Stellarnet Rebel (11 page)

In her bag, she discovered several bananas and a bottle of water. She hadn’t eaten in hours, but the water tasted even better than the food. Before she finished a second banana, the colors faded from the walls and she saw stars again. There was a planet up ahead, and far beyond it a white sun.

“Is that your home?”

The Finder chirped. J’ni didn’t understand, but it sounded happy.

They drifted, like a feather falling, making a very slow descent through the atmosphere. Below the clouds was a lush green and blue landscape, like old vids of Earth. She wished she could record it.

The ship glided to the dusk edge of the world, and she spied a field with rows of large bushes, not far from a chain of lakes. They floated to the right of these landmarks and settled on a stone platform in the middle of a jungle. The base of the ship flattened out, which forced her head even closer to the ceiling, and she hunched over. A hole formed in the gleaming hull of the ship and expanded to the size of a doorway.

J’ni was awed by the dense forest of trees and vines that surrounded them. She had never seen anything like it, except in vids or the occasional amusement park holographic theater. In the liminal light, deep shadows slanted through the green foliage.

Outside. She hadn’t been outside since leaving Earth, two months ago. And there was no place left on Earth like this. She felt it tugging at her, from within her human genome, the lure of the trees.

She went to the door and hesitated. The Finder didn’t get up.

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Wan Ga’lin.”
It clucked and pointed its two long fingers in the direction of the field.

Find the Glin.

She was on an alien world, escaping accusations of terrorism, but all she wanted to do was enjoy the sweet clarity of the air and the amazing sunset. It was like a wall-sized vid, but filled her entire field of vision, and was more vivid than any simulation. She wanted to reach out and touch it, the crystal sun radiating amber fire through the clouds.

The field before her was filled with huts, not bushes—the structures were woven, like overturned baskets, and none larger than her compartment’s main room. The mistake was easy to make, though, from a distance, because they were built of plant materials and covered with vines, leaves and flowers.

J’ni saw only a few Glin, who noticed her right away. One called out in a sing-song chant that was echoed by others and relayed through the settlement. Several more Glin appeared. Like Duin, the front halves of their bodies were pale. But the colors across their backs varied, some darker or lighter, more green, brown or gray, than Duin. The tallest weren’t any taller than she, and they all had the muscled bodies of strong swimmers.

What surprised J’ni were the children. She’d never seen so many in one place before. They outnumbered the adults.

A female approached her. J’ni assumed she was female because of the baby in the fold of her
bava
, clinging to her exposed breast. The mother’s coloring was gray speckled with dark green, but the infant was pale. From what she saw, it looked like baby Glin had no color until they were old enough to walk. J’ni knew people with virtual or robotic children, and she had seen a few real-life infants before, but she was surprised by her visceral reaction to the baby Glin. She had the urge to touch the one nearest her, it was so adorable, but kept her hands to herself for fear of offending its mother.

“Who are you?”
the female asked in Glinnish. Her voice murmured soft and, as Duin would say, aqueous. The device translated.

Genevieve O’Riordan with INC
wouldn’t mean much to them, so she answered, “J’ni of Earth.”

The translator said several words in Glinnish. Reactions rippled through the growing assemblage, in a language itself like the sound of water lapping at the shore or flowing over rocks. J’ni waited, unsure what to do or say next, and with a new appreciation of the depth of Duin’s daring, and his desperation, when he’d gone to her own people for aid.

The female spoke again.
“You have a Glin soul.”
She pointed at J’ni’s pendant, but didn’t touch it.

J’ni’s hand went to the
nagyx
. For a moment she felt a twinge of panic and wondered if Duin had violated a Glin custom by giving it away, or by giving it to a human. What would they do to her?

But J’ni saw no animosity in their faces, only curiosity.

“J’ni Nagyx Duin.”

The voice came from somewhere beyond the Glin who were gathering as densely as the smart mob on Asteria, even without the benefit of the Asternet. The crowd parted, and those who didn’t move fast enough were whacked on the ankles by a very old Glin with a stick. The Glin’s large breasts swayed under the fabric of her
bava
as she walked, and she wore a kind of woven hat like a pile of colorful braids on her head.

“Sala
,” she said, gesturing to herself.

“’Lo, Sala,” said J’ni with relief. She was glad to be with a friend, even one she hadn’t met yet. “Duin told me to find you and—”

“Yes, yes.”
Sala grabbed J’ni by the arm and dragged her away.
“Come with me.”

