Fish Tails

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “He’s in our business, our DO thing, yours and mine. Our business is about increasing the share of the population who have bao.”

  “From what to what, increased?”

  “Well, various extraterrestrial populations were polled. Virtually everyone asked thought it was perfectly all right to drown a population that had fewer than one in ten with bao, and that held true right up until we hit fifty percent and then decreased the higher we went. At sixty percent, they voted do not destroy, but do intervene. HOWEVER, while drowning mankind met with general approval, those who were questioned pointed out that there were a great many other self-­aware creatures on Earth who had not been involved in despoiling the planet, and these creatures would also perish. This was a definite NO-NO. Which is the opposite of DO. This includes the Griffins and all the other creatures that want to go on living.”

  “Is Fixit really here?”

  “Oh, yes. He’s here. Somewhere. He’s actually been doing what he says he’s been doing. Both here and on the other side of the planet. It seems there is still a side besides our side to the planet, and there are as many or more ­people left over there. Different languages, same concerns. Fixit is fixated on fixing things.

  “His to-­do list today includes a visit to Tingawa to double-­check that ­people haven’t been fibbing to him about the Griffins having a few bad eggs. That’s a Fixit joke. He lets me borrow his ship sometimes. If I decide to stay . . . he’ll leave the little flier for me—­us—­to use. He’ll appoint me—­us—­an ambassador or something.”

  “If you decide to stay? I thought you were a native here, that you lived here.”

  “I do live here, I have lived here. But I could move on. Depends on what kind of offer I get. From this woman. See, that’s why I’m here, stealin’ wimmin.”

  She stared at him with something very much like hope in her eyes. “Is it possibly a woman with thirteen children? If one counted Willum.”

  “Yup. That’s the one.”

  “And who, exactly, is the one doing this woman stealing? Joshua? Or one of the others.”

  “I thought I’d sort of let it be whoever it was on any given day. Unless this woman takes a dislike to one of them. See, that way, if she gets mad at one, he can just get lost for an indeterminate length of time . . .”

  “Until she cools off?”

  “Or warms up, whichever.”

  “You took the Silverhairs to Saltgosh.”

  “Whichever me was available, yes. You heard them there. Singing. Did you know that Needly sings just the way they do. As you and I do. I remember our singing while we were building that house. I imagine our singing these days would be sadly out of practice, but it was a pretty good house and very good singing.”

  “I’ve got a pretty good house now. It has room in it for . . . at least one other person if he didn’t mind sharing a bedroom. You’d never be more than one at a time, would you?”

  “It is my understanding that it’s impossible to do that. Did you just offer an invitation?”

  “Well . . . it’s just that someone has to solve that problem you’ve presented.”

  “Which problem?”

  “The one where the monkey-­brain inherits the oceans.”

  “Oh,” said Joshua. “That problem. Yes. We have to get to work on that one. Isn’t it a good thing, my love, that you and I have still a good many years to live?”

  BALYTANIWASSINOT HAD BID THEM FAREWELL. He did leave Joshua his flier together with a document identifying him as a deputy something in the bureau of something else with the authority to do a great many decisive things if he found it necessary. Remarkably, this document had actually been approved and stamped by persons in the bureau who were currently alive.

  Abasio had said, “I’ll sort of miss him, it, them, you know. He was . . .”

  “Different?” suggested Joshua, who had been introduced by Grand­ma as “my first husband.”

  “Oh, my yes. He was different. I hope he enjoys his homecoming twigpit. With sauce.”

  Joshua smiled. “And you’re you moving on, northward, I understand.”

  “Not for a while. Xulai and I are both feeling . . . overstimulated. There’s been a great deal happening. Both Xulai and I feel that we’d like to have some time just to relax. No huge problems, no threats, no hiding in the forest to escape assassins. Just quiet, being among friends, listening to the children’s music. And when we do move on, I want to stop and visit my grandfather and let him meet the sea-­babies. There are half a dozen villages and small towns up this side of the mountain, so we won’t be deviating too far from our assigned work. We’ll go north, on beyond Fantis, there are several towns not far north of there, then east, then we can work our way back southward again.”

