He had lain smiling faintly even in death as his son, left with the flock, left with the dream of a promised land, and left with just about enough church assets to assure new-found Haven's settlement rights, cried and ranted in a far corner at the unapproachable man's still unapproachable corpse.
Though he spoke now with affection, I knew Charles Castell still harbored complicated feelings for his father. "Be glad you knew yours," I whispered, sending out a prayer. And when the tale was told, all straining listeners smiled and nodded even as we acolytes laughed at the gentle humor of the ending.
Reverend Castell sat in a lotus position atop the crate and let his head loll slowly back until his face gazed upward. His eves were closed to our sullied, sin-ridden world. His inner resonance held him rapt.
In three layers of unbleached cotton and rolled into a wool shawl, I soon fell asleep. We acolytes, in deference to the reverend's disdain of personal comfort, ignited no fire for ourselves. At sixteen, I fancied myself able to live up to whatever impossible standards Charles Castell thought fit to demonstrate for us.
I dreamed of milk, warm from the udder, and honey, hot from the hive.
II
We awoke to the ground trembling.
A throbbing moved the air in jitters, and I rolled to a sitting position, ready to brace myself. After so long in space, our reflects were those of travelers. My thoughts were of asteroids, or ruptured bulkheads.
Once I realized we were on ground, however, I instantly thought of quakes, and glanced over to see Reverend Castell still sitting on the crate, as if he'd not moved as we all slept around him. He was shepherd to the flock, and an example to those who would attain true harmony, and I tried to be like him, despite my alarm.
And then someone said, "They're just leaving us here," and I knew that the vibrations came from the shuttle departing. With that thought came louder sounds, and then a glimpse of the dirty white ship in silhouette as it roared quickly upward from the middle of the lake, dripping water, soaring into the dark and clouds.
My chest tightened. Dizziness swept through me. We were alone. We were the only people on the entire planet, nine hundred of us.
Despite my desire to avoid such daunting thoughts, my mind's eye offered an imagined view from the departing ship: We'd look like less than a single spore of mold on the skin of an orange.
Tears welled. I stood and danced some tai chi to warm myself and calm my surging emotions. I missed Earth now more poignantly than I had just after departure, when the confinement of the transport had somehow crowded out any nostalgia.
Like many others, I stood gazing upward into Haven's dim sky long after the ship was invisible. Not even the clouds resolved into familiar shapes for us, and no birds flew over to bid us welcome.
Reverend Castell let his head loll forward, took a deep breath, and smiled as his eyes fluttered open. "So," he said. "At last." Rising from the crate, he jumped down and laughed, then rubbed his hands together. her. I thought the gesture more eagerness than a grab at friction's warmth. "We must awaken, and begin the tasks necessary to our survival," he said, his booming voice glittering with a hint of glee.
He strode from person to person in a widening circuit of our tiny meadow, his hands straying to touch children's heads and the many crates and supplies he passed. His manner was all encouragement and delight.
I ran to follow him, as was my place. My own hands now and then ruffled children's hair. I longed to emulate Reverend Castell in the deeper things, too. Giving blessings with total assurance must be a marvel, something rarer than humanity on Haven.
And then we came upon the rift in our wall of supplies.
It lay farthest from the lake, closest to the forest. The people there kept their gazes downward, and none spoke when Castell, his features frozen in an unreadable mask, asked, "How many?"
In a whisper I sent the other acolytes to count the Chosen. As they dashed off, I considered adding babes to the count, but the unworthiness of it blushed me and I was glad for once that my tongue had outpaced my thinking.
Reverend Castell stood motionless. He stared at the gap. Not even his eyes moved. His hands made fists and held them. Breezes shifted his robes, but inside those robes his body was still and solid as a statue.
Our count revealed that no more than twenty-three had decamped. The supplies, numbered and inventoried before departure from Earth and several times since, told their own tale. "They've taken only five crates' worth, Reverend," I reported, having checked the numbers myself. "Two of foodstuffs, one of embryos, one of farming implements, and another of medical supplies."
With each enumeration Castell's eyes widened a bit more, until, by the end of my list, his stare was maniacal. "Why?" he roared.
I jumped so hard I dropped the inventory scroll, which fluttered in a sudden gust of wind until I trod upon it, to keep it near. I dared not stoop to retrieve it.
"Why?" Reverend Castell demanded again in a quieter voice, his eyes narrowed to slits. Under his breath he began saying names, and I, being nearest, heard some of them. He was calling the roll of those who had absconded. My flesh rippled in awe at the man's perception, his memory.
Women and children started crying now, and the men pretended not to as some muttered fast prayers. Others began a soft harmonic humming, but Castell swept his right arm upward, cutting it off. He whirled, anger contorting his face, reddening it. "There is discord here," he said. His tones carried curses and damnation, thunder and fury, all wrapped in a desperate grip of will. His arms flew upward and he shrieked as if stricken, then he fell to his knees.
We acolytes rushed to help him, but a glare from him halted us as he said, "What must we do?" When his voice faltered in a sob, the Chosen held their breath, listening for his next command. We wanted guidance.
Water lapped on the shore and a chill wind sprang upon us again, from the water.
