Fish Tails

by Sheri S. Tepper

  As she had spoken, the other three had become increasingly intent.

  Arakny went on: “The helmets do what you and Abasio do for the Tingawan historians, Xulai. Gather information from all sources, cross-­check that information against all sources, remove obvious falsities and flaws, and retain only information that is determined to be accurate and true.”

  Precious Wind gasped, “That’s remarkable!”

  “It is. Also, the helmets can receive information through wormholes—­you may recall that the messages from the ships on Lom came through a wormhole . . .”

  “Just a minute,” said Precious Wind. “Are you saying it’s possible that all planets are connected via wormholes?”

  Arakny turned to regard her questioningly. “Precious Wind, when did I say that? I said, ‘Messages from the ships on Lom came through a wormhole.’ That’s all I said. The only thing I know for a fact is that the planet containing a geographic area known as Lom, and this planet we are sitting on, ARE or WERE connected by a wormhole. The helmet ­people told us when a ship goes from one planet to another, it leaves something like a temporary crease in space. If a wormhole subsequently touches a crease, sometimes it may turn along it, follow it. A wormhole was established at some time, between us and Lom, and since—­so far as we know—­only the flights of the ships linked the two planets, that flight might be when it happened.”

  “Are you saying the planets might have done it?” Precious Wind demanded furiously.

  Arakny snarled, “Did you hear me say that? Strange, I don’t remember saying that. Are you having difficulty with your ears, Miss Most-­Terribly-­Important-­Tingawan?”

  Abasio shook his head at Precious Wind. “Calm down, Presh. Get off your elephant! Listen instead of demanding. Arakny hasn’t claimed any certainty about details.”

  “Thank you, Abasio.” Arakny bowed in his direction. “Yes. I understand your frustration, Precious Wind. Frustration can beget fury, and I also get dreadfully frustrated. At one point I asked the helmet about wormholes between planets. The helmet condescended to tell me that establishing wormholes is a customary thing for a planet to do if it’s a bow planet.”

  “How do you spell that, ‘bow’ . . . ?” Precious Wind demanded, still sharply.

  Arakny stared her down. “It told me ver-­bal-­ly, as in con-­ver-­sa-­tion. It did not write it down or spell it out. If it had, what difference would it make to be able to spell it? B-­O-­W, B-­O-­U-­G-­H, B-­A-­O, B-­H-­A-­O-­H. No matter how it might be spelled, it is something I can’t identify, something that is probably spelled, if at all, in some entirely different language’s alphabet? That’s the way it sounded when the helmet told me, ver-­bal-­ly, the answer to my question. It’s on my list of things to find out someday when I have unlimited free time.” Her body said clearly, “When you go home to your blessed Tingawa and leave me alone!”

  “Are you ­people here in Artemisia the only ones who know this?” Abasio asked in his politest voice.

  “Firstly, not even most Artemisians know about it because Artemisians are like most other ­people: they’re much more interested in food, sex, sleep, or the next tribal ceremony than they are in a theory of ‘universal wormhole information networks.’ Which spells, before you ask, Precious Wind, U-­WIN.” She glared at Precious Wind for a long moment before resuming her account.

  “Secondly, the ­people who gave us the helmets obviously already know about it. Before you pounce on me, Precious Wind! No, I do not know who or what they are. They show up now and again to feed some additional information or systems into our helmets. Sometimes they give us a few new ones. If you want more information, ask your own ­people in Tingawa. I understand they have analyzed the helmets and are actually manufacturing them, or a very close copy. I don’t know if the Tingawan helmets have the capacity to be Universal Receivers, however, so you might want to check on that before considering them an adequate substitute. I do know that each helmet given to us contains an official description of the helmets and their capabilities and it refers to the manufacturers as Us and We, which the ­people of Artemisia do not find enlightening.”

  Precious Wind murmured, “What are they called, these ­people who gave you the helmets?”

  Arakny said, very seriously, “We call them the ­People Who Gave Us the Helmets.”

