Every pregnancy was a tiny war, and when one side dominated too well, both fighters could perish.
Her mother had carried at least ten fetuses during her life, and she had used all of the reliable tricks, including sucking the sweat from her clothes and drinking her own urine. Of course she ate as much as possible, which meant some disgusting and dangerous foods. Yet only one of the ten fetuses survived into adulthood. Three siblings died as malnourished infants. The other six developed too slowly, and when famine struck, their living home had no choice but to stop the pregnancy and reabsorb what could never be finished.
Remain with Mercer, and there wouldn’t be any famines.
But this was his island, his home. In so many ways, she was the stranger in a forest that knew him by sight, and she couldn’t imagine that day when she wouldn’t feel like the ignorant, dependant guest.
Stay here, and her child would almost certainly become an adult.
But to what end? One child might be the first of five babies, or fifty. There would come a day when the fat land and its surrounding water wouldn’t feed their family. In boats and on foot, her offspring would have to return to the mainland — attempting to survive in a busy, dangerous realm for which none of them were halfway prepared.
But if she returned to the mainland now, armed and strong, she had a respectable chance of seeing her first child grow into the life she knew best — a wandering, inventive existence that would survive long after this piece of land collapsed into the tide-swept sea.
Mercer was a fluke.
He was a species of one.
What she felt for him was too fresh to weigh, too weak with all the gaps and wise questions. On the matter of children, she didn’t know what his opinion might be, with her, or for that matter, with any other woman.
But she couldn’t ask. She didn’t dare. Not without alerting him to a host of uncomfortable possibilities.
Hard thought led to one half-viable tactic. Then she lay awake until dawn, and when Mercer woke, she offered her fond hands and mouth, making love to him before lying on his long bare chest and belly, her knees tucked and her new hand drawing circles in the dense rusted-red hair on his chest.
“When will we tell them?” she whispered.
He heard the question, but the words didn’t seem to make sense. A long moment of concentration was needed before he asked, “Tell who?”
“Your Nots.”
“And what are we telling them?”
“That I’m here.” She looked at his face, and when he finally returned her gaze, she smiled. “I’m living here with you. We should announce that two gods are now ruling over this island.”
He said, “Soon,” with his mouth.
But nothing else about him seemed sure.
“And I want to make my own mask,” she persisted.
He said nothing.
“And I want to walk beside you,” she continued. “Past the barricade, right down to the bay where the big buildings stand. I want every last Not to see the two of us together, holding hands.”
“Not yet.”
“When?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Why not?”
“Because they aren’t ready.”
She paused long enough to make him believe that she was considering that weak answer. Then with less of a smile, she asked, “When will they be ready?”
“Nots are more instinct than culture. More ant than man.” His own instinct was to lecture, perhaps to explain what an ant was. But then he doubted himself. Being the teacher wouldn’t help, and in a rare moment of self-restraint, he stopped talking.
And she surprised herself. Her first reaction was to feel fire surging through her body. Who would have guessed that jealousy would be her response? Jealousy directed at a pack of Nots that seemed to possess this strange old man? Then she surprised herself a second time when she remained silent, choking back the justifiable anger, keeping it hidden behind a wide, meaningless but very believable smile.
“Everything on this island hangs in a balance,” Mercer said. “Forces match forces, genes guide every important thought, and I’m not at all sure how they would react if they saw us walking as equals.”
She gave him a few moments to believe whatever he wanted to believe.
Then she quietly reminded Mercer, “Nothing is balanced. The world only pretends to be, darling. And most of us are waiting for chance to throw everything out of whack.”
Three days later, fanhearts that had been feeding over the open water to the north and west returned home with important news. Nots were walking across the sea’s skin — a multitude of strange Nots, if those chattering voices could be believed — and they seemed to be marching for the island.
Mercer appeared ready for the news.
He spoke to his friends, deciphering distance and speed. Then he dressed in armor and selected a few weapons before telling the girl he would be gone for at least one night and probably two. “I’ll turn them before they get close,” he explained calmly.
She nodded, saying nothing.
“I want them to run home scared,” he continued. “I want stories told that will frighten their descendants for generations.”
“I’ll wait here,” she volunteered.
They kissed, and he left.
She counted five hundred breaths and then dragged a big pack out of its hiding place and finished collecting the various treasures that had to carry her and her son for the next year or two. Then with the pack on her shoulders and her rifle in one hand, she passed through the front door. She felt the forest watching her. Every tree was swollen with last winter’s rain, but the dark air beneath those high branches was hot and treacherously dry. To be fair to Mercer, she took time to seal the stone door, and then she set each of the three booby traps that would stop the curious and delay the malicious. Then she believed that she was leaving. But stepping onto the foot-worn path, she remembered a final treasure that was far too tempting, and she changed course.
