63: One Year Later

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“Did you hear what Lorna and Smon were talking about this morning?” Ketyk asks, landing on the large metal dish on the ground that Tyk is trying to inspect.

“What? No. You know I can’t hear enough of their sounds to understand their language. No woman can.”

“Yeah, most of the men can’t either, but that’s just because they can’t be bothered to learn.”

“Because they have more important things to do than eavesdrop on sky people all day, you mean?”

“Same thing. They’re arguing about the reservoir again.”

“Same argument?”

“Same argument.” Changing the pitch of his wingbeats to produce an uncanny imitation of their voices in translated words they can’t actually pronounce, he continues. “‘Oh, Smon, filling the reservoir only with microorganisms that are poisoned by too much seastone is inefficient! We could produce more food for the same sunlight if we were allowed to use other organisms! Also, it could create a critical food shortage if our ability to make soft water breaks!’ ‘Oh, Lorna, you know how unsafe anything else would be for the environment! We need to use ones that don’t like seastone so that we can never contaminate the ocean! And we need to be working harder to find ways to make sure we’re not contaminating the mountains and valley as it is!’ ‘Oh, Smon, if contamination were an issue then our own bodies would’ve done that damage already! This massive foreign biosphere will easily outcompete and smother any little microbe spill from our little settlement!’ ‘Oh, Lorna, we can’t be sure we haven’t contaminated it; we can’t predict knock-on effects…’ the point about how they’re gonna be here forever so trying to minimise contamination is fundamentally useless… the point about how it’s not useless because it gives them time to find solutions to problems… the point about how nobody can find solutions to problems before they happen because they can’t possibly predict what problems would arise anyway so buying time does nothing… same old, same old, same old arguments as always that go nowhere. It’s like they think that if they talk it out one more time then they’re finally going to agree somehow.”

“Did you come here to complain about old sky people arguments?”

“What? No. The traders are coming up.”

He suddenly has Tyk’s full attention. “The Redstone River traders?”

“Duh. Would I distract you from your oh-so-important ten millionth inspection to tell you about some other group of traders? I met one of the scouts, he’s cool. I’ll get him.”

Before she can say anything, Ketyk has taken off, and returns mere moments later with another, slightly older boy.

“Hello,” Tyk greets him politely. “And who are – ” She breaks off, because he’s landed on the metal dish, and she can see his wing colours. Not all of them have come through, but the ones that have are familiar. “Keyan. You’ve grown.”

“Hello, Tyk,” Keyan says, a hum of respect and slight awe under his words. “It is nice to meet you.”

Of course he doesn’t remember her. He’d been so young the last time they’d seen each other. “Is your truesister with the caravan, then?” she asks, which is a really stupid question, because of course she is, he wouldn’t be here otherwise.

“Yes!” There’s an undertone of pride in his words now. “She’s a diplomat, sent to witness history unfolding!”

Absurdly young for the job, Tyk thinks, but that’s a pretty hypocritical opinion. Presumably there are much older diplomats with the caravan, as well. She’d been half-tempted to make the journey to meet them at Glittergem, but the temptation to be here to help them actually set up the final touches on the Rayjo Tau had been too great. The final step, the raising of the dish onto the large tower built to hold it, will take place soon after the last delegation, the travellers from Redstone River, finish climbing the hill and join all the other witnesses.

There are a lot of witnesses. There’s usually a smattering of her kind hanging about the sky people site that Glittergem calls the Star Hive and the sky people call Rayjo One, mixed in with the still-growing population of sky people, but today the ridge is crowded with carapaces, some glimmering with gems and some carved with complex patterns, and the sky is busy with wings.

There’s so many people that Tyk can barely even make out the Redstone River delegation making their way out onto the ridge. Like everyone else, they haven’t attempted to drag their carts up the mountain, but presumably left them at Glittergem Hive and the women have their immediate supplies tied to their bodies with harnesses that they wear with an awkward unfamiliarity, even after the long climb.

Tyk vaguely recognises the whole group by sight, but the only one whose name she remembers is Ayan’s, by far the youngest in the group and with three gems on her carapace already, a large ruby and two smaller shards of pale quartz. (The sight of those, and remembering her own bare carapace, makes Tyk think she understands what Smon feels like without her silks.) The group look up at the huge, looming tower with awe and curiosity, then break up to look around and find friends from other hives. Ayan spots Keyan, then Tyk, and comes over.

“Ayan,” Tyk says.

“Tyk,” Ayan says. Her gaze settles on Ketyk. “You must be Ketyk. You look very strong-winged.”

