My name is Lainla of the Jinkari Table. I seal and store this note in our Table’s chronicles for our descendants to read and judge me as they see fit.
On darkwake of the fifteenth diurnal of this year’s rainsoon season, I went to the Gather’s Children ditch to look for the girl they say Pratap attacked. I found her and her older brother. I also found the truth: it didn’t happen. Pratap tried to, but he was fought off by the girl’s older brother.
I have not yet told Rajani.
– excerpt from The Jinkari Table Chronicles
Written 870 years after the Crash Landing
Chapter 54:
Something was wrong with Lainla. All morntide long she had been glancing up at Rajani from across the meal bench, as if she wanted to say something. It was making Rajani wonder if Lainla had learned about her plan to meet Kebet and Jiat later that eventide. Rajani hadn’t invited Lainla because she knew her sister wouldn’t want to come, but Rajani also knew that wouldn’t stop Lainla from feeling left out.
“La, it’s Gather’s Day,” Rajani finally said. “We’re not going to get another break from training until next week. Don’t you want to do something other than watch me read?”
Rajani watched Lainla look once more at the book in Rajani’s hand. Its title was branded into its rubber casing: Petitioning the Lodge Mother Moot.
“What do you want to petition the lodge mother moot for?”
“Lainla…”
“You’re trying to get rid of the Tabu on agriculture, aren’t you?”
Rajani closed the book and put down the luminescent breathflower blossom she had been using for extra light. “So what if I am?”
Her sister looked down. “I’ve been thinking about what you told me.”
Feeling expectant, Rajani leaned forward. “And?”
“I don’t think you know what you’re doing.”
Rajani’s hopes of a moment ago were dashed. “La,” she said, but her sister cut her off.
“Rajani, when it comes down to it, you don’t care what happens to the hunters. You never have, because you want to be a lodge mother. And that’s fine! You’d be good at it. You know how to keep order in a Table, how to manage resources. You want to have children, and you know how to relate to them and raise them. You’d be fine without the hunters! But the hunters being gone, that matters to me.”
“I don’t want the hunters to be gone,” Rajani protested.
Lainla gave her a scornful look. “Really, Ni? Of course you do. That’s exactly what you want. And I know you. You’re going to keep pushing and pushing until there’s no need for hunting whatsoever.”
“Oh, come on, now you sound like Mamai!”
“Maybe Mamai’s more right than you give her credit for.”
“Look, I don’t want to take hunting away from you. Hunting is fine. It’s being a hunter that’s the problem.”
“Our god’s name is Hunt!”
“Hunter for souls. Not mammoles.”
Lainla put her hand up. “I don’t want to argue theology with you. I just… I don’t have anything else. You know I’ve been in your shadow my whole life. The nice Jinkari twin. But after my trials when that syrinx gun was put in my hand and I realized I was good at something… do you know what that was like for me? To be compared with someone your entire life and then when you start to hate yourself more than anything for not being enough like Rajani, to be given a gift like the one I was given?”
“I never encouraged anyone to compare us!”
“That’s not the point! All I’m saying is if you actually manage to push agriculture onto the Cursed, you’re going to get rid of the hunters. You’re going to get rid of me.”
Stung by Lainla’s rendition of their childhood – did Lainla not remember all the times Rajani had stood up for her? – Rajani was tempted to lash out at her sister. She took a deep breath and managed to get herself under control.
“Like I said, I don’t want to get rid of the hunters. I just want us to have less power.”
Lainla looked miserable. “You don’t know what you’re doing,” she repeated. “Ni, you don’t know what you’re doing.”
***
Was Lainla right? Did Rajani want to get rid of the hunters as a class? There was nobody who knew Rajani like Lainla did; could it be that Lainla saw something in her that Rajani herself was blind to? No, it couldn’t be. Rajani didn’t care whether the hunters existed or not. She just wanted them to behave.
All the same, had there been any hunters in her dream?
