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For Brian, Bruce and Penny For all the years they tiptoed while their father riting

Frank Herbert

For all those healers who ease our suffering; for people who feed people, then ask theratitude and affection

Bill Ransom

The Histories assert that a binary system cannot support life But we found life here on Pandora Except for the kelp, it was antagonistic and deadly, but still it was life Ship&039;s judgment is upon us now because iped out the kelp and unbalanced this world We few survivors are subject to the endless sea and the terrible vagaries of the two suns That we survive at all on our fragile Clone-rafts is as much a curse as a victory This is the time offlesh and scorched hair He sniffed, sniffed again, and whined His one good eye watered and pained him when he tried to knuckle it open His mother was out Out was a word he could say, like hot and Ma He could not precisely identify the location and shape of out He knew vaguely that his quarters were on a Clone-raft anchored off a black stone pinnacle, all that re shtened hi Mostly, he did not talk; his nose got in the way He could whistle through his nose, though, and his mother understood She would whistle back Between them, they understood led his forehead This uncurled his thick, knobby nose and he whistled - tentative at first to see whether she was near

"Ma? Where are you, Ma?"

He listened for the unmistakable scuff-slap, scuff-slap of her bare feet on the soft slick deck of the raft

Burning smells filled his nose and made him sneeze He heard the slaps of many feet out in the corridor,he could identify as Ma There was shouting noords Duque did not know He sucked in a deep breath and let go the loudest whistle he could muster His thin ribs ached with it and the vibration made him dizzy

No one responded The hatch beside him remained closed No one plucked him out of his twisted covers and held him close

Despite the pain of the sht eyelid with the two nubs on his right hand and saw that the rooanics of the corridor wall Dull orange light cast a frightening illu like a cloud above hi doard toward his face And now there were other sounds outside added to the shouting and the slap-slap ofhis gloall Terror held him curled into a silent lu smells contained a steamy, bitter flavor - not quite the sticky-sweet of the time when the stove scorched their wall He ree between their roo the corridor He had poked his head through the burned opening and whistled at their neighbors The s wall did notwas added to the outside sounds Like a pot boiling over on the stove, but his , louder even than the other corridor noises Now, there were screaasped when his bare feet touched the deck

Hot!

Abruptly, the deck pitched, first backward and then forward The h the bulkhead The hot organics of the wall stretched and parted for him like a cooked noodle He kneas on the outer deck but stu his head and body with his arood eye The hot deck burned his knees and elbows Duque caught his breath in the sudden onslaught of pain and wrenched out another shrill whistle Soainst him Hands reached under his armpits and lifted him clear of the scorched bubbly that had been the deck Some of it came loose with him and stuck to his bare skin Duque kneho held hihbor wos and beautiful voice

"Duque," she said, "let&039;s go find yourin her voice It rasped low in a dry throat and cracked when she spoke

"Ma," he said He knuckled his eye open and saw a nighth the crowd, saw that he was looking around and slapped his hand away "Look later," she said "Right now you hang on to limpse, there was no need to repeat the order He clutched both arms around Ellie&039;s neck A small whih a crowd of people - voices all around saying words Duque did not understand Moveainst the others peeled away chunks of bubbly from his skin It hurt

That one look at out re out of the dark water! It coiled up out of the water acco sound and the air was so full of stealow of fla Duque to hold even tighter to Ellie&039;s neck Chunks of the fire had rocketed into the sky high above their island Duque did not understand this but he heard the fire crash and sizzle through the body of the island into the sea beneath

Why water burn? He knew the whistle-words but Ellie would not understand

The raft tipped sharply under Ellie and sent her sprawling beneath the tra deck Ellie cursed and gasped More people fell around theanics of the deck She struggled at first, thrashing like a fresh-caught muree that his mother had put into his hands once before she cooked it Ellie&039;s twisting slowed and she beganEllie&039;s neck, felt hot bubbly against his hands and jerked them away Ellie screamed Duque tried to push himself away from her but the press of bodies all around prevented his escape He felt the hair at the nape of his neck standing up A questing whistle broke froain and bodies rolled onto Duque He felt hot flesh, soed The people screaan coughing all around Duque He coughed, too, choking on hot, thick dust Soot Vata Help me We must save her"

Duque sensed a stillness in Ellie She wasn&039;tany Duque opened his mouth and spoke the tords he knew best:

"Ma Hot, Ma Ma"

Soht beside him said: "Who&039;s that?"

