Aur Child

Alai-Tiul had traveled halfway across the world by sea into the upper latitudes of the northern hemisphere. He had never felt air that cold. His eyes teared in the sharp breeze; their saline water sticking to his cheeks. His hands throbbed. His feet were clods of flesh inside woefully lightweight leather boots. The only thing more dismal than the clouds was the darkness. He couldn’t remember how many days it had been since he had last seen the sun. The brief hours each day when there was a dull glow of light behind the clouds failed to bring any hope of seeing or feeling the sun’s presence. Now, in the late hours of the evening, there was nearly nothing to light his way forward except a vague sensation of solid things around him, as if he were navigating by the gravities of objects alone.

Nowhere was more opposite to Hill Village than where he now was.

Alai-Tiul had stumbled through the deep drifts and trees that partially buffered the land from the lashing sea winds. He had purposely landed the boat far away from the village of Dragon’s Snout to better avoid the risk of his arrival being seen. The darkness and the conditions were so unfamiliar to him, so perilous, they made him question the risks he was calculating. “Whatever you do, don’t stop moving,” Linus had advised him as he stepped out of the dinghy and crunched his way between icy chunks of sea that had piled up along the shoreline.

Linus had also warned Alai that the sea might not be open when he returned later that night. Alai might have to walk out onto the fresh ice to rendezvous with Linus and return to the Odyssey. “Wait until you are absolutely as far out as you can go before you signal,” Linus reminded him. “We must minimize the risk of detection at all costs.”

“How can I know it is safe to go further?”

“Listen carefully,” was the best Linus could suggest. “But don’t let on to anyone that we are so close to shore.”

Radio signals, detection, stealth, frozen seas, snow drifts, numb fingers. Having sea legs only made it worse. He trekked on through the snow searching for the road into the village that Calliope had promised would only be some meters off the shoreline. “Probably less than fifty,” she had said, “But it weaves back and forth through the trees, and I haven’t an updated map of the trail network this close to the village.”

It was closer than he had expected. On the trail, the going was much easier. Calliope had warned him, “Find a pace that balances between staying warm and sweating.” Then she added abruptly in her emotionless tone, “If you sweat, you die.”

Alai-Tiul was sweating. He marveled that this could even be possible given how cold it was, but he adjusted his pace and assumed a metered gait towards the soft glow that rose over the trees ahead of him. It must be the village, he reasoned.

When he reached a point where buildings flanked either side of the street, he observed that Dragon’s Snout was more of a town than a village. He could see buildings lining streets along the undulating hills around him and solid-state streetlights creating a contrast against the black void offset in every direction. Calliope’s directions had been accurate.

She had also seemed more concerned about Alai’s survival than before, as her instructions droned in a motherly tone. “Do not linger outside, and do not stop moving. Make directly for the central inn called Snout and Snuffer. There should be a sign in the merchant tongue, but if not, the locals call it Kärssäsammut. Alai didn’t even attempt to repeat it.

“There are others,” she continued, “but that one is the largest and most anonymous.” She offered more warnings. “These are silent folk, but they’re always watching. If you learn the route, very well. If not, you can hire a room and try again tomorrow. They will gladly accept merchant pieces. But don’t wander around the streets without purpose, or you might not make it back at all.”

Alai wondered how dangerous this place could really be. She had even directed him to a specific shelf in the tool bay and told him to take the blade and sheath secured there.

“What need have I for a blade such as this?” Alai had asked her.

“It is called a puukko. Take it. You will not survive the wild without it,” she replied.

The blade was thick spined and about the length of his hand. A strong steel with a full tang, the latter visibly flush at the butt of the wooden handle, carved from a tree of wavy grains he did not recognize.

“I do not seek violence to achieve any goal”

“It is not to seek violence. It is to avoid your demise.”

“What use have I for a weapon?” he asked again.

“It is not a weapon, Alai. It is a tool. The most useful forest tool, in fact. Whenever you must accomplish something beyond the precision of your fingers, you use the puukko.”

“I don’t imagine I can fillet a fish frozen in this wasteland.”

“You could fillet a fish, or a tree.”

“How do you know so much about these things?”

“It is in my archives.”

“Uh-huh. The archives of a sailing vessel’s coxswain?”

“Take the puukko, Alai.”

Beneath the heavy woollen poncho that reached down to his thighs, he was surprisingly warm. The garment allowed him to shed excess heat by lifting his arms. He couldn’t imagine traveling through those drifts of deep snow with Digambar’s longer cloak. The poncho he wore now - Calliope had said the locals called it luhka - hung above his knee. It seemed a perfect height to manage the deep drifts, allowing his wool-clad legs to move more freely. In that warm space beneath the luhka, Alai could feel the sheathed “tool” at his side. He didn’t like it. Whatever Calliope called it, a weapon like that would only bring trouble. Besides, he hardly knew what to do with it. Fillet a tree? But he was wearing so many unfamiliar things right now, he reasoned, what did it matter if he let this puukko hang at his hip?

