by Nōnen Títi
“I don’t know. I’m tired like I was then. I guess I needed somebody to know.”
“You should have asked for help. You could have at least tried.”
She followed along in silence when he started walking.
He shouldn’t have said that. “I’m sorry, Maike.”
Now she looked surprised. “Why?”
“You don’t get much support in your job. And you’re right; everybody automatically assumed you were law enforcement; here and on Habitat Three. We should have been aware. We’ll get more people to help you and I will hold a trial – to lay down some new rules, if nothing else.”
“Thanks, Benjamar.”
In the distance stood the new social building. It was located, once again, very central and near the clinic, but this time on a rise. It would be a good place for a trial. “Tell me something, Maike: Is Thalo trying to get you to talk with these attacks?”
She said no – if anybody was, it would be Leyon. For Thalo this had been a personal humiliation, and he didn’t want it to become public knowledge. She believed he was behind the silence of most ex-Habitat Three people.
“So, why is Leyon so intent on killing Thalo?”
“Because Tarin wasn’t the first person Thalo molested,” Maike answered.
“Who else?”
“At least two others, one of them a boy.”
“Leyon?”
She stood still. “Yes, but Benjamar, you have to understand that you can’t mention that in a trial. The kid has enough trouble already without anybody knowing.”
“Which is why Leyon keeps quiet about Thalo?” There was really no need to ask. There was a whole web of secrets to be kept here. The game was one of threats and Benjamar was being asked to play along. Maike wanted him to hold a public trial but without giving away the secrets. Besides being unethical, it was likely to be impossible; yet if he refused the situation would escalate. “Why do people do that kind of thing, Maike?”
She threw up her hands. “I guess, if it’s all you can get…”
“Promise to call me if Leyon makes trouble this time? Promise to let me handle it?”
“I can’t go back on my word. If I do that I may as well pack it in,” she said, and resumed walking. “I had no choice on Habitat Three, Benjamar. I was supposed to make sure everybody was safe. All lived in fear of the two of them, the guards included. I did the only thing that was left, but I waited too long. I was furious by then.”
“It wasn’t just Thalo?”
“No, another guy, Haslag. But he hasn’t caused any more trouble. He even told me the other day he’d sort Thalo out for me. He’s a bit bigger than Leyon. He’d do it right.”
This time Benjamar stopped her from walking. “Let us try doing it by official means, okay? Give me a kor.”
“Thanks, Benjamar.”
He stood there while she walked away. She had coped with an impossible situation on SJilai. Coped, though maybe the wrong way, while the government had not been told thanks to DJar prejudice. She’d believed the government of SJilai would come after her and, with her, all the Habitat Three people.
Why hadn’t anybody talked? Four gran of people. Where was the gossip that used to go around at the slightest hint of something being wrong? Had Maike been wrong? Did the Habitat Three people think she’d been wrong? What options did he have to solving this in a trial without giving away the details?
Benjamar had no idea how, but he owed it to Maike to try.
Hopeless Predictability
Daili expressed her concern about the expedition to Sunya, who had signed up to go. During the fourth moon a small group of people would hike over the western hills to look for better land, both for fuel and for the cattle. The SJilai scans of the area looked promising, but the expedition would be in unknown territory and would not be able to contact anybody, now that every chance of ever making the spinners work had washed away with the flood. The expedition might never return, just as Lokit had never returned from his walk to the river delta. A search party had eventually found him dead; another heart attack victim. Thank Bue, Lokit had gone against Daili’s advice, so she didn’t feel any guilt, but the whole idea scared her. Things on Kun DJar seemed to have a mind of their own, as if the planet had once again allowed them this little patch but wanted them to stay away from the rest. Daili wasn’t frightened by the objective problems, like the shortage of food or fuel, or the frozen water in the tubs that had once again killed a batch of seedlings. It was the random changes to what was around them that scared her: One day she could have sworn a huge rock was sitting right at the bend of the river, but the next day it was further over. It couldn’t have been moved by people, for there were no tracks. But nobody quite remembered if it had been there before.
In the dunes it was worse. Daili felt watched, but when she looked around there was nothing. Sunya didn’t notice it. She did see the black cloud, though, which wasn’t just a rain cloud, not even like the one that had sat over the settlement during the storm. This one was jet-black, as if painted that way, and it seemed to be there intentionally, a bit like the red fog that hovered around the area sometimes. It was just a basic feeling Daili could neither shake nor explain. Talking about it to people didn’t help.
“That’s impossible. There has to be a scientific explanation for it. We can’t go by assumptions,” Kalgar said when she suggested they’d warn people about leaving the area.
“I have no answer for you, Daili. Maybe you are just tired?” Benjamar said.
“They think I’m stupid,” she told Kalim. “They want proof and I have none, but they don’t even bother to check it out for themselves.”
“Nobody thinks you’re stupid, Daili. You just worry too much. If everybody else feels it’s safe, it has to be your perception.”
“Lokit’s death was not my perception,” she answered, irritated that he brushed her off and then tried to put an arm around her. Soothing wasn’t enough, and telling her not to worry was useless. She knew they were gut feelings and not scientifically sound, but she wanted to be taken seriously.
