by M. A. Foster
Vance, watching the clock, was noticing that it had arrived at the proper time for the visitors to leave; in fact, several of them had also been watching the clock, as Vance had observed. They noticed him in turn, and began to busy themselves with preparations for departure, scraping chairs, arranging their coats and overcoats, retrieving rubber overshoes to put on. After a few perfunctory good-byes and appreciatory remarks, some awkward, the members of the visitors’ party one by one put themselves together and filed out of the room. The last one out made some polite comment to Director Vance, and closed the door behind him as he left. The meeting room returned to silence.
Fellirian stood by her chair, Vance by the door, doing nothing, Vance remembered, turned, and turned down and then out the overhead lights. This was in deference to Fellirian who always felt uncomfortable in varying degree in any illumination other than natural light or the yellow glow of oil lamps and candles. Now she appreciated this little gallantry. The soft blue light of late November replaced the hard-emission spectrum of the overheads, flowed into the meeting room, softening it with its bluish rainy light. Outside, distant lamps began to come on, getting a headstart on piercing the darkness. Fellirian moved her chair over closer to the windows, sat.
By the door, Vance hesitated for a moment, uncertain. Then, abruptly, he called down to the canteen through the intercom for two mugs of hot tea. That done, he turned back to Fellirian, who was now rummaging through her belt pouch, retrieved from where she had laid her other things. From it, she removed a small, shallow smoking pipe, which she packed with a light brown tobacco. Vance approached, produced a lighter, held it for her, stood back to watch her get the fire up in the bowl. Started to her satisfaction, she sat back, rested an arm along the windowsill, and blew a large, roiling cloud of blue smoke at the ceiling.
“I know, I know,” she said. “It will dirty up your ventilator system.”
“No, no, go ahead. I don’t care. Let them get dirty. Most of the visitors were dying to smoke as well but they were too shy to ask.”
“Not too shy to press me closely.” She paused. “But never mind.” She turned to the window for a moment, looking at nothing in particular out there in the deepening blue of evening, now approaching a violet in tone. After a time, she turned back. Vance had pulled a chair over to her place, and was waiting.
Fellirian sighed deeply, as if still phrasing the words she wished to say. She began, “Walter, you have contacts there, in the real world. I mean, at Region Central. What are the changes? There is something odd in our visitors, something orchestrated that has not been there before; the last few parties of visitors and trainees have been a spooky lot, more nervous than the usual lot of sightseers we get. They seem full of odd sets of contradictions, repressed things, all under the surface, nothing out in the open. As if they suspect something, but are afraid to even inquire into it. I could feel the hostility of this last group, the looks, the attention they gave my remarks, the questions they asked. There was purpose there; someone was feeling me out. But for what? They know, those repulsive Security people, that they could ask directly and I would speak freely. I am no plotter, no member of secret covens.”
Vance noted her indignation, but did not comment on it. Instead, he said, “There have been some changes recently, at Region, but I have not been able to gauge the full impact or direction of them all yet.” He paused. “And of course you already know the feelings of the mass of the people. Those feelings range from outright paranoia through envy to exasperation. They say most often that you are ‘a gang of oversexed mutants who refuse to save the world. . . .’ ”
Fellirian interrupted. “Oh, oversexed! Would that it were so, now! But it’s gone . . . we were fortunate with the third child, but . . . Well, it’s just gone, the way it is for all of us. Surely they know that side of us as well.”
“It is your infertile adolescence that nags at them. At us,” he added. “We don’t have anything like it. And in this century, bastardy is a capital crime, you know. More than that, it’s two for one. . . .”
“Both parents depersonified. I know. But we are no less severe with those who would outbraid mate and conceive, in our terms. But the rest is just as much nonsense. They should see me chopping wood, or Morlenden walking through the woods to the remotest districts to keep up with things. Or Kaldherman and Cannialin and Pethmirvin up to all hours out in the shed, bringing in another batch of paper for our written records; or writing entries, cross-referencing. I don’t feel like Ubermensch; I feel like an overworked bureaucrat in one of your own vast civil service hierarchies.”
The tea arrived, carried upward to the conference room by an automatic dumbwaiter set in an alcove in the wall. Vance went over, collected the cups. They were still steaming. Returning, he said, “Yes, I sense some of the change that you have. I know of others . . . but so far I have not been able to tie any of it to anything concrete, like a change of policy. I write it off as just a periodic mood-shift. Thrills and adventure, something to get excited about. It’s the pressure, you know. We need relief. We grind away, knowing that all our best efforts are just something temporary to keep us afloat until next month, or next year. One crisis succeeds another, one shortage another. You can keep it going, but it wears hard. Even here, secluded as we are, I feel that every day.”
Fellirian looked toward the window, as if looking for some hint in the darkened sky, the rain, the night-fading vistas of lights and shiny streets. She turned back, asking, “And you have heard nothing?”
“Absolutely nothing. As you know, I used to have good contacts at Region Central. Old Vaymonde, they say, wasn’t much of a chairman; no charisma. But he kept the infrastructure up, he did. Always talked with the Division heads. He was liked, not tolerated.”
“I remember him well. One of the few to die in office.”