Murmurs of
“J’ni Nagyx Duin”
followed them as they walked. For an old Glin with a limp, Sala was difficult for J’ni to keep up with.

“Where are we going?”

“My house,”
Sala said.
“You need clothes.”

“Oh, I appreciate that, but this dress will be good for at least another month.” J’ni wondered if she looked indecent, with her back-and shoulder-baring string ties, and form-hugging fabric. The skirt was mid-thigh, which was conservative by Earth standards. Most of the Glin were no more covered than she was. Some wore
bavat
wrapped in varying degrees of modesty, and some had pieces of clothing similar to Duin’s suit.

Sala swept her eyes over J’ni, and snorted in a way that reminded her of Duin. Which made her wish he was with her. Her thoughts were interrupted by Sala’s ranting.

“I’ll not have the soulbound to Duin of Long River, Hero of the Tah Ga’lin Uprising, Village Elder, Founder of the Freedom Council, Envoy to Earth, wearing a half a torn suit of… whatever that is. It looks like you got tangled in seaweed.”

It wasn’t a half of anything, it wasn’t torn, and it wasn’t seaweed, but J’ni didn’t protest. She was busy reading, and re-reading, the long list of accolades on the translator’s display.
Hero
of the
Tah Ga’lin
Uprising? Duin had mentioned the uprising a few times, but not his role in it. “Long River” was the translation of
Willup W’Kuay
. But,
elder?
She still had a hard time wrapping her brain around the fact that Duin was considered old. If he was old, what was Sala? Ancient?

“He’s a hero of the uprising?”

“He is one of those who journeyed beyond the edge of the Watershed, he and a handful of brave Glin from rivers, lakes and even the edge of the Great Ocean itself. They stopped the plague of monarchy from spreading across the world.”

“And he’s the founder of the Freedom Council?”

“It was his idea to have a council of elders share information and mobilize resources against Tikat,”
said Sala.
“I was certain they would try to kill him for it.”

“The Tikati?”

“The other elders. It was only his participation in the Tah Ga’lin Uprising, and the fact that they were eating his food, that compelled them to listen past ‘Perhaps if we formed a council…’ instead of throwing him into a river without his arms.”
She laughed.
“That was a dinner I’ll never forget.”

Sala took J’ni inside her hut, and everyone else waited at least three paces from the doorway. The “door” was a curtain of hanging vines. Sala touched an orb hanging on the wall inside a mesh bag, and the hut filled with a dim, mauve glow. J’ni saw a few baskets around the edges of the room. The walls were covered with cloth sacks, bunches of vegetation, pieces of paper and objects J’ni couldn’t identify, either wedged or hanging from things wedged into the walls. The only furniture was a kind of nest made of layers of fabric stuffed with leaves and grass. It reminded her of the mounds of pillows and blankets in Duin’s compartment, so she assumed it was Sala’s bed.

“Here, for you
.” She handed J’ni a folded
bava
from one of the baskets.
“I think this fabric matches your colors. You are pink and blue-green
.” The cloth Sala handed her was dyed in rose and aqua hues and covered with interlacing patterns of iridescent threads.

“It’s beautiful.”

“Put it on,”
the Glin insisted, and stood there waiting.

J’ni wasn’t sure how to wear it, but figured she would try wrapping it as Duin did.

After watching her struggle for a few moments, Sala clapped her hands together.

“Let me help
.” She put down her stick and started untying J’ni’s dress. J’ni protested, but the Glin went on babbling a long stream of words while she stripped J’ni and redressed her like a doll.
“Are you tired? No. Thirsty? No. I don’t know what you eat. I don’t know what I eat, here, either, to be honest. You have grass growing on your head. He likes that, doesn’t he? Turn around. You couldn’t keep him out of the marsh grass when he was a child, even after he was stung by a water wasp and he couldn’t move his arm for an entire mist night. Those are nice tits. You must be very proud of them. You have many children? Don’t worry, Duin will take good care of them. He was such a sweet child and loved babies so much, I thought he’d grow up to be a female, but I was wrong. Lift up your arm, here. Now, tuck this in. There you go.”

When she finished, she held J’ni’s face in her hands and beamed at her. Then she folded J’ni’s synthetic dress, put it in one of the baskets, and hung J’ni’s bag on the wall. J’ni didn’t bother trying to explain that she had no children.

“Thank you for the
bava
, and your help.”
And for not wrapping it so my boobs hang out,
she thought, recalling her earlier conversation with Duin about the Glin perspective on breasts, and thinking about some of the Glin she’d seen outside. Her
bava
revealed very little.

