The Color of Distance (38 page)

“You’re going?” Anito asked when he looked up.

He flickered acknowledgment.

“But— Why?”

“I’ve been here a long time. You’ve got a new chief elder now. If I stay, I’ll only get in his way.”

“Where will you go?”

“I’ll visit some of the neighboring villages, then spend some time talking to the other enkar. They need to know about Eerin.”

“But you’ll be all alone!” Anito said.

A shrug flickered across Ukatonen’s chest. “I’m an enkar. I’m used to it.” He thrust a few more things in his pack and tied it shut.

“I’m leaving the gifts that I can’t carry with me,” he said. “Will you keep them for me until I return?”

Anito flickered agreement, fighting back a mist of sadness. “When will you be back?”

He shouldered his pack. “Look for me near the end of Menano.” He peered out the door. “Good, almost everyone is asleep. I wanted to leave quietly.” He stepped out on the balcony. “Come with me to the top of the tree, kene?” he asked.

Anito flickered acknowledgment and followed him up the trunk. They came out into the cool, misty darkness. Eerin and Moki were busy supervising the tinka as they bundled up the food-soiled leaves left over from the banquet. They glanced up as Anito and Ukatonen emerged from the trunk. Moki’s ears lifted when he saw the enkar’s pack.

“I came to say goodbye,” Ukatonen told them.

“You’re leaving?” Eerin and Moki asked almost simultaneously, the brilliant pink flare of their surprise fading to grey sadness.

“Why?” Eerin asked.

“Because it’s time,” Ukatonen said. “But I’ll be back in a couple of months.”

“But how will I manage Moki on my own?” Eerin asked.

“You and Moki are good for each other. You don’t need me to interfere. If you need help, there’s Anito and a whole village of Tendu to give you advice.”

Moki was the color of wet clay. He touched Ukatonen on the leg. Ukatonen knelt. “Will you take care of Eerin for me?”

Moki nodded, his grey fading. “Yes, en.”

“That’s good,” he told him. “I’m sure you’ll do very well.”

Moki’s skin turned azure with pride, though a faint misting of sadness still overlaid it. Ukatonen brushed his knuckles across the bami’s shoulder affectionately. Then he stood, and did the same to Eerin.

“Take care of Moki.”

Eerin nodded and brushed his shoulder back, her eyes watering.

Then he touched Anito on the shoulder. Anito felt a great wave of fondness sweep over her. “I’ll miss you,” she said in small, private patterns.

“I’ll miss you too,” he said. “Take care of yourself while I’m gone.”

Then he turned and swung off through the trees.

Anito looked at the others, deep grey with sadness as she was herself. She touched the other two on the shoulder. “Let’s go,” she said. “It’s late. We should get some sleep.”

I he next three months passed quietly. Juna got caught up on her research, documenting dozens of new species and filling in many linguistic details. Every day brought new discoveries. It was a busy and productive time.

Moki learned to read and type with surprising speed, and soon began entering data on her spare computer. Although Moki’s written Standard was still rough and ungrammatical, he had an excellent eye for detail, often describing features of a plant or animal that Juna missed. She began having him check over her descriptions before entering them in the catalogue.

Anito settled into village life, filling the role of junior elder, which involved doing the work scorned by more senior elders. Since she had been the bami of a chief, much of it was familiar. Juna helped out by gathering fruit, harvesting honey from Anito’s na trees, and netting fish out of the shrinking pools left behind by the floods.

Ukatonen returned about three days before the end of the month of Menano. The villagers clustered around him in eager welcome. He greeted them with his usual dignified reserve, graciously accepting Miato’s offer of hospitality and a feast in his quarters. He greeted Anito, Moki, and Eerin with the same formal reserve as the other villagers. Anito was sent off to organize the banquet. She took Eerin, Moki, and several tinka with her to gather food and supplies.

They came back with full gathering bags. Anito set the tinka to laying out the leaf-plates and cleaning the serving dishes. Eerin and Moki helped prepare and arrange the food. Set out before the waiting elders, it was a magnificent feast.

Miato eyed it critically. “I’m sorry that we have nothing better to offer you than this, en,” he said in formal patterns. “Please do us the honor of accepting this meager meal.”

