Red Moon Rising (15 page)

Our formation breaks and I see homesteads below us. We crossed Maasakota, but not at the point where the
Origin
crashed, so these homesteads are not part of Origin Township. That is strange, because I know of no other townships on this moon. But as the
Kwihuutsuu
dip and play in the skies I see that these homesteads are abandoned, nearly lost to the winds and dust.

“Who lived here?” I shout over to Natka. He is tossing bits of dried plini flesh through the sky to Suu, who is snapping her jaws over her shoulder and eating them as if they are the last food on the moon.

Natka shrugs. “Is before my time. Father will not speak of it. Old Kihuut talk stories of traders coming from Hosani. Of
soka'a
caves.”

“Ghost caves,” I say, feeling a shiver run down my arms.

Natka shrugs again. “Is just stories.” He flies ahead to catch up with the group.

I linger back, looking down at the ruined structures. If the rumors are true, then who were these people? If people came from Hosani, they would have had to be able to leave again. That means working spaceships.

I urge Kwihuu to fly faster. I want to get past these ghost houses. My chest tightens as we speed up and it strikes me how much hotter the air has become since leaving the village. Dustier, too, even this high up. I do my best to point
my face into the wind and take deep breaths. Perhaps I am just nervous. Or scared. Or both.

It is another half day of flying until I see movement below.

A homestead.

People running.

And then we are past them, still flying fast and high.

Fist leads his dactyl into a dive and the rest of us follow in the formation we've practiced so many times.

My heart tries to leap from my chest, my mouth is dry. Kwihuu screams as she dives. We come through a cloud of dust and as I cough the debris from my lungs I break formation as I've been taught, flying a pattern around the perimeter of our group. That's when my eyes clear from the dust and focus and I fully comprehend where we are. Now I know why there are so many of us in this raiding party.

We are above the center of Origin Township, not just a mere homestead. The suns are low in the sky so it is high summer market time. The homesteaders have ventured from the safety of their cooling grates and are conducting business as quickly as they can, buying and trading for food and livestock, goods and supplies.

Even from above I can see what a haggard bunch they are, skinny from not enough food, sweating through their clothes. It is so gum hot, I feel my skin drying and frying in the suns. It is so much hotter on this part of the moon. I cannot wait to get home.

The homesteaders have scattered, screaming, as we fly the
Kwihuutsuu
in slashes and dives over their heads. Parcels of food and supplies lie spilled across the scrub as people leap for cover.

If necessary, I am to make Kwihuu dive and scream and scare the people away from the older
Kihuutkafsa
, who will be doing whatever it is they need to do. I am to fight only to protect myself or the other
Kihuutkafsa
.

Fist, Jo, and Natka have landed and are running through the market. They seem to be taking things indiscriminately, and stuffing them into small sacks. I do not understand what the people of Origin Township have that the Cheese do not already have in their village.

Natka grabs a woman by the hair and throws her out of his way as he storms a booth filled with empty canteens. The metal canteens go everywhere, rattling and crashing on the rocks that litter the ground. The woman screams and screams, her hands in her hair. She is on her knees in the scrub and she won't stop screaming.

Natka throws a canteen at her, but still she continues. I nudge Kwihuu to go lower so I can better see what's happening. Do I know this woman? My blood runs cold watching the scene. It is Virginia. Old Man Dan's wife. I haven't seen her in nearly an entire summer's time as she was with child and under orders from Aunt Billie to stay resting in bed.

Three men come running for Natka, but I skim their
heads with Kwihuu, keeping them back. One of them shoots at me from his handbow, but misses. The woman continues to scream. Natka runs to her, swiping at her head with his knife. There is a spray of blood and he calls out, “
Lolobee!
”

I taste bile and feel dizziness sweep through me—Mara behind my eyes. Natka has taken Virginia's ear. She is silent now, slumped in the dirt, blood pooling around her head. Natka puts the ear in a sack and marches back into the booth.

Kwihuu swoops down as I guide her. “Natka!” I yell.
“Sonako hee ta!”
Stop now! The other raiders are busy with their own battles and no one seems to notice what is happening over here. I cannot be part of this. I cannot do this.

