“Not too loud, I hope,” said Ollie, dismally.
The night cold fell upon the courtyard. The House was quiet. All but Mena and Asach slept. A low fire burned in a ceramic stove, pulled close to the table, radiating warmth. Mena spoke softly.
“No, they won’t harm you. But you have to be prepared. That’s all Himmist country, out there, in The Barrens. They keep to themselves.”
“But you worship Him, yes?” Asach looked thoughtfully on the Eye above the doorway.
“Yes, of course. He sees us everywhere.”
Asach waited, patiently. Mena shook her head. “But you must understand. We look on you as an ally, a guest. We truly believe, as it is said: ‘In His Gaze, we are all pilgrims, we are all Seers, and all islands are One.’ But the backlanders?” She shook her head again. “They won’t harm you, but they won’t help you.”
“Why not?”
Mena sat a moment, finding the right words. “It’s hard for them, you know? They may help. But more likely, they will see you as a threat. They see everyone as a threat, and who is to blame them?” She shook her head sadly. “It is the history of our church: congregations smashed, driven into exile—first from New Scotland to New Ireland, then from New Ireland to Maxroy’s Purchase, then from the Purchase to Saint George, then out of Saint George to Bonneville—until there was nowhere left to go. Except The Barrens.”
“But you are still here in Bonneville.”
Mena nodded. “Yes. It’s the MP converts who fare the worst. Most of them were Mormons, you see. Sixer LDS, not True Church. People like us—direct descendents of the New Scotland Church of Him—” she waved her hand to indicate the household— “who were never Mormon to begin with, we’re all right. As long as we pay the tithe. But the former Sixers?” She shrugged her shoulders. “They are considered the descendants of heretics. Shunned. Cast out into The Barrens.”
“How is anyone to know?”
“You mean the Church?” she countered, aghast, then lowered her voice. “The True Church? Not know who an immigrant is descended from? Of course they know. That was one of the tenets of the schism. The primacy of reconstructing the genealogy of everyone, all the way back to Adam and Eve. The Sixers didn’t care so much about that any more. Didn’t think it was possible, anyway.”
Asach smiled. “I take your point. So, The Barrens Himmists won’t help anyone—because?”
Mena sighed. “Well, they cite scripture, of course. But really? I think it’s sort of tit for tat. Payback for exile.”
“Scripture?”
“ ‘May we turn our Gaze from those who refuse to See, praying fervently that they may not remain blind.’ They are pacifists, and open to evangelizing, but they feel no obligation to help nonbelievers. The most extreme fundamentalists won’t even look at a non-believer. If you head out there, you’re on your own.”
Asach nodded. “What else do I really need to know?”
Mena walked her through the catechism. Fundamentalist Himmists believed, really believed, that the Coal Sack, with its bright red sun called Murchison’s Eye, was actually the face of God. That once, during the Secession Wars, the eye had opened, awaking Howard Grote Littlemead, founder of the religion. That His Face represented the fourth arm of the Cross, which had nothing to do with crucifixion, but represented a quadrine, or quadripartite, God: Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and His Face, or Eye, with which he saw all. That, appalled by the sins of those who waged war in His presence, refusing to believe, he closed his Eye on them once and for all. That Himmists on New Utah could not really see that face directly in the heavens, being far from New Scotland where the phenomenon was most visible. Himmists in The Barrens felt closer to “His Earthly Eye” and Gathered once every score years to visit it. About that, Mena would say no more. She handed Asach a tract, entitled “The Catechism of the Great Weep,” and said only, “Read it. It’s what every child should know.”
Asach thanked her, pocketed the tract, looked tenderly at this sensible, helpful woman. “Mena?”
“Yes?”
“Do you believe? I mean truly believe? Do you believe in the Face of God, with Howard Grote Littlemead as His prophet?”
Mena smiled, and took Asach’s hand in her own, patting it gently. “Littlemead? I don’t know. I think Littlemead was one small man, in the vastness of space, who despaired of his lot on earth and looked for God in the heavenly lights. Who among us has not? Who among us has not, in the secret vaults of the heart, prayed for salvation in the dark of night?”
