Secrets
of
the
Dreamcatchers |
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Ballad In Three Voices
Chica In The Promised Land
Life Raft Blues
Secrets of the Dreamcatchers
Code Talker
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Secrets of the Dreamcatchers
by Judith Avila
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Chapter 1
The Stowaway
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"Remember, you are Alira Tenfoot, the last of a good and noble family." Her papo's grim words dove deep into Alira's heart and froze there like a hunk of ice. How could she ever force herself to leave her parents?
But the red skid-sled had already been programmed. It tore away from Nedrathane Compound with Alira strapped securely into its passenger notch.
"We love you!" Mamu's words followed her, thrumming in her head like frenzied music. She heard her mamu's sobs, and then the terrifying sound of homes tearing apart and falling into the giant crevasse that split Nedrathane.
"Anumis, please let Mamu and Papo survive this." The last words Alira heard, as the skid-sled barreled over the snow and ice toward Etia, were her own prayer.
*
Alira hugged the icy metal support pillar, hidden deep under the hostile compound of Etia. Footsteps echoed like hammer blows directly above her head. The sound became a pattern, clanging back and forth across the metal platform, pounding fear deep into her brain. Wind whipped the sharp, brittle strands of her copper hair, making a rasping sound against her helmet. A clenched jaw did not keep her teeth from chattering. Never in her thirteen years had she felt so alone. Her arms ached, but she dared not relax her grip. Not yet. Not until dark.
Mamu and Papo had told her that people would stop moving around after dark. The citizens of Etia barricaded themselves in their homes, burning household waste in special recycling ovens to ward off the chill, and using lights and other electro-based devices for no more than the allotted three hours.
Another sound - something dragging? - grated above Alira's head. She stopped breathing. Her muscles screamed, and her grip slipped, shifting her weight against the cold pillar. Her plexi helmet made a soft ringing sound when it hit the metal support.
A voice from above shouted, "Who goes there?"
Alira froze, not moving even to blink.
Again the loud voice called. "Is someone there?"
After a full minute, she heard footsteps receding, and the same voice mumbled something unintelligible.
Alira dared to blink again. She wished Mamu and Papo had not chosen this forbidding place as her destination. But their old friend, Elvis T'Dar, lived here. And it was closer to Nedrathane than the other compounds. Only eight hundred miles of frozen tundra separated friendly Nedrathane from suspicious Etia. She adjusted her grip on the support pillar and listened with every cell in her body for more sounds from above. But soon, even though she tried to keep thoughts at bay, the uncertain fate of her parents tore her mind from her own danger.
A sharp intake of breath pushed the ache deep into her chest. Had Mamu and Papo escaped the earth collapse? Anumis, please, let them be alive. She said a silent Prayer for Survivors.
More footsteps, heavy and slow, pulled her back into her current peril. Alira squeezed her eyes closed. This would be her first time alone in an unfamiliar compound. She shuddered, wondering whether she would be marked as different and unacceptable in this horrid place. And in the dark...
She tried to wiggle her toes. Could she feel some movement? Maybe a little. Cold numbed her feet, in spite of the thick pulley-hair stockings her mother had made for her. One foot slipped on the icy green metal of the pillar. Were her magnetic boots losing their charge? Staccato footsteps on the platform above her stopped for a moment, then continued.
She tightened the hold of one glove and reached with the other hand into her pocket. Her feed-pouch was small, almost empty. She gave it a squeeze, and sweet liquid filled the tube to her mouth. Merciful God of Lost Children, thank you. Her food tube was not frozen.
Darkness will come soon.
She bent her head and squinted through the eye port on her helmet. There! The red skid-sled. Her mother had programmed the sled with shaking fingers. Had it been only two days ago? Alira could still hear the sounds of Nedrathane collapsing - dwelling units breaking apart and tumbling into a gaping crevasse. A horrible mechanical screeching had filled the frigid air.
Mere hours ago she had arrived in this dank, cold place. No one will find the sled till summer, she thought. By then I will be safe - or dead.
