Singer From the Sea

by Sheri S. Tepper

  Third, an elderly man, with white hair, went on: “We were on the last ship, the greatest ship. We remember the struggle to break free of the ship when it fell into the sea, as a bird must break free of its egg. With the help of the spirit, the star swimmers and the servants opened all the doors and all the gates, all those within were set free, and the spirit who had attended the ship from the old world flowed out into the new.

  “We rejoiced, believing that all would be well with this new world and with us, and so it has been for many generations. But now the spirit cries out against this growth upon Mahahm, saying it carries the same destruction as that we left behind, the destruction of greed. The spirit says the evil will touch even the depths, and this world will die.

  “We cannot understand why it says this, for the world seems healthy to us. We do not comprehend it, and we ask for enlightenment, but the spirit says we can do nothing but wait, that Tenopia was fathered from the depths, and her daughter Tewhani sent into the world that in time her daughters would return, bringing us understanding. You are the first to return. So it is said.”

  They fell silent, staring at Genevieve.

  “The mana you were given, it was the singing of the harbingers’ language, wasn’t it? The voice of the sea?”

  Wordlessly, they nodded.

  She asked, “How many thousand islands have you settled?”

  Two of them glanced at one another, then at Melanie, who sat nearby. She shrugged.

  “She didn’t tell me,” murmured Genevieve. “But you dark-skinned people have obviously not interbred with the lighter-skinned ones. There are two types of you, and if one has settled Galul, the other must have settled elsewhere. There should be millions of you islanders, after forty generations.”

  “We have settlements on several thousand islands,” First said. “Most of the populations are small, a few thousand. On Earth we were an island people, we have become so again.”

  “None of your villages would be evident from space, not even in Galul.”

  “You are correct,” said Fourth. “Even there, we stay out of sight of the ships that come in.” She was a slender woman with skin like brown satin.

  “Galul was settled by your lighter-skinned people,” Genevieve said. “Who were less well adapted to the sun and the sea.”

  “There was another reason,” said Melanie. “Ten of the original keepers’ staff were scientists, six of them so-called white, four so-called asian. The rest of the keepers were sea people, Maori they were called, who actually worked with the creatures.”

  First nodded. “There were different skills represented by the two groups, and all the skills were needed. Our ancestors lost much of their equipment and records, and they were not sure whether needed aptitudes would survive if we interbred. Retaining the original types became one of our customs, even after we learned that the skills existed in both groups. Galul is still occupied mostly by those like Melanie whom we call shell-people, light skins. As you say, they are not as well adapted to the sun and the sea.”

  Genevieve nodded. “Which turned out to be a good thing, because when the settlers landed on Haven, they too were light-skinned. You’d have had a hard time penetrating that society if you hadn’t had light-skinned agents. But Stephanie was dark, and though it’s surprising, she managed to penetrate the society of Haven. How long have you been investigating the people of Haven?”

  “Only since P’naki,” said Third. “Only since the atrocities.”

  “You reacted to stop the Mahahmbi killing your women, but you did nothing about their killing other women. It’s clear you could have done something. You are numerous enough that you could have killed the Mahahmbi who came out into the desert to perform those rituals!”

  “But that wouldn’t have stopped it,” objected Second. “People on Haven knew all about the lichen, so we’d have had to kill most of the Mahahmbi and a great many of the Havenites, including many innocent persons. As for killing the lichen, even destroying a small patch of it was difficult, and we’ve found the spores on all the islands of the Stone Path and on the shore cliffs of Haven.” She sighed deeply. “We thought we’d done everything possible, but the spirit doesn’t agree! It agitates. It does not rest.”

  Melanie said, “Recently, when we figured out how to procure off-planet equipment, we set up computer models of various approaches we might take—”

  “You managed to procure equipment,” interrupted Genevieve, “by planting agents in Havenor and having them falsify purchase orders from the Lord Paramount. You intercepted the shipments when they arrived in Bliggen. You probably have quite a number of agents working in that so-called resort, as well.”