“A
bava
is no good for swimming, but you can wear it until we find you a
wallump
suit
.”

“That’s all right. I don’t know how to swim,” said J’ni, admiring the fabric and wishing she had access to a mirror app.

Sala listened to the translation and looked shocked. Then she laughed a great belly laugh.
“Don’t swim? Do you eat? Do you sleep? Do you shit? Great Rain, Earth must be a strange place
.”

She shook her hands in the air. J’ni wasn’t sure what that gesture meant.

“There’s much more water on Glin than on Earth,” J’ni explained. “There are places on my world where it doesn’t rain for days and days.”

“Good, then you will feel at home here.”

J’ni doubted it. She’d spent most of her life in either a city or a space station, with Stellarnet access. For the hundredth time, she ran her fingers over her forearms and the memory of her missing bracers.

“Sala, may I ask you another question?”

“So long as it doesn’t break my last tooth to answer.”

“Why do you call me
J’ni Nagyx Duin?
”

“That’s your name. As his is Duin Nagyx J’ni. You are One.”
She pointed to the pendant.

“Is that like being married?”

The old Glin made a face, and J’ni wondered if the translator had malfunctioned.

“No, it’s not like being married. You could be married several times. But there is only one soul stone. Don’t you understand?”

“I guess not.”

Sala blew a burst of air over her lips.
“He has his own way,”
she mumbled to herself, shaking her hands again.

“Duin tried to explain,” J’ni said, feeling the need to defend him, “but we didn’t have much time. He said that I am a part of him and he is a part of me, that we are connected, that I have grown into his heart like a
j’ni
.” As she recalled his words, she couldn’t keep the emotion from her face. “And I feel the same.”

Seeing the look in J’ni’s eyes and hearing the yearning in her voice, Sala patted J’ni’s hand and her wrinkled skin creased even more as she smiled.

“Sit,”
she invited, settling herself on the ground and gesturing for J’ni to join her. Sala took a deep breath and explained,
“Every Glin has a soul stone. Some are found by the mother when she is pregnant. Others are passed down in families. That one,”
she pointed,
“has been through many, many lifetimes. He has a very old soul.”

J’ni placed her hand over the
nagyx
. “He gave me a family heirloom?”

Tapping the translator, Sala shook her head.
“I don’t understand.”

“Special treasure, belonging to his family.”

“Not to his family, it is his alone, even when he goes beyond the Last Wave. And it will be his again when he returns. Giving it to you is not marriage, it is an acknowledgment that you share the same soul. Marriage is a living arrangement, perhaps for a rain season, perhaps a lifetime, perhaps something in between. But the soul is forever. He is saying he is you. And you are him.”

“If we are one soul, I think he is the better half of it,” J’ni said.

The Glin’s face softened.
“Remember, he feels the same way about you.”
She squeezed J’ni’s leg with her webbed hand for emphasis.
“Understand. Now you are on the Freedom Council. You are the elder of Long River. You are married to Ullu. Wrill, Tib, Sahash, Oon and Luin are your descendants. As you are mine.”

J’ni heard the translation, but she had to re-read the display before she understood. Then she stared at Sala. The resemblance was in the face and the coloring. And certain gestures, which she had assumed were universal to all Glin, but had been passed from mother to son.

“You’re his mom.”

Sala laughed, and J’ni could hear the similarity there, too.

“He is my fifth child, born during the spotted fish migration in the Rain Season of Tall Reeds. I saw his eyes, how he looked at everything as if he’d seen it all before, learned everything as if he had done it before. And I knew that was his stone.”
She pointed to the
nagyx
.

J’ni hugged Duin’s mother. The Glin held her, cooing and swaying as one might with a child. Which evoked old memories within J’ni, long submerged in time but not forgotten, when the worst terrors in the world could be cured by her Nana’s touch. For a moment, she almost felt that way again.

“But, I thought his family was all taken away.”

“They were.”

“Not you,” said J’ni.

“He left my family long ago, went off to make his own way soon as he could hunt
.
I lived in White River, where he was born. Now it is your turn to answer questions, please. What is Duin doing in that village of yours? And why are you here? The Finders brought me a message that you were coming, but that’s all they said. They don’t say much.”

J’ni told Sala about the first time she saw Duin in the Colony Square. This Sala already knew something about, because she was on the Freedom Council and had participated in the decision to send Duin and the Tikati ship to Asteria. Standing up and speaking in the middle of a gathering was a common practice among his people, she told J’ni.

“Well, it doesn’t work well with humans.”