Rista's Tale Part 1: Scarjheen

By Barbara Lindsley Galloway

Human beings have colonized a new world and upset the delicate balance between the planet and the gentle, indigenous First Ones, which brings about the plague Scarjheen designed to destroy the offenders.
But Rista of the Narrabri is unsuspecting of the part she must play to stop it. She longs for a new home; anywhere but the crystal mining mountain she has known since childhood. By the time the traders arrive to bring food and supplies for a starving people, an ill man who has washed ashore turns Rista's life upside down and she must flee for her life. Together with her childhood friend, Tiko, she is thrust into a race against time in an adventure that promises to stop the plague, but will change their lives and that of those they love--forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barbara Lindsley Galloway
• Release date: Aug 6, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301421398

Barbara Lindsley Galloway

Born in Tennessee; raised in Albuquerque, NMX; now live in Texas.Read every sci-fi book in my junior high and high school libraries (Asimov, Clark, Heinlein), where I elected to spend and work an hour every school day. Also, allegorical fantasy has had a huge influence on my writing. Love J.R.R. Tolkien.Wanted to write stories since I was a child. Was very shy and spent more time watching people than participating in activities. This has served me well in creating 3-dimensional characters.As an adult, I have enjoyed the works of Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, William Faulkner and Earnest Hemingway, to name a few authors of classical works.Love how times have come around to open doors for independent writers. Everyone should have the opportunity to have their voice heard.

Book preview

Rista’s Tale

Part 1

Scarjheen

By Barbara Lindsley Galloway

Copyright 2008 by Barbara Lindsley Galloway. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. All characters and incidents in this novel are the products of the author’s imagination. Any similarities to people living or dead are purely coincidental.

Smashwords Edition

Cover photograph by Barbara Lindsley Galloway.

Drawings by Barbara Lindsley Galloway.

To John, my friend and love of my life

Niwi Erda—Old Gaelic for New Earth

May we always reach for the stars

May we always search for the Truth

BLG

Table of Contents

Maps

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Maps

Chapter 1

Deep inside two delicate prism eyes, a vision danced. Hope reborn?

A man—a human—ran blindly down an abandoned street; while freezing, heavy rain whipped fiercely, unrelenting, around him. He slipped on the icy precipitation, fell, and rose awkwardly to his clumsy feet, running again as if everything depended on getting to his destination.

He runs in fear. The bruise on his arm frightens him. The entity, a female, sensed it through the staff he carried hidden in his rain-soaked cloak. Her staff. She saw it plainly still after five hundred long years. On its crown was her name; and in its heart, a secret.

The human shook as he ran, from fear more than the cold, she sensed. The darkness of the night hid him as a shadowy form as he slowly made his way to the harbor.

His heart beats fiercely. He is lost. Hurry. Hurry. Run as fast as you can. She does not mean to mock him, only remembered how futile running could be, just as her people ran when the Humans Beings came from the sky in their terrifying machines, and when they saw her people for the first time.

Run, as we ran when your people came with the fire and the weapons. She remembered the screaming, the crying for mercy; the death of everyone that could not run. So much death. The staff—so vital, so precious—plundered. But did I not lose it of my own free will after all?

He is so very frightened and convinced that we are able to end this plague; and he is right. But he is not the Chosen One. He will not complete this journey, for he is a coward and has no strength of character. His aura stinks and he is offensive to my being. And the hope felt at the outset died, and the prism eyes closed their vision.

The heat from the Convergence of the two suns of Niwi Erda had melted the southwestern salt beach of the island continent of Ras Algethi into a liquid pool, which cooled into an even layer of salt crystals as the huge fireball split again into Mother and Daughter at Divergence.

On this first morning after Divergence, when the Mother sun alone peeked over the horizon with her bursts of gold and bright pink and the scent of salt and decomposing things rose strong from the sea, large sea-scavengers glided down from their secret hiding places in the rocks above on four tiny-feathered wings to soar above a beach littered with the carcasses of dead fish and stinking sea grass thrown upon the beach during the early-morning storm.

