by Andrew Elgin
The only usable things remaining were the deecees. There was still a large number of these grey disks, with no apparent workings in them, made of a material which did not scratch or bend, piled in a rough heap. It was as if at some time in the past, they had been poured here and left. It was from this pile that one was taken when a village requested it. A dog cart, a backpack, a canoe; old means of travel for these older pieces of equipment which no-one knew anything about anymore. Nothing other than the fact that, somehow, if people were able to focus their thoughts at them, they were able to send messages back to Landing, to The Hall, to the Group, or what remained of it.
And that was what was troubling Lisick. That and the events at Blackeye.
Something was wrong and she could not define it or understand it. And both of those things made her more unsettled. If something was happening with Harmony, then she wanted to know about it. It was her job to know about it.
She kept walking, hoping that it would clear her mind, give her new insights perhaps.
She found herself at the entrance to The Caverns and stopped. Gerant was poking around in there. He was trying to find the oldest records, the ones on the strange, thin, strong sheets, to see if he could get any clues to what was happening now. He was determined to find something, anything, which would help them. Although she envied his energy, she was doubtful that he would find anything of use. She recalled the few times she had gone in there, early on in her time at Landing. A few containers with sheets and sheets of writing. It had seemed then, and still seemed now, that it was the wrong way to learn about Harmony, by poking around in the past. Still, she was willing to leave Gerant to his task, however hopeless she privately thought it was.
Peering in at the entrance, she knew that ahead, around a couple of bends, she would find the deecees in the dim light. And beyond them, in another, smaller rock room, the old records, and Gerant poring over them by the light of a lantern. But there was nothing here for her that made sense. She could feel nothing here. It was all too alien. She was descended from the ones who had made the equipment, but she doubted she shared anything with them. It was too different. Her ancestors, so long in the past, were strangers to her and to everyone else on Harmony, despite these caves and their contents.
A sudden shiver brought her focus back to the present and she turned to retrace her steps back to The Hall with nothing having been settled or revealed to her. Briefly, she thought about finding Gerant, asking how he was faring. But she had already felt the answer. It was his task to do, no matter that it was pointless. She sighed and set off back.
She thought to sit a while in the kitchen and let the usual warmth there soak away the chill. When she arrived, the boy, Pasker, was eating some fresh bread on a stool, just inside the door.
She smiled at him. "You're always eating, Pasker."
"I'm always hungry, Lisick."
"Anything new?"
He shook his head as he chewed. "I would have fetched you. You know that."
Lisick dragged another stool over and sat beside the boy. Bellis was busy at the hearth and acknowledged her with a quick bob of her head. "Tell me, Pasker, how long do you have left with us?"
"I came when the sun rose directly over that mountain behind us."
"That mountain being....?" prompted Lisick.
"Sentinel, Lisick," he sighed exaggeratedly in response to her insistence on his being accurate, correct, against all his adolescent tendencies. "I came when the sun appeared above it."
"So how much longer, do you think?"
Pasker screwed his face up in thought and held up one hand. "Well, the sun this morning was about five palms from Sentinel. So I would guess maybe another..." he looked at his fingers and moved his lips as he counted to himself before flashing both hands at her.
"And what is that number, Pasker?"
He screwed his face up, moving his lips as he flashed his hands again, but this time at himself. "Fifty?"
Lisick nodded. "What you showed me was fifty, but I think it's actually going to be a little more than that. Remember, it depends on the size of your palm and whether you were holding your arm straight out. But, actually, we agreed with your parents that you would be back to help them at the start of the winter. It's a while yet before then, lad. I'm sorry. But have you thought about staying on after that time? Not going back to the farm?"
Pasker shook his head. "I don't think I will, thank you, Lisick. I don't think I have the talent to do it."
"How do you know?"
Pasker picked crumbs from the bread, rolling them in his fingers. "I've watched you. You and Gerant. You seem to be able to just hear Harmony and know what is going on. I've tried, when I can, when I've been asked, to listen in, but..." He shrugged.
