So Long Been Dreaming (37 page)

Kill us? I was taller than Granny; I peered into the dimness of the open hatch. My nose caught the metallic scent of blood before I saw it. There on the floor, blood – red blood. The benefactor’s blood is brown. I shivered, a claw of fear tearing at my heart. What had happened in there? Oh, Mother, where was Sleek? I turned back to Granny. Had she seen the blood on the floor too? I stepped down off the stair, my mind in shock. People called to me, but I couldn’t answer. I heard the sound of the air cars returning, and then people running past me. I swayed and would have fallen, but suddenly Tree’s arms were around me, hugging me to his chest. “Qwalshina, what’s happened?”

He was warm and solid, smelling of budding leaves and smoky leather. Against his chest, I shook my head. No words could get past the aching lump in my throat.

The visiting Benefactors rushed into their ship, and soon after Dra’hada appeared and told us to return to our homes. He wouldn’t answer the shouted questions put to him. “Everything is in order now. No need to fear. Go back to your homes. Tonight at the Big Sing I will tell you all that has happened.”

Granny Night Wind added her own urging to the gathered people and soon most drifted away. I stayed; I refused to let Tree and Sun Fire lead me away. When Dra’hada came over to us, I clutched his scaly hand and begged, “Please, honoured teacher, tell me what has happened.”

Dra’hada’s headcrest drooped, and he patted my hand. “Go home, Qwalshina. You can’t do anything to help here. Go home with your family.”

“Damn you, I’m not a child. Tell me what’s happened. Is Sleek in there?” I heard Tree and Sun Fire’s gasps of surprise at my disrespect, but I was too frightened to care. I had to know.

For just a moment Dra’hada’s headcrest flattened and I saw the gleam of long teeth under his parted black lips. I shuddered, but stood my ground. I had to know. Then he let go his own anger and looked at me solemnly. “I never assumed you were a child, Qwalshina; I am sorry if you think that. All right, I will tell you. Yes, Sleek is in there – dead.”

I continued to stare at him, willing him to finish it. He sighed and finally continued, “It seems that the rumour about Earth still existing took root stronger in other villages than it did here. All during the harsh weather this cancer has been growing among the new refugees. A man named Carljameson wanted to take our ship and go back to Earth. There were others who helped him try. What they didn’t know, or couldn’t understand, is that the great ships from the Homeworld are sentient beings. They aren’t shells of dead metal like the machines of Earth. When our crew was threatened, the ship itself responded by killing the intruders in a most painful way.”

Dra’hada refused to tell me the details. He could sense how upset I was, and told Tree to take me home. Later I learned Carljameson and his war band forced their way on board the ship with the help of the man from Cold Spring. They stole weapons from somewhere and injured one of our Benefactors during the struggle. With so many new people here, and everybody celebrating, no one took note of the conspirators’ odd behaviour.

Ah, why didn’t I go after Sleek when I saw her leave? I was selfish and careless. I was grieving for my daughter, and I was so tired of fighting with Sleek. I blame myself in part for her tragic death. Could I have done more to make her a part of our family?

Awakening Moon, sun-turning 14

There is a great council being held among our Benefactors aboard the ship. Communications with the Homeworld have been established. Because of the man from Cold Spring’s involvement, not only the newcomers’ fate, but also our own, will depend on the Council’s decision.

Some of our Benefactors claim that we are a genetically flawed species. We should all be eliminated, and this world reseeded with another more stable species. Others like our dear Dra’hada counsel that that is too harsh a decision. We have lived here the required seven generations and more. We are not to blame for the assault. They counsel that those of us who have bred true to the Ancient Way should be allowed to continue on either as we are, or interbred with another compatible species to improve our bloodlines.

They are meeting on the ship now.

Around me, the land continues to sing its ancient song of renewal. The Mother will not intercede for us with our Benefactors. She is wise, but in the passionless way of ancient stone. In the darkness last night the people met in the village square to sing the Awakening songs, as we have always done. Tears in my eyes, I lifted up my voice with the rest. I was afraid – we all were. Just before dawn I climbed to the Mother Stone.

What will the day bring to my people, life or termination? I lean my head against the stone’s solid bulk and breathe in the smells of new growth and the thawing mud in the lake. Blood. The old people say it is the carrier of ancestral memory and our future’s promise. The stone is cold. I’m shivering as I open a wound on my forearm and make my offering. My blood is red, an alien colour on this world.

devorah major
became the third Poet Laureate of San Francisco in April 2002. She is a poet, novelist, spoken word artist, arts educator, and activist. Her most recent poetry books are
street smarts
(Curbstone Press),
where river meets ocean
(City Lights Publishing), and
with more than tongue
(Creative Arts Books 2003). She has two novels published,
An Open Weave
(Seal Press) and
Brown Glass Windows
(Curbstone Press) and is currently working on her third novel. Her poems, short stories, and essays are available in a number of magazines and anthologies.

Trade Winds
devorah major

1.

“We are always home,” Enrishi said. Her instructions were very precise on repeating the welcoming three times.

