Daughter of Elysium

by Joan Slonczewski

  Adeisha replied with the earnest, clear-faced look of one whose sixteen years had been largely happy ones. “Compassion is to share oneself for another, without reserve. For example, the mother who gives her life for her child.”

  “All at once?” Merwen asked.

  “At once, or over a lifetime. Over a lifetime may be harder, in fact, as when one’s daughter suffers stonesickness or some other incurable malady.”

  “Like deathhastening,” added Weia. I shuddered to think, for Weia, unlike Adeisha, had been born in time to remember my father’s deathhasteners.

  Merwen nodded. “To share a lifetime with a sufferer may take even greater compassion than to die for one.”

  Then I asked, “Isn’t the heart of compassion to share feeling with another?”

  “Of course,” replied Adeisha, as if that part were the easiest. “But good deeds count more than good intentions.”

  “Agreed,” said Merwen. “Now, does a Compassionate One live, or die, only for her own daughters?”

  “Of course not,” said Weia. “That would be too simple.”

  “She lives, or dies, for other mothers’ children,” Merwen agreed.

  Weia, who had walked ahead of us, turned to face her. “A Compassionate One is fool enough to die for anyone, even a flock of deathhasteners. I would have done so, and nearly did.” As a three-year-old, Weia had been held hostage by the deathhasteners; the imprisoned children had refused food, demanding freedom. “So how do you justify such foolishness?” Weia asked. “Isn’t compassion a thing for three-year-olds? Shouldn’t one discard it along with one’s diapers?”

  I turned to hide my face, thinking of the other Sharer children and mothers who had died that my father and I might return alive to Valedon.

  “Perhaps so,” said Merwen. “But surely, before we discard a thing, we must know what it is, lest instead of diapers we discard a precious bundle of seasilk. What is this thing, this substance, that we call compassion? When water is shared, can we see the water?”

  “Yes,” I said, more comfortable with things that are concrete. “We can feel the water, touch it, and taste it.”

  “And likewise, when food is shared?”

  “Of course.”

  “And when a house panel is woven of seasilk, to rebuild our sister’s house after the storm, can we feel that, too?”

  “We can hold it in our hands.”

  “Is this what compassion consists of, sharing these palpable things?”

  I hesitated, unsure now.

  Weia said, “If so, then the nonsharer is surely more fortunate than the Compassionate One who shares with others. For if compassion consists of sharing what others need, then who knows one’s own needs better than one’s self? Better to serve oneself, not to share dependence.”

  “What you are saying,” said Merwen, “is that the happiest person knows how to share the best things with herself. And how does she learn to do this?”

  “Practice,” said Adeisha.

  “Practice, starting from infancy,” said Merwen. “The child learns to share care with objects, such as her toys, then more important belongings, then a pet fanwing perhaps, and then with other Sharers. And lastly, she learns to share care with herself.”

  Adeisha added, “And with her future selves. By contrast, the nonsharer often seems to act as if her future self is a different person from the present, and therefore fails to serve herself well.”

  “Exactly,” said Merwen. “By learning compassion, one learns to care for oneself and future selves. She who shares compassion with a fingersnail, even perhaps with the smallest grain of sand, may be best able to care for herself. Perhaps the Compassionate One is really the most selfish one.”

  Weia frowned. “You’re laughing at me.”

  “Not in the least, Weia,” said Merwen. “Perhaps we may yet rescue your argument. Does compassion really consist of water, food, and seasilk, these palpable things?”

  “No,” exclaimed Adeisha. “No, compassion itself is…is more ‘central’ than all those things.” Her Sharer word “central” carried some of the same sense as the Valan word “higher.”

  “What is it then?” Merwen asked.

  There was no sound but the lapping of waves upon the distant outspreading branches of the raft. We had climbed to the central rim, a ring-shaped hill, within whose hollow the Gathering would meet. The Gathering was the assembly of all adults of the raft, all those who had named themselves. Each decision—where to steer the raft, how many children to conceive, how much seasilk to trade with other rafts—required the consent of all present, without exception.

