The League of Peoples

by James Alan Gardner

  Female-Me dashed toward Steck, shouting, “Help me, Mother!” Steck spread her arms wide in a welcoming embrace. My sister threw herself forward, the way Waggett sometimes threw himself into my own arms, diving toward sanctuary. She collided with Steck’s armored chest, and pressed in tight, hugging the green plastic. I fired, and by now I was close enough that the bullet was right on target…

  Violet light erupted at the point of impact, bright as staring into the sun. It left a scorched hole in my vision; but around the edges I could see my traitor female half nestled snugly against Steck, both of them safe within the crackling violet protection.

  “Put the gun down,” Steck yelled at me. “You’ll only hurt yourself.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to do,” I answered. I fired at my sister half again.

  “Stupid!” Steck cried as another burst of violet blazed the bullet to slag.

  “You almost hit the violin!” Female-Me shouted in indignation. She reached out and lightly pulled the instrument out of Steck’s hand, then hugged it to her own chest for protection. As an afterthought, she took the bow too…as if she might actually decide to play a ballad while I was shooting at her.

  I fired. Point-blank range. Violet flame burnt the bullet to smoke.

  “This is futile,” Steck growled. “You can’t get through the force field.”

  “True,” my sister said in a hard, quiet voice. “But I’m already inside.”

  And she rammed the point of the violin bow into Steck’s unprotected eye.

  The point was not very sharp; but it was sharp enough.

  My sister had gripped the bow in her fist, with four inches of the tip end showing. All four inches speared into Steck’s eye and on into her brain, driven by the force of sheer hatred…driven by the gods and the souls of dead children. Steck gave nothing more than a surprised grunt; then she was falling, dragging my sister with her as Steck’s arms spasmed and locked Female-Me in a bear hug.

  When they hit the floor, the force field was still active. Violet flame broke against the rock underfoot, a flash explosion that seared an armor-sized patch of granite into a sheen of smoking lava. The explosion had enough force to bounce Steck and my sister partway up again; then they fell once more, bounced, fell, bounced, like a fiery violet ball taking its time to settle.

  When they finally came to rest, the force field continued to burn, smelting its way into a trench in the bare rock floor. Steck’s legs jerked with dying convulsions. My sister, still holding the bow, pushed it deeper into Steck’s brain, as blood spilled out of the eye socket and onto her hands. Steck gave one last shaking shudder…and then the breath sighed out of her for the last time.

  Gradually, the violet flame subsided. The suit was smart enough to realize it was fighting a lost cause.

  Cappie and I helped my sister up, making sure she didn’t step on the red hot rock that surrounded the fallen armor. “I thought you had turned traitor,” I mumbled to my female self.

  “You should know better,” she answered. “I’m you, aren’t I?” She looked at me, then Cappie. “Steck had to die, didn’t she? She had to.”

  Cappie stared down at the body. “In her own mind, Steck had done nothing wrong. As she said, the children are all alive—Neut versions of them anyway. And the way things work in Birds Home, two versions of each person die anyway. Steck didn’t do anything that wouldn’t have happened eventually…but yes, she had to die. Even if it all balances out, some things can’t be forgiven.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  A Prayer for Us All

  When Rashid arrived, I was debating whether to pull the violin bow out of Steck’s eye. I didn’t want to touch it, but as the heat of the moment cooled, I began to hate the sight of my mother, disfigured by the protruding murder weapon. My sister self may have been having the same thoughts—she was me, wasn’t she?—but she didn’t reach for the bow either.

  Cappie stood in shadow farther down the unlit corridor. Now that the excitement was over, I think she’d become painfully aware of her nakedness…or painfully ashamed of her Neutness.

  “Hello,” Rashid said to the three of us. “Where’s Steck?”

  My sister and I pointed to the floor. Rashid’s mouth tightened. He came forward far enough that he could see past the glass coffins to the corpse.

  “Dead?” he asked.

  We all nodded.

