Footsteps in the Sky (19 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

A dust devil pirouetted down the dry streambed, laughed at Hoku and vanished. Far up the way, the line of mesas shivered through miles of heat, and a husking wind breathed up from the south.

Homikniwa had explained to Hoku once why they called the dry, harsh winds husking. How hours and days of stripping corn by hand left your hands raw and cracked, just as the southern air, bereft of moisture, could wring you out as it sought eagerly seaward. Already Hoku's lips were dry, cracking. He licked them again and watched Homikniwa, whose eyes surely saw more than his in that blurred distance.

Would that they could see above him, as well, to where the satellites rebelled.

Hoku leaned against the Bluehawk, glanced left to the troop carrier half a kilometer across the undulating plain of roach grass. Another kilometer he could not see, but there was another war craft there, and on, forming a semicircle around the pueblos.

They didn't think he would cross that imaginary line, did they?

“I don't have much choice anymore, do I Homikniwa? Our eyes in the sky no longer see for us. Surely the ship in orbit has already sent a stellar to the Reed, detailing our insubordination. In twenty years, there will be an invasion fleet big enough to put us under. If it isn't already on its way.”

Homikniwa nodded. “Twenty years is a long time.”

Hoku shook his head and answered without heat. He had spent his heat in his room, shouting and striking at the air behind sound-baffling walls. “We won't win with farm equipment, my friend. We can't fight starships with shovels. Twenty years won't change that.”

“Maybe the aliens won't either.”

“No other chance, Homikniwa. We have no other hope, and we never did. That's why I can't feel remorse.”

“
I
would,” said Homikniwa. “A lot of people have died for such a slim hope. There was never much reason to think the aliens could—or would—help us. You've known that all along.”

Hoku stared intently at his fingernails. “No one but you would ever dare talk to me that way, Homikniwa.”

The little man smiled a rare smile. “I don't know. That Tech woman laid it on you pretty thick, and that after you burned her.”

Hoku nodded ruefully. “I don't know what to do about her, Homikniwa. Even my own people are starting to talk back to me.”

“It's a fool that only surrounds himself with people that say what he wants to hear,” Homikniwa reminded him.

“I've got you already,” Hoku growled. “I don't need her, too. So young. What does she know?”

“What did you know, when the old lady took you on?”

“I knew better than to contradict her to her face.”

“The old lady wasn't as smart as you are, Hoku. She always wanted to hear ‘yes'. Nothing else.”

Hoku spat, moistened his crackling lips. “Maybe I'm not so smart either. But I can't regret these things I've done; that would be a waste of energy. I have to move on. And I'm right, Homikniwa. Those ships are the only chance we had, ever will have. The only things that the Reed can't control or predict. You saw what happened when we tried to use our satellites. Our own satellites, even the ones we built!”

“Built with Reed components.”

“Exactly. Exactly.”

Hoku turned back towards the mesas. Why did they still live there? How could superstition hold them so tightly?

“Hoku. Here's one of those things you don't want to hear.”

“What would that be, Homikniwa?”

“That landing drum by Wife-Tell-The-Sea-Point. That ship in orbit. Those are our enemies now. And they don't have the alien; the pueblos do.”

“Yes.”

“It's time for Fifth Worlders to join together, Mother-Father. Time to strike a deal with our relatives in the mesas. They no more want the Reed to take our world than we do.”

“They won't accept my authority, Hom. Not now. They caught Jimmie, you know.”

“I know.”

“But not before he was able to open the door for us.”

“What do you mean?”

“You'll see soon enough, old friend.”

“Hoku. Take my advice. Get on the cube and talk to the old man. He's been trying to call you. There's been enough killing. We can still plant a field between us, the way things are. If we cross over, then nothing more can be done, and we die fighting ourselves while the Reed laughs.”

Hoku closed his eyes, saw bright shapes swimming against his lids. So many roads, but he always knew which one to take. In the past, he had always been right, hadn't he?

“We won't kill anybody unless we have to. But we do this my way, Homikniwa, and though I listen to you, you must be with me.”

Homikniwa reached over and gave his arm a brotherly squeeze. “You're doing something wrong, Hoku. I can feel it deep, deep. But I'm always with you.”

“Why?” Hoku asked.

