The Kanshou (Earthkeep) Read Free

gave Masudhe an elbow in the shoulder.  "It's true, Masudhe!  You may not believe it, but the whole lesson we learned from the Exodus was that all of life is connected.  A long time ago, we felt everything that every other being felt.  But we got separated, and that's how it became so easy to misuse animals." 
    Masudhe put her head down on her writing board, sighing loudly.  She raised it again with a wide grin when Kamasa shook her.  "Listen to me, Masudhe!  You know I'm telling the truth--"
    "You are telling the truth, Kamasa," Aba assured her.  "Every person has been deeply affected by our loss of the animals."  She felt the hush fall again.  "Anyway," she continued, in a thinly disguised attempt at enthusiasm, "we're all historians, too.  We study the old films and holos so we can understand what this world was once like.  And we study the animals because remembering them is so often joyful."
Amid the nods, Bibi asked, "Do you remember the animals, Aba?"
    "I'm not that old, preshi!" her teacher laughed.  "But if I could remember them, what would I be called?"
    "A Rememorante Afortunado!" came one reply.  "No, an Afortunada!"  "A Rememorante Afortunada!"
    "Yes," said Aba. "One of the fortunate ones who remember.  And we were all a kind of Afortunada today, weren't we, as we visualized the animals?"  Aba scanned the faces of her students.  "Now let's hear about some other visits.  Laroos, how was your time with the animals?"
    Like the skilled conductor of group life that she was, Aba drew out each child, encouraging the responses, helping each one to help the others hear and be heard.  Gradually the mood softened.  There was laughter again, and wonderful poignant description of wilderness prowlers, far-flying birds, modest molluscs, and mighty whales.  The children's fantasies were better than any book or holoscene, Aba thought.
    Medhi had just begun his excited story of desert horses when, from the path beyond, Aba caught the glint of sunlight on Dicken's necklaces.  As students turned to stare at the newcomer, Aba motioned Dicken to an empty stool across the circle.
    "They came like the wind, over the dunes and through the low passes," Medhi continued.  "Hundreds of them, slick and shining in the moonlight, their hooves stirring the sand that hid their galloping legs.  In a cloud of silver dust, they flew!  And as they sailed by me, moving up toward the sky, they nickered and called to me.  'Come and ride with us!  Hey, Medhi, come!  We will carry you!'"
    "Medhi, you're a poet!" Zari announced.
    "Did you ride, Medhi?  Did you?" Laroos desperately inquired.
    "As the big horses thundered by me, I saw one I could mount.  She came up on my right."  Medhi stood and moved toward the center of the circle, pointing to show how the mare approached him.  "Lady Eminence, may I ride you?  She tossed her head and rolled out of the herd toward me."  Medhi crouched and moved his gaze over the entire circle, his voice rising.  The other  children crouched with him.  "She was so graceful that she didn't even stop as she dipped her head and caught me under the belly—"
    "Oooh!" A simultaneous gasp.
    "--and swung me up onto her back!" 
    "Aaahhh!" The whole class unbent with him as he straightened to take his place on the withers of the mighty beast, astride and triumphant, his left hand clearly grasping the mane, his right high above his head.
    "As we swept across the sky, I could feel the whole herd around us, roaring in front of me and behind me like a big river!  Like the sound of a waterfall!  I could hardly breathe for the speed, and as we got higher and higher I looked down, I looked down--"
    Smiling mouths were open with expectancy.  Zari put her hands over her eyes.
    "I looked down, and I could see the world beneath me!  I could see the Earth from her back!  There were cities and forests and mountains and plains, and oceans and islands and icecaps and deserts.  Oh, what a ride!  We