by Amy Thomson
"And what makes you think that I'm qualified to fill your place?" Samad challenged her.
Teller gave him a long, level look. Samad realized that he was as tall as she was now, maybe even a centimeter or two taller.
"I've known people twice your age with less than half your judgment. You listen well, you're compassionate, but you also see people clearly as they are. You've traveled with me all over Thalassa. We've seen most of the major inhabited islands on the planet, and many of the minor ones as
well. We've visited hundreds of uninhabited islands. You've seen Thalassa in her wild state, like it was before humans came here. In another ten years, you'll know this world better than all but the oldest and best-traveled storytellers. And lastly, the harsels think you can do it."
"They do?"
Teller nodded. "The harsels' Council of Memory has approved you."
"How long have you been planning this?"
"Ever since you became the youngest Master in the history of the Guild. But I thought I'd have decades, maybe even a century or more to train you. I thought—" She paused, "I thought a lot of things," she finished bleakly.
"Teller, what if—what if something happens to me? Then who would you train to take over for you?"
Teller looked away again. She was silent for a long time. "There isn't anybody else, Samad."
"There has to be. What about Florio?"
"He can't hear the harsels."
"What about Senior Captain Marquez? He's head of the Har Captains' Guild."
Teller shook her head somberly. "He's a merchant at heart. He'd be so interested in prosperity that he'd make Thalassa grow too fast."
"Thalassa's growing?"
"Very slowly, perhaps a quarter of a percent per year. Most of it's due to population growth." She shook her head. "In another four centuries, Thalassans are going to have to start having fewer children." Teller put her hand on Samad's shoulder. "All of the other people I've considered have biases and ties to one group or another. You're young enough not to have to unlearn such things. Trust me, Samad, I've looked for many years for an heir, and you really are the best person
for the job." She shook her head. "I wish Abeha were still alive. He could make you understand."
"But he wouldn't try to make me want to do something I didn't want to do," Samad said gently. "I need to be free to make choices you don't like."
Teller looked away, but Samad could see tears welling against her eyelashes. "I need you, Samad."
"I know, and I will be here for you as long as you live. But..." He paused, choosing his words carefully. "I want my own life, Teller. You're asking me to take over your life. I can't. I won't."
"But what about Thalassa?" Teller asked.
"Other worlds manage without someone like you. Thalassa will have to manage also."
"Other worlds manage, but not very well," Teller shot back. "Our crime rate is low, maybe one or two murders arid a dozen serious crimes of violence a year, on a planet with a population of two million people. Most other planets measure their murder rates in the thousands. We have poverty and poor people, yes, but they have food, and clothing, and usually a warm place to sleep. Other worlds?" She shrugged and looked away. "Perhaps we should have spent more time visiting slums when we were off world. I've spent my whole life working to make Thalassa a good place to live."
"I want my own life, Teller," Samad insisted. "Not yours."
"I know you do, but at least help me while I'm alive."
"I've already said I would," Samad told her.
"But I was talking about Thalassa," she said. "As I age, it's going to be hard for me to keep up with it all. I'll need your help there as well. Please, Samad, there isn't anyone else I trust to do it."
"All right, Teller," Samad said grudgingly. "I'll do it," he said. "But I'm not agreeing to anything more than that."
"I understand, Samad. And I'm grateful to you for what help you've offered."
And so Teller started sending him on errands, carrying messages to this person or that one. Or he carried money or goods where they were needed. Sometimes he was only sent to listen and remember someone's story. A great many of his errands involved the harsels, and these he did gladly. He had sorely missed the company of the great sailing fish. It had been years since Abeha's death, but the company of harsels gave Teller such pain that she rarely sailed on them, preferring to travel on the more expensive human-built sailboats and steamers. So Samad found himself in charge of any problems involving harsels, and any problems that involved traveling via harsel. To his surprise, the harsels were eager to carry him and always told him that Abeha was alive in their memories.
Samad learned quickly. He had to. Many of the errands Teller sent him on were important, if not to the world as a whole, at least to the people involved. As time passed, his responsibilities increased. He spent most of a year working as the aide to a member of the Thalassan assembly, learning the ropes of Thalassan politics from the inside. His Guild-trained memory served him well here. He could repeat long speeches verbatim. He learned to spot treacherous loopholes and irregularities in a piece of proposed legislation.
And he found himself at college, pushed into an accelerated and demanding course of study. Teller had taught him more than he realized. He did very well at school. His grades were good, and he graduated with honors and a sound foundation of useful knowledge.
But as busy as Teller kept him, he still had time to slip out and find the dark places where other men congregated for sex. And sometimes, late at night, he would lie awake and imagine himself riding through Jump Space to a world
he had never seen before, free and untethered from the needs of an importunate planet.
Teller closed her 300-year-old diary and turned off the computer. She pushed her chair back from her desk and stood, shrugging her stiff shoulders and massaging her lower back. She had done enough work for today. Samad would be sailing into Bonifacio harbor by the afternoon tide, and she wanted to get the house ready for him.
