Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Novel 19

by The Ruins of Isis (v2. 1)

  "Yes. Take my car," Vaniya said, "but I cannot spare a driver—"

  "I can drive your car, Vaniya."

  "I never knew that," Vaniya said, in surprise. And Rhu said, his lips moving faintly in a smile, "You never asked me, my dear."

  Cendri followed him out, caught at his hand. "Wait, Rhu," she said quickly, "I must go with you, and Dal—there is no time now to explain it—"

  She ran to the hillside where Dal was standing above the site, looking down at the busy scene below. Every few minutes some man, coming up from below with something to be taken to high ground—the more important stores were being moved by machinery, but there was more manpower than machinery—would stop before Dal, bow to the ground before him, say a few words.

  Cendri hesitated to interrupt them, but he saw her and came toward her. She caught his hand, forgetful of the watching eyes and the customs of the Matriarchate.

  "Dal, come with me to We-were-guided—"

  "At this hour?"

  "Yes—I have something to say to the Builders—"

  He said, "They did not build the city, Cendri—"

  Impatiently she shook her head. "That doesn't matter now! I said Builders because that's what the people here call them, you know perfectly well what—who—I mean!"

  "Something to say to them?"

  "Yes! Dal, come with me, in case they don't speak to women now—"

  He said, "I don't mind telling you I'll be glad to get away for a while! I'm not really any help here..." he moved, uncomfortably, as another man with a heavy load of lumber on his head came past and made a clumsy bow. "I know they mean well, and I know I encourage them being here, and God knows the poor devils need all the encouragement they can get. But still I'll be glad to get away, it's—it's spooky!"

  Rhu drove Vaniya's car fast and skillfully along the deserted road to Ariadne. It was a drive of more than half an hour, and none them talked much. Cendri was remembering how she had been driven here to the Residence the first day, Miranda at her side, Dal shoved unregarded into the luggage compartment by the driver.

  The Residence looked deserted; it was not yet dawn, and Rhu stopped the car and got out, turning along the shore toward the ruins. A couple of small children, nine or ten years old, a girl and a boy, came down the steps and called to Rhu.

  He turned back to speak to them, asking, "Is there any news here of the Lady Miranda?"

  The little boy shook his head solemnly. The girl asked "Rhu, is it true that the—the Builders now speak only to men?"

  Rhu said, "They spoke to men last night, little one. What they will do in future I know no more than you."

  The boy said, "Rhu, does this mean I need not be driven away from my mother's house some day?"

  Rhu put his arm for a moment around the boy's shoulder. He said, "I don't know, Kal. But it does mean that your life there may be very different than those of older men. It is too soon to tell."

  The small boy looked up at Dal from the shelter of Rhu's arm. He said, "Are you truly a Scholar?"

  Dal nodded, and the boy said, "Can you win at archery or wrestling?"

  Dal shook his head. "I have never tried any of those things. I have had other things to learn which seemed more important to me on my world."

  The child said scornfully to Dal, "You do not really look strong enough to be a man! Maybe I would rather live in a Men's House after all," and pulled at the little girl at his side. The children ran away. Dal looked after them, shaking his head. As the three walked along the shore toward We-were-guided, Cendri thought, there is really no way to tell what this society will be. There is only one thing certain; it will be different'....

  Inside the gates they walked slowly through the still-shadowed canyons of the dead city. Around them the enormous structures lay, eternally silent, frozen, and Cendri could see where she and Dal had been working, their supplies and recording equipment piled under weatherproof shielding, the tiniest scratch on the hugeness of the ruins. Had they really been built here by a race which seeded all life throughout the Galaxy millions of years ago? Or simply by some society long predating mankind? And the mysterious voices at We-were-Guided—had they any relationship to the ruins at all? Or had they merely come here, separately, to live in the alien city, tied to the old starship with their emotional tie to the women here?

