“For the most part, the increased monitoring has worked. Our ratio of successful insertions has improved. We now have sixty-three families on the western Linnean continent. And until recently, we felt confident that we had achieved a critical mass of information necessary to train families for full assimilation. Until recently....” Smiller paused uncomfortably, like she had a very bad taste in her mouth. “Then we started getting conflicting data.”
The displays behind her showed pictures of the different kinds of probes. I recognized some of them—the robot animals, the kites, the high-altitude satellites, the ones like that; but I didn’t recognize the rest—things that looked like rocks or beetles or pieces of tree trunk. But I did like the Linnean doll with button-camera eyes. The screens showed a lot of different satellite-planes; most of them had transparent wings and bodies.
“As expected, once we inserted more probes, the number of UFO sightings in the coverage zone increased.” Smiller looked very unhappy as she admitted the next part. “Yes, I know that sounds unlikely to most of you. We’ve told you repeatedly how we’ve built the probes out of transparent, non-reflective material. The specifications demand silent operation and invisibility to the naked eye at heights above 100 meters. Nevertheless, despite our stringent specifications ... glitches do happen. Mistakes get made. Machines fail. A circumstance occurs that we didn’t foresee. Perhaps someone on a cliff top looks across a valley and sees a spybird passing only a few meters away. He can’t tell its size or speed; he has no referents. He can’t even describe what he saw because he has no words in his language. Or maybe a spybird loses its calibration due to weather conditions or inaccurate maps and dips too low. Or maybe it crosses the sun, or a trick of the light gives it a sparkle or a reflection or a shadow. We can’t foresee every possibility; we’ve always had a margin of uncertainty.
“As we feared, we started hearing stories about Linneans in the target areas seeing things in the sky. The reports contained enough specific descriptive detail—culturally adjusted, of course—to cause us enormous embarrassment. Although most of the individuals involved eventually came to believe that they had seen one of the eufora, even that doesn’t let us off the hook, because these incidents simply do not match the established tradition of euforan contacts.
“What troubles us in particular, the sightings have created a new meme in the Linnean culture, and the ripples have spread. Yes, most of these sightings have met with the same kind of skeptical dismissal as you or I might give to a report of a Martian spacecraft landing in the outback, because those reports came from individuals with little credibility. But some of the reports have attracted attention because they came from otherwise reputable individuals.
“Regardless of the believability of any individual report, the continued sightings have created a widespread awareness of a different kind of euforan manifestation. The Linnean perception of the eufora has changed. Let me give you an example.” She stepped up to the podium and picked up a piece of paper. She read slowly, to allow for the archaic style and unfamiliar words:
“‘After three days in the wild, without hope of rescue or succor, I resolved to die in the same manner as I had lived—with my family uppermost in my thoughts. As I had lived to honor them, so I would die to honor them. I finished the last precious drops of my water and arranged myself upon the rocky ground as comfortably as circumstances would allow. I stared up into the evening sky, once again struck by its awesome beauty, and the gift of awareness that the Mother has given to all of us so that we may apprehend such wonder. With that thought, I realized that I should list for myself all of the grandest moments in my life that I could recall—my own way of acknowledging Mother Linnea’s great gifts to me. I could not die ungrateful, you understand. As I contemplated my blessings, the heritage of my parents, the love of my good wife, the blessings of my children, my pain began to ebb and a great sense of peace began to fill me, as if I had left my body behind and now floated on an ocean of humble sanctity. I felt overwhelming joy. It swept through my body in a rush, a physical wave of sparkling sensation, and I wept with the beauty of it. I felt as if my substance had changed—had somehow lost the earthly chains of weight that held me down upon the ground, so that the slightest gust of wind could lift me bodily into the air like a gossamer veil of spider-silk. I saw myself as if from above, translucent and filled with the glowing light of Mother Linnea’s love. I knew then that the Mother had blessed me yet again, infusing me with the spirit of her own eufora. Yet through it all, I remained exquisitely alert and aware of every sense. Each new sensation registered itself in both my feelings and my thoughts. No act of physical love had ever swept through me as powerfully as the Mother’s grace. And through it all, as if the Mother herself were speaking to me in her own voice, I kept hearing one word only—a single thought that finally came laughing out of my own mouth, the word ‘Yes!’ Mother Linnea’s blessing came to me as a simple profound acknowledgment. She sent me her grace and her agreement that we, her children, should celebrate our joys together. And by that mandate, we achieve forgiveness for our missteps and mistakes.
“‘When at last, the feeling finally began to ebb, I wept again, neither in sadness nor relief, but only as a joyous and exhausted aftermath, as one who has spent the evening consumed by an act of exquisite congress finally sighs in the humble acknowledgement of the gift of ecstasy. I felt cleansed by the Mother’s tears as well as my own, and the peace that enveloped me was the peace of an infant safe in the arms of its parent. At last, I fell into a deep slumber. When I awoke, dawn had lifted the curtain to the east and as my eyes popped open, I laughed with the memory of my blessing. I knew also that I would live, because the Mother wanted me to return to the bosom of my family and share with them what she had shared with me. So I stood and began walking toward the rising light. And that, dear listeners, concludes the tale of how I got here....’”
