Child of Grass: Sea of Grass, Book Two

by David Gerrold

  “But what about Varro’s wife and baby—?”

  “Varro’s wife and baby live safe with her parents. We have monitors watching them. But they live in Callo and we can’t risk exposure. You know what happened to Jaxin and the others.” Smiller put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Kaer—but we did warn you about Linnea. More than once. We all carry the same burden here. We want to do more than the Charter will allow. Do you really think we don’t care about the Linneans as much as you do?”

  “I don’t know.” I shook my head. “I know you care. But . . .”

  “But what?”

  Frustrated, I just shrugged helplessly. I couldn’t find the words for it. “Nothing. I mean, nothing works like promised.”

  “We all know that feeling.”

  “So what do you—?”

  “You do what you can and you hope you’ve done the right thing. And even if it turns out wrong, you still keep going anyway. Because you only fail if you quit.”

  I looked past Smiller to the table where the Linneans still sat. They waited with looks of grave concern.

  “Did I hurt their feelings?” I said.

  “No,” Byrne reassured me. “They worry that they said something wrong.”

  “Oh, no,” I said. “They didn’t do anything—they treated me very nice.”

  “They want to help you, because they hope you’ll help them.”

  “Yes, that’s what they said. They want to help the good Oerth-people stop the bad ones.” And that’s when the other thought popped up. I switched to English. “But how do they know that we’re the good ones? I mean—wouldn’t the Hale-Stones say the same thing?”

  “Yes, they would. And they have,” Smiller said grimly. She looked to da and Byrne. “Let me handle this.” She put her hand on my shoulder and began walking me away from the village. We headed south, toward the far end of the rock. But unless this was going to be a very long talk, it was unlikely that we’d ever get that far.

  Speaking in English, Smiller said, “I didn’t tell you this part because I didn’t want you worrying about it.” She took a deep breath. “But the Hale-Stones have built their own colony in the Mother Land. They’ve been gathering exiles and outlaws and cast-outs, anyone who has no other place to go—on this world, that means quite a few people—and they’ve built a town of their own. They welcome anyone who needs shelter. And they feed them and heal them, they help them build and they teach them. They encourage newcomers to stay and work, become part of their new community, build homes, raise their children—and yes, even worship in their church.”

  “Huh—?”

  To my surprised look, she said, “Yes, their church. Remember all those sightings? This is why the Hale-Stones did them. They’re still doing them. And their church . . .” She sighed; clearly the whole subject was an unhappy one for her. “The Church of the Revelation.”

  “Just like on Earth?”

  “Almost. Not quite. Here, the Revelation comes from Mary, the Mother of the World, who has sent her only son to deliver the message of salvation. But the message is the same. Do it our way or go to Hell.”

  “And the Linneans believe it?”

  “If you aren’t allowed to believe in anything else, if everyone else has told you that have no right to believe, if you’ve been cast out of your own world, then you’re like a drowning man adrift in a sea of moral uncertainty. You’ll grab the first piece of driftwood floating by, even if takes you deeper into the maelstrom. Do you understand?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Well, think of it this way. It’s like a private club. And if you can’t get into someone else’s club, you start your own. And you make your own club better than the other guy’s. And if you have a secret that only the most loyal members of the club are allowed to know, then everyone is going to compete with everyone else to prove their loyalty, so they can learn the secret too. And in this case, the secret is a really big one. They tell them about Earth. Oerth. As much as they think the folks will understand. It works.”

  “Doesn’t anyone accuse them of being maizlish?”

  “No. By the time someone is ready to learn the big secret, maizlish doesn’t matter anymore. They’ve already sold themselves completely to the mysteries of the Revelation.” She stopped and looked at me gravely. She put her hand on my shoulder, the same way da often did. “Understand this, Kaer. If it weren’t for some of what they’re teaching these people, you could say that they’re doing good work. They’re rebuilding lives. They’re saving people. And the people are justifiably grateful. They should be.”

  “You sound jealous.”

