Withûr We

by Matthew Bruce Alexander

“He has a good point about the north coast,” said Santiago after a few moments of silence.

  “Yes he does.”

  “But what can we do? Do we have the right to prevent them from settling the land? Under any circumstances?”

  “Hopefully, if we get down there before they have too much invested, it will be a fairly simple task of explaining the danger. They will be the first ones to come under attack, after all.”

  “And if there is resistance? What right do we have to stop them?”

  “We need to find the right principles. I have no right to, say, drill on my land if it will result in an earthquake that destroys yours. You would be right to prevent me from doing it.”

  “I think so.”

  “Well, what’s true of an act of nature is true if the repercussion comes from human agents. What if my drilling created only a 50% chance of an earthquake? Would you be right to stop me then?”

  “Certainly.”

  “What about at 20%? 10%? 1%? At what point does risk become great enough to make intervention legitimate?”

  “I don’t know,” conceded Santiago. “But I think the risk they pose by building on the coast is great enough to warrant intervention there.”

  “Then we’ll go tomorrow, and hope a little reasoning is all we need.”

  Chapter 65

  At the southern edge of the northern forest, scores and scores of men hacked at the tree trunks. Two great arboreal pillars had fallen and lay pointing south. Like ants on a carcass, men swarmed over the fallen giants and stripped them of their branches. With so many hands at work, it was a matter of minutes from the time the tree fell to when it ceased to be a tree and became a log. The sound of so many tools impacting against the lumber carried well up the hill, each thud mixing with the manifold others so that it was as distinguishable as the plop of a raindrop hitting the earth during a storm.

  When the rays of the sun first peaked over the eastern horizon, revealing a drab, gray sky and a misty ground to match it, Alistair and Taribo, well armed, left camp, which the residents of the area, by some common consent, referred to as home but which Alistair insisted on calling camp. Now, an hour later, a diffuse light weakly lit the land but made no shadows, and a sprinkle of rain fell upon them. Srillium the planet was still somewhere in the sky, invisible behind the clouds, having begun to set late as its moon progressed through another revolution. They were spotted by the workers long before they reached them, but no one came out to give a greeting nor took much notice save to pause for a moment between ax strokes. Alistair was wondering exactly how to initiate the proceedings and with whom when he spotted Duke and Caleb emerging from the trees to his left and making their way towards him. He altered his course to meet them.

  “There was a time when I expected my next sighting of you would be with you bound hand and foot and delivered for justice,” said Duke by way of saying hello. He was unarmed but his companion bore a tremendous ax in his massive right hand.

  “Punishment, you mean,” replied Alistair. “It would not have been justice.”

  They stood in the tall grass, which reached Duke’s chin as it rustled in the breeze, and regarded each other.

  “Well. You are to be congratulated on your coup,” the Englishman finally managed. The words, bathed in a strained British accent and sallying forth as they did from a jaw that scarcely unclenched its teeth to let them out, were tinged with a resentment he was at equal pains to hide and display. “It’s all the rage now, your security firms. Everybody’s doing it. Including me.”

  “Perhaps I should thank you for the flattery of your imitation.” To his right, Alistair spotted one he had seen before, with his nearly bald pate graced only by a black pony tail on the top of his head, leaving the forest and heading for them.

  “Don’t bother. At any rate I don’t expect it to last for long. To what do we owe the extreme honor of this visit?”

  “We spoke with Odin last night.”

  “Very well.”

  “We wanted to know what was going to be built with this lumber. More to the point, where it was going to be built.”

  “I would say that is very little your business.”

  The nearly bald man joined them and stood next to the towering Caleb.

  “If I build a house on that hill,” said Alistair, “and you wish to build on the slope above me, it is very much my business inasmuch as I need to be sure your foundation is strong so your house won’t come tumbling onto mine.” Duke folded his arms across his chest and tucked his chin downward. “My point is our thriving on this island requires us to remain out of sight of the Gaians. My understanding is that they pass by the north coast with some frequency. The last thing we need is to be building on the north beaches. I figured this was in all our interests.”

