PROBABILITY MOON

by Nancy Kress

  Enli touched it. She had the right to do so, now that she was again real. Since it lived underground, the altar bore no living blooms. But on its carved stone sat a vase of dried trifalitib, their purple faded to a soft lavender, still wafting delicate scent over the altar. Beside it lay flower remembrance, memorial to the gardens of years past. This remembrance had obviously come from someplace other than Gofkit Rabloe. In the top chamber was more dried trifalitib—it must be the patron flower of Gofkit Rabloe. In the bottom chamber ran the quick bright liquid that World called flowersoul and Pek Gruber had called mercury.

  “This will have to go outside, I’m afraid,” Enli said to Azi. “Will you …”

  “Yes, I must do it,” agreed Azi, the priest. She finished lighting the lamps, her movements slowed by the curve of her belly. “But first let’s get Pek Allen inside and comfortable. Here comes Pek Callin, first as usual. Nothing happens except that old woman hears about it first.”

  Enli looked up the steps, out the door. Hobbling toward her was the old woman Pek Allen had threatened, grandmother to Estu, the child that Pek Allen had stolen. Pek Callin led Estu by the hand. Both moved slowly, but determinedly. As they passed the farm cart on which Pek Allen lay, the old woman glanced at him, recoiled, and kept hobbling forward. But, Enli saw, it was a recoil at the way Pek Allen looked, battered and bleeding and cooked, rather than because Pek Allen had terrorized herself and her granddaughter. That was then; this was the present reality. Reality had shifted, and now Pek Allen was real, so of course the old woman accepted him. That was shared truth.

  Enli understood. But she couldn’t share, not fully. She knew too much more that the old woman did not, and never would. Enli was real, but nonetheless the fierce headpain, which had left her as she and Azi pulled the farm cart, returned between her eyes.

  Azi was fussing around the root cellar. “Come in, come in, Udello, pick a corner before the others arrive. You brought blankets? Good, the ones here seem to have become a bit damp … What else did you bring? Enli will look, there are objects which will catch the sky sickness, you know, and that we don’t want! But first let’s get Pek Allen comfortable.”

  That didn’t seem possible. Pek Allen was still asleep, but he stirred and cried out as the two women lifted him. Touching him, moving him, seemed to cause him horrible pain. But he bore it, eyes squeezed shut, without further noise as Enli and Azi settled him on a pile of tarps. They covered him with a dry blanket in the far corner of the root cellar.

  “Water …”

  “In this barrel,” Azi said to Enli, and left to carry the flower remembrance reverently outside. Enli brought Pek Allen a dipper, but he could only drink a few drops. The rest dribbled across his reddening, charred-looking chin and neck, and seemed to cool it. Carefully Enli poured more drops over him.

  He opened his eyes then, and Enli saw their bloody whites and filmed brown irises. The irises stared straight ahead, un- , seeing. He was blind.

  More villagers appeared, including a few back from their running assignments. They all settled into the cellar while Azi kept count and Enli checked each person to make sure nothing had been brought into the cellar that had been on Pek Gruber’s forbidden list. Some of the villagers grumbled at missing harvest light. Some looked frightened of this unknown sickness from the sky. Others took it as a religious occasion, this sign from the First Flower, and sat contemplating bouquets they brought inside with them. A few young people took advantage of the forced closeness to cuddle beside each other in gloomy corners, hands and thighs touching.

  But no one protested, objected, refused. No one blamed Enli, or Azi, or Pek Allen. Everyone accepted that they must be here, now, for a short while, and so there was no dissent. It was shared reality.

  “Nowhere … else … in the known … universe,” Pek Allen gasped, and Enli had to lean close to catch the rasped words. Blood trickled from the corners of his mouth. “Enli … tell them.”

  “Tell them what?” Enli murmured back, but Pek Allen had again closed his eyes.

  “Everyone’s here,” Azi announced, much later. “Close the door, Hertil.”

