Fish Tails

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “You call them ‘not-­­people’?”

  “They don’t smell like ­people. They don’t smell like anything alive I’ve ever smelled. And I don’t think they’re ­people, they’re all one thing so far as my nose knows.”

  Wide Mountain Mother took a deep breath as she looked around the circle, from face to face. Despite the fine wrinkles that circled her eyes and mouth, her eyes were large and clear, the deep brown of a forest pool. Her thick gray braids fell to her waist, framing a face of enormous dignity. She smiled a strange, humorless smile, as though in wonder at the subject under discussion, then exhaled audibly.

  “One would have thought that when the Big Kill was over, the Edgers would come out of their holes and join the human race. They preferred not. Not only have they stayed in their holes, they have been a constant annoyance to the rest of the human race. Even now, when the Edges are confronted with the same disaster as all the rest of the world.” She paused, took a deep breath, and said slowly, word by word: “Here, I think, we come to the center of the matter, do we not, Arakny?”

  “We do, Mother. Nothing we know explains the source of the water or the slowness of the process, almost as though something has given us just enough time to adapt. Just enough to accomplish our transition into sea creatures. Just enough for us to reach all the ­people now on Earth with the opportunity to take part in that transition. That particular timing seems so fortuitous one has to consider the possibility it is no accident.”

  Wide Mountain Mother nodded. “Also the water keeps coming in a volume that is larger than the planet itself! As one of our women said, ‘Then it’s coming from somewhere else.’ Think on that when you wish to lie awake at night!” She paused, noticed Abasio’s expression. “What is it, Abasio?”

  “Do Artemisians believe in dreams, Mother? Repeated dreams, so completely repeated and so memorable that the dreamer thinks he is receiving a message?”

  “I would not necessarily disbelieve. Have you been having such a dream?”

  “I’m not saying any of it is clear or sensible or true. This is the message I’m getting, that’s all. In a repeated dream, I hear conversations about us, conversations about Earth. The problem of Earth. They all say our problem is that we have no ‘bow,’ or not enough bow or not enough of us have it. They say we don’t listen to our world. Or we can’t hear it. In its briefest form, the message is always the same. We were killing our world, and our world asked a world called Lom for help. Lom passed the request to another world. And the other world was huge and had too much water and was glad to help, through a wormhole.”

  “How Long has this been going on, Abasio?” Arakny’s voice was very calm, very kind. Precious Wind gave her a quick, rather suspicious look. Arakny was speaking as she might to someone she was being very careful not to startle because he was out of his mind. Seeking information without upsetting the informant! Really presumptuous! Whatever Abasio was, he was not crazy.

  Xulai saw the same implication and scowled, raising her eyebrows at Precious Wind.

  Abasio gave Arakny an “I know what you’re up to” grin and shook his head. “Arakny, my mental health is excellent. My recent dream life, however, has been a little bit like reading a book without a bookmark. Each time I go there, the book opens at a different place and it’s difficult to know what comes in between or how it connects. One character turns up in different dreams, and it greets me by name. It knows I’m there. For all I know, it engineers the dreams. If I believe the dream, I believe the water is being sent purposefully.”

  “Why?” asked Mother.

  “To get rid of us,” Abasio said. “All of us humans, because we were destroying the planet. The world called Lom didn’t have the wherewithal to provide help, so it reached out to another world—­a huge ocean planet. You don’t know where the water’s coming from, Precious Wind. Nobody on Earth does. That’s because it’s coming through a wormhole that empties into a cavern inside our world and gets pushed up into the bottom of the sea. The planet that’s sending the water wanted more dry land for its crop.”

  “For its crop? Which is what?” Xulai demanded.

  “Fligbine. I think it’s a euphoric drug of some kind.”

  Arakny and Xulai shared a pitying glance.

  “You asked!” he said angrily.

  Wide Mountain Mother said, “Lom is the world, or world part, to which two ships were dispatched a thousand years ago. They went from the Place of Power.”