“Right. At his post to the end. You know, there is a vulgar story to the effect that . . . Never mind. But when Denver installed this new chairman, this Parleau, my sources dried up, one by one. Retired, replaced, shifted, reassigned. All gone. Nothing sinister; he just wants his own people. But I keep a close eye on him, this Parleau. They say that he’s one of their favorites, from somewhere out west, Mojave Region, or Sonora, or even Baja. One of those desert places—solar power and mining. He’s a no-nonsense type: action, long hours, clean desk, business before pleasure, the needs of society, all that. And they say at Central these days that a new broom . . .”
“. . . Sweeps clean. Ugh. Tell me no more tales of brooms. That one is worn to death.” She sipped her tea, nodded. “Yes. I can see that. And I also know that it has been getting harder to get off the reservation, too. More papers, forms, registrations, passports. All amply justified, of course: that’s the very soul of a bureaucracy—everything has its reasons. Of course, I could say that the real reasons are never stated, and sometimes even unknown to the official; many would be offended to know them. But even so, enough. I am overly sensitive to these things because of my own role—the permitting of weavings, the allowance of names, the registration of children. Nearness breeds suspicions.”
She stopped for a moment, sipped at her tea, turned and gazed once more into the distance through the windows. She turned back, saying, “Besides, it’s hardly worth the trouble. We have little enough outside the reservation. And I’ve heard tales I’d not care to test firsthand. We’ve had some disappearances. . . .”
Vance looked sharply at the head of Braid Deren. “You hadn’t mentioned that before. . . .”
“No.”
“Who were they?”
“Not so many. No one I know personally. Elders, by the talk of it. And all very vague, you know. It’s all fourth-hand stuff. So far it has apparently been only elders, who could disappear for any number of reasons. The Final Cure Cult believes in natural death, alone in the woods. No one sees them again. Now, if something like this were to involve someone of brood phase, or adolescent, people would be more interested.”
“How
interested?”
“I couldn’t say, right now. If it were deliberate, and some human agency were involved, I’m sure there would be some reaction. What, is the question. I cannot imagine how we could threaten you; we have neither the power nor the weapons, and if we had them, I don’t know the way of their use. You know the Command of Demirel—not to use that as weapon which leaves the hand. No guns, no numbers.”
“But you have butter, which could be withdrawn.”
“The input, through the Institute? Oh, it would have to be very serious, then. I do not wish such a confrontation.”
“Nor I, Fellirian. We have learned much from you.”
“Not enough, if you don’t put it into practice.”
“Give us time. Institutions die hard.”
“You’ve had time: four hundred years with your backs to the wall. Twenty billion humans! I don’t know what I’d do with so many bodies. The very idea gives me nightmares; we’d run out of allowable names!”
“That’s your worry?”
“That’s the Deren part of me speaking. The county clerk, the registrar. Just think of the awful names people would have to use: we’d use up the good ones right away. Then there would be a girl named Gallflanger and a boy named H’wilvsordwekh.”
“Only one Fellirian at a time.”
“Only one. As long as I live no one may have that name, no matter what aspect. But one Braid couldn’t cope with that level of work, nor would the people; instead, there would be First-derens, Second-derens, Third-derens . . . not for me, such multiples. I like being unique, even if what we do is not the most desirable role in the community.”
Vance returned to an older topic: “So then, you sense some hostility?”
“We always sense some. It’s not a matter of none and some; it’s some, and then some more. Always greater than zero.”
“Do you know anything on your side that might be fueling the present feedback you are getting?”
“No. That is what makes this time so troublesome. Mind, I do not say that nothing is going on; just that I know of nothing. But I know a lot. And we can look again. Morlenden is due back late tonight or tomorrow. I’ll ask him. He moves about and hears more than the rest of us. He has the bad job, you know. And you. You must have a snoop planted around Center as well. Why don’t we compare notes next time I see you?”
“Probably nothing going on that some sunshine wouldn’t cure.”
“Indeed, it could be the season. I am moody in the rainy autumn as well. It is not my season.” Fellirian finished, and sipped once more at her tea. It was gone. She returned to her pipe. It had gone out. She looked up. It was time to leave.
Vance saw the cue, and said, “Well, let it be. Don’t worry about it. I know of no reason either, right now. Will you be coming next week?”
“I would like to miss next week if I can. If it’s just the same with you. Why don’t you see if you can get someone else to fill in for me here with the visitors. For instance, that Maellenkleth Srith Perklaren. Or the Shuren girl, Linbelleth.... They’re both young, but they have done this before. I am far behind in Braid work, and I wish to get caught up a bit. That is also why Morlenden has been out so much lately in the field; we all have been catching up with everything that happened this summer. There is more to the role than you realize. And we were irresponsible this summer, we lazed around and played with the children, worked the garden. We got behind. So Morlenden has been out weeks at a time. I have actually begun to miss him.”
“Didn’t you before? I thought you were always close. . . .”
