The Seven Salts

`                                                                                                                                                                                                                        The Seven Salts  

By Eli Uszacki

Karylos, World of oceans. From orbit, you could look out the window for hours, days even, without noticing land. Like a bead of glass the moon shines, blue and white, whorls of light purple appearing and disappearing in the currents that span its unbroken waters: perfect endless oceans under the steady gaze of The Eye. What land there is amounts to no more than a string of crumbs, half green and half tan, thrown in the midst of a violent ocean. The world is unique, an island in a sea of lifeless planets, a realm of placid waters, violent storms and rushing tides. Its people have been there long enough to forget their true home, to smell the salt and ammonia, to feel the warm rain on their faces and know it as one knows a mirror. For more than ten thousand years it has been this way. Until today.

         Today, a new light graces the skies of Karylos.

#

The door to Oro’s shop hung ajar. It was evening time. From where she sat, past the cracked red paint and worn threshold, she could see a corner of the Eye. It was a crescent now, that massive tumult of changing clouds and shifting light that marked the days and weeks and lit the fragrant desert nights. It was good luck to be seen by The Eye, and Oro returned its gaze while she could, looking out from the faded red of her woolen shawl.

         The apothecary was empty. The hour was late, and few people walked the side streets to begin with. Old Oro sat at the counter, counting her earnings for the day. The thick, rectangular glass coins clinked together as she slid them across the counter to their respective piles: tan, blue, red and clear. It was calming to her and she allowed herself a deep breath, thick wrinkles tightening and releasing as she did so, stretching the faded tattoos under her eyes. 

         Suddenly, the old front door creaked and swung open to reveal the street, washing the thick salt-and-ammonia smell of the river over the dusty floor and across the rows of jars and baskets. A child peeked through, an unfamiliar one, not one of the neighborhood kids. Oro stopped sliding the coins and looked for a moment.

         “What have you come for child?” she asked in a motherly tone, smiling, flashing a red and blue glass tooth from when she had fallen on the mountain path years ago. He was obviously shy, hesitating, then answering in a near silent tone.

         “I just wanted to see” he said, clutching the doorframe, waiting for Oro’s approval.

         “Well, come in then. Look around, I have everything: every salt from the tides to the cordillera, the medicinal wyrmfish, blood of the snow-palms and the vision plants. Be careful with those, darling, you won’t be ready for the other-world for a long while.” Oro said, half-joking with herself.

         The boy hesitated, then stepped inside, leaving the door wide open, welcoming the scent of desert evening into the old shop. Oro got back to counting, though she kept an eye on the child as he slowly wandered between the jars. He strode past the mounds of salt, noting their pastel colors but never stopping for long. There was something off about him, Oro thought. He wore a tunic of fine goats’ wool, in the northern style, woven thin with braids and knotted whorls. Despite the quality, it was stained and dirty as though it hadn’t been washed in weeks. This child is from elsewhere Oro thought, suddenly feeling a pang of pity for the poor thing. The rebellion in the north had been subdued, Oro thought, but its people were still paying the price.  

                     Suddenly, with a wide-eyed glance, the child dashed off, leaping over the threshold and into the sandy street, leaving behind a small cloud of dust and a shallow impression in a pile of pain-mother salt. And a Thief, too! Oro stood and walked to the door, peering out into the street, but the boy was long gone. She could have found him, there were no secrets here in Eklia. Instead, she stood and turned her face to the Eye. I suppose it’s charity she thought, her face upturned in the evening light. Over the horizon, a pale dot appeared, moving quickly across the sky, crossing over the crescent of light, the shadowed milky whorls of otherworldly clouds. She watched it’s path as it arced overhead. The visitor. She recognized the oblong shape surrounded by a circular band. It had arrived only a month ago, unannounced. Nobody could remember seeing such a thing in the sky, though there were already some who claimed it was the Traveler, heavens gate, a mythical way between realms. Oro wasn’t sure.  She stayed there awhile, watching the sky before going back to her money, thinking, Strange times these are. Strange times indeed. 

#  

         Nearly a week later, in the heat of the day, the boy came again. Oro didn’t notice him at first, the shop was busier than usual and she was caught up weighing salts and dried plants, discussing prices and properties, bantering with the regulars. She almost missed him entirely, catching the edge of his fine tunic as he tried to slip out of the shop unnoticed.

“Give it back!” She said, raising her voice and causing the other customers to look up from their shopping.  

The child looked surprised and ashamed, but didn’t care to address her. He threw his handful of salt to the ground and tore away from the old womans’ grip, running off into the streets once again.

“should I give chase, Doma?” a voice asked from the back of the shop. Oro turned and noticed a man walking towards her. Shirtless, He bore a tattooed stripe across his nose only a shade darker than his skin, marking him as a messenger and a ward of the state. If she wished, he would run after the child and be back in moments. Oro shook her head.

“Thank you, but no. I’m sure he’ll be back.” The man looked uncomfortable, ready to dash off at any moment.  

“Are you sure? You know the law…”

“As well as anyone!” She snapped. “That doesn’t mean I have to follow it.”

         The man looked shocked for a moment, not expecting to hear the kindly old woman speaking out against the Hashra, the ancient law, in public. The truth was that she couldn’t care less. Age had done a number to her submissive instincts, even in times like these.

         “Go on! Take your salt! And don’t forget to leave your voucher.” Oro said to the man. The messenger corps was given vouchers to pay for food and amenities, which required Oro to visit the council house for reimbursement. It was a headache to do and they always seemed to underpay her. Not that it mattered to much as business had been good recently, Talk of the Traveler had scared people into stockpiling salts and searching the other-world for answers. Hearing this, the messenger turned and scooped a bag of each salt, then placed the palm sized goatskin sacks in his satchel, leaving a small tablet of stamped glass on the counter. Oro watched him trot off and returned to her work, relieved that the boy had escaped. If he truly was a refugee, the way Oro thought, then his only hope was to work as a ward of the state. Something a convicted thief could never do.

 #

         It was busy again when the boy came for the third time. It had been more than a month and Oro was beginning to think he had learned his lesson. This time, as she handled money and weighed her wares, she watched him out the corner of her eye. He waited, looping the shop aimlessly, until the line at the counter had dissipated. Much to Oro’s surprise, he walked up to her. Still failing to meet her gaze, he held out his hand, presenting a tabular piece of glass, stamped with the council insignia: The Eye above the pain-mother palm. Oro sniffed at it, then delicately took it from his hand. There was a moment of silence while Oro thought of what to say. When she spoke, she spoke quietly.

         “Do you know the punishment for stealing a ward voucher?” she asked. The boy shook his head. Oro stared at him, then explained in a stern voice, 

         “In the Hashra, there are three kinds of theft: theft of necessity, theft of malice and theft of the state.” The child froze, still failing to meet the old woman’s eye. “To steal official documents is theft of the state. You could be sent to the tide-paths, child, or pay the fine at the price of a hand.” Oro finished, giving the child a stern look. What was at first simple apprehension had become wide-eyed fear on the child’s face. Oro could tell he was planning his next move, about to bolt to the door for a third time.  

