Gama and Hest: An Ahsenthe Cycle companion novella (The Ahsenthe Cycle) (9 page)

Hest ran his soft hand over his scalp.
I
knew
you
wouldn’t
see
.

She’d been so focused on him, she’d not been listening to what Du was saying.

“There are many of us, Reln.” Du leaned toward him “We are in harmony on this point. Females and males must separate, each with their own inside Reev.”

Brown-purple burst into light on Reln’s throat. Exasperation. “You are not guide here, Du. It’s not your decision to make.”

“Not yet,” Mahn muttered.

Gama swung her gaze to her. Her stomach clenched. Too much was happening at once — the disappearances, her odd thoughts in the night, Hest’s opposite echo of her own thoughts, and now, Mahn and Du. “I won’t listen to this.” Her words came out sounding harsher than she would have wanted, but being polite was the least of her worries. She stood and strode out the door.

Reln’s dwelling didn’t shut the door immediately behind her. Maybe Reln expected her to come back inside and apologize. He’d wait a long time for that.

“Gama,” Hest called, running after her. “Gama!”

She kept going a few paces, then turned and faced him. His throat was awash with the sorrow-color. Sorrow that he agreed with Du and Mahn? That angered her more.

“We’ve never been out of harmony like this, Hest. What is going on?”

He ran his smaller hand over his scalp. “Realization. Seeing clearly that things are changing.”

Anger, confusion, and her own sorrow stilled her tongue. She glanced around Reev, seeing her sisters and brothers going about their business as always. And the difference — males with males, females with females.

“Home invited me back,” Hest said. “I’m going.”

Her anger dropped a notch and she smiled. “I’m glad Home came to its senses. I’d rather be there than with Reln and Prill.”

He stared at the ground. “Only me. I’m sorry, Home says you’re not welcome. I’m sorry.”

Her neck exploded into color — gray-red with shock and orange-yellow in confusion. Home had told her it was Hest it didn’t want within its walls.

“Why?” she managed after a moment.

“You missed some of Reln’s meeting with Mahn and Du.” Hest cleared his throat. “They’ve united many — most — of the females behind them. They call themselves Doumanas — females who don’t wish to live with males. Home felt — you know how Home is, contrary for the sake of it sometimes — that if the females were going to band together, it preferred males. This male at least. Me.”

Her mind spun. “This is madness, Hest. Females and males built Reev and every other corenta together. We are soumyo — male and female making up one whole. You can’t throw half of yourself away.”

When Home had invited her back, she hadn’t gone. She’d chosen to stay with Hest. Why did he find it so easy to abandon her now?

Hest looked out across the commons.

“I’m moving back with Home,” he said. “It’d be a good idea for you not to stay with Reln any longer. Find a sister willing to share her dwelling. Live there.”

She grabbed his hand. “Hest.”

“Don’t Gama. I hate leaving you. I hate that it’s not your fault, or my fault, but it has to be. The separation is the only thing that makes sense.” He pulled his hand free and walked away.

“How does it make sense, Hest?” she called, running after him. “Explain it to me.”

He turned. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? Since we’ve started talking about keeping male and female apart, nothing has disappeared.”

She stared after him as he turned again and walked off, the spots on her neck so hot they were like fire on her skin.

-=o=-

Gama caught sight of thought-grains floating into the room.

Please
join
us
in
the
receiving
area
, Reln sent.

A tingle ran up her spine. Lately every conversation with Reln centered on something that had gone wrong. She hurried down the hallway, but wished it was a longer trek.

Six or seven corenta-kin sat on floor pillows or stood in the receiving room, along with Prill and Reln. Hest wasn’t there, which disappointed her, but neither were Du or Mahn — and she was glad for that.

“We’re almost out of what food we scavenged earlier,” Reln said, wasting no time getting to the point. “We have to leave Reev today and look for more outside our wall.”

She heard a few quick intakes of breath and someone cleared his throat nervously, but no one spoke. Gama looked again at the others in the room, more carefully this time. Reln had chosen well, she thought. With the exception of Prill, these soumyo were probably the boldest and quickest thinking among the corenta-kin — exactly who she’d want with her in dangerous times, though she’d have added Hest to the group. His absence felt like a gap that no one else could fill.

Reln glanced at Prill, and for a moment Gama hoped he’d say Prill wouldn’t be coming with them. It would be a lie to say that even the bold weren’t going to be worried and afraid outside the wall. They were worried and afraid inside the wall. Having the nervous, hesitant Prill with them wouldn’t make anyone feel braver.

Prill rose and went into the dwelling’s small communiteria. She returned with a long rope.

Reln tucked it between his elbow and side while he put on his cloak. “I can’t guarantee this will protect us, but if we’re lashed together, we’ll either all be safe or mutually disappeared.”

