The Collected Short Fiction, page 93
“I apologize, Theresa,” Philby said. “You know my temperament better than anybody. I’m thorough, but I’m not a loose beam. Reassure Diana for me.”
“She’s arranging for a reception. The Japanese are coming—and she tells me they’re trying to get Carnot to come, as well.”
“I’m always a man for dialogue,” Philby said. He replaced the padded bench and weights and wiped his face with a towel. “But Carnot . . . I think he is not.”
“Will you listen to Carnot if the Japanese convince him to come?”
“What will he . . .” Philby realized he was being excessively contrary, and that more argument might tip the balance in O’Brien’s eyes. “Of course. I’ll listen.”
She turned to leave, and he could not restrain himself from saying, “But, Theresa, there must be constraint on their part. That should be clear to all of us. We are protecting the Ihrdizu from the worst parts of ourselves.”
“Are we?” O’Brien asked over her shoulder.
“Yes,” Philby said after a pause. “Any doubts on that score and we might all be lost.”
“I do not doubt Carnot is a danger,” O’Brien said, and closed the door behind her.
That evening, as Philby checked in with the Lorentz for up-to-the-minute map upgrades, the communications manager told him they had received a signal from two light-years out, from the first expedition, and that among the messages was something extraordinary. Philby read the newest message again and again, feeling both exhilarated and sad, and the wheels began to turn in his mind.
If he must meet with Carnot, then he wanted to be able to shatter that little plaster prophet once and for all. Now, he might have the hammer to do so.
When traveling at close to lightspeed, our geometry is distorted, such that, to an outside observer, we reveal aspects of our shapes that are not usually seen . . . around curves, edges. We are warped in ways we cannot feel. . . . Is this also not true of our souls?
Carnot inspected the eleventh finished temple, his legs and feet aching abominably. He used two canes now to support his weight; to the Ihrdizu, he called them “Kammerstaffs.”
He had long since spread the story of Kammer’s striking him. He had found an interesting analogy to his contretemps with Kammer in Ihrdizu storytelling, a resonance he could take advantage of.
Indeed, this was the very association of lo-Ihrdizu, so said Ihrdizu legend, where the angelic Szikwshawmi had landed in ancient times and struck the female warriors with staffs of ice to give them superior strength. At the same time, the Szikwshawmi had frozen the tongue-penises of the males, making intercourse in both senses of the word impossible. The females had gone out in their frustration and gathered in new males from distant villages, leaving frustrated females in those villages to go forth and do likewise . . . and so on, a great wave of Sabine rapes.
It was hardly a precise analogy. In some respects it was embarrassingly inappropriate; but the Ihrdizu found it compelling, and when searching for mythic roots, one had to bend and to be bent.
The temple, constructed in a thick patch of beach forest like giant, thick-stumped manzanitas, deep in a shadowy hollow filled with drifting mist and sea spray and dark tidal pools, was certainly the gloomiest that had been built so far. The Ihrdizu in this association, which spread from the shore to over ten kilometers inland, were larger, more sullen, more suspicious than any they had encountered before. The females certainly seemed to be brusquer and more dominating. There was also less monogamy here than elsewhere; females took two males as mates about half the time, reflecting recent depredations because of warfare with another association to the east along the coast.
This region had been visited by the Japanese only once, years before. Yet still the stories of Jesus and Kammer and Carnot and the Chujo connection had spread into these shadows and taken root. In this Carnot took substantial satisfaction. He had hooked into the myth, and the shoots would spread of themselves. Even if I die.
The temple matched the necessary specifications. Carnot performed the ritual blessing and walked on the sticks to the lander. The females watched him closely, beautiful agate eyes totally open, all membranes removed. The males were hiding. Sight of him was not for the weak and small. He was powerful. He was their reawakening.
“You have done well,” Carnot told the chief females, who bounced and swaggered solemnly on their large rear legs, horizontal bodies quivering. He cringed inside at this unseemly alienness, craving the company of humans, wishing to be relieved of this burden; ashamed of his prejudice, he retreated on his Kammerstaffs to the ship, where Madeline and Lin-Fa Chee waited.
