Kiini Salaam - Ancient, Ancient

When the party had shrunken to just a handful of pods, Se-se linked her arm with Laki’s and guided her toward their pods.

“Mahini was at my good-bye party!” Laki murmured.

“Am I the only one who didn’t know they were a mother-unit?” Se-se asked.

Laki burst into soft laughter as Se-se pulled her away from the center of the party so they could disconnect from the other pods together. As they left behind the stragglers, partygoers who were unconscious or profoundly high, Se-se looked Laki deep in the eyes.

“I want you to follow me.”

“Follow you where?”

Se-se didn’t answer. She peeled a patch of material from the interior of her pod’s wall.

“Where’s your navigation panel?” she asked.

Laki waved her hand over a nondescript curve of her pod’s wall, and the navigation panel folded out. Se-se pressed the patch from her pod onto Laki’s navigation panel and waved it shut.

“Just follow me,” Se-se said.

Laki sat down on the floor and watched Se-se walk to the opposite side of their joined pods.

“Tomorrow I take the veil,” she said to Se-se drowsily and lay down on the floor.

As their pods separated, Laki slipped into sleep. She remained asleep as her pod followed Se-se’s around star bars and conjoined pods into the far reaches of the rendezvous-less zone.

Laki opened her eyes when she felt Se-se shaking her. She stayed awake long enough to see that they were still in the Stretch, then she put her head back down and fell asleep again. Se-se sighed. She began waving her hands over various segments of Laki’s pod, looking for the gas module. Her random searching finally coaxed a bulb-shaped protrusion from the wall of Laki’s pod. When Se-se squeezed the bulb, the funky scent of ancient incense squirted into the pod. She turned the bulb and squeezed again. The sweet scent of newborn babies wafted out. She turned the bulb once more. This time a sharp menthol scent shot into the pod. Se-se coughed and rubbed her nose. She squeezed the bulb two more times and pushed it back into the wall. When the pod was filled with the tang of menthol, Laki started to stir. Finally her eyes snapped open.

“I’m up, are we home? Are the mothers awake?”

Se-se pulled Laki to her feet. Laki saw the darkness of the Stretch and groaned.

“I’m tired, Se-se. What are we still doing here?”

“You’ll see soon.”

She fiddled with the robe Laki had fashioned from Mahini’s cloth. She pinched around the waist until it fit so tightly that the marriage belt protruded through the cloth.

“Can you shorten this?” Se-se asked, tugging at the hem.

“Do I have a date?” Laki asked. She looked around the darkness of the Stretch searching for another pod.

“Turn around,” Se-se said.

Laki turned and saw a pod unlike any pod she had ever seen. The walls had a smoky opaqueness that was definitely against regulations.

“This is creepy, Se-se.”

Before Laki had finished speaking, the strange pod started moving toward them. It bumped into their pods gently and began to fuse with them. The new pod’s opacity seeped into their pod walls as if assimilating them. With the loss of transparency, they lost their ability to see by starlight. Both Laki and Se-se waved their hands over the light modules in their pods. When the three pods had fully fused, Laki saw a shrouded figure standing in the middle of the opaque pod.

“Enter, please,” a steely voice commanded.

Se-se grabbed Laki’s hand to guide her forward, but Laki held her back.

The shrouded figure walked toward them, entering their pods. The figure stopped in front of Laki and overtly inspected her.

Laki turned to Se-se, eyes glittering with anger. “What is going on?”

“Shhhh,” whispered Se-se.

The steely voice spoke again.

“You were right, she is stunning.” The figure threw off her cloak and stretched her hand out to Se-se. “I accept your offer.”

Uncloaked, the figure was a woman. She was dressed in shimmering robes, and long strands of colored jewels hung from her ears. She had a look about her that suggested she was unfamiliar with the word no .

Rage rustled up from Laki’s chest and flared in her throat. She glared at the woman, then dragged Se-se away.

“Who is this woman?”

“She’s going to tell you if you give her a chance.”

“I’m asking you to tell me.”

“She’s someone who can change your life.”

Laki shook her head. “You never give up. Tomorrow I’m going into a mother-unit. I’m not running away and hiding out in the Velvet Stretch, I’m not marrying one of my male friends, and I’m not digging around for my hidden inheritance. It’s over Se-se.”

“This is not another fantasy, Laki. I swear. At least talk with her.”

“May I see the belt?” the woman said cutting into Se-se and Laki’s conversation.

Laki looked at the woman then shot Se-se an icy glare.

“Show her,” mouthed Se-se.

Laki lifted the hem of the robe and stuffed it into the space between her waist and the belt. She pulled the hem down so that the belt now rested in plain view. She crossed her arms and waited for the woman to approach. The woman walked over to Laki and lifted the belt. She tilted it forward as if to inspect the quality of the beads. Then she twisted the belt so that she could read the markings inside. A smile spread over her face. She hugged Laki.

“You may call me Strabaha,” she said to Laki.

“ Wife Strabaha, what is the meaning of this? Why all the mystery? What do you want from me, and how do you know my sister?”

“Excellent questions.” The woman grinned at Laki as if Laki were her star student. “I met your extraordinarily persistent sister only yesterday. She told me this improbable story of a young woman wearing my son’s marriage belt. This young woman, she said, would soon be joining a mother-unit. She advised me to meet the young woman before her maturation, otherwise I would never get the chance.”

“So this is some type of weird fetish?”

“No, this is a wonderful offer.”

“I need to sit,” Laki said. She turned to Se-se suddenly. “Do the mothers know where you are?”

“Of course they do!”

Se-se and Laki sat on the floor. The woman quickly braided her cloak and rolled it into an impromptu seat.

“I can see that you are tired,” the woman said after she had seated herself. “I’ll try to make this quick, although I do have some questions.”

“Such as?”

“You are intelligent, beautiful, strong…”

“…and an orphan,” Laki said.

“Well, I’m sure if you had a wife mother, she would never allow you to toil in a mother-unit. But no father, no father’s sisters, no mother’s father?”

“My father and my wife mother died when I was a baby. I don’t remember them, and I assume their families don’t remember me. The wife mothers of my brothers and sisters allowed me to stay in the birth group. The mothers raised us all the same. They were able to provide me with cloths and food, but when it came to my school fees, there was nothing that could be done.”

“So they trained you to be in a mother-unit.”

Laki nodded.

“Even though she’s not fit for mothering,” Se-se piped in.

“The mothers say no one is fit for mothering. They say I will fit to it; it will make me what it needs me to be.” Laki’s tone was firm as if she were disciplining Se-se.

“And you believe that?” Se-se asked, sounding more like a bitter Laki than her usual chipper self.

“You have not thought of marriage?” Wife Strabaha cut in.

“She’s had plenty of offers, but she would rather go into a mother-unit than take a marriage belt dishonestly,” Se-se said before Laki could speak.