The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls

by Anissa Gray

  “Yes, but we didn’t have the same dreams, carrying clear messages about coming home to Earth, did we?”

  “I just don’t believe that some computer or whatever that’s many lightyears from here could possibly send a dream into our minds.”

  “Who knows what’s happened back on Earth?” said Issib. “Maybe the Keeper of Earth has learned things about the universe that we don’t begin to understand. That wouldn’t be a surprise, either, since we’ve had the Oversoul making us stupid whenever we tried to think about really advanced physics. For forty million years we’ve been slapped down whenever we used our brains too well, but in forty million years the Keeper of Earth, whoever or whatever it is, might well have thought of some really useful new stuff. Including how to send dreams to people lightyears away.”

  “And all this you learned from the Index.”

  “All this I dragged kicking and screaming from the Index, with Zdorab’s and Father’s help,” said Issib. “The Oversoul doesn’t like talking about itself, and it keeps trying to make us forget what we’ve learned about it.”

  “I thought the Oversoul was cooperating with us.”

  “No,” said Issib. “We’re cooperating with it. In the meantime, it’s trying to keep us from learning even the tiniest bit of information that isn’t directly pertinent to the tasks it has in mind for us.”

  “So how did you learn all that you just told me? About how the Oversoul’s memory works?”

  “Either we got around its defenses so well and so persistently that it finally gave up on trying to prevent us from knowing it, or it decided that this was harmless information after all.”

  “Or,” said Rasa.

  “Or?”

  “Or the information is wrong and so it doesn’t matter whether you know it or not.”

  Issib grinned at her. “But the Oversoul wouldn’t lie, would it, Mother?”

  Which brought back a conversation they had had when Issib was a child, asking about the Oversoul. What had the question been? Ah, yes—Why do men call the Oversoul he and women call the Oversoul she? And Rasa had answered that the Oversoul permitted men to think of her as if she were male, so they’d be more comfortable praying to her. And Issib had asked that same question: But the Oversoul wouldn’t lie, would it, Mother?

  As Rasa recalled it, she hadn’t done very well answering that question the first time, and she wasn’t about to embarrass herself by trying to answer it again now. “I interrupted your work, coming here like this,” said Rasa.

  “Not at all,” said Issib. “Father said to explain anything you asked about.”

  “He knew I’d come here?”

  “He said it was important that you understand our work with the Index.”

  “What is your work with the Index?”

  “Trying to get it to tell us what we want to know instead of just what the Oversoul wants us to know.”

  “Are you getting anywhere?”

  “Either yes or no.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’re finding out a lot of things, but whether that’s just because the Oversoul wants us to know them or not is a moot point. Our experience is that the Index does different things for different people.”

  “Depending on what?”

  “That’s what we haven’t figured out yet,” said Issib. “I have days when the Index practically sings to me—it’s like it lives inside my head, answering my questions before I even think of them. And then there are days when I think the Oversoul is trying to torture me, leading me on wild goose chases.”

  “Chasing after what?”

  “The whole history of Harmony is wide open to me. I can give you the name of every person who ever came to this stream and drank from it. But I can’t find out where the Oversoul is leading us, or how we’re going to get to Earth, or even where the original human settlers of Harmony first landed, or where the central mind of the Oversoul is located.”

  “So she’s keeping secrets from you,” said Rasa.

  “I think it can’t tell us,” said Issib. “I think it would like to tell but it can’t. A protective system built into it from the start, I assume, to prevent anybody from taking control of the Oversoul and using it to rule the world.”

  “So we have to follow it blindly, not even knowing where it’s leading us?”

  “That’s about it,” said Issib. “Just one of those times in life when things don’t go your way but you still have to live with it.”

  Rasa looked at Issib, at the steady way he regarded her, and knew that he was reminding her that nothing the Oversoul was doing to her right now was even close to being as oppressive as Issib’s life in a defective body.

