The next morning my fever is better, and as a consequence I feel ashamed at having broken down so badly as to have believed in one of their gods. Aloud, I say, “I am Thora Lassiter, emissary of the Capellan Magisterium. I am Ral. They cannot make me into something other than I am.”
And yet, as the hot days wear on, my mind clogs with despondence, and I know the solution to my situation lies not in clinging to my old identity, but in embracing a new one.
When at last I hear voices at my door, I know who it will be: Scarinau, the twisted one.
He comes in, followed by the guard. He looks edgy. “Prepare yourself for the will of the Great Hunter Katarka,” he says loudly. “He has commanded me to rape you.”
My head fills with a strange, lightheaded lucidity. I feel a breath on the back of my neck, and know she is standing behind me. Tell me what to do, I implore silently.
She answers, but in a language I do not know.
“You think I’m not serious?” he demands, his hand on his belt buckle.
“I do,” I say. “I am shameless.”
There is an intake of breath from the guard. Scarinau’s left hand jerks as with a nervous tic. He wipes his mouth.
“She is lying,” Scarinau sneers to the guard. “We will shame her easily enough. Go on, strip off her clothes.”
The guard hangs back, and Scarinau curses him. “She wears no narakata,” the guard whispers. Literally, it means “shame cover.” It is the undergarment women wrap around themselves, a strip of cotton yards and yards long, like a mummy wrapping. It can take a quarter of an hour to remove.
“How do you know that?” Scarinau demands. “Have you been contemptible with her?”
Instead of answering, the guard slinks forward, averting his eyes. But when he unties my hands and reaches out to touch my shirt, I slap him away. “I don’t need your help,” I say viciously. Or rather, she says it, not me.
In one motion I whip the knit shirt off over my head, leaving myself naked to the waist. It is so unexpected, the guard backs away, his eyes wide. Scarinau stands his ground, but he stares as if his eyes cannot leave my breasts. I wonder how many times either of them has seen a woman naked in daylight. I catch Scarinau’s eye and say, “You will need the self-control of a great kithfather.”
His eyes wander, and a muscle in his lean, stubbly cheek twitches. In a hard, unnecessarily loud voice he says, “I obey the Hunter of Men.”
“Katarka fears you, Scarinau,” I say softly. “Even I can see that. He sent you here so I would suck the life force from your body, and destroy you.”
He turns to the guard. “Leave. I don’t need protection.”
The guard glances at me, then at Scarinau. This makes Scarinau furious, and he shouts, “Get out!” The guard leaves.
The man who has come to rape me crosses the room to listen at the door, clearly agitated. When assured that the guard has left, he stands indecisively for a moment. Then, without looking at me, he says, “Put your covering back on. I want to bargain.”
The goddess laughs in the back of my brain.
He paces nervously till I am safely clothed again. “I am not a simple backwoods fellow like that one,” he says. “I know much about your world. I have taken trouble to inform myself. Your men are addicts. They think of nothing but their own gratification, and that is how you rule them.”
I neither confirm nor deny this. “You spoke of a bargain,” the Capellan in me says.
“Yes.” He begins chewing a broken thumbnail tensely.
“I will demand a price,” I warn. “But if you do what I want, I will lie for you, and say that you have done Katarka’s bidding.”
“What do you want?”
My Capellan self wants to steer toward the narrow path of survival and escape. But the goddess wants me to plunge into the dark parts of their culture, and immerse myself in their minds. I can feel the wild heat of her body flowing up my spine.
“You want to escape,” Scarinau says.
“No,” the goddess says in my voice. “I want Katarka.”
As my meaning sinks in, his eyes flick here and there, following chains of possibilities. “You think I am disloyal,” he says. “I am not.”
“You think Katarka is not equal to the challenge?” Witassa purrs with derision. “Then someone else should rule in his stead.”
I can see his mind working. “I think I know a way to get the Hunter in the snare. It may be dangerous.”
Witassa laughs scornfully.
He straightens as much as his caved-in body will allow. “I can do it. Katarka will be yours. The rest is up to you.”
* * *
The recovered memory disturbed me so that I became preoccupied and moody. Hanna patiently waited to see if I wanted to talk, but I have not been able to tell her. It is not just the violence and degradation of the memory, or the unwelcome things it tells me about myself. This new version of events does not accord with the memories of Orem I had before. Up to now, I have believed I broke down and became a docile tool of my captors. But those memories are blurred and indistinct beside this one. Either this memory is a vivid delusion, or my previous memories were implanted. But why would the mentationists implant memories of a shameful surrender if it never happened? Could I have done something worse? But try as I may, I cannot pull up the rest of the memory.
At last I went to ask Dagget’s advice.
“Ofttimes a wender will meet his or her own past,” he said. “The Ground doth bestow self-knowledge as well as other-knowledge.”
“Does that mean this is a true memory?”
“Only thou can answer that.”
Waking, I have tried everything I know to recover more. To learn the truth, I think I will have to return to the Ground.
* * *
There has been a strange new turn of events. I first found out that Moth had returned by the banging and breathless chatter from the direction of Hanna’s formerly peaceful kitchen. When I came over to find out what was going on, Moth greeted me with, “Thora! I have been to thy habitude, and met thy friends.”
