The Winter Plain

by Jo Bannister

  Paul watched Itzhak’s surprising arrival from on top of his bed, scowling irritably. Itzhak took it personally and quailed, but in fact Paul had been scowling irritably almost without let for a couple of days. He was impatient with illness, tired of restraint and inaction, grudging of wasted time. He thought he was fit to be up and around. Shah thought he should still be in bed. This was the compromise they had agreed, that he might dress and sit on top of his bed, but Paul had agreed with a bad grace and would now have welcomed an opportunity to be unpleasant.

  “I – er – I’ve something to tell you,” Itzhak began nervously, squeezing his hands together; “or rather, to explain; which is – oh, this is all very difficult! – why I’m not coming to Leshkas.”

  “Not coming?” exclaimed Shah. “Itzhak, of course you’re coming.”

  “He’s decided to become a nun,” Paul hazarded nastily; and Shah felt a fractional guilty twinge because she had not told him of her own invitation to orders.

  Itzhak smiled his gentlest smile, devoid of anger. “Not quite, but not so far away. I am going to stay here a little while. They’re going to teach me something about medicine – what Paul would call real medicine. Then I’m going back to Chad.” Forestalling the incredulous reaction he anticipated from their startled faces the poet hurried on: “They’re going to need medical aid desperately, even at a quite modest level. I asked the women here if they would send a proper doctor but they said they had no dealings with the world outside Oracle. So I asked if they’d tell me what to do and they said they would. They’re going to give me drugs and equipment and show me how to use them. I know it won’t be like a real hospital, not like this, but I can set up some kind of clinic where they can bring their burns and their frostbite and their dysentery – and later, maybe their babies. I can be some help to them.”

  “You can die with them.” Paul’s tone was scathing but in his eyes Shah was surprised to discover concern. She bit back her own response. “You? You’re worse equipped to survive out there than most of them. Getting you this far was a major test of ingenuity. How do you suppose you’re going to get back to Chad alone?”

  “The women said they’d help —”

  “They’ll help you get far enough from here that you can turn belly up without inconveniencing them. They don’t care about you, Itzhak, and they don’t care about the people of Chad. They don’t care. You can freeze to death, starve to death, die of radiation sickness, choke on polluted water or have your head bashed in by some poor sod for a pair of good boots. You can go to hell on square wheels and take the whole damn world with you, and as long as Oracle remains untouched and the wind blows the stench the other way there won’t be a tear shed here for you. Help you? These harpies wouldn’t help bury you.”

  Shah said quietly, “That may all be true. But in view of what you owe them, Paul, you’re not the best one to say it.”

  “What I owe them?” He rounded on her savagely. “Oh, you mean my life, my arm – little things like that? They did for me what you made them do, what they could not for shame refuse you. If I had come alone I’d have died out there on the ice, and only after they were quite sure I wasn’t pretending would they have despatched someone with an ice-pick to shovel me out of sight.”

  Her voice dropped a tone and was chill. “The fact remains —”

  “They’re trying to buy you, Shah. Using me as the currency. They’ve asked you to stay, haven’t they?” She nodded wary assent. “I know. When I was sweating on this bed and didn’t know whether I’d live or die, Elaine came here. You were asleep. She whispered so as not to wake you. She said you’d be staying here. They want to get their hands on your perception. She said leaving you here was the price of my life. She was very reasonable about it. She pointed out that I had expected and received payment for my services to her, now Oracle expected a return for time and drugs expended on me. She asked me to promise I’d leave you behind.”

  Shah was scarcely breathing. Itzhak quietly took her hand in both of his. She managed, “What did you say?”

  “What do you think I said? I was weak and in pain, and I knew damn well that if they stopped treating me I’d have to go through it all again, and I couldn’t face that, Shah. I’d have agreed to anything they asked of me. For God’s sake, woman, I destroyed Chad to save myself pain: do you think I’d baulk at telling lies?”

