Gods of the Greataway

by Coney, Michael G.

  The soldiers of Malaloa stood at the shore, waiting for King Awamia’s response, and in due course they saw a Rider approaching. He pulled up and stepped ashore, while his mount cruised away to join fifty other orcas, all ready to carry soldiers against King Awamia if his reply was not satisfactory.

  The Rider’s name was Or Kala and he bowed before the king. “I took the message,” he said, “and King Awamia gave me audience. When I told him we had his daughter, he cried and embraced me. He had his servants prepare a vast meal, and we celebrated long into the night.”

  “Wait a moment.” King Usalo frowned. “We are at war with these people, in the name of the Code. We don’t celebrate with them. The girl Kelina is a hostage. Did Awamia understand that?”

  “He couldn’t think about war. All he could think of was his daughter. If we’d asked him to surrender the whole world, he’d have done it gladly. So far as he’s concerned, the war’s over.”

  “Oh.” King Usalo was somewhat disappointed. “So what happens next? You gave him the full message — that his daughter would not be returned to him until the gap between our two islands was narrow enough for her to step across?” His voice was a little pompous. He was rather proud of this stipulation, which killed two fish, as it were, with one spear.

  “I told him. It didn’t bother him. He sent his Riders to round up the guidewhales, and he set his villagers to tearing down the sails that the strangers had built.”

  “The strangers … Are they as ugly as we hear?”

  “Yes, although the older woman has a certain charm.”

  “How did they react when Awamia gave orders to destroy their invention?”

  Now Or Kala looked puzzled, remembering. “Oddly enough, they didn’t mind. In fact they were as happy as the king, particularly the young one shaped like a sunfish.”

  “You don’t suspect a trick?”

  “I don’t see what tricks they could pull.”

  “Strangers often have unusual powers.”

  “Not these strangers. They are just ordinary people from a culture that differs from ours. I think they come from Dry Land.”

  “Oh, that explains it.” Satisfied, the King went to check on Kelina. He could hardly believe his good fortune. Indeed, it was something of an anticlimax.

  *

  Seven days later the towers of Uami could be seen on the horizon, and within another day the shoreline could be discerned. Slowly the islands moved closer, and soon the seabirds began to fly between them. Two days later again, figures could be made out on the Uami shore.

  “Last night I had a foolish dream,” said King Usalo. “I dreamed that Awamia had tricked us after all, and when our two lands touched, a huge army sprang onto Malaloa and captured us.” He chuckled ruefully. “Just make sure we have adequate forces at the point of contact, Or Kala.”

  Ten meters separated the two islands now, and the Uami people could be clearly seen — probably not more than a hundred strong and most of them idle bystanders. On Malaloa, well back from the shoreline, there must have been a crowd of a thousand or more.

  “You can bring Kelina out now,” said King Usalo.

  Minstrels tell of Kelina’s last smile. They say it lighted up the land, it shone in the sea. They say that men who saw it dreamed of nothing else for the rest of their lives. They say that a sigh of wonderment came from the people on the Uami shore, and that there was nobody there who could but smile with her.

  And she spoke. More, she cried out in happiness, the first sounds she had made for many days. And she held out her arms, stepping to the edge of the grass, and now the gap was almost closed, and in a few moments she would be able to jump across and be reunited with her people and her father …

  But it was not King Awamia that she smiled at.

  She did not hold out her arms to her father.

  Neither was her cry of happiness directed at him.

  There was a hush, as people realized. And then came an ugly, disbelieving murmur. King Awamia stepped back as though he had been hit.

  Kelina was greeting the monstrous stranger — he of the orca chest and coarse black hair. It was the monster she smiled at, the monster she held her arms out to, the monster she called to so gladly.

  And he shuffled forward like some grotesque crab, extending a limb across the gap to her.

  A moan of outrage came from the people of Uami. Kelina the beautiful, the King’s daughter, was spoiled.

  And in the deeps, the Great Blue knew, and his rage knew no bounds. His mighty flukes thrust downward and his body leaped forward and upward, and he rose from the depths like a rocket.

