Pump Six and Other Stories (15 page)

 
"A Pasho must always be respectful on his circuit. It is natural for a people to resist the presence and ideas of an outsider. In all cases, patience and subtlety are the Pasho's best tools. Our work is already generations long, and will be many more generations before it is complete. There is no hurry. Speed is what brought our ancestors to ruin. We guess, we move slowly, we wait. If we are not welcomed in a new place, we must pass on and wait for invitation. If we meet challenges, we must bend before them. Knowledge and influence are fragile things. Our reputation for neutrality, morality, and humanity must take the place of steel and sonics. Men make war. Pasho never."

—Pasho Nalina Desai, CS 955.
(Lecture 121: On Circuit Travel Etiquette)
 

On the ninth day of Raphel's return, the rains came. Thick gray clouds banked on the horizon, building until they filled the southern sky. They came across the basin, their bellies heavy with water. Slowly they opened and the gray paint of falling water streaked the air. The yellow plains darkened as the sun disappeared behind the onrushing clouds. Dust puffed where fat raindrops struck. Minutes later, dust turned to mud as water thundered out of the sky. By the tenth day of Raphel's Quaran, a fine bright sheen of grass, nearly phosphorescent in its new life, covered the yellow plains outside the village as the rains continued to pour down.

In the family haci, Raphel's mother worked at a celebratory feast made doubly joyful by the rain's arrival. Bowls of spiced mutton, cool yogurt, and thick red bean soup propagated around the hearth. She smiled at the rain, stirred pots over the fire and didn't complain that the wood gathered from the far hills had been dampened by the sudden rush of water. She reached out to touch Raphel often, a nearly superstitious movement that she repeated again and again, assuring herself that her son once again truly stood within her home.

In the afternoon, she sent him to fetch his grandfather. She sent him with an umbrella bought from a Keli trader, a big black thing. When Raphel protested that he didn't mind the rain, she clicked her tongue and sent him out anyway, saying that if anyone knew how to make an umbrella it should be the Keli and there was no shame in using it.

Raphel made his way through the village, dodging flooding alleys and the curtains of rain that poured off the haci roofs. Lightning flickered high above. Thunder rolled distantly. A young girl in black and red dashed down the alley toward him, smiling at his bare face, now unhidden by an electrostatic mask. His umbrella protected him from much of the dumping rain, but the girl was soaked, and clearly didn't care. Raphel turned to watch as she deliberately jumped into puddles and yellow flows, splashing mud and water and laughing at the wet.

His grandfather's courtyard was empty, its red chilies removed indoors. Raphel stood dripping outside.

"Grandfather?"

The rasping voice was surprised. "You're still here?"

Raphel pulled aside the curtain and slipped inside. He carefully shook his umbrella outside the door, and left it leaning there. His grandfather sat beside the hearth, working on another hook knife. Several lay around his feet, all of them gleaming with oil and sharpening.

"Bia' wants you to come for dinner."

The old man snorted. "She won't live in my haci but she invites me for dinner." He looked up and studied Raphel's uncovered face. "You've completed Quaran, then?"

"Today."

"You return and the land turns green. Auspicious. And you haven't left for Keli."

Raphel sighed. He sat on the hard-packed floor near his grandfather's feet. "I am Jai, Grandfather. Whatever you think, this is my home. I am here to stay."

"I suppose it's good to see your face. Despite your tattoos."

Raphel squeezed the wet hem of his robe. It was spattered with mud. Water ran out between his fingers. "I feel like I'm finally home." He looked outside to the gray curtain of water pouring off the haci's roof. "It amazes me that I ever hated the sound of rain. In Keli it rained all the time, and no one cared. Or else they hated it. I think it's the finest sound I've ever heard."

"You sound like a Jai. If you picked up your hook knife, I'd almost believe you belong."

Raphel shook his head and grinned. "Pasho are neutral, Grandfather."

The old man's laughter was mocking. He reached for his bottle of mez. "Drink with me then, Pasho."

Raphel climbed back to his feet. "This time, I will serve you. As I should have done the day I arrived."

"And break Quaran? I think not."

Raphel took the bottle from his grandfather and set the clay cups on the ground. "You're right. We should observe the old ways. It's what distinguishes us from Keli people. We are true to our history." The long sleeves of his Pasho's robes dragged around the paired cups as he began pouring.

