Two Fingers ceased making smoothing motions with his palms toward the sky and began making great sweeping gestures with his arms.
Kate's song became less gentle and more insistent, as if a drum were beating in her, establishing a compelling rhythm.
The weaver bowed and bent and pulled and tugged, seizing invisible strands and crossing them over one another in an intricate pattern.
The boxer redoubled his symbolic attack on the sun.
Sandy Parkins, crouched on his haunches, was drawing designs in the sand.
Mary Ox-and-a-Burro, who could divine water, was rocking back and forth on her heels, turning her head from side to side like a blind person, sniffing the scorching air.
The teenaged boy began pulling hairs from his uncovered head. Wearing the communal entranced expression he began arranging the hairs on his bare chest, attaching each to his skin with a bit of saliva. When his mouth was too dry to furnish spit he paused, worked his lips, gnawed on his tongue, then at last found another drop of moisture and continued.
Everyone had something specific to do.
All the while the old man chanted.
All the while the sun blazed in the cloudless, killing sky.
All the while Cloud-Being-Born continued to demand access to the contents of George's head.
Through the Dance, George felt the others. He recognized the distinctive flavor of each mind; he observed and understood what they were doing. He knew, without having to think about it, why an awkward thirteen-year-old boy who knew nothing of metaphysics had precisely arranged a pattern of hairs on his skin to correspond to ley lines. He knew why Mary was searching for water. He knew why Bart Brigham was stamping his feet in an irregular rhythm.
A seemingly random assortment of human beings were performing together an incredibly intricate series of apparently unrelated actions that would make no sense at all to anyone else.
But it did make sense.
George felt the exact moment when the first faint sense of control touched the group. They all felt it simultaneously.
Control.
It was like the unforgettable moment when a child trying to learn to ride a bicycle wobbles, upright and unsupported, for a few revolutions of the wheels.
The balance was quickly lost but they tried again, tried harder, concentrated more.
The sense of being able to control returned.
Sweat poured from their bodies.
George was increasingly sensitive, in some new way, to the others. Kate in particular he perceived as he had never perceived a woman before. He felt her weaknesses, aspects of her persona that were incomplete, or misdirected, or in the process of being shed as a snake sheds its skin.
He felt her strengths, and knew what they had cost her.
He found the deep, calm pool at her center, and knew she had gone through an excruciating period of self-questioning and selfblame, to arrive at last at total, clear-eyed honesty.
He saw himself as Kate was seeing him. A man with the child still alive behind his eyes. A man who could cry, who could be romantic about being an Indian, even when he saw the reality of the reservation. A dichotomous human being â¦
Dichotomous ⦠divided in two ⦠consisting of two parts that need to be joined together again â¦
Joining.
Healing.
Cloud-Being-Born's voice rose above the sounds many of the others were making, a clarion command.
“Look!” he cried.
“Look up!”
They could not stop the Dance. They would not be allowed to stop the Dance until it succeeded in whatever its purpose might beâor until it killed them.
But they were allowed enough autonomy to look up.
They were exhausted. George could feel it in himself and knew it must be worse for many of the others. Human flesh and blood could not sustain so intense an effort, in such terrible heat, for long. They needed a transfusion of motivation.
They were allowed to look up.
“Oh!” said a voice. The littlest girl, whose task had been to perform a pantomime with her own shadow, continued her pantomime but threw back her head and stared at the sky with huge eyes.
The blazing, brassy sky.
The yellow, superheated, poisoned sky that was burning away life.
For months that sky had been cloudless.
Now something interrupted its glaring expanse.
A tiny thread appeared, halfway between horizon and zenith. It could almost have been a hair on the eyeball.
But it was not.
As they watched, it grew. It drew unto itself, out of apparent nothingness, a visible wisp of matter as delicate as a feather. George had to squint to be certain he was seeing it. The heat and glare made his eyes water.
All the time the old man was in his head, busy.
The delicate tracery in the sky grew minimally larger. A tenuous swirl of vapor resolved itself into a tiny scrap of cloud.
In the mountains of New Hampshire, George had once watched as a mountain drew to its summit the moisture evaporating from the pine forests on its flanks. The moisture had coalesced into a silvery banner that blew from the highest peak, waiting for a montane wind to dislodge it and blow it across the land in the form of cloud.
Now he was seeing the same phenomenon take place above the desert. No trees. No mountains. Just polluted sky and pitiless sun. And the Dance.
