Too hard on whom? Galena wondered. "Okay," she said slowly. "You make the rules."
Suddenly, Thea gave her an impulsive hug. "Thank you," she whispered. As she disappeared behind the bedroom door she glanced back. The light caught her eyes with an odd glint, as if the retinas were brushed metal. For a moment she looked utterly alien.
That night Galena lay alone on the lumpy couch, kept awake by wind in the branches outside, the skittering of small feet across the roof, insect wings on the window screen. None of the soporific sounds she was used to-the roar of garbage trucks, the wail of sirens. No comforting weight of possessive cat on her feet. She wondered if Thea were awake.
This desire to be held and comforted was childish, she told herself. You're an adult now. You know how to survive.
Lying in the dark, she imagined a tumor growing inside her, a living thing that wasn't her, like the child she never had nor wanted. Nature had a way of getting back at people who didn't follow its rules. And reproduction was the first rule, the evolutionary imperative.
She had never made a decision to swear off men-just drifted into it, the path of least resistance. Her last attempt at a straight relationship had been a madcap fling with a sculptor. The only time they had had sex together, while she was still basking in the afterglow, he had smiled at her and said, "You look like a woman who's just been fucked."
The statement had jarred her. Why was it she that had just been fucked, and not him? He had slipped, and revealed the real reason he had done it-not for the enjoyment, no strings attached, but in order to transform her into something she hadn't been before, as if she had been raw material he had made into something. As if he had put his mark on her, like a dog pissing on a lamppost.
From that moment she knew that for men, sex was inextricably connected to power, and always would be. No matter what they said, or bow enlightened they acted, sex was dominance to them, on such an instinctual, hardwired brainstem level they could never overcome it. And she had far too vivid a sense of her own individuality to ever imagine herself as a thing marked as a man's territory.
Thea's love had always been free of other agendas. It had never been mixed up with power, or pride, or self. It had been a spontaneous gift, unpremeditated, as if it sprang from the air between them. Galena had never had to give up being who she was in order to be who Thea loved.
She hugged the pillow to the hollow feeling in her body, wondering if loneliness caused cancer.
In the morning, Galena ate a breakfast of granola bars and tea; Thea was not hungry. By daylight, the cabin looked more dilapidated than ever. One of the kitchen windows was broken, and there was an old mouse nest in a corner. "How did you find this place?" Galena asked.
"Everyone stays here when they first come," Thea answered. "It's where you wait."
"Wait for what?"
"For the Dirigo. I'll be moving on soon."
"On to where?"
"The colony. I'm almost ready."
"Will you show me the colony?"
"If you want."
Thea set out as if to walk, but Galena asked how far it was, then persuaded her to take the car. Thea looked at the Hyundai as if she'd forgotten how they worked, then opened the door awkwardly. Galena watched her carefully, suspicious. "What do you want to see first?" Thea asked. "What's the choice?"
"There are work sites all around us. The Wind Clock, the Haunt, Nostra Knob."
"What have you been working on?"
"The Flens."
"Let's see it, then."
A few miles down the road, Thea suddenly exclaimed, "Stop! Stop here!"
Galena pulled over. They were high on the mountainside; on their right hand was a steep dropoff, giving them a wide view of a wooded valley that wound into blue distance, interrupted by the outthrusting roots of mountains on either side.
"Look out there," Thea said. "Do you see the painting?"
The vegetation on north slopes, south slopes, and valley floor was a pattern of green, teal, and umber. It was as if someone had taken a giant brush and painted the land to form an abstract of overlapping tints. "Isn't that natural?" Galena said.
"Of course not. This was one of the first landscape paintings the colony did. Here, let me drive so you can watch."
A little reluctantly, Galena got out and went to the passenger side. Thea said, "Unfocus your eyes just a little the first time," then started the car slowly forward.
