97- Love them always

Eastly o' Sloosha's we din't climb the Kuikuihaele Track, nay, we trekked inland southly up Waiulili Stream, an' I cogged the clearin' by Hiilawe Falls where I'd s'prised the Kona what killed Pa five– six years b'fore. Overgrown now it was, jus' traces o' bygone campfires scorchin' the mid- dle. In Hiilawe Pool's shallows I spikered a couple o' rockfish with Jonas's gift, to last out our grinds. Rain fell so the Waiulili Stream gushed too fierce for footin', so we bushwhacked up thru sugarcane, yay, a hard half

day's goin' it was till we cleared the Kohala Ridge; the windy open made us gasp an' thru riftin' clouds we seen Mauna Kea higher'n the sky, yay. Now I seen Mauna Kea from Honokaa b'fore, o' course, but a mountain you're plannin' on climbin' ain't the same as the one you ain't. It ain't so pretty, nay. Hush 'nuff an' you'll hear it. The cane thinned to tind'ry pines an' we got to Old Uns' Waimea Way. Sev'ral miles 'long this an- cient'n'cracked road we clopped till we met a fur trapper an' his laughin' doggy restin' by a slopin' pond. Old Yanagi was his name an' he'd got mukelung so bad by'n'by Young Yanagi'd be takin' over the fam'ly bis'ness, I thinked. We said we was herb'lists sivvyin' for presh plants an' maybe Yanagi b'liefed us an' maybe he din't, but he bartered us fungusdo' for rockfish an' warned us Waimea Town weren't so friendsome as it'd been once, nay, Kona say-soed'n'knucklied ficklewise an' you cudn't guess their b'havin's.

A mile or so eastly o' Waimea Town we heard shod hoofs cloppin' an' we dived off the track in the nick b'fore three Kona fighters on black stal'yons an' their horse boy on a pony galloped by Hate'n'fear quaked me an' I wanted to kill 'em like prawns on a skewer, but slower'n that. The boy I thought may o' been Alessio, but I always thinked that 'bout young Kona, they was wearin' helms so I cudn't see too sure, nay. We din't speak much from then 'cos speakin' can be heard by spyers what you can't spy. Southly thru shrubby heath we tromped now till we got to wideway. Wideway I'd heard o' from storymen an' here it was, an open, long, flat o' roadstone. Saplin's'n'bush was musclin' up, but wondersome'n'wild was that windy space. Meronym said it was named Air Port in Old Uns' tongue, where their flyin' boats'd anchor down, yay, like wild geese on the Pololu Marsh- es. We din't cross wideway, nay, we skirted it, there wasn't no cover see.

By sundown we tented up in a cactusy hollow, an' when it was dark 'nuff I lit us a fire. Lornsome I felt to be away from my Valleys'n'kin, but in that no-man's-land Meronym's mask was slippin' an' I was seein' her more clear'n I'd ever done b'fore. I asked her straight, What's it like, the Hole World, the offlands over the ocean?

Her mask'd not slipped right off tho'. What d'you reck'n?

So I telled her my 'maginin's o' places from old books'n'pics in the school'ry. Lands where the Fall'd never falled, towns bigger'n all o' Big I, an' towers o' stars'n'suns blazin' higher'n Mauna Kea, bays of not jus' one Prescient Ship but a mil'yun, Smart boxes what make delish grinds more'n

anyun can eat, Smart pipes what gush more brew'n anyun can drink, places where it's always spring an' no sick, no knucklyin' an' no slavin'. Places where ev'ryun's a beautsome purebirth who lives to be one hun'erd'n'fifty years.

Meronym pulled her blanky tighter. My parents an' their gen'ration b'liefed, somewhere, hole cities o' Old Uns s'vived the Fall b'yonder the oceans, jus' like you, Zachry. Old-time names haunted their 'maginin's … Melbun, Orkland, Jo'burg, Buenas Yerbs, Mumbay, Sing'pore. The Ship- woman was teachin' me what no Valleysman'd ever heard, an' I list'ned tight'n'wordless. Fin'ly, five decades after my people's landin' at Presci- ence, we relaunched the Ship what bringed us there. Dingos howled in the far-far 'bout folks soon to die, I prayed Sonmi it weren't us.They finded the cities where the old maps promised, dead-rubble cities, jungle-choked cit- ies, plague-rotted cities, but never a sign o' them livin' cities o' their yearnin's. We Prescients din't b'lief our weak flame o' Civ'lize was now the brightest in the Hole World, an' further an' further we sailed year by year, but we din't find no flame brighter. So lornsome we felt. Such a presh bur- den for two thousand pairs o' hands! I vow it, there ain't more'n sev'ral places in Hole World what got the Smart o' the Nine Valleys.

Anxin'n'proudful at one time hearin' them words made me, like a pa, an' like she an' me weren't so diff'rent as a god an' a worshiper, nay.

Second day fluffsome clouds rabbited westly an' that snaky leeward sun was hissin' loud'n'hot. We drank like whales from icy'n'sooty brooks. Higher to cooler air we climbed till no mozzie pricked us no more. Stunty'n'dry woods was crossed by swathes o' black'n'razory lava spit- ted'n'spewed by Mauna Kea. Snailysome goin' was them rockfields, yay, jus' brush that rock light an' your fingers'd bleed fast'n'wetly, so I binded my boots'n'hands in strips o' hide-bark an' did the same for Meronym. Blis- ters scabbed her foots, her soles'd not got my goat tuff see, but that woman weren't no moaner, nay, whatever else she was. We tented up in a forest o' needles'n'thorns an' a waxy mist hid our campfire but it hid any sneaker- uppers too an' I got nervy. Our bodies was busted by tiredness but our minds wasn't sleepy yet so we talked some while eatin'.You really ain't feary, said I, jerkin' my thumb upwards, o' meetin' Georgie when we get to the summit, like Truman Napes did?

Meronym said the weather was way more scaresome to her. I spoke my mind: You don't b'lief he's real, do you?

Meronym said Old Georgie weren't real for her, nay, but he could still be real for me.

Then who, asked I, tripped the Fall if it weren't Old Georgie?

Eerie birds I din't knowed yibbered news in the dark for a beat or two. The Prescient answered, Old Uns tripped their own Fall.

Oh, her words was a rope o' smoke. But Old Uns'd got the Smart!

I mem'ry she answered, Yay, Old Uns' Smart mastered sicks, miles, seeds an' made miracles ord'nary, but it din't master one thing, nay, a hun- ger in the hearts o' humans, yay, a hunger for more.

More what? I asked. Old Uns'd got ev'rythin'.

Oh, more gear, more food, faster speeds, longer lifes, easier lifes, more power, yay. Now the Hole World is big, but it weren't big 'nuff for that hunger what made Old Uns rip out the skies an' boil up the seas an' poison soil with crazed atoms an' donkey 'bout with rotted seeds so new plagues was borned an' babbits was freak-birthed. Fin'ly, bit'ly, then quick- sharp, states busted into bar'bric tribes an' the Civ'lize Days ended, 'cept for a few folds'n'pockets here'n'there, where its last embers glimmer.

I asked why Meronym'd never spoke this yarnin' in the Valleys.

Valleysmen'd not want to hear, she answered, that human hunger birthed the Civ'lize, but human hunger killed it too. I know it from other tribes offland what I stayed with. Times are you say a person's b'liefs ain't true, they think you're sayin' their lifes ain't true an' their truth ain't true.

Yay, she was prob'ly right.