  The wind was brisk and carried the sweet scent of raftblossoms from the sea. We seated ourselves upon the mossy bank of the rim, as if to join an invisible Gathering.

  Merwen said at last, “When we don’t know the answer to something, we guess. We make a good guess, and then we test it out to see what happens.”

  Weia eyed her curiously. “Just what do you guess?”

  “A good guess would be that compassion includes a kind of spirit, not just palpable things. Suppose compassion relates to spirit as, say, the property of warmth relates to palpable things. Now, we know much about the nature of warmth.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Warmth radiates from all palpable things. This is a law of physics.”

  “From all physical things? Even human bodies?”

  “All of our bodies. Even Valans, who bundle themselves up in ‘clothes,’ can never completely escape the loss of warmth.”

  “A childish custom,” muttered Weia, expressing the common Sharer opinion of body clothing. “Only babies need wrapping up.”

  “So warmth is a precious thing,” Merwen continued, “which some conserve by ‘clothes.’ How else do we conserve warmth?”

  “Blankets,” suggested Weia. “At nighttime, we huddle together within blankets.”

  Adeisha added thoughtfully, “When two of us huddle together, we exchange warmth which would otherwise be lost. Together we lose less than when we stand apart.”

  “Yes,” I said eagerly, “even animals know this.” I remembered the litter of puppies in my father’s house; they would scrap and bite each other all day, only to curl up in a heap at nightfall.

  “Animals eat each other,” Weia pointed out.

  “But animals need warmth as much as food,” said Adeisha. “Even the infant needs her mother’s closeness more than her milk. And the infant is central within us all.”

  “Then perhaps,” Merwen went on, “the spirit of compassion is, like warmth, something we radiate helplessly, something which one of us alone can only lose, not conserve. Perhaps for that reason, we desire to share compassion, as naturally as we desire our bodies to come together. Compassion is loving everyone and eating no one.”

  I looked away. Weia looked down at her webbed toes, silent. I sat so close to Merwen that I could have touched her, but for some reason I dared not.

  From across the rim Oolioo shrieked, chasing after a legfish. Weia got up and headed off to fetch her, stroking her back affectionately. The caught legfish lay between the girl’s arms, its eyes staring up foolishly while its tail frantically slapped against her chest.

  Adeisha was frowning after Weia, trying to work something out. “‘Loving everyone’? I think Aunt Weia gave up too easily. If compassion means the total sharing of self, then isn’t the death-seeker the happiest? Isn’t she who feeds herself to a starworm the most fortunate creature in the ocean? Were all of us so ‘fortunate,’ would we not perish in one generation?”

  “You are right,” said Merwen. “If one gives oneself up totally, one has nothing left to give. This sounds like a poor sort of compassion.”

  “And yet,” said Adeisha, “at the right moment, it may be the most central act of caring possible. How do we resolve this paradox?”

  “The answer can’t be found in any one person. Compassion exists within the Web. The Web connects all living things in relations of sharing: when one s
trand pulls, the next holds. The Web balances all our needs and commitments, to share with others and with ourselves. Each small link strengthens the Web as a whole; just so, an act of compassion anywhere breeds caring everywhere.”

  This “Web” was a difficult concept, as alien to my Valan background as the webbing between Sharer fingers and toes. The image Sharers have in mind is that of the web spun by a clickfly, who can be taught to write messages in the intricate pattern. The Web of Shora encompasses all living organisms and their needs for each other, including the community of Sharers. Sharer children are taught that their central aim in life is to strengthen the Web.

  Merwen turned away and half rose from her seat, as if to depart. But I could not contain myself. “Merwen—what compassion is there in this ‘Web’? Creatures eat and are eaten. In the end, Shora Herself devours us all.”

  Merwen turned, and her gaze burned into mine. “Just so. Why else did you and I sit in whitetrance for three days?”

  “Well then,” said Adeisha, “it’s plain that to know compassion better, and to answer my aunt’s argument, we first need to know the Web better. Don’t you agree, Aunt Weia?” she added, as Weia returned, having sent Oolioo off for a swim.