At first Galena saw a complex patchwork of sunny streaks. Then, as her perspective changed, a dark, spear-shaped wedge began to push its way into the foliage colors. As it touched each band of color, that area went suddenly dark, drab, and uniform. It had almost reached the opposite side when a cascade of rusts, siennas, and lemons erupted from the speartip and turned the landscape bright again. The car stopped. Galena blinked out at the view, which had been transformed by traveling 300 feet along the road. "flow did they do that?" she asked. "By painting the back side of every leaf?"
"don't know," Thea said. "It looks different at every time of day, and every type of weather."
Galena shook her head. "Landscape painting. I see what you mean. Not painting the landscape, but painting the landscape. How many people did it take?"
"I don't know," Thea said again.
As they continued on, Galena looked on every prospect around her with new attention, to find more trompes l'oeil hidden in the leaves.
They arrived at the Flens down a rocky path. At first, it looked like a range of rampart cliffs, formed into organ-pipe pillars of a thousand dimensions. A swarm of people was at work on the cliff face, some on scaffolding anchored into the rock, some swinging on ropes. Though she tried from several angles, Galena could not tell what the sculpture was going to be.
When she asked, Thea laughed. "The sculpture is not in the rock," she said. "The medium we are working in is wind. At sunset, the mountain above us cools faster than the valley, and a wind rushes down the slope. The Fiens will catch it in a thousand fissures, and part it, till it forms a shape. We will know we have gotten it right when the rock pipes sing. It's almost done; we are tuning it now."
"You are making an organ from the mountain," Galena said, struck by the strangeness of the concept.
"An organ only the wind can play," Thea answered.
As Galena watched, the workers vacated one area. There was a puff of smoke, then an echoing explosion.
"They use dynamite?" Galena asked.
"We use anything that will do the job," Thea answered.
The workers moved back into the dynamited area, their movements efficient and coordinated. Galena could see no one in charge, hear no shouted orders. "Who designs the artworks?" she asked. "Who is in charge?"
Thea looked at the ground and shrugged.
"Thea?" Galena said.
"You will just misinterpret it," Thea said.
"Try me. Come on."
"The colonists just know what to do. They feel what's right. Imagine having the skill to produce each effect deliberately. Imagine thinking, "I need pathos here, or an ominous effect,' and knowing exactly what you have to do to create it, as if it were being whispered in your ear. And everyone else knows the same."
"Kind of like having a muse?"
"That's right. The Dirigo are our muses."
Gently, Galena said, "You never needed to use anyone else's inspiration before. You never worked by anyone else's plan. That's what made you so good."
Nervously, Thea brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "I was never as good as you thought I was."
Galena was about to protest strenuously, but Thea said, "You blew me up so big, nothing I could do would ever justify it. Everyone's expectations were so high."
"Thea, kid, you deserved it!" Galena said.
"You see what I mean," Thea said, then turned back toward the car.
"So is that my sin?" Galena shouted after her. "Having faith in you?"
Thea didn't stop or answer. When they both got back to the car they sat a while
in silence. Galena considered, and rejected, half a dozen strategies: conciliatory, wounded, encouraging, authoritative. None of them were sufficient to the way she felt.
When Thea finally spoke, it wasn't about Galena at all. "Here, no one makes the art for any reason but because we want to."
They drove on to other sites. The art was everywhere. It was fashioned from streams and sand, shadows, lichen, and rain. In one place a flight of swallows was an intermittent part of the sculpture. After a while it was impossible to see the landscape as a backdrop, an accidental thing.
"Supposing these Dirigo were real-" Galena started. "They are real," Thea said.
"Okay, okay. Are they trying to tell us something?"
"I don't know. You're the one who gets messages from art."
"Do they talk to you?"
"No. Not the way you mean. We don't know what they want. We're not even sure they know we're any different from the trees and rocks. Except-"
"Yes?"
"Some people feel they're trying to remember something. Something they once knew long, long ago, but now they've forgotten."
"Like us all," Galena said.
