Greg Bear - Hegira

by Hegira (lit)

  Dat and one of her guardians still stood upright, though smeared with weed and mud to the waist. The other serpent column wasn't visible. The daylight was milky and incom-plete, the north gray and dark.

  Deathly tired, retching from the smell of corruption in the warm still air, the people of the Trident watched as their ship dropped anchor.

  Bar-Woten came on deck, his face pale and lined with grease and dirt. Barthel stood by the railing on the main deck and stared listlessly at the island.

  "He has some broken ribs," the Ibisian said. Barthel nodded. "Something may be wrong with his head too. The doctor doesn't know for sure."

  There was no tide to scour the beaches or take the flotsam out to sea. Only a mild seaward current flowed through the harbor. In a few more days the whole area would be an aquatic pesthole rife with disease, unless something was done to clear it out.

  In the early afternoon, Bar-Woten accompanied the first boat to go ashore. They scrambled up a sagging wooden dock that had been driven half its length ashore and stood on the crumbling remains of the log and brick bund. A few birds scolded them from the naked tree as they walked on the ragged roadway inland.

  The waves had burrowed up the inland passage with concentrated force, leaving the hills spattered with mud and twisted foliage. But the water had spent its force against the great stone boulder that formed a partial gateway to the valley of Mappu. It had coursed down the highway and spilled into the river that ran through the city. Mappu itself looked a little shaken and some of its buildings were cracked and leaning precariously, but on the whole it had survived well. Only a few islanders had stayed in the city, however, the old or very young, and they looked dazed, with wild, staring eyes. They could only point and say everyone had gone to Dat.

  The shore party halted at the palace gates and reconnoit-ered. Bar-Woten and three others were instructed by the first mate to take the dirt path to the eastern peninsula about ten kilometers away and see how many islanders were actually at the statues. The others would go deeper into the valley and determine how many had hidden in the inland caves beyond Mappu.

  Dark clouds stacked to the south and rushed with unusual haste toward the island. Bar-Woten watched thunderheads grow, visibly billowing and darkening. Sheets of silent light-ning played between them.

  The party marched through thick, buggy jungle when the first downpour hit. Taking shelter beneath a broad, leafy ironwood tree, they waited as marble-sized drops of water pummeled the forest and roadway. The storm abated to a fine drizzle, fading the trees into rustling gray giants and decorating the leaves with crystal beads. The bird noises resumed. Insects rose in puffs and blasts, haunting every step in the ankle-deep mud. Large spiders, red and tan, crossed the path with high-prancing steps and challenged the hikers with raised forelimbs. The Ibisian forged ahead and shooed them aside with a broken palm frond. In a few minutes the end of the frond was sticky with webbing.

  Two of the party were women, one middle-aged and graying with knotted muscles on her arms and calves, tough as any man; the other slender and young with a close-cut shag of hair. The second man was an engine-watch officer, ten years younger than Bar-Woten, but just as knowledgeable in the ways of jungles. They swapped short, breathless stories on jungle life. Bar-Woten told of the years he'd spent in the Pais Vermagne, searching for the city of the First-born. It was the first any had heard of his long trek, and they asked lots of questions, some of them pointed. He deftly avoided incriminating answers.

  The path emerged on a white sand beach that had avoided the major impact of the deluge. They walked across the hard-packed, damp sand for a half hour, then crossed a muddy jungle stream from the hills. The path picked up again a few steps beyond and led them over a rise into the valley where the statues stood.

  Dat had been imposing from the sea; now she was over-whelming. The waves had toppled one of her guardians. The serpent column lay at her feet, half-buried in mud and foliage. Seated in silence around the valley, on the fallen column, at the base of Dat, and even on the crest of the cliffs twenty or thirty meters higher, were at least ten thousand people. They stared with wide, clear eyes at the goddess's face, hands folded in their laps. The tiny king and queen sat among them, incense bearers nearby.

  Bar-Woten sat on an unoccupied rock and motioned for the others to follow his example. Together they stared at Dat and thought their own thoughts.

  They were all lucky to be alive.

  Kiril's chest was tightly wrapped with bandages, and it hurt to breathe. There was a funny dislocated feeling around his shoulders. He couldn't focus both eyes on a single object for very long. Vague shapes moved around him in the dark.

  I'm in the infirmary, he told himself. Something happened to me. I might have fallen down stairs. Slipped.

  He remembered nothing about the waves.

  He dreamed fuzzy dreams for a long time - months it seemed - about riding the balloons in Mediweva, reading the Obelisk texts, meeting and becoming friendly with and loving Elena, spending afternoons in the park around the promenade in the village of Gidalha, where the birds sang even past dark and the air smelled of frangipani from the village censers breathing out their holiday smells.

