A Plague of Angels

“Absorbed alive?” he croaked.

  She came to kneel before him, taking his hands in her own “What is ‘alive,’ Abasio? Is an entity that thinks and cares and needs still ‘alive’? If so, then Hunagor still lives. And Werra too. And all those who became part of the thrones before him. As I would be, or you, if we still cared and thought and needed, no matter what we—looked like. No matter where we’d gone.”

  She pressed her cheek against him, rose, and turned as though to go, then changed her mind. Instead, she sat down again and said, “Will you wait for me, Abasio?”

  “Wait for you?”

  “Until I get back in a little while.”

  “Where are you going?” he asked, fighting panic.

  She looked at her twined fingers for a long moment, as though the answer were there. “I said it before. Herkimer- Lurkimer owes me an explanation. Even though I understand some things, there are others that seem foggy. I want to see the shuttle. It’s—it’s scary to think I have to—to spend my life this way! I’ve hardly lived at all yet!”

  “But, but,” he cried, “when the shuttle comes back, surely they’ll let you go!”

  “I don’t think it would matter if they did. I think once you’re really hooked up to that system, you don’t get loose again. That’s one of the things I want to ask him, the old man.”

  “If that’s true, you won’t go. You can’t. I won’t let you!”

  She shook her head slowly. “Oh, Abasio, I’m not sure I’d let me, either, but if I do … would you give your life for me?”

  “If I had to!” he cried, without thinking. “To save you!”

  “Well, you see, I’d give mine for you. And you are part of life.”

  She leaned forward, her forehead pressed against his. “I feel the pattern, Abasio, mostly. I know if that ship goes, there’s a chance—more than a chance—that whatever comes back, it won’t be me. But if I don’t go, I see the pattern of what will happen here. Pain and terror. The walkers changing, becoming something else, something worse. I see them, Abasio. They’re human in form, but they aren’t alive. They don’t care about life. I can see the pattern of their design, their manufacture. They can aggregate, did you know that? They can join themselves together to make bigger things, more dangerous things. Two alone are terrible, but when two join, they are many times as dreadful. And when two join to two more, and those to another two, they are horrible beyond belief. I can see them, towering, thundering, the very planet breaking apart beneath them!

  “What they would leave behind would be a cinder, dead as ash.”

  She rubbed tears from her cheeks. “All the lovely birds! All the flowers. Arakny’s elk she was so proud of! The fish you caught for our dinner. All gone, Abasio Coyote gone. Bear gone.”

  “Why? Why would Ellel want that?”

  “She doesn’t want that. She’s risking that. People like her have always been willing to risk things they didn’t want to happen Usually for power. Oh, she knows what the walkers may do! Men designed them to destroy the world. One tribe of men said to some other tribe, If we are conquered, then let the earth perish! If we can’t live as we like, then let us all perish!”

  She scrubbed at the tears again. “Will you wait for me?”

  “Yes,” he said, scarcely able to get the words out. “Yes. I’ll wait.”

  Her fingers clung to his for a moment, and then she went out without a backward look.

  He wanted her. All of him wanted all of her, all at once, and so completely that he shook with it. Whatever had ailed him ailed him no longer! In this moment he was unassailably aware of that fact.

  Seoca sat in his chair upon the terrace. Olly sat cross-legged before him. She had thought she might remember him, but she did not. He was merely an old man, someone who had used her as a fly fisherman uses a fly: to make the big fish rise.

  “You want Ellel to go?” she asked.

  “Ellel should go,” he replied. “But we can’t force her. We don’t do that. We can create weapons, but we can’t use them. Our lineage unsuits us for it. Even if we could do it physically, we’re not allowed to philosophically. Only if the means is correct is the end appropriate.”

  She said, “You need me to take her?”

  He nodded. “Everything we know about her says she will go only if she believes she has captured you in spite of our best efforts at hiding you, if she is forcing you despite your best efforts to resist, if she is compelling you against your will. If you came to her with open hands, offering to guide her, she would be too suspicious to accept your offer.”

