Mother of Eden

by Chris Beckett

“Good. And who was with her?”

  “Michael. Michael Namegiver.”

  “Good good. And out of the two of them in the Police Veekle, Gela and Michael, who was in charge?”

  “In charge? I don’t know. I’ve never . . .” I thought about it for a moment. “I suppose in the stories it’s Gela who does the talking.”

  “Exactly. Clever girl. It’s there in the stories. Gela was obviously in charge.” He looked at me, his eyebrows raised. “Which is odd, isn’t it?” he suggested. “When you come to think about it.”

  “I don’t think so partic—”

  “Because usually men are in charge of things like that, aren’t they? Ringmen and chiefs, and teachers, even those guards you have over there on Old Ground are always men.”

  “I don’t come from—”

  “It was only way back in the time of Old Family that women were in charge, and we all know how that ended.”

  “I don’t think that was because they were—”

  “So come on, now, you’re a clever girl, think it through. How come Michael Namegiver let a woman tell him what to do?”

  “I didn’t say he—”

  “Think about it. When does a man let a woman tell him what to do?”

  “Lots of times. Like when—”

  “A man lets a woman tell him what to do when he’s a smaller man than her dad, isn’t that right?”

  I started to speak, but the Head Teacher raised his hand to stop me.

  “A small man—a helper, say, or a ringman—will do what his chief’s daughter tells him, or his chief’s woman. But he won’t be told by a small woman, will he? Of course not. And a chief won’t be told by another chief’s daughter whose dad is no bigger than he is. So it follows, doesn’t it, that Gela must have had a dad who was a big big man?” He smiled encouragingly, like he could see I was smart and he was sure that I’d be able to work it out for myself. “And who could that big man have been, eh? Come on, think about the story and you’ll see. Who told Tommy and his friends they mustn’t take the starship? Who sent Gela and Michael up into sky to bring them back?”

  “President.”

  “Exactly. And Earth was a big big place, wasn’t it? There were thousands of people there, hundreds of thousands even. You’re not telling me that a woman could have been Head of all that? Old Family, perhaps—there were still only five hundred folk there even at Breakup, less than in some of our houseplaces—but not all the people of Earth! It makes no sense.”

  “I don’t—”

  “You’re a smart girl. You can see as well as I can that a woman couldn’t have been in charge of all that, so President must have been a man. And no way would he have sent a woman up there to sky to fetch back those three big men unless she was his own daughter, and he could be sure they’d do what she said.”

  “But why—?”

  “Why does everyone on Old Ground say President was a woman? Good question. But if you think about it, the answer’s obvious. Women had taken over Old Family, hadn’t they, in those last times before Breakup? They were in charge. So what does that tell you?”

  “I don’t think it—”

  “It’s quite obvious. They changed the story, didn’t they? They changed it so as to stop people asking all the time why it was them in charge and not the men. Makes sense from their point of view, but you only have to think about it a bit to see that President of Earth couldn’t really have been a woman.”

  “I don’t really get why. . . .”

  It was strange. What he’d said made no sense to me at all, but a little part of me was afraid that it was me who was being dumb.

  The Head Teacher shrugged. “Well, it’s the truth. I’m Head of all the teachers—all of them!—and it’s a teacher’s job to know the truth. That’s why we have to read all these barks.”

  He gestured at the piles of barks, each one covered in pictures and writing, that lay on tables in the bright white light of the trees all round his cave.

  “And let’s face it, girl—” he added, then broke off and looked round at his helper. “Run along, boy, and get some more meat for me and the Ringwearer.”

  The boy laid down his barks and ran from the cave.

  “Let’s face it,” the Head Teacher repeated with an odd, twisty grin, “you can’t read at all!”

  I felt my face burning with shame.

  “That was just a lucky guess you made in Council,” he said. “I know you can’t read. So how could you possibly know the things we know, when we’ve read all these thousands of barks?”

