The Family Tree

by Sheri S. Tepper

  Leading onto this clearing was a plank, as one might use to board a ship. The clear section was the present time, and there one could step upon the coil itself, a space large enough for several dozens to stand upon. Then, if the key were turned and the control were set, and if the traveler or travelers stood within the field it generated (so said the Weelians), they would sink down through the present time into the coil beneath.

  The Woput, so they said, had put only his head into the field when he had gone without his body.

  We were given the control, too. A simple device, the size of a book, in a red leather case. In one corner was a keyhole. In the opposite corner was a little window where a number showed, the number of times the control could be used. According to Brother Red, when the Woput left, the number had been “1,” but we could all see it was now “3.” Izzy thought it might vary with the amount of power available, perhaps recharging itself over time, though where the power might come from, he could not guess.

  At the center of the control was one window of numbers which could be set for particular locations in past time, and a second window that could be set for the size and shape of the field. And, finally, at the bottom, an “On” button.

  It had been agreed we would take some of our baggage, and the veebles, that we would go in our own bodies, taking the control and the key with us. I do not recall exactly the order of our going. I was very frightened. I do know that Izzy and I stepped onto the worm last, right after the onchiki. I remember that the countess and Sahir were very close together, the countess supporting Blanche. Dzilobommo and Soaz were warriors, of course. They did not need encouragement. When we all began to sink down, the veebles screamed, I do remember that. I felt I could not breathe, then everything went dark and I felt nothing at all but Izzy’s hand, still holding mine.

  26

  A Return of Music

  Dora dreamed of music: merry-go-round tootling, calliope um-pah-pah, amusement park and circus music, joyful faces and dancing feet. The dream music went on for what seemed a very long time, peaceful and delightful, fading and returning, as though blown by a variable wind. Though the music did not wake her, its cessation did, bringing her up into dark silence, the dream still in her mind, her self full of a lilting feeling that was wholly familiar. This was music she had often heard when she was a little girl….

  And it was that thought that brought her fully awake, that thought as much as the suddenly empty quiet.

  She was alone in the place. Where was Abby?

  Gone home, she reminded herself. He had an early class this morning. They had talked until late, until she heard and smelled the visitation, but when it had gone, she had yawningly bid Abby good-bye. Abby hadn’t noticed the nightly visitor. Not yet.

  She tried to remember the dream. She had dreamed music like she had heard before the howlers drove it away. Why had they done that? The question was stupid, a thirty-year-old anger barely coalesced around a kernel of loss, and she pushed it away. Too late to wonder, too late to care, too late to do anything about it now. Now was only the darkness of her room, the wind moving the leaves against the big window, all senses extended, like tentacles, searching for the feeling she had dreamed.

  “Music,” she said aloud. “I heard it!” And with the words the music came again, bouncing on the wind through the open window of the outer room, a rollicking tune, but the same substance: simple, lively and compelling. She reached out with her bare feet for her sandals, legs pricking into gooseflesh in the chilly air, and fumbled for the throw that lay across the foot of the bed, drawing it around her naked shoulders and arms. She went out in search of the sound, finding it louder in the living room, louder yet at the foot of the stairs when she opened the door. She went as though irresistibly drawn, without considering the wisdom of it or wondering at the suddenness of it, through the opening where the gate had been and into the woods.

  Late moonlight dripped through branches, making dim puddles of froggy light. Small warty things hopped heavily away from her. A drift of old silvery leaves marked a path down the swale, leaves that some fraction of her fussy mind cavilled at for their untimeliness. There’d been no time to accumulate old leaves, not in these new woods. A rivulet companioned her, the trickle of it caught up in the same music, not quite flute sounds, something shriller than a flute. Plucked strings, too, and a thumping of drums, growing louder the farther she went.

  And then a flicker of amber light shining between the trees ahead of her, firelight in a clearing that silhouetted the trunks on the side toward her and silvered the white trunks and shining leaves on the far side. The clearing was where the music was.

  Where they were.

