“Yes,” laughed Raven, “you might call me a shooting man.”
“But what do you shoot?” asked Byord. “Targets? Gol! Can I shoot a target?”
“Perhaps later,” said Raven. “We have no targets with us at the moment.”
“Mother, he says I can shoot a target! Pow! Pow! Pow!”
Raven lifted one brow. “I thought chemical weapons were unknown on Gwydion, milady,” he said, as offhand as possible.
She answered with a hint of distress, “That other ship, which came in winter. The men aboard it also had—what did they name them—guns. They explained and demonstrated. Since then, probably every small boy on the planet has imagined—Well. No harm done, Isure.” She smiled and ruffled Byord’s hair.
“Ah—I hight Raven, a Commandant of the Oakenshaw Ethnos, Windhome Mountains, Lochlann.”
“And you other souls?” asked the girl.
Raven waved them back. “Followers. Sons of yeomen on my father’s estate.”
She was puzzled that he excluded them from the conversation, but accepted it as an alien custom. “I am Elfavy,” she said, accenting the first syllable. She flashed a grin. “My son Byord you already know! His surname is Varstan, mine is Simmon.”
“What?—Oh, yes, I remember. Gwydiona wives retain their family name, sons take the father’s, daughters the mother’s. Am I correct? Your husband—”
She looked outward. “He drowned there, during a storm last fall,” she answered quietly.
Raven did not say he was sorry, for his culture had its own attitudes toward death. He couldn’t help wondering aloud, tactless, “But you said you danced for the sea.”
“He is of the sea now, is he not?” She continued regarding the waves, where they swirled and shook foam loose from their crests. “How beautiful it is tonight.”
Then, swinging back to him, altogether at ease. “I have just had a long talk with one of your party, a Miguel Tolteca. He is staying at my father’s house, where Byord and I now live.”
“Not precisely one of mine,” said Raven, suppressing offendedness.
“Oh? Wait . . . yes, he did mention having some men along from a different planet.”
“Lochlann,” said Raven. “Our sun lies near theirs, both about 50 light-years hence in that direction.” He pointed past the evening star to the Hercules region.
“Is your home like his Nuevamerica?”
“Hardly.” For a moment Raven wanted to speak of Lochlann—of mountains which rose sheer into a red-sun sky, trees dwarfed and gnarled by incessant winds, moorlands, ice plains, oceans too dense and bitter with salt for a man to sink. He remembered a peasant’s house, its roof held down by ropes lest a gale blow it away, and he remembered his father’s castle gaunt above a glacier, hoofs ringing in the courtyard, and he remembered bandits and burned villages and dead men gaping around a smashed cannon.
But she would not understand. Would she?
“Why do you have so many shooting things?” exploded from Byord. “Are there bad animals around your farms?”
“No,” said Raven. “Not many wild animals at all. The land is too poor for them.”
“I have heard . . . that first expedition—” Elfavy grew troubled again. “They said something about men fighting other men.”
“My profession,” said Raven. She looked blankly at him. Wrong word then. “My calling,” he said, though that wasn’t right either.
“But killing men!” she cried.
“Bad men?” asked Byord, round-eyed.
“Hush,” said his mother. “‘Bad’ means when something goes wrong, like the cynwyr swarming down and eating the grain. How can men go wrong?”
“They get sick,” Byord said.
“Yes, and then your grandfather heals them.”
“Imagine a situation where men often get so sick they want to hurt their own kind,” said Raven.
“But horrible!” Elfavy traced a cross in the air. “What germ causes that?”
Raven sighed. If she couldn’t even visualize homicidal mania, how explain to her that sane, honorable men found sane, honorable reasons for hunting each other?
He heard Kors mutter to Wildenvey, “What I said. Guts of sugar candy.”
If that were only so, thought Raven, he could forget his own unease. But they were no weaklings on Gwydion. Not when they took open sailboats onto oceans whose weakest tides rose fifteen meters. Not when this girl could visibly push away her own shock, face him, and ask with friendly curiosity—as if he, Raven, should address questions to the sudden apparition of a sabertoothed weaselcat.
