Alien Skies, page 28
part #3 of Wakanreo Series
Quolund came close and stood over him anxiously. “Are you okay, sir?”
Kamuhi looked up and saw Quolund’s craggy face looming over him. It made him feel a little like a rock slide was coming down on him.
“I’m all right, Sergeant,” Kamuhi said. “Except you might have to help me up.”
The sergeant hauled him to his feet as easily as Yulayan could pick up Malia. He waited until Kamuhi had caught his breath and then they faced off again.
They kept it up for the scheduled time. By the time Sergeant Quolund called a halt, Kamuhi was exhausted. Quolund was much quicker than Thouhuin and he had kept Kamuhi on the move for most of the time. He was breathing hard while Quolund untied the cord that bound his arm.
The Miloran tisked in disapproval. “I thought you were in better shape than that, sir. You look tuckered out.”
“I am tuckered out. Not everyone gives me as good a workout as you do, Sergeant.”
The Miloran seemed pleased with the compliment. “We’ll see how you do tomorrow, sir.”
Kamuhi was so tired that night, he fell asleep reading a journal before they even put Malia to bed. When he woke up in the morning, Malia was standing by the sofa and looking down at him.
“Why are you sleeping there, Daddy?”
Kamuhi sat up and looked around. His shoes were off, so Yulayan must have removed them and left him to sleep. “I must have fallen asleep here, sweetie. Where’s Mommy?”
“She’s fixing breakfast. She says you’d better get cleaned up, or you’ll be late.”
Kamuhi took a quick shower and got dressed. He was fastening his uniform tunic when Yulayan stuck her head in the door.
“Breakfast is ready,” she said. “If you hurry, you might just have time to eat it.”
Kamuhi gave her a quick kiss. “Thank you, sweetheart. I’m sorry I crashed on you last night. I must have been tired.”
“I had figured that out,” Yulayan said dryly.
Kamuhi got out the door just in time. He let himself into his office and checked the schedule. He had a staffing report due to Captain Drushachh that afternoon, he had a practice session with Quolund later that morning, and it was his turn to monitor the systems. He started on the report since it had the tightest deadline. He had gotten just about halfway through it when the com set beeped.
He pressed the respond switch. “Ensign Hailoaka.”
It was Private Schubert; the caption at the bottom of the screen said he was calling from the duty station at the main gate.
“I’m sorry to bother you, sir,” he said, “but you’re the only one I know on base who speaks Wakanrean. There’s an elderly Wakanrean woman here, and she doesn’t seem to speak Standard at all. I don’t know what she wants, and she won’t go away.”
“Did you try the translation program, Private?”
Shubert’s forehead wrinkled. “Yes, sir, but it said she was seeking salvation, and that didn’t sound right.”
Kamuhi debated. “Is anyone there with you, Private?”
“No, sir. It’s just me.”
Kamuhi checked his wrist com. He had some time before his workout. “I’ll be right there, Private. Try saying to her gousch tai.”
“Gousch tai,” Schubert repeated, passably. “What does it mean, sir?”
“It just means ‘wait,’ Private.”
“I’ll tell her, sir,” Schubert said. “But please hurry; she looks about two hundred years old.”
Kamuhi headed for the front gate. Headquarters didn’t get much traffic through the gate. Scheduled visitors, such as Wakanrean officials, usually arrived by flyter and were allowed to land inside the base after they identified themselves. Individual ThreeCon citizens with questions or problems usually went to the liaison office in downtown Wisuta. Still, Headquarters needed somewhere for walk-in visitors to present themselves, so they staffed a front gate. When Kamuhi got there, there was indeed an elderly Wakanrean woman waiting. She had made it into the small square vestibule in front of the gate and she was sitting in the middle of the floor.
“I said gousch tai to her like you said, sir,” Schubert related, “and she just plopped right down onto the floor. Geez, she looks old,” he added.
She was the oldest-looking Wakanrean Kamuhi had ever seen. It wasn’t unusual for Wakanreans to live to be a hundred and twenty or thirty years old, in Terran years, and Kamuhi knew there were plenty of people walking around who could remember First Contact a century ago. This woman looked like she might have been middle aged when it happened. Small wrinkles didn’t show on Wakanreans because of their facial fur, but major ones were even more noticeable than on Terrans. This woman’s face looked like a rumpled blanket. Her clothes were old fashioned—an ankle-length skirt that looked home-made, and a loose blouse with a wide belt worn over both. She wore no jacket although it was a cool day.
