Sheri Tepper - Grass

by Grass(Lit)

  "Well for heaven's sake," Marjorie cried, "tell him, Admit. Tell the Hierarch anything he wants to know."

  "I am more interested in what this other one tells me," the Hierarch said silkily from behind his transparent partition.

  The other one lounged on his chair like a lizard on a rock, his relaxed manner belied by his scratched and bruised face and arms. Highbones.

  "Brother Flumzee?" Marjorie asked the Hierarch. her voice calm. "He and his friends intended to kill me in the swamp forest. What else does he tell you?" She looked at Highbones gravely.

  He saw the look and remembered what it was he had forgotten about women. They pitied you sometimes. When you didn't even know why.

  The Hierarch said in a silky voice, "He tells me that you were well acquainted with one of the Brothers, Brother Mainoa. He says that Brother Mainoa was thought to be a backslider. And that he knew something about plague."

  "Did he really? What did he know, Brother Flumzee? Or do you still prefer to be called Highbones?"

  "He knew something," Highbones shouted, hating what he saw in her face. "Fuasoi wanted him killed."

  "What did he know?" asked the Hierarch. "It would be in your best interest, Lady Westriding, and you, Ambassador, to tell me everything the Brother knew, or thought he knew."

  "We'll be glad to," Rigo said. "Though he himself would be able to tell you much more than we can-"

  "He's alive?" The Heirarch snapped.

  Marjorie replied calmly, "Well, of course. Highbones left his two friends to kill Mainoa and Brother Lourai, but they didn't succeed. I think Highbones hated Brother Lourai. and that was the reason for it."

  "Fuasoi ordered Mainoa killed!" Highbones shouted.

  "Well, I suppose that's possible," Marjorie continued, keeping her voice calm, though she was in a frenzy of concentration. "Since Brother Mainoa thought Fuasoi was a Moldy." She turned her face toward Rigo, nodding. She had never mentioned Brother Mainoa's speculation to him. She prayed Rigo would understand what she was trying to do.

  The Hierarch, who had started the inquiry with a furious intensity, now looked stricken. "A Moldy?"

  "Brother Mainoa thought so," Rigo said, following Marjorie's lead. "Because-"

  "Because Fuasoi wouldn't have ordered Mainoa killed, otherwise," Marjorie concluded. "If he thought Mainoa knew something about the plague, the only reason to kill him would be if Fuasoi was a Moldy. Anyone who was not a Moldy would want Brother Mainoa alive, talking about what he knew." She looked at the Hierarch helpfully, feeling hysteria pushing at the back of her tongue.

  "Moldies here, on Grass?" the Hierarch whispered, very pale, his mouth drawn into a rictus of horror. "Here?"

  Rigo saw the man's terror and was thankful for it "Well, Your Eminence," Rigo offered in a placating tone, "it was only a matter of time until they came here. Everyone knew that. Even Sender O'Neil told me that!"

  The audience ended abruptly. They were outside the chamber, being escorted to the shuttle once more. Highbones wasn't with them. Admit bon Maukerden wasn't with them. Those two were taken away in some other direction.

  "Where are they going?" Marjorie asked.

  "Down to the port," the escort leader responded. "We'll hold them there in case the Hierarch wants them again."

  Marjorie felt a surge of hope. If they had been believed, perhaps the Hierarch would depart. Perhaps this is all it would take! When Marjorie and Rigo reached the port, however, they were not allowed to return to the town. Instead they were taken to the empty Port Hotel and given a suite with a guard outside the door

  "Are we to stay here without food?" Marjorie demanded.

  "Somebody'll bring it from the officer's mess," the guard said. "Hierarch wants you here where he can lay hands on you if he needs you."

  When the door was shut behind them, Marjorie put her lips almost against Rigo's ear. "Anything we say here can probably be overheard."

