by Clay Gilbert
“No sign of him?” Bey asked. He’d lost enough crewmembers to know that the redundancy of the question was probably unnecessary, but where lives were concerned, he felt certainty was worth the price of repetition. “None,” Goodman confirmed. “Probably atomized him along with the ship.” That was one thing Goodman knew about Portals; they ran pretty steady, but if something did happen that was bad enough, gatefires didn’t leave much behind for a cleanup crew. Most times, nothing at all. “But he sure as hell made sure those Homesec assholes took a bite of hell right along with him.”
“Good man, that Holder,” Bey said. “But we don’t have the luxury of mourning. That fleet’s still coming. Holder bought us some time. It’ll take them a little longer to get out here. But after what happened here today, they’ll surely be coming. They won’t just let this pass. The best thing we can do in Holder’s memory right now is to be ready for them when they get here.”
“Yes, sir,” Goodman said, his voice nearly as flat as that of a servoroid drone on one of the gas-mining colonies on some of the outer-Edge worlds—worlds that would be Evohe’s closest neighbors. God, he thought, Annah’s still out there, waiting for him—-with no one to tell her that he’s never coming home.
* * * “Annah, you should eat something. I have some sweetglobes, here, and some fresh meatpods that Serra brought for you while you were sleeping.”
Annah turned over in her beddings, opened her eyes, and looked at her mother. For a moment, her eyes had trouble focusing, as if something in the very world around her had shifted out of balance. “I know that I should, Mother. And my body feels hungry. But, to me, such a feeling seems so unimportant now. I cannot believe that I cannot feel him. And I cannot imagine that he is gone.”
Her voice broke a little on the last word, but she regained her composure. “There have been times, before, when we could not hear each other. But now, I can neither hear nor feel him. I feel cut off from myself, and the part of me remaining here feels somehow less important than the part that has been lost.”
Danae stroked her daughter’s hair. “I know how you feel, my Annah, though you think I cannot. You think that because your father and I have shared the shade of Grove and field together all of our lives, that I cannot know the pain you feel in Holder’s absence, and the loss you feel in this new separation, whatever it may be. But I do know.”
“How?”Annah asked. “Your father’s parents went to their rest before you were born, so I know you do not remember them. But there came a point when your father’s mother fell ill, as sometimes happens when one nears a time of resting, and he felt, rightly, that he should go to her.”
“You did not go with him?” Danae smiled. “I would have, but the bloomling inside of me needed me even more than he did, in that moment.” Annah returned the smile. “Oh.”
“Your father’s parents lived in the High Country, and it was a long journey. If I had asked him to stay, he would have, and, in that delicate time, close to your birth, I did think about it. But I knew that I could not rob him of the opportunity to be at his mother’s side when she went to her rest, and I knew he would have done the same for me. His mother lingered longer in the waking world than anyone had expected, and, on the day I brought you forth, he was not there. It was difficult for me, but I knew the choice I had made was the right one. Still, feeling him so distant, when I needed him near, was very hard.” She smiled at Annah. “But there come times when all of us must find our own strength in the absence of those who have been our shelter.”
Annah thought for a moment. “Mother, if you would,” she said, “set my food down by the hearth-fire, and I will come and eat with you. I do feel hungry now, and the warmth of the fire, and the company, would help me.”
“I am very glad to hear that,” Danae said. Annah disappeared into the woods for a time, and by the time she returned, and made her way to the hearth-fire, her father was awake, and perched on a rock nearby, waiting alongside Danae. “Fair morning to you, my daughter,” he said.
“A fair morning to you, Father,” Annah said in a bright voice. “It is good to sleep late some mornings, when the beddings are warm and the breeze is cool, is it not?” he asked, smiling.
It is indeed, Father.” Annah grinned back at him as she sat down, brushing her hair back from her face where the breeze had blown it. She felt a rumble in her stomach as she caught the sight and scent of the succulent meatpods her mother had piled on a plate in the center of the stone cradle where the hearth-fire burned. “I am so glad you made these, Mother,” she said. “Serra has made them, from time to time, but they could never be as good as yours.”
“Thank you, Annah,” Danae said. “I know how much you love them.” “And it has been so long,” Annah said, having to nearly restrain herself from reaching for one. But she did not. She had something else in mind, first.”
“It has been some time since we had a habit of taking meals together at our hearth,” Llew said. “It seems that, even since we returned, you have mostly been away.”
Annah found she did not quite know what to say. The anger and loneliness she had felt while her parents slept in the Elder Grove threatened to return. It was not their fault, she told herself. It is the Way. And so, she thought, are other things we have forgotten.
Llew reached his hand out to take one of the meatpods, but Annah stopped him with a gentle touch on his arm. “Should we not thank the First Ones for the blessing of being able to be here together?” she asked.
Her father looked at Annah in surprise. It was not a custom their family had ever observed. But he recalled, dimly, that his had, long ago. “It is not a thing that is done anymore. The First Ones do not need our thanks.”
“Did they tell you so, Father?” she asked him. “Even so, I will thank them. Perhaps I do it out of my need, not for theirs.”