Standing again, Castell scanned each and every face visible to him, as if seeking a scapegoat. Many responded with whimpers.
When it was my turn, I held his gaze proudly, but my knees shook and sweat trickled down my spine. I was forced to look away, even though I was sure of my harmony with the reverend and his goals.
"Sacrifice," he yelled then, in a tone of revelation. His voice lashed out, struck us numb. "We have offered a few of our Chosen, that the remainders be the stronger." He pointed at the spot where the missing supplies had once been, as if accusing, then flattened his hand to swat away imagined pests. "We must not despise them, nor hold a grudge. Instead, we must wish them well and forget them. They are no longer of us but were once a part, like hair that's been cut, like fingernail clippings.
That last phrase came out of him in a lower register that imparted ripples to the flesh at the nape of my neck, but before I could dwell on the meaning of both words and tones of voice, he began smiling again. He clapped his hands thrice, signal for attention. Into the silence he sang a lament, then gestured for us to join in its repetition.
We created a layered hum and, at the end of nine minutes, as timed by a subcutaneous digital timekeeper under the skin of Castell's left wrist, the digits of which glowed a blue when scratched, we all felt better, as if losing the twenty-three had lessened our burden.
Reverend Castell then strode to a crate, bent, and tore off its top planks with his bare hands. A cheer arose, and we fell to opening our supplies and sorting them.
Children helped carry what they could, or fetched tools, while adults worked at whatever tasks best suited them. In use is ownership, and we sought to mesh our wills with the limitations of our tools. Some began setting up the incubators, to begin accelerated growth of embryos so that we might have beasts of burden to labor and breed, and freshwater fishes to feed us in later years.
Those people, specially trained and aware that their expensive equipment was the only of its kind to be had, did their jobs with the reverent concentration of monks. Others, of a more common ilk, joined in the chorus of work any way they cou
ld, remaining at the beck and call of more focused workers.
"Work well," Reverend Castell enjoined. "If no more should manage to follow us, then we shall have to suffice, and what we are shall be the future of this world, and of the greater Harmony."
His references to the outside possibility of other Harmonies scraping up the funds and begging or bribing the permission to emigrate from Earth to Haven fell like spattered acid, and in truth I'd heard him, during the months of travel, vent much bitterness about the many indecisive souls we believers had left behind. It galled him, for one thing, that they could remain behind, yet still call themselves Harmonies.
Some of us found likely places to begin plowing and harrowing fields to receive hybrid seeds. Exactly which Earth species would thrive, we did not know, so many small plots were rendered arable. Some set up an irrigation system, deploying the skeletal water wheels. Some of us dug holes in the ground, which was hard and rocky only centimeters beneath the tangled roots of grass.
My body warmed and my muscles, after fourteen months of nothing more strenuous than isometrics, cramped and throbbed deliciously. Also, I panted constantly, but savored the pains of hard work, knowing that each jolt of discomfort was a harmonic burden balancing the accomplishments of our faith. I viewed my visible puffs of exertion as misty prayers that would disperse on the many winds to eventually travel everywhere on Haven.
At one point that day I helped to demolish the shack by the wharf. We found a few bottles of spirits, and gave them to the doctors. We also found tri-pictures of naked people doing things with each other, which upset one of our coworkers.
Reverend Castell came over and looked through the tri-pix, then smiled and said, "These, too, may prove valuable, as we seek to populate this world." He gave them to the doctor, who somberly closed them into a medicine case. The upset man stood with face red and muscles bulging in his cheeks, but said nothing against Castell's decision.
We all got back to work, I drawing shovel duty.
From green wood that smelled of pine but proved harder and less knotty, from mud mixed with stickyleaf straw, and from oilcloths brought with us as wrappings around some of the supplies, we fashioned sunken cabins. Only about a quarter of each structure stood above ground, and the walls were lined with supply crate planks, stones, and unopened supplies.
We used the many flat stones to fashion an oven and even shelves and along the perimeters of each living space, and left a central hole in the roofing, to vent smoke. Some used big flat stones for roofing. Others used the pinelike boughs from the nearby trees to weave a kind of thatching.
Entrances were small, and often required crawling; they were easy to defend against any predators we might still encounter. Drainage was accomplished with lined, sunken furrows set under the stone or wood floors.
"These structures are based on those still to be found on the islands off Scotland's northern coast," Reverend Castell told us, "and they are in harmony with their surroundings and so can last as long as the stones themselves. Those in Scarabrae are over eight thousand years old and still quite comfortable."
His words inspired us, and gave us a sense of heritage, of being in tune with longer songs. He wandered from project to task to chore, advising and often pitching in to lend a hand.
His strength thrilled me, and I hoped to be as big and powerful as he, for I'd not yet begun filling out. Sixteen and scrawny doesn't last long in healthy lads, but at the time it seems forever.
"In times to come a city shall be raised on this site," he said, speaking less like a prophet than a professor. "This place is made for settlement, and we, in harmony, have come to fulfill its promise."
He happened to be near me as he said this and, without ceasing to shovel, I took a breath and dared to ask, "Reverend, do you see visions, hear angels? How is it you know about this place?"
