Until the Celebration by Zilpha Keatley Snyder Read Free Book Online

Erdlings now use the stored energy of the black stone.
    “There were problems of control, but even so uniforce became a symbol of the future—of progress and hope and limitless possibilities. Then, gradually, it disappeared. So to see it return, as it did, and when it did—for the Rejoyning—was proof and vindication, and for all Green-sky it was the renewal of a legendary promise. There are some who think now that it is our only hope.”
    Teera did not understand all that D’ol Falla said, but it was clear that uniforce was much more than they had thought.
    Pomma was still asking questions. “Will we have to ...? Will they want us to do it again? To show them? To show all the people?” Her face was tight with anxiety, and Teera was quite certain that D’ol Falla would be able to guess what lay behind the question.
    “There have been many requests,” she said. And then, very gently, “Do you want to? Do you want to show the people uniforce?”
    “No,” they said, together.
    “Then I think you will not have to. Unless—”
    “Unless what?” Teera asked.
    “I think you will not have to,” D’ol Falla repeated.
    But Teera remembered that D’ol Falla had said “Unless.”

Chapter Five
    W ITH A MORNING’S DUTIES behind him and a free half-day ahead, Neric was on his way home to his nid-place in the Stargrund Youth Hall. The branchways were unusually crowded, and Neric pushed his way between silk-clad bodies with poorly concealed impatience. Near Broadtrunk, a passerby staggered as Neric brushed roughly against him, and then, noting the seal of office on Neric’s chest, stepped hastily aside.
    “Your pardon, Councilor.”
    “Your pardon,” Neric replied and hurried on. If he was impatient, it was not without reason. Four hours at a Citizen’s Senate in Freevald would undoubtedly have exhausted the patience of D’ol Nesh-om, himself. The Senates had been established to allow all the people of Green-sky, both Erdling and Kindar, to take part in solving the problems of the Rejoyning—to provide a place where suggestions could be made and progress reported. But the morning’s session in Freevald, the newest of the surface cities, had been no more than an outpouring of complaints. The report that Neric would take to the Council would be, once again, a dreary listing of grievances, dissatisfactions, and impatient requests.
    Neric sighed. He had grown to dread assignment to the Senate meetings, but he supposed they were necessary. Hiro insisted that it was by constant coping with endless small dissatisfactions that disaster had been prevented time and time again in the six months that had passed since the Rejoyning began.
    He looked up to see that he was approaching a large crowd, gathered around the platform of a newsinger, and just as he began to wonder why so many people were listening, a quavering gasp arose from the mass of people. The newsinger’s voice had just died away, but now it rose again, high-pitched and clearly agitated.
    “Wassou was taken to the healing chambers in Grandgrund, and the Erdling—” Here the newsinger paused as if in search of a permissible word. “The Erdling injurers have not been seen since.”
    Reaching the platform, Neric gained the newsinger’s attention by pulling sharply on the wing-panel of his shuba. “Tell me what has happened,” he said. “I am a Councilor. If this matter has not been taken to the Council, it should be, and quickly. Is it the old man who was called D’ol Wassou who was injured?”
    “Yes, Councilor. It was the Wassou who was an Ol-zhaan and Geets-kel before the Rejoyning. If you will release my shuba, I was about to begin the singing of it again, from the beginning.”
    So, shaking with impatience and anxiety, Neric was forced to listen to the lengthy and stylized account of the attack as it was slowly presented in the song-story of the newsinger. When the telling was finished, at last, Neric went immediately to the nid-place of Hiro