Rajani needed to talk to Kebet. His portion of the research explored the history of agriculture. He would be able to tell her whether plants even could wipe out the hunters. Rajani would go find him now, before their planned meeting, and see what he thought.
Both the Solonsa and the Jinkari, like most myxte Cursed Tables, lived in the eastern half of the urb. So when Rajani got up and began wandering around looking for Kebet, she stayed east of the atreola. To her surprise, although it was almost time for the noontide meal, most of the meal benches around her were empty. A few Tables were eating, but quickly and quietly, as if it were a workday. She frowned. It was Gather’s Day! Why was nobody feasting?
Rajani found Kebet with several other citizens gathered around a meal bench near the atreola. In the gloom of darkwake, she at first mistook the performers on top of the meal bench as song-singers, or perhaps story-reciters. After she pushed her way through to Kebet, however, she discovered they were lexikosts carrying out a public debate.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
Out of all the artistic presentations that Cursed citizens offered to each other on Gather’s Day, Rajani found debates the least interesting. But one of the debaters was Yathi, so Rajani decided to wait a little before pulling Kebet out to talk to him.
“What are they debating?” she asked Kebet.
“Food.”
“What?”
Kebet put his hand over her mouth. “Shh, just listen.”
Yathi was speaking. “You say the hunters brought in only twelve mammoles this season. Why do you say only? Twelve mammoles have been enough before. If we all go a little hungry, then all of us, Gather’s Children and huntered Cursed alike, can make it to the next dry season. That’s the Cursed way.”
The other lexikost was shaking her head. “The Cursed way only works if everyone gives of their holy portion. This season, only a third of Tables did so!”
“Why is that?” someone from the crowd asked.
Interruptions of performances were rare, but not unheard of. Yathi and her debate partner took the question in stride.
“People don’t know the overbelters,” said Yathi. Blue and green light from the leaves in the bio-dome above glanced off her glasses. “It was different when most Gather’s Children were Table members who had lost their only hunter, who needed just a little help before one of them became a hunter again or married into another Table. Now most Gather’s Children are from over the shelterbelt. People don’t want their own children to go hungry to let strangers eat.”
“Why aren’t we assimilating them?” Rajani interjected. “Isn’t that what we usually do?”
“We were able to integrate overbelters into our society when a few came over at a time,” the other lexikost responded, “but recently too many have been emigrating. There’s some trouble inside the bio-dome proper, it seems, that’s pushing them over the shelterbelt.”
The memory of Xhota guards dragging Kebet away flashed through Rajani’s mind. Her body shuddered, remembering the poison that had threatened to send her on her final run. There was trouble indeed inside the bio-dome proper. Chief had even ordered all trade to be halted until the situation changed.
There were no more questions, so the other lexikost continued her rebuttal of Yathi’s statement. “Four generations ago, seven mammoles were brought in during the dry season. As a result, most of the Gather’s Children at that time starved to death. But almost a quarter of our population is Gather’s Children now – and they are overbelters, to boot. They have declared that they won’t go quietly. When their food runs out, we can look forward to riots.”
“They’re making such threats only because we keep denying them Gather’s holy portion. As long as we all share, there’ll be enough food for everyone.”
“What does the word enough mean to you? If it means anything other than a full stomach, you and I don’t live in the same world.”
The onlookers began muttering. Rajani could tell they were feeling uneasy. Their fear made her afraid – not of riots, but of where fear of riots would lead. She could envision the lodge mother moot begging Chief Bikash to use the hunters to protect the Cursed. She could imagine Chief Bikash eagerly assenting. We will be the shield between you and that overbelter horde.
Get rid of the hunters? Reduce their power? It would become unthinkable.
She pulled on Kebet’s sleeve. “Bet, I need to talk to you.”
Kebet’s face was troubled. He followed Rajani out to the atreola. After confirming nobody was nearby, Rajani outlined her thoughts.
