Hannah Ross - The Last Outpost - An Antarctic Dystopia

“I save some food for Omrek. He be back soon, will be hungry.”

Egan took the shells and stones he had found outside, and was making a complicated structure out of them, with the help of some mud, in front of the house. His mother observed him from across the open entrance flap, and smiled.

“Children always get dirty,” she observed, like any mother in the world might, and Scott flashed a grin.

“Yes. You should ask my mother about it. She was always washing when my sister and I were little.”

Ki Tahan observed him with interest. “You have a mother? A sister? Far away, across the sea?”

Scott nodded. “A wife, too,” he added. He was not sure why, but he somehow felt it would be dishonest to omit mentioning it.

Ki Tahan’s expression became confused. “A… a woman?” she said. “And you… go away? Why?”

How could he explain? Words like career, degrees and self-fulfillment would mean nothing to these people. “I heard about this land,” finally, slowly, he said. “I wanted to see it. To… to learn it. Can you understand that?”

Her smile showed that she did, perfectly so. “You are like Omrek,” she observed. “He always talk, what is beyond this?” she made a sweeping gesture so that Scott understood she meant not her home, but the whole valley. “Is it all cold and empty? Maybe far are other lands, warm lands. He ask Anders questions. Anders say little, not much. Maybe you say more.”

“Other warm lands are very, very far,” Scott said.

“And…” she hesitated. “You have… children?”

He shook his head. “No, not yet. Just a wife. But I have a nephew and niece. Sister’s children,” he explained, seeing that she did not understand. “Like your brother and your son.”

She nodded. “But how you say goodbye to family? You ever go back to them again?”

“Oh yes,” Scott assured her, “I can go home eventually, when I want to. And my wife might come to me.”

Ki Tahan was listening with rapturous attention. “I never understand,” she said, “how it can be. How go beyond sea? It so big, so cold. But our people, Fathers of Anai, once came here, from the sea. It is said so in our…” she frowned in frustration at lacking the proper word.

“Stories? Legends?” Scott suggested.

“Yes, but also… I show you,” Ki Tahan said and turned to one of the baskets at the head of her bed. All her baskets were sturdy and shapely and beautifully made, but this one especially. The lid was tied down with a twine of fiber rope, and it was obvious it was not often opened. Now she gently removed it and placed it on the bed. Then she pulled out something large and saffron yellow, and Scott, in his astonishment, realized that it is a long garment of fiber, made from a fabric very similar to what he had seen her weaving earlier, but more delicate-looking. He touched it reverently, and Ki Tahan, gratified by his attention, shook it out for him to see.

It was a long dress with wide sleeves. There was no embroidery or pattern of any kind, but the hem, the neckline and the edges of the sleeves were beautifully decorated with many little, smooth, finely polished ivory beads, the making of which must have been the work of many days. There were buttons in front, also made of ivory. The bright yellow color, he guessed, must have come from some of the flowers he had seen in the valley.

“It is beautiful,” Scott said earnestly. He touched the fabric. It was smooth and delicate to the touch, so much that a cotton shirt would feel as scratchy as sawdust compared to it. For a long moment, he was unable to tear his eyes away from the dress, but when he did, he saw that Ki Tahan’s face bore a soft, sad, wistful expression.

“I make this dress myself,” she said, “when I am ready to… to join with Daygan. Then we build our own house, this house, to live and have children.”

Her wedding dress! No wonder she should look at it with mixed feelings. Scott averted his eyes, ashamed of he hardly knew what. She seemed to sense his confusion, and folded the gown away.

“I never wear it,” she said. “Maybe when Omrek takes a woman, I will give to her… or Egan, when he grows, to his woman. If I can. I have other dresses for… how you say? Celebration? You will see sometime, maybe. But I want to show you other thing.”

She dug deeper into the basket, extracted something, and placed it in Scott’s hands. Scott’s fingers twitched as if electrified, and he looked at it in utter fascination.

He admired the ivory carving of the Anai, but this was something beyond what he had imagined. These were little ivory tablets, thin and smooth and made at exactly the same size, all stacked one on top of the other. They were covered with many symbols, some of them looking like hieroglyphs, some like runes, and all joined together in a pattern of perfect beauty. He saw tiny pictures of the rising sun, of birds and animals, of humans holding spears or baskets or little children upon their arms. Each tablet was full of carvings like these, lovingly and painstakingly made, running from top to bottom — or perhaps from bottom to top, he did not know. And the tablets all had tiny holes pierced along one side, through which a thin filament of leather was twined, so that they were joined together, but could be flipped open just like a…

“A book,” Scott whispered reverently. “It is a book!”

Ki Tahan nodded. “It tells the story of Anai,” she said. “How they come from the sea, to find this land and live here. Our elders have other books. About plants and animals, and how to get ready for winter, and to heal sickness and injury, and help mothers in birth.”

Scott’s head was spinning at the thought of a whole ivory-carved library. He ran his finger over the carved symbols. Though these were mentioned in the research papers he had read, he did not imagine they would be so rich and intricate, so much like a work of art. “Can you tell what it says here?” he eagerly asked Ki Tahan. “Can you… teach me to read it?”

She nodded, evidently gratified by his attention. “Yes, I teach you. Omrek and me, we teach Anders some, but he say, is hard to learn. But I think you can learn, if you want much. When Egan older, I teach him. He love to hear Story of Anai.”

At this moment, they heard footsteps, and Ri Omrek came in, carrying his fishing-gear and looking self-conscious. His sister offered him an arch smile and a few quick words, and a blush suffused the young man’s face. He shook his head, laughing, and looked at Scott.

“Stayed at river longer, but got no more fish,” he said.

“Fish found in water, not outside,” Ki Tahan said with a sly glance at Scott, as the joke was evidently meant to be shared with him. Scott could not suppress a quiet chuckle. Ki Tahan’s brother, in dignified silence, picked up the bowl of chowder that his sister had left for him, and began to eat. After the bowl was empty, which took a very short time, he patted his stomach.

“Good food,” he said, “but so little.”

“Who comes late, gets little,” Ki Tahan said. Ri Omrek scowled.

“What about maharak? Is any left?”

Scott had no idea what this meant, but apparently Ki Tahan did, because she clapped herself on the forehead. “I forget! I make some earlier and set it aside.” She took another clay pot off the shelf. It had a lid with a handle, and as she opened it, Scott saw the most surreal sight — what looked like shelled hard-boiled eggs, but with whites transparent rather than actually white, and the bright yellow yolk showing through.

“What is that?” Scott asked, bewildered.

“Comes from bird,” Omrek said, “black and white. Walks like…” and he stuck his elbows a little to the side and swayed on the flat of his feet, imitating a characteristic waddle.