A Plague of Angels

by Sheri S. Tepper

  She could not deal with this matter of her own identity and existence. She had no picture of herself as a person. She was only Orphan, only what she had been raised to be. Any other way led to panic and horror and dreams in the night that made her wake up in terror.

  Oracle put an arm around her. “Don’t be disconsolate, child. We must all leave the nest sooner or later to make our home elsewhere.”

  “But you’ve warned me about going out into the world!” she cried in panic. “There are monsters! The mountains are full of them! Look at all those people who came with the concubine, just for protection against trolls and ogres and dragons. People traveling alone don’t have a chance. Then there’re the cities! Burned Man warned me about cities.”

  “It will be difficult, but you can avoid monsters, and you can stay out of the cities.”

  Orphan felt herself snarling. “I’d need money.”

  “I’ll give you what you need,” said Oracle. “Everyone who comes for a prediction pays me in silver rats or golden sparrows. I’ve a case of coin back in the cavern, with nothing whatsoever to spend it on.”

  “It all sounds thrilling, Oracle. I can’t wait.” Orphan wept, tears streaming down her face.

  Oracle got a certain look on her face, as though she wanted to say one thing but had to say another.

  Orphan knew that expression. “You know something,” she said, wiping angrily at her face. “That’s what’s brought this whole business up this morning. You know something.”

  Oracle looked at her feet. “A little vision,” she said uneasily.

  “Vision of what?”

  “Of your being here when a new Orphan comes. Of your being—disposed of, to make room.” She threw up her hands. “Child, do think about it. If the time comes, it’ll be easier if you’ve thought about it. And while you’re at it, think of a name for yourself. You can’t go out into the world calling yourself Orphan.”

  Orphan tried to think up a name for herself and failed. She tried to think about going, but her mind veered away from the idea, refusing to consider it. Why not wait until the time? Wait until the new Orphan arrived. Then she’d worry about it.

  Except then it might be too late. Then they might just take her out of the village, not give her time to—time to decide anything. Time to pack, even.

  Ludicrous! What did she have to pack? Three smocks, two blankets, a coverlet, and two towels, one of them with holes. Two cups, one cracked, one chipped. She couldn’t take the tea chest or the cot or the kettle. They’d been here in the Orphan’s Hovel from the beginning.

  She wouldn’t go. She wouldn’t consider it. She’d make this tocsin inside her head go away. She’d ignore it. She wouldn’t listen to it. Nothing would change. She would go on just as she always had.

  So she told herself. So she tried to make happen. It did no good. At night she dreamed and wakened, dreamed and wakened, each time with the horrid feeling that someone she knew and loved was calling her name and she was refusing to answer!

  CHAPTER 4

  Under the Dome at the Place of Power, upon the small mezzanine halfway up the cylindrical interior, a corroded console was set crookedly into the wall and connected by a tangle of cables to complicated receptors far below. Into these receptors, information flowed automatically, much of it from great distances, causing numbers to flicker upon the console if anyone cared to observe them. So many thousands of walkers present beneath the Dome. So many assigned for duty elsewhere. So many people born, died, killed here, there, everywhere. So many acres under cultivation. So many farm animals bred and born. So many animals, formerly thought to be extinct. So many creatures sighted, formerly thought to be mythical. …

  It was Jobo Berkli’s habit to consult this console at least once every three or four days, out of curiosity if nothing else. He was careful to do it when Ellel wasn’t about, not that there was anything wrong about his being there. He was The Berkli, head of his clan just as she was. The Ellel, head of hers. Even though the Dome itself had become known as Ellel territory, she had never said a word about his not reading the console if he liked. It was just that he found her presence intensely and increasingly disturbing. With every passing day, she became more strange and discomforting. Despite that, he felt it was important to know what was happening out in the world, away from the Place of Power. Also, as a purely personal idiosyncrasy, he needed to know precisely how many walkers there were actually in or near the Place. They gave him the horrors. He pretended otherwise to Ellel. It was never wise to let Ellel know if one was frightened or embarrassed or upset, but nonetheless, the walkers sometimes terrified Berkli into complete immobility. Knowing how many there were helped. Then he knew how frightened to get, whether he could risk wandering about behind his well-practiced mask of mocking unconcern, or whether it was wiser to lock himself in his rooms for a few days.

