The Moons of Barsk

by Lawrence M. Schoen

  Jorl didn’t hesitate. That’s what Pizlo would remember, forever. The last thought that would flash through his mind in the instant before he died. Jorl accepted the meme at once. He took it. He drew the nefshons into himself, receiving the totality of what and who Pizlo was. Tears welled up in Jorl’s eyes. He sighed and shook his head.

  “That’s … a lot to take in, but it doesn’t change anything. It might have, a long time ago, but I came to know and accept you for who you are around the last time I spoke with your father. I’ve known you most of your life, and I’ve seen you learn and grow despite what the rest of the planet has thrown at or withheld from you.”

  “But others haven’t. If I gave that meme to other Fant, to people who hated and feared me, who can’t see past the label of abomination, it might change them.”

  Jorl nodded. “It would. I have no doubt of that. You’d go from being a thing, some abstract exemplar, to being a person, frail and flawed as anyone else. You’d be more real to them than they are to themselves.”

  “So do it. Please.”

  “Do what?”

  “Spread my echo, Jorl. You can, right? You can make yourself big like you did, enough of you to circle all of Keslo, and the legion of you can pass my meme to everyone on Barsk.”

  “I never told you I could that.”

  “You didn’t have to. I saw you do it before it even happened. I told you so, back when I was a kid, back before any of that stuff with Bish.”

  “Pizlo, your father once said to me, that just because a thing can be done, doesn’t mean it should be done.”

  “But you could do it? You could give everyone an understanding of me.”

  “But if I did, what would I take away?”

  Comprehension crashed into him and though he stayed upright in Jorl’s study he fell to his knees in the Shadow Dwell. He cried out in both places, not as loudly as he had when the infant had died in his arms on Fintz, but with the same finality.

  “You’re talking about knowledge without choice.”

  Jorl nodded and Pizlo imagined the Archetype of Man would have looked the same had it been there wearing the body he’d made for it.

  “But that’s not fair!” He trumpeted, startling the tiny creatures within range. “Why is it more important to allow people their free will? Why do they get to be brutal and ignorant and hurtful?”

  “If you can ask that, you already know the answer.”

  He curled his trunk back, letting his nubs wipe away his tears. “It’s wrong to force understanding on them, because before they have it they wouldn’t want it.”

  “Something like that,” said Jorl. In the mindspace of his office he knelt and folded both his arms and ears around Pizlo. “I’m saying it’s not my place—not anyone’s place—to make that choice for someone else. Sometimes people do anyway, but it’s wrong. Margda did that.”

  “Margda, the woman who prophesied about you?”

  Jorl’s ears flapped and he smiled. “That’s the one.”

  “But she was a Speaker, and wrote the edict that says … oh. I get it. Her rules to break?”

  “Pretty much. Margda believed that everyone in the galaxy fell into one of two groups in the never-ending game of our lives. Either you were someone playing the game full out, or you were just a piece on the board existing to be used and expended by need or whim.”

  “Those are the only choices?”

  “She thought that. I don’t. If there’s more than one way to do a thing, then there’s surely more than two. And what I did to Bish all those years ago … I never intended to do that. I didn’t know I could do that. Like Arlo said, it should never have been done.”

  Pizlo pulled away and Jorl let him. Deep in the Shadow Dwell he got to his feet. “Arlo was pretty smart, wasn’t he?”

  “Your father was the wisest man I knew, both living and dead. I see a lot of him in you. Even more now that you’ve shared your meme.”

  “Yeah … but only because you accepted it.”

  Jorl shrugged. “What can I say, Pizlo? I know you. Yes, there are nuances and details swimming in my head now that weren’t there before. But no surprises.”

  “I’m not an abomination to you?”

  “Not to me. Not to your mother. Not to Rina. Not even to Dabni.”

  “Maybe. Maybe three and a half out of four. Okay.”

  “So you’ll come home?”

