Loka (The Alloy Era), page 23
“Thank you,” they murmured.
The rain increased in intensity. Our clothes quickly became soaked. The flames died out soon after, but the smoke lingered like a stubborn, unwanted guest.
“We need to get somewhere dry,” I said, shivering in the cool night air.
Somya tugged on Toya’s sleeve. “Your tent—still in your pack.”
She nodded. “I’m glad, but it would be better to get you away from the lattice. If the wind shifts, it could blow smoke this way.”
“We could head to the bottom of the ramp,” I suggested. “Some of the ground below will be protected from the rain.”
Toya nodded. “Good idea. Let’s you and me go back and get your bedrolls and cooking gear.”
“I can help,” Somya said, starting to rise.
Toya pushed them firmly back down. “You need to give your lungs time to clear out all that smoke before you exert yourself. Akshaya and I can handle it.”
We left Somya with an I-don’t-like-this expression on their face. The wind picked up and blew raindrops into my eyes. Wispy gray smoke swirled like fog around us. At the campsite, we didn’t bother loading up the makeshift trailer, instead shoving the essentials into the storage bags on the flanks of Toya’s mount. We returned for Somya—they rode atop the walker with Toya—and made our way carefully down the wet, slick surface of the ramp.
By the time we had a pot of millet and beans cooking, my stomach rumbled like the last of the thunder. I had crushed many of the fruits and vegetables in my earlier rush to stow the breather, and the combined flavors made for a strange but not terrible stew. The warmth of it soothed my raw throat.
“Ahh, that natural smoked flavor,” Somya commented with a grin.
Toya and I laughed. My heart lightened to see Somya’s good mood. The fire had been a close call, but if they could crack jokes, they would be fine. We had less than ten days until we reached Tongvana. I closed my eyes and sent a silent prayer to anything in the universe that was listening: No more surprises, please. Reaching the west coast was only the first milestone. Once there, we would have to find a boat and a captain who was willing to take us not only across the Pacific but across the equator via the Out of Bounds. One problem at a time, I reminded myself as we crammed three bodies into Toya’s single-person tent.
DAY 84
“This is one sight you cannot miss,” Toya insisted. “It’s worth a few extra hours, especially since today is Akshaya’s birthday.”
We arrived at Jadnut-Udebiga four days after the fire. Other than a nagging cough and more sleep than usual, Somya seemed fine. On the first day, Toya and I had forced Somya to ride on her walker while I towed their bike. Under the extra weight, the trailer didn’t hold together as well as the fabricated one, and I had to stop periodically to tighten the fastenings.
“I’m returning the favor,” I’d said, thinking back to our journey from Laietan to Nuberia.
We’d had to abandon the tent. In spite of the overnight rain and wind, it reeked of smoke, and none of us could imagine sleeping in it again. After that first night, I decided to let Somya share Toya’s tent without me. My decision had the double benefit of giving everyone a little more room and allowing the two of them some privacy. Fortunately, the storm was brief, and we’d had clear skies since then, so bedding down in the open wasn’t too uncomfortable. The nights were chilly, but they never got too cold, not like the temperatures we’d experienced in the OOB portions of Europe.
Jadnut-Udebiga lay in the middle of a long, dry stretch of land. The lattices had delivered water to these parts of NorthAm once upon a time, transforming an area that had been a desert into a more subtropical zone. Low-growing shrubs dotted the landscape, and convoluted rivers meandered through folds in the earth. We’d gained altitude, but the real mountains lay ahead of us, to our west, their peaks gleaming with snow.
Toya led us to the entrance of the famous caverns. She held Somya’s hand as we walked down a zigzag ramp. A cabinet at the bottom contained gloves and shoe covers. Oils, dirt, and bacteria could affect the growth of the cave’s formations, and a printed sign instructed us to stay on the walking path and avoid touching anything.
For the first few minutes, we had the whole place to ourselves. I felt like I’d entered another world. Crystalline stalactites descended from the ceilings while conical stalagmites rose from the ground. Here and there, massive columns—bigger than I could wrap my arms around—had formed where the two had fused. Tubes of bioluminescence in pinks, greens, and blues lit the formations in gentle hues that complemented their natural grays, whites, and browns.
We walked into a second chamber, where a couple of midsize alloys with elongated faces and webbed feet stood well away from the path. They turned to look at us.
The first one turned back to the surface in front of them. Their conversation shifted to their work and a bunch of scientific terms that I didn’t recognize. I was tempted to flash a retort to them, something to the effect of humans having more right to these caverns than a couple of alloys, but I resisted the urge. I had done enough harm with my accidental reveal at the hot springs. Unlike the bounders, two fully networked alloys could spread the news of my chromatophores to everyone in the CDS at the speed of light. I didn’t want to imagine what would happen after that.
Somya, Toya, and I continued on, winding our way past calcite formations that ranged from needle sharp to pillowy round. Some locations had small plaques with whimsical names like “Hall of the White Giant” and “Chocolate High.” If we’d had our public network access enabled, we might have found tags with all kinds of additional information. I mentally added Jadnut-Udebiga to my list of places to revisit.