I nudge Kwihuu and she grazes the top of the booth, screeching.

“Natka!”

He emerges from the booth, his eyes shining, and he shrieks into the wind.

He holds up his prize.

It is a baby.

“Naa! Naa kakee!”
I am screaming “No baby!” as loudly as I can as Kwihuu circles and dives over him, protecting him from the Origin Township citizens who are now coming after him. Someone shoots a laser rifle at him, grazing his fake arm. He laughs at his luck.

Why are they shooting? Gum
ro-ri-ta
men. They could hit the baby.

Natka is trying to make his way back to Suu, through the rifle shots and light arrows, but is not gaining much ground.

I continue yelling at him, but he either doesn't hear me, or doesn't care to listen. We cannot take Old Man Dan's baby. We cannot.

Horses are approaching now, and the men on them engage Fist and Jo and the others in a fierce battle to get closer to Natka. The Cheese warriors are very skilled and not so beaten down from weeks of heat. They easily overcome the humans, and signal Natka that it is time for this raid to be over. He still has his hands full with several armed homesteaders, though, and with me as I try both to protect him and to prevent him from leaving with the baby.

A belching one-man bounces into the market, careening into the melee. Old Man Dan leaps from the vehicle, red faced, sweating. Something glints from his vest. He is wearing Papa's sheriff's star. Papa is dead, then. Or was discovered on the flats and disgraced for violating the harvest season laws. It is too much to think about right now. It's all too much.

Old Man Dan yells, “You keep your hands off my daughter, you evil stinking Flatfaces!” Jo jumps on him, but Old Man Dan shoots her in the shoulder with a light rifle. Jo screams and falls into the scrub. Another Cheese
pulls her away and lashes her to a dactyl and then runs back to the fight.

There is enough confusion on the ground that Natka has made it back to Suu and has the baby in a sack on his back.

I fly over to him, hovering on Kwihuu and screaming down, “You cannot take this baby. She is not yours!” Natka says nothing, only lightly kicks Suu and she flaps her wings, readying to take to the sky.

Twisting the reins, I position Kwihuu barely above the ground in front of Suu. “Natka!” I shout, my beast facing his, their jaws snapping at each other. “Listen to me!” But he is not listening. He is waving his arms wildly at me. I turn in time to see a large piece of metal swinging at my head. I duck, feeling a scrape across my shoulder blades. Kwihuu cries out, her blood dripping onto my leg as a gash opens along her side.

I see only white as I leap from Kwihuu and rage toward the person responsible for hurting her. I tackle the man, wrenching the metal from him and hitting him across the face with it. He is unconscious only, I hope, and not dead, but he is bleeding very much. What have I done? I drop the metal, my hands slick with sweat and blood, yet gritty from all the dust.

“Mayrikafsa!” Fist yells. He points at Kwihuu.
“Kwihuu, hee ta!”
He is telling me it's time to leave . . . now.

My breath is tight, strangled. The chaos upon us has slowed before my eyes, the slashing of knives and flashes of
light moving in deliberate arcs before me. Even the screams seem to have slowed. I can pick out the Cheese from the men. The men are angry, hurting. The Cheese are dominant, prideful. My chest grows tighter and tighter. Is it the breathing sickness back again? Someone grabs my arm and pulls me to Kwihuu.

I am on her back, grabbing the reins without thinking, nudging her into the sky. The
zip-pew
of light arrows follows us, Kwihuu's blood trailing into the dusty wind behind us. Natka and Suu are up ahead. I cannot see if he still has the baby. I glance down below and see a boy pointing a handbow at me and staring. Our eyes lock for one moment and he drops the handbow, his mouth falling open.

It is Boone. Alive. In one piece. He looks skinny, but well.

I hiccup a relieved sob, not finding enough air, wanting to shout something to him, to apologize for everything that is happening, but I'm not conjuring any breath. Kwihuu moves faster, climbing high in the sky, away from light arrows and hunks of metal, away from the blood and pain and screaming, away from Boone, my friend from what feels like so long ago. I am gasping still, seeing stars through tears.