Teller closed the door to her hidden archives, activated all the palm locks and security codes, and heaped a pile of stones over the keypad box. Stepping back, she frowned at the concealed door, looking for signs of use. Teller picked up a couple of crushed blades of grass that she had tracked into the cave, and then surveyed it all one more time. With a curt nod and a grunt of satisfaction, she headed down the hill.
Teller was grateful to see the house. Her knees were acting up again. For a moment, she pondered the problem of what to do when she couldn't make the trip up the hill anymore, and then pushed it away in annoyance. Hopefully she would be done sorting her archives before then. As she rounded the corner of the house, she saw someone sitting on the front porch. She paused, peering into the shadowy porch, trying to see who it was.
"Hey Teller, it's me," Samad called. "The harsel got in early, and I thought I'd come straight up here and surprise you."
She relaxed when she recognized Samad's voice. "Well then, help me up the stairs, querido, and tell me how things are going. I don't get nearly enough gossip up here."
He came down the stairs and gave her his strong right arm to lean on. She needed it more than she would have liked to admit after her long walk. "Ay, you're as handsome
as ever, mijito! To think of all the women's hearts you've broken."
"Me?" he inquired with a grin. This was an old joke between them. "How would a man of my tastes manage such a thing?"
"By being a man of your tastes, my dear."
"But think of all the men I'm making happy!"
"Ah, you troublemaker!" she scolded. "Come here and give me a hug."
"So," she said, as they went inside, "do you have any new lovers I should know about?"
Samad shrugged. "Maybe. There's Max. We've been going out for a while now, but I don't think it's going to last. I travel too much. He's already started to complain about it. Besides, I'm not ready to settle down yet. Is there anything
to eat? I'm hungry."
"There's some nice lamb stew." Teller shook her head. "I wish you'd find a serious lover, Samad. It bothers me that you're so alone."
"It will happen when it's time for it to happen. Stop worrying about me. I'm happy the way I am," Samad reassured her.
"If you say so," Teller said dubiously. Privately, she doubted that, but there was no point in arguing over it. "Sit down and tell me all about what's going on in the world."
Over a bowl of stew that had been simmering on the back of the stove, Teller listened hungrily as he brought her up to date. She was getting lonely up here on her hillside. It was time for her to travel a bit and visit old friends while she still could. She smiled, thinking of Florio, grown broader and fatter and sessile now that he was on the Guild's High Council. It was a. good place for him, but perhaps he could do with a bit of a trip as well.
"So what do you think I should do about Cooper Mining and the Islas Verdes?"
"What?" Teller said. "I'm sorry, I was thinking of something else."
Samad looked at her. Was he wondering if she was starting to get senile? It was a question she asked herself a great deal, too, especially when she got caught in the maze of her own memories. Working in the archives only made the problem worse, but there was so much she needed to do.
"I'm fine, Samad," she told him. "I was just thinking of Florio. How is he?"
"Fat and happy, last time I saw him. He and Juana are very happy."
"Oh," Teller said. She had forgotten about Florio's recent marriage. Perhaps she really was getting senile. Or perhaps her wounded vanity had pushed it out of her mind. "I'm glad to hear that, Samad," she said.
"You are?" he asked. "I thought you weren't very happy about Florio's marriage."
Teller shrugged and looked away, "Maybe if I say it often enough, I'll come to believe it."
Samad smiled at her wry comment. "So how are you, really?" he inquired.
"I think I'm spending too much time cooped up with old memories," she admitted. "It's time to give the archives a rest and do a little traveling."
"Where would you like to go?"
She looked past Samad's shoulder, out the window, and past the long, grassy slopes, out at the beckoning azure sea. "I don't know, really. Just away somewhere. It would be good to see old friends again, and maybe even someplace new, someplace I've never been before."
"Is there somewhere you've never been on Thalassa?"
"Samad, there are nearly three million islands on this planet. I haven't managed to set foot on even a tenth of them."
"Yeah, but Teller, you know as well as I do that more than half of those islands are just dots and rocks barely above high tide."
"There are still plenty of sizable islands I've never been to. I've only seen one or two islands in the Sporades chain, and I've never been to the Malagas at all."
"All right then, I'll see what I can do. There's a flyer now to Cabra. We could fly there and then charter a boat and tour the Malagas in style."
"That would be lovely." She glanced down at her legs. "But my knees are starting to trouble me. I don't know how much walking we can do on this trip."
"We'll work something out."
"Maybe some sort of sedan chair, carried by big, strong, handsome men. We can share the big, strong, handsome men," she said with a wicked grin and a lift of one eyebrow.
"Teller!" Samad said, pretending to be shocked.
"Now, dear, don't carry on like that. I know I taught you to share your toys. And they can't all be gay, can they?"
"I suppose not," Samad said, heaving a heavy sigh of mock regret. Then he caught her eye and the two of them collapsed in giggles.
