Virginia Hamilton (12 page)

Slowly she filtered the summer through the Bambnua’s mind. The sweet white light of her dear home, the same white light that had come when she thought she was dead.

The Bambnua surged and shuddered at Justice’s touch. She raged with fire, about to break out in welts again. But this time Justice held on in the Bambnua’s mind. With hard will, she fought down the Dustwalker’s alarm signals.

The Bambnua began to shake all over, but she did not surge or shudder. She was tight as a drum within. She shook. She watched within this new presence with a mixture of fear and glaring bravery.

The sweet white light was warm with the scent of clover.

All that Justice knew and loved. Her family. Her brothers. The town. Its people and animals. Vivid hopes and nightmares. The summer sun and sweltering nights—so little dust! The town pool. Kids shining in the clover surrounding the pool and browned to a burning dampness. Sweat running down backs and armpits. Truly sweet scent of chlorine. Bright and sudden image of the summer field in back of Justice’s home. Then, diving splashes in the pool. The wonderful weight of water as shoulders, heads, cut through the shimmering aqua. There is the wading pool and the squeals of babies delighting in the coolness.

Yuns. Baby-yuns, thought Justice.

The Bambnua quivered down her backbone and to the tips of her wings.

And came her supreme effort to mind-speak:
YA HA NAS WHYYOU BHA HA BHA HEES

There it is.
There it is!

BHA HE BHES
A deep struggle. Bravery over fear from the Bambnua.

Babies! And you said, Why You.

YOUWHYYOU BHA HEBHES

Oh, wait! Listen—oh, see the pictures!

The Bambnua, the Dustwalker, was no longer frightened. All of her defenses gave way to her extraordinary curiosity. Her desire to know was overwhelming and ingrained in her makeup. The more she was able to learn, the better the chance for the Quest to find the end. All thought-processes led finally to this ancient, urgent desire.

Justice began. Thought-pictures of her own, and as gentle as she could make them.

Lazy days. Lovely star-filled nights. No moon. The new moon. The passage of time. Time and Justice. Her brothers and time. Justice growing up with her brothers. The coming of their power. An unending sadness. Resignation.

We have come together, she pictured to the Bambnua. We are the first unit. We are joined, my brothers, the boy here called Dorian and I. As you are joined with your colony. We are the unit. Past. Time and travel. Out of our time, we come here to your time. We come from along-ago past time. We time-travel. We are powerful. Do not be afraid of us. But we are powerful. We can move things. We can move you. We can move almost anything. Greetings, Terrij, Bambnua-Walker.

A series of pictures in which Justice and her brothers learn to use the power. Dorian’s mother, the Sensitive, takes time in secret teaching them to fine-tune their energy. They form the unit at Justice’s direction. As the unit, the three boys and she use less power more efficiently. There is far less strain on the anatomy and mind of each of them with the same good effect.

Rambling scenes—pictures of life back home, which are surrounded by Justice’s mind at work. There comes a parade of these, Justice’s thoughts.

The Bambnua sights the rambling scenes and moves her mind-sensations through them. It’s as if she can walk through a moving-picture show. She focuses on the strange sounds coming from within the scenes.

Projecting her thoughts within the scenes Justice is thinking.

I figured out that my own folks are the last generation. But I don’t mean the last of people, just the last time people are born without some power. I figure that when my brothers and I and Dorian were born the way we were, others around the world were born the same. Had to be, don’t you think?

No longer did the Bambnua quiver or shake: She hummed within while holding herself still and fast. Tight as a high wire, humming, she saw through Justice’s pictures.

From -now on, Justice continued, each of the generations will bring more
us
of power. Just a few. Always only a few—like there’re always only a few dustwalkers, you.

You and me,
tracing,
we’re not so different. We are the few.

The Bambnua, filled with sensing, with feeling and waking. The hum was the machinery of her becoming. As one time Justice had become something more than herself, so the Dustwalker was becoming new.

The moving-picture scenes revealed clouds and hills. Greenery. Honeysuckle Lilac Winged creatures.

