“Of course. Women don’t give orders. Women don’t talk. Shit-heads! I thought you said they felt so responsible for me!”
“They do,” he said. “But they’re young men. Fanatics. Very frightened.” And you talk to them as if they were assets, he thought, but did not say.
“Well so am I frightened!” she said, with a little spurt of tears. She wiped her eyes and sat down again among the papers. “God,” she said. “We’ve been dead for twenty days. Buried for fifteen. Who do you think they buried?”
Her grip was powerful; his wrist and hand hurt. He massaged the place gently, watching her.
“Thank you,” he said. “I would have hit him.”
“Oh, I know. Goddamn chivalry. And the one with the gun would have blown your head off. Listen, Teyeo. Are you sure all you have to do is get word to somebody in the Army or the Guard?”
“Yes, of course.”
“You’re sure your country isn’t playing the same game as Gatay?”
He stared at her. As he understood her, slowly the anger he had stifled and denied, all these interminable days of imprisonment with her, rose in him, a fiery flood of resentment, hatred, and contempt.
He was unable to speak, afraid he would speak to her as the young Patriot had done.
He went around to his side of the room and sat on his side of the mattress, somewhat turned from her. He sat cross-legged, one hand lying lightly in the other.
She said some other things. He did not listen or reply.
After a while she said, “We’re supposed to be talking, Teyeo. We’ve only got an hour. I think those kids might do what we tell them, if we tell them something plausible – something that’ll work.”
He would not answer. He bit his lip and held still.
“Teyeo, what did I say? I said something wrong. I don’t know what it was. I’m sorry.”
“They would—” He struggled to control his lips and voice. “They would not betray us.”
“Who? The Patriots?”
He did not answer.
“Voe Deo, you mean? Wouldn’t betray us?”
In the pause that followed her gentle, incredulous question, he knew that she was right; that it was all collusion among the powers of the world; that his loyalty to his country and service was wasted, as futile as the rest of his life. She went on talking, palliating, saying he might very well be right. He put his head into his hands, longing for tears, dry as stone.
She crossed the line. He felt her hand on his shoulder.
“Teyeo, I am very sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to insult you! I honor you. You’ve been all my hope and help.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “If I – If we had some water.”
She leapt up and battered on the door with her fists and a sandal.
“Bastards, bastards,” she shouted.
Teyeo got up and walked, three steps and turn, three steps and turn, and halted on his side of the room. “If you’re right,” he said, speaking slowly and formally, “we and our captors are in danger not only from Gatay but from my own people, who may . . . who have been furthering these anti-Government factions, in order to make an excuse to bring troops here . . . to pacify Gatay. That’s why they know where to find the factionalists. We are . . . we’re lucky our group were . . . were genuine.”
She watched him with a tenderness that he found irrelevant.
“What we don’t know,” he said, “is what side the Ekumen will take. That is . . . There really is only one side.”
“No, there’s ours, too. The underdogs. If the Embassy sees Voe Deo pulling a takeover of Gatay, they won’t interfere, but they won’t approve. Especially if it involves as much repression as it seems to.”
“The violence is only against the anti-Ekumen factions.”
“They still won’t approve. And if they find out I’m alive, they’re going to be quite pissed at the people who claimed I went up in a bonfire. Our problem is how to get word to them. I was the only person representing the Ekumen in Gatay. Who’d be a safe channel?”
“Any of my men. But . . .”
“They’ll have been sent back; why keep Embassy Guards here when the Envoy’s dead and buried? I suppose we could try. Ask the boys to try, that is.” Presently she said wistfully, “I don’t suppose they’d just let us go – in disguise? It would be the safest for them.”
“There is an ocean,” Teyeo said.
She beat her head. “Oh, why don’t they bring some water . . .” Her voice was like paper sliding on paper. He was ashamed of his anger, his grief, himself. He wanted to tell her that she had been a help and hope to him too, that he honored her, that she was brave beyond belief; but none of the words would come. He felt empty, worn-out. He felt old. If only they would bring water!
