"No!" barked Zude in her best command voice. "Commander, attention!"
Tung-Po halted, not because she heard the command but because a young Amah suddenly stood beside her handing her a magnopad for approval. The Commander tucked her own magnopad under her arm and stepped toward the Sea-Shrieve to scan the proffered magnopad.
Zude's hungry eyes turned to the first two lines of figures on the screen.
"LS 2416 7463082 AN 480.TUX 3840303," said line one to her, glowing calmly, as if its very existence were not being threatened. Out of the corner of her eye, Zude saw Tung-Po, now nodding as she signed the magnopad. Zude set her mind into memorize mode, quickly zapping each of line one's number groups into a place of secure recall in her mind. She was just focusing on line two when Tung-Po dismissed the Sea-Shrieve and turned back to the utility screen, her hand vaguely reaching again for the Clear button.
"Not yet!" shouted Zude. She pushed her whole buoyant body toward the numbers, trying to see around the bulk of Tung-Po's shoulders. The Commander's hand continued to advance. Zude shouted louder, frantically insinuating herself into a standing position between Tung-Po and the screen. To her horror, Tung-Po's arm moved through Zude's own substance, still on its path to the clearing tab.
Zude gathered all the intensity her diaphanous body would allow her. As the Commander's arm moved forward through her, Zude ducked her head and raised it again carefully, thus placing her eyes firmly on a level with those of the Chinese woman.
Remarkably, Tung-Po stopped. Both hands dropped and she frowned. Slowly she widened her eyes, as if taking in the hues of a stupendous sunset.
"Kiang Tung-Po," Zude whispered, looking deeply into the soft brown eyes, "I want you to rest a moment before you continue your work." Her hands framed the Commander's head, caressing her black hair. "Just rest," she cooed. "You've been working far too hard, and you're righteously tired." Zude began blowing sensuously around the woman's hairline, her ears. "Take a deep breath and relax now. Just for a moment."
Mariner First Class Tiny Nauru heard a small clatter as something dropped to the floor of the Seadrome. Casually she looked up from the monitoring of her three show-screens. Over at the north viewport Commander Tung-Po stood like a statue, a magnopad at her feet and both arms outstretched as if embracing someone. Tiny craned her neck to see if the Commander's companion would retrieve the dropped magnopad. And to determine, if she could, the other’s identity.
To her consternation, Tiny then saw that the Commander was alone and was in fact staggering and turning backwards to brace herself against a convenient console. She was leaning there as if in some shock, her right hand on her chest and her left still cupped as if holding another's chin. Her lips curved in a warm smile.
"Commander!" called Tiny. Torn between her duty and what seemed to her to be Tung-Po's distress, she then addressed an Amah retreating through the control room door, the same officer who had obtained the Commander's signature.
"Sea-Shrieve, front and center!" she shouted. "Look to the Commander!" She pointed to Tung-Po, who acknowledged the eruption of noise with a slow turning of her head. The Amah sprinted across the room to Tung-Po, taking her by the arm.
Tung-Po patted the young woman's hand. "I'm fine, thank you. Just fine."
None of the preoccupied officers noted the bundle of energy that hovered over the utility station, carefully absorbing the sequence of numbers that constituted line two of the screen.
Grinning with satisfaction, Zude floated again toward the ocean outside the control room where the bright Swallower awaited her. As she passed over the cluster of Sea-Shrieves surrounding Tung-Po, she dropped to a delicate head-first hover and brushed the Commander's cheek with her lips. Then she was gone.
Hand to cheek, Commander Kiang Tung-Po turned her head quickly toward the wall of the Seadrome. When at last she gathered herself again into the proper conduct of her duty, she dismissed with thanks those so concerned for her health.
Only Mariner First Class Tiny Nauru puzzled about the deep flush that adorned her Commander's cheeks.
The Swallower sped out and downward through the ocean. Zude sped with it, focusing as she went upon holding the number sequences in her mind. She knew without consulting her tacto-time that less than two minutes had passed since she had left the Sojourner. Still she must hurry.
