Daughter of Elysium

by Joan Slonczewski

  “Or Sharers,” Merwen agreed.

  Adeisha considered this. “After a fashion, yes; but it would be a duller, poorer Web. Some moss-fungi would die out without dead meat to feed upon.” The colorful moss-fungi were much admired by Sharer artists.

  “So then,” said Merwen, “all creatures, even we Sharers in the end, give our bodies to the ocean to feed the fungi.”

  “Unwillingly,” Weia pointed out.

  “Unwillingly, in most cases. But, as Adeisha said before, deeds count more than intentions.”

  “Yes,” said Adeisha. “However long we strive for life, we all expect to end our days on the ocean floor. But—that’s just what the Heliconians would prevent,” she added excitedly.

  Merwen waved a hand, as if the Heliconians and their plans were of small consequence. “The four of us, here, have now spun a Web of the purest form. Each sharer, be it animal, plant or microbe, or even Sharer, serves all the rest, unremittingly, without reserve. What more could one ask? What greater compassion could be imagined?”

  Weia laughed and squeezed Adeisha’s hand. “Surely you won’t let her leave it at that, Shortsighted One.”

  Adeisha said carefully, “There is a lot of pain in this Web, the pain of things preyed upon, parasitized, starved. There is more pain than the most compassionate lifeshaper can even begin to share.”

  “The Web you describe is for fish,” I objected suddenly, “not for humans.”

  Merwen’s head turned toward me, and the scar wrinkled on her neck. “How do humans change the Web?”

  I hesitated, reluctant to speak.

  “Humans generate compassion,” said Adeisha. “That is our deepest calling.”

  “Humans make ‘war,’” I said. The word for “war,” literally, “the great deathhastening,” had been unknown to Sharers before the Valan invasion. “They make ‘war’ with each other, and with the Web, until it is destroyed.”

  “No, Cassi,” said Weia, “this thing called ‘war’ was invented by sick ones, not healthy humans.”

  This angered me, and Merwen said, “Even Sharers contain the seeds of ‘war.’ My own outward scars were not caused by Valans.”

  “But that seed has never spread, and never will,” insisted Adeisha. “How could it? How could a Sharer Gathering ever make ‘war’ upon an insect, let alone other humans?”

  Merwen did not answer this. Instead she asked, “Can you say what is the most central quality that makes humans different from other strands of the Web? The quality that makes possible compassion, as well as deathhastening?”

  “Knowing,” said Adeisha. “The faculty of knowing things, knowing about things, sets humans apart. But I agree with Weia: No human who knows better would invent ‘war,’ so ‘war’ is not truly human.”

  Merwen said, “So humans are ‘creatures that know’ about the Web. We’ll soon see what that means. But first, before this ‘creature that knows’ can be seen within the Web, we must dive more deeply and share a fundamental truth: indeed, the most shameful truth about the Web.”

  “How can truth be shameful?” Adeisha objected.

  “Better shameful truth than noble lies,” said I.

  Merwen flashed a smile. “All truth shames the learner; that’s the attraction in it. Shame brings blood to the face, and elsewhere.”

  “Be serious,” Adeisha insisted. “Shameful or not, what is this truth about our humans in the Web?”

  “The truth is that all of us, even the most compassionate, feed on other life, cutting short thousands of individual lives.”

  Adeisha hesitated. “Yes, but we agreed that’s part of the Web. The fish we eat may have eyes, but they cannot know themselves in the mirror.” The Sharer definition of a human is one who recognizes herself in her reflection.

  “Sharers eat fish,” Merwen observed, although she herself abstained from fish and other flesh. “Valans eat ‘monkeys.’ Have you ever seen one? A ‘monkey’ may recognize herself in the mirror, although she cannot write or calculate as we do.”

  “Then these, ‘monkeys,’ too, are human, only differently able. Our Gathering would share care of them,” said Adeisha.

  “Excellent,” Merwen told her granddaughter. “The monkeys are human. Now, about the fish again: What do you know about fish?”

  “It is well known that a fish sees in the mirror just another competitor.”

  “Why is the mirror so important? What do fish feel about being eaten, never mind the mirror?”

