Greg Bear - Hegira

by Hegira (lit)

  Ual treated Kiril in public like a favorite brother, and in private little differently, but with extended liberties. His state of husbandship was not stressed, nor formalized by ritual, for he wasn't yet a father. She didn't discourage him from setting up relationships with other females in the family group, but Kiril had no inclination to do so. The whole arrangement was at times a strain on him. After a month of "marriage," he slept aboard the Trident more often. He disliked himself for not fitting in, but he knew the reasons why. His whole being was alien to their way of life.

  It was difficult to face the fact - a very un-Kristian fact - that there were many ways of being happy, prosperous, and pious in human experience. Some of those ways contradicted one another.

  As his disenchantment increased, his love for Ual also increased. Halfhearted, sick with conflict, he struggled with himself. He couldn't let things ride until the Trident offered her own solution. He had to act sooner.

  Ual did not become pregnant in the first month. Her period came, something Kiril knew very little about, and she was sequestered until the menstrual flow had ceased. This had never been the custom in Mediweva, but Kiril accepted it. It gave him time to think clearly.

  When she came out of seclusion, her work with the Rebirth Committee absorbed her for a few more days. They saw very little of each other. Then Kiril managed to pull her away from her omnipresent family, from her position on the Committee, but not from her preoccupation with thoughts of both. At first she only half listened as he tried to explain his difficulties.

  They sat in the empty vegetable market of Mappu in the late afternoon of a religious holiday. A faint breeze scattered bits of dried twigs and leaves across the ground, sounding like the tick of dogs' claws on pavement. He told her he was finding it hard to be happy.

  "You've said nothing before," she told him.

  "I've been trying to explain it to myself. I can't."

  "Because you're going, that's why you're unhappy."

  "That may be. But also because I can't fit into what you do, with your family and all. I'm a wanderer, but I have a lot of solid things in my life that keep me from being like you."

  "Oh," she said. "But you leave soon anyway. Enjoy while you can."

  He shook his head. It was impossible to explain.

  "I would like one thing," Ual said quietly, looking up at him to watch his reaction. "I would like to take advantage of an offer that will be helpful when you leave. A man has offered to be a husband to me, and the alliance of our families would be desirable."

  "After I'm gone you won't have to ask for permission."

  "I would marry him before, but I made a promise to you. You would have to release me from that."

  Kiril stared at her.

  "He will not be a mating husband until after you've gone," she assured him.

  He was scandalized. "I can't allow that," he said, knowing he was being despicable. "That's not right."

  "But we love each other now."

  "You love ME!"

  "Yes."

  "Then why don't you try to stop me from going?"

  "I like you. I won't stop you on your path."

  "But if you loved me you'd try to keep me for as long as you could."

  "I love the pictures in the sky at night when the fire doves draw," she said. "But I can't stop them from changing, and each night they are different."

  "There has to be something, something wrong when two

  people don't wish to have each other for as long as they can."

  "I do want you."

  "Not forever."

  "I'm not sure of that word. I've studied it. I don't think there is a forever."

  "As long as we live."

  "Ah! But after we die, Dat makes sure we never meet again in other bodies to mate. It is a rule of nature that all things must leave each other. I cannot fight that. You cannot. Nepheru-Shaka will take you away to Weggismarche, and you will have things to do there."

  Kiril had nothing to say. His brain was a knot of thoughts, all of them valid, all ridiculous.

  "And you have told me," Ual continued, "that you have to rescue a person you love very deeply. I cannot stop you from that."

  "Ual, that has nothing to do with - " He stopped himself.

  It did. It had everything to do with what he was doing now. He didn't care about Elena now. He wanted only Ual, and he wanted her away from her family, away from Bar-Woten and Barthel, from the Trident, even from Golumbine, away in some nowhere without conflict. That was the only way he could have her, keep her, the way he wanted her. Kiril knew that was hopelessly immature and destructive. It hurt that he couldn't stop himself from wanting it.

  They would destroy each other even in ideal circum-stances. She was like a fish out of water when isolated from her family. Taken away from the journey to find Elena's double, he would be a stripling youth again, without strength or purpose. He would wander from Me to life and probably not find happiness even in the best of times with Ual.

  He held his hands out in front of him in a shrug and told her it couldn't go on. "I don't feel right about it," he said. She became exasperated.

  "You don't know what love is!" she said. "You want everything to last forever."

  He nodded.

  "So you would stop us from loving now, from helping to rebuild, because you will leave. I don't understand that."

  There was nothing for him to do but get angry. "You'll have a dozen husbands after me," he said, his voice grinding low in his throat. "Why don't you just forget me, write me off as a bad job?"

  "You are senseless now," she said.

  "No doubt. It hurts me to do this."

  "It hurts me to watch you."

  They sat in the shade of a wide, tall fern in the vegetable market and looked at each other for a few seconds. Kiril felt removed from time. The myriad pressures all added up to one push, which he was following as surely as an arrow flies from its string.