  He talked to the doctor and his nurse occasionally, but there were a lot of small injuries to be treated, and cases much more serious than his own. Bar-Woten and Barthel were both on the island, so he spent most of his time alone.

  The sounds of riveting and hammering and sawing came to him day and night. He slowly remembered what had happened.

  He overheard that one third of Golumbine's population, seventeen thousand people, had died in the waves. Most of the native boats had been swamped at sea or wrecked ashore. Twenty crewmen on the Trident had been badly hurt and three were dead.

  He slept. He led a disjointed existence for two weeks.

  The day finally came when he was allowed to walk by himself and go on deck. He looked north. It was still gray, but the south was bright and warm and inviting. The island was disheveled, with an intent, serious look of recovery. People repaired the docks and bund. Long lines carried pails of bricks and mortar back and forth in an endless stream. Masons applied and cemented, working by torchlight at night.

  The smell of death was almost gone. Boats still cruised the harbor, dredging for bodies and taking them out to sea for deep-water burial. The majority of the flotsam had been salvaged for rebuilding boats. Only a few floating tree trunks provided a hazard to navigation. The water was a clear blue-green again.

  The weather had changed. Winds from the north were colder, and everyone on the Trident knew that meant only one dung. The Obelisk that had once risen high over Weggismarche and Pallasta and the other countries below the Pale Seas was now gone. What that had done to the Trident's homeland none could say - but they weren't optimistic.

  The very thought that an Obelisk could fall was shaking. Added to the starry sky of nine months past, it meant nothing was going to be as it had been. But how many more disasters would hit them?

  Kiril had known things were awry for two and a half years, ever since Elena had been changed. It was a matter of escalation, not beginnings.

  The Trident needed repairs which would take at least two months. In that time those who weren't directly involved with the work were given leave to help on the island. Shoreline communities had to be rebuilt from the ground up, and in some cases repopulated.

  In the wake of the disaster the island no longer mourned.

  Rather a mood of frenetic work prevailed. By some fluke there were more men on the island than women now, by about two to one. This didn't conflict with the past at all, as polyandry had been an accepted practice. But it created a host of problems for the men.

  Kiril spent his last days of recovery touring the island, walking or riding on the half-repaired roads, and visiting the sites where the Trident's crew was helping rebuild.

  He stayed for two days in Mappu as a consultant in reshelving the religious library. The second da
y he sat in the tumble of stone shelves and scrolls with a group of priest-initiates and explained the practice of setting up a card catalog, stumbling between Teutan and rudimentary Golumbine.

  A black-haired, umber-skinned woman entered the library and snapped her ringers commandingly. They all looked up, Kiril frowning. She wore a sari-like dress that covered her from ankle to shoulder. Her expression was mild and gentle, and when she spoke she used the proper words of apology, but she obviously expected their complete attention.

  A formal choosing of husbands would begin at dusk in Mappu's ritual plaza. All unchosen males were required to be there. She added, with a neutral glance at Kiril, that foreigners were also invited. "The obligations, in any case, will be temporary," she explained to him in Teutan. Then she smiled, turned delicately, and walked out.

  It was the last thing Kiril wanted to be involved in. The initiates buzzed with interest and speculation. It took him some minutes to bring the discussion back to the catalog.

  Bar-Woten and Barthel walked across the half-finished bund and hired a taxi to take them to the ritual plaza. They were passing through a side street in Mappu, their driver hissing his animal on and flapping the reins, when they saw Kiril.

  They ordered the taxi to stop and invited him to join them. He was too tired to think much about where they were going. He assumed they were on their way to supper. He climbed into the carriage, and the taxi picked up speed.

  The ritual plaza was a broad, open square paved in ochre stone bricks, with a deep communal cistern at its center and a rise of stone seats at one end. Thousands of years ago the plaza had been the scene of sacrifices, whether animal or human the Golumbines were reluctant to say. Now it served as a civic center when the island council met.

  The seats were filled with bustling and chattering women, dressed in ceremonious red and green wrappings, their hair flowing over their shoulders and their eyes bright with interest. The plaza was empty, but crowds of men clustered at both sides looking anxious and nervous. The taxi let the three out at the edge of the plaza, Kiril realized they weren't going to dinner.

  "What are we doing here?" he asked quietly. Bar-Woten grinned and said nothing. Too tired to put up any fuss, he stood with them, willing to watch the proceedings but not to participate. His ribs still ached a little.

  The late afternoon was still warm and sultry. Birds squawked in the jungle beyond the plaza's boundary. A tall priest dressed in green walked to the top of the wall around the well and called for order in a loud, clear voice. When he had everybody's attention he told the crowd on all three sides that the choosing could begin.

  Kiril wearily tried to find a hint of moral fault with what was going on, but couldn't. He'd seen too much grief and misery in the streets of Mappu in the last few weeks to grudge this organic respite. There was anxiety in the crowd, but also joy and anticipation. He couldn't visualize what the result would be - a series of ritual marriages? Or arranged orgies to stimulate a new, fresh tide of children? It all seemed very remote. He watched with objective interest.

