I slipped out before my unitmates awoke, went to Simanca’s dwelling, and showed her. She didn’t take my arm and examine the dots like she had last time. She turned her back and strode away, taking Min and Gintok with her. I didn’t know what I had done wrong, to make Simanca shun me like that.
Tav stayed behind. She stroked my neck and said, “Don’t blame Simanca for her anger, Khe. She already told you the marks are unimportant. You were wrong to come again over the same matter.”
I hung my head. “No one else has marks like mine.”
“You know that you’re not like your sisters,” Tav said softly. “Comparing yourself to them will only make you unhappy.”
I looked up, straight into her eyes. “I’m not unhappy. I’m frightened.”
I needed to say the words even though the mass of muddy brown spots on my neck already showed my fear.
“Oh, Khe,” Tav said. “You’re worried over nothing. The marks are just something…unique to you. What does The Rules of a Good Life tell us?”
Didn’t she hear me? Didn’t it matter to her at all that I was so scared I could hardly stand there before her without shrieking? Did she not see the colors on my neck? I sighed and gave her the answer she wanted. “Only the obedient heart knows peace.”
Tav smiled. “Exactly. Go now. Your unitmates will be up and there’s work to be done.”
***
“I saw you,” Thedra whispered, standing next to me in the morning meal line in the communiteria.
“Saw me what?” I asked in a normal tone.
Thedra still whispered. “What you did to the old tree. I know you made it bloom and fruit.”
My throat went dry. I dropped my voice. “Lots of trees that don’t set fruit one year make up for it in the next.”
“Not that tree,” she said. “First the kiiku, then the awa, now the preslets and that dried up tree. Khe, it’s not natural.”
Behind me, Simanca’s unitmate, Gintok, grumbled and said to get a move on, we were holding up the line and she was hungry. I moved forward.
“We’ll talk later,” I told Thedra.
“Too late for talk,” Thedra said. “I have to tell Simanca. I can’t hold this a secret. You know that.”
I knew. The commune had no tolerance for private knowledge. For the good of the group, all things must be public.
“There’s nothing to tell,” I whispered furiously. I felt my spots light brownish green with shame at the lie. I knew Thedra saw it.
Gintok gave me a small shove. I bit back my irritation and stepped forward again.
Chapter Six
Beware the secret heart that holds the hidden lie.
--The Rules of a Good Life
I was mending a torn hip wrap when a knock at the door was followed by Tav walking into our receiving room. She glanced around the room.
“Are you here alone?” she asked.
I nodded. “Stoss wanted a walk. Jit and Thedra went with her.”
“Just as well,” Tav said. There was a strained coolness to her voice. “You are to come to us, but first, Simanca wants you to wrap a bandage around your left wrist. If anyone asks, you are to say that you cut yourself slightly.”
“Why?” I asked, meaning both why was I summoned and why was I binding a non-existent wound?
Tav shrugged. “Because that is what Simanca wants.”
Which answered both questions at once.
***
The orindle, Pradat, wearing the green hip wrap that marked her official medical researcher status, was sitting with Simanca and Tav when I arrived at Simanca’s dwelling. Her almost-too-large dark brown eyes that I remembered from Morvat Research Center widened when she saw me.
“Hello,” I said, surprised to see her at Lunge commune, and even more surprised that Min and Gintok were absent from this meeting. But I understood why Simanca had me cover my wrist; she didn’t want the orindle to see the additional dots. But if my “blemishes” meant nothing, why did she want them hidden?
“Hello, Khe.”
Pradat didn’t fumble for my name. I hoped she actually remembered me, though almost a year had passed since I’d left Morvat Research Center.
She looked at the cloth wrapped around my wrist. “You’ve injured yourself. Shall I take a look?”
Simanca’s plan seemed to have backfired on her. Of course an orindle would look at a wound. What had Simanca been thinking?
I quickly turned to Simanca, to deflect the orindle’s question and get straight to my own. “Is this about … ” My voice cracked and failed. “About what Thedra told you?”
