“Any Koi, anywhere in the colony.”
“Oh.” Clennan glanced at Verde.
“It’s not a gift that many Terrans have,” Verde explained with a terseness that masked his own pain and regret.
Clennan rethought quickly. “Okay. Well, I can get you both out of here, but you, sir”—he turned apologetically to Lute—“will have to see your way to spending a few days in the holding tank at headquarters. It’s no paradise, but it’s cool and cleaner than this dump. And you’d be where I could get to you without raising Julie’s suspicions. As for you, Verde, I can fix an exchange with one of my men. With all these imported troops running around, one more new face in uniform won’t be noticed.”
“A uniform isn’t going to hide me from the colonial police,” said Verde.
Clennan shrugged easily. “So we’ll avoid them until the time comes for you to recruit their support.”
Verde exchanged looks with Luteverindorin. “There’s one more major variable you should know about…”
But Clennan was up and moving toward the gate. He flashed them a reckless smile over his shoulder. “Tell me later!”
Chapter 36
Round pebbles cemented into wide shallow steps cut a whitewashed swathe into the darker rock. The stair switchbacked down to a stony beach where the waves cascaded against the great ranks of dolmens wading at the foot of the cliff. With Theis close at her side, Jude made her way down the path to join the students gathering in answer to their teacher’s silent summons. It was still very early. Jude shivered as she passed through the tall shadows of the dolmens, and found a rock in the sun to settle on.
Anaharimel awaited them, clothed in white, bathed in white dawn sunlight, seated against a white rock. Whichever of her favorite spots she chose to hold class in each day, she was always there before everyone else. Jude pictured her each morning wandering the island while the school was at breakfast, a stark white wraith, agile as a girl, taking in the weather, the color of the day, the bite of the wind, in order to determine the most receptive location at that particular time for the teaching of halm. The choice made, the halm call went out, breakfast was cleared, and the day began.
As the last stragglers scurried down the path and found seats, Jude watched the little floating stones bob at the water’s edge, wondering idly what kind of stones there could be that would float, thinking that Ra’an would know, because Daniel Andreas, the geologist would have taught him that. In fact, Ra’an would have delivered an entire lecture on the subject of the floating stones. Thinking that, she didn’t want to look at the stones anymore, and determinedly pulled her concentration back to the class.
Increasingly, though the choice was never hers, Jude found herself sitting somewhat apart from the other students. The island’s halm barrier could not keep the news out, for the school was not closed to tradesmen or visitors. Each passing day brought more reports of the disrupting passage of James Andreas through the countryside, Jude became an unwitting focal point for the fears and confusion fermenting within the student body.
There were exceptions. The youngest, the little silver boy, had taken a fancy to Theis and accepted Jude as the gria did. Her other almost-friend was her dark-haired guide of her first day at the school, a Ruvalan girl named Pe’eva, who made touchingly awkward efforts to include Jude in the simple social activities between classes. They shared no verbal language. Jude’s attempts to mindspeak a child whose halm was as undeveloped as her own were often discouraging, but just as often amusing, for Pe’eva concealed a determined gaiety beneath her solemn child’s face. She was more than willing to struggle with the barriers of age and culture for the sake of communication. They could hardly be called confidantes, but Jude felt a tie with Pe’eva and could isolate her halm presence with growing ease, picking it out of the island’s population of halm presences that had a few days ago been incoherent static to her. The other presence that had been clear from the first day was that of Anaharimel. Jude only wished that she could halmspeak Anaharimel as smoothly as her teacher could halmspeak her. The communication was still jerky and difficult. But each day, there was progress.
Today, Pe’eva had not been at breakfast and Jude could not sense her anywhere. Haltingly, she framed a query to Anaharimel, working in images where she could not form halm words.
(Image of Pe’eva) Where? (Expression of concern)
—Pe’eva? Her family needed her at home for the harvest.
(Surprise) (Image of Pe’eva saying goodbye to Jude) (Regret)
—She asked me to bid you goodbye and say that she will see you again.