“I am!” he says proudly, fluttering said wings. “I like your ruby! There’s lots of gems at Glittergem, but they only put them on the walls and stuff, which is a waste. The Southern women all look so cool with them all shining and glittering on their bodies when they move.”

“Ah. Thank you. I won that one for saving Smon, actually.”

“Oh, yeah, on the boat from Green Hills! I wish I was there, it was so cool.”

“You told him about that?” Ayan asks Tyk, sounding surprised.

“I don’t remember doing so,” Tyk says, which is a lie, and she knows her body language makes it an obvious one – she’s never been a great liar. “He must have heard it from someone on the wingsong stream.”

“I see,” Ayan says, in a tone that suggests she doesn’t believe her.

“You were all, ‘I’ve foiled your nefarious plans, Green Hills Hive! And now you will never hurt another sky person again!’ And they were all, ‘Aaaargh, for this, all of you will die!’ And then you fought to the death!”

“Well, no, that’s not quite how it happened,” Ayan says.

“And then Keyan went to get help and tell everyone about the betrayal, and you guys all won because you knew all their secrets and they couldn’t defeat you.”

“Well, no, that isn’t… I mean, some parts of that sort of happened…” She looks to Tyk for help.

“He’s always like this,” Tyk says wearily. “It’s easiest to just go with it.”

“Oh, don’t I know it,” Ayan says. “Keyan’s a bit overawed right now, but once he gets comfortable…”

They look at each other in silence for a bit.

“You look well,” Tyk says.

“So do you,” Ayan says. “It certainly looks very impressive, what you’re all building out here.”

“We’re all quite excited about it,” Tyk says.

Another long pause.

“Although I have to wonder,” Ayan says, “if the Rayjo Tau needs this big metal thing on it to work, how did Smon call all of these sky people here in the first place? There’s more here than were ever at any of the hives.”

“Oh, they can sent Rayjo messages a short distance without a tower,” Tyk explains. “Especially if they do so from really high up.”

“In the wingsong stream?”

“No, just high up. But this big dish will help them send them out much further, and get them from really far away. They’re also hoping – and this is not guaranteed, we might not get this – that other sky people on other continents might have had the same idea. And if they have a Rayjo Tau, and we have a Rayjo Tau, then the settlements can talk to each other. And that means that the continents can talk to each other.”

“That’s very exciting.”

“Yes. It might not happen, though. But even if there are no more Rayjo Tau just yet, being able to call sky people from further away will be very useful.”

Yet another long pause.

“Well,” Ayan says, “we should get ready for the big event.”

“As should we,” Tyk says.

“Thank you for inviting us.”

“Thank you for coming.”

And they go their separate ways.

Tyk talks to the other Redstone River people, re-learns their names. They thank her, as a representative of the project, for inviting them. She thanks them, as representatives of Redstone River, for coming. They express admiration of the tower, and of the settlement, though the sky people mostly live a little further into the mountains toward the valley and none of the visitors have actually seen most of the settlement. They share news from home, but it’s nothing that Tyk hasn’t already learned from Ketyk and her male friends, via the wingsong stream.

There’s still some time before the raising of the dish, and the ridge is far, far too crowded. Tyk retreats to one of the many little trails into the mountains that have been worn into the rock over the year.

She sits by herself, and tries to figure out how she’s feeling.

“Hi there.” Smon drops down from the rocks above. “Are you alright?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “What are you doing here?”

“Trying to catch some alone time before the Big Event. Which I’m guessing you’re doing too, so I guess I ruined that for both of us. Do you want me to go?”

“No.”

“You want to talk?”

“I don’t know.” Tyk slumps her body sideways into the sheer rock face beside them. “It’s stupid.”

“What’s up?”

“I just… I spoke to the Redstone River delegates.”

“Okay…?”

“And they’re fine. Everything at home is fine. I just… well, Ketyk’s colours are really coming through. Eventually, we’re not going to be citizens of a hive by virtue of our parents, but under our own right. And I guess I just kind of always had this idea, I don’t know, that when I met up with Redstone River again, that they’d… want me back, I guess.”

Smon looks at her in surprise. “You think they don’t want you back?”

“I mean, I’m sure if we stay with Redstone River, nobody would object. That’s the normal way to do things. People are members of the hive they’re born to unless they choose to immigrate and actively petition a new hive for citizenship, or they get exiled. But they just… they never really wanted me, you know? They were waiting my whole life for me to leave, and I guess I just wanted some kind of acknowledgement that I’d proved them wrong.”

