Chapter 55:
At training the next sunstir, Chief Bikash pulled Rajani out of the morntide drills, and told her he had a special assignment for her. “One of the new hunters is having trouble with the hand ballista. Show her how to handle it.”
Rajani glanced around the training ground. She and Chief were standing at its edge, next to the shelterbelt. “Do you want me to take her into the east forfend? There isn’t much space here.”
“Yes.” Chief gestured to a girl, a new hunter, several years younger than Rajani, waiting a few paces away. “Kaliwa, bring your ballista.”
Kaliwa. Kaliwa of the Mehen Table? Yes. Jiat’s cousin, the girl from the holy place, who, judging from her sullen features, needed more than just skills training. It was times like these that despite her antipathy for Chief, Rajani couldn’t help but admire how well he knew his hunters. There were others more skilled with the hand ballista than she, but if Kaliwa’s difficulties stemmed from discouragement…
Once they were in the east forfend, Rajani turned to Kaliwa. “Show me.”
Kaliwa hoisted the ballista onto her shoulder. She rested her cheek against the guard designed to protect her ear from the release of the taut rubber cord that propelled the pike forward. There was no energy in her stance, no effort in her aim. The pike went wide.
“Go and bring it to me.”
Her frame as limp as a dry az leaf, Kaliwa retrieved the pike. Rajani accepted it from her, then asked, “Did you eat this morntide?”
Kaliwa nodded.
“Who cooked?”
“My aunt.”
“Jiat’s mother?”
“Yes.”
“Jiat is a friend of mine. How has he been? Has everything been okay between him and your father?”
Rajani wasn’t asking just to find out whether Jiat was all right. She knew enough about Jiat’s uncle to suspect that he had at least something to do with Kaliwa’s discomposure. Sure enough, Kaliwa rewarded her intuition with a scowl.
“Tell me,” Rajani said.
Kaliwa shrugged and looked away.
The rain was picking up again. Outside the bio-dome, the az hedges had risen to double Rajani’s height. The rain sent the toxin on their leaves scattering everywhere. You want to know what it means to be a hunter? an old hunting joke went. It means you spend half the year hemmed in by rain, and the other half panting with thirst.
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“Kaliwa, you just passed your hunter trials, right? At the beginning of this rainsoon season?”
“Yes.”
Rajani pointed the pike in her hands at the mountains looming deep and dark along the az hedge field’s far side. “So you’ve never been out there.”
“Never.”
“So you’ve never seen a live mammole.”
This time Kaliwa hesitated before responding. “What are they like?”
Encouraged by the question, Rajani tried to fan Kaliwa’s curiosity further. “When the rain stops, and the az hedge leaves go down, you’ll get your chance then to see them. They came with our ancestors from Earth, did you know? They were small back then. The solar flares acted as a mutagen; the gods blessed us by channeling their evolution into their growth. Now it’s as if the mammoles were created for us to hunt.”
Kaliwa looked at the ballista in her hand. “With this.”
“That’s right. Wielders like you and me, we use our hand ballistas to drive a mammole to the cannons. Sometimes the mammole gets angry and turns on us. That’s a risk we accept. The cannon men have it even worse. They have to stand their ground as the mammole comes rushing down at them. If they don’t kill it in time, they die.”
Kaliwa was looking out at the planet’s surface through the gaps between the bio-dome’s branches. “I don’t think I can do it.”
“Why not?”
Tears were in her eyes. “My father keeps telling me I’m worthless. I dropped the bucket yesterday, and it cracked. I didn’t mean to drop it, but he didn’t care. He started shouting at me, and when Jiat defended me, he started hitting Jiat. Whatever I or any of my siblings do, Jiat always pays for it because he stands up for us to my father.”
“So you think you’re worthless?”
“That’s what my father says.”
Rajani handed the pike back to Kaliwa. “You passed the trials, right?”
“Yes.”
“That means you’re a hunter. And a hunter – a hunter is bold. A hunter is courageous. A hunter sacrifices. A hunter protects. A hunter, by definition, can never be worthless.”
“But my father says –”
“Your father can only tell you what to do, not who you are. Only the gods can determine that, and they’ve made you into a hunter. And a hunter, Kaliwa, plays a special role. A hunter’s suffering has special meaning. As hunters, we live out a sacred story, a story of sacrifice. As hunters, we are Hunt to the non-hunter Gather.”
Rajani closed her eyes briefly. Yes, she thought to herself. Yes. This is who we are. This is who we are supposed to be.
“Okay,” Kaliwa whispered.
Rajani touched Kaliwa’s shoulder. “Let’s try shooting that pike again.”
Rajani worked with her for the next several hours to improve her form, and by the end Kaliwa was shooting up to par. After observing Kaliwa’s final shots, Chief grunted, “Good work,” then gave them permission to return to the urb for the noontide meal.
Kaliwa and Rajani followed the curve of the shelterbelt; it led them out of the east forfend into the urb. Rajani was about to bid Kaliwa farewell when Kaliwa grabbed her arm and pulled herself up on tiptoe to whisper in her ear. “Jiat told me to tell you he’d be working in the rubber forge all sunstir.”
“Thank you,” Rajani replied, glad for the information. She made a mental note to request rubber forge work for her afternoon assignment.
“Don’t get him in trouble. Please.”
“I won’t,” Rajani said gently, as much a promise to herself as to Kaliwa.
Still holding onto Rajani’s arm, still whispering, Kaliwa rushed her final words together. “And thank you for helping me.”
A smile touched Rajani’s lips. “You’re welcome,” she said. “You’re very welcome.”