Her guide led her under the destroyer and back to her precise spot of exit from the phaeton. Zude barely thanked the strange little Swallower before dropping into the vessel. She saw Ria motionless, her eyes closed, holding what Zude hoped were sleeping children; Lieutenant Commander Maiz sat like a statue of white ice, her eyes open but not seeing, her hands resting on the console bank. "Oxygen at 6.6%," the compuvox intoned.
Zude's own body anxiously awaited her, drawing her like a magnet back into its confines. This body was very cold. And obviously it was not breathing. Well, maybe twice a minute. Slowly, Zude initiated short shallow breaths. Then longer ones. She could barely move her hands and feet. What had been freedom was now a tomb. And she was having trouble orienting herself. Things recently bright and clear were now murky. Urgently she made herself repeat the sequence of numbers. Twice, to be sure this body had them in its cells. Then, heavy and uncoordinated, she finally pulled herself to a standing position.
"Maiz!" she called. Her voice was a rasp.
Maiz seemed not to be breathing, much less moving.
Zude saw Ria's chest rise and fall.
"Ria!"
Ria nodded, trying to smile. Zude reached out toward the children. Ria stopped her with a grunt. "They're okay," she mouthed.
Zude nodded. She tried for a shout.
"Lieutenant Commander Maiz!"
Maiz jerked. Her eyes flew open. "Magister. . ." It was a whisper.
Zude found a small swallow of air. Her lungs hurt. "Quick, enter these numbers." She began reciting the first line.
Maiz's fingers started to move.
Zude put her mouth to Maizie's ear. "Seven four six three zero eight. . .”
She could barely whisper. Maiz's fingers fumbled at the keys. Zude pushed out the remaining figures of the codes between small intakes of breath. Both lines. Maiz's fingers struggled.
At last the Commander drew in a large precious batch of oxygen. She expended it in one mighty whoop.
"That's it! Systems responding!"
Sojourner came alive again as emergency systems moved online. Air hissed. Lights seeped into brightness. The promise of warmth and comfort surged from reactivated ducts and boosters. Zude and Maiz pushed themselves to the limp forms of Ria and the children, beginning the task of reviving them fully.
* * * * * * * *
They were drinking hot coffee and tea when the comunit burst into full presence with the arrival of two phaetons bearing a tractor beam. They were dizzy with delight and relief as they were towed out of the abyss and back to the Seadrome. And they rejoiced with a huge party of Sea-Shrieves as they clambered out of the launch bay and into the safety and comfort of the control room.
Magister Adverb's first act upon debarking was to speak with both Commanders Ark and Tung-Po, convincing them that no Kanshou could be held responsible for the consequences of the missing comcube. In fact, the Kanshoubu's Labrys Manual immediately featured the incident as a dramatic testimony to the eternal imminence of disaster even in the face of procedures perfectly followed.
Lieutenant Commander Nicola Maiz could hardly wait to tell her Sister-Shrieves the remarkable tale of how Magister Adverb had gone into alpha state and emerged with one hundred percent accurate recall of figures she had only casually noted when she had first seen them.
As they emerged from the Seadrome, Zude understood that her world had changed beyond telling. Her sleep that night was deep.
The next morning, when she and her family boarded the low rocket to Australia, Zude saw another whole dimension of change that was to come. Buckling Regina into her seat cup, she froze at the sight, in the child’s black hair, of a
single white curl.
4 – West Virginia – [2088 C.E.]
When madness beckons, go there.
When reason beckons, beware.
The paths of the Journey are not straight.
Vade Mecum For The Journey
Deep in the Brazilian jungle, a setting sun touched the headwaters of Río Itanhaua and the glassy surface of Lago Tefé. The sounds of the village wafted through the damp afternoon, soft voices chattering together through tinkling chimes and rustling branches.
Jezebel lay alone, on her back, in a treehouse. She was seeking rest — and sleep, if it would only deign to come. She was resisting an old familiar chill, her most reliable symptom of an impending loss of consciousness. Her head ached. She licked several bubbles of foam from her lips and swallowed a metallic saliva. "You can hold this off," a voice told her. "You used to do it all the time."
Oh yes, she thought, I used to. Forty years ago.
