Orbit 16 - [Anthology]

by Ed By Damon Knight

  I held my little ones close, and groped for the strength, the words, to help us both. “I should have told you ... I should have warned you. They’re helpless, Etaa, they wouldn’t harm your son. Among—among my people, we don’t have children the way you do, all in a finished piece. We form them a part at a time, by duplicating each part of ourselves; the way I was able to grow another hand, when I needed one Some parts serve an extra purpose, protecting the rest, that are more specialized; they might have stung him . . . but it’s harmless.”

  She looked up at me, shaking her head, her mouth drawn too tight for words.

  “I should have told you, Etaa.”

  “They ...” She took a long breath. “... they are—yours?”

  “Yes.”

  “But, I th-thought . . . ?”

  “You thought I was a man? I am. But I’m also a woman. We don’t come together with another to form a child; we form our own and choose someone we love for sharing: a part of our child for a part of theirs, after the birth.”

  She groaned again, softly, fighting for acceptance. “Oh, Mother, help me ... Oh, Tam, what have I done to you?” She clutched Alfilere against her so hard that he squalled in protest.

  I looked away. She had done what all Humans did, acted from fear, reacted with violence, inflicted pain and death blindly out of ignorance. I had been a Human once, and had despised them; but only now, after I’d lost Human form, had I really learned anything about the Human mind and spirit— and now, in the face of this most terrible act, I found I could only blame it on myself. “It—wasn’t your fault. And this hurt can be mended . . . we’re more fortunate than you that way. It would never have happened, if you’d known all along.”

  But she only sat rocking her child, the bell on her ear singing softly with her helpless grief.

  Etaa spent long hours alone in the days that followed, gazing out across the sighing, broken world from the doorway of the shelter or walking the rim of the cliffs with her baby at her back. The clouds that filled the sky now were only wind clouds, dark and licked with lightning, never dripping enough moisture to settle the endless dust. The wind had grown hot and parched, shredding the clouds and sweeping the dust high into the upper air, to fade the brazen blue that sometimes broke through into this land of somber hues. She watched the sky with yearning as Midsummer’s Day approached, and when it came she performed makeshift Kotaane rituals; but clouds hid the triumph of the Sun, and she left them unfin­ished, her eyes haunted and empty.

  At dusk she came to me where I crouched in the doorway watching the luminous fantasy-face of billowing Cyclops wink behind the clouds. I heard Alfilere murmur as he slept, somewhere in the firelight behind us. She pushed a dark curl back from her eye, brushed at it irritably as it slipped down again. At last she said, “It’s true, isn’t it, Tam?”

  “What?” I waited, knowing there was more troubling her than the secret of my child.

  “What you told me: that we’re not on the Earth anymore. That we’re on Laa Merth? And”—she struggled to keep her voice steady—“and that little speck that you see, passing over the face of the Cyclops like a fly ... that’s the Earth? I’ve watched the sky, and it is different; the Cyclops is shrunken, the bands on her robe are twisted . . . everything is different here. I think it must be true.”

  “Yes. It’s all true.”

  “Our legends tell how Laa Merth once had children of her own, but the Cyclops destroyed them. This must be their town, and so that must be true too.”

  “Yes.” I wondered if there was any truth in the Kotaane myths about the source of the Human plague.

  “But our legends say that the Mother is the center of all things, She is greater than all things. How can She be a speck on the face of the Cyclops!”

  My throat tightened with the pain that shook her voice, and I couldn’t answer.

  “Tam.” Her fingers reached down, scraping my rough hide. “I know nothing; it is all lost on the wind. Tell me what is true, Tam.” She sank down beside me, her voice whee­dling and her eyes wild. “What shall I believe in now?”

  “Etaa, I—can’t ...” Her fingers convulsed on my back, telling me that I had to, now: that my pitiless, self-centered world had torn her world away and thrown her into the darkness of the void. Her faith was her strength against adversity, and without faith she would shatter, we would all shatter. “Etaa, the Mother is—”

  “There is no Mother! Tell me the truth!”

  I closed my eyes, wondering what truth was. “‘Mother’ and ‘Earth’ ... are the same to you, in your language, in your mind. But the Earth is also the world where you live, and a mother is what you are, and I am, a bearer of life. And those things are both still real, and wonderful. Your Earth looks very small now, but only because it’s far away; like Laa Merth, in your sky at home. When you return you’ll see again how large it is, and beautiful—full of everything you need for life. It’s like a mother, and that will still be true. The Kotaane are very wise to call themselves the children of the Earth, and be grateful for its gifts.”

  “But the Cyclops is greater, and stronger.”

  “Greater in size. But only another world.” And only a brightness behind the clouds now. “Your myths are right; it doesn’t love your people—it would poison you to live on Cyclops; but the Earth is strong enough to stay out of its reach, and will always care for you. And the sun will always defy its shadow, making the Earth fertile, able to give you life. You see, you’ve known the truth all along, Etaa.”

