Drinking Sapphire Wine

by Tanith Lee

  Danor woke me, gently, just before sunset.

  She had a rough message to make up for it.

  The Nillaloxiandphy brigade had the Picture-Vision on, and there had been a flash broadcast—just like when they flashed out the film of Me in the Waste. I’d missed it, being asleep, but Kam, hearing the row the others made, went in and caught the end. Moddik and Talsi were out in the Garden, Glis and Felain in one of the cabins, apparently, and didn’t respond, so they missed it too.

  Once so rare, flash interruptions to Picture-Vision seemed on the increase indeed. Neither were they normally relayed out-dome. It rather looked as though the Committee had made sure we got this one on our wall, in addition to the citizens of Four BEE. And they said they were going to repeat the flash. The hour they gave corresponded chronologically to desert sunset.

  I flew about, demented, and grabbed the nearest article of clothing, which turned out to be my party outfit, meant for yesterday, Looking incongruously glamorous in amber with amethyst scintilla, and a nervy frown, I arrived in the P-V room just in time. Not a large area, it was now packed with the Jang and the three older outcasts. Danor’s swan had sat in a seat and wouldn’t be moved—it had pecked Nilla again when she tried. Danor and I perched by the wall with Kam.

  Presently the flowery orgies faded off the screen, and a solemn Q-R appeared. The Jang promptly made crude noises and shushed each other. The Q-R produced a second or so of guff about not alarming anybody, and how unhappy he—the Q-R—was about the situation and the action that had to be taken. Then he gave a brief résumé of the events which led up to my exiling—accurate, I had to admit, if biased—my departure, and the film they’d shown of me. Several misguided citizens had since followed me. Of course, they were the lunatic fringe, and perhaps safer in exile. However, the valley was now a hotbed of unbalanced, anti-city activity. In order to discourage further of these misguided citizens from leaving the dome in order to join the misanthropic band, the Committee wished it to be known that in the future, aid and supplies to the exiles would be limited to the barest minimum. They could expect oxygen, vitamins, the basics of food materials, but no luxuries (a kind of protein porridge would be all we’d be able to coax from the provision dispenser, once our current supply of syntho ran out, and no drinks, ecstasy, energy, or similar). Water mixers we had, and must make them go around, rationing in emergency, but we might ask for painkilling drugs and medicinal salve should we require them. Anything more drastic and we could forget it. (Thank God, I thought, thank God Danor and Kam hadn’t sustained serious injury.) Building materials would be sent to us on request, but in specific form, nothing left for us to shape to our own ends. In fact we’d get nothing at all they thought we might be dangerously creative with. We were on our own. And we were to be left on our own. No one else was going to join us. No sand-ships, bird-planes, or other vehicles would be given to those known to be sympathetic to us. Those with their own planes would have their licenses withdrawn. Private flights outside the domes were prohibited forthwith and until further notice, and general intercity traffic would be restricted. Citizens were asked to bear with us this inconvenience in the interest of communal harmony.

  Lastly, the Q-R said, staring out at us from the wall, his face without malice or pretension, only sad—self-convinced, at least— “The unhealthy craze which has swept the cities will shortly evaporate. The exiles will be left to their own devices. Having defied order and the laws of order, they can hardly expect the Committee to keep them in dome-fashion, free of charge. Their plight is sorry and pathetic, and will presently be resolved in mutual suicide and PD, which is still open to them, and will always be open to them until they are ready to return to it.”

  The image faced, and roses fell down the wall. The flash was over. We switched off and sat in silence. Then Kam said quietly:

  “They added a line or two this time. And they were using upper-tonal to emit a depressing atmosphere.”

  I hadn’t got that, and was relieved, for depression had swamped me and I’d thought it was me. The Jang, obviously relieved too, booed and blared militantly.

  Suddenly Moddik was on his feet.

