‘Yes, I am.’
‘You were with him last night.’
Elvene couldn’t hide the shock on her face, or the anger. ‘Are you spying on me, or is it them?’ She gestured in the direction of his ship next door.
‘Don’t get paranoid. A better question is why are you hiding this relationship from us?’
‘It’s none of your business.’
‘Don’t be so self-righteous. You and he are the only communication link we have with this community. And suddenly everything that we do, or for that matter, that they do, is dependent on just two people.’
‘I don’t like what you are insinuating.’
Roger noticed that she hadn’t raised her voice; a sign that she was very angry indeed. ‘I’m not insinuating anything, just stating the facts.’
‘Okay, let’s look at the facts. Since I’ve been here, Myka has had three dreams, and two have been of fundamental significance. There is no reason to doubt that the third one is less so. Forget about our relationship, as hard as that is for you to do. Our relationship has nothing to do with Myka’s dreams.’
Roger smiled. ‘Do you realise what you are saying? All these dreams relate to you.’
‘Okay, whatever you say. But the last dream relates to his people; it’s only indirectly related to me.’
Roger put his hands on his thighs as if he was about to stand, but remained seated. ‘Anyway, it’s all academic. We are going to leave here in the next day or so; probably tomorrow, and after that, the fate of the Kiri is in their own hands.’
Elvene nodded her head. She knew she could not argue with Roger on this. It was logically the right decision irrespective of the outcome. But she felt an enormous sense of responsibility and more than a little guilt, perhaps even betrayal.
‘Why can’t I stay?’ Her voice sounded small, like she was far away.
‘Because you are a danger to them, the same as me,’ Roger replied. ‘Ask yourself, Elvene, is it really in their best interests, or do you merely want to keep a relationship going? Your heart is the most vulnerable part of you, Elvene. It is why you are such a good fighter against the marauders, because with them, your heart doesn’t come into it. It is well known, perhaps not by you, but certainly within the Corps, that you have created the best partnership with your ship. Think about this, Elvene. Your heart is your one weakness.’
Elvene had never considered this before but she couldn’t help but see the truth in what he was saying. ‘Is it so wrong to listen to one’s heart?’
‘No, it’s not, but you always knew that you were going to have to leave this boy behind. It’s happened in theatres of war since the beginning of humankind. It usually happens to men, so don’t feel it’s because of your gender.’
Elvene’s gaze was locked on infinity. ‘Yes, you’re right.’ She was almost talking to herself.
Roger stood up; he seemed satisfied that he’d finally unlocked all of her secrets from him. ‘Okay. Now are you going to talk to the Elders about a flight over the island?’
‘Yes.’ She looked at Roger as if she’d just come out of a reverie. ‘I’ll go and see them straightaway.’
8. Last Contact
WHEN SHE EXITED HER SHIP, HOWEVER, ELVENE REALISED THAT TAKING A FLIGHT over the island was suddenly not a priority for her. Her main concern was when and how they were going to leave, and what the consequences would be for the Kiri. Despite her just completed conversation with Roger, she was still far from comfortable with the idea. Nevertheless, she had instigated the execution, if not the idea, and she had to follow it through.
The peace of mind she’d experienced the previous night was no longer with her, and what’s more, she knew it was beyond resurrection. She really wanted to talk to Myka, but true to her word she went and saw the Elders first. It wasn’t that difficult to organise. They asked her how many could go. She answered that if they took both their ships they could take quite a few, as many as six in each vessel. The Kiri indicated numbers up to about twenty by pointing to different parts of their body. They hadn’t expected this and they said they would have twelve people after lunch. If they wanted, they could all eat together. She said this was a good idea. Lunch, she realised, wasn’t that far away, but she still wanted to talk to Myka.
When she found him she asked him to walk to the beach with her. They talked as they walked along.
‘I’ll be leaving here tomorrow, probably.’
He looked at her, and tried to imagine watching her ship vanish into the sky, but found the image impossible to conjure. ‘Why do you have to go with them?’
Elvene sighed. ‘That is so difficult to answer.’ She stopped and gripped him by the shoulders to force him to look at her. ‘I am not from this world, Myka. You and I are so different really. You could never live in my world and I cannot stay here forever.’
He knew she was right, but he couldn’t get the truth of what she was saying to fit with the emotional truth of what he was feeling.
‘It doesn’t feel right,’ he said, only he said it in Kiri. The Kiri had a specific expression for such a sense, which they called quala, so he said ‘wos quala’. Elvene would have translated it as bad karma or something of that nature, rather than a rational perception of things not being as they should.
They started walking again, but his use of the expression made Elvene think of something else. ‘Does leaving the island “feel right” to you?’
He looked at her, but they kept walking. ‘Yes, it does.’
‘Why? Was that part of your dream?’ Elvene kept her eyes on the path in front of her, but she knew he was watching her intently.
‘No, it wasn’t.’
They were almost at the beach now, and Elvene said nothing, waiting for him to continue.
‘I have always known I would leave this island, it was just a question of when.’
This time they both stopped.
