Daughter of Elysium

by Joan Slonczewski

  “Of course.” Elysians never so much as shook hands; they bowed, and left just enough room. It seemed a way of keeping space in this rather claustrophobic city.

  “But Urulites expect physical contact,” Verid added, “among men of the ruling class. Obviously you know that. It’s one reason they distrust us. Never mind young Zheron’s threats,” Verid added, a remark which reminded Raincloud that despite his mature appearance, Verid might be ten times his age. “His statement was for the press. What is significant is what he left out. He did not call the Elysians treacherous slaves of the Valan barbarians. He did not accuse us of scheming to terraform Urulan. He did not even denounce me for summoning him for this insulting conference. Most important,” Verid added, her eyebrows rising, “he did not deny that the incident of the Valan freighter represented a serious error of judgment on the part of the Imperial Command.” Verid nodded to a chair.

  Raincloud sat on the chair, which was made of polished wood with legs curved back elegantly. From above dangled the usual servo arms, discreetly overhead. Verid sat across from her and leaned forward, flexing her knuckles. “I am honored, indeed,” Verid said, her eyebrows arching to her hairline, “to host ‘a goddess from the Hills of the Dark One.’” The last was spoken with just the right accents and clicks.

  Raincloud was pleased, though caught off guard. Verid herself clearly knew a language or two. She lifted her chin and risked a return. “It’s an equal honor to meet one known as a ‘rising star.’”

  At that Verid’s shoulders shook again, and she laughed loudly, the sort of laugh that probably carried outside the room. “One of my shonsibs must have told you that.” Verid flicked her wrist to a servo arm which slithered down carrying two glasses. “Yours is plain spring water,” she assured Raincloud, not identifying the contents of her own. “Now then. Why would a ‘goddess’ leave the Hills to learn languages spoken on worlds many light-years away?”

  This question felt patronizing. “Light-years mean little, within the Fold.”

  “Of course. How did you learn Urulite ways? Have you lived there?”

  “Oh, no.” Urulan had been closed to foreigners for several generations. “But Professor Rhun was a native.”

  “So I understand.”

  “He was a pedagogue in a noble household. He escaped on a stolen ship,” she explained, answering the obvious question. “He traveled twenty years at lightspeed, then backtracked for two years because he’d overshot, subsisting all the while on recycled greens. As a ‘pioneer,’ he was lucky to land a post at Founders University. I was doubly lucky to have him,” she added, although it had been hard at first to accept correction from a man. She added, with some hesitation, “He was a ‘sim.’”

  Sims were descended from gorilla-human hybrids, a slave population bred on Urulan. But in succeeding generations, most progeny were sired by human masters, as the “human” look fetched a better price on the market. Today many sim descendants were barely distinguishable from purebred humans; but on Urulan, they remained slaves.

  Verid nodded. “Regardless, he taught you well. Now before we discuss your assignment, please bear in mind that nothing of what passes between us must go beyond you—not even to your mate. If I hear otherwise, your value to us will be lessened substantially.”

  “I am accustomed to confidential work.”

  “Yes, with the Sharers—what a contrast, by Helix! You do avoid reporters, that’s good. But do you realize that secrecy will be a greater challenge here?”

  Verid knew about the reporters. Raincloud’s scalp prickled. “Do all the walls have ears?”

  “Not in my office.” Verid grinned, tapping the wood paneling with her knuckles. “One needs a special permit for sonic isolation, to get around the constitutional Right of Visitation. We’ll arrange it for you, once your clearance goes through.”

  So this “Right of Visitation” was also a “right of eavesdropping.”

  “You know why you’re here,” Verid told her. “You’re one of a handful of Urulan experts in the Free Fold. We have reams of intelligence to decipher. For years, we’ve just passed it on to Valedon—but can we trust them?” She paused reflectively. “Valan intelligence assures us the Urulites have about six thousand interstellar missiles, give or take a thousand. But how do they arrive at that guess? Not a clue. How good is their estimate? Could it be off by a factor of ten?” Verid leaned forward. “Even more to the point—where did those missiles come from? A Valan House, perhaps?”

  Raincloud swallowed. “How did Urulan pay for them, I’d like to know.”

