Where the Plains Merge with the Sky

Roban’s gaze roamed the kitchen, and rested on Eleven. I shook my head without meeting his eyes. No, I hadn’t bonded. I would never feel comfortable with a grey shadow at my heels, no matter how much our custom said I should look after a native creature to give thanks for their hospitality on this world.

Story by Patty Jansen

Illustration by Rebecca Ing

The subhuman’s name was Eleven. All day, the creature had trailed me with the insistence of a shadow. Whenever I glanced aside, its dark eyes were watching me. And now, while I was helping in the kitchen, its chest darkened with hormonal flushes.

I looked away, my hands trembling, and kept rehearsing the lines of my story.

The night was cold and full of stars. I brought the knife down on the cutting board. Two potato halves bounced over the table.

The world was covered in a coat of snow. No, it was a blanket of snow, not a coat. I picked up the potato halves and flung them in the pan. Water sloshed over the side, which Eleven hastened to mop up.

Drops of sweat tickled on my upper lip. I would never remember the lines. I would freeze up when facing the gathered clan.

Mother stood at the stove, stirring the soup, her broad back to me. Her stoic face never showed disappointment, but I knew it was there. I might attain the middle name Vana because the elders knew whose child I was, but I’d never carry on the legend of the Muravi clan’s great storytellers.

A high-pitched whistle sounded outside.

I tossed the knife on the table and walked to the veranda into the gentle afternoon air.

Sunlight poured over undulating hills, covered in grass the colour of mead.

Fifty-two, my mother’s subhuman bondmate, pointed its grey-skinned finger at the long path that sloped up to the farmhouse. A group of travellers trudged up the hill. Four-legged drae carrying large packs. Nimble subhumans skipping through the grass. On top of the largest beasts sat specks of yellow and red.

‘That’s Uncle Izatar.’ My heart fluttered. His son would be with him. Dark-eyed Roban with his curly hair and fuzz on his chin. I could not let Roban see me mess up my storytelling.

The night was cold and full of stars, the world was covered in a coat of snow… Oh, by the seven stars!

‘Inita, I told you to watch the oven!’ Mother called.

*

The light was turning golden by the time protesting bellows from drae drifted in from outside, followed by footsteps on the veranda.

A pepper-and-salt haired man in a yellow and red robe came into the kitchen. Mother put down the pot of boiling water and threw herself in her brother’s arms.

‘Sister, dear.’ He patted her back.

‘Oh, Izatar, look at all that grey hair.’

Uncle Izatar’s laugh, rich and warm, mingled with the smell of the spices he sold. Twenty-three, his subhuman bondmate hung back in the semidarkness of the hall. Its dark eyes followed every movement we made.

Uncle Izatar’s eyes met mine. ‘Inita. You have grown so much. You’re almost a woman.’

I felt embarrassed and looked away, only to find that Roban had come into the kitchen after his father. In the year since I’d seen him, he had become tall and gangly. There was a subhuman shadowing him, too.

‘This is Seventeen.’ Roban put his arm over the creature’s shoulder. It uttered a soft, affectionate whimper.

Roban’s gaze roamed the kitchen, and rested on Eleven. I shook my head without meeting his eyes. No, I hadn’t bonded. I would never feel comfortable with a grey shadow at my heels, no matter how much our custom said I should look after a native creature to give thanks for their hospitality on this world.

*

Uncle called him from the veranda. I went back to cutting potatoes and ignoring Eleven.

By the sounds of drae bellowing and sharp chinks of metal on metal from driving tent pegs in the ground, more relatives had arrived.

I didn’t come outside again until it was dark, when Mother and I carried the pig for roasting. The nursing paddock around our house had changed into a city of tents. Relatives cheered, and hugged, and clapped me on the shoulder.

Look at how much you’ve grown.

They said the same every year.

‘Psst, Inita.’

It was Roban, in the shadow of a tent.

He grabbed my hand and drew me out of view of our relatives. ‘Wait here.’ He ducked back into the tent.

I was sweaty and greasy, not the way I wanted to face him. I wanted to be clean, in my best dress, with my hair combed and braided with glittering coins. I wanted to know what I’d tell him if he asked me to marry him. I wanted… the creature that was following me to go somewhere else and stop gawking at me.

