by Various
Thor-Att settled to the floor. His eyes did not focus. “When I became the Att, I wanted to be a great leader, a strong leader. But instead, the first decision I had to make—the first time my people really needed me—I failed them.”
She started to speak, but Thor-Att waved her to silence. “In the five barren years that followed that fatal spawning, I have wondered what I could do to help the colony recover. Even now, I make no decision but that it is in the shadow of that disaster. And so, I ponder new ways, perhaps unthought-of before, with which to aid our colony.
Yothe wrinkled the skin beneath her Nautus shell. “I’m not sure I grasp your meaning. How can these marks help the colony? The elders have said that they are heresy.”
Thor-Att hooted softly. “I know, but I persist, anyway. It’s the way I am, and I don’t apologize for it. What these marks mean is only that I, Thor, am stubborn. I created them and I’ll keep them. They’re my own little bit of heresy.”
• • •
The next morning, the wind off the glacial fields cut into Yothe’s fur as she joined in the ritual chorus of Greeting to the Sun. The moans of the collected Kree were of thanksgiving for the light, yet their eyes strayed to the darkness in the west. As the final chorus rang out, she and the others saw the first spores, little white dots in the sky, and they sang with renewed fervor. These were the fluffy spores of plants; the float bladders of animals would come later, and the heavier spores of any Kree, of course, would be last.
Before the final note was sung, Yothe slipped away. She knew there would be no room for her in the observatory, so she climbed, instead, the rim of the heated pool. Steam from the water added a heavy moisture to the air and the pleasant scent of sulfur.
She had not slept well. The fate of Magd-Mont weighed on her, even though it probably meant a bounty for their colony. How easily it could have been their own mount that erupted. Cries drifted up from the slopes below where some of the Kree caught spoors in nets to transport to the planting terraces and the caves. Even the younglings had been sent scurrying over the stones to capture tiny, drifting spores.
To her surprise, Thor-Att appeared, reaching with a tentacle to test the waters of the pool. “The others can expend their energies catching the spores of fungi and glow beetles. They’ll be exhausted by the time we see the spore of any Kree.” He glided into the pool and sat so that only his head and Nautus shell remained above the water. ”Come, warm with me.”
Yothe was pleased that the pool was vacant but for the two of them. Not even younglings splashed in the shallows. Her increased contact with Thor-Att might even inspire him to the ritual clasping, she thought, but, for now, the aged Kree seemed more interested in talk. She, too, sank in the water, not so close as to be impolite, but close enough that he could touch her if he chose.
“My weight is so much easier to bear in the water,” Thor-Att said. “Did you know it is thought that Kree once lived in water, under water in the oceans back when they were liquid?”
“How strange. But how would they breathe?”
“There are rare creatures who breath under water with water feathers. I saw a frozen one, once. I have wondered if we might have had such organs at one time.”
“How could we have them at one time and not have them now? Where did they go?”
“I don’t know,” said Thor-Att. “Perhaps we changed. I heard once that a feral Kree had water feathers.”
She hooted. “Feral Kree are so strange. I felt sorry for the one I saw. Growing up on a deserted mound with no colony she could barely talk and didn’t know any songs. She didn’t even…” Too late she remembered the stories about Thor-Att. She flashed a brilliant pink and opened her mouth to speak, but could say nothing.
“The life of such a Kree is very difficult,” said Thor-Att, rising a bit out of the water. “Did you know that I was a feral Kree?”
Yothe blinked and stammered. “I do not think of you as… You are the most cultured of Krees. Besides, nothing in the songs mention such a peculiar thing. I always assumed it was just a rumor.”
“I asked Synthe to delete the part about my lineage. It was one of the few things that old pile of wrinkles ever did for me without complaining.”
“Still, I don’t see how it is possible. How did you learn songs, and how did you come to be here?”
“The mound where I landed was a small mound. In fact, I can show you when we go back to the observatory. While it was deserted, there had been occupation at one time. I found old living quarters, lichen beds and a tool or two.
