Entry 22: The sun is high. I can’t bear to look at it, even though this murky haze does its best to blot out the light. Clouds are few, and those are very high in the air, as high as the sun, it seems. Mostly it is just this stultifying haze. My hands are nearly black and carved from heat and wind, except where the red shows through from bruises and infections. Taljen tells me my hair is lighter than it was, bleached by that evil light. Every few telclads I peel off newly burned skin, always unexpected because of the diffuse sunlight. Always it seems to get hotter and wetter.
Now I know why they call this the Killer Bannk. No one greets us any more when we land. We must seek out help from villagers hiding in their buried houses or caves. There is no activity this Bannk. Everyone has fled from that bearer of life, the sun.
The land is barren. Little vegetation and few animals present themselves. Only the strongest survive here. Most of the animals we catch for food are in a kind of hot-weather hibernation to preserve energy. I imagine Patra-Bannk must be much as it was millions of years ago, evolution slowed nearly to a halt by the fantastic temperature change. Better always subfreezing or always boiling than this hellish swing from one to the other.
The beaches, even though locally of white sand, are hot. Rocks are too hot to touch. The air is stiflingly humid here on the way south. I always feel on the verge of nausea. Sometimes I think I can see steam boiling off the ocean at water’s edge, although I wonder how the air can absorb any more water than it already has. I begin to wonder also how long we can survive. I have rarely felt so continually sick.
Taljen urges me on, but even she grows weary of the journey. What point is there in it for her? She has nothing to gain by going, only exile from her beloved Ta-tjenen. I think I have fallen in love with her. For all her fear and superstition, she has shown herself to be a brave and good companion.
If my writing is indecipherable, it is because we are in Nothing and my pen jitters because of the ride. We are nearing our next stop.
The sand sprayed up as Nothing’s wheel and skis touched the ground. The village, small from the air, was invisible from the ground. Stringer and Taljen jumped from the sailplane and off the hot sand. The walk to the town was a few kilometers over fern-moss and low-lying scruff. Their sole company was, of course, the sun, which did its best to convince the two that each step was three times its length in reality. Taljen kept close to the few trees that were tall enough to project shade, and scratched her itching suit.
Only one man was visible outside the settlement, itself as barren as the surroundings, houses no more than caves set into the embankment. The lone man was hurrying to the cluster of dwellings with an adz thrown over his shoulder. He stopped when he noticed the two strangers but did not seem surprised at their presence.
So you too are going south,
he said in a
dialect that Stringer strained to understand. I
may go myself.
He offered Taljen his leather water flask.
Taljen’s own flask was empty and she accepted the offer. Why is everyone going south?
The man walked around to a shaded spot and knelt, propping himself up on
the handle of his adz. I see that you dialect is
very strange, even stranger than that of the last people I saw who said
they had come up from the south to get us. Something is afoot.
Can’t you tell us what it is?
Stringer asked
exasperatedly, moving into the shade and slumping down. He was very tired;
he was almost dead.
There are rumors. No one is saying for sure, but
it has been rumored that the Polkraitz are Returned and are readying to
take us off this planet, as they so promised ages ago. The way south is
magic and takes us beyond the World’s Edge. Who knows what is going on? But
if it will get us out of the sun, it’s worth finding out.
Stringer withered under Taljen’s glare, hotter than the sun.
Stringer, did you have something to do with
this?
she asked.
If I have been at Ta-tjenen or with you all the
time, how could I have had anything to do with this?
Polkraitz can do many things, I suspect.
Stringer threw up his arms. When will you believe
me, Taljen? When?
Every time I start to trust you, my Stringer, you
do something to make me doubt you. The arrival with your dead companion,
the murder at the Festival, the exile. Now this. What am I to believe?
Stringer didn’t understand how Valyavar entered the argument, but he shot
back, Yes, you’re absolutely right. My companions
and I are Polkraitz. We are Returned to take over Patra-Bannk. You are my
first hostage and will be intermediary between us and the Tjenen slaves.
Taljen stammered. Could she believe what she was hearing? For an answer she found only pain and confusion. She backed away from Stringer.
They slept apart for the first time in a forgotten number of beclads.
You have only three grask in the entire
village?
Yes, that is the case, truly.
Stringer bit his lip.
That will have to do, don’t you think?
Taljen
interrupted.
Yes, it will.
Stringer turned to the big
man. Can you bring them to the beach? We’re about
three or four kilometers away.
Except to fish, I never go that far myself,
especially this Bannk.
Stringer took a gulp of water from the urn and splashed it over his
face. We have to launch our sailplane—
What?
How can I explain unless you come to the
beach?
The big man stroked his rough chin. All right,
we’ll come.
It took a long time for Stringer to explain to the small group what he wanted done. The first problem was to keep the villagers outdoors in heat that could easily have been over seventy or eighty degrees. The second problem was to convince them that the sailplane wasn’t alive.
Why can’t it fly away by itself?
one of
the women kept asking as she prodded the faded nose with her forefinger.
It needs your help to get it off the ground,
Stringer repeated for the dozenth time. We will
sit in it. Your grask must pull.
Does it let you sit in it without
squawking?
another asked.
