The Song of Returning leaps into my head. A happy song with a lively beat, tat a tat tum, tat a tat tum; it was always one of my favorites. I tap my foot to its rhythm and raise my hand to tell Azlii to power up and then turn my palm to signal that it’s Larta’s turn. I don’t know if the song’s cadence is the right one to disrupt the lumani, but I use it to keep a steady beat.
Pradat said that if the lumani pieces bang together hard enough—they will explode. Like lightning, she said, which occurs when cloud tops and bottoms get too much build-up of positive and negative charges. My heart begins to pound. I struggle to keep the beat even for the hauler pilots. If one explosion starts another, we could destroy the entire kler.
My foot taps. My palm swings toward Azlii, then toward Pradat, then back again, signaling them when to turn the engines on and off. If all of Chimbalay is blown to fragments, it will be worth it to stop the lumani.
The hum of the haulers is so quiet that I can’t use sound to know if Pradat and Larta are in rhythm or not. I watch Azlii signal to Larta. The gloom of night deepens.
A soft crackling sound tingles my ear holes. The smell of something acrid burns my nose. I concentrate on the song, on keeping the beat, on helping Azlii and Pradat keep the mag field inversions quick and even. Tat a tat tum, tat a tat tum.
It is no use, Khe, Weast sends, its voice drilling into my mind. We are all here together. We are strong together. We will make you stop.
The air feels as hot as the end of Bounty Season. The lumani are invisible, their heat all around me. I swing my hand back and forth, tat a tat tum, tat a tat tum, ignoring Weast’s threat.
We knew you would come, Weast sends. We left the gate open. We have been waiting for you.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Another swears she hears the future in the wind.”
--Pradat
My stomach knots. Tapping my feet and moving my palm, I keep my eyes on Pradat. Her mouth is drawn taut in concentration. Her shoulders lift and fall as she turns the hauler’s engine on and off at my signal.
Cease now and we will allow your companions to go, Weast sends.
I smile weakly at Weast’s bribe. I’m tiring. My chest feels tight, my arms as heavy as if I were carrying the entire kler. I stop tapping my feet. I’ve lost the beat.
Take her now, Weast sends to its companions.
The ground beneath me falls away. My body feels light and stretched to an impossible length. Wind whistles in my ear holes as I’m lifted into the air by the lumani. Their touch is hot and brutal. I am burning in their grasp. Azlii said this—how the lumani snatched up beasts and fieldgoods, and doumanas. That none ever returned.
We race through the hot air. I try to find my eyes, to open them, to see where I am, but I have no eyes. I try to scream. I have no mouth. But I feel that we are slowing, then speeding again, only to slow once more. I feel the lumani’s hold on me tighten, loosen, tighten, loosen. I feel myself falling—a rock through water. I bang into the snow-crusted street, shoulders and hips first. I lay still, panting. A sharp pain radiates in my side.
I am on the street again, but not where I stood before. I’m closer to Azlii. The lumani dropped me. Or couldn’t hold me. They’ve weakened since the days Azlii spoke about.
We give no second opportunities, Weast sends. Stop your companions now or we will destroy them.
But not me. Me they still want for their combining.
I pull myself to my feet and run to the building side where Azlii and Larta are. My leg muscles shriek. The air is hotter in some places than in others. Where the air is hottest, a turbulence rages, like the spot where two strong winds from opposite directions meet. Am I passing through the lumani? Is the turbulence caused by the orbits of their elements breaking down, or by their anger?
Azlii is still signaling, finding a rhythm of her own to use. Larta continues starting and stopping her vehicle. I need to see the lumani, to know if the pieces are swinging back and forth, hitting one another. My mind whirls, trying to think of a way to make the lumani materialize. I come up with nothing.
Your opportunity is lost, Weast sends. Your companions will be destroyed. Come with us now and you can still save them.
Kindness is not in the lumani makeup. If they had the strength to stop us, they would have done it.
