Annah and the Children of Evohe

by Clay Gilbert

  * * *

  “I swear,” Holder said, “if I didn’t know what had happened to you, I’d-” “You’d what?” Annah asked, smiling at him, her body still wet and glistening from her swim in the stream. He’d stayed on the bank and watched today. With everything that’d happened in the last month, he thought he could use some rest. Annah could too, he was sure, but making her rest wasn’t easy.

  “I’d-still think you were absolutely beautiful.” Annah covered her face for a moment, the way she used to back when she’d barely known him and was even less used to his compliments. “Dearest, Kyrin is beautiful. I am—not. But I suppose I am-unique.”

  “You’re both, Annah.”

  “If you think so, it is all that matters.” They’d had this particular discussion before, and Holder had learned when it was wise just to let Annah have the last word.

  “Did you learn anything new in ‘school’ today?” “School” was what Holder and Annah called Annah’s sessions with the Old Ones in the Elder Grove. It was facetious, of course; Annah’s Shaper training was both specialized and quite advanced.

  Annah sat up straight; looked at him. Holder smiled. He still loved, so much, how she could turn from relaxed and playful to formal and serious, seemingly in a heartbeat. “I learned that the flow of the bloodstream is like the flow of sap through a tree, and that it can be directed, either by touch or by the frequency, pitch and melody of song, to aid healing. One of the Old Ones told me today that he had not realized this relationship until he went to his sleep in the Elder Grove, and was constantly aware of the bodies and consciousness of trees.”

  “That’s amazing,” he said. I’d never have thought of it. Annah smiled. “It is, is it not? This same Elder says that he will teach this to even more when he awakens, in the nottoo-distant future. But he has begun, now, with me.” Her eyes shone with delight.

  “Have you told any of the Old Ones about the-about the heart-place?” He lowered his voice, as though the word were some kind of blasphemy.

  “No, but they may know, in any case. The only one I know was aware of it was Jonan.” Annah felt happier with him gone, but there were still times when she wished he had not had to die. “I think it is safe. We could go there again sometime.”

  “I’d like to, beloved. In fact, I’d like to have our Choosing there.”

  “Oh,” Annah breathed. “That would be amazing.”

  Holder chuckled. That was a word she’d picked up from him. Language on-what was it Goodman had said the planet was called?-on Evoheseldom contained superlative adjectives. The value of people or things was recognized more through behavior than language. But Annah was an exception to this rule, as Holder was finding she was in many things.

  “What are you laughing at?” she asked.

  Holder shook his head. “Nothing,” he said, struggling to keep his grin from becoming another laugh.

  “Hmm,” Annah said, sounding skeptical. “Anyway, I wish we did not have to wait so long to go up there.”

  “We won’t. Don’t worry.” “What about our Promising?” Annah asked. Now that she was fully recovered, they had begun their period of formal residence together in the Temple. The ceremony was still three weeks away. It will make little difference to me, she thought. We have been Promised in our hearts, for a long while now. She sensed, though, that it would make a difference to Holder. He had begun to say, more often now, that he felt he did not really have a place in her world; her life—and she sensed there was more to it than that. “Tell me, dearest, what is troubling you.” She put her hands on his face, caressed his cheeks and head.

  Shaper’s hands, Holder thought. Healer’s hands. They always have been. It was what she had been born and bloomed to do. “I don’t have a mission. A purpose. Not like your singing; your Shaping. OrArdan’s building.”

  Ardan had found that he had both a skill with and a love for building things, and while life on Evohe was mostly an outdoor affair, many of the young ones were beginning to be of the opinion that the Temple of Promise should not be the only permanent structure for spans and spans of space. And some of the Elders agreed. It was an exciting change, so long as change didn’t outrace good sense, as seemed to have happened on Earth.

  Annah ran her fingers along his arm. “What about your exploring. Your cat-a-logging?” She stumbled over the word.