He took his seat in the transport and lay down the crutches. Madeline massaged his arms and shoulders. He lost himself in thought, ignoring her ministrations.
There was a disturbing trend. Five associations had so far refused Carnot. All of these had been visited by Philby and his agents, spreading rationalist doctrine. Carnot had heard only bits and pieces of this antithesis to his thesis: Philby was apparently feeding them visions of a future when Genji and Chujo would be united, not in any mystical sense but politically, in league with human advisers.
A dry, deadly sort of myth, Carnot thought. To tell the truth, he wasn’t sure what role humans would play in his own scheme; perhaps none at all. There were so few of his people left. They could find comfort in a small corner of Chujo, perhaps acting as spiritual advisers, setting up a center for pilgrims. They would certainly not stride hand-in-hand into a bright future with the rationally corrected and technologically equipped Ihrdizu and Chujoans. . . .
And yet still the Japanese tried to arrange a meeting, and still Philby’s people visited the Ihrdizu associations, creating territories where Carnot could not operate.
It was a war.
Carnot realized how reluctant he had been, until now, to accept that fact. He had always felt hunted, opposed; he had always pictured the conflict in terms of a personal vendetta by Philby or some other; he had never devised a strategy whereby he might counterstrike. But it was clearly becoming necessary.
“Another message from the Japanese,” Madeline said quietly when they were settled and the transport had lifted off. The ship’s engines made a high-pitched whickering noise and the starboard side settled as they rose; Lin-Fa Chee corrected, and the transport gained altitude, but more slowly. The transports were well-made, but they were aging; there were not enough people on the Benevolent to run the machines necessary to make parts to maintain all the equipment.
“Of course,” Carnot said, his face pale, eyes shifting between the window and the pilot.
“The captain thinks we should talk to them.”
Carnot lifted an eyebrow. “Yes?”
“We need to barter,” Lin-Fa Chee added. “We need spare parts.”
“The captain has spoken with the Japanese, with Suzy Tatsumi. She says they will manufacture spare parts for us, in trade. . . .” Madeline’s voice trailed off, watching her husband’s reaction.
“Generous,” Carnot said, closing his eyes again. He hoped his authority was not being undercut. If he could be said to be responsible at all, Captain Plaissix was responsible only for the Benevolent; Carnot was in charge of making policy on the planets.
“They’ll only trade if we meet with them, and with the rationalists,” Madeline said.
Carnot pretended to sleep.
“Robert, we have to make a decision soon,” Madeline said, a note of worry in her voice. “There’s a lot at stake.”
“We’ll meet,” he said softly. “How many more temples?”
“Three, I think . . . Perhaps more next week.”
“I want to see the ceremonies completed.” He could speculate on the dimensions of the human conflict—small and bitter, perhaps never escalating to violence, but deadly to his cause—their cause—all the same. But what would the dimensions of a conflict between the Ihrdizu be? If Ihrdizu could not encompass contradictions in human doctrine, how would they react? What alien catharsis would their unplumbed psychologies demand?
Suddenly he was feeling very mortal—with more than a suspicion that what lay beyond mortality was not what he most fervently desired.
Philby walked slowly toward the loose line of twelve trolls. His hydration suit reeked of Chupchup protective scent. The trolls lifted their heads, each standing over two and a third meters high. They sniffed the air casually, remained where they were. Surely they could see he was not Chujoan; surely they had minds enough to recognize that scent alone did not guarantee his belonging.
But they restrained themselves, and once again added to the mystery of how they functioned in Chujoan society.
He passed between two of them, barely a meter on each side from their claws, their razor fangs barely concealed behind slack lips.
