Cape Grace

by Nathan Lowell

  “Thanks, Jimmy. I’ll go visiting. See if I can find out what the older heads have stored away.”

  Jimmy held out a hand and Flanagan shook it.

  “We’ll figure out something,” Jimmy said.

  “I hope so, Jimmy. I’d hate to see shamans leave St. Cloud.”

  Jimmy shrugged. “Well, by your own numbers, most of them wouldn’t.”

  “True, but taking out the exemption puts a lot of us at risk for deportation and keeps late bloomers from getting the chance to use their gifts.”

  Jimmy sighed and pulled on his gloves. “Can’t argue that.”

  “Take it easy, Jimmy,” Flanagan said with a small wave.

  Jimmy watched him heading for the train station for a few moments before the cold reminded him that he had warmer places to be.

  * * *

  Jimmy unzipped his parka and stuffed his gloves into its pocket. The door to Personnel stood open so he stuck his head in. “Hey, Stella?”

  “Good afternoon, Jimmy. What can we do for you today?” She always smiled at him like she knew where his missing socks were and he’d never find them.

  “Can you have somebody look up the first shaman for me?”

  She tilted her head to the side a bit. “Do you think he’s still alive?”

  He laughed. “No. I want to know who and when this shaman rule started.”

  She settled back in her chair, folding her hands in her lap. “I don’t know.” She stared at him, almost a challenge.

  He stepped into the office and leaned against the wall, pulling his coat open and unwrapping his scarf. “Care to elaborate?”

  “Sooner or later, I figured somebody would ask,” she said. “There’s no record of the first shaman.”

  Jimmy felt his eyebrows scaling his forehead. “No record as in what?”

  “The rule is in the original CPJCT lease contract. Your father executed it in 2256.” She shrugged. “No shamans designated in the database.”

  “I thought we counted everybody,” Jimmy said.

  “I thought so, too.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly as if afraid of what she had to say.

  “Just tell me, Stella.”

  “The first shamans show up in the records in 2270.”

  “You have his name?” Jimmy asked.

  “Their names, but yes.”

  “Their names?”

  She nodded. “Fifty-four of them.”

  Jimmy groped for some rational answer. “I thought we counted everything.”

  Stella nodded. “We do. Now. Then?” She shrugged. “Everything else is there, just zero shamans until 2270. January 1. Fifty-four men exempted from deportation.”

  “Tell me how that’s possible.”

  Stella shook her head. “Sorry, boss. The only way it can be possible is if there wasn’t one shaman to begin with.”

  “Pre-signing data?” Jimmy asked.

  “Before the Combine signed?”

  Jimmy nodded. “We had people here for a decade before the official paperwork.”

  “That’s all there, too. No shamans listed.”

  “How did we get from fifty-four to over four thousand?” Jimmy asked.

  Stella’s eyebrows rose. “Well, when a shaman and a woman love each other very much ...”

  Jimmy snorted. “It’s only what? Three or four generations? Even if they doubled every stanyer, that’s just over five hundred.”

  “Funny you should ask,” Stella said. She tapped on her console for a few moments and peered at the screen. “By 2275 those fifty-four became three hundred.”

  Jimmy felt his jaw drop and closed his mouth with a snap. “That’s a lot of kids in just five stanyers.”

  Stella nodded. “Census data shows that about seventy-five were natural born. The rest were all adults. The shamans held a moot every stanyer until 2300. They recognized a couple of thousand new shamans.”

  “They stopped holding the meetings?” Jimmy asked.

  Stella shrugged. “I don’t know for sure, but that’s when the number of new shamans settled down to what you might expect from biology.”

  “That’s when the Old Man went to Dunsany.” Jimmy stared at the deck. “Something smells here.”

  “Yeah,” Stella said. “You want to get to the bottom of it? You’re going to have to talk to your father or find somebody who was here then.”

  He looked up at her. “Not just here, but active and aware of what was happening in the company. A rep, maybe.”

