“Fine,” said Shan. “Where are Bombi and Volsa?”
“Saw them walking down the street a while ago. You’re sure you’re all right.”
“Fine,” said Shan again, calling out as Sam went out the door, “and thank you.”
Inside he was trembling, keeping himself from total panic only with an effort. This wouldn’t have happened, he told himself, on Thyker. It wouldn’t have happened. It had to be something here, something on Hobbs Land. Something … maybe those growths. Maybe … maybe something else, but definitely something. He lunged from the bed and started to pull his clothes on. It was this place. This place was causing it!
He went out into the street, hearing the music in a kind of panic, walking swiftly toward it, trying not to run, keeping himself from running only with great difficulty. As he approached the sound, he began to make out the words they were singing.
“Rise up, oh ye stones,” cried the tenors. “Rise up, ye great stones. Stand, oh, stand into the light.”
“Rise up,” boomed the basses. “Stand, oh, stand into the light.”
“Rise up,” trilled the girl’s voice. “Stand into the light.”
And there were Bombi and Volsa, sitting on the grass, listening, nodding in time to the music. “Not nice of you,” Shan snarled from just behind them. “Not nice of either of you.”
Bombi looked up to see him standing there, grinning a death’s-head grin.
“What were you two doing, sneaking off without me?” Shan asked. His voice was tight, near to screaming.
Bombi stared at him, not replying.
“I thought you were asleep,” said Volsa. “We’re just sightseeing.”
“Let’s get out of here,” said Shan, seizing their arms and half-dragging them back the way they had come. “Out, quickly.”
“Shan, what’s the matter with you?” cried Volsa, tugging herself away from him.
“The noise,” he said. “The noise.”
“It’s only music, and lovely music,” she cried.
“In my head,” he muttered. “Something trying to get into my head. Swallow me.”
“Beauty,” she snapped. “Beauty trying to get into your head. It’s all right. We’re allowed to appreciate beauty.”
He shook his head at her, wildly. “More than that,” he hissed at her. “More than that. Get out of here.”
Bewildered, they followed him back to the guest quarters, where he shut the window against the sound of the distant choir.
“Don’t you hear it?” he cried at them. “The thing trying to get in?”
“Shan, go lie down,” his brother instructed. “You’re overtired. I hear nothing but music, lovely music, very nice voices, untrained but, in the mass, having a nice effect. I do not detect any threat against my religious sensibilities.”
“I’m not overtired,” Shan shouted. “Not!”
Volsa merely looked at him, thinking he had not acted like this since just after he had returned from Ninfadel. He met her eyes, flushed, and went into his own room, shutting the door behind him. He was quite sure he wasn’t mad. Though, at one time, among the Porsa and when he first got home, then he had thought he might be mad. This time he was quite sure he wasn’t. Quite, quite sure.
He sat down at his portable stage and began, very carefully, to compose a message to the Circle of Scrutators of the High Baidee. When he had done, he composed a quick, superficially innocent reminder to Howdabeen Churry. In essence, both of them said that Shan Damzel felt Zilia Makepeace had probably been right. Something dreadful was going on.
• Maire Girat received word that her nephew, one Ilion Girat, son of Phaed’s youngest brother, was on Hobbs Land and desired to see her. The last thing Maire wanted to do was see anyone from Voorstod, but on the other hand the boy could have something to say—about Phaed, perhaps. That he was sick, which she felt unlikely, or dead, which was always possible, given Phaed’s inclinations. If he were sick, or dead, she wanted to know. Silly, perhaps. Unreasonable, yes. But she wanted to know. However, there was this other possibility …
Maire went over to the brotherhouse and found Sam doing nothing much, which was a wonder in itself.
“I’ve a message your dad’s nephew is here on Hobbs Land,” she said.
“My dad’s nephew? My father …”
“Phaed Girat’s younger brother’s son.”
Sam went giddy. This would be it, a signal, an invitation. This would be the thing he had been waiting for. “So? Does he ask to meet us?”
“Me, he does. And I don’t want to.”