“Indeed,” said Asach. “Indeed. Don’t we all. Mena?”
“Yes?”
“What’s a Seer?”
She shook her head. “Read the Catechism, first.”
“OK, I promise. I’ll do it before I sleep tonight. But, please tell me, so that I’ll understand it after I do.”
Mena thought a moment. Sighed. “Ok,” she said, “I guess it does no harm.” Crow’s feet crinkled around her eyes. “A Seer is born at a Gathering, so a Seer spans two Gatherings, so a Seer learns to See the way and lead others to the next Gathering. The Seer spans the Gathering past, to the Gathering next. Understand?”
Asach smiled, reaching for the pamphlet. “Clear as mud.”
They departed early next morning. Just Asach, and the boys. They made a detour through the market quarter, catching pre-dawn deliveries before the stalls were even open. The boys packed the rig full with water; dried fruits; dried meats; dried nuts; blankets; self-erecting shelters. They bolted extra fuel tanks to the outer hull, and extra solar chargers to the roof. They stripped out the heavy Plate in the driver’s door and the floor. A lot of tithe credits changed hands. They gulped tea at a teamster’s stall, then headed east.
Back at the house, Mena and Nejme traded off, sending the same message, over and over, by satphone, by telegraph, by ‘tooth, with no assurance that it would even get through to the remoteness of Orcutt Station: Asach Quinn comes, a friend of truth. Meet at Butterfield Wells. We beg you: do not avert your Gaze.
The swing from cold of night to heat of day was sudden, and incredible. Before dawn, they had to chip a haze of frost from the view screen. After sunrise, they peeled away every layer of clothing decency allowed. The boys hummed and bounced to internal tunes. Bonneville fell away. Heat shimmered on salt panne and desert varnish.
It would have been more comfortable to drive at night, and sleep by day, with reflector shelters to keep them cool. But they needed the solar boost. Once up to speed, while the sun was bright and the road was level, it saved a lot of juice. With it, Butterfield Wells was the turn back point; as far as the boys could go with any guarantee of getting back before running out of fuel. Without it, they’d be marooned. There was no traffic. They were utterly alone.
The desert varnish gave way to surface glaze: silty flats, the thin crust polished smooth. Mirage shimmered in the distance, showing what had been, perhaps millennia before: vast lakes of water; lagoons and islands; estuarine pools. If anything was alive out there, it did not move. Sometimes the breeze would carry the faintest scent of water; of aromatic herbs, blown like whispers across the desert from the far, far mountains.
They passed an adobe bubble, with a minaret barely taller than a man. Once a shrine, or a roadside mosque, now fallen to ruin. “Making good time,” said the driver. They drove on.
Eventually a tiny blob rose above the road at the horizon. It hovered, upside down, a reflection in the shimmering heat that floated above the pavement. For a good while, it stayed there. Then, it set, like a tiny moon, and a real blob, a right-side-up blob, grew in its stead. At first it was nothing. Then it was solid. Then they rumbled to a stop, at a tiny public square.
The lads were disconsolate. At first, they refused to leave Asach there. But Asach was adamant. “You have to go back. You have to get Ollie back to Saint George. You have to help him find Deela and the boys. You have to help him find out what happened to Hugo.”
They could not argue with that. They tried to leave
water. Asach waved them off, indicating the miniscule fountain: a rusty pipe, sticking out from a concrete block, trickling cold, clear water into a grate, where it disappeared. They tried to leave blankets, but Asach wanted no more than the cloak. They tried to leave food, and Asach acquiesced.
“Go on,” Asach waved them off. “You’re burning daylight.”
Butterfield Wells, The Barrens, New Utah
The square was little more than a dusty crossroad with a water tap. Not so much as a tree, nor anything natively tree-like. There was a good deal of wind, and a windmill to power the water pump. They sat in its thin stripe of shade. Asach entertained three pleasantly grubby children by using one handful of pebbles to knock another handful of pebbles from a circle scratched into the gravel.
