Barsk (3 page)

“Yeah? Well, be sure and thank her for your livelihood next time you see her.”

Jorl looked down, finding a sudden interest in the cuticles of one hand.

“What?” said Arlo.

“Your mom is part of the problem. I wasn't going to bother you with the knowledge, but she sailed off a season ago. I'm sorry.”

“Oh.”

“Kembü had a full life, Ar. It didn't have anything to do with your own passing. It was just her time.”

“What do you mean, she's ‘part of the problem'?”

“Do you remember when we were eight and crazy for insects? We spent the summer collecting every bug we could find? I got to thinking about it, and I found myself wanting the specimen jar you used. Just a sentimental reminder. And you know how your mother never threw anything away … So I tried to ask her if she knew where it was.”

“What do you mean, you
tried?
”

“I couldn't summon her.”

“How long ago?”

“Weeks. More than enough time for her to finish her last voyage and be summonable. Something set me off, thinking about that long ago summer. I snatched up a pellet of koph and reached out to pull your mother's nefshons together, only … I couldn't.”

“What does that mean? Why couldn't you?”

“Because there weren't any, at least, not any that would come when I called for them.”

“How can that be? We're constantly producing particles, storing them up until death sets them free.” He gestured at his own chest with his trunk. “That's how I'm here now. So how can my mam not have any?”

“I don't know the how of it. I'm telling you what happened. A Speaker can only summon the nefshons of someone he knows. I know your mother as well as my own, but when I tried to find any sense of her, well, I
think
I felt something, but it wouldn't respond. They were there, I'm sure, but it was like something was holding on to them. I've never felt anything like it.”

“You are kind of new at it,” said Arlo.

“Don't insult me. I've done more than a hundred summonings, spoken with dozens of different people, including some I had to research because I didn't know them personally. I should have been able to Speak to your mother. But I couldn't attract so much as a single one of her nefshons.”

They sat quietly a few minutes, until Arlo finally asked, “So then what happened?”

“I shrugged it off. Blamed it on not enough sleep, or some bad fruit from breakfast. I put it out of my mind. But a few days later I needed to check on a reference with another historian, a woman I'd fallen out of correspondence with, only she'd sailed away sometime before your mom. I couldn't reach her either. Same problem. But that time I wasn't tired and I hadn't eaten any bad fruit. Once I could dismiss as a fluke, but twice?”

“Flukes can come in pairs. Unlikely, statistically improbable even, but not impossible.”

“I knew you'd say that. So I asked around, both here at home and among a couple of the nearer islands. I compiled a list of five other elders who had all sailed off on their last journeys this past season with ample time to arrive at that last shore. I couldn't summon any of them.

“I expanded my search, going back a bit further, built up a list of a dozen names. Those who had left two or more seasons ago responded to my call. Anyone who took to sea more recently than that I couldn't reach. Like your mother.”

“And you think that's the Silence from Margda's prophecy?”

Jorl's ears flapped as his shoulders rose in a shrug. “What else could it be? I mean, sure, like all prophecy the wording is vague, but I don't know of any other event that fits her description of
When the dead will not answer, the Silence is at hand, and the fate of all Barsk will soon hang in the balance.
”

“You left off a piece,” said Arlo. “Just like you've left off your tattoo.”

Jorl's entire face reddened, making his vestigial tusks seem to brighten by contrast. “I leave the tattoo off because I didn't have it when you were alive; I want you to see me the way you knew me. I thought it would be more comfortable for you.” He mentally updated his own image and the glimmering glyph appeared.

“Okay, point one: that's a load of crap. When I knew you, you weren't a Speaker, so the fact that we're having this conversation means I already know you've been through some changes since I died. Point two: you're deflecting the real issue here, the bit of the prophecy you don't want to talk about. What's the rest?”

“Each of Margda's prophecies goes on and on for pages in that meandering double-talk of hers—”

Arlo interrupted, “And yet, there's a bit that you're deliberately not mentioning. Jorl, you said you needed to talk to me about this, so talk.”

Jorl gestured at his forehead with one hand, moving his trunk in parallel for emphasis. “The next line says,
The newest Aleph must do what has never been done though it is almost always done.
Whatever that means. It's nonsense.”

“Nonsense that bothers you. Because there are what, only three Fant now living who've been awarded the aleph? And you're the most recent person to bear the mark. You think she's talking about you!”

“Maybe. But only if the Silence is really happening. For all I know, I'm misreading the signs, and the Silence is something totally different that won't come to pass for another hundred years, by which time I'll be dead and some other guy will be the latest person with a glowing tattoo on his head. I'm probably worrying about nothing.”

“I can see how it might stress you,” said Arlo. “Have you tried talking about it with any other historians? Other experts in the Matriarch and her prophecies?”

“Oh yeah, and what a mistake that was! Mickl accused me of ‘conveniently' interpreting the data to enhance my own position. He claimed I was trying to write myself into history.”

“Which one is Mickl?”

“He's the head of the department at the university on Zlorka. He got the job because no one else wanted it. His scholarship sucks—everyone knows it—so he hides behind his title and generates bureaucracy instead of anything remotely publishable. And now he's poisoning the rest of our community against me!”

“I remember you talking about him. He always sounded like an ass and a blowhard. If everyone already knows that, then his opinion isn't going to carry much weight. So that's not what's really bothering you. Tell me what is!”

Jorl leaned over, elbows resting on knees, dropping his face into his hands and covering his eyes. His ears flapped forward, further shrouding him. After a moment he whispered, “I don't want to be a part of history.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Arlo pushed off from the wall, rising and crossing the gap between the two benches in one step to settle alongside his friend, one arm reaching across his shoulders to pull him close. “I know what that's like,” he said.

“You do?”

