Chapter Four
Jerekkil knew she was coming long before he heard her.
He crouched without a sound, slowly drawing further into a shoal in the riverbank, his body pressing into a thick carpet of spongy leaves, macerated by the wet bog beneath. After a moment, he dared to breathe, inhaling the thick, woody scent of the bank.
“Jerekkil, time to come back inside,” Malina called, drawing close to him now.
Jerekkil tried to keep quiet. Malina was unconsciously heading towards him.
In desperation, Jerekkil’s eyes darted across the waters of the moss-banked, river-fed pond as though searching for something to aid his cause of escape; he alighted upon a stone balanced precariously on a high acclivity overlooking the water and stared hard at it.
The wind picked up, making a melody through the reeds and high grasses on the far bank. The gentle sound was interrupted as a large stone plopped decisively into the still pond below.
Malina turned her head at the sound, scanned the area. Suddenly a smile lit up her face.
“Oh no, Jerekkil, it won’t work. Now I know you’re here.” She called, not even bothering to dissemble her trump card.
She knew Jerekkil was a proto-telepath. Young though he was, Jerekkil had the fleeting power to move matter, to catch a thought in the air, to sense the moods and feelings of others. He had to be nearby. Did he think she would be fooled into believing that he was walking on the other side of the bank?
Still, she walked past him, heading towards the eastward path, scrutinizing the trees with sharp eyes.
Had his mother really overlooked him? Jerekkil wondered, as guilt began to grow in his young heart.
He hesitated until he couldn’t bear it any more.
“Here I am,” he called, jumping from the near bank. Malina stopped far ahead on the main path and retreated, wearing a face that tried hard not to smile. “You knew!” Jerekkil said, gauging her expression, his own face suddenly crest-fallen.
Malina nodded. “How many times have I told you not to play those tricks, Jerekkil?” she asked.
Jerekkil sighed. “It was just a stone.”
“And next time it will be something bigger, and you won’t have the power to stop it. You might do something you’ll regret,” she added furtively.
Jerrekkil’s eyes stared at her, not comprehending.
“Let’s get back to the house before the sun sets, okay? And you need to take a bath, young man,” she told him, but her words were wooden. She was looking at her son and seeing herself when she was young. She would have adored him regardless of that.
What made it so difficult for those born in Firien to leave the settlement? And why did those who left inevitably return to visit this place time and again, this wild land north of the weather-safe ring? But would Firien hold Jerekkil, this adventurous son of hers? Would these rambles by the lake be enough to contain him? For she felt nothing would content him; Jerekkil’s heart was wild, and he would have to go many places in the world, she thought.
They picked their way over the forest path and headed back towards their dwelling, which faced north northwest, located on a bend in the lake just past the eastern shore, near the water but settled further away, among the lyra trees that spread in a wide band away from the lake. Most of Lake Firien continued to the East of them, but in the small bends in the shoreline to the north of Firien City, the small ancient community thrived.
Their community had grown smaller than it had once been, and newcomers still came to it from the city at times to replace those who departed and never returned, but the people of north Firien never rejected the new arrivals, even though they knew their ways were slowly dying. Part of that was to live by the code that all humans were brothers and sisters, a code that outsiders derisively ridiculed for its quality of foolish idealism.
"Your grandmother is here for a visit, Jerekkil," she told him as they trekked along; Jerekkil was stamping on tree roots as he made his way down the path half a pace ahead. He stopped and turned around; she laughed, laughed at his bright eyes shining through the dirt on his face. Her wild son, her one natural son—Malina had given life to him herself, rather than having him grown for her by ectogenesis in an artificial life chamber. Jerekkil was the product of natural genetic selection; she sometimes wondered if that was why he was so bold.
He hadn’t been tailored by the geneticists to eliminate or augment certain traits, a practice common for more than two thousand years, since the time when Seynorynael had discovered Berracha(y)i and its strange but humanoid population. Berrachai, as it was pronounced by most Seynorynaelians, could not produce viable mixed-race offspring until they had undergone much genetic alteration—assuming they wanted to do so, and half-race children of this kind were rare.
