Kamsa’s face was smooth, serene, and showed no feeling, though he heard her sometimes talking and singing very softly to her baby, a joyful, merry little noise. It drew him. He saw her one afternoon sitting at work on the coping of the great terrace, the baby in its sling on her back. He limped over and sat down nearby. He could not prevent her from setting her knife and board aside and standing head and hands and eyes down in reverence as he came near.
“Please sit down, please go on with your work,” he said. She obeyed. “What’s that you’re cutting up?”
“Dueli, master,” she whispered.
It was a vegetable he had often eaten and enjoyed. He watched her work. Each big, woody pod had to be split along a sealed seam, not an easy trick; it took a careful search for the opening-point and hard, repeated twists of the blade to open the pod. Then the fat edible seeds had to be removed one by one and scraped free of a stringy, clinging matrix.
“Does that part taste bad?” he asked.
“Yes, master.”
It was a laborious process, requiring strength, skill, and patience. He was ashamed. “I never saw raw dueli before,” he said.
“No, master.”
“What a good baby,” he said, a little at random. The tiny creature in its sling, its head lying on her shoulder, had opened large bluish-black eyes and was gazing vaguely at the world. He had never heard it cry. It seemed rather unearthly to him, but he had not had much to do with babies.
She smiled.
“A boy?”
“Yes, master.”
He said, “Please, Kamsa, my name is Esdan. I’m not a master. I’m a prisoner. Your masters are my masters. Will you call me by my name?”
She did not answer.
“Our masters would disapprove.”
She nodded. The Werelian nod was a tip back of the head, not a bob down. He was completely used to it after all these years. It was the way he nodded himself. He noticed himself noticing it now. His captivity, his treatment here, had displaced, disoriented him. These last few days he had thought more about Hain than he had for years, decades. He had been at home on Werel, and now was not. Inappropriate comparisons, irrelevant memories. Alienated.
“They put me in the cage,” he said, speaking as low as she did and hesitating on the last word. He could not say the whole word, crouchcage.
Again the nod. This time, for the first time, she looked up at him, the flick of a glance. She said soundlessly, “I know,” and went on with her work.
He found nothing more to say.
“I was a pup, then I did live there,” she said, with a glance in the direction of the compound where the cage was. Her murmuring voice was profoundly controlled, as were all her gestures and movements. “Before that time the house burned. When the masters did live here. They did often hang up the cage. Once, a man for until he did die there. In that. I saw that.”
Silence between them.
“We pups never did go under that. Never did run there.”
“I saw the . . . the ground was different, underneath,” Esdan said, speaking as softly and with a dry mouth, his breath coming short. “I saw, looking down. The grass. I thought maybe . . . where they . . .” His voice dried up entirely.
“One grandmother did take a stick, long, a cloth on the end of that, and wet it, and hold it up to him. The cutfrees did look away. But he did die. And rot some time.”
“What had he done?”
“Enna,” she said, the one-word denial he’d often heard assets use — I don’t know, I didn’t do it, I wasn’t there, it’s not my fault, who knows. . . .
He’d seen an owner’s child who said “enna” be slapped, not for the cup she broke but for using a slave word.
“A useful lesson,” he said. He knew she’d understand him. Underdogs know irony like they know air and water.
“They did put you in that, then I did fear,” she said.
“The lesson was for me, not you, this time,” he said.
She worked, carefully, ceaselessly. He watched her work. Her downcast face, clay-color with bluish shadows, was composed, peaceful. The baby was darker-skinned than she. She had not been bred to a bondsman, but used by an owner. They called rape “use.” The baby’s eyes closed slowly, translucent bluish lids like little shells. It was small and delicate, probably only a month or two old. Its head lay with infinite patience on her stooping shoulder.
No one else was out on the terraces. A slight wind stirred in the flowering trees behind them, streaked the distant river with silver.
“Your baby, Kamsa, you know, he will be free,” Esdan said.
She looked up, not at him, but at the river and across it. She said, “Yes. He will be free.” She went on working.
It heartened him, her saying that to him. It did him good to know she trusted him. He needed someone to trust him, for since the cage he could not trust himself. With Rayaye he was all right; he could still fence; that wasn’t the trouble. It was when he was alone, thinking, sleeping. He was alone most of the time. Something in his mind, deep in him, was injured, broken, had not mended, could not be trusted to bear his weight.
He heard the flyer come down in the morning. That night Rayaye invited him down to dinner. Tualenem and the two veots ate with them and excused themselves, leaving him and Rayaye with a half-bottle of wine at the makeshift table set up in one of the least damaged downstairs rooms. It had been a hunting-lodge or trophy-room, here in this wing of the house that had been the azade, the men’s side, where no women would ever have come; female assets, servants and usewomen, did not count as women. The head of a huge packdog snarled above the mantel, its fur singed and dusty and its glass eyes gone dull. Crossbows had been mounted on the facing wall. Their pale shadows were clear on the dark wood. The electric chandelier flickered and dimmed. The generator was uncertain. One of the old bondsmen was always tinkering at it.
