Elvene

by P. P. Mealing

  Ever since Elvene’s rescue, Myka had stopped spending time with Sendra or his brother, Rafta. He felt like he’d moved to another stage in his life, and it wasn’t simply because he’d slept with the Ocean Woman, although that was a large part of it. It was more to do with the role he had played in her rescue and her rehabilitation. It took him away from his family and his friends and brought him closer to her; it seemed to him to be only natural. Nevertheless it didn’t stop Sendra from stopping him one day and speaking his mind on a lost friendship.

  ‘You don’t talk to me anymore.’ The tone of Sendra’s voice said as much as his words.

  ‘I know, Sendra, my life has changed.’

  ‘The Ocean Woman has you by your penis.’

  Myka was hurt by the vulgar accusation, partly because it was true, and perhaps that was why his temper flared. ‘You know nothing of her.’

  Sendra was surprised; he’d never seen Myka get so angry so quickly.

  ‘She nearly lost her life because of me. Do you understand that?

  Myka stared at Sendra who simply didn’t know what to say.

  ‘No, you don’t,’ Myka answered the question for him, and then he stormed off. As far as Myka was concerned he had severed his friendship with Sendra for good, and it was like severing his childhood. It never occurred to him that Sendra would feel exactly the same way. As a result, the two boys did not speak to each other for the rest of the year.

  Myka took Elvene hunting, and on this occasion she took her rappelling gun and even demonstrated it to him. Myka had never seen anything like it and said as much.

  ‘There are many things you haven’t seen, Myka, and there are many things you don’t want to see.’

  He didn’t understand her cryptic message but neither did he request enlightenment. One of the things that struck Elvene was his remarkable propensity for respecting her silence on certain matters. She realised of course that it was a Kiri trait.

  But there was one question that did puzzle him, and now that they were going hunting together, he believed he really needed to know.

  ‘How did you kill the night render?’

  She smiled at him and held up her arms as if she was carrying a load of wood, but really to show him the two metallic bracelets that she was wearing. Then there was a crackle followed by a sizzling sound and a spark danced between them.

  Elvene’s smile broadened as she saw the look of awe on his face.

  ‘But I only just managed it,’ she said in reference to the render. ‘Without you I would still be there.

  ‘Stand back,’ she said, and she turned side on to him with her hands held out straight in front of her; she produced a plume of blue flame that shimmered and sizzled in the air. Then as a coup de grace she hurled a bolt of fire at a nearby tree. It made a sharp crack and left a singe mark on the wood with a wisp of smoke and a smell that Myka couldn’t recognise.

  ‘How do you do that?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s a combination of plasma engineering and biotechnology.’ Then, realising she was using terms he couldn’t possibly understand, she elaborated, ‘These are tools like your spear only they are wired into my brain. I only have to think to make them work.’ She felt that she still hadn’t explained it properly but she couldn’t do any better. ‘Oh, and I can’t use them in water,’ she added. ‘But don’t worry, I won’t use them today unless it’s absolutely necessary.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ Then he asked a question that surprised her with its insight. ‘How do you aim them?’

  ‘Ah, very good question,’ and his unexpected intelligence made her smile. ‘They’re connected to my eyesight and proprioception. The plasma simply goes in the direction that I look. It also stops me from firing if my fingers or any other body parts are in the way.’

  ‘What’s prop-set-shun?’

  ‘Proprioception. It’s the sense that no one knows they’ve got but if they lost it they would find it almost impossible to do anything they considered normal, except sleeping and breathing.’

  He looked quizzical so she elaborated. ‘It’s the sense that tells you where every part of your body is. It’s what allows you to walk without thinking about it, and of course it’s absolutely essential for anything requiring hand-eye co-ordination, like fishing with your spear for instance.’

  ‘Oh.’ And he realised that it was just like throwing his spear, only different somehow.

  ‘What else can you do?’ he asked as if she were a magician who might make him disappear.

  ‘Nothing that you can’t do.’ She smiled at him. She realised that up to this point in time, he had never really been intimidated by her.

  ‘Remember they saved my life, along with you.’

  Myka realised that this was true, but it was the first time that he really understood the gulf that existed between them. It was a technological gulf, but the Kiri didn’t even have a word for technology.

  Myka had his spear and a bow with arrows in a shoulder-slung quiver made from skin. Over his other shoulder he carried a bag carrying some provisions, consisting mainly of pieces of fruit. Elvene wore a khaki body suit with calf-length boots; she carried her rappelling gun over her shoulder and wore a utility belt at her waist. She also carried the spear that Myka had made for her, but it appeared a complete incongruity. They made a most unlikely couple.

  From Elvene’s point of view it didn’t matter what they hunted; she just wanted to explore the island, but after her last adventure she was better equipped and this time she had a guide. Myka considered taking her to stalk antrop, but with only two of them he couldn’t use the strategy he’d used with Sendra, Rafta and Maklyn. But there were other smaller animals they could hunt; they just had to be wary of predators like igrams.