  She had been backing away from him, a terrible trapped feeling beating inside her, betrayal stretching her eyes. She came up against Itzhak’s long body and felt his hands clasp her shoulders, felt the unsuspected strength of him behind her, and through the mists of shock the memory of his enduring friendship and unfailing kindness gleamed steadfast as a beacon. Then the import of Paul’s words filtered through to her. She mumbled uncertainly, “Lies?”

  “Of course lies, what else? You don’t seriously think I have any honour left?” He had come to his feet and stood swaying slightly, the spread fingers of his left hand touching the wall more for balance than support. “Listen. Soon now I shall be able to fight for what I want, and when we walk out of here no one will raise a finger to stop us. In the meantime I will lie, cheat and generally run the gamut of all the lower vices to protect our position. Yes, I’ll bargain with you. I’ll sell you outright if I have to. But God help the man or woman who tries to collect.”

  They stared at each other, as if meeting, across the tense and sudden silence. During the space the silence lasted Paul made an amazing discovery about himself: that another person – and by implication other people – mattered to him for more than just what he could get out of them.

  Itzhak cleared his throat. “Well, I’ve told you my news. I appreciate the advice, but I haven’t changed my mind. If I possibly can I’m going back. I’ll go and tell Lockwood and the king now. Er —” he hovered a moment, smiling ruefully. “At the risk of making you laugh, Paul, I should warn you: if you let any harm come to her, you’ll have me to deal with.” He walked from the room with poise, and no one laughed.

  Paul was left looking at Shah, and Shah at Paul.

  “He cares about you,” said Paul.

  “He cares about everybody,” said Shah.

  “Funny thing,” mused Paul, “I’m going to miss him.”

  “Does he stand any chance?”

  “Maybe. Maybe I can think of something to stretch his chances. Shah —”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  “It’s all right. I know where I stand now.” I also know where you stand, she thought with a kind of shaky triumph. Just for a moment there, in the heat of the argument, you almost said you wanted me.

  The thing Paul thought of to improve Itzhak’s chances and to pay Oracle for his treatment almost broke him up. He told himself that soon he would have no further need of them, but they were not just the harvest of years’ work, they were his friends. He gave Calipha to Itzhak and the calf to Miriam.

  The poet was deeply moved by his gift, accepting it with tears in his voice and a lump in his throat. “I’ll look after her,” he promised, eyes limpid with gratitude.

  “I know that,” growled Paul. “The point of the exercise, however, is that she’ll look after you.”

  His interview with Miriam was more difficult.

  “I’ve talked to Shah. She wants to come with me.”

  The priestess eyed him calmly. “But you can’t take her, can you?”

  “Can’t I?”

  “You gave me your word.”

  “My word is worth nothing.”

  “And your life? Is that also worth nothing?”

  “I can buy my life without selling hers.”

  “Then why did you agree to?”

  “It’s easy enough to blackmail a sick man. Harder to make him pay up when he’s feeling better.”

  “You are, of course,” observed Miriam, “grossly outnumbered. If we decide that Shah stays here, she will not leave. Paul, you know how long I have searched for a telepath!
I was on the track of one when that damned Barbarian kidnapped me. I lost her; I’m not giving up on this one.”

  “It may not be that simple. You’d have to be sure of killing me, and Lockwood and Itzhak and the boy, and leaving her alive. Even then you’d only have her body, and it’s not her body you’re interested in, is it? I doubt she’d give you anything of her mind after that.”

  “That is why I would have her choose to stay. Though, in fact, we do not strictly need her consent. All we need are her cells and her womb. The next generation of telepaths will be of Oracle, and less independent.”

  “You’re talking of —” he began, shouting, then stopped. His eyes slowly saucered. “No, you’re not, are you?” he realised, shaken and impressed. “You’re talking of clones.”

  “You’re well educated for a technician,” smiled Miriam.

  “You’ve come a fair way for a concubine.”

  “Perhaps we are neither of us what we seem.”

  “This is true. Remember it.”

  Miriam frowned at him. “Don’t force my hand, Paul. I don’t want to see you hurt.”