  She glanced upward in sudden comprehension. “That’s why they didn’t just go ahead and build the kind of system they used to use?”

  He nodded. “She would never have trusted an electronic system. She’d have been sure Mitty had sabotaged it. Oh, she’d have let the shuttle go. She’d have sent Ander, perhaps. Or some other of the Ellels. But for herself, she cannot trust what she has not trampled and conquered and bent to her will! She cannot trust what she does not hold by force.”

  “It was you who gave them the specifications for the Organic Guidance System?”

  “It was Werra, actually. He put the plans where they’d be found. He told the Domers you existed. But then we hid you and would not tell her where you were. We frustrated her for years, and now only her triumph over us has convinced her it is safe for her to go.”

  “Why must she go herself?”

  “Because if she does not go, she will stay here, in control of her walkers. She knows what they’re capable of. She’ll end up using them. On the other hand, if she goes, it will set other wheels in motion. It is not her going but what happens after she goes that will be decisive! One way, or the other.”

  “Wheels within wheels,” she murmured.

  “Oh, indeed.”

  “Oracle used to tell me a story,” she remarked. “It was an Artemisian tale, about Changing Woman and the monsters.”

  “I think I know the tale. Was it about Old Age, and Cold Woman, and the animals needing worse monsters than that?”

  “That’s the one. Coyote and Bear asked Changing Woman for worse monsters to kill man, so they could keep their hides. But instead, she taught them to talk. I thought it was just a story, but someone did teach them to talk.”

  He smiled. “There’s another version, you know. In that one, she teaches them to talk, but she creates some terrible monsters as well.”

  “To eat up man.”

  “No. Just to get him to pay attention. So the story goes.”

  “I’ll have to put that into Arakny’s library.”

  “Do you have Arakny’s library?”

  She took it from her pocket and showed it to him. After that, they talked a great while longer. Before she left him, the old man leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek.

  “Thank you, child,” he said “Thank you, child.”

  Later that afternoon, Olly emerged from Gaddi House and asked to be taken to the shuttle. Mitty, in a move unusual for him, insisted on being present. He stayed with Ellel in the control section while Dever took Olly through the crew space, the passenger cubicles, the moon lander, the engines. Mitty heard Dever’s voice going on and on about galley arrangements and toilet arrangements, including a great deal of tediously graphic information about the difficulty of weightless elimination.

  When Dever ran out of shuttle explanations, they went down to the floor once more. During the entire tour, Olly had remained expressionless, as though what was said did not much matter, and now she said to Ellel, “I need some additional information.”

  Ellel had been waiting for opposition, poised for battle. “You need know nothing beyond—”

  “If you want us to get where we’re going, I need to know some things,” said Olly with a sudden icy hauteur that cut through Ellel’s belligerence like a knife. “I need to know who is going, and how many. It makes a difference.”

  “We’re all going,” grated Ellel.

  “That cannot
be true,” said Olly, stating it as simple fact. “I counted the spaces in the shuttle. That’s why I had to see it, to know how large it is. You can take no more than a hundred humans if you take no walkers. If you take walkers, you can put several in each cubicle, but that means you will take fewer humans. Even if you took no walkers and a hundred humans, there are many more of you than that. Inevitably, some will go and some will stay. I need to know which ones.”

  “I can see no possible reason why—”

  “I don’t know why, either,” said Olly. “I can’t give you reasons or argue with you because I simply know it’s necessary without knowing why. This guidance thing is done subconsciously, it’s a kind of wild talent, not a science. If it’s going to work, I have to know who’s going. The cargo enters into the calculation.”

  Mitty spoke forcefully. “Ellel, that’s not unreasonable. Surely you’ve already decided who’s going to go along! You can make up a list for her, can’t you? What difference does it make?”

  It made a difference to Ellel, who wanted her will to be done, however arbitrary it might be, without question or hesitation, but she glared at him from behind her mask and agreed. She would punish him for his interference when she returned.