  A disembodied race of aliens, existing in a sphere of pure mind. Cendri knew that there were supposed to be such races; she had never studied one. There were so many races; so many that even University with its enormous explosion of knowledge had only begun to guess at how many there were! If Cendri had speculated about a race disembodied, she would have thought that they would be detached, emotionless, that they would have no emotions. I always thought emotions were something generated fay hormone reactions and physical conditioning____

  No, came the answer from all round her, and she realized that they were standing near the spaceship site and that the warmth and presence of the aliens was all around them. We exist in our thoughts, our feelings. This is why we became so close to your people. We hungered for their feelings, their emotions.

  Cendri knew that all of their thoughts lay open, now, in the Ruins. Telepathy, of course. How else would a disembodied race communicate? How could thought exist with no brain to house it? How could emotions exist with no bodily response to generate them?

  I can understand that, came an answer, and she knew that this time it was Rhu's thought, Rhu's emotion which stood naked before them all, and Cendri found herself remembering—as, she knew, Rhu remembered—the day she had found them in one another's arms here. My Jove for Miranda has nothing to do with the body. 1 had been taught as a boy that what comes between man and women is generated of the hormones of mating and has no other existence, yet I came to know otherwise.

  Then, came the bodiless voices whose feel Cendri could not identify as the aliens, you understand us indeed. We can only exist when we are loved, cared for, welcomed.. .worshipped....

  And Cendri felt Dai's thoughts, directed straight at the alien presences, with anger and something like scorn: Aren't you ashamed of yourselves for pretending to be Gods to these poor gullible women?

  Stranger, we pretended nothing. We are what we are, and receiving love, we gave it in our turn. If their thoughts saw us as Gods, whatever Gods may be, if the nature of a God is to give and receive Jove, then perhaps that is what we are, but 1 can see that in your mind the concept of a God is one who wieJds power.. .it is not so with these women. Is that, stranger, because you are from what these women call the maleworlds?

  Cendri wondered if this was the most fundamental difference between men's societies and women's, after all; that in societies founded by men, the concept of a supreme being was one of Power, and that in women's societies, it was one of Love____

  Dal said, and Cendri felt his focused thoughts angry in the sunrise, You have made them dependent on you!

  We need their Jove to survive, or we become empty air and die, as we slept in Jong terrible loneliness before they came. Why, then, since they meet all our needs, should we deny them help in the meeting of theirs?

  That, Cendri thought, was an uncommonly good question.

  Stranger, only last night did we discover how much they needed help which is simple for us to give; knowledge beforetime of where the ground will tremble, or a great wave strike the shore. If we give them this help they need not impoverish their world to buy machinery which can do this.

  Dal's answer was quick and wrathful: Thus you will encourage them to cut themselves off further from the civilized worlds of the Unity, and persist in their tyranny against men....

  No! Now that we know their men are not what they believed them, dangerously weak creatures.. .we knew their males only through the women's minds, the aliens explained, but now we know that the women and the men are very much alike, we shall speak to both.. .and as for cutting themselves off from the civilized worlds, we do not want that! We are lonely—and curious/ We want people to
come here from everywhere.. .and learn to know us....

  Standing close together before the silent, glowing ship, Dal put his arm around Cendri's waist. She felt his thoughts, open to her as never before. He was envisioning a team of scientists here; maybe a hundred to start; here to explore the Ruins in depth, men and women working together as equals, to demonstrate to the women, and to the men, of Isis, that there was no tyranny in the maleworlds.. .Cendri was surprised to hear him using* the contemptuous term of the women of Isis.. .no tyranny from Unity or University, but that the Unity, and the scientists of University, truly regarded women and men as equals, partners, the inseparable half of a single completed whole, the human race, mankind. This would do more, Dal thought, to demonstrate to Isis that they need not fear male equality, than a thousand years of lectures and teaching and propaganda.

  When they come to know us, they will understand.

  And then she felt his thoughts turn to her, embrace her with a tenderness and warmth she had never guessed. Knowing that here, in the presence of the Builders, her thoughts lay open to him as his to her, Cendri was for a moment ashamed, then, willingly, turned to Dal and embraced him. This it was, then, that Dal felt for her; an acceptance, a respect, a tenderness, which had nothing, or very little, to do with sex; it came from caring, from shared work, from their long time of learning about one another. And as she held him, feeling her own love, so long forgotten in the irritations of daily life, flood back through her, she thought; we have found each other again. Dal, Dal, let's never Jose each other again... and she knew she was crying in his arms.

