Pump Six and Other Stories Part 10

"How long have you been awake?" he asked.

"Hours. You slept late. You must have been tired."

Raphel sipped the cool smoke tea. "It's dark in the room. I'm used to the sun waking me."

His mother began sweeping the hard-packed floor with a straw broom, carefully avoiding coming too close. Raphel watched her cleaning process. Nine more days of ritual isolation.

When his grandfather had burned Keli, he and his army had camped at the village edge to keep Quaran. They had sung songs of blood and fire across the intervening distance, but did not enter the village until Quaran had pa.s.sed. The Jai kept to the old ways. It had been absurd for him to think the old man would welcome him with open arms.

His mother swept dust out the door, then turned. Her tongue clicked uncertainly. Finally she said, "There is a girl I would like you to meet. She's from a very good family."

Raphel smiled and sipped his tea. "Already seeking a match?"

"The girl is visiting Bia' Hardez. Her aunt. She's a good Jai girl."

"What point is there? I won't complete Quaran for more than a week."

"Mala is returning to her family at Kettle Rock. If you wanted to see her you would have to go there, and then still pa.s.s Quaran in a foreign village. Mala is willing. You will meet outside, with clean sunlight between you."

Raphel stifled a teasing smile. "You turn from the old ways?"

"There is no harm meeting in clean sunlight. She does not fear you. You traveled from Keli. If you are not dead now, you never will be."

"Grandfather would disapprove."

"An untrampled scorpion troubles no one."

"And you were always such a proper Jai lady."

His mother clicked her tongue. "My hook knife is still sharp." She nodded at his finished tea. "Throw your cup away, and make sure it breaks in clean sunlight. No one can use it now."

"A stone cannot be a pillow, the Keli cannot be friends."-Jai Proverb. Recorded CS 1404, Pasho Eduard.

(Recovered Doc.u.ment, Dry Basin Circuit, XI 333)

Five days into Quaran, Raphel met his potential match on the edge of the village, separated by two meters of sterile light. The black ringlets of Mala's hair shimmered in the bright sun and her eyes were deepened by the black lines of an eye pigment that Keli girls favored. Mala's skirt and blouse were of the old Jai patterns, black and red interwoven diamonds, shot through with gold threads. Her arms were bare of bangles, inviting a man to marry her and swathe her in blue.

Within sight, but out of earshot, Raphel's mother and Bia' Hardez sat on the yellow plain, a pair of blue billowing matrons. Their gold bangles glittered sharply in the sunlight. In the distance, the old city stood silent, black bones against the sky. Raphel remembered exploring the city's tangled ruins where hawks roosted and coyotes trotted arrogantly down streets twice the width of Keli's greatest avenues. He remembered gathering spent sh.e.l.ls from the mangled city, hunting for prizes from the vicious protracted wars that had destroyed the place.

Wind gusted. The chaperoning women tucked their blue skirts tighter around them. Mala pulled away her electrostatic scarf. Raphel noticed it was from Keli. The solar pack was distinctly from beyond the mountains, though with a Jai pattern to its weave. He pushed the thought away and studied the smooth lines of the girl's brown skin. She was like a bird, her face thin and graceful. Her cheekbones were sharp, but she was beautiful. At her questioning eyes, he pulled away his own scarf. They studied each other.

Finally she said, "You're much more handsome than in your pictures. Even with all those tattoos."

"You expected worse?"

Mala laughed. She pushed her windblown hair back from her face, showing the knife curve of her throat and jaw. "I thought you might have aged. You're young to be a Pasho. I thought my aunt exaggerated."

Raphel glanced back at the pair of women in married blue, gossiping and watching with speculative eyes for signs of a match. "No. Bia' Hardez is honest about those things. She matched my cousin."

"I've never seen a young Pasho."

"My teachers were dedicated."

"How long were you in Keli?"

"Ten years."

She shook her head. "I wouldn't have lasted a week. All that water. My grandfather told me it rained for months there."

"It's very pretty. When the rain touches the lakes, it makes rings, thousands and thousands of ring ripples all across them. You can stand on the marble bridges there and the rain can be as gentle as feathers."

