Day 19
For awhile there I was thinking I wouldn't get to write enough today. The word were just refusing to show themselves, but I got them in the end. MWAHAHAHA.
The first chance Vera got, she left SomeNameHere and returned to Terinos Lake. It was late and no one had been expecting her, which was just fine with Vera. She made her own way to her old home and for sometime stood outside and looked at it. It was nice and familiar although she could see that some changes and improvement had been made. The lights were on. She took a deep breath, then walked up the new footpath and knocked on the door.
No one answered at first, so she knocked again. As she was considering knocking for a third time, her father opened the door. For a moment they just looked at each other, then Matthew held out his arms and embraced her in a great big hug.
“Vera,” he said.
He wanted to say more, but the words escaped him.
“I missed you, Dad,” Vera replied.
He moved back to look at her, but kept his hands on her shoulders.
“You’ve changed so much,” Matthew observed. “You’re well, I assume? I… we heard that you had taken charge of things at SomeNameHere.”
Vera smiled and shrugged.
“I’m fine,” she assured him. “But I don’t really want to talk about… that.”
“Fair enough. Come on in.”
Vera hesitated and Matthew frowned slightly.
“Something wrong?”
“Is Mum… should I…” Vera trailed off.
“Oh honey,” Matthew replied. “Is that why you stayed away so long? You weren’t even gone a day before your mother regretted every word of that argument.
Vera smiled a little.
“I regretted it too,” she admitted. “But I… I can’t say I regretted the time to myself, y’know? It gave me a chance to understand me… my symbiont a bit better.”
Matthew nodded slowly, and gestured for her to enter.
The family was gathered around the table. Tim was sitting next to a young lade Vera didn’t recognise and Aidan had filled out a good deal since the little weed she remembered from over three years ago now. And serving dessert was her mother, who nearly dropped the plate in shock as her eyes fell on her daughter.
“Vera?” she breathed.
“Hey,” Vera replied.
A stunned silence followed.
“So, I ahh, I seem to remember you telling me that you didn’t want to see me again until I was ready to apologise,” Vera commented.
“Oh Vera,” Susanne cut in. “Vera, I’m so sorry -”
“Of course, I don’t recall you actually saying what I had to apologise for,” Vera interrupted blithely. “So… I’m sorry I didn’t come back sooner.”
A smile appeared on Susanne’s face. Without thinking, she put their dessert down on the table, rushed around it and came towards Vera with arms wide open. The two hugged, then promptly burst into tears.
After the two woman finally composed themselves (this being no easy thing, it having gone on long enough to make the other people in the room feel rather uncomfortable, wondering if they should do something), Vera was invited to dessert.
“This is my fiancee, Wendy,” Tim said, smiling at her. “She comes from Hesber Plains.”
“Wow, you actually found someone willing to marry you?” Vera teased him, before turning to Wendy. “Hey.”
“Hi,” Wendy replied with a slight smile.
“So, where have you been anyway?” asked Aidan.
Vera shrugged.
“There’s a waterhole not far from here. I built a treehouse.”
Matthew looked startled.
“I think I know the place. We didn’t think to look that far. Didn’t think you’d go that far.”
Vera shrugged.
“It was a water source.”
“Whatcha do all the time?” Aiden persisted.
“Well, aside from hunting, fishing and constructing - which reminds me, I’ll have to go back there and grab my things - I spent a good deal of time trying to figure out my symbiont.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, my symbiont knows stuff that I don’t,” Vera explained. “I’m not sure whether it’s because it’s had previous hosts or if it’s some sort of species knowledge or something. But in any case, I knew things. Like where a lacona or a growler pack had been recently. Or where their were wilours or what plants were dangerous. And it wasn’t a verbal sort of thought either. It was more like a back of my mind kind of thought.”
“Weird,” Tim commented.
Vera shrugged.
“Kept me alive.”
“And for that we are most grateful,” Matthew said. “We... we thought you were dead.”
“So I heard.”
“Everyone wanted to have a funeral for you,” Aiden piped up. “But Mum said it was traditional to wait until you’d been missing for seven years before declaring you dead.”
“Aiden.”
“What? You did!”
Susanne looked decidedly uncomfortable and Vera grinned.
