A Plague of Angels

  “Not as prophesied!” Abasio blurted “Oracle says not Arakny says not. Both of them say the story Tom told about Olly’s seven questions was a—a—” “A fable?” suggested Bear.

  “A lie!” snarled Abasio “A lie, a damned lie, and why would she lie to me?”

  “Well, as to that,” said Coyote, “she never intended to. That last night, before she left, she sent for me. She gave me something to give you, when you asked for it.” Abasio merely gaped at him. “Why you?” he whispered at last. Coyote shrugged. “Because she couldn’t tell you then. She didn’t want to spoil what had happened between you She wanted to take that with her, she said. She needed it unsullied and perfect.”

  “Perfect,” he cried. “So little time—” “One perfect thing that would last forever, so she said. But she always meant for you to know what no one else knows. No one but me, that is.” Abasio slumped against the wagon

  Coyote sat down gingerly, easing his splinted leg “She said she had to live in your memory, Abasio. She said her whole life had to be lived through you. All the years you might have had together. She said you had to know everything about her.”

  “Tell me, then!” he cried.

  “No It isn’t for me to tell, it’s for her to tell.” Coyote stood up and tried unsuccessfully to get into the wagon. Bear came to give him a boost. Abasio heard him nosing around, and in a moment he came to the front and dropped something at Abasio’s feet.

  “What’s that?”

  “It was Arakny’s library,” said Coyote. “But Olly and the old man changed it. Now it’s Olly’s library.”

  “Put it on,” grunted the Bear “Turn it on.”

  Abasio sat beside the wheel, emptied the silvery chains into his lap, and saw them assume the cap shape.

  “On your head!” said Bear.

  He put it on his head. Bear pointed to the button on the packet, and Abasio pushed it.

  She came around the corner of the wagon, smiling into his eyes.

  “Abasio!” she cried She came close He smelled her scent, felt the warmth of her body.

  “Olly,” he said, reaching out for her. “You went away!”

  “I did, yes I had to go, Abasio. But I’ve left my love behind. For you.”

  “Why?” he cried. “Why did you do it?”

  “For loving you, Abasio. For loving the life we had. For loving it enough to want others to have it too.”

  “If you went away, how can you be here?”

  “Old Seoca helped me put myself here for you. My dreams, Abasio. My memories. Everything I am, or was.”

  “Mot real! Mot the real Olly!”

  Olly laughed, somewhat ruefully. “Which Olly did you make p’nash with?”

  He only gaped at her, so she answered the question for him.

  “Whatever Olly she was, I am that one!”

  She laughed herself into his arms, and he held her while chasing stubborn, half-angry notions around in his head, none of them sufficiently strong to move him to let go of her. She felt real. Oh, by heaven, she felt real. As real as he himself. As all the monsters stalking the earth probably were, and Coyote and Bear. “Oracle said you lied to Tom,” “Not really I just didn’t tell the whole truth.” “Will you tell me?” “I always meant you to know.”

  “What happened when you went before the thrones, that time that Arakny and I waited outside?”

  Olly stood away from him, still holding him, looking deep into his eyes.

  “Hunagor spoke to me. She said she had some questions she wanted answered by an ordinary person I told her I was ordinary enough, and she laughed at that. She said that in all the history of the thrones, they have seldom had to go so far as they went with man, and they were interested in understanding why I thought this was so.

  “Hunagor asked me why man did not learn from the recurrent famines she had sent upon the earth.” “What did you say?”

  “I told Hunagor what others had told me: that children are proofs of virility, and solutions that leave virility in doubt were not acceptable, that children are a way of controlling women, and losing control over women was not acceptable; that children grew up to make money or armies, and that not having money or armies was not acceptable I said that men will not solve a problem unless they can find an ‘acceptable’ solution, and there are no acceptable solutions for some problems.

  “Hunagor said yes, but even when men saw their own children dying, still they did not limit their numbers And I told them what Oracle had taught me: that man believes what man wants to believe, and he always wants to believe the next time will be different.