“So we have been. But you also know”—and here she slipped into her own speech, Singlespeech—“Toli lon Tooron Mamnatheno Kurgandrozhas: Only the insiblings know the way of incest. We are too close. We take each other for granted. It’s the way. We always fought a lot when we were little; we competed. But under that, we always knew what was coming for us, so after the fights we always buried the hatchet. We never had the luxury of being able to say, ‘Well, fly off, Turkey-wattle, that’s the last I’ll see of you.’ No. We always knew that whatever happened, what had been with friends and lovers, in the end the fertility would be ours, the Klanh-holding ours . . . and so it’s been forty-five years for us, sleeping in a pile together most of the time. A little while out for the inweaving of the afterparents. So we always took the future for granted, too; when the time came, we’d go along our own paths, as we’d waited for so long. But after Kaldherman and Cannialin, and my own third fertility . . . it changed. We found that we actually felt more right together, somehow. So now we have been talking of remaining together when the Braid unravels. This causes another problem: where do we go?”
“Of all the things you can’t make up your mind about . . .”
“Morlenden wants to join an elder lodge that, as he says, has some ‘rigor’ to it. One which does what you would call speculating into the nature of things. Or even Beechwood Lodge, the geneticists. For myself, I’d be pleased to go off somewhere, tend a garden, eat and drink, and tell made-up adventure stories by the fire in the communal hearthroom. But he’s Fire, and I’m Earth. Aspect conflict. But also I think perhaps Olede-Kadh is just kidding. When all’s said and done, he’s no where as rigorous as he’d like people to think.”
“I’m sure you’ll make up your minds by the time—after all, you’ve got twenty years. It isn’t like it was tomorrow. At any rate, your future is either decided or decidable. As for my own . . .”
“The Fertility Board has not answered your request yet?”
“Not yet.”
“What can I offer but my regrets. I should like to see you with a family as you have seen me these years.”
“So should I. But time is passing.”
“That it is. I have heard they only approve the best. . . .”
“Were it so there I choose to believe I should have children older than your Pethmirvin, but they choose the visible. It works out to the worst sort, by and large, of toadies and arse-kissers. My records and achievements are second to none. But this job at the Institute never has had much favor . . . and there’s the matter of my turning down a programmed name back when I was a trainee. It’s been no secret, but I knew then I was taking my chances. . . .”
“You know, Walter, if you had taken one of those awful random-generated tags, no better than a number, you’d not have stayed here, and that’s been worth something to many of us. Many of us now work willingly here, where before we did it only out of a sense of obligation, a debt. There is a difference in the input and a measurable one in the output. They should mark that one for you.”
“You’d be surprised what they dig up to hold against you, when the time comes. You know what they say over in Inspection Directorate, and in Standardization? That no matter who it is, no matter how good they look, they can always find a way to Unsat12 them. It’s just how far they want to go.”
Fellirian looked away from Vance for a moment, something flickering across her plain, open face, too quick to be seen, something, an emotion, close to annoyance. Vance’s remarks were in themselves not wrong, so much as was the emphasis he put upon them, here, now. A wave of uneasiness moved in the back of her mind, then subsided. They all knew about bureaucratic systems, and they both knew that any system applied to classifying people which advertised objectivity drifted toward the worst and most crass forms of subjectivity. They? It was common knowledge along both sides of the fence.
She commented, as neutrally as she could, “I still hope for the best for you, nevertheless.” After she spoke, she turned again to the window, now rising from her chair. She looked pensively outside for a long time, and then turned and went to a recessed alcove by the door, retrieving her outer clothing. Drawing the winter overcloak about her shoulders, she stepped into her winter boots, soft, supple leather, lined with a fiber material.
“It’s time to go. The mono is in and waiting for latecomers such as I.”
“Of course, Fellirian. I understand about the o
ther two, the ones you mentioned. No problem. I’ll see you in a few weeks, then. Come again, and we’ll visit some more over some tea.”
“Oh, I’ll be back. I like to study the visitors as much as they like to study me.” Here she paused, as if phrasing some difficult thought into bearable language. “But you know I need to refresh myself in my own surround. You and I, we are old friends. But because of that we overlook the fact that we are really very alien to one another, that we have different perceptions. Even so, I . . . but never mind. Next time, then?”
“Next time. I shall wait.”
Fellirian turned and passed through the sliding doorway, which closed behind her, leaving Director Walter Vance alone in the meeting room. For considerable time, he sat quietly alone in the dimming evening light, now close to darkness, thinking of nothing in particular, forcing no specific pattern of coherent thoughts. He walked over to the window and looked out into the same evening landscape Fellirian had been watching not long before. The light was now a deep sourceless violet-blue, the end of another rainy November day, deep in what as a child he had thought of as the bottom of the year. Bare, dripping branches. Shiny pavements, reflecting a silvery light. Shallow puddles ruffled by a light, variable wind, their reflections broken into shards by fitful gusts of raindrops. The monorail which ran into the far reaches of the reservation was yet standing in the station, waiting. Vance watched as a hooded and cloaked figure, rather more slight in stature than a human would appear at this distance, walked over to the mono along the platform, unhurriedly. The figure slid a door back, entered a coach, and vanished from his line of sight. The pale, pastel coaches sat immobile, breathing tremulous, tentative wisps of steam from the heaters into the damp and chilly air.