IIto had used the same polite formula with honored guests, Anito recalled. She still missed her sitik terribly.

Ukatonen looked up at Anito, his expression carefully neutral. “Thank you, kene,” he said to Miato. “It will do.”

The ritual formulas of politeness completed, the elders commenced eating. Anito stood by, motioning to the tinka when a dish needed to be replenished or carried away.

At last the elders safc back and belched politely.

“I’m sorry that we don’t have more food to offer you, en,” Miato said, as though the leaf plates around them weren’t still half full.

“It’s all right,” Ukatonen replied, as though his stomach didn’t form a visible bulge in his long, lean body. “I shouldn’t burden you with my hunger, kene; not when I’ve come to ask a favor of you and your village.”

“Narmolom is in your debt, en, after all you’ve done for us. If there is anything at all we can do for you, we will.”

Anito repressed a flicker of amusement. It was clear that Miato had not been chief elder for very long. Her sitik would never have made such a blanket promise, especially not to an enkar.

“I would like to take Anito, Eerin, and Moki away with me for a month to a month and a half.”

“She will miss our mating,” Miato pointed out.

“She mated with the lyali-Tendu. I will bring her back in time to lay her eggs, so that Narmolom will not be deprived of her narey. It’s important, or I wouldn’t ask. The other enkar want to see the new creature and talk to Anito about Eerin.”

Miato was still for a moment, his chin ducked, as though he were pondering a decision that everyone in the room knew had already been made.

“When will you be going?”

“Tomorrow, if you will permit it, kene.”

Miato flickered agreement.

“Thank you, kene,” Ukatonen said. “The enkar are in debt to you for your sacrifice.”

The talk turned to trivialities. Ukatonen asked about the villagers, displaying a deep knowledge of things that had happened in his absence. The other villagers were very impressed, but Anito knew that Ukatonen would have spent the last few days spying on the village.

Anito motioned to the tinka to clear away the food. When the feast dishes were cleaned and put away, she climbed down the trunk, slid into her warm, moist bed, and fell asleep instantly.

Ukatonen woke Juna and Moki early the next morning. Juna sat up groggily.

“What is it?” she said, yawning.

“Start packing, we’re going on a trip. The enkar want to see you.”

Juna looked over at Anito, still sleeping in her bed of leaves.

“Let her sleep,” Ukatonen said. “She was up very late last night.”

They filled traveling packs with the gifts the villagers had given Ukatonen. When they were done, Moki laid out a quick breakfast of fruit and honeycomb and woke Anito.

The villagers escorted them out of the tree and followed them with farewells until they reached the border of Narmolom’s territory. Ninto was the last to see them off. She touched Anito on the shoulder.

“Have a safe journey,” Ninto said. “Come back soon.”

Juna saw Anito return Ninto’s affectionate touch. “I will,” she said, and turned to go.

They went north and inland, toward the distant green-shouldered mountains. After a week of hard traveling, they crossed the low range of ancient, rounded mountains and the jungle around them changed. The trees were taller and wider than what Juna was used to. The canopy was denser, the branches thick with epiphytes, and heavy with fruit.

“This is the forest of the enkar,” Ukatonen said when Juna remarked on the change. “Typhoons don’t come in this far. They’re deflected by those mountains we crossed.”

“It’s like village land, only more so,” Anito said.

“We gather seed from the strongest and most fruitful trees from villages up and down the coast,” Ukatonen told them. “We’ve spent thousands of generations selecting and improving them. Guano from the lyali-Tendu, and greenstone from the mountain people make the land fertile. The enkar carry it in from all over. We have to support more people on less land than the villagers do, and we can’t shift our boundaries when the forest wears out the way you na-Tendu can.”

“But I thought the enkar traveled alone,” Anito said in surprise.

“We do, but sometimes we need a place to rest and take counsel with other enkar. We come here, or to one of our other valleys up and down the coast, to rest, to learn, and to train new enkar.” Ukatonen paused, then said, “You wait here. I’ll let the others know that we’ve arrived.”

