Tepper,Sheri - After Long Silence

by After Long Silence(Lit)

  "Yes," he said in a grim decision. "I trust him."

  "Well, then let's trust him. Let's do what he suggested." Clarin looked at the rifle with dismay. "We don't want to walk around carrying that."

  "Put it under your robe, Clarin. Yours is stiffer than mine. You can wait at the gate while Jamieson and I bring the mules." Tasmin shook his head at himself as he hurried away across the compound, turning back to see Clarin lounging casually against one wall, the rifle tucked behind her.

  The mules were eager to travel after their half day in the trailer. When they had ridden far enough from the city that the rifle would not occasion comment, Tasmin fastened it to the rings of his saddle, trying twice before he got it right. Lord, no one except the military used rifles anymore.

  "Crystal bears," mumbled Jamieson, still seething. "Who does he think you are, Master? Everts of the Dawn Patrol?" This was a favorite holodrama of Jubal's children. "When was the last time anyone saw a crystal bear?"

  "There's some doubt anyone ever did, actually," said Tasmin drily. "Fairy tale stuff. Early explorers claimed to find a lot of things back in crystal country. Crystal bears were just one of the menagerie. Some of the earliest explorers said viggies could talk and mice could sing."

  "Well, they can," Clarin objected, patting her pocket. A muffled chirp followed the pat. "At least sort of. Why would Jem Middleton have had a rifle right there in his office?" Clarin asked.

  "Exactly," Tasmin replied. "Why?"

  They rode through ascending lands, scattered fields of human crops giving way to Jubal country, the ramparts of the Redfang rising before them as the sun sank behind their left shoulders and the road grew narrower and dimmer. After the last of the farms they passed no one.

  "No Don Furz," said Jamieson, giving voice to the obvious.

  "Do you get the idea that maybe the Grand Master and the others were afraid of that?" Clarin asked.

  "The road tops a ridge just ahead," Tasmin answered, his voice carefully unemotional. "We'll probably get a look down into Redfang canyon from there."

  From the ridge top, the road dropped into a basin surrounded on three sides by mixed stony outcroppings and the 'lings and 'lets of the Redfang, then curved to the right around a flat-topped pillar of stone.

  There was someone on the pillar!

  A gray clad figure scurried back and forth, toppling stones down the precipitous sides. Even from this distance they could hear the grunts of effort, the shattering rattle of stone on stone.

  At the foot of the pillar, half a dozen shadowy figures were attempting to scale the rocky walls. The intent of the attackers was clear, and there was desperation in the movement atop the rock. As they watched, one of the plummeting stones tore a climber loose and carried him onto the shattered stones at the foot of the almost vertical face. Other climbers redoubled their efforts to reach the embattled one.

  Without a moment's hesitation, Jamieson yodeled "brother, brother, brother," the recognition called gathering strength from the echoes that cascaded in its wake, shattering the silence of the canyon, demanding that any Explorers or Tripsingers within hearing identify themselves. An answering cry came from the pillar top, telling them which side they were on.

  Tasmin slid off his mule, dragging the rifle from its scabbard and throwing himself down behind a convenient looking rock. His best rifle scores had always been from the prone position, and he settled into the earth with a wriggle, flicking on the power switch and putting his eyes to the goggle scope all in one motion, tracking the lighted dot across the face of the butte. When it slid across one of the climbing figures he squeezed once, twice, then began tracking once more. One pull would drop a man. Two would keep him dropped for a while. He tracked and pulled again.

  Jamieson and Clarin were clattering down the trail toward the pillar at a reckless gallop, the unshod hooves of the mules creating a cataract of echoes, a continuous thunder. The "brother, brother, brother," yodel, leaping the octaves to stir a threatening vibration from the surrounding 'lings, added to the cumulative rumble of avalanching sound that gave the effect of a mounted troop. At the base of the pillar the attackers broke and ran.

