Skeen's Search

by Clayton, Jo;

  “To get Fafey to speak at all, I had to give him Kinravaly’s Hand, which I had leave to do if I thought it necessary.” She spoke gravely, her gaze firm on Uratesto who sat with his teeth clamped on his lower lip, his barely suppressed fury turning his eyes bloodshot. “Who touches him now faces Kinravaly’s Ire. Fafey took the alien to the next Gurn and turned him over to another worker he wouldn’t name. I didn’t press him on that. It happened over and over; he was passed from hand to hand about the world, paying for this help with stories of Beyond the Veil and bits of silver and gold.” She smiled slightly, amused. “No one told him how rare such metals are on Rallen. Other than that, from the tales I heard, he collected more than he gave and when Selyays heard of him and tried to pick him up, he got away from her ortzin like a greased mo worm and vanished. After considerable effort I managed to trace him to Tiksa Spat where he’d had a score of Ykx helping him modify his ship. He was gone several months before I found his traces, Fafey thought off-world and back through the Veil of Fire, which was why he was finally willing to talk to me.” The Kinra stirred as she stopped speaking.

  Selyays leaned forward eagerly, tapped the arm of her chair with her polished ivorine claws. “There’s a list of the Gathers and Gurns the alien visited? You give us some idea of the items he traded?”

  Zelzony glanced at the rekka. “The places, yes. The Beyond the Veil artifacts, for the most part, no. They’ve dropped so far out of sight they won’t see daylight for a century.” She waited for more questions but Hatenzo was looking dreamily at the wall behind her, Tyomfin and Talahusso were whispering together, Sulleggen and Uratesto were glaring into their laps, mouths clamped into thin lines. They’d go over their copies of the report line by line, probably even glyph by glyph, before they ventured any sort of comment.

  She sighed. “The alien appears to have been a catalyst, touching off radical increases in certain behaviors.” She dropped her eyes to the rekka readout, though she didn’t really need help remembering the numbers. “Medicals have reported a 239 percent increase in claustrophobic seizures. Nearly half of these seizures result eventually in death, usually from depression-enhanced illnesses. In your reports you’ll find Gurn and Gather breakdowns on specific types of seizure and death along with a distribution chart. I have not included the deaths from suicide but put those in a separate listing.” She cleared her throat, called up a new set of numbers, then brushed a hand across her eyes, a futile attempt to brush away the memory that haunted her nights … a visit to her home Gather in Eggetakk on one of her many world circles during this investigation … agitation, wailing, curses piled onto her because her kin could not bear the blame they felt … her brother, her youngest dearest brother she’d cuddled, raised, loved fiercely, defended from everyone, her youngest brother had fled the Gather an hour before she got there, riding a stolen wing into the wildlands, cousins racing after him to stop him, her brother, her dearest brother a fireball spiraling down to crash onto the stone before she could reach him … why? That was the worst of it. No one could tell her why, nothing she learned about his last months could tell her why, the only answers she got came in the numbers she was about to recite.

  “There has been a 973 percent increase in suicides,” she said, her voice hoarse in spite of her attempt at coolness. “I include a frequency chart of the methods used. The most prevalent is the fade, where the individual stops eating, drinking, sleeping and simply dies in spite of all attempts to break through to him. More troubling,” she swallowed, then drove herself on, “is a swiftly spreading fad, I don’t know if that’s the right word, but I’ll leave it for the moment, a spectacular way of dying.” She closed her hands tight about the gourd, fixed her eyes on the wall, willing herself to keep her anguish from showing, her words coming slow and flat when she spoke. “The individual often accompanied by friend witnesses who try to talk him out of it, this means of death seems to be confined to males, wings to the nearest wasteland, jettisons the wing, soars as high as he can, douses himself with the most inflammable liquid he can get his hands on, then lights up and plunges burning back to earth. The first of these fireballs occurred on the first Sorrow Day after Rostico Burn left the world. It was a minor poet with little recognition who was also a failed teacher working as a grubber’s groom at Yahloc Farm. The death song he left behind suggested he was reacting to the closing of the Veils about Rallen and the name of the alien. Rostico Burn. It seems the second part of that name means wounding by fire. There were two such deaths that same year, one on the Day of Landing, one on the winter solstice. This year there have been so far forty-nine such deaths, though there are two or three that I’m not sure are real suicides; they could be disguised killings.” Again there were protests, the loudest and most emphatic coming from Sulleggen; Uratesto clamped his mouth shut, contented himself with glaring at her. She ignored the noise and plunged on, speaking in a monotone that rode over their passions with the inevitability of a glacier. “I am sure I needn’t remind you Sorrow Day arrives in three months. Can any of you prevent the rain of Burndeaths I foresee if this trend continues?” She didn’t wait for an answer, but continued talking over their interjections. “Less serious, but still troubling is the drop in the productivity of workers. Absenteeism, apathy, drugs. Before this we’ve had some trouble with youngsters, the tweeners not yet adult, who have been creating their own bemusements. They always seem to know what drugs are available, how to grow and process them, what enticing new twists have been added by some crazy youth tinkering with them and with himself. Information of that sort seems to flow on the wind from tweener to tweener.

