When she had eaten, she dozed off a little. Recent events had been rather trying, exciting, fearsome. She still couldn’t believe most of what had happened. When she woke, she realized several hours had passed. The sun was low on the horizon. The dust trail she had been following down the mountain was now approaching on the western road. A large wagon, another one some distance behind.
Needly and Serena came out to sit beside her.
“Can you see who’s in that wagon?” Grandma asked.
“I think it’s a Saltgosh wagon,” Needly replied. “It’s blue, and Willum says theirs are all painted the same: blue with ‘Saltgosh Mines’ painted in yellow on the side.”
Willum appeared, racing toward them from Wide Mountain Mother’s place, Abasio and Xulai strolling behind. Abasio called, “I think we’re going to have company.”
The three of them settled on the porch steps. The wagons kept coming, slowed, turned into the plaza, paused, then came across the plaza toward them. Xulai said, “That’s Burn Atterbury driving the front wagon, Abasio. The music director from Saltgosh.”
Needly stood up very straight and walked to the front of the porch, staring. Two men were on the seat of the second wagon, an older man was driving the front one. In the wagon were five youngsters, about her own age. Two girls. Three boys. Five . . . “Grandma,” she whispered.
“Yes, Needly. I see.”
“Silverhairs?” said Xulai. “Abasio, they’re . . .”
“I see,” he said. “How . . . very interesting. Xulai, aren’t those the five young singers we both enjoyed so much. I thought they had black hair?”
“They probably did,” said Grandma, crisply. “I’d have made sure I kept them dyed if I’d been he. Atterbury’s no fool.”
Mr. Atterbury climbed from the front wagon, coming toward Xulai and Abasio, bowing in Grandma’s direction. “Mr. Abasio,” he called. “Ma’am. I’ve . . . well, I’ve come to make a confession, is what I have.”
“You’ve had them since they were babies, haven’t you?” Abasio asked, his voice perfectly calm and friendly.
The man flushed red and rubbed his jaw. “Yes. Sure have. Was told they were in some danger and needed to be kept hid. And then, of course, you saw how they turned out. They were quite an asset. I hate to give ’em up, I surely do. Had no idea when you were there at Saltgosh that you were the ones I was supposed to give them up to!”
“Who brought them to you?”
“Man with hair the same color as the little ones. One or two at a time. Brought them, like I said, to the Home. With money, like I said, to pay for them. Story I told you was more or less what he told me, just not the all-at-one-time family tragedy I made it out to be. I have no idea who or what the real family is.”
Needly stepped down from the porch and offered her hand. “Their real family is mine, sir. They are my two half sisters and my three half brothers. Wouldn’t you agree, Grandma?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, sighing. “I’ve wondered and wondered where they’d got to.”
Atterbury nodded ponderously. “Well, I got a message from the man who brought them originally. Back when he brought ’em, he said he’d let me know when it was safe. And he said it was safe now, and you’d be here in Artemisia, and you’d have room for . . . the family.”
“But he didn’t tell you who the family was?” Grandma lifted her eyes, noted the man’s weariness for the first time. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. Needly, get the boys to bring out some chairs; it’s cooler out here than inside. Let those children down from the wagon and get them something to drink. Are you hungry?” she called, and was answered by shy nods, then more energetic ones. “Can you feed them all, Serena? They look famished.”
“I’ll get a meal ready,” said Serena, going first to the wagon to invite the silver-haired boys and girls inside. They climbed down from wagons, boys and girls, and trailed off into the house. Serena figured that even if the food wasn’t ready yet, she was pretty sure they could use a bathroom.
