Pathways - Jeri Taylor [41]
“Hello,” he said, and was sorrowed to see that she started and drew back at the sound. Her eyes, in the daylight, were glittering, prismatic disks of orange and yellow, but even in their strangeness he could see fear.
“I won’t hurt you,” Harry assured her, and was gratified to see that she seemed to relax slightly. “I’m the one whose boots you tried to steal last night. No hard feelings.”
She turned away, chewing on a lip that was cracked and sore. Her face was grimy, her hair a matted mess, but to Harry she possessed an unearthly beauty. “Do you have a name?” he asked. “I’m Harry.”
The response was so soft he could barely hear her. “Coris,” she said.
“Are you part of a group? Do you have friends here?” She shook her head, and Harry saw a moistness gather in her unusual eyes. Harry held his hand toward her. “Come with me,” he offered. “You’ll be safer with us.”
There was a long silence, and then she reached out a hand and took his. It was tiny, again reminding him of a cat’s paw. He pulled her to her feet, which were bare and swollen. She reminded him of a fragile bird, all bone and feather, heart beating wildly, ready to fly at a hint of danger. She stood patiently by the marsh as he and the others filled their containers with the murky water and then headed back down the road they called Broadway, toward their camp.
Coris said nothing during the entire walk, but kept her eyes fastened on the ground in front of her. When they reached their camp, Chakotay spotted her and raised an inquisitive brow, at which Harry shrugged sheepishly and said, “She followed me home, sir.”
Chakotay smiled and said nothing else, and so young Coris the Saccul became part of their group.
Rations that evening consisted of a handful of wet mush that smelled foul and tasted worse. It was full of bulbous sacs which, when punctured, ran a thin green juice that was bilious. Yet the crew from Voyager, and their new guest, ate it as though it were rice pudding. They were realizing that the grain cake from the night before wasn’t adequate nourishment for twenty-four hours, and they were famished.
They had lit small fires against the chill, and their temporarily filled stomachs had once again given them a sense of well-being. They were alive, uninjured, and had shelter; tomorrow they would begin investigating the possibilities of escape.
Chakotay turned to Harry. “It’s your turn to be storyteller, Harry,” he said. “Let’s hear about your trials with Nimembeh.”
“Like you said last night, Commander, it goes a little deeper than that. It’s kind of—about my whole life.”
“I told you mine—we’d love to hear yours.”
Harry glanced quickly at Coris. Something made him uncomfortable launching into his life’s story in front of her. She was stretched out on the ground, head cradled in her arms, looking more contented than she had this afternoon, eyelids flickering shut against the welcoming heat of the fire. She was going to sleep.
Relieved, Harry turned to the others, and saw they were waiting eagerly. He guessed that here, in this hostile place, even the unremarkable story of Harry Kim’s life was a welcome distraction. He determined to try to make it sound as interesting as possible.
CHAPTER
4
THE FIRST MEMORIES WERE OF MUSIC. THE STRUMMING OF the P’i P’a and his mother’s delicate voice, wafting through shafts of sunlight that dissected the room with gentle planes of gold.
He stood in his crib, pudgy arm extended, fingers straining to reach the motes that swam in the sunlight, hearing the tranquil sounds of his mother’s voice as she sang.
The enticing motes danced just out of his reach. It was a problem that required a solution, even if fifteen-month-old Harry Kim couldn’t yet think of it in those terms. He wanted the tantalizing little specks in the same way he wanted nourishment: it was an unnamed need and it drove him powerfully. His hands clasped the rail of the crib and he