Authors: Sheri S. Tepper
Gently, she laid the skull cup down. Nothing in the Tripsingers’ reports had prepared her for this, but native good manners did what preparation could not. ‘I am honored,’ she whispered, listening carefully while Bondri sang several songs of Favel’s life. She joined the troupe in eating settler’s brush, though she gave Miles his breakfast from rations he was more accustomed to.
And when they had finished, she joined the troupe in singing the song of her own rescue. That she had little or no voice did not seem to disturb the viggies. Miles more than made up for her.
‘He has a good voice, your son,’ they sang to her. ‘When he is big, he will be a troupe leader.’
‘If he lives to get big,’ she whispered. A giligee patted her shoulder and crooned in her ear.
At midmorning, word was received from Chowdri’s troupe, and they began to work their way east, ever closer to the Enigma.
‘Isn’t this dangerous?’ she asked Bondri. ‘Aren’t we going into peril?’
‘Not into peril,’ he sang. ‘Not to the Mad One’s roost. Only to the edge of the skin where the songs keep it quiet.’
‘Skin?’ she asked, not sure she had understood.
‘The outer part,’ Bondri explained, searching his more limited Loudsinger vocabulary. ‘The hide, the fur, the …’ he found a word he liked, ‘the integument.’
‘Of the Presence?’
‘Yes. The part that only twitches and slaps, like your skin, Lim’s mate, when a wound fly crawls on it. The skin of the Mad One is not mad. Only the brain of it is mad, and we will not come close to that.’
By evening, they had come closer to the Enigma than Vivian wanted to, and yet the troupe of Bondri Gesel showed no discomfort. Six of the viggies were delegated to sing quiet songs to the skin, and these six were replaced from time to time by six others, one at a time slipping into and out of the chorus so that it never ceased. The music was soothing, soporific. Vivian found herself yawning, and Miles curled up under a Jubal tree and fell deeply asleep, even without his supper.
‘You should stay awake,’ Bondri suggested. ‘Chowdri is on his way here. He has a good tongue. We sing well together.’
The troupe of Chowdri joined them after dusk but before the night was much advanced. There were choral challenges and answers, contrapuntal exercises, long, slow passages sung by the two troupe leaders, and finally a brisk processional during which the singers tapped on their song-sacks to make a drumming sound. Chowdri had brought food. Chowdri was less amazed to see Vivian than Bondri thought he should be, and this occasioned some talk.
‘We have one, too,’ sang Chowdri importantly. ‘A very little one. Not depouched yet.’
‘A Loudsinger child!’ Bondri was incredulous. ‘A true Loudsinger child?’
‘My senior giligee found it in a body,’ Chowdri sang. ‘A female who was killed by the Mad One. My giligee went at once to find bones on the Enigma, before the gyre-birds came, and she found this little one, inside the woman, the way they grow. No bigger than a finger. We have sung that the taboo does not apply to such little ones.’
‘What did he say?’ Vivian asked.
Bondri translated.
‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘What does he mean?’
Bondri beckoned to his own giligee, who came forward and allowed Bondri to open its pouch and point within. ‘There,’ he sang. ‘In the pouch. This is the brain-bird of Favel. Here, also, grow the little ones from mating. Our females carry them inside for only a little time, not like you Loudsingers. Favel told me all about it.’
‘Brain-bird?’ she faltered.
‘Excuse me, Chowdri,’ sang Bondri. ‘My guest has a difficulty that I must correct before we sing further together.’
‘Males and females mate,’ he sang to her. ‘You understand this?’
Vivian fought down a hysterical giggle and told him yes, that she understood, that Loudsingers did a similar thing.
‘After a few days, the female seeks out the giligee and sheds the little one, like a little worm. The giligee takes the little thing into its pouch. The tendrils of the pouch close it in and give it nourishment. It lives and grows there. When it is big, it is depouched. It is a female.’
‘Always?’ she wondered.
‘Always,’ he said firmly. ‘We know it is not so with you, but with us it is always female. The female lives and is traded as a daughter to some other troupe and mates and does female things. Then the time comes her brain-bird cries for release. The giligee bites out the brain-bird and puts it in the pouch again. It grows again. This time it is male.’
‘Always,’ she nodded to herself in amazement.