"We could help you get better at it."
He shook his head.
"Why not? You could be very good. You just don't know."
Another shake.
"What's stopping you then?"
He focused on the remains of the bread, picking at it. "Truth?" he mumbled.
"Of course. Always."
He took a deep breath. "I don't want to live like you and Gerant. I don't want to farm either. I want to travel and maybe be a trapper or fish. Perhaps, later on, I'll meet a girl and..." His voice tailed off.
Lisick smiled ruefully and tried another approach. "But what we do here is so important, Pasker."
"Maybe so. But it's not the sort of importance I want. Here, you are trapped. You can't go anywhere. Not for long, anyway." His voice gathered strength. "What you do is good, I suppose." Lisick winced inwardly at that. "But I like to see things for myself. Take that message you had recently. About a village somewhere and people dead. Yes, I was able to sense of some of what happened, but I also listen to you and Gerant."
Lisick ignored that last sentence. "What about the village?"
"You don't know what happened and even if you did, you wouldn't see any changes you said to make." He spread his hands. "I want to see things change. I don't want to stay here and not see anything. There's so much to see."
"But I feel Her, feel Harmony, here, inside." Lisick pressed her palm to her heart. "It's like nothing else. It's special."
"Yes, but it's special to you, it's what you feel. It's not what I want to feel. I want to feel with my body, my hands. See with my eyes. I know Harmony is always with me, and I can always feel... something. But it's not special for me the way it is for you. I don't mean to offend." He searched her face for any possible recriminations.
Lisick patted his arm reassuringly. "You told me the truth. That is important. That is what I try to hear in Harmony, always. The truth is all there is for me, Pasker. So, no, I am not offended." She smiled warmly at him. "You know, it just occurred to me? You're a lot like I was at your age." She laughed at the puzzled look on the boy's face. "I knew exactly what I wanted. I wanted to be with Harmony. Be as close as I could be. And that meant being here at Landing. I didn't know that part of it then, of course. But that's how I ended up here. And you, my lad, know exactly what you want. And just like me, you have no idea where you'll find it. But you'll know it when you meet it." She leaned over and plucked the crust from him, smiling mischievously. "I am a little jealous, but only of your youth. But not too much. Not too much." She popped the crust into her mouth and chewed happily as she waved him away.
He ducked out thankfully.
Lisick's good mood slowly drained from her. She watched Bellis long enough for Bellis to realize she was being watched. Wiping her hands dry, Bellis grabbed a handful of nuts from a bowl and came and sat on the seat next to Lisick. She offered some but Lisick shook her head.
"You're worried, aren't you?" asked Bellis.
Lisick just nodded.
"I may not have the answer, but I have good ears and I can sense things when needed." Bellis slid a nut into her mouth and crunched down on it, content to wait, and also grateful for an excuse to stop for a while.
Lisick pulled at her hai
r as it fell over her shoulder. "I wonder if Gerant and me will be the last Group ever. And, if that's the case, what does that say about us, and what we do? Or try to do." She sighed. "I know there have been two person Groups before. But... this feels different. This feels like the end." She tilted her head at the door where Pasker had gone. "That lad there, Pasker, he's as good as anyone who could do what we do. Some training needed, sure. But good enough. And he hates the idea. Nobody we've heard of wants to do this anymore."
Bellis eased the tiredness in her shoulders. "And don't look at me," she said. "We've been over this too many times before. I cook and I love the garden, and all the other things I've said time and again." A small smile and a nod of the head from Lisick. "So you think you've failed? Is that why you're like this?"
"More like I think I've failed Harmony. I've let Her down somehow. Not been able to understand Her better." Lisick rubbed her eyes, trying to feel fresher in her mind. "Take this latest thing, for instance. Somebody found a village and all the people were dead. All of them. No disease. It looked and felt like She had made all of them deaf." A look of exasperation crossed her face. "And I can't find out anything to explain it. Nothing! And I keep coming back to the idea that either I'm not good enough anymore to hear Her when She speaks, or..." and she trailed off.