  “But ... the worlds are not alive . . . they do not see all, or choose to interfere in our lives as you do—’’

  “No. But really in the end they are more powerful than any of us. All our lives depend on them; even starfolk need air, and water, and food to survive. We’re very mortal, just as you are. Everything we know of is mortal, even worlds . . . even suns.”

  “Isn’t there anything else, then? Is there no God, or God­dess, to give us form?”

  “We don’t know.”

  Etaa gazed out into the growing darkness, silent, and her hands formed signs I didn’t know. And then, slowly, she reached up to her ear and removed the silver bell. She dropped it into a pocket of her jacket as if it burned her fingers.

  “Oh, Meron,” she whispered, “how did you bear it for so long, never knowing what was true, or whether anything is, at all?”

  I glanced over at her, surprised; but she only got up and went to her pallet, seeking her answer in the closeness of Alfilere. I slipped into my darkened nursery to see my own child, thinking of the sorrow we two had given to each other, and the joys. And as I lay beside my forming child, I wished there could have been a way for us to give each other the greatest gift of all.

  * * * *

  We stayed on Laa Merth for more than a third of a Cyclo­pean year, nearly half a natural Human year. Bright-eyed Alfilere took wobbling steps hanging onto his mother’s fin­gers, and my own baby, full-born now, soft and silvery and new, opened enormous eyes of shifting color to the light of the world. I marveled to think that I could have been so beautiful once, for S’elec’eca was both my child and my perfect twin.

  Etaa loved “her” on sight (Humans have only gender terms reflecting their basic dichotomy, and she refused to call my baby “it”); and if it was partly out of guilt and need at the start, I saw it grow into reality, while she watched both children and I studied the world outside. She called my child “Silver,” her term for S’elec’eca, the name I had chosen. She said nothing more about religion or belief, and her love for the children filled her empty days; but when she absently invoked the Mother a painful silence would fall, and her eyes would flicker and avoid me. Sometimes I noticed her touch­ing her throat, as if in finding her voice she had eaten the bitter forbidden fruit of a Human myth far older than her own and found the cost of knowledge was far too high.

  When the supply shuttle came again I slithered and slid down the hill to meet it, oblivious to everything but the chance of good
news for us; Iyohangziglepi nearly stunned me, thinking I was an attacking alien beast, before I remem­bered to call out to the ship.

  But after the initial shamefaced apologies, I finally heard the news I had been waiting for so long: the war between Tramaine and the Kotaane was over. But the Kotaane had won—and not just won concessions as the Libs had planned, but won Tramaine. The king had been killed in battle, fight­ing to save his people; because, thanks to our Archbishop Shappistre, the people wouldn’t fight, cursing the king and expecting us to take their side when we couldn’t. And so the Liberals had won too, and the Service would have to support the Kotaane; but the Kotaane didn’t know what to do with their victory now that they had it. They wanted only their priestess, and their peace, and the shattered Tramanians filled them with disgust: so signed the warrior Smith. Once I would have said that he was lying or insane, or else he wasn’t Human. But he was Etaa’s husband, and I believed him.

  But if it was true, then nothing was settled, and Etaa’s world teetered on the brink of more chaos. Iyohangziglepi said bitterly that even the Libs were appalled at their success in changing the world: because of it, we were faced with leaving the Humans to worse grief than we had caused al­ready, or interfering in their culture to a degree that would destroy all that was left of our faltering integrity. Etaa could go home at last, and so could I. But to what kind of a future?

  Etaa was still waiting eagerly at the top of the hill, watch­ing my return from the ship. She held a child in each arm, masked against the blowing sand, and I could almost see hope lighting her eyes as I scrabbled back up the gravelly hill and the shuttle stayed on the ground behind me.

  “Tam, are we going home? Are we?”

  “Yes!” I reached her side, puffing.

  She danced with delight, so that one baby laughed and one squeaked in surprise. “It’s true, it’s true, little ones—”

  “Etaa—”

  She stopped, looking at me curiously.

  “The ship will wait for us. Let’s get our things, and—and I’ll tell you the news. But let’s get out of the wind.”

  We threw together our few belongings in minutes, and then she settled with the children on the piled moss beside the ashy fire-ring. I crouched beside her, and our eyes met in the sudden realization that it was for the last time. Taking a long breath, I said, “The war is over, Etaa. Your people have beaten the Tramanians.”

  She shook her head, wondering. “How can it be—?”

  “Your people are brave warriors. King Meron is dead, because the Tramanians wouldn’t fight them anymore; they expected the Gods to—”

  “The king is dead?”

  I nodded, forgetting it wouldn’t show. “Long live the king.” I finished the Human salute as I smiled down at Alfilere, who had come over to me and was trying to climb up my face. Etaa cradled my own little rainbow-eyes in her lap, as I longed to do, and would do, soon, at last. “Your suffering has been avenged, and the suffering of your people.”

  “How—how did he die?”

  “Struck by an arrow, in battle against your people.”

  A spasm crossed her face, as if she felt the arrow strike her own heart; her head drooped, her eyes closed over tears. “Oh, Meron ...”

