Nightmare - A Novel Part 8

The group walked slowly, chatting and pointing out things of interest. Dorna seemed to take a big-sisterly approach to the proceedings as she guided them unhurriedly along, allowing them to take in what sights they liked.

The sun, now well above the horizon, had burned off most of the mist below. Kendi quickly learned to ignore the sight of the stomach-wrenching drop that lay in wait everywhere. The air was sweet, warm, and clean, and birds mingled with small gliding lizards among the leaves, both filling the morning with song. As the morning grew old, people began to appear on the walkways and in the metal gondolas that coasted by on a system of wires and electric pulleys. Many, though not all, wore loose brown clothes and the simple gold medallion that marked them as Children of Irfan.

"Are all the Children Silent?" Willa asked at one point.

Dorna nodded, her dark curls bobbing. "Gotta be. But the monastery also employs plenty of non-Silent, both here and in the field."

"Do we have to wear brown like that?" Jeren said. "It's kind of dull, you know?"

"You can wear whatever you want, guy," Dorna replied indifferently. "Most of the Children and the students wear brown shirts or robes so everyone knows they're Silent, right? But you don't have to. You gotta to wear the medallion, though."

"What are those for?" Kendi asked. "I was wondering."

Dorna went down a staircase backward like a tour guide facing her charges. "The medallion says you're under Irfan's protection and a member of the order. Only the Children and their students are allowed to wear them."

The walkways swayed under their steps. The movement didn't bother Kendi, though Willa was looking a trifle green. He glanced ahead of them and caught his breath. Coming up behind Dorna, who still walked backward, was a creature the size of a small horse. Blond fur covered a stocky body and four legs that ended in heavily-clawed feet. A thick, sinuous neck rose from the shoulders between a pair of muscular arms that ended in four-fingered hands. The creature's head was flat, with wide-set, bulgy eyes and a flat mouth filled with shovel-like teeth. There was a hole on the creature's forehead just above the eyes. Its forelegs were thicker and st.u.r.dier than its shorter hind legs, which gave a downward slant to the creature's back. Kendi stared in spite of himself, as did the others. Dorna noticed and turned to see what was going on.

"Father Ched-Hisak!" she said, and pressed her fingertips to her forehead in a gesture Kendi didn't recognize. "You're up early today, yeah?"

The creature made a chattering noise by rattling its lower jaw against the upper. It also made hooting sounds through the hole in its forehead.

"I'm showing around a new group of students," Dorna told him. "They just arrived last night. This is Jeren, Willa, Kite, and Kendi." Again she pressed fingertips to forehead, this time pointedly, until Kendi and the others got the hint and duplicated the gesture. Kendi couldn't help but stare. For all his bulky build, Ched-Hisak moved with a languid grace he found compelling. Even Jeren seemed awed.

Father Ched-Hisak made more chattering and hooting noises. Kendi noticed he wore a gold medallion around his neck and a jade ring on one thick finger.

"He says he's glad that Irfan guided your steps to this place," Dorna translated, "and he looks forward to seeing you in his cla.s.sroom one day, right?"

"He's going to teach us?" Willa blurted.

Dorna laughed and Ched-Hisak hooted. "Sure. Lots of your teachers will be Ched-Balaar. They brought humans into the Dream when Irfan Qasad and her people arrived on Bellerophon-what?-nine hundred years ago, and they're really good at teaching."

"How will we communicate?" Kendi asked.

"You'll learn their language, just like they learned ours," Dorna said. "Humans can't make their speech sounds and they can't make ours, but you can learn to understand."

Ched-Hisak spoke again.

"Thanks, Father," Dorna said. "We'll see you around, yeah?"

He trotted away, claws clicking on the hard wood. Kendi watched him go and with a start he realized Dorna had continued on her way again and he had to trot to catch up.

"-use a translator or something?" Jeren was asking.

Dorna shrugged. "It's partly because translators can fail and partly because we've always done it that way, right? You show your respect for the culture by learning their language yourself."

"Wheredtheycomefrom?" Kite said.