Llew smiled. “Very well, daughter. It is-strange to me, but that which is strange is not always wrong.” Annah closed her eyes and drew a deep breath, casting her mind deep into the soil of Memory. She saw again the horror of the Breaking, and how her people’s survival had been only a partial victory. We had our lives, she thought, when it was over. We had our world. But many of us had forgotten the truth as surely as we had forgotten the music inside of us. But a thing, forgotten, does not die; it only sleeps. In remembering, we awaken it. And ourselves. Annah began to sing, softly, images rising inside her mind: of her bloomhood, of looking at the life of the Grove from her mother’s or her father’s arms. I am thankful for the hands that raised me, the song would have said, to any ears that understood.
She changed the current of the song, raising its pitch as she herself had risen in age, taking her place with the other young ones in the learning-circles of the Grove, first as a bloomling, then as a seed-maiden. I am thankful for the minds that shaped me, the melody spoke with Annah’s own voice. Now, once more, the current turned, as did the images in her mind: she saw her parents’ faces, as they had been when she awakened them in the Elder Grove; she saw Lilliane’s face, and Serra’s, and last in a cascade of images that seemed to flow through her heart, mind, and the very core of her body all at once, she saw Holder. I am thankful for those who have loved me, she sang, the rich melody colored with her pain at still being unable to touch Holder’s mind—still unable to know if he was even there.
Then, finally, Annah let the melody’s current turn toward the First Ones, whose voices she had struggled all her life to hear. Who are you? she wondered. Did you truly create this world and all its life, or were you like us once, so long ago that it even escapes our Memories? Or were we once like you, and have forgotten? “I am thankful,” she sang, “for those who made me, and those who show me what I was born to be.”
Annah only recognized the touch of the Shaper’s trance as it lifted from her and she opened her eyes to find those of her parents fixed on her. She smiled at them. “What is it?”
“We had forgotten,” Llew said. Annah looked at her father; tilted her head to o
ne side. “But you have heard me sing before—-I know, it is something our people no longer do as once they did, except in mere speech that is hardly even song to start with-still, you have heard, both of you.”
Now it was her mother who smiled at her. “But we had forgotten what it was like to feel ourselves a part of the song. Thank you, myAnnah.”
Annah shook her head. “Do not thank me, Mother, although you are both welcome. I only want to do what is right, and to do what I am able to do. That is what I have been taught, since I was bloomed and born.” She smiled at Danae.
“We should all remember our part in the First Ones’ song,” Danae said.
Annah nodded. “Yes, we should. Hmm.” She grinned. “I think that the meatpods are growing cold.” Her mother and father both laughed. “All things in their time, I suppose,” said Llew. “Very well; let us eat them before they are entirely chilled.”
Annah thought that the meatpods tasted wonderful. They tasted like coming home.
* * * The embers of the hearth-fire were burning low, and her parents already curled together in their beddings by the time Annah saw Serra coming up the path toward the homeground. “Why are you up so late?” she asked the Elder Shaper, wondering if she had done something wrong as soon as she said the words.
Serra only laughed. “I should ask the same of you.”
“I could not sleep,” Annah said. “Even with my stomach full of delicious meatpods,” she added, smiling. “I am glad you liked them,” Serra said. “But Annah, I did not come here to talk about baking.” She drew close to Annah; put her hand gently on the seed-maiden’s shoulder.
“I know,” Annah said.
“Holder is gone,” Serra said. “You must accept it.” Why am I so cold? Annah wondered. I used to think that if this moment ever came, I would weep until I had no tears left. Yet there is nothing. There must be a reason. “Why must I?”
“Sowing and reaping, flower and fruit and the fall of the grain; these are the ways of Balance.”
“He was a part of Balance for me, Serra. I cannot just forget him, and I do not really believe that he is gone.” “It is natural to believe such things, when one we love passes out of our life. For our people, it is sometimes so, for we may rest a time, and then return. But it is not so for Holder’s kind. And even our kind cannot live forever.”
I do not care what she says. I do not believe he is dead. I will not believe it. “What are you saying, Serra?” “We cannot find Balance in another. Not you, not me, neither our people, nor our world. That is not the Way.” Annah frowned at her. “I do not want to hear that. This world is broken. Our people are broken. Perhaps the Way is broken as well. He was everything to me. And I am tired of listening to people who say that is wrong.” She turned her back, looking away from Serra and casting her eyes toward the Sea of Stars, into the dark distances she had dreamed of all her life, toward all the places she had hoped, and still hoped, that she and Holder would one day see together.
“Allow one who has seen the passing of many to offer a word of counsel, and of comfort.” Annah said nothing; only nodded. “Holder loved you. That is a rare thing; it should be enough for anyone. It should give you strength. And it may be that you gave him the strength to do what he had to, in the end. But now, you must find your own strength, to do what you must. It is what he would want.”
“No one knows what he would want better than I do,” Annah said. “What I must do has not changed. I must wait for him, while there is no word. And I must follow my calling, and become a Shaper, as I was meant to be. But I will not forget him, and I will not believe he is gone, no matter how many times you tell me.” Annah looked at Serra, determination in her eyes. Around them, first-light was beginning to spread across the sky. “So, what is the next step on the path?”
