Before I’d finished, my mother grabbed Daniel by the front of his shirt and started slapping him. “I trusted you with him! You maniac! I trusted you!” Daniel half raised his arm to block her, but then let it drop and just turned his face to the deck.
I burst into tears. “It was my fault!” Our parents never struck us; I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
My father said soothingly, “Look . . . he’s home now. He’s safe. No one touched him.” He put an arm around my shoulders and asked warily. “That’s right, Martin, isn’t it?”
I nodded tearfully. This was worse than anything that had happened on the launch, or in the water; I felt a thousand times more helpless, a thousand times more like a child.
I said, “Beatrice was watching over me.”
My mother rolled her eyes and laughed wildly, letting go of Daniel’s shirt. “Beatrice? Beatrice? Don’t you know what could have happened to you? You’re too young to have given him what he wanted. He would have had to use the knife.”
The chill of my wet clothes seemed to penetrate deeper. I swayed unsteadily, but fought to stay upright. Then I whispered stubbornly, “Beatrice was there.”
My father said, “Go and get changed, or you’re going to freeze to death.”
I lay in bed listening to them shout at Daniel. When he finally came down the ladder I was so sick with shame that I wished I’d drowned.
He said, “Are you all right?”
There was nothing I could say. I couldn’t ask him to forgive me.
“Martin?” Daniel turned on the lamp. His face was streaked with tears: he laughed softly, wiping them away. “Fuck, you had me worried. Don’t ever do anything like that again.”
“I won’t.”
“Okay.” That was it; no shouting, no recriminations. “Do you want to pray with me?”
We knelt side by side, praying for our parents to be at peace, praying for the man who’d tried to hurt me. I started trembling; everything was catching up with me. Suddenly, words began gushing from my mouth – words I neither recognized nor understood, though I knew I was praying for everything to be all right with Daniel, praying that our parents would stop blaming him for my stupidity.
The strange words kept flowing out of me, an incomprehensible torrent somehow imbued with everything I was feeling. I knew what was happening: Beatrice had given me the Angels’ tongue. We’d had to surrender all knowledge of it when we became flesh, but sometimes. She granted people the ability to pray this way, because the language of the Angels could express things we could no longer put into words. Daniel had been able to do it ever since his Drowning, but it wasn’t something you could teach, or even something you could ask for.
When I finally stopped, my mind was racing. “Maybe Beatrice planned everything that happened tonight? Maybe She arranged it all, to lead up to this moment!”
Daniel shook his head, wincing slightly. “Don’t get carried away. You have the gift; just accept it.” He nudged me with his shoulder. “Now get into bed, before we’re both in more trouble.”
I lay awake almost until dawn, overwhelmed with happiness. Daniel had forgiven me. Beatrice had protected and blessed me. I felt no more shame, just humility and amazement. I knew I’d done nothing to deserve it, but my life was wrapped in the love of God.
Three
According to the Scriptures, the oceans of Earth were storm-tossed, and filled with dangerous creatures. But on Covenant, the oceans were calm, and the Angels created nothing in the ecopoiesis that would harm their own mortal incarnations. The four continents and the four oceans were rendered equally hospitable, and just as women and men were made indistinguishable in the sight of God, so were Freelanders and Firmlanders. (Some commentators insisted that this was literally true: God chose to blind Herself to where we lived, and whether or not we’d been born with a penis. I thought that was a beautiful idea, even if I couldn’t quite grasp the logistics of it.)
I’d heard that certain obscure sects taught that half the Angels had actually become embodied as a separate people who could live in the water and breathe beneath the surface, but then God destroyed them because they were a mockery of Beatrice’s death. No legitimate church took this notion seriously, though, and archaeologists had found no trace of these mythical doomed cousins. Humans were humans, there was only one kind. Freelanders and Firmlanders could even intermarry – if they could agree where to live.
