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  She followed on his heels as he took a plate and began to select items with his fingers. “What about eating? You have to use your hands to eat, don’t you?”

  “Please don’t make a scene,” he hissed. “This is hard enough already.”

  Simara picked up a ceramic plate and struggled for composure. “Sorry,” she murmured. “Help me, please, Zen. I don’t want to make a fool of myself.” She followed his example carefully as they moved down the buffet table, taking only what food he had on his plate, feeling like a total outcast.

  “Traditionally, the right hand is used for eating and sex,” he whispered, “and the left reserved for activities related to toiletry. But a few decades ago there was a movement against discrimination, so left-handed people are now free to express themselves in public. If you’re right-handed, you should stick with the rule, or people will talk. It’s a big thing to share food with someone. A communal plate is generally reserved for religious observance.”

  Again Simara tested memories now growing potent with meaning. Zen had shared a breakfast with her at his hot-spring bachelor pad, their first meal together. He had massaged her back with pest repellent. Apparently, they had been intimate without her knowledge. Heavens, they were practically married—he had wiped her bare ass with both hands while she was unconscious and near death!

  Zen gripped her plate to steady her trembling hand. His brown eyes sought her own and held them like searchlights. “It’s okay, Simara. You’re doing great. Don’t worry about stupid social rules. You’re a skyfall princess.” He had soft eyes, trustworthy eyes, and his face was stern with understanding. She bit her lower lip and nodded.

  “C’mon, let’s find a table and get some honey mead,” he said. “The dancing will begin soon.”

  She followed mutely and sat with thankfulness, feeling weary. Dancing in this gravity? What a cumbersome fate. She longed for a geyser bath and weightlessness as she nibbled at food of mysterious origin. Zen fetched her a mug of frothy mead, and she reached for it absentmindedly with her left hand while she ate. But stopped and quickly dropped her arm. She finished her right-hand bite and took the drink in due time with civility. Zen chuckled quietly, his face impish: That wasn’t so bad, was it?

  She downed half the mead with a burp of satisfaction and slammed her mug on the table. Damn them all anyway. Zen grinned and followed her example, sloshing beer onto his plate in the process.

  He returned in a few minutes with two more mugs of strong ale and a plate of fluffy pastries. He tipped a few onto her plate with sugary fingers, sharing food and relishing the impropriety. What a funny man. Spotlights blinked on and off in the central courtyard as buffet tables were moved aside to clear space. Musicians began to assemble on a terraced balcony up above where a patriarch in a purple cassock grandly announced the traditional Vishan dance about to begin at the stroke of midnight. Simara felt new gravity in her seat as Zen turned to her with query in her eyes. She shook her head. No way.

  Jula coalesced out of the crowd as if on signal, a blonde beauty in purple satin. “Happy Vishan,” she proclaimed with a boisterous slur. “It’s our dance, darling.”

  “Happy Vishan,” Zen said, “but I’ll take a break this year. I’ve been away so long, I’m not sure I remember the steps. Thanks, anyway.”

  Jula smiled with dedicated grace, had probably expected as much under the circumstances. “Perhaps later,” Jula said with an awkward bow, and glanced at Simara with a tight lip and undisguised malevolence in her eyes: Happy Vishan, bitch.

  Simara sipped her mead and turned to Zen after she was out of earshot. “Was that a big deal?”

  “Naw, don’t worry,” he said with a finger flip. “We broke it off long ago.”

  Drummers began a slow and stately rhythm as mixed couples assembled back to back in the clearing. A loud gong sounded, a deep vibration that seemed crystalline in origin, and Simara turned her attention to the musicians on the terrace. The gong rang again, stately and magnificent, and she realized with surprise that the sound emanated from a huge stalactite hanging from the ceiling. One of the musicians was pulling a chain to strike a trip-hammer against the calcite crystal! Five repetitions, six, and on the seventh gong an orchestra began playing as the dancers took two steps forward and turned to face their partners with a single arm raised to full extension, waving back and forth in time to the chorus like a fanning palm branch.

