Authors: Joan Slonczewski

A Door Into Ocean (36 page)

BOOK: A Door Into Ocean

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USHA LABORED WITHOUT stopping in her resurrected lifeshaping place, whose walls still smelled of freshly dug raftwood and coral. In the daytime, Flossa and Mirri and a dozen others helped her, preparing substances to retard growth of raft seedlings, parasites to curb the rise of mudworms, nutrient supplements to help fanwings grow back strong. Clickflies hovered constantly, chattering from distant lifeshapers, since all their efforts to heal the sea must mesh as intricately as woven seasilk. With luck, the web would hold.

But Usha kept on not only through the day but all night long as well. Merwen found her alone there, one morning before sunrise, standing and staring into her tangle of vines. Merwen sighed and leaned into Usha's back, curving an arm about her waist. “You never sleep anymore. You don't even swim in the sea. Come out with me, for just a while.”

Usha's fingers lifted, then fell again. Merwen pressed her a little tighter. Merwen knew what Usha was going through; it was worse than ever, because the Gathering had closed without action and would have to meet again. Every day without Wellen and Weia was another inch of death. Yet one had to cling to life; there was Flossa to think of, after all.

“Do you know why I don't swim anymore?” Usha's voice was parched. “I dream that one time I will simply turn downward and swim forever to the floor.”

Merwen's voice hardened. “Then you're coming away, right now. You must come, Usha.”

Usha turned reluctantly. She must have known she would get nothing else done, if she tried to ignore her lovesharer.

Out on the raft branches, thousands of green stalks extended buds from whose tips peeked spots of orange. The cycle of seasons was only too willing to try again. Merwen dipped under, keeping Usha beside her, enjoying the cool shadows among bows of coral, though she still kept an eye out for fleshborers. So far the only fish that streaked past were harmless, brilliantly colored and spotted, their only thought to evade the clutch of a bloated red squid.

Usha looked so beautiful with her pearled inner eyelids, and her swimming was grace itself. Merwen could have watched her for hours on end. Yet even a Sharer has to come up for breath some time, and when Merwen did so, her lids retracted just for a moment to scan the sky.

There were three helicopters, bearing down toward the raft core.

Usha surfaced and gasped. “It's Flossaâthey're coming for Flossa now.” She plunged and sped back toward the silkhouse. Merwen followed, and by the time they had pulled themselves out of the water, Flossa was outside the door seated in whitetrance, as she had learn-shared, while soldiers were pouring out of their monster machines. But others were coming out too: Sharers, little onesâ

With a scream Usha ran to gather her two girls. They were emaciated and very quiet, and Weia showed little recognition. Merwen huddled with them, and Flossa kept whispering anxiously, “It's all right now; don't you remember me?”

A hand fell on Merwen's shoulder. “Merwen,” said Lalor, “there are others â¦ .”

Around her, neighbors were gathering quickly for this long-awaited
return of their children. And adults had returned, too, in far worse shape than the children. They were deformed almost beyond recognition. One of them could not have been Lystra. But she was.

The most ravaged ones were hastened to the lifeshaping place, where Mirri and Flossa fitted them with vines of healing substances and immersed them in water-wombs. Lystra rocked slowly within her transparent shell, where she might have to stay for days, perhaps longer. Sharers crowded everywhere, helping the lifeshapers and exclaiming about their loved ones who were home at last. All the while Merwen watched Lystra, barely believing Lystra was here now, and still not quite able to believe her condition. The hands fixed her gaze, Lystra's fingers with the webbing so badly ripped between each that Lystra would not swim for a long time. For a while, nothing else existed for Merwen, as all the sorrow and anger she had shared for Valans was overwhelmed by one question: What sort of mind was it that could willfully share what had happened to Lystra's hands?

An age seemed to pass before Merwen remembered something, and she tore herself away. Outside the silkhouse the sun was setting, and liquid red dribbled down the waves. Merwen went straight to the tent where Siderite had stayed Unspoken for three weeks.

