by Davina Lee
Lina and Arabel boarded their cloud skimmer, filled to overflowing with gifts of lychee fruit, warm blankets, peat briquettes to fire their craft’s furnace, and now a baby Great Tree. The bladders had already been inflated by volunteers from An Ming’s colony, and a festive chain of multicolored flowers was laid across the prow to decorate the tiny craft.
An Ming bowed to Arabel and then to Lina. “Goodbye Bella Aurelius, noble friend. Goodbye Lina, Wise Queen of the West. May you have fair winds and following skies.”
“Thank you, Wise Queen.” Lina bowed in return and gave a great shove on the push pole to get their craft into the clouds.
* * * *
“Another lychee?” Arabel asked.
Lina looked up from where she sat, tending to the main sails. “Actually, after this, I hope I never see another lychee for a while.” She looked at Arabel and patted the empty deck next to her. “What I really miss are the greens from your little apartment garden. Oh, what I wouldn’t give for one of your salads right now.”
“Do you think they’re alright?” Arabel looked into Lina’s eyes.
“Your plants?” Lina smirked.
Arabel pressed her head against Lina’s shoulder and wrapped her hands around Lina’s arm. “The people. The people you saw in your vision. The people of our colony.”
Lina sighed and draped her arm over Arabel’s shoulders. “Those are just possibilities. Forks on the path. We don’t know—”
“Have you seen any other possibilities?”
“No. But…”
Neither woman said anything else, and for a long time Lina was content just to hold Arabel close, finding solace in her warmth and the slow rise and fall of her chest.
“Sun’s going down, honey,” Arabel said. “You should probably fire the furnace.”
“In a minute.” Lina pulled Arabel in tight. “I missed this. Just you and me. Together in the clouds.” She kissed Arabel on the cheek.
Arabel responded by handing Lina a peat briquette. “Fire up the furnace so we don’t sink and die. Then you can show me how much you missed me.”
Lina smiled and scented love before turning to the furnace that I had given them, and sparking the flint. Arabel, meanwhile, was laying out some blankets on the deck and stripping off her robe. The golden artwork on her back glowed as it caught the last rays of the setting sun.
“Thank the Tree for I’s furnace. It takes the chill out of the night,” she said, while arching her back, pinching her nipples, and casting a little mating pheromone into the air. “Do you want to be on the bottom, so you can still see the navigation star, or shall we put our faith in the Tree and just drift?”
Lina flared her nostrils, inhaled deeply of Arabel’s scent, and extended a finger to motion her over.
“I’ve been waiting to get my hands on these big queenly gifts you’ve got here.” Arabel proceeded to slide Lina’s robe from her shoulders. The two of them fell to the deck as one.
“They’re so…big!” Arabel grinned and buried her face between Lina’s breasts. Lina hugged Arabel and giggled, happy to have her mind on something other than worrying over the fate of their colony.
“Want some tree flower, honey?” Arabel said, popping her head up and tilting it toward the space where the sapling was safely tucked away.
“I’d rather get where we’re going instead of floating around aimlessly until the furnace fuel runs out.”
“At least we’d die happy, but point taken.” Arabel lowered her head again to slowly resume her explorations.
“I never thanked you for taking care of me,” Lina said. “When I was sick. I’m lucky to have you.”
Arabel extended her tongue and circled Lina’s left nipple until it was standing straight up and glistening in the moonlight. She then proceeded to blow on it, grinning like a fool, while Lina shivered. “You’re welcome,” she said.
“Come here, you troublemaker.”
Arabel slowly slid her way up over Lina until they were looking each other directly in the eye. Arabel puckered up and closed her eyes. She was still grinning. Lina delivered a quick peck to Arabel’s lips.
Arabel pouted.
Lina delivered another peck, with a hint of tongue this time.
Arabel pouted some more.
Lina wrapped her arms around Arabel’s neck, scented a bit of mating pheromone, and slowly pulled her in.
