Naero was there when their mom winded Jan and wouldn’t let him go, telling him something similar.
Jan told her that he hated her.
Their mom winced. “Shhh…” she told him “You don’t hate me. You’re just mad at me because I put you in your place. I would die for you Jan. Many times over. I would give my life for you. Because I love you. Never forget who you are and who you should be.”
No.
Naero would never forget where she came from, or who and what she wanted to be.
What she should be.
Even if Master Vane reduced her to cinders this instant.
In her mind, Naero ended her story to Khai and grew very quiet.
“Naero,” Khai told her at last. “I think your mother and father were very great people. I’m glad they were your parents.”
“Me too.”
“You miss them both the way I miss my father. I can tell, but let me say this.”
“What?”
“They have prepared you well to stand against all of the challenges life can bring. I can see clearly that it is not in your nature to accept defeat or any obstacle in your way. Believe in yourself, as they did, as I do. Given the chance and the right knowledge and training, I think you can accomplish anything.”
“Thanks, Khai. You’re a good friend. That means a lot coming from someone like you. I know that my parents and their indomitable spirit lives in me. I sense it every day. They are always beside me, and I shall never be alone. I could say similar things about you. I know you will never stop striving to achieve your goals. I just don’t want them to kill you.”
Khai laughed. “Death is to be avoided.”
Naero smiled. Talking to Khai was like having Gallan back with her. And that was a very good thing indeed.
23
Naero spent another day with the Tua, learning their ways.
Each day it was something different.
Again, Vane was dead wrong. The Tua did not simply loll around in their own filth and screw, as he put it. They were not lazy at all, and kept themselves busy sustaining a very decent way of life for everyone.
For one thing, they kept themselves and the village and the caves very clean.
Although, there was a lot of chunga going on at random. For the Tua it was natural and fun. Just another part of life that they hardly paid any attention to.
They were a free people. They didn’t answer to anyone normally, or need permission to be who and what they were.
Who they wanted to be.
But even with all the Tua love everywhere, Naero started feeling a bit lonely at times herself.
She had started having some pretty wild dreams about Max Lii giving her more than just a private throck concert.
And more than that, her growing curiosity of what Khai actually looked like in the flesh bothered her something fierce. It burned in her imagination.
Naero tried not to let her mind wander too much on frivolous things.
Not good for anyone. She shook herself back to the present.
About two score Tua, all older adults, prepared for today’s journey.
Except for their small tool pouches, they took nothing else with them.
Bahan and Iika bowed and touched their foreheads to her. All the others did the same. Naero did the same, returning their greeting and honor to them.
“Where are we going today?” Naero asked. She breathed deeply. The sky always tasted so rich, clean, and fresh.
The Tua tribal leaders motioned to the southwest.
“Ten of our friends are near their times. They’ve chosen the bava trees southwest of here. They’ve made their partings with the others in the tribe. Now it is time to go forth.”
Naero understood. The five pairs were all over thirty summers, by so many months. They decorated themselves with circlets and garlands of bright, fragrant flowers.
They were going off to die, to go on to the next journey, and to be buried by their people in peace in a place of their choosing.
The party did not bother to sluna. They wanted to be seen. The five couples wearing the flowers laughed and spoke quietly among each other, re-telling favorite stories. Both they and the companion couples stopped to chunga and caught up when they could.
The ten sang at times, alone or in pairs. They sang to the trees, the sky. They sang to each other.
Gentle. Softly. Even a little sad.
Nah-gii-toh, zah-hah bahnoh, mah gah-duu, shii hah-dah zom.
They said farewell to their world that they loved and all within it.
Naero had never seen any of the Tua weep. It did not seem to be their way. They experienced every emotion and could know both great pain and emotional sorrow, but they did not cry.
They gathered food as they needed along the way. They gave some food to her as they always did. They knew where to find water.
They slept huddled around a great snoka tree that night, kept warm by the same soft, false-leaves that the tribe used for toilet paper.
Naero huddled with the Tua against the slightly chilly night air, although her Nytex suit kept her warm in part.
They woke up the next day as the sun rose and set out again.
By mid-day they reached the chosen spot somehow. Frankly, Naero could barely tell one patch of forest from another. Yet the bava trees and their leaves were somewhat different here. Some kind of local variation.
Then without warning, one of the ten Tua toppled over face down in a pile of leaves.
Without a word, his mate lay down and put her arms around him. She laughed and spoke to him softly, even laughing slightly.
Within minutes, she stopped breathing and went still also.
Naero was stunned.
What was this? What was happening? How was this possible?
Small bands of Tua knelt down and began digging the graves with their strong hands.
Five graves in all, like the petals of a flower, each about a meter and a half deep.
They sang their song of mourning and sorrow.
Moruu lahgoh nohmuu porron. Ah gii beh-ketuu. Urra gesh bamur. Ai-ii gah tandoh! Tandoh uu…nah-uu…
The Tua apparently preferred to be buried in pairs. Some of the remaining eight helped dig their own graves in the dark black, rich soil. The heady scent of which filled the air.
