Pump Six and Other Stories Part 9

Bia' Hanna laughed. "There, you see Jai Bia'? Blood will tell. You can take the Jai to Keli, but blood will tell. Blood always tells."

The women nodded knowingly, pretending satisfaction, but their eyes betrayed relief that he had not broken Jai custom. A Jai would die before eating tainted flesh. Jai observed the old ways.

The women's conversations began again. Raphel was forgotten in the speculation over what day the rain would come and whether Bia' Renado's daughter had been seen too often in the company of a married hook hand.

Raphel glanced toward the doorway. Sunlight burned in the courtyard beyond. Male voices filtered in with the heat and light: his father and his hook-hand friends. Soon he would join them. They would push a ritual cup of mez toward him, and then step back carefully, keeping Quaran. Ten heartbeats later, he would raise his cup from the courtyard stones and they would toast the blue sky, pour a splash into the dust, and drink until the harsh liquor evaporated from the baked earth. They would perform the ritual again and again, pouring and drinking, getting drunker and drunker until the sun touched the horizon and the bones of the old city turned red in the failing light.

If Raphel listened carefully, he could make out the men's conversation. His father's voice, laughing: "He didn't get his smarts from me. It must have been his grandfather," and then all the hook hands laughing as they recalled Old Gawar, a man whose hook knives swirled like tornadoes and who spat on the graves of the Pasho he had delivered during the Keli crusade. Legendary deeds from a legendary time. Now, Keli's fat wheels wandered the Dry Basin with impunity, Jai children listened to earbuds full of Keli transmitter stations and spoke with Keli slang, and Old Gawar's grandchild was stained from head to toe with the Keli Pasho's secrets.

Raphel remembered his grandfather: a withered skinny man who wore his red robes cut open so that the virile white fur of his bony chest tufted out for all to see. A man among men. A great Jai, even at a century and a half. Raphel remembered the old man's black hawk eyes, piercing, as he dragged Raphel close to whisper deeds of bloodshed, teaching him a Jai's understanding of life, muttering darkness into Raphel's ears until his mother caught them and dragged Raphel away, scolding Old Gawar for frightening the boy, and Gawar, sitting paralyzed in his chair, watching and smiling and content, his black b.l.o.o.d.y eyes on his descendant.

Raphel shook his head at the memory. Even in far away Keli the old man had whispered bloodshed into his dreams. A hard man to forget. In Keli, more so. Vestiges of his presence lingered everywhere: monuments to the Keli dead, lakes poisonous with burn residue, the hackings of hook knives on marble statues, the skeletal ruins of buildings burned and never reconstructed. Where Raphel dreamed of his grandfather, the Keli people tossed in nightmare.

Raphel stood carefully and wrapped his robes around him. The women swayed back, unconsciously keeping Quaran, three meters indoors, two meters in clean sunlight, and so it would continue for ten days or until he was dead. Tradition. In Keli, they no longer observed the old ways. Here, it was pointless to explain that the scourge was long gone. The custom was too deeply ingrained, as rigidly respected as handwashing before meals, and planting days before the rains.

Raphel slipped into the oven heat of the courtyard. His father and the other hook hands called to him. Raphel waved, but did not join the drinking. Soon he would join them and drink himself into a mez stupor, but not until his pilgrimage was complete.

"Mez, is, of course, poisonous in large doses, and even in small amounts the toxins build up over time, impairing a disproportionate number of the male population.

"The Jai follow a ritual of distillation for the desert plant that renders its toxins less potent, but custom dictates that they allow a certain percentage to remain. Early efforts to reform the brewing of mez were met with hostility. If a Pasho were to seek to reform the practice, it would best come from within the community as there is too much distrust in the Jai for outside influences."-Pasho Eduard, CS 1404.

(Recovered doc.u.ment, Dry Basin Circuit, XI 333) The haci was old, older than most in the village, and sat near its center, at the joining of three alleys. It commanded a good killing view of their confluence and its walls were thick, built for a time when bullets had been more than myths and blood flowed down the alleys many times each generation.

Up close, the haci showed its age. Settlement cracks crept along its clay walls. Long lines like vines threaded across its face, breeding ruin into its structure. Its thick wooden doors were thrown open, exposing peeling sky-blue paint and silvered splintered wood. A fraying electrostatic curtain swayed in the doorway, black and red interwoven, in Jai traditional style.

Raphel stood at the haci's curtained doorway, peering into the darkness. From inside, metal sc.r.a.ped rhythmically. It was a comforting sound. A Jai sound. He had grown up listening to that familiar rasp, listening at his grandfather's knee as the old man told stories. The metal continued its sc.r.a.ping. In his mind, Raphel was eight again, sucking sugar rocks and squatting beside his grandfather as the man whispered bloodshed.