Grandma relaxed, knowing she needn’t worry about there being enough food in the house, not even if a few dozen people happened to drop in. Among the things salvaged from the Oracles’ pack-ratting had been several of their “shopping carts,” a wheeled device with a large basket and a control panel. One could buy any of hundreds of items in the cart catalog once a credit account for the cart had been established. One named the item, picked from the array offered, pointed out the item one wanted, and the item appeared in the cart. According to Fixit, Grandma had several decades’ worth of credit because of past-due payment for services rendered. Grandma was so surprised at the idea of having credit that she had not asked services to whom. She should have asked that. Meantime, it made the shopping for small food and sundry items very convenient. Wide Mountain Mother even came over from time to time to borrow a cart, carefully deducting the amount of her purchase from the “land rent” Grandma had insisted she be charged for the house site. (“Needly and I are not of your people, Mother, and Artemisia does not owe us free use of your land. We will not be contented unless you let us pay an appropriate fee for your truly invaluable help.”) Of course that declaration had had to be repeated a few times!
“It’s a long, long way from Saltgosh,” Grandma said to the four weary drivers. “What? Three or four days?”
“With loaded wagons, about that,” said Atterbury, taking the chair Abasio offered him.
The others followed suit, one remarking, “Yes, ma’am, about that. Saw that young one there,” pointing at Willum. “Flying in on a Griffin. Now, that’s something one does not see every day. The young’uns”—he waved at them inclusively—“they started right up working on a symphony, The Flight of the Griffin. Lots of violin, cello, swooping. Strings do good swooping sounds. Second movement has to do with giants, a lot of bass horns in that one, and barrel-drum giant steps. Got a good start on it, too.”
Sally came out with glasses and a pitcher. Not long thereafter, others appeared with trays for the grown-ups, then trays for themselves. For a time there was only a contented munching, the rattle of ice in glasses, the clink of forks on plates.
“You’ve got a full wagon load,” murmured Grandma at last, putting her plate down and nodding at the second wagon.
“Musical instruments mostly, ma’am,” said the driver.
Boys boiled out of the house, surrounding the wagon. Boys brought out instruments from inside. Boys outside got theirs out of the wagon. Girls carried their trays inside and returned with instruments of their own. One of the silver-haired boys took up a horn and played a brief phrase. Others echoed. He went on, was echoed; within moments they were all either singing or playing, the theme repeated, extended, harmonized upon, a second theme introduced by a bassoon, the two interwoven . . .
“They’re kinfolk, aren’t they?” Atterbury whispered, shaking his head in amazement. “The ones I brought and the others. Those others, are they yours, ma’am? All six of ’em.”
Grandma could only nod. Her throat was too full for her to speak.
“I would say they are a specially selected strain,” Abasio offered. He wondered how Fixit had managed it. Of course, he couldn’t be sure it had been Fixit . . . but he was sure. How far back had that . . . creature gone? Back before Grandma, that was sure. Probably back before her parents, whoever they had been . . . or further. How long ago had all this started? Could it have been over a thousand years . . . ?
Wide Mountain Mother came toward them from her house. Abasio went in and fetched a chair for her. They were running out of chairs.
“I came to offer as many bedrooms as needed,” she said quietly to Serena. “The older gentlemen look about ready to drop.”
Serena smiled her thanks. “Two or three bedrooms would be welcome, I’m sure. Our younger visitors . . . family members will do fine here with us. Each of our bedrooms has two bed
s in it, almost as though the house knew they were coming. Do you suppose it really did? Grandma hasn’t said how we’re related, but we’re definitely related. Musically, if no other way. We’ve invited our new relations . . . to stay with us. We’ve fed Mr. Atterbury and the men driving the other wagon, but they would probably like a warm bath and a quiet place to sleep. And, Mother, could someone take care of the horses? Mr. Fixit didn’t think of a stable first time around. None of us did and that’s something I guess we need to learn about . . . horses.”
Mother looked at Serena weighingly. My, what a sensible girl. One would have to keep an eye on that one. “You don’t need to unload wagons tonight, Serena. I’ve sent a messenger to the men’s houses to ask if they will stable and care for your horses and arrange for protecting whatever’s in the wagons.” She turned to the men. “Mr. Atterbury, would you and the other gentlemen like to come across with me? It’s the house right over there.” Though male guests who were Artemisian were usually sent to the men’s guesthouse, if they came from a society which usually cohabited, as Saltgosh did, Mother often invited them to stay with her.
