Fish Tails

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “Like how?”

  “Well, if they were human I’d say they were embarrassed. Kind of . . . shifty. It has nothing to do with you two good creatures. Now, I promised Needly I’d be back to tell her a bedtime story. She’s too big for bedtime stories, and it’s way too early for bed, but she remembers how they made her feel when she was little and she wants to feel cozy. She needs a little cozy because she’s had a lot of horrible lately. You two look like you could do with a bedtime story.”

  “We’re awright,” said Bear, nudging Coyote, who grumphed an assent. “Wish you good night.”

  “Wish you good night, good creatures, and I did bring you a bedtime something,” she said, taking two sizable packets from a deep pocket and putting them before two noses. When she was a quarter of the way up the path to the portal, she heard two voices behind.

  “Chicken! It’s a whole roasted chicken. How’d she know I like it roasted? Whadju get?”

  “Honey,” said Bear, with enormous satisfaction. “Two big pieces of comb. She’s a very nice old lady.”

  Grandma smiled ruefully. Of course she was very nice, but she didn’t feel anywhere near that old.

  NEEDLY HAD NOT VISITED BEAR and Coyote, for the Oracles had invited her to have supper with them. Supper had consisted of an endless series of tiny bowls, plates, vessels, kettles, each with something different in it. The food items (liquids, pastes, solids; crunchy, slimy) were a very strange assortment, by no means all delicious, though a few were. The Oracles, however, seemed to get quite as much pleasure (if, indeed, that was what they were having) out of analyzing the ingredients, the tastes, the intermixing of the tastes, the fading away of the tastes, the texture, the changing of the texture when chewed (whether unyielding or compliant), and all the other ways in which food could possibly be appreciated as they did the eating of it. Their vocabulary was limited and their comments repeated several times. The entire event took about half an hour.

  Somehow it all had been very . . . like playacting? Needly had not been sure until this event, but now she was. They were not what Grandma thought they were! She wasn’t afraid of them, but she didn’t like them or admire them or consider them wise. They were merely . . . acting. As though they had seen . . . seen a pictured dinner party. Needly had been told of such things: Grandma’s bedtime stories had been full of wonderful events and wonderful ­people doing wonderful things. The machines were full of such things. The Oracles had many sources they could copy. And they were simply copying, she was sure of it!

  Had it not been for Grandma’s having remarked that she sometimes felt the Oracles were “tasting” the Earthian environment, Needly would have been dismayed by the “dinner party.” As it was, she nodded agreement when she agreed, kept silent when she disagreed, refused to eat anything her nose told her would promptly come up again, and showed proper reverence for the hosts (or hostesses) when it was over. By the time she returned to the room where Grandma lived, Grandma herself had returned.

  “What did you think?” Grandma asked.

  “I thought it was a lot of fuss about nothing.”

  “When they do things like that, it’s like a game to them. I believe they don’t ordinarily have bodies that need to eat. They have several of those really advanced food machines in the big reception area, did you see them?” Needly had not. “Just tell the machine what you want, and it produces it. Sometimes it asks for a recipe. I use them regularly when I’m here, but the Oracles never use them at all. Maybe their bodies soak up sunlight, though I wouldn’t swear to it. The best I’ve been able to get them to say is first: they have to be here. Second: they have a job, a mission, a task. Third: they chose to appear as the leading life-­form—­that’s us—­and fourth: they wish to experience things the leading life-­form experiences.”

  “Do they also pee and poop?”

  Grandma looked puzzled. “How clever of you, Needly. You know, I have no idea! There’s a water toilet in my quarters here, but that’s meaningless. It could be for guests only. So I can only say I shouldn’t be surprised either way.

  “This, by the way, is probably my last visit. They were talking about something coming or their going? It’s confusing, and they weren’t talking to me. More like someone mumbling to themselves, really. If they go, I’m afraid they’ll take all this lovely machinery with them. I’ll regret that.” She sat back, ready to hear about Needly’s trip through the woods and whatever else the child wanted to tell her, then, startlingly, she sat up again, looking very alert.

  Needly heard a humming sound. Grandma looked as though she wanted to spit. “Excuse me, my darling, but I’m wanted. I shouldn’t be long.”

