Chapter 7-9
Chapter 7: Cryptic Notes
As he totaled and tabulated, Jacks could see they were ready for the Dalta Market and except for the final pack-up tomorrow, between the two of them they had pretty much checked off the entire list.
Jacks said, “We are in good shape, I think, unless I’m missing something. If we hustle and the weather holds it should only take one night, but I think we should ask Arden, Banji and Doxman to come along. We can load up their carts with the extra oil and those batteries, so you’ll have plenty for trade.”
“What?” Mari asked in annoyance as she watched another bead roll merrily off the table.
“I said, it should only take one long day, erm night, to get to Dalta Market,” Jacks repeated.
“Should” being the operative word,” Mari muttered, and Jacks nodded in agreement, still a little grim at the latest news out Dolmani Refuge.
Jacks shook his head and leaned over as he tried to help Mari find the little bead and said, “I still can’t believe it. The whole of Dolmani Safehold cleared out in less than a week and all the people have gone to Dalta City, waiting. Waiting for what?”
He picked up the bead and dropped it in Mari’s little dish and asked in frustration, “Why didn’t Kevari send more information? Why the big mystery?”
Mari shrugged and reread the note. The note was dated six days ago and had been messengered from the Dalta City Administrator's Office.
Dated: 1st Month of Summer, 17th Day, Vega Year 1,072
To: Marisol Calor, Administrator, Malock Station
Forced to leave Dolmani Town. Secure tent space established in the Maze. We await your arrival, 187 strong.
Signed: Kevari Ebersol, Dolmani Town
Send Response C/O Brai Boyche, Admin. Office Dalta City
And that was it. No details about what had caused the exodus from the refuge or Kevari’s expectations for housing or how many resources they would need.
Mari said, “What else could Kevari mean by it except to bring them here?” Kevari used “strong” in the note instead of “the people” or “residents” so it seems like Kevari expects to bring everyone here, but Kevari also said they were waiting. I just don’t know what to think.”
They had discussed it for hours and both were frustrated with worry and exhausted with the effort of trying to find meaning in the cryptic note.
“Could it be some kind of sabotage or an accident? Did they get attacked by raveners? They were repairing the lower caverns last I heard so Kevari’s obvious lack of detail is telling us something,” Jacks said again, more worried than Mari had seen him in a very long time.
Mari sighed unhappily and said, “We would know if there were food raiders or raveners in the area. Brai would have sent word immediately. But I do wish we knew more.”
She picked up the house ledger and reviewed Jacks’ totals of the available units. “Thirty-five apartments still need some work. Does that include Level Three? Didn’t those get damaged last year?”
Jacks checked his engineering notes and pulled out the page for repairs. “Yes, it turned out to be nothing. It’s just some of the old insulating plaster that’s coming down, some ancient water damage, prolly when they pulled out all the pipes! That’s two different floors that’ll need some work, but with the refuge this empty and the engineering students busy with the new bio-digester redesign, there hasn’t been a lot of time available for repairs. But I think with a little direction and some new plaster and paint they could be habitable but only if the new occupants do the work.”
Mari said, “We can always put folks in the caverns temporarily and that should be enough room if we squeeze everyone in, right? I wish we knew more. They had a week to get out. Do you think they were able to save the grow rooms? How would they even do that? And the fish. What about the basement tanks?”
Jacks said sadly, “I think we’d better assume not.”
She nodded in agreement and then shook her head, aghast at the loss. Mari said again, “Kevari knows it’s not possible to bring everyone right now, right?”
Jacks shrugged and said, “They said they would wait. We know that at least.”
Mari made a face and said, “Yes, it’s the “least” part that I’m worried about.”
Last night Mari had finally shared the news of Dolmani’s collapse with her closest neighbors and she knew that by tonight every single one of Malock’s residents would have heard the news and all would have a strong opinion. She made sure to state the news exactly the same way, every single time and wondered just how garbled the message would be by tomorrow.
Her last conversation, with Lasana earlier that day went exactly as planned at first.
Mari said, “There’s news out of Dolmani Safehold. The collapse we have all feared has decimated the core and the entire town is on the move to the safety of the Dalta City Caverns.”
Lasana rolled her eyes and said, “And?”
