Fish Tails

by Sheri S. Tepper

  Precious Wind apologized for having returned so thoughtlessly.

  Wide Mountain Mother closed her eyes and shook her head, and spoke again, loudly, emphasizing her scorn and disbelief that anyone sensible would materialize large animals of a type known for ferocity in the middle of a working camp.

  Precious Wind began to apologize again.

  Wide Mountain Mother left in the middle of the apology, closing her door behind her, loudly.

  The hunters, muttering discontentedly, went off to the men’s camp to discuss the ethics of not killing previously acceptable prey animals who have, for some unknown and probably unholy reason, acquired language.

  Xulai, who had been well on her way to becoming relaxed, contented, and loving, reverted at once to the mood of snarling irritation in which Abasio had found her.

  Abasio sighed. At least the babies were still asleep.

  SEVERAL HOURS LATER, WIDE MOUNTAIN Mother had finished her much-­needed nap. Humans and creatures had been given mildly spirituous liquids and considerable amounts of food. The world had settled into evening. Seven ­people sat around a small, comfortable fire near which Coyote had just used Xulai’s salad bowl and cooking grill to recount his adventure with the stinkers, ending the tale by licking his jowls and recalling his fortunate encounter with a gopher. Precious Wind, Xulai, Abasio, Needly, Arakny, Wide Mountain Mother, and Bear had heard it from beginning to end, without interruption. Around them at a little distance, other Artemisians, men, women, and children, had gathered to listen.

  “Nice rendition,” Abasio commented.

  “Rendition? What’s that?” Coyote said, trying not to snarl. He was tired!

  Xulai knew exactly how he felt. She reached out to run her hand along his fur. “Boiling fat off meat or hides is called rendering, Coyote. Abasio has made a bad pun about your telling being a rendition. It’s not really very funny.” She giggled helplessly to herself, trying to ignore Wide Mountain Mother, her face as rigidly solemn as though cast in metal.

  Arakny, believing Mother was still somewhat irritated at the day’s confusions, shook her head warningly, including everyone present in the gesture.

  In fact, Mother was more grieved than annoyed. Everything that was happening weighed upon her. Her own ­people were used to her and she to them. Both understood their parts in life; hers to make sure everyone knew what they were to do; theirs to do it. New ­people, new things, were troublesome. Always. She sighed audibly, at which the others became even quieter as she looked up and spoke, so softly that the silence had to continue if they were to hear her. “I’m not really angry at anything, Arakny, certainly not at anyone here. I don’t really know who or what to be angry at!

  “The word I want is . . . ‘distressed.’ I am distressed and I imagine everyone else here is also distressed. We didn’t create these stinker things, but there’s very little doubt some humans did. With Coyote’s very generous and dedicated help in finding their purpose, with Precious Wind’s assistance in taking one of them apart, we now know quite a lot more about them. Unfortunately, at this point everything we have learned contributes to our confusion. However, I try to remind myself that problems are like that. For a while everything new you learn just makes it worse. Eventually, it falls into some kind of shape, but in this case there’s been nothing yet to help us solve the attendant problems—­the ones that really concern us.

  “If I say something incorrect, please stop me. When Precious Wind brought the body back here and had a good look at it, we already knew the stinkers excrete a substance all over their bodies. We now know it gets washed off of them, by human beings, presumably at intervals. Coyote saw four hundred of the stinkers gathered for that purpose—­do I understand that correctly, Abasio, Coyote? Each pen had ten in it, and there were forty pens?”

  Abasio and Coyote conferred. Yes. That was correct. Ten in each pen, nine stinkers and one of the hunter type, who presumably killed meat for his group. Human meat.

  Mother nodded. “Also, when Precious Wind did some very elementary tests on the stuff the creature excretes from its skin, she saw that the material—­what was it, Precious Wind?”

  “When dissolved in water, it attempts to gather itself, to make a shape, but the shape doesn’t hold.”