When I was fifteen, Daniel became engaged to Agnes from the Prayer Group. That made sense: they’d be spared the explanations and arguments about the Drowning that they might have faced with partners who weren’t so blessed. Agnes was a Freelander, of course, but a large branch of her family, and a smaller branch of ours, were Firmlanders, so after long negotiations it was decided that the wedding would be held in Ferez, a coastal town.
I went with my father to pick a hull to be fitted out as Daniel and Agnes’s boat. The breeder, Diana, had a string of six mature hulls in tow, and my father insisted on walking out onto their backs and personally examining each one for imperfections.
By the time we reached the fourth I was losing patience. I muttered, “It’s the skin underneath that matters.” In fact, you could tell a lot about a hull’s general condition from up here, but there wasn’t much point worrying about a few tiny flaws high above the waterline.
My father nodded thoughtfully. “That’s true. You’d better get in the water and check their undersides.”
“I’m not doing that.” We couldn’t simply trust this woman to sell us a healthy hull for a decent price; that wouldn’t have been sufficiently embarrassing.
“Martin! This is for the safety of your brother and sister-in-law.”
I glanced at Diana to show her where my sympathies lay, then slipped off my shirt and dived in. I swam down to the last hull in the row, then ducked beneath it. I began the job with perverse thoroughness, running my fingers over every square nanoradian of skin. I was determined to annoy my father by taking even longer than he wanted – and determined to impress Diana by examining all six hulls without coming up for air.
An unfitted hull rode higher in the water than a boat full of furniture and junk, but I was surprised to discover that even in the creature’s shadow there was enough light for me to see the skin clearly. After a while I realized that, paradoxically, this was because the water was slightly cloudier than usual, and whatever the fine particles were, they were scattering sunlight into the shadows.
Moving through the warm, bright water, feeling the love of Beatrice more strongly than I had for a long time, it was impossible to remain angry with my father. He wanted the best hull for Daniel and Agnes, and so did I. As for impressing Diana . . . who was I kidding? She was a grown woman, at least as old as Agnes, and highly unlikely to view me as anything more than a child. By the time I’d finished with the third hull I was feeling short of breath, so I surfaced and reported cheerfully, “No blemishes so far!”
Diana smiled down at me. “You’ve got strong lungs.”
All six hulls were in perfect condition. We ended up taking the one at the end of the row, because it was easiest to detach.
Ferez was built on the mouth of a river, but the docks were some distance upstream. That helped to prepare us; the gradual deadening of the waves was less of a shock than an instant transition from sea to land would have been. When I jumped from the deck to the pier, though, it was like colliding with something massive and unyielding, the rock of the planet itself. I’d been on land twice before, for less than a day on both occasions. The wedding celebrations would last ten days, but at least we’d still be able to sleep on the boat.
As the four of us walked along the crowded streets, heading for the ceremonial hall where everything but the wedding sacrament itself would take place, I stared uncouthly at everyone in sight. Almost no one was barefoot like us, and after a few hundred tau on the paving stones – much rougher than any deck – I could understand why. Our clothes were different, our skin was darke
r, our accent was unmistakably foreign . . . but no one stared back. Freelanders were hardly a novelty here. That made me even more self-conscious; the curiosity I felt wasn’t mutual.
In the hall, I joined in with the preparations, mainly just lugging furniture around under the directions of one of Agnes’s tyrannical uncles. It was a new kind of shock to see so many Freelanders together in this alien environment, and stranger still when I realized that I couldn’t necessarily spot the Firmlanders among us; there was no sharp dividing line in physical appearance, or even clothing. I began to feel slightly guilty; if God couldn’t tell the difference, what was I doing hunting for the signs?
At noon, we all ate outside, in a garden behind the hall. The grass was soft, but it made my feet itch. Daniel had gone off to be fitted for wedding clothes, and my parents were performing some vital task of their own; I only recognized a handful of the people around me. I sat in the shade of a tree, pretending to be oblivious to the plant’s enormous size and bizarre anatomy. I wondered if we’d take a siesta; I couldn’t imagine falling asleep on the grass.