  Duke glared at Alistair with an impenetrable look before answering. “Well, you must think we’re bloody idiots.”

  “We appreciate your concern, Alistair,” said the Oriental man, preferring to speak in his native Mandarin. “Understand we value our privacy here as much as you. You have no doubt noticed we are chopping down the trees on the south side of the forest for this very reason.”

  “Alistair, this is my business partner, Wei Bai,” said Duke.

  “Excellent. So our understanding is that no construction will occur in view of anyone in the channel north of here? That any effort to settle and build in those areas will be forcibly stopped if necessary?”

  “Thanks so much for stopping by,” said Duke with a cold grin buried beneath his mustache. He turned on his heel and left, not bothering to speak over his shoulder, perhaps not caring if they heard. “Please don’t hesitate to come by again if the mood should strike you. We’re always pleased to see you.”

  “We have an understanding,” Wei Bai assured them, his smile a mixture of bland, perfunctory politeness and humor at Duke’s treatment of them.

  “Feel free to leave now,” Caleb said, staring down at them with bold, unfriendly eyes.

  Alistair, his objective achieved, was on the point of doing just that but Taribo, who found himself the direct object of Caleb’s stare, stood his ground. The muscular African’s face split into a toothy smile and to the half-Persian, half-European he said, “I was actually going to advertise for my company.”

  “Maybe not a great idea,” suggested Caleb and he hefted his ax.

  “My fellow citizens!” Taribo called, holding his arms out as if he meant to embrace them.

  Alistair winced, wishing the earth would swallow him whole and take him away from all those gazes turning in his direction.

  “Allow me to offer you the services of Ashley Security & Arbitration.”

  Caleb charged at Taribo, who brought his spear into a defensive position, but was intercepted by Alistair, who grabbed Caleb under his arms and drove him back, a drive Caleb arrested with an exertion of his strength against Alistair’s. At that moment, the Aldran wanted nothing as much as to leave in peace, unnoticed, but he felt compelled to defend his friend. Besides, he thought, this is an important precedent to set. We have no government. No firm’s customers are off limits to competition.

  “You don’t own these people,” Alistair was forced to hiss as he struggled against Caleb, whose power he found, with not a little disappointment, to be equal to his own. Each pushing into the other, they reached a static point where all the exertion of muscle resulted in a strained immobility. “If they want to hire us, or if we want to make them an offer, it doesn’t concern you.”

  “These men have already hired Duke,” Wei Bai informed them.

  “And they are free to stay with him,” Alistair groaned in Mandarin, his voice straining only a little less than his limbs. “But they are just as free to change their minds and hire us, or anyone else.”

  “You can find us at the top of the Great Hill,” Taribo proclaimed, his smile at Caleb a taunt. “We would be delighted to do business with you.”

  Alistair and Caleb finally separated with a last
, mutual push. They breathed with great heaves of their chests.

  “Go now,” ordered the half-Persian.

  “You need to get used to the new paradigm,” said Alistair, noting with approval that his own breathing calmed before Caleb’s. Picking up the spear he dropped, he walked away. “These men are free, and so are we. You don’t give orders anymore.”

  “I do give orders, and I notice you are following them,” Caleb shot back at their receding forms, as close as they had seen him to an outburst.

  “You could tell us to keep breathing and we would do it, but not because of your command,” Taribo, mirthful, called back.

  When they reached the slope of the hills, the elevation provided them with an opportunity to look over the land, and to the southeast they noticed a crowd gathered nearly a mile distant. It was difficult to say what they were about, but most were packed together in the shape of a crescent, facing the same thing, whatever it was, while a few strays wandered about, now rejoining the crowd, now separating again. Many were on their knees or flat on the ground, and more than a couple were passionately gesticulating.

