"A Rememorante Afortunado!" came one reply. "No, an Afortunada!" "A Rememorante Afortunada!"
"Yes," said Aba. "One of the fortunate ones who remember. And we were all a kind of Afortunada today, weren't we, as we visualized the animals?" Aba scanned the faces of her students. "Now let's hear about some other visits. Laroos, how was your time with the animals?"
Like the skilled conductor of group life that she was, Aba drew out each child, encouraging the responses, helping each one to help the others hear and be heard. Gradually the mood softened. There was laughter again, and wonderful poignant description of wilderness prowlers, far-flying birds, modest molluscs, and mighty whales. The children's fantasies were better than any book or holoscene, Aba thought.
Medhi had just begun his excited story of desert horses when, from the path beyond, Aba caught the glint of sunlight on Dicken's necklaces. As students turned to stare at the newcomer, Aba motioned Dicken to an empty stool across the circle.
"They came like the wind, over the dunes and through the low passes," Medhi continued. "Hundreds of them, slick and shining in the moonlight, their hooves stirring the sand that hid their galloping legs. In a cloud of silver dust, they flew! And as they sailed by me, moving up toward the sky, they nickered and called to me. 'Come and ride with us! Hey, Medhi, come! We will carry you!'"
"Medhi, you're a poet!" Zari announced.
"Did you ride, Medhi? Did you?" Laroos desperately inquired.
"As the big horses thundered by me, I saw one I could mount. She came up on my right." Medhi stood and moved toward the center of the circle, pointing to show how the mare approached him. "Lady Eminence, may I ride you? She tossed her head and rolled out of the herd toward me." Medhi crouched and moved his gaze over the entire circle, his voice rising. The other children crouched with him. "She was so graceful that she didn't even stop as she dipped her head and caught me under the belly—"
"Oooh!" A simultaneous gasp.
"--and swung me up onto her back!"
"Aaahhh!" The whole class unbent with him as he straightened to take his place on the withers of the mighty beast, astride and triumphant, his left hand clearly grasping the mane, his right high above his head.
"As we swept across the sky, I could feel the whole herd around us, roaring in front of me and behind me like a big river! Like the sound of a waterfall! I could hardly breathe for the speed, and as we got higher and higher I looked down, I looked down--"
Smiling mouths were open with expectancy. Zari put her hands over her eyes.
"I looked down, and I could see the world beneath me! I could see the Earth from her back! There were cities and forests and mountains and plains, and oceans and islands and icecaps and deserts. Oh, what a ride! We could soar up to the stars! We could dive down into the Red Sea's waves!"
Medhi's voice became a near whisper. "And once, once loping ever so softly just above the treetops . . . ." He paused and looked around at his audience. "What do you think I saw?"
Devotion, the child beside Aba, jumped to her feet. "You saw all the other animals!"
"Yes!" Medhi swirled and held his hands out to her.
Devotion rushed to his side. "There were bullfrogs on mossy logs and turtles crawling in the mud!"
"Yes!" said several children.
"And axolotls laying their eggs!" Medhi added.
Another child nearly shouted, "And seaslugs and piddocks!" Medhi motioned her to the center of the circle.
"Marmots and otter shrews!" A fourth joined the inner group.
"And hyenas and camels!" All the students were straining now to add their favorites.
"And trunkfish and gundis and blue wasps and egrets!"
"And termites and hoopoes and rhinos and rooks!"
"And cormorants and ostriches!" shouted Aba.
"And flatworms and tomb bats!" added Dicken.
"Kinkajous! Spoonbills! Sticklebacks! Eels!"
"Tapirs! Wombats! Horseflies! Storks!"
"How about Marsupialia?"
"Yes!" came the cry.
"And Dactylopteriformes?"
"Yes!"
"How about Homo sapiens?" a new voice asked.
"Yes, yes! Even us!" Medhi breathed, squeezing Devotion's hand.
A small riot greeted Jezebel Stronglaces when she entered the pavilion. As Dicken drew her to her side Jez found herself for some unexplained reason loudly cheering the human race.
