The Awakeners - Northshore & Southshore

by Sheri S. Tepper

  "Where is the crusade now?" Tharius Don asked, knowing the answer already but wishing to get the conversation away from those around the table and onto something less emotionally charged. He was rigid in his chair, yet twitchy, full of nervous energy. New adherents to the cause were being reported almost daily. For reasons he could not admit even to himself, he had been delaying the strike for months, and it could not be put off much longer. With every week that passed, the fear of discovery grew more imminent and compelling. In his heart he thanked the gods for the crusade, even though it had put Pamra Don at risk. It had drawn the Chancery's attention, for a time. "What's the name of the town?"

  "A few days ago, she was in Chirubel," Bossit answered in a weary, irritated voice. He did not want the fliers stirred up any more than they were, and though this matter had not yet seemed to upset them, who knew what it might mean in the future. And with Lees Obol failing so fast . . . though he had only the Jondarites' word for that. No one else could get nearer to him than across the room. He shook his head and rasped, "A watchtower relay brought word. The pits in Chirubel are full. There was a great storm there, and many of her followers died."

  "Died?" Tharius had not heard this.

  "Old people, mostly. The great mob of them have no proper provision of food or shelter. The towns have been instructed to put their own surplus foodstuffs under guard, and the Jondarites have been ordered to prevent looting. So, there is a good deal of hunger. Which begets a regrettable tendency to eat off the land, as it were."

  "Violence?"

  "Some. Fights break out. Mostly the deaths are old people dying of lung disease brought on by cold and hunger. Some younger ones, too, through accidents or violence. Some children and babies, the same."

  "So, the pits are full," Gendra mused. "Well, the fliers wanted the quota of bodies increased. They should be happy."

  "Ezasper Jorn," queried Bossit, "what mood are the fliers in?"

  Jorn, huddled in his chair wrapped in three layers of blankets, blinked owlishly at them from his cavern of covers. "Voiceless as mulluks. They may not understand what's going on so far as a crusade is concerned. They don't seem curious, but then they've seen these little skirmishes before. We've had intertown wars; we've had rebellions put down by the Towers. That kind of thing has filled the worker pits from time to time over the centuries, so they might not think much of it. In short, they do not seem to be concerned. It's a local phenomenon, after all."

  "They'll scarcely change their reproductive habits on the basis of this temporary glut, which, at most, affects ten or a dozen towns." Koma Nepor was using his best pedant's voice, reserved for meetings such as this where chortle and giggle would not serve. "I agree with Jorn. They'll stuff themselves for a time; then the movement or whatever it is will fizzle out as these things always do; and they'll go back to normal."

  "Hungry normal," commented Gendra with a vast grinding of teeth. "In those towns, at least. With all the oldsters gone, the death rate will be low for a time."

  She reflected upon this. There was no reason the average lifespan should not be somewhat shortened. For parents, say, fifteen years after the birth of the last child.

  Or even twelve. For nonreproducers, earlier, unless they filled some important niche in the town economy. She would send word to the Towers. Fuller pits around the world would please the fliers, and if she could start currying the favor of the Talkers even now ...

  "So, the Talkers will tell the fliers to move across town lines and share." Shavian was heartily weary of the entire discussion.

  "The point is not what the fliers will or will not do, though it may come to that later. The point is, what are we to do?"

  Tharius stirred uneasily. He had been arguing the proper course of action with himself for days now, first yes, then no, both sides with reasons that seemed equally good. Now he must choose.

  "Have her brought before me," he said firmly, nothing in his voice betraying either how little faith he had in his own recommendation or how deeply he was invested in its success. "Have her brought here. We know where she is. We do not need to wait for Laughers to find her. They were instructed, had they found her, to bring her here, so let us get on with it. Send word to the Jondarites in - what's the next town west, Gendra?" He knew perfectly well. Pamra Don had surfaced in a hotbed of the cause. The dozen towns west of Thou-ne were all rife with rebellion, and their Towers were full of Tharius's men.

  "Rabishe-thorn," she responded absently, even as she peered at him with searching eyes. What was he up to? "Rabishe-thorn, then Falsenter. If we send word now, they should be able to intercept her in one or the other."