  The door thing, which faded into the wall when not needed, opened as she approached it and closed behind her. Needly decided to inspect the bookshelf along one wall, nicely filled with books, some of which she recognized. In Tuckwhip, books had been hidden except when she and Grandma were sure they were alone. Most of the ­people there used them to start fires. She was quite hungry, but couldn’t do anything about it until Grandma came back, and a book would pass the time. She found a book of animal stories and was deeply involved in it when Grandma returned, a Grandma pale-­faced and obviously unhappy.

  “They can’t do it,” she said. “What we planned to do for Willum. It won’t work. The medical machine had a report for me. It’s that blasted yew wood. Who in heaven’s name put that weapon into the hands of those . . . creatures?”

  Needly wanted to scream or cry or both. Instead she knotted her hands together and concentrated on making them as tight as she could. And tighter. “What won’t work. Grandma?”

  “I told you how we planned to do it. We have the antidote that nullifies the stone, we have an excellent medicine that aids healing. The minute we nullify the stone, the yew shaft starts poisoning Willum’s living tissue, and the healing aid can’t fight it. The machine is running on low, I guess researching everything that’s ever been recorded about yew wood or the rock medicine . . .”

  “Couldn’t you start working in the middle of him. Then do a tiny bit at a time, but from both sides.” She turned away, visualizing what she meant. “Tell me about the healing agent. How does it work?”

  “It’s a liquid. You warm it to liquefy it, then pour it into a wound and it sets into quite a solid gel at body temperature—­ours, that is. It has chemicals and organics in it that encourage the tissue on all sides to invade the gel and build new tissue. The growing cells actually eat it. Of course, to get the tissue to do that, you have to stop its being rock first.”

  “So it turns into a gel at our body temperature?”

  “Oh, yes. We get it much warmer than that to melt it.”

  “Does the liquid set into gel immediately, or does it take a little time? I mean, does it flow at first? If there’s a little opening like into a blood vessel, will it flow in before it sets?”

  “Yes, if it’s warm when you pour it, it stays liquid for as long as it takes to cool, longer if someone has a fever, but not terribly long.”

  “Oh, what would happen if we tried . . .” Needly murmured. “Suppose the shaft could be pulled out completely while he’s rock, then rinse out the hole to get every splinter of yew out of him. Then maybe you could warm him while he’s rock, warm enough to keep the healing stuff liquid. Plug the hole in his back, and from the front fill the hole completely with the heal-­all, turn him so it will flow into any little hole, any open capillary, any gap in cells. Wait until it sets into gel. Then turn him over and be sure the heal-­all is gelled even with his skin in back. When that is set, then you could try to de-­rock all of him. By that time, maybe the stuff will be plugging every capillary. There will be no place for him to bleed from. That is, if the shaft isn’t through his heart or something. If it isn’t, he won’t bleed.”

  Grandma sat staring at the child. “I’ll go see what the medical machines advise,” she said, leav
ing with some haste.

  There were two beds in the room, one that Grandma had obviously used. Her slippers were beside it, her night water bottle was on the table. Grandma always had a night water bottle. She rarely if ever drank from it. Needly used to ask her why she had it. Grandma always said she might need it if the house caught on fire. The other bed was for Needly. Her pack was there. She undressed and put on the light sleep trousers and shirt Xulai had made for her, like Willum’s. She had admired Willum’s. They looked so comfortable and had turned out to be so, even though they were made from old shirts. Xulai didn’t have any more old shirts. She had made the bottoms from old bed sheets. Needly lay down on her bed with the book.

  She realized she hadn’t told Grandma she was hungry. Of all those little dishes and kettles and vials of stuff, only half a dozen of them had been tasty. Six tiny spoonfuls. And she was thirsty. She’d have a drink out of Grandma’s water bottle. She sipped . . . and stopped. That explained why Grandma had a water bottle. It wasn’t water.