  Mother said, “I was distressed at the idea of a few dozen of these creatures! Multiply that by tens! There’s so much we don’t know! We don’t know who the humans are at the processing site. We don’t know whether that processing site is the only site. We don’t know whether the group Coyote saw is the only group. We don’t know if there are more than four hundred of the creatures plus a few extra, such as the ones with Sybbis. We don’t know if the creatures seen with Sybbis were part of this gathering or are of some other type. I see Xulai is making notes, so note these items, please; we may return to them.

  “It was centuries ago that the waters began rising. Scientists found an upwelling of water in the South Pacific that seems to be chemically different from the rest of the world’s ocean waters. They found or postulated or theorized a cavern in the earth’s crust that was leaking water into the surface oceans. They measured the possibility with their devices and told us that it contained only enough water to raise the level all over the earth by a few feet. ­People moved uphill and away from the shores and life went on. The scientists told the population when the water, at its then-­current rate of flow, would stop. That time came, but it didn’t stop. It just continued to flow. There was a flurry of recalculation, but the ­people who did it came up with the same answers and the same enigma. The water was still coming, into the bottom of the ocean. And we didn’t know where it was coming from. We still don’t know where it’s coming from.

  “However, as soon as it was known that the water wouldn’t stop, another great project began, a genetic project that extended, generation after generation, culminating in the birth of Xulai and Abasio’s twin children. This was, in part, spurred by the Visitation, the title assigned to an event in Tingawa when a prophet or scientist or madman appeared to provide a translation, so he said, of some research done on genetics prior to or during the Big Kill. This information proved invaluable in the work that followed and culminated in the birth of the sea-­children.”

  She turned to face Xulai and Abasio where they sat beside each other, the children on their laps. “Those of us who worked on the survival project—­some of the ­people of Artemisia, many of the ­people of Tingawa, some from other places and ­peoples in the world . . . Xulai, Abasio, all the ­people we knew, everywhere, were totally satisfied that the human part of the problem was solved when your children were born.” She turned toward Precious Wind, suddenly demanding, in a voice ragged with emotion, “Isn’t that true?”

  Precious Wind bowed to her.

  Mother went on “When those babies came . . . many of us . . . we simply wanted to shout with joy. It had taken lifetimes, many lifetimes of struggle, and when your family returned to us, here, Abasio, and we saw your children’s faces looking up at us from . . .” She gulped, then laughed. “Looking up at us from a pool of water, and those little eyes looking right into our own . . . we rejoiced. Little fingers grabbing our hands, little mouths tasting the world. I can’t remember ever being happier. Here they are, a new ­people who can create lives that will be more than mere survival, lives that will have an elegance of their own.” Mother turned away, wiping at her eyes.

  Several of the older women gathered around her. Everyone else sat, at a loss. Wide Mountain Mother had not, ever, lost her calm, determined manner. Not ever. Until now. The circle was quite silent, even the onlookers were still except for one shrill voice: “Mama, why is Granmama cryin’, Mama?”

  Wide Mountain Mother turned back toward the group. “Forgive me. They were not tears of unhappiness. I still weep with delight whenever I see the children, but now I am feeling fear for them as well. Someone or something may be threatening us. Th
ese stinkers are being created by someone, somewhere. It has to be the Edges, there are no other possibilities on this side of the world, and Precious Wind has used her far-­talker to reach Tingawa. The Tingawans have not seen anything similar. From what Coyote has told us, it is apparent the creatures are being . . . farmed. They are turned loose to graze, each group of nine with a hunter to furnish them with game. Then they are summoned to return to a place where they are stripped of the stuff that exudes from their skins. That stuff is the crop. We know it is organic. We know it is alive. We don’t know if there are many more of them—­”

  “Nuh!” said a voice from the outer ring of watchers and listeners.

  Mother looked up. “You think not, Deer Runner?”

