Mirage by Jenn Reese Page A

stories, the pounding of hoofbeats on the sandy earth. One after another, each voice stronger or more practiced than the last.
    Until finally, just before dawn, her eyes wet with tears, she understood.

H OKU DRAGGED HIMSELF back to the tent just before dawn. He should have gone to bed hours ago, but he couldn’t bear to miss any of the Equian songs. The rhythm created by hooves striking the ground made his heart beat faster and his ears strain to hear every syllable. He had no idea how to capture that power and energy in the song he was writing himself.
    He wanted sleep, but he’d made a promise to Rollin. And to himself, too. Instead of curling up on the rug on his side of the tent, he quietly gathered his satchel and headed for Rollin’s workshop.
    The sun squinted over the top of the eastern mountains, layering the peaks in deep oranges and reds. It made him think of the solarphiles, the Kampii who swam to the surface every dawn and dusk to watch the sun. His mother had been one once, before she’d married his father. Hoku had gone with her a few times, when she’d had a craving for sunlight unfiltered by water. He’d complained every time . . . until they broke surface. Then all he could do was stare at the colors and grasp his mother’s hand tighter and tighter. She’d be jealous now, if she knew how many sunrises and sunsets he’d seen. He made a note of this one, memorizing the particular colors and angles of the light. Maybe someday he’d get to describe it to her.
    When he arrived at Rollin’s tent, he announced himself outside the door. He heard a grunt from inside, which, he realized after another minute of standing there, must have been a command to enter. He pulled aside the flap and gasped.
    Workbenches ringed the circular tent, every surface covered in bits of metal, jars of artifacts, pieces of plastic, saws, hammers, screwdrivers, and so many things he couldn’t identify that he quickly lost count. Bigger artifacts and devices lay scattered on the ground and piled on carpets. He saw things that beeped. Things that whirred. Things that tried to limp across the ground of their own volition. Scraps of metal and spools of wire hung from hooks in the ceiling. Two huge devices, each big as a shark, chattered and hummed in the center of the tent. Rollin stood at one of them and dragged a rusty piece of metal through a beam of red light. Wherever the light touched the metal, it sizzled and broke in two.
    Air inside the tent hung like a blanket of dank heat. And the smell — pungent metals and oil. Old food. Sweat.
    Paradise
.
    “Close the flap. We already have enough bugs,” Rollin said. She pushed more metal through her light cutter.
    Hoku stepped inside and let the tent flap drop. The air grew even more dense and suffocating. Sweat pasted his hair to his head, his clothes to his back. He reached over and touched a thick iron tool, wondering at the notch on one end. A twister, but not like the smaller ones he’d had back home.
    “Fingers off!” Rollin yelled. “No touching until you’re trained on whatever it is you’re touching. Rule number one.” She held up her arm with the interchangeable tip. Today a claw was screwed on. “Too easy to lose a hand, even if you know what you’re doing. Got me?”
    Hoku gulped and pulled his hand back reluctantly. “I understand. But you can’t show a Kampii the ocean and expect him not to swim.”
    “That so?” She chuckled. “You young ones are always so eager on the first day. The second day? Less eager. Day ten? Pretend to be sick. Oh, those four-feets are good at fake fevers! ‘My skin is hot. I can’t work. Poor me.’” She snorted so violently that the metal she was cutting jerked underneath the light cutter. Hoku was glad he didn’t understand most of the words she uttered after that.
    “I’m not like that,” Hoku said. “I’ll do whatever you say. I’ll be here when I’m sick. I’ll bring you food whenever you want.”
    She