Smiller didn’t comment on what she read. Instead she returned that paper to the podium and picked up a second page. This time, she read:
“‘The eufora had great wings, outstretched. It looked like nothing of land or sky or sea. It glowed with the color of the day, and it flew neither as a bird nor an insect. It did not flap or buzz, it made no sound, and yet it moved directly through the sky as if along a track that only it could ride.’” She grabbed a third piece of paper. “This one troubles me the most. ‘I don’t know why I looked up, but the Mother must have intended me to see her spirit. She wanted me to know. I saw a glint of light coming toward me. Like a shooting star, but in the day. As it came closer I saw that it had wings, perfectly straight, and by the manner in which it flew, also straight, I knew that I saw a true manifestation of the eufora, for no human endeavor could have produced a device of such elegance and beauty. I prayed then for cleansing, that I might find forgiveness and enlightenment—that I might receive the blessing of the Mother’s grace. But the messenger passed, and although I felt awe at what I had seen, I felt nothing in my soul. I felt inconsolable sorrow, for I knew that if the Mother intended me to witness the passage of her euforan manifestation without partaking of her blessing, then she must have intended me to know that she found me unworthy of her grace. I pray that I will find forgiveness at least in the hearts of my children.’” Smiller paused a moment, then added quietly, “The author of that committed suicide. The words I just read you—she wrote them in the note she left behind.”
SUPERSTITION
QUIETLY, SMILLER PUT THE PAPER BACK on the podium. She looked around the room at us with an expression that could have curdled milk. “I hope that you can begin to understand the shift in thinking these accounts represent. Prior to the events described in the last account, the eufora never appeared as a physical manifestation. Prior to these events, the Mother never withheld her grace from anyone. The Linneans used to experience the eufora as personal revelation—contact with the eufora always occurred through the emotions, not through the senses.”
“Excuse me, Scout—?�
�� Buzzard Kelly stood up. “I don’t understand. Why do we concern ourselves with the pagan superstitions of these people?”
Smiller didn’t answer. She glanced over at the Man with the Silver Earring. He grunted softly. Without moving from where he stood, with only that single soft sound, instantly he had every eye in the room on him. He gazed across at Buzzard, and even though his face had no real expression, I knew I never wanted him to look at me that way. “So you think your superstition should outvote theirs ...?”
Kelly didn’t get it, although everyone else seemed to. “They believe in spirits and demons and mother-goddesses. My faith lies in the one true God.”
The Man with the Silver Earring nodded. It was not a nod of agreement. “So you do think your superstition has more importance than theirs.”
“My faith—” said Buzzard Kelly, bristling slightly, “—comes from God.” As if that settled it. “I have His word. I have the Book. At least, I did until Administor Rance took it away. But I still have my faith in here.” He rapped his chest hard. “I have the truth. You can’t take that away from me.”
“Nor would we try,” said Earring. “But the Linneans say they have the truth too.”
“They have superstition! You said so yourself.”
“Ahh, they have superstition....” repeated Earring. “And you have the truth ...?” He paused as if considering this as a moment of enlightenment, then turned his attention back to Buzzard. “Hmm. Just one thing. Do you know what they would say if you told them of your faith? They would say what you just said—that you have superstition and they have the truth.”
Kelly sputtered. “You know what I mean.”
“Yes, exactly. You mean that your superstition should outvote theirs.”
“Don’t play word games with me, Scout!”
“I do not play word games, Citizen! I challenge you to consider this question. What makes your truth more true than theirs?”
“I have the Bible—the revealed word of God.”
“And they have their scripture—also the revealed word of God.” Earring held up his hand. “No, stop there, Citizen. I do not want to chase this wabbit—and neither do you. You need to understand only one thought. And if you get it, it will change the way you look at all thought.”
Earring moved across the room to stand directly in front of Buzz Kelly. He moved like a force of nature—like something that does what it wants without regard for anything that gets in its way. And he spoke to Buzz Kelly in a voice that God probably borrows when handing down commandments: “From the inside, it never looks like superstition. From the outside, it always does.
“No—” Earring held his hand up to stop Kelly from replying. “Don’t say anything, Citizen. I did not invite you to discuss it. I did not invite you to negotiate with it. I did not invite you to argue with it. I only want you to get it. Over on Linnea, the people live inside a different truth than you do—and they have the same strength of faith in their truth as you have in yours. If you wish respect for your beliefs, then you must respect the beliefs of others, lest you reopen wounds that will not heal easily. Not here, and definitely not on the other side.”
He stepped past Smiller to the podium. “These sightings”—and he swept the entire stack of reports off the podium; they slid across the floor in a cascade of paper—“create external evidence. These sightings take faith out of the equation. They change the relationship of the Linneans with the eufora, and by extension, with the Mother as well. This creates an enormous danger, to us as well as the Linneans.
“Faith always demands proof to justify itself. The insecure believer constantly seeks validation. The creation of tangible evidence always petrifies faith, turns it into dogma. It proves to some people that they believe right—and it will damage others by demonstrating that they believe wrong. This will create widespread ripples. Some people will inevitably feel abandoned by the Mother, alienated from a spiritual source that they have invested a great deal of energy in. That kind of disaffection .... Well, we have already seen some of the possible consequences.
