Did I tell myself I was not afraid?
The smoke from cookfires rushed downwind to rasp at her nostrils, but there was little noise. As she approached the first ranks of the encampment, she found the converts eating a quiet midday meal. In the shade of row after row of gaily colored open tents and canopies, they sat in pensive groups without conversation, too deep in contemplation of the next day’s Gathering to notice as Jude passed among them in her white student’s robe. Like an army, she thought, then caught herself. This was an army, armed with an invisible weapon of inconceivable power, waiting in the still heat of noon upon the call of their leader.
And there the leader stood, alone by the waterline, gazing into the foam at his feet. He was dressed in the same patched gray uniform he had worn those weeks ago at their first meeting, though it was now a ragged ruin. He was as she remembered him, perhaps a little taller, thinner, almost translucent. It was extraordinary that he could remain so pale under the burning Arkoi sun.
The Destroyer.
She walked toward him, feeling oddly maternal, but pulled up short as a lean black-haired figure crossed her path, headed for the water’s edge to bring food to Andreas. But of course it was not Ra’an, merely one who resembled him. She breathed again and continued on. She came up behind Andreas as he was distractedly refusing to eat despite the dark Koi’s murmured encouragements.
“James?” Her voice betrayed her with a tremor.
He turned with a wistful smile, as if she were the exact person he expected to see. His luminous gray eyes took her in with a welcome she had not anticipated. “At last,” he said.
The Koi at his side was not so delighted, but his protective gesture drew a rippling laugh from the madman and a restraining hand on his arm.
“Ah, Hrin,” soothed Andreas. “We are old friends. She means me no harm. Cannot two Terrans stroll along the beach together on such a lovely day as this?” Hrin grumbled and stalked back toward the tents.
Andreas took a few casual steps through the wavelets, looking very pleased with himself. “Did I not tell you we would meet again?”
She was conscious that her head came only to his shoulder and that he walked with his head politely bowed to catch her words, his fine pale hair framing his face like a hood.
“You did,” she replied. “But I never thought…”
“Ah, yes. And how are you doing with Anaharimel?” He laughed again as she looked up astounded. “No, I won’t play mystical games with you, not with the final moment so close. All of Quaire’en knows there is a Terran learning halm with Anaharimel. It had to be you. Are you having success?”
Jude recalled her teacher’s warning. “Some. It is hard.”
“Your potential was strong, I remember.”
Ra’an was right. You knew even then. “Progress is slow.”
He frowned, then let pass whatever worry had touched him. “Be thankful that your learning has been gentle,” he remarked, stopping to admire a gull-beast as it circled out over the water, banking against the wind. “Mine was not so. You never knew Meron, did you? You would have liked Meron.”
“Meron?”
“The mob murdered her. I carried her to her funeral.” He touched a shred of yellow linen bound to his wrist.
The funeral. The bier. Jude remembered, but didn’t know what to say. Instead she decided to test Ra’an’s theory of prescience. “Why did you say ‘At last’ when you saw me? Did you know I would be here, I mean, before you heard there was a Terran at the halm school?”
“It seemed likely.”
“Likely? Based on what?”
“Factors.” He waved his hand in the air puckishly. “Things, people, forces.” He widened his eyes and made a mocking gesture of fruition. “Comings together.”
So. Ra an was right again. They do know each other well, these two. Jude crossed her arms with a hint of defiance. “I don’t think you are as mad as they say you are, James Andreas.”
“I am brilliant, yes, and mad. A duality I cannot seem to remedy.”
She thought he was teasing, and it outraged her that he should be so gay at a moment like this.
“This is a dreadful thing you are doing, mad or not.”
“Yes, it is dreadful,” he said reasonably.
“Then why, for God’s sake?”
“Because I am mad,” he replied with equal reason. And then determination settled into his drawn cheeks, pulling his mouth into a bloodless line. “Mad enough to know what must be done and to be willing to go through with it.”