  By common, unspoken consent, Alistair and Taribo, having paused to observe, shared a glance and changed course. By the time they reached the throng, it was half again as large as when they spotted it. The packed bodies still described a crescent with all sightlines converging on a tree. A buzz of conversation permeated the air. It was a subdued hum, or perhaps a restrained one, holding in check a certain excitement that revealed itself in nervous twitters, suppressed shivers, tense gestures accompanying pronouncements delivered with wide-open, fervent eyes. Those not in the crowd were generally prostrate on the ground, faces down and spread eagled in the preferred Gaian position of absolute submission to Nature. Their lips moved in silent prayer, their exhalations occasionally blowing dirt or grass out to the side, and their eyes were closed. They reacted to nothing and no one while they concentrated on the object of their worship.

  “Alistair!” called a man whom Alistair vaguely recognized as one of his subscribers. “It’s a sign!” he proclaimed, his eyes lighting up. He pointed at the tree.

  Without replying, Alistair strode up to the crowd and, Taribo at his side, inserted himself into the mass of bodies, eventually working his way to the front. Three men stood separate, out in front near a tree which, as far as he could tell, displayed no quality that should be responsible for such intense interest. One was the Beseecher, and he was sitting in his usual position, a small pile of fruit at his side. The second was the Druid, the fingers of his right hand, with their long, gnarled nails, clutching a staff. His beard flapped idly in the soft breeze and he turned his bald pate from side to side, scanning the crowd with an air of expectance and approval while water from the drizzle trickled down his hairless dome. The third and last man, though Alistair could not clearly see his face due to his prostrated position on the earth, he knew was Clyde Oliver Jones.

  “Why are we staring at the tree?” whispered Taribo to a man at his side.

  The man’s roughened, bass voice came as if rumbling up from the depths of the earth, full of awe and respect. “Gaia has shown herself.”

  Alistair could see no sign of Gaia. Clyde, apparently not entirely oblivious to his surroundings, shifted and caught sight of Alistair and Taribo. For the briefest of instants, a span of time so vanishingly small that Alistair could not with complete confidence declare it happened at all, Clyde blanched. Or maybe he just had a facial tic. Whatever it was, if it was anything at all, it was gone almost as soon as it appeared, engulfed by the warm, beatific smile that lit his face from chin to forehead as he rose from the ground to come greet the two new arrivals.

  “Alistair! Taribo!” he exclaimed in a half whisper, and several men nearby, seeing the welcome they received from such a figure as Clyde, gave to the two recipients of the warm greeting respectful nods. “It’s a blessing you are here.”

  “Good to see you too,” Alistair managed to reply.

  “Gaia has revealed herself here, as he said. This is holy ground.”

  “Holy ground,” the man with the bass voice reverently repeated, nodding in satisfaction.

  Alistair pursed his lips, as if fighting back a belch. “Revealed herself how?”

  Clyde turned and, with sublimely gentle smoothness, swept his hand along until it was pointing at the tree. “In the bark of the tree.”

  Alistair stepped forward to get a better look. “Where?”

  One from the crowd drew near to the tree and, reverently stopping short so he did not come in contact, gingerly pointed a finger at a place in the bark about three feet from the ground. Alistair’s skeptical look prompted a clarification from Clyde.

  “It is the face of Gaia,” he said with the smooth falsetto of one who wishes to sound sublime.

  Tilting his head to the left and furrowing his brow, Alistair studied the bark’s pattern. Then he tilted his head to the right. Then back to the left. Having looked at it from every position save for that of a handstand, he decided, It looks like a caterpillar humping a goat.

  Seeing the result of Alistair’s thoughts displayed on his face, Clyde himself approached the tree to point out features to him. “The eyes… the nose… the chin… the whole circular swirl here is the face.”

  “OK. I think she has a gigantic tumor growing on her forehead.”

  At this pronouncement there were mutters of disapproval from the crowd. With a nervous laugh Clyde went to Alistair and laid both hands on his shoulders.

  “Alistair, it’s an image rendered in bark. The bark is there, but focusing on it is like looking at swirls of paint from close up, rather than the image the swirls form.”

  “OK.”