Another
Kwihuutsuu
pulls alongside us. It is Fist. He puts his hand out to my arm and squeezes. “Look ahead,” he says. “Only ahead. Feel proud.
Oo'ta kon famalil naa paht toofa'a
.” It's not so tragic if you don't look down.

I say it to myself over and over as I try to calm my breathing.

It's not so tragic if you don't look down.

It's not so tragic if you don't look down.

It's not so tragic if you don't look down.

22

WE MAKE CAMP FOR THE
night and I feel that my whole body is numb. I have injuries I do not remember sustaining. I think this is the same for all of us.

Jo is pulled from her
Kwihuutsuu
and laid out on a blanket. She groans and mutters from the pain of her injury, but Fist applies a poultice and gives her sleeping scrub and it seems as though she will be okay. It is not a mortal wound if we can keep infection at bay.

The baby, a small thing, yet old enough to sit and hold up her bald head, cries and cries. I know the people from Origin Township have set out to recover her, even if they don't know where to look. Babies are prizes to be protected and nurtured. Old Man Dan will not let this happen without a fight.

Fist holds the baby, shushing her and rocking her in slow movements. He drips water from his claw-nails into the baby's mouth, and the baby greedily laps it up.

“Mayrikafsa,” Fist says in a near whisper. “Come here.” I do as he says, even though my mind reels at what has happened during this day.

When I reach them, Fist takes some sleeping scrub and mixes it with the water to form a paste. He puts this paste on my clawless finger and motions for me to put my finger into the baby's mouth. I do as he says, rubbing the child's gums, feeling little buds of sharp teeth poking through.

Within moments, the baby is asleep. Fist lays her on a blanket next to Jo and turns to me.

“Natka say you try to . . . stop him.”

I nod. “I did not think he should take the baby,” I say, still feeling numb. “That baby does not belong to the Cheese.”

“It belongs with us,” Natka says, coming up to us. “As do you. It was born of this moon, as were you. Mara wills it.”

“Do I belong?” I run my hand over my face. When I pull it away, it is covered in smeared paint. “Have I ever really belonged?”

Fist puts his hand on my shoulder. “You my daughter, Mayrikafsa. You are Kihuut.”

“But why?” I ask. “You already have a child. Why do you need another? Why do you want me taking part in these awful things?” I look at the paint, the dried blood
on my hands. “Why
do
the Cheese take human girls? Is it because of Kailia? You know I cannot replace Klara's sister any more than I can be a true Kihuut.”

Fist gazes to the stars and then back at my face. “Not enough
kakee
,” he says simply. “No
kakoni
. No daughters. Kailia was the last.” He turns to Natka, speaking in Cheese so quickly I cannot follow. Natka nods and looks hard into my eyes. “The Kihuut cannot die out,” Natka says. “We must protect sacred land. So we take those born of this moon. Those who can feel A'akowitoa in bones. We must choose strong
kakoni
. Like you. Kalashava. Kamino.”

Not enough Kihuut babies. I think back upon the village and realize I've not seen any children younger than six or seven summers. And the children that are there are very few, and none of them girls.

“Also, we teach a lesson,” Natka says. “You humans come to our moon, take our lands; take what's not yours. Now you see how you like it.”

“The
Origin
crashed here by
accident
,” I say, feeling heat rise into my face, the numbness of the day finally wearing off. “We didn't steal land on
purpose
. We had no choice. We are stuck on this gum rock, dying off as well. Babies are sacred to
us
, too.”

Natka shakes his head. “But you come to steal land from Hosani peoples.” He points to the Red Crescent. “And instead you just kill them off.
Ro-ri-ta
hyoo-mans. How you get to Hosani if you kill the people
from
there?” Fist slaps his hand, hard, and hisses at him.

“My people weren't going to steal anything,” I say. “The Star Farmers Act gave them lands found in the Outer Rim. The Old Earth government granted the lands.”

Natka growls and slashes his fake hand through the air. “You cannot give land that is not yours!”

“
You
cannot take babies,” I say. “I cannot abide stealing people.” I go to Kwihuu, my head pounding, my heart pumping, and begin tying the bags closed on her saddle. I whip my blanket up off the dirt, shake it out, and tie it to her. “I do not want to be part of it.”