  “Another good question. Urulan is virtually bankrupt, but it has massive mineral resources.” Verid spread her hand on the desk. A page of light appeared beneath her fingers, several characters blinking red. Raincloud recalled a similar servo table at the apartment, in a side room. The apartment contained a number of unfamiliar objects whose purpose remained a mystery to the Windclans. “I have released a file to your account; it will open to your hand only, and will disappear when observers approach. These are signals intercepted from the Imperial Command. See what you make of them.”

  Raincloud nodded.

  Verid paused, stroking her chin between her thumb and forefinger. “As for our friend Zheron…if he follows up, I would accept the invitation.”

  So that little “meeting” with the legate had been more than coincidence. Her pulse raced. “Just what have you in mind?”

  “It wasn’t in your job description,” Verid admitted. “But the opportunity is ripe. The Imperator is dying, we know that. There’s a chance for change; and Lord Zheron is one who wants change. We need to help him find the way.”

  “I’ll have to think about this.”

  “We’ll double your pay.”

  “It’s not that,” said Raincloud sharply. “I must think of my ‘family.’” She used the Clicker word.

  Verid nodded. “Of course. You’ve got your own little shon. Raincloud, in all seriousness you are safe in Helicon—safer than anywhere else in the Fold. You know how we Elysians feel about personal safety.”

  “I’ve noticed.” They got foreigners to do their dirty work.

  Verid leaned forward. “One last question. You have observed us Elysians, rather intently, I would guess. Tell me what you think. Where lies our greatest danger?”

  Raincloud drew a breath and thought quickly. The seconds ticked by. “The Urulite missiles threaten us,” she began. “Yet the real danger lies here, in Elysium. Elysians are—” She felt like saying, “overgrown children.” “Elysium is one great protective shon. Your people, with all their civility, cannot understand the mind of a people that can sell and trade human flesh…”

  But Verid leaned back, her face politely blank. Clearly Raincloud had disappointed her this time. “‘The monster swallower swallows itself,’” Verid quoted from The Web, a text Raincloud knew well. “You are right, though, that the danger lies here. Listen in the streets. Think about what you see. And, of course, follow the logathlons.”

  Chapter 5

  BLACKBEAR CAUGHT RAINCLOUD AROUND THE SHOULDERS and kissed her, as he helped her undo the rest of her train.

  “Doggie?” inquired Sunflower hopefully, eyeing her pair of trainsweeps which stayed outside. “Doggie for Sunflo’?”

  “No doggie.” Raincloud swept the child up into her arms, his face already clouding over for a downpour of tears.

  “How was it?” asked Blackbear. “Did you see the Sub-Subguardian at last?”

  “How was it, Mother?” echoed Hawktalon, swinging Fruitbat by her cloth wing.

  Raincloud winced as Sunflower let out a wail. “I met the Sub-Subguardian, and a legate of Urulan, too.”

  “An Urulite?” Blackbear stared in amazement. “An Urulite—here?”

  “I just ran into him by accident—”

  Hawktalon asked, “What’s a ‘legate,’ Mum?”

  “You weren’t supposed to meet any live Urulites,” said Blackbear.

  “Well, th
ere’s a small ‘cultural legation.’ Verid wants me to deal with them.”

  He gripped her arm. “Valedon is practically at war with Urulan; another attack on the trade route is all it will take—”

  “I said, what’s a ‘legate’?” Hawktalon insisted.

  “A ‘legate’ is somebody who represents a foreign government,” Raincloud explained. “The Imperator of Urulan can’t be everywhere at once, dear.”

  “Why not?”

  Blackbear turned and went to the kitchen to order hot cereal for Sunflower, still angry. Raincloud followed him. “Before I forget,” she said, “you have to call on Verid sometime, and I have to call on your lab director. It’s the proper custom.”

  “I’ll give her a proper piece of my mind when I see her,” Blackbear grumbled. “When do we manage all this visiting, anyway?”

  “Our Visiting Days start tomorrow.”

  “Oh, Goddess; I forgot. How does that work? Can’t we get exempted?”