‘Go away,’ I hissed at it.

Eleven shrank visibly and drooped off, shoulders slumped. I cringed. That was a stupid thing to do and would get me into trouble.

‘Here, a surprise for you.’ Roban came back with a large package.

I pulled the paper off the object. In my lap lay a pair of drae-skin drums. They were small and sleek, with sides of lacquered wood. I rapped my finger on the tightly-strung surface. It made a clear, melodic tap. The other drum made a lower sound.

My hands moved of their own accord.

Tic tic tic, toc-toc tic The rhythm of the plain, of riding a drae.

I remembered my father playing his guitar on the veranda. I’d been four when he left and the clan declared him dead. He and his music now commanded a factory, or a convoy of vehicles, or perhaps a ‘liner.

‘You like it?’

I nodded.

‘I thought they’d help you with the storytelling.’

I cringed. He obviously thought I needed help.

‘You can carry the drums over your shoulder. Look, let me show you.’

He stood behind me and looped the strap over my head. His fingers caressed my shoulder, but I couldn’t keep my hands from drumming.

‘I thought you’d like it.’

His hands strayed to my waist.

‘Roban, I—’

But he turned me around and his lips stopped whatever I’d been going to say.

My heart thudded in my throat. I wanted to push him away, but didn’t want to hurt him. He went on kissing, and I froze, paralysed in awkwardness. Seventeen took my hand and pushed it under Roban’s shirt, caressing skin which the creature would have explored many times over, with all its female hormones raging. We share our lives with our hosts. That was one of the pledges we made to the guardians of the land.

I tried not to shiver and watched the constellations in the sky. There was the cat, and the lotus.

Something moved in the corner of my vision.

‘Hmmm!’

‘What’s wrong?’ Roban’s lips were glistening wet from kissing.

‘Look there!’

A white streak went across the sky, flashing lights.

Something tugged at me deep inside my chest, a feeling of melancholy, of sadness. My skin broke out in goosebumps.

Seventeen whimpered. In the field beyond the camp, the drae grumbled at their tethers, and the subhumans tending them whistled to the beasts. I knew the whistles well enough to recognise their alarm.

What was that feeling?

‘A falling star,’ Roban said. ‘Quick, make a wish!’

But this was no falling star. The blinking of the lights was too regular.  It was ‘liner, coming into Gesha.

Our farming community, and even the small town of Gesha, was too isolated for the real technos from the capital to visit by air. Our version of technos came not in air ships from other worlds, but with convoys of trucks that crawled over the mountain passes at the command of their attendants. At harvest time, they came to the farm to pick up our grain. They camped in the bottom paddock, and played on their pan-flutes in the way Mother whistled to Fifty-two. Their middle names sounded like another language. Lon and Lona, Cor and Cora, and even Par and Para, the people whose Path it was to build, to create and bond with machines.

My gaze followed the streak through the sky.

Roban had wriggled his hand under my shirt. His breath tickled my cheek. ‘Have you made your wish yet?’

The rustling of dead grass stopped another kiss. Two shadows came to a halt.

‘There you are.’ That was Uncle Izatar’s voice. ‘We were looking for you two. The ceremony has started.’

Oh no. Mother would be furious that I’d been absent at the burning of the offering for Father.

‘Did you see the falling star?’ Roban asked.

‘I did.’ There was humour in Uncle Izatar’s voice. ‘I guess Inita is part of your wish?’

Roban chuckled. Seventeen whimpered and Twenty-three replied with clucking sounds. They knew the light hadn’t been a falling star.

‘Come and join us, and we’ll listen to Inita’s story.’

The story! Oh, by the seven stars…

‘I can’t do it.’ The words burst from me before I could stop them. I’d shame my family. I’d never be a storyteller.

But I want to be someone, not just someone’s wife. It’s my birthright.

‘Of course you can. Here.’ Roban pushed the drums in my hands. ‘When you forget a line make all the kids clap their hands for a bit so you can get the story together in your head.’

His suggestion was as good as any, so I carried the drums back to the fire, where the entire can waited for me, the space in the middle of their circle ominously empty. The scent of roast pig made want to puke.