“So you can imagine our delight when we found out you were alive,” Matthew said, shaking his head. “It feels like yesterday even though I know it happened weeks ago. Laura - you remember Sams’ mother? She was the one who found that first message from you. She had been checking communications every day regular as clockwork.”
Tim started laughing.
“You should have heard her shouting!” he chuckled. “I don’t think she knew which news was more important.”
Vera smiled.
“But about this instinctual knowledge business,” Matthew said.
“Now that’s a good way to describe it,” Vera commented.
Her father have her a small grin.
“What does... how does... How does it work?”
Vera shrugged.
“I’m not really sure. I mean I can walk through the bush and make my way based on no conscious thought whatsoever. I sense every little detail and my brain processes them and says ‘okay don’t go that way’ or ‘that way is the better option’ and that’s where I go. Or don’t go. And its good, mostly for knowing what’s good to eat and what’s not.”
“Mostly?”
“Well, it’s not foolproof. Sometimes it’s told me I can eat certain things which I know that I can’t. I think the symbiont is telling me things based on its understanding of the native animals of Jessu.”
“Is it sentient, then?”
“Haven’t the foggiest. When I say it’s told me stuff, I don’t mean that there’s a verbal conversation going on or anything, it’s just the only explanation I can think of to describe how I know these things. I can really only theorise but so far I haven’t come up with any other ideas.”
“It makes a certain amount of sense,” Tim commented. “The prey animals would recognise the signs that there’s predators nearby and if the symbiont’s been in a prey animal before it would know them too.”
“Or if it’s a species knowledge,” Vera agreed.
“Species knowledge?” Wendy asked. “What does that mean?”
“Oh, like the whole verasite species shares the same knowledge,” Vera explained. “Or verasite babies are born with the knowledge of their parents or something.”
“Ahh.”
Susanne shook her head.
“There’s so very little we know about this symbiont of yours,” she said. “You should probably talk to Sandy. She’ll know the people who have been studying it. They might be able to tell you things.”
“And vice versa,” Matthew grinned. “Certainly they may have more of the physical knowledge about the verasites, and you can provide the mental, I guess, side of it.”
Vera smiled.
“Yeah,” she said. “It would be nice to know a bit more about it. I seem to know so much more about the animals and plants, and the general environment of Jessu, but it can’t seem to tell me a whole lot about itself. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to sit down and have a mental conversation with it. Ive tried mediatating and stuff but... Either it can’t be done or I’m going about it the wrong way.”
“Or you need more practice,” Susanne suggested.
“Been practicing for three years!”
“Some people have to practice their... art... for a lifetime.”
“Hmph. So changing subject, when’s the wedding?” Vera asked.
“Two months,” Tim replied, smiling at Wendy.
“Aww, neat. Then what’s the plan? You moving here or there or somewhere else altogether?”
“There,” Tim grinned at his sister. “I’m turning farmer.”
Vera laughed.
“Somehow I can’t imagine it.”
“Nothing to it. How hard can growing plants be?”
“You’d be surprised,” Wendy replied in a patient tone that made Vera suspect that they’d had this conversation a few times.
“Best of all, no one fishes or harps on about Neptune Fish Traps.”
Vera giggled.
“No, we just complain about cruzzies.”
“Cruzzies?”
“They’re a pest,” Wendy nodded. “Always getting into our crops.”
“Ahh.”
“Your symbiont doesn’t tell you that?”
Vera gave her a weird look.
“Doesn’t quite work like that. It doesn’t recognise the names we’ve given different animals. I recognise names and descriptions and stuff, and I can umm, translate I guess, what information my symbiont gives me, but a picture of a cruzzie won’t magically pop into my head at the name. If I saw one on the otherhand, it could probably tell me all sorts of things about it.”
“Ahh, I see.”
“Any developments with the Neptune Fish Traps in the past three years?” Vera asked curiously. “Last I remember we had parts of the lake netted off for swimming...”
“Still do,” Matthew replied. “Actually it’s quite interesting -”
Tim groaned and buried his head in his hands.
“You would have to ask.”
“You reminded me,” Vera grinned at him.
“Ahem,” Matthew said. “We’ve noticed that since our first survey of the Neptune Fish Traps that their population has been dropping.”
“Oh really?”
“Yes. We suspect it has to do with food supply. We have been fishing here for over a decade now. The fish clearly aren’t breeding fast enough.”
