A. Warren Merkey

by Far Freedom

  In a few minutes they reached the pastures at the edge of the village where herd animals grazed in tall grass. They turned up a well-worn road toward terraces of grain and field vegetables. Behind them, many of the inhabitants of the village followed, walking quietly. Farmers came to the road and joined the procession as it passed.

  They rounded a promontory and entered a higher, narrower valley. The road steepened and Nori moved more slowly, straining her aged body. Sammy seemed to begin to feel the drag of the prosthesis on his amputated leg. Jamie helped the old woman, holding her hand.

  They stopped to rest at an overlook where sheer granite walls formed an acoustic amplifier to the narrowing valley. Distant sounds could be heard, and their voices echoed. The quiet parade of people stopped along the road behind them. They waited for Nori to recover.

  It was very quiet, so quiet it seemed to make Jamie’s mother restless. She watched as Demba stepped away from Nori and the attending crowd. Jamie was startled when Demba sang a single clear note. She moved to another spot and sang two notes, bell-like, at an odd interval. Jamie could not see a reason for this. She glanced at Gregor to see if he was as surprised and as mystified as she was. He seemed puzzled.

  “Over there,” Nori said. “Near the edge.” Demba moved to the spot at the edge of the cliff. She sang three notes which seemed to carry far and sustain themselves. “Sing,” Nori suggested hopefully.

  The old woman must remember that Demba sang. That was a very long time ago, perhaps before Jamie was born. If this was an act to subvert resistance through music, no matter how wonderful a singer she was, Jamie thought it was useless.

  Demba sang. The sound filled the natural theater. The almost atonal song began as a lament, an eerily melancholy sound that tugged at Jamie’s emotions, making her anticipate what might come. The path of the song began to climb. It could not be called melody or even variation, yet it progressed. It was a struggle toward order, a running battle for victory, a search for beauty and resolution. It carried Jamie’s emotions ever upward, even making her breathing synchronize to the rhythm of the strange song. It ended in triumph and was a relief to her. Looking around at the expressions on everyone’s face she thought something had changed. She looked again at Gregor. There was an agreement in reaction between her and Gregor. Reality was gently shifted a short distance away from what everyone once knew.

  Nori Hoshino rested and regained her strength. They resumed their journey.

  “What was that?” Mnro asked Demba. “What language?”

  “It was a song I believe to be half a billion years old,” Demba replied. “I’ve been remembering all the years I spent with Phuti doing field research out among the stars, and this translation project just came to me. I spent forty years, off and on, deciphering it. I’m not sure it was meant to be a song. I made some guesses and I let myself get carried away. I’m sure the Ancients would not have recognized their composition. This place made me think about it musically. The echoes, the ringing. The way the notes are related, I thought they should sound as though struck like bells.”

  “It was the most alien thing I’ve ever heard,” Jamie commented. “Why did you sing it?”

  “Just for the fun of it.”

  Jamie could not quite believe that reason, could not imagine such an effective performance was due to the whim of enjoyment.

  “As a warning,” Nori said. “There are wonderful things we don’t understand, and they will come to us whether we want them or not. And we will be changed forever.”

  “I never knew you were so mystical,” Mnro commented.

  “The closer you get to the end of life, perhaps the more mystical you become. The mountains help.”

  They walked, always gaining altitude. They entered a village beyond the pass into the next valley. Villagers awaited them, filling the narrow, steep streets. Somewhere above them a bell with a deep note rang very slowly.

  Most of the villages were small and not far apart, Jamie noted. They were more akin to neighborhoods in a lumpy landscape. Nor was the Five Worlds built on a planetary scale - it was more compact. But it was very easy for a person to feel small and planet-bound and living in an era before space travel.

  “How is she doing?” Demba asked Mnro, referring to Nori.

  “Not badly for a woman who has lived about fifty years beyond her Mnro Clinic Warranty.”

  “Will she make it to the top?”

  “I doubt it. You remember how far it is.”

  “And if she doesn’t make it?”

  “Or if we run out of time.”

