A Broken Paradise (The Windows of Heaven Book 3) (37 page)

humi didn’t tell his mother, but he inspected upper hull integrity while he drilled trunnel holes through the forecastle cover mounts to the un-petrified inner wood. He was still nervous about hidden concussion damage from the blast caused by that Samyaza fanatic, despite the fact that years of inspection had revealed no harm, beyond the need to reapply the second kapar coat.
It only takes a hairline crack in the stoning at the wrong spot…

The first phase of the ship’s kapar wood processing
, the stone shelling, took years to accomplish under kiln-heated berms of sand. The layer of chemical and pressure-induced petrifaction on otherwise normally hardened teak, mahogany, and cedar helped ensure that the keels would not sag once the vessel encountered heavy waves. Layers of stressed kapar wood comprised the outer hull planking, fitted together by tenon slats along each plank into mortise slots on the next and cross-braced by wooden trunnel rods. Stressed outer planking, keels, and hull framing thus reinforced each other to prevent the structural deformation, which would otherwise collapse any wooden ship of that size even in light seas.

Distilled
kapar pumice caulking cemented every groove and trunnel of the gigantic beams of the ship’s keels, framing, and forecastle-cover mounts, all drilled and spiked through by staple-ended steel girders from Bab’Tubila. The second batch of stone-hardened wood now came up in layers from the deep earthen kiln-berms where their years of processing had taken place. Once this began to happen, the deck buttressing had quickly gone up in prefabricated segments, followed by the planking.

Mahm drove
in wood trunnels to secure the cover joists above the main deck, while Khumi handled the shelling drill. It vaguely bothered him that his mother seemed to enjoy hitting things so vigorously. He still sometimes imagined himself at the receiving end and figured his early ‘tween years had only added to her fervor.

“It’s a good thing we got our really bi
g supply orders filled from Bab’Tubila before my nephew died, and Uggu moved the government to Ayur L’Mekku,” Na’Amiha said, as she drove another spike where Khumi had just drilled.

“Mahm, this is heavy work, are you sure you want to keep…”

His mother cut him off, “I like hitting things! Just keep drilling!”

Khumi figured conversation was better than confrontation.
“I wouldn’t worry about Avarnon-Set freezing your assets. From what my vendors tell me, he hardly pays attention to the foundry’s civilian business. Besides, I ordered the most recent shipment through a second party whose name the Tacticon scribbled out when he overheard U’Sumi and me tally up the consignment. It’s a pain being dependent on the Guild for this sort of technology! I think I’m beginning to understand why Pahp and U’Sumi complain so much about what they call ‘the Children of Seti approach to the arts and sciences.’”

“What’s that?”

Khumi shrugged. “I’m not sure I really follow it all, but I heard them talking about how all the advanced technology from Bab’Tubila is really based on knowledge originally learned at Sa-utar.”

“That’s true—at le
ast it was at first,” said his Mother. “My father L’Mekku sent his sons to be educated in Sa-utar. The first Tubaal-qayin learned physics and mathematics under Q’Enukki himself. It used to be well-known that Seti’s people worked copper, gold, and orichalcum long before Tubaal-qayin alloyed bronze or devised a furnace hot enough to smelt iron.”

“Why is he
called the ‘Father of Metal Smiths’ then?”

She took a moment to drive another
rod. “Bronze and iron are much harder and more versatile than the older ornamental metals—plus maybe an attempt by later Archons to stroke my brother’s ego. Then there was the scale on which Tubaal-qayin produced them. By then, the Watchers were beginning to show themselves. After Q’Enukki vanished, and the sons of Seti began to lose wars for the first time, many people at Sa-utar linked the new discoveries to the sorcery of the Watchers and Lumekkor’s rise. Even some of the Sons of Q’Enukki did this, according to the Ancient.”

“Why would they do that?”

“The Ancient said it was a mistake, but most of his brothers’ sons told him it wasn’t important enough to be concerned about.”

“Sounds like they cut off their own arms because their fingers hurt.”

“In some ways they did. They didn’t see clearly in all things; nobody ever does, except in hindsight. Your father often says they unwittingly retreated from their responsibility to continue exploring the Earth and to manage creation as E’Yahavah had commanded.”

“Makes sense to me. Else we could get supplies here in Seti much cheaper.” He found the next mark, and wrestled
the hand drill into position.

She paused to wipe her brow. “What was in this last shipment?”