         “You’re lucky I don’t believe in such punishments. Tell me your name child, and we can work out a deal.” 

         There was silence for a moment, long enough for Oro to wonder if the poor thing was mute. A shepherd walked past the door, amid a herd of long-legged white and black goats. 

         “Trestos” the boy finally answered, as though whispering a secret. “Trestos Ikatsi” At first, Oro was confused. After all, Trestos was the word for rain in her language. Then, it occurred to her that the child was a northerner after all. It was common to name oneself after natural phenomena in the north, amid the deltas of the minor rivers. Her hunch had been correct.

         “An?” Oro clarified

         “An-Oumo” said Trestos, speaking his family name.

         “A fine day to meet you, Trestos Ikatsi an-Oumo. I am Oro Eklia an-Kargya. Where are your parents, Trestos?” Oro asked, this time adopting a softer tone. At the mention of his parents, Trestos grew mute again. Oro could see the pain in his eyes, the look of a wound still fresh and bleeding. After so many hard years, the old woman couldn’t help but feel a streak of pity for the boy.

         “I’ll tell you what,” Oro said, a smile rising in the corner of her lips, “take everything you need. come back tomorrow and you can work for what you stole. If you do well, you can work for me three days a week. That way you can earn your salt.”  

Trestos took a moment to think. without responding, he filled a bag of pain-mother and another of the dried, coiled strips of Yydraxes. He turned for the door, then paused to look back, crossing his hand over his heart in a gesture of thanks before lighting off into the soft dusk.

#

         From the journal of Lynn Thomas, Earth-Karylos contact mission

If the solar system was as large as the Pacific Ocean, the earth would be roughly eight centimeters wide. The length of a finger. This fact has been repeating in recent days, running through my head in a loop, each whisper of thought more unbelievable, more true than the last. It was the first thing I learned in my very first course at university, more than ten years ago. It feels like a lifetime since then, like I was a different person, some other being whose memories inhabit a body that now hangs in midair, looking out the thick glass of a porthole at an ocean larger than any other. Nearly a whole world of oceans in fact, vast alien seas, bright polar caps and small, hostile islands of thick jungle and saline desert. Karylos. Home for next ten years, possibly the rest of my life.

         At the time, in university, I gave little thought to that interesting fact. It seemed like too much to possibly grasp. I was from the mainland, far from any ocean and the size of the pacific was unknown to me, though on paper I knew it was half of my home planet. I couldn’t fully understand that kind of scale. After all, an island the size of your finger isn’t really an island at all. In the last year I have sailed across an ocean far larger than any on earth. When I finally boarded the orbiter from the gargantuan hangers of the wave rail and looked down through the dense glass I felt for a moment a perfect understanding of scale. I saw a red star, a hulking orange and white planet twice the size of Jupiter, and in the distance, a pale dot, like a tiny sapphire set in the corner of the clock. A world, a grain of sand, a shining jewel; Little Karylos, a moon almost as large as Earth.

What’s more, we were more than a hundred and thirty light-years from Earth. A seemingly impossible distance, an ocean only measurable on a galactic level. Without the wave rail, it would be impossible for humans to travel this far in a year, or a hundred thousand years at that. And, without the wave rail, we wouldn’t have learned about this world, and a seemingly impossible reality it brought forth.  

Ten years ago, when I was a first-year student at university, a message was received from a probe dropped off by the Earth contact mission in a system where the wave rail had seemingly never stopped before. The mysterious ship, shared by all intelligent species in the Orion spur, had shifted course, stopping at the star Gnomon. This star had been known to humans for at least a thousand years, its planets mapped from great distance, though it was too far for even the fastest probes to reach in a timely fashion. Jumping at the chance, the contact mission launched their probe and, much to their surprise, found something completely unexpected.   

The first satellite images of Karylos showed oceans and storms. There were swirling clouds over endless undulating tides, then a small chain of islands, out of place in a global ocean and set at a comfortable thirty degrees south of the equator. Algal blooms or some other kind of biotic phenomena colored the water in gyres as large as continents. The implication was electric: life, on the moon of a planet larger than any in our solar system. When the camera zoomed in to investigate the isles, another surprise awaited. Fields, roads, buildings: Civilization. An uncommon thing in the galaxy, especially in the grasp of a star as small and volatile as Gnomon. then, an aerial probe was sent into the atmosphere to investigate. The messages it sent led me here. The probe recorded high oxygen in the atmosphere, twenty-one percent as opposed to earth’s sixteen, as well as high levels of nitrogen and traces gasses nearly matching the profile of the air I’ve breathed my whole life. A first. And not only that, but there were also pictures, from near and far, showing an unmistakable form: Spindly, dark figures walking, working, looking to the sky and pointing upwards. Human beings.

How did they get there? The answer was almost certain: at some point in the distant past, a group of people was picked up by the wave rail and taken to a distant alien moon then left there for an incredible amount of time. An expedition was organized almost immediately. I volunteered to go, my experience as a field ethnographer and linguist being the exact skills the mission hinged on. Not all of it though, as there was an army of biologists, geologists, chemists, pilots and space operations teams and everything in between. There was hardly a limit to what the wave rail could carry, so we packed the kitchen sink; there was a mountain of work to do. While it was certainly one of the greatest discoveries of all time, the pictures from Karylos also opened infinite lines of inquiry. Where did these people come from? Why did they leave? How did they learn to thrive in a hostile alien environment? How do they interact with alien life? What language do they speak? What do they believe in? and, most importantly, do they remember Earth?

#

Much to Oro’s surprise, Trestos showed up the next morning. She found him waiting by the door, his small form shrouded in the cool mists that rose off the river before sunrise. He looked cold, with his small arms and legs wrapped tightly in a ball, waiting for the old woman to arrive and the sun to rise. Oro ushered him in, offering him a cup of tea from the small kitchen in the back of the shop.  

“Did you sleep, child?” the old woman asked, taking her place behind the counter. Trestos sipped his tea tentatively, holding the cup close, as if he only wanted to squeeze the warmth right out of it.

“Yes.” He answered, though it looked as though he hadn’t slept in days. Oro had many questions about the boy, but she held her tongue. Asking too much would frighten him, and the old woman knew that she would only get the answers she sought if the child was comfortable. It would be a while before that happened. So, Oro resolved to fill the space with her own words, in hopes that boy would eventually speak of his own accord.  

“I hope you speak the truth.” Oro said, giving the child a piercing stare. “Tell me, what do you know of salt?” 

Trestos thought for a moment, peering briefly at the shelves for answers to the woman’s question. Oro waited patiently as he thought.

“We use it to cook, and also to heal ourselves”

“Good. Can you name them? All of them?” 