  He lowered his head and let his breath out slowly. “I suppose I should thank you-—if you hadn’t killed her, I would have been forced to do it myself.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Family policy: no one walks away from betraying a Spark.” He looked down at Steck’s bloody face. “Stupid rule.” He took a deep breath. “But if I didn’t enforce it, my brothers and sisters would. Steck was the one who killed those children in the other rooms?”

  “Yes.”

  He looked at the corpse again. “Sometimes you can’t tell if a person is Iago or Desdemona.” He sighed. “With Steck, it always had to be both.”

  After a while, Rashid asked, “Did Steck have a reason? Did she tell you why she did everything?”

  We explained as best we could. It took all three of us, Cappie, sister Fullin and I, to piece together everything Steck said about the workings of Birds Home. Even then, Rashid had questions we couldn’t answer: questions about technical details that Steck hadn’t mentioned, either because she thought we were too stupid to understand, or because she didn’t understand them herself. Rashid might have continued the talk about chromo-this and DN-that until the rest of us dropped from brain fatigue…but he was interrupted by the sound of approaching footsteps.

  Cappie, farther up the corridor than the rest of us, spun immediately to face whatever was coming. She still held the glass splinter; now she raised it like a dagger, and waited…then lowered it again. “Just a bird-servant,” she said.

  A moment later, I could see the figure for myself—the bird-servant colored like a cardinal, although its brilliant red was muted to charcoal gray in the shadowy corridor. It passed Cappie without a glance and stepped coolly over Steck’s corpse.

  “Not interested in us,” Cappie observed.

  “Not programmed to be,” Rashid replied.

  The cardinal went straight to the nearest coffin…which happened to hold Waggett. My sister and I tensed as the lid of the coffin swung open. The bird-thing reached in and lifted out my son with expert care: supporting the head, snuggling the child’s small body in red plastic arms. I took a step forward, but Rashid caught me by the shoulder. “Easy. Let it do its job.”

  The bird adjusted Waggett’s weight until my son was securely cradled against the creature’s chest. Then it turned and walked back the way it came, ignoring all of us as if we were part of the stone walls.

  “Where is it taking him?” my sister demanded.

  “Back to the hangar,” Rashid answered. “On a normal Commitment Day, the children wake up near the plane in Master Crow’s nest, right? The bird-servants must carry them there.”

  Even as he spoke, four more bird-creatures strode out of the darkness: a hawk, a goose, the jay, and a mallard. Their movements were unnaturally smooth, every step measured like honey. Silently, they gathered four more children and carried them out of the room.

  “This is a good sign,” Rashid said. He kept his voice low, as if he didn’t want to disturb the birds as they passed. “Despite all the damage,” he went on, “the machines have obviously figured out what to do—send the Neut children back to Tober Cove, because they’re the only ones left alive. It’s nice to know the programming for Birds Home is smart enough to deal with this situation.”

  My sister self continued to stare into the darkness, watching the bird-servants disappear. “We should follow them,” she murmured.

  “The robots won’t harm the children,” Rashid told her.

  “But the children will soon wake up, won’t they? And when they see what they’ve become, someone should be there to calm them. To tell them
it’s okay.”

  “The new priestess,” Cappie said. “You.”

  My sister met Cappie’s gaze. Neither of them spoke for a moment. Then Female-Me said, “I’m ready to be priestess if you don’t want the job. But you have first claim to it”

  Cappie shook her head. “A Neut priestess? The cove has enough to swallow already. They’ll accept the Neut children because they have to; but given a choice between a Neut and a true woman, I know which would make Tobers more comfortable. Isn’t that a big part of the priestess’s job—comforting people?”

  “All right,” my sister said. “But we’ll do what we discussed last night—work as a team. Even if I’m the official priestess, we’ll make our decisions together and…”

  “No,” Cappie interrupted. “I’m not going back to the cove. Not right away.”

  “What?” I blurted. “Not going home?”

  “Someone has to stay here,” she said. “Make sure that Birds Home really can repair itself.”

