Fish Tails

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “Estimate to do each cluster the normal way, half year, galactic time. My way, three GDEs. Normal expense, each single one, ten times what my way cost for all three. Self presents report to high panel. High panel says wait until we see if it works. I go on with other projects; eventually high panel says, yes, it works, you are given name FIXIT. Teach others how to use. Now everyone but old gnafflesnorts does it Fixit way.

  “Gnafflesnorts claim there was no problem to fix in two of three places. Self points out that niggle on first world indicates an irreversible planet-­wide famine within one hundred years. Niggle on other world indicates all life will be wiped out before end of century due to war between and among three races fighting over living space; trees used by one race being cut down to make room for burrows used by another race, both being killed by water-­living race seeking to flood both areas.”

  “Let me guess,” said Grandma. “Gnafflesnorts were not comfortable dealing with likelihood or probability.”

  Fixit whooped. “Gnafflesnorts unable to act on anything short of world being covered with rotting bodies. At that time they are happy to meet, shake heads or other body parts, saying equivalent of tsk-tsk, then issue report saying what might have been done earlier, along with interdiction of planet until life reemerges, when and if!

  “Gnafflesnorts are immutable, unchanging, rather die than change, soon will die, so those identified as gnafflesnorts are now given only twiddly little problems that are not really problems and everyone lets them alone, happily talking forever how to solve nothing much.”

  “Why do you use them at all?” Abasio asked.

  Fixit drew itself up and adopted a strongly judgmental expression. “Why, good-­ness gra-­cious, gnafflesnorts very im-­por-­tant crea-­tures. Related to other very im-­por-­tant crea-­tures, like head of council or vice president. Cannot do without gnafflesnorts. Gnafflesnorts must be allowed to die in office. You know syndrome?”

  This oration had taken up most of the time needed to reach the House of the Oracles. The ship took up most of the clearing next to the sign and bell, and Fixit dropped the ramp onto the path. Fixit pointed a device at the bell, which rang and went on ringing. When an Oracle appeared, the Fixit told it to get its whole group, person, singularity out here where he could look at it. Grandma was watching from inside the flier. If the news was . . . really bad, she wanted to be able to cry without anyone looking at her. She stood at the top of the ramp, grasped Abasio’s hand, and held on to it as though she were drowning. He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.

  The Oracles came out, a few at a time, forming a small group that got larger and larger. Abasio stopped counting at fifty, for he noticed a strange thing happening. The ones at the center of the group began to lose shape, to amalgamate, drawing others in at the edges, the process continuing, until by the time the last ones had joined the group, the Oracle was one large lump of gray something, perhaps six or eight man heights wide and one very short man height tall, covered with silvery hair. During this process he felt Grandma shaking beside him, her face expressing pain, disappointment, dislike . . . fear!

  Abasio had been instructed to say and do nothing. To disguise the fact that he too was shaking, he leaned casually against the doorframe, pulling Grandma with him, his arm around her. The flier was called “expansible” by Fixit, which evidently meant it would become whatever size was necessary to move who or whatever needed to be moved. Abasio felt very strange and tried to analyze how he felt. He was interested, a little horrified; he felt a weird desire to giggle; and there was a very a slight shudder of nausea. Grandma was trembling, and he held her even tighter. She was afraid, though weirdly enough, he felt it was going to be all right. For no earthly good reason, it was going to be all right. Fixit’s presence was . . . inexplicably reassuring.

  Fixit spoke to the thing. It spoke about Grandma. It said she had had seven children. It said those children had been taken from her. It demanded to know, at once, where they were and what they were doing.

  The Oracle thing shuffled. Abasio bent over and looked at the bottom edge of it. Feet. The thing had scores and scores of feet. A mouth opened somewhere and the thing said, “They’re well.”

  “That does not answer the question.”

  Pause. “What was question?”

  “Where are they now, and what are they doing?”

  “Gaaaa . . . haven’t decided yet . . .”

  “Where are they now?”

  “In workshop.”

  “Doing what?”

  Four voices spoke. “Nothing.” “In storage.” “Since put there.” “Long time ago.”