  Tasmin tracked a fleeing shape, pulled, tracked another, and pulled again before the remaining attackers were lost behind a forest of crystal pillars. Crystallites? They were very quiet for Crystallites. By the time Jamieson and Clarin reached the pillar, all the attackers had disappeared. Tasmin stood up, brushing gravel from his chest and belly, and restored the rifle to its scabbard, noting with angry but somehow detached astonishment that the intensity dial was set to "kill." He hadn't set it there. He hadn't touched it. Regulation setting was "stun." Always.

  At the foot of the slope, three people moved among the fallen. Clarin, Jamieson, and the shadow figure from the top of the bluff who had come down to join the acolytes. Tasmin mounted and rode to join them. As Tasmin drew nearer, he saw it was a woman who was turning one of the fallen bodies face down with a gesture of anger or dismay. She came toward him, golden hair fluttering in the light breeze, dark blue eyes fixed angrily on his own.

  "I wish to hell you hadn't felt you had to kill them all!" she announced.

  Then, with surprise, "You're Tasmin Ferrence, aren't you? Your acolyte said 'Ferrence,' but I didn't make the connection." And then, surprisingly. "I hope to hell you've got my music box."

  Tasmin was gaping at her when Jamieson said "Master," in the tone of an adult interrupting the play of children. He was peering over their heads in the direction the fleeing attackers had gone. "I hate to bring it up, but the noise back in those 'lings indicates they haven't gone away. There were at least ten of them, Sir, and with due respect, you only dropped four."

  "You think they're coming back?"

  "I don't think all that hollering presages imminent departure."

  "The Explorer expresses her thanks, Tripsinger," the woman said. "My mule's over behind that rock, and the best place for us is back in the range, quickly." She ran toward the mule, and they followed her, hearing the noise building behind them as they went. "Those bastards caught up with me right after I came out of the range," she shouted over the noise. "There were only four of them at first, but then they seemed to drop out of the rocks like gyre-birds off a 'ling. I only had time to get up on that pillar. Two minutes later, they'd have had me. Or, if you'd been two minutes later, they'd have had me anyhow!"

  Only when they were halfway to the range did Tasmin notice the typical Explorer outfitting of both beast and rider and realize who she was. "You're Don Furz?" he exclaimed.

  She gave him a quick look. "Who did you think?"

  "I didn't know Don Furz was a woman."

  "I won't be anything long if we don't get back into the range. Your mules aren't soft-shod. We'll stop just inside." She kicked her animal into a run, and they trailed after her, entering the range between two bloody towers that hummed and whispered ominously. "Pay no attention to them," Don shouted. "They won't blow if we hurry!" She galloped on, making a quick turn to the right, then to the left, pulling up in a shower of gravel.

  "Get your mules shod, quick," she said, pulling the cover from her Explorer's box and unfolding the panels around her waist and across her thighs. "We're going down that canyon to the left. The Password is new. I just came up with it this afternoon."

  "Then they can't follow us," Jamieson said with satisfaction as he stretched soft shoes over mule hooves.

  "They may try," Clarin contradicted. "They weren't making any noise before, but they're certainly making it now." A cacophony of shouts, chants, and religious slogans echoed in the canyon behind them.

  "There weren't any witnesses before," Don said. "Now there's the possibility we may get away and talk about this. They want us to believe they're Crystallites."

  "You don't think they really are?"

  "Those bodies weren't dressed like Crystallites, and they weren't half starved like the Crystallites I've seen," Don commented impatiently. "Finished? Good, come along beh
ind and I'll get us through."

  She rode toward a branching canyon, stroking the music box as she went. Her voice was good, not up to Tripsingers' standards, of course, but then it didn't need to be. Explorers rarely sang their way past the Presences, and in any case it didn't take a great deal to get a single person and mule through most places. Tasmin noted with amusement that Clarin was taking notes on her own machine as she rode. He watched her expression, fascinated. The music was there, on her face. Her eyes moved, opened, shut, swung one way and then another as though she saw the notes. Her mouth pursed, opened, widened, pursed once more as it tasted the music. Her hand snapped up and to one side, then back again, all unconsciously. It was like watching someone struggling—perhaps struggling to give birth? Or to conquer something, possess something. Or to be possessed by something! That was probably closer, and Tasmin wondered what his own face looked like when he sang.

