The Stars Down Under

by Sandra McDonald

  “What about the Bunyip?” he asked. “The creature that dived into the sea when I did.”

  “Stranger,” said one woman.

  “Interloper!” said another.

  Free-not-chained leaned against an old, scarred crocodile. She stroked its tail with one hand and gave Myell a long look from under her black eyelashes. “He swam to shore. They took him. They celebrate him as the Lightning God, in error. We kept you.”

  Myell pulled the seagull feathers tighter. “Why?”

  “So curious,” said one of the others, and rubbed her legs languidly against each other.

  To Free-not-chained he said, “I am thankful that you saved my life. But I need to get back to my friends. Will you take me?”

  She licked her lips. “Not curious. Denying. But your friends, they will come soon to take you to the Nogomain.”

  “Who are the Nogomain?” he asked. “I don’t know that word. Are they gods? Like the Rainbow Serpent?”

  None of the women answered. Free-not-chained continued to stroke her crocodile. Sea spray shot over the rocks above them, sending down water drops that chilled Myell’s skin.

  “I have a wife,” he said. “I have to go home to her.”

  Free-not-chained closed her eyes. The other women also seemed to doze. Some of the crocodiles stayed awake, their eyes flat and watchful. Myell edged to his feet, tiptoed past tails and claws, and tried to avoid the clamp of jaws around his ankles. Sweat trickled down his neck and made the feather coverlet stick to his skin. It wouldn’t be so funny to survive a cliff dive only to be devoured by wild reptiles, but he was their Jungali, whatever that meant, so maybe they wouldn’t rip his limbs apart, wouldn’t snap his bones and chew up his organs.

  At the far end of the chamber was a jumble of boulders that twisted up to the sky. He’d never been much for rock climbing, had never even attempted it beyond a few tries in shipboard gyms, but he could see footholds and handholds. The rocks were rough and sharp, and sliced into his palms and bare feet as he ascended.

  Blood, he thought. A great way to attract a crocodile’s attention.

  He did his best not to look down and instead focused on each purchase and heft upward. The coverlet fluttered around his ankles and feathers clung to his knees. He abandoned it for expediency’s sake. Bare-assed was not his favorite way to brave an incline of mercilessly sharp rock, but it wouldn’t matter one way or the other if he fell to his death.

  Despite the cool air he was soon sweating. He couldn’t climb steadily upward but instead had to zigzag and double back at times when the rock proved too steep. He imagined that at the top of the climb he’d find Jodenny, warm clothes, a hot meal, and an ouroboros, in that exact order, but the list was depressing because of its improbability, and so he concentrated instead on not slipping and crashing to the ground below.

  He did look down, at one point, and was startled to see that all the women had vanished, and in their places were more crocodiles: crocodiles with red eyes and green nails, crocodiles lolling with their tummies turned to the sun.

  Myell climbed higher.

  The surface finally came within reach, and he hauled himself into a dazzling, overwhelming jumble of rock and sky and clouds. For a moment all he could do was sit and shake and tremble. Impossible task number one, accomplished. Then he lifted his head and saw ocean in every direction. The caves were part of an underwater reef and islands whose jagged tips rose above the tide and currents. He couldn’t see the mainland. Even if he dared swim, he didn’t know which direction to swim in, which way to safety and shore.

  He sat back, already feeling the sun burning his skin, unable to contemplate a climb back down into the crocodile pit. He had no fresh water, no food, and no hope to cling to.

  No clothes, either.

  If only Jodenny could see him now.

  He was still sitting there when a long wooden canoe curved into view with two women inside it. The first had dark skin and white hair, her face marked with scars. The second was a young woman of Asian descent whom Myell had last seen on the Aral Sea several months earlier, and who he’d presumed was dead.

  “Hi there,” Able Technician Ishikawa said with a smile. “Can we give you a lift, Sergeant?”

  “Chief,” he said dumbly. “I’m a chief now.”

  Ishikawa gave a mock salute. “Chief. I’m glad they promoted you.”

  Myell considered several responses to that, but went with the one most obvious. “You’re not real. Neither of you.”

