Invisible Sun

by David Macinnis Gill

  “It is real wood,” Mimi says. “Brought by the second wave of immigrants, who—”

  “Boring!” I say.

  “Covering approximately two hundred fifty thousand square meters, the grounds draw water from the River Tereshkova. The Tereshkova also feeds the compound’s two large ponds.”

  “Still boring! Especially since my knees are killing me. Who drinks tea while curled up in a ball, anyway?”

  “The smaller pond,” she says, ignoring me, “which is reached by a wooden bridge, features a teahouse surrounded by peonies, cherry trees, and the oldest pine forest in the prefecture.”

  “You just love torturing me, don’t you?”

  “I love educating you, yes.”

  To block out her so-called education, I concentrate on the ripples on the surface of the pond. My mind drifts, but like most of the time, my thoughts settle on the topic of my father. Vienne and I haven’t spoken about him since we found out about his death. She tried once, but I wasn’t ready. I’m still not. Death is like a chunk of meat that you can’t chew. It just sticks in your throat, gagging you.

  Absentmindedly, I dip a hand in the pond. It feels cool to the touch, and I splash a little water on my face. When I reach for more, I hear a cough behind me. A rotund monk in glimmering robes whisks gracefully past, his socked feet making almost no impression on the tatami mat.

  Without a word, he sits and folds his legs like an accordion blind. “I am the abbot of the monastery.” There is a tea service in front of him. “Welcome to the Bon-Chakai, the Way of the Tea ceremony.”

  “That’s Ghannouj?” I whisper to Vienne.

  She nods and bows, placing her forehead on the mat. I glance around—the monks have also bowed—so I do the same.

  Ow! A nerve in my lower back twangs.

  “I told you to stretch more often,” Mimi says.

  “Easy for you to say,” I say. “You don’t have any nerves.”

  “Then I will have to settle for getting on yours.”

  When I sit up, the glittering monk is staring at me, his head cocked to the side. “Would you like some tea?”

  “Um.” My eyes dart from Vienne to Riki-Tiki in hopes that one of them will clue me in on the appropriate way to respond. I don’t even bother to look at Shoei and Yadokai. “I’m not sure what to say.”

  “Perhaps,” Ghannouj says, “you should say yes.”

  “Yes.” My palms are suddenly sweaty, and I feel perspiration forming on my lip. “I mean yes, I should say yes. Because yes is what you say when you mean yes, as opposed to when you mean no and say yes anyway.”

  Riki-Tiki falls to her side, laughing, knees tucked against her chest, face red as she struggles to catch her breath. Beside me, Vienne makes squeaking noises, suppressing a snicker.

  Ghannouj pours green tea into a cup. He places the cup in his meaty palm and offers it to me. “Tea?”

  “Yes.” I take the cup.

  The tea is hot. I burn my lips sipping it.

  Ghannouj catches Vienne’s eye and makes a gesture so subtle, I almost miss it. After bowing, Vienne hops to her feet and leaves the teahouse. Riki-Tiki and the older monks follow her. Once they’re out of sight, I hear Riki-Tiki burst into giggles. Her laughter is like the sound of chimes, and I can’t help smiling.

  “I hope you enjoyed your tea.” Ghannouj takes the cup back when I’ve emptied it. “You don’t care for ceremony.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I didn’t know until you confirmed it.” Smiling, he washes a cup with a bamboo whisk. “You are very handsome. I see now why she is so taken with you.”

  “Who?” I check over my shoulder. “Vienne?”

  “Is there some other young woman who is taken with you?” he says. “Perhaps there are several such young women.”

  “Do you really think that?” My mouth is suddenly dry again. “Or are you waiting for me to confirm another suspicion?”

  Ghannouj grins. “Do you know why I asked to see you?”

  I shake my head no, although I have my guesses. “I thought it was a welcoming ceremony or some such.”

  “Do you believe in destiny?”

  “That’s a hard question.”

  “No,” he says. “The question is easy. The answer is hard.”

  Smart aleck.