  “How soon?” demanded Ellel, her eyes glittering.

  “Whenever you’re ready,” said Olly with flat indifference. “When you know who’s going, send someone with a list. When you’re ready to leave, I’ll be ready to guide you.”

  Ellel was confused, almost disappointed by this ready acquiescence. “I won’t free your friends until you do!” she cried. “You understand that! And worse will happen to them if you disappoint me!” She stood, fingers extended as though they were talons, head forward as though to strike.

  “She understands that,” said Mitty. “Let’s not make a battle out of it—”

  Olly interrupted. “You needn’t threaten me or my friends, Madam Domer. Believe me, I understand you completely.”

  Mitty took her out, leaving Ellel to stew silently behind them, too set upon battle merely to let the matter alone. If she could not get a fight from Olly, she would get one from the hostages!

  But she had no more success there. “You needn’t rage at me,” Oracle said calmly. “If Olly says you’ll be guided, then you will. She won’t lie to you.”

  Ellel laughed at her. “History is made up of broken promises,” she said in a sneering voice as she looked around the luxurious meeting room, which now had the appearance of a hasty camp, with beds scattered here and there and people sitting about looking bored and apprehensive, both at once.

  “True,” Oracle agreed “Still, some do not lie.”

  Ellel gave Oracle a penetrating glance. “My associate, Berkli, said he wanted you to prognosticate for us. About the success of our journey. Did he receive a prophecy?”

  “When he found we were tired and hungry and thirsty, he arranged amenities for us, saying he would return later for the foretelling,” said Oracle. “I thought it both kind and wise of him to do so. I’m a better Oracle when well fed.”

  “One could have guessed that,” sneered Ellel. “It took two walkers to carry you.”

  Oracle recognized the voice of an habitual provocateur and did not reply.

  “Since you have not yet given your prognostication, I will ask for it now,” Ellel said, with a sidelong look.

  “The rules require that I be paid,” said Oracle. “This guarantees the veracity of what I say.”

  “Oh, you’ll be paid.” Ellel laughed. “With your life, perhaps. Or I’ll let you keep your sight. Or your tongue Is that sufficient payment?”

  “Indeed it is,” said Oracle, in a voice Olly scarcely would have recognized, so sweet it was. “Is there a private place here where I can concentrate?”

  Ellel opened a door into a neighboring room furnished with a table and a few chairs. “In here.”

  Oracle went into it, drawing from her capacious robes a small leather bag, and from the bag an incense burner and a bell. “Simple devices to assist my concentration,” she murmured. “One becomes habituated to their use.”

  Ellel folded her arms and leaned against the closed door while Oracle busied herself. Olly would have recognized the scent, the smoke, the sound of the tinkling bell, the sight of Oracle climbing onto the table with great agility and folding her legs beneath her. Ellel sneered at all of it.

  “Ask your question,” said Oracle, in a voice unlike her own.

  “Will our trip to the space station be successful?”

  Oracle’s eyes rolled back into her head. She breathed heavily. Her voice came as though from a distance.

  “Four court disaster. Three cannot reach the moon. Two families alone achieve the stars.”

  Oracle breathed more shallowly, panting. Slowly, slowly her eyes came back to normal.

  “What does it mean?” snarled Ellel. “ ‘Four court disaster’—what does that mean?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” said Oracle. “Does it refer to four families? Some difficulty on the flight, perhaps. Some interfamily conflict. Could that be?”

  Ellel pondered, her fingers making a rapid tattoo on the door behind her. “Families. Your forecast says families. And why the stars, when we do not intend to go beyond the moon?”

  Oracle shrugged. “I am a bona-fide Oracle, Madam Domer. I do not plan what is to be said, and I cannot interpret it. Nor can I pile prognostication on prognostication to arrive at greater and greater detail. What I have said, I have said, and that is all I can say until the situation changes.”

  “And if I don’t believe you?”

  “You can ask those who know me. They will tell you the same You can ask other Oracles; we are all more or less alike. You can bring some other Oracle here, or go to some village where one is.”

