Lament for the Fallen (40 page)

[Wait, wait. You haven’t told them yet.]

Seeming to recover herself, she puts a hand to her flushed face and says, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m Kaolin.’

Joshua realizes there is no way to tell the ages of any of the Achenians, but the girl seems so young.

‘I will be escorting you to the ceremony. Samara sends his greetings, and he is waiting for you there, but he cannot leave Achenia today.’ She breaks away from what is obviously a prepared script and says, ‘None of the Nine can leave today, so he’s really quite sad he can’t be here.’

Then she is laughing again and herding them along the path and up the stairs into the waiting craft. Behind the pilot’s seat is a wide area, tapering to the rear and filled with flowing, sculpted sofas against the walls.

‘Please sit anywhere and,’ she indicates a small basket, ‘you’ll need those. Two for each of you.’

David picks up the basket, looking at the tiny white foamy nodules in confusion. Do we eat them, he wonders.

Kaolin demonstrates, placing a nodule in each ear. ‘There will be many different languages today. We have guests coming in from all over the world. This is a translator. It will feel a little strange for a few moments, but you’ll forget it’s there.’

They begin helping themselves, Gideon assisting a laughing Miriam to insert hers, Abishai kissing Edith as she settles one and then the other. Joshua helps Isaiah with his and then places one in his ear; it feels slippery and changes shape. She is right, though, as after a moment he has to consciously remember that it is there.

‘Now, if you’ll sit comfortably, we’ll reach Achenia in six hours,’ taking her seat as the canopy shimmers and returns.

[Wait, wait.]

‘Oh,’ she says. ‘There’s a toilet at the back of the craft should you need, and there are drinks and snacks in the little cupboard behind my seat.’

The craft lifts, thousands of hands waving and people cheering from all along the walls and streets inside Ewuru. The walls of the craft are transparent, and they are able to look out and see the land shrinking below, the sky growing above.

They are all there. Gideon and Miriam, resplendent in matching dashiki. Daniel, Hannah and the two girls. Abishai and Edith, holding hands tightly. David and Sarah, wrapped around each other and staring intently at Ewuru, dwindling in the distance. Jason and Leah, chosen – with some resistance – as his partner only a few days before. Isaiah, standing with his hands flat against the clear walls, his face alight with the thrill; Esther behind him, cuddling him close. Joshua, sitting in the warmth of his love for this small gathering.

The yellow light of the day gives way rapidly to twilight, and the Earth is rosetted against the sun. From here, they are not the first to remark in wonder at the grandeur and spectacle of the planet.

Darkness, and then they are in the clear channel leading to the waiting presence of Achenia.

Today, hundreds of similar ships are travelling up from the surface. Each filled with groups of people, their hands and faces pressed against transparent walls, trying to remember everything.

They form a long chain, like a string of luminous pearls, as they hug the elevator cable on their way into orbit.

‘We’ll be landing in Socotra Bay,’ says Kaolin. She is still seated, unmoving, her arms on the rests at her sides. They are in a river of teardrop-shaped spaceships, all having now reached the summit and broken away from the cable. Like a school of silver fish, they flash and fly as one.

‘Stay close when we land,’ says Kaolin. ‘There isn’t anything bad that can happen, but there really will be a lot of people.’

They settle alongside another craft, identical. Another lands beside them. There are hundreds of ships, all across the bay.

The canopy shimmers. Kaolin smiles kindly and gestures for them to follow her. Joshua squeezes Esther’s hand, recognizing the nervousness all must feel. It is hitting them. They are in orbit, 35,000 kilometres from home.

Hesitantly, they follow Kaolin. Thousands of people are following similar escorts from their craft, through the hangar and towards the massive doors in the floor and its spiral gravity-shifting ramp. There is a maelstrom of voices, dozens of different languages, but they realize they can understand them all.