  She stood up and started to walk away.

  "No," Kiril said, reaching out to hold her hand. "I don't want you to go without understanding. I want to help both of us understand. You're the first woman I've ever had. I'm glad for that. You did nothing to hurt me. But after a while I'd be like a rock around your neck. You'd want to take other husbands, and I wouldn't let you. Even anticipating that makes me mad at myself, and with you. Because you can't be what I want you to be."

  "Can anyone?" she asked, a quick coldness in her voice.

  He spoke softly and his words were sure. "Not now. But you especially can't be. I think we have to leave each other. Let's not do it with bitterness."

  "There is no other way," she said. "Otherwise we will not leave for good. A good hunter always makes a clean kill."

  "Neither of us are hunting."

  "You! You are hunting."

  It had to end in anger or it would start up again; it had to be killed. He knew that was what Ual meant. She was turning her disappointment into indignation. Blaming him was the only way.

  His shoulders dropped slightly. "I'm sorry," he said.

  "You are always sorry."

  Then she was gone, and the weight was gone, and some-thing like clarity returned to his thoughts. But his shoulders wouldn't rise again, and he couldn't stand straight.

  He returned to the Trident. The broken mast was being replaced and new rigging was being strung. Darkness came quickly, and candles and torches were lighted on the bund like processions of fire doves.

  Sixteen

  The Trident steamed out of the harbor with bright sky and calm water to greet her. Rust stained her hull in long red streaks and some of her sails were patchwork, but her engines were running smoothly and her methane tanks were full. To Bar-Woten she didn't sound the same - her squeaks and groans and snaps came from different areas with different rhythm - but she took the wind well when it came up. She was seaworthy again.

  Golumbine drifted to the south. By evening they couldn't see the island any more. They were sailing into
the dark blue seas that marked the northern waters of the Bicht av Genevar. Away from the warm currents surrounding Golumbine, the air grew chill. High clouds of ice crystals glowed overhead as the last of daylight faded; herringbone, mare's tail, lacework, and fly's wing. To Kiril it seemed sometimes as if cryptic messages were being written in the sky.

  Barthel and Avra and two navigation officers studied the morning glare of the light above the fallen Obelisk, trying to determine how it grew bright and why it faded. Barthel had the uncomfortable feeling it was no natural thing they were watching - not the work of Allah, but something a shade less exalted, though no less impressive.

  Bar-Woten worked for several days finding small leaks in the methane tanks. He worked silently, putting his whole body into it, glad to be traveling again. When his duty was over he went to the prow and stood with one foot resting on the bowsprit clamps, staring north with eye squinted, rid-dling what lay ahead. Sometimes he shivered and went to his cabin before darkness set in. None of what he saw in the hazy distance pleased nun.

  And nothing of what they found in the Bicht was encourag-ing. Most of the small islands were now barren deserts of sand and mud with patches of salt grass. The larger ones had been ravaged not only by waves and quakes, but by what looked like war. Entire villages had been haphazardly rebuilt, only to be put to the torch. No trade was possible when the only inhabitants were half-dead old women and belly-bloated children. The Trident gave aid where she could, but more often than not she had to leave at full speed with desperate rag-tag ships in pursuit.

  The farther north they sailed, the more discouraged they became. The voyage had gone sour. The captain stayed isolated; all orders were relayed through the mates and deck officers. But the crew was too tired and beleaguered to complain or start trouble.

  Barthel told himself, each time he saw misery and destruc-tion, that the Obelisk's fall was Allah's method of testing the will of man. The will of man was not giving an encouraging performance.

  In their twenty-ninth day out of Golumbine the first ship-on-legs appeared, gray, fast and sleek, lacking sails. No action was taken. The Trident maintained her course and pushed northward, sailing more each day into the ghoulish green light of the glowing patch in the sky. The pale luminosity, dim as light through clouds on a warm summer day, cast no shadows and did not glare from the sea or the ship's metal. Barthel was distinctly uneasy on deck facing that dismal, makeshift glow. Bar-Woten ignored it as much as possible.

  But he didn't ignore the ship-on-legs. In the Trident's library he studied manuals on battle tactics at sea. He knew that Prekari was well-versed in handling ships under dangerous conditions. But Bar-Woten had never been in a position to learn how wars were conducted at sea, and he found the difference fascinating.

  The Trident wasn't equipped for a heavy sea battle. She carried only three guns, one fore, one aft, and one mounted midships, just aft of the first funnel. She also carried loads of split and dried logs to put into the burners for heat during a battle. In emergencies her methane tanks were always sealed and padded, and she either ran under sail or steamed on wood.

  They were approaching the southern coast of Pallasta when the submarine appeared. Kiril had read about them, but it was a shock to see one surface and follow two hundred meters astern, like a steel-clad whale. Prekari ordered gun crews ready and converted as quickly as possible from methane to wood. Smoke began to pour from the stacks. The stacks creaked and groaned, and deck officers supervised the loosening of the stack guy wires. The sails were furled, and the Trident picked up speed, testing her pursuer.