  “I’ll do that,” Rashid answered immediately. “I owe you that much, considering I was the one who brought Steck here. And there’s so much I can learn in a place like this. I want to understand the cloning process…the exact way thoughts are transferred…”

  “While you’re doing that,” Cappie said, “could you use a second pair of hands?”

  “Probably,” Rashid nodded. “It so happens I have an immediate opening for a new Bozzle…and there’s a precedent of filling the position with a person of dual gendership.”

  Cappie glared at him with steely eyes. “If you think you’re going to start up with me the way you were with Steck…”

  “No!” Rashid said sharply. It was the first time his self-control had broken since he found Steck dead: the first time he sounded like a man instead of a Spark Lord. “I’m standing here with a corpse at my feet—her corpse! Do you think I’m so inhuman I can just…” His voice choked off. “No,” he said with a catch in his throat, “I’m really just looking for an assistant, Cappie: a second pair of hands, as you put it. It’ll be a long time before I…never mind. You help me here in Birds Home, and after that, I’ll see you get back to Tober Cove. If that’s what you want.”

  She looked at him for a moment more, then nodded. “It’s a deal.” Cappie turned back to my sister self. “Can you take care of Pona for a while?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll be back when I’m ready,” Cappie added hurriedly. “I promise. It’s just…I knew who I was when I was male and when I was female. Now that I’m neither one…” She shrugged.

  “So you’re trying to find yourself,” I said. “But why can’t you do that in Tober Cove? We need you there.”

  “Why? So you Fullins can fight over me?”

  “We won’t fight over you,” I protested.

  “In a few weeks, you might be fighting over who gets stuck with me. I know,” she said quickly, “that’s unfair. But it was just a few hours ago that you couldn’t give yourself to me; not the way I needed. Has anything changed? Have you suddenly fallen in love with me because I’m a Neut? Not likely.” She gave us die ghost of a smile, trying to take the sting from her words. “You may feel fond and sentimental about me right now, but that’s not enough. There’s too much pity in it—pity because I’m not male or female, and you think that’s a tragic loss. Maybe it is, I don’t know. But I need time to decide for myself.”

  “Then take die time,” Female-Me told her. “Pona will be all right. And when you’re ready to come back, I guarantee Tober Cove won’t have a law about banishing Neuts.”

  “To make changes like that, you’ll need help.” Cappie smiled. “You’ll need help from the Patriarch’s Man.”

  She turned to me. “How about it? Will you say yes to Hakoore? For the good of the cove?”

  “Patriarch’s Man?” When I said it, the title sounded so sadly pompous—a relic of some long-dead tyrant, one more thing that should have gone on that junk heap in Mayoralty House. The Patriarch’s Man was a self-deceiving fool with a book of laws and a machine that looked like a severed hand. “I don’t know if I believe in the position,” I said. “After everything that’s happened in Birds Home…”

  “You mean you’ve lost your faith in the gods?” Rashid asked. “This is so typical. I’ve bent over backward not to utter a word against your faith, but you’re going to say I raised doubts—”

  “I still believe in the gods,” I answered quietly. “But not the Patriarch’s Law.”

  “Then change it,” Cappie said. “The Patriarch has been an ugly sore, festering on the face of the cove for a hundred and fifty years. Get rid of him.”

  “By becoming Hakoore’s ‘disciple’?”

  “Yes…if that’s what it takes to make things right.”

  A fire burned in her eyes. It felt strange to have someone believe in me.

  “Do you agree?” I asked my other self. “If Hakoore puts the squeeze on me with that damned Patriarch’s Hand…”

  “I’ll support you,” she said. “Make sure your head stays straight.” She laid her fingers lightly on my arm and smiled. “Two weasels together can beat a snake.”

  I smiled back. “All right—I’ll do it. Patriarch’s Man.”

  My commitment.

  “Of course, you remember,” Female-Me added, “there’s a special arrangement between priestess and Patriarch’s Man.”

