The Kanshou (Earthkeep) (2 page)

"Tell them I'm on my way," her lover called after her, leaning back against the mud wall of the small hut.  She sat motionless within a long intake of breath.  Exhaling, she lay on her stomach in prone posture, arms to her side.  She breathed deep, her eyes closed. 

Imperceptibly at first and then more swiftly, her body forsook the pallet and rose a few inches into the air, then a foot higher.  She extended her arms over her head in imitation of a diver and sustained this position, her mind feasting on the image of hovering hummingbirds.  In slow motion, she reached for her trews and softshirt.  Still suspended above the pallet, she drew the shirt and pants over her body, spinning to supine position to secure the drawstring.

Now fully clothed, she doubled her knees to her chest in a quick motion and became upright just a foot above the floor.  She exhaled and descended until her feet slipped into her sandals.  Then she closed her eyes and briskly followed the scent of Dicken's presence out into the brightness of the Arabian afternoon.  She did not open her eyes until she reached the pavilion.  

* * * * * * * *

Aba-Nuwas, who would be fifty years old next fall, sat with her students near a scrawl-board inscribed with these words: Honesty, Respect, Responsibility, Service.  She scanned the faces of her young charges.  All of them were in the sitting-or-kneeling postures that their meditation cushions or stools allowed them, their eyes closed.  To a child, they were absorbed in thoughts of animals.

Aba's eyes sought the path beyond the open walls of the pavilion for the arrival of the two flying women from the Nueva Tierra Tri-Satrapy.  She herself had had no experience of flying yet, but most of the women she knew were spooning partners.  All the children had seen pairs of flying women at one time or another, dipping in and out of the sunlight above Shuqaiq or the Port Of Newbirk.  She knew that some of her students had secretly tried their hand at spooning and flying, none with any success -- except, perhaps, girls who had celebrated their first moon and who had found a deep bonding with another girl or woman. 

Though she had never met the near-legendary Jezebel Stronglaces, Aba did not fear the fire that was rumored to leap from Jezebel's fingers or the sandstorms the Bedouins had seen her conjure.  Both Jezebel and Dicken would be comfortable and welcome in Aba's schoolroom. 

The exercise was approaching its limits for young minds.  Aba reseated herself within the large double circle and eased her voice into the long holding of an Ending Sound.  Without haste other voices joined hers until all the children were softly intoning an open-throated "ah" sound. Largely monodic, the sound nevertheless found a sweet harmony or two, flowed and complexified, wove in and out of a chorus of young voices and built at last to a full and formidable roar.  Then abruptly, by the intangible common consent of all those participating, it ceased altogether.

The students burst into laughter, as did Aba, who then called for stretches and physical movement.  The talking/shouting children were propelled by their high spirits, running and rolling over the planked flooring, bending in and out of the stools and pillows.  They spilled loudly outward to the edges of the pavilion.

Gradually, Aba restored order, hustling students back to the circle and arranging writing boards for the more formal part of the afternoon.  "Settle now," she urged them.  Bibi, who steadfastly resisted peer pressure to remove her heavy kaffiyeh, even during play periods, pulled at Aba's sleeve.  "What, Bibi?  Yes, a promise.  You can all write at the terminals before we dismiss today.  Whatever you remember.  But now, it's for all of us to listen."  Even as she engineered them into a tight group, Aba kept her eye upon the path beyond the schoolroom.  "What places did you go," she asked, "what animals did you talk to, what things did you learn?"

"I went with the elephants," said Zari, barely four and the youngest child there.  "They took me all over the tri-satrapy."

"And you weren't afraid?"  This from Shaheed, barely 15 and the class's oldest student.

"Nah," Zari told him.  "Why did they leave, Aba, why?"

"We just aren't sure, Zari," Aba replied softly.

Qatalona, an older girl, rose to the occasion.  "They went by their own decision, because they were tired of being hurt and humiliated and imprisoned and killed."

Students dropped their eyes and toyed with their sashes or studiously examined their writing boards.

"That's what most believe," Aba said.  She took a quick inventory of the plummeting spirits around her.  "But that's not why we do the meditation, to feel bad all over again about the Exodus.  Many people even believe that if we talk to them in our memories and rituals, we may persuade the animals to return to Little Blue."

