Pretties u-2

by Скотт Вестерфельд

  Andrew flushed with pride at the gift, and the crowd cheered as he held it aloft. Tally realized that she had caused trouble here. Like wearing semiformal dress to a costume bash, her unexpected visit had thrown things out of whack, but Andrew's helping her was making everyone relax a little. Apparently, placating the gods was a holy man's most important job, which made Tally wonder how much city pretties interfered with the villagers.

  Once she and Andrew were past the town limits, and their entourage of littlies had been called back home by anxious mothers, she decided to ask some serious questions. "So, Andrew, how many gods do you know…uh, personally?"

  He stroked his non-beard, looking thoughtful. "Since my father's death no gods have come but you. None knows me as holy man."

  Tally nodded. As she'd guessed, he was still trying to fill his father's shoes. "Right. But your accent's so good. You didn't learn to speak my language only from your father, did you?"

  His crooked grin was sly. "I was never supposed to speak to the gods, only listen as my father attended them. But sometimes when guiding a god to a ruin or the nest of some strange new bird, I would speak."

  "Good for you. So … what did you guys talk about?"

  He was quiet for a moment, as if choosing his words carefully. "We talked about animals. When they mate and what they eat."

  "That makes sense." Any city zoologist would love a private army of pre-Rusties to help them with fieldwork. "Anything else?"

  "Some gods wanted to know about ruins, as I told you. I would take them there."

  Ditto for archeologists. "Sure."

  "And there is the Doctor."

  "Who? The Doctor?" Tally froze in her tracks. "Tell me, Andrew, is this Doctor really…scary-looking?"

  Andrew frowned, then laughed. "Scary? No. Like you, he's beautiful, almost hard to look upon."

  She shuddered with relief, then smiled and raised an eyebrow. "You don't seem to find it too hard to look upon me."

  His eyes fell to the ground. "I am sorry, Young Blood."

  "Come on, Andrew, I didn't mean it." She took his shoulder lightly. "I was only kidding. Look upon me all you…um, whatever. And call me Tally, okay?"

  "Tally," he said, trying out the name in his mouth. She dropped her hand from his shoulder, and Andrew looked at the place where she had touched him. "You are different from the other gods."

  "I certainly hope so," she said. "So this Doctor guy looks normal? Or pretty, I mean? Or, anyway…godlike?"

  "Yes. He is here more often than the others. But he does not care for animals or ruins. He asks only about the ways of the village. Who is courting, who is heavy with child. Which hunter might challenge the headman to a duel."

  "Right." Tally tried to remember the word. "An anthro—" "Anthropologist, they call him," Andrew said.

  Tally raised an eyebrow.

  He grinned. "I have good ears, my father always said. The other gods sometimes mock the Doctor."

  "Huh." The villagers knew more about their divine visitors than the gods realized, it seemed. "So you've never met any gods who were really…scary-looking, have you?"

  Andrew's eyes narrowed, and he started hiking again. Sometimes he took a long time to answer questions, as if being in a hurry was another thing the villagers hadn't bothered to invent. "No, I haven't. But my father's grandfather told stories about creatures with strange weapons and faces like hawks, who did the will of the gods. They took human form, but moved strangely."

  "Kind of like insects? Fast and jerky?"

  Andrew's eyes widened. "They are real, then? The Sayshal?"

  "Sayshal? Oh. We call them Specials."

  "They destroy any who challenge the gods."

  She nodded. "That's them, all right."

  "And when people disappear, they sometimes say it was the Sayshal who have taken them."

  "Taken them?" Where? Tally wondered.

  She fell silent, staring down at the forest path in front of her. If Andrew's great-grandfather had run into Special Circumstances, then the city had known about the village for decades, probably longer. The scientists who exploited these people had been doing so for a long time, and weren't above bringing in Specials to shore up their authority. It seemed that challenging the gods was a risky business.

