Murmurs of sympathy rippled through the crowd. Many witnessers suffered lingering effects, and most had grown very angry. Yet confusion was the main thing; there was just no precedent for this problem.
Yinevra went on. “We know that death hastens those who hasten death. And Nisi the Deceiver, born a Valan, says that this is the only stricture that soldiers accept. So why not let it happen? Let’s share parting with soldiers and go to dwell among the shockwraiths of the underraft. We can manage that, since shockwraiths are far easier to understand than soldiers. But when the soldiers come, they will find us both. Then let Shora be the judge of what happens next.”
Yes, thought Lystra, let those upstart creatures share their own evil. But she was too much her mother’s daughter not to feel a twinge of remorse. You are as responsible for what you let happen as for the actions you share. If Lystra had left Spinel to the fleshborers when he first came, what would that have meant for her?
A much older sister arose, from one of the farther raft systems. “Nonforgiver, I won’t deny that hard measures are called for. But let’s not dive into a different sort of ignorance. If Shora Herself will judge the Valans, then why should Sharers act at all?”
“Because we are Shora. If we don’t act, who else will?”
“Then it is we who share judgment, and the fate of these soldiers. A death hastened is still a death, whether or not you keep your eyes closed.”
The words cracked like a shell upon coral. A troubled silence clung. It was hopeless, Lystra thought. She could cast forever for an answer, but the ocean was empty.
Shaalrim observed, “We have to do something. Suppose at first we simply Unspeak the soldiers? When Lalor and I were on Valedon, the Valans didn’t begin to hear us until we went Unspoken.”
“Well that’s the least we can do,” Yinevra said sharply. “In fact, I’ll Unspeak the Gathering myself if we choose to do less.”
“Enough of that,” called Trurl. “It’s time for us all to stick together, Shora knows.”
As it happened, Yinevra’s remark brought an enthusiastic response. Unspeech was safe and familiar, a tactic that anyone could understand, although its application to thousands of Valans was a dizzying thought.
Then Merwen arose, and Lystra knew what was coming. “If action is needed,” Merwen said, “why Unspeech? Isn’t Unspeech just another form of inaction? If we put an end to sharing, we tie our own hands.”
“Unspeech does not end all sharing,” Trurl corrected. “We would not let a soldier starve, if it came to that. We can still share our presence, in silent witness.”
Someone added to that, “We have to stop speaking. How else can we show them what children they are? You can’t talk seriously with infants.”
Yinevra said, “We tried wordweaving—I tried as hard as you did, and it got nowhere. Our sisters weren’t freed until we witnessed, words or not. Why didn’t you witness with us, Impatient One?”
That was unfair, Lystra thought, for once resenting Yinevra. Someone had to stay behind, after all, to share care of the injured. But Merwen said nothing more. Instead, Usha rose, after trying for some time to be heard. “Must we unspeak every Valan who comes in soldier’s plumage? One of them has become an apprentice with me. I need good apprentices.”
Merwen and Usha seemed to have taken to Siderite. Perhaps they thought they might make a selfnamer of him, like Nisi.
But Nisi herself was skeptical. Nisi said, “The Valans who come to learn lifeshaping do so for subversive purposes. Whatever Siderite learnshares will be used against you in the end. That is why he brings soldiers with every visit.”
“A good point, Deceiver.” Trurl lifted her chin toward Merwen. “Well, Impatient One?”
“It won’t work,” said Merwen slowly. “Nothing will work until we learnshare what it is that makes Valans hasten death.”
“How?”
She said nothing. Another dead clickfly plopped down, and an age seemed to pass.
Trurl quietly asked, “Will you block our will, then?”
“No.”
Merwen’s acquiescence startled Lystra. No matter how hard Lystra fought her mother at times, it still hurt to see Merwen back down. Worse than that, it nagged her to think that Merwen might yet be right.
At Raia-el, the Sharers held one great night of learnsharing together, though it was hard with so few clickflies to weave the webs. Then the visitors dispersed to sail off on their long voyages homeward, before clickflies vanished altogether and navigation became a nightmare. This loss of clickflies was an even greater immediate threat than the soldiers. Rumors linked the two, but no one knew for sure.