We stopped at the lowest point—Lake of the Clouds—and listened to the slow chime of water drops echoing around us. I walked a little ahead of the other two, and when I turned back, Somya and Toya were wrapped in a kiss. Their relationship had a gentleness compared to the one Somya and Freni had shared, one that I didn’t mind so much, though it did sometimes make me feel lonely. Toya didn’t act threatened by my close friendship with Somya, and she seemed to like me as well, but I couldn’t help missing Halli in that moment. I’d liked them best of all our traveling companions, and I regretted that I would never see them again. Did that mean something more than friendship? I still had no answer for Somya’s question.
I left my friends to their romantic moment and strolled along the textured pathway. Like everything around me, the surface under my feet was either damp or wet. Moisture infused every breath. I shivered as I ascended a narrow staircase. Toya had insisted that we wear some extra layers and hats. I was grateful for that. I hadn’t realized how cold a cave system could get. It reminded me of the ice shield in Chedi’s outer hull, and I felt a sudden longing to be back there again, sitting on a walkway with Huy and Cariana with nothing to do but pass the time.
I shook myself free of nostalgia and focused on my surroundings. Earth had such wonders. Would Meru have anything like this? Even if it did, Meru didn’t have enough population for someone to make such a cavern easily traversable for humans. Why would my mother want humankind to inhabit a planet so devoid of beauty and wonder? But as I came back in sight of my friends, it occurred to me that few people on Earth cared to see these marvels. The cave should have been filled with visitors. Instead, it sat empty and largely neglected.
Did my mother really think Meru could harbor a society that made room for human curiosity without the associated damage? And if not, then what did that say about someone like me? Was I a danger to Earth? The Anthro Challenge had imperiled several lives, including mine, but we hadn’t caused much harm to the planet. Why couldn’t we build a more tolerant human society on our home planet? The OOBers, including people like Halli, already lived without much alloy assistance or interference. Lumo and the other bounders traveled without trashing the places they went. Humans had changed a lot since the Alloy Era began. Couldn’t we change a little more, recover some of our ambition without rolling our natures all the way back to our destructive origins?
“What do you think of it?” Toya asked as she reached my side.
“Amazing,” I said. “I wish more people could experience it.”
Somya squeezed past me, took three steps, and slipped. Their arms windmilled for a moment, then they fell backward into the lake and disappeared under its surface.
“Somya!” I cried out at the same time as Toya.
She acted faster, wading into the water as I stood and stared. Somya’s head popped up a moment later, then their torso. Toya took them by the hand and hauled their dripping body out.
Somya lay on the slippery path and coughed. “I’m fine.”
Toya and I frowned at them.
“Really, I’m okay. A bruised ego at worst, and plenty of shame to go with it.”
“Be more careful,” I scolded. I didn’t know what else to say.
Toya heaved Somya to their feet. Somya winced. Their hand gripped Toya’s arm as they grimaced, tried to put weight on their left leg, and hissed with obvious pain.
“I don’t think I can walk,” Somya admitted. “Sorry.”
Toya frowned. “Akshaya, help me support them.”
We each looped an arm under Somya’s shoulders. Using us as supports, they took a few tentative steps, putting almost no weight on the bad leg.
We made our way out of the cavern with excruciating slowness. The alloys had disappeared by the time we reached the second to last chamber. I was grateful for that. If they had noticed Somya’s injured state, they probably would have tried to help us. We returned our gloves and shoe covers and emerged under a sky blazing with deep-pink streaks from the setting sun.
“Aside from Somya’s leg, that was a perfect outing,” I said.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine,” my heartsib said. “Happy birthday, Aks.”
The tension in their back muscles told me something different.
“Happy birthday,” Toya added.
“Thank you both.”
On Chedi, our village would have hosted a small celebration, and my parents might have given me some small items, like hand-picked fruit or a new set of clothes. Somya would have come up with some fun new challenge for us. I hadn’t wanted to call attention to the date because I feared that Toya would find it awkward, and it wasn’t like we could do much to celebrate, but the caverns had exceeded any birthday I could think of.
“Let me take a look at your leg,” Toya said.
Somya sat on the ground while she gently probed their foot, ankle, lower leg, and knee.
“I can’t tell if you’ve broken anything, but it seems possible,” she said. “Just in case, we should make a splint for it.”
“A what?” the two of us said in unison.
“It’s a way to immobilize a broken bone. We’ll need some fairly straight pieces of wood and some strips of cloth.”
We continued back to our campsite. As we walked, we scanned the ground for sticks that met with Toya’s approval and gathered them in our packs. By the time we got Somya up to the top of the lattice, night had fallen, and Toya had to work by the dim glow of a lantern. We sacrificed a shirt for the splint. Toya tied the wood into four bundles, and with my help, used the remaining cloth to secure them around Somya’s leg.
“When we get to Tongvana,” she said, “my relative who is a doctor can take a better look, but until then, no more walking or pedaling. If it is broken, you could make it worse.”
Somya shot me a mortified look. “I’m sorry, Aks.”
“It was an accident,” I said. “Nothing to apologize for.”