  “Load of rubbish,” he said vehemently. “Silly nonhuman fools.” He shot a glance at me. “You look as if you agree. Splendid. Just give their basic food elements to me when they come in, and I’ll fiddle about with them a bit. The meals ought to be even better than they are now. Besides which, half the stuff can simply be reprogrammed from its own leftovers. All you need is an infinitesimal atom of fire-apple and you can process for fire-apple till the sun falls. Food machines don’t need great shovelsful of the muck to do an analysis. Our precious androids are just trying to flummox us and everyone else, and it won’t work. As for their building specifics, I’d like to see them foist a prefabricated utility-palace off on me. And I know a way to get a blueprint for water mixers and just about everything else, simply by wiring one of your robots into the original model for a couple of hours.”

  We gawped at him with mingled hope and disbelief.

  “Come on. Get your jaws off the mosaic,” he said. And to me: “Where’s the meeting you spoke of earlier, and when?”

  “The saloon,” I said. “Now.”

  Not a very orderly meeting.

  First of all, Loxi fingering the fringe on my dress and “Oh, ooma, I had one like this once, when I was a girl—in BAA—all flames it was …” Naz moaning about ecstasy, and Phy suddenly breaking down in floods of tears, his darkness-melancholia finally catching up, or just plain fear at our plight. Talsi, the non-Felain-fancying older woman, comforted him in a makerish—no, be precise—maternal way, very touching to behold. Danor and Kam sat close to each other, calm as could be, secure in their bond. I didn’t feel jealous any more, but a sort of hollow place had come in my heart, and notices stood on the bare sand of it which read: “Vacant, and never now to be filled.”

  “Very well,” I said, when things had settled a little, “we each know adequately who everyone is, and what our own and each other’s problems are likely to be, so maybe we don’t need to go into that right at this split. Our total numbers are eleven, not enormous, and our sexual leanings, despite our current bodies, seem fairly fluid, so I’m not sticking any labels on anyone. We’re going to have to cope with that as best we can, since we probably won’t have a chance of changing for the rest of our lives.” The slight murmuring that had started up fell off again at this doomful clarion call. “However,” I tritely said, “situations have a habit of altering unexpectedly. Who knows what tomorrow may bring.?”

  “Sand fleas?” volunteered Nilla.

  “From here on,” I said pointedly, “we have to work together where possible, and try not to drive each other zaradann. For this purpose I suggest splitting up, and not living altogether in a bunch here on the ship. If Moddik can do what he says in the way of adapting—”

  “I can do more than I say,” interposed Moddik flatly.

  “Yah, yah,” said Naz. “Has yet to be seen, my soolka old ooma.”

  “Good,” said Moddik. “Healthy opposition. I may clip you around the chops, young man, but don’t let that stop you. How many water mixers were you wanting?” His bright glance flashed at me like a couple of steel animals up on their hind legs, ready for havoc.

  “About nine,” I said, to gauge his reaction. “But that’s for the valley. We’ll need more for the extra homes if we’re going to have them.”

  Moddik nodded, got up, and went out.

  I thought we’d offended him or something, but Glis smiled at me and said:

  “He really is entirely brilliant. He’s going to wire up your third robot—Borss, is it?—for the blueprint to the water-mixer outside. He’ll also use the monitor beam to request building materials. When they arrive, he’ll start reconstructing. You simply have to understand the principle of reprocessing, and then you can alter any substance eventually to fit your needs.”

  “And Moddik does,” I said.

 
“Oh, yes.”

  “It sounds impossible to me.”

  “Oh, no. After all, most of the machines can do it, and once you grasp the fundamentals of the mechanical brain, which Moddik has, it’s easy.”

  “Oh yes?”

  “When we were at hypno-school, two rorls back,” put in Talsi, rocking the now smiling Phy upon her walnut satin bosom, “they sometimes gave awards for signs of genius. In those units it was even possible to make some sort of career for yourself if you wished to and were clever enough. Moddik won all the awards. Glis was a little boy when she was a child, and also very talented. I’m the stupid one. But I have a strong makerish streak, as you see, tied into my sex drive, so I shall be quite useful.” She beamed about, managing to catch Naz’ eye, Loxi’s eye, and even mine. Phy’s she didn’t need to catch.

