by Nōnen Títi
“Well, I can’t remember half of it,” Wolt said. “But to be honest, I just want to go home. What if the landscape doesn’t change anymore until the other coast? And who knows how far away that is?”
Once they had all rested they lugged their packs back onto their shoulders and followed Maike due west. After about an hour, they came across a clearing that was huge, with two flattops that overlapped, right at the centre.
“Are those real trees?” Gos asked, approaching them carefully.
“Plamals,” Doret corrected him.
They were big by Kun DJar standards. If Wolt didn’t have to bend down for something, it was considered tall.
“Large enough for a settlement,” Hani said, spinning slowly around.
“Not only that; look at the river,” Yako said, pointing.
Okay, it wasn’t a river, but a large stream at the very west edge of the clearing. It emerged in the south, just at the foot of a row of hills, and flowed north until vanishing into an underground cave.
“The water is fine,” Marya said after a quick taste.
“Are you sure we haven’t been here before?” Nini asked Yako.
“As if we wouldn’t remember a paradise like this,” he replied.
“We have to spend the night and check it out,” Wolt said.
Maike made no objections. She dumped her pack between the trees to go exploring and came back an hour later, having found a huge field north of the clearing full of yellow tubers and some of the orange bulbs they’d eaten in town. “So large, it could provide in all our needs,” she said.
“I swear Kun DJar has put this spot together especially for us,” Yako said.
“You freak me out when you say that,” Sinti told him.
“Me too,” Wolt agreed.
Still, it felt that way. This place was fantastic.
“On the other side of the stream the jungle leads to the sea, and there…” Nini pointed to the hills it emerged from, “at Kunset, the flattops will look dark blue against a deep red sky.”
“How would you know?” Saski asked.
“I’ve been here before.”
Nobody contradicted Nini out loud.
“It’s warmer here. We must have walked to a better climate. We’re nearer the equator,” Marya said.
Yako disagreed. “We may be nearer the equator, but the temperature change must be seasonal. We’ve been gone more than a Kun DJar station. This must be summer.”
“That’s impossible. The equator has no seasons. The only reason it did on DJar was Bue being so close,” Hani said.
They argued for a while, but it didn’t matter to Kunag. This place was great. Maike thought so too and agreed to spend a longer time here. Gos and Nini would need time to test the different plamals, Kunag would need to draw the area, and Wolt was expected to write a report. The rest of them would divide into teams and make some exploration walks.
They made their camp on the south side of the clearing, about halfway between the river and the place where they’d entered. It was safe to make a fire for cooking – they dug a little recess to protect it against the wind – with fresh water nearby and the luxury of being able to spread out their mats. At Kunset, the western hills turned into a blue forest against a deep red sky.
Kunag made a drawing of it and wondered if he should draw the jungle Nini remembered, so they could compare it when they went there.
But the next day, when he asked her, Nini had other concerns. “I’m not joking,” she told Doret, who had returned with a handful of black pods. “I have neither the knowledge nor any treatment for anything that might happen to you.”
“I wasn’t going to eat them,” Doret protested, trying to wipe the black off his hands.
While he spent the rest of the day washing them, Marya produced the first warm food in a moon. It looked a bit strange. The yellow grasses had turned brown from cooking and there were pieces of tubers in it, rather than having turned to mush. Kunag tried it, though he wasn’t hungry; it was more the warmth that appealed to him, which also created an odour all Kun DJar food had so far lacked.
“It tastes like dirt,” Sinti said, putting down her cup.
“Would you like to have a taste of the dirt you’re sitting on, so you can make a proper comparison?” Maike asked.
Sinti pulled a face and walked to the bag of dried meat, but Maike was up before she reached it. “Oh no, you don’t. These are for emergencies only. You eat prut or you don’t eat at all.”
Sinti chose not to eat and went to her mat in tears. Kunag still didn’t understand why she had come. She’d cried more on this trip than ever before, which rubbed Maike up the wrong way and only made it worse. She was with Wolt most of the time now, since Leyon had dumped her.
Kunag had just finished his own prut when he heard a faint noise coming from the forest south of the clearing, behind him. He looked around but saw nothing apart from the outline of the plamals.
It wasn’t a people noise, but he counted heads just to be sure. Could it be the wind trapped inside one of those tubes? Suppose these plamals could make music; a real pipe-organ. The flattops could be a drum set.
“What are you smiling about?” Leyon asked him.
“Nothing, just a dream.”
Kunag couldn’t ignore the sound even if he tried. It wasn’t water running, as that would be in the other direction. It was too high up for ground dwellers, but it was a throaty and deliberate murmur. So he followed his ears.
Stepping into the forest alone was like stepping into an alien landscape – which, of course, it was, but his memory was with movies of haunted houses. It wasn’t really dark, but it felt enclosed. It was silent too; the wind was missing. Worried that he’d trample something, Kunag took every step slowly, putting his heel down first, step by step, away from the clearing. He could no longer hear the voices of the others when he heard the murmur nearby. He stood still. It was like at the lake, but very faint, intermittent – like a coded message. He held his breath to make sure it wasn’t his own body talking.
