The Infinity Concerto

by Greg Bear

  “Sweet,” she said. “Sana, dosa, sona.”

  “What do I do now?” he asked, looking up at her, eyes half-closed.

  “Sleep, Michael,” she crooned, stroking his brow. She nestled down beside him and he felt the bare stretch of her leg against his. He moved instinctively, but she restrained him. “Sleep,” she repeated, but he didn’t hear her finish the word.

  The morning began as a patch of gray light shining on the floor. Michael opened his eyes and looked at the light from where his head lolled over the side of the bed. He rolled on his back and saw Eleuth leaning on her elbow next to him, hair concealing her hand. She smiled and bent to kiss him. “You kept me very warm,” she said. She ran her hand down his arm, tickling the hairs.

  They made love. It was the most wonderful thing, and the most silly thing. It had nothing of lust in it, only necessity. They lay holding each other and he secretly surveyed her breasts and stomach, and she secretly enjoyed him looking at her.

  Eleuth got out of bed, climbing over him with her hand cupped between her legs. She dipped a white cloth in a ceramic jar full of water and cleaned him off, then slipped on her pants and shirt. “No market this day,” she said. “But I have a few things to do.”

  He lay on the cot, half-covered with blankets, watching as the gray light became yellow.

  It was one of the most—no, the single most wonderful thing that had happened to him. He was pretty convinced of that. He couldn’t remember anything finer, and yet…

  It had its drawbacks. In all the time he had spent here, there had always been some hope that it was all a dream, some long-play fantasy. But throughout his few pubescent years, he had never been able to have a fantasy so real or vivid as what had happened this morning.

  Ergo, he was not fantasizing. He had more than suspected as much. The drawback was that it was now proven.

  And yet…

  A certain hollowness remained. He was relaxed, as if a knot had been untied between his legs, a knot he had hardly realized was there until now. He had acquitted himself well; Eleuth had enjoyed him, and he sensed the knot flex and tighten as he remembered her enjoyment. His pleasure had been real but unspectacular, sure to get better with practice. Hers had been real and prolonged.

  So what about the hollowness? He couldn’t put his finger on it. Like everything else in Sidhedark, the accomplishment (and that seemed a truthful but ridiculous word to use) came with a little hard gnarl of unease, of impending disaster.

  Michael realized that even if he made it back to Earth, he would still have that gnarl buried inside of him.

  Maybe that was part of growing up. Oddly enough, making love didn’t make him feel any more adult. It was perhaps the most childish part of being grown-up.

  He was dozing when Eleuth entered, carrying three pieces of fruit. She handed him two of them and he smiled at her.

  “There’s a legend on Earth, saying that if I eat this, I have to stay here forever.”

  “I wouldn’t object,” Eleuth said, sitting on the bed beside him. “Bui you’ve already eaten fruit here, haven’t you?”

  He nodded. “Could you teach me to speak Sidhe?”

  She shook her head slowly. “It’s more difficult than a human language. Lirg tried teaching my mother. Only the Sidhe have a real knack. Sometimes, it’s not even a language in your sense.”

  “But I’ve been able to make out words.”

  “Yes. Sometimes we use different words to mean the same things—And when we communicate, we in-speak. You allow me to speak your language. I in-speak… look into your mind, and find the words. I wish Lirg were here to explain it to you.” Her eyes moistened again and he reached out to touch her shoulder. She lay down beside him. “What will you do today?”

  “Go to Savarin, I think,” Michael said. “He didn’t help me yesterday, but there are still things I need to know.”

  “I’ll teach you what I know,” Eleuth said.

  “I’m grateful for that, but he may be able to explain things more clearly. He’s a teacher.”

  “Oh.” They ate their fruit. “Can you help me here?”

  “Sure,” Michael said. “Why don’t you tell me what you need done before I go to Euterpe?”

