Rift (26 page)

It hadn’t occurred to her to feel that way. But she cocked her head, thinking about it for a moment. No, it was not how she felt. But—ah! It was how
Kalid
felt.

“She should understand,” Reeve said, “that there are many things I don’t know which she knows.”

“But things of value?” Kalid asked.

“Things that keep one alive. Things that are more useful than chemical processes. I envy her knowledge, and I feel inadequate before her.”

After a pause, Kalid said: “That was a courteous thing to say.”

Reeve looked frankly at the other man. “I meant it.”

Kalid turned his large smile on Loon. “So, what would you have us discuss?”

Loon thought for a moment. She pointed upward.

“The dome?” Kalid asked. “The sky?”

She nodded. “Tell about the sky.”

“What would you know?” Kalid asked.

“The ship,” Loon responded.

A startled expression flitted across Reeve’s face. “Ship?” He looked so closely at her she almost backed up.

“The great ship.”

“I have it!” announced Kalid. “The colony ship. Of long ago.” At this, Loon nodded vigorously.

Reeve’s features softened. “What about it, Loon?”

“Where is?”

“Oh.” He shrugged. “It was destroyed by meteors. Hundreds of years ago. It was—in orbit around the planet. After it was damaged, it tumbled down, to the sea.”

“No ship.” Loon sighed. “No ship to take Spar back to Earth.” Sometimes she had dared to wish Spar a long life in a place that could feed him well, but it was not to be.

As though on command, Spar appeared on the catwalk above them. He held a long, slim object aloft, and his voice rang with vigor: “Snatched from the grasp of a filthy trader!” he proclaimed. “We’re back on track, Reeve-boy!”

3

There were flat pink sands interrupted here and there with rock monoliths. There was the wind rushing from nowhere to nowhere, passing through her. There was sun and heat, dark and cold, and sometimes, a gnawing in her belly that she quieted by eating small insects. She walked on, a pair of eyes moving through a stark landscape.

From the path of the sun as it traced the day from dawn to dusk, Nerys knew she was traveling north, but she had forgotten why. Perhaps this was what all things did—the monoliths, the insects, the ripples of sand. All traveled north until desiccating and merging.

In her backpack she carried a small blanket and
three large canteens of water—two now empty. The dark-skinned man had stuffed these things into her arms, along with dried meat and the words, “Find the main road—it will lead you northward.”

When the canoe had drifted up against the beach, she had pulled it ashore, where she sat on the pebbled ground, staring at the dome—a small boil rising from the skin of the sea. She slept. Then she forgot why she was watching the dome, and turned north, remembering to take the backpack, which belonged to a black man whose name she had forgotten. Once, she had found herself feeding the dried meat to an armored bug. It took the pieces from her with great delicacy, using forelegs adapted to pinching.

Keeping a watch for the northward road became her guiding thought. People whose time had come for dying found the northward road and then followed it to the end. She thought it would be full of people whose lives, like hers, were over. So it was with some surprise that she finally came upon the road, and saw that it was deserted. She was almost upon it when the sight of it registered. It ran straight as her shinbone all the way to the horizon, waffling in its trajectory only along the edges, where the surface fell away into the sand. Tufts of red grass sprang from fissures punctuating the way, and tiny vermilion bubbles clustered in places where the road slumped, as though the bloodlands fed off the old colonial path. Dunes crested the path in spots, but always the black strip resumed, heading northward.

She was very tired. From somewhere, an insistent bird seemed to call,
eech, eech, eech
, but looking up, she saw it was a sign flapping in the wind. Inscribed on it was
LIL’S PLACE
. A rusted automobile sprouted from the sands. Nerys walked up the crumbling stairs to the porch of the store. Signs in the window said
PURE WATER, RENTALS, HOMEMADE PIE
. It startled her a moment, that mention of pie. Pastry and blackberry smells embraced
her with such ferocity that she had to sit down on the bench outside the door to examine this odd sensation.

Once, her friend Konsta had cooked something she called a pie. It didn’t look like the picture in the window, but it had a crust of meal on top and underneath oozed the sweet tar of melted berries and sugar. She and Anar and Konsta’s child had shared a dish, moaning with pleasure. Now both babes were dead. Nerys looked out at the pink sands. This was not the valley of death. It was Anar who was dead, not Nerys. She sat for a long while absorbing this revelation, then a tear zagged down her face and dribbled into her mouth.

Nerys sped along the road, veering to miss the big holes. She had picked the best from among the half dozen “rental” bikes. They were all in fine condition, the airless, solid tires perfect, but one was beautiful, its purple and yellow casing only slightly clouded with age. On the store wall there had been an image of a woman on this bike, her long hair streaming behind her as she sped along. Lil, from the inscription.

Now it was Nerys. After several hours of struggling to learn bike-riding, Nerys finally got the hang of it and set out northward on the way, her canteens full again. She could have slept in the little home above the store, but feared to sleep, not knowing how long she could hold on to her glimpse of consciousness. A little crack had opened in the hard-packed flesh of her heart. She focused her awareness there to keep it from closing up.