There was some laughter at that — the nervous kind. Reln didn’t smile.

It made sense to her. She and Hest had been holding tight to each other when Frarm disappeared. Maybe the whatever-it-was could only take one soumyo at a time, though it didn’t seem to have any problem taking a whole herd of brez.

Gama ran back to the sleeping quarters to pull on her foot casings. By the time she returned to the receiving room, the others had left, leaving the door open for her to follow. They were a short distance ahead. She hurried to catch up.

Few other soumyo were out as they made their way toward Wall and the north gate. Those who did see them watched with solemn eyes as they passed.

-=o=-

They stopped just inside the gate and lashed themselves to their neighbors, with plenty of loose rope between so they wouldn’t be hindered at their work. A male who wasn’t going with them handed out gathering bags. His neck was blue-red with anxiety. Gama’s own spots lit in sympathy to his worry. She rubbed her throat hard. Adding someone else’s worry to her own was the last thing she needed.

Reln must have coordinated with the guides from Kelroosh and Trontin. Small groups, lashed together the same as they were and carrying their own baskets and tools, came out of their gates and joined them — Trontin’s first, and further along, Kelroosh’s.

There was no singing, no words at all, no thought-grains moving between close kin, as though each one of them was alone. They walked in a silence broken only by the hum of insects, the yips of small flying beasts, and the wind across a plain empty of anything they could eat. At the river they turned upstream and traveled a long way across rocky, uneven ground. Gama’s knees had begun to ache by the time they reached a place where reeds again flourished, swimmers swam, and small beastlets rustled among the grasses.

Bren raised his hand in the air and the Trontin soumyo waded into the water with their baskets and nets. None of them spoke, but Gama saw the thought-grains moving now and supposed they were think-talking among themselves and to the swimmers, asking the swimmers to give themselves for the soumyo’s substance, promising back whatever benefit they had to offer in return for the sacrifice.

Their group waded into the stream as well, shivering at the first bite of cold water against their skins, but they were there for nokif. Gama sang
The
Song
of
Sharing
in her mind, thought-talking it to the reeds — afraid, somehow, that if she sang out loud it might draw the attention of whatever had stolen Frarm.

Each kin stretched out as far from their neighbor as the rope would allow and took out their knives. Gama thanked the reeds for the gift of their bulbs, bent over — her arms in the water almost to her shoulders — and began digging in the sticky mud. She listened hard for a hum while she worked and couldn’t help glancing up from time to time, watching for a shimmer in the air. From the corner of her eye she saw others do the same.

But the reeds wouldn’t give up their bulbs. No matter how Gama dug around in the mud, on top, underneath, on the sides, the reed held fast to the bulb, and the bulb sucked in hard to the mud.

Frustrated, she stood straight, water dripping off her arms and chest. Her corenta-kin didn’t seem to be having any better luck than she had. She looked over at the soumyo from Trontin. Their baskets were practically empty.

She sent a thought-question to the reeds. Plants didn’t think in words — they thought in pictures. Sometimes she found it hard to figure out what they were trying to say, but this was easy. The reeds knew what had happened to their vanished brethren further up the stream and for the most part had no intention of giving themselves up to the soumyo — they had their own survival to secure. Gama wiped a wet hand over her face and tried to think of an argument to give the reeds, good reasons why they should sacrifice their bulbs, but couldn’t find one. She understood how they felt too well and saw it for what it was — the plants’ survival against their empty bellies.

Gama plunged her arms back into the water, grabbed hold of a stalk, and — teeth gritted — yanked it up. Its bulb was large and plump. It would make a good meal.

By the time darkness set in, they had swimmers and bulbs — enough to last a day or two, no more. They’d fought hard for what they had, forced the bulbs from the mud and caught swimmers against their will. It wasn’t right, but they were desperate.

The soumyo of Trontin were as wet to the bone as the Reev-kin were, and everyone exhausted from the effort. Gama struggled to keep her eyes open. Lifting a foot took nearly all the energy she had left. They trudged back toward the corentas slowly, the heaviness of the air a trick of fatigue.

Slowly she became aware of a hum. She raised her head and looked at the sky. Her heart pounded.

The shimmer was bright, as though the sky had turned to mirror and sunlight glinted off it. She nudged Reln who walked close enough to her that she didn’t have to move her elbow far, and looked again to the sky. His gaze followed hers.

Someone behind her screamed. Roped to her kin, Gama could only turn and crane her neck a little ways to look over her shoulder to see what had happened. The soumyo of Trontin, who’d a moment ago walked with them, had vanished. The rope that had connected them lay slack on the ground, their baskets scattered in the dirt.