“I was very aware that I was alone, but that Kree had been there. I wanted to learn about them. I bent all my efforts to finding out everything I could, and, most important of all, I saw in the distance a much larger mound. I knew that Kree must be there.”
“Mondermount?”
“Yes. And as soon as I was big enough I waited for the longest day in the year and started out across the ice using some old gliders that I had found. I very nearly died. I was discovered by a lichen expedition that had made a brief foray from Mondermount. They brought me back and revived me in this very pool.
“So you see, you must not speak disparagingly of feral Kree in my presence.”
Yothe was so moved she could think of nothing to say but ritual words. She made the sacred circle with her foretentacle: “I hear the great Att, and I am instructed.” She bowed to the extent she could and still keep her head above the water.
“Oh, don’t be embarrassed,” Thor-Att said, splashing her, and ruining her little ritual and her attempt to keep her Nautus shell dry. “I don’t claim to be the most cultured of Krees. Ask the high priest. He thinks I’m quite uncouth. It was by my strength that I became Att,” and he lowered his voice, “but it is by my wits that I am the Att.”
• • •
In the afternoon, a cry went up that a large spoor had been sighted, high in the western sky. Yothe and other Kree emerged to see. It changed directions several times, clearly sensing the volcano and began its slow advance toward their mound. The moans of anticipation, however, turned to mews of disappointment when it came close enough to determine that it was the spoor of a mush cow and not a Kree. Nevertheless, several Kree went out to fetch it on the near slopes. Yothe was not displeased. Mush balls, made from the secretions of the lumbering lichen-eater, had always been her favorite food.
When the elders descended from the observatory to seek the heated pools, it was clear that no Kree spores had been sighted. Yothe, seeing Thor-Att was not among the elders, suspected that he was still keeping watch and ascended once again the tunnel to the observatory.
“I have brought you some warm mush,” she said.
The ground shook. They both stiffened and waited, but there was no repeat. Then Thor-Att slumped onto a sitting stone. His eyes were red and tearing.
“Thank you,” he said, reaching a tentacle for the stone cup. “My eyes have quite given out.”
“You look too long and hard. It is the blindness of snow.”
“It is the stupidity of old age,” said Thor-Att.
Delighted with their growing familiarity, she still found herself in awe of the great Att. Oddly, it was not his station or even his size that intimidated her, but—and here she stumbled, for there were no words for how she felt—it was the things that came out of his head. Last night, she had lain awake wondering about the marks on Thor-Att’s wall and what they might mean. In her dreams they floated above her, and she reached for them.
“Lean back and rest your eyes,” she said. “I’ll watch for spore.”
“You remember the basic shapes?”
She flashed impatience.
Thor-Att hooted and leaned back. Although he closed his eyes, he seemed, still, to stare into the distance. “Even a single orphan spore would help. We’ve so much to make up for.”
Yothe scanned the frozen wastes. “It was not your fault,” she said.
Silence stretched thin between them, and she wondered if Thor-A
tt had taken offense.
Finally, he said, “There is a difference between fault and responsibility.”
“I understand,” she said. “But you did exactly what was expected of you, and what the high priestess wanted you to do, and in the end what you had to do, given that the bridge had fallen.”
“I should have delayed the Spawning.”
“And now you search the sky with desperation, freezing your eyes and ruining your health. Do you expect the spores will heal your wounds, or to make up for the past?”
“Not exactly. Do you remember our conversation yesterday in the heating pool?”
Yothe put down the tube and turned, the skin wrinkling on her head beneath her Nautus shell. “Forgive me, Thor-Att. That you were once a feral Kree would make the fate of any spore weigh heavily on you. That spore could have been you.”
“True, but that’s not all of it. Yesterday, you neglected to ask me a rather obvious question.”
She suddenly felt as if she were about to be subjected to some crucial test.
“The one thing a feral Kree brings with him, the one thing he knows if he knows nothing else, is the name of his natal mound.”
