Stress Pattern

by Barrett, Jr. , Neal

  "Rhamik—" I tried to think of what to say. "What exactly do you mean by a new person? I don't have a new person or any kind of person. I've got a—a thing that you buried in a hole!"

  "Yes, Andrew," he said calmly. "And the thing I put into the hole was the seed of a new person. As you explained, it was given to you by the female, when you left the settlement."

  "That thing?" I looked at him. "That's the seed of a new person?"

  "Yes, Andrew."

  "In a little package. That I carried here on my shoulder."

  "Yes."

  I am no biologist, but I knew this was not the way you got "new persons." And even if it was—

  "Look. There's been a mistake," I told Rhamik. "I explained—I didn't touch the female. That's Phretci's flower blooming back there, not mine."

  Rhamik frowned painfully. I lacked great knowledge, and he was trying to be patient. "No, it is your new person, Andrew. It was given to you. Not Phretci."

  "I don't care who it was given to. I didn't lay a hand on her!"

  "There is more to patterning than touching, Andrew."

  "Yes, but—" I stopped. "Wait, I didn't get that."

  "I said there is more to patterning than touching."

  "Patterning."

  "Yes. The female's urge came upon her, Andrew. She felt a strong patterning for you. Your refusal to complete her did not change the patterning. Your acquaintance Phretci brought her to physical completion. But he had nothing to do with the act itself."

  "He didn't?"

  "No."

  "He looked like he did to me."

  Rhamik shook his head. "Andrew, it is hard for me to understand why no one on your world has explained to you about new persons."

  "Like you say"—I brushed his words aside—"that's something we ought to talk about sometime. Not now. Rhamik—just because a female thinks about a male doesn't—"

  "Andrew"—he smiled—"now you are gaining understanding."

  "No. I am not gaining understanding."

  He stood and brushed dirt from his knees. "In time, Andrew. In good time."

  For several days I let my timber business go to pot.

  I had many things on my mind, but bamboo was not among them. I wore new pathways through the grove. Probably, I ate bulbs. Mostly I thought about patterning.

  Or tried to.

  Where to begin, though? I didn't have the vaguest idea what Rhamik was talking about, though there was nothing new in that. Rhamik seldom took anything far enough for understanding. He hinted. Dropped little clues. Then I nudged the issue just to the edge of curiosity and left it there.

  Take it from the top, then. Item: I didn't for a minute give any credence to Rhamik's explanation. I had no real or abstract relationship to the dun female's offspring. Rhamik, though, thought I did. And that's the trouble with the castaway business—you are ever faced with discerning what is real, and what the natives think is real.

  Possible solution: Even in fantasy, look for a basis in fact. Superstition grows from fear. The superstition may be false, but the fear behind it is real enough. A mother's fear that something will be wrong with her baby. Don't look at a midget when you're pregnant—your child will be short instead of tall. Listen to soft music. Your child will be gentle. Read about great men. Your child will be a leader.

  Patterning? Maybe. What's a pattern? A model. Something to be copied or imitated. So the female was attracted to me—for reasons of her own. And local custom had it that the "model" got the grand prize. Bad news indeed for popular models. One could find himself with a hut full of new persons, if be wasn't careful. And it occurred to me that the females on this planet were singularly uninspired, for the most part. Either patterning hadn't caught on in the flatlands, or no one was trying terribly hard.

  For what it was worth, my timber was drying quickly. Rhamik was pleased. I had curbed my headstrong behavior and settled down to learning the course.

  It was understood that I would not feed and water my "new person." Nothing was said. Rhamik simply took over these duties without further comment. Fine with me. It was bad enough just knowing it was there.

  A reward for diligence. Rhamik arranged another trek to the clearing. I was amazed at the changes—the entire area was a maze of ladders, scaffolding, and bamboo towers. Ten meters or so above the ground a whole new village was in the making—huts, thatched roofs, the works. Each was apart from the other, as before, but each was connected by a shaky pattern of narrow walkways.