  Joshua smiled and nodded. “Lillis and I would like to go with you. As a matter of fact, Fixit assigned me to join you on this next trip to familiarize myself with the surroundings. We have our own wagons and our own portable camp. Balytaniwassinot ordered them for us to ‘make up in some small way for the unpleasantness caused by the Oracles, who should have been removed from the galaxy long since.’ ”

  “Did they get removed?”

  “It’s an interesting story. You knew how Fixit squashed them and misted them into absolute . . . flatness?”

  “I do. I found it gratifying.”

  “Well, he was going to roll that mat up and transport it in that form to whatever place it was that had been chosen to put the thing, and when he started to roll, guess what he found on the ground under it?”

  Abasio shook his head, then remembered. “Oh yes! It was yribium?”

  “Yribium. Yes. Squashing them evidently pushes it out. After he garnered all the yribium, he un-­flattened them. Evidently occasional flattening does them, it, no damage. Fixit intends to put them in a kind of zoo place somewhere and flatten them at intervals. He thinks his headquarters will probably gather all of them up, wherever they are, and put them in one place or several places near one another where they can be profitably flattened on a strict schedule. I think—­though I’d rather you don’t speak of it—­that he intends to keep at least one colony for himself, one he can use to finance some of his . . . covert operations.”

  “Covert . . . ?”

  “Like saving mankind from extinction. If it hadn’t been for Fixit . . . well, just say we came very close.”

  “So . . . this yribium is valuable? Isn’t that part of what Willum retrieved? He’s longing for a reason to go flying again.”

  Joshua grinned. “Oh, yes. It’s valuable. The Oracle, so-called, had been pack-­ratting items from the Gold King for decades, giving yribium in exchange. It was the necessary ingredient to stabilize the stinker fat, which can, by the way, be manufactured perfectly well without involving stinkers who eat ­people. Or eat Griffins. Or eat any other life-­form that we may want to make special organs for. It can all be done perfectly well in the laboratory.”

  “And the stinkers are gone?”

  “Gone. Yes. Euthanized. They are almost unable to feel pain, but still, Fixit did away with them, the few who were left, very mercifully. That and everything else seems to be falling into place. There has even been some talk of giving shifter organs to the new ­people, like your children.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, in their current form they won’t be able to dive as deep as . . . whales, say. If they could shift, they could occupy the ocean all the way down.”

  “And overpopulate it!” Abasio snarled.

  “Not necessarily. I’m told the new world spirit will definitely put an end to that, should it ever begin.”

  SEVERAL THINGS OCCURRED BEFORE ABASIO and Xulai decided to move on. Hench Valley lost two little girls who were not very bright but were very industrious. The Home at Saltgosh gained them. Both girls and Home benefited from the relocation. Then, seemingl
y, there was a strange confrontation on the mountain road above Hench Valley between the Hench Valley men and Sybbis’s gangers. Sybbis was said to be seriously ill. CummyNup, who was evidently Sybbis’s partner and the father of her son, had taken the boy and gone east, where his mother was said to be living. CummyNup’s mother had never approved of Sybbis.

  Several women from Artemisia planned a trip to Hench Valley in the spring, just to see if there was anyone there needing help.

  And finally, when Abasio and Xulai did set out to visit Abasio’s grandfather, it was as a considerable entourage. The leading six-­horse hitch wagon held Grandma, Joshua, and all six of Grandma and Joshua’s children. Blue and Rags’ wagon, now with a second two-­horse hitch, carried Abasio, Xulai, Willum and the babies, plus Bear and Coyote when they got footsore. These two were followed by another six-­horse hitch bringing Needly and Needly’s five half sisters and brothers: a total of twenty-­one ­people (and roughly as many horses), counting Bear and Coyote but not counting the three outriders. Such loads in normal wagons also laden with food supplies, clothing, hay, oats, tools, rope, tea, cookies, and so forth would have been heavy for even a six-­horse hitch, but the three wagons carried only the ­people. In each wagon, however, one of the ­people carried a portable camp that contained its own supplies of water, food, bed linens, and the like, plus everything else that ­people, creatures, or horses might want, these things all stowed in miraculous little wormholes that came trailing weightlessly along after the wagons like invisible puppies bumbling along after the jingling, clanging, chattering, occasionally harmoniously singing mother dogs.