“We will wait a short time,” Serra said, “for your parents to awaken. And then I want you to come with me. It is time for your training to grow deeper still. It would be easier, for now, if you would leave Holder to his fate.”
“I will not,” Annah said. “But I will go with you.” “Where are we going?” Annah asked Serra as they set out from the homeground of Annah’s parents. Annah had noticed how happy they had been when she told them she was again taking up her training as a Shaper.
“It is very good, daughter,” Llew had said. “This world changes; grows darker. Shapers were a part of this world’s changes for many cycles past, as I know you can see in your Memories. Perhaps, they can help turn those changes toward the light. Perhaps, it is time for them to again help to shape the currents of time’s river.”
“I do not yet have all of the Memories you speak of,” Annah said. But I believe in what we can be again. And I believe in what our world can be again.”
“Wherever you go, my Annah, and whatever you do,” Danae had said, “we will always be proud of you. We want you to be happy again.”
Annah had turned away. “You talk around what you truly mean to say. You want me to find another to make me happy; you want me to love another.”
“Well, perhaps, yes, in time.” Her mother’s face had been gentle, but her words had stirred Annah’s anger. “I will not. If my songs and my Shaping are to be my only comfort, then so be it, but I will not put another in his place. Not even if he were dead. And he is not.”
“He would want you to be happy,” her mother had continued, but Annah’s mind had slipped beyond the homeground, beyond the hearth-fire—to the Sea of Stars where he had gone. “He would want you to have the best life you could, even without him,” Annah could hear her mother saying, from somewhere beyond her, it seemed. “He was a good man, your Holder.”
My Holder, thought Annah, and the thought brought her back to the ground. “I am glad to hear you say that, Mother. He is a good man. I do not know where he has gone, or what has happened to him. But I do not believe he is dead. I am going with Serra to continue my training, but I will not believe he is gone until I have reason, and perhaps, not even then.”
“How long has it been since you visited the learningcircles?” Serra asked. Annah thought the question rather odd, but she had learned Serra usually had a reason for what she said and did. “Not since the beginning of my fourteenth cycle.”
It was not the Way, she knew. The Change usually began for bloomlings somewhere between their twelfth and thirteenth cycles. The learning-circles were especially important at such times, for they offered guidance for the new seed-youths and seed-maidens; a sanctuary in which to explore inner places that could be as confusing for young ones as the mist-shadowed trees of the groves after lastlight. But this was just one more way she was different: for Annah, the Change had not come until her fifteenth Cycle—-yet another reason for the young ones of her Grove to regard her as odd. “I never wanted to be different,” she told Serra.
Serra nodded, giving Annah a gentle smile. “I know. When you stopped going to the circles; was that when your parents went to their rest?”
“No,” Annah said. “It was when shewhen Lilliane fell ill, and passed beyond.”
Serra nodded again. That, she knew, had been in the time when she herself had been at rest.
“That must have been very difficult.” “It was. I was alone again. And now, it feels much the same.” Even if Holder is not dead, she thought, still finding it nearly impossible to believe that he was, he is still gone. “I feel as though I will never belong anywhere for very long.”
Perhaps that is not so,” Serra said. “Come.” She started down the path, and Annah followed.
* * * You picked a bad time to die, Holder, thought Goodman, feeling the shock of yet another barrage of repulsor fire as the Ghost Knives’ fleet outside the station did their best to keep back the oncoming Homesec cruisers. He felt like a fucking coward staying inside like this with an honest-toGod firefight blazing away outside—but that was how Bey and the rest of the Ghost Knives wanted it.
“My clan and I are an enemy whose face has already been seen, even if not clea
rly,” Bey had said, at a meeting aboard the Entropy Rose with Goodman and some of the other officers from Holdfast Station. “Let us form the front line here, and keep yourselves behind, and alive for the greater fight. We’ve come through storms like this before, and survived.”
The arrival of the Homesec fleet, Goodman knew, hadn’t been just a matter of the greater travel time they’d faced with the Portal gone now. There was another reason for the timing; a symbolic one. It had gone through that morning: Proposition 21, the new law meant to restrict the so-called “danger of alien influence” on Earth’s population by barring all Offworld traffic. Homesec had decided they needed to “purify” the Portal technology of alien influence as well, it seemed.
As if that could even happen, Goodman had thought when the announcement came through on the military band. They’d decided to steal it, and they’d begun putting together a law to make that theft acceptable. And that’s what they’d been trying to do when Holder stopped them— when he died trying to stop them, Goodman reminded himself. A moment later, he felt a bite of pain, and the track of bloody crescents on his palm seemed like the traces of someone else’s fingers, desperate to hold on.
The conflict outside the station was a soundless storm of lightning-fire and shockwaves like silent thunder. This isn’t like the old missions, thought Goodman. Back then, we at least gave the enemy a chance at surrender. They just want us dead and out of the way, so they can rebuild the Portal—