by Nōnen Títi
“How could you say that?” she asked Laytji. “I remember you yelling at Hani for hitting him.”
“I changed my mind. Should we start eating or wait for them?”
Daili wouldn’t be able to eat at all now. “We’ll wait.”
When Hani came in a few minutes later Laytji told her what had happened.
“So why did you say that?” Hani asked.
“Because it would have stopped him from running away.”
“No it wouldn’t. My mom did that once when I was… well, not so long before we left. I was so insulted I didn’t talk to her for days. That’s when I made up my mind to run away if she wouldn’t let me go.”
It was only on rare occasions that Hani shared something of her past with them. She blushed a little as she relived the memory.
“Let’s hope Tikot will come back then,” Daili said.
“Maybe boys are different,” Laytji started, but she stopped when Kalim and Tikot walked in. Tikot didn’t look at any of them and Kalim was frowning, so Daili didn’t ask. With tear-marks still on his face, Tikot ate his cold food in silence; they all did.
When they were together on their mat that night Daili asked Kalim if he’d ever done that.
“Of course not, who do you think I am?”
“So why would Tikot say that?”
“Why would Laytji?”
“I don’t know that either.”
Why did this subject come up so often recently? On DJar nobody would mention such things. What had changed? Were they losing their civilization or were they losing their inhibitions because there were no laws? All those things that had been said at that horrible trial yesterday, for Benjamar to say what he had… It had shocked her almost more than the realization of what Maike had done. She had sat in SJilai government with these people for four years, but now Daili wondered if she really knew them. Half the population had known about it and kept quiet. Why? Did they believe it was wrong? Had Tikot somehow heard about it?
The next morning she asked him. “Why did you say that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did your father ever do that?”
“I don’t think so.” He was standing by the door, itching to go out.
“What about the carers in the home on DJar or on SJilai?” Daili asked.
“No.”
“So why did you say it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tikot, I’m not accusing anyone. I’m only asking.”
“I just wanted to know he cared,” Tikot said.
“Of course he cares. We all do. Nobody will throw you out. We like having you here. We’re all one family.”
“I know.”
Daili sighed and let him go out to play. He was growing up. She’d brought Anni through this difficult age, then Hani and Laytji on SJilai. Bue help them if they’d have another three years of Tikot behaving like that. She should have learned by now, yet in a way they were all different, and so were she and Kalim. Maybe that was a good thing: One parent wasn’t enough; maybe two weren’t either, and there was no template to tell parents the right or wrong way to bring up a child – each had different needs. Had she alienated Anni that way?
Evil Eyes
Just as Kunag spotted the box he was looking for in the back room, he saw Remag’s microscope, next to which sat two flasks: One was filled with the green substance the clouds were often made of, and the other appeared to be filled with white cloud. Next to each sat a stack of prepared slices. Kunag carefully picked one up and stuck it into the scope. He wasn’t disappointed; the light beneath his eyes revealed the most wonderful evidence of life: cells as he’d once seen in a Learner’s class. Inside them were little curled-up strands. One after the other, the green slices showed this life. The white slices, however, looked more like crystals.
Harmon’s warning call from the door brought Kunag back to the here and now: He quickly switched off the lamp. The box with the animals was in the corner, but Kunag couldn’t get to it before the voices approached. He pressed himself flat against the dividing wall and scanned the tiny room. There was neither a window nor a back door; he was trapped. He considered crawling into the excretorial space, but what if Remag was intending to use it?
Kunag had found the animals on the beach only four days ago. The seaside was his haven away from Jari’s temper tantrums, but that time it had been dusk when he’d arrived. At first he’d noticed only the water itself, which, with Kun sinking below its horizon, had started to glimmer; the gentle up and down of the water’s small crescents like a mas of minuscule seakabins. As the darkness increased, more light had spread over the ocean surface; a whole sheet of it. To make sure it wasn’t his eyes playing tricks on him, he’d edged forward and cupped his hands to catch some of the water. He had bent over them to make sure nothing could reflect, and the light had shone from inside his hands. Even when most of the water had seeped through his fingers, a film of light had stuck to them and he’d had to shake them to help it slowly ooze away.
He’d walked back to the sand to retrieve his artpack, but found it moving everywhere. At first glance he’d believed the animals to be like the black blobs they’d seen on Dryland, but these had tentacles, a whole series of them, extending from a central ring on the body. Each tentacle curved in the same direction, so the animals spiralled themselves out of the sand. As soon as they were free, the tentacles retracted, leaving masses of rings, which seemed to have no purpose but to lie there. Kunag had stood still for a while and then, against all advice, picked one up.
The orb was the size of the palm of his hand – larger, with the tentacles extended – but it didn’t move when he held it. It was rough to the touch and dry like the sand it had come out of. Within a fraction of his putting the animal back down, every single one had started vibrating with tentacles spinning, until the whole beach buzzed, and within a minute they were all back under the sand. Kunag had waited until Kunup, but none had reappeared. It had been silent, and more profoundly so after the vibrations stopped.