"I burned Keli to the ground," the old man had said and his eyes had blazed as though he could see the pillage still. "I burned Heli, Seli, and Keli. Last of all I burned Keli. Its ca.n.a.ls were no defense. Its green gardens burned in our napalm bath. Keli's women fled before us, those silly girls with long black braids and silver belts. We burned that city and taught those soft water people what it is to rule the Jai. We are not ruled by bureaucrats. The Jai control our own destinies. We are not the dirty Kai who choose slavery and have no words. We bathe every morning, charge our sonics in the afternoon, and write dust epitaphs for our enemies under the stars." He had chuckled. "We burned Keli. Burned it to the ground."

Raphel called into the haci's dimness, "Grandfather?"

The sc.r.a.pe of metal stopped. Then started again. Over a nearby wall, children played a game with stones, trying to knock one another's casts away from a central stake. Their shrieks of pleasure and disappointment echoed in the heat.

"Grandfather?" Raphel called again.

The sc.r.a.pe of metal stopped. Raphel leaned close to the doorway's curtain. Wind rustled through the courtyard, hot breeze making the curtain sway gently. Raphel strained his ears. The slow sigh of breathing came from within. Finally a voice rasped. "So, you've come back."

"Yes, Grandfather."

"Let me see."

Raphel pushed aside the curtain and slipped inside, his fingers tingling in the curtain's static. Inside, the air was cool. He tightened his scarf, pulling it close around his face as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the dimness. Shapes slowly resolved. His grandfather sat near the hearth, a slumped shadow. A hook knife and a sharpening stone glimmered in his hands. The hearth was cold and black. At one side of the room the man's pallet lay on the floor, its bedding knotted and unmade. His clothing was scattered carelessly. Only the hook knives on the walls seemed cared for. Their edges shone in the dim light, prizes from men sent beyond.

The old man's shadow body shifted. The hook knife in his hand glinted. "A Pasho. A Keli Pasho."

"Yes, Grandfather."

"Your mother must be pleased."

"Yes."

The old man laughed, then coughed. "Brainless woman. Wringing her hands so her bangles always chime. Probably already seeking a match for you." He laughed again. "I suppose you think you are an important man now that you've committed the ten thousand stanzas to memory?"

"No."

The old man jerked his head toward a picture on the wall. "Why not? Your image comes before you."

Raphel turned to examine the photograph, a picture of himself wrapped in Pasho robes, standing and smiling with the head of the Keli Pasho. His tattoos were newly inscribed, still dark and clear on his skin. The elder man's were faded into the folds of his skin, as though the knowledge inscribed had settled deeply into the old Pasho's being. "I don't ask the people to revere me," Raphel said.

"And yet they do. Ahh, of course they do. The Pasho make sure of that. Your dogs go before you, spreading your pictures, telling stories of your wisdom." The old man laughed. "Everyone believes a Pasho when he speaks. The all-seeing all-benevolent Pasho. Who would beg wisdom from a Jai when a Pasho sits among them?"

"I am Jai, and Pasho. They are not incompatible."

"You think not?" The black shadow of the man coughed laughter, a harsh explosion of humor that faded into labored breathing. His hook knife glinted movement and then he was sharpening again. The sharp sc.r.a.pe of metal on stone was rhythmic, filling the haci. He rasped, "I burned Keli to the ground. Would you do the same? Your Pasho friends are there. Keli girls are there. I slaughtered them all. That is Jai."

Raphel squatted on the hard-packed dirt of the haci, three meters from his grandfather. He pulled his robes around him and settled to the ground, cross-legged. "No mean feat to burn a water city."

The old man glanced up slyly before returning to his sharpening. "Even water burns."

"Napalm. That weapon should have been forgotten."

"According to the Pasho. But Jai have long memories. We keep our own records and have very long memories, don't we, Grandson?"

"Keli people, also. Your name is remembered there still."

"Is it?"

"They spit when they speak of you."

The old man wheezed laughter. "That's good." He stopped his sharpening and looked up at Raphel, eyes narrowed with suspicion. "And did you spit with them?"

"What do you think?"

The old man pointed his hook knife at Raphel. "I think your skin cries out for Keli's clear pools and your fingers tingle to touch a Keli girl's silken braid. That is what I think." He returned to his sharpening. "I think your nose twitches for the scent of lilac on the thousand lakes."

"I may have studied in Keli, Grandfather, but I am still Jai."

"So you say," the old man muttered. He set down his knife and sharpening stone and turned toward a shelf beside him. His thin fingers came up with a thick gla.s.s bottle. "Will you drink?"

Raphel hastily gathered his robes and made to stand. "I should pour."