  She perceived them out of an implicit assumption that she was still dreaming. It would be quite all right to dream such a vision, quite acceptable in the night, in the world between realities. So she reassured herself as she tallied them:

  An otter child, standing on its hind legs as it played a small harp. Three huge crouched rabbits, with packs on their backs, ears flat and noses wriggling, one of them eating a dandelion. Two more otters, one with a complicated sliding whistle, the other drumming on a cook-pot with a wooden spoon. A large monkey strumming a mandolin. Another monkey, singing. A pig, a rather small one, bewigged and bejeweled, tapping time with a furled parasol as she watched. Beside her, a huge, white cockatoo. And two medium-sized brown, black-muzzled, curly-tailed dogs, heads cocked, gravely dancing to the rhythmic air.

  A dream. Her dream. She stepped into the grove.

  The singing monkey looked up and screamed. “Umminhi, juppy umminhi! Vaniscomai!”

  The entire group vanished in an instant. Only the rabbits remained, crouched, their eyes shut.

  “No,” Dora cried, in the dream. “No, don’t run away.”

  But they had gone. The fire was still there, reflecting from white-barked trees, from glittering leaves, from pairs of watchful eyes in the underbrush. “Please, don’t go away,” she begged.

  “It talks,” said another treble voice in heavily accented English. “Iut towks lingooudj.”

  “Well, of course I talk language,” she cried. “Of course. Most people do.”

  “People?” someone said, another voice, a bit lower and growlsome.

  “People,” the treble voice answered.

  “G’et damma ‘people’?” growled another voice.

  “People,” the first voice repeated. “Ja Nuslik!”

  “Gwaaan!” said the other, disbelieving. “Nuslik?”

  One of the monkeys stepped out into the clearing, still carrying his mandolin, his eyes very wide and his hands shaking slightly. He pointed to himself and said clearly and slowly, in strangely accented words, “I am nuslik, that is, person, named Izakar. Nassif is person. We are ponjic persons. Ah…countess is scuinan person. Blanche is sitid person. Others are onchiki persons. We have armakfatid and pheled also, but they go…exploring.”

  Dora made this out, though with some difficulty. It was, she thought, rather like watching a movie made in England or Australia, where one knew the language perfectly well, but it took a moment to twist one’s ears to the less familiar accent and intonation. Still, she caught the sense of it, which she thought about for a while, quite patiently and cheerfully, enjoying the nonsense of it. “What are the rabbits?”

  “Rabbits?” He looked confused.

  “The ones with long ears.” She pointed. The rabbits still had their eyes shut, as though what they could not see could not trouble them.

  “Veebles!” he cried, with a grimace that might be intended as a smile. “Not people. Creatures. Now, what kind person you?”

  “Human,” she said.

  “Ah.” He frowned. “I not aware umminhi ever be…persons.”

  Ever be? The implications of that were…well, they were staggering. If this weren’t a dream, she’d be staggered. As it was, she could take it as it came. So, where had these dream beings come from? Or was it…when?

  “Are there n
o humans in your…world?” she asked carefully.

  “Ah…umminhi. Pack creatures, yes. Riding creatures. Saddles, you know, and whips.” He thought deeply of his reading in the library. “Run like the wind. Hi-ho Silver. Giddy-ap old chap.”

  “Really.” She sat down on a convenient rock with a thump. “I suppose in your world the…umminhi don’t talk.”

  “No. Sadly, no. They make muttering noises which sometimes sound almost linguistic, but they do not talk.”

  She nodded slowly, decoding the words one by one, absorbing it, speaking slowly when she replied. “Well, I guess that’s only fair. In this place, now, monkeys like you don’t talk. Or otters, or pigs, or cockatoos.”

  The pig with the parasol came out from between the trees. Her wig was of dangling ringlets, through which her floppy ears were barely discernable. “Only…humans talk in this time?” she asked in a high, slightly squealing voice with pauses between the words.

  “Well, some people think dolphins can talk. And parrots, of course.”

  “Parrots?”

