Rift (60 page)

As they moved away from the Rift Valley, chlorine concentrations dropped and breathing became easier, aided by young Mitya’s gift of the breathers. Reeve was still weak from their ordeal in the valley, but gradually regained some strength, nourished by regular meals of roasted millipedes.

The forest was a silent world. Devoid as it was of birds or mammals, only the wind and the sound of
their own footfalls kept them company. Loon did not speak, but had begun communicating with him in sign, a system he understood only poorly. He thought her refusal to speak might be a delayed reaction to grief, but even so, it hurt to have her far from him even as she walked by his side. He had his own grief as well, both for Spar and now Marie, that bitter and sad loss. He’d turned to Loon for comfort, for solidarity, and she was as faithful, as dependable as ever, but her heart seemed scoured of the love they had briefly known.

As they journeyed deeper into the transformed landscape, the very light of day seemed distorted, twisting known shapes into parodies of themselves, even as the people Reeve had once known were now growing unrecognizable.

They stopped to rest in a gully. When Reeve leaned his back against an ebony tree, it shifted behind him, a deep crack issuing from underneath the glossy surface. Reeve stood and gave it a kick with his boot. Slowly the twenty-foot sapling toppled over, split off a few inches from the base. The interior was deeply grooved, filled with spongy wood, from which mite-sized insects streamed forth.

Loon was filtering water that she carried in a canteen from a nearby stream. Her skin was by now deeply tanned from their journey, bringing her pale hair into high relief; it seemed the only source of light in all the forest. He reached out his hand and touched her arm. To his surprise, she left off her work and turned to him.

“Loon. I miss you.”

She looked at him for a long moment, then crept into his arms, wrapping her arms around his waist.

“Where have you gone?” he heard himself ask. His voice sounded scrappy to his ears, an odd intrusion into this alien forest.

“I’m here,” she whispered.

After days of silence, her voice came as a sharp relief. “But I’m afraid you’re not here. Not really.” He held her as though she were the last thing left.

She pulled back and faced him, putting her hand lightly on his face, trying to reassure him. A smile crept across her face, hesitant at first, then sweet and deep.

“Loon …” He wanted to say,
Do you still love me?
But he couldn’t bear to hear the answer. He gazed at her. She was, had always been, part orthong. Could there be love between two such different creatures as the two of them? As the volcanic soils served up Lithia’s deep nurturance, she moved toward her true self in a kind of somatic drift. Her body knew the way and could take along no passengers, no bystanders. Tears started from his eyes. “Are you leaving now?” he whispered to her.

she answered.

He stared into the forest, at the snatches of glinting sun that for a moment appeared to be the language of the forest, its undecipherable sign. He closed his eyes against the pain and despair, and finally slept.

Loon woke him late in the afternoon. She was packed, ready to go on.

“Loon,” Reeve began. “Loon. You must find an orthong. Persuade him to listen to us.”

She looked solemnly at him, frowning a little.

“They’ll kill me if I approach them,” he said. “You go first. Tell them enough to get them worried. Ask them to listen to me. If they won’t, then it’s up to you. It’ll be in your hands.”

She nodded.

“Go, Loon. I’ll wait here.” He hated to send her on, alone. But it was true—their first approach to the orthong would go better without him.

She stood there, looking forlorn. For a moment he thought she might be reluctant to leave him; he wanted to believe that. “You have to go, Loon. For me
and Spar. For what we started. Finish it.” Again, she nodded. Reeve stood up, brushing the dust from himself. He wanted to embrace her, to say good-bye like lovers do.

But then she quietly turned and walked away, dragging his heart behind her. Deep in the trees, she turned around, and he could just see what looked like:

he replied, and then she disappeared into the shimmering blackness.

2

Wait for me
, she told him. She wanted him to wait, and help her explain the crazy Sky Clave actions to the orthong. But as she looked at him, standing there on the edge of the clearing, she doubted he would last long. He was thin and pale. His flat skin was so thin it glowed blood pink and had a strange oily smell. His arms were mere strands of flesh. When she looked into his face, she saw a hundred expressions chase one another, as though he could hold no thought longer than an instant. His smell exuded fear and anxiety that did not lessen when he looked at her. So when he said that he loved her, this was another thought that he could not long hold.