Merwen still wondered about the existence of in-between humans. On Valedon she had seen thick-furred creatures with long tails, creatures half human and half animal. Did they have minds and souls, in-between souls? What kind of souls did Valans have? Only one thing she was sure of: there was no such thing as an in-between hastened death.
The day after the Gathering, Merwen got up early to swim below the branches, watching fish dart in concerted schools and jellyfish drift through the waves and beakfish munching stolidly on coral. It was good to remember the nearness of Shora, to feel herself a part of this one sea of life. Valans and their sickness were merely a bad storm on the surface, so far.
But Merwen emerged well in time to meet Siderite’s helicopter as it whined lazily above the water’s edge. As usual, Wellen and Weia dropped whatever they were doing, whether playing games with sticks or sorting seaweeds for lunch, to crane their necks at the spindly monster as it descended and shuddered to a halt on the raft. This time, Merwen caught them both in her arms, urging them into the silkhouse. “No speaking,” she whispered.
“But why, Mama?” Wellen’s face wrinkled up with disappointment. “It’s just a giant clickfly. What’s happened to all the regular clickflies? Did the giant ones eat them, like Flossa says?”
Somehow Merwen managed to shoo the girls inside. Then she called Usha up from the tunnels. “Your Valan apprentice is here.” Merwen spread her fingers, a gesture that said, we can make an exception; I will share it, if you will.
But Usha’s hands were closed at her sides. “We both know what must be done.”
The Sharers stepped out through the door and seated themselves on the raft, just as Siderite came toward them, followed by his six guards, all potential death-hasteners.
Merwen gripped Usha’s hand. She let her eyes defocus until she stared out to sea, watching the white crests roll and dissolve. Her soul could dissolve in that sea.
The guards had stopped. Siderite came closer and spoke down at Merwen. “Share the day,” he said. “I’ve come to…” He stopped, uncertain. He could tell something was wrong.
Deliberately Merwen continued to look past him. “Usha, we do not share speech with Valans anymore. We speak only with selfnamers and their children.”
“What’s the problem?” Siderite squatted, trying to look her in the eye. “Did the troops rough you up again? Look, I’ll do what I can. I’ll even take it up with the general.”
Merwen looked past him, almost through him. The waves sparkled in the sun, and she could imagine dots of raft seedlings swooning into the troughs. She swallowed and spoke again. “Valans have a choice, Usha: either go home to their Stone Moon or stay and choose selfnames. All else is wasted breath.”
Siderite said nothing more. Usha also said nothing; in a tight spot, her tongue tended to stick.
Merwen’s sight blurred, and she shifted her gaze. She hated Unspeech, it twisted her heart to deny a human call.
The death-hasteners muttered in low voices, until Siderite spoke up. “No, leave them alone. Let’s be off, for Torr’s sake.”
The blurred Valan shapes receded. Merwen blinked in the sun, then looked to Siderite’s back, now covered by soldier’s plumage, though his head at least was bare and his hair stirred in the breeze. A sudden thought took her: If Siderite were to turn now, Merwen would smile at him, no matter w
hat any sister thought of it. She squeezed Usha’s hand again.
But Siderite was lost among the death-hasteners as they climbed back into their monster, the “giant clickfly” that might have eaten all the little ones.
7
CLICKFLIES WERE VANQUISHED, and now Jade and Kyril had come up with a new angle. “We figured out what catfish are scared of,” Jade told the general. “Metal, rock, gemstone—in short, anything wholly inorganic.”
“Stone,” Realgar noted. It was hard, empty of life, with a cold light. “But why?”
“It fascinates them, that’s why.” Kyril beamed, very pleased with himself. “Scares the hell out of some; others can’t get enough of it.”
“The same ones, you mean,” Jade added.
“It’s too simple,” Realgar objected. “What’s the sense of it?”
“Does it make sense for your troops to be scared of purple-skin?” asked Kyril. “Sharers never saw the like of steel or diamond before we got here—not for a hundred centuries.”
