Evaluations of the Tribe Read online

  The screaming got louder the closer it neared the house, and just as Aly switched her eyes to infrared to see what the commotion outside was, Shanvi, Teacher, and eight others busted through the door. The other Goolians were Young Ones, three females and five males, their ages ranging between seventeen and nineteen. As far as Aly and Catty could tell, they might as well have been coming off some brutal battlefield.

  The Young Ones’ faces were scratched and covered in dirt and mud. Their hands, feet, and ligaments were wrapped in bandages. Their sparring attire, mere loincloth, with a top added for the females had light leather and steel armor placed over them. It didn’t take a genius to know that these Young Ones just came back from an ordeal in the Evaluations.

  Two of the lads were carrying another one of the males, who had his entire upper torso wrapped in a blanket. His agonizing screams made the Little Ones shiver.

  “Pappai?” Aly asked nervously.

  “Just stay there!” Shanvi ordered as he pointed at her.

  Aly jolted at the harshness in his voice and Catty held her tightly, comforting both of them.

  “I already spent a near minute in easing the pain, Shanvi, “Teacher said as he followed the group. “Yet I knew I was in need of an extra hand once I grew lightheaded.”

  “Understood.” Shanvi shoved some bowls off a table. “Be quick and set him across here, lads.”

  As the two Young Ones carrying the wounded Goolian set him down across the table, one of the other lads who walked in with them couldn’t stop shaking as he grabbed his head.

  “Apologies,” he said, eyes just as stricken with terror as the screaming Young One’s were with despair. “By Truth’s Grace, my most sincere apologies!”

  Teacher rushed over to the other side of the table. “Fret not. Such accidents may happen.”

  A Goolian couple swung the hut’s door out of the way as they rushed in. Aly and Catty leaned back against the counter, not knowing what to make of the sudden bustle. The older female that rushed in cried out the name of the lad on the table. She and her mate could’ve heard their child’s scream from the other end of the village had they been there.

  “Truth’s Grace.” The mother covered her mouth when she leaned in to get a better look. “I beg, help him!”

  “Indeed we shall, Mastra,” Teacher insisted as he shoved the couple back. “Yet, we beg, we need room. Shanvi?”

  “Truly.” Shanvi helped push the rest of the Goolians out. “If you wish to be of aid, then offer thoughts and prayers at the temple, yes?”

  As the crowd was directed away, Aly and Catty had a clear view of the wounded Goolian lying on the table. Teacher was too busy to pay the Little Ones any mind, so he undid the bandage around the lad’s body without a second thought. When the dressing was tossed away, Aly couldn’t blink and Catty held her breath. The lad’s entire right side had third-degree burns and blisters from a being sphere’s direct hit.

  “Pappai,” Aly yelped helplessly, too scared to move.

  Teacher paused and looked up at the source of the frail and weak voice. Aly and Catty were both pale.

  “Pache.” He quickly moved around the table to block the Little One’s view. “Master Shanvi, I fear my intrusion has caused fresh eyes to see what does not need to be seen.”

  Shanvi ran back into the hut just as fast as he left. He rushed over to Aly and cupped her face. She was freezing.

  “Apologies, Master,” Teacher said. “I should have brought him to his own home.”

  “What you did was sound and commended, and I am happy to assist you by any means necessary,” Shanvi insisted as he held Aly and rocked her back and forth. “All is well, Alytchai.”

  He picked both silent Little Ones up in his arms and went out the back door. Once outside, he set them down in front of the pond in the back and washed their faces.

  Aly jerked away from her pappai’s hand when he tried to make sure she wasn’t going into shock moments later.

  “You are well, yes?” Shanvi asked the two.

  “I – he shall be fine, yes?” Aly asked.

  Shanvi lowered his head. He kissed her and Catty on their foreheads and stood up.

  “I am impressed by my Little One’s unnerving spirit. Truly, rest assured, he shall be well, soon enough. Be that as it may, Teacher is in need of my aid, thus I must stand with him for the moment being. Remain here until I say otherwise, very good?”