  He nodded. "I think Mainoa was right," he said loudly. "I think Brother what's-his-name was a Moldy. He probably had virus shipped in weeks ago. That's probably what the people in town have. I think we ought to get off this planet, Marjorie. As soon as possible." He shook his head at her tiredly. What more could they say or do than this mixture of half truth and part lies? If the Hierarch was frightened enough, perhaps his own fear would drive him away.

  Rigo sat down, leaning back, eyes closed. Marjorie sat near him. The room was full of unsaid things and of the teasing memory of said ones. She looked at his exhausted face and felt an almost impersonal sorrow, like the feelings she had often had for the people of Breedertown. And she could help him no more than she had ever helped them.

  Behind his slitted eyelids, Rigo wondered if it was too late. If too much had happened. Eugenie. Stella. His accusations against Marjorie. Stupid of him. He knew better. If he knew anything about her, he knew she had no appetites of that kind. Why had he accused her?

  Because he had had to accuse her of something.

  And now? Was it too late to forgive her for what she had never done?

  18

  In the Tree City of the Arbai two religious gentlemen sat in the mild breezes of evening, eating fruit which had been brought from the surrounding trees by foxen, one of whom had remained to join the feast.

  "Like plums," said Father James. He had arrived at the city by foxen back in midmorning. Father Sandoval had refused to come. Brother Mainoa had come to the city earlier, an exhausting trip from which he had not yet recovered. Now the Brother reclined against the breast of a foxen, like a child in a shadowy chair, while Father James tried to convince himself yet again that the foxen were real-not dreams, not amorphous visions, not abstractions or delusions. Conviction was difficult when he couldn't really see them. He caught a glimpse of paw, or hand, a glimpse of eye, a shadowed fragment of leg or back. Trying to see the being entire was giving him eye strain and a headache. He turned aside, resolving not to bother. Soon everything would resolve itself, one way or another.

  "Chameleons," Brother Mainoa whispered. "Psychic chameleons. The Hippae can do it too, though not as well."

  Father James' lips trembled. "Don't you think the fruit is like plums?" he repeated, longing for something familiar. "Though perhaps the texture is more like a pear. Small, though."

  "Ripening this early, they'd likely be small," Brother Mainoa offered in a breathy whisper. "The fruits of summer and fall are larger, even from these same trees." He sounded contented, though very weak.

  "They fruit more than once during the season, then?"

  "Oh, yes," Mainoa murmured. 'They fruit continually until late fall."

  Along a bridge leading from the plaza Janetta bon Maukerden was dancing, humming to herself. Dimity bon Damfels watched from the plaza, mouth open around a thumb, eyes remotely curious. Stella was with Rillibee in a room facing the plaza. The older men could hear his voice.

  "Take the fruit in your hand, Stella. That's it. Now, have a bite. Good girl. Wipe your chin. Good girl. Have another bite...."

  "He's very patient," whispered Brother Mainoa.

  ''He would have to be," murmured Father James. "Three of them!"

  "Poor unfortunates," Father James said. "We'll help him with them while we're here. It's the least we can do." He thought a moment, then added, "If we're here long enough."

  A group of shadow Arbai came toward them, checkered them with arms and legs and shoulders, battered them with sibilant conversation, then moved on past. A swoop of scarlet and brilliant blue swept below them, from one tree to another, a colorful almost-bird, quite different from the Terran species, yet enough resembling them that one would think "parrot" on seeing them. Out on the bridge where Janetta danced, one of the shadow figures grasped a railing with shadow hands and squatted over the edge. The Arbai had been casual about elimination.

  "It will be your choice," Brother Mainoa said in a weak whisper. "Your choice, Father. Whether to stay or go."

  The priest protested "We're not even sure we can live h
ere! Food, for example. We're not sure these fruits will sustain our lives."

  Brother Mainoa assured him, "The fruit plus grass seeds will be more than enough. Brother Laeroa has spent years determining the nutrient value of various grass seed combinations. After all, Father, on Terra many men lived on little else than wheat or rice or corn. They, too, are seeds of grass."

