Chapter Nine
The warm season was ending; Firien City was preparing for the cold. The last of the kiri birds had flown away to the south. Now only the lonely call of a ceiras bird that had been left behind echoed over the pebbled but sandy beach where Undina and Jerekkil walked in bare feet, just north of the changewinds; their sand-crusted shoes lay far away, back a land unit or so, perched on a high rock.
It was beautiful up on the north shore.
Undina heard the ceiras bird call, completely amazed that the entire warm season had passed, and she was still spending her days with this stranger Jerekkil Hinev, who was now not really a stranger anymore.
They had spent many wonderful days together this warm season so far.
Today, they climbed over a giant boulder in the path; she seemed more tolerant that he wanted to help her to climb, and she secretly didn’t mind his touching her at all.
He held her hand to hold on to her and steady her down the jagged edge. She leaped to the ground and swung him in a circle with the force of her jump. He felt as though he couldn’t let her go; he had discovered something and was happy to help her. When they had been in the city together, other, Kayrian men had looked at him with hostile intent—Undina was with a Kayrian girl, and they didn’t like him being with her. All of this just made Jerekkil feel more angry at them, and more protective of her. He realized that other people would disapprove of their relationship, but he didn’t care what they thought, though it did bring him feelings of discomfort and distress.
Undina seemed naively unaware of this, or else she, too, didn’t let it bother her; she let go of his with a laugh and ventured ahead of him, unafraid. Was she so determined to be away from him so fast? It was annoying, but he forgave her.
Jerekkil watched her swinging her arms as she danced about the shore, looking for new discoveries in the sand, for whatever caught her excited eye; he knew that her intensity and spirit were important to her—she loved the nature around her, as she was a spiritual person who was grateful for the world her god had made. No one could say she was the least bit naive in either her faith or her action; she had an integrity that endured against the callous reality of the world.
He felt utterly disconsolate and gloomy all of a sudden that she didn’t understand his feelings and so wouldn’t understand him.
“Undina, what do you want in a man?” He wondered out loud.
“What?” The question rattled her nerves, he could see.
“Just a question.” He tried to be nonchalant. “I’m curious.”
“Why?”
“You don’t seem to like men very much. It took you three tendays to stop glaring at me. Or at least, if you like men, you seem very much to distrust us all.”
“Oh, well.” She broke an involuntary smile.
“Are you afraid of feeling what you feel—”
“Desire?” She said. “Do I think desire is dirty?”
“Yes.” He admitted.
“No. Desire is a part of love, if you love, when you love.”
“So what are you afraid of?”
“Who says I’m afraid of anything?” She threw back; he realized he’d said something wrong.
“Okay. I mean, what is it that bothers you about men? Why give us such hostile glares?”
She looked at him. “You don’t want to know.”
“I do. Tell me.”
“I suppose I was injured by a man whom I thought I loved. And I don’t want to force anyone to care about me or listen to what I feel ever again. I don’t want to let anyone in—or be judged or hurt for what I am.”
“But you aren’t forcing me to do anything. I want to know more about you, about what you love, serious. Do you think you’d have to sacrifice your own goals or something?”
“Do I also fear just being incidental someday?” she added.
“Something like that.” He agreed, for argument’s sake only.
She thought about that, idly making sweeps into the moist sand with her toes. “I don’t know. I used to resent things that I no longer really do. But I can’t help my reactions. I still mistrust men in general, because they can hurt me. I guess, though, they can only hurt me if I care first. Maybe I shouldn’t be afraid ever again.”
He took this information as a revelation. It made sense though, as far as what he had sensed about her.
“What do you mean?” He asked, hoping to draw more out of her.
“I guess I was afraid, Jerekkil,” she said. “But everybody gets scared sometimes—mostly that they won’t be appreciated or understood. But really, if people hurt each other, then they should not care about someone who can hurt them. The only problem is, if you did love someone, you have already gone too far, let them in so to speak—and then it is too late. What they say to you matters, and it can do its damage if it’s not what you want to hear.”