  “I am. I envy their freedom to act and make a difference. Because we’re not allowed to. Not yet. Yes, we do it sometimes, but we’re not supposed to do it unless we have no other choice. So the Hale-Stones can tell their people that they’re the good guys and we’re the bad guys—because we won’t save them and they will. And their people believe them. Wouldn’t you, under the same circumstance? Hell’s bells, child! Even I sometimes wonder if they really are the good guys.

  “But you turn around now and you go back there—” She pointed me toward the distant village. “—and you ask Varro and Kzam how they feel about us and why and maybe they’ll give you another side of the story. And you can decide for yourself. Don’t take my word for it. Ask them. And if you can come to me later and say that you are not satisfied with the answers we’ve given you—well, then we’ll send you home. You won’t have to do this. I don’t want you doing this, if you don’t believe in it.”

  “Just like the Hale-Stones, huh? They want their people to believe in what they’re doing too. . . . How is anyone supposed to tell the difference?”

  “That’s not a fair comparison, Kaer.”

  “Yes, it is. It’s all about belief. You have the right to believe what you want. They have the right to believe what they want.”

  “And so do the Linneans. Don’t they? Do you think it’s right for the Hale-Stones to subvert the Linnean religion for their own purposes?”

  “No,” I said sullenly. “No more than it’s right for us to do so.”

  “We wouldn’t do it if we didn’t have to.”

  I could see Smiller was getting exasperated, but I didn’t care. “I’ll bet they’re saying the same thing too. I know about Revelationists. They’re probably telling each other right now that they have to do what they’re doing because they’re trying to save souls. First you save lives, then you save souls. Like you said, they’re giving people purpose.”

  “But a purpose that—” She stopped herself in mid-sentence and tried a different way. “You said everyone has a right to their own beliefs. Well, if you know Revelationists, then you know that they don’t tolerate other people’s right to believe differently, do they?”

  I didn’t answer. She had a point.

  “Do you think it’s right for the Hale-Stones to use their beliefs—their prejudices, their superstitions, even their ignorance—to deny someone else their right to their own beliefs?” And one more: “Do you think it’s right for the Hale-Stones to use their belief as a justification for betraying our Scouts.”

  “Of course not! And I wasn’t arguing about that. That’s why I’m here. I want to help save Jaxin.”

  “Not good enough, Kaer.” Smiller shook her head.

  “Huh?” Now I was confused. “What do you want from me? What do you want me to say?”

  “Kaer, you’re a very smart kid. Everyone is impressed with you. But that doesn’t get you any special privileges—not that. Everyone else here has made a total commitment to the whole program. It wouldn’t be fair to them for me to accept anything less from you. We want you to do this, and we’ll do everything necessary to help you do it effectively—but you’re doing a Scout’s job here and we need you to be a Scout in every sense of the word. We need you to believe in what you’re doing, the same way everyone else here believes. Including Varro and Kzam and Popo and Chirl.” She studied me hard, wait
ing for my answer.

  “All right,” I said finally. “I’ll go back and talk to Varro some more.” I shook her hand off my shoulder and trudged back alone. It wasn’t that I was angry with Smiller—I wasn’t. She was only doing her job. I was angry about the situation. And so was Smiller. But it still didn’t feel like we were on the same side anymore.

  The thing was—how the hell was I supposed to decide what was right and what was wrong here? I was just a kid picked to play a part. I trusted the adults around me to know right from wrong and tell me. I hated it when da said, “You have to figure that out yourself, Kaer.” And whenever I tried to tell him, “I don’t know what to do,” he usually said something like, “Part of growing up is learning how to sort these things out for yourself.”

  I suppose I should have been pleased that da trusted me so much. But I hated not knowing. It was like that time I got lost in the Dome one night and couldn’t find my way home. I stumbled around in the dark for a couple of hours, frustrated and upset and hungry. And the razor-grass was so hard and dry, it rubbed my skin raw and cut my legs. I was finding out firsthand how it got its name.

