Late-April – 3,390 BC
Earth: Village of Assur
Colonel Mikhail Mannuki’ili
Mikhail
So far, every attempt to find a marketable trade had met with failure. The goats the Ubaid kept for meat and milk ran away every time Mikhail rustled his wings. He had no idea how to shape pottery, work with wood, or any craftsmanship related to trade. An apprenticeship with the flintknapper had seemed logical as it only stood to reason he'd be able to create weapons, not just use them, but the man had sent him packing after he'd shattered one too many of the precious obsidian. Until he got his ship working, there was only one task he'd proved capable of. Pure, brute, hard physical labor
Every rainy season, the Hiddekel River rose above its banks and deposited mud onto Ubaid fields. The scent of fertile muck filled the air, pungent and sweet in a land with scant rainfall. Shallow floodwaters lapped at the rocks he'd helped Immanu clear as a levy. The trick was to get the seed into the ground as soon as the waters receded so that the wet, moist silt would sprout the crops. It was time to earn his keep.
“You must take the seed and scatter it … like this." Needa grabbed a handful from the basket and scattered it in a practiced motion.
Ninsianna's mother was every bit as beautiful as she was, with the same curvaceous figure, wavy black hair, high cheekbones and gently curved nose that her daughter bore, but unlike Ninsianna, Needa rarely smiled. This was not because she had a sour personality, but a symptom of the constant worries she carried around like a basket of rocks. Other people's illnesses and threats to public health were always on Needa's mind.
It was a heavy responsibility, being the village's only full-fledged healer, one he'd made even more difficult when he'd lured off her only source of reliable help to save his life. It was the reason, he now suspected, that Immanu had been willing to force his dreamy daughter's hand in marriage to the son of the village chief. They needed Ninsianna to stay here in the village, not be lured away by some distant tribe, such as his.
Now that Ninsianna was back, she was busy lightening her mother's load and had little time to spend with him. How had she managed with Ninsianna gone? Immanu might pull advice from the gods out of thin air, but it was Needa's blunt pragmatism which really guided the family … and the larger village.
Now she had a new responsibility to oversee … him. Her new 'son' was proving clueless about how to ply a trade. He was determined not to add another burden to his new 'mother's' ridiculously over-scheduled plate. He would pull his own weight, so help him gods, even if it killed him! He grabbed a handful of seed and dumped it with great conviction upon the fertile silt.
“No! You're wasting it!” Needa snapped. “If you plant the seeds too close together, they'll strangle each other out. They are like children! They need room to move and breathe.”
He tried again, replicating Needa's scattering motion. She grunted approval and pointed to the next section of the field. She was a tough task-master, with a poker face that could rival his own, carefully schooled blank expression, but she often broke that expression with an outburst of anger or a rare smile. If he had to think of one word to describe his new ‘mother,’ it would be mercurial.
Her demeanor reminded him of someone he must have known. He could feel the memory lurking just beneath the surface of his mind, but the elusive fragment wouldn't break free. Whoever the person was, his instinctive response to Needa's cajoling was to stand at attention and shout 'yes, sir!' It made him feel right at home.
“You move too slow,” Needa grumbled. “At this rate, we'll still be planting seeds come harvest time.”
Mikhail was not sure what caused the impulse to come over him, but he threw a handful of seed into the air and flapped his wings, creating a wind that scattered the seeds into a wide area.
“Will that do?" He feigned his most deadpan expression.
“That will work,” Needa grunted. “Now get moving. We have a lot more field left to plant.”
Needa's grudging approval meant more to him than the three dozen females who stared owl-eyed at him every time he moved about the village. At last! Something he could do to pull his own weight! With a mighty rustle of feathers, he grabbed another handful from the basket and spread the seeds far and wide.
Chapter 43