by Nōnen Títi
“We have to carry on, being wary of mistakes once made. We have come here today to celebrate our survival and remember those we left on DJar. One day they may be able to establish communication with us. We’ll let them know that we’re doing fine. We don’t need advanced technology to spread our knowledge across the universe. The proof of being Kunjari people will be that nobody will want to leave Kun DJar in the future.
“We have also come here to remember those who didn’t make it. This boulder will, for as long as people live here, be a memorial to all those we lost; all who put their lives and futures at risk to be part of this planet. We have lost too many to mention them all in one speech. I want to name just a few.
“Kalgar was the one to make this journey possible, together with Frantag, and with confidence in our technology. From plans came permissions, then recruitment, building materials and endless discussions. That was on DJar. Once ready they made it happen without ever stopping and despite all the problems. Kalgar is gone now, but the future colony will be his legacy as much as it will be Frantag’s.
“The other person I want to remember is Daili. She, too, was there from the very start, from when SJilai was only a dream; a dream she’d set her heart on and has given her heart to, because technology alone does not make a colony. She seemed to have a natural ability to be there when somebody was in need of support. Where so many reach out and find no one, she was there even for those who didn’t ask.
“In remembering Daili, I remember her trefin speech. In Daili’s words, we are now Kunjari people as we have survived for a whole year. In Daili’s words, ‘Nobody said it would be easy’.
“But the challenge isn’t over. True, the fate of SJilai was our fate. It wasn’t entirely in our hands. The fate of the people of Kun DJar may not be as dependent on other influences as we think; not on the weather and not on diseases. The fate of Kunjari people depends on how we handle fate; on how we handle diseases and storms, but most of all, on how we handle each other. Our ultimate goal is to create a healthy and happy society, not only for those of us here today, but for the generations that will follow. How we do that is less important than that we do it. There is no one right view, no one correct system, no black or white, no bad guy, and no ultimate solution.
“There is one answer, however, and that is honour. The basis of honour lies with accepting each other and ourselves for what nature gave each of us, even if our instinctive perspectives differ. However, we should not once again fall victim to the desire to control those instincts by testing people for them and then telling them what to do, or by deciding that one instinct is better than another. If we are to survive then we shall have to live with honour – all of us. There is no honour in hurting people to get what you want, no honour in fighting, no honour in taking from the land without giving back to it, no honour in telling others right from wrong, and most of all, no honour in pride.
“We’ll have to learn to accept our place as living beings, for we are mere parasites to this planet; maybe no longer pathogenic, but parasites nonetheless. Our biggest achievement so far has been that the planet is tolerating us. Our next step is to be accepted by the ecosystem as symbionts. Let us be humble about our place in existence, for this is as much as we may hope for as a species. To wage war, like two fleas fighting over a bit of fur, is not only stupid but totally ludicrous in the larger scheme of things. It will alert the planet’s defence system to our existence; a good parasite stays out of the way.
“And if some of you now wonder if the old man has lost it or has been brainwashed by alien forces, I can tell you that the only reformation in me has come from the lessons of Kun DJar herself; lessons she left me no choice but to learn. I believe it is time to put our fate in the hands of the planet that will care for us if we respect it. I believe that if we are willing to put aside our pride, our desire to be in control, and attend to Kun DJar’s needs, then we have actually met SJilai’s challenge, the treyak of our journey.
“We will build Daili the future she wished for her children and grandchildren and for all the children of this colony: children of Kun DJar. For those we lost and for those we left behind; in their memory, I thank you.”
TELEMER, DJAR
In the year 6234
As the daytime heat subsided a woman came out of her house with her grandchildren. She pointed to the bright star in the night sky. “That star is Kun, our sister star,” she told them. “It’s not often this close and it is a very special place.”
Anni, Life today, sat down with them on the outdoor seat and told them the story of her mother and sister: the story of the people who one day went on a spacekabin and moved to Kun DJar.
The children listened excitedly, glancing up at the dot of light. Would they be able to go too?
“Maybe.” Anni wondered where time had gone. Life had been good to her. Only yesterday had she said goodbye to her job. She’d had a good comate, who had left for the Land Beyond two years ago. She still had her own two girls and three grandchildren, who were here to share her special birthday.
“How far away is it?”
“Will your sister come back to see you?”
“Did you want to go to Kun DJar too?”
Anni smiled at the questions. It was too late asking if she would ever see them again. Who knew if they even made it? No news had come from the kabin. The communication device, which was supposed to have followed it on its journey, had malfunctioned. There was no sign that Kun DJar was now populated.
Technology had advanced but the people of DJar had not invested in a new space program. Their first priority was the land. There was too much that needed building with Seteger once again inhabited. It was said to be safe now, but it was mostly workers and users they had moved there, along with large numbers of Freberer people who were not qualified to do the jobs the new cities there had to offer.
