Crystal Heat tst-3

by Jo Clayton

  “Degoo watuhbey.” He held out his other hand. Merekea dribbled a coarse meal into it until the curve of his palm was filled.

  “Da oocid al di sec.” He brought his hands around in front of them, held them into the incense rising from the brazier, then let the meal trickle into the fluid. “Lerxuadid.” He mixed them together with his forefinger. “Ki ti ada.”

  Merekea and Beradea rose with a disturbing sinuous grace. For an instant Lylunda saw them as twin serpents, the paint marks converted to scales. They each took one of her arms and led her around the brazier until she was standing before Ordonai.

  He chanted something else, but this time she couldn’t separate the sounds from the pounding in her ears. At the same time he dipped his fingers into the bowl, scooping up a mixture of liquid and meal. Still chanting, he smeared the thick sticky mess across her brow, down her cheeks, then thrust his finger into her mouth and put another dollop on her tongue.

  She concentrated grimly on keeping the contents of her stomach where they belonged.

  The women’s hands tightened on her arms and Ordonai slapped her lightly on the right ear, then the left, then shouted a great word at her.

  It was as if he blew out the lights when his breath touched her face.

  5

  When she woke, she was stretched out on a patch of grass staring into a clear blue sky. “Huh?”

  She got to her feet and touched her face. Someone had washed her clean; the honey mixture was gone. The memory of Ordonai’s finger in her mouth hovered queasily for a moment, then she pushed it aside and looked around.

  On her right the land sloped steeply down to a narrow white sand beach and beyond the beach blue sea glittered unhindered to the horizon. A short distance off to her left, she saw a wide path paved with white shells that glittered in the brilliant yellow sunlight.

  She looked down. She was wearing a clean shipsuit and at her feet was a well-stuffed backpack. And a small square envelope was pinned to the pack.

  When she opened it, she snorted. A message from her father.

  Lylunda Elang,

  I won’t ask for your forgiveness, only your understanding. I could not protect you here. I will have trouble in these next weeks protecting myself from those who would be delighted to use you to get at me. I have spent on you what I kept for my own safety. I have never forgotten your mother, nor

  – how it felt when she put you in my arms. If Hutsartg were a different place or I were a different man… a zuz, there’s no point in that. Whatever happens to me, 1 have made arrangements to free you from your exile if at the end of four years you still wish to leave. You will find all your gear in the pack, including your credit chip. Don’t try bribing a free trader to take you offworld. The only traders who land there are the Jilitera and they would be more likely to kill you than offer you any help. Be patient, daughter, and stay alive.

  She turned the letter over, but there was no signature, nothing to point to him, and the glyphs were carefully drawn, all character erased from them. “You’re a cautious man, Father,” she said and began tearing the paper into small pieces, listening to the ripping sounds with a fierce satisfaction. When she was finished, though, she remembered the strictures and stuffed the pea-sized bits into a pocket of the backpack, then checked the ground to make sure none of them had blown away.

  “No point in standing around here any longer.” She lifted the backpack, got her arms through the shoulder straps, settled it in place, then crossed the strip of grass and started walking along the path, the shells crunching under her boot soles.

  6

  “Lylunda Elang who was once a happily busy smuggler with her own ship, free to go wherever she took a notion, and who is now a beachcomber exile on a backwater world, sits in her hand-carved chair at her hand-made table and prepares to eat her daily ration of tung akar.” Lylunda wrinkled her nose at the thin yellow slices of tuber laid out on the shell someone was using as a plate. “Which, begging your pardon, 0 mighty tung, tastes like mildewed cardboard.”

  The Pandai in the village had cleared out this house for her and furnished it with bits and pieces from all their houses. She didn’t ask to whom it had belonged before or what had happened to them, and the villagers didn’t say. The adults brought her fruits and berries and fish they’d cooked for her, and the children took turns teaching her how to survive here and provide for herself. Friendly people, the Pandai.

