Mother of Eden

by Chris Beckett

  We’d often heard the chief say the same sort of thing, of course, but it was different coming from her. It wasn’t like she was demanding something or threatening us; it was like she was asking for our help. And I felt I’d do anything for her, anything, because she’d given me the most perfect moment I’d ever had in my life.

  My knee was better, too. That sore knee that had been bothering me all waking was completely healed.

  Starlight Brooking

  Those poor people. Each one of them alone, like their skull was a kind of cage, waiting for someone from far away to reach down to them and lift them up. Greenstone gave me a bag of cubes as we moved off again in the car, and I threw the whole lot out for them. Just like the people in all the other clusters we’d passed through, they yelled with excitement as they raced to pick them up. It was only when we were a little way off that it struck me how weird it was to throw out metal for metaldiggers, and for them to be excited to receive it.

  “It’s not just them that make the metal, though,” Greenstone said. “It has to be broken up and put in an oven, and poured into shapes and beaten and polished. There’s a lot more people than just diggers involved.”

  “But still. They get the greenstone out of the ground. It seems hard that they see so little of the stuff that’s made from it.”

  Greenstone wriggled uneasily on the seat. “The metal doesn’t belong to them, though. It belongs to New Earth, to make useful things for everyone.”

  “How come the chiefs get to keep so much of it, then?”

  “Because they’re in charge, aren’t they? Their job is to make everything work. Each chief looks after the metal from his own digs, and my dad takes a share for Edenheart.”

  The path passed between tree stumps and piles of stones.

  “I’m surprised those people even stay here,” I said. “They’d have a better life foraging in forest.”

  Now he looked really uncomfortable. “Well, they have to work in the digs,” he said.

  “You mean they don’t have a choice?”

  “No. And I’m afraid we’re going to have to bring even more forest people down into the digs. It’s one of the things Chief Dixon is asking for as a trade for his support. More helpers and more bats, so he and the other metal chiefs can dig out more metal. I don’t like it, but I don’t think we’ve got a choice, either.”

  What do you mean we don’t have a choice? That’s what I wanted to shout at him. And I would have done, too, if I hadn’t suddenly seen that what he’d said might really be true. New Earth was like a big pile of those stone blocks the chiefs used for their houses. The Headman sat on the top, below him the chiefs and teachers, below them the ringmen and the underteachers, and underneath all of them the small people, who dug the metal and gathered the starflowers and raised the bats. No one in that pile could do what they liked, not even the Headman. Everyone was weighed down by someone above, or kept from falling by someone below.

  But I thought about the batfaced metaldigger Clare and how she’d cried with happiness to see me, and I felt a jab of deep deep shame.

  “The forest people wouldn’t be in New Earth at all if it wasn’t for John,” Greenstone said. “They do owe something to John’s children, don’t you think? And in the long run, they’ll be helping build up New Earth, which will benefit their children as well as ours.”

  “You could just as well say that John would never have got to New Earth if their great grandparents hadn’t helped him paddle, so John’s children owe something to them.”

  “I guess so, but it was his idea, and they wouldn’t have—”

  “And anyway, a lot of them must be John’s children, too. Apart from anything else, think of all the batfaced kids you big people give away. For all you know, that woman I kissed back there could have been your own sister.”

  He didn’t like me saying that at all, and he turned away from me with his face closed up like a box. I touched his hand.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you, Greenstone. But we’re all the children of one father and one mother, aren’t we? Everyone in Eden. We should try and make things better for everyone, surely? We should think about what metaldiggers need as well as chiefs.”

  After a few heartbeats he turned to me. “I know, Starlight. I do know. I’m afraid to look out at New Earth through your eyes, if you want the truth, because when I do I see what a cruel place it is. But we have to remember that we won’t be able to do anything for anyone unless I stay Headman and you stay Ringwearer.”

