“She’s not a chatterer, unlike most Domers. She doesn’t talk about anything private, probably out of fear. However, she feels no constraint in discussing what everyone discusses. Such as the shuttle project.”
They had come to the security shafts, which Tom moved them through rapidly, back into warmer and more inhabited space.
“She speaks of it as a salvage project?”
“That, yes, but she also mentions weapons as among the things to be salvaged.”
“Weapons?” The old man sat up, his expression suddenly alert. “Well, now. Has she said what weapons?”
“No. She only repeats what Ellel has said I asked Qualary what the weapons were for, but the weapons, when discussed in front of her or other Domer servants, have been referred to only as a type of salvage, as parts, as material. Qualary doesn’t think of them as armament.”
The old man laughed. “Because Ellel hasn’t spoken of them in terms of armament. The omission’s interesting, isn’t it? With all the monsters there are about, Ellel certainly should be interested in weapons as armament.” He laughed again, seeming quite pleased with himself.
Fuelry said nothing more until they arrived at His Wisdom’s quarters. Only after Nimwes had wrapped the old man with a blanket and plied them both with hot tea did Tom continue:
“Another interesting bit: Qualary has remarked that when the shuttle is completed, only Ellel and Ander will go, together with some of their people. And some walkers, of course.”
The old man considered this. “I’m sure it was a problem for her. Can she leave behind anyone she does not trust? Would she dare take anyone along she did not trust? Including only Ellels and Anders is her solution to the problem.”
Tom scowled. “So off they go, these two sets of ambitious Domers who don’t trust anyone, and back they come with weapons, and what happens then?”
“One wonders.” His Wisdom shook his head slowly back and forth. “If Ellel spoke openly of using them against monsters, I might believe her. Since she doesn’t speak openly of using them at all, her motives are hidden. What motive would she hide? World domination, of course. That’s the formula that emerged with the dinosaurs. Megalomania plus weapons equals domination. Of course, the weapons then were fang and claw, and every creature was a me-firster.”
“I don’t know why in hell we don’t just eliminate all of them,” Fuelry snarled. “The whole bunch of them—and their families!”
The old man shook his head in amused wonder. “When I suggested you cultivate Qualary Finch, didn’t you question the ethics of that assignment?”
Fuelry flushed. He had, yes. Of course, he hadn’t known Qualary at that point.
“Now, here you are, forgetting Gaddir philosophy to become suddenly very bloodthirsty.”
“Sorry,” the other said, then, feeling explanation was needed, “If you knew how that bitch had treated Qualary—” Though Qualary had been reticent to speak of it, Tom had seen the scars. He condemned all the Domers equally. If they hadn’t done it, they hadn’t prevented it, either!
“I understand how you feel, but that’s not the way Gaddi House operates, Tom. You know that. We do not impose our will on others. All beings must be free to seek their own happiness. Only when one person’s search becomes another person’s slavery may we intervene, and even then, not with force. We pay a price for everything we do.”
Fuelry pursed his mouth, looking over His Wisdom’s shoulder in ostentatious silence.
The old man grinned. “You think I’m maybe stretching a point?”
Fuelry flushed uncomfortably.
“Listen, boy If a man thinks it will make him happy to hit you, and you duck so he ends up breaking his hand against a brick wall, whose fault is that?”
“I suppose the man doing the hitting,” said Tom, unwillingly.
“Of course. If people out there are aiming blows at one another, and if we teach some of them to duck, isn’t that appropriate?” He sighed and stretched his hands toward the fire. “If we learned anything from history, we learned you can’t legislate how creatures ought to behave. We don’t try.”
“You may not force them, but you do other things. You fool them. You entice them!”
The old man chuckled. “If, as some believe, man is a fallen angel, he doesn’t need to be enticed. He has only to remember what goodness is. If man is an ascending ape, however, he first has to figure out what goodness is, and before he can do that, he has to admit he doesn’t know.”
