by Grass(Lit)
They sat, grateful for the refreshment and the chairs, somewhat disconcerted at the proportions of them. The Arbai had been a long-thighed race. Their chairs did not fit man. At least not these men. They perched, as on stools.
Father James returned to their conversation. "You asked why I thought the Hippae are animals? Well. I have seen them. They show no signs of being more than animals, do they?"
"What kind of sign would you accept?" Brother Mainoa asked. "Tool-making? Burial of the dead? Verbal communication?"
"I don't know. I haven't thought about it. Since we've been here, I've heard no one suggest that the Hippae or the hounds or... or any other animal on Grass was any more than just that."
Brother Mainoa shrugged "Think about it, Father. Ma'am. I do. It's an interesting exercise, leading to much fascinating conjecture."
They shared lunch together, the Brothers' rations plus the plenty that Marjorie had packed. Then they walked again, down other streets. into other rooms. They saw artifacts. They saw books, endless books, pages covered with curvilinear lines. They came back past the thing on the dais that might be a machine but was definitely represented on at least one door carving, and they went on to see other things that might or might not be machines.
The light began to slant across the trenches, throwing them into shadow. Marjorie shivered as she asked, "Brother, would you come to Opal Hill to meet my husband? He is Roderigo Yrarier, ambassador from Sanctity to this place."
Brother Lourai looked up, suddenly attentive. "But I have met him!" he exclaimed. "He came to Sanctity. The Hierarch was his uncle. We spoke about the plague. The Hierarch said he must go-come here, that is-because of the horses!"
Tony turned, mouth open, not sure what he had heard.
Brother Mainoa faced Marjorie, reached out to her. "My young colleague has been indiscreet. Acceptable Doctrine denies that plague exists."
"Mother?"
"Wait. Tony." She brought herself under control. So. He had found out. Better he than Stella. She turned to the nearest of them, Rillibee. "Brother, what do you know about the plague?"
Rillibee shivered, unable to answer. "Let me die," the parrot cried from the top of a ruined wall, fluttering its gray wings.
'The boy saw his family die of it," Mainoa said hastily. "Don't ask him. Instead, think on this. Elsewhere, something killed the Arbai slowly. I know that here something killed them quickly. I know that men are dying, everywhere, and that no cure exists. So much I know. That, and the fact that Sanctity denies it all."
Her jaw dropped. Was he saying that the current plague had happened before? "What do you know about it here, on Grass?"
"We at the Friary seem to have escaped it, thus far. What else is there to know?"
"How many have died of it here on Grass?"
He shrugged. "Who can count deaths that may be hidden? Sanctity says there is no plague. Not now. Since they deny plague exists, they do not tell us if anyone dies of it. And, since there is none now,
Sanctity finds it expedient to deny that there could ever have been plagues in the past. Acceptable Doctrine is that the Arbai died of ennui. Or of some environmentally related cause. But not of plague. 'Not only are there no devils now, there never were,' says Doctrine. Still, those of us who came from outside know that plague did exist, once. And devils, too."
"You think that devils exist?" she asked with a sidelong look at Father Sandoval, whose mouth was pursed in distaste at this subject. "Have existed always, perhaps? Waiting for intelligent creatures to reach the stars? Waiting to strike them down, for hubris, perhaps?"
"Perhaps."
"You have not answered. Will you come see my husband?"
He cocked his head again, staring over her shoulder at something only he could see. "If you send a car for me, ma'am, I'll come, of course, since it would be discourteous to do otherwise You might want to consult me about the gardens at Opal Hill. I helped plant them, after all. It would be an understandable request. If you ask my superiors to send me for any reason, likely they won't."
She was silent for a moment, thinking. "Are you very loyal to your superiors, Brother Mainoa?"
Rillibee/Lourai snorted, a tiny snort. Brother Mainoa gave him a reproving glance.
"I was given to Sanctity, ma'am. I had no say in the matter. Brother Lourai, here, he was given, too. And then, when we didn't like it, we were brought here. We had no say in that, either. I don't recollect ever being asked if I was loyal."
Father Sandoval cleared his throat and said firmly, "Thank you for your time, Brothers."
"And yours, Father."
"I'll send a car," Marjorie promised. "Within the next few days. Will you be here?"
"Now that we're here, we'll stay until someone makes us go back, Lady Westriding."
"How is it, Brother, that you knew who I was, though we had not met before?"
"Ah. A friend of mine has been interested in Opal Hill. Your name came up." He smiled vaguely. "During our discussion."
The Brothers watched the aircar leave and then returned to their quarters, where Brother Mainoa took out his journal from a hidey-hole and wrote his comments upon the happenings of the day.
"Do you always do that?" asked Rillibee/Lourai.
"Always," the older man sighed. "If I die, Lourai, look in these pages for anything I know or suspect."
"If you die." The other smiled.