  A symphony of gongs began a complex melody as the musicians pulled cords with both hands to strike stalactites high above, each crystal exquisitely tuned to a single note on the diatonic scale. The couples on the dance floor whirled in unison and ended up facing away again, beckoning to the distance with a sultry invitation to incoming spring. The barefoot dancers wore anklets with tiny bells, and their synchronous movements added a jingling accompaniment to the crystal chorus from above.

  “It’s a prayer for crop fertility,” Zen said close to her ear. “The beginning of the rainy season.”

  “You have rain in the desert?”

  He shrugged. “Sometimes. Mostly just mist from the clouds on the western face of the mountains. Kiva provides everything we need, but never enough to store up in complacency.”

  The stalactites began to resonate and hum with increased amplitude as the musicians continued to hammer the gong notes, and the entire amphitheatre seemed to embrace the sound, to join in the symphony of celebration. Simara felt it in her bones and blood, a sound of angels playing celestial carillons on heavenly shores. Louder and louder the vibrations magnified until the whole mountain seemed to sing with praise.

  The Vishan dancers cavorted like ballerinas in synchrony, a choreograph designed for supple spines and flexible tendons. The couples stayed connected with their partners in symbolic monogamy even when they spun apart in wild pinwheels of motion. In times of chorus they returned again and again with cascades of furious desire, but halted each time just before the moment of embrace, building a tension of sensuality from the lack of bodily contact. The women flayed their arms wide in artful submission with their breasts punched up and faces tilted skyward while the men wagged chins over the bounty with arms locked behind their backs in ritualistic chastity, the erotic symbolism made all the more provocative by the absence of touch, a raw sexuality held in abeyance behind a thin veil of imagination.

  Chimes began to sound on the outskirts of the room as another line of dancers began to form with metal bells in hand. They swayed gently in time to the music, following the same rhythm and timbre as the main dancers in the courtyard, but their stylized movements were much simpler, and their melody a repetitive tune. They appeared to be a younger crowd, unattached to partners, their dance less sensual but still restricted by form. Children with baskets began to circle the periphery distributing wristlet bells to the audience, and soon everyone had a trinket to add to the noise. Simara accepted a bell and slipped it over her right hand, following Zen’s example. The bell jingled each time she raised her cup to her lips.

  The pace began to accelerate as the musicians continued to hammer the stalactites, and the symphony reached a frenetic pace as the ballerinas pranced to the quickening beat. Simara’s body began to pulse with the rising tempo—she could feel the vibration of the mountain in her teeth, an impossible ecstasy of resonance. “I’m almost ready to explode,” she shouted into Zen’s ear.

  He grinned and nodded as he watched the cavorting crowd. “It takes real stamina to get this far,” he said in admiration of the dancers. “We’re getting near the end.” He turned to face Simara and bent toward her. “Everything falls silent at the last gong.” He cut the air with a slanted palm. “No sound, okay? Only Kiva may speak at the pinnacle of Vishan. You’ll see.”

  Simara returned to her drink. Everyone was having fun in a pandemonium of movement and gonging chimes. The pastries were cloying with sweet icing and the ale flowed freely. Children laughed and played with tinkling timbrels.

  As the performance reached a crescendo of exuberance, the cro
wd stood to applaud the dancers now sweating with exertion as they stood waving their arms to the ceiling in pulsating reverence. A final harmonic cadence sounded like a crystal thunderclap as the musicians hammered a closing gong note. Everyone froze to listen with expectance. Young and old closed their eyes in unison and bowed their heads in worship as the mountain reverberated and the calcite crystal sang alone.

  Simara strained to hear the voice of Kiva in the afterglow of majesty as the vibrations echoed down every tunnel and into every heart. The transcendent harmony lingered for many moments, and every smile turned beatific at the sound. As the magic mountain cried out divine, everyone knew without a doubt that spring had begun and the future would be better than the past. The desert god Kiva provided enough for all to share and none to prosper. A hum of holiness settled and drifted to a lingering silence.

  Applause followed in a rising thunder as the dancers bowed with humility and thanksgiving, and a fresh cornucopia of food emerged from the kitchens along with full trays of mulled ale. Simara gained directions to the lavatory while she still had good wits, and she slid through the bustling crowd like an eel in oil. On her return, she noticed Jula and her two cohorts talking at a table near the back, giggling and tipsy. She approached with sure dignity, emboldened with the first blush of intoxication. “I’m not really a pervert,” she told them point-blank.