Deliberately she concentrated on the wooden windchimes, bringing herself into their resonances. "Good," said her voice. "Now stay there. Hold with the chimes." Then, unbidden and in spite of her focus, the old sweet taste came, cloying and insistent. "Listen!" Heavily she shifted her attention back to the chimes, sucking in their sounds, willing them to fill her universe.
But in the next instant she knew there was no escape. Not when the head-to-toe blasts of sweat had begun, not when her body started its old familiar arching upward, navel to the sky, not when she moved like a dutiful slave into her curving backbone as it completed its inexorable rounding and stiffening. Its arch fitted her like an old pair of shoes. This daemon had slept for decades, dreaming of the time when it could again be the companion of her nights and days. She was completely in the arch now, surrendered to its stasis, braced on her shoulders and heels, in full-body paralysis. And there they went, her eyes, backward into her skull, back, back. . .
In her last moment before total darkness and the convulsions that were sure to come, she remembered to tuck her tongue behind her lower teeth.
* * * * * * *
"She's eased," Dicken said. "She'll be okay after some rest."
Oaliu, Trustholder of the Acuai tribespeople, took the damp cloth from Dicken. "Last night, before we began the culture and language transfers, her sleep was very disturbed. Why was that?"
Dicken sat at the end of the pallet, holding Jez's head. "She calls it 'my childhood affliction.' It's been on her for three nights now — just some symptoms. But even our spooning got to be affected. Nothing dangerous, but a little shaky."
"You have not seen such seizures before?"
"No. She's described them, but this one here is the first I ever saw. Wait, she's stirring."
Oaliu laid her lips close to Jez's ear. "You do not have to move. We have healers who will help. I have sent for them."
The eyelids fluttered mightily with the effort to open. Then Jez whispered the Acuai word of agreement.
"Good." Oaliu nodded. "We have gotten you cleaned up and in fresh beddings. You will be able to understand all that the healers tell us." She looked at Dicken.
"I am right here," Dicken told Jez. She wiped the wet brow again with the cloth.
Jez's eyes flew open. She sat bolt upright and tried to get to her feet.
"Lavona," she croaked, "we've got to get to Lavona!" She pushed Oaliu's arms away.
Dicken brought her partner gently down to the pallet again. Oaliu helped her to soothe the wild-eyed Jez. "Jezebel, sweet love," she whispered.
Jez still struggled. "Now, Dicken! We have to go now!"
Dicken held her down, effortlessly. "Jezebel, we cannot be going right away. We could not even raise the spoon, you in this shape. So hush now."
Jez sank back, fighting nausea. "An hour. I'll rest an hour." She was lost again in slumber.
"Lavona?" Oaliu asked.
"An old friend. She's a weekday childkeeper, I think. She lives up in the Alleghenies."
"Nueva Tierra Norte?"
Dicken grinned ruefully. "Yes. West Virginia." She pulled a light blanket over Jez and spoke to the room at large. "I got no notion why we got to go to West Virginia."
* * * * * * *
Two days later, after long legs of hard flying over jungles and high plains, and a rocket hop across the Caribbean, Jez and Dicken spooned due north again. The air whipped by their powerbubble at 100-plus miles per hour, disturbing not at all the two navigation and monitoring systems that were linked in perfect coordination. But things were not peaceful inside the flightpod.
When Dicken suggested a layover in Atlanta, Jez took her hand out of a warm pocket and reached toward her lover. "I'm not tired, Dicken. . ."
"Well I am!" Dicken exploded, flinging Jez's hand away from her. She pushed more sustaining ki toward the edges of their bubble and rubbed her eyes with both hands.
"God's Green Eyeballs, Bella," she said wearily.
"And I am not Bella!" Jez's voice was tense.
In a swift shift, Dicken rolled onto her back, readjusting her monitors so that she flew supine just a few inches below her lover. "Look at me," she challenged, shaking Jez's shoulders. The eyes that stared back at Dicken were surrounded by gray circles. "It's just that you will not lay down your head to rest," Dicken whispered.
"I can't rest! Quit protecting me, Dicken!"
"I'm trying to keep you from killing yourself."
"Don't do me any favors! Let me kill myself!"
"Fine! Get to it!"
