Hugo awards the short st.., p.175
Hugo Awards: The Short Stories (Volume 1), page 175
Watilun himself operated the catapult.
Jiritzu found himself cast from Djanggawul, forward and upward from her deck, the distance between the great membrane ship and tiny lighter growing with each moment. He sighed only once, then turned to the task of sailing his new ship.
Above him lay the writhing length of the Rainbow Serpent. By conference with Nuruüdere and Uraroju over many days it had been settled that Jiritzu would not return with Djanggawul to Yurakosi. His act in killing Ham Tamdje was understood. There was no question of trial, no accusation or even suggestion of crime.
But the tradition of the sky-hero peoples held sacred any passenger on the membrane ships.
Death of meat, membrane-ship passengers, ground squirmers traveling between the stars in the tanks of sky-hero craft instead of sealed in the bellies of massive conventional spacecraft, was almost unknown. There was the half-legendary story of Elyun El-Kumarbis, traveler from the pan-semite empire of O'Earth sailing aboard Makarata to Al-ghoul Phi, who had passed as a sky hero and died of space radiation, his body later launched into deep space at his dying request.
And there was the new tragedy of Ham Tamdje and his killer Jiritzu who could never again be permitted to ride the membrane ships as a sky hero.
Beneath Jiritzu and the lighter, Djanggawul dwindled, her great membrane sails bellied out with starwinds, her golden skin reflecting the multicolored lights of the Yirrkalla constellation.
And above Jiritzu, Yirrkalla itself, the serpent face, leering and glowing its brightness.
He erected the masts of the lighter, fixed their bases on the three equilaterally mounted decks of the lighter, climbed each mast in turn, rotating gimbaled spars into position and locking them perpendicular to the masts. The sails, the fine, almost monomolecular membranes that would catch the starwinds and carry the lighter onward, he left furled for the time being.
From the top of a mast he pushed himself gently, parallel with the deck of the lighter. He floated softly to the deck, landing with bent knees to absorb the light impact of his lean frame on the lighter's deck.
He opened the hatch and crawled into the cramped interior of the lighter to check the instruments and supplies he knew were there—the compact rations, the lighter's multiradiational telescope that he would bring with him to the deck and mount for use, the lighter's miniature guidance computer.
Instead, before even switching on the cabin light, he saw two brief reflections of the colored illumination of Yirrkalla—what he knew must be two eyes.
He flicked on his implanted radio and demanded to know the identity of the stowaway.
"Don't be angry Jiritzu," her voice quivered, "I had to come along."
"Bidjiwara!" he cried.
She launched herself across the cabin, crossing it in an easy, gliding trajectory. She caught his hand in her two, brought it to her face, pressed his palm to the maraiin, the graceful scarifications on her cheek.
"Don't be angry with me," she repeated.
He felt himself slump to the deck of the cabin, sitting with his back to the bulkhead, the hatchway leading to the outer deck overhead, light pouring in. He shook himself, turned to look into the face of Bidjiwara, young Bidjiwara, she who was barely entering womanhood, whose voyage on Djanggawul was her first as a sky hero, her first offplanet, her first away from Yurakosi.
"Angry? Angry?" Jiritzu repeated stupidly. "No, Bidjiwara, my—my dear Bidjiwara." He brought his face close to hers, felt as she cupped his cheeks in the palms of her hands.
He shook his head. "I couldn't be angry with you. But do you understand? Do you know where this little ship is bound?"
Suddenly he pulled away from her grasp, sprang back to the deck of the lighter, sighted back in the direction of Djanggawul. Could he see her as a distant speck? Was that the great membrane ship—or a faint, remote star?
His radio was still on. He stood on the lighter's deck, shouted after Djanggawul and her crew. "Dual Nurundere! Uraroju!"
There was no answer, only a faint, random crackling in his skull, the signals of cosmic radio emanations broadcast by colliding clouds of interstellar gas.
He dropped back through the hatch, into the cabin of the lighter.
He reached for Bidjiwara, took her extended hand, drew her with him back onto the deck of the lighter.
"You know why I am here," he said, half in question, half assertion.