  “Very good, Master,” the mastras said.

  * * *

  “Would this one like to discuss what she just saw?” Shanvi asked Aly on the way back from walking Catty home that evening.

  Aly shook her head.

  “Again, he shall be fine, dearest. The lad’s wounds were severe, yet manageable. You are fortunate that Teacher is your sparring priest. He did quite well.”

  Aly still didn’t say anything, and Shanvi was worried he’d have to monitor the Little One for trauma. Still, she looked okay. Beyond the initial shock, she and Catty both took the unexpected event remarkably well. So, he figured Aly was just in one of her more typical moods.

  “Regardless, I hope you do not become fearful of such things like the Evaluations,” Shanvi said. “And what is more, that be a clear example of why being-control is not an issue to take lightly.”

  “Very good, Pappai. Thus is why I am not worried.”

  “Oh? How so?”

  “If I may, have I not been training myself to avoid getting hit by a beam for years?”

  Shanvi laughed and hugged the Little One. She was going to be fine, after all. Silence came between the two of them again, however, moments later.

  “Then perhaps we best discuss something with a lighter note, yes?” the master said. “Why not school?”

  “If I may, I would rather not.”

  Shanvi swore in his head, frustrated that his sly attempt to make her open up about what was really bothering her failed. He always tried to get her to talk about her school problems, but she simply said she had other pressing things on the mind. And that was what worried him the most. What on Gooliun could possibly be so pressing for an eight-year-old that even the sight of a severely wounded boy wasn’t as important?

  “Have the girls given this one any trouble again?”

  “Nay, there be no trouble from them.”

  Aly was a terrible liar, but Shanvi didn’t want to press the issue. He knew she was getting tired of it, probably more than he was.

  “Good. Be that as it may, if I need to talk to Teacher or Master Slew, truly, just let me know.”

  “Indeed I shall.” Aly’s tone still said otherwise. “And even if it were not, having you defend my case would only make matters worse.”

  “Truly? I cannot see how.”

  Of course you cannot, his Little One thought. Shanvi wondered if he was talking in circles, and it tore him apart. Why Aly couldn’t be straight with him, he had no clue. He thought the adolescent years were supposed to be the trying years.

  “Beyond astronomy, did you learn anything else of interest?” he asked, seeing there wasn’t a point in forcing the mastra to talk about the bullying.

  “We learned how to use past-tense verb usage in the Universal dialect a little more near the end of learning sessions. Beyond that, nay. I fear there was not much else.”

  “I see. Then, what of sparring? Was that well?”

  Shanvi watched Aly’s lips tighten. Her nostrils flared and he knew her palms were getting sweaty. She looked like she suddenly had the urge to hit something, anything. As long as it had a face, she’d more than likely break it.

  “Actually,” Aly eventually said, steadily, “nay, I was slightly unsettled in that regard, to be honest.”

  “Ah.” Finally. She could open up on something! Pappai to the rescue. “Very well, then. What be the matter?”

  Aly messed with one of her tents. “I fear my being the lowest ranked in physical health has finally cost me dearly. For I was not permitted to take part in some of the workout routines w
ith the class this afternoon.”

  “Oh. I see. Yet I am sure Teacher explained to you why, yes? He spoke with Lord Quongun and I and described what he had to do. Apologies, dearest, yet that be the way of things.”

  “And I shall abide by them without quarrel, as I am expected to do so.”

  “Goodness. ‘Abide’ and ‘quarrel,’ you say. Your vocabulary is becoming quite articulate. Very well, then. You shall honor the rules, which I must applaud, yet I understand you must still feel some sense of disappointment, yes?”

  Aly slowed down and nodded. “Be that as it may, I am more troubled by what Teacher told me. He was to say that perhaps I am not good or skilled enough to be a combatant.”

  Shanvi placed a hand on Aly’s shoulder and pulled her in close. “Ah, thus I see what your issue be. You wonder why Teacher could say such a thing.”

  “Precisely, Pappai.”

