Virginia Hamilton (7 page)

She sensed Dorian’s growing uneasiness. She, who held the Watcher—why would he or anyone need to make her aware?

She sensed it when Dorian arranged shields around his thinking, to save her embarrassment.

Dorian,
calmly she traced,
if my power is less, we’ll have to live with it.

He let the shields evaporate. He knew she could penetrate them at will—could she still?

Justice had had no idea that anything was tracking them. But the possibility that her gifts were altered in the future served to calm her. Swiftly her mind toughened of itself. She grew sharply more alert.

“I flat out missed it,” she told Dorian. “It won’t happen again.”

He hissed thinly at her through his teeth.
Speak through the mind.
Warning her:
Mom always did say the best thing about you was how you almost never missed the details.

That’s it,
she traced.
I’ve had so much to think about, to worry from, I let myself get too much within.

She let herself loose then. Knowledge of the being of Dustland filtered through her exceptional mind, as from the air.

Terrij. Much like a scout. A Terry of the Slakers. A Jam people. Justice sought meaning behind these strange words. The Watcher came into her insight, lighting her eyes. Time ebbing and flowing on a tide of people. Justice knew the Slakers:

Closed in on
kelms
of hunting parties. Like all creatures of Dustland, they slept covered with dust. But they lived in the open in kelms of fifty or sixty. They bedded in groups, wrapped in one another’s wings. When danger threatened, groups came to the rescue by signal from a threatened kelm. Signals were carried from one kelm to the next.

They were hunters. But not always. They were killers. In the past they had been solely scavengers, living off the kill of others. Massing near a kill, they would signal until a neighboring kelm had come in contact. They called out even when the food was barely enough to feed one kelm. An ugly fight for food would take place between the kelms. Many would die. It took centuries for surviving Slakers to think of using food for themselves.

Justice watched the vision with growing revulsion. Slakers began eating while a kill still bled. They lapped the blood until the tissue was dry as toast, much as Miacis did. But as soon as a prey bled, they began eating it, nibbling away.

The Watcher observed: Place no blame.

From the beginning, Slakers were desperate for water. They massed at kills because of the need for moisture.

Again and again the vision showed that at first no Slaker would kill. But the instinct for peace went awry with the passage of time. It came to one of them, and then to more of them, that they could slow a prey down. They could move in; and there were enough of them to exhaust it by keeping it moving until it was too tired to defend itself.

Who could say when a Slaker had started tormenting a creature for the first time?

Justice couldn’t find that point in time. It hadn’t been there in the purpose of Slakers. Then it had been given to them.

She erased the thought at once. She watched the vision.

Slakers discovered that hard blows could maim a creature, crippling it so it could not move swiftly. The next step came on the heels of the first. Killing prey came to them easily. Slakers might scavenge or they might kill. There was no direct cause for their behavior one way or the other. They did what they did when they felt like doing it.

Not so nice, Justice thought. She revealed all she had learned to Dorian. He drew the hood tighter about his face.

You want to see for yourself?
she traced to him.

No.

I think you should,
she traced.

Are you telling me to?

I think I must be,
she traced.

Why don’t you just say you’re commanding me the way you command Miacis?

I’m not commanding you. Why are you angry all of a sudden?

I’m not angry,
he traced.
I just don’t want to see.

You’ve never not wanted to see before. Dorian, what’s wrong?

Nothing’s wrong. I don’t like this place. Justice, I’m … I’m afraid something’s going to happen.

To me?
When he didn’t answer, she smiled.
Don’t worry, Healer. Something’s going to happen, all right, but I don’t think it’ll hurt me. At least …
But she broke off. The Slaker vision would not wait. It overwhelmed other thoughts. Dorian couldn’t help seeing.

Premonition!
traced Justice.

Scattered in groups, Slakers knew by premonition of kills, of preys, of strangers near. Knowledge came to a few individuals scattered across the dustscape. And these had foreknowledge of events, apparently through the skin, with no sighted use of the mind.

