The Namura Stone

by Andrews, Gillian

  The answer came from the canths themselves. The familiar diamond shape began to form in front of them, and those standing under the Eletheian tree found themselves gradually tugged inside its aura, until they were all present.

  Ledin looked around for the familiar pearly touch of Grace, relieved to feel her soft opalescence close beside him. At once, he drifted over towards her, letting the very edges of his own aura mingle with hers. Where they touched there was a band of flecked emerald green and translucence. They smiled at each other, which translated into small ripples that traveled out from their auras.

  Six and Diva were also allowing their auras to meet too, just at the edges. Ledin could see Six’s sunlit gold patterning on Diva’s cobalt blue. Quick, leaping flames seemed to travel outwards from the merge.

  Once they had all joined in the mindmerge, the thoughts of the canths were plain for all to hear. “We will never join the Ammonite animas on Enara. We have decided to stay on Xiantha, with the canths. We will protect the morphics and the orthogel entity. Our future is with Arcan, not with the Ammonites.”

  Arcan’s kaleidoscope colours glistened. “If the Dessites attack me again, they could mentally find their way here, into the binary system. Then we would all be vulnerable. Are you sure that you wish to stay with us? It may cause you much trouble.”

  The canths’ diamond seemed to blink in and out of existence momentarily. “We are sure. The Ammonites do not attract us. We believe that the way forwards for us is through the links we have, through the orthogel entity. We will do our best to protect you from the Dessites.”

  “Then we must consider how—” The Arcan aura was forced to break off, because everybody in the mindmerge had become aware of a new element amongst them. They stared.

  Grace’s aura was shimmering, and specks were appearing all through it. The pearly luminescence that represented her was showing dots of smoky peat, and there was a tinge of soil, and a sensation of high mountains. The whole of her aura in the mindmerge was suffused with this strange new essence; her entire being was swirling with confusion.

  The canth keeper was the first to drop out of the mindmerge.

  “Are you all right, Grace? Your face has gone white and is glistening.”

  Ledin, as he too came back to his normal self, turned quickly. Grace tried to reassure him, but all that came out was a very wan smile. She clutched both hands to her stomach, and doubled over.

  Ledin put out a steadying hand quickly, and raised one querying eyebrow.

  Her face contorted with pain, stopping her from speaking for several seconds. She grabbed Ledin’s arm with her own, and squeezed as tightly as she could with the few fingers she had been left with after the long, long fall from the Xianthe.

  Ledin paled. “Is it time?”

  She nodded. “I believe so. Do you think you can ask my mother to come over?”

  Ledin took a hurried step to the left, and then to the right, and then to the left again. “I … I … err …” Then he stood still, looking quite helpless.

  The canth keeper took pity on him. “I can contact Kwaide by tridi, if you would like.”

  Ledin’s face cleared. “Yes, please. Tell them to get Vion and Cimma … and Arcan, would you transport them from the orbital station, when they get there? Tell them the baby is coming.” He looked around, blindly. “Is there anywhere I can take her?”

  “Of course. My house. You are most welcome there. It will bring me much colour.” The man who spoke to canths scuttled in front of them both as Ledin began to help Grace across the open area, and then paused as Grace gave a cry.

  “NO!” She clutched at her stomach, and doubled over, unable to walk any further. “Here! Leave me here!”

  Ledin stared. “Here?” He looked around. “You are out in the open, Grace. Let me carry you inside.”

  She shook her head, determined. “I c-can’t,” she gasped, as another fierce pain took over her body. “I would never make it. T-take me there …” she pointed to the shade of a nearby temaris tree, close to the Eletheian tree they had been standing under, “… I will be better off there.”

  Ledin look back at the others, hoping that Diva might be able to override Grace’s wishes. He himself didn’t want to make things worse. In any case, on Kwaide it was considered more in harmony with the land to give birth outside, in the open air. When he saw that Diva was not about to intercede, he carried Grace into the shade of the smaller and lower tree, laying her gently down on the ground. Taking her hands in his, he bent over her, concerned.

