Forty Thousand in Gehenna (48 page)

A fisher came into the pattern, bringing more stones; so others came, bringing more and more.
Growing things
, one patterned. A woman added a Nesting-stone. Ariels invaded the structures, clambered over them, poked their heads into crevices between stones, put out their tongues to test the air and the madness of these folk.

McGee lost track of the signs; some she did not know. She tried to stop some, but now there were more and more; and Weirds watching on the side. It was out of control, going off in directions she had never planned. “Stop!” she yelled at them, but they went on building the starman theme, wider and wider.

She sat down, shaking her head, losing sight of the patterns, of what they did. She wiped her face, hugged herself, and just sat there, more scared than she had been in the war.

She looked up in a sudden silence and saw Elai there, in a place the crowd had made—Elai, arriving like an apparition, her person still in disarray, Din and his smallish caliban trailing in her wake.

“MaGee,” Elai said; it was a whipcrack of a voice, thin as it was. There was rage.

“MaGee’s crazy,” McGee said. She stood up. “Don’t the Weirds have the right to say anything they like?”

“You want them to take us down, MaGee, like they took Jin?”

Scar hissed and turned his head, one plate-sized eye turned toward Elai. That was all. Then he wandered off, avoiding the pattern, while humans scrambled from his path.

He went to the river. McGee saw him going in, turned to watch Elai’s face, but Elai gave no sign of grief, nothing.

“You’re a fool,” Elai said in a weak voice, and started back again.

Paeia was in her way, astride her big brown, with armed Second Tower riders at her side.

Elai stopped, facing that. Everything stopped for a moment, every movement. Then Elai walked around to the side. They exacted that of her, but they stood still and let her do it.

They stood there surveying the pattern. They stood there for a long time, and eventually the crowd found reasons to be elsewhere, one by one.

McGee went when those nearest her went, limping and feeling the wind cold on her sweat-drenched clothes.

A lance brushed her when she passed Paeia on her way back. She looked up, at Paeia’s grim, weathered face, at eyes dark and cold as river stones.

“Fool,” Paeia said.

“That’s two that have told me,” McGee said, and backed off from the speartip and walked away, expecting it in her back. But they let her pass.

Message: Base Director to E. McGee

Repeat: Urgent you report: we have Bureau representatives incoming. They’re bringing Unionside observers. There will be data essential to your work…

Notes, coded journal Dr. E. McGee

Elai’s no worse. No better. Paeia hasn’t come through the door. I did one thing, at least, with my meddling—They’re waiting. They’re just waiting to know what the calibans are going to do now that I’ve done what I did.

I didn’t think it through. I tried to tell the calibans they couldn’t lose Elai, that was all, tried explaining she could make the Base itself rational-tried to explain starmen. Tried to tell them about their world and what they were missing, and O dear God, I did something no one’s ever done: I went and did a human pattern in terms they could read. I tried to say there was good in starmen, that there’s life outside—and they took it away from me, the Cloudsiders, they started telling it their way, their own legends—they were talking about
themselves
.

No one’s moving. The calibans have gone off—most of them. Elai’s eating again, at least I got her to take a little soup this morning; that was a triumph. Dain helped. Everyone’s going about quiet, really quiet.

And across the river there’s building going on, within sight of the towers. The calibans are in debate. I think they must be. Patterns rise and fall incomplete. There’s no reason in it that makes sense yet. They reform the old pattern and then tear it up again in new elaborations, and they do things I don’t make sense of.

Paeia’s been forestalled. This is no time to upset the calibans.

Message: station to Base

AS Wyvern
inbound from Cyteen. Visitors aboard.

Cloudside

There was restlessness that night. McGee heard it starting in the depths, vague echoes of movements, stirrings and slitherings down below, and she shivered, lying on her bed, on the earthen ledge in her own quarters, wrapped in her rough blankets.

It grew. Her heart began beating in a panic like night fears, and she scrambled up, threw on her clothes without seeking any light: she went blind as she had learned to do, running up the spiral turns of the hall—So others came, men and women running either way, some down toward the exit from the tower, some few up, as she ran, up toward the hall where they kept firelight these last nights, since it had become Elai’s refuge.

