The Color of Distance (28 page)

Ukatonen continued his exploration of the tinka’s body. It was healing well. Ukatonen worked on the almost-healed wounds, breaking up bits of scar tissue and clearing away the last bits of the fine thread that Juna used to close the tinka’s wounds. It was only a formality. The tinka didn’t need healing. His own body was strong enough to mend well. That was a good sign.

Ukatonen reached out to Eerin, joining her with the tinka, binding the tinka’s presence to Eerin’s, so that his body would recognize her as his sitik. Eerin let it happen, though Anito could still feel the flutter of suppressed fear. Anito felt the tinka reach out, enfolding Eerin, calming her, merging with her.

A tart wave of satisfaction indicated that Ukatonen was ready to begin the transformation. He released a bright, sweet flood of transformation hormones. It was the flavor of life, of hope. A wave of powerful nostalgia swept over Anito. She remembered awakening from her own transformation with that taste in her mouth. She half-expected to open her eyes and find Ilto hovering solicitously over her.

She remembered how her first real thoughts had bubbled up from her brain. They were clear and sharp, unlike the hazy, frightened memories she had of being a tinka, and the muddy sensations of a narey. At first she had thought that an elder was somehow speaking to her inside her head, but then she felt her own awe and fear and wonder and realized that she was the source of that voice.

Ukatonen triggered the changes that would cause the neurons in the tinka’s brain to replicate and branch, make the small body begin to grow. He also made the tinka capable of skin speech.

With that, Ukatonen was done; a new bami was created, a new future begun. Ukatonen released the sweetness of his own joy into the link between the four of them. Anito responded in kind, her doubts about the tinka’s adoption swept away in the joy of the moment. Together they soared higher and higher, each feeding off the other’s joy. Eerin was carried along, her fear washed away by their shared exultation. Then Ukatonen broke the link. Eerin was so drained by the experience that she hardly noticed when they eased her into bed. Then Anito slid gratefully into her own bed and fell asleep.

When she arose the next morning, Anito ate, drank, and washed, then went over to the bed where the new bami lay, and sank a spur into his arm to check his progress. He was doing well. If everything proceeded smoothly, he would be ready to awaken in another couple of days. She left the bami to sleep, and went to see what was happening outside. It was raining hard, streams of rain pouring down the inside of the trunk. The village bustled with preparations for the annual migration to the coast. Tinka and bami hurried up and down the tree, ferrying gourds and baskets to the upper storerooms where they would be safe from the coming flood.

Anito followed the stream to the broad beach where the villagers were making the final preparations for the long, hard trip downriver. Ukatonen and Eerin were helping Ninto and Baha tighten the lashings on their raft. With a faint ripple of regret Anito took the braided rope that Ukatonen handed her. She owed a considerable number of obligations to Ninto and the other villagers who helped gather the materials for this raft while she was traveling back from Lyanan. Without their help, she would have been stuck here alone during flood season, unable to trade downriver. That would have left her with nothing to trade to the mountain people during the dry season. She needed to trade [[w« .1]] this trip so that she could settle her debts before Ukatonen took her away to become an enkar.

They had very little time. In another couple of days this beach would be under water, and the villagers would be setting out on migration. Fortunately, Eerin was clever with her hands and had rigged up a device that enabled them to tighten the lashings more quickly and tightly than they could have managed by hand. With Eerin’s help they finished the raft before nightfall. That gave Anito an extra day to gather some much-needed trade goods.

Most of her trading stock came from Ilto’s stores, plus a few small things that she had made or picked up while traveling. There were several large rolls of waxed sinew thread, enough to make some fish nets while they rafted downriver. She also had several stonewood fish traps, and a box full of carved bone fishhooks. Ilto’s supplies yielded several large gourds of preserved fruit, two dozen pots of honey from his na trees, and eight gourds of beeswax. There was a large waterproof basket filled with dried grass, and several bundles of cured reeds. It wasn’t much, but if she traded carefully, it might be enough to pay off the obligations she’d incurred.

