Six Moon Dance Part 15

"Are there really?" cried Ellin, eyes wide. "Pa.s.s."

Questioner chuckled, a mechanical sound. "My hand to play, I think. Turn up the other hand, please, it gets to be the macarthy. Fah. I hoped it would have the ace.

"To answer your question, yes. A century or so ago we encountered the Borash, no two of whom agree on anything, but who tell us it is their destiny to rule all other races. Luckily, they lack either the weapons or the will to enforce their doctrine. Before that it was the Korm, a hive race of absolutely uniform opinion. Only their worker cla.s.s 'think,' and they can only think one thing at a time. The Korm believe they have been created to travel to another galaxy with a great message. They devote all their resources toward that eventuality, and they don't even talk to us unless we have something their engineers say they need for the ships they have been building for the last four millennia. The ships have yet to be tested, and the great message, so I understand, is still to be determined by the committee that has been working on it for several thousand years."

She paused for a moment, scanning their play thus far. "... three, four, and five are mine. Now I will regret that ace!" She smiled. "Then, of course, there are the Quaggi."

Bao frowned in concentration. "May I be asking what is Quaggi?"

"The Quaggi are an interstellar race of beings who, I infer, need the radiation in the vicinity of a star in order to reproduce. As a matter of fact, we may get to see the remains of one on this trip."

"Remains?" faltered Ellin.

"Of a Quaggida, or Quaggima. I think this one was killed during mating. Or perhaps only injured so badly that she died. Whichever, she should be lying on a moonlet of the outmost planet of the system we're about to visit. There's no atmosphere, and if it hasn't been blown apart by meteorites, it should still be there."

"I don't think I've even heard of Quaggi," said Ellin.

"I have heard it suggested that the Quaggi, a star-roving race, have succeeded in reinventing Euclidean geometry, and, since they have no actual experience of plane surfaces, consider it an arcane lore fraught with metaphysical significance."

"But," murmured Ellin, "you're not suggesting we should change our ways to emulate any of those races, are you?" She placed her ace of management on the Questioner's CEO, took the trick and led with the queen of labor.

"Clever girl. You had the ace all along. No, we should not emulate other people. We probably couldn't emulate the Korm. Any mankind person worth his salt can simultaneously incubate whole clutches of ideas that are either contradictory or mutually exclusive. For instance, mankind has persuaded itself that its race is perfectible, though it hasn't changed physically, mentally, or psychologically since the Cro-Magnon. Mankind has also persuaded itself that each individual is unique, though each person shares ninety-nine and ninety-nine one hundredths of his DNA and roughly the same percentage of his ideas with thousands or even millions of other persons."

Bao, with a sidelong glance at Ellin, said with an ironic grin, "It is being true that persons want very much to be singular and individual."

Ellen made a face at him. "I have complained about being a clone, that's all." She took the next trick, leading with the jack of labor, a union organizer.

The Questioner nodded ponderously. "Individuality is more imagined than real. Persons are more alike than they care to admit. On Newholme, however, their social structure is based upon the theory that each family line is unique."

"Is that what we'll ask about on Newholme?" asked Ellin. "Individuality?"

The last few cards clicked down, with Ellin the undisputed winner of the hand.

"Among other things." The Questioner rocked slowly in her chair, considering. "Very nicely played, my dear. You deal the next hand."

Bao took a deep breath, shaking his head. "The briefing doc.u.ments are also mentioning an indigenous race. Precolonization reports are saying no indigenes. This is most confusing."

Questioner smiled grimly, with determination. "Confusing, yes. The entire surface of that planet had supposedly been examined up and down and sideways before any settlement was allowed. If there are now indigenes, someone falsified a report, or failed to file one, or the confusion is intentional, designed to mislead me. I always find the truth, however, no matter how many red herrings colonists drag across my path."

She picked up her hand and smiled a tigerish smile. "It is likely there have been grave infractions of the edicts on Newholme. Every few years I do find a planet that must be punished for its infractions, with all its people."

"Would you really punish a whole world?" Bao asked with some trepidation.

"If it were indicated. It is too early to know what is indicated. We are going to Newholme to see what is true and what is false, and in either case, what can be done about it."

