Nallin as Village Sage

Nallin rubbed his eyes, hoping it would clear his inner vision. … It’s so foreign, so alien. Could it be because their eyes are so tiny and they can’t see at night? No, that wouldn’t have anything to do with it. Yet Nennef is so much like us. He’s lived as one of us all this time. Nenmarans feel satisfied just being Nenmaran. It seems humans should be satisfied being human … .

Clouds gathered in the distance, breaking Nallin’s concentration.

Perhaps the morning rains will refresh me. Nallin looked down at the clay pipes on which he was sitting. Soon water will flow through these, after they are laid, and will refresh the travelers on the highway. Fenmon’s little gift to everyone passing through, whether to stop and visit or not.

“Nallin?” A youth’s voice called from the ground below. “Nallin?” It called again.

Nallin changed his gaze from the clouds to the person calling him. It took a moment for Nallin to recognize the adolescent girl standing in front of him with an expectant expression on her face.

“Nallin, can I ask you a question?” The girl seemed unsure that she was permitted to speak to Nallin in such a direct way.

“Questions are always okay.” Nallin smiled at the girl, hoping to put her at ease.

“I was wondering if there was something from the fimmen press that might help me.”

“You can do a lot of things with the sap from the fimmen press, but that is Linnan’s purview—it would be proper to ask him first.”

“I did,” the girl replied, “and Linnan sent me to you.”

Linnan knows far more about the fimmen press than I. Why did he send her to me? “What were you thinking you might do with fimmen sap?”

The girl looked over at the clouds and then back at Nallin. “I want to see beyond the bright stars at night. I’ve heard that there are so many stars, more than anyone can count, beyond the brightest ones that we see when the sun is not up to block them.”

“Fellef and Nennef the alien had built a telescope with fimmen bark and sap,” Nallin replied. “It’s still in the laboratory at the fimmen press. I’m sure no one would mind if you borrowed it, even for a long time.”

The girl’s Nenmaran eyes grew wide, highlighting their bright brown and yellow colors. She moved her head in a slow nod, like a child about to make an important point. “I’ve heard stories about that telescope thing. People who’ve tried it say that it’s hard to see beyond the nearest stars because they light up the sky too much. Only Nennef could see beyond them because they were not bright to him. He could see alien things beyond our own sky that we cannot.”

“Interesting that you should know so much about this,” Nallin mused, “since all that happened long before you were born.”

The morning rains began to pelt them and soon they were drenched in the torrents. Neither one moved, feeling natural in the Nenmaran rains.

“Have you ever looked through the telescope, Nallin?”

“Yes, I have. I used to play with Nennef’s children when they were young. One of the things we did was look through the telescope. We never saw much, for the reasons you described, but it was so much fun to think about things so far away.”

“Penna especially, I’ve heard.”

Nallin sat up straight. “That’s true—how did you know?”

“My friends and I spend a lot of time with her Aunt Senna, and she tells us stories about her nephew and niece. No other village on Nenmar has anyone like Sennef and Penna. There must be something very special about Fenmon Village. Do you think there is something more we should be doing because of our specialness?”

“When you asked about something from the fimmen press, you weren’t thinking about the telescope, were you?”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“Does Fenmon’s special quality, whatever that might be, have anything to do with what’s on your mind?”

The girl thought for a moment. “Now that you mentioned it, I think it does. Linnan was right for me to come talk with you. I want you to know that I’d never bother the village sage for anything unimportant.”

“I can see that in you,” Nallin assured her, “and I can’t imagine you ever being bothersome. Now, what exactly is it that brings you to me?”

Sheets of water poured off the girl’s face as the rain reached its peak. “My friends and I know that Nenmar’s future will be different than our past. It seemed to me that our main strength for us on Nenmar is the many uses of our fimmen sap. Perhaps there is a fimmen product that would be appealing to the aliens that will be coming here in the future. I don’t know what that might be, but I would like to make a good impression on them when they come.”

“Why do you think our future will be any different than the past that has existed since the memory of Nenmaran people?” Nallin asked.

“Because the aliens are beginning to talk with us,” the girl replied. “Besides Nennef living with us all this time, Fronna talked with that alien woman from some place that is not Nennef’s. Isn’t it something about those alien people who died, that same thing was what killed Fellef? And then there are the other alien people that Senna knows about, different from either Nennef’s people or the woman Fronna talked to. They are different from us but they also are very much like us in many ways. I wanted something made from fimmen sap because I think that is what makes us special here on Nenmar.”

“I see your point,” Nallin replied. “The point about the different peoples, but I think you are missing the point about what makes us special as Nenmarans. You are right that the fimmen trees are probably different than whatever things might be trees on other planets, but that is not what makes us special. If you were wanting something from the fimmen press to impress the aliens, you might impress them with it, but that would divert their attention from what makes us different as people.”

The girl seemed lost. “But that was my reason for talking with you in the first place. Now I’m not sure what to do if I meet any of these alien people.”

“Oh, you can give them something that’s made of fimmen products, and feel good about being Nenmaran as you offer it to them. But we have something else that the other peoples do not have that much of, if I understood Nennef from long ago.”

With her eyes locked on Nallin, the girl kept her attention focused on him in Nenmaran total communication.

“What we have to offer,” Nallin continued, “is our sense of being at peace. Nennef had told me many times how the type of peacefulness we have is sought after by humans. These are the same humans who devise ingenious tools and devices, far more impressive than anything we can make from the fimmen trees … . But Nennef also told me that even after all that so many humans are restless inside. Here on Nenmar, Nennef found his own inner peace. From what I know, I would not be surprised if we have the best overall set of circumstances of all the peoples who are like us in all of our galaxy.”

The girl seemed stunned from what Nallin had said. “What should I do then if I meet any of these alien people?”

“Welcome them as you would a traveling merchant group from another Nenmaran province,” Nallin instructed. “Take them to me and let me meet them too. And by all means, be happy for them as well as yourself. Isn’t that the way you show your hospitality to the traveling merchants, anyway?”

“Yes, it is,” the girl confirmed. She straightened up and smiled. “Thank you, Nallin. I’m so glad you are our new village sage. Linnan was very right about you, and everyone knows that he knows more about people than anyone else.”

Nallin nodded. “In my short time as sage, I have come to appreciate the special things about special people in special ways. I sense that you are learning that too.”

“Yes, I am. Now that I’ve talked with you.” The girl turned and left walking with a spring in her step.

The clouds began to thin as the rains tapered off, making way for the sun to break through again.

The sun has come out inside me too. Nallin heard the splash of a footstep in a nearby puddle and looked up to see Fronna.

“You were wonderful in what you said to her.” Fronna put her arm around Nallin and hugged him, causing some of the remaining rainwater in their shirts to be squeezed out.

“I can see for myself now,” Aunt Fronn, “that you were right about all this. Linnan was right. Lonna was right. Jennil and Finnan were right. All of you were right. There is a new purpose for me in Fenmon, and that is as your sage.”

“When more aliens come, as we all know they will, we will need your guidance then more than ever. You alone are one who has grown up close to Nennef the alien and also are totally Nenmaran.”

“I am at peace with that now,” Nallin replied.