  He’d started out angry angry, but now he patted my knee.

  “Not that it’s your fault, of course, my dear.” He picked up the bark picture, looked thoughtfully down at it. “We teachers have the job of finding out the truth about things and passing it on, just as chiefs have the job of leading the ringmen and keeping us safe. And my job, now that you’re Ringwearer, is to make sure you understand properly about Mother Gela. That’s what she needs from you. She needs you to listen to us as she herself listened to the men around her.”

  Sitting there in his amazing cave, with its stone walls, its beautifully trimmed trees and all those thousands of written words, I couldn’t help wondering if he was right. All I knew about was how to catch fish and make kneeboats, and what did that amount to in this bright bright place, far beneath the darkness of the world?

  “Of course I’ll listen,” I said, “but—”

  Smiling kindly, the Head Teacher held up a finger to stop me, as if I’d been about to apologize. “You people followed Jeff Redlantern, I hear? A good man. He helped John teach bucks to let people ride on them.”

  “Oh, he didn’t just help John. It was Jeff’s idea!”

  The Head Teacher laughed indulgently. “Well, I’ve always heard Jeff was a modest man, but perhaps even he couldn’t help boasting a little to his kids.”

  “But how—?”

  “How do I know I’m right and you’re wrong? I think you know the answer to that, my dear. Remember what I just said about all these barks? We don’t just pass things on by word of mouth here like folk do on Old Ground; we write them down. We’ve got barks in this house that John himself wrote with his own hand. We’ve got barks that John’s companions wrote. Their own words, not half-remembered stories, going all the way back to Breakup. And I’ve read every single one.”

  I shrugged. “Jeff used to say you could argue forever about the past. The present is always the present, he said, but the past keeps changing all the time.”

  Teacher Michael chuckled, in the way that grown-ups laugh at children’s funny ways. “Well, that’s just not true, not when there are teachers who can write things down.”

  Well, Jeff was my great-great grandfather. Everyone said he was smart smart. I wasn’t going to let his words just be chucked away.

  “People can write things on barks that aren’t true, surely? Jeff said that all we can be really sure of is that we’re here and that the Watcher looks out of our eyes.”

  The smile faded from the teacher’s face. “The Watcher? Tom’s dick, what’s that?”

  Again I felt doubt. What did we really mean by it? And what use was the idea, anyway? It wasn’t like it had helped us build houses. It wasn’t like it had helped us find metal.

  “It’s what looks out of everyone’s eyes,” I said. “The thing that sees the world.”

  “Oh, what utter nonsense. Obviously no one looks out of our eyes but ourselves. As to who watches the world, it’s President. President watches us from across the sky, with his daughter, Gela. And don’t you forget that. People listen to you when you wear the ring, girl. People believe you. It’s a big responsibility. And you must only ever tell them what we teachers know for certain to be true.”

  He’d been annoyed for a moment there, but he seemed to have cheered up again.

  “Well, that’s enough teaching for one waking, I think. I must go to Council. I’ll give you some barks to help with the letters, and we can meet
again soon.”

  Quite suddenly he knelt in front of me and kissed the ring, not just once, but many times. It was as if, after scolding me and treating me like a child, the Head Teacher of all New Earth had suddenly become a child. And then, just as suddenly, he’d turned back again into the Head Teacher.

  “You still have a lot to learn, Ringwearer. You’ll need to work hard. You’ll need to listen carefully to those who know.”

  From up at the Headmanhouse came the sound of the Second Horn.

  Greenstone Johnson

  I remembered a time with my dad when I was a little boy. We were sitting by the river with spears in our hands, waiting for fish. The forest pulsed and hummed around us. Glitterbirds squabbled above us on the roof of the Great Cave. Ringmen stood nearby, like silent shadows, in drifts of sparkling starflowers.

  “In New Earth,” my dad said to me, “the Headman is the boss of everything, am I right?”

  “Yes, of course, Dad.”