‘You have dreamt this?’ Elvene asked.
‘No, not at all. It’s just something I feel I was born to do.’
‘And you feel this is the time?’
‘I know it is the time. If we stay, the dream will come true.’
He said it with such certainty that Elvene was incongruously reminded of Alfa giving her a navigational trajectory.
‘You have told the Elders this? Or your father?’
‘Only what I told them last night.’
They walked onto the beach and sat down on the sand. They felt the breeze and looked at the expanse of water before them under a clear blue sky.
‘It calls me,’ he said.
Elvene looked at him anew; it was a side he’d never confided to her before. ‘You’ve thought about this for some time haven’t you?’
‘Yes, I thought about it the morning before you arrived.’
She could see that it all made perfect sense to him; everything that had happened was like a compass arrow pointing his life in a specific direction.
‘Other people have tried to leave, haven’t they?’
‘Yes. They never came back.’
‘What makes you think that you can?’
‘I don’t know. I think that when we find our destination, perhaps we won’t want to come back.’
‘I can tell you Myka, that there is land beyond this sea, but it would take months for you to get there, many seasons.’
‘How many seasons? A whole cycle?’
‘No, maybe half of half a cycle, maybe more, maybe less. I’m not really sure.’ Half of half was indicated by cutting her first finger twice with her other hand.
She looked over towards her ship and Roger’s; she remembered her other mission for the morning.
‘I have to talk to Roger about this afternoon; we’re having lunch with the Elders. Can you wait for me?’ She stood up to leave him.
‘Can’t I come with you?’
Elvene looked at him. ‘Yes, of course you can.’
They walked along the beach towards the ships. ‘You always canoe across, d
on’t you?’
‘It’s quicker,’ he said.
Considering the curve of the beach, she realised it probably was. But she also knew that he just loved to be on the water.
When they got to Roger’s ship, which was slightly closer than hers, she called out, ‘Elvene to see Roger.’
The ship’s door opened in its gangplank mode, and to her surprise it was Lin who walked out. ‘Roger is busy,’ she said.
‘You remember Myka,’ Elvene said. They nodded to each other and said hello. ‘Just tell Roger that we are having lunch with the Elders and then we’ll take them for a flight over the island. There will be twelve all told; six in each ship.’
Lin nodded. ‘I’ll tell him. Where will we meet you, here or at their camp?’
Elvene looked at Myka, trying to decide what to do, then she had an idea.
‘We’ll be in my ship, just call us when you’re ready to go.’
Lin looked as if she was going to say something, then changed her mind.
Elvene turned to Myka. ‘Come with me.’
Lin watched them board Elvene’s ship and then went inside herself.
It had been some time since Myka had last entered Elvene’s ship, not that he’d ever really considered it a second home. It was Elvene’s home, not his, and he’d always seen himself as a visitor and a foreigner, even when he slept there.
‘I want to show you something,’ she said. ‘Alfa, give me a projection of the island from one thousand.’
Of all the things that Elvene had showed him, nothing surprised him more than seeing a giant map of his island home appear on the wall of the ship. ‘We are here.’ She pointed to the corner of the lagoon and Alfa conveniently placed a marker there like a small triangle.
‘Okay, Alfa, just pull out slowly and I will tell you when to stop.’
Myka watched in amazement as he saw his island diminish in size and the rest of the archipelago encroach from the outside. The other islands predominantly came from the left; the sun, he realised, rose from the right. There was one island further out to the east, which was just a rocky crag like the top of a mountain from the sea. He knew that on occasions he had seen it when he’d gone outside the reef. Their home was not the largest island but it was the only one with a sheltered lagoon, and it had abundant life.
He watched the islands get smaller and smaller, until he started to see the curvature of the horizon, then Elvene gave Alfa another command. ‘Track east, but keep the archipelago on screen.’ Alfa did as she asked, and Myka watched in awe as he saw the ocean stretch away to his right. He could see other islands dotted here and there, but even his home was becoming a speck in the expanse of broadening water. And then finally a huge land mass appeared on the right verge of the map.
‘Stop,’ Elvene commanded. ‘That’s how far it is,’ she said to Myka, and saw the stunned look on his face. ‘There is also land on the western side but the ocean currents and the winds favour you travelling east.’
Myka found himself taking a deep breath; he found himself truly speechless. ‘Is it possible?’ he finally asked.
‘Yes, it’s possible. But it’s very difficult if you’re doing it for the first time.’
Elvene didn’t even like to think of Myka attempting such a feat, but she kept any reservations she had to herself. She knew that if he truly believed it was his destiny, she could not dissuade him, and nor, she believed, should she try.
Instead she told him what she knew. ‘Back on Old Earth there were a people who lived on islands much the same as you do, in an ocean that was called the Pacific, and probably larger than this one here.’ She pointed to the expanse of water that was on the map.
‘Old Earth,’ Myka repeated. ‘Is that where you’re from?’
‘Where my ancestors are from, yes.’ She paused deliberately for effect. ‘And yours.’
He looked at her quizzically.
