Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 90

by Seth Dickinson

  “This way.” Zipakna pointed to the distant bulk of the Dragon.

  They ran. His left side was numb but there was no time to think about that. Daren and Pierre didn’t have goggles so they ran behind him. He took them through the mesquite, ignoring the thorn slash, praying that the patrol focused on the building first before they started scanning the desert. His back twitched with the expectation of a bullet.

  The Dragon opened to him and he herded them in, gasping for breath now, the numbness draining away, leaving slow, spreading pain in its wake. “In here.” He touched the hidden panel and it opened, revealing the coffin shaped space beneath the floor. The Dragon was defended, but this was always the backup. Not even a scan could pick up someone hidden here. “You’ll have to both fit. There’s air.” They managed it, Pierre clasping Daren close, the boy’s face buried against his shoulder. Pierre looked up as the panel slid closed. “Thanks.” The panel clicked into place.

  Zipakna stripped off his protective vest. Blood soaked his shirt. They were using piercers. That really bothered him, but fortunately the vest had slowed the bullet enough. He slapped a blood-stop patch onto the injury, waves of pain washing through his head, making him dizzy. Did a stim-tab from the med closet and instantly straightened, pain and dizziness blasted away by the drug. Didn’t dare hide the bloody shirt, so he pulled a loose woven shirt over his head. Visitor, the Dragon announced. US Security ID verified.

  “Open.” Zipakna leaned a hip against the console, aware of the heads-up that still showed the town. The building had collapsed into a pile of glowing embers and dark figures darted through the shadows. “Come in.” He said it in English with a careful US accent. “You’re really having quite a night over there.” He stood back as two uniformed Patrol burst into the Dragon while a third watched warily from the doorway. All carrying stunners.

  Not guns, so maybe, just maybe, they hadn’t been spotted.

  “What are you up to?” The Patrol in charge, a woman, stared at him coldly through the helmet shield. “Did you leave this vehicle or let anyone in?”

  The gods had come through. Maybe. “Goodness, no.” He arched his eyebrows. “I’m not that crazy. I’m still stunned that Paloma went to raising pharm.” He didn’t have to fake the bitterness. “That’s why you’re burning the fields, right? They’re a good bunch of people. I didn’t think they’d ever give in to that.”

  Maybe she heard the truth in his words, but for whatever reason, the leader relaxed a hair. “Mind if we look around?” It wasn’t a question and he shrugged, stifling a wince at the pain that made it through the stimulant buzz.

  “Sure. Don’t scare the hens, okay?”

  The two inside the Dragon searched, quickly and thoroughly. They checked to see if he had been recording video and Zipakna said thanks to the old gods that he hadn’t activated it. That would have changed things, he was willing to bet.

  “You need help with your battery problem?” The cold faced woman . . . a lieutenant, he noticed her insignia . . . asked him.

  He shook his head. “I’m getting by fine as long as I don’t travel at night. They store enough for life support.”

  “I’d get out of here as soon as the sun is up.” She jerked her head at the other two. “Any time you got illegal flowers you get raiders. You don’t want to mess with them.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He ducked his head. “I sure will do that.” He didn’t move as they left, waited a half hour longer just to be sure that they didn’t pop back in. But they did not. Apparently they believed his story, hadn’t seen their wild dash through the mesquite. He set the perimeter alert to maximum and opened the secret panel. Daren scrambled out first, his face pale enough that his freckles stood out like bits of copper on his skin.

  Her freckles.

  Zipakna sat down fast. When the stim ran out, you crashed hard. The room tilted, steadied.

  “That guy shot you.” Daren’s eyes seemed to be all pupil. “Are you going to die?”

  “You got medical stuff?” Pierre’s face swam into view. “Tell me quick, okay?”

  “The cupboard to the left of the console.” The words came out thick. Daren was staring at his chest. Zipakna looked down. Red was soaking into the ivory weave of the shirt he’d put on. So much for the blood-stop. The bullet must have gone deeper than he thought, or had hit a small artery. Good thing his boarders hadn’t stuck around longer.