  At this, Adeisha and Weia both stirred uneasily, sensing a heresy, something “new and evil.” Weia muttered, “Of course the mirror is important. A human sees herself in it; and the fullest human, the one ready to join the Gathering, sees not just herself, but every human being that ever lived.”

  “Every human being? Even those who never saw a mirror?”

  “Even those unfortunate ones,” said Adeisha.

  “Why not fish, too?”

  There was a short silence.

  “What do fish feel?” Merwen repeated, “And what is our response? To avoid causing pain, whoever feels the pain—isn’t this the first duty of the Compassionate One?”

  “So,” Adeisha replied reluctantly, “this is why you don’t eat fish. Very well, then; we can get along without eating fish, or crabs or snails, or any creature that has eyes and might feel pain.”

  Weia laughed. “Wait till you propose that to the Gathering.”

  I smiled, thinking of the nets full of fish we all had consumed at the festival.

  “Nevertheless,” said Adeisha, “it would be possible. The Gatherings have accepted stranger things—even my ‘father,’ a malefreak from Valedon. Let’s not eat fish.”

  “A male,” corrected Merwen, preferring a less loaded reference to the sex absent among Sharers except for the Valan emigrant who had become Adeisha’s father. “Males, too, have their place in the Web. Now that we’re not eating fish, what about plants? Surely seaweed objects to being chewed between your jaws.”

  “Shora,” exclaimed Adeisha, “seaweed has no eyes nor central nervous system. Seaweed can’t feel pain.”

  “How can you be sure? Seaweed collects light throughout its body, just like eyes. Some seaweeds make thorns or collect poisons, precisely to avoid grazers.”

  “Nonsense,” said Weia firmly. “Plants can’t feel.”

  “Is feeling a kind of skill, something that must be learnshared? Do poorly raised children lose the ability to feel?”

  “As you say,” replied Adeisha.

  “Well then,” said Merwen, “even if our plants can’t feel, they might be human, just differently able.”

  Chagrined, Adeisha winced to think of it. “We might give up eating plants,” she decided, “and even fungi, since that’s who you’ll argue for next. We could lifeshape our digestive tracts to oxidize sulfur, iron, and uranium, the way microbes do.”

  “Sulfur, iron, and uranium!” cried Weia. “How absurd!”

  “She warned us,” Adeisha conceded. “Loving all and eating none—our Compassionate One seems to be a microbe. Well, I haven’t gone mad yet. In the name of compassion, I’ll eat sulfur and iron. I draw the line at uranium, though. What next?”

  “You haven’t gone mad,” agreed Merwen admiringly. “And you’ve only one thing left to give up eating.”

  “Just one! What a relief,” said Adeisha. “Hurry up, what’s left?”

  “Your future children.”

  At that, Adeisha fell silent, her lips parted. The wind from the ocean climbed the rim, keening over us.

  “I’m not sure I understand,” I said haltingly.

  “I’m not sure I want to,” muttered Weia.

  “Adeisha,” Merwen asked, “what is the first duty of the Gathering, with respect to our future children?”

  “The Gathering decides how many children are to be conceived,” Adeisha explained, “and by whom. The lifeshaper then collects ova from the pair of lovesharers. The ova are fused and their chromosomes modified, then ret
urned to the one who shall bear the child.”

  “How many children might a woman bear over a lifetime, if unregulated by the Gathering?”

  “A lifetime? Goodness—some ten or twenty, perhaps, if the seaswallower spared her.”

  “What becomes of the ova that would have made those children?”

  “They die, along with most of the hundred thousand produced to begin with.”

  “But she chooses to let die these ten or twenty ova, her future children.”

  Adeisha did not answer, but Weia exclaimed, “Nonsense, Mother. Everyone knows that human life begins at fusion of the ova, in the place of lifeshaping, not before.”

  “Is this a thing we know,” asked Merwen, “or only a thing we tell our children, those we let live? One of Cassi’s noble lies?”

  “It’s only common sense,” said Weia. “Twenty children apiece would crowd and starve each other out in no time.”

  “As I said, we eat our future children, in the name of the Web. We don’t see them in the mirror; though some claim to, in whitetrance.”

