Of a Note in a Cosmic Song; Part Three

by Nōnen Títi

  Kala agreed that they would have to learn to live with the dangers rather than run from them. She also feared missing the signs or making a mistake. “That fear lives in all of us, but fear immobilizes the mind as well as the body,” she said.

  “Unless, as Wana pointed out to me earlier, you have rituals or beliefs to conquer that fear,” Irma answered. “If not, you have to be afraid and still carry on, Nini. All of us do. We’ll have to follow our instincts and the knowledge we have left inside. We can only do our best. We’re only people.”

  They were right. No one was an expert anymore. Nini would have to trust nature; trust herself and not give up. Never give up.

  Somebody’s Child

  They had made do, just about. After pulling the chests inside the room that still had three walls standing, Hani had secured the edges of the rain-cover sheet to make a little tent shape in which the four of them could share the two remaining mats. It was very cramped, but dry. They’d spent the day sharing memories and looking at photographs before taking a brief walk to assess the extent of the damage outside. Daili had found many people walking around, each with reports of damage, but none had seen Kalim. Nobody ate that evening; nobody had eaten that morning or the night before. The water in the container, which had its lid ripped off, was mixed with rainwater. They drank from their cupped hands and tried to get some sleep.

  “Daili, are you in here?”

  It was Frantag’s voice, at the door. Daili crawled out of the tent and opened it for him, which was silly as the back wall was missing. Frantag carried two battery lamps and shone his light around. He explained that a large amount of people who had lost their homes were making their way down to the landers by the light of the two moons. They had to camp outside, but the soil there was totally dry.

  The news made Daili hopeful.

  “Not everybody is accounted for yet. I’m going around all standing shelters to record names,” he said. He was doing that alone. Yes, he could do with some help; that was what he’d hoped for. He looked utterly exhausted.

  “Do you want some water? It’s all we have.”

  He accepted and sat down on one of the chests for a minute. Yes, his own comate was fine and no, he had not been down in the crater himself yet, but he’d go down at first light. While Daili pulled her wet shoes back on, Frantag told her they were thinking of moving some people back to SJilai. All the children as well.

  “Back to the kabin?”

  “Until we’ve got new homes built.”

  “How will we do that?”

  “Mud, some say. I don’t know,” he answered.

  “You kids stay here. Whatever happens, you stay together,” Daili said to Hani, and left with Frantag.

  It almost felt good to be walking around in the cold night air instead of sitting under the cover and trying, in vain, to sleep. Armed with no more than a small plastipack and a lamp, Daili stopped at each home, went inside, and asked if there were people missing. Had they been seen after the storm? She marked each home as she went. The devastation was more obvious in the faces of those who were there than in the destroyed homes. Some blocks had no more than a few walls left standing, while others were without roofs, but shelters anyway.

  Once they finished North Street, Frantag wanted to cross the central area to get directly to Third Street. “The rest is totally gone,” he said. Daili looked where he pointed. The bigger of the two moons was looking at them from behind the foothills, exactly where the river had run down – the river she had believed to be stable.

  “This way,” Frantag said, guiding her around the roof of a house that blocked their path. She followed him cautiously.

  The smell here was of sewage, yet it smelled… For the first time since – since SJilai, probably – something actually alerted Daili’s nose. An intense quiet hung over the area due to the lack of homes. The light from the battery lamps made an eerie glow over the muddy plain. Here and there objects stuck out from the mud, the remnants of somebody’s memories. Their shapes cast strange shadows.

  Around the outer edge of Circle Road, more half-demolished homes still stood. Frantag went to the first one; Daili walked by it to go to the next. Her light fell on a small and unmistakeably five-fingered shape sticking out of the mud. “Frantag!” she hollered.

  When the echo of her own voice returned to her from the silence of the deserted town, she dropped to the ground and started scooping. Her hands moved frantically around the arm, and the still-pliable mud gave way easily. Frantag knelt opposite her, putting down his lamp so it shone on their hands, and started scooping as well. “Oh Bue.”

  A small shoulder came loose. It felt like ice. The digging was useless, but Daili went on anyway, as fast as she could. Bit by bit they pulled the body out. Daili wiped the mud away from its face: two eyes, a nose, a mouth still open. Cold and dead, no older than Tikot. She held the cold body against her chest, unable to move. This was somebody’s child!

  Voices came closer as she sat there. Opposite her, Frantag sat on his knees, his hands resting on his legs, jobless and lost. She saw in his face what she must look like.

  She was picked up and the body taken from her. She took the cup of water she was offered. Somebody brushed down her clothes. Somebody suggested she go home; they’d take over the survey. They would bring the child to the nurses on Sixth Street. It’s too late, was all Daili could think. Irma can’t help him anymore.

  “No, I’m all right, I can carry on,” she said when she realized that Frantag would do so anyway. She picked up the lamp and started walking, asking the same questions, hoping nobody would say they were missing a child.

  “Go home,” Frantag said, when they returned to where they’d started.

  “What about you?”

  “I’m going to the landers. I know who that little boy belonged to.”