  Rubbing my forehead with my palm, I take a deep breath. Do I believe in destiny? Truthfully, I’m not sure. “If you mean that our lives are planned for us from the time we’re born, then no, I don’t believe. But if you mean that our behavior follows certain patterns and after a while, those patterns become so predictable that they seem inevitable, then my answer is . . . maybe. Like Shakespeare said, ‘It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.’”

  Ghannouj turns my cup facedown. The words “It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves” are written on the bottom.

  I jump like I’ve been stung.

  “Don’t be surprised,” Ghannouj says. “Perhaps it was inevitable that the words would be written there. Perhaps it is inevitable that you would say them.”

  “But I just thought of that quotation.”

  “Did you?” He pours a whole pot of tea into the cup. The tea runs over the sides until the bottom is full of grounds. He strains them until only a few drops of tea remain. Then he stares at the dregs while swirling them around. “Ah. I see.”

  I try to sneak a peek. “What do you see?”

  “I see that I overcooked the tea again.” He winks at me. “Do you really believe that I can see the future in the bottom of a cup of tea?”

  And he almost had me believing in this stuff. “Well, no, no one can tell the future.”

  “I never said that.”

  “But—”

  “Tea leaves are not necessary to see the future. Not when the person is sitting across from you. Vienne believes in you in a way that she has never believed in anyone. Soon, you will have a choice to make—a choice between your two greatest and most contradictory desires. The decision you make will determine the path of your destiny, not what anyone tells you.”

  I scratch my head. “Is that why you served me tea?”

  His face is a tranquil lake. “I served you tea because I thought you were thirsty.”

  “So,” I say. “Which path should I choose?”

  “Which should you choose or which will you choose?”

  “Which one is going to make me happy?”

  He lifts a lotus from the tray. It’s pink, like the ones in the ditch surrounding the walls. “‘Though the lotus grows from the mud, it is unstained.’”

  “Sir?” I say. “I don’t follow.”

  He takes a deep breath of the blossom. “Try the daifuku. Sweet rice cakes. It settles the stomach.”

  I start to claim that I’m not hungry, but he offers the rice cakes. I take a nibble to make him happy, and my stomach growls.

  “See?” He rises, then bows to me. “It is working already.”

  I’m shoving the last of the daifuku into my jaws when Mimi pipes up, “Very educational, cowboy.”

  “Very weird, you mean. This Ghannouj talks out of both sides of his mouth.”

  “It’s better than talking with your mouth full,” she says. “Hurry up and swallow that rice cake. Your olfactory senses are off the chart, and I predict based on the smoke coming from the kitchen that delicious, spicy food is in your future.”

  Now that the monks have accepted our presence, the hours roll by, and I find myself enjoying the longest time that Vienne and I have spent together that doesn’t involve shots being fired. I pass the time training on the mukyanjong, a wooden punching dummy, and listening to Mimi’s periodic updates as she decodes the data we stole from the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. In a nutshell, Mimi tells me again what I already knew—that the last of the data is still housed in a formerly high-security server farm of Tharsis Two. It was taken over by the Sturmnacht some months ago, and there’s no chance of waltzing into the base the
way we did in Christchurch.

  Despite all that, I feel the burning itch to settle unfinished business. For months, since defeating the Draeu and their psychotic queen in the mines of the South Pole, we’ve been searching for information about Project MUSE. It was a top-secret genetic project that was supposed to create super soldiers for the military, but it went horribly wrong and created the Draeu instead. The man who started, funded, and even participated in MUSE? My dearly departed father. Ever since I learned that Father had a hand in making the Draeu, the same question has haunted me: Am I still a human being who controls his own destiny, or am I fated to become a monster, too?

  The next day we rise at dawn for prayers, exercise until breakfast, then police the grounds until high noon, when a gong sounds, calling us to lunch.

  “Heewack!” I rub my hands together. “About time. I’m starving!”

  Vienne shakes her head. “No lunch for you. Dance lessons, remember? You’re expected in the temple. The Master believes we learn better on an empty stomach. See you later. If you’re good, I’ll save you some rice.”

  As she walks away, my stomach rumbles in protest.

