“That’s true, en. And if they do not get enough from us, especially now, when they need us most, they grow up incomplete and broken. Sometimes, despite the best a family can do, humans grow up broken anyway.” She looked iown at Mariam, and smiled a fond, maternal smile. “It’s in enormous responsibility, Ukatonen.”
“I think you’re capable of dealing with that responsibility,” he said, “if you will forgive an inexpert opinion.”
Eerin touched his shoulder fondly. “Thank you, en,” she said. “I have a lot of good help.”
“I am, however, concerned about Moki,” Ukatonen went
[[fi. “A bami is not used to having sisters to compete for
— us sitik’s attention. Right now, it is new and interesting,
— ax that will wear off, and then there may be trouble. I
*ill not be here to help you when that happens."]]
“Don’t worry,” Eerin assured him. “I’ll keep an eye on Moki. I wish you could stay, but I understand. You’ve seemed happier than I’ve seen you since we left Tiangi. Come back when you can. I don’t think it is good for you to be away from Moki for too long. He is the only other of your kind here.”
“Yes, but I am an enkar,” he reminded her. “I am used to being alone.”
“You are also far away from your people,” she reminded him. “It is hard, even for you. And Moki is not an enkar. He needs you too. Visit us often, en. In half a year, when Mariam is old enough to do without me for a couple of weeks, we will come and visit you on Earth.” She smiled. “I can hardly wait to see all the interesting things that you’re doing.”
Ukatonen watched Berry Station dwindle behind him, and thought about the insights he had gained from watching Eerin and Mariam. Observing them, he suddenly understood an essential piece of human nature. He had come much closer to knowing humans in their wholeness.
But there were huge gaps in his understanding. He needed to understand humans completely, so that they could be brought into harmony with the Tendu. It had to be done quickly. Humans posed too much of a danger to his people and to their own world.
Still, they had managed to step back off the rotting branch of disaster before. But could they keep on doing it? How long before they made a fatal misstep?
He shook his head. It wasn’t just the promise he had made to abide by the Contact Protocols that held him back. The truth was that he liked humans the way they were. They were suspicious and quarrelsome, true, but they had a vitality and a curiosity about the universe that the Tendu lacked. But their curiosity and aggressiveness were woven together as tightly as a weedah’s nest. Pulling out even one strand would make the whole thing fall apart.
He settled back in his seat, closed his eyes, and repeated the verbal portion of the Hitchee quarbirri to himself. The Hitchee quarbirri told the story of a foolish hermit who tried to empty the forests of everything that could possibly harm him. On Tiangi, the quarbirri was regarded as hugely funny, but here among the humans, faced with the kinds of decisions that he was expected to make, the story became deadly serious.
After the foolish hermit had finished making the forest safe, everything was in chaos. Would the same thing happen here? It was clearly not yet time to decide. He needed to know more. That would take time, and study. He took out his computer and told it to wake up.
Eight
Moki came in from the forest with a live bird in his hand to show Eerin. He bounded up the stairs to the nursery, then paused at the door and peered inside. Eerin was nursing the baby. He turned away, fighting back his loneliness and anger. He went outside and stung the bird awake. It flew from his open hands with a harsh cry of alarm. The bright orange patch on its head made it easy to track die bird as it flew into the forest.
He had wanted to show Eerin how he had gotten the bird to grow orange feathers, but she was preoccupied with the baby. Mariam took so much of her attention these days. Disconsolate, he found a quiet, cool spot by the horse trough, and settled down to wait until his siti had time for him.
“Hei, pikkuinen. What are you doing?”
Moki looked up, startled. It was Eerin’s father. He had been so lost in thought that he hadn’t heard the old man coming.
“Just sitting,” Moki told him.
“Well, why don’t you come help me with the horses? We need to take lunch out to the workers in the fields.”
Moki shrugged and got up. He didn’t particularly want to help out now, but he didn’t have anything better to do.
“Isoisi, how long does it take for babies to grow up?” he asked as they drove the cart out to the long tables where the laborers would eat.
“That depends, Moki,” Teuvo replied, “on what you mean when you say ‘grown up’. Most of us leave home between the ages of seventeen and twenty. But we’re able to get by without parents several years earlier than that, though it’s usually better if the children stay with their parents longer.”
“That’s a long time,” Moki said, horrified by the prospect of sharing Eerin for so long.
His grandfather smiled. “That depends on which way you’re looking at it. It seems long when you’re the one doing the growing up. It seems much shorter when you’re watching your own children and grandchildren grow up.”
They rode in silence, while Moki tried to accept the idea that Eerin would be preoccupied with Mariam for a very long time.
“Moki, how long does it take before a bami is all grown up?”
“You are grown up when your sitik says you are ready to become an elder. Sometimes it takes”—Moki paused to calculate the time in Earth years—“only fifteen or twenty years, sometimes it can take sixty or even seventy years. It all depends on your sitik and on the harmony of the village. If the village needs new elders, the time can be shorter. If the village is stable and happy, the time is longer. No one is really in any hurry. After all, your sitik must die or be exiled from the village when you become an elder.”
It was Teuvo’s turn to be silent for a while.
“What will happen to Juna when it is time for you to become an elder?” he asked.
Moki shrugged. “I don’t know, Isoisi” he said. “I suppose that will be decided by the enkar when the time comes. It will be a long time before I am ready to be an elder. I have so much to learn.”
“And what if they say that Juna must die?”
“All elders are offered a choice— death or exile,” Moki told him. “Most Tendu elders choose death, because they cannot imagine a life outside of their village. It may be that Eerin will have to leave me on Tiangi. It may be that we simply will not be permitted to see each other ever again. But no one will expect her to die if she does not want to.”
“I hope you’re right, Moki, because I would kill anyone who tried to hurt my daughter.”
Moki felt a trickle of orange fear ooze down his back at this sudden flash of violence.
“I love her very much, Moki,” Teuvo continued. “She and Toivo are more important to me than anything else. I created all of this”—he gestured at the vineyards—“so that I would have something to pass on to my children.”
Moki touched his arm. “Isoisi, do not worry. I promise that I will not let Eerin die when I become an elder. I’m not an enkar, but if I was, I would make this a formal judgment, with my life as forfeit.”
’Then I am glad you are not an enkar, Moki,” Teuvo said. “I don’t want to trade your life for Juna’s. I love you both.”