Kamuhi bowed formally. “Good morning, kantai,” he said politely in Wisutan. “How can we help you?”
She looked up at him and then held up her hand. Kamuhi realized she needed assistance to rise, and he helped her to her feet.
“Good morning, kentai,” she answered him in a gravelly voice. She had a strange accent and it took Kamuhi a moment to get used to it. “I’ve come to see the little parundai, so that before I die I can look upon the face of the new Paruian.
Kamuhi was taken aback. “What do you mean, kantai?”
“I’ve come to see the little parundai, the Trishenhai,” she said again. “I’m very old, and my time is near. I want to see her before I die.”
“Who is this Trishenhai, and how did you hear of her?” Kamuhi said, stalling because he needed time to think.
“She’s the daughter of the parundai who found shahgunrah with a juilanshai,” she said, using a Wisutan word that Kamuhi would have translated as “low life scum.”
“Why do you want to see the daughter of a juilanshai?” Kamuhi wanted to see how much the old woman knew.
She shook her head impatiently. “No, no, the juilanshai isn’t her father. Her mother threw out the juilanshai and took a fijazhai into her bed, so that she could give birth to the new Paruian.” Fijazhai was usually a pejorative word for a non-Wakanrean but the old woman didn’t say it as if it were a bad thing.
“Why would a parundai reject her shahgunrahai?”
The old woman sighed as if he were being very stupid. “Because she’s half fijazhai herself.” She looked up at Kamuhi and gave him a piercing glance. “Why are you testing me?” she said in exasperation. Suddenly she held out a hand and touched his arm.
“You are he?” she said, her voice rising with excitement. “You are the fijazhai!”
“We are all fijazhai here,” Kamuhi said, pretending to misunderstand her.
“No!” she insisted. “You are the fijazhai who’s the father of the Trishenhai. You must take me to her!”
She became quite agitated and Kamuhi was a little afraid of what might happen. Private Schubert had been watching the whole conversation without understanding a word except for fijazhai. He knew that one because he been called that in a bar fight.
“Is there a chair in your area, Private?” Kamuhi asked Schubert.
“Yes, sir,” Schubert said.
“Have you scanned her already?”
“Yes, sir,” Schubert said again. “No explosives, no weapons, no drugs, nothing.”
“Come this way, kantai,” Kamuhi said in Wisutan. He led the old woman into the guard’s room directly inside the gate and gently pushed her into a chair.
She didn’t want to sit, she wanted to see the Trishenhai and she said so. Kamuhi bent down so that his face was on level with hers.
“I must ask the parundai whether I can bring you to see her daughter,” he said. “You must wait here.”
That calmed her down a little. She nodded once, emphatically, as Wakanreans did, to signal the affirmative.
“Keep an eye on her, Private,” Kamuhi said. “I need to make a call.”
He stepped outside and used his personal com instead of the com set in the guard’s desk.
“You want to do what?” Yulayan said incredulously, when he reached her.
“She’s incredibly old, Yulayan,” Kamuhi said. “She says she’s going to die soon, and I think she’s right. What will it hurt to let her see Malia? Maybe she’ll be disappointed and go away?”
“And maybe she’ll tell everyone our daughter is the Trishenhai, and they’ll try to take her away from us!”
Kamuhi gave up. “All right, Yulayan. I’ll tell her the answer is no.”
He had pocketed the com and turned to go back in when it beeped. It was Yulayan.
“I don’t want her to come to the apartment,” she said. “I don’t want any of them to know where we live.”
“All right,” Kamuhi said. “How about the little park by the front gate? There’s a bench by some trees. I’ll wait with her and you can bring Malia there.”
Yulayan agreed, so Kamuhi pocketed the com again and went back inside. The old woman was still sitting in the chair.
“She hasn’t moved, sir,” Schubert said. “If I hadn’t been able to see her breathing, I’d have thought she was dead.”