  Grandma’s room was near the reception area. She went out to find the food machine Grandma had talked about. It had a start button and a keyboard. She pushed the one and found the letters to spell “fried chicken.” The machine whirred and went thunk. A silvery sack dropped into a bin. She took it back to their room. The chicken was hot and tasty, and she ate it with some of the trail stuff she had in her pack. Corn—­some parched, some popped—­and dried, fried pieces of corn flats, and piñon nuts and dried pieces of apples, apricots, cherries, and plums. Needly munched some, sipping not-­water between munches. The not-­water must be liquor. The stuff that was stronger than beer, which she had tasted before, in Tuckwhip. It gave one a very funny sort of floating feeling.

  She dozed off for a while. The room sensed she was asleep and put a blanket over her. Only a little later, she half woke, thinking she had heard something.

  The door opened and Grandma came in. She was trying to smile. “The Oracles were annoyed,” she said, almost in a whisper. ­“People—­that is, human ­people—­are not expected to come up with answers that the Oracles haven’t thought of first. It took them some time to decide on the correct reaction. They wished to ignore your suggestion, but they decided that would be undignified. They wished to ignore the fact that your suggestion might work, but they decided it would be equally undignified not to recognize it. Therefore, they wish to congratulate you on having had a good idea. All that before I had a chance to ask the machine.”

  “And?” Needly cried.

  “Needly, much of what I just said is . . . interpolation. Nothing was as clear or definite as I said it. When I quoted the Oracles as saying ­people aren’t expected to come up with answers, what they actually said was ‘machine job, not for person.’ However, the machine didn’t help much. It gave us an equivocal reading. A maybe. So we tried what you suggested. The machine is much stronger than a person, and much more delicate at the same time. It pulled the shaft out and washed out the hole to get all the bits out, if any. It warmed him until he was a tiny bit warmer than usual body temp. Not too high, it said, because there was a danger of cracking him. It blocked the hole in his back. It warmed the gel and poured it into him. When it set, it turned him over and put a little more gel in the back and evened up the gel on both sides of him and de-­rocked him.”

  “Did he wake up? Is he moving?”

  “He opened his eyes. That’s all the movement he could make because he was in terrible pain. Terrible screaming pain. The machine reacted immediately. It had analyzed the rock medicine and had created some; it used the rock medicine on him again and put the arrow shaft back where it was. It’s now humming furiously again, rethinking the whole thing. It doesn’t want him to move, eat, do anything until everything has grown. Why are you crying? It’s too early to cry. We’ve just started.”

  Needly, her eyes awash in tears, could not stop. “Grandma, he was so brave. He didn’t even think, he just jumped in front of that arrow, protecting the little Griffin.” She wiped her face, got out of bed, and pulled on her jacket. “I can’t just lie here. Do you have the stuff to de-­rock Sun-­wings’ leg? Where’s Abasio and Xulai? I need to go tell them about Willum. They were really upset. We need to go tell them. And Coyote and Bear; somebody needs to tell them, too.” She took a deep breath, trying to remember other . . . concrete things. Definite things. “And we need to give some of the antidote to someone to take back to Sun-­wings. Can I ask Precious Wind to do it? She’s feeling annoyed at herself.”

  “I gave the antidote to Precious Wind hours ago, child.”

  Needly, who felt that if she had to lie still right now and not think about Willum, she would simply die, said so. Worriedly, Grandma told her in that case they would join the singsong that the Artemisians were having on the campground.

  IN THE BUILDING WHERE THE Griffins were lodged, near the Wide Mountain Clan House, a clan member who had just arrived on watch looked up suddenly to see a woman walk in through the door and approach the large Griffin, who appeared to be asleep, though it was still early in the evening.

  “Hey,” he said. “What you doing here?”

  “Is Wide Mountain Mother available? I suppose she’s asleep.”

  “I’m not gonna wake her up, ’f that’s what y’re after.”

  “Don’t need to. Can you get me a bucket of water?” She smiled.

  He enjoyed her smile. “I ’spose.”

  “I’d really appreciate that.”

  He brought water. The woman spoke into the Griffin’s ear, which twitched upward. A very large eye opened. The Griffin said, “I do not like hearing that about Willum!”

  “I do not like telling it to you. Oh, here’s the water. Whoops. Cold! Can you stand it cold, Sun-­wings?”