Aba, breathless and smiling, took control once more. "Class, our visitors from Nueva Tierra have arrived." Students took stock of the newcomers with open curiosity.
"They are Bess Dicken," Aba went on, "a Natural Resources Director in her satrapy, and Jezebel Stronglaces, a teacher
of nonverbals, frequency reading, and universals. Jezebel has agreed to do some exercises with us this afternoon." Vigorous tongue clicks and some clapping greeted this introduction. Jez and Dicken nodded and then joined in the clicks to signal their applause of the group.
"But first," said Aba, "how did you like the story of Medhi's horses?" The responses again were excited.
"I'd give a lot to ride one!" Shaheed rocked his torso back and forth, his eyes bright toward the sky beyond the pavilion.
"Me too!" agreed a small girl. "One of Medhi's horses, flying to the moon!"
Shaheed rubbed his hands on his pants. "I'd like to ride real horses! Show them how to do tricks! We could ride anywhere! We could race them . . . ." His deep voice faded into the uncomfortable silence that had suddenly surrounded him. His eyes found Jezebel's, and Jez realized that he was actually a young man, probably of the central desert tribes who came late to schooling, if at all.
"Race them, Shaheed?" Raka Khabin asked.
"You mean like 'taming' them?" one of the other children whispered.
The silence stiffened. Then Bibi said, "Why, Shaheed?"
"It's an act of dominance to ride a horse," piped up Qatalona. "It's violence."
"Medhi rode the horse in his story," countered the boy.
"But he asked, Shaheed," urged Qatalona.
"Riding without asking is what got us in trouble in the first place," declared Bibi.
"But even if you ask, you can't tell when they're saying it's all right," Shaheed insisted. "How do you know if they're saying yes?" No one looked ready to answer him. "Besides," he went on earnestly, "all horses liked to be ridden. That was their use -- to hold riders and pull wagons!" Shaheed stuck out his jaw. "My grandfather rode the horses, and he has told me so -- at night in the tents when we wait for the storms to pass -- he has told me!"
Kamasa shook her head. "Usefulness isn't what gives a being its value," she said slowly. "If that were so it would be okay to mistreat lots of humans." There was some appreciative stirring in the class, a click or two of tongues. "Anyway," she went on, "would you like to be ridden?"
"No, of course not," Shaheed replied. "But I'm not a horse. Horses were made for riding."
"And what are men made for?"
Aba broke into the nervous laughter that followed. "Shaheed, are you taking a position outside your heart? Or do you truly believe what you're saying?"
Shaheed looked down. Then he raised his head. "I don't know, Aba. I just know that when Medhi was telling his story, I felt like I wanted to ride the horses, to make them do what I wanted them to do." He looked down again, then up to meet Aba's eyes. "Maybe it's okay for animals to serve human beings. A whole world used to believe so."
A young woman spoke from the side. "Shaheed, you've said things like this before. You need to explain."
Sounds of agreement rose from different parts of the group. Aba quieted them. "We can do something interesting here," she said, glancing toward Jezebel. "Let's aim for clarity, and let's try to understand Shaheed's feelings, even if they are different from our own." She looked at the boy. "Would you feel comfortable with such a discussion, Shaheed?"
Surprisingly, Shaheed nodded. "I would like to try to explain," he said. Then he looked at Jezebel. "And I want y
ou to be our moderator."
All eyes turned to Jez, who looked briefly at Dicken and then at Aba. "If you trust my good will, Shaheed, then I'll be glad to do that."
There was a small burst of chaos and anticipation while the group shifted cushions and stools.
Zari pulled at Aba's sleeve. "Can we persuade, Aba? Will Shaheed try to persuade us?"
"I don't know, preshi," said Aba. "Perhaps."
Jez closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "With the best that's in each of us," she said, finally, smiling her readiness to begin. "Shaheed?"
The boy shifted on his stool and then straightened. "Well," he began, "if the animals were still here, I think it would be all right to tame them."
Kamasa spoke without rancor. "You mean it's okay to 'dominate' them?"
"Right," Shaheed replied. "I mean it's fine to use animals for human purposes."
"Why, Shaheed?" Jez prompted.