"I've read every doc.u.ment, but I don't understand what any of them have to do with us," murmured Ellin as she picked up her own cards. "Why did you ask for dancers?"

The Questioner nodded. "It wouldn't be in the doc.u.ments because it was an informal report, but one of my spies has mentioned that the indigenes are dancers."

Ellin drew in a deep breath. "So?"

The Questioner said sagaciously, "Trust is strengthened by similarity of interest, either apparent or real. If they are dancers, they may talk to other dancers. If they dance for you, you will dance for them...."

Ellin frowned, unconvinced. "If n.o.body knows anything about this indigenous race, how does anyone know that they dance?"

The Questioner shrugged, an unandroidish movement. "How did my spy find out? He probably sat in a tavern, listening to drunken conversation and putting two and two together. Or he bribed someone. Or, he planted a few mobile sensors. I didn't ask how, specifically. I do know he is a reliable source."

They played out the game, which Questioner won, putting her in a good humor, after which Bao and Ellin were shown to their own quarters, where they huddled together in their salon, whispering.

"You were dealing her a very good hand," said Bao.

"I was dealing her from the bottom of the deck," mimicked Ellin, with a smirk. "I learned cheating from one of the actors. What do you think of her or it?"

"She is being obdurate, I think. Very severe. And while you are being so free with the cards, she was winning from me five credits."

"Poor thing. I'll owe it to you." She paused, looking at him thoughtfully. "Gandro Bao, will we we have to do something dreadful? Like recommend the wiping out of all the mankind on the world?" have to do something dreadful? Like recommend the wiping out of all the mankind on the world?"

Gandro Bao shook his head, though he was no less troubled than she. "We are not recommending, Ellin. She is doing that. All we are doing is finding things out."

They stayed together a while longer, taking rea.s.surance from one another's company, before seeking the equal comfort of real beds after shower baths in real water. Though the Questioner needed neither, she made sure that her a.s.sistants were well looked after.

She, in the meantime, had been left to her own devices. She frequently remarked as much to her attendants, intrigued by the phrase, for it was literally true. Her memory, her maintenance machines, her elaborately miniaturized equipment, her IDIOT SAVANT, the syncretic scanner she used in her attempt to find patterns where none were apparent, all were her own devices with whom she was frequently left.

Just now, she needed her maintenance machines. She always put off maintenance until the need for it became what she thought of as painful. Though she was not designed to feel pain, the intense unease occasioned by delay in response, by inability to remember immediately, by mechanical parts that did not function precisely or systems that did not mesh, must, she felt, come close to what mankind meant by pain. It could be avoided by getting maintenance more frequently, and she could never remember between maintenance sessions why she did not do so. Nonetheless, she always put it off, without knowing why.

This time, she took with her into the booth the data cube that the trader had sent. She inserted it into the feed mechanism, and directed that during maintenance it should be entered into permanent memory. Then everything went gray, as it always did during maintenance. Time stopped. All thought stopped as well. Only after her linkages had been disconnected, only after her memory as Questioner was off line, was the cause of her discomfort made manifest. Then, and for a brief time afterward, her mankind brains, those three with which she had been endowed, remembered who they were. Mathilla remembered, and M'Tafa, and Tiu. During that time, the separate ent.i.ty that was the Questioner knew why she judged some societies as she did, and why she felt about them as she did, and how deep her prejudices went, even though they never showed.

When her usual maintenance was complete, after the linkages were reestablished and the memory hooked up with all its shining achievements on display, Questioner did not move, did not utter, did not recollect, for she was still holding fast to Mathilla and M'Tafa and Tiu, unwilling to let them go and they, within her, were holding fast to life once more, unwilling to be gone. Then, usually, the booth door opened automatically, and the stimulant shock was provided, and she wakened, as one wakens terrified from dream, only to feel the terror fade, and shred, and become as gauze, as a thing forgotten, as it always had before.

Not this time. This time she found the memory remained with her, firmly planted inside her files, their names and faces, the stories of their short lives, and how they had died.

Mathilla. M'Tafa. And Tiu.

32.