Anni’s oldest daughter was excavating the ancient cave they’d found. She was trying to piece together the stone drawing of the natives, which the soldiers had smashed during the invasion. It was questionable how much significance could be found on a piece of stone, but it was a shame nonetheless; another bit of mythology lost.
Anni stroked the hair of the little girl who climbed onto her lap. “It’s time you went to bed, Daili. Tomorrow is Learners again.”
“I hate Learners, Grandma. Can’t you call me in sick tomorrow?”
”No, you must go and learn. Learn all you can about DJar and Kun DJar. Maybe one day you’ll be able to travel too.”
“But I don’t learn about that; only rules and calculations. All the kids hate me and the teacher says I ponder too much. Can’t I stay home, just once?”
Anni didn’t answer. For a brief moment she heard Laytji’s voice.
“Will you go to Kun DJar, Grandma, when you visit the Land Beyond?” the youngest boy wanted to know.
“No. Kun DJar is too far away and I’m too old to travel that far. But you must remember the story I told you so you can tell it to your children someday.”
They promised to never forget her story as they lay down together in her big bed and she sang them one of her favourite songs. Once they were asleep, she walked outside once more to have a look at Kun. Few days were left before the star would be invisible again. The next time around these little children would be grown-ups.
“Take good care of your beautiful one,” she told Kun, and went back inside.
KUN DJAR
14376 on the DJar calendar 4094 Kun DJar
On the down-slope of the crater walked an old man and a young girl. Both were dressed in long woven cloaks with hoods made from the fibres of the mud reeds, just like the resin-covered boots that protected their feet from the sharp rocks.
To a Bijari person the man would have appeared short. His muscular legs and broad feet supported his bulky torso: built for endurance rather than speed. Kunjari people had no need to run; they were neither hunter nor prey and time was in no hurry. So it was that the man and his
daughter had been on the way for a station before having reached this, the end of their journey.
The girl, built like her father, was pretty by Kunjari standards. Her body was covered in a soft red down, except her face, which was framed by long red locks, underneath which her small ears were hidden. Her eyes were shaded by thick brows and large cheekbones, while she breathed heavily – due to the weight of the star-watcher she was carrying – through the flared nostrils of her large, flat nose.
The star-watcher, which was hers to use until morning, was a large hollow reed tube with two rods attached for anchoring it in the ground. The glossy stone disks, which had been polished to perfection, were what made the watcher both heavy and special. It would allow Bejeni to see the moons as closely as if she were there.
She had looked forward to this all station. Now she had reached the bottom of the crater and it was a clear night. The old man sat down to rest against the giant boulder on the crater floor, leaving the girl to struggle with the watcher. He would not help anymore. Bejeni was now in her eighth Kunaround turn. She needed to be independent. From now on he would proceed to teach her and her brother what it meant to be Kunjari.
Once the watcher was ready, the father got up and directed the viewer to the star which was just visible beside the light of Bue, halfway up from the point where Kun had set. “That there is DJar,” he told his daughter. “It is the star that orbits Bue like Kun does.”
The girl squinted. “Why did we call our planet Kun DJar when we don’t turn with DJar, only with Kun?”
Happy that she was taking an interest, her father sat back down and told her the story he had once been told by his own father. “When time began Kun travelled around Bue all by himself. One day a runaway star came too close and collided with Kun. The impact formed the rocks that became Kun’s planets. Since it was formed of the two stars we named it for both of them: Kun, the beautiful one, and DJar, the runaway one. DJar still throws rocks at us, occasionally. One of those fell down here on this exact spot, leaving this scar on Kun DJar’s body.”
“Will we ever be able to go out there and see DJar?”
“We have our place on Kun DJar, Bejeni. There’s no need for us to travel beyond where we belong.”
“Why is it that some people believe we were meant to be here, while others say it was a magnificent accident for the rock of life to have hit the planet?”
Her father smiled and pulled her close to him. He warmed her inside his cloak as the chilly night-time air descended on the crater. She had yet to grow the coarse hair that would protect her from the cold. “The age-old question. Do the plamals think about why they are on Kun DJar and how they got here?”
Bejeni shook her head. “Plamals don’t ponder.”
“Exactly. They live their lives peacefully, content to be what Kun DJar is. It could be that the stars thought about throwing the rock onto Kun DJar, or it could have fallen here because it’s just a bit of energy, no different than your thoughts are. If you look at it that way then it was inevitable for Kun DJar to become life.”
“But how do we know which one is right, papa?”
He stroked her frown-wrinkled forehead. “Both may be right, Bejeni. Whether the rock was meant to fall on Kun DJar or not, it did. Will it make a difference to you being happy here today?”
“No.”