“Sure. I don't want to be dead. But it's like complaining about the rain. We don't get the weather we want.”

“That's not funny!”

“Probably why neither of us is laughing.”

Jorl pulled away and rose to his feet, his desire to pace frustrated by the size of the alcove he'd imagined for their conversation. “This is your fault, you know, all of it.”

“Now how do you figure that?”

He spun around and jabbed at Arlo with a finger. “Because you died!”

“Jorl, we've been over this before. Everyone dies.”

“Don't give me that. You didn't sail away at the end of a long life. You killed yourself.”

Arlo's held his friend's gaze for a long moment before looking away. “You told me that Tolta believes it was an accident.”

“Yeah, right. That's the story that appeared in the professional journals and what they told your mother and the aunts at the funeral. An accident testing a new drug. But it doesn't wash, Arlo.”

“It's plausible.”

“Your lab had been completely stripped!”

“Perhaps by a jealous competitor.”

“And all your records? Even the second set that I know you always kept in Tolta's house? Never mind the absurd notion that you were doing a field test of a brand new substance atop the canopy at dawn. No assistants. No safeguards. Nothing but a carboy of photo-sensitive accelerant which you just happened to splash all over yourself moments before first light?”

“An unhappy combination of coincidences.”

“
You blazed a fucking hole all the way through the rain forest!
From the top of the canopy, through the Civilized Wood, and down to the mud and water of the Shadow Dwell. And nowhere along the path did you strike any occupied spaces or dwellings. I know you, Ar, you've been my best friend since we learned to cipher and distill. You're meticulous to a fault, it's what made you such an amazing pharmer. There was no accident. No coincidence. You planned every piece of it and made sure no one else would be harmed. You took your own life!”

During all of Jorl's rant, Arlo hadn't looked up. He lifted his head now, saw the pain in his friend's face, the tears in his eyes. Sighing, he stood as well, hugging Jorl with both of his arms and curling his trunk around his friend's ear, like a parent would to comfort a child. “That's what this is all about, isn't it? The thirty summonings? It took you this long to get to it?”

“I just don't understand how you could do it.” Jorl's voice cracked, ending in a sob.

“I know it doesn't help to hear this, but I struggled with the decision for weeks. More than once I cursed you for being away in the Patrol; I so needed someone to talk with about it. It wasn't something I did lightly.”

Jorl broke the embrace, stumbling back and dropping onto the bench where Arlo had begun. “I had to come back because of your death. The Alliance never wanted a Fant serving in the Patrol, and they used the excuse of my being your Second to discharge me. They shuttled me back to Barsk by fast courier. I helped plant your remains in the Shadow Dwell and I wrote some words that someone else had to read for me.”

“I'd like to hear them, sometime.”

Jorl glared at him, but Arlo shrugged and settled onto the opposite bench.

“I went back to my old post in the history department, and days later a routine physical showed I'd developed the sensitivity to manipulate nefshons. They made me a Speaker, and soon after gave me the aleph. All of that happened because you died.”

“Oh, so it's my fault you're becoming a part of history? You're still the same self-centered ass you've been since childhood.”

“You're calling
me
selfish? Did you give any thought what your death would mean to Tolta or Pizlo?”

Arlo rolled his trunk between his palms. “I did. It's why I didn't say goodbye. I knew I'd lose my nerve. And though you seem to think otherwise, I thought about its effect on you, too. I didn't know you'd become a Speaker. I never expected to see any of you again, most especially not my wife or son.”

Jorl winced, and the words left him before he could bite them back. “He's not your son.”

Arlo's mouth became a thin hard line. His normal grayish pallor purpled and his hands bunched into fists. He slashed his trunk in a wide arc that only just missed striking Jorl. “He
is
my son. Tolta's family may have forced her to abandon him at birth, but we've both acknowledged him as ours, even if the rest of this fucking, narrow-minded planet doesn't.”

“You can't just wipe away belief systems that have been in place since before we arrived on Barsk. Pizlo was an accident. Tolta shouldn't have been able to conceive before you two bonded. There's a reason that children like him are given up to the community when they're born. Their genetics are so messed up most never live out their first year.”

“So now you're a biologist? You should stick to history. Yes, Pizlo isn't like other kids, and he's not healthy. He's got albinism, and he's all skin and bones, and has no pain receptors, and … and … a host of other problems. But he's beaten the odds that said he'd die in infancy. He's five years old now, and he
is
my son.”

“He's six.”

“What?”

“He's six now, almost seven. It's been nearly two years since you saw him last. And he's started filling out a little. You can't see his ribs anymore.”

“You're keeping track of him?”

“I was your Second, Ar, what the hell else was I supposed to do?”

“But you said—”

“I know what I said. It's what society says, and I have to live in society. His existence is a violation of Fant culture. But … you were my best friend, and he's the only part of you left in the world. I couldn't turn my back on that. Besides, he needs an education, and it's not like anyone is going to let him go to school.”

“You're teaching him?”

Jorl nodded. “I asked Tolta, and she thought it was a great idea. He's still a wildling. He rarely sleeps under your wife's roof, and even less often under mine, but we have lessons every few days and he doesn't suffer for them not happening daily.”

“He's bright. And curious.”

“He has your mind. Oh, and that specimen jar that sent me to summoning your mother? That wasn't really for me. I thought Pizlo should have something of his father's.”

A flicker of delight chased a flash of pain across Arlo's face. “Yeah, he's always had a thing for bugs. That's what set me on the track of … never mind. But you're looking after him. I can't tell you what that means to me, Jorl. It's everything. Truly.”

The two friends regarded one another, having run the gauntlet of emotions and arrived back at the core bond between them. Jorl smiled and asked, “Everything? Everything enough that you'll tell me what was so important that you're dead?”