The old woman looked up at Kamuhi. Her eyes were amber-colored, a common color for Wakanreans. In the bright daylight from the windows, her pupils were tiny dots.
“Can you walk a little ways, kantai?” Kamuhi asked.
She nodded and stood up.
Kamuhi made a notation in Schubert’s log that he was taking responsibility for admitting a Wakanrean woman to the base.
“What’s your name, please, kantai?” he asked.
“Umphauron Diow.”
“And how old are you, Kantai Diow?” The log didn’t require her age but Kamuhi wanted to know it from sheer curiosity.
“I am one hundred and seventy-two years old,” she said with undisguised pride.
Kamuhi calculated in his head. She was almost a hundred and fifty in Terran years. He added her name to the log and then took her arm to help her for the short walk.
She walked slowly but steadily. When they reached the bench, Kamuhi helped her to sit.
“We will wait here, kantai,” he said.
He sat down next to her. She said nothing, merely sat patiently. She seemed pleased, but Kamuhi was worried.
“You do understand, kantai,” he said, “that my daughter does not look qatorai.” He used the word that Wakanreans used to refer to themselves. If you tried to translate it into Standard, it came out simply as ‘human.’ Kamuhi went on. “Her mother looks very qatorai except for her eyes, but our daughter does not. She looks more like me than she looks like her mother.”
Umphauron Diow nodded. “This is necessary. The new Paruian will go among the stars. She must look more like a fijazhai.”
This was the first Kamuhi had heard of such a prophecy. “How do you know that, kantai?”
She shrugged and didn’t answer. Kamuhi heard a faraway cry and looked up. Yulayan and Malia were walking toward them. The little girl was waving at her father. “Daddy, Daddy!” she called in Standard. She pulled her hand out of Yulayan’s and ran toward her father.
Kamuhi held out his arms, and Malia ran to him and climbed into his lap. She curled up with her head against his chest and looked at the old woman next to her.
“Hello,” she said in Standard.
The old woman had been smiling, but now she looked disappointed.
“Malia,” Kamuhi said in Wisutan, “this is Kantai Umphauron Diow, and she doesn’t speak Standard.”
Malia nodded. “Hello, kantai,” she said again in Wisutan.
The old woman’s face broke out in a sunny smile. “Hello, little parundai.”
Yulayan came walking up and the old woman started to rise. Kamuhi motioned for her to sit and stood up himself, still holding Malia. Yulayan took his place on the bench.
“Kantai Umphauron Diow,” Kamuhi said, “this is my wife.” He had to use the Standard word since he refused to call Yulayan his shahgunrahai. “Parundai Yulayan Bellaire.”
Yulayan stayed seated but bowed to the old woman, who bowed back at her.
“I am grateful, parundai,” the old woman said in her gravelly voice. “I have little time left, and wanted so much to see her face before I die.”
Yulayan looked up at Kamuhi and then back at the old woman.
“How did you know about our daughter, Kantai Diow?” she asked.
Umphauron Diow smiled. “Why, I heard of her from another follower of the Disciples. We’ve always known that Paruian would come again when we needed her. But only lately have we known that the time was now.”
“Why do you need Paruian?” Kamuhi asked. “What trouble does Wakanreo face that her people need Paruian again?”
The old woman shook her head. “Our troubles are many,” she said, sounding almost grim. “There are fijazhai all over Wakanreo, but no Wakanreans walk on their worlds. There are those who claim that shahgunrah is a curse and they would be free of it, and those who cry that this is sacrilege. And there is a juilanshai who has stained the streets of Wisuta with the blood of a parundai—a thing too terrible to contemplate.”
Malia had lost interest in the old woman since she didn’t seem to be talking about anything important.
“Are you coming home now, Daddy?” she asked.
“Hush, guisha,” Kamuhi said. “Don’t interrupt.”
Umphauron Diow looked up at Malia as Kamuhi held her in his arms. “She will be the one,” she said. She held out a hand to Malia. “May I touch her, Parundai Bellaire?”
Kamuhi looked to Yulayan who said, “If Malia doesn’t mind, it’s all right.”
Kamuhi set the little girl down on her feet. “Kantai Diow would like to touch your hand,” he said to his daughter.
