The Magister (Earthkeep)

by Sally Miller Gearhart

  Abruptly, Magister Adverb's face contorted. She struck the console top with both hands and shot out of her chair with an exclamation that Yotoma could only call a howl.

  Magister Lutu watched her friend lunge toward the wall of glass that revealed, below and beyond, the sparkling blanket of the Los Angeles city lights. When Zude seemed about to fling herself against that wall, Yotoma stood and called out, "Zudie!"

  Zude rested her head on the window surface. "I am okay, Floss," she responded. She turned to face Yotoma's holo-image. "But it's not like there are other niñas just around the corner, you know!" She threw up her hands and paced the wall's length. "Flossie, I never thought I'd pray for babies to be born." She leaned on the back of one of the sofas. "I've always worried about us having too many of them. Now I'd like it to rain babies! Let them be born by the litters! By the hundreds! I just want to see a baby again, one that's not going to squeeze my finger and grin at me and then die tomorrow!" Zude flung herself onto one of the deep sofas, head in her hands.

  Yotoma eyed Zude in silence. Then she said, "Have you got a body to hold you, child? I'll be there on non-stop rocket. . ."

  Zude smiled a little. "Thanks, Flossie. Not necessary. Ria and I have been doing lots of holding." She checked her tacto-time. "And Bosca's coming." The floor captured her stare. When she spoke again, her voice was a whisper. "We can't reach Reggie. She seems loving, lets us put our arms around her and all that. But she's . . . ah, polite, almost. It's like she's in another place, a place we can't go."

  Yotoma said nothing.

  Zude still stared. "I will handle it, Floss. We'll lose her. And Enrique, too." She glanced at Yotoma. "He's okay, so far." She leaned on her knees. "I'll survive. We'll all of us over twenty going to survive. But what then? Or does it even matter?"

  Yotoma wiped her face. "Pretty natural, wouldn't you say, to resist death? That's all we're doing, Zude. No business as usual anymore." She paused, then spoke vigorously. "You ought to see the pink lather that Medicine is in over here. Downright frantic. Every research institute staff's working and worrying around the clock, most of them on double shifts. All the blessed night they prefigure and test and titrate and fluoresce and precipitate! And they come up with the same big nothing as before. And all that time they got crowds screaming at them, sitting in their foyers or in cushcar lots shouting, 'Save us, save us! The race is dying!' And the researchers themselves drag home 72 hours later and cry with their own barren partners and use up a mile or two of holofilm on their own white-haired children." Yotoma wiped her face, rubbing her eyes especially hard. "It will make a weeper out of an angel."

  Zude was quiet.

  Yotoma tried again to raise some collegial interest. "In Medina," she said, cataloguing as she paced, "the 'Darmes confiscated a so-called fertility drug that's already killed 300 women. In Johannesburg and Helsinki, pharmaceutical houses have given up trying to do business and closed down completely. For that matter, whole bunches of demesne webs have quit, too, for lack of a quorum. Everybody's either shrieking in fear or drowning in a pot of depression. The whole Mediterranean coast is jammed with religious ceremonies, and when they're not praying they're fornicating. Orgies block the streets of Leipzig, all night, all day. Everybody in rut, everybody hoping to reproduce."

  Zude was nodding. "Here, too." She reached for her seaweed cigarillos, threw the package down, and clasped her hands. Calmly she said, "Flossie, could I be incompetent?"

  "Incom--?"

  "I know, I know. Everybody's feeling that way, I guess. But my mind's been doing spooky things. . .I can't think straight sometimes, couldn't remember Edge's pager sequence the other day. And I get these impulses, like today I started humming salsa tunes in staff meeting. Had to keep myself from dancing. Wild dreams, silly notions. . ." She ran her hands through her hair.

  Flossie Yotoma Lutu narrowed her eyes, taking full measure of Zude's state of mind. She reconfigured the holo-angles and brought her image into close-up capacity on Zude's receptor field. She sat on the floor in front of her trampoline.

  "Magister Adverb," she said, "trust me. You are not incompetent and you are not even a little crazy." She paused. "Now. You don't sound at all interested in the affairs of this planet of ours, but we got some business. You feel up to it?"

  Zude raised her head.

