The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories

by Connie Willis

“Is the Sandalman here?” I said.

  She didn’t answer. She hung the lantern on a hook off to the inside of the gate and watched as the pool of photo-chemical liquid in its base caught fire.

  “I need to see the Sandalman,” I said more loudly: She must be hard of hearing.

  “No one in,” she said, her dished face impassive. Did that mean the Sandalman wasn’t there or that she wasn’t supposed to let anybody in?

  “Is the Sandalman here?” I said. “I want to see him.”

  “No one in,” she repeated. The Sandalman’s other bey had been a lot easier to get information out of. I had given her a pocket mirror and made a friend for life. The fact that she wasn’t here probably meant the Sandalman wasn’t either. But where had they gone?

  “I’m a reporter,” I said, and stuck my press card at her. “Show him this. I think he’ll want to talk to me.”

  She looked at the card, rubbed her dirty-looking finger along the smooth plastic, and turned it over.

  “Where is he? Out at the Spine?”

  The bey turned the card back over to the front. She poked at the hotline’s holo-banner with the same finger, as if she could stick it between the three-dimensional letters.

  “Where’s Lacau? Where’s Howard? Where’s the Sandalman?”

  She held the card up sideways and peered along its edge. She flipped it over, looking at the letters, and turned it sideways again, slowly, watching the three-dimensional effect go flat.

  “Look,” I said. “You can keep the press card. It’s a present. Just tell your boss I’m here.”

  She was trying to pry the 3-D letters up with the tip of her black fingernail. I should never have given her the press card.

  I opened up my knapsack, got out a bottle of Coke, and held it out to her, just this side of the gate. She actually looked up from the press card long enough to grab for it. I took a step backward. “Where are the dig men?” I said, and then remembered it’s the bey women who run things, if you could call running errands for the suhundulim and drinking Cokes running things, but at least they were up most of the day. The male beys slept, and the females ignored them and any other male who wasn’t giving them a direct order, but they might notice a female. “Where’s Evelyn Herbert?”

  “Big cloud,” she said.

  Big cloud? What did that mean? This wasn’t the season for the big desert-drenching thunderstorms. A fire? A ship?

  “Where?” I said.

  She reached for the Coke bottle. I let her almost get it. “Big cloud where?”

  She pointed east to where the lava spills formed a low ridge. The flat basin beyond was where they landed the ships. What if some other ship had responded to Lacau’s message? Some ship that had already been and gone, team and treasure with it?

  “Ship?” I said.

  “No,” she said, and made a lunge through the bars for the Coke. “Big cloud.”

  I gave it to her. She retreated to the front steps of the main house and sat down. She took a swig of the Coke and turned the press card over and over in her other hand, making it flash in the sunlight.

  “How long has it been there?” I said.

  She didn’t even act like she’d heard me.

  On the way out to the ridge I convinced myself the bey had seen a dust devil. I didn’t want to believe a ship had been and gone with the treasure and the team. Maybe if it was a ship, it was still there.

  It wasn’t. I could see the half-mile circle of scorched dirt where they always landed the ships even before I got to the top of the ridge, and it was empty, but I went on up. And there was the big cloud. A plasticmesh geodome in the middle of the basin. The consul’s landrover was parked on the far side of it and several crawlers that they must have used to bring the treasure down from the Spine.

  I hid the jeep behind a hump of lava and then crept around behind the rocks until I could see in the front door. There were a couple of suhundulim guarding the tent, which was the best proof yet that there was a treasure. The Commission’s only ruling said that the archaeologist’s government got half of everything and the “natives” got the other half. The Sandalman would be making sure he got his half. I was surprised Howard hadn’t posted a guard, too, since the ruling said any tampering with the treasure meant forfeiture of the whole thing by the offending party. At Lisii the guards had practically sat on those poor skeletons and clay shards to make sure nobody sneaked a shinbone in his pocket and hoping somebody would so they could claim the whole treasure by default.