  During the past two years the situation has changed. Someone has taken over manufacture and sale of the most popular items. Lom, gett, zars, gloy, keck, shey. Usage of these is up dramatically, the problem is widespread among younger workers who seem even more hopeless and alienated than their parents. Alienated. That’s a pun of sorts, I suppose. And the dealers are beginning to get hold of our children; the infection started among the worker children, but it has been spreading to the pre-fertile adults in the professional and managerial classes. That is not generally known because in those classes, especially the managerial, the act of drugtaking is considered shameful as well as stupid; the parents are struggling to cope with their children and their respectability at the same time and finding it increasingly difficult. Which is another reason productivity is off in these areas. Your ortzin, Kinra, are also beginning to be affected, not so much by the drugs as by bribery and other such activities of the dealers. In most cases the rot hasn’t spread far; if you act decisively and swiftly, you can cut it out. Where possible, I have listed names and the proof needed to sustain the accusation; however, I do not pretend to a thorough assessment of the orzala forces. The Kinravaly Rallen will speak to you later, one by one, and has told me she will add her resources to yours if her help is requested.” Zelzony straightened her back. “I have spent the past ten days in retreat, contemplating what is written in the full report. Obviously there are many causes of the malaise that has attacked our folk, each case is subtly different from every other. However there seem to be two factors that have hastened a development that otherwise might have taken decades rather than years to reach this state. The first is this: Each year the Veils of Fire are visibly closer to us, a potent reminder of what happened the last time we plunged into them. And by some unfortunate anomaly the section of the Veils closest to us is particularly thick and bright. Some nights even I feel uncomfortable outside looking up at them. The second factor is the arrival and even more, the departure of Rostico Burn. His arrival reminded us that there is a very large universe beyond the Veils, his departure reminded us that we are eternally cut off from it. These things combine to reinforce a loss of hope.”

  She sighed, slid her fingers over and over the smooth bumpy surface of the gourd. “When hope is gone, life’s meaning goes; with meaning gone, the will to live and strive is gone. We need the hope of soaring, Kinra, Kinravaly Rallen
. Before we entered the Veils the first time, we were beginning to work on a starship, gathering ourselves for the generations of hard sacrifice and harder work it would take to reach first for the asteroids and the metal there, then to relearn the old lessons and blend them with the new. Even now Bohalendas is working on ways to bridge the gap between our organics and the metal-based technologies of the items Burn left behind. If we can turn hopelessness into a vigorous new dream, and harness Ykx energies to that dream, then much of the malaise will vanish. It will be expensive in resources and personnel, but it can be extended over a very long period if our folk can see a steady succession of small successes and know in their bones that their grandchildren will see what they will not.” Zelzony thought of saying more, but did not. Either they accepted the data in the report, or they rejected it, and they’d do that more on who and what they were, than on anything she could say or write. None is so blind as he who will not see. Sulleggen? Uratesto? If they acknowledged and acted on the information in the report, how long would they stay in power? Hard to say, but a little hope could be deadly in the soup they were cooking in their Gurns. I’ve been riding along too easy, sitting on the surface of things, she thought bitterly, I’ve played love with Zuistro and my others and forgot about my own. Eggetakk was a good place once, I suppose it still is, but Marrallat? Kinravaly and Zem-trallen should have done something about Marrallat and Urolol decades ago. When did it start? When did we lose control of the far side of the world? Not with Zuistro and me, no, long before us. But that doesn’t excuse us. It should not have taken the chance coming of an outsider to alert us to the sickness on Tanuka Ziga. Whatever happens now, we’ve got to start cleaning that stable. Generations of grubber dung, layer on layer, it’ll take more generations to muck it out. With the Sul clan and the Uras fighting us for every layer. That’s another reason to get this starship project working, once the excitement starts seeping into those Gurns.… She sighed. Talahusso? He could go either way, hmm, if he has a hand in awarding contracts.… Hatenzo? Can’t do without him. Can’t read him either. Itekkillykx will get a lot of work out of this, but they’ll be the ones called on to sacrifice most, can’t help that. If he stays neutral, I’ll probably lose Itekkill. Selyays? She’s sold already, bless her. Can’t do without the thinkers at University. Tyomfin? He’s for it, thank the All-Wise. That’s it, then. Two against, no matter if the sky is falling. One engima. One who could be bought, and fairly cheaply at that, inclined to be for something that will increase the importance of Oldieppe. Two for, no matter what. She gazed expectantly at the Kinravaly, waiting for her decision. Zuistro knew about Zelnozy’s plan, but she hadn’t commented beyond giving her permission to have the plan presented to the Kinra.

