And All Between (2 page)

“Stop it, Teera,” he said. “Stop imaging. Let’s play something.”

“What was it, Teera?” Raula asked, her palms still pressed against Teera’s cheeks. “What were you imaging?”

“I time-imaged,” Teera had said eagerly. “I really did. I saw myself gliding. I saw that I really am going to do it someday, just like a Kindar.”

Charn looked skeptical. “I’ll bet you weren’t really time-imaging,” he said. “I’ll bet you were just plain imaging. Only Gystigs believe in time-imaging anymore, and they believe that only very special people like old Vatar can do it. And even Vatar has to do all kinds of special rituals first.”

“And fasting,” Raula said. “My mother says that old Vatar fasts and meditates for a long time before he makes a prophecy.”

“Well, I’ve been fasting,” Teera said. “All there was left for food-taking this morning was a little piece of rootbread, and I gave most of mine to Haba.” It was true, she was sure. Whether caused by simple hunger or something more mysterious, she had been feeling rather dreamy and light-headed for some time. “I did time-image,” she insisted. “It was a fore-telling time trance, and it means that someday I will be a real Kindar and live high up in the forest.” And spreading her arms, Teera had raced away, leaving Charn and Raula staring after her indignantly.

Remembering, Teera sighed, and snuggled deeper into the comfort of her nid. “It was real,” she told herself, “and someday I am going to glide—high up through the highest branches of the grundtrees—and live in a beautiful nid-place woven of snow-white tendril and hung with beautiful draperies—and I’ll eat and eat and eat.”

Images of food, piles and stacks and tumbling heaps of food, were just beginning to soften into dream, when a voice intruded, and the lovely fruits and nuts and mushrooms faded away into darkness.

It was Kanna, Teera’s mother. “Wake up, Teera,” she was saying. “Your father is leaving soon for the Center, and he wants to speak to you before he goes.”

Kanna was lighting the lamp in the alcove as she spoke, and her back was to Teera, but even without eye-touch, Teera could pense that her mother was greatly troubled. Teera pensed emotions almost without effort, as did many Erdlings, although the more advanced forms of pensing, such as receiving exact thoughts or words, did not exist in Erda. At this moment Teera knew without doubt that her mother was in distress, and that her sorrow was for Teera, herself.

“What is it?” she said slowly, not wanting to ask, because she was quite sure that she already knew. Her father wanted to talk to her about Haba. Teera knew because he had warned her only a few days before that there might come a time when Haba would have to be killed and eaten.

H
ABA WAS A GRAYBROWN
lapan. Small, rounded, long-eared creatures, native to the forest floor, lapans had long been trapped by the Erdlings for their flesh and fur. Docile and easily tamed, they had, in years past, also been kept by Erdling children as pets. But since the time of hunger, pets had become an unwarranted luxury. Haba, cuddly, playful Haba, whose soft warm fur was beautifully flecked with subtle shades of earth and leaf, was one of very few tame lapans left in all Erda.

As Kanna left the chamber, Teera sprang from her nid and, stumbling in her haste, half fell to the floor beside a small cage of woven copper wire. He was still there. Startled by her sudden appearance, he gazed up at her anxiously, his soft dark eyes showing white rims of fear. Then, reassured, he sat up on his hind legs, his nose twitching, and put his soft front paws on her fingers where they clutched the wires of his cage. As soon as the door was opened, just as he had always done, he jumped out into her outstretched arms. Holding him tightly, she buried her face in the warm fur.

“I’ll never, never, never,” she whispered fiercely into the warm softness. “I’d starve first. I’d starve a hundred times first.”

“Teera,” it was her father who spoke now, and looking up, Teera saw that he was standing in the doorway of her chamber. Shutting her Spirit to his pity and regret, she let her grief turn into anger.

“No!” she shouted. “No! I won’t let you. You don’t love me or you wouldn’t let them. You could make them change their minds if you wanted to. I know you could. You just don’t want to. You don’t want to because you’re—” She stopped, holding her breath, letting her anger build inside her like steam in a cooking pot, and then said something terrible. “—you’re a wissener,” she cried. “You are. You are. You’re an awful wissener!”