“Is that the reason why your people and the Namericans seem to talk so little to each other? I thought I noticed it in the town, but didn’t know then who came from which group.”
“Oh, they’ve done their share of fighting on Nuevamerica,” said Raven dryly, “As when they expelled us. We had invaded their planet and divided it into fiefs, over a century ago. Their revolution was aided by the fact that Lochlann was simultaneously fighting the Grand Alliance—but still, it was well done of them.”
“I cannot see why—Well, no matter. We will have time enough to discuss things. You are going into the hills with us, are you not?”
“Why, yes, if—What did you say? You too?”
Elfavy nodded. Her mouth quirked upward. “Don’t be so aghast, far-friend. I will leave Byord with his aunt and uncle, even if they do spoil him terribly.” She gave the boy a brief hug. “But the group does need a dancer, which is my calling.”
“Dancer?” choked Kors.
“Not the Dancer. He is always a man.”
“But—” Raven relaxed. He even smiled. “In what way does an expedition into the wilderness require a dancer?”
“To dance for it,” said Elfavy. “What else?”
“Oh . . . nothing. Do you know precisely what this journey is for?”
“You have not heard? I listened while my father and Miguel talked it over.”
“Yes, naturally I know. But possibly you have misunderstood something. That’s easy to do, even for an intelligent person, when separate cultures meet. Why don’t you explain it to me in your own words, so that I can correct you if need be?” Raven’s ulterior motive was simply that he enjoyed her presence and wanted to keep her here a while longer.
“Thank you, that is a good idea,” she said. “Well, then, planets where men can live without special equipment are rare and far between. The Nuevamericans, who are exploring this galactic sector, would like a base on Gwydion, to refuel their ships, make any necessary repairs, and rest their crews in greenwoods.” She gave Kors and Wildenvey a surprised look, not knowing why they both laughed aloud. Raven himself would not have interrupted her naive recital for money.
She brushed the blown fair hair off her brow and resumed, “Of course, our people must decide whether they wish this or not. But meanwhile it can do no harm to look at possible sites for such a base, can it? Father proposed an uninhabited valley some days’ march inland, beyond Mount Granis. To journey there afoot will be more pleasant than by air; much can be shown you and discussed en route; and we would still return before Bale time.”
She frowned the faintest bit. “I am not certain it is wise to have a foreign base so near the Holy City. But that can always be argued later.” Her laughter trilled forth. “Oh dear, I do ramble, don’t I?” She caught Raven’s arm, impulsively, and tucked her own under it. “But you have seen so many worlds, you can’t imagine how we here have been looking forward to meeting you. The wonder of it! The stories you can tell us, the songs you can sing us!”
She dropped her free hand to Byord’s shoulder. “Wait till this little chatterbird gets over his shyness with you, far-friend. If we could only harness his questions to a generator, we could illuminate the whole of Instar!”
“Awww,” said the boy, wriggling free.
They began to walk along the diketop, almost aimlessly. The two soldiers followed. The rifles on their backs stood black against a cl
oud like roses. Elfavy’s fingers slipped down from Raven’s awkwardly held arm—men and women did not go together thus on Lochlann—and closed on the flute in his sleeve. “What is this?” she asked.
He drew it forth. It was a long piece of darvawood, carved and polished to bring out the grain. “I am not a very good player,” he said. “A man of rank is expected to have some artistic skills. But I am only a younger son, which is why I wander about seeking work for my guns, and I have not had much musical instruction.”
“The sounds I heard were—” Elfavy searched after a word. “They spoke to me,” she said finally, “but not in a language I knew. Will you play that melody again?”
He set the flute to his lips and piped the notes, which were cold and sad. Elfavy shivered, catching her mantle to her and touching the gold-and-black locket at her throat. “There is more than music here,” she said. “That song comes from the Night Faces. It is a song, is it not?”
