The Color of Distance (9 page)

When the tadpoles were reduced to bite-sized pieces, the alien wrapped the meat in a large green leaf and carried it back to their room. Then they went out into the canopy. Juna spent the morning gathering fruit, while Spiral hunted. They returned with heavy, bulging bags full of game and fruit.

Back in the room, preparations were underway for a feast of epic proportions. There were large leaf-lined baskets full of meat and fruit, and leafy platters piled high with honeycombs. Even Ripple was busy helping out. Its color looked better today, and it no longer seemed as weak. Perhaps the circle last night had something to do with it. Could the other aliens have been healing it? Were they celebrating the alien’s recovery?

Juna was set to work helping the dark green workers fill baskets with food and carry them up to the top of the tree, where some of the elders oversaw the food’s arrangement. There was an air of subdued excitement, and much bustling about as they chittered loudly and flickered to each other.

Juna was sitting in the crotch of the tree arranging a platter of food, when she heard a scream. She looked up. In the next tree, the largest snake she had ever seen was coiled around a worker. The alien’s legs quivered and gave an occasional reflexive twitch, but already its head had disappeared inside the serpent’s huge maw. The worker’s skin turned silvery white as Juna watched. The other workers had scattered. They huddled in frightened groups, watching the snake consume its prey. Several of the larger aliens glanced up and then continued with what they were doing.

Juna clung to the branch, watching the worker disappear down the throat of the snake. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The death of this alien apparently meant no more than the death of a mouse or a bird to the rest of the village. Juna looked away as the snake, with the feet of its prey still protruding from its mouth, slithered off. Juna left the half-finished platter for someone else to arrange, and walked to the end of a branch. She was sickened by what she had seen.

She stared off into the jungle. Why had none of the others tried to save the alien? Clearly they couldn’t be juvenile forms of the aliens; she couldn’t imagine any intelligent species allowing its children to die without lifting a hand to save them. The aliens seemed to regard the workers as expendable. So much for her protection theory. So what was really going on here? She looked at the now-empty branch where the snake had been, and shuddered. It had been a horrible death, made more horrible by the fact that no one had lifted a hand to help the little alien.

A great, hollow booming resonated throughout the tree, interrupting Juna’s thoughts. The feast was about to start. Looking down, she saw several aliens pounding hard on the huge buttresses of the tree with large sticks. Clouds of bees streamed out of the tree like iridescent smoke.

After the bees dispersed, a group of aliens climbed out of the tree’s great hollow. They wore garlands of flowers or necklaces of shells, teeth, or fish scales. Some even* wore necklaces made from the strung-together corpses of tiny dried birds. Others carried sprays of branches. Juna found herself wondering if there was any way she could trade for some of the necklaces, especially the one with the dried birds. It would be a treasure trove of specimens.

The aliens moved with slow solemnity, seating themselves in a large circle around the tree crotch. Then another group of slightly smaller aliens followed them out of the hollow tree, their bodies plain and undecorated. Each one sat behind and slightly to the left of the decorated aliens.

Finally, Spiral and Ripple came out of the tree, seating themselves in the gap made by the others, in a slightly higher and more visible spot. The other villagers turned to look at them as they arrived. The huge, unfinished basket was set before Ripple. Clearly, he was the guest of honor. Spiral beckoned Juna over to sit with them.

If this was a celebration of Ripple’s recovery, it must be an important event. The entire village was present, almost eighty adults, with a dozen or so workers busy serving them. Brilliant patterns flickered over the aliens’ skins—blues, greens, and softer pastels occasionally muted with grey.

Something strange was going on. Ripple wasn’t eating. Spiral seemed withdrawn and remote, picking at its food, despite Ripple’s obvious en-joinders to eat. Though they were guests of honor, neither of them seemed very happy.

After the aliens were sated and the workers had cleared away the remains of the feast, Ripple rose and addressed the assembled villagers. The brilliant, flowing patterns were extremely lovely, even though Juna couldn’t understand any of it.

When Ripple finished speaking, each of the decorated aliens stood up and addressed the gathering, then came forward and laid its decorations in the large basket in front of Ripple. Halfway through the speeches a soft rain began falling. The aliens ignored the rain and went on speaking.