A special individual of a kelm would shudder. It would communicate with another special one by impulses from its skin. The other special one would be in its own kelm and would shudder as the signal hit it. In this way, kelms would come together at a precise, foreknown place.

Really strange!
Justice traced to Dorian.

Slakers had five extremities—two arms and three legs. The third leg was positioned at the rear of the body. It was a powerful and flexible appendage, used to fling the Slaker off the ground in an extremely high lift.

The female Slakers above the age of twelve were able to fly. Their arms were forelimbs of paired organs, They had lifting surfaces formed of membranous skin connecting the long, modified digits of their hands.

The male Slakers could not or would not fly, although they had forelimbs identical to, if not stronger than, the forelimbs of the females. They didn’t use the third limb or leg in the same way as the females, for lift-off. The male third leg was a vicious weapon, used for whacking or kicking a prey. The weapon was unleashed like a fist, with the force of a half-ton weight.

Pretty awful dudes,
traced Justice.

Yeah, and I’m not sure the women are much better, either,
traced Dorian.

Male Slakers also used the third leg as a place to sit, to rest on, during a long search for food. Females used it this way occasionally. For the males, the membranous skin, unused for flight, served as pouches to store what was left of blood and meat from a kill after they themselves had eaten their fill. They shared the leftover food with the females. They disliked sharing, and they shared only after threats from the females. Sometime in the distant future, males more than likely would not share. Females would then die out; and so, too, the species.

Maybe the females who learned to fly could learn to do more than threaten. Why don’t they try something else?
Justice traced, unsure of what she meant by that.

There was no reply from Dorian.

Now they could see the Slaker, the Terrij, who had followed them. It came toward them from the far side of Thomas’ cliff. It came up from behind them. In their sighted way, they could see it come warily on.

The creature had to feel their presence; yet it was clear that it couldn’t actually see them. It perceived Thomas’ cliff with the fallen rocks and showed a disturbance akin to astonishment. It slowed down, then stopped completely. After a paralyzed pause, in which its breathing was a continuous, churning groan, it came cautiously forward.

The Slaker moved in an uncertain pattern, with the oddest rhythm Justice had ever seen. It leaned back on its third leg. Without appearing to have moved, it was instantly in a place forward from where it had just been. An incredible change of place.

I missed something, Justice thought.

But as the Terrij came on, Justice knew that the sequence, the movement itself, had been left out. The Terrij would be in one place, lean on the leg and would be closer.

It had come this way before, but had never encountered a cliff. Staring at the rock, its eyes were glittering wild. It moved its legs as if climbing. It raised winged arms to grab hold of the rocks. Its robe fell open. Justice saw that the Terrij was a female; sensed that she would change in the last stage of maturity.

Nambnua was one of her names. Meaning
wifeman stalker.
The Terrij was best called Bambnua—Dustwalker—which was both a title and a name.

Suddenly, everything happened too fast, in flashes before Justice’s and Dorian’s unaccustomed eyes.

The Bambnua moved in incredible bursts of, being in one place, then in another. She discovered the water pool. She beat her chest, flapping her wings. She drank deeply from the pool. Her skin broke out in welts as she began signaling her kelm.

She was back at the cliff, trying to climb, and did not uncover Justice and Dorian. Yet she knew something, felt something there. She whirled around and around, trying to find them. She found Levi. She could have been a statue standing there, she was that still. Not a muscle moved for at least ten minutes. They watched her, not daring to think. Without any warning, she was at Levi’s side. A rush of air from her mouth seemed to slide down the dust. It fell in whispers around her feet. Sounds and breaks, language, unlike anything they had ever heard.

The Terrij, Bambnua, reached for Levi with the finger-like digits at the end of winged forearms before Justice could think what to do. The hands, the winged arms went right through him.

Time hung over them in the dust. Justice and Dorian were stunned. Before their eyes, the form of Levi vanished. And the Terrij hawked a keening sound.

