Heritage of Flight (24 page)

Wiped out. Had all the Cynthians been wiped out? One night Rafe had waked laughing from a dream of Cynthians swooping down from cliffs by a turbulent ocean. What about the other continents? he had asked. What if somewhere on this world (which they might never explore fully) Cynthians still flew, still built their pallid towers along the planet's magnetic lines, and still fled from their hideous young?

It was still genocide, Beneatha had declared when the subject of Rafe's dream came up. Just the attempt, just the thought, was enough to brand them: and they had succeeded too well as it was.
If that's how she feels, why invite me to this feast of hers?

Pauli paced back and forth. Where
was
Pryor? Her feet were damp, damp on the frozen earth.
Not earth
, she reminded herself.
Earth is long lost to us; this is just soil.

Whatever you called it, however much you escaped being Earthbound in speech and heritage, the ground was cold. Stupid field boots should have been proof against winter snows but they weren't. One of the techs was working on a way of replacing boots when their service issue wore out. Now that was a nice, satisfying task: you mended soles, stitched them, kept heels level, and considered the ways of making a better boot. You could do far worse on Cynthia than be a cordwainer.

For example, you could be a ... a leader. Then you would have no chance to retreat to the comfort of physical work. Your task would be to make the decisions no one else wanted to make, to face—and keep on facing—issues those who followed you would have probably rather forgotten. Your tools were logistics, psychology, nerve, and will. Your products were the decisions you made, and had to live with, you and those you protected.

Boots would have been far easier. If you made them wrong, the most it would cost you was a blister.

"Waiting long?” came Alicia Pryor's voice, almost as clear as the air itself.

Pauli grunted. “What was it?"

"Tonsils,” said the physician. “With all the screaming that the littlests have been doing, I'm not surprised. Sorry, though, to have kept you outside. I didn't want to resterilize."

Tonsils. No wonder, given all the children's screaming over what had occupied their attention for the past week: Beneatha's invitation to re-create Kwanzaa, a holiday honoring Earth traditions that she and her family had carried with them on every planet they'd touched. For the past week, ‘Cilla had run about, her pale hands splotched with green, black, and red, while Lohr had made life hideous trying to force songs from a crude flute. Washington had made a total pest of himself by rehearsing his friends in Kiswahili; privately, Pauli thought that if he asked
habiri ganu—
"what's happening"—one more time, she might show him what was happening in no uncertain way.

But her irritations were not important. What was important was the children's delight in every facet of the holiday: its history, the seven symbols laid out on the
mkeka
, or mats ("they should be of cornhusks, but Kwanzaa calls for
kuumba
or creativity, so we'll improvise"), the whittling of a seven-branched
kinara
that had made David ben Yehuda stifle a smile, a frenzy of crafting, painting, and sewing of decorations and gifts.

Then there were the names. Many of the children, especially those of black ancestry, had chosen new names to mark Kwanzaa; so the Jamies, the Annes, the Johns, and the other names that the refugees had either remembered or been given once the relief squads had found them had given way to Toussaint, Mahairi, or Samory: “freedom names,” Beneatha called them. ‘Cilla had experimented with calling herself Kizzie, but “my name is Lohr,” her brother had said; and that was that.

"Cold,” muttered Pryor. “Hell with resterilizing; I shouldn't have left you standing out there.” She stamped and breathed on too-thin fingers. The face she turned toward Pauli was tired, its meager flesh clinging too closely to the fine bones beneath. Violet circles underlay the physician's eyes, pale blue, but sparkling in the doubled moonlight.

Her anti-agathics were fading. The thought had occurred to her several times as the winter wore on. Anti-agathics had been plentiful enough for Pryor in her past career as a privileged researcher, but Cynthia colony ad few such luxuries. Fear clutched at Pauli's belly until the odors of hot food, wafting toward her over the clear air, made it clench with hunger too.
How can I persuade her to divert enough resources to try synthesizing them? We can't risk losing her.

Pryor walked more briskly toward the dome where yellowish lights shone and from which came laughter and singing. “Where's Rafe?"