One of the boys darted to the wagon to get the men’s belongings, was followed by another, and they trailed away to Wide Mountain Mother’s house. A few moments later, several men came down the hill from the men’s houses and drove the wagons back to the barns and stables that were near where Sun-wings and Dawn-song were still domiciled and where Blue and Rags formed a welcoming committee.
On the side of the porch, Willum whispered, “Y’won’t need me anymore, Needly. Look at all this family you got.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “Young women do not marry family members.”
“M . . . m . . . marry?”
“I definitely intend to marry a Griffin flier. And since you’re the only one I know of, I’m afraid it will have to be you. Not any time soon, of course. Eight years, maybe. Or ten. Not until I know you’ve learned to listen.”
“Oh, ’course,” he said, both relieved and . . . well, mostly relieved. “Is Mr. Fixit coming back? I think Grandma needs some more rooms in this house. Lookin’ at all those girls, definite she needs some more bathrooms.”
NIGHT CAME. MORNING CAME: A large houseful of young people who had talked themselves to sleep, finally, in the very late night . . . or early morning. Now Grandma was once more alone on the porch, quietly darning a sock. Or she had been before she fell asleep. She dreamed she saw someone approaching. He sat down next to her on the porch, leaned back, and crossed his legs. Was it Fixit? It could be, she could dream of Fixit. Such a strange creature. It was the first time she had really looked at it sitting quietly, not moving about like a hurricane. No, like a cyclone. Self-contained but very dust raising!
“Is it the truth, what you told Abasio about your . . . reproductive habits?” she asked, waking up just a little.
She dreamed that Fixit abruptly changed shape. Now it had only two legs, and it looked terribly familiar. Like someone she had once known. Known very well. Whoever it was nodded thoughtfully at her and said, “If you’re speaking of the reproductive habits of the Camrathsexipedes, they are fully documented in archives in the galactic center nearest them. They are of great interest, being probably the most complicated form of reproduction achieved by any race.”
She awoke, eyes fixed on the sock she had been darning, voicing her vague thoughts. “You sound sort of uninvolved.”
“Well, practically speaking,” the person sitting next to her said in a very familiar voice, “a moment’s consideration would establish that should be the case. I don’t know what human involvement in Camrathsexipedian reproduction would amount to. I rather think it would not be tolerated.”
She opened her eyes wider, gave up on the dream, and finally came wide-awake, saying in amazement. “Joshua!?”
The man in the neighboring chair smiled, a much-loved, well-known smile. “Greetings, my love. I am told by those who have managed our lives that management has now . . . retired, gone, given up. No more management. We may . . . draw away the veil, as it were. Stop keeping secrets.”
His face shifted, only slightly. She was now looking at a . . . silver-haired man of enormous charm. She simply stared, forgetting to breathe.
“Take a breath,” he/it/they said. “I am not shapeshifting. I do have a gadget in my pocket that creates a kind of visual overlay, an image. Actual variations from reality are minor.”
She gasped. “You’re . . . you’re Needly’s papa. I mean, you’re all six of their papas. I mean, the six ones born in Hench Valley.” The darning egg slipped from her lax finger and rolled. He picked it up from between his feet. “You’re all six of thems . . . their . . . sires. The silver-haired ones, I mean, maybe I think . . .”
And maybe I don’t, and I’m dreaming and maybe . . . She pinched herself. Nope. Awake.
“And Calepta’s,” he said. “And Brian’s.”
“And the other three? Father to them all?”
“Father to all, yes, in a manner of speaking. Though not in any intimate sense. You, for example, evolved, just as Balytaniwassinot’s people did. As Feblia’s people did.”
“Feblia?”
“A character Abasio sometimes dreams of. It annoys him greatly, poor man. He really, really has done a magnificent job of work, hasn’t he? Kept his temper, mostly. Hasn’t abused anyone. Loves his fishy children. Loves his foreordained and eight-armed wife.”
“Are you going to tell me you fathered . . . ?”