Mari relented a bit and said with honest exasperation, “I actually don’t know. Kevari left a lot out of her note!”
She expected to be called by the Elder Council for an exhaustive question-and-answer session. She and Jacks had already reviewed the house ledger and calculated how many of Kevari’s people they could safely house. Mari hoped that if she could answer all of their questions, she could get the council’s permission to bring back the entire group before winter closed the pass, but she doubted it.
And so did Jacks. Depending on how many family groups needed to be housed, he calculated that they probably had enough space if they squeezed everyone in, but there was not nearly enough food. If the Dolmani gardens had been lost and their stored food was also lost, then the additional requirements would have to be managed carefully until the new residents could establish their own greenhouses and gardens. And until they knew more about the situation with Dolmani’s food stores they could only guess and worry.
Mari said, “We are as ready as we’ll ever be, so let the claxon blow.”
Chapter 8: Matching Outfits
Twenty minutes later Mari put the vest down, triumphant. The fiddly little beads were a bit too much for her eyes in this dim light, but she was determined to finish the fancy vest today and had kept at it doggedly all afternoon. She and Lyra had designed it for Hanzen, and she wanted to finish it before they were scheduled to leave tomorrow. The extra twenty minutes had bought her just enough time and she held it up to admire the sparkle.
She winked happily at Jacks and carefully wrapped the vest in a square of bright fabric and then hid the gift in the bottom of her knitting basket. She reached back into the basket and pulled out a completely different fabric-wrapped bundle, this one was wrapped in bright red fabric and tied with a perfectly matching red ribbon. She moved her little bead dish back to its place in the storage cubby and then placed the red ribboned package in the center of the table.
She grinned at Jacks and then said, “Lyra girl, go check that gauge,” just loud enough to penetrate the racket that was emanating from the other room.
A minute later the sound of the loom died away and Lyra twitched the thermal curtain open and slowly sauntered into the big room. She studiously ignored both Mari and Jacks as she moved around the table with light footsteps.
She wasn’t exactly “dressed up”, but Jacks noticed that as she got older, she was showing more awareness about her clothes. For one thing, whether she made them herself or had something created special, her clothes just fit her better. They weren’t tight exactly but combined with her height and beauty, she always stood out in a crowd.
Today her outfit consisted of a pair of thin-soled black ribbon sandals, a rope skirt that when she moved, showed off a pair of brightly embroidered modesty shorts. Her top appeared at first to be a simple bandeau but upon closer inspection, it seemed to be constructed out of thin tubes of variegated fabric that moved between white and grey and brown. The narrow fabric tubes had been lightly stuffed and then sewn together to make a kind of puffy pattern. She had constructed an inset in the center of the same type of “material”, but the color was a bit darker, so it stood out as a dramatic vertical design. Her arms were bare and long and lovely and today completely unadorned. Jacks smiled. Some days you couldn’t tell where Lyra ended and her beadwork began, she was so festooned with beads and earrings and bracelets and necklaces.
Today’s skirt showed off quite a bit of leg and when she moved the ropes had a very jaunty swing, especially at the back end and when Lyra noticed they were still watching her, she walked with an exaggerated step that made the skirt sway and swing.
Jacks noticed the skirt and the elaborately constructed top and the sandals were all new and said loudly to Mari, “She’s got on a different outfit! Do you make a new one every night?” he teased.
Lyra ignored them both as they grinned idiotically at each other and pretended to light their pipes.
As they watched her work, they often remarked on how quickly she could bring the apartment back to life. She always seemed to find a better-faster-smarter-way to speed through her chores and it was an endless source of amusement and discussion for them both. She had figured out years ago how to make these small daily routines a joy and she performed them expertly and always at record speed.
Lyra grinned and shook her head at their contemplation of her work. She loved getting the apartment ready to accept the cool night air. It was not a chore; it was a pleasure and these small tasks were her dance of gratitude and she performed them with unconscious joy.
In one quick circuit, she tested the air that flowed out of the honeycomb vents and then spun around and pushed open the heavy thermal drapes which protected the room from the heat of summer. She unlatched the security shutters and then opened all of the windows in the big room and then opened all the doors in the greenhouse at the front of the apartment.