  “I can’t make star-charts here,” Holder said. “And I’m not going anywhere without you.” “It does not have to be just star-charts, this cat-a-logging,” Annah said. She propped her chin in her hand and looked at him, like a shining replica of Rodin’s Thinker, albeit female, and in a smaller scale. “You could cat-a-log-record--this world. Its life; its people. You could help people understand this world. You could even tell our story. And when that is done, we would likely be ready for our Choosing, and then we could go away together, and you could start your next project, on the next world—and make your star-charts on the way.” She nodded, as if to punctuate her statement. “What do you think?” she asked.

  “I think that’s a magnificent idea. I have always liked to write, too, even stuffy old Recon reports.”

  “Magnificent,” Annah breathed, as though she were savoring the taste of an exotic food.

  “Where should I start?” Holder asked. “You should come for a swim with me in the stream. Then, we should lie together on the bank for a while, and kiss, and dry off.”

  “Or something.”

  Annah giggled. “These things are part of Balance, Holder. Does your world not understand Balance?” “Probably not.” One of our many problems. He reached a finger out and traced a line along Annah’s stomach, making her shiver. “We do understand clothing, however.” He smiled.

  Annah scrunched up her face. “Hmmph. I do not. Why should you spend so much time covered in a second skin that you have to take off every time you want to bathe, or swim, or eliminate waste, or give pleasure to yourself, or to another, or just to feel the sun, the wind and the rains upon you?”

  That makes a lot of sense. “I-I don’t know, Annah,” he admitted.

  She smiled, an expression of triumph on her face. Her blue eyes gleamed. “See. I told you.”

  “Yes, you did.” He pulled her into his arms, kissing first her lips and then her neck.

  Annah arched her neck toward him, but he bent and kissed her breasts instead, making her laugh. “I see that this is not the drying-off part of our afternoon,” she noted.

  “So it would seem,” he agreed.

  She began to undo the buttons on his shirt, kissing each new bare spot of skin that appeared.

  “Annah,” Holder protested, “shouldn’t we find somewhere a little more private for this?” She laughed. “No one will care. This is not Earth, Holder. Loving with our bodies like this, and in other ways you and I will not share yet, is a part of Balance. Like our bodies, it is a gift of the First Ones, and not something to think of with shame, even for a seed-maiden, such as I. There is nothing in the First Ones’ creation to feel shame in.” She kissed him, her lips light as the wind as they brushed his. “They will not care. And,” she added, finishing the job of taking off Holder’s clothes, “though I do not mind if you keep your strange custom of second-skin at most times, it does not seem fair right now.”

  Holder laughed, and took Annah back into his arms. As they kissed, Annah’s tongue found his. It was longer, and— different-from his; more slender, and more muscular. He remembered how such a small detail had once seemed unnerving. Now, it no longer even seemed strange. He lost himself in the sensation as she curled it around his own, stroking it, and running her fingers through his hair.

  She brought her other hand down through the thick black curls on his chest, which even after so much time still tickled her fingers, and trailed down his lower belly until she came to the protruding tube of flesh there. Although she had touched him many times, Annah was still getting used to the subtle ways his kind was different from hers. Here, he was similar to the seed-youths wh
ose bodies she had explored, and yet, the skin was warmer, and softer, even as he stiffened in her hand, a sensation that made the blossom between her thighs tingle and open its moistened petals for him.

  “Have you—done this with anyone before?” Holder asked Annah, his breath ragged. She was stroking him more insistently now.

  “Not this, no,” she said. “To be honest, I have had rather more pleasuring done for me than I have ever been allowed to do for others.”

  “That’s strange,” Holder said, both gathering data in his head and, since Annah was still stroking him, aroused at the same time. “It’s-usually the other way around on my world.” He bent to kiss her.

  She giggled in his mouth, tickling him, then broke the kiss. “Seed-youths are more interested in how many blossoms they can get their fingers into. Tongues, too, if they can. They think it makes them more grown up, I believe.”

  “And what-what do you think?” he asked. It was getting harder to talk by the second. Annah stroked him faster. “ I think they’re not very good at it.” She laughed. “I can do much more for myself than any seed-youth who ever got his fingers into my blossom.”