  “You will immediately split off a small portion, send it to the workshop, and take Grandma’s children out of storage and bring them here.”

  Half the aggregation began to move.

  “No, no. I said small portion. Maybe one-­tenth of that!”

  A triangular piece of the Oracle slid out of the whole pie, split into the more familiar gray-­clad Oracle shape, and hastened into the House of the Oracles.

  From his position by the flier, Abasio heard Grandma muttering, “I’ll kill it. I’ll kill the whole damned thing. Oh, I’m so angry . . .”

  They waited for what seemed to be quite a long time. The Oracle grew restless, shifting from side to side, like water sloshing in a bowl. Fixit lifted a hand and something shot out of a nozzle on the flier, falling on it like mist. The Oracle became very, very quiet.

  Inside the House, someone shouted. Someone else. Several ­people, young girls and boys, came out of the portal, skirted the Oracle, and gathered around the galactic officer. They appeared to be in early adolescence, oddly clad, as though dressed by someone who was not accustomed to clothing.

  “I know them!” cried Grandma, escaping Abasio’s grip and fleeing down the ramp from the flier at a run. “They’ve grown, but I’d know them anywhere. Oh, Jacky and Jules, how tall you’ve grown. Sally, still chewing your nails I see. Sarah, Jan, where did you get those haircuts? Serena! Oh, look at you. You’re turning beautiful. Who’d have thought . . .”

  The six young ­people stared at her. Jacky said tentatively, “Moms?” The one addressed as Serena asked, “What’d you do, Moms?” Sarah complained, “They said you’d come get us real soon,” and three of them said, almost in unison, “You got older!”

  The part of Oracle that had gone into the House returned to its brethren. Fixit did the thing with the nozzle again, and the Oracle flattened against the ground, ending up the thickness of a doormat. It did not move. Fixit remarked in a conversational tone, “I cannot decide whether to simply destroy the whole mass of it. Or split it up into little tiny pieces and scatter them across the universe. Or confine the whole ridiculous pudding in a very small ice cavern on an asteroid with an extremely long orbit for the next several thousand years.”

  It turned toward Grandma. “Data bank on this planet includes a creature called a . . . luggage mouse. No, no. Packing mouse? No, rat! . . . REFERENCE needed! . . . Packing rat?”

  She nodded, suddenly very alert. “Pack rat, yes.”

  “Grandma, this creature, Oracle, is also packing rat. Everywhere it goes, picks up everything. ­People. Creatures. Artifacts. This thing here, that thing there. This person here, that person there. Does not use. Does not care for. Does not dust or clean or keep in order. Simply aggregates! Buys time-­stop storage equipment to keep live things interminably. Buys workmen, puts them in storage thinking will need someday. T’chah! Finds empty place. Calls this place ‘warehouse’ or ‘storeroom’ or ‘temple’ or ‘House of Oracles.’ Calls it something, anything, no matter what. It is only holding place for acquisitions. Not place of caring for, just place to put and forget. No sense to acquisitions. No taste. No beauty. Sometimes, accidentally, individually, items are beautiful or marvelous. Sometimes are ugly, unpleasant but expensive. Creature thinks if a thing exp
ensive, must be good, even better if one gets for very little. Creature likes ‘bargains.’ ” He stamped back and forth several times, working off his annoyance. (Fixit thought he did annoyance rather well. He had practiced it, over and over.)

  Abasio said, “How old were the children when they left you, Grandma?”

  “Around three or four years.”

  “How old are you now?” he asked the one called Sarah.

  “I think about twelve, maybe a year or two more,” she said. “Our Pas left us here and told us not to worry, make music and be happy. We went to school for a while. Then we worked for the Oracles a while. Then we . . . then I don’t know what happened.”

  “When you went to school, were you all the same age?”

  All six nodded.

