There was a heavy silence. Then Dennys said, "Anything seems to be possible. I hope this is."
Another silence. Then Sandy asked, "Do you think we could take Yalith with us?"
Dennys did not answer for a while. Then: "No. I don't think so. We're not supposed to change history."
"But she'll drown."
"I know. I love her, too." At last. It had been said.
"But if we love her--"
Dennys's voice was bleak. "I don't think we can take her with us."
Sandy reached for his twin's hand and grasped it. "A lot of people are going to drown. Would you mind changing history if it would save Yalith?"
Dennys said, "I wouldn't mind. I'd be willing to try. To try absolutely anything. But I have a feeling that we can't."
"I hate it!"
"Shh. I hate it, too."
Sandy whispered, "It's going to be dangerous, taking a quantum leap."
"Dad obviously thinks such things are possible. After all, wasn't he programming some kind of quantum leap, or tesser, when we messed around with his experiment?"
"So, if he believes in it, it's not that wild."
"Sure it's that wild. It's got to be that wild in order to work."
Sandy gave a slightly hysterical laugh. "Our father was not programming unicorns into his experiment."
Higgaion jerked in a sleeping dream, whimpered. Selah made little murmuring noises, and Tiglah's mammoth moved closer to the others.
Sandy asked, "What about the mammoths?"
Dennys stretched his arm out so that he could touch, gently, Higgaion's shaggy fur. "I wonder if they can swim?"
"It wouldn't do any good. Not for forty days and forty nights."
Dennys closed his eyes. Listened. Heard the wind high in the sky above the tent, but the words would not come clear. He whispered, "Does--does Yalith know she's not going on the ark?"
"I think so. I think Noah has told her."
"I understand that floods and other disasters happen. But if this flood is really being sent by El--"
Sandy said, "If it's being sent by El, then I don't like El, not if Yalith is going to drown."
The wind murmured. "We aren't sure yet, are we?" Dennys asked. "I mean, it hasn't happened yet. Yalith isn't in the story, so we don't know what happened to her. Grandfather Lamech truly loved his El. So we can't be sure. Grandfather loved Yalith. She was his very favorite."
"Grandfather is dead," Sandy said flatly. "If we're going to be any use building the ark, we'd better sleep now."
The wind wrapped itself about the tent. Sandy slipped quickly into sleep. Dennys lay on his back, listening, listening. The wind's song was gentle, unalarming. Although he could not make out the words, he felt the wind calming him. Slept.
"Stupid. Stupid," Ugiel, husband of Mahlah, hissed.
Rofocale's contempt came out with a mosquito shrill. "The idiots almost let the manticore get them."
"Tiglah would have done better by herself," said Eblis, who wanted Yalith.
Ertrael, sometimes a rat, demanded, "What do we do now?"
The nephilim were gathered in the darkness of the desert, for once conserving their energies. Naamah, still sounding like a vulture, went, "Kkk. Tiglah did not, in fact, do better than her father or her brother. She got no answers. The young giant did not listen to her."
Elisheth, of the crocodile-green wings, shimmered them in the starlight. "She tried. I would have thought the Sand would find her irresistible. Why did he reject her?"
"Yalith." Eblis's beautiful red lips lifted in a sneer.
Ugiel wove his neck in a rhythmic dance, as much cobra as nephil. "You are right. Because of Yalith."
"But she has no experience," Rofocale shrilled. "She is still a child. Whereas Tiglah--"
"No," Eblis contradicted, purple eyes glittering. "Yalith is not a child any longer." He wrapped purple wings about himself.
"Could we have used her?" Estael, sometimes a cockroach, asked doubtfully.
"If Ugiel hadn't married her, we might have been able to use Mahlah, Yalith's sister," said Ezequen, whose host was the skink.
Ugiel hissed, "We all know she's Yalith's sister. And my wife. And the mother of my child."
Eblis wrapped himself in wings the color of the sunset. "It is time for us to act. Us. Ourselves."
Rugziel agreed. "It is time we stopped using deputies."
Rumjal grimaced. "What do you suggest?"
