by Andrew Elgin
Javin considered which question to respond to first. "Yes, it is different. Very. So different I can't even tell you. Everything is different." He plucked a small plant from beside him and held it up. "This is different. I don't even know if it's poisonous or good to eat. I don't know about plants. I lived in a city." The word obviously meant nothing. "It's big. Very big. Many thousands of people live there. Tall buildings and lots of metal." There was still no reaction. He pointed to the hobbled beasts. "I've never seen anything like them. They're huge. I've never seen anything, any animal as big as that, back on Haven. I didn't see many animals at all. Not that I can remember anyway." He paused a moment, thinking. "And the air. It smells completely different. But it's like I can see further. The sun. That's smaller, much smaller. But the moon? That's new to me, and I like it. There is no moon on Haven." He shrugged. "There's so much else. Too much different. Even the food." He shook his head to show his confusion.
"But what happened to get you here?," Banith repeated, adding to the fire.
Javin stared into the flames a moment, trying to remember. "I don't know. I can't remember. I keep trying, but I can't. I think it's the drug I was given when I was brought here."
There was another brief silence, and then Javin couldn't contain himself any longer. "And there's this thing about not being able to leave, and about hearing the planet and knowing what my talent is. I'm supposed to have one, but I don't even know what that is or what it means. It's like everyone's speaking a language that I can't understand. It doesn't make sense! None of it!"
Neither Torrint or Banith said anything, but Torrint nodded slowly, although whether in agreement with Javin or at some private thought was unclear. It was all the response Javin would get.
The following day they made slow progress up towards a pass in the mountains. It was a repeat of the previous day, except with increasing elevation. There was one exception; an unscheduled stop. An animal carcass lay not far from the track. Javin guessed it was about as long as his leg, maybe more, and it was covered, what he could see of it, in thin grey and brown horizontal stripes, extending all the way down the long, thin tail. Torrint, hauling on the reins, used his chin to point. "That's a pecorna. A cat killed it earlier, but it ate it's fill, left the rest and is sleeping now. Somewhere else. It's safe enough."
Safe enough for what, thought Javin. Instead, he said, "A cat? Really? The animal that's about this big?" And he held his hands shoulder width apart.
Torrint cocked his head to one side and moved one of Javin's hands further apart, to where they could have held one of the wagon wheels. He checked the width, nodded and jumped down. Javin hastily re-thought what a cat might mean here as he jumped down after him.
Javin squatted down by the carcass beside Banith, noticing the chunks of flesh missing. The size of the bites helped in his reassessment of what 'cat' meant. Banith had a wide-mouthed glazed clay pot with him and what looked like a set of slim sticks. Javin thought the back of his wagon must be full of sticks of different lengths. The reason for the interest in this carcass was, apparently, two large orange shapes resting on the body. They were about two hand spans in breadth and seemed to flex gently. He was about to prod at them but Torrint caught his hand.
"Don't! These are numbugs. Not good to touch. Watch."
He gently eased a stick underneath one of them and then quickly flicked it so that it tumbled and landed on its back. A set of thin legs waved feebly. He repeated the action on the second one.
Torrint waved Javin to him. "Go ahead and touch now if you want. The underside is safe. But the top side, the orange, that's where the juice is. And that's what we're going to collect." So saying, he took the pot from Banith and placed it beside one of the creatures and then held it up over it with what was a pair of simple wooden tongs. The creature wriggled slightly. Banith took the other two pieces of wood and placed one on each side of it near the top of one of the wings and then began to run them down, squeezing gently as he went.
As he did so, drops of a clear liquid began to ooze from the creature and dripped into the pot. He repeated the process several times to drain as much as he could before treating the other one in the same manner. At the end, Torrint placed the creatures back on the carcass and both he and Banith threw the sticks away.
"They feed on carrion," explained Torrint. "Another creature comes along and decides to eat them, they end up with no feeling at all in their mouths." He held up the pot. "We mix the juice with some clay and some water and sell it. It's called deadspread. Good for pain and aches. But raw like this, you won't feel your hand for a day or so if you touched it."
