Authors: Sheri S. Tepper
Bondri knelt for the Final Directives.
‘Remember the Loudsinger language I’ve taught the troupe, Bondri. My spirit tells me you will have need of it. I lay this upon you.’
‘I will remember, your perceptiveness. I will remember the language as I will remember your name, rehearsing both in the dawn hours.’
‘I owe a debt,’ the priest continued in a whisper. ‘A debt to the person or troupe of the Loudsinger, Lim Ferrence, who released me from bondage. I lay that debt upon you, Bondri Gesel.’
‘The debt is assured and guaranteed,’ the troupe sang, voices soaring and throat sacks booming. ‘Taking precedence over all other things. Assured unto the tenth generation.’
‘None of that tenth generation stuff,’ the Prime Priest went on, a trifle agitated. ‘I have already let it go too long. I want it paid out soon, Bondri. It will be on my conscience otherwise. It might prevent my development.’
‘I will fulfill immediately,’ Bondri sang, the rest of the troupe following his lead. So sung, it was more than an oath. It became a sacred undertaking, overriding all taboos. And ‘immediately’ meant before they did anything else at all.
Favel went on with one or two other little bequests, nothing difficult, subsiding at last into shut-eyed silence. Bondri took Favel’s head between his hands and gestured with his ears. The giligee came forward to kneel with its teeth to the back of the Prime Priest’s neck. Bondri inflated his throat sack to its fullest. At one signal, the troupe burst into full voice, drowning out the weak cries the old priest made as he departed. When the giligee had the brain-bird lying licked clean and naked on the fronds, the troupe witnessed its transfer into the giligee’s pouch, then all assisted in cleaning Favel’s delicate skull. It made an ancestor cup of remarkable delicacy and graceful shape. The eye holes were handles of delightful elegance. Bondri drank from it first, singing of certain memories he shared with Favel, then each of the troupe did likewise. As they sang the memories, the priest’s apprentices made fire – a very laborious process used only for a departure – and all took part in the ceremonial burning of Favel’s remains. There wasn’t enough fuel where they were to guarantee that no bones remained, but the wound flies and gyre-birds could be depended upon to do the rest. When everything was done as well as it could be done, carefully not looking behind them in order that there be no improper memories, the troupe began to run away south.
They had an immediate debt to pay, and the site of fulfillment would begin at the place the Loudsingers called Deepsoil Five.
Aphrodite Sells, astride a mule named Lilyflower, cursed the mule, the trail, the company, and the direction in which they were going.
‘Shut it,’ urged Myrony Clospocket. ‘Another fuckin’ squeak out of you, Affy, and I swear I’ll slit your throat.’ He fingered the knife at his waist, sounding very much as she remembered him from years before, like something elemental with mindless violence breeding just beneath his skin.
‘You don’t like it any better than I do,’ she complained. ‘We should have done a quick sunder, My.’
‘We should have done it a week ago, a month ago, before Justin got after us. I’ve decided he’s up to something nasty. We’ll be fuckin’ lucky if we get off Jubal at all.’
‘Justin just said he needed us to take care of this one thing. He said we were the only ones he could trust, us and the Spider.’ She sounded doubtful, even to herself. When Justin had given them their orders, he had not been his usual flattering self. ‘It has to be important, My. He never would’ve risked a flier to get us in there otherwise.’
‘Risk, hell! He blew up half a dozen fuckin’ Presences and then sent the flier in over where they’d been. You can pray to God nobody finds out what he did before the CHASE Commission makes its fuckin’ report.’
‘If Justin did it, he did it so’s he wouldn’t get caught. And it must be important.’
‘That’s what he said, and I paid chits for it at the time. That’s Justin. He can make shit sound like syrup. He can hold a fuckin’ mule-fruit out in front of you and swear it’s roast bantigon until your mouth waters. Oh, yeah, I paid chits for the idea then. That was before I’d been out in this fuckin’ country on this fuckin’ mule for five days.’
‘It can’t be that new to you. You said you were on the Jut for the massacre.’
‘Shut it, I told you. You want those fuckin’ Tripsingers to hear you talking about the Jut?’
‘They’re ahead of us by half a mile, My. You are in a state.’