  So now he examined the number flickering upon the console with a good deal of interest. Ellel wanted a certain number for “security,” and Fashimir Ander, The Ander, wanted some set aside for “settlement.” Ellel said “security” meant protection against the monsters who roamed the canyons and forests outside the wall, which had some sense to it. “Settlement,” however, at least in Berkli’s opinion, was ridiculous! Fifty years ago Fashimir Ander’s granddaddy had wanted to reopen the moon mines. After he died, the notion had been forgotten for decades (an appropriate neglect, to Berkli’s mind), only to reemerge recently when Fashimir had remarked:

  “Since the shuttle will be finished soon, and so long as we’re going to the space station anyway, we’ll flit on over to the moon and reestablish the settlements, as my grandfather suggested long ago.”

  Berkli had not been paying attention—he couldn’t bear to usually, because when one listened to Ander, one simply couldn’t keep a straight face—and it was only the insouciant arrogance of that “flit on over” that caught his awareness Then, when Ellel had responded with enthusiasm, Berkli had realized what was going on and reacted with an explosion of choked breath that covered hysterical laughter.

  He still giggled every time he thought about flitting on over to the moon, yet another one of the Ander-Ellel series that had begun when they were children: I’m going to be Queen of the earth someday. You be Queen, and I’ll be King. We’ll finish the shuttle and go to the space station. We’ll flit on over to the moon. It was all part of the Ellel-Ander style. Dramatic. Ritualized. Egocentric, with either of themselves at the center of the stage. Witness the way Ander dressed! Witness this new conceit of Ellel’s, going always robed and masked, unseen except for her glittering eyes!

  Though it was not Berkli’s style to be confrontational, when he had heard those words, flit on over to the moon, he had put aside his usual pose of teasing uninterest to ask:

  “How are you going to flit on over anywhere when you don’t have a guidance system?”

  “We’ll get it,” Ellel had asserted with the absolute conviction that she had displayed since her father disappeared, the tone of pure purpose that always made the hair on Berkli’s neck stand up. “We’ll find the person we need, and we’ll get it.”

  She had turned her eyeholes on him then, those two shadowed caverns she hid behind, watching him like a dragon from a lair. He had only kept himself from trembling with some effort. She did that to him. She had an answer for everything. She had even managed to come up with a reason for moon settlements: “As security against a sneak attack from space.”

  Neither she nor Ander had said who was going to mount such an attack. Mutated members of the human race? Their own earth people, back from Orion or Alpha Centauri or wherever it was they’d gone? Some wild tribe from Low Mesiko who had reinvented space travel? Some previously unperceived alien presence? Moon monsters? Little green men?

  Ellel seldom felt it necessary to identify a threat specifically. Her paranoia had room for enemies unlimited. “Some inimical force!” she had cried, not bothering to name it.

  Of course, Ellel and Ander were
right about one thing: Ellel’s walkers could succeed on the moon where humans evidently hadn’t. Walkers could assuredly survive there, forever if need be. And one had to admit the effort to put them there was no more useless than nine-tenths of the things men did now or had done once.

  “In my opinion,” he murmured to himself now, with a moue of self mockery. “Only in my humble opinion.”

  He heaved a self-conscious sigh and returned to his examination of the console. Whatever the ostensible reason for having walkers in the Place, there were too damned many of them. Berkli stumbled over them every time he turned around. He pressed a button and other numbers flickered by, receiving only a glance. Estimated population here and there, number of square miles under cultivation, number of square miles in desert, in wasteland, and so on and so on. Reforestation, Fisheries, Animal herds. Precipitation.