“Damn,” George said in an awestruck whisper.
Inside his head, the old man was working himself into a fever pitch. Like the conductor of a symphony he was trying to keep all the instruments in perfect harmony while building them toward an inevitable climax. George could feel the frenzy in him, and knew he could not continue for much longer. He was a very old man.
The cloud was expanding.
It grew from a wisp the apparent size of a fingernail to a mass the size of a half-dollar. Then the size of a bus. Then it multiplied itself into the sails of a galleon, full and billowing in breathtaking purity against the backdrop of dirty sky.
The clouds did not look polluted. They were as clean and white as fresh snow.
The armada set sail. It cast cool shadows on the land beneath as it headed for the northern horizon. There the clouds thickened, deepened, darkened. Became black-purple.
The first breath of cool air swept southward.
Cloud-Being-Born redoubled his efforts. Vision faded; George was not using human eyes any longer. He was being forced to a level of concentration he would not have thought possible, drawing on inherited gifts of strength and intuition and sensitivity.
At the old man's command he stretched his awareness. It was seized and woven by the Dancers into a net of consciousness that was then flung beyond the limits of the reservation and cast across the continent, seeking.
“Go farther!” cried the old man in George's head.
George had an impression of ocean, of water and weight.
Then he was deliciously buoyant, floating upward to follow the air currents he had once studied. Entering familiar territory seen from a new perspective, he began to examine the abused fabric of the atmosphere and guide the Healing Dance to its wounds.
He came to a vast gaping hole, like an immense burn. Its scorched, decaying edges extended for thousands of miles. The hole sickened him. It was a loathsome disease, a terrifyingly large ulcer that had somehow become malignant.
“Here!” George called to the Dance, summoning. “Here!”
Healing began to flow from earth to sky. George felt waves of comfort channeled through himself. The Dancers were mending the ozone layer. But the hole resisted. Its edges tore again.
“We need more help!” Cloud-Being-Born cried. “Can you find any others like us?”
George was totally consumed with his own efforts. He could not stretch any farther. But Kate responded.
Her song altered. Its syllables were incorporated into the structure of the Dance. Her song was no longer audible to human
ears, but, amplified by the Dance, was radiating outward in sound waves capable of covering vast distances in microseconds.
Kate's song began reaching other minds. Elsewhere.
From such far-flung corners of the earth as the depths of the Amazonian jungle and the mountain peaks of Tibet, the response came. It came as a searing whiplash of energy that scorched through the Dance.
Harry Delahunt writhed, screaming with pain and clutching his head.
But the Dance must not stop.
Cloud-Being-Born was driving George mercilessly. George's knowledge was the guide. An increasing number were following the charts in his head. He could sense them joining in as Kate's song reached pockets of survivors in Australia. Alaska. A village in Wales. A community in Mongolia.
People who had never forgotten they were an integral part of the living planet.
Their mental strength was added to the Dance. Each had something unique to contribute as a result of that person's assortment of genes and experiences. No two were alike. Each was invaluable.
Summoned to the Dance, the last children of earth gathered into one consciousness. They had no sense of self.
There was only the Dance. The Dance, succeeding!
The Dance, cleansing and healing.
The Dance as an act of creation, making the earth whole again.
Feeding on powerful energies, the Dance was taking on a life of its ownâand emotions of its own.
All the damage could not be corrected at once. Toxic wastes could not be made to vanish. They would have to be absorbed and purified, which in some cases would take eons.
Pollutants must be neutralized. They would have to be taken apart through natural action and reassembled into the basic, harmless substances from which man had constructed them. This, too, would take time.
Trees would have to grow from seedlings to replace the murdered forests.
Many generations would be required to restore the ecological balance of the seas.
The planet would be a long time healing.
The Dance had done all it could. The rest was up to the ages. But the Dance was not satisfied to wait; the freshening air began to crackle with the very human emotion of frustration.
Lightning laced the sky.
Thunder boomed its response.
Lightning stalked around the horizon on forked legs.
Thunder roared and rolled, reverberating like the cry of an angry god.
Lightning flamed in a dazzling sheet across the heavens, illuminating masses of boiling black cloud like dark armies on the march.
The air crackled and sizzled with anger.
Anger and energy and desire!