As the morning broke through a clearing sky, Rista and her blind, elderly father emerged from their crystal cave on the side of the mountain, Raset Nur. Rista was a little taller than the other women of her people, the Narrabri, and taller than her father and very thin; but she carried herself with determination and grace so that one almost did not notice her crippled leg. Her thick black hair was tied loosely behind her neck, and strands of black curls escaped their bonds and played about her face.

Rista dressed in the tan leather tunic and pants common to a people who worked in the crystal mines, but her father wore garments of a thinner, pale-green cloth that were much too large for him; and he alone carried a staff.

Rista, bring back whatever you can, but do try to find some grunge at least, said an old woman who stuck her head suddenly out of the cave, white hair emerging wildly from a wrinkled, shrunken head. The traders are overdue and we have no grain left—nothing but ick—and to tell you plainly, I’m sick to death of it. And Hen, don’t go on any treasure hunting this morning. We have to find food. She pulled her head back just as quickly, the long, white hair suspended in the air for a moment before it, too, was gone.

I’ll try my best, Maman, Rista called back, but she knew there would be no grunge; there had not been any for weeks. It only grew by the light of the Daughter sun; which as a rule roamed the night sky, and disappeared from it only during Convergence when the weak star joined her strength with the Mother sun during the day to create an intense heat. When the Daughter sun was absent from her bed there was no light at all during the nights but that of the tiny stars in the faraway heavens. Today was only the first day of Divergence and there had not been enough time for grunge to sprout on the sides of the cave walls.

Rista grasped her father’s hand and led him down the well-worn stone path towards the white crystal beach where he loved to spend his time collecting all the wondrous things that would wash ashore, especially after a storm. These were his treasures and his world, for they gave him hours of enjoyment in studying the mysteries of their planet. Rista could never refuse him this one small thing—their daily excursion to the beach—no matter what her mother said.

They walked the bright, salt beach side-by-side with Rista holding her father’s arm, and together, sidestepping the dead fish and other sea-creatures that lay in their path, they deliberately broke the smooth crust of the melted salt so the sea-scavengers could lay their white, sticky eggs underneath and the boney-shelled, inedible, hibernating salt-crawlers could escape to the sea.

When Rista and Hen had nearly spent their allotted time on the beach—that time sufficient to avoid a chewing-out by Meia—they went to sit on their favorite, sea-worn rocks at Hen’s Cove to listen to the sea. The cove was a natural break on the beach inside the bay where the traders came, and the large rocks that towered above it jutted out from the mountains like a toe.

Inside the damp cove, Rista found the remains of a sea-skimmer wedged between the two largest boulders. A vessel of weathered wood clumsily patched and smaller than most of the sea transports she had seen, it had been carried by the force of the deadly western winds and shoved mercilessly onto the rocks. The dome of the skimmer was completely gone, and only a narrow slat of the raft remained. Hen knelt beside the skimmer, feeling its wood. This wasn’t here yesterday, he stated. It must have been thrown here during the storm.

There’s a man inside, said Rista.

Tied to the skimmer with weathered rope lay a man, thin and burnt by the suns. Where his clothing did not cover, small chunks of his flesh could be seen to be of a purplish hue instead of golden brown, and appeared loose, as if a good firm yank would remove them cleanly. His eyelids had split and shriveled, and could not conceal or protect the eyeballs that hung exposed and blinded, dry and shrunken in their sockets.

He’s been cooked to death, said Hen, guessing at the man’s fate. This is not something the scurf do, and it’s a wonder they didn’t get him. What would possess a man to go across the sea at Convergence with nothing to protect himself but the miserable shell of a pleasure boat?

No Papan. I don’t think he’s dead, Rista said. She reached out a hand towards the man as if she intended to touch him, but before she could do so, a vision passed quickly before her eyes: the ground split open and black sludge bubbled out of the crack. Startled, she changed her mind and grasped the only side of the skimmer still upright and carefully lowered herself to her knees. Her shriveled right leg complained in silence. Sad things always seemed to happen on New Day, she thought.