“So admitting you don’t know is equivalent to admitting you were an ape to begin with?” Though he tried not to, Tom couldn’t keep his mouth from quirking, just a little.
“Exactly. Depend upon it. Any system that claims to know what goodness is will also claim descent from heaven. Or expulsion from paradise, which is the same thing.” The old man laughed until he choked, and Tom had to bring him a glass of water. “Do you have any other news for me?” the old man asked.
“Yes, though it was stale news when I got it. Qualary mentioned that Ellel’s been very happy lately, so I played along and asked why. It seems a pair of her walkers brought in an old raggedy blanket that was turned over to their lab.”
The old man became very still. “What exactly did the lab say? Do you know?”
“None of my sources there were available. However, we have a few spies in the Domer catering section, and they tell me Ander threw a party to announce that Ellel had found a cellular trace.”
The old man licked his lips and took a deep, sighing breath. “What have the Domers done about it?”
“Ellel’s done all the doing. She’s intensified the search, is all So far.”
“Where?”
“Down there.” Fuelry pointed to the east. “South man-land, Artemisia.” He turned back to stare at the old man curiously. “How did the Domers get Gaddir genetic material to compare in the first place?”
“Hunagor was as human as you or I. She used to go out among people. So did Werra. So did I. And what does it take to get a sample? No more skill than picking your pocket. You get bumped in a crowd, a quick punch, a drop of blood. Some spy pilfers a glove, a scarf. What else?” He knotted his hands together. “What have you done about it?”
“If your assessment is correct, the Orphan is on her way south. We’ve done what we can to prevent harm coming to her. But there are a hell of a lot more walkers out there than there are allies of ours.”
The old man sighed and rubbed his forehead wearily. Walkers. Damn man and his lust for power, his fascination with technology! Damn men who could build such things! “Nimwes says she can hardly leave Gaddi House now without encountering them every few steps.”
Fuelry snorted. “They’re like ants. First you see only one, but suddenly there’s a whole line of them. And the damage they’re doing! Half the gardens in the Place are dead. More than half the trees!”
“They used to be mostly elsewhere. Why has Ellel turned so many loose here in the Place? What is she using them for?”
“I think Ellel just likes looking at them.”
“Surely not! The smell alone—”
“Truly, Your Wisdom. You should see her during her morning ceremony. She’s almost orgasmic! And as Nimwes says, they’ve started annoying our people.”
The old man snarled. “Surely Ellel doesn’t wish to stir up Gaddi House just now? Not with success practically within her reach!”
“I think she mostly disregards Gaddi House. As we, for a long time, disregarded the walkers. Now, however, they’re getting unpredictable.”
“Oh, Tom, they’re perfectly predictable! Jark the Third was not a technician. He was an ambitious and impatient man with some superficial knowledge. Ellel is more ambitious, less impatient, so she’s learned a good deal more than her father did, but even she knows far less than she thinks she does. The so-called reprogramming done by father or daughter simply cannot stand up to repeated stress, particularly inasmuch as the creatures aren’t being properly maintained. Ellel has been so busy pu
lling power into her own hands, she hasn’t taken time to provide maintenance.”
“You think they’re going slightly haywire.”
“More than slightly. The surface routines are eroding, and they are now beginning to act as they were designed to do!” He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Ah, well. It’s the last of many worries.”
“The last, sir? If this is the last, I’m glad I wasn’t around for the rest of them.”
“Oh, the rest of them were easy by comparison, my boy. Yes. Have you ever tried to clean out a water tank?”
Astonished, Fuelry shook his head. “I don’t believe so, sir. What kind of water tank?”
“Oh, one used to water horses or cattle. If you have a filthy, muddy tank all grown up with algae that you have to clean out, you can get ninety-nine percent of the filth out of it just by turning it over and dumping it. That’s what Hunagor, Werra, and I did, over a century and a half ago. We had a problem, and we dumped it. Since then, we’ve spent all our effort cleaning up the final one percent.”
“I didn’t realize that, sir,” said Tom, his mouth open.
