Free The Children Star by Joan Slonczewski Page A

enough, there appeared a footpath, half-overgrown with bushes that made wheelgrass seem like a paved road. Undaunted, the travelers took the side path, heading down toward the midst of the waterfall.
    Now he remembered. There would be a hole in the mountain, an opening to a tunnel behind the waterfall which powered Sarai’s laboratory. “It’s all right, keep up,” he urged Chae, who hung back, reluctant to get soaked in the mist from the falls.
    Rod dismounted, and bade Chae do likewise while they felt their way. At their left, they met sudden darkness.
    An invisible cavity seemed to open. The llamas stumbled into the dark, whining in complaint. Gaea whimpered, and Rod took her out of the pack to comfort her. As his eyes adjusted, patches of green light glimmered, revealing a low ceiling. They were plants that glowed in the dark, plants with real leaves—Sharer plants.
    A large long-legged insect swirled about their heads, making a clicking noise. It was a clickfly. The Sharer insect veered back down the tunnel, whose ceiling bristled with dog-tooth calcite crystals as big as Rod’s thumb. “It’s a messenger,” Rod told Chae. “Let’s follow it.”
    Suddenly the cavern filled with light.
    â€œMessenger indeed.” Sarai appeared, several clickflies perched on her scalp and arms. Smoothly purple from head to toe, she had not a stitch on; Rod felt embarrassed, for he had forgotten to warn the children. But Sharers somehow look clothed enough as they are. Sarai added, “I’ve had reports of you for the past half hour, driving those miserable beasts of yours across the rocks.”
    Rod sketched a star. “Thanks so much for seeing us.” He introduced the children. “T’kun is the one you need to see. We are forever in your debt.”
    Sarai flexed her fingerwebs, and a clickfly flew off. “Bother all that.” She eyed him sharply. “It’s the one in your arms I need to see. What lamentable shape she’s in. Child abuse.”
    Rod held Gaea tighter. “She needs help, too,” he admitted.
    Sarai turned and headed down the tunnel. “I don’t know,” she muttered, “I just don’t know about you clerics. Raising children you can’t afford.” Her scalp had a fine down of hair, suggesting a Valan ancestor back a generation or two. She led them to chamber full of tangled vines, like a greenhouse. She gestured at T’kun to sit here, and Gaea there. The vines sneaked over and twined around each of them unnervingly; undomesticated varieties could be carnivorous.
    Rod patted their shoulders gently. “Sit very still.” These vines, lifeshaped for their task, would sample minute traces of their tissues and body fluids. The children kept still, as if awed by their strange surroundings, their wide eyes casting around them.
    Sarai flicked her webbed hand at Chae, and she pointed to a bowl of fruit. “Eat something; you’re too small for your age.”
    The messenger insect hovered above T’kun, watching.It nestled amongst the vines for a while, then it went to the ceiling, where it started to weave an intricate web. Sarai watched the web intently as it grew.
    â€œThe boy is full of bruises,” Sarai announced. “What have you done to him?”
    Rod’s hands clenched. “The journey is not easy, as you know. He could only hold on with one arm.”
    â€œHis bone is fine,” she announced. “The bruises will also be fine.”
    Rod let out a long sigh. “Thanks so much. We won’t trouble you any further.”
    â€œThe girl will take me longer.”
    He blinked. “You mean—you can help her?”
    Sarai fed a bit of what smelled like fish to her vines. “She needs to regenerate her spinal cord.” Sarai nodded toward a particularly large vine straggling over the wall, whose blooms spanned the length of his arm. “She’ll hatch from