  Again it seemed a senseless project. Were visitors expected? Were Rhamik's people going to abandon their huts and move to the heights? If so, why?

  As expected, Rhamik thrust the question aside.

  "Soon, Andrew. Soon you will see."

  Sure I would.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  More surprises.

  On the way back from the clearing Rhamik led me out of the grove and onto the flatlands—and for once, I guessed what I was seeing. No hints. No secrets. Rhamik's people had simply dug a trench. Not much wider than my shoulders, and two meters deep. There was a stratum of rock halfway down, and this was the reason for the hole. Two males worked below, working loose bits of stone which they tossed up to a male and two females. These craftsmen chipped the rocks into cutting tools similar to the one Rhamik had given me.

  That, as far as I was concerned, was that. Rhamik, though, wanted to make sure I got the picture. He motioned me down and I followed. The two workers scampered quickly up the other side. No offense, right?

  "Here," said Rhamik. He traced his finger along the moist soil. "See, Andrew? This is where the stones are found."

  I muttered appreciatively. "They're nice rocks, all right."

  "Yes"— Rhamik beamed—"these are good kinds!" He frowned, shook his head. "Hard to find, Andrew. Lots of soft rocks"—he kicked one to show me—"no, good for bamboo, though."

  "No. I guess not."

  "These, though. Good stones. Very useful."

  "Yes. I can imagine."

  "For cutting the ropes and mats, too."

  "Uhuh." I was looking hard for an intelligent question. "Do you always have to dig?" I asked. Grubbing out trenches without shovels was a hell of a project. "Can't you find any on the surface that'll do?"

  Rhamik looked puzzled. "Dirt is on the surface of the world, Andrew. Rocks are to be found below."

  "Oh."

  "You did not know this?"

  "I did. I just forgot."

  And of course he was right. Foolish me. I had forgotten. There was the ankle-high monument at the Dhoolh stop. A handful of pea-gravel here and there. No more.

  Rhamik had moved on, leaving me staring at "good stones." I found him at the far end of the trench. He was on his hands and knees brushing soil from the dirt sides. Well, I thought, I am going to see another rock, and squatted down beside him. Not too far, though. The water table was quite near the surface in the valley, and the trench was more than a little muddy.

  "There," said Rhamik, "you see, Andrew?"

  I didn't, but I nodded. He kept brushing and chipping out stray bits of soil with his fingers and finally I did see something. Mica, maybe—imbedded in dull, gray crystal. Then, when he uncovered a larger area, it looked more like hard shell, or calcified bone.

  Well, well. A closer look, then. A fossil? Could be. Quick mental image of a new field of interest. A hobby. I pounced on ideas such as this.

  "What is it?"

  "Wait. You will see." His brushing had bared a good-sized spot. I was certain I had guessed right. There was the beginning of a skeletal pattern—gray, bony ridges and more of the mica-like scaling.

  Rhamik gestured. "More, Andrew. Longer." He stretched his arms wide and waved them in outward arcs. "Much bigger. From here, maybe"—he made one point with his finger—"to here."

  He had walked off two meters or so down the trench and marked the soil again. Whatever it was, it was taller than I would be if I cared to stretch out in the trench and compare sizes.<
br />
  "Do you know what this is, Rhamik?" I asked. "Something old. Something that lived a long time ago." I didn't want to say fossil.

  Rhamik looked pained. "Old, Andrew?" He patted his stomach. "No, no. Good to eat. Real good."

  I stood up. "What's good to eat?"

  Rhamik grinned. "Good, Andrew. Not now, though. Later."

  I looked at the spiny patterns and ran my hand over them again. Cold and brittle. For umpty-odd million years or so. This fine specimen was not going to be good to eat. Now, or later. Its eat-or-be-eaten days were over, and I decided Rhamik had been putting in too many hours in the bamboo mines.

  I turned to give him what for, having had enough of this business for the day—but of course he had sniffed a question in the making, and was out of the trench and well on his way back to the grove.

