Seldom grabbed it.
The abattoir wasn’t quiet and never would be. But people had found places to stand, and only one fletch—the wounded Tomorrow’s Girl—was hanging overhead, engines sleeping. The rumble of generators and the urgent endless wailing of every siren in the human world ripped at the air, and there were conversations that after the mayhem sounded almost reasonable. Strangers talked about the darkness and why this darkness was different than night, and they discussed how would the papio respond, and with nervous caution, some claimed that nothing would come of this but a healthy scare and the total destruction of their enemies.
Elata was standing on her toes, looking outside.
Suddenly, with a loud laughing voice, Seldom said, “Hey.”
Elata turned. “What?”
“Did any of you bother to look here?” the puzzle expert asked.
The other four children gathering around the gray ball, King remaining on his hands and shins.
“What?” Elata repeated.
Seldom took a moment, showing them his fine smile.
Everybody asked, “What is it?”
“Words,” he said. “There’s some tiny words here, on the smooth end of this whatever thing.”
Words?
“I don’t know the language,” the boy continued. “But it’s been my experience that usually, in some way or another, words really want to mean something.”
SIX
Coming to the abattoir was exciting, and the dead corona was a wonder. Seldom was thrilled with his day, and then the world shattered. The papio were coming, the darkness was already here, and inside one impossible moment, everybody turned crazy.
Nothing about any of this should be fun.
Yet weird as can be, Seldom was still enjoying himself. Two bizarre creatures had shoved their way through the riot to find him. King had always been a looming entity, ugly and loud and too dangerous to touch. Diamond was practically ordinary next to his brother, but the giant was here, begging for any help he could find from the great Seldom. And then there was the mystery sister, Quest-of-no-particular-shape. After saying his name three times, loud and then loud again before one final near-whisper, Quest confessed that this madness was her fault entirely.
Seldom offered his first, most reasonable thought.
He said, “Sticking your pinky in a hole doesn’t kill the sun.”
Quest refused to believe simple words. She looked like a girl and like a beetle, and then she was more like a beetle than anything, jointed legs trembling as she stood before the mystery that Karlan carried from the corona’s belly.
King was behind her, towering until he kneeled.
Both creatures talked about urges that sounded like dreams, and what might be instincts, and the keen shared feeling that they were playing out some ancient, mostly forgotten plan.
The aliens were rattled; Seldom was their best hope.
“Try your finger again,” he suggested.
But she had already.
“Try different fingers, different combinations.”
A simple suggestion, but these two marvels hadn’t produced that strategy on their own. He watching them huddle, trying their best while the darkness, this uninvited night, kept its chokehold on everything. Yet this was maybe the finest moment in Seldom’s little life. Strangers were staring at the two apparitions and their hysterical efforts. That one creature had to be the Ghost, they said. And nobody had ever seen List’s son bowing down. And in the midst of that scene was a skinny human boy offering advice and little encouragements. The human was in charge, and Seldom didn’t giggle but could feel the delicious urge slipping up and down his spine.
Then Elata found him.
Seeing her bloodied nose, Seldom instantly felt ashamed for having danced with joy.
He kept making suggestions, and then Diamond emerged from the crowd. Ordering his friend to try his fingertips seemed reasonable, but Diamond said none of this would work. He sounded as if he was sure. Then the ball got loose and rolled, and Seldom captured it first. The gray material felt like nothing else. Maybe this was what a diamond looked like when it was big, but it certainly didn’t resemble the tiny glitters inside museum cases. This was hard and lifeless and he rolled it under both of his hands until he noticed what looked like a blemish at the bottom, opposite the cylinders. The overhead lights were at full strength, bright and blue-white. Kneeling down low, Seldom wiped away a last layer of slime, fingers tingling from the acid, and he announced finding a few lines of delicate, peculiar words.
Unless of course they were scratches, he thought in the next moment. But how could a substance that survived some long fierce burial inside a corona show nothing but those tiny marks arranged in what looked like six perfect rows?
King claimed the object, bright green eyes staring at the scratches.
“Can you read them?” his sister asked.
He said, “No,” and spun it, letting the bulging glass eyes absorb the text.
“I can’t either,” Quest said.
The abattoir doors were open but not for much longer. The sirens were as relentless as always. The enemy was still pushing through the darkness. The papio trained for night raids, and maybe they preferred attacking when nobody could see clearly. Could they have pushed the sun into oblivion?
That wild thought had no time to grow.
A woman’s voice fell from everywhere, urgent but not fast. “One recitation,” she warned, “and then the doors will drop and seal.”
Seldom looked over the heads of people lined up at the opening, and another sharp thought took hold of his brain.
Diamond was peering at the neat scratchy words.
He was as baffled as anyone else.
“Master Nissim,” said Seldom.
The corona’s children looked at him, that first bright sense of understanding emerging.
“He knows old languages,” Seldom reminded his friend.
Diamond said, “Yes,” and stood up.
King jumped to his feet, looking back across the great room.
Looking sorry and lost, Elata stood by the others, one hand holding the purse while she fought the running blood with her other sleeve.
Seldom was wicked for not feeling more sympathetic toward her. But as he approached her, trying to pick good words, Elata seemed to forget her present miseries. Something behind him was worth a good hard stare, and the bloodied arm lifted, two fingers pointing through the open door.
“What is that?” she asked.
At the same moment, with a roaring voice, King said, “I see him.”
“Nissim?” asked Diamond.
“We’ll take this to your teacher,” Quest said.
The three creatures headed back where they had come from. Seldom wanted to follow. This was his puzzle, and he wanted answers, and he managed a long first step before looking his shoulder, following the line made by Elata’s arm and fingers.
Night was ending. A faint but true, undeniable light was growing brighter by the moment, and other people were talking about the glow while pointing in various directions, but always outwards, away from this tree and this giant building.
Suddenly ten voices said, “The sun is coming back.”
Even as the joy grabbed everybody, including Seldom, he suffered doubts. If this was sunlight, then it was peculiar just how weak the light it seemed, and odder still, there seemed to be colors inside the light, as if the sun was trying to awaken but not yet certain which face to put on.
There was a long drop from the big doors to the landing. The wall beneath was covered with sloping nets. Not everyone wanted to jump down, but dozens did. They leaped and others fell, and Seldom intended nothing but to get closer to the edge, finding a somewhat better perch to watch what still didn’t make sense.
Bodies surged and he hurried, Elata settling in beside him. Even with her swollen, sore-looking nose, she was pretty. Seldom’s life couldn’t be awful when he was walking beside this girl.