  Kim was still doing his outrider duty along with two of Wide Mountain Mother’s scouts who had volunteered to provide additional protective ser­vices. Abasio had insisted these ser­vices were to be confined to riding back at top speed to inform the wagon train if anything looked even remotely dangerous, strange, or in any way remarkable.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Abasio asked Grandma. “Some of these villages are really . . . well, they’re foul. Dangerous. Hateful.”

  “Well, the children will just have to practice their singing, I guess,” said Grandma. “They tell me they’re very good at it, and it usually calms ­people right down.”

  “That would be nice,” said Xulai. “To be calmed down.”

  “What’s the first village called? And where is it?”

  “It’s north, along the mountains, just beyond where Catland was. Before its tragic end. Did they ever get Sybbis’s tomb built?”

  “I think they sort of gave up on it,” said Joshua. “They never did learn to build with adobe, so it was suggested they just bury her. So I heard. And then Abasio and Xulai want to stop and visit with Abasio’s grandfather, and his place is two or three villages beyond the one we come to first.”

  “But that’s lovely,” said Grandma. “We’ll enjoy that, too. What did you say the name of the first village was?”

  “It’s called Vexing,” said Abasio. “The man who founded it had no memory. ­People would ask him where he lived and he’d say, ‘Now, that’s vexing, I can’t think why . . .’ And everyone ended up calling it ‘Vexing.’ It’s a bit larger than the villages we’ve been going through. Several hundred ­people. According to the reports we have, the ­people have taken their attitudes from the name of the town, so there’s almost no likelihood of anyone wanting to make the trip to Sea Duck, but it’s on the way, so we’ll see what we can do.”

  It was a two-­day journey north of Artemisia. They passed two Edges. The walls around each of them were still there, but the gate was open and no one answered when they called. Though there were stairs leading down, the place had the smell of rot, and no one wanted to explore. Late in the afternoon they came upon the outskirts of the town, a line of half a dozen small farms arranged along the road like beads on a string. Abasio was surprised when the children leapt out of their wagons and lined up in front of them.

  “Heads up,” whinnied Blue. “You there, second hitch, Grandma’s wagon! I said heads up!”

  “What in the . . .” Abasio cried. “Xulai, stop them. They might be hurt.”

  “I think not,” Grandma said. “Relax. Just watch.”

  The horses began to prance. Ordinary wagon horses do not prance, but the eight pair pulling the first two wagons were doing a creditable job of pretending to. All they needed, thought Xulai, were some plumes and a virtually naked rider decked in sequins . . . it was sequins, she thought . . . little shiny things. Now, that might be fun!

  The children were marching in front of the horses, singing. Several were also playing stringed instruments, tapping little drums.

  “I stand with the chipmunk and elephant, I stand with the whale and flea,” they sang. “In the midst of a wonderful universe that was not made for me.” ­People came out of their houses, down from their porches, leaned on their fences as the children sang, “I’m only a part of the Creator’s art; it was not made for me.”

  The children reached out their hands, still singing. “I stand with the planets, the stars, and the sun as part of a perfect design. Because it was made for everyone, I may not call it mine.”

  Xulai came onto the wagon seat, the babies on her lap. The ­people of the village ran alongside. “Oh, look at the babies, look at the babies. Stop, stop, let us see the babies.”

  The Silverhairs took the melody. “The planets whirl, the stars are aglow, life moves from the sea to the land. There come ages of sun and ages of snow, everything as it was planned. All of it a part of the Creator’s art, and it was not made for man . . .”