  “Yeah, but not right now. I … I’ve still got to think a few things through. But thank you. This has helped. A lot.”

  As he’d been taught, Pizlo severed the connection to Jorl. It wouldn’t stop his mentor from reestablishing it, if he chose, but that wasn’t a concern. Opening his eyes again he set off through the Shadow Dwell at a run, knowing his destination at last.

  * * *

  PARADOX and contradiction gave him purpose now. He’d been unable to convince Jorl that Klarce would change and once again do him harm. Dabni hadn’t been the source of the threat before, just its potential instrument. It had been Klarce all along. And if she’d closed one door and believed everything was fine again, he knew she could just as easily open some new one. Bad things were coming, all the moons said so. If no one else saw the possibilities looming ahead then he’d just have to deal with them himself. This, finally, was his real quest. Not to secure the ink for his tattoo, that had turned out to be just vanity. And not to save a child that couldn’t be saved, that was just ego and wishful thinking. But this, to help his friend and teacher, to risk himself to keep Jorl safe. And the one person who still had choice in the matter was Klarce. He had to persuade her not to open any other doors.

  Back at the dock, Dabni had thought his intention to go to Klarce a joke. She didn’t understand about quests. But … maybe he’d been too caught up in the journeying part of things. Did he really need to physically go to her? He’d asked the rain and been told no, that it wasn’t the right time yet. Yet? What did that mean? But the rain hadn’t offered any further explanation. It had taken all his ramblings and climbing to work the idea through. He’d been too literal. The traveling wasn’t the important part of a quest, to achieve his goal he only had to talk to her. And as Dabni had shown him, Klarce already knew about using koph to reach out to someone no matter the distance.

  He emerged from the forest at the same spit of beach where he’d last talked with Ulmazh. It had a nice resonance for the Speaking he needed to do. He lay down in the sand, closed his eyes, and crafted a mental space of himself floating high in the sky, above the rain, above the clouds themselves, with the naked sky shining down on him.

  * * *

  HE summoned the index he’d gotten from Dabni. It glimmered in his hands as he focused on it. Tens of thousands of threads in the index responded with a resonating shimmer when he sought Klarce’s name. Far too many for him to sort through to find the thread of someone he’d never actually met.

  But Jorl had, and Dabni, too. Pizlo added their names to his search, Boolean variables like he’d learned from one of Jorl’s books. He quickly found Jorl’s thread within the index, and then Dabni’s, and an intersecting thread that responded to the name with identity and resonance. Having found it in the index, he could find it anywhere now. Pizlo reached for her nefshons and instead of sensing the scattered particles of the dead he latched onto a thread from the living woman. He looped it in his trunk and tugged. Her awareness opened to him and he used it to pull her toward him from high up in the sky.

  “What? Who?” She flailed, arms and legs and trunk careening about. Though Klarce had doubtless traveled to many many places, she’d apparently never created an imaginary venue unburdened by a solid footing. With a thought he rotated the sky around them until Barsk’s space station approached them, engulfed them, and left them inside one of its many warehouses surrounded by stacks of cargo pods.

  Klarce’s response was to stop flailing and fall onto the floor. He reached out and offered her a hand up.

  “Hello, I’m sorry about that. My name i
s Pizlo. I’d like to talk to you about Jorl.”

  At first, she reached for his hand, but that must have been instinct rather than choice, because before his fingers had more than grazed her skin she pulled back and screamed at him.

  “Abomination! Get out of my mind!”

  He saw her reach out with trunk and both hands, gripping the unseen thread that connected them, and then she was gone.

  He reached out for her again, found a thread and tugged, but the connection was severed from the other end before it could form. He tried a third time, but without success. “Damn.” Pizlo closed his eyes on the space station and reopened them on the beach. Every choice created new possibilities and closed off others. Reaching out to Klarce from Keslo was one of the latter. He looked up into the falling rain, squinting at the clouds. “Well? That didn’t work. Now what?” And the answer came as the drops pelted his face. Now it was time to go.