  Rhu's thoughts blended into theirs, hesitant. I know now what it is that I have been seeking ail my life. Our society does not recognize this, derides it, says it does not exist, yet when I came to Jove Miranda, J knew it must exist somewhere, and now I know that the dream Miranda and I dreamed was real, even if we cannot share it in this world. Cendri felt him lay his soft hand on her arm, on Dai's. Then he let them go, and went to the very foot of the ship. He said, and as he spoke the words Cendri felt them resonating in her mind, with the strength of the thoughts opened here:

  You know what I am. You know what 1 feel. I want nothing for myself. But in my blindness, mistaken, I betrayed Miranda into the hands of those less idealistic than I. Help me to restore her to the arms of her mother and the women of her household, and then Vaniya may do with me as she will.

  A long silence, and Cendri was aware of the warmth, the tenderness surrounding them, aware of the strength of Rhu's love. And at last, when the glow died, she heard Rhu whisper, "Thank you, oh, thank you!"

  The cold dawn wind was around them, and the ruins filled with sunlight, glaring on the towers. The three of them were alone in the ruins; the presences had withdrawn. Rhu said, "Miranda— Miranda—" and suddenly staggered. Dal reached out and caught him, holding him upright. He said, concerned, "Are you all right, Rhu?"

  He wasn't, Cendri thought. He was a ghastly color, his face greyed, his breath coming in gasps; but he leaned on Dal only a moment and pulled himself upright. He said, "Miranda—she is in the center warehouse where lumber and building cement are stored! We must get there at once—" he glanced at Dal and Cendri, gasping, his long slender hands clutching his chest. "You heard—you heard Mother Vaniya say—those warehouses, not even to search them, that they were used only for storing lumber and cement, they will be left to break the force of the waves before they strike on the strengthened dikes elsewhere—Goddess!" he gasped, "if she is alone there—"

  Dal and Cendri tried to reassure him as they hurried out of the ruins and toward the car. Surely Miranda would hear the search, the heavy machinery moving elsewhere in the construction site, would know that something was afoot. Surely even her captors would not abandon her in the direct path of a tidal wave!

  But Rhu was white with terror. He said, "I do not know—I am afraid—so many of the men here—it is ignorance, not evil intent, but they may panic and never think to save her, or they may be so full of anger and resentment, she may suffer for their hatred of Vaniya—"

  "Look," Dal said, "from what we heard that wave isn't due till sometime late in the day, and it's not more than an hour or two after sunrise now. We've got plenty of time to get back to the construction site and start hunting for her. She'll be out of there hours before the wave hits. Come on—" he supported Rhu's staggering steps, helped him into the car. "You'd better let me or Cendri drive, you're in no shape to do anything! Rhu, you've done enough! Cendri, can you drive this thing?"

  "Oh, certainly, I've watched Miranda, it's simple enough," Cendri said, then, looking at Rhu's collapsed face, thought: he's used to seeing women take over all the time, and in a gesture of pure love, said, "You drive, Dal. You're a better driver than I am." He wasn't; but it would do Rhu a lot of good to think so. And, she thought, here on Isis it won't do Dal any harm either!

  Dal climbed behind the wheel, swung the car around, headed down the gravelled road toward the dam site, the surface car eating up Standard Kilometers at a considerable clip, The car rocked and jounced; it had not been designed for rough country roads, but for the streets of Ariadne. It was intended for the sedate rounds of the Pro-Matriarch on her official duties. What they needed was some kind of heavy-duty all-terrain vehicle, but these had all been commandeered for use at the site.

  Cendri sat wedged in beside Rhu, all three of them crowded in the driver's compartment. Suddenly the car shot over an enormous bump—a bump? A section of the road had somehow heaved itself up in front of them; Dal jammed on the brake and they rocked and swayed to the edge of the road.

  "That," said Dal, with tight control, "was absolutely all we needed. Another earthquake!"