Merwen paused at the folds of the entrance. Inside, Siderite was sitting with his legs crossed and staring at a box full of jumping lightshapes. He blinked to see Merwen, and the box turned black.

Her tongue pressed back in her throat, but she made herself speak. “Come. You must share this.”

Siderite clumsily picked himself up, and the loose folds of his trousers wrinkled like Lystra's skin against her bones. Merwen led him down to the chamber where Lystra and the others were healing.

When the Valan entered, footsteps and chattering ceased. Mirri paused with instruments in hand, her face puckered in a questioning frown. Others stared, and only Usha seemed too busy to notice.

“Our sisters are home at last,” Merwen told him.

A smile glowed on his face. “I share your joy,” Siderite said.

“Then share this also.” Merwen took him by the hand and led him across the chamber, passing the prone figures of weakened children wrapped in blankets. She nodded at the water-womb which enclosed her daughter. “Lystra. You remember Lystra?”

Expressions flitted across his cheeks and lips as if several people struggled inside. Then he wiped his hands back over his head, through the hair that surrounded a bald patch. “I'm sorry,” he said, averting his eyes.

“Why?” Merwen asked. “Why is this?”

All around, Sharers watched, fierce enough to pounce on the answer. Siderite reached out to touch Lystra's shell, and hairs lifted on the back of his hand. His lips worked unsteadily. “Fear. They share fear of you, that is all.”

Soldiers feared Sharers, as Sharers feared them. Yet the sickness of the soldiers must magnify their fear and twist it into something beyond imagining. Only this pattern could begin to account for what Merwen saw.

Usha came forward and eyed Siderite critically. “What's all this standing about when there's work to be shared? Hurry up and draw out those enzymes with Mirri.” Usha was brisk and competent once more, as though this were just another load of refugees from the seaswallowers.

ON LENI-EL RAFT, Spinel was overjoyed to see the children back. They were amazed and even frightened to see him after they had heard he was dead. “No, I escaped,” he boasted. “I swam under all the way to Sayra-el,” which was only a slight exaggeration. “How did you get out?” he asked Mirri's daughter.

“We stopped eating.” The girl's voice was small, and her eyes huge and staring. She lay thin and listless in Mirri's arms. Spinel's excitement receded then. Still, he told himself, if only there were a few kids as brave as that back home, Chrysoport would. be a different town, probably a free one.

To Nisi he said, “See, we're winning. What kind of general is he, to let a bunch of kids get the better of him?”

Nisi stood at the water's edge, as she often did, pensively watching the horizon, her mouth a dry chiseled slit. For some reason the return of the children alarmed her more than anything. “I can't believe it's the end, for Ral. What his next move is, I can't say, but it will come.”

Chilled, Spinel went away in a thoughtful mood. Then everything was forgotten when two clickflies alit on his arm: “
Lystra is home
â¦ .”

He jumped and would have dashed off right away to Raia-el. But Lystra was injured, the clickflies said, too badly injured to see anyone. And besides, Merwen's stonesick guests would only bar the door to him again. And Lystra would agree with them.

Spinel flicked the dark stone on his chest, and its sparkle pierced his eye. How easily he could swing it over his neck and toss it to the waves. It meant nothing practical now; he would never need a stonesign again. Yet for just that reason he clung to it, to the one last trace of his Valan self. He could not throw it away without throwing himself after.

Lystra could not have loved him without knowing what he was, a shaper of stone. Or could she have? Was that why she had rejected him, once she saw what he was?

He tried to teach a clickfly to send a love greeting, but it sounded awful no matter how he put it, and besides clickflies were too prolific to trust with something private. So every day he waited with his heart pounding to hear how Lystra was progressing, and whether she was out of her water-womb.