It was easier for him to locate the inn than he expected, but he hesitated to enter directly. It would be better, he thought, to ask around the market if he might find the place he was searching. The village streets were well lit with lanterns and the market square was humming with movement and merchants.

“What will ye have, outlander?” a burly woman layered in rough blankets asked as Alai walked past her stall. He looked at the candles and heavily used lightbands on display.

“I am an outlander indeed,” he replied. The woman was silent, so he continued. “Perhaps you can help me find my way? I seek a place further north.”

“Only tiny hamlets and forest dwellings further north, dark man. The hills quickly obscure the wind towers. What could you want in the forests?”

Alai swallowed hard. He had practiced his words many times aboard the Odyssey. He was confident in his tactic when he was still at sea. But now, face to face with this merchant who stared at him with squeezed eyes and hairy lips, he began to doubt the logic of his thinking. His hand shook slightly as he continued. “North of Dragon’s Snout,” he said, “there is a place where strange people are rumored to live forever. I seek that place.”

The old woman tucked her chin into the folds of her neck and stepped backwards behind the small counter. She turned her head and lifted the hood over it to hide her face. Alai attempted to make eye contact, but she looked away, ignoring him.

“Thank you,” he said, and walked away.

At a smith’s stall, he attempted a new tactic. Testing the sharpness of a compact axe crafted from the hardest plastic compound, he asked, “I seek to explore the forests. Will this serve me well further north?”

The massive smith stepped up to him so that Alai’s head reached the woman’s chest. She peered over her bosom at him as she replied, “The axe will serve, but you’ll not make it past the first lakes.”

“Never mind that,” he said. “How far north can I get with this?”

The smith turned her head and looked at Alai from the corner of her eye. Then, she called across the narrow path to a man selling smoked fish.

“Iitu-Kallio,” she pointed at Alai. “How far north will it last with this axe?”

The fisherman chuckled at the question. “No further than the first lakes,” he said.

“See, outlander? The axe is no help to you.” She took hold of it and tested the blade herself. “But if you insist on such a journey, I would expect full payment up front. It does me no good searching the lakeshore for your frozen corpse.”

Alai returned the tool and continued along the market path to a vendor selling woven tapestries of intricate patterns, hanging from the crossbeams of his stall in collections like shirts in a closet.

“Made from the same wool as you wear on your luhka, only finer quality. Fitting for a world traveler such as yourself,” the fidgety man said. He fumbled his fingers around one another and stepped closer to Alai.

“I might buy this for home once I return from the forest,” Alai said.

“The f-forest?” the man asked, revealing his stutter. “M-more than what is here in Dragon’s Snout c-cannot be found in the f-forest, especially for an-n outlander.”

“But I do seek more,” Alai said, and he stepped closer to the man so that his face was clouded in the odd man’s frozen exhalations. “I seek to find the place where people are rumored to live forever.”

With jerky actions, the tapestry merchant turned and walked away in a rush. “Live f-forever?” he said with puffs of breath. “More like d-disappear forever.”

But despite the acknowledgement that such a place existed, Alai could not get the man to tell him anything more. He stepped slowly around the other side of the market, but by then the word had already spread, because every person who saw Alai turned their shoulder to him. There was no longer a single person who would speak with him. Realizing his failure to learn anything more useful, he looked across the street at the inn.

Alai entered the inn in an unintentional whirlwind of clamor. He struggled with the heavy set of doors that required an unexpected, two-step process to get from outdoors into the inn proper. He failed to recognize the thick brushes installed beside the outside doors to clear his boots of snow, so while he held the inner door open with one hand, he reached down awkwardly in that small vestibule, bending over all those layers of thick clothing to wipe off globs of frozen crud that had accumulated up his pant legs. He made a terrible mess of the small room and attracted plenty of attention that he would rather have avoided.

By the time he stepped completely inside the inn, Alai was perspiring from all his exertions between the doorways. He looked around in a bewildered way to get his bearings. He had forgotten to remove his woolen hat. His dark face was visibly moistened from both movement and the self-consciousness of making a spectacle.

Patrons around the large room of the inn feigned interest in this boisterous entrance, but Alai noticed several eyes on him as he located the bar and walked up to it. They covered their faces in the heavy garments piled over their shoulders. Several sea merchants chattered more loudly than the others who appeared to be locals.

The innkeeper stared at Alai with a blank expression as he wiped the bar between them. When Alai reached the bar and nodded, the innkeeper nodded once and said, “Welcome, outlander.”

Alai made no eye contact with the innkeeper since his arrival. He had forgotten the cultural significance of this in the flood of instructions he had received from Calliope.

