Phwolfe Song (Golsidan Revival Series Book 1)

by Kimberly McLaughlin

  Anna stopped and looked below her for the hive. The view shocked her into immobility. She gazed down upon a forest of full grown trees. While harvesting on the second levels, the trees overshadowed the garden. Here it became possible to see hundreds, no, thousands of those trees spreading out there wide branches and many of them stood one hundred and forty or one hundred and fifty feet tall.

  Des had also told her that the central garden covered over a hundred and forty acres. As a human, she’d seen and worked on farms that spanned an area much bigger than that. But here hanging from the garden dome it became abundantly clear that this enclosed garden loomed far beyond the scope of any human endeavor. Below her in its entire green splendor lay the living, breathing heart of the Ladreti Khwa.

  Sweat dripped down Anna’s forehead into her eyes and she realized this wasn’t the best place to have revelations. She needed to get to work and save the thinking for later. She lined up on the far side of the hive which held the clearest spot. She lowered herself until she heard a low vibrating purr. She slit the gesar flour bag and threw it out on the far side of the basket. She flung it out like a child sowing a garden with seed. Once the flour bag felt empty, she dropped it over the side. She wanted to attract the maleka to the ground not the basket.

  Anna started emptying her pack and organizing the tools she needed. At one eighteen, the vibrating noise receded. She lowered the basket down beside the hive and went to work. The whole hive shined with a purplish glint and felt sticky to touch. Leka seeped out of the combs and drawers and the sides bulged out with maleka built additions shaped like tree shelf mushrooms.

  Anna scraped and scooped for all she was worth. It seemed to be much easier than harvesting, because it took place all in one spot. She filled the regular containers, first, stacking them on the far side of the basket. Then, she took out the pump and started on the collapsible bags. It took some getting used to. The bag went between your feet with a hose connected to it. The pump belted around your waist and got propped against your left side by your elbow. And you operated it by grasping the handle with your left hand and pulling out from your belly, and then pushing it back in while your right hand held the suction hose in the leka. It felt extremely awkward, but it got the job done.

  Anna filled the last bag at three ninety-four. She netted them in place using all the nets with her to prevent them from sliding off as she railed back. She drank two flasks of water and raised herself back up into the heat.

  It took a lot more energy to pull a full basket than an empty one. At four fifty-six, she reached the rail room. Oh no, the Phsatorae planned to be at our room this hot. Anna went to the communication board and called home. Thank goodness, Des answered.

  “Honey, I’m going to be late. I’m at the rail room. I got nearly a full basket of leka and am headed home right now, but I can’t really run full speed through the environmental section.” Anna blurted.

  “Don’t worry. The Phsatorae will be very glad about the leka and not care that you show up late. Run safely and dress warm.” Des ordered. “If you get sick, I will feed you unripe greal to build up your strength.” He told her. “The Phsatorae just arrived. Come home, love.” He rang off.

  Anna dressed warm. She trotted through the corridors. The backpack felt extremely heavy. It took her a moment to realize that the leka weighed more than the garden produce. Luckily, even tightly packed with leka, the pack system remained in balance. The ladder gave her serious pain in quite a few muscle groups with a full pack. When she stumbled through the door home, the clock read four ninety eight.

  Des and the Phsatorae rushed over and helped pull off the pack. Anna felt definitely and thoroughly wrung out. Des pushed her into a seat and began rubbing her shoulders. “You hurt!” He growled.

  “I think I pulled quite a few muscles getting down the ladder. Stupid of me, I didn’t think of the load I carried until I got on it. I couldn’t go back up because I weighed too much. I barely managed to go down. I’m going to have to tie a rope there and lower the pack. I don’t ever want to do that ladder with a full pack again. Ohhh...” Anna exclaimed as Des hit a sore spot.

  The Phsatorae brought her a drink of water.

  “I’m sorry, I kept you waiting Phsatorae.”

  “Call me Jao” he said. “It ended up being well worth the wait.” He pointed at the pack. “You managed to get a whole pack full of leka!”

  Anna nodded and smiled. “Jao, I got three quarters of a basket full. It’s probably going to take eight or nine more runs to haul it all out and that’s if I figure out how to use a cart along with the pack.”

