We lazy bones stayed where we were. Shajn climbed onto Dibin’s lap. “You have a stone too.” My kid pointed at Namjikil’s pendant.
“Yes. Ancestor stone. Our people wear.”
Ledikjin expanded on that. “The Kanimil believe the stones hold the spirits of their forebears and that specially gifted individuals can receive messages from the ancestors through them.”
Dibin sat bolt upright and shot me a look. “Really? Messages how?”
Ledikjin frowned and asked Namjikil a question. The two exchanged a few words, then Ledikjin turned to Dibin. “Namjikil isn’t sure how, but their stone singers can interpret what the stones say to the clan.”
“‘Stone singers’? Fascinating. I’d love to learn more.”
I recognised that glint in Dibin’s eye. “Maybe some other time?” I said.
Dibin correctly interpreted my glance at Shajn, and subsided, but made a request before departing that night. “Do you think Shajn would be upset if I took that pendant away to analyse? I wouldn't need to damage it.”
“I don’t think so. Namjikil might be offended but I can explain you’ll bring it back soon. Surely you don’t believe in talking rocks.”
“No, but I’d like to look at it anyway. Shajn?”
My kid came over. “Yes, Dibin?”
“Kiddo, do you mind if I borrow your pendant for a little while?”
“No, I don’t mind. Pax, is it okay?”
“Sure, puggle.”
Shajn slipped it off and handed it to Dibin. At the centre, the carers hadn’t been able to get it off the kiddo’s neck, not even for a bath. I guess it had been a substitute for me during dark times. Now I was right where I needed to be, the pendant was no longer so important.
I wondered just how wide a remit Dibin had for all this strange research. Why would the Federation want a highly paid scientist messing around with magical pebbles?
I didn’t have a moment to think about stones or visions or much else, between my rehab, supervising Shajn’s lessons, and getting on with my chores. If I gave anything much thought, it was my recovery and what I would do if and when I became fully space fit. I could stand unassisted now, and shuffle a couple of steps. And I finally had full sensation in my lower body.
In six months, I would be back to normal. Better than normal, which was normal for me. At night I sat on the porch and looked at the stars. I couldn’t imagine a life spent planet-bound. But then I could no longer imagine a life without my kid. Shajn sometimes asked me what I used to do, and what it was like, but the puggle’s interests were strictly tied to this planet and the Gavnir. Here were friends, people to love, fun, work, sunshine, and freedom.
Safety.
Making the kid leave would be cruel. But my child’s people were out in the galaxy. My people were out in the galaxy. Shajn had a right, even a need, to meet them. After that, who knew what might happen?
At times like this, Shajn would come find me and ask me why I was sighing. I’d hug the puggle and say, “Just happy to be alive, kiddo.”
And I was. More than I’d ever been in my life.
Dibin came out to see me two months after the previous visit. I stood, no exowalker in sight, to meet the vehicle and my friend bounded up the stairs, grinning. “Wow, look at you. How well can you walk?”
I demonstrated. I still needed the exowalker on uneven ground or for any longer distances, and needed a cane to support me around the house, but I was indeed walking. “I’m so happy for you, Pax. You’ll be space fit in no time.”
“Maybe.” I didn’t want to talk about it before I had to. “Why the visit?”
“I need a favour. Two, actually. Where’s Shajn?”
“In school. Only started three days ago. This is the first day I haven’t had to sit in with the class.”
“That’s great. Such a brave kid.” A glance at the timepiece. “Another hour?”
“Yeah. I was about to eat. Would you like something?”
“Sure.”
In the kitchen, Dibin watched me prepare a light meal. “This would be so nice. To have a home to come back to, I mean.”
I’d had the same thought many times. Saro and Ledikjin’s house had belonged to Saro’s parents, and to their parents before them, and was one of the oldest buildings in the settlement. The furniture was worn but sturdy, soft cushions made from hand-woven and embroidered cloth, and the walls decorated in gentle colours of paint made from the garden and trees. It was a welcome in stone and wood as generous as the people who lived here, raising the next generation who would likely raise their children here too.