“Oh, yes indeed. I tell myself that whenever I get discouraged. I tell myself ninety-nine percent of cleaning up the world has been accomplished. And it was true until Jark the Third discovered those damned walkers!”
“Which made it a new problem.”
“Or restored the old one. For a while, I thought we should have foreseen it, but the chance of its happening was vanishingly small. It would have been easier to handle with all three of us, but when it happened, Hunagor was already gone. Werra went soon after.
“At first I thought, well, Jark being as he was, pretty much of a dilettante, the chance of his doing anything much with them wasn’t large. But he disappeared, and Ellel took over. Now who could have foreseen Ellel?” He sighed again. “Still, I tell myself the whole series of events is only a worry, only a last little glitch, one of those inevitable last-minute things one can’t plan for until it happens.”
“It doesn’t seem like a little glitch to me,” grumped Tom.
His Wisdom flushed slightly, sitting silent for a moment before he responded, “You’re right, Tom. It isn’t. It’s a return to the main line, to the inexorable process of destruction we thought we had stopped But we do have a chance. And I will not dwell on how badly we may fail.”
“If we fail, all of us here in the Place will be Ellel’s minions. Her servants. Those of us she doesn’t kill outright.”
The old man shook his head. “That time will be brief, Tom. If we fail, life on earth will be brief.”
“If I just knew more!”
“Believe me, knowing more wouldn’t make it any easier. You’ll have to trust that I’m doing my best. Be patient.”
Tom, shamefaced, merely nodded. He always had trusted, always been patient, though sometimes it was very hard.
Traveling afoot, and only at night, Abasio reached the Wise. Rocks road in two days. He should have been quicker, he told himself, trying to be angry about it and succeeding only in becoming shamingly tearful. There was no reason to have taken so long except for the lassitude, the feeling of exhausted impotence that possessed him. It was not until his arrival within sight of the. Wise Rocks themselves, however, that he fully realized what was going on. This same weary futility had been with him since he had waked in the truckers’ hostel. Only the stimulants he had taken had allowed him to accomplish anything at all.
He was certain somebody had given him Starlight. Why else would he have known the smell? Whistler had said Starlight wouldn’t hurt a child, and Whistler was not known as a liar. Well, maybe he hadn’t actually lied. Abasio wasn’t hurt. He was simply unable to plan further ahead than the next few moments’ travel. All he wanted to do was he down and do nothing, think nothing, plan nothing. Only some deep life-loving core of himself made him go on, only his stubborn will pushed him on. Lying down would be equivalent to death. He had no more stimulants, no food, nothing to drink. If he stayed in one place, it would be only a matter of time before a hunger of ogres or a stink of trolls came upon him. If he wanted to go on living, he had to get home.
The words were thought, not spoken, and it was some little time before he realized the form his intention had taken Home. When had he last thought of the farm as home? Not for years. Why now?
He couldn’t find an answer, at least not one that satisfied him. It took too much energy to think about it. He dragged himself past the Wise Rocks Farm lane and on up the rutted road that led up the valley. The Cermit place was only a few miles farther on. The last mile he virtually crawled, taking five steps, then resting, then taking five steps again.
He staggered into the farmyard at dawn. The old man was already up, strewing corn among the chickens Abasio saw him as he neared the house, then saw Big Blue in the paddock, heard the familiar whicker, the sound coming to him as though from a great distance. The next thing he knew, he was lying across the back steps of the farmhouse, a blanket wrapped around him and his grandpa spooning something hot between his lax lips.
“What happened?” Abasio begged.
“You’d know better than I, boy? What’ve you been up to, falling over your own feet that way? Your breath stinks! You look like death warmed over.”
“I do?”
“You do. You look like an old ewe sheep: your eyes are yellow, your heart’s going ticky-ticky like you’d been chased by dogs, and your tongue is furred up like a dirty fleece. What ails you?”
“Just—just tired, I think, Grandpa Somebody gave me something. I guess it’s taking time to—to get it out of me.”