He climbed to the top of the tree, and let out a deep, booming call. After listening for a moment, he repeated it. In the distance, they heard a reply. Ukatonen responded.

Half an hour later, four enkar came swinging through the trees. They greeted Ukatonen with affectionate shoulder brushings and embraces.

“Anito, Eerin, Moki,” Ukatonen said, “these are Opantonen, Besato-nen, Garitonen, and Hutatonen.”

Each enkar lifted his chin in acknowledgment. They were taller than the village Tendu, with long, solemn muzzles. They moved with the same easy grace as Ukatonen. Even if Juna had known nothing at all about the Tendu, it would have been obvious that these four and Ukatonen were somehow related.

Their tall, elegant guides led them through the leafy, sun-dappled cathedral of the forest until they came to a circle of six immense na trees. They followed the guides to a low mound in the center of the circle of trees. Hutatonen let out a loud, booming call, and dozens of Tendu appeared, climbing down the trees or walking from out of the understory that moments before seemed completely empty.

The enkar gathered around the mound, waiting expectantly.

Anito touched Ukatonen’s arm. “Are they all enkar?” she asked in tiny, awestruck patterns.

Ukatonen rippled quiet amusement. “Yes, they are.”

“I’ve never seen so many Tendu in one place before,” Anito said.

“This is only one group. There are others scattered throughout the Tendu lands.”

“How many enkar are there?” Juna inquired.

“Less than there once were,” Ukatonen replied. “Most of these trees are half-empty.”

Hutatonen touched Ukatonen on the arm and motioned for him to speak.

He stepped to the top of the speaker’s mound. “Many of you know me. I am Ukatonen, of the Three Rivers Council. I was headed to Lyanan on the coast, when I met Anito of Narmolom, with this new creature, who is called Eerin, also heading for Lyanan.”

Ukatonen called Anito forward to tell the enkar about her discovery of the new creature, and how her sitik had transformed it. Ukatonen stepped in and talked about his judgment for the elders of Lyanan, and his judgment to allow Juna to adopt Moki. Then he called Juna forward.

Juna stood on the mound, with the intent, impassive eyes of the enkar watching her, their ears spread wide with curiosity. Her stomach was heavy with nervousness. She didn’t entirely understand the role the enkar played in Tendu society, but she knew they were important. She swallowed, her throat dry despite the humidity.

“I greet you for my people,” she said in the most formal patterns she could manage. “We come seeking friendship and knowledge. Our destruction of the forest near Lyanan was a mistake. My people will do what they can to heal the damage. The Tendu have shown me great kindness and patience, and I am extremely grateful. Thank you.”

She stepped back behind Ukatonen, who gestured to Hutatonen, and they stepped from the speaker’s mound. Juna expected the enkar to mill around her like the other villagers, but instead they treated her with polite but remote curiosity. Moki clung to her hand, subdued by the presence of so many enkar. Anito also seemed out of her depth. They followed Ukatonen through the crowd, pausing as he stopped to greet old friends and to exchange news from distant gatherings and councils of enkar.

At last someone took charge of the visitors and led them to an empty room near the top of one of the trees. Anito and Moki shrugged off their packs and slumped against the wall, worn out by all the excitement.

“You two rest here. Eerin and I will go and get food, water, and bedding,” Ukatonen told them.

Juna followed him down to a storeroom, where they found some empty water gourds and rolled-up floor mats. They left the mats by the door for Anito and Moki to arrange, and went out to gather bedding. It was startlingly menial labor for an elder of a highly respected social caste.

“Don’t the tinka and bami usually do this sort of thing?” Juna asked.

“We don’t have tinka,” Ukatonen said. “When one comes to us, we send it over the hills to one of the na-Tendu villages.”

“Why?”

“It is very rare for us to adopt a bami. It wouldn’t be right to have tinka here, where they wouldn’t be adopted. We don’t mate here.”

“You don’t?” Juna said, surprised. “But I saw you mate with the sea people.”

“We breed elsewhere; with the sea people, or out among the villages. Not here. This isn’t a village, merely a gathering place for the enkar. Most of us stay a while and then move on.”

“It sounds lonely,” Juna observed, beginning to understand some of the villagers’ dread of becoming enkar.