  A big muscular man with lush neckfur lowered the root cellar door. The light was barely diminished. Outside the ceaseless rain fell from dark clouds; inside, the oil lamps glowed cheerfully. To the odors of packed dirt, water, and dried zeli were now added the smell of too many bodies in too small a space. Enli breathed in deeply, and her headpain eased a little.

  The villagers began to sing. No one started it, and at first two or three different songs competed, but everyone quickly settled into the same tune, a harvest chant. A version of it was sung in Enli’s village, Gofkit Jemloe. A version of it was probably sung in every harvest village on World. Enli joined in the soft singing.

  More songs, and then, again in unison, everyone fell silent. Azi said, speaking for them all, “Pek Allen? How long must we stay in here to be safe from the sky sickness?”

  Tell them, Pek Allen had said. Enli answered in as strong a voice as she could, despite the pain it cost her. “We must stay here until there comes a sign from the First Flower.”

  Everyone nodded, then went back .to singing, this time the oldest, most beloved songs: the flower lyrics.

  Only Enli sat silent. She had said the first thing that came into her head, and it had been accepted as shared reality. She had said it because someone must say something, even if no one knew for certain what the reality actually was. And because the villagers—here and on the rest of World—could not stay underground forever. And because, looking at him during the softest and most melodious of the flower songs, Enli had seen that Pek Allen was dead.

  Everyone but Enli fell asleep, at close to the same time. Enli thought it must be late afternoon, but in the root cellar there was no way to tell. Always before, Enli had been able to do what the others did: sleep when she chose to, when there was nothing else to do, when others slept around her. Not this time. Soft breathing rose and fell in the steady gloom of the oil lamps, and the comfortable odor of slumbering bodies filled her nostrils. But she could not share the reality of sleep with the others, even though she was again real.

  She gazed at Pek Allen’s dead face. How long did it take the bodies of Terrans to decay enough to release their souls? If they had souls, of course.

  David Pek Allen had had a soul. Shared reality said so. And so did Enli’s own brain.

  Sitting beside him on the wooden floor, Enli considered what she should do next. Not what shared reality said to do: what she should do, even though this hiding in the root cellar was a shared thing.

  Immediately the headpain started.

  Enli found herself standing apart from the pain, watching it. Unseen by any living thing, her eyes widened. She had never done such a thing before: stand apart from a shared-reality headpain, as if it were not “she,” but something else. But of course it was she. Then how could she be watching it, from the outside? There was no outside, there was only her brain, only reality …

  The headpain grew abruptly worse. It wasn’t as bad, she realized, as headpain she had felt when she’d been unreal. But now she was weak, hungry, frightened, and the pain was bad enough. Enli moaned softly and pressed her hands to her eyes. Wouldn’t this ever end? She was real again, damn it, this wasn’t supposed to happen when one was real … damn it was Terran, not World, the words had just slithered into her mind … into her head! Oh, her head!

  All at once, the headpain stopped.

  It didn’t fade away. Instead, it disappeared instantly and completely, between one breath and the next. In its place, something happened to Enli’s brain, something sent to her from outside her skull. Exultation filled her, a pure joy greater than anything she had ever known. Greater than any flower ceremony, greater than at a farewell burning, greater than her love for Tabor … Tabor! Who would now also be free, who would rejoin their ancestors, whom she would see again in the world of spirits!

  Enli laughed aloud. In the dim root cellar, su
rrounded by sleeping farmers, she laughed like a child, like Fentil, and had no idea why. It wasn’t because Tabor was free—that wasn’t a new idea. Yet it was because Tabor was free, because she herself was free, because the World was full of flowers and the First Flower had just sent her a sign.

  “What … did you speak?” Azi said sleepily, raising her head from the wooden floor. “I thought I heard you … I dreamed …”

  The exultation was fading now, more slowly than it had come. In its ebbing, Enli smiled at the little round priest. “We can go out now, Azi. The sky sickness is over.”

  “You had a sign?”

  “Yes. What did you dream?”

  Azi blinked, looking confused. “I don’t know. But it was wonderful. Wait … my sister was in it. And our old home, in Gofkit Kenloe. Oh, and a talking rock—something strange and unlikely!”