"Hot, Ma," Duque said

Hands touched him and hauled him away from Ellie A voice next to his ear said: "It&039;s a child He&039;s alive"

"Bring hiot Vata"

Duque felt hi into a dih a thinner dust haze the glitter of tiny lights, shiny surfaces and handles He wondered if this could be the out where Ma went but there was no sign of Ma, only many people crowded into a se naked infant He knew about infants because Ma so over the Duque touch them and pet theer than any Duque had ever seen but he knew she was only an infant - those fat features, that still face

The air pressure changed, popping in Duque&039;s ears So to come out of his fears and join in this warantic explosions shook all of the

"Boom! Boom! Booan extricating themselves from the tumble of flesh A foot touched Duque&039;s face and ithdrawn

"Careful of the little ones," so hands lifted Duque and helped him open his eye A pale masculine face peered at him - a wide face with deeply set brown eyes The ot the other one He&039;s no beauty but he&039;s alive"

"Here, give him to me," a woman said

Duque found himself pressed close to the infant A woman&039;s arms held them both, flesh to flesh, warh Duque but it was cut off immediately when the woman spoke He understood her words! He did not kno he understood but the ainst his cheek pressed to her breast

"The whole island exploded," the woh the port"

"We&039;re well below the surface now," awith thisour air"

"We will pray to Rock," the woman said

"And to Ship," a reed

Duque heard all of this fro flooded his awareness It was happening because his flesh touched the flesh of the infant! He knew the infant&039;s naht with it a blossoe had always been there, needing only Vata&039;s nah his h huenes in her human flesh He remembered the place of the kelp deep under the sea, the tendrils clinging to precious rock He reer existed because the kelp was gone and the sea fury had been unleashed Kelpto Pandora now that waves could roam freely around this planet, which was really a distorted ball of solid ed in an endless skin of water

Duque knehere he was, too: in a shter-Than-Air carrier attached to it

Out was a place of marvels

And all of this wondrous information had come to hienes, as did he As didhumans Geneshe knew about those ic storehouse of such things, telling him about history and the Clone Wars and the death of all the kelp He sensed a direct link between Vata and himself, which endured even when he pulled away froreat thankfulness for this and tried to express his gratitude but Vata refused to respond He understood then that Vata wanted the deep sea-quiet of her kelpShe did not want to deal with the things she had du these things like a painful skin Duque felt a momentary pique at this realization but happiness returned immediately He was the repository of such wonders!

Consciousness

That&039;s ht I e systeiants in the earth in those days

- Genesis, The Christian Book of the Dead

22 Bunratti, 468

Why do I keep this journal? This is a strange hobby for the Chief Justice and Chairman of the Committee on Vital Forms Do I hope that a historian will sos? I can just see so onto my journal many years from now, his mind crammed full of the preconceptions that block acceptance of the truly new Would Bushka destroy my journal because it conflicted with his own theories? I think this may have happened with other historians in our past Why else would Ship have forced us to start over? I&039;m convinced that this is what Ship has done

Oh, I believe in Ship Let it be recorded here and now that Ward Keel believes in Ship Ship is God and Ship brought us here to Pandora This is our ultimate trial - sink or swim, in the most literal sense Wellalmost We Islanders mostly float It&039;s the Merround for humankind is this Pandora, and how aptly named Not a shard of land left above its sea, which the kelp once subdued Once a noble creature, intelligent, known to all creatures of this world as Avata, it is now sireen and silent Our ancestors destroyed Avata and we inherited a planetary sea

Have we hu that subdues the deadliness in our lives? Somehow, I suspect we have Else, ould Ship leave those hybernation tanks to tantalize us in orbit just beyond our reach? Our Chaplain/Psychiatrist shares this suspicion As she says, "There is nothing new under the suns"