A chill brushed over Alira's cheeks. Don't cry. The tears would freeze and cause frost bumps, even under her plexi helmet. Darkness swooped down around her. She could no longer see the sled. Just as Papo said. No twilight. Alira knew there would be no moon tonight. It was the first day of Moondark.
From high on the pillar Alira touched the underside of the compound. It was only a foot above her head. Thank the Gods, she had found the entry port - one of many, according to her parents - before dark descended. They had chosen this one because it was the closest to Elvis T'Dar's home. She listened for long moments. It was quiet above.
With both magnetic boots planted firmly on rivets, she pushed against the port with her head and shoulders. The heavy door opened a few inches. An ice snake hissed at her from the adjacent column. She shuddered and heaved, mustering every ounce of strength. The door opened enough for her to pop through. She held the metal door with one foot, turned and dropped it gently into a closed position.
Alira turned to her stomach and lay, unmoving. She closed her eyes, willing them to adjust to the dark. After a few seconds, she opened them. A garden of blooming heat flowers surrounded her. A faint glow - pink and purple and aqua - floated above the blossoms. The manmade flowers, with their broad overlapping petals, "bloomed" all through the icy grip of winter. Her home compound, Nedrathane, had similar flowers. Beyond the glow, something shimmered like ice in the dark. The leaves of a platinum tree?
She closed her eyes again, concentrating on her darksight for nearly a full minute. When her eyes opened, the faint outline of a white building glistened, maybe fifty feet from where she lay. A tall platinum tree grew to her right.
Voices reached her - the voices of men. Leaping izaquots! No one was supposed to be out at night. She forced her breathing to quiet.
"I can't believe they only delivered half the shipment," said a raspy voice.
A deep, smooth voice replied, "Don't worry. We'll get the rest next week."
"Well, it's damn heavy anyway," complained the first voice.
Alira's heart pounded. She flattened herself to the ground as much as she could. A heat flower tickled her nose. Oh no! Not a sneeze! She dug her knee into the ground, hoping to distract herself. But the sneeze would not be stopped. "Ka choooo!"
"What was that?" The raspy voice held a high note of alarm.
Silence. Then a whisper. "Over there. A dark patch. In the heat flowers."
Alira jumped up and ran as fast as she could. She reached the platinum tree and jumped behind it. The footsteps following her sounded hesitant in the dark.
"Where?" asked the deep voice.
"Can't tell," said raspy. "It's too damn dark."
Deep voice cleared his throat. "Forget it. Only a girl."
"How do you know?"
"The sneeze. Feminine. She won't cause any trouble. None of them do anymore."
"But what if she's older than fifteen?"
"You mean twenty. They started with the girls five years earlier."
"Okay, twenty, then."
"If she was going to cause trouble, she wouldn't have run away. Don't be such a wizzel."
The footsteps sounded like they were retreating, but Alira didn't move. Each breath hurt her chest. Relax. They're gone. Alira's heart beat like an elephump trapped in a barrel. What were those men talking about? What did they start doing to girls twenty years ago?
This place, Etia Compound, was known for its distrust of strangers. The government hated outside interference like ice hates fire. Mamu and Papo had told her that Etian politicos made all decisions for their citizens. Did they believe they could force their world into some sort of predictable order? According to Mamu, they had succeeded only in creating a faceless, inflexible society.
She unfolded a small scrap of paper and bent to hold it near the heat flowers' glow. A sob escaped her at the sight of Papo's familiar handwriting. She clamped a hand over her mouth port and slid her eyes left and right. No one. The map he had drawn was small, but detailed. Squinting, she bent closer to the paper. Her fingers, although encased in quilted gloves, ached from the cold beneath the compound. They will warm soon.
One slipstream and one ion field stood as obstacles on her route. Then, far from the scientifically engineered heat flowers and platinum-leafed trees, she would find the home of Elvis T'Dar.