  I knew I wasn’t in any real danger. The family was probably looking for me now. All I had to do was look for the lights of their torches. And if they couldn’t find me, I could just sit and wait for morning and try again. I was uncomfortable more than scared. I knew I wasn’t in any real danger. And if I were really lost, damn near impossible in the dome, then sooner or later, one of the Scouts would come out and get me, tracking me by my implant—oh my God.

  I turned around and looked to Smiller. She was following me back at a distance.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “The implants,” I said.

  “What about them?”

  “You’ve got to turn them all off. If the Hale-Stones have scanners, they’ll know where all the Scouts are. They’ll be able to point them out to the Linneans.”

  Smiller smiled gently. “For once, we’re ahead of you, Kaer. We’ve already taken those steps. And a few others. Most of our people are wearing jammers now to foil the scanners. And we’ve dropped a lot of decoy implants too. We’ve even put a few in boffili, emmos, jackalopes, and other animals. Can you imagine the reactions of the Hale-Stones when they track a signal to the bottom of a badgerine hole?”

  I had to laugh. “Especially if it’s an angry badgerine.”

  Smiller patted my shoulder. “Just you keep remembering that the Hale-Stones will hurt people if they have to. And then you’ll remember who are the good guys and who aren’t.”

  Revelations II

  Varro stood up as I approached the table. He looked relieved. “You pardon I ask, everything is all right in you, yes?”

  “Yes.” I smiled to reassure them, even though I didn’t really mean it. I sat down again at the table, pulled my plate close to me, and broke off a piece of bread. I wiped it in the cold, congealed gravy. The grease didn’t make the bread taste any better, but it didn’t make it taste any worse either. At least it was something to do.

  “But something is bothering you, yes?”

  “Yes.” I wiped the bread in little circles, like I was finger-painting in the gravy.

  “Is it something we did?” He looked worried.

  “Oh, no, Varro. I am so sorry I worried you. No, you and Kzam and Chirl and Popo are fine with me. Please.” I smiled in embarrassment. “It is I who am worried about you.”

  He frowned in puzzlement. “I don’t understand. . . ?”

  “The words? ‘I am worried about you?’”

  “The words, yes. I understand the words. The . . . the . . . how you say—” A flicker of frustration crossed his face, then he got it. “Ah—the meaning. But no, I understand nothing why you feel worrying about us.” He spoke in labored English, but his sense was clear.

  I wondered if I was going to be able to explain this. I was having a hard enough time understanding it myself. I looked into my tea mug. It was empty. Chirl rushed to refill it from the earthenware pitcher. I wasn’t really that thirsty, I’d just picked up the mug for something to do while I tried to put my words together. But now that it was full, I took a drink of the pepper-tea anyway. It was still lukewarm. I put the mug down and took a deep breath.

  “In the Dome—have you seen pictures of the Dome? Yes? It looks like Linnea to you? It does? Good. That makes me happy to hear that. We worked hard. In the Dome, we work very hard to learn how to be good Linneans. You understand? So we can assimilate—you don’t know that word, do you? So we can live with you . . . um . . . and fool you. So you’ll think we’re Linneans too. So you won’t think we’re maizlish.”

  “Yes, yes!” Varro grinned. “I understand.”

  “Are we good at it?” I asked. “Do we fool you?”

  “Oh, yes, yes. You are very good,” he reassured me. “We can hardly tell at all that you are from Oerth.”

  “Oh,” I said, thinking about that. “But we don’t want you to be able to tell at all.”

  “Oh,” he said. For a moment, we just sat and looked at each other. Then we both started laughing at the same time.

  “So,” I said, between giggles. “How can you tell? What do you see?”

  Varro’s forehead creased as he struggled with the thought—and the words as well. “It is the way you look. The way you talk and act. Like boffili. We learn which ones will have meat we can chew and which ones we will have to beat the meat with a hammer for days. Did I say that right? Why do you laugh?”

  I held up a hand. “On Earth, it means something different to say ‘beat the meat.’” I made an up-and-down gesture with my fist.