"They call their home planet 'the world,' " Dorna told him. "You'll learn more about them in history cla.s.s, but the short version is that Irfan Qasad, the lady who started the Children, was the captain of a slower-than-light colony ship from Earth in the old days, back before slipships, right? When she and her people arrived at Bellerophon, they found the Ched-Balaar had already got here and claimed the place. Lucky for us humans, the Ched-Balaar were willing to share. No one knows exactly why because most of the records from that period were lost or destroyed. A lot of people think the Ched-Balaar suspected us humans could enter the Dream and they wanted to bring us into it, right? According to legend, they told Irfan that she had to partic.i.p.ate in some kind of ceremony. You know-to cement relations between the species? During the ceremony, the Ched-Balaar gave her a drug that allowed her to go into the Dream. She was the first human Silent, but they didn't call it that yet, yeah?"

"Why do they call us Silent?" Jeren asked.

"No one knows for sure," Dorna said. "Best guess is that it comes from the fact that human children who carry the genes for Silence don't talk 'til they're older and don't cry much as babies. Silent children, right?"

A roar thundered from below. Another roar answered it, and a second and a third. Jeren leaned over the ivy-covered railing, trying to peer down between the branches. Willa clapped her hands over her ears with a squeak. Kendi joined Jeren, but the branches beneath them were too thick to afford a view, to his disappointment.

"Whazzat?" Kite asked.

"Dinosaur." Dorna also leaned over railing. "A big lizard. That sounds like a pod of mickey spikes. Plant-eaters as big as a truck. Harmless unless you threaten their kids or are standing where they want to step. And they're the smaller ones."

"Is that why we're up here?" Kendi said. "Because they're down there?"

"You got it. The colonists could probably have cleared 'em out, but no one wanted to mess up Bellerophon like Earth got messed up. So they built up in the trees." She made ook-ook noises. "Like monkeys, right? Me, I like it up here."

"And a good thing, since we're up here to stay." Everyone turned. Ara, wearing a brown robe of her own, was approaching on the walkway. "Good morning, everyone. I see Dorna got you up and going."

"Good morning, Mother." Dorna pressed fingertips to forehead as she had for Father Ched-Hisak. "You look tired."

Kendi, who was saluting in imitation of Dorna, saw that Ara did indeed look tired. Her eyes were heavy and her face was haggard.

"Trouble sleeping," she said. "But that's a minor matter." She turned to the little group of ex-slaves. "Did Dorna get you all fed?"

They nodded a.s.sent.

"Good." Ara smiled. "I'm a mom as well as a Mother, and I need to know you ate a good breakfast. Next, we're going shopping."

Jeren groaned. "I knew it. f.u.c.king disaster."

"If you want to wear the same shirt every day, be my guest," Ara said. "Far be it from me to force civilization on you. But the rest of us like a little variety."

In the end, Jeren agreed to come, and Kendi was sure his grumbling was mostly for show. Ara piled them into one of the gondolas, which glided swiftly along its heavy cable. Houses, decks, and walkways coasted by. The monastery was a busy place, and its byways bustled with humans and Ched-Balaar alike as the morning slipped by. A few other aliens also entered the mix. A human child scampered down a rope ladder that hung from a window and was followed by a second child. Peals of laughter faded in and out as the gondola pa.s.sed.

"Does anyone ever go down to the ground?" Willa asked in her soft voice. She was sitting between Ara and Dorna refusing to look over the side. Kendi, Jeren, and Kite occupied the bench across from them. Ara, however, didn't seem to hear Willa's question. She was staring into the distance, a distracted expression on her face. She was obviously thinking about something, though Kendi had no idea what it might be.

"Mother?" Dorna said.

With a start, Ara came to herself. "Sorry. I was wool-gathering. What was the question?"

Willa repeated it.

"People visit the ground lots of times," Ara said. "The s.p.a.ceport is on the ground, of course, and we also have to pump water up from the lakes and underground reservoirs. We have farming areas, too, but we try to keep that to a minimum. You can turn out a surprisingly large amount of food with some creative genetic engineering and a good greenhouse."

"Who runs everything?" Kendi asked.

"That's a little complicated, actually," Ara replied. "There's Treetown-don't laugh at the name, thank you-and there's the Blessed and Most Beautiful Monastery of the Children of Irfan, or 'the monastery,' as everyone usually calls it. Irfan Qasad founded both of them, though Treetown wasn't much of a town back then. Later she founded the monastery several kilometers away as a separate ent.i.ty. In modern times, though, Treetown spread and eventually surrounded us, so we're a state-within-a-state. The Grandparent Adepts run things here, and the Co-Council runs Treetown, but the two groups are strong allies. We share the s.p.a.ceport, for example, and the monastery owns a great deal of farmland just outside Treetown's borders, so everything's tangled together. There are other city-states on this continent, but Treetown and the monastery are the biggest ones."