  "Send word she is not to be harmed," Tharius went on in an emotionless voice, praying the quivering of his hands clasped in his lap could not be seen. "As Propagator of the Faith, I need to know everything she knows, and I won't get it if she's too frightened or abused or - forbid it - dosed with Tears. It will take months for her to reach us overland. During that time, the crusade will be effectively stopped since she will not be there to lead it." And this was the bait he hoped would bring them. Though he was thankful for the distraction she had provided, he wanted Pamra safe. With the day of the strike approaching, with his own inevitable mortality close at hand, he wanted to know she was well. I want to leave something behind me, he told himself, as though talking to Kessie. Kessie, I want to leave a posterity - silly though that may seem. I want it.

  None of this was the business of the gathering. He pulled himself into focus and said again, "The crusade will dissipate while she is on her way here."

  Gendra would have liked to find something wrong with his reasoning, but she couldn't. Gendra wanted Pamra Don killed, both because it was her nature to dispose of wild factors in that way and because some instinct told her it would be a very good idea. Pamra Don and Tharius Don. And the lady Kesseret. An odd group, that. An untrustworthy group. When she, Gendra, became Protector of Man, her first order to the Jondarites would be to do away with certain of the Chancery staff. And certain Tower Superiors. And others. She smiled, a rare, awful smile, showing her teeth.

  Shavian, his eyes darting between them as though watching a game of net-ball, nodded in approval. The general glared but did not object. Why would he? He would sooner believe in plots than in no plots.

  Ezasper Jorn and Koma Nepor simply watched, listened, said little. Having plans of their own, they didn't care about these things. And as for Lees Obol, his voice came to them plaintively from the curtained niche behind them. "Somebody get me my pot."

  The Jondarites outside the niche moved to the Protector's service. Gendra stood up and ordered tea in a loud voice, at least partly to disguise the sounds emanating from the curtained room. There was general babble for a few moments, for which Tharius Don was very grateful. A Jondarite brought the Protector's teapot into the hall and set it upon a distant table, over a lamp, ready when the Protector asked for it. Behind it, the curtain glowed red as blood in the light of the warmer.

  Tharius found his eyes fixed on it, as though it were an omen.

  He joined the babble, adding to it. When they came to order once again, his suggestion would be remembered, but his own connection with it would be somewhat overlaid by later conversation. A subtlety, he felt, but nonetheless acceptable. Even subtlety was welcome.

  And yet, except for his own emotional needs, why bother? He had asked himself this more than once in the preceding days and weeks, ever since the first word of the crusade had come via seeker bird and watchtower. Servants of the cause had passed the word along, knowing Tharius Don would want to know. Mendicants of the Jarb had passed the word along, for Chiles Medman had asked them to. The Jarb Houses were firm supporters of the cause, to Tharius's amazement, though Chiles had explained why.

  They had met by chance on one of the outer walls of the Chancery compound, brought there by a day of inviting sun and more than seasonable warmth, encountering one another quite by accident and remaining together because not to h
ave done so would have looked suspiciously like avoidance or disaffection.

  Avoidance was as suspect as propinquity. There were always watchers. They had fallen into conversation, the first they had ever held outside the context of the conspiracy. They had spoken of the nature of fliers.

  "Look at a flier through the smoke sometime, Tharius Don." Chiles Medman had held out his pipe, as though inviting Tharius to do it then and there. There were no fliers closer than Northshore that anyone had reported, though there might have been a dozen of them spying from the high peaks for all anyone knew.

  "What do you see, Medman? A differing reality?" Tharius was touchy about this.

  "We see them stripped of our own delusion, Tharius Don. Through the smoke they look like nothing much except winged incarnations of pride."

  "Pride?" He had not really been surprised. Everyone knew how stiff-necked the Talkers were.

  "They would be happy to see every human dead if they did not need us for food. They would rend all intelligence but their own. They kill, not out of bloodthirstiness, but out of pride. They have a word for sharing, horgho. It means 'to abase oneself.' Their phrase for sharing food, horgha sloos, means also 'dirtying oneself.' Did you know they call us sloosil?”

