Chapter Twenty-Three of my current wip. As before, all and any comments very much appreciated

Please note: This is a weekly post

Canipse jumped in front of Zem Jess. “Wait a bit, wait.” He could see where the zem was headed, and he needed to catch him before he disappeared off again for yet another day. The zem looked displeased to be waylaid, but that was neither cooked nor raw. He needn’t think because there were no Techs on base that Canipse wouldn’t write his reports.

Zem Jess wasn’t pleased at being stopped. “What is it this time? We’ve serviced your farm these past two days. The harvest has been fetched, needed supplies delivered.”

Canipse had noticed that about the zem: In the absence of the Techs, the zem was increasingly bad tempered. Not only that but Canipse would swear he was changing – his appearance, his face, even his voice, there was something…bestial…about him. Was he changing into one of those monkeys they saw swinging in the trees? Not that Canipse went far enough from base to see them, but his operatives said.

Canipse said, “I’m wondering when you plan to fetch our clutch a new Tech, at least one? It’s not just me wondering. Other overseers, many of the operatives. Only, we’re reliant on you now that we’ve no Techs. You and your observers are the only fliers.”

Zem Jess looked beyond Canipse, towards the fly-port, clearly impatient to step into a flier and be gone to wherever he was going. Not to the farms. “And how do you propose I fetch a new Tech? From where?”

Dearly would Canipse like to form fists and beat the brashness out of the zem. Instead, Canipse held his hands tight in front of him. “Well, from one of the other clutches, of course.”

“From Clutches Seven or Eight, do you think?” the zem asked in such a sarky voice.

“If those are the nearest,” Canipse snarked back. Truly, that zem needed a bop on the bonce. Canipse’s fists tightened.

“You know the distance?” The zem looked down at him.

And that was another thing, Canipse was sure he hadn’t been that tall when they first settled in camp.

“If Clutches Seven and Eight were close,” the zem said, leaning in – threatening; Canipse would have to include this in his report, “the Techs based there would already know of our plight and would have flown a replacement out to us, even though it would leave them short. That they haven’t, surely should tell you that these clutches are situated too far away.”

Canipse stepped back. He hadn’t realised distance would be a factor. “But the fliers…I thought…they cross galaxies, don’t they.”

“Not our little fliers, no.” And now the zem was laughing at him. “Maybe you weren’t fully awake at the landing. But if you had been you’d have noticed the difference between the transporter, the landers, and our fliers. It would take a lander to reach the nearest clutch. Now, I have a dow to check on.”

Zem Jess stepped around him and continued his way to the fly-port. Canipse watched, a deep frown developing.

He was disinclined to believe the zem. Something about him, and that something had intensified since the loss of the Techs. What if he wasn’t telling the truth about those fliers? What if he was purposely keeping the clutch Tech-less?

Hadn’t Zem Jess said about needing more personnel able to handle those fliers? He’d even said he would train those who volunteered. What if he volunteered? Then he could issue himself with a flier and head out to Clutch Seven or Eight. He’d no idea where those basecamps were located but he could discover it. He was sure.

*

Jess didn’t immediately lift from the fly-port. He wasn’t able to access the psi-sphere while a white fury whirled through him. Perhaps he exaggerated, it wasn’t a fury. Yet it was more than a minor disquiet. He reached out for the practices the Fire-keepers had taught him on Colabri. Sit back, relax the shoulders, close the eyes, bring into focus pleasant memories. Cela-Byi. Holding his hand. Pulling him along that trail and into the forest. Her smell. Her taste. The weight of her as her body pressed against his…

But Canipse again broke into his thoughts to reignite the agitation. And now he knew its source: The mention of Clutches Seven and Eight. He remembered the allocations during the briefing. Clutch Seven, Zem Danipe, who didn’t like Jess as much as Jess didn’t like him. And Clutch Eight, Zem Ezen who had lost Kookka to him. No, even if it were possible to take a flier that distance, he would not.

Again, he worked through the steps to settle his unease, to enable him to enter the psi-sphere.

*

Cela-Byi sat cross-legged within the star-seat’s fenced enclosure at the back of Byi-house, not even raised on a stump like Cela-Kuci. She imagined her mother scorning her: Child-headed to think once she’d done the headman’s bidding she’d be a spirit-woman more elevated than Cela-Kuci. She was not. And why not? Because her hardship and labour had all been for nothing, she had returned with neither star-spirit Kija nor with his message. She was a failure, a disgrace, an empty seedcase harbouring empty promises. The spirits ought to take her and roll her in boar-shit – or so Cela-Kuci had said on Cela-Byi’s empty return. But she grinned, that was about to change.

Those twinkling lights moving, making no obvious patterns, those weren’t a swarm of big biting flies as first she’d thought, her hands brought up to bat them away. She’d seen them before, atop that god-hill where the giant had said only gods and spirits dwelt.

“What is it?” Cela-Kuci lifted her chin, a look across at her.

Cela-Byi ignored her, a leap to her feet and already flying between Byi- and Naba-houses, praying, praying to Kija that she wasn’t mistaken. “It’s star-spirit Kija,” she threw back over her shoulder. “He comes.”

Maybe Cela-Kuci didn’t understand, still sitting as if rooted on her star-seat.

But what of it. If the spirit-woman didn’t want to be amongst the first to greet star-spirit Kija, so be it, that was her slip into the pits, smaller, smaller, tiny-winey, gone.

