The Color of Distance (18 page)

“What should we do about the new creatures?”

“For now? Keep this one healthy; watch, and learn as much as we can. The more we know, the better we will be at dealing with them if they return.”

After dinner the villagers crowded around the new creature and began examining it. They were much less gentle than Anito’s people had been. In Narmolom it had the sponsorship of a revered chief elder. Here it was one of the creatures who had willfully destroyed part of their home. It would take more than a lifetime before the destroyed forest was back in harmony with its surroundings. The entire village would have to work to restore it, neglecting other important work. It was little wonder that the Tendu of Lyanan were angry.

Anito watched the new creature anxiously, but it bore the villagers’ mistreatment bravely and without apparent anger. Anito was impressed with its patience and forbearance. At last the creature looked at Ukatonen and her. Anito knew the creature well enough to recognize that look. It was tired and wanted this to stop.

Ukatonen brushed Lalito’s shoulder. “The new creature is tired, kene,” he said politely. “She needs sleep. May I please take Eerin upstairs and let her sleep?”

Lalito flickered scquiescence. There was no polite way to refuse a request from an enkar, not without losing face in front of the entire village.

“I’ll take the new creature up to our guest quarters, en,” Anito offered. She felt uncomfortable in the presence of all these hostile strangers, and wanted a chance to be alone.

Ukatonen flickered acknowledgment, and Anito beckoned to the creature. She led it up to the guest quarters at the top of the tree, just below the rooms where the tinka slept. The creature crawled into the nearest bed and fell asleep almost immediately.

Anito squatted against the wall and watched it sleep. Its deep, regular breathing sounded loud in the quiet room. It was noisy even when it was asleep. She should never have agreed to take this creature as her atwa. It brought nothing but trouble. Anito shook her head. It was a gesture she had picked up from the new creature, she realized, flushing beige with disgust.

It was more than half a month since they had left Narmolom. Watching the villagers talk, she found herself longing for home. She was tired of coping with strange creatures and strange Tendu.

Ukatonen came in. “I was wondering why you didn’t come back down,” he said.

“I wanted to be alone for a while.”

“You miss your village, don’t you?” Ukatonen said. “I’m never lonely until I’m among people. I can spend months alone in the forest and never notice, but if I spend the night at a village, I suddenly feel alone.” Grey sadness clouded his skin briefly. “It’s watching them all together, gossiping and telling stories. They share something that I don’t. It can be hard, not having any place you belong.”

“Don’t you ever feel at home anywhere?” Anito asked him.

“Sometimes,” he said. “In the wild lands, there are moments when everything is in harmony. I feel at home then. When I spend time with the other enkar, we share something. It’s not like a village, but…” A ripple of blue-grey longing crossed his skin. “It’s been a while since I’ve spent time with the other enkar. I’ve been living like a trader, traveling from village to village.”

Anito felt honored by the brief glimpse he had given her of what it was like to be an enkar. She brushed his shoulder with her knuckles. “I’m sorry, en. Would you like to link with me? Would that make you feel better?”

Ukatonen touched her shoulder with a ripple of regret. “Thank you, Anito,” he said, “but you need to listen to the villagers tell about the new creatures. Perhaps later.”

They rejoined the village elders, who were sitting around the edge of the pool talking. A few were linked in allu-a over in the shadows. Conversation ceased as Ukatonen and Anito joined the group.

“Please tell us about the new creatures,” Ukatonen asked.

A rainbow of responses erupted, mostly in shades of anger and fear. Ukatonen held up his hands, and the flickering colors dimmed.

“You, Korto,” he said, pointing at one of the elders. “You and your bami were the first to see them. Tell me what happened.”