Isaiah grins at a little blonde-haired girl of a similar age being led by her parents in a group just ahead of them. She sticks out her tongue and grins back, waving with her free hand.

Joshua catches a momentary glimpse of Samara, far ahead through the crowds. He is greeting a group there. Three very thin men. They are smiling, laughing together. One presents a shy teenager, perhaps his son? One, an older man, is alone. The third with a stout woman who could be his wife.

The group leaves and Samara turns. Shakiso is just behind him. He sees Joshua and runs towards them. Then there are long embraces, introductions as everyone meets Shakiso, Nizena, Kosai, Shakiso’s parents and Airmid, Samara’s mother. Shyly, Symon and Synthia, and an effervescent Symona, make their welcomes.

Kaolin hugs the children again and vanishes into the crowd.

Daniel seizes Symon’s hands. ‘I never knew what you looked like.’ He grins. ‘You look better than I expected.’ Symon looks embarrassed. Abishai, David, Jason and Sarah gather round him. There is nothing left to say. They are thrilled to see him.

‘Come,’ says Samara. ‘We should be going.’

Kosai and the children have bonded instantly. They are clutching at her hands, pulling her to and fro as she laughs and dances with them. Symona is doing cartwheels and somersaults in the air above them.

‘She would make a wonderful great-grandmother,’ says Joshua.

‘Hush,’ says Samara.

Esther and Shakiso are walking together. ‘What is the ceremony?’ asks Esther. ‘Joshua was not very clear.’

Shakiso smiles, the two women holding hands, old friends. ‘Achenia and all our people are leaving. There is the thrill of the journey, but there is also sadness. The ceremony will permit us to express all that each of us may struggle with alone.’

The current of people is through the acacia trees and into the grassland. The city of Socotra, rising up through red rocks, termite mounds and acacias bowed down with weaver nests, on either side of the wide valley.

People are pointing in wonder. The smell of the savannah, of rich earth and growing things, open space and an endless, wide-open sky.

The great gathering place that Joshua saw on his first visit is filling up before them. He has never seen so many people. Hundreds of thousands are flying in from all along the valley. From the cities all through Achenia.

In the gathering are people from so many cultures and races that they overwhelm the senses. Everyone is talking, catching up, laughing. Some are singing. The Achenians mingle freely.

‘Father, look!’ shouts Isaiah, dragging at his arm.

Through the crowds he sees a group of short, heavyset people. Their clothes are thick cloth. They have dense red beards down to their knees. Their eyes are cloudy blue, their gaze intense.

‘They are the miners! From Romanche!’

Samara takes Isaiah’s arm and leads the excited boy over to them. One holds out a heavy, stubby hand and greets Isaiah formally. The boy looks as if all his birthdays are happening at once. He comes back clutching a rounded glossy-metal helmet he has been given.

Kosai excuses herself, Nizena watching her, his face a mix of adoration and pride, as she goes. She seems constantly dancing, always a cuddle or shared intimacy with everyone in her path.

‘Where is she going?’ asks Hannah, Daniel again attending to the girls.

Nizena points to where Kosai is meeting a man, uncharacteristically all in white. ‘She has a role in the ceremony. The man she is meeting is Ismael, one of the greatest of the griots. He will sing the Song for the Leaving.’

Hannah pulls Daniel’s arm, pointing. The Ewuru feel awe and surprise that their own Balladeer is here.

There are fewer people arriving now. The gathering is almost complete. An ocean of people filling the valley.

Gradually, the talking slows, settles. There is silence.

The meeting space is arranged as a wide, gently sloping amphitheatre. People form an arc about the stage. The back is open to the plains beyond. A breeze runs through the valley, from behind them, shifting the long grasses like ripples on an ocean.

Even here the river Talus runs, meandering through a subterranean cavern and emerging far below the gathering place. In the silence, they can hear the water, burbling and tinkling in the distance.

Kosai is standing alone on the stage. She is dressed all in white, the breeze holding the softness of the fabric against the firmness of her body.