Her heart raced with a surge of energy. She began a measured lope through the trees, feeling her legs reach for the ground, race up hillsides. It was a relief to run, to let out the damped-down energy that coiled in every cell of her body. At all costs she wanted to avoid eating. She could run all day on a pinch of soil, and indulging in more brought her headaches and visions. Inflamed by the sun, shimmering colors patterned the world, revealing their taste by color, and beckoning her to feast. But no. She ran on.

In the back of her mind a small voice warned her she was losing her mind. The children of the clave
gathered around her, taunting,
Loony, loony
. They had been right, perhaps. But it didn’t matter. She was her body now, more than ever, and her body didn’t want to think or remember. It sang,
This is my hill, the up flank, the down flank, the veins of rock and the layers of soil, and this is my dance!

She ran until finally she paused, gasping for air. Her legs had collapsed under her. When she looked up, the world became convoluted with color and smell. She was blind. Globs of light moved through the trees, eclipsing trunks and bushes. The globs revealed their own rhythmic colors, grew larger.

Stood next to her. Offered her food.

Orthong had found her. They offered her dried strips of beef, smelling of blood. There were eleven of them, the one in front the leader. She rose to face them, but had to look very far up at them.

Bringing herself under better control, she told them: Then she knelt down and took a pinch of soil, placing it on her tongue and summoning the saliva to swallow it.

Standing immobile, the leader stared at her. Then, slowly, he reached out his great paw of a hand and touched her on the forehead, resting his rough fingertips there.

As he did so, he flooded her senses. It had terrified her, the few times she had been touched by an orthong. First by Pimarinun in Dante’s prison. Then by the orthong who killed Spar. It had sent a shot of poison through her, she thought at the time. But this time, it came as a fragrant stream, complex and urgent, with an undertone of sexual arousal. At once, his fingers left her face and an expression flitted over his face, unreadable.

She burned with embarrassment. He could read her, she was certain.

Finally he signed,

She obeyed, conscious of movement behind her, which she finally deciphered as the orthong robustly communicating. At last the orthong walked to her side and said,

It took her a moment to realize they were preparing to leave.

she responded. She repeated
you
twice, for emphasis.

He looked her over, noting perhaps that she carried no rocks to trade, and in fact carried nothing at all. The others were beginning to turn away. She signed, mustering her limited ability:

The leader watched her for a long moment. His heat patterns were pronounced on his white skin, great swirls like storms. he said.

She pointed upward.

The leader’s hide glowed with a yellow heat pattern.

Loon hesitated. This could not be given away lightly.

He stared at her, green eyes seeming to tunnel through her. he signed.

After a very long while, the orthong came back, saying, he may die.> He gazed at her as though waiting for her to respond.

Loon shook her head. <
He
will. Reeve will make the choice.>

He seemed to think long and hard on that, and she thought she detected a current of annoyance in him. She had heard that in trading with the orthong you do not push too hard, that sometimes they would rather kill you than bargain for long. If they would not listen to Reeve, then she must tell them the story of the humans, and their machines and their plans. But what she knew of these things was very little, and she doubted she could make them understand.

The forest grew toward dusk, bringing out the patterns of the tree lichens, pulsing with their throbbing life. Finally the orthong leader gestured to the rest of his group, and they set out, following Loon as she retraced her steps.

3

At dawn they began removing a section of the dome. A team pulled away a segment defined by four structural ribs, making way for the geo cannon and superstructure components, which were then loaded piece by piece into the shuttles.

As the first segment came away, a rare blue sky peeked through. The constant clouds had disappeared, presenting a show of vibrant blue through the missing section, as though they had been held all these weeks within an egg and were now pecking their way out to the world. The sight made Mitya a little sick, because it was so beautiful and hopeless.