“If you’re going to mate me,” Arabel husked, “don’t snap my neck.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Lina pulled Arabel tight and let her hand wander down to the curve of Arabel’s buttocks, while Arabel straddled Lina’s thigh.
“Come up a little higher, baby,” Lina said.
Arabel obliged and the two women locked together, each with a thigh pressed against the other’s sex, and casting a combination of love and mating pheromones. Most of the scent was carried off on the wind, but that didn’t deter them in their lovemaking.
Lina wrapped her arms around Arabel’s waist, pulling her tight for a moment, and then began gently rocking her hips. Arabel responded by planting a row of kisses over Lina’s throat and collarbone. Lina shuddered, despite the warmth given off by the furnace I had supplied them with. “Love you, baby,” she said.
Arabel scented and moaned. She and Lina began to wrestle for dominance, which, with her larger size, Lina easily won. “Mate me,” Arabel husked, as Lina rolled her to the blanket.
Lina, now on top, straddled Arabel’s thigh, keeping it trapped against the deck, and using it for a slow, slippery back and forth rubbing. Lina held Arabel’s other leg straight up, with her toes pointed to the stars. She extended her tongue and showed her appreciation for the taste and feel of Arabel’s smooth skin.
Both women were moaning softly now, as Lina scooted herself forward a little more with each glide over Arabel’s thigh. Arabel tossed her head back, arched her back, and let out a long slow, “Yesss.”
Lina was nearly there.
One more thrust from Lina and both women went rigid as they connected their sex for the first time. Arabel grabbed onto Lina’s hips and dug her fingers in. “Right…There…” she said. Lina tossed her head back and shivered, reveling in the warm, wet feeling. Without thinking about it, she released a cloud of mating pheromones. Arabel soon followed.
Lina looked down at Arabel, bathed in a mixture of cold moonlight, and the warm amber glow of the furnace, her lithe body bucking rhythmically under Lina. Lina watched Arabel start to quiver, and soon felt the uncontrollable urge herself. Lina held tighter to Arabel’s leg, running her tongue along the salty skin, as Arabel dug her fingers harder into Lina’s hips. For a long while they shuddered together as one.
Finally, Lina let her grip slacken. She held on gently to Arabel’s foot, and planted three kisses along her calf before letting her go. Lina lowered herself down to snuggle up next to Arabel, who reached to the side to pull up a blanket. The two said nothing for a long while.
Lina lay on her back, looking up at the stars. “We’ve drifted off course,” she said.
“You can tell just by looking at the stars?”
“Yes.” Lina shifted her weight onto her right elbow, and rested her left hand on Arabel’s chest, feeling her heart and her breathing. “There’s more to it than that, but I don’t think I have the words yet to explain it. I just know. I can see the path to home.”
“Any more visions?”
“No.”
“I’d better stoke up the fire,” Arabel said.
Lina rolled over to trim the starboard sail and adjust the mizzen.
* * * *
Dawn came sooner than Lina had expected. She spent half the night taking watch, tacking as they sailed into prevailing winds, and the other half in fitful bits of sleep, plagued with disturbing dreams of the abyss. But this time the dreams came without the Great Tree in any of its forms to guide her, as she witnessed the harsh lessons that so many of her ancestors had ignored.
Hardest of all for Lina was the fact that th
ere were never any children in her dreams. It was if they had all disappeared, shrouded in a mist that her vision could not penetrate. Lina had woken from one such dream and sobbed with her face buried in Arabel’s arms for a long while. Arabel never asked what was wrong, but somehow Lina felt she knew.
The rocky outline of the abandoned Island of the Missing was just breaking through the cloud cover when Lina woke to the image of Arabel holding out a lychee fruit. Lina shook her head.
“Should we stop?” Arabel asked.
“For what? Nobody lives here.”
Arabel shrugged.
“Why don’t you rest?” Lina suggested. “I’ll take the helm for a while.”
Arabel said nothing, but Lina got her answer when Arabel curled up with her head on Lina’s lap.
