Chapter 9:
AN EARTHQUAKE?
Vonn enjoyed the evening at Akkri’s house. His parents asked them lots of questions about the great adventure ahead of them and the four of them talked about it till late in the evening. Mellin, Akkri’s mother, had invited Vonn to stay the night and the two of them went out onto the balcony before going to bed. There was still an infra glow from the trees, fields and hills around the house, but the sky was deep black. “It’s strange to think there are other worlds out there,” said Mellin, “and even stranger to think that you and Akkri will be going to one of them. Does the thought of it worry you?”
“Not worry, exactly. I know we will be safe, but what I don’t know is how I will feel, facing so many new experiences. I feel nervous about my own feelings, if you know what I mean.” They stood there for a while longer. The last of the light was fading and the lights in the house were a warm, inviting glow. “It’s been a lovely evening, Mellin,” Vonn continued. “I think I’ll say goodnight now and get ready for bed.”
Vonn’s own parents lived on the other side of the northern mountains in an area of lakes, fast-flowing rivers and forests of silver birch. They had a large stone-built house about half a mile from the main village. Vonn’s grandmother, her mother’s mother, had lived in a smaller village a few miles to the south, in the foothills of the mountains.
Vonn had not been home for nearly a year, in fact not since the time her grandmother had died. She remembered sitting in the big front room of her parents’ house at the time of the dissolution. It was early evening and the room, which faced west, was flooded with a beautiful orange glow. Granny’s body was lying on a couch in the middle of the room, covered with a linen sheet embroidered with white silken flowers. A single tall white candle flickered by her head.
As usual, no one had seen the actual moment of dissolution. Vonn’s father had just gone out of the room and Vonn had turned to look at the view out of the window. When she had looked back there was just the linen cloth lying limply on the couch and a faint delicious scent, like a blend of fruit and flowers, hanging in the air for a moment or two. She snuffed out the candle before going to inform her parents that her dear granny had dissolved back into the nothingness from which everything had once come.
No, she didn’t feel ready to go back yet. Her parents visited her from time to time in her home on the coast, and she enjoyed her life there with the other girls. She knew her parents understood her reluctance to travel north to see them. Many things would feel different after the projected visit to the new planet. She suspected her whole life might feel different. Yes, after the visit she would probably be ready to go back home for a good long stay.
Next morning Vonn woke to find the sunshine streaming in through the curtains of the little room in the roof of the house, with its sloping, pinewood walls. Fragments of a dream were lingering in her mind. She tried to hold on to them. There was a long low building that seemed to be made of rectangles of red stone. It was strange: it seemed to be divided into narrow sections and each section was a place people lived in, all close together. There was something yellow in front of one of the sections and the sky was a deep and gloomy grey.
She let the dream go and looked around the room. She had stayed here several times before. It was good to be back again. A glimpse of indigo sky told her she had slept later than usual, but today was a rest day, a holiday; she could be as lazy as she liked. She lay under the covers, enjoying the feeling of not having anything in particular to accomplish. A dove was cooing in a tree just outside the window. Perhaps it was time to get up after all.
She got out of bed, pulled back the curtains and opened the little window. The fresh morning air came wafting in. The weather was perfect, just right for a day on the beach.
She felt a little wistful. Today and tomorrow would probably be their last trips to the beach for quite some time, and if her life was indeed to feel different after their journey through the empty reaches of space, then those carefree excursions might not happen in quite the same way ever again.
She leaned out of the window. There was Akkri, sitting at the wooden table on the balcony, eating his breakfast. “Good morning, Akkri!” she called.
Akkri looked up and grinned. “Hallo, Vonn! Come and have some breakfast!”
In a few minutes she had joined him on the balcony. Akkri poured her some milk from a jug and Vonn buttered a crisp brown roll. The light breeze seemed to blow her cares away.
“Vonn,” said Akkri, “how are you feeling about things? About the visit, I mean? I’ve been feeling quite strange, as if everything was going to change.”
Vonn felt reassured. “I’ve been feeling the same, almost as if all the good times we’ve had together were coming to an end. But they won’t, will they?” It was more of a statement than a question. If changes were coming they would adapt to them together, just as they were adapting to their new knowledge of the past. The changes ahead might be even more dramatic, and they would be taking place in the present, within their own lives, but they would be in it together, as they always were.
After breakfast they launched off from the balcony, skimming through the treetops and out across the moorland to the sea. And there it was, their beach, gleaming in the early morning sunshine. Neither of them felt like swimming so soon after breakfast. Instead they dug a deep hole in the sand until water began to seep in at the bottom, then they sat back and watched the sides gradually collapse.
“Race you to the headland!” said Vonn, and they set off towards the southern end of the beach, running in and out of the water and sometimes holding hands and spinning round and round before setting off again along the sand. They gave up long before they reached the headland and flung themselves into the waves, lying on their backs to get their breath back.
“Let’s walk the rest of the way,” said Akkri.
As they drew near to the headland, the sand turned to shingle and they crunched their way up to the tangle of boulders at the foot of the sandstone cliff, where Akkri began to inspect the rusty red rocks in the hope of finding a fossil. Vonn sat down with her back against one of the smoother boulders and picked up handfuls of damp shingle and let it cascade through her fingers. “I’m ready for a swim now!” she called out.