Naamah stretched his neck, naked as a vulture's, and raised his wings to their full span, standing in whiteness of skin, darkness of wing, his feathers the indigo of the bird who was his host. "The circle of extinction. Whoever we completely surround we control. Kkk. Let us surround the twin giants."
Ugiel hissed in agreement.
Rofocale shrilled in anticipation. Eblis suggested, "And let us surround Yalith, since she has foiled our plans."
"Kkk," Naamah reproved. "The giants first."
TWELVE
Neither can the floods drown it
Yalith slept at the far end of the tent from the twins, but she heard them whispering, and when they stopped, she could hear the mammoths' triple snores. And she was wide awake.
She slipped out of bed and went to the desert. She saw neither lion nor dragon/lizard masquerading as lion, on the great rock. She chose a smaller rock and sat, wrapping her arms about her knees. She raised her face to the stars.
She heard them chiming, and there was no anxiety in their song.
Nevertheless, she shivered. She believed her father, believed that the rains were going to come. She was willing to die, if that was truly what El wanted.
But what about the twins?
What was going to happen?
The crystal chime of stars sang in her ears, "Fear not, Yalith."
The stars never gave false comfort.
She was less afraid.
They worked on the ark all day, taking time out in the heat to sleep. Then they worked again until it was too dark to see.
Every evening Matred prepared a festive meal. Therefore, Shem was often out hunting, rather than busy with the ark. Sandy and Dennys worked along with Noah, Ham, and Japheth. There were no hammers or nails or any of the modern tools to which they were accustomed. The boards had to be joined and pegged. At night they were tired and hungry, ate well, slept well. They were building an ark, but they did not talk of the rain.
Dennys looked at Elisheba, Anah, and Oholibamah. They were in the story, even if not by name. They would go with Noah and Matred and all the animals onto the ark. He looked at Yalith, her hair amber in the lamplight.
He slipped out of the tent, feeling a little strange. He was the follower, Sandy the leader. And now he was off, without even consulting his twin.
He walked swiftly toward Noah's well. His skin prickled as he saw the vulture, huddled on the tall trunk of a long-dead palm, then looking up as Dennys approached, peering this way and that, stretching its naked neck, staring at Dennys with hooded, suspicious eyes.
At first, Dennys saw only the dark bird. Then his eye caught a glimpse of white, and on a young fig tree near the well sat a pelican, its head tucked under its wing, so that it seemed no more than a bundle of white. Dennys heaved a sigh of relief. He had left the big tent to find one of the seraphim, and it didn't really matter which one, but he was more familiar with Alarid than with many of the others. He went up to the sleeping bird. "Hsst."
The pelican did not move.
"Alarid!" Dennys shouted. "I need to talk to you!"
The feathers quivered as the bird shoved its head farther under its wing.
"Alarid!"
The feathers ruffled, hunched, indicating, "Go away. I have nothing to say."
"But I have to speak to you. About Yalith."
At last the head emerged from the fluff of feathers, and the dark bead of eye blinked.
"Please." Dennys indicated the vulture. "Please, Alarid."
The white bird hopped down from its perch, clumsy and
cumbersome.
The vulture was an ink blob of immobile darkness.
"Please," Dennys pleaded.
The pelican stretched its wings up, up, until the seraph appeared. Without speaking, Alarid turned from the well and walked toward the desert. Dennys followed. When they had left the oasis far enough behind so that the vulture was no longer visible, Alarid turned to the boy. "What is it?"
"You can't let Yalith drown in the flood."
"Why not?"
"Yalith is good. I mean, she is really good."
Alarid bowed his head. "Goodness has never been a guarantee of safety."
"But you can't let her drown."
"I have nothing to say in the matter."
"I should have spoken to Aariel," Dennys said in frustration. "Aariel loves her."
"He has no more say than I." The seraph turned his head away.
Dennys realized that he had hurt Alarid, but he plunged ahead. "You're seraphim. You have powers."
"True. But, as I told you, it is dangerous to change things. We do not meddle with the pattern."