  “So Xulai told me. I hadn’t known of it until she told me, in Saltgosh. And yes, Arakny, I’d been having the dreams before we reached Saltgosh.”

  Wide Mountain Mother smiled, a real smile. “I don’t discount your dream, Abasio. It fits too nicely with my suppositions to be ignored. Unfortunately, we have an immediate threat which must be given precedence: a threat from the Edges. We have accepted the fact that our world will be drowned. Despite their initial skepticism, even the Edges had to accept it as fact. All of us who cooperated with the Tingawan researchers and workers are devoted to the task Abasio and Xulai have helped accomplish.” She shook her head fretfully, grimaced. “But, from the beginning, the Edges have refused to help with it or to take part in it.”

  “Refused?” Abasio looked up in amazement. “You mean, they were invited?”

  It was Precious Wind who answered. “Oh, yes, they were invited. I’ve read the records. There were a lot more of them when they were first invited. Then, as recently as a few decades ago, when we knew we were getting close to the project goal—­your babies—­Tingawa sent ambassadors, not to one Edge only, but to each of them. There were, I believe, forty-­seven of them left in our area at that time; fewer than half of those are left now. The Edges told us to run along and play. What they actually said, in almost the same words in every Edge, was ‘No thank you, what you’re doing is useless, we have our own plans.’ ”

  “And that’s exactly what worries us,” Wide Mountain Mother snarled. “The Edges have always been insular. Each Edge must consistently prove itself superior to every other Edge. The point Arakny and I have been talking around, what we’ve been almost afraid to say, is—­if the Edgers really have their own plans, then we should be scared to death. What the Edges have planned in the past has usually been harmful to the rest of us.”

  “I thought they just stayed to themselves,” said Xulai.

  Arakny laughed. “If only they would. We can thank the Edges for the disease that ravaged Fantis. We can thank the Edges for turning their giants loose on us. On one former occasion, we found it necessary to get rid of a giant. We went to the Edge responsible and put it to them. We knew they had placed devices in all their creations they could use to turn them off. They refused to act—­”

  Xulai interrupted. “Arakny, forgive me, but what was the manner of refusal? Angry. Bored? What?”

  “Their manner was quite jocular. They laughed. As if they had forgotten they needed anything from the outside world.”

  “Thank you,” Xulai murmured, making quick notes. “I’m charged with the responsibility of reporting and I’m trying to document as we go.”

  Arakny went on: “Since they felt they didn’t need the outside world, we decided to teach them otherwise. They had observer devices out at some distance that could see who was moving about, passing through, and so forth. We found and blinded all their devices. We kept watch on the sites and captured any repairmen. We intercepted their usual shipments of food and detoured the food wagons to our territory, paid for the food they had brought, put it in our warehouses, and told the drovers the Edge had died off of a plague, they wouldn’t need food in the future.

  “The Edge responded by turning some warrior devices loose on us, but prior to beginning this conflict, we had obtained some devices of our own from Tingawa. After some months without food, they turned off their giant. At a great distance. We didn’t remove our ­people and let food get through
to them until we checked to see that it was truly dead. We didn’t know about the insect problem then, but it had wandered out into the desert to die, which I think may have made a difference. Bodies dry out instead of rot. Larvae die. We acted as harshly as we did because the Edges talk to one another, and we wanted to be sure that no other Edges got the idea it would be fun to push us around. Historically, the Edges have been amused by things like that.” She clasped her hands in her lap and fell silent. The entire group seemed to be holding its breath.

  Wide Mountain Mother, shaking her head, beckoned to one of the women and was given a cup of something steaming that was evidently soothing. When she had drunk it, she managed a smile.

  “We clan mothers have discussed this—­interminably, I’m afraid! We had to convince ourselves over and over that this inundation is true. We had to ask ourselves over and over why it has come upon us and who has brought it upon us. Until today, that question had no answer. I will not accept Abasio’s dream as absolute truth in all details, but I’m sure there is truth in it! There is, however, one thing we have never doubted. The Edges are planning something inimical to us. Why else would they refuse to cooperate with the rest of us?”

  Silence.