Water was given them at last; some food, not much and not fresh. Clearly their captors were in hiding and under duress. The spokesman – he gave them his war-name, Kergat, Gatayan for Liberty – told them that whole neighborhoods had been cleared out, set afire, that Voe Dean troops were in control of most of the city including the Palace, and that almost none of this was being reported in the net. “When this is over Voe Deo will own my country,” he said with disbelieving fury.
“Not for long,” Teyeo said.
“Who can defeat them?” the young man said.
“Yeowe. The idea of Yeowe.”
Both Kergat and Solly stared at him.
“Revolution,” he said. “How long before Werel becomes New Yeowe?”
“The assets?” Kergat said, as if Teyeo had suggested a revolt of cattle or of flies. “They’ll never organise.”
“Look out when they do,” Teyeo said mildly.
“You don’t have any assets in your group?” Solly asked Kergat, amazed. He did not bother to answer. He had classed her as an asset, Teyeo saw. He understood why; he had done so himself, in the other life, when such distinctions made sense.
“Your bondswoman, Rewe,” he asked Solly – “was she a friend?”
“Yes,” Solly said, then, “No. I wanted her to be.”
“The makil?”
After a pause she said, “I think so.”
“Is he still here?”
She shook her head. “The troupe was going on with their tour, a few days after the Festival.”
“Travel has been restricted since the Festival,” Kergat said. “Only government and troops.”
“He’s Voe Dean. If he’s still here, they’ll probably send him and his troupe home. Try and contact him, Kergat.”
“A makil?” the young man said, with that same distaste and incredulity. “One of your Voe Dean homosexual clowns?”
Teyeo shot a glance at Solly: Patience, patience.
“Bisexual actors,” Solly said, disregarding him, but fortunately Kergat was determined to disregard her.
“A clever man,” Teyeo said, “with connections. He could help us. You and us. It could be worth it. If he’s still here. We must make haste.”
“Why would he help us? He is Voe Dean.”
“An asset, not a citizen,” Teyeo said. “And a member of Hame, the asset underground, which works against the government of Voe Deo. The Ekumen admits the legitimacy of Hame. He’ll report to the Embassy that a Patriot group has rescued the Envoy and is holding her safe, in hiding, in extreme danger. The Ekumen, I think, will act promptly and decisively. Correct, Envoy?”
Suddenly reinstated, Solly gave a short, dignified nod. “But discreetly,” she said. “They’ll avoid violence, if they can use political coercion.”
The young man was trying to get it all into his mind and work it through. Sympathetic to his weariness, distrust, and confusion, Teyeo sat quietly waiting. He noticed that Solly was sitting equally quietly, one hand lying in the other. She was thin and dirty and her unwashed, greasy hair was in a lank braid. She was brave, like a brave mare, all nerve. She would break her heart before she quit.
Kergat asked questions; Teyeo answered them, reasonin
g and reassuring. Occasionally Solly spoke, and Kergat was now listening to her again, uneasily, not wanting to, not after what he had called her. At last he left, not saying what he intended to do; but he had Batikam’s name and an identifying message from Teyeo to the Embassy: “Half-pay veots learn to sing old songs quickly.”
“What on earth!” Solly said when Kergat was gone.
“Did you know a man named Old Music, in the Embassy?”
“Ah! Is he a friend of yours?”
“He has been kind.”
“He’s been here on Werel from the start. A First Observer. Rather a powerful man – Yes, and ‘quickly,’ all right . . . My mind really isn’t working at all. I wish I could lie down beside a little stream, in a meadow, you know, and drink. All day. Every time I wanted to, just stretch my neck out and slup, slup, slup . . . Running water . . . In the sunshine . . . Oh God, oh God, sunshine. Teyeo, this is very difficult. This is harder than ever. Thinking that there maybe is really a way out of here. Only not knowing. Trying not to hope and not to not hope. Oh, I am so tired of sitting here!”
“What time is it?”
“Half past twenty. Night. Dark out. Oh God, darkness! Just to be in the darkness . . . Is there any way we could cover up that damned biolume? Partly? To pretend we had night, so we could pretend we had day?”
“If you stood on my shoulders, you could reach it. But how could we fasten a cloth?”
They pondered, staring at the plaque.
“I don’t know. Did you notice there’s a little patch of it that looks like it’s dying? Maybe we don’t have to worry about making darkness. If we stay here long enough. Oh, God!”