Each would giggle, then throw down a pebble with that universal awkward, jerky toss of children everywhere old enough to walk and talk, but not yet old enough to be truly helpful at very much. Then, as Asach aimed and tossed in reply, in delighted unison they would shout encouragement: “WANpela! TUpela! TREEpela!” In variably, Asach would “miss” at least once, and the ecstatic associated child would run in a little circle herself, hands stretched overhead, shouting “GOOOAAAL! Mi Winim! Mi Winim!”
The game went on and on. The children were tireless. Eventually, a boy appeared, slightly older. From where, it was difficult to say. There seemed nowhere to come from, and nowhere to go to. The Barrens appeared to be utterly flat, horizon to horizon, but it was their vastness that tricked the eye. There were actually folds in the ground big enough to conceal a rail car; slashes deeper than a building that raged with water when rain fell in mountains that were mere purple stains on the rim of the horizon.
The boy scowled at Asach. “Yu save long tok Anglis, a?
The girls stopped, unsure, then clustered nearer to Asach, who answered simply, “Yes. Do you?”
At this, the little ones erupted: “Me too! Me too! I speak Anglic too!” then ran around the windmill and giggled, playing hide-and-seek from behind the pole.
The boy scowled again. He was at best a year or two older than the others, but very serious. “Are you a pilgrim?”
With puckered eyebrows, Asach matched his earnestness. “I’m waiting for Collie Orcutt.”
This seemed to satisfy him for the moment, but he clearly felt the need to assert some kind of authority over the situation. He picked up a pebble, and with one vicious swipe from where he stood, hurtled it against the polished white stone still lying within the scratched ring. With a crack the white stone went flying across the gravel. He stalked over, picked it up, pocketed it, and said, “Mine now!”
The littlest girl, still clinging to the windmill pole, shouted, “That’s not fair!” She began to sob. “It’s my best one! It’s my favorite! It’s mine!” She stamped a foot.
The boy shrugged. Asach assessed the situation. Pulled a handful of stones from somewhere within the cloak. Opened one hand to reveal a child’s treasure of purple, pink, green, and speckled red. “Double or nothing,” Asach said. Eyes wide, the boy nodded.
Asach played skillfully—or rather, lost skillfully. By the end, the boy held all the colored stones; Asach held only the white one. “You win!” Asach said, folding the white pebble into the little girl’s hand. Unsuspecting and smiling, the boy counted and re-counted his new stash as the little girl bounced over to Asach’s lap. “I’m Jolly!” she announced.
“Yes, I can see that.”
“No, silly. My name is Jolly”
“Her name is Jo-lynn,” the second one said. But everyone calls her Jolly.”
“And what’s your name?”
The girl’s eyes widened in horror.
Damn, thought Asach. I forgot. Never ask a child’s name. She’ll think you are trying to steal her spirit.
“Never mind honey. Don’t be scared. I forgot. We—we do things different, where I come from. Names don’t mean the same thing there.”
The boy nodded, sagely, promoted to ally by his recent acquisition. “The Anglis, they don’t know anything.”
The horrified girl regarded Asach sternly. “What’s your number?” she blurted at last.
Mystified, Asach gambled. “Three hundred and fifty-seven.”
The horrified one giggled. Jolly peered up from Asach’s lap, little brow furrowed. “Are you a boy, or a girl?” she said.
Asach looked down, smiling. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re a big silly!’ she answered, exploding in a frenzy of knees and elbows to run rings around the pole. “You’re a bi-ig sil-ly! You’re a bi-ig sil-ly!” The third girl, obviously her sister, joined in. “Sil-ly, sil-ly, SIL-ly!”
No-longer-horrified girl bounced forward. “I’m a four. We’re all fours. Well, four is really nine, but we say fours. Only papa says we’re too little to Gather. But mama says this is the big one, so we should, and wouldn’t you be sorry if it was and they not even there? But you’re a pilgrim. So you must be a four too. Only you look old. Are you a three? Mama’s a three. Did you Gather before? Sometimes people are really old before they Gather.” Her eyes went wide again. “But you’re waiting for Uncle Collie. Maybe— are you a Seer? You’re never a Seer, are you? Like cousin Laurel?”
At which the other two gasped and stopped running. The little boy’s face went white. Un-horrified girl looked re-horrified, and just stood gaping.