  I’d never get past the Sandalman’s guards. If I wanted a story I’d have to go in the back door. I crept as far back as the jeep and then down the ridge, keeping as much rock between me and the guards as I could. I didn’t take my burn equipment. I wasn’t sure I could even get in, and I didn’t want somebody confiscating it on the grounds that burning a story was tampering. Besides, the black lava was honeycombed with sharp-edged holes. I didn’t want to risk dropping my equipment and breaking it.

  I kept out of sight as long as I could and then ran across the open sand to the side of the dome away from the consul’s landrover and ducked under the outer layer of mesh. The tent didn’t have a back door. I hadn’t expected it to. The Lisii team had a tent just like this for storing their clay pots, and the only way in was under the mesh at the bottom. But the sides of this “big cloud” were packed with boxes and equipment right up to the walls.

  I edged along the side of the tent until I came to a place where the plastic gave a little, and slit it with my knife. I looked through the slit, saw nothing but more plastic mesh a few feet away, and squeezed through.

  I scared the little bey who was standing there half to death. She flattened herself against one of the packing cases, clutching a Coke bottle with a straw in it.

  She’d scared me, too. “Shh,” I said, and put my finger to my lips, but she didn’t scream. She hung onto the Coke bottle for dear life and started edging away from me.

  “Hey,” I said softly. ‘“Don’t be scared. You know me.” Now I knew where the Sandalman had to be because here was his bey. The old one at the gate must have been left to guard the compound while they were out here. “Remember, I gave you the mirror?” I whispered. “Where’s your boss? Where’s the Sandalman?”

  She stopped and looked at me, her big eyes wide. “Mirror,” she said, and nodded, but she didn’t come any closer and she let go of the Coke bottle.

  “Where’s the Sandalman?” I asked her again. No answer. “Where are dig men?” I said. Still no answer. “Where is Evelyn Herbert?”

  “Evelyn,” she said, and stretched out one dirty-looking arm to point in the direction of a plastic curtain. I ducked through it.

  This area of the tent was draped on all sides with plastic mesh, making a kind of low-ceilinged room. The packing cases that were stacked against the side of the tent shut out most of the evening light, and I could hardly see. There was some kind of hammock affair near the wall, hung with more plastic. I could hear someone breathing heavily, unevenly.

  “Evelyn?” I said.

  The bey had followed me into the room. “Is there a light?” I said to her. She ducked past me and pulled on a string to light a single light bulb hanging from a tangle of cords. Then she backed over against the far wall. The breathing was coming from the hammock.

  “Evelyn?” I said, and lifted up the plastic drape.

  “Oh,” I said, and it came out like a groan. I put my hand over my mouth as if I were trying to get out of a fire, choking on the smoke, smothering, and backed away from the hammock. I practically backed into the little bey, who was pressed so flat against the flimsy wall I thought she was going to go right through it.

  “What’s wrong with her?” I grabbed her by her bony little shoulders. “What happened?”

  I was scaring her to death. There was no way she could answer me. I let go of her shoulders and she pressed herself into the plastic folds of the wall till she nearly disappeared.

  “What’s wrong with h
er?” I whispered, and knew my voice still sounded terrifying. “Is it some kind of virus?”

  “Curse,” the little bey said, and the lights went out.

  I stood there in the dark, and I could hear Evelyn’s ragged, tortured breathing and the rapid, frightened sound of my own, and for one minute I believed the bey. Then the light came on again, and I looked over at the plastic-draped hammock, and knew I was standing only a few feet away from the biggest story I was ever going to get.

  “Curse,” the little bey repeated, and I thought, “No, it’s not a curse. It’s my scoop.”

  I went over to the hammock again and lifted the plastic drape with two fingers and looked at what had been Evelyn Herbert. A padded mesh blanket was pulled up to her neck, and her hands were crossed over her chest. They were covered with a network of white ridges, even on the fingernails. In the depressions between the ridges the skin was so thin it was transparent. I could see the veins and the raw flesh tissue under them.