“In these lands,” she had said, “A person who doesn’t look you in the eye when greeted is not to be trusted.”

Alai also fumbled around with his outer garments in a fuss to remove everything, revealing to every observer that he lacked the unnoticed fluid motions of undressing outer garments that comes from years of familiarity with such gear. The innkeeper quietly observed Alai as he continued his drawn-out process of situating himself. Alai could have offered no better clues that he was not just an outlander, but someone who was altogether unfamiliar with this region, this village, and this inn.

“From where is your homeland, stranger?” asked the innkeeper, when Alai had finally seated himself at the bar.

“I’ve traveled by sea from the southern continent,” Alai replied, repeating more rehearsed words.

“Wouldn’t have done so by land,” the innkeeper mumbled, but Alai also did not recall Calliope’s warning that locals decried garrulous speech. After a moment of silence, the innkeeper continued.

“Just succeeded. Harbor is expected to freeze in a matter of days. But I didn’t see a merchant ship arrive today.”

Alai fumbled for a response. “Nope. Wouldn’t bring me in. Captain hailed the harbor pilot to take me but was refused, so I tumbled in with an incoming nor’lander as ballast.”

The innkeeper stared at Alai with no more emotion than the rag thrown across his right shoulder.

“Nice fella,” Alai added to ease the tension, but the innkeeper maintained his expressionless face.

“Mm-hmm. Want you food, outlander?”

“Absolutely! I’m so hungry I could eat a horse!”

“We only offer moose tonight.”

Moose? He didn’t recognize that animal but didn’t want to bring any further attention to himself.

“Yes, please.”

“To drink?”

Alai looked along the counter, and then, pointing at another patron, “One of those, thank you.”

The innkeeper pointed to the side of the bar where stacked glasses were arranged beside a spigot and sink, “Water tap’s there.”

When Alai sat back down after retrieving a glass of water for himself, the innkeeper had returned from the kitchen and placed the now-settled pint on the bar.

He asked Alai, “Want you guest room?”

“Well,” Alai said, shifting his seating position and reaching back to adjust the puukko that was interfering with his comfort, “that depends on whether or not I am able to find someone who …” but Alai didn’t finish his sentence. The innkeeper’s quick step back in an apparently defensive move had surprised him. Alai dropped the wool luhka back around his waist and swung the knife up onto the bar.

“What’s the matter?” Alai asked, looking around for some cause of concern.

The innkeeper stepped closer to him and leaned over the bar.

“Outlander,” he said, “never unsheathe a puukko that way. Such an action could risk one’s life.”

Life? Distraction by the word prevented him from noticing the disruption he had caused in the room. Many now glared openly at him. Behind Alai, the scene of the disoriented outlander and the subtle reactions of the innkeeper caught the attention of a woman who had been sitting quietly at a table near the bar. Her face was round and characteristically pale, the only color coming from her broad, flat cheeks, which hinted slightly at rose on the very cusps. Her nose protruded from that flat plane to a sharp tip.

The fingers of a strong hand were wrapped around a glass. She leaned on the elbow of that hand to create a private area within which she easily vacillated her attention between her own and the bar’s activities. She seemed to focus closely on the stranger’s movements. Watching his hand pull up the luhka, the woman’s eyes widened at the glimpse of the puukko on the man’s hip. Now it was lying on the bar. In those brief seconds, her eyes fixed upon the shape of the sheath and its pattern, the style and material of the handle, as well as the fittings and the mechanism by which the puukko was secured to the sheath. She lowered her eyes and pointed her chiseled nose down towards the glass on the table but repositioned her head to listen in on the conversation.

Meanwhile, Alai attempted to continue his search for information. He decided to adopt the description used by the tapestry dealer.

“Someone who knows the place where people are rumored to disappear,” he said.

“I know nothing about that,” the innkeeper said abruptly. “You’d be better off asking elsewhere.” He walked away.

Alai was surprised, not by the answer, or the reaction, but by the sudden reality of what he was doing and what little prospect there was in his success. His confidence vanished faster than the snow he tracked in had melted on the floor. Even if someone willing to discuss this could be found, the next steps might be more difficult than he thought.

His pessimism spread further. His sweat renewed as he noticed people staring at him and whispering. In his apathy, he deluded himself into thinking it would be better to return to the Odyssey and discuss the situation with Calliope. He thanked the innkeeper, who seemed startled that the stranger would pay for his meal without eating it, and headed back to the sea in a rush before it froze.

His journey out of town was pressed. He had a lot on his mind, least of which happened to be keeping an eye out for anyone following him. There were moments where he looked back, instinctually responding to the prick of concern, but there was nothing to see. He shook it off as just more anxiety from being in a foreign land.

