The Color of Distance by Amy Thomson Page A

several minutes, Spiral rose and addressed the assembly in somber tones of grey and black. When Spiral was done, the enormous unfinished basket full of decorations was set in a sling and lowered to the ground. The villagers and Juna climbed down and stood around the corpse and the basket. They watched as Spiral cut open the dead alien’s stomach and placed a dark brown, fist-sized lump inside it. Then Spiral gently placed the mangled corpse in the basket, on top of the decorations. The alien covered the corpse with fern leaves, and methodically wove the basket shut.
    The other villagers had known that Ripple was going to die. The whole ceremony had been in honor of Ripple’s suicide. Juna sat down heavily on a tree root. First the death of the worker, and now this. She felt suddenly very alone as she realized how deep the gulf between her and the aliens was. Juna felt a sudden, fierce longing for the safe familiarity of home.

Chapter 5
    Ani finished weaving the basketwork coffin shut and stood up. Four villagers slung the coffin between two stout poles and began carrying it away. Ani followed behind the casket, and the rest of the village fell into procession behind her, walking through the forest to the site where Ilto would be planted. The villagers set the coffin down near the hole that had already been dug to receive his corpse.
    Beside the hole lay a huge pile of leaves, branches, and rich black humus. She watched as the other bami lined the bottom and sides of the grave with the leaves and compost, then laid the coffin in the trench. Once the coffin was settled in place, the villagers defecated on it, leaving a last bit of fertilizer to help the sapling that would contain Ilto’s spirit. Then they covered the coffin with more humus and rotting leaves, piling branches on top of the low mound to anchor it in place.
    Ani stood numbly by as the others piled branches over the grave. The coffin was beautiful, woven tightly and well by hands that had known him. Ilto himself had worked on it. At the farewell banquet, Ani had sat quietly through the memorial speeches and the presentation of the death gifts. She made the required speeches, and gave the required gifts. She planted the na seed in Ilto’s stomach. All of it was done properly; none of it comforted her.
    There was an empty place inside her now that nothing could fill. Next year a pale green na seedling would reach toward the canopy from Ilto’s grave, holding his spirit inside it. Someday the tree would shelter her narey, and those of her bami, in its cavity. In seven or eight generations, it might shelter the entire village. Thinking about that was supposed to comfort a bereaved bami. It didn’t. Ilto was dead. Ani would never feel his presence or see his words again. The future stretched before her, grey and empty. A seedling na tree was nothing beside that.
    Someone touched her shoulder. Ani looked up. It was the new creature. Unable to contain her anger at it any longer, Ani flushed red and hissed at it. The new creature backed away and Ani slipped back into numbness. Then Ninto was at her side, reminding her that the rest of the village waited for her to pile the last few branches on Ilto’s grave, bringing the funeral to an end. Automatically, she completed the ritual. Ninto led her away from the grave, and escorted her back home. She followed, lost in her grief.
    When they arrived at the village, Ninto led her back to her room. A third bed was laid on the platform.
    “You should stay with me until you are through werrun,” Ninto told her.
    “Thank you, Ninto,” she flickered, grateful that she would not have to face the empty room where she and Ilto had lived for so many years.
    “Go rest,” Ninto said. “Tonight you will begin werrun.”
    “So soon?” Ani asked, surprised by how quickly things were happening.
    “The village will be in ming-a until the empty place among the elders is filled,” Ninto said, “It’s best not to wait too long to