“So don’t worry about it. Kun DJar is a good life for us. We have all we need here. Why go searching for reasons?”
Bejeni didn’t answer. She couldn’t help asking for reasons. It just came when she looked at things, like the funny markings on this boulder. “What caused those?” she asked.
“Those are the signs of the first ancestors, when people could not yet remember. They needed to leave themselves messages by marking the land.”
Bejeni ran her two long fingers over the indentations, tracing the straight line down, then along a half circle to the right, to end up at the same place where she’d started. “I wish I could understand them.”
“Did I ever tell you how Kun DJar taught the people a lesson?” her father asked.
He’d told Bejeni many times. She put her arms around him and let his thick hair rub her cheek. “Tell me about the splinters again; those that hurt Kun DJar because they were not life.”
“When the ancients first came to Kun DJar they came in kabins of a material that irritated her when they penetrated her surface and which killed some of her symbionts, so she destroyed them. She could have destroyed the people as well, since they were proud and believed that they could rule themselves, but she didn’t. She sent the red fog to take some of them; not the fighters or the proud ones, but those everybody would miss most. She returned them to the ocean when they were not yet ready for the beach. Then the people got frightened and listened to their kollen.”
“And then they learned that they had to use the reeds, right, because the reeds are only the fibres that are left when all the nutrition is already in the sea?”
Her father nodded, pleased that she remembered. “We are very lucky, Bejeni. We are lucky that those early people took their kabin and left their home when their species was at the summit of its development; when they looked for essence in the shine of their own vision reflecting in the pond of life, so they could not see that the pond was stagnant.”
“But the song of life is made up of many notes, and all existence is a melody of matter, energy, time, and space, right papa?”
For a while they sat together quietly pondering. Bejeni thought of the long journey which had brought them here. They had left just after the feast of the changing cycles, which had taken the body of her birthmother from the beach and returned it to the seeds of new life. On the way to the crater they had been made welcome with water and shelter in many kennin. One day a stranger from one of those kennin would come to her home and help her procreate, but first she would return to Twotrees to start her own passage, of which this journey was only the beginning. She wondered who would be her guide. She’d love to have Dailor, who was the eldest and thus the most experienced, or Emilay, who was kind and gentle.
Bejeni also thought about her brother, who’d been meant to come along on this journey of maturation. Like Bejeni, he’d looked forward to it ever since the elders announced the full moon turn, but Jitsag had been in a fight just before leaving. A stranger had arrived from the southhills kennin to bring the seed of life for a young couple. Rather than making the stranger welcome, Jitsag had argued with him over the arrival day of the macrophagic cloud. Instead of leaving it up to the kollen to explain that the cloud had already been seen far up north and the day of the feast determined, Jitsag had taken it upon himself to call the stranger ignorant. A physical fight had come of it, after which the kunot had sent the stranger home, and the elders had determined that Jitsag was too proud to be able to mature this turn. Rather than coming on the journey he was to do silent service for the kollen until his father and Bejeni returned. Poor Jitsag. He had begged the kollen to let him pay penance instead, but to no avail.
“You can’t hear those calling to you if you only listen to your own voice,” the kollen had said, and so Jitsag would have to be silent. It wasn’t the first time. Some people just couldn’t be careful; it wasn’t their nature, but the punishment was short, like their temper. Jitsag would be able to journey next turn.
Bejeni couldn’t help but feel a little happy about her brother’s misfortune. She didn’t like the idea of him moving away from the kennin to spread their seed. Now he would have to wait longer. She considered herself very lucky indeed to never have to leave the women who had raised her and the father who taught her. “I wish all the kennin could live together in one big place,” she said out loud.
“Having too many people in one place creates problems which even the overnighter wouldn’t be able to solve,” her father replied.
“Why not?”
“Because people need to know each other’s names to be able to live together or they will fight.”
“That’s also true. People have a lot to learn, Bejeni. We need to look at the plamals, who follow the cycles of Kun DJar without asking questions. You see, as we listen to the plamals until they tell us their secrets, so we should listen to the stories of the ancestors.”
He compared Jitsag’s behaviour to that of Kun, the first time Bue came to Kun DJar. Kun was proud then. He didn’t want the seed of the stranger. He thought he could be the only father to Kelot’s children. He didn’t listen to SJano and SJibi about repeating mistakes from the past, but challenged Bue to a fight. AR didn’t take long to step in. Bue was let off with a warning for accepting a challenge that wasn’t for honour but for pride, but Kun had to repent for making judgments. “That is the myth of Kun and Bue. It’s only a story but its message is clear: one person can never be better than another; in the end we all return to the same sea. Jitsag should have learned from it. That is why he had to stay behind and take time to think it over.”
Her father pulled himself loose from Bejeni’s arms and stood up to stretch. “Would you like to have a look at the full moon turn now?”