‘We share much the same genes, Myka, you and I. So yes, they’re your ancestors too.’
‘What are you talking about? I don’t understand.’
‘You and I are of the same species; we are both human. We could have children.’
‘So?’
‘That means, Myka, that you and I must have the same ancestry. Your ancestors, believe it or not, came from Old Earth, just like mine.’
He could almost grasp what she was saying, but not quite.
‘All the animals that are on this planet: the igrams, the antrops, the night render and the presperas; none of them exist on my world. None of them existed on Old Earth. So you see, you and I originally came from the same world. We had to, otherwise we wouldn’t be so much alike. I mean we can even talk to each other.’
He slowly began to see the logic behind what she was saying. And yet it explained nothing; if she and he were from the same world, no matter how far back in time, why didn’t the Elders know? But he didn’t ask Elvene this question because he knew she didn’t have the answer. Instead he asked her something that was closer to home.
‘These people who were like us. How much like us?’
‘Well, they lived on islands like you, but probably not in caves, and they had canoes, and they fished, and they were outstanding navigators.’
‘Navigators, what’s that?’
‘Believe it or not, Myka, certain members of their tribes could sail across these vast expanses of water, from one island to another.’ She pointed on the map to show him what she meant. ‘These very special people were called navigators, and they used a method called etak.’
‘Etak?’
‘Yes they could sense where they were and how far they’d travelled. They also used the stars to help them know their direction.
‘Etak was a talent or a gift that only certain people had, and they were the only ones who became navigators.’
He nodded his head in understanding.
‘So perhaps you have this gift, Myka, only you don’t know it.’
Myka looked at the map on the wall, and realised all at once why he had been destined to meet this woman. Who else could have told him this or shown him the way?
Elvene noticed a look of concentration and determination that she’d never seen on his face before. This is a new Myka, she thought.
He saw her watching him. ‘You know what I’m thinking, don’t you?’
‘Yes, Myka, I do. Here, let me show you something familiar to you. Alfa, give me the night sky.’
Alfa immediately turned the room into a planetarium.
‘You recognise this?’
‘Yes, of course. That’s the night sky for the water season.’
‘You know these stars very well, don’t you?’
Myka nodded. She knew that because there was no moon, and there were no artificial lights, except what they produced by fire, the Kiri used the constellations to determine the seasons of their yearly cycle around their sun.
‘Well, you can use these stars to help you navigate. I will show you.’
She then asked Alfa to demonstrate the motion of the stars; how they always rose and set in the same orientation, only changing the time with the seasons. Then she asked him to move north and south so she could demonstrate to Myka how new stars appeared and others disappeared depending which way they went.
Myka grasped the concept immediately, but understood that it would take practice on open water to master. He realised that Elvene had not only given him a rare insight but the very key to his dreams.
The next instant the wall went blank and Alfa interrupted them, ‘Roger is waiting for you, madam.’
‘Thanks, Alfa, tell him we’ll be right there.’
If Roger was surprised to see Elvene emerge from her ship with Myka, he didn’t show it. He was alone and the three of them walked off together without saying anything at all.
Elvene was surprised when the Elders asked Myka to join them as they sat down on grass woven mats to eat their lunch. The lunch passed uneventfully with no meaningful conversation that Elvene could
remember. But when they had finished, she was even more surprised when the Elders suggested that Myka should be one of those selected to go with her. By the look on his face, she could see that he was just as surprised as she was.
A group of eleven Elders plus Myka returned to the two ships where they were met outside by Lin and Essayas. The Elders sorted themselves into two groups of six and five, and Myka stayed with Elvene’s group. Roger had agreed beforehand that Elvene should take the lead.
Although Myka had been inside Elvene’s ship on a number of occasions, he had never seen her pilot it. He considered himself very privileged to be allowed aboard to witness this aspect of her world. The ship could create its own inertial reference frame through its anti-gravity generated fields, so none of the occupants felt the forces of motion. Even so, Elvene provided them all with seats and had them harnessed in. This was because visual orientation acting contrarily to the sensation of balance could easily make people fall over, especially since the ship could provide virtually complete surround vision.
The seats literally rose out of the floor, three rows of two. She had Myka sit up the front on the right hand side. The seats were low to the floor and semi-reclined so that their knees stuck up a bit. To the Elders’ surprise, she issued them all with small bags, explaining that they were in case they felt the need to throw up. As soon as she said this she wondered at the wisdom of making the voyage straight after lunch. Oh well, better they have something than nothing, she thought. They all looked at her strangely, but she knew that the odds were against them, since they had never experienced any motion before, except for the waves under their canoes.
Elvene had her own seat off to their right, separated by at least two arm lengths, and slightly in front. It had armrests and it could swivel so that she could face them or any direction she wished. Unlike them, she put a helmet on with a black visor that covered the top half of her face. Myka had once seen a rock that colour; it had looked like a black blob of water that had been frozen into rock, only it had sharp edges. She had no obvious controls but Myka saw her put a pair of gloves on as well. She then seemed to press the side of her helmet and something like a wand came out and went across her mouth.
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