Jesika's Angel

JESIKA’S ANGEL

By

Bob Craton

Copyright 2011 by Bob Craton

All Rights Reserved

PROLOGUE

~~

My name is Jacenia Longarc Kelo and I am the author of this chronicle. People ask me how I could possibly know all of the small details of a story that happened so long ago in a remote part of an isolated world, especially considering the extent of the destruction that followed. I assure you, everything I say is accurate. A great deal was written down during the time of this story and afterwards because people understood the importance. Scholars analyzed that moment in time and tried to comprehend the cause of the events. Some who had witnessed the developments composed memoirs, and many of the next generation recorded what they heard from parents or collected the papers written by others. Even knowledge of the minutia of daily life was preserved, much of it as oral tales which were subsequently recorded. Every bit of this material has been compiled and protected by my family and kept safe through all of the generations. We pass it down, as we decided to maintain the family name, from mother to daughter.

At one time, all people knew the story of my own great-great-grandmother, whose name was Joie, but now too many have forgotten even that. This account is of a still older time, not the very beginning but a critically important turning point. You need to remember it for your own sake.

Why am I writing this now? I will soon become a grandmother, and when I hear news of armies being raised and weapons built, of course I want to safeguard my family. However, to all of you great leaders and warriors who have come to power around the galaxy in recent times, I have something to say. It is not my grandchildren who will be in peril but you. War is a danger which shall not be permitted ever again.

There is a secret still known to my family and my daughter’s baby will be born this summer. She will be a girl and we are naming her Jesika after the girl in this story, our ancestor.

Consider it a warning!

-- CHAPTER ONE --

The peace lasted such a very long time that the memory of its origin had faded from human minds. Perhaps somewhere, circling a distant sun, a world existed where people remembered how it started – but not here. Sure, people were human and sometimes they would fight, or steal, or hate a neighbor, but only on a small scale. No grand armies had attacked, no warships had sailed terrestrial seas, and no battles had spoiled the vastness of interstellar space, not in a long, long time.

But nothing lasts forever.

-- (Fragment recovered from the Nuvo Alborro archives by the Marco-Moleroi expedition during Annum 4 Post-Event, author unknown but believed written in Annum 1 or 2 Post-E)

~~

THE FRINGE

Look, look! Isn’t it pretty? the little girl said as she showed the man a shiny pebble she had picked up beside the trail. He glanced down briefly but quickly returned to scanning the landscape around them, something he always did when with her. She stuck the stone in her pocket then said Ooh as she darted to a flower growing on the edge of the wheat field to their left. She pulled it up by the roots since she knew that despite its prettiness, it was a weed which shouldn’t be in the garden. She didn’t bother holding it up for the man to see. He already knew about weeds.

The two were strikingly mismatched. She was small, not quite old enough to start school, while he was a full hand-span taller than her father and more muscular than any man in the village. She had the black hair, dark brown eyes, and light brown skin that were common in the area, but his short-clipped hair and his skin were light-colored and his eyes were a pale shade of blue. Her blue shorts and green shirt contrasted with his plain brown work clothes which, even though much altered by hand, did not fit well. She was in constant motion as she bounced from one side of the trail to the other whenever something caught her attention. The man kept pace by walking slowly in a straight line.

The girl’s name was Jesika. She called him Toby.

At one point, she took his hand and began to lead him saying, Don’t worry, Toby. I won’t let you get lost.

Yes, Jesika, was his only reply, showing no trace of emotion at the idea of needing a child as a guide on the narrow straight path. They walked in bright sunshine on a lovely day. It was early autumn, but temperature changed relatively little from season to season in this part of the world and such warm days were common. The dirt of the path was packed hard from the passage of several generations of men and women tending their crops – the wheat field on one side and small plots of vegetables on the other.

After a while, Toby pointed ahead of them and said, Boys.

So? she replied. Unseen by Jesika, the Rizzian brothers lay hidden in the wheat field. Tim was a half-annum older than Jesika and Tam an annum older than that. The boys felt secure in their hiding place, but Toby had identified them long before anyone else would have noticed the slight disruption of the stalks that marked their spot. Having reached the age that people called the rowdy years, the brothers frequently teased and taunted Jesika. Or at least, they tried to. Nothing they did frightened her and every insult was met by a worse one thrown back at them. It was very frustrating and this day each had a rock in hand, ready to throw. They weren’t malicious, just thoughtless. It simply did not occur to them that someone might get hurt by thrown rocks. The boys saw Toby, of course, but dismissed him from their attention. He always followed Jesika around like a giant-size puppy, and despite his size and strength, nobody was intimidated by Toby. On other rest-days, Toby had often watched the girl and other children play but still he had no actual understanding of the relationship between boys and Jesika. Even if he had been capable of worrying, however, today he would not have been concerned. When he was with her, she was in no danger from boys.

When Jesika came within range, the boys stood up, shouted their best insults, and threw. Toby merely stepped in front of her and, with a motion of his arm that was too fast for the eye to follow, caught both rocks in one hand.

You boys are really stupid. You can’t hurt me, the girl yelled and then she looked up at Toby. Throw the rocks back at them, she said.