“So it’s foreign. The act of killing is foreign to them, too, but they don’t seem to fear that.”
Jade shook her head. “Catfish live with death all the time; it’s a frontier world, after all. But the very concept of ‘metal’ has no place in their heads.”
He recalled the trade boycott, sparked not by overpricing, in fact, but by the stone trade. It should have occurred to him from the start that stone was a handle, a chink in their armor.
“You can’t buy them any other way,” Jade said. “Not liquor, drugs, or women. But stone will get us informants and break the backbone of those Gatherings.”
It was shortly afterward that Siderite asked to see the general, a rare event in itself. In uniform now, as Realgar had insisted, Siderite stormed into the office. “I want to know just what those trollheaded goons of yours are up to now. Usha won’t even look at me—”
“If you have charges to make, state them,” said Realgar. “With evidence.”
“Poisoning unarmed women—isn’t that enough? You didn’t tell that to the Palace Press.” Siderite’s hands clenched and unclenched. The gassing of the native “invaders” must have bruised his sensibilities, but that was well over with.
“The natives use different weapons, that’s all,” Realgar told him. “Microbes instead of gas. Don’t be fooled, Siderite; this is war.”
“By the Nine Legions! Must I conduct research on the front line?”
“You’ve been doing that from the first.” Realgar was exasperated. “Those lab warrens are the front line. We either get a hold on native lifeshaping or we pull out and let Malachite slap us again next time.”
Siderite paused. “Then all your troops are irrelevant.”
“In that sense, yes,” Realgar admitted after a moment’s hesitation.
“Then why not pull out? Pull out, and let me do my job in peace.”
Realgar lowered his voice to a hard whisper. “Siderite, you’re a damn fool. You don’t say a word for us in your reports, yet who do you think assures your access to those lab warrens? The day we arrived for first inspection, Usha was ‘too busy’ to see you—until Merwen saw we were ‘sick’; that is, we showed force. Force is all those natives understand.”
Siderite’s lips pushed upward. “Maybe so, but they’ve been incredibly helpful up to now, when all of a sudden they won’t give me the time of day. Let me try without the guards, at least.”
“No.” Siderite was still a security risk, having leaked the identity of the riot control gas. If scientific exchange was to take place, Realgar expected it to run one way only. He called to his monitor, “Bring in two natives for questioning, Merwen Impatient and Usha Inconsiderate.”
Siderite rushed to the desk. “Don’t do that. Look, I’ll convince them, somehow—”
“You’ve made your complaint, and it’s being handled. If necessary, I’ll send you to some other friendly raft. That will be all, Siderite.”
The man left in a daze.
When the two natives came, propelled by the guards, they sat on the floor as before. “Greetings, Protector,” Realgar began. “Now, Protector, there must be some misunderstanding. What has Siderite done to offend your ‘lifeshaper’? Does he cause accidents in your ‘lifeshaping place’? You can tell me, I’ll set it right.”
Nothing. The pair stared like zombies at a point somewhere beyond his shoulder.
“We had a deal, Protector.” Softly he tapped the desktop with his finger. “No problems—no prisoners. What’s the problem?”
Only their fingertips fluttered. Behind the pair stood the blank-faced guards.
“Would you prefer to tell Colonel Jade?”
Merwen’s throat dipped as she swallowed. “The Per-elion Gathering has Unspoken all Valan soldiers,” she told the spot beyond his shoulder. “As the word spreads, it is likely that many Gatherings will share this will. There is nothing more to be said.”
His hand froze. Rage kindled, then quickly subsided into a cold purpose. “You have no more clickflies, Protector. You will travel no more, any of you. And you will hold no more Gatherings.”
8
A SCHOOL OF flying fish spurted across the sea and made a playful froth in the distance. From her seat in the rowboat, Merwen stretched her neck and watched their beauty, their dance that was a song in praise of life.
At the prow, Flossa leaned outward, her youthfully smooth elbows perched on the edge, sunshine gleaming from the curve of her back. “Those fish will make a good dinner, Mama; I can taste them already.”
