A Rumor of Angels

by Marjorie B. Kellogg

  The sun was very bright and warm and the sea smells were filled with the piquancy of driftwood and seaweed drying on the rocks. The halm school was built on an island, or rather into an island. The portico itself was a wide shelf hewn out of bedrock, enhanced with a neat masonry of columns and balconies. Its architectural solidity was both comforting and confining, especially after the unrestricting structures of Ruvala and the city of Quaire’en. The stone was smooth-edged and pitted, giving even under its sparkling coat of whitewash the impression of great antiquity. Even the stone floor was whitewashed, and the girl in her white robe ahead of them was mostly visible for her dark hair and the shadow she cast as she moved along the white wall.

  Ahead, the portico widened into a terrace shaded by a tiled roof. Twisted trees grew up through the rock. In a reed chair, an old woman sat propped up with cushions, conversing gaily with a group of young Koi who fluttered around her like butterflies. She looked up as Jude approached, and the children ceased their chatter to settle around her feet expectantly. Jude’s guide joined her classmates on the floor, leaving Jude to feel minutely observed as she waited in her brown Terran trail clothes, knapsack slung over one shoulder.

  The old woman raised a hand. When she spoke, it was in Koi, but the meaning rang clearly in Jude’s head.

  —Please sit down with us, Judith.

  Jude sat. When Theis went to the old woman’s chair and leaned against her knee with something close to reverence, Jude knew this was Anaharimel.

  Like the walls and floor, Anaharimel was all white. Her white hair was pulled back in a soft bun. Her skin had the pale shimmer of the sea-bred. Her face was such as is called ageless, for though age had left its mark in a network of tiny wrinkles, it had been kind enough to leave unsunken cheeks, fine teeth, and the surprise of bright eyes that were seawater green.

  Without introduction, Anaharimel began to tell a story. She spoke in Koi, the coastal tongue, Jude guessed, for its accents were unfamiliar to her. Again Jude understood every word. The story was a simple one, about fish and a great storm at sea. It bore no moral lesson nor particular information, but the children listened intently. When Anaharimel had finished, the turn passed to the silver-haired little boy sitting closest to her. His short tale was also told in the coastal tongue, but this time, Jude did not understand a word. Not even an image appeared in her head to help her along. She listened all the same, absorbing the watery undulations of a language that seemed to be made up of words as endless as the sea itself. Often it was difficult to say where one word ended and another began, so smoothly did the syllables roll into one another.

  The next student, an older blond girl, began her story in an entirely different tongue, and this time Jude wasn’t the only listener straining for understanding. The youngest sea-bred children had apparently not yet learned any of the regional tongues but their own. Jude began to see the method in this seemingly random passing of time. If a story was in an unknown language, a listener must rely on halm for understanding. And as halm brought the meaning through, so would it teach the language. But what if a listener’s halm was not developed enough?

  She decided to concentrate very hard on her listening, but as in Ruvala, her head began to ache, so she went back to listening to sounds only. The blond girl was not gifted as a storyteller. She droned on and on until her voice mingled in Jude’s ears with the plashing of the waves up and down on the rocks below, music that lulled with the warm sea breeze until her eyelids were heavy… a phrase entered her mind, gently like the smallest wave, and then another… words! Jude came awake, groped hungrily for the words as they once more dissolved into static. For a while all she could hear was the noise of her own despair.

  —Remember that listening is the opposite of concentrating.

  Jude glanced up, but the old woman sat back with eyes closed, head tilted against the cushions as if she had dozed off.

  If I could blank my mind… For the first time, the possibility that she might not be able to acquire this skill in time to save herself from James Andreas eroded the confidence that had propelled her to Quaire’en.

  I will think of nothing, she vowed.

  But self-consciousness is a stubborn reflex, and Jude spent the rest of the afternoon failing to subdue it.

  When the sun sank low enough to evade the roof, the terrace was flooded with late heat, and Anaharimel ended the session. As she rose from her chair, her step was quick and firm, and her body straight. There was no formal dismissal, but no lingering either.

  —Wash up for dinner!