Vera frowned, looking concerned.
“Does that mean we’re in danger of fishing outselves out?” she asked.
“Potentially,” Matthew replied. “Although some are arguing that the Neptune Fish Traps will stop dying off at some point short of being wiped out - just enough to keep the balance in the lake as far as food is concerned. I don’t know myself. Despite our history with the things we are going to make sure of preserving the things -”
“After they bit Joe’s foot off?” Vera exclaimed.
“One man’s foot isn’t enough to exterminate an entire species, and even Joe knew that,” Matthew replied quietly.
Vera paused.
“Knew?” she repeated. “Knew.. not knows?”
There was silence.
“Joe died,” Matthew told her softly. “He, Owen and Gwen all died from the virus.”
Vera’s eyes widened in horror.
“No,” she denied softly.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
“No!”
Matthew reached over and rubbed her back.
“I know, honey, I do. About half of us got sick, and it was you and your messages that saved us.”
“I should have left sooner,” Vera wailed. “If I had left sooner, if I had made contact sooner, if I had found out about that stupid purgative and made everyone listen sooner -”
“Vera!” Matthew frowned at her. “You did what you could as soon as you knew, I’m sure. You can’t make people who don’t want to hear listen. It is not, nor ever will be your fault that Joe died.”
Vera swallowed hard and looked at her father in distress.
“We buried them, in the graveyard,” he told her more quietly now. “We can visit tomorrow, if you like.”
“Okay,” Vera replied meekly. “How... how’s Jacinta?”
“Keeping busy,” Susanne put in then. “She’s still got all five children and looking after all of them is certainly a task and a half. She has Jaqueline to help her of course, and the rest of the community too. If it’s any consolation, Vera, the whole family got sick, and it was your information that saved them.”
Vera breathed deeply.
“So many people died,” she said sadly, swallowing to try and keep the tears at bay. “You didn’t see them... so many bodied... We were so tried, couldn’t even move them or identify them any more. Some of them at the end... it was so hard... They were just...”
“Honey, I’m not even going to pretend to know what you’ve been through,” Susanne replied. “I’ve heard the numbers, but seeing numbers and seeing people are two completely different things.”
Vera nodded.
“They are,” she agreed. “They are.”
The first chance Vera got, she left SomeNameHere and returned to Terinos Lake. It was late and no one had been expecting her, which was just fine with Vera. She made her own way to her old home and for sometime stood outside and looked at it. It was nice and familiar although she could see that some changes and improvement had been made. The lights were on. She took a deep breath, then walked up the new footpath and knocked on the door.
No one answered at first, so she knocked again. As she was considering knocking for a third time, her father opened the door. For a moment they just looked at each other, then Matthew held out his arms and embraced her in a great big hug.
“Vera,” he said.
He wanted to say more, but the words escaped him.
“I missed you, Dad,” Vera replied.
He moved back to look at her, but kept his hands on her shoulders.
“You’ve changed so much,” Matthew observed. “You’re well, I assume? I… we heard that you had taken charge of things at SomeNameHere.”
Vera smiled and shrugged.
“I’m fine,” she assured him. “But I don’t really want to talk about… that.”
“Fair enough. Come on in.”
Vera hesitated and Matthew frowned slightly.
“Something wrong?”
“Is Mum… should I…” Vera trailed off.
“Oh honey,” Matthew replied. “Is that why you stayed away so long? You weren’t even gone a day before your mother regretted every word of that argument.
Vera smiled a little.
“I regretted it too,” she admitted. “But I… I can’t say I regretted the time to myself, y’know? It gave me a chance to understand me… my symbiont a bit better.”
Matthew nodded slowly, and gestured for her to enter.
The family was gathered around the table. Tim was sitting next to a young lade Vera didn’t recognise and Aidan had filled out a good deal since the little weed she remembered from over three years ago now. And serving dessert was her mother, who nearly dropped the plate in shock as her eyes fell on her daughter.
“Vera?” she breathed.
“Hey,” Vera replied.
A stunned silence followed.
“So, I ahh, I seem to remember you telling me that you didn’t want to see me again until I was ready to apologise,” Vera commented.
“Oh Vera,” Susanne cut in. “Vera, I’m so sorry -”
“Of course, I don’t recall you actually saying what I had to apologise for,” Vera interrupted blithely. “So… I’m sorry I didn’t come back sooner.”