When a solofar squawks, the air shrieks for
all around,
agreed a third.
And so it went. Finally Stringer checked the ropes and the release hooks, made the man in charge repeat the instructions three times verbatim, and climbed into Nothing. He hoped the three grask, strong and fast as they were, would be enough. It was more than a hope; three grask had to be enough.
He waved his arm and slid shut the hood. Nothing bumped along on
the beach. Faster!
he yelled.
The grask drivers didn’t hear correctly, if they heard at all. Stringer jumped out, angry.
You’d better let me explain,
Taljen said, and
she did.
This time Nothing barely cleared the rise down to the beach, but
barely
proved to be good enough. Stringer was glad to be away from
that village.
Can you imagine,
he said as they soared down
the coast, that I couldn’t even convince them that
this bird was artificial?
Did you expect to?
Stringer cocked his head. What do you mean?
Taljen banked the plane and took a few turns up. Is
it truly that hard for you to see? This sailplane is big like a solofar, is
painted like a solofar; from a distance it could be a solofar, so to those
villagers it is a solofar.
It doesn’t look like a real bird to me.
It did to me when I first saw it. But we are used to
it now. We built it, know it all the way through, Stringer. But they have
never seen an artificial bird. They have never even considered an
artificial bird. Is it so hard for you to see that the first thing they
would think is that Nothing was alive? A small solofar just like
any other?
No, I guess I can understand that.
Good. How far is the next village?
Stringer took out the viewer. Far enough,
especially with the fading wind. The ocean is heating; far from the
terminator the winds aren’t as strong. Our progress gets slower all the
time.
What can be done?
Taljen shrugged. We have to keep going.
For what? It has been so long. Pike and Hendig may
be dead. Then what?
Taljen answered after a long hesitation. If you feel
that way, why did you come?
What else was there to do? Maybe it doesn’t
matter. At the next village we will probably only find two grask, and that
will be the end of us.
This time Taljen did not answer at all.
Entry 25: It is just Mid-Bannk, and we are not halfway to our destination. It is getting hotter all the time, and I think we will all evaporate. I have just finished a thirty-kilometer walk. We mistakenly landed at a deserted village, but luckily the new settlement was nearby. I will have to convince the villagers to bring grask back to where I left Taljen. She was cheerful when I left her. I hope the heat hasn’t killed her by the time I get back. If it weren’t for her company, I don’t know what I would do. Part of her seems to distrust me still. But I can complain; I’ve earned it.
People are going south from this village, too. Soon all the villages will be deserted and our incredible luck will end.
My body feels worse than it has ever felt before. I am bruised, my clothing is ripped, my hands are pulpy. There is no spring left in my movements. My tiredness is not the kind that leaves you after a long sleep, but that which follows you around everywhere you go. It is almost time to give up. What a fool I was to ever think this journey was feasible. Three times around Two-Bit in a glider was what we were asking of ourselves and this contraption. An idiot’s dream.
Alhane: I am alone, waiting for Stringer to return from the next village shown on his map. It is not far, considering how far we have come already. I am still terrified of what is to come, but more and more I am finding myself afraid of what is behind. Part of me yearns to be back in comfortable Ta-tjenen. The trip is killing us, though my skin is thick this Bannk, and I would give anything to see friends again, to dance, to work my shifts. But now I am not all Tjenen any more. I have seen much that confuses me. I am suspended between two worlds. More than ever I am ripped apart and do not know which way I will go. Wish me luck.
The cockpit was steaming, but Stringer did not pull back the canopy because the airflow would be disturbed and kilometers lost. The ground looked as it had for the last teclads, the ocean looked the same. Everything looked the same. Why couldn’t this planet be bigger for all its size? Now, Stringer thought, everything has decided to merge and get blurry. I must be sleepy.
Taljen felt the plane drop suddenly and then regain its altitude. She
looked closely at Stringer but said nothing. When it happened a second
time, she lightly took hold of her duplicate controls. Are you all right, Stringer?
Stringer nodded. Yes, all right.
But a few minutes later, he doubled over and retched, then collapsed completely.
Taljen bit her lip and grabbed the controls. She waited a moment for Stringer to get up, but he didn’t. They were hundreds of kilometers from anywhere. She couldn’t land now, but she must. Stringer remained motionless. Taljen squeezed her hands tightly around the stick, trying to decide what to do. She landed. The right wing snapped off at the tip as it collided with a large rock and jerked to a halt. Taljen’s head slammed against the front seat and she momentarily blacked out. As soon as she came to, she was out of the plane.
Quickly she pitched the tent under a giant bush and laid Stringer in it. Within telclads his skin began to redden and gray sores appeared over his body. She kept him as cool as she could, but in his delirium he struggled and twisted and only increased the fever. Taljen though he would surely die, but by the second beclad the sores had faded and Stringer was quiet. She had not slept at all. Finally he awoke and sat up. Taljen unstoppered her flask and gave him what little water remained.
Stringer drank slowly and coughed. How long?
About two beclads. Who can tell exactly?
Stringer handed back the water flask. Have you
begun evaporating some sea water?
Taljen nodded.
Where are we?