  “A-and how m-many is that?” he asked, barely getting out the last word before he shuddered and spasmed in her hand. “Only two or three,” she said. She looked down at her hand. “Hmm,” she said, as if the viscous white substance between her fingers were a subject of scientific inquiry. “It’s usually clear, and not so sticky. Interesting.” She kissed him. “How do you feel, dearest?”

  “Very relaxed,” Holder said. “You do that very well.” She laughed, shaking her head. “Not really. I do not know much of such things, compared with some. But I love you, and I think I know what pleases you.”

  “ You please me, Annah.” Holder took a couple of leaves from a nearby tree and wiped away the residue of semen that remained. “Now, let me please you.”

  Annah slid back against him, stretching her arms back and playing with the small knotty hairs of his beard, like the ones on his chest that seemed so strange to her, and that tickled her face when she kissed him there. She sighed, feeling Holder’s hands cupping her breasts; stroking her nipples, which hardened under his touch; feeling his fingers trailing down her belly now, finding the now-moistened petals of her blossom, which pulsed and tingled at his touch, so that her hips twitched and pushed up against his hand. He kissed her ear, softly.

  First Ones, thought Annah, this feels so good. How can this one man, who does not know my world, my people or our ways, make me feel things no one else ever has? She tried to speak, but managed only a moan. “Holder, I-” she tried again.

  “Sssh,” he whispered. “Close your eyes.” Annah lost herself in the waves of sensation that seemed to be unfolding from the core of her like waves of warmth from the heart of the sun. She sighed, moving again and again with the motion of his hand. She buried her face against his chest and could do nothing but tremble as his fingers found sensations as sweet as undiscovered music in the curves and folds of her body’s flesh.

  Finally, she cried out, feeling waves of heat and rhythm radiating from her blossom’s very center through every space of her. She wrapped her arms around his neck, holding on until the current of feeling had released her, aware every second of the sensation of his arms around her. Is this Shaping, too? Annah wondered. How, in love, we Shape one another, even now? She opened her eyes, her face still flushed red, and smiled at him. “How did you do that?” she asked. “No seed-youth has ever-”

  “I told you, Annah. I’m not a ‘seed-youth.’ And I know you.” The sun was going down over the stream as Annah and Holder finished their swim. “They’ll be thinking we drowned,” Holder told Annah, laughing. Ardan and Kyrin had promised to prepare a supper for them tonight, and Danae and Llew had also pledged to attend. It was the halfway-point of the time before their Promising ritual. Quite a special evening.

  “We are both good swimmers,” Annah said, slipping her hand into Holder’s. “And they will know, dearest, that we have not been swimming the whole time.”

  * * *

  Gary Holder’s Journal, June 21, Homesec Reckoning Year 250. This was Annah’s idea, although I suppose the seed of it—how very Evoetian of me—was mine. I’m sure I’ll be talking about her a lot here. Most of the way I see the world has changed since I met her. It was an accident. I wasn’t supposed to be here. This planet wasn’t supposed to be here. But you know what? I think there should be a different word, like “It isn’t logical that this planet’s here, or that I’m here.” Because if you ask me, I’m precisely where I’m supposed to be. If you ask me, a lot of people on Earth could do with more of that feeling.

  * * *

  “Thank you, Ardan and Kyrin,” Annah said. “Thank you, Mother and Father.” During the period of Promising, it was customary for the seed-maiden to speak on behalf of the couple, except when she delegated the responsibility to her partner. “The supper was wonderful. I am sure we will sleep soundly tonight.”

  “Which will have little to do with the food,” Ardan joked, and laughter rippled through the room at the sound of the playful-but firm-smack Kyrin gave his backside as a reward for his contribution.

  Wouldn’t be surprised if those two were the next up for Promising, Holder thought. But then, Ardan did dream her.

  “I have a request,” said Llew, “if the Promised One’s father may do such a thing.”

  “Of course, Father,”Annah said.