“You talk about science most of the time—maybe no man ever thought you believed in love or had strong feelings about anything unscientific.”
“I—I think like a scientist does, but that is because I like truth. I feel more as I get older that emotions are the key to who we are, something I didn’t believe when I was young. But I definitely want my life to have meaning, and life in general, the lives of those around me as well. Or at least to be a good life, a life well lived. Full of good things and actions.”
He laughed at her, a laugh of affection. “You’re getting your feet dirty.”
“Take a look at yours,” she said, with a mischievous glare.
“So,” he said, as they walked along, “you think there has to be meaning in a relationship. Not just desire, but—you do feel desire?”
“Of course,” she sighed impatiently. “I can’t very well be alive and not feel it. But I control it as much as I can. I don’t like impersonal desire.”
“Impersonal desire?”
“You know what I’m saying. I don’t like it even when I feel it myself. I suppose I’m a fool, but I want a man to love me—not just a female body who looks pretty or is sweet. And I want to love him—as I love myself, not as a soulless body in the world devised to bring me pleasure.”
“Not like this delicious little sweet cake.” He motioned to the picnic basket.
“Not like that fabulous little sweet cake you know I love.”
“But as I was saying, I’m me—not someone else. Not a billion other women that have come and gone. I’m me. I’d hate to think he didn’t know who I am.”
“So what do you want?”
“You think I’m being high and mighty,” she said quietly, as though it pained her. “I—I hate the feeling I get when I see myself in other people’s eyes. “Jerekkil,” she ventured. “What do you want?”
“Me?” He laughed, paused. Couldn’t she read the answer in the way he was looking at her?
She couldn’t.
“It’s simple, really. I guess—I guess I want a woman I truly know—and like, and enjoy.” He said. “I can’t imagine anything sweeter.”
“Are you being honest with me? You mean it?”
“Well, I think so.” He said. He wanted to laugh at her, laugh with adoration, but he knew she would have taken his laughter for derision. He picked up a stone and cast it out on the water as hard as he could, listening to the hard impact against the water in satisfaction. “Come here.”
She obliged, surprising them both.
“I can do that, too,” she proclaimed, trying to downplay the fact that she had come when he asked, now rolling up her sleeves. She kept trying and trying until her stone reached as far as his had, but by that point, she was breathing hard, and a stray black hair had fallen across her forehead.
He watched her exertion, and came to the same conclusion he had guessed long ago; she lived by the principles of reason and logic, but she was as untamable and stubborn a cr
eature in her soul as any he had met before.
And now—he loved her.
He knew she was of a different race, but it didn’t matter. Her spirit had captivated him.
He made a decision right then and there, whether or not she liked it. He wasn’t going to give up for anything in the world.
“What did you think about Kayrian agricultural methods?” He asked suddenly. “I was studying some of what your people did to improve life here on Seynorynael and for the Federation.” Her eyes alighted as though she was happy to forget this talk of love and she went into a commentary on crop-rotation with urbin roots, with all the enthusiasm of a child. They discussed the matter a while, first idly casting stones into the water and then wading knee-high in it, but he was remembering how he had showed her, a city girl, how to skip the stones and how to read the waves for signs of a coming storm.
Jerekkil was the one who had been trained to explore, but had never left Seynorynael; she was the one who had never been admitted into the elite science center, despite her obvious intellectual ability. He felt a pang in his heart that the world was unfair, a pang such as he hadn’t known since childhood, but then it was gone.
Jerekkil believed that it was up to any man to change the world in whatever way he could, if he saw that the world could benefit by it. He believed that, but he also believed that a man naturally tried to preserve what he loved best in the world; perhaps this was for selfish reasons, but he was glad someone had long ago thought to preserve Lake Firien so that he could be here to see it, and here sharing it with her.