  “Tom’s dick, that’s a lot of power,” he said, like he’d never thought about it before. “So where does it all come from?”

  “It comes from John,” I told him.

  I was confident about that because it was what the teachers had told me. The power came from John Redlantern, because it was him who led the people from Circle Valley to Wide Forest and from Wide Forest across Worldpool. After John died, the Headmen stood in his place.

  “It comes from John, does it?”

  It was definitely what the teachers had told me. John Redlantern, deep down there in the past, was the source of our power, just as the heat of Underworld was the source of life in Eden. Yet my dad’s tone told me I’d said something wrong. I nodded nervously.

  “And where did John get his power from?”

  “I . . .” I had no idea. No one had ever told me. It was like asking where Underworld got its heat. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  Dad slapped me, hard, round the back of my head, so that tears came into my eyes. “Tom’s dick, wake up, boy! Wake up and use your own brain. That’s the trouble with these bloody teachers, they make you rely on their stupid barks. John’s power came from the people who followed him, of course! It came from the fact that he’d managed to persuade them to follow him. We’d never even have heard of him otherwise, would we?”

  “No, Dad.”

  “So where does the Headman’s power come from?”

  “From . . .”

  “Harry’s dick, boy, what’s the matter with you? I’ve just told you!”

  “From his followers?”

  I half expected to be hit again, it sounded so dumb—how could power over people come from those same people?—but what choice did I have? That was what I’d understood him to say.

  “Well done, Einstein, well done. It comes from his followers. So what would happen if I asked the chiefs to give me all their ground? Or told the teachers to pile up their writing-barks in Meeting Ground and set fire to the lot?” He laughed. “Ha! Burn all their barks. Not a bad idea. Perhaps I should do just that.”

  I smiled weakly.

  “Come on, boy! I asked you a question. What would happen?”

  “You’re the Headman, so they’d have to do it.”

  Wham! Another hard slap made little blue rocklanterns glow inside my skull.

  “John’s strong hand, boy, didn’t I just tell you to use your brain? Don’t just repeat what the teachers say!”

  Why did he send me to the teachers, then, I might have asked. Why, when I came back from them, did he make me repeat exactly what they’d taught me? But of course I didn’t ask him either of those things. I just tried to figure out what he wanted me to say.

  “I guess . . .” I began.

  In the water below us the pale belly of a bluefish caught the treelight for a moment. I wondered whether to spear it, knowing that Dad might well tell me off for slowness if I missed my chance, but fearing that if I did, he might shout at me for not paying attention to him.

  “I guess the chiefs and teachers would complain,” I said, cringing in readiness for another slap.

  “Well done. They’d complain. Of course they bloody would, and, not only that, they’d all gang up and wouldn’t do what I asked. Maybe I could take one chief’s ground from him, but why ever would all of them agree to being treated like that, when there are forty of them and only one of me?”

  “I don’t know, Dad.”

  “Well, it’s about bloody time you gave it some thought. You’ll be Headman one waking. How do you think you’re going to get people to do what you want?”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “Okay, let’s start with the small people. Why do they do what they’re told?”

  “Ringmen make them?”

  “That’s right. Ringmen make them! The blokes with spears make them. And who else?”

  “I . . . I’m not sure.”

  “What about underteachers?”

  “Underteachers?”

  I gaped at him. I knew what underteachers were, of course. I knew they took knowledge from the Teachinghouse out to the small people, and taught them what was true and what was right, but I couldn’t see what that had to do with the Headman’s power.

  Dad sighed. “The underteachers tell folk they must do what we tell them if they want to please Mother Gela. They make them believe that’s really so.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “ ‘Yes, of course,’ ” he mimicked. “ ‘Yes, of course,’ Greenstone says. So why didn’t you say so, then? It’s important what the underteachers do. Ringmen can’t watch everyone all the time, but the underteachers make sure that President and Mother Gela are always watching from the sky: President, who they fear; Gela, who they love. And who’s in charge of underteachers and ringmen?”