I tried to keep my tone light and pushed away the questions that had risen in my mind. Would Somya be able to ride the walker? Would I have to tow them on the trailer with their bike? Could I handle that, and if so, how much would it slow us down? Could the trailer handle the weight? Even if it worked well enough on the lattice, we’d be back on the ground for the final stretch to Tongvana. Would it hold together over bumpy terrain? That’s a problem for another day, I told myself. Before that, we had to cover another thousand kilometers.
JAYANTHI (DAY 87)
Jayanthi wished she could hold Akshaya on her birthday and tell her child how much she loved her. She reviewed the most recent footage from Nara one more time. After the fire, Somya seemed to recover quickly, but they had injured their leg during the visit to the caverns with their unknown companion. Reshyan’s aerial recordings showed Somya with their leg in some kind of binding, while Akshaya gamely pulled the trailer. Worry creased Akshaya’s expression like folds in the land.
Jayanthi quelled her concerns and recorded a message for Vaha. Chedi had passed Earth thirteen days earlier and was now only two hours away at light speed, so they could communicate a lot more often, but it was too long for real-time exchanges.
“Remember the fire from a week ago?” she said after some initial pleasantries. “We saw that Somya inhaled quite a bit of smoke. It looked like they had recovered, but now they’ve done something to their leg. Akshaya is pulling the trailer with the extra weight of Somya’s bike. I’m not sure where they are headed, but I’m guessing it’s somewhere along the west coast of NorthAm. At their current pace, they should arrive in the next few days. I discussed the situation with a medical constructed mind, and they recommend that Somya get their leg examined.” Jayanthi chose her next words carefully. “If they’ve broken a bone, it will heal badly without treatment. We can’t know that unless they get a scan, but I doubt they’ll do so while they’re in Loka. Vaha, you need to discuss this with Gamo and Zohel. It’s their call whether to stop Somya from continuing on the challenge. This isn’t a life-threatening emergency, but it could have long-term consequences for Somya, including extensive medical therapy later on. I’ve included some relevant snippets of the recordings, with Nara’s permission. Let me know what Gamo and Zohel want to do.”
Four hours later, Jayanthi received a reply. Her visual display showed Vaha and Somya’s parents sitting in the second story of the grahin. Zohel’s lips were compressed to the point that the color barely showed.
Gamo leaned forward, resting their elbows on their bent knees. “I’m conflicted. If we intervene prematurely, we’ll void all the progress they’ve made.”
“So what?” Zohel demanded. “They’ve risked too much already—the river, then the fire, and now a possible broken bone. Are we supposed to wait until they’re at death’s door? What if they’re somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean by then?”
Jayanthi sympathized. Somya’s health ought to take priority, but the children had survived everything the Earth had thrown at them. She wouldn’t be surprised if they came through their latest difficulty as well. Akshaya would never forgive her if she called off the challenge without sufficient cause. Jayanthi wished her child could understand why Meru mattered so much. She also suspected that forcing the issue, especially via alloy interference, would sabotage any chance of opening Akshaya’s mind.
“I don’t think we should intervene,” Vaha said, as if predicting Jayanthi’s thoughts. Zir phores glowed with concern. “I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but many people—alloys especially—have started to follow the journey. A good subset of them are talking about the need for exile reform, and several have already proposed amendments to current policy.”
“What does that have to do with making sure our children are safe?” Zohel snapped.
Vaha’s phores flashed white.
“I’m sorry,” Zohel said. “I know you mean well, but I don’t see what a legal or political movement has to do with the current situation.”
“I should have made myself more clear,” Vaha said gently. “People have pledged to vote in favor of abolishing the practice of exile if Akshaya and Somya succeed in the Anthro Challenge.” Zie held up a hand as Zohel started to speak. “That’s not our responsibility, of course, but I thought it might be an added incentive to avoid interfering with the AC until we’re certain that it’s necessary.”
Jayanthi knew exactly where Vaha’s mind must have gone—to zir friend Kaliyu, convicted of intentionally dropping a contaminant on Meru’s surface and trapped in exile for three times the duration of Vaha’s. Jayanthi herself had prevented any lasting harm from the contaminant, and Kaliyu had later helped her and Vaha reunite from across the galaxy. Kaliyu’s sentence had devastated both of them. If Vaha could free zir friend, zie would do it.
“Did you sign the pledge?” Gamo asked.
“I did,” Vaha replied.
Gamo put an arm around Zohel. “Let’s trust the children to contact us before the situation gets dire. They’ve managed a lot of setbacks already. Somya is strong and smart. We can see that they’re resting and doing their best to take care of themself.”
“I don’t like it,” Zohel said.
“I know,” Gamo said. They drew Zohel in closer. “But we should take it day by day. Jaya, please reply as soon as you have any new information. We’ll be on Earth in a week.”
The recording ended shortly after. It irritated Jayanthi that Vaha hadn’t discussed the pledge with her before signing it, though it didn’t surprise her. She’d been so focused on watching the children’s journey that she hadn’t spent any time looking at people’s reactions to the show. She hoped that Akshaya and Somya didn’t know about the pledge. They didn’t need additional pressure to finish their ridiculous quest. Jayanthi thought about sending Vaha a message to express her feelings on the matter but decided to look into it first.
