Science Fiction Originals Vol 3 Part 4

Silent Her peeked through her fingers. Her father, his hands clasped in front of him, was looking down at her. "She knows she does not belong here." He opened his hands and touched his maroon sash. That meant that her father was calling Jamil. The sergeant would be livid. There would be no escaping a beating this time.

There was an uncomfortable silence that was broken only by the rapid sounds of Jamil's footsteps as he approached. The guard entered the vestibule, stopped, bowed, and before he could speak, he spied Silent Her kneeling on the floor. His face became very red.

Before the sergeant could speak, the Imahnti interrupted. "Minister, I apologize for my ignorance concerning your customs, and the thought of interfering with your household would never enter my mind.

However, I alone am at fault. I was the one who asked the child to stand and listen to my words. I would be most distressed to learn that she had been punished for my ignorance."

A thin smile came to Duman Amin's lips. "Listening to you was not her crime, trader. Her crime was being where you could ask her to listen."

Silent Her looked up at her father. She thought his face was very handsome, which made it much more frightening when he was angry, because when he was angry his face was not so handsome.

Her father raised an eyebrow and nodded at Jamil. "Have no fear, Huroot Ib. She is only where she is not supposed to be. The sergeant will see that she finds her way back to the female wing." He looked at the girl.

"Daughter, take your leave of the trader."

Without thinking she bowed, placed her palms together and extended her arms in front of her. She felt the Imahnti's snake-sized appendages wrap around her fingers. They were fuzzy and warm. The Imahnti spoke with strange words. The words she heard, except for the last two, her new name, made no sense. But something strange had happened to the girl. It was almost as though one ear had heard the incomprehensible words of an Imahnti leave-taking, while the other ear heard, "I wait to witness the achievement of your destiny, Star Light."

The fuzzy appendages released her fingers and her father nodded at Jamil. The guard led her to the doors to the main hall, and from there to the corridor leading to the female wing. Once out of sight of Duman and his guest, the guard picked her up with strong hands and hissed, "Jesus wept, child! By the beard of the Prophet, what am I to do with you? Once the trader leaves your father's house, you may be certain that Duman'll have my guts for a jump rope. If he discharges me without references, what is my poor family to do?

Why can't you obey me, child? Why can't you obey your father? You have Magda's salt in you, little Shaytan, and that is no lie. I see the evil in your eye. You think you can hide it, and perhaps you can from some people, but you can't hide it from me. I can see your heart and it is blacker than the firestorm."

He stopped at the door to the female wing. He waited for a moment. When no one answered he looked up at the sensor and began tapping his foot. "I see how you managed your clever escape." He snorted out a laugh and kicked the door. "What brilliance it must have taken. What daring."

The door opened a crack, then opened wider. Majnun's sleepy face looked out. "Sergeant?"

"Of course it's me, you fool!"

Majnun looked down at the girl and frowned. "Si, what are you doing out there?"

Dragging her behind him, Jamil pushed past Majnun and closed the door. "She walked right past you when you were sleeping, you lazy fool." Majnun looked at her with hurt in his eyes. "If this was the Mujtahidun you could have been shot-"

She broke free of the sergeant's grasp and ran into the women's living quarters as Jamil screamed his curses at Majnun. She was sorry for Majnun and she knew that from now on Majnun would hate her, too.

She reached into her dress pocket for the piece of candy she had stolen, thinking that returning it to Majnun might ease the guard's anger toward her. Next to the candy her fingers touched the sharp edges of something unfamiliar. She withdrew it part way, glanced at it, and thrust it back inside her pocket. It was yet a third present from the trader: a tiny blue book.

"I learned a new thing in school yesterday," Rahman declared the next day as Silent Her entered her brother's toy room. The television screen showed a fanged cartoon Imahnti chasing a little boy. "It's very rude.

It was my good friend Akil Numair who taught me." Silent Her squatted on the floor beside Rahman and looked up at his face with adoring eyes. What care had she for the risks of leaving the female wing if she could only be in the presence of her brother? "What is a school?" she signed.

The boy sneered and c.o.c.ked his head in a show of extreme indifference as he pressed a b.u.t.ton lowering the sound from the television screen. The cartoon boy was hiding behind a tree and the cartoon Imahnti was leafing through a little blue book to try and find the boy. All of the woodland creatures thought the Imahnti was very stupid for looking in a book instead of behind the tree.

"What is a school?" repeated Rahman. "It's a place where I am forced to go six days a week to learn mountains of stuff I will likely never use again. I envy you not having to go to school."

"I would love to go to school if I could learn."

"It is forbidden. Besides, you wouldn't want to go if you had to go. Believe me. School is deadly dull and the masters are very mean. But watch what my friend Akil taught me."

Rahman's brow furrowed in a frown as he seemed to gulp at the air after the manner of a fish out of water.

He gulped and gulped again, then he was still for a moment. At the end of his silence he let forth with a belch whose magnitude rivaled that of Majnun's gas attacks. Rahman did it again and laughed out loud when he saw how hard Silent Her was laughing.