  Ishikawa’s smile grew wider. “Real or not, maybe you’d like a ride to somewhere with a few more amenities?”

  He considered the boat, the waves, the sea. His legs were still shaky from the climb. He tipped his head back and let the sun warm his face. “Nope.”

  “He’s crazy.” That was the second woman in the canoe, the woman he didn’t know, speaking with an accent that he couldn’t quite place.

  “I’m not kidding. We’ve got a nice place for you to sleep, good food, tree houses, gods…” Ishikawa said.

  Myell cracked an eyelid at them but didn’t commit.

  Ishikawa added, “Or you can stay here until the tide comes in,” and that did the trick.

  He’d been in a few situations more humiliating than climbing naked down the rocks and into their canoe, but at the moment he couldn’t think of any. Ishikawa handed him a red-and-blue woven blanket. He pulled it over his shoulders and tucked it under his ass, but still felt exposed. The boat rose and fell with the waves, twisting from side to side. He tried not to look at all the water.

  “I should ask you the normal questions,” he said to Ishikawa. “Who, what, everything.”

  “All good things in good time,” she replied. “This is my sister Silrys.”

  Silrys began paddling. “You’re Jungali,” she said over her shoulder, and she didn’t sound like she approved.

  Myell pulled the blanket tighter. “I wish people would stop calling me that.”

  The women exchanged looks he couldn’t read, which annoyed him more than anything else had that day. But he lost his grip on his irritation as the canoe started across the water. Oddly enough, plunging into the ocean from a terrifying height hadn’t cured his phobia. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe steadily, an exercise that was supposed to calm him, but the back of his throat began to burn and he knew, with certainty, that he was about to vomit.

  “Chief, here.” Ishikawa pushed a jug into his hands. “Drink. It helps me. I always get seasick.”

  The liquid was thick wine that tasted like honey. He slit his eyes open and saw that they were still surrounded by water, by the treacherous and merciless sea, but they were headed for a large, sloping island not too far away. He nursed Ishikawa’s brew and ignored the dizzying motion of the canoe.

  “Sharks,” Silrys said, sounding very casual about it.

  Fins sliced through the water off their starboard bow.

  “No worries,” Ishikawa said, and patted Myell’s back.

  They reached the hilly island without being besieged by sharks, dolphins, whales, or other monsters of the deep. Ishikawa helped Myell from the canoe and past salt-crusted rocks. The alcohol had left him a little tipsy. The shoreline was rough. No scenic beaches here, no curving ribbons of sand.

  “Nice place you’ve got,” Myell said, keeping a tight grasp on Ishikawa’s wine jug.

  The rocks quickly gave way to sea grass, then to a forest where a canopy of green leaves tinted the sunlight. There were no houses or other shelters immediately visible, but as the two women took him farther from shore he began to see rope bridges up in the trees, platforms made from hewn logs, thatched huts nestled in branches. Colorful birds flitted from tree to tree and women’s faces peeked down at him—sunburned faces, dark-skinned faces, young faces, faces of old women.

  “This is our village,” Ishikawa said.

  Myell tilted his head back. “You live up there?”

  Ishikawa said, “Mostly.”

  The tre
e houses grew more numerous and complex. Most were clustered in concentric rings around a Child Sphere sitting by itself in a dirt clearing. Unlike other Spheres that Myell had seen, this one was covered with Aboriginal paintings that mirrored the ones they’d discovered in the cave. Crocodiles and birds, animals and reptiles of all kinds, and one lone, large figure that looked like a man or a god holding arrows in his hand.

  Flower offerings, bits of food, and carved wooden totems surrounded the Painted Child, whose dark archway called to Myell like no other Sphere had ever done.

  “Up here, Chief,” Ishikawa said, steering him toward a ladder fastened to one of the trees. “I know you’re not afraid of heights.”

  Not normally, no. But as Myell tipped his gaze up the tree, he thought about spiders and stinging fronds.

  “I think I’ll stay here,” he said. He slid to the base of the tree with the jug and blanket for company.

  Silrys glowered down at him. “He’s drunk.”

  “Am not,” Myell protested, and swallowed more wine.

