Damon Knight - Orbit 21

“But I have to pray first. Here, honey, sit down.”

We sat on the water-smooth rocks by the river. A faroff wind-gaunt hooted. A slight breeze ruffled our ragged hair and made the banshee trees wheeze. It was easier to talk to Auntie sitting, because I was only three-quarters as tall as she.

“Child, I’ve been thinking. It’s going to take a few years for an Earth ship to get here and rescue us. We have to start praying now if they’re going to get here in time for our golden anniversary.”

“Golden anniversary?”

“It won’t be long until we’ve been here fifty years. What better way to celebrate than by going back to God’s green Earth?”

Gregory clattered up with some buckets in his hands. “Watcha talking about?” He dipped a bucket into the sulphurous water. A mottled waterbug swirled in and scooted out again.

My aunt stiffened. “I’m going to pray and we’re going to be rescued—fifty years after the crash.”

Gregory shook his head. “Don’t you know prayer is talking to yourself? That’s time wasted, time you could spend doing something useful.”

I winced. Gregory sounded just like his mother Accie when he talked that way. His father had died trying to find new edible plants to expand our food supply. His mother had been a hard atheist ever since.

Aunt Kiloma snorted, “Those who don’t believe, get nothing!”

Gregory shrugged and hauled his full buckets away, sloshing water on the dusty path.

Auntie turned to me again. “I’m not the only one praying. Francis, Harley, and Suzannie are too.”

I was shocked. You could expect Harley, since he was a Theosophist, to do any weird thing. But not Francis.

Auntie patted my hand. “A ship will come and take us to a glorious place. You’ll see, honey.”

I dreamed of Earth that night. I awoke in the black night and listened to Auntie’s soft snoring while I tried to remember the bright images. When I was littler, I used to mix up the stories about Heaven and Earth. Now that I was older, I knew Heaven was the place with streets of gold, a metal that glows like the sun; and Earth was green all over. I tried to imagine trees that were green all over instead of just on the leaves like the ones here. I had dreamed of elephants with noses that touched the ground and people in orange robes bowing before carved statues. I decided I had to talk to Suzannie. I tiptoed to the doorflap and lifted it carefully. The huts were lighter humps against the black. The stars glittered. I didn’t hear the buzz-whine of a night-bite or any obvious sounds of a predator. Dirt-frogs moaned. Something made tiny rustling noises in the whittle-berry bushes on the other side of the barren field; a slither, perhaps?

I ran, I hoped, in the right direction, found a doorway, and scuttled in. I felt around in the dark until I felt Suzannie’s mat. “Suzannie,” I whispered, “wake up!”

“Huh?”

“It’s me. Move over,” I whispered.

She did and let me lie beside her. I could smell the rottenwood under her pillow.

“Who’s there?” grunted her father,

“Me, Mr, Martins.”

“Anything wrong?”

“No, I’m just going to talk to Suzannie.”

“All right. Keep it quiet.” I could hear him shift under his blankets. He and his wife were agnostics, maybe. They refused to talk about it. They had had five children but only Suzannie lived. I knew many wished she hadn’t, but I liked her even if she couldn’t keep her mind on one thing for very long. Her parents didn’t care that she was a Christian.

I brushed her hair behind her ear, put my mouth next to it, and whispered, “Why are you praying to a rocket?”

“I pray all the time, like you say.”

“You’re supposed to pray to God.”

“Auntie gave it to me. Are you mad?”

“Yes. And I’m not allowed to talk back to Auntie. But it’s wrong.”

“Auntie said I might lose my faith.”

“Where are you going to lose it? Under your mat? If Jesus has you, he’s not going to lose you.”

“I’m not going to talk to you anymore.” She put her hands over her ears. I tried to pull them off, but she buried her head under the blankets. I gave up and wondered what I was supposed to do now.

I was pounding hard-get grain on a stone a few weeks later when Gregory sat beside me to sharpen some spear-tips.

“Hey, you know what your aunt is doing now?”

I knew. My cheeks turned hot.

“She carved another night-grunt and said we’re going to catch one tonight.” He scratched around one of the ulcers on his legs. “Isn’t she funny?”

“No, she isn’t funny. She took care of Mother and me whenever we were sick. I took care of her when she was sick. She’s not funny.”

Gregory rubbed metal against whetstone in silence for a few moments. Then, “I suppose you’ll have your little carving like her and Francis and the Ables and Kadish too.”

“No, I won’t.”

“Will you talk to your aunt?”

“I already have.”

“There’s a lot of people getting upset about this.”

“Like your mother and you.”

“Like me and my mother and the Martins and Halverson.”

I threw my pounding stick down. “Well, what can I do?”

Gregory looked at me. “I don’t know. But I’ll think of something.”

Yellow-grey light seeped into our hut the next morning. My aunt threw a blanket over her bulky body and struggled to get up. “Let’s get our dinner, honey,” she croaked.

“I didn’t hear anything fall in the pit.”

Her voice strengthened. “Have some faith, child. Help me out.”

She leaned against my shoulder and hobbled out into the pale morning. I saw Suzannie and a few others picking their way back from the privy. My aunt nodded at them and started toward the pit. Everyone followed quietly. Gregory passed us, looking determined.

My aunt called out, “Child, haven’t you forgotten your arrows?”

A look of disgust crossed his face, but he went back to get them.

We reached the pit. It was broken in.

“See, O ye of little faith?” said my aunt.

“Meat!” squealed Suzannie.

We drew closer and peered in. At the bottom lay a land-lobster, its claws and teeth and pedicles clicking slightly. Apparently, it had broken its back. A slither had crawled down there and was feeding on it.

“See? There’s no grunt,” I whispered.

“That is a grunt!” she shouted, and glared at me. “Don’t tell me that thing hasn’t eaten grunts. That’s a hundred grunts down there that we could have had! Now that this predator’s dead, we’ll have lots of grunts to eat.”

“That’s true,” said Suzannie in a tiny, frightened voice.

“You could look at it that way,” said Francis slowly.

Gregory ran past us and shot the slither. It writhed a long time before it died. The slither’s meat wasn’t any good to eat, but its scaled skin would make nice bags and its many ribs would make needles. Gregory laughed all the while he was peeling the sandpaper skin off the land-lobster.

“Are you happy, child, that we’ve broken through on how to survive this planet?”

Gregory shook his head. “This is the funniest grunt I’ve ever skinned.”

Cicero Able waved a hand at Gregory. “It’s as good as a hundred grunts. Because it’s dead, we’re going to have more to eat.” He winked. “I just hope I can chew all the food we’re going to have now.” He grinned and showed all the gaps in his teeth.

Every day it seemed another person would decide to carve a rocket, a night-grunt, or a bowl of hard-get grain. Soon there was a heap of stinking, crude rockets near the central cooking fire. Every nightfall and sunrise the growing body of “believers” stood in a circle around the rockets and prayed. I prayed for rescue every morning and night too, but I could not join with them. Soon they were chanting in unison and swaying. My aunt exhorted the people to more faith that things would get better, since they were concentrating right.