The Glass Mountains (28 page)

“Of course it can fly. But it can’t drive.”
 

When we got outside, the warehouse behind us seemed suddenly inviting and predictable. Zem tethered all the dogs in special cages, and then tethered Moor and me. The vehicle that had dragged us outside drove back into the warehouse, and Zem’s friend closed the immense warehouse doors. Next came an acceleration that made my whole body tingle unpleasantly, the way my legs did when they lost circulation. When that stopped I saw Artroro through the clouds. In the city the lights of different colors bloomed like flowers all around, while far away I could see the eerie luster of the apparently cheaper lights used in immigrant areas. Another ship descended in the distance, and as we climbed higher I could see the whole blue sphere of Artekka. Looking down, it was as if I were slowly adjusting a viewer so that everything below grew smaller and smaller.
 

Moor had grown excited and was struggling to untether himself. When he finished he hurried to the window and stared down below. I freed myself as well and joined him. A part of me felt exhilarated at the impossibility of the distances involved. That I could be so far above the ground I’d walked on not long ago! My adventures were like those boxes of which Grandfather had spoken, each adventure a small box within a larger.
 

Moor stood at the controls helping Zem. “This one?” he was saying, and Zem nodded. I set free my dogs. We’d tethered them in padded cages. Shami lay inside hers sideways with drool falling out of her mouth.
 

“Shami’s sick,” I said.
 

“It’s temporary,” Zem called out. “It happens to a lot of dogs. People, too.”
 

And as if on cue, I gagged and needed to sit down. I leaned against Shami’s cage while her eyes rolled up to meet mine.
 

“Don’t worry, beautiful dog, I feel the same way. It’s temporary.”
 

Artie came over and nudged me and then Shami. I hoped Zem was right. I couldn’t imagine enduring this for long.
 

Moor knelt beside me. “Zem says that as soon as he’s done he’ll give you medication.” He brushed the hair from my face. “You’re sweating.”
 

“It’s hot in here.”
 

“It’s cool.”
 

“There you go again, tormenting me,” I said.
 

“I don’t torment you, only tell you the truth.”
 

“That’s what I mean. If the truth is not sometimes a torment, what is?”
 

Zem giggled at us from the console. “Maybe you shouldn’t talk.”
 

“Why? It’s not my words that make me gag but this ship.”
 

Zem came up and pressed something sticky on my arm. In a second I started to feel better. My head still swam, but more mildly. Zem had brought an array of medicines that represented a hundred different colors, tastes, textures, and properties. After a while I couldn’t tell whether Shami was sick because of the ship or because she’d taken too much medicine. She licked Zem’s hand as if to tell him she appreciated all the medicines he’d brought for her. She was truly a sweet child.
 

“Better?” said Zem.
 

“Yes, but I still have to concentrate to keep from succumbing to the sickness.”
 

“Good, concentration on a worthy cause is an excellent way to pass your time.”
 

I spoke quietly to Moor. “What was Zem like when you knew him before?”
 

“He was the most decent person I ever met.”
 

“For me, that would be my father and mother.”
 

Moor administered still more medicine to Shami. Like me, she made a partial recovery. She sat up, her tongue hanging out and her eyes appearing a bit loose in their sockets.
 

“Will she and I be able to withstand this?”
 

“You have no choice. Choices are not always a part of battle.”
 

“I don’t believe in battles then. In Bakshami it is said that there are no choices unless there are many.”
 

“You are not in Bakshami.”
 

I felt suddenly sorry for myself. “Ohhh, Ohhh,” I said. “You torment me again. My head hurts.” As soon as I’d spoken I felt sorry, for I saw how worried my words made Moor. “I’ll be fine. If I could only lie down.”
 

“I’ll show you where to lie momentarily,” called out Zem. He howled joyously, as Cray the storyteller did sometimes, and as Bakshami people did occasionally while playing the rhythms. “I love flying. But Moor, I need your help.”
 

My head had started to clear, and I got up again to sit at the window-like screen before us. Moor helped his friend. The sphere of Artekka glowed like an Artroran street light. Though the planet looked much smaller now, the distance had the effect of making the ship rather than the planet seem small. I couldn’t tell where my homeland lay, if it was even within my sight now. Yet I could still imagine the planet full of people, and I pictured my brother Maruk and his wife in Soom Kali and my young brother and sister in the hotlands. And, even knowing one may have died, I pictured both of my parents. I also saw my grandfather’s remains turning to sand and blowing toward the hotlands, where in a million years they might be incorporated into the Glass Mountains. And I saw the past thousands of years of peace in Bakshami, and the way the sands changed as the clouds over Artekka changed. My people had lived their lives with serenity and grace despite the hardships. The dust used to blow through the air and fall down my robe and into my shoes, and stick to my scalp. And every year great waves of sand migrated over the ground and engulfed the past which was just like the future.
 

2

Moor came to stand beside me. “It’s not what I expected,” he said. “I expected that from up here the planet would look tranquil, but see the clouds and how they stir. It’s easy to believe, seeing Artekka now, that warriors outnumber men and women of peace.”
 

“Do you not consider yourself a warrior?”
 

He paused. “Yes, I do. I was widely admired in my village and the surrounding area. Some of the generals favored me exceedingly, and I might have had a better career in the army than my father did. Unless you are unusual, and I am not, to have a mediocre army career is to see your ambitions destroyed and replaced by bitterness. There is not a child in Soom Kali that doesn’t dream of being a shining soldier.”
 

“But you are unusual!” I exclaimed.
 