  Precious Wind broke it. “The answer you received from the Edges sounds almost like a threat. ‘What you’re doing is useless,’ weren’t those the words? They seem to indicate that our efforts would meet with ­disaster.”

  Abasio growled, “Have the Edges said nothing about their own plans?”

  Wide Mountain Mother shook her head. “Precious Wind quoted them exactly, Abasio. Their entire response consisted of the words ‘No thank you, what you’re doing is useless, we have our own plans.’ Some of them varied that by omitting the ‘thank you.’ Recently I have paid more attention to their exact words, however. By calling our efforts ‘useless,’ they could mean ‘wasted,’ or they could mean ‘Whatever you try, we will prevent you.’ This makes more sense if you put it in the context of the traditional Edger attitude toward non-­Edgers, accepted as a religious belief. They really believe all humans who were in any way important were created and survived in the Edges during the Big Kill. They really believe that any humans who survived the Big Kill outside the Edges are insignificant trash ­people who survived accidentally, no credit to themselves. When Edgers eliminate outsiders, they really believe they’re taking out the trash.”

  Precious Wind gritted her teeth and spoke through them angrily. “We have to find out what they’re doing with the stinker stuff.” She got to her feet. Her face seemed suddenly almost too narrow, as though it had pinched itself inward, as if she was concentrating on something too unpleasant to allow comfort. “I’m almost sure they’re making something alive,”

  Xulai, however, was mentally chewing at something, her face very tense. She suddenly leapt to her feet, crying, “Oh, oh, they couldn’t. Abasio. Remember what . . .” Her voice ran off in panic-­stricken silence.

  Abasio had risen and gone to her immediately. He turned her to face him. “Xulai, what?”

  “I was thinking . . . remember what Sun-­wings said. She said our sea-­children could be destroyed by the Griffins’ ‘brethren in the seas.’ As though she knew there was something waiting in this great ocean, something that would make anything we did useless! If the Griffins were created by the Edgers, they may also have created other creatures we’ve never even seen. The Edgers could know what else is out there. And maybe that’s the reason they won’t cooperate with us. They know it’s useless! They’ve already put something in this ocean . . . something that won’t let us live! Or maybe let anything live.”

  “Xulai, she said IF!” cried Needly. “Sun-­wings said ‘If we didn’t help them’! So she didn’t mean something already there that she . . . that the Griffins couldn’t . . . couldn’t control.”

  Xulai sat down again, still white-­faced. Abasio put his arm around her. Wide Mountain Mother nodded, surveyed their small circle. “How nice. A new terror to join the rest. Can we tell that particular panic to go play with the dozen or so other terrors, horrors, and impossibilities for the moment? Perhaps tomorrow we will have time to give it its due?”

  She looked around the circle, noting their expressions. “No, you all want to DO something.” She shook her head, mouth clenched. For a moment there was complete silence. She raised her head. “VERY WELL . . .

  “We will all meet here tomorrow, midmorning. Each of you remember to bring several handkerchiefs and a complete list of any deities you’ve heard of, eliminating redundant deities under different names. One Earth goddess will be sufficient, for example. And then we will join in violent motion, screaming, sobbing, calling out in unison for help and sympathy. It will do no good, but everybody rushing about will amuse the children and I am told it releases tension.”

  The group watching had grown larger. There were grinning nods from the clan mothers in the group; others stared, mouths open, or exchanged bewildered glances. The shrill voice rose from the fringes once more. “Mama, I wanna watch evabody rushin’ ’bout an’ be amuse!”

  Into the quiet that followed, Arakny cried, “Then what is that ganger queen doing with dozens of such creatures? What is our so-­called Queen Sybbis intending to use them for?”

  Precious Wind answered, “I’ve used our far-­talker to discuss Sybbis’s visit. The ­people in Tingawa think she was making—­or was directed to make—­a reconnaissance to find out how strong you are, and how determined. Something or someone had to have told her the Artemisians were on the road that goes up to Findem Pass. The one stinker who was with her may have been a spy.”