Rista reached out again, but hesitated at first, then finally leaned into the skimmer and laid a small yellow hand on the man’s chest. He’s breathing. He’s alive.

Impossible.

He is, Rista said. Come closer, Papan; feel it for yourself. She drew her father’s hand in gently and placed it on the man’s chest. A cool breeze blew past and lifted dark curls away from her face, her yellow skin gleaming with the freshness of the morning. She could hear the waves sloshing into each other out in the salt sea, and the squawking of an occasional sea-scavenger as it flew over the crystal mountain nearby.

I wouldn’t have believed it, Hen said finally.

We have to get him inside, Rista said, as a wave of compassion for him overtook her.

If you’re thinking about taking him into our home, I don’t think it’s a very good idea.

There’s no place else to take him, Papan.

He’s a stranger.

He’s a human being who has the right to be cared for with dignity.

Your mother will have a fit.

Maman will feel the same way I do. He’s suffering and we can’t just leave him here. Rista sighed and took her father’s hand. Please Papan.

And just how do you propose to get him back? Neither of us is strong enough to carry him.

May I have your belt, Papan? she asked. I’ll tie it to the end here and pull him back on this slat he’s on.

And what do I do when my pants fall down? Hen replied, and the traveler slides off down into the rocks? But he handed her the woven cord anyway and managed to tie the oversized pants into a most conspicuous knot. He walked alongside her, finding his way with his staff and mumbling to himself about no grunge, half-dead men, and trouble.

We need to cover him. The sun’s too bright, said Rista. She looked at the stranger who had curled into a ball above his sea-soaked garment.

You may as well take my cloak also, said Hen, removing it from his shoulders and handing it to her.

Thank you, Papan, she said, taking it and kissing him on the cheek. You’re the sweetest man I know.

I do it for you, my Daughter, he said.

Rista took the cloak and covered the beach-man gently. You’re safe now, she said to him. I’m going to take care of you. When she rose, the pain in her leg caused her to sigh quietly, as she had consciously accustomed herself to doing, so her parents would not know how much pain she endured every day.

Hen turned his head toward her when she sighed. Rista, I’m really worried about your leg, he said. You think I don’t know how you suffer.

Papan, this is no different than harvesting grunge or ick or mining the crystal. I’ve tugged crystal heavier than this. Please don’t worry about me.

How can I not worry about my little girl? Remind me to rub some of that stuff your mother makes on it when we get back.

All right then, if it will make you feel better, Papan.

"I want to do it to make you feel better, Child."

In the silence that fell between the two of them could be heard the crushing of the salt under their steps, and the whoosh of the skimmer as it slid effortlessly over the melted crystal sand.

In time the crushing of the salt became more rhythmic and gradually separated into two sounds; that from far away attracting the ear with its different cadence, a da da da da, drawing rapidly near to become the crunching of approaching steps. Rista turned to see a vision of a man run past her. His face and arms were bruised, as if he had been severely beaten, and his eyes seemed to plead with her. Suddenly he was gone and her sight rested on a young man racing along the beach toward them, waving his arms wildly.

Rista! shouted the young man who hurried to cover the distance between them. There’s been a cave-in! He sprinted easily across the salt beach to stand before them, flushed, and hot, his open outer tunic covered with blood. His undertunic was gone and his muscular chest was glistening with sweat. In height, he stood half a head taller than Rista and Hen and he had the golden skin of the Zhendang, but he was thinner than the other men. His eyes were dark, nearly black, but held the kindness and trust of youth. His long, black hair had come loose from its cord and stuck to the sweat on his neck and chest; while a trickle of blood ran down from a cut just above the left eye. The skin of his masculine chin and nose was scraped and reddened.

Tiko …, Rista whispered.

A cave-in? asked Hen, his face suddenly pale.

We were cracking the crystal on the southern face of the new mountain … when it suddenly collapsed on us, Tiko said excitedly, catching his breath. Hot liquid rock spewed everywhere. Many people are burned; many are dead.