Shaheed pointed at the words on the scrawl-board. "Well, first, because of responsibility. Beings of greater intelligence have the responsibility to train other beings; second, because it's efficient; and third because it's natural for animals to be used by humans." Pleased at his summary, Shaheed became more animated. "Look. Those who are more intelligent always have to train those who are less intelligent. That goes for parents and teachers training us, for farmers who trained horses and oxen. . . ."
The students questioned Shaheed respectfully. One or two, like Masudhe, even took his part at times. Jezebel limited her interruptions to summaries and clarifications.
Dicken, impressed by the process, found her tongue clicking with others in approval of Kamasa's distillation: "It all comes down to whether you're going to respect other beings or not." It was at that moment, however, that the measured discussion changed its entire character and direction. To Dicken's alarm, Kamasa was following up her statement with a direct accusation of the young man who had begun it all. "Shaheed," she said, "as long as we have people like you around who don't respect others' freedom and dignity, people who believe it's okay to dominate other beings, then we'll always have violence. How can we ever have a peaceful world if you're always wanting to tame horses?"
The outburst was as passionate as it was unexpected. Jez raised her voice over the vocal response that ensued. "Personal attack, Kamasa--"
"Look," interrupted Shaheed, loudly confronting Kamasa, "I'm getting bullied just because I was honest! I had a strong reaction to Medhi's story and I said so out loud. Obviously you don't like that, Kamasa. But what am I supposed to do with those 'impure' feelings? Hide them? Pretend I don't have them? Commit myself to the nearest nonviolence center for rehabilitation? If you want a perfect world, you have to figure this out: what are you going to do with people like me?" His words echoed through the hills, over the coffee fields, out to the distant ocean.
Silence and stillness fell over the pavilion. On a parallel level Jez assessed the shimmering softselves of the children and the wild buzzing of excitement there.
Shaheed's voice was a whisper on the air. "What are you going to do with me, Jezebel?" he repeated.
Jez re-centered herself. Breaking her gaze with the boy, she caught Dicken's almost imperceptible nod.
"Aba," she said evenly, "I think it's important for us to talk about Shaheed's question. It concerns, after all, the human violence that has plagued us for thousands of years. The Central Web will soon be making a decision about this very matter."
"Many believe that violent feelings could be controlled by brain surgery," Aba added in explanation to the class. "Jezebel is talking about a proposal for that surgery which will go to the Central Web."
Jez smiled ruefully. "If we discuss this now we probably won't have time for the exercises we planned on sensing danger."She cast her eyes over the company of young and serious faces. "What would you like to do?"
No one answered out of the hush. Then Laroos spoke. "Well, I wish I did, but I don't know the answer to Shaheed's question."
"Me either," said Medhi.
"I want to go home!" Zari had become a small round bundle of fatigue. At a signal from Aba, Raka took Zari onto her lap. Jez reached out toward the child with an easing enfoldment. Zari acknowledged the touch with a fret, then relaxed into Raka's arms.
Aba sensed the will of the students. "Get comfortable, class. Shaheed, come sit by me." She held open an arm.
There was another shuffle as the class tightened its double circle. Dicken took a place between two of the quieter girls. She held out a hand to each and smiled at their prompt response. "We are ready, Jezebel," she announced, holding up their two smaller hands.
Jez took a deep breath. Aba nodded to her.
"Let's try this for a starting point," said Jez. "What happened in 2044?"
Medhi spoke as he raised his hand. "That was the year the economy turned. When all the governments reported no more scarcity. With the big population drop and the women in power, things finally changed. Nobody was hungry anymore."
"And we invented the transmogs," Raka added, "so we can make almost anything we want."
"And people don't fight over things anymore," nodded Medhi.
"But people do still fight," said Bibi.
"That makes the point, doesn't it?" asked Aba. "Our patterns of violating others are deeper than hunger or greed."
Jezebel nodded. "So," she said, "we still need to keep human beings from hurting each other, and from hurting animals if they were still here. What can a society do to keep that from happening?"
"Teach them to be good," said Devotion, to a chorus of nods and clicks.