“Yes. Very ancient. From Old Earth, they say, centuries before men had reached even their own sun’s planets. We still sing it on Lochlann.”
“Can you put it into Gwydiona for me?”
“Perhaps. Let me think.” He walked for a while more, turning phrases in his head. A military officer must also be adept in the use of words, and the two languages were close kin. Finally he sounded a few bars, lowered the flute, and began.
“The wind doth blow today my love,
And a few small drops of rain.
I never had but one true love,
And she in her grave was lain.
“I’ll do as much for my true love
As any young man may;
I’ll sit and mourn all at her grave
For a twelvemonth and a day. . . .
“The twelvemonth and a day being up,
The dead began to speak:
‘Oh who sits weeping on my grave
And will not let me sleep?’”
He felt her grow stiff, and halted his voice. She said, through an unsteady mouth, so low he could scarce hear, “No. Please.”
“Forgive me,” he said in puzzlement, “if I have—” What?
“You couldn’t know. I couldn’t.” She glanced after Byord. The boy had frisked back to the soldiers. “He was out of earshot. It doesn’t matter, then, much.”
“Can you tell me what is wrong?” he asked, hopeful of a clue to the source of his own doubts.
“No.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what. It just frightens me somehow. Horribly. How can you live with such a song?”
“On Lochlann we think it quite a beautiful little thing.”
“But the dead don’t speak. They are dead!”
“Of course. It was only a fantasy. Don’t you have myths?”
“Not like that. The dead go into the Night, and the Night becomes the Day, is the Day. Like Ragan, who was caught in the Burning Wheel, and rose to heaven and was cast down again, and was wept over by the Mother—those are Aspects of God, they mean the rainy season that brings dry earth to life and they also mean dreams and the waking from dreams, and loss-remembrance-recreation, and the transformations of physical energy, and—Oh, don’t you see, it’s all one! It isn’t two people separate, becoming nothing, desiring to be nothing, even. It mustn’t be!”
Raven put away his flute. They walked on until Elfavy broke from him, danced a few steps, a slow and stately dance which suddenly became a leap. She ran back smiling and took his arm again.
“I’ll forget it,” she said. “Your home is very distant. This is Gwydion, and too near Bale time to be unhappy.”
“What is this Bale time?”
“When we go to the Holy City,” she said. “Once each year. Each Gwydiona year, that is, which I believe makes about five of Old Earth’s. Everybody, all over the planet, goes to the Holy City maintained by his own district. It may be a dull wait for you people, unless you can join us. . . . Perhaps you can!” she exclaimed, and eagerness washed out the last terror.
“What happens?” Raven asked.
“God comes to us.”
“Oh.” He thought of dionysiac rites among various backward peoples and asked with great care, “Do you see God, or feel Vwi?” The last word was a pronoun; Gwydiona employed an extra gender, the universal.
“Oh, no,” said Elfavy. “We are God.”
IV
The dance ended in a final exultant jump, wings fluttering iridescent and the bird head turned skyward. The men who had been playing music for it put down their pipes and drums. The dancer’s plumage swept the ground as she bowed. She vanished into a canebrake. The audience, seated and crosslegged, closed eyes for an unspeaking minute. Tolteca thought it a more gracious tribute than applause.
He looked around again as the ceremony broke up and men prepared for sleep. It didn’t seem quite real to him, yet, that camp should be pitched, supper eaten, and the time come for rest, while the sun had not reached noon. That was because of the long day, of course. Gwydion was just past vernal equinox. But even at its mild and rainy midwinter, daylight lasted a couple of sleeps.
The effect hadn’t been so noticeable at Instar. The town used an auroral generator to give soft outdoor illumination after dark, and went about its business. Thus it had only taken a couple of planetary rotations to organize this party. They marched for the hills at dawn. Already one leisurely day had passed on the trail, with two campings; and one night, where the moon needed little help from the travelers’ glowbulbs; and now another forenoon. Sometime tomorrow—Gwydion tomorrow—they ought to reach the upland site which Dawyd had suggested for the spaceport.