He frowned and looked down at the floor, then outside at the diminishing sphere below. “Seeing you sitting alone, staring at our village, I realized that even being the best soldier in the sector would have its limits. I haven’t lost the desire. It’s as strong as ever.” Now he gazed directly at me. “But other desires grew stronger.” I felt a turbulence inside me, and remembered my parents, and the way I would sometimes try to imagine them in the mating ritual. I could never imagine it before, but this time I could easily picture them, young and in love.
 

I indulged in the Bakshami romance ritual of extravagant lying. “My desire has always been for someone exactly like you,” I said. I would tell him lies, and then would work hard to make them become truths. I did love him, but I had always feared Soom Kali and its people. My old beliefs were folly; still it was a lie to deny they had existed. In time, according to the Bakshami ritual, I would convince myself of the truth of the lies, until they became in fact true. Eventually, I would see that the fear I’d had of the Soom Kali people had really been a desire for Moor. And my nervousness with Sennim had really been the nervousness I’d anticipated from when I met Moor. I hoped I could get through the ritual correctly without guidance or context.
 

Sitting at the screen together, we were astonished to see how quickly our thoughts turned from what lay behind us to what lay ahead. Misshapen Lomos had never looked so bright, like something precious but unpolished. Yet after first being awed by Artroro and then overwhelmed by the vastness of space, I began to wonder what Forma was like. Already some of the novelty of being on the ship faded. We still felt fascinated and amazed, but we no longer stared compulsively at the screen or out the portholes.
 

The medicine had started to wear off and I needed to lie down. Moor carried Shami and me to a mat. She could barely sit up. Her eyes had taken on a waxy quality, and even her shiny black coat seemed unusually unkempt.
 

Moor lay with us, and we napped. When I woke up, darkness veiled the room and Moor had left. In the short time we’d been sharing a bed, often he’d already risen by the time I first opened my eyes. Shami slept curled up next to me. I put my arms around her warm body, and she nuzzled my face. She seemed so warm and affectionate that I lay in bed hugging her instead of getting up. Eventually Moor slipped into the room and sat on the bed, brushing my forehead with his hand.
 

“Mariska?”
 

“I’m up.”
 

He turned on the light and pressed the sticky medicine against the skin inside my arm, at the elbow. He leaned over me with a look of alertness.
 

“We’re landing,” he said.
 

Though the ship supposedly could travel at unimaginable speeds, much time had passed. Zem said he did not believe in great speeds—they were against Nature, and besides, he did not understand the more complicated aspects of the console. But now we had arrived.
 

We landed, hidden in a lush forest, in the region of Forma farthest from the Bakshami border. While Moor and Zem talked, I went outside to investigate. Just as Moor always brought his knife for protection, I now brought Artie with me. Shami, to my heart’s delight, was recovering from ship sickness. She licked all who came near her and gazed at us all with loving eyes.
 

All around the ship rose trees, dark moss growing across the ground and up the hulking trunks. The weight of the ship had cracked the branches of a couple dozen trees, and we’d come to a halt above ground, sitting on the trunks. There was nobody around. I realized now how fragile my plans were, how I had no idea how to go about searching for my parents.
 

Moor joined me outside. We silently walked together through the trees. After a while he said, “It may not be easy to find your parents.”
 

“We will find them.” I looked around foolishly for a sign.
 

We fell silent again when we heard hooting sounds, almost like a larabird’s mating call, from above. I strained to hear a sign in the hooting. Some light filtered through the trees, but I didn’t see any stars. What sky I could see exhibited a sheen from clouds. I could almost smell the humidity from all around, from the moss and the damp ground and the droplets on the leaves. Long, reflective things crawled across the ground, so many I had to push them out of my way or else slip on them. I toed a white plant growing from the ground, and it cracked easily in half, the wispy white top falling off the stiff stem. When I picked up the top portion, although it almost filled my palm, it was as light as something the tiniest portion of its size. I brought it to my nose; it smelled faintly of dirt.
 

Deciding to wait until daylight to find our way out of the forest, we returned back to the ship for a last night. I was glad. I felt sick from the flight, and Zem and Moor got sick, too. So while Shami was making a recovery, we humans spent our first night in Forma lying down feeling nauseated. Zem got well first even though he made the most noise, groaning like a woman in labor.
 

Moor suggested that after we parted ways, we should meet back at the ship in twenty sunrises.
 

“Sometimes no idea is better than an idea if the idea is a bad one,” said Zem.
 

“What!”
 

“If the idea is worse than no idea, it’s better to act on no idea than on the idea. That way everything stays the same. If everything is the same, at least you know what will happen next. Don’t leave me!”
 

Moor dismissed Zem’s squeaky drama, lightly touching his friend’s face with his palm. “Twenty sunrises.”
 

“Don’t leave the ship! Don’t leave me alone!” We managed to appease him by promising we would keep alert for any unusually delicious foods to bring back for him. And then we left. Zem had given us Forman clothes to blend in, but none of us looked as pale as I’d heard the Formans were. But Zem said many foreigners lived in Forma as working-class partial citizens.
 

Outside, the sky sprinkled. Everything around us was so green the air itself seemed green. Artie, whose spirit had deteriorated while Shami lay sick, ran happily through the trees, crashing among the bushes and fallen branches, jumping over fallen trees, and stopping occasionally to smell the slimy crawling things on the ground. There were fewer than last night, but those that remained were as big as my hands. Artie pushed at them with his paw and jumped forward and backward. They crawled so slowly I didn’t see how they survived. I picked one up. It tickled my palm as it slowly moved over my hand and up my wrist and forearm. When it slipped off, a trail of glowing orange secretions lay on my skin, and the trails began to sting me. So even a slow animal such as this could protect itself.