I’m such a fool. I don’t need to see the lumani to know if their elements are disrupting. I stand still and feel for their emotions. Fury blasts over and through me, knocking me back a step. Behind the rage, there is panic. Beneath the panic lies anguish.
The burning smell grows stronger, almost overwhelming. The air feels prickly, the way it does before a storm. Larta’s hauler begins sliding. Not forward or back, but scraped sideways over the paved courtyard, crashing against a wall. I see Larta’s panicked face, her hunched form as she desperately yanks on the pilot stick. This is my fault. Why didn’t I listen to Weast? The hauler grinds across the pavement, the metal creaking and groaning. Larta throws open the door and leaps out.
Metal shrieks, crushed under pressure. Sparks, like tiny lightening bolts, fly from where the hauler scrapes against the energy center wall. I’m amazed to realize the hauler is still running. Part of me watches in horror, and part in fascination. How can the lumani move the hauler when they need their servant-doumanas to run the simplest machinery, when they can’t even carry me off?
Larta runs toward me. I watch her with my seeing eyes. My empathic eyes still search for the lumani. I find them clustered near the vehicle, twenty-seven emotional centers. Twenty-seven. The number of lumani Weast said was in our world. It must take their combined efforts to move the hauler, and they had to come close. Their emotions burn through me, and I double over in pain. I break off the connection.
Azlii grabs my arm, spinning me toward her. When she touches me, my muscles contract, stung.
“Think, Khe,” she shouts. “We can still destroy them. There’s a way. I know it. What is it?”
The answer is in her touch, in the static electrical charge that leapt between us. I motion to Pradat to join us, yelling out, “Leave the hauler’s engine running.”
Pradat shoulders open the door, hustles down the ladder and runs to where we are.
“The lumani are by Larta’s hauler,” I say quickly when Pradat reaches us. “The hauler is still producing a field, but it’s not enough. We have to amplify it.”
“How?” Azlii asks.
“We have to get as close as we can to the lumani and then, in unison, focus our own electrical impulses on them.”
Pradat draws a harsh breath across her teeth.
“No different than sending the impulses from our bodies down a strip of metal to spark a firestarter,” I say. “The lumani electrical bits are in confusion, but it isn’t enough to destroy them. We have to add our energy to the haulers’ fields. The extra will overload the flow of electricity through the lumani enough to push apart their disordered bits. Enough to kill them.”
If it works, I think, but don’t say. If.
Azlii grabs Pradat’s hand and starts toward the hauler. Larta and I follow. Our cloaks lift and pull in the turbulent air. Puffs of snow scatter across the ground like dead leaves. I lean forward, fighting against the lumani wind. Sweat washes my skin.
In the distance, I hear the sound of running feet, the slap of foot casings against paving stones. The lumani have called their servants to stop us. Commands are called out, but the words slide over me, meaningless. I see twenty, maybe more guardians. I see raised arms, hands with stunners clutched in them.
“Stay back,” Larta screams at them. The guardians stop, and look at each other, confused.
We reach Larta’s hauler. I feel the lumani around me, a hot, wet cloud. I pull Azlii to my left side, Pradat to my right, so that we are touching.
“Larta,” I say, “Come next to Pradat. Closer.”
The energy flows between us, as if we four were one doumana. We are linked, stronger combined than separate. The air crack
les.
“Now,” I call, and focus my electrical energy, zinging it through my body and arms, out through my hands. My arms rise as if they have thoughts of their own. My hands turn palms down, my fingers spread out, the tendons stretching. I see that the same thing is happening to my sisters.
The air grows hotter and hotter, the lumani wind more violent.
I feel the lumani knocked back, but rebound. I feel their hold tighten on me.
“It’s not enough,” I say. “We’re not enough. We need help.”
Larta gapes at me, not understanding. “The guardians?”
I have the answer now. “The structures. This structure. The energy center. We need it to help us.”
I think-talk to it. Please. We can drive away the lumani. Whatever it is that distresses you, we will try to fix it. But you have to help us now.
Azlii’s eyes slide toward me. I see her thought grains floating out toward the gate and beyond. Hall. Help us. Talk to this structure.
