Ashes and Rain: Sequel to Khe (The Ahsenthe Cycle Book 2) (15 page)

Can
you
get
away
from
the
orindles
? I sent.
Find
your
own
way
out
?

There
are
too
many
of
them
.

I wanted to ask Pradat if she knew about rooms below ground, but I was afraid to speak. The walls seem to know how to listen and repeat in this place, and I’d already said too much.

The door irised open and Jonton, accompanied by two helphands in yellow hipwraps, strode in.

“Have you finished with her?” Jonton asked Pradat.

Jonton stood not even a hand’s breadth away and yet, for her, I was barely there, no more important than a beaker simmering above a flame. But
Khe
— the idea of me — that mattered to her.

The brown-yellow of annoyance showed on two of Pradat’s spots. Purposely, it must have been, since Pradat was adept at hiding her emotions. Now it suited her to let them show.

Jonton put a smile on her lips. “These things can’t be rushed, can they? Take the time you need.”

“You may want to wait outside,” Pradat said. “It will be a while still.”

“I’d like to observe,” Jonton said. “I so rarely get to see you at your work. And certainly it will be educational for the helphands.”

I glanced at the two yellow-clad helphands who stood on either side of the door, like sentries. Their gazes flicked between Jonton and me. A shiver of nerves shot up my breastbone. I didn’t want to be on display.

“Not much to see,” Pradat said, fiddling with some dials and then consulting the instrument she wore strapped to her palm.

“Nevertheless,” Jonton said, “we will remain.”

Frustration rumbled through me that I couldn’t think-talk to Pradat. She had something going on in her mind — I was sure of that — but I had no way to ask her. All I could do was sit quietly while fluids pumped into my body and pinpointed lights heated the back of my neck and a tiny spot low on my forehead. I wanted to jump off the chair. I needed my feet on the floor at least.

Pradat had slowed her movements, was taking a very long time to consult her instruments and record the results. The brown-purple of exasperation showed briefly on Jonton’s neck, a flash so minute that had I not been looking at the exact moment I wouldn’t have seen it. I wanted Pradat to hurry, too. Jonton would take me to Nez, Azlii, and Larta — I felt sure of that. I wanted to be with my sisters. I needed to know they were safe.

Pradat seemed to have run out of stalling tactics. She slowly flipped the switch on first one and then another of the light-focusing machines, turning them off. She consulted her palm instrument again, before she began removing the tubes from my arms.

“I’ll need to see her tomorrow,” Pradat told Jonton. “At this point in the treatment, a follow-up is critical.”

“Of course.” Jonton nodded to the helphands at the door, then turned her attention to me. “I trust you appreciate all that Pradat has done and is doing for you.” She let that sink in a moment, her eyes boring into mine, then put her hand lightly on my elbow. “You must be anxious to talk to your companions. We’ll take you to them.”

The two helphands fell in beside me as soon as the door shut behind us. Jonton and Pradat walked ahead. I saw Pradat’s unhappiness — the colors swirling through her — though I wasn’t sure what caused this emotion. Nothing showed on Pradat’s neck, any more than the excitement I saw in Jonton showed on hers. The helphands, though, were about as private in their feelings as hatchlings. The bright-blue of excitement glowed on their skins.

What would my neck show if my spots still lit? I wondered. Nerves. Anticipation. Curiosity. Anger. My neck would display more colors than the sky during Resonance, when the air shimmered with the hues we followed to our mating grounds.

We traveled a long, white hallway — white floor, white walls, white ceiling — the color of satisfaction, another emotion I saw swirling in Jonton. Her ease made me all the more anxious.

At the end of the hallway a door, blending so well with the wall that I didn’t spot it, irised open with an almost silent whoosh. A set of stairs lay behind it.

Azlii
, I sent.
They’re
bringing
me
below
ground
.
Where
are
you
now
?

An
empty
room
, she sent back.
Not
so
empty
,
actually
.
There’s
the
three
of
us
and
six
helphands
,
each
with
her
neck
glowing
orange
-
red
.

Orange-red. Anticipation. Jonton had a surprise planned. A surprise everyone knew about except Azlii, Larta, Nez, and me. I couldn’t tell if Pradat was unhappy because she knew what was coming, or because she didn’t. I didn’t know if the faint thumping I heard coming from beneath our feet had anything to do with the helphands’ excitement.

At the bottom of the stairs another well-hidden door irised open to reveal another hallway. Greenish-blue, the walls and floor of this one — the color of amazement — and freshly painted. This building may have been built to lumani specifications, but the paint was doumana-chosen. The lumani hadn’t seen colors the way we did, and they didn’t understand the colors emotions sparked. Why would doumanas want this underground place to evoke amazement?

Another door opened and my sisters were ushered into the hallway with us. I wanted to run to them and stroke their necks. I could see the same urge in them, but the helphands nudged themselves between each of us, keeping us apart while we followed Jonton forward. The faint thumping sound grew louder.

And then I knew why greenish-blue had been chosen. Behind the last door, in an all-white room, was an incredible machine — twice my height and so wide that if I held hands with my three sisters and we stretched out our arms we would not cover its face. Dials and levers on a panel nearly as big as I was glowed in the darkened room. I heard Pradat gasp, and saw that this room was as much of a surprise to her as it was to me.

“We found this after the lumani were destroyed.” Jonton’s outline gleamed with the bright-green of pride. “At first, no doumana would admit to knowing what the machine did, or how to work it, but of course there had to be those who knew. The lumani were clever, but without hands they couldn’t control any machines themselves. They had to have help. First to build it, and then to make it work. Eventually we found them here, a sisterhood so secret that once they’d entered this structure, they never left it again and were shown on the rolls as Returned.”

