Nebula Awards Showcase 2015

by Greg Bear

  His speech moved me, despite my fears. I thought then that despite his rough manners, this kind of man made history—and if indeed he planned to free his home from British oppressors, this he would do at whatever cost. His word “brotherhood” rang through my ears. I had always wished for a brother, squeezed as I was between sisters. A man like Loddington would make a fine brother, so self-possessed and strong in his convictions.

  “It sounds like a marvelous land,” I told him. “I would like to see what would happen if the worthy were allowed to be wealthy.”

  “So would I,” said Loddington, staring out into the valley. “I would like to see that very much.”

  Something in his manner troubled me, like I’d glimpsed a cat’s yellow eyes in the night.

  4. The Condor’s Brother

  My grandson, today you should reflect on what it means to be a man. The story of you includes several great men, and several who failed to achieve such greatness. Your story also describes men with mixed motives—both good and evil, as many men are in the end. Most men who have walked the earth since time began appear in this tale, in one form or another, and I leave you to judge their hearts.

  That evening, we were summoned to the Temple of the Three Windows, where we learned that the High Priest would consult the gods. Loddington and Marco had rested well by this point. So we headed to the temple, our steps light upon the stone. Since the summer solstice would occur in only three days, the sun hovered well into the evening, and it felt like darkness would never touch this glorious place.

  In the temple, hundreds of priestesses washed and scented us. This was the role I hoped my little Chaska might play someday, if she lived to see adulthood, and I prayed quietly as the women combed my hair. One offered me a mug of chicha, the sacred wine brewed from spit and corn, and I drank deeply. Loddington submitted to their care without much reaction. Marco seemed very interested in admiring the lovely priestesses, who represented the best of Incan beauty.

  During the preparations, Amaru pulled me aside and said, “It is said that tonight the High Priest determines whether the bargain offered is satisfactory, and whether a great sacrifice is required at Atun Cusqui.”

  “I hope the omens are good,” I said.

  “So do we all,” he said. “Some are troubled, including myself. It is unwise that the High Priest should openly question the Sapa Inca’s will. It’s one thing to speak from his chair sometimes, but another entirely to consult the gods about another god’s decision.”

  Astonished at Amaru’s openness, I looked at his hands, which folded and unfolded in front of him. I decided he must be nervous, and perhaps even looking to someone as unimportant as myself for guidance. Perhaps he could talk to me without worrying which nobles might hear of his concerns. I said, “Maybe the gods will confirm the Sapa Inca’s decision.”

  “I hope so,” he said distractedly, and left for another room. Meanwhile, I hoped with all my heart that the entrails would say otherwise, that I might not worry about my daughter’s fate, entangled with the fates of other children in the Four Quarters.

  We gathered outside the Temple, and Amaru deferred to his cousin Paucar, who apparently held higher religious education and experience. Paucar instructed me, “The High Priest will consult a llama’s entrails about the American proposal. The Americans must stand quietly near the consultation and not disrupt it. Translate some basics for them, but don’t give too much detail. They are not allowed to understand too well. The ceremony will be held on the outside altar so that the barbarians do not see this most sacred place.”

  I had no idea how to combine that instruction with Amaru’s direction to be forthright with the Americans, so I decided to pretend I understood little of what happened. It turned out that I did not need to pretend; in fact the ceremony was nothing like the public festivals I had attended.

  A row of priests wearing speckled gold masks stood next to the golden altar. They chanted low words I couldn’t understand, though I heard the names of Inti and Viracocha and many others. I glanced at Paucar, who stood on the far side of Loddington and Marco. His head remained bowed and he chanted along with the priests.

  A priest brought in a hooded condor; its wings were clipped, so it could not fly away. They chained its foot to a perch over the altar. I guessed they meant it to represent the Condor, as the Sapa Inca Coniraya had been known in his younger days, fighting for the rule of our land. I thought it odd that the bird would be chained to the post, symbolically, but I was no priest and I supposed it necessary for the ritual.