As soon as the heat cleared the greenhouses, she pushed the rolling racks out and then centered the stacked plants under the east side drippers. After adding fresh water to the auto-watering system, she pulled the counterweights for the ceiling fans and then lit every single oil lamp and fancy lantern she could find. She ended up at the front door with a small lantern in one hand and when she saw that they were still watching her she spun a sassy pirouette out the door which made her short skirt and her long braids flair out dramatically before she disappeared into the gloom of the balcony.
A minute later the balcony lanterns blazed bright, and the multi-colored lanterns glowed with color. Lyra considered the effect and then took a few extra seconds to rearrange the lamps until the ceiling of the balcony was lit up like a rainbow. Happy with the results, she walked out the gate to the front walkway, leaned over the safety rail and looked down into the courtyard below.
Mari’s apartment was two floors up and almost in the exact center of the “C” shaped building so Lyra had a perfect view of the entire central gardens. As she watched, the wind gusted, and the garden turbine spun up and for a few seconds, a few lightbulbs flared to life and illuminated the winding paths and private patios that filled the large plaza.
On the other side of the oval, the shallow cooling pools were starting to fill. When the lights flared up, they reflected off the water and illuminated the security wall with rippling lines of reflected light.
The light on the water reflected off of the security wall that enclosed the front of the yard and then the light bulbs dimmed and faded to black. As the yard flickered back to darkness, Lyra caught the flash of a spark off to the side. She refocused her eyes when another spark on the other side of the yard caught her attention.
She squinted into the darkness and as she watched she could see the students lighting the hennep oil lanterns. Most of the lanterns were basic clay jars with pebble glass shades but there were a few here and there that were made out of bent bamboo and thin sheets of colorful bioplastic. They were shaped into flowers, exotic birds, balloons, saucers, disks, cubes and a few, made by Jacks that were crazy complicated swirls of torus and tetrahedra.
As she watched a half-moon appeared and then another bright lolly shape and then a huge bird shaped like an owl of olden times.
The largest of these illuminated the center of the grass oval in the center of the courtyard and it was brilliant. It evoked the shape and color of the sun, and it was always the last lantern lit because it took three people to raise and lower the heavy decoration. Some of the lanterns were bright and some were dim and most showed a few patches or repairs, but they all glowed with color and lent the gardens a festive flair.
The courtyard was beautifully designed with curving pathways and lots of private little nooks and patios. The multi-level gardens were a little barren at the moment because most of the plants had been moved inside to protect them from the heat but most of the hardy perennials were thriving and even from two stories up Lyra could tell by the smell that few of the exotic cacti and aloes were in flower.
The students also lit all of the pierced clay lanterns that lined the wider pathways and with that addition, Lyra could finally see the entire courtyard. She sighed with pleasure. Being stuck inside during the day was one thing but she couldn’t imagine being inside all the time like the folks in the larger refuge caverns.
The turbines spun up and the lightbulbs flared back to life and held steady so she could finally see all the way down into the lightwell. It had been designed to allow daylight down into the top three levels of the basements below and like the vents, the designers had used a honeycomb pattern for the wall of windows. It was originally glass, but like most of the windows at Malock, as the glass broke over the centuries of use, they were eventually replaced by bio-plas panels.
The floor of the lightwell glowed green from the hidden garden and as she watched she could see the flash of a lantern, three stories below.
The turbines stopped spinning and the electrics flickered to darkness just as Mari joined her at the rail. Lyra scooched over a little bit to make room for her aunt and Mentor.
Lyra squinted one eye at her aunt and said, “Girl, huh?” as she tried to look down into the dark lightwell again she said, “You’re in a mood today, aren’t you?”
“I’ll stop calling you “girl” when you start noticing the air,” Mari answered tartly.
Lyra said with a grin, “I did notice. I just like to hear you yell. I hear it's good exercise for old crones.”
“Oh? Ha!” Mari said and slapped Lyra lightly on her arm.
“It seems like the gauge is going green a little earlier this year,” Lyra said as she looked out at the ancient thermometer.
Mari nodded yes and then said vaguely, “I’ll have to check the record books to be sure, but the summers do seem to be cooling off a bit. It could be a short-term ozone pattern or some oceanic weather oddity, it’s hard to know from way up here, that’s for sure. The best news of all is there’s still plenty of water and the gardens are thriving. I cannot believe we are halfway into the summer and the cisterns are still so full. Remind me later to ask Hanzen to bring the old temperature and rainfall records up from storage.”
