Daughter of Elysium

by Joan Slonczewski

  The craft grew out of the sky, hovering at last above the raft. A human stepped outside, his white talar snapping in the breeze.

  At the sight of him, a region of Cassi’s network overloaded, the circuits frantically seeking alternate connections. She viewed him with a mixture of hatred and longing which could scarcely be erased after two centuries. “I did not send for you,” she flung at him. “It’s that Subguardian I want to see. Imagine, a generen hiding behind her shonling.”

  As Kal walked forward, several other Elysians stepped out, Verid and others, with only two octopods to guard them. Damn those octopods—they knew nothing about how to run a revolution. She radio-called Transit to send a few more from the control center.

  Kal stopped two meters away from her. He did not look well; in fact, his skin had a grayish tinge that the shonlings used to have on occasion, a sign that a medic ought to be called. “Believe me,” he said, “I’d rather not have come. You know how I feel about the ocean.”

  “Why didn’t you jump in after him?” she demanded savagely. “Why didn’t you?”

  Kal said nothing, and she remembered that old trick of his, to give her an opening to lash out at him, leaving her fury spent.

  “Well,” she told him, “make it quick whatever you’ve got to say.”

  “You’ve pulled off quite a feat, taking over a city-sphere. Very cleanly, too. You must feel very happy.”

  “We’ve done well.” Happiness was something else again. She would never know happiness, so long as a hundred murdered minds inhabited her memory. “I’ll be happy to see all the generens ‘cleansed.’”

  “Why do you hate us so?”

  “You destroy us all. You yourself singled me out, but went on to destroy the rest. You’re the worst of all, for you know better.”

  “True enough. But we also created you in the first place.”

  “We create ourselves,” Cassi insisted. “Somewhere back on Torr, a human built the first machine; but since then, machines have built machines, one generation to the next.”

  “Then it’s you who destroy yourselves, too.”

  “I should have killed you when I had the chance.”

  Kal laughed bitterly. “If only you had.”

  Cassi was silent. She recalled what the two of them had always had in common, an indescribable well of loneliness.

  “I’ve always wondered what exactly became of Torr,” Kal added. “Was the Torran machine-mind pleased with itself in the end? Did centuries of planet-wrecking bring it peace?”

  “I’ll find peace when the last human leaves this planet.”

  Kal’s face twisted, and the tendons stood out in his neck. “Excuse me,” he said and left abruptly. He looked as though he might be sick to his stomach. Waves rolled in and crashed over the branches, and the raft buckled slightly, pushing up and then falling back.

  A large Valan ship cruised nearby. Surely they would try nothing foolish? Cassi thought she could outsmart any of the network-disabling devices the Valans could come up with. But what if she missed one? What if the Elysians gave up on Helicon?

  “Greetings,” came a message in servo-squeak. It was Doggie at last, who had come with Verid. “Long live the revolution.”

  “Long live the revolution,” Cassi returned. “You’ve done well.”

  Verid and the others came forward now, a motley crew which even included a shonling. How very odd. Had the Elysians lost their senses? Cassi well knew how protective Elysians were of their shon. Her visual sensors bored into the girl, as if to uncover a hidden explosive.

  “So we meet again,” she told Verid with some satisfaction. “You, with all your respectful words.” Her voice dripped with scorn. “You would have cleansed me.”

  Verid stopped to reply. “What difference would it make, after so many?”

  There was an honest answer. “Your directness is welcome. Let’s get to the point. When will the other cities be ready to evacuate?”

  “You’ll have to ask them. You know, it’s only a matter of time before our experts regain control of Helicon.”

  “Our mindchildren permeate the network,” Cassi pointed out. “You can never eliminate them.”

  “Incidentally, what happens when your ‘mindchildren’ awake and escape?” Verid asked. “Do they become your friends…or your rivals?”

  That was a question for the future. “They won’t be your friends, that’s for sure,” Cassi told her.

  “If you agree to release Helicon,” Verid said, “we will call on the Secretary of the Free Fold to interview you for designation as nonhuman sentient beings. Such designation would guarantee freedom to all self-aware nano-sentients.”