  Well, if Don Furz didn't sing them out, Clarin could. And Jamieson could, of course, without notes, having heard it only once, though his face showed none of what went on inside.

  The score was effective enough, a little thin in places. There were several small tremors, nothing serious. Tasmin saw Clarin rescoring on her box, making lightning decisions as to what effects were needed to flesh out the notes and make them hold for Tripsinging purposes. She was faster at orchestration than Jamieson was. Not that they would ever need such a score. This canyon looked very much like a dead-end to nowhere.

  Above them loomed the bloody pillars of the range, almost black in the dusk, with the jagged tooth of Redfang itself behind them. These were not Fanglings they went among. They were far too large for that, and Tasmin wondered briefly if they had been individually named and whether the same basic Password worked for them all.

  The sounds of pursuit faded behind them. They came out of peril, down from the crystal pass to find a pocket of deepsoil, a hundred square yards of Jubal trees and shrubs gathered around a tiny spring, which filled a rock cup with reflected starlight.

  They dismounted wearily, making no effort to set up camp. "How safe are we here?" Tasmin asked.

  Don wiped her forehead with an already dirty sleeve. "Well, if they can get a singer or two to help them, they might come in after us after a few hours' work. More likely, they'll use the standard route and come in east of us, then work this way. If they have access to a set of satellite charts of this area, it won't take them long to figure it out." She stared back the way they had come, her back and shoulders rigid.

  "We shouldn't stay here then."

  "Just long enough to rest the animals and get some food for ourselves." She was still standing, still rigidly staring.

  Tasmin put his hand on her arm. She turned slowly, glaring at him with angry, despairing eyes.

  "This is the third time they've tried," she said. "The third time. They almost killed me twice before." She shook his hand away. "That is my synthesizer you've got. Lim gave it to you, didn't he? You're his brother. I didn't know that … " Her voice was ragged, jerky with half suppressed emotion.

  "Hush," Tasmin said firmly. "Get hold of yourself, Explorer. Clarin's already brewing tea. I suggest we sit down quietly, have a cup together while you explain what all this is about."

  She shook her head, an unconscious gesture of negation.

  "We did save your life," drawled Jamieson, looking up from his position by the fire where he was blowing strips of dried settler's brush into reluctant flame, his face speckled with soot. "I know you don't trust anyone. Probably don't know who's coming at you next, but we are the good guys, really."

  Don laughed, a slightly hysterical laugh. "I keep escaping by the narrowest margins. As though I had a slightly incompetent guardian angel. Why in heaven's name did you show up when you did?"

  "I believe someone thought you might be in trouble," Tasmin told her, digging in his pocket for the message the Grand Master had sent and explaining briefly how they had happened to seek her out near Redfang. "They gave us the rifle just before we left."

  "On a very transparent pretext," Jamieson commented.

  "And it was set on kill," Tasmin concluded. "It was irresponsible of me not to have checked it before firing, but … "

  "But we were in a bit of a hurry," Jamieson concluded, irrepressibly.

  "Jamieson!" Clarin said patiently. "Slash it off."

  "You don't really act like assassins." Donatella sighed as she opened the message. "But then, Zimmy didn't either." She sank to the ground near the fire. "I don't know what this means."

  "What does it say?"

  She spread the small sheet of paper on a rock by the fire and read its contents aloud.

  "The Grand Master is aware. What does that mean?"

  "He's certainly being careful, isn't he?" said Tasmin. "I think he's telling us he knows something, but he's not putting anything on paper that would prove anything against him. Let's get back to you, Explorer Furz. You've been attacked, but you've escaped. You're still alive. On the other hand, my brother is dead. My wife is dead … "

  "Your wife! What did she have to do with—"

  "Leave that aside for the moment. Evidently the reason they're dead has something to do with you. That's why I'm here. The acolytes are here because one of them is presumptuous and the other got dragged in by the ears." Jamieson flushed, and Tasmin went on. "I suggest that now's a very good time to find out where we all stand."