“Going off to his usewoman,” Rayaye said, nodding towards the door Tualenem had just closed with assiduous wishes for the Minister to have a good night. “Fucking a white. Like fucking turds. Makes my skin crawl. Sticking his cock into a slave cunt. When the war’s over there’ll be no more of that kind of thing. Halfbreeds are the root of this revolution. Keep the races separate. Keep the ruler blood clean. It’s the only answer.” He spoke as if expecting complete accord, but did not wait to receive any sign of it. He poured Esdan’s glass full and went in his resonant politician’s voice, kind host, lord of the manor, “Well, Mr. Old Music, I hope you’ve been having a pleasant stay at Yaramera, and that your health’s improved.”
A civil murmur.
“President Oyo was sorry to hear you’d been unwell and sends his wishes for your full recovery. He’s glad to know you’re safe from any further mistreatment by the insurgents. You can stay here in safety as long as you like. However, when the time is right, the President and his cabinet are looking forward to having you in Bellen.”
Civil murmur.
Long habit prevented Esdan from asking questions that would reveal the extent of his ignorance. Rayaye like most politicians loved his own voice, and as he talked Esdan tried to piece together a rough sketch of the current situation. It appeared that the Legitimate Government had moved from the city to a town, Bellen, northeast of Yaramera, near the eastern coast. Some kind of command had been left in the city. Rayaye’s references to it made Esdan wonder if the city was in fact semi-independent of the Oyo government, governed by a faction, perhaps a military faction.
When the Uprising began, Oyo had at once been given extraordinary powers; but the Legitimate Army of Voe Deo, after their stunning defeats in the west, had been restive under his command, wanting more autonomy in the field. The civilian government had demanded retaliation, attack, and victory. The army wanted to contain the insurrection. Rega-General Aydan had established the Divide in the city and tried to establish and hold a border between the new Free State and the Legitimate Provinces. Veots who had gone over to the Uprising with their asset troop
s had similarly urged a border truce to the Liberation Command. The army sought armistice, the warriors sought peace. But “So long as there is one slave I am not free,” cried Nekam-Anna, Leader of the Free State, and President Oyo thundered, “The nation will not be divided! We will defend legitimate property with the last drop of blood in our veins!” The Rega-General had suddenly been replaced by a new Commander-in-Chief. Very soon after that the embassy was sealed, its access to information cut.
Esdan could only guess what had happened in the half year since. Rayaye talked of “our victories in the south” as if the Legitimate Army had been on the attack, pushing back into the Free State across the Devan River, south of the city. If so, if they had regained territory, why had the government pulled out of the city and dug in down at Bellen? Rayaye’s talk of victories might be translated to mean that the Army of the Liberation had been trying to cross the river in the south and the Legitimates had been successful in holding them off. If they were willing to call that a victory, had they finally given up the dream of reversing the revolution, retaking the whole country, and decided to cut their losses?
“A divided nation is not an option,” Rayaye said, squashing that hope. “You understand that, I think.”
Civil assent.
Rayaye poured out the last of the wine. “But peace is our goal. Our very strong and urgent goal. Our unhappy country has suffered enough.”
Definite assent.
“I know you to be a man of peace, Mr. Old Music. We know the Ekumen fosters harmony among and within its member states. Peace is what we all desire with all our hearts.”
Assent, plus faint indication of inquiry.
“As you know, the Government of Voe Deo has always had the power to end the insurrection. The means to end it quickly and completely.”
No response but alert attention.
“And I think you know that it is only our respect for the policies of the Ekumen, of which my nation is a member, that has prevented us from using that means.”
Absolutely no response or acknowledgment.
“You do know that, Mr. Old Music.”
“I assumed you had a natural wish to survive.”
Rayaye shook his head as if bothered by an insect. “Since we joined the Ekumen — and long before we joined it, Mr. Old Music — we have loyally followed its policies and bowed to its theories. And so we lost Yeowe! And so we lost the West! Four million dead, Mr. Old Music. Four million in the first Uprising. Millions since. Millions. If we had contained it then, many, many fewer would have died. Assets as well as owners.”
“Suicide,” Esdan said in a soft mild voice, the way assets spoke.
“The pacifist sees all weapons as evil, disastrous, suicidal. For all the age-old wisdom of your people, Mr. Old Music, you have not the experiential perspective on matters of war we younger, cruder peoples are forced to have. Believe me, we are not suicidal. We want our people, our nation, to survive. We are determined that it shall. The bibo was fully tested, long before we joined the Ekumen. It is controllable, targetable, containable. It is an exact weapon, a precise tool of war. Rumor and fear have wildly exaggerated its capacities and nature. We know how to use it, how to limit its effects. Nothing but the response of the Stabiles through your Ambassador prevented us from selective deployment in the first summer of the insurrection.”
“I had the impression the high command of the Army of Voe Deo was also opposed to deploying that weapon.”
“Some generals were. Many veots are rigid in their thinking, as you know.”
“That decision has been changed?”
“President Oyo has authorised deployment of the bibo against forces massing to invade this province from the west.”
Such a cute word, bibo. Esdan closed his eyes for a moment.