"Don't spill," his grandfather scolded.

Raphel smiled. He tucked his sleeves out of the way. "I'm not used to my robes, yet." He finished pouring the clear bright liquor into the paired cups. He capped the bottle carefully and handed a cup to his grandfather.

They held their cups to the sky, poured drops to their ancestors and drained them together. A moment later, Gawar's cup fell from his nerveless hand. It shattered. Clay fragments skittered across the hard-packed dirt. The old man's jaw locked. Air whistled between his clenched teeth as he fought to breathe. "Mez?" The word squeezed out.

Raphel ducked his head apologetically and pressed his palms together in farewell. "Undistilled. A common enough death for a Jai. You were right, Grandfather. War never ends. You taught the Pasho that. They have not forgotten. Even now you squat in their nightmares."

His grandfather grimaced and forced words out between his clenched teeth. "The Pasho side with Keli?"

Raphel shrugged apologetically. "Knowledge must be protected, Grandfather—" He broke off as his grandfather spasmed. Spittle leaked from the corner of the old man's mouth. Raphel leaned close and used the sleeve of his white robe to wipe the shaking man's drool. "I'm sorry, Grandfather. The Keli are too soft to withstand a Jai crusade. You would have slaughtered them like goats and turned all the Pasho work to ash: Keli's libraries, its hospitals, its factories. We Pasho cannot afford an open war; mez seemed the best alternative."

His grandfather's eyes were wide, stunned. He grunted, trying to form words. Raphel held the old man's hand as another spasm swept through him. The old man strained. Raphel leaned close to hear his whisper.

"You betray us all."

Raphel shook his head. "No, Grandfather, only you. Knowledge is a Jai birthright as much as Keli's. Your bloody crusade would have left ashes for our children. Now, instead of war, I will teach our people to sink water veins and help them plant crops that weather the hottest days of dry season, and we will flourish. Never fear, Grandfather, I am still Jai, whatever you think of my Pasho's tattoos. Your hook knife has dulled, but mine is still sharp."

Old Gawar's body stilled. His head lolled. Raphel wiped the death froth from his grandfather's mouth, the last residue of his passing. Outside, rain fell steadily, softening the air and soaking the thirsty ground with the life-giving water of the wet season.

"No mammy, no pappy, poor little bastard. Money? You give money?" The urchin turned a cartwheel and then a somersault in the street, stirring yellow dust around his nakedness.

Lalji paused to stare at the dirty blond child who had come to a halt at his feet. The attention seemed to encourage the urchin; the boy did another somersault. He smiled up at Lalji from his squat, calculating and eager, rivulets of sweat and mud streaking his face. "Money? You give money?"

Around them, the town was nearly silent in the afternoon heat. A few dungareed farmers led mulies toward the fields. Buildings, pressed from WeatherAll chips, slumped against their fellows like drunkards, rain-stained and sun-cracked, but, as their trade name implied, still sturdy. At the far end of the narrow street, the lush sprawl of SoyPRO and HiGro began, a waving rustling growth that rolled into the blue-sky distance. It was much as all the villages Lalji had seen as he traveled upriver, just another farming enclave paying its intellectual property dues and shipping calories down to New Orleans.

The boy crawled closer, smiling ingratiatingly, nodding his head like a snake hoping to strike. "Money? Money?"

Lalji put his hands in his pockets in case the beggar child had friends and turned his full attention on the boy. "And why should I give money to you?"

The boy stared up at him, stalled. His mouth opened, then closed. Finally he looped back to an earlier, more familiar part of his script, "No mammy? No pappy?" but it was a query now, lacking conviction.

Lalji made a face of disgust and aimed a kick at the boy. The child scrambled aside, falling on his back in his desperation to dodge, and this pleased Lalji briefly. At least the boy was quick. He turned and started back up the street. Behind him, the urchin's wailing despair echoed. "Noooo maaaammy! Nooo paaaapy!" Lalji shook his head, irritated. The child might cry for money, but he failed to follow. No true beggar at all. An opportunist only—most likely the accidental creation of strangers who had visited the village and were open-fisted when it came to blond beggar children. AgriGen and Midwest Grower scientists and land factotums would be pleased to show ostentatious kindness to the villagers at the core of their empire.

