Democrat, Illinois - The ElectroLounge

14 !
The solid flap of the room hisses open, sounding like an angry, slithering snake. They
walk out into the corridor. “We can use the glass tram, but not travel in it,” he says.
Another flap cycles open with the sound of a loud Summer wind. The panorama of his city
spreads out before her. Tall, long buildings crowd the view. These are so like her Father’s
longhouse stood upon one end. Strange giant birds fly about. Their wings do not flap or
beat. Towering stone pipes billow out white smoke, like a winter fire of burning chicory or
palmetto. Ants—what must be ants—walk upon two legs only.
“Sorry,” he says, “it’s not the best side of the laboratory. We have the fuel cell
factories and their smokestacks. The cells may be pretty green, but the hydrogen extraction
process is powered by some ungreen sources. Even with the Clean Coal, they wreak havoc
with the shell-fish beds, I’m told.”
She knocks upon the clear surface. “It’s steelglass.” [The translator brain-farts again.
TRANSPARENT IRON.]
“Is this my Tenakomakah?” she asks. [THE TIDEWATER, the computer translates.]
“Yeah, water’s the main ingredient going in and going out of a fuel cell.” He laughs
at a joke she cannot understand even with the aid of the translator.
“Where are the four-legged people?” Matoak asks.
“Oh, we’ve got zoos. Even big preserves. The [ANIMALS] are fine. I wish I could
bring you to the Washington Zoo. You’d love it!”
“Where is my home? Where is Werowocomoco?”
“There,” he says, “it’s there.”
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!
* * *
She awoke into the brightness of Spring daylight. It was just a dream, she told
herself. Thank the Great Spirit! She gazed up to the sun, but a shadow fell upon her. She
turned her head to see the old woman who had raised her. Her people had no queen, and
her mother had been sent far away upon her birth. This aged one sufficed. Mostly.
“Matoak, your father needs you. Do you know what he requires?”
“Yes,” she said. “My Uncle Opechancanough has captured one of the newcomers. I
am to throw myself across the stranger to protect his life.”
“Very good. It will be his death and his birth to our people.”
* * *
The stranger was thrust upon a large rock. He lay across it. His coat fell open, and
his soiled white shirt stood out. His eyes grew wide as he scanned about the capitol of the
Powhatan, and wider still as he focused upon Kocoum, her future husband. In his hands,
Kocoum carried the foot long hickory shaft of his tumahák. One end had a stone axehead
that she had seen him chip himself. The other end was hollow to allow the drinking of
tobacco. It was a peace pipe and tomahawk together: the two sides of a relationship, friend
or adversary.