“I don't have to explain, Hoku. I am what I am. What I am is loyal. Not to my clan, not to my family—they cast me out. To you, Hoku. Leave it there.”

“I will,” Hoku answered, gratefully.

“But I still think you are wrong here. Think about it, Hoku, before you commit.”

“I have. I've been thinking for twenty years. This is the moment to act.”

The two men stood there a moment longer, Homikniwa slowly shaking his head. Above, the mute sky shimmered as the sun passed midday.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Alvar feigned sleep, wishing desperately that he could see what was going on in the cell adjoining his. Through slitted eyes he could make out the woman named Sand, standing in the common chamber. She stood, facing his neighboring but unseen prisoner, body crackling with tension. She reminded him of the high-voltage fence around the arcology, back home. Something you would not dare touch.

Their words carried to him clearly enough. Alvar knew who he was in jail with, though when they brought Alvar in he had only seen the vague man-shape huddled in the cell next to his. He had no face to put with the cracked, strained voice, but he could imagine one. A drunk—bleary-eyed, soft around the mouth, black, greasy hair. A monster, a traitor to his people, a killer. …

He might have been Alvar, once. Red Jimmie, that was his name. From Parrot Island. Alvar knew about Parrot Island, because that was his own, fictional home. Which meant that Red Jimmie was his counterpart—the man sent here years ago by the Vilmir Foundation. The spy.

So this is what I have to look forward to
, Alvar thought.

The conversation ended, and the Hopi woman turned to leave. Alvar saw her face, the flat, masklike expression, and for a fleeting instant, he wondered if there was anything he could do for her. He remembered the old woman, the mother of the boy Teng killed. Red Jimmie's crime felt like his own, filled him with shame. Could he atone for the older man's sins, wipe that terrible look from Sand's young face?

He almost shouted as she left, to tell her that he knew things, things that might help. The impulse passed when she left his vision.

He sighed. Teng would have killed him anyway. And throwing in with these people would be stupid. They were bound to lose. How far behind could the Vilmir warships be? They had cobbled this little expedition together fast, but they must be assembling a larger fleet, too, calling ships in from Earth to Serengeti. Building new ones, despite the immense cost. If he could just bide his time for a few years, he could have it all. No point in going soft over the first woman besides Teng he had seen in three years.

Teng. He felt a guilty start. How was Teng? They had told him she would live, and he knew that she was in the cell next to him.

“Teng? Teng!” he whispered, then repeated himself more loudly.

“Well,” came a voice that was not Teng's. “You must be the new boy. Welcome to the Fifth World.”

It was the old man. Alvar did not want to talk to the old man.

“Speak up, boy.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Alvar snapped. Surely someone, somewhere, was listening to all of this.

“Parrot-Island man! Talk to me! How do you like the adventure of space, the romance of distant worlds?”

“Shut up! What are you trying to do?” The old man was insane. He had destroyed himself, and now he would destroy Alvar.

The voice came back to him, charged with dark derision.

“Come on, boy. I've been doing this for thirty years now. You don't think I know when I can talk and when I can't?”

“I don't know what the fuck you're babbling about.”

“Don't you, muchacho?” Alvar felt a chill cut through him, as he choked back his answer. The old man had spoken in Norte, the Spanish dialect of the Western States of America. If Alvar had answered. … And he nearly had.

“I'm not cut out for this shit,” he muttered to himself, softly, and then regretted that, too.

“The stuff—the equipment they give them to work with here is pitiful,” the old man went on, still in Norte. “The computer systems are centuries behind what I learned back on Earth. No challenge at all, even after all of these years. The things I've built into them! They can't hear us unless I want, old friend.”

“I am not your friend,” Alvar hissed, still in Hopi.

“Oh, very good,” the man said, and Alvar heard the distinct patter of applause. “You don't speak Spanish, but you understand it, eh?”

“Fuck.”

“I pity you, boy. Even I was better prepared than you were.”

Alvar said nothing. Perhaps he had already hung himself, perhaps not. Perhaps the old man wasn't insane; he no longer sounded so. He sounded icy-calm, clear and articulate. He might really know that there was no one listening.

“You'll find out, muchacho. That you can't ever belong here. But that's not my problem. Not my problem.”