"Or She doesn't want to speak to you anymore," Bellis finished for her.
Lisick nodded, close to tears.
"So what did you tell them, the ones who passed the message on about the village?"
"Gerant and I decided that if Harmony wanted them dead, then there was no need to go poking around there any more. We told them to let Harmony finish what she had started and not to go to the village." She sighed deeply. "I don't know if it was the right decision or not. Neither of us could sense anything. Anything! What I do know is that I am feeling old, Bellis. Old and weary. And the worst of it is that I am no longer sure I am doing any good. I want to help Harmony, understand Her, help everyone living on Her to be closer to Her. And I am not sure I'm doing any good."
"And what Pasker said just now didn't help at all, did it?"
Lisick shook her head, glumly.
"What's Gerant doing?"
Lisick leaned back, arching her neck to rest the back of her head on the wall, gazing sightlessly upwards. "He's searching the records. Trying to see if anything like this has happened before. It's a good job he kept up on his reading better than I have. I don't think it will help, though."
"So what do you think your options are? Surely you're not going to give up?"
"I did think of that, for just a moment, believe it or not. But, seriously, the only option I can see is to keep trying to hear Harmony better. Keep doing what I'm doing, but see if I can do it better."
Bellis dumped the remaining nuts in her skirts and folded her arms as she also leaned against the wall, her head tilted toward Lisick beside her. "What if you're doing everything right? What if you're doing everything exactly as Harmony wants? What if this whole thing, the village, your lack of closeness with Her, what if all that is exactly what is meant to happen? What if this is how Harmony wants things? So, if you are the last Group on Harmony, what does that matter? If Harmony hasn't sent you anyone, and you can't find anyone, does that mean you're a bad or weak person? Of course not! How many times have I heard you say that Harmony is bigger and more intelligent than anyone or anything else? If you are honestly doing everything you can, and I know you are, then you have nothing to be depressed about.
"Yes, the Group has been part of Harmony since Landing became Landing. But being that old doesn't mean that it has a right to continue being. Most of the time, you and Gerant work to help other people live closer to Harmony, to understand her. You spend your time teaching others, giving them information they need. Maybe it's time to stop that and to start helping Harmony. See what you can do to help Her. If this is a big time of change, then you should be trying to help Her, not help the other people.
"If you really are going to be the last Group on Harmony, then end it by devoting yourself to finding out how you can help Her, help Her understand us better, perhaps. If nothing else, then just spend the rest of your time being as close to Her as possible. After all, that's what I heard you telling Pasker you wanted when you were his age. Why not do just that?"
Lisick had turned to Bellis as she had been speaking and was tugging at a few strands of her hair. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm taking this too personally. But it is hard not to. It feels selfish, thinking of doing what you said. But maybe I need to think in different ways." She smiled fondly at Bellis. "Thank you. You do really have a sense of things, don't you?"
Bellis put up a warning finger. "Oh, no you don't! Don't even start trying to persuade me. You do your thinking and I'll do my cooking." She stood up, and the nuts tumbled to the floor. "Wonderful! More work for me," she said, stooping to collect them, smiling to herself, keeping her head down, allowing Lisick to leave more easily.
Lisick wandered out with no direction in mind. She was thinking about what Bellis had said, trying to feel if she was correct. As she did so, she became aware of another reason for her unease and uncertainty of late. She retraced her steps. Bellis truly did have a sense for things, so, maybe speaking to her about it would help.
And so she found herself back at the large, old kitchen, leaning on the door jamb and chewing at her lower lip. Working contentedly, Bellis did not at first notice that Lisick had returned. When she did notice her there, Bellis tapped the table, "Come and sit and get a drink while I finish off here." Lisick sat and poured some juice out for herself. Bellis stirred one three-legged clay pot resting on hot coals, sniffed the steam, added a pinch of something from a small pot, poked at the contents of another, larger pot and seemed satisfied.
She wiped her hands and came to sit in a chair opposite Lisick, poured herself some juice from the clay pitcher.