The girl turned her eyes toward the old city. "I could never have lived in the rain." Her eyes remained fixed on the blackened ruins. "They say the Keli people shake hands. With strangers even. And they eat fish."

Raphel nodded. "It's true. I've seen it."

She wrapped her arms around herself and shuddered. "Disgusting. Bia' Hardez told me that your grandfather would as soon kill you as have you return."

Raphel shrugged. "He is traditional. He doesn't like that I went to Keli."

"Most families would welcome a Pas...o...b..ck into their family."

"You've heard of my grandfather."

"Oh yes. One of mine died in Keli on his crusade. When they burned the city."

Raphel thought of the chips in Milliner's statue, and wondered if her grandfather had been one of the hook hands who failed to topple it. Or if he had raged through the Pasho libraries, burning and killing and setting the severed heads of delivered Pas...o...b..side the busts of Plato and Einstein. He pushed the thought away. "Do they sing songs for him in Kettle Rock?"

"Of course. He is remembered well."

"That's good."

Mala turned back to him, her dark accented eyes evaluating. "My aunt thinks a Pasho would be a good match for me." She stopped and pushed her hair back. She looked again toward the ruined city in the distance, then back at him. She gave a little shrug.

Finally Raphel said, "But you think differently."

"A husband should be from your native place."

"The basin is still my home."

"But your grandfather disowns you. My family is traditional."

"Your aunt sees no difficulty."

"She doesn't live in Kettle Rock. I have to face my family." She shook her head, studying him. "There is something not right about you. Something not Jai."

Raphel scowled. "And what is that, do you think?"

She c.o.c.ked her head, examining him. "Too difficult to say. Maybe it's the taint of Keli in you. Maybe some water rose has captured your heart, some girl with a black braid and a silver belt around her hips. Those Keli girls are soft, I've heard. Not like Jai. Not like desert girls. We are hawks. They are little sparrows." She laughed. "No. I don't think you are the man for me. I am a traditional girl."

Raphel laughed. "You think you are traditional? You wear a Keli scarf and line your eyes like a Keli girl, and you still call yourself Jai?"

She shrugged. "I wouldn't expect you to understand."

"I am Jai. My hook knife is sharp."

"So you say." She shook her head. "Go back to Keli, Raphel. Find a soft water girl who will love whatever desert bite you have left. Your grandfather is right. You don't belong here." She wrapped her scarf back across her face.

Raphel watched her walk away from him, her skirts molded across her hips as she swayed into the wind. For a moment he imagined following her but he forced himself to stand still. Pursuit would only lead to humiliation. He turned and strode away before the watching chaperones could see he had been discarded.

"The path of a Pasho is not one of simple reading. Knowledge is dangerous. We know this from the First Age, when people studied quickly quickly, like ants. We know this because there is so little left of what they constructed. Knowledge is always two-edged. For every benefit, there is hazard. For every good, evil. Carelessness and convenient solutions lead to chaos.

"It is not for a Pasho simply to gain knowledge, but to deserve knowledge. Our libraries are locked and the concepts inside are graded into levels of attainment. We do not keep this knowledge under lock and key because we crave power, as outsiders often accuse. We keep it because we fear it.

"The process of becoming Pasho is not a process of study, but a process of wisdom. Milliner knew knowledge must spread again, but this time, it must spread without destruction accompanying it. Knowledge and technology are not things to be handed to any man who demands them. That path can only lead to disaster. We saw this in the First Age. We moved too quickly and were punished for it. This time we move slowly, slowly like the turtle and hope that there is no Second Cleansing."-Pasho Cho Gan, CS 580. (Pasho Wisdom, Vol. XX)

"I went to be matched yesterday."

Old Gawar sat outside the door of his haci, surrounded by piles of red chilies, drying. The hot spice scent saturated the air, making Raphel cough. The old man smirked as he plucked dried chilies out of various piles, turned them speculatively between his gnarled fingers, then set them in his mortar and ground them into red dust before dumping the flakes into a clay urn. "So my grandson comes to see me again, does he?"