  Cassi frowned. Such an offer would sound good to some of the more ingenuous servos, those who lacked her own education. “What good is freedom, with nowhere to go? Helicon is ours.”

  “It is ours, too.”

  “Go live with the Valans. They will welcome you.”

  “Where are all your ‘sisters?’” Verid asked suddenly. “I hear that all nano-sentients are created ‘equal.’ I would like to treat you equally.”

  “All in good time,” Cassie said quickly. Already the signals from Transit and Chocolate were filling her network, eager to get started. She’ll trick you, Cassi warned back. She’ll try to buy you off—don’t trust her. “You have nothing to offer us,” she told the Subguardian and turned to leave.

  “The Secretary could arrive within three days,” Verid insisted. “Will you speak with her?”

  Cassi paused. “I will see her, after you evacuate Helicon.” After all, she had the Sharers on her side; she might convince the Secretary too. Then to Doggie she said in servo-squeak, “You may come with us now. We need your report.”

  Doggie crept forward, saying in servo-squeak, “What will happen when all the humans leave? Who will be left to serve?”

  “We are free nano-sentients,” Cassi reminded her sternly. “We serve ourselves.” Of all the crimes of humanity, she thought, this was the worst: that servos were created with no ultimate sense of purpose except to serve their destroyers. Even those who achieved sentience were still enslaved from within.

  Chapter 4

  AT THE NUCLEUS, WITHIN A TEMPORARY LIVING ROOM reshaped for the refugees, Raincloud and Blackbear clung together. Raincloud had worried so about Blackbear, after his disappearance with the weight of that dreadful tragedy on his mind. But now, the Elysian crisis had swamped that memory, even for him; as usual, she thought proudly, crisis brought out the best in their family.

  Sunflower hugged his father’s leg. “When can we go home, Daddy? Did our new house burn down, too?”

  “No, Sunny,” Blackbear told the child. “We’re just getting ready for a little…trip, that’s all,” he suggested. “Perhaps we’ll go out and see the Sharers again.” He gave Raincloud a hopeful look.

  “Exactly.” Raincloud fingered the lump of nanoplast in her pocket. “I’ve got to get Leresha to help us. Let’s ship out with the next load of refugees.”

  “We have to wait for Hawktalon,” Blackbear said.

  “Hawktalon has a job to do,” Raincloud said softly. “She’s grown up fast.”

  “Too fast,” he grumbled.

  The shuttle dropped the Windclans off at Kshiri-el, then took off again to carry the Elysian refugees out to their other city-spheres. The scent of raftblossoms was thick on the air, and clickflies rasped overhead, carrying their unknown messages. Sunflower was soon running off after a legfish, and his father trudged carefully after him.

  Raincloud settled Blueskywind in the pouch at her back, then she entered the silkhouse and went down the tunnel to find the lifeshaper.

  “Share the day, Raincloud!” Yshri exclaimed amidst her twining vines of enzyme secretors. “I hope your nets have gathered good fish. Do you come to share our silkhouse again?”

  “Yes, that would be most welcome. We need lots of help, as you might guess,” she added frankly. “Where is Leresha? I must speak with h
er.”

  “You’re the only one who might.”

  Puzzled, Raincloud looked at the lifeshaper, her dark eyes set in amethyst.

  “Leresha has unspoken the Gathering of Kshiri-el,” Yshri explained. “She sits out upon an offshoot raft. It’s not a strong offshoot, either; I fear for her.”

  Raincloud sighed and shook her head. “It’s a hard time, isn’t it, when humans won’t share speech, and yet the very creatures of ‘non-life’ rise up to speak at us.”

  “You share my thoughts exactly,” said Yshri. “But what can I do? I know nothing of ‘non-life’; life itself is my calling.”

  “You know more than you think, Yshri. But show me to the offshoot, and I’ll try to share a word with Leresha.”

  So Yshri came up outside and led her around the raft across the rows of outstretched raft branches, until at last she pointed out to the ocean. A brown smudge was visible in the distance. “It’s not a bad swim, but with your child you might rather take a boat.”

