ARK

5. Rima: Training

The mornings begin early with my meditation session with Alana, and then I spend time with the volunteers learning physical skills. In the afternoon I work in the archives. Like the other girls I trade my skirts for slim black pants and fitted black tunics made from an unfamiliar soft fiber that stretches with movement. I need that freedom to move and stretch; by the end of the second day every muscle aches, even those I didn't know I had. I smooth the odd fabric with my fingers, grateful for it, though I'm reminded again of what we have here that the people lack.

I've spent my years walking the tunnels, carrying heavy loads, moving rock, tending plants, helping Father with his mechanical work, lifting, bending; but I'm not prepared for the physical skills I'm learning now. Survival skills, so volunteers are ready to address every unknown. Handling a bow, a blade, a spear, an axe, wrestling - these arts are foreign to me. Trapping game, skinning a rabbit. My only strength is in identifying edible plants. Ari was born for this; he loves it. I'm clumsy, as if my hands are made of raw dough, and I feel in constant danger of falling in the wrong direction. I spend time centering my body, balancing on a thin plank; I heft iron bars in order to strengthen my arms.

Ari's eyes follow me in the training rooms. Even though he insists that I won't go skyward, he marks my progress, his eyes glittering. When we meet in secret in the night time he snakes strong fingers around my wrists; after a week I can twist out of his grip and he can't hide his surprise.

Twenty-four volunteers train, ranging in age from seventeen to thirty. Twelve is a sacred number for the Mole People: there are twelve Mothers, volunteers have twelve weeks to train, and twelve will be picked to go skyward. The other twelve remain to become trainers, never to return to their cavehomes. The Mothers' secrets will remain secret.

My presence makes an odd number, which unsettles more than one volunteer. I'm given dark looks and cold shoulders.

My hours in the archives are as challenging as my time in training. The Prophecy and history are not what I expect.

I sit back in my creaky deep-padded chair and stare at the wall opposite. A cloth hanging woven in inexplicable scenes blankets the rock. What I picture from the stories of the early Underworld are images of the rat wars, of the floods that nearly swept the deeps clean until we found ways to keep the water contained, of the efforts to solve the effects of light deprivation. Woven on the cloth opposite are rich gardens brimming with unfamiliar flowering plants, people consorting with odd animals. The threads are burnished bronze and dark green; the animals dance hind-footed; ladies in fluid gowns tilt their heads; fountains spit water.

I ask Alana where the hanging comes from.

"I don't know," she says. "It was saved during the Expulsion."

Saved along with the books of this library, the most important of which is the Book that records all that's known of human history and which outlines the Prophecy.

I trace my fingers over the page I'm reading now. Only Mothers have access to these words. What I'm reading is a reproduction, hand-written, for the original would fall to dust in my fingers.

First were the good nanites, the ones meant to keep humans from starving. But they evolved and became hostile, invading all plants and increasing their natural defenses, and invading humans and turning toxic. Humans were exterminated. Near the end, isolated groups of humans took desperate last stands against the plague of hostile nanites and hostile plants. The Mole People were led underground by the first Mother, who also gave us Nan, a nanite that the first Mother invented, so that we could bring contaminated plants with us but live with them symbiotically.