Ornery Bastable Goes Upriver.

Ornery Bastable arrived in Gilesmarsh when the Way-good Way-good came in to unload a cargo of gold-ash and dried Purse fish. Since it would be some time before the came in to unload a cargo of gold-ash and dried Purse fish. Since it would be some time before the Way-good Way-good had discharged its cargo and been loaded once more, Ornery had a whole tenday to herself. had discharged its cargo and been loaded once more, Ornery had a whole tenday to herself.

She intended to spend part of it in Sendoph, where Pearla had recently achieved statistical normalcy by bearing a living daughter after a run of one stillborn daughter and two sons. First, however, she intended to spend a day or two in the Septopod's Eye in Naibah, seeing what she could find out about the thing she had seen, or almost seen, when she had been marooned in the wild. Though she was not imaginative enough to have frightened herself into a funk over the experience, she had resolved to ask some questions next time she had time in port, and now seemed as good a time as any.

She had just received her pay, and she spent a good bit of it buying drinks for those who had stories to tell. When she had listened for several evenings, she had accounts of the setting of stone pillars and questioning sounds and shadows moving, all of them making a reasonably consistent catalogue. One talkative old type, who had at one time kept the library at the Fortress of Vanished Men, said the records described creatures seen in the wild by the second settlers, quite monstrous things that seemed to have disappeared for no one had seen them for several hundred years.

As for stone pillars, they had been often seen on beaches and plateaus, always in groups of three or more, always in the clear where the shadow pattern could be seen under sun or moon, the nighttime patterns depending upon which moons were where. The pillars sometimes appeared at dawn in places where they had not been at dusk, and therefore were a.s.sumed to have been set up by creatures, people, things, or beings who worked at night and intended to remain unseen. Two informants had used the word "Joggiwagga," and Ornery recognized the word from her infancy.

Joggiwagga, whatever they were, were busier at certain lunar configurations than others, and these were also the times when the loud questioning or challenging sounds were most likely to be heard. Because she was a sailor, Ornery recognized the times as coincident with exceptionally high or low tides. Six sizeable moons, leaving aside the two orbiting rocks, could produce quite a complicated schedule of tides. A two big-moon neap, full or dark, was low, but a three big-moon neap was lower, and an all-moon low sucked the water out of the bays to leave mud flats extending to the horizon. A rare five dark-moon high, on the other hand, would bring water over the piers in Gilesmarsh, high up the levees of Naibah, and send the River Giles over its banks all the way to Sendoph.

Six big-moon highs came about every seven or eight centuries. Though the more extreme lunar configurations were rare, they were the ones during which stones were set.

Once Ornery had satisfied herself that she wasn't crazy, that she could a.s.sume the things or beings or creatures were real, she put her notebook in her pocket, finished her ale, bade her friends and a.s.sociates farewell for the nonce, and went out to confirm arrangements for the trip to Sendoph. There was a steam-powered mail launch headed upstream within the hour, and it was owned by Ornery's brother-in-law. By the gift of a bottle and a little banter with the captain, Ornery had earned an invitation to ride to Sendoph in style. Travel by engine was still rare and might get rarer, considering the firemountain had buried most of the mines and about half the railroad. There was still more reliance on horses than on horsepower, and riding in a launch was, therefore, a treat.

Ornery regarded it as such, sitting at her ease on the rear deck, watching the paddles of the stern wheel fall toward her as the reed bed and marshes and watermills went by. Low in the eastern sky the misty bulk of the scarp seemed to float upon the lower clouds as it blew ominous bars of smoke across the higher ones. Ornery turned her back to it, not wanting to be reminded of the tremors that were coming closer and closer together. People were beginning to get really jumpy about it and would have been more so if they could have seen the damage. Though there had been a good many more disasters like the one that took Ornery's family, all the destruction thusfar was behind and among the Ratbacks, invisible from the cities. Most everyone in the more populated areas believed or wanted to believe that they were not in danger.

Ornery thought everyone was in danger, whether they believed it or not. Anyone could see that the summit was blacker than it had been, meaning either that ashes were falling atop the snows, or the snows had melted, revealing the dark rock below.