Some people might have said Jerekkil would not have the advantages of the many children who had been genetically tailored. Now nearly half of all "births" were artificial, even south in Firien City. In Ariyalsynai this year, Malina heard, the number had reached an unprecedented sixty-four percent.
But Malina knew that her son was in no way inferior; she was convinced that supposed purification of traits in the artificial tailoring actually reduced unknown combinations of traits in the gene pool, that by attempting enhancement of intelligence and other desired characteristics, the geneticists were actually weakening the race over time, perhaps making the entire race prone to the same diseases and weaknesses.
Jerekkil, this wild son who disappeared so often into the sylvan land whenever he got the chance, was recklessly independent, intractable, but at the same time highly sensitive. His balance was good, his hearing acute, his coordination excellent, but to what purpose? Jerekkil could read the skies for signs of weather change, read the winds for the taste of inclement weather, and he knew the name and use of every plant out here in Firien. What kind of talents were these to the world?
Malina knew Jerekkil needed to be trained for his future, and for that she was going to have to sever his attachment to the land.
She shook her head forcefully and tried to concentrate on something else.
“Allia?” Jerekkil asked; Malina nodded.
Jerekkil suddenly turned and tore down the path, heading for the dwelling, followed by his mother’s laughter.
He was sitting at Allia’s feet ten minutes later when Malina returned, letting the heavy weight of the back door close softly.
Allia now lived with Malina's brother just outside Lake Firien in order to be nearer to the medical facilities in Firien City; Malina knew her mother had caught the old-age wasting sickness, caused by the intense radiation of Valeria, even though it seemed the lively woman would never quite give in to the disease’s crippling effect. Bone strengthening procedures and muscle and organ replacements had done little to stall the progress of the baleful disease. Malina struggled to accept the reality that Allia had come to visit for perhaps the last time, but she remembered to find her smile and to wear it when she gazed into the living area with its bucolic furnishings and bare, wood-planked walls—and she remembered, how she remembered, the days of her youth in this house. Her father had already passed on, and her brother Colim had left Firien for the city.
“It was a long trip coming up,” Khustav whispered behind her, giving her a start. She turned around, her heart racing, breathing heavily. “I told your brother we’d contact him if it seems like she’s going to pass on—”
“I know,” Malina replied.
Khustav sighed, then turned to watch his son who was thoroughly engrossed in Allia’s story.
Khustav Hinev paused a moment to reflect upon his fortune in life; had he ever thought to live in a land so rich with life and color and air so achingly sweet that a man could drink it for the rest of his life and still never be satisfied? All those years ago, he had left Ariyalsynai on a whim and come to visit the Firien province with his yearly vacation
allotment. The cottages at the south end of Lake Firien, renowned by tourists, had been entirely full as usual with the elite fleeing the capital for the undomed beaches; Khustav could only afford to stay a day in Firien City and trek to the seaside—until a bright-eyed stranger on the street advised him that the area north of the changewinds was even lovelier than the south and nearly unknown to tourists, even in the warm season.
Still skeptical, Khustav had tentatively booked a tenday in a local cottage in the north and made the hour-long journey northward in a small, rural transport; but oh, could he have known the wondering turns of auspicious fate?
He was only sorry he could never have thanked the stranger; northern Firien was the most beautiful landscape he had ever seen, and he had spent several tendays there, using up his next vacation allotment as well, for he had met the young Malina and her family that warm season, fishing out on the waters with her cheerful, bombastic father Vilner, a man with a hearty laugh, full-fleshed cheeks and stout strength, her quiet, observant, fiery-tempered brother Colim, and the garrulous Allia. After a pleasant day, they had generously invited him to stay with them at this dwelling. Khustav left his rented cottage when he could stay no longer and paid a modest rent for the two of the upstairs rooms. After three tendays, he had quit his employment as a civil servant in Ariyalsynai and taken up a post in the local trader’s supply house outside Firien, where Malina worked in quality control statistics.