  “I … err … I will go to contact Kwaide,” said the man who spoke to canths. He bustled away, as fast as his legs could carry him. Ledin could hear the murmurs of worry coming back on the light breeze. The Xianthan was unaccustomed to dealing with emergencies quite like this.

  Arcan was still hovering under the Eletheian tree. “What about our meeting?” He sounded put out.

  Grace and Ledin exchanged amused glances. “Go ahead, Arcan,” said Grace. “Don’t mind me. I—” She broke off as a spasm shook the whole of her body.

  Arcan shimmered. “Well, it is a bit inconvenient if you are just going to lie there and take no part. I really needed you to be …. but I suppose, if you like this tree more, we could move the meeting here. Then you wouldn’t have to get up.” His shape flickered doubtfully. “Although there is less room under this tree.”

  Grace nodded solemnly. “Thank you.” She put out one hand to clutch at Ledin’s fingers, and squeezed very hard. He gave a wince, and treated her to a baleful look.

  “What?”

  Grace continued with the meaningful stare.

  “Oh. Right! Err … Arcan?”

  “I am still here.”

  “Err… I think the rest of you should stay under the Eletheian tree, you know. Grace needs to be on her own.”

  Arcan darkened. “Why? What is about to happen is the greatest of your achievements as transients, is it not? Is it not a moment to be shared with everyone?” The morphics flitted above his head, buzzing in agreement.

  “We-e-ll, she … err … it is more customary to leave the women alone at such times.”

  The morphics and Arcan appeared to be exchanging commentaries. From their colour Ledin could see that they found such a custom most strange. Finally Arcan turned back to Ledin. “I suppose we could stay under the Eletheian tree, if Grace needs more space. We can go on with the meeting there, once I come back from the Kwaide Orbital Platform with Vion and Cimma.”

  Diva glared around at them all. “Of course we are not going to continue with the meeting!” she said, severely. “In any case, it seems obvious to me that somebody will have to go over to Enara and try to persuade the Ammonite animas out of an alliance with the Dessites. At least, they should if we think there is a chance they are considering one. The visitor should monitor the situation.” Then she hurried over to the temaris tree, folding her long legs underneath her as she sank down to her knees and wiped Grace’s brow. “How are you, Gracie?”

  Grace reached up with relief to touch Diva’s arm. “Better, now. Keep them away, will you? —Them too!” This last remark was made while jerking her head in the direction of her husband and Six, who had been following Diva but had stopped rather indecisively between the two trees. Ledin saw the gesture, shifted uncertainly and seemed about to speak, but Diva stared him down quite easily. “It is what Grace wants,” she told him, “and that is what is important now.”

  He looked down at his wife, who was making urgent movements with her hands, batting him away and staring at him as if he were the last person in the world that she wanted to see at that moment.

  Arcan darkened. “Yes, come over here, you two. I suppose we can ask the visitor to go over regularly to Enara and monitor the situation. There is little point in our taking action if the Enarans reject the De
ssite overture, after all.” He gave a cross shimmer in Diva’s direction and swelled up in indignation. “—Though I don’t see why we can’t continue with the meeting when I get back with Cimma and Vion.”

  Ledin sighed. “Of course,” he said. “After all, nothing much else going on, is there?”

  Arcan seemed pleased. “Exactly. That is what I thought, too.” Then he saw the strange look Ledin was giving him. “Have I said something wrong?”

  Ledin gave a little disbelieving shake of his head. It seemed to him that brain size didn’t always correlate with intelligence. But Arcan was no longer there to notice. His diaphanous shape had already vanished into the hot, sunlit air.

  Ledin and Six retreated to the Eletheian tree, about ten metres away, where they went into a huddle with the man who spoke to canths, who had returned after making his call.