“We have to stave off the possibility of riots,” she concluded. “So if what the Gather’s Children need is food, let’s grow them some. Let’s petition the lodge mother moot to get rid of the Tabu on agriculture. The next time the moot has an open meeting – when is it, in six and a half diurnals? – we have to be there.”
“I don’t know,” said Kebet. “I don’t really want to help feed people who are threatening to riot.”
Rajani understood his hesitancy. It was not in the nature of the Cursed to bend to threats of violence. She would have to make him see that this was not about helping rioters, but about keeping the hunters from gaining more dominance.
“Don’t think about it that way,” she told him. “Think about how riots would make the hunters even more indispensable. Providers and protectors? Nobody would be able to even think about holding us accountable.”
“I guess.”
“So you see what I’m saying?”
“No, I don’t think reality works that way. But you’re the one making the proposal, so I’ll stand by it.”
While Rajani appreciated his loyalty, she also wanted his agreement. She was about to try persuading him again when he began talking. “Listen, Ni, I was supposed to tell you. Jiat can’t meet tonight. His cousin Kaliwa told one of my sisters, who told me.”
Disappointment filled Rajani. “Do you know why he can’t come?”
“Probably because of his uncle.”
Suddenly Rajani was ashamed of her disappointment. Jiat had to face the ugliness of hunter power every day. Grace and understanding should be her response, not disappointment.
“That’s fine,” Rajani said. “We can meet next Gather’s Day.”
Kebet nodded. “I should go back to the debate. I don’t want things to get ugly for Yathi.”
Rajani gestured goodbye to Kebet and made her way back to the Jinkari meal bench. Lainla was still there.
“Where did you go?” her sister asked.
With a start, Rajani realized she had never asked Kebet her question. She almost went to go find Kebet again, but Lainla seemed to want Rajani to stay, so she sat down. “I was looking for Kebet, and I found him listening to a lexikost debate. Yathi was one of the debaters, actually.”
“What was the topic?”
“Holy portion giving rates. They’ve dropped this season.”
“Hm. That’s what Mayah told me too.”
“Who?”
Lainla winced. “I didn’t mean to tell you.”
“What?”
“I found the Gather’s Child girl last darkwake. The one they say Pratap… you know.”
“You went to the Gather’s Children ditch?”
“Yes. I found the girl. Her name is Mayah. She’s around thirteen years old. Her older brother’s name is Sukren. He only knows some variant of Xhom, so I couldn’t really understand him, since I never took that class like you did, but the girl could speak some Cursed.”
“What did she say to you?”
“She told me they were hungry.”
Rajani closed her eyes. To suffer hunger in addition to abuse… overbelters or not, weren’t they still Gather’s Children?
“Invite them,” Rajani said.
“You mean Mayah and Sukren?”
“Yes. Invite them to come eat at our meal bench. That’s what the gods command, don’t they? From the Seia Table Chronicles: Embrace the Gather’s Child, both the one in your heart and the one in your urb.”
There was respect in Lainla’s eyes. This is what you should be doing, her expression seemed to say. You can’t help people by messing around with Tabus. You can help them by upholding the Chronicles.
“I’ll go right now,” said Lainla. She embraced Rajani and took off.
Rajani watched Lainla run west towards the Gather’s Children ditch. Her sister’s expression lingered in her mind’s eye. You can’t help people by messing around with Tabus. It reminded her, for some reason, of what Kebet had said. I don’t really want to help feed people who are threatening to riot.
A sudden gust shook the bio-dome’s branches, scattering rain over the urb. The liquid felt cold against Rajani’s skin. She remembered learning when she was younger how the solar flares punched through Chudami’s atmosphere to pack radiation into every molecule. How terrified she had been of rain then!
Rajani had since learned that the anti-oxidants the Cursed consumed through their food countered any regular exposure to the radiation present in every part of Chudami’s water cycle. Neither the water she drank, nor the rain, could hurt her.
So why was she shuddering now at its touch?