Uncle Izatar walked to the empty spot. ‘And here we have Inita who has come to tell us a story!’

Voice stilled. Mother gave me a sharp look. Oh no, she wasn’t happy that I’d missed the start of the ceremony.

I sat down in the middle of the circle, the drums before me. I closed my eyes. My fingers found the taut skin and tapped out a rhythm. After a couple of beats, the children clapped with me.

I started the story, my eyes still closed, my fingers tapping. The words flowed from my tongue. The story grew, and took shape, and spread its wings. I became the lone rider who arrived at the village carrying the message from the custodians of the land. I argued with the settler farmers who didn’t believe that on this world, all living things work with each other. I watched as the crops grew stunted and the sows produced litter after litter of dead and deformed piglets, and I witnessed the mountain drae’s cow receive the human seed in what would become the first subhumans. The settlers made peace with our world in what we knew as the Joining.

When I finished, the children cheered. I beamed. I’d remembered. I hadn’t made a mistake. Maybe I would make a storyteller after all.

But when I opened my eyes, all the adults were staring at me.

‘Where did you get that thing?’ my mother said, ice in her voice, her eyes on the drums.

‘They were a present from Roban.’

Then the adults were all shouting and arguing. I sat, feeling small and stupid, in the middle of the circle, letting the anger rage over my head. What had I done?

I couldn’t see Roban anywhere.

*

I found Roban later that night, when I heard his voice in his tent. I wanted to go in, but Uncle Izatar stopped me.

‘I want to see Roban.’

‘I’m not sure if Roban wants to see you.’ His voice was cold.

Roban called from inside the tent. ‘Let me talk to her.’ His voice was edgy with pain. He had been beaten.

‘I don’t understand,’ I said.

‘Roban made an unforgivable mistake.’ That was my mother’s voice, harsh and cold. Fifty-two followed her like a shadow. ‘He gave you a forbidden item.’
The drums. This was about Father. It was about music. And music was a wrong thing from before the Joining.

‘It wasn’t real music anyway, it was only drums. What’s wrong with that?’

Mother didn’t answer. We Muravi didn’t talk about things we didn’t like. We worked things out for ourselves in long periods of silence. Such was the way of the Muravi herders of the plains. But I no longer wanted to accept it.

‘You are afraid because Father ran away to play music, I will do the same?’

I saw the answer in her eyes.

‘I won’t,’ I said. ‘I will always be a Muravi. I will always be with you. Storytelling is my birthright. I inherited it from you as oldest daughter. I will bond with a native creature, and I will marry and continue the Muravi line.’

Mother blew out a sigh. Fifty-two, made soft whimpering sounds. I knew it understood what I said, and it didn’t believe I’d ever bond with a subhuman. I didn’t believe it myself either.

‘You will marry?’ Mother asked, and her voice was heavy with relief.

I heard, I can be rid of you and the shame you bring me?

‘If she truly wants to be with Roban, she must become used to the travelling way,’ Uncle Izatar said. ‘I’m happy to take her for a trial. I’m bound for Gesha on the morrow.’

Hope flickered in me. Gesha, where the ‘liner was.

‘Yes, Mother, let me come so I can see what it’s like.’

‘A warning to you, young lady. Roban is staying here, on the farm. There will be no more canoodling until you’re in your marital bed.’

*

Two days later we arrived in Gesha with a herd of drae carrying my uncle’s wares. The town seemed so big, the houses so close together, the streets so busy. Dressed in my uncle’s yellow and red garb, I felt like I attracted every gaze.

Uncle Izatar laughed. ‘It’s your pretty face they’re looking at.’

When I carried the name Vana, I would have to stand up amidst a crowd and tell stories and the latest news. Not just here, but in all the towns of the district. The thought made me feel sick.

We were staying in an inn on the edge of town, opposite the holding pens for animals.

In the bedroom we shared above the inn, I threw open the window and looked out over the field. It was a dusty, noisy place, full of the sounds of bellowing drae, of auction bells and haggling men. I’d never seen that many people and animals together. In a field beyond the activity stood the silver ‘liner.
Uncle came to stand next to me, cradling a drink. He glanced at the ‘liner, but said nothing.