‘Always. In every female there is a male waiting to grow. It grows up and mates and does male things. And when its own brain-bird cries for release, the giligee takes it once more. And this time, the last time, it grows to be a giligee.’
‘And when its brain-bird cries for release again?’
‘There is no brain-bird in a giligee. They get very old and finally die. Then we make an ancestor cup as we do for all, and put them beside a Presence and sing their songs.’
‘So Chowdri’s giligee has a human baby in it? You know whose baby that is, don’t you? That’s Tasmin’s baby. Lim’s brother. Tasmin Ferrence. The woman must have been his wife, Celcy. And Lim was there. Lim was on the Enigma. Maybe he didn’t die!’
Bondri turned away in some haste and began a burst of song, which his troupe joined, then Chowdri’s troupe, the two groups singing away at one another as though to compile an encyclopedia of song. When the melody dwindled at last and Bondri returned to Vivian, he looked very sad and old, his song-sack hanging limp.
‘He is truly dead. I am sorry, Lim’s mate, but he is truly dead. The giligee took some of his bone to make a bark scraper. Do you want his ancestor cup? I know it is not the Loudsinger way, but the giligee can get it if you want it.’
She shook her head, weeping. There for a moment, she had been full of irrational hope. Well. Miles was alive, and she was alive, and it seemed that Tasmin’s baby was alive also.
‘How long will the giligee keep it?’ she whispered.
‘Until it is done,’ Bondri sang, shrugging. ‘It is not nearly finished yet.’
‘Will … will the giligee give it to us – to Tasmin’s family – when it is finished?’
Bondri seemed to be considering this. ‘I believe it will. I will take debt with Chowdri’s troupe to assure it. In that way, the debt of Favel will be repaid to the family of Lim Terree. We have saved his wife and his child and his brother’s child. That is a good repayment.’
‘Repayment in full,’ the troupe sang. ‘Repayment at once, as Favel required. Proud the troupe of Bondri Gesel to have repaid a debt of honor.’
Maybelle Thonks squatted on her luggage in the small tender and stared across half a mile of slupping ocean to the spider-girdered tower in which the charred hulk of the
Broumaster
hung, readying for lift. The little boat in which she sat was packed with cartons and bags, all of which had been searched by BDL security men before they had been loaded. Maybelle had been searched as well.
‘For your protection, Ma’am,’ the female guard had sneered. ‘Sometimes people plant things on other people.’
‘How in hell do you think anyone could have planted anything
there
,’ Maybelle had hissed in her ear, shocked. ‘For the love of good sense, woman!’
‘Just routine,’ the guard had said, suddenly aware who she was violating.
‘You’ve been through my luggage, through my clothes, through my cosmetics. You’ve been all over my body like a bad sunburn. What the hell do you think I’m carrying, a bomb?’
‘Just routine,’ she mumbled again, handing Maybelle an intimate bit of her clothing.
Fuming, Maybelle reassembled herself and turned to check her belongings, which were now in a state of total disarray. She did a quick inventory of the jewelry case. One pair of rather valuable earclips missing. The security guard had used only one hand for parts of the search. The other one had undoubtedly been busy filching jewelry. Maybelle toyed with the idea of accusing the woman. What would it gain her? Delay. Which she didn’t want. Which might even have been the motive for the theft.
Pretend not to notice it,
she had told herself.
You’re probably being watched right now, so lock up the cases and pretend not to notice
. Which she had done, just in time for the porter to take the cases down to the tender.
Now she was bounding around on Jubal’s purple ocean, almost at the launch site and herself seemingly the only passenger for Serendipity. Well, that’s what Rheme had said. No one was getting off of Jubal these days. No body and no thing.
Except for brou. And the things the Honorable Wuyllum had stolen. And the things Honeypeach had stolen. And a few cartons near her feet that were tagged as belonging to Aphrodite Sells.
‘The rets are deserting the sinking ship,’ she quoted, without having any clear idea what rets were. Something little and scaley, with unpleasant teeth, that came onto ships simply in order to leave them, ships like the ones on Serendipity, shallow and gently curved, with long, triangular sails.
‘We’ll miss you, Mayzy,’ Honeypeach had said. ‘You have no idea how much.’ There had been a threat in that, which Maybelle had pretended not to hear.