  “Why didn’t you keep her under treatment?”

  “Why didn’t I learn how to rewrite human nature?”

  “You certainly didn’t give me any chance to assert my human nature,” Demba said.

  “Maybe you don’t remember it, but back at the beginning you warned me that you would try to rebel. You authorized me to take what measures were necessary to keep you on the path to this moment. The first thing that was necessary was to put someone who was meaner than me in my job. She was a tough old lady, wasn’t she?”

  “But she let Nori slip.”

  ” She couldn’t come often enough in person. And she couldn’t keep anyone stationed here very long, because the place begins to shut down your imagination and your ambition. Phuti did too well. I almost prefer it when they were killing each other.”

  “I think Phuti would agree with you,” Demba said. “I don’t think he would want to live here too long. The Five Worlds feels like an archaeological site waiting to go into a museum.”

  “Alex shouldn’t have left him,” Mnro said. “He wanted to go with them. Alex knew he was in the midst of bringing peace to this world and never gave him a chance to decide. Given the choice, he probably would have stayed, but he would have wanted to go with him.”

  In the middle of a great forest Nori faltered. Jamie caught her before she could strike the ground. She placed her gently against the base of a tree and sat down with her to provide support. Sammy sat on a convenient rock. He rubbed where the machine connected to his leg.

  Mnro knelt and placed a hand on Nori’s pumping chest. Nori looked up at her with a serene expression, but she labored to breathe. “You waited too long,” Nori said between gasps. “I’m sure my father is dead. Must you take Phuti?”

  “Yes,” Mnro replied. “We must.”

  “Why? He can’t be vital to your crew needs. He’s only an anthropologist.”

  “He belongs with us. He’s one of us. We were shipmates and explorers. We are going exploring again. He would want to go with us.”

  “He isn’t dead?”

  “You told me yourself,” Demba said, “when I was last here. You said he was tired and just resting. He has been waiting for us to come and take him away.

  We need him.”

  “The people will be afraid to lose him,” Nori said. “All in the Five Worlds make a pilgrimage to his grave, to remember him and to remember his lessons. If a man feels hate for his neighbor, he makes a pilgrimage and returns with love in his heart. The Five Worlds will fall back into chaos without him.”

  “If his legacy requires a dead body to maintain itself, then his legacy is peculiar and weak.” Demba spoke with conviction. “Nor is Dawa Phuti Mende such an extraordinary man that others should be so much less, so dependent, so fearful to lose him. I think the people of the Five Worlds must give him up, or else their future will always look to them like their past, and the different future, when it comes, will be unbearable. What he gave the people wasn’t an eternity of peaceful social order, but merely a stretch of time in which to realize that war was avoidable. The universe is a dangerous place, and it will no more respect a dead body on a mountaintop than it will an insect you step on unawares. The people must believe in themselves and expect to be challenged by the future.”

  “I wish you could tell that to everyone on the road below us,” Mnro said.

  “You have,” Nori said. “As I hear, they h
ear.”

  Jamie realized the Five Worlders must use communications augments like a shiplink, and they were electronically connected to the hearing of Nori, the Old One.

  “How is she?” Demba asked Mnro.

  Mnro withdrew her hand from Nori’s chest. “Her rhythms have stabilized but she shouldn’t exert herself more. The emotional stress will be as much as I would want her to endure. I know she looks very calm, but I refuse to believe she’s any better than me at containing her emotions.”

  “Can I carry her?” Jamie inquired. When she received a nod of assent, Jamie positioned herself to accept Nori onto her back. The old woman put her arms around Jamie’s shoulders and Jamie tucked her arms under Nori’s legs after Demba rearranged the lower part of her robe. Jamie turned up the road, carrying Nori. She set a quicker pace. From side roads and paths, across fields and down rocky slopes, people from other places joined the procession. All along the road, even in high wild places, people gathered to wait to join the march. Their faces appeared solemn.