Those who did not dig produced rolls of supple brown snoka hide, which Naero had just learned was harvested in sheets.
Two other couples laid down in each other’s arms and stopped breathing.
With their cutting tools of stone and bone needles, the other remaining adults wrapped the bodies in hide and sewed them closed. But not before they kissed their friends’ faces, and gave them gifts of both flowers, bright crystals, and food.
Finally the shrouds of hide were all sewn shut, and placed carefully in the graves like strange pods. The dirt was scooped back in on top of them, and the Tua tamped down the mounds with their tough feet.
The last couple sat against a young bava tree, clinging to each other and kissing.
At last they too drifted away, breathing their last.
The Tua moved to bury them in the same exact fashion.
They covered the burial mounds with leaves and transplanted flowers so that the latter would grow over the graves.
Then the Tua sang their song of love.
Shae-lah vah hii nah, ellah vii shiinah, jahmii vae sha-noh, Shae-lah vah Yah-vae!
Naero learned their songs and sang along with them. Once more she allowed her own tears to flow freely. This time her reaction seemed to be either an amazing or confusing thing to the Tua.
Several of them came by and touched her face. They even licked her cheeks and tasted her tears, until Bahan and Iika waved them away.
No one said much.
So Naero spoke to Om.
Haisha! I don’t care what Master Vane says. The Tua are not rats. They are a very wise and beautiful people, and care about each other very deeply. They deserve as much respect
and admiration as any sentient race in the galaxy. Perhaps more than many others I’ve had dealings with.
Naero, I cannot help but share your emotions, but I do not fully understand or experience them yet, as fully as you do.
By then it was dark. The Tua did not intend to stay the night again and planned to march and run all night to return to the caves by dawn. Their task here was done.
They merely wanted to return home to their own lives.
Bahan and Iika agreed to talk. Naero had many questions along the way as they set out.
“Not all go away for their passing,” Iika explained. “It is a choice. Many elect to pass quietly among the tribe or in their homes, and are taken to burial places nearby.”
Then Naero spotted small glowing lights, flitting overhead and through the trees.
She counted ten of them, flitting about together.
“What are those?” she asked.
“What are what?” Bahan said, glancing around in the dark.
“Some kind of insect that can produce its own light?”
Iika shook her head. “There are no such bugs on Janosha that we know of.”
“Those little flickering lights that just passed overhead? You couldn’t have missed them.”
The Tua shuffled nervously.
“None of us saw any strange lights,” Bahan insisted.
Iika smiled, bowed and touched her forehead, and took Naero’s hands. Her eyes glistened in the dark.
“Perhaps only halaena can see what you have seen.”
24
The next morning, Naero awoke from a particularly terrible nightmare to another crashing, summer lightning storm, complete with lashing winds and driving rain.
A drenched Bahan shook her, screaming at her in pain and fear.
“Naero, please wake up. We need you, halaena. Only you can help us!”
She forced herself to snap awake, and jumped up, pulling away from him, looking around.
“What’s going on, Bahan? What’s wrong?”
The tribal leader was usually so calm. Now he shook and muttered, even whimpering.
“It’s…it’s Iika. The fire from the sky struck her. She fell onto some of the meat drying racks.”
“Let’s go.”
Ignoring the violent storm, they quickly climbed down to the ground level below. About twenty Tua hovered around.
“Let the halaena through!” Bahan shouted. They parted for her, bowing their heads.
Om, I really need your help here.
What is it?
She knelt down at Iika’s side.
Iika looked badly scorched, injured, and frightened, her chest heaving. She was soaked through and bleeding badly from several wounds.
The Tua positioned several screens of hide from the drying racks to keep the rain off of them.
“Naero!” Iika cried out, spotting her. Desperately grasping for and clutching her hand. “Help…me. Please…”
Her eyes rolled back white. She toppled to one side and collapsed in Naero’s arms. Going into shock. Dying.
Om. Please. We must save her.
Multiple wounds. Struck by lightning. First and second degree burns from the back of her head to her right leg and foot. One lung punctured, three critical piercing wounds on the back and left side. She has lost a crucial amount of blood.
What do we do? Tell me.
She’s going into shock and dying. We don’t even have a medkit. Short of biomancing, there’s little we can do. I’m still mostly offline.
Naero clutched her skull without hesitation and focused her knowledge and abilities, everything she had learned.
To perceive and reach the damaged areas in her own brain.
She traced the path of the mind control needle.
Om had done what he could–a relentless, amazing job really–to heal and regenerate nearly all of the damage on either side of the blockages.
Three intricate choke points remained, dead areas and scar tissue, completely blocking her from tapping into her unknown energies and the abilities beyond them.
Those powers still lurked within her. Along with her own Dark Beast. Waiting eagerly. Tempting her to unleash them.
