Authors: Suzette Haden Elgin
“And I greet you in the name of all the Gentles,” she said to me. “We are troubled, Responsible of Brightwater; sorely troubled. I come to you on behalf of all my people to ask that you put an end to that trouble.”
I wondered what sort of power she thought I had, to word her request like that, and doubted she would of known what to make of me peeling pans of potatoes at Brightwater because me Granny needed all me servingmaids to gather herbs, and had set
me
to make certain of that day’s mashed potatoes. We had myths aplenty of the Gentles, and tales among the Teaching Stories; it looked as though they might also have myths of us. The idea that I figured in those myths, and maybe prominently, made me uneasy.
“I will do whatever I can do,” I said.
“You can do whatever is necessary,” she said at once. “And whatever is
dyst’al
.”
Dyst’al.
One of the few words of the Gentle speech that we understood, and fortunate for us that they had not had the same trouble learning our Panglish.
Dyst’al
meant something like “unforbidden and permitted and not beyond the bounds,” and something like “good for all the people,” and something like “characteristic of the actions of a reasonable and wholesome person having power,” and something like “well mannered.”
She was telling me, clear enough, what she expected. Whether I could fulfill those expectations remained to be seen.
There was only a sliver of moonlight; she stood in the feeble ray that fell through the near window. I would have liked some light myself, because it was hard enough to judge the voice of a non-Terran even when you could see the features of the face clearly. I had learned that early, watching the threedy films again and again. But the Gentle preferred the dark, would not care for the exposure, and would be greatly offended if I were to set a glow about her; I would have to strain my ears and hope for the best.
“Be comfortable, friend T’an K’ib,” I said, “and tell me what it is you want of me. Will you sit here near me so that I may hear you more easily?”
She went to the foot of my bed and stepped handily up to sit on its turned rail, using the blanket chest placed there as a kind of step to climb on. She settled her cloak around her and let the hood fall back, and by the feeble moonlight I saw that her ears had been pierced five times—in each there hung five separate tiny crystals.
Five
crystals; this was no mere messenger, and I bowed my head slightly to acknowledge her rank.
“May I begin?” she asked.
“Please do.”
“We are the Gentles,” she said, “or so you call us; we are the Ltlancanithf’al. We have been on this planet for fifty thousand years. In our caves the inscriptions name our anscestors for more than thirty thousand of those years ... we go far, far back into time. My people, daughter of Brightwater; were here
long
before yours.”
“That is certainly true,” I said carefully.
“Our claims are prior.”
“That, too,” I said. “Of course.”
“And when your people came here, and your vessel fell into the Outward Deeps, and only by the grace of the Goddess did any one of you escape to set foot on our land, your people made
treaties
, Responsible of Brightwater. Solemn treaties. We ask that they be honored.”
Oh, dear. Never mind the slight conflict in the myths of the Landing, this was no time to compare tales and quibble over the identity of rescuers. The question was, what did she mean—they asked that the treaties be honored? That any Ozarker would have violated the treaties was beyond conception, I would have staked my life on that. We
do not
break our word.
“My friend T’an K’ib,” I asked, “do you come here to tell me that my people have violated their sworn oaths? A Gentle does not lie—but I find that hard to believe.”
And if I was wrong, and they had? 1 thought of blustering Delldon Mallard Smith, the ugly man of the ugly name ... and I thought of the easy malicious ways of Michael Stepforth Guthrie, and I cast around in my mind for other possibilities. No Granny would of tampered, but the men were another matter. And if they had—what was I to do? I felt four years old on the outside and four hundred years old on the inside, and I hoped my brain was not as cold as the rest of me. I longed for a pentacle, and my own Granny Hazelbide, and the safe walls of my own Castle around me. And here I was, of all unhandy places, at Castle
Purdy
.
“Responsible of Brightwater,” she said, “I would not tell you that we are certain; I would not go so far. It may be that there has as yet been no violation. It is to forestall such a thing that I am come to you this night.”
“Tell me, then,” I said. “I will listen until you have told me everything that disturbs you; and I will not interrupt.”
And she began to talk, in the faintly foreign archaic Panglish the First Granny had taught her people, and that I had learned from many boring hours listening to the microtapes while I begged to be let go out and play instead. I blessed every one of those hours now, seeing as I understood her with ease, and I supposed she’d spent fully as many hours herself listening to the Teachers of her people, who passed down the knowledge of Panglish without benefit of tapes or any other thing but their wondrous memories and their supple throats.
There was trouble, she told me. Much trouble on Arkansaw, where the Guthries and the Parsons were even more openly feuding than had been admitted to me, by her account. Where me Purdys were frantic, trying desperately to play both sides of me feud, but faced with an eventual choice made under great pressure. There were, she told me, strange comings and goings in the nights.
“There was a meeting in what you choose to call the Wilderness Lands of Arkansaw,” she said, “not three nights ago. The men there were not all of Arkansaw, some had come very far ... some wore the crests of Kintucky and Tinaseeh, the Families known as Wommack and Traveller. It went on all the night long—our children had no sleep—and then, as
thieves
comport themselves, all stole away at first light. A Gentle does not spy, I remind you; thus, I cannot tell you what they spoke of. What we heard we heard only because a loud voice in the night carries far in an ill-mannered throat ... but they were not telling each other pleasant tales to while away the hours. That much was clear.”
She stopped for a moment, and I waited, and then she went on.
“It was sworn, Responsible of Brightwater; sworn and sealed—the Gentles were to be left alone. And none of your magic was to touch our people, for all of time. Nor were we ever to be part of your ... feuding. If you have forgotten, I am here to remind you—so
read
the treaties.”
I let my breath out, slowly, wondering where in me the knowledge was that I supposedly could put to use in circumstances such as these. I felt no revelations bubbling within me, no sealed-off memories with their locks dropping away.