  More women appeared around him, some of them barely clothed, a few of them muttering disapprovingly. Some of them giggled. Small boys and girls poked at his arms or hung seashell strands around his neck. The sunlight through the trees dazzled his eyes. The blanket scratched his skin. He began telling Ishikawa, with earnestness and great detail, how he’d been promoted to chief and then turned down initiation and now some other chiefs hated him, and officers too, and Commander Nam. But halfway through the story he fell asleep, and when he next woke up he was in one of the tree houses. Green leaves and colorful birds and brown rope bridges surrounded him. The sun had fallen far in the sky, and someone nearby was roasting spiced meat.

  “There you are,” Ishikawa said as he stirred.

  Myell sat up groggily. The tree house was a single room outfitted with weavings and sea treasures and wooden carvings. His bladder was close to bursting. Ishikawa handed over a clay pot and turned her back until he was done.

  “There’s water in that jug over there,” she said. “No more hooch for you. Dinner should be ready soon.”

  Myell peered at the tree huts and bridges and platforms. “What is this place?”

  “Island of the Amazons,” she said.

  “You’re kidding.”

  She smiled. “Well, that’s what some of us call it. I don’t think you could pronounce the local word for it. Home sweet home.”

  Myell pressed the palm of his right hand against his right eye, wishing Ensign Collins were nearby with his medkit. Then again, he’d survived worse hangovers.

  “Do the villagers back on the mainland know you’re here?”

  “The People? They have rumors. Folk tales. We try to keep our distance.”

  “How’d you get to Team Space?” he asked.

  “I grew up here. When I was old enough, I was sent to Fortune—as were many others—to look for the man called Jungali. I joined Team Space, hoping to find him along the Seven Sisters. So there I was, on the Aral Sea, and fate put me in your department. It all worked out.”

  Myell’s headache was easing. “It almost didn’t. Commander Osherman ordered you to tell the ship’s bridge that Lieutenant Scott and I were trapped in that cargo tower. We nearly died.”

  “The Rainbow Serpent came to me, told me who you were, said you had your own path to follow. Honest!” Ishikawa crossed her heart. “He told me to come back here. And so I did. Now you’re here, too. That’s destiny for you.”

  “It’s something,” he agreed. “But just because my mother picked a strange nickname for me doesn’t mean I’m the man you’re looking for. Who told you about that nickname, anyway?”

  Ishikawa put her small hand on his arm. “The Snake.”

  He sighed.

  “Your mother gave you the name Jungali because the Rainbow Serpent whispered it in her ear while she slept. You were chosen for this a long time ago. The Nogomain need you. Garanwa needs you.”

  “I’m afraid to ask. Who are the Nogomain? Who’s Garanwa?”

  Ishikawa brushed her hands on her knees and stood up. “Yambli will tell you. She gets to tell all the good stories. Silrys is our leader, but Yambli’s like our grandmother. She wants to see you.”

  He glanced down at himself. “Maybe you could find me some clothes first.”

  While she was gone Myell watched the tree village and the children who dashed across the rope bridges without a care. Mothers were cooking meals in carefully tended stone ovens, and someone was playing a didgeridoo. A traditionally male musical instrument, if he remembered correctly. Yet he didn’t see any men besides himself, which led to the question of who had sired all the kids.

  Ishikawa returned with a brown woven shirt and a red skirt.

  “We don’t have any trousers,” she said. “Sorry.”

  He eyed the skirt judiciously.

  “Yambli sent it herself,” Ishikawa said.

  When he was presentable, Ishikawa led him across the nearest bridge. Myell didn’t like the swing and buck of it, but it held their weight easily. Across platforms and huts and more swaying bridges they went, the chatter of women in the air. The sun was lower now, streaking the sky red, leaving the forest in deepening darkness. Bugs tried to feast on his arms and legs.

  “Here, smear this on,” Ishikawa said. “Insect repellent. The good stuff, too. Imported from Fortune.”

  At last they came to a large hut. The inside glowed yellow from the light of oil lamps. The single room held several hand-carved chairs and rugs woven from palm fronds. Tree-bark masks hung on the walls, their mouths and eyes wide, their faces decorated with shells, flowers, and paint. Seven or eight women, including Silrys, were in attendance around the oldest person Myell had ever seen.

