A Woman of the Iron People

by Eleanor Arnason

  “About the native,” Marina said.

  “He was pulling traps out of the water. We looked at one another for a while. Then he went back to his work, and I went back to mine. I had not realized they were so big.”

  “That was Nia,” I said. “She is female, and she is no taller than I am.”

  “You are tall, Lixia, compared to people in my country. And the native was very—” She hesitated again. “Very wide and solid.”

  “The fur makes a difference. She doesn’t look as big when she’s wet.”

  “Ah,” said the little woman. “Like a cat.” She added, “I have met tigers in the jungle. They like to swim. They look big even when they climb out of a river.”

  I made the gesture that meant “I don’t know from personal experience, but most likely you are right.”

  Marina said, “I miss cats. I keep saying we ought to grow a few.”

  “No mice,” said one of the other biologists. “Except in the labs, and they aren’t a problem.”

  “They will be,” said Marina. “Someone will lose a few. They’ll get in the gardens. We’ll have a plague, just like in the Bible. Mice and hemorrhoids.”

  “What?” said the third biologist. He was huge and almost certainly Polynesian.

  “The Philistines stole the Ark of the Covenant, whatever that might be, and the Lord Almighty afflicted them with mice and hemorrhoids. I’m not lying. It’s in the Bible.”

  “If that happens, we’ll grow some cats,” the man said. He sounded calm and practical.

  The tiny woman frowned. “I do not understand how cats will be any use in dealing with hemorrhoids.”

  “I have to work,” I said and left.

  By noon the sky above my window was hazy blue-green. My report was a mess. I had a lot of information, but no structure. No ideological frame.

  Oh, to be a Marxist! Especially a vulgar Marxist. They always had an explanation. Usually it came from the nineteenth century. Engels on The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. Surely Fred could explain this planet to me. Maybe I ought to find a library computer and call up ancient documents on social theory. I tossed my notebook on the bed.

  The door opened. Derek leaned in and said, “You have a visitor.”

  Nia entered, dressed in light gray shorts and a burgundy shirt. The shirt had big white letters on it. They said, “Best Wishes from the Iroquois Confederation.”

  A donation. Everyone had wanted to contribute to the expedition. The ship was full of objects with names on them given by clubs and co-ops, cities, unions, tribes, and kibbutzim. The lamp in my cabin came from the Association of Airship Workers. The union emblem was on the shade: two hands clasped in front of a dirigible.

  Derek said, “I looked for something without writing. But it is impossible to find a short-sleeved cotton shirt without a motto.”

  Nia said, “Speak a language that I can understand.”

  “He has said nothing important,” I told her.

  “Good. I have decided to go with you.”

  “Why?”

  She made the gesture that meant “why not?”

  “Is that a good answer?”

  She came in and sat on the floor, folding herself neatly into a cross-legged position. “No. I want to find out what has happened to my children and cousins. I have told you that before. And I have to go in that direction. I promised to do work for Tanajin.” She paused for a moment. “Someone has to tell her what happened to the boat. Someone has to tell her that Ulzai has vanished. These clothes are tight. How can your people be comfortable?”

  “Not easily,” I said.

  “I’ll get new clothes at the village. And food. And tools. They will give me that even though they know me and can be almost certain that I am not the Dark One.”

  Did I have a recorder? I glanced around.

  “Here,” said Derek.

  He tossed. I caught. It was an audio recorder the size of a box of matches. I turned it on. “Who is the Dark One?”

  “A spirit. She comes to villages as a stranger—usually a woman, sometimes a man. Often she is ragged and hungry. She may be ill. She may look peculiar.

  “Hua—the woman who taught me smithing—said her true shape is an old woman with black fur, bent and twisted. She has an odd aroma. She asks for help, though not in a pleasant way. Most of the time she is surly.

  “If the village is generous, she continues on her way. If the village is stingy or rude, then…” Nia made the gesture that meant “you know” or “what do you expect?”

  “Bad things happen,” Derek said.

  Nia made the gesture of agreement.

  “What kind of bad things?” I asked.

  “People get sick. Animals die. There is not enough food.” She paused and looked at me. It must have been obvious that I wanted to know more. “The shamaness finds out which spirit is angry. Then the village must perform a ceremony. It is called ‘Welcoming the Stranger.’ They gather everything they like best: good food, knives with sharp edges, clothing that is covered with embroidery, gifts that come from the most distant places. They build a fire. The people sing.

  “Notice

  how we welcome you.

  Notice

  the fine provisions.

  “The food goes in. The knives. The clothing. Everything is burnt. If the people are fortunate, the Dark One will be satisfied. But it takes a lot. It is better to give her what she needs when she comes as an old woman.”

  “What would happen if the Dark One came to the village of the People Whose Gift Is Folly?”

  “I have never heard a story about that, and I don’t expect to.”

  “Why not?”

  “Stories about the Dark One are told in the summer and fall. That is when most people travel. That is when strangers are met.

  “Stories about the People Whose Gift Is Folly are told in winter when the snow is deep and travel is impossible. That is when people like to hear about stupid behavior that has happened a long distance away.”