Pauli grimaced. “Minding Serge. The
karamu—
that's the feast on the seventh day of this holiday—lasts all night; and he refuses to let me spell him."

Actually what Rafe had said was a lot closer to “You can't hide behind me all the time, Pauli love. You'll go, and—who knows?—you might enjoy it. Or are you scared?"

"You know it,” Pauli had said.
A firefight would be easier. I know about firefights—or I did once.
Beneatha had fought her and Rafe every step along the way Cynthia colony had gone to insure its own survival. And now Beneatha was their hostess. It made for a certain amount of discomfort.

Pryor sniffed appreciatively at the dancing snow and, underlying the tang of the snow, the half-frozen river, and the smells of human habitation and production, the food that Beneatha and many of the botany/agronomy types had spent days preparing from their first harvest on Cynthia. If the eager clamor of the littlests ... well, if they didn't help much, at least they no longer pilfered and got in the way.

It was good to see the children insisting on their own lives, their own joys. It was likely to be a good feast. The only problem was, that the woman hosting it had consistently opposed every one of Pauli's decisions: damned ambiguous hospitality.

She must have said that aloud, because Dr. Pryor laughed dryly.

"I don't think so,” she said. “You know, I once heard a proverb that came—or so they told me—from Africa, the part of Earth that Beneatha's ancestors must once have lived in. ‘Come into my home; sit at my table; then you will know me.'” She shrugged, and they walked in silence, their worn boots squeaking on the dry snow, which glistened like blue and green gems or scales from the moons and the sodium lamps that the life-science techs had set up about the domes they had appropriated.

Pauli sensed that the older woman was waiting for her to speak, and she determined to outwait her. Finally Pryor chuckled dryly. “Good for you, Pauli!” Then her voice turned almost hesitant. “Have you heard anything from Thorn?"

Pauli tilted her head up at the physician. “I thought that you'd be the one to hear from him.” An incongruous bond linked them: aging aristocrat and renegade fighter cloned from cells of a man who had been Pryor's lover in a life no one on Cynthia could comprehend.

"I've tried,” Pryor admitted. Her voice all but shook. “Can't raise him. Either the snowstorms block reception, or...” She shuddered.

Pauli stopped and looked at the woman.
He may be sick, or he might have fallen, be lying there now, alone. He grew up on ships: what can he know of planets and their winters?
No wonder Alicia's eyes were shadowed. “After this Kwanzaa business is over,” she promised, “perhaps someone can go after him."

Go up into the hills, seek out the lair of the dead Cynthians to which the clone had exiled himself to assure themselves that a pilot who had helped devastate the homeworlds of a hundred children here hadn't broken his stiff neck? Right. But Pryor's face relaxed, losing lines and ten years in the process; and Pauli was glad of her words. Wasn't gift-giving connected with this holiday of Beneatha's? Then her promise was a small enough gift to the physician.

"They're here!” came a joyous cry from the dome at the end of the row. Three children erupted past the doors as they irised, and half ran, half slid in the packed snow toward them, grabbing hands, dragging them into a splendor of warmth and fragrances that made Pauli blink away tears.

Posters boldly drawn in red, black, and green hung from the drab walls like tapestries, while ‘Cilla sat in a corner near the one empty wall space, painting frantically away at the poster that would fill it. She frowned, her tongue sticking out in concentration, her hands and face smeared with red and green as usual. Seeing Pauli, though, she leapt up with a grin, waving the poster to dry it.

Golden hooked crosses ("They're
ankhs
, and they mean everlasting life! Did you know that?") gleamed against the darkness outside. One table was heaped with the
zawadi
, or gifts, several others with food.

"Our first harvest from the fields, not just hydro,” gestured a tech at heaping dishes of spiced yams and squashes, gourds and grains, mounds of rice glistening the same color as the ankhs, platters of fish and fowl (vat-cultured or not, they smelled wonderful), and huge, roughly woven baskets of bread. Pauli blinked again and set a name to him: Ramon Aquino, an ally of Beneatha's and, Pryor's subtle wink reminded her, her very constant companion these days.