“Who says it must be done? There’s got to be another way to protect Arkoi than murdering all the Terrans.”
“There is no other way. I say this because I am Terran and I know what the Terrans would do here in Arkoi, and so do you, and I know that we cannot allow it, and so do you.” He swept the horizon with his arm, then turned to include the white cliffs and the city. “Do you not look at all this and say, ‘This is my home, this is where I want to be’?”
Jude was amazed that tears pricked her eyes. She stared at the sand and murmured, “Yes. I do.”
“So does every other Terran who sets foot on this soil. Without ever getting beyond the Guardians to see the real splendor of this world, they want to possess it. This cannot be. Will not be.”
“But the Koi…”
“The Koi do not understand. They are schooled in inaction and must be led to protect themselves. Their solutions are stale; they will not admit that their world has been unalterably changed by the coming of the Terrans. Arkoi can never be again the way it was before, just by wishing and waiting for it. New methods, new thinking, must prevail. The Koi would debate and discuss until the Terrans ran their laser cannons up this beach to melt Quaire’en into the sea! Woman, be glad for my madness!” He gestured now at the sprawling encampment. “If it seems that only a madman spouting fire and mysticism can force them into action, then I will be that catalyst! Out of my imbalance, let a new Balance be born!” He smiled, pleased with his final epigram. “As the Diamo would say.”
“Balance?” Jude swallowed. She felt her own balance teetering. His motives were impeccable, totally rational. Only his method proved him insane. “James, all you’re teaching here is good old-fashioned Terran hatred and violence. Do you think that can be unlearned once the Terrans are dead?”
“Its shadow will linger as a warning, and out of this crisis, a new consciousness will grow, new leadership will step forward to prepare Arkoi for the threat that will never really disappear. Terra will always be there, just a dimension or two away at the other end of the corridor, waiting to move in again as soon as the Koi let their guard down.”
The corridor. Now that should be the real target. “There must be another way,” she repeated dully.
“There isn’t. The Koi need to be galvanized or they will not survive.” His gaze followed another gull as it swooped down to skim across the waves. “How is my brother?”
“Your bro—?” Speaking of hatred and violence?? “I, uh, don’t know.”
Andreas looked her over, gray eyes skeptical, then shrugged philosophically. “I expect I will see him soon enough. Tomorrow is the day.”
Jude wet her lips. “I don’t think you will, James. He doesn’t care what happens to Terran or Koi. He just wants to be left alone. Ra’an may be your one miscalculation.” She reached inside the sleeve of her student’s robe. “When I left Ruvala, he asked me to give you this.”
She handed him the wrapped bundle. He took it gingerly as if it might burn and lifted back the folds. Silver flashed in the sun and the madman’s body shuddered as he revealed his father’s flask. His thin hand closed around it, and she thought he would weep.
“He told me to tell you that he refuses the challenge.”
Andreas stroked the incised initials with his thumb.
“He will not come, James.”
“Yes.” Andreas nodded, unheeding, tracing the letters. “Yes, he will come. He must come.” He clasped the flask to
his chest, and with a deliberate finger, pointed to a huge sea-bleached log stranded by the tide. The encampment made a wide circle around it. “He will come. We will meet, you there, here myself, and there”—he pointed up the beach away from the city—“my brother Ra’an. Then the dynamic will be complete. My work will be done.”
He turned to look at her. It was not so much the absolute conviction in his voice that made her shiver, more its undertone of anticipated anguish. It left her wordless, struggling under his searching, pleading stare. The hot sun beat down on her, and she wondered why she was having trouble breathing. She felt as if an enormous weight were pressing in on her from all sides. She forced her lungs to open and realized the pressure was in her head. It was he, Andreas, probing, demanding entry with such peremptory power that it required all the strength of her halm just to maintain a barrier against him, normally a mere process of deciding not to listen.