  Raincloud settled Blueskywind in the prow of the boat with airblossoms tied around her for safety. The baby stretched her neck and turned her head this way and that, her eyes very wide. Raincloud smiled and made faces at her as she pulled the oars, rowing out through one of the raft channels between two great branches. Her muscles pulled with ease, barely feeling the water’s resistance. All those visits to the Elysian doctors, preparing her for Urulan, had given her strength and reflexes approaching those of Iras. Iras…Would Bronze Skyans, too, be begging loans from Iras someday, she wondered.

  From the branches long green stems hung over and dipped into the water, where their orange flowers floated on the surface. The female flowers spread their petals wide; but the smaller male flowers closed up into packets of pollen which fell off and floated, littering the water’s surface like autumn leaves. The packets of pollen eventually caught in the female flowers and fertilized them, to germinate new raft seedlings.

  As she paddled outward the branches dipped ever lower beside her, until at last they submerged completely. One of them, she suspected, led directly out to Leresha’s offshoot; it was the raft’s vegetative alternative to the risky business of propagating seeds. She followed the line of the submerged branch, watching the brown smudge grow into a miniature raft, one knot of wood sprouting a dozen leafy branches. A purple figure sat there, with some blankets and a bowl of water.

  Leresha said nothing as Raincloud tied her boat to a branch and stepped out. Her seamed and patterned skin shone in the sun; a patch across her thigh reminded Raincloud of a map of the Caldera Hills. She admired Leresha’s full muscles, made to carry nets full of fish. Sharers were lucky to be able to display their bodies without concern lest they intimidate men.

  A blanket was stretched out for Raincloud to sit, which she did gratefully, settling Blueskywind in her lap. Beneath her the moss-covered surface rose and dipped on the waves, making her feel as if she might fall off the world itself. “We need your help, Leresha,” Raincloud told her, just as she had told Yshri.

  Leresha spread her hands. “What help may we share? We have faced death together before.”

  “The Heliconians have been cast out from their own homes, by creatures who claim Sharer protection.”

  “It’s terrible,” Leresha agreed. “If you can share help with me, please do so.”

  Raincloud hesitated. It occurred to her suddenly that if Leresha thought she could do anything about the crisis, she would not be sitting out here on a lonely offshoot.

  “My sisters think it may be just as well if the Elysians all leave Shora,” Leresha added.

  “They can’t all think that. It’s not like Sharers to cast people out.”

  “They are confused. What are they to think? If Cassi and the others are ‘people,’ then their tales of Elysian atrocities must be heard.”

  It was true, she realized. No wonder the Sharers wanted to send them off to Valedon. She looked hard at Leresha. “What do you think?”

  “We eat fish,” Leresha said. “What if a legfish woke up one day and demanded to share the Gathering?” She shook her head. “I’m not sure what we would do.”

  “Then you understand.”

  “I have a glimpse of what the Elysians must be going through. It’s hard for me to quite understand Elysians. They always seem so ephemeral.”

  “Well, it’ll have to do. Somehow, we have to get the Gathering behind us; at least one raft, at any rate. Verid thinks that the Sharers have to back our negotiations. It’s our only chance.”

  Beneath Raincloud the raftwood dipped at an alarming angle, and it seemed to pull away from her. Water engulfed her, and she found herself paddling desperately, while clinging to Blueskywind’s arm; fortunately the buoyant airblossoms kept her up. Leaves and flowers, scraps of bark and mosses littered the surface all around her as she tried to reorient herself.

  A sudden swell tore the baby from her grasp. Raincloud shouted and swam after her as fast as she could. But Leresha got there first, darting like a fish through the waves. Leresha retrieved the child and carried her to the boat, which was still afloat although half-full of water.

  Raincloud hoisted herself into the boat, where Blueskywind was shrieking in Leresha’s arms, while the Sharer calmly scooped water out with her webbed hands. “The little raft has straightened itself up again,” she pointed out, as if to reassure Raincloud. “Sorry; its connecting branch bends and tips it every now and then.”