  “Master Yadokai can ki—” A jolt of static electricity catches my attention. “Ow! What’s that for?”

  “You were being rude,” Mimi says.

  “But the words never even came out of my mouth!”

  “One does not have to be an AI to know you were about to make an ass of yourself. Now step lively, Regulator. Master Yadokai is waiting for you.”

  When I emerge from the path, more starved then ever, Yadokai is indeed waiting for me. “Time for your lessons,” he says sternly. “Today, we cure you of noodle arms!”

  “Lessons?” I say.

  He unfurls an ancient sheath of electrostat, which displays a series of dance steps. The header on the ’stat reads “How to Dance the Bon-Odori in Three Easy Lessons.”

  “No carking way.” I shake my head vigorously. “It’s never going to happen.”

  Chapter 6

  Tengu Monastery, Noctis Labyrinthus

  Zealand Prefecture

  ANNOS MARTIS 238. 7. 19. 12:17

  It happens.

  Within minutes, I find myself in an old man’s arms, dancing across the floor of the main hall. The tatami mats have been pulled aside and stacked in a neat pile. The floor is polished and slick. Even barefoot, I’m in constant danger of slipping, which just adds to my mortification.

  “But you make such a cute couple,” Mimi says.

  I don’t even bother to argue.

  “Master,” I say as Yadokai drags me across the floor, humming in tune with the portable music box. “Couldn’t I just look at the electrostat instead? I’m a quick study.”

  “Ha!” Yadokai barks. “You cannot learn to dance the Bon-Odori from writing. You must learn at the hands of a master.”

  Hands? Oh crap. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Serious as a heart attack,” he says. “And I’ve had two. Just pretend I’m the prettiest girl you have ever seen.”

  Easy for you to say, I think, trying not to stare at the liver spots and random tufts of hair sprouting from his cheeks. “What’s the big deal? I’ve seen the Spirit Festival dances a bunch of times,” I complain. “It’s just a line of partiers jumping behind a fossiker wearing a lion head.”

  “Wrong and wrong!” he hollers. “The Spirit Festival is the bastard child of Bon-Odori and that group hop-along is nothing like a dance! Arms up!”

  I shut my eyes and try to imagine that my partner is Vienne, which is hard to do because instead of soft, warm hands, I’m holding on to bony hunks of weathered skin.

  “This is ridiculous!” I tell Mimi. “If my old crew saw me dancing with an old man—”

  “They would be laughing at you,” she says, “just like Riki-Tiki and Vienne, who are hiding in the other room instead of observing prayer time.”

  “Thanks for confirming my abject humiliation.”

  “Anytime, cowboy. It is one of my most pleasurable functions.”

  “Walking is basic to the steps of Nagashi, the restrained form of Awa Bon-Odori,” Yadokai says. “Hear the beat of the taiko drum? Step on it.”

  I stomp.

  “Ow!” Yadokai snarls. “Step on the beat, not on my foot!”

  “Sorry!”

  “You should be!” he snaps. “Awa Odori is called the Dance of Fools, not the Dance of Two Left Feet. But we have to start somewhere, and beggars can’t be choosers. Hands up, Noodle Arms! And this time, walk counterclockwise. It’s the line of dance, and it keeps you from running smack-dab into another dancer. Weight on the balls.”

  “Weight on the what?”

  “The balls of your feet.” He whacks me with a bamboo fan. “You want my help or not?”

  “Not.”

  “Too late now! Keep walking. The second Fools Dance is called Zomeki. It means the Frenzy.”

  “Frenzy?” I say. “My agenda doesn’t really include getting frenzied with you.”

  “Silence!”

  A moment later, Yadokai and I are frenzying across the floor, crouched low, our arms forming a triangle over our heads and our knees akimbo. Yadokai’s eyes are closed as he hums to the beat of the taiko drum.

  “More frenzy, less noodle!” He leads us in the opposite direction. “Next lesson, you get to lead.”

  I cough like I’ve swallowed ditch water. “Next lesson?”