They returned to the wagons where the pot was carefully sealed with something like wax from another pot before being stowed away. Everything was done slowly here. Then the rumbling, jolting journey continued. There were so many pots, Javin thought. And none of them had labels! How did they know which was which? He briefly considered asking Torrint, but rejected the thought, knowing he would get an answer he would not understand.
Two days later, two days of creaking wagons, an aching backside, few conversations and quiet meals, they crested the pass and Torrint pointed out their destination. A wisp or two of smoke could be seen. There were what looked like a few houses visible, but not much beyond that. "That's Mark, down there. Two days away. That's your new home."
Javin peered ahead. He felt disappointed. "It's not very big. How many people live there?"
"Enough. Enough to make it a place worth living in."
"And that's where I'm going to live? With this family?" Javin felt depressed at the thought. "What are they called?"
"Farmers?"
"No, their name. Like mine is Sarnum, Javin Sarnum. What's theirs?"
Torrint chewed a moment before answering. "Sarnum? That was your father's name or your mother's?" Javin was about to explain but Torrint continued. "Anyway, it doesn't work like that here. It's not just one name. There's Hanlar and there's Paysa. They got together and had a girl. She takes half the last name of each parent. At least, until she wants to make her own name. Hanlar's last was Gorthen and Paysa's last was, let me think...oh, yes, Hommerit. So, I suppose you'd call them the Gommerits. Maybe they call themselves the Gorthommerits." He shrugged. "You'd have to ask them."
Javin was amazed. "But that doesn't make sense! How does anyone know who anyone else is? Shouldn't they have huge long names by now? All their parents' and grandparents' names?"
Another shrug. "It works for us. People tend to choose how they are called. Keep the first name, but choose a last name. So, Hanlar, I happen to know, called himself Gorthen, because that was the name of his uncle." Then he added, "Not that he is called that by anyone else."
And on they rumbled and creaked.
Not only was this place strange, thought Javin, but the people in it were crazy.
Chapter Four
"I think you should take a break, Javin." Hanlar handed over the leather water-bottle. Javin gulped greedily.
"I didn't know it would be this hard," he gasped. "I don't want to do this, Hanlar. I don't like it and I don't want to do it. Really."
Hanlar nodded sympathetically. "I can understand that it is different."
"No, you don't understand. I never even saw a farm before. I bought food. I ate it. I never grew it." Thinking back to his journey here, he added, "I never cooked it, either." He gestured at the field they had been working in, digging and weeding all day. Hard, physical work. He sunk, slowly, to the ground, flexing his hands to get some feeling back into them, staring at the blisters. It was his fourth day and he was by now fully aware of the truth of Gerant's words; that there was always something to do on a farm. He couldn't work out if the days were truly longer on Harmony, or whether his perception was skewed by his getting up early and working long hours. There were no clocks. Time was told by the pain in his body, the angle of the sun or the hunger in his belly. Mostly by the pain.
Hanlar squatted down next to Javin. "I can finish here,
Javin. You go back and have a rest. Maybe some sleep?"
Javin shook his head. "No, Hanlar. I mean it. I can't do this. I don't want to do it. I hate it."
Hanlar sat opposite him and asked, "So what does that mean?"
"I don't know. It means I hate this."
"And then what?" There was only curiosity in the question.
"Like I said, I don't know." His voice was quieter now that he had said it, admitted it.
It had all seemed so different when he had arrived. Torrint and Banith had said their goodbyes, which consisted mainly of a quick bob of the head at him before clambering back on their respective wagons and lumbering off without looking back.
There had been the first meal together. The adults, Hanlar and his wife, Paysa. He, a man of middling height, serious eyes, a ready smile and a slow, almost languid way of talking. His wife was a short, round, jolly woman with a long braid and an easy laugh. Their daughter, Tarla, blonde hair already half way down her back, was usually quiet and had an air of reserve, almost of expectation about her, which his arrival disrupted. That first meal was a time for being polite and welcoming and gently enthusiastic while sizing each other up.