  Raincloud paused. “Let me see…”

  “Excuse me, Citizens,” came the voice of the house. Sunflower dropped his spoon and looked around, eyes wide. “May I offer assistance?”

  “Yes, thanks,” said Raincloud. “How does ‘visiting’ work?”

  “The Elysian Constitution guarantees everyone the right to visit and check up on everyone else. For every three days on the job, the law requires four ‘Visiting Days’ to entertain your fellow citizens.”

  “But we’re not citizens,” objected Blackbear.

  “As foreigners,” the house continued, “you may apply for an extra workday based on ‘religious grounds.’ You must sign a statement to the effect that your deity expects unending earthly toil of mortal beings, and that working less than half the week would cause decline in your mental health and well-being.”

  Sunflower was squirming, and Blackbear felt his diaper. “Diaper, please,” he called. A clean cotton diaper appeared in the magic kitchen window. Blackbear muttered, “I might as well use the time to potty-train Sunflower. What’s your opinion?”

  Raincloud shrugged. “It says a lot about what they think of us mortals. Our Goddess worship is just a mental handicap; it’s covered by the same department that regulates servo guides for the blind and visual aids for the deaf.”

  “I’ve yet to see a blind Elysian.”

  “It’s a small department.”

  Their request would not be cleared for another week, so Blackbear resigned himself to a Visiting Day. He told the house to set his Visiting Hours from two to five. This information would be available instantly throughout the city, although he could not imagine who would care to “check up” on him.

  The next morning, reckoning by the Bronze Skyan calendar, was the Day of the Snake, a feast day celebrated each year in the Caldera Hills. The day commemorated the mythic entrance of good into the world, in the form of a monstrous Snake sent forth by the Dark Goddess. When the Snake returned to Her, its goodness spent, She recaptured it between her middle arms and devoured it alive. The Day’s lesson was a warning to meet the world’s evil with good, from the center of one’s being, and face the consequences whole.

  Hawktalon decorated the figure of the Goddess with “snakes” cut from spirals of colored paper, as well as two embroidered heirlooms from Raincloud’s mother and grandmother. “When are we going to get a real live snake, like Cousin Wolf Eyes?” Hawktalon pestered her mother.

  “Cousin Wolf Eyes’s mother is a High Priestess,” Raincloud reminded her. “She has to tend the Great Snake year round. If you grow up to be a High Priestess, you can have a snake.”

  After rei-gi exercise, Raincloud was eager to start on her translations. She had located a “terminal” at home, an unfamiliar table-shaped object whose function she now recognized. The terminal accessed a vast neural network that permeated the cellular city.

  “Come on, Daddy,” begged Hawktalon, “let’s try something hard for a change. Why don’t you ever swing the stave at me, like you do at Mother?”

  “Go, Daddy.” Sunflower bounced happily on the mat. “Go upside down.”

  “Damn you,” shouted Raincloud from the next room, her voice stuttering with sharp clicks. “May an earthquake swallow your regulations!”

  Blackbear winced. “Please; Sunflower will hear.”

  Raincloud came to the sitting room, perspiring with anger. “That Goddess-cursed tabletop told me it’s not my work day, and it won’t release my files. Not even the one Verid gave me.”

  “Well, it is a Visiting Day,” Blackbear said, though he resented it too.

  “But this is my home.”

  It occurred to him, no wonder Draeg chose to live outside Helicon in a silkhouse on a Sharer raft, even during swallower season. “Well, for now, let’s just remember—‘On Valedon, do as the Valans do.’”

  Her lip curled. “If this were Valedon, we’d be working day and night. Who d’you think manufactures all those servos? Do you see any three-day factories around here? How do they pay for everything—banking and tourism,” she muttered. “Nobody’s got an honest job.”

  “We do,” said Hawktalon. “Come on, Mother. Come swing a stave at me.” She raised her shoulders and pulled in her stomach expectantly.

  “Sorry.” Raincloud looked up as if an idea had occurred to her. “I’m going to see Iras.” She went to put on her talar and train.

  Hawktalon had to spend the afternoon at her correspondence school lessons in reading, programming, and the geography of Bronze Sky. Blackbear was just reading Sunflower one last book before nap, and planning in his head a long letter to write to his parents, when the house announced a visitor.

