Daughter of Orion

  ~~~

  Now that you have some background, I can move into memory. Surely, it won't surprise you that my first memory is of sand.

  One afternoon when I was four years old, I was supposed to be setting out for Gam Tol, the Tan's chief settlement, to be betrothed to Par-On, a baby whom I hadn't met; but it seemed to me that I'd be going nowhere. Standing with my relatives in the lee of a spur of rock, I gazed at a sky that raced and swirled. Years later on the earth, I'd pour butterscotch pudding into water in a blender and turn it on. What spun in the blender looked just like that sky.

  I glanced at my relatives. All of us, from youngest girl to oldest man, were dressed alike in turbans, long scarves, and loose, long-sleeved smocks belted over long skirts. The clothing was maybe unfashionable by American standards, but it kept the sand outside us.

  One learned to tell one's relatives by their eyes. With me were my father and my mother; my father's grandfather, the settlement's kan, or chieftain; and my mother's father, Dor-Sad, the world's Einstein. All of us but him stood still and gave the wis bas the look of worried resignation that Tani had always given sandstorms. Grandfather Dor-Sad, though, fidgeted, and bounced up and down on his heels.

  "Tell me again, Dor-Sad," my great-grandfather, the kan, said, "how your crystal-ships can fly from star to star, but can't take off in a sandstorm."

  "There's no sand between the stars," Dor-Sad said in a tone that I fear wasn't altogether polite.

  I giggled. My mother shushed me, but couldn't keep me from thinking that Grandfather was telling a made-up story. If sand could fill the sky, how could even the stars be safe from sand?

  I looked at the crystal-ship, shielded from the wis bas by hides of gur-i. Only when I reached the earth did I learn how absurd it was to cover a starship with cowhides. I visualized what lay below them. A crystal-ship resembles a kite-shaped diamond with highlights of red and blue. I visualized myself entering the ship and rising in it over the sand into a realm where the stars ever shone --

  Grandfather broke up my reverie. "In fertile lands on the earth" -- that day he didn't call it 'the earth,' but Ul Har, the inhabited world of the Sheep Constellation -- "water keeps the sand in check, so that there are no sandstorms. There one can travel when one wants to. Someday, when we bring water here and make the land bloom, the wis bas will be no more."

  "Maybe, someday," the kan said. "Today, though, the wind is just getting stronger. It'll soon be time for evening sacrifice. Let's go in and prepare for it. If we're lucky, Mira can set out in the morning."

  It was actually two mornings later when the sky cleared, keeping just the faintest of mustard tinges to show us Tani that the wis bas would someday return. I was nearly jumping out of my skin with excitement as the crystal-ship opened like a clamshell, and Grandfather lifted me aboard.

  Saying, "Take care to touch none of the crystals, Mira," he set me down in a cramped space amid altered amethysts, citrines, and topazes. He helped my father and my mother aboard, and then joined us peas in a pod. When my father complained of how cramped he was, Grandfather said, "On flights between stars, a ship can hold just one. I've removed the sleeping-crystal, the speaking-crystal, and most of the power-crystals to give you what room there is. Someday, I'll try again to make a big ship..."

  His voice trailed off. He was alluding to a sad, but important story. I'll tell you that story later, as just now, in this story, I was filled with joy as the crystal-ship rose from the sand. The rocky outcrop where I'd spent all of my life fell away below me. My father whimpered, clinging to my mother and burying his head on her shoulder; but she and I, daughter and granddaughter of Ul's Einstein, gazed eagerly at a world that began to turn round below us. Feeling no sense of acceleration as desert, frost, and airless rock sped past, I paid Grandfather's running monologue no heed.

  I wish that I had paid it heed. Who knows how much he told me that we Tani could now use?

  All too soon, the flight ended, but another marvel awaited me. Rising from the desert atop a mesa, a cathedral of clear crystal scattered Holy Light's crimson rays in a thousand glorious hues. I was seeing Gam Tol in its glory, two years before the Homeworld's end. America has shopping malls as large as Gam Tol was, but, to a four-year-old girl who'd come from a hole in a rock, the city was splendiferous.

  "Someday," Grandfather said, "every Tan will live in just such a city."

  My father looked humbled, but my mother smiled with clear pride, as likely I smiled, for it was her father, my grandfather, who'd built the crystal-city.

  As the crystal-ship settled before the city's gate, three figures of majesty emerged from it. The first was a woman, lovely and tall. The second was a baby whom she held in her arms. The third, who drew my eye, was a man, tall, broad-shouldered, and handsome beyond words. It pleases me that Par-On is growing into his spit and image. The tall man wore a crown of gold from which three crystal-tipped spires shot up and swept back. Einstein's granddaughter, I knew the crystals as a light-crystal, a healing-crystal, and a memory-crystal.

  We peas in a pod emerged from our pod and stood before the three majestic figures. Grandfather, who, of course, knew them, introduced them to the rest of us in the traditional order, starting with the youngest. Thus, I met the baby, Par-On; his mother, Luna Nel-Rav; and his father, Sor-On, Kan Tan, the People's High Chieftain.

  Bowing my head, I crossed my arms over my chest, knelt on my right knee, and murmured, "Lon-al lu-es, Kan Tan Sor-On." For the linguistically challenged among you, I'll translate that phrase as, "Joy to you, High Chieftain of the People, Sor-On." Learn that phrase before the night ends!