  “At last we agree on something. Take what I’m offering, Elaine. I won’t leave without her.”

  “I could – remove you.”

  “True. But you would hardly expect Shah to comply with your plans for her then.”

  “Compliance is not essential. She could be compelled.”

  “The word you’re looking for is raped. Also true. But can you watch her twenty-four hours a day for nine months, until your cleverness bears fruit? Because you’d have to, or one way or another you’d lose her and her little clone.”

  Miriam elevated an eyebrow. “You really think she’d do that, Paul? Kill herself if she couldn’t have you?”

  “Me? Good God, no.” The surprise seemed genuine. “I doubt she’d dampen a hanky on my account. But she won’t be a slave again. She risked death to get away from Harry Jess: I don’t think she’d be much keener to stay here, under duress. A little thing called freedom, Elaine? – do you remember it? Or don’t you think back that far any more?”

  “My name has been Miriam,” Miriam said stiffly, “since I became High Priestess.”

  “And that’s not all that’s changed, is it?”

  When the woman snapped to her feet, her fist ringing on the graceful sweep of laminate that served as a desk, shouting, “Damn you, Paul, I haven’t been angry since I last saw you!” they both knew the worst of the argument was over. Miriam sat down again, slowly, smoothing the wrinkles in her habit and her composure. “So what are you offering me?”

  Paul straightened up. “When Shah and I separate, I will make sure she has the means to get back here if she wants.”

  “And if she doesn’t want?”

  He shrugged. “Then you’re out of luck.”

  The priestess sniffed. “It doesn’t seem much return for all we’ve done for you.”

  “It’s a gamble, certainly. If it pays off – and it might, she hasn’t that many places to go – your reward will be rich enough. But in case she doesn’t I propose sweetening the pot a little. Have you seen my calf?”

  Miriam nodded, cagily.

  “Take her. Clone her. She is the outcome of a long and careful breeding programme to produce the definitive tundra transport animal. In a couple of years she’ll be the hottest property in the Ice Desert.”

  The priestess was openly amused. “Paul, we don’t need pack camels! When we require transport, which we do seldom, we have something rather more sophisticated at our disposal.”

  “I guessed that,” grunted Paul. “But none of the other desert cities has. Some of them have horses, most of them are dependent on caribou and their own feet. That calf’s progeny will open up the desert for them. They’ll trade for them with goods, treaties, alliances – anything you choose. If you want, my camels will join the cities in a network of new communications with Oracle sitting pretty at the crossroads.”

  “And if we don’t want?”

  “Power? Influence? You’ll want.”

  “Perhaps.” Miriam brushed the surface of her desk negligently with the backs of her fingers. “I dare say we shall find a use for your calf. Very well.”

  The desk shrilled. Miriam, frowning, fingered a contoured panel. A shutter rising in the opposite wall revealed an anxious, youthful face framed in grey and glimmering with cathode rays. “Lady – there are people outside —”

  “What, our visitors?” She sighed. “Oh, you’d better let them in.”

  “No, lady,” stammered the girl. “Other people. Men. Horses. They blacken the desert —”

  Alarm deepening in her eyes, Miriam stabbed the panel again. More shutters rolled; the face disappeared. A bank of grey screens charted the flanking plain. From screen to screen stretched a waiting army, black horses standing snorting steam, black men with spears and studded clothes. They were thousands rather than hundreds, and they made no movement; a watching, waiting army.

  Miriam, horrified, spun in her chair and stared at Paul. Her mouth was open but no sound came. Paul looked from her to the screens, studying the silent ranks intently, fierce-eyed. Then he straightened, looking at the startled woman over his shoulder, and the terrible wolfish grin grew and spread slowly across his dark features.

  “Miriam,” he said, finally getting it right, “I think we may all be outnumbered.”

  “Paul? Paul!” Shah’s screech reached him through three intervening walls. “Harry!”

  Paul threw open the door that gave access to Miriam’s office from the long passage. “Himself? Did you feel him?”