  For generations the Four Families, the Ellels and Anders and Berklis and Mittys, had been collecting information about the world at large, including places and peoples over whom they had little influence and no control. Not that Ellel didn’t try to control them. She was always threatening war or withdrawal of trade So far, Jobo Berkli and Osvald Mitty—The Mitty—had been able to dissuade her. The Families needed imported food and fiber and ores and lumber far more than manlanders or Artemisians or tribesmen needed manufactured goods. Convincing Ander of that was getting more and more difficult, and convincing Ellel of anything was impossible She had always preferred to prevail by force rather than by diplomacy, and Ander trailed after her like a puppy.

  Even though the figures were worthless in a utilitarian sense, Berkli enjoyed following the trends. Eventually, when the Four Families got around to rebuilding civilization, as Ellel was determined they would, the data might be used for something.

  Unfortunately, it would probably be Ellel who’d end up attempting the rebuilding, and her idea of civilization did not accord with Berkli’s definition. She’d been a tyrant even as a child. He remembered himself at age twenty coming upon her at age eight, playing she was Empress of Earth and readying herself to behead several of her playmates. She’d been furious with Berkli for taking her sword away, sharp as a razor it had been, and God knew where she’d found that! At the time Berkli had thought it was the game of a lonely child who hadn’t been properly socialized. Later, he’d realized it wasn’t a game at all.

  At least, Berkli giggled to himself, she’d learned not to use a real knife on other Family members where anyone could see her. Not that it was funny, it wasn’t. Just that one had to laugh, or one would be sick!

  The memory spoiled the morning for him. He wouldn’t bother with the rest of the figures. Instead, he shut down the console and went through a narrow door that led to the spiderweb balcony running around the outside of the Dome. The view was splendid. He could see the entire Place of Power, together with the surrounding countryside. Or chasmside, as it were.

  North of the Dome was the golden bulk of Gaddi House, looming at the very rim of the canyon, impenetrable and enigmatic, just as it had been when the Ellels had first arrived. After their arduous journey, they’d expected welcome, at the very least. Wasn’t the Place derelict, and weren’t the people there in need of succor? Not according to Gaddi House, which had met the arrival with total equanimity, not to say uninterest. Gaddi House had not even opened its gates. Despite that huge bulk standing there, virtually empty so far as anyone could tell, the Ellels had been forced to camp under the dilapidated Dome until they’d built homes for themselves. As had the Berklis and the Anders and the Mittys, each in their turn. It was during those times that the newcomers began referring to themselves as Domers, while calling those who lived in and around the great cube of Gaddi House “those damned snooty Gaddirs.”

  Snooty, because taciturn Or often, just plain silent. The Gaddir habit of saying nothing, and that in the fewest possible words, was infuriating, and though the other three families had become more or less accepting of Gaddir silence, the Ellels continued to be enraged by it. While the Domers chattered and rumored and whispered, loquacious as magpies, the Gaddirs merely smiled and nodded and refused to confirm or deny anything.

  Of the three original families in Gaddi House, there were now only a few feeble oldsters left, said the, Domers. Maybe only one, said the Domers, Gaddi House had no purpose, said the Domers. The reason Gaddirs wouldn’t say what went on inside was because nothing went on inside, said the Domers. Meantime, the Gaddirs took no notice of all this conjecture but merely went on about their inscrutable business. Gaddi House might be virtually unoccupied, Gaddi House might be only a monstrous vacancy, but it remained mysteriously and impenetrably closed to non-Gaddirs, for all that.

  When Berkli tired of looking at Gaddi House, he turned his attention to the silo, which had held a quarter-finished shuttle when the Four Families arrived, and now, after lifetimes of effort, held one that was virtually complete. The original plans had been followed, the original specifications adhered to, except in one case, and except for that case, the bird was almost ready to fly. Berkli supposed it was exciting, if one cared about that kind of thing.

  Extending from the base of the silo south and west was a Domer clutter of storage depots, foundries, factories, shops, greenhouses, stables, barns, and residences, all of which, down to the least tool shed, were contained within a massive and well-guarded wall. The Four Families had seen to the building of the wall, designed as much to keep the residents in (so Berkli often accused) as to keep the monsters out. Outside the main gates was the marketplace, a level, graveled area where local farmers brought their produce and truckers brought their imports and Artemisians brought whatever they thought appropriate to trade for whatever they had decided they needed.