  She went off down the portico with a swish of her long robe.

  Jude’s dark-haired guide stayed behind to lead her to an upper gallery lined with doors along one wall and open to the sea on the other. The girl stopped before the last door, gestured inside kindly, then continued on her way.

  Jude entered a square whitewashed room. Thick wooden beams supported a lowish ceiling. The beams were smooth and dark against the white plaster. The floor was tiled in deep sea blue with a simple border the color of the sky. The furnishings were spare: a wooden bed with a firm, even pad, a sturdy table, shelves and hooks, a chair, a simple but complete bath. The water in the tap was sweet and chill. Jude noted a blue ceramic bowl on the table by the bed. She filled it at the sink and set it down for Theis, who emptied it gratefully.

  Returning to the door, Jude gazed out over the green water. She could not see the beach from her room, only the broad horizon broken by the rocky island as it curled around to enclose a little bay. She had never known a place of such perfect beauty, a place where simply being there could make her happy. If she could learn enough halm to survive the coming cataclysm, she would find work that needed doing in Quaire’en. She knew the city would accept her. She had indeed come home.

  Overhead, the sun flirted through the early-evening clouds. Once again, the landscape was working on her, as it had in Ruvala, soothing her, draining away the panic she had brought with her. Yet she knew that she had only to walk the few steps to the balustrade and lean out over the water to steal a glimpse of the white beach. That would bring the terror of her dreams skidding back to her.

  Stay away, James Andreas! Give me time!

  Chapter 35

  The latrines were the only area of the detention camp that offered any privacy from patrolling guards. The three men stood with their backs to the breeze, Clennan a little apart from the others and talking very fast.

  “… Next thing he wakes me and tells me the kid is dead.” He spread his hands helplessly. “Suicide, he said, but I don’t buy it.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised, after what you put him through.”

  Clennan showed his teeth uncomfortably. “I don’t blame you for thinking the worst, Verde, but listen, I got a kid back at headquarters crying his eyes out because he thinks he killed that woman this morning. We don’t kill in interrogation, at least not the way I do things. You may not agree with our methods, but I tell you we’re not that damn clumsy!” He paused, touched the stunner at his hip. “Ramos does things different. I don’t issue killing weapons like his soldiers carry, I left Lacey healthy, I swear.” He was surprised that it mattered that Verde believe him. “I don’t know, maybe Ramos did him in, don’t ask me why. I just know there’s no way he could have killed himself.”

  Lute drew little figures in the dust with the point of his impromptu cane. “You believe the Koi are responsible for this, don’t you, Mr. Clennan?”

  Clennan’s face twitched slightly, then he nodded. “Something the kid himself said, I don’t know…” His mind was overflowing with possibilities his mouth did not want to admit.

  “If you think that, why do you come with an offer of help?”

  Clennan made a show of gesturing around the camp. “Nobody should be subjected to conditions like this…” Once again, his voice trailed off. Then, with exasperation, he said, “This is going to sound real phony, but I don’t really know why I’m here.”

  Lute smiled. “I
think I do.”

  Verde grunted dubiously.

  The old Koi fiddled with his stick a little more, then slid his next sentence out like a foot testing ice. “The Koi did not do this killing, but we must take responsibility for the one who did.”

  Verde’s look said the old man was making a mistake. Clennan’s abject slump didn’t alter, but his body stilled.

  “You know who killed Lacey?”

  “Yes,” Lute replied firmly.

  A slight murmur of dissent from Verde caused the Koi to sign him to patience.

  And Clennan’s next question was not who. He asked, “How?”

  Lute relaxed his purposeful stance with a small smile of satisfaction. He adjusted his webbed hands on his cane and tilted his brimmed hat farther against the sun. “And that question is why you are here, William. Come, it will be easier for you when you admit to yourself what it is you really want to know.”

  Clennan seemed to collapse a little further. The old man had skillfully led him to the brink of his dilemma. He was beginning to see it as a yawning chasm, with the Koi standing safely on the opposite side, forcing him by some personal magic to look down as the rock that had been his value structure slowly crumbled beneath his feet. But strangest and most frightening: with each fragment that fell into the abyss, the far side drew closer, offering an escape that was increasingly more plausible and inviting. “Aren’t you afraid of what I will do with what you tell me?”