He was silent for a moment, and Alvar hoped he had stopped, but Jimmie spoke again, more softly.

“You ever been to Greece? To Oregon? Argentina?” He sighed, and Alvar could hear him shuffle closer. His head must be pressed against the wall of the cell.

“I remember once in Argentina. Me and three compadres went out to hunt Moas. Just the three of us, out on that plain, on horseback. The hunting permit cost me every dima I had, but Mary and Jesus, it was worth it. You ever ridden a horse? It's like having thunder for feet. That night, we ate Moa steaks, drank red wine. The sun went down, I've never seen a sunset like that. Kabrina—she was one of my compadres—we went out in the grass with a blanket. We fucked like crazy, and then we lay there all night, watching the stars, while Raphael played music for us on his tiplé. He wasn't jealous, you know? The best kind of friend, Raphael. I would not sleep that night, or the next. I never wanted to miss another moment of living.”

The words stopped coming, replaced by a wheezy sort of sound, and Alvar realized that the man was singing. He could not pick out the words, and the tune was either unknown to him or so badly rendered that he didn't recognize it.

“Anyway,” the man said, after the song trailed off and died. “Anyway, I had to sleep, didn't I? And one day I would die. That was when I decided I wouldn't die, not for a long time. A Vilmir recruiter had come to see me, months before. I found her and signed on. How else could a poor boy buy immortality?”

You weren't as poor as me, thought Alvar. I could never have afforded a hunting trip in Argentina.

“I've done my time, Parrot-Island-Man. It's over for me.”

“Right,” said Alvar. “Except that you're in jail. Your cover is gone, and now you've probably destroyed mine. Good luck getting your contract honored; you'll never see Earth again.”

Jimmie chuckled dryly. “You don't know much. Less than them, even. They know I'm a traitor to the pueblos, but they don't understand how deep it goes. I work for the people down in Salt, that's all they know. I guess that makes me a traitor twice over, eh?”

“I guess it does,” Alvar sighed.

“Hey, boy. Is your friend awake? The soldier?”

“I don't think so.”

“Keep at her. Tell her to be ready.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just tell her to be ready. Soon.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Night stillness had settled onto the pueblo, and Sand sat tracing her finger across her mother's table. Tuchvala was in the bathroom; Sand had showed her how to use the shower, and the sheer delight on her face had been a wonder to behold.

Sand recognized that her attitude towards Tuchvala was changing. The day before, she had been a mere symbol, fear and grief. Now—in one short day—her presence had become somehow comforting. Before, Tuchvala had been the stolen form of her mother, the threat. Now the threat hovered above the sky in a form much more alien than Tuchvala. Whatever the woman said, she was not—in a sense, never had been—whatever alien intelligence had created her. And in the brief time Sand had known her, something had taken shape between them. Sand did not know what it was, but it was quite different from the shape of her love for Pela. The angles were all different. But it was something.

Tuchvala—whose very name summarized the mystery of life and creation—was enigma and familiarity. Her thoughts seemed tantalizingly close, sometimes, but only when she spoke in the most literal manner was she entirely comprehensible. Thoughts and feelings lurked behind her brown eyes, which, as a new-born, Tuchvala had no way of expressing. And yet there was an elegance to her thought that Sand had begun to sense and appreciate.

The hushed sound of the shower ceased, and Sand was sure she heard a disappointed gasp. Water was at a premium in the pueblos, and no Household would allow the shower to stay on for long, though the water was cleaned and recirculated. Sand turned her head curiously when the bathroom door sighed open.

Tuchvala moved like a toddler, in a way, acutely aware of her body, seemingly constantly amazed by it. The shower had dried her off, as Sand had instructed it to, though her hair was still damp—a dark, ropey mass that hung to nearly her waist.

She was so lovely Sand could have wept. She had seen Pela unclothed often enough, and her thick body had always seemed host to a secret kind of beauty. Here was the secret revealed. Seeing Pela, Sand always saw the scars. The white, blistery stretch marks the marked Sand's own arrival; the transient bruises, the place where Jimmie had burned her with a sterilizer once. The thickening of early middle age, the prominent varicose veins. And yet, seeing her young, Sand realized how little difference there really was. It was only that when she was alive, her mother's little faults had masked her beauty. Sand's image of Pela was an image of hurt, rather than health—and that had been Sand's own fault.