Late the next afternoon, Anito and the others finished securing their trade goods on the raft. When they were done, they went back to check on the new bami. His mottled skin had faded to the even pale green of a healthy bami, and he slept peacefully, his breathing even and deep. Ukatonen linked briefly with the bami.

“He’s ready to wake,” the enkar announced, rippling with satisfaction.

“I’ll go tell the rest of the villagers to prepare. We can introduce him at the leavetaking banquet tonight,” Ninto said.

Ukatonen flickered agreement, and Ninto left. Eerin was sitting off in a corner, playing with her talking stone. Ukatonen regarded the sleeping bami pensively. “How should the bami be awakened?” he asked. “Eerin will need our help to do it properly.”

“I don’t know, en,” Anito said feeling angry at him for asking. It was his decision that brought them to this impasse; he was the one who should come up with a solution. “Why are you asking me? I’ve never wakened a bami before.”

Ukatonen looked at her. “You’re going to become an enkar, kene. You will have to answer harder questions than this one. It is time you started learning how.”

Anito looked down at the floor. Sadness washed over her as she thought of leaving Narmolom for the isolated life of an enkar.

“Yes, en,” she said. She wanted to ask how long she had before he took her away from Narmolom, but she was afraid of the answer.

Irritation forked across Ukatonen’s chest. “You are a young elder now, learning to make important decisions. There are good reasons for me to ask you how to do this. This is your village; you know the people here better than I do. This also affects your atwa. Now, I ask you again, how should we waken the bami?”

“I think,” Anito said, “that we should ask Eerin about this. It is her bami. She should help decide.”

Ukatonen flickered agreement. He chittered to draw Eerin’s attention, then beckoned her over io join the conversation.

She looked puzzled when Anito asked her about waking the bami. “I don’t understand. Is there something special about this?”

Anito restrained a flash of impatience at Eerin’s ignorance.

“Wakening a bami for the first time is important,” Ukatonen explained. “It is when you bond with each other. It is the best memory most of us have. There is nothing else like that moment.”

“How is it done?” Eerin asked.

“The bami will not awaken until you link with him. That first link is very important. It is then that the bond forms between a bami and its sitik. They learn to know each other in that link. The bond created by that link remains until the sitik dies or leaves the village,” Ukatonen said.

“I don’t know how to do that,” Eerin said.

Ukatonen held out his arms, spurs up. “We will show you what you need to know.”

Anito clasped one hand to Ukatonen’s arm, so that their spurs were lined up. Then she held out her free arm to Eerin.

Eerin hesitated a moment, then reached out to join the link. Despite her outward show of determination, Eerin’s blood sang hot with fear. Anito wondered why Eerin tried to hide how afraid she was. They could taste the fear in her blood as soon as they linked.

Anito expected Ukatonen to act, but he waited until Eerin’s fear began to ebb. Slowly, so slowly that Anito didn’t realize what was happening until several minutes had passed, Ukatonen began to feed calmness into Eerin’s body. Eerin remained completely unaware of what Ukatonen was doing.

At last Eerin was deeply entranced. Ukatonen began sliding more mood-altering chemicals into her system, stimulating feelings of harmony, awe, and wonder. Anito’s own mood shifted with the changes in Eerin’s mood. Ukatonen filtered most of Anito’s feelings out of the link, letting Eerin’s mood build with only subtle nudging from him. Anito breathed deeply, and focused on creating a well of calmness in herself, damping down her emotional resonance.

Doing so went against all of her instincts. The harmony created by linking was based on the interplay and gradual building of shared emotions into a whole that was greater and more profound than individual experience. This was much more difficult. It took a tremendous amount of control to work like this. Eerin’s mood built slowly into ecstasy. Slowly Ukatonen released his control, letting his emotions melt into Eerin’s. Anito matched Ukatonen’s release, gently letting her emotions leak into the link until the three of them achieved emotional unison.