  Shanvi felt trapped in a corner that didn’t provide an escape route. At such a fragile age as this, he knew his Little One didn’t necessarily need the reality of her possible limitations. It was a child’s obligation to dream.

  Then again, he wasn’t sure what could be worse. Did he have to break Aly’s heart by opening her eyes to the truth of life – that people, in all actuality, were finite in their potential? Or should he lie to his very own daughter and let her think that she had control over all her desires, only so he could watch her slowly crumble under her own demise because he was too much of a coward to tell her otherwise? When was a parent supposed to lie in order to protect the child he loved, and tell the truth to give her unpleasant wisdom?

  “Thus, why trouble yourself over one silly matter like sparring?” he said. “Truly, did this one not want to be a bakery priestess anyway? You shall be the best at that, instead, if you wish.”

  Shanvi quickly looked away because Aly’s glare was too much to handle. The look spoke for itself. It told him how disappointed she was to think that he, her own pappai, didn’t even believe in her. It said he should’ve known how much harder she worked at being the best she could be not only for herself, but for the tribe, just as any honorable Goolian was supposed to. And in that instant, Shanvi knew he was the worst parent in the world.

  “Very good, Pappai,” Aly said, crossing her arms since an unknown voice whispered that Shanvi was probably the one she needed to hit. “I shall just be a bakery priestess then.”

  Aly was a terrible liar, but Shanvi knew that better than anyone else. Again, he didn’t press the issue. With all that had happened in those few hours, he wasn’t sure if he understood his child’s concerns anyway. Worse, maybe he didn’t know her at all.

  And as Shanvi lost his confidence, he knew Aly’s was more assured. How dare he. How dare he and the rest of them say that no matter how hard she tried, it wouldn’t be enough. If that was how they felt, Aly would do everything possible, just to be the last one standing in the Evaluations, even if it killed her. She’ll show them. She’ll show them all.

  * * *

  Chapter 6

  Catty kept lifting the single left tent in front of her ear as she headed to another sparring area two months later. The other five mastras in her entourage were already tiring out, due to the many courses they had to undergo, but they knew they were far from done. Eight-year-olds had to work out longer than the younger children, and the curriculum had changed to more time being spent at the grounds.

  “The orange in your tents shall surely be as vivid as your mammai’s, Catty,” Requai said, whose own tentacle tips were turning maroon. “Are you to let them grow, or shall you burn and trim them when they are old enough to do so?”

  “I know not. Yet you make a good case, now that you mention it. Perhaps trimming them a little above the shoulders shall be a suiting look.”

  “Why, I would think it be a perfect look,” Glani added as she fiddled with her yellow-tipped tents. “It shall suit your lively demeanor.” She looked over her shoulder and raised a palm to her mouth so her whisper wouldn’t get overheard. “Yet, I wonder what Aly shall do with hers.”

  “What of it?” Catty said. “She is beyond hope as it is. By Truth’s Grace, she gets odder by the minute. She grew quite tall over the summer months, did she not?”

  “Truly.” Glani turned around again to make sure Teacher wasn’t nearby. “Why, she grew even taller than some of the lads in the grade ahead of us. Poor Aly the Weird.”

  “Poor indeed,” Catty scoffed. “Did you not hear her blabbering the other day about the importance of the other worlds? If the Galactic Order has no need to bother with us, then why should we concern ourselves with them? Truly, that mastra best learn to make herself of use.”

  “Perhaps she shall have a verified worth when the lot of us are old enough to work the fields,” another mastra said. “What say you, Catty?”

  Catty blushed as she looked away.

  “Well, truly, I am not too sure. I still hear the grown-ups grumble a grave deal while I work on my logistics inside my house and––”

  “Oh!” Requai cut in. “So, this one already knows that she shall have no worries in manual labor as the rest of us, yes? Typical.”

  Catty froze. “Nay! Perhaps I might. Be that as it may, documenting the performance of so many people is a grave task, indeed. I beg, do not look down on me due to my social stature. Truly, I may be more fortunate in wealth, yet I see no difference in your value and––”

  Requai laughed as she wrapped an arm around Catty and pulled her in.