  She was tiny and shriveled, with gray hair cropped close to her skull. Her dark skin looked fragile and bruised. Her right arm was bent awkwardly against her chest and the hand was a tightened knot, useless. Her legs were like a bird’s, sticking out from under a blue blanket. But her eyes were still lively, and her mouth stretched wide in a smile when she saw him.

  “Jungali,” she rasped out.

  The other women stared at Myell, not all of them so welcoming.

  “Sit here,” Ishikawa said, and showed him to a spot very close to Yambli. Myell sat cross-legged, careful not to expose himself under the ridiculous red skirt. Most of the other women sat as well. Somewhere nearby, incense was burning. It smelled like lavender and salt.

  “Chief Myell,” Yambli said. “I am so pleased to be meeting the son of my daughter.”

  “Your daughter?” he asked, startled.

  She raised her good hand and said, “All are my daughters.”

  White streaks of light flashed from her fingers and spread across the ceiling. Tangled lines, twisted, the roots of a vast eucalyptus tree, and he was at the tail end of one of the tiniest threads, and she was farther up the convolution, and the whole tree itself pulsed with energy, ancient and enormous power.

  Yambli said, “Your mother came from Australia, the lost People of the northern coast, the same as my mother, and her mother before her. That’s how we measure families here: through the mother, always. The People of the land are the same way. They believe you to be the next incarnation of the Lightning God.”

  Myell blinked. Yambli’s house reassembled itself around him. The other women were gazing at him with careful eyes. Yambli herself smiled toothlessly.

  She said, “The People were taken out of Australia and through the Egg several generations ago, by the Nogomain. The Nogomain serve the Wondjina. We serve the Nogomain. You are Jungali. Favored by the Rainbow Serpent, destined to join the Nogomain. We’ve been searching for you for generations. Since Garanwa told us to. When you step through the Egg, you’ll be part of them.”

  Yambli coughed, a dry and raspy sound. Ishikawa pressed a teacup into her hand. The incense smell was very strong.

  “The Egg,” Myell said. “The Child Sphere below?”

 
Silrys stepped forward, her expression grim. “Garanwa is the last of the Nogomain. He needs Jungali’s help. To take his place in the First of all Eggs, and to keep the interlopers from taking the helm. The ones you call the Bunyips. He calls them the Roon.”

  Myell wished he had Ishikawa’s wine jug again. He gazed at the women’s faces and saw fervent belief, irrational hope, skepticism. The lavender and salt smells were very strong now, and the insect repellent made his skin itch. He was sitting in a skirt in a hut in a village of women who wanted him to help the gods.

  “Your wife,” Yambli said. Her smile was long gone. “She saw the Roon. She knows the threat. Bring us to dust, they will, unless Jungali stops them.”

  Myell stood up. “Look. I’m sure you’re all great people and you mean well, but I’m not the one you’re looking for. I’m sorry.”

  Yambli stretched her useless hand to him. The skin on it was withered and sagging, and the bones underneath looked too thin to bear weight.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, and lightly touched her fingers.

  The world dissolved into chaos.

  * * *

  Light and dark, everywhere mixed, vibration and not-vibration, cacophony and silence in swirl, and he was without shape or form, but his mind soared through the world like a bird, or a spear thrown by an unseen warrior.

  “The beginning,” Yambli whispered in his ear.

  The chaos separated into brown land and blue sky, and sun so bright that he feared blistering his nonexistent eyes. His physical body was a memory, fleeting and inconsequential. He barely missed it all. He was free (Free-not-chained, he remembered, giddily) and nothing would ever bind him to Earth again. It was paradise and perfection and power that could never be tamed.

  Around him, balls of light dropped to the ground like shooting stars, and where they landed, the land humped and moved. The humps rose into shapes like crocodiles, birds, gum trees, dark warriors. The beginning, he understood. The newly created shapes trekked across the flatland, over hills raising themselves from the dust, over lakes springing in great gushing geysers, over rivers mingling and twisting together in shining blue paths.