The First Jumper

02: Gerleesh: Bad Sun

As she walked to the joining, Gerleesh looked nervously at the sky.

The world around her was beautiful, but not as beautiful as it had been. The ferns still reached for the blue sky, and the Loffa still bloomed, but there was less noise than there should have been. The beetles were out there, but they were not as active as they should be.

If the beetles don't get into the Loffa, we will starve, Gerleesh thought, glancing once more upward.

The sun was bright, hot, and yellow, and it felt good, as Gerleesh began her long climb to the joining place.

About thirty degrees behind the sun, the problem stood just above the horizon. It had always been there, as long as her people had records. They had worshiped it as a two-eyed god, and they had reviled it as a devil, and neither had made any difference. It did, from time to time, ravage their world like a particularly vengeful god, but they had long understood what it truly was.

In addition to the sun, two lights showed bright and visible in the morning sky. At night, Gerleesh knew she could see the thread that connected the little white one to the dimmer big red one. Her people used to say that was the mother nursing her new hatchling, but now they knew it was one star robbing matter from another star. As new material collapsed onto the star that was taking it in, the star would periodically flare, sleeting Gerleesh's planet with large amounts of damaging radiation.

The long-term threat was much greater, but with a quick vibrating shudder, Gerleesh directed her attention to the top of the hill, which she was now approaching.

The little monument had been the place of joinings for her people for thousands of years. Her mothers had all climbed this hill alone, to give an egg, or else to receive one to be fertilized, loved, and nurtured.

It was a moment Gerleesh had dreamed of her entire life, but with the bright binary threatening death and destruction above her, she wished she had insisted they do this underground.

All around the monument, her family and friends stood. Approaching from the other side of the hill came G'hosh, her pouch clearly full of ripening egg. Two friends walked beside her, as was tradition. Ahreesh waited for her daughter before the edge of the pedestal, holding the black Loffa.

Gerleesh reached deep into the flower, her feathers filling with its pollen. She slurped the nectar that was at its base, including the beetles that only lived in the black Loffa. As she swallowed, she imagined she could already feel her body changing, preparing to receive the egg.

G'hosh and Gerleesh alone stepped up onto the circular pedestal, four strides across. They stood, facing one another, until Gerleesh began to sway a little on her feet. The world was changing, and colors were becoming more intense. As the black loffa began to take effect upon her, she felt as if she could float out of her body.

Gerleesh took a deep breath, and started the ritual phrases.

"Is the egg well?" she asked.

"It is," said G'hosh.

"Have you nurtured and cared for it?"

"I have loved it with all my heart."

"Is it ready to be awakened?"

"No. It is only half a child. It requires another to pour her soul into it, before it can be complete."

Now we come down to it, Gerleesh thought to herself, and she barely managed to still her excited trembling.

"I will pour my soul into her, G'hosh, and your child shall become my child."

"She shall become your child, then. Let us dance!"

The two began a formal stepping about one another, in a pattern that became more and more intricate and intimate, until they spiraled in to the point at which their pouches were touching. Then G'hosh gasped, "Take her!" and Gerleesh reached in and took the heavy egg from G'hosh.

She lifted it carefully free from the other pouch, and just as carefully slid it into her own.

Then they resumed the dance in reverse, and if any noticed that both were vibrating, none mentioned it. They were entitled to cry, Gerleesh with joy, and G'hosh with both joy and loss.

Halfway through the separation dance, G'hosh stumbled, and several cried out. It wasn't a big stumble, and she recovered quickly, but the idea of superstitious omens had not entirely been lost with increasing civilization. Gerleesh did not allow herself to stumble or react, but her worries sprang out afresh.

When they had reached the point of separation at which they had begun, they saluted each other with bending legs, then turned and stepped off the platform on opposite sides.

Gerleesh's friends and family gathered about her. She looked back to see G'hosh stepping off the hill with her two friends, who were supporting her.

"She will be fine," her mother said. "She will grieve for a day or two, but then she will recover."

"Have you ever given an egg, mother?"

"You know I have, twice," said Ahreesh. "It is not as special as the first time you receive one, but it is still very special, although you are sad, after."

"Sorry you did it?"

Ahreesh laughed. "I should let you find that out for yourself, but no, certainly not! It won't make you immortal, like your experience with your daughter is about to do, but it is still special and wonderful." She hesitated, then said, "You will have plenty of time for that later. Your daughter is going to require all your energy, for many years."

The celebration continued for half the day, before Gerleesh could get back to her sleeping pouch and rest. Exhausted from all the emotions of the day, she fell asleep very quickly.

She slept well, but her dreams were all about G'hosh stumbling in the joining dance.

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