“Not my home. Not my house, at least. So why did you come all the way out here? You could have called me.”
“I need to show you something. Hang on, I’ll get the equipment.”
I frowned as my friend ran back to the vehicle. Dibin seemed more hyperactive than usual. I hoped there wouldn’t be another request to test Shajn. I’d had enough of that.
Dibin returned, placing a small, anonymous piece of electrical equipment on the counter. “I can show you after we eat, if there’s a room we can darken.”
“What’s that?”
“Frequency emitter. I’ve been testing that pendant of yours, which I have right here.” Dibin fetched it from a pocket. I left it on the table for now. “That’s no ordinary bit of rock.”
“Looks ordinary enough.”
“Wait and see.”
I ate my meal and resisted the temptation to beat Dibin over the head with the damn emitter. Finally when tea had been drunk and chitchat exhausted, Dibin consented to demonstrate the point of the device. We went into my bedroom and drew the shades.
“Sit or stand, whichever you like. Hand me the pendant please. Now, watch.”
The room was far from completely dark, so I struggled to see whatever it was that I was supposed to see. But then, a slight mist....
“Anything?”
“Yes...a little bit like what I saw in the hospital. Not a form exactly...a cloud? Is that thing a transmitter?”
Dibin turned off the emitter and the mist disappeared immediately. “Not exactly. That frequency is the natural frequency of that piece of rock.”
I opened the shades to let in the daylight. “So it projects an image—”
“It vibrates, and when it does, you can see an image. You can see it, not me, Pax.”
“Not you? So how did you know I would see anything?”
“I didn’t. I guessed. Now I know. I’d like to try it on Shajn—”
“No tests.”
“No tests. Just what we did here.”
“This is a chromatomorph thing, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. I can see the mist, but only with sensors that can translate light outside the visible spectrum. You and Shajn can see part of that visible spectrum, which the stone uses to project moving images. I just want to confirm that by showing Shajn. That’s favour number one.”
Dibin was starting to piss me off ever so slightly by drawing this out. “And number two?”
“Help me find the source of the rocks. That pendant’s just a chip, probably a naturally weathered piece. I want to know where it came from.”
“Someone made the stones? Or are they natural?”
“Now that, I don’t know. And that’s why I want the three of us to go visit the Kanimil so I can investigate this further.”
“Why do you need us?”
“Because Namjikil’s people won’t talk to me on my own. I already tried that. I’m not of the clan. But you are.”
I shook my head. “Tell me again what this has to do with your job, Dibin.”
“Indulge me, Pax. Have I let you down yet?”
“I guess not. But we’ll need Ledikjin to translate, and I’m not pulling Shajn out of school for this. You need to wait for it to be convenient to Ledikjin and on a day when school is closed.”
“Okay. So you’re saying yes?”
“I’m saying that a little warning would have
gone a long way. And if the vision thing upsets Shajn, then the puggle stays here. I’ll have to do.”
“Understood.” My caveat didn’t dull Dibin’s glee at all.
Ledikjin wasn’t too pleased at the idea of losing a day’s work for Dibin’s quest, but allowed that in two or three weeks, the farm might have need to take produce to the Kanimil settlement. “But you will owe us a day’s labour,” Saro said.
“Sure, or I can compensate the farm in some other way.”
“Labour, not money.” Ledikjin glared. “Hard work.”
Dibin swallowed. “Okay.”
The school absence was harder to negotiate. With Shajn only just back to the lessons with the others, disruption now was a bad idea. Shajn didn’t care about that. “But Pax, I want to see where Namjikil lives. Can’t we all go?”
“Puggle, I don’t think that’s polite to our friends.”
Saro held up a hand. “Actually...perhaps a visit by some of our children would be a good idea. We share kin, after all. And this is a chance to strengthen those ties.”
“So, what, take all the settlement children to see the Kanimil?”
“Some. Perhaps just one other. Ketan hasn’t ever been there. What say you, love?”
Ledikjin shrugged, rising to take plates to the sink. “I wash my hands of that part of it. A translator is necessary. A leisure visit is not. But if you think it’s a good idea, Saro, I don’t object.”