  “Then Hunagor asked why man, who claimed to be proud of his intelligence, preferred such easy belief to the hard choices intelligence requires. And I quoted Oracle again: The end is in the beginning. If children are taught to ignore their minds and merely believe, grown men will never do otherwise.”

  She fell silent, snuggling into his arms “That’s only three questions,” he said wonderingly. “Those are the three Hunagor asked Then Werra asked why man had not been warned by the wars he had created, why men did not change when Seoca first sent IDDIs among them, why it was necessary, finally, for the plague of man to be controlled by the plague of angels, in order to save the earth.”

  “And you gave the same three answers,” said Abasio, sure of it.

  “I gave the same three answers. Man believes what he wants to believe, and he chose to believe war was merely local or temporary or justifiable Man could have made the hard choices that would have stopped the immune deficiency diseases in the same way Artemisia controls them now, but those afflicted demanded other choices, their friends demanded other choices, their kinfolk demanded other choices, no government would take a stand that might lose it support, every faction found some part of the solution unacceptable. And finally, man would not stop destroying the earth until he was forced to do so, for he was reared in the belief he was more important than the earth itself, and the end is in the beginning.” “What was the seventh question?”

  “It will be hard for you, Abasio!”

  “Tell me!” He shook her. Only gently Olly sighed, an echo of the sigh the old man Seoca had made when he sat down upon his mighty chair. “The last thing they asked me was this: Since man was so intransigent, why was he allowed to go to the stars?” “What was your answer to that?” he demanded. “I should have figured it out long ago, Abasio. So should you.”

  “To save the earth? To conserve the earth? Why?” “Man never went to the stars.”

  He merely stared, disbelieving.

  She pursed her mouth, as though she tasted something bitter “Men never went anywhere but here.” She stamped her foot, looking down at the ground beneath them. “His star journey was only a myth. Another in an endless series of man’s heroic myths of his own past. Glorious stories to make man the hero, for man always has to be the hero ‘Cock-a-doodle. Crouch, you hens. Here comes the rooster.’ ”

  He could not answer. He thrust her away in his mind, her and the knowledge she had brought him.

  “You are of Gaddir kindred, too, Abasio,” she whispered. “Your children will be, and your many-times-great-grandchildren. You will live long. You will see many things—do many things.” She leaned forward and kissed him. “There is an archetype we never had in any of our villages, Abasio. The Mysterious Stranger. The one who comes and goes, who sees everything, learns everything. He is needed in this new world.”

  He could think of nothing to say.

  “Farewell, Abasio,” she whispered. “I’ll be here if you need me.”

  Abasio found the cap between his hands. He had taken it off himself.

  Bear said, “Poor man. So proud.”

  Abasio made a warding gesture. Bear merely grunted.

  “You’ve both—experienced this?” Abasio snarled.

  “Just me,” Coyote whispered. “Olly promised me. She was my friend too. I know man never went to the stars.”

  “It’s not true!” Ab
asio denied it. Men had gone. Men like himself had gone, taking possession of the universe for mankind!

  Bear growled. “Little shuttle. Many men! But man believes what he wants to believe.”

  Coyote yawned. “She said you would see the size of the shuttle, when it went. And she said Tom talked all the time about how many men there had been once. She said reason alone should have told you.”

  “But there was a space station! There were moon settlements.”

  “But they were never finished. Olly said men could have gone to the stars if they hadn’t been so prick-proud But they were. So they didn’t. They just stayed here and bred!” “Then why didn’t the thrones kill us all?”

  “Because you belong here,” said Bear.

  “That’s true,” Coyote agreed. “Though some of our people think we’d be better off without you, you do belong here.” His voice trailed off, and he put his head upon his paws. His leg hurt mightily He was weary Though he had never thought it would happen, he was tired of talk.

  Abasio cried, “They ate us up! All our glory! They ate up our stars!” He heard echoes of his voice return from the rocks around them, the sound of a child in tantrum, hating all the world. “They ate us all up.”

  “That’s the point Someone had to,” snarled Coyote. Bear whuffed with laughter.

