Jays
Sorka explains her favorite expression.
40 years after Landing
Sorka sighed and pushed a lock of fading red hair away from her freckled face. She sighed again and put down the stack of documents she had been reading. They were paper, not the synthetic plastic she had grown up with on Terra long ago. That would not be falling apart in her hands.
“Jays but these are in poor condition,” she muttered, more to herself than the curious queenriders sitting at the round conference table with her. Sorka noted the puzzled looks on Yuxie and Hirra’s faces. They were the two youngest queenriders in her queen’s brigade. Between them they had less than half Sorka’s years, twenty each to her fifty-two.
I am old, she thought.
We are both old, Faranth agreed sleepily from her weyr.
“What does ‘jays’ mean?” Hirra asked, blushing softly when Sorka turned to look at her. “If it is not too much to ask, Mrs. Hanrahan.”
“’Jays’?” Sorka echoed, hearing once again the slight Terran accent that followed her still, though she had been gone from Terra the majority of her life.
“Yes, ma’am,” Hirra said, her blush deepening so that her face resembled a ripe redfruit. Sorka studied Bith’s rider. From the corner of her eye, the redheaded woman saw several other heads turned in attention. Only Alianne Zulueta, Chereth’s aging rider, had an unfurrowed brow. The other women seemed as confused as Hirra.
Sorka sucked in a breath. Alianne was the single Terran in the room, the single woman to have been born on another planet fourteen lightyears away. Only she would understand what ‘jays’ meant.
Jays was an old Terran word that Sorka had learned from her parents back when they had lived in Clonmel in Ireland. Jays meant ‘Jesus’ and Jesus was a concept the Pernese could never understand. Pern had no gods, Pern had no heaven, no hell, no eternal damnation. Pern had no paradise, Pern had no purgatory, Pern had no pantheon of gods and goddesses inherited from superstitious Terran ancestors.
Do I believe in God anymore? Sorka asked herself. It was something she had not thought about in decades, not since Thread and dragons and Weyr leadership had overtaken her life.
Her eyes met Alianne’s, asking a silent question. Alianne’s lips curved up slightly and she shook her head no, her long wash of blonde hair sweeping over her shoulders, hiding her message in the guise of a slight toss of the head. Sorka sucked on her cheek in thought.
No, she would not tell them.
“You want to know the truth?” Sorka asked calmly, looking into Hirra’s midnight blue eyes. “I don’t even remember.”
40 years after Landing
Sorka sighed and pushed a lock of fading red hair away from her freckled face. She sighed again and put down the stack of documents she had been reading. They were paper, not the synthetic plastic she had grown up with on Terra long ago. That would not be falling apart in her hands.
“Jays but these are in poor condition,” she muttered, more to herself than the curious queenriders sitting at the round conference table with her. Sorka noted the puzzled looks on Yuxie and Hirra’s faces. They were the two youngest queenriders in her queen’s brigade. Between them they had less than half Sorka’s years, twenty each to her fifty-two.
I am old, she thought.
We are both old, Faranth agreed sleepily from her weyr.
“What does ‘jays’ mean?” Hirra asked, blushing softly when Sorka turned to look at her. “If it is not too much to ask, Mrs. Hanrahan.”
“’Jays’?” Sorka echoed, hearing once again the slight Terran accent that followed her still, though she had been gone from Terra the majority of her life.
“Yes, ma’am,” Hirra said, her blush deepening so that her face resembled a ripe redfruit. Sorka studied Bith’s rider. From the corner of her eye, the redheaded woman saw several other heads turned in attention. Only Alianne Zulueta, Chereth’s aging rider, had an unfurrowed brow. The other women seemed as confused as Hirra.
Sorka sucked in a breath. Alianne was the single Terran in the room, the single woman to have been born on another planet fourteen lightyears away. Only she would understand what ‘jays’ meant.
Jays was an old Terran word that Sorka had learned from her parents back when they had lived in Clonmel in Ireland. Jays meant ‘Jesus’ and Jesus was a concept the Pernese could never understand. Pern had no gods, Pern had no heaven, no hell, no eternal damnation. Pern had no paradise, Pern had no purgatory, Pern had no pantheon of gods and goddesses inherited from superstitious Terran ancestors.
Do I believe in God anymore? Sorka asked herself. It was something she had not thought about in decades, not since Thread and dragons and Weyr leadership had overtaken her life.
Her eyes met Alianne’s, asking a silent question. Alianne’s lips curved up slightly and she shook her head no, her long wash of blonde hair sweeping over her shoulders, hiding her message in the guise of a slight toss of the head. Sorka sucked on her cheek in thought.
No, she would not tell them.
“You want to know the truth?” Sorka asked calmly, looking into Hirra’s midnight blue eyes. “I don’t even remember.”