T
OWARD THE MIDDLE OF
Nolight the two of them began making their way once again. Their extrasensory allowed them to see with little more effort than was needed in daylight. Thomas kept himself loose as he jogged through the wasteland. He calculated that they were running in twenty-minute bursts, which they alternated with brisk walks of a half-hour or so. Only one of them at any one time was conscious of the power of endurance, of a shortness of breath or fatigue. Whenever Thomas got tired, he would release his brother Levi’s senses, now carried in the back of his mind. Levi would then become the aware one. And still walking or jogging beside Levi, Thomas would rest his own senses inside Levi’s head.

This cooperation between them worked well to ease Thomas’ desperate need to put as much space between himself and Miacis as he could for as long as he could. Yet, from the moment he had run, he had known that Miacis would chase him and eventually would catch him. It was all part of his plan.

The Nolight of Dustland grew monotonous. Thomas imagined he was alone, tricked by his senses into thinking he was on a treadmill which carried him through unending time. His fear grew unbearable that Miacis would overtake him before he was ready.

The next moment Thomas remembered how cleanly he had stolen Levi from under Justice’s powerful protection. His breaking from the unit had knocked each of them senseless. He had been ready for that and quickly come to. He’d taken over his brother’s unconscious mind and left Levi’s illusion.

Now Thomas ran through Dustland with Levi at his side. However, they could not possibly be running. But they were. He was definitely running, definitely escaping. He knew he was on his way, but maybe he was headed nowhere, to no purpose.

Abruptly, Thomas came to, hearing Levi call him from in back of his own mind. Thomas had fallen asleep on his feet again, as he would do when he was at the edge of exhaustion. He found himself standing still in the Nolight with a mindless Levi at his side.

Yeah?
answering Levi’s call.
How long have I been out? Were you asleep, too?

Levi traced from the back of Thomas’ mind:
I must’ve been asleep. But I don't think either of us was out for long. I usually wake up fast when you stop in your tracks like that.

Yeah
. Through his thoughts Thomas caught the strain Levi was under. He had no time to dwell on it, however. For Dustland’s striking dawn was upon them.

He traced a quick warning:
Brace yourself!

The persona of Levi cringed and lay low in back of Thomas’ mind.

Thomas never permitted himself to admit how truly spectacular was Dustland’s dawning. He held fast to his hate of all aspects of the future. He told himself that, here, dawn was a sideshow lit up in a carnival. He stuck out his chin and chest, with his hands firmly on the bone weapons around his waist. He wasn’t going to wince. And made faces, stuck out his tongue, as the dawn grew. He would show his weakling brother, safe in his own head, that nothing in the world at any time could scare
him.

Light of dawn broke and splintered. It attached to every particle of dust. In the air and on the ground, waves of dust grew miraculous with lights. Thomas breathed in and exhaled colors. His clothing was coated with rainbows. The space around him danced with a dizzying array of multicolored sparks.

I can hold blues in the palms of my hands!

He mixed greens with orange on his tongue. A simple flexing of arm muscles sent colors caroming at a thousand angles. Bloodred eddies and golden flurries skidded against mauve caps of dust breaking against his chest and shoulders.

He could feel the Levi persona quiver in awe.

Baloney!
Thomas traced. He could close his eyes and tone down the colors, but never could he quite shut them out.

A choked tracing:
Tom-Tom, seeing is believing.

Baloney, man!
Stubbornly, Thomas fought to keep his fury.

In no time the light show of colors began fading, probably when the sun rose above the horizon. The dust felt warm, heating up uncomfortably.

Go ahead and believe whatever you want,
he suddenly traced to Levi.
It’s the way it is, just like we saw it.

He stared grimly at the light fixed to dust as it thinned and fell in shards. These dimmed and vanished, leaving the dry heat. Dustland brought forth its dismal, murky day.

It was Levi’s turn to carry them; that is, to feel and think for both of them. Thomas’ persona would now rest in his mind. And Levi came out and back into his own self—what
could
you call that part of them that seemed to walk, move, have bodies in Dustland? Thomas’ persona flowed into his. Yet Levi did not have his brother’s endurance. All he could manage was a painful stiff-legged trudge through the dust.