  Varro frowned, then his eyes twinkled with recognition, followed by shocked surprise as he realized what he’d said—including the hammer for days. Then his whole face reddened and he choked on his own laughter. “I am much embarrassed,” he said, but his smile was impish. He must have been secretly delighted as well to have learned something so real about Earth. I remembered when I’d learned my first Linnean cussword—that had been a thrill for me too.

  Finally—after a few minutes more of uncontrollable giggling—we pushed the subject back to where we had started. “But it is the same kind of difference,” Varro said. “I look at you, Kaer, I see one of the Mother’s blessed children. Do you understand?”

  “Someone who is . . . very healthy? Very wise? Did I get that right?”

  “Not quite,” said Varro. “It means someone who turned out right.” He waved his hands about my person meaningfully. “You have no marks, no scars. You have clear skin. You do not limp. You have clear eyes. You have clean hair. You have—no, you are tall and . . . you are healthy, and even though I do not see you naked, I can tell from the flesh on your face that you are not hungry. You eat well. And—and. . . .” Here, his voice trailed off almost apologetically. “You are wise. I see it in your face. You know things. You look at things differently. I don’t know what you see, but I can see in your face that what you see . . . it is something we do not.” He scratched his ear nervously. “And one more thing, Kaer, that tells us you are not Linnea-born. . . .”

  “What?”

  He lowered his eyes, embarrassed. He really didn’t want to say this. “You smile too much. You laugh too loud. All of you. You enjoy your lives as if you are living in a party. That is not normal.” He added, “Not normal for Linnea, I mean. If it is normal for Oerth, then that is another reason why I want to go there. I want to laugh all the time too. I want what you have, Kaer. I am . . . how you say it? Jealous?”

  “Envious,” I corrected, almost without thinking about it. I was still considering the import of what he’d just told me.

  “Do you understand?” Varro asked. He looked worried.

  “Oh, yes. I understand very well. I was thinking about tomatoes. Do you know what a tomato is? We go and pick them off the vine. We don’t pick the ones that are too small or too green or too hard—or too soft or with funny colored spots. We only pick the ones
that are perfect. And we look that way to you, don’t we?”

  He nodded—“And we look small and green and funny colored spots to you. . . ?”—and grinned.

  “Uh . . . no.” I grinned back. “You look too hard.”

  “Is good to be hard,” said Chirl, duplicating my hand-gesture of a few moments earlier. He and Varro and Kzam all laughed. Now it was my turn to blush.

  Varro reached across and touched my fingers—an extraordinarily sensitive gesture for one Linnean born. Linneans didn’t touch easily. I wondered if perhaps Varro hadn’t already spent too much time among the Oerth-folk. Maybe he was starting to look Oerth-like, a little bit. Maybe Smiller was right. If he went back now, his people would sense the difference.

  “But you still worry,” he said. “And it is not about . . . what we say now, as much as it is about what we don’t say, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  He tapped my fingertips with his. “You listen, kiddo.” In his mouth, the word sounded funny, but I knew he was being extraordinarily candid for a Linnean. “I come here, I learn to talk like you. More than that, I learn to share what I think. We don’t do that, down there—” He indicated with a jerk of his head, the whole world below the rock. “—but you do it in your world. And you are . . . damn, how you say—?” He scratched his head in frustration, as if trying to dig the word out. “Damn! Is no word! But you are blessing each other, I am sure, because you give honesty so much. Yes?”

  “I understand.” Now it was my turn to scratch my head. “I’m just wondering . . . how you feel about all this.” I waved my hands as if to erase what I’d just said. “Not the airplanes or the stations or the talking boxes—that’s just so much magic stuff. I’m wondering about how you feel about . . . what lives in your heart, the Mother of the World. We don’t have the Mother. Not like you. So if you become like us, will you lose the Mother?”

  “I cannot lose the Mother,” said Varro, tapping his heart. “She lives in here always.”

  “That gives me gladness,” I said. “I don’t want you to lose something that has so much importance to you. But you know about the Hale-Stones, don’t you?”