I ventured, ‘It looks smaller than I thought they were.’

‘It’s only a shortliner, from Sarma.’ His voice was gruff. Sarma was the capital on the other side of the mountain range. And then he grumbled something about shortliners never having come here before.

He closed the curtains.

I let myself sink on the bed. It was soft and sagged in the middle. There was an explosion of cheering downstairs and then the sound of a lute. Soft melodic strains tugging at my senses.

Uncle Izatar said, ‘Change into your pretty dress, Inita, and we’ll meet our buyers.’

*

The meeting wasn’t due until later, but I knew he wanted me away from the music. He hustled me out inn’s the back door and we spent most of the afternoon walking through the streets.

The meeting itself involved my uncle and his buyer seated at a table laden with sweets in the receiving room of the buyer’s house. According to tradition, there were no chairs; we sat on carpets and pillows on the floor.

While the buyer’s daughters brought tea, the men were haggling over every bag and jar of spice included in the deal, and presenting samples to the subhumans when they reached agreement.

I sat on a pillow behind Uncle Izatar. The buyer had brought an unattached subhuman. The creature crouched next to me, and while the men argued, it fondled my hair. I wriggled away, turning my back, hoping my plaits would keep it occupied. Next I felt the rasp of its tongue on my arm. I sat frozen, my heart thudding, as it licked the salt off my skin and, with a satisfied whimper, draped itself across my lap.

The buyer laughed and tossed me a spice sample. I slid it out of its bag with shaking hands. I’d seen Mother do this often enough. The subhuman licked the spices off my palm, leaving smears of curry-tinged slime. It worked its way up my arm and headbutted my chest as if to push me down on the carpet. Its male organ, halfway between its female organ and its bellybutton, was engorged and purple.

The buyer laughed. ‘It’s a bit raunchy, that one, but a good worker. I was hoping your boy might like it, Izatar. But I think it has found your niece unattached? We can come to an agreement about it.’

‘No!’

The word flew from my mouth before I could stop it. I jumped up, away from that thing, and ran out of the room.

Twenty-three stopped me on the veranda of the house. I hit at it. ‘Let me go, let me go!’

‘Inita!’ Uncle Izatar scolded.

‘I’m sorry, I can’t. I can’t. I can’t!’

‘Stop it, Inita! Behave yourself. Do you want to embarrass me any further?’

I met his eyes, swallowing hard, tears running down my face. ‘I don’t want to embarrass you. But please, Uncle, keep that thing away from me. Please.’

The look he gave me told me that something had broken. He knew it, I knew it. I would never be an honoured member of the clan, nor a suitable wife for Roban.

*

We had nowhere to go except back to the room above the inn, where the music called me through the floorboards.

When Uncle and Twenty-three were asleep, I rose from my bed. As quietly as I could, I opened the door to the room and let myself into the corridor. The music was louder here, as were the sounds of men laughing, voices raucous with alcohol. I shuddered. I knew what drunken men did to young girls, and I didn’t want to make things any worse than they already were, but the music made my heart flutter like it never had before.

I slipped into the serving room unnoticed. Most of the patrons looked like locals, in colourful or dusty garb, with faces weathered from living on the land. Subhumans followed them like shadows.

There were three musicians, all in white suits. They were pale-skinned with fine, clean hands, playing such strange instruments like I had never seen. The inn owner was just introducing the men. Two were Cor – they flew shortliners – but the third, who played the cithar, was Par, a longliner shipspeaker.
I sat down as close as I dared. The patrons were all talking to each other, and the subhumans gesturing and whistling and no one took any notice of me.
The music made me shiver. Before long, I was tapping and humming, and the Par shipspeaker with the cithar fixed his gaze on me. I turned sideways, but he still stared. Sweat rolled down my stomach.

I rose as soon as the musicians took a break, but one of the Cor caught me in the crowd.

I tried to side-step him. ‘I’m sorry, I have to go. My uncle is waiting—’

A man spoke behind me. ‘You looked quite interested in the music.’ The Par shipspeaker’s voice sounded strange, cultured.

I met his eyes. They were hazel brown. There was no subhuman with him.

‘Do you play?’

‘No.’