They swam out along the edge of the headland where the water became deep quite suddenly. Far down below them they could see a great black eel snaking in and out among the seaweed. A shoal of silverinoes came into view ahead of them and Vonn shot forward, in amongst them, laughing as they scattered in all directions, then, with one accord the two friends swam back to the beach and lay down in the sun to warm up. The deep water had been colder than they expected.
After lunch they had a game of tootak, Vonn winning as usual, then set off for the river mouth at the northern end of the beach, collecting shells and driftwood on their way. When they reached the river they arranged their finds in a circular geometric design on the sand, hunting for extra shells and pieces of wood to make it complete, then swam across the river to the flat rocks on the other side.
Evening was coming on and they were beginning to feel tired. “Into the clouds then home?” suggested Akkri.
Vonn nodded. They headed up towards a bank of orange-tinted cumulus that was hanging over the sea, then cruised gently through the ever-changing misty canyons. From time to time Vonn opened her mouth to take in the cold dampness of a wreath of vapour. They plunged together through a great clump of cloud – as refreshing as a cool shower after a day’s work – then out again into the sunshine, before gliding off in the direction of Akkri’s house. The late afternoon sun was almost ahead of them. Akkri kept his eyes closed for most of the journey. With the orange glow in his eyes, it was like diving through sunlight itself.
They step landed on the balcony of Akkri’s house and sniffed the mixed aroma of wood smoke and baking bread. Kal, Akkri’s father, liked to go out into the birch w
oods with an axe to cut logs for the stove. Like many Vikan activities it was done purely for pleasure and not out of necessity, just as farmers tilled the fields for crops or fishermen went out to sea with their nets. People did what they enjoyed doing and life provided their needs.
“Vonn,” said Akkri, “would you mind if we did something different tomorrow? Somehow I feel that today we said goodbye to the beach for the time being.”
“I feel the same. We’ve had a wonderful time and we’ll go back again some day, but I think it would be good to do something completely different tomorrow, maybe something we’ve never done before. I’ve never been to the Southern Spring Zone, for instance, have you?”
“No, that sounds great! There’s an inland sea with lots of little islands, isn’t there? We could go to one of the islands and have a swim.”
“It might be colder than the sea here,” Vonn warned.
“It’s inland, and I believe it’s much shallower than the open sea. It might even be warmer!” Akkri didn’t really know, but he was a natural optimist.
“Well, we’ll find out tomorrow. How about an early start?”
“Yes, let’s have breakfast on the way.”
Next morning they climbed into a skimmer at balcony level and set off in a southerly direction. Moorland gave way to endless miles of pine forest and limestone crags as they ate their breakfast, gazing out across the landscape. Soon the parched desert of the equatorial belt came into view. Few people lived here, though there were species of birds and animals not found in the kindlier zones further north or further south.
The terrain in the Southern Summer Zone was rather different from the Northern Summer Zone they came from. The land was cracked and crazed with deep canyons, some empty and dry, others green and lush, with wide rivers flowing through them. From time to time they saw isolated dwellings and occasionally a village, but the population was sparse in this part of the southern hemisphere, the big cities being further south in the Spring Zone, the region they were making for.
“Let’s go down for a while, shall we?” Akkri suggested. Even if night fell while they were still far from home, they could be back in an instant if need be.
“Why not?” said Vonn. She was content to go along with whatever he suggested. Although it was only for one day, this felt even more of a holiday than their trip to the beach yesterday, and she knew that the happy, light-hearted holiday mood would remain with her whatever they decided to do.
They drifted down onto a shingle bar that reached out into a wide, fast-flowing river. The air was warm, with a resinous scent they did not recognise. It seemed to come from some low-growing shrubs with silvery leaves that grew by the water’s edge. The water sparkled in the sunshine, with white dazzles where it splashed up against a rock. “I’m going to see if it’s deep enough to have a dip,” said Akkri.
Vonn smiled. She had an idea the water was much colder than it looked. She lay back and wriggled herself a comfortable patch in the soft shingle. Then – was it an earthquake? She sat bolt upright and saw Akkri in a frozen attitude of alarm. He ran back to her. “Whatever was that?” he said.
Everything seemed perfectly normal. The birds that had been twittering in the silvery shrubs were twittering still, the river was singing its little melodies as it splashed its way along the rocky river bed, and the warm sun shone down upon them, just as before.
“Let’s sit quietly for a while,” said Vonn. “Something’s happening that we don’t understand.”
Akkri sat down next to her. His heart was thumping. Soon afterwards there came the familiar call, though this time there was an unfamiliar urgency to it. They stood up. There was no question as to what they should do. The skimmer dissolved away, and Akkri said: “Right, then,” and they launched off.
And there they were, in Library Seven, in the gallery where they had had their first meeting. The other members of the group were appearing in ones and twos. Everyone had expressions on their faces that were not often seen in the tranquil life on Vika – surprise, shock, concern. Viney was standing by the big polished table. She was looking very serious, like a much older person. “Let’s sit down,” she said. “We’ve got a lot to think about. You all felt it, I presume?”
“It was as if something gave our world a jolt,” said Yask.
“You’re right. It’s our blue and white planet,” said Korriott, dreamily. “Some way or other our lives and theirs are going to collide.”
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