  She walked up with him in silence. “A mudslide, maybe,” she remembered saying when she had first reported during the exploration mission, “but solid enough ground for a settlement.” Oh Bue, why?

  She cautioned Frantag to be careful on the trail and entered her home through the door. The kids were asleep. Too tired to care, Daili lay down on the floor on the other side of the chests.

  The dream was as real as the night had been. Daili was at a dig at the bottom of two mountains, trying to date the strata when a hand appeared. She dug it out, confident there had been people on Kun DJar before them. She held the body in her arms as she cleared the face; cold and dead, but this face she knew: It was Anni.

  “Mom, are you all right? Mom!”

  When Daili opened her eyes she found Laytji above her and perspiration on her head. She wiped it off. Hani brought her a small plastic box with some water. “You had a nightmare. We never even heard you come home.”

  Daili shivered as she recalled the dream and then the reality. Her mouth tasted of mud; another new sensation she didn’t want.

  “What happened, Mom?”

  “Nothing, just a bad dream. Sorry I woke you.”

  Tikot, still sleepy looking, came walking over.

  “It’s getting light anyway. We have to get up,” Laytji said.

  For what? What did they have to get up for?

  Laytji pulled on her coat and stepped into her shoes. “I’ll go see what’s happening.”

  “Better get you some clean and warm clothes,” Hani said, searching Daili’s chest. She also ordered Tikot to change. Daili took the clothes she was given and washed her face with a handful of drinking water. She felt a lot better by the time Laytji returned.

  “No food yet, but people are going to check the landers today so they can fly tomorrow.”

  “I don’t want to go back to SJilai. I want to stay and help out here,” Hani said. She threw her long hair out of her face with one flick of her head.

  “Me too.”

  Daili pictured the ruined town, all of which would have to be rebuilt – somehow. Where would they all live? She told the girls that life here was going t
o be very hard for a very long time coming. Tikot climbed on the chest next to her. She put her arm around his back.

  “I’m not saying it will be easy. I never asked for easy,” Hani said.

  “But Hani, think of what happened yesterday. It could happen again. Life is good on SJilai. There will be food there. It will only be until the place is repaired.”

  “I am not going.”

  “We’ll talk about it later. They’ll need adults to take care of the mess,” Daili said.

  “Do you think I can’t handle it? Are you planning to send the children back to the kabin after every storm? I don’t need taking care of.”

  “Horrible things have happened, Hani. I just want you to be safe.”

  “What? What’s happened, Daili? You were allowed to go help. We were told to stay behind like good little children. What happened last night that was so horrible it gave you nightmares?” Hani stood right in front of the chest, arms folded.

  “People have died,” Daili answered, tired of fighting.

  “I know people have died, but we all knew that would happen, didn’t we? You told us the stories of the Menever and Veleder colonies yourself. Didn’t we all know the spacekabin might never make it? The lander didn’t. Jitsi died.”

  “This is different than Jitsi.”

  “How? How can one death be different from another?”

  “Because we all knew Jitsi was ill and those people last night were not,” Laytji answered. “But that doesn’t mean Hani and I can’t stay here and help, Mom.”

  Daili knew she had lost. She also knew she wouldn’t like to go back to SJilai herself: This was their home now. “Last night…” She took a deep breath and then told them about the body she’d found. “So I dreamed about it. Only in my dream, the dead child was Anni.”

  “That’s horrible,” Laytji whispered.

  Hani was also still now. Tikot took Daili’s hand. “Who was it?”

  Daili admitted that she hadn’t asked.

  “I still want to stay,” Hani said.

  “Okay, we’ll stay.”

  “Stay where?”

  All eyes turned to the sudden appearance of Kalim in the open back wall.

  Tikot jumped up and ran into his arms, needing to be held. Hani updated him and explained what had Daili still shaken.

  “So you all want to stay?” Kalim asked. On Daili’s request, he told them what had happened on the base: One of the landers, with one of the technicians inside, had crashed when the soil gave way. “We saw it happening but there was nothing we could do.”

  “I want to go home!” Tikot suddenly cried.

  Kalim pulled him onto his lap. “It may be better if you did go back to SJilai for a while. You’re younger than the girls. Jema will be there. Then later you’ll come back to a new home with us.”

  Tikot wasn’t sure. He was afraid to go and afraid to stay. Kalim assured him they would miss him and he would only be gone until it was safe again. He also insisted on another confirmation from Laytji. Daili hoped Laytji would go with Tikot, that she’d changed her mind at the mention of Jema, but Laytji wanted to stay.

  Only then did Kalim embrace her. He was sorry he hadn’t been able to come back when he’d promised he would. “But I was right,” he said.

  Yes, he had been right about the weather, but she had been wrong about the land.

  Get Up and Start Over

  The dark didn’t last. Daylight returned to Benjamar’s home with Wolt. He didn’t bring his list – Frantag had already taken care of it – but he brought a report. “Seven people are still missing. We have no idea about the five fishermen out at sea, but the other two seakabins are destroyed. Only one lander may be able to leave. There are twenty-nine people dead, including one child. The missing people are most likely buried under the mud along with entire centre of town.”