  Right then Moddik strode back in, and he’d done as Glis had said.

  “I’m very glad you got through to the computer,” I said. “I wasn’t sure the link would still operate.” And with only this for introduction, I told them what had happened to Kam and Danor, after which Kam and Danor were madly questioned by hysterical Jang and briefly and sanely questioned by mad Moddik. Having established the facts to everyone’s horror, I thought I’d better add the final grim epilogue—or prologue? “Something has gradually become clear to me, one rather gruesome truth. Which is that, of all the three bird-planes that came out here, not one was without a malfunction. Moddik, Glis, and Talsi’s plane was out of control on landing and went up like a rocket just after. Danor and Kam’s plane got here OK, but on the second flight spilled oil into the batteries and nosedived. The Jang plane made a rotten touchdown so I got my robot Yay to check and correct it, and if I hadn’t I imagine my body would now be tastefully bedecking the mountains in various stages of incompleteness. This coincidence seems rather odd, to me. Even my sand-ship wasn’t of the best, and the provision dispenser exploded at the first possible opportunity.” There was silence thick as velvet in the saloon. You could hear the desert night wind furling round the ship. “How often do planes malfunction in the city? Ever? Perhaps once every rorl. Now, I’m not saying the Committee has done anything positive, but I do think that maybe they’ve let their robots get deliberately careless, forgotten to service the servicing machines, something like that. I don’t quite know how they managed, since they’re supposed to be permanently programmed to protect human life. Possibly they’ve got around it by recollecting that even when we die we don’t actually die, and what’s mere Ego-Death to an android? Our life spark goes on, they see to that. I don’t know. My theories are embryonic and the whole thing scares me. But I know this. By one means or another, subtly, unconsciously even, they are out to get us. They want the desert clear of us and our anti-city-system ideas. They fear that we’ll overthrow the harmonic rule of law and order, bring civil collapse, anarchy, and destruction in our wake—God knows how, but that’s the core of the matter. So we’d better watch out from here on. Every supply the city sends us we’ll machine-check, just in case someone’s omitted something and the next prefabricated building block goes into automatic combustion and blows us all to PD.” I paused, about long enough to take a breath. “I might add that food has been growing here on the northwest side, and the toxicity check has proved negative. For my eighth meal tonight I’m going to sample homegrown produce. If it’s pleasing, we can extend the venture. Self-sufficiency isn’t a bad thing to aim for, particularly placed as we are.”

  Everybody stared at me. Even the shock of Q-R treachery had been slightly muffled by surprise at the food announcement.

  “I’m not eating it,” said Nilla predictably. “I bet it’s absolutely drumdiky.”

  “No one’s asking you to,” I said. “I’ve explained that I’ll do it.”

  “Splendid heroic attitude,” said Moddik. “It’s probably delicious. But one point. The city syntho-food contains certain additives. Introduce additive-free substances into yourself and your body chemistry may change.”

  “Yes, I realize that,” I said, “but I think I’ll acclimatize. If I don’t, no one else will try, that’s all.”

  Felain and Loxi were looking at me worshipfully. Danor looked faintly troubled. Kam said:

  “I’d like to volunteer to do it myself. You’re the founder of this enterprise. It shouldn’t fall to you.”

  “It’s the very reason why it should,” said.

  I felt quite glad of their admiration or concern. Actually I had total faith in my ability to survive a few rosy fruits and a slice or so of tuber, or I’d never have done it. After all, it was city food to begin with, if unmixed and now intermingled with the properties of the wild. Somehow, having gone through so many traumas with the desert and survived, I’d come to feel there was nothing further to fear from it. An adversary to respect, to battle with, but not a mean one, not underhand. If it came at you, it came head-on, with a storm or an eruption or a tribe of marauding ski-feet. Not slyly, with a juicy fruit whose pips, germinating in some inner tract, would turn my skin green and scaly or my voice into a bark. Besides which, the negative tests showed that any effects that did crop up would be minor and easily reversed.

  You don’t get a coward like me being a heroine with a real dragon about. I hang my sword on the wall, and get under the float-bed, ooma.