Males and females together, Gama thought suddenly, remembering what Hest had said. Males and females together, and a disappearance.

Reln
, she thought-talked to everyone, not trusting her voice to work.
We
can’t
leave
the
food
here
. It felt wrong to mention the food, petty in comparison to loosing these soumyo, but they couldn’t leave it. She reached down and picked up a basket.

Slowly each male and female of Reev and Kelroosh picked up a Trontin basket and added it to their load.

Eight

Thought grains floated ahead of Reln — traveling to Trontin, Gama assumed — Reln telling the corenta what had happened. His steps faltered, waiting for a response that was slow in coming. She heard the Kelroosh-kin muttering among themselves, and saw thought-grains moving back and forth between them and among the Reev-kin.

The
soumyo
are
nervous
, she sent to Reln.
It
might
be
better
to
pick
up
the
pace
.

He barely glanced at her.
Get
it
over
with
,
you
mean
.

She shrugged and didn’t know if he’d seen her gesture, but he sped his steps and that was good.

-=o=-

They stood shivering in the late-day sun outside the high wall of Trontin corenta — Reln, Prill, the others, and Gama, still lashed together, the rope pulling them closer as it dried. The Kelroosh-kin angled off toward their own corenta, leaving the Reev-kin to make the rest of the short journey to Trontin alone.

I
am
Reln
of
Reev
, Reln sent to Trontin’s soumyo and structures when they reached the wall.
I
ask
admittance
and
to
speak
.

He stood a long, silent moment. Reln’s thought-grains had gone to Trontin, but none returned that Gama saw.

I
am
Reln
,
the
guide
for
Reev
, he began again.

We
know
who
you
are
, Trontin’s wall sent for all to hear.
You
are
he
who
conceived
the
idea
of
going
outside
my
protection
.
The
one
responsible
for
the
loss
of
our
guide
and
our
kin
.
Go
,
Reln
of
Reev
corenta
.
There
is
nothing
here
for
you
or
yours
.

Reln stared at the closed gate. His neck flared gray-red with shock, stunned at the wall’s response, Gama thought. A few of his spots lit brown-green in shame. She reached up and touched those spots.

“It’s not your fault,” she said softly.

It was a fool’s argument that Trontin’s wall had given. Frarm had vanished from inside Reev. The Trontin kin could have disappeared as easily from inside their corenta as from outside. But the Trontin soumyo and structures were in no mood for logic. They wanted answers, and lacking that, they wanted to place blame. Reln was an easy target.

He stared at her, his lips pressed tightly together, as though caging the words he wanted to say. She felt a few of her spots light purple-gray with concern for him, worry about how the day’s happenings had affected him.

“Trontin’s wall is right,” Reln said, breaking the silence. “It was my idea. Bren didn’t like it. I convinced him.”

“There was nothing you could have done to save them,” Gama said. “You didn’t make him or his kin vanish. That’s not your doing.”

“It’ll take a long while for the soumyo of Trontin to realize that.”

He set down the Trontin basket he carried, leaving it for them, and gestured for the others to do the same.

“Can we go to Reev now?” Prill asked, her voice small and fear-filled.

They were all frightened. They all wanted the safety of Reev’s wall and closed gates around them, even knowing it offered no real protection at all. Reln nodded, and they practically ran — would have run, if they hadn’t still been tied together and everyone afraid of falling, as if a fall would make them vanish too.

-=o=-

Reln paced in the receiving room. If he kept going, Gama thought, he’d wear a hole in the wood floor. Prill had dragged a pillow into a corner and sat with her knees drawn up to her chest, staring at her bare feet.

Gama listened to Wall publically think-talking with the structures at Trontin and Kelroosh. The soumyo and structures of Trontin were in a state. Some wanted to get away from Reev as far and as quickly as possible, but others wanted to stay for what little semblance of security the three corentas standing near each other offered. Final decisions were always left to a corenta’s guide, and Trontin had lost theirs. The soumyo in Kelroosh didn’t seem to be any more in agreement than those in Trontin.

Oh
! Wall sent, though Gama suspected this was its feeling coming in thought — not meant for the soumyo at all.

The sound outside was loud and unexpected, like thousands of casing-clad feet scraping across dirt — scraping without a let up, a constant din. Gama and Reln looked at each other. Prill shrunk against the wall she leaned on.

They’re
leaving
, Wall sent.

Neither Gama nor Reln asked who — they knew the answer. The scudding changed, become a sound like a storm rising. The dwelling threw open its door and Gama and Reln rushed outside in time to see Trontin corenta lift into the air, heading east. They stood, silent as deadwood, and watched until it was lost in the distance.

When they came back inside, Prill still sat in the corner with her knees pulled up.