It’s not the steady pulse of machine noise. Not the unbreakable silence of the dead highways. Not the beeping of Doc’s own Embassy network, back in Examination Facility #9B, my home away from home at the Embassy.
It’s Earth noise. Life noise. Jungle noise.
I pray that there are places that not even the Lords can go, that never have been and never will be found.
A few hours later, it is no longer the jungle I can hear around me.
I hear voices. Thousands of them. Singing. Talking among themselves. Praying. Remembering other mountains, other moons. Telling stories of this mountain, long ago.
“Bibi,” I say. “Bibi, listen. Something’s going on.”
“What is it?” He stops.
“I don’t know, but I hear them. I hear them, and I feel them. Do you?”
“The girl?” I see Fortis’s eyes glinting in the moonlight. I shake my head.
“Not the girl. Others. Many, many others.” My head feels like it’s going to split. “Too many others.”
“It’s not just you,” says Tima. “I mean, I hear them too. Listen.”
Now we all stop.
There it is. Some kind of low singing—more like chanting—catches on the breeze above us. The mountain sounds like it is coming alive.
“Full moon. Must be some kind of ceremony.” Bibi nods.
Tima looks at him. “Which one?”
“No idea.” He shrugs.
Lucas is exasperated. “You’re a monk. You should know these things.”
“Part monk, remember?” Bibi raises an eyebrow.
I roll my eyes. “I know, I know. Three out of four vows.”
“And do you have any idea how many temple ceremonies there are in these Colonies? Or for that matter, how many temples there are? It used to be, a person died, you built them a temple. You know how many people have died in this part of the world, even before The Day?” Bibi shakes his head. “That’s a lot of temples.”
Tima looks at me. “Can you show us the way to the voices?”
I nod. “I think so.”
They fall into step behind me—Ro moving wordlessly next to me—and we walk in the darkness toward the great wave of human noise in my head.
Finally, I push through a thick stand of young bamboo, and we see them on the path beneath us.
A thousand lanterns and candles, a river of humanity and light that I have only seen once before in my life. The night we destroyed the Icon in the Hole.
It feels like we are alive. Really alive. Tima is remembering lanterns, other lanterns, floating in the sky. Lucas is thinking of birthday cake. Ro is transfixed by the fire. I feel it all.
Bibi smiles. He’s thinking about me. Wondering how it feels. Wondering what I see.
“Everything,” I say, simply.
His eyes widen, startled. He wasn’t expecting me to answer. “A miracle, and a burden.” He nods.
I shrug.
“Come,” says Bibi. “We’ll join our friends. About a thousand of them. They’ll take us to the temple. Wat Doi Suthep.” He grins at me. “Can you feel them?”
I close my eyes and listen. Reach out. “They’ve been walking for hours, and they have to walk back to their village again. I think we must be close to the top. At least, that’s what they seem to think.”
“What else?” Bibi sounds interested, and I close my eyes.
“There was an elephant, long ago. He carried the relic of an ancient holy man to the top of this mountain. When he reached the top he died, and a temple was built to mark the site. The relic was buried beneath the temple. This is the night of the elephant moon,” I say, opening my eyes.
“Very lucky,” says Bibi. “Very, very lucky. A good sign.”
“Is anything not a good sign with you?” says Fortis.
“Yes. That comment right there. Bad sign. Very, very bad sign.”
Fortis sighs.
We make our way to the river of lights and join the thousands of villagers climbing to Doi Suthep, in the light of the elephant moon.
The tide of humanity carries us up the hill. It carries us up the last of the stone steps, a staircase guarded by twin stone serpents, brightly colored, whose curving tails travel the whole length of the stairs.
Ro’s bark-colored hair bobs in and out of the crowd in front of me. Lucas’s golden head almost catches up to him, then falls back again. I feel Tima’s hand on my shoulder, but Bibi and Fortis are still behind me.
None of us can control what is happening.
None of us wants to.
At the top of the stairs, when my lungs burn and my legs ache, I see an archway. Beyond the arch, a gold spire rises, shining with the light of the full moon. The pointed silhouettes of the temple rooftops curve upward in front of us, at the very top of the hill.
“Wat Doi Suthep,” says Bibi. “We’re here.”
We try to stay together in the crowd, but it isn’t easy. I keep Lucas’s head in sight, which is made possible by the fact that he is at least six inches taller than the people here, and Ro now holds on to the back of my robes, as if I were a child prone to escape. His fingers tickle at my neck. Tima trails behind us. Above our heads, in the moonlight, the air is so thick with dragonflies that it looks like a plague is upon us.
“I wonder why they’re here,” Tima says, reaching up to touch one with her hand.
“Careful,” warns Ro.
But before she can touch one, the crowd surges, and we push onward toward the temple itself.
Because the temple, lit by moonlight and the glow of a thousand candles, is waiting.