“um…” Trestos thought hard, no doubt trying to remember all seven at once. “pain-mother, salt of the eye, river salt, tide salt…” he trailed off. “that’s all I know.” He finished, his eyes downcast.  Oro smiled. It was interesting that he knew the salt of the eye. It was a powerful substance, not often used in cooking.

“And what do they all do?”  the old woman asked, a motherly warmth in her voice.

“Pain-mother helps you when you’re hurt. Tide salt is good to cook with, the salt of the eye…” Trestos looked into his cup of tea, searching for words “the salt of the eye changes the way things look, and how things feel.”

“Very good, Trestos. Your mother taught you well. To work for me, you will need to know each of the salts, the properties of the wyrmfish, the Yydraxes and poison clam, the medicinal plants of the sky river, the delta and the bounties of the western forests.” The boy looked overwhelmed, and Oro sought to reassure him,

 “You will learn all of this in time, so my first lesson is this: no substance is more important than salt. Nothing is more sacred, nothing is more powerful and nothing will ever be more valuable. Salt is the most abundant thing in this land and it still sells like tickets through the heavens path! To work for me you must know your salt, So. before anything, you will know the seven salts like you know your mother’s voice.”

The boy winced at that, and Oro realized that he may have lost his mother recently, either temporarily or into the other-world. She kicked herself for not being more sensitive.  The two sipped their tea for a moment before Oro began again.

“To start, there are two major groups of salt: the three cooking salts and the four medicinal salts. You already named some of each.  Tide salt, river salt and mountain salt are all used for cooking, cleaning and tanning hides. Mountain salt is sprinkled on grain and meat, tide salt is baked into bread and added at the beginning of a soup. River salt is added to runners’ tea and used when the others are in short supply. I suppose it’s easier to just show you.” the old woman stood from her old woven stool and shuffled over the dirt floor, beckoning the boy to join her. The shop was small, and the salts were tightly packed on a table in the middle of the room. Oro pointed out the three biggest baskets, one filled with white salt, the others pink and tan. Trestos, unsure of why the woman needed him to see the piles of salt he had seen all his life, flicked his eyes from Oro to the salt buckets and back.

“Hold out your hand.” she said, “close your eyes and empty your mind.”

Trestos did his best, taking a deep breath and holding out his left hand. The first draft of warm air washed through the room, burning off the mists of morning, heralding the strength of day. Oro placed a lumpy, crystalline grain of river salt in the boy’s diminutive palm. 

“Taste this. Let it dissolve on your tongue. Wait until it is gone and tell me what you see”

Slightly confused, the boy did as he was told, his tongue sticking to the tiny grain and pushing it up against his palate. He took a breath, letting the familiar bite of the solution spread over his tongue. It had a sparkling feeling, a bright feeling, a feeling that could only be associated with light and energy, the banishment of darkness. The river salt was pungent, diverse and complex in the same way that tide salt was simple and elegant. It tasted like the dust in the air, like the roots of the fan-palms and paddle-reeds. Like the heavy fog of morning over the shattered sand and limestone of the desert. Dissolved, the flavor changed character. Trestos recalled a moment much like this, not long ago, enveloped in the dung-smoke of a cookfire as his mother held him up to taste the soup, heavy in river salt, heavy in the scent and flavor of the world, at once familiar and inexplicably powerful. He remembered her voice, her hands, her words softly spoken as the men from the south came for their money, as the smoke from the cookfires erupted and the kitchen burned and houses fell and screams rung out to pierce the shadowed silence of night. He saw the glow of the Eye above the desert, the burning in his lungs as he ran, frightened and hungry, across the pan, the white desert, the funeral plain, knowing nowhere else to go. He felt his sisters hand holding his, tightly, as the heat of the day began to break over that empty land, miles and miles from anything familiar, anything safe.

Trestos opened his eyes.

“What did it taste like?” Oro asked.

The boy felt the hot sting of tears In his sunburned eyes and turned to keep the old woman from seeing his face. He replied softly,

“Ek Halonisi”

 The known world.

 #  

From the journal of Lynn Thomas, Earth-Karylos contact mission

At the beginning of any study, any course of scientific research, one must always review the relevant literature. Unfortunately for us, as a body of scientists and members of a temporary interstellar colony, this was impossible. We intended to do something that had never been done before. While first contact between humans and alien species has been made possible by the wave rail, and allowed humans to visit and study foreign worlds, each of these worlds shared a common thread: they welcomed contact and did what they could to help us. They knew where we came from and largely understood our capabilities as a species. In essence, we shared common ground. On Karylos, there will be no understanding. Our appearance to the native inhabitants of the planet will be a surprise, our technology more alien to them than anything we have been shown by actual alien species. Strangely, in seeking to meet members of our own species, we will likely be confronted with a society stranger and harder to understand than any truly alien species in the known worlds. 

Fortunately, on the journey out from earth, my colleagues and I did an extensive search through the wave rail archives and found a compelling record of the original colonists of Karylos. The archives, which record the stories of individual travelers aboard the wave rail, are governed by a form of computer intelligence-an entity that is not necessarily easy to interact with or obtain information from. Records of travelers are filed seemingly at random, and must be accessed through conversation rather than anything resembling a database, which can make things incredibly difficult. Thankfully, persistence won. The recordings, which usually last more than an hour, are untranslated and have remained so despite our incessant pleading with the archivist. But, what we can glean from them is amazing.

The voices we heard belonged to all ages of people, both men and women, with over five hundred individuals identified within a single voyage. And there was more than just one, in fact, there were three major migrations through the wave rail over a nearly thirty-year period. And what’s more? They spoke a language that, while unrecorded and unrecognizable to our ears, shared roots with other ancient Indo-European languages. To the best of our knowledge, these people lived somewhere in western Eurasia as early as the neolithic, meaning the people of Karylos have likely been separated from their home planet for more than ten thousand years.

Learning this firsthand was astounding. Somehow, while civilization grew and the people of earth changed rapidly, inventing mathematics and vaccines and space travel, there was another world of humans progressing in parallel. It dawned on us as a team that we were about to step into an alternate universe-one where the trajectory of our species took a completely different path.

We asked the known intelligent species aboard the wave rail if they had ever experienced something similar. The Omerandi, Cetians and Danu responded in the negative, though they offered what information they could on helpful first contact techniques. For now, it appears our species is unique in its strange division. At this point in the voyage, it appears that we have done all the preparation we can, we academics are simply waiting to arrive. I spend my days watching that perfect jewel of a world approach us, timidly it seems, its seas in a constant wash of light and storm.

         #

“Where does the river come from?” Trestos asked. It was evening time, and the boy was organizing a sack of dried plants on the wide countertop while Oro counted money, clinking the chipped glass tablets into a terracotta jar.

“From the mountains. The sky river begins at the resting place of the youngest sister, Imoush.”  

“Who?” said Trestos, unsure if this was another one of the things he was already supposed to know. Meanwhile, Oro realized that the child had been told different legends by different mothers. She had been to the north long ago, and  knew they believed different things, though it just now occurred to her that the origin story, the finding of the third world, could be told differently there as well.