  “Feathers.” She flapped her arms. “Wings. Ah, rather like the one with you, only without the crest.”

  “Ah. Sitid nuslik,” said the pig. “And what are dolphins?”

  “Fish. No, not fish, mammals, but living in the ocean, like fish. They have a kind of whistle language, but we can’t speak it.”

  “I can,” said Izzy. “Whistle language of sea people is well known in our…world. You called me monkey. Am I like your…monkeys?”

  She looked at him more closely, slowly shaking her head. “No. I’d say you were a Japanese macaque, except you’re better looking. Handsomer face. More brain space. In fact, you all have larger heads than…usual.”

  This provoked a spate of conversation, even argument among the creatures. Their language—or languages, as the mandolin-playing monkey seemed to be an interpreter—sounded like nothing Dora had ever heard before. The interpreter turned to Dora and asked:

  “Our history speaks of time when creatures, you would say animals, became less varied and persons became more varied. Fewer species of animals, more species of people. Is this so?”

  “Fewer animals, yes. Not more kinds of people.”

  Long silence while they looked at one another. “Do your trees talk? Or move about?”

  She started to shake her head, then stopped. “Just now,” she said, stunned. “New trees. They don’t talk, but just recently they’ve begun to move about. The past few weeks.”

  “And is there someone…who attempts to…destroy trees?”

  She started to say no, then shrugged. “Well, yes. My ex-husband would like nothing better. And there was something on TV tonight about new chemicals and a bunch of new biological treatments they’ve been making to destroy the new trees.” The assortment huddled once more, shutting her out. She said, with some asperity, “Personally, I like the trees.”

  This brought them out of the huddle.

  “You are sympathetic to…forests?” the monkey asked.

  She chose not to answer his question. “My name is Dora. It would be polite of me to call you by name, also, but I’m afraid I didn’t catch the names.”

  “I am Prince Izakar of Palmia,” he said, pointing to himself. “And other ponji is Nassif. That is Countess Elianne of Estafan, and her secretary, Blanche. The littlest onchik is Lucy Low, the other two are Burrow and Mince.”

  “And they?” she asked, indicating the dogs.

  “Oyk,” he said. “And Irk.”

  “They don’t talk?”

  “Not much,” said Oyk.

  “Waste of time,” said Irk.

  “Unless necessary,” said Oyk.

  “The veebles don’t talk,” she said desperately.

  “No,” said Lucy Low in a whisper. “But I can read their minds.”

  Dora decided to risk it. If she was dreaming, let her wake. If she was merely crazy, let her find it out now.

  “How is it I understand your speech?”

  “It is trade language,” said the monkey. “Trade language is based on ancient language of Inglitch, mostly. Inglitch is very old, but because it is trade language, it survives. We have other languages.”

  “I, too, speak Inglit…English. And you’ve come from the future,” she said.

  Izzy spoke three words in another language. Long silence while they stared at her, rather fearfully.

  “How did you guess that?” Izzy asked, dumbfounded.

  “Why does it bother you that I did guess it?”

  The countess said carefuly, “When you said ‘future,’ we thought for a moment maybe you are Woput we search for. I also want to know how you guessed.”

  How had she? What was a Woput?

  First things first. “I am a…law enforcer. It is my job to look for clues in what people say, to guess at how things happen. I remember the questions you asked. Were there more animals? Were there talking trees? Was anyone trying to kill them? And you say English is very ancient, but modern English isn’t all that ancient. A few hundred years, more or less. So, you must have come from the future.”

  A very long pause full of angry whispers.

  Dora asked, “Why are there no speaking humans in your world?”

  The pig in the wig went on, still softly, “Izzy reads in library this age ends in religious war where disease is weapon. Izzy says plague is very terrible. If this is umminhi age, but future age is not, plague will kill almost all umminhi.” She paused, adding thoughtfully, “…and Weelians. Some few Weelians remain, still speaking. Many umminhi remain, but umminhi no longer intelligent or speaking.”