  I raised my eyebrows. She was looking at me with cool appraisal. I returned her gaze evenly.

  “This could get interesting,” Cappie murmured.

  “What?” Rashid asked. “What’s this special arrangement?”

  “Tell you later,” she answered.

  “And in the meantime,” I said to Rashid, “can you do something about this radio in my head? I refuse to match wits with someone who can hear everything I think.”

  “Yes,” my sister agreed, “please stop him transmitting. It’s so embarrassing to know the second he gets horny for me.”

  “Me? Horny for you?”

  “Silence, peasants!” Rashid commanded with mock severity. “Whatever you’re arguing about, I don’t care—I’ve had my fill of cultural observation for one day. Let’s find the damned lab so I can get back to the hard sciences. I’m longing for things that make sense.”

  The lab was gigantic—far larger than all three coffin chambers put together. The front part held five large glass windows, showing words and numbers and graphs painted in colored light. There was also a corridor slanting upward, no doubt leading to Master Crow’s nest. But what caught my interest most was the rear part of the room: a single wide aisle down the middle with banks of arcane machinery on either side. Even the height of OldTech culture couldn’t have created such equipment Glistening steel vats with pipes sprouting out in all directions. A tall pillar from floor to ceiling, with an exterior of black matte plastic and an interior of who knew what. Gray metal boxes that breathed out warm air through grilles, and faceless things with inhuman arms, delicately jiggling test tubes of red fluid.

  “Glory be!” Rashid cried with delight. “Home at last!”

  “This looks like your home?” I asked dubiously.

  He ignored me, moving to a nearby window-glass and punching at a row of buttons beneath it. Immediately, the picture in the window changed to a list of names—all the children of Tober Cove.

  “Amazing,” Rashid said. “How could they find out your names? Unless they can analyze the thought transmissions as they’re coming through and extract specific information. But that would mean they understand the actual encryption of mental data in the brain…”

  “Can you turn off the transmitter or not?” I asked.

  “Hard to say,” Rashid answered. “If I find a nice simple data screen with a button that says, CLICK HERE TO TURN OFF FULLIN’S TRANSMITTER, then we’re fine. Otherwise, it may take months to figure out the trick. This setup is far more complicated than I expected, and I don’t want to monkey with things I don’t understand.”
>
  Footsteps sounded from the up-slanting corridor. A moment later, the bird-servants appeared: all five walking in lock step, their arms empty. They paid no attention to us as they proceeded on toward the Neut chamber.

  My sister self gave me a look. “We’d better get up to Master Crow’s nest before the children start waking.”

  I nodded, then turned to Cappie. “Are you going to be all right?”

  “Helping a Spark Lord in the home of the gods? You can’t get safer than that.” She stepped forward quickly and gave me a hug. “Don’t worry about me.” She gave another squeeze and turned to my female half. “I’ll be back for Pona, trust me.”

  “Sure.” My sister self closed her eyes as Cappie embraced her. “I’ll miss you,” she whispered.

  Cappie gave her a light kiss on the nose. “You’ll have each other,” she said with a laugh. “I’ll come back to the cove just to see how that works out.” She grabbed my sister and me by the arm and gave us a slight shove toward the door. “Now get out of here. You both have work to do.”

  We nodded. My sister had already turned toward the door when I stopped. “One last thing.” I reached behind my back and pulled out the gun; sometime after Steck’s death, I had shoved it into my belt again without thinking. “This stays here,” I said, checking the safety before I laid the pistol on the floor. “And Rashid…next time you bring presents to Tober Cove, try a fruit basket. Something harmless.”

  “Next time I come to Tober Cove,” Rashid answered, “I’ll bring Cappie. Is she harmless?”

  My sister laughed…then slipped her arm into mine, as if she were taking possession of me. I didn’t push her away.

  As we began the climb up the slope to the hangar, Rashid cried, “Aha! Just what we were looking for. We look under Fullin’s name, cross-match his personal transmission frequency, type in the numbers under deactivate, and…”

  Everything suddenly went black,