Her head is bowed. She raises it, looking out across the expanse of people. A projection expands from her, a duplicate giant permitting all to see her.

Kosai begins to speak.

Departing Sorrows

Hold my hand,

my love,

for I fear that

we are dying.

I will never let go,

my love,

tell me only

what frightens you.

I see ghosts,

my love,

of dear friends,

long since passed.

It is well,

my love,

they are here

to see us through.

If all we have,

my love,

are departing moments,

I wish only for them

with you.

Come close,

my love,

and we will share our

remaining breath

as one.

And in the sky,

a light,

like a tiny glowing sun,

flashes, bleeds,

and is gone.

Her voice seems to be heard by each person alone. Tender. A lover’s touch. In the vastness, each person experiences a moment of intimacy.

As her words end and her projection fades, there is an awareness of a note. Like the song of a heart. It seems to have been there since she started speaking.

Kosai withdraws and Ismael, white-haired and all in white, floats forward on to the stage. His projection filters above them like white smoke in the sky. He carries a single white cord, stretched tight. With his other hand he is running his pinched fingers along its length, setting a tone in motion.

He plucks at it. Notes infuse through the air. Resonance made visible in the sky as white ripples. He releases the cord. It continues to play, individual plucked notes. Now he is singing, his voice bright, a woman’s soprano. Emotion, like a thread of electricity, tied and pulling on their souls.

Esther is weeping. Joshua takes her arm, pulling her close. Isaiah is holding his waist. All about him, tears, eyes shining.

The music is gathering now, notes, chords and timbre swelling. Ismael stamps his foot and the earth rumbles. If a planet could sing, this would be the beat of its heart.

Ismael is now adding a man’s tenor. A duet. And more voices. Smoky faces in the sky.

Joshua realizes that a sound is being drawn from him. That he is singing. Harmonizing with all those around him.

Ismael, his wide, sheet-like cloak flowing, is dancing, his arms directing the choir as he moves.

The music falls away, the spray of a waterfall coming to rest in a placid pool.

Only the drumbeat remains.

Ismael is still. His shoulders move, a syncopated rhythm. He beats the air with one hand, then the other. A thousand drumbeats crash, waves against a rocky shore. The storm draws near.

He stamps. A deeper beat. Whispers, the wind through the forest.

A roar. A billion antelope, their hooves thundering on the plains. Faster, faster, faster.

Fog takes shape as animals driving through the audience, chasing for the horizon.

Hearts. Racing. Ismael is jumping. Everyone jumping too.

The drumming is the universe.

It stops.

A single, jangling chord sounds. A harmonica, aching between his fingers. His voice, rich, gravel, singing of a journey. Out into the night.

The crowd, humming, dancing, keeping his rhythm.

Everyone is weeping. Tears, wet against their cheeks.

Joshua has a sense of how painful is this parting. How much must be shed in order to go. That this leaving is not taken lightly. They are saying farewell, not just to the planet of their birth but to their shared experience which led here. Goodbye to uncountable relationships, the intimacy and shared moments that will forever remain unexperienced.

For a new world to open, an old one must be closed.

Ismael is singing alone now, plucking at the cord again in his hands. His voice sweet, delicate, masculine. Notes – clear in the air – rising above his voice, now below, following, leading.

Joshua is sobbing, holding Esther to him, Isaiah tight around his waist. Esther hugs Airmid, and now everyone is exchanging heartfelt embraces. First with those they know, then with complete strangers.

Eventually, there is only a single tone, which gradually, softly, ends.

EPILOGUE
A BALLAD
FOR THE
RETURNING

We have experienced so much. Seen many things. Met others on similar journeys, so unlike and like ourselves. Now, after almost one thousand years, it is time to go back, to reconnect with the world that will always be our home. We don
’
t return as part of some final destination. We will linger, reflect on what we have learned, and – in time – we will journey once more amongst the stars.