But Tuchvala was not her mother. Tuchvala was a newborn. Sand appraised her, and thought that she had never seen a more beautiful woman. And then Tuchvala smiled, and it was if the sun had risen.

“The shower was very nice. I never imagined that flesh was so wonderful.”

She carefully sat on one of the thicker rugs, leaned forward to stroke her own calves.

“I wondered if this body could feel more than need and pain. What … why is it that … it feels like this? Pain I can understand, because it warns you when something is wrong.”

“I don't know.”

Watching Tuchvala stroke herself Sand grinned idly. What might it be like, to experience sensation for the first time as an adult? To feel hot water against your tired skin for the first time, to feel the hard pleasure of a good massage, the first tentative touch of a lover's tongue?

A hot flush of embarrassment reddened Sand's face. Tuchvala, blissfully unaware of any thoughts she might be arousing, was still exploring the feel of her fingers brushed against her skin. She had moved from her legs to her belly, tracing up across one breast. Sand rose quickly, crossed to the wardrobe, and selected a nightshirt. Tuchvala was watching her when she turned back around.

“You might want to put this on, Tuchvala,” she said, briskly. “The household tends to let things get cool in here at night.”

Tuchvala nodded, still smiling, and observing Sand's own garment, slipped the one-piece cotton shirt over her head. It hesitated briefly on her breasts and then dropped on down as she stood up.

“Thank you for showing me the shower, Sand.”

Sand nodded. What had come over her? She was no prude.

“Come here, Tuchvala. I'll show you something else.”

Sand indicated for Tuchvala to sit in front of her. She did so, and Sand sank down behind her, crosslegged. She reached out and laid her fingers across Tuchvala's shoulders.

“This is called a backrub,” she said, beginning to knead the stiff muscles of Tuchvala's shoulders. The other woman gave a little involuntary gasp.

Pela, Sand reflected, had liked backrubs too.

Midnight was approaching when the cube pinged for Sand's attention. It startled her awake, and for the second time in two days, she awoke to find herself nested against Tuchvala. She had been giving her a massage, she remembered, and after finishing, Tuchvala leaned back against her. Sand had only closed her eyes for a moment. …

She gently pushed Tuchvala forward, and the woman woke with a start, then smiled uncertainly. Sand strode muzzily across the room, shaking her head to clear out the fog.

Yuyahoeva was on the cube.

“Sand. We've found the Kachina. Tuchvala's sisters. This may be the best time for her to talk to them.”

Yuyahoeva looked tired, and Sand wondered if he would survive this ordeal, ancient as he was. If any of them would.

“Okay. I'll have her there soon.”

“You have about an hour while we get the laser aligned.”

Sand's clothes were all too small for Tuchvala, but she hesitated before giving her one of Pela's outfits. She had distanced Tuchvala from Pela well enough to deal with her—even enough to like her a little. She feared a return of her uncertainty, of resentment. Still, she had to dress her guest, and not in the grotesque parody of clothing that she had worn up until then. She finally settled on something that she had only seen her mother wear once; Jimmie had bought it for her while seeking forgiveness, but Pela had never liked it very much. It was a traditionally-cut skirt, suitable for ceremonial garb, but it had gaudy borders of corn tassels stitched along each seam, and it was a deep, almost black, green. The matching cotton blouse was sleeveless and buttonless, and not traditional at all, patterned with black, red, and green diamonds. The green matched her skirt.

On Pela, the outfit had looked unnatural. On Tuchvala it had a certain appeal.

Sand stripped out of her own nightshirt—she had traded it for her worn jumper before Tuchvala's shower—and chose a pollen-­yellow­ cotton body suit. Over that, a slightly unconventional pleated skirt and high-collared blouse, both black.

She combed out her hair and set it up in her maiden's coils, as Tuchvala watched curiously. A thought struck Sand, and she grinned wryly.

Tuchvala was a maiden; more so than Sand. Wielding the brush, she turned towards her companion.

When she was done, Sand mirrored one of the walls so that they could see themselves together. She whistled.

“Damn, Tuchvala. Two virgins all dressed up. We look pretty good together.”