‘Spider Geroan isn’t ahead of us. He’s behind us, and I swear to God that man’s got ears can hear a viggy fart a mile away.’ Myrony Clospocket shifted on the mule, substituting one aching set of muscles for another. ‘Besides, when Chanty and me was on the Jut, it was only for two days, and we got picked up by a quiet-boat and sung through the Jammers real fast when the killing was over. It was Colonel Lang that got it done. Same colonel who’s back in Splash One right now while we’re out here killin’ ourselves.’
‘I should’ve gone with Chanty,’ she mumbled, wiping sweat from under her ears and across her forehead. ‘At least the way he’s going down there in the south is a standard route.’
‘You didn’t want to go with Chanty,’ he snarled, mimicking viciously. ‘Oh, no, little Affy didn’t want to get mixed up with kidnapping babies and killing women.’
‘I don’t like killing,’ she said with some dignity. ‘I never have. You and Chantiforth Bins know that very well, Myrony. I never did a job with you where there was any killing, and I haven’t done any on this one. Besides, I think it shits to go grabbing babies. Why’s this woman and her kid important anyhow?’
‘Justin thinks she may be important to that Tripsinger from Deepsoil Five, that’s all. Important enough, maybe he’ll trade for her.’
‘Most unlikely,’ she drawled, putting on her pulpit voice. ‘Most unlikely for any man to put himself in peril to save some woman, particularly some woman isn’t even his wife or anything. ‘ She wiped sweat again and glared at the handkerchief, grimed with the sticky dust of the trail. ‘Besides, I thought you and Geroan were going to take care of the Tripsinger and the Explorer. When and if we catch up to them, that is.’
‘If is right. According to Justin, they had them located. Located, hell. By the time we got dropped off, they were god knows how far ahead of us. All we were supposed to do was buzz in, splash ’em from a distance with these new rifles and get ourselves back to Splash One, ready for the sunder. Oh, yeah, Justin had it all plotted.’
‘You didn’t say splash them to me, My. You said take care of …’
‘What the fuckin’ hell did you think we meant, Affy? Invite ’em to a tea party? Convert ’em into bein’ good little Crystallites?’
She was silent for a time, finally asking with at least an appearance of meekness. ‘Well, when we catch up to them and you dispose of the Tripsinger, then nobody needs the woman and kid, do they!’
‘Insurance,’ he growled, almost beneath his breath, hearing the crunch of hooves narrowing the distance between themselves and Spider Geroan. ‘The woman and the kid are just insurance, Affy, and mind your fuckin’ tongue.’
Inside one of the massive walls of the BDL building, a lean and dusty figure lifted a soil-filled bucket high above her head and felt the weight leave her hands as it was hauled away.
‘That’s enough for now,’ came a whisper from above. ‘Come on up, Gretl.’ There was the sound of water running. The dirt dug out of the mud brick wall was being disposed of, washed into the sewers of Splash One.
Gretl Mechas started to object, then sagged against the wall of the vertical shaft, unable to muster the strength to move. She could not have continued, even if he had been willing. The makeshift mallet and chisel fell from her hands.
‘Gretl?’
‘Coming,’ she said at last, setting her foot on the first of the laboriously inserted pegs that formed a spiral ladder in the chimneylike shaft. When she came to the top, Michael, the doctor, reached for her hand and pulled her out, like a cork out of a bottle. They stood in what had been Gretl’s cell when she had been alive. Now that she was dead – for the second time – it was presumably empty, at least temporarily. Michael placed a mud-covered bit of planking conveniently near the opening, then moved the cot back almost to cover it.
‘How much farther do we have to go down?’ she sighed.
He ran the length of hauling rope between his hands, measuring off the yards. ‘Another twenty feet, maybe. That should bring us into the cellars.’ He dropped the bucket and coils of rope into the shaft. ‘I can get us down another foot or so tonight, after I’m sure he’s asleep.’
‘You’re sure he’s got a tunnel?’ She asked the question for the twentieth time and he gave her the answer he had given each time before.
‘According to the guards I overheard, yes. It was put in when the building was constructed. It runs out to the east, through the farmland. There’s a door out there. According to the men, it’s so well hidden from the outside, it isn’t even locked.’
‘We should be able to move faster now that I’m dead,’ she said tonelessly, wiping the dust from her eyes. ‘I won’t have to listen for that damned door every minute, wondering if he’s coming down the hall.’