  She ate one of the slices, swallowed hastily, and dipped up water from the bowl in the center of the table to wash the taste from her mouth. “Seruchel says in a few days I’ll like the taste. Don’t know if I believe her. Don’t know if I want to believe her. That’s what someone told me about pelar and I suppose I was close to getting addicted to the stuff.” She ate another slice and reached for the gourd dipper.

  Water wasn’t a problem here. There was an artesian spring on the side of the mountain that rose like an enlarged pimple in the center of this island. The Pandai had built a system of covered flumes that carried water to the cisterns in all the houses, the overflow dumping into a pond in the round open space at the center of the village-the Belau they called it, the Navel of the World-where the locals kept pet goldfish, five of them, each one longer than her forearm and supposedly as old as the island itself. She’d been introduced to them. Siochel, Blibur, Chadil, lodes, and Nagarak. Rough translation: Precious, Goldie, Seaflower, Coin, and Halfmoon. With the Pandai watching, all smiles and expectation, she put her hand into the water and one by one they came, rubbing their mouth barbels against her palm, tickling her Then they circled round her arm, brushing against it as if they were some form of aquatic cats.

  Rather pleased with the memory, she washed down the third slice. “Ba da, if something lifted these Pandai from here and dumped them in the Izar, they’d get eaten alive:”

  When she was nearly finished with her breakfast, eating the bowl of berries, savoring their dark tart/ sweet flavor, she heard the fink-fink as someone shook the shell string on the front door. “Who?” she called.

  “Seruchel. You ready?”

  “Diam, Sera. Come back to the kitchen. I’m just finishing up.”

  Seruchel was a light brown child with a dusting of darker brown dots across the top of her cheeks and a wide mouth that was always twitching into happy grins. When she came into the kitchen, she had a length of cloth draped across her arm, a green and brown batik print, a pattern of leaves and vines. “Diam, Luna. Mam said you shouldn’t be wearing out your mekull clothes, and besides they look so uncomfortable and so hot. She said I should show you how to do the twist at the top and pin it tight. If you want. Fitting the mezu’s easy, see?”

  She dropped the cloth over the back of the chair and twirled in a quick circle to show Lylunda how the cloth was wound around her body, covering her from just under the armpits to her knees, the top tucked over and pinned in place with a pair of shiny, three-inch thorns.

  “Omel oma, I’ll try it. You wait here and I’ll see how well I manage. And by the way, tell your Mam thanks, I appreciate this.”

  Though at first Lylunda felt as if the mezu would unwind and drop off every time she took a breath, she found it comfortable and cool. With a little care she could bend in it, kneel, get to her feet without offering more of herself to passing eyes than she’d feel comfortable showing.

  “There, Luna. You see that greel hole there?”

  “Which one? I see lots of holes.”

  “But they’re all different. Can’t you tell?” Seruchel took a step to one side, used her big toe to point out the hole she was talking about. “It’s not round like most of the others, and the long side goes with the waterline not against it.”

  The eccentricity wasn’t great, but obvious enough once it was pointed out and the long side was indeed parallel to the foam line of the outgoing tide. “I think I see. It’s like that one about a step farther along, isn’t it?”

  “Uh-huh. That’s another greel hole, all right. So watch me.” Se
ruchel drove the point of her digging stick into the sand. “Smarada Diam, 0 greel, this is a lessoning; we’ll not be taking you today.” She gave the stick a twist, then shoved the end down with considerable force. The sand flew and a dark scuttly thing with far too many legs went hurrying off. “That’s a greel. You usually have a scoop to catch him with and a basket to carry him, ’cause you don’t want to touch him till he’s boiled in kebui water; he’s got this goo on him that’ll take your skin off. But, mmmmmm, he’s good when he’s cooked right.”

  Shadith watched the scuttler vanish in a spray of sand and water; the last bit of it visible was a long narrow chela tamping the sand into the elongated breathing hole. She decided she’d rather not know what her food looked like when it was running about. Some of the things she’d eaten in cafйs at Pit Stops… She shuddered as she trudged after Seruchel.