When he and Malina were attached, Khustav had adopted her family as his own, and more often than not, Khustav sat on the sofa when Allia came to visit, as entranced by the tales of the former glory of the Firien settlement as his young son, tales of the comet riders Khustav had thought didn’t really exist back in his cosmopolitan life in Ariyalsynai, tales he had never heard presented with such detail and accuracy.
"Grandmother, are the legends true?" Jerekkil always asked after an evening of storytelling. Allia would smile and say that some people believed it to be so. It was as much as she would admit to believing them herself in her daughter and son-in-law's company.
Allia knew that Malina didn’t believe in the ancient stories, that she considered them tales augmented by the imagination of the downtrodden dwellers of rustic Firien, who merely wanted to believe that they had once had a glorious past, in order not to be disappointed by the depressed economy of the present.
Malina didn’t want her son to know what a painful reality it was to learn that the tales weren’t true, for Malina herself had left Firien before Khustav came, left to roam the wide world as far away as the Kilkoran Sea, and had returned to Firien knowing that the world outside the settlement thought nothing of the people who lived there. Nothing of value had ever come from Firien, and nothing ever would.
Malina knew Jerekkil believed in the stories; she only allowed herself to tolerate this spinning of nonsense because she knew Allia had been told she had less than a year to live.
Khustav wandered into the room as Allia told a story about the founding of the northern colony; Malina followed, and Allia’s quick eyes flicked to acknowledge the presence of her new audience.
"Are the comet rider's descendants really the proto-telepaths?" Jerekkil asked at the end of Allia's tale as he squirmed into a better position on the rug; his feet seemed to have fallen asleep.
The proto-telepaths live at Firien alone because it was here that the colonizers came...
Malina gave a start; her eyes darted to her husband, who sat, unperturbed, on the sofa, watching Allia. Allia had spoken to Malina with her mind.
“What’s a—colonizer?” Jerekkil asked, looking up at Allia.
Malina felt an involuntary shiver run down her spine. Jerekkil had also heard Allia.
Allia looked across at her daughter.
Yes, Malina, as much as you deny it, you are a proto-telepath. Like me. Like your grandfather.
"I don’t know,” Allia answered. “But they are mentioned in the family record.”
“What are you talking about, Jerekkil?” Khustav asked, in his deep voice and direct manner.
The boy turned to his father with a bright, intelligent gaze. “Allia was saying that the people here are proto-telepaths because of the colonizers.”
Khustav laughed and mussed the top of his son’s hair; his heart swelled with an appreciative fondness of his son’s enthusiasm.
“Can I see the family record?” Jerekkil asked. He waited, wondering—the moment was everything to him, though he hadn’t even known about the record for more than a moment of his long life—at least, he considered it long. Every time a person asked him his age, he tallied up the years with a sense of pride, thinking how very wise he had gotten to be, even though his elders didn’t appreciate it.
“We don’t have one—” Malina began to say, but Allia’s eyes sparkled mischievously, and she reached over to her belongings, rummaged around in them, and pulled out a coiled-up, crystalline fiber parchment. After a moment, she made a gesture to invite young Jerekkil onto her lap. Malina made signs of protest, but Allia took no notice of Jerekkil’s dirty clothes and feet as he clambered onto her smooth white garment.
Jerekkil sat coiled up on Allia’s lap for a long time, and they began to read the record together; Khustav seemed to recall something significant and got up, heading off on a more important errand outside; Malina just sat on a wooden panel, feeling a sense of her own disillusionment washing through her.
"And here you are at the bottom of it all," Allia smiled at Jerekkil after a while; she pointed down the long, unfurling, ancient scrap of indestructible chordent material upon which their distant ancestor had begun to record his family history. "And you must record your children upon this—my father told me it is the original, though many copies have been made. But the original always remains at our ancestral dwelling in Firien, so I will give it to you today to keep for your children."
"Did the same ancestor who built our original home begin the family record?" Jerekkil asked.
"Yes, he did.” Allia replied. “And it was he who was said to have been a leader on the journey of the comet riders. Here is his name at the top, with the name of his wife. If you can believe this document, he lived many years even before they came here."