The shamans formed the next loose line. Beyond them lay the edge of the cluster of yurts that had been erected for this temporary settlement. Between the shamans and the main cluster squatted the yurt that Kammer had taken, or had been assigned, who could say which. He was on the outskirts, rather than in the center; that might be significant. Perhaps he was not as important to the Chujoans as this peculiar reception ceremony implied; perhaps Chujoan ritual went beyond the simple analogy of enfolding and protection, and put their most valuable icons on the edge rather than the center of their loose and mobile village.
Perhaps he didn’t understand Kammer’s meaning at all.
A loose dry breeze blew dust between the spindly legs of the shamans. The line parted, as if Philby had ordered the breeze as a signal. He could feel the casual, unreacting presence of the bullyboys behind him. He was coming to prefer Kammer’s name to “trolls.” It was so much more descriptive, evocative.
The work he had done in the past week to make this meeting useful—to be able to ask the question he would now ask of Kammer—had taxed his patience to its limit.
Now he approached the shamans, wearing only a hydrator; taking his chances without the isolation suit.
He had asked five of his ship’s biologists, and three of the Japanese doctors and biologists, how much of a risk Kammer might pose to crews if they were actually exposed to his physical presence. None had been willing to give a straight answer at first; fear of the wineskin plague had distorted simple rational judgments, leading to hedged bets, hems and haws, a reliance on very fuzzy statistics.
Finally Philby had been able to draw a consensus from the scientists and doctors: Kammer was not much of a threat now. If indeed the wineskin plague had begun on Kammer, which was almost universally accepted, then it was likely that they had protected themselves against all possible varieties he might have generated.
Kammer could walk among them, if he so chose.
Philby stood outside the plaited reed walls of the yurt. “Hello,” he said. Nothing but silence within.
“Hello,” he called out again, glancing over his shoulder at the shamans, shivering despite himself. Which was worse—to be ignored as if one didn’t exist, or to be recognized by something so intrinsically alien? In some respects, now that he was familiar with the two species, the humanoid Chujoans seemed much more alien than the Boschian Ihrdizu. . . .
“Doing you here?”
Kammer came around the other side of the yurt. Philby started, turned slowly, trying to regain dignity, and faced Kammer.
“I’ve brought a message,” he said. “From your starship, on its way back to Earth. They’re about five light-years out now. They intercepted Japanese reports that you had been found alive. . . .”
Kammer glanced up at the sky speculatively with one pale eye, lips moving. “Must be about two years ship time,” he said. “Doing fast by now. Bit-rate way down. Bandwidth doing the very narrow.”
“A woman who held you in high regard sends a message to you,” Philby said. This, he hoped, was the shock that would jolt Kammer back to some human sense of responsibility. “It’s rather personal, and I regret springing it on you like this, but its reception by our ship—and the Japanese ship, simultaneously—was hardly private. I thought I should tell you first.”
“Something to be read, or just spoken?” Kammer asked. Philby interpreted that question as a promising sign. Curiosity, plain English syntax, a tone of some concern.
“You can read it if you wish.”
Kammer’s mummy mask slanted, wrinkled in something between a smile and puzzlement. “I know her. I did life with her.” He tapped his leathery pate. “In dreams.”
“Her name is—”
“Nicole,” Kammer said.
Philby said nothing for a few seconds, watching the brown, tortured face reflect some inner realization, some reawakening of old memories. “Right. Nicole.”
“What does she say?”
Philby held out a slate. Nicole had convinced the powers that be—apparently her husband, Captain Darryl Washington—that a message of several hundred words was necessary. This had required considerable diversion of resources—turning antennas around, readjustment, expenditure of valuable communications time. Philby had read the message several times. He had no idea what Kammer would make of it. If he had been Kammer—a long shot of supposition—Philby would have been deeply saddened.
Dearest Airy,
I cannot believe what we have heard. That you are alive! By what miracle is not clear to us; we have only been able to receive about three-quarters of the transmissions from Murasaki, and only since we stopped accelerating, turned off our torch. We all feel incredibly guilty about leaving you behind. There was no chance of your survival—we knew that, you must believe we knew that! I grieved for you. I punished Darryl for years. This has been cruel to all of us, but especially I think to him. Whom I punish, I feel the most sympathy for. . . .