  Seruchel waded into the water beside a tumble of rocks, squatted, and felt about among the sea grass that grew like hair in sheltered areas like this. “Luna, come see.”

  “What is it, Sem?”

  “A nice new clump of tiauch. The ones closest to shore are too young still for taking, but they don’t have the sharp edges either.” She parted the grass and used her body to create a patch of stillness so Lylunda could look through the water at some purse-shaped grayish lumps that seemed to grow from the stone. “When you gather tiauch, you push a flat lever against the muscle down at the base and work it under until the tiauch comes free, then you drop it in a jug of seawater to keep it fresh. The older ones taste the best and sometimes they have pearls in them. We use them to trade. One old tiauch I saw when I was a kid had five pearls. Of course it was black and ugly and almost dead.” She waved the grass back around the tiauch bed, jumped to her feet, waited impatiently for Lylunda to stand, then went trotting on down the beach, pointing out things that a newcomer should know about.

  “Oooh! You bringing luck, Luna.” The girl ran a few steps, then squatted beside a patch of sand slightly darker than the rest. If you looked at it right, there was a faint iridescent shimmer to the grains. “Telilu, I’m sure of it. Luna, I don’t want to lose the place, would you wait here and don’t move, I’ve got to go get Mam.”

  Lylunda watched Seruchel go running off along the beach, then she frowned down at that irregular stain or whatever it was. “Why do you rev up so much excitement, hm?”

  The patch remained enigmatic so she looked out across the ocean. This world was like something you’d see in a happy dream. A blue blue sapphire blue sky with a few shreds of cloud near the horizon. An intensely blue ocean shading to emerald as it neared the shore, small choppy waves with caps of white foam. Wind clean and crisp against her skin, filled with sea smells and just cool enough to feel pleasant as the morning heated up. A white sand beach curved away on both sides, interrupted by black outcrops of obsidian or red brown boulders. Clumps of tall trees with curved trunks flexed to the push of the wind, the fronds that grew thickly at the apex of each curve rustling loudly as if they spoke to each other.

  “You are beautiful,” she said and it seemed to her the trees bowed to her and whispered their thanks. “Yai! Whiny in the head already?”

  She was getting very bored with the scene by the time Seruchel came running back.

  The girl stopped beside her, glanced down at the discolored patch and let out her breath with a popping sound. “Um… Luna, do you mind? Mam says just smelling Telilu might be dangerous, seeing you’re not part of the Tung Bond yet, so she says you better go back to the house.” She looked unhappy. “And tonight, you better not come into Chiouti with everyone, ’cause tel-poisoning is something we can’t fix and we don’t want you hurt.”

  “Tell your Mam, no problem.” Lylunda tapped the child on the cheek and left her standing by the patch, still looking miserable.

  On the way back to her house she saw Seruchel’s Mam Outocha, along with a number of the village men, hurrying toward the beach. She waved at them, called out the ritual diam and strolled on by, heading for the house. That night she heard a rhythmic beating and shouts that almost might have been song from the village. Some party. I wish… well, never mind, Luna. Don’t go where you’re not wanted.

  When she went into Chiouti the next morning, there was a faint bite to the air; it felt like sunburn when it brushed against her skin and it made her stomach cramp. People were usually out talking and doing the-day’s chores by this time, but she saw only a few villagers about. A woman slouched in a doorway, head down, hair falling across her face. Her mezu was pulled about her, not twisted and pinned in place and she looked like a bad end to a hard night. A naked man was curled up, snoring, in the shadowed alley between two houses. As she walked past him, nausea caught her in the throat and the cramps in her stomach turned to stabbing pains. She wheeled and ran from-the village, kept running until she splashed into the ocean.

  She swam a while, then waded back onshore, feeling considerably better and blessing the thoughtfulness of Seruchel’s Mam.