  I know that, foolish boy, she thought. I know perfectly well that your life is awful, and that you complain about it very little. But that was unpreventable and remains incurable. Perhaps the Oversoul’s refusal to tell us what’s going on is also unpreventable and incurable, in which case I’ll try to bear it with at least as much patience as you. But if I can cure it, I will—and I won’t let you shame me into accepting something that I may not have to accept.

  “What the Oversoul can’t tell us for the asking,” said Rasa, “we might be able to find out on the sly.”

  “What do you think Zdorab and I have been working on?”

  Ah. So Issib wasn’t really being fatalistic about it, either. But then another thought occurred to her. “What does your father think you’ve been working on?”

  Issib laughed. “Not that,” he said.

  Of course not. Volemak wouldn’t want to see the Index used to subvert the Oversoul. “Ah. So the Oversoul isn’t the only one that doesn’t tell others what she’s doing.”

  “And what do you tell, Lady Mother?” asked Issib.

  What an interesting question. Do I tell Volemak what Issib is doing and run the risk of Volya trying to ban his son from using the Index? And yet I have never kept secrets from Volemak.

  Which brought her back to the decision she had made earlier that day, to tell Volemak about what happened in the desert—about Elemak passing a sentence of death on Nafai. That could also have awful consequences. Did she have the right to cause those consequences by telling? On the other hand, did she have the right to deprive Volemak of important information?

  Issib didn’t wait for her answer. “You know,” he said, “the Oversoul already knows what we’re trying to do, and hasn’t done a thing to stop us.”

  “Or else has done it so well you don’t know she’s doing it,” said Rasa.

  “If the Oversoul felt no need to tell Father, then is it so urgent, really, for you to do so?”

  Rasa thought about that for a moment. Issib thought he was asking only about his own secret, but she was deciding about both. This was the Oversoul’s expedition, after all, and if anyone knew and understood human behavior, it was the Oversoul. She knows what happened on the desert, just as she knows what Issib and Zdorab are doing with the Index. So why not leave it up to the Oversoul to decide what to tell?

  Because that’s exactly what Zdorab and Issib are trying to find a way to circumvent—the Oversoul’s power to make all these decisions about telling or not telling. I don’t want the Oversoul deciding what I can or cannot know—and yet here I am contemplating treating my husband exactly as the Oversoul treats me. And yet the Oversoul really did know better than Rasa whether Volemak should be informed about these things.

  “I really hate dilemmas like this,” said Rasa.

  “So?”

  “So I’ll decide later,” she said.

  “That’s a decision, too,” said Issib.

  “I know that, my clever firstborn,” said Rasa. “But that doesn’t mean it’s a permanent one.”

  “You haven’t finished your bread,” said Issib.

  “That’s because there’s camel cheese in it.”

  “Really vile stuff, isn’t it,” said Issib. “And you wouldn’t believe how it constipates you.”

  “I can�
��t wait.”

  “That’s why none of the rest of us ever eat it,” said Issib.

  Rasa glared at him. “So why is there so much in the coldbox?”

  “Because we share it with the baboons. They think it’s candy.”

  Rasa looked at her half-eaten sandwich. “I’ve been eating baboon food.” Then she laughed. “No wonder Yobar came into the kitchen tent! He thought I was preparing a treat for him!”

  “Just wait till you actually give him a piece of cheese, and he tries to mate with your leg.”

  “I get goose bumps just thinking about it.”

  “Of course, I’ve only seen him do it with Father and Zdorab. He might be a zhop, in which case he’ll just ignore you.”

  Rasa laughed, but Issib’s crude little joke about the baboon being a homosexual made her think. What if the Oversoul had brought someone along in their company who wasn’t going to be able to perform his siring duties? And then another thought—did the Oversoul send this idea to her? Was it a warning?

  She shuddered and laid her hand on the Index. Tell me now, she said silently. Is one of our company unable to take part? Will one of the wives be disappointed?

  But the Index answered her not at all.