Pradat runs out of strength and her arms fall to her sides. The lumani’s grip on me is almost too much to resist. I focus all my energy on them. I hear Community Hall’s voice, but the words sound like another language. Pradat forces her arms up and adds her energy to ours again.
It’s not enough. My own arms are shaking from the effort, the muscles ready to give out.
Please, I send to the energy center. Help us.
I hear Community Hall speaking on and on.
A new smell rises in the air, acrid and electric. Sparks bounce on the outside walls of the energy center, winking like stars against the dark glass. The black lines that run through the glass begin to glow faintly, gray-red.
I grit my teeth and send out as much energy from my body as I can. My arms tremble.
More sparks bounce on the glass and fall toward the ground. We duck our heads. I look up. The black lines glow bright red.
See what you have done! Weast shrieks.
The lumani become visible. The steady two around one orbit of Weast’s elements is gone, the fundamental fragments blown apart. The positive bits rise; the negative pieces drop. Sparks of uncontrolled energy shoot in all directions. The reek of burning fills the air.
The oval of Weast convulses, its form winking from visible to invisible and back again, expanding each time it becomes visible, the glowing elements burning brighter. The acrid smell in the air is overwhelming. Next to me, Pradat is coughing.
The guardians still stand where they stopped. They stare open-mouthed at the glittering form that is Weast, visible to everyone now. The smell grows stronger. Sparks fall through the air like rain. The glass around the energy lines buckles and groans.
“Run,” I yell. We are already in motion, heading away by the time the word leaves my mouth. The acrid air makes my eyes water. I recognize the smell now. I know what will happen.
“Run to the gate,” I scream at the guardians. “Run!”
I am no longer strong. Pradat, Larta, and Azlii outdistance me. I chase my companions, straining on weak legs that won’t let me keep up. I hear the pounding feet of the guardians behind me. Pradat glances back and starts to slow. I shake my head, and she quickens her step.
The sky explodes with a violent white light. In the sudden radiance, the street’s buildings gleam, hard-angled stone in still water. A shattering boom tears the air. The force of the sound boils against me, shoving me like a storm wind. I’m pushed forward, almost losing my balance.
The light fails as quickly as it had come, plunging the buildings into shadow, the night into darkness all the blacker for the light that had been. I barely run another two steps before the sky explodes again. The follow-on boom rattles the air. Glass and lumps of twisted metal rain over the street, the metal hissing when it touches snow-dusted pavement. The sky lights again.
Ahead of me, Larta, Azlii, and Pradat run with their heads down, their arms thrown up to protect their necks. I run in the same awkward position. The air reeks of melting glass and metal. The light and the sound come so quickly now that one blends into the other and I can hardly tell which is which.
Panicked doumanas stream out of their dwellings. I yell, “Run. Run.” They are like stunned beasts. They stand and stare. Then one runs, and another, until the streets are filled with doumanas, some screaming, bumping and pushing into each other, the quickest shoving their slower sisters from their paths.
My feet pound on the snowy pavement. My heart feels ready to burst, but I keep going. Azlii, Larta, and Pradat stand at the gate, the huge metal arms swung open. I look over my shoulder. Thick black smoke chokes the air above Bright Blue Circle. Azlii grabs my hand and pulls me through the open door.
“I’ve sent a message to Kelroosh that we’re coming,” she says, panting hard. “They’re preparing to leave.”
My mind is too jumbled for the words to make much sense. I only know that we are running again, across the icy plain, slipping and sliding, but moving forward.
Kelroosh has its gate open. Larta grabs my arm, hauling me through the gate that slams shut the instant we’re inside. But something’s wrong. The ground beneath my feet is shaking.
“Lie down,” Azlii yells, and throws herself onto the ground.
Pradat, Larta, and I do the same. Kelroosh rumbles and shakes, and begins to move. I dig my fingers into a sturdy bush and try to hold on.
And realize, suddenly, that in Chimbalay, I didn’t feel what the lumani felt. I wasn’t affected by the changing magnetic fields.