  Whatever it was covered her face, too, even her eyelids and the inside of her open mouth. Over her cheekbones the white honeycombs were thicker and farther apart; and they looked so soft I thought her bones would poke through at any moment. My skin crawled at the thought that the plastic might be covered with the virus, that I might already have been infected when I came into the room.

  She opened her eyes, and I gripped the plastic so hard I almost yanked it down. Tiny honeycombs, so fine they looked like spiderwebs, filmed her eyes. I don’t know if she could see me or not.

  “Evelyn,” I said. “My name is Jack Merton. I’m a reporter. Can you talk?”

  She made a strangled sound. I couldn’t make it out. She shut her eyes and tried again, and this time I understood her.

  “Help me,” she said.

  “What do you want me to do?” I said.

  She made a series of sounds that had to be words but I had no idea what they were. I wished to God the translator was here instead of in the jeep.

  She tried to raise herself up by the muscles in her shoulders and back, not even attempting to use her hands. She coughed, a hard, scraping sound, as if she were trying to clear her throat, and made a sound.

  “I’ve got a machine that will make it easier for you to talk,” I said. “A translator. Out in my jeep. I’ll go get it.”

  She said clearly, “No,” and then the same string of unintelligible sounds.

  “I can’t understand you,” I said, and she reached out suddenly and took hold of my shirt. I backed away so fast I knocked into the lightbulb and sent it swinging. The little bey edged out from the wall to watch it.

  “Treasure,” Evelyn said, and took a long dragging breath. “Sandalman. Poy. Son.”

  “Poison?” I said. The light swung wildly over her. I looked at my shirt front. It was cut to pieces where she had grabbed it, slashed into long ribbons by those ridges on her hands. “Who poisoned you? The Sandalman?”

  “Help me,” she said.

  “Was the treasure poisoned, Evelyn?”

  She tried to shake her head.

  “Take…message.”

  “Message? To who?”

  “San…man,” she said, and her muscles gave way and she sank back against the hammock, coughing and taking little rasping breaths in between.

  I stepped back so her coughing couldn’t reach me. “Why? Are you trying to warn the Sandalman that somebody poisoned you? Why do you want me to take a message to the Sandalman?”

  She had stopped coughing. She lay looking up at me. “Help me,” she said.

  “If I take your message to the Sandalman, will you tell me what happened?” I said. “Will you tell me who poisoned you?”

  She tried to nod and started coughing again. The little bey sprang forward with a Coke bottle, stuck a glass straw in it, and tipped it forward so Evelyn could drink. Some of the water spilled onto her chin and into her mouth, and the bey wiped it away with the tail of her dirty-looking shift. Evelyn tried to raise herself up again, and the bey helped her, putting her arm around Evelyn’s ridge-covered shoulders. The ridges there were as thick as those on her face, and they didn’t seem to cut the bey. If anything, they seemed to flatten a little under the weight of the bey’s arm. She stuck the straw in Evelyn’s mouth. Evelyn choked and started coughing again. The bey waited, and then tried again, and this time Evelyn got a drink. She lay back.

  “Yes,” she said, more clearly than she had said anything so far. “Lamp.”

  I thought I had misunderstood her. “What’s the message, Evelyn?” I said. “What do you want to tell him?”

  “Lamp,” she said again, and tried to gesture with her hand. I turned around and looked. A photosene lamp stood on an upturned plastic cargo carton. Next to it were two disposable injection kits, the kind you find in portable first aid kits, and a plastic packet. The bey handed it to me. I took it from her gingerly, hoping Evelyn hadn’t touched the packet, that the bey had put the message inside for her: Then I looked at her hands again and my slashed shirt and knew the bey had not only had to put the message in the plastic envelope, she had probably had to write it out for her, too. I hoped it was readable.

  I stuck it in the foil-lined pouch I used for my spare burn-charges and tried to fight the feeling that I needed to wash my hands. I went back over to the hammock. “Where is he? Is he here, in the dome?”

  She tried to shake her head again. I was beginning to be able to understand her motions, but I wished again for the translator so I could be sure of what she was saying. “No,” she said, and coughed. “Not here. Compound. Village.”