Mainoa did not return the smile. "If I die. And if I die, Lourai, hide this book. They will kill you, too, if they find it in your possession.
Tony heard the word "plague" as he would have heard a thunderclap. The word began to resonate in his mind, causing other ideas to reverberate with them. Plague. One had heard of it, of course. One whispered about it. Sanctity denied there was any. For the first time he wondered why Sanctity had to continually deny something that did not exist. Why had his father gone to Sanctity and met with the Hierarch about plague?
Plague. He had seen no signs of it here. No one even talked of it, here. Tony spent a good deal of time with Sebastian Mechanic down at the village, learning the local way of things, meeting the people, getting to know them, but no one had mentioned plague. Illness, yes. The people had illnesses. Things went wrong with old bones and joints. Hearts wore out. There was very little lung trouble, though. The air breathed cleanly and caused no problems here. There were few if any infectious diseases. They had been wiped out in this small population, and the quarantine officers at the port kept Commons clean.
But plague?
"Mother," he asked softly, thinking of people he had left behind, of one person he had left behind, "is there plague at home?"
She turned a horrified look upon him, prepared to lie as she had told herself she must. "Yes," she confessed to his open, waiting face, feeling the words leave her in an involuntary exhalation. "Yes, there is plague at home. And on every other inhabited world as well."
"Here?"
"Except here. Maybe. We think. We have been told."
"You're here to find out?"
She nodded.
"You didn't tell us?"
"Stella..." Marjorie murmured. "You know Stella."
"But me, Mother. Me?"
"It was thought you were too young. That you might forget yourself."
"A secret? Why?"
"Because.." said Father Sandoval, leaning forward to grip the young man's arm, "because of the Moldies, the nihilists. If they learned of it, they would try to bring the plague here. And because the Grassians do not care if all the other worlds die. They do not wish to be disturbed."
"But... but that's inhuman!"
"It is not fair to say they do not care," Marjorie murmured again. "Let us say rather that they do not perceive. Various efforts to make them perceive have resulted in nothing but their annoyance. Father Sandoval is right, they do not wish to be disturbed; but there is more to it than that. Something psychological. I should say, pathological. Something that prevents their seeing or attending So we are here under f
alse pretenses, Tony, as ambassador and family. What we are really here for is to find out whether there is plague here. If there is not, we must somehow get permission for people to come here and find why not."
"What have you found?"
"Very little. There does not seem to be plague here, but we are not certain. Asmir Tanlig is finding out from the villagers and from servants in the estancias whether there are any unexplained deaths or illnesses. Sebastian Mechanic knows many of the port workers, and he is trying to find out the same information from them. The two men don't know why they are asking the questions. They've been told that we're making a health survey for Sanctity. We need information from the bons, as well, but we seem unable to establish any contact with them beyond the purely formal. We have been trying to make friends."
"That's why the reception was held."
"Yes."
"Eugenie's showing up with that girl didn't help things, did it."
"No, Tony. It didn't."
"Eugenie hasn't the brains of a root peeper." He said it hopelessly, waving his fingers, as though to wave Eugenie away. Neither he nor Stella could understand their father's fondness for Eugenie. "No brains at all."
"Unfortunately, that's probably close to the truth." She caught Father James' eyes upon her and flushed. Rigo's nephew probably had family loyalties to Rigo. She should not have criticized Rigo before him. She should not do it before Tony, either, except that Tony already knew... so much.
"I wondered what could be important enough to get you to come,"
Tony said, shaking his head. "Leaving your work at Breedertown that way. But surely they can't be depending only on us. What is Sanctity doing?"
"According to Rigo, everything they can. They can't get any animal, including man, to create an antibody to the virus. They can kill the virus, but not in a living creature. Eventually, if we find there is no plague here, we will ship some tissue samples from here back to Sanctity."
"Tissue samples? Will the bons let you do that?"
"They have no physicians among themselves, Tony. If they are injured, they must call upon doctors from Commons. I think we can buy whatever samples will be needed."
"But so far, Sanctity has found nothing."
"Nothing. No tissue they have tested makes antibodies to the virus."
The four of them were huddled together like conspirators. "Tony, you mustn't-"
"Mustn't tell Stella. I know. She would blurt it out, just to prove we can't tell her what to do."
Father Sandoval nodded in agreement. "I think that's probably true." He had known Stella since she was a child. She confessed a fair number of sins-usually, with maximum drama, not the ones she was most guilty of. Anger, mostly. Anger at Marjorie for not having provided that indefinable something Stella had always wanted. After long thought and meditation, Father Sandoval had decided it was perhaps the same thing Rigo wanted-the thing called intimacy. Though neither of them would set themselves aside long enough to work for it. They wanted family, but they wanted it on command, like water from a spout, ready when they turned it on, absent otherwise. "Help me now, give me now, comfort me now. Then, when you've done it, get out of my way!"