She nodded, spoke softly a word in confirmation.
Still, he said, "I will die. I am here to die."
She made no answer, stood with her face to his sweater, her hands resting lightly against his shoulders. He looked down at her, saw how thin her body was, the contours of womanhood but barely emergent from the skinny, sticklike figure of the boisterous child his dead Miralaidj had loved as a little sister.
Jiritzu felt tears in his eyes.
"I could not go back to Yurakosi," he said. "I am a young man, my skin still fine and black, protecting me from the poison of the stars. I could not become a squirmer, alone in a world of children and ancients.
"I would have thrown myself with all my strength from the top of Djanggawul's highest mast. I would have escaped the ship, fallen forever through space like the corpse of El-Kumarbis.
"Nurundere said no." Jiritzu stopped, looked down at Bidjiwara, at her glossy, midnight hair spilling from beneath her knitted cap, her black, rounded forehead. For a moment he bent and pressed his cheek against the top of her head, then raised his eyes again to the Rainbow Serpent and spoke.
"Nurundere gave me his own ship, his captain's lighter. Take the lighter, Jiritzu,' he said, 'I can unload at Port Bralku with the others, by shuttle. I need no glorious captain's barge. Sail on forever,' Nurundere said, 'a better fate than the one awaiting me.'
"You understand, Bidjiwara? I mean to sail the Rainbow Serpent, the tide that flows between the galaxies. I will sail as long as the rations aboard last. I will die on this little ship, my soul will return to the Dreamtime, my body will continue onward, borne by the Rainbow Serpent.
"I will never become a ground crawler. I will never return to Yurakosi. No world will know my tread—ever."
Bidjiwara turned her face, raising her eyes from Jiritzu's ribbed sweater to look directly into his eyes.
"Very well, Jiritzu. I will sail the Rainbow Serpent with you. Where else was there for me to go?"
Jiritzu laughed bitterly. "You are a child. You should have remained aboard Djanggawul. You had many years before you as a sky hero. Look at your skin," he said, raising her hand to hold it before them both. No power lights were burning on the little ship, but the colors of Yirrkalla glowed white, green-yellow, blood red.
"Black, Bidjiwara, black with the precious shield that only our people claim."
"And your own?" she responded.
"My own pigment—yes, I too would have had many more years to play at sky hero. But I killed Ham Tamdje. I broke the sacred trust. I could sail the great membrane ships no longer."
He dropped her hand and walked a few paces away. He stood, his back half-turned to her, and his words were carried to her by the tiny radios implanted in both their skulls.
"And Miralaidj," he almost whispered, "Miralaidj—in the Dreamtime. And her father Wuluwaid in the Dreamtime. No."
He turned and looked upward through naked spars to the glowing stars of Yirrkalla and the Rainbow Serpent. "We should set to work rigging sails," he said.
"I will stay with you then," she said. "You will not send me away, send me back."
"Dua knew you were hidden?"
She nodded yes.
"My closest friend, my half, kunapi to my aranda. Dua told me a lie."
"I begged him, Jiritzu."
For a moment he almost glared at her, anger filling his face. "Why do you wish to die?"
She shook her head. "I wish to be with you."
"You will die with me."
"I will return to the Dreamtime with you."
"You believe the old stories."
She shrugged. "We should set to work rigging sails." And scurried away, flung open lockers, drew out furled sheets of nearly monomolecular membrane, scampered up a mast and began fixing the sail to spars.
Jiritzu stood on the deck, watching. Then he crossed to another of the lighter's three equilateral decks and followed the example of Bidjiwara.
He worked until he had completed the rigging of the masts of the deck, then crossed again, to the third of the lighter's decks, opened a locker, drew membrane and clambered to the top of a mast. There he clung, knees gripping the vertical shaft, arms flung over the topmost spar, rigging the sail.
He completed the work, looked across to the farthermost mast, near the stern of the lighter. The Rainbow Serpent drew a gleaming polychromatic backdrop. The mast was silhouetted against the Serpent, and standing on the highest spar, one hand outstretched clinging to the mast, the other arm and leg extended parallel to the spar, was Bidjiwara.