She pumped the pedals of the bike until her knees ached. To her left, a great stain appeared in the sky as the sun fell away. It began golden as a peach, then blushed orange, with cloud wisps turned to tangerine slashes. As the sunset deepened, it soaked the sands deep red, like a forecast of all that Lithia would become.
Through this crimson world the road stretched, a spill of cooked blackberries. She followed it. When night came, she found an outcropping of rocks to settle among, and slept within moments.

At first light Nerys found herself staring at a dead campfire. Digging among the ashes with a stick, she found some warmth. Then she found a footprint. She stared. It could have been the footprint of a big man, but no man would venture here without boots. She crouched down for a closer look. Very large and broad, with an opposable toe. Putting her hand in the indentation, she filled up a third of its span. Other footprints told more of the story. A human wearing lug-soled boots traveled with this creature. They had slept here as recently as last night.

The footprints led northwest, departing from the road. Finding the bike little use on the sands, she abandoned it and set out on foot, noticing from the tracks that the human was weak, resting often.

When, late in the day, she saw a large rock outcropping, she approached it quietly. If the human was tired or injured, here would make a fine camping spot. Climbing the boulders, she inched forward to peer down into a crater-shaped declivity.

In the little hollow, someone was digging a very deep hole. The digger paused, wiping hand across forehead. It was a woman, her hair in reddish braids.

The orthong was seated on a rock, watching the digger. Its long, dark coat bore a dull sheen in the sun, and its head, hands, and feet were white.

The woman disappeared into the hole. When she emerged, she held something in her hands. Placing it on the edge of the hole, she clambered out, then picked up the object and approached the creature. Next to the orthong, the woman seemed the size of a child. She held out the object, a small tray, and the orthong placed its hand in the tray, handing it back
after a few moments. It made a motion with its right arm and hand, signing something to her.

Nerys’ lip curled. The lazy giant had made the woman dig a hole for water. Even orthong needed water, apparently, absorbing it through their hands, perhaps.

The woman went back for water four more times, while the creature sat impassively, accepting the water offering. When it was done, the woman drank, long and quickly. So, the beast had made her wait, as well.

After a time, the woman went behind some bushes to relieve herself. When she returned, she brought branches and began to build a fire. As the sun dropped below the horizon, Nerys began to envy the warmth of that fire, but for now the rock still gave off some stored heat. The orthong finally bestirred itself, rising from its seat and approaching the woman. It handed her something. Reaching up for it, the woman ripped apart the wrapping and was soon stuffing the contents into her mouth. Again the beast spoke to her, with darting movements of its lower arm and fingers. At this, the woman looked up directly to where Nerys hid.

Nerys flattened herself against the boulder. When she dared to look again, the woman was standing at the bottom of the rock outcropping.

“Do you seek refuge of the orthong?” the woman asked, looking up at her.

Nerys struggled to a sitting position. The orthong paid no attention to her.

“Do you seek refuge?” she asked again.

“Hungry,” Nerys said.

The woman smirked. “My lord says you may come down.”

Nerys slowly rose. Night was coming on, and she longed for the fire and food. Standing before the woman, she saw her thin face and wispy red hair, and wondered that the orthong bothered with her, as sickly as she looked. “What clave?” Nerys asked.

“We don’t speak of claves now. But my name is Galen.” The effort of speaking brought on a fit of coughing. Regaining herself, the woman asked: “Do you sign?”

“A little.”

“Then don’t try, until you master it. I’ll speak for you.” She led the way toward the creature, sitting on a rock.

In the breeze Nerys shivered. The orthong had a great, long face, the famous white skin registering slight overtones of gray and yellow. A mere slit where the mouth should have been, almost lost in the skin ridges. Eyes of moss green. No nose. The skin looked tough and corrugated, like a walnut skin. She looked quickly down at the hands, checking for claws. There was always argument in the clave about whether the thong could retract their claws. She could tell them, if she ever saw them again, that the orthong indeed could.

Galen said something in sign, and the creature responded. She began signing again, but Nerys snatched her wrist. “Speak as you sign. Tell me what you say.”

Galen jerked her wrist free. “You do not touch me.
Never
touch an orthong.”

Nerys smiled at this admonition. No doubt this woman, already far gone with indigo, was full of cautions, of how to live, how to serve. But life did not greatly matter anymore to Nerys. This, she realized with a small shock, gave her the first real power she had ever known.

The woman spoke as she signed to the orthong, “This human comes for teaching, my lord.”

“How do you know what I’m here for?”

Galen snorted. “The same as me. You want the same as me.” She looked at Nerys stonily. “Don’t you?” When Nerys didn’t reply, the woman nodded toward the hole. “You can start by bringing Bitamalar a drink of water.” She handed her the tray.

“What game is this?” Nerys whispered.

Galen smirked. “It’s called Learning Your Place. You don’t have to play.”

At this fair pronouncement, Nerys took the tray and walked over to the well, its bottom covered with a few inches of muddy water. She retrieved the water. Crossing the distance to the orthong, she contrived to stumble, slopping almost all the water out of the tray. She heard Galen cluck her tongue in reproach. Continuing, Nerys handed the orthong the little drink that remained.

The creature did not move for a few moments.

From deeply recessed eyes came an unblinking, green stare. Nerys held that gaze. Then, ignoring the tray, the orthong walked past her to the spot where the water had spilled. Its foot covered the spill. When it removed its foot, the sand beneath it was dry.