by Robert Reed
The second person was a girl, younger than Toby and obviously born on Chu’s World. She had the purebred elegance of an oriental girl. She was wearing the traditional garb of a highborn princess, which was appropriate, and she was nervous enough to stumble as she climbed out of the shuttle—the hem of her long jeweled robe catching a heel and her body spilling forward and Toby’s father struggling to catch her and steady her. She gasped and nervously laughed and said to him, Thank you, darling.
Father said, Be careful, darling.
And Toby’s mother, curiously proud, leaned to Toby and whispered, They’re married. They’re newlyweds.
No! Don’t lie to me!
I’m not lying, she swore. We talked it over and decided that marriages were a good way to force the issue with these blockish Conservatives. Let’s make substantial, binding ties with our neighbors. Let’s break down our isolation in some meaningful way!
No one on Garden was married, the Prophet quite clear as to that particular bit of barbarism. Toby blinked and asked, So what are you going to do? Marry some smelly Russian monk?
Or maybe a porpoise, she said, winking. It depends.
Toby couldn’t believe what he heard, but she insisted it was true. All true. He looked at his father with the girl, the damned princess, and felt an urge to spit on everyone. Or do worse. Then, realizing there would be painful introductions coming, he had no choice but to turn and run. He went to the beach and got into his old sailboat and pushed out and rode a soft wind far out to sea, the island receding into a green smear on the horizon, then gone, and from time to time the little holophone on board would make a plaintive noise that he ignored. Finally his father broke through the ring, using trickery to appear before him, saying:
Come home! We’ll talk. I promise, we’ll come to terms.
Toby pried up the phone and dropped it into a hundred kilometers of water, and he sat back down and watched the night swiftly descend and the sea grow dark and Jupiter on the horizon, banded through its narrow curling crescent. He could see enormous storms on the night-side of Jupiter, like always. Then he noticed Chu’s World itself—a ruddy spot too distant to reveal any features—and he told himself that this was all shit but he wasn’t jealous. No. Some people would claim he was injured by this sudden wife in his father’s life, but he wasn’t. No. It was the dishonor of the circumstance. What he hated was the man’s complete disregard for what was right.
Toby eventually met the woman, and he worked hard to be reasonable in her presence. Women on Chu’s World are accustomed to special attention, and the princess enjoyed compliments and little gifts. So Toby handed her a bracelet made from Garden pearls, all stolen, and successfully embarrassed his parents while convincing the alien of his goodness. His father took him aside and asked:
Is this a joke? Do you think you’re funny?
Toby explained, If I did something wrong, go and take back the damned thing. I won’t stop you!
But his father lacked the courage. He said, I wish you’d quit acting this way. You have a choice, you know.
His father had made this bland pronouncement countless times in the past. He was the sort of man who could repeat the same declarations time and again and never grow weary. He was drab as the purest, plainest water.
You’re just spoiled.
Yeah, said Toby. I guess that’s true.
I’ve tried to be the good parent. Haven’t I?
What’s this got to do with that?
Don’t make me hurt you.
All right. I won’t.
Because I will.
Yeah?
You don’t believe me?
Toby looked off at the girl, asking, What? Are you and Mother going to share her tonight? Is that the plan?
His father stared at him in disgust.
Because, said Toby, I know something about Chu’s World. About its people. They’re graceless, stupid and sick. They don’t know shit about the Ideal. They’re too stupid.
Enough, said his father softly.
Okay.
We’ll forget the pearls. All right?
It was like his father to pave over transgressions in the face of greater transgressions. He said, This is important to us. All of us. Chu’s World is rich in different ways than we’re rich, and we need them, and I know you’re just acting independent when you claim to be such a Prophet-loving Conservative. So are you going to be nice?
I was before.
Are you listening to me?
Are you talking to me? he answered.
I guess not, the old man replied. I guess I was wrong. I’m not.
His father had never been young in Toby’s mind. The slight apricot fuzz on his flesh had long ago turned whitish, and while Gardener genes assured total vigor up until the rapid end, in that moment Toby sensed the age and the wear on the old man. Two years later he wouldn’t recall the feeling. But then, ever so briefly, he felt something close enough to compassion to leave him a little shaken.
Time passed.
He spoke to the princess occasionally, feigning interest in her words and dull stories and the little opinions she had garnered from watching the Gardeners in Garden activities. She loathed the Necklaces, naturally. She conceded that the scenery was lovely, yes, and the climate was fresh and fine and if only her homeland had been blessed with so much water…well, it would be some time before she returned home. A few standard years at the earliest. And she missed it, naturally. She told Toby how it was to be born and raised as a princess, and she explained her station in life and how it was more a burden than a blessing. Her family was important politically, not wealthy, and did he understand how it was to be looked on as an example and an inspiration to several million citizens?
I don’t like it, she confessed.