  Pierre had the med kit. Zipakna started to pull the shirt off over his head and the pain hit him like a lightning strike, sheeting his vision with white. He saw the pale green arch of the ceiling, thought I’m falling . . .

  He woke in his bed, groping drowsily for where he was headed and what he had drunk that made his head hurt this bad. Blinked as a face swam into view. Daren. He pushed himself up to a sitting position, his head splitting.

  “You passed out.” Daren’s eyes were opaque. “Pierre took the bullet out of your shoulder while you were out. You bled a lot but he said you won’t die.”

  “Where’s Pierre?” He swung his legs over the side of the narrow bed, fighting dizziness. “How long have I been out?”

  “Not very long.” Daren backed away. “The chickens are okay. I looked.”

  “Thanks.” Zipakna made it to his feet, steadied himself with a hand on the wall. A quick check of the console said that Pierre hadn’t messed with anything. It was light out. Early morning. He set the video to sweep, scanned the landscape. No choppers, no trace of last night’s raiders. He watched the images pan across the heads-up; blackened fields, the smoldering pile of embers and twisted plumbing that had been the community center, still wisping smoke. The fire had spread to a couple of derelict building to the windward of the old store. Movement snagged his eye. Pierre. Digging. He slapped the control, shut off the vid. Daren was back with the chickens. “Stay here, okay? I’m afraid to leave them alone.”

  “Okay.” Daren’s voice came to him, hollow as an empty egg shell.

  He stepped out into the oven heat, his head throbbing in time to his footsteps as he crossed the sunbaked ground to the empty bones of Paloma. A red bandanna had snagged on a mesquite branch, flapping in the morning’s hot wind. He saw a woman’s sandal lying on the dusty asphalt of the main street, a faded red backpack. He picked it up, looked inside. Empty. He dropped it, crossed the street, angling northward to where he had seen Pierre digging.

  He had just about finished two graves. A man lay beside one. The blood that soaked his chest had turned dark in the morning heat. Zipakna recognized his grizzled red beard and thinning hair, couldn’t remember his name. He didn’t eat any of the special eggs, just the ones against whatever new bug was out there. Pierre climbed out of the shallow grave.

  “You shouldn’t be walking around.” He pushed dirty hair out of his eyes.

  Without a word, Zipakna moved to the man’s ankles. Pierre shrugged, took the man’s shoulders. He was stiff, his flesh plastic and too cold, never mind the morning heat. Without a word they lifted and swung together, lowered him into the fresh grave. It probably wouldn’t keep the coyotes out, Zipakna thought. But it would slow them down. He straightened, stepped over to the other grave.

  Ella. Her face looked sad, eyes closed. He didn’t see any blood, wondered if she had simply suffered a heart attack, if she had had enough as everything she had worked to keep intact burned around her. “Did Daren see her die?” He said it softly. Felt rather than saw Pierre’s flinch.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so.” He stuck the shovel into the piled rocks and dirt, tossed the first shovel full into the hole.

  Zipakna said the right words in rhythm to the grating thrust of the shovel. First the Catholic prayer his mother would have wanted him to say, then the words for the old gods. Then a small, hard prayer for the new gods who had no language except dust and thirst and the ebb and flow of world politics that swept human beings from the chess board of the earth like pawns.

  “You could have let them shoot me.” Pierre tossed a las
t shovel full of dirt onto Ella’s grave. “Why didn’t you?”

  Zipakna tilted his gaze to the hard blue sky. “Daren.” Three tiny black specks hung overhead. Vultures. Death called them. “I’ll make you a trade. I’ll capitalize you to set up as a trader out here. You leave the pharm crops alone. I take Daren with me and get him Mexican citizenship. Give him a future better than yours.”

  “You can’t.” Pierre’s voice was low and bitter. “I tried. Even though his mother was a US citizen, they’re not taking in offspring born out here. Mexico has a fifteen year waiting list for new immigrants.” He was staring down at the mounded rock and dust of Ella’s grave. “She was so angry when she got pregnant. The implant was faulty, I guess. She meant to go back to the city before he was born but . . . I got hurt. And she stuck around.” He was silent for awhile. “Then it was too late, Daren was born and the US had closed the border. We’re officially out here because we want to be.” His lips twisted.