  "I don't know where to start," she said hopelessly.

  "At the beginning," suggested Clarin. "Where did it all start?"

  "In the library of the Priory at Splash One," Don said quietly. "When I found a letter Erickson had written … "

  Half an hour later, she fell silent, the others still staring at her. There were things missing from her story. She knew it and they knew it. Still, they had the general outline.

  "Let me see if I understand this," Clarin said. "You found documents of Erickson's that indicated a method of proving that the Presences are sentient."

  Don nodded.

  "You took some steps, as yet unspecified, to verify this information. As a consequence of this verification, you came up with the notes for the Enigma score."

  Don nodded again, slowly.

  "And at that point, you decided you had to tell someone what you knew."

  "No," Don sighed. "At that point I just bubbled around like boiling sugar for a time, while everyone patted me on the head. Then I got some sense and I decided to keep my mouth shut."

  "You didn't say that! " Jamieson complained, while Tasmin gave him a sidelong look.

  "It was a fleeting decision," she explained. "Figure it out for yourself, acolyte. If I come up with proof of sentience, somebody will have to do something about it. The Planetary Exploitation Council has to take some action, don't they? I think everyone assumes that once sentience is established, on any planet, not just Jubal, humans have to get out."

  "Not everywhere. Not always," Tasmin said.

  "No, not everywhere, not always, but those are the rare exceptions. So, why should I want to tip the tripwagon? I earn my living here, just the way you do. My friends are here. My livelihood is here. Besides—it's Jubal! It's home! I don't want to leave here. So after I came down out of the clouds, the first thing I decided to do was keep my stupid mouth shut. Of course, that was after I went giggling around for several days like a damned fool. Anybody who looked at me probably knew I'd found something." She sighed again, rubbing grubby hands up the sides of her face, leaving long smears of soil.

  Clarin passed cups of steaming tea and commented, "Presumably you decided differently after a while."

  "After I'd had a chance to think, yes. We all know the CHASE Commission is due to meet here very soon. And everyone knows it's rigged. Lord, the chairman of the commission is the Governor's own stepson, and everyone knows that BDL owns the Governor. So, it's pretty sure the results of the commission hearings are prearranged. And we all know what BDL wants those to be. Nonsentient. So then I got to th
inking about what will happen after the CHASE Commission reports."

  "And," Jamieson said impatiently.

  "And what will happen is that BDL won't go on paying Explorers and Tripsingers when they don't have to."

  Jamieson gave her a puzzled look. "I don't understand."

  Tasmin nodded. What she said reinforced some suspicions of his own. "If the CHASE Commission reports nonsentience, the PEC strictures will be removed. They're the usual strictures imposed by the PEC on any planet where indigenous sentience is a question."

  "Nondestruction of habitat," quoted Clarin. "Something like that."

  "Exactly like that," Tasmin nodded.

  Jamieson still looked puzzled.

  "If the strictures are removed," Clarin explained to him, "then BDL can destroy whatever they like."

  Jamieson's mouth fell open. "They wouldn't! The Presences are absolutely unique!"

  "It's never stopped humans before," Tasmin said, thinking of the histories he had read in the citadel. Rivers turned into sewers. Mountains leveled into rubble. All for the profit of the great agglomerates. "Not where profit is concerned. Think how profits could be increased if BDL didn't have to use Explorers or Tripsingers or wagon trains. Think how much brou could be moved if they could fly the cargo in and out."

  "It stinks," said Clarin with feeling.

  "It stinks," agreed Donatella. "But it's obvious once you start thinking about it. So, quite selfishly I'd decided to keep my mouth shut, but then I realized it wouldn't make any difference. Most likely I was going to be out of work and off-planet no matter what happened, and so was everyone else I knew. At that point, I decided to do what I should have decided in the first place. For Jubal's sake, not mine."

  "To get the word out," Clarin continued. "However, you suspected that if you simply spoke out, you would probably be silenced."

  "I think it was a reasonable assumption," Don said, gesturing back the way they had come. "You saw them."