I was afraid this would happen someday, said Hen scratching his beard out of habit. We are well overdue,

We need a place to put them—the injured, said Tiko. Buju is off wandering around the low hills looking for food and we don’t know …,

Put them in our gorda, Hen replied before Tiko could finish. It’s the only place big enough to hold them all.

But, Tiko hesitated, looking at Hen, then Rista, some of them are Zhendang.

Rista thought about Buju, the leader of the Zhendang, and his temper. What would he do when he found out his people were in a cave of the Narrabri? Doctored and nursed by the Narrabri without his permission? Someone would have to tell him; ask for this permission; suffer the consequences. It did not matter to Buju that the Narrabri and Zhendang were once one people, the Chinaustrine. He had separated them into the stronger, dark-eyed people and the weaker blue-eyed ones when he replaced Sard; and left the Narrabri to fend for themselves until Kom gathered them together as a people. It was whispered that Sard did not fall off the mountain by accident. Rista shuddered, thinking about the one and only time she had ever met Buju’s wrath face to face.

Do what Papan says, she urged Tiko. We’ll worry about things as they come.

Tiko opened his mouth to say something further and hesitated, as if he did not want to say it. Kom was killed, he said finally, so quietly Rista almost missed it. Speechless, she stared at him. I’m sorry, he whispered. Then he turned and raced back down the beach, his long dark hair flying out behind him.

Kom is dead? Rista whispered in disbelief. Papan, what are we going to do without a leader? Buju will surely bully us. She stood silently until Hen pulled her to him and held her while she wept.

We’ll go on as we have always done when there is death among us, Daughter. Now, come to your senses. You have a stranger to nurse.

Rista made herself move on, but she and Hen went in silence as she wondered about the visions of the broken ground and the bruised man. The mountain ahead of them suddenly exploded and great chunks of rock hurled down in a heavy rain. Rista screamed and pulled her father to the ground.

Rista! shouted Hen. Great erda, Child! What is it?

The sounds of the blast were now only the sounds of the wind. Raset Nur still stood in its place. She had seen another vision.

Rista, you’re shaking like a ground tremor, said Hen as he lay on the ground beneath her. I insist you tell me what’s happening!

Papan … I … don’t know, she began. I thought …, I thought … the mountain fell.

Well, then we’ve survived it. Let me up, Child.

Rista stood and helped her father from the ground, brushing crystal sand off his tunic. I’m sorry, Papan. I could have hurt you.

Rista trembled as they followed the path up the mountain that led to their home, pulling the broken, weathered plank and the horribly disfigured stranger that lay on it. She did not want to go into the mountain, so real was the blast. What was happening to her?

Before Rista and her father reached their gorda, the injured miners pushed up quickly from behind, so Rista pulled the slat between a couple of large boulders that sat off to one side, and let them pass. The most seriously injured lie side by side on the low, three-wheeled carts used for transporting large crystal rock, their bodies bloated with blisters, bones twisted or crushed; some unconscious. Then the dump carts followed with men sitting and standing in them, their faces in shock and their skin blistered from contact with the liquid rock. Some were bleeding from being sliced by flying crystal shards.

By the time Rista and Hen reached the gorda, the wailer was blowing his ripka—the narrow bones of the sea-mammal’s throat—as a piercing call alerting the Narrabri to crisis in the shattered stillness of the morning.

Horrified, Rista stood at the mouth of the cave and smelled the seared flesh and fresh blood, and the strong hint of death that hung in the air. Was this another vision?

Hen found his way into the gorda by himself, his staff thudding against the stone floor. Meia raced past him to Rista, her shriveled body covered in layers of tunic and cloak, her little head set with dark blue eyes bulging from wrinkled sockets. She carried an empty bowl.

Whose man is this? she asked, flinging back Hen’s cloak. How horrible! What on erda happened to this one?

What? Rista said, distracted by the scene before her and the feeling of doom that had settled like a dark cloak on her mind.

His wound is different from the others. What happened to him?