In the high heat of summer, the magna-wood bladders were inflated with watery saps, each one of them close to bursting. She dropped the pack and rifle, muscling her way up the rope to the watching post. The bladders squirmed under her toes, and ripe fire retardants leaked through the pores, saturating the exceptionally dangerous air. She coughed some. Then she reached the hidden post and wasted a few moments staring across the Nots’ half of the island.
Little moved in the blazing, shadowless heat. The green crops had been harvested or they had died. The Nots’ summer crops were black and tall, patient hands having killed every weed and unwelcome mouth. With the little telescope, she studied the long bay with its mouth jammed full of rocks and mud and mortar, the trapped water halfway evaporated. That stagnant pond had to be bitter with salts by now. She saw Nots working on the dam, struggling to patch some tiny leak. Then she panned to the right and the left, and in the bright space alongside one building, she noticed perhaps a thousand Nots enjoying the last of the day’s brutal light.
With her new diamond knife, she cut the little telescope free.
Then she climbed down fast and shouldered the pack and hurried toward the south. Out from under the trees, the sun was enormous and fierce. But the day was nearly finished, and the blistering heat wouldn’t grow any worse. She was soon shuffling across the sea’s skin, making even better time than she had hoped. The footing was excellent. Except for the occasional muted wave, the sea remained still. The tides lifted the entire skin and then let it drop again, but all of the world’s water was obeying those stately motions, and when the sun was gone, she broke into a slow but determined run.
It had been a lot of days since she felt any fatigue.
The sensation proved pleasant, like a cherished friend returning on cue. The ache of her legs and her shoulders helped keep her awake through the night. The heat faded, but only to a point. And then the sun returned as a broad red glow breaking across a flat horizon.
She paused to drink and
rest, sitting on her swollen pack.
The glow brightened, and the sun’s face emerged, brilliant orange light licking across the black surface of the world.
In the distance, on the brink of visibility, she saw dots.
One dot, and then two more.
Then she counted again, making out ten distinct objects moving lazily along the horizon.
If she could see them, then she might be visible to their eyes. But a stand of some purplish parasite grew on the skin’s surface — a watery little tangle of limbs and seed pods that she didn’t know — and moving slowly, she dragged her pack behind the inadequate cover and sat again, guessing the distance and counting her breaths as she waited for this second band of uninvited Nots to pass out of view.
Either they were closer than they looked, or they were moving faster than she expected.
The sun was hanging free in the sky when they passed north of east, and it would have been easy to pick up her pack now and march on, confident that no one would notice her. But she had stolen the telescope, and it seemed important to use what belonged to her, particularly now that she wouldn’t have to stare directly into the sun. Setting the device on a knee, she looked into the eyepiece and pulled the inner tube out until the focus was found, and for a long while she didn’t breathe — she forgot to breathe — and then her body begged for oxygen and she managed a deep gulp and steadied her arm and the leg and closed her extra eye and bent down again, fighting to get the focus just so, counting the bodies until she was certain of everything, except what she would do next.
10
On the perfectly flat terrain, Mercer had the tallest, farthest seeing eyes.
And his first glance was enough.
The Nots belonged to one of the fishing sect-families — they could well be the entire family, judging by the drag-carts and youngsters and the purplish-black sun-boiled exo-skins. He found them at midday — dozens of motionless lumps scattered across a random stretch of the sea’s skin. Each had its poncho-like skin spread out as widely as possible, the adults forming a tidy ring with their faces watching outwards, protecting their possessions and the little ones who slept in the middle. Only in the summer, and at this high latitude, only near noon, was there enough light to thoroughly feed the hungry Not. If mayhem was the goal, his timing was perfect. Lob a few incendiaries into the middle of them, and the rest would panic along predictable lines. After all, Nots were simple, reliable souls. He had lived close to them for thousands of years, and when was the last time one of them had managed to surprise him? Which was why he decided not to waste ammunition on creatures that would never damage his interests, even by accident.
These were fishers, after all.
Come summer, they hid their boats on shore and moved out onto the lakes and sea, and where currents seemed favorable, they would slice through the skin, spearing and hooking what the sun and chum lured to the surface.
As Nots went, they were poor, almost landless souls.
And they were probably a long ways from home, judging by their indifference to the island and the famous monster that ruled its forested hills.
Mercer dropped to his knees and waited.
Let them rest. Let them eat sunshine and feel the heat quickening their watery blood. If he killed any of them, it would be a simple clean warning act — an old body or a weakling child that wouldn’t live through the next winter. But he hadn’t decided what to do yet. He had always wrung a certain pleasure in being what he was, but even at the worst, the monster held tight to a knot of compassion. Empathy was another old habit. Even in rage, Mercer had the capacity to measure his violence, to hold back the blade and the bomb, understanding exactly what was necessary and then using only a little more than that.
What would he tell the girl when he returned home?