  “Now hush,” said Coyote wearily. “It’s over. They don’t meddle until they must, and once they’re done, they’re done They’ve gone.”

  “Tiring, this talk!” grumbled Bear, rearing up and sticking his hairy face in Abasio’s to give him a close lookingover.

  Big Blue stamped his foot, shaking the reins, whinnying a question that Abasio heard clearly as, “Are we going to sit here all day?”

  “Where?” asked Bear, staring into Abasio’s eyes. Abasio closed his eyes, not caring where they went Big Blue heaved a sigh and pulled the wagon out onto the downward road, settled himself between the shafts, looked questioningly out over the canyon, farted loudly, and shook his head to make the harness jingle Then he plodded down the road at an unhurried pace while Bear shambled purposefully along behind.

  Abasio stared up at the star-pricked darkness, the shining vault of heaven that he had thought was his, if only by proxy, finding his own star Abasio’s star. His own private glory His own Book of the Purples. His own legend of past marvels, making him more than he was.

  “That’s why they started the story,” said her voice in his mind. “What man has already done, he need not plunder his world to do again.”

  Which was true. He could be less … heroic. He could be more deliberate. Careful. Careful not only of himself…

  Something within him shuddered and sat up straight, substituting one vision for another. Instead of glory and power, instead of a gleaming shuttle pushed by its tail of fire, this slow creaking wagon behind this flatulent horse. How long to reach the moon once, more, behind a farting horse? How far to Rigel, or to Betelgeuse? Or did one aspire to a different destination?

  He stared out over the trees, beyond the canyon. Artemisia. Low Mesiko The forests of the east. And room, perhaps for … a Mysterious Stranger A storyteller, perhaps Someone to immortalize the name of Olly Longaster, daughter of the stars. Someone who was destined to live a long, long time.

  “What now?” he asked.

  “You’re asking me?” she said in his mind.

  “Who else would I ask?”

  “The ones in charge,” she replied. “It’s not just men this time around, Abasio.”

  He looked into the wagon to catch Coyote’s calculating eye.

  “Are you the trail boss on this journey?” he asked.

  “Us,” said Big Blue, keeping his eyes on the road.

  “Us,” said Bear, whuffing with laughter “Us all.”

  Other Bantam Books by Sheri S. Tepper

  AFTER LONG SILENCE

  THE GATE TO WOMEN’S COUNIRY

  BEAUTY

  GRASS

  RAISING THE STONES

  SIDESHOW

  About the Author

  SHERI S. TEPPER is the highly acclaimed author of the novels Sideshow, Beauty, Raising the Stones, Grass, The Gate to Women’s Country, and After Long Silence. Grass was a New York Times Notable Book and Hugo Award nominee, and Beauty was voted Best Fantasy Novel by the readers of Locus magazine.

  And now, a special preview of

  Shadow’s End

  A novel by Sheri S. Tepper.

  Available now in paperback from Bantam Books

  The fragrant sun-checkered canyon lands of the planet Dinadh seem to be a peaceful backwater of the universe, except for one thing. A century ago, a mysterious force wiped out human life on all surrounding worlds, leaving Dinadh untouched. Every team sent to investigate vanished. Every attempt to contact survivors met with devastating silence. Now the unknown force is back—and this time humanity’s only hope for survival lies on Dinadh … with a woman who would give anything not to get involved.

  What follows is a special excerpt from the opening of Sheri Tepper’s extraordinary novel.

  The powerful man was the Procurator himself, and the woman was Lutha Tallstaff. She was part of a branching of the pattern, as we say, though she and I knew nothing of one another at the time. After years we can look back to see the design we have made, the pattern Weaving Woman intended all along. A time comes when one sees that pattern clear, and then one says, remember this, remember that; see how this happened, see how that happened. Remember what the songfather said, what the Procurator said.

  What he first said was, “You knew Leelson Famber.”

  It was a statement of fact, though he paused, as one does when expecting an answer.

