Wolves and War Page 17

By now verbal conversations between the children and their Lind were improving. All twenty-four and Afanasei talked in a polyglot mixture of Standard and Lindish and could make themselves understood in all but the more abstract ideas.

  The quickest at this were Tara and Kolyei and it became usual for them to interpret. It was Tara who Kath approached when they were about halfway across the plains to discuss a specific problem.

  “Tara,” said the elder girl, “is Alan happy? He seems so quiet and withdrawn. Even Peter, homesick as he is, talks more about his home and family. I wondered if you could talk to his Kiltya?”

  “He’s not missing his home if that’s what you think,” answered Tara, who was an astute young person.

  “I’ve noticed he never mentions his family. Last night when we were all talking even you were laughing about what our people will say when we return.”

  Their Lind had taken great pains to explain to their children that the separation was to be a temporary one only and that they would be going back east one day.

  “Alan never said a word,” added Kath.

  Tara pondered the problem.

  “Kolyei says that Kiltya told him that Alan doesn’t want to go back. It’s only him and an uncle and Alan doesn’t like him very much.”

  “Has he no other family?”

  “They died in the storm, like mine.”

  “Sorry kitten, I didn’t want to open old wounds.”

  “It’s okay, I’ve accepted it now, more or less. I still miss them horribly but Papa wouldn’t have wanted me to fret. He always said that if anything happened to separate us that I must go on and be happy. I’m trying very hard. Kolyei helps a lot. Kiltya would too, if Alan would let her, but he won’t.”

  “Would it help do you think if I tried to talk to him?”

  “Don’t think it’d do much good,” said Tara. “You were a member of the ship’s crew. I think he blames the crew for not getting to his family in time. You talking might make him worse.”

  “I’ve seen him talking to you.”

  “A bit, nothing more than being polite, but he’s not rude to me. The rest shy away from him.”

  “I’d noticed that too.”

  Kath thought for a bit.

  “Could you try to get closer to him? You lost your parents too and he might open up to you, tell you what’s wrong. I hate to ask, but Matvei says his behaviour is upsetting Kiltya.”

  As if things weren’t difficult enough already, thought the younger girl, but being Tara, she hated to see someone unhappy.

  “I’ll try,” she said at last.

  The next morning they breakfasted early and prepared to take the trail. Tara, with an apologetic look at Peter who liked to travel with Tara and Kolyei, stepped up to Alan.

  “Would you care to ride beside Kolyei and me?” she offered in a bright voice.

  “No.”

  Tara tried again.

  “Please Alan, I would like to get to know your Kiltya.”

  Alan shrugged and replied indifferently. “If you like.”

  Kath watched with approval and turned to a stricken-faced Peter, who was already mounted on Radya.

  “And I will ask Peter if he and Radya will be Matvei and my partners,” she looked up at the boy with a smile.

  Peter perked up at once. Kath and Matvei usually led the way and he was young enough to think that it was a great honour to be in the lead although he would miss Tara’s stories.

  Kath, primed by Tara, was ready for this.

  “I’ll tell you about the time on the ship when I started crew training,” she said persuasively. “Would you like that?”

  “True stories or make-believe?”

  “True stories,” she said firmly as she swung her leg over Matvei’s back and made herself comfortable. Kath’s story-telling abilities were on a far lesser scale than Tara’s, who could keep her friends entertained for hours at a time, but she was sure she would be able to keep one ten-year old boy amused for one morning.

  Meanwhile, Tara was finding the going tough with Alan. He responded in monosyllables if he deigned to say anything at all. After a few hours Tara wished Kath had given the task to someone else. At lunch break he moved away, ignoring her invitation to come and sit beside her.

  She caught Kath’s eye and grimaced, but Kath knew her Tara, she wouldn’t give up easily.

  Despite Alan’s pointed disinterest, she moved over to sit beside him and began again, chattering away about nothing and everything.

  When they set out again she placed herself and Kolyei beside him and Kiltya and began to talk about the space storm and what had happened to her own family.

  Alan tensed up as she began, his back ramrod straight and his visage one of affronted disapproval.

  “How can you talk about it?” he burst out.

  “Why not?” was her reasonable answer. “It happened, nothing can change it.”

  She caught a quick encouraging look from Kiltya and ‘felt’ Kolyei’s support.

  “Why shouldn’t I?” she asked again.

  “Because it’s wrong.”

  “What? Wrong to remember them? Wrong to talk about it?”

  “I lost my family too,” he whispered, “and it’s all my fault.”

  “Why?”

  He raised a stricken face towards her.