  Precious Wind frowned. “Well, what do they call themselves?”

  “We ask who they are. They say, ‘We are the ­people giving helmets.’ They don’t say ‘helmets,’ they say something I can’t pronounce. Shall we make an acronym? ‘We, helmets, are to ­people giving’? W-­H-­A-­T-­P-­G? Pronounced ‘WHAT PIG.’ ” She laughed, silently but almost hysterically, shaking her head. “Or ‘Helmets Us Goin’ ta Give You’? That could be HUGGY. They arrive, they look human, but I believe that’s protective coloration. I don’t think they are human; who or whatever they are, they are an enigma. Enigma number two if we count the Oracles as enigma number one. Or vice versa.

  “For heaven’s sake, Precious Wind, try to accept it: No one in Artemisia is hiding anything from you and the Grand Supreme Whatsit of Tingawa. The helmet ­people are enigmas. It is very difficult to get information from enigmas that is not in itself enigmatic. Which doesn’t usually help and it’s NOT our fault. I cannot direct them to talk to Tingawans. And quite frankly, I wouldn’t if I could. Your attitude may explain why they don’t.”

  There was a lengthy silence while Precious Wind, her jaw clenched, stared at the still-­lengthening shadows, Abasio at the grass, Xulai at Arakny, Arakny at the few golden leaves, still jittering on the trees ­outside.

  Xulai broke it by asking plaintively, “Does the helmet know why the royal family brought their marching band with them to Lom?”

  Arakny gave her a smile of gratitude. At last, something she knew! “Because the prince loved it. It was like . . . You know how some children play with toy soldiers? His band was like that. They were his toy. He was a toy prince in a toy kingdom with a toy band and he had more money than he could spend in forever! He knew of the Big Kill. He didn’t want his musicians killed. And they would have been killed because they didn’t care about the creeds that had been inserted in killing machines designed to kill everyone who didn’t have an identical creed in his or her memory. All his lovely oom-­pah, bang, tan-­tara, and tweetle ­people would have been casually slaughtered like so many others. So this princeling, who had never in his life wanted anything he couldn’t have, decided to move somewhere safe with a few of his closest friends and his band and their families. It took them a thousand years to get there, but they got there.”

  “How did Lom react to that?”

  “The ship got there, the band woke up, got out of the ship, and gave a concert.”

  “Immediately?”

  “As immediately as everyone could be wakened, I guess. The concert was attended by some of the natives. They gleefully accepted the presence of the band, the world accepted its presence, and the band has been marching the roads of Lom ever since, just the way they used to march the roads of the principality. There weren’t that many roads when they got there. The roads have become longer and longer. Their march covers them all; that’s what they do and it’s all that they do.

  “According to our accounts, the several races of local ­people love the band. The Eesties love the band. The shadow ­people love the band. It is in no small part due to the band that the other humans have been tolerated. If you don’t have a helmet, I’ll lend you one and you can sense the account. If you do have one, put it on and ask to march with the band on Lom. It’s like you’re right in the middle of them. It’s a good idea to be on a good straight piece of road when you do it.” She sighed. “Once I ended up in the middle of a river.”

  Abasio mused: “When I dream about that world, I’m usually in the tower, the one that was destroyed by natives and restored by humans.”

 
“In the tower?”

  “The Daylight Tower. It’s a tall, round white tower. There’s a huge silver bell hanging in the top of it with a circle of tall, pointy-­arched windows all the way around the bell. The bottom of the tower is like the top, only the arches are taller and wider and ­people or creatures constantly enter and leave. Inside, in the middle, a round pool is set into the stone floor, a pool with a low, carved stone rim around it built a little bit like a seat. It’s too low and the rim is too short for human ­people to lean against, so it was designed with other creatures in mind.

  “When humans rebuilt it, they made it identical to the original tower, even using all the unbroken original stones. Almost all of the original bell metal was found and recast. Most of the stones around the pool are the original ones. There’s a statue of a reclining woman on the floor, and there are other women sitting around it talking about a journey they are about to take. To come here. To help us. I think one of them is a shapeshifter . . .” His voice faded.

