A Plague of Angels

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “I suppose that would work,” agreed Abasio, who had seen a mother cat with a litter of seven search for one missing kitten. “Smart or not, why would you want to help Olly? You don’t even know her.”

  The Bear scratched his jaws and head with both front paws, ending with a vigorous ear massage. “Good thing,” he said at last. “Like eat fish. Like follow bees. Like—winter sleep.”

  “You instinctively want to help her?”

  “Yes.” The Bear lay down and put his muzzle on his paws. “Coyote here sometime. Sleep now.”

  Amazed at himself for doing so, Abasio lay down beside the Bear. If Grandpa could only see him now!

  CHAPTER 12

  If Arakny had had some trouble believing in Coyote, she found it impossible to believe in Bear. She was asleep when he came shambling down the hill in advance of Coyote and Abasio. Big Blue scented him first. The horse’s frantic whinnying awakened. Arakny. She almost fell off the wagon seat when she saw the large furriness sitting quietly on the roadway some distance from them.

  “Not eating you,” remarked the Bear between Arakny’s shrill ululations.

  “Big black bear,” remarked the guardian-angel from its perch on the door. “Not eating you.”

  “He’s not going to eat you,” Abasio reaffirmed, as he came sliding down the bank.

  Big Blue shuddered and stopped whinnying, though he went on snorting, eyes white-rimmed and ears laid flat. Arakny subsided, shamefaced. It had been the surprise that set her off, she told herself. If she hadn’t been so startled, she wouldn’t have yelled like that.

  “Another one!” she blurted.

  “Another what?” asked the Bear, unmistakably annoyed.

  “Another talking animal!” she gasped.

  Bear wrinkled his muzzle and showed his teeth, only slightly. “Six animals talk. Five talk human. Two two-legs Two four-legs. One angel.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be insulting,” Arakny managed to say.

  Coyote remarked, “You weren’t insulting Bear just likes to show he can count and then belabor the point. He has no sense of humor.”

  “Sense humor!” snorted the Bear. “Coyotes laugh at fleas!”

  “How did you know it was a guardian-angel?” asked Arakny.

  “Obvious,” said Bear. “What else?”

  “Two two-legs!” cried Abasio, belatedly. “Where’s Olly?”

  “Asleep,” muttered Arakny. “By the fire.”

  “Nobody’s asleep by the fire!” he cried. “Where is she?”

  Arakny stared stupidly at the fire, gradually coming to herself. “Gone?” she said in disbelief. “Gone?”

  “Where?” cried Abasio again.

  Arakny pointed westward, grimacing to herself. “We’ll catch up to her shortly. She can’t have gone too far. She had this—this compulsion.”

  “She found something out?”

  “I think so. She didn’t say what. Except that she had to get there, to the Place of Power Soon.”

  Abasio ranted. “We can’t let her travel out here alone! It’s dangerous. I’ll harness Big Blue. You put the grill on the wagon.” He took the harness from the peg where Arakny had hung it the night before, calling as he did so, “Which way do we go from here?”

  Arakny pointed up the canyon. “There’s a fork at the top of the canyon up ahead. The left fork turns south, toward Low Mesiko. The right fork continues westward across the prairie. It’s been some years since I’ve traveled to the Place of Power, but I remember the landmarks. Olly will stay on the trail. It’s the shortest way.”

  “We’re short on food,” remarked Abasio. “We’d intended to buy food in Artemisia.”

  “You’re also low on water,” said Arakny. “But if we leave now, we’ll reach Crooked Wash yet today. We can get food and water there.”

  The angel left its perch on the wagon and flew to a branch near where Coyote and Bear were, where it teetered and peered, chuckling to itself over and over, “Big-fur-bear. Tricksy feller.” Abasio harnessed Big Blue, and Arakny fretfully examined their stopping place, searching for anything they might have dropped or overlooked, somewhat handicapped in this effort by her desire to watch the animals.

  “Mother won’t believe this,” she muttered to the world at large, in variations. “Nobody will.”