He held up his cithar. ‘Would you like to try?’

That shimmering silver instrument gleamed at me, mocking my temptation. I wanted to say no, and run, but I couldn’t.

‘I’ll show you how.’

He gestured for me to sit on his stool and eased the instrument in my lap. It was warm from his touch, and heavy. He showed me how to hold it and where to put my fingers. He made no attempt to touch me anywhere inappropriate. My heart calmed. I trailed my hand over the strings. The instrument made a beautiful sound.

He cocked his head – interested? – and glanced at his colleagues.

‘I really have to go now,’ I said. I tried to give the instrument back to him.

‘Wait,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you another chord.’

He told me where to put my fingers, and when I struck the strings a gust blew open the door to the tavern. Out of the blackness of night came a deep keening sound that crept into me, and settled in my heart.

Everyone in that room stopped talking.

A white-uniformed man at the bar turned to his colleague. ‘Good heavens, it looks like we’ve found one.’

‘Didn’t even present for testing, either,’ the cithar player said ‘What is your name, girl?’

‘Inita… Muravi.’

‘Muravi?’

They stared at each other, wide-eyed.

‘Inita!’

That was my uncle.

He stumbled into the room, and stared at the instrument in my hands. ‘You disobeyed me. I promised my sister that I’d protect you. She’s already lost half her family.’

My uncle dragged me from the room without apology to the men in white. He shoved me down in bed, and made one of his unattached subhumans share the bed with me. The creature was warm, but the touch of its rough skin made me shiver. It crawled to one edge of the bed, and I to another.

Uncle Izatar got up before it was light. He hustled me out of the inn without breakfast. Outside, faint morning light just touched the shortliner waiting for its pilots. I knew it was waiting; I could feel it.

I cried when we left the town. I’d promised Roban I’d marry him, but an emptiness grew inside me the further we went from Gesha.

‘Uncle,’ I said after a long time of staring at the drae’s swaying back. ‘Do you think I’d be a good storyteller?’

He said nothing, but I read the answer in his eyes.

*

I couldn’t bring myself to speak to Roban for days after I came home, neither did I speak to Mother. I had no idea what Uncle Izatar told her, but no one mentioned further travel for me.

I ached to ask, to yell at them, demand to be told what they knew, but that was not the Muravi way. More than anything, I feared losing their love if I confronted them. No matter who I was, I loved Mother and Roban, and I didn’t mind Fifty-two, Seventeen or Eleven, as long as they didn’t touch me.
I stood on the veranda many times, and saw the ‘liner fly over. The melancholy tune scored a weeping cut into my heart.

One day, a courier came on a drae and brought mail from relatives. Mother sat at her desk and wrote replies. I walked past a few times to see if they were wedding invitations. I didn’t think so, because the parcel of letters she gave the courier was only small.

Mother came to stand next to me on the veranda that night.

‘You are different,’ she said. It was not a question.

‘I am Muravi,’ I said.

‘That, you are.’ Then she went inside, but didn’t turn quickly enough to hide the wetness of her cheeks.

*

A few days later, I was in the kitchen when there was a great galloping and bellowing outside. I ran to the veranda to see the drae herd jammed up against the fence, tossing their heads.

In the paddock stood a silver ‘liner. Its door was open, and two white-clad figures were walking up to the house: the two Cor shipspeakers.

Mother had come onto the veranda behind me. I expected her to grab me and hide me somewhere in the house, but she didn’t. She put her hands on my shoulders and waited quietly. Roban came out of the shed where he had been chopping wood.

The two men climbed up the steps to the veranda. They nodded a polite greeting.

Mother returned it.

‘Here is the girl,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ one said and smiled at me. ‘That’s her indeed.’

As Mother let me go in another of those wordless Muravi gestures, it came to me: the courier, the small parcel of letters. ‘You contacted them?’
‘After what Izatar told me, yes. I tried to protect you, but it seems your birthright speaks louder than anything I can teach you.’

A tear rolled over her cheek.

I crossed the paddock with the men, Roban’s gaze following me all the way. Seventeen put an arm around his waist.