The Bambnua ceased to hum inside. She watched a flight of ducks winging against the dark swell of winter clouds. Saw their shape, heard the sound of their squawking. Admired the formation and their swiftness through air.

Justice felt a suffocating longing. It took her sense for a moment. Then the Bambnua hummed, stronger than ever. Justice fought back her own longing for home.

Someday, home, the few of us of power will find the way of sensing others like us and come together faster. And never again the long time it took the Sensitive to find me. Dorian’s mom, searching, taking months and months and not even sensing me. But finally, holding to this tiny, teeny scent of power off somewhere. That was me! A little bitty scent, almost lost forever in the wide old world!

YOUMVE YOUMVE
.

The Bambnua, surging inside.

MVEMVE YOU

A wild siege of becoming.

MVEMVEMVE YOUYOU
Screaming, a raging out of control.

Wha … what?
Justice holding on.

MVEYOU

What?
Like a whisper.

MVEYOUMVEYOUMVEYOU

Mve you?
Move
you?

Move
you!
Move
you!
I said it. I said we could move anything, the unit could. … You’ve been studying that while I ran my mouth.

Justice was stunned. So unexpected the Bambnua’s understanding was. It made her human, surely.

Move you, that’s what you want. I said it. With my power. Yes, sure. Sure! Dorian!

Swiftly, Justice removed her mind from the Bambnua’s. She was as before, seated across from the Dustwalker; this time her mind was where it was supposed to be.

Dorian came quickly beside her. The Bambnua felt this source of energy.

Justice mind-traced:
She wants a demonstration.

You mean, you’ve been able to reach her by telepathy?
Dorian traced.

What do you think I’ve been doing all this time? I gave her scenes from home. Brother! About made me cry, too, just remembering and picturing it all.

I know it,
he traced.
It happens to me here, too.

Anyway, she must’ve been studying the way I made the pictures because, the next thing I knew, she was speaking back at me, back to my thoughts.

Wow! And could you get any of her language?
he wanted to know.

I guess I must’ve. I’m not sure. First I was in her picture-stream of things gone by, and then more recent memories. But if it’s language, it’s sure different from anything I’ve heard of. Is it language we think in? Or is it pictures put into words? But I’ve reached her. Dorian, we can get going with it.

What’s the demonstration to be?
he traced.

She wants to be moved.
A stunned silence from Dorian.
She wants us to move her around. She can’t see us. But I had thought to her that we could move just anything, the unit could. And did she take that to heart! Now she wants us to move
her!

Dorian made no answer, but prepared himself for the demonstration. He was bound to Justice with mutual strength held in common. Never was their mutuality as powerful as the binding of the unit when the four of them were joined. Yet it was force enough. Their combined effort could carry the Bambnua, Dustwalker.

What a name
—
such a sound it has,
Dorian traced.

Then Justice closed down all tracings. The Watcher filled their intelligences. The two of them descended far within to deliver their irresistible strength to the surface of themselves. From the inner depths rose their force. They focussed it on the Bambnua. Divined that she wanted to move in one direction. Up.

The Terrij felt herself being moved. At once she reversed the process that had lowered her head on the neck vertebrae. Her head came up, and slowly her collapsed chin unfolded from under the roof of her mouth. Her flattened nose was prominent again. She had not lifted a wing. Still in a seated position on her retracted third leg, she rose. It might have been strong winds of Rollers that caused her to rise. But there was no wind. Yet she was lifted up and up.

MVE MVE YOUYOU MVE
Thought spoken in rhythm with the pulse-beat of her brave and daring blood.

For the first time Dorian was in touch with the alien Slaker. All of her strange other-being, which Justice had known before him, he knew now. He would have faltered if not for the Watcher there. He was part of the Watcher as well as Justice. He was more closely tuned with It than when all of them were the unit. A clarity of light and knowledge was his senses. He heard the Bambnua mind-speak:
MVE MVE
And understood as Justice had.