  Another priest led a young llama to the altar. He pushed her down on the stained gold slits that lined the cutting surface. She bleated loudly. Strong men strapped her down on her back, tying her forelegs together, and then her hind legs. I glanced over at Loddington, who watched with mild distaste, and at Marco beyond him, who looked worried.

  “Marco,” I said quietly, “you may wish to look away for a while.”

  “I can handle it,” he said stubbornly—and he did, for when a priest slashed her belly, and the intestines sprung forth like writhing maggots, it was Marco who remained stoic, and Loddington who blanched. The smell of rotten vegetation and llama manure curled my nose hairs, and even though I’d slaughtered my share of animals in the fields, I had always disliked the task.

  The High Priest stepped out from the shadows, wearing a fancy gold mask with rays scattering from his face, so large that two priests mirrored his every move just to support the sides. He plunged a fist into the llama’s guts and lifted forth a bloody mass. He examined it from all sides like a jeweler examining turquoise, and then shoved it back into the body. Other intestines bulged as he smoothed down the belly.

  “What does it say?” whispered the ever-curious Marco.

  “I have no idea,” I said honestly. I glanced up at the roof’s edge, looking at the stars. The roof here stood high above us, with irregularly-shaped stones carved in interesting patterns. Something felt wrong to me, but I couldn’t place it. By now, the night fell blackly over us. I saw only hundreds of torches circling the altar, and the stars beyond the rooftop. I thought of Chaska then, my bright-star planet, and looked towards the sight that had inspired her nickname. The light blinked into view, vanished, then blinked back. Mystified, I stared at the sky. How could a planet vanish?

  Too late I realized what I was seeing. “Look out!” I shouted, heedless of the ceremony. I leaped forward and pushed Loddington as the boulder tumbled off the roof towards us.

  My grandson, picture these events happening now. Imagine time moves like water, and air hardens to rock. I cannot speak; my lungs are full of stones. Loddington leaps away like me—but says nothing. His silence is an accusation. Time itself slows to witness the crime. Loddington stands idle, not reaching for this boy who shares his father—his brother, whose face speaks the truth. The boulder is falling, and I cannot save Marco. But one man can help—does help. To this day I bless him, and trust Inti to warm his spirit in the brightest sunlight.

  Time restored itself. Marco lay face down, thrown from the boulder with mere scrapes, but Paucar’s legs lay crushed beneath the rock. Paucar still lived—though later I learned not for long. Priests rushed him away for treatment. He said nothing to me as he passed, nor I to him. How I wish I could speak now, to thank him for his courage! I don’t know what moved him—but Paucar was a great man, worthy of his birth. And thus you know a man’s measure: how he dies is how he lived. Loddington’s empty claims of brotherhood echoed in my mind. This was how he treated a brother: by ignoring a threat to his brother’s welfare, since it bothered him not at all. He was no brother, but a snake.

  The rest of the night blurred. We were whisked away to sleep on reed mats, all in one room. I slept fitfully, dreaming of Paucar’s crushed legs, and of llama entrails spilling the fate of my people and my child. In my dreams the entrails snarled my wrists and ankles. I tried to run a long road through the Empire, but I slipped on blood and fell nonstop through the night.
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  Near midnight, someone shook my shoulder. I woke quickly and saw Marco’s face, silhouetted by moonlight through the window. I sat up and he lifted a finger to his lips. He pointed at Loddington, who slept soundly.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Thank you for saving our lives,” he said simply. “I wanted to tell you myself. I’m sorry about the man who was so gravely injured.”

  “Marco,” I said, worried, “why did your companion not save you when he could have?”

  “He surely meant to,” said the boy defensively. “He was startled and not thinking.”

  I looked at him, realizing that some part of him needed to preserve this lie. “You are half-brothers, are you not? Is it so different in America that half-brothers are not kin?”