What are you now, after so many years with the Chujoans? Do you still think of us, or have they changed you so much you have forgotten? I cannot tell you all that has happened to us. . . . We feel like such cowards, such fools, having left Murasaki just when the rush from Earth was beginning. We should have stayed, but we did not have the heart. Darryl wanted the riches; we wanted the riches and fame before we were too old. So we didn’t finish our job. What reception we will return home to, I cannot say. . . . Perhaps the reception reserved for (L.O.S. 2.4 kb?).
. . . were the better man. I chose you. Know that about me now, Aaron, that in the end, I chose you, my body chose you. Darryl has lived with this, and I think I admire him more now, despite my punishments and inward scorn, for having lived with it.
We have a son, Aaron. You and I. He is your boy. He was born five months ago. I have named him after your father, Kevin. He is healthy and will be a young man when we return to Earth.
He will be told that you are his father. Darryl insists, especially since we’ve learned you are alive.
That knowledge grinds Darryl down more each night. Who can understand the grief of strong men?
I love you, Aaron.
Nicole
Kammer let the slate drop to the ground, then swayed like an old tree in a slight breeze. “I am not that same person,” he said throatily. “He did the dying.”
“I think that person is still here,” Philby persisted. “You remember Nicole. You remember who you were. And you knew that Carnot would cause great damage. You hit him to stop him.”
“I hit him to save him,” Kammer said with a sudden heat. “Could not see them all do the dying.”
“I don’t understand,” Philby said, eyes narrowing.
“They gave me this,” Kammer said, lifting the stick covered with patchy snug. “Long times past. Years, maybe. I thought I was going to die. I felt as if I had died. Then I recovered, and then I began to die again. I did the bloating, too, and the filling with liquids, skin turning wine red, the twisting of bones. This,” he indicated his contorted trunk and limbs, “was not from breaking my back. I did the sickness myself. Body like a skin full of wine. They gave me the stick, and the snug took me over. It found what was making me sick, and it killed them, or tamed them. I got better.”
Philby’s eyes widened, and for the first time in Kammer’s presence, he felt a shiver of awe. What did the Chujoans know—what could they do? He slowly turned to survey the shamans, uncaring and implacable in their loose line between the two humans and the bullyboys.
“Hit him to save him, if he had the brains to know what it was I gave,” Kammer said. “I see he did.” Kammer’s gaze was intense, his eyes seeming darker, more human now. “Perhaps that was when he did the prophet. Bent body, bent mind. Saved from death. Knew, knew.”
Softly, shivering slightly, Philby said, “He wanted to be a prophet before they reached Murasaki. But you . . . blessed him, I suppose is the word.” Philby sighed. All of his errors, his misinterpretations; was it due to arrogance? How much of his arrogance had poisoned the debate between the stars? How much had he driven Carnot to his hard positions, his fanaticisms? “We’re going to meet with the Quantists, with Carnot. I think it’s important that you talk with him.”
“Can’t go back and do the human thing,” Kammer said. “Being this. Knew, knew.”
“If you believe his distortions are dangerous—and you must, Aaron, you must!—you cannot refuse us this. Talk with him, tell him what you know. Try to make him stop this insanity. He could destroy all the Genjians have in the way of—culture, language, independent thought.”
“Never did them,” Kammer said.
“Aaron . . .” Philby stepped forward, hands beseeching. He removed his hydrator, to speak directly with Kammer. The cool dry air felt like dust in his throat, and he coughed.
Two trolls shoved him roughly away and spilled him on the ground. His mask flew high into the air and came down six or seven meters away. A troll loomed over him, baring its teeth, seeming to grin, examining his form as if it might be a long diversion from the troll’s normal mindless boredom.
Kammer stood back, stick lifted as if to defend himself as well against the trolls, and said nothing.