  Together they counted rolls of fabric and pots. Eleuth brought out pants and shirts for him to try on, and he found a pair that fit reasonably well. Shoes were more difficult. Sidhe and Breed feet were longer and narrower than human feet. Michael found a pair made out of canvas-like material that didn’t actually pinch his toes, and Eleuth watched him with her vague puzzled expression as he stamped about, trying to get them to fit.

  “They’ll never believe it back on Earth,” he said. “Faeries wear tennis shoes.” Then he laughed at the thought of trying to explain things at home. It was the first time he remembered laughing in the Realm. Eleuth smiled.

  She sewed a pocket into his shirt to hold the book and as she cut the thread with her teeth and tied it off, she said, “This afternoon I’m expecting a shipment. Could you be back by then to help?”

  “Sure. I thought everything just appeared out of nowhere,” he teased. He pointed at the covered racks of merchandise in the storage room.

  “Oh, no,” Eleuth said, her long face betraying distress. “I’m not nearly that skilled.”

  He left when the sun was just below zenith and walked the distance to the human town at a leisurely pace. Something had loosened in him; he could observe things without the nervous tightness that had prevailed before. It seemed he now had the time to put everything in perspective.

  He also confronted the fact that he would soon have to tell Eleuth he couldn’t stay forever, that he didn’t love her. He wasn’t sure what he felt for her; gratitude, affection.

  But there was one image he couldn’t erase from his mind: that of the Crane Women—immortal, but because of their human blood, changing with age. How long would it take for Eleuth to change?

  A few Breeds—a male and two females, all of that cast of features that indicated they were older than Eleuth, but how how much older he couldn’t tell—were directing a horse cart along the road. They passed Michael without acknowledging his presence, holding their long heads high, their dull brown clothes rippling like fur beneath an unwanted touch. He turned to watch the cart, noting the wood-spoke wheels, the well-fitted but unornamented frame, the simplicity of the harness.

  At the inn, Brecker greeted him civilly while sweeping out the small lobby and told him Savarin was indeed back in his room. Michael climbed the stairs. Behind the wicker door, he heard Savarin humming to himself. Michael knocked on the wicker. “It’s me.”

  Savarin swung the door wide and smiled at him. “You’ve forgiven us, I hope?”

  “Yeah,” Michael said. “I found a place in Halftown.”

  Savarin invited him in and looked down the hall to see if anyone followed. “We want you to understand, it’s not you we’re afraid of.”

  “I know,” Michael said. He didn’t want to discuss it, but he knew Savarin would air the issue for a while. He sat on the edge of the washstand, lightly so as not to crush it.

  “It’s just that we have to be careful. We stand between Lamia and the Sidhe, between rules that change from day to day. Have you had any trouble from the Crane Women?”

  Michael shook his head. “I haven’t seen them. I came here—”

  “You still have to be careful. Where are you staying in Halftown?”

  “That isn’t important,” Michael said. “I want you to tell me what you know about Sidhe language. I can’t get anywhere if I can’t understand what they’re saying.”

  Savarin cocked his head to one side and lifted his eyebrows. “Tall order. You have to be largely Sidhe to pick up on all of the tongues. I’d say the resemblances between Sidhe and human languages are strong, but the syntax and methods of understanding are quite different. For example, the Sidhe use a metalanguage… a language of contexts. And Cascar is like a hundred languages thrown together. They neve
r run out of words that mean the same thing, or very nearly. I can’t speak it well. I can sometimes make myself understood, but…”

  “I understood it for a time,” Michael said. “During the Kaeli. One of the Crane Women touched my head, and I understood everything they said.”

  “And what was that like?”

  Michael thought back. “Like listening to music. Each word seemed to be the equivalent of a note. Notes are always the same in music, but place them next to each other and they sound different… or lengthen the notes, shorten them. Use the same word in a different context, and it means something else… sounds different.”

  “Perhaps you should be educating me,” Savarin said.

  “But it didn’t last. I don’t remember anything from that night, except what they said… and even that’s fuzzy. They were singing, but not singing. I need to know so—” He stopped himself. “I just need to know.”

  “Because you still plan on leaving the Realm,” Savarin said.

