Khe Read Online Free Page A

Everyone had gone to mate.
    It wasn’t fair that I was left behind. I worked hard, obeyed the rules. It wasn’t my fault that I was different.
    I kicked a pile of dirt into the air and headed out to the fields, just to not be standing there like … something useless.
    I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought of this earlier, but plants don’t stop growing just because Resonance hits. Fruits that should have been picked when hand-sized had grown as long as my arm. Water-loving vegetables shriveled from neglect. Roots grew hard and woody under the ground. “The sin of waste,” Simanca often said, “is unforgiveable.” But that sin, at least, I could undo.
    A cooling breeze blew as I bent low, picking the tender new leaves of a glasme plant. Only a hand’s width or so above the soil, the best leaves jutted like a collar of stiff fingers around thick stalks. The leaves were used for everything from flavoring hard-sweets to making insect-bite balm. Harvesting them without machinery was muscle cramping, backbreaking work. It was exactly what I wanted.
    It felt strange to be in the fields without Jit, Stoss, and Thedra. Lonely. Too quiet. I longed for Jit’s laughter, a remark from Stoss, one of Thedra’s sudden bursts of song.
    I stood up and wiped the sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand. The harvest bag was nearly full again. The gathering I’d done pleased me, but I wasn’t looking forward to dragging the large, heavy bag back to the silo a fourth time. If I’d known how to run the harvester, I could have stripped the field of its crop in no time.
    If wishing made a thing so, I’d have gone to mating.
    The sun was sinking toward the horizon. The sky blazed with wide strokes of scarlet, thin trails of cerulean, arching sweeps of chartreuse. The air had grown crisp, chilling my sweat-drenched skin. I rubbed my arms and shoulders to warm them.
    Simanca would be pleased when she came back from Resonance and saw what I’d done. My unitmates and commune-sisters would be pleased because we’d all share in what the extra crops bought. Maybe Thedra would make up a song about what I’d done.
    A positive spirit lifts even the heaviest burden, Simanca often said. Maybe. Grabbing the heavy harvest bag by the towrope, I lugged the sack down to the silo and emptied the crops into the deep wooden bin that had been empty when I began, and which I had nearly filled. The Rules of a Good Life say that hard work well done makes an easy heart. I’d recited those words all of my life, but never truly understood them before. Sometimes, on dark days, I’d thought the saying was just a way to stop complaints. Standing in the silo, my legs, back, and arms sore but my sense of usefulness restored, I realized how much truth and wisdom were in those words.
    Hard work made a doumana hungry, too. I headed toward the bin to grab some root crops for my supper.
    “Can I have a root?”
    I jumped and twisted toward the sound. Han—one of our two hatchlings—stood in the doorway.
    “Please, doumana,” Han said. “We’re lonely. No one has come to play with us. Will you come? We like it when you come.”
    “What are you doing out here?” I asked, my voice harsher than I meant it to be. “You could get hurt.”
    Han lowered her down-covered head. “The door wasn’t locked.”
    Resonance madness . My sisters had been in such a hurry to mate, they hadn’t even secured the hatchlings. The hatchlings could have gotten out and broken a leg, or fallen in the well and drowned.
    “Did I make a mistake?” Han asked. “You’ve got a lot of brownish black spots right here.” She touched the front of my throat.
    I sighed. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Someone left your door open and you might have gotten hurt. I was worried about you, that’s all.”
    And jealous. I felt the muddy green spots rise on my neck. I’d have given anything to feel the fine madness of Resonance, to have been in such a great rush to find a mate that I