Would hurt, he said haltingly. Jesika pouted for a moment but realized the truth in what he said.

You’re right. It’s wrong to hurt anyone.

As Toby stood motionless, Tim and Tam grew bolder. They pulled more rocks from their pockets and cocked their arms. Toby’s attention focused instantly. His arm had not moved since catching the first rocks and his only movement now was to squeeze his hand. With an audible crack, the stones crumbled into small pieces which he let trickle to the ground. The boys reconsidered and retreated with only verbal parting shots.

Stupid girl, and yeah, stupid, were the best they could do.

You’re pathetic, she yelled back. Proving her superior vocabulary (learned from a mother considered the brightest woman in the village) reduced her annoyance. She looked around for something else interesting but there wasn’t much. Lacking anything better to talk about, she pointed to the golden wheat stalks. It’s almost ready, Toby. You’ll help Daddy and the others with the harvest soon. When she looked up, Toby was still gazing all around. I want to see too. Pick me up.

When he lifted her into his arms, the flatness of the land combined with Toby’s height made it easy for her to see in all directions. On the right, cropland continued toward the west before yielding to weeds and brush, which in turn gave way to a long shallow salty lake. Beyond the lake was a row of brown mountains, barely visible in the distance to anyone with ordinary eyesight. On the other side of the mountains was another country but it was too far away for anyone (even adults) to care about. Jesika pointed instead to a closer spot about halfway between their trail and the lake.

That purple stuff is called native-shrub. You remember when Daddy told you about it, don’t you?

Yes, Jesika.

I know you remember things people tell you, Toby. You’re smarter than they think, aren’t you? said the girl but he made no reply. Put me down. I want to walk some more.

Behind them to the north stood the small simple house that Jesika called home along with the forty cottages of her neighbors. To the south was more farmland, and eastward a patch of forest and several orchards could be seen where the land rose slowly to low green hills which were part of Calladia, one of the large and powerful nations on this world. The local area where they walked did not have a name of its own. On the rare occasions when someone elsewhere in the world referred to the place, they simply called it the fringe.

Technically the fringe was also part of Calladia. It had been peacefully annexed several decannums earlier but that had made little difference to anyone. The nearest Calladian town was close enough for trade (although getting there did take some time and effort) but people already had traded there before the annexation, too. The capital city and the rest of Calladia were far distant so that they, like the land of Forenz over the mountains, were of no real interest. In the fringe, all that mattered was raising enough food to feed families with a little surplus left over to trade for life’s small necessities.

Now I’m bored, Jesika announced. She reached up, grabbed Toby’s arm, and began to climb with considerable agility. Settling on his back with her arms around his neck, she said, Take me home, and he complied without hesitation.

Jesika always enjoyed these rides. Toby ran very fast and he never got tired.

When she heard her daughter gleefully squealing in the distance, Janna stepped through the door of the cottage to watch the pair return. When Nikko Andropoly, the trader, had first brought Toby to the village, Janna had worried about Jesika’s safety around someone so physically powerful and so totally unlike anyone she had ever known. Now she felt the exact opposite. Jesika seemed so safe and secure that everyone had started calling Toby her guardian angel. They were joking about the word angel, of course. Considering Toby’s limited mental acuity, watchdog would have been a more accurate description.

From his chair outside the door, Stefan also heard his daughter and looked up with a sigh. Janna knew exactly what her husband was thinking: Jesika should not take up so much of Toby’s time. He belonged to the whole village, not just one family, and his labor was the primary reason for the increased prosperity in recent seasons. Janna gave a mock sigh of her own and Stefan smiled when he heard it.

I know. It’s rest-day so there’s no work for Toby today, said Stefan.

And that means there’s no harm in him being Jesika’s play-angel for now, Janna replied. The farmers had found no limit to the amount of work that Toby could do once he received directions and yet their worker was still granted the same day off each week as everyone else. Strong as an ox, people said about Toby, but not quite as smart, although neither Stefan nor Janna would ever make such an unkind statement. Besides, those people were wrong. Toby was much stronger than any ox and no one actually understood the way his brain worked.

You know, he could keep working while everyone else rests if we wanted him to, Stefan said. Toby always understands his orders so long as you speak slowly and clearly. I’ve never had to tell him anything twice and the only mistakes he makes happen when someone gets hasty and doesn’t explain the instructions very well.

Well, even if Toby doesn’t get tired, the rest of us do, Janna replied. We need our rest-day and everyone wants Toby to take one too just because it makes us look bad to have him working when we aren’t.

That’s true, Stefan said with a chuckle.

When Toby had first been delivered to the community, a lot of things about him had seemed strange to the villagers but in the end, adapting to his presence was easy in spite of his oddities. After all, Toby was an absolute godsend. While the economy in the fringe had improved somewhat in recent seasons, it was still expensive to buy and maintain farm machinery. Without Toby, they all would be much more dependent on their own labor which would mean that less food could be grown.

Stefan, why do you think that Toby pays so much attention to Jesika? asked Janna. He just ignores the other kids.