  “Then what?” Arakny’s mouth gaped breathlessly.

  “Nothing except creatures coming in and going out, different ones. The reason I mentioned a Dervish is that one came in, saw me, and spoke to me. She told me her name was Bartelmy and that she was a Dervish. Usually none of them know I’m there. The other ones, that is. But the children see me and the Dervish saw me.”

  “What do they look like, the other ones?”

  “The women? They look like human women. They say they have to go help Earth because a friend has asked them to. As a favor.”

  “A friend?” Xulai thrust out her hands, palms up in exaggerated wonderment. “It’s so nice to know that we have a friend. Now, who might that be?”

  Abasio shook his head, his unfocused eyes staring into nothing, unaware of the intensity with which Arakny and Precious Wind were watching him. “The ships went from here to Lom. That left a . . . crease? A wormhole happened, and our world used that wormhole to ask Lom for help.”

  “Help to do what?” asked Arakny.

  “Help to get rid of us,” Abasio said. “All of us humans, because we were destroying the planet. 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 deep trench at the bottom of our ocean. The planet that’s sending the water wanted more dry land for its crop.”

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

  “Fligbine. No, I don’t know what it is, though I think it’s a euphoric drug.”

  Arakny and Xulai shared a pitying glance.

  “You asked!” he said angrily. He turned and glared at Arakny. “Now, don’t interrupt me, just listen. I haven’t really thought of the dreams as actual happenings, though I feel strongly that the essence of the dreams has happened. My dreaming them, experiencing them, is either a random accident or it’s purposeful. If it’s accidental, we can all forget it. But if I assume it is purposeful, then I am being sent a message! Not to me for any particular reason, except, perhaps, that I’m able to receive it or maybe I was nearest the Listener when the message came through!”

  Xulai shivered suddenly. “We were, Arakny! He was . . . he had this red glow around him. Really. And we had to get him around the corner from the Listener before it stopped. He started having the dreams long before that, though.”

  Abasio nodded. “Yes, they started sometime before we came into Gravysuck. I don’t know why I should be the only recipient. Other ­people here may be having the same dreams. Messages can get a bit garbled, and when it happens, it does not necessarily indicate that the receiver is broken—­or insane.”

  Arakny flushed. “Sorry.”

  He nodded his forgiveness. “So if I take out all the frills and the worst of the oddities and reduce the dreams to their consistent elements, we could say someone or something on Lom wants us to know they’re coming. There’s a creature called Fixit who’s coming, and it’s bringing two women from Lom. And a statue, I think. Not just coming to Earth, but coming here. And it definitely has something to do with Xulai or me or the babies.”

  “The babies?” cried Xulai, suddenly alert. “You think it knows about the babies?”

  “Oh, it or they know all about the babies because I usually have one or both of them with me when I’m there. One of them is usually awake and sees everything that’s going on. It’s very strange.”

  “Do the women have names?” Precious Wind asked.

  “One of the women is a healer, Silkhands. And the other one, the mother of the two children, is Jinian. The Dervish called Bartelmy is Jinian’s mother . . .”

  A murmur came from the bed, where the babies were supposedly asleep. “Ninian. Ninian?”

  “That’s Gailai,” he said. “She baby-­talks to Jinian when we go there. Bailai doesn’t. He’s girl-­shy.”

  “Our children are sharing your dream?” demanded Xulai.

  “Or dreaming the same dream simultaneously,” said Precious Wind thoughtfully. “They’re genetically linked, Xulai. If Abasio’s right about his being capable of receiving, that capability could be shared with his children.” She rose from her place on the grass and stood very straight, head back, forcing herself to set the matter aside and pull herself into the here and now, the current situation.