Malia nodded and walked two steps so that she was in front of the old Wakanrean woman. The little girl held out her hand, and Umphauron Diow took it. She held it in her own hand for a second, and then she raised Malia’s hand to her forehead, as if the little girl were blessing her.
Yulayan stood up. “I’m taking Malia home, now, Kamuhi,” she said in Standard. “Try to get her to promise not to tell anyone she’s been here.”
The old woman tried to rise but she wasn’t quick enough. Yulayan and Malia were several meters away before she could get up, even with Kamuhi’s help. Malia turned and waved goodbye.
Kamuhi helped the old woman walk back to the gate. Schubert was still on duty.
“How did she get here, Private?” Kamuhi asked, switching to Standard.
“Autocab, sir. Dropped her down right at the gate.”
“Well, call her another one,” Kamuhi said. “Wait here, Kantai Diow,” he said in Wisutan. “Another cab will come to take you home.”
“Thank you, kentai,” she said. “Now I can die with no regrets.”
Kamuhi remembered what Yulayan had asked him to do. “Will you thank me by not telling anyone that you’ve been here, kantai?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes I wander in my mind, kentai. No one would believe me anyway.”
She said nothing more, so Kamuhi started back to his office. He looked at his wrist com and realized he was going to be late for his workout with Quolund. He broke into a run, but it was still several minutes past the scheduled time when he entered the training room.
Quolund was waiting, none too patiently.
“Well, sir,” he said, “I thought maybe you had changed your mind about working out today?”
“I’m sorry, Sergeant,” Kamuhi said. “They needed an interpreter at the front gate.”
“Of course, sir.” Quolund didn’t seem pacified in the least.
“I can skip the warmup, Sergeant,” Kamuhi suggested.
Quolund looked appalled. “Certainly not, sir.”
Kamuhi warmed up quickly. Quolund stood impatiently the whole time, flicking the cord he used to bind Kamuhi’s hand back and forth against his leg.
Once Kamuhi was ready, Quolund came forward and took his hand without asking. He had Kamuhi’s hand behind his back and securely tied in seconds.
Kamuhi faced off warily. A Miloran in a bad mood was no laughing matter. He was right to be wary; the Miloran didn’t wait for Kamuhi to come at him, he charged. Only his quickness saved Kamuhi from being knocked to the floor. Kamuhi tried to turn the charge to his advantage by getting in a blow as Quolund went past but the Miloran caught his left hand and swung him around as if he were cracking a whip. Kamuhi flew across the room. He didn’t see the wall before he hit it because his back was to it. He felt a thump and then he saw nothing at all.
When Kamuhi came to, he was lying on the mat and Sergeant Quolund was holding something under his nose. Kamuhi smelled a chemical stimulant used in first aid, and he realized he must have passed out. The back of his head throbbed, and when Kamuhi tried to touch it he remembered his right hand was bound. He used his left hand instead, and he felt a bump on the back of his head.
“What happened, Sergeant,” Kamuhi asked.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Quolund said. “It was inexcusable. I lost my temper with you, and I lost control. If I had seen one of the staff do that, I’d have put him on report.”
“What exactly did you do, Sergeant? I can’t seem to remember the last few minutes.”
“I threw you against the wall, sir. You hit the back of your head. Luckily the wall was padded, but you hit awfully hard.”
“I can believe that. I have the bump to prove it. Can you help me up, Sergeant?”
The Miloran picked him up tenderly, set him down on his feet, and then he untied Kamuhi’s hand. “You’d better go to the infirmary and get checked out, sir. You might have a concussion.”
“I’m all right, Sergeant.” Kamuhi’s head was throbbing but he no longer felt dizzy. “It’s all coming back to me now. I was late.”
“Yes, sir,” Quolund said sorrowfully. “I hate it when people are late for a workout. It means they don’t think it’s important.”
Kamuhi started to shake his head and then changed his mind. “Not always, Sergeant.”
Quolund tried to get him to go to the infirmary again, but Kamuhi insisted he was all right. The sergeant was still remorseful and next suggested that Kamuhi put him on report. When Kamuhi merely laughed at this, he offered to put himself on report.