  Both children immediately rushed out to see who it was. Blackbear checked his watch; it was just past two.

  At the door stood Alin. He wore a different train, a scene of saffron meadows rimmed by mountains, but the same dried-leaf butterflies lined the border, virtually invisible against the background. With him stood Draeg, a lambskin jacket covering his usual scant costume.

  “Hullo, Blackbear,” said Draeg, thumping him on the shoulder. “Where’s that little fighter of yours today?”

  “I say.” Alin glanced beside the door, with a bemused expression. “Did the citizen never come and pick up her mate’s trainsweep?”

  The runaway trainsweep was back again, just outside the door. It certainly looked like the same one, though it had not been there the night before.

  “Doggie!” Sunflower tiptoed out the door, his arms flapping up and down, then he threw himself upon the beetlelike servo. Hawktalon followed, jumping with glee, her beaded braids whipping about her face. “She’s back, Daddy; look, she came back!”

  The two visitors collapsed with laughter. “I told you so,” Alin reminded Draeg. “You didn’t believe me, did you, that the servo tailed him across the City? You owe me ten credits.”

  “The owner—she did come and take it back,” Blackbear said lamely.

  “What touching loyalty!” exclaimed Draeg.

  “It even remembered your address,” said Alin. “Tell its owner I’d like to look into its network.”

  Whatever could be wrong with that trainsweep, Blackbear wondered. He hoped its owner would not be angry at him this time. He summoned his social graces as best he could. “Won’t you come inside? It is my highest duty to serve you.”

  Alin exclaimed with delight to see the climate window in action, set for a view of grassy hills that came close to the feel of Bronze Sky; clouds obscured the actual blue sky of the planet it came from. “Let’s see the volcanoes,” he insisted. “I ordered them special.”

  The volcanoes appeared, first a quiet, gently sloping one whose lava crept downward at a trickle, cooling to smooth fields of black, then an explosive one that delighted the children. As the floor rumbled beneath their feet, Alin said, “I hear your shonling is quite a fighter. And yourself, as well.”

  Blackbear frowned. “Fighting is for females,” he said, although he knew the Elysian “female” d
id not do justice to the Clicker “goddess.”

  Alin laughed. “We’ve heard all about your shonling! But Draeg assures me you’re just as good.”

  “I practice defense only.”

  “Don’t be modest. Would you accept a challenge? I’ll cover the medics.”

  Astonished, Blackbear stared down at the small, compact Elysian in his robe of dried-leaf butterflies.

  “Alin’s quite good,” Draeg assured him. “Look here, Alin, you and I’ll spar a bit, so he sees what we do.”

  “But—but there’s really not enough room,” Blackbear objected.

  “Oh, we’ll manage,” said Alin. “Go ahead, switch off the holostage; I’ll cover the charge.”

  “It is off,” Blackbear muttered absently. In the meantime, the two visitors set out giving orders to the house. The walls expanded back and extra mats slid out. A medical hovercraft settled expectantly at the door. A set of loose-fitting trousers appeared for Alin out of the kitchen window; it seemed that any sort of organic material could be “cooked up” there.

  The visitors stripped to the waist and practiced their strikes. Alin leaped in the air and thrust-kicked twice before he thudded down, then he and Draeg faced each other. They attacked in a style involving vicious blows with the feet and hands. Their power-packed thrusts left their own balance painfully vulnerable; Blackbear wondered that they could not see that.

  Suddenly he recalled with a pang his brothers and cousins in the Hills; what good times they used to have. With them, it was fun, less formidable than training with his own goddess. Despite his misgivings, he kicked off his shoes and swung his arms to limber up. Inwardly he called on the Dark One, for himself and his opponent’s safety.

  Draeg took him on first. After a feint or two, the L’liite slashed down at Blackbear’s shoulder with the side of his right hand. Blackbear stepped back to his left, his left arm parrying Draeg’s right. He deflected Draeg’s arm just enough to guide it downward into his own right hand. Continuing to circle backward, he caught Draeg’s arm in his right hand, then his left, letting Draeg hurtle forward by his own momentum. With a twist he brought the man down to the mat, thudding safely on his side.