The boy continued to stare. ‘No. I just, um, y’know, I heard about it, and I—’ He tugged at the edge of his shirt. ‘Tika lu— I mean, I’m sorry, this is stupid, I—’
Eyas gave a puzzled frown. ‘You’re welcome to join, if you want, but—’
Two pieces clicked together in Isabel’s mind – a sliver of gossip and an inexplicable hunch. ‘Are you the one who told patrol?’
The boy swallowed, and nodded. Isabel watched him with interest. His eyes had yet to leave the table. Had he been to a funeral before? Had he seen a body? To him, the face on the table would not be young, but older and respectable, an ideal he could grow into, a stage he aspired to, a promise cut short.
‘What’s your name?’ Isabel asked.
The boy finally made eye contact with someone other than the corpse. ‘Kip,’ he said. ‘Uh, Kip Madaki.’
Madaki, Madaki. Her brain tossed the name around, seeking connection. ‘Does someone in your family work in water?’
‘My Grandpa Griff did.’
Another piece clicked. ‘Yes, I remember him. Not well, but I remember.’ Old memories surfaced. She remembered being an assistant, an extra pair of hands at a naming. ‘He had twin girls?’
‘Yeah. My mom and aunt.’
Her brain was satisfied. ‘Well, then. Kip Madaki.’ She nodded with confirmation. ‘I’m Isabel, and this is Eyas and Tamsin. We’re glad you’re here.’
‘Would you like a seat?’ Tamsin asked, pointing toward the other chairs.
‘I’m good,’ Kip said, shuffling closer to the table. ‘Thank you.’
Isabel continued to study him. ‘How did you know this was happening today?’
The boy moved as if he didn’t know where to put his limbs. Stars, Isabel didn’t miss that age. ‘I’ve, um, been checking,’ he said.
‘Ceremony schedules? The public feed?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You mean, since they found him?’
The boy shrugged.
Isabel felt her spirits rise. ‘Kip, before you came in, we were discussing who should read the Litany for the Dead. Would you like to?’
Kip was taken aback. ‘Me? Um . . . I dunno, I’ve never—’
‘Is this your first laying-in?’ Eyas asked gently.
‘No,’ Kip said, ‘but – I’ve never read the . . . that.’
‘It’s up to you,’ Isabel said. ‘But you helped this man. You helped the right people find him. You’re the closest thing he has to a friend.’
Eyas extended her scrib. Kip took it. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.
‘You can do it,’ Eyas said with the sympathetic smile that went hand-in-hand with her profession.
He cleared his throat, then licked his lips, then cleared his throat again. He began to read. ‘From the stars, came the ground. From the ground, we stood. To the ground, we return.’
Isabel bowed her head as he spoke, one hand on his shoulder, the other holding Tamsin’s. This still wasn’t right. But it was better. It was a little better.
‘Here, at the Centre of our lives, we carry our beloved dead. We honour their breath, which fills our lungs. We honour their blood, which fills our hearts. We honour their bodies, which fuel our own. We honour you, son of, um . . .’ Kip stopped. ‘What’s his homeworld?’
Isabel turned the question over a few times. She’d never heard this portion of the Litany for the Dead said with anything other than a homesteader name. She wasn’t so rigid in her traditions that the idea of inserting the name of an alien planet bothered her, and yet . . . and yet. ‘He’s still Exodan,’ she said. ‘Just more distantly.’
The boy looked unsure. ‘So . . . should I say the Asteria, or . . .’
‘The Al-Qaum,’ Eyas said. She looked at Isabel and nodded. ‘Patrol said that’s where he was descended from.’
Kip started again. ‘We honour you, son of the Al-Qaum. From death, you took life, and from your death, we now live. Here you will stay, until we rejoin the stars once more.’
Isabel took her cue and gestured at her scrib. ‘We record the laying-in of Sawyer Gursky, age twenty-three. His name will be remembered. For so long as the Archives remain, so shall he.’
Eyas turned to Kip. ‘Will you help me with him?’
Kip nodded, his face unreadable, his heart unknowable. But he took his place at the head of the stretcher. He shared the caretaker’s weight. He accompanied the stranger on the long walk up the ramp. He did these things, and it said all that needed to be said about him.
Isabel followed, Tamsin leaning on her arm. All unoccupied caretakers had gathered, as they always did, standing vigil along the pathway, each holding an item of their choosing – a globulb, a flower, a dancing ribbon, a gnarled root, a bowl of water.
‘Thank you,’ they murmured to the body as it passed by. ‘Thank you.’ Thank you for what you will become, they meant. Thank you for what you will give us.
They came at last to the top of the ramp, and reached the covering bed. To the untrained eye, it was nothing more than a flat layer of bamboo mulch, but Exodans knew better. There were walking paths raked by the caretakers around the unmistakable mounds. There were painted flags stuck in patches recently filled. There were shallow craters over patches ready to be filled again. And there was the warmth – a thick, earthy heat rising from the ground, almost too hot. A suggestion not of death, but of life, of energy, of birth.
Eyas led the way to an unmarked patch, then set down her end of the stretcher. Kip set down his as well. A set of shovels lay waiting. They both took one, and Isabel did as well, though she knew she wouldn’t get as far as the other two. That wasn’t the point. Everyone who was able had to turn the soil. Tamsin stood by the body, resting her weight on her cane, eyes closed as she whispered the Litany from memory, for no one’s comfort but her own.
Isabel dug as best she could, and as she did so, her heart filled with a complicated tangle. Sorrow for Sawyer, whose time had been stolen. Anger for Sawyer, who’d been led astray. Respect for Eyas, and all of her profession. Respect for Kip, too, who dug vigorously, even as his face became covered in silent tears. Love for Tamsin. Love for her living family. Love for her dead family. Fear of death. Joy for life.
It was, in the end, a proper funeral.
They set aside their shovels and lifted Sawyer’s body. Slowly, carefully, they laid him in. He was cold now, and heavy, but those things would soon change. He’d followed his ancestors. He’d rejoined their ancient cycle. They would keep him warm.
Part 6
We Fly with Courage
Feed source: Reskit Institute of Interstellar Migration (Public News Feed)
Item name: The Modern Exodus – Entry #18
Author: Ghuh’loloan Mok Chutp
Encryption: 0
Translation path: [Hanto:Kliptorigan]
Transcription: 0
Node identifier: 2310-483-38, Isabel Itoh
[System message: The feed you have selected has been translated from written Hanto. As you may be aware, written Hanto includes gestural notations that do not have analogous symbols in any other GC language. Therefore, your scrib’s on-board translation software has not translated the following material directly. The content here is a modified translation, intended to be accessible to the average Kliptorigan reader.]