  Now Kelina’s hand grasped for the monster.

  The Great Blue hurtled from the water in a fountain of spray, rising through the narrow passage between the islands, hurling the shore back so that the people were flung from their feet. A flashing azure shape unbelievably huge, he filled the sky as he arched up, across, and down into the ocean again, a moment’s vision of glistening majesty becoming a shallowing ripple on the surface.

  Kelina was gone.

  A jagged rent in the shore showed where she had stood.

  The ugly stranger had been thrown onto his back, and the other strangers crawled to him across the tossing land. They helped him to his feet and they stood awhile, as the Riders and their orcas sought the sea in vain for some trace of Kelina. Then, at nightfall, the strangers walked away and were seen no more.

  King Awamia and King Usalo, shocked by the Great Blue’s rage, agreed on a compromise, and Uami became a part of Malaloa but retained its own shoreline, connected by a narrow bridge of grass. Kelina was never seen again, and it is thought that her broken body floated under one of the islands to feed the fish.

  And the Great Blue? As the Song of Earth says, he was so shocked at the results of his moment’s rage that he sank to the bottom of the ocean and remained there until he died, having vowed never again to interfere in human affairs, even with the best of intentions.

  *

  The snake clouds had gone and the horse clouds rode the trade winds. The voyagers were returning, and now the cliffs of Pu’este rose above the waves.

  “Cheer up, Manuel,” said the Girl. “We’re nearly home.” She was concerned for the young man — and for herself. Manuel’s melancholy had lasted for several days now, during which he’d hardly spoken. All right, thought the Girl — so Belinda had been pretty, if a little fragile. And all right, so he’d loved her. But life goes on, and this was where the Girl was concerned for herself: She didn’t like her own reactions. She didn’t like that sly voice within her that kept saying, With Belinda out of the way, maybe Manuel will have more time for you, Girl …

  It was not a happy ship. Zozula, too, was sunk in gloom, although at least he spoke from time to time.

  “They aren’t True Humans,” he kept saying. “They’re no different from Wild Humans, basically. They just evolved a different way. And I’d been hoping for so much … God only knows what Juni will say.”

  They had spent several days with King Awamia, who had respected their technical knowledge and, until that last dreadful day, had made them very welcome. In the evenings they had sat around the base of his tower while young men sang songs of Polysitia and beautiful girls danced in the crimson light of the setting sun, highlighted by sun ovens. The songs told of the beginnings of Polysitia and of a terrible fate that waited for these gentle islanders on the shores of Dry Land.

  During a pause for refreshments, Zozula asked for details of this unspecified doom.

  “It is death for us to leave the life-rafts, friend Sossola,” said King Awamia. “The islands breathe an essence without which we cannot live.”

  “Oxygen,” said Zozula, an unhappy suspicion growing inside him.

  They sang to him of the Redemption, when a canoe filled with their ancestors had been caught far from land in a flat calm and the people had begun to suffocate. Half of them had died before they came across a raft of unusual weed floating in the d
oldrums — and found they could breathe again. They climbed aboard the raft and there they found the skull of the Redeemer, together with the Knife and Gourd, which became their great religious symbols.

  They sang of the Code: their people’s duty to the grass, as the weed came to be called. Centuries went by, and the people of Earth were grateful to the Polysitians, who had helped to make the atmosphere breathable again — but the Polysitians by now were trapped on their own islands. So many generations had passed that they were now unable to breathe anything but the rich air given off by the grass.

  They sang of the Greatest Voyage, when an archipelago of the islands left the Pacific and, at the request of the True Humans, made the perilous journey around Cape Horn and into the South Atlantic. They sang of battles, when the islands drifted too close to land and rough parties of Wild Humans attempted to board them, finding their slim, beautiful women irresistible.

  They were a people apart, and they were not what Zozula was seeking.

  “A waste of time,” he said, as they stepped ashore on Pu’este beach. “And Manuel could have got us killed, too.”

  “He had no way of knowing they looked on Belinda as a princess,” said the Girl hotly.