  7

  By the end of her first month on Bol Mutiar, Lylunda knew how to choose her own tung akar-that when the tubers were too young they gave her the runs and a low fever, when they were too old the smell got so bad she couldn’t put them in her mouth. You could tell the age by the leaves. Seruchel recited a rhyme for so she could remember what the shapes meant. Long and narrow, stomach harrow, five holes, too old, three in sight, just right.

  She didn’t have to look far to find the tung. As with every other house in the village, the western wall of her house, the one that was away from the shore, had no windows, just a thick covering of vines. Some with flowers, some with seed pods that exploded at a touch when they were ripe. The harvest area was a semicircular patch that grew at the base of the wall.

  Her days were filled with little things. Digging shellfish for her meals, collecting fruits and berries from the Common Land. Walking around, exploring the island to see what was on the other side. And going with the children into the jungle that grew on the sides of the mountain and cutting vines for the retting pond or beating the rotted veins to separate out the fibers, rinsing the fibers and spreading them over the mats in the drying sheds on the shore side of the Belau. The Pandai demanded nothing from her, but they asked her if she’d help and it was something to do to fill the long hours of the day. Besides, she felt better when she was paying her way, not depending on the charity of others.

  And they all knew why she was here, patting her on the shoulder, shaking their heads, telling her what a good father she’d got, wanting to make her safe. They were cheerful about it, too, expecting her to settle in like they had. Some of us and all of our ancestors come from somewhere else, for all sorts of reasons. It’s better here. Each of the adults made a point of telling her that. It takes a while to relax, they told her, but in a little You’ll feel the tensions and the armor you ware from the old time peeling away. Like a snake sheds its skins and is beautiful in its bright new colors.

  They meant well, but she didn’t want to shed her old habits. She wanted to get back to a place where she could practice them-especially her preferred sort of pleAsures when it came to getting high or having sex. From everything she’d seen so far, she wasn’t going to find many beautiful fur persons to belly dance with her. Celibacy and sobriety for four stinking years did not appeal.

  There was another thing that did not appeal. The Lung akar was starting to taste good to her. She found herself wanting it at other meals. Somehow everything tasted better after she’d crunched down a few slices of the tuber.

  If she ate too much, if she became a part of the Tung Bond, would she be stuck here, for the rest of her life?

  She had nightmares about roots corning up out of the floor and wrapping round her, growing over her face and into the openings of her body.

  8

  “Grinder!” Lylunda brought the beating stick down hard on the soggy heap of rotted torech ignoring the spatters it sprayed over her. “Father!” Another blow, a
nother spray of stinking green fluid from the vine pile. “Ma!” Another. She laughed and straightened. Using her body like that felt good, and shouting the names seemed to blow away some of the anger that simmered in the pit of her stomach.

  Behind her she heard an odd creaking, then a crash. She swung around in time to see a spray of fronds quivering on the ground a short distance up the slope from the beating ground. She. dropped the stick on the vines and made her way through snaky twists of vines and small brushy trees to the fronds, followed the trunk along to the men who were glugging down gourdfuls of biang beer to celebrate the success of their efforts. There was a two-handed saw on the ground by their feet and a pair of axes, the first metal tools she’d seen since the Jilitera had landed her here.

  “Meki, Gebar, what’s this, huh?”

  “Wood for fires, Luna. In a couple months it’s going to be rainy season, so we need to get green wood dried by then. Gets colder’n you think it would some of those nights and if we want hot meals, we get the wood for cooking now. Even if you think you’ve seen rain, you don’t know what real rain is.”

  “Ah.” She frowned at the fat bottom of the tree, an idea churning at the back of her head. “You think you could cut me a round off that, say about as long as my forearm?”

  “Sure. Why not, we’re going to be cutting it up anyway.”

  When she finished beating out and washing the torech fibers, she carried them into Chiouti, spread them out on the drying mats, then went back for her chunk of wood. It was light wood, with a papery texture. As she rolled it down the mountain and around to her house, she told herself it was still green and would harden up as it dried.

  She set the chunk of tree on her kitchen table and gazed at it while she ate the supper one of the women had made for her.