  * * *

  HE broke through the forest’s edge within sight of the funicular that delivered people to the harbor, and adjusted his course for the pier where Jorl’s boat waited in its sloop. He’d have to borrow it. Again. So, maybe, if this was going to be a regular or at least frequent thing, he could talk to him about acquiring a simpler vessel just for him. The events from Fintz were still fresh in his mind, but he could imagine a day, some time far from now, when he might want to go off on another imram.

  With the harbormaster nowhere in sight, Pizlo cast off and eased Jorl’s boat into the harbor. Not far off, Druz waited with a spacecraft. Doubtless she was monitoring any approaching boats, the better to move out of their way before any drew close enough to see her vessel through the rain. But likewise, she could surely detect that he wasn’t any other Fant. She might wonder what he was doing, but she would not evade him.

  Quite the opposite, as it turned out. With no warning, he detected the bulk of the spacecraft moving toward him on an intercept course. He immediately powered down and left the wheelhouse to stand along the starboard side as the yacht approached. It slowed, opened a hatch, and scooped the smaller boat into its cargo hold with evident practice. Pizlo leapt onto a railing parallel to the boat where a Raccoon stood waiting for him. He stopped. Not one of the moons had mentioned anything about a Procy, though clearly this was the one Rina had met.

  “You must be Prince Pizlo,” said the Raccoon.

  “Just Pizlo,” he said.

  “Oh … I thought Druz said—”

  “Yeah, I’m sure she did. Who are you?”

  “Sorry, I’m Abenaki.”

  Dots connected in his mind. “From Caluma. Your mother, Santo, is a journalist. Denzi, your father, is a civil engineer specializing in waterworks. You want to bring other races to Barsk. It’s an intriguing idea, but I can tell you now that it won’t work. The Fant will never agree to it, and despite Jorl, several members of the Committee of Information will keep the proposal from ever reaching the senate floor. And that’s actually the least of the reasons, but it’s not my place to tell you the others. I’m sorry, but there you have it.”

  The Procy recoiled, the mask on her face making her widening eyes truly amazing to see.

  “How could you possibly know any of that?”

  “I don’t have time for this, but … I have to make the time because I know this happens. Fine. Listen to me. This is prophecy. Your prophecy.” He closed the distance to the Raccoon and wrapped his trunk around her arm, pulling her in close. “You’re going to have a choice to make soon. I won’t make it for you. I could, but I won’t. That choice will put you on a path alongside my own. You want to make a difference, want to improve the life of all people in the Alliance. I have the best chance of doing that, better than anyone who’s ever lived. Remember that when it’s time for you to choose. But for now, tell me where Druz is.”

  Abenaki stepped back like she’d been struck. She pointed with delicate fingers toward the inward hatch. “Through there. Turn right and follow the blue line on the wall all the way to the bridge. She’s there.”

  Pizlo was already moving. He didn’t need any lines. In fact, he was surprised he’d had to ask after her location. Maybe the moons couldn’t see inside the ship. But no, that was just his metaphor. His own talent for knowing things for some reason hadn’t served up that particular bit of information. No matter, he knew how to get to the bridge.

  * * *

  HE slapped the door control with his trunk and pushed through before it had opened all the way. Druz sat at first board. A glance showed most of the vessel’s controls and instruments were locked down. Just enough technology active to keep it steady and in place, and to scan and identify any approaching Fant.

  “How quickly can you ready us for flight?” He nodded as he walked past her and slipped into the seat at second board. He stopped with his hands raised over the controls, poised. He turned to look at her, his gaze repeating the question.

  “Why do we need to go? And more importantly, where?”

  “I’ll explain while I help you prep. Please unlock my board.”

  Druz did as he requested and his fingers began to fly. He left the Sloth to run through the checklists and safety precautions while he pulled coordinates and other numbers from his vision and locked them in by way of answering her in the specific. For the more general he turned to her when he was done.