  Michael turned his eyes away and pointed his index fingers together.

  “I don’t recommend that. First of all, Alyons will hunt you. No human can escape his coursers. Second, Lamia will resent even the attempt—and, as I’ve said before, I wouldn’t want to cross her. I don’t know what the Crane Women will do.”

  “I haven’t thought much about that,” Michael said. “I’m just struggling. I don’t want to be anyone’s responsibility.”

  “Just thank the stars you are,” Savarin said. “I’ve known people to come here, Alyons takes them—and we never see them again—despite the Pact! We dare not object. To what end does he take them? Nobody knows. But you! You seem to be protected. He has not taken you… even though he’s tried.” He put his hand on Michael’s knee and stared at him earnestly. “Go back. Keep up the training. It’s for a purpose, I’m sure.”

  “I don’t see it that way,” Michael said. Savarin shrugged.

  “Then we’ll discuss Cascar and Nerb. Do you know the difference?”

  “No.”

  Savarin explained that Cascar was a younger, less formal language. He believed it had arisen after the Sidhe returned to Earth, and that it was the proto-language out of which had arisen several of the major human language groups, the most familiar of them, for Savarin, belonging to the Indo-European branch. “Certainly the words sound familiar,” he said. “Their word for us—a word which never changes, you notice?—is antros. Sometimes they call us males—wires, as in virile, no?—or female, geen, and the latter they apply to their females as well—but as a kind, we are always antros. A spit-word, so to speak.

  “As for Nerb, not many Breeds speak it, and none of the Sidhe I’ve encountered.”

  “I haven’t heard much about it, if anything. So say something to me in Cascar.”

  “Pir na? Bed antros lingas ta rup la pistr.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “ ‘Why? Humans talk as if they have stone tongues.’ It’s something a Breed once told me. Lingas means both language and speaking and tongue. Context is important, and pitch, as in Chinese. There are other Cascar words for language, meaning eating with the tongue, spitting with the tongue, magic with the tongue. Calling birds with the tongue. All different.”

  “How do they learn it?”

  “They’re Sidhe,” Savarin said laconically. ”It comes naturally to them. Nearly every Sidhe and Breed I’ve met knows how to speak the human languages I’m familiar with. Do they suck the knowledge out of my mind? I don’t know. But they only speak Cascar to us when they don’t want us to understand, or when they wish to be belligerent.” He paused, looking almost sad. ”There’s another language I’ve heard hinted at. I know almost nothing about it but that it exists. One of its many names is Kesh. An unspoken language, used during the star-marches. Not, as you might suspect, a kind of ESP, but something different.

  “And to make things even more confusing, I’m tracking down evidence that the Sidhe picked up words from humans—words from tinker’s cant, Celtic languages, etc.; picked them up during their last centuries on Earth. There is a section in ‘Hudibras’ by Samuel Butler—if I can remember…” He screwed up his face in concentration and peered at the ceiling.“ ‘But when he pleased to shew’t, his speech/ In loftiness of sound was rich;

  A Babylonish dialect

  Which learned pedants much affect;

  It was a party coloured dress

  Of patch’d and py-ball’d languages;

  Twas (Irish) cut on Greek and Latin

  Like fustian heretofore on sattin.

  It had an odd promiscuous tone,

  As if h’ had talk’d three parts in one;

  Which made some think, when he did gabble,

  Th’ had heard three labourers of Babel;

  Or Cerberus himself pronounce

  A leash of languages at once.’ ”

  “We’re like little babies here,” Michael said, sighing.

  Savarin nodded. “Now perhaps you can tell me why they simply haven’t slaughtered us all?”

  “Do they hate us that much?”

  Savarin’s expression brightened “Can you tell me anything about the Council of Eleu? Does that sound familiar?”

  Michael couldn’t remember hearing anything about it.