Father Sandoval sighed again, wishing his years had given him better insight into Stella, and into her father, Stella, of course, would eventually marry and could then be instructed to be obedient to her husband as she was now instructed to be obedient to her parents. But what could one do with Rigo? Both he and Stella were too impatient to woo. They would storm or nothing. Overwhelm, or nothing. They would not beg. They would take by right. Even things they should not take at all.
Unaware of Father Sandoval's concern, Stella, meantime, was upon the simulacrum in the sixth hour of her current ride: eyes glazed, back braced, beyond hunger or thirst in a trance of her own evoking.
Her father had finished his own session on the machine hours ago. Hector Paine was gone. No one else would come into the winter quarters. She had set the timing mechanism for seven hours, two hours longer than she had ever ridden before, and had vaulted aboard. There was no way to stop the machine once she had started, no way to get off the mount save by falling.
On the screens around her the grasses whipped past. Devices at her side mimicked the blows of the blades, striking her hat, her coat. The machine rocked and twisted, always slightly off rhythm so that she could not relax. The body stayed alert, but the brain eventually gave up thinking and retreated into some never-never land beyond exhaustion. Stella was there now, dreaming of Sylvan bon Damfels. During the reception at Opal Hill, she had watched him as he danced with Marjorie, watched, devoured, swallowed him whole. When she had danced with him, she had absorbed him through her skin, taken his image into herself so that he dwelt there, a paradigm of the real and genuine man. And since that time she had undressed him and possessed him and done with him all those things she had not yet done with others, not through any sense of morality but because she had not yet found one she thought worthy of herself. Now she had. Sylvan was worthy. Sylvan was noble. Sylvan was one to whom she might be mated. No! The one to whom she would be mated. In just a little time. In the time it would take for her to ride, as he rode, so that she might ride by his side.
She ignored what he had said to Marjorie about riding, ignored his advice to the Yrariers. It did not fit her picture of him, so she struck it from his image as she built him anew, according to her own needs-the gospel of St. Sylvan, according to Stella, his creator.
The machine galloped on, its springs and levers walloping and sliding, the sound of hooves thundering softly from its speakers, the pictured stems of grass fleeing everlastingly on either side, the blades lashing at her with softly sounded strokes.
In some remote part of her mind she told Elaine Brouer all about Sylvan, about their meeting, the way their eyes had met. "He loved me in that moment. In that very moment, he loved me as he had never loved anyone before."
Sylvan was saying much the same thing to himself as he walked a winding path deep in the famed grass gardens of Klive. "I loved her in that moment. I loved her the moment I saw her. The moment I took her into my arms. As I have never loved before."
He was not speaking of Stella. He was speaking of Marjorie.
11
"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned." Marjorie was kneeling in the confessional at the side of the chapel, the evening light falling upon her face The chapel was dusk dim, the light near the altar making a watchful eye in the shadow. "I have resented my daughter. And my husband.
She was alone in the chapel except for Father James. Rigo was closeted in the winter quarters with Hector Paine. Stella and Tony and Father Sandoval had ridden the mares down to the village to visit Sebastian Mechanic and his wife, Dulia, who was, said Sebastian, the best cook on any six planets. Since the reception, Eugenie had scarcely put her nose outside her house and was there now. As Marjorie had come through the gardens to the chapel she had heard Eugenie singing, a slightly drunken lament with no particular burden of woe. The blues, Marjorie recalled having read somewhere, needed no proximate motivation. Any common grief would do. The ancient song, though not particularly melodic, had entered Marjorie's ear and now turned there, playing itself over persistently, hating to see the evening sun go down.
"I have lost patience with Stella," she said. Father James needed no explanation for this. He knew them all far too well to need explanation. "I have had angry words with Rigo...." Words about the Hunt, words about his risking his neck and more than his neck. "I have doubted God...."
Father James woke up at this. "How have you doubted?"
If God were good, Rigo and I would be in love, and Rigo would not treat me as he does, she thought. If God were good, Father Sandoval would not treat me as a mere adjunct to my husband, sentencing me to obedience every time I am unhappy. I haven't done anything wrong, but I'm the one who is being punished and it isn't fair. She longed for justice. She bit her lip and said none of this, but instead dragged false scent across the
trial. "If God is truly powerful, he would not let this plague go on."
There was silence in the confessional, silence lasting long enough for Marjorie to wonder whether Father James might not really have fallen asleep. Not that she blamed him. Their sins were all boring enough, repetitive enough. They had enough capital sins roiling around to condemn them all. Pride, that was Rigo's bent. Sloth, Eugenie's trademark. Envy, that was for Stella. And she, Marjorie, boiling with uncharitable anger toward them all. Herself, who had always tried so hard not to be guilty of anything!
"Marjorie." Father James recalled her to herself. "I cut my hand upon a grass blade a few days ago, a bad cut. It hurt a great deal. Grass cuts do not seem to heal easily, either."