  We were climbing out of the valley. A row of cutbats, tied one to the other with string, was being led down to the digs by a big man in a woollybuck skin wrap, shouting and slashing at them with a stick. But when he realized who we were, the bat keeper’s mouth fell open in amazement, and he ran to the car so he could kiss the ring.

  “At least the bats make it a bit easier for the metaldiggers,” Greenstone said. “Before we figured out how to use bats, people in the digs had to do even the most dangerous jobs, and lots of diggers died.”

  We came to the top of the slope. There was another valley on the other side. It seemed bright bright after Johndigs, and it was still shining and pulsing with life, but out in forest all around us people were cutting down trees.

  Greenstone Johnson

  “Kindness should be no concern of yours, Greenstone,” the old man said. “The Ringwearer’s concern, of course, but not yours.”

  He lay facedown under a woollybuck skin on a bed that was tilted upward at the foot end, so as to help the green muck flow out of his lungs into the bowl that lay below his head. He coughed and spat, Purelight pounding his back. The wallcave had a sour smell of sick and sweat.

  “Don’t we have a duty to the small people as well as the big ones?”

  “You don’t have a duty to small or big people, boy. You have a duty to New Earth. Your duty is to give New Earth what it needs from its Headman. And that . . . And that . . .”

  The coughing overwhelmed him again. Me and Starlight stood and waited. It was obvious Dad was near the end. He was thin thin. He could no longer walk more than a few paces. The skin of his face was yellow and pulled so tightly that we could see the skull beneath, like it was straining to get out.

  “What New Earth needs from its Headman isn’t kindness, it’s strength.”

  “But surely kindness is also—”

  “Tom’s dick, boy, will you shut up and listen? New Earth is like a body. It has different parts: a brain to think with, eyes to see with, a heart to pump the blood. Eyes can’t pump blood. Hearts can’t think. Brains can’t see. Each must stick to its own job, and your job is to be strong. You’ve never got that. My brother never got it, either. That’s why New Earth needed me. Weaken even for a moment, and there’ll be no New Earth. Each chief will be headman of his own little ground, squabbling with the other chiefs until the Davidfolk come over and sweep them all away.”

  “It just seems unfair—”

  “What has fairness got to do with it? Do you think Earth built starships by being fair?”

  Again, he stopped to hack and hack while Purelight beat on his back, hard hard, to loosen the grip of the sticky green stuff in his lungs. He must have been covered in bruises. Not that I cared.

  “It’s like building with stones,” Starlight suddenly said. “If you want the wall to be high, you have to put one stone on top of another.”

  Dad turned his fierce, glittery eyes on her. “Tom’s dick, boy. The girl understands better than you do.”

  “I understand because the place I came from was a place where all the stones lay side by side on the ground. It was fair and it was kind, but we would never have learned how to make metal, or cars with wheels. Let alone a starship.”

  “Good girl, good girl. You could teach my boy a thing or two.”

  He looked back at me. How well I knew that expression of contempt.

  “John’s walk, boy, I never thought a time would come when the Ringwearer would have to teach the Headm
an how to be a Headman. If you were a healer, your job would be to heal. If you were a teacher, your job would be to teach, but your job is to hold the body of New Earth together and keep it moving forward. That and only that. Forget all this stuff about kindness and fairness. As the girl said, it’s like building a wall. Your only concern is that the wall stays firm and doesn’t topple when you place more stones on top of it. Upward: That’s the only way back to Earth.”

  Starlight looked at me. “I didn’t say I agreed with how it works here,” she said. “I just understand it.”

  Dad didn’t hear her, though, because he’d begun to cough and spew. Purelight pounded his back, glancing across at me and Starlight as she did so, with something knowing in her look, like she was up to some secret game of her own. I’d never liked her. But then I’d never liked any of Dad’s pretty favorites, except for Quietstream.

  “I suppose you’ve told the girl about Harry and the boys?” the old man said when he’d finally coughed himself out. Purelight wiped his beard with a dry.