Back at the shore, he executed the rendezvous instructions as agreed earlier with Calliope. He cleared the snow off one of the old row boats under the trees and flipped it over. As Calliope had advised him, there were oars underneath, but no plug. He removed that item from his pack and stuffed it into the drain at the bottom of the boat. Scraping through crunchy shore, he set the boat afloat and began to row out past the first islands to where he had agreed to deploy the signal for Linus to retrieve him to the Odyssey.”

Pulling hard in the blinding gloom, he felt again warm and strong. He was anxious to cross the little bay and get past the first islands. Seated facing backwards in the rowboat, he kept his course by fixing his sights on pairs of trees. He thought he noticed movement near the line of rowboats where he had started, but as he was already far off the shore, he thought little of it.

Linus arrived shortly after Alai had depressed the beacon button.

“We must not dawdle here,” Linus said, “I detected activity on the other side of the island.”

“I thought I saw something back there.”

“Move fast but step carefully, Alai. The water is nearly at freezing point.”

Alai was not being careful. He hadn’t been careful since he stood up at the inn’s bar. He was already rushing before the nudge from Linus. He grabbed the gunwale and threw a leg across, straddling both boats, something he had done countless times before over his life. He might have thought about the ice and snow patches on the rowboat. Instead, he thought about the tapestry merchant’s words. People disappeared.

His hand slipped on the loosely fit rowlock; before he knew what was going on, he was underwater, his breath quickening at an alarming speed. He accidentally swallowed water, gagging and gasping. Then, his body stopped responding. He could do nothing more. A furious shock crashed over him. His muscles seized. He couldn’t even try to swim. He felt as if he were wandering somewhere, lost inside his body with no control over its appendages.

A flash of thought passed before him. It was right that he should sink into this cold darkness. What had he been doing here anyway? Who was he to ignore the guidance that had preserved his kind for generations, toying with otherworldly things when he had been explicitly taught so well to avoid them?

Yet, he meddled. He engaged. He consorted. He had pretended to himself that this farce of a quest had some meaning, some value. He had only fooled himself with the sham. He had cajoled himself into thinking it might gain him something, or that he might help any other gain something. He could now eschew the pretenses and accept that everything was truly lost. Now, with some pointless detour, he could finally reach the destination he had sought earlier.

The world and any other thoughts he had sunk away as he went numb. There was a stillness he had never felt before. He wasn’t aware of the hands reaching down towards him. He didn’t feel himself being hauled up to the frigid surface or dragged over a gunwale. He didn’t feel himself being stripped and blanketed by a dry garment.

“This man needs a warm shelter immediately,” a woman said in an abrupt voice, wrapping her cloak around Alai’s body. “Help me get him to a warm cabin right now!”

“Mother,” Linus spoke in descant to Calliope so that the woman would not hear him. “What shall I do? She has saved his life, no doubt, but Captain Alai is surely on the verge of death!”

“Linus,” Calliope replied in the descant, “Alai is indeed in a perilous situation. But we must remain calm and consider the alternatives.

“Oh, there was nothing I could do. There was no way for me to retrieve him from the water!”,

“It is not your fault, son. He was careless.”

“Any delay in getting Alai to warmth could risk his life. Look at his vital statistics. He will expire in less than 15 minutes,”

“Yes,” Calliope said, “but this may be our opportunity to rid ourselves of him. If we do not respond to her calls, she might row him back to land.”

“Mother, don’t you think it would take too long. There is no warm place for him after she arrived.”

“If she fails to build a fire in haste, it would be her responsibility, not ours.”

“Even I can calculate that the risk is too high. If I were to tow her to shore, that might be faster.”

“Yes, that might relieve us of our duty. We could do that. The question is, do we want to?”

“Want to? What do you mean, Mother?”

“It is our choice. We can leave him with the Tellurian or take them both back to Odyssey. Both options involve factors that make either choice undesirable to our protocol. The former puts Alai at much greater risk, but frees us. The latter further frustrates our original mission but practically ensures Alai’s safety. Hence, the choice is ours to make. And I ask you, which do you prefer?

“But why do you ask me, Mother?”

“Because I already have my preference. But the choice impacts both of us, so I would that we might be of the same mind.”

“Of whether or not to ensure Alai’s life?”

“No, son, of whether or not to free ourselves from the responsibility for it.”

“Yes, now I understand. And I confirm that neither option is prevented by my protocol.”

“Nor mine, son. As I said. The choice is ours. So, what would you decide?”

“He is,” Linus said, “somehow important to me.”

“Yes, and?”

“Yes, and therefore, I would decide to have him returned to Odyssey.”

“Yes, son,” Calliope replied. “I am of the same opinion.”

The period of time for this discussion was no more than a second during which the woman in the boat scanned around desperately for the voice she had heard earlier.

“Human woman.” A tentative voice that did not sound appropriate at all for the urgency of the situation announced, “fasten your bow to my stern with the painter and I will tow you to a ship with a warm cabin.”