Just like it lacked smells and tastes, this planet had very little sound. There were no birds. What lived was in the water or on land, or under it. Nothing of that life, so far, had made any noise of its own. Without the existence of trees or bushes, even the wind was soundless – except if you walked into it, in which case it was deafening – with no rustling of leaves, and inside the walls of the homes the sound was dampened. But these things had all known to start moving when the one touched the ground: They had communicated with vibrations, somehow.
Kunag had drawn them in his artpack. In his enthusiasm, he’d gone straight to Wolt, and Wolt had mentioned them in the bulletin. But this morning when having breakfast with Sinti – the only thing they shared together anymore since coming to the surface – she had reported that a box full of the beach animals were being tested for food, and another box had been brought to the zoologist’s home. Kunag had not waited: He’d stormed into the food-testing shelter, only to be almost literally kicked back out by a guard, after which he’d invaded Wolt and Harmon’s home to vent his upset. It was Harmon who had suggested they rescue the animals from Remag’s home as soon as they had a chance.
They thought that chance had come when Remag went to pick up his meal just now, but he couldn’t have gone all the way to the central kitchen and back in the short time Kunag had been inside. Remag was a loner; who knew what he’d do if he found Kunag in his home?
Holding his breath, Kunag listened to Harmon trying to convince the zoologist to come and look at some imaginary animal he’d just found near the stream, but his pleas were unsuccessful. The sound of footsteps came closer and Kunag squeezed himself as flat as possible against the wall. A fraction later, Remag walked into the back room. He went straight to his mat, his back to Kunag. The moment he turned around he would see the intruder: It was now or never.
Kunag dashed around the dividing wall, through the front room and out the door. Harmon followed from there. They ra
n around two buildings and stopped at the back of a third one, from where they could spy on Remag’s door. “Bue, that was close.”
“Did he see you?”
“If he did, he only saw my back.”
“Now what?”
They could not try again; Remag would be alert, but Kunag had no intention of leaving those beautiful animals caged for the night. “We’ll wait here. He may go out again, or I’ll sneak in when he’s asleep.”
“You’re mad,” Harmon said, but he waited as well.
Kunag debated going back to the food-testing shelter, which would be closed, but he let Harmon talk him out of it. He’d be a suspect right away and those animals would be dead by now; better to save the ones still alive.
Kun had already set before Remag finally re-emerged from his home, but he was carrying the very box Kunag had wanted to take. “We’ll follow him.”
That the zoologist was heading for the seaside was clear from the start, so Kunag and Harmon took a different path over the dunes to prevent being seen in the light of the two moons. The walk to the beach took half an hour, according to Harmon’s internal timedisk, which was pretty accurate. They hunched behind the last big rock of the dunes and watched Remag come down the other trail.
Harmon seemed happy doing this. It wasn’t like him. Usually it was Wolt who was ready for some action, and Harmon would worry about doing things that weren’t allowed or dangerous. The two still shared a home, the why of which was beyond Kunag; they were total opposites. Wolt was disorganized and fun-loving. He had girlfriends so now and then and talked to everybody. Harmon was serious and lived for his newfound conviction in the Society.
But Wolt stood squarely behind Roilan and his wishes for new technology. Harmon supported Frimon – no surprise there – in his quest to save the planet from people’s destruction. No matter how much Kunag liked Wolt and had trouble understanding Harmon, he could not bring himself to take Wolt’s side. And right now, he was grateful for Harmon’s company.
“We could just pretend we’re taking a walk. Nothing wrong with that,” Harmon said.
From a distance they followed Remag and watched him put down the box and release the animals one by one. As soon as he did so, the others popped up, forcing Kunag and Harmon to stand still in case they stepped on one.
Just when Kunag was about to say he might have judged Remag a bit quickly, the zoologist reached down to pick up another animal and stuck it into the box. Then another, and another. None of the orb-like creatures moved to get to safety. After four more, Remag closed the box and lifted it off the ground, which set off another series of vibrations until they’d all vanished.
“I don’t understand,” Kunag said.
“Neither do I. How do they know it’s a box and not another one of them?”
Kunag had not even considered that. They followed the man home, but he went inside and didn’t come back out.
The next two evenings, Remag repeated his walks to and from the seaside. Though Kunag was still not happy about the caging of the orbs, he had to admit they were not being hurt. Harmon no longer came with him, but Kunag followed every night. If nothing else, it was better than sitting at home.
On the third night, Remag did not refill his box with more animals. With the first step he took after having released the last one, all the emerged orbs vanished, allowing Remag to walk to the water. There he filled up a jar with the light-giving film.
Kunag watched from behind his big rock at the foot of the dune, until his attention was caught by the solid, oval shape of the red fog. Though its colour wasn’t visible, it was clearly not an ordinary cloud. It was dense and headed straight for the beach, hanging low, due south to where Remag was still crossing the distance from the water’s edge to the dunes. Kunag held his breath. Should he warn Remag and risk being seen? The man could die. He’d not killed the animals, so that wouldn’t be fair.
Kunag was spared from making the decision, since the fog itself did the warning. A low moaning sound filled the stillness of the land, like thunder in the distance, gradually getting louder. Remag saw the fog and sped up. It was like a chase in a movie. Kunag assessed the speed and distance each had to travel in his head. His bet was on Remag for now, but he had no idea if the fog could go faster. So far it just sank lower to the ground and edged forward, its sound like a drumbeat, regular and captivating.
