Moonstar (21 page)

“The cold air had saved me from the sun—only that I might die in the storm to follow. The air turned gray, then muddy, then darker still—the sky flashed with wind and thunder as great masses of charged air rolled and argued across the world. The water flung itself in great lazy crashing waves and stung itself against my skin—the boat tossed and tumbled—when the sail fell, ripped from the splintering mast, I climbed back aboard and wrapped myself in canvas folds, I tied myself to its broken spar and prayed that we would ride the crest of waves to come—I was afraid to pray to Reethe, she was angered enough already—there were hailstones pelting from the sky like icy spittle.

“The storm grew worse and I lost consciousness again. I remember waking on a still, gray sea while rainfall splattered around me, but whether it was darkday or shrouded sunday, I couldn't tell. I sipped water—it tasted ashy, there were things floating in it, and I passed out again.”

“I came to in a hospital in Astril Circle. I didn't know how I had got there; they had no record either. I suppose some rescue vessel found me. When I recovered, I stayed there for a while to help with other refugees; it was the least thing I could do. Sometime, during those days, I must have passed my final blush; I hardly noticed. Dimly, I must have realized I was a woman, a bearer of responsibility, a source of strength, a piece of Mother Reethe upon the earth. And I didn't want to be, I didn't want it. All that responsibility, I despaired for I was burdened with it whether I wanted it or not. I wanted to be Dakka, I wanted to be free. And I wanted to go looking for my family, so I could cry in Mamma's lap.

“Eventually, I did move on. They couldn't save me from myself. I spent long hours lost in prayer, walking the stations of the Oracle, counting beads and chanting, trying to obliterate all sense of my identity in the larger timelessness of prayer. I wondered if I should become Watichi—a holy person. Watichis never need to own, because Watichis never need. You must feed a Watichi before you feed yourself, because she has given up her life to be a moment of the gods. I had the capability, I thought, I'd shown it when I'd been Enchanted—but when I'd been Enchanted, I'd released an evil voice upon the world, a huuru thing. I'd heard it howling in the storms; someday it would come back to me. What kind of Watichi could I be if I was haunted so?

“I went crazy for a while. In that I was not alone. There were many who survived the Lagin fire only to go crazy—not Enchanted, that, at least, was gentle—this was crazy, savage, vengeful. I moved in hurt, and I struck out at all around me. I wandered aimless on the surface of the world, across the surface of my life, not touching anything, not being touched in turn. Hate was a wall to hide behind. It was not a way to live, but it was a way to survive, and in those terrible, terrible days, just surviving was enough.”

Allabar was opened to the refugees; there was a deep harbor there, and several long docks for a mining operation that had never started. It was on the inner side of Nolle Crescent, and there were agricultural settlements at Cinne, Rann and nearby Mairel, so there would be food; there were industrial villages at Gowulf and Trask, so there would be machinery, labor and support for the refugee camp. Across the bay, at Sandar Crescent, there was Wandawen, which had an Access terminal to the files at Authority. A wire was extended to the Service Center at Allabar dock, and several consoles were installed for the use of refugees.

Jobe registered her name, but no bells chimed when it was entered in the banks; there were no messages waiting, no one had inquired after her. Nor was there any record of a Kuvig, Hojanna, Dorin, Orl, Rue or Marne surviving. Not even Aunt William.

“But don't lose heart yet, little fish,” counseled the paunchy Dakka at the terminal. “This file is only for the Astril and the Bogin Circles. It will take some weeks to correlate with all the other circles; perhaps then there might be something.”

Jobe took her papers and turned away, making room for the next person in the line. Allabar was a barren place; its hills were brown and scrubby-looking, its cliffs were white and chalky. Dirty bushes clung tenaciously to rocky slopes. Hot winds plucked at canvas tents; sand and grit crept into food and clothing.