  “The Web is a tale for children,” Weia rejoined, mischievous again.

  “On the contrary,” warned Merwen, “the Web is a tale only for those who can dive deepest, to the very floor of ocean, without going mad. Take care, dear sisters; I share fear with you.”

  “We’re in good hands with you,” Adeisha insisted. “Come, let’s weave in our minds a vision of the true Web, the Web as it could be if all of us understood it better. Then within this Web at last we will see compassion at work.”

  II

  THE CHILD

  Chapter 1

  AT THE NUCLEUS, FLORS WAS BRIEFING THE PRIME Guardian on the day’s crises. Verid tried to relax beneath the arpeggio of butterflies, but she could not.

  The L’liites had just defaulted on their oldest loan at Bank Helicon, with fifty years left of a hundred-year term. The debt crisis sent shock waves through the economies of several worlds, including Valedon, where factories canceled orders and sent home thousands of workers. Iras was working overtime to renegotiate, but that was only a first step. Everyone expected the Guard to do something; but what? Could Verid tell L’li how to run their planet of twenty billion people? How much of their borrowed cash had been siphoned off into private accounts, back to Elysian bankers who turned a blind eye?

  Meanwhile, the Guardian Papilishon continued to press for action on the fruit flies. And, of course, Zheron’s precipitous departure had dashed her hopes of progress with Urulan, while Subguardian Flors was here crowing about it. Hyen listened calmly, with no sign of worry about the growing scandal over his not-so-private life.

  Verid took a deep breath and willed herself to relax. She imagined herself a Sharer entering whitetrance to recall her past and envision her future.

  She had defended the Sharers once, as a logen. She had argued their right to harbor an Elysian fugitive, a citizen who had broken Elysium’s highest law. A doctor, he had assisted a man to die: a man of nine centuries, old even by Elysian standards, with a rare form of brain degeneration. Was it murder, or compassion? She still debated herself.

  Flors at last wound up his postmortem on the Urulites. “As you see, Guardian,” he told Hyen, “the so-called Cultural Legation has solved our problem for us by withdrawing from the planet. No longer will we be troubled by the questionable representatives of that inhuman regime.”

  Verid sighed. Flors was worse than unmusical; he was tone-deaf. A precious opportunity had been lost. Why had Zheron taken off, and why without warning? she had asked herself a hundred times. Of course, had he let her know, then Foreign Affairs would have had to know, and documents and explanations would have detained him. But why the haste?

  Perhaps the Imperator had died. His succession would be uncertain, for the First Queen had no sons. That would draw Zheron home.

  “Questionable, indeed,” murmured Hyen. “A pity their departure could not have been…foreseen.”

  “No harm was done,” Flors went on quickly, anxious to escape embarrassment over the failure of his electronic spies. “We’d scarcely have bothered to stop them, anyway. They took passage in a ship of L’liite registry, actually owned by a Bronze Skyan rice merchant.” Flors eyed his Sub-Subguardian coldly. “The involvement of your Bronze Skyan translator now appears doubly embarrassing. I forbid any further interference of that foreigner in Urulite affairs.”

  Hyen waved his fingers. “I’m sure Verid knows how to assign her support staff. I suppose you’ve got a statement ready?”

  Flors read a statement for the press, his usual catalog of condemnation, essentially saying good riddance.

  “Let’s add,” said Verid, “that of course in the future, we’ll always reconsider any reasonable attempt to reopen dialogue.”

  “No,” insisted Flors. “There was no official dialogue in the first place. The Urulites themselves would only ridicule our softness. Haven’t you learned that by now?”

  Hyen said quietly, “Flors is right this time. They abused our trust.”

  Verid acquiesced in silence. Flors then took up the L’liite debt crisis. Everyone wanted action of one sort or another: freeze L’liite assets in Elysium, or reschedule the loans and add development aid; bail out the stricken banks, or let them fail, serve them right for cheating on their Visiting Days. Whatever was done in the end would outrage half the planet.