  Later that evening we are gathered around a low table in the temple, enjoying the feast of Bon. The table is stacked with empty bowls and drained teacups. The meal is almost over, which I’m glad of, because sitting with my legs crossed for over an hour is a form of torture that should be banned.

  “Ah.” I stretch out my legs. “That’s better.”

  “But rude,” Mimi says.

  “Cut me some slack. My body is one big cramp. Even my butt is spasming.”

  “So is your brain,” she says. “You should try stretching it out, too.”

  Riki-Tiki shoves the last rice ball into her mouth, then licks each of her fingers. “Ghannouj says the tea leaves told him you two came here to find a secret. Well, not here, but close by. And you’ve been looking for it for months.”

  “Stupid tea leaves,” I mutter.

  Riki-Tiki points her chopsticks at me. “So is it true?”

  “Um. Well. Mostly,” I explain. “We’ve been trying to collect some important data. It’s stored in a server complex thirty kilometers from here.”

  Vienne interrupts, “In an outpost controlled by a crime lord named Lyme.”

  Riki-Tiki’s chopsticks drop from her hand, and Yadokai coughs.

  Vienne and I trade looks—the monks know the name Lyme all too well. I don’t know why we’re surprised, because Lyme is the most notorious criminal on Mars.

  Shoei belches loudly. “Ghannouj! Dessert!”

  Ghannouj appears, and I gobble up the last grains of rice. He waits until I’m finished to offer an open hand for my bowl.

  “Oh. Sorry,” I say. “Didn’t mean to hold you up. You’re a great cook.”

  Shoei lets a megaton burp rip. “Ha! Ghannouj did not prepare the feast. He is terrible in the kitchen.”

  Yadokai lets one rip, too. “And a terrible dishwasher. We only let him be abbot because he makes the tea.”

  They all laugh, and I don’t get it. Even though Ghannouj seems to be the most revered of the monks, he cleans up after every course. It’s something I’ve been meaning to ask Vienne. Of course, there are a zillion things I want to ask her.

  “Actually,” Mimi says, “there are thirty-one inquiries you have mentally noted, including how to use the squat toilet correctly.”

  “That one can wait,” I tell her, then look to Vienne for guidance. She takes pity on me. “The food for the feast is provided by the farmers in the collectives nearby. It is their offering to the dead.”

  “And the Tengu eat the offerings?”

  “Sure do!” Riki-Tiki tries to burp,
which sounds more like a hiccup. “Compliments to the chefs!”

  Ghannouj returns with a plate of mochi stuffed with sweetened bean paste.

  Looking at the dessert, I see the chance to gather intel on what Vienne told me earlier—that the monk outside, Stain, had desecrated the temple.

  “Intel my eye,” Mimi says. “Your interest in Stain is purely testosterone fueled.”

  “Is that your way of saying I’m jealous of the jack?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “I’m just curious, Mimi.”

  “Though you may lie to yourself, cowboy, you can never lie to me.”

  But I’m not to be denied, so I ask the monks, “Should we take some of this to Stain? When I saw him before, he looked really hungry.”

  The monks shrug indifferently, and Vienne gives me a pained expression, which makes me feel even more curious.

  After sounding a louder burp, Riki-Tiki grabs a saucer with mochi on it. “Don’t bother. Stain doesn’t need food like the rest of us.”

  “Stain,” Vienne explains, when I look confused, “is an ascetic monk.”

  “Ah.” I have no idea what she means. “What’s an—”

  “An ascetic is a monk who seeks enlightenment by depriving himself of certain comforts and worldly pleasures.”

  “Like food?”

  Vienne nods. “Among other things.”

  “I never thought of food as a worldly pleasure,” I say. “Was he always an ascetic? Or did he become one after he was banished?”

  Crash!

  Riki-Tiki’s saucer hits the floor. The porcelain shatters. She’s still holding chopsticks near her mouth, a grain of rice clasped between them.

  A moment passes. No one else makes a sound.

  Uh-oh. I’ve stepped in it now.

  “Curiosity killed the cat,” Mimi says.

  “But satisfaction brought him back,” I reply.

  “Perhaps I should define ‘satisfaction’ for you, cowboy.”