"What's the ring for?" Jeren pointed at the emerald ring on Ara's hand.

"It indicates rank. Students like yourselves wear a ruby ring. You'll each get one soon. Topaz indicates someone who has finished studying and is now an apprentice Child. Amber is for full Siblings-Brothers and Sisters. Mothers and Fathers wear jade or emerald. The next rank is Mother or Father Adept. Their rings are blue. Grandparents have fluorite rings-indigo. And a Grandparent Adept-the highest rank-wears a ring of violet amethyst."

Willa clapped her hands. "It goes right up the rainbow!"

"Very good," Ara said. "You're an observant young woman."

Willa flushed deeply, even disproportionately, and Kendi wondered how often in Willa's life she had heard praise. He leaned over the side and watched the green growth far below for a moment, then returned his attention to the gondola. He felt comfortable in Ara's company, even relaxed. In fact, he felt more relaxed than he had in days.

The gondola coasted into a little station that, Ara explained, would send the car on a parallel wire back in the direction they had come. Several people were waiting in line for a ride, most of them dressed in brown, and six of them boarded after Kendi and the others had disembarked with the help of an attendant. The gondola coasted smoothly around a semi-circle and vanished into the branches. Ara took them down a staircase and along another walkway.

"Where are we?" Kendi asked.

"Shopping district in Treetown," Ara replied. "Like I said, the city grew around the monastery and a lot of the people work for the Children or have family that do."

Kendi looked around. The buildings looked much like the monastery, except the they had larger front windows with various products on display. They were obviously stores, but completely unlike the cold, sterile malls back in Sydney-malls that he had last visited over nine hundred years ago, he remembered with a strange pang. The people who had worked and shopped there were long since dust.

Ara chose the closest shop, a two-story place called "Millicent's," and held the door open for them. "First stop," she announced, "fashion!"

Kendi paused in the doorway. "How do we pay for this?"

"Like I said back on the ship, the Children will pick up your living expenses, including clothes," Ara said. "You'll eventually have to pay it back, but we don't charge interest like the corporations do. Irfan herself made that rule, and I think it's a good one. The monetary unit on Bellerophon is the freemark, like a lot of places. For comparison, five freemarks will get you a meal at a fast-cook restaurant. For ten freemarks, you can get a meal at a decent place, and for thirty, you get linen tablecloths and waiters with towels draped over their arms."

The interior of the store smelled like fresh leather and new cloth. It was a large place, with two sets of spiral staircases that wound upward to a balcony that ringed the main floor. Clothing of all kind hung in attractive displays and on the high walls themselves. Kendi looked around in awe. He hadn't bought anything in his three years as a slave on Giselle Blanc's farm, and before that his family had been too poor to shop in a place like this. The abundance of choice was overwhelming. The others stood near him, equally dumbfounded and uncertain.

"Go." Ara made shooing motions with her arms. "Bother the sales clerks. Try things on. Get!"

"Come on, Willa," Dorna said. "Let's see what we can find you. The boys are on their own." She towed an unprotesting Willa away.

Jeren caught sight of something and broke into a grin. "Whoa! I'm there!" He grabbed Kite's sleeve and headed toward a display of black leather.

"I guess that just leaves the two of us," Ara said to Kendi with a smile. "Let me look at you." She held him at arm's length. "Hmmmmm. You're in luck. I think brown's your color, and it's all the rage this year."

Kendi laughed. "All the well-dressed monks are wearing it?"

"You know it. Come on."

They spent a pleasant two hours picking out various articles of clothing, including socks and underwear. The sense of choice and freedom was overpowering. He could, in theory, have anything in the store, and no one seemed inclined to tell him to hurry up. It felt strange to have the clerk bring things to him and put away what he didn't want. Kendi loved it.