He smiled down at me and said, "I studied Ekistics at university, it's the science of settlements." And then, in a quieter voice, he added, "I wish I'd paid stricter attention." And then he was walking away, to cheer and laugh and revel in the hard work of making a permanent encampment around which to begin our sojourn into future greatness, more intricate harmonies.
I bent and lifted more dirt, tossing it up onto the pile I'd made. The surface of the ground was at my chest now, and I knew I should go only a little deeper before beginning to shave the sides to enlarge the hole.
Ice, gritty like sand, which Castell called permafrost when I asked, and tendrils of some kind of fungus, too, made root shapes into what little loam there was, then spread flat where the rocky dirt layer began. It was like a vein of decay, maybe a motherlode, undermining the seasonal grasses above. It was as if the best of Haven floated upon the worst.
It occurred to me that my hole mirrored a grave at the moment, and that put me in mind of the Reverend Garner "Bill" Castell, our leader's father. Had the son studied Ekistics in preparation for his father's grand vision of a promised land where his church might exist in freedom and liberty? If so, then what had distracted him from the stricter attention he wished he had paid?
Shaking my head, I started widening my pit, trying to slant the walls the way Reverend Castell had shown us.
We worked for several hours, then broke off to rest and eat.
It was after a meal of a small handful of dry rice washed down with tea and broth, which made it swell to fill bellies, that we had our first trouble with the patches of stickyleaf grass.
Its serrated stalks sliced open exposed flesh, allowing its sticky leaves to cling over wounds. We later found out that some workers were using the stuff as makeshift adhesive bandages. Unfortunately, the sticky stuff, clear and odorless, worked like some snake venoms, breaking down proteins in the skin and blood. Anyone with the stuff on them developed ugly purple masses of pulped tissue. Blood poisoning can result, and the affected areas must be cut out, and quickly.
Allergic reactions are also not uncommon, including anaphylaxis, which can result in quick, gasping death. I knew about that one because I'm allergic to bees, which, by the way, we'd imported, too. Without bees, few Earth plants can cross-pollinate. Fortunately, the tough African/Penn State hybrid was thought capable of colonizing any planet, so there was little worry on that account.
As for stickyleaf grass, our medics figured it out and explained it as a cousin to acid-secreting firegrass, but only after several emergencies left more than a few of us injured. One child, three and curious, had placed a sticky leaf on one of her eyes, and another had been eating them and died.
It was our first warning that Haven could, indeed, be very specifically an alien world into which we were the trespassers.
After that, we were all far more careful to take nothing for granted. Not even the soil in which I dug seemed as inert.
It seemed a trial of some kind, and I endured it by working even harder. I made the acolyte house extra secure by creating a zigzag entrance just big enough for one large man at a time to crawl through.
Nor was my dread of predators entirely unwarranted. A large part of our supplies, after all, consisted of the embryos of various foraging creatures, which we'd let loose. Once populations of these herbivores and omnivores thrived, we'd introduce the carnivores, a few of them, to act as predators and thus maintain a natural harmony.
An Earth-nocturnal cat from the Negev desert called a caracal, for example, was thought to be perfect for the dim lighting and relatively rainless conditions prevailing over most of Haven. It might raise havoc with our poultry, but could save grain from vermin, too. The high deserts and rugged mountains of our new homes would seem like paradise to such creatures, I thought. But encountering one might not be such a blessing.
Before any encounters might happen, though, there must be a thriving human settlement. On this world, man came first, bringing plants and animals with him, and although the harshness of the climate was a shock to many of us, even an insult, still, it was our place to be cautious.
In our hands lay Hav
en's fate, and we strove to be worthy of such responsibility.
In use lies ownership, and stewards of the land are keepers of the future, as our Writings tell us. On a more practical level, our church's resources had been spent to get us here, and the supplies we had were very likely all there would be. Haven's an out-of-the-way world, not on trade mutes and in fact on the very rim of the CoDominium's interests and influences. And so we struggled onward. How fragile we considered our every possession, how gently we treated even stones.
Our laying out of the encampment proceeded at a measured and deliberate a pace. A few of us might have hurried to escape the bitter winds, or to gain privacy or other comforts, but haste would have created its inevitable waste, and that might well have meant doom. Colonizing a world requires patience.
Castell supervised us, and kept us patient, and we remaining Chosen labored hard. We quickly patterned our habits so that there was always work being done, even as others rested. With only variable nights, Haven invited such perseverance.
In several of my sleepings we had a place that seemed familiar upon waking, and some of the quicker animals were beginning to take on proper forms, among them the chickens. I found out by almost trampling a dozen yellow chicks that hopped by just as I climbed the four steps up out of the acolytes house. To my look of surprise one of the genetics people said, "We let them breed a few cycles first, just to make sure."
"Then have you foodbirds?" I asked, my mouth watering.
He nodded. "Many have died, yes."
"Waste not, want not." Feeling lighter of step, I walked toward my day's duties. One of them was helping soothe the beasts to be slaughtered, by being among the chorus whose drones kept the birds calm even as the butcher graced each throat with his molecule-sharp, gently wielded blade.
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