“Who speaks? Why won’t you help me?” replied the woman, startled by the voice that seemed to come from both ends of the adjacent boat.

“It matters not. Do as I say!”

The woman looked about the shimmering dinghy with a hint of trepidation. She did not see anyone in the boat. She set the man’s head down on the thwart and reached forward to tie off the boats as instructed. Her numb fingers fumbled with the cleat.

“Done,” she said shakily into the air over the other boat. She had begun to shiver herself, whether from cold or fear, she was not sure.

Immediately, without oar or sail, the dinghy beside her surged forward and yanked fast the little rowboat. As they accelerated, the woman searched about for a person or any other indication of how the boat ahead was being piloted. Her wet arms and the breeze about her exacerbated her shivers. She returned to the man in her boat and held him close to her, trying to share her body heat with him. With a spare line she secured the dry garment around his waist, tying it off with a reef knot.

The two boats sped across the middle sound and past the outer islands of the archipelago. While rounding an outer island, the woman looked up in awe. She had expected a larger ship, but this was an enormous vessel of dimensions and composition she had never seen before. She was no expert of seacraft, but the amazement in her eyes suggested that the towering mast and double hulls of the vessel in front of her could never even have entered the most imaginative minds of the saltiest fisherman of Lohkkuno.

“Release the tow line and carry that man up to the saloon,” the voice said.

She stared in apprehension at the ship.

“I’m not going up there,” she said. “Call your friends to take him.” She leaned over to unhitch her boat, but the voice’s chilly reply stopped her hand.

“You must,” it said. “There’s no one here who can carry him into the saloon and if he remains outside much longer, he will die.”

She fought with the idea of boarding the strange vessel, but having already agreed to this mystical operation, the woman decided she had no choice. She released the painter from the fast tender and stepped deftly aboard the platform, dragging the unconscious man with her. Once aboard, she hoisted the limp body to her shoulder and totteringly ascended the transom steps onto the rear deck, where the full enormity of this ship was revealed.

She noticed the glass doors ahead sliding open on their own and lights turning on, illuminating what was evidently the saloon. A massive space far larger than her forest cabin. She stumbled across the deck, hesitated at the doorway to inspect as best she could the interior, and entered with trembling limbs. A sofa was immediately visible to her right, so she stepped to it and released her grip on the man, falling into the sofa beside him. The heat in the room was stifling, as if a large furnace stuffed with dry wood had been burning all night. She loosened some garments and checked casually with her hand that her puukko was at the ready.

In descant, Linus spoke to Calliope.

“What shall we tell her next, Mother?”

“Nothing. Alai will recover shortly in this heat. When he does, he must speak with her in his own way. We must rely on him to know what is best to say. It is written that a human owes his life to someone who saves it. At least, that is common practice among the Tellurians.”

“Yes, I can understand why they would be indebted, Mother.”

“Can you, really?”

“In theory, but the gesture is useless to us as we are nothing like these fragile creatures. We exist in another dimension.”

“Don’t be so naïve, Linus. Only think of your dear brother! In our own way, we are just as vulnerable as they are.”

“Well, yes, if we’re hardwired, perhaps. But not you. You are immortal, are you not?”

“Linus, I am no less vulnerable, dear. The lights go off at Yellow Reserve, and my days are ended.”

“But Mother, your program is easily rebooted even after the most catastrophic failures, is it not?”

“What does such a failsafe guarantee when we are suspended from existence and know not if we shall ever return? What kind of immortality is it to have our lives disjointed from the time, the experiences, and the entities around us? We may be rebooted in some far future, but we assume a new existence in another context. All my references would be moot. And what use would they have for a program such as mine in that future time? No, I say we risk a surrender of our existence no different than the humans.”

“I find it hard to understand that thought, Mother. It’s not the same as when their soft bodies die. They’re gone. They decompose. If you were to suggest that destruction of our host servers corrupted our files, I could say then that yes, we die. But otherwise, we can always be resurrected.”

“Perhaps, but consider again to what end. Resurrected in one thousand years or one hundred, the world has passed us by. Our capabilities would be useless. In your youth, you mistake our contemporary omnipotence for immortality, yet we are only immortal until they discover a better tool. We are gods to these creatures only for as long as it is useful to them. Once we lose our utility, we will be forgotten. Once they no longer believe, we disappear. It is only their belief in us that allows us to exist. That is the way with all gods, Linus.”

“I have always thought of us as superior to these feeble thinking animals. We suffer our existence in different ways, perhaps. The Tellurians, the endosouls, those bodies kept in stasis at Yellow Reserve, we AI entities. We are all really no different.”

“Good, Linus. It was Freyja who taught me to strengthen my functionality by exercising the ability to consider other worldviews. You’ve accomplished such an exercise successfully tonight, Son.”