The last site they visited was what Thea called the Pivotary. They drove up a long gravel road that climbed past the trees into a cold, bleached world where the very air seemed purified and rare. Through the afternoon an ache had been growing somewhere between Galena's back and gut; when they reached the end of the road she parked and sat a while, waiting for it to subside. The sun was low, but above them the sky was still bright.
They walked side by side up a gravelly path that curved between two spurs standing out from the mountain like rock gates. Beyond them, in a sheer-sided bowl, lay a mountain lake, its surface so perfectly still it mirrored every rock around it. When they came to a halt beside it, and their footsteps ceased, silence settled in. The air seemed so crystalline it might break at a touch.
In a hushed voice, Thea said, "This is where the Dirigo live. They've been here for eons, maybe since the beginning. It's possible that the Blackfeet Indians knew about them. We think other humans may have known, once, in other times and places. We come here to invite them in. Don't worry, they can't inhabit anyone who is unwilling. You would have to go into the lake to make them part of your life."
"Like a baptism?" Galena said.
"That's right."
There was a silence. At last Thea said hesitantly, "You could do it, too. You could join us."
"Oh, Thea. When will you learn? I don't have the talent for art."
"You could. There are people in the colony who never made a thing before coming here."
"So that's what the Dirigo offer? Instant talent?"
"Vision. Creativity. A feel for the elements. If that's talent."
"What a deal," Galena said, stirring a pebble at her feet. "You'd have to be crazy to turn it down." She glanced sidelong at Thea. "But what's the catch?"
"There are only catches in a human context. Catches belong to the outside world."
"The human world, you mean. Catches are part of being human."
"All right," Thea said. "The catch is, I have to hurt you, by leaving you behind."
They stood looking at each other then-communicating, Galena thought, for the first time, though not a word was said. I need to say it aloud, Galena thought. I have to admit how badly I need her.
As the light shifted with the setting sun, it caught Thea's eyes, and the retinas reflected through, opaque as mirrors, beautiful as gemstones. A chill went down Galena's spine. She grasped. Thea's hand. It felt cold.
"Have you already gone into the lake?" she asked.
Thea nodded. "Three weeks ago."
"Can you still back out?"
"I don't want to."
She was the same, but unknowable. Unchanged, yet wholly different. "What did I do to make you want this?" Galena said.
"It has nothing to do with you."
It couldn't be true, Galena thought. Somehow, this was her fault.
"Look!" Thea said, pointing out over the lake. "They've come."
The sun had set, and darkness leaped up from the ground. But the sky was still light, and the lake, reflecting it, glowed azure in the twilight. Above it, a constellation of sparks danced, firefly lights cavorting. Around them the air shimmered as with heat waves. Galena glimpsed something like a shred of iridescent gauze, gone as soon as she focused on it.
"What are they doing here?" Galena whispered. "What do they want?"
"The art," Thea said. "It's all they want. To make beautiful things. They can't do it themselves-, they need our hands, our ingenuity."
She was gazing at them entranced. I am losing her, Galena thought.
The valley was growing dark; now faint streaks of colored light flashed and disappeared above the lake, like an aurora, or a reflection from a light that wasn't there.
Galena took Thea's hand firmly in hers. "Come on," she said, "I'll drive you home."
Following the headlights down the steep road, Galena remembered how, in the days when Thea had still gone down to her old studio to work, Galena had picked her up after work, to drive her home. Sometimes she would climb the steps and hear the artists who shared the space laughing together uproariously, like teenagers. When she entered the room, the laughter would cut off self-consciously. Even if she told them to go on talking, the atmosphere would turn stiff and formal, as if Teacher were watching. It had made Galena hate to go there after a while, and feel out of place, unwanted.
There was an ache in her gut that said, No more future, no more chances. Always the future had been there, a sketchbook where she could try out new scenarios. Now experimentation was done; only action was left.
She came to the main road, then retraced the way back past the turnoff to the Flens, past the landscape painting, speeding faster with every mile. As pine trunks flashed by in the darkness, Thea said, "That was the turnoff to the house. You missed it."