“The destruction will be appalling,” Rayaye said.
Assent.
“It is possible,” Rayaye said, leaning forward, black eyes in black face, intense as a hunting cat, “that if the insurgents were warned, they might withdraw. Be willing to discuss terms. If they withdraw, we will not attack. If they will talk, we will talk. A holocaust can be prevented. They respect the Ekumen. They respect you personally, Mr. Old Music. They trust you. If you were to speak to them on the net, or if their leaders will agree to a meeting, they will listen to you, not as their enemy, their oppressor, but as the voice of a benevolent, peace-loving neutrality, the voice of wisdom, urging them to save themselves while there is yet time. This is the opportunity I offer you, and the Ekumen. To spare your friends among the rebels, to spare this world untold suffering. To open the way to lasting peace.”
“I am not authorised to speak for the Ekumen. The Ambassador — ”
“Will not. Cannot. Is not free to. You are. You are a free agent, Mr. Old Music. Your position on Werel is unique. Both sides respect you. Trust you. And your voice carries infinitely more weight among the whites than his. He came only a year before the insurrection. You are, I may say, one of us.”
“I am not one of you. I neither own nor am owned. You must redefine yourselves to include me.”
Rayaye, for a moment, had nothing to say. He was taken aback, and would be angry. Fool, Esdan said to himself, old fool, to take the moral high ground! But he did not know what ground to stand on.
It was true that his word would carry more weight than the Ambassador’s. Nothing else Rayaye had said made sense. If President Oyo wanted the Ekumen’s blessing on his use of this weapon and seriously thought Esdan would give it, why was he working through Rayaye, and keeping Esdan hidden at Yaramera? Was Rayaye working with Oyo, or was he working for a faction that favored using the bibo, while Oyo still refused?
Most likely the whole thing was a bluff. There was no weapon. Esdan’s pleading was to lend credibility to it, while leaving Oyo out of the loop if the bluff failed.
The biobomb, the bibo, had been a curse on Voe Deo for decades, centuries. In panic fear of alien invasion after the Ekumen first contacted them almost four hundred years ago, the Werelians had put all their resources into developing space flight and weaponry. The scientists who invented this particular device repudiated it, informing their government that it could not be contained; it would destroy all human and animal life over an enormous area and cause profound and permanent genetic damage worldwide as it spread throughout the water and the atmosphere. The government never used the weapon but was never willing to destroy it, and its existence had kept Werel from membership in the Ekumen as long as the Embargo was in force. Voe Deo insisted it was their guarantee against extraterrestrial invasion and perhaps believed it would prevent revolution. Yet they had not used it when their slave-planet Yeowe rebelled. Then, after the Ekumen no longer observed the Embargo, they announced that they had destroyed the stockpiles. Werel joined the Ekumen. Voe Deo invited inspection of the weapon sites. The Ambassador politely declined, citing the Ekumenical policy of trust. Now the bibo existed again. In fact? In Rayaye’s mind? Was he desperate? A hoax, an attempt to use the Ekumen to back a bogey threat to scare off an invasion: the likeliest scenario, yet it was not quite convincing.
“This war must end,” Rayaye said.
“I agree.”
“We will never surrender. You must understand that.” Rayaye had dropped his blandishing, reasonable tone. “We will restore the holy order of the world,” he said, and now he was fully credible. His eyes, the dark Werelian eyes that had no whites, were fathomless in the dim light. He drank down his wine. “You think we fight for our property. To keep what we own. But I tell you, we fight to defend our Lady. In that fight is no surrender. And no compromise.”
“Your Lady is merciful.”
“The Law is her mercy.”
Esdan was silent.
“I must go again tomorrow to Bellen,” Rayaye said after a while, resuming his masterful, easy tone. “Our plans for moving on the southern front must be fully coordinated. When I come back, I’ll need to know if you will give us the help I’ve asked you f
or. Our response will depend largely on that. On your voice. It is known that you’re here in the East Provinces — known to the insurgents, I mean, as well as our people — though your exact location is of course kept hidden for your own safety. It is known that you may be preparing a statement of a change in the Ekumen’s attitude toward the conduct of the civil war. A change that could save millions of lives and bring a just peace to our land. I hope you’ll employ your time here in doing so.”
He is a factionalist, Esdan thought. He’s not going to Bellen, or if he is, that’s not where Oyo’s government is. This is some scheme of his own. Crackbrained. It won’t work. He doesn’t have the bibo. But he has a gun. And he’ll shoot me.
“Thank you for a pleasant dinner, Minister,” he said.
Next morning he heard the flyer leave at dawn. He limped out into the morning sunshine after breakfast. One of his veot guards watched him from a window and then turned away. In a sheltered nook just under the balustrade of the south terrace, near a planting of great bushes with big, blowsy, sweet-smelling white flowers, he saw Kamsa with her baby and Heo. He made his way to them, dot-and-go-one. The distances at Yaramera, even inside the house, were daunting to a lamed man. When he finally got there he said, “I am lonely. May I sit with you?”
The Birthday of the World and Other Stories Page 19