  “Teachers and chiefs.”

  “Well done. Underteachers take their orders from the Teachinghouse, and ringmen take their orders from the chiefs. Only the ringmen here in Edenheart take their orders straight from me, them and the ones out on the far ground where there are no chiefs yet. So to keep my power, I need the chiefs and the teachers, don’t I? I know it and they know it. So how do I keep on top of them? How do I stay boss?”

  “I . . . You . . .”

  “Gela’s tits, boy, what’s the matter with you? Don’t you notice anything that’s going on around you? I have to persuade them that it’s worth their while, don’t I? Okay, I come down hard hard on anyone who steps out of line, but that will only work if most of them are on my side. Otherwise, they could just get rid of me, just like they got rid of Headman Roger. You know what happened to him?”

  “Some chiefs did for him, and his cousin took over as Headman.”

  “Exactly. He thought just because he was Headman and John’s son, he could do what he liked. Big mistake. Sent him to the fire. But if he’d played the game right, you and me wouldn’t be having this conversation because it would be one of his grandsons who was Headman, and I’d just be some old chief.”

  He looked at me, his eyes glittery and hard. I thought about the fire, the terrible drop, the heat so intense that flesh burst into flames.

  “So what have we got to do, boy, if we want to stay in charge?”

  “Give the chiefs whatever they want.”

  I was sure I’d got the answer right this time, so I really wasn’t expecting the blow round my head that nearly knocked me into the water.

  “No, you idiot! If you give them whatever they want, you make them boss. You won’t last long if you do that. You won’t last long at all. No, you have to give them enough of what they want to make them think they’re better off backing you than they would be causing trouble, but you never never never give them exactly what they ask for.”

  He leaned forward. Dad could focus on one thing completely and absolutely, but he could also shift that focus in a second. And now, all at once, he’d forgotten me completely, and was utterly intent on the water. Suddenly he thrust down wit
h his spear and brought it out with a bluefish squirming on the tip, its arms and legs waving feebly about, its mouth opening and closing like it was crying out silently in pain.

  “Trouble with you, boy, is you don’t concentrate,” my dad said. “This fellow’s been down there all this time and you never even noticed.”

  He yanked the creature off the spear and smashed its head against a stone.

  Give them just enough to make it worth their while backing me, but not everything they wanted. It was easy to say it, I thought as I went back to the Red Cave to meet the chiefs and teachers for that second Council, which Chief Dixon had insisted on, just like it’s easy to say that the point of chess is to take the king. But when I tried to remember what Dad had told me about how to do it, I couldn’t remember much more than the slaps and the punches and the angry shouts: “No. No! Not like that, you stupid fool!”

  I’d slept badly. I’d dreamt I pushed Starlight from the Rock. I’d seen her falling toward the fire.

  Dad was too sick to be there, coughing and spewing on his bed, while helpers fussed round him with water and dries. I was going to have to take the Headman’s chair myself. All the chiefs and teachers stood as I made my way between them to that lonely seat under the whitelantern tree. I turned to face them, bowed, and sat down. Then a horn blew and the complaints began:

  “Naturally all of us chiefs and teachers are disappointed that you didn’t show your confidence in us by choosing one of our daughters. . . .”

  “Of course we’re all troubled by the fact that you chose to ignore our advice. . . .”

  “We need to know that we’ll be listened to, or how can we help you take New Earth forward?”

  This was the opening move: the laying out of grievances. I made soothing sounds as Dad would have done, though I knew he’d have found clever ways of opening up differences: between the chiefs and the teachers, perhaps, or between metal chiefs, bat chiefs, and flower chiefs.

  After the grievances came the demands.

  “We need your support in building up the Teachinghouse. John said teachers should be the equals of chiefs in every way.”

  “We need more bats in the metal caves if we’re going to keep up the supply of greenstone. And you need to bring in the forest people and put them to proper work.”