People like her, these solitary wanderers, were often the most wonderful guests. Weak bodies and their hard upbringings meant they could be trusted, at least in measured doses. An old man’s charities were readily accepted. Easy food and dry shelter meant a paradise worth cherishing. They would even accept his little wisdoms, or at least pretended to believe whatever truths he tried to share with them. And like this girl, those poor humans understood how even the tiniest mistake could bring violence and disaster.
Which was only reasonable. Consider the girl: For her, compromise and compassion were last resorts. She appreciated the merits of blind determination, small-scale thievery, and how the mangled hand often delivered the winning blow. But she couldn’t understand why a creature like him would vanquish his enemies, but then fail to sink the dead into the deepest ocean trench. It made no sense to her, and her response was to stare at him — a fierce baffled stare — some piece of her soul probably wondering if she had ever known anyone more foolish than this soft old fossil.
It was a measure of Mercer’s fondness for the girl that as he watched these helpless fishers, he decided to offer her a lie.
If asked, he would describe a nonexistent slaughter. He would tell her that he killed every Not child and most of the adults, sending a few survivors running back to the mainland. And if she didn’t inquire, he would act grim but fierce nonetheless, using his eyes and a tight mouth to convey an understandable, respectable viciousness.
“If she’s waiting for me,” he whispered softly.
Because he knew she was planning to leave. A shopkeeper in his former life, he always kept thorough inventories of his stocks and tools and anything else of value, and he knew exactly what was being stolen and how much she might carry comfortably. None of this surprised him. In some ways, he was almost pleased. It was the dangerous guest who took nothing. In his experience, if you weren’t a thief in small ways, you were plotting to remove the owner and acquire everything that was his. But as much as Mercer liked this girl, he didn’t allow himself to feel sentimental or unreasonably attached: After all, she was a wild child who had reached maturity despite several decades of hard deprivation, and as miserable as every breath had been, the life she knew was too familiar to surrender. Particularly when it meant sharing the bed and food with a strange, eons-old creature.
He knew what would happen. When he had stabbed her in the chest and dripped those essential and precious minerals into her dead heart, he understood that she would eventually leave.
He had hoped for a normal summer and a longer stay, of course.
In his fantasies, she gave them time to make a child. That birth and the demanding infant would keep the wild girl here for a several more winters, giving Mercer time enough to teach her more about this world and the universe beyond, and in little ways, explain what he could about himself. Nothing of lasting importance would be accomplished, probably. Once Dream left, she would never return to the island. Dozens of women had come to his doorstep, accepting his charity and instruction, and then along very predictable avenues, they had built a small boat or walked across the summer sea, abandoning him forever.
That’s why he had always kept a little space between the girl and his heart.
Too well, he understood that the human spirit was enduring, and deep habits were just as immortal as a favorite hand or the language of your youth.
In his best dreams, women long lost and probably long dead returned to him. But they were nothing more, or less, than precious memories. The girl was superstitious to believe in ghosts, but that didn’t mean Mercer held those who had passed in any less esteem, or what the brain recalled from ages past was any less sacred than what a few ghosts would mean if they were real, and if they cared enough to visit from the Afterlife.
Memory had a vivid, inexhaustible hold on Mercer’s soul.
And perhaps that was why he found this girl more intriguing than most. From the first time he saw her face filled with life, she looked familiar. In the nose and black eyes and the shape of her delicate suspicious mouth, she resembled the woman he had lived with last in the lost colony.
Dead little Deleen.
How long ago was that now
?
Forever, it seemed. And it was yesterday, too.
Deleen never had children. But every woman’s eggs were harvested by the two-doctor clinic, and there was always the possibility that after Mercer left, some other woman had used those eggs to begin her own family. But even if that was true, the resemblance had to be an accident. How many generations had those genes passed through? How many nameless families had began and died before this girl, Deleen’s descendant or not, was flung onto the rock above the high-tide mark?
Coincidences were only that. But they provided a solid measure of his longings too. As he sat on the blackish skin of the sea, on his knees, watching the Nots do nothing, Mercer again warned himself that she was going to leave, and perhaps she had slipped away already, taking only a fraction of the treasures that he would have willingly bestowed on her, if only she’d had the foresight and courage to ask.
And with that, he dropped that difficult subject.
A mind polished by endless centuries of solitude had that talent. In the next breath, he was thinking about small solvable problems and the endless chores waiting in his busy life. What gift would he grant his own Nots next, and what did he need to build next inside his machine shop, and what would be the shape and purpose of the newest room that he eventually carved deep inside that ancient hillside?
His eyes drifted shut, and for an instant, he napped.
Then he was awake, utterly and perfectly alert. One of the Nots had stood, and Mercer’s first thought was that the creature had noticed him kneeling behind a patch of graylick weed. But the angle of those double-paired eyes was wrong. Then he heard a voice speaking in a simple, planet-wide language that was defined by the genetics — an instinctive language that had changed only slightly and very grudgingly since the humans’ arrival.
The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 26 (Mammoth Books) Page 109