Suddenly the pressure ceased, and Andreas continued as if nothing had occurred, though he seemed oddly satisfied. “You see, as I am the only Terran who can think like a Koi, my brother Ra’an is the only Koi who can think like a Terran. He alone fully comprehends that hatred and violence are basic to Terran nature.”
“And not to the Koi? Sounds simplistic, James.”
“The Terrans don’t understand Balance. The Koi misunderstand Imbalance. Ra’an understands both, Balance and Imbalance. Only he can lead a safe path through the dual world. Ra’an is the future, the amalgam.”
Jude found his reasoning obscure. “And you would kill him for that?”
“I?” The gray eyes blinked. “I?” For once she had startled him. “Does he think that? He cannot think that.” Then he laughed in that gentle, tragic way that seemed to her so sane. “No, I will not kill my brother. It is he who will kill me… and you must help him to it.”
What did he mean, Ana?
—Calm, child, calm. Why do you continue to expect reason from a madman?
We must not be fooled. He is more than just mad, Ana. Things he said in…(Image of the colony) have come true.
—He said something once, and later you allowed it to explain things you did not understand, but that would have happened anyway. He seeks to involve you, to tie you to him by convincing you that the future he sees is the only possible one. This is the way of the Diamo, beneath all their magical trappings. If all can be made to believe that there are no options, an intended future can be forced to come about. Yet as long as even one individual preserves her belief in free will, the future can be predicted, but never known.
But what possible need can he have of me?
—Perhaps he thinks you will bring Ra’an to him.
He is mistaken to assume I could do that.
—Nor would you do it. Come, child, think not of what the Destroyer wishes you to do, but of what you yourself want to do. They may be the same thing, but then again, they may not.
Ana, I am frightened. Now I am frightened. It is possible that I will die tomorrow.
—Child, it is always possible that one may die tomorrow.
Chapter 45
Bill Clennan spent the final day distracting his boss while his men went about their frenzied preparations. By the time Ramos signed out to go to dinner, he was exhausted by the overflow of paper and personnel that had flowed through his office from Interrogation. He did not invite German to have dinner with him.
Later that evening, a radio operator in the Intelligence Complex waved to his buddies who were heading out to the newly opened officers’ club, saying he had paperwork to catch up on.
At 9:30 p.m., a minor argument in one of the colonial police barracks spread to the others before Colonel Ramos, woken out of an early sweating sleep, could call several units of his military away from their normal duties to quiet the fighting. The chief of police was nowhere to be found.
Simultaneous unrest was reported in the detention camp. Guards complained of nausea and hallucinations, and the extra soldiers who were sent in from guarding the Transport Corridor fell victim to the same sudden infection. A network power loss disabled the electric fence temporarily. Several of the Koi prisoners were reported escaped and could not be found in the darkness.
At 12:15 in the early morning, a dented truck pulled up at the Transport Corridor and three men in Colonial Maintenance uniforms went quietly about their business, as the reduced work force unloaded the midnight shipment. Boxes were taken from the back of the truck and stacked outside the corridor entryway. Several of the loaders, transfers from the colonial police, did not return from their latrine breaks.
From the holding tank in the Intelligence Complex, Luteverindorin held conference with an exhausted Koi in the deep-cellars, who had left the circle struggling to maintain the Wall to receive instructions from the surface.
At each of four weapons-storage hangars, a maintenance relief crew showed their passes to the remaining guards and drove their trucks through the gates and up to the hangar doors.
As the colonial radio station closed down for the night, the janitors locked themselves in and barricaded the doors. They spread a hand-drawn diagram on a table and began to move furniture around.
Closeted once again with his young computer expert, Bill Clennan glared at his watch as if it were the enemy, and bummed the first cigarette he had had in years.
In Quaire’en, the white beach glowed pink with the early fire of the sun.
Chapter 46
The tide was early-morning low, the white sand spreading like a desert. Perched on the driftwood log as if it were a straight-backed chair, Jude watched her shadow shrink while the sun rose over the water, paling as it climbed, bleaching its own blood-pink from the landscape until even the sea was white and still. Jude had not chosen to sit on the log. When the first stirrings of dawn had drawn her down to the beach, she had tried to settle inconspicuously into the sand. But Andreas would not allow it. With stares and pouting, with insinuations that it would be merely petty to refuse him, he compelled her to the log, where she waited in exposed isolation, either prisoner or evidence in Andreas’ courtroom, or perhaps both. At her feet lay Theis, muzzle on paws, making uneasy animal noises.
Andreas stood once more by the water’s edge, continuing his silent conversation with the wavelets lacing his bare feet. A few paces away, Hrin squatted, a dark shape against the damp sand, his concentration absolute in the direction of the city. From there would come the members of the Council.
In a wide semicircle, the pilgrim Koi were gathering around their leader by the thousands, in a silence full of motion. The first ranks had formed early from the encampment, row after row had waited cross-legged in the sand for many hours already. Behind them, more rows filled in from a long line spiraling down the cliffs from the city and from surrounding towns and villages.
There was no hostility, no visible sign of the debate that had raged through the countryside for so many weeks. It was not possible to tell from the faces who favored Andreas and who did not. Most visible was their patience, full of the knowledge that no matter how long and painfully the decision was debated in the Gathering, in the end it must be by the very nature of the process, unanimous and unalterable.
Now Andreas looked up from the water, turning his gaze down the beach away from the city, stretching upward slightly for a clear view across the thousands of heads to where the beach ran to the south, empty and flat.
Jude echoed his movement apprehensively. Heat mirages rippled the distance. The white beach stretched as it had in her dreams. Was someone moving out there, coming this way?
Don’t let him come. Please, don’t let him come.
A sound like wind in dry wheat drew her attention back. Andreas did not move, but Hrin rose from his crouch on the sand as twelve Koi entered the semicircle in a solemn group. Hrin’s broad back dipped in unconscious reverence as he went to meet them.
The Council, six men and six women of mixed ages and racial stock, wore no robes of office. As a group they were a symbol
of ultimate authority; as individuals they held no power. Today each looked as if he or she wished this crisis had arisen when someone else was serving as part of the Council. They looked shaken, perhaps confused by the burden the madman had thrust upon them.
Hrin led them to the center of the semicircle, and they lowered themselves quietly to the sand but for one, a graying Ruvalan whom Jude guessed to bo Kirial. She searched the father for a hint of the son but found nothing more than the physical resemblance tempered by age. Kirial stood forward a little, tall, less lean than his son. Only then did Andreas turn from his scrutiny of the far-off empty beach. The two approached each other, each wearing the same half-smile of recognition, and when they met, embraced lightly, sadly, then stepped apart.
“Well, James,” said Kirial. His Terran was accented but fluent. “We will begin, then.”
Andreas’ eyes flicked down the length of the beach, then upward. “Wait a while yet, until the sun is higher.”
Kirial was an elegant if not prepossessing figure, as he tilted his head quizzically, he seemed to be studying the madman from a great distance. “So. Even you would postpone the final moment,” he observed softly.
Andreas’ denial was arch. “When that moment nears, I will let you know it.”
“Now is the moment, James.” Kirial’s dry light voice stayed neutral as it dropped to a near whisper. “What you have set in motion, not even you could hope to control. You may have a few moments, no longer. The Gathering is ready.”
“The breadth of my control may surprise you, Kirial. The Gathering may be ready, but I am not. Therefore we will wait.”
The Ruvalan’s gaze was steady. “Well, since we must wait, you will not mind then if I ask you a question.”
“The Council has asked its questions of me already.”
“The Council does not ask this, I ask it.”
Andreas hesitated imperceptibly, then shrugged. “Do so then, if I may ask one in return. ”
Kirial nodded graciously, then shed his neutrality like a glove thrown down to the challenge. “If Daniel were alive, would you still preach this horror?”
A Rumor of Angels Page 30