Asach thought fast. Whatever was meant by the question, there could be only one answer. Asach took a calculated guess about the rest.
“No, honey, I’m not a Seer. I’m going to visit your Uncle Collie, that’s all. And I hope to get to meet Laurel while I’m there. We have some things to talk about.”
Color returned to the boy’s face. He nodded sagely again, then leaned over to stage-whisper into horrified-girl’s ear: “They’re gunna talk about the Gathering.” Then he announced: “Well, I’m a four, and I‘m not too little to Gather!”
With that, horrified girl broke into a gale of giggles, and led the trio in a new romp around the windmill. “Sil-ly’s gunna Gath-er. Sil-ly’s gunna Gath-er.”
Asach leaned back and smiled as dust boiled toward them from the distance. Threes and Fours and Seers, oh my. They’d have a lot more to talk about than mining claims.
9
Angels in Heaven
Naturally we would prefer seven epiphanies a day and an earth not so apparently devoid of angels. We become very tired with pretending we like to earn a living, with the ordinary objects and events of our lives.
—Jim Harrison, Letters to Yesenin
Saint George, New Utah
The Librarian also had an early start, punctuated by a scary moment entering the TCM Security Zone. Entry was controlled by double barriers. As his FLIVR was held up between them for inspection, the guards suddenly dived behind the concrete bunkers, leaving him stuck like a little rat in a have-a-heart trap. He thought for a chilling moment that they’d found an explosive in the undercarriage. It was a deadly-force-authorized zone, so he also thought it inadvisable to simply leap from the vehicle. He slowly opened the windows, then the doors, to ask what was up. Finally, a shivering clerk motioned that he was to come inside. Apparently, mortars were falling somewhere so distant that he could not even hear them. After five minutes they received the all clear, without actual incident. It was his first brush with the dark underside of Saint George that they had all felt, but never seen, on previous arrivals.
He questioned the clerks, but they were not very forthcoming. “Troubles!” they answered, shaking their heads. “More troubles! It starting again!”
“What’s starting again?”
They just looked disgusted. “You people, you Imperials come, it starts. Before you come is OK, but then you go away again it starts. Like last time.”
Barthes frowned. They were suddenly frightened; quick to clarify. “Not you! You OK, we know. But bad people—” he spit—“bad people, they start. From outside. We tell them: Go Away! If you want to kil
l Imperials, go away and kill them somewhere else. Stop killing us.”
But the Temple was closed that day, for some ecclesiastical procedure that he’d never heard of, as was the university. With nothing to be accomplished, he decided to return to his local office. And then “it started” in earnest. He drove back amid reports of bad fighting in the East of the city, and sporadic outbreaks elsewhere. So they closed up early, his assistant grabbing her skirts and running full bore down the street, now empty of anything but the usual stench and swirling dust.
It was a rough night. He was repeatedly awakened by explosions rattling the building, from where he could not tell. One was close enough to send spent gravel pattering gently against the glass. He gave up trying to sleep and, with some sense of irony, watched an old war video. He was somewhat reassured by the lack of actual gun ships, police sirens, or ambulances. His street was a major thoroughfare, so had anything really bad happened nearby, it would have lit up. He heard distant shouting; a rattle of gunfire. Then the generator died.
Still sleepless, he switched on a battery lamp; pulled out the charred old conference paper, and settled in to read. He got about half-way through before his eye began to droop. It was a somewhat more interesting, and clearly more valuable, document than he’d thought. As he fell asleep, two phrases whispered in his mind. New Utah would not now be dependent upon selenium supplementation….this data is directly relevant to questions of how life begins on and propagates across many worlds.
But in the morning, all was as if he’d dreamt it. The shops along the way opened as usual, albeit a little late. He set off groggily. Then, once at the office, he had trouble concentrating on the work at hand. He decided to try the Temple again. The more complicated University installation was nearly complete. It was time to coordinate the Temple archives hook-up.
This time, Barthes entered the Zone without incident. He parked at the back of the Temple, near the delivery bays, and knocked on a side door marked “Service Entrance.” As a non-member, the main sanctuary was closed to him; in any case, he’d come for a working meeting, not a Temple tour.
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