Someone sat down beside me, and I turned.
“I’m Lena. Agnes’s second cousin.”
“I’m Daniel’s brother, Martin.” I hesitated, then offered her my hand; she took it, smiling slightly. I’d awkwardly kissed a dozen strangers that morning, all distant prospective relatives, but this time I didn’t dare.
“Brother of the groom, doing grunt work with the rest of us.” She shook her head in mocking admiration.
I desperately wanted to say something witty in reply, but an attempt that failed would be even worse than merely being dull. “Do you live in Ferez?”
“No, Mitar. Inland from here. We’re staying with my uncle.” She pulled a face. “Along with ten other people. No privacy. It’s awful.”
I said, “It was easy for us. We just brought our home with us.” You idiot. As if she didn’t know that.
Lena smiled. “I haven’t been on a boat in years. You’ll have to give me a tour sometime.”
“Of course. I’d be happy to.” I knew she was only making small talk; she’d never take me up on the offer.
She said, “Is it just you and Daniel?”
“Yes.”
“You must be close.”
I shrugged. “What about you?”
“Two brothers. Both younger. Eight and nine. They’re all right, I suppose.” She rested her chin on one hand and gazed at me coolly.
I looked away, disconcerted by more than my wishful thinking about what lay behind that gaze. Unless her parents had been awfully young when she was born, it didn’t seem likely that more children were planned. So did an odd number in the family mean that one had died, or that the custom of equal numbers carried by each parent wasn’t followed where she lived? I’d studied the region less than a year ago, but I had a terrible memory for things like that.
Lena said, “You looked so lonely, off here on your own.”
I turned back to her, surprised. “I’m never lonely.”
“No?”
She seemed genuinely curious. I opened my mouth to tell her about Beatrice, but then changed my mind. The few times I’d said anything to friends – ordinary friends, not Drowned ones – I’d regretted it. Not everyone had laughed, but they’d all been acutely embarrassed by the revelation.
I said, “Mitar has a million people, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“An area of ocean the same size would have a population often.”
Lena frowned. “That’s a bit too deep for me, I’m afraid.” She rose to her feet. “But maybe you’ll think of a way of putting it that even a Firmlander can understand.” She raised a hand goodbye and started walking away.
I said, “Maybe I will.”
The wedding took place in Ferez’s Deep Church, a spaceship built of stone, glass, and wood. It looked almost like a parody of the churches I was used to, though it probably bore a closer resemblance to the Angels’ real ship than anything made of living hulls.
Daniel and Agnes stood before the priest, beneath the apex of the building. Their closest relatives stood behind them in two angled lines on either side. My father – Daniel’s mother – was first in our line, followed by my own mother, then me. That put me level with Rachel, who kept shooting disdainful glances my way. After my misadventure, Daniel and I had eventually been allowed to travel to the Prayer Group meetings again, but less than a year later I’d lost interest, and soon after I’d also stopped going to church. Beatrice was with me, constantly, and no gatherings or ceremonies could bring me any closer to Her. I knew Daniel disapproved of this attitude, but he didn’t lecture me about it, and my parents had accepted my decision without any fuss. If Rachel thought I was some kind of apostate, that was her problem.
The priest said, “Which of you brings a bridge to this marriage?”
Daniel said, “I do.” In the Transitional ceremony, they no longer asked this; it was really no one else’s business – and in a way the question was almost sacrilegious. Still, Deep Church theologians had explained away greater doctrinal inconsistencies than this, so who was I to argue?
“Do you, Daniel and Agnes, solemnly declare that this bridge will be the bond of your union until death, to be shared with no other person?”
They replied together, “We solemnly declare.”
“Do you solemnly declare that as you share this bridge, so shall you share every joy and every burden of marriage – equally?”
“We solemnly declare.”