  Tharius Don could not help snorting at the word. "No. What does it mean?"

  "Meat. Simply that, in the plural. Meat. I met one of the Fourth Degree Talkers at a convocation once. His name was Slooshasill. 'Meat manager.' He was responsible for providing bodies for Fifth and Sixth Degree Talkers."

  "So you don't think they respect us?"

  Chiles Medman had shaken his head, lit his pipe, and considered Tharius through the smoke. "Why should they?"

  "They've borrowed our craftsmen. They've learned writing from us." Why shouldn't they? His hope had insisted. Why shouldn't they respect us?

  "Well, they don't. If they didn't need us for food, they would slaughter us all tomorrow. They would not even keep us for slaves, because we remind them of horgha sloos. We remind them of abasement. They had an oral tradition and adequate housing for thousands of years before we came. Why do they need our writing? Or our craftsmen?"

  Tharius had glanced around, assuring himself they were alone, then said softly,

  "And yet you support the cause? Not, seemingly, because you share my dream of sharing this world in dignity?"

  "You know I don't, Tharius. I support the cause because I believe it's the only chance for humanity. The track we are on is madness. We're a flame-bird's nest, waiting for the spark. Our self-delusion grows greater every generation. We are moving farther and farther from our own truths."

  "We have twenty-four hundred townships. Every township has about forty thousand people in it. There are almost a hundred million of us and fewer than a hundred thousand of them," Tharius had said in a mild voice.

  "There are a hundred million blades of grass, and yet the weehar graze upon them all. The fliers could double their numbers in one year, Tharius. They're keeping their numbers down by breaking their eggs. They only incubate seven or eight a year in any given township, and they could incubate fifty or more. There's fifty percent mortality among the chicks. When the population grows too large, the Talkers kill the male chicks. If they could breed as they like, there would be a million of them in four or five years. All young. In fifteen years, when those came to breeding age, there would be hundreds of millions, all at once. The young may not be able to breed, but they can fight. They're carnivores, for gods' sake."

  "Necrovores, rather."

  "Not the Talkers. And none of the Thraish like eating dead meat."

  "How do you know all this about them? Their numbers? Their habits?"

  "We look, Tharius. We listen. We pay kids to climb rocks and spy on their nests. We send spies into Talons and listen to what they say."

  "In contravention of the Covenant?"

  "Oh, shit, Tharius. Come off it. Don't go all pompous on me. Who else is going to do it? Who except the Jarb Mendicants could be trusted to do it?"

  Tharius's face had reddened. "I get sick, sometimes, of your assumptions of omniscience, Medman. You see everything through the smoke, and that's supposed to be reality. It is not necessarily my reality, which I tend to believe has an equal right to exist!"

  "We've never said it was the only reality," Medman had said, putting away his pipe. "We've only said we see without delusion. Without preconception. Without prejudice. The Jarb pipe does that for us. For some of us."

  "But only for you madmen." It was unkind, and Tharius had repented of it at once.

  "Yes." Softly. "Yes, Tharius Don. Only for us madmen. The smoke only works for those of us who are capable of alternate visions." Chiles Medman had left him then, a little angry, only to return, speaking in a vehement whisper.

  "Tharius Don, you have not been among the people of Northshore for a hundred years. When I am not here in the Chancery - which I am not, most times - I see them every day. I see those who are told to believe in Potipur and Abricor and Viranel. Potipur the Talker. Abricor the young male Thraish. Viranel the female Thraish. Three gods, Tharius Don, made in the likeness of their creators--the Thraish. Who eat humans. And I see mankind trying to believe in that....

  "I see them trying valiantly to believe in the Sorters. Virtually every human knows in his heart it's a lie. They have seen the workers. You think boys don't sneak into the pits and look at the dead ones, just on a dare? You think people don't follow the Awakeners out to the pits sometimes, spying on them? You think people don't know? Aren't aware? Even those who believe the most, you think they don't suspect, down deep, that something is awry, that they are being fed on lies?"