As soon as word came that Lystra was out, Spinel set out for Raia-el. He let the glider squid race ahead at reckless speed, but when he reached the outer branches he released the squid and paddled in slowly, and slower yet when Merwen's silkhouse appeared, its deep blue concave surfaces cupping the sky like webbed fingers. He pulled in the oars for a moment, and he touched the shallow scar on his ankle, reassuring himself that it was still there, that Lystra really had pulled him from the shockwraith once. Suddenly he needed Lystra so badly that it filled his skull and threatened to explode. Again his fingers strayed to the stone on his chest; but he clenched his fist around it until it dug into his palm. Spinel thought, I'll only hate myself, and her too, if I give this up. I'm a Spirit Caller, and a stonecutter's son. I will not deny my fathers.

He tied the boat to a branch, then walked up quickly, lightheaded, nearly stepping on the flat things sunning themselves before they slithered down the sides. Ahead, the silkhouse looked about the same as the last time, with the greener sections behind, above the reconstructed lifeshaping tunnels.

Someone was sitting on a low stool beside the doorhole, pulling seasilk between pronged cards and packing the fibers into bundles to be spun. Was she one of the stonesick ones? Spinel stopped. She held her head the way Lystra had, and her elbows swung and her chin nodded to her work, just as he remembered. But this could not be the Lystra he had known.

His mind flashed to the last hour they had shared alone, when he had asked something that she would not give. At that time, she had exuded physical strength, her shoulders and legs shaped by long swimming and wrestling with starworms. Now her limbs had wasted away by half; but the strength was still there, transmuted into something else, a presence that he feared to touch.

“Lystra?” His voice cracked. He glimpsed the scars all over her, even on her breasts. His anger flared, and he wished a soldier had been there so that he could have beaten him to a pulp. But the thought was gone, as soon as a spark on the sea. Lystra was here, now, alive. There was only that huge invisible wall that rose between them.

Spinel sat in front of her and tried to catch her look, as the cards grated past each other. In his ears his pulse drummed, louder than the waves at the water's edge behind. “Lystra. I came back for you. I need you more than anything, and if you won't listen, I won't speak anymore, or eat anymore, or
anything
. Do you understand?”

The cards slowed and she laid them down. Lystra's eyes lifted then, thrilling him with a touch of flame. Her gaze swept down his chest. Then she took up the cards and tossed them on top of the mounded seasilk, picked up the basket, and turned to the doorhole.

Spinel scrambled to his feet. “Lystra, you've got to share this. I gave up everything I could to come back here, but I can't give up my starstone. It's part of
me
â¦ .” Despairing, he called after her, “You said you loved me, didn't you? Can't you love
all
of what I am?”

The basket thudded, and fibers were strewn out. Lystra wheeled to face him, her eyes wide and dark. “And you? Could you ever love me, as I
am
?”

His tongue stuck; there was nothing that could begin to say what he
felt. His arms went around her, and she held him as hard as ever. The rush of warmth was almost too much to bear, and Spinel thought he would faint from her nearness. He was sure now that Lystra was meant for him, no matter how “different” she was.

Yet now he was frightened, and he found himself shaking with hot tears that fell and rolled down Lystra's back. Gently she cupped his forehead in her hand to look at him. Spinel said, “IâI don't know what will happen to us. I don't know if I can do what I have to, ifâ” He stopped and swallowed. “Nisi says the soldiers will come back.”

Lystra spoke in a voice he had never heard from her. “I learned two things, when I was held in stone. One is that all the stone of Valedon can't touch the will of Shora. The other is that it would be far better for us all to pass Death's threshold in a day than to share the death-hasteners' sickness.” She paused. “But it will not happen. Because you are a Valan, and yet a Sharer with us. We will share healing, Spinel.”

FOR THE FIRST time in weeks, the general heard from Siderite. The scientist appeared on the viewing stage with the roof of his tent slanting behind him. His violet features were full of excitement. “General, I'm back to work again, full steam ahead! And what's more, I've got the cure for the Purple Plague!”

“
What?
” Realgar started from his chair. “Get back here with it, immediately.”