My mind wandered; I thought of Lena’s parents. Maybe one of the family’s children was adopted. Lena and I had managed to sneak away to the boat three times so far, early in the evenings while my parents were still out. We’d done things I’d never done with anyone else, but I still hadn’t had the courage to ask her anything so personal.
Suddenly the priest was saying, “In the eyes of God, you are one now.” My father started weeping softly. As Daniel and Agnes kissed, I felt a surge of contradictory emotions. I’d miss Daniel, but I was glad that I’d finally have a chance to live apart from him. And I wanted him to be happy – I was jealous of his happiness already – but at the same time, the thought of marrying someone like Agnes filled me with claustrophobia. She was kind, devout, and generous. She and Daniel would treat each other, and their children, well. But neither of them would present the slightest challenge to the other’s most cherished beliefs.
This recipe for harmony terrified me. Not least because I was afraid that Beatrice approved, and wanted me to follow it myself.
Lena put her hand over mine and pushed my fingers deeper into her, gasping. We were sitting on my bunk, face to face, my legs stretched out flat, hers arching over them.
She slid the palm of her other hand over my penis. I bent forward and kissed her, moving my thumb over the place she’d shown me, and her shudder ran through both of us.
“Martin?”
“What?”
She stroked me with one fingertip; somehow it was far better than having her whole hand wrapped around me.
“Do you want to come inside me?”
I shook my head.
“Why not?”
She kept moving her finger, tracing the same line; I could barely think. Why not? “You might get pregnant.”
She laughed. “Don’t be stupid. I can control that. You’ll learn, too. It’s just a matter of experience.”
I said. “I’ll use my tongue, You liked that.”
“I did. But I want something more now. And you do, too. I can tell.” She smiled imploringly. “It’ll be nice for both of us, I promise. Nicer than anything you’ve done in your life.”
“Don’t bet on it.”
Lena made a sound of disbelief, and ran her thumb around the base of my penis. “I can tell you haven’t put this inside anyone before. But that’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Who said I was ashamed?”
She nodded gravely. “All right. Frightened.”
I pulled my hand free, and banged my head on the bunk above us. Daniel’s old bunk.
Lena reached up and put her hand on my cheek.
I said. “I can’t. We’re not married.”
She frowned. “I heard you’d given up on all that.”
“All what?”
“Religion.”
“Then you were misinformed.”
Lena said, “This is what the Angels made our bodies to do. How can there be anything sinful in that?” She ran her hand down my neck, over my chest.
“But the bridge is meant to . . .” What? All the Scriptures said was that it was meant to unite men and women, equally. And the Scriptures said God couldn’t tell women and men apart, but in the Deep Church, in the sight of God, the priest had just made Daniel claim priority. So why should I care what any priest thought?
I said, “All right.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” I took her face in my hands and started kissing her. After a while, she reached down and guided me in. The shock of pleasure almost made me come, but I stopped myself somehow. When the risk of that had lessened, we wrapped our arms around each other and rocked slowly back and forth.
It wasn’t better than my Drowning, but it was so much like it that it had to be blessed by Beatrice. And as we moved in each other’s arms, I grew determined to ask Lena to marry me. She was intelligent and strong. She questioned everything. It didn’t matter that she was a Firmlander; we could meet halfway, we could live in Ferez.
I felt myself ejaculate. “I’m sorry.”
Lena whispered, “That’s all right, that’s all right. Just keep moving.”
I was still hard; that had never happened before. I could feel her muscles clenching and releasing rhythmically, in time with our motion, and her slow exhalations. Then she cried out, and dug her fingers into my back. I tried to slide partly out of her again, but it was impossible, she was holding me too tightly. This was it. There was no going back.
Now I was afraid. “I’ve never—” Tears were welling up in my eyes; I tried to shake them away.
“I know. And I know it’s frightening.” She embraced me more tightly. “Just feel it, though. Isn’t it wonderful?”
The Mammoth Book of Best Short SF Novels Page 78