She looked so pitiful, he forgot to be angry with her, though he usually was when she got into all that nonsense about Voorstod. “Tell me,” he said.
“I’m afraid he’s here to bring me back to Phaed.”
Sam could not keep from saying in an exasperated voice, “Mam, that’s silly. He couldn’t bring you back to Phaed if he tried. And to think Phaed would send anyone, after all these years, it’s ridiculous. He might send for me, maybe, not for you.”
She ignored what he said, her fear overcoming her perception, not really hearing the words. “For me, maybe …”
“I know it sounds ridiculous,” she said, wiping her eyes, “but I’m still married to him.”
Sam did not want to speak of marriage. The idea of it shone in his mind. Lifelong commitment. He didn’t care what China called it, that’s what he wanted, and he dared not talk of it for fear those who scorned the idea would sully it for him.
“You didn’t get unmarried when you left Voorstod?” he asked.
“There’s no getting unmarried in Voorstod, Sammy. I’d made my vows to Phaed. I’d made them before a priest, as they do in Voorstod, and there’s no undoing of it. The men can undo it, but the women never. For women, vows made before the priest are sacred.”
“Not so sacred you didn’t just walk off and leave him, though,” said Sam, a hint of his buried anger coming through.
Maire gave him a shocked look. “Well of course, I didn’t just walk off and leave him. After Maechy died, I went to your dad and I told him I could not go on living there in Voorstod, and I begged him to come with me here to Hobbs Land. ‘You’ve riled your belly over the Gharm long enough,’ I told him. ‘Forget them and come with me. There’s no Abolitionists on Hobbs Land for you to pain your guts over, and there’s no slaves to get in a passion about, and no marriage there either, so you would be rid of that burden as well.’ He disliked marriage, Sammy. That’s nothing rare among the men of Voorstod. They do it, because it’s the only way they can get virgin brides and sure sons, but it’s only what they call a temporary device. They don’t believe in it for men. In their Paradise, there will be no wives.”
Sam ignored most of this. “So, what are you afraid of? That some priest will be with your nephew, to drag you back to Ahabar?”
She shook her head. “It’s so strange, his being here. It smells of conspiracy.”
“Conspiracy!” he laughed. “Mam, you’re being as paranoid as Zilia Makepeace! The boy is here, he wants to see you because you were famous. Conspiracy!”
She stood up straight, glaring at him, “Sam, I say to you what my grandma once said to my mother in my hearing when I was yet a child. I’ve remembered her words all my life. She said, ‘Conspiracy is dark and dirty, and vengeance is heavy as rock, and being a slaver presses a man down until he can see nothing but black dirt around him, like the walls of a grave. Men become accustomed to that darkness when they are in the habit of death. It pains such men to come into the light.’ Now, Sammy, this nephew of your dad’s is one of them, and it would pain him to come into the light, as it would pain Phaed himself. Dream your dreams of a kingly father all you like, Sam—oh, don’t think I can’t tell what you’re thinking, you, my own flesh—but believe me, these men sit in the dark still, conspiring with their fellows, deep in that black pit with the stones of hate above them, and there is something dreadful portending. I know it as I know my own name.” She broke off
, half-choking, leaving Sam amazed and hurt.
He recovered himself and made excuses for her. So she was getting old. She was remembering troubled times, and it hit her hard. He should make allowances, but he didn’t need to believe everything she said. “Well, if you’re afraid, or for whatever reason, I’ll go with you to keep you safe.” Her fear made no sense to Sam at all. Still, this might well be the happening he had waited for, the stone under which he’d find his way back to Voorstod, and if she was involved, he would accept that she was afraid and get on with it.
Maire and Sam went up to CM for the meeting, and both of them were surprised to find two persons awaiting them when they arrived.
“Mugal Pye, at your service, Madam,” the older one said, eyes crinkled in his best attempt at a pleasant smile. “Young Ilion here is part of our Archives party, and he did want to say hello to his famous aunt.”
