Dreamer (22 page)

On the viewscreen, Bellerophon showed dark green continents and bright blue oceans beneath dramatic spirals of sweeping white clouds. Kendi sighed. After so much time on red Rust, the green, cool forests of Bellerophon called to him, making him long to vanish into emerald leaves and silver mists.

“He’s doing it again, Mother,” Gretchen said from her boards.

Ara looked up. “Who’s doing what?”

“Kendi. He’s making cow eyes.”

“I never made cow eyes in my life,” Kendi protested. “I’m just glad to be home.”

Gretchen snorted. “Uh huh. In a month, all you’ll be complaining about the humidity and how the trees get in the way of the view.”

“You need to shave your mustache more often, Gretchen,” Kendi said. “You’re coming across all prickly.”

This argument would have gone further, but Ara firmly put an end to it and Kendi turned his full attention back to piloting. Ben had already put the sound-dampeners on full, and the power drain made the ship sluggish. The Unity didn’t care how much noise a ship made, making the spaceport a deafening place. Things were different on Bellerophon.

After only a tiny bit of wrangling with customs, the
Post Script
crew was given official permission to disembark. Kendi, who had stuffed his few belongings into a single satchel, stood at the hatchway with Sejal beside him. Sejal’s possessions consisted of a single computer button with his journal on it and the collapsible flute in his pocket. He was fidgeting restlessly as Kendi opened the hatchway.

A breath of cool, damp air redolent of moss and green leaves wafted over Sejal. He inhaled deeply. His first alien breath. Kendi had landed the ship at the edge of the airfield, and the wide brown trunk of a tree dominated the view from the hatchway. It was so tall, Sejal couldn’t see the top. Between the ship and tree was a transparent chain link fence, probably to keep unauthorized people off the airfield. A light fog hovered lazily among the trees like a tattered white cloak. A bit awed, Sejal could do nothing but stare.

“Let’s go, let’s go,” Gretchen ordered from behind them. “Some of us have lives, you know.”

Sejal took another humid breath, then stepped forward with an oddly stiff gait. He almost paraded down the ramp, then hesitated.

“What’s wrong?” Kendi asked beside him. Gretchen pushed past them, satchel in hand, and disappeared around the ship.

“This is the first time I’ve ever been on another world,” Sejal said. “I seems like...I don’t know...like it should be something special.”

“Take a look around you,” Kendi laughed. His white teeth shone against his dark face. “Does this feel ordinary?”

Sejal looked. Ships of all shapes and sizes rested on reinforced gray aerogel just as they did in the Unity, but beyond them loomed the forest. The trees stretched as high as Unity skyscrapers, and they were so wide that thirty humans couldn’t join hands in a circle around one. Green ground-hugging vegetation misted the ground beneath them. The lowest tree branches were several stories above the ground. It was breathtaking. Sejal, a child of streets and skyscrapers, had never been outside the city, and though he had seen images of forests, he had never imagined them as looking like this.

“It’s amazing,” Sejal said, awed. “And it’s so quiet.”

As if on cue, a booming roar shattered the air. Sejal jumped. The sound was echoed by another in the far distance.

“What was that?” Sejal whispered.

“A dinosaur,” Kendi told him absently. He kept throwing glances over his shoulder as if he were looking for someone.

“A dinosaur?”

“A prehistoric lizard from Earth. The dominant animals on Bellerophon are big lizards, so the first colonists started calling them dinosaurs.”

Sejal peered nervously toward the trees. “Do they hurt people?”

“That’s what the fence is for. It keeps the dinosaurs from squashing the ships—and vice-versa.”

Kendi lead Sejal across the airfield, into the spaceport, and through another customs check. Kendi had to invoke his authority as a Child of Irfan to get Sejal, who didn’t have any sort of passport, through this stage, but Sejal barely noticed. Like the Unity port, the Bellerophon port was extremely busy. Small carts and platforms zipped by. Speakers blared announcements. Restaurants filled the air with food smells. None of this was what distracted him, however. It was the aliens. They were everywhere, walking, lurching, or slithering in shapes and sizes Sejal had never imagined. More than once he saw the creatures like the four-legged one that had saved him in the Dream. He couldn’t help staring, and Kendi had to yank him forward several times.

“I’m not used to all these aliens,” he said in apology. “Do they all live here?”