"There's been shakings and shiverings for a time now. She's goin' to blow," said the captain, around the splinter of chaff he was chewing. "Been a long while accordin' to the wise folk. I say it doesn't matter how long, it's still alive and it'll blow again." He laughed a phlegmy laugh, hawked and spat over the side. "Warm up all them Haggers in Sendoph, won't it?"

His tone angered Ornery, but she kept a neutral tone as she said, "You're cheerful about it, considering you may be there when it goes."

"If I am, I'll be in company, and if I'm not, I'll rejoice. Whatever the inscrutable Hagions provide."

Ornery made a noncommittal noise. If the scarp decided to blow, it really wouldn't matter what had been said about it either way. Either it would reach all the way to the Giles or it wouldn't. She turned the conversation in another direction, and the hours went by more comfortably until, along about evening, they were in sight of the city, the domes of the Temple district shining in the rose-amber light.

"Where do you tie up?" Ornery wanted to know.

"We'll stop at the post pier to pick up and drop off mail and valuables. Then we'll go on up to the old wharf just the other side of Brewer's Bridge, and we'll tie there for tonight. I've half the forward hold full of stuff for House Genevois, and the other half grain for the brewers. We'll unload in the morning, then go farther upstream to the market district to pick up special orders for Naibah. Will you leave us tonight or tomorrow?"

Ornery thought about it. Her sister lived not far from the Temple district, which was just a few blocks west of the river, but it was late to drop in on her. "I'll help you unload and sleep aboard, if you've no objection, Captain, then I'll go on to my sister's place in the morning."

So it was agreed between them. The boat thrust itself upstream past a tanner's yard and a printing house-both identifiable by the smell-then for a brief stop at the post wharf. Then onward once more, past a lumber yard and a dyers yard and a clutter of old houses, then past a tall wall with two odd little towers at its corners and the remains of a rotted wharf at its center, and finally beneath the high central arch of Brewers Bridge to the pier beyond, where, with much shouting and maneuvering, the captain, Ornery, the deckhand and the stoker brought themselves tight against the timber pier built out from the edge of the stony trough in which the river ran.

It seemed too quiet. Ornery stared all around, finding no reason for the silence, which was soon broken in any case, when people came with carts from House Genevois and from the breweries. They unloaded by torchlight, the carts departed, and the strange silence returned. Later that night, as Ornery spread her blankets on the deck she heard a scurrying, like small animals moving, and she looked up to see a skulk of shadows vanishing along the river path in a lengthy stream, like a migration. It was too dark to see who they were, though Ornery thought them too small for mankind, and they had been in a most dreadful hurry. She resolved to tell someone about it tomorrow, perhaps, if it seemed important.

33.

Marool Mantelby and the Hags.

That same evening, which was a few days after Marool Mantelby returned from her trip into the mountains, Marool made a visit to the Temple of the Hagions, most particularly the office of the High Crones, where she was a.s.sured a polite welcome by virtue of her frequent and generous gifts to the Temple. She met with women who knew her better, perhaps, than she supposed: D'Jevier and Onsofruct Pa.s.senger, who remembered the fourteen-year-old Marool well, though Marool had been too preoccupied at that time to remember anyone.

"Revered Hags," Marool announced as she entered the throne room c.u.m office. "Thank you for seeing me."

D'Jevier and Onsofruct had changed little in the almost twenty years since Marool had come to the Temple to find the Hagion Morrigan. The two Hags had never mentioned that incident to anyone except one another, preferring to forget it as nearly as possible. Over the years, both had cultivated the impersonal manner and voice suitable for use in Temple when emotion was inappropriate, and it was this voice D'Jevier used to greet Marool.

"You are welcome, Marool. Is there something needful?"

Marool shook her head as she took the seat she was offered, then sat there with her lips pursed out in uncharacteristic uncertainty. Her hostesses did not encourage her, but merely waited, as though she could tell them nothing that would surprise them.

"I have been into the hills," said Marool, at last. "I went to look at the place where my parents and sister died."

"Ah," murmured Onsofruct. "You had a natural curiosity."