Jude made an extra effort, for she had not spoken to Anaharimel of her isolation, though she was sure the old sage had noticed.
(Image of Pe’eva) Family (Expression of disapproval) (Image of Pe’eva and Jude laughing together)
—Yes, they did not approve.
There was a pause, and Jude could feel Anaharimel searching her reserves of tact.
—The pilgrim mobs swept through Ruvala yesterday with their message of destruction. Pe’eva was not required to go home. She went because she felt she could be a voice in her homeland against What-is-to-come.
(Image of Pe’eva) But… a child!
The emotion of her reaction pushed Jude’s message through.
—Not so much a child that she will willingly be made a murderer.
Jude buried a lonely hand in Theis’ shaggy coat to offset the chill that threatened at the mention of “What-is-to-come.” She hated the avoidance implicit in that euphemism and suspected that Ra’an had some cause to accuse the Koi of being reluctant to face issues directly. They seemed to do it not out of complacency as he assumed, but as one will when he has heard something so horrible that he doesn’t know how to deal with it. Still, Pe’eva had chosen to act, and in her friend’s bravery, Jude could find comfort.
Anaharimel raised her eyes to the rest of the class as her halm voice slipped from private to public mode in the ritualized class opener.
—Who will offer a story to enlarge our experience? Judith?
Jude had expected this. Anaharimel had her own ways of dealing with issues. Days passed at the school and learning progressed, and Jude had sworn to be ready when the moment came that she was first asked to recite. But her assessment of what was appropriate changed with each day.
What story should I tell??
The other students retold traditional Koi tales or incidents of local history, or often a personal experience would be humbly offered. Jude decided against the latter, though she ached to share with these children who shrank from her something of her life, to tell them of her time in the Wards, to express her love for their world, to win their sympathy, perhaps, to make herself more in their eyes than that-Terran-in-the-school.
She rubbed the rough warm stone for comfort. She had never given much thought to the use of myth as parable or fantasy as lesson, but the image of Pe’eva bearing home to Ruvala her idealistic convictions stirred up a certain guilt that Jude had been ignoring.
Here I isolate myself in an island monastery to acquire the skills for my own salvation… what might I be doing to save the other five million also threatened by James Andreas?
If I tell them of my life on Terra, it will only make the Terran “horror” loom larger. It’s Andreas they must learn to question, and the horror he demands of them in return.
Jude stood, and haltingly, conjuring out of the white stones at her feet a vision of the long white beach where What-is-to-come would occur, she began tell the myth of the man called Hitler.
Chapter 37
Within hours after his return from the detention camp, Bill Clennan jotted two Koi names on the check-in list for the holding tank. As two old Koi shuffled into the cell, the man on duty noted the time and added his signature without question.
“Colonel’s back,” he advised Clennan. “he’s been yelling all over the complex for you.”
“I’ll just bet he has.” Clennan shared a frate
rnal wink. “Look, Spiros, when you get off duty for the day, look for me in my office?”
“Sure thing, Bill.”
Clennan made sure that Ramos had been away from headquarters all day before he went down to report. He knocked, then pushed the door open briskly, clutching a pile of folders.
“Tried all afternoon to catch up with you, sir.”
Ramos was moving around slowly, pale under his peeling sunburn. “I was out at the corridor.”
“Ah.” Clennan was properly regretful. “Must have just missed you out there this morning. You look, ah, like you could use a little rest, boss.”
Ramos regarded him owlishly. “I’m fine. A little crotchety, maybe, but I hear I’m not the only one… So you blew off a little steam this afternoon, eh?”
Clennan put his prop to use, slapping the folders down on the long table. “Well, look at these damn reports! How can I get anything out of these Natives if they come to me half dead from heat and starvation?”
“It’s hot out there all right,” Ramos growled. “But I don’t need you losing it like a greenhorn. We got more important things to deal with than whether the natives are tucked in comfy.” He sniffed, shrugged, and pushed a few papers around unnecessarily. “Be easier on the men next time, Billy. Did you get anything out of those two you just brought back?”