  Xulai asked, “Does Tingawa think the things are smart enough to—­”

  Precious Wind threw up her hands. “They don’t need to be smart. Any one of them could be planted with electronic devices to tell the Edgers what’s being said in the camp, what’s being done in the camp, and very probably what Sybbis herself says and does. It, or Sybbis, may have attempted to plant devices in your wagons. If ­people haven’t checked, they should.

  “Further, Tingawa thinks if she’s being induced to feed the creatures, she will soon send her gangers to take captives. If she’s been induced to house them or to let them hunt, we need to find in what area, where. We need to know if ­people are disappearing. Are families in remote areas still there, safe, or are they gone? Are there signs that remote areas have been occupied?”

  From among the listeners, voices rose in confusion, a babble through which Wide Mountain Mother’s voice cut like a knife. “Hush. Confusions of words don’t help. Let us pick a direction in which we can move. We have one that may be useful.

  “First: the Edges tell us they have their own plans.

  “Second: the Edges have the technology necessary to make creatures; they have done it for generations in the archetypal villages.

  “Third: they are now making creatures that eat human flesh and create a strange, fatty substance on their bodies that behaves, Precious Wind tells us, like a living organism.

  “Fourth: they are harvesting that substance from a breeding population. And all this indicates what?”

  Xulai spoke. “We need to find out what they’re doing with it, and where they’re doing it.”

  Mother nodded. “Exactly. We need spies.” She looked around the circle. “Is Deer Runner here?”

  “I’m here, Mother.”

  “Will you find those of the scouts who may be near? We need to set up a Find, Follow, and Observe network.”

  Runner sped off toward the stream that separated the men’s houses from the plaza.

  “Would she keep the creatures in her own camp?” asked Arakny of no one in particular. “Could she?”

  Abasio shook his head, stood up, and squirmed, stretching his shoulders and back, knotted from sitting too long on the ground. “Let’s consider what little evidence we have. Sybbis’s ­people wore masks
. The ­people Coyote saw at the rendering works wore masks. The men Precious Wind relocated away from Sybbis and Catland were grateful for being moved. This indicates fairly clearly that ­people can’t live in close association with them without masks, that they aren’t accustomed to them, and they hate having them around. They certainly can’t live all the time wearing masks, so the stinkers aren’t with them ordinarily. However, the gangers claim to control a big territory. Coyote and Bear have told me they’ve talked with other creatures, and a ­couple of valleys that used to have human settlers in them are now empty of human life.

  “There’s a connection here we should keep in mind. Old Chief Purple and Sybbis have a connection, possibly a fairly close connection. Old Chief Purple bought his way into one of the Edges.

  “The gangers can evidently tolerate the stinker Sybbis had with her, or perhaps tolerate it for only a short time. At the moment she may see that one as an added symbol of power, like her throne. The other dozens of them . . . perhaps they’re a display of power by the Edge that left them there in the woods for Sybbis to pick up on her return journey. We weren’t supposed to know about them, so who was? My guess would be they are being used against Sybbis’s ­people, to keep them cowed. I have very little doubt Sybbis’s ­people know they eat humans. They’ve been told, or they’ve seen it happen. That’s why the guards didn’t mind Precious Wind getting the stinkers away from Sybbis.

  “And all that leads me to believe that the Edge where old Chief Purple was, or still is, is central to this whole thing.”

  Quiet came, a long, apprehensive quiet, broken at last by Bear. “Lady, you took that thing apart? Would you say it’d be killed easy? Could a arrow kill it?”

  Precious Wind nodded. “Arrow through the heart. Yes. The anatomy is approximately human.”

  “I tore one a’ ’um’s neck apart. It was real nasty. Arrows, they’re good. Better if y’didn hafta touch it.”

  Wide Mountain Mother said firmly, “Bear, most of our scouts are excellent bowmen. When Deer Runner returns, we will begin set up a F, F, and O net to monitor traffic between and among the Edges north of us and the area Coyote has identified. There must be some kind of headquarters there, something or someone who has information, would you agree?”