Korto moved forward into the speaker’s position. She ducked her head shyly at the enkar. “The afternoon rains had started to fall. My bami and I were on our way to South Point beach to gather yarram and lyarrin, when we heard a strange sound. We looked out at the ocean, and a large white thing floated out there, making a growling noise. At first I thought it was one of those giant teatari that the lyali-Tendu tell of, but it didn’t have long arms. It came right up onto the beach. It opened up a hole in its belly and some new creatures came out, five of them, I think. They were all white, like they were sick. They walked up and down the beach, and climbed up onto the cliff. Then they went back and climbed into the big thing’s belly. After a while the growly creature began moving up the path to the cliff. It didn’t have legs; it moved on silver strips of stone that rolled along the ground. It was very heavy and left deep tracks in the beach sand. I sent my bami to the village to tell them what was going on.

“Once the big white thing was up on the cliff face, other creatures got out. They made holes in the rock, and filled them with something. Then there was a loud noise. It shook the ground and the trees, scaring all the animals. I—” Korto flushed deep brown. “1 ran away, en. The noise frightened me. That was all I saw.”

“Thank you, kene, you did well,” Ukatonen told her, deep blue with approval. His praise only deepened her embarrassment, but Anito saw an azure circle of pride flare on her back as the young elder returned to her seat.

“Who saw the creatures next?”

Flickers of conversation passed across the assembled elders like wind through the trees. Two elders stepped forward. One of them said:

“Lalito sent us to see what Korto had found. We went to the cliff. They were making the deathstone tree that they left behind. Other new creatures burned away all of the plants on the cliffs. Then they put a thick sheet of something that was clear like water, only harder, down on the ground. It began to swell, until it looked like a bubble, only much bigger. It was at least eight yai across, en, and as tall as the canopy. The end of the bubble was connected to the big white growly thing. They began pulling things out of the thing’s belly, and making big boxes inside the bubble. There were at least a dozen of the creatures, en. They took off their white coverings when they were inside, and we could see that they had brown skin and fur on the tops of their heads, like an ika flower. They wore coverings under the white coverings. They were very strange, en. They would capture and kill things, but not eat them. They took them apart, en, but they didn’t eat them.”

“What else did they do?” Ukatonen asked.

Lalito stepped forward into the speaker’s position.

“They flew through the air in noisy creatures made of stone,” the chief elder said. “They gathered all kinds of plants and insects. They wrapped whole trees in that clear stuff, and then poisoned everything inside. Then they cut the trees down and picked all of the dead things out of them. After they caught and killed a couple of tinka, we moved to a tree on the far side of our territory. There wasn’t enough food. Several elders chose to die or leave so that the rest would have enough to eat. We have moved back to this side of the territory, but they burned some of our best forest. We lost five young na trees, and many of our most productive fruit trees.

“We cannot afford to have a village as large as we had before. Our bami are going to have to wait for years before they can become elders. There is no place for them to fill. It will be many years before we are back in balance. Never have I seen such a terrible calamity, en! I don’t know what to do!”

Ukatonen ducked his chin, and sat, staring off into space for a long moment.

“Your troubles are not new,” he said at last. He held up his hands to dim the ripple of disbelief that ran across the villagers. “While the new creatures are something we have never seen before, other villages have lost large portions of forest, sometimes larger than what you have lost. Their forests were destroyed by fire, storms, floods, mud slides, or earthquakes. Those villages have come back, and so will yours. The enkar know of your trouble. They have sent me to help you. Others will come. We will show you how to restore your ruined forest. In a few seasons you will have more food than before. I will speak to the sea people on behalf of the enkar, and ask them to provide you with more food until then. The sea people owe the enkar many debts. They will provide the food. Send some of your people to the mountain tribes, and trade dried yarram for food. I grant you permission to hunt the wild lands as though they were your own lands for nine seasons. After that, you will not need them.”

“But, en,” said Lalito, “we will owe the enkar a great debt. How shall we repay you?”

“By sending your elders to become enkar, instead of letting them die, or by sending us some of your young and gifted bami.”

Lalito turned a dull orange. “What you ask is a great sacrifice, en. You want us to send our tired old elders to you. They will die alone and friendless. You ask for our bami, our future. You ask us to send them out into a strange, harsh world, away from the village that raised them. How can we do this?”