Merwen turned back and pulled easily at the oars, in whose wake tiny whirlpools swirled away. The boat shuddered as a raft seedling bumped the prow, a tangle of branches wide as the length of the boat. Only a few seedlings were so large, now, but there would be many more before the swallowers came.
Above the horizon, a helicopter appeared, buzzing insistently. Merwen dreaded the sight of those insects now, for they could disgorge Valan soldiers who might snatch her away to face their wordweaver Realgar again, although now they were all Unspoken. Realgar did not understand Unspeech; it only seemed to give him a temper tantrum. Malachite the Dead One had told Merwen that these Valans would share a lesson with her, but so far this one had learned nothing.
The helicopter swooped lower, close enough to alarm her. She watched its wheeled legs as it sailed overhead.
A loud voice blared out of it. “Turn Back to Raft,” came the words, Sharer words in a rough accent. “Keep Within Ten Person-lengths of Rafts. All Who Stray Outside Will Face ‘Arrest.’ Keep Within Ten Person-lengths of Raft…” The one word in Valan made no sense, but Merwen was sure it meant no good.
The helicopter dipped so close that a human face appeared at the front glass. Then steam hissed all around from the sea, and spray drenched the boat.
“Mama?” Flossa’s eyes were round, her mouth pinched.
Merwen caught the girl in her arms and covered Flossa’s face with her own shoulder. Above, the helicopter was blaring again.
“Mama, we can’t listen to them,” came Flossa’s muffled voice. “They’re Unspoken.”
Merwen breathed deeply. “I can’t let you go. You’re too young.” How could she let this child slip into darkness? How far would the madness take them?
Out of the helicopter, two soldiers dropped into the boat and pulled Merwen apart from her daughter; Flossa, brave as she was, did not even gasp. Both were swallowed up into the foul gut of the machine, which smelled of oil and stale clothing. An endless nightmare passed, although it could not have been more than minutes, before they were released again, upon the raft.
At the silkhouse Merwen found a group of former witnessers, spread out in exhaustion. But these were the sisters who had just set off for their home many raft-lengths away; a perilous journey without clickflies, only dead reckoning. How could they be back?
“Valans reached us,” said one dully. “For a whole day we sped off behind our glider squid—yet the death-hasteners flew u
s back here in minutes. Think of it, Impatient One.”
Merwen nodded. “It is true, in outer space these Valans can outpace the wind. Yet in inner space they cannot cross a web’s-breadth.”
“But Merwen—we can’t just go on like this.”
Overhead a helicopter buzzed again and blared, “No Gatherings More Than Five People; Repeat, No Gatherings…”
“We will gather tonight, after sharing time,” said Merwen.
Lystra caused quite a stir when she made it to Raia-el for the Gathering that night. First the Valan creatures had flung her from her boat at Leni-el, then they plucked her from the water where she swam. At last she managed to swim over, hidden beneath a raft seedling.
The news cheered some as they collected in the raft hollow, beneath a night sky still fringed with pink. But Trurl’s face was somber, her eyes nearly closed. “It’s a black day indeed when dead insects prey on people. When will our live insects return?”
“I’m trying,” muttered Usha. “I saved a few clickflies, but they still won’t reproduce, and I don’t yet have a full structure for the poison molecules. Why did we insist on Unspeaking Siderite? He would have told me.”
Lystra said, “Not with six death-hasteners around him.”
“Well, what do you expect of me?” Usha was at her wits’ end. “I’ve made a new strain of breathmicrobe; shall we try that? This one will turn them all purple for good. As they should be.”
Trurl squeezed her eyes shut as if pained. “Shora, no. That would only drive them crazier than ever. Do you know, sister, now they are recruiting the sick ones among us? Sharing stone with the stonesick, and where that may lead…”
No one cared to guess where that might lead.
With difficulty Lystra kept her voice level. “Under so much pressure, there are more who will follow Rilwen.”
Yinevra had arrived with Kithril, and both sat still as death, though Kithril had tears running down to her waist.
“Whatever we do,” said Lystra, “we can’t Unspeak our own sisters along with the Valans, not at a time like this.”
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