  “The snow is deep,” said Derek in English. “The wind is howling. Let’s sit by the fire and laugh at foreigners.”

  I turned off the recorder.

  Nia stood. “If you are going to talk in that language, I am going to leave.”

  “Do you want to eat?” asked Derek. He spoke the language of gifts.

  I made the gesture of affirmation.

  Nia said, “I’m making a bow. I’ve found some wood that isn’t bad. Deragu has given me a string.”

  “You did?”

  “Don’t tell anyone.”

  We left together, going out into the hazy sunlight. Nia made the gesture of farewell and headed inland toward the bluff. Derek and I went to the dining room.

  We ate with Agopian and a thin black man, Cyril Johnson. He was the hydrology team, and his equipment hadn’t arrived. He made a speech about bloody incompetence on the ship and throughout human history.

  We listened politely. I ate something that tried to be a Greek salad. The cheese was goat cheese, and there were too few olives. Most of the olive trees had died on the trip out. It would be years before the new trees were old enough to bear.

  “We’ve scheduled a general meeting tonight,” said Agopian. “These people have the right to know what is going on.”

  “You’re right,” said Derek. “They do. Unfortunately, we haven’t any idea.”

  “You know more about the natives than anyone else.”

  “Are they going to let us stay?” asked Cyril.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  He frowned, pressing narrow lips together. Another example of bloody incompetence.

  I finished my coffee and took my tray to the recycling table. Agopian followed me. We went outside. The sky was clear. The air was hot and damp. I took off my jacket.

  “I’m going with you,” Agopian said.

  “Upriver?”

  He nodded.

  “I’m sure there’s a good reason why Iva
nova is taking an astrogator.” I looked at the dock. Both boats were tied up. People were working on them, doing maintenance or repair.

  “I am a historian as well.”

  “Of labor history, I think you said.”

  “Every society has work and workers.”

  I glanced at him. He wasn’t wearing the crew uniform today. Instead he looked almost American: faded jeans and a cotton shirt with narrow vertical blue and white stripes. Huaraches on his feet. His belt had a large metal buckle. There was a rocket plane on it and some writing in the Cyrillic alphabet.

  “In North America we’d called that a railroad shirt.”

  He grinned. “I got it in Detroit, in the gift store at the Museum of Working-class Culture.”

  We walked toward the lake.

  “The belt is from the gift shop on Transfer Station Number One. I got it when I joined the Kollontai. I am—I used to be—a great collector of souvenirs.”

  “Not anymore?”

  “Not really. Though I wouldn’t mind taking something back from here. If we go back.”

  “If?”

  “It is a long journey; and we have no idea what Earth will be like when we get there. Here—maybe—we have a future. There we’ll be curious leftovers from the distant past, like the mammoths they have reconstructed.”

  “I thought they were going to be the new beast of burden in Siberia.”

  “They are stupider than elephants; and their tempers are not reliable. It is not easy to domesticate a new species. Or, in this case, a very old species.”

  We stopped at the edge of the water. There were the usual little brown birds running over the pebbles, hunting and pecking.

  “How in hell did you end up with an astrogation certificate?”

  He laughed. “You are wondering if Derek is right, and I am a—what is that word?—a vegetable.”

  “I think you mean a plant.”

  He nodded. “Or a vole.”

  “All at once your English is deteriorating.”

  “I have trouble with the language of paranoia. It does not come naturally to me.”

  “Oh.”

  “I got the certificate because I was a failure as a political officer.”

  “You were?”

  He nodded again. “You have to realize—from the time I was a boy, I had two dreams. Two passions. Space and political theory.”

  An odd combination, I thought. But there was no accounting for tastes or passions.

  “I knew from early on that I wanted to be a political officer in the Soviet fleet. I made it, and I found I was no good.” He pushed at a stone with the toe of his boot. It flipped over, revealing a bright yellow bug. The bug scurried away.

  “The Kollontai was a freighter. I think I told you that. The crew were the kind of people you find in warehouses and on ships. Have you ever met any?”

  I made the gesture of affirmation.

  “There is something about the people who move freight around. All over the world and even in space, they are the same. How should I describe them? Robust? Down to earth? Though that sounds strange when I am talking about space travelers.

  “They are certainly blue collar. The kind of people who made all three of our revolutions. I had no idea how to get along with them.”

  He paused a moment, looking at the lake. “I am an intellectual. I think it would be fair to say that. I study ideas. That is what interests me. Political theory. The theory of history. The philosophy of science. The relationship between people and machines.

  “I don’t really care for a lot of ordinary human activities. I play no games. I have no hobbies. I don’t like sports. I almost never watch holovision. I have never married. I have no children. I drink wine and beer, usually in moderation. I never drink brandy or vodka.”

  “What do you do for entertainment?”

  “I read science fiction, and I think.”

  “It sounds like a heck of a lot of fun.”

  “You see? Can you imagine me surrounded by blue-collar workers?”

  I grinned. “No. Not really.”

  He nodded. “It was terrible. I organized classes on Marxist theory. No one came. I tried to celebrate important events in the history of class struggle. Either they ignored me or they used the event as an excuse to get drunk. I spent time in the recreational areas, trying to get to know the crew.