I wonder why Ship&039;s imprimatur always took the foran this journal simply as an account of my own stewardship on the Committee that determines which new life will be permitted to survive and perhaps breed We ineering of that brilliant ene pool From those incomplete records we still have, it&039;s clear that human once had a much narrower definition Mutant variations thataccept without a passing glance were once cause for consternation, even death As a Coment on life, the question I always askis: Will this new life, this infant, help us all survive? If there is the re we call human society I vote to let it live And I have been rewarded tienius in cruel form, that mind plus distorted body which enrich us all I know I am correct in these decisions

But my journal has developed a tendency to wander I have decided that I am secretly a philosopher I want to know not only what, but why

In the long generations since that terrible night when the last of Pandora&039;s true land-based islands exploded into molten lava, we have developed a peculiar social duality, which I aanic cities floating "willy-nilly" on the sea&039;s surface, believe we have formed the perfect society We care for each other, for the inner other that the skin (whatever shape or shade) protects Then what is it about us that insists on saying "us" and "them"? Is there a viciousness buried in us? Will it explode us into violence against the excluded others?

Oh, Islanders exclude; this cannot be denied Our jokes betray us Anti-Mermen jokes "Merms," we call therunt word no matter how you sound it

We are jealous of Mermen There it is I have written it Jealous They have the freedom of all the land beneath the sea Merman mechanization depends on a relatively uniform, traditional human body Few Islanders can compete under enius or the depths of its slurate down under are confined to Islander cohettos Still the Islander idea of heaven is to pass for a pretty

Mer space benefits from a kind of stability underfoot Historically, I must admit, humans show a preference for a firh theirs is depressingly das all around They produce an occasional webbed foot or hand but that, too, was coe of the species Mer as likenesses have been recorded; that much we can see for ourselves Besides, Clone Wars happened Our immediate ancestors wrote of this Jesus Lewis did this to us The visible evidence of other is inescapable

But I riting about Merman nature It is their self-proclaimed mission to restore the kelp But will the kelp be conscious? Kelp once more lives in the sea I have seen the effects in my lifetime and expect we&039;ve just about seen the last of alls Exposed land will surely follow Yet, how does that subtract fro back the kelp, they seek to control the sea That is the Merman nature: control

Islanders float with the waves and the winds and the currents Mermen would control these forces and control us

Islanders bend with things that e but grow tired of it Mer tired of that

Now, I come to my viehat Ship did with us I think it is the nature of our universe that life may encounter a force that could overwhelm it if life cannot bend Mermen would break before such a force Islanders bend and drift I think we inal sin in our bodies and on our faces

- Simone Rocksack, Chaplain/Psychiatrist

The cold slap of a sudden wave over the side snapped Queets Twisp full awake He yawned, unkinked his overlong arled themselves in the tarp He wiped the spray from his face with his shirtsleeve Not yet full sunrise, he noted The first thin feathers of dawn tickled the black belly of the horizon No thunderheads cluttered the sky and his two squawks, their feathers preened and glistening, muttered contentedly on their tethers He rubbed the circulation back into his long arms and felt in the bottom of the coracle for his tube of thick juice concentrates and proteins

Blech

He made a wry face as he sucked down the last of the tube The concentrate was tasteless and odorless, but he balked at it just the same

You&039;d think if they ht At least dockside we&039;ll get so nets always built his appetite into athat concentrates could support, but never satisfy

The gray ocean yawned away in all directions Not a sign of dashers or any other threat anywhere The occasional splatter of a sizable wave broke over the rie could handle that He turned and watched the slaw bulge of their net foahtly with its heavy load Twisp&039;s mouth watered at the prospect of a thousand kilos of scilla - boiled scilla, fried scilla, baked scilla with cream sauce and hot rolls

"Queets, are we there yet?" Brett&039;s voice cracked in its adolescent way Only the shock of his thick blonde hair stuck out from under their tarp - a sharp contrast to Twisp&039;s headful of ebony fur Brett Norton was tall for sixteen, and his pile of hairhad already begun to fill in some of his thin, bony structure

Twisp sucked in a slow breath, partly to cal startled, partly to draw in patience

"Not yet," he said "Drift is right We should overtake the Island just after sunrise Eat soed in his kit for his own meal Tatched as the boy wiped the spout nearly clean, unstoppered it and sucked down great gulps of the untantalizing brown liquid

"Yuht and he shuddered