Before them lay the woven mat, with its arrayed symbols: the candleholder with its red, black, and green candies still unlit; a sort of loving cup as roughly carved as the candleholder, fruits and vegetables, a gift or two, and rows of corn.

"Habiri ganu?"
Washington cried at Pauli. Better schooled than she, Alicia Pryor replied promptly.
"Imani!
Faith, trust in our people, our parents, our teachers, and our leaders. Did I get it right, Beneatha?"

The xenobotanist turned from her careful arrangement of the corn ears.

"I expected you to listen,” she said. “Now, about the
vibunzi
, the ears of corn: traditionally, each child in a family has an ear of corn; so that's one for little Serge, right, Captain?"

Beneatha handed Pauli the ear of corn with its dried husk and tassel, genetically engineered to be immune to the diseases of half a hundred worlds, its kernels shining red, green, and black, as if offering her a challenge. Pauli set it on the mat and sat back on her heels.

"And you, Doctor? Every household should have at least one ear in honor of the promise of children. Unless—do you have any children back..."

Pryor shut her eyes so quickly that Pauli almost imagined away the spasm of pain that twisted the fine, pale features. “Children?” she asked. “I have hundred of them. Most of them are here."

But there was another, outcast and cold in the Cynthians’ caves. Pryor chose one ear, then another, and laid them down tenderly.

"But look at you!” she complimented Beneatha. Laying aside the usual drab bulk and dirt stains of field clothing, the xenobotanist had transformed herself. This evening she wore a tunic and overshawl richly patterned in red and black. Tiny braids looped beneath an intricately tied turban that set off her dark, fierce face. Almost all her friends and coworkers had dressed similarly: some in long dresses or robes, others in pullover tunics and loose trousers. Even in the least worn of her coveralls, Pauli felt drab and insignificant.

"Look how plain they are! Shall we decorate them too?” asked Ramon to a shriek of approval from the children.

Seconds later, Pauli faced a barrage of cloth, which two girls hung over her shoulders and twisted about her cropped hair. She saw Pryor transformed into some sort of tribal priestess—"too pale for a priestess!” cried the girl who now called herself Mahairi, then sat back patiently as another girl tucked the ends of Pauli's headscarf about and in to make a turban like Beneatha's. To Pauli's surprise, she felt herself laughing.

"Let's start the feast!” cried Washington, and led the children in bringing the dishes to the central
mkeka
, around which the invited guests sat or knelt.

” ‘Cilia!” cried Beneatha, “and who else? Who wants to light the candles?"

"I used to!” Ayelet cried. “Way back, before we left Ararat even—"

"These aren't the same,” her brother interrupted, but ben Yehuda raised a hand, silencing him. As the candles flickered to life, Dave's lips moved silently. Then Beneatha bent down and took up the ceremonial cup.

"Back on Earth, Maulana Karenga created Kwanzaa to help us remember our Motherland—and our struggles,” for a moment her gaze was hot and intense on Pauli's face. “But it's also a time to celebrate our harvests, our community, and our children.” Light flickered from the purplish contents of the cup and threw shimmering highlights on her face. “Dr. Pryor was right, you know. All of you children here, you should know by now that you
are
our children, just as surely as if we'd given birth to you."

"All of us at once?” cried Lohr, and the children laughed.

"Even you, bigmouth,” ‘Cilia hissed, pulling him back down beside her.

"It used to be that a
mzee
, a wise man or woman, would conduct this,” Beneatha said. “I'm not very good at fancy speaking, so I'll be brief. We are a community here, and I asked you to come tonight to celebrate our harvests. First, the harvest of healthy children; second, the food you see all about you."

She raised the cup to her lips, drank, and passed it about the circle to cries of
"Harambee!"
and hands thrust up in salute as Pryor muttered something about communal cups spreading communal colds, then drank as joyously as everyone else.

To Pauli's horror, Beneatha was gesturing for attention. “It's also customary to introduce any elders or distinguished guests, like Dr. Pryor and Captain Yeager"—damn, would they stop calling her that! She hadn't prepared a thing to say—"before we ask for entertainment."