Through a gap in the slumped hovels, Lalji caught another glimpse of the lush waves of SoyPRO and HiGro. The sheer sprawl of calories stimulated tingling fantasies of loading a barge and slipping it down through the locks to St. Louis or New Orleans and into the mouths of waiting megodonts. It was impossible, but the sight of those emerald fields was more than enough assurance that no child could beg with conviction here. Not surrounded by SoyPRO. Lalji shook his head again, disgusted, and squeezed down a footpath between two of the houses.

The acrid reek of WeatherAll's excreted oils clogged the dim alley. A pair of cheshires sheltering in the unused space scattered and molted ahead of him, disappearing into bright sunlight. Just beyond, a kinetic shop leaned against its beaten neighbors, adding the scents of dung and animal sweat to the stink of WeatherAll. Lalji leaned against the shop's plank door and shoved inside.

Shafts of sunlight pierced the sweet manure gloom with lazy gold beams. A pair of hand-painted posters scabbed to one wall, partly torn but still legible. One said: "Unstamped calories mean starving families. We check royalty receipts and IP stamps." A farmer and his brood stared hollow-eyed from beneath the scolding words. PurCal was the sponsor. The other poster was AgriGen's trademarked collage of kink-springs, green rows of SoyPRO under sunlight and smiling children along with the words "We Provide Energy for the World." Lalji studied the posters sourly.

"Back already?" The owner came in from the winding room, wiping his hands on his pants and kicking straw and mud off his boots. He eyed Lalji. "My springs didn't have enough stored. I had to feed the mulies extra, to make your joules."

Lalji shrugged, having expected the last-minute bargaining, so much like Shriram's that he couldn't muster the interest to look offended. "Yes? How much?"

The man squinted up at Lalji, then ducked his head, his body defensive. "F-Five hundred." His voice caught on the amount, as though gagging on the surprising greed scampering up his throat.

Lalji frowned and pulled his mustache. It was outrageous. The calories hadn't even been transported. The village was awash with energy. And despite the man's virtuous poster, it was doubtful that the calories feeding his kinetic shop were equally upstanding. Not with tempting green fields waving within meters of the shop. Shriram often said that using stamped calories was like dumping money into a methane composter.

Lalji tugged his mustache again, wondering how much to pay for the joules without calling excessive attention to himself. Rich men must have been all over the village to make the kinetic man so greedy. Calorie executives, almost certainly. It would fit. The town was close to the center. Perhaps even this village was engaged in growing the crown jewels of AgriGen's energy monopolies. Still, not everyone who passed through would be as rich as that. "Two hundred."

The kinetic man showed a relieved smile along with knotted yellow teeth, his guilt apparently assuaged by Lalji's bargaining. "Four."

"Two. I can moor on the river and let my own winders do the same work."

The man snorted. "It would take weeks."

Lalji shrugged. "I have time. Dump the joules back into your own springs. I'll do the job myself."

"I've got family to feed. Three?"

"You live next to more calories than some rich families in St. Louis. Two."

The man shook his head sourly but he led Lalji into the winding room. The manure haze thickened. Big kinetic storage drums, twice as tall as a man, sat in a darkened corner, mud and manure lapping around their high-capacity precision kink-springs. Sunbeams poured between open gaps in the roof where shingles had blown away. Dung motes stirred lazily.

A half-dozen hyper-developed mulies crouched on their treadmills, their rib cages billowing slowly, their flanks streaked with salt lines of sweat residue from the labor of winding Lalji's boat springs. They blew air through their nostrils, nervous at Lalji's sudden scent, and gathered their squat legs under them. Muscles like boulders rippled under their bony hides as they stood. They eyed Lalji with resentful near-intelligence. One of them showed stubborn yellow teeth that matched its owner's.

Lalji made a face of disgust. "Feed them."

"I already did."

"I can see their bones. If you want my money, feed them again."

The man scowled. "They aren't supposed to get fat, they're supposed to wind your damn springs." But he dipped double handfuls of SoyPRO into their feed canisters.

The mulies shoved their heads into the buckets, slobbering and grunting with need. In its eagerness, one of them started briefly forward on its treadmill, sending energy into the winding shop's depleted storage springs before seeming to realize that its work was not demanded and that it could eat without molestation.