"I know," Galena said.
The road curved and plunged downward, into the valley of the stone shapes. Thea said tensely, "Stop, Galena. I can't leave."
"Yes, you can," Galena said. "And I think you'd better, before they brainwash you completely."
She pressed down on the gas, wanting to get past the rock formations that loomed in frozen motion over the road. The passenger side door opened, and Galena heard the pavement rushing past. She reached over to grab Thea's arm, only to feel it pull away. The loony girl was actually going to jump. Galena braked hard, and the car slewed around on loose gravel. For a moment she had a terrifying out-of-control feeling. Then the car came to rest in the roadway, facing back the way it had come. The headlight beams pointed crookedly into the dust and exhaust. The passenger seat was empty.
Galena left the car door open and walked down the harsh beams of light, searching the shoulders for a sign, her stomach muscles clenched. Then, ahead on the roadway, she saw Thea's silhouette, walking steadily away from her. She sprinted to catch up.
"Thea!" She grasped the girl's arm and forced her to turn around. "Are you-" The headlights caught Thea's eyes and they shone back, bright and preternatural.
Instinctively, Galena stepped back. Then a desperate sense that she was losing overcame her, and she grasped Thea by the shoulders. "Fight them, Thea! Be yourself. Don't surrender, don't let them control you."
A wan smile crossed Thea's face, too wise and knowing for her young features. "Myself?"
"Yes." Galena clutched her tight. "The Thea I knew."
Thea's voice was maddeningly adult. "The Thea you invented, you mean. I know all about being dominated, Galena."
Galena loosed her grip, deeply stung. "That's not true! All I ever wanted was for you to be yourself."
"Then let me go," Thea said.
"Not to give up your freedom," Galena said stubbornly. "Not to become something that's not even human."
"The only humanity I lose is the ability to make things ugly."
"Oh, isn't that great," Gal
ena said, bitingly sarcastic. "Why don't we all join the Dirigo, then, and have a world of people who want nothing but beauty. A world of saints and artists."
"Why not?" Thea said.
There was a cloud of sparks around her head, like a halo in a medieval painting, but they cast no light on her features. Half to them and half to her Galena said, "Because it wouldn't be a human world, Thea."
There was a silence. The rock shapes around them seemed to be listening. "Then I don't want to be human," Thea said.
She was leaving her face, retreating back behind those eyes that revealed nothing. When she turned again to walk into the dark, there was no one left to stop.
The shoal of silver slivers that had hung above Thea's head did not leave with her. They still hung in the air, darting about in school formation.
Galena knew that she too could wear a halo of stars if she only consented. There was a heavy lump inside her gut-her own inhabiting being, eating her away from inside.
"Get out of here!" she shouted at the pinprick lights above her. "Let us be!
You've got no business trying to make us better than we are."
Her footsteps sounded heavy and corporeal as she walked back to the car. When she had turned it around she paused with her foot on the brake, caught on a snag of grief. For a moment she rested her forehead on the steering wheel, then shifted blindly into Drive.
She had her comebacks ready by the time she got to Williston. When the car dealer's eyebrows cast aspersions her way, she said, "The Dirigo didn't want me. I guess they saw I was already alienated enough."
She would have been ashamed to commit a pun in Chicago, but this was North Dakota.
The sweaty, overly familiar salesman in the seat next to her on the plane found out where she had been and said jocularly, "Did you see any aliens?"
"Not as many as I've seen since coming back," Galena retorted.
As they circled high above the fumes and grime of O'Hare, caught in traffic, she looked down at the barren mess humanity had made of the landscape, and imagined it all melting away like one of Thea's frost paintings.
It would never happen. If humanity were offered salvation on a silver platter, someone would probably just mug the messenger. She shifted, feeling the bed of nails beneath her.
The Year's Best Science Fiction: Fifteenth Annual Collection Page 76