Daughter of Orion Read online

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  Ul had no saying like "Idle hands are the devil's workshop," as idle hands were inconceivable there. Even as a child of the royal household, I was ever busy.

  First, I had to help Luna feed, clothe, and bathe her son, my future husband, Par-On. He had a distressing tendency to spit breakfast cereal -- gal-pu, 'grain-fruit,' as we Tani called it -- into my face, a tendency that I hope he's outgrown.

  Second, I had to help the Kumi groom lex-i, gather grazing-plant for them to eat, pick pu berries, sweep sand out of doorways, and wash dishes. With sand, of course! I can't tell you how it shocked me to see my first kitchen sink.

  Third, I had to learn to read. The Tan script, as some of the rest of you are learning, is ideographic, with over six hundred signs. I began to learn them when I came to Gam Tol. If you'll excuse my patting myself on the back, I'd learned most of them before I left the Homeworld. Still, of Einstein's granddaughter, the Tan expected much.

  No one wasted paper on children learning to write. Instead, we used sticks to write in sand. The older among you know what I mean. The rest of you must envision us boys and girls standing around a sandpit while a stern teacher oversaw us. As she held up a flat stone on which she'd painted a sign, we children had to draw it in the sand. Lavish with praise, swift with sarcasm was my teacher.

  The first sign that every child learned was the sign for 'sand.' Every child giggled as the teacher showed him or her that sign -- a horizontal line drawn from left to right. Any Tan who looked out a door or window knew that that sign perfectly described sand.

  It thrilled me to learn the signs, for the Tan painted them onto every rocky surface to record stories, poems, and history. Now, I could start to understand the world around me. Books were scarce -- I think that most of the royal library came here in our poor eight crystal-ships -- but we Tani didn't miss books as long as we had paint and walls.

  One day, while class was in session, Sor-On came in. He'd been gone from the city for days, rumor said to the earth. We children hoped that he'd tell us a story or show us some new marvel from there.

  He did, in a way. Taking a stick in hand, he drew in the sand a shape that I now know to call a teardrop. "This," he said, "is the sign for rain."

  Puzzled, but obedient, we children repeated the strange word. It fell to me, as his prospective daughter-in-law, to say, "What is rain, Kan Tan?"

  He gave me a crooked smile that I found wonderful. "Bul kad-il me-yar," he said. 'Water that falls from the sky.'

  We children giggled, thinking that he was telling us a made-up story. Still, obedient, we copied the sign for rain.

  Maybe, he hoped to bring rain to Gam Tol. Sadly, not rain, but ash, would fall there before the Homeworld's end.

  I'd recall Sor-On's words when I first saw rain. I saw it my first night on the earth. The Colonel and Mom, as his wife had bidden me call her, were asleep in the room beside mine, and I was lying awake on the strange bed that they'd given me, when, through a window of a crystal called glass, I saw a flash of light. A few seconds later came a rolling rumble that shook the Colonel's house.

  I feared that the new world to which I'd come was about to end, too. Proud of my heritage, though, and in awe of the Colonel, I didn't call for help. By me, a strange creature called dog, which had crawled into bed with me, whimpered. I stroked its head. I think that comforting dog comforted me more than I comforted it.

  After a while, I heard tiny objects striking the window. Going to it, I saw crystal streaks running down it. Looking through the window, I saw on a stony surface outside it puddles starting to form, and ripples spreading over the puddles.

  "Bul kad-il me-yar," I murmured. "Rain."

  Sor-On had been telling the truth. I thought of him, and of Grandfather Dor-Sad, both of whom had seen rain, but would never see it again. I thought of Luna, and of my birth-parents, and of my lost classmates, none of whom had seen rain, and now never would see it. I thought of the seven others who'd come to the earth when I came, and wondered whether, wherever they were, they, too, were seeing rain.

  The rain drew tears from me. To hide the sound of my making them, I hid my face in a cushion, but, after a moment, I felt a soft touch on my back. Looking up, I saw Mom, who took my face onto her shoulder and let me finish crying there.

  Rain became magical to me. It helped me recall the Homeworld and mourn it.

  While I was learning signs, Sor-On and Dor-Sad had been talking with each other of training children to become an ambassadorial corps for communicating with the earth. One night, in the Chamber of Green Crystal, Sor-On told his court of his idea.

  That night, I was part of the court. As royal daughter-in-law-to-be, I had to learn how to help rule a world. I gathered that it took much to rule one, even so tiny a one as Ul. Mostly, in court, though, I had to hold Par-On and keep him quiet. I wasn't always successful at the latter duty. Still, when the royal heir let out a yelp, everyone else just smiled indulgently. I can't imagine how spoiled he'd have become if he'd grown up on Ul.

  I myself let out a yelp when Sor-On announced that I'd be part of the corps. I saw myself flying in a crystal-ship to a world that to my naïve girlish mind seemed paradise. Maybe, the earth is paradise, but paradise, as I learned in Sunday school, has forbidden fruit and a serpent.

  Much of my training as an ambassador was watching moving pictures and listening to sounds on the box from the earth, the box that I learned to call television set. Dor-Sad and his band of crystal-technicians had learned how to link this to power-crystals. I didn't get to see broadcast TV. I've since read that astronomers doubt whether the earth's broadcasts reach as far as Wolf 1061. Even if they did, I doubt that Sor-On would've let children see the horrors that earth-humans call entertainment.

  What I did get to see was videotapes of Sesame Street. Just as if I were an ordinary American girl, I learned to speak and read English by watching Bert and Ernie. Sesame Street showed me rain, standing water, and the greatest of all marvels, the thing called faucet from which water flowed whenever one wanted it; but, little skeptic that I was, I thought these wonders parts of a made-up tale. After all, I knew that animals didn't speak.

  Travelers to the earth had also brought back a handful of children's books and flashcards. These would form a meager set of possessions in the eyes of an American child, but, to my fellow ambassadors-in-training and me, they seemed treasures out of the Arabian Nights. Maybe, they were, but keep in mind that the world of the Arabian Nights is an uncomfortable home.

  Television, books, and flashcards worked well for me. When I began second grade, I'd actually be ahead of most of my classmates.

  In the light-crystals' glow, a hand goes up. Wise, artistic Sil-Tan says, "If Kan Tan Sor-On was forming an ambassadorial corps, he must've planned peaceful contact with the earth-humans. How did he mean for you ambassadors to make that contact?"

  I sighed. "I don't recall that either he or my grandfather ever clearly said how. Maybe, we ambassadors formed more of a hope than a plan."

  "Still," mystical Lona says, "in the end we, Tani must speak with the earth-humans."

  I nod. She, like me, was part of the corps. I know the hope in her heart.

  Par-On, born to lead the Tan, speaks softly. "In the end, we will speak, but at a time and in a manner of our choosing. We must be sure of not failing those who sent us here."