"Adam and Fahlia. What was the family name?" Jerekkil asked, confused.
"Dheemeettriehv." Allia said, pointing.
“I can’t read those letters,” Jerekkil said, his nose wrinkling in concentration.
"I think it's time for sleep now, Jerekkil," Malina interrupted, throwing her mother a look that said she had filled her grandson's head of nonsense enough for one evening. Jerekkil reluctantly obliged, first kissing Allia good-night before he left.
“What is it?” Malina demanded a moment later; Allia’s watery eyes seemed profoundly sad.
"Dear, you haven't given up believing in the stories, as much as you fool yourself.” She said, shaking her head. She didn’t want to have to force Malina to believe, but she knew that she still had a powerful sway over her daughter, almost as great as the influence of Khustav, and she would do all she could to use that primal influence, an influence which no amount of passing time could subdue. “And you mustn’t underestimate Jerekkil. He may be just a child now, but he already knows his own mind. And he will one day learn to use his talents—”
“That’s what I’m afraid of, mother. What if he—”
“Malina, you have to forget what happened.”
“I thought I could. But mother, ever since Jerekkil started showing signs of—reading thoughts, moving things, I haven’t been able to get that afternoon out of my mind. I wasn’t able to see that transport coming around the bend, mother, and.. it should—it should have hit me, but instead those three tourists died—”
“Malina,” Allia said very softly. “I’m going to admit something to you.”
“What?”
“You weren’t the only one w
ho caused the transport to veer off the path. I think, rather, you had nothing to do with it.”
Malina shot up, then stood paralyzed. “But—you never had the telekinetic power—”
“I moved it,” Allia said, shaking her head, then faced her with a hollow, worn-out expression. “That was the one time I was able to do it. I moved that transport because I couldn’t bear to let my child die.”
“Why didn’t you say this before?” Malina demanded.
“You didn’t believe in the power, Malina. And after all of these years, I didn’t know you could hear my thoughts until a few moments ago. You heard what I told you this time, that you are a proto-telepath. After so long, at last I know you heard me this time.”
“Mother, I thought I was the one who had killed them, all of these years.”
Allia was quiet.
“I didn’t think you understood, Malina.” Allia said after a moment; her face seemed to have compressed inward, as though Malina’s words had hit her like a hammer. “You were so young when it happened.” Allia protested in a dull monotone, turning away. “But now, I see—I never knew you blamed yourself. I thought only I had tortured my conscience since it happened.”
“You were able to kill those three just so that I could survive?” Malina demanded, her throat dry.
“No,” Allia shook her head. “I never intended for anyone to be hurt, but I never had time to consider the consequences. You don’t understand Malina, but when we are tested, it seems as though something involuntary takes control of us, suspends our free will and makes our choice but one option. All we know is that we must survive, and that we will pay any price to protect our loved ones. I am paying, Malina—not only through my guilt, but I am dying, dying a hundred years before my time. You don’t understand, do you? I was young when I had you and Colim, young when your father died, but my father was more than three hundred years old when he found my mother and brought her here.”
Malina’s mouth dropped open.
“You never knew, Malina, I know. You refused to believe the family record because you didn’t want to believe you had any proto-telepathic power, I see that now. But don’t make the same mistake that my father made.”
“Mistake?” Malina echoed.
“My father denied that he and I were proto-telepaths, and so he refused to train me to control my latent ability. When you fell in the path just as that transport came into view, I didn’t have the ability to control my own power, Malina. I saved you without even thinking, involuntarily, as it were, and though I cannot be sorry that you lived, I do regret that I was the instrument of three other deaths. I’ve done my best to atone for those deaths in whatever small way I could, but I am at last paying for my sins.”
Malina found she couldn’t cry. She felt a horrid pang in her heart, but she was too numb for any tears.
“Please promise me one thing,” Allia said.
“What?”
“Don’t make Jerekkil live the way I did. Teach him to control his abilities. Give him the power to make his own choices in this life.”
The silence between them stretched for several moments.
“All right, mother. I will.”
Allia died within the tenday.