A smile appeared on Susanne’s face. Without thinking, she put their dessert down on the table, rushed around it and came towards Vera with arms wide open. The two hugged, then promptly burst into tears.
After the two woman finally composed themselves (this being no easy thing, it having gone on long enough to make the other people in the room feel rather uncomfortable, wondering if they should do something), Vera was invited to dessert.
“This is my fiancee, Wendy,” Tim said, smiling at her. “She comes from Hesber Plains.”
“Wow, you actually found someone willing to marry you?” Vera teased him, before turning to Wendy. “Hey.”
“Hi,” Wendy replied with a slight smile.
“So, where have you been anyway?” asked Aidan.
Vera shrugged.
“There’s a waterhole not far from here. I built a treehouse.”
Matthew looked startled.
“I think I know the place. We didn’t think to look that far. Didn’t think you’d go that far.”
Vera shrugged.
“It was a water source.”
“Whatcha do all the time?” Aiden persisted.
“Well, aside from hunting, fishing and constructing - which reminds me, I’ll have to go back there and grab my things - I spent a good deal of time trying to figure out my symbiont.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, my symbiont knows stuff that I don’t,” Vera explained. “I’m not sure whether it’s because it’s had previous hosts or if it’s some sort of species knowledge or something. But in any case, I knew things. Like where a lacona or a growler pack had been recently. Or where their were wilours or what plants were dangerous. And it wasn’t a verbal sort of thought either. It was more like a back of my mind kind of thought.”
“Weird,” Tim commented.
Vera shrugged.
“Kept me alive.”
“And for that we are most grateful,” Matthew said. “We... we thought you were dead.”
“So I heard.”
“Everyone wanted to have a funeral for you,” Aiden piped up. “But Mum said it was traditional to wait until you’d been missing for seven years before declaring you dead.”
“Aiden.”
“What? You did!”
Susanne looked decidedly uncomfortable and Vera grinned.
“So you can imagine our delight when we found out you were alive,” Matthew said, shaking his head. “It feels like yesterday even though I know it happened weeks ago. Laura - you remember Sams’ mother? She was the one who found that first message from you. She had been checking communications every day regular as clockwork.”
Tim started laughing.
“You should have heard her shouting!” he chuckled. “I don’t think she knew which news was more important.”
Vera smiled.
“But about this instinctual knowledge business,” Matthew said.
“Now that’s a good way to describe it,” Vera commented.
Her father have her a small grin.
“What does... how does... How does it work?”
Vera shrugged.
“I’m not really sure. I mean I can walk through the bush and make my way based on no conscious thought whatsoever. I sense every little detail and my brain processes them and says ‘okay don’t go that way’ or ‘that way is the better option’ and that’s where I go. Or don’t go. And its good, mostly for knowing what’s good to eat and what’s not.”
“Mostly?”
“Well, it’s not foolproof. Sometimes it’s told me I can eat certain things which I know that I can’t. I think the symbiont is telling me things based on its understanding of the native animals of Jessu.”
“Is it sentient, then?”
“Haven’t the foggiest. When I say it’s told me stuff, I don’t mean that there’s a verbal conversation going on or anything, it’s just the only explanation I can think of to describe how I know these things. I can really only theorise but so far I haven’t come up with any other ideas.”
“It makes a certain amount of sense,” Tim commented. “The prey animals would recognise the signs that there’s predators nearby and if the symbiont’s been in a prey animal before it would know them too.”
“Or if it’s a species knowledge,” Vera agreed.
“Species knowledge?” Wendy asked. “What does that mean?”
“Oh, like the whole verasite species shares the same knowledge,” Vera explained. “Or verasite babies are born with the knowledge of their parents or something.”
“Ahh.”
Susanne shook her head.
“There’s so very little we know about this symbiont of yours,” she said. “You should probably talk to Sandy. She’ll know the people who have been studying it. They might be able to tell you things.”
“And vice versa,” Matthew grinned. “Certainly they may have more of the physical knowledge about the verasites, and you can provide the mental, I guess, side of it.”
Vera smiled.
“Yeah,” she said. “It would be nice to know a bit more about it. I seem to know so much more about the animals and plants, and the general environment of Jessu, but it can’t seem to tell me a whole lot about itself. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to sit down and have a mental conversation with it. Ive tried mediatating and stuff but... Either it can’t be done or I’m going about it the wrong way.”