  Rhu said, "I cannot see how we needed..." and broke off at the sight of Dai's stormy face. Dal climbed out, examining the road ahead and the wheel of the car.

  "No harm done to the car," he said, "at least none that I can see. The road is something else." He stood looking at the crevasse, not much more than a foot wide, which had shoved up a hump of earth before the wheel. "Just have to push the thing around it, I guess. Lucky the people of Isis go for small surface transit, the enormous people-movers we use on Pioneer couldn't be budged by fewer than ten or twelve men!"

  Between them, they shoved and hoisted the car around the obstacle. Cendri put her shoulder to the wheel with the men; seeing Rhu's drawn face, remembering his bad heart, she tried to discourage him, but he said angrily, "I am a Companion, Scholar Dame, but I can do my part when I must," and Cendri gave in, muttering under her breath, damning the male fetish of strength and pride in their muscles on Pioneer and Isis and every other damned planet under the sun! Any sun!

  The sun was high and they were all dripping with sweat by the time the car was steady on its wheels in the road, and Dal had to lash up a door-handle which twice burst open, with Rhu's belt-thongs before it was safe to drive. But finally they were on their way again, although the car wobbled ominously and Dal said that some arrangement of springs or shock-absorbers meant to steady it underneath had come loose, so that they had to go at a slow pace or it threatened to vibrate itself to pieces. The sun was blinding hot, and Cendri worried at the passing hours; she had not been told precisely at what hour the tidal wave would strike, she had no chronometer in any case, but she knew the margin of safety could not be all that great.

  When they finally came within sight of the construction area the car was stopped in the road by a series of wooden barriers. A woman wearing a badge of office advised them that the site was closed, that it had been evacuated, and that no one was allowed inside, except those working with the final removal of heavy machinery from the endangered area.

  "Where is the Pro-Matriarch Vaniya?" Rhu demanded.

  "She's still inside the site," the woman said, laughing scornfully, "but I'm sure she can get along without her Companion for the afternoon, little fellow. Just go back where you won't get hurt, why don't you? She'll come looking for you when the danger's over."
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br />   For a moment Cendri thought Rhu would strike the woman. Frightened, she grabbed as his arm—any male who attacks a citizen can be summarily destroyed.. .But Rhu's conditioning held. He drew back and said, "Respect, but I insist, I have an important message—"

  "Do get out of our way and stop annoying us," said the woman impatiently, and Cendri realized what she must do. She got out of the car and came around to the official.. .although it was hard, she thought, with a fraction of her awareness still focusing on Unity standards, to think of this woman as an official when she was wearing a pink flowered pajama suit! But by the badge pinned to the suit she knew the woman was in charge. Cendri said severely, "I am the Scholar Dame Cendri Malocq, and Vaniya sent us on an important mission concerning her daughter and heir; let us through at once!"

  The woman pursed her lips. "Right; I did hear her daughter was missing," she said. "Go right ahead, Scholar Dame, but you'd better leave the men here. There are a few rough laborers working on the site still, but Companions and children are supposed to be kept out."

  Cendri said coldly, "I will be responsible for their safety," and the woman, though she still looked hesitant, said, "Well, you know best, Scholar Dame, though I'd advise against it." As Cendri passed the barrier, the woman reached out and touched her on the arm. "The Pro-Matriarch Vaniya is near the edge of the dam's inner wall, supervising the last of the machinery being removed. The quake a little while ago cracked the outer seawall, and they gave up trying to strengthen it to survive the waves. The whole line of machinery— they pulled it back to try and strengthen the inner dike, so there will not be so much to rebuild. But it's a risk. Within the hour—" she consulted a timepiece pinned on her belt, "we have to have every last human being, man or woman, out of there, and every piece of machinery we have to be sure we're saving!"

  Suddenly Cendri recognized the woman. Two days ago, as the sun rose over the shore, this woman had lain next to her and Laurina on the shore, they had embraced as sisters. She saw that the recognition was mutual; the woman quickly put an arm around her shoulders. She said, "I'll go with you, they'll let you through without any more trouble if I'm there. Come on, hurry—do we really need the men with us?"