  Abasio mounted the wagon seat, and Arakny climbed up beside him Bear shambled beside them, and Coyote trotted in the shade between the axles. Neither animal had anything further to say. Time and distance went by almost silently, with only the creak of the harness, the clatter of the wheels, and an occasional snort from Big Blue disrupting the quiet. Their way led gradually upward along the side of the arroyo, a serpentlike trail that came at last over the rim onto level ground and into the blinding rays of the late-afternoon sun. Abasio reached into the wagon and found his driving hat, pulling its wide brim down to shield his eyes.

  Arakny pointed ahead, toward the blue mountains. “Big River is between us and the mountains. You can’t see the valley yet. Crooked Wash is about halfway—”

  “We should be able to see Olly! How far ahead could she have gone?”

  “We’ll catch up to her,” Arakny said. “She’ll have to stop to rest, or eat.”

  A mile farther on Coyote leaped into the wagon and went to sleep. Bear disappeared over a ridge and did not reappear for some time and then only at a distance. The angel drowsed on one leg, its head sunk into its feather ruff.

  “Coyote told you and Olly what happened?” Abasio asked Arakny.

  Arakny nodded. “It was probably the relief—knowing you were alive, were all right. She was terribly grieved about not going after you.”

  Abasio said, “I thought they would kill me.” He swallowed and looked resolutely ahead. “I should tell you about the walkers. Something has been bothering me ever since it happened. I’m almost certain the walkers killed the three gangers without meaning to.”

  “Accident,” murmured Coyote from behind them. “They killed the men by accident.”

  “Accident?” questioned Arakny.

  “As though they didn’t know that what they were doing could be fatal,” said Abasio. “It was like a bull charging someone with his horns, because that’s what bulls do! They just did it, as if they were designed to do it. They didn’t think about its killing anyone.”

  “Maybe they didn’t care?” asked Arakny.

  Abasio shook his head thoughtfully. “I don’t think care is the right word. They intended to question the men further, but by that time the men were dead.”

  Inside the wagon, Coyote raised his head and sniffed. “I smell smoke!”

  “Up ahead,” verified Abasio. “A town, I think.”

  “Crooked Wash,” said Arakny. “Since we don’t want to draw a lot of attention and stir up a lot of talk, it would be wise to keep our visit casual.”

  “No talking coyotes, right?” asked Coyote with a little sneer. “No talking bears?”

  “Frankly, I think we’d be less conspicuous without undomesticated animals of any description.”

  “I’ll tell Bear,” Coyote said, shaking himself awake.

  “We’ll rejoin you later.”

  He leaped from the wagon and was gone, leaving the two humans to go on toward the village. As they came closer, the dwellings seemed to emerge as though from the earth, a dozen sprawling mud houses arranged haphazardly around a dusty square.

  “Crooked Wash,” said Arakny, pointing toward the narrow, twisting canyon that bordered the dwellings on the south. “Ahead, to your left, there’s a footpath down to the water. You fill the water barrel while I dicker for some food.” She jumped from the wagon and strode off toward one of the dwellings, where she entered its courtyard without knocking.

  Abasio noted the sign of thistles above the gate. “Wide Mountain Clan,” he said to no one in particular as he drove on to the edge of the arroyo, where he got out to stare at the stone dam that made a small pool below them Wooden buckets, iron-hooped, stood be
side the overflow pipe.

  His presence had been noticed by others, a few here, a few there women drifting from their houses; children bubbling up from the arroyo; a horseman jogging in from the north, dogs sniffing the wagon wheels, their necks bristling as they growled in the back of their throats. By the time Abasio had brought two brimming buckets up, there were a dozen folk eager to carry water in return for the novelty of talking with strangers.

  It was not long until Arakny returned, several children trailing behind her with string bags and baskets. She opened the wagon door and stowed the contents as the children passed them up to her: vegetables and fruit, corn meal, and meat.

  Arakny’s kerchief elicited respectful questions: Did the Wide Mountain woman need help? Did the Wide Mountain woman desire cooked food? How about company for their journey? To all of which Arakny replied courteously no and no and no, they were going west for a bit, but the journey was neither important nor urgent. Just a young dyer being escorted to the western trail, the one that led toward the Faulty Sea.