“Where do you go, then,
looa'a kakee
?” Natka asks, his right fist clenching at his side. “You gum
pitar
hyoo-man?”

“I go home,” I say, tightening Kwihuu's reins.

“To the village, then,” Fist says with a long sigh. He touches his hip and winces. He is sweating and seems resigned to let me have my tantrum.

“I think she not mean village,” Natka says, stepping so close to me that I can feel the heat coming off his body. “I think she mean to run away, back to hyoo-mans.”

Fist looks up, startled.

Is this what I mean? That I am to take Kwihuu and go back to the township? To return home, a captive no more? To eat sweet cakes and feel Aunt Billie pat my head as she soothes my woes? I am so confused and angry.

“What is for you there, Mayrikafsa?” Fist asks. His voice is low and humming like Mara's soft breeze. “Work in fields. Heat. Dust.” He gently pushes Natka aside and puts both hands on my sweating shoulders. “Your father
tell me to protect his
kakoni
. So this I did. I saw you bravery. I help you grow strong. Help Kihuut grow strong. This moon, Mayrikafsa, it is mother to us both.”

Fist hugs me tight, then releases me, wincing again and quickly touching his hip where I see a small amount of blood seeping through his
peltan
. He stares at me hard. “You Kihuut now, Mayrikafsa.” He puts one hand on the back of my neck, over the third eye, and pulls my forehead to rest upon his own. “You
Kihuutkafsa
. Warrior. As will be Kalashava, your sister.” He puts more pressure on the back of my neck, forcing my eyes to meet his. “You
kaykalaa
. You family.” Fist releases my neck and sweeps his hand to the side. “You
kaykalaa
not just to me, Klarakova, Natka, but to village, to Oonatka, Oonan, A'akow. Mara. You may be
krasnoakafsa
one day.”

My chest tightens more than it has all day. I do not know what to say, but worse, I cannot speak. My throat closes in on itself, the stars fill my vision. I gasp for air. The breathing sickness has been threatening to take hold all day. Why now? Why after so long? I fall to my knees, clutching at my throat and chest. I start counting, trying to slow my gasps, but it's not helping.

“It looks like she is soon to be family to Ebibi,” Natka says, brows furrowed. His hand goes to his chest, his eyes close and then open. He kneels next to me, scrabbling in a bag for something. He offers me a canteen, but I cannot stop gasping long enough to drink. I know it will not help
anyway. I need the drops. I need Temple to hold my hands and count for me.

“B-breathing a-attack,” I sputter.
“Naa mara.”
I point to my chest. No wind.

Fist throws me over his shoulder and jumps on Kwihuu.

I gasp and cough and my lungs feel like dust and fire. The stars in my vision are so bright. I am not long for consciousness.

Natka and Suu are alongside us as Kwihuu streaks through the night sky. I reach out to the Red Crescent looming so close. Would this have been my home? Where is my home?

Fist is yelling in Cheese, Natka is yelling back. My head lolls on my neck as Kwihuu shrieks into the sky. Yes, Kwihuu, sweet dactyl. This is how I feel, too. Only, I cannot make a sound.

I open my eyes to blackness, then close them again because there is no such thing as true blackness on this moon. Not with the Red Crescent glowing through the nights and the suns scorching the days. My chest is still tight, my breath wheezing. I am alive. But . . . I open my eyes again and it is still black.

Now there are voices. Fist. Natka. Arguing.

“Mitan. Hee ta!”

“Naa. Bibiloka, ke ro-ri-ta kakono!”

Why are they yelling about roots and . . . what? I see an orange glow swirling in the distance like a star that has lost
its way. I blink a few times and pull my hands off my chest so that I can push myself up to a sitting position. My hands touch the ground, and I yank them up. I am sitting on an animal. An immense beast.

“Fist!” I wheeze. “A'alanatka.” The lost star bounces to me and as it gets closer I see that it lights up Fist's face.

I put my hands down again, feeling the soft fur under them, shocked at the coolness of this fur, of the total blackness surrounding me. I sit up as Fist kneels, holding a flameless flare up to my face. Natka kneels next to him and they talk about me in Cheese. I understand something about my coloring and Ebibi and how I am not dead.