“What is it?” Nez asked.

Jonton grinned. “Something amazing. Did you never wonder why our planet was blessed with seasons that came at exactly the same time each year, with perfect weather for the crops that grew in each region? Every year, the perfect amount of rain, at the right time, the perfect amount of sun.” She swept her arm toward the machine. “This is why.”

Azlii stepped forward and stretched one hand toward the machine, her fingers stopping just shy of it. She waved her hand back and forth, as though the machine could be read through the still air between it and her fingertips.

“A weather machine,” she said.

“Very good.” Jonton clapped one hand against her thigh. “Developed after a disaster with the weather-prophets.”

Disaster was the right word — a failed try at breeding weather-prophets that only succeeded in making babblers, like Marnka.

“It must have been quickly and recently done,” I said. “The
disaster
only happened ten or twelve years ago. Every year since then our weather has remained the same.”

Jonton sent me a sharp look. This was information I shouldn’t have, and I was foolish to have let it fly from my mouth. Thinking of Marnka had made me angry over what had been done to her. Had made me remember what she’d told me about the true history of the weather-prophets.

Jonton’s gaze dropped to my neck. My spots should have been lit, and she seemed pleased that they weren’t. Her own neck was again lit with three dark-red-blue spots of curiosity — colors she must have allowed to show. I was going to have to watch my words more carefully.

Jonton’s eyebrow ridges rose, then relaxed. “It was quickly but well done. The doumanas who tended the machine for the lumani had little to do other than make sure things kept running as they were meant to.”

“Pftt,” Azlii said. “They must not have done a good job, given all the unseasonal rain we’re receiving.”

“They did a fine job.” Jonton reached up and stroked a dial as though it were a sister. “The lumani were clever, but we orindles are cleverer. After the lumani were gone it was
we
who reasoned out how the machine worked. We who brought the rain.” Her gaze cut across each of us, one by one. “This is why the orindles of Chimbalay must be in charge of rebuilding our world. None other have the intelligence and the resources.”

“You’d better stop the rain now in that case, before the ground is too wet for planting.” Azlii leaned slightly toward Jonton. “You do understand that wet soil will rot the seeds.”

“I would have expected that comment from a commune doumana like Khe,” Jonton said. “I’m quite surprised a
corentan
knows so much about crop growing.”

“Corentans know quite a bit about many things,” Azlii said.

“How does it work?” My voice was small, but the spike of curiosity was huge in me. I was desperate to understand. It was a lumani desperation, a
need
for knowledge, like a need for air.

Jonton lifted her hand again to the dial. “Let me show you.” She pressed a dial, and turned her back. All we could see were her elbows and upper arms moving as she did whatever she was doing. She turned to face us and swept her arm toward a long clear reservoir built beside the wall closest to where Nez stood. The machine whirred softly. I caught a whiff of a scent in the air that I couldn’t place, something unpleasantly sharp.

The reservoir began to lightly cloud as a few drops of moisture fell into it.

“It’s raining outside now,” Jonton said.

Larta laughed low. “It was raining yesterday, raining this morning, raining when we arrived. Why should now be different?”

Jonton nodded. “But not like this.” She turned her back to us again, moving more levers and dials, I supposed. I leaned to the side and lifted to my toes, trying to see over Jonton’s shoulders to what she was doing, but she hid her movements too well. I sidestepped to get a better view. One of the helphands grabbed my upper arm and pulled me back.

Water began flowing into the tall reservoir, at first just a couple of finger-widths at the bottom, but then like into a bucket when the tap is turned wide. A hand’s-breadth of water. Half an arm’s worth. Fingers to shoulders. Foot to waist. Water that had pinged in at first now tumbled into the reservoir.

The room seemed tinged dark-gray, but the lights were bright above and around us. It was my sisters’ worry I was seeing on their necks, in the air. Jonton turned, and her throat was washed bright-green with pride and white with satisfaction. Her happiness angered me. Hers wasn’t the sort of happiness that would have turned her neck crimson, but a different sort of joy, something without a name or a color. Something too ugly to deserve a name or color. Something smug and ambitious that didn’t belong in any doumana.

Her lips crinkled and she fiddled with the dials and levers again. The water filling the reservoir began to slow. Finally it topped off at a spot above my head. The reservoir was as big around as I was. I tried to gauge how deep that much water falling on flat land would measure. I couldn’t figure it exactly. I didn’t have that sort of mind. But I knew enough to guess that when we walked out of here to return to Justice House the puddles would be deep.

“Remember what you’ve seen here today,” Jonton said. “Tell your sisters what the orindles can do.”

“What you can do,” I said.

Jonton smiled.

She looked toward the helphand closest to the door, then turned back and began to work the dials and levers again. She could be turning down the rain to let us walk back dry, or turning it up, to make sure her lesson struck home with us. I couldn’t guess which.

I glanced around the room, wondering where the low moan I heard came from. A low rumble followed the moan. Nez caught my eye and two spots lit with the dark-red-blue of curiosity. I touched my ear hole, wondering if she heard the sounds too, but she raised her eyebrow ridges and shrugged.

A louder rumble caught everyone’s attention, but it passed quickly.

The helphand waved her hand over a small indentation on the wall. As the door began to iris open, the floor beneath our feet buckled. The helphand at the door cried out. A piece of the ceiling, as big as a hatchling’s head, crashed near my feet. Larta grabbed my arm and we tumbled to the ground together.