Page 24 of Planet Zero
Addie shook her head slowly.
Melmie tried again. “If you find yourself in danger, no one will help you. You’re the Fallen.”
“What kind of danger?”
“Say, you go foraging and are surrounded by snarling Gosors, and there is a great number of them. Even if people see you, no one will help, not even your pawi. You will die and get eaten.”
“What is a pawi?”
The question startled Melmie. “Pawi. I came from my pawi. Oh’na came from hers.”
Mother! Pawi meant mother. “Your pawi wouldn't come to your rescue?”
“What can one pawi do against a great number of Gosors?” Melmie asked, unperturbed.
“If it were my daughter, I’d run and hack all those Gosors to pieces.”
Melmie chuckled. “You’d die along with your daughter. And if we lose two people instead of one,that’sunfair to the tribe. Every life is precious.”
“And Zoark’s life isn’t precious?”
“Crippled, he’s only a burden to those who care about him.”
Addie had a hard time internalizing this, but she wasn’t the one who made For rules, and it didn’t appear like a vote would be cast any time soon to change them.
She abandoned the issue altogether and focused on the women.
So, Illied was Melmie’s mother.
Addie turned to Chele. “And are you Oh’na’s pawi?”
The older woman frowned, her face acquiring that original closed-off expression Addie had first observed.
“No. I am a pawi to Oh’na’s pawi.”
A grandmother, then, and not one that encouraged personal questions.
They hadn’t spoken again until they reached a plateau where Elm plants grew, a dwarf bush with sparse skinny leaves on bare branches laden with baby-pink two-halved fruit. They very distantly reminded Addie of peaches, and the contrast between the bright fruit and dry kindle sticks on which they grew presented a picture that was unusual and otherworldly. Like most things were on Planet Zero.
Collecting the fruit proved to be an easy task, and soon their containers were filled to bursting.
“We will come back tomorrow,” Chele remarked. “The Elm fruit season is short. Better get as much as we can now.”
Addie listened with great attention, already planning to ask to be included.
“Are the Elm fruit ripe now?” she asked.
“Very ripe,” Illied affirmed.
Addie picked one and bit into it. And immediately spat it out. It tasted bitter and astringent, like under-ripe wild persimmon.
The women laughed, particularly little Oh’na who found everything about Addie exceedingly unusual and funny.
Chele covered her laughing mouth with the back of her hand. “No, not raw. We slice them and leave them in the sun to dry. The sun makes them sweet.”
Addie spat the remnants of the taste out but her mouth was coagulated thanks to the fruit’s nasty substance, and she had a hard time generating any saliva. It had been a while since she made the mistake of trying stuff without consulting old-timers first, but the excitement of finding a company temporarily robbed her of common sense.
Her silly action had gone a long way toward breaking the ice. When Addie asked to come tomorrow, she was easily accepted.