  I must've done well, for both Sor-On and Luna smiled at me. Baby Par, though, just waved his chubby arms and made a strange yodel.

  The royal couple led the royal guests into the royal city, where things became a blur for me. I recall only being bathed and dressed in the finest robes that I'd worn.

  As my mother put them onto me, the ground shook. Everyone cried out till it stopped shaking. When it grew still again, someone muttered that it'd never shaken in the old days, but now shook ever more often. My mother, looking haughty, said, "My father will learn why the ground is shaking and make it stop."

  Sorry, Mother, he didn't.

  Once dressed, I was led to a magnificent chamber of green crystal where the royal family sat on thrones on a high dais amid a crowd in its best finery. Luna put Par into my arms. Sor-On, placing his hand onto his son's forehead, spoke words for him; then I spoke for myself words that my great-grandfather, the kan of his tiny settlement across the airless rise from mighty Gam Tol, had coached me to say.

  After I'd spoken my words, the crowd called for me to kiss Par. When I did, he gave me the biggest raspberry of my life. As I frowned and wiped baby spit from my mouth, the crowd, laughing and cheering, said that I'd know good fortune with my husband.

  After the wedding, dancing lasted till the time of evening sacrifice, when Kan Tan Sor-On with his own hands slew a gur and poured out its blood onto the sand as an offering to Holy Light as it was setting. Cooks, butchering the gur¸ roasted its flesh with heat-crystals and served it up to the wedding party. I ate a small girl's share of gur; Par, poor boy, got just some broth.

  Thus began my time as a member of the Tan's royal court.

  The light-crystals' glow shows me raised hands. I call first on solid, trustworthy Van-Dor, seated by shy Dala.

  "When are you going to tell us of the big crystal-ship?" Van asks me.

  Par-On breaks in by royal right. "I've been wondering why my father was High Chieftain in Gam Tol, but your great-grandfather was chieftain in his settlement. Shouldn't my father have been too young to reign?"

  Wise, artistic Sil-Tan strokes his chin. "In the genealogies that came to the earth with me, the words wa-tak-il na-nel wis-i appear after the names of Sor-On's father and grandfather."

  "You're right, Sil," I said. "Those two did die in the Wall of Winds. As for Par and Van, there's one answer to both of your ques
tions."

  "Before you give it," fierce Kuma says, "could we get some snacks? Your story promises to be long."

  I nod. From her backpack, Kuma hands around strips of beef jerky. Shy Dala, too, opens her backpack, and hands around candy bars. No earth-human, I think, will mistake Tani for health-food nuts.

  When everyone but me is munching, I start. "What I'm about to tell you is nowhere fully written down in the records that came here with us. I must piece it together from what I overhead as a girl on the Homeworld, from allusions on the memory-crystals, from --"

  "We trust you, Mira," mystical Lona says.

  "You're kind. What I'm about to tell you occurred just before I was born, three years before Par was born. For days and weeks Dor-Sad and a team of the strongest crystal-shapers poured all of their gift into making one giant crystal-ship. It was, if I have the figures right, as long and as wide as a football field. The ship could carry hundreds of passengers or hundreds of tons of cargo."

  "It could've carried hundreds of Tani here from Ul," Dala murmurs.

  "It could've, if Dor-Sad could've made power-crystals large enough to take it across the stars. When he made the ship, though, the little crystal-ships had explored all of the neighboring stars and found there just useless worlds, ruined worlds, and the earth, which the then Kan Tan, Par's great-grandfather Yar-On, had decided to let alone."

  "Why did he decide to do that?" dour, brooding Un-Thor asks me.

  "Because he feared that the earth-humans would never give us a place here without a fight, and the Tan had never fought a war."

  In sudden silence, my listeners stiffen. Some of them, I fear, are about to say that the Tan is fighting its first war now. I go on quickly. "My grandfather made the giant ship, not to settle another world, but to improve his own world. Twice, the giant ship flew to the glaciers on Ul's inner face, under Nas-Ul's fearsome light. From the inner face, the giant ship brought back hundreds of tons of ice to make the Desert bloom."

  "I bet that the dew-gatherers and the frost-gatherers feared for their livelihood," Un mutters.

  "They'd have found better jobs in the new economy that the Kan Tan and my grandfather were planning. Sadly, it never came to be. On the giant ship's third voyage, Yar-On and his son, Par's grandfather, went along to oversee founding a permanent mining settlement on the inner face. The voyage went well till, in space above the Wall of Winds, the ship's hull cracked. Don't ask me why; no one ever learned. The pilot had to take the ship down, as it was losing air. The last word over the speaking-crystals was that the ship was breaking apart in strong gusts."

  Seven long faces meet my gaze. "Didn't the Tan look for the ship?" Dala asks me.

  "For six years, till the world ended. No trace of the giant ship was ever found." I turn to Par. "In any case, now you know why your father was Kan Tan."

  Un scowls. "Why wasn't your grandfather on the ship, Mira?"

  "He never told me why he wasn't." Before his world ended, I think, he must've wished that he had been.

  Lona strokes her chin. "When are you going to get to the Tan's origin, Mira? All that the records say of it reads like myth."

  I smile at her in relief at her having gotten me off an uncomfortable subject. "By good fortune, what you want to know comes next."