  “To the moon, to Ulmazh. We need to go there now. I need to go there. And as this is the only ship that can get me there in time to do any good, I need you to take me there.”

  The Sloth had moved much more slowly at the main board but nonetheless completed her protocols while he said his piece. Now she sighed, locking both boards again but not resetting them back to rest. She shook her head. “We cannot do that, Little Prince. While I’m very fond of you, and I’m well aware that Jorl holds you in the highest regard, only he can dictate to me where I take this vessel.”

  “We’re doing this for Jorl. He’s in trouble. But to save him, we need to go to Ulmazh. I need to get there.”

  “I’m sorry, but no.”

  “Druz, you know all about my precognitive talents. You’re the one who said how good I was, how powerful. Believe me now when I tell you we have to do this thing to keep him safe.”

  “A moment then, and I’ll contact Jorl. If he approves the destination, I’ll happily take you there.”

  “No!” The syllable resonated along his trunk. “He won’t believe me, and when he tells you so, you won’t either.”

  “Is there some proof you can show me, something that triggered this dire vision?”

  “I don’t have any … no, wait, I do.” He snatched at the amulet on his throat and fumbled the controls a moment.

  A voice like a tiny version of Dabni rose from the disc. “They wanted me to kill him. They didn’t give me a choice. They rescinded the order or he’d be dead by now. Do you understand? They asked me to murder my husband, the father of my child.”

  “Murder?” From her expression, Pizlo knew she’d recognized the voice.

  “Yes.”

  “And you need to go to this moon?”

  “I do.”

  “Because the person who gave Dabni that order is there. And even though she took it back, what’s to stop her from commanding Dabni to do it again?”

  “Me,” said Pizlo. “I’m going to have a talk with her.”

  “Little Prince, with a notable handful of exceptions, no one on Barsk will speak with you.”

  “That’s right, but we’re leaving Barsk. Ulmazh is going to be different.”

  “How do you know?”

  He smiled at her as she unlocked her board again and finished the last bit of preparation. A light on the board went out. Far below in the cargo hold a ramp retracted and a hatch sealed itself. The Brady activated the shipwide comm system. “Abenaki, get yourself secured. We’re about to get under way.”

  “Thank you,” he said, and strapped himself into the second board’s seat.

  “You didn’t answer my que
stion. How do you know?”

  “I just do.”

  “This is something one of your moons told you?”

  He shook his head. “Not quite. This is something I chose for myself. I’ll explain to the moon when we get there.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  CONTRITION AND RESOLUTION

  “IT … he … he was here.” Klarce didn’t bother—or possibly couldn’t—locking down a mindspace before yanking Sind into a conversation. They floated in darkness until habit kicked in and her unconscious provided a familiar venue, the simple cafe where they had met each morning back when she had been his assistant.

  “What? Where, on Ulmazh?”

  “No, you fool. Think! It’s not like he has access to spacecraft. Here, in my mind. That abomination, he was here.”

  “That’s absurd.” Sind projected displeasure at the insult. “You’re just stressed. You’re always complaining about being required to use koph so frequently, why are you doing so now? Especially given your condition.”

  Klarce waved away both his argument and his minor hurt with a swipe of her trunk. “I’ll take a break. I’ll even grab a brief nap and let Temmel medicate me. But in the meantime, I need you to call the Full Council together.”

  “You’re being ridiculous. What you’re describing could not have happened.”

  “I tell you—”

  He interrupted her. “And if you pursue this … this … hallucination to the Full Council I will not be able to protect you. Not everyone is pleased with the amount of autonomy you’ve been showing, and they’ll use this as a justification to remove you completely. If that happens, I won’t be able to help.”

  “Damn it, Sind, will you listen to me? The abomination of Keslo reached out to me. Do you understand me? He summoned me. He’s a Speaker.”

  He shook his head. “That’s simply not possible and you know it. There has to be some other—”

  “He had a copy of the index in his hands!”