  “It was unfortunate, Zozula,” said Wise Ana. “Nothing more than that. We’re home now, and it’s all over.” She looked at him with her wonderful eyes, and he began to feel a little happier and to look forward to seeing the Dome and his fellow Cuidadors again.

  *

  Ana walked, even though she didn’t have to. That was the human in her. She walked inland, past the huge Dome with its adjacent Bowl, toward the mountains. She paused at the top of a rise and looked back to see three small figures in the distance, heading for the Dome. It seemed Manuel was accompanying the Girl and Zozula. This was probably all for the good. Ana’s mother had often spoken of the importance of insuring that those three people, collectively known as the Triad, stayed together.

  Ana’s mother …

  Ana suppressed a slight shiver at the thought of that blackcowled, enigmatic figure who spoke in riddles and demanded instant obedience. She walked on, climbing a dry watercourse between hillsides where vicunas nibbled at the sparse vegetation, tended by long-necked Specialists. Her mother knew she was coming — having probably taken a casual glance into the nearby Ifalong, thought Ana in mild exasperation. Consequently her pavilion was visible, a purple tent set in an alpine meadow. If anyone other than Ana had come thrusting through the trees, the pavilion would have been hidden on an adjacent happentrack.

  Shenshi said, “Ana. You come.”

  “Not unexpectedly, Mother.”

  “And how are your human protégés — the Triad?” Shenshi led the way into the tent, where they sat on soft cushions. Opposite them stood the Rock, touching the fabric of the ceiling.

  “It was terribly sad. Manuel found his girl, but she was killed by a whale just when it looked as though everything was going to be all right.”

  “If Belinda had lived, nothing would have been right,” said Shenshi coldly. “The purpose of the voyage was to rid the boy of that foolishness, once and for all. He and the other two have been chosen, and they have important work ahead of them. Starquin’s will be done.”

  “You know I can’t stand it when you talk like that, Mother.”

  “It may please you to know that on many happentracks Belinda lived and was reunited with Manuel, and they were given estates and lived happily until she died in childbirth, or Manuel was eaten by a rogue orca, or was poisoned by bad fish. As you well know, happentracks are infinite. You are privileged to have witnessed one of those happentracks where Starquin’s will was done.”

  “Was that blue whale an agent of Starquin?” asked Ana suspiciously.

  “It’s possible. Manuel’s love for Belinda was very strong. Perhaps the whale was the only way it could be extinguished.”

  “I thought Starquin knew everything and never needed to use mere animals to carry out his will.”

  “Starquin is not omniscient. When you become a Dedo, you will understand the limitations. He is motivated by a strong sense of self-preservation, and by your present standards he is ruthless. He is alive, Ana — a mighty living being. He is therefore imperfect in many ways, as am I. And you … But your time will come, very soon.”

  Ana was suddenly interested. “What’s that?”

  “I shall soon be leaving you, my daughter.”

  “But …” A thrill of apprehension made Ana stammer. “B-but I thought you would live forever!”

  “If I were going to live forever, I wouldn’t have needed to give birth to you …” Shenshi’s voice softened a little. “I remember when it came to me — oh, over one hundred and fifty millennia ago, during one of the ice ages. It was long before Starquin’s Incarceration, of course. I happened to be scanning the Ifalong, and I saw my own death. It was no big thing; just a fading away, at that time very uncertain. But time passes, and now I know my death is very close. It’s a pity it had to happen so soon, when such great events are building, and our recent Purpose is so shortly to be fulfilled.”

  “Mother!”

  “I apologize. I forget there is so much you don’t know. As I was saying, I foresaw my death, so I gave birth to you, to take my place.”

  “Who … who was my father?”

  Shenshi sighed. “You think like a human, Ana. That must all cease. A Dedo has no need of another human when she wishes to conceive a child. You will find out, when your time comes.”

  Ana’s exasperation grew. “Would you mind telling me what you’re talking about?”

  Shenshi appeared to withdraw into herself. For a long time she sat motionless, seeming not to breathe, while the fabric of the pavilion rippled in the soft wind and somewhere an animal cried. Her cowl had fallen over her face and Ana was visited by an unnerving fantasy: that if she reached out and lifted the black cloth, she would see nothing inside it. Just for a moment she found herself thinking longingly of the village and the mothers there — and how they were liked or laughed at or respected by their children. How good to have a human mother.