  “That’s perfectly true,” snapped First, “and how did you know?”

  “My travels have been instructive,” she replied. “I find that I can reliably infer all kinds of things I’d never thought of until this morning. In fact, I know a good deal more than you do about what happens to all the things the Lord Paramount buys with women’s lives. I can also tell you why the spirit is so upset, the same reason your computer models will tell you, when you get around to running them.”

  “That’s hard to believe,” said Melanie.

  Genevieve smiled grimly at her. “Then don’t believe. Veswees tells me belief isn’t necessary. Nonetheless, in a very short time there will be an invasion from space. It will result in the subjugation of this world and an eventual depopulation of all landmasses …”

  “Impossible!” cried First, turning on Melanie.

  Melanie held out her hands, palms up, her face very pale.

  “You can’t know that,” the dark man cried, his hand clenched on the table before him. “Melanie has just given the problem to the machines. They are just now working on it …”

  “Machines or no machines, you will be invaded,” said Genevieve calmly. “The first dose of P’naki that was sold off-planet made it inevitable. Once people out there learned that long life could be found on Haven, it became only a matter of time until they would attempt to take the planet. An invasion force may be already on the way.”

  “From where?” demanded Melanie.

  “Among the planets most likely to attack I would guess either Chamis or Ares. They are closest. Of those two I would say most likely Ares, for the Lord Paramount’s Aresian guards have had the freedom of the palace for several years and Aresia has a powerful motive. Their planet is dying.”

  “The spirit has departed their world?” asked Fifth.

  Genevieve made a dismissive gesture. “Leave religion aside. I don’t believe or disbelieve, but it doesn’t affect what’s going to happen. When the invading forces get here, they will do whatever is necessary to find out how the life stuff is produced. For a time they may be misled by the identification of P’naki as a fever medicine, for most of Haven, at least, believes that to be true. They may try to find out peaceably, but if that doesn’t work, they will resort to torture, or drugs, or both. Once they find out, they will use every woman on this world to fertilize the lichen, including all your women, and they will enslave all the men.”

  She sighed, rubbing her forehead. “They will regret this deeply, but they will do it. It is likely all the children on Haven will be shipped to Ares, for their population is falling, and they desperately need more people.

  “Then, having used up the women of Haven, they will buy or steal women from other worlds. This will inevitably lead to war among several worlds, and in the end this planet will be ruined for all forms of life.” She paused, looking at each of them, significantly. “It is inevitable. It will not take long for it to happen. Unless the lichen is destroyed.”

  The room erupted in hubbub, people yelling at one another. Genevieve got up and left. She went to the kitchen and asked the cook if she might have something to eat. Inside she felt fiery, as though she had swallowed a furnace. Two glasses of tea did nothing to put out the flame. Slowly she ate fruit and a circle of flat bread wrapped around a slice of fish in hot
sauce,

  “Brought by our visitors,” the cook advised.

  It didn’t matter who brought it. She couldn’t taste it. She was resolutely staring at her empty plate when Melanie came to fetch her.

  “Have they stopped yelling?” Genevieve asked. “You know I won’t talk to them anymore unless they’ve finished.”

  “There are still some raised voices.”

  “I will not be shouted at. I have told them what is necessary. I will not defend it against their doubts. If they have not wits to see it, then let them suffer the consequences.”

  “You are not the same girl who came here two nights ago, full of tears and sorrows,” cried Melanie, with more than a little anger. “What got into you?

  “I am doing my best to be someone else,” Genevieve replied, her tight jaw belying the tears in her eyes. “For eleven years I was programmed by my mother to be two people, one public, one private. The public person was quiet and sedate and covenantly. The private person was something I can’t even describe to you. I’ve been a conduit for Mother’s forces and Father’s furies, for intentions set into motion generations ago, for covenants decided millennia in the past. I’m through playing parts written by other people. This will have to be a role I will write myself. I may die of it, but it will be mine or no one’s.

