Khe by Alexes Razevich Page B

“Luck.”
    “Skill!”
    “Weather-prophets have names. Everybody has a name. Mine is Khe. What’s yours?”
    “Marnka.” She spat the word at me, and fell silent. The spots on her neck glowed bright yellow with amazement.
    “Marnka,” I said. “It’s a good name.”
    “It is,” she said.
    “I think your story must be good, too. I’d like to hear it.”
    “Oh, yes,” she said. “It’s quite the tale. Fetch us food and firewood and I will tell you what they did to me.”

Chapter Thirteen
    To uphold your responsibility to the new generations, choose your mate for strength and beauty, and with great care .
    --The Rules of a Good Life
    The fire was crackling, the smoke drawn up and out of fissures in the cave’s ceiling. Marnka had made a mélange of the jipini berries, tano, and denish that I’d found. It was scant, but delicious, the way any food is to the truly hungry.
    “I have been trying to remember all day,” Marnka said, licking a last bit of mélange off her fingers. “All day trying and mostly failing. Some memories are there. I can recall my kler and how it looked—the walls and structures. Huge black buildings, rising into the sky.” A shiver trembled across her shoulders. Her voice fell to a whisper. “There were needles and drugs. There was a dark room and a voice saying the same thing over and over. There was agony. I remember screaming.”
    A shiver ran through me as well. I remembered waking in Morvat Research Center, the overwhelming brightness of the colors, the unbearable noise. But I received something I wanted for my pain. I didn’t think it was the same for her.
    Marnka drew up her knees to her chest and laid her forehead on them. Her back rose and fell with labored breathing. Finally, she looked up.
    “There were seven weather-prophets in Chimbalay,” she said. “We shared a dwelling. From the window, I could see all the way to the central commons. I would sit there and watch how the seasons changed the kler, the light glancing off the glass walls of the buildings in First Warmth, the rivulets of soft rain in Bounty Season, the way my breath would sometimes cloud the windows during Cooling, the quilt of snow over the streets in Barren Season.”
    She blinked rapidly, and then rubbed her neck. “I remember this. I’m not making it up from madness.” She pulled her spine straight and glared at me.
    At Lunge, Simanca had warned us never to talk to babblers because they lied and didn’t know it. Their disease made them do it, just as their disease took away their names and the will to live.
    But Marnka was still alive. And she remembered her name. Or she’d made one up. Did it matter whether you called yourself the name you were given or one you chose yourself? A name was nothing but a sound others used to get your attention, or to mean you in their mind. Marnka served well for either purpose for us.
    “I believe you,” I said.
    The rigid stiffness in her back relaxed.
    “How much do you know about Chimbalay kler?” she asked.
    “Chimbalay is the Region Seat, where the best orindles and the Powers, those who set the quotas for all the country commune’s, the lawmakers, and the price-setters live.”
    One spot on Marnka’s neck lit ochre with impatience. “You think you know about Chimbalay, but you don’t. Klers are walled for a reason. Walls keep the secrets inside. Do you know why all the weather-prophets live in klers?”
    “To make sure they’re qualified,” I answered, glad that Tav had drilled us on this when we were hatchlings. “It used to be that each commune had its own prophet. When a commune’s prophet returned to the creator, the available hatchlings were tested and the one showing the most ability selected as the new foreteller. Some were good. Some weren’t. A bad prophet could mean doom.”
    “At least you know a little something,” Marnka said.
    I cleared my throat. “After a disastrous year when several prophets hadn’t seen a coming