  Flossie gave her neck a broad swipe with the towel. "I finally ran down our dragon. Magister Lin-ci Win."

  Zude gathered her attention. Then she activated her own close-up link and put her colleague's life-size image mere inches across from her. "Where was she?"

  "Doesn't matter. Off in some Fujian convent. Retreating." Yotoma took a long breath. "Zudie, you and I, we been talking this thing into the ground. About freeing the habitantes." She held up her hand to stop Zude's interruption. "And I have not given you an ounce of support about it." She leaned against the trampoline. "Fact is, when you first said it to me, I did figure you'd gone one brick shy of a load. I said to Self, 'Self, am I hearing right? She wants to put a million people back on the streets? All of them violent, some of them killers, and bingo! right now! Why, Self, we'd have to double the number of Kanshou overnight to handle that change!' And Self says to me, 'Yes, that seems to be what the girl is suggesting.' But then Self reminds me, saying, 'But Flossie, nobody knows more about bailiwicks than Zudie does. Bailiwicks are her thing, remember? So you just take a balance-breath and think about it,' Self says to me."

  Yotoma watched Zude carefully. "Now I figure maybe our Zudie hasn't lost her cookies after all." She hung the towel around her neck and leaned forward. "By the time I'd laid out all your arguments to Lin-ci Win for closing down the bailiwicks — and added a few of my own - your crackpot idea was not just logical. It seemed like our only option. Let the habitantes live out their lives in freedom, like the rest of us. Send them back to their families, to their children if they've got any. Given the state of the world, it's only right."

  Zude relaxed a little, into the cushioned sofa. "No joke?" She smiled wanly.

  "No joke." Yotoma smiled back. "Look, Adverb. What's the worst that could happen? Let's say we let them go, and then all the children don't die after all. Let's say the human enterprise has not ended, that it's only paused a little to shake us up some. So then the worst we got to do is say to these released habitantes, 'Sorry folks, we thought we were finished as a species but we're not. So now we have to remand you into custody, put you back into your bailiwick again.' Or maybe we wait and see if they need to be sent back. Maybe they will have learned all the lessons they need to learn. Maybe we all will."

  Yotoma paused.

  "I figure it's worth it, Zudie."

  She paused again.

  "So I'll line up my boots beside yours when you lay out the proposal for the Heart and the Central Web."

  Zude swallowed against a big welling up of tears. "Floss!" she cried, and in the next instant found herself laughing ruefully. "Flossie, Flossie!" she exclaimed, hugging herself. "Here's a little irony: You're finally ready to let the habitantes go free, and I just spent this afternoon convincing myself that we shouldn't try to do it after all!"

  She leaned toward Flossie, excited now. "Admit it, Floss, the bailiwicks work like nothing else ever has! They contain violence, keep it out of the way of ordinary citizens, and they do it without taking away the dignity of the habitantes! Looked at historically--"

  A roar from the Aegean stopped her.

  "Zude! You're shuffling back and forth like a drunk crossing heavy traffic!" Yotoma was bending into the holofield toward her Co-Magister, thrusting each word across the miles with her pointed finger. "How in All The Fields Of Glory are you and me and our Nirvana-bound Lin-ci Win going to hold this lunatic show together if you keep switching ground? How am I going to convince Lin-ci. . ."

  "Floss, maybe nobody can hold it together. Maybe we shouldn't try!"

  Silence filled the holowaves. Yotoma stared at her friend. "I take it all back," she said calmly. "You are crazy." She
rested her back against the trampoline. "Maybe I am, too."

  Zude stared at her.

  Yotoma chuckled. "Zudie, you give me such soul-smarting grief."

  Zude relaxed. "We're tired," she offered. "And we don't live in very ordinary times."

  Yotoma finally spoke into the silence. "Today's Monday. I am due in Vancouver Thursday. I'll come to Los Angeles that night. I want to see Regina. And you, child."

  Zude nodded. "Thanks, Flossie."

  "And now I got to perish on this rope. Two more climbs before I go to work." Yotoma's eyes imprisoned Zude. "It is all just like it is supposed to be," she said slowly. "And when a soul passes, Zudie, any soul, always it is carried on the backs of a thousand cranes. Always."