Kamasa, another older student, fingered the curl that wandered down her forehead from her booshi cloth.  "Well," she said, "It makes me feel better to think of the animals.  And not just
feel
better.  I think I will
be
better.  A better person, I mean."  To her right Masudhe Ratuda rolled her eyes heavenward.  Kamasa gave Masudhe an elbow in the shoulder.  "It's true, Masudhe! 
You
may not believe it, but the whole lesson we learned from the Exodus was that all of life is connected.  A long time ago, we felt everything that every other being felt.  But we got separated, and that's how it became so easy to misuse animals." 

Masudhe put her head down on her writing board, sighing loudly.  She raised it again with a wide grin when Kamasa shook her.  "Listen to me, Masudhe!  You know I'm telling the truth--"

"You are telling the truth, Kamasa," Aba assured her.  "Every person has been deeply affected by our loss of the animals."  She felt the hush fall again.  "Anyway," she continued, in a thinly disguised attempt at enthusiasm, "we're all historians, too.  We study the old films and holos so we can understand what this world was once like.  And we study the animals because remembering them is so often joyful."
Amid the nods, Bibi asked, "Do you remember the animals, Aba?"

"I'm not that old, preshi!" her teacher laughed.  "But if I could remember them, what would I be called?"

"A Rememorante Afortunado!" came one reply.  "No, an Afortunada!"  "A Rememorante Afortunada!"

"Yes," said Aba. "One of the fortunate ones who remember.  And we were all a kind of Afortunada today, weren't we, as we visualized the animals?"  Aba scanned the faces of her students.  "Now let's hear about some other visits.  Laroos, how was your time with the animals?"

Like the skilled conductor of group life that she was, Aba drew out each child, encouraging the responses, helping each one to help the others hear and be heard.  Gradually the mood softened.  There was laughter again, and wonderful poignant description of wilderness prowlers, far-flying birds, modest molluscs, and mighty whales.  The children's fantasies were better than any book or holoscene, Aba thought.

Medhi had just begun his excited story of desert horses when, from the path beyond, Aba caught the glint of sunlight on Dicken's necklaces.  As students turned to stare at the newcomer, Aba motioned Dicken to an empty stool across the circle.

"They came like the wind, over the dunes and through the low passes," Medhi continued.  "Hundreds of them, slick and shining in the moonlight, their hooves stirring the sand that hid their galloping legs.  In a cloud of silver dust, they flew!  And as they sailed by me, moving up toward the sky, they nickered and called to me.  'Come and ride with us!  Hey, Medhi, come!  We will carry you!'"

"Medhi, you're a poet!" Zari announced.

"Did you ride, Medhi?  Did you?" Laroos desperately inquired.

"As the big horses thundered by me, I saw one I could mount.  She came up on my right."  Medhi stood and moved toward the center of the circle, pointing to show how the mare approached him.  "Lady Eminence, may I ride you?  She tossed her head and rolled out of the herd toward me."  Medhi crouched and moved his gaze over the entire circle, his voice rising.  The other  children crouched with him.  "She was so graceful that she didn't even stop as she dipped her head and caught me under the belly—"

"Oooh!" A simultaneous gasp.

"--and swung me up onto her back!" 

"Aaahhh!" The whole class unbent with him as he straightened to take his place on the withers of the mighty beast, astride and triumphant, his left hand clearly grasping the mane, his right high above his head.

"As we swept across the sky, I could feel the whole herd around us, roaring in front of me and behind me like a big river!  Like the sound of a waterfall!  I could hardly breathe for the speed, and as we got higher and higher I looked down, I looked down--"

Smiling mouths were open with expectancy.  Zari put her hands over her eyes.

"I looked down, and I could see the world beneath me!  I could see the Earth from her back!  There were cities and forests and mountains and plains, and oceans and islands and icecaps and deserts.  Oh, what a ride!  We could soar up to the stars!  We could dive down into the Red Sea's waves!" 

Medhi's voice became a near whisper.  "And once, once loping ever so softly just above the treetops . . . ."  He paused and looked around at his audience.  "What do you think I saw?" 

Devotion, the child beside Aba, jumped to her feet.  "You saw all the other animals!"
"Yes!"  Medhi swirled and held his hands out to her. 

Devotion rushed to his side.  "There were bullfrogs on mossy logs and turtles crawling in the mud!"

"Yes!" said several children.

"And axolotls laying their eggs!" Medhi added.