Lina’s time of solitude was spent enjoying the warmth of the sun, the comfort of Arabel’s touch, and ruminating on the fate of her colony. If what her visions told her was true, the old queen was dead, probably killed in a rebel bombing. And Mentor and the twirling woman were part of the rebellion, Lina was sure of it. Why?
Deep down Lina knew why. The same way that Lina automatically knew the path home, or how the music of the amphitheater was linked to the Great Tree and transmitted to her very core by way of the soles of her feet. She knew what had transpired in her colony. She knew it was the queen’s refusal to step down, to pass the crown, that led to the rise of the rebellion by those who demanded change.
And now the queen was dead, and with her the colony’s Tree. Lina had seen it in every vision she had experienced. All of them, though different in the details, revolved around that one single fact. The Tree was dead. The colony was in ruin because of it.
Lina sighed. Arabel shifted on her lap.
* * * *
It was late in the day when the cloud skimmer scraped up against the flat rock of the pier—the place where Lina and Arabel’s journey had started so long ago. The sun cast long shadows of the few diploids who wandered here and there. It was obvious from their style of dress that they were part of the security force, but their usual crisp order and attention to discipline was severely lacking. Some looked as if they could barely stand.
“We’re home,” Lina said.
Arabel sat up and rubbed her eyes. “What are they doing here?”
“I don’t know,” said Lina. “Guarding the pier, I suppose.”
“From us?”
“I don’t know.”
Unnerved by the presence of the security force and the recent memories of what had transpired between them and Mentor in this very place, Lina began scenting sorrow. She even wondered if one of the diploids here might have been the one to deliver the final, crushing blow. But she could not help but pity them now, in their ragged uniforms, eyes wide and cheeks hollow, truncheons discarded or dragging on the ground as they wandered.
A few of the guards flared their nostrils and looked in Lina’s direction as her scenting passed by on the air.
“Arabel? Could you pass me a lychee?”
“I thought you were sick of them. ‘If I never see another lychee in my life, it’ll be too soon,’ you said. Why—?”
“Not for me. For them.” Lina dismounted the skimmer.
“Oh.” Arabel reached into the basket, pulled out as many lychees as she could fit in her hands, and passed them up to Lina.
Lina distributed a lychee fruit to each member of the security forces wandering about on the pier. As the fruit was passed, Lina held onto their hands for a little longer than was necessary, and at the same time, scented a bit of familial love. “Go home. Rest. You’ve done well,” she said. “Go home.”
Lina turned to the skimmer and held out her hand. “Come on Arabel,” she said, “let’s find the others.”
Basket in hand, Arabel exited the craft.
* * * *
The situation was very much the same as Lina and Arabel continued on through the tunnels of the colony. The grand open space of the colony’s main commerce area looked like the Island of the Missing and smelled even worse. Lina paused to shake up a bio-globe she found lying on the ground. In its dim light she could see that things were left were they lay, including foodstuffs that were now moldy and rotten.
“Where is everyone?” Arabel asked.
“I don’t know.”
The two continued on through dingy, poorly lit tunnels, with moisture clinging to the walls and the smell of rot all around. In some areas there were piles of rubble that looked as if they were the result of a partial tunnel collapse or perhaps an explosion. But strangely, no one was around. Lina tried to use her recent gift of seeing possibilities, but it seemed that it only worked when she didn’t want it, and not now when she did.
“Do you hear that?” Lina said.
Arabel stopped and looked around. She shook her head.
“This way.” Lina strode with purpose now. There was a vibration in the floor of the tunnel. It was very faint and not continuous, but Lina was sure she had felt something like it before.
“Where are we going?”
“To the palace, I think.”
* * * *
Lina found the people, and the source of the vibrations throughout the tunnels of the colony. It was a strange mixture of Lina’s dark visions of the abyss—her discussions with the Great Tree about the fate of the ancient cities below the clouds—combined with the happiness of Queen An Ming’s rave.