  “How about a shaman?” Stella asked.

  “Any of them still alive?”

  “No, but one of the shamans on the 2270 list? His son is still alive. He might know.”

  “Where is he?” Jimmy asked.

  “He’s the shaman at Troy Harbor. Been there since his father died.”

  “Troy Harbor? Montgomery?”

  The usually unflappable Stella raised her eyebrows. “You know him?”

  “I’ve been there. Talked to him.”

  “Small world,” Stella said. “If your father won’t spill, maybe Montgomery will.”

  Jimmy scrubbed his lips with his hand. “Maybe.” He sighed. “Anybody else we can talk to?”

  Stella shrugged. “I didn’t find them, but I can look again. I might have overlooked something.”

  “I doubt that.” A thought intercepted his tongue. “How did you know that off the top of your head?”

  “What?” She gave him the innocent eyes.

  “That the shamans didn’t show on the record until 2270 and there are exactly fifty-four.”

  She shrugged and scanned her desk. “Curiosity. The grievances have been coming through pretty regularly.”

  “Curiosity?” Jimmy asked. “Really?”

  “My uncle was a shaman up-country. Stanyers ago. There were stories going around when I was a kid.” She shrugged again. “I looked him up and found he was a third-generation shaman. My grandfather before him and my great-grandfather are on the list.” She looked up at him. “They’re all gone now. Uncle Ned had three daughters, so the shaman line stopped with him.” Stella turned to her console, glancing at Jimmy as if to see if he was still there. “Anything else, Jimmy?”

  “Thanks, Stella. I appreciate the info.” He sighed and slipped out of the office. The whole thing stank of cover-up but he couldn’t imagine what they might have been trying to hide. He considered another trip to Troy Harbor but remembered something Steve McCord had said. He settled at his desk and began running queries against the passenger shuttles up to the orbital. Perhaps Montgomery would come to him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Cape Grace: February 22, 2346

  SARAH CROSSED HER ARMS and glowered. “I don’t understand why I have to do this.”

  Otto sighed. “It’s just the way it is. You need to show the administration that you can make a contribution to the company or they’ll deport you when you turn eighteen.”

  “But filing is boring. It’s all I can do to stay awake. Scan and tag, scan and tag, scan and tag. I had no idea there were so many different documents.”

  Otto smiled in sympathy. “If you can think of something you’d rather do, some other job that the company needs, you can train for it.”

  “I want to be a shaman like you,” she said.

  “And I want you to, sweetie, but the company doesn’t think the gift exists. They grant me an exemption on religious grounds and they’re very, very fussy about who they let stay.”

  “Just because I wasn’t born a boy.”

  “Yeah. It’s unfair. I agree.”

  “Can I get a sex change?”

  Otto considered it for a few moments. “Possibly, but it would take a lot of credits and there’s no guarantee the company would accept you as a shaman if you became a boy.” He paused and looked at her across the table. “Do you feel like a boy?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “How would I know? I just feel like me.”

  “Good answer.” He sighed and shook his h
ead. “Anyway I want you to be a shaman, but it’s probably going to come down to being a shaman on the side while you work a day job to stay on planet.”

  “Isn’t there any other way?”

  “I’m working on getting the rule changed on humanitarian grounds. I’m not holding out a lot of hope with that. Or you can find a nice fisherman and get married. That would keep you on St. Cloud but not keep you tied up doing soul-sucking labor all day.”

  “What if I marry a shaman?”

  “That might work. Do you know any?”

  “Just you and Grampa.”

  “We’re taken.”

  She smiled at his small joke. “Do you know any?”

  He shook his head. “Not off hand.”

  She sighed and dragged herself out of her chair, taking her dishes to the sink on the way. She grabbed her coat and scarf from the hook by the door. “I’ll be back midafternoon. Tide’s wrong for walking the beach, isn’t it?”

  Otto shrugged. “It’ll be half tide and coming in but there’s nothing that says we can’t walk. High tide’s around dinner time tonight. It’ll be cold.”