I thought at first she was joking, or telling an imaginative tale, but she soon convinced me otherwise. She knew the names of Sara, David, and Bakai. What was more, she had in her possession a headnet and a transmitter-recorder identical to the one I have been using to keep this diary. It could only have come from us. I was floored.
“Moth, how did you get there?” I said.
“I know not. I was in the songlands, searching for whatnuts, when something happened, and then I was on Escher.”
Her tale was so similar to what had happened to me that I asked, “Were they surprised to see you?”
“Nay, they were expecting me,” she said. “It is a habitude of wonders. Hanna, thou would not believe, but Thora’s people are very clever and powerful in their own land. They possess a sense we have not—sight. Thora, why can thou not see like thy people?”
“I can, in my own home,” I said. “I can’t see here because there is no light.”
I expected her to be confused, but instead she said knowingly, “Oh aye, Sara told me. Hanna, they have invented something called radiation. It is like unto tiny balls bouncing about. The balls are made by bulbs.”
Hanna was mixing something in a bowl while listening. She said tolerantly, “Bulbs? Like yams?”
“Aye, I suppose, yams that give off seeds they call particles. When the particles strike their eyes, they can feel them, and they make patterns. They tried to teach me, but it is very hard. When I go back I will master the skill and become a seer.”
Moth’s amazing tales were soon the talk of all Torobe. Many were skeptical, because I had gotten the reputation of being inoffensive but witless, and the idea of my coming from a race of godlike beings was more than they could swallow. But as the idea sank in, it occurred to more than one person that I might have been hiding my powers in order to lull them into trusting me. In a shorttime a village convocation was called to look into the matter
.
They met in the Echo Sculpture, but this time rugs and pillows were spread for seating and to dampen the echoes. The Three presided at the center of a ring of witnesses. Their first step was to call on Moth to tell her story.
“Harken thou, Torobes!” Moth said dramatically, so that her voice echoed. She waited for silence to fall. “Harken, for I have been to a wondrous place.”
She told the story in the manner of a discovery narrative where odd but simple natives turn out to have hidden powers. “Their habitude is made of boxes,” Moth said. “They have boxes that slide, boxes that hinge, boxes that fold: they are never happy till they have made more boxes for themselves and everything about them. They sleep on boxes, and live in them, and teach them to do all manner of clever things. I brought one back to show thee. Here, this is a box they have taught to remember things. Anath-Not, tell it something.”
“Nay, tell it something thyself,” Anath-Not replied, her dignity affronted.
“Songta?”
“I would tell it thou art a lawless scamp,” Songta responded.
Moth pressed a button and the recorder played back Songta’s words in her own voice. Everyone laughed but Songta. “Thy little box is saucy,” she said sourly.
Moth said, “Their boxes are their slaves which they make to sing, and heat their food, and talk to people far away. Their boxlore is deep and puissant.”
“Thora Lassiter, is this true?” Songta demanded.
I hardly knew where to begin. I decided to allay any fears over Moth’s demonstration. Preindustrial societies, I knew, were always suspicious of cameras because taking a person’s image might steal his or her soul. In Torobe, a voice was the mark of individuality the way a face was elsewhere, so the fear might be the same. “Moth’s box is harmless, elders,” I said. “All it does is to record the sounds around it. It doesn’t know what you are saying.” We have a more powerful box for that, I thought, but did not say so. “Even so, I expect you could find it useful. You could record promises or contracts, or music, or listen to the voices of your loved ones even when they are gone.”
This caused a stir of interest. Songta said, “Give me that box.” We all heard Moth showing them how to operate it, and soon they were recording each other’s voices and giggling a little self-consciously.
Finally, Anath-Not interrupted by scolding her colleagues, “For shame, you are like children! The box is clever, and learns its lesson fast, but if thou dost prate of twaddle, that is what it remembers.”
“That is true,” I said. “But you can make it forget, too.”
“How?” Songta asked.
“I know not,” Moth said.
I came forward and showed them how to erase. Anath-Not took the recorder firmly in hand and said, “Methinks it should be kept carefully by a person who will not waste its powers. From now on, only the wise shall touch it.”
This caused some dissatisfaction, since everyone knew that Anath-Not’s definition of “wise” was restricted to herself alone. So I said, “We have many such boxes. Perhaps in future you would like to trade for them.”
“Thou would share thy boxpowers?” Songta said craftily.
I did not know what was on her mind, so I hesitated. Moth jumped in, “But I have not yet told thee the whole of their powers. I have not yet mentioned their eyes.”
She then launched into an account that showed she had misunderstood sight as profoundly as technology. None of the benefits I would have mentioned—ability to find my way around or to read—seemed important to Moth. “Their eyes serve them to see the future,” she said. “Sometimes they can see far into the future, but indistinctly, and sometimes only a short way, but clear. They can also see a person’s thoughts and moods. The power of their eyes waxes and wanes, and when their sight is least mighty, they sleep. They can turn their eyes off and on at will. Their eyes are so mighty, they must live in boxes, or be vexed by knowing too much. I warrant they already know many things about Torobe.”