  We walked back to my hut together and Rhamik chattered about good rocks or something. I wasn't listening. I kept my mouth shut, fearing that whatever I might say at the moment would have no positive effect on our friendship. The fossil business had irritated the hell out of me. It was no great issue, but it had the makings of the proverbial last straw. More fuel for the guessing games. Another inanity to complement the timber business, patterning, new people in gardens.

  In truth, I could not blame Rhamik any more than myself. He was what he was, and I couldn't expect him to be something else. Only—I didn't have to like it. Or the rather galling fact that I had, of my own free will, gone along with his fun and games—evidently willing to pay the price for the luxury of speaking to another living being now and then.

  More than that. And harder to face, since it involved the old personal ego. I was not doing much of my own thinking anymore. Or going my own way. I had let myself become almost completely dependent on Rhamik.

  I didn't much like that.

  My timber racks were bare.

  All the bamboo I had laid out to dry was gone. Clearly, for reasons of their own, Rhamik's people had come and hauled it off while we were looking at rocks, and fossils that would soon be good to eat.

  I didn't ask for explanations. I took the bulbs I had dug on my way back and went into my hut and left Rhamik to his own ends. I could hear him feeding and watering my new person and finally I got up and wandered off in the grove by myself, and stayed there until I was sure he had finished and left.

  I wished my Bhano were still alive.

  If he had been, I'm sure I would have ridden out of the grove then, and headed for the rim of the valley to see what there was to see.

  I gave myself a sound mental kick for that. A none too subtle evasion tactic, Andrew. You don't need a Bhano. A Bhano is optional equipment. You walked before you rode, and surely you can walk again.

  Still, the idea was now clearly established in my mind. I felt somewhat better. The decision had been made. It was not a matter of what I would do, only when. I would go. In the morning. Or the day after, at the latest.

  I did not leave the next morning, nor the next. Nothing had changed, it was simply that making the decision was enough for the moment. It had flushed the clogged channels of my mind, so to speak. I found myself free to think again—a most refreshing experience. I no longer brooded about the fact that Phretci was different from Thraxil, and Rhamik different from both. Or why there were no stones on the surface. Or that the villagers were building high-rise bamboo huts. I did not even think about the new person.

  This was not my world and it was time I realized I would probably always face questions I could not answer. Frustration was no excuse for stagnation. I could not accept that. I was not ready to settle down placidly in my grove and grow old among the bamboo.

  Even if there was nothing to find on this world, I could not let myself stop looking. I knew, instinctively, that that would be the deadliest error I could possibly make.

  A few mornings later Rhamik led me into the forest near the edge of his village. A small clearing had been hacked out of the grove and one of the tall stilt huts had been constructed there.

  "For you, Andrew," be announced. "Soon."

  Sure, I thought. Soon. Later. Not now, Andrew. And I realized then that I would have to go quickly. And that I would probably not be able to tell Rhamik, or try to explain why I had to do what I had to do.

  We walked farther, past the hut, and he showed me a high, narrow walkway—a maze of stilts and braces—that had been laboriously constructed from my hut all the way to the main village.

  I was taken aback by that. Great God, I thought, and squinted back along the way we'd come. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to keep me segregated—and completely in touch. The walkway was a good seventy-five meters long—closer to a hundred—from my hut to the nearest hut in the new project.

  "Mine, Andrew." Rhamik grinned. He pointed to the hut above, then to himself.

  OK. That hit me where it hurt.

  An ungrateful bastard, then, who faulted other creatures for being what they were. And I would repay this creature by departing like a thief in the night. No good-byes. Surely, he deserved more than that.

  Well, I could think about that in the morning. Though I knew I'd already thought about it and knew what I was going to, do.

  That evening I sat at the edge of the grove and watched the stars. The ribbon of dust on the horizon marked the enigmatic path of the Ghroals across the tired landscape. Maybe they did thunder endlessly around the globe, I decided. Maybe the front end met the tail and held the world together.