The camp was on a naked slope, a parched dry stretch of rock. There wasn't food enough to go around, and if Jobe wanted to eat, she had to be at the cook tent early. Authority was urging everyone to eat one meal less; go to bed a little hungry, they would say, so the next person might have something too. Hunger once had been a novelty to Jobe, a curious kind of pain; now it was a companion, a full belly would have been the novelty. There was rationing. Jobe stood in line with all the others to receive her allotted slabs of paste and curd and protein loaf. Sometimes there was stew of fish and biscuits, sometimes there was rice, but more often there was paste and curd and protein loaf. Jobe wanted food she recognized, fruit and vegetables, pig-fish in sauce or oils, filets of finlets, clams or crawlers, slices of melon, pickled roots and tubers, anything. Authority was talking of reseeding areas decimated by the Southern Scour—not the Lagin yet (if ever), but adjacent shields certainly—they would have to turn a lot of crops to seed. The populace was being told to eat a little less today, so we can eat our fill tomorrow. But the food that came to Allabar was not food, merely kinds of protein that would store without decaying—like paste and curd and protein loaf. They looked like things the Erdik ate, and tasted every bit as bad.

She slept in a commonhouse near the docks. When there was cloth available from the commonstore, she made herself a new kilt. She washed herself at the public baths, and she carried everything she owned in a canvas bag fashioned from a piece of sail.

She tried putting a call through to Strille on the Weeping Crescent under the Tartch umbrella, but Porro's family didn't exist; whether they had moved or broken up or died, Jobe didn't know; they weren't listed anymore. There was no Porro.

Jobe wished for—hope. Something to live for. A goal. Even revenge would have been enough if she could have had it.

She spent her days waiting in line. She waited in line for food. Then she waited in line at the Access to see if there was any news of Grandpere Kuvig or the others. She waited at the commonstore for medicines for the cough she had developed and the sores along her legs. Sometimes she waited for clothes. Then she waited in line for food again. Lines were something new to Jobe; they were new to Satlin. Jobe didn't like them, she cursed them as another Erdik intrusion.

Sometimes she went down to the beach and listened to the minstrels and the songlers. Sometimes she slept in one of the lean-tos there. Authority didn't want a shanty town growing on the beach, but as fast as they knocked the shelters down, the refugees rebuilt them. Sometimes Jobe shared her bed with another lonely person, hardly noticing whether she was Dakkarik or Rethrik. It didn't matter. It was an echo of her churning days on Tarralon.

She began to learn anew of sex. It wasn't always fun and it wasn't always sharing; sometimes it was just—something to do. Sometimes it put more distance between two people. They'd use each other's bodies for their own satisfaction, each pretending to be happy for a while, but they were lies instead of love and even though Jobe knew it shouldn't be like that, it was.

Lono and Rurik must have been a lie, she decided. She could not imagine such devotion happening in real life. They were outcasts, that was all—that was why they stuck together; nothing more. She imagined Lono reaching out or Rurik in the middle of the night and being met with words mumbled, Please, leave me sleep.”

Mostly Jobe slept alone.

One day, she saw a familiar sail in the harbor. It was wide and square, bright red, and in the center was a yellow sun with an eye inside of it.

“Sola!” Jobe fairly flew across the wooden dock, shouting all the way. “Sola! Sola!” and collapsed crying into Sola's arms. Sola seemed taller now, and stronger—where before she'd seemed made of silk and pudding, now she was wire, supple and bound in leather. Jobe held her tightly.

“Jobe—little Jobe! What are you doing here? Are you all alone? Who else is with you? Oh, let me hold you! I thought you were lost—let me look at you! How big and pretty you've grown. Great Reethe, what a fine woman you are, Jobe!”

But all Jobe could do in response was hang on to Sola as hard as she could. She poured out her grief in great racking gasps and sobs. She was so happy to see her—so relieved that someone she still knew had survived—yet saddened with the knowledge that Sola might be the only one.

Sola stroked her hair and murmured, “Easy, Little One. Easy. I'm here now.” And she hugged her tightly back. “My little Jobe—the last time I saw you, you were leaving for Option. How did you get here?”

“I don't know—I just sailed west—like the otter told me.” Jobe managed to get a few words out, but she was still too happy crying.