  “I couldn’t talk to them. It seemed to me as if we were speaking different languages. I had no idea of what was going on inside them.

  “Things floated to the surface. I knew they liked sex and alcohol, z-gee and soccer. I knew the names of all their favorite shows, and I had seen most of them at least once.War and Peace. Crossing the Urals. Deep-Ocean Adventure. The Potato Cosmonauts.

  “But I did not understand the pattern of their thinking. The intellectual framework. The underlying ideology. They made no sense to me.

  “I should have quit and gone back to Earth. I could have gotten a job teaching. I would have fit in at a college or a polytechnic.

  “But I stayed, even after I stopped trying to be a political officer.” He glanced at me, smiling. “I gave up. I went through the motions.”

  Agopian reminded me of someone; and I had been trying to figure out who. Now it came to me. Eddie. They both lived in their heads. They were both moved to passion by theory.

  What did I love? I wondered. Sunlight. Food. Certain human bodies. A landscape like the one in front of me, big enough to put human activity in perspective, and alive.

  “It got boring,” Agopian said. “I had to do something. I decided to learn a new skill. I took up astrogation.”

  “That’s how you got your certificate.”

  He nodded. “And it is how I finally got to know some of the people on the ship. We had two astrogators. I asked them questions when I got into trouble with the learning program.

  “One of them read science fiction. She told me the cook had a remarkable personal collection. He was from Siberia. A huge man. He talked in grunts, and I hadn’t been sure he was entirely human. After he realized that I read science fiction, he began to use entire sentences.

  “He loaned me his books. We talked about them and about Siberia. One of his brothers is—or was—a mammoth trainer. That’s how I know about the mammoths.”

  He pushed another stone over. There was nothing under it except wet pebbles. “That is the end of the story. I got my certificate, and I never really learned to get along with those people. It got better, but there was always something about the way they think—” He shook his head. “Or the way I think. They, after all, are in the majority.”

  Did I really believe this clever little man had been a failure? “You don’t have the same trouble here?”

  “No. For one thing, I am no longer a political officer. An astrogator doesn’t have to worry about agitation and propaganda. All I have to do is get the numbers right.

  “For another thing, it takes a special kind of person to go to the stars. We are not better than the rest of humanity, but we are different. I understand most of the people here.”

  “Who else is going upriver?” I asked.

  “Tatiana. Ivanova. Eddie. You and Derek. The natives. Mr. Fang.”

  “Is he here?”

  “Yes. He is the representative for the majority position. He’s here to observe and to make sure that the natives understand this is their decision.”

  I thought for a moment. “It sounds crowded.”

  “We are going to have to take both boats. It leaves the camp in a bad position. I think Ivanova is planning to send one of the planes up for more supplies, including another boat.”

  “We’re certainly moving in.”

  “Only provisionally,” Agopian said.

  We talked about the meeting scheduled for that evening, then separated. I went back to my room and changed into lighter clothing, turned on the air system and opened my notebook.

  It was an unpleasant afternoon. The air coming in was hot and muggy. My
work went badly. In the end I gave up. I had no gift for analysis, only for observation. The reality I saw was too complex and fluid and ambiguous to fit neatly into any theory.

  Derek stopped by. “Marina wants to meet Nia. I’m taking her up the bluff.”

  I made the gesture of acknowledgment. He left, and I went walking. I felt trapped, frustrated, discouraged. I needed to work, but not with ideas. I stopped in the kitchen. It was full of people making dinner. “Can I help?”

  “By all means,” said the little blond man. “Take those canisters to the incinerator and empty them. Be careful. Don’t spill anything. We are trying not to contaminate the environment.” He shook his head. “I hate to destroy that stuff. It’d make a wonderful compost heap.”

  “You mean we aren’t recycling?”

  “Only dishes.”

  I felt something akin to horror.

  “We are trying to make the camp entirely self-contained. Nothing from Earth goes into the biosystem. Especially nothing organic. Either we destroy it, or we pack it and take it back up there.” He pointed at the ceiling. “It was decided not to pack the coffee grounds and the orange peelings. It’s a real pity. I hate to see waste.”

  I made the gesture of agreement, then said, “We haven’t really met.”

  “My name is Peace-with-Justice.”

  I waited.

  “My people don’t believe in family names. We don’t belong to a bloodline or a kinship group. We belong to ourselves and to all of humanity.”

  “Oh,” I said and picked up a canister.

  It was good hard work. The canisters were heavy and the incinerator port was badly placed. I had to lift each canister to shoulder height in order to empty it.

  When I was done, I cleaned the canisters and washed the floor of the incinerator room. The canisters went into a sterilizer. The incinerator went on with much blinking of warning lights.

  My shoulders ached, which felt good. My report seemed less of a problem.

  I ate dinner with the kitchen crew: tofu and vegetables on top of a pile of sticky brown rice. On one side I added soy sauce with ginger and garlic. On the other side I added fermented plum juice. Delicious!

  When I was finished, Peace-with-Justice said, “We’ll clean up. You’d better get ready for the meeting. Thank you, Lixia.”