by Gene Wolfe
"What is it?"
"Sinew and Bala and all the other people on Green? Are the inhumi going to kill them all the way they did the Vanished People that were there?"
"No," I said.
"Are you sure?"
"As sure as I can be without actually knowing the answer, Hide. I can't possibly know-I'm sure you must realize that. You were asking my opinion, and my opinion is that they won't."
I found his next question startling, as I still do. It was, "Because of something we did?"
I said, "Of course not. Do you think that we can save an entire whorl, my son? Just you and I?"
"It isn't just us. There's Sinew and Bala and their children, and Maliki, and a lot of others."
"Ah! But that's a very different question. In that case, yes. Green will be saved because of things we've done and things we'll do. So will Blue. The Vanished People know it already, and I should have known it too when they asked my permission to revisit Blue. If the inhumi were to enslave humanity here, the Vanished People wouldn't want to come back; and if they were to exterminate it, no such permission would be needed."
Hide nodded, mostly I think to himself.
"You are always bored when your mother and I talk about the whorl that we left to come here-the Long Sun Whorl. So I'll try to make this as brief as I can. When we were on the lander, I thought as we all did that Pas had made a terrible mistake, that Green was a sort of death trap filled with inhumi."
"It is."
"No, it isn't. There are inhumi there, of course, and in large numbers. But not in overwhelming numbers. They prey upon the colonists-or try to – exactly as they prey upon us here."
"Sure."
"And they are killed in the attempt, not every time but quite often. Sinew and the colonists can kill them, you see, and frequently do. They lose nothing by it. The inhumi can kill them, too. I cleared a large sewer on Green once, Hide. It was choked with human bodies, several thousand I would say."
"That must have been horrible."
"It was. But, Hide, each of those bodies represented a slave or a potential slave, an inhuman who had bled to death instead of working and fighting for his masters. Sinew's victories leave him stronger, but the inhumi's leave them weaker."
Tonight Hide made the same argument to Jahlee, couching it in his own terms and presenting it much less concisely than I have given it here.
She shook her head. "We'll win. We're winning on both whorls already."
"Why?"
"Because you fight among yourselves far more than you fight us. Do you remember the question I asked your father when we came to the gate of Qarya?"
Hide shook his head.
"I asked what good the ditch and the wall of sticks were, when we inhumi can fly. He didn't answer me, because he knew the answer. Would you like to try?"
"I guess not."
"You sell your own kind to us for weapons and treasure," she told him almost apologetically, "and the more numerous you are, the crueler and more violent you are. Your cruelty and your violence strengthen us."
He stared at her, puzzled.
"Ask this man you call your father. He'll tell you."
I said, "He hasn't, and he won't."
She ignored it. "You took part in the war Soldo fought with Blanko. Who do you think won it?"
"Blanko," Hide said.
"You're wrong. We did."
When he had gone to sleep and Jahlee had flown, Oreb returned, saying, "Good things. Things come."
"Neighbors, you mean?" Although they had given me the chalice in Gaon and I had often sensed their presence at Inclito's, I had not spoken to one since they returned me to the Long Sun Whorl.
Oreb bobbed in agreement, his bright black eyes glowing like coals with reflected firelight. "Come quick!"
"Come already," a Neighbor said. I could not see his face, but his voice smiled.
Another joined him, and both sat with me at our fire, at my invitation. I said, "I know you won't eat our food or drink our wine, but I wish I had something to offer you."
"Wisdom," said the first, and the second, "Conversation."
"Wind and foolishness, I'm afraid. Will the inhumi really drive us away as they did you?"
The first shook his head. "You cannot go where we are."
The second asked, "Back to your ship, you mean?"
I had forgotten the word, and repeated it.
"To your starcrosser, to the hollow asteroid that you call the Long Sun Whorl."
"That isn't possible," I said. "There are very few landers in working order, and more of us every day."
The first said, "Then they cannot drive you away as they did us."
Oreb bobbed to that. "No go!"
"We must stay and fight." I felt my heart sink. "Is that what you're telling me?"
"We have nothing to tell you. We fought our inhumi a thousand years ago, exactly as you are fighting yours. You know the result. Why should you listen to us?"