  “A spoiled brat be a spoiled brat, no matter how one perceives it,” she said. “That be why Teacher favors you so highly.”

  “Or perhaps it is because I try to push myself beyond the limits?” Catty said. “After all this time, why can you lot not give me an ounce of creditability? I practice my being-control beyond the suns’ set. By Truth’s Grace, I wake up an hour beyond my parents’ knowledge since they still be asleep, so I may study and practice my being even more.”

  “Ah, apologies. So you be an overachiever, then.”

  The mastras’ laughs stung, and their venom was starting to last longer than it used to.

  Catty eyed the ground. “I only wish to prove my worth.”

  “That be the problem, Mastra,” Glani said. “You cannot fool us. We understand that you shall always have things easier simply because of your name and nothing more. There is no point in you wasting your time.”

  If spending so much time trying to be the best in class was a waste of time, then Catty was in a great deal of trouble.

  “Then, I beg,” she said, “what must I do to meet your approval?”

  “Why, perhaps you shall be the final combatant standing when we are to take part in the Evaluations,” Requai said, laughing. “Yet Truth’s Grace be in your favor in that, indeed! Silly Aly seems to have a mindset to outdo all of us as well, even when she lacks the ability to control her being. The foolish thing has made practicing at the sparring grounds an obsession of hers ever since Teacher took her away from the majority of our assignments. I wonder what is to fuel her needless fire.”

  “Perhaps someone was to finally tell her that being a combatant was a lost cause for her, and thus she wastes her days trying to prove herself otherwise,” Glani said. “If that be the case, she should have listened to the sound advice, yes? She only embarrasses herself.”

  The group got quiet when they heard humming up ahead. Glani and two others closed their eyes and smiled as they listened to the tune. The voice humming was calm and steady, flowing through the notes like the current from the nearby stream.

  Aly was sweeping one of the sparring rings the younger children used. The tips of her tentacles were vibrant ocean-blue, clearly taking the color after her pappai’s. And her gray eyes were still piercing. Horrendously piercing, but sad at the same time.

  “Poor Aly the Weird,” Glani said again. “Odd enough, she does have a pleasant voice when singing, yes?”

  “If she sings so well, then why not hum a happier
tune?” Requai griped.

  “Truly,” Catty said, placing her hands on her hips, and relieved that the conversation was taken off of her. She slapped Glani’s arm. “And again with this ‘poor Aly’ nonsense.”

  Requai stopped walking, but none of the other girls did the same until Catty paused, herself. When she turned around, Requai had her arms crossed.

  “Why the odd gaze?” Catty demanded. “Be quick now.”

  Requai strolled up to Catty and thumped her on the head and pressed a finger on her nose. “I see it clearly. You are jealous of her, yes? How pathetic! To envy Aly the Dolt!”

  Catty swatted the mastra’s finger off and laughed loud enough to overpower Aly’s humming.

  Aly stopped and looked up, annoyed. She was making up a song that would help her remember the Universal language the class had discussed during learning sessions that morning. Now she’d have to start all over again, since she had lost her concentration.

  “What a silly thing for this one to say,” Catty said, fanning herself. “What reason do I have to suffer such a thought from that one?”

  Aly heard Catty clearly, since her hearing was getting stronger. Regardless, now they didn’t even have the decency to whisper about her behind her back anymore. And there was no escaping it.

  The other mastras were too popular and liked – if not feared – by the other children. They’d be better off laughing at Aly with the rest of them rather than get pointed out as being a sympathizer. After all, they all saw what happened to Catty when she tried to stand up to them when they were younger. Even she was smart enough to know that she had to join them since she couldn’t beat them, and if she couldn’t even overpower them, who could? Child society is a brutal world.

  As she wiped her eyes with one hand, Aly put down the broom and grabbed a dankerball so she could act like she couldn’t hear the mastras. Each time she kicked the ball, however, she imagined it was the head of one of the six girls talking about her.

  Catty pointed. “Look at her. Her only credit is in mere reflexes. Yet who needs such things when one can fire at her from here?”