  But such emotions were not needed by her species. Ana had been lent those emotions by Shenshi, as a disguise. They would soon be taken back.

  “It’s time you knew,” said Shenshi at last.

  *

  Shenshi indicated the Rock. “Such Rocks are situated all over the Galaxy to serve as staging posts in Starquin’s travels through the Greataway. Certain other races are permitted to use the Rocks, too, traveling by the psetic lines that stretch between them. Our Duty is to tend the Rocks and to speed Travelers on their way by use of our skills.

  “I said that other races are permitted to use the Rocks. These races do not include human beings. Humans used to see Space as a four-dimensional thing. They traveled through it laboriously, in huge manufactured Spaceships, with a great expenditure of energy. It was tiresome and wasteful, but at least it kept humans busy, and out of the Greataway …

  “Until one day in the year 92,613 Cyclic.”

  LAUNCH OF THE STAR KINGDOM

  They were the last days of the Great Age of Space, although nobody knew it at the time.

  On that afternoon of hope and triumph, the LeBrun Starshell was crowded as never before. Spectators, well-wishers and tearful relatives jammed every available vantage point around the inside of the giant sphere, so that even the Spaceship yards themselves had their share of private citizens, who clung to scaffolding, stumbled over chains and hurt themselves on the angular accouterments of Space travel of the 926th century Cyclic.

  They swayed, they cheered and they gazed upward. A thousand kilometers away, the inhabitants of Earth watched the scene, too, gathered around their 3V alcoves. They watched and they wondered.

  In the center of the sphere hung the Star Kingdom, five kilometers long. Earth had never before seen such a ship.

  In those days they loved nothing so much as opulence, extravagance, technological wizardry and sheer
, overpowering, staggering size. The Star Kingdom had all of those. She was four times the size of any ship built to date. Her passengers, even now crowding her thirty thousand shatterproof ports to catch their last glimpse of the trappings of Earth, numbered one million. Each one had his own cabin, complete with deep sleep cubicle, Vicaripeep hookup, autochef with optional ethnic bias, and direct link to A-Citizen-of-Your-Choice. To while away those periods that passengers might elect to spend awake, the Star Kingdom had one hundred bars stocked with every drink of the known Galaxy, fifty health spas, and a giant diorama portraying in every detail the pleasure isle of Barbuda.

  Earth loved the ship. She was the symbol of the final conquest. She was big enough to be unaffected by gravity storms up to the maximum violence recorded. She carried not one but five Navigators, whose chromosomes had been enriched at birth by genes derived from pigeons — noted for high psy content. Three Captains ruled over all this: Captain Pounce, a muscular, tawny man with the slitted eyes of a mountain lion; Captain Albo-Dey, a woman of recent derivation and supreme intelligence, said to have certain alien genes in her make-up; and Captain Steady, noted for caution, the perseverance very necessary on long voyages, and an oddly reptilian blink. All of Earth knew their names and their faces. In the eleven years it had taken to build the ship, the officers — selected at the outset and publicized so much that their names had become synonymous with the glory of Space — had become legends. Probably one name, and one only, was more intimately associated in the public mind with technical brilliance and human mastery of High Space: the name of K. Isaac LeBrun, designer of the Star Kingdom.

  *

  LeBrun was no dilettante architect who drew pictures and left other men to fill in the details. From the initial laying of the spine of the Star Kingdom to the imminent launch, he had never left the Starshell, that man-made satellite of Earth where the ships docked and were maintained, and from which they set off on their voyages through Space. He supervised every moment of building, and personally hired — and fired — senior technicians in charge of the various aspects of construction. He had designed the giant engines, all eighteen of them slightly different to allow for differing needs and gravities. He had designed the control layouts, the recycling equipment, the very pattern on the fifteen million pieces of genuine chinaware. He had designed the Starshell itself. It was rumored, even, that he had designed Captain Albo-Dey.