“Elders, please,” I interrupted. “Moth is exaggerating. It is true, our eyes are a great benefit to us. But we are different from you, not better. You have proved that sight is not necessary to be strong and independent. Look at all you have achieved: this village, these homes, your lives.”
Rinka said softly, “And yet, thou hast hidden thy powers from us.”
I felt annoyed at Moth. She had made us too dangerous and too alluring in their minds. I thought of the folktales where humans are able to enslave magical beings of frightening power. How temptingly similar this situation must seem to them. I tried my best not to seem evasive. “I have hidden nothing. I cannot see here, and you all know how helpless it makes me.”
“Why can thou not see?” Songta asked.
To avoid getting into an explanation of electromagnetism, I said, “I don’t have the proper box with me.”
“So thy boxes give thee this power?”
“In some circumstances.”
Moth broke in, “And if we had the proper box with a bulb inside, we also could see. They told me so. In fact, they promised to teach me.”
Anath-Not said peremptorily, “This is improper. Such a gift should not go to an obdurate child like Moth, but to the great and wise.”
“I am not a child!” Moth said indignantly.
I could only guess what my colleagues on Escher might have said to Moth, but I knew First Contact protocols. “We will do nothing without your permission,” I said firmly. “My friends may have said something incautious to Moth because they were anxious to find me.”
“Oh, aye,” Moth said, “they want Thora back very badly. They asked me to lead them here.”
“Did thou pledge to do it?” Anath-Not asked in alarm.
“Of course not. I told them I would ask you.”
This gave the Three the decision whether to invite aliens to visit. Anath-Not was clearly against it, but Songta seemed willing to take the risk. “The Boxmasters may be mighty allies,” she said. “They give us hope where yesterday we were sore perplexed.”
“They may not consent to aid us,” Rinka said.
Not a cough nor a shuffle came from the crowd. I realized that Rinka had made some sort of oblique demand, and everyone was listening for my reply. Not even sure what they wanted, I still did not want to let them down. I said, “I do not know if we can help you, but we will do everything in our power to try.”
* * *
The riffle came when I was asleep. A sickening sensation roused me, as if I were rocking on the swell of a sea, but when I sat up, something like a wall of pressure hit me. My ears popped, my lungs lost all their air, and I had the feeling that the front of my body had passed through my back, then rebounded to its original place. It was not painful, but profoundly disturbing. I reached for the floor, but it seemed miles away, then so close each grain was a mountain. The world around me shivered, and my skin with it, like the surface of a lake. A rumbling sound of rockfall came from somewhere to my right, then silence.
I can’t explain how unsettling it was. Something that has always been absolutely stable and predictable—the gridwork of space—seemed to have suffered a paroxysm, like a dimensional earthquake. As I tried to gather my wits, voices started to cry out as our neighbors checked with each other to make sure all was well. I called for Hanna, but she didn’t answer, so I crawled on hands and knees, not trusting the floor to stay underneath me, until I reached the area where she slept. I heard frantic thumps and clattering, then Moth’s voice saying, “Here he is, Hanna. Right at thy side.” The baby then began to cry, and so did Hanna.
“Moth!” I cried out. “What happened?”
“’Twas but a riffle,” she said, though her voice sounded less reassuring than her words. “Hanna thought the baby was gone. Ofttimes the little ones fare not well. Are thou all of a piece?”
“Yes,” I said.
There was some sort of commotion in the village—footsteps, voices yelling, jangling chimes. Moth seized my hand. “Let’s fin
d what’s afoot,” she said.
She led me at far too fast a pace into the village center. A crowd had gathered, and people were talking in such a hubbub that I could not understand at first what had happened. Since they were crying out names and searching between two houses, I thought a building had collapsed. But when I asked Moth, she said, “Nay, it did not fall. It is gone.”
“Gone?”
“Between the folds. Fawna’s family lived there.”
She sounded genuinely distressed, so I said, “I’m sorry.”
The search continued for some time, and I found a place to stand out of the way, which seemed the most useful thing I could do. Hanna joined me after a while, carrying her baby. “Is he all right?” I asked.
“Oh, aye,” she said. “I should not have doubted. He is Breel’s son, after all.”
After a while, the search was abandoned and everyone gathered round in silence. There was some weeping in the crowd. Then I heard Dagget’s quiet voice, and there was instant silence.
“Mourn not,” he said. “They did but sojourn with us a while, beminded by our love. Now they have joined the Ground of all being.”
In an anguished tone a woman said, “They may not yet be gone. They could be summoned back.”
No one said anything. The same woman said, “Dagget-Min, can you not seek them on the other side?”
He did not reply; after a few moments Songta spoke instead. “We shall lose more than Fawna if we tarry. Our peril is now before us. This home of ours is no longer safe. The fold rain will soon be here, and we must seek haven in another habitude.”
Sounds of protest and grief came from the crowd. I could scarcely believe that I had understood: was she proposing to leave their carefully constructed home, so perfectly adapted to their needs? How would they ever find another such place, and how long would it take them to replicate this village?
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