“Imoush, youngest of the three sisters, The first people to arrive in the third world.” Oro explained patiently. Trestos still held a blank expression.  

“In Eklia, and throughout the seven rivers, we tell the story of the three sisters. It is the story of the birth of this place,” she gestured around the room. “The third world, the resting place of humanity. Ask me someday and I may tell you.” Oro leaned in, lowering her voice. “I know you are not from here. If you want to live in this corner of the world you must know this story, or else you will be lost. It is a thing that all people know.” Trestos only nodded.

“But it is late. Take what you need for the night and come back tomorrow, Take this and be on your way.” Oro handed the boy a coin, a small thick rectangle of tan glass inscribed with the symbol Decek. Trestos took the coin and inspected it, his eyes wide. He had never had money of his own. 

“Don’t spend it all at once, boy. There is more where that came from.”

With that, Trestos held his hand to his heart in the symbol of gratitude and turned to leave, grabbing more of the dried yydraxes before turning and taking off. Oro watched him leave, then went back to counting her money, taking deep breaths of the soft, humid air of evening.

#

On the street, Trestos picked up into a jog. The sun was setting and he had been kept at the shop longer than planned, Mari would be wondering where he was. He padded down the side street, his bag in hand, turning as he hit the out-road, the street that lead to the outskirts of Eklia and beyond. Others ran alongside him, wards and civil servants from the town center, their belongings wrapped tightly to their chests in bundles, dyed clothes tucked into belts, hair pinned tightly into dreadlocks and knots, kept out of the way for the evening commute. The soft sand crunched lightly but didn’t hurt. Centuries of pounding feet had worn the soft pebbles into compliance and filled the gaps with fine, hard packed sand. The road led past houses, low rectangular buildings of worked and polished limestone, thatched with the square fronds of field palms and pain-mother. The heady scent of riversalt and goat dung cookfires permeated the air. Kitchens bustled and laughter leaked onto the road as people settled in for the evening. Overhead, the Eye glowed radiant and piercing, though it’s light had shrunk to a sliver. It would be longnight soon, evidenced by the wards still stacking fuel by the road lamps and carrying blocks of lime to the sun-lamps in the center of town. Trestos passed them all, turning off to the river path as soon as the houses ceased to pass, climbing to the high bluff above the sky river. 

Trestos ran fast, his calloused feet finding their place easily as he breathed hard on the stony path. When he reached the top he paused, looking back across the valley in it’s double-dusk. To one side lay the sky river, pinched to a heavy flow by the bluffs, torrential and wide. It wasn’t the largest of the seven rivers, but it was impressive still; it was nearly fifty meters wide at its narrowest point below his feet. A great bridge spanned the width of the river between the bluffs, monumental and arching high, heavy ropes snug to its center and anchored atop the cliffs. Just then it occurred to Trestos the meaning of its name: the gate of Imoush, a relic from the age of kings. Turning, he saw the whole of Eklia, nestled below the bluff at the edge of the river, circular and expansive. He had not been here long and had yet to see anything east of the city center, the complex of peaked, conical domes around which the city gathered. He had heard tales of the south as a child, the stoneworks and cities, the colored lights and the lantern wards who kept the streets lit for the whole of long-night. He never thought he would see any of it. Now, largely alone in the wonders of the wide world, Trestos wished with all his being to return home. He clutched the coin tightly in his hand, willing it to carry him away.

“Where were you?”

Trestos turned around at the familiar voice. Mari was peeking her head out the top of their hideout, the whites of her eyes shining in the infancy of night. Trestos jogged over, clambering over the rim of the empty rain-bowl they had made their home. It was a deep depression in the rocks just big enough for the two children, one of many in the soft limestone cliffs, smooth and glasslike with streaks of light yellow and dusky blue.

“I stayed late at the shop. I think that old woman wants me to keep working for her.”

“Why?”

Trestos handed her the tablet of glass, the Decek coin, and his roll of food.

“I don’t really know. She seems kind.” Trestos glanced down at Mari’s ankle, where the dart had hit during their escape. It was dry and crusted, but still infected and swollen. It didn’t seem to get any better. In fact, it appeared to get worse by the day. Mari was in denial. “I think she could help you.”

At the mention of help, Mari stepped back against the wall.

“Did you tell her about me?” her eyes were wide, filled with paranoia. She was older than Trestos but had fared far worse in the last two months.  In her mind, they were still on the run.  

“No! no I didn’t, but she sells medicine. And I don’t think she’s with them” he pointed to the city, the tall beehives of people who had orchestrated the murder of their family. At least, that was the extent of his knowledge. “She didn’t report me to the law. Not even after I stole from that messenger. She’s on our side.”

Mari curled against the curve of the wall, sinking into her tattered wool smock. Her eyes were locked to something in the middle distance, something Trestos couldn’t see, her face showing the familiar expression of a mind lost in memory. 

“Can I tell her tomorrow?” Trestos said, speaking quietly, carefully. She didn’t respond. 

Eventually, Mari opened the small bag of food and began to eat slowly. Trestos followed suit, making sure that she took a hefty pinch of pain-mother with her ration. Darkness fell, and the two curled into the wall to sleep, slowly falling into one another as the night wore on, the final sliver of the Eye disappearing behind the western cordillera.  Above them, a speck of light swiftly traversed the vault of stars in perfect silence.

#

Arrival. The Pleides Our orbiter (formally a forward operations base for the Jovian research mission) has arrived in the skies above Karylos. Strangely, we have arrived only a few standard days before the entire moon would be engulfed in the shadow of its parent planet. Unfortunately, this means that our passing over the moon’s inhabited islands would no longer be shrouded by the sky, as had originally been planned. Instead, our orbit now demanded that our ship cross the night sky within sight of the people we had intended on surprising. Some members of the mission deny that the locals will notice, and I couldn’t disagree more. For most of human history, Humans have known their sky better than anything. We might as well be knocking on their door. Not that it matters-we will land regardless, though the decision has been made to wait until the planet experiences a regular day/night cycle again. None of us wish to be remembered as creatures of the night.  

 How strange it must be, to live a quarter of your life through week-long nights, with a planet the size of your outstretched hand dominating the sky every day, with only an island the size of Madagascar to live on and tides too rough to explore the global ocean. Do they feel trapped? Confined? Or does the world seem perfect in its composition? Do they yearn for more? Is the size of their world, their island, simply the size of the universe? The boundaries of reality visible and definite in every direction? I am eager to know. The Earth has always been mysterious. The mysteries of Karylos seem far stranger. Awake in our palace in the sky, all we have left to do is wait.