Elai was there, awake. Dain was; and young Din; and Maeri, and others, pale and distressed faces. They brought no weapons; their calibans had deserted them, save for Din’s.

The access gave up a flood of ariels, like a plague of vermin scrabbling across the floor, like the first feeling outward of some vast beast; in that flood a few grays hove up through the access pit, up the ramp, casting their heads about, putting out their tongues.

What came then was huge, was bigger than Scar had been, a caliban that, up on his legs, was halfway to the ceiling—No one’s, that brown. The riders gave back from it, even Dain; McGee stood sweating, out of its convenient path, lacking the courage to fling herself for a mouthful in its direct route to Elai.

Elai sat still, image-like in her wooden chair. Her hands were in her lap. It put out a tongue, leaned forward, leaned, put out a foot and made that a step and a second pace, that closed the distance. The tongue investigated, barely touched Elai’s robes; and other calibans were coming, invading all the halls, a noisy scrabbling flood below.

We’ll fall
, McGee thought, imagined First Tower in collapse, them dying in a cascade of earth at the same time as every other human on the Cloud, the Base under attack, Styx going under yet again.

The big brown’s collar crest went down. He turned himself, his long tail sweeping their circle wider, but that was a settling at Elai’s side, half up on his forelegs. The crest went up again.

“Dear God,” McGee breathed, when she remembered to breathe, but they were half the hall deep in calibans now, and there was hissing and snapping as the calibans defined territory, as Dain’s brown moved in clearing rivals, and Maeri’s showed up, and young Din scrambled for cover in McGee’s arms, the young brown Twostone hissing and lashing its tail in front of them, holding its ground against larger ones.

There was order made. Elai put out a hand and appropriated the big brown. His crest flicked, in something like pleasure.

McGee caught another breath. Her chest hurt. She clenched Din in her arms and the boy struggled. She let him go, remembering he was Cloudsider, and at most times independent. No one moved beyond that for a very long time, until calibans had stopped milling and crests were down.

A gray came to the middle of the floor and spat up a fish. The big brown leaned forward and ate it. The gray got out of the way in haste.

“Paeia will be disappointed,” Elai said, and looking at McGee: “So, MaGee?”

McGee ignored her limbs which still felt dissolved and the sweat that was running on her skin, lifted her chin and managed a grand indifference. “You had old Scar a long time; you never figured he wasn’t important of his kind? He picked you from way back. You’re not a warleader. If they wanted one they’d have had Jin just as easy. They wanted you, First, for some reason.”

Elai just stared at her, her hand resting on the big brown’s shoulder. Jaw set, eyes hard. The First of First Tower was not prone to displays.

“His name’s Sun,” she said.

Message: Base Director to E. McGee

Repeat: urgent you respond. We have a shuttle landing. We have a Dr. Ebhardt, Unionside, with aides, coming in. This is an official instruction: this office is taking the position that some damage to the com must have occurred and therefore no reprimand will be lodged. I add to this an earnest personal plea: I am concerned with your welfare and urge you to consider your professional and personal interests and to respond to this message by whatever means may be accessible to you. Dr. Mannin’s brief report of you indicates that you are well and in a position to have gathered valuable material. I am sure that the arriving mission will make every effort to accommodate you within its policies and I am sure will not wish to interfere in your work. It would, however, be of great help if we could have your direct input.

Message: E. McGee to Base Director
transmitted from Cloud River

This is not a time or place for interference. I regret the misfortune of the Styx River mission. Keep your observers at a distance. Calibans are very uneasy just now. Report follows.

205 CR, day 298
Cloudside

The thing grew on the riverside, taking shape out of the reeds they had floated down. Calibans had nudged it this way and that, still prowled round it of nights to see what new thing it was becoming, with their tying and their braiding, not an easy matter; but MaGee had unbent enough to give some advice, being less pure a starman than she had been. The sun came up on a new thing every morning; and Elai watched this business of boatbuilding from the crest of First Tower with a certain forlorn distress.

Dain would try this thing. MaGee persuaded her the First of First Tower was too important to be laughed at if it was a little cranky at the start; and when it was proved, then she would try it.