  Adeisha now had a haunted look about her eyes, and the tendons stood out in her neck. “You are calling lies everything we teach our children—that life begins in the place of lifeshaping; that the Sharer sees herself and all others in the mirror; that Shora Herself placed Sharers in the Web as gentle guardians of its living pattern.”

  “Unspeak her, Adeisha,” proposed Weia sympathetically. “You would scarcely be the first to unspeak my mothersister.”

  A ghost of a smile passed Merwen’s lips. “I did not call them lies,” she told Adeisha, “I only asked questions. Weia is right: Those are good rules for children. And the child is central within us all.”

  “All right,” sighed Adeisha, “I’ve now gone completely mad. What next? Do we eat our present children, too?”

  “As I said, Weia’s rules are good ones. To be shamed is no excuse for shamelessness.”

  “Thanks, Mother,” said Weia. “Is it possible that you intend to complete your weaving of this Web with my simple rules?”

  “Surely not,” said Adeisha, “with us madwomen at large. Is compassion no more than a handful of rules?”

  Merwen held up her hands. “All right, all right; we’ll ascend from the depths to rescue compassion. Though, having heard your threat of unspeech, I hesitate to think what fate you’ll choose for me next when you hear what’s to come.”

  At this I laughed. “Never fear,” I said, “we won’t unspeak you. I for one will share your fate, whatever it is.”

  “Thanks, Cassi,” said Merwen. “A fate shared with you would be worth embracing.”

  At that my face grew warm.

  “Well, then,” said Merwen. “Suppose compassion is not a perfect, unchanging element of the universe, like iron or sulfur. It is imperfect and approximate, perhaps even inconsistent.”

  “Agreed,” said Adeisha. “Compassion is a living thing.”

  “Then it requires conception, gestation—and birth. Compassion will now be born, in three waves of contraction.”

  “All right.”

  “First, we have seen how the Web interweaves its strands of compassion and consumption inextricably, like the orbital and radial lines of a clickfly web.”

  “Yes, like that,” Adeisha agreed.

  “Then human compassion will always require choice, difficult choices at that. Difficult choices require good learnsharing.” That is, “learning,” or “teaching.” “And good learnsharing requires good teacher/learners.”

  “Who will make the best teacher/learner?” asked Adeisha.

  “The infant,” answered Merwen. “The infant, the most wicked and recalcitrant creature, has the most to learn, and the most to teach about compassion. From conception, the infant requires infinite care of her mother. But the form of the infant, her large eyes, round head, even the sweet scent of her scalp, elicits universal delight from caresharers. And the sharing of milk rewards the mother as sweetly as lovemaking.”

  “The infant teaches compassion—and tests it,” added Weia.

  “Yes, yes,” said Adeisha. “In our best Web, let all Sharers spend as much time as possible sharing care of infants. In this way, they will learn the good of compassion.”

  “And let every Sharer bear and nurse a child at least once in her lifetime,” Merwen went on. “By containing that little kicking fish inside her for nine months, she will learn compassion for the Web itself, which encompasses so many kicking creatures.”

  “What if some are more fit to mother children than others?” Weia asked. “Just as some are suited to fishing, others to lifeshaping?”

  “Some children are better suited to having mothers than others. Yet each child must have one.”

  Then I asked, “What about males? You said that males, too, could share the Web.”

  Merwen nodded. “Can males be Sharers of the Web?”

  “My ‘father’ is,” Adeisha promptly replied. “But in general, it’s agreed that males are inferior to females and have difficulty becoming Sharers.”

  “Inferior in all respects?”

  “Not at all,” I objected. “Males equal us in most respects; intelligence, fortitude, and so on. Of course, in both sexes, individuals may be better or worse.”

  Adeisha said, “Males are incapable of childbirth, which is precisely what’s needed.”

  “Exactly,” said Merwen. “So, the childbearing ability must be shared with men. You’re the lifeshaper. Can this be done?”

  Adeisha considered this. “It could be done. Although, for future children, the simplest remedy would be to eliminate the Y chromosome, which carries few genes anyway. Why make any more males?”