  “I’m eight or nine hundred years old. Winter on top of those mountains is not a tropical holiday.”

  “We’re only going to do the leg so the rest of you won’t get chilled. Right! Instructions are, do it once. Wait to see how much sensation comes back. If it’s still dead-­ish, do it again. Okay?”

  The woman and the water carrier bathed the Griffin’s rear right leg, every crease and dimple, then, at the water carrier’s suggestion, while awaiting results, they retired to the adjacent room.

  When they returned after a rather lengthy interval, they asked Sun-­wings to move the leg, which she was almost able to do. It quivered, but almost was not good enough. The woman and the water carrier bathed the leg again. This time the results were satisfactory. Within moments, the leg moved freely. The Griffin stood, shakily at first, then with increasing strength. Dawn-­song—­wakened by the movement and the loud rejoicing—­came from her bed in the corner and began chirruping in celebration.

  The woman urged caution. “Sun-­wings, your wing still isn’t quite well enough healed for you to try flying. It doesn’t need much time, maybe another day or two. Don’t try it before it’s fully healed or you’ll rip it and we’ll have to start over. As far as the leg goes, by morning you should be able to move around comfortably. Since we don’t know where Despos is, you and the little one will stay undercover, yes? When Needly gets back, she’s bringing some stuff that will heal the wing even more quickly and prevent scarring. Be patient.”

  The Griffin hummed. The woman took this for assent. “Thank you for your help,” she said to the water carrier.

  “Thank you, Precious Wind,” he said. “That was most enjoyable. It’s strange how we keep encountering each other.”

  “Not at all. I asked Wide Mountain Mother to put you on night guard before I left.” She smiled at him again and disappeared. It would take about ten jumps to get her back to the Oracles. Such a pleasant night for traveling.

  “Ouishuc,” said Deer Runner fondly.

  THE NEWS ABOUT WILLUM WAS circulated in the outdoor camp among the Artemisians. Most of the Artemisians had not known the boy except as a sprawled statu
e, but they knew the circumstances of his injury and considered him one of themselves. They built up the fire and passed around a beverage with instructions that Willum was to be the subject of concern, that all present were to send caring and concerned thoughts to him. Needly had been asked about the “naming” meeting she and Willum had had with the Griffins, and she had acted it out for them at length. They then had many questions about the big male. Everyone was conscious of their surroundings, their proximity to the Oracles, however much they were separated by thick walls of stone, and they kept it reasonably quiet. Needly and Grandma had been honored guests, given a special pillowed log to sit on and provided with full cups of whatever was being drunk. Grandma had told them honestly about the situation with Willum. If they wished to have a liquid-­fueled song and prayer meeting, it was all right with her. Doubtless the religiosity part of it would dwindle as the imbibing part increased.

  Needly asked, “Did you know the Artemisian ­people before, Grandma?”

  “I knew them when I was much younger, before I was sent to Hench Valley. I grew up in a house just up the hill over there, not far. It’s a very comfortable, well-­equipped house, and why it’s out here, all by itself, I have no idea. I suppose I’m probably part Artemisian, genetically. Maybe part Tingawan, too.”

  “Did the Oracles adopt you or something?”

  “No. One day they were just here. The empty caves were full of equipment and stuff, all kinds of stuff. I was very young and curious—­I couldn’t have been more than six, Needly. Remember you at six and you’ll come close to what I was like. Curious. Probably impertinent. So I hung around the place and asked questions. Sometimes the Oracles would say things for no reason, sometimes they would answer a question I had asked, sometimes they would say something that seemed to be the answer to a question I had asked the day before, or many days before. This was not as surprising to me as it might have been for other children because I lived among humans who were often dreamy and unworldly, to whom time meant little or nothing, so I already had acquired a tendency to ‘fill in the blanks.’ The ­people I lived with never corrected me, so I presumed that was the way some creatures communicated, with a lot of siIences and vacancies scattered among the answers and informations. I thought I was filling in the blanks pretty well. I did it with the Oracles sometimes when they had said things or indicated things or hinted at things that I cared about a lot. As soon as I learned how to use the machines, I became quite certain that they hadn’t answered because they knew the machines could answer me, and they expected me to find out by myself.