But although she had called him by a term that meant heartless and unfeeling—one of the most insulting words she knew—her father failed to respond in kind, which made her more wildly angry than before. He should be angry at her for calling him such an awful name. He should shout back at her—justifying her anger and giving it fuel to feed on. Instead he was speaking to her gently.

“Teera. Teera. Lovechild. It’s not of my doing. It was not my decision, and it would be wrong of me to try to change it. The food-warden spoke to me yesterday. The decision was made by the Council.”

“But Oulaa Tarn still has her lapan,” Teera cried. “I saw it yesterday. And no one has told her she can’t keep him anymore.”

“Yes,” Herd said, “and for the time being she will be allowed to keep him. But Oulaa is crippled and cannot run and play with the other children. It is for that reason only that the Council has made an exception in her case. Just as Haba has for so long been an exception, because you have no true brothers and sisters.”

A tall man, with dark deep-set eyes, Herd Eld reached out with his arms and Spirit to his defiant daughter. “You must not grudge poor Oulaa her lapan,” he said. “She must wait alone in the cavern while my beautiful, strong Teera runs and plays—”

Wrenching her shoulders out of her father’s grasp, Teera sank to her knees, closing her eyes and mind. Sheltering the soft warmth of her pet beneath her crouching body, she wailed with grief and anger. Sobbing and choking, she wailed louder and louder so that even her Spirit was deafened, and she could no longer pense her father’s grief and pity.

Then Kanna was, again, in the doorway; there were voices, footsteps, and as Teera caught her breath for a louder wail, she heard her mother say, “Come away, Herd. Let her grieve alone. When she has wept awhile, she will see more clearly.”

“I won’t,” Teera whispered. “I won’t see.” Rubbing her eyes fiercely with the back of her hand, she jumped to her feet, choking down her sobs. Quickly, she gathered up a few possessions—a lantern, a fur cape, a handful of favorite necklaces and bracelets. These she placed in a shoulder pack, arranging them carefully so as to leave a comfortable resting place for Haba. Then, catching up her pet, she placed him carefully inside, tying the top flap down over his head. With the pouch in place on her shoulders, she tiptoed quietly to the door of her chamber, and down the narrow passageway that led to the cavern.

The sound of tense, anxious voices reached her ears as she crept silently past the beaten copper door-screen outside her parents’ nid-cave. She hurried on without pausing until she reached the archway that led into the central cavern. There she stopped and peered out cautiously. The large cavern that served as kitchen and common room for four other families besides her own, was surprisingly empty. The many wall lamps were still dimmed for the time of sleeping, and dark shadows filled the far corners and hung low in the high arch of the ceiling. The stone tables and benches were still bare and clean, awaiting the hour of the morning food-taking. In the great shadowy expanse, only one figure moved. Near the central hearth Prelf Arnd, the father of Charn, knelt on the slate tiles, adding fresh coals to last night’s embers. His back was towards Teera. Moving silently, she edged towards the cavern entrance and the tunnelway that led to the Center.

She would not actually go to the Center, the vast intersecting network of natural grottos and man-made caverns that housed the public buildings, exchanges, and assembly halls of Erda. But she would head in that direction because in the thickly converging tunnels of the central area, she would be able to change passageways and directions often, in case of pursuit. She would move then through the outlying areas and on southward towards the mines, the furnaces, and the huge smoke-stained manufacturing caves of the farthest regions.

Teera had chosen this direction partly because she felt sure that her parents would not expect her to choose it. Instead, they would look first in the direction that she had, at first, planned to go—to the northeast, towards the higher regions, which underlay the Kindar orchards. There, in the favorite playground of Erda children, in the warm sunlight where it might always be possible to find fallen fruits or nuts, one would surely look first for a runaway child.

So Teera went south, towards the industrial region, choosing a route that took her through only two of the smaller commerce caverns. She hurried through these quickly, passing between rows of small stonewalled shops, trimmed and decorated with grills and doors of beaten or engraved metals. Some of the shops were already open, but Teera did not stop to enjoy their displays as she usually did when she was leisurely wending her way towards the lower academy. Passing jewelry and toy shops without even glancing towards their intriguing wares, she hurried on until she reached the first factory caverns. There, where the public walkways wound past networks of smoke and ventilation tunnels, through noisy cluttered craftcaves, and along the sides of rail tunnels, she began to feel secure. In the smoke and confusion of the industrial caverns, it would be easy to avoid observation.

