Dark Matters_ Ghost Dance (Book 2) - Christie Golden [60]
Chakotay watched intently, all his dislike of the Trickster gone. Something important was transpiring here. He still didn't know why Coyote was coming to him in dreams and visions, but he was going to pay attention, just in case.
"Some say man was made out of clay," said Coyote in a singsong voice. "Some say that Coyote created him, just like this, to trick the other animals. Others say he was crafted from stardust." He fixed Chakotay with those yellow eyes. "Or planted on Earth, a sort of seed from another world. Who knows the real truth? Coyote does, Coyote does!"
He fiddled with his sand man, scraping a few grains here, packing some in there. "Whoops," he said, "got a little dark sand right here. Let's get rid of it, shall we?" With a pointed forefinger, he touched the sand man's head. It crumbled at his touch, followed by the rest of the body.
Coyote blew on the pile of sand in his palm. It
flew up into a dust devil and launched itself at Chakotay's face, stinging his eyes.
He gasped and found himself awake, safe inside the little hut that the Culilann had constructed for him and Tom, his heart hammering within his chest. He was bathed in sweat and his skin was hot to the touch, as if he had been standing for a long time under a hot desert sun, though he knew he had no fever.
Dark matter. It was dark matter-inside him that was making him see Coyote. He marveled at the wonders of the human brain and soul, because even when distorted by dark matter, they were giving him an important message.
Dark matter was inside the sand man that Coyote had created. The attempt to remove it had destroyed the sand man.
Something very bad was about to happen.
Chakotay rose and silently went to the small table at the far end of the hut. He poured water into a bowl and splashed his face, trying to make sense of the dream. It was too logical, in its strange, illogical way, to be simply a dream. He poured some more water from the pitcher into a cup, took a few sips, then went to the window and opened the crude shutters.
It was the deep heart of the night, the quietest hour. Even the night things that called and whistled to one another from the depths of the rain forest seemed hushed. The thick, moist air had settled to the ground as a ghostly fog. This planet had moons very similar to Earth's single luminous orb, and their cool, milky radiance bathed the plants and tinged the slow-moving fog with silver.
Coyote was the Trickster. He loved to joke and play pranks, some more dangerous than others. Some legends said that he created man as a joke or an experiment. Was the dark sand the dark matter, or merely the darkness that dwelt in every human heart, even the brightest and kindest?
But Tialin had cleansed them of the dark matter, had extracted it and placed it into that glowing purple sphere. He and Tom at least were-
But this place wasn't. These people weren't. And who knew whether he and Tom had been reinfected since their arrival. He knew, in a way the Culilann could not, how very different he and Tom were from them. Not just in their embracing of science and technology, but also in their very cells. The Doctor had said something about Khala's DNA sequencing being almost backward from that of humans. Did that apply to everything? Did it apply to the birds he could hear? Was their DNA a complete inversion of that of a parrot or a macaw? The plants, what about them?
And were they all infected with dark matter?
Chakotay made a decision without even realizing that he had been in debate with himself. Kind as the Culilann were, and much as he had grown to like them, he and Tom