Rista looked down and saw the stranger. We found him…on the beach. His skimmer had run aground. He was caught during Convergence.

Meia blinked. Oh, Rista. This is not a good thing. This is a really bad omen. This man is dead.

No, not dead, Rista said.

He’s dying, then. There’s no hope for him. Meia fingered the cloak before replacing it gently on the still form. "A stranger! This is really bad. Look around you. Look! These are our own people! We have to save their lives. We can’t spare the time for a stranger. We haven’t the room for a stranger. I’m sorry, you’ll have to find somewhere else to put him, she said flatly. She looked Rista in the eyes and grasped her by the arm, her boney fingers cold. I’m truly sorry."

I’ll put him on my bed, Rista said, her eyes pleading. Please. I’ll take care of him.

Your people need you.

Please.

Where will you sleep?

We have extra mats. I’ll sleep on the floor.

How will you get him up there? Look around, Rista. No one here is strong enough to help you lift him.

Then I’ll wait until someone can, she pleaded.

Meia took a deep breath and sighed. Do what you have to, but your family comes first. She hurried off to assist the late arrivals, leaving Rista alone with the man from the beach.

Rista pulled the slat to the back of the gorda, its quiet sshhh, sshhh, sshhh following obediently in tune with her steps and mingling with the sounds of people crying out and moving around. Many of the wounds of the injured were already being stitched closed by experienced hands; for every miner knew how to sew human flesh. Here and there, a body lay under a burning cloth awaiting cremation.

Rista pulled the slat alongside the crystal stone slab that was her bed and which jutted out toward the center of the gorda, and threw a soft woven mat down next to it. On the other side of her bed was a smaller cave used as a storeroom. A stone hearth had been built in the center of the gorda for cooking and preparing their food. Near the front, where the injured now lay, were colorful floor coverings of woven, durable fibers, and chairs of stone with thick, pretty cushions.

The beach-man moaned and Rista knelt beside him. Gently she touched his face to find him hot. Flakes of skin came away on her fingertips when she removed her hand.

Rista prepared a broth of her ration of ick and healing powders, with a smidgen of numbing agent, which, when heated, became a substance of slimy consistency that easily slid down a throat. The beach-man fought feebly against this intrusion—choking each time he was offered a drink—but Rista managed to feed him the entire mess before he drifted off into unconsciousness again. She removed his soiled, water-stained boots and brushed his thick, grimy hair with her fingers to make him feel more comfortable.

Can you move over a bit? A soft, high-pitched voice floated above the din.

Rista glanced up to see Shana, a pretty, young Zhendang woman peering at her expectantly. Shana’s mother came to stand behind her pulling one corner of a large cloth on which Shana’s brother Hari lay, a frown of disapproval carved into her face. There was no room for them.

Sorry, Rista apologized. Would you like to use the mat?

Shana stared at Rista impatiently until she rolled her mat into a compact cylinder and pushed it to one side. Rista decided to move the beach-man to the other side of the bed, and as she stood to pull the slat away to give Shana and her brother room, she fell, inadvertently touching Hari’s arm.

I’m so sorry, she said, patting his arm, trying to make amends.

Hari moaned, looking at her once through pained eyes, disdain clearly in his dark-brown eyes. He turned his head away as Shana moved him into the vacated space.

Rista tugged the slat to the other side of the crystal bed next to the storeroom, her long, low wooden chest a few steps away. With the beach-man settled away from prying eyes, Rista went to cut away his salt-stained garments. She found her crystal knife, a gift from her mother that she had made herself; its blade and haft one piece of pink and blue marbleized stone flake. The edge was superb at slicing through leather. Because of her mother’s talent, they had something besides shards and cast-offs—that were left for the weak and elderly to glean—to trade for goods when the traders came on the sea.

Tied to his body, but hidden underneath it, was a large, dark cloak. When she cut the cords that bound it to him and removed the garment from underneath his body, Rista found it to be of a heaviness that surprised her. It appeared that something long and heavy had been sewn into the length of its now rotting fabric. She slit the hidden pouch to expose an exquisite crystal object, three-quarters the length of the man’s body—a splendid white-crystal staff that glowed softly.