  Lutha Tallstaff contended herself with a slight cock of her head, meaning all right, so? She was annoyed. She felt much put upon. She was tired of the demands made upon her. Anyone who would send invigilators to drag her from her bath and supper—not literally drag, of course, though it felt like it—to this unscheduled and mysterious meeting at Prime needed no help from her! Besides, she’d last seen Leelson four years ago.

  “You knew Famber well,” This time he was pushing.

  Skinny old puritan, Lutha thought. Of course she had known Leelson well.

  “We were lovers once,” she replied, without emphasis, letting him stew on that as she stared out the tall windows over the roofs of Alliance Prime upon Alliance Central.

  She sighed, already tired of this. “Why is my relationship with Leelson Famber any concern of yours?”

  “I … that is, we need someone who … was connected to him.”

  Only now the tocsin. “You knew Leelson Famber,” he’d said. “You knew him.”

  “Why!” she demanded with a surge of totally unexpected panic. “What’s happened to him?”

  “He’s disappeared.”

  She almost laughed, feeling both relief and a kind of pleasure at thinking Leelson might be injured, or ill, or maybe even dead. So she told me.

  “But you were lovers!” I cried in that later time. “You said you were made for each other!”

  So we believe, we women of Dinadh, who sit at the loom to make an inner robe for our lovers or our children or our husbands or ourselves, beginning a stripe of color, so, and another color, so, with the intent that they shall come together to make a wonderful pattern at the center, one pattern begetting another. So people, too, can be intended to come together in wonder and joy.

  So I pleaded with her, dismayed. “Didn’t you love him? Didn’t he love you?”

  “You don’t understand,” she cried. “We’d been lovers, yes! But against all good sense! Against all reason. It was like being tied to some huge stampeding animal, dragged along, unable to stop!” She panted, calming herself, and I held her, knowing very well the feeling she spoke of. I, too, had felt dragged along.

  “Besides,” she said, “I was sick of hearing about Leelson! Him and his endless chain of triumphs! All those dramatic disappearances, those climactic reappearanc
es, bearing wonders, bearing marvels. The Roc’s egg. The Holy Grail.”

  “Truly?” I asked. Even I had heard of the Holy Grail, a mystical artifact of the Kristin faith, a religion mostly supplanted by Firstism, although it is practiced by some remote peoples still. “Practiced,” we say of all religions but that of the Gracious One. “Because they haven’t got it right yet” It is the kind of joke our songfathers tell.

  But Lutha shook her head at me, crying angrily, saying well, no, not the Holy Grail. But Leelson had found the Sword of Salibar, and the Gem of Adalpi. And there was that business about his fetching home the Lost King of Kamir. Well, we knew what came of that!

  Perhaps the Procurator understood her ambivalence, for he lurched toward her, grimacing. “Sorry!” He chewed his lip, searching for words, his twisted body conveying more strain than the mere physical. “I perceive the fact of his disappearance does not convey apprehension.”

  “His disappearance alone does not make me apprehensive,” Lutha drawled, emulating his stuffy manner. Though it annoyed the Fastigats, who claimed intuition as a province solely theirs, even laymen could play at inferences. “I gather from your obvious distress, however, that his disappearance does not stand alone.”

  Seeming not to notice her sarcasm, he gestured toward the wide chairs he had ignored since she entered the room. “Sit down, please, do. Forgive my rudeness. I haven’t had time for niceties lately. Let me order refreshment.”

  “If it pleases you.” She was starved, but damned if she’d let him know it.

  “I hope it will please us both. Today … today could use some leavening of pleasure, even if it is only a little fragrance, a little savor.”

  She seated herself as he murmured rapidly into his collar-link before scrambling into the chair across from her, a spindly lopsided figure, his awkwardness made more evident by the skintight uniform. When in the public gaze, draped in ceremonial robes or tabards or togas or what-have-you, even elderly bureaucrats could look imposing enough, but without the draperies, in official skinnies with their little potbellies or saggy butts fully limned, many of them were a little ridiculous. Even the Fastigats. So she said of him.