Her envelope of close air shimmered with refraction of the colors of Yirrkalla. Jiritzu clung to the rigging where he had worked, struck still and silent by the beauty of the child. He wondered why she did not see him, then gradually realized, aided by the misty sidereal light of the region, that she stood with her back to him, her face raised to the great tide that flowed between the galaxies, her mind wholly unconcerned with her surroundings and unaware of his presence.
Jiritzu lowered himself silently through the spars and rigging of the lighter, through a hatchway and into the tiny cabin of the lighter. There he prepared a light meal and set it aside, lay down to rest and waited for the return of Bidjiwara.
He may have dozed and seen into the Dreamtime, for he saw the figures of Miralaidj and her father Wulawaid floating in a vague jumble of shapes and slow, wavering movement. He opened his eyes and saw Bidjiwara lower herself through the hatchway into the cabin, white rope-soled shoes first, white duck trousers clinging close to her long skinny legs and narrow hips, then her black ribbed sweater.
"Our ship has no name," she said.
He pondered for a moment, shrugged, said, "Does it need one?"
"It would be—somehow I think we would be more with our people," Bidjiwara replied.
"Well, if you wish. What shall we make her name?"
"You have no choice?"
"None."
"We will truly sail on the great tide? On the Rainbow Serpent?"
"We are already."
"Then I would call our ship after the sacred fish. Let it bear us to the Dreamtime."
"Baramundi."
"Yes."
"As you wish."
She came and sat by him, her hands folded in her lap. She sat silently.
"Food is ready," he said.
She looked at the tiny table that served in the lighter as work space, desk, and dining table. Jiritzu saw her smile, wondered at the mixture in her face of little child and wise woman. She looked somehow as he thought the Great Mother must look, if only he believed in the Great Mother.
Bidjiwara crossed the small distance and brought two thin slices of hot biscuit. She held them both to Jiritzu. He took one, pressed the other back upon her.
Silently they ate the biscuit.
Afterward she said, "Jiritzu, is there more to do now?"
He said, "We should check our position." He undogged the ship's telescope and carried it to the deck of Baramundi.
Bidjiwara helped him to mount it on the gimbaled base that stood waiting for it. Jiritzu sighted on the brightest star in Yirrkalla for reference—it was a gleaming crimson star that marked the end of a fang in the serpent face, that Yurakosi tradition called Blood of Hero.
On the barrel of the telescope where control squares were mounted he tapped all of the radiational sensors into life, to cycle through filters and permit the eyepiece to observe the Rainbow Serpent by turns under optical, radio, x-ray, gamma radiation.
He put his eye to the eyepiece and watched the Serpent as it seemed to move with life, its regions responding to the cycling sensitivity of the telescope.
He drew away and Bidjiwara put her eye to the telescope, standing transfixed for minutes until at last she too drew away and turned to Jiritzu.
"The Serpent truly lives," she said. "Is it—a real creature?"
Jiritzu shook his head. "The tides of the galaxies draw each other. The Serpent is a flow of matter. Stars, dust, gas. To ride with it would mean a journey of billions of years to reach the next of its kind. To sail the starwinds that fill the Rainbow Serpent, we will reach marvelous speed. As long as we can sail our craft, we can tack from wind to wind.
"And once we have gone to the Dreamtime, Baramundi will float on, on the tide, along the Rainbow Serpent. Someday she may beach on some distant shore."
He looked at Bidjiwara, smiled, repeated his statement.
Bidjiwara replied, "And if she does not?"
"Then she may be destroyed in some way, or simply—drift forever. Forever."
Jiritzu saw the girl stretch and yawn. She crossed the cabin and drew him down alongside the bulkhead, nestled up to him and went to sleep.
He lay with her in his arms, wondering at her trust, watching the play of sidereal light that reflected through the hatchway and illuminated her face dimly.
He extended one finger and gently, gently traced the maraiin on her cheek, wondering at its meaning. He pressed his face to her head again, pulled away her knitted cap and let her hair tumble loose, feeling its softness with his own face, smelling the odor of her hair.