  They were on their way within the hour. Coyote rejoined them when they were out of sight of the village, and a bit farther on, Bear came from behind a clump of cactus to scuffle along behind, sniffing at this and digging at that, falling behind, then galloping to catch up again.

  “Bear knows a good place to stop for the night,” Coyote informed Abasio with a doggy grin. “To your right, ahead, there’s a spring and a grove of trees.”

  “I can’t stop,” grated Abasio. “We haven’t found Olly.”

  “I’ll go looking, sniffing her out, as soon as you’re settled,” said Coyote. “I can catch up to her more easily on my own.”

  “Then why didn’t you—”

  “Because I was tired too!” Coyote snapped. “I’ve had some rest now, so now I’ll find her!”

  The day had almost gone by the time they came to the spot. Bear knew of, only enough light left to see to the necessary chores of firewood, food, and harness. Coyote and Bear disappeared into the surrounding dusk to find their own suppers and to go look for Olly’s trail, so they said, while Arakny made stewed meat with corn dumplings and peppers. She claimed it was a family recipe, and she used the cooking time to give Abasio a lengthy history of the Wide Mountain Clan while the fire crackled and their dinner steamed fragrantly.

  Before their supper was ready, Coyote returned, licking his jaws, to announce that he and Bear had found Olly’s trail and were going after her.

  Abasio stood staring after them as they moved off into the darkening landscape, Coyote’s nose to the ground, Bear shambling after him. He should go with them. He said so to Arakny.

  “You’d fall on your face,” she said impatiently. “It’s dark. You can’t smell out a trail, and they can. They’ll find her if she’s to be found. Settle down. Get some rest. Tomorrow may be harder than today.”

  “Is that an Artemisian saying?”

  “It’s a truth of life,” she snorted. “Always. In Artemisia as elsewhere.” She stirred the pot.

  He sighed, trying to think of something besides Olly “Does Wide Mountain Clan make the laws in Artemisia?”

  “We don’t really have laws. We have justice, which is another matter. Before men went to the stars, I have read they had laws instead of justice. Among us, each dispute is settled on the basis of equity, not upon the basis of rules someone has made up.”

  “You settle your disputes on the basis of what people need?”

  “No, on what is needful, not only on man’s needs but upon the needs of animals and trees and rivers as well. We are all one. Our needs are one.”

  Abasio gestured toward the dark, where the animals had gone. “So Bear could ask for justice from your people?”

  Arakny flushed, as though slightly embarrassed. “We have persons who serve as representatives of animals or trees or rivers, and we have decided disputes in favor of bears. It would be interesting to have a Bear argue his own best interests.”

  “You sound very well-regulated.”

  Arakny shrugged. “It is not onerous. We make sure all our people have opportunities for study, and child-bearing and rearing, and adventure—”

  “And p’nash,” said Abasio, in a sarcastic tone.

  “That too,” agreed Arakny, grinning at him. “Lots of opportunity for dancing and singing and p’nash.”

  Abasio said a few choice words about p’nash, indicting Black Owl first, then most Artemisians by association, and finally Olly because she had defended them, the whole explosion surprising him as much as it did Arakny.

  “You’re upset,” she said unnecessarily.

  “I’m worried about her!” he cried. “I love her! Damn it. I’ve loved her since the first minute I laid eyes on her. We’ve spent days and days together, and I still love her, and now she’s just—gone like this.”

  “Are you two sweethearts? I know you’re not man and wife, so don’t tell me that.”

  “What would you know about man and wife!” he grumped at her.

  “Those from the Faulty Sea, they marry one another. I’ve watched how they act toward one another.”

  “Well, what would you know about sweethearts, then?”

  “I’ve had a few,” she said. “Lovers. We don’t just go to the dances and end the evening with a general orgy, you know. That’s not what p’nash is, though you seem determined to think so.”

  “I don’t really. It’s just—I love her, and I haven’t been able to—and she—”

  “You don’t know how she feels?”