The old man laughed and cringed away. "And break Quaran?" He shook his head. "You have been in Keli too long. Keep your distance, Grandson." He uncorked the bottle and poured two clay cups of mez. The bright tingling scent of the liquor filled the dim room. The old man carefully lowered himself to the floor and pushed the cup until it sat midway between himself and his grandson before dragging his crippled body slowly back into the shadows and hoisting himself up to his seat against the hearthwall. Raphel waited the requisite ten beats of the heart, then leaned forward and pulled the clay cup close.

"To our ancestors." The old man raised his cup to the heavens, then poured a splash on the ground. "May they not be abandoned by their descendants."

"May we always honor them." Raphel mirrored his grandfather's motions, pouring the liquor onto the ground. Its drops cl.u.s.tered like opals on the dirt. The white heat of the liquor burned in his chest as he drank.

His grandfather watched him drink. "Not as smooth as Keli's rice wine, is it?"

"No."

"Well, you're fortunate. The Keli sell their wine here, now. Many drink it."

"I've seen."

The old man leaned forward. "Why do they peddle their wine in the Dry Basin, Grandson? Do they not see we are Jai? Do they not understand they have no business here?"

"If it bothers you, you could sell mez to Keli."

"Mez is for Jai. Baji is for Keli."

Raphel sighed. "Do you somehow become less Jai if you drink their rice wine? Does it seep into a man and turn him all at once into something different?" He took another sip of the burning mez. "Even you have drunk rice wine."

The old man waved his hand dismissively. "Only when I sacked their water city."

"But still, it touched your desert tongue." Raphel smiled. "Did it make you Keli?"

Old Gawar flashed a hard smile. "Ask the Keli people."

"It is the same for me."

"You? You are a chained pet. I'm sure the Keli enjoyed your toothless desert bite. You're not Jai. You're one of them, now."

"It's not so. Keli people know instantly that I am Jai: my accent, my eyes, my hook knife, my laugh, my observance of the old ways. No matter how long I walk Keli's bridges or swim in their thousand lakes, I will never be Keli."

The old man made a face of irritation. "And because Keli rejects you, you believe you are Jai?"

Raphel toasted his grandfather with his clay cup of mez. "I am sure of it."

"No!" The old man slammed his cup down. It shattered, splashing liquor and leaving shards. He swept the shards away, careless of their sharp points. "You are not Jai! If you were Jai, you would not sit there talking. You would draw your hook knife and cut me down for insulting you."

"That is not Jai. That is you, Grandfather."

The old man reached for the edge of his hearth and slowly pulled himself upright, a crippled skeletal hawk of a man, eyes bright with the fires of past bloodshed. His voice, full of conviction, rasped as he clutched the hearth's chimney for support. "What I do is Jai. I am Jai." He pulled himself taller. "You Pasho want the Jai to set down our hook knives and bury our sonics so no one will hear their wail. You keep technology from us and give it to Keli. You cannot deny history. We Jai have letters, we keep our own records of the past. We know Pasho trickery. When I burned Keli, the Pasho fell like wheat under my hook knife. I stained their white robes red. Tell me that they have forgotten me. Tell me they don't seek to bury the Jai still!"

Raphel made placating motions with his hands, urging his grandfather back to his seat. "That time is past. We Jai no longer make war on Keli, nor the Pasho who happen to live there."

Old Gawar smiled thinly and rubbed at his crippled leg. "War never ends. I taught you that."

"You squat in Keli's nightmares still."

"A pity they don't learn their lesson and stay on their side of the mountains." Old Gawar chuckled and slowly eased himself back to his seat. "When we burn Keli next, we won't show mercy. The Keli accent will not poison our children's ears again."

"You can't keep the outside world from the Dry Basin forever."

"So says the Pasho. My own grandson, who comes to betray us."

"Knowledge is a Jai birthright as much as a Keli's."

"Don't feed me carrion. You come like all Pasho, with knowledge outstretched in one hand while you wait to seize influence with the other. You sit cross-legged, meditating like the ancient wise ones, and then you advise our people to sink water veins, to lend themselves to your road projects and factories, but I know your true object."

"We're building civilization, Grandfather."

"You are the death of us."

"Because Jai wells will be full, even when the dry season doubles?"

"Is that what you offer?" The old man laughed bitterly. "Water wells always full? A better breed of the red bean plant? Something to make our lives easier? To make our children live longer?" He shook his head. "I've watched your cult of the Open Eye long enough to know what Pasho are about. Even the Keli who worship you couldn't pull salvation from your tattooed fists when we attacked. We Jai slaughtered those soft water people like goats. You are not a savior. You are the death of us. Get out, Grandson. Get out of my home. Whatever you are, you are not Jai."