Like a hawk, thought Clennan, stepping more carefully. “Tossed them into holding for the night. I’ll get to them first thing in the morning. It’s hard to tell them apart, but I’m pretty sure I saw these two hanging around Verde’s office in the Quarter. Thought they might give us a lead on him.”
“Fine, Billy fine.” Ramos sat back with a nod that pretended to be approval.
Clennan lurked by the door. What if I ask him why that prisoner died this morning? “They find anything in the Quarter yet?”
“Not so far.” The Intelligence chief scowled into his paperwork. “I figure to give it another three, four days, then go ahead with the operation. We’re ready enough, and the men are restless. This heat…” He scrawled a signature distractedly. “That Wall thing can’t be strong enough to stop a whole army.”
Three or four days! Clennan swallowed covertly. “I’m sure you’re right, boss,” he said as he quickly shut the door behind him.
For the rest of the evening, he haunted the Intelligence Complex, drawing certain men aside, testing, probing, feeling them out. Sentiment against Ramos was running even higher than he had suspected. By early morning, he had over a dozen he could count on, and that dozen assured him of two dozen others who could be expected to come over when the action began. Out of a staff of several hundred, it did not sound like great odds, but it was a strong beginning.
He selected one of the most trusted to make the switch with Verde, while the man named Spiros went to work in place of the late-night duty officer, who had been taken mysteriously ill.
Verde came out of the tank, furtively shrugging the army fatigues into place and yawning.
Clennan chuckled as he felt the plot thickening around him. He was beginning to enjoy himself. “Not the best fit in the world, but it’ll do. Let’s go, soldier.”
The old jeep rattled through the predawn city, avoiding scattered pockets of police and diehard looters. Verde directed Clennan around the back of the Quarter, away from the glaring lights that illuminated the searching and dismantling progress going on inside the walls. They left the jeep in an alley and slipped in by one of the many secret entrances. From there, Verde was deliberately circuitous, as only the Koi could have taught him to be. If Clennan was intending a doublecross, he’d never be able to retrace the route by which Verde finally brought him to the deep-cellars.
They tramped for nearly an hour through the downward maze, then turned into a final slanting passage, far below the Quarter. Faint light shone behind a canvas flap at the other end. Verde’s pace quickened.
“Damon! Ron!” He shoved aside the flap. “By God, do I have a surprise for you!”
Sleeping men scrambled to their feet with groggy exclamations.
“Mitch! What the…!”
“Thank God. We thought…” Damon’s dark bulk loomed in the lamplight as he reached to turn up the flame.
“How’d you get…?”
“Where…?”
Ron Jeffries’ sharp growl broke through the hubbub. “What’s he doing here?”
Verde took a light grip on Clennan’s elbow. In the hush that followed, he could not completely repress a foxy smirk. “Bill, I believe, you know Ron Jeffries. He’ll be the demolition man you were asking for.”
Not knowing what else to do, Clennan stuck out a tentative hand. “Hullo, Ron. Been a long time…”
“You bet it has.” Jeffries looked him up and down gleefully, ignoring the hand. “So the catcher finally got caught.” He peered up the passage for Verde’s reinforcements, then remembered that Verde never carried a weapon.
“I know, Ron,” Verde said, “You’re wondering just how I managed this.”
“Well, uh…”
“I told you I had a surprise. Mr. Clennan here has jumped the line.”
“What?” The others echoed Jeffries’ incredulous roar.
Verde gave a nod and a shrug and Clennan looked cautiously sheepish, like the good kid being rushed by the gang he has secretly wanted to join.
Damon merely said, “Wow.”
But Jeffries’ shoulders hunched up like a bull about to charge. “He told you that and you believed him? Mitch, what’s wrong with you?” He grabbed for Clennan’s arm to spin him against the wall, but Clennan ducked aside and in the same movement wrapped an elbow around Jeffries’ throat, while the other arm knocked away the stunner that appeared in Jeffries’ hand.