  They hiked for a day making good time across the hills. Tally was beginning to spot the trails of the villagers without Andrew's help, as if her eyes were learning how to see the forest better.

  As night fell, they found a cave to make camp in. Tally started to collect firewood, but stopped when she noticed Andrew watching her with a mystified expression. "What's up?"

  "A fire? Outsiders will see!"

  "Oh, right. Sorry." She sighed, rubbing her hands together to drive the chill from her fingers. "So this revenge thing makes for some cold nights on the trail, doesn't it?"

  "Being cold is better than being dead, Tally," he said, then shrugged. "And perhaps our journey will not last so long. We will reach the edge of the world tomorrow."

  "Right, sure." During the day's hike, Andrew hadn't been convinced by Tally's description of the world: a planet 40,000 kilometers around, hanging in an airless void, with gravity making everyone stick to it. Of course, from his perspective it probably did sound pretty nutty People used to get arrested for believing in a round world, they said in school— and it had usually been holy men doing the arresting.

  Tally picked out two packages of SwedeBalls. "At least we don't have to build a fire to have hot food."

  Andrew drew closer, watching her fill the purifier. He'd been chewing on dried meat all day, and was pretty excited about trying some "food of the gods." When the purifier pinged and Tally lifted the cover, his jaw dropped at the sight of steam rising from the reconstituted SwedeBalls. She handed it to him. "Go ahead. You first."

  She didn't have to insist. Back in the village the men always ate first, and the women and littlies got leftovers. Tally was a god, of course, and in some ways they had treated her as an honorary man, but some habits died hard. Andrew took the purifier from her and stuck his hand in to grab a meatball. He yanked it out with a yelp.

  "Hey, don't bum yourself," she said.

  "But where is the fire?" he asked softly, sucking on his fingers as he held up the purifier to look for a flame underneath.

  "It's electronic … a very small fire. Are you sure you don't want to try chopsticks?"

  He experimented with the sticks hopelessly for a while, which allowed the SwedeBalls to cool, then finally dug in with his hands. A slightly disappointed expression crossed his face as he chewed. "Hmm."

  "What's wrong?"

  "I thought that food of the gods would be … better, somehow."

  "Hey, this is dehydrated food of the gods, okay?"

  Tally ate after he was done, but her CurryNoods were underwhelming after the feast of the night before. She remembered from her days in the Smoke how much better food could taste in the wild. Even fresh produce was never spectacular when it had been harvested from hydroponic tanks. And she had to agree with Andrew — dehydrated food was resolutely not divine.

  The young holy man was surprised when Tally didn't want to sleep curled up with him — it was winter, after all. She explained that privacy was a god thing — he wouldn't understand — but he still moped at her as she chewed her toothpaste pill and found her own corner of the cave to sleep in.

  It was the middle of the night when Tally awoke half-frozen, regretting her rudeness. After a long, silent session of self-recrimination, she sighed and crawled over to nestle against Andrew's back. He wasn't Zane, but the warmth of another person was better than lying on the stone floor shivering, miserable and alone.

  When she awoke again at dawn, the smell of smoke filled the cave.

  THE EDGE OF THE WORLD Tally tried to cry out, but a hand was planted firmly over her mouth.

  She was about to thrash out with her fists in the semi-darkness, but some instinct told her not to — it was Andrew holding her. S
he could smell him, Tally realized. After two nights of sleeping next to each other, the back of her brain recognized his scent.

  She relaxed, and he let go.

  "What is it?" she whispered.

  "Outsiders. Enough of them to build a fire."

  She puzzled over this for a moment, then nodded: Because of the blood feud, only a large party of armed men would dare build a fire outside the safety of their village.

  Tally sniffed the smoky air, detecting the smell of searing meat. The sounds of raucous conversation reached her ears. They must have camped close by after Tally and Andrew had gone to sleep, and now they were cooking breakfast.

  "What do we do?"

  "You stay here. I will see if I can find one alone."

  "You're doing what?" she hissed.