  Berkli rather admired the Artemisians, not least because Ellel disliked them. Artemisians were relentless in their application of common sense, eschewing sentimentalism, refusing to be moved by eloquence or ceremony, disregarding lineage and pride therein, making no claim of nationhood. They might be wrong, so they admitted even to themselves, but they were damned well going to live as good sense demanded, in accordance with the needs of earth itself, of which the people of Artemisia—or any humans—were only a part.

  Ellel had no respect for this point of view. In Ellel’s worldview, humans were the apex of creation, Ellels were the apex of humanity, and she herself was at the very peak of Elleldom. It was her intention to “civilize” the Artemisians. She’d probably end up killing every last one of them in the attempt.

  When Berkli tired of looking at the Place, he considered the scenery for a while, finding it as always marvelous but unrevealing. Anything could be hiding out there, anything at all! From time to time, so the guards said, trolls came howling out of the canyons to prowl along the base of the wall. From time to time minotaurs bellowed there, or giants and ogres came from the canyons to scratch at the stones. No assault by monsters had ever succeeded in breaching the wall, and as though the monsters knew it to be impossible, no one had ever seen them really try.

  Berkli turned and turned again, finding the view as usual. The world had not changed in the past few days. The world changed little, if at all.

  Sighing, Berkli returned to the mezzanine, sat in the chair, and let it carry him around the curve of the wall in a slow spiral downward. The ramp turned lazily, a long curving drop, like a swerving seed blown from a tall tree. Once at floor level he strolled toward the residential annex where he had his own apartments. Considering the number of walkers about, he would stay sequestered for a few days!

  “Berkli!” he was hailed.

  He turned to greet the colleague who had crept silently up behind him: Fashimir Ander, his velvet slippers soundless on the floor, his dark hair waxed into complicated coils, his silken draperies wafting gently on the air.

  “Ander,” Berkli greeted him in a carefully neutral voice. He hadn’t seen. The Ander for some days. All the Anders spent a good deal of time among themselves, disappearing periodically into fa
milial retreat.

  “Was there any significant information on the console this morning?” Ander asked.

  Berkli frowned impatiently. Had there been significant information? Some of the population figures had seemed a little low. That might be significant, but he decided against mentioning it. Why let himself in for an argument! If he said something was important, Ander would simply run to Ellel with it.

  Berkli decided upon diversion. “There was nothing about this Gaddir girl. The Ellel is looking for, if that’s what you mean. Have you considered that whole business may be based on false hope?”

  “What is false will be true,” Ander said, almost indifferently. “That much is doctrine.”

  Berkli snorted, truly amused. “Oh, for our forefathers’ sake, Ander! Ellel made it doctrine. Let’s not fall into the trap of believing our own propaganda! She’s the one who made up the ceremony. I admit, we’ve picked a few things we want to change and said so, but we said them. We said agriculture could use a boost, and we said certain areas should be resettled, and we said population should be increased to support a higher level of technology. They weren’t the words of God.”

  Though Ellel would make them words of God, herself as deity, given half a chance.

  “Ellel is frequently right,” Ander said stiffly. “And she’s convinced she’ll find the Gaddir child. When she does, what will you say then?”

  Berkli grinned to hide what he actually felt, a cold hollow behind his breastbone. “What could I say? I’d bow down before you both; I’d admit defeat. Until that unlikely day, however, allow me to believe this Gaddir offspring is pure mythology.”

  “When the old Gaddir, Werra, was alive, I myself heard him say—”

  Berkli forced himself to interrupt “As you yourself recorded the incident, what Werra said was Delphic at best! ‘Gaddir girls, particularly those without family, often display a patterning talent useful in steering the heavens.’ Now that could mean a number of things, Fashimir. Some of them metaphysical!”