  “And while I’m doing it, I won’t accept rudeness, Melanie. Let them listen or not, as they choose, but I will not be shouted at.”

  “Don’t hold it against them,” cried Melanie. “This business has troubled us for generations! We were sent here as the protectors of the taiau wairua, but now the taiau wairua claims to be threatened, and you agree! So, if it is threatened, then we are threatened. We’ve made a vow, a sacred oath, the source of our mana, to protect the creatures, all of them, even bacteria! It is our vow, the source of our mana, to destroy no living species, to contaminate no world, but you say we must! If we do this, we will have betrayed our vow. If we do not, we will have failed our trust!”

  Genevieve stared into the distance, her lips twisted into a bitter line. “You’re no more troubled than I am, Melanie. If I don’t act, I’ll have failed my vow and my trust as well. The worst of it is that whatever we do may be wrong, and at the moment I haven’t the least notion of anything we can do that will possibly set things right.”

  * * *

  At the marae, talk went on throughout the afternoon, and as she learned additional facts, Genevieve filled in the outline of her understanding with implications and possibilities. All the theological-cum-ritual issues around which much of the talk circled lay outside her experience. That didn’t matter, however. The covenants lay outside the experience of half the people in Haven, but everyone gave them lip service. It let people get on with life.

  Believe or not believe, the longer she considered the problem, the more her understanding pushed up into the light, like a mushroom that thrust suddenly out of forest litter, a presence that was undeniable whether one knew anything about botany or not!

  On the basis of one such understanding, she told them in midafternoon that it was necessary to evacuate the marae. “The Shah will soon attack the fortress. We should not be bottled up here.”

  Melanie said, “The committee says the destruction of the lichen must be discussed in Galul, with everyone taking part who wants to do so. Since we have no way to kill it, some strategy must be devised. Our scientist-persons are in Galul, so the committee and most of the rest of us will be leaving marae in a day or two.”

  Genevieve reached for Melanie’s arm, shaking it. “Listen to me, Melanie. Not ‘most of the rest.’ Not ‘in a day or two.’ Everyone must leave here. Anyone left here will be as good as dead.” She said it in an emotionless voice. She was seeing the bodies, lying on the sand. It was no longer enough merely to see and accept. Not if there were a chance at avoidance.

  Melanie stared at her. “You’re sure.”

  “I have said,” Genevieve stated in a clear, direct voice that held more than a hint of anger. “What I have seen, I have said. I have seen the dead in Marae Morehu.”

  “Very well.” Melanie frowned. “I suppose you mean soon. Tomorrow, perhaps?”

  “Tonight,” Genevieve replied.

  Within the hour, Melanie came to her very flushed and teary to say that word had arrived from the malghaste in Mahahm-qum saying the Shah was mustering an attack against the marae.

  “You were right,” Melanie said, biting her lip. “I’m sorry I doubted you. Here we’ve been expecting you, or someone like you, for generations, and when you turn up, I doubt!”

  “I don’t care if you doubt me,” Genevieve replied. “If I expected you to believe me, I probably should be carrying a flaming sword or something. I look in the mirror to see this witless girl and I doubt myself! So long as you and I act upon what I know, it doesn’t matter whether we doubt, but act we must. Otherwise, I’m no good to you, or to anyone. You’ll all leave, won’t you?”

  “Most of the people here will go to Galul. We have seven sleds already loaded with supplies for the small refuges south of here, so seven of us—including Joncaster, Enid, and I—will drive them from here to the mountains. There’s a range of stony hills along the shore where we’ll leave the last load, then head south to Galul, after the rest. A few of us always remain in the small refuges. We never like to go too far from the Mahahmbi, for fear of what they may get up to.”

  Genevieve felt tears readying themselves, pooling. “I think I should go with you. Unless … is there any chance that Awhero could already be in Galul?”