A minute fraction of George's commandeered consciousness sensed the gathering storm and recognized danger. He fought to clear his thoughts. He called out in his head to Cloud-Being-Born, “We've gone too far! We've unleashed forces we can't handle!”
He was trying to communicate with the old man, but instead he caught, just for an instant, the flavor of Kate's gentle irony, and heard her saying in his mind, “How like us.”
Then she was gone. A massive storm howled around them, engulfing Dance and Dancers.
George felt the last shreds of their control being torn from them.
Ocean of air was convulsed by tidal wave of storm. Rain fell with murderous force, pelting down on the parched earth faster than it could be absorbed. Hurricanes roared into being, battering land and sea. Tornadoes spun out of nowhere in a deadly dance of their own, whirling cones of death darting down from the blackened sky.
The wind rose to an unbearable shriek.
George had an impression of incalculably mighty forces rushing in to fill a void. Their pressure kept building until he felt as if he was at the bottom of the sea, with its entire weight crushing down upon him. He fought desperately to keep his lungs working.
The old man in his head was silent.
But there was no other silence.
Above the tumult of storms that raked her from pole to pole, the earth screamed.
George came back to himself very slowly.
He felt as if every bone in his body was broken. He lay without moving. Gradually he became aware that he was lying in mud.
Rain was pouring down on him with the force of a deluge.
The storm had passed, however.
He remembered the storm.
He remembered the terror of the storm.
But it was over. There was only rain. Cold rain falling from cold air.
George drew a deep but shaky breath. The air tasted sweet on his tongue.
His open eyes looked up into a sky banked with clouds. The clouds were no longer black, but a soft grey. Even as he looked they began to break up slightly. The deluge eased, became only a moderate downpour.
He sat up. His bones were not broken, but his entire body was bruised. His brain felt even more bruised. The inside of his skull was sore.
The old man!
He blinked rainwater out of his eyes and looked around.
He was sitting in the center of a circle of bodies. Sodden figures lay all about him in the mud, unmoving.
“Kate!”
She was some distance away. She lay flattened on the earth as if all the life had been pounded out of her. George threw himself toward her in a lurching, crawling run.
He cradled her head in his arms. Her eyes were closed. He could detect no sign of breathing.
He tried desperately to force his bruised brain to remember how to do mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Keep calm. Pinch the nostrils closed. Force air into the lungs through the mouth. Establish a rhythm. Keep calm!
Her jaw surrendered slackly to his probing fingers. Her mouth gaped open. George covered it with his own and began trying to blow life into her body.
There was no response.
In with the good, out with the bad, keep calm. Blow into her mouth, press down on her chest, maintain the rhythm. “Breathe, dammit!” Make her breathe.
Make her breathe!
Taking great gulps of cool, sweet air, he forced them deep into Kate's lungs.
After a frighteningly long time, her eyelids fluttered.
When she was actually able to open her eyes and look up at him, George felt weak with relief. “Hi there,” he said inanely.
With an effort, she focused on his face. “You look awful. Water's dripping off your nose,” she said in a faint voice.
“It's raining.”
“Raining?” Her voice grew stronger.
“Yeah. And it's cool. Can you feel it?”
“Cool. Yes. Yes! I feel it!”
“You'll get a chill. We'll have to wrap you in something to keep you warm.” George looked around, thinking vaguely that he might borrow a shirt from one of the others.
The others!
Puddles of people were scattered on the drenched earth. One was moving, feebly.
George got up and ran over to him. “Will! You okay? Say something!”
Will Westervelt groaned. “I don't have to get up until seven,” he said clearly, eyes screwed shut.
“You have to get up right now, dammit. Get up and help me.
Will's eyes opened. “What happened?”
“We did it! We did something. I don't know exactly. But everyone's stunned. Or ⦠get up, help me with them. We've got to get these people out of the rain. It's getting colder every minute.”
“Colder?” said Will in astonishment. He scrambled to his feet and stood, swaying.
George went back to Kate and helped her to her own feet. “Move around,” he advised, “warm yourself up.”
“I'll be all right. What about the children?”
George found the little girl lying half under the body of Jerry Swimming Ducks. The child was awake and just starting to cry. George eased her out from under Jerry's unconscious form and looked around for her mother.
Mary Ox-and-a-Burro lay a few yards away. Dead.
Her body was not only lifeless but dessicated, as if every drop of moisture had been sucked out of it.
