Necahual | Page 7

from this place straight to it.
"Will you even want to be free?" For all I know she has been in a watery cage like this for all her life. She might only be able to conceive of this being her world. Would it be right to set her free?
And if I do, am I not making enemies with the most powerful Azteca? I've seen what they can do. Can the Nanagadan's do anything to protect me? I doubt it, but they've survived so far.
Sound shakes me free. The pane of glass in front of her is covered in mud and silt and she writes something with her index finger.
READ LIPS.
And on the next line.
TAKE ME AWAY.
This is the right thing to do.
Through a gap in the silt on the glass I tap to get her attention.
"Get back."
I'm still wearing exoskeleton armor, and the helmet section slides up with a quick slap of my palm. The glass shards that hit me when I fire the tangle gun at point black don't slice me to shreds.
The lukewarm water and silt, however, drench me.
#
She weighs more than I thought, or I'm weak. Her mossy hair drapes over my shoulder. The smell of seaweed fills the room. I stumble over broken glass with her in my arms and get her into a cart filled with water that Jami left outside for me.
Then the pushing run towards the beach, water slopping out over the sides.
Occasionally she pokes her head out of the draining water and stares at me.
Palm trees rustle and shake. My feet crunch on dirt. A dog barks.
The trail turns down. The beach isn't far. I can hear the rhythmic surf and the wind starts to lift sand into the air and into my eyes.
At the end of the trail I pick her up again, lift her out of the cart and run over the sand, almost tripping, until I'm wading into the salty water. She wriggles free of me.
For a second we stare at each other, then she's gone, a shadow beneath the waves. Was there gratitude. I don't know.
It isn't important. I did what I did.
I strip of the exoskeleton, piece by piece, and throw the useless carcass out into the waves.
Overhead the rumble of engines make me to look up and see a machine climbing into the sky from the house. It is gaudily painted, much like I would expect and Azteca flyer to be. It speeds off into the distance like an angry mosquito.
#
Jami hands me a towel and a drink when I walk through the door. He sits down at a wooden table and just looks at me.
"She leave?" he asks.
"Yes." I nod slowly.
"You'd hope she would stay?"
"I don't know. It doesn't matter. It's done. Acolmiztli?"
Jami smiles.
"He's gone back to his brother."
I take a deep breath and put my hands on the table.
"What am I going to do now?" I ask Jami.
He grabs my hands.
"That one small act of liberation," he tells me, "that little bit of freedom you got her, will have more of an impact than all you ship, you missile, and all you soldier. Understand?"
No, I didn't.
"That lady, her name Necahual. It mean 'survivor.' All this time she been surviving, but that ain't good enough. Now she can have a whole coast, where fishermen will know to feed her. Until she can recover. Because surviving not enough. You can't just survive, Kiyoshi. You must do better than that. And right now The League just surviving. Like you.
"So you just the beginning. The League, we have a lot to offer them too. Along with the Azteca. How to accommodate and incorporate. We been learning how to do this since Mother Earth when were all islanders." He slaps the table. "And we get better and better. Most places, always they get caught up in ruling, dominating, becoming greater, and then falling apart." Jami leans forward. "We learn how to stay outside that, man. It ain't easy," he says. "Always a struggle. But for a much greater good."
I pull my hands free.
"So what do I do right now?" I ask. "How do we start all this?"
Jami leans back in his chair.
"For now, just to talk to me, man. Don't look for information, or try to resolve anything, or figure it all out. Just talk."
I relax a bit.
"And tomorrow?"
Jami smiles.
"There's going to be a lot of work tomorrow. A whole lot of it. We go be very busy."
There is one last thing.
"And the aliens you talked about?"
"I'm looking right at you," Jami laughs.
I freeze my face. I'm nervous about this. All my life I've been scared of them, fighting them, forcing them out of The League.
"Tomorrow," Jami says. "One step at a time, we show you how."
I breathe again. Slowly, savoring the air.
It's more than just surviving. It's living.