The Color of Distance by Amy Thomson Page B

bring things back into balance. Now get some sleep.”
    Ninto ordered her to bed as though she were a very young bami. It reminded her of her first days with Ilto. The memory sent fresh arrows of grief through her. Ani burrowed into the fresh bed of leaves. She wanted to go to sleep and wake up and find that Ilto was still alive and that the new creature had never arrived. Ninto squatted beside her and grasped her arm.
    “Do you want me to help you go to sleep?”
    Ani ached to feel nothing for a while.
    “Yes.”
    There was a faint prick as Ninto made the link, then sleep blotted out the world. It seemed only moments later when Ninto shook her gently awake.
    “Ani, it’s time,” Ninto said as she sat up. Ninto helped her up, and escorted her to a waiting group of bami. They led her to a quiet pool in a nearby stream, and bathed her. Ani remembered bathing Kirito’s bami only a month before, when he underwent werrun. They had laughed and splashed, and been full of joy for Kiha, who had sat gravely during their celebrations. Ani had joked about mating with Kiha when she became an elder, and they had laughed. Kiha was the elder Kiha to now. He had become stiff and formal after werrun and their friendship had faded. Now it was Ani’s turn. She sat there like a stone, unable to share in her friends’ joy at her upcoming transformation. The openness of her grief shamed her, but each moment that passed took her farther from the happiness she had known as a bami, and moved her toward a difficult and lonely future.
    Her friends saw her grief, and it puzzled them.
    “You’ve been a bami longer than any of us; there are elders who became bami after you did. Aren’t you ready to become an elder?” her friend Kalla asked.
    “I still miss him,” Ani said. She was being rude, speaking of the dead, but now that Ilto was gone, she felt as though a part of her were missing.
    The other bami’s laughter subsided, and they each linked with her briefly, tasting her sadness, and sharing their fondness for her.
    “I’ll miss you all,” Ani said when the link was broken.
    “You make it sound as though you were dying,” Baha said.
    “No, but I’ve seen other bami go through werrun. They change. When I’m an elder I’ll be busy running things. Things will be different between us.”
    “We’ll catch up to you in a few years,” Kalla said in reassuring tones. “Someday we’ll all be elders together. It won’t be long. You’ll see.”
    “And then you’ll all be vying for my favors in the mating pool,” Baha said, preening shamelessly.
    Kalla splashed him, and soon the quiet pool resounded with a huge water fight, with Ani caught in the middle, watching the others’ skin ripple with vivid laughter.
    At last, tired and panting, the bami emerged from the pool. Kalla draped a necklace of dried bakim around Ani’s neck, their iridescent blue wing cases gleaming in the dusk. One by one, the other bami came forward to adorn her, until she was covered from ears to hips in brilliant necklaces made of flowers, seeds, shells, small birds, and insects. Safely hidden by the muffling decorations, Ani repeated Ilto’s name over and over again.
    When they were finished decorating Ani, the bami led her gravely and ceremoniously back to Ninto, who waited with the other elders.
    The elders led her back to the tree, descended to the bottom, and formed a circle around the rim of the tree’s reservoir. The brief joy that Ani felt during the water fight had dissipated. She felt as numb and lifeless as a rock. The long ritual, with its rhythmic calling, dancing, and celebrations, flowed over her like water over a stone. She performed the required actions, and said the things that needed to be said, automatically. None of it touched her. It was as though she were watching the ritual happen to some other bami.
    At last, Ninto came forward, arms outstretched for allu-a. Ani came forward and linked with her. Now the real transformation would