Kiini Salaam - Ancient, Ancient

Laki put her hand to her mouth as she remembered his stung response.

“You can’t or you won’t?”

“What’s the difference?” she had asked.

“The difference is if you can’t, it’s beyond your control. If you won’t you’re just being a stubborn rub.”

Coming from Pemfi, the curse had sounded like a foreign language, but in his anger he had wielded it masterfully. Zaha looked at Laki, an expectant expression on her face, but Laki didn’t speak; she just let out a long slow breath. She couldn’t throw off the memory of Pemfi, how she had wrapped her arms around him and spoken softly. “You want to make this hurt? You want to make me hurt?”

“You’ve been hurting me for years,” Pemfi had whispered in her ear. “But do you know what’s really going to hurt? Getting locked in a mother-unit. It’s going to kill you. They’re going to take away your pod and your props, and your life is going to change forever.”

She had pushed him away and assured him that she could handle it. He hadn’t believed a word of it. Not Pemfi, not after she’d spent so many nights telling him of her nightmares. He’d offered her a marriage of friendship, begged her to let him save her, but she had wanted to save herself.

Laki smiled at Zaha, hoping her face looked warm and reassuring rather than shaky and uncertain.

“He’s a good man, Zaha. You’ll have a good life.”

Then she pressed Zaha into a tight embrace.

“But what is this?” Zaha asked pulling away from Laki. She put her hands on Laki’s waist and felt the marriage belt through Laki’s dress.

“It’s…” Laki felt the pods jostle before she could answer. She turned and saw that Benko had arrived.

“Ben-ben!” she yelled.

As the walls were thinning where Benko’s pod met Laki’s, she said to Zaha, “It’s a long story…not what you think.”

“So you’re not getting married?”

“Who’s not getting married?” Benko asked stepping through the opening into Laki’s pod.

“I’m not getting married,” Laki said.

“But there’s something under her clothes, look,” said Zaha.

Benko held Laki by the hips and examined the bulge. He pushed at Laki’s waist, feeling the belt through the cloth of her dress. “It’s thick.”

“It’s just a loan,” said Laki. “Pretend it’s like any other belt. Did you bring the screen?”

“What kind of freak gets a thick marriage belt and doesn’t get married?” Benko asked.

Laki smacked him on the back. Turning smoothly, he smiled at Zaha and held out his hand.

“I’m Benko, and you are…”

“She has a marriage belt hanging in her pod, and she is getting married. Did you bring the screen?!”

“Wait!” Benko held up his hand. He stood in the middle of the three pods and cocked his head to one side.

“What are you looking for?” Laki asked.

“Not looking. Listening. This mix is depressing.”

He walked to the sound module in his pod. He sped up the rhythm of Mahini’s song, then mixed in a hard, fast beat. Zaha went to her sound module and added the sound of an animal yelping, then punctuated it with intermittent high-pitched tinkling sounds. They looked at each other and grinned.

Laki did a little shimmy. “Nice.” She kissed each of them on the cheek.

The pods shook suddenly. Laki, Benko, and Zaha stumbled a bit. They looked up to see two pods joining them at once. Laki waved at her arriving friends then shot Benko a look.

“Okay, okay, I’ll go set up the screen,” he said and walked toward his pod.

Laki linked arms with Zaha, and they walked over to where Laki’s friends’ pods were fusing with the party. When the pods merged, the space Laki and Zaha were standing in expanded.

Zaha saw Benko float away in his pod.

“Where’s he going?” she whispered in Laki’s ear.

“Setting up the screen,” Laki said.

“What’s the screen for?” Zaha asked.

“Oh, you’ve never been to any of Laki’s parties?” one of the newcomers asked.

Zaha shook her head no. She and Laki glanced at each other before Laki leaned in to hug each of the newcomers and kiss them both on the cheek.

“I see,” said the other newcomer. “You met in the Stretch.”

Zaha laughed loudly. “No, we met at a mother-unit training.”

There was an awkward pause.

“I’m going to go help Beni,” the first newcomer said and walked away.

A silence settled over the group. Then Laki slapped her friend’s arm lightly. “Don’t get all weird. You have a mother-unit.”

“I know, but I don’t know anyone going into one…except you.”

“So what? You think we’re contagious?”

“No, it’s just that…”

“It’s weird knowing you’re gonna spend the rest of your life with a veil on,” Laki said in a mocking voice.

“Why get to know you when you’re just going to disappear after maturation,” Zaha added with a high-pitched wail.

“Aren’t you depressed? Don’t you ever think about escaping?” Laki whined.

There was a dangerous glint in her eye, and her relaxed stance had become combative. Her aggression with her peers had grown over the past year. All anyone wanted to talk about was maturation. And why not? It wasn’t a death sentence for any of them. None of her friends would be entering mother-units; they had no need. That kind of work was for girls who were hungry, girls with no choices, girls whose families couldn’t afford to have a mother-unit raise their children—girls who were relieved to have somewhere to go after maturation.

“I’m sorry, Laki, I just…”

Laki stared at her friend daring him to say something else that would wound. Both she and Zaha were highborn and fully endowed with the indignation of the privileged. But Laki had been orphaned and Zaha abandoned. Their intended futures had dissolved, making them interlopers among their friends and siblings.

“I’ll go help Beni with the screen, too,” Laki’s friend said and left awkwardly without another word.

“These blocks act like I have some fatal disease. It’s not my fault things turned out this way.”

Laki was breathing heavily as her mind tossed through anger, shame, and guilt at blinding speed.

“Tonight is not the night for this, Laki,” Zaha said.

Outside, Benko flew by again, this time with a long piece of cloth streaming from his pod.

“Tell me about the screen,” Zaha said.

“The screen?”

“Yes. What’s it for?”

“To shield the party from peepers and crashers.”

“Didn’t know you could do that in the Stretch.”

“Yeah, we look like an empty part of the Stretch with the screen up.”

“But then the regulators can’t verify you, or anyone else in the party. Don’t they come looking for you anyway? Is this legal?”

A slow smile spread across Laki’s face. She draped her arm around Zaha’s shoulders.

“Well, maybe we’re bending the rules a little bit, but I don’t think we’re breaking any laws.” She winked.

Zaha laughed. “So breaking the law relaxes you?”

Laki giggled, then someone grabbed her from behind.

“Okay, screen’s up,” Benko said, spinning Laki around. “If they catch us and they try to ban you, it won’t matter. You’ll be in a mother-unit.”

“Ban you?” Zaha’s eyebrows went up. She turned to Benko, “By the way those words are banned tonight.”

“What words?”

Zaha mouthed “mother-unit” to him, and he nodded.

“Right. So back to Laki getting banned, she can’t control her parties. Once she gets them started, they just keep growing and growing. The whole level gets packed. Nobody can get in for a rendezvous…”

“But this one won’t be that big,” Laki interjected. “I only invited twelve people.”