A silly remark, but Tuchvala smiled. And it was a more pleasant thing to keep in ones head when the world might be about to end. Sand's smile faded, and she ushered Tuchvala out the door.

The observatory was walking distance, and they reached it in under half an hour. It was reared up on a spit of mottled grey stone; a few lights burned down below, hinting at the town without revealing it. Above them, the stars were cold ice.

The women shed the faint outdoor chill as they entered the observatory. It was dark, but climate controlled. Sand had only been here once, though she had been to the observatory in Paso on the coast before. The telescopes in Paso were without peer, and the station could access the sky Kachina as well. The mesa observatory seemed very poor to a younger Sand. The gravity telescope was old and bulky, and,—most embarrassing of all—there was an ancient optical scope, jutting out toward the stars like some huge penis.

Now, suddenly, she saw the optical scope in perspective. If it broke now, they could fix it with the tools and parts they had on the mesa. If the gravity scope stopped working, they would have to beg Hoku for parts. And right now, they seemed to be at war with the lowlanders.

A central cube was illumined with a faint light; beyond and through it, the light limned Yuyahoeva's face, so that it appeared his features hovered, godlike, behind the toy ship. Sand approached, felt her breath quicken. Here it was.

The ship resembled a ceremonial hourglass. It was nearly featureless. Sand wasn't sure what she expected, but it must have been something more impressive, because she felt a little let down.

“It's because you can't see its size like this,” said Yuyahoeva, correctly reading her reaction.

“That's me,” Tuchvala whispered, shuffling forward until her hand touched the cube.

“It is? How can you tell?”

Tuchvala frowned for a moment. “Oh. I can't. It could be one of my sisters. But we were all essentially one, to start with. I still … how can I tell?”

“You must have been able to tell your sisters apart before.”

“Yes, but by their thoughts. Little differences at first, big ones later.”

“How will you distinguish them now?”

Tuchvala looked at her curiously. “It doesn't matter, Sand. Whichever I talk too, they will all hear me.”

“You should do it, then,” Yuyahoeva said.

Tuchvala nodded. You have a laser communicator here?”

“Yes,” the old man sighed. “We have it aimed with the optical scope.”

Tuchvala strode towards the panel where a young man named Nash – Sand's grandaunt's nephew's boy—was carefully adjusting the attitude of the telescope.

“I need to send a simple series of binary messages,” Tuchvala told them. “They will unlock a communications link that we froze up many years ago. Otherwise, they will neither recognize me nor speak to me.”

“Tell us the binary pattern,” Nash said, his voice quivering slightly, so that Sand could not help smiling a bit.

“I will use the consonant “t” to indicate the absence of a pulse and the vowel “o” to indicate the presence.”

“Go,” whispered the young man.

“Totot'toooto. …” Sand began, and droned on for several mo­ments, a look of deep concentration on her face. When she was done, she wrinkled her nose prettily.

“I think that's right. Human brains aren't very good at this sort of thing.”

“No,” Sand agreed.

“What happens if the signal isn't right?” Yuyahoeva asked worriedly.

“Nothing. We just won't get a response.”

Nash checked the recording of Tuchvala's code, had the computer read it back to her in little flashes of light. When he was done, she nodded.

“I'll send it, then,” Nash said, and spoke softly to the computer.

For a moment, Sand did not understand what had changed, but Yuyahoeva gasped, and suddenly she understood. The image of the starship in the cube was gone; the cube itself was opaque.

“What? What?” demanded Yuyahoeva. Nash frantically mouthed commands, then switched to the manual touch-board. Finally he looked up at them, fear shining brightly through his young features.

“It's dead,” he groaned. “I don't know how, or why—but the computer has shut down.”

“Shut down.” Yuyahoeva tottered to a bench and sat unsteadily. Sand watched in astonishment. The computer was the oldest spirit of them all—it had accompanied people to the Fifth World, and though it had been changed and modified many times since, it had always been their faithful friend.

Yuyahoeva's face was hardening.

“Jimmie,” he snarled.

Sand sneezed, and an instant later, Tuchvala did too.

Fifty Kilometers away, a clear note sounded from within Hoku's Bluehawk. He turned a grim smile towards Homikniwa.

“Here we go,” he said.