“Part of what Pahp calls ‘The Seed Package’—four grain spirit fueled aerodrones, several distilleries, and ten heavy multi-purpose engines with machined shafts, gears, and other parts. Once assembled, they’ll be installed into medium-sized kapar reed or wooden hulls. His plan is for us, or our children, to survey New-World quickly to fulfill Iyared’s Charge.”

“Aerodrones were all military class
, last I heard.”

“Fortunately
, the Tacticon’s friend has low-level military purchasing status—and he charged us triple for using it, too! Our drones are unarmed antiques—Lumekkor sells them to second-rate warlord insurgents in Ae’Ri—nothing Avarnon-Set would care about. I ordered anything with moving parts heavily greased with glakka resin, so they can last in storage as long as a few centuries without corrosion, if need be. Once we actually install and start using them though, I’d only expect they’d last at most fifty years before needing major overhaul.”

“So we’ll overhaul them.”
Na’Amiha pulled another trunnel from her satchel.

“It’s not that easy. Lubrication’s going to be a problem after
World-end because there won’t be any great trees left, except for new saplings. We may have to adapt to something like whale oil—which means a whole world of mess. We may not be able maintain them after that, if we can’t find the correct ores quickly or make a new lubricant. We already have all sorts of tooling stored with the manual scrolls on how to use it, but none of it’s any good without the skills and resources.”

“I can’t imagine a world without trees.”
Na’Amiha sighed, as if she had heard nothing but her son’s mention of their disappearance.

“‘Peti says
they should grow to half-size within two hundred years. By the time he and I start to go a little gray around the sides, the forests could even be back to normal. I hope he’s right.”

“I won’t live to see it.”

Khumi hung his head. It was the same as with Tiva—he always somehow said the wrong things to the women in his life. Often he thought it safer to say as little as possible. “I’m sorry, Mahm. I should have thought…”

“No, son, don’t you be sorry. I should be more grateful that I’m going to survive and live out my years.”

He smiled for her. “It’ll be a different world for all of us.”

iva and Sutara operated the steam-driven applicator from the port bow scaffolding against the outer hull waterline to lay a thick new layer of kapar cement. Sutara monitored the pressure and flow gauges, while Tiva guided the spread nozzle in long even strokes as her husband had taught her.

Sutara signaled Tiva, and then killed the pressure to secure the flow valves of the pumiced glakka
tar and natron tanks. She vented the excess high-pressure steam through the spread nozzle to clear out the remaining kapar so it did not harden in the line. Tiva held the applicator low, below the scaffolding to keep it from whipping out of her hands and scalding either her or her work partner. Several hired laborers pulled in the line as it went slack.

“Let’s take our
mid-day,” Sutara called down, her dull walnut hair hanging in limp strands over her eyes.

Tiva gazed up at her, as the breeze parted Sutara’s hair to reveal her face. Pale by Seer Clan norms, Iyapeti’s wife definitely showed her mother’s Khavilak ancestry. Large sad eyes with a petite nose and chin, Sutara’s thin lips did
not even bother to maintain a brittle smile anymore, the way she often had before Tiva had thrown in her lot with Khumi’s family. Whether her sister-in-law’s smile had been fake before, or Sutara simply found it harder to smile in the years since her mother’s murder, Tiva didn’t know. She chose to assume the best—that the brittle smile had been genuine, and that Sutara’s grief had changed her somehow.

Maybe she thinks no feeling means no hurting
.
If so, I should tell her I’ve tried that, and it doesn’t work.
Tiva nodded back to Sutara, and followed her around the drydock to the ramp just off the starboard bow.

What about
my
smile?
Tiva wondered.
I need to decide about what T’Qinna said. I have to make sure. It’ll only get harder if I put it off.

Tiva said,
“Look, ah, I’ve got to do something. Maybe you should find the others, and start eating without me.”

Sutara dipped her head, and strolled toward the covered pavement where they took their workday meals.

Tiva climbed to the third deck scaffold, and entered the ship through its huge cargo bay hatch. She knew she would find A’Nu-Ahki inside the bows, putting the last coats of varnish on the shelving in the ship’s library.

The inside
“overhead” already roofed the forward portion of the ship, though the outer covering had yet to be laid on top of it, and the mezzanine above. Tiva looked up, and saw Iyapeti hanging from his elastic vine harness while he rigged the drydock arch lanyards for that work. She moved under the inner covering, and saw that the unfinished forward living quarters needed only their final upholstering, and wiring for the quickfire pearls Khumi and U’Sumi had begun to install.