“Last month, two children—a twelve-year-old girl and a thirteenyear-old boy—saw one of our probes in the final stages of failure mode. It lost altitude, then vaporized itself. The children reported what they had seen, but they had no credibility. Even worse, they reported no feelings of the Mother’s grace. Instead, they could only say that they had seen one of the eufora drop from the sky and die—an unthinkable concept in Linnean terms—so the authorities declared their sighting a maizlish—an ‘evil mischief.’ They castrated the boy and exiled him. They executed the girl to prevent her from bearing any maizlish offspring.
“I cannot begin to tell you how much this particular incident hurts. It has devastated the spirits of the scouts.” Earring glowered at Buzz Kelly, and then at the rest of us as well. “Do any of you here want something like that on your conscience? No? I didn’t think so. But we have that now, and we continue to run that risk every time we send anything through the gate.”
A HOUSE
FOR A WHILE IT SEEMED LIKE we were spending every night sitting around the table and talking about what had happened in the evening’s seminar. I didn’t mind. I got to stay up late and sit in on all the meetings, and it felt good being treated like an almost-adult for a change. And it gave us a lot of good experience speaking in Linnean because we had to talk about a lot of different things besides gathering boffili chips and making bricks and building houses.
But talking didn’t accomplish anything, and there didn’t seem to be much to say anymore. The family quietly decided to give the Kellys a wide berth. For a couple reasons. Mosty because they still wanted us to come over to their place for private Sunday prayer meetings and we felt that was a bad idea—because it meant not thinking like Linneans—but also because we didn’t expect them to last much longer in the program anyway. Although we did spend a while speculating on how they’d gotten approved in the first place. Irm said they must have bribed a congressman to get in; Da-Lorrin growled at that. We’d had to do it the hard way. But it didn’t matter how many congressmen you bought, Big Jes said, you still couldn’t buy your way over to Linnea if the Dome Authority didn’t trust you.
But after that evening with Smiller, it seemed like the Kelly family settled down anyway. We didn’t hear any more about Bibles or chocolate from them, so maybe they had gotten the message, but even if not, I was through being Patta Kelly’s friend. She’d already gotten me in trouble once. I wasn’t going to get my family in trouble a second time. I had a hunch we’d used up all our second chances. All of us.
But it didn’t make too much difference anyway because we were too busy building our house. We had promised ourselves that we would make good on our work points as fast as possible, so we just went back to work. After a couple of long, hard days, we fell back into our old routines. Almost.
Only now, everything felt different. No one would say for sure, but everybody knew that something serious had happened over on Linnea. The scouts looked grim and the administors acted busy and preoccupied all the time. We figured it had something to do with cultural contamination, but nobody would say. Lorrin even asked Smiller about it, but she rebuffed him and told him to concentrate on getting the house finished before they started winter. “You’ll have plenty of time to talk around the fire.”
Originally, we had planned to build the house without any wood at all, because we wouldn’t have any wood on the open prairie; but then we realized that on Linnea we’d have at least two great-wagons to dismantle, so we petitioned for an amount of wood equal to the planking in a single wagon. We pretended that we were taking one wagon apart and used the wood for shoring up the sides of the house before putting in the bricks.
We had dug a great round hole in the ground, almost five meters deep. It was deeper than a swimming pool. Then we dug chambers off of it, like the petals of a flower. Six chambers in all; each with one wall of shelves and one wall of shelf-beds. It would be cramped, but a
t least we’d have a little privacy when we needed it.
We packed the dirt as solid as we could, both walls and floors, and then we painted everything with layers and layers of tarpay and mats of razor grass, until everything had a hard, sticky surface as thick as two hands laid one on top of the other. We hoped this would make a permanently watertight layer. Lorrin had figured worst-possible case for the weather and then doubled it, but we had no way of knowing for sure until the flood.
Even before the tarpay dried, we began laying bricks—two layers across the floor and two rows up the walls. We dipped every brick in tarpay, rammed it into place, and painted it again with even more tarpay. As we built the first row of bricks up the wall, we painted it again and pasted it with more mats of woven razor grass, then we rammed the second wall of bricks hard against it.
Next to the house, we’d dug a wide, shallow hole with a bottom slanting away from the house. After we painted it with tarpay, we installed a double lining of bricks; that would be our water tank. We built a sloping brick pipe from the house to a point halfway above the deep end. When I asked why not to the very deepest part of the tank, Big Jes explained that we had to leave the lowest place for sediments to settle; we didn’t want to drink that stuff.
On the other side of the house, a safe distance away, we dug another pit which we painted, but didn’t brick. That was the winter latrine. Later on, next spring, we’d dig a summer pit. At the end of every day, we’d drop all of our garbage and refuse into it and put a layer of razor grass and a couple of shovels of dirt on top. When it came time to plant crops in the spring, Big Jes said we would pull up buckets of rich stinky fertilizer and the crops would grow twice as tall.
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