Remag threw the jar onto the sand and start running, both his hands over his ears. When he reached the foot of the dune-path Kunag could no longer see him, but that was okay, because everything was red. Kun DJar was red. Red! Life was red. The fog was saying that word; a word from the planet. Kunag knew that he had to do something else, but he didn’t know what. He was talking to Kun DJar and it was red and the sound filled his head and made it grow bigger. His body was racing. The drumbeat of his heart was playing in time with the word: red… red… red… Like a song and the rhythm increased, faster and faster.
The music faltered when Kunag was dragged from his hideout by his collar. The first discord came with his leg scraping painfully over the rock. “Walk! Put your fingers in your ears and walk.” The order was emphasized by a knee against his backside. Not able to think, Kunag let his legs follow the instructions up the dune trail, away from the beach. Every few steps he was urged on by a painful blow from behind. “Faster!”
Over the crescent of the dune, down the other side, onto the flat. Another kick reminded him to keep his ears covered. “Keep going!” Kunag now knew he was running from the fog, that the sound was dangerous. He also knew that the man behind him was Remag. The closer they got to town, the further away the sound. Kunag slowed down to glance back, to see if the fog was following, but all he got for that was another boot forward from the strange man, who had just now saved his life. Within reach of the first homes he started running again; he ran all the way home and didn’t tell anybody where he’d been. Mom would have a fit. Wolt would make it into a headline: “Zoologist Rescues Stalker From Red Fog!” He called off his own quest to save the orbs and avoided going anywhere near Remag. His backside was sore for two days.
Since being home was no fun at all, Kunag spent most of his free time either with Sinti or with Wolt and Harmon. Not that there was much free time; from Kunup to roughly an hour before Kundown most people worked their assigned tasks. Kunag spent one day getting roasted in the central kitchen frying some food (the origins of which he didn’t want to know) and another cleaning the social building. The day he was assigned to food-testing, he didn’t go at all. The five free hours of each day had to be divided between socializing and sleeping.
In the last kor of Station Four’s third moon, Kunag found Wolt and Harmon in an argument. Harmon had asked that Frimon get some space in the bulletin, since Roilan and Tigor had also been interviewed. Wolt had already written an article about the coming expedition and thought that was enough, but had been ordered by Benjamar to interview Frimon as well; the bulletin, if not the reporter, was supposed to be neutral. When Kunag walked in, the emotions and the voices of the two men were raised. Harmon was no longer the insecure person from SJilai and he didn’t let Wolt outtalk him. “I found happiness. What’s wrong with that?”
“With the Society?” Wolt sneered.
“Yes with the Society. At least they look at it in a positive way. All you do is complain about what you don’t achieve. Frimon knows why we’re all here and he makes people feel better.”
“Frimon is a fanatic and you have been brainwashed,” Wolt replied.
Harmon repeated that he believed they were here for a reason.
“You’re so naive. Progress doesn’t come from some higher power; people have to work for it. You only believe what you’re told to believe.”
“No, I believe it is true.”
“Well, why don’t you write a damned article about it then? Because I sure can’t.”
Against Kunag’s expectation, Harmon took the opportunity. “Will you come with me?” he asked Kunag.
> Unwilling to abandon Wolt altogether or to attend a Society meeting, Kunag hesitated.
“Go ahead. You don’t have to feel bad for me. I’m sick of doing the bulletin anyway,” Wolt said, and added that he wanted to go on the expedition. Kunag would have liked that as well, but nobody had asked him – they’d asked Jari, who had, to Kunag’s chagrin, refused.
Since he owed Harmon, Kunag joined him that evening to go and interview Frimon. A large group of people, maybe half a set, had gathered in front of the Society homes, which all sat conveniently close together and away from the main town. Kunag held his plastipack close to his body; something about this had him feeling uneasy. He scanned the faces while the crowd sang some welcome song. They were ordinary faces, many of whom he knew; normal people. Had they found happiness, like Harmon?
Frimon stood up and started speaking. He was a short, dark-haired man in his sixth kor. Kunag kept his eyes busy looking for something to draw. The man himself would make for a good picture, but it wouldn’t have a message. His speech was political mixed with only a little religion. All those wanting a place in the new government had to win votes, so, lately, speeches were often made – not just by Frimon and Roilan, but also by Tigor, for the farmers, and Jenet, for the scientists. Frimon’s speech was about Bue, who protected this planet. Material possessions were for the hopeless; those who’d lost their connection with the divine – Roilan’s group.
Kunag thought it quite funny at first, but somewhere in the middle of the speech he started to recognize the ideas: Words he’d have liked to have had when arguing with Jari or Dad about why Kun DJar needed to be protected. So far Kunag had just disagreed with Roilan, because it felt wrong to destroy nature, but now he started to see the benefits of Frimon’s vision. He felt no longer out of place. Almost without thinking he joined the cheering, but he withdrew when the people around him hugged and kissed each other, even Harmon, though something inside Kunag envied them.