“Abasio? Xulai? No, no. Not at all. Abasio and Xulai are precisely as represented, the work of a thousand years of Tingawan genetic ingenuity.” His face had shifted again, and his body. He was now someone she had known very well. Galan’s father. “And except for the children borne by you, my love, the others were all conceived without any attendant intimacy. I approached the women individually, suggested a drink, provided a drink, they drifted off into dreamland. A small but complicated device was employed—without the necessity of either party removing clothing—and the women were left with very nice dreams of how they were impregnated. Even Trudis, though what may constitute a nice dream with her would probably not bear close examination.”
“You were also Trudis’s father! It would have been incestuous.”
“Horse breeders would have called it line breeding. In any case, it didn’t happen, it wasn’t necessary.”
“All of them, the whole dozen of them, mine and the Silverhairs.” She found herself growing angry. “Why?”
“For the sake of bao, love. No, don’t argue and do not get angry. You have no grounds for anger. NO. Just take one minute to consider one question. Will you do that?”
She glared at him angrily. “One and only one!”
“The question has a preface: Monkey-brain willy-wagging man has dominated and ruined his planet. His world asks for help in eliminating monkey-brain man. Several other worlds cooperate in doing this by helping to drown monkey-brain man. Monkey-brain man refuses to be drowned and turns himself into creature who can live in the oceans.
“Now, this is the question. Given a thousand years or so of mankind living in the sea, what do you think will happen to those seas when they are dominated by monkey-brained man, who has changed his body so he could live in the water but has done absolutely nothing to change his brain?”
The idea lay there, like a . . . pile of manure in the road. Suddenly there. Stinking. She saw undersea factories spewing toxic fumes that bubbled darkly upward, breaking at the surface into a thin film of sticky, unpleasant iridescence. She saw slicks of this oily, foul-smelling substance—sprawling islands of it. She saw sea creatures lying on the surface, their gills clogged, dying; babies like Gailai wearing breathing masks and goggles. Realization came in a single, overwhelming wave!
“Oh, Joshua,” she sobbed. “Oh, we’ll do it again! All over agai
n, and our lives will have been all wasted. All of our lives, our work wasted . . .”
He put his arms around her, shaking his head, wondering what vision of the future she had seen among the terrible total he had imagined. “No. We refuse to let it be wasted. We have two centuries and—”
She cut him off, finding herself badly off balance. “Who is we, Joshua? Who?”
“Let’s say a few children of Earth who came back home to help.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Do you trust me?”
“Do I trust you to what? To be charming, yes . Amusing, yes. To show up in a new shape every few years . . . I suppose I have to take it on faith that’s what happened. I’ll assume for the moment what you’ve just said is all true—”
Now he cut her off. “Yes, and who or what do you know of who could ‘show up in a new shape every few years’? Hint. You had tea with one of them recently . . .”
“A shapeshifter? You don’t mean Mavin . . . ?”
“Not Mavin herself, but definitely her countrymen. Recruited. On Lom. By Fixit. A LONG time ago. Long before Ganver had his temper tantrum and took all the talents away. Long before the earth began to drown. Fixit’s people are a remarkably long-lived race.”
“Recruited?”
“Recruited on Lom, and put, so to speak, in cold storage. Just as your children were.”
“Why, that sneaky . . . that sneak!”
“That sneak is an official interferer who believes it easier to fix problems if he gets a head start on them and whose ancestors have believed the same. That official interferer’s ancestors had been asking similar questions since the first humans left Earth and were sent to Lom. A race might be allowed to destroy its own planet, but the moment it leaves that planet it becomes an infection. The current official interferer—one known as Fixit—asked that terrible question the moment the earth spirit called for help, and it called for help for centuries and centuries and centuries! That interferer then went to Lom, looked about, found a few male shapeshifters who had bao. It then put said shapeshifters into . . . storage; storage interrupted from time to time by educational trips and attendance at meetings and having said shapeshifters’ genetics fiddled with. It then built its own mini Massive Fabricator by recruiting several people with varying talents and, as I said, putting them in cold storage also. Thereafter, Fixit called upon them as needed.”