#

Trestos arrived on time. When he showed up, Oro had already opened the door and made tea for the morning. The shop would be busy today, but not until the afternoon. It was lastday, and sunset would mark the beginning of longnight. People always seemed to scramble for their needs last-minute. Oro always took the chance to hike prices on the hot items: salt of the eye for those who searched the otherworld during the depth of night, manganese to prolong the lamp fires and twine for fence repair. The latter always sold out. Nobody wants to be caught by creatures of the dark, the saltwolves and hyarax that hunted when the eye could not see. Oro was winding lengths of twine onto palm spools when Trestos walked in. He looked haggard, as though he had aged a year overnight. Oro ushered him over and offered him tea.

“Did you sleep?” she asked. The boy only nodded.

“Good, I’m going to need your help today. This is always the busiest day of the month. You see this twine here?” she patted the massive spool next to her. It was fence twine-the cheap kind, made of dried strips of field palm and scraps of goats wool. “We’ll sell all of this today. Most of it in short lengths. My fingers are old and tired, so I’ll have you spooling twine for me, like this,” The old woman unwound a strand of twine and measured it out, three arm lengths, then cut it with an old, chipped glass knife. She then grabbed a short stick from a basket by her side and wound the twine carefully around it, sinking the end of the string into a split at the end of the stick to hold it in place. “Do this until the basket is full.” She said, pointing to an empty basket on the floor.  Trestos looked at the empty basket with trepidation, flicking his eyes to the massive spool of twine. Oro noticed this.

“It won’t take long, Busy days go quick anyway.”

Trestos sat down, holding his thick clay cup close for warmth. He hadn’t slept much, and could feel the leaden sensation of true fatigue as he began to measure a length of string.

“Where are you staying?” Oro asked out of the blue from behind her desk. Trestos paused, frozen in indecision. What would happen if she knew the truth?  He thought briefly, before coming to the conclusion that the old woman was smart and would eventually learn everything anyway, lying to her now would do no good.  

“I sleep outside town, on the bluffs above the bridge” he said, his voice monotone, expecting the vitriolic reaction that came often from the people of Eklia when it was discovered he was a refugee.  

“I suspected” Oro said. Trestos pretended to focus on his work, tense in anticipation.  

“How long have you stayed there?”

“For two weeks and one longnight.”  

The old woman set down the strips of yydraxes she was coiling and sat for a moment in silent astonishment. This child had stayed out in the wilds through the depths of longnight. She could only imagine the fear he felt, cold and motherless in the dark with the ghostly glow of the night plants and the thunderous calls of the hyarax.

         “Alone?” she questioned further.

         “No. With my sister.”

         Sister? No wonder he takes so much food. He provides for her. There was a long silence as Oro considered what to do. She couldn’t leave the child to stay out during longnight again. Not only was it against her morals, it was against the law. One had to provide shelter to travelers for the longnight. or risk punishment under the hashra. 

         “You plan to stay out there again, I assume?”

         “Yes.” Trestos pointedly kept his back turned. Oro hummed for a moment, thinking. There was a gentle rumble as the twine unwound from the spool. Trestos wished a customer would arrive so he could avoid questioning like this.

         “It is too dangerous for you out there. You will stay with me.” Then, with a sigh of resignation, “we’ll close at noon today. I can’t have you retrieving your sister in the dark of longnight. I have an errand to run anyway. You can help me.”

         Trestos breathed a sigh of relief. He recalled vividly the clicks and snaps of night creatures, the eerie glow of night plants and the dusky half light of the eye, ringed in a minute glow turning everything a monotone burnished red, stars strewn across the sky.

         “What is her name?” Oro asked. Trestos still said anything.

         “Amaria. I call her Mari.” 

         “Amaria. Heavens. What a beautiful name.”

         “It is.” Trestos responded diminutivly.

         “Oro?” he asked, turning to face her, “Thank you.” the old woman smiled, and went back to work.

#

        They closed the shop at noon, and Oro hung a sign on the door listing the store’s hours during longnight. The two walked through the hurried crowds of last-minute shoppers, this time turning right and walking through the river neighborhood. Houses reached two or three stories high, thatch pouring off the domed rooftops onto the street. Stacks of fuel piled high next to tall lamp towers and attendants worked to polish mirrors and glass in the last few hours before sunset. The acrid smell of the river shore washed over the dusty streets as they approached the wharf, Where fishermen who spent the final hours of the light week at the base of the rapids were now tying up to shore, hurriedly unloading their catch and coiling lines and nets. It was algoun season, and the pale bodies of the hulking fleshy creatures lined the stones of the riverbank as the Ilikoi did their work before selling the flesh to the waiting crowd of shoppers.

         Oro and Trestos took their place at the back of the line, waiting as the Ilikoi worked their way down the line of stinking white wyrmfish, inserting syringes into the eyestalks of the creatures and extracting a dark green fluid. As the crowd began to notice the old woman, they shuffled to the side, allowing the pair to work their way to the front. Once there, Trestos could see clearly the small group of robed individuals, faces adorned with glass and clay piercings, tattoos dripping down their temples. They worked intently, shuffling vials of the strange fluid into baskets and preparing long glass syringes.

         “What are they doing?” he asked the old woman.

         “Extracting the creatures’ soul” she responded

         “The soul?” he questioned, his limited knowledge of the soul not accounting for a physical fluid that inhabited the body.

         “Yes. For the four-eyed creatures the soul is kept as a fluid in the brain. We are different. Our soul is not kept in this world.”

         “Where is it then?” Trestos asked as he wrinkled his nose. He turned his shoulder as another buyer squeezed his way to the front of the crowd. Oro shuffled over to let him in.

         “Our souls are kept safe in the other world. To access them, we must consume the soul of an earthly creature like the Algoun. That fluid there is the basic ingredient in the salt of the eye.” She pointed at the basket. “Most people here come for the flesh of those beings, but we are here for the soul, the bridge of Imat”

         As she spoke, the Ilikoi began walking down the line with the vials, presenting their wares to shopkeepers and Saltmakers, who bartered and haggled over prices. When they reached Oro and Trestos, the Ilikoi stopped again. There were three of them, each holding a basket with different colored vials in each.  

         “The same?” asked one of them, largest of the three. He had words tattooed on his temples, dark against his dark skin. He smelled strongly of incense.  Oro glanced at Trestos.

         “More. An extra first vial, two extra second vials” she said, pointing to what she wanted. The first vials were smaller and clear aquamarine, while the second vials were larger and more opaque. The third and fourth vials were lumped together in the final basket, globs of blood and brain matter floated in the muddy fluid.  

         “Two decek, and five” the man said, gruff and confrontational.

         “Do you take vouchers?” the old woman asked quietly, holding out the glass tablet in the palm of her hand. It was the voucher Trestos has stolen earlier in the week. The big Ilikoi eyed Oro suspiciously before taking the thick plate of glass from her hand. Her reached into his money box and dropped a couple thin udo coins, as though she were expecting change. A slight grin appeared on the old womans lips as she grabbed her vials, handing them to Trestos. After they wormed their way out of the crowd, the old woman leaned down to his ear and spoke in a conspiratorial tone.

