I'm still in bed. Mom and Dad must've let me sleep. They know the howling wind gives me insomnia.It roared all night, and it was like my heart pounded with the howling. I couldn't breathe thinking of that swarm of whatever,and tried to find them with my mindsight, but it wasn't working at all. Did I even sleep more than an hour? I open one eye to check my wrist miniQ. It's late. Eleven thirty! Muffled voices in the kitchen don't sound like them.
I roll out of bed, shove my stump in my bionic foot, and head across the hall to the kitchen in my pajamas. Aana and Taata are at the table. She's puffing her pipe. He's drinking coffee.
"Where are they?" I ask, pushing hair out of my face, rubbing my eyes.
"We don't know yet." Aana shakes her head, and shrugs.
"Talk to the commander?" I ask.
Taata shakes his head, expressionless. "Commander Eetuk is supposed to call at twelve thirty."
My eyes go wide, and my heart skips a beat. I'm instantly awake and really cold.
Mig appears at my feet with the red ball in his mouth.
"Play!"He says, and sends a picture of me throwing it.
"Not now, Mig." I lean over, stroke his head, and start to shiver.
Aana puts her pipe in the ashtray, stands, walks over and wraps her arm around my shoulder, turns me around, and walks me to my bedroom.
"First go shower, then put clean clothes on, and make your braid," she says. "I'll make breakfast. When the commander calls, we'll get the facts."
I take her arm and turn, holding it tight, and wrap it around me from behind. Hugging her tattooed arm, I lean into her pillowy chest that envelops me like a cradle and inhale her soothing, smokey smell.
***
I try to eat Aana's pancakes, but after three bites I can't. It's like my stomach has a door that just slammed shut. We're sitting at the table, waiting for the call. No one's talking except Mig, beside me on the floor, begging for pancake.
"More!"He pleads on his hind legs, his front paws on my thigh, his chin on my lap.
I scratch between his ears, then tear a pancake with my fingers, and drop a piece on the floor. If this were any other day, Aana would scold, "Don't make fox your begging boy!" She doesn't say anything now.
The kitchen lightscreen flashes a brown, wrinkled face in a WEAPP cap.
"Commander Eetuk call...," it announces.
"Answer!"I shout, and drop the rest of the pancake on the floor.
"Haluuġivsi," he nods Inupiaq 'Hello,' and takes off his cap. His kind eyes twinkle under the heavy folds of his eyelids. His short, gray hair looks freshly cut.
Aana and Taata nod back.
"What happened? Where are they?" I plead.
He tilts his head, and looks straight down at me, "Luki, I am ve.....sorry. Your parents were attac...... by a swarm of Blue Trance Micr.....olts."
"Drones!" I gasp. "Are they....?" My eyes instantly fill with tears.
Aana moves next to me and holds my hand.
The commander continues. "Blue Tra..........cro Bolts overpower targets by releas..... chemical agents to anestheti...... them."
"Huh?"Taata asks frowning.
"The drones can kill," he pauses, "but, their prim......urpose is to induce unconsciou.............."
"So what about Mom and Dad?" I squeak, my throat dry, my palms wet and clammy.
He swallows,squinting and speaks slowly, deliberately. "We don't know.........ey're alive."
Aana bites her lip, and wraps both arms around me.
"The Barracuda was recov......... Russian WEAPPs found it............Chuckchi Sea, drifting in.......Siberian coast....current."
He lowers his voice, not quite a whisper, "Russian arachnibots comb...the beach of plastiglomerate fou.........eir helmets and vests...ash up at Uelen."
"How long you keep looking?" Taata asks.
"We will contin..........rescue operation today an..........orrow, but onl........til noon." Commander Eetuk nods.
Taata nods,"Aarigaa," Inupiaq 'good.'
"After tha..........becomes a recovery operati......." Commander Eetuk pauses and sighs. "However," he hesitates, "based on.....size of the swarm...we suspe.......White Wolf wanted the Sloans dea...."
