A Door Into Ocean (10 page)
Authors: Joan Slonczewski
Rilwen's empty eyes did not even acknowledge Lystra's presence. She was emaciated, and with arms so thin they seemed translucent she lifted a basket of redleaf to the counter, redleaf herbs she must have searched for days to pluck and gather. From her fingers fell four polished stones from the trader's bin. They clicked on the counter and shined, bright and malevolent as the bulbs of a shockwraith.
Kyril did not look back to Lystra, although creases multiplied in his jaw. Without a word he accepted the exchange. Rilwen took the stones and turned away. Her shrunken toes scraped softly until she reached the doorway.
Rilwen!
The cry from her mind seemed to echo throughout the store. In fact, not a sound had escaped her throat. The time for that, Lystra knew, was long past. She had tried, everyone had tried, to help cure Rilwen's growing obsession with those inconceivable, unnamable objects from the Stone Moon. At last there was nothing left but to leave her Unspoken, like a psychotic, alone on an offshoot raftling until she came to terms with herself. Unspeaking was not a sure cure for stonesicknessâLystra knew that, but neither lifeshapers nor word-weavers had yet found a better way for those afflicted by this illness unheard of before Valans came.
The cry from her mind seemed to echo throughout the store. In fact, not a sound had escaped her throat. The time for that, Lystra knew, was long past. She had tried, everyone had tried, to help cure Rilwen's growing obsession with those inconceivable, unnamable objects from the Stone Moon. At last there was nothing left but to leave her Unspoken, like a psychotic, alone on an offshoot raftling until she came to terms with herself. Unspeaking was not a sure cure for stonesicknessâLystra knew that, but neither lifeshapers nor word-weavers had yet found a better way for those afflicted by this illness unheard of before Valans came.
Gradually Lystra's breath returned. “You promised,” she whispered, still staring at the doorway.
“Free sharing,” Kyril muttered. “Share and share alike. New policy.”
“You promised,” she repeated. “Rilwen is ill.”
Kyril cleared his throat. “The new rule is,” he said louder, “that we share with whom we please. Lookâ” He stretched an arm toward
Spinel. “Look, son, I ask you: What's a fellow to do? I'm here to keep my kids clothed and fed. Is a liquor dealer to blame for the drunks that wander in?” But Spinel only blinked at him confusedly.
Spinel. “Look, son, I ask you: What's a fellow to do? I'm here to keep my kids clothed and fed. Is a liquor dealer to blame for the drunks that wander in?” But Spinel only blinked at him confusedly.
“Do you now share with all our Unspoken?” Lystra asked. “Then all traders must go Unspoken.” She heaved the cables forward; Kyril jumped as the coiled steel thudded behind the counter. “And we will hunt shockwraith once more.”
Kyril shrugged and looked down at his hands. “What can I tell you? Share the day, Lystra,” he called as she stormed out. Just to shame him, she dumped her whole boatload of seasilk on the dock to pay for Spinel's bit of bread.
WHILE LYSTRA WAS at the trading post, all the selfnamers of Raia-el were assembling upraft for a Gathering, the first Gathering of the raft since Merwen's return. Merwen came with Usha and Nisi, who supported Ama between them.
Ama spoke, in her small dry voice. “Was it wise, Merwen, to leave the young Valan with Lystra so soon?”
Merwen winced, reminded of certain things about Lystra that gave her pain. “They have to share the same silkhouse. If Lystra wishes to share harm, let her share his safekeeping instead. That is the quickest way.”
Usha looked sideways. “Our daughter shares your stubbornness, dear one. And you know which name she'll take when the time comes.”
“Let her choose her own name,” said Ama, “as Nisi will today.”
Nisi shook like a school of startled minnows. “A selfnamer takes a name that fits ⦠and spends the rest of her life disowning it.” Nisi's drawn face sought approval; she must dread the storm she faced. Merwen squeezed her hand encouragingly, and Ama smiled. Of all the selfnamers of Raia-el, only Ama was so old and revered that the Gathering
had formally forgotten her selfname. Merwen herself had a long way to go.
had formally forgotten her selfname. Merwen herself had a long way to go.
Up the raft, beyond the silkhouse, grew rows of buoyant airblossoms, kept aloft by reservoirs of secreted hydrogen gas. Beyond the airblossoms, the raft sloped upward gently, until it dipped to a hollow at the center. Selfnamers were converging here, over a hundred so far. Shaalrim the Lazy and Lalor the Absentminded were back, too, from Valedon. They both flashed dimpled smiles.
Across the group, Yinevra was talking with others, some of whom Merwen recognized from other rafts of Per-elion, and a couple from a cluster many hundred raft-lengths away. That was typical, for selfnamers traveled often to share other Gatherings, to strengthen the bonds of Shora's web.
And yet, ordinary as this Gathering appeared, its message would be awaited by Gatherings across the globe, all eager to share Merwen's judgment from Valedon. Anger with Valans was at a crest, higher even than that time six years ago when lifeshapers of the Seventh Galactic had shaped a drug-resistant breathmicrobe to scare Valans off this planet. As she watched those with Yinevra, Merwen wondered how many already were committed Doorclosers. She herself they called “Skycrosser,” and she wondered ruefully if the Gathering had become a line with two sides instead of a circle.