Lyra nodded absently as Mari worried. Was it really time? For almost two years there had been no word about the plan from the Guild. They had not received any letters or updates to their original instructions, so Mari and Jacks had no choice but to stick to the existing plan. She knew she must make a decision and choose a date and a path and soon. But how? How was she to convince them to go?
She sighed and patted Lyra’s hand and then picked it up and saw with new eyes the stark difference between them. Lyra’s skin was still soft and smooth and free of sun scars. It was beautiful and perfect except here and there where it was dotted with splotches of red and indigo dye.
Mari examined her own hands and sighed. Her nails and cuticles were stained with the color of her dye experiments and the once smooth ebony was scarred by the sun and rough and raw from a lifetime of work.
It was hard work, but it was good work and a good life, Mari thought, as they waited together for the long summer day to finally end.
Chapter 9: Ramps and Gauges
As they waited for the gauge to move to green, Lyra turned around and watched as the underside of the balcony turned into a rainbow. If she arranged the lamps in a bunch, and the night breezes were strong enough, the colorful shades would light up the entire balcony and today the effect was perfect. The combination of the moving air and the flickering flames had turned the walls and the ceiling into a dancing light show of circles and half-moons that overlapped and merged and split and transformed the grey rockcrete into a whirling rainbow of color.
She turned around just as a small gust squeaked the turbines to life, just for a moment and Mari let out a little, “Humph!”
Lyra snorted a little laugh and when Mari looked at her with a squinted side-eye, Lyra said, “You do that every time the turbines squeak. It’s funny. Every time!”
The wind kicked up and the turbines suddenly spun to life and with the steady whirr, Mari nodded and said loudly, “I do, don’t I? Then it really is time to try a different approach.”
Lyra was well aware of Mari and Jacks’ efforts to repair or replace the refuge’s antiquated electrics so she didn’t respond except to say, “If I can help, just let me know. I just finished another quilt and if I do say so myself, you could get prime chits for this one!”
Mari reached over and patted her hand in thanks.
With the wind, the lights came on and illuminated the gardens, enough so that they could finally make out the colors on the gauge. The ancient thermometer was mounted on a tall pole in the center of the gardens, halfway between the oval of the basement’s light well and the matching oval of the splashing pool. The gauge was pockmarked with rust and once when Lyra was little, Mari had commented that it had never broken, not once but Lyra didn’t believe her.
“Never?” Lyra asked, astonished. She knew it was old, if only because it was made out of metal.
Mari said, “I looked it up once when I was bored. All of the repair records for the refuge for five hundred years and it’s not listed, not once.”
Lyra looked at it with a frown and said, “It’s a dictator.
Mari looked down at her in shock and asked, “What did you say?”
Lyra said, “For five hundred years, that sun-scorched device has dictated our every move, hasn’t it?”
Mari looked at her in wonder. Lyra was seven at the time.
Today, it had been stuck on orange and then red and now it was back to orange and as they watched it slowly ticked down, one notch, from orange to green and Lyra squeezed her shoulders together in excitement. That almost imperceptible movement set off a series of events with the first being a single deafening knell from the claxon mounted underneath.
They both squinted their eyes shut and plugged their ears as the echo of the hideous and welcome noise bounced up and down the open front of the building and then bounced off the thick pounded earth wall that enclosed their little corner of the world.
As the echo faded Mari unplugged her ears and pointed down and said, “There.”
The honeycomb wall of the lightwell sparkled with movement as another lit lantern moved through the great cavern and illuminated the wall of windows from the inside.
Another light bloomed and then another as the people exited the sleep cavern far below. As they moved up and out, the lights disappeared for a moment only to re-appear in the gardens and on the well-worn paths below. A few lanterns stopped here and there, and Mari knew they were stopping to enjoy the cool night air in one of the many secret terraces that were filling with the scent of night-blooming cactus.
Some of the lights kept moving and she watched as they swirled up the ramps and stairs and disappeared into the gloom of their empty apartments.