The vibrations were supplied by the people all gathered around the colony’s Great Tree, hands and heads raised to the giant hole that had been blown in the roof from a rebel bombing during the last gala. The orange light of the late day sun was clearing the top of the palace walls that lay in rubble, to cast shadows of the Great Tree’s branches. The people were humming and singing. At their feet lay the brittle, dry leaves of the Great Tree. The colony’s Tree was no more.
Lina flared her nostrils. All around, mixed in with the scent of decay, were the pheromone mixtures of sorrow and regret. She felt a tear streaking down her right cheek. It was hot and slow in its journey.
Lina felt Arabel pressing against her, reaching up to wipe the tear away with her outstretched finger. That’s when Lina noticed Arabel still carried the basket with her, the basket that had been filled to overflowing with lychee when they set out from Queen An Ming’s island. Arabel held the basket forth and nodded at Lina.
There wasn’t enough fruit to feed the entire colony, but she did her best. Lina peeled each fruit apart and broke it into its two halves and the broke it apart again. She scented familial love as she brought a piece of fruit to the mouth of each person standing under the Great Tree. When her task was complete, her hands were sticky, but her heart was light. The songs and scents filling the air both had a happier note to them.
“Where are the children?” Lina had asked. No one knew.
It was not until fatigue set in, and Arabel guided Lina back to her apartment that the truth was discovered.
* * * *
Lina stood slack jawed at the entrance to Arabel’s apartment, as Arabel pushed the unlatched door open. The air was warm and humid, and half of the plants that had decorated Arabel’s walls were stripped bare—all of them edible varieties. In the middle of the apartment, on the mossy living carpet, sat the children. They were huddled in a circle on the floor three rows deep, humming softly. In the center was Arabel’s tiny tree flower. Upon seeing Lina and Arabel, the children sitting around the tiny tree began to sing out—a song filled with joy and hope. Lina and Arabel began scenting love.
The children stood, one by one. Still singing, they would take a bit of edible plant still growing on Arabel’s walls and tables. They delivered it to Lina. When Lina’s arms were full, they elected some of the taller and stronger among them to help. And when Arabel’s apartment was stripped bare of every piece of edible fruit and vegetable, the circle of children gathered around Lina and Arabel, pricked up their ears, and followed the hum to the palace.
The youngest of th
e children flocked to Arabel and held on to any arm, finger or hand that they could reach. Their voices rose and fell together as they sang their cheerful tune, its notes echoing throughout the tunnels before them. As they came closer to the palace, Lina began to feel the two melodies—that from the children—and that from the group surrounding the Great Tree. The melodies combined, harmonizing at times, joining together in perfect union at others. And with the music came scents wafting on the air. Scents of joy and hope, gratitude and reverence.
As the children entered the palace grounds, the larger adult diploids circling the Great Tree parted hands to let the children file in. Food from Arabel’s apartment was passed all around, and some of the singing gave way to chewing, but the sound never stopped. The entire palace grounds echoed with a joyful noise, rivaling that of Queen An Ming’s celebration. The sound echoed and grew to the point of almost being too loud for Lina to bear. And together with all of the other trials she had been through, Lina began to feel a little nauseous.
There was a flash of light from somewhere beyond the gaping hole in the roof, from where Lina did not see, perhaps a shooting star, but it was enough to make her look up. And when she did, a single leaf from the colony’s Great Tree, quite possibly the last one still clinging on to a branch, came spiraling down to land on Lina’s nose. And mixed in with the singing, Lina swore she heard the voice of the wrinkled old woman with no scent glands. “Do you hear them, my child?” she said. “I do.”
Lina smiled, and afterward the singing seemed to echo less inside her own skull as it did all around her. And it was truly a joyful sound. A song of hope.
Chapter 11: Coronation Day
The Great Tree is, was, and forever shall be. And wherever humanity may roam, we shall be under the protection of its branches, for all children are children of the Great Tree. Whether we choose to acknowledge this love and protection is entirely in our hands. But know this: if you should chance to stray from the path of righteousness, look into your heart, and listen for a voice. This voice shall be your guide, and unite you once again with family.