The inside of the ‘liner was all white and shiny, sleek and beautiful. Small lights winked at me. I wanted to know what they were telling me.
On the other side of the cabin sat a boy about Roban’s age. We locked eyes, then he went back to staring out the window at our farmhouse where Mother had her arms wrapped around Fifty-two. Even Eleven had come onto the veranda.

In the very front of the cabin sat another man, facing a bank of instruments. I could only see the back of his head, but I didn’t think it was the third musician.
One of the Cor shipspeakers spoke.

‘We have her, sir.’

‘Good,’ the man said. ‘Inita, you know how you played at the inn? We need you to do another test.’ His voice was deep and warm.

One of the men opened a sliding door to an alcove with an instrument I recognised as an organ and indicated that I sat on the stool before it.
There was a chart or something like that on the stand, a page full of black lines and squiggles.

‘What do I do with this?’

‘That is the score. Do you know how to read music?’

I shook my head.

‘Just play something.’

I closed my eyes and put my finger of the middle key. The organ sang a soft, mournful note that made tears spring in my eyes.

I pressed another key, and the instrument emitted another note, this one higher, and then one lower, and another one lower still. The notes grew into a gentle melody that formed in my mind as I played. The floor vibrated gently. The ‘liner liked it; I could feel it. I played more notes, most without thinking. The melody wasn’t a song but a translation of my thoughts. It grew and morphed, and became faster, acquired a rhythm—

‘Whoa. Stop, stop!’

One of the men grabbed my hands and yanked them back from the keys. The music died.

‘What?’ I stared at him, confused.

The floor vibrated at an alarming pitch. The doors had closed.

‘If you play any more, this thing’s going to take off.’

I stared at him, swallowed. I had done this?

I knew he was right, because now my hands were no longer on the keys, the ‘liner’s engine maintained its level. I could feel its tension, like a predator poised to spring.

‘Wait.’

I played the soothing melody again. The pitch of humming in the floor slowed, and then the door opened with a hiss.

‘See? It slows when I don’t play so fast.’

‘It’s called an adagio, or a ballad. Crysta likes ballads.’ This was the man at the front of the cabin.

‘_Crysta_?’

‘The name of the ship.’

I let my fingers glide over the keys without pressing anything. How I longed to try all those different sounds.

The speaker rose and joined me in the alcove. He was about Mother’s age, pale-skinned, with greying hair and a short beard.

‘I gather she has the talent, then?’ said the boy by the window. He sounded impatient.

‘She does indeed. This girl doesn’t belong on the plains herding flocks of drae. This girl will never freely bond with a native. She should be with us. We have enough trouble finding shipspeakers to steer our longliners.’

‘Longliners? Those are really, really big ships, aren’t they?’

He looked at me, and smiled. ‘Interstellar ships. They are what holds humanity together.’

‘But – me? I’m only Inita Muravi, of the plains. The Muravi are farmers, storytellers.’

‘Not all of them,’ the man said slowly, his voice husky with emotion. ‘Edymeon Par Muravi is the best shipspeaker in the entire longliner fleet.’

I looked up. ‘Dad?’

He enfolded me in a wordless hug.

The boy at the window got up. ‘Can I go now?’

‘Just a moment, Sigma. Meet your sister.’

Sister? The boy faced me, awkwardly. In his eyes, I saw myself, my deep unhappiness. Just like me with storytelling, he’d tried, and never felt one with the music and the ‘liner. He had longed for the plains; he yearned to share his life with a subhuman.

Slowly, he peeled off his white uniform and gave it to me.

He hugged his father and walked down the gangplank. Fifty-two and Seventeen stood at the gate to the paddock. Both draped arms over his shoulders. A few drae lifted their shaggy heads. One bellowed in the soft way that signified contentedness.

No one said anything until Sigma had joined Mother on the veranda. Eleven’s chest flushed a deep red.

My father closed the ‘liner’s door; his eyes glistened. ‘Put the suit on, Inita. You have a lot to catch up on.’ He hesitated. ‘I presume you want to come?’

‘I do,’ I said, ‘but I ask one thing.’

He raised his eyebrows.

‘Every year, we should come to the family gathering. We will play music, and those Muravi who want to come, should come.’

He cocked his head. His eyes were intense. Then he nodded. There was no need for words. He was Muravi after all.