The Family Tree

by Sheri S. Tepper

  He thought for a moment, then continued. “There is perhaps something we can do immediately. Many Korèsans live in this area, some of them out among the forests. You say the Woput endangers you. Perhaps you would be safer with my people, Korè’s people, than with Winston’s people. If I understand you correctly, in that future time, the Woput may have seen records made by Winston, records that say where his…creations were sent, who kept them, who protected them. My people, on the other hand, do not leave records. When we act for the good of the earth, we do so secretly. Secrecy has become a way of life for us.”

  He took a small book from his pocket, and he, Dora and Abby conferred for a time. Evidently the book was in code, for he dictated numbers and code words to Dora by which she could get in touch with the Korèsans. I hoped Dora did not intend to separate those of us who had come so far together. When she turned and smiled at me, I knew the hope was not needed. It was a familial look that said she had no intention of sending us away with the new people.

  While Dora and Abby escorted the archpriest back to his entourage, we relaxed, sighing. Izzy began to laugh, and the countess asked him why.

  “I always wanted to hear the hymn of Korè sung before the archpriest, but I never thought the archpriest would be an umminhi.”

  We all laughed, but softly, so Abby and Dora would not hear. They had been kind to us, they had protected us, they had faced danger for us. We did not want to hurt their feelings.

  40

  Diaspora

  The next day was Saturday, a day of farewells. In the morning, early, while Abby made coffee and neatened up the beds, Dora made phone calls, referred to code words, gave her phone number and received phone calls from others. The people who called did not mention where they lived, or what their names were, and Dora didn’t ask. Rosa and her children went away first, taken by a quiet couple who drove a Range Rover with curtained windows. Their home was in the mountains, and they had the means to be sure that Rosa and her family had a safe place to live, people to talk with, and adequate food to eat.

  Also, they said, they would see if they could find out where Rosa’s mate had been taken if Dora could give them some leads. After warning them not to give their true name or location, and not to call from a phone which could be used to locate them—warnings they considered unnecessary—Dora went through Winston’s address book to pull out the possibles: 1bb m, and 4b 2&2, and a couple of other enigmatic entries that might mean almost anything. As Dora herself said, it could be black bear, but it could also be bald buffalo or barefoot beaver.

  The goats went next, in a horse trailer drawn behind a faded red pickup driven by a laconic, denim-clad couple with one equally laconic teenaged son. The six new pigs were picked up shortly thereafter by two gray-haired sisters in a station wagon, and two of the dogs, male and female, went in the same vehicle, the other pair waiting for a battered jeep driven by a dark-skinned woman with long, braided black hair. All of these vehicles had been traveling muddy roads, for their license plates were unreadable.

  Soaz would not be separated from Sheba and the female armakfatid would not leave Dzilobommo. Her name, he said, was Dzilalu.

  Not necessary, said Dora. Dzilalu and Sheba might stay.

  Izzy disagreed. “It may be necessary. How do we know what people are needed here and now to create our tribes a thousand years from now? Maybe Dzilalu and Sheba should be taken away from here.”

  “If she stays here,” said Soaz, “I stay here. Otherwise, where she goes, I go.” Soaz, so they all said, was smitten.

  Izzy grumbled, but he did not argue further.

  Dora, listening to Soaz and Sheba murmuring together, sought to satisfy her curiosity about Winston’s creations. “Sheba,” she said. “You and the others lived right out there in public, in pens. Winston must have had other people working with him, plus the lab people and the animal keepers. How was it that none of them knew you could talk? Joe and Bill didn’t know. At least they didn’t say anything to me.”

  Sheba stretched, a languorous stretch that seemed to double the length of her body. “Daddy Eddy had a place in the mountains where we were born,” she purred. “We stayed there until we learned to be careful. Sometimes his woman came to see us, but we never let her know, either.”

  “Why did he take you to the lab at all?”

  “Oh, to do tests, and X-rays, and things like that. We never had to stay long. He moved us back and forth a lot. It was kind of a game. We all knew we’d go somewhere else as soon as he had all the information he needed. We trusted him.”

