Moonstar (3 page)

She was at the Sea Festive with Hojanna, who was her birth-mother, and Dida, an older, non-blood sibling, and of course, her grandpere Kuvig, who disapproved of festives altogether and stalked through this one with a scowl on her yellow-leather face, lest someone catch her secretly enjoying it.

The bright bamboo pavilions were entrancing; the colored silks that draped them floated lazy, sometimes flapping, in the wind. Blue and yellow, shades of green; the colors sang of sand and sunshine, wind and moss. The spinning kites and purple banners of the merchants made a panoply of myth and wonder in the sky. Today the west-clouds had come early. Swept by summer winds, they were streaked with red and ocher by the slowly rising sun and made a ragged silvery background to the mysteries of the day.

And the smells—so enticing were the smells! Incense, flowers, candied ferns, buttered rice-cakes, jelly-balls, spiced and fried fish, fresh fish too and seaweed salt; pickles, brine, sweet-creams and ices, syrups, fruits, dark beer and wine, pink tongue; and perfumes! Dandies! Sweet-scents and sour, musks and bitters, herbs of all kinds; there were spices, roots, good spells and bad; to find a lover, make a baby, make a marriage or a death. And jars of promises, salves of joy, fetishes trapped in baskets of weave, paper-laced dreams (and a nightmare or two)—and over it all was an aura of strength, an aroma of equal parts sweat, lust and laughter; over it all, was the faint warm smell of us.

Excitement, like insects, buzzed in the sense-laden air, hovering and darting as the crowds swelled and coursed. All around, in the heat of the day—artificially muggy by fountains and falls, fanciful towers with devices that spun to make and spread mist—were adults discarding their shawls and their day-shirts, strolling bare-chested along the wide walks, pausing and looking, examining wares. There were avenues curving and winding like serpents, each lined with booths, all jostling for space, their work spread before them on aprons of canvas and matting and lace. There were carvers and crafters and weavers with looms, chandlers and cutters and gamesters as well, printers and painters, potters and mimes, booth elbowing booth to display skills of all kinds; boat-makers with hull-casts and seamasters with sails, flagstaffs and banners—fireworks exploded in the sky up above, whistling and banging like the climax of love. There were readers and jugglers and teachers and fools. There was glassware and silkware, silver and gold, iron and leather and candles and lamps, baskets and buckets, trunks, chests and cabinets, cheese plants and puppets, frillies and trinkets, dried flowers and fresh, ales and wines, liqueurs from far islands, herb-spells and tea-spice and sugars, and sharps, models and minis and movies and mazes. And animals! There were crawlers and creepers and climbers and shriekers—flyers and leapers and croakers and cryers. All colors of feather, scale and fur—on leashes, in cages, behind fences or glass—Jobe's eyes were bedazzled by all that she saw. There were devices aplenty—even a Model Mark IV terminal, linked directly by wire to the banks maintained by Authority. There were smaller devices, thinkers and toys, flashing their patterns on screens of all sizes. They beckoned the eye and teased at the mind. Jobe wanted to stray, but—

Kuvig and Hojanna had small care for the booths. No matter that Jobe pressed loudly to stop, they passed the street of illusions and the wonders therein. Nor did they tarry at the pavilion of faces—Kuvig disliked professional readers; they spliced themselves between people and their gods, or so she said—they did not linger in the markets, having come to the Sea Fest for more mundane reasons. Only Dida and Jobe were flushed with excitement, but Dida's had nothing to do with the fair.

Jobe's wonder, or course, was that of a child—she'd been brought as a treat, but the treat was now losing all of its sweetness, because there wasn't the time for the giggles all promised by banners; not for globes of dancing silk-fish; not for pantomimes nor acrobats, not for jugglers, nor for dumb-shows; not even for the painted-laughing beggars with their grotesque putty noses, big flat feet and silly poses. “We told you, Jobe, when you asked to come that this would not be all for fun. First we go for software at the mart; then Grandpere must arrange for schoolings; and after lunch, the Plaza to negotiate the contract so that Dida can be married. So many families have made offers that it will be quite hard to choose, but in affairs like marriage, one simply does not haste. You would not wish hasted if it were your marriage, Jobe. And if we have time after that, perhaps then, the toymongers' booths.”