Dicken flung herself back into the side-by-side prone position and steadied the staggering lonth maintenance.
Dregs of anger settled within the quiet flightpod. Dicken was breathing hard. For the first time since discovering the power of womanlove and stepping up into the high reaches of paired flight, she considered calling for spoonbreak.
Jez was speaking softly. "We can't do that anymore, Dicken. That's poison."
"Spare me."
"Hear me. It's fueling all the violence, everywhere."
Dicken raged. "All the. . .our fighting? Oh, come to mama, Jezebel!"
"I'm tired of doing it." Jez stretched out her arms for a mile-high embrace. Dicken hesitated, then let her tension dissolve. With a grateful sigh she moved into the waiting arms.
They did rest in Atlanta, and from there they informed Lavona of their impending arrival. They took off again with a refurbished intimacy and somewhat restored health.
* * * * * * *
Like their ancestors, those who still lived in the mountains of West Virginia died with the conviction that there was no such thing as flat. Nowhere in these overlapping ranges were any two adjacent feet of terrain at the same natural altitude, and it was the forever up-and-down demands of those green-clad majesties that assured natives they were home.
It was no wonder, then, that in the heart of those mountains the abandoned Welchtown rocketport stood out to Jez and Dicken like a skeptic at a Goddess gathering. Its hundreds of square acres of solar panels shone like a vast cold flat lake, reflecting a pale sun that was setting abruptly behind the higher mountains to the west. April in West Virginia still felt like winter.
Almost hidden in the trees that climbed close to the port's edges were hillside homes, and a winding road that bound the houses into a visible unit probably called a town. The rocket’s landing was hailed by the cheers and laughter of a welcoming group. One woman stood out from the others.
"Witchwoman!" she shouted.
"Hillbilly!" Jez flung out her arms. Their hug encompassed Dicken and set the tone for the lively evening of food and music.
* * * * * * *
Long after the cornbread and greens had disappeared, long after the women had sung and drummed themselves to satisfaction, and shortly after the goodnight voices had faded into the sky or down the hillside, Dicken and Jez stood together listening to the loud flow of the branchwater behind the house. When they returned to the warmth of the kitchen, Lavona was emptying a coal scuttle into the cookstove's firebox. She scraped the ro
und cover back into place with the eye-grip and wiped her hands on her apron.
"Well. Set." She motioned toward the hefty straight-backed chairs in front of the stove and dumped cold tea from cups she identified as theirs. She felt the belly of the teapot and, satisfied it was warm enough, filled the cups.
Dicken and Jez tilted their chairs, bracing their feet on the stove fender. Lavona put the cups in their hands and drew up her own chair. She chewed on a toothpick. "So. Jezebel, it’s time fer you t’do some tall talkin'."
Jez looked briefly at Dicken before she spoke.
"Hillbilly, you tell me why in five hours' time, in the presence of thirteen women and children who are a part of a small town that is clearly in contact with the rest of the world, over a blessed meal and good conversation, why two outlanders like us haven't heard a word about a world disaster that's bigger than anything that has happened to any of us in our short lives."
Her words hung in the air. Lavona scratched under her light brown hair. "Y'mean. . ."
"I mean, hillbilly, why is nobody talking about the dying children? Why did the little ones we put to bed two hours ago sing a strange song together before they went to sleep? Why do they all three have gray hair?"
Lavona sucked on her toothpick and studied her guests. Then she dropped her chair to all four legs and leaned on her knees, addressing the stove.
"We done lost six. An’ it looks like no more's a-comin’." She looked back at them. "Jezebel, we been a long time parted so maybe you forgot." She shifted the toothpick to the other corner of her mouth. "It's a fam’ly thing. Fer us t’ take keer of, here in our slopes an’ hollers. We got no need t’ tell the world about it."
She wiped her forefinger across her upper lip.
"T’ boot, we don’t hold with weepin' an' wailin' more than's common. We figure it'll either git better or 'twon't. Th’ Goddess gives an' She takes away. We come t’gether regular-like, fer as long’s we need to, t’ shake out our cryin' cloths fer th’ day. An' we pray with each other till there's no prayers left in us."
The Magister (Earthkeep) Page 8