  Fixit turned toward Grandma and said sympathetically, “They stored each one until they had them all, then schooled them for a while, probably with edubots. I know they have edubots because they use them themselves—­with them, the knowledge does not stick, but if they use the edubot just before an encounter with outsiders, they retain enough to give them a fleeting aura of reliability. Often they use an edubot just before such encounter, so they will seem . . . intelligent. Then they worked them for a while, we must learn at what! They look to be in good health. Are you . . . capable of taking on a family of six adolescents?”

  “Well, I was one once,” raged Grandma. “Had my first child when I was only five or six years older than these. I think those Oracles owe me!”

  The doormat of Oracles quivered at the sound of her voice, and Fixit used the spray again. (This time furiously, pretending to rage! See. See how angry with this creature I have become! Actually, as scapegoats go, Oracles made very good ones!)

  Grandma was raging on: “I think they owe me a great deal, including enough resources to have a place to live, maybe over in Artemisia, among ­people I can respect, and I’ll need a ­couple of ­people to help with the housekeeping and cooking. And it’s got to be a big house for all eight of us, there’s Needly, too. Nine, if Willum stays with us. Which he’ll probably do, at least sometimes.”

  Fixit had his memory leaf out. “Let’s do an inventory.”

  They went through the House of the Oracles. Fixit methodically, Grandma snarling, Abasio incredulously. The natural cave had been partitioned off into room after room after room, some furnished for ­people, some simply full of things they had collected. Furniture. Art. Rocks. Gold. Clothing, closet after closet after closet of it. Different colors. Shoes, boots, sandals, slippers, things Abasio didn’t recognize that seemed to be used for walking on snow. Several more-­than-­life-­sized wood carvings of female human nudes of a racial type Abasio did not recognize. Huge tables. Everything was pictured and listed by the memory leaf.

  They went through what Grandma identified as guest quarters. Furnished in accordance with some pictured hotel or guesthouse, without personality or color, adequate and no more.

  “I stayed here,” said Grandma. “Needly and I brought Willum here. I’ve stayed here many times, out at the front here, and around the food machines and another room or two equipped for human occupancy. I never saw any other human here, though I know some Artemisians have made brief visits. I never saw the rest of it, all those storage areas, all those machines. I used only the information machines and edubots that are up front.”

  They investigated servants’ quarters. Almost identical to guest quarters. Empty. Evidently the servants had . . . recently decided it might be a good idea to be elsewhere? Abasio wondered at this. Grandma had lived nearby in her youth. She had visited here many times. She had been told that her task in Tuckwhip was arranged by the Oracles. She had assumed her children had been returned here or at least through here on their way somewhere else. She had recently returned here with Needly and others . . . Possibly she had spoken to one or more of the servants about her missing children. More than possibly Needly had spoken of them! Of course she had! Perhaps one or more of the servants knew there were children “in storage” here and had put two and two together. Having done so, they had felt it wise to depart. Now where were they? Fixit resolved to find a few and ask questions. The Oracles were still an enigma, and it was curious as to what they did with themselves all day.

  Fixit and its helpers returned to the outside world, which felt cleaner.

  One of the children came hesitantly toward them. “Sir, are you going to . . . empty out the place?”

  Fixit nodded. “You are Jan, yes? I plan to empty it, yes.”

  “Please, our work is in there. Please do not empty out our work.”

  “What is your work, child?”

  “Music, sir, or ma’am, or—­”

  “ ‘Sir’ will do as well as anything. You say music?”

  “Yessir, our instruments, and the music we’ve written, and the music we have made records of . . . all our work.”

  “Can you gather it all up and bring it outside. Abasio and I will go away for a while . . . What is trouble? You made a shaking . . .”

  “If you go away, the Oracles will . . . will put us back . . .”

  “There will be no putting back. No nothing. The Oracle will lie there like rug. Like unattractive, dirty rug full of crumbs and spills and house-­pet mess. You may walk all over it. Wipe feet on it. Let pet animal soil it. Spill paint on it. Suggest ugliest paint possible.

  “Now, you collect your work, all of it, everything you value, clothes, whatever. Edubots, too, if you like. Bring it out here and Abasio and I will be back soon. If something is too big for you to move, put it on list. No, no, to save time, I will bring out fetcher.” Fixit came back to the flier and pushed buttons. Something came across the sky, stopped. Something came down from the thing in the sky. The thing in the sky went away.