  He drew his father's knife. "This is my chance to settle the score."

  "Score? What is this, a soccer game?" Tally whispered. "You'll get killed! Like you said, there must be lots of them."

  He scowled. "I will only take one who is alone. I'm not a fool."

  "Forget it!" She took hold of Andrew, locking her fingers around his wrist. He tried to pull away, but his wiry strength was no match for her postoperation muscles.

  He glared at her, then spoke in a loud voice. "If we fight, they'll hear us."

  "No kidding. Shhh!"

  "Let me go!" His voice raised in volume again, and Tally realized that he would gladly shout if he had to. Honor compelled him to hunt the enemy, even if it jeopardized both their lives. Of course, the outsiders probably wouldn't hurt Tally once they saw her pretty face, but Andrew would be killed if they were caught, which was going to happen if he didn't shut up. She had no choice but to release his wrist.

  Andrew turned away without another word and crawled from the cave, knife in hand.

  Tally sat in the darkness, stunned, replaying their fight in her mind. What could she have said to him? What whispered arguments could overcome decades of blood feud? It was hopeless.

  Maybe it went deeper than that. Tally remembered again her conversation with Dr. Cable, who had claimed that human beings always rediscovered war, always became Rusties in the end — the species was a planetary plague, whether they knew what a planet was or not. So what was the cure for that, except the operation?

  Maybe the Specials had the right idea.

  Tally crouched in the cave, miserable, hungry, and thirsty. Andrew's waterskin was empty and there was nothing to do except wait for him to come back. Unless he wasn't coming back.

  How could he just leave her here?

  Of course, he'd had to leave his own father lying in a cold stream, injured and certain to be killed. Maybe anybody would want revenge after going through a thing like that. But Andrew wasn't looking for the men who'd killed his father, he was just out to murder a random stranger— anyone would do. It didn't make any sense.

  The smells of cooking eventually faded. Creeping up to the mouth of the cave, Tally no longer heard any sounds from the outsider camp, only wind in the leaves.

  Then she saw someone coming through the trees…

  It was Andrew. He was covered in mud, as if he'd been crawling around on his belly, but the knife clutched in his hand looked clean. Tally didn't see any blood on his hands. As he grew closer, she saw with relief that he wore an expression of disappointment. "So, no luck?" she said.

  He shook his head. "My father is not yet avenged."

  "Tough. Let's get going."

  He frowned. "No breakfast?"

  Tally scowled. A moment ago he'd wanted nothing more than to ambush and murder some random stranger, and now his face looked like a littlie's whose promised ice cream had been snatched away.

  "Too late for breakfast," she said, and pulled her backpack up onto her shoulder. "Which way to the edge of the world?"

  They walked in silence until well past noon, when Tally's grumbling stomach finally forced a stop. She prepared VegiRice for them both, not in the mood for the taste of pseudomeat.

  Andrew was like an anxious-to-please puppy, gamely trying to use chopsticks and making jokes about his clumsiness. But Tally couldn't bring herself to smile. The chill that had seeped into her bones while he was out looking for revenge hadn't gone away.

  Of course, it wasn't completely fair being upset with Andrew. Probably he couldn't understand Tally's aversion to casual murder. He'd grown up with the cycle of revenge. It was just a part of his pre-Rusty life, like sleeping in piles or cutting down trees. He didn't see it as wrong any more than he could understand how utterly the latrine ditch revolted her.

  Tally was different from the villagers — at least that much had changed in the course of human history. Maybe there was hope after all.

  But she didn't feel much like talking it over with Andrew, or even giving him a smile.

  "So what's beyond the edge of the world?" she finally said.

  He shrugged. "Nothing."

  "There must be something."

  "The world just ends."

  "Have you been there?"

  "Of course. Every boy goes, one year before you become a man."

  Tally scowled — another boys-only club. "So what does it look like? A wide river? Some kind of cliff?"