  She snorted. “Maybe it’ll clear my head.” She stepped out and slammed the door behind her.

  “Or maybe you’ll catch your death of cold,” Otto said to the empty house. He cleared the table of the remains of their breakfast and did up the few dishes.

  She grew more like her mother every day. It reminded him of all he’d lost.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Callum’s Cove: March 25, 2346

  OTTO STEPPED OFF THE tram with Sarah close on his heels. The familiar smell of the bay mingled with the hot-electronics-and-ozone cloud that seemed to wrap each car.

  “Otto!” His mother waved from the side of the platform.

  Otto waved back and led Sarah through the rapidly thinning crowd of arrivals and departures. Before he’d gotten halfway there, the tram doors whooshed closed and the humming magnets pushed the three-car train out of the station and on to its next stop.

  Rachel gave Otto a quick hug before transferring her attentions to her granddaughter. “You’re looking so grown up. Lemme look at you.” Rachel’s smile lit up the morning.

  Sarah hugged her back and grinned. “Hello, Gramma. It’s wonderful seeing you.”

  “Good to get out of town, I bet,” Rachel said, with a sly grin. “You know you don’t need an invitation to come visit.”

  Sarah looked down at her shoes for a moment before nodding. “It’s harder to get away these days. I got a job.”

  Rachel’s eyes widened and she glanced at Otto before looking back to Sarah. “A job? What’re you doing?”

  “I’m working in the company admin offices. Scanning and tagging.”

  Rachel shook her head. “Oh, you poor dear. That’s got to be very hard for you after being on the beach so much.”

  Sarah nodded and glanced at Otto. “Papa says I need a job so I can stay on planet.”

  Otto took a deep breath but Rachel cut off anything he might have added.

  “Well, let’s head back to the cottage and you can tell me all about it,” Rachel said. “I’ve got a fresh granapple cobbler just coming out of the oven and it won’t take a moment to get the tea going.”

  Sarah’s eyes brightened at the mention of cobbler and she led the way off the platform and down the street toward the cottage.

  Rachel offered her arm to Otto and let him walk her along. Her steps slowed him. “A job?” Rachel asked.

  “Ed Comstock’s idea.”

  “I thought you were going to apply for an exemption.”

  He nodded. “Comstock said I needed to try to find her work before he’d submit the form.”

  “Can he do that?”

  “It’s not a bad idea. Help her realize that she’s going to have to make her own way in the world. I’m not going to be around forever.” He smiled at his mother. “Sound familiar?”

  “Well, you always had the shaman’s title to fall back on, but yeah. Seems to me I heard something like that, too.” She shook her head. “But I always wanted to fish, so it wasn’t hard for me to get work. When I married your father, I moved to data analysis and it’s been good to me.”

  “She wants to be a shaman.”

  “The company will never stand for that.”

  “I don’t know. I think I might be able to convene a quorum to rule on her gift. All the other challenges were on the basis of sexism and a lack of due process.”

  “They all got shot down, though, right?”

  “Yeah. If I can put her forward as a developed gift, I may be able to make the case on her own merits and not as my offspring.”

  “Like your grandfather?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Will it work?”

  Otto shrugged. “No idea. It’s something to try that hasn’t been tried before. Getting the quorum and getting them to agree could be difficult.”

  “How many do you need?”

  “Twelve, but only two-thirds need to agree on the assessment. It’s a simple up or down vote.”

  “Where are you going to find twelve shamans?”

  He grimaced. “I’m hoping I can get Father to call the quorum here in Callum’s Cove.”

  She walked beside him in silence for a time. “What are you going to do if it fails?”

  “That’s why I didn’t argue with Comstock. If she’s employed, they can’t deport her.”

  “Any suitors on the horizon?”

  “She’s only sixteen, Mother.”

  “Seventeen in a few weeks. It’s only a matter of months before she’s eighteen, Otto.”