  The submarine fell behind immediately and submerged. Prekari appeared on the quarterdeck walking from side to side and peering over the railing. Bar-Woten stayed below with the engines, nursing a rod that ran hot under the stress. His overalls were soon soaked with hot grease. The smell of burnt packing clogged his nose and he sneezed every few seconds, but he refused to go topside. He refused to acknow-ledge he was being hunted by something he couldn't see.

  For seven hours they ran on alert. The sounding bobs showed no change. Prekari stayed on the quarterdeck in a folding chair and ate his dinner in silence. After finishing his last plate he wiped his mouth and beard with a linen napkin and ordered the crew to secure general quarters. They would continue to burn wood until the next morning, but otherwise the ship would run as usual until something new developed.

  Bar-Woten went on deck as he finished his watch and looked at the fire doves hovering over the pitchy sea. The waters were less fertile now. Fish were seldom seen and seabirds were rare.

  By the light of morning, gray and eerie, they saw the coast of Pallasta. It was a savage, burnt ribbon of black and brown. Weggismarche had had little peaceful commerce with Pallasta, a country dedicated to military discipline and rigid political regimes. Up until four decades ago, war had been almost continuous between them. It didn't look as if there would be any more wars. Kiril looked up and down the ragged coast and wondered why God would allow such destruction, and for what purpose. His heart grew bitter and his nose filled with the acrid smell of singed land and dead waters.

  By now it should have been winter in Weggismarche and Pallasta. But the air was warm and humid, and the few mountains they could see were rocky and snowless.

  The ship-on-legs reappeared two weeks after its first reconnaissance. The Trident's crew watched it angrily, shout-ing and curling their hands into fists. Bar-Woten followed it with binoculars and noted it had guns on its deck. It rode with its hull out of water when it moved its fastest, but at other times it rode in the water like an ordinary ship, though still uncommonly fast.

  Prekari kept the guns manned and put the ship on full alert again. He knew instinctively they would have to wait to be fired upon, if anyone was going to fire. The ship-on-legs had far more powerful weapons than the Trident. To provoke it would be insanity.

  When the submarine surfaced in front of them, the crew shouted in rage and nearly went out of control. Prekari let them vent their feelings for a few minutes until they were hoarse, then ordered them back to their posts. The wood burners were stoked. The methane tanks were wrapped and secured with rubber-covered chains.

  The submarine rose even higher in the water. A hatch opened in its sail. A bearded man stood behind the hatch, using it for protection, and rested a bull horn on top. He addressed them in a language they didn't understand. When he got no response he tried again, and still they understood nothing. He shook his head and disappeared. Kiril, stiff with tension, stood on the bow and tried to sound out the phrases and riddle them. They were familiar, but he couldn't place them. He hadn't studied all the Obelisk languages, but he'd gone over enough of them to recognize many of the words.

  Two men appeared behind the open hatch. One slipped and almost went off the ribbed decking on the back of the sub. He regained his footing and looked through binoculars at the Trident, paying special attention to the flags that fluttered from her rigging fore and aft. Then he said some-thing to his companion, and again the bull horn was brought up. The man spoke Teutan this time, muffled and with a heavy accent but recognizable.

  "You are requested to follow us," he said. "You will be guided into port three days from here."

  "That'll put us in the Pale Seas," Barthel told Kiril. Avra was beside him, her mouth set in a thin, grim line, Weggismarche sailors had always avoided the Pale Seas. Hegira, they said, did not behave there as it did everywhere else. At the terminus of the Pale Seas lay the Wall which determined the end of this section of the world. No one in recent memory had ever been there and returned.

  Prekari's answer came by messenger from the quarterdeck. The first mate read the reply through a hailing cone.

  "We thankfully decline and request leave to follow our own course."

  The ship-on-legs drew nearer. Signal flags flew from its mast. Kiril couldn't read them, but Barthel could. "'Follow ship, or I will fire,' it says."

  "There is no choice," the bull horn barked. "Fol
low or we will sink you."

  Prekari kept his peace for fifteen minutes. Then he spoke, and the first mate hailed the sub again. "We will not allow a boarding party. We will follow you until fire dove Skhar reached thirty-three degrees ascension. After that we will discuss the issue."

  Barthel smiled. There was no fire dove called Skhar, and no bright ones that would reach precisely thirty-three degrees in these waters. The captain was delaying.

  "We do not understand the reference," the submarine said. "You will follow us, and there will be no further discussion."

  Prekari gave the signal for all the guns to be loaded.

  The ship-on-legs cut back its engines and fell slowly into the water, sliding behind the Trident. With the submarine in front and the ship-on-legs behind, there was little they could do. Prekari secured battle stations and ordered bis mates to follow the submarine until further notice.