"Writing is the key to survival. A culture which can write, can remember, and share its knowledge widely. The First Attainment mark must always be the alphabet, the key to all other knowledge. With an alphabet, what I write today may be learned a thousand years from now, by some young student who will never know me except through my hand on paper. When all of us are dust, our learning will survive and we hope, with time, civilization will thrive again."-Pasho Mirriam Milliner, CS 13. (On Survival)

The sharp clicking of his mother's tongue woke him, a gentle tap tap from the vicinity of his doorway.

He had been dreaming of Keli. Dreaming that he stood again in front of the Pasho libraries and stared up at Milliner's statue. Dreaming that he ran his fingers along the hook knife hackings at its base, that he stared up at the founder of the Pasho order, carved in marble mid-escape. Milliner fled with one hand forward, Pasho's open eye on his palm. His other arm clutched a pile of torn pages, falling free. His head was turned back, his eyes fastened on the destruction he fled.

Raphel's mother clicked her tongue again. Raphel opened his eyes in time to see her withdraw behind the wool hanging curtain. Her marriage bangles clicked on her wrists as she let the curtain fall, turning the room back to dimness. Fully awake, he noticed other morning sounds: the virile crowing of roosters challenging one another across the village, children shouting beyond the high slit windows in the haci's walls. Sunlight pierced into the room in tiny shafts, illuminating dust motes stirred by his mother's presence.

In the Pasho towers, he had woken each day with the dawn. His cell had faced east and filled early with the sterile light. He would wake and go to his window and stare into the bright dawn, letting it bathe him as it glinted across the mirror stillness of the thousand lakes. The sharp hard light reflected like mica splashes and turned the land molten as far as he could see, blinding him and obscuring green Keli's bridges.

Soon after, his master would come to his door, a soft Keli man, fed well on the fish of Keli's lakes, his tattoos well set into the comfortable folds of his flesh. "Come desert Pasho," he would laugh. "Let us see what destruction Gawar's grandson has in store for us this morning. How many books will you tear through today?" To him, all men had been the same. Jai or Keli made no difference. Only study mattered.

"Raphel?" his mother whispered. "Pasho?" Her tongue clicked again from behind the curtain, a faint probing of his room's silence.

Raphel sat up slowly. "You don't need to call me 'Pasho,' Mother. I am still your son."

Her voice came back, m.u.f.fled. "That may be. But your skin is covered with knowledge and everyone calls me Bia' Pasho."

"But I am the same."

His mother didn't answer.

Raphel kicked off his blankets and scratched at his dry skin. It was peeling in the aridity. He shivered. It had been cold in the night. He had forgotten that about the basin, that its nights, even in the dry season could be so cold. In Keli the nights were hot, even when the sun went down. Humid warmth saturated everything. Sometimes he would lie in his bed and think he could squeeze the air with his fists and warm water would run down his arms. He scratched again, wistful for the smooth suppleness of skin always caressed with liquid warmth. The air in the basin seemed to be an enemy, attacking him much as his grandfather had the day before.

Raphel began pulling his robes on, covering the sharp knifelike script of his attainment marks. It was an old language, more basic than the Jai, more direct in its impulses, less careful of offense, an impatient tongue, for lightning-quick, impulsive people. He began tying the stays of his robes, quickly hiding the learning hooks covering his body: The One Hundred Books, The Rituals of Arrival and Release, The Scientific Principles, The Rituals of Cleansing, Essentials of the Body, Bio Logic, The Rituals of Quaran, Chemic Knowledge, Plant and Animal Observation, Matica, Physical Matica, Principles of Construction, Earth Studies; Core Tech: Paper, Ink, Steel, Plastic, Plague, Production Line, Projectiles, Fertilizer, Soap . . . ten thousand chanted stanzas, interlinked and attached to symbol rhyme to aid their stability. Knowledge locked in verse from a time when books were hard to make and harder to protect, from a time when Pasho wandered like dandelion seeds between far-flung villages, holding up their palms in greeting to show the Open Eye and beg their free movement, dispensing their knowledge as far as their seed-pod minds could carry them, hoping to set down roots, and begin schools where they would seed new Pasho further afield.

"Raphel?"

His mother's voice broke his thoughts. Hurriedly, Raphel finished dressing and pushed the curtain aside.

His mother gasped. "Raphel! Your scarf !" She stumbled away from him desperate to keep Quaran.

Raphel ducked back into his room. He found his electrostatic scarf and wrapped it over his face. When he emerged again, his mother stood at the far side of their common room. She pointed at a cup of smoke tea sitting three meters from their hearth. Safe distance. Raphel skirted the hearth and squatted with his tea. A sweet bean porridge sat cooled beside it. The fire coals were already floating in a bucket of gray water, black and cold.