  “Forgive me interrupting, Mother, but there can’t be many more if they eat meat. We know what eats big meat: us n’ the big cats. Bears, sometimes, but they don’t really hunt meat and they’d rather have fish and eat a lot of other stuff besides.” He turned toward Bear. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

  Bear nodded ponderously. “There’s bears that hunt meat, but they’re big white ones that live up north, not the ones around here. And those stinker things aren’t quick enough to eat little, fast stuff, like rabbits.”

  Deer Runner went on: “And we know there’s not many big cats. I been lookin’ for a skin for three years, haven’t seen one I could kill with a clear mind. Mothers with little ones, a few. I saw only two young ones, last year’s kittens still staying close to known territory. One big male. Not enough to hunt any. If you got hundreds, maybe thousands of those . . . things up there, they have to eat something. If there was that much game, there’d be more cats.”

  Wide Mountain Mother nodded. “He speaks truth, Abasio. If they eat meat, they have to get it somewhere. There isn’t enough game to feed thousands of them. Possibly not even hundreds. Coyote told us he wondered if the creatures were being fed by the humans, after they were washed. It doesn’t matter, the meat would still have to come from somewhere.”

  Bear interrupted. “ ’Scuse me, Mother Lady. Guess you don’t think like a meat eater’d think, but you forgot about the most meat there is. ­People meat.”

  There was a moment of utter silence. “Wouldn’t we have heard?” said Arakny at last. “If there’d been predation, wouldn’t it be known?”

  Precious Wind muttered, “Even if there hasn’t been, yet, predation on humans may be planned. We wondered what Sybbis was doing with the creatures. One possible answer is that she may be feeding them.”

  “But why would Sybbis have some of them?” cried Needly. “What does she want them for?”

  Abasio put Bailai on the ground. “There’s a definite connection between her and old Chief Purple. Old Chief Purple bought into one of the Edges outside Fantis.” Bailai had crawled over to Xulai, who was still holding Gailai, and reached for his sister’s foot, tugging it toward him and putting her big toe in his mouth. There was a ripple of laughter from the watchers. Abasio looked down, shook his head, and took Bailai back on his lap.

  Wide Mountain Mother beckoned, whispered into a woman’s ear, and the woman and a companion went to relieve Abasio and Xulai of the children.

  Relinquishing his son, Abasio said, “Sybbis is not bright enough to instigate a plot, but since old Chief Purple is involved with the Edgers, he may be paying her or simply ordering her to keep some of the creatures. I don’t know what he’d pay her with, but I know she’s afraid of him . . .”

  “Could be payin’ food,” offered Deer Runner. “She’s havin’ trouble feedin’ her ­people.”

  Precious Wind interrupted, returning to her description of the body. “I should have mentioned that the hunter Bear killed had a locator device inside it. Such things are coded and can be used to track the creature . . .”

  Both Abasio and Wide Mountain Mother exclaimed at this.

  Precious Wind said hastily, “I didn’t think of it, but Xulai did. The device has been been cleaned of any trace of us—­and it’s been put in a place that can’t be associated with us. Also, I’ve left a spy-­eye device nearby to record anyone who comes looking for it. I don’t think it’s likely, but there’s a chance we’ll get some idea of who’s using it.”

  Abasio frowned. “Is there a possibility its movements have been constantly recorded? Would the record show that body swooping back and forth when you used ul xaolat to move it and dispose of it?”

  Precious Wind shook her head. “Coyote said the men expected that one to show up. If they’d had a record of it being swooped about, they’d have known it wasn’t going to appear. Besides, I recently learned that ul xaolat doesn’t actually move things through space. It reassembles them in a new location, so no swoop actually occurs. I doubt if they bother to record the creatures’ daily movements. They aren’t studying the creatures; they already know the creatures. They probably made the creatures, and we have to find out what the stuff on their bodies is and what they’re doing with it.”

  Wide Mountain Mother looked around their circle, shaking her head slowly, hands raised in question. “So, is that everything we know?”

  “No,” said Xulai. “Arakny said we hadn’t heard of predation. On our way here we came through an area which should have had several villages in it. The last one, Odd Duck, was shown on the tax map, which means it’s fairly recent. We found . . . evidence that the inhabitants had been eaten.”