“Oh...good,” Dibin said weakly. “I didn’t mean to cause trouble.”
Ledikjin grunted and walked away. My friend could understand making an effort to save children, and had stinted nothing to help Shajn, but magic rocks were clearly another matter.
After dark, Dibin, Shajn, and I went back to my room to try the pendant on Shajn’s senses.
“Is it scary, Pax?”
“No, puggle. I don’t think so. There’s nothing that can hurt you at all. Right, Dibin?”
“Oh, completely right. I would never do anything to hurt you, kiddo.”
“Okay.” Shajn sat next to me, hand trustingly in mine.
“Go ahead,” I said, waving at the machine.
At first, as before, I could see nothing. But within seconds, Shajn sat up. “Oh. It’s back.”
And there it was, a shapeless dim mist hanging in the air in front of us. This time, Shajn wasn’t frightened, only interested. “Is it talking to you, Shajn?” Dibin asked.
“No. But it seems sad. Like I was sad in the hospital.”
I cuddled my kid. “Were you sad?”
“I had a bad dream where you were so sick and couldn’t talk to me, and I couldn’t help you. I woke up and the ghost was there.”
Huh. A ghost that reacted to sadness? It was possible, if ghosts were possible.
We watched the mist moving and twisting, until Dibin turned off the emitter. “It’ll come back,” Shajn said with complete certainty. “I don’t think it’ll hurt us. I think it’s a friend.”
“Maybe.”
“I’m not scared of it. I was just surprised in the hospital. But it’s not scary now.”
“What did you see, Shajn?” Dibin asked, ignoring my scowl.
“A person. Not a face, but arms and legs. It was pretty.”
“I didn’t see anything like that,” I said.
“Hmmm. Interesting. Maybe—”
“I think that’s enough for now, Dibin.”
I took Shajn’s hand and walked out of the room. Dibin had more than enough to be getting on with.
We went into my kid’s own bedroom, and Shajn climbed under the covers. I sat down on the bed. “Pax, where does it live?”
“We don’t know, hon. It’s not really alive. It’s just a picture inside the stone.”
“You think maybe it’s trying to get out?”
“I don’t think so. It’s more like a painting. Like the ones you do with Ketan.”
“But it moves.”
“It’s a special kind of picture. But no one lives in the stone.”
Shajn lifted the pendant hanging around my neck. “Can I have it again? Maybe the ghost will visit again.”
I took the pendant off. “You won’t be frightened?”
“Nuh uh. Now I know it’s not dangerous.”
I kissed the puggle’s cheek. “You’re a brave kid, you know that?”
“I’m the best kid, Pax. You said I was.”
I grinned. “Yes, I did, and yes, you are.” I kissed the soft cheek again. “Go to sleep, sweetheart.”
~~~~~
Reluctantly, I allowed Dibin to persuade me to undergo non-invasive testing the next time I had to go to the city for medical assessment. I’d had a gutful of medical tests and Dibin knew this. Asking me to endure more for something I considered trivial was unfair. But I did owe Dibin a great deal, so I agreed.
In the laboratory at the small Federation research institute, my friend buzzed around me like a bat on stimulants, and my cheekbones started to stick out under the strain of not yelling.
“Did you know brains under emotional stress emit a special frequency?”
“Did you know I don’t care, Dibin?”
“Aren’t you even a little bit curious about this?”
“I agreed to help you again, didn’t I?” I was sitting in a lab with a dozen leads stuck to my scalp, waiting for a technician to take another reading.
“Yes, but you don’t care about the results.”
“No, I don’t. Can you hurry up? Shajn is waiting for me at the farm.”
“Shajn is in school, Pax. This won’t take long.”
The tech gave me the thumbs up. “All ready.”
Dibin turned on the emitter. The room was too bright for me to see anything, but the tech grinned in excitement. “Look. The response is perfectly clear. That frequency causes Pilot Bancilhon’s brain to emit the exact natural frequency of the rock.”