Chapter Thirty
KELROOSH
Riding over leaf and brush
In a new land,
The windblown seed blossoms.
--The Song of Growing
Daylight slants through the small window of my sleeping quarters. I sit in a chair and watch the doumanas outside rushing here and there, some already dressed in green gowns, as they finish the preparations for Commemoration Day.
Not only are there doumanas on the street, but a few males from a corenta that has set down so close to Kelroosh that a hand could barely fit in the space between the walls. Males! Walking among doumanas, stopping to talk, their delicate hands moving in concert with their speech, as if it were the most natural thing on the planet that doumana and male should be together outside of Resonance. Maybe it is. The way Hall sees it, it wasn’t until fifteen days ago, when Kelroosh’s guide contacted the male's corenta and invited them to set down with us outside of Hawnya kler—and they did—that the true healing of our planet began.
Not only are the males visiting Kelroosh, but many of the doumanas of Hawnya kler have ventured into the male's corenta for trading. Some of our doumanas—curious to see the inside of a kler—have gone to Hawnya. Tanez went this morning. She says the kler is smaller than Chimbalay and poorer in the wonders that a kler can offer. Still, I would like to walk its streets and stare up at its tall structures, to see a kler with eyes that are wide open and fear-free. Azlii and I plan to go there together soon.
The lumani are gone. All of them. I didn’t count the explosions at Chimbalay, but know in my heart that all twenty-seven are dead. Everything feels different now—as though during all of my life a storm had raged across the planet, but now it has passed. I wish Inra were here. I would like for her to know how sweet this peace feels.
Word about Chimbalay has come over the vision stage. The explosion didn’t destroy it, as I’d feared. The energy center completely collapsed and the buildings on either side of it were badly burned, but the rest of the kler escaped relatively unharmed. Tanez, Azlii, and I watched the presentation together, in what is now our home. When the smoldering shell of the energy center was shown, Tanez hid her head against my shoulder. When the rest of the undamaged kler was presented, she breathed a loud sigh at the same moment Azlii and I did.
The snows of Barren Season have melted. With First Warmth upon us, the slumbering trees have awakened and pushed their roots deep into the rich soil outside Hawnya. Seeds from plants that live only one year have
sprouted, their shoots stretching up and up, reaching for the light. I sit outside often. Sometimes the plants and I talk, but mostly I simply watch the pictures of their thoughts as they chatter among themselves.
All the doumanas here speak with the plants, but it seems they can’t help them to grow. While Pradat watched in amusement, I tried an experiment with Azlii, Nool, and two of Nool’s homemates. After I explained how I thought the plants into growth, we each planted ten seeds in identical soil and asked them to sprout. None of the corentans’ seeds showed above ground in less than seven days, but the seeds I tended came up the day I set them in the soil. We tried the experiment other times with other doumanas. The results were always the same, except with Tanez, who seems to have a bit of the grower’s touch.
Kiiku grows in the garden here, along with denish bulbs, golden-flowered fedephloc, aromatics, and other staples. I’m using my talent to push the plants a little, to insure that Azlii and Tanez have an abundant crop this Bounty Season. Probably both would disapprove if they knew what I’m doing, but I reason I’ve earned the right to do as I please with the gift I’ve been given.
Pradat would likely disapprove as well. After recalibrating her machines to account for what the lumani did to me and running a series of tests, she is convinced that if I save my strength, I won’t return to the creator until I reach my true thirty-fifth year. Sometimes I’m afraid that she’s right. I fear that Weast has kept its promise to extend my life and that I will live a long, long time the way I am—with legs that can no longer support me well and arms that can barely lift. Pradat says I should eat, but admits that I am no thinner despite having taken almost no food since we returned to Kelroosh, forty-five days ago. She says that although my muscles are weakening, otherwise I am as healthy as any doumana. She has no explanation for what is happening to me.
But I know. The lumani’s tinkering did this. I am changing from the inside out, my muscles and bones melting—the elemental bits of me pushed into faster energy orbits. The longer I live, the more I will become like the lumani.
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