  “Why did you come out here?”

  He looked up. Blinked. “My parents lived out here. They were the rugged individual types, I guess.” He shrugged. “I went into the city, got a job, and they were still letting people come and go then. I didn’t like it, all the people, all the restrictions. So I came back out here.” He gave a thin laugh. “I was a trader to start with. I got hit by a bunch of raiders. That’s when . . . I got hurt. Badly. I’m sorry.” He turned away. “I wish you could get him citizenship. He didn’t choose this.”

  “I can.” Zipakna watched Pierre halt without turning. “She . . . was my wife. We married in Oaxaca.” The words were so damn hard to say. “That gave her automatic dual citizenship. In Mexico, only the mother’s DNA is required as proof of citizenship. We’re pragmatists,” he said bitterly.

  For a time, Pierre said nothing. Finally he turned, his face as empty as the landscape. “You’re the one.” He looked past Zipakna, toward the Dragon. “I don’t like you, you know. But I think . . . you’ll be a good father for Daren. Better than I’ve been.” He looked down at the dirty steel of the shovel blade. “It’s a deal. A trade. I’ll sell you my kid. Because it’s a good deal for him.” He walked past Zipakna toward the Dragon, tossed the shovel into the narrow strip of shade along one of the remaining buildings. The clang and rattle as it hit sounded loud as mountain thunder in the quiet of the windless heat.

  Zipakna followed slowly, his shoulder hurting. Ilena would be pissed, would never believe that Daren wasn’t his. His mouth crooked with the irony of that. The old gods twisted time and lives into the intricate knots of the universe and you could meet yourself coming around any corner. As the Dragon’s doorway opened with a breath of cool air, he heard Pierre’s voice from the chicken room, low and intense against the cluck and chortle of the hens, heard Daren’s answer, heard the brightness in it.

  Zipakna went forward to the console to ready the Dragon for travel. As soon as they reached the serviced lands again he’d transfer his savings to a cash card for Pierre. Pierre could buy what he needed on the Pima’s land. They didn’t care if you were a Drylander or not.

  Ilena would be doubly pissed. But he was a good poker partner and she wouldn’t dump him. And she’d like Daren. Once she got past her jealousy. Ilena had always wanted a kid, just never wanted to take the time to have one.

  He wondered if she had meant to contact him, tell him about Daren, bring the boy back to Mexico. She would have known, surely, that it would have been all right.

  Surely. He sighed and furled the solar wings.

  Maybe he would keep coming out here. If Daren wanted to. Maybe her ghost would find them as they traveled through this place she had loved. And then he could ask her.

  First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, February, 2008.

  About the Author

  One of the most popular and prolific of the new writers of the ’90s, Mary Rosenblum made her first sale in 1990, and soon became one of that decade’s most prolific contributors at short story lengths, making dozens of sales to many different magazines and anthologies. Her linked series of “Drylands” stories, about an American Southwest rendered uninhabitable by prolonged droughts, now seems, alas, more germane than ever, and was recently collected in an expanded version as Water Rites. The original version, The Drylands, won the prestigious Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel of the year in 1993. Her other books include the SF novels Chimera, The Stone Garden, and Horizons, and a short story collection, Synthesis and Other Stories. She has also written a trilogy of mystery novels written under the name Mary Freeman. Rosenblum won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History in 2009 for her story “Sacrifice.” A graduate of Clarion West, Mary Rosenblum lives in Canby, Oregon, and runs the website New Writers Interface. Her most recent book is Self Publishing Success: A Handbook for New Writers.

  Mountain Ways

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Note for readers unfamiliar with the planet O:

  Ki’O society is divided into two halves or moieties, called (for ancient religious reasons) the Morning and the Evening. You belong to your mother’s moiety, and you can’t have sex with anybody of your moiety.

  Marriage on O is a foursome, the sedoretu—a man and a woman from the Morning moiety and a man and a woman from the Evening moiety. You’re expected to have sex with both your spouses of the other moiety, and not to have sex with your spouse of your own moiety. So each sedoretu has two expected heterosexual relationships, two expected homosexual relationships, and two forbidden heterosexual relationships.