Smon sits down on the path beside her. “Do you remember the journey from Redstone River to Green Hills?”

“Oh, yeah. Nobody in that caravan new how to handle a cart at all.”

“That’s true. But as we were approaching Green Hills, your parents took me aside for a little private talk.”

“A talk?”

“About you. They said that when you were born, it was one of the happiest days of their life, matched only by your sister’s birth. But that you were born with an awful destiny, an adventurer’s spirit that would take you away from them, and that was very sad. They made a pact that they would never let their grief over your destiny be your problem. That they would enjoy the time they had with you, and that they would do their best to never make you feel trapped, to always support your decisions over your fate and not make you feel bad for going wherever your life took you. They were explaining this, they said, because my presence was a clear and obvious sign that your destiny was fast approaching. In retrospect, I’m sure that they expected you’d just choose to stay at Green Hills with me; there’s no way that they would’ve been so supportive of you trekking across the Sleeplands without support like we did.

“They said that they didn’t blame me, that I was no more in control of my destiny than you were of yours. But they wanted me to promise that if I took you away from them, I’d do my absolute best to protect you, to make sure that you were safe and happy. Which I did promise, of course.”

Tyk takes a moment to digest that. All she can think to say is, “I’m surprised you could all have that conversation, given your vocabulary at that point.”

“Oh, that part was easy, since it was my fourth such conversation. The previous three were more difficult. I picked up some very specific terms for threats.”

“Sorry, the previous three?”

“Yeah, three separate groups pulled me aside for essentially the same conversation back at Redstone River. Two groups of your friends and family, and the hiveheart. Your older brother and sister are incredibly creative when it comes to threats, did you know? Those conversations were hard, especially the ones with your friends and family, because they involved a lot of abstract emotional pleading that I simply didn’t have the vocabulary for and had a lot of trouble understanding without you there to help. The hiveheart, at least, were more practical; practical words are a lot easier to pick up. A lot of ‘be informed and aware, honoured stranger, that we will consider any injury to a valued daughter to this hive to be an injury to the hive itself.’” Smon bites her lip. “Of course, I completely failed to actually fulfil my promises to keep you safe and happy.”

“What do you mean? I’m fine.”

“Of course you are. But not on my account. On our journey here, I never had to protect you; you constantly protected yourself, and me. And you figured out how to get help from Glittergem, and make them favourable to our mission so we didn’t risk another disaster like at the Green Hills Hive. And you seem happy, but again, that’s all because of you and your decisions. I wasn’t needed.” She rubs Tyk’s horn. “I hope you’re happy; if you’re not, you’d make a liar out of me to stay that way. Do you want to go back to Redstone River?”

“I don’t know. I guess I want to want to. I don’t want to prove people like Ayan right.”

“Why should Ayan’s opinions get to dictate your future?”

Tyk doesn’t have anything to say about that. “What do you think I should do, then?”

Smon raises an eyebrow. “Why should my opinions get to dictate your future? You have friends and history and homes halfway across the continent, Tyk. I think you and Ketyk should do whatever you and Ketyk want. Go back to Redstone River. Stay at Glittergem. Hey, go to Green Hills or run off to join the neima if you want. Did you know that your truebrother’s been talking to us about citizenship? He thinks it would be cool if you two became the first of your kind to officially join what Glittergem insists on calling the ‘Star Hive’.”

“We couldn’t do that! That’s impossible!”

“Why? My kind don’t have any rules about it. Do you?”

“Well, no, I…” Tyk takes a moment to think about her future. She knows she and Ketyk can’t leave this area, near Rayjo Tau; they can’t leave a job half-done. It would be unbearable to put so much into this project and then have to hear about the settlement’s development from somewhere far way, on the wingsong stream. “It’s still a long time before Ketyk’s colours finish coming through,” she says. “But having a lot of options is worse. That just means saying ‘no’ to a lot of options we don’t take.”

“Why?” Smon asks. “Immigration exists. Every hive on the continent would be honoured to accept you at any time. You stay for a while and decide to go back to Redstone River later? Do it. You go back now, then decide after ten years that you miss this place and you want to return? I’d really, really miss you, but if that makes you two happy, do it. You have the entire rest of your lives to decide what your future’s going to be.” She gets up, and knocks the dust from her legs and hands. “Now, if we don’t get walking, we’re going to delay the dish raising ceremony. Should we go and build a future?”

“Yeah,” Tyk says. “Yeah, let’s go and build a future.”

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