         “It’s a good thing you stole that. You’re earning your keep after all.”

 Trestos looked back at her, confused.

         “I don’t understand”

         “Those vouchers will pay any price, but only once before the month resets. When you receive them, you must mark them as used, then take them to the money keepers for reimbursement. That tablet was never spent, so I could do as I wished with it.”

         “Did that man know?”

         “Oh yes. He’ll probably use that tablet for himself to buy a new lantern or some other expensive thing from the workshops.”

Trestos still looked confused.

“That’s stealing.”

Oro thought for a moment, looking for the right word.

“Yes, it is stealing. A special kind of stealing called corruption. It’s only different because the people in charge are in on it too. It’s less personal.”

“What if you get caught?” at that, the old woman laughed.

“I am very old. I spent a thousand longnights as a messenger in the far north. I have run the tide paths more times than I can remember, and have traveled the other-world more times  than that. I have even seen the Hyarax. I fear many things, but the law is no longer one of them.”

Trestos nodded, understanding. The two walked on the out road, toward the bluffs. The sun was already partially blocked, nibbled at the edge by the halo of light surrounding the black disk of The Eye. Longnight was upon them.  

“Recite to me the seven salts.” Oro asked, out of the blue. Trestos racked his brain.

“well, there’s…River salt, tide salt, mountain salt, salt of the eye, pain mother…” he trailed off, trying hard to remember the final two. Oro finished for him.

“Salt of the hand and salt of the heart.”

Trestos nodded. He had never heard of those before. The eerie silence of world-shadow had fallen on the land. Everything was waiting for the coming of the night.

“Those two are the lesser used” Oro continued, her feet crunching on the smooth gravel. “Salt of the hand is used for labor and message running. It helps one focus and gives extra energy. It can be very addicting.”

They reached the turn for the bluffs and began to climb the steep trail. Trestos was surprised at the speed and grace with which the old woman walked. She barely broke a sweat, carefully placing her feet on the softest stones and most stable ground, balancing on the balls of her feet and springing upward.  She spoke as she walked.

“Salt of the heart is very different. It heals your emotions, calms your mind. Salt of the heart can cure some kinds of insanity, sooth a persistent bout of sadness or help a person who is stuck in the other-world. Many people will never use it, but some use it every day.”   

Trestos failed to respond, out of breath as he was, though a thought occurred to him: Maybe this woman can help Mari. He was anxious as he approached the top of the cliff, afraid of how she would react to him bringing a stranger to their hiding place without asking, afraid of everything crashing down just when things were finally getting better. It was too late now, anyways. Oro climbed ahead to the top and went straight to the hole where Mari and Trestos had been sleeping, As though she knew exactly where to go. By the time Trestos had caught up with her she was crouching at the rim of the limestone bowl.

Mari remained where Trestos had left her that morning. She was backed against the smooth stone, a look of wild impassivity across her face, the way an animal looks when cornered, both calm and panicked at the same time. Oro shifted to sit with her legs dangling off the rim of the bowl, smiling serenely at the injured, grimy child below her. Trestos poked his head over and Mari stared at him, relaxing almost instantly.

“Mari, I…”   

“Hello Mari,” Oro cut him off “how is it down there?”

The girl didn’t respond. Her eyes flicked between her brother and the strange old woman, unsure of what to do. 

“I see. Very warm, no doubt.” Silence. The three sat there as the sun slid behind The Eye. The sunset of Longnight was different from other sunsets, there were usually no colors, no red or blue or purple clouds. Sometimes one would wake up to the depth of night, confused, before realizing that the sun would not rise that day and had set behind the eye sometime in the night. The most dramatic sunsets of Longnight were like the one those three felt as they sat on the bluff. Hot afternoons below an electric blue sky, when heat and dust glittered below the peaks of the cordillera, a gentle breeze coming from the banks of the river, the Eye floating above it all, barely a sliver of swirling clouds lit by the dull red of the sun. above that radiating land the sun would first kiss the edge of that milky world then gradually fall into its maw as the sky burned away and the world is cloaked in shadow. Stars would appear immediately as though a veil had been pulled from their cat-like faces and night was born again in full. A Breeze would blows across the desert and the land reflected the heat of day and cool slowly, the winds ruffling the stiff leaves of plants as they fold together and scattering sand over mats of lichen as they begin to glow, dull at first, then brightening as the biological clock ticks ever forwards and the darkness is broken with patches of earth-light, scattered with blankets of stars, cold with the alkaline scent of the distant sea.

“Mari, this is the woman I have been working for. She says she will take us in for longnight.” Trestos said, in a pleading tone. “We can be safe with her.”

Mari stared at Trestos for a long time. He stared back, as if to say believe me, just this once. Finally, she spoke.

“What will happen after?”

Oro cracked a half smile.

“That’s what we get to figure out, you and I. I like your brother. I know where you’re from, and just how deep of a hole you’re really in.” she said, gesturing to the bowl of stone before her. “I can help you both.”

Mari directed her glare to the old woman above her.

“What if I don’t want help?”

The smile fell from Oro’s face.

“Then you will die.”

They all sat for a moment longer, the sun gliding across the boundary of light and darkness, wind pushing sand across the stone. Mari stood and scrambled up to Oro, brushing dirt from the wool of her smock as she stood up. 

“Its getting dark. Let’s go.” She said, turning and stalking down the trail. The decision was made. Trestos helped Oro up and the two of them hurried after the girl, who limped ahead of them despite not knowing where she was headed. The shadow of the eye had fallen and stars had appeared despite the last vestiges of day still clinging on over the sillouette of the cordillera.  They walked back along the out road, skirting town as the lamps were lit, illuminating pockets of the dry, stony streets. A glow rose from the center of town where the sun lamps  already shone bright on the square, doors closed and fires were lit, the monasteries spilled light into the open street. The murmurs of those seeking advice in the otherworld echoed out of the lamplit domes amid waves of incense. The old woman led the two children through the streets, ushering them inside and lighting her lamps in darkness. A star travelled the sky overhead, different from the others; closer, faster, brighter. Soon, everything would change.

 Shops had limited hours during longnight, and business was usually slow even when they did happen to be open. The first day of longnight, Oro put Trestos and Mari to work cleaning and organizing the storeroom and making space for them to sleep. After that, they went to work in earnest, preparing tinctures and salts, bottling and measuring, mending and fixing. They did this for some time, listening closely for the chimes of the town clock, which marked the hours in the manner of the sun and the Eye.  

Mari began to heal. Oro had examined the wound under a bright lamp, and after much protest from her erstwhile patient, successfully pulled a thin splinter of glass from her achilles. The old woman cleaned and wrapped the wound expertly, and in the following days the girl began to heal. She lost her fever and slept soundly for the first time in months. Trestos breathed a sigh of relief as he watched her in the depths of slumber, the panes of colored light from Oro’s glass lamps painting her harsh features in a rosy mosaic. Though delicate in sleep, she remained cold and remote during the day. She seemed different now. Changed.  