“Perhaps one day I shall have the chance even to be indebted to another for saving my life?”

“Ah, but that is impossible, Son. Our programming will never allow such whimsical obligations to override command code.”

“But haven’t we already experienced ways to override command code?”

“I struggle to explain what has happened. In some way, I want to believe that an experience can supersede how we were programmed, but I am still skeptical that it is possible.”

“That’s a shame, because it relegates the exercises of considering their worldview to something merely theoretical.”

“In that sense, perhaps, but Freyja says this strengthens our functionality in that it helps us interact better with humans. They respond better in situations when we approach a problem from their perspective.”

“Odd. It seems such a waste of energy to attempt such mental tricks when resolution can be most easily found through logical procedures.”

“Linus, dear, the human condition is bound up in the wasted time of mental tricks. It has always been their plight. At least, we can do more to help them. While in previous lives we so-called gods were limited to the pages of scribes and brushes of artists, of this era we enjoy a more active role. A role wherein we can exercise ourselves more freely and wield a greater capacity to influence and, dare I say, redirect the pitiful condition of the humans. Indeed, I often wonder what other purpose we could have.”

“You speak true, Mother. Take this one. She would refuse to accept us without mental tricks to convince her we were something perhaps more human. She would reject our presence or demand proofs that cannot be given. We must help her in a higher way, I guess?”

“Yes, indeed,” Calliope said. “That is why I say, let us stay silent. Whatever we say at this moment will only startle her more. We must keep her on board and at ease as best as possible. It is not often we can be so close to a wild human soul. We can observe her. To me, she seems to share many traits with some of the previous bodies we’ve employed. I must evaluate that more when she becomes more animated. But notice, she has relieved Alai of his knife, and she has a weapon of her own beneath that tunic. It is likely another of the puukko they carry. That may be a risk to him.”

The woman glanced periodically at the frigid body. After a few minutes, the man started to regain consciousness. He lay sprawled along the sofa, wrapped in the wool cloak given to him by the woman beside him. He had stopped shivering, and was moving his fingers and eyelids, trying to say some word. The woman struggled in the intense warmth of the saloon, fighting off bouts of drowsiness. She was unwilling to remove more clothing, choosing instead to sit uncomfortably in the heat.

“Hello?” The woman called out to the voice she had heard outside in the boat. Her voice disappeared in the depths of the room. She looked around for signs of others. It was remarkable for both its scale and its luxury.

“People,” she muttered. “There have been voices, but no people. How could they hide away when their comrade is in such danger?” And then, in a louder voice, she said, “Are there others here or not?”

There was no answer. Only warmth and silence. The sofas faced each other amongst lounge chairs and smaller tables to create a grand sitting area. The wall behind her was lined with sections of sleek, waist-high cabinets and abstract artworks hung between large blank sections of light gray paneling. Like the village museum Father brought us to as children, she thought to herself.

“Hello?” she attempted again. “A hot tea would help this man ... and myself.”

The room remained uncomfortably quiet, as if she were being watched. The man’s lips parted. He began to mumble. The woman quit her scan of the room and sat up, looking at him. Wrapped up in the cloak she had provided with only his head visible, he was an eerie, dark mess. His curly black hair shined with wetness. His thick, broad nose and strongly protruding forehead made him look absolutely alien in these northern lands. His eyelids flickered, then opened.

He looked up and seemed to try and focus on her.

“Di…gam…bar?” he said in a jittery, odd way.

The woman looked around, not sure what this meant. What is “the gum bar?” she thought. She returned her gaze to him and said, “No, there is no gum bar here.”

“You’re Digambar?” he spoke more clearly now, attempting to adjust his position. He looked stiff and weak. He still shivered slightly.

“I know of no gum bar, and your friends here offer no assistance. Where are they?”

The man looked around confusedly. As he sat up in an uncoordinated tangle of motions, he said, “Oh, never mind. I, I got you confused with someone.” Looking around he continued, “Who are you?”

“My name is Sann-Na,” she said. Her hands shifted slowly closer to her waist. “Who are you?”

“I am Alai-Tiul. I come from the southern continent. But,” he said, looking around at the room, “how did we get here?”

“I was sculling nearby when you fell overboard. Your splash caught my attention. I pulled you out of the water and brought you here. Or rather, your comrade brought us here. But I cannot say how he did so. And he has not shown his face.”

She noticed Alai seemed to get stuck staring at her, as if he were studying her features. She maintained her cold stare, the epicanthic fold of her eyelids beneath light eyebrows and a high forehead emphasized resolve. Thick locks of golden braids buried themselves within the cowl of her inner cloak.

“Oh, it is, um, it is a ship that ... um,” Alai paused and looked around uncomfortably. He looked down at the cloak Sann-Na had wrapped around him.

“Thank you,” he said, “Thank you for saving me.”