  “Low probability.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. The word is Terran. We can go out now, Azi. Wake everyone.”

  Unquestioningly, Azi turned to do so. “Enli—Pek Allen is dead!”

  “Yes,” Enli said, “I know.”

  “May his soul rejoice in the flowers of his ancestors.”

  “May his garden bloom forever. Will you do the farewell burning?”

  “Of course. Unja, wake up now, we can go out. Riflit, Unu, Pek Callin … wake up. Enli, may I ask you a question?”

  Enli stood, looking down at Pek Allen. They would need flowers for the ceremony, and gathering them would delay the zeli harvest even more. Well, it couldn’t be helped. “Yes, Azi?”

  “We know now that Pek Allen is real. Are the other Terrans real, too? Pek Bazargan and Pek Sikorski and Pek Gruber? Has reality shifted about them, too?”

  Even here, in remote Gofkit Rabloe, they knew the strange names. Enli reached down and pulled the edge of the blanket over Pek Allen’s burned face.

  “I don’t know, Azi. The First Flower didn’t tell me. That’s a question for Reality and Atonement, still.”

  Azi nodded. “Of course. Unja, you lazy thing, wake up! It’s time to go back out!”

  THIRTY-ONE

  GOFKIT RABLOE

  Gruber was good at spelunking. Against all odds, he found a fairly direct way out of the Neury Mountains that was not too claustrophobic, nor too long, nor too wet. Bazargan was surprised, although he realized he shouldn’t be. Gruber had not only knowledge but also enormous physical strength and an optimism that could focus itself within a narrow circumference. He was well suited to tunnels.

  They emerged into evening woodland, the lush fast-growing woodland of World, under myriad green-purple leaves like sheltering hands. The sun had already set and the light was pearly and thin, looking curiously pure. Paths had been cut through the brush, as paths had been cut everywhere on this domesticated continent. Bazargan’s nostrils filled with the delicious scents of evening. Day-blooming flowers closed and night-blooming ones opened, shy dapples of color in the cool shade.

  Bazargan leaned on Gruber, Ann trailing gamely behind, carrying Gruber’s pack. Despite lingering weakness, Bazargan found he could walk. Evidently he was still between the onset symptoms of radiation sickness and the debilitation yet to come.

  “The forest won’t be large,” he said to Gruber, who nodded. Forests on World never were. Small and numerous best supplied the woodland needs of World, so that all could have access to lumber and wildflowers. Bazargan, limping along, was grateful for World’s shared generosity.

  “Better I arm myself, then,” Gruber said, which was not what Bazargan had had in mind. But the geologist was right. Humans were still outcasts, sinners, fit subjects for murder. Gruber transferred Bazargan’s weight to Ann, then hunted up a thick branch to use as a club and began looking for a second one. David Allen, of course, had the gun. What had he done with it since he and Enli disappeared?

  The answer could only be bad.

  “Here comes someone,” Ann said quickly. “Dieter?”

  Gruber, branch in either hand, moved in front of the other two humans.

  A Worlder, half hidden by trees, called, “Habkint? Is that you? Have you already heard?”

  Gruber, his World less fluent than the others’, whispered, “What does he say?”

  “Habkint? We can all come out now, the sky sickness is past, but you must have already heard from—” The Worlder stopped dead.

  He was young, just past adolescence, with golden curling neckfur and skull skin smooth as an egg. The golden fur lay matted with sweat; it darkened the armpits and chest of his rough tunic and beaded on his upper lip. He had been running, racing along in last light with the joyous strength of the young to spread the news, whatever it was, to whomever dwelt even farther away from a village than he did.

  Bazargan said quickly in World, “The sky sickness is past? How do you know?”

  “Word from … from Gofkit Rabloe …” the boy stammered. “You’re Terran!”

  Despite himself, Bazargan smiled. He saw that the smile registered the same moment as did the boy’s headpain. The boy put one hand to his skull and ran back the way he had come, crashing into brush piled at the side of the cleared path and setting a flock of lifegivers swirling upward from a clump of yellow vekifirib.