“Well,” he said after a while, curiously self-conscious, “I’m tired.” He stood up, stretched, glanced for permission to enter her territory, got a drink of water, returned to his territory, took off his jacket and shoes, by which time her back was turned, took off his trousers, lay down, pulled up the blanket, and said in his mind, “Lord Kamye, let me hold fast to the one noble thing.” But he did not sleep.
He heard her slight movements; she pissed, poured a little water, took off her sandals, lay down.
A long time passed.
“Teyeo.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think . . . that it would be a mistake . . . under the circumstances . . . to make love?”
A pause.
“Not under the circumstances,” he said, almost inaudibly. “But – in the other life—”
A pause.
“Short life versus long life,” she murmured.
“Yes.”
A pause.
“No,” he said, and turned to her. “No, that’s wrong.” They reached out to each other. They clasped each other, cleaved together, in blind haste, greed, need, crying out together the name of God in their different languages and then like animals in the wordless voice. They huddled together, spent, sticky, sweaty, exhausted, reviving, rejoined, reborn in the body’s tenderness, in the endless exploration, the ancient discovery, the long flight to the new world.
He woke slowly, in ease and luxury. They were entangled, his face was against her arm and breast; she was stroking his hair, sometimes his neck and shoulder. He lay for a long time aware only of that lazy rhythm and the cool of her skin against his face, under his hand, against his leg.
“Now I know,” she said, her half whisper deep in her chest, near his ear, “that I don’t know you. Now I need to know you.” She bent forward to touch his face with her lips and cheek.
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything. Tell me who Teyeo is . . .”
“I don’t know,” he said. “A man who holds you dear.”
“Oh, God,” she said, hiding her face for a moment in the rough, smelly blanket.
“Who is God?” he asked sleepily. They spoke Voe Dean, but she usually swore in Terran or Alterran; in this case it had been Alterran, Seyt, so he asked, “Who is Seyt?”
“Oh – Tual – Kamye – what have you. I just say it. It’s just bad language. Do you believe in one of them? I’m sorry! I feel like such an oaf with you, Teyeo. Blundering into your soul, invading you – We are invaders, no matter how pacifist and priggish we are—”
“Must I love the whole Ekumen?” he asked, beginning to stroke her breasts, feeling her tremor of desire and his own.
“Yes,” she said, “yes, yes.”
It was curious, Teyeo thought, how little sex changed anything. Everything was the same, a little easier, less embarrassment and inhibition; and there was a certain and lovely source of pleasure for them, when they had enough water and food to have enough vitality to make love. But the only thing that was truly different was something he had no word for. Sex, comfort, tenderness, love, trust, no word was the right word, the whole word. It was utterly intimate, hidden in the mutuality of their bodies, and it changed nothing in their circumstances, nothing in the world, even the tiny wretched world of their imprisonment. They were still trapped. They were getting very tired and were hungry most of the time. They were increasingly afraid of their increasingly desperate captors.
“I will be a lady,” Solly said. “A good girl. Tell me how, Teyeo.”
“I don’t want you to give in,” he said, so fiercely, with tears in his eyes, that she went to him and held him in her arms.
“Hold fast,” he said.
“I will,” she said. But when Kergat or the others came in she was sedate and modest, letting the men talk, keeping her eyes down. He could not bear to see her so, and knew she was right to do so.
The doorlock rattled, the door clashed, bringing him up out of a wretched, thirsty sleep. It was night or very early morning. He and Solly had been sleeping close entangled for the warmth and comfort of it; and seeing Kergat’s face now he was deeply afraid. This was what he had feared, to show, to prove her sexual vulnerability. She was still only half-awake, clinging to him.
Another man had come in. Kergat said nothing. It took Teyeo some time to recognise the second man as Batikam.
When he did, his mind remained quite blank. He managed to say the makil’s name. Nothing else.
“Batikam?” Solly croaked. “Oh, my God!”
“This is an interesting moment,” Batikam said in his warm actor’s voice. He was not transvestite, Teyeo saw, but wore Gatayan men’s clothing. “I meant to rescue you, not to embarrass you, Envoy, Rega. Shall we get on with it?”