“Of course, it’s in our songs. The foundation loyalty, the ultimate allegiance. I can’t imagine what it is like, to have divided loyalties.”
Thor-Att opened his eyes and looked at her. “Didn’t you wonder where I was from? Don’t you wonder, now?”
It was a test. She knew in her heart that her next words would decide many things. She looked out on the fields of ice to clear her mind and quiet the turmoil within her heart. Then, she suddenly turned back to Thor-Att. “Magd-Mont,” she whispered.
• • •
The next morning they both ascended to the observatory. Two tremors had shaken Mondermount that night, but the mound was quiet this morning. The air was bright and much warmer than yesterday which seemed, to Yothe, to be a good omen.
Thor-Att took the first turn, and, after they had exchanged places several times, he asked for a stone to rest on.
She rolled the nearest resting stone to him.
“My tentacles aren’t what they used to be,” he said, moving to the stone and flashing gratitude.
It was mid-morning when Yothe thought she saw something. She remained still and did not speak, trying to contain her emotions, but she flashed the color of excitement.
Thor-Att was at her side at once, reaching for the tube.
“To the north, and low.”
When he at last lowered the tube and turned to her, he flashed the blue of deep concern. Seeing her puzzled look, he said, “Something is wrong. It’s barely clearing the hills.”
• • •
The Elders sat on stones around the perimeter of the room. The circular chamber was the largest of any that had been carved within the slopes of Mondermount, yet Yothe had never seen the inside of it. Thor-Att was clearly not intimidated, but Yothe kept shifting her position. No matter which way she turned, she had her back to one of the Elders.
“The spore is in trouble,” said Thor-Att.
“Is it deformed? A mutant?” asked one of the lesser priests.
“It’s too far away to tell, but its movements seem sluggish. The worst part is that it hasn’t gained enough altitude to pick a strong air current. It’s clearly headed this direction, but it’s entirely under its own fan.”
“Do you confirm this, youngling?”
Yothe flashed a wave of irritation. Technically, she was still a youngling until she released her first spore, but the appellation stung.
“I do,” she said in her deepest voice.
The high priest shifted his gaze back to Thor-Att. “And you do not estimate the dropdown to be on our slopes?”
“I doubt it will have the strength to attain the slopes,” he answered without hesitation.
“Then what can we do?” said the high priest. “We cannot risk healthy Kree on the ice searching here and there for spores, especially our leader.”
“The weather is unusually mild. The ice tunnels seem to be clear.”
“You cannot know that the spore will land near a tunnel, and any prolonged trek over the ice is a definite risk,” said another.
“The colony needs a live Att, not a frozen one, especially in uncertain times,” said the high priest. “Yesterday there were four tremors. Not enough for us to become alarmed, but enough to make us cautious. I’m afraid the answer of this council is that if the spore comes to ground short of the slopes—we want you alive, not dead.”
• • •
Yothe lingered for a moment outside Thor-Att’s chamber. What would he do, she wondered? He had shown her nothing but kindness, but she had never asserted herself before—until now. She entered without scratching, and Thor-Att looked up and flashed surprise.
“I’m going with you,” she said. She wore her heaviest no-skids, her cape and her hood over her Nautus shell. “I can be useful. I’ve got an obsidian cutting knife, and snow blinders,” she said, patting her bulging carrying sack, “as well as food.” She thought she saw confusion in his eyes, which pleased her.
“You heard the Elders. They have forbidden me to retrieve the spore.”
“Did they? And have I have learned nothing beneath the tentacles of the Att? I believe they said that they wanted you to stay alive, which I assume you intend to do?”
Thor-Att flashed pleasure, but it faded quickly. When he raised up, Yothe saw that he already wore his no-skids. “There will be danger in following me.”
“Don’t forget your cape,” said Yothe.
• • •
Thor-Att and Yothe slithered down the ice tunnel, their capes and secondary tentacles wrapped tightly about them. Sunlight, filtering through the surface into the narrow passageway, caused the ice crystals above and around them to glow softly.
