells.
I bite my lip and turn around. She shakes her head when she sees me. Her chest heaves. She drops the scarf on the floor.
“This is a dream. I’m dreaming,” she mutters to herself. “How?”
The words spill from me in a rush. “Doka and I were rescued right after we were thrown out the third ass. We’ve been living here since, trying to fit in. I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t tell anyone. But I wanted to tell you. I thought about you so much. And the family. And everything and everyone we’ve left behind. It’s been hard. It’s been so hard, but we’re safe. We’ve been here,” I say again, and once I realize I’m babbling, I stop myself. I stare at her, my chest heaving. My emotions spin out of control. I want her to reach for me. To tell me she’s happy to see me. That she’s missed me as much as I’ve missed her. That she’s forgiven me.
But she just stares back.
My face feels so naked now without my naxshi. She’d known me practically our whole lives and had never seen my bare face. Never seen me without my braids.
“I mourned for you,” she says. Anger there this time. “I mourned so hard. For you and for us.”
“We couldn’t risk telling anyone.”
“Who rescued you?” Adalla asks.
“Baradonna,” I say. “And Tirtha. And Bakti.”
“They knew all this time and didn’t say anything? I came to visit them.”
“I know. I saw you.”
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