  ­“People, I’d like nothing better than to spend a day with the helmet seeing if I can find out exactly what has brought us to this place! However! We do have something else to do first. Your dream voyages are probably outside the Oracles’ purview, though we can try to open the subject with them. Our immediate problems are with Willum and Sun-­wings, however. And then we need to figure out the Griffin survival problem . . .”

  “Wait!” cried Abasio, his face alive with sudden recognition. “That’s why they’re coming. Partly. To solve the Griffin problem! That’s why the shapeshifter is coming!”

  Arakny muttered, “Shapeshifter. Yes. Of course. Why didn’t I think of that? All we need is a shapeshifter! And we still don’t know precisely where the Griffins originated and who might have records of the genetic input . . . I suppose you’re going to tell me we don’t need that now, because a shapeshifter is going to come solve it for us?”

  Abasio sighed. “Arakny, I have told you what . . . messages I’ve received. I do not believe I’m losing my mind. If you want to ignore dreams and visions and whatnot, then do so. We can deal only with known facts. Perhaps we can also speak to the Oracles about the Edgers. They may have some insight into what they’re planning.”

  Arakny grimaced. “Which doesn’t mean they’ll answer our questions. We very rarely get any useful information from them. So rarely that’s it’s been suggested they should be called Obstacles rather than Oracles . . .”

  And that was the conversation about that, leaving each one of them unsatisfied.

  THE MOOD PERSISTED WHEN THEY started out in the morning, Arakny and Precious Wind on matched golden horses alongside Xulai, Abasio, Needly, and the babies in their wagon. The small second wagon carried their supplies and Willum’s contorted, stony self, carefully cushioned, as though he could feel. Needly, for one, was not convinced he wouldn’t bruise. Or feel cold. Or hurt. A dozen Artemisian men carrying bows and knives rode alongside or out in front, half a dozen of them leading spare horses. They always took spare horses. An assignment from Wide Mountain Mother cannot be allowed to founder because a horse goes lame, and these men had been assigned to take part in the Find, Follow, and Observe network Deer Runner and Mother had set up. The so-­called House of the Oracles was at the far western end of the territory, and the first task of these men was to locate any sign of Edger invasion onto the northwestern quadrant of Artemisian territory. A lesser number of mounted women were going also, out of curiosity, to learn the way.

  The
way was already quite well known, there were no surprises. They would not need to cross the Big River. Some distance north and east of the Devil’s Ah, the Big River swung widely to the west into a canyon that had opened when the Stonies had been heaved up a millennium before. South of the Devil’s Ah was the last bridge over the Big River, which then made a deep cut to the southwest, a long, shallow C as it curved south and then east to run back out onto the desert, separating the southeastern corner of the Stonies from the rest of the range and carrying the river with it. It was along the southern edge of this separated region that Coyote had tracked the stinkers, and in the northern part of this same area was the cave in which Sun-­wings had secreted Willum and Needly.

  They met no monsters. It was almost as though the area had been swept and cleared for the two wagons and the ­people riding alongside. Bear sometimes walked, sometimes lay curled in one of the wagons; Coyote likewise. Coyote had not yet recovered from his journey into the rendering works. He was victim to unpleasant thoughts or memories that woke him from sleep, kicking and biting. For some reason he could not define or explain, he had brought his piece of metal with him, the one he had picked up in the lava tube. He had tucked it into a corner of the wagon, where it wouldn’t get lost. He had never mentioned it to Abasio, and he couldn’t explain that either, though there was some kind of memory tickling at him, a memory concerning something similar he had seen, somewhere . . .

  The babies had spent most of the previous day in a small pool at the bottom of a canyon, quite near Wide Mountain Clan House. Several years previously, a hot spring had been diverted to mix with the cold water in the pool to make a play place for the children who lived in the area, and the babies had enjoyed the warm pool for hours, delightedly receiving various sets of baby minders and thoroughly tiring themselves. Today they were willing to sleep or lie on any convenient lap and watch the desert go by. No one approached the travelers. No dangers presented themselves. It was ordinary. Peaceful. Normal. It made Abasio very nervous.