  "Harvesting grass seed would mean going out into the prairies," Father James objected. "The Hippae wouldn't allow that."

  "You could do it," said the Brother. "You'd have protection...." He shut his eyes and seemed to drift off as he had been doing ever since they arrived.

  "Though, come to think of it," said Father James, suddenly remembering farms he had visited as a child, "here in the swamp one could have ducks, and geese." He tried to summon a hearty chuckle, but what came out instead was a tremulous half sigh. The young priest had just remembered that the few humans on Grass might be all the humans there were. Whether one could have ducks or not, there might be nowhere else to go.

  "Wipe your chin again," said Rillibee Chime. "Oh, Stella, that's such a good smart girl."

  Janetta spun and hummed, then stopped momentarily and said, quite clearly, "Potty!" She hitched up her smock, grasped the railing, and squatted where she was on the bridge, her bottom over the edge in the same pose the shadow Arbai had adopted moments before.

  "She can talk," said Father James unnecessarily, his face pink as he turned it away from Janetta's bare buttocks,

  "She can learn," Brother Mainoa agreed, suddenly awake once more.

  Father James sighed, his face turned resolutely away. "Let's hope she can learn to be a bit more modest."

  Brother Mainoa smiled. "Or that we can learn to be-as, evidently, the Arbai were-less concerned with the flesh."

  Father James felt a wave of sadness, a wash of emotion so intensely painful that it seemed physical. He suddenly saw Brother Mainoa through some other being's senses: a fragile friend, an evanescent kinsman who would not be concerned with the flesh at all for very much longer.

  Someone was watching him. He looked up to see a pair of glowing, inhuman eyes, clearly fixed on his own. They were brimming with enormous, very human tears.

  Shortly following the detention of the Yrariers, the Seraph in command of the Hierarch's troops took a few of his "saints" in battle dress-more to impress the populace than for any tactical reason-and made a sweep through the town and surrounding farms, searching, so the Seraph said, for someone named Brother Mainoa. Everyone had seen him at one unhelpful time or another. Several people knew where he slept. Others knew where he had been having supper hours before. No one knew where he was at that moment.

  "He was depressed," an informer by the name of Persun Pollut told them with transparent honesty. "About all the Brothers getting burned up out at the Friary. It wouldn't surprise me if he'd gone down into the swamp forest. There've been several people done that recently." All of which was true. Though he pulled a mournful face and sighed at the Seraph, Persun couldn't wait to see the Tree City for himself.

  The troop made a cursory search along the edge of the trees, sending a patrol some little way into the forest. Troopers returned soaked to the thighs saying they couldn't quite remember seeing anything. Spy eyes sent into the dim aisles of cloaking vines saw nothing either. Or, those who followed the spy eyes on helmet screens were sure they saw nothing, which amounted to the same thing. It was conceded among those who had inspected the swamp forest close up that if this Brother what's-his-name had gone in there, he was probably drowned and long gone.

  Meantime, the troopers remaining in town were offered cakes and roast goose and flagons of beer and were treated to a good deal of garrulity which had nothing to do with what they were looking for. The search continued with increasing laxness and joviality while the day wandered inconclusively toward evening.

  The Seraph was an old hand at appearing Sanctified, one who could and did spew catechetical references at every opportunity. In Commoner Town he found his views listened to with such flattering attention that he actually began to enjoy himself, though-as he told anyone who would listen-he would have felt more secure with a few hundred saints deployed, rather than a scant two score. According to these good people, there were hostiles on the planet, hostiles that had already built themselves one route under the forest.

  "Haven't you any devices to detect digging?" he asked. "Any mechanisms that listen for tremors? That kind of thing?"

  ''Grass doesn't have tremors, not like that." Roald Few told him. "About the worst shaking we get is when the Hippae go dancing."

  The Seraph shook his head, feeling expansive "I'll bring some detectors down from the ship. Standard issue. We use them to locate sappers coming in under fortifications. They'll do the job for you here.'