  “Yes, of course.”

  He nodded, and his eyes turned back to Starlight. “He’s always hated me since I did for his little playmates. I didn’t take pleasure in it, as he seems to think—he forgets that Harry was my playmate when I was kid—but there was a split opening in New Earth and my job was to make it whole again. I know people say power is all I care about. They’re wrong. I’ve given myself to power, as a speartip maker should give himself to metal and fire, or a hunter should give himself to the forest. But what I care about is New Earth. Making New Earth strong.”

  “You admire strength,” Starlight said, “and so do I. But what’s strong about giving way to Dixon on his demands to force all the forest people to the digs?”

  He studied her face for a while. I could see he liked her. He liked the fact that she wasn’t afraid of him. He liked the way she spoke to him like he was just a man and not the Headman of all New Earth. And I could see that Starlight had noticed he liked her

  Quietstream Batwing

  One waking when I was plaiting her hair, the mother told me about a dream she’d had.

  “I was in some dark dark sheltercluster somewhere—it smelled of death—and I’d got down from the car to give some woman a hug. I hugged her and hugged her, but when I let go, I saw it was my sister, Glitterfish. She’d been holding her little boy, and my hug had suffocated both of them. They were both dead.”

  “That’s a horrible dream, Mother.”

  “All the other people from back in Grounds were standing round: my friend Angie, and Julie, who I’ve told you about, and my brother and my uncle. They were standing there, silently accusing me. I wanted to explain to them, but I knew I had no excuse.”

  “But you’re awake now, Mother, and they’re all alive.”

  “I suppose they’re alive. I’ve no way of knowing.” She looked down at her hands, turning the ring round on her finger as she often did. “I guess you know the chiefs’ plan to cross the water,” she said after a bit, “and take back the Veekle and Circle Valley for the Johnfolk?”

  “Yes, Mother, everyone knows that one waking we’ll take them back for Gela.”

  “Take them back for Gela! Gela’s long dead, Quietstream, and if she was alive, I’m sure she wouldn’t want her children doing for each other in her name.”

  I knew that was true, of course, but I didn’t say anything, and once again I wished the mother was more careful about what she said.

  “Greenstone says that at least if he’s Headman we can make sure that Knee Tree Grounds is left alone. He can’t stop the plan itself, apparently. It’s been the plan for too long. Whole of New Earth is held together, it seems, by the idea of more ground and more greenstone and more forest across the water.”

  That was big people talk, of course, and not for me. I asked her about something else.

  “How many children does your sister have, Mother?”

  “Just one little boy. She loves him more than anything in the world.”

  I paused for a moment to rub my aching knuckles, making sure I did it where she couldn’t see.

  “I thought she was older than you, Mother?”

  “Yes, she is. She’s about six wombs older.”

  “It seems strange to reach that age and still only have one child.”

  “We don’t have big families on Grounds like you do here. There isn’t room for a lot of people, so women try not to get pregnant too often.”

  Mother of Eden, the things she said ! Didn’t she know it was wrong to stop yourself from having babies? All the teachers said so, and every hundredwake or so, some woman was punished when her man complained she wouldn’t take his juice inside her.

  “Remind me how many kids you’ve got, Quietstream?” she asked me.

  “Fourteen, Mother. Sixteen born and fourteen who lived, thank the Mother.”

  “Fourteen! Gela’s heart! How did you raise them? You’re here all the time.”

  “Most of them are grown up now, Mother, with kids of their own, but my mum looked after them when they were little. We thought that best, so I could work here at the Headmanhouse. My mum couldn’t work here, you see, because her face is broken. And most of my children’s faces, too.”

  “They’re batfaces?”

  “As you call it, Mother, yes.”

  “It’s a stupid stupid rule that says batfaces can’t work here. It’s no fun being a batface. No one thinks it’s sexy, and no one wants to kiss you or slip with you if they can find someone else. We can’t help that. But batfaces can work and think and talk just the same as anyone. Some of the rules in this place are just—”

  “Excuse me, Mother,” said a voice from the door.