His first impressions had been that he was going to be in the way of the two adults. They were efficient and he was going to slow them down, hold them up, make life difficult. It would be an embarrassment, him being there. Even the basics of living there were unknowns. What he might take for granted, they might see as an impossibility, and vice versa.
Tarla, though, looked on him as a novelty. She was excited he had arrived. He was new. Someone else to look at. Someone to dream about. His arrival was like magic; promising so many wonderful things, stories, excitements, newness! Tarla kept smiling at him as if she couldn't believe he had actually arrived. Every now and then she asked him questions, most of which he couldn't answer; things like what he did on the other planet, how he got here, what was it he missed most? What was it like there? Were there wooden buildings or earthen? What was his favorite thing to do? Had he had any girlfriends? What about farms? Did they grow the same things? On and on, and he did the best he could. But mostly, he didn't have the words. And if he had the words, he lacked the knowledge.
The first day was about trying to fit in, even if he didn't really want to, or knew how. It was the time for looking around the farm, being surprised at the size of it, at how it seemed to straggle all over the place, of trying to remember so many new things, new words, new ideas.
And the day after had been the first long, long day of work with Hanlar. It was supposed to be a way of breaking him in to this life, this farm, these jobs. Digging in one field, herding strange, unhelpful, antagonistic animals in a different place, planting in a third. That night's meal was quieter.
The next day was like the day before, but more painful and just as understandable.
And this morning, up and again at work, digging and planting and just being physical. And the worst part of it all was that Javin knew he had seen what every day in the future would be like. How every day to come would feel like. How much he did not fit in.
He had tried to say it all, his disappointment, his sense of alienation, his lack of empathy with this type of life. But, saying he hated it, was too short, too swift, too shallow. But it had been said.
"Yes, but what now?" asked Hanlar.
Javin stared off into the distance, not really looking at anything, but only aware of the unknowing; the bleak future and his empty past. It all coalesced here and now. "I don't know. I mean that I really have no idea. Is this my future? Working on a farm? With you? I don't know what else there is. I don't know if there's anything else I can do." He spread his hands to show the emptiness he felt, the blisters adding their testimony. "I mean it, Hanlar. All I do know is that I can't do this. But other than this?" He shrugged and shook his head.
"Is it the pain? Have I been expecting too much, working you too hard?" Hanlar seemed genuinely concerned that he had contributed to Javin's despair.
Javin's gesture dismissed the question. "It's the fact that I don't fit in. I don't know anything here. Maybe I was looking for something here. A future? My past is missing and maybe it won't ever come back. If I was thinking of a future it wouldn't have been this, though." He looked at Hanlar as if searching for an answer. "I may not know my past, but I know, bone deep I know, that this is not how I want to live. This is not how I want to be." He lowered his head. "I'm sorry."
Hanlar stretched out on his back, flexing his arms to relax them before using them as a pillow as he stared up into the sky. Eventually he spoke without looking at Javin. "You talk of what you want and don't want. But it's not just you here."
"I didn't mean --," began Javin, but Hanlar carried on as if he hadn't spoken.
"Everyone here has something else going on. You talk of your future, what you want, as if you are alone. Alone and with nothing and no-one. And it's not true. Everyone has Harmony. We are never on our own. But you sound as if you don't know that, don't understand that."
"I know about it. But I don't know it. Bellis helped me to find my place on the ground outside. And I know that Gerant and Lisick do something, but..." He trailed off.
Hanlar nodded and then turned on his side to face Javin. "You'll find it, Javin. Or it will find you. I can't do anything about your past. And, to be honest, I have no clue about your future either. One may be gone. The other is in your hands. Maybe it would be best if you left. Just walked away right now and found out for yourself about Harmony. You'd probably die of starvation or poison yourself though. And then we'd feel guilty. Or, maybe, the reason you're here is to listen to Harmony. To tune in to Her. Maybe the reason you're here is to end your loneliness. And that will tell you what is next in your life." He rolled back to gaze at the sky.