  “No,” replied Lute with angelic confidence, and Verde winced, privately praying that the gambit would work. He was beginning to take the possibility of Clennan seriously. Could Clennan’s help tip the balance in favor of the Koi?

  Clennan turned away from the old man’s smile. The Koi had reached across the chasm with an offer of trust, and it shook him that he could hear such an offer and believe it. It was even more shattering that he could believe it and not be able to bring himself to manipulate it toward his own ends. Suspect impulses crowded in, morality, responsibility, a desire to protect… what? This world? His world? He paced away, as if removing himself from Luteverindorin would clear the fog in his brain. “I don’t want to know anything,” he declared finally. “Just tell me what I can do to help.”

  “Help what?” The old glassmaker persisted softly.

  “Help this. Help you!” Clennan waved into the dust-choked heat. Verde was amazed to see the Intelligence man trembling as if with cold.

  Lute was merciless. “Do you want to help the Koi or your conscience, William?”

  “Couldn’t that be one and the same thing?” asked Clennan tightly. The chasm was closing.

  “Guilt is not belief, William. Guilt can be resolved by a deed or two. The penitent can go on about his way, self-forgiven. You felt guilty for what you saw here, and you made your gesture. If that is enough, be off. Your guilt we do not need, but yourself, well, that is another matter.”

  “I wouldn’t trust me if I were you.” Clennan looked cornered.

  “Goddammit, man!” Verde burst out. “He’s offering you your humanity!”

  “No, Mitchell, humanity we all have, for better or for worse. Let us say that I am asking William to change sides out of enlightened self-interest. But to do that, he must truly believe that his interests and ours coincide.”

  Clennan shuddered, then threw his head back with eyes closed and whispered, “I do.”

  Verde shot Lute a look of bewildered admiration, for he could hear the conviction in Clennan’s declaration and knew what it cost him.

  “Understand my position,” said the Intelligence man faintly. “It’s not the job. I’ve already risked that willingly. It’s just that… I mean, how do you learn to live in a world where the impossible is suddenly possible?”

  Lute chuckled. “Change your definition of impossible.”

  The old man’s clear laugh melted the last of Clennan’s resistance. The hot sun beat down on them and the hard-packed dirt glared, but the old Koi seemed to glow from within. Clennan felt opaque, deadened, beside him. He kicked at a stone imbedded in the dust. “I envy you,” he murmured to Verde. “I envy your conviction.” He paced away, and his arm slammed down as if throwing away something hateful. “I’m tired of fucking politics! I mean, on Terra, you don’t have much choice. Survival, you know? Politics is the only game in that town. But here…”

  “Here it’s not much better,” Verde commented.

  “We could make it better!” declared Clennan impulsively.

  Lute smiled quietly to himself, listening.

  “You know,” Clennan continued rapidly. “I’m not the only one, either. Most of my staff would back me if it meant they could have a life here.”

  Verde chewed his lip. “I hear a deal being offered. But that’s all right, because I’ll bet a lot of the Quarter guards would feel the same way.” He turned a little circle, energy returning. “Lute, maybe we need to consider a new kind of coalition. We need all the allies we can get.” He glanced across the yard to the sprawling mini-city of barracks domes. “Is it the army that’s ruining your picnic here, Clennan?”

  Clennan gave a snort, edged with anger. “It’s my own damn boss. Colonel Ramos, chief of WorldFed Intelligence. He’s bringing the army in.”

  “The Jewel? In person?”

  Clennan nodded soberly. “And listen, you ought to know… well, a lot came out in that kid Lacey’s interrogation… about the Others, beyond the mountains?”

  “I knew it,” Verde groaned.

  “It was exactly what Ramos wanted to hear, exactly. Now he’s planning a full-scale military assault over the Guardians, after he uncovers the source of the… uh…” He could not say it. To say it was to believe it.

  “The Wall,” supplied Lute blandly.