No? he wondered. I’d like the chance to be somebody—
Well, you’re much more clever than me. I guess. Maybe I should do something to help my own cleverness…yes?
Toby thought about Chu’s World.
But what can I do? she asked, giving him a strange bewitching smile.
He thought about the way their brains were wired, her youth and her long bland life waiting for her. He assured the princess, You and my father should get along mightily.
Really?
Past the rhetoric, said Toby, there’s nothing much to him at all. Time passed, and that final statement began to ring true. The marriage begun for political and social reasons evolved into something honest between the old man and his lovely young bride. She had talents, it seemed, because she would lure him away from people and parties, and sometimes from political meetings, and odd stories circulated as to the kinds of pleasures she enjoyed and her fear of being seen by others when she felt passionate. In public or not, the two of them held hands. Particularly in public they would bless one another with small tokens of love and respect—giving worthless sentimental presents to the other, crying over sunsets and kissing for any simple reason.
Mother began to have second and third thoughts about the strange marriage.
It was dawn, and she and Toby were walking a beach together, neither talking, and there were wild clouds riding the horizon on three sides. Jupiter was hidden. But Mother stopped as if to stare at the big world, squinting, and Toby asked, What is it?
Your father.
Toby waited, then asked, What about him?
I’m worried.
Why?
Why do you care?
He didn’t. He admitted as much, and they continued their walk and said nothing more. Toby thought to himself that he’s in love with the dirty stupid princess. And Mother is at last realizing it. The last few years of his life, and she’s got to squeeze around the bitch just to have a word with him.
It was a strange circumstance.
It was nothing Mother could have anticipated.
Father began to pressure her into doing her part, saying she should marry and bring her spouse back to the island to live. There were several candidates, he as
sured. Because of climate concerns, he reasoned, a Cetacean might be more appropriate than a fur-clad Siberian. A Cetacean could live in the sea itself—serving as a vanguard for future diplomats or even colonists. Wouldn’t that be splendid?
But she resisted him.
When Toby was nearby and listening, she took pains to kill any honest talk. But her face spoke volumes. More than a year later, Toby would still recall the drawn eyes and the confused bitter mouth and the way her webbed hands, small and sad, would wring each other while she promised him:
Soon. I need a little while and then I’ll do it.
Soon?
Absolutely, darling.
Toby couldn’t care what either of them did. They weren’t acting reasonable, but that was their business and he had his own distractions and passions. He ignored them. He went on long sailing trips, fishing and swimming on the open sea, and he visited islands up and down the face of Garden, joining in feasts and Necklaces as he moved.
One day he returned home to work on the boat, replacing worn parts and cleaning everything else. He was standing on the deck, arms cocked on his hips, when the princess came from behind and asked:
What are you doing?
He told. He was matter-of-fact, and she surprised him by showing interest. Not much and maybe she was acting interested, but even still he paused to look at her and ask:
Do you want to go out on the water? For a little while?
He expected her to refuse. A year later, thinking back to the moment, he’d wonder why she had bothered to come see him. He didn’t believe she cared about him or sailing. Boredom could have had its hand, the island’s distractions pleasant but few. Yet the most likely answer was that Toby’s father had made the suggestion. He had likely sent his wife to win Toby over to his side of the camp. It would have been like the old man, all right.
I’d like to go, she said. Now?
Why not? I’ve got to test this new rig anyway.
The sun reached its apex and dropped again. Father Jove was hidden over the horizon, and Sol itself, so much feebler than the sun, was somewhere behind Garden on that particular day. Night would be as close to absolute as possible. Toby thought of it while he steered them out into open water. He was planning nothing. A year later, thinking back, he tells himself that everything happened through sheer coincidence. Nothing more or less.
The sun of Garden set against the short blue horizon.
By then they were in remote waters, no islands in view, and Toby glanced at his passenger and asked:
Would you like to see where pearls grow?
Pearls? she wondered. The ones you gave me?
Up here’s the spot. I can show you. It’s not far.
All right.
If you want to take a risk, that is.
A risk?
Not much of one, he confessed. Don’t worry.
The place was like any other stretch of open sea. The only difference was the occasional lump of porous coral showing over the waves. He turned the boat into the wind and dropped a pair of propellers to hold them in place. Then he turned to the girl and asked:
Do you want to see them?
Where?
He told where, pointing down.
She swallowed. She said, Of course. I’ve come this far.
Then get undressed, he said. You can’t swim in that robe, can you?
She looked at him. In the faint starlight she used her eyes to bore holes in his skull. He fully expected her to refuse. He probably wouldn’t have made the offer if he had thought there was a chance of her agreeing. But she surprised him, and maybe herself. It didn’t happen quickly and she was plainly scared, but a hand reached to her throat and the robe melted away. She took the trouble to say to him:
Whatever happens, don’t touch me. Don’t!
I’ll try keeping myself controlled, he answered. I’ll manage somehow.