“You’re Domal’s son,” Maire said to the younger man, ignoring the fatuous comments of the older one. She knew men like Mugal Pye all too well. Phaed was one of the kind, and he too had smiled and smiled and said soft words.
“Yes, I’m Domal’s son,” the youngster said, staring at her curiously. “Are you really Maire Manone?”
“They called me that, yes.”
“The Sweet Singer of Scaery?”
“They called me that too, long ago.”
“Mugal Pye,” the older man said again, holding out his hand to Sam. “You’d be Sam Girat.”
“That’s right,” said Sam, wondering why he felt squeamish touching this man’s hand. Squeamish he felt, and he could not say why.
“Do you sing here, in this place?” Ilion asked Maire, looking around himself, as though wondering if anyone could sing in this place. “It seems very bare and open.”
She laughed without humor. “Compared to Scaery? Where the mists make walls and a roof for any homeless man? Where a man may have a dry bed only if he puts his blankets beside the fire?”
“It is damp in the north counties,” he agreed.
“Did you have some special reason for wanting to see me, boy?”
He shook his head. “I just wanted to hear about your life here, Maire Manone. People ask about you, you know. I thought I might carry word of you back.”
“Tell them Mary Manone is no more, that Mary Girat cares for the babies of Settlement One on Hobbs Land, and that she is satisfied. Tell them that, boy.” It seemed innocent enough, and she could not explain why she felt so cold.
Maire and Sam stayed only a little while longer, exchanging compliments and sending messages. Sam took Mugal Pye aside, despite the revulsion he felt for the man, and asked him to convey his best wishes to his dad. “Ask him to write to me,” he said. “I think of him often.”
Mugal Pye only smiled, without promising, for he had no intention that Phaed Girat be told about this, as yet. He asked Sam and Maire only a few more meaningless questions, to cover up the fact Maire had already told him everything he needed to know.
• The message written by Shan Damzel upon Hobbs Land was received on Thyker by Holorabdabag Reticingh, Chief of the Circle of Scrutators of the Divine Overmind, who judged it went overfar into the subject of inscrutable “feelings.”
Shan said in his message he felt something was wrong. Shan felt something was happening. Shan didn’t know what. Shan couldn’t prove anything, but Shan was decidedly nervous. He thought whatever-it-was Zilia Makepeace had felt, he too felt. It was inimical. It was threatening. It should be stopped.
Reticingh was at first concerned. about Shan Damzel’s health and welfare. “He may be ill,” he confided to his plump and sad-eyed assistant, one known as Merthal. “I thought he looked fine-drawn before they left. Sometimes I wonder if he ever recovered from his stint among the Porsa, may they rot.”
“Rotting would probably delight them,” suggested Merthal, who was not above an occasional jibe. “When Shan came back, he looked half-rotted himself.”
The two of them stood upon a small balcony which jutted from the living room of the Chief’s apartment, high above a training ground where some of the young Baidee doing their three-years obligatory service were being drilled and redrilled in the close order march and countermarch so useful in parades and processions of all kinds. If anyone ever tried to fool with the heads of the Baidee, the Baidee were ready to defend themselves. Between the brigades and the army, every ablebodied Baidee between the age of puberty and senility was trained for service, and that service was extremely up-to-date, relying heavily upon biological weapons of varying, constantly updated kinds. A well-equipped and trained research branch kept everything on the edge of knowledge, insofar as both offensive and defensive material and tactics were concerned.
It was almost a pity that such an effective machine had so little work to do. The Baidee army had been fully committed only once in the years since the prophetess. The beings who had come from Outside and who had attempted to enforce their own opinions upon the Baidee had been fairly well thrashed before they had all “caught cold and died.” At one time, the Scrutators had smiled when they recalled the story of the invasion, though after the Blight came and went, they stopped enjoying the story.
Reticingh regarded the wheeling ranks upon the drill ground with approval as he said, “I’ve known the Damzel clan since well before Shan and Bombi and Volsa were born,” he mused. “The family is rocklike in their objectivity. Though he is very young, I wouldn’t have said Shan was capable of mental disturbance. Unless he was ill, of course.” He meant physically ill. There was no mental illness recognized by the High Baidee.