“My life,” Ukatonen said gently, “is not empty. I have lived long and well. If sometimes I am alone, far from people who know me, then I also enjoy my friends more when I see them. And I have friends in many places. Every village welcomes me. It is not a bad life. It is full of interesting things.” He paused. “If you do not wish my help, or the help of the plants and animals that I carry, then I will go, and you may solve your problems by yourself.” He got up to leave, ignoring the protests and pleas of the villagers.

Lalito caught at his elbow. “Please, en. We meant no offense to you or the other enkar. It’s just that we will miss our people when they go to you.”

“Your elders would be dead, and there are always tinka eager to become bami,” Ukatonen said. “But I thank you for accepting my offer. Those you send to us will not regret it. Tomorrow, I will begin helping you rebuild your village. I must go and rest now.” He turned and left the pool.

Anito, not wanting to face the villagers alone, followed him. He seemed preoccupied and angry.

When they reached their room, Anito touched him gently on the shoulder. He turned and looked at her, the red glow of his anger fading.

“What’s the matter, en?” she asked.

“Nothing that I can change,” he said, a mist of regret clouding his words. “It is hard, sometimes, talking to people in the villages. They see things so differently.”

Anito remembered his earlier words. He was tired and lonely. It must be very hard to be an enkar. They spent so much time alone. She was glad that she had her village to return to, where she would be among her own people. She missed them so much. “Would you like to link with me, en?” she offered, holding out her arms.

Ukatonen turned an affectionate sea-green. “Yes I would. Thank you.”

They entered the link, their presences swirling around each other. Anito allowed herself to feel all the loneliness bottled up inside her. She felt Ukatonen do the same. The bitter tide of loneliness that filled them drained away as they basked in each other’s presence. Ukatonen’s power and skill and Anito’s youth and energy flowed together until they were in harmony. At last they broke the link. They sat for a moment, savoring the well-being and closeness they felt and then got up and went to bed.

When Anito woke the next morning, she thought that she was back at Narmolom. Then she sat up, and realized that home was still far away. A wave of sadness clouded her skin. It was the sense of balance and harmony left over from last night that had fooled her into thinking that she was home. Ukatonen was up, probably talking to the villagers. She rose and went out to the wild lands to gather breakfast for the three of them. She caught a fine big ponderi in a nearby stream. It would make an excellent breakfast, and she could save a fillet to give as a guest gift to Lalito. She watched the shifting patches of brown, green, and black fading as the fish died, hoping she could read the future in its skin, as the enkar were said to do. She saw nothing but a dying fish.

The new creature was sitting on the edge of the sleeping ledge when Anito arrived back at the room.

She held out the leaf cone full of fish. “Hungry?” she asked.

“Thank you, Anito,” the creature replied in clear, understandable skin speech, as it reached out to take some fish.

Anito almost dropped the leaf cone. She looked questioningly at the new creature.

“Ukatonen,” the creature said, holding out its arms as though requesting a link.

Ukatonen had linked with the new creature, and given it the ability to speak. It was deep work, and he had done it without a monitor, on a creature that had already killed two highly skilled elders.

“Not good,” Anito told the new creature. “Ukatonen get sick. I fix.”

When Ukatonen returned a few minutes later, Anito seized his arm. “Linking with the new creature is dangerous! You should have let me monitor you! Do you want to die like Kirito and Ilto?”

Ukatonen drew himself up and turned red. “I am an enkar! I don’t need a monitor!”

“And I know that creature better than anyone living. I watched Kirito die. I tasted the taint that killed Ilto. The new creature is my atwa! If you die, it is my responsibility. How could I repay the enkar for your death? My village would have to spend several generations working off that debt! I refuse to carry that burden.”

“Anito,” Ukatonen said gently, “Eerin asked me for allu-a. I chose to do it. Even if I died, it would not be your fault. The enkar carry the burden of responsibility for the decisions they make. Your village would owe us nothing.”