  8

  What a night.

  No one went to sleep. I think Nilla kept up to see if I’d go into a fit after my eighth meal of grown food. I could just visualize her standing interestedly over my spasming wracked body, saying: “How frantically drumdik, ooma-kasma. What a floopy thing.”

  Actually, the only symptom the food produced in me was a desire for more. It was marvelous—fruits like nectar, tubers tart and succulent. The assembled company watched me eating, and followed me uneasily about afterward, patently expecting me to drop dead, despite the toxicity tests. Even Kam asked a couple of times if I was OK. The two-rorl older people were less bothered, and about Sister-blasting time, I caught Moddik in the saloon, nibbling a fruit.

  “I thought we agreed,” I said.

  “Couldn’t resist,” said Moddik. “We can compare dermatoses later. It’s not, my young friend, that I don’t entirely defer to your leadership.”

  “I’m not the leader here,” I said, slightly unnerved.

  “Are you not? Just wait till the next crisis and we shall all be there, bleating about your feet for directions.”

  “Then I absolutely abdicate.”

  “You won’t, you know. Like most loners,” said Moddik, “you carry the seeds of violent authority. Loners need to be bossy. They quickly learn it’s the only method they have of shoving people off their backs.”

  This conversation stuck in my craw, mainly because it had the doleful ring of logic.

  Moddik next informed me, as we gazed from the veranda at the nightly dual eruption in the south, that he’d noticed a few additional edible items growing here and there westward. Somehow he seemed to know what everything was for—sun-peaches, fat green roots, a nut tree which wouldn’t bear, he said, for about a vrek, and might need extra water, even vines from which we could make our own purely fruit-based wine.

  “Moddik,” I said, “you’ve been here before, haven’t you? I mean, done something like this?”

  He chuckled like a wicked little old man in a book, his young tan face crinkling like the dunes themselves with almost harmless vitriol.

  “Not quite. I piddled around somewhat with a hydroponics garden in my youth.”

  “You’re going to be a great asset, Moddik,” I said. “Thank goodness you came. Why ever did you?”

  “And why did you?” said Moddik.

  Not long after he went charging off and came charging triumphantly back with Borss, ghastly with exposed wires and plates unscrewed. Apparently we had the water-mixer blueprint. Presently everybody had to get chemical-fire lamps and follow our magician off to the west, where his plane had exploded, and here, under the whip of his instructions, w
e poked and probed about in the sand and smoke for bits of scorched metal, plasti-ware, and glacia-view.

  “You’d be surprised what use I can put this to,” said he.

  “I shouldn’t,” spat Nilla.

  Moddik roared with laughter, and then he went over and lifted Nilla up in the air, looking strong as a robot and mad as mad. Nilla struggled faintly and seemed scared and pleased.

  “So, little predominantly-female-who-isn’t, you think the nasty old Moddik gets his thrills that way, do you? I much prefer beating the weak and helpless to a pulp.”

  Following this exchange, Nilla regarded him with a smoldering resentful interest.

  Eventually he herded us back to the ship, and I was astonished to see that Yay and Jaska had put up a sort of shelter place for him over in a clearing near the grove of purple trees. I remembered I’d reset the robots to take orders only from me, but naturally, in Moddik’s clever case, this had meant nothing.

  “My workshop,” said Moddik, and went inside with Borss of the trailing wires. Shortly, a frightening sound of bangs, thuds, and drilling burst upon the fragrant air.

  The sun leaped up behind the eastern peaks as I sat alone on the veranda in my now somewhat stained and tattered finery. The Jang had finally retired in odd order—Felain and Glis, Loxiandphy both with smiling, voluptuous Talsi, Nilla petulantly alone (ha!), Naz euphorically with handfuls of ecstasy Moddik had indulgently conjured for him, after I’d said oh, all right, all right, to his never-ending lament. Danor and Kam, arm in arm, close as leaf on leaf in our Garden, closer than ever since their night on the mountain when death was closer still: close as the world itself. I, who rescued them, had approached the outskirts of their citadel, but no more. How could it be more?