Teyeo had scrambled up and was pulling on his filthy trousers. Solly had slept in the ragged pants their captors had given her. They both had kept on their shirts for warmth.
“Did you contact the Embassy, Batikam?” she was asking, her voice shaking, as she pulled on her sandals.
“Oh, yes. I’ve been there and come back, indeed. Sorry it took so long. I don’t think I quite realised your situation here.”
“Kergat has done his best for us,” Teyeo said at once, stiffly.
“I can see that. At considerable risk. I think the risk from now on is low. That is . . .” He looked straight at Teyeo. “Rega, how do you feel about putting yourself in the hands of Hame?” he said. “Any problems with that?”
“Don’t, Batikam,” Solly said. “Trust him!”
Teyeo tied his shoe, straightened up, and said, “We are all in the hands of the Lord Kamye.”
Batikam laughed, the beautiful full laugh they remembered.
“In the Lord’s hands, then,” he said, and led them out of the room.
In the Arkamye it is said, “To live simply is most complicated.”
Solly requested to stay on Werel, and after a recuperative leave at the seashore was sent as Observer to South Voe Deo. Teyeo went straight home, being informed that his father was very ill. After his father’s death, he asked for indefinite leave from the Embassy Guard, and stayed on the farm with his mother until her death two years later. He and Solly, a continent apart, met only occasionally during those years.
When his mother died, Teyeo freed his family’s asset
s by act of irrevocable manumission, deeded over their farms to them, sold his now almost valueless property at auction, and went to the capital. He knew Solly was temporarily staying at the Embassy. Old Music told him where to find her. He found her in a small office of the palatial building. She looked older, very elegant. She looked at him with a stricken and yet wary face. She did not come forward to greet or touch him. She said, “Teyeo, I’ve been asked to be the first Ambassador of the Ekumen to Yeowe.”
He stood still.
“Just now – I just came from talking on the ansible with Hain—”
She put her face in her hands. “Oh, my God!” she said.
He said, “My congratulations, truly, Solly.”
She suddenly ran at him, threw her arms around him, and cried, “Oh, Teyeo, and your mother died, I never thought, I’m so sorry, I never, I never do – I thought we could – What are you going to do? Are you going to stay there?”
“I sold it,” he said. He was enduring rather than returning her embrace. “I thought I might return to the service.”
“You sold your farm? But I never saw it!”
“I never saw where you were born,” he said.
There was a pause. She stood away from him, and they looked at each other.
“You would come?” she said.
“I would,” he said.
Several years after Yeowe entered the Ekumen, Mobile Solly Agat Terwa was sent as an Ekumenical liaison to Terra; later she went from there to Hain, where she served with great distinction as a Stabile. In all her travels and posts she was accompanied by her husband, a Werelian army officer, a very handsome man, as reserved as she was outgoing. People who knew them knew their passionate pride and trust in each other. Solly was perhaps the happier person, rewarded and fulfilled in her work; but Teyeo had no regrets. He had lost his world, but he had held fast to the one noble thing.
THE COST TO BE WISE
Maureen F. McHugh
Maureen F. McHugh made her first sale in 1989, and has since made a powerful impression on the SF world with a relatively small body of work, becoming one of today’s most respected writers. In 1992, she published one of the year’s most widely acclaimed and talked-about first novels, China Mountain Zhang, which won the Locus Award for Best First Novel, the Lambda Literary Award, and the James Tiptree Jr. Memorial Award, and was named a New York Times Notable Book as well as being a finalist for the Hugo and Nebula Awards. Her other books, including the novels Half the Day Is Night, Mission Child, and Nekropolis, have been greeted with similar enthusiasm. Her powerful short fiction has appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, SCI FICTION, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Starlight, Alternate Warriors, Polyphony, The Infinite Matrix, Killing Me Softly, and other markets, and has been assembled in a collection called The Lincoln Train. She has had stories in our tenth through fourteenth, and our nineteenth and twentieth annual collections. Her most recent book is a major new collection, Mothers and Other Monsters. She lives in Twinsburg, Ohio, with her husband, her son, and a golden retriever named Smith.
The Mammoth Book of Best Short SF Novels Page 69