  Around the middle of the night I sat up in my hut and listened, and finally got up and stood outside and looked up at the sky. The stars were gone. And while I had never seen even the wisp of a cloud on this world, the first tentative drops of rain spattered against my cheek and rustled the leaves overhead.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I couldn't have been more delighted.

  It was a light, easy rain like a spring shower on Earth. Just enough to bring a clean smell to the air and a quiet drumming on the roof. The mat Sterzet had given me was reinforced with bamboo thatching, and I listened to the drops rustle dry leaves until the sound lulled me back to sleep.

  When I woke again it was still an hour before dawn. The rain was coming down harder and there was a steady rumble of thunder in the distance. Occasionally, sheet lightning lit the grove.

  The temperature had dropped several degrees, and I recalled days at the university when a good storm would coincide with weekends at home. I pictured my fireplace crackling, thunder shaking the windows. Flames would send yellow shadows across the high bookcases that lined the walls, and there would be good music on the tapes, and a drink in hand. And if it was a particularly fine weekend, there would be a pleasant companion on hand to share the rain, the music, and whatever other joys we might devise.

  Now, though, there was none of that. And no prospect of such delights. The rain only served as a wet reminder.

  A cold jet of water jolted me abruptly back to this particular world. I moved aside, groped about trying to fix whatever had gone wrong, and worsened the matter considerably. The jet was now a stream. In moments, the stream was a deluge, and it was wetter inside the hut than out.

  I jerked my spare matting off the floor before it soaked up any more water and wrapped it over my head and hunched out of the hut. There was nothing left for me there. My home was a disaster area.

  The full force of the rain nearly beat me to the ground. This was no longer a spring shower, or anything of the sort. I stood there inanely, holding my wet mat over my head, and wondered where in the hell I thought I was going. Drop by the neighbors? A friendly tavern?

  Still, a man does not simply stand in the rain. He runs away from where he has been and toward something else. A flash of lightning gave me direction. I lowered my head and followed the path I'd worn to the edge of the grove. I huddled there and squinted out at the flatlands.

  Quick flashes told me there was a shallow sea beyond the grove. The rain was pelting the earth with such force that a sol
id veil of whiteness rose from the ground. I wondered how the Ghroals were enjoying the weather.

  My feet were slowly numbing and I looked down and saw the water was just past my ankles. For a while, I raised one foot out of the water, lowered it, and raised the other—then realized this idiocy would not keep me dry.

  It was a first-class storm, and there was nothing else for it. But—should the water be rising that fast? It hadn't been raining all that long, really. And it struck me, then, that little of this water was running off into the ground. The water table was too near the surface. Everything that fell now was going to stay with us.

  I checked my ankles again. The water was slightly higher, or I imagined it was. Lightning lit the flatland sea and I thought about it raining all over the great valley, and beyond that. The thought made me decidedly uneasy. There were more forces at work here than rain and a high water table. The valley was a big bowl, with flat, even terrain beyond. The water table was relatively high there, too. Rain that fell there would have no place to go. Except here.

  It was not a happy thought.

  I pictured tons of water rushing down the shallow rim to fill the great sea that was forming about my ankles. No, past that. Well on the way to my knees.

  A sudden moment of panic, then. What was I to do and where was I to go? I was on my own, and Rhamik couldn't help me out of this one.

  I stopped. Great God, I thought, he has, though. He already has! I kicked myself mentally and wondered how I could have forgotten the stilt village. High up over the water. Rhamik's Folly.

  I plunged back toward the grove through rising water, feeling angry and relieved. You son of a bitch. You, knew about this and didn't tell me. Another stinking surprise.

  It was hard going.

  Rain lashed out in blinding sheets. Branches whipped across my face. More than once, my feet bogged in mud or tangled in bamboo and sent me flailing into the water.

  It was up to my thighs. And climbing. I moved toward the stilt house Rhamik had built for me and hoped to God I wasn't going in the opposite direction. It was a long trip on a dry day—and there were no landmarks now.