Another slow step forward… another rumble in front of him. On DJar he would have concluded it was a tree-dwelling animal, a bird, maybe. When the reverberation faded, Kunag moved forward. Another response followed. Whatever it was, it reacted to his presence. With that he became aware of his own heart beating louder, which didn’t help his hearing.
A few steps further there was a space between plamals, a clearing the size of a tent. Kunag stopped to scan all around. Then he saw four faint dots of light about halfway up one of the pipe-like tubes, above his own height, but within reach if he’d wanted to touch them.
Reflections? Eyes? More than seeing it, Kunag could feel that the focus of those lights was on him. If they were reflections… where was the light source? He took one more step. The lights moved away, one at the time, as if tumbling over each other. No shape was visible, but more lights appeared, some brighter than others.
For as long as he could, Kunag stood still. The watching eyes also stayed motionless. If they were anything like the reeds, he could be here forever. To inspect all the plamals he slowly turned around on the spot; no sudden movements. He could just make out the vague light that was the big clearing. As long as he knew where it was…
He turned back, and the murmuring restarted. Was it a warning? He decided it wasn’t. These eyes were conscious of his presence. They had no harm in mind. They’d never seen people before. Like he used to do on DJar when trying to get an animal to come to him, Kunag started talking quietly. He kept his voice low and monotonous. “Come on then; I won’t hurt you.”
The lights didn’t move – not closer and not away. After having repeated his words a few times, a soft murmur filled the space around him, as if in response. Kunag waited for them to stop before talking again. It, or they, did the same. That was not just coincidence. It was communicating with him, even if neither had any idea what the other meant.
Very aware of and in tune with their presence, he
kept up the conversation, all the while observing the lights, but he was still startled when they suddenly moved: Four lights simultaneously. Definitely four eyes in one creature.
He repeated his invitation talk. New lights came forward. More sets of four – or was it five? Three, maybe. It was hard to tell as they were now all around him, all just a little higher than his head. These eyes were no reflections; they shone all by themselves.
“Kunag, where are you? Can you hear me? Kunag!”
Kunag tried to ignore them, to keep the spell going, but the eyecreatures had heard it too. In no time at all, the lights were gone.
The voices kept calling his name. Wanting them to shut up, but knowing they wouldn’t, he started retracing his steps, very slowly and carefully to avoid stepping on something, until he was back in the clearing.
“He’s back! We found him,” Hani shouted from right beside him and reached out.
Irritated, Kunag pulled away from her and walked to the fire. How long had he been gone to make them all so worried?
“Didn’t you hear us calling?”
“Yes.”
“So, why didn’t you answer?”
He had nothing to say to that.
“Don’t you go off alone like that again, you hear?”
“Yes.” He heard her, but he would have to, later, when they were all asleep. Besides, didn’t everybody have to go off alone sometimes, for other reasons?
Though Kun didn’t set completely, it did get a little darker. Against the vague light the forest seemed like a black cave. It would be stupid to go in there alone, but if he told someone and they didn’t agree he’d be grounded. Or they’d all go looking and the animals would never come back.
Leyon could, of course, be trusted, but Leyon wasn’t quiet and wouldn’t have the patience to stand still and wait. The others?
In the end, Kunag went to Nini. He explained to her what he’d seen, that he just had to go back and find them. “It could be like a nobi.”
She listened with a smile in her eyes, didn’t tell him he couldn’t go, and didn’t warn him about danger; she agreed to come along.
Kunag waited impatiently until they were all asleep before sitting back up. Nini, on the other side of the fire, was already standing. They tiptoed at first, then walked to the south edge of the clearing. It was a little exciting to sneak away.
Kunag remembered where he’d gone in and how many steps to the small patch of bare soil where he’d last seen them. He motioned for Nini to stop and scanned the plamals. No sound, no lights. He waited.
Nothing.
“Maybe they’ve gone to sleep.”
“No, they know we’re here.” Kunag was sure of it. “Where are you?” he asked into the dark.
Then he heard it: Soft and still far away. He started talking back. All he could hear apart from Nini’s quiet breathing was the murmur of the eyecreatures; it was unmistakable. Nini’s hand made him look up. On a small pipe-plamal, right in front of them, were four lights; another group was a bit higher up. “Yes.” That was it.
Kunag resumed talking. The creature talked back, a low moaning sound in a steady rhythm. During their conversation more lights appeared, some in groups of four, others more than that.
Staying as still as he could, Kunag looked all around him. No doubt, these creatures could see him much better than he could them. They were curious and cautious, same as he was. It made him smile.
Then the closest one moved even lower until it was right above the plamal-base, so close that Kunag could make out a rounded, dark shape clinging to the pipe. The intensity of the light-giving spot left no doubt that there was consciousness inside.
“Come on then. Come closer, I won’t hurt you. Ouch!”
He stifled his voice at the last moment. The shape had sprung out fast, landed on his head, pulled at his hair, and then jumped away again.
“Are you okay?” Nini asked.
“Yes, fine.”
Above them a louder, sharper noise drew their attention. In a flash two shapes went by, one followed by another, each in turn silhouetted against the light of the hazy sky as they jumped into the flattop canopy.