  It was late afternoon and the only one who had killed any game today was Nafai, which annoyed Mebbekew beyond endurance. So Nafai was better at climbing quietly on rocks than Mebbekew was—so what? So Nafai could aim a pulse like he’d been born with it in his hands—all that proved was that Elemak should have fired the thing when he had the chance out on the desert.

  Out on the desert. As if they weren’t still in the desert. Though in truth this place was lush compared to some of the country they had gone through. The green of the valley where they lived was like a drink of cool water for the eyes—he had caught a glimpse of the trees from a promontory a few minutes ago, and it was delicious to his eyes, such a relief after the bleak pale grey and yellow of the rocks and sand, the greyish green of the dryplants that Elemak persisted in naming whenever he saw them, as if anybody cared that he knew every plant that grew around here by its full name. Maybe Elemak really did have cousins among the desert plants. It would hardly have been surprising to know that some distant ancestor of Elemak’s had mated with a prickly grey bush somewhere along the way. Maybe I peed on a cousin of Elya’s today. That would be nice—to show exactly what I think of people who love the desert.

  I didn’t even see the hare, so how could I possibly aim at it? Of course Nafai shot it—he saw it. Of course, Meb had fired his pulse, because everybody else was, too. Only it turned out not to have been everybody else after all. Just Vas, who aimed too low and his pulse set on too diffuse a setting anyway, and Nafai, who actually hit the thing and burned a smoky little hole right in its head. And, of course, Mebbekew, aiming at nothing in particular, so that Elemak had said, “Nice shot, Nafai. You’re aiming low and raggedly, Vas, and tighten the beam. And you, Mebbekew, were you trying to draw a hare on that rock with your pulse? This isn’t an etchings class. Try to aim toward the same planet that the quarry is on.”

  Then Elemak and Nafai headed down to retrieve the hare.

  “It’s getting late,” Mebbekew had said. “Can’t the rest of us go home without waiting for you to find the bunnybody?”

  Elemak had looked at him coldly then. “I thought that you’d want to know how to gut and clean a hare. But then, you’ll probably never need to know how to do it.”

  Oh, very clever, Elemak. That’s how to build up confidence in your poor struggling pupils. At least I fired, unlike Obring, who treats his pulse as if it were another man’s hooy. But Meb said none of that, just glared back at Elya and said, “Then I can go?”

  “Think you can find the way?” asked Elemak.

  “Of course,” said Mebbekew.

  “I’m sure you can,” said Elemak. “Go ahead, and take anybody with you who wants to go.”

  But nobody wanted to go with him. Elemak had made them afraid that Mebbekew would lose his way. Well, he hadn’t lost his way. He had gone in just the right direction, retracing their path quite easily, and when he clambered up to the crest of that hill just to be sure, there was the valley, exactly where he had expected to see it. I’m not completely incompetent, O wise elder brother. Just because I didn’t sweat my way across the desert a few dozen times like you, toting fancy plants on camelback from one city to another, doesn’t mean that I have no sense of direction.

  If only he could figure out exactly when and where he tore his tunic and split the crotch of his breeches. … He really hated it when his clothes weren’t at their best, and these were now soaked with sweat and caked with dust. He’d never be clean again.

  He came to the edge of the canyon and looked down, expecting to see the tents. But there wasn’t a tent in sight.

  For a moment he panicked. They’ve left without me, he thought. They hurried past me, struck the camp and left me behind, all because I couldn’t see the stupid hare.

  Then he realized that he was simply downstream from the camp. There were the tents, up there to the left. And of course he was much closer to the sea. If the Scour Sea had had any waves like the ones on the shore of the Earthbound Sea, he’d have been able to hear the surf from here. And there were the baboons, eking out their miserable supper from the roots and berries and plants and insects and warty little animals that lived near the river and the seashore.

  How did I end up here? So much for my sense of direction.

  Oh, yes. We did walk down this way this morning, when we left Daddy’s lazy wife asleep in the camp and all the lazy women, especially my completely useless stupid lazy wife, lolling around the tents and the garden. That’s the only part of the route that I missed, just that one turn, so big deal, I still have a good sense of direction.

