Khe by Razevich Alexes

Author:Razevich, Alexes [Razevich, Alexes]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-09-05T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

To show respect to the creator, obey your leader.

--The Rules of a Good Life

Soumyo is a word hardly anyone uses. It names our species and means all the doumanas and males combined. Since male and female live apart, there’s little reason to use a word meaning both, except when new laws come down that affect us all. But Azlii uses that word now.

“In the Before,” Azlii says, leaning her back against the wall behind the bright green pillow she sits on, “there were soumyo, no different in looks from us, but very different in their way of living. They didn’t live their whole lives in one place, the way kler and commune dwellers do. They lived like corentans, in communities that traveled the planet freely. And like corentans now, the soumyo were in harmony with the walls that sheltered them, and the plants and beasts that fed and clothed them. They lived as part of a sentient whole.”

The door to the receiving room yawns open and a new doumana comes into the room.

“This is Tanez,” Inra says, “who gave you your hip wrap and foot casings.”

If someone judged all doumanas by this new one and myself, they would think we came in only one size, shape, and color. Tanez’s skin is the same shade of red as mine and we have similar full mouths, though her eyes are a slightly lighter shade of brown. She sits across from Azlii, next to me. The other doumanas make me nervous, but Tanez feels like an open door that lets in the breeze.

I turn my attention back to the corentan.

“When was this?” I ask.

“The Before stretches to the beginning of time,” Azlii says. “It ends when the Powers came.”

“Arose, you mean,” I say. “The Powers arose from among us.”

Azlii’s mouth pulls taut. “The Powers arrived. And they aren’t soumyo. They’re … different.”

I tsk my tongue on the roof of my mouth. “I’ve seen the Powers on the vision stage. Not often, but enough to know they look like you and me.”

“What you’ve seen are kler doumanas who do the Powers’ bidding,” Azlii says, and shrugs. “Why not? No doubt you’ve carried out another’s command.”

“My commune leaders’ orders.”

Azlii smiles as if I’ve just proved her point.

“Well, then, how do these doumanas get their commands?” I ask her. “Do the Powers live in the klers?”

“No one knows where the Powers stay,” Larta says, answering instead of Azlii. She fingers the guardian insignia on a bracelet encircling her left wrist. “The orders come as text on a small, special vision stage in Administration House.”

These doumanas have quick answers for all my questions, quick enough that they sound worked out in advance.

“How do you know how the orders come?” I ask.

“Because I’ve seen it,” Larta says. “I’m First of the guardians in Chimbalay. It’s my duty to make sure the Powers’ orders and policies are enforced. The Powers believe they should directly contact the doumana responsible for carrying out their edicts. That way no one can blame her failures on having heard an order second hand.

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