  And the children sang, “We’re only a part of the Creator’s art, we’re not the reason why, so lift up your voice, rejoice, rejoice, as every day goes by, that you’re simply a part of the Creator’s art, and not a reason why . . .”

  They stopped singing as ­people came out with gifts. A basket of fruit. A cake. “We heard you were coming. Can you stay a day or two? Oh, tell us about it all. Isn’t it wonderful!”

  Abasio gave Xulai a look that said better than words, “What is going on here! What has happened?”

  Grandma got down from her own wagon and walked back to Abasio’s. “Is it wide enough for three up there?” She climbed up, seating herself next to Xulai and taking Bailai onto her lap. “Good afternoon, young sea-­gentleman,” she said, giving him a blubby kiss on his tummy, at which he screamed laughter.

  The singing went on. The laughter went on. Horses were unhitched and led to water, given oats, given a polishing. Willum whispered to Needly, “We shoulda brought Sun-­wings. Coulda sold rides, I bet.”

  “Oh, Willum,” said Needly. “Sun-­wings and Dawn-­song are in Tingawa getting their shifter organs and learning how to use them. You’d better watch your tongue around them when they come back. They may turn into something dreadful and eat you.”

  Someone built a fire in the village center. Someone brought things to cook over the fire. Abasio answered questions. Xulai answered questions. ­People watched the babies’ trousers being washed out. Food was passed from one to another. Babies were passed from one to another. Drink was passed the other way. Late in the evening, they had listed twelve young ­couples who would be going south, to Sea Duck 3.

  “What fun!” they cried. “How exciting!”

  When the fires burned down, Abasio sat down on the very comfortable bed provided by the portable camp. When Xulai sat down beside him, he murmured, “What just happened?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I really don’t. I’m just going to sit here and think about it.”

  Abasio said, “I’m going to take a short walk. Be back soon.”

  He soon found Grandma, sitting outside her own portable camp with Joshua, who looked up with a grin and said, “That was nicely done. Looks like things are working out.”

  “I’d like an explanation,” said Abasio. “Is it hypn
osis?”

  “No, no!” said Grandma. “Not at all, Abasio. Hypnosis is replacing one’s one judgment with that of someone else. What you saw today is the releasing of one’s own judgment from impairment. As Fixit recently explained to me, monkey-­brain is a kind of pattern in the mind. Most humans are born without any pattern in that part of the brain, but they get imprinted very soon. Certainly by the time they begin to talk. Words are part of the imprint. There’s the word ‘mine.’ Little ones learn ‘mine’ very quickly. Often it’s the first word they learn. Certain things belong to certain ­people, and other things don’t. By the time they’re half grown, they’ve learned that the whole world is chopped up into pieces that belong to different ­people. Those ­people own it, different ones different parts of it, but all of it is owned by ­people. If ­people want lumber, they go cut down a forest. The fact that other creatures live in the forest doesn’t matter, because the forest is a mine, somebody took it or bought it. The word ‘mine’ starts the idea, and it makes a pattern in the brain, and that pattern is the start of monkey-­brain. The pattern is contagious. Parents who have it pass it on to their children, and before children are grown they know humans own everything. They’ve acquired monkey-­brain. And once someone has monkey-­brain, they’re immune to bao.”

  Abasio frowned. “It sounds hopeless. I didn’t realize . . .”

  “Well, we’ve thought it was hopeless. The ­people who were working on it got onto the right track when someone realized the response in the brain was actually an electrical trail, reinforced by time and custom to make a quirk in the way the brain was wired, and that if one found the right disrupter, the pattern could be disrupted. One-­by-­one reprogramming was too time-­consuming. What was wanted was a cure as contagious as the disease. It was pointed out and we learned that certain kinds of music have always been contagious. You know what I mean? The tune that you can’t get out of your head? It just keeps popping back in? The music the children sing is like that. You can’t get rid of it. You start humming it. Whistling it. It’s a . . . disruptor. It disrupts the monkey-­brain pattern, breaks it, splits it up into nothing.”