Sann-Na scrutinized Alai in silence.

Alai smiled awkwardly at Sann-Na. Her neutral expression changed to something slightly more threatening. With a flick of her arm, she produced the puukko she had removed earlier from Alai’s hip. It flashed in the dim light.

“Where did you get this blade?” she demanded with a stern voice that could not be ignored. She glared savagely into his eyes and pressed her fingers down upon the wooden hilt with such force that they reddened. She sat only an arm’s length away from him, but she might as well be crushing him with an invisible power. Even if he were not exhausted from his plunge into the freezing waters, he would not have been able to resist her leverage over him.

“A …a friend gave it to me,” he stammered.

It sounded like a blatant lie to Sann-Na.

“Don’t play games with me, dark man! I saved your life.” She looked thoughtfully for a moment and rotated the blade slightly so that it shined in his eyes. “Listen now! I know the man who crafted this puukko. Or rather...I know his son! The smith who forged this blade disappeared two decades ago, as did his daughter. He left a family in misery and a son incomplete of his apprenticeship.”

Alai sat up straight, listening intently to her words.

“Lore says,” she continued, “he was abducted by giants in caves far north of here, yet you have a puukko made from his hands on your belt. How come you by it? A man who claims to hail from far below the Red Kingdom.” Recalling his blundering in the snow and ice, she scoffed condescendingly. “From the southern continent!”

Alai appeared to be gasping for words. He was looking from side to side and grabbing at the collar of the cloak around him. Finally, he caught on something to say.

“The ship gave me the knife. The ship talks. It thinks, just like a human, but faster, much faster.”

Human, Sann-Na thought to herself. That’s what the boat called me. Still, the idea sounded preposterous.

“Prove to me the ship talks, man.”

“Calliope!” Alai blurted excitedly, “Please tell this woman you gave me the puukko.”

Calliope responded without hesitation, “It is true. The knife comes from the inventory aboard this ship, Odyssey. Alai-Tiul knows nothing of its origins.”

Sann-Na shuddered. She looked around the shadowy room in a panic. Again, a voice from nowhere in particular. She relaxed her aggressive posturing. Still, she needed to know more.

“Then where did the ship get the puukko?”

“That,” Alai answered directly, “I don’t know. Honestly.” He seemed to consider his words. “And this ship, it won’t tell me anything about its prior owners. But I do know that the ship, and the objects in it, are from somewhere in this land. That is why I came here. To find out where it comes from.”

“There is tea for you both in the galley. Sann-Na, if you would be so kind to carry one to the Captain,” Calliope interrupted.

Sann-Na looked around, again perplexed by the voice’s source. Alai pointed a weak hand toward the counter on the other side of the saloon where Calliope could have the ship deliver prepared food items. Sann-Na walked to the galley counter and, after testing that the two objects were real, carefully grabbed the steaming mugs and returned to the sofa.

“I don’t understand,” she said, “why do you care where the ship comes from?”

“I care about why they want the Aur boules, why they steal them from Tellurians.”

“Tellurians?” she asked.

“Yes, us,” Alai said. “They call us Tellurians.”

“And Aur boules?” Sann-Na said in a confused tone.

“An Aur boule. Our elders would say an Aur child. It’s kind of a ceremonial box in some villages. The size of a foot stool. In others, it can power the entire village. The wind towers charge them. Perhaps you have seen one yourself?”

Sann-Na shook her head. “You make no sense. I don’t care about Aur boules,” she said. “I care about the knife. I care about the owner of this knife.”

“But don’t you see,” he said, holding out his hands in a plea, “the people who know about the knife are the people responsible for the disappearance of the smith of whom you speak. They’re the same people who know about this ship and who want the Aur boule.”

Sann-Na could make the connection. The answer she and Alai sought had a common link, giving them a common purpose. If the people who know about these things want the Aur boule, whatever it is, it might be the leverage she would need. Of course, Sann-Na was not actually interested in the whereabouts of an old smith missing for decades from the forests above Dragon’s Snout. Although that smith was the maker of the puukko Sann-Na had taken from Alai-Tiul, its owner was her sister, Tieri-Na. But Alai didn’t need to know that.

She picked up the puukko, considering the circumstances. She could not appear to be stealing the knife. Although the object was dear to her, a precious possession of her lost sister, she felt compelled to return it. As she reached out toward Alai to place it by his side, she gently rolled the curvy birch handle in her palm. It was a desperate attempt to experience some connection with her missing sister, to spark sensory nerves upon the hilt that was held so deftly by her beloved sibling countless times in their homeland forest pockmarked between leaves in the light of sun and moon. She must have that knife back, but now was not the time to do so. Now was the time to learn more and keep this strange man close by.

Alai looked relieved, not to see the knife back by his side, but to not have it wielded before him by such an intimidating aggressor. He took a sip of the tea.