The speeches went on for most of the afternoon. Juna sat there, warm rain drumming on her naked skin, bored out of her skull by the endless, incomprehensible ceremony.

At last every decorated alien had spoken. Ripple rose again, beckoning Spiral to its side. Another speech ensued as Juna sat shivering in the rain. Then Juna was summoned forward and displayed to the assembled audience. When the speech was over, Ripple walked out onto a high branch and jumped off. Juna heard a distant, wet thud as the alien’s body struck the forest floor far below.

Numbed by hours of boredom, Juna stared at the spot where Ripple had stood, unable to believe what she’d just witnessed. She peered down at the distant forest floor. Ripple’s mangled body lay there, a bright splash of red beneath it, its limbs twisted, its head at an impossible angle. Swallowing hard, Juna looked away. Spiral sat hunched and grey beside her. The other aliens sat, watching Spiral expectantly, ignoring Ripple’s fallen body.

After several minutes, Spiral rose and addressed the assembly in somber tones of grey and black. When Spiral was done, the enormous unfinished basket full of decorations was set in a sling and lowered to the ground. The villagers and Juna climbed down and stood around the corpse and the basket. They watched as Spiral cut open the dead alien’s stomach and placed a dark brown, fist-sized lump inside it. Then Spiral gently placed the mangled corpse in the basket, on top of the decorations. The alien covered the corpse with fern leaves, and methodically wove the basket shut.

The other villagers had known that Ripple was going to die. The whole ceremony had been in honor of Ripple’s suicide. Juna sat down heavily on a tree root. First the death of the worker, and now this. She felt suddenly very alone as she realized how deep the gulf between her and the aliens was. Juna felt a sudden, fierce longing for the safe familiarity of home.

Ani finished weaving the basketwork coffin shut and stood up. Four villagers slung the coffin between two stout poles and began carrying it away. Ani followed behind the casket, and the rest of the village fell into procession behind her, walking through the forest to the site where Ilto would be planted. The villagers set the coffin down near the hole that had already been dug to receive his corpse.

Beside the hole lay a huge pile of leaves, branches, and rich black humus. She watched as the other bami lined the bottom and sides of the grave with the leaves and compost, then laid the coffin in the trench. Once the coffin was settled in place, the villagers defecated on it, leaving a last bit of fertilizer to help the sapling that would contain Ilto’s spirit. Then they covered the coffin with more humus and rotting leaves, piling branches on top of the low mound to anchor it in place.

Ani stood numbly by as the others piled branches over the grave. The coffin was beautiful, woven tightly and well by hands that had known him. Ilto himself had worked on it. At the farewell banquet, Ani had sat quietly through the memorial speeches and the presentation of the death gifts. She made the required speeches, and gave the required gifts. She planted the na seed in Ilto’s stomach. All of it was done properly; none of it comforted her.

There was an empty place inside her now that nothing could fill. Next year a pale green na seedling would reach toward the canopy from Ilto’s grave, holding his spirit inside it. Someday the tree would shelter her narey, and those of her bami, in its cavity. In seven or eight generations, it might shelter the entire village. Thinking about that was supposed to comfort a bereaved bami. It didn’t. Ilto was dead. Ani would never feel his presence or see his words again. The future stretched before her, grey and empty. A seedling na tree was nothing beside that.

Someone touched her shoulder. Ani looked up. It was the new creature. Unable to contain her anger at it any longer, Ani flushed red and hissed at it. The new creature backed away and Ani slipped back into numbness. Then Ninto was at her side, reminding her that the rest of the village waited for her to pile the last few branches on Ilto’s grave, bringing the funeral to an end. Automatically, she completed the ritual. Ninto led her away from the grave, and escorted her back home. She followed, lost in her grief.

When they arrived at the village, Ninto led her back to her room. A third bed was laid on the platform.

“You should stay with me until you are through werrun,” Ninto told her.

“Thank you, Ninto,” she flickered, grateful that she would not have to face the empty room where she and Ilto had lived for so many years.

“Go rest,” Ninto said. “Tonight you will begin werrun.”