“Your brain just lit up like fireworks, Pax! Looks like you emit the frequency that makes the image appear. Wow, that’s beyond amazing.”
“Great, Dibin. I’m beyond amazed. Can we stop now?”
“Yes, we can stop now.” Dibin tsked. “Don’t you realise the importance of this, Pax? I really must get some more of those stones.”
“Good luck with that,” I said, pulling leads off my head, much to the tech’s annoyance. “The Kanimil only give them to their own people, and only to those who merit it. You don’t count.”
“You do. You can ask them when we go there.”
“I could. But I won’t. The Kanimil aren’t chromatomorphs, so why would they care?” I squinted at Dibin. “Or are they? Is that what this is all about?”
“They could be, at least partly. We don’t know a lot about how much of the chromatomorph DNA is spread through the rest of the population. Whatever gives you and Shajn this ability can’t just be a random mutation. Of course, I don’t know whether the Kanimil can really see anything or whether the stone singers are putting on a good show.”
“Fascinating. So why would the Kanimil care?”
“Because...oh, you’re a pain in the backside, Pax.”
“Yeah, I am. So can I go?”
“Shoo. See you at the farm next week.”
I grabbed the pendant and bolted before Dibin could call me back.
~~~~~
A week later, we formed a little convoy, with Dibin, Ledikjin and Ketan in Dibin’s vehicle, and Shajn, Saro, and me in our rover. Dibin’s vehicle was loaded with measuring devices and scanners, which we had no idea would be permitted or not. I hoped Namjikil wouldn’t mind us all turning up and that Dibin hadn’t permanently offended anyone with the previous requests to inspect the source of the ancestor stones. As an official clan member, I made the request to enter. The person keeping watch at the stone gate of a nominal enclosure, sent someone for Namjikil, who came running, face in a wide grin.
“Pax, Shajn, greetings! Welcome, welcome, Ledikjin, Saro, Ketan. Friend Dibin, come, come.”
So Dibin
hadn’t done too much damage. As soon as we exited the vehicles and walked through the gate, Shajn was surrounded by a gaggle of curious children, including a shy kid Namjikil introduced as “my child, Ilganji. You saved”. The little one hugged me and insisted on giving me a kiss on the cheek. At least those children were safe now.
Ketan decided to be Shajn’s translator, and since the children’s curiosity wasn’t bothering my kid, I left them all to it while Namjikil took the rest of us along to a long, low-roofed cottage—Namjikil’s home—and gave us water to refresh ourselves. We sat out on a long, shady verandah, as various members of the clan dropped over to see who was visiting and find out what we wanted.
Namjikil wasn’t exactly the clan’s leader, but had some kind of respected position. My status as the rescuer of children meant I received an awful lot of bows and big smiles. Shajn might have been the great novelty for the kids, but my exowalker fascinated the adults. I demonstrated it for them and explained until I was nearly hoarse why I needed it, how it worked, and how I would recover fully from an injury that would have meant death or permanent disability back in the dark ages. Not exactly strangers to technology, the Kanimil had nothing like this kind of medical kit, and had apparently no idea such things were possible.
Dibin’s technology on the other hand, as well as Dibin the person, got some glares and a lot of overt suspicion. The previous ill-judged and clumsy solo approach hadn’t helped, and now the suggestion of recording and testing the Kanimil’s most sacred experience made a lot of people mutter angrily. Dibin backed off and apologised, but the previously friendly mood soured almost to hostility.
Time to do something, so I stood. “Excuse me, I just want to check on Shajn for a few minutes. Dibin, would you like to come with me?”
No fool, Namjikil realised I was giving everyone a chance to cool off, and suggested I bring Shajn back if the kids were finished playing, so the adults could meet my child. Shajn would go a long way to charming people back into a good temper, was the unspoken idea, and I agreed.
Dibin walked alongside me. “You guys aren’t helping me make my case.”
“Because you haven’t told us your case. You won’t tell me why you care so much about the stones, or the Kanimil, and I’m not going to lie to them. I owe you a lot, but I owe them a lot too. So be straight with me.”
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