“My point exactly,” Ben said. “It was not a ‘real’ snake.”
Ben turned away from her. He was typically rational, yet here he was trying to argue against a traditional explanation. He shook his head.
“I have to go to work,” he said. He glanced at the clock on the night table. Caitlin had had it for decades, since they were students at NYU. It was not digital: the numbers flipped over on little plastic cards inside the white case. He missed his friend . . . he missed those days. There were times, like now, when he ached with that longing. “It’s six forty-five,” he said. “Caitlin’s parents will be here in an hour or so and I have an idea. I think. I will bring Madame Langlois and Enok to my place.”
“You’d trust them?”
“With what—my fridge and flat-screen? We can’t leave them with the O’Haras, so it’s either that or we turn them out.”
“I still vote for the latter,” Anita said hotly. “People who want to help . . . help. That’s what Caitlin did.”
She saw Ben’s sad eyes, quickly realized her mistake, and corrected herself. “That’s what Caitlin does. They don’t play games like our Vodou lady, they don’t talk without listening.” She continued in a softer voice. “Caitlin is a humanitarian. She doesn’t deserve what happened.”
“That’s a separate topic and there, at least, we agree,” Ben said. “But that doesn’t solve the immediate problem.”
Anita’s comments had sounded too much like a eulogy and Ben had to get away, not just emotionally and mentally but physically. He went back into the hallway to prepare to get the Langloises over to his East Side apartment near the United Nations. He looked in at Jacob again, resisted gathering up the boy’s drawings. Jacob and his mother shared a strong bond and there might be subtle, subliminal clues as to what happened. But the boy might wake and look for the sketches: in a world made suddenly very unstable, Ben wanted him to have at least that anchor. He left and headed back down the hall. Arriving in the living room, he swore through his teeth.
“What is it?” Anita asked, hurrying in.
“You got your wish,” he said, turning to the front door, pulling it open, and looking out into the empty hallway. “Madame Langlois and her son have left.”
CHAPTER 5
Vilu lay sprawled on the hard-packed sand of the courtyard. He was lying on his back, his eyes shut, his mouth open.
Caitlin ran to him. Surrounded by slowly encroaching Galderkhaani, she forgot her own plight when she bent over him. For an instant, like the scrape of a knife along her breastbone, she felt that it was Jacob falling, needing her help, needing her comfort.
Lasha had followed with a bowlegged gait and a loud huffing. The other citizens were clustering tighter, trying to see what the woman was doing as she knelt over the prone boy.
“Is there a physician?” she asked Lasha.
The man looked back at the gathered faces. “Weta? Does anyone see Weta?”
“She is in the birth center!” someone shouted back.
“Run! Get her!” Lasha said then turned to Caitlin. “That building is at the far end of the village, away from the sea chill, and Weta is aged. It will take time.”
Time. It kept coming up, seemed to be Caitlin’s enemy in every possible way. She focused on the boy. She didn’t bother to explain that she was a doctor herself: what she wanted immediately for the boy was a bed, shelter, and someone to watch him after she did triage. Most likely they had herbs or compounds, though she didn’t know that any of them would work. Ancient medicines and cures were hit-and-miss. When they missed, they often made the patient worse.
She also prayed, audibly, under her breath, that her worst fears weren’t realized—that this was not a transference of souls.
Her first thought was that Vilu had suffered heatstroke or dehydration, and she told Lasha to bring water. Unbending with a grunt, the old man turned and scurried back to his hut for a ladle.
Motioning for people to step back and give Vilu air, Caitlin saw that he was perspiring and, feeling for his heartbeat, found it normal. So was his temperature—assuming that the Galderkhaani “normal” was the same as that of modern humans. It wasn’t heatstroke, but that forced open the door to those other, deeper concerns. Jacob had been reading Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. She prayed that that had nothing to do with what this boy had uttered, but in her heart she didn’t believe it.
He followed me here, she thought ominously. There can be no other explanation.