  “Families,” muttered Ellel. “Not merely I, then, as the head of the family, but other members as well are to go. But only two families.”

  Oracle shrugged “Perhaps you have arrived at a clue to the meaning. The more of you Domers who go, the fewer of your creatures may go. Perhaps your mission depends on there being a proper balance of both, family members plus walkers. As for the reference to the stars, surely the success of this first journey sets the pattern for those that follow. In the beginning, so I have heard, is the end.”

  “Are you saying that’s what is meant?”

  Oracle put out her hands, palms out, denying this. “No, no. I would not presume to interpret I merely offer a possibility. There is one thing I can tell you, however. The fact that I prophesy a journey clearly implies that Olly will cooperate in guiding you. Otherwise, no journey would be possible, would it?”

  Ellel became very still. Why had she not seen that immediately? Why, because—she told herself—she had always assumed as much. She had seen herself, even as a child, standing beside her father on the moon. The two of them, standing there together! She had never admitted doubt, not once. She smiled to herself and opened the door to go out into the larger room. She thought she had not decided to go to the moon but she had really known all along she would go!

  While Oracle was out of the room, Domer servants had set food upon a long table, where Drowned Woman and the Farmwife were now making a quiet meal, side by side. Oracle went toward them with a surreptitious look at Ellel, who was leaving, head down, as though she were thinking long, serious thoughts.

  “What did you foresee?” asked Farmwife Suttle, with a curious glance at Ellel’s departing back.

  Oracle said loudly, “If they plan correctly, they will achieve the stars as men did long ago.”

  The door to the corridor snapped shut.

  “Olly’s going to take them there, then?” whispered Drowned Woman.

  “Seemingly so,” said Oracle, helping herself to roast lamb. She sniffed the meat, detecting thyme and parsley, basil and mint. Such cookery was a rare thing in archetypal villages. Her own had never been graced with an archetypal Chef.

  “You eat with better
appetite than I,” said Drowned Woman bitterly. “You seem to care little for Orphan. Don’t you grieve for her?”

  Oracle’s voice quavered as she answered. “What is to be is to be. Grieving will not change it. If she guides the ship, we will not be harmed.”

  Oracle rose, leaving her plate untouched, to stare out the window at the sky. “Herself traded for us.”

  “Your prophecy,” said Farmwife heavily. “I don’t suppose you—”

  “No!” said Oracle sadly. “Though I was prepared to he if necessary, when the time came, I could not. Ellel’s prophecy is true.”

  Deep in the night, Abasio lay sleepless on his borrowed bed, wishing he were elsewhere.

  The door opened, admitting a sliver of lamplight, a slight silhouette dark against it.

  “Basio?” Olly’s voice.

  “Yes,” he said urgently. “Yes. When did you get back?”

  “I’ve been back,” she said. “Wandering around in this place. It’s endless, Abasio. The part down below, it’s monstrous huge. I could explore down there for my whole life and probably not see it all.”

  “What were you doing?”

  “Looking at things. Things the old man told me about. Things the thrones have stored away down there. Things that grew, and things that they made. And some things people like Tom have made too. They have workshops and laboratories here.…” Her voice drifted off. After a moment she sighed. “And partly I’ve just been waiting for everyone to settle down. I didn’t want anyone fussing at me. Tom. Or Nimwes, or Arakny. You know.”

  “I know,” he said “They’re all upset.” He threw back the covers to get up and go to Olly, all unclothed as he was.

  He realized his nakedness too late, as she came to him with a little rush, pushing under the cover beside him, pulling it over them both. “Don’t get up.”

  She lay with her face below his, her lips thrust into the curve of his neck, her body stretched along his, her arms around him.

  “Did you see the shuttle?” he whispered, not wanting to ask that question or any question, but needing to hear her voice over the drumroll of his heart.

  “I saw it,” she whispered. “It isn’t very big, Abasio. A hundred passengers is all it holds.”