Eyas extended her scrib. Kip took it. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

‘You can do it,’ Eyas said with the sympathetic smile that went hand-in-hand with her profession.

He cleared his throat, then licked his lips, then cleared his throat again. He began to read. ‘From the stars, came the ground. From the ground, we stood. To the ground, we return.’

Isabel bowed her head as he spoke, one hand on his shoulder, the other holding Tamsin’s. This still wasn’t right. But it was better. It was a little better.

‘Here, at the Centre of our lives, we carry our beloved dead. We honour their breath, which fills our lungs. We honour their blood, which fills our hearts. We honour their bodies, which fuel our own. We honour you, son of, um . . .’ Kip stopped. ‘What’s his homeworld?’

Isabel turned the question over a few times. She’d never heard this portion of the Litany for the Dead said with anything other than a homesteader name. She wasn’t so rigid in her traditions that the idea of inserting the name of an alien planet bothered her, and yet . . . and yet. ‘He’s still Exodan,’ she said. ‘Just more distantly.’

The boy looked unsure. ‘So . . . should I say the Asteria, or . . .’

‘The Al-Qaum,’ Eyas said. She looked at Isabel and nodded. ‘Patrol said that’s where he was descended from.’

Kip started again. ‘We honour you, son of the Al-Qaum. From death, you took life, and from your death, we now live. Here you will stay, until we rejoin the stars once more.’

Isabel took her cue and gestured at her scrib. ‘We record the laying-in of Sawyer Gursky, age twenty-three. His name will be remembered. For so long as the Archives remain, so shall he.’

Eyas turned to Kip. ‘Will you help me with him?’

Kip nodded, his face unreadable, his heart unknowable. But he took his place at the head of the stretcher. He shared the caretaker’s weight. He accompanied the stranger on the long walk up the ramp. He did these things, and it said all that needed to be said about him.

Isabel followed, Tamsin leaning on her arm. All unoccupied caretakers had gathered, as they always did, standing vigil along the pathway, each holding an item of their choosing – a globulb, a flower, a dancing ribbon, a gnarled root, a bowl of water.

‘Thank you,’ they murmured to the body as it passed by. ‘Thank you.’ Thank you for what you will become, they meant. Thank you for what you will give us.

They came at last to the top of the ramp, and reached the covering bed. To the untrained eye, it was nothing more than a flat layer of bamboo mulch, but Exodans knew better. There were walking paths raked by the caretakers around the unmistakable mounds. There were painted flags stuck in patches recently filled. There were shallow craters over patches ready to be filled again. And there was the warmth – a thick, earthy heat rising from the ground, almost too hot. A suggestion not of death, but of life, of energy, of birth.

Eyas led the way to an unmarked patch, then set down her end of the stretcher. Kip set down his as well. A set of shovels lay waiting. They both took one, and Isabel did as well, though she knew she wouldn’t get as far as the other two. That wasn’t the point. Everyone who was able had to turn the soil. Tamsin stood by the body, resting her weight on her cane, eyes closed as she whispered the Litany from memory, for no one’s comfort but her own.

Isabel dug as best she could, and as she did so, her heart filled with a complicated tangle. Sorrow for Sawyer, whose time had been stolen. Anger for Sawyer, who’d been led astray. Respect for Eyas, and all of her profession. Respect for Kip, too, who dug vigorously, even as his face became covered in silent tears. Love for Tamsin. Love for her living family. Love for her dead family. Fear of death. Joy for life.

It was, in the end, a proper funeral.

They set aside their shovels and lifted Sawyer’s body. Slowly, carefully, they laid him in. He was cold now, and heavy, but those things would soon change. He’d followed his ancestors. He’d rejoined their ancient cycle. They would keep him warm.

Part 6

We Fly with Courage

Feed source: Reskit Institute of Interstellar Migration (Public News Feed)

Item name: The Modern Exodus – Entry #18

Author: Ghuh’loloan Mok Chutp

Encryption: 0

Translation path: [Hanto:Kliptorigan]

Transcription: 0

Node identifier: 2310-483-38, Isabel Itoh

[System message: The feed you have selected has been translated from written Hanto. As you may be aware, written Hanto includes gestural notations that do not have analogous symbols in any other GC language. Therefore, your scrib’s on-board translation software has not translated the following material directly. The content here is a modified translation, intended to be accessible to the average Kliptorigan reader.]

*

Imagine, for a moment, a Harmagian shoreline village of old. It is a busy place, but a simple one. The people there do little more than gather – river mud for building, ocean sand for resting, smaller creatures for eating. There is a world outside this tiny territory, but the villagers know next to nothing of it. There is no need for them to think beyond home and dinner.

Well past the beach, there is a wooded marsh, and in the marsh lives an animal. The villagers have never seen it, but they have heard its call – a strange hooting that pierces the dawning hours. There are many stories about the sound. Some say it is a monster that will prey on any children foolish enough to leave the safety of the village. Some say it is a being made of dead Harmagians, the amalgamation of each body left to disappear under the heat of the sun. But there are some who doubt these stories. How, they wonder, can you speak of what a thing is if you have never seen it with your own eyes?