Yes, her Dark Beast sensed her panic and bided its time.
Om attempted to caution her.
We have been through all this, Naero. We cannot go any further without risking even worse damage than we already have. Or you losing control.
Naero ignored him.
We can’t regenerate those areas completely. What if we open them up slightly, so that we can get a trickle of cosmic energy to ignite our potential biomancing abilities?
Possible. We might also short out your brain entirely and kill our current life form. Or leave you still physically alive, but completely brain dead. Or rage out of control. Or explode.
I’m going to give it our best shot, Om. I need you. Work with me here.
Very well. I know how stubborn you are. Let’s go then. Together. Right now.
They simultaneously tried to stimulate and then regenerate and heal the three choke points, enough to get Cosmic energies and brain functions passing through the damaged areas.
Seal it off! Too much, to much! Too much energy. It’s flooding everywhere!
She tried. It felt as if someone lit her head on fire from within.
Like trying to control and reverse a massive explosion within her own mind.
Almost…almost…don’t let it destroy us!
Suddenly Naero shrieked, convulsed, and fell back, completely drained.
Her Dark Beast roared inside her mind, struggling to rip free. To tap into Janosha’s energy flows and feed.
Naero blacked out.
When she came to and blinked a few instants later, she felt rain still dotting her face.
The Tua still clustered around her, petting her and whimpering.
Bahan sat in the mud beside her, holding Iika’s limp form in his arms, rocking and shaking.
Iika’s lips turned blue.
Naero sat straight up and gulped in air.
Cosmic power rushed through her. All around her. It infused her and pulsed all around her in shock waves.
For the second time since she arrived, she was at one with Janosha.
Her third eye blazed to life in the middle of her forehead, and her flesh glowed with a great light, as if lit from within.
Tua stared and crawled away from her in awe.
For a few fleeting, flaring instants. She was an energy being.
Naero knelt down and put her arms around Bahan and Iika. She immediately sensed Iika dying, her life energy ebbing away.
“I need you to help me save her, Bahan.”
He nodded. “Take my life, in place of hers,” he said.
Om. The blocks…they’re shattered. Completely gone. I’m biomancing. The rush of energies. I can hardly believe it.
Yet Om remained damaged from the very intensity of their efforts. She sensed it instantly. Only garbles emerged from his intellect.
She could help repair him later.
Saving Iika was all that mattered now.
First she healed Iika’s mortal wounds, regenerating them in seconds.
To do so, she drew much needed blood and life force energy directly from Bahan, transferring it into Iika.
He grunted and gasped, clenching his eyes and teeth and enduring the pain. Then he passed out.
Naero didn’t have time to figure out how to form blood and life force energy out of nothing, and replace them on her own. She simply wasn’t that skilled yet.
She needed all of that now if she was going to bring Iika back from the brink.
Using Bahan as a donor was the clear, logical solution.
That left both Tua weak and unconscious. For now. But after careful rest, more healing, and food, they should recover and live out their lives.
They had all saved Iika. Together.
Naero stopped glowing at some point, expending all of her pulse of Cosmic b
iomancy to affect the miracle at hand.
Her block was finally gone.
All of her abilities would eventually emerge again. And she would need to learn to control and master them.
Including her Dark Beast.
Or be destroyed by them.
All at once she could begin to apply everything that she had learned in the mean time. Everything Vane had taught her about Chaos Wisdom and Cosmic energy fields and biomancy. Janosha was a huge, constantly-available raw Cosmic power source.
Just tempting her to tap into it.
But she knew enough now not to rush into anything and most likely destroy herself one way or another. The risks were simply too great, and far too many.
Naero sensed instinctively that she was also free once again to re-learn to teknomance, and access all of her former powers, and more.
On a whim, she instantly bypassed Master Vane’s Tek-dampening and activated the programming in her flight togs.
Then her wristcom.
If she located enough iron and copper, she could eventually refine the raw materials to make a fixer.
Haisha! She still had the inert one in her duffle.
Not only that–the millions of insights she had gained on biomancy suddenly all made perfect, precise sense to her. Like having Zhen’s healing sight jacked up to the highest degree.
Yet something still felt terribly wrong.
What was it? What was she missing? Forgetting?
She remembered Master Vane’s ability to levitate and propel himself through the air at will.
With but a thought she used that ability in an instant. She floated off the ground and lifted Bahan and Iika up with ease.
She carefully tucked them away in their cave to rest.
Yet the intense feelings of unease only continued to increase.
Something was wrong. She was doing something wrong.
Her mind raced with possibilities. She flitted around without purpose or direction. The rush of energies intoxicating as ever, overpowering.
They were just that–overwhelming.
Waves of cosmic energy continued to flood into her. Going critical. Literally. Filling her way too full.
Like an energy bubble, expanding out of control.
In terror her mind saw the immense conclusion.
Spacer Clans Adventure 2: Naero's Gambit Page 17