Rista gently covered the beach-man with her own coverlet and sat back against her stone bed to examine the staff. At the touch of her fingers, her mind exploded with a vision of a green field of grass and trees. Quickly, a dark haze moved over the field choking it of its life and exchanging the vibrant green for miserable charred stubs in a field of dust. A burning city loomed before her, it inhabitants rushing in panic. The people were all bruised, black and green and purple, like the beach-man. Hideous creatures they were as they stumbled about screaming names of those loved ones they could not find. Children sat crying in the dirt. Bodies—so many of them—lay about the streets. A voice, sweet as a gentle, cool wind on a hot day broke into her vision. ‘This is what is now and what will be. Only you can stop it—you have been chosen. To you it has been given the right."

Rista gasped and dropped the staff onto the cloak and the vision ended. Uncomprehending of what she had witnessed, she simply stared at the crystal staff. The shaft itself flowed straight to the end where a smaller, faceted ball appeared to be emerging as if it had traveled through the staff and was coming out the end. Down the length of the shaft alternated six sections of long straight cuts that had the appearance of small pleats placed closely together, with six sets of rings at the end of each long section. Each set of rings consisted of three rings of small Xs, the last set of rings resting atop the final pleats. The cuts were obviously placed precisely to give full expression to the fire within the stone, for each cut burst with vibrancy of color, and the life that exploded from it caught her breath away.

At one end of the staff, which Rista considered to be the top, was a ball nestled in the center of a starburst of crystal rays pointing up that hugged the ball from underneath; and under them, rays pointing downward. Around the middle of the starburst lay a ring of small, exquisite Xs which appeared to draw the starburst in at the waist. The ball was cut into small facets with what appeared to be an inscription around the base just above the rays. She reached out hesitantly, turning the staff slightly with her finger to take a good look at it; and as she did so, a curious but elegant symbol flashed at her and a surge of energy shot into her hand, holding her mind and body in stunned silence.

Who are you? she whispered to the beach-man, carefully rolling the staff in the old cloak, glancing around the gorda to make sure no one noticed as she hid it in her long, private chest.

Rista, Meia called as she hurried over, bright blue eyes deep with concern. Did you find any food? Ick? Grunge? Nothing at all? Well, you’ll just have to try again.

But …, Rista started to say, ‘I shouldn’t leave the beach-man alone’; but her Maman was right. If they didn’t find any food soon they would all starve to death, so she said nothing.

Meia shook her head. "I told them all it would be better to harvest grunge than crystal. I told them, ‘Can we eat crystal?’ But they thought if there were more crystal to trade for more food, it would last us longer until the traders came again. They’re half starving, and they use their energy for mining! Now look, we don’t have enough people who can scrounge for food. Rista, if the ship doesn’t get here within the next couple of days, we won’t have to worry about food or crystal, any more. She looked at the pitiful man and the frightful face and sighed. Rista, I’ll watch your man for you. But if you find nothing, you’ll be sharing it with him."

Rista took her cloak as insurance against the heat of the midday sun, and tied her empty harvest bag around her thin waist. She picked up her father’s cloak as well and took one last look at the pitiful beach-man. Hunger gnawed insistently in her belly as she made her way to her father across the floor covered with injured men.

Papan, I’m going back out to look for grunge. Do you want to come with me? she asked him quietly, noticing the usual sparkle was gone from his face, the forehead wrinkled in worry.

A heavy sigh escaped his lips. I can’t do much here. I can at least smell the grunge if it’s to be found. He handed the bandages he carried back to Meia, and Rista took his arm, guiding him through the maze of injured people and those that had gathered to care for them.

As they left the gorda’s mouth, Rista saw the Mother sun now hovered high in a clear sky, her face bright and hot. Put up your hood, Papan, she ordered him.

So I don’t go blind? I’m already blind.

So you won’t get the madness.

Brain-shrink.