  The expected relationships within each sedoretu are:

  The Morning woman and the Evening man (the “Morning marriage”)

  The Evening woman and the Morning man (the “Evening marriage”)

  The Morning woman and the Evening woman (the “Day marriage”)

  The Morning man and the Evening man (the “Night marriage”)

  The forbidden relationships are between the Morning woman and the Morning man, and between the Evening woman and the Evening man, and they aren’t called anything, except sacrilege.

  It’s just as complicated as it sounds, but aren’t most marriages?

  In the stony uplands of the Deka Mountains the farmholds are few and far between. Farmers scrape a living out of that cold earth, planting on sheltered slopes facing south, combing the yama for fleece, carding and spinning and weaving the prime wool, selling pelts to the carpet-factories. The mountain yama, called ariu, are a small wiry breed; they run wild, without shelter, and are not fenced in, since they never cross the invisible, immemorial boundaries of the herd territory. Each farmhold is in fact a herd territory. The animals are the true farmholders. Tolerant and aloof, they allow the farmers to comb out their thick fleeces, to assist them in difficult births, and to skin them when they die. The farmers are dependent on the ariu; the ariu are not dependent on the farmers. The question of ownership is moot. At Danro Farmhold they don’t say, “We have nine hundred ariu,” they say, “The herd has nine hundred.”

  Danro is the farthest farm of Oro Village in the High Watershed of the Mane River on Oniasu on O. The people up there in the mountains are civilised but not very civilised. Like most ki’O they pride themselves on doing things the way they’ve always been done, but in fact they are a wilful, stubborn lot who change the rules to suit themselves and then say the people “down there” don’t know the rules, don’t honor the old ways, the true ki’O ways, the mountain ways.

  Some years ago, the First Sedoretu of Danro was broken by a landslide up on the Farren that killed the Morning woman and her husband. The widowed Evening couple, who had both married in from other farmholds, fell into a habit of mourning and grew old early, letting the daughter of the Morning manage the farm and all its business.

  Her name was Shahes. At thirty, she was a straight-backed, strong, short woman with rough red cheeks, a mountaineer’s long stride, and a mountaineer’s deep lungs. She could walk down the road to the village center in deep snow with a sixty-pound
pack of pelts on her back, sell the pelts, pay her taxes and visit a bit at the village hearth, and stride back up the steep zigzags to be home before nightfall, forty kilometers round trip and six hundred meters of altitude each way. If she or anyone else at Danro wanted to see a new face they had to go down the mountain to other farms or to the village center. There was nothing to bring anybody up the hard road to Danro. Shahes seldom hired help, and the family wasn’t sociable. Their hospitality, like their road, had grown stony through lack of use.

  But a traveling scholar from the lowlands who came up the Mane all the way to Oro was not daunted by another near-vertical stretch of ruts and rubble. Having visited the other farms, the scholar climbed on around the Farren from Ked’din and up to Danro, and there made the honorable and traditional offer: to share worship at the house shrine, to lead conversation about the Discussions, to instruct the children of the farmhold in spiritual matters, for as long as the farmers wished to lodge and keep her.

  This scholar was an Evening woman, over forty, tall and long-limbed, with cropped dark-brown hair as fine and curly as a yama’s. She was quite fearless, expected nothing in the way of luxury or even comfort, and had no small talk at all. She was not one of the subtle and eloquent expounders of the great Centers. She was a farm woman who had gone to school. She read and talked about the Discussions in a plain way that suited her hearers, sang the offerings and the praise songs to the oldest tunes, and gave brief, undemanding lessons to Danro’s one child, a ten-year-old Morning half-nephew. Otherwise she was as silent as her hosts, and as hardworking. They were up at dawn; she was up before dawn to sit in meditation. She studied her few books and wrote for an hour or two after that. The rest of the day she worked alongside the farm people at whatever job they gave her.

  It was fleecing season, midsummer, and the people were all out every day, all over the vast mountain territory of the herd, following the scattered groups, combing the animals when they lay down to chew the cud.