“Can see toys at home,” said Jobe grumpily, but not too loudly, for if Hojanna was not firm, then Grandpere would be sterner.

The excitement of the festive was much more in promise than in fact, and so Jobe felt betrayed and bored. She soon became resentful, and resolved not to enjoy it out of spite. Mid-meal was a chance to rest out of the heat, and sample all the new tastes—but to Jobe, it was just one more thing she could dislike. All the pickles, fruits and pastries from the Northern Islands were wasted on her. Their flavors seemed too bitter or too cloying, and Kuvig and Hojanna's gentle praises—muffled oohs and ahhs—seemed only like a dumb show to convince her. Jobe was unimpressed. These red and orange tubers, for example, were just plain bad.

Jobe would have rather had a simple meal of cold rice-cakes. She pushed her plate away and was sorry she had come. She could have had more fun at home than dragging like a rag doll at the end of Dida's arm. If only they would let her go exploring by herself to see what she could see, that would be all right—but no, “You are still too young and precious, little mud-worm. If an Erdik were to see you, she would take you home to fry you for her children. We would miss you sorely.”

“No such thing as Erdiks,” Jobe said, with some doubt; then added, “Dida isn't needed here. She could take me.”

“But,” said Kuvig in that patronizing tone that adults almost always used when explaining things to children, “later, we will need her, and if we cannot find her there will be no marriage. No, it is best that you both stay with us and stop whining, Jobe. You knew that we had business here. Perhaps it's a mistake to take you anywhere.”

So Jobe frowned and sighed and fidgeted—in fretful silence, which was the best she could—and tried to think of something she could do in a situation where there was nothing she could do but frown and sigh and fidget. Adults always thought that children should sit quietly and wait. Jobe felt this to be unreasonable and stern. Adults wanted just to sit and talk—that was unreasonable; especially when the sun was rising, the kites were begging for the wind, the west-smells reeked of birds and fish and the sea was singing songs. There were important things to do.

But not for Jobe. She had to sit with Dida, Kuvig and Hojanna, in a tiny bamboo booth, set off from the wooden amble, which circled all around the island, bending back upon itself like curled ribbon, changing color and appearance in its coruscating way. The island was just one of many set upon a crystal sea; an ocean specked with crater reefs and verdant outcrops, remnants of an airless past. The Oracle described the islands as the body of the goddess Reethe, the Mother of the World, and this it was against the custom to build upon the higher slopes. Villages were perched on edges, seashores, cliffs, peninsulas—anywhere but on the slopes of highlands, which were holy, and used only for the crops and gardens. Those, of course, were holy motives, blessed not only by the Mother, but also by the impish Father, who spoke in thunderstorms and wind. Because of that, most of the booths built for the fair were only flimsies, built for shade and color, and little else; they would be dismantled when the fair had reached its end. All the booths were covered over with brightly tinted thatch.

This booth was an open one—its rustling silks were pulled aside, providing those who sat within a panoramic view of the Little Concourse where it met the arching entrance to the Path of Oiled Wood. It was a busy intersection, with a steady stream of strollers, some idling under pastel parasols, others hurrying along, threading through the slower walkers or racing past on bicycles or whirling rickshaws.

While Kuvig and Hojanna dawdled over their dessert of wine and fruit, debating clauses and denials, haggling like South Coast fishers, Jobe turned her attention outward. Idly she began to ponder all the people passing by; she was bored, to near-hostility in fact, but knowing that she must repress it, looked instead for something to express it on. At other times, she would have paid no mind to all these people; they were strangers, unimportant. She was uncurious, she was an introspective child, tending mostly to keep people at a distance—but from that distance, occasionally, she would study them intensely. Today was one of those occasions; there might be something—once, at harvest, she had seen (at least, she thought it was) an Enchanted; and another time, she spotted (on this one she was sure) an albino. Perhaps today, with all these crowds she might see something odder still.

The day had ripened in the sunshine. Warm and lucent to begin with, now the sky was turning molten, almost searing, as the sun continued on its ascent, long and glary, through the haze above. The temperature was rising crisply, eclipse was still some time away, so almost all the strollers on the Concourse had taken off their knitted shawls, now carrying them upon their arms. Everywhere Jobe looked, she saw all kinds of study. They were many shapes and sizes, and subtle-varied colors too; most wore kilts of silk or linen, leather sandals, hats of weave, all decorated with gay colors. Some wore noticeably less.