This time, I know what to do. I take the lotus blossom and place it in front of the shrine at the entrance to the temple. Tima follows my lead. I light the incense, jabbing it into the sand it shares with thousands of others as it burns. I hand one to Ro and he does the same. I light a candle, wedging it into the row of other candles. Lucas watches. There are so many candles we almost don’t need the moonlight, I think.
Candles and lanterns light the faces of the crowd around me, and I look from face to face, searching for someone I know or something I recognize.
But she’s not here.
Not among the villagers.
Ro motions to me and I follow him into the temple itself. The others are just behind us.
There are at least three separate temples in the main complex, and we move from one to another as the crowd does. I don’t know what we’re searching for, but I do know who—and what she looks like. At least, if she appears anything like the way she did in my dream. It occurs to me that within a crowd of thousands, I’m not likely to find her just by looking.
I need help.
Then I see him.
The Emerald Buddha. Finally. Just like the one I carry with me. This one is not made of jade, but of a deep-green glass—but I’d recognize him anywhere, now. After keeping a version of him in my chestpack for as long as I have.
I push my way through the crowd, kneeling in front of him. Tima wedges herself next to me on one side, and Lucas barricades me from the crowd on the other. It’s Ro, though, who I feel behind me, sheltering me from the rest of the worshippers with his body.
“Take as long as you want,” he says, under his breath. I look at him gratefully, and he smiles. As if a thousand things hadn’t happened between us, a thousand things we wish had never happened.
But they have, and I’m here because of it, so I turn to the shrine, determined to do what I am here to do.
For Ro, and in spite of Ro—and for my friends—and for myself.
I tuck my feet under me, so they don’t point to the Buddha. Remembering what Bibi taught us, I press my hands together in the shape of a lotus bud and perform the respectful greeting called the wai, placing my hands over my face and bowing my head toward the ground.
I feel a calm descend over me. It feels good to be here, celebrating with the people. And so I wait patiently for her to show herself.
Nothing happens.
&nbs
p; It’s like the Temple of the Emerald Buddha all over again.
I sit up and open my eyes. No girl. Candle wax and incense smoke and little else.
She’s not here.
GENERAL EMBASSY DISPATCH: EASTASIA SUBSTATION
MARKED URGENT
MARKED EYES ONLY
Internal Investigative Subcommittee IIS211B
RE: The Incident at SEA Colonies
Note: Contact Jasmine3k, Virt. Hybrid Human 39261.SEA, Laboratory Assistant to Dr. E. Yang, for future commentary, as necessary.
DOC ==> FORTIS
Transcript - ComLog 12.02.2069
//comlog begin;
For your review, here is a simplified outline of NULL’s instructions, as I understand them:;
LOCATE SUITABLE PLANET
Atmosphere
Gravity
Water
Etc.
IF PLANET FOUND:
• Scan planet
Identify flora
Identify fauna
Identify threats
Biological
Environmental
Mechanical/Technological
• Generate risk profile
Locate potential colony sites
Determine landing/entry procedures
APPROACH PLANET
Arrival
• Neutralize threats
Mechanical/Technological
Biological
Environmental
• Prepare planet
Create preparatory equipment
Clean
Seed
Populate fauna
• Prepare colony locations
• Establish and populate colonies
Protect and guide through initial growth stage
Educate
• When colonies established:
Destroy all preparatory materials
Shut down
//comlog end;
30
JADE SUNRISE
I fight off the disappointment.
Don’t give up.
You must be doing something wrong.
She has to come.
I don’t know what else to do. I have nowhere else to go, nowhere else to look.
Then I see a wrinkled old man to my right draw a ceramic dog out of his pocket. He kisses it, placing it on the shrine in front of him. His birth year. Year of the Dog.
Of course.
I open my chestpack and draw the Emerald Buddha out. I kiss the stone and place it carefully on the shrine in front of me.
I bow my head again, pressing my hands together. Waiting.
Nothing.
Still nothing.
The dull noise of the people pressing around me starts to make my head throb. I’m dirty. I’m exhausted, physically and mentally.
I try to push them away. Their thoughts, their feelings. Their anxieties and their fears. They swarm around me like so many wasps drawn to a ripe plum.
I am done. Finished. At the end of a very long northern road.
Then I hear a whisper, from just beyond my left shoulder. “Let me try,” Tima says. She holds out her hand. “Give it to me.”
I open my chestpack again, and this time, I pull out the entire velvet pouch. I take a jade figurine and hand it to Tima, wrapping her fingers around it. She kisses it, just as the old man did with his dog, and places it carefully on the shrine, next to my Emerald Buddha.
We’re in this together. Sisters ourselves. Whether or not the little jade girl ever comes for us.
That’s what Tima’s telling me. And that’s what I hear. I know it, because at this moment, this simple action feels like the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me. I can’t stop the tears from catching on my eyelashes, I am so deeply touched.
“Now mine,” says Lucas.