He was so excited, he almost didn’t notice his explorer communicator slip from the basket and into the water at their feet. It sank to the bottom, lost to the lake.
“Oh no!” he shouted in surprise.
He knew he couldn’t contact the other explorers without it, that they couldn’t contact him—that if he didn’t save it from the water soon, it was going to short-circuit.
“Oh, gosh, Jerekkil!” she cried, then started reaching her arm down in to the knee-deep water to see where it had landed. They searched for a moment, but the communicator was lost.
Jerekkil was growing more and more desperate.
She tried to calm him, not knowing that the reason he was upset was because he was going to have to get the communicator back—by any means necessary.
He stood. There was a light in his eyes, a bare flickering there. She stared at him with a look of uncertainty. Why did he suddenly seem so different? The hair on her arms stood on end. She wasn’t afraid. The waves continued to make their sonorous sound around them, there under the bright glare of the sun.
She heard a noise in the water, as something popped up from it before them; she expected to see a fish jumping, or a nurlemch bobbing about.
The communicator appeared on the surface, buoyed in the water, then seemed almost to leap into Jerekkil’s outstretched hand.
“How did you do that?” Undina asked, her eyes flaring wide as though she had just witnessed a miracle. He tried to remember that this was a girl who didn’t believe in unscientific things, in miracles. She stepped back a little; he kept calm.
“What did you see?”
“That’s—that’s—”
“Impossible?”
She nodded numbly.
“I’m—a proto-telepath.”
“A what?”
“A proto-telepath.”
“You’re saying you can read my mind?” she said, horrified, as though this was the worst kind of invasion possible. She clambered away heavily in the waters, trying to flee, but he caught her arm.
“No,” he said, forcing her to look at him. Couldn’t she see this wasn’t something dreadful? This was a part of him—he just had to make her understand and accept it. “Well, maybe—” he amended. “I can occasionally read thoughts, but I can’t control it, and so far, I’ve only been able to do that three times in all my life. But I can sense your emotions, your surface concerns.”
“You’re not serious.”
“I am.” He let go of her arm; she could do as she pleased. She stayed there, standing in the water.
“What do you mean by ‘proto-telepath’?”
“I don’t actually know. It’s a Firien expression. There are several of us there, some more powerful than others.”
“What else...” she croaked, hoarse, then swallowed.
“Can I do? I also see visions—once or twice a year at best, and sometimes they come true, and sometimes I have no way of knowing what they are—and sometimes, I can influence direction of something already in motion, like a stone, or a man.”
“When?”
“Whenever I feel a powerful impulse or emotion, such as fear—”
“Or love?”
“I don’t know about that.” He returned, aware for the first time that he couldn’t stop smiling.
“But rational thought has nothing to do with it,” she said, analyzing what she had heard. “You can’t control it rationally.”
“I can,” he nodded. “My mother taught me how to control it, a long time ago. I can influence things that are already in motion that way, and move small objects. I can read your emotions, but I can’t control the visions, and I can’t read your mind whenever I want. The impulses I can’t control or predict rationally are the most powerful. When something happens and I react instinctively, my proto-telepathic power is so much stronger.”
“So.” She said.
“What?”
“You aren’t afraid of your emotions?” She laughed. “And I—I’m too terrified to love anyone.”
He wasn’t surprised by her statement.
“I used to believe you were.” He said. “But not anymore.”
“Why?”
“I can already see what you feel for me.”
“I’ll be able to see the Nanshe post, too.” He said, going on and on about the upcoming explorer mission.
Yes, she thought, Jerekkil was bit of a dreamer. Could she love this man?
Apparently.
"Jerekkil, does it bother you that I’m an alien? Be honest." She interrupted.
"What?" He appeared stunned, then laughed. "No. But those of us who live at Firien think differently from other Seynorynaelians, I told you. You saw that when you met my family, didn’t you?”
“I suppose.”
“Remember the legends of the comet riders?"
"Yes."