Kendi shook his head. “Most of them are just passing through. Humans and Ched-Balaar—the four-legged aliens—are the main people on Bellerophon. There’s a fair chunk of other races at the monastery, though.”

“Aren’t the Ched-Balaar the ones who showed humans the Dream?” Sejal said, again awed.

“That’s them. Come on. There’s a train to the city leaving in a few minutes, and I don’t want to miss it.”

He hustled Sejal out the port’s main entrance. A monorail train waited on a track, and the last people from the platform had boarded. Kendi and Sejal leaped aboard just as the doors were sliding shut. The train slid soundlessly forward, then uphill. Vegetation blurred into a green wall.

“Why are we going up?” Sejal said.

“The monastery—and the rest of the city—is built in the talltrees.”

“How come?”

“Easier on the ecology and easier to avoid getting eaten by a dinosaur.”

A few minutes later, Kendi and Sejal disembarked on a wooden platform high above the ground. The track and platform were partly supported by the massive branches of the talltree and partly supported by thick cables drilled into the trunk itself. The monorail slid quietly away and vanished into the leafy branches. Between the cracks of the boards under his feet, Sejal could see the empty air that dropped several hundred meters straight down into gray mist. Green leaves and brown branches surrounded them. Behind him lay the station, a building that curved around the talltree. Platforms, ramps, ladders, and staircases formed a network further up the trunk, connecting the tree to others in the forest.

“Where’s the city?” Sejal asked.

“You’re in it,” Kendi said. “This is the town center. Over there’s the town hall.”

 Sejal blinked. Now that Kendi had pointed it out, Sejal could make out other structures built into other tree canopies. They were all but hidden by thick foliage.

“Come on,” Kendi said, plucking at Sejal’s elbow. “We need to go up a couple more levels to catch the shuttle back to the monastery.”

Sejal tried to obey, but it was difficult. Everything was so strange. He had no idea where he was or how to get around. With a pang he realized that if he and Kendi got separated, he wouldn’t have the faintest idea where to go or what to do.

They trotted up a wide wooden staircase. All the buildings and platforms, in fact, seemed to made of the wood instead of aerogel. When he asked about this, Kendi replied that talltree wood cured hard as steel, making it an ideal building material.

Humans and Ched-Balaar strolled the platforms. In contrast to the spaceport, no one here seemed to be in any hurry. The Ched-Balaar, in fact, were particularly slow-moved and graceful. They moved in pairs or small groups, often with humans. An odd chattering noise followed them, and Kendi explained that the Ched-Balaar spoke by clacking their teeth together. Classes in the Ched-Balaar tongue would be part of Sejal’s education at the monastery, though the instruction would be limited to understanding the language; no human could produce Ched-Balaar sounds.

They arrived at another platform and boarded another monorail. A while later, they disembarked along with a dozen or so other passengers. Sejal couldn’t keep his eyes off the Ched-Balaar in the group. Their long, mobile necks made a slow sort of dance when they moved their heads, and their hand gestures were smooth and languid.

A clattering sound brought Sejal’s head around. A Ched-Balaar stood next to them, apparently saying something, though Sejal had no idea what it was.

“Ched-Hisak!” Kendi said, and grasped both the alien’s hands enthusiastically. “Great to see you! Let me introduce my student Sejal Dasa. Sejal, this is Ched-Hisak.”

The Ched-Balaar turned to Sejal and held out its hands. Nervously, Sejal took them in his own. The palms were smooth and soft, like fine suede, and they engulfed Sejal’s hands. As they did, a jolt shot down Sejal’s spine and he gasped. Sejal had almost forgotten what happened when two Silent touched the first time. Ched-Hisak chattered at him, unfazed by the sensation.

“He greets you as one Silent to another,” Kendi said. “You can answer—he’ll understand.”

“Hello,” Sejal said uncertainly. “Pleased to meet you.”

Another monorail pulled up and Ched-Hisak released Sejal. Chatter chatter chatter.

“Thanks,” Kendi said. “We should get moving ourselves.”

They both bid Ched-Hisak good-bye. Ched-Hisak boarded the monorail and Kendi lead Sejal up the platform.

“He was one of my first instructors at the monastery,” Kendi explained. “You’ll probably have him, too.”

Sejal’s stomach tightened. “I thought you were going to be my teacher.”