I don’t know. Maybe because she’s the only little girl here, although I can’t imagine why that would matter to him, Stefan shrugged. Many small children lived in the village but through some quirk of chance all but Jesika were boys. The adolescents were evenly divided by gender but there was only one little girl. Stefan had given some thought to this subject on occasion but never with a lot of effort. This time he was distracted by an amusing thought that popped into his head.

Do you remember the first time Toby pulled the plow? Stefan said and he and Janna began laughing over a memory from an earlier planting season. Two neighbors had come up with the idea of using Toby rather than the tractor, putting him in a leather harness which they made themselves. The plan was to save money since the alcohol needed to fuel the tractor cost more than food for Toby. It had worked very well until, half a mile away, a bee had flown too close to little Jesika, causing her to emit a shriek. No one else out in the fields heard the girl’s voice but her guardian angel reacted immediately. The furrow that Toby plowed as he ran from the field to Jesika’s side had been arrow straight.

You should have seen their faces, Janna said, referring to the two men who had arrived huffing and puffing long after Toby and the plow reached Jesika. They had no idea why Toby had run.

The next afternoon, Stefan stood up after piling a wheelbarrow load of melons onto a cart. He stretched his back, reached for a drink of water, and took a moment to look around. Five men were picking melons in this field and Toby alone was doing the same in the next. As expected, Toby was finishing his assignment while the men had most of their portion yet to be done. Before going to give Toby his next instruction, Stefan walked over to the parked tractor to ask his neighbor Owan about the progress of repairs.

I think it’ll be all right, reported Owan without looking up. There’s nothing wrong with the turbine itself. The fuel filter is clogged again, but if I clean it, it should work a while longer. We ought to get a spare one when the mechanic comes back next time, though. Itinerant traders had roamed the fringe for as long as anyone remembered and the traveling mechanic had followed in their footsteps. He made a regular circuit visiting all the local villages in turn, making repairs and selling or bartering spare parts needed for tractors and vehicles.

Okay. We can take up a collection for the price of the filter, Stefan replied. I’m sure he’ll tell us some more of his tales when he gets here. That’s always fun. The mechanic was a jovial man who told entertaining stories which often got him invited to eat dinner with his customers. Most of the stories focused on the progress and new-tech developments being made north and eastward in the big rebuilding cities of Calladia. Well, maybe not true high-tech, the mechanic explained, not like the really old days, but pretty exciting still.

Thinking about the mechanic reminded Stefan of other old stories. He knew more about ancient days than most folks – which still meant not all that much. Although most fringe people learned to read and write well enough to do business, few had resources to spend on books. His wife had the largest collection in the village and it fit into one wicker basket. Most of the reading material around the fringe consisted of practical how-to manuals on subjects like carpentry or home health care. History was the subject of oral tradition, not something in a book. Stefan’s knowledge came primarily from his father and grandfather who both were talented storytellers. His grandfather’s own great-grandfather had been one of the first settlers in the area, having arrived as a small boy with his parents. The father-side family name, Kelo, provided the village with its name, Kelos (originally Kelo’s, with the apostrophe dropped later).

Stories from that first generation were repeated often but tales of the days before the arrival of people in the fringe were less common. Those humble immigrants had come seeking relief from hard times and poverty elsewhere – after all, prosperous people do not move to such a place. The oldest stories of all, however, were about a time long before anyone inhabited the fringe (back when people still lived ‘among the stars,’ as the saying went), and they hinted about some great disaster, a catastrophe remembered now only by the word apocalypse – a word so ancient that the exact meaning had been lost. Stefan knew, of course, that the accounts of those prehistoric days were legends rather than facts. One such was the fairy-tale which originated the old saying which parents used when children were being troublesome: Stop fighting or the star-man will get you,

When Owan asked a second time for a tool, Stefan realized his mind had wandered. He passed the wrench and looked around. I better go tell Toby what to do next so he doesn’t just stand there, he said.

That evening, the family visited the community showers for a wash and as they walked home, they saw Toby returning from the edge of the village. After everyone else had quit for the day, he had been assigned to trim and stack a pile of logs, having earlier cut the trees himself in the woods to the east. Since Stefan had instructed him to come home when he finished, Toby was doing so. To someone not familiar with him, his blank expression might have seemed at odds with his rapid stride and the precise straight line of his route. As their paths came close to intersecting, Jesika pulled away from her mother and ran to him. Automatically he slowed to accommodate her and she began climbing up his back for another ride. Since she was wearing only a robe and lacked any sense of modesty, this action exposed a considerable portion of her young skin to the evening air.

Jesika, be more careful. Pull your robe together. Wait, called Janna. The last command was directed at Toby (Janna realized the futility of telling her daughter to wait) who placidly complied. Toby, turn around so that I can pull her robe down in back. He stood patiently without reacting. As an extra precaution, Janna wrapped a towel around her giggling daughter.

Oh Mom, it doesn’t matter if Toby sees me. He knows what I look like.

It’s not Toby that I’m worried about. It’s not proper to show your fanny to everyone in the village, lectured her mother. Stefan could not completely stifle a laugh, which earned him a stern look from his wife. He had the presence of mind to look around to make