“It scares me, Kalim. One day I look at Benjamar and I think we could all get that old, but then something like this happens and I think it could be me tomorrow. I feel scared for the kids, for you, and for me. It all seems so hopeless.”
“Nothing is hopeless, Daili. Remember Southland? Nothing wanted to grow there, yet everywhere else DJar was fertile. Have faith. You have to.”
Hani was also having trouble with faith. The overcoat she shared with Laytji was worn thin and she was too skinny for this climate. Kalim had offered her the coat he shared with Daili, but Hani refused. “Then neither of you can go out anymore.”
Tikot was okay. He fitted the coats the girls had grown out of, but he didn’t feel the cold as much: He ran around a lot. Station Four had to be Kun DJar’s winter. Bue help them if it was not, if it would get even colder.
It was a strange cold, too. On DJar winter had moisture, but here it was just cold. The water in the containers froze so it had to be melted down. If too full, the containers cracked. The river had become a tiny stream. Day and night were of equal length and the nights were clear and dark, while the daytime sky was pink. Far above them, Kun shone brighter than ever.
“This is not possible. Kun is supposed to keep us warm,” she said to Benjamar on her next visit. She had made it a point to visit him often; not only because he lived alone, but also because he had answers to many questions.
“Kun DJar is a long way from Kun, Daili. Much further than DJar ever was from Bijar. Light travels far, but heat gets lost very fast over distances like that. Besides, Kun DJar’s orbit is a lot more elliptical. Count on this cold lasting for a very long time.”
“Then why do we find so much more life now than when we first arrived?”
As Benjamar did when a remark was made too fast, or was one he’d expected, he let his eyes answer first: A twinkling, which was not meant as derision, but could be taken that
way. “Maybe because they evolved with this climate and adapted?”
He was right, of course. It was the obvious answer. She had just assumed that new life came with warmer weather, because that’s what it did on DJar, the same way they all assumed things because of what they’d learned.
“Listen to this, and don’t immediately say it is impossible,” Remag told Daili when she brought Tikot to spend the day with him. Ever since the eightstars Tikot had shown an interest in Remag’s work and went along to assist sometimes.
Remag showed them a small, orange-hooded, mushroom-shaped life form which was motile. It crawled from his hand onto Tikot’s in a slow manner, using a row of stump-like extremities. Remag had spent the last moons observing the creatures: The orange fields were full of them but one had to look carefully to find any. He had come to the conclusion that these creatures copulated like animals and produced seeds or eggs. Out of those, identical baby creatures had emerged.
“Real animals?” Daili asked.
“Don’t jump to conclusions; that’s what I did. They feed on the orange starches. They also feed on the grubs that live just beneath the soil – those same grubs people have been collecting these last days to be fried and eaten. They found the grubs but missed these creatures because they don’t resemble anything we know.”
“Have we been eating their food? That’s not fair,” Tikot said.
Remag cautioned him not to squeeze too hard. “That’s not all, though. These same eggs or seeds develop into the starches and the grubs. I don’t know yet if it depends on the individual laying them, or on the location, or whether it is random. But this species lays its own food, which then multiplies asexually by binary fission. The young eat and grow. I don’t think the adults eat. They just reproduce and die.”
“Are you sure? How can plants and animals be one and the same?” Daili asked, before remembering he had warned her not to say that.
“I’m beginning to learn that nothing is impossible. I am quite sure. I have spent night and day observing in the field and since then I’ve been looking for the less obvious connections. It’s startling how much life there is once you stop looking with DJar eyes,” Remag said.
He wasn’t sure yet how these self-feeders fitted in the larger ecology, but he was very happy with his find. “Life seems to be an endless performance, even if there is no audience,” he said.
Daili agreed, but she feared that the performance would end one day because people were not satisfied with just observing.
“Those are grubs, like worms,” Tikot announced at meals that evening when Kalim brought home the little fried rolls.
Laytji pushed her bowl away. “Worms, yuck. I’ll never eat that again.”
“Good, because they’re proteins for the self-feeders and not for people,” Tikot answered, satisfied that his words had the desired effect.
“Yes, you will,” Hani told Laytji. “If it’s all there is, you will. You wanted to live off the land and be primitive. Now you finally have your way.” But she also hesitated.
They did eat them that day, and the next day, and the day after, all but Tikot, who survived on drinking only water until the meals kitchen introduced a different food.
Kalim told Daili he’d not dared tell Tikot that these were the eightstars, which had been tested and approved for consumption.
Daili wished he’d not told her either. Sure, the food supply was a worry, but did that give them, the invaders, the right to go collecting these beautiful little creatures in big amounts? Could they justify emptying the river of what may be vital to the natural equilibrium for their own survival?
And though the unpredictability of the planet scared Daili, it was this predictability of people that caused her to feel so hopeless in the early moons of Station Four. Not only the stupidity of the quarrels, but her own ignorance in having believed that people would be more careful with this new land, that they would work together to ensure peace. People didn’t learn. They were right back where they’d been before the storm.