  “Etaa,” I said. “You weep for that man? When your people hate him for taking you, and defiling their Goddess? When his own people hate him for keeping you, and bringing the wrath of their Gods? Even the Gods have hated him . . . But you, who deserve to hate him more than any of us, for ruining your life—you weep for him?”

  She only shook her head, hands pressing her eyes. “I am not what I was. And neither is the world.” Her hands dropped, her eyes found my face again. “One’s truth is another’s lie, Tam; how can we say which is right, when it’s always changing? We only know-what we feel . . . that’s all we ever really know.”

  I felt the air move softly in the cavities of my alien body and the currents of alien sensation move softly in my mind. “Yes. Yes ... I suppose it is. Etaa, do you still want to return to your husband, and your people?’’

  Her breath caught. “Hywel ... he is alive? Oh, my love, my love ...” She picked up her curly-haired son, covering him with kisses. “Your father will be so proud! ... I knew it must be true, I knew it!” She laughed and cried together, her face shining. “Oh, thank you, Tam, thank you. Take us to him now, please! Oh, Tam, it’s been so long! Oh, Tam . . .” Her face crumpled suddenly. “Will he want me? How can he want me, how can he bear to look at me, when I betrayed him? When he jumped from the cliff to save his soul from the Neaane, and I pulled back? How can he forgive me, how can I go home again?”

  “Why did you pull back?” I said softly.

  “I don’t know! I thought—I thought it was because of my child.” She held him close, resting her head on his while he squirmed to get free. “For half a second, I drew back—and then it was too late, the soldiers…But how can I know? I was so afraid, how can I know it wasn’t for me? To let him die, thinking ...” She bit her lip. “He will never look at me!”

  “But who was the coward, Etaa? Who threw himself from the cliff and left you to the Neaane? Was it you who betrayed, or Hywel?”

  “No! Who says that—”

  “Hywel says it. He is the Smith, Etaa, the victor in this war, and whatever the reasons that others fought, he fought for you. All he wanted was to find you, and to repay you for his wrong. He wants you brought to him, that’s all he wants— but only if it’s what you want, too. He cannot send you his feelings, but he sends you this, and asks you to—remember.” Carefully I produced, from a pouch in my hide, the box Iyohangziglepi had given me.

  She took the box from me and opened it, lifting out a silver bell formed like a flower, the mate to the one she had worn on her ear. She searched in her pockets for the one she had taken off, and laid them together in the palm of her hand. Her fist closed over them, choking off their sound; her hand trembled, and more tears squeezed out from under her lashes. But then, slowly, a smile as sweet as music grew on her face, and she pressed them to her heart.

  Alfilere had drawn Silver off her lap, and they rolled together in the moss beside her, sending up a cloud of dust. Etaa’s exile and sorrow were ended at last; she would return to her people, and I would return to mine. Probably we would never see each other again, and the children ... I looked away. What sort of a life would Alfilere have, in the world we had left him? The son of the Smith, the heir to Tramaine, the strong, gifted child of Etaa, the Blessed One . . . who would have been my child too if there had been a way; who was as dear to me as my own child. The child of unity in a broken world. The child of unity—

  And suddenly it was so obvious: The answer to everything had been here in my keeping, all along. We could raise Alfilere to inherit his birthrights, and be a leader such as his people had never known—one who could give them back their rights and give us back our pride.

  “Etaa?” She looked at me vaguely, still half lost in rev­erie. I tried to keep my voice even, not knowing if she felt the same way I did, or what her reaction would be. “You know the situation back on your Earth is very unstable right now. The Kotaane have won a war they didn’t expect to win, and they don’t know what to do about it. Your husband wants only to go home with you, not to rule a kingdom. Your people despise the Tramanians, and now the Tramanians despise themselves. They don’t even know what to think about their Gods, they have no leadership; all the nations that surround Tramaine will be shaken, and there’ll be more war and hardship that could involve your people, unless some­thing is done—“

  She frowned, and reached to catch up the escaping children.

  I released air from my sacs in a sigh. “Yes, I know. We’ve done too much already. Even the Service can see that, finally. But if some new answer isn’t found, some compromise, things will keep on getting worse. We could destroy you, Etaa, with our meddling, unless somehow you stop being a threat to us. And if we did that to you, we would have destroyed ourselves as wel
l.”

  She shifted the babies uneasily on her knees. “You have a plan to stop it?’’

  “I do ... I think I do. ... When I met you, I thought all Humans were violent and cruel without reason. That’s why we were afraid of you, why we wanted you to stay where you were. But now I don’t believe it. Your people are more aggressive than we are, and you have to learn there are responsibilities to progress that can’t be ignored; you have to grow in understanding as you grow in strength.

  “But your cultures are still young, and maybe if you begin to learn now how to live with one another, when you come to us as equals between the stars you’ll be able to live with us as well. The time is perfect now, in the balance of change, for a religion to show Humans the unity of all life, and how to respect it—as your people do, when they follow the teachings of the Mother. And there is the perfect sign of that unity, the perfect Human to begin it: your son.” I shifted nervously, trembling with hope and love. “Etaa, will you give me your son? Let me raise him, among my people, and give him the chance to change your world forever.”