"But Yalith isn't in the pattern." Dennys's voice rose and cracked. "There's no Yalith in the story. Only Noah and his wife and his sons and their wives."
Alarid's wings quivered slightly.
"So, since she isn't in the story, it won't change anything if you prevent her from being drowned in the flood."
"What do you want me to do?" Alarid asked.
"You aren't going to be drowned, are you?" Dennys demanded. "You, and the other seraphim?"
"No."
"Then take her wherever it is you're going to escape the flood."
"We cannot do that," Alarid said sadly.
"Why not?"
"We cannot." Again, the seraph turned his face away.
"Where are you going, then?"
Alarid turned back to Dennys and smiled, but not in amusement. "We go to the sun."
No. Yalith could not go to the sun. Nor to the moon, which Dennys had been about to suggest. Yalith could not live where there was no atmosphere. But surely there was something to be done! He made a strangled noise of outrage. "We're not in the story, either, Sandy and I. But we're here. And Yalith is here."
"That is so."
"And if we drown, that is, if Sandy and I drown, that's going to change the story, isn't it? I mean, we're not going to be born in our own time if we get drowned now, and even if that makes only a tiny difference, it will make a difference to our family. If Sandy and I don't get born, maybe Charles Wallace won't get born. Maybe Meg will be an only child."
"Who?"
"Our older sister and our little brother. I mean, the story would be changed."
Alarid said, "You must go back to your own time."
"That's easier said than done. Anyhow, what I wanted to talk to you about is Yalith. Listen, it's a stupid story. Only the males have names. It's a chauvinist story. I mean, Matred has a name. She's a mother. And Elisheba and Anah and Oholibamah. They're real people, with names."
"That is true," Alarid agreed.
"The nephilim," Dennys went on. "They're like whoever wrote the silly ark story, seeing things only from their own point of view, using people. They don't give a hoot for Tiglah or Mahlah, for instance. They're just women, so they don't matter. They don't care if Yalith gets drowned. But you ought to care!"
Alarid asked gently, "Do you think I don't care?"
Dennys sighed. "Okay. I know you care. But are you just going to stand by and do nothing and then fly off to the sun?"
Again Alarid's wings quivered. "Part of doing something is listening. We are listening. To the sun. To the stars. To the wind."
Dennys felt chastened. He had not paused to listen, not for days. "They don't tell you anything?"
"To continue to listen."
The breeze lifted, washed over Dennys in a wave of sadness. "I don't like this story," he said. "I don't like it at all."
He left Alarid. Before he reached the oasis he paused, sat on a small rock. Tried to quiet himself so that he could listen. To the wind. How could he unscramble the words of the wind which came to him in overlapping wavelets?
He closed his eyes. Visioned stars exploding into life. Planets being birthed. Yalith had spoken of the violence of Mahlah's baby's birth. The birth of planets was no gentler. Violent swirlings of winds and waters. Land masses as fluid as water. Volcanoes spouting flame so high that it seemed to meet the outward flaming of the sun.
The earth was still in the process of being created. The stability of rock was no more than an illusion. Earthquake, hurricane, volcano, flood, all part of the continuing creation of the cosmos, groaning in travail.
The song of the wind softened, gentled. Behind the violence of the birthing of galaxies and stars and planets came a quiet and tender melody, a gentle love song. All the raging of creation, the continuing hydrogen explosions on the countless suns, the heaving of planetary bodies, all was enfolded in a patient, waiting love.
Dennys opened his eyes as the wind dropped, was silent. He raised his face to the stars, and their light fell against his cheeks like dew. They chimed at him softly. Do not seek to comprehend. All shall be well. Wait. Patience. Wait. You do not always have to do something. Wait.
Dennys put his head down on his knees, and a strange quiet flowed through him.
Above his head, the white wings of a pelican beat gently through the flowing streams of stars.
Work on the ark progressed slowly. In the heat of the sun, his body glistening with sweat, Dennys found it hard to remember his vision of understanding and hope. But it was still there, waiting for him, surfacing during the afternoon rest time, or at night when the sun set and the stars blossomed.
Hammer. Peg. Measure for stress.