  He sat down hard. “I need to call the Elders.” Anna groaned as Des rubbed a knot in her back. The Phsatorae got up and walked off. Des pushed the chair over to the bed, made Anna lay on her belly, and continued rubbing her shoulders.

  Within minutes, the door banged open. Liso, Tava, and Fienu trotted in. Liso took over Anna’s back, Tava her right shoulder, Fienu her left, and Des moved down to her legs. The pain drifted away and Anna started to fall to sleep.

  The Elders arrived and Jao walked over to the bed. “We want to read you. You feel tired, relax and go to sleep. Tell us nothing just sleep and let us read you. All you need to do is sleep.” He spoke gently, kindly.

  “I’m very willing to sleep. Nothing, I’d like to do better.” Anna yawned. Being rubbed down by four healers felt absolutely wonderful. The muscle soreness disappeared totally. One by one, her muscles totally relaxed. The mattress shifted as Des crawled up beside her and pulled her into his arms. She sensed her blankets being tucked in around her. Des…she snuggled up to his side. Ahh… Des…she kissed Des’s neck and floated off into sleep.

  Anna woke up feeling energized and refreshed. She glanced at the digital six twenty-four. Darn, she’d either slept through a whole day or Des had healed her and exhausted himself. She reached out and touched Des’s sleeping mind. He felt very tired, but nowhere near exhausted. She didn’t have the time to lose a day. The feast… She tried to sit up, but her blankets held her down. What the blazes? Des stretched out on one edge, but what held the other edges pinned down.

  Anna needed to squiggle, wiggle, crawl, and squirm to get out of the top of the pinned blankets. Des slept through it all. Finally, she stood at the head of the bed and looked down to see. Liso, Tava, and Fienu sprawled out asleep on their bed. Luckily, Golsidan beds made kings looks small. Even so, the bed looked pretty crowded.

  Why were they here? Anna reached out and touched Liso first. Tired, very tired! Tava was the same. Fienu too! Then it hit her, the backrub, together they’d healed her, sharing the healing so none of them became exhausted. But healing her on top of all the healing they performed for the infirm exhausted them.

  Anna needed to side step, step over, and step around sleepers to get off the bed. When she got to the floor, she realized the Phsatorae and the Elders sat, propped up, or leant against the walls throughout the room watching her. Anna put a finger to her lips and motioned them into the hall. They quietly filed out.

  Once they reached in the hall the Phsatorae bowed to Anna. “We thank you, Phwolfe.”

  “What am I being thanked for?” Anna’s mind scrambled. “Oh, the reading, it went all right?”

  The Phsatorae looked puzzled. “Yes, the reading went well.”

  “Good. Phsatorae, we needed to discuss honor gifts. I still don’t quite understand who to give them to or what qualifies as an appropriate gift?”

  Elder Sablot stepped forward. “Traditionally, the gifts get granted out on a sort of ascending value system. You bestow a token gift, the gift of the smallest value to all of the volunteers who helped process the takosund. All those who proved to be especially helpful in the processing like the ones you asked the Phsatorae to compile a list of receive a gift of slightly higher value. The ones who helped transport the takosund, who assisted the hunter, in this case the cool shift, are given a gift even higher in value. The hunters, teachers, watchers, and runners traditio
nally get presented with very valued items like arts or crafts. The hunter gets awarded the highest gift possible. But we possess nothing to give.”

  “Yes, we do.” Anna walked over to the nearest information board and called up the hall records. She called up a list of the supply closet and added the list from the supply cooler. “So far, we have these to give away Phsatorae.” She motioned him over.

  As he looked at the list his eyes widened. “How did we get cloth, yarns, korftu nuts, and mewu eggs?”

  Anna shrugged. “You need to clear out a lot of denua to properly harvest a garden. Cima and Jatlo ran off the orders of yarn and cloth because they know what makes acceptable craft and trade goods. The korftu, I harvested two cools ago. Mapao and Kesti shelled and packaged it last cool. The mewu eggs, I found two nests apiece in East 1 and 2, and one nest in East 4.”

  “But what about the feast?” Elder Sablot asked as he looked at the list.