Simanca nodded. “We contacted the orindle after Thedra spoke out. Pradat suspects that your ability is a result of opening your Resonance sac. A few of her other patients have also manifested changes.”
“They can make things grow?” I asked.
“That’s a first,” Pradat said in a voice as bland as water. “I have three patients who see what they describe as new colors. Another swears she hears the future in the wind.”
My heart thudded against my ribs. New colors and predicting the future? Did the surgery make patients go mad? Was I doomed to become a babbler?
“What we suspect,” Pradat said, “is that nature sealed your Resonance sac for a reason. We surmise that in some cases the Resonance sac also housed a mutated sense or talent. By opening the sac, we released the ability.”
I hunched into myself. All I wanted was to be like everyone else.
Pradat reached into a large beige bag lying at her feet and drew out three small, clear, shallow bowls covered by clear domes. Each bowl had some sort of colored liquid in it. The orindle got up and walked over to a small table and a chair that had been set up in the receiving room. She motioned that I should sit there.
“Of all my patients manifesting what seem to be new abilities,” she said, “only yours is verifiable. The one who hears the future hears nothing that will come to be within our lifetimes. We have no instruments capable of detecting the colors the other patients describe but only they see. Organism growth, however, can be easily predicted and measured.”
Sweat prickled my skin. My neck itched. I licked my lips twice, trying to work up the nerve to speak. “What do you want me to do?”
Pradat handed me a bowl filled with a thin green liquid. “There are organisms in here that grow at a set rate. We want to see if you can accelerate it.”
I took the bowl and turned it in my hands. The others watched me—Tav with concern on her face, Simanca with expectation. Pradat seemed merely curious.
Curiosity filled me as well. As I stared at the small bowl, a fascination grew in me that I might truly posses an ability that no one else had. I’d longed to be the same as my sisters, as good as they were. Now I wondered if different might also mean better.
I held the bowl and thought of the little animals or plants or whatever it was that were in the liquid. Did they have consciousness? Were they quarrelsome like preslets or serene in their floating lives? Whatever they were, I wished them success in their goals.
The liquid turned cloudy, but I couldn’t know if that was normal or not. I handed the dish to Pradat. She set it on the table without a word. She took a thin, clear tube from her bag, extracted the liquid from the dish and squirted it onto a small board marked with tiny squares. Then she took out a device with a palm-size circle of black glass and straps that fitted over her hand. She slowly waved the black glass over the wet squares and turned her hand over to look at the glass.
“Seven percent over expectation,” she said in her maddeningly neutral voice. “Enough to warrant further study.”
I stared at her neck, looking for color to tell me her feelings. Her heart must have been as dull as her voice sounded. Nothing showed on her spots.
We repeated the experiment twice more. Each time the clear liquid turned cloudy. Pradat calculated and noted the results without showing any sign of what the results meant.
Simanca’s mouth crinkled. “Y
ou’ve done well, Khe. Go back to your dwelling.”
“I’d like her again in the morning,” Pradat said, still staring into her device. “I want to run the trials at least twice more, with an examination of Khe before and after, to determine if the phenomenon has an effect on her as well.”
Simanca said, “Khe will report here immediately after morning meal.”
No one asked me if I wanted to come back. Simanca led the commune and all decisions regarding anyone at Lunge were hers to make. Still, they could have asked me.
***
Gossamer filaments radiated from almost every inch of my body. Circles of colored light dotted my skin. My skin itched beneath the bandage Simanca had once again told me to wear around my wrist. She stood nearby, her thin arms folded calmly across her gaunt, flat chest. Tav bit her bottom lip. She looked ready to leap to my defense, if need be.
“Nervous?” Pradat asked.
I nodded. Who wouldn’t be nervous, hooked to fourteen machines designed to test, calibrate, and analyze the very essence of her being? Expected to perform what Thedra had begun calling, ‘the Lunge commune miracle’? Plenty nervous is how I felt.