Marool shook her head with an annoyed expression. "It wasn't that! It's as though something about their deaths has been nagging at me for years. I wanted to see for myself. However ..." She went on to describe her own experience, and that of her driver and Man of Business. "I suppose their bodies are there still," she concluded. "The guard reported what happened to the guard post, but I've heard nothing more about it."

D'Jevier cast a glance at her cousin, which Onsofruct returned, furrowing her brow and clenching her jaw before replying, "We have all heard stories of Wilderneers and monsters. Such are common tellings during the Long Nights."

"You mentioned picking up something, some artifact?" D'Jevier queried.

"I have it here," said Marool, taking a packet from her bag, laying it upon the table and unrolling it. As she did so, a stench spread throughout the room, and both the Hags caught their breaths.

"You smell it?" demanded Marool, looking at their faces.

Both nodded. D'Jevier held her breath and took the article into her hands, keeping a layer of the wrapping between it and her skin.

"It looks more organic than manufactured," said Marool. "Like a giant fingernail. That shape, at any rate, though far too huge. The bottom is ragged, as though it had been ripped away...."

D'Jevier rewrapped the article, obviously troubled. "It's a scale," she said. "From some sort of squamous creature."

"It would have to be enormous!" said Onsofruct, her eyes wide.

D'Jevier grated, "I have no doubt it is. We are only now growing numerous enough that we can explore the wilderness in any systematic way, and as we do so, we hear more frequent tales about things or beings in the badlands. Did you see any kind of trail while you were there? As though something very large had been dragged along, pushing up the dirt at the sides?"

Marool nodded, though unwillingly, for she had thought to do all the enlightening herself. "I did, yes. Both an old trail and a newer one. So new that nothing was growing on it."

D'Jevier went on, "We have had reports of such in the hills to the west. As though a very large serpent had crawled there, though the paths are straight or angular, not sinous. The witnesses are sober persons whose word I am inclined to accept, and there have been too many disappearances of livestock for peace of mind."

"Then you have already planned a course of action," said Marool.

The thin woman shook her head, her lips twisted into an unpleasant knot, as though she tasted something foul that she could not spit out. "Yes, and no. Reason would dictate that we enquire among the Timmys, who presumably once occupied that wilderness, whose relatives may do so still, and would therefore know what creatures are there. At this juncture, however, we cannot do so."

Marool felt a strange frisson at this mention of the invisible people, a surprise reaction, though she knew that no subject was forbidden to the Hags when in Temple, albeit only there.

Onsofruct murmured, "We have been advised the Questioner is on her way. This is not a time we would have picked for the Council's Hound to come sniffing among us, but the Hound does not sniff at our convenience."

Marool furrowed her forehead, trying to remember what she had learned about the Questioner. "The visit constrains us?"

Onsofruct snorted, "Rather more than merely constrains."

"What more?"

D'Jevier's lips curved into a wry smile. "There were no Timmys here when we came, Marool. We forget this from time to time, but it is true. There were not on the surface of this planet any race of intelligent beings nor was there any mention of such in the records of the first settlement. The planetary a.s.sessment was rigorous before we came, searching for those monsters reputed to have wiped out the first colony. If Timmys had been here, the a.s.sessment would have picked them up, anywhere upon the surface of this planet.

"They weren't here. Had they been here, we would not have been allowed to settle. Some years later, suddenly here they were. By that time, we had so much invested in this world that we chose to pretend we hadn't seen them, difficult as that was, for the creatures were pertinacious. Though it may have been a stupid decision-indeed, in hindsight, was a stupid decision-we, the Hags, decided not to report their existence to the Council of Worlds, as that would have led to our immediate evacuation from Newholme."

Marool frowned at the implications of this. Had she known about this matter? Had she ever considered this?

D'Jevier went on: "Years went by, and we still didn't report it. The Timmys grew more numerous. At the same time, because of the ... ah ... unexpected s.e.xual imbalance on this world, our population was growing far too slowly to do all the things our settlement plans had set forth. Suddenly, there were the Timmys, doing this little job and that little job, almost as though they had read our minds. One had only to utter and the task was done. Before we quite knew how it happened, the Timmys had become the better part of our workforce."