Ara, meanwhile, informed Kendi that although they were now in high summer and the weather was warm, Bellerophon was overall cooler and rainier than July IV and Australia, which necessitated buying sweaters, thick trousers, rain gear, and heavy shirts. They were more expensive than the shorts and thin t-shirts that had made up the majority of his wardrobe back in Sydney, and the unexpected high prices dampened some of Kendi's enthusiasm. Despite Ara's urgings-"High quality will last longer and look better, too"-Kendi did his best to be careful. His one extravagance was a pair of fine suede boots. They were soft as b.u.t.ter and came up almost to his knees.

"This is the matching jacket," said the sales clerk, putting it around Kendi's shoulders.

Kendi shrugged into it and looked into the mirror. He caught his breath. The jacket looked wonderful. It molded itself to his body as if it had been tailored for him. The suede was soft and the color was a bit lighter than his skin, creating a pleasing contrast. It smelled of new leather.

"That looks perfect," Ara breathed behind him. "Kendi, that's you. Really."

"Already waterproofed for you," the clerk said. "And it has a lifetime guarantee. If you outgrow it, come back and we'll make alterations. Same for the boots."

Kendi turned this way and that, admiring the way the jacket moved with him. Ara was right-it was him. He had never owned anything like it, and he wanted it like he had wanted nothing else. "How much?" he asked.

"Eight hundred freemarks," the clerk told him, and Kendi blanched.

"Too much," he said, reluctantly removing it. "I've already spent more than I should have on the boots."

"Oh, get it anyway," Ara said. "You deserve it."

"Enabling the shoppers again, Mother?" said Dorna, who came up at that moment. "I swear you'd offer champagne to a recovering drunk."

"Irfan said nothing about extravagance being evil," Ara sniffed.

"No, but the Real People did-do," Kendi put in.

"The Real People?" Ara repeated, puzzled.

He handed the jacket to the clerk, who accepted it without comment. "My ...tribe. Balance and moderation in all things. I can justify the boots-I need good ones-but not the jacket."

"You've been a slave for three years, Kendi," Ara said quietly. "You should indulge yourself a little. And you'll be able to pay it back. Your Silence is strong, and you'll be a Brother pretty quick."

Kendi looked at the jacket in the clerk's hand one more time. He could still feel its suppleness, smell the sweet leather scent. Then he firmly shook his head, though he couldn't keep the disappointment out of his voice. "I can't. It's too much. The boots are indulgence enough."

"Your decision, then," Ara shrugged. "Let's check on the others."

Willa, Kite, and Jeren had all piled up an impressive quant.i.ty of clothing. Despite his earlier comments, Jeren hadn't stocked his entire wardrobe with black leather, though his taste in clothing ran toward daring and brash. Kite had chosen a real mishmash of styles, and Willa had selected a large number of mousy brown robes and dresses all in the same conservative cut.

"It's all she'd buy," Dorna said in mock despair. "We'll have to work on her." And Willa flushed again.

"Bill and deliver these, Mother?" asked the clerk.

"Yes, please," Ara said, and gave him the address. "Thanks for your help."

Kendi gave the suede jacket one last wistful glance as they left the store, then sighed and promised himself he'd come back and get it-or one like it-as soon as he had paid to the monastery whatever debts he incurred.

Outside, Ara declared it was time for lunch-her treat. She ushered them to an outdoor cafe where they took up a table in the shade by the railing. They had just finished ordering when a rumbling vibration shook the floor and rattled the dishes on the table.

"What the h.e.l.l?" Jeren said.

Dorna looked over the railing and pointed down. "There. Take a look."

Kendi, Kite, and Jeren peered over the rail. Several other restaurant patrons joined them. Willa hung back. Far below, well over a dozen heavy, blimpy shapes with long necks and whip-like tails moved with surprising agility. The distance and perspective made it hard for Kendi to figure out how big they were. Their heavy feet tromped the ground, making even the giant trees shake.

"They're each the size of a small house, right?" Dorna said when Kendi asked. "Lots bigger than a Micky spike. They're slow and stupid and they'll accidentally step on anything that gets in their way, so don't get too close, yeah?"

"I wonder what it'd be like to ride one," Kendi said.

Ara patted her chest in mock horror. "That kind of risk I can live without, thank you," she said. "I have enough adventure in my life without adding a dinosaur rodeo."

The group came back to the table. "ZbeingChildciting?" Kite asked.

Ara didn't answer. Once again, her gaze was fixed in the distance.

"Mother Ara?" Kendi said. "Are you all right?"