  Then she was gone.

  "Yeah," Zude whispered, staring at the empty spot that a moment before had held Yotoma's image. She pushed herself up, and deactivated the holo-unit. Aimlessly she moved around the familiar furnishings. She picked up magnopads and laid them down, she brushed off consoles and arranged sofa cushions.

  With a sigh she activated her wall panels. Statistics and graphics flowed in and out of the room. She noted that bailiwicks still reported small salvos of vandalism and anti-social behavior. No big revolts. Just yelps of pain, sporadic bursts of impotence and grief. Public forums and chat-chambers, gathertalks and vent meetings — all were busy, all were doing their job. She wiped the screens and closed her eyes. "Swallower," she whispered.

  A tiny light flickered in her mind. "Joy," it whispered back.

  "Joy?" Zude yelled. "Ha!" She reached for the silver case that held her real cigarillos, then rethought the desire and explosively flung the case across the room. It hit the taxidermed calico cat, knocking it from its perch to the floor. She was instantly at the animal's side, swooping it up with apologetic murmurings.

  When Captain Edge escorted Bosca to the office's dissolving entranceway, they found a casually clad Magister, sitting cross-legged on the carpet, stroking an armful of very stiff cat.

  "Dealing with my nurturing instincts," Zude explained, trying to smile in welcome.

  "I see," the tall woman smiled back.

  In contrast to the dampened energy field that accompanied the departing Captain Edge, Bosca blazed like the noonday sun. Zude allowed herself a bit of congratulation that she was able now to observe this phenomenon.

  Bosca slipped off her cotton shoes and drew her feet onto the sofa beneath her long skirt. Zude came and sat beside her.

  "Well," Zude began, carefully setting the cat aside. Her grin was genuine but truncated. She covered Bosca's hand with her own, holding it tight for a moment.

  Bosca searched Zude's face. "How are you?"

  "Good," Zude boomed, for emphasis shaking the hand that she held. "I'm good, Bosca. . . ." Her heartiness faded. "Wipe that," she almost whispered. "I'm no good at all." She looked at Bosca. "Barely holding it all together, in fact."

  Bosca waited.

  Zude let her head droop and rested her elbows on her knees. "It just seems like so much pain right now." She imprisoned her hair in her fists and tugged, first one hand and then the other, as if her distress lived in her scalp and she could uproot it by hand. "A season of pain."

  Bosca touched Zude only with her voice. "A season of pain," she echoed.

  Zude nodded. Then her chest expanded with a huge intake of air. Her downward sigh became a sob. She fell against Bosca, lodging her head in the long neck and inviting the long arms to surround her. The arms obliged her, cuddling her like a child and catching her drenching tears. Zude cried hard, filling the office with her wails. And Bosca held her, a firm, gentle bower for the sorrow.

  Some minutes later they sat more easily in the sofa's deep cushions, Zude breathing smoothly again and Bosca enclosing one of Zude's hands with both of her own.

  "I had a visit with Regina," Bosca said.

  Zude matched her voice to the texture of the moment. "You saw her today?"

  "Well, yes, but only briefly. My real visit with her was last night."

  "Oh?"

  "We dreamwalked," Bosca said.

  Small hairs rose on the back of Zude's neck. "You what?"

  "We met. In our sleep."

  "You mean like spooners?"

  "No, no, no." Bosca shook Zude's hand. "You keep thinking that magic only happens between lovers." She spoke slowly, as if to ensure Zude's understanding. "Last night Regina called to me. From her sleep." Zude stared at her. "So I went dancing with her on the High Road," Bosca finished.

  Zude felt dizzy. Carefully she took a large open breath and nodded very slowly.

  "Like you did in Punto," Bosca resumed briskly, nodding with Zude, "when you left your body to get the computer codes." She squeezed her friend's hand. "Zude, I want us to walk with Regina together, you and me." When Zude's mouth flew open, Bosca hurried on. "I understood so much from her! Things she can't tell us in her body. I felt like I had dropped a huge burden. You might feel better, too, if you met her there."

  Zude shot off the sofa. "Bosca! I can't!"

  "You can, Zude!" Bosca's voice filled Zude's body, down to her toes. "You're getting to be a regular card-carrying psychic, Magister Adverb."