Lasha arrived with an alok, a wooden, short-handled ladle that he’d filled from the pool. Apparently, they knew nothing of bacteria or parasites in Galderkhaan. Nonetheless, she took it and wet the boy’s lips from a bony rim. He responded weakly and she put a hand behind his head to support him as he tried to take more. The feel of his hair seemed so familiar. Caitlin struggled to keep back deep, heaving sobs. But she could not help herself from looking down at the sweet face, the ruddy skin with just a hint of pale white freckles, the dark hair that fell in natural ringlets over a broad, innocent forehead. Caitlin used the sleeve of her loose-fitting tunic to dab away the sweat that was beading under his eyes and on his cheek.
His four-flippered friend waddled through the legs of the crowd.
“Shoo!” Lasha growled, kicking lightly at the thyodularasi.
Without taking her eyes from the boy, Caitlin passed the ladle to Lasha.
“What could have happened?” the old man asked, peering over her back.
“Excitement,” said a teenaged girl who was looking on. “He so loves the airship.”
“Then why did he say—what did he say?” Lasha asked. “Sybamurn?”
Caitlin realized with a jolt that the boy had spoken it in English; Lasha had uttered a Galderkhaani approximation.
“Submarine,” Caitlin clarified without thinking—also in English.
“What is that?” Lasha asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, trying to forestall any further questions. “That’s what I heard.”
The woman fanned the boy with an open hand, blew gently on the sweat, touched his warm flesh. She used her body to block the harsh sun. Someone yelled that Weta would come as soon as possible. Caitlin was considering what to do next when the crowd that had gathered parted slightly and a familiar figure returned, tugged along by the thyodularasi Lasha had chased away. Standor Qala patted the thigh-high creature on its elongated snout and it released its grip. She strode through the group and crouched beside the boy, beside Caitlin.
“It was all too much for Vilu, I see,” Qala remarked.
“This has happened before?” Caitlin asked.
“Not like this,” Qala admitted with a half-smile. “Usually he just jumps around. Ever since Femora Azha took the children aloft in a fisher’s airship, his life has been about flight.”
“There is no blood, no injury,” Qala said after reaching softly behind the boy’s head. “Do we know if he’d eaten?”
No one answered. Reaching into the sashlike pouch at her side, Qala withdrew an oval pellet that looked like a ruby and held it just below the boy’s nostrils. Qala adjusted it so the rays of the sun were striking it directly. The sunlight illuminated small, dark, opaline facets inside. Fragrance rose from the crystal, which began to decay as the scent grew stronger. Caitlin saw now that it was not mineral but vegetal, the surface made of petals crushed around slivers of what looked like dried berries. Oil dropped from the shrinking object, absorbed by the boy’s flesh, just under his nostrils.
The boy stirred but his eyes remained closed.
“Odd,” Qala remarked as the pellet finally fell to pieces. “I’ve seen the dumatta awaken those who were near death from drowning. This appears to be a different kind of sleep.”
Qala allowed the lingering thyodularasi to lick her fingers. Lasha frowned.
“Don’t feed it,” the pool guardian s
aid with exasperation.
“Quiet, Lasha. She deserves a reward for her loyalty.”
“Loyalty! She’s loyal to those who feed her!” Lasha shook bony fists at the animal, which snorted at him. “Perhaps it was spoiled fish that felled the boy! The fishers used to feed those to these beasts—now they sell them!”
“Complain about the fish again and I will see you assigned to a fisher ship in the western freeze zone,” Qala said as she scooped up the boy, put him over her shoulder, and rose. “I’m taking him to the airship physician.”
“I’m going with you,” Caitlin said.
Qala regarded Caitlin. “I thought you had other business.”
“Not now.”
“Perhaps you know him?”
“I—I don’t know,” Caitlin said. “But everyone else on the airship will be busy. He may need a nurse.”
The word she used was xat, which literally meant “health observer.” All that mattered was she would be near him.
Qala turned to Lasha. “Inform his caretakers. I will send the boy back when he has recovered.”