"Here," he said at last. "I must stop laughing if I am to show you what else Akil taught me." He took a deep breath, laughed again, and took another deep breath. When he had calmed himself down, he swallowed more air, then belched, but this time he formed a word with his mouth. "Jamil!" he growled.

They both laughed at the sound, and when they had calmed down, Silent Her signed to her brother, "Show me how to make a burp. It's such fun. Show me how. Please."

"I don't know if you can learn it. It took me a great deal of time."

"Please."

Rahman shrugged again. "First you swallow a lot of air, and be sure to hold it down. Do it like this."

Rahman swallowed some air and let forth a tiny burp.

Silent Her tried several times, but she couldn't seem to develop the knack. "Perhaps females cannot do this."

"Oh, they can too," Rahman corrected. "Akil Numair taught one of his sisters to burp and she was better at it even than he." Rahman frowned and thought for a long time.

"Brother, will you show me again?"

"No." He shook his head slowly and looked with care at his sister. "Akil taught his sister to do it. She even made a word with her burp. Someone caught them. She was beaten for learning and Akil was beaten for teaching her. I don't think it is something G.o.d wants." He shook his head and glowered at his immature manhood having to knuckle under to overwhelming authority. "This is something it might be best to forget."

Silent Her looked at the television screen in time to see the fanged Imahnti have a bright light appear over its head. It put away its little blue book and reached beneath a rock where everyone, including the little boy, knew the little boy wasn't hiding. The Imahnti withdrew its appendage, dragging the little boy from beneath the rock by his collar. The boy screamed, broke loose, and the fanged alien streaked after him. The boy's name was Koko. The Imahnti's name was Fuzzy.

"Onan, there are sorry changes in the wind," warned Nabil with a grave voice. He was sitting at the kitchen table sipping at a cup of aba.n.u.sh. "Keep my words in the front of your mind. In a matter of days we could all find ourselves begging sc.r.a.ps from the workhouse women."

"Bah!" answered the cook from the depths of the kettle he was inspecting. The scrub girl, Joina, stood off to one side, her gaze cast down, respectfully awaiting Onan's judgment. Si smiled at the boom of the cook's voice. With his head inside the pot his voice had become deep and powerful. It sounded the way she imagined the voice of Alilah had sounded those many thousands of years ago when He told Noah He would destroy the father planet.

Onan withdrew his head from the pot, nodded his satisfaction to the scrub girl, and handed the heavy kettle to her to hang with the others as Silent Her crept between the ranges to her safe place.

"Nabil," began the cook, "the way you worry, it's a wonder the priests haven't put you in a taffy house and wired you up to a few volts. By the Founders, after that you'd see the light."

She leaned against the wall, pulled off her veil, and placed her hand inside her pocket. Withdrawing the tiny blue book, she opened it and looked at the curious marks on the first page.

Huroot Ib had been reciting "The Shaytan." Perhaps the booklet was his copy of The Book of Peace. But then why did Fuzzy, the cartoon Imahnti, look in his little blue book to find Koko? And when he found Koko, why was the boy in a place where no one expected him to be, including Koko?

At the head of the first page were two groups of marks set off from the rest. Perhaps they were the marks that represented "The Shaytan" in man-writing.

A cup was placed upon the kitchen table with a heavy hand. "Scoff at me if you wish, Onan, but I watchthe news. I hear what's between the words."

"What do you hear?" The cook laughed as he poured himself a cup of the b.u.t.tered tea and sat down at the table. "Or should I ask, what do you think you hear?"

While the cook and the head servant talked, Silent Her studied the two groups of marks in the center of the page. The first group had thirteen of the forbidden writing letters. The second group had four letters. If it was "The Shaytan," the first group was too many for "the" and the second much too few for "Shaytan."

Nabil's voice became loud. "Laugh if you want, Onan, but perch this between your eyes. The 'doxies are gathering enough support to make a coalition possible-"

"It will never happen," interrupted the cook.

"If they do gain control of the government, Joram won't join the world congress. If we don't join, no one joins, and if no one joins, no one disarms. In such a case it's only a matter of time before we are once more looking for prophets to follow and wading through blood."

"Exactly my point, Nabil. No one wants war, so no one wants the return of the orthodoxy. So where's the threat?"

"The threat is right here in Joram, Onan. The Reformists are hanging on to power right now only because Mikael Yucel keeps promising moons to the splinter parties he cannot deliver. If the splinter parties grow cold on Yucel, Tahir Ranon and the 'doxies will have all of us in a b.l.o.o.d.y choke loop."

"Look at what you are saying. The Reformists haven't lost an election for over twelve years."

"That was before Joram's army tangled with Bahai," Nabil reminded.

"What does that change?"

"Here's what it changes, my smug friend, safe and secure in your little kitchen. What if the people of Joram become convinced there will be a war? They're going to think twice before keeping the Reformists in.

When it comes to a fight, people feel safer with the 'doxies running things. It's the Orthodox Party that knows how to call a jihad."

"By the Christ, Nabil, break that wind before your eyeb.a.l.l.s explode."

"We'll see. We'll see."