They rested in harmony for a while, letting Eerin get used to the feeling. Then Ukatonen’s presence nudged Anito toward Eerin. He wanted her to do something. She flavored the link with a mild interrogative. Ukatonen sent back the flavor of first awakening. Anito acknowledged Ukatonen’s request, and let Ukatonen guide her and Eerin together, into the deep harmony that preceded an awakening. Eerin’s alien flavor grew strong in her allu-a. Anito felt it color her presence, felt her own presence merging with Eerin’s, found herself sensing alien flavors, smells, and feelings. She realized that the new creature was sexually receptive. The link aroused Eerin. Anito instinctively matched Eerin’s sexual arousal, and felt Eerin pull back in sudden fear. Caught up in the link, Anito mirrored that fear. Ukatonen, monitoring, broke the link before the resonances of fear and arousal built further.

Ukatonen’s skin blazed a brilliant, erotic gold as he emerged from the link. Anito felt a strange urgency. The skin along the small of her back tingled and itched. Looking down, she realized that she was glowing gold as well. The new creature had brought them into heat, months out of the proper season. Eerin’s skin shaded from gold to an alarmed orange. Anito looked away, shamed by her own lack of control.

Ukatonen touched Anito’s shoulder. She glanced up. He held his arms out, spurs upward. His nearness made her head swim. She turned her back to him and presented herself. Her skin felt hot and dry. A mating croon escaped from her throat.

“Not now, little one,” Ukatonen said, the words nearly unreadable in the brilliant blaze of his skin. “Link with me. I will make this stop.”

She held out her wrists. Her skin was covered with tiny raised bumps. The touch of his hands as they closed around her arms was so intense that another croon escaped her lips. Then they linked, and coolness flooded her body like water from a mountain stream. The urgency ceased as suddenly as it began; her skin relaxed into smoothness, and she no longer felt the urge to croon.

Ukatonen broke the link. Anito opened her eyes, turning lavender with relief as she realized that she was no longer in heat. She looked up at Ukatonen. His skin was back to normal as well. A slow ripple of amusement flowed over him.

“That was remarkable,” the enkar said. “What did you think of it?”

Anito looked away. “Please excuse me, en. I did not mean to behave so—”

Ukatonen gently turned her head toward him. “Don’t be ashamed, kene. My control hasn’t been broken like that since long before I became an enkar. Unless there is something wrong with Eerin, the new creatures are always in heat. It wasn’t your fault. You behaved with admirable control, especially for one so young.” A faint ripple of regret passed over him, quickly subdued. “It was good, in some ways. Now you’ll know what to expect during mating season, and perhaps you won’t be as frightened and ashamed by your lack of control when it happens to you at the proper time.”

Juna felt the link break apart, but remained seated, eyes closed. It was good to be alone inside her skin again. The link made her feel incredibly vulnerable, as though there were no boundaries between herself and the aliens. Even the intense pleasure frightened her. It would be too easy to lose herself in it. Her loins throbbed with sexual heat. Her skin felt warm, as though a lover had been stroking her. She opened her eyes. Her skin was a brilliant, metallic gold. Was this the color of sexual arousal? The aliens were the same shade of gold. Juna fought back a wave of panic. Did this mean they wanted to have sex with her?

Anito looked at her, then back at Ukatonen. Her skin flickered, but the angle was bad and Juna couldn’t see what she was saying. Then Anito turned away from Ukatonen and squatted, back arched tensely. It looked disturbingly reflexive and animalistic, not like something an intelligent alien might do. Juna backed away from the aliens, but they were too caught up with each other to notice. Ukatonen touched Anito’s arm. Anito made a low, crooning noise and turned to look at him. Then they linked, and their skins faded to their usual pale green.

Juna relaxed. Whatever had happened, she sensed that it was over. She remembered her own sympathetic arousal, and colored deeply with shame.

Anito touched her on the arm. “Are you always like that, or is something wrong with you?”

“Like what?”

A patch of bright gold flared briefly on Ukatonen’s shoulder. “Like that,” he said, pointing to the patch of gold.

Juna flushed brown as she realized what they meant. “My people are always a little—” She concentrated and a square of gold appeared on one breast in a sudden flare of warmth. “When we meet someone we like a great deal, we can become very—” A patch of gold flared again; then, remembering Ali, she turned gold all over.

The aliens’ ears spread wide, and they looked at each other, coloring deep fuchsia with amazement. They leaned forward, watching as the gold faded from her skin.