When she reached the portal separat
ing the mess deck from the library, she stopped, and peeked inside.
Good, he’s alone.

A’Nu-Ahki leaned over a table, studying some mechanical drawings.

“My Father,” she announced her presence.

He looked up. “Yes, Tiva, what can I do for you?”

“I’m troubled by something you said on the night you took me in.”

“What is that?”

“You and I both know that it had to have been that dragon priest who killed Sutara’s mother. I don’t think my old friends really knew what he was doing—they may be many things, but not murderers. Varkun is different, though. He can control things. He can control them.”

“I consider him the most probable suspect—the only suspect actually,” he said. “Unfortunately, the magistrate could find no
direct proof linking him to the crime. But you are right.”

“You said that E’Yahavah considered my life to be worth the trade of another ‘supremely important life’ after I told you I wasn’t worth dying for.” Tears began to build up behind her eyes. She fought to keep them from washing away her composure.

“That’s true.”

She finally spat it out
; “Did some dark trade go on? Is E’Yahavah really in some kind of secret agreement with the Basilisk? Are we just here to be playthings for them both? Was Sutara’s mother fed to the Dragon so I could be rescued? You are a man of great power, my Father. I saw you chase away two Watchers! How do I know you don’t have other powers as well?”

A’Nu-Ahki’s eyes melted
as he left his table to stand before her trembling face. “No, child, it’s nothing like that, though I can understand how the Basilisk has been using it to torment you—the timing works in his favor. A lot happened that night. Be assured that Galkuna rests in the Comfort Fields. No Tiva, the life that shall pay for yours has yet to die. His story is written in the Star Signs of the First Heaven, and mentioned originally in Atum-Ra’s tablets—surely your father must have taught it to you?”

“My father taught me nothing but empty words and ceremonies. We read Seti’s Code, and chanted Q’Enukki’s antiphons, but we knew little of what they really meant.”

“I see. Did he never teach of the Woman’s Seed?”

“Yes
; the Seed
is
supposed to come, judge the world with millions of his holy ones in clouds of fire, and then lead us back to Aeden, or something like that. I had to memorize many prayers about him. But they were just a bunch of holy words that made little sense to me.”

“Well, his judgment is a large part of it, but there’s much more. According to Atum,
the Basilisk will bruise the Promised One’s heel. Yet in the end, the Seed shall crush the Dragon’s head—the
real
Dragon—not some poor beast bred for ritual arena sport, or hunted down in the Haunted Lands by your father’s men.”

“How?”

A’Nu-Ahki guided her over to some seat cushions by his water bag. “The constellation of the Ram speaks of the ultimate sacrifice yet to come. Exactly how it will happen, we do not know. Under the Ram is the constellation of the Enthroned Woman, pictured earlier under the Fish as the Chained Woman. The sacrifice of this Ultimate Ram frees the Woman from her bonds. He is that ‘supremely important life’ I mentioned. The Woman represents all those who truly trust in E’Yahavah’s
Ram, or at least in what E’Yahavah tells them. Do you see how it tells a story to you in particular?”

Tiva sat down by him. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

A’Nu-Ahki nodded. “Were you not a woman in the chains of fear all your life? Yet now you are free. Your freedom—all our freedom—will be paid for with a life, yes. But not Galkuna’s. How could Galkuna, who had just as much need to be unchained as yourself, be traded for you?”

“But Sutara’s mother was good, and kind, and helped you with the Work! I stole away your son and hated E’Yahavah, and mocked you for years! How can you even compare us?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m as much a ‘woman in chains who’s been set free’ as the both of you.”

Tiva giggled at the
image of A’Nu-Ahki dressed up as a woman in chains, but chased the thought from her mind.

He smiled. “What I mean is that all people are in the same situation. It’s not
only the things we do that the sin of our first parents corrupted, but what we are.
The Curse affected everything we can see, and we are all part of that. Some go lower in what they do, by nature of what they are, than others. Yet all are born unclean from Atum, and do unclean things because of it—some have one form of unclean desire, another has a different uncleanness—yet all still need the sacrificial Ram foretold in the stars. So now, Woman who was chained to fear, but is set free—shall we call the two women in the sky the constellations of Tiva From-Slave-To-Throne?”

Tiva nodded through her tears.