  Zude combed her hair with her fingers. There was a long pause. "All right. I'll try, but. . ."

  "Good! We can do it whenever you're ready. Tonight."

  "You mean right now?"

  "Why not?"

  "Ah . . .well . . . no reason, I guess." Zude looked toward the door. "We could. We certainly wouldn't be disturbed."

  "Regina's been in bed. . ." Bosca said, closing her eyes, "hmm. . .she's been in bed for over three hours now. It's eighteen after eleven."

  As she sat again, Zude checked her tacto-time. It was 11:18. "How do you do that?"

  Bosca sank back into the deep sofa. She stretched her arms above her head. "Anything you really want to know is available to you, Zude."

  "Ah." Zude drew a breath and sat up. "Well. How do we do this?"

  "You're sure you want to?"

  "Bosca, I'm not sure of anything anymore. I know that I want to understand Regina. I know that I trust you."

  "Trust yourself." Bosca let her hands massage Zude's neck and shoulders. As Zude relaxed, Bosca's words took on a formal tone. "Tonight's working will be different from our usual patterning. Your Swallower will guide you as usual, but through me. I will configure the passage and escort you to our appointed station. You will leave the earth, much as if in flight, and discover yourself on a thoroughfare, empty of visible travelers. Stay in touch with the energy spline that connects you to your body. There is no danger. I shall step aside when Regina arrives but will return when you call. Regina may or may not appear in her echo-body, but you will have no difficulty recognizing her."

  Bosca's hands withdrew from their massaging. Her voice was smooth again. "Here, stretch out." She placed Zude supine on the sofa and dimmed the lights. She stood for a moment at the windowed wall, watching the city glowing below.

  "The paque-trap is to your right," Zude told her, "there." The window disappeared. Zude waited and watched.

  Bosca's long body was encased in a bubble of subdued brightness. Her back was to Zude. Both her hands were moving upward in front of her face, enclosing an object that Zude could not see. She spoke words that Zude could not hear. Abruptly, her arms fell, and without a glance at Zude she strode to the precise opposite side of the room, faced the wall, and repeated her actions.

  Now to the south, Zude thought. And Bosca moved to the point on the south wall at right angles to the line she had just walked, repeated her actions, and walked to the opposite wall for her last repetition. With her final low incantation, the room jerked. The walls and the ceiling of the office were suddenly misted over, as if she had struck a protective dome within their confines.

  Bosca surveyed the dimly lit area and returned to the sofa. "I'll sit here in the recliner by your side." Her voice seemed muted, without full overtones. She settled into the big
chair and closed her eyes. Moments later she leaned forward and showed Zude a many-faceted crystal. "It's a trisoctahedron," she explained. "Twenty-four sides, eight for each aspect of the Glad Self. It's our talisman. I'll hold it and you'll hold my other hand. Like this." She took Zude's hand and leaned back in the reclining chair. "Are you about to drop off?" she asked easily.

  "No," Zude answered. "But I could."

  "Stay alert. We won't be on a dream vector."

  Zude closed her eyes, feeling Bosca's steady hand, listening to her warm voice. "Just call yourself home now, like you always do. At your own pace." Zude felt herself floating, moving toward spaciousness. Minutes later the voice said, "Reach for your highest vibration." Zude began her shorter breaths, letting the voice carry her upward. She rested, at ease but courting a more animated bliss, until her fullness began tugging against its belaying lines and the ballast of her body. She focused on Bosca's voice, aware that it was drifting away from her. "You are absolutely safe," it whispered.

  Those were the last words Zude heard, for suddenly she was swept upward by a cold rising wind. It lifted her off the sofa and thrust her through the protective dome and the walls of the Shrievalty, catapulting her outward over the wide city lying resplendent below her. It spun itself into light-year swiftness and set its course for the stars. Zude clasped Bosca's hand, now a braided cable of light unfurling behind her as she hurtled through space, the wind roaring in her ears.

  The wind died suddenly, and with it the sound. Zude stood in boundless silence on a moonlit country road that traveled the crest of a high treeless ridge. Below her and to each side, tall grasses, wooded hills and ancient stones lay motionless, vigilant.