  “That’s why I need that exemption.”

  “And if you don’t get it?”

  “Comstock promised.”

  “Did you get it in writing?”

  Otto chuckled and shook his head. “No, I took his word for it. He’s only got to pass it along and I can submit it over his head using the community ombudsman if it comes to that.”

  “The company still needs to approve it,” Rachel said.

  “I’ve got a good feel for it. I’m widowed, single daughter. I can play the sexist card as well as they can and claim I need her to take care of me. Poor, pitiful wretch that I am.”

  Rachel laughed. “I suspect you’re right but you’re the least poor, pitiful wretch I know.”

  “Ssshh. I’ve got a reputation to earn here. Don’t spoil it right off.” He grinned at her.

  Rachel picked up the pace. “We’d best move along or she’ll have that cobbler gone before we make the last bend.”

  Otto felt his mood lightening and found himself smiling at the familiar trees along the path that led to his father’s cottage.

  * * *

  Richard stared at Otto. The old workshop still smelled of drying herbs and wood smoke. Otto sat propped in his old corner while Richard leaned on the bench. His hair, what was left of it, had gone completely gray. He kept it cropped. His scalp sported a deep tan from being outdoors, even in winter.

  “You want me to what?” Richard asked.

  “I need to prove to the company that Sarah has the gift.”

  “So you want me to convene a quorum of shamans to evaluate her? A girl?” Richard sighed.

  “She’s also survived boxfish toxins while in the womb.”

  Richard nodded. “I know, Otto. I’m familiar with boxfish.”

  “I know you are, Father. It’s why I’m asking you. If anybody can appreciate the effect of that neurotoxin, it’s you.”

  “Even if they find in her favor, that’s not going to make any difference to the company. They’re not going to open that door.”

  Otto hung his head. “Probably. It’ll make it harder for them to turn their backs on her if she’s a recognized shaman.”

  “What makes you so sure she’s got the gift?”

  “She’s been picking up driftwood with whelkies in it since she was old enough to walk the beach with me.”

  Richard’s m
outh twisted in a sour grimace. “I suspect there’s a whelkie hiding in every piece of loose driftwood that floats up on any beach on the South Coast. You’re going to need more than that.”

  Otto slipped a hand into his pocket, pulled out a small figure, and handed it to his father.

  Richard took it and held it up to the light. “This is fine work. I’m glad to see your carving has gotten more refined. I never liked that rough, gouged style.”

  “That’s not my work.”

  Richard frowned at the fox resting in his palm. The purple heart shell gleamed on its chest. “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s what? Sixteen?”

  “She’ll be seventeen in May.”

  “How long has she been carving?”

  “Couple of stanyers.”

  Richard’s rigid stance loosened as he slouched back against the bench and held the fox in the fingertips of both hands, turning it back and forth in the light. “Two stanyers.” He stiffened slightly. “What’s she using for a knife?”

  “The one you gave me for her before she was born.”

  Richard took in a deep breath and blew it out, the sound of it loud in the quiet of the shop. He handed the fox back to Otto. “Glad it’s in good hands.”

  Otto slipped the fox back into his pocket. “Now you see.”

  Richard nodded.

  “Will you convene a quorum?”

  Richard rolled his tongue around in his mouth a bit. “I can ask. I can’t compel.” He looked over at Otto, his tired eyes holding little hope in their depths.

  “I can accept trying and failing,” Otto said.

  “Can you?”

  Otto thought about it for a few heartbeats. “She’s all I have left of Carla. I have to try.”

  Richard’s face softened and he nodded. “I know.”

  “Any idea when?”

  Richard ran his fingers over his lips and looked the toes of his boots. “Everybody’s tied up with fleet launches and spring celebrations. A couple of months at the earliest. Maybe May?”

  “She’ll be seventeen in May.”

  Richard nodded. “That’s a good age for an inquiry. Old enough for it to mean something. I’ll see if I can get a quorum around the end of May.”