  “Paul, he’s here – now – outside!” She lurched into the room a little behind her voice, her face flushed with excitement, dismay and something akin to happiness warring in her expression. She offered Paul no greeting: so adept a telepath was she become that she no longer equated meeting with visual confrontation. It was an unconscious slip from the norm of the kind which had marked her for what she was the first day he saw her. “Harry: he’s alive!”

  “And he’s not alone.” Paul pulled her by the hand and pointed her at the screens.

  Shah caught her breath and sobered up abruptly. “Hell’s teeth, didn’t he leave anybody minding the store?”

  Paul grinned savagely. “Be reasonable, girl. Would you come after you and me and Lockwood with anything less than the first team?”

  Shah could not drag her eyes away from the black cordon choking off their escape. “He doesn’t expect us to fight, does he?”

  “He expects us to die.” The tone was cynical, the eyes bitter. Between his eyes deep vertical lines betrayed the sick, furious frustration of impending defeat. He was loath to be beaten.

  “Sod it,” said Shah. It was amazing how empty she felt: empty of anger, empty of fear. “It’s funny. When I felt around out there and found him, I was actually glad he’d made it. It didn’t last long, though.”

  “It wouldn’t,” agreed Paul. He turned his back on the screens. He looked around the panelled room and his gaze fell on Miriam and stayed there until she broke the contact by shifting uneasily in her seat. His lip lifted slightly but it was hardly more than a sardonic smile. “Well, I suppose I’d better get down there and find out what he wants.”

  Shah wheeled and stared at him. “Paul, we know what he wants! If you go down there he’ll get it.”

  The engineer shook his head briefly. “He wants more than me. There may be some room for manoeuvre.”

  “What room?” shouted Shah. All her sang froid was gone. “He wants us all dead. How do you make him change his mind?” She jerked her head back at the screens. “By force?”

  “Hardly. Maybe some guile. Starting with you: you’re the easiest one to disappear.” He said to Miriam: “Get her one of your habits – you’re about to acquire an extra nun after all.”

  “She’ll be safe with us,” Miriam said in a low voice.

  Shah said, “No.”

  Paul ignored her. “Can you
protect yourselves?”

  “Oh yes,” said Miriam with conviction.

  “Paul, I said no.” Shah’s voice rang. “I won’t watch you die from behind a veil.”

  “You’re damn right you won’t, you’ll stay out of sight until they’ve gone, and if they come in here you’ll use every wile at your disposal to keep away from Harry.”

  “They won’t come in,” said Miriam.

  Shah stared at her, fresh wild hope kindling in her eyes. “You mean you can keep them out? Indefinitely? Then there’s no problem. They can stay out there until they get tired and go away. Oracle could have been designed to withstand a siege: self-contained, self-supporting, walled, no doors. We could wait for the Last Trump here if need be.” She was babbling to cover the silence surrounding her, and because the idea was not so extraordinary that it should need explaining in this way. There was another reason for the silence.

  “I don’t think,” Paul said slowly, “there’ll be enough habits to go round.”

  “Don’t be silly,” began Shah; then she understood. She glared bitter accusation at Miriam. “You mean, you’ll protect me but not them?”

  The priestess rose, stately behind her desk. Regret aged her classic face; the onus of responsibility weighed on her shoulders. “I am deeply sorry. But I will not risk Oracle, and that is what it would mean.”

  “If you can keep Harry away from me you can keep him away from them.”

  “I know Harry Jess. I think, rather than fight, he would leave without you, but he will not leave empty-handed. Yes, Oracle could repel the Barbarians. I could order a bombardment that would leave not a man on his horse; that would leave not a horse. And within weeks every city in the Ice Desert would somehow know that the crazy ladies of Oracle had a new terror weapon, and between wanting it for themselves and fear that we might use it against them every army on the plain would sooner or later line up out there and have to be destroyed.” She jerked a hand at Paul. “He only destroyed one state. You would have me destroy everything north of the tree-line. Four men’s lives are not a good enough reason for a holocaust.”