  Purelight was standing there, that cold scheming creature. Gela’s heart, how long had she been listening?

  “The Headman would like to see you, Quietstream,” she said, “when you’ve finished with the mother, of course.”

  The Headman asking for me didn’t scare me. He liked to see me sometimes and have me talk to him and tease him while he stroked my face. When I was younger, he used to slip with me, too; he might even have given me one of my holefaced kids. But Purelight did scare me. Ever since she came to the Headmanhouse, she’d been looking around for ways to get herself more power.

  When she’d gone I walked over to the door to check she wasn’t hiding outside.

  “Mother,” I whispered. “You must be careful what you say. You can’t just speak what’s in your mind.”

  She wouldn’t hear it, though. “Jeff’s ride, Quietstream. All waking long people are telling me what I should say and what I shouldn’t say. All waking and every waking. Apart from Greenstone, you’re the only person I can say what I like to. If you don’t let me, I’ll bloody burst!”

  Greenstone Johnson

  I kept thinking about the story of Harry. Not my uncle Harry, nor the Harry that was with John Redlantern, but First Harry, Gela’s son, Harry Rulemaker, the third of the Three Fathers. I kept thinking about how he and his sisters were told two opposite things. One: Brothers and sisters must never slip together. Two: You must slip with one another, or you will grow old and die alone. Whatever they did, it would be wrong.

  I called Council together again. I brought all those vain, wary, jealous men to the Headmanhouse. I sat in Dad’s stone seat under the whitelantern tree and told them that me and my dad had agreed to make a new rule that each of the metal chiefs could make forest people work in his digs, as many as he liked, as long as he took them from the forest next to his own grounds. He just had to send out his ringmen and bring them in.

  The metal chiefs were pleased with this, and Dixon was specially happy because they all knew I was agreeing to his request. The flower chiefs and bat chiefs weren’t so happy, though. Some of them wanted to know why they couldn’t bring in forest people, too, if they needed them. The teachers weren’t happy, either, complaining that they needed more helpers in the Teachinghouse, and how come extra help was b
eing given to chiefs and not to them? Not one chief or teacher mentioned that the new rule would be hard on the forest people, who minded their own business and harmed no one. Not one of them pointed out how cruel it was to take them from the light of the forest into the darkness and danger of the digs. It seemed it was only me who worried about that.

  I told them another decision I’d made as well. I gave Dixon the name of Pool Chief, and put him in charge of all the plans to gather together the boats and spears and arrows we’d need to cross Worldpool and take the Veekle and Circle Valley. He was disappointed and angry, of course, that he’d not got the job he asked for, but all the same, many of the other chiefs, specially the flower chiefs and bat chiefs, were jealous that I’d given this to him and not to them.

  That was something I could turn to my advantage later, I thought, if Dixon got too big and needed cutting down, and I congratulated myself on my own cleverness, feeling strong and tall as I walked down the Red Cave at the end of the meeting, with the chiefs and teachers clapping and bowing. Later on it would strike me as strange that I should have felt so strong and powerful and in charge of things when I’d just made two rules that went completely against my own heart—for I hated the idea of attacking Old Ground as much as I hated forcing forest people into the digs—but all the same, that’s how it was.

  “Get someone to come and tell me where the Ringwearer is,” I said as I came out into the Tall Cave.

  Third Horn had just blown, I felt hungry hungry, and I looked forward to eating with Starlight.

  “Certainly, Father,” said a ringman, bowing his head. “And just to let you know, two whisperers have been caught up at Gerry Cave. They’re being questioned now at the Teachinghouse, and they should be ready for the Rock next waking.”

  Starlight Brooking

  Greenstone didn’t tell me about the two being sent to the Rock until after First Horn, when we’d been bathed and wrapped by our helpers.