“He says in the message that he’s well,” offered Merthal.
“He might only think he’s well. I mean, one of the symptoms of being not well is to think one is well when one is not.” Bodily ills could be treated. Sometimes mental “troubles” disappeared when bodily ills were cured.
“Short of bringing him back to Thyker and having him gone over by the temple physicians, what would you suggest?”
Reticingh sighed. Madmen were a constant challenge to the Baidee. Nothing could be done for them unless they had treatable bodily illnesses. There were many homes for the “uncontrolled” scattered around Thyker. Some of the inmates had to be tied up. Some of them had to be restrained to keep them from harming others, though they were allowed to harm themselves if they wished. Some of them expressed themselves, sometimes, much as Shan Damzel was doing.
Reticingh thought it over, slowly, as the High Baidee were taught to do, considering the consequences of each action, the probable outcome of every case. At last, with some satisfaction, he said, “I would suggest, Merthal, that we send one of our temple physicians to Hobbs Land to make quite sure our beloved son is truly well. Young Dr. Feriganeh, I think. He would enjoy it. And you, of course.”
“Me!”
“So that I may have your much valued opinion when you return. Besides, Shan’s mother would eat me alive clad only in my zettle if anything happened to him.”
• Horgy Endure kept the peace among his womenfolk by letting each of them know precisely what she could expect in the way of his time and undivided attentions. The fifth, seventh, and ninth nights of each ten-day work schedule were spent with his trainees, one at a time. Ruellin, the blonde, was scheduled for the fifth night, and she arrived at Horgy’s apartments at the appointed time, shortly before the usual supper period. It was Horgy’s custom to drink a little wine, eat a little food, and then engage in sexual sports for several periods of the nightwatch. Horgy was very good at sexual sports, and Ruellin considered herself fortunate to have obtained the trainee position, particularly inasmuch as she was learning something about agricultural production management as well.
On this particular fifth night, Horgy refused a second glass of wine, which was unusual. He also seemed lethargic with respect to his food.
“Not hungry, I guess,” he said apologetically.
“I could go on home,” she whispered, hoping he would not agree
. “If you’re not feeling well.”
“No, no,” he smiled at her, the white-toothed smile which warmed her all the way through. “Let’s just sit a while on the terrace. I simply need to relax a bit.”
Horgy’s apartments were on an upper floor of the administrative residence. Only Dern Blass had quarters that were higher up. From the small terrace they could look over the ramified roadways and parklands of CM, out through the surrounding woodlands and plains to the place where the escarpment made a winding line upon the northern horizon.
“I understand they’re finding interesting things up there,” said Ruellin, making conversation as she gestured at the distant escarpment. “The people from Thyker.”
“Interesting things happening everywhere,” he murmured.
“Really?” She lifted a flirtatious eyebrow. “Are there interesting things happening here?”
“In the settlements,” he said, not noticing her expression. “Lakes. Canyons. Water falls that didn’t used to be there. Did you know six of the settlements have Gods now?”
“Gods?”
He put a hand to his arm, as though it ached. “Look it up in the Archives. There was one God when the settlers arrived. Where Settlement One is now. It died. You were there when we discussed it at management meeting.” He sounded slightly pained or impatient, and she was quick to reassess his mood.
“Of course, I remember. And six of the settlements have Gods now? Where did they get them?”
“Found them. Funny thing. First the children get into this mood to build a temple. I wouldn’t have believed it. Zilia didn’t believe it. She asked me to go out to Settlement Five with her when she heard about it. There they were, gangs of kids, laying stone, singing. Funny kind of singing, zum zum zum, bittle bittle, as though they’d rehearsed it. So, they get a temple finished, and pretty soon, they find a God to put in it.”
“Very … neat,” she offered, not knowing what else to say.
“They’ve all got temples, now. All eleven settlements. I’m sure they’ll all have Gods before long. Strange.”