  Melanie frowned. “We don’t know. We don’t know where she is or what she’s doing. We’ve had no word at all that she’s been harmed, however, so you can be confident your child is safe.”

  Genevieve turned aside to hide the tears that spilled down her face. “I am trying not to think of Dovidi. If I think of Dovidi, I can do nothing. I would be easier in my mind if I could do something active and helpful.”

  “Help then. If we’re to leave the marae, we need every hand we can muster.”

  The refuge was swarming like an ant hill. Furnishings, books, equipment, bedding, everything was being gathered up and taken through hidden doors into secret rooms and cellars. Some items were hidden between the walls of rooms, some of them were hidden under paving stones that rotated upward when a certain weight was applied. To Genevieve’s astonishment, she found that almost every significant item had a label on it saying where its hiding place was to be: kitchen things near the kitchen, equipment near the garages or the laboratory. Solar panels on the flat roof slid into slots in the parapets and were covered with lines of mud brick. Books were on rotating shelves that turned a blind wall into the library. Bulkier things had wheels on them, and they were pushed down hidden ramps into empty caverns which, once the panels were closed, simply disappeared.

  “You’ve done this before,” she said to Joncaster.

  “Every now and then our wells fail, and we have to leave the marae for a time. It would be impossible to equip it anew each time, and we daren’t leave equipment where the Mahahmbi could lay hands on it, so everything gets hidden away. If some of our people need sanctuary, they can still find it, for they’ve been taught how to find emergency water or food or a hiding place. When the marae was built, hiding places were built in.”

  Later, Melanie came to offer her tea, and Genevieve sank gratefully onto an earthen bench, built along a wall and not, therefore, storable.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Genevieve offered. “If this matter is to be discussed in the presence of your people, won’t the so-called malghaste in Mahahm-qum want to take part?”

  The question had barely left her lips when she shivered, eyes fixed on the space before her. Malghaste. A dozen of them crouched in an alley while men screamed by bearing strange weapons. A woman, clubbed from behind. “Ahhh,” she murmured. “Get your people out of Mahahm-qum, Melanie. Get them out now!”

  “But that will leave Mahahm-qum unobserved,” said M
elanie, puzzled.

  “Listen to me!” she shouted. “You said you shouldn’t have doubted me. Don’t doubt me now! Get them out! Now! Or mourn their deaths.”

  “What are you seeing?”

  She rubbed her head, her brow, fighting pain. “I see what will happen in Mahahm-qum! I see malghaste being killed in Mahahm-qum. Men, killing … perhaps out of frustration at not finding them here. Can the malghaste get out without attracting attention?”

  “It’s more difficult the more of them there are, but they can get out, whenever it’s needful.”

  “It is needful now. Send word. Tell them to get to Galul.”

  In the warren beneath Mahahm-qum, Awhero sat beside an air duct which ascended along a narrow stair within the wall of a Mahahmbi house. Within the duct hung a thin strand of plaited leather bearing a tassel of broken glass bits. Awhero was feeding a fretful Dovidi, distracting him, passing the time until things settled down. There was too much tumult in the city, too much running hither and thither, too many chattering gatherings of the Mahahmbi, and great loadings of harpta panniers. War, people said. War against the malghaste. Word had gone today to the marae, warning the people there.

  Dovidi pushed the bottle away and made a pained face. She put him across her shoulder and patted, waiting until he belched audibly. “Good child,” she murmured. “Such quiet, good little boy.” The good little boy cried fretfully, as though in pain. She put him in his cradle, a box lined with soft rags, and set it where he could see the light beam that came reflected from mirror to mirror down the airshaft. In the light hung a selection of objects—spoons and broken tiles and animals cut out of paper—all turning in the least air, making an amusement for baby. Baby was not amused. He turned fretfully, and went on crying. She felt his forehead. Hot. Whatever this was, he’d had it since this morning. The change of food, perhaps. Some bug endemic to Mahahm that was not endemic to Haven. And, of course, loss of his mother’s milk, with all the protection that afforded.