  “It would seem to me someone would forget and babble. Rosa’s babies, for instance.”

  “It’s only been a little while we’ve had second generation,” said Sheba, a troubled expression on her face. “Rosa’s babies were over a year old before any of us saw them. The pigs are second generation, and the four dogs. And there are still people at the mountain place. I just thought of that.”

  “They could be hungry,” cried Dora.

  “No, no,” said Sheba. “There are humans there to take care, and they know what to do if Daddy Eddy does not return. He told us all what to do.”

  “But there are still some of you inside the lab.” Dora stared at her feet. “And he was taking you all back and forth all the time, which he could do, from the lab’s point of view, because they belonged to him. What I said to Jared was right. In a legal sense, you belong to Mrs. Winston, because if you were Winston’s property, she inherited!”

  Izzy looked up alertly. “You think she could get them out of there?”

  “I think it’s a tactic we’d better explore, and as soon as possible.”

  Abby yawned. “I foresee a chauffeuring session.”

  Mrs. Winston, reached by phone, was home and willing to see them. It was late afternoon. They were offered drinks. Dora accepted a glass of wine, Abby a scotch. Dora had introduced Abby as Professor Abilene McCord, a biologist from the university.

  “We’ve grown to respect your husband,” Dora said carefully. She sipped her wine, thinking how to make the case as tactfully as possible. “His colleagues think so highly of him. His treatment of the animals was so generous and highly ethical. We…we’ve become concerned about the animals left there at the lab. It was evidently Dr. Winston’s practice to place most of his animals with people he knew would care for them. We found the addresses in his address book. Those animals are now your property…”

  “And you want me to get them?”

  “It isn’t what we want that’s terribly important, but if you don’t take charge of them, something might happen to them that your husband would have greatly regretted,” said Abby.

  “I have to leave town tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll be gone for a week, but when I get back the following Sunday—”

  “That may be too late,” said Dora desperately. “If they are let go by the lab, they may be used in medical tests. They may be dead by the time you return. Or infected with AIDS. I’d be happy to contact Mr. Winston’s friends, if you’ll give me the authority….”

  Mrs. Winston stared at them both for a long time, a very strange expression on her face. “Winnie succeeded, didn’t he?”

  Dora kept her own face perfectly blank.

  The woman smiled. “He succeeded. He did what he tried to do. And now you want to save his…his children.”

  “You knew what he was trying to do?” asked Abby.

  “We used to talk about it. Long ago. We could never have children, he and I. Winnie had had many pets when he was a child, and he often spoke of their intelligence. He often spoke of his lab children, though he stopped talking about what he was trying to do some years ago. I thought…well, I thought it had just been a dream, that it had been impossible, a lovely fantasy. Why didn’t he tell me?”

  “Perhaps he didn’t want to endanger you,” whispered Dora. “What he was doing got him killed.”

  “They’d have killed me, too?”

  “Perhaps. Whoever they are.”<
br />
  She sat staring into an unseen distance for a long time, then shook herself, rose and went to her desk where she took out a sheet of stationery. She wrote briefly, then ran the note through a copier and signed both copies. “I’ve put Mr. McCord’s name on it,” she said. “As a cop, you shouldn’t be involved, should you? You might be suspected of…oh, extorting this from me.”

  Dora smiled, touched. “You’re right. I didn’t think of that. What is this?”

  “A bill of sale. I’ve sold the animals to Mr. Abilene McCord, in return for which he agrees to see that they are given to good homes. Isn’t that the phrase? Make the arrangements. I’ll be at this number in San Francisco, if needed.” She jotted it down, then turned away, dabbing at her eyes. “I don’t want to endanger you or them with delay. But later on, if there’s opportunity…I’d like to meet them.”

  It was late on Saturday. Still, on the off chance that someone was there, Abby drove them to Randall Pharmaceuticals. The building was closed, but the enclosure bristled with security men and with a large crew busy installing new fences. Abby and Dora observed this from the car with both disappointment and satisfaction. They couldn’t get the animals today, but then, no one else was likely to, either.

