People of the Sky (36 page)

My eyes stray to the brown robe that Chamol left folded near my pallet. I reach out and touch it with shaking fingers. I wanted Kesbe to take it with her when she departed, but she
gently pushed it aside. I know why. She is afraid that fear will shatter her determination even as she takes the final step toward Baqui Iba.

You are strong, warrior-woman. And you are helped by your love for Bacqui Iba, which is as powerful as my love for Haewi Namij. It will bear you up as Haewi bore me. My strength is small, but perhaps it will be enough when added to yours.

And when you return from your walk to womanhood, I will get up from my pallet and lay the
lomuqualt’s
robe on your shoulders.

I close my eyes, drawing the robe to me and clutching it against my chest. At the smell and feel of it, at the memories it raises, I shudder, but I force myself not to cast it aside. Will I feel this way about Kesbe with she returns? Will I recoil from touching her, knowing what she has done and what she has become? Will I have to force myself not to turn from her?

I clench my teeth. No matter what I feel, I will do what I have promised. If she returns as
lomuqualt,
the aronan-child will be mine in the eyes of the tribe. I will not be lazy and take this as a gift. It must be earned. She will need help, help only I can give.

But if I am to offer help, it must come from one who is as whole as possible. I must attempt the healing I once tried. I hold the robe close against my chest and in my mind I begin to make a sand-painting.

Kesbe sat in the pilot’s seat in
Gooney Berg,
staring out into the afternoon haze on the mesa. She let her eyes drift down to the instrument panel, with all its old dial-type gauges. She felt as though she were looking at it for the last time, trying to engrave the sight, the smell and the feeling of the old plane’s cockpit into her.

It isn’t that I won’t be seeing you again
, she thought, trying to shake off the melancholia that had seized her.
But when I do, I will be…different.

She heard steps on the floorboards behind her and Mabena’s musical voice. “Are you ready for company, dear pilot?”

“Yes, I think I am.” She was grateful for his sensitivity to something he did not fully understand. It was not something she had expected to see in him, for she doubted sensitivity was a characteristic of people who hacked out a living on the frontiers of worlds such as Oneway.

She had wondered whether she should try explaining to him what she was about to commit herself to and why. Now she was glad she had done so.

He came up on the flight deck and rested his hands on the back of her seat. She breathed his scent, the musky, slightly acrid man-smell. The undertones to his odor told her that he found her attractive and the attraction could turn to lust. But she caught a sweet strong note that spoke of caring.

He spoke again, his voice softly velvet as his dark skin. “So, will you do this thing?”

His scent became touched with a slight metallic tang. Jealousy, perhaps, but gentle. She smiled to herself. What would he think if he knew she could read each and every turn of his feelings, that he could not lie to her. But even as the thought made its way across, she knew by his smell that he would not want to.

“Yes,” she answered.

“Why?” The word could have been a demand. It was not.

“I could say that I have no choice. I could say that I was caught up in a web not of my own making. But I hear my grandfather’s voice inside me saying, this is of your own making, so make it with love.”

“You could choose to fight for the Pai without becoming one of the tribe.”

“No, I can’t,” Kesbe turned in her seat. “The Sun-Chief is right. If, as an outsider, I try to help the Pai, I will do nothing but harm. And one cannot be partially Pai. One must take the essence of the tribe into mind and body, carry it in the belly…only then will I really know what is right.” She paused. “Does it sound hideous?”

Mabena laughed softly and pushed his bush hat back on his head. He touched the raised tattoos on his cheeks. “To some people, the act of slitting the skin and then embedding charcoal into wounded flesh is hideous. Yet in the end there is beauty in the pattern. In the end, dear pilot, there will be beauty”

Kesbe let herself rest in the cradle of
Gooney Berg’s
old leather seat, warmed by Mabena’s friendship. He took the opposite seat and said, “I would like to meet these people. I too made a judgment of them and I would like the opportunity to revise it.”