From the center, Trurl Slowthinker snapped her fingerwebs to draw attention. Trurl looked down her long nose with the ambivalent dignity of a seahorse. She tended to keep her eyes half closed, as if full sight of the world's absurdity might be too much to bear. She sat down, crossed her legs, and waited until everyone hushed and sat likewise, with just their fingertips waving slightly above their knees. For a few minutes the Gathering lay still, still as a bed of anemones, still as the clouds stretched above in a herringbone line from one horizon to the otherâstill enough to drink in all the spirit and wisdom of Shora.
In the stillness, Merwen reminded herself that as a wordweaver she had to weave not just her own words but those of all others into a truth that all could share.
“Share the day, sisters.” Trurl spoke. “Let it not be in vain that our nets lie idle.” Trurl stretched a bony forefinger toward Merwen. “Impatient One, your own nets have moldered for months on Raia-el. Was it impatience that brought you back?”
There was murmured approval, and Merwen knew it was bad, worse even than she expected. She rose to her feet and surveyed her sisters, all seated in their tranquil triangular postures. For a moment she actually longed for the careless chatter and clutter around her in the Chrysoport place-of-dry-land. There was no room for carelessness here, only for the most skillful wordweaving she knew. “My sisters, perhaps it was impatience that brought me home, for as far as one swims there is no door more welcome than that of one's own home raft. And yet, several of us Sharers have actually crossed the sky to the Stone Moon this year; and I assure you, it was not for less love of home that Usha and I are the last to return.”
Merwen paused, then went on. “Now that all are home, the Gathering may share the completion of our mission on Valedon. Our mission was to dwell in the Valan world, in order to share a fair judgment of Valan humanness. But before we proceed further, a new sister among us asks to share a selfname.”
A few faces broke into eager smiles. Merwen winced; she knew they were expecting her own daughter Lystra. “She has shared our silkhouse like a daughter, and her seaname is Nisi.”
There were confused looks, and voices rustled like raft blossoms in the wind. Trurl called, “Let Nisi stand, then.”
But Yinevra stood instead. “Let's not be hasty, Impatient One. How can we proceed in this case, without the outcome of your mission?”
The voices dwindled in shocked silence. Trurl said, “It's unheard of to turn deaf ears to the offer of a selfname.”
“A Valan among selfnamers is unheard of.”
Merwen said, “Nisi is a Sharer.”
“She's a Valan, and a trader at that.”
Trurl's eyelids lifted slightly at Nisi. “Nisi has shared our ways for many years. She deserves a hearing, at least.”
Merwen saw, though, how many sided with Yinevra. Even one sister opposed could block Nisi's acceptance, as for any decision of the Gathering. “Nisi will wait, but she must stay at least to share our judgment of her kind.”
Some debate ensued. Shaalrim objected to the term “judgment,” saying that they barely had spent enough time on the Stone Moon for learning, let alone judging. Others were reluctant to proceed in the presence of one who was unnamed.
“Let her stay,” said Yinevra at last. “But don't expect her presence to prejudice our thinking.”
“No more than my own presence,” said Merwen. “In fact, I'll sit down and let others first share their unprejudiced judgment of Valedon.”
Yinevra sat immediately. She must have sensed a loss of face, for Merwen's sense of fairness was respected widely. Merwen sat and hugged Nisi, whose face was a picture of misery despite Usha's soothing words.
Trurl said, “We already know what the others found; only you two remain, Impatient and Inconsiderate. But for your sakes, let the Lazy One speak again.”
With a shrug, Shaalrim the Lazy One stood. “Well, I can't say Valans are not human. They're excitable, and very fearful. Like a newly hatched squidâink first, think next. Perhaps it comes of dwelling on the world's floor, among dead bones. That is why Valans wear rags: to distinguish the living from the dead. Lalor and I left our rags off, one hot day, and the Valans were so scared that they put us all alone in a stone cell.”
“So sad,” muttered Trurl. “And what happened then?”
“We entered whitetrance, what else? Our Valan sisters thought we were dying, and they tried to share food with long tubesâa crude attempt, but touching nonetheless. Then they put us on the moonferry, without even asking
payment.”
“Payment” was the traders' closest equivalent of sharing.
payment.”
“Payment” was the traders' closest equivalent of sharing.
“Remarkable generosity,” said Trurl. “Perhaps Valans are more generous on their home world.”
Usha's brow was furrowing, and Merwen tried to warn her off, but it was no use. “What's all this nonsense, anyway?” Usha said without preamble. “I tell you, Valan genes can mingle with ours. We are one species. So what if some of them have fur and claws? Their mind structure is not just similar; it is ours.”
Yinevra rose immediately. “So is that your fine conclusion, yours and Merwen's? That you could have told us from your microscope, without ever leaving your place of lifeshaping in the tunnels of Raia-el. But there is more to a human than physiology. Your mission was to see if Valans can live as humans, and therefore whether they may die only as humans.”