She walked for a long time, keeping mostly to supply tunnels, stopping now and then to peer into furnace caves where molten metal glowed in huge vats and steam rose in hissing clouds from the cooling pools. Or again into craftcaves where metal workers labored over intricately shaped tools or dishes.

At last the noise and stench of the factory caverns diminished, and she found herself wandering down a railway tunnel that, by its appearance, had long been abandoned. The iron rail was almost covered by loose dirt, and the walkway was rough and untended. After a while Teera came to a place where, just ahead of her, the tunnel seemed to disappear into darkness. From this point on, the overhead light jets were no longer supplied with fuel.

Hesitating for only a moment, Teera knelt down and unshouldered her pack. As she untied the flap, Haba’s soft round face peered out, his nose wrinkling eagerly. Lifting him out, she hugged and nuzzled him before putting him down to stretch his legs while she rummaged in the pack for her lantern. In his slow loping gait, the little creature began to explore the deserted tunnel, while Teera found her flint wheel, struck it, and lit the lantern. Haba had wandered several yards away, back in the direction from which they had come, but at Teera’s soft whistle he returned obediently. With her pet back in the shoulder pack, Teera moved on down the abandoned tunnel.

Now that she no longer had to keep on the lookout for people who might see and remember her, Teera was free to watch for other things. Her plan was to look for air tunnels that were wide and gradual enough to climb. Although primarily dug for ventilation, many air tunnels were constructed at a shallow pitch so that it was possible to climb up them to the forest floor. Such tunnels were dug in places where the barrier of Root lay close to the surface. From the ends of such air shafts, it was possible to dig for roots and mushrooms, and even, by reaching out between the branches of Root to pick sweet grasses, or set traps for plak and lapan. And it was from these vantage points in the areas that lay beneath the Kindar cities, that lookouts were posted to keep watch for fallen Kindar infants.

The first three tunnels that Teera climbed were profitless. Lying so close to the inhabited areas, they had obviously been visited often, and every root and mushroom had been harvested. Reaching out between the cold gnarled arms of Root, Teera found that even the grasses of the forest floor had been carefully plucked. Her groping fingers found only a few stubs of grass, which Haba swallowed greedily. At the end of the fourth fruitless climb, Teera decided to stop for a while to rest. The air shaft she had just climbed was particularly wide and shallow, and it ended in a sizable chamber. A nid-shaped indentation hollowed into the chamber floor and several alcoves such as might have been used for lanterns or supplies, indicated that it had once been used by a hunter or lookout. Overhead the Root wove in and out in a pattern that left several sizable openings through which came warmth and light and a fresh, clean fragrance. Extinguishing her lantern, Teera curled up in a small ball and with Haba cradled in her arms, she quickly fell asleep.

Some time later she awoke feeling sick and weak from hunger. She lit her lantern, replaced Haba in her pack, and then continued to sit, wondering if she would have the strength to get to her feet and go on. Now that it was too late, she thought of all the things she should have done. She should have tried to take some food from the cavern larder, or at least to have waited until after the morning food-taking, before she made her escape. Except that it might then have been too late. Perhaps by then her father would have already taken Haba away to the food-wardens. No, she had had to leave quickly. And now, she would die quickly of starvation, and someday searchers would find her bones with those of Haba, and then her father and mother, and even the wissener Councilors, would be sad for what they had done.

Tears rolled down Teera’s cheeks and sank into the soft fur of her tunic. Her sobs became rhythmical, reminding her of a chant, the first chant in the Ceremony of Weeping. She began to sing a song, making up new words to go with the slow, sad music of the chant. The song was beautiful and very sad—about a poor, unfortunate girl and her beloved pet lapan and how they died a tragic death. The song went on and on, and without realizing how she had started, Teera found that she was going on, also. Somehow she had managed to get to her feet and make her way down the shaft of the air tunnel, and now she was once again moving southward along the half-buried railway.