snatch up. It seems that on that planet, plants accepted fertilization from any other plant, and in that horrible cold, the DNA merged randomly. Also, damage to the parents became imprinted into the DNA of the offspring. Which would explain the birthmarks.
“Your babies have the hair color of one parent, the eye color of a second parent, and the tattoo of the third parent as a birthmark. Think about how you want to explain that to your husband.”
Bretta gaped at the blanketed bundles. “All of them?”
“Yes.”
After a long pause, Bretta choked out, “I can’t keep any of them?”
“What do you mean? We aren’t set up for children, but we’ll work out something. First you need to figure out what to say—“
Bretta struggled off the med bed and staggered for the door. “Space them. Toss them out an airlock. I could have—should have dealt with the possibility before I went to hibernation. I can’t explain to Agis, there’s no reason to say anything to Crassus. As if he’d care. I can’t keep them, so just … get rid of them.” She left, headed back for her hibernation pod.
But Dyanna knew she was not likely to ever have children of her own, and could not bear the idea of cold- blooded murder of infants. So she raised them in isolation on a tiny island, teaching them how to survive. When they could do that, she returned to her place with the other gods.
Dyanna ignored the lunch on her wooden plate and stared at the three girls in their mid-teens as they ate. Japu looked up, a question in her blue eyes. Dyanna vainly tried to swallow the lump in her throat, but knew she had to tell them now. “I have to go.”
Elta hardly hesitated in moving food from plate to mouth. Fateem frowned, all joy in her successful cooking gone. “How long this time? You just came back from four months away.”
“She’s not coming back,” Japu stated, and her sisters’ heads came up in shock. Three sets of eyes – blue, green and black – stared at her with disbelief, shock and horror.
“She’s right,” Dyanna agreed. “I’ve raised you as well as I can. I’ve taught you everything I can. I must return to … where I came from.” The ship would not awaken any of the others for a couple centuries yet, but if anybody wondered why she had spent so much time ‘studying’ this planet, she wanted it to be too far behind to make it worth coming back. Hopefully, nobody would be curious, but if they did…
“Can’t you take us with you?” Elta’s voice quivered with tears.
Dyanna's throat threatened to close with her own emotion. There were no spare hibernation pods, so taking them would mean a life of boredom aboard the ship, with no one to relate to, to talk to except each other. The ship’s computer would not recognize their voices, and therefore, would not respond to them. Would it even give them food?
She had thought of staying. They needed her. But if she told the ship to go on, the next to wake up would be told she was gone. Crassus was next to be awakened, and he might launch a couple weapons at this planet. Not from any outrage over losing her; he’d do it simply because he liked weapons, liked the destruction they caused. She could not subject this planet to that future.
“I've thought this out,” she told her adopted daughters. “Examined every option. But in the end, I cannot take you with me. I cannot stay. Tonight, I will tell you once more about your parents. In the morning, I must go.”
“Back to the heavens?” Fateem asked. “To join our parents?”
Dyanna nodded. The ship was in orbit near the biggest moon. The girls didn't remember it; they would know only that she was not presently available. Maybe they'd believe she would still be watching. She hoped so. The girls knew their parents did not want them. Better they did not feel that she had also abandoned them.
Lifetimes later, Bretta discovered that her three illicit daughters had not perished, but that their descendents were thriving on their small island. Irate that her orders had not been followed, she begged a favor from neighboring gods. The ground shook in anger. The island’s central mountain spewed smoke, ash and molten rock. The frightened Atlans took to the sea in whatever boat they could get. Many were drowned, or worse.
When the floor shuddered, Gena fell off the stool at her patient's bedside. Still unconscious, Hatel groaned as Gena climbed back to her feet and reached for the stool. Iom propped herself into the doorway with her arms. "Mom always groans when the ground shakes."
"They all do." Gena resumed her seat. All the Rock Women had fallen ill a week ago. Comatose, feverish, crying out whenever the ground shook – no one knew what it meant. Large numbers had been ill at one time before, but not ALL of one TYPE. Nothing the Healers had tried had helped any of the patients.
"GO! WE HAVE TO GO!"
Gena picked herself up off the floor again, saw Iom doing the same. "What was that?" The girl's voice was high and tight.
"Sounded like Koleppa."
"The Blood Woman? I've never ... I've never heard her voice in my head before."
"Neither have I. I wonder who that message was for."
Hatel sat up, her eyes open. "Us. All of us. We have to leave."
"Mom, you're sick. Lay back down."
But other voices had begun to whisper in Gena's mind, not as loud as Koleppa's had been, but excited, insistent, and all mixed together into a block of noise that made no more sense than the voices they heard in the street outside.
A low rumble silenced all the voices. Hatel was on her feet, a hot hand around each of their arms as the 'sick' woman drug them both through the house. They stumbled into the street, where others were being propelled along by other Rock Women, or following in confusion, asking questions that only seemed to be answered with, "Hurry! We have to go!"
"Mom, where are we going?" Iom demanded.
"To the boats! We have to go!"
"But you hate boats!"
"I'll risk it!" Hatel declared. "I might survive the sea. I won't survive molten rock!"
Iom stopped, forcing her mother to turn and face her. "What are you talking about?"
Hatel released her daughter's arm to point at the peak of their island home. Black clouds appeared to rise from behind the peak. As the threesome watched, the peak crumbled, and a bright orange something began flowing down the slope from that broken area.
"What's that?" Gena demanded.
"Melted rock!" Hatel responded. "There's a ... a fire underground, and the melted rock is coming out there. We'll be dead if we don't leave!"
Iom grabbed her mother and pushed, eager to get to the docks, and her fishing boat.
Some survived. A few reached a new shore, and began a new village in some hidden place where outsiders might not find them. It wasn't long before they began to wonder … had others also survived? And so they searched, quietly, secretly, looking for sisters.
The stranger you saw in the market yesterday or last week might be one of those searchers.
Leeta's spirits rose when her village came into view; six large huts, a couple dozen women of child-bearing age, one old woman and half a dozen kids. Leeta was tired of these long trips into the surrounding country, and eager for Unt to become a full-fledged BlackBird in a couple years. Only the best warriors, the BlackBirds and the Blood Women, were sent to look for other survivors of The Gods' Wrath.
Sooner or later, they'd find others. It was only a matter of time.
###
I hope you enjoyed this brief glimpse of the mythology of the Atlans, and the actual facts behind the myth. I wrote this to set up the basis of my stories about various Atlan people over the ages, as they interacted with other cultures, none of which truly understood them. Seen as witches by their neighbors, they try to avoid difficulties with those other tribes, but are only partially successful.
Bio
Trudy Myers lives in Omaha, Nebraska, with her husband, a son, a small dog, several thousand books and nearly that many pieces of artwork. She has been writing wild stories since
the fourth grade, and now that she has retired from being a secretary for the City of Omaha, she spends a lot of her time writing and trying to get her stories published.
Connect with Trudy Online:
Facebook: https://facebook.com/TrudyMyers
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My blog: https://trudysuniverse.blogger.com
If you liked reading about the Atlans, these other titles by Trudy Myers are also available:
Woman on the Dock (99¢)
After generations of searching for other survivors of the volcano-island that had been their Motherland, some Atlans had given up hope. Who would have thought the first clue to show that others had also survived would be a person?
The Cave (99¢)
A cave can be a natural shelter from impending bad weather. Or a trap. And in this case, it might even be both.
Origins of Atlans Page 2