“Has a hand been raised against you?” I asked T’an K’ib. “Any hand? Any weapon?”
“Not as of this night.”
“Has any sharp word been spoken? Any threat made? Has any Ozarker actually breached the privacy of your homes, T’an K’ib?”
“Not as of this night.”
“None?”
“You must understand,” she said, no edge to her voice, but firm, “that what
you
consider a hand raised, or a sharp word, or privacy breached, may not be the same as what a Gentle would so judge. There are many, many thousands of us in the caves of the Wilderness Lands of Ozark, daughter of Brightwater; and we live in peace, and our lives are not tainted by sorcery. We have made adjustments unasked, when the mines of your people cut well beyond the limits given them, and we have not begrudged those adjustments, though no law held us to them.”
I could imagine, thinking of the Parsons and Guthries and Purdys, always wanting to cut just a little deeper into a vein, probably shaking the Gentles in their sleep and filling their homes with gemdust, or worse. And I was ashamed.
“When I return to Castle Brightwater,” I said, my voice harsh in my throat, “I will see that that is put right.
That
I can do. There will be no more encroachments on your territory, and where such has taken place, your ‘adjustments’ will be readjusted. My word on it, and my apologies.”
She made an easy gesture with her head, as if to show how little this mattered; I, the Ozarker, felt bigger and greedier, as I was no doubt meant to feel.
“If it can be done, so be it,” she said, “if not—what is past is past. But if the three Families of the continent of Arkansaw go to open war among themselves, and if the Families of Kintucky and Tinaseeh join them, blood will flow in the Wildernesses and it may well be
our
blood. That we cannot allow, daughter of Brightwater.
That
would be in violation of
all
treaties.”
“War, T’an K’ib? Your people fear
war?
”
I suppose I sounded foolish; she sounded indulgent.
“It is not an exotic word,” she said. “Think of guns and lasers and bombs and gases and missiles. All very small and simple Panglish words, and well known to you.”
“Dear friend, dear T’an K’ib,” I protested, “Ozarkers do not go to war—it was the violence of one human hand raised against another much of it part of war and much of it without any explanation but madness, that drove us here in The Ship one thousand years ago. As a Gentle does not lie, T’an K’ib— an Ozarker does not
war
.”
“You yourself,” she pointed out, “have let pass the word ‘feud’ without protest. Our Teachers are quite clear on me meaning of that word, and it is violent.”
“Ah, T’an K’ib,” I said, almost weak with relief, “it is not what it appears to be atall. This is a misunderstanding.”
“Explain, please.”
“You know of the Confederation of Continents of Ozark?”
“Your government,” she said flatly.
“As much government as we have,” I said, “and hard won. We are at a tricky
political
crossroads, we of the Confederation. And the Families you name, the ones that have so disgracefully disturbed the harmony of your homes, they are not plotting violence. They are plotting against the Confederation ... they are plotting the casting of
votes
, not the launching of missiles! Nothing more. T’an K’ib; nothing less. There is not even a question of dominance among them.”
“That makes no sense,” she said. “I beg your pardon if I speak sharply, but it makes no sense.”
“If.” I said, “one thinks carefully of the Ozarkers—and no reason, the Twelve Corners granted, why your people should ever do anything of the kind—it does make sense. And no offense taken. First, no Ozarker lifts a hand against another, not since we left Earth; the only exception would be the occasional child, that must be taught it can’t hit its playmate because there’s a toy they both want at the same time, and the occasional drunken fool, that is promptly seen to and differs little from the child. I’d hazard that even among
your
people the young and foolish must learn.”
“Granted,” she said.
“But what the dissenting Families want is not that one should be superior to the rest, but that all should be equal, and
no
dominance. What they want, T’an K’ib, is isolation.”
“It is an absurdity.”
“No doubt,” I said reluctantly, my loyalty giving me a bit of trouble around the edges. “Nevertheless—it is so.”
“There must be community,” she said, “and this is a small planet. What you describe is anarchy.”
I was reminded, a moment only, of Sharon of Clark ... but there was a difference. This was no child who faced me, prattling memorized cant from Granny School. This was a diplomat, high in the ranks of a people whose sophistication surpassed ours as Granny Gableframe’s surpassed a babe’s. She knew quite well what anarchy was, and she knew what went with it. No doubt her people had seen its effects a time or two in their long history. No doubt it meant, to her and to them, rape and pillage and murder, barbarian hordes pouring through the cavehomes and tearing out the ancient tunnels as they went. She had no reason to believe an Ozarker ungoverned would behave any differently.
“They want to go back to boones.” I said, wishing sadly that there was some way to make her understand us—us aliens.
“It is not a concept that I know,” said T’ah K’ib, “The Teachers do not mention it.”
“Nor is it a concept that will burden you unduly,” I told her.
“A very long time ago—by Earth reckoning—on the planet from which my people came, there was a man whose name was Daniel Boone. If he had a middle name, we have no record of it—I’m sorry. And it is written that whenever the time came that Daniel Boone could see the smoke of a neighbor’s chimney from his own homeplace, those neighbors were too near, and he moved on.”
The Gentles lived in chambers carved beneath the earth, and it was said that they observed a stringent privacy of manner. But they lived crowded close as twin babes in a womb, and their families were not small. I doubted she would see much sense to the story of Daniel Boone.
She was silent and small, sitting there thinking over what I had said, and possessed of a kind of presence that much larger creatures might have envied. I wished that we could have been friends. I wished that I could have visited
her
—but the Gentles saw to it that none but a very small Ozarker child could enter the doors they set up. I would never know, unless I looked in a way that the treaties forbid me, what it was like inside the caves of the Gentles. And, I reminded myself sternly, it was none of my business to know.