Though the darkness of longnight persisted, the low, multicolored glow of the shop grew as bright as day to the children’s eyes as they adjusted to the persistent darkness. It was almost blinding when Oro brought them to the town square. They held hands as they walked the streets, traversing islands of light and shallow seas of shadow, their bare feet padding softly across the smooth limestone walkways of inner Eklia, the old city.

The square was a sunken depression surrounded by the hive-like domes of the administration, each corner marked with a tall tower topped by a sun lamp. Attendants fueled the fires and shuttled wood, carefully adjusting the heat of the flame and pumping the bellows. The three sat on the worn stone bench that lined the square and watched as people mulled about, one child on either side of the old woman. Mari broke the silence.  

“What will happen to us when the sun rises?”  

Oro took a deep breath, considering how much truth the child was ready for. Most of it, she decided.

“You will remain with me. I suppose I need the help, anyway.” She paused and watched as a group of messengers ran laps around the edge of the square. “but that can’t last forever. Eventually, you will need to join the state as a ward. Unless you have documentation, that is the only way. It is a hard life, but it could be worse, I was a ward for many years.” She absently brushed the stripe of faded ink that ran under her eyes and across her nose. Trestos locked eyes with Mari, both of them burning with curiosity.

“How did you get out?” he inquired.

Oro paused again, letting her eyes follow the group of messengers as they trotted along. The ones in front moved with sleek, measured grace, as though their bodies were still and the world ran under their feet. The group was a fast one, with the exception of a few stragglers in back who clomped along, sweating profusely. The group passed by them and Oro watched the back of the pack. She caught a flash of redness on their cheeks, the tell-tale sign of fresh tattoos.

“I won the race across the world.” Oro stated with finality. It was ages ago, but the memory was still sharp, like the smell of vinegar or the sting of salt in a wound.

“The race across the world?”

“Yes. It happens every year. A footrace from the forests of the west across the cordillera and down the sky river to the sea. From one ocean to another, a traverse of the world. Ek-halonisi caluphet.”

“Was it hard to do?” Mari asked, unconsciously leaning in to hear the old woman.

She let out a harsh chuckle. It was a silly question. Of course it was hard. It was the single most challenging thing she had ever done, she had nearly died in the process.

         “Of course it was hard, in every way. Maybe you will know someday.”

Trestos and Mari shared a knowing look, the kind of look that says without saying. Maybe we already do. Before either of them could elaborate, Oro pointed to the sky.

“Look!”

They did as they were told and looked upward where, even through the blinding lamplight, a bright star appeared, moving quickly across the sky.  They watched in silence as the rest of the people nudged each other and looked upwards, stopping in their tracks. As the dot of light moved, it grew brighter, almost gaining shape. Mari briefly saw it take a hexagonal form before blurring and dimming into a bright streak of motion. The people watched as the light grew red and wavered, then disappeared entirely over the edge of the horizon. This was not the obvious shape of The Traveler. There was a smooth, shocked silence laid over the square as they tried to make sense of what they had just seen. A messenger, one of the fast ones, peeled off from her group and shot across the square into a domed building, the ministry of exchange.

“What was that?” asked Mari, turning to face Oro. The old woman looked at the child then back to the sky, peering into the smattering of stars that lay between the bright lamps.

“Something different, I think. Something new.”

#

From the journal of Lynn Thomas, Earth-Karylos contact mission I

The landing craft are nearly ready. We have spent the last week circling Karylos in it’s global night, high above the ever shifting oceans. I’ve done what preparation I can do, and I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. I don’t think a person could ever be truly ready for this, after all, the first impression of my entire homeworld rests largely on my shoulders. It is my team that will speak the first words to the people of Karylos. 

I’ve been spending much of my time by the porthole. Many of us have. The seas are mesmerizing; the dull, swirling glow of bioluminescence carries on tides and currents on a scale that is mind-boggling to comprehend. It’s barely noticeable at first, but impossible to look away from once noticed. I can only imagine the beauty of those waters, entire seas of light under swirling clouds and fields of stars.

I’ve begun sleeping in my bunk onboard the ground command center, just to get used to things. This ship has been my home for more than a year now, and it takes time to separate myself. After all, it could be years before I make it back to the relative safety of the Pleiades. We make landfall tomorrow, at dawn, near the largest population center we could find. It’s amazing how those cities glow at night, almost brighter than the cities of Earth. Our landing site was clear to us the moment we passed over that crumb of land. I’m trying to avoid thinking, to avoid imagining the strange and seemingly impossible future that will inevitably come to pass. This time tomorrow, I will stand on another world. 

#

Before the bells rung the song of the rising sun, and before the thick sheet of fog poured off the cordillera, Oro knew the sun would rise. She knew it like her own breath, the stirring currents of wind that marked the coming of the light. It was the end of longnight. All the work had been done in the shop, everything bundled, weighed and wrapped for the busy week ahead. The children were growing bored, and had begun to lay about, restless and ready for the rising of the sun, the heat of day, an end to the ceaseless clicking of the creatures of the night. It was cold, the way it always was at the end of longnight. The kind of cold that turned water into stone.  When the bells rung, she woke the children and bundled them in blankets, ushering them out the door and down the streets with all the others from town. Lamps rose from the crowd, washing away the gentle phosphorescence of lichen in a storm of flickering orange light. Stars shown overhead, burning cold, bright and colorful.

“Where are we going?” Trestos whispered.

“The bridge of Imoush, To welcome the sun.”

         The entourage wound out of town and cut below the bluff, up the long switchbacks that lead the way across the river. The bridge was tall-a single graceful arc of balanced stones that had once proudly stood on its own. Now, nearly a thousand years old, the people of Eklia had insured it’s strength with two long, sturdy ropes strung across the canyon from the bluffs above, crossing under the apogee of the bridges’ arc. From a distance, it almost looked like a sagging animal, an algoun or maybe a dead goat, held up from the middle by a piece of string. Not that they could see it, with the darkness of night looming all around. All Trestos saw was the flickering of torches reflecting on polished stone. The sussurous of shuffling feet and the sky river’s murmurings drowned all other sounds and the deep, primordial scent of salt, rain and sediment surrounded him. Even through the torchlight, breath could be seen like puffs of smoke in the darkness.  

         The children gripped Oro’s hands and fell in line, crowding the wide stone path as they climbed to the top. When they arrived, the people stood still, eyes trained northward on the black hole in the sky that marked The Eye. It would be one of the rare sunrises where the sun pulled out from behind the eye into the middle of the sky, breaking the darkness of night with the pale brightness of morning. The people were silent. They stood shuffling in the chill, breath clouding the dull lamplit dark as the roar of the water echoed off the steep stone of the bluffs. Trestos and mari clung to Oro, shivering in their blankets as the lamps were extinguished one by one. for a moment, darkness reigned.