Jobe's eyes were caught by something red, a teener's jutting breasts; not even old as Dida, yet her nipples were bright spots of carmine, her bosom round and very full. Were other nipples that bright color? Jobe hadn't noticed it before. She looked about at all the others, but saw none that gay—the teener was a liar, Jobe decided, and the color was just paint. By then she'd noticed something else—her curiosity was struck by the sheer variety of breasts. Not all were small or solid-looking as the teener's. And not all the grown-ups had them; why was that, she wondered?

For instance, take that brown-skin woman resting near the feather-trees. Her breasts were large like bags of pudding, pendulous, voluptuous; they moved and stretched as she did. She was a birth-mere, obviously, her belly ripe and proud, her nipples almost black against the chocolate of her skin. Nearby, was someone's old grandpere—her breasts dry and leathery, like wizened figs with hardened stems. (Or was she -mere, Jobe pondered; with old ones it was hard to tell.)

Jobe's interest was quite clinical; detached, impassive, lacking sexual knowledge, it was curious and studied. Some breasts were pink, and others brown; large ones swelled and small ones pointed, soft ones jiggled and firm ones bounced; they looked like funny useless things—what were they for? Jobe wondered. Why the nipples' tiny points? Why the soft surrounding disks? No two people were alike—an almost flaunted difference that intrigued her into further study. Why weren't bosoms more the same? The biggest breasts were all on mothers; the older, the more swollen. Grandmeres had bags like jelly-wobbles, except sometimes they didn't; sometimes they had shrunken remnants, like empty dried-up casings. And why was that?

And what about the ones who had no breasts at all? There were not many, but enough to catch Jobe's interest. That one—a farmer, by her looks—her chest was merely wide and flat, with barely any shape at all, just a nipple on each side, small and flat and colorless. With her was another farmer, face hidden under wide-brimmed hat; her breasts were fleshy, stretched and tanned—but why? Was that because she was a fleshy person? If she were thin, what would her breasts be like? Why were some breasts large? And why were some breasts small? And why did children like herself have little ones, or none at all?

A laughing group of sailors came up the Concourse then, slightly tipply, almost dancing, flushed and weaving, with their arms around each other, giggling, singing bawdy songs about their lovers on the islands they had been to. They wore no hats nor shirts, nor makeup, on their cheeks. Their hair was cropped, their kilts were brief; they flashed with color in every way, armbands, jewels, necklaces, long brown legs and golden shoulders. They moved in catlike bounces; they were lithe, like dancers, and their muscles glowed like oil. Jobe stared in fascination (by the way, they had no breasts) till Hojanna made her turn around. “Don't listen to their songs, Jobe. They are manner-less and coarse; and they reek of bad smells too.”

“I don't smell anything,” said Jobe, but Hojanna wasn't minding.

Jobe waited for an explanation—why were the sailors bad? But no one answered, so she put the thought aside and considered the more pressing one. “Why do people have big tits? Except some people don't.” She asked, “Why is that?”

At first, her mother didn't hear her question, but the sudden grin from Kuvig and the angry scowl from Dida made Hojanna stop abruptly in mid-word and look at Jobe. “Eh? What was that?”

“Why do people have big tits?”

“Because,” Hojanna told her patiently. “Some follow Reethe, the Mother; others are for Dakka.”

“Oh,” said Jobe, with puzzlement. She had heard the names before, but thought them both detached from life, a different kind of bedtime tale, a higher grade of myth.

Seeing her blank look, Hojanna said, “Some people choose to live by Reethe, and so she makes it possible for them to be birth-mothers. It is her gift—she also gives them two soft purses to carry milk in for their babies.”

“But Dida has no babies,” pointed Jobe. “And she has—”

“Dida might have babies someday. Just because you have a purse doesn't mean you have to spend what's in it,” Hojanna paid no mind to Dida's blush. “Other people live by Dakka. Dakka gives no purses.”

“What does Dakka give?”

Hojanna paused—and Kuvig interrupted with, “Dakka gives a magic staff. It makes you cry with joy. And it only does this magic when it's snuggled in its sheath.”