"Good thing!" Oreb insisted. "Thing say."
I said, "Because you are wise, and have proven yourselves friends. If I could ask only one question-"
"We will not answer."
"I would ask you what god it was that you worshipped at an altar Oreb found for me in the hills between Blanko and Soldo."
"An unknown god," said the second Neighbor, but his voice smiled.
"I have been thinking about all the gods we had in the Long Sun Whorl, you see. Echidna, Tartaros, Quadrifons, and all the others. I hadn't thought much about any of them for a year or more."
The first Neighbor said, "We know very little about them. Much less than you do."
"We had been talking about Pas-by we, I mean Hide and Jahlee and I. Hide and I thought Pas had been correct to send the Whorl to this short sun. Jahlee seems to feel quite certain that he had miscalculated."
The second asked, "You do not agree?"
"No. But I may well be wrong. Years ago I concluded that Pas was capable of error, because it seemed clear there should have been female soldiers on the Whorl as well as male ones such as Hammerstone."
"Good man!" Oreb declared firmly.
"Yes, he was a good man in his way. All the soldiers were, perhaps."
The second Neighbor said, "If you do not wish to tell us about the gods you had in your ship, you need not feel obliged to."
"They were many," I said, "and they often quarreled, which is all you need to know. Echidna tried to kill Pas, and was killed by him for that, and Sphigx's city of Trivigaunte tried to dominate Scylla's city of Viron – which was my city, too."
He nodded.
"I was weighing the possibility that Pas had erred, as Jahlee contended; and it occurred to me that he had surely erred in permitting other gods in the 'Whorl. That had been a mistake, and in the end it nearly proved fatal to him."
The first Neighbor said, "Then this Pas may have erred in sending your ship here as well."
"Yes. But whether he erred or not, it is certain we did. We erred by accepting Echidna, Scylla, and all the rest as gods, and erred again by removing the Outsider from our prayer beads." I paused to clear my throat. "We took him out because we thought that he wasn't one of Pas's family, I dare say. We knew the names of Pas's seven children and he wasn't one of them. I doubt that it ever occurred to us that he might be Pas's father, or even that Pas had one."
"Pas is your god," the first Neighbor told me, "not ours."
"Exactly. But who were yours? That is the question."
"One we will not answer, for your sake."
"I don't see how I would be harmed by knowing who your gods were, unless you mean that it would be better for me to work it out for myself."
They rose to go.
"My son Sinew found an altar in the forest, the altar of an unknown god. Later I thought that Seawrack's mother must have been your sea goddess."
They backed away. "Farewell, friend!"
"Do you know about Seawrack and her mother?
I told some of you
."
They had vanished into the shadows before I pronounced the last word; but I heard one say, "Once, she was."
"Wet god? Wet god?" Oreb called plaintively after them. Did he mean the Mother? Or Scylla, who haunts my dreams? I have questioned him, but he refuses to answer or contradicts himself. Possibly he meant both.
* * *
It has been nearly a week since I wrote last, a week of constant rain and snow. Hide and I found a cave in the cliffside and spent many idle hours there, talking and playing draughts with stones. I did not write, having only this single sheet left.
This morning the snow stopped and the sun returned. We ventured out, determined to buy more grain for our horses, who are thin and hungry. It was clear and bright, but very cold. Every branch was covered with hard, bright ice, as they still are.
About midmorning we overtook a woman swathed in furs, riding sidesaddle upon a skittish white mule. Her face was hidden deep in a hood of white fur, but to me-and to Hide, too, I believe-she appeared regal. She asked to ride with us, saying that the road ahead was infested with bandits. Naturally, we consented.
Toward sunset we came to this inn, and the innkeeper ran into the road to speak to us. There were no more accommodations for ten leagues, he said, and dinner ready. "I'd stop, my lady, if I were you. You'll think I want your money, and I do, but it's good advice. We've food a-plenty here, and rooms for you and your servants."
She laughed at him. "These are not my servants, and everything I have is theirs if they want it."
I knew her by her laugh; and when I introduced her to the innkeeper's wife, I called her my daughter, Jahlee.
* * *
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