As she watched them come, Mari said with a happy smile, “This is my favorite time of day.”
Lyra grinned and nudged Mari with her elbow. Mari said the same thing every time and Lyra teased, “More and more it feels like the gauge won’t work and the claxon won’t blare unless we’re standing here watching and waiting, you know?”
Mari looked at Lyra in surprise and said, “I was just thinking the same thing,” and she nudged her back with a soft smile.
Mari leaned into Lyra and marveled at how solid she was, and then said sadly, “I guess I can’t call you girl anymore, can I?”
Lyra side-hugged her aunt and said, “I guess not anymore, how’d you get so tiny?”
They stood and leaned companionably against each other and watched as the people moved out of the basements and back into their apartments to get ready for supper and their nighttime chores.
Exactly five minutes later the sound of their steps was drowned out by the giggles and laughter of the students as they exited the classrooms far below.
Mari said, “And that is my first favorite sound of the day.”
“Ho no, here they come!” Jacks said as he poked his head over the rail.
The small group of students had been cooped up for the entire day and as they burst out of the cavern below, they started chasing each other up and down the ramps and stairs, almost demented with the exuberance of their release.
Mari was especially pleased with the progress of their complicated game of tag and said to Jacks, “Remind me to definitely bring Arden and Banji with us tomorrow.”
She nudged Lyra as she nodded towards the two young men who had just climbed up to Three by way of the lattice-works. Now bereft of their ancient burden of green, the open-work cascade doubled as a ladder of sorts and the twins were using the sturdy structures to race each other two stories straight up. Banji won but only by an armlength and after they caught their breath each grabbed ahold of a pair of ropes that had been left hanging off the hoist beam.
Banji looked directly at Lyra and then he winked and turned around, jumped up on the rail and with one hand on the rope he dove into the open air of the yard and as he spun around, he waved to Lyra with a huge grin. He continued to spin and slide down the rope and just as he approached the rail on the east side of the building, he grabbed the rope with both hands, kicked his legs up and landed with a flip, just in front of his mother’s apartment.
Arden followed in exactly the same fashion and everyone watching gasped as the second twin disappeared and then gasped again as he swung into view across the open yard. At the balcony gate, Banji bowed elaborately in Lyra’s direction with his hand on his heart and when he got all the way down with one leg out, Arden landed, turned to wink at Lyra and then casually shoved Banji and knocked him over. Lyra rolled her eyes and shook her head as Banji leaped up and tried to push Arden aside as they both raced to be first inside and got stuck in the doorway.
Mari and Jacks clapped and waved enthusiastically and grinned wide-eyed at each other behind Lyra’s back. They could clearly see that the stunt was planned to get Lyra’s attention.
Mari said in sympathy, “That Banji, he just won’t take no for an answer.”
Lyra rolled her eyes again, well aware of Banji’s predilections and if the gossip about his many bedmates could be believed there were only a bare handful of females at Malock who had escaped his attentions.
Lyra had no interest in Banji, especially with his penchant for flirting with any and all females in the near vicinity and she knew that even if she was attracted to him, it would still feel very odd to be in a love relationship with someone she was raised up with.
Jacks knew better than to continue to tease Lyra and instead, he picked up two of the smallest puppies and handed the fluffy bundles over the fence.
“Thank you, my friend,” Mari said as he dumped the puppies’ mess into the biofuel bucket. He did this unwelcome chore every day without fail. Mari had never asked him to do it and thought it was funny because he had declared years ago that he didn’t like dogs and that he would never take responsibility for the pack. And he didn’t and he wouldn’t until that day years earlier when Mari had placed a basket of puppies in his lap and left him there, stunned with their fluffy squirmy love.
Lyra had asked him once why he volunteered for the nasty chore. He looked at Mari as she thanked him and then winked down at Lyra and answered honestly, “I do it because it makes Mari happy.”
Since that day both Mari and Jacks had taught her many important concepts outside of the classroom, but that first lesson was one that she would never forget. Love is not only grand passions, recited from the plays and the stories that she loved to read, it could also be the daily dedication of a teacher or a friend taking on an unwelcome chore. Lyra didn’t always know or notice when they were teaching outside of the classroom but every so often she did, and it was a joy to catch them at it.
Claxon Enclosure