“What is . . . this beast?” I wheeze. My chest is loosening some and I take a great gulp of air.

“Beast?” Fist asks, putting a hand to my forehead.

I reach out and grab his hand that is holding the flameless flare and point it at the ground. Then I realize my mistake. It is not fur. It is some kind of fine, soft scrub covering all of the ground. It even climbs the wall behind me. I have never seen anything like it. I wave my other hand over the soft scrub and Fist laughs.

“
Ebishava
,” he says. “Plant of darkness.” He takes his hand from my forehead and adjusts something that is tied tightly against my throat. “Is working,” he says. “Ebibi
soka'a
show mercy.” He touches his chest and closes his eyes.

“Ebibi's ghosts?” I say, my breath coming ever stronger. My head still beats along with my pulse, but my lungs have
expanded. I feel as though I can breathe in all of the darkness. It is as if I am at the cooling flats again.

Through the sounds of trickling water, I hear Natka rummaging in a sack and then a blinding light sails up into the darkness. A true flare. And in the bright white glow that lasts only moments I can barely comprehend what surrounds me.

We are in an immense cave with countless tunnels leading to gods only know where. There are cooling crystals taller than four men standing on one another's shoulders, pools of water, sheer cliffs, clusters of more cooling crystals and other crystals that are white, green, gray. There are small plants, too, scattered throughout the fine, dense scrub that blankets the ground. These plants are heavy with brown fruit.

“Hashava!” I say. Natka and Fist smile.

The flare falls to the ground, its light dying out, but not before I see that littered under all the giant crystals and among the smaller clusters are even more cooling crystals. They lie everywhere, as if this cave is the belly of a beast that dines on—

The light is out. It is blackness again. I jump up, my heart buzzing. I have never been in such dark. Not even in the hiding pit. I feel it crawling all over me. I scratch at my eyes, gulp the air.

A hand reaches out to steady me. “We are in the caves of Ebibi,” Natka says gently. And though I can't see him, I am sure he is doing that thing the Cheese do when they
speak of Ebibi—touching his chest, closing his eyes.

“Life is plenty here,” he continues. “If you welcome the dark.”

This makes no sense to me, but I continue with my questions. “How did you stop the breathing attack? It usually takes special drops that only Aunt Billie has; that she found in short supply in the
Origin
wreckage and has been trying to replicate but with no—” A clawed finger rests against my lips.

“
Bibiloka
,” Fist says, taking his finger from my lips and tapping the object twined around my neck. “What you say . . . coo-link cree-steel. But blessed by Ebibi.”

My hand goes to my neck and I feel the crystal that is nestled in the soft divot between my collarbones. How did I never think of this? How did
Aunt Billie
never think of this? I always breathe so well at the cooling flats. It is such a simple answer that has eluded us.

“
Flotaka
,” I whisper.

Fist laughs. “
Naa flotaka.
It is Wantosakaal magic. And Ebibi magic.”

Fist cracks another flameless flare and his face shines orange in the light. Natka makes the silly hand gestures that Ben-ton does when he's doing his
ro-ri-ta
magic tricks.

This reminder of Ben-ton, another stolen human, opens the fresh wound in my memory. Natka. The baby. The awful raid. The poor homesteaders. Boone. It must show on my face because Natka's hand stills and his mouth goes small and tight in the orange glow.

“You are my sister,” he says. “You wear the bibiloka because we save you.”

I nod. “But I am also Temple's sister.”

“You are Kihuut, Mayrikafsa,” Natka says with force. “Kalashava is Kihuut. There is no more Tem-peel.”

I look up, and for the first time I notice that we are not in complete blackness. Not really. My eyes have adjusted enough to notice the millions upon millions of tiny glowing specks on the ground and the walls. I blink hard. He is right about Temple. I have known this for weeks, but have not wanted to admit it. Temple is no longer Temple. She hasn't been for a long time. She is more Cheese than I will ever be. She loves it with them. She is free with them. Her spirit now whirls stronger than a devil spiral in the scrub. She is happy. She thrives.