  Myka took her above his cave-like home and towards a pass that would lead them over the mountainous ridge that formed the backdrop to the beach where she had been living for the past months. Alfa was keeping track for her, of how long she’d been on the island, but she knew from the length of her hair, and the subtle change in the seasons that she’d been there roughly a quarter of a year. The days and nights weren’t noticeably colder but the weather was becoming less predictable in recent days, with less sunshine, and dark clouds occasionally spattering wind-driven rain. Today it appeared to be fine but clouds drifted overhead, casting shadows, and as they climbed into the cliffs the weather seemed to change to a grey mood portending dark.

  Despite the rocky terrain the vegetation seemed to be quite thick; very green with vines covering smooth-trunked trees and leafy ferns on the ground. There was water coursing through the rocks in some places and when they walked through narrow passages sometimes, the noise was quite loud even though the water was not always visible. Every sound they made seemed to reverberate, though neither of them talked. A human voice would have seemed the most unnatural sound to Elvene in this environment.

  By the time they had reached the upper slopes, it had started to rain, and Elvene wondered if they had simply picked a bad day. But Myka seemed unconcerned; he wore such little clothing that getting wet was not a major concern for him.

  They walked through a narrow pass and they were standing at an obvious vantage point with even the treetops below them. On this side facing away from the shoreline the rain had virtually ceased but all they could see was mist. Myka told her that on a clear day they would see a plain below them with a forest in between. He explained to her that this was where they hunted antrops, but it was also where the igrams hunted. He told her that the higher they were up the slopes the safer they were. The antrops, on the other hand, felt safer on the plains where they had a clear view and could defend themselves by herding together. On this day she might as well have been looking into a cloud. She could picture the scene in her imagination but she couldn’t see its physical presence.

  ‘We will go down a little way, but we need to be careful and look for signs of igrams as well as snakes,’ he explained.

  Myka had told her about snakes bef
ore; she had decided if they met one she wouldn’t hesitate to use her bracelet weaponry.

  But they hadn’t gone very far when they were attacked, not from the ground, but from the air. Elvene heard a whoosh and a huge flying animal flew right over them. It was not a bird, yet it had a wingspan that would have dwarfed the largest eagle she’d ever seen. It wasn’t feathered, but furred, and its wings were web-like in the fashion of a giant bat. It also had very large claws for feet and a snout like a dog’s complete with needle-like teeth. It appeared to have no trouble navigating in the mist and, in fact, used it as cover.

  It came back at them with a menacing grimace and a high-pitched screech that made both of them cower. To Elvene it appeared quite lethal.

  Myka called it a presperas, but to Elvene, it looked like a flying wolf.

  Elvene instinctively brought her crossbow to bear, but Myka put his hand on hers and gently forced her to lower it.

  The animal circled and Myka followed it with his eyes. It emitted another screech that reminded Elvene of a fox’s call, then it disappeared into the mist.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Myka said, but Elvene detected something evasive about his answer. ‘Actually’, he said, ‘I sent it away,’ and he looked straight at her to assess her reaction.

  ‘How did you do that?’

  ‘I’m not sure, as I said. I just know that sometimes I can communicate with things, and they understand me or we understand each other.’

  He spoke like someone trying to explain how they could perform some extraordinarily gifted skill, like a virtuoso musician trying to expound on their ability to someone who was musically inept.

  He looked at her to see if she believed him, but Elvene’s face showed only concern and puzzlement.

  ‘It doesn’t happen all the time, just sometimes, but I know somehow and the animal knows, and it’s like a secret between us.’

  ‘Does it happen often?’

  ‘Well, the first time it happened was just before you arrived, and to be honest with you, it scared me half to death because it happened with an igram.’

  ‘What do the Elders say?’

  ‘I’ve never told them.’ He looked at her as if he’d just been caught breaking some unwritten rule. ‘I’ve never told anyone except you.’

  Of everything that he’d said so far, she found this the most surprising revelation.

  She sat him down on a rock and made him look at her. ‘Why is this, Myka? Why do you feel you can’t tell anyone?’

  Myka seemed to think very hard before answering; he looked around as if the answer might appear to him out of the mist. ‘I don’t know, I just don’t want people to know.’

  ‘Are you frightened they won’t believe you?’

  He looked surprised, as if that was virtually impossible. ‘No, not at all. In our world, Elvene, people sometimes have gifts and then they are treated differently; like yourself for instance.’

  ‘And you don’t want to be treated differently?’

  ‘I think it’s a gift that only works because I keep it secret.’

  ‘But you told me.’

  ‘You are not of our world. I can tell you and I trust you.’

  What he said only partly made sense to Elvene. Nevertheless she had to show confidence in him, and, as he did for her, she needed to let him keep his own counsel if he wished.

  ‘Okay, Myka, I won’t talk about it anymore, unless you want to.’

  She could see the look of relief on his face, though not quite the smile she tended to remember him by. She had a desire to hug him, but she knew that from his point of view it would have been inappropriate, so she didn’t.