"My grandmother Allia claimed that even the comet riders came from different places. But they became one people. I always thought that it was supposed to be that way, that we became a Federation to learn from each other and trade for what we needed. I was shocked to see that it wasn’t a common belief when I lived in Ariyalsynai and that most of us think we should exploit the planets we draw into the Federation for raw goods and resources.
"But does it bother me that you are an alien? I should think it bothered you more that my people forcibly relocated the Kayrians who have always called this planet their home." He looked at her. “Anyway, would I have asked you to marry me if it bothered me?”
“You know attachments don’t mean anything.”
“They do,” he countered. “It means some other guy isn’t going to presume your heart isn’t taken, or that he can have anything else.”
“But I wouldn’t belong to you. You wouldn’t belong to me—”
“We do belong to each other, body and soul.”
“But, Jerekkil, if we ever had children—they’d be abominations in the eyes of this world! You know how most people think. Half-race children are an abomination.”
“Undina—”
“Doomed to rejection from both sides of the parentage and forever uncertain of who they are and where they rightfully belong...”
“We’d love them, though, wouldn’t we? Isn’t that enough?”
"Jerekkil, I want you to meet my family," she said; he had already begun to read her silences, to know when her mind was hard at work weighing a decision, even when her face gave away nothing.
"All right," he acceded. “I was beginning to wonder if you would let me—”
“I told them, but I don’t think they understand yet. I don’t even know if they ever will.”
Even taking the nearest transport, the couple did not arrive in Firien City until almost sunset. Undina led the way into her family’s apartment, while Jerekkil remained behind at the door. He heard Kayrian voices and began to translate—thank goodness for the hard years of language and diplomacy training, he thought. Creator above, though, was he ready? Why did it seem as though this moment was always going to be somewhere in the far distant future?
The moment was now, though, and he was more than a little bit nervous.
They were asking Undina why she had left the door open and what she had been doing.
"Father, I'd like you to meet Jerekkil," Undina said.
Jerekkil took a step in the door and offered a smile to the tall, proud Kayrian man standing just beyond.
“Hello,” Ettrekh, Undina’s father, said woodenly, running a critical eye from head to toe over Jerekkil. Jerekkil could have stepped back, but he stepped forward instead.
“So,” Ettrekh said. He glared at the young man, this smiling creature with no superficial sense, a gray-faced man with big bright eyes agleam with amorous thoughts of his daughter. Ettrekh was annoyed. He knew his daughter better than this silly-faced child!
Why was Undina listening to him, this stranger, this Jerekkil with his sanctimonious Seynorynaelian name, when she had always listened to her father before better than anyone? Would she depend on this youth, could she trust and depend upon him, as surely as she had relied upon her father? Would this youth love her so unconditionally? Would his love never fail her?
Ettrekh’s thoughts raced; he tried hard not to glare at Jerekkil, but he was sure some of his innate hostility came across.
"Where will you live?" Ettrekh asked calmly, as calmly as his self-control allowed. Less than three days after his daughter had suddenly made the announcement that wonder of wonders, she was going to be attached—to a Seynorynaelian! The family had been suffering from an acute state of shock since that afternoon. It had taken Ettrekh all of those three days to practice being hospitable towards the man.
“There’s an empty dwelling on the north shore, just a few minutes away from my family.” Jerekkil returned affably.
"Why can't you live here?" The woman who matched a description of Undina’s grandmother, Gilwsa, asked from her seat by the portable medical unit.
Ettrekh half-turned, clearly surprised by the woman’s sudden animation.
“I’m glad to hear that you’re doing better,” Jerekkil offered. “Undina says you’re as tough as old leather.”
Gilwsa laughed hard, in a way that suggested she found this comment to her liking.
Ettrekh turned back to Jerekkil, in that moment finding himself liking the young man’s attitude more than he cared to admit. He was painfully aware of Jerekkil’s training; if Jerekkil became an explorer—Ettrekh knew that when he returned from his mission, Undina would have aged many more years than he.