  “So all our male ‘future children’ are to be ‘eaten,’” observed Merwen ironically. “But the Web needs diversity. To exclude a chromosome, even a small one, from our gene pool would be a mistake.”

  “You’re right,” Adeisha agreed.

  “Once males can bear infants and share milk,” Merwen said, “their minds will turn away from ‘war,’ the one act which appears as momentous as childbirth. This is the ‘first wave’ that I promised.”

  “But Sharers, too, share the seeds of ‘war,’” I reminded her.

  “You’re right,” said Merwen. “Our first wave was a small one. Now the next. If males can become Sharers, what of other creatures?”

  Weia eyed her doubtfully. “Surely, Mother, you won’t tell us fish can learnshare compassion?”

  “Microbes learned compassion long before fish. Microbes made the first environment that greater creatures could dwell in.”

  “Yes,” said Adeisha. “Even disease-causing microbes evolve into forms which spare their host and hence survive better. The species most advanced in evolution are the symbionts.”

  “The origin of species,” said Merwen, “is the survival of the best sharer.”

  “The best eater, you mean,” said Weia.

  “That, too.” Merwen lifted a hand. “But humans are unique in this: We alone can knowingly choose which current to follow, sharing or eating.”

  Weia said, “Then we can choose to eat fish.”

  “What becomes of us, then, as we watch their eyes and cut off their heads?”

  Adeisha shuddered. “Fish might teach us, as infants do.”

  “A fish is not an infant,” Weia insisted. “I eat fish, but I adore my Oolioo.”

  “You’re right,” said Merwen. “But perhaps for that very reason, we might practice compassion on fish and other eyed creatures first.”

  Adeisha asked, “How is that?”

  “The child who learns to weave seasilk practices first with strands of weed. And the builder of silkhouses builds a toy house of sticks first. So, the Compassionate One will begin with fish.”

  “But the lifeshaper, too, has to practice,” Adeisha pointed out. “She practices on plants and animals, first, before shaping humans.”

  “The lifeshapers will have to come up with other ways. T
his is the ‘second wave’: To practice the skill of compassion, Sharers must learn not-killing of fish, crabs, insects, indeed all creatures that have eyes.”

  “Not-killing,” I murmured, for the word was new to me.

  “Remember,” said Merwen, “that ‘killing,’ that is, hastening death, is inescapable; for all living things will die, and all live by the death of others. But not-hastening, not-killing, is what shines like waterfire in a dark sea.”

  Weia observed, “The Gatherings would never agree to do without fish.”

  “They might,” offered Merwen, “if it could be shown to strengthen our Web against future invaders.”

  “That is true,” said Adeisha. “Compassion overcame the Valan invaders; so, the deeper our compassion, the greater the security of our world.”

  “Now,” said Merwen, “what shall we call the Sharers who choose to live by this new standard? Let’s call them Guardians, the Guardians of the true Web.”

  “The Guardians,” said Adeisha approvingly. “All Sharers were meant to guard the Web and be guarded by it.”

  “So these Guardians will share guarding,” said Merwen, “in the name of compassion, for the sake of all organisms, all strands of the Web.”

  “Those Guardians themselves will need watching,” Weia warned, “It’s said, ‘guard none but the guardians.’”

  “Exactly,” said Merwen. “That’s the ‘third wave.’ Who among these Guardians will rule and be ruled?”

  No one answered.

  “Among the Guardians,” Merwen went on, “surely a few will show special gifts of knowing: knowing of the wind and water, of the expanse of clickfly memories, of the ways of minds and hearts. Those of greatest insight will know how to sort compassion from consumption, in any given instance. Those who put their gifts into words will be called the most inspired, and the most dangerous.”

  “Wordweavers,” I whispered with half a smile.

  “The wordweavers!” Adeisha exclaimed. “Of course, the wordweavers have infinite insight, and can best teach the Gathering. The wordweavers must rule the Web.”

  Merwen said, “Who knows better to rule, and desires it more, than the wordweaver? But beware—for the compassionate wordweaver will also be the most dangerous strand of the Web. She will be an extremist and a busybody, always trying to set to right things which might best be left alone.”