  “Oh, it’s fine, dear,” Jula said with a slur as she stood and waved Simara closer, careful not to touch. “Come and sit with us. You can be our famous friend from the stars.” Her breath was hot and beery, her smile radiant.

  “And you know what they say,” Marjum piped up with a wink, “one hand in the darkness is as good as another.” The girls all laughed uproariously at this. Apparently an all-female environment allowed for much more social leeway, or perhaps it was the alcohol talking.

  “I wouldn’t know,” Simara said, trying to be frosty without raising a shield. “I’m sorry if I gave the wrong impression earlier.”

  “She’s just teasing,” Trish said. “We all know Zen is a glad hand.”

  “And a sturdy performer,” Marjum added with a leer. A chorus of sniggers offered knowing corroboration.

  Simara glanced furtively at nearby tables, wondering who might be within earshot. “I wouldn’t know,” she said again to set the record straight. Could all these girls have had sexual experience with Zen, a small community coming of age together, playing masturbation games with no hope of procreation? How could a culture survive such an evolutionary dead end?

  “Oh, sure,” Jula said and rolled her eyes with doubt. “Don’t be too hard on the girl.” Another round of drunken hilarity made Simara blush with consternation.

  “I have to get back,” she said in dismissal. “Happy Vishan.” Simara shook her head with regret as the girls laughed behind her back

  By the time she returned to Zen, he had hooked up with Katzi on business, the older man’s paunch covered by a matching green robe with silver star, his hair a greasy black tangle. They stood cheek to cheek talking quietly in each other’s ear, and a wad of cash disappeared into the folds of Zen’s robe as they exchanged nods of satisfaction.

  Simara stepped close and jabbed Zen in the ribs. “Can we go home now?”

  He smiled. “No, we can’t go. It’s Vishan. You remember Katzi?” He tipped his elbow out subtly in signal.

  “Yes, certainly. You look fine tonight, sir.” She offered her forearm out in greeting, and he crossed it dutifully.

  “Not as lovely as you, I must say,” he said with a bow. “You look much prettier with clothes on.”

  Simara blinked at him in surprise. What the hell kind of thing was that to say to a girl half his age? She looked down self-­consciously at her skimpy white shorts and glanced at her partner. Zen quivered one eye at her to indicate that all was well, so she turned and pasted on a smile for the elder man. “Thanks. Zen picked it out.”

  “An eye for detail, that boy,” Katzi said. “Pleasure doing business with you both.” Drop by anytime. Feel free to crash in my quadrant. Simara’s imagination was running wild. She had probably had too much to drink.

  “You have a hard-working crew,” she said.

  Katzi grinned with delight as though that might be the highest compliment possible on any planet. “I’ll give them your accolades.”

  “Please do,” she said. It was hardly a lie. They were all a bunch of freaky worker drones. “But tell me, where does the salvage go? There’s no one building shuttles on this planet. I don’t see any signs nearby of industry or technology.”

  Katzi nodded. “The geomagnetic storms hold us back here on the surface. Computers are unreliable and communication is sparse. Insurance companies pick up the tab for most of our work, and the mining corps are always looking for strategic metals. Our salvage is worth twenty times as much up the gravity well. All we get is the crumbs from the table.” He spread his hands as though indicating the obvious. “We’re all just dead weight down here. I keep telling Zen, he should get offplanet while he’s young and strong. The sky is his true heritage. His father was a famous politician who boosted to Trade Station every year for meetings. All Zen needs is a good partner with a head for business. There’s a grand universe out there waiting for a couple of brave kids.”

  Simara smiled. “Are you trying to get rid of me? I’ve only just arrived.”

  “No, you take your time. Enjoy your success. Vishan is the season to be thankful.” He swept an arm in grandeur at the festive crowd, then leaned forward conspiratorially. “But keep your head down and your money in your belt.”