  Her eye caught sight of a caterpillar, spinning its chrysalis. The shiny chrysalis reminded her of Iras, her golden-haired lover. She had warned Iras, decades before, not to trust the new regime in L’li, even in the name of compassion. Small loans to farmers with babies on their backs were a good risk; big loans to young planetary regimes were not. But Iras was more daring, and what did Verid love her for, if not for that.

  “It’s still too early for us to step in,” Hyen concluded, as Verid figured he would. “Let the banks do what they can.”

  Flors nodded and left for a conference with Guardians Tenarishon, Inashon, and Catashon.

  “Well,” Hyen told Verid, “I’d still like to see the Azure Throne one day.”

  Verid took a deep breath. She wished Hyen had chosen a Subguardian he respected better, instead of one whom he undermined behind his back. But Hyen, who had a keen eye for talent, distrusted it too near his own power. “Where do you think Bronze Sky will settle its own overflowing billions, a hundred years from now, if not Urulan’s open spaces?” she asked. “The Sharers won’t let us terraform another world, and if we don’t, who will? No one, until there’s a crisis and billions starve. The Fold can’t afford to sit by and watch Urulan poison its own planet with thermonuclear weapons.”

  “No,” said Hyen. “But if Urulan is as desperate as you say, then they’ll find their way back here soon enough.”

  “How can they, with all our doors shut?”

  Hyen shrugged. “The shonlings might hold another craft fair.”

  LATER, IN HER WALNUT-PANELED OFFICE AT THE NUCLEUS, Verid apologized to Raincloud for Lord Zheron’s untimely defection. “Don’t think your efforts were wasted, though,” Verid told her. “The Urulites will have to come back some day, In the meantime, the experience we’ve gained will serve us well.”

  Raincloud said nothing, The Urulite missile threat remained, although it had dropped out of the news. As for herself, in her present condition she would do well to avoid duels to the death. She wondered what Zheron would think if he knew she had conceived. Probably not much. An Urulite newborn was not considered to exist as a person until its father held it under water and brought it out—if he chose to do so.

  Still, she regretted her lost adventure. She took a breath and resolved to put it behind her. “What’s next?”

  “Imperial broadcasts have dried up, too,” Verid observed. “There’s a fair bit of work in the archives. Beyond that, we’re sho
rthanded in the L’liite area just now. How’d you like to assist the entourage of the L’liite trade minister?”

  Raincloud raised an eyebrow. Elysian “Foreign Affairs,” she realized, was a small operation compared to the Bronze Skyan State Department. In some ways, Elysium felt like a small town; all their citizens put together added up to but a tenth the population of Founders City. “I understand the current situation with L’li is…complex,” said Raincloud. “What will happen to Iras’s new loan?”

  Verid’s face went blank. “We can’t make exceptions. It’s up to Bank Helicon to reschedule, if they choose.”

  “Well, at least a world doesn’t go bankrupt.”

  “No,” said Verid. “Though perhaps some should. What do you think should be done?”

  She had no answer, except that nobody ought to incur debts outside her clan. “How did the bank ever get into this mess, in the first place?” she asked.

  “Big investment brings big returns. Elysians habitually underestimate the volatility of foreign investment.”

  Greed, in other words. “You blame too much of your troubles on foreigners. A thousand years ought to teach you better.”

  “Exactly,” Verid agreed enthusiastically. “That is what I keep telling Iras. If the poorer worlds want help to remodel their climates and build solar power satellites, why not pay a contractor to do it, instead of a cash handout?”

  “That’s patronizing,” said Raincloud. “I don’t mean to absolve the L’liites, though. No one should take on obligations they can’t meet.”

  Verid thought this over and laced her fingers. “I suppose the L’liites see it as rich against poor. Why in the universe do we have so much, and they so little? Why should they repay anything?”

  This last was too much for Raincloud. “You all think only of money, L’liites and Elysians both,” she burst out. “There are things worth more than money, things like love and honor.”