  “She’s … she doesn’t feel anything for me, so far as I know. Sisterly, maybe.”

  “She feels a great deal more than you think,” said Arakny, sleepily. “You should have seen her face when she thought you were dead.”

  Guiltily, Abasio thought about that for a long time. He opened his mouth to pursue the subject further, hearing in that instant a soft little snore from the bunk above. He changed his mind.

  Some distance west of them, Olly lay rolled in her blanket under a sheltering arroyo bank beside the embers of her campfire, her food packet and water bottle beside her Late in the night, she awoke all at once, thinking someone had called her name. She listened, but heard nothing. There was no sound of bird, no distant yip of coyote. Even the insects were quiet, probably because of the cold. It was the cold that had awakened her. Beneath the glassy heavens, the air had turned to ice! She should have brought another blanket. Failing that, she needed to put some wood on the few vagrant coals that breathed beside her, seeming almost to sigh beneath their ashes as they glowed and faded and glowed once more.

  She rose, the blanket wrapped tightly around her shoulders, and went up out of the arroyo, onto the desert, away from her sleeping place toward a patch of dead cedar she had seen before she’d lain down. It showed darkly against the sand in the light of the stars. She caught no glimpse of those who waited there until they rose up on either side of her.

  Abasio and Arakny found the blanket at first light, still lying beside the patch of sage. Coyote, who had brought them there in some haste, pawed at it with an expression of disgust and said it reeked of the smell of walkers.

  Mitty and Berkli were having supper together in Berkli’s quarters, served by Berkli’s servants, drinking Berkli’s wine.

  “Ellel’s going to do it, isn’t she,” Mitty said, making no question of it.

  “Probably,” said Berkli. “I saw her going out the gate at sunset with a couple of walkers and some of her people. She had an air of elation about her. I have no doubt she’ll return sooner or later with some hapless young woman.” He twirled his glass, staring through it. “Sometimes I think Ellel has willed this woman into being. She has created her, by sheer force of determination and desire.”

  “I keep wondering why,” Mitty mumbled. “I mean, when this shuttle project was first conceived of in my grandparents’ time, it made some sense. There really were materials in that space station that we needed, or thought we did. Since that ti
me, however, we’ve found most of what we need right here.”

  “Or we’ve learned to do without.”

  “But the project goes on, like some monster set into motion that we can’t shut down. Do you really want to go into space, Berkli? Or to the moon? Why?”

  “Why do we do a. lot of things? Why did our forefathers come here in the first place?”

  “Why—they came because civilization around them was being wiped out by drugs and disease and monsters. They were faced with retreating into savagery or finding somewhere where knowledge and technical skills could be preserved. They’d heard there was power remaining here, cities remaining here. And there were, of course Are. And we’re sitting on the only fusion power source in the world, one that is automatic and eternal, so far as we know. We can’t get into it to check, but, as Ander so elegantly puts it, who cares what’s going on inside, so long as the output is what we need.” Mitty laughed shortly. He did care, immensely. He very much wanted to know, but several generations of Mittys had failed in their attempts to get into the power source to examine it. “We’ve done reasonably well by the world, Berkli. We’ve educated teachers who’ve educated whole generations of Edgers. Without us, it’s possible they wouldn’t have survived.”

  Berkli stared into his wineglass, finding his reflection there among vagrant glimmers of lamplight. “Do you ever wonder where the monsters came from?”

  “Hadn’t we always had them?”

  “Not according to Berkli family history. About the time men went to the stars, monsters started to turn up here and there and everywhere. There was one in Urop, a giant water creature out of a lake somewhere. Nessie, it was called. Then trolls began infesting the forests. Big Foots, they were called then. Then came wiverns and griffins and dragons. And ogres, eating men! It’s all there, in the Berkli family notebooks, each new appearance described.”

  Mitty shook his head. “I haven’t thought much about monsters, I’m afraid. But then, the Mitty family’s always been single-mindedly devoted to the technical end of things. Since there were so few technicians and scientists left, preserving their knowledge became rather a religion with us.”