  “He’s in the compound? Are you sure? I was there this afternoon. I didn’t see anybody but one of his beys.”

  She sighed, a terrible sound like a candle guttering out in the wind. “Compound. Hurry.”

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll try to get back before dark.”

  “Hurry,” she said, and started to cough again.

  I ducked out the way I had come. On the way out I asked the bey if the Sandalman was really back at the compound.

  “North,” she said. “Soldiers.” Which could mean any number of things.

  “He’s gone north?” I said. “He isn’t at the compound?”

  “Compound,” she said. “Treasure.”

  “But he’s not here, in the tent? Are you sure?”

  “Compound,” she said. “Soldiers.”

  I gave up. I glanced around the plastic-hung hall I was in, wondering if I should try to find Howard or Lacau or somebody before I went traipsing back to the compound to look for the Sandalman. There was hardly any light left. If I waited much longer, it would be dark, and I couldn’t run the risk of being kept here by an indignant Lacau, with the message burning a hole in my pocket. At least if I went back to the jeep I could read the message, and that might give me a clue as to what in the hell was going on around here. I thought there was a good chance the Sandalman actually was in the compound. If he had gone north he wouldn’t have left his bey behind.

  I went back out through the slit I’d made and hotfooted it across the space of open plain to the safety of the ridge. Once there, I took my stick-light out and kept it trained on my feet so I wouldn’t fall in a hole. I stopped halfway up in the shadow of a long black crevice, to catch my breath and read the message. There wouldn’t be enough light if I waited till I got up to the jeep. It was already dark enough that I was going to have to use the sticklight. I pulled the burn pouch out of my shirt and started to open it.

  “Come back!” a voice shouted directly beneath me. I flattened myself into the crevice like Evelyn’s bey. The sticklight skittered away and down a hole.

  “Come back! You don’t have to touch him! I’ll do that!” I raised my head a little and looked down. It had been some freak of acoustics produced by the face of the lava ridge. Lacau was nowhere near me. He, and two stocky figures in white robes who had to be suhundulim, were on the other side of the tent, so far away I could hardly make them out in the deepening
twilight, though Lacau’s voice was coming through as clearly as if he were standing directly beneath me.

  “I’ll do the burying, for God’s sake. All you have to do is dig the grave.” Lacau turned and gestured toward the tent, and his voice cut off. Whose grave? I looked where he was gesturing and could make out a bluish-gray shape on the sand. A body wrapped in plastic. “The Sandalman sent you here to guard the treasure, and that includes doing what I tell you,” Lacau said. “When he gets back, I’ll…”

  I didn’t hear the rest of it, but whatever he had said had not convinced them. They continued to back away from him, and after a minute they turned and ran. I was glad it was nearly dark so I couldn’t see them. The suhundulim have always given me the creeps. Bands of herniated muscle ripple under their skin, especially on their faces and their hands and feet. When Bradstreet burns stories about them, he describes them as looking like welts or rope burns, but he’s crazy. They look like snakes. The Sandalman isn’t too bad—he’s got a lot on his feet, which Bradstreet said looked like sandals when he burned the story that gave the Sandalman his name, but hardly any on his face.

  The Sandalman. He must be at the compound because Lacau had said, “When he gets back.” None of them were looking my way, so I went up and over the ridge as quietly as I could in case the echo thing worked both ways.

  There was still enough light in the west to drive by. I thought about stopping midway, switching on the headlights, and reading Evelyn’s message in their beam, but I didn’t want Lacau to see my lights and figure out where I’d been. I could read the message by one of the lights in the village before I got to the Sandalman’s.

  I didn’t turn on my lights until I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, and when I did I saw I’d practically crashed into the village wall. There weren’t any lights along the wall. I left my jeep lights on, wishing I could drive the jeep into the village.

  As soon as I was inside the wall, I could see the lantern I’d watched the bey hand out. It was the only light in the whole place, and there was still that massacre-quiet. Maybe they’d found out what was lying in that hammock in the plastic-dome and had taken off like the suhundulim guards.