  On Sunday, Vorn Dionne returned to Dora’s place together with his dozen elders—a mixed bunch as to sex and race, though all with seven or more decades behind them. To Dora’s relief, they all, including the archpriest, were dressed in ordinary clothing and without additional entourage. It was also a relief that they chose to hold their meeting out in the woods, with guards well out to be sure they were not interrupted. Dora and Izzy and Nassif and the countess attended, by invitation. Abby was also invited, but he’d said he had to take the day to catch up with his life, particularly his laundry and his bills.

  Amid the circle of old people, Nassif told the story of the Great Enigma once again, and Izzy explained how he had talked to the trees, demonstrating the process to the edification of those assembled, who, when the tree opened its mouth and howled with rage, were more than slightly impressed. Dora, looking around at the wrinkled faces, saw many emotions there: interest and amusement and vindication, none of which were unlikely for Korèsans. Less accountable was the pain she saw in some of their faces, controlled pain, as she had noticed sometimes in victims of chronic illness, pain so customary that it was merely accepted rather than regarded.

  Well, she told herself, they are elderly. Pain comes to the elderly, as Grandma had often said, and sorrow, also, over loved ones departed, both pain and sorrow no doubt sent by nature to make death seem more attractive. Grandma had said it with a wink. These people did not look up to winking. Whatever their agony or sorrow might be, it had evidently been with them for some time.

  “You see that I was not deluded,” said the archpriest, when the tree had been released into its natural silence and all the murmuring was done. “When I came here yesterday, I was surprised. No, stunned. This was the last thing I suspected, but here is the truth, in front of us. Our prophets were correct to say the family tree has many branches. Korè’s other children have come among us already.”

  The elders shared significant glances, veiled looks, full of intention. Dora frowned slightly, made wary by these looks, and the countess shifted uncomfortably, also, feeling those glances like touches, each one freighted with a heaviness, a burden weighty beyond bearing.

  One white-haired, olive-skinned woman broke the silence by asking in a gentle, almost whispering voice, “In that future time, is it known who brought this plague among mankind?”

  Izzy could only shake his head and tell them that the person or tribe or country was not named in the sources he had read. The attack was biological and it was religiously motivated, that’s all he could tell them.

  “Have you thought about it?” the old woman asked, looking around the circle, her gaze settling upon Dora.

  Dora nodded. “Of course. I have wondered.”

  “Who do you think?”

  Dora shrugged, making a rueful face. “The Catholics in Northern Ireland? Or the Protestants? Or are they both peaceable for the moment? The Shiites in Iran or Iraq or Libya? Or Farrakan, who shares their views? Any side at all in Bosnia? The Self Righteous-Right in Israel? Or the even more Self-Righteous Right in America? Maybe the Hindus in India? Or the Tamils in Sri Lanka? The nihilists in Japan? Any day I read the paper there would be candidates mentioned.”

  “So many possibilities,” the old woman said, staring intently around herself. “So very many.”

  “The books said only that it was religious, not political,” said Izzy.

  Someone chuckled, one of the elders, a slender black man, who said, “Oh, son, when folks get to the point they’re voting their religion and worshiping their politics, you think there’s any line between them?”

  “Well, you’re not political,” said Izzy.

  Several of the elders smiled, though ruefully. One said, “Korè is the embodiment of life in its splendid variety. So long as her people were weak, a minority, widespread, we were protected from corruption and our worship remained pure. We always asked ourselves, if power were put into our hands, would we use it wisely? Would we choose to do what should be done? For all Korè’s children?”

  They all looked at one another, and again Dora saw that sadness, that sorrow. Well, why shouldn’t they be sorrowful? They had just been told they were all to die. Presumably they had children, and grandchildren. The thought would be a sorrowful one.

  The old woman said in a strong, no-nonsense voice, “Let us choose to believe that not all of us will die. Perhaps the plague is not to kill us all, but to teach us something.”