“Afraid you won’t be able to do as well as you did yesterday?” Pradat asked as she twirled a lever on one of her machines. The machine answered her touch with a string of blips and snarls that made my skin crawl.
“No,” I said, staring down at my fingers that rubbed against each other as though they had lives of their own. I wasn’t afraid that I wouldn’t do as well. My fear came from knowing I could duplicate yesterday’s results. And do better. The proof of the kiiku, the preslets, and the awa trees convinced me. Knowledge of my power surged through my blood, tissue, muscle, and bone.
I felt two of my emotion spots flare bright green with pride, and another glow muddy gray with fear. I looked up, worried that the others would see my feelings, but no one paid attention to me. Not even Tav, whose eyes were stuck on the motions of Pradat’s hands on the machines. My emotions quieted enough for the spots to vanish, but dread still crept through me like ice spreading in my belly.
So much was unknown—how the community would react, what the ability might mean to my future. Was I to become a traveling freak, transported from research center to research center, performing my miracles on demand?
It wasn’t not being able to perform that frightened me.
“Ready?” Pradat asked.
I drew a deep breath, straightened my back and answered, “Yes.”
The machinery on the floor and tables surrounding my chair glowed red, yellow, and blue. The blips and snarls quieted to a high-pitched hum that tickled the insides of my ear holes, making them itch. Pradat handed me the first covered bowl.
Bowing my head, I swirled the cerulean liquid in gentle currents, wondering what sort of little plants or beasts lived in the water, what they wanted from their lives. No more than I wanted—a pleasant place to live, food, companionship, and to leave their mark by reproducing.
I put my full concentration to the task. Remembering the joy and glory of mating during Resonance, in my mind I told the little organisms how lucky they were to have the chance to live and reproduce. I told them that if they wanted, I would help them with their task, if I could. I told them how happy helping them made me.
When I felt I’d done all that I could, I handed the bowl back to Pradat.
“Seventeen percent above normal,” Pradat said when she finished the count. Her voice held no excitement or disappointment to help me know her expectations. She tapped the information into a thin device on her wrist. While I’d been holding the bowl, Pradat had watched the machines, noting the blips, gains, and dips of my physiological changes while I’d worked. She recorded this information as well, but said nothing about what the machines told her.
I spent most of the day in that room, endlessly repeating the same act with various organisms. As I tired out, the rates of increased dropped but never so low as normal. Finally, seeing that I was exhausted, Pradat sent me back to my dwelling.
At the door, Tav squeezed my shoulder. Her dark eyes gleamed.
“Oh, Khe,” she said. “Think of the good you can do for Lunge commune.”
Chapter Seven
Clear water washes the bones of the land.
Hard work washes the sins from our souls.
--The Song of Growing
My mouth fell open, seeing Simanca stepping carefully as she crossed the newly turned field. I slung my seed bag over my shoulder and walked toward her.
“Good day, Khe,” she said when we met, as though her being here was an everyday experience.
“Good day,” I said back. “Is something wrong?”
I glanced around. Thedra, Jit, and Stoss were watching us. Doumanas in the fields on either side were staring.
“Something is very right,” Simanca said. “I wanted to speak with you here, in the fields, the place where you will be privileged to make Lunge the most successful, highly regarded commune in the region.”
I shifted my weight from foot to foot, waiting for her to go on. I could feel my sisters’ eyes on us.
Simanca leaned in close to me. “I’ve thought this over carefully. You have a wonderful ability, Khe. You can accelerate growth. I want you to try it with the kiiku. If you can produce an extra seventeen percent, we’ll have that much more to sell.”
She didn’t say it, but I knew that if we produced that much kiiku, Lunge would easily win the annual production competition against the other fifteen communes in our region. I guessed that Simanca wouldn’t mind that.
“Seventeen percent is a lot,” I said.
Simanca’s lips crinkled in a smile. “A goal, Khe. A number to reach for.”
“What will Lunge do with the extra credits?”
“Bring in hatchlings of course. Not only those we’re allotted, but more. An extra seventeen percent in production will give us an allotment of six hatchlings, plus enough credits to buy two more.” Simanca’s emotion spots flared bright blue with excitement.
I stared in surprise. Hardly anything meant enough to Simanca to show on her skin.
“Perhaps,” she continued, “once our production has improved, you might work in the new hatchlings’ wing.”
Oh, now she wanted a whole new wing. Not just a few extra hatchlings to build up our population slowly, but many and quickly. I’d never thought of her as ambitious, but now I saw how full her dreams measured. Simanca knew I wanted to tend the hatchlings. She was trying to bribe me—and succeeding.
I ran my fingers lightly over my skull. The work with the orindle, Pradat, had tired me to the point that I’d taken to my sleep quarters and stayed the entire next day on my cot. Simanca allowed the unheard of luxury even though I couldn’t really say I was sick. I was still tired today, but didn’t want to complain again. Clasping my hands together in front of my belly, I looked down at my feet and said, “I’ll try.”
Simanca beamed. “Good. Begin now.”
***
The golden days of First Warmth passed one after another into Bounty Season, then Cooling, and Barren and to First Warmth again. Commemoration Day arrived.
Thedra stood in the doorway to our sleeping quarters, her hand on her hip.
“You going to sleep all day, Khe? The hatchlings have already emerged. You missed it.”
I groaned and sat up. “I’ll be right there.”
I’d gone to Simanca when I’d first noticed how tired I was becoming. I’d overslept the morning meal so many times that Jit started bringing me food—not only in the morning, but sometimes at night when I felt too tired to stand in line at the communiteria, or when chewing and swallowing seemed more effort than they were worth. Simanca waved off my concerns. Pulling the textbox from the holster on her hip, she’d quickly found the verse from The Rules of a Good Life that she wanted.
“The callused hand is soothed, the tired heart refreshed with the balm of work for the community,” she said, showing me the same words
on the box. “Take joy in your fatigue, Khe. It’s a blessing from the creator.”
I’d fought down a terrible urge to laugh. Instead, I’d lowered my eyes and said, “Yes, doumana,” and walked away.
Thedra stayed standing in the doorway, her eyes wide and locked on me.
“We’re just about to honor the returning doumanas,” she said.
And after that, I knew, we’d hear the crop weighing results.
“I’ll be right there,” I snapped, and then regretted my tone. It wasn’t Thedra’s fault that I felt like there was a little beast inside my skull, banging it with a hammer.
Thedra shrugged. “We’ll see you there, then.”
I heard the front door slam as she left.
Clouds hid the sun, making the day gray and dismal as I hurried across the Commons to Community Hall. Blue drymoss was in bloom. My feet crushed their tiny white flowers as I ran.
The door to Community Hall had been left open. I slipped inside and stood at the back for a moment to catch my breath. I scanned the room, looking for my unitmates, so I could sit with them.
I’d arrived too late to join in honoring our Returning doumanas. They were already seated in the front row, a line of crimson in a lake of new-leaf green. I wished I could see their faces. Since the day that Hwanta had gone mad while being honored, I was afraid that another of my sisters would blaspheme the creator as Hwanta had. But since then, no Returning doumana had been anything but anxious to join with the great soul.
Simanca stood on the dais, dressed in a green gown. The awards box lay near her feet. Tav stood to her left; Gintok and Min stood behind her. Soothing warmth spread across my neck. My emotion spots flashed green with contentment. I loved my commune and my sisters, relished the comfort of seeing my leader and her unitmates on the riser as I’d seen them so many times before, as I would see them again every year until my own Returning had passed.
I spotted Jit craning her head toward the back of the hall. Catching her eye, I made my way down to the second row, where my unit sat.
“Twenty-four percent over last weighing,” Simanca called out, as I slid into a chair between Jit and Thedra. The room erupted into cheers. The stamping of feet made my ear holes hurt.
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