Yes. I need you to be clearheaded to help me solve a problem. She helped him to pull his hood over the thin tufts of white hair.

Does it have anything to do with the stranger? It can’t be how to find food when there’s nothing left to find. His face settled into a frown, the wrinkles dancing about his scraggly beard and forehead.

There’s something about him that puzzles me, she said. Several things, in fact.

He smells dead.

But he’s alive. It’s like he’s trying to live simply by force of will. Like he was on some kind of… mission.

"To do what?’

I don’t know what. But here’s the thing. I found a white crystal staff hidden in his cloak.

"A crystal staff you said?"

White crystal. It’s beautiful. And when I picked it up, I saw a vision.

"You saw a vision?"

I’ve been seeing things all day, Papan; and… I felt something from the staff. A vibration; like something alive inside it.

Energy.

Yes. Rista had taken his arm while they were talking, and could feel his thin, stiff bones and the coldness that had settled there.

I’ve heard of such things, Hen said, nodding. Tell me your visions, Rista.

The first one I saw was the ground opening up and something dark coming out; in the second one a man ran passed me. He was looking to me to help him.

Hmmm, said Hen.

The next one was when our mountain exploded. And the last one was when I picked up the staff. I saw a black mist roll over everything green, killing it; and then a city on fire; and then sick people crying and running and … dead people in the streets.

Great erda, Rista.

And then a voice told me only I could stop it, whispered Rista. I’m scared Papan. What does it all mean?

Hen scratched his beard, deep in thought. Something greater than my understanding, he said finally, though I’ve heard of such powerful objects among the First Ones. He stopped and searched for her hands to hold them tightly in his. Tell me, Child; did the visions start before or after we found the man in the skimmer?

After, Papan.

So, it may be the crystal of the First Ones. We would do well to leave it alone.

Why, Papan?

When humans and the First Ones come together, there’s much … misunderstanding. Death inevitably follows.

Rista waited for him to say more, but the sound of his breathing was all he offered. I’ve heard stories of Settlement, she said, and how the First Ones went about destroying us from the beginning. How they stole into our dwellings at night and carried away the children ….

Ha! snorted Hen. I’ve heard that tripe, too.

What, you don’t think it’s true?

No. Great erda, no. He was walking again, his aged, wooden staff poking out ahead of him as it surveyed the ground.

"What is true?"

"That we intruded into their peaceful world, disrupting it without cause or provocation. That we did the killing, not them."

Stunned, Rista now became silent. They reached Flat Rock, a great stone ledge that protruded gracefully out of the mountain wall directly into their path. Rista guided her father to his favorite place on the cool rock and sat beside him. Maman doesn’t believe that.

Your mother is blinder than I am.

I’ve never heard such a thing. We took only what we needed to survive. We were stranded here.

We were not. We had the capability to continue on to the next planet if this one didn’t work out, but it was so easy to take over this one.

Easy?

The First Ones are a weak species, Rista. They’re different from us: in their bodies, in their thinking.

So you think the staff belonged to one of them?

I don’t know. I would have to see it first. But you would do well to keep it hidden; there are those who wish them harm.

And my visions Papan; what do they mean? How can I stop this horrible thing? I was told the solution was in my hands.

That discernment has eluded my grasp, Daughter; and as much as I would like to explore these events right now, we’ve got to find something to eat before we perish of starvation. Help me up.

The path turned ninety degrees from where they had come, leaving the ledge in the corner of the intersection. Now the one path split into many and they chose one that turned abruptly into steep steps cut into the crystal rock hundreds of years before. Hen had climbed these steps since he was a child and knew them intimately. Nevertheless, Rista knew one false step would break his neck, and clung to him tightly as they descended the twenty-odd steps that led to a myriad of other paths and cavelets where the ick was known to sprout in crystal shoots and grunge lived on the walls.

I don’t smell any grunge, said Hen. We’ll have to try for ick, it seems. His weathered face seemed so disappointed, that Rista grasped his aged hand and kissed it. He caressed her young, smooth face not yet ravaged by the years of mining, each hand finding an eyelid