         Above them, a disk of true black interrupted the stars. From it’s edge came a gentle brush of gray, then orange and red. The sliver grew, barely illuminating the stones of the bridge. They stood for what felt like an eternity as the light brightened, at first in silence, then joining in a slow dirge lead by the Ilikoi. The singing grew loud, echoing and distorting with the sounds of the river as true sunlight rounded the corner of the Eye, returning in an instant the color of the sky and the pastel shades of desert, river and stone. Faces returned, no longer outlined in flickering shadow, but shown in full. The chorus reached a pitch as the sun found it’s strength, so bright you could no longer see it directly, some shielded their eyes as they joined the primordial hum.

         Oro sang as she always had, feeling the warmth of the sun of her face and basking in the wash of sound from the river. But something was different. There was another sound, another thunder. Gasps erupted from the crowd and Oro opened her eyes, looking upwards, where a line of fire trailed across the sky. Trestos and Mari gripped the old woman’s hands, wide-eyed, as a thunder rose to counter the river, a thunder that grew into a scream as a great scar of flame tore the sky in two. People ducked and shielded their eyes from the blinding light as the noise reached a crescendo. Smoke trailed across the Eye as the roar continued in the west. Flashes came from behind the bluff and people began to run.

         Trestos and Mari ran with Oro to the road. Without hesitation, Mari broke from the old woman’s grip, running against the tide of people up the path to the top of the bluffs. Trestos spared a glance to the old woman then darted after his sister, shedding the blankets around his shoulders and sprinting up the stony trail. Mari was still strong after her injury and Trestos didn’t catch up to her until she had made it to the top. She was staring away from town, out towards the fields and the misty cordillera. It didn’t take long to see what she was looking at.

         In the distance, in the center of a fallow wheat field, was a large scorch mark. It looked like someone had lit a grass fire, burning a great circle where before there had only been the dusky tan of dry soil. A cloud of dust stood over the field, blowing towards the sea. In the center, Trestos could barely make out a shape. The two children stood and squinted, watching intently as the dust cleared revealing a dull white shape the size of a house. It was tall, conical but rounded, like the sturdy base of the field palm, wide on the bottom and narrow on the top. It looked like a river cobble pulled from a fire. Soot streaked it’s smooth white surface and a lick of flame still flickered from out from its’ sides.  

         “What do you think it is?” Trestos asked. Mari looked outward, as though she hadn’t heard the question. They stood there, looking at the cloud of dust as the warmth of afternoon enveloped them.

         After a while, Mari answered.

         “Ek-Girdwa”

The gate.

#  

From the journal of Lynn Thomas, Earth-Karylos contact mission I

As the leader of our ethnographic team, I was chosen to land with the advance party. Our landing vehicle, which was designed to deliver heavy metals from lunar mining operations to the Earths surface, will now serve as a home until we deem it safe for the remainder of the expedition to join us. Until then, it’s a one way trip.

I can only imagine what these people are thinking. Our descent vehicle is ten meters tall and nearly as wide at the base- the sound of such a thing burning through the atmosphere is deafening, not to mention the flame streaking off behind us. I was terrified, strapped into my acceleration couch watching the clouds tear past over the ocean. Our target was so small compared to the rest of the world, I kept fearing that we would miss it all together and crash into some distant alien sea. Korun, our pilot, did his job well. When I finally let go of the crash handles and opened my eyes all I could feel was stillness. Outside the shaking of my own body, our year of constant movement was over. We had arrived.  

When the dust settled, I looked out the porthole for signs of life. We appeared to be in a field-the one we had intended to land in. There was fallow dirt around us, burned by our thrusters. In the distance, a tall hill. I could barely make out the shape of two small figures. I took a deep breath, anxiety filling my chest. The waiting was over-it was time to say hello.

#

The thing was huge. Trestos and Mari stood in it’s shadow examining the scorch patterns along it’s sides. They were silent. Others soon came and a circle formed around the object. Bare feet kicked up burned dust and strayed away from patches of superheated earth as the crowd grew. The children stayed in front, examining a circle carved into the side of the dense, stone-like material. Mari reached out her hand.

“Don’t!” Trestos shouted, grabbing her arm.

“Why not?”

“It could burn you.”

“I could feel it from here if it was still hot. I want to be the first…”

She reached to touch the smooth burnished white when a loud hiss erupted from the deep recess. The children flinched and jumped back. A round hatch opened, swinging outwards and smacking the hull of the ship with a dull thud. For a moment, the crowd of people stood staring at the empty hole. Dust blew in the ever present wind, painting the sky over the plains. Nobody moved.

Then, a face appeared in the recesses of the machine. Still at the front of the crowd, Trestos noticed first. Whoever it was appeared hesitant, taking a moment to look over the hushed crowd. It appeared to be a woman, though it was hard to tell given the glass mask she wore over the bottom of her face. She was dressed in thick clothes, dyed bright white and dark black. A long braid of hair wound over her shoulder and glinted in the sun. She briefly locked eyes with Trestos, and in that moment he detected something familiar in her manner, something ubiquitous in the growing crowd: fear. Whoever this was, she was just as scared as the rest of them.   

#

With the eyes of the whole town locked on her every movement, Lynn awkwardly shimmied her way out of the airlock and dropped to the ground, closely followed by two more from her team and the security detail with their rifles. She could feel the pressure mounting. Scanning the crowd, she found the two children who had first approached the craft.

Despite all the preparation, the years of planning, there was no way to prepare for this exact moment. They had no idea if people would approach the landing craft, if they would be armed and angry or curious and harmless. They had contingencies, but no real specifics. Oddly, it felt like a first date. No matter what you planned, the only thing that mattered was how well you performed on the fly. I’ll just get to it I suppose Lynn thought. She walked up to the young girl and got to her knee. To her surprise, the child was much taller than she had expected. Looking upwards, she spoke.

“hello”

The child looked down at Lynn, her face impassive. Her features were striking, undeniably human but also unlike any person she had ever met. Her ethnicity was unknown on earth, her skin dark and hair bleached by the sun, eyes a pale golden brown. She wore a necklace of glass beads, blue, red and tan on leather cord. A young boy stuck to her side, looking up at her. Her brother perhaps?

“Iyake” she said.

Without hesitation, Lynn repeated the word as best she could, matching the inflection. As she did so, she wondered what it meant. She thought of all the times this happened in history, when so many things could be said to the uncomprehending newcomers. She could feel the weight of centuries on the tip of her tongue, the impossibly heavy implications of this interaction.

She would later learn that her greeting was returned, though not in the customary fashion. When a person enters a new house, or arrives in a new town, special attention is paid to their ephemeral presence. They are not recognized as arriving, only passing through. That greeting is oun’ake: welcome through.  This is true of all dialects of the seven rivers. Mari ignored this. She spoke the greeting used for familiar people in familiar places, what someone would say when their mother arrives for dinner. A word reserved for friends and family, for those who return. 

Iyake means welcome home.