Tolteca could feel the tiredness due rough kilometers in his muscles, but he wasn’t sleepy yet. He stood up, glancing over the camp. Dawyd had selected a good spot, a meadow in the forest. The half-dozen Gwydiona men who accompanied him talked merrily as they banked the fire and spread out sleeping bags. One man, standing watch against possible carnivores, carried a longbow. Tolteca had seen what that weapon could do, when a hunter brought in an arcas for meat. Nonetheless he wondered why everyone had courteously refused those firearms the Quetzal brought as gifts.
The ten Namerican scientists and engineers who had come along were in more of a hurry to bed down. Tolteca chuckled, recalling their dismay when he announced that this trip would be on shank’s mare. But Dawyd was right, there was no better way to learn an area. Raven had also joined the group, with two of his men. The Lochlanna seemed incapable of weariness, and their damned slithering politeness never failed them, but they were always a little apart from the rest.
Tolteca sauntered past the canebrake, following a side path. Though no one lived in these hills, the Gwydiona often went here for recreation, and small solar-powered robots maintained the trails. He had not quite dared hope he would meet Elfavy. But when she came around a flowering tree, the heart leaped in him.
“Aren’t you tired?” he asked, lame-tongued, after she stopped and gave greeting.
“Not much,” she answered. “I wanted to stroll for a while before sleep. Like you.”
“Well, let’s go into partnership.”
She laughed. “An interesting concept. You have so many commercial enterprises on your planet, I hear. Is this another one? Hiring out to take walks for people who would rather sit at home?”
Tolteca bowed. “If you’ll join me, I’ll make a career of that.”
She flushed and said quickly, “Come this way. If I remember this neighborhood from the last time I was here, it has a beautiful view not far off.”
She had changed her costume for a plain tunic. Sunlight came through leaves to touch her lithe dancer’s body; the hair, loosened, fell in waves down her back. Tolteca could not find the words he really wanted, nor could he share her easy silence.
“We don’t do everything for money on Nuevamerica,” he said, afraid of what she might think. “It’s only, well, our particular way of organizing our economy.”
“I know,” she said. “To me it seems so . . . impers
onal, lonely, each man fending for himself—but that may just be because I am not used to the idea.”
“Our feeling is that the state should do as little as possible,” he said, earnest with the ideals of his nation. “Otherwise it will get too much power, and that’s the end of freedom. But then private enterprise must take over; and it must be kept competitive, or it will in turn develop into a tyranny.” Perforce he used several words which Gwydiona lacked, such as the last. He had introduced them to her before, during conversations at Dawyd’s house, when they had tried to comprehend each other’s viewpoints.
“But why should the society, or the state as you call it, be opposed to the individual?” she asked. “I still don’t grasp what the problem is, Miguel. We seem to do much as we please, all the time, here on Gwydion. Most of our enterprises are private, as you put it.” No, he thought, not as I put it. Your folk are only interested in making a living. The profit motive, in the economists’ sense of the word, isn’t there. He forebore to interrupt. “But this unregulated activity seems to work for everyone’s mutual benefit,” she continued. “Money is only a convenience. Its possession does not give a man power over his fellows.”
“You are universally reasonable,” Tolteca said. “That isn’t true of any other planet I know about. Nor do you need to curb violence. You hardly know what anger is. And hate—another word which isn’t in your language. Hate is to be always angry with someone else.” He saw shock on her face, and hurried to add, “Then we must contend with the lazy, the greedy, the unscrupulous—Do you know, I begin to wonder if we should carry out this project. It may be best that your planet have nothing to do with the others. You are too good; you could be too badly hurt.”
She shook her head. “No, don’t think that. Obviously we are different from you. Perhaps genetic drift has caused us to lose a trait or two otherwise common to mankind. But the difference isn’t great, and it doesn’t make us superior. Remember, you came to us. We never managed to build spaceships.”
Flandry's Legacy: The Technic Civilization Saga Page 47