  “His father lay with my mother,” the boy said, with great shame, “and surely here too that is a crime, if a man and woman are not married.”

  Ah, illegitimacy! Finally I understood why Loddington did not acknowledge his brother. Or so I thought, at the time. “So then you will leave once you are fully a man, and build your own life away from the accusations written on your face.”

  Marco said, “I must stay with John Fernando, unless he sells me elsewhere. I am surprised he did not do so upon his father’s death, but perhaps he humors his sister who cherishes me. He is decent to me; he never beats me nor insults me.”

  “Sells you?” I asked, wondering if this word held a modern meaning I did not know.

  Marco’s eyes flickered. “John Fernando may sell me to another man as he pleases, and I would serve that man as I do him.”

  Oh my child, so much of the world I did not understand then! I thought merely of brotherhood, and America as Loddington claimed it: a land where any man might fight for his freedom to live as he pleased. In my mind I reconciled this image with Marco’s words by thinking that servants might change lords for better pay—but the cracks in the mirror already glimmered. I knew even then that Loddington’s brotherhood was as shoddy in spirit as he.

  So I said to Marco, “Dear boy, I would be proud to know you as servant, or free man, or brother—whichever role Inti would give you in the Land of the Four Quarters, for I admire your spirit. I am delighted that you were uninjured today.”

  Marco smiled at that, and clasped my hand. “Someday, Lanchi, I would like to name a ship for you.” He lay down to sleep again, and I did the same, resting uneasily through the night.

  In the morning Amaru came, his face lined with grief and pain. He beckoned me out of the room, and I hastened to follow. He said, “I trust you are well and whole.”

  “By Inti’s grace, I am,” I said. “I am sorry for your hardship. But Paucar saved Marco’s life.”

  “If my cousin lives, he will be crippled,” said Amaru. “I pray that the boy proves worthwhile.”

  I attributed the unkindness to lack of sleep and his deep suffering. “All lives have value, and Paucar is a hero to that child,” I told him.

  I wasn’t sure my words would help. We Incas loved our children so much that it hurt. In their eyes, we saw the wise adults they would become. This is why we sacrificed so many children in those days—we were returning their potential to the gods. But any doubts on this practice are a modern anachronism; in those days, we gave children to the gods, and none questioned it.

  Amaru smiled sadly. “I also like the boy’s spirit, but I would rather have my cousin,” he said. “But I come bearing news. The vaccine works and the Sapa Inca is pleased with the results. All the volunteers remained in Sayacmarca, shared drinks with the victims, and walked out unscathed.”

  “By the sunrise, a true miracle,” I whispered. Indeed, I had not believed it until that very moment! With such treatment, I could keep my children and myself safe from the dread disease—and every father in Cusco could do likewise. My heart surged with desire to see my family, but fell again as I remembered what this news meant. A working vaccine meant the Sapa Inca would surely consummate this deal with the American delegation. And that meant my Chaska’s future would likely see her lying in a snowy mountain pit, dead in her flower crown.

  Amaru continued, “We are to return immediately and undergo another quarantine. At that point the Sapa Inca will require translation to continue negotiations.”

  “And of this assassination attempt?” I asked. “Surely anyone can see what it was. I suppose a gun could not look so much like an accident.”

  “All the workers on the wall that day were killed,” said Amaru matter-of-factly. “Rumors say that some very high-level priests may be implicated in scandal. Do not trouble yourself with such matters. Leave them to my investigation. Do not befriend the Americans any further; it would complicate matters at this point. Leave them to their business as you attend to your own.”

  And thus our processional wound away from Machu Picchu, and its tall pillars like teeth in the sky, as we returned to Cusco. Per Amaru’s instructions, I conveyed the information, and then stayed distant from the Americans. Thus I trapped them in a silent cloud through which they could not communicate. Upon arrival in Cusco, they were taken to one area for quarantine, and I to another.