“I was in the north,” Sola said. Her face was shining. “Authority has finally decided to set aside an island for—for persons like myself. An official retreat. Asylum, that's its name. I'm going to build a house, Jobe. A place of my own! That's why I came here—there are some people that I know who might want to come there too.”

“Who—me?”

Sola laughed. “Don't be silly. We're just friends; but outcasts have to stick together.” She added self-consciously, “Maybe in the future perhaps . . .”

Jobe wiped at her nose and looked at Sola—she seemed both taller and smaller; taller because maybe she was, she was certainly leaner; smaller because—well, Jobe was a little taller now. But there was something more—Sola was a pearl; before, she'd been veiled in melancholy, now she shone with inner glory—as if she'd decided she was going to be proud of being Sola; she stood tall, that was it. She didn't try to pass for either Dakkarik or Rethrik, as some outcasts did; her clothes were honest and simple, a kilt and a vest. Oddly, it increased her beauty—Jobe could see both Reethe and Dakka in her, and both were gloriously expressed. “Sola—“ she asked, “my family—do you know anything about them? Kuvig, Dorin, William, my mother—?”

Sola looked unhappy. “I haven't heard anything. Little Fish—“

“But you've been in the other circles, haven't you? You must have checked at every Access.”

Sola became uncomfortable. “Uh—no, I haven't, Jobe—“

“Don't you care?”

“I do, a little—but—I am not who I used to be. I am someone else these days.” Sola put her arm around Jobe's shoulder. “Come let's go somewhere not so public.”

Jobe pulled away. “You don't care about them, do you?”

“Jobe.” Sola's eyes were steady. “They stopped being my family a long time ago—even before the argument over who would sail you to Option. They threw me out—oh, not in so many words; but their hearts were always closed to me because I couldn't give them children, because I couldn't bring another marriage to the circle. I love them as I love my childhood, but all of that's behind me now. I have a larger family that I care about today. Myself, and others like me. If we don't take care of ourselves, no one else will.”

“But, Sola”—Jobe felt the tears rising again—“I've always loved you.”

“I know you have, Little Fish—and I've always loved you—but it's not the kind of love I need the most. Nor you, either. I mean, there are some kinds of love that are good for strength and some that are necessary for growing. You are a strength to me, as I should be to you—but neither of us is right for the kind of growing love the other needs. And if you hide behind the one, you'll never find the other.”

“I didn't know—that deviates could love. I mean, really love.”

“Of course we can, silly. We're still human, aren't we?” She steered Jobe down the dock. “But that's one of the things that some people still don't understand. Now, come on, let's get away from here for a while and talk. I think the family would have headed for the Sash, but they might have gone to Cameron. They'd have assumed that you were safe at Option—“

“Cameron is gone,” Jobe said.

Sola became grave. “They would have been caught in the Scour then . . . thousands of people were lost—“

There. It was said. Jobe collapsed in tears again. This time, though, she didn't grab Sola, she just wilted there on the dock. Sola looked embarrassed, but it was such a common sight to see a person suddenly break down and cry these days that no one even noticed.

Darkday glimmered into pearlescent life. The bay began to shimmer with a wrinkled light; the lanterns of the camp described a faerie landscape. Jobe and Sola were sitting on a spit of land a short way down the coast. Here, there were trees and featherlings. Sola had brought along a sausage and some bread, some fish paste and wine, and they had a little picnic, just the two of them. “I'll be leaving here tonight,” said Sola. “Will you be all right?” I can give you money if you need it. I can spare a little from my allowance from Authority—I've been hired as an administrator for Asylum.”

Jobe was thoughtful. “Where is Asylum?” she asked.

“North—it's under the Old Shield. It was one of the earliest wilderness islands, but it's been the site of so many tests, it's not good for anything anymore. Its ecology has been unbalanced—it's no longer a control; perhaps that's why they gave it to us—we're not worth much to them either.” After a bit she added, “Maybe we can make something of it. Maybe it will make something of us.”

Jobe looked at her. “Sola . . . take me with you when you go. I don't want to be alone again.”

Sola shook her head. “You wouldn't like it there, Jobe. There will be only deviates. You need to be with younglings like yourself, so you can meet a fine young Dakka and start a family.”