“Ease off, Jeffries!” he snarled. “You’re too old for this… oh, Christ.” He pushed Jeffries away disgustedly. “Old reflexes/’ he apologized to Verde, as the little man stepped between them.
“Lute says he’s on the level, Ron.”
Jeffries growled a small obscenity, picked his cabbie’s hat off the floor, and clamped it on his head.
“Convince me,” he said.
Chapter 38
In Quaire’en, the lamps burned late one night. Jude wandered the dark island with Theis. Like the city, she could not sleep. She paced the upper reaches where the wind thrashed the scrub in sullen fitfulness, but she was drawn repeatedly to the rocky shore facing restive Quaire’en.
Finally she forsook her wandering and climbed down among the rocks to a water-smoothed slab of marble. It was wet with spray but still warm from the day. Jude settled on it and urged the gria close to her. A seawall had been here once, in a past beyond memory. Time and the sea storms had left it a jumble of foreign stone, in daylight impossibly white among the darker indigenous rocks, at night eerily responsive to each minute quantum of light that strayed its way. Under a full moon, or especially two, the marble glowed like the surf that wreathed it in phosphorescence.
The tide, too, was high and wild. The diamond reflections of the city lights chased from wave to wave. Jude huddled with Theis and smelled seaweed and brine and the damp wind, looking away from the city into the night shadow farther down the shore.
Thus it happened as she had known it would, that one night she would be staring into darkness and there would come the spark of a torch in the distance, then another, and another, the lights of a hundred thousand torches, maybe more, and she would know that ahead of them walked the one who needed no torch, for the blaze of his halmfire outshone all living flame.
Jude stirred on her marble slab. The water licked at her bare feet. Four abreast, the far torches stretched in a line that seemed to have no end. The wind rustled like the sound of their progress through the dry coastal grasses and down the switchback road to the sand.
And then the wind stilled. There was no sound but that of wavelets rinsing the rocks. The white beach reflected a chain of firelight that approached the city, then stopped and gathered itself into a circle
like an animal settling for the night.
She could no longer hope for him to stay away. And so he comes without fanfare. But then he needs none, now.
Jude sent Theis into Quaire’en to bring back a firsthand report.
Chapter 39
In the deep-cellars, Ron Jeffries splashed water on his face and relapsed into silence.
Verde stretched and looked at his watch. “Noon,” he commented with mild surprise. Jeffries had grilled Clennan for several hours and was still only grudgingly satisfied. The rest of the cellar occupants had trailed off at various points during the cross-examination, to finish their disturbed sleep, except for Damon Montserrat, who came in from the kitchen area to hand around mugs of steaming soup.
Clennan had stood his trial resignedly, as if he really couldn’t blame anyone for doubting him because he wasn’t quite sure he believed himself. Now he sipped at his soup and savored a new word he had just learned.
“Halm.” He liked its mysterious roll on his tongue. “I don’t remember… no, I don’t suppose that would appear in the official language tapes.” Wonderingly, he shook his head. “That’s what killed Lacey?”
Jeffries rolled a cigarette, still lying in wait to prove Clennan a liar. “That’s what could kill us all.”
“Andreas. I was there the night the mob attacked him.” Clennan eyed Verde sympathetically. “She tried so hard to protect him. I think she used it on the crowd, now that I have a name for it.”
“Meron?” Verde frowned. “She was never taught…”
“Remember, Mitch,” Jeffries broke in, “James said it’s all in the intention.”
“She didn’t kill anybody, though,” Clennan added.
“She probably didn’t intend to.”
“The question now is,” Verde pursued, steering away from the painful subject of Meron’s death, “whether to sneak enough Koi out of detention to provide relief at the Wall, or to let it collapse, so that direct halm contact can be made with the Interior. Otherwise, we’ll never know if James made it through or how he’s being received out there. We’ll just have to sit and wait for his bomb to fall.”
A Rumor of Angels Page 28