Yothe’s pulse was high, but not from exertion. That she dared to join with Thor-Att in defiance of the elders astonished her, and sometimes she would flash excitement and fear in rapid succession. Thor-Att did not seem to notice.
At the base of the volcano, the passageway leveled and followed the contour of the ground beneath the ice. In a few places huge chunks of the ceiling had fallen, but they climbed or squeezed past the blockage.
“We are fortunate,” said Thor-Att. “Never have I seen a day so bright so early. The surface walking will be warmer, and easier.”
“How much farther does this tunnel go?”
“Not much, I’m afraid. It was originally meant only to reach the lichen on the lower slopes. This one I had extended on flat ground as an experiment, but the Elders caught word of it. Evidently, the Mother Mount is not served by exploration.”
“Aren’t you ever afraid of defying the Elders?” Yothe asked.
“The Elders are right sometimes, but sometimes they are wrong,” said Thor-Att, “and other times they cannot advise one at all.”
“Like old Synthe?”
“I remember that day well. She drooled on herself, and her lackeys were so frightened they peed on their listening stones. No, after wiping out every spore in the colony for the next five years I decided that I would keep my own council.”
Moments later they arrived at the end of the tunnel. A few stone tools lay scattered about, covered with frost. Thor-Att picked up a heavy stone punch made of black basalt and looked up. “We’ll dig our way out from here.”
When, at last, they broke through and pulled their bodies onto the surface they put on their snow blinders and sat for a while so that their eyes adjusted to the brilliant light. When Yothe could keep her eyes open, she shaded her brow with a tentacle and turned in the direction from which they had come. “It’s strange seeing Mondermount from a distance. I’ve never before been away from its shelter.”
“I remember that morning long ago,” said Thor-Att, “setting out from my deserted little mound. When my tentacles grew numb, and I felt I could go no farther, Mondermount was always there before me, beckoning. It
was the last thing I saw before losing consciousness. It was so beautiful then; it still is.”
“And it’s so enormous, towering above the ice plains,” said Yothe. “Surely, it will last forever.”
Thor-Att hooted softly. “I’m glad you’re with me. You’ve helped me to realize that I’ve not undertaken this task solely from guilt or from pride.”
Yothe flashed a question, but he continued without answering her. “Besides, it would have been foolhardy to come without you. I cannot see well enough to cut away the bladder. And if there are other procedures necessary….”
“Other procedures?”
Thor-Att shook his Nautus shell. “There has to be something wrong with the spore, a reason it didn’t achieve the height to catch an westerly. If it’s a deformity, well, with my eyes, I might not have been able to tell.”
While Thor-Att took his bearings from distant landmarks, Yothe marveled to be surrounded by a surface that stretched mostly flat in every direction. Realizing they might have trouble on the way back finding the entrance to the ice tunnel, especially if weather turned bad, she took Thor-Att’s black, stone punch and scrambled to the top of a nearby ridge. Punching a hole in the ice, she mounted the punch so that it stood erect and could be seen from some distance away.
The wind was strangely calm, and she even sensed a faint warmth on her skin as they set out to the northeast. Alone on the treacherous ice with Thor-Att, she felt as if the rest of the world had vanished.
They came, at last, to a string of low hills that rose up through the ice. The exposed rock was layered in varying hues of brown, even tending to red, while great tentacles of ice reached between the hills.
“I see it!” cried Yothe.
“Where?”
“There, on that hillside.” Yothe pointed. “Something is wrong. It rises a bit and falls back, but that’s only taking it farther downhill. I think it’s injured.”
Flashing both anxiety and excitement, Thor-Att made the sacred circle with his foretentacle. “Let us hope it is neither injured nor malformed.”
The delicate, white sphere lay in a shallow valley, free of ice. As if attempting to take itself aloft again, the spore trembled, but it succeeded only in scudding to the next rocky ledge and into a gulley.