“We have much to learn from one another,” Jonah smiled as he stretched out his hand, a white glove encasing the lined red-brown fingers she had seen in the transmission. His face, though, was close to the same colour, a red-brown not unlike the asteroid rock her grandfather had given her, but his skin shone in a way that was not evident in the video feeds, and now she could also see thatched fine lines at the edges of his eyes and mouth, similar to those on her sacred meditation stone.

Enrishi wore a thin cloth that fell down her soft stretched frame. She was just under two metres tall, with a soft green skin that reminded him of banana leaves. As she stepped out of the ship’s final inspection chamber, she threw back the shimmering cloth that covered her entire face. She shook her head very slowly, bowed slightly, and then as her chin scooped forward, the cloth fell open smoothly and settled across the top and back of her head.

The envoy wore fine gauze pads over eyes that glowed in a soft amber behind the barrier. The voyagers, as they called themselves, lived in a much darker environment. Official protocols did not allow the light to be dimmed below 1,500 lumens, so this was a hastily created solution.

“We are always home,” the envoy repeated.

“Welcome to our space station,” the translator replied, knowing his voice was trembling with excitement. This was the third group of extraterrestrials that he had worked with in his twenty-five year career as a universal translator, and the first face-to-face exchange.

“We are always home.” She hoped he would make a suitable response. The air in the chamber was quite heavy and she needed to either sit or leave.

“Welcome to our home,” he countered, still holding out his gloved hand and smiling all the while, but his eyes were wide as if making mental notes for later entry in his impressions journal. Close enough, she thought, and very slowly moved into the room. Space station engineers had reduced the artificial gravity, but the station’s air still pressed her limbs down with much more weight than was comfortable. She was used to being able to almost fly around a space cabin; being anchored to the ground was a new challenge.

Jonah could not see the webbed fingers from under the cuff of her sleeve. Only the edge of the creamy green fingers showed. He wondered if he should keep his hand out or let it fall.

Gold fluttered across her lips. It was time for the second salute of welcoming: “We give and are given.”

Jonah was flustered. He knew this was a ritual greeting, but he also knew that there were required answers. The conversation wouldn’t progress until he gave the correct answer. And it seemed that although more than one answer could work, most answers were wrong. What was he to say now? He repeated, “We have much to learn from one another.”

Now, tiny gold cilia stood out from her lips and seemed to dance around.

“Yes, we are always home. Yes, we have much to learn from each other.”

He could not see her ears or head. The ears, he knew from early photographs and the first transmissions, were like the openings of a conch, and the pate not unlike the head of a peacock, smooth, iridescent blues and greens changing colour with the speaker’s mood, which he had once witnessed as she laughed in delight when they had finally found common ground with words such as home, land, peace, universe.

Jonah could barely contain himself. He was actually talking with an extra-terrestrial. He was about to shake hands with an off-worlder. For the past ten years, he had lived on the space station with this as his one hope. He had forsaken his family, his beloved ocean beachfront home, solid land, for this chance. And now here she stood, Enrishi, one of the Voyagers. Oh, they had met through transmissions dozens of times over the last year. It had taken quite a bit of time before they could create a common vocabulary. His team had adjusted mathematical languages and tried human, dolphin, elephant, and the recently translated kiwi to build a communications matrix. It wasn’t until he was able to produce the twelve sound chimes that he had learned in his first encounter with the extraterrestrial culture of Auralites eighteen years earlier that progress had finally been made.

Enrishi did not speak again. She stretched out her hand as she had practiced repeatedly in the weeks before. Her entire crew had learned to do so, hand sideways instead of flat, prepared to barely touch the fingers of the other. She touched Jonah’s gloved hand and was stung by the bleach in the fabric. She drew back and spoke slightly louder, enunciating each syllable with care. “We-are-al-ways-home.” It seemed to Jonah like she was almost crying. She unfolded her palm until the star shape became a flat saucer and then folded up its ends until it looked more like a rosebud.

Jonah immediately realized the problem and tore off his gloves. He heard the station doctor scream through the tiny earphone he was wearing: “You idiot. We haven’t completed bio-screens. You are facing isolation. Damn it, I knew we needed to get a regular business negotiator.” Jonah knew he now faced at least three months of isolation He did not care. This was a chance of a lifetime.

“We welcome you to our station. I hope that you will soon be able to come to the surface and see our home planet. It is very beautiful.”

“Life blooms,” she answered.

Jonah was half a metre shorter than Enrishi, built square and sturdy, and moved like a thick-legged spider. He had learned yoga, how to play the flute, balafon, talking drums, and sarangi as a part of his translation training. Finally, after twelve years of schooling and eighteen years of three satellite station postings, moving from support translator, to primary translator, Jonah had become an interspecies emissary of introductions. The Auralites had spoken in music; the Soldaties only screamed. But here was a being who communicated, who lived in ways he could imagine, in ways he could understand. And this time they could talk, they could share more fully than any two species ever before, and they could do it in person.

“Is this not your home?” Her hand indicated the station.

“No. I mean, yes. Well yes, I live here, so it is my home in that way. But my home, my real home, is on the planet Earth.”

“You are not always home?”

“There is home and there is home. Like your spaceship is your home, but your home planet, the place you came from, that is home too.”