I don’t know, Stringer, I don’t know. Certainly far
from any place, and with a broken wing on our bird.
Taljen brushed away
her tears. The sun is doing its best to kill us. I
am weak and you are weaker still. It is too hot to remain alive for long
here.
Don’t cry,
Stringer said, reaching out for
her. You did what you had to do. I appreciate
that. You know I love you for it.
Taljen smiled. Yes, I know.
Do you love me?
Taljen took his hand and laughed a little, tossing back her faded hair. It has taken time with you, my Alien. But yes, I think
I do. Of course.
Something in the of course
bothered Stringer. Had it been said too
rapidly? Too offhandedly? He turned his head away. I don’t think I believe you.
Oh, Stringer, now is not the time to talk of it. I
am with you, glad to die with you—if that is what will happen to us—and
will be glad to be able to say I have come, if the saying should ever
happen. What else do you want?
There was a long silence. If we live and I find my
friends, will you stay with me? Or will you go back to Ta-tjenen?
Taljen laid down Stringer’s hand. My love, the
Parlztlu will be over sometime next Bannk, and I will have to get
another. That is the way life is. Do you not understand that, Unfortunate
Alien?
Stringer was beginning to shake, and his head hurt again. But I don’t want to give you up. I want you with
me…always.
Wh—?
Her voice sounded far away to Stringer; her face was a fuzzy vision. Although the sun was almost overhead, the darkness came, closing in on all sides. He let go.
This time, Stringer was unconscious longer than before. Taljen prayed to any god that she could think of. She propped Stringer up and forced water down his throat, closed her ears to his screaming, and waited. She took the greenery off the bamboo shoots and covered the tent with them to help keep it cool. Nothing worked. She was beginning to feel sick, too. This was the Killer Bannk. No one ever went out except for the first and last teclads, and here she was, sitting under the sun, past Mid-Bannk, the hottest part of the Bannk. All she could do was wait, most likely wait to die with Stringer.
But once again Stringer came to, as if a superhuman defiance brought him back to life. His body, already thin and worn from the journey, was more than emaciated. His cheeks were sunk into hollows and his green eyes stared into space, fogged and unseeing. He ate little, moved not at all. The gray splotches that covered his body gradually disappeared. Taljen, at first, did not understand why he spoke so few words, and then she remembered how he had been when she first knew him, almost a Patra-Bannk earlier.
When he was strong enough, fed on food collected from plants and fish, he began to walk and finally dismantled the glider in order to be able to tow it. He hardly said a word the entire time, working with Taljen in an embarrassing silence that she did not know how to break.
When the work was finished and the glider’s wings were strapped to the
fuselage and a simple sledge had been built to drag it, Stringer said, This planet is artificial.
Taljen didn’t even respond. It was as if the sentence had flown past her unnoticed. Stringer studied his face, watched her eyes, and thought to himself: No, you don’t understand. What I said is totally outside any frame of reference that you have. You have discovered a world that is many time larger than you expected and which has no edge. But, like those villagers who thought that our glider was alive, to you an artificial planet does not even enter into your imagination. Why it had entered into his own imagination, Stringer wasn’t sure. But the conclusion now seemed logical, inevitable, the only one that explained everything, and he was convinced that if he had known more about what planets were like, he would have thought of it the moment he had arrived.
Well,
he said in an overly distinct voice, let’s go. We have a long walk ahead of us.
Entry 27: Alhane, how blind I have been! Is it a matter of a language that I didn’t learn properly? Is it obvious to all but me? Taljen claims to love me. She certainly has shown them more affection than I deserve. Yet, when the
houses must be changed,she will be perfectly content to return to another. How could she be this way? How could I have expected anything else? Now I am beginning to perceive the cause of her ambivalence about the murder I committed when I first arrived at Ta-tjenen, her ambivalence about me, and yet her total devotion to the community as a whole. Taljen may love everyone or may love no one. I do not think I can tell which is the reality. Maybe Ta-tjenen has sorted out for itself my confusion. The Tjenens, perhaps, have done well by this outcome of peculiar biology—if it is the biology—if that causes it. As Taljen said, I might benefit from being a Tjenen. Who knows? If my entrance to Ta-tjenen had not started off so poorly, I might have found it a pleasant place to live. Ta-tjenen seems to be a city content with itself. Is it anything more? Perhaps you, who have a true love for your work, know the answer.But life is not all unfortunate, Time Keeper. I too have found the work to which I will devote myself. It came upon me in my sickness. Yes, a Patra-Bannk germ attacked my body through undefended channels. In my long delirium something opened up for me. It is like the feeling you get when you are about to wake up from a long night’s sleep. (You’ve never had one, have you?) A picture, a solution to a bothersome problem, arises from your unconscious, and it must be caught or it sinks to the bottom of your brain again, lost until another lucky sleep gives you a second chance. There have been several occasions when I almost caught it: on my ship coming to our world, with Taljen in my shuttle, with her again last Patra. Now I have caught it, finally, after my pitifully slow mind put the pieces together. Now I have caught it, and although our journey seems hopeless, I must get south to Pike and his mysterious city. Because I am sure that is where the answers are.