The doctor nodded, fetching a damp cloth from the attached convenience so she could wash the dust from her face. ‘There’s no one else alive in this corridor, Gretl. Unless he brings someone new in here, I think you’re safe. And from what the ladies say, he’s preoccupied with other things right now.’
‘Ladies,’ she snorted weakly.
‘They hate him just as much as you do. They just had a lower breaking point, that’s all.’ He stroked her hair. ‘You did your part very well. You looked as though you were dying.’
‘You were right. He didn’t want me any more when he couldn’t get any response. It was hard not to show anything, Michael. Oh, God, but I do hate him.’
‘I know.’
‘I’ve meant to ask, how did you make him believe I was dead?’
‘The same way he made everyone out there believe Gretl Mechas was dead before. There’s no shortage of bodies. There are two or three rooms down the corridor that have bodies in them. I just bagged one of those and gave it to the guards. They weren’t likely to look. They saw what they expected to see, just as your friends did when they saw your clothes on that other poor soul, whoever it was.’ Michael’s voice shook with despair. ‘The place is full of death. I know it. God, I hoped for so long, but I saw it in his eyes this last time.’
‘Why did he pick you?’
‘The historic press published a story on me. I’d developed some new treatments for diseases of aging using biological products I’d found here on Jubal. Nothing very significant, but the historic news blew it up into something. He asked me to work for him full time as his personal physician. I thought that was ridiculous and said so….’
‘Justin told me once that no one can say no to him.’
‘He said the same thing to me. “Nobody gets away with saying no to Harward Justin,” and “What’s mine stays mine.” ’
‘What’s his stays dead,’ she whispered. ‘Did he think you could keep him alive forever or something?’
‘Who knows what he thought. I can’t extend his life, no matter what. So far I’ve been lucky. He hasn’t been sick. And, of course, when the escape shaft is done …’ His head came up, listening. ‘I hear something. Better get through onto my side in case he pays me a visit.’ He crawled headfirst into the opening, bent his body into a ‘U’ shape and came up through a similar opening on the other side of the wall, behind a couch in his own apartment. Behind him, Gretl hovered, listening to furniture-moving sounds. In a moment she heard him whispering, ‘False alarm. Do you have enough food? I have more for you here if you need it.’
‘Not hungry,’ she mumbled.
‘Have to be,’ he told her. ‘Both of us have to be. For strength. Strength to be dead, Gretl. Strength to get us out of here.’
‘All right,’ she said, reaching through the thick wall to take the wrapped package. Then she placed the plank over the hole and moved the bare cot to cover it. When the doctor had come to ‘do away with her,’ he had wedged the latch on her door so it wouldn’t close. Later, while she was below in the shaft they had been digging for months, he had given the guards her ‘body.’ The guards weren’t watchful, and they certainly weren’t intelligent.
She slipped to the far end of the corridor and into an empty room, carefully wedging the latch, saliva filling her mouth at the smell of the package in her hands. She would have a bath. And a meal. And then sleep. And then it would be night, and she would start digging again.
Thalia Ferrence sat in her chair by the wall, dreaming of a grandchild. The Grand Master had called to tell her that he had learned about the woman, that she and the child were on their way to her. The child and Lim’s wife, Vivian. Thalia hadn’t told Betuny yet. Betuny would be upset, afraid that Thalia wouldn’t need her anymore. Perhaps Thalia wouldn’t really need Betuny anymore, but she’d deal with that later. Just now, it was too pleasant to anticipate, to dream, to imagine all the wonderful things implied in a daughter coming, and a baby. And to think about old times, too. She had done that a lot lately.
She had allowed herself a celebratory glass of broundy, something she seldom did, and now sat in her chair at the end of the garden, her arms folded on the low wall, the setting sun shining full on her face so that she felt the soft warmth of it as she half dreamed about old times long past, wishing she could see the brou fields and the towering Presences once more. She could see them in a sense, but they loomed so large in her remembered vision that she wondered if she had not created them. She wanted to check reality against her memory and had spent a long hour floating dreamily over this, as though the truth were something she needed to arrive at – a key to some future imagining that could not be achieved otherwise. She could no longer be sure what was true, what had actually happened. What had been the truth about Lim, about Miles? Was Tasmin actually what she thought he was? Had Celcy been? Was this woman who was coming going to be a part of her life? Was this world the world she remembered, or was it only a dream she had invented? How would she know?