  Andrew shook his head. "No. It looks like the forest, like any other place. But it is the end. There are little men there, who make sure you go no farther."

  "Little men, huh?" Tally remembered an old map on the library wall at her ugly school, the words "Here Be Dragons" written in flowery letters in all the blank spots. Maybe this world's edge was nothing more than the borderline of the villager's mental map of the world — like their need for revenge, they simply couldn't see beyond it. "Well, it won't be the end for me."

  He shrugged again. "You are a god."

  "Yeah, that's me. How far are we now?"

  He glanced up at the sun. "We'll be there before nightfall."

  "Good." Tally didn't want to spend another cold night huddled with Andrew Simpson Smith if she could help it.

  They saw no more signs of outsiders over the next few hours, but the habit of silence had settled onto the journey. Even after Tally had decided she was no longer angry at Andrew, she found herself covering the kilometers without uttering a word. He looked dejected by her silent treatment, or maybe he was still moping about not getting his kill that morning.

  A bad day all around.

  Late afternoon shadows had begun to stretch behind them when he said, "We are close now."

  Tally came to a halt for a drink of water, scanning the horizon. It looked like every other bit of forest she'd seen since falling from the sky. Perhaps the trees were thinning a little here, the clearings growing larger and almost bare of grass in the growing cold of winter. But it hardly looked like someone's idea of the end of the world.

  Andrew walked more slowly as they continued, as if looking for signs among the trees. He sometimes glanced at the faraway hills to point out landmarks. Finally, he halted, staring with wide eyes into the forest.

  Tally took a moment to focus, then saw something hanging from a tree. It looked like a doll, a human-shaped bundle of twigs and dried flowers, no bigger than a fist. It swayed in the breeze, like a little person dancing. She could see more of them stretching into the distance.

  Tally had to smile. "So those are the little men?"

  "Yes."

  "And this is your edge of the world?" It looked like more of the same to her: dense undergrowth and trees filled with squawking birds.

  "The edge, not mine. No one has ever passed beyond it."

  "Yeah, right." Tally shook her head. The dolls probably just marked the territory of the next tribe over. She noticed a bird perched close to one, regarding the doll curiously, possibly wondering if it was edible.

  She sighed and adjusted her backpack on her shoulder, striding toward the nearest doll. Andrew didn't follow, but he would catch up with her once his superstitions were disproved. Centuries before, Tally remembered, sailors had been a
fraid to sail into the deep ocean, thinking that sooner or later they would fall off the edge. Until someone tried it, and it turned out there were more continents out there.

  On the other hand, maybe it would be better if Andrew didn't follow her. The last thing she needed was a traveling companion who was bent on revenge at any cost. The people beyond of the edge of world certainly hadn't had anything to do with the death of his father, but one outsider would be as good as another to Andrew.

  As she grew nearer, Tally saw more of the dolls. They hung every few meters, marking some kind of border, like misshapen ornaments for an outdoor party. Their heads were at funny angles, she saw — the dolls all hung from their necks, nooses of rough twine around every one. She could understand how the villagers might find the little men creepy, and a slow chill ran down her spine…

  Then the tingling sensation moved to her fingers.

  At first, Tally thought her arm had fallen asleep, pins and needles spreading from her shoulders down. She adjusted the backpack, trying to restore her circulation, but the tingling continued.

  A few steps later, Tally heard the sound. A rumble seemed to come up from the earth itself, a note so low that she could feel it in her bones. It played across her skin, the world trembling around her. Tally's vision blurred, as if her eyes were vibrating in sympathy with the sound. She took another step forward, and it grew louder, now like a swarm of insects inside her head.

  Something was very wrong here.

  Tally tried to turn around, but found that her muscles had melted into water. Her backpack felt suddenly filled with stone, and the ground had become mush under her feet. She managed a staggering step backward, the sound fading a little as she moved away.

  Holding up a hand in front of her face, she saw it trembling; maybe her fever had returned.