Chapter 17

32 YAL

“You are homo liberas. You will never grow sick, never wither or fade.”

Repeating the words taught to us over the thunder of the falls, I raised a wooden bowl filled with ringriver water above Ananya’s head.

While Zuri and I had retained Mother’s observances and celebrations, we’d remade many of her rituals. There were no death-defying plunges for our daughters, no endurance marches naked in the cold. Waking the children just before dawn, it had taken just half an hour of walking before we’d glimpsed the first soft shades of pink and yellow canyonland rock peeking above the trees.

Ananya’s lips opened in a gasp as the cool water ran over her head, slicking her hair into an arrowhead of gleaming obsidian. By comparison Hotene was much more stoic, holding herself still as the water ran in streams from her chin.

Her entire body wriggling with joy, Kirra finally broke free from my sister’s grasp, splashing through the shallows of the waterfall’s basin to wrap her arms around Ananya’s wet legs. As Zuri joined us we found ourselves embracing, kissing and laughing, arms around each other and heads pressed together as Kirra nestled between our legs, giggling.

Despite my Mother being called away to Longshot’s underworld, my eldest daughters’ birthday was a wonderful event. Hotene appeared genuinely touched by my gift of a necklace, each polished stone bead painstakingly carved from different rocks across the habitat. Ananya had been equally delighted by the anklet I’d created for her from the wood of a dozen different tree species. Settling above the falls to watch the snow-like drift of cherry blossoms over the water, our celebratory feast was the warmest I could remember. Even Hotene’s cool and remote demeanour frequently melted into happy smiles.

There was little discussion of what the ceremony meant for them, or for us. The day was about my daughters, its meaning whatever they chose to make of it. But if I was unflinchingly honest with myself, their baptism didn’t just signify an emergence into maturity. Because I wanted them both. Desired them.

A few hours later I felt Zuri lift my arm from around her waist as she rolled from my embrace. Raising eyelids still heavy with food and drink, I watched the beautiful cat-like play of muscles in her back as she bounced to her toes and stretched slowly, arms raised above her head, palms up, fingers interlocked.

As her long, lean frame relaxed she glanced down, catching my half-open eyes. Sorry. I tried not to wake you, she spoke in evoc, avoiding any disturbance to our children, who continued to sleep on their own blankets a few meters away.

It’s okay. Still a little tired. You?

Turning towards the facto that had stood guard over us, Zuri picked up a belt from one of its outstretched arms and buckled it around her waist before sliding the haft of a titanium rock hammer into one of it’s many open loops. Freed from burden the automaton silently lowered itself onto its haunches, ready for travel.

No, I’m good. Going to go hit some rocks. I’ll be back before linedim.

Okay. My eyes were already closing. Love you.

Love you too.

It was another hour before I woke completely refreshed. I found Ananya and Hotene still lying on their blanket with a sleeping Kirra between them, staring at each other in a private, silent conversation. A quick check with Ship located Zuri in the canyonlands a few kilometers spinward. Above us the lightline was beginning to slowly fade, changing by degrees from a bright white to a cooler yellow.

Climbing to my feet brought the immediate attention of my daughters. I cleared my throat.

“Going to fetch your mother. I’ll be back soon.”

Without a word both girls nodded, returning to their silent conversation.

Petals brushed against the back of my neck as I ducked under branches drooping with the massed weight of pink and white blossoms. The heart-stopping leaps that I’d used to cross the foaming cataracts in my youth had become a sedate series of hops and jumps, reducing the daring adventures of my childhood to a pedestrian exercise.

Climbing carefully down the slick wet quartz that tumbled in sharp angles along the side of the falls, I made my way around the upper edge of the catchment basin. Traversing its curve brought me to the aft rim of the canyonlands, where hardy tufts of deer grass and small twisted bush dahlias grew in the crumbling red dirt of the cliff’s edge. Twenty meters below me the river twisted like a glittering blue snake, appearing and disappearing as it wound through a series of tight curves between narrow walls of striated orange, yellow and umber rock. A quarter of the way up the habitat’s curve the waterway slowed and broadened, debouching into the dry plains surrounding the polis.

Tracking the broad stippled marks of a facto in the chaparral I followed the cliff for twenty minutes until my way was blocked by a zig-zagged stormwater channel cutting through the aggregate of clay and sand.