  “Wise advice always,” she replied. So there was a shady side to the salvage business, as she’d expected. Insurance companies and mining corps were not known for friendly dealings even in broad daylight.

  Zen stood content, and Katzi seemed in no hurry, so Simara turned to watch a group of musicians setting up for after-hours entertainment with stringed instruments and a squeeze box. How much longer could this go on? She could feel gravity sucking at her again, dragging her implacably down. Her vision went fuzzy as waves of nausea made her stomach lurch upward, bloated with frothy mead. She almost reached out to steady herself on Zen’s shoulder, but resisted the urge—no public groping in front of this crowd! Boisterous voices sounded too loud around her, and she imagined Jula and her gang whooping it up at her expense. Her own skin felt rough and abrasive against her flesh. Even her hair ached. Finally she could stand it no longer. “Zen, I’ve got to rest. Is there a hot spring nearby? This gravity is killing me.”

  He turned with a look of concern and scrutinized her face as she wavered unsteadily. “Come with me. I’ll find you a place to lie down.”

  She relinquished herself to his care, barely able to focus her attention as he led her through the crowd under a waterfall of flowstone to a tunnel opening on the wall. Steps led down into darkness, but a glimpse of light appeared in the distance as they descended. They travelled down a length of tunnel and turned into a large cave hewn from the bedrock, the walls creviced with chisel marks and decorated with tapestries. “Luaz?” Zen shouted. “Are you in?”

  “Zen, is that you? Bless Kiva!” An older woman strode into the cave wiping her hands on a cooking apron. She embraced him with an open show of affection that made Simara tense with alarm. A lover? A pervert? She felt disconcerted with anxiety at these strange people with their mixed messages. The woman turned to study her with inquisitiveness, her grey hair pulled tight behind her ears in a braid.

  Zen reached an arm behind the woman’s back and held the other palm up for an introduction. “Simara, this is my mother, Luaz. Mom, this is Simara. I found her in the desert.”

  Simara almost fell back in surprise. His mother? Zen was taking her home to the family so soon? What the hell? She looked from Zen’s warm brown eyes back to his mother’s face, Luaz’s eyebrows now wide with wonder, her smile a tight line. “Hi,” Simara said. No hand out in greeting this time, no elbow up. She dared not move a
muscle for fear of interpersonal insult.

  “She’s feeling ill,” Zen said. “Can she rest here for a while?”

  “Of course,” Luaz said with a nod of welcome. She pointed with both palms toward an opening in the cave wall. “Come this way. Are you sick with the cactus?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Just the gravity.”

  “Gravity?” Luaz glanced at her son and back. “Oh, of course. You’re from the sky.”

  “She crashed in the desert,” Zen said. “We’re keeping it a secret for now. Just for safety, okay?”

  “Of course,” Luaz said again, invincible with experience. “You run along back to the party. Don’t worry about a thing.”

  “Thanks, Mom. You’re looking great.”

  “You, too,” she said, “except for the black eye.” She tipped her head at him in query.

  “It’s nothing. Just a spider bite. The best from Kiva.” He turned and hurried away before she could follow up on the interrogation.

  Luaz stood quiet for a moment, then turned to Simara with a motherly smile and an open arm pointing with invitation. She led her down a gentle decline to a small cave where a hammock hung from corner to corner, draped with a tasselled tapestry and adorned with pillows. A wooden chest of drawers rested against one wall, a strange anachronism, probably an expensive heirloom. Simara had yet to see a tree growing anywhere on this hellish planet.

  Luaz settled her in a gently rocking bed and covered her with a sheet of linen. “Are you partnered with Zen?”

  Simara stiffened with growing confusion. “No, I … I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “I see,” Luaz said with a worried face and wary smile. “Has my son harmed you in any way? Have you been in a fight?”

  Simara sat up and almost fell out of the hammock. “No, certainly not. He has been nothing but a gentleman.” The room swayed around her, and she stifled a stomach spasm with a fist on her abdomen.

  “There, there,” Luaz said as she pantomimed a push back down, careful not to touch. “Rest easy. All will be well. I’ll leave you in peace and check back later.” She stood and rolled a tapestry down over the doorway as she ducked underneath.