Mamu had told her that, years ago, Elvis was notorious planet-wide as a rebel. A retired rebel, now, for he was over one hundred forty years old. He and his teenaged grandson, Latham, were not really welcome in polite society. So they lived alone - as far from the other inhabitants of Etia Compound as they could manage. Their small cottage was said to be surrounded by True Trees, the kind that had covered the entire planet of Vigon hundreds of years ago. All the True Trees in Nedrathane Compound had died long ago, so Alira could only imagine what they might look like from pictures she had seen.
Would Elvis and Latham take her in as her parents hoped? Alira's heart raced like a high-strung flickerbing. She remembered the picto-construct of Elvis that Papo had shown her. He was dark-skinned, his complexion polished like a black jewel. Bright orange, curly hair sprang from his head and chin, thick as a mocabee bush.
Papo had told her the grandson, Latham, looked nothing like his granpapo. His mother, now dead, had been a moonstone woman, with skin so pale her veins were like delicate purple tracings in her long neck. Her hair shone like spun gossamer. Alira had wanted to see a picto, but Papo had none. The picto Papo had of Latham was very old, and the boy had been only four. His hair was black, straight and long, reaching nearly to his waist. His skin glowed reddish-brown, like polished cinnameg. His huge eyes held a sadness older than his years. Papo said that Latham, like Elvis, had the Gift of the Ancients. "It is both a blessing and a burden," he said. "A weak person could not survive the gift - the burden of memory it brings. But Elvis says that Latham is strong."
There was something else different about Latham. He had been born with a disease that made his legs useless. Neither Papo nor Mamu knew whether he had ever been cured.
*
As Alira approached the slipstream, stopping frequently to listen for pursuers, her breathing became ragged. Calm down. It will be okay. Mamu had told her about slipstreams. "Just make swimming motions, like you're in the water," she had told her daughter. "It's easy."
When the current of rushing gas first caught Alira's shoulder, it spun her around and lifted her feet off the ground. It was as though someone had grabbed her. But she was alone. She made swimming motions and managed to turn herself back. She had always been a strong swimmer, swimming with the other children of Nedrathane in the canals during the warm season. Within seconds she mastered the invisible slippery current. It was like flying! In less than five minutes she stood on the other side. Elation rushed through her tired body. She'd done it!
She walked on for at least another three miles, imagining eyes watching from the dark, remembering the voices of the two men. What was the shipment those men had been carrying? Something dangerous? Illegal?
Her breath condensed inside her helmet, fogging the eye port. She raised the clear plexi-shield and squinted around her. Cold air rushed in, and the blue-tinged bulk of the ion field took shape just ahead. Alira was familiar with ion fields. In Nedrathane, they were mostly shades of red and gold. Only a few were blue. Here in Etia, Papo had told her, the fields were always blue - and blue ions evoked a hopeless feeling. She squared her shoulders. Don't worry, Mamu and Papo. I know I can handle this. She took a deep breath before stepping into the blue haze, then ran as fast as her heavy boots would allow.
Halfway through the ion field she felt something tug at her jacket. The two men? She whipped her head around. No one was there. Her steps dragged. Her heart weighed far too much for her body. She struggled to keep going.
The tugging grew heavier, like a sack of mygdarite stones pulling her down. Voices mumbled at her from all sides. She fell to her knees, sure she was being followed. But when she turned in a circle on all fours she saw no one. It's just the blue ions. Keep going. She stood, and her feet plodded on - one dragging after the other.
When she finally stumbled from the field, the voices stopped and the tugging sensation released her. She bent double, feeling her laboring heartbeat from her temples down into her boots. After many deep breaths she was able to stand upright.
Again Alira checked her map. It was now very dark, a place with no heat flowers, so she used the small green laser light attached to the top button of her cryo-jacket. Not far to go.
Star trails of bright white, gold, and silver streaked above her, casting a faint glow on distant mountains. Aligning her direction with the highest peak, as Papo's map instructed, she continued.
To save power, external lights were forbidden in Etia Compound - just as in Nedrathane - except around the government buildings. But the stars were wonderful. She squinted straight up. The transparent bio-dome that spanned the entire compound retained some measure of the day's heat. Still it was cold, although not as frigid as it had been underneath the compound.