  “I should have helped get my brothers and sisters into their cabinets but I didn’t. I just ran into the nearest one and shut the door.”

  Tara prayed for guidance. She certainly hadn’t expected this.

  “It wouldn’t have made any difference,” she said. “It all happened so quickly, I know. All that would’ve happened if you’d stayed to help would be that you died too.”

  “Better that than this.”

  “You mustn’t say that. Life is precious. I may be younger than you but I realise that. Your family would be glad you’ve survived. It’s up to you now to make the most of your life. Don’t live in bitterness or thinking of what might have been. I think of my parents and Mark every day, but not sad thoughts.”

  She fumbled for the next words.

  “I share my memories with Kolyei. It helps. You should do the same with Kiltya. She’s lost family too.”

  Kolyei had told Tara something about Kiltya’s history so she felt pretty sure this advice was right. “At least promise me you’ll think about it.”

  Alan’s reply was a bad-tempered grunt.

  Tara had shot her bolt and they rode on in silence.

  That evening, however, and for the first time, she noticed Alan taking his time settling Kiltya for the night and although he remained separate from the jolly banter round the fire, he cuddled down beside her to sleep.

  As, in his turn, Kolyei settled down, wrapping his bushy tail round her legs, she noticed Kiltya doing the same.

  : Kiltya says a big thank you : sent Kolyei.

  : I did okay then? : she asked sleepily.

  : More than ‘okay’ : Kolyei replied : I think…:

  But Tara never heard what he was thinking. Tired out, she had dropped off to sleep.

  “Were you part of a large family?” asked Alan of Tara the next day.

  “No, just Mama, Papa, me and my little brother Mark.”

  “There were seven of us.”

  “Tell me about them.”

  “No.”

  Tara ignored that.

  “I miss them,” she contented herself with saying, “and I think of them every day, as I think I told you already.”

  “I don’t think of mine at all,” he admitted.

  “But you should you know, don’t lose the memories.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You are,” she flashed back. “Now think about what I’ve said and don’t come back to me until you have.”

  “You’ve no right to talk to me like that,” Alan flared, his face scarlet with rage.

  “So you do have feelings?” she retorted back. “And as to rights, I have every right and if you weren’t
so sunk in self-loathing and self-pity you’d see it. Think of Kiltya, you’re upsetting her more than the rest of us put together. Do you want her to decide it would be better if she left you and not come back? Keep going like this and she just might.”

  Tara was in full flight.

  “Don’t care about yourself if that’s what you want, but what you’re doing to her is unforgivable.”

  “I didn’t realise,” he mumbled.

  “I think you did. She wouldn’t have chosen you if she didn’t want you, if she didn’t love you.”

  “I’m afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  “That she’ll leave me like my family did.”

  “Now that’s just plain silly and you know it. Kolyei loves me. Kiltya loves you. She’s not going anywhere without you. Now, open your mind to her, let her in. If you don’t I’ll be very cross.”

  She ‘felt’ Kolyei’s mental chuckle at her words.

  They trotted on in silence for a while and Tara began to calm down. She began to worry that she had gone too far. Alan was deep in thought. She could hear the others chatting but she kept by Alan and Kiltya’s side. She sensed she might be close to a breakthrough.

  That night, as Tara tried to comb through her tangled hair, she felt Alan approach. The boy looked embarrassed as his eyes met hers.

  “I wanted to say thanks,” he said awkwardly, “you were right.”

  Tara’s eyes softened.

  “She’s there for you always, you understand that now?”

  He nodded shamefacedly. “Sorry I was such an idiot.”

  Tara giggled.

  “We’ve all been idiots some time or other. You just took it to extremes, that’s all.”

  It is strange, that one of the youngest should be one of the wisest, thought Kath at intervals as she watched Alan reply to a tease from one of the twins with a grin, a retort and a playful shove. At twelve, Tara had become the repository for most of their secrets and fears. Even Bill and Geoff hunted her out at irregular intervals for a chat.

  Peter adored her and Alan wasn’t far behind. The others treated her with affection. Kath herself thought of Tara as the younger sister she’s never had. The threesome of Moira, Brenda and Yvonne opened their ranks and treated her as almost their equal and Mark, despite his misgivings and at Tara’s urging, took Alan under his wing and found that Tara was right. Alan wasn’t nearly as bad a friend and companion as he had feared he would be.

  Kath’s heart lightened as the hills grew bigger in front of them. Their adventures were only now really beginning she suspected. At least the twelve children were as one with their Lind now and that was thanks to Tara.

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