The pair fell into silence as the girl continued to study the marks. Frontwards, backwards, one at a time, the words made no sense without the key. Man-writing had far too many letters in it. A thought teased at her frustration. What if the booklet wasn't in man-writing at all? What if it was in Imahnti?

"Jihad," spat Onan. "Don't the 'doxies just love that ancient curse?"

"They do that."

"I cannot imagine the people going for it again. That last holy war of the 'doxies was one h.e.l.l of a b.l.o.o.d.y mess. Don't you remember? Every family had out the black weeds."

"Of course."

"Many others do as well, my friend. The 'doxies are finished. Consider it written."

"Consider it written," scoffed Nabil. "Read to me from your fortune-telling book, fuzzywriggle."

"Nabil, I saw the horror of the Jihad on the screens. My father was in the war and he told me of things much worse than those that made it into the news. The ''doxies had their d.a.m.ned Mujtahidun performing atrocity after atrocity until the army itself rebelled, attacked the fanatics, and put an end to the fighting.

Duman Amin was there. He can tell you. Ask Jamil. He was Duman's sergeant."

"Many don't remember the war, Onan. That's all I'm saying. A whole new generation has grown."

"What about history, Nabil? What about memory?"

"History is dead to those who haven't lived it, and in politics an accurate memory is not a tool of profit.

Instead, it is a tool of convenience, opportunity, and blackmail. A lot of people don't remember and a lot of people won't remember. They are the ones who put this smell into the wind. They are the ones who will put Tahir Ranon in power one of these days."

"Nabil, you worry more than an old woman on workhouse rations."

"What about that dribble-nosed young priest who was at the pulpit last Adonai?"

"What about him?"

Nabil laughed. "Skipping services again? You be careful that they don't have you in front of a priest's court one of these days."

"The priests are too busy b.u.g.g.e.ring each other and stealing from the poor to worry about me. What did the priest do?"

"He as much as told Duman Amin and the members of every other old family in the temple that the Reformists are dragging the world down to Magda's fire in h.e.l.l-"

"That's a Reformist temple! He had no right to say such a thing." There was genuine shock in Onan's voice. "Why would even a fanatic take such a risk? And before that congregation? In that temple, of all places?"

"As I said, my friend, there is something 'doxy in the wind."

"Bah! Nabil, you ought to grow hair and sausages, become a fuzzywriggle, and augur up the futureyourself with a little blue book."

In the dark behind the ranges, Silent Her frowned at Onan's comment about a little blue book as she removed a loose stone from the wall and placed the tiny booklet into the opening. Before she replaced the rock, she looked at the book's blue cover and thought. Females were not allowed to own property, and the Imahnti must have known about the law. Why had the fuzzywriggle given her the book? And how could one "augur up the future" with such a book? And if she could, what kind of future would she try to bring into being?

She quietly replaced the stone. The questions were pointless without the key to the words in the book.

She peeked from between the ranges. Onan was slouching in his chair, his arms folded, his legs outstretched and crossed at the ankles, his chin resting upon his chest. He lifted his head and said to Nabil, "If what's in the wind is what you think it is, my friend, we'd better pray to Alilah that Joram and Bahai have both outgrown the ''doxies."

"You say to pray?"

"Pray like you have no paddle, and paddle like there is no G.o.d."

The girl faded into the shadows and slipped into the corridor. Jamil was on duty, and this time the sergeant was catching a quick nap in the guard room. She crept past the guard room, opened the door, and made her way to her brother's room of toys. She had made up her mind to tell Rahman about the book.

Perhaps he would teach her how to read it.

When she arrived Rahman was sitting on the floor playing with a model sailing ship. After noticing her the boy frowned and returned his attention to the model.

"You shouldn't be here, girl. I'll get in more trouble."

Something cold touched her heart. She signed, "What is wrong?"

"Jamil talked to my father."

She smiled. "Did you tell your great lie? Did you tell him that Jamil-"

"No." Rahman's face was very red. "Jamil told my father about the lie and about my threat. My father was very angry with me." Tears of shame were hot in his eyes. "He beat me, and it was all your fault!"

Her eyes narrowed as she signed, "I didn't make you tell lies against Jamil."

The boy pushed his model aside, got to his feet, and slapped the girl's face. "That's for you, Silent Her!"

She stood there, stunned, as her world shrank to the limits of the female wing. She d.a.m.ned the tears on her cheeks as she signed, "You are nothing, Rahman. You are just like them all. Nothing."

He lifted his hand to slap her again, but she pushed his chest with her hands, knocking him backwards over his model ship. He struggled halfway to his feet and she leaped on him, knocking him flat on the floor, crushing his model. She wrestled with him until she straddled his chest and was holding down his arms by his wrists.

"I'll kill you, girl! I swear I'll kill you for this!"

From beneath her veil Silent Her looked down at her brother's bright red face. His face was directly beneath hers, and there was nothing but empty s.p.a.ce between her lips and Rahman's eyes. She gathered the spittle in her mouth, opened her lips, and let it fall on his face. As her brother screamed his anger, she swallowed as much air as she could hold and burped the most filthy word she had ever heard. "Toilet!"