  The Kinravaly stood. “That is sufficient for the moment, I think. You, our Kinra, will read and consider the report. Talk it over among yourselves if you wish, prepare arguments in support and against the conclusions drawn and the plan outlined on the final pages. Prepare challenges of any data you think distorted or out of context. Meet here seven days hence and present your arguments, your challenges. I will hear you and at the end of that session, however long it takes, I will give you my thoughts on the matter.” A moment’s pause. Her eyes moved over the faces of the Kinra. “During that time none of you will speak to the Zem-trallen and she will not speak with you. If you have questions, keep them until the Kinra meets.”

  Zelzony stood, watched the Kinravaly walk around her chair and out the small door with the lack of ceremony that characterized all of her public appearances. As soon as the door clicked shut, she turned and went out, friendly eyes, hostile eyes, noncommittal eyes following her; none of the Kinra tried to stop or question her and she felt a surge of gratitude to the Kinravaly for arranging that. Seven days of peace. Trouble was, that meant seven days of waiting and wondering.

  Two days later Zelzony walked in the garden with Zuistro.

  “I can give you twenty researchers and perhaps five agents. No doubt you’re right and that precious pair know most of your people by now. Don’t rush things, Zeli; you do, you know.”

  “Give me Borrentye with them, Zo; let me set him to work on the problem of clan Sul and clan Ura, that sort of manipulation is not my strength, you know that. Impatience, yes and the wrong twist of mind. I don’t hesitate to admit it. Besides, there’s a possibility I HAVE to look into.”

  Zuistro sighed. “The suicides that might not be.”

  “It’s not something I can trust out of my hands, the evidence I have is too fragile; I shouldn’t have mentioned my suspicions in that report, that was stupid. I am careless, Zo. And lazy with it. But this worries me more than the other thing. If Ykx have begun to kill Ykx for the pleasure of it … I don’t know what to think.” Zuistro murmured comforting sounds; Zelzony turned her head and kissed the hand that curved about her shoulder. “Are you going to let me have my ship?”

  “How can I not, oh, wisest of my counselors? You argue the need so very exhaustively and I do not use that world lightly. Lightly,” Zuistro repeated with a soft gurgle of amusement, “that’s not an apt word either for that tome you had me reading the past two days.” Another chuckle. “Your ship and as many rumors as my mouth can spread. Stay with me tonight?”

  “That bitch Sulleggen is bound to have her lice following me, even if she doesn’t dare meddle with you. I want … I want very much to stay, but I won’t let her have anything she can use against you.”

  “My lice are smarter than hers, they’ve herded hers away from us, trust Borrentye for that.” Zuistro sighed again. “I’ll miss him, but he says his apprentice is coming along very well indeed. Yes, I meant to lend him to you all the time. Come. I’m hungry enough to eat a grubber without washing it.”

  In the year that followed the convocation of the Kinra, Rallen began to hum with rumor, a mosquito whine at first, hardly noticeable above the daily noises, but it grew rapidly in intensity and volume. We had ships once, we can have them again, the hum said. Where one has come, there one can go. We can soar again, WE CAN SOAR.

  YEAR FIVE AFTER THE COMING OF ROSTICO BURN.

  Veratisca spiraled down onto the ruined tower top. The night sky burned overhead; the Veils were brighter than last year, yet they seemed somehow frailer. Not bands that bound her head. She stretched her arms high as if she were reaching for the streaks of fire to shred them into ash and gone.

  Excitement fountained in her. Her mind knew there’d been no real change but her body was rejoicing in a freedom that was as yet only a seed of possibility, a seed still unplanted. She took pad and stylus and wrote:

  Barren soil

  Too much bearing

  ere this

  Yet

  Might-be is planted

  Will-be germinates

  Yes

  In a scoop-walled ravine, hidden from the night sky by a great outslant of stone, three forms crouched about a fire drinking hot iska out of thick-walled mugs, talking in the comfortably weary tones of beings who have completed a hard but satisfactory day’s work. In the dark behind them a thing moaned, but its sounds were faint and drained even of pain and after a short while ceased altogether.