  Nobody seemed to want to discuss anything much at all. There was a long, tense wait, and then a flurry of movement as Arcan deposited Vion and Cimma half-way between the trees.

  Both the Sellites hurried towards the girl who was lying on the ground, but Arcan hovered uncertainly in the middle looking from one group to the other.

  “Why are you all still standing under that tree?” he boomed. “Why aren’t you helping Grace?”

  Diva looked back over her shoulder. “Shut up, Arcan! Don’t make so much noise!”

  Arcan turned three shades darker, and scintillated for a moment. Six grinned; the orthogel entity wasn’t used to being ticked off like that. Arcan hovered uncertainly for a moment or two, and then decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and shimmered over to join the men under the cramped Eletheian tree. “Diva sounds rather … upset,” he hazarded, still in an offended bluish tone. “I am surprised she didn’t accept my help.”

  Six shook his head. There were, he felt, still many things for the orthogel entity to learn.

  “It’s a female sort of thing,” he tried to explain.

  Arcan was not convinced. “Vion is over there under the temaris tree,” he pointed out.

  “Yes. But then, he is a doctor.”

  “But I am much wiser than a mortal doctor!”

  Ledin interrupted. “Look!”

  The men all turned. Standing back, at a discreet distance, were the canths. They stood, heads bowed respectfully, waiting.

  “They look as if they know what is happening,” whispered Ledin. “Do you think they sense that Grace is about to have … you know?”

  The canth keeper felt he should make allowances for the natural worry of a man about to become a father, but he couldn’t allow that to pass. “Of course they know,” he said shortly. “The canths feel everything we feel.”

  “It just seems strange that—” began Ledin, only to turn white as a loud strangled cry came from Grace. He turned unconsciously to his fellow Kwaidian, and his fingers pincered down on Six’s shoulder.

  “Ouch! Mind what you’re doing, will you?” Six winced. “Go grab the tree if you are that worried, will you?”

  Ledin seemed surprised to find his fingers pressing into Six’s shoulders. “Oh! Sorry!” He dropped his hand guiltily, but jumped again as another cry came from the group beneath the temaris tree.

  Arcan shadowed. “Is somebody hurting her?”

  The man who spoke to canths inclined his head deferentially in Arcan’s direction. “The baby’s head is trying to push through.”

  Arcan went white, like Ledin had. “Then her skeleton has started to reposition itself? No wonder she is screaming.”

  “We aren’t quantum,” said Six. “You know that.”

  “Yes, but even though I knew you were inefficient beings I could never have imagined anything as bad as this! I wonder you have any progeny at all!”

  Ledin felt that this demanded some sort of a response. “It is the way all mammals deliver their young.”

  A shiver of revulsion went through the orthogel entity. “It sounds like torture to me! Even Atheron wouldn’t have been able to think up a worse torment than that, surely? What is the point of creating immovable bones if you are going to make them move later on? It is very illogical.”

  Six glared in Arcan’s direction. “Shut up, will you, Arcan? Can’t you see you are making him feel ill?” He gave a jerky nod in Ledin’s direction. The prospective father was now holding himself upright against the tree trunk with some difficulty and looking decidedly green about the gills.

  “I am sorry.” Arcan subsided. “—I suppose you transients can’t help the way you are made.” Then he floated over to the man who spoke to canths, and began to converse with this worthy about the colour system on Xiantha.

  Six punched Ledin on the arm. “Nothing to worry about,” he said airily. “She will be fine.”

  “You are hardly an expert,” retorted Ledin.

  Six raised his eyebrows. “I have fifty children, don’t I?”

  “They all came out of test tubes. That isn’t the same.”

  Six blenched himself, remembering the extraction process only too well. “It was very painful,” he said indignantly. Then he realized that Ledin was referring to the female side of the process, and reddened. “And Diva nearly died after they operated on her.” Too late, he heard his own words, and tried to remedy them. “Though Grace won’t die, of course.”