  Clyde smiled and dropped his hands to his sides. “This is holy ground, mate,” he said with an expectant look. “Gaia has shown her face to us.”

  “It’s been positively identified as Gaia, then?”

  Clyde’s eyes widened and he gritted his teeth. Placing his hands on Alistair’s thick arms, he guided the Aldran away from the crowd, leaving behind some disgruntled muttering and a few withering looks. Taribo trailed behind them, though his attention was riveted on the image in the bark and he fingered one of his dreadlocks in his left hand.

  “Alistair, this is a sacred place and time for Gaians. Please be respectful. For us.”

  “I merely asked if it had been positively identified as Gaia.”

  Clyde gave Alistair a look with a tilted head, as if he expected him to hear the same naïveté in the question that he did.

  “In all seriousness. How do you know it’s not Genevieve?”

  “Who’s Genevieve?”

  “Exactly. Are you sure it isn’t random swirls of bark that happened to form themselves in a shape your brain interpreted as Gaia, a woman you have never seen?”

  “Gaia is more than a woman,” said Clyde, and he placed a hand on Alistair’s chest where his heart was. “If you listen to your heart, she will speak to you, and that will be all the signature and identification you need.”

  Alistair shrugged in response. “My heart pumps blood.” Before Clyde could raise a protest, he continued, “I’m glad you found some bark to make you happy, Clyde. I know how long you’ve been a Gaian and have been looking for something like this.” Clyde’s face assumed an impenetrable impassivity. “Would you like me to register it for you?”

  “This is sacred land, designated so by Gaia’s manifest wishes. I would not presume to own it.”

  “Was it you who discovered the… image?”

  “It was me.”

  “You will be its caretaker?”

  Clyde considered the question. “I will, I think.”

  “Would you like me to register that for you?”

  “I suppose we can do that. Yeah.” Clyde smiled and Alistair managed a fleeting one of his own.

  “Stop by my offices any time you like.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Nodding, Alistair said
, “Well… Taribo and I are going to head back now.”

  “Actually, Alistair, I think I am going to stay here for a bit.”

  This declaration surprised Alistair, but he shrugged his shoulders and said, “Suit yourself. Just remember I need you on the west coast this evening.”

  “I remember.”

  “That’s a five mile walk from here. Over the hills… we’re talking three hours.”

  “I have plenty of time. I will be there.”

  “Alright then.” With another nod goodbye, he grabbed his spear and walked away, heading for his camp.

  ***

  “There are three witnesses who have sworn the mallet belongs to Mr. Djorovich,” said Santiago. “They identified it by the notch on the handle. Furthermore, Mr. Djorovich has testified he has not transferred title of the property to anyone. That is sufficient for this arbiter to declare that the mallet belongs to Mr. Djorovich and must be returned to him.”

  The Oriental man across from Santiago frowned, drawing his eyebrows down over the tops of his sockets and gripping the wooden table with his hands, causing them to go livid. “I paid with a length of rope for the mallet. That makes it mine.”

  Giselle finished scribbling on her parchment and waited for the next bit of information.

  “Mr. Zhou, please let me explain,” said Santiago with a reasonable tone. “The question here is who holds the title to this bit of property. Mr. Djorovich, backed by three witnesses, claims his hammer disappeared a few days ago. You turn up with it, but claim it was sold to you by one Zachary Fielder. Zachary either stole the hammer from Mr. Djorovich or found it lying somewhere and improperly took possession of it. Unless Mr. Fielder can demonstrate he rightfully acquired title to the hammer, the hammer is not his. Therefore, not possessing its title, he cannot have transferred it to you. What Mr. Fielder did was steal your money. This is something my agency can help you with, but it is no reason not to return Mr. Djorovich’s property to him.”

  “But I’m out my rope!”

  “Mr. Zhou, there has been a theft. Someone is going to be out something until the thief is found and made to compensate his victims. Either Mr. Djorovich is out a hammer, or you are out a length of rope. Since Mr. Djorovich is the title holder of the hammer, it is correct to return his property to him, unless you two can come to an exchange agreement.”