“You will.” She hesitated. “Can you wait just a little longer? One person from outside was enough of a disruption. Think how long these people have been isolated, Tony. And the amazing thing is that they have preserved the things that my own ancestors lost. My grandfather tried to teach me, but he had only fragments.” She paused. “I’m not trained as a cultural anthropologist, but I know what the Pai are. What they have created is unique and valuable. Perhaps they are showing us a possible next step in the growth of human beings.”

“And to understand that step, you must take it,” Mabena said.

“And I’m scared as hell.” Kesbe hugged herself, shivering despite the heat radiating through the plane. Gently, Mabena pried her clutching hands from her shoulders and substituted his own. Strength seemed to flow from him into her with the solid warmth of his big hands. “Let us speak of more calming things,” he said. “More pragmatic things. I have the resource to pay you for the aircraft. Do you still want to go through with the contract?”

Kesbe took a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking about that. So far,
Gooney Berg
has proven to be just about the only aircraft capable of handling this terrain. And if I’m to be a buffer between the Pai and the outside world, I’ll need a way to get back and forth. The most important part is that the Pai are used to her. They call her Grandmother Aronan.”

“So then, you don’t want to sell the Douglas.”

“After all this, you must think I’m crazy,” Kesbe sighed. “I’m sorry. That’s a kink into your plans, doesn’t it.”

Mabena grinned. “One thing I have learned about plans is that one should always have an alternate. Lady pilot, I will make you a proposal. The Douglas is ideally suited for my purposes. It is also ideally suited to yours. How then do we resolve this conflict? Very simple. We reproduce her.”

Kesbe stared at him, at the sparkle of his dark eyes beneath the brim of his bush hat. “Pardon my asking,” she said, wondering if he was just jollying her along. “How in hell are you going to recreate something that was made on an ancient production line with techniques we don’t even have any more?”

“We study her. We measure her. We use the drawings and schematics you have. We use modern materials and construction techniques when we can’t recreate the old ones. My crew of engineers will love it!” He clapped his hands together triumphantly. “I was wondering what task I could give them to keep them happy once my safari installation was complete.”

“A copy won’t be the same,” Kesbe said doubtfully.

“It will be very close. With laser metrology and the kind of computer-controlled tooling I have available, I think we can extract the same performance from a copy. Perhaps we may enhance it.”

Kesbe grinned at Mabena’s audacity. Who but he would challenge the legendary engineering skill of those who had designed the old Douglas? “But making a copy will take time. What will you do until it is ready?”

“I will ask you to fly for me in the meanwhile. It can be scheduled around your…ah…obligation to the Pai. And you can impart your knowledge to me and my crew so that we can assume the duties when you are absent. What do you think, dear pilot?”

“I think you’re as crazy as I am. I also think you are going to do it. It’s a deal.” She grinned mischievously. “I take it that I don’t have to worry about elephant sperm this time?”

“The risk is minor. I plan to supplement my income by recruiting technical people with a hobbyist’s interest in ancient aircraft to work on the project. They, of course, will pay me for the privilege. I think it should work out quite well. And if it does, we may generate more than one copy.”

Kesbe raised her eyebrows, sighed and sank back in her seat.
Well, old girl, she thought at the aircraft, we both will be producing offspring in one form or another. This should be interesting.

I have fallen asleep and wake with the robe against my chest. I find that I have gained strength from my rest and from the good food and care that my uncle and his wife have given me.

I will not wear the robe again, it is for Kesbe when she returns from the cave of ceremony. She said that she hoped I could lay it upon her shoulders with my own hands.

She did not hide her uncertainty from me. She is afraid, as I was. She cannot promise that she will have the courage to step forth at that last and final moment. But if the fear can be overcome, she will do it. For me and for Bacqui Iba.

Now she has gone. If she returns from the journey bearing the aronan egg, will I be able to place the robe on her shoulders without trembling’? Will I turn from her as I once turned from myself when the aronan’s spawn invaded my body? If so, then I am not healed.