He too slept.
They awoke together, stirring and stretching, and looked into each other's face and laughed. They used the lighter's sanitary gear and nibbled a little breakfast and went on deck. Together they checked Baramundi's rigging, took sightings with her multiradiational telescope, and fed information into her little computer.
The computer offered course settings in tiny, glowing display lights and Jiritzu and Bidjiwara reset Baramundi's sails.
They sat on deck, bathed in the perpetual twilight of the Rainbow Serpent's softly glowing colors.
They spoke of their childhoods on Yurakosi, of their old people, their skins whited out by years of sailing the membrane ships, retired to the home planet to raise the children while all the race's vigorous adults crewed the great ships, sailed between the stars carrying freight and occasional passengers sealed inside their hulls, laughing at the clumsy craft and clumsy crews of all others than the aranda and the kunapi.
They climbed through the rigging of Baramundi, shinnying up masts lightly, balancing on spars, occasionally falling—or leaping—from the ship's heights, to drop gently, gently back onto her deck.
They ate and drank the smallest amounts they could of the lighter's provisions, tacitly stretching the supplies as far as they could be stretched, carefully recycling to add still more to the time they could continue.
They lay on Baramundi's deck sometimes, when the rest time they had agreed upon came, Bidjiwara nestling against the taller Jiritzu, falling asleep as untroubledly as a young child, Jiritzu wondering over and over at this girl who had come to die with him, who asked few questions, who lived each hour as if it were the beginning of a long and joyous life rather than the final act of a tragedy.
Jiritzu felt very old.
He was nearly twenty by the ancient, arbitrary scale of age carried to the star worlds from O'Earth, the scale of the seasons and the years in old Arnhem Land in the great desert of their ancestral home. Six years older than Bidjiwara, he had traveled the star routes for five, had sailed the membrane ships across tens of billions of miles in that time.
And Bidjiwara asked little of him. They were more playmates than—than anything else, he thought.
"Tell me of El-Kumarbis," she said one day, perched high on a spar above Baramundi's deck.
"You know all about him," Jiritzu replied.
"Where is he now?"
Jiritzu shrugged, exasperated. "Somewhere beyond Al-ghoul, no one knows where. He was buried in space."
"What if we find his body?" Bidjiwara shivered.
"Impossible."
"Why?"
"In infinite space? What chance that two objects moving at random will collide?"
"No?"
He shook his head.
"Could the computer find him?"
He shrugged. "If we knew exactly when he was buried, and where, and his trajectory and speed and momentum… No, it's still impossible."
"Dinner time," she said. "You wait here, I'll fix it."
She came back with the customary biscuits and a jar filled with dark fluid. Jiritzu took the jar, held it high against the ambient light—they seldom used any of Baramundi's power lights.
"Wine," Bidjiwara said.
He looked amazed.
"I found a few capsules in the ship's supplies. You just put one in some water."
They ate and drank. The wine was warm, its flavor soft. They sprawled on the deck of Baramundi after the biscuits were gone, passing the jar back and forth, slowly drinking the wine.
When it was gone Bidjiwara nestled against Jiritzu; for once, instead of sleeping she lay looking into his face, holding her hands to the sides of his head.
She said his name softly, then flicked off her radio and pressed her lips close to his neck so their air envelopes were one, the sound carried directly from her lips to his ear , and whispered his name again.
"Bidjiwara," he said, "you never answered why you came on board Baramundi."
"To be with Jiritzu," she said.
"Yes, but why? Why come to die with me?"
"Tall Jiritzu," she said, "strong Jiritzu. You saw me aboard Djanggawul, you were kind to me but as you are kind to children. Men never know, only women know love."
He laughed, not cruelly. "You're only—"
"A woman," she said.
"And you want—?"
Now she laughed at him. "You man, you mighty man. You don't understand that all men are the children of women."
She drew away from him, slid her black ribbed sweater over her head and dropped it to the deck. He put his hands onto her naked back, trembling, then slowly slid them around her, touching her little, half-developed breasts, fondling her soft nipples with his hands.