“But you’re leaving, Standor,” Lasha pointed out. “Aren’t you? Imminently?”
“I am,” Qala said, holding the boy a little tighter. “Let them know that as well.”
The water guardian seemed perplexed but would rather pass the word to simple fishers than to ask for further clarification from a Standor. It wasn’t as if the official carried any authority outside the operation of her airship. But the romance of her profession, the loftiness of her title, and Qala’s personal popularity would make it difficult to muster popular support against her. Even mad Azha had been given every opportunity to atone for her murderous efforts and foreswear any similar actions in the future. A common Galderkhaani would never have been heard before the full council in the Aankhaan House of Judgment.
Turning from Lasha, Standor Qala looked at Caitlin. “Perhaps the physician should look at you as well.”
“Let’s take care of the boy first,” Caitlin said.
They made their way through the crowd, which parted eagerly and respectfully. Qala was thoughtful as they walked.
“It is rare, in Galderkhaan, for children to receive the kind of priority you’ve suggested,” the Standor finally remarked.
“Is it?” Caitlin replied.
“If riders in an airship are injured during a storm, who should be tended to first? Those who can manage the ship or suckling babes?”
“I did not realize we had such a crisis on our hands,” Caitlin said. She wondered if her sarcasm came through in the exaggerated hand gestures.
Qala was quiet for another long moment then said, “Perhaps you have mothered before? In this place you know you’re from, yet cannot seem to remember.”
“Perhaps,” Caitlin said.
They left the courtyard, Caitlin still a little wobbly under Qala’s watchful eye. But she managed to keep up. She thought of Ben, imagined what he would give to be here, studying, listening, learning. Or Flora and her . . . her pirates. For all the intellectual sanctuary they took in their lofty, erudite trappings and ways, she did not believe it was scholarship they sought. It didn’t take an enlightened soul to feel that way. Like too many people she had met over the years—especially autocrats—they reeked of dangerous self-interest.
Caitlin’s gaze shifted from face to face among the locals who were working outdoors on small boats, on sails, nets, and mirrorlike devices she didn’t recognize—perhaps a form of solar power, she thought. Some were walking with others, holding hands, holding children, accompanied by the seals. Ratlike creatures flitted in the shadows, long, froglike tongues whipping out at large insects that rested on the walls. She noticed mounds that ran alongside the streets. Did those humps conceal pipes that carried water? Sewage? Steam from magma? She couldn’t be sure. A few citizens were eating at stand-alone buildings that were comparable to twenty-first-century taverns. A few of the people seemed to notice Caitlin—or Bayarma—and tilted their head to the right as she passed.
“You acknowledge no one,” the Standor observed.
“I—I thought they were greeting you,” Caitlin said. “Or the boy.”
“The boy?” Qala laughed. “He’s not conscious.”
“They might have been wishing him well.”
Qala frowned. “Then they would nod forward,” she said. “They are greeting a newcomer, inviting you to return. The other way,” Qala tilted her head to the left, “would be a sign of disapproval, such as the Technologists receive in Glogharasor.”
“The Priest stronghold,” she thought aloud.
“That’s right.”
“And Belhorji is for the Technologists,” Caitlin said.
They were names she had discussed with Ben during a nighttime walk in Paley Park. For a moment—gone before she even knew it was there—Caitlin almost felt as though she were back there. It came as a very strong—“snapshot” was the only word that came to mind. A rich image accompanied by a frisson, a tickling at the base of her skull.
“So you do remember something,” Qala said. “Perhaps your memory is returning?”
“Possibly,” Caitlin replied. She sought to reconnect with the park, with Ben, with anything during that night. But it was all gone.
There was speed but no sense of urgency in Qala’s long stride. Though the boy was in need of care, Caitlin recognized the Standor’s manner as typical of command: she had seen it at disaster sites around the world, where men and women moved with purpose to instill confidence, alleviate fear, and to preserve calm. This woman was not just a leader, the lingering eyes of onlookers told Caitlin that she was widely respected.