  He explained that they’d found debris everywhere. Whole walls of prefab had broken into pieces, collapsed under the weight of the mud. Other panels had gone flying; they’d found them way out on the beach, along with countless mats and other possessions and even two zibots, thrown out to the sea by the wind and then washed back ashore. But it could have been a lot worse. Due to the prefabs being so lightweight, many people in the path of the flash flood had been swept away with their homes so fast that they had no time to drown. The only people who might actually be happy with the storm, according to Wolt, were the botanist and the zoologist, since great numbers of life forms had emerged with the water.

  “Where do we start?” asked Kalgar when he joined them, looking a lot better than the day before. “I just came from the crater; looks like they’ll be able to take the lander up tomorrow, weather permitting. We’ll have to decide who goes.”

  “The children,” Benjamar answered.

  “That’s what Frantag said, but I don’t like that, Ben. What if the lander is faulty? And what about the rest? They’ll need protection.”

  “Beats me, Kalgar. Trust Aryan to know what he’s doing. We have to trust each other.”

  Kalgar stared out over the empty space in front of him.

  “Your home is gone,” Benjamar said.

  “‘Buried’ is more like it. We’ll have to dig them out, one by one.”

  “Yes.” It seemed an impossible task.

  Wolt left them to go bring a report to Maike, who was trying to make a fire to boil the filtered river water.

  “I don’t like Frimon, but Bue, did he get people working. He’s a civil engineer at heart and he knew exactly what to do,” Kalgar said.

  “Do you think Tini can design new homes?” Benjamar asked.

  “Yes, but I have no idea if she can do anything with just mud.”

  “Well, it’s the best we have. Let’s go find the people who can think this out while the rest of us scoop dirt.”

  On the way, Kalgar told Benjamar he had climbed up into the mountains after failing to find anything to make a fire with. He’d not found any fuel supplies, but the walk had cleared his mind. “I found the reason for the flood.”

  He described the huge lake in the mountains, just behind the foothills. The river was its overflow, trickling down westward in a small crevice carved out over time. Once the lake had filled too high, more and more water had come down the narrow path. Then a huge chunk of soil had given way and drained more than a quarter of the lake’s volume. This whole torrent had gathered speed, collecting mud on the way, until it reached the valley and had broken free in a massive wave that landed on top of the town.

  “We should have known about that lake. I should have taken Daili down to the surface before we started building in that location, but I didn’t. She’d left her family twice already. I should have worked it out myself, but I was too impressed with the beautiful design of the town to think ahead. This was the only location to allow for the design, so I didn’t look.”

  “So when the town washed away you decided it was all your fault? That’s when I found you, unable to move – taking blame?”

  “Something like that,” Kalgar admitted.

  “And of course, all those other people went searching once they were on the surface and mentioned it to you, like Daili and Frimon, but you ignored them?”

  “No, nobody had been that far before. We warned everybody not to leave town, because of the fog and the sound,” Kalgar answered.

  “Maybe we were all afraid, Kalgar. This is a new place. We have to learn from this, but not let it stop us. You and Frantag may have started this colony, but that doesn’t make you solely responsible. People need to get out of this specialist thinking that makes them point the finger at others. From now on, every single person on Kun DJar will have to be equally accountable for thinking ahead and observing. We abolished status differences, so nobody can use that as an excuse either. We’re all new to this planet.”

  Kalgar said he’d keep that in mind and he’d get some people together to start excavating the town centre. Frantag was still in the crater. The people in charg
e were at their positions, so Benjamar concentrated on the land. He would take a walk.

  There was no map left to guide him, so he made a mental picture of the location of their town. North and west were the hills. South-east was the crater and the dunes beyond. Between them, going south, lay an enormous flat stretching to the horizon. Alert for blue rocks or anything unfamiliar, Benjamar started walking, keeping an eye on the features around him. The land was dry; no sign of mudslides.

  To the east, the row of coastal dunes became gradually rockier. To the west, the hills continued south. With the orange vegetation getting thicker – which, in combination with the pink sky, was almost painful to look at – Benjamar had to wade through it as he had through the water yesterday. The cattle had survived on this. Would people be able to?

  The SJilai crops, so carefully tended by the farmers, had come away with the topsoil during the storm; nothing was left. Ironically, those of the scientists had fared no better. If they were lucky, there could be one last batch left on SJilai. What else from SJilai would they be able to use? Before she’d become an inaccessible satellite or burn up in the atmosphere, this last flight, if it was going, would have to take down everything that could possibly be used. They’d need lists. The only way to do that was to involve everybody in the thinking process. Then they’d need people to go up there and tear her apart.

  About an hour away, there was a change in the landscape. The western hills veered further west and the ground cover became more varied. In the distance ran another river, which came from the hills but crossed the plain. It certainly didn’t seem to have suffered from the storm, but Benjamar was not an expert on the lie of the land. They’d need specialists to decide where to build next: planners, engineers, djarologists, and agriculturists… all were somewhere in town, walking around like he was: homeless and jobless. They’d have to get together. The next settlement would have to last. It had to be better thought through and better located. Streets should not all converge into a town centre, unless that centre was raised.