  “Oh, my God. Humans are dead? Extinct?” She felt a frisson of terror which she quickly suppressed. There was no immediate threat, obviously. “There are diseases that affect only humans. Like AIDS. Or some kind of TB animals couldn’t get.”

  Prince Izakar said to the countess, “But she recognizes our kinds, so our ancestors must be alive in this time. If this is umminhi age, and all umminhi die in plague, then our peoples took over.”

  The countess nodded, thinking it out.

  Dora mused, “But you didn’t know about humans until you saw me….”

  “We knew about persons,” said Izzy. “That is, I knew there was civilization. We knew we were coming to civilized world. But there were no pictures of people. I thought…assumed….” He took a deep breath. “The Librarians told me about prior civilizations, and I assumed they were ours. In my library I read that this time, now, ends with a holy war. A plague. Many persons die, most persons die, but I did not think they meant umminhi! Even Librarians don’t connect persons to umminhi….”

  “Your librarians are who?”

  “Different peoples. Some ponji ones. Some pheled ones.”

  “So, in your time, your kind of intelligent people are alive, but intelligent umminhi, that is humans, aren’t. The plague killed them all, right? And the Weelians? Who are the Weelians?” Without waiting for an answer, she plunged on. “But now someone is trying to change history? He knows about this plague?”

  Izzy cried, “No! The Woput is Weelian, was Weelian. He doesn’t know about the plague. The Weelians did not know of the plague until I told them. But yes, the Woput is trying to change history. To keep his people alive, whoever they are, by making sure that we die.”

  “That is why wizards sent us,” whispered Lucy Low. “To find Woput. The wizards are very…larjh.”

  “Wizards are as tall as you,” said the countess, who seemed to be picking up Dora’s accent or was, at least, becoming less difficult to understand. “And bulkier. They wear long black robes and veils, and all we know about them is that they are very few and mysterious. Their kind, they say, is almost extinct.”

  “Why have you come here?” Dora asked, pointing to the earth beneath their feet. “I mean to this exact place?”

  “Woput came here,” whispered Lucy Low. “To this very spot. So they say.”

  “What is a Woput?”

&
nbsp; “Evil doer. Pond scum. The one who’s doing it.”

  Dora thought about this for some time. “The Woput is a Weelian, right? The Weelian is a kind of person, right? The Weelians got mostly wiped out in the plague, right? And so did the, umm…humans.” She clenched her hands tightly, wondering why she did not, at this juncture, wake up. “Do you particularly want to camp out here in the forest?”

  The countess lifted her lip in a very tiny sneer. “Not particularly.”

  “My house is just through the trees. You can stay with me. It’ll be a little crowded, but—”

  “I can’t leave the veebles,” cried Lucy Low.

  “Bring the rab—the veebles,” said Dora. “They can sleep in the…the storage room. And the two…Oyk and Irk, they can keep guard, okay?”

  “What is okay?” asked Izzy.

  “It’s a word that means…something is appropriate. Come on. We’ll sort it out when we get there.” And she watched as they gathered up their baggage, then led them back through the forest to the break in the trees that gave upon her yard, where they engaged in another of their disputatious colloquies. After a few moments of this, as he was helping unburden the veebles, Izzy advised her that the veebles would stay in the yard, guarded by Oyk and Irk, that the rest of them would go indoors with her, that when morning came, some attention must be paid to finding food for all of them. Lucy Low then removed the veeble harness and put it with the baggage, inside the door.

  Dora found herself tallying, as she used to do when a little girl, how much food there was on hand. Fruit and nuts for the monkeys, something solid for the pig, rice, maybe, with flavorings of vegetable. She had canned salmon for the otters. Spinach and carrots for the veebles. Dog chow for Oyk and Irk. She’d have to borrow dog chow from the man next door. Even now she could hear her neighbor’s Rottweiller barking, a challenging sound.

  And what of the other ones? The ones that had gone hunting. “The other ones of you?” she asked Izzy, who was halfway up the stairs.

  “Prince Sahir, his guard Soaz, and our cook. They’ll find us by morning.”