As they walked, Caitlin to the left of the Standor, where Vilu’s head lay on her shoulder, Caitlin was able to see the boy’s face. He would be all right physically, she believed, but his condition now was not what concerned her. If she permitted the destiny of Galderkhaan to take its course, Vilu would most likely be dead very soon—unless she informed the Standor what was to come and got him away from here.
But even that, like my presence here, may alter the course of future history, she thought. What if the Standor uses what I tell her and tries to prevent the catastrophe?
As they continued toward the shore, Caitlin briefly felt another tingling at the base of her skull, this one slightly longer than the previous experience. It had a pulsing, electric quality and only lasted a few seconds, but it had been there. There was no image associated with it, but when it left, Caitlin felt as though she were more alert, more present, more guarded, as though she’d had a shot of espresso.
She didn’t know what it was, but she knew what it wasn’t. It was not an assault, like being in the subway when she first saw Yokane causing her energies to come alive; it was not a reaching out, as when she channeled the power of the stones in Washington Square Park. This was something that came from within her, on its own.
Is it me or is it Bayarma trying to assert herself?
Uncertainty filled her soul. She did not want to leave if some part of Jacob were here, in this boy. And the question of what would happen to her soul if Bayarma reasserted control was anyone’s guess. She didn’t think she would just skip into another body—Qala’s or whoever else they might encounter. She had bonded with this family once before, and now she had connected with Bayarma for a reason.
Whether Caitlin wanted to or not, she was going to have to try and hold on long enough to determine whether it was Vilu or Jacob who was in the boy’s body.
“How is your strength?” Qala asked as they walked.
“All right, so far,” she replied.
“The tower is quite near,” the Standor said. “But if you like, I can send a carrier for you.”
“I’m able to make it,” Caitlin assured her.
Caitlin had no idea what a “carrier” might be until the
y reached another courtyard. The open, sun-drenched area was at least three times the size of the pool yard and there were at least twenty cigar-shaped airships about the size of minivans. She focused on the objects, not the light; it was disorienting to imagine that this is the same sun, the same light, that would one day shine in her own welcoming apartment, light the breakfast table she shared with her son.
The airships were hovering an average of ten feet above the ground. Plants that resembled modern jasmine were being unloaded from nets that hung tightly between them. Indeed, the balloons themselves bore a slight resemblance to their cargo: there were leaflike fins high on the envelopes, fore and aft, presumably to control the vessel in the strong atmospheric currents as it hovered in the clouds.
Jasmine, she thought. It had been present in some form since she had first met Maanik in the Pawars’ apartment. Was she drawn to it, it to her, or was it a coincidence? Or was she simply noticing it in her time because its presence here was informing the future . . . her future?
Caitlin couldn’t quite grasp that idea, the mechanics of that idea, so she forced herself to stay mentally rooted in this place—observing, collecting information, seeking some way to rekindle her energies.
Beyond the courtyard, down a wide, open road to the shore, Caitlin saw dozens of surface vessels, their small nets full of fish. They were riding waves that had a different action from any she had ever seen: the sea was smooth and then, about ten yards from shore, waves rose up and smashed down as if they were pumped from some deep coastal trough. She had no way of knowing whether it was a local or continental phenomenon. Local, most likely, since ships were coming to shore off to the sides. She wondered if it were artificial since the breakers created a breeze that blew a refreshing coolness into the courtyard and chased away the smell of fish. Heat, odor, and spoilage—as heralded by the obsessed Lasha—would be a problem during interminable hours of daylight.
Caitlin also saw more airships high in the sky, among the clouds. The same kinds of nets were strung between them with foliage of all kinds crowded against all four sides of each. Apparently, the clouds were a more accessible source of freshwater than whatever ice surrounded Galderkhaan. From the barrels that lined the streets she assumed that the harvest here was primarily jasmine, which must grow readily in this climate, by these means, and was light enough to be supported by the airborne nets.
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