That muddling maze of glittering specks, like seeds blown and caught in the sun, settled on the far side of the dow. Cela-Byi was certain now who and what it was. That the lights had come to ground between Kerbi- and Kija-house proved her right.

But despite her speed, the men of Wael-house had already formed a protective bristle across the gap between the houses.

“Let me through, let me through,” Cela-Byi shouted before they could prick and prod with their sharp sticks. “He’s not here to harm us.”

The lights dimmed and were gone. In their place was a symmetrical shape of uniform grey. Cela-Byi could see now it was more of a box than a flat stretched hide; she’d not noticed that when seen at the god-hill. The people of the dow murmured and gasped. But the sunny-haired deer-clad figure that emerged from the grey shape was no surprise to Cela-Byi. Some of her neighbours dipped down on their knees. Most did not.

Anji-Tiki-ta, the headman, had speedily sat himself atop the steps to Wael-house; he beckoned Cela-Byi over. She looked at him, then to the star-spirit. Back and forth. She stood firm, she’d been hiding from the headman since her return. In the face of her refusal, he spoke loudly above the intervening crowd. “Is this who you met on top the gods’ hill?”

Cela-Byi nodded vigorously. “Star-spirit Kija. And I was bringing him here but—”

“No buts.” Anji-Tiki-ta shifted his weight, the shells that hung from his arms and knees clattered discordantly. “You didn’t bring him.”

“I come of my own volition,” star-spirit Kija said.

Cela-Byi felt her face split into an unseemly grin. Around her, those still standing dropped to their knees else fell to their faces in awe and obeisance to him. Only Cela-Byi and Anji-Tiki-ta remained unmoved. And Cela-Kuci who had lately arrived between the houses.

Anji-Tiki-ta looked to Cela-Byi with a nod to say she should speak to the spirit. That wasn’t easy while her growing grin had control of her mouth. However, she managed to ask the question she’d been sent to the god-hill to ask, “Why are you here?”

“I want to know why you imagine your gods as skinned. It offends us.”

This wasn’t what Cela-Byi had expected. And neither anyone else. Uneasy silence hammered upon them. It thieved Cela-Byi’s breath. Cold poured upon her followed by heat. She glanced round at the spirit-woman. But Cela-Kuci, her face fiercely aglow, looked equally mazed. Anji-Tiki-ta, the headman, threw wide his arms, though Cela-Byi didn’t know why. Yet his men sprang into action. Apparently a signal. They surrounded the deer-yellow star-spirit, spears at threatening angles.

Star-spirit Kija held wide his hands and frowned. “What have I said? Why has it upset you?”

Spirit-woman Cela-Kuci, who unlike the others hadn’t sunk to her knees, declared him no star-spirit. “No Itamakku spirit,” she qualified. “He speaks drivel.”

Despite it would place her in danger, Cela-Byi pushed through the Wael-men with their spears to stand beside the Kija-spirit. Her mother, a lone voice amongst the gathered dow, begged her not to be a slug-wit.

“It was Cela-Kuci who first named this star-spirit as Kija.” Cela-Byi said. “And now she speaks out against him? I say our spirit-woman’s tongue has taken a wrong turn.”

“To believe we paint our gods as skinned?” Cela-Kuci sneered at her. “Skinned is for food. Do we eat gods?”

“Yet the guardian spirit of the god-hill stands astride the path with her skin peeling.” Clearly the spirit-woman hadn’t encountered the giant.

Cela-Kuci snarled. “And that, I say, as with yon demon, is the work of those head-hunting northern Banmakka people.” She turned to the headman. “Are you demon-held to invite this false spirit into our dow? Order your men to bind him so I can work my sorcery against him. As to that little one, she’s not to be trusted.”

“I shouldn’t have come here,” star-spirit Kija said aside to her.

She agreed. “It wasn’t wise. Best you go before Anji-Tiki has you bound.”

“And you? Will they skin you for food?” His tightly screwed face displayed his distaste.

Cela-Byi didn’t answer but yelled “Halt and hold” at the men of Wael-house with their spears. She sounded steady and sturdy but inside she was frantic and shaking.

“Cela-Kuci has desires other than those of Toki-dow,” she said. “You must see that. She desires me not to stand on her shoulders. She’s shown her mark in what she says of the gods of the god-hill. Now I say this is star-spirit Kija, and he comes for me. For me to leave with him. And if you disallow it, he’ll drop you all into dangerous slumber.”

Where she’d gathered those words, Cela-Byi didn’t know. And maybe it did little to delay the attack but it spurred star-spirit Kija to grab her wrist and pelt with her back to the grey-sided box. Cela-Byi didn’t ask what the odd structure was but leapt straight into it.

“Sit! Quick.” He nodded to a large central stub which she thought was a moss-covered tree-stump, being that colour.

It gave a little beneath her weight and firmed around her. No tree-stump this but something fully unknown to her. What’s more, the sides of the box weren’t grey as she’d seen them, nor solid, but seemed not to be there at all.

The box rose into the air, her and the star-spirit inside it. A shriek escaped her. Nausea filled her and lodged in her chest. What was happening? She didn’t know but if she survived it she’d have a good story to tell. She kept her eyes open despite rather she’d close them.

To be continued next Monday

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