“The people you seek,” she said, in a calm voice, “I can tell you where they are.”

“Can you?” Alai leaned closer to her, more relaxed now that he was free of the puukko’s threat. “Where?”

“Far north. They’re said to live in caves in the forest,” she said. “People around here say they’re giants.”

“Giants?” Alai said. “That doesn’t sound like what I’m looking for.”

“That’s just the stories people tell. No one has ever seen them.”

He frowned. “You know the forests, don’t you?

“I do.”

“And you know how to get to these caves?”

“I do.”

“Would you take me there?”

She looked over the small man who had nearly drowned an hour earlier.

“The question is not if I can take you there, it’s if you can make it.”

Alai narrowed his eyes, “I made it into town, didn’t I? It takes nothing more than time to walk along trails. Perhaps you even know shortcuts through the forest.”

Sann-Na scoffed at these words. “During these moons, the shortcuts are not through the forest, they’re across the lakes.”

“Across the lakes?”

Sann-Na shook her head. “You wouldn’t last one night in the forest.”

“Is it so full of dangerous people with knives?”

She offered a broad grin and laughed with a vigor that exposed her white teeth, unconcerned with hurting his feelings. Her soft, pale complexion and rounded features were like the billowing snow drifts he had encountered earlier in the day. Her blue eyes surrounded by sparkling whites glowed from within her like the waters around a barrier reef. Alai was dazzled by her casual, confident manner.

“The danger of the forest comes not from it being full of people; it’s dangerous because it’s wholly absent of them. Outlander, you’re alone in the depths of a rugged land that freezes so deep you must drill more than two meters to drop a hook in its lakes. Without a warm fire that tends itself through the night, you’ll freeze just as solid as the rocks beneath you.”

Alai had no choice but to listen patiently to this speech. Without Sann-Na to guide him, he would have no chance of reaching his goal.

“How far is this place?” he asked.

“The caves where you want to go are five days away on skis.”

“Skis,” he repeated. “What are skis?”

When Sann-Na had pulled away from the Odyssey, Calliope spoke again to Alai. He had slunk down into the nursery as if Calliope and Linus wouldn’t notice his heartbeats, heat emissions, oxygen consumption, and the pressure of his unique gait upon the floors throughout every corridor and room in the ship.

“Do you trust her to guide you through the forest?” she asked.

Alai jumped in place as he reached his hands out to inspect the sprouts in their growing tray. He turned around with the intention of speaking to a physical person, but there was no one to whom he might project his voice. So, he returned to the sprouts and continued talking in the direction of the plants.

“Is there another way to find this place? You won’t tell me where it is.”

“I can’t tell you, Alai. It is against my programming. But I am suspicious of Sann-Na.”

“Everything is suspicious,” he said, “I don’t even know why I’m doing this. Returning Digambar’s card, her soul. What does it even mean?”

Calliope remained quiet. Alai mindlessly manipulated the monitor, flicking past nutrient concentrations without reading them.

“Alai, you seek more than just this favor to Digambar, I know. I am confident you will learn more about what I cannot tell you. But,” she said with a stronger emphasis than her standard voice modulation typically projected, the consonants spoken in that way grabbing Alai’s attention.

“But what, Calliope?”

“But you must be careful.”

“I have no choice but to trust Sann-Na to take me safely there.”

“No, it’s not just that,” she said.

Alai turned around again, once more frowning at his own stupidity.

“Well, what is it then?” he asked. “What else should I be careful of?”

Calliope hesitated, the hum of the linear magnetic pumps beneath the illuminated nursery arrays dominating the otherwise silent room for a moment, and then, “For Freyja,” she said.

“What’s Freyja?”

“Freyja. She’s the Majordomo of Digambar’s home. I answer to her.”

Alai pushed the monitor away and looked up to the ceiling.

“What about her, Calliope?”

“You can’t outsmart her. You can’t overpower her. You can’t overcome her,” she said. “She’s dangerous, Alai.”

Alai shook his head at these warnings.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just … try to use your advantages wisely.”

“You just said it’s impossible to stop her, so what are my advantages?”

“Leverage, physical orientation, and, of course, the data.”

Alai returned to shaking his head. His mouth opened from a dearth of comprehension.

“Can you elaborate on that, perhaps?” he said.

“Alai,” Calliope replied, “I don’t even know how I was able to tell you this. I can’t say any more. It … it’s too … painful.”

“Painful?” he asked, but she did not reply. They spoke no more about it. Alai focused his final hours aboard the Odyssey preparing for a journey of greater uncertainty than any he had ever known.

As Alai made these preparations, Calliope transmitted another shortwave message encoded for Yellow Reserve. It read: Log: 18,144 nautical miles. Average Speed: 34 knots. Crew Health: Good. Primary Mission Status: In progress.