  “DIE?” It was too much to take. With one bound Ledin crossed the gap between the two trees, and bent solicitously over his wife.

  “What is happening?” The two trimorphs and the visitor had suddenly appeared, and were hovering slightly to one side and above Six.

  “Grace is dying,” Arcan told them morosely.

  “DYING?” The morphics all turned black and shivered.

  Six blew out air. “No such thing! She is not dying,” he said. “She is having the baby.”

  Arcan pulsated. “The rigid structure which holds her together has begun to bend.”

  The morphics shivered again. “Then her bones are breaking?”

  Six shook his head. “They don’t break, exactly. It is something to do with the ligaments, I think. They just … err … sort of stretch a bit.”

  The visitor turned a reproachful gaze on him. “How can a rigid structure stretch?”

  “Well, hang it, I am not a girl, am I? How am I supposed to know? They just do. Leave it, will you?”

  The morphics and Arcan held a spirited conversation, clearly trying to understand why evolution had not done a better job, while Six stared at them balefully out of the corner of his eye. He scuffed his foot against the hard dirt of the canth farm. He would really have preferred to be somewhere – anywhere – else.

  “Six!” His wife’s tone, across the expanse of beaten earth, was peremptory.

  Six straightened to attention. He didn’t like the ring of worry in Diva’s voice. “What?”

  “Go get some Mesteta wine, will you?”

  Six relaxed. “Going to toast the baby?” he asked, pleased.

  “It’s to sterilize our hands, you idiot, not to drink! And bring boiling water, too.”

  A blaze of panic swept through the orthogel entity. “Now they are going to burn her,” he muttered to the hovering morphics.

  “Of course they aren’t!” said Six. “The water is to wash the baby.” Then he looked over at the scene under the temaris tree rather doubtfully. “Isn’t it?”

  All the quantum forms regarded him steadily. He shook his head and then signed to the canth keeper, who led him in the direction of his own house. It took them some minutes to boil water, but they made it back as fast as they could. As they dropped off their provisions, Six got a good look at Grace, who was lying on the ground with sweat pouring off her brow. Ledin was stroking her hair, but the Kwaidian was biting down on his lip, and Six noticed that he had draw
n blood in one or two places.

  Diva reached out an impatient hand for the wine bottle, then signaled him to move back. “Too many people here,” she said sharply. “Get out of the way.”

  Cimma smiled up at Six, more understanding. “It won’t be long now,” she told him. “All is going well. Don’t worry.”

  Six retreated back to the Eletheian tree, and updated Arcan and the others. Then they all settled down to wait. Six found that his mouth was dry.

  Time seemed to pass very slowly.

  The sun clawed its way steadily upwards until it was overhead.

  Each cry from beneath the other tree made all of them look uncertainly at each other.

  More time passed.

  The sun now poured all of its strength down on the beaten earth.

  And then, suddenly, there was a thready wail in the hot Xianthan sunshine and they all looked up, expectant. Six took a step towards the temaris tree and then paused.

  The wail was repeated, then settled down into the prolonged mewling of a newly-born baby. Six slapped the canth keeper on the back and gave a grinning nod at the others.

  “I told you so!” he said triumphantly.

  But there was a bustling still going amongst the other group, and he looked over with more worry.

  The sounds of the baby crying gradually disappeared as the cleaning process finished and it was wrapped in warm towels. There was more movement as the afterbirth was removed and then Grace herself was tidied up, before they were beckoned over to the temaris tree. Sheepishly, one by one, they moved across the small distance.

  Grace was propped up now with her baby lying along one arm, tucked up against her shoulder. She was clearly exhausted, but looked happy.

  “We have a son!”

  Six touched knuckles with Ledin, who was looking almost as exhausted as Grace, and then gazed down at the tiny figure. He put one fingertip down and felt a feathery touch as one of the minute hands held it momentarily. A broad smile lit up his face. “What is his name going to be?” he asked.