  “His troops are in the Quarter now, tearing it apart, as the colonel put it, stone by stone.” Clennan looked at Lute seriously. “Will they find anything?”

  “I doubt it,” Lute replied, but now the heat and his fatigue were showing on him. He leaned more heavily on his cane. “But he has unwittingly obtained his desire by removing us from the Quarter. Those who were maintaining the Wall at the time of our arrest will soon be too drained to continue, even with our nighttime relief. The Wall will collapse.”

  Clennan thought this over, his arms crossed and hugged protectively to his chest. “But he won’t know that. He still expects to find some big machine, something concrete to destroy, and I’ll bet he keeps looking until he finds it. That could buy us time.” It amazed him how easily, after all, the decision was made, how with the making of plans, the line was crossed. “How long until the… the Wall collapses?”

  “Hard to say,” Verde answered cautiously, still weighing Clennan’s intent.

  The image of a collapsing wall sent a dizzy freedom coursing through Bill Clennan’s body. It hit him like a drug. “We’ve got to disarm him,” he stated.

  Verde scoffed. “Now how are we going to do that?”

  “You said yourself you’ve got more allies than you thought.” Clennan almost had the answer. His brain raced. Keep talking, Verde. The answer is coming. “You got anyone who can handle explosives?”

  Verde shook his head in dismay rather than denial. “Here we go again. We all saw how much good it did Lacey. What’s the use? If we blow up the arsenals, Ramos’ll just bring in more.”

  Clennan’s lungs constricted as the inevitable galloped toward him and swung him up into its saddle. “Verde!” he rattled. “Verde, tell me!” He grabbed the older man’s arm. “How much would it bother you to never see Terra again?”

  Verde shrugged off the hold. “I never intended to.”

  “No, listen! What if you couldn’t? Ever.” Clennan felt Lute straighten beside him. The old Koi understood. Support was there, as if an aged but steady hand reached out to help him across his chasm of dilemma. Armed with his answer, Clennan jumped. “We have to destroy the corridor!”

  The conservationist opened his mouth in protest, but nothing came out.
r />   “I know you don’t like it, Verde, but don’t you see, it’s the only long-term solution there is. We’ve got to break the link completely.”

  Verde’s eyes narrowed. “My God,” he breathed, then his frown broke into a rueful joyous grin. “Well, I’ll… why didn’t I think of that?”

  “You mean you’d back it?”

  “Cuts the problem off at the source.” Verde nodded, shedding ten years as hope became his friend again. “The corridor is the colony’s lifeline. Sever that and it would be forced to learn other ways to survive, Koi ways. Unsupplied, the colony could be converted.”

  “Won’t exactly be nonviolent,” Clennan advised.

  “A quick gesture now will mean fewer deaths later. Fewer Koi deaths.” Verde was working hard to convince himself. “What do you think, Lute?”

  The glassmaker’s reply was sad but assured. “We have experimented with patience. We have been generous with our world. Now I believe it is time to take it back.”

  Clennan whooped with laughter and release. “We can do it, too!” The rush of exhilaration set him dancing. “I have a car at the gate. I’ll call a guard, get you two escorted out like I was hauling you in for questioning!” He clapped Verde on the shoulder, his clownish exuberance returned in force. He loped a few paces toward the gate, then stopped dead. “No. Christ. Wait a minute.” He came back, fidgeting, as his trained caution won out over runaway excitement. “After the fuss I created this afternoon, I’m as visible as a checkered flag around here. Give me a day to set it up. No, wait… can’t afford to waste that kind of time. Damn!”

  Verde’s grin withered. “Ramos is that close to ready?”

  “Oh, Julie’s very eager. But that’s all right. We’ll beat him to it.” Clennan shoved his hair out of his eyes. “The unofficial channels work faster than the bureaucratic ones you’re used to tangling with. Don’t forget, I’ve got computer access and a top-level security clearance.” He chortled like a schoolboy. “For as long as I can keep ’em fooled…!” He turned to Lute. “Now let me get this straight. This telepathy thing means you can talk to anyone, anywhere, right?”