  “Eaten?” asked Wide Mountain Mother. “Evidence?”

  Precious Wind gritted her teeth and spoke through them angrily. She got to her feet. Her face seemed suddenly almost too narrow, as though it had pinched itself inward, focusing on something too unpleasant to allow comfort. “I did not finish describing my study of the body of the hunter. Earlier we questioned whether the creatures might be feeding on human prey. I think it is beyond question. I have proof they eat ­people.”

  “Them, too? As well as the giants? Human ­people?” cried Arakny.

  Wide Mountain Mother asked, “What evidence do you have?”

  Precious Wind’s face showed her disgust. “When Xulai reminded me that the corpse might be carrying a locator, I went back and had ul xaolat dig it up and move it out into the desert. I took samples of the fatty stuff. It seemed to dissolve in water, to make a uniform solution, but then it coalesced, drew together, moved and changed, trying to form a shape, extruding what I took to be organs of some kind, then . . . sucking them in again and trying with something else. It didn’t last. The whole substance broke apart into liquid layers . . .” She made a gesture of frustration. “I need to send some of the stuff to Tingawa. I don’t have what I need here—­I’m not even knowledgeable enough myself to find out what it is . . .”

  “So you don’t know what the creatures feed on?” Arakny asked.

  Precious Wind flushed. “Sorry, I went off on a tangent! Yes, we do know what they feed on! Ul xaolat examined the digestive tract of the stinker. It found a skull, not whole, as Xulai described in Odd Duck. Just pieces of a child’s skull, and pieces of pelvis, a half-­grown child perhaps eight or nine years old.”

  Wide Mountain Mother’s face convulsed in disgust. Abasio said, “If we’re right about the heritage of the thing, genetically it’s part Troll or Ogre or both. Those and Ghouls—­which I’ve been told of but have never seen—­are the only Edge-­created monsters that were built to feed on humans.”

  Xulai’s lips were drawn back in distaste. Abasio put his hand on hers. “On our way here, in the valley northwest of Saltgosh, we found droppings, Mother. Human-­looking but huge. There were three little skulls in them, human babies. There was a skeleton hanging on a fence, a person evidently caught as it fled. Skull was bitten in two. However, the thing that did it was not one of the stinkers we’ve been talking about. It was much, much larger than any of them. The population of giants includes at least one breeding ­couple, and they’ve been feasting on humans. The ­people of Salt
gosh have already started an eradication program, they’ve killed several of them, and personally, I think they’ll manage to kill them all.”

  Mother said, “Deer Runner has said there is not sufficient game, but he was not thinking of humans as game. Now we must. Could the hunters among the stinkers have been providing them with humans as food?”

  No one answered. Mother said, “What do you think, Abasio?”

  “I suppose it’s possible. The four hundred that came to be stripped of their product may have assembled from a very wide range, and that number may well be the maximum that can be sustained. They aren’t free-­ranging; they’re under supervision of some kind, probably each ten assigned to a different hunting area. I believe they’ve calculated that four hundred of them will provide enough of whatever product is being harvested. The purpose of which we don’t know. However, we can put a watch on the place, and the next time they come there, we can follow them back to their home.”

  “They were born and grew up somewhere,” said Needly. “The one that shot Willum, he spoke of his father, who died, and was buried. That is, some parts were buried. He said the parts they didn’t keep to use again. I wondered whether maybe the stuff they ooze is made by a separate organ. Something they put into a little one to make it grow up and become a stinker.”

  Precious Wind cried, “You didn’t tell us that!”

  “I didn’t remember it until just now.”

  Wide Mountain Mother stared thoughtfully into the distance for a moment, then turned to look directly at Coyote. “Coyote, you went along the edge of the mountains to get there? Mostly flat ground? Low trees?” She looked around at the group questioningly. “Doesn’t that sound like the route to the Oracles?”

  “You mean the not-­­people? They’re farther along in that same direction, not much farther, though,” said Coyote.