  Now they followed a wide footpath worn into the stone by countless pilgrims over many years. The altitude gave them panoramas of forests and farms and villages below them. Air pressure lessened slightly and gravity decreased more as they ascended into the clouds. Jamie didn’t need to stop and rest. Struggling to keep pace, Sammy yielded to Demba and Mnro when they each took one of his hands.

  They came out of mist into sunshine and cold air. At this elevation they could easily see the other side of the world, the snow-capped peaks pointing down at them, the hazy green valleys and blue lakes, the geometry of agriculture, roads, and the knots of dwellings in villages.

  People had arrived at the sacred site before them. Thousands stood among the trees on the slopes of the grounds that surrounded a small cottage with a grass mound a few meters from its front door. On a natural slab of granite on top of the mound was mounted a large case, a sarcophagus, with small windows on each side through which an old man’s head could be seen in profile.

  Jamie set Nori onto her feet and held her to steady her.

  “In the cottage,” Mnro said, “there was a shovel.”

  Nori raised a finger and pointed to Gregor. The young man dared to show

  reluctance but he fetched the shovel from the cottage.

  “Dig here,” Mnro said, pointing to an area on one side of the mound.

  Gregor didn’t move until Nori nodded at him. He pushed the shovel into the grass and immediately struck something hard. In a few moments he uncovered stone steps that led up to the tomb.

  Mnro took the steps and mounted the slab of granite. She stood by the large case. She waited as thousands more people arrived to crowd into the monument site.

  “How can we know to take him?” Demba asked Nori.

  Gregor appeared upset at Demba’s words. Jamie saw many others with similar expressions. She also spotted a number of young men of Gregor’s age and purposeful bearing who probably shared his military or security duties.

  “Can the people see him again?” Nori asked. “Can he see them again?”

  Jamie saw Gregor react sadly to Nori’s words, realizing the Old One would condone the taking of Phuti Mende.

  “That will be messy,” Mnro said. “He’s suspended in a liquid. He’ll be cold. He’s naked. In the cottage there are clothes.”

  Nori motioned for Gregor to find the clothing. Jamie went with him. Gregor found the garment quickly but Jamie blocked his exit from the cottage. She wanted a moment alone with him. “I don’t know what Demba and Mnro told your people, but they should have warned you.”

  ” You warned me.”

  “I didn’t give you the complete information.”

  “What more is there?”

  “The Union Navy pursues us. They will ask you questions about what we were doing here. They will probably not like your answers.”

  “And you are not Navy? You place us in danger?”

  “I’m sure Demba understands the risk she has caused you to face, and that would be a measure of how important Phuti Mende is to us. Please cooperate with the Navy and don’t make them do bad things.”

  ” Why would the Navy…?”

  “Time is too short and I’m too lacking in understanding to explain our situation to you. No matter whether we take Mende or not, the Navy will be more dangerous than usual.”

  Gregor handed Jamie the garment and followed her out of the cottage. Demba took the clothing and mounted the steps to stand by Mnro. Mnro did something to cause a heavy cover to slide back from the top of the container, revealing the live controls of machinery. She activated the procedure to awaken their friend.

  The windows on the sides of the case became opaque. Jamie thought they may not have been windows but image displays. A few voices rose in exclamation and quickly quieted, but a murmur swept through the crowd. Individual words couldn’t survive the low clamor but a consensus of feeling from the crowd reached Demba and the others. Sammy drew close to Jamie, fearing the sense of unhappiness in the thousands of people.

  “They’re being selfish,” Mnro said to Demba. “They’ve had him longer than we. Talk to them.”

  Demba swept her gaze across the faces in the crowd, perhaps measuring the hostility. Even though Gregor made his promise, Jamie did not want Sammy to even feel the possibility of violence. She felt the Old One nudge her and realized she wanted to go up the stone steps and be with Mnro and Demba.

  Jamie helped her. Sammy kept a hand on her back as he followed them up the steps.