  “Then listen closely. You’re going to be associating with Breed and Sidhe more and more, whatever your personal wishes may be. Just listen for it. ‘Council of Eleu.’ And if you find out anything, tell me immediately! To answer your question, no, not all of them hate us. And the Council of Eleu has something to do with those who tolerate us.”

  Something flashed into Michael’s head and he struggled to keep it, to clarify it. A group of tall, pale figures talking about him. Something about his room in the house on Earth… but it was gone before he could grasp it. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything,” he said. “How’s Helena?”

  “Well,” Savarin said. “She worries we gave you the wrong impression, that you hate us, hate her.”

  “I don’t hate anybody,” Michael said. “I’d like to talk to her some more.”

  “Certainly. She’s working now, I’m sure, but we could walk over later—”

  “No. I’ll go myself. I have to ask her some things.”

  “Certainly,” Savarin said. His lips normally carried a slight sardonic smile; now the expression took on significance. “I believe there is something you must know, very soon.”

  “What?”

  “Human sex is dangerous here.”

  “Why?”

  “Such things are closely regulated. We do not want children. The Sidhe and Breeds can have young—we cannot.”

  Michael just looked at him.

  “The people who have been here longest, and the Breeds, say it is because there are no seedling souls in the Realm. A human child is born empty. A Sidhe or Breed child is expected to be that way, and already has an internal… how would we say… compensation. But human children are vessels waiting to be filled. They are filled by creatures from the Blasted Plain—Adonna’s own aborted children, some say.” He set his lips and waved off any further inquiry. “Talk about it is considered obscene. No more.”

  “There’s just one other thing,” Michael said. “I’m a young fellow—everyone keeps saying that—but why do humans put up with all this crap?”

  “What else can we do?” Savarin scrutinized him intensely, as if looking for something hidden in his face. Then the perpetual half-smile returned and the scholar leaned back, folding his hands in front of him and cracking his knuckles. “You’ll learn soon enough,” he said in a low voice. “Why not go and talk with Helena now. She should be done with her work.”

  Michael didn’t expect to be dismissed, but Savarin was obviously thinking about other things. Michael stood and held out his hand. Savarin grasped it and shook it loosely, then fluttered his fingers in the direction of the doorway. “Go on,” he said. “And thank you for coming back. We thought we’d lost you when you ran away.”<
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  Michael nodded and shut the wicker door behind him. Savarin resumed humming, keeping it low enough so it couldn’t be heard more than a few feet outside.

  He snapped his fingers while he walked, caught himself, and stuffed his thumb into the fabric tie of his pants. It was early afternoon and the town was slowing down; shops were closing, people were strolling in pairs down the narrow streets, some heading for the ramshackle school, others just walking, talking. Michael saw an oriental man and woman speaking what sounded like Chinese.

  His last question—and Savarin’s subsequent expression—kept echoing in his mind. Resistance seemed only natural when somebody oppressed you. Michael’s father had often talked about his student days at UCLA—talk which had bored Michael slightly, but came back to him now as a model of how Americans, at least, behaved when they thought something was wrong. Michael wondered if the humans in the Realm could organize a protest, maybe set up a blockade. Keep Sidhe out of Euterpe at least… passive resistance.

  He grinned at how silly it sounded. Alyons would handle a blockade in short order. Some people would probably get killed. Maybe he’d be the first.

  He still found it hard to believe that he could die in the Realm. Death had been a difficult enough concept on Earth, but here, with everything topsy-turvy and so many fantastic phenomena, how could anyone actually die? So what if it wasn’t a dream, he told himself. It wasn’t exactly reality either.

  His reverie carried him to the steps below Helena’s doorway.

  He walked up slowly, apprehensive. He nibbed his chin to check the length of peach-fuzz. A few of the real whiskers he had started were getting quite long now; he hadn’t thought about them until this moment, but he wished he had a mirror and a pair of scissors to snip them off.

  He had a panicky moment just before knocking, when he told himself it would be best just to run away, head out across the—

  Helena opened the door.

  “Hi,” he said, dropping his hand from his chin.

  “Hi yourself. I heard you breathing.”