  Dora was startled into speech. “My grandmother used to say that about bindweed in the garden, that she wasn’t trying to kill it, just teach it some manners.”

  The old woman nodded. There were murmurs. The archpriest said, “Yes, Dora. That is a good thought.”

  The other elders said nothing, merely stared into their laps or into the woods, lost in a private vision.

  Still, Dora thought, the old woman was right. The plague wouldn’t kill all humans. The Weelians would survive it. Three thousand years was not a bad record of survival, even though they were now losing the battle. Not now, of course, but then, which seemed like now when Izzy spoke of it.

  “In the meantime,” the archpriest said, “do you need our help with your Woput? If he knows where you are, you must leave. You must go somewhere else.”

  “I’ve been thinking and thinking about it,” said Dora. “Seemingly, we can’t kill him. This morning, Izzy told me he thought we’d better try to find him and send him back into his own time while keeping the control here. There he will be impotent to do much harm, and so long as the control is here, he can’t come back.”

  Izzy sighed deeply. “Respected Elders, Dora, I haven’t mentioned it until now, but we can’t ignore reality any longer. I think we may have a serious problem with our Woput. When the body of Jared died, there in the basement, I heard a scream from somewhere outside….”

  “So did we all,” said the countess.

  “My point is, it was from somewhere nearby. After I heard that howl, I kept wondering what a suddenly disembodied intelligence might do. Wouldn’t it search for…for something, anything familiar? He was only a block or so from a place he knew well, a place inhabited by people he knew well….”

  “The boardinghouse?” Dora cried. “You mean the boardinghouse?”

  “People, living close together? How many?” asked one of the elders, a quiet one with an eye patch, who had thus far taken it all in without comment.

  “Oh, nine or ten,” said Dora. “Counting Jared’s mother. Normally there’d be three or four more, but Mrs. Gerber was doing some repainting so some of the rooms are vacant. You’re thinking he ended up in one of them….”

  “It would mean he could be back in action quickly,” said one of the female elders. “Since it was a place he knew, people he kn
ew, there might have been no period of extreme confusion. No aphasia or amnesia. It is possible nothing happened to make anyone suspicious….”

  “How will we find out?” the archpriest asked.

  “By asking about things the Woput does not know?” suggested Izzy.

  “But Jared—that is, the Woput had been living there recently,” she cried. “He knew them all. He could copy their habits, their personalities. If he wanted to.”

  “Would he want to, necessarily?” the old woman asked.

  Izzy replied. “He might not bother. He might be preoccupied with other things. Tell us about the boarders, Dora.”

  Dora composed herself, half shut her eyes and concentrated. “If it’s the Woput, and if he is not pretending to be someone else, he or she will show no sign of libido. He will be preoccupied with neatness and order. He will have no pets and tolerate none. Now, Mr. Calclough is a notable fanny pincher, and he used to talk about his girlfriend, a meter maid. Mr. Fries is a health nut. He does martial arts exercises in his room every morning, and it makes the whole house shake, and Momma Gerber complains about his leaving his towels and socks all over the floor.

  “Mr. Singley has fish, tropical fish, in a tank, the kind with the little diver and the air bubbles, you know. Mrs. Sohn had a very old canary, but it’s dead, so that may not help. If Woput got into Ms. Michaelson, you probably’d never know it from how she acts. She’s neat as a pin and sexless as—” She’d been going to say, “As I am.”

  She took a deep breath. “However, she has no brakes on her mouth and no traffic signals in her head. The verbiage comes at you nonstop from all directions.”

  “That’s very helpful. Unless the Woput knows them well enough to pretend.”

  Doggedly, Dora went on: “He does. But as Izzy says, he may not bother. Momma…well, Momma Gerber is a stiff, rather impersonal woman, polite enough but not warm. The one thing I know about her that the Woput doesn’t is that Jared used to say something sweet to her at bedtime, before he got hit by lightning. Afterward, he didn’t remember, but Momma did. If she doesn’t remember anything about it now…” She subsided, fighting down the urge to scream, then went on: