On Blue's waters

by Gene Wolfe

  Marrow shrugged. “I should have begun by explaining who we are. You know our names now, and even though you live so far from town, it’s likely that you also know we’re its five richest citizens.”

  Remora cleared his throat. “Not, um, so. No-ah-intent to, um, contradict, but not, er, I.”

  “Your Chapter’s got more gelt than any of us,” Eschar remarked dryly.

  “Not mine, hey? Custodian-um-solely.” The sweet salt wind ruffled his hair, making him look at once foolish and blessed.

  Blazingstar spoke first to you, Nettle; then to me. “We are the five people who have jockeyed most successfully for money and power, that’s all. We wanted them, we five, and we got them. Now here we are, begging you two to keep us from cutting our own throats.”

  “Not, um-”

  “He’ll deny it,” she told us, “but it’s the gods’ own truth just the same. Our money belongs to us, mine to me, Gyrfalcon’s to him, and so on. Patera here is going to insist that his isn’t really his, that it belongs to the Chapter and he only takes care of it.”

  “Brava! Quite-um-ah… Precisely the case.”

  “But he’s got it, and as Eschar said he’s probably got more than any of us. He’s got bravos, too, buckos to break heads for him whenever he wants.”

  Stubbornly, Remora shook his own. “There are many men of- ah-high heart amongst the faithful. That I, um, concede. However, we-ah-none-”

  “He doesn’t have to pay his,” Blazingstar explained. “We pay ours.”

  Eschar asked Remora, “If it isn’t so, what are you doing here?”

  Marrow rapped the table again. “That’s who we are. Do you understand now?”

  You looked at me then, Nettle darling, inviting me to speak; but all I could think of to say was. “I don’t think so.”

  Marrow said, “You don’t know why we’re here, naturally. We haven’t told you. That will come soon enough.”

  Gyrfalcon snapped, “New Viron needs a caldé. Anybody can see it.”

  You nodded then, Nettle darling. “It’s become a terrible place.”

  “Exactly. We came here to escape the Sun Street Quarter, didn’t we? The Sun Street Quarter and the Orilla.” Gyrfalcon chuckled. “But we carried them with us.”

  “It isn’t just crime,” Blazingstar declared, “though there’s much too much of that. The wells are polluted and there’s filth everywhere.”

  Gyrfalcon chuckled again. “Just like home.”

  “Worse. Filth and flies. Rats. It isn’t just that the people want a caldé, though they do. We do. We’re businesspeople at base, all of us. Traders and merchants. Sharpers, if you like.”

  “I must-ah,” Remora began.

  “All right, all except His Cognizance, who never hedges the truth even a finger’s width. Or so he says.” Blazingstar gave Remora a scornful smile. “But the rest of us need to carry on our businesses, and it’s become almost impossible to do that in New Viron.”

  Marrow added, “And getting worse.”

  “Getting worse. Exactly.”

  You asked, “Can’t one of you be caldé?”

  Gyrfalcon laughed aloud at that; he has a good, booming laugh. “Suppose one of us became caldé tomorrow. How about old Marrow there? He wants it.”

  “I feel sure it would be a wonderful improvement.”

  Marrow thanked you. “For you and your family it would be, Nettle. What do think it would be for them?” He glanced around at Gyrfalcon, Remora, Eschar, and Blazingstar.

  “An improvement, too, I think.”

  “Not a bit of it.” Marrow had rapped the table before; now he struck it with his fist, rattling our mugs and plates. “I would take everything I could get. I would do my best to ruin them, and if you ask me I would succeed.” He smiled, and glanced around at the woman and the three men I had believed were his friends. “They know it well, my dear. And, Nettle, they would do the same to me.”

  Eschar told you, “We need Caldé Silk here. I was the first to suggest it.”

  “He’s still in the Whorl, isn’t he? And… I don’t like to say this.”

  “Then I will.” Blazingstar reached across the table we had made to cover your hand with her own. “He may be dead. I left sixteen years ago, and by this time it’s certainly possible.”

  “Hem!” Remora cleared his throat. “Theocracy, hey? I have suggested it, but they will, er, won’t. Not if-ah-me. But, um, Patera Silk, eh? Yes. Yes, to that. Third party. Still an augur, eh? Indelible-ah-consecration. So, um. Modified? A mitigated theocracy. We, um, two in concert. I concur.”

  Gryfalcon summed up, “It’s that or we fight, and a fight would destroy the town, and all of us, too, in all probability. Show them the letter, Marrow.”

  * * *

  Hari Mau and I have formalized the court. Up until now, it seems, litigants have simply done whatever they could to come before the rajan (as their ruler was called at home) and made their cases. Witnesses were or were not called, and so forth. We have set up a system-tentative, of course, but it is a system-in a situation in which any system at all will surely be an improvement. Unless they choose otherwise, Nauvan will represent all the plaintiffs, and Somvar all the defendants. It will be their duty to see that evidence, witnesses, and so forth are present when I hear the case. In criminal cases, I will assign one or the other to prosecute, depending.

  I feel like Vulpes.

  They will have to be paid, of course; but demanding fees from both parties should encourage them to come to agreement, so that may work out well. Besides, there will be fines. I wish I knew more about our Vironese law-these people don’t seem to have had any.

  Back to it.

  I swore an oath, administered by Remora, with my left hand upon the Chrasmologic Writings and my right extended to the Short Sun. That is the part I wish very fervently that I could forget. I cannot recall the exact words-in all honesty, I am tormented more than enough as it is-but I cannot forget what I swore to do, and not one day passes without my conscience reminding me that I have not done it.

  No more letters. What farce!

  Gyrfalcon offered to take me to New Viron. While thanking him, I declined for three reasons that I might as well list here to show where my mind was when I left Lizard.

  The first was that I wanted to speak to my family privately, and that I did not want to subject them-to subject you, Nettle darling, particularly-to the pressure Marrow, Blazingstar, and Gyrfalcon himself would undoubtedly have brought to bear.

  I waited until supper, then longer so that we could dispose of the questions and gossip our five visitors had provoked. As I was carving the roast Sinew had supplied, he asked what had been said when you and I, Remora, and the others, had walked to the tip of the tail.

  “You heard us earlier,” I told him, and continued to carve. “You know what they wanted.”

  “I wasn’t paying much attention.”

  You sighed then, Nettle, and I recalled your listening at the door when Silk conferred with the two councilors. I leaped to the conclusion that you had listened while I talked privately with Marrow and the others, and I was ready for you to explain everything to our sons when you said, “They want us to stop writing. Isn’t that really it?”

  I thought it so ludicrously wrong that I could have laughed aloud. When I denied it, you said, “I was sure that was what it really was. I still am. You look so gloomy now, Horn, and you’re always such a cheerful person.”

  I have never thought myself one.

  Hoof said, “They wanted to get paper on credit. Things are bad in town. Daisy just got back, and she says it’s really terrible.”

  And Hide, “Did you give them credit, Father?”

  “No,” I told him, “but I would have.”

  “Those cardcases.” Sinew sneered. “You’d have had to.”

  “You’re wrong,” I told him, and pointed the carving knife at him. “That’s what I have to make clear from the beginning. I don’t have to do what they want. They threatene
d me, or at least Gyrfalcon did. I ought to say he tried to, since I didn’t feel threatened. He could bring some pressure to bear on us, perhaps. But in less than a year I’d have him eating out of my hand.”

  Sinew snorted.

  “You think I couldn’t? You think it because I’ve always been gentle with you for your mother’s sake. It wasn’t like that in my family, believe me. Or in hers either. If you find yourself begging me before shadelow tomorrow,” to emphasize my point, I struck the table with the handle of the knife, “will you admit you were wrong? Are you man enough for that?”

  He looked surly and said nothing. He is the oldest of our sons, and although I loved him, I did not like him. Not then, although things were different on Green.

  Nor did he like me, I feel certain. (Nettle knows these things, naturally.)

  She murmured, “This is worse than anything that they said to us.”

  Hoof asked, “What did they say, anyhow?”

  Hide seconded him, as Hide often did. “What did they want, Mother?”

  It was then, I feel certain, that I passed the slice I had been cutting to you, darling. I remember what it looked like, which I find very odd tonight. I must have known that something enormously significant was happening, and associated it with our haunch of greenbuck. “In a way,” I told you, “you’re quite right. It was our book that brought them, though they were very careful not to say it until I got them in a corner. You, Hoof, are right too. Things are getting harder and hungrier for everybody every year. Why do you think that is?”

  He shrugged. The twins are handsome, and to my eyes take after your mother more than either one of us, though I know you pretend to think they look like me. “Bad weather and bad crops. Their seed’s giving out.”

  Hide said, “That thin one talked about that. I thought it was kind of interesting.”

  I gave Sinew, who had always eaten like a fire in good times and bad, a thick slice with plenty of gristle. “Why is the seed yielding a poorer crop each year?”

  “Why are you asking me? I didn’t say it was.”

  “What difference does it make whether you asked or not? It happens to be true, and you being older than your brothers ought to be wiser. You think you are, so prove it. Why is the seed weakening? Or were you too busy throwing stones at the waves to listen?”

  Hoof began, “I still want to know-”

  “What those five people wanted. We’re talking about it.”

  Sinew said slowly, “The good seed is the seed from the landers. That’s what everybody says. When the farmers save seed, it isn’t as nearly as good. The maize is worse than the others, but none of it’s quite as good.”

  You nodded, Nettle darling. “That’s one of the things they said. I knew it already, and I’m sure your father did, too, but Eschar and Blazingstar lectured us about it anyway. Let’s talk about maize, for the present. It’s the most important, and the clearest example. Back home we had ever so many kinds. Do you remember, Horn?”

  I nodded, smiling.

  “At least four kinds of yellow maize that I can remember, and it wasn’t something I paid much attention to. Then there were black, red, and blue, and several sorts of white. Have any of you boys ever seen maize that wasn’t yellow?”

  No one replied.

  I had cut more slices while you spoke; I gave them to Hoof and Hide, saying, “I never saw any at home to equal the first crop we got on our farm. Ears a cubit long, packed with big kernels. The ears from the next planting weren’t any longer than my hand.” You said, “I’ve been seeing those here lately, in the market and the village gardens.”

  “Yes, and here’s something I hadn’t known-something they explained to us. You get the best maize by crossing two strains. Some crosses are better than others, as you’d expect; but the best ones will yield a lot more than either of the original two, fight off blight, and need less water.”

  I sat down and began to cut up the meat I had just given myself. It was clear from their expressions that neither Hoof nor Hide had understood.

  You said, “Like crossing red and black maize. Isn’t that right, Horn?”

  “Exactly. But according to what we were told, all those good qualities disappear in a year. The crop after the first is liable to be worse than either of the strains you crossed, in fact, and it’s always worse than the parent strain, the one from the crossing.”

  Sinew muttered, “It doesn’t come from a pure strain at all. It comes from the good crop, and the good crop was good but it wasn’t pure.” He tilted his chair until its back struck the wall, something that always annoyed me. “The god that stocked the landers put all that mixed seed in them, didn’t he? No pure strains, so we can’t make new mixes ourselves.”

  “Pas,” you told him. “Pas prepared the landers for us out of his infinite wisdom. You may not credit him, but Pas is a very great god.”

  “Back on the Long Sun Whorl, maybe.” Sinew shrugged. “Not here.”

  Hoof said, “All those gods you talk about, they’re only back there. Scylla and her sisters.”

  Your smile was sad then, Nettle darling-it hurt me to see it. “Yet they are beautiful and true,” you told him, “as real as my parents and your father’s father, who are not here either.”

  “That’s right,” I told Hoof, “but what you said wasn’t. You implied that Pas was a god only in the Long Sun Whorl.” Secretly I agreed with him, although I did not want to say so.

  Sinew came to his brother’s defense, surprising and pleasing me. “Well, Pas isn’t much of a god here, no matter what the old Prolocutor in town says.”

  “I agree. The point that you’re both forgetting… I’m not sure how I can explain. We call this whorl Blue, and call our sun here the Short Sun.”

  “Sure.”

  “At home, we called the whorl our ancestors came from the Short Sun Whorl. Your mother will remember that, I’m sure, and I remember talking with Patera Silk about all the wisdom and science that we left behind there.”

  You said, “We put that in our book.”

  “Yes, we certainly did.”

  Hide had been waiting for a chance. “I don’t see what any of this has to do with maize.”

  “It has everything to do with it. I was about to say that when Pas stocked the landers it was on that earlier Short Sun Whorl. He was a god there, you see, and I think probably the greatest. Since he was, he’s capable of becoming a god here, too, although he hasn’t done it, or at least hasn’t let us know he’s done it yet.”

  No one contradicted me.

  “One evening, when I was being punished for making fun of Patera Silk, he and I talked about the science of the Short Sun Whorl. The wrapping that healed his ankle had been made there. We couldn’t make it, we didn’t know how. Glasses and the Sacred Windows, and so many other wonderful things we had at home, we had only because they had been made on the Short Sun Whorl and put into ours by Pas. Chems, for example-living people of metal and sun-fire.”

  At that, Sinew’s chair came down with a thump; but he said nothing.

  I ate, and cut another slice for myself. “You used your bow when you killed this greenbuck for us,” I said.

  He nodded.

  “I’m going to offer a prayer. If any of you want to join in, you’ll be welcome. If you prefer to continue eating, that’s a matter between you and the god.”

  Hide began, “Father, I-”

  I was already making the sign of addition over my plate. I bowed my head and closed my eyes, imploring the Outsider, whom Silk had honored above all the other gods, to help me act wisely.

  When I opened them and began to eat again, Hoof said, “You jumped from maize to all the other things you and Mother had in the Whorl.”

  At the same moment, Hide said, “You promised you’d tell us what those people wanted.”

  You motioned them to silence, telling Hide, “Your brother knows, I think. What was it, Sinew?”

  Sinew shook his head.

  Hoof asked him, “W
hy did he say about your bow?”

  “He meant they had better things,” Sinew grunted. “Slug guns and needlers. But they’re making slug guns now in town. Father’s still got his needier. You’ve seen it. He let me hold it one time.”

  “I am going to give it to you,” I told him. “Tonight or tomorrow, perhaps.”

  Sinew stared, then shook his head again.

  Hoof said, “If we could make those here, we’d have a lot more to eat, I bet.”

  “The new slug guns aren’t nearly as good as the old ones,” Sinew told him, “but they’re still too expensive for us, and conjunction’s coming. It’s only a couple years now. You sprats don’t remember the last one.”

  Hide said, “A whole bunch of inhumi came and killed lots of people.”

  Hoof added, “If we had more needlers and a new slug gun, we could fight them better.”

  You-I am nearly certain it was you, Nettle darling-said, “The slug gun we’ve got is just about worn out.”

  No one spoke after that; the boys ate, and I made a show of eating, although I have never been less hungry than I was then. When a minute and more had passed, Sinew asked, “Why you?”

  “Because I built our mill, and because I knew Patera Silk better than almost anyone else in New Viron did.”

  Shaking his head, Sinew bent over his plate again.

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” Hide wanted to know.

  “A great deal, I’m sure,” you told him, Nettle. “May I, Horn? I think I’ve followed everything.”

  I suppose I said that you could, or indicated it by some gesture.

  “We need new seed, Hide. More than that, we need pure strains that we can cross for ourselves. I imagine it would be possible to develop pure strains from what we have, and it may be that someone’s trying to, but it will take a long time. Before the next conjunction-”

  Sinew interrupted you, as he invariably did. “We can’t even make needles, and they’re just little slivers of metal. Most of the slug guns people have can’t be used because there aren’t any more cartridges for them. Everybody’s worried about next conjunction. I think we’ll get by like we did before, but what about the one after that? Bows and spears, that’s all we’ll have. Anybody planning to be dead before then?” When none of us spoke, he added, “Me neither.”