  “This is in addition to the feast which now only needs me to finish putting the roasted savti onto platters, to process the leka, and make gesar flatbread. Do you have someone to clean the hall? How about preparing takosund for the feast and getting someone to package it for honor gifts?”

  “That is how we postponed for two days. The first day, today, volunteers put some broiled takosund on individual serving plates, enough for first warm and final cool meal. Tomorrow, they clean the hall. Tomorrow, we could ask them to postpone for another day. They’ll probably agree, especially if they package takosund for honor gifts. But you realize half of what you contribute comes out of your portion. The more you provide, the less you’ll get when we divide what remains. How much would you want to give?” The Phsatorae watched Anna sharply.

  “Did the volunteers broil the whole big one? How many volunteers ended up being in the special group?”

  The Phsatorae nodded. “We broiled the big one. And the special group holds twenty-two volunteers.”

  “Excellent, all right, I think the lowest grouping of all the volunteers...” Anna calculated some mental math. “should get awarded six portions equal in size to a meal serving. The next group up, the special volunteers double that up to twelve portions. The cool shift ought to receive eighteen portions and the top level twenty-four portions. Broiled takosund stays good for twenty to twenty-five days stored in a cooler. So even if one of the top level people decides to keep all of their servings and not trade any, they could eat it all before it went bad.”

  The Phsatorae and Elders stared at Anna. Oh well, she thought in for a penny, in for a pound. “I think that whatever food goods we use as honor gifts should get split that way one for the volunteers, two for special volunteers, three for cool shift, and four for the top-level. That way everyone gets a two ounce container of mewu eggs and a two pound container of korftu nuts with the numbers properly ascending up the levels. If I find the time to process the leka, I intend to give out two ounce containers out to everyone. I plan to spread out the yarns and cloth on the top two levels with a little going to the third. The same with the dyes I’m making. The special gifts of arts and crafts, well, I’m not sure what to do about that.”

  Anna sighed. “Okay, what’s wrong? Are the portions too small? We have enough to enlarge the takosund and korftu nuts portion, if you want.” She shrugged again. They still stared at her unmoving and silent. Anna began to get frustrated and creeped out. “Come on guys, I’ve never done a feast before or even heard of honor gifts until four days ago. Talk to me, what’s wrong?”

  “You truly wish to give away that much? That many portions would use up probably a third of the broiled takosund.”

  “I don’t mind giving up my fifty percent of that. I’m not even sure if I want to eat my portion at the feast. I mean the thing looked very unsavory when it tried to kill me. I know Des likes it, but even so, he can’t come close to eating half of that big one before it goes bad. I plan to keep only what Des and I eat and use as witness fees. The rest of my portion will end up going onto commodities. So, I don’t care if we give it away as honor gifts.”

  The Phsatorae nodded. “If you feel sure about it, portions that size make very generous honor gifts, so would the mewu eggs, leka, and korftu nuts.”

  “Good, Tava and Des both said the people need leka and takosund. This way they get it quickly, at the feast and in gifts to take home with them. It saves the medics from having to rush out the portions to the invalids.”

  The Phsatorae’s hand shot out and grabbed Anna’s shoulder, his mind touched hers. He stepped back and let go. “You planned this!” He sounded shocked. “You planned this and asked the medics to help which explains why the medics got all the invalids to volunteer.”

  Anna backed up a step. “Easy now, Phsatorae, don‘t get mad.” She felt unsure about his reaction to her scheming with the medics. “You know after the witness and verification, the medics planned on invoking a direct emergency on both the takosund and the leka. Your portion would have been taken anyway. This way just saves time and the medics’ energy. They rushed around and exhausted themselves distributing the greal. This way they have enough time to pace the distribution with the honor gifts holding everyone over until the medics get the rest distributed.” Anna explained, backing up with the Phsatorae and Elders following.

  Reading Golsidan facial expressions still proved too difficult for her to decipher the differences between anger and shock. She felt severely outnumbered by Jao and all of the Elders crowding around her. If they got mad, she didn’t know what they’d do. “Guys, come on now, play fair. At least, let me grab a stick to defend myself with.” She quipped trying to lighten the mood.