He pulled a couple of spotlights out of storage, giving her one and saying that she should follow him and keep alert. Then he dove into the warm salty water, himself nude, and she kept with him and took a few strong strokes as if to prove to him that she could handle herself. Then he dove headfirst, kicking. The shellfish were easy to find. They grew on the tops of the floating coral. They were large and their shells were elegant shapes built from a foam of calcium and organic compounds, each one with twin valves and a muscular hinge joining the valves together. Toby could see them clearly. In the light’s cone-shaped beam, each looked big and rather simple beside the brilliant schools of little fish and the assorted lesser shellfish.
Garden is loveliest underwater.
The girl was hovering nearby, small breasts and a thin waist. She played her beam across the reef and tried to see with her ordinary eyes. Toby had forgotten. His extra eyelids served as goggles of sorts. He kicked to her and motioned her up, and she shot to the surface and was gasping when he arrived.
Can you see anything? he asked.
She said she couldn’t. Not enough.
So Toby paused, then suggested, You can bring one up. Use a knife and cut one free.
Should I?
Go on.
She wasn’t comfortable, treading water. She breathed hard for a moment, then said, All right. Where’s the knife?
He found one. He gave it to her and then dove beside her and watched until she had a shellfish singled out and was cutting where the shell was linked with the reef itself. Then her breath ran out and she kicked to the surface again. Toby followed. Then she went down again and he laid on his back, pointing his toes and drifting for a few moments while he rested, nothing on his mind.
Then he dove again.
What must have happened was that the princess dropped her knife. It skidded sideways on the reef and found a large hole passing clear through the floating coral, and for some reason she must have thought she could catch the knife before it got away. When Toby arrived she had vanished. He found the hole quickly enough and kicked through and kicked downward but still couldn’t see her. It might have been a different place, he decided. So he turned around and returned to the surface for a fresh breath.
What did you think!? his father asked him later. She’s from Chu’s World, for the Prophet’s sake! Does she have your lungs? Can she swim like you?!
Today Toby can’t remember what he thought. Or why he acted as he acted. He remembers breathing and going down again and kicking through a different hole and circling, fighting a current while he looked down and out and saw nothing. Not a light. No body. Nothing.
He rose again.
He dove again.
And again.
And a fourth time.
Then he knew it was too late. He knew those currents and the girl’s character and realized that she was likely full of water and sinking deeper every second. There was nothing worth trying now. He saw no purpose in risking his own life, deciding to go home and tell what had happened. Not Father, he judged. His father’s friends, perhaps. Let the news come from them, he thought, and he climbed up on the sailboat and pulled in the propellers and found the wind and went home, imagining how his father would take the news.
The old man accused him of negligence. Cursing him, he got down on his knees and beat the ground with both fists. Then he bit his knuckles until they bled. Then he wept.
Toby watched him, doing nothing.
Aren’t you sad? asked Father.
It’s sad. Sure.
What’s the matter with you? Don’t you feel bad?
I don’t know. Maybe I could have tried harder—
Maybe? You think maybe?
Toby shrugged and said, It wouldn’t have done any good. His father stood again, and with a strange sharp voice he said, What are you? What kind of monster are you? What are you?
Hey! Let me go!
You didn’t do everything you could to save her? Is that what you’re telling me?
Quit it!
Tell me!
All right! Toby confessed. Sure, I could have stayed down lo
nger. On that first dive, sure. But I didn’t. I wouldn’t if I did it again. What in the name of the Prophet was she? I’ll tell you. Nothing—!
His father slapped him.
Toby backed away, turned and ran. His father was too excited to pursue him. Toby got to the beach and circled the island once, making himself calm again, and then he came around to the docks in time to see his sailboat burning and his father waiting for him, Mother beside him, Father telling him:
You’re leaving. I don’t care where you go, or how you support yourself. But you’re through being a Gardener. After everything, I’m sure the Council of Judges will go along with me…
Mother said nothing. She watched Toby, something thankful implied by her expression. But she made no sound.
You get nothing from us, said Father. You’re a vicious, sick animal and I won’t have you as a son. Am I understood? Do you hear me?
Toby asked, Where do I go?
Wherever they take you in. I don’t care. I hope no one takes you. I hope you drift in space, nobody wanting your filth.
Did I kill the girl? I didn’t kill the girl.
And you still don’t understand, he said. In the name of the Prophet, you’re banished! You’re exiled!
No!
And his father came at him a second time, swinging at his face. Toby had had enough. He thought about his ruined boat and exile and picked up a stone and bloodied his father’s face.
The man crumbled.
In a cool, level voice his mother told him to go. Now.
Toby retreated.
And his father huddled on the ground, sobbing. His mother had her arms around the old man, squeezing him, ignoring the blood and telling him that everything was fine, just fine, cry and get it all out, love. Just try to let it go.