“Oh, no, sir. I can't leave now; I'd lose my credibility. Even talking with youâ” Siderite leaned off to the side as if looking for eavesdroppers. “You're still âUnspoken,' you know. But I'll leave samples in the pack for the helicopter to pick up.”

“Hold on, there. Where did you get this âcure,' and how do you know it's not some trick? You haven't âcured' yourself, I see.”

“I don't intend to. I want to stay as native as I can, while I'm here. I worked out the cure with Usha, and we know it works becauseâwell, breathmicrobe biochemistry is well studied, to keep natural mutations in hand, and to maximize oxygen efficiencyâ”

“All right, send it back.” Realgar allowed himself a smile. “If it works, I'll recommend a medal for you.”

Siderite said, “There's something else you could do for me that would immensely aid my work in the long run.”

“Yes?” Realgar keyed his monitor for a memorandum.

“Pull all your troops out, now. Just let my work go on.”

Stung though he was, Realgar thought carefully before replying. “Siderite, how long will they help you, once my troops are gone?”

“As long as I'm here. I'm an apprentice lifeshaper, remember? In fact, as soon as that damned helicopter stops buzzing around, they'll let me share a selfname with the Gathering.”

“I'm not so sure that's a good idea.” A “selfname” was what Berenice had taken, before she went off the deep end and caused that dreadful scene with Talion.

Siderite sat up straight. “General, I am a loyal subject of the Patriarch and of Valedon. I have an exemplary record at the Palace, if I may say so. In any event, with or without soldiers on my back, you have no choice but to trust my work.”

That was true. Still, Siderite had his weaknesses: Usha, for instance; he had grown quite partial to her. Yes, Siderite could still be controlled. “Pull out, you say That's easier said than done.”

“Is it?” Siderite was relaxed again. “You're in command. Why can't you just declare you've won and go home?”

Realgar laughed shortly and felt better than he had in weeks. “Stick to science, Siderite, and get that plague cure over here.” He signed off, then alerted Nathan that the cure was on its way. Good news at last, he thought, with immense relief.

The whole picture was changed now. And the more he thought it over, the more sense he saw in Siderite's suggestion. Of course the Guard would not pull out completely; a token force would remain, with all the satellites, to keep an eye on things. With the plague cured by the natives themselves, Realgar could say in effect that the natives had capitulated. As for lunar developers and their native problems, that was none of his concern. In the end Talion would decide, and
while Talion liked to keep the support of the great Houses, he detested costly inconclusive campaigns.

Realgar told Jade what was on his mind. To his surprise, Jade was quick to agree. “I'm all for it, sir. I said from the first we didn't belong in this cursed swamp.” But her gaze was absent, and Realgar knew what she was thinking. The natives would remain, especially Protector Merwen, unyielding, unscathed, uncracked.

“Jade, what else could we do here?”

“Look at it this way. Would you war with cockroaches according to the Law? No, you'd hire an exterminator. Catfish aren't human; they're vermin, and that's how to treat them, if only the High Protector gets up his nerve.”

“And if Malachite so orders.” Malachite wanted something else, and there had to be a way to get it, to break the Sharer will. Realgar would never find it now.

Jade shrugged. “A few loose ends, before we go. Remember that Valan-killing virus I heard about? Well, they canned it, not because the children went home, but because clickflies swarmed from all over to oppose it. Shocked as schoolmarms, they sounded. If it was just a ruse, somebody sure took it seriously.”

“A charade, that's all.” Realgar wished he felt as sure as he sounded.

“This other item from the clickflies looks more promising. There's a possible Valan traitor living among the catfish.”

“A Valan traitor?”

“Could explain a lot, couldn't it? No wonder they know how to make so much trouble.”

“You mean Siderite?”

“No, sir. A nominal Sharer who has lived here for some time. Her name I translate, appropriately enough, as âNisi the Traitor.'”

BOOK: A Door Into Ocean

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