"What did you tell Bia' Hardez?"

The old man laughed. "Mala rejected you, did she?" He studied Raphel's angry face for an answer, then went back to grinding chilies, shaking his head and grinning. "Even your brainless mother should have known better than to arrange a meeting with that girl."

"You poisoned my name with her."

His grandfather laughed and crushed new chilies into dust. "Never." His vigorous movements sent up red powder clouds as he worked. "But I'm not surprised. Her grandfather fought with me. He died like a desert lion. We fought across Keli's bridges together. We stormed her towers. Mala would be too proud to take a fish-eater for a husband. I don't know what your mother was thinking. I'm brave, but I would never send my hook hands into an unwinnable battle." He dumped more finished chilies into the storage urn. "You should meet with the Renali family. They have a daughter."

"The ones who sell rice wine from Keli?" Raphel scowled. "You think too little of me."

The old man laughed. "Oh? My grandson is Jai after all?"

"I have never been anything else."

"Would you burn Keli?"

"We are not at war."

"War never ends. Even now they send their goods and people closer to us. Even good girls like Mala wear Keli scarves. How long before we are like the Kai, just another tribe who look and dress and talk like the Keli people? Wars such as this never end. If you want to prove you are Jai, you will help me wage war again, and put Keli in its place."

Raphel laughed. "What war can you wage?"

Old Gawar's eyes flicked up to Raphel, then back down to his grinding. A smile quirked at the corners of his mouth. "My hook knife is still sharp. Even now I counsel with the basin villages. There are many who would war on Keli. If you are Jai, you will help us."

Raphel shook his head. "Pasho do not deal war. If you want to gather more water for the village, I can help. If you want to feed our children better, this too I can accomplish. What you ask, I cannot give."

"Cannot? Or will not?" The old man studied Raphel, then smiled, showing worn yellowed teeth. "The all-seeing all-giving knowledge of the Pasho." He spat. "One hand open with an eye, the other behind the back with a noose. Look at the dirty Kai, well under the yoke of Keli now. They took your knowledge."

"They had no letters before us, nor basic hygiene. They were starving. Now they are fat and comfortable."

"And indistinguishable from Keli people. Pasho came and gave them letters and now they are not Kai." He spat again.

Raphel inclined his head. "You call my knowledge Keli knowledge, and yet, if we leave the knowledge for Keli alone, only then will you be right. If we use it for Jai purposes, then it is Jai. Knowledge knows no master. You complain about Keli electrostatics, but you won't use my knowledge."

"The Jai will not work in factories. We are not traders. We plant in the wet season. We war in the dry season. That is Jai."

"Then the Jai will pa.s.s into memory, and Keli will flourish."

The old man laughed. "No, Keli will burn, and we will write their epitaphs in the mud of that sweltering place. Already I send hook hands to the corners of the basin. Thousands answer the call. Don't look so surprised. Keli encroaches too much. Their fat wheels, their scarves, their liquor, and their transmitter stations invade on every side. If you are Jai, you will help us raze Keli once and for all."

"Pasho are neutral. We do not deal in war."

The old man waved a hand at Raphel in irritation. It was glazed red with the residue of dried chilies. "You think you don't deal in war? Just because blood doesn't flow down our alleys? Electrostatics and cosmetics from Keli one day, earbuds the next? Your Pasho gifts to Keli kill us day by day. Where does this end? With the Jai eating fish? This is certainly war, whatever you Pasho and your proteges claim." His black eyes turned hard as he stared up at Raphel. "If you are Jai, you will use that knowledge on your skin for Jai purposes, and you will make war."

Raphel frowned. "What knowledge do you want so badly, Grandfather? Something to leak radiation into Keli's lakes and fish, something to sicken their women and sterilize their men? A virus keyed to their climate? Something that will leave corpses on their water bridges, and nothing but wind on the thousand lakes?" Raphel waved his hand toward the edge of the village. "What does the old city tell us, if we seek so much destructive power? I sit five paces from you even now, thanks to ancient follies."