  They stood up and walked down into the valley. At one point they walked under a rocky ledge, and Myka stopped to show her something in the rock itself. There was a small finger-width crevice near their feet, and he hunched down on his heels, so she did the same. She could see a small pool of clear liquid, and when Myka stirred it with a stick it became solid so that the stick stuck out of it. But as soon as this happened a small crustacean ran out of the crevice to investigate, like a spider expecting captured prey.

  ‘It’s a trap,’ Myka explained. ‘We call it addler, but we use it to hold items in it for ourselves, between two pieces of crystal rock.’

  Elvene didn’t quite understand what he was talking about, but she didn’t quiz him on it either. Much later, she would see an example of it, as a form of Kiri art.

  They continued down the valley, but they didn’t do any hunting at all. It was as if the episode with the presperas had taken away any desire on his part, and for Elvene it simply wasn’t important.

  The day was otherwise uneventful, and they returned quite late and ate communally with the tribe.

  On this occasion Elvene returned to her ship alone, and when she arrived Alfa had a message for her.

  ‘I’ve received a message from the Corps. Roger wants us to contact him.’

  6. Roger

  ELVENE HAD THE MOST EXTRAORDINARY TEMPTATION to simply leave the planet and never tell Roger of its existence. But she knew that was impossible; if she was going to do that, then she should have already done it. Besides she couldn’t simply up and leave the Kiri without an explanation.

  She had been waiting for this message in the full knowledge of its consequences. She decided she needed to explain what was happening to the Kiri before they were introduced to Roger and the full complement of outsiders that he would bring with him.

  She also needed to explain to Alfa what she was doing, otherwise he would contact Roger on his own. The word ‘us’ in his message was not without significance.

  ‘Okay Alfa, I will contact Roger, but first I need to talk to the Kiri. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, madam.’

  ‘Good. How far away is he?’

  ‘He is at least three days away, madam.’

  ‘How many ships has he brought?’

  ‘He’s brought a Battle Class A1.’

  This was only one ship but it would contain an armada of smaller vessels inside. Elvene hated to think how many people would be aboard. ‘Okay then. Let him know where we are, that I am alive, and that I will talk to him soon.’

  ‘Yes, madam.’

  Elvene considered going to bed but knew sleep would be impossible; against all her previous practice she returned to the Kiri village. The people had thinned out as they did at nightfall; not everyone retired together. She did not see Myka, but she saw some of the Elders and she approached them. They asked her if anything was wrong. ‘My people are coming to get me.’ She spoke in the Kiri tongue. ‘In about three days time.’

  They didn’t ask her how she knew this but simply took her at her word. It would never have occurred to them that she wouldn’t know.

  ‘I wish to tell everyone tomorrow.’

  They nodded their heads and agreed. ‘After the morning meal,’ one of them said. ‘We will assemble the Elders.’

  ‘I must talk to Myka,’ she said. ‘Can you take me to him?’

  The same man said he would take her, and he led her up the slopes towards the caves.

  The entrances to the cave were not big and she had to crouch to enter but they were like a series of mini caverns joined together communally. It was the first time that Elvene had visited the Kiri in their caves and she felt like an intruder. People stared at her in a way that reminded her of her first arrival; they could tell that her presence was a bad portent. She was taken to Myka’s family and she sat and spoke to them all together. In the dim light she could see their worried faces, and she had no doubt that her own face didn’t encourage any optimism.

  ‘My people are coming,’ she said. ‘I will need to leave here shortly. They will arrive in three days or so.’

  Myka kept his face vacant; both his parents and his brother instinctively looked to him. Lenya spoke first. ‘Do you want to leave?’

  It was a very astute question, Elvene thought, and no
t one she had expected.

  ‘Yes and no,’ she said, but it was a feeble answer, ‘I cannot stay here forever. I’ve always known that.’ She looked at all their faces. The men said nothing, but Myka finally spoke.

  ‘Can I stay with you tonight?’

  ‘Yes, of course you can,’ she didn’t hesitate to answer. ‘Tomorrow I will explain to the Elders what will happen. They are organising an assembly.’

  No one said any more, and she and Myka left.

  Back at the ship they made love in a hungry, insatiable way that surprised them both. It was as if all their sensations were heightened and the need to appease them was overwhelming.

  They lay together in silence for a long time; the mood was a strange mixture of melancholy and respite.

  ‘When will you leave?’ he asked.

  ‘Not straightaway. But you won’t be able to stay here while my superiors are here.’

  He didn’t understand this, and though he remained silent, she felt him tense.

  ‘I’m sorry, Myka. It is just the way it is.’ Even to her own ears it was a feeble explanation.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Neither do I very well. Myka, we always knew this was going to happen.’

  ‘Yes I know,’ but he didn’t sound convincing.

  ‘Myka, I cannot say what I feel or what this means to me. But whatever happens I will never forget you and you will never forget me. Memories are more important than dreams or wishes.’

  But Myka said nothing. He buried his face against her breasts and started to make love once more. She felt his desire as her own, but this time the mood was less hungry and more leisurely. They took their time to explore each other’s feelings and sensations. It was from a desire to please as much as a desire for release.