  The Phsatorae and most of the Elders threw back their heads and laughed. Finally, the Phsatorae shook his head. “No, we’ve heard about you and sticks. You need no stick. Do you think we mean to harm you, Phwolfe?” The Phsatorae’s look turned serious. He slowly reached out and gently touched Anna’s arm.

  Anna thought of trying to duck away and run. But they surrounded her, where could she go. She thought they intended her no harm or at least the part of her that was Golsidan didn’t think they would. But the human part of her wasn’t so sure. Thanks to Desvren, Liso, and Tava saving and healing her. She now lived as part human, part Golsidan. Her body still looked totally human. But her mind existed as a curious mix, human reshaped into Golsidan, half learned in Golsidan ways.

  Those Golsidan parts said Golsidans seldom resorted to violence. They teased. They joked. They encouraged physical sports for the young like wrestling and running. But physical violence went against their beliefs. To them physical violence proved to be acceptable only as a defense against the unforeseen, takosund, and the rigors of space travel. But the human in Anna screamed, “You’ve only known these people for seven days. You hardly know the Phsatorae at all. The Elders you know even less of. You only know that they are powerful people used to command and that they outnumber you.”

  The Phsatorae saw this in Anna’s mind. He took three steps back and motioned the Elders back too. “I find it hard to remember that you joined the people only seven days ago. You have accomplished so much hunter, pack-runner, Phwolfe. I realize that you still need to learn much about us and sometimes you feel confused. Personally, I regret that we can’t give you the proper amount of time to adjust to us. It seems almost cruel of us to throw you into everything without you knowing how we will react. I am sorry and apologize. I can only explain that our needs drive us to use expediency instead of patience.”

  Anna nodded and relaxed some. “Humans say desperate times call for desperate measures. I realize how desperate your straits truly are.” She shrugged. “Humans also say desperate people do desperate things. Things they wouldn’t normally even consider. That makes me uncertain.”

  “I saw that Phwolfe and am sorry to have caused you distress.”

  “I’ll figure everything out eventually. So we all agree on the honor gifts?”

  Gurlesc stepped forward. “We agree Phwolfe. We thank
you for your generosity. We also thank you for your planning with the medics, making the distribution easier for them.” He bowed.

  “You are very welcome, Elder Gurlesc. The medics saved my life and helped me. I plan to do whatever it takes to make their jobs easier.” Anna smiled. “An extra day gives me time to finish the preparations. With your permission, if he wakes up and feels up to it, I’ll ask Des to be the cool shift chief this cool. I want to run down the rest of the leka and start straining it.”

  Elder Kolel nodded. “That sounds entirely acceptable. Hunter Phwolfe, what do you wish for your honor gift?”

  Anna blinked. “I thought the feast in my honor counted as my gift?”

  “It numbers as one of them, but the hunter needs to receive the highest level gift. Is there anything Satorae can give you?”

  “Can I ask for anything?” Anna shivered.

  “If it resides in our power or at our disposal, we wish to give it to you.” The Phsatorae said.

  “Please!” Anna took a deep breath. She tried to find the words that she wanted. She stepped forward and touched the Phsatorae.

  Anna’s human part whimpered, it cried. Please, please Des. Promise me Des. Don’t take Des. No matter what, please promise. The fear hiding within her refused to be denied. She feared that because she agreed to bear children for them, they’d wish her to be with someone other than Des, someone who could give her children in a simpler way.

  The Phsatorae jolted. His mind answered. He is your tai’twain! We couldn’t, wouldn’t take him from you Phwolfe.

  The human part of Anna screamed. What if Wolfe fails? What if I’m deemed not worthy? What if Wolfe becomes no more? Will I become Satorae? If I am deemed unworthy of Wolfe, how could I be worthy of Satorae?”

  The human in her needed confirmation. Prove you won’t take him from me. Give him to me. Tears ran down her face. Anna shivered with fear. She couldn’t lose Des, but what if Wolfe failed. The only security her mind could think of was if they gave him to her and she gave herself to him, marriage, human marriage. Marry us; promise it in front of all at the presentation. Marry us, only death could separate us. That way if Phsatorae clan wants to keep Des, they need to keep me too. Marry us; bind us together in front of all.