She looked out over all the land, toward the horizon this morning; and saw a thing before any sentry saw it.

Metal flashed in the sun, in the sky. It was a ship from the Base, but not going up. Coming their way. It had gone crazy, was going to fall. She could hear the sound of it now, a sound like distant thunder.

Work stopped on the shore. Folk looked up, everywhere.

It was coming their way. Elai’s heart turned over in her, but she stood her ground (the First of First would not run, would not show fear) with her fists clenched on the rim of the tower, her eyes fixed on this visitor.

It was coming down, carefully, not falling. Elai became sure of that. She turned, whistled to Sun, passed her distressed offspring who had dropped their game of tag with the calibans.

“
MaGee
!” she shouted in anger, on her way down. “
MaGee
—”

They kept to their side of the river, these intruders. Elai had a closer view of the ship as Sun carried her up and out of the river, the water rolling off her leathers, off his hide. Out of the tail of her eye she saw MaGee with Dain and a dozen others of her riders. They were all armed. She was. The spear she had in hand seemed futile, but she carried it all the same, to make these strange starmen figure where was their limit.

She tapped Sun, making him understand that she meant to stop. Sun took his time about it. The other riders drew even with her. And one of the starmen came out from the shadow of that shining ship—not much larger than her boat, this ship. It had flattened the grass in a circle about it. It was quiet now. The thunder had stopped. And they wanted to talk: that was clear too.

“MaGee,” she said, “see what they want.” And: “MaGee,” she added, making MaGee stop after she had slid down from behind Dain: “You don’t go with them.”

“No,” MaGee agreed, and walked out to that man, looking like a rider herself, lean and leather-clad, her graying hair, her fringes blowing in the wind that whipped at them, that made the fine blue cloth the starman wore do strange small flutters, showing how soft it was. They were rich, the starmen. They had everything. They brought their ship to show what they could do, overshadowing the boat there on the shore. To impress. They could have come afoot. They had done that before. Or in their crawlers, that they used sometimes, that made noise and disturbed the ariels for days.

It was all show, theirs against hers.

She waited, spear held crosswise. Paeia was one who had come out, with her heir, grim and disapproving, waiting for mistakes. And MaGee went out to this starman and talked a while, just talked; after a time MaGee folded her arms and shifted her weight and seemed not to fear attack, but she looked down much and seldom at the starmen, saying things with the way she stood that seemed uneasy.

Then she came back, and looked up at her on Sun. “First,” she said, “they want to talk to you. To tell you they’re wanting to talk trade.”

Elai frowned.

“It’s this new lot,” MaGee said carefully, “they want some things changed. Trade would mean medicines. Maybe metal. You need that.”

“What do they want back?”

“You,” MaGee said. Elai’s eyes met hers and locked, honest and urgent. “I’ll tell you what: they want to make sure you grow the right way, starman-like. To be sure you’re something they can deal with someday. When you’re like them.” Her eyes slid aside, back again. “That dark one—that’s Dr. Myers; from the Base; the light one’s Ebhardt—from Union. From Cyteen.”

“Is
that
a Unioner?” Elai had heard of these strangers, these folk of the ship that never came. Her books had them in them. She looked with narrowed eyes on these visitors. “Hssst—
Sun.”

Sun moved forward, a sudden long stride. The starmen fell back in disorder and recovered themselves. “You,” Elai said, “you’re from Cyteen, are you? From outside?”

“Maybe McGee’s told you,” Ebhardt began.

“You want trade? Give you what, starman?”

“What you have too much of. What we don’t have. Maybe carvings. Maybe fish.”

“Bone’s
ours,”
Elai said. The starman was insolent as she had thought; she tapped Sun in his soft skin, beneath the collar, and the collar went up. They retreated yet again, and beyond them another figure mounted half up the access to their ship. “But fish, maybe. Maybe things you want to know, starman. Maybe you’d like that better. Maybe you sit behind that Wire and ask your questions. This land’s mine. Cloud’s mine. All this—” She swept her arm about, a pass of her spear. “My name’s Elai, Ellai’s daughter, line of the first Cloud, the first Elly; of Pia, line of the first Jin when they made the world.
And you’re on my land.”