  But he had a really bad taste in his mouth, and he wanted to kick something, he wanted to break something, he wanted to hurt someone.

  And there were the baboons, right down there, stupid doglike animals that thought they were human. One of the females was showing red right now, and so the males were cuffing each other and maneuvering to get a quick poke. Poor stupid males. That’s how we live our lives.

  Might as well go down the canyon wall here and walk up the valley to the camp. And on the way maybe I can get a clear shot at whichever male ends up plugging her siggle. He’ll die happy, right? And Nafai won’t be the only one going home with a dead animal to his credit.

  About halfway down the rugged slope, after scuffing a knee and sliding a couple of times, Meb realized that the lower he got, the worse his line of sight would be toward the baboons. Already there were rocks and bushes blocking his view of some of them, including the ones who were busy trying to mate. However, a smallish one was in plain sight, considerably closer than the others had been. It would be an easier shot anyway.

  Meb remembered what Elemak had taught them earlier in the day and braced his elbows on a boulder as he took aim. Even so, his hands kept trembling, and the more he tried to hold them steady, the worse the sight on the pulse seemed to bounce. And when he pressed his finger against the button to fire, it jostled the pulse again, so that a small jet of smoke erupted from a bush more than six meters from the baboon he had been aiming at. The baboon must have heard something, too, because it whipped around to look at the burning shrub and then backed away in fear.

  But not for long. A moment later it moved in again, and watched the flame as if trying to learn some secret from it. The bush was dry, but not dead, and so it burned only slowly, and with a great deal of smoke. Meb aimed again, this time a little to the right to compensate for the movement that pushing the button would cause. He also found that his hands were a bit more steady this time, and now he remembered that Elemak had stressed the need to relax. So . . . now Mebbekew was doing it just as Elemak had said, and this boon would soon be history.

  Just as he was about to pull the trigger, he was startled by a sharp cracking sound only a meter from his hea
d. His own shot went wild as he turned sharply to look at the place the sound had come from. A small plant growing from a crack in the rock a couple of meters above his head had been burnt to nothing, and smoke was rising from the spot. Since he had just seen the same thing happen to the shrub near the baboon, Meb recognized immediately what had happened. Someone was firing a pulse at him. Bandits had come—the camp was in danger, and he was going to die, off by himself, because the bandits had no choice but to kill him to keep him from giving the alarm. But I won’t give the alarm, he thought. Just let me live and I’ll hide here and be very quiet until it’s all over, just don’t kill me ...

  “What were you doing, shooting at baboons!”

  With a clatter of small stones, Nafai slid down the last slope to stand in on the stone where Meb was standing. Meb saw with some pleasure that Nafai had slipped down just as he had; but then realized that Nafai had somehow done it without losing control, and ended up on his feet instead of sitting on the stone.

  Only then did Meb realize that it was Nafai who had shot at him, and missed him by only a couple of meters. “What were you trying to do, kill me?” demanded Meb. “You not that good a shot that you should be shooting so close to humans!”

  “We don’t kill baboons,” said Nafai. “They’re like people—what are you thinking of!”

  “Oh, since when do people sit around digging for grubs, looking for a chance to tup every woman with a red butt?”

  “It pretty much describes your life, Meb,” said Nafai. “Did you think we were going to eat baboon meat?”

  “I didn’t really care,” said Meb. “I wasn’t shooting for meat, I was going for the kill. You’re not the only one who can shoot, you know.”

  With those words, it occurred to Meb that he and Nafai were alone now, with no one else watching, and Meb had a pulse. It could be an accident. I didn’t mean to touch the button. I was just shooting at a target and Nafai came down out of nowhere. I didn’t hear him, I was concentrating. Please, please forgive me, Father, I feel so terrible, my own brother, I deserve to die. Oh, you’re forgiven, my son. Just let me grieve for my youngest boy, who just got his balls shot off in a terrible hunting accident and bled to death. Why don’t you go get laid while I’m weeping here?