George stared down at her in horror. Then he turned and carried
the child to Kate. “Look after her, and don't let her go anywhere near Mary if you can help it.”
Harry Delahunt was dead too, his body blackened and burned, almost unrecognizable.
The young boy was alive. Dazed, almost incoherent at first, he responded when Will began talking to him and was soon on his feet. Will put him into Kate's care and went on, with George, separating the living from the dead.
Almost half of the Dancers were dead. Their resources had been totally exhausted.
Out of the corner of his eye, George kept glancing toward the silent form he knew was Cloud-Being-Born. He knew the old man must be dead. He had probably been the first to die. But he did not want to go to him and confirm the fact. It was as if the old Indian held a magic that would be broken once he was accepted as dead.
George still felt the influence of the magic. He saw its power in the falling rain and heard its voice in the north wind.
At last he could not put it off any longer. He went over to the old man's body and crouched down beside it.
Cloud-Being-Born lay on his back. His face was turned toward the sky. His dead eyes were open.
The sky was reflected in them.
George stared down.
As he watched, the clouds mirrored in the old man's eyes sped before the force of the wind. As they moved, they revealed the sky behind them.
The blue sky.
George twisted his neck and looked up.
The sky between the gaps in the cloud was azure-blue.
George blinked, then let the tears come.
It took a long time to get everyone, the living and the dead, back to the store. The dead were laid in a row on the porch, covered with blankets. The living huddled inside, wrapped in more blankets.
The cold was increasing.
Of the living, Two Fingers was the weakest. Even he did not seem to know if he would survive. Anne Swimming Ducks used the last of the coffee, liberally laced with firewater, to try to give him some strength. Then the straight firewater went the rounds. They drank it down like water. It seemed to have no effect.
Gazing out the door at the bodies on the porch, Slim Sapling remarked, “We need Cloud-Being-Born to conduct the burial ritual.”
The teenaged boy spoke up. “I think we'll know what to do when the time comes.”
“He's right,” someone else agreed. “When it stops raining, we'll just know.”
In spite of the patches of blue sky occasionally visible, there were still clouds and rain. No one was anxious to see the rain end, and the burying begin.
They waited.
While they waited, they talked among themselves.
There was a surprising lack of speculation about the Dance and its results. What one knew, everyone knew, though their minds were no longer linked in the Dance.
Their questions were about the future.
They felt confident there would be a future, now.
“Just think of it,” said Will Westervelt. “Little groups of survivors like us scattered all across the globe. It's sort of like natural selection, when you think about it.”
Kate knew what he meant. “It's as if,” she said softly, “the planet left enough of us alive to save herself.”
They sat in the cold and considered the thought.
Someone asked, “Think we should try to join up with the others?”
George shook his head. “Logistically impossible. There was an almost total breakdown of travel by the time I came here. I'd say it's worse now. Hopeless, internationally. No, it's better if we stay here and make the best of what we have. Get things going again in our little corner.”
Kate managed a faint chuckle. “The announcement of the end of the world was slightly premature.”
George grinned at her. “It was.” He reached out and took her hand. Her fingers twined through his.
“It's not going to be easy,” he warned. “The effects of what happened are going to be a long time working through the ecosystem. We'll have to face that and find ways to live with it. I suspect there will be a continued, and massive, climatic change on a planetary basis until some sort of natural balance is reestablished.”
“What sort of change?” Jerry Swimming Ducks wanted to know. His speech was still slightly slurred, but he was otherwise recovered from a long period of unconsciousness.
George thought before answering. He felt the stirring of a powerful intuition. It might have been a remnant of his recent expanded awareness.
It might have been a genetic gift surfacing.
“The planet's had many recurring cycles of glaciation and warming,” George told the others. “That's been the natural course of events. Something tells me we have another ice age coming now. A monster, I'd predict. To finish cleansing the surface and get the earth back into sync.”
“Surely we won't live to see it?” someone said nervously.
“Probably not,” George agreed. “Our descendants will, though. They'll have to learn how to survive it.”
A tinge of coral crept into Kate's cheeks. Her fingers tightened on George's and squeezed hard. “Our descendants,” she murmured, savoring the word. “Let's hope they appreciate what they inherit.”
Keeping an optimistic smile on his face, George returned Kate's squeeze.
He did not say what he was thinking.
We might have it all to do again someday.
Humans are an arrogant species.
When the ice cap melted, the seas rose.