“He’s in trouble for coming so close,” Nini whispered.
All the other lights followed the chase. In more or less one movement they had all vanished. Kunag wanted to follow, but Nini stopped him. “Don’t go any further.”
“I want to see where they go.”
“They’re too fast. We’ll get lost. Wait till tomorrow. We’ll take a lamp.”
Kunag didn’t want to wait. “They want me to come.”
“If they’re as curious as they seem, they’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Just a little further?”
She held his arm. “No, Kunag. That would be dangerous. Enough is enough.”
Kunag still looked in the direction they had gone, irritated that he’d asked her – irritated because he knew she was right. “Okay, fine.”
She let go of him and followed him back. He wanted to stomp ahead of her, but he couldn’t in case of what could be below his feet. The smile he had felt on his face had turned to a frown. The first real creatures and he’d lost them. His eyes were burning when he reached the clearing.
“Do I have to stay awake to make sure you won’t run back on your own, or can I trust you?” Nini asked quietly.
It hadn’t occurred to Kunag until then that he could go out alone again, but the creatures were gone now. He wouldn’t find them back tonight. He shook his head.
“We’ll try again tomorrow, Kunag, and the day after. Every day if you want, but never alone, promise? If a little one could hurt you that fast, what do you think a whole troupe can do?”
Kunag knew; he just didn’t want to admit it.
“Promise me, Kunag. I don’t want to have to pick up your body from somewhere deep in the forest.”
Her concern was for him, so he promised. “But no one else must know.”
She promised not to tell the others.
He couldn’t sleep then; the little lights kept playing in his head. The smile came back in the dark, but faded with the realization that he’d have shared something like this with Dad. Nini would be asleep now. Kunag sighed and turned over. He’d keep his promise.
Kunag woke up from Leyon giving him a playful kick. “Get up, lazy boy. Prut is ready.”
Kunag watched Nini as she drank hers. Her eyes smiled at him over the edge of her cup. It was nice to share a secret.
Maike left with Leyon, Saski, Sinti, Gos, Doret, and Hani to search the south-western hills for the source of the stream, while Nini and Marya went off north. Kunag stayed in camp with Yako and Wolt. He wanted to draw what he’d seen last night, but all his attempts came out wrong. He couldn’t get the eyes right. The lights were not just lights, they were illuminated awareness, but he couldn’t draw that. Eventually he got frustrated and threw the pack down.
“What’s wrong with you?” Wolt asked.
“Nothing. I’m just tired.” That, of course, was his own fault.
“So am I. I wish we would go home,” Wolt said.
“Home? This could be home. A much better home than town,” Yako replied.
He wasn’t alone. The others returned from their walk full of enthusiasm, having found the hills to be full of life.
Marya and Nini had tubers to cook for their evening meal, only that night something went wrong and Marya threw the whole container on the ground the way Kunag had his artpack earlier. What exactly was wrong was a mystery to Kunag, but Marya’s frustration had a lot less to do with the food than with Yako. Some people kept their quarrels silent, but not these two. Marya started yelling at Yako, and the more he tried to soothe her, the harder she yelled. She was as good as Jari at finding words that weren’t considered decent.
The food was ruined, but nobody was really hungry anyway – simply drinking was just as good. They sat in silence for a while until Saski mentioned that this place would make a good second settle
ment. Nobody disagreed. They had reached the goal of the expedition, found what they were looking for. The conditions could change with the seasons, but there was plenty of natural food here, even to store for later.
“We could use the kabin to move people by way of the sea,” Gos said.
“Whoa, not so fast. We’re nowhere near moving yet. We will return to town for now. The same way we came or maybe by way of the coast and take it from there. We’ll stay in this location one more kor to rest,” Maike said.
“Maybe some of us could stay the whole year to see what the seasons are like,” Hani suggested, but Maike turned her down.
Kunag caught Nini’s look. “Are you coming for a walk?” she asked. “It’s okay, I told Maike we’d take a lamp and we’d be back when Kuntji joins Kunag in the sky,” she answered his surprised look.
“You told Maike?”
“Only that we’re going for a walk,” she said.
With the help of the lamp they could go a little faster, and only slowed when coming to the bare patch. There was no doubt this time – as if it had been an agreement between them and the creatures to meet again: same-time-same-place kind of thing. There was less apprehension from both sides.
Though the forest floor was dark, it was still easy to make out the top layers against the sky. One of the bigger creatures sat there, staring at them, clearly visible now that Kunag knew what to look for. The little ones were staying well back – they must have gotten in big trouble. Maybe these parent creatures were as protective of their young as people were, as Nini had been of him.
Kunag sat down. It would be difficult to get up in a hurry, but this way he’d be smaller and less threatening to them.
Nini understood and followed his example. She turned the small battery lamp on and lay it between them on the ground. “Just protect your face if needed,” she said.
It was easier now to watch them. One by one the ball-shapes came down onto the ground. They didn’t crawl or walk but rolled in a jumpy kind of manner. They were not round, but elongated or flattened, sometimes both. Out of their bodies they pushed stumps to propel them, which they just as easily retracted: pseudo pods.