  I expected that twelve days from our arrival, we would all appear once more before the Sapa Inca, or perhaps the Condor’s brother speaking in his place. But on the fifth day, I heard rumor from the attendants of great unrest in the palace, and on the eighth day I smelled burning flesh in the courtyards. I could see nothing from my barren waiting room, but an attendant told me that those loyal to the High Priest were burning alive for treason. On the ninth day I heard of the execution of the High Priest Ahuapauti for treason against the gods. No one would tell me precise details—perhaps they did not know—but I deduced that it involved the attempt on the Americans’ lives. The only thing I felt sure of was that my daughter’s fate was sealed. The Sapa Inca Coniraya now held sole power—and he had insisted we increase the festival sacrifice.

  My dear grandson, I am no priest, but it seems to me that a man who kills those who disagree with him—especially his spiritual guide—cannot then argue that his way is righteous.

  I expected a quick conclusion to the business at hand, but instead I was kept a thirteenth day, then a fourteenth. On the fifteenth day of my quarantine, an unfamiliar noble came to my chambers and told me to go home until I was summoned back. I had heard that morning that the Coya Inca was permanently exiled to a remote mountain palace. If only we had known then of the complex web of treachery against the Sapa Inca and the Incan people, woven by those two high-profile lovers and siblings to our ruler! But we owe the traitors a great debt. Had they delayed their conspiracy to steal the throne, the Sapa Inca might have paid the Americans’ steep price. The siblings’ crimes saved the Incan people from sacrilege.

  But I digress. I was surprised, but delighted about returning home. I wondered of the Americans, but knew not where they might be. When I returned to my house, there I found my wife Yma—head shaven, dressed in new clothing, but more beautiful than ever. I kissed her deeply and traced her cheekbones with my finger, the familiar bumps of her scarred skin like a blessing. Scarcely had I finished embracing her than Chaska leaped into my arms, and I hugged her as if it might be the last time. Sternly I ordered her back to chores, ignoring my own aching heart, and she obeyed without even a childish glance backward. I stroked my son’s head, and he giggled as I placed him back in his pit.

  The room smelled like boiled greenery; Yma was preparing yucca to ease aching joints, which she sold at the medicine market. We reconnected as man and woman will, and then lay in each other’s arms, savoring each other. Then of course the daily tasks of the household called, and my son squalled for feeding, which my wife obliged.

  She listened to my tale with fascination, asking many questions about the Americans. She gasped at Loddington’s price, and felt even more horror than I.

  “They demand money like blood,” she said. “How could they steal our spirit itself? Do they not see how entire families—w
hole clans—are wiped by this dread disease?”

  “They see,” I said, “but they desire their nation of brotherhood—or so they call it.”

  I told her of Machu Picchu and Loddington’s careless disregard for his brother, and her face crinkled with disgust. When I told her of the Sapa Inca’s likely decision to sacrifice twelve hundred children, she immediately formed the same conclusion I had about Chaska. My heart sank, for she proved to me that I was not wrong.

  “We could leave Cusco,” she said. “Travel to the distant southern lands, and raise our family there.”

  “Impossible,” I said. “I am now in the Sapa Inca’s service as translator, and thus our family is bound to him. He would not let me leave, and we cannot run from the Imperial guards. They would find us no matter where we were.”

  My wife grieved here, for we had lost another daughter at birth shortly after Chaska, and she knew the pain of losing a child. I held her, and stroked her shorn hair. When she had cried, I said, “Tell me of what you witnessed in Sayacmarca.”

  She straightened and said, “Truly, I wish I had more to report! I saw death and torment in the stricken village, as always, and I wish I could banish those memories. But the volunteers all survived, and bear only the strange scars on their hands that marked them after their illness.”

  “What illness?”

  “The American took them into a dwelling at his camp and made them somewhat sick for a few days. It was like a lesser version of smallpox—a kind which did not ravage their bodies, but rippled them like a pond.”