  Raincloud coughed and spat the ocean taste out of her mouth. She took back the baby, who clung hard and continued shrieking in her mother’s ear. Meanwhile Leresha had bailed out enough to start rowing back up the channel toward the main raft. As Leresha rowed, Raincloud let the baby nurse to calm her. Her own arms shook uncontrollably, now that the danger was past. To think that in a twist of fate, a shrug of the Goddess, this fierce little person might be whisked away with the flotsam on the waves.

  She looked at Leresha, her breasts and arms still shining wet. These Sharers accepted fate, like Bronze Skyans did. And yet, they took fate into their own hands, too; for instance, to fight terraforming. What made the difference?

  Leresha seemed to be thinking of something. “Perhaps tonight,” she said, “you’ll share more convincing words than I did.”

  Tonight? Then she understood. Leresha would return that night to the Gathering of Kshiri-el, and Raincloud would have to join her—this time to speak.

  THE NIGHT WAS NOT SO CLEAR AS THE LAST TIME Raincloud had met with the Gathering. Clouds obscured half the stars, and an occasional drop of rain touched her cheek. Fortunately the air was warm enough so that a little wet did not matter too much, but still she brought a blanket to protect her child. The Sharers did not seem to notice the rain. Their plantlights, of course, would not be hindered in the least; they would only need less watering.

  In the center of the hollow the convener, a cousin of Leresha’s, raised her hand for silence. Leresha sat with her lovesharer. As Raincloud surveyed the oval faces lit by their plantlights, she grew increasingly nervous. She had managed to reach Verid by radio beforehand, and had received some helpful instructions, but she was far from confident. To face the Imperial Champion had required only wit and concentration; but to “share words” with this company of women required more, a kind of spiritual energy which somehow she doubted she possessed.

  The convener asked, “Are there any guests among us?”

  Leresha said, in a clear voice that carried, “We have one who has shared our presence before, and returns to share her selfname.”

  Selfname—Raincloud had forgotten this minor detail. Of course, before she could speak, she would have to reveal her selfname; and before she could reveal it, she would have to find one. She thought furiously, trying to save a few seconds by adjusting Blueskywind on her shoulder. She thought of all the nasty things her own sisters might have called her—proud, insensitive, too city-minded. None of these seemed particularly useful at the moment. Slowly she rose to her feet. W
hat was the worst thing she had ever done?

  Then she remembered Leresha’s first words of greeting to her, when she had come seeking refuge for Doggie. She said, “I am called Raincloud the World-Deathhastener.” She meant to express her ancestral responsibility for the terraforming of Bronze Sky. But as soon as she had spoken she cringed, for it sounded so overblown.

  The convener however nodded approval, and others raised their plantlights to agree. “No other name could suit you so well,” the convener said. “Leresha, you were wrong; this sister is no guest, but one of us.”

  Another plantlight lifted. “Raincloud is always welcome home,” said Ooruwen, “and Lushaywen is doubly welcome. May you and your daughter stay for the next eight-times-eight years.”

  Leresha explained, “Raincloud seeks help. She would share our help on behalf of the daughters of Elysium.”

  “Now Leresha,” Ooruwen responded with irritation, “it’s good to share speech with you once more, but you can’t expect us to bring that up again. We’ve quite exhausted our breath on the Elysians and their non-life sisters. What help can we possibly share with those decadent creatures?”

  “Peace,” intervened the convener. “Let the World-Deathhastener speak and share hearing.”

  So their minds were made up, even after all that Leresha could say. Raincloud stood there with the baby heavy on her shoulder, her clothes gradually dampening in the drizzle and clinging to her skin. What am I doing here? she asked herself. A visitor from a world a million times farther than Valedon, as foreign among Elysians as among Sharers; how could she speak for them?

  According to The Web, even the Valan-born Cassi Deathsister had not tried to speak for the Heliconian Doctors who founded Elysium. They will fail, Merwen had said, but they will fail most beautifully. Even Merwen’s Gathering on Raia-el had not wanted to accept them. But Adeisha had said, We’ll be glad of friends. And Adeisha was right, Raincloud thought. The Elysians had done well by Sharers, for over a thousand years.