Samad watched Teller stumping up the hill to her archives. Teller had always looked old, but until now, she had never seemed old. Teller was becoming more lost in her own memories, more absentminded. She moved stiffly now, pushing herself out of chairs when she got up. And sometimes, when Teller was very tired, her hands had a slight tremor.
But most of the time, Teller was her old self: funny, sardonic, and deeply engaged with the world around her. The
first draft of her memoir was vivid and compelling, even in its unpolished state, and the archives were beautifully organized. But Teller was lonely, and she was having trouble getting around. He needed to spend more time with her. He decided to encourage more old friends to visit.
But first, they would take a trip. He smiled reminiscently. Traveling with Teller. It would be like old times for him as well. He wasn't even thirty yet, but he felt much, much older. Teller had warned him that the job would take over his life if he let it. But it wasn't until he had boarded the harsel for Bonifacio that he realized how true her warning was. He had felt the surge of the swell rising and falling under the harsel and the wind teasing dark tendrils of his hair, and he realized how small and gray his life had become.
He was spending entirely too much time in his office lately. Teller had managed Thalassa while traveling as an itinerant storyteller. She had no office, and her comm was set to refuse incoming calls. He would have to ask her how she did it. It would make his job so much easier.
"You're doing too much, Samad," she told him as they waited for the ferry. "Sitting still, you're a target for everyone who wants their problems solved by someone else. I moved around, looking for the hidden troubles, the ones that nobody had noticed yet, and the ones that nobody wanted to see. Sometimes the problems were small, a farmer unable to get his crops in because his wife was sick and needed tending. Or it might be the beginnings of a drought on one island, where getting help early would make the difference between a bad year and famine. But always, always, I would try to make sure that there were people ready to fix a problem the next time it came up. That way I wasn't always having to rush back to fix something I fixed a decade ago."
"But you can't be everywhere at once," Samad pointed out.
"No, but the Guild is. I let them do most of the heavy lifting, and only stepped in when I was needed."
"But how could they find you?" he asked.
"They didn't. I found them. I checked in every few weeks."
"Every few weeks!" Samad said, alarmed. "But what if something big came up?"
"Samad, I've never run the planet, I've only been its fairy godmother. There were plenty of other people who could respond to a real disaster without my help. Besides, if a problem was big enough, I'd hear about it anyway. And by checking in infrequently, I'd make sure that the smaller problems got solved by someone else. I'll wager that most of the problems you left behind are going to work themselves out before you get back."
"But there'll be another bunch waiting for me," Samad told her.
"Of course there will be. You've given them a bench to sit on," she observed.
"But how can I turn away from people who need help?"
"You know, when you were young, I used to watch you struggle to do something. I just ached to help you, but you were so proud and so determined to do things yourself. It was the hardest thing in the world to watch you struggle and fail and struggle and fail, but usually you succeeded if I gave you enough time and a bit of encouragement. And by struggling and failing a few times, you learned patience. You need to give the people of Thalassa the chance to learn things the hard way, too, Samad."
"You could have told me that sooner," Samad complained.
Teller looked at him and raised an eyebrow. He knew that look well. There was something he hadn't figured out.
"Oh," he said, and blushed. He realized that she was still letting him learn the hard way.
Teller smiled. "You're doing a fine job, Samad. I'm proud of you."
"I suppose. But I still feel like I've got a lot to learn," he said with a rueful sigh.
"So do I, mijo. So do I," Teller replied with a wry smile. "Come on. They're lowering the gangplank, let's go aboard. I'm really looking forward to this cruise, Samad. Thanks so much for arranging it!"
"De nada, Mamacita," Samad said with a fond smile. "It was my pleasure."
Samad watched Teller's face as she slept on the flight back from Cabra to Nueva Ebiza. It had been a good trip. He had enjoyed himself, and so had Teller. They had swung through the Sporades and the Malaga chain, visiting dozens of islands that Teller had never seen before. Despite her aching knees, her eyes were as keen and astute as ever. She had stumped eagerly up and down and around each island, noting the differences and the similarities between the flora and fauna of these remote archipelagos and those of more familiar islands. She listened to the residents' stories about the islands and told a few stories herself. She did all of this at a pace that exhausted him. Yet she showed no signs of weariness until they returned to their inn at Cabra. Then she fell asleep as soon as she climbed into bed and slept the clock around.
She was still the Teller he knew and loved, but it was costing her a great deal to stay that way. She needed someone to help out with the chores. Someone to talk to. Someone to be there if there was an emergency. But Teller regarded her privacy very highly, especially now that she was working so hard on her archives.
He looked out the window of the flyer at the broad, wrinkled expanse of dark blue ocean far below. A small fleet of
harsels sailed east toward the Malaga Archipelago, their sails tiny dots in the immensity of the sunlit ocean below.
Teller needed him. No one else would do. He sighed inwardly. He would miss his comfortable life in Nueva Ebiza. Living at Teller's place in Bonifacio meant leaving behind all the comforts of the city: the food, the gossip, and the men. But Teller was worth it.