I think of the sand-painting I tried to make under Nabamida’s guidance. In my mind I have already begun another, but thinking about it is not enough. I must create the image again. I must feel the sand running through my fingers in a smooth even flow to create a pattern without flaw. As Kesbe travels the path to her choice, so must I journey to find my own peace.

I ask Nabamida to aid me as I get up from the pallet, clear a space on the clay floor and gather the colored sands. He looks at me, his face neutral. I make the painting representing the story of Tuwayhan and the Children of Aronan, but this time I make it differently. Tuwayhan has my features, as before, but this time the central figure is Tuwayhan’s daughter, she who was brave enough to keep the promise made to Aronan. No. The figure is Kesbe and the aronan clasping her is Bacqui Iba. The sand still runs freely as I start to shape the gold and black egg that is Bacqui Iba’s gift to her as it would have been Haewi Namij’s gift to me.

I sweat, but my hand is steady. After a long time I sit back. The painting is complete, unmarred. I feel its power working within me, driving out (be ugliness and evil. This is the truth, in flesh as in sand. And I can look upon it without despair. I sit back, seeing the corners of Nabamida’s eyes crinkle as he smiles.

I will wait here for Kesbe, praying and chanting beside the sand-painting, adding the strength of my spirit to hers so that she can do the task she has set herself. And that she can do it with love and not fear.

I pray. I chant. I wait. And I do something I thought I would never be able to do again. I hope.

The sun dipped toward the ragged horizon of the Barranca, setting the sky ablaze with fierce color. Kesbe walked the trail from the mesa down to the village, feeling the evening wind whip her hair about her face. Tony Mabena had stayed behind in
Gooney Berg,
as she asked. She suspected that doing so was one of the more difficult tasks that had been asked of him. To do so without complaint, without further words about something neither he nor she could change was as valuable a thing as the most precious gift. He was, she decided, an extraordinary man. With a slight feeling of sadness, she wished he had known him earlier. Perhaps then she would not have needed to take the path that led to Baqui Iba…

She recognized the temptation and thrust it aside. To turn from such a strange and unknown union to seek the comfortable affection to be found with her own kind…no, it would be too easy. She faced into the wind that blew from Tuwayhoima. It brought the earthy small of adobe mixed with the spicy aronan-scent. She walked alone through the village and then to Aronan Kiva.

Two figures stood outlined against the sunset: one human, one aronan Sahacat and Baqui Iba. The wind carried the flier’s scent to her. It was metallic with apprehension, smoky with uncertainty. It lifted its head toward her. Kesbe cursed her eyes for seeing in the creature’s outline something insect-like and alien. She tried to recall the love she had felt on that last unforgettable flight. The feelings seemed washed out and flat in her memory. Had rage and fear scoured away everything she had ever felt toward Baqui Iba?

“I am ready,” she said, taking one last step to stand in front of Sahacat.

“It is not I who should be told,” the shaman said quietly. Kesbe turned to Baqui Iba, who stood with head and wings drooping. She laid her hand on the aronans neck, spoke gently with words and essences.

“Dear winged one…”

“The choice was mine, chosovi. I’m sorry I hurt you.”

“I saw another human who was made sick by the embryo inside him.”

“I don’t know. If I am afraid and let the fear into my body, yes, it will make me sick. If I can learn to bear it with love, that will keep the sickness away.” She felt herself tremble with emotions she could not keep from the aronan or herself. “Help me, chosovi. I love you, but this is so…unknown…to me.”

The aronan’s scent changed to a comforting woolly kind of smell, though it still had the smoky undertone.

“Then we shall walk in the dark together,” Kesbe said, stroking the aronan’s neck. She turned to Sahacat. “Shaman, why haven’t you taught me more about this?”

“You must draw what you need from Baqui Iba. This is the last and final testing of the bond.” With a sharp tug, Sahacat pulled loose the ties of Kesbe’s kilt and flung it aside. “You stand naked to the night and each other. Walk the trail of Pai womanhood to the place of ceremony. I await you there.” She drew her cloak about her and melted into the night.