He suddenly realized Jerekkil had made the comment in Kayrian.
“Who wasn’t going to get attached?” Ettrekh asked Undina after Jerekkil left.
Undina refused to be abashed by the comment.
“I wasn’t going to get attached because I thought it was impossible to find someone like Jerekkil. I thought such a man didn’t exist.” She said. Ettrekh shrugged, sighed, and departed the room.
“What kind of man?” Gilwsa pursued.
“A man who loves and respects me as a person, for the person I am.” Undina returned.
“What about all of those ideas you had, girl?” Gilwsa demanded. “That science philosophy notion you’d talk yourself dry about with all your friends—you were going to fight for a place in the science center in Firien City.”
“And I’ve been retreating from the world instead, is that it?” Undina laughed, a laugh that betrayed she didn’t care anymore. “You’re right. But I didn’t know when I had those lofty dreams that the world as it is now isn’t somewhere I want to be. Our society isn’t living up to what it could be—”
“Undina, you know I don’t understand when you talk philosophically.” Gilwsa reminded her.
“What I mean, grandmother, is that the reality of the world, what exists, what is fact, is misrepresented by the prejudices of the people in it, people who live by their own little made-up realities and force the rest of us to believe in them.” She shrugged. “The animals don’t make judgments about one person versus another. The sun shines on us all, doesn’t it? We all have to die, don’t we? We all live, have feelings and reasoning ability, whether we’re stupid or smart, beautiful or ugly. Well, Jerekkil comes from a place where the people understand that. He understands that—”
She broke off, paused. “And that is where I want to live and whom I want to live with. Firien is where I think I will belong.”
“Then what kind of impact are you going to make on the world?” Gilwsa demanded. “How are you going to make the world better?”
“With my decision as a given?” Undina meditated a moment. “Well, I suppose—Any way I can, grandmother. Any way I can. But, I’m not sure anymore. I will admit that.”
"I have a good idea for us to celebrate the warm season," Jerekkil said, self-consciously aware of his own voice; he knew he sounded noncommittal. They were sitting under a small lyra tree outside their dwelling. He was reading a manual on Tulorian customs; she was working on putting down an idea of a scientific principle she had been devising for almost a year.
“Oh?” she said absently.
"We'll go into the city and collect your family for a picnic.” He said, satisfied when she put aside her light-pen and directed her attention entirely at him. “Gilwsa keeps complaining that no one takes her anywhere anymore, and if I remember, your mother said that she wasn't going in to help in the medical center for three more days.”
“Now?” Undina protested; he refused to hear it.
"Yes, now. We'll surprise them and take them down to the white sands shore for a day. We can meet your father at the Kayrian cultural center on the way."
“It’s amazing how well you two get along these days.”
"He doesn't have a seminar planned for today, does he?"
"Not that I know of."
“So, let’s go. No grumbling about what you were doing.”
"All right, but we'll have to hurry. If we wait too long, grandmother will have mother taking her to the market—she keeps insisting she hasn't fully recovered."
"That crafty woman! She's been as strong as you or I for more than a year."
"It's only because she hates to go alone," Undina said, dead-pan; they both knew what an actress Gilwsa was.
Jerekkil was still packing the picnic provisions when his personal frequency monitor activated.
The sound chirped mindlessly, over and over.
Jerekkil stopped dead in his tracks, his heart launching into his throat.
Undina stared up at him.
Everything else had been forgotten.
It wasn’t likely to be a sudden training seminar this time. The explorer candidates were as ready for the Tulorian mission as they ever hoped to be.
Jerekkil said nothing. He reached out to her and sank down on the ground under the tree. There they held on to each other a few moments longer, until the twilight descended and the stars rose.
And then he left.
As flies to wanton boys, are we to th’ gods,
They kill us for their sport.
—Shakespeare, King Lea
r (IV, i)