"Love them from the start," said Raka. "Love them in the womb."
"And if they're loved, they won't want to dominate other beings." another girl added.
"But we're not the only ones who are violent," Bibi protested. "Animals dominated and killed each other."
"Right, Bibi," said Qatalona, "but they had to do that to eat."
"Survival of the fittest," Shaheed commented cynically.
Qatalona locked eyes with him. "What humans do to each other -- and to Nature -- is more than just for survival, Shaheed. It's often cruel. The animals weren't cruel. And a volcano isn't cruel."
"Fine," said Jez, pushing onward. "Now, how do we define violence?"
Kamasa held up her hand. "Violence is doing something to another . . . to another being against its will."
"That's a good working definition, Kamasa. In fact, it's the one that the Femmedarmes use, and all the Kanshou. Let's say, since the animals are gone, that violence is doing something to another person against her will. All right? So you're telling me that if we all love our children, they won't grow up to do things against the will of other people?"
Heads nodded. Brows furrowed. Then Laroos objected, "But loving them and raising them right doesn't always work. They may turn out violent anyway."
"Especially men," an older child added.
"It's in the testosterone," said Kamasa.
"Since there are fewer and fewer men, maybe the problem will disappear on its own," said still another student.
"Look," said Masudhe suddenly, "laying it all on men can't make Shaheed feel very good. Or Medhi. Or Obatum," she added, indicating the only other boy in the class.
"I'm okay," Shaheed snapped.
"Focus," said someone from the outer edge of the circle.
Jez stepped in. "Back to Shaheed's question. Figure that it takes a while for the whole world to catch up and start educating their children. In the meantime, what does a satrapy or a demesne do with the people who dominate others -- who kill someone else, for instance?"
"Well, we don't do capital punishment anymore," Laroos said. Encouraged by Jez's nod, she remembered aloud to the others. "When things settled down after the epidemics, and people had enough of everything they needed -- and when there were not as many people to need things -- then Kitchen Table and all the other courts realized that they hadn't pronounced a death sentence in over thirty years
. They decided to take it off the books. And then the Central Web outlawed it officially."
"Well said," Dicken noted. Laroos flushed with pleasure.
Jez met the eyes of a black-clad girl on the edge of the group and heard her name in her own head. "You want to say something, Nahala?"
Nahala's voice was soft. "In some places, when someone kills another person, everybody just loves him more, pays more attention to him -- unless he does it again and then they kill him. They don't believe in prisons."
"Better to die free," Jez said, "than to live a slave."
"So now instead of capital punishment we have the bailiwicks," said a voice. It was Shaheed's. "And that's what else you can do," he continued. "You can put violent people in a bailiwick."
"Bailiwicks are prisons," someone added, "like before Earthclasp."
"No, they're not! Prisons covered only a block or two. A bailiwick is sometimes a whole city. Thousands of acres."
"Or a whole island."
"It isn't even like you're being held against your will. You get to go all over. Not like a cage."
"But how big is a cage?" asked Aba.
"A cage is anything that takes away your freedom."
"But it's not really a cage unless you've explored it all and can't go any further . . . and then you realize you don't have freedom after all."
"In a prison you don't get to have your friends with you," Devotion sang out, "but in a bailiwick, even your family can live nearby."
A child who had been silent was suddenly eager to speak. "And if you've been in a bailiwick for a long time you can get out for a day or two if you have someone to be your guardian. Like a mother."
"That's only if you've changed, if you've been re--" Bibi struggled.
"Rehabilitated."
"Rehabilitated," echoed Bibi.
"The bailiwicks don't rehabilitate you," Shaheed asserted.
"Some do," Aba replied.
"In the Riyadh bailiwick, there are the Moving Men." Obatum spoke with authority. "They're men who have been cured and then live with violent people to help them change. My father's a Moving Man," he added proudly.
Jezebel was unconsciously counting the nods and the querulous looks, assuring herself of the group's sustained interest level. Zari, on Raka's lap, was in dreamland, and two other smaller children leaned sleepily against older girls, but the free discussion had gripped every other child.
The Kanshou (Earthkeep) Page 2