A grateful smile escapes my lips as I kiss Lucas on the hands and press a figurine into his palms. He turns it over and over in his hands, as if it’s the first time he’s ever really looked at it. Then he slides it up onto the shrine, next to the others.
We’re in this together, he tells me.
That’s when I feel a tap on my shoulder. I look up to see Ro on one side of me, holding out his hand.
We’re in this together, too.
Fortis and Bibi are right behind him.
I look from the Emerald Buddha to where the other creatures have joined it on the shrine.
As we sit together—kneeling amid the wafting incense and the flickering candles, surrounded by the heavy scent of jasmine and lotus and rose—I feel a sense of family I haven’t felt since the Mission. A kind of peace that I perhaps have never felt before.
And for perhaps the first time in my life—I’m not sure—I think I begin to pray.
Padre, my Padre.
Help me.
You said I could do great things. I believe I can, now. I believe you were right.
I am different. I know that now.
Most people do not fight off alien races from their home world.
Most people are not made to do courageous things. Amazing things. Things no one in their right mind would want to do, even me.
But I know I must.
Miracles, you would have said. These are miracles you are expecting. They are expecting.
Have faith, you said.
Why must I?
In what? Why?
Believe, you said.
Why must I?
In what? Who?
I want to be you, Padre. Desperately. I want to believe like you. I don’t want this haunting.
I want to fall asleep at night next to… well, anyone, not wondering if I will wake up again.
I want to know things beyond doubt. To believe truths are true. And life is long. And people are good.
And love is life, immortal and unending—and always, always right.
So help me. Help me do what I need to do so I can be who I need to be.
What I am.
A sister.
A big sister.
Then my mind clears and I can think of nothing other than the moment I am in, because all around me, the monks are chanting, the incense is burning, and the candlelight from the shrine begins to reflect off the jade figurines.
One by one, the little jade creatures begin to vibrate, rattling against the gold floor of the shrine beneath them.
One by one, my friends’ faces catch the light. First Tima, then Lucas—then even Fortis and Bibi.
Finally, even I am awash in light.
Villagers begin to murmur and pray, backing away.
I catch my breath as the candlelight grows, reflecting one from another—among the jades, among us—until a luminous web of lines connects the creatures and the humans and the temple around us, with an almost laserlike precision.
I feel as if I am watching the sun rise.
And then it does.
She does.
A beautiful child, a girl—with skin the color of wet sand, and hair the color of snow—steps out from behind the enormous green glass Buddha.
It’s her.
It’s the little jade girl.
I hear Tima gasp, and I feel Lucas stiffen next to me. Ro scrambles to his feet. Bibi and Fortis shift on the floor, behind me.
Here she is. They can’t believe it, either. The Buddha has given her up.
“Big sister,” the girl says. “You came. I’ve been waiting.”
“I know, little sister,” I say, simply, because it’s true. “I’ve been trying to find you, all this time. It wasn’t easy.” I pause, almost afraid to ask the next question. “Who are you?”
She smiles, touching her chest. “Sparrow. I’m Sparrow.”
“Sparrow?”
“My name.” She struggles to find the words, furrowing her brow beneath her white hair. “It is more. It is—what I am.”
“I’m Doloria. Dol.”
I kneel in front of her. She is so delicate, standing here in the middle of the forest, in the middle of the ancient jades. She’s l
ike a moth, I think. A butterfly.
A baby bird, I think. The one from my dreams.
It’s more than my name. It’s what I am.
“Show me,” I say. “Show me what you are.”
Sparrow looks at me, a long moment. Then she raises her hand to the sky.
I will, Dol.
Because I have been waiting for you. Because now that you are here, it is time.
I hear the words without her speaking them. They appear in my head, as if they are my own.
Waiting for what, Sparrow?
She lifts her hands again, this time both of them. This time high above her head, palms to the sky.
She closes her eyes.
Now, she says.
Now.
Go home.
It is time.
As if on command, a thousand birds—tens of thousands of them—rise from the jungle growth, pitching and climbing and soaring up into the early orange of the dawn sky.
Birds.
Real, living birds.
They are more than hope.
They are unfathomable. They are uncontainable. Wings flapping, hearts beating, they are as alive as life itself.
I watch them through the wide-open doorways of the temple. My smile is so big that it becomes a laugh. Sparrow smiles back at me, but she never takes her eyes off the birds.
The villagers around us are chanting. They chant and they cry but they don’t stop. They don’t know what’s happening, or why, but they don’t want it to stop any more than we do.
And so we all watch, while the birds squawk and sing and call to each other, until the sky is as full of noise as it is of feathers. It is more than the Padre ever could have described to me.
I am seeing what my parents saw, I think.
I am seeing life, before The Day.
Life endures.
Life returns.
The Bishop was right. The Bishop, and the Padre. Hope really is the thing with feathers.
Idols Page 21