  Ann said grimly, “That answers that. I guess we’re still unreal.”

  “In that case,” Gruber said, “we go no farther. The villages are not safe for us. In fact, I think we must go back to the mountains, Ahmed. A little way in. They will not come to kill us there, and I can gather food from fields at night.”

  Ann said, “And David and Enli?”

  Gruber remained silent.

  After a moment Ann said heavily, “I think you’re right, Dieter. We need to stay where Worlders won’t track us. It isn’t as if we can even make inquiries about David and Enli. No one would tell us anything. As far as we know, they’re still inside the mountains somewhere. If not …” She didn’t finish the sentence, but Bazargan did.

  “If not, they’re probably dead.”

  Ann looked away. Bazargan went on, as steadily as he could, wanting all three of them to face reality. “If we go into the mountains, it will be for how long? If we’re unreal, we can’t ever show ourselves to Worlders. The Zeus has been destroyed—Peres isn’t going to ever send a shuttle for us. Especially not if the Fallers hold the system now. Do we just live like cavemen in the Neury Mountains, stealing food and drinking irradiated water until we die?”

  “And what about the research?” Gruber asked. “If brains of Worlders are indeed the only documentable measure of the probability field, we must ask Enli what happened to her brain at the moment that Tas blew up.”

  Bazargan said irritably, “The research isn’t our most immediate concern. Survival is. How long do you think we can hide in the caves?”

  Gruber and Ann looked at each other. It was Ann who answered, but it might have been either one of them. Sometimes Bazargan forgot how young they were, with the hopefulness of youth. “As long as necessary, Ahmed. We stay in the caves as long as necessary.”

  Gruber added, “Who knows what will happen?”

  Bazargan lacked the energy to argue. He didn’t even know what he was arguing in favor of. They had no choice, unless they wished to commit group suicide. Or let themselves be murdered by Worlders.

  “Let’s go, then.”

  They turned back toward the mountains. Darkness fell fast on planets with little axial tilt. Already two of the moons were visible, Ap and Lil, or Cut and Ral, or Sel and Obri. But not Tas. Never again Tas.

  Ann broke the silence. “Wait—I just realized something! Did you hear what that young messenger said? He said, ‘We can all come out now, the sky sickness is past.’ David or Enli, or both, must have gotten out and warned Worlders about the wave effect!”

  “Ja!” Gruber said. “Do you think—”

  The comlink shrilled.

  Bazargan actually jumped; he’d forgotten he still carried it. The three humans stared wildly at ea
ch other. Ann whispered, “The Zeus? But how …”

  Fumbling in his s-suit, Bazargan finally located the link and activated whatever message it had just recorded.

  “Dr. Bazargan,” said a voice in English but with a heavy, unplaceable accent, “this is Lieutenant Michihiko Gray on the flyer Gnat, attached to the battleship Hachiya, Solar Alliance Defense Council Base #32, Caligula system. I have just exited Space Tunnel #438 and am proceeding at all possible speed toward the inhabited planet, for the purpose of retrieving your party. At the moment this system is free of enemy craft, but please be advised that this state may or may not remain stable. This message will reach you in fifty-four minutes. My ETA is three days twenty hours. Reply discreetly, but with inclusions of your position coordinates on the planet, plus number of persons in your party. End message.”

  “Ha!” Gruber shouted. “They come for us! Ahmed, send our position.”

  “You do it,” Bazargan said, overcome by another wave of weakness. Gruber seized the comlink and gave the data, finishing, “We are … Ahmed? Three? Four? Five?”

  Five. Gruber must be thinking of Enli, if she was still alive. Her own people had declared her unreal. She was a failed informant. Would they murder her, then, unless the humans took her with them? But if Enli had already delivered her message, or David had, and she or he still lived … There was no way to know for sure what had happened.

  Bazargan said, “Three or four or five.”

  “We are three or four or five, undetermined at this time.” Gruber said. “Send probable landing time. And thank you.”

  Bazargan started wearily forward … all that long way to walk back into the mountains. But Gruber put a restraining hand on Bazargan’s arm.