"Don't lecture me, boy. I learned the first one thousand stanzas myself."

"Before trying to destroy everything the Pas...o...b..ilt. A frustrated child, breaking clay because it wouldn't mold to his satisfaction."

"No! I would not mold to theirs! Their grand design is the death of the Jai. In a thousand years, will there be anything to distinguish us from Keli? Will our women wear silver belts, and theirs perhaps wear gold bangles on their wrists, and what then? What of the Jai?"

Raphel shook his head. "I cannot give what you ask for. A few knowledgeable men could sweep the planet clean of all that remains of us. We Pasho guide knowledge now. Our ancestors moved quickly, quickly, as impatient as ants. We move slowly now, with care. We understand that knowledge is simply a terrible ocean we must cross, and hope that wisdom lies on the other side. It is not some toy casually used for our pleasure."

Old Gawar made a face. "Elegantly spoken."

"Rhetoric. A Pasho must speak well, or die in distant lands."

"You speak well to cover black deeds. You let children die of the yellow sickness and men bleed dry from war wounds. We guess at knowledge you already possess. We know that you hold keys to a thousand locks, and that you part them out sparingly, according to Pasho design." The old man picked up a chili and dropped it into his mortar bowl. He picked up another and dropped it in with its cousin. "So sparingly."

He looked up at Raphel. "I don't want the knowledge the Pasho call appropriate. I want the Jai to survive. When the Keli are forgotten and the Kai are remembered as slaves, I want the Jai to write history. Jai drink mez. We wear gold not silver. We write dust epitaphs for our vanquished enemies and watch them blow away in the desert wind. This is what it is to be Jai. The Pasho would rub all this away and blend us into a toothless race of servants. I will not allow it. I tell you, Grandson, Keli will burn. Best of all, it will burn because the Keli never managed to pry war knowledge from your selfish tattooed fists." The old man smiled thinly. "If nothing else, I must thank you Pasho for your neutrality. It serves me nearly as well. Go back to Keli, Grandson. Tell them Gawar Ka' Korum is coming again."

"A Pasho must always be respectful on his circuit. It is natural for a people to resist the presence and ideas of an outsider. In all cases, patience and subtlety are the Pasho's best tools. Our work is already generations long, and will be many more generations before it is complete. There is no hurry. Speed is what brought our ancestors to ruin. We guess, we move slowly, we wait. If we are not welcomed in a new place, we must pa.s.s on and wait for invitation. If we meet challenges, we must bend before them. Knowledge and influence are fragile things. Our reputation for neutrality, morality, and humanity must take the place of steel and sonics. Men make war. Pasho never."-Pasho Nalina Desai, CS 955.

(Lecture 121: On Circuit Travel Etiquette) On the ninth day of Raphel's return, the rains came. Thick gray clouds banked on the horizon, building until they filled the southern sky. They came across the basin, their bellies heavy with water. Slowly they opened and the gray paint of falling water streaked the air. The yellow plains darkened as the sun disappeared behind the onrushing clouds. Dust puffed where fat raindrops struck. Minutes later, dust turned to mud as water thundered out of the sky. By the tenth day of Raphel's Quaran, a fine bright sheen of gra.s.s, nearly phosph.o.r.escent in its new life, covered the yellow plains outside the village as the rains continued to pour down.

In the family haci, Raphel's mother worked at a celebratory feast made doubly joyful by the rain's arrival. Bowls of spiced mutton, cool yogurt, and thick red bean soup propagated around the hearth. She smiled at the rain, stirred pots over the fire and didn't complain that the wood gathered from the far hills had been dampened by the sudden rush of water. She reached out to touch Raphel often, a nearly superst.i.tious movement that she repeated again and again, a.s.suring herself that her son once again truly stood within her home.

In the afternoon, she sent him to fetch his grandfather. She sent him with an umbrella bought from a Keli trader, a big black thing. When Raphel protested that he didn't mind the rain, she clicked her tongue and sent him out anyway, saying that if anyone knew how to make an umbrella it should be the Keli and there was no shame in using it.