  The men at the opposite side of the plaza stepped forward and arranged themselves in front of the stone seats, each standing two steps from his neighbor to be seen clearly. The first row of women went among the men and looked over them sharply, haggling with each other. For a spectator it wasn't entrancing. All together about six thousand people filled the plaza, with twice as many men as there were women.

  The haggling continued until dusk. Torches set in stands along the plaza lighted the proceedings. The women made their choices from the first group. About three hundred men went away unchosen.

  Golumbine priests then urged the second group to take its position. Kiril was caught up in the crowd, something he hadn't bargained for, and was pushed forward despite his protests. "I'm not supposed to be here," he said, but the men surrounding him thought he was only trying to find a better frontline position. Bar-Woten was lost in the press, and he couldn't see them.

  He shrugged his coat back onto his shoulders. It was useless. No one would choose him anyway. The men fell quiet as the women started to pass among them. Most of the women smiled at Kiril, but paid little attention - he was from the Trident, not a native. It wasn't wise to get involved with a sailor.

  He felt depressed after an hour under the dark sky. Few fire doves were visible. Brighter ones would bunk into view in a few minutes, and others would rise, but for the moment it was dark with only torchlight to guide the women.

  One girl a few years younger than Kiril stopped and tried to talk to him. It was no good. He knew very little dialect, and she knew nothing in Teutan beyond amenities. She looked him over frostily and moved on.

  Irritated and nervous he shifted on his feet and wondered when it would be over. His legs were aching and his chest itched beneath his bandages.

  Another women stepped up to examine him. He held out his arm when asked, then blinked and looked at her more closely. She was the woman who'd made the announcement in the library and spoke excellent Teutan. She asked how he was feeling.

  "Fine," he said, his mouth dry. She inspected him like a doctor, but with less coarseness than the other women. Finally she took his hand and put it on her waist, the signal she had chosen nun.

  "But I'm not in the - the competition," he said.

  "Come with me."

  He passed Bar-Woten, who raised an eyebrow, then grinned broadly and grunted deep in his throat.

  "Damn you!" Kiril whispered. "Get me out of this!"

  "I am Ual," the woman said. "I like you because I think you're probably pretty smart. You smart?"

  "Dumb as an ox," Kiril said.

  "I don't think so!" she said, her voice rising to a pretty peak.

  "I'll have to go back on the ship, so this is all useless."

  She shook her head, no, and he suddenly found himself willing. Something simply snapped and he caught the spirit, and his body grew warm and he liked the touch of her hand.

  "You'll be excused for a while," she said. "You work here now anyway."

  They left the plaza and followed a twisting, dark road through Mappu. Hundreds of fire doves were out like glowing insects now. He wanted to take her then and there, with an insane pressure he could hardly control. But she kept his hand loosely in hers and led him through a gate into a courtyard.

  "I don't feel too well," something made him say. She smiled back, and he knew he was lying.

  Fourteen

  The inside of the courtyard was paved with tile and had a fountain in the middle, a bronze dish supported by stone lions so old they were almost shapeless. Lamplight came through the upper windows of the house at the end of the yard. A jagged crack ran from the rounded top of the door frame to a window above. It all looked as old as the fountain. Next to it, Ual was as fresh and young as a flower.

  They went through the door and stood in a hallway across the front of the house, doors at either end. He asked why the hall had no door in the middle, and she said that was to keep the gingerii out - demons. Demons could only travel in a straight line. She quickly demonstrated that there was no way a demon could get from the door to the end of the hall in a straight line in either direction. Kuril nodded. She led him to the right and opened the door with an iron key tied around her waist.

  She left him standing alone in a small, bare room with a window at eye level in the outer wall. He sat on a smooth wooden bench, crossing his legs. Elena came to mind, and he frowned. Something feral was working in him. He turned his guilt into a kind of anger at Elena; she had no right to expect him to be inhumanly chaste.

  "This is the household of my brother, Hualao," she told him when she returned. "He died in the waves." Kiril apologized, and she looked at him curiously.

  "You had nothing to do with it."

  "But I'm sorry he's dead."

  "If he wasn't dead, you wouldn't be here. Your ship would have sailed away, and I'd have never even thought about choosing you."

  Kiril nodded, though he didn't
understand. He followed her into a high-ceilinged room filled with a stone hearth, a heavy plush rug, and comfortably padded rattan furniture.

  "I'm a virgin," she said. He nodded agreeably until he realized what she'd said. He felt stupid and clumsy. This was a sensuous ocean island - weren't all girls soon experi-enced here? His nervousness trebled.

  "But you won't be able - "he began to say.

  "Hm?"

  "I'm sorry," he said.