“Drugs.” The old man spat and struggled to his feet, letting Abasio’s head roll onto the boards of the porch with a decided thump. “What would the city be without drugs, eh?”
“I didn’t take it,” Abasio protested. “Somebody gave it to me.”
“Always somebody. Well, you’re here now, and there’s no somebody to give you anything but hot soup and home-baked bread. Can you get yourself into the house? If not, I’ll have to put rollers on you. You’re too big for me to move.”
He could get no farther than into the porch itself, where he collapsed onto the narrow bed against the back wall of the house. This felt like home, his own bed, where he’d slept in the summers, when the house was too hot.
“That’s far enough, I suppose,” his grandfather mumbled. “That’s a place you’re used to. Though the bed’s too small for you now, it’ll have to do.”
Abasio let his eyes close, let his lids glue themselves down. No point trying to keep alert, keep awake. Whatever was wrong with him was getting worse, not better. It had been steadily downhill since … whenever.
The day brightened, but Abasio did not. He pulled the blanket over his head, sleeping heavily, almost comatose, as though he would never wake again.
His grandfather roused him and fed him that night and again the following morning. Each time he got as far as the edge of the porch to pee. He slept through the noon hour, but awakened long enough to drink a cup of soup at dusk. The next morning, he awakened on his own, heaved himself onto the side of the bed, and sat there staring owlishly at the chickens in the yard. His mouth tasted like the bottom of their coop. In the kitchen his grandfather stood at the sink washing vegetables, a slumped and yet familiar figure, no matter it was unlike the tall, erect silhouette Abasio remembered from his youth.
“Coming to, are you?” Cermit asked through the open door.
“I guess,” said Abasio, slurring the words. He wanted something. Very badly.
“How much of that drug did they give you?”
“A lot, I guess,” Abasio admitted. What was it he was wanting? What did he need? Not food. Not drink.
“Too much, I’d say. What was this drug for?”
Abasio didn’t answer. He’d suddenly identified the sick hunger he felt. Though he’d had no personal experience with addiction, he’d heard others complain of it, and these were the symptoms. A
ll he really wanted was more of what he’d already had too much of. Starlight. He shuddered and gagged, both glad and sorry he’d given what was left of the stuff to Soniff when he got his sparrow back. The three missing days would turn into a short lifetime if he had a supply available.
Maudlin tears dribbled down his face. Poor Little Purp. Poor Soniff. Were they feeling like this? If they were, if Little Purp was habituated … still another reason for hunting Abasio down and cutting pieces off him.
“Oh, shit,” he groaned. “I’m sick.” He struggled to his feet and managed to make it to the porch steps before he succumbed to the dry heaves.
Cermit shook his head and retreated into the kitchen, reappearing in a moment with a steaming mug. He knelt beside Abasio, grunting in the effort, his old joints popping and snapping like dry twigs. “You probably won’t keep this down, but drink it anyhow. It’ll give your gut something to spew, and that’ll be less painful than what you’re doing.”
Three mugs later, Abasio managed to keep some of the broth down. He lay back on the narrow bed, letting the dizziness subside. Outside, the windmill whirled against the sky, and he shut his eyes so as not to see the twirling blades.
“You’re an advertisement for the city, you are,” his grandfather observed. “Worse than your poor ma. She heaved it up, too, but that was because she was pregnant with you.”
“I think I’ll sleep awhile longer,” mumbled Abasio.
“Good idea,” the old man said in a dry voice. “You do that.”
He slept until midafternoon and awoke without the heaves. Beside him his grandfather sat in the old rocking chair, half-dozing.
“I saw Big Blue,” murmured Abasio. “I must be having hallucinations.”
“No, you saw him. He’s Big Blue’s grandson, though. Looks just like the old horse. Acts like him too.”
“Dreamed about him,” said Abasio. “I really did.”
The old man stared at the younger. “When was this?”
“I don’t know. A week ago, maybe. Dreamed I was here, at the farm, then dreamed I was going someplace on Big Blue.”
“Are you?”