My brain goes blank. I can't breathe. It's like a walrus is on my chest. No one says anything.
Finally, in a calm voice Aana asks, "How big was it?"
The commander's eyebrows crunch together, his forehead wrinkles, and he instantly looks sad. "...ue Trance Mic....Bolts are the smallest militar....grade drone. The size of a sm.....dragon fly." He holds up his thumb and index finger with a quarter inch spread. "Footage......the Russ..... WEAPPs suggest," he inhales, and his words slow down,"the swarm field contain.....over ten thous....."
Aana gasps softly.
"...Surviving an attack..... large...well, I ju.....on't know," he shakes his head, "...it's enough to anestheti....least a dozen polar bea...."He says, shaking his head, and closes his eyes. "I'm sorry." He nods, and puts his cap on.
"I will call y....ith news. Naanaakun," 'Goodbye.' He says, and the lightscreen goes black.
I burst into tears, stand up fast and turn. My bionic foot catches the chair, and pulls it over as I race to my room. I dive to my bed sobbing, bury my head in the pillow and cry myself to sleep.
When I wake, Aana is on the bed sitting next to me. It's dark outside. The wind has died down. My eyes burn, feel like slits. My cheeks swollen...probably look Inupiaq. Open my mouth to speak, but Aana puts a chubby finger to my lips to shush me.
"Ataaaaaaaaa,"she says softly, shakes her head and whispers, "Before we know everything, we don't know anything," and takes my hand in hers. "We will get through this together and learn everything."
I nod as tears drift down my temples into my hair.
"Piqpavagin, Luki." 'I love you.' She says and reaches for a glass of water on my bedside table, and holds it toward me.
I sit up, take the glass and drink it down.
"Quyanaq,"'thank you,' I say.
I take a deep breath, "Aana," I pause, "what if they don't find them?"
She reaches over to move the hair out of my eyes, sighs, looks at the ceiling,then back at me. "Let's not play 'if' games. We wait and see."She nods.
"Okay," I nod, and my stomach growls really loudly.
"Of course you're hungry." She says and stands. "Let's get food."
"I'll check the farmoire for a ripe tomato." I say, and follow her into the hall.
The farmoire is next to my room. Dad set it up last year. He divided the storage room in half and installed gobs of equipment. A maxiQ computer, shelves with grow trays, lights, heat, humidifier, and hoses. Then he got a seed vault with five hundred different seeds.Climate variables like air temperature, carbon dioxide, and humidity are all adjustable. We can grow anything, for ourselves, and the villagers. We've only grown lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers so far.
The hot, humid air and bright lights hit me as I open the farmoire door.It's harsh. I have to shield my eyes. There's a small aisle in the middle with shelves on either side. One side has trays with different lettuces stacked apart. The other has two rows of dwarf tomato plants. I pick two tomatoes, a small head of lettuce and head to the kitchen.
Aana scrambles a couple of murre eggs while I make a salad. She and Taata sit at the table in silence while I eat. Aana sips a cup of her Labrador tea. Taata sits like a stone statue, an inuksuk. He doesn't move a muscle the whole time. He's inside himself, listening to feelings. Tuned to awareness beyond his senses.
He taught me to sit at the water's edge when I was six years old, to learn how to feel when a walrus or seal is coming to shore. It can take all day, just sitting, staring at the water...feeling for the animals that eventually come from under the water. Once I have that feeling, like a golden rope growing from my stomach to the animal, I know the walrus or seal is there too, and within seconds it will surface to breathe.
Sitting at the table like a quiet mountain, like inuksuk that marks the way,it's like Taata can see through the kitchen wall, down to the icy edge of the Strait, and out across the water to Russia and the Chuckchi Sea.
I stare at the last piece of tomato on my plate when Taata looks at me and asks, "Maybe get Tuttuk going tonight, huh Luki?"
I don't know what I feel like doing...I want to help somehow, but what can I do? Nothing. I feel so helpless. "Maybe." I answer, and smash the tomato with my fork. Red juice squirts on my white shirt.