  “I would like to see Holder’s ship, if he does not mind.” “I believe I would like that as well,” said Danae, sitting beside him.

  Ardan and Kyrin quickly added their own enthusiasm for the idea.

  “No,” Holder said, “I don’t mind that at all.”

  * * * It didn’t take them long to reach the camp, and the others were instantly amazed when they saw the ship. Annah and Holder laughed between themselves. Annah had gotten used to the ship by now, and Holder thought it had always been a bit of a junker, as spacecraft went.

  “Does it work?” Ardan asked.

  “He has been working on it off and on for a long time now,” Annah said, sounding proud of Holder. “That’s not what he asked, beloved,” Holder teased Annah, leaning in to kiss her. “Ship’s not quite fixed,” he said to Ardan, “but soon.”

  “Can I look inside?” Kyrin asked. “Sure,” Holder said. “Go ahead and look. But don’t touch anything.” Thinking again, he climbed in beside her. If Kyrin was half as curious as Annah could be, he thought, it was probably a good idea.

  “So many-” Kyrin stammered, as if trying to find the right sounds, but Holder imagined there was just no word in her language. “So many things in here,” she finished.

  “Yeah,” Holder said. “It can’t fly, but we can put on some music if you want.” He reached for the ‘com dial to turn it on, intending to listen to Last Call from Old Earth, a radio show broadcast from Earth’s moon by the same crew that’d been stuck up there the last ten years. The way things were going back on Earth, they could be stuck up there the next ten as well. Boring, thought Holder, managing somehow to survive a couple of what must have passed for pop songs in the late twentieth-century, judging from the style. He scanned through the channels, noticing Kyrin watching him. She looks bored, too. Nothing on this stupid ‘com today. Guess they’re bored, too. Then, he came across something unexpected, off the military band, where there was rarely a signal at all: his own name.

  “Holder. Gary Holder. If you’re out there, man, come in.” Holder recognized the voice dimly from several weeks before. Goodman, that’s it.

  Kyrin’s eyes had widened as she heard Goodman’s voice coming out of the ‘com, and then at the mention of Holder’s name. She jumped down out of the ship and went to stand next to Ardan, looking as though she thought the Recon ship might give her some kind of exotic, incurable disease.

  Annah took that opportunity to climb in beside Holder. Holder pushed down the talkback on his ‘com receiver. “Holder here. Been a
little while, hasn’t it? Goodman, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s right, man. Kale Goodman. Look, I wanted to tell you, because on an Edgeworld like Evohe, you might not get the word for a while but—there’s really no easy way to say this-we’re at war.”

  Annah gripped Holder’s arm.

  “War with who?” Holder asked. “Who’s at war? What the hell happened?” “Earth’s at war. It’s a two-front war, man. You can blame the fuckin’Human Preservation Front for starting it all, and the Vice-Commander-sorry, the Commander now-is up to his neck with them. Basically, the isolationists-the alienhaters-are fighting the sympathizers-those of us who remember that humanity isn’t just about what race you belong to, and a number of other planets have come in to stand against the HPF. Oh, and the HPF is having Offworlders either killed, put in prison camps or deported back home. It’s not a lot of fun down there.”

  “Holder, that sounds terrible,” Annah whispered.

  Holder nodded, taking her hand in his.

  “Down there?” Holder asked Goodman. “Where exactly are you?” “That’s need-to-know information, my friend, and right now, you don’t need to know. That, and I like my ass in one piece.”

  Holder laughed. “Understood. So basically, if you’re a nonhuman, or don’t have a problem with non-humans, you don’t really want to be on Earth.”

  “My man of the understatements,” Goodman said. “But yeah, that’s it. Oh. One more thing. I know you were never career military. I know you’re older than the typical cannon fodder they shove out there. But people I know tell me this is gonna get worse, fast; that Homesec doesn’t know what it’s getting into, and they’re gonna end up calling up everyone who can hold a gun or throw a bomb. If your number comes up, you might have to decide whether you’re gonna sign up, stay where you are or run. I’m just sayin’.”