“So soon?” Ani asked, surprised by how quickly things were happening.

“The village will be in ming-a until the empty place among the elders is filled,” Ninto said, “It’s best not to wait too long to bring things back into balance. Now get some sleep.”

Ninto ordered her to bed as though she were a very young bami. It reminded her of her first days with Ilto. The memory sent fresh arrows of grief through her. Ani burrowed into the fresh bed of leaves. She wanted to go to sleep and wake up and find that Ilto was still alive and that the new creature had never arrived. Ninto squatted beside her and grasped her arm.

“Do you want me to help you go to sleep?”

Ani ached to feel nothing for a while.

“Yes.”

There was a faint prick as Ninto made the link, then sleep blotted out the world. It seemed only moments later when Ninto shook her gently awake.

“Ani, it’s time,” Ninto said as she sat up. Ninto helped her up, and escorted her to a waiting group of bami. They led her to a quiet pool in a nearby stream, and bathed her. Ani remembered bathing Kirito’s bami only a month before, when he underwent werrun. They had laughed and splashed, and been full of joy for Kiha, who had sat gravely during their celebrations. Ani had joked about mating with Kiha when she became an elder, and they had laughed. Kiha was the elder Kiha to now. He had become stiff and formal after werrun and their friendship had faded. Now it was Ani’s turn. She sat there like a stone, unable to share in her friends’ joy at her upcoming transformation. The openness of her grief shamed her, but each moment that passed took her farther from the happiness she had known as a bami, and moved her toward a difficult and lonely future.

Her friends saw her grief, and it puzzled them.

“You’ve been a bami longer than any of us; there are elders who became bami after you did. Aren’t you ready to become an elder?” her friend Kalla asked.

“I still miss him,” Ani said. She was being rude, speaking of the dead, but now that Ilto was gone, she felt as though a part of her were missing.

The other bami’s laughter subsided, and they each linked with her briefly, tasting her sadness, and sharing their fondness for her.

“I’ll miss you all,” Ani said when the link was broken.

“You make it sound as though you were dying,” Baha said.

“No, but I’ve seen other bami go through werrun. They change. When I’m an elder I’ll be busy running things. Things will be different between us.”

“We’ll catch up to you in a few years,” Kalla said in reassuring tones. “Someday we’ll all be elders together. It won’t be long. You’ll see.”

“And then you’ll all be vying for my favors in the mating pool,” Baha said, preening shamelessly.

Kalla splashed him, and soon the quiet pool resounded with a huge water fight, with Ani caught in the middle, watching the others’ skin ripple with vivid laughter.

At last, tired and panting, the bami emerged from the pool. Kalla draped a necklace of dried bakim around Ani’s neck, their iridescent blue wing cases gleaming in the dusk. One by one, the other bami came forward to adorn her, until she was covered from ears to hips in brilliant necklaces made of flowers, seeds, shells, small birds, and insects. Safely hidden by the muffling decorations, Ani repeated Ilto’s name over and over again.

When they were finished decorating Ani, the bami led her gravely and ceremoniously back to Ninto, who waited with the other elders.

The elders led her back to the tree, descended to the bottom, and formed a circle around the rim of the tree’s reservoir. The brief joy that Ani felt during the water fight had dissipated. She felt as numb and lifeless as a rock. The long ritual, with its rhythmic calling, dancing, and celebrations, flowed over her like water over a stone. She performed the required actions, and said the things that needed to be said, automatically. None of it touched her. It was as though she were watching the ritual happen to some other bami.

At last, Ninto came forward, arms outstretched for allu-a. Ani came forward and linked with her. Now the real transformation would take place. She felt Ninto’s presence inside her, moving through her, coaxing forth the hormones that would bring her into full adulthood.

She would not feel the effect for several hours. Then she would sink into a deep coma for a couple of days, and awaken as an elder. Ninto led her up the tree to her room. A huge meal was laid out. Ani picked at it. She would need the energy during werrun, but her stomach was filled with grief. She couldn’t, eat, and she was getting sleepy. It would be good to sleep. The oblivion of sleep seemed like a release. The thought of living without Ilto was too painful to bear. She wanted to fall asleep and never wake up.