She, the Bambnua-Walker, rose so high that other Slakers on the ground, waiting just out of sight, quickly lost her contact. They were lost to her. For one time in her life—her long, long life; its vigorous phase was longer than a century—she was adrift. And free of all her colony. No longer could she sense kelm or the female crew through her skin. She did not care to be their warning of danger, or their scout for food and water. The need to lead one more Slaker or to find one last watering hole was lost.

Because.

Above the Bambnua, dust grew bright. And brighter. The Dustwalker shook out her wings.

She had never hoped. She went through motions of searching for an end by instinct. What else did she live for in the dust of suffering? But now all that had changed. Since the moment she had sensed that trail of energy unlike anything anywhere in the dust place, she had dared to hope. And, at last coming upon that which remained invisible but powerful, she had sensed what it could do for her. Times, traveling the land, when she vaguely sensed its limits. Now she comprehended what this new, invisible energy might do for her.

MVE YOUYOU MVEMVEMVE

Now. Rise. Rise.

Suddenly she was blinded by light. Screeching with pain from the brilliant, warm light. She covered her cruddy eyes with her wings. And crouched on air so free of dust. Her eyes teared and burned until the moment came when she could bear the sharp, piercing pain. She peeked through her feathers. She was holding still on absolutely clear air.

Here. There. The enormous world of light. Blue above and beyond.

They gave the name to her.
Sky.

She shuddered once, knowing the energy that had lifted her was also in her mind. It was one and the same. But she was brave. And soon she did not tremble. She did not move for ever so long a time. Until she mind-spoke.

SA KA SASA KAA
A sigh of ancient yearnings.
SAKA SAKA

Yes. Sky.

Throughout the vast light was the blue. All was clear and blue. Serene.

She need n
ot bounce up on her third leg. She simply lifted her great wings and took off from the band of energy.

And soared.

On an immense silence of sky and light the Bambnua floated and glided until she had sailed down near the dust again. There she again rose on her wingpower, straight up. She gave off a deep and steady tone that vibrated with ageless feeling throughout the blue. It was a hawking swell. A Slaker song of praise, the first one ever.

“HAWHAW! YA! HAWA! HAWHAW! YAWHA! WAWA! WA!”

On the ground, they pulled back their power. They traced to one another again.

She sure doesn’t need us now,
came from Dorian.

They concentrated through the dust, upward, to where the Bambnua flew with grace all on her own.

Soon she’ll need us again,
Justice traced.

You afraid she’s gonna fall? I don’t think she will, not the way
—Dorian stopped, suddenly aware that the Slaker’s falling was not what concerned Justice. With their extrasensory, Justice held fast to the Bambnua.

For the Dustwalker was searching for the end to Dustland. She had taken off in a straight line, away from the point on the ground where Justice and Dorian waited. And, imperceptibly, her line was curving.

She’s turning,
traced Dorian.
Shouldn’t we do something
—
?

Justice was intent on the Bambnua far above. She listened, and saw.

The Dustwalker had her sensory locked on their energy still touching her. From it, she had headed straight away. As far as she knew, she was still headed straight away, with no inkling that gradually she was curving in a great arc to the left.

They were certain she had been near something, the edge, perhaps, of Dustland. But she had no idea how close she had come. To her mind, she was continuing in a straight line above the dust. And from her view, Dustland appeared to be without end.

Times when silence was a clearer sign than mind-tracing. And now Justice was utterly silent. The Watcher was with them; yet Dorian thought to shield his mind. He did not question why the need of shields. But, from Justice’s manner, he knew to close off his thought to himself. From within he gathered that the Bambnua slowly turned and did not know it. She meant to go straight to find the end, but she could not, or would not. He assumed she would willingly go straight to the end if she could.

Not even with shields in place and from deep within would Dorian think the next thought.

The Bambnua-Walker was flying faster and faster. Frantic, she searched for the end. No longer did it occur to her that the end would be the way out for all Slakers. Her total strength was concentrated on the effort of flying.