Another child nearly shouted, "And seaslugs and piddocks!"  Medhi motioned her to the center of the circle.

"Marmots and otter shrews!"  A fourth joined the inner group.

"And hyenas and camels!"  All the students were straining now to add their favorites. 

"And trunkfish and gundis and blue wasps and egrets!"

"And termites and hoopoes and rhinos and rooks!"

"And cormorants and ostriches!" shouted Aba.

"And flatworms and tomb bats!" added Dicken.

"Kinkajous!  Spoonbills!  Sticklebacks!  Eels!"

"Tapirs!  Wombats!  Horseflies!  Storks!"

"How about Marsupialia?"

"Yes!" came the cry.

"And Dactylopteriformes?"

"Yes!"

"How about Homo sapiens?" a new voice asked.

"Yes, yes!  Even us!"  Medhi breathed, squeezing Devotion's hand.

A small riot greeted Jezebel Stronglaces when she entered the pavilion.  As Dicken drew her to her side Jez found herself for some unexplained reason loudly cheering the human race.

Aba, breathless and smiling, took control once more.  "Class, our visitors from Nueva Tierra have arrived."  Students took stock of the newcomers with open curiosity.

"They are Bess Dicken," Aba went on, "a Natural Resources Director in her satrapy, and Jezebel Stronglaces, a teacher

of nonverbals, frequency reading, and universals.  Jezebel has  agreed to do some exercises with us this afternoon."  Vigorous tongue clicks and some clapping greeted this introduction.  Jez and Dicken nodded and then joined in the clicks to signal their applause of the group.

"But first," said Aba, "how did you like the story of Medhi's horses?"  The responses again were excited.

"I'd give a lot to ride one!"  Shaheed rocked his torso back and forth, his eyes bright toward the sky beyond the pavilion.

"Me too!" agreed a small girl.  "One of Medhi's horses, flying to the moon!"

Shaheed rubbed his hands on his pants.  "I'd like to ride real horses!  Show them how to do tricks!  We could ride anywhere!  We could race them . . . ."  His deep voice faded into the uncomfortable silence that had suddenly surrounded him.  His eyes found Jezebel's, and Jez realized that he was actually a young man, probably of the central desert tribes who came late to schooling, if at all. 

"Race them, Shaheed?" Raka Khabin asked.

"You mean like 'taming' them?" one of the other children whispered.

The silence stiffened.  Then Bibi said, "Why, Shaheed?"

"It's an act of dominance to
ride
a horse," piped up Qatalona.  "It's
violence
."

"Medhi rode the horse in his story," countered the boy.

"But he asked, Shaheed," urged Qatalona. 

"Riding without asking is what got us in trouble in the first place," declared Bibi. 

"But even if you ask, you can't tell when they're saying  it's all right," Shaheed insisted.  "How do you know if they're saying yes?"  No one looked ready to answer him.  "Besides," he went on earnestly, "all horses liked to be ridden.  That was their
use
-- to hold riders and pull wagons!"  Shaheed stuck out his jaw.  "My grandfather rode the horses, and he has told me so -- at night in the tents when we wait for the storms to pass -- he has told me!"

Kamasa shook her head.  "Usefulness isn't what gives a being its value," she said slowly.  "If that were so it would be okay to mistreat lots of humans."  There was some appreciative stirring in the class, a click or two of tongues.  "Anyway," she went on, "would
you
like to be ridden?"

"No, of course not," Shaheed replied.  "But I'm not a horse.  Horses were made for riding."

"And what are men made for?"

Aba broke into the nervous laughter that followed.  "Shaheed, are you taking a position outside your heart?  Or do you truly believe what you're saying?"

Shaheed looked down.  Then he raised his head.  "I don't know, Aba.  I just know that when Medhi was telling his story, I felt like I wanted to ride the horses, to make them do what I wanted them to do."  He looked down again, then up to meet Aba's eyes.  "Maybe it's okay for animals to serve human beings.  A whole world used to believe so."

A young woman spoke from the side.  "Shaheed, you've said things like this before.  You need to explain."

Sounds of agreement rose from different parts of the group.  Aba quieted them.  "We can do something interesting  here," she said, glancing toward Jezebel.  "Let's aim for clarity, and let's try to understand Shaheed's feelings, even if they are different from our own."  She looked at the boy.  "Would you feel comfortable with such a discussion, Shaheed?"