Lisick traced swirls on the tabletop with her fingers, head bowed, letting her hair hide her face. Bellis waited.
"There's something else. You know that spaceship from Haven?" Bellis nodded even though Lisick hadn't looked up.
"Of course! I'm not blind. Or deaf, come to that. Oh! That noise! But why did we give them those plants, Lisick? I mean, they're just plants. Harmony has plenty more to spare. But why? And, more to the point, why are we having this conversation?"
Lisick did look up at that, pushing her hair back. "You're sharp, aren't you? We're having this conversation because I think I might need someone else to think about it. That someone is you. And as to the why, that's for a very simple reason. We didn't have a choice. They threatened to attack Harmony if we didn't provide them. And, by attack, I mean kill off plants and trees and animals by spraying poison. That's why we did it."
"I guessed it was something like that, but hoped I was wrong. It's just... wrong." Bellis shook her head at her inability to find the words for how badly she felt, how it went against everything she knew.
"They came out of nowhere. Haven't been here for ages. Years and years and years!" said Lisick. "And why now? And that boy? Why him? Shouldn't we be able to know these things?" She spread her hands in defeat. "Gerant and me, we can't find anything wrong. Nothing. So, there's the problem that I can't hear Harmony any more, that I don't understand why a village died, that I'm probably a member of the last Group after generations of Groups, that suddenly Haven wants our plants for what cannot be good reasons, and there's a threat, which we cannot hope to possibly stop, to harm Harmony if we don't give them what they want. And who knows when they'll be back?" She shook her head ruefully. "Those are enough reasons to worry, don't you think?"
"And you're telling me because..?" asked Bellis.
Lisick smacked her hand down on the table. "Because I want some help, you idiot! Why else?" Immediately she was full of contrition, reaching to Bellis across the table. "I'm sorry. That was wrong. Please forgive me. I'm worried and I can't see what to do. I am sorry."
Bellis smiled reas
suringly at her. "I can understand you being upset. Forgiven, Lisick. You are forgiven. But I do not know what I can do."
"I'm too close to this," Lisick complained. "I was hoping that a fresh outlook... I'm too wrapped in it and can't stop thinking when maybe I need to stop thinking and just feel the way out."
Bellis frowned in thought for a moment. "What if there isn't a way out? Not in the way you want? What if nothing is going to be as you want it? No plants taken, no unexpected visits, Haven happy, you hearing Harmony, nobody else dies? What if that's never going to happen?" She looked around for inspiration. "For example, in this huge kitchen, too big by far for our needs now, I prepare and cook food. That's what you see me do. But, sometimes, I want to make a particular meal, use some of what's growing in the garden. I have everything planned in my head, but I find that what I wanted to use is rotten or something's eaten them, or something else has gone wrong. Maybe I can't get the fire hot enough or a pot cracks. Whatever it is, it ruins my plans. You don't know that, neither does Gerant. All you see is the food I made instead arriving for you to eat. You don't see the changes I had to make. Well, maybe that's the same thing as with you and Harmony. You want something to happen, but it's not going to. So you have to change what you do. Make different plans, do different things.
"With me and the kitchen, the end result is feeding you. Well, with you and Harmony, what's the end result?"
"To help Harmony, I suppose. Help us, everybody, and Harmony live together. That's why we're here."
Bellis nodded. "And you are stuck thinking there's only your way of helping. What if there's another way? Other things you can do instead?"
Lisick considered this a moment. "Other things? Like what?"
Bellis smiled and put her hands up, palms facing Lisick, making the boundary plain. "I cook. That's what I'm good at. You look after Harmony. That's what you're good at. You don't tell me how to cook and I won't tell you how to do what it is you do." She leaned forward. "I'm certain that what you have to do is think differently. Stop trying to make everything under your control. After all, Harmony is a very large lady! I am quite sure She is capable of a great deal more than we think She is. Let Her do the things She does. You have to find a new way of being with Her. I'm convinced of it." She stopped just short of patting Lisick's arm.