“Or you need more practice,” Susanne suggested.
“Been practicing for three years!”
“Some people have to practice their... art... for a lifetime.”
“Hmph. So changing subject, when’s the wedding?” Vera asked.
“Two months,” Tim replied, smiling at Wendy.
“Aww, neat. Then what’s the plan? You moving here or there or somewhere else altogether?”
“There,” Tim grinned at his sister. “I’m turning farmer.”
Vera laughed.
“Somehow I can’t imagine it.”
“Nothing to it. How hard can growing plants be?”
“You’d be surprised,” Wendy replied in a patient tone that made Vera suspect that they’d had this conversation a few times.
“Best of all, no one fishes or harps on about Neptune Fish Traps.”
Vera giggled.
“No, we just complain about cruzzies.”
“Cruzzies?”
“They’re a pest,” Wendy nodded. “Always getting into our crops.”
“Ahh.”
“Your symbiont doesn’t tell you that?”
Vera gave her a weird look.
“Doesn’t quite work like that. It doesn’t recognise the names we’ve given different animals. I recognise names and descriptions and stuff, and I can umm, translate I guess, what information my symbiont gives me, but a picture of a cruzzie won’t magically pop into my head at the name. If I saw one on the otherhand, it could probably tell me all sorts of things about it.”
“Ahh, I see.”
“Any developments with the Neptune Fish Traps in the past three years?” Vera asked curiously. “Last I remember we had parts of the lake netted off for swimming...”
“Still do,” Matthew replied. “Actually it’s quite interesting -”
Tim groaned and buried his head in his hands.
“You would have to ask.”
“You reminded me,” Vera grinned at him.
“Ahem,” Matthew said. “We’ve noticed that since our first survey of the Neptune Fish Traps that their population has been dropping.”
“Oh really?”
“Yes. We suspect it has to do with food supply. We have been fishing here for over a decade now. The fish clearly aren’t breeding fast enough.”
Vera frowned, looking concerned.
“Does that mean we’re in danger of fishing outselves out?” she asked.
“Potentially,” Matthew replied. “Although some are arguing that the Neptune Fish Traps will stop dying off at some point short of being wiped out - just enough to keep the balance in the lake as far as food is concerned. I don’t know myself. Despite our history with the things we are going to make sure of preserving the things -”
“After they bit Joe’s foot off?” Vera exclaimed.
“One man’s foot isn’t enough to exterminate an entire species, and even Joe knew that,” Matthew replied quietly.
Vera paused.
“Knew?” she repeated. “Knew.. not knows?”
There was silence.
“Joe died,” Matthew told her softly. “He, Owen and Gwen all died from the virus.”
Vera’s eyes widened in horror.
“No,” she denied softly.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
“No!”
Matthew reached over and rubbed her back.
“I know, honey, I do. About half of us got sick, and it was you and your messages that saved us.”
“I should have left sooner,” Vera wailed. “If I had left sooner, if I had made contact sooner, if I had found out about that stupid purgative and made everyone listen sooner -”
“Vera!” Matthew frowned at her. “You did what you could as soon as you knew, I’m sure. You can’t make people who don’t want to hear listen. It is not, nor ever will be your fault that Joe died.”
Vera swallowed hard and looked at her father in distress.
“We buried them, in the graveyard,” he told her more quietly now. “We can visit tomorrow, if you like.”
“Okay,” Vera replied meekly. “How... how’s Jacinta?”
“Keeping busy,” Susanne put in then. “She’s still got all five children and looking after all of them is certainly a task and a half. She has Jaqueline to help her of course, and the rest of the community too. If it’s any consolation, Vera, the whole family got sick, and it was your information that saved them.”
Vera breathed deeply.
“So many people died,” she said sadly, swallowing to try and keep the tears at bay. “You didn’t see them... so many bodied... We were so tried, couldn’t even move them or identify them any more. Some of them at the end... it was so hard... They were just...”
“Honey, I’m not even going to pretend to know what you’ve been through,” Susanne replied. “I’ve heard the numbers, but seeing numbers and seeing people are two completely different things.”
Vera nodded.
“They are,” she agreed. “They are.”