"And how do I do that?"
Hanlar made an 'I have no idea' face. "I don't have to have the answers. You have to have the willingness to listen, to learn."
There was silence between them.
Hanlar sat up, gazing at nothing in particular. "Well, are you going to leave?" He gestured at the country around them. "You are free to go and you're welcome to stay." He turned to look directly at Javin. "But be clear on one thing, Javin. I am not keeping you here. I am not making you stay. All I am doing is giving you some help, giving you some space to learn, to listen. Which means, if you have problems here, you deal with them. You do not affect this family. Agreed?"
Javin studied Hanlar for a moment, then he nodded. "That's fair." He sighed. "But, Hanlar, I have to tell you, I still will hate this."
Hanlar stood, brushed his hands clean and smiled. "How you think about it is up to you. That's your freedom. Now, I, at least, am going to get on. You're welcome to join me... if you want to earn your meal, that is."
Mention of food made Javin realize he was hungry. "And when will that be?"
Hanlar paused for a moment and half-closed his eyes. "Paysa says it'll be ready when we get there." He saw Javin's jaw drop and the confusion in his eyes and his smile turned into a hearty laugh. "You've never heard about this, have you?"
"What did you do?"
Hanlar's smile was still huge. "It's something many, many people can do. Or so I'm told. We can hear each other. In our heads. You've never done this, have you?"
Javin was still struggling with it. "Did you just talk to her?"
"I suppose you could call it talking. More like... ," here words failed Hanlar. He made vague stirring motions with his hands as if that would convey what had happened. "We can hear each other if we decide to listen. I heard her in my head and we spoke about the meal." Hanlar frowned and said, as if to himself, "Actually, it's not like talking at all. I've never really thought about it before. I just do it." He shook his head to clear it. "It works. It works for us."
"Is that going to happen to me, the longer I stay here?" Javin asked.
"I have no idea, Javin. None. Everyone here has a talent for something. Maybe it will be yours.
Maybe it will be something different."
"So, what you're saying is --," began Javin.
"What I'm saying," Hanlar interrupted, "is that we have work to do, and then a meal to eat. Talking can wait."
By the time they had finished and were walking slowly back, Javin had resolved that he would take what he could learn from his time on the farm, before leaving to find out what other sort of life he could live. For he knew that this was not what he would be doing for long.
"Hanlar? Why are we working so far away from the house? There's all this empty, unused land here. Over there, there's a fence, and there's some animals further out. And no crops I can see. It's like a, a mess! Sorry. It is. It just doesn't make sense."
Hanlar nodded. "I can see you might look at it that way. The answer is that that's the way Harmony wants it."
Javin stopped trudging and put his hand up as if to pull Hanlar back. "Wait! Are you seriously telling me that a whole planet, this planet, the one I'm standing on right now, knows exactly where it wants a field or where it wants some animals to eat? Seriously? It tells you this? Really?"
Hanlar turned back to face him. "Whose land is this, Javin?" He gestured expansively around him. "Is it mine? No. I look after it, that's all. I don't own it. The land is Harmony's. It is Harmony. That means She has every right to say what happens to it, doesn't it?"
"But, how?"
"How does She tell us? Let us know?" Javin nodded. "Well, first we have to ask, and then we have to listen. Really, that's Paysa who does that. She's much better at hearing it. Or, maybe it's a feeling she gets. I don't know which it is. The end result is that if we get an idea about making a new field, for example, then Paysa, sort of... ," he smiled ruefully. "Actually, I don't really know what she does. You'd have to ask her. But she gets to know if it's a good idea or not, if Harmony is in agreement with it or not."
Javin chewed on his lip for a moment before shaking his head in disbelief. "What you just said, Hanlar? I have to say it was absolutely no help at all. I still can't believe it. I can't believe any of it."