She was just reassuring herself that she shouldn't run into anyone else when something fluttered at her elbow.
"Wha - ?" Alira swatted at whatever it was, and clamped her mouth closed to stifle a scream.
The creature hovered above her head, then landed on her shoulder, gripping it firmly. Alira pointed her laser light at it. Leaping izaquots! A pygmy dragon! The golden-scaled animal, its body about the size of Alira's gloved fist, twittered and cooed into the earport of her helmet. Then it rubbed its head against her shoulder, twittered again, and flew away.
Before Alira recovered from her surprise, she heard another noise. Clomp! Clomp! Something approached her, walking heavily and slowly.
"Who is out there?" The voice started out deep, but rose with an almost musical lilt.
Alira crouched and said nothing, hoping the owner of the voice would leave. But within seconds two large, padded boots confronted her. When her eyes scanned upwards, boots became long legs, a torso bundled in pulley fur, a muffled neck, and a sculpted head. Black, straight hair hung down to his elbows. She looked into a helmet-less red-brown face dominated by dark eyes that lit up with a turquoise light, like the display on a communicator.
"W-who are you?" Alira asked.
"I think the more proper question would be, 'Who are you?'" the boy-creature said. "Since you are trespassing on my land."
"Latham?" Alira asked. Her voice sounded shaky, even from inside her head. She had not expected the grandson of her parents' friend to be so … large, so intimidating. His voice resonated with music, but his speech seemed unusually formal. Maybe that was how they spoke in Etia.
"You know my name?" the boy said. "How is that possible?"
"Latham. Thank the gods I found you." The pygmy dragon again fluttered at Alira's ear.
"Come here, Dygbold." The dragon flew to the boy's shoulder and sat. Alira could make out the animal's small body in the light from Latham's flashing eyes. The boy turned to the little creature. "Good boy. You found her." Then, to Alira, he said, "I ask again, how is it that you know my name?" The tall boy bent low, his eyes going dark. Alira had never seen eyes so heavy with - what? - sadness? suspicion?
"My parents are friends with your granpapo." Alira's voice wobbled. "They sent me here. From Nedrathane."
"Ah, yes." Latham's entire face grew grim, his cheekbones standing in high relief. "The earth collapse." The boy held out an arm and gripped Alira's elbow. She felt a strange warmth and a small jolt, almost like electricity. The little dragon fluttered from the boy's shoulder and flew lazy circles above them. "Please stand up so I can see you properly." Latham tugged her to a standing position. "What is your name?"
"Alira Tenfoot."
Latham chuckled. "Tenfoot, you say? But you are no taller than four feet."
Alira stood up very straight. "I am thirteen years old, and I'm four feet eleven."
"Oh. Pardon me. You're quite a pale little thing." Latham chuckled again.
I am not pale. Just nervous. But Alira realized her light copper skin did look pale next to Latham's vibrant cinnameg.
The boy whistled, and Dygbold landed on his broad shoulder. "Well, come along."
"Come along?"
"Into the dwelling unit. It is colder than a bantee's, uh, ear out here. You are very lucky Dygbold sensed you."
Alira grabbed Latham's extended hand, her quilted glove held snugly in his long, ungloved fingers.
"Your legs," she said, remembering her father's description of Latham's disability. "They got better?"
Latham's mouth pressed into a hard line. "Your parents told you about my legs. No, they are not better. I built myself some electro-fiber braces. I wear them under my clothes, against my legs."
"You built them?"
A smile flickered quickly over Latham's full lips. "Certainly. I like that sort of thing."
"But you're a kid." Alira looked at her companion's face. "Aren't you?"
"Fifteen. Older than you are," he said. "Come along. It is freezing." Latham picked up the pace, his shoulders hunched against the cold, his huge boots clomping with each step. Within minutes they stood at a door that appeared to open into the hillside. Latham quickly pressed his thumb to a glass pad on the front of the door. He blew on his bare hand as the door creaked open.
"Granpapo! We have a stowaway."
___
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