She looked around her, but no one else seemed eager to take up the theme. “We all know how Valans live on Shora. They share poison: poison for fish and poison for the mind. They share miraculous gifts, for impossible âpayments,' and what becomes of the gift in the end? Those fire-motors, now, on the boatsâI have proof at last that their noise is what drowns out the starworms' songs, which once reached from here to the Eighth Galactic.”
This last was a blow to Merwen. Everyone knew that it was she who, with Nisi's encouragement, had introduced fire-motors to Raia-el.
Triumphantly Yinevra concluded, “Valans don't live as humans; as lesser sharers, they have no place in the balance of life. Even seaswallowers have a place on Shora. But the ocean turned for eons without Valans. So now let's get rid of them.”
Usha said, “Look then to the face of the sea. Valans are your sisters, Unforgiver.”
At that, Yinevra could barely speak with rage. She swallowed stiffly, and her fingertips whitened. “My own daughter is beyond hope; can I forgive that? Where is your daughter today?” She eyed Merwen.
Everyone hushed. Merwen's head swam, but she breathed steadily. It would save nothing to enter whitetrance now.
At such a point, Trurl looked reluctant to push ahead, and her eyes shut altogether. No one spoke until Ama raised her frail voice, forcing it so that as many as possible could hear. “I can't help but notice that nothing said of Valans or traders so far is any worse than what Sharers have been known to say of each other. There was the Great Unspeaking between systems Per-elion and Sril-elion, and for what? All for the right to conceive a few more daughters without burdening the life balance. The fury was enough to feed a pack of fleshborers. Yet I heard no talk, then, of âgetting rid.'”
They remembered. How could anyone forget the Silencings, and the Witnesses, when many boatloads of sisters had come to sit themselves on Raia-el in silent protest. The torn strands of sharing had taken years to weave back. But at last they did weave back together. True Sharers always did.
At last, Shaalrim rose again. “I think the Valan traders have learned to share, in some respects. They agreed to stop sharing stone with Yinevra's daughter and others who are stonesick. And they do restrain their poisons and fishing practices, when Nisi shares words with them.
So let's try harder. We have Merwen the Impatient, the most gifted of wordweavers, who helped heal that Great Unspeaking before she even had a selfname, and whose wisdom has since been sought as far as the Fifth Galactic. Let her and others try as hard as we've tried before.”
So let's try harder. We have Merwen the Impatient, the most gifted of wordweavers, who helped heal that Great Unspeaking before she even had a selfname, and whose wisdom has since been sought as far as the Fifth Galactic. Let her and others try as hard as we've tried before.”
“Try?” Yinevra echoed. “What have we not tried that is human? And recall what is
not
human, how some Valans behave like flesh-borers.”
not
human, how some Valans behave like flesh-borers.”
At that, several sisters turned rigid with shock, and others turned their backs.
“Don't look so scandalized,” Yinevra went on. “Why are we here, if not to talk of
that?”
that?”
Merwen closed her eyes. There had been incidents, especially in recent years, when Valans had deliberately shared physical injury among themselves or with Sharers, even to the point of death. And on Valedon, there were those who openly proclaimed that
death pays a wage.
Yet Valans never shared Unspeaking, or showed evidence of any sort of treatment for these obvious mental defects. The possibility of widespread psychosis was unimaginable, but it would have to be facedâif Valans were human.
death pays a wage.
Yet Valans never shared Unspeaking, or showed evidence of any sort of treatment for these obvious mental defects. The possibility of widespread psychosis was unimaginable, but it would have to be facedâif Valans were human.
“Wake up there, Impatient One.” Trurl's call gave her a start. “If you insist on turning your name inside-out, we'll be here all day! Share what you found on Valedon.”
So Merwen rose again. “Many Valans shared learning with us. Valans are quick to anger, and quick to forgive. Although incapable of whitetrance, they seemed to respect it in us, in their own world, as they do here.”
“Not anymore,” said Trurl. “While you were away, eight sisters of Lira-el climbed aboard a trawler to witness in whitetrance till the fishers stopped sweeping their raft channels. The witnessers were thrown overboard.”
The news touched her first with pain, then with a bleak fatalism. “Nonetheless,” Merwen insisted, “they may be able to
learn
whitetrance, if they overcome their fear.” She wished for the thousandth time that Nisi would try.
learn
whitetrance, if they overcome their fear.” She wished for the thousandth time that Nisi would try.
This idea stirred interest. “Then perhaps they can take selfnames too,” someone suggested, “if their minds work like ours. Did you meet any selfnamers on Valedon?”
Merwen said nothing.
“No whitetrance and no selfnameâit's a miracle they survive at all,” said Trurl. “They must have
something
going for them.”
something
going for them.”
Trurl nodded to a sister across the hollow, who asked, “Could it be that the persistence of malefreaks has kept the Valan race in a primitive state? Only lesser races produce males.”
“Besides Nisi,” Merwen quickly began, hoping to avoid another outburst from Usha, “the one Valan we met who might have taken a selfname happened to be male, an aged male who wore a star caught in stone. He called upon a spirit of life and power very close to the Shora we know, only this other spirit seemed to dwell far away, where few can hear her. That is why, the more important a decision is, for Valans, the fewer of them are allowed to make it.”
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