  Rallen crept closer to the Veils and completed a second turn about its sun Nepoyol. In the seventh year since Rostico Burn’s precipitate departure, another alien stepped onto the soil of Rallen.

  PART IV: THE CAMPAIGN

  BACK TO OUR SEARCHERS. SKEEN INTENDED TO DUMP ROSTICO BURN AT REVELATION PIT, BUT HE APPEALED TO FAMILY FEELING, PULLED EVERY STRING HE COULD GET HOLD OF TO PERSUADE HER TO TAKE HIM WITH HER. AS A CYNICAL RASCAL WITH AN EYE OUT FOR PROFIT, HE TOLD HIMSELF IT WOULD BE A SIN AND A SHAME TO LET HIMSELF BE SCRAPED OFF LIKE MUD FROM A BOOT. BEING IN REALITY A THOROUGH-GOING ROMANTIC, HE COULDN’T BEAR THE THOUGHT OF BEING LEFT OUT OF THIS ADVENTURE. THE FOLK OF HADDA ADDA WOULD WHISPER ABOUT IT FOR GENERATIONS AFTER HE WAS DEAD, THE STORY OF HIS RESCUE OFF PILLORY, HIS RETURN TO THE CLUSTER WITH THE LEGENDARY SHEEN, TIBO THE LUCKY THIEF, LIPITERO THE MYSTER
IOUS, AND TIMKA THE IMPOSSIBLE. IN SPITE OF HIS VENEER OF SOPHISTICATION, IN SPITE OF HIS MAULING BY LIFE AND THE DEPRESSING EVIDENCE HE HAD FORCED ON HIM OF THE INIQUITIES OF HIS FELLOW BEINGS, HE WAS PLEASED WITH HIMSELF, EXUBERANT IN HIS ENJOYMENT OF LIFE AND YOUNG ENOUGH TO THINK IN GRAND ABSTRACTIONS LIKE GLORY. SKEEN WAS IN THIS SEARCH TO PAY OFF A DEBT, TIBO BECAUSE HE WENT WHERE SHEEN WENT, SHARED HER DEBTS AS SHE SHARED HIS; LIPITERO WAS HERE TO SAVE HER ADOPTED GATHER AND HER OWN SOUL; TIMKA WENT ALONG BECAUSE SHE HAD NOWHERE ELSE TO BE AND MIGHT AS WELL AMUSE HERSELF. ROSTICO BURN WENT TO WRITE A NEW STANZA FOR THE SONG OF HIS LIFE.

  Picarefy danced a deceitful jig through, around, up and over the patrolling ships of the Ancient Evil, the Undying Emperor of the Cluster, and at last nosed into the Veil where Ross had burst from it seven years before. Sensors screaming, speed reduced to a crawl, she dipped in and out of an insplit curdled by the overflow from the tangle of forces in normspace; backtracking Ross’ route out, dug from his memory (he’d destroyed the trip flakes, he told them, the Buzzard’s advice after he refused to sell them to him, and got himself the best block he could buy. I could work my way back if I had to and I wasn’t about to let some bastard steal my life); with some trepidation he disengaged the block, let Picarefy put him under and pry those memories from his mind.

  While Skeen and Tibo combined with Picarefy to outwit the traps of Cidder’s kind, perhaps Cidder himself (though that was less likely since they got away a bit too easily to have that Hound sniffing after them), while Lipitero brooded alone, too fratchetty to endure company, while Timka prowled about in cat-shape or slept away her boredom, Rostico Burn nosed about the ship. Picarefy told Skeen about his prying during one of the short intervals of straight-flight and they had a quiet laugh together. Picarefy was far too complex and too illogically arranged for the cleverest mind to understand her even in her parts; Skeen had long ago given up trying to comprehend what was happening as Picarefy built herself bigger, only warning her that if anything went wrong there was no one anywhere who’d have a hope of fixing her, so she’d better build in one helluva lot of redundancy. Take the organic brain as model, Skeen said, then giggled at the loud brrruppp that was Picarefy’s answer to her suggestion. But Picarefy had taken her advice, providing abundant redundancy and repair mice that scurried endlessly about the sprawl of the brain, repairing any small breaks, replacing parts and acting as guard dogs against interference from the outside. (A short time before the ill-fated trip to Kildun Aalda, when Skeen was arguing about the need for some expensive new components the cost of which would seriously cut into her playtime and send her on the hop after more Roons, she was moved to shout: Who owns who here. You’ve got the papers on me, Picarefy said, but I prefer to think of us as partners. Neither of us can live without the other. Mmf, Skeen groused half-seriously, let me know when I’m redundant so I can make other plans.)