“I can’t teach you
everything,”
Kendi said with small laugh. “You need to learn history and literature and computers and mathematics and a bazillion other things.”

“Music?” Sejal said hopefully. The monorail doors started to slide shut, then paused as a man darted into the car. Kendi and Sejal found seats in the nearly-empty car as the train slipped forward and the leaves outside made an emerald blur. The man who had boarded at the last minute stood blinking by the door. He had snowy hair and a few wrinkles. Sejal met his eyes for a moment. The man looked away.

“You mean your flute?” Kendi said. “Sure. ‘The greater your knowledge, the smaller your risk,’ as Irfan said. Once you complete the basic requirements for your degree, you can study anything you want.”

Sejal’s head was suddenly swimming. “My degree?”

“Without a degree, you can’t work in the Dream, at least not for the Children.”

Sejal fell silent for a moment. He was going to college? The idea hadn’t occurred to him, not with everything else that had been going on. Excitement filled him.

“When do we get started?” he demanded.

“As soon as you get settled in,” Kendi said. He crossed his legs at knee and ankle and suddenly Sejal wondered what it would have been like if Kendi had come on to him as a jobber. An image of the two of them in bed together with Kendi handing Sejal a fistful of
kesh
flashed through Sejal’s mind. He grimaced. That was behind him. He didn’t need to do that anymore.

The white-haired man settled himself in the seat next to Sejal despite the plethora of empty seats elsewhere in the car.

“Excuse me,” he said. “Does this train go to the monastery of Irfan?”

“Sure does,” Kendi replied. “And it’s the last stop, so you can’t overshoot.”

“Is that where you youngsters are going?”

Kendi nodded and stuck out his hand. “Brother Kendi Weaver. This is Sejal Dasa.”

The man flicked a glance at Sejal, then stared at Kendi’s hand as if it were a piece of rotten meat. With a curt nod, he rose and changed seats. Sejal noticed he sat close to a pair of Ched-Balaar who sat chattering on their haunches in an open space further ahead in the car.

“What the hell was that about?” Kendi said, dropping his hand. “Rude son of a bitch.”

Sejal shrugged. People were always rude at the market. Why should anything be different here? He shot a glance at the old man, but he didn’t seem to be paying any attention to Sejal.

Kendi continued to chat but Sejal only listened with half an ear. It seemed like every time he looked away, he could feel the old man’s eyes on him. Whenever he checked, however, the man was invariably staring out the window or at his fingernails or at the ceiling.

After several stops, the monorail halted one more time and Kendi got up.

“We’re here,” he announced.

The old man was still on the train and he rose as well. As they and the other passengers moved to the door, the old man stumbled and reflexively caught Sejal’s bare elbow. A small shock traveled up Sejal’s spine.

“Sorry,” the old man muttered. He hurried off the train and disappeared. Sejal narrowed his eyes. The move had clearly been calculated. If Sejal had been in the market, he would have suspected a pickpocket. Sejal, however, had nothing in his pockets to steal except his flute and computer journal. A quick check showed both were still there. So what was the old man up to?

“Who
is
that guy?” Kendi grumped, hoisting his satchel.

“He’s Silent,” Sejal said. “I felt it when he touched me. I think he did it on purpose.”

Kendi looked at him as they exited the train. “On purpose? What for?”

“I don’t know.” Sejal scanned the platform for signs of the old man, but he was gone. “He didn’t want to touch you but he wanted to touch me. Is he a Child?”

“Doubtful. He didn’t know this train goes to the monastery. If you see him again, say something.”

The platform was like the others—wooden, wide, and surrounded by leafy branches. The station was also like the other buildings Sejal had seen—a wooden half-circle that curved around the tree. Between the leaves the sky was gray, and the breeze had turned chilly. Sejal, still dressed in thin clothes fit for Rust’s gentle climate, shivered and clasped his arms around his chest. From the platform spread a network of staircases and walkways. The stairs lead to other levels in the tree while the walkways connected the platform to other talltrees. Buildings of many sizes nested among the branches like roosting birds, and the wooden walkways clomped and thumped beneath the feet of human and Ched-Balaar alike. Other races were visible here and there, and almost everyone wore the simple gold medallion that marked the Children of Irfan. The atmosphere was relaxed and unhurried, much different from the frenzied pace of the Ijhan market.