‘Settle yourself in,’ her father had directed. ‘Pick the best part of the capital city and rent yourself some kind of expensive-looking place. Rheme’s arranged for some woman to help you; he’ll give you her name.’ That was all the Honorable Wuyllum had to say on the matter, but then he was much preoccupied with stripping Jubal of as much wealth as possible in the few days or weeks that remained.
That’s funny,’ said the boatman. ‘The loading ramp’s not down.’
‘What does that mean?’ she asked, a queasy feeling rising from her stomach to the bottom of her throat and resting there as though it had no intention of moving.
‘It means we can’t get onto the ship,’ he muttered. ‘Dumb shits.’ He hit a button on the control panel and a horn blatted over the sound of wave and wind.
Maybelle put her hands over her ears. The horn went on blaring for some time. When it was cut off, she heard an answering howl from the tower.
‘Return to port. Ship is lifting in the hour and will accept no passengers or additional cargo, by order of the launch commander.’
‘Tell him who’s on board,’ Maybelle directed between dry lips.
‘He knows,’ the boatman mumbled in a surly voice. ‘You think he don’t know!’ Still, he put the amplifier to his lips and told the tower who he was carrying.
‘Return to port,’ the tower blared. ‘Ship is lifting in the hour….’
Maybelle fell back onto the seat. There had been that vicious tone in Honeypeach’s voice when she had said goodbye. Something eager, lascivious, and sniggering. If anyone could have arranged this disappointment, Honeypeach could. All she would have to do was call Justin….
‘We have to go back,’ the boatman said. ‘We’ll get fried if we stay out here when she lifts.’
Maybelle had nothing to say. What was there to say? What would she do when she reached shore? Run? Run where? She huddled on the seat, oblivious to the blare of the tower or the liquid slosh of the waves, lost in apprehension. When they came within sight of the dock, she saw the ebony and gold of the guards from Government House. Someone had sent them to meet her. Someone had known she wouldn’t be leaving.
The sound of a hailing voice brought her head around. A small fishing boat lay just off their port bow. The plump figure at the helm was shouting at them. The tender boatsman slackened speed, let the boat come almost to a stop.
‘Miss Maybelle Thonks?’ the helmsman cried. Plump. With gray hair. She thought she had seen him somewhere before, though she could not see much of his face behind the goggles and high-wound scarf.
‘Yes,’ she nodded, petrified with fright.
‘Mr Gentry asked us to pick you up, Miss. If you wouldn’t mind.’ He smiled at her in a grandfatherly manner.
She cast a quick look again at the dock. Household guards still there, and among them someone else. Someone in an extravagant hat and drifting multicolored veils. Honeypeach. Oh, yes.
‘I’ll go with this man, boatman,’ she said in her rarely used imperative voice, covering fear with a pretence of arrogance. ‘Hold the boats together while I toss my luggage in.’
She transferred herself from tender to fishing boat, hearing angry shouts from the dock over the slupping waves. It wasn’t until she was in the other boat, together with all her belongings, that she realized anyone could have used Rheme’s name. By then it was too late to do anything about it. The wake of the BDL boat was disappearing in the direction of the dock, and the boat she was in was speeding north along the shore.
Tasmin, Donatella, Clarin, and Jamieson left the north-south valley by striking southeast through a gap that the charts identified as the Ogre’s Stair. There was no Password and they had an anxious time getting past the Presence. Donatella thought she had a Password that could be adapted, but the Ogre was not amenable. They were about to give up in anger and frustration when Clarin stopped them.
‘Let me,’ she said, opening her music box and kneeing her mule to the forefront. ‘Tasmin, help me.’
She touched the keys and began singing. It took Tasmin only a moment to realize what she had done. Once or twice Don’s previous efforts had seemed to quiet the Stair. Clarin had taken those brief phrases and wound them together, amplifying and extending the melody, attaching a harmonic line from quite another score, and then orchestrating the whole thing as she went. Tasmin picked up the harmonic line and began to sing it, their two voices rising together.
He had never sung with her before.
It was as sensual as touching her. More. It was like making love. He knew this, understood it, and set it aside, refusing to think of it, even as his voice went on and on. The music had its own logic, just as lovemaking did. Its own logic and its own imperatives. It wasn’t necessary to think or explain. The thing was of itself, a perfection.