  “As I hear you,” Nori said to Demba, “they will hear you. So many people hear me and listen to me, as though I had precious wisdom to offer them. If I comfort them, I suppose that is enough. I have no wisdom. I’m just old. Neither do I command them. My only clear thought is that Phuti gave his life to them, and perhaps they can give it back. It would help if you could say something more eloquent.”

  “Speeches are not my strength,” Demba said. “My eloquence lies in song. Do they have a song that is theirs? Perhaps they already have words they should hear again. Do they play the pipes here? My husband played the pipes. It’s a mountain instrument.”

  Demba waited several long moments until finally, from high in the tree-covered slopes, a series of notes sounded on panpipes. In another direction a different tune followed the first, also played on pipes. A third melody was offered by a harmonica from near the cottage.

  Demba began to sing. Jamie thought this would distract the people from their discontent, but only for a short time. She listened as her mother started a second song, sang its principle melody and theme and began yet another. Jamie was not well acquainted with such old music but she could guess at the cultural origins of each. It no longer amazed her that Demba’s singing could enthrall people so completely but it did amaze her that Demba could pull from her data augment the best songs and words. She seemed to be reminding the people of the Five Worlds they were once brave and proud, capable of greatness, capable of building this magnificent home far from Earth.

  Once she sang five songs in quick succession, Demba seemed to start through them again. The crowd became restless. Jamie worried what would happen. She looked over at Gregor and saw a thoughtful look on his face. Jamie realized Demba had changed the lyrics of the song. Then she changed the melody. It was almost the same song but with part of another song added into it. It was almost the same lyrics but borrowed words from yet another song. Finally, it was not songs she sang but a story she was telling. She told the history of the peoples of the Five Worlds. Every face Jamie could see wore an expression of concentration and wonder.

  At the proper point in history, Demba sang the modern Anthem of the Five Worlds, causing the crowd to sing it with her. The mass of voices overwhelmed the serenity of the setting, charged the mountain air with the electricity of emotion, and thundered to an abrupt silence in which only Demba continued to sing. As she came to that sad moment in history where the old anthropologist was laid to rest, Demba sang a stanz
a of “Amazing Grace.” Jamie detected some further reaction in the people.

  “Now we know who she is,” Gregor said quietly, having moved closer to Jamie at the foot of the steps. “Now it will be a good thing.”

  Demba stopped singing and paused to listen to the flavor of the silence. Demba began a speech. “Dawa Phuti Mende was an explorer. The study of human culture was less important to him than exploring, and I think that gave him the emotional distance to be objective enough to help you solve the human problems you had in building and sharing the Five Worlds. Phuti loved exploration, which is really what being alive and being curious is all about. I think he will want to go exploring again with his old friends, with Aylis and me. If you will let him go, I would see that as a possibility that you understand Phuti and share his love of discovery. I would urge you to think about this moment as an opportunity to spread Phuti’s legacy into unknown places. You don’t need mountains to be who you are. Traditions are portable. Your ancestors paid dearly to provide this home for you, but home is that place you love even more when the journey brings you back to it.”

  Mnro monitored the machinery of Mende’s coffin as Demba addressed the people. As Demba finished her oration, Mnro opened the coffin. The liquid drained away. The coffin dried the body. She helped Phuti Mende sit up while she tried to slip the garment from the cottage around him. Mende was no longer old. He was disoriented. The crowd noise surged as everyone spoke to his neighbor or simply uttered an exclamation. Mnro caressed Mende’s face and let him cough and take a deep breath. He opened his eyes.

  “So soon?” he asked hoarsely.

  “It’s been longer than you think, Phuti.”

  Phuti Mende tried to stand up. Demba stepped over to help and when Mende saw her face he smiled hugely and grabbed her hand and shouted, “Zakiya!”

  “We see who’s important and who isn’t,” Mnro commented.

  Demba hugged Phuti and then helped pull him from his place of slumber. He was weak, but when he saw Nori and thought he recognized her, he reached for her, to embrace her. Demba and Mnro held them both. The crowd noise increased to a roar. Mende reacted to the noise. Perhaps not understanding the presence and meaning of the crowd caused a look of apprehension on his face.