  The children were gathered around the thing. A featureless sphere with knobs on top. “This is Fetcher model XQ99,” said Fixit. “Press button on top to wake up. Say the word ‘follow,’ it will follow you. Take it to the thing you want. Point, say, ‘Fetch this and follow.’ It will take thing and bring it. Bring it out here, say, ‘Put down.’ If many things in same place, say ‘follow,’ then point at each one and say, ‘Fetch all these things to put-­down place.’ ”

  “Sir, I am Jules, sir. It isn’t very big.”

  “Doesn’t need to be big, Jules. Uses force fields. Can lift whole house if required. Try it, you will appreciate. I will see to further transport when we return. Is that satisfactory, Jules?”

  Jules spoke to the machine, which followed him around in a circle. He grinned and set off, followed by a very intent little machine. Fixit turned to Abasio and snarled, “Was there any room in there that you found attractive? No. Of course not. Oracles have no taste. They are like sticky tissue for bugs.”

  “Flypaper,” said Grandma. “I’d almost forgotten flypaper. Yes, that’s exactly what they’re like. No sense. A few moments, perhaps an hour’s excitement in acquisition, then decades of inattention while acquisition rots. No sense. And no cherishing! Just stickiness.”

  “What’re you going to do with it?” Abasio asked Fixit, indicating the pancake-­shaped Oracle.

  “Nothing for moment. Self does not think anything will eat it, though Self is willing to risk possibility. Self intends selling contents of the House, as is, less anything Grandma or the children might like to keep. There are some good educational machines in there that are generally useful for anyone seeking information . . . cooking, animal training, nuclear physics, philosophy, lovemaking for bisexual, trisexual, group sexuals, how to build houses for birds, how to build your own space fleet in owned-­grassy-­property-­behind-­house . . . REFERENCE needed! . . . Backyard! . . . or in building-­made-­for-­storage-­of-­vehicle . . . REFERENCE needed! . . . Garage! The rest of it will be sold to provide exactly what Grandma has asked for. House in Artemisia, enough funding to provide for help. At least thi
rty—­forty Earth years’ worth of whatever one needs, expendables, things for house, foods, drinks, clothing for growing young ones. These young ones may not be much help for a while. Self wonders what they were taught in the Oracles ‘school.’ ” (Self knew very well what they had been taught in school and it was more than adequate for their very well-­planned futures. They had received everything they needed, or Balytaniwassinot’s name was not Fixit!)

  Fixit turned and called to Grandma. “The food machines are working, there’s plenty of space. Can you and children wait here, get reacquainted, while Abasio and Self do some business?” Then he went close to her and murmured, “We will solve this situation. Please, find out what your children have been taught, what they have done. We must provide for interests, for future development, for all kinds learning that may interest them . . .”

  Grandma—­though appearing to be in an eccentric orbit among and around joy, fury, and confusion—­agreed to all or some part of this by nodding, shrugging, weeping, and laughing simultaneously.

  “Feel free to kick Oracle when you go by, jump up and down on it,” said Fixit. “Perhaps the children would join you in the activity.” As Fixit moved away, Abasio heard it mumbling to itself: “All emitting a distinct aura of fortunate accident. Suitable. No harm done. Coming out as planned. No aura of unsuitable purpose. Suspicious one might say someone, something messing about!”

  “What are you going to do with the Oracl . . . Oracles?” Abasio asked, when they were in flight once more.

  “It—­it is an it, not a them. Galactic office has been uncertain how to classify Oracles. They/it are very strange arrangement, all one thing genetically identical. One puts out bud, eventually bud can detach, reattach. Each bud part has only tiny piece of brain. Brain does not grow very much, but body grows and grows, parts split off, parts pretend to be separate ­people, put different label on each one, label generated by computer. All very nice, BUT when real person says, ‘Good morning, Mard,’ or ‘Go commit an indecency on yourself, Mard,’ part labeled ‘Mard’ does not answer or react.”