Noah insisted on following exactly the directions which were given him.
"This El," Sandy said to Dennys, "I don't understand."
"El knows about shipbuilding," Dennys said. "The instructions and measurements are pretty much the basic proportions for modern ships. The ark's not designed for speed, but then, that's not the purpose."
"All those animals--Noah's surely going to have to shovel out a load of manure."
"I bet nobody around here has ever seen a boat this big. Maybe they've never even seen a boat."
Sandy sought out Yalith, feeling a little disloyal to be going to find her without Dennys, but going, nevertheless. Dennys had vetoed it when Sandy had suggested taking Yalith with them.
He waited for her, not far from the tentholds, in the quiet that precedes dawn. Saw her coming, pale and wraithlike, from the direction of the desert.
"Yalith."
She stopped, startled, head up.
"Yalith, it's Sandy."
"Oh. Twin Sand." Relief was in her voice. "What is it?"
He took her hand. "Yalith, what are you going to do?"
"When?"
"When the floods come."
She spoke in a low voice. "We don't know for sure that the floods are going to come. It is only what my father says."
"Yes, but what do you think? Do you believe your father?"
She was barely audible. "Yes."
"Then what are you going to do?"
"Nothing. This has already given my father and mother much grief. My mother doesn't understand why El has not called me to be in the ark with the others."
"I don't understand it either," Sandy said flatly.
"But the stars have told me not to be afraid."
"And you believe the stars?"
"Yes."
"Well, somebody's wrong, either your father or the stars."
"I trust my father. And I trust the stars."
"Well. Somebody has to do something. I mean, we can't just sit back and let you get drowned. Would you consider coming home with us?"
She looked at him, startled. "But where is your home? Is it on the other side of the mountains?"
"On the other side of time," Sandy said.
Her finge
rs tightened in his. "You and the Den are leaving?" She answered her own question. "Of course. You have to. As soon as the ark is built. As soon as the rains start."
"Will you come with us?"
"With you both?"
"Well--yes." He would love to go off to the end of the world, alone with Yalith. But he knew that he would not try to leave her world without Dennys.
"Is it many days of travel?"
"We got here sort of instantaneously. I have an idea how we might be able to get home, but first I want to know if you'll come with us."
"Oh, twin Sand." She sighed, long and deeply. "Everything is so strange. Ever since you came, nothing has been the same. Grandfather Lamech is dead. The ark is being built. I don't want to drown, but--is it very different, where you come from?"
Sandy acknowledged, "Very different. It isn't nearly as hot, and we have lots of water, so that we can take showers, and drink as much as we want. What I wouldn't give for a long glass of cold water when we're hammering away on the ark! And we wear different kinds of clothes." He looked at Yalith's small and perfect body, barely covered by the loincloth, her breasts delicate and rosy, and had a moment's absurd vision of her in one of the classrooms at the regional high school. But wouldn't anything be better than drowning? "You'll consider it, won't you? Coming with us?"
She was solemn. "Of course. It is very hard for me to imagine what it would be like without you and the Den. You are part of me. Both of you."
Sandy slipped back into the tent. Dennys was awake, waiting for him.
"Where have you been?"
"I asked Yalith to come home with us."
There was a heavy silence. At last Dennys said. "No. No, Sandy. We can't take her back with us. I mean, even if we could, we can't."
"Why not?"
"She doesn't have any immunities. Haven't you noticed, there aren't any diseases here? Don't you remember that all the natives at the bottom part of South America got killed by German measles, because they didn't have any immunities?"
"Couldn't we give her vaccinations?"
"Not for everything. Even if she caught a cold, an ordinary head cold, it would probably kill her. She doesn't have any protective antibodies. She couldn't adjust to our climate. It's too cold, too damp. It would be murder to try to take her back with us."
"Then what's going to happen?"
"I don't know."
"If she stays here, she'll drown. Wouldn't it be worth the risk to try to take her home with us?"
Dennys shook his head. "How do you think she'd get on with the kids at school?"
"She wouldn't have to go to school. She's nearly a hundred years old."
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