Kalgar and Frantag had announced a government of eight members, six to be elected from the population. To be eligible for running, one needed proof of having at least a set of supporters and an original opinion… But there weren’t six different opinions; there were only two: Frimon’s and Roilan’s – those who wished for a simple life in peace with the land, and those who wanted to rebuild civilization. The disagreements about nature versus technology affected everybody. It had families divided.
As if Tini didn’t have enough trouble trying to cope with Jari, who was becoming downright unbearable with her angry moods, now Kunag had turned against her and Branag for supporting technology. Apart from that, both he and Branag fled the home to be away from Jari, leaving Tini feeling as hopeless as Daili did, if not more so. “Branag works all hours. He never even sleeps.”
As much as Daili tried to listen and comfort Tini, there was little she could do. Both Kunag and Jari were old enough to be independent, but that didn’t make it easier. Tini didn’t want to tell them to find a home of their own. She had tried to get Jari to sign up for the expedition, but in vain; the harder people tried, the more obstinate Jari became.
Daili asked Hani to talk to Branag, but Branag didn’t want to talk. “He doesn’t believe in himself anymore,” Hani said. “His last hope was on the photon panels from SJilai, but they don’t work here. Nothing much works anymore,” she finished.
Daili went back to Benjamar. “Can’t you talk to them? Jari will listen to you. Or could you give her a job?”
He reacted with the familiar smile. “Now why would she listen to me, Daili? Since when do young people believe their elders could know something? You’re asking me to get her out of that hide-away. I’m no expert at that. I have no jobs to give away either; I’m just as redundant as she is. I would have liked to go on that expedition myself, but I’m too darn old.” He promised he’d try and talk to Branag, though.
After leaving his home, Daili walked aimlessly. The library would have been the place to go, but it was gone. As she had so many times before, she slowed in front of Jema’s home. This time she wasn’t given the chance to walk away: This time Nini opened the door and invited her in.
The home was no bigger than Benjamar’s. It had an arched wall to divide the back room and excretorial recess from the living area. The three mats had been stacked against a wall to make a couch-like seat. Jema sat at the end of it next to another woman, who introduced herself as Marya and who Nini promptly invited to help her fetch hot drinks for the four of them.
Daili couldn’t tell if Jema was surprised to see her. With a polite but empty smile, Jema pointed to the covered chest against the short dividing wall. “Have a seat.”
Daili did. The chest felt soft and was more comfortable than either she or Jema were at the moment. If they could only just forget about these last stations and talk like they used to.
“How are you?” Daili started.
“Fine.”
“How was SJilai?”
“Quiet.”
Daili was already sorry she’d let Nini leave. “I’m helping to organize a trefin. I’m thinking somebody should make a speech to get people to focus on a common goal.”
“Good idea.”
How hopeless was it to try and say something for the sake of saying something? “When will Learners restart?”
“I don’t know. It’s up to Frantag.”
Daili sighed. She felt the short answers were not meant to be rude, but it was like holding a conversation over a huge distance. She searched for another bit of news; something to keep them from falling altogether silent. “Did you hear about that expedition they’re sending over the hills next moon?”
“Yes I know. Laytji told me she was going.”
“Laytji?”
“You didn’t know?” Jema asked.
Daili couldn’t think of an answer. Laytji had never mentioned wanting to go – at least, not to her mother.
“I thin
k she was afraid you’d say no,” Jema said.
Then the silence fell after all. It was like sitting inside Tini’s home when Jari came in. The idea of Jari opened her last possibility. “Jema, I need you to do me a favour.”
Jema indicated she was listening, so Daili told her about Tini’s desperation, Jari’s refusal to go out at all, Branag’s depression, and Kunag running off. She mentioned her own and other people’s attempts to get Jari out of her shell – anything she could think of to keep talking. “Can you try?” she finished, when there was nothing left to say.
“I don’t think she’ll listen to me either,” Jema answered.
“Can you at least try? Not for me but for Tini, for Jari. What is going to become of this colony if people don’t even try to talk to each other?”
Daili knew she’d been too loud in her exasperation. Silence once again ruled until the voices of Nini and Marya announced their return.
“I’ll try,” Jema said.
Once they all sat down with a warm drink, the atmosphere warmed as well. The conversation turned to the political debate almost right away, but this time it might have been Daili herself who started it.
“I feel like I’m stuck in the middle: The girls argue about it all the time. Hani is very logical and reasonable, and I do understand their wanting to hold on to their last bit of control, but my heart is with the other side. I’d like to slap them both sometimes, just to have some peace.”
“As I’d like to slap Frimon and Roilan,” Marya said. Then she laughed at what must be her mental image of doing so. She was a nice looking woman, a bit younger than Nini, with a hint of blonde in her hair. Like all others, she had it tied back. Her smile was as open as she spoke her opinion freely.
Daili told all three of them what she couldn’t talk with anybody else about. Nini stated without hesitation that she, too, felt that there was another consciousness here, but she didn’t feel it as a threat. She recognized the reluctance of the creators. It was Roilan’s main argument against the believers who followed Frimon. “But just because they’ve studied the laws of science doesn’t make them right, Daili. Theirs is also only a small bit of reality. By denying what they can’t see they are missing the larger picture.”