  "The Awakeners tell us most people believe," Tharius had answered. It was lame, and he'd known it.

  "The Awakeners tell you most people believe, and they tell the people the Holy Sorters exist, and they tell their colleagues one thing and their Superiors something else. I only knew one Awakener in all my years who would tell the truth. He's a man named Haranjus Pandel, from Thou-ne. He's a cynic, Tharius, and an honest man.

  "But as for the rest of Northshore, it's a tinder pile, as I said. People have no hope for the future. They are ready to immolate themselves if it would hatch that hope. We have more Jarb Houses now than we had a hundred years ago, and we need twice as many. People see the workers shambling around, and something - perhaps the way one of them moves or the tilt of a head - makes them think maybe Mother is under that wrapper, or Daddy, or sister or daughter or son. Or they think of themselves there, not peacefully laid away but staggering around, stinking, hated by everyone. Then madness, Tharius Don. Madness. And only the pipe gives them any hope then."

  "Your hallucinogenic pipe." Tharius had smiled a little bitterly.

  "The inverse of that," Chiles Medman had replied. "An inverse hallucinogenic, Tharius Don. A pipe that lets them see the dead for what they are, and the moons for what they are, and the fliers for what they are, so that they need not struggle to believe what their eyes and noses tell them is ridiculous. It is the struggle to believe which maddens, Tharius Don. The wildest of the Jarb House Mendicants come from the most devout homes...."

  Something had happened then to interrupt their conversation, and Tharius had not talked with him since except for the odd word at ceremonial events. Still, and despite Tharius's own rudeness on that occasion, he counted on Medman's support. When the time came.

  "If the time comes," he said to himself bitterly. "If the time comes." The strike was as prepared at this moment as it would ever be. He was making excuses these days to delay it as he had been for months. He knew it. He didn't know why.

  "When the time comes," he said again, not convincing himself.

  The council members resumed their places, now with tea steaming before them.

  The niche was silent. Shavian rubbed his forehead, reminding himself. "Ah, what were we saying? Yes. Pamra Don to be summoned to the Chancery. Any comment?"

  Chiles Medman rose, was notic
ed, said, "I would support a meeting with Pamra Don here in the Chancery. The fact that this crusade has moved the people with such fervor indicates a level of dissatisfaction among them we should be aware of. For our own sakes, as well as theirs." He sat down again, having started them off like hunting birds after a swig-bug, darting here and there.

  "‘Dissatisfaction’,” bellowed Gendra Mitiar. "I'll give them dissatisfaction!"

  "Hush," Bossit demanded. "The governor general of the Jarb Mendicants has not said there is an insurrection. He has said 'dissatisfaction,' and I agree we should know of any such. What do you hear of dissatisfaction, Mendicant?"

  "Murmurings," Chiles replied, as though indifferent. "The 'disappearances' seem more noticed of late. Taken more account of."

  "They have been no more than usual," Gendra said stiffly. "About two a month from each township. Mostly old people."

  "They used to be mostly old people." Chiles nodded. "Of late, there have been many young ones. When old people vanish, it is a short wonder. When young ones go, people grieve longer. And talk longer."

  "The Towers have strict orders ..." She fell silent, suddenly suspicious. Indeed, the Towers had very strict orders concerning those recruited for Talker meat.

  And yet, if the Talkers offered ... if the Talkers offered a sufficient reward directly to the Superior of a Tower, might not that Superior be bought? The idea was shocking, and terrible and inevitable. Her eyes narrowed.

  "Do you allege malfeasance?" she challenged Chiles Medman. "If so, where? What Tower?"

  He shook his head, took his pipe from his pocket, and lit it to peer at her through the smoke. What he saw evidently reassured him, for he smiled. "I have no knowledge, Dame Marshal of the Towers. Only murmurings. Which is why I suggest bringing Pamra Don to the Chancery. Let us ask her."

  Gendra subsided, her teeth grinding. Shavian looked from one to the other of them, awaiting further comment. Koma Nepor assented, Ezasper Jorn nodded.

  The general merely pivoted, keeping his eye on his men.

  "No objection to that?" Shavian asked. "Then let it be done."