  "Where do we put them?" Mayor Bee asked. "Here in the town?"

  The Seraph drew a map on the tablecloth with his fingertip, thinking. "Out there, north of town, I'd say two-thirds of the way to the forest. About a dozen, in a semicircle. You can set the receiver up anywhere here in town. The order station'd be a good place. Then if anything starts to dig in, you'll know it!" He smiled beatifically, proud of himself for being helpful.

  Alverd looked at Roald, receiving a look in return. So, they would know. Well and good. What in the hell would they do about it once they knew?

  In the Israfel, high above all this confusion, the aged Hierarch fretted himself into a passion. The first time he had questioned the Yrariers he had been convinced the ambassador was misleading him, though the analyzers had said only maybe. The second time, however, the machines had declared Rigo and Marjorie to be truthful. Compared to Highbones and the Maukerden man-both liars (said the machines} from the moment of conception-the Yrariers had been certified honest and doing their best to be helpful. However, they weren't Sanctity people, and in the Hierarch's opinion they weren't terribly bright. This business about the Moldies. That couldn't be true. Sanctity had been too careful for it to be true. They had kept the plague so very quiet, so very hidden. The Yrariers must have misunderstood whatever this Brother Mainoa had said about Moldies.

  The Hierarch considered this. The pair had been chosen by the former Hierarch because they were kin, because they were athletes. Not known for brains, athletes. That's where old Carlos had gone wrong. He should have sent someone cleverer. Someone slyer. And he should have done it long before instead of waiting until the last possible moment. There was no point in keeping the Yrariers locked up. And he, the Hierarch, would be safe enough in the specially modified isolation shuttle his people had built for him. Once he himself was on the ground, things would happen! Discoveries would occur! He knew it!

  As he was about to depart, however, a bulletin arrived from the surface. Danger, the Seraph said. Not only the possibility of plague, but the presence of large, fierce beasts would make it dangerous for the Hierarch to descend. Hostile creatures might be planning to overrun the port.

  The additional frustration was enough to send the Hierarch into one of his infrequent fits of screaming temper. Servitors who had barely survived previous such fits were moved to panicky action. After emergency ministrations by the Hierarch's personal physician, the Hierarch slept and everyone sighed in relief. He went on sleeping for days, and no one noticed or cared that no orders had been given for the Yrariers' release.

  Persun Pollut, Sebastian Mechanic, and Roald Few took the Seraph's listening devices out into the meadows north of town to set them up. They were simple enough to install: slender tubes to be driven into the ground with a mechanical driver, long, whiskery devices to be dropped into the tubes, and transmitters to be screwed onto the tops.

  "Foolproof," the Seraph had told them "As they must be if inexperienced troopers are to use them. A-B-C. Pound it in, drop it in, screw it on."

  Foolproof they might be. In the aggregate, heavy they also were. The men used an aircar to transport the dozen sets and the bulky driver that went with them. They started a
t the western end of the proposed arc, setting each device and then moving northward, parallel to the curve of the forest. Most of the day had passed by the time seven of the gadgets were in place, and they were bending the arc toward the east when Persun shaded his eyes with his arm and said, "Somebody in trouble up there."

  When they stopped working, they could all hear it: the stutter of an engine, start and stop, the pauses like those in the breath of someone dying-so long between sounds one was sure no other sound would come-only to catch again into life.

  Then they saw it, an aircar coming toward them, scarcely above the forest. It jerked and wobbled, approaching by fits and starts. When it had barely cleared the trees it fell, caught itself, then dropped, coming down hard midway between them and the swamp, not a hundred yards away.

  Persun set out toward it at a run, with Sebastian close behind. Roald followed them more slowly. At first there was no sign of life in the fallen car, but then the door opened with a scream of tortured metal and a Green Brother emerged dazedly, holding his head. Others followed: six, eight, a dozen of them. They sank to the ground by the car, obviously exhausted.