by Anthology
He put out a white hand, bowing again, and she took it, standing. Feathers rustled: a sound I would always remember.
“Thank you for talking to Rhea, Lant. I’m sure it was a great pleasure for her.”
“For me.”
A final bow and he turned toward the door. She stood there a moment, watching me, feathers lifting as she breathed.
“Thank you for, the drinks Lant. And for . . . to listen.” She smiled. “You are going, Out. You will be on this ship. Perhaps I will. See you, on the ship.”
She wouldn’t, of course.
And she went away.
Most of the rest you know.
I Jumped the next day for Altar, where I got down on my calloused knees and went through my bag of time-honored politician tricks. Money bandaged the wounds of insult, outrage was salved by a new trade agreement. The Altarians would withdraw troops from Mersy: the wars were stayed.
But not stopped. The Altarians kept their sores and when, several weeks later, one of our writers published a satirical poem attacking Altar for its “weasel colonialism, that works like a vine,” the wound festered open. The poet refused to apologize. He was imprisoned and properly disgraced, but the damage was done.
War erupted. Which you don’t need to be told: look out your window and see the scars.
War flashed across the skies, burst inside homes. Which doesn’t matter: look in your mirror for the marks that tell, the signs that stay.
I don’t have to tell you that the Vegans, victims of too much sharing and always our friends, sided with us. That they were too close to the Altar allies. That they were surrounded and virtually destroyed before our ships could make the Jump.
I don’t have to tell you that we’re still picking up the pieces. Look out your window, look in your mirror.
That we have the bones of Union and we’re trying to fatten them up again . . .
I was one of the sideways casualties of war. One of the face-saving (for them) disgraces (for me). I believe I would have left anyway, I might have. Because there’s something I have to say. And here I can say it, and be heard.
The Union gives a lot. But it takes a lot too. And I’m not sure any more that what it takes, what is shoved aside, is replaceable. Maybe some things are unique. I know one thing is.
Which is what I tell my students.
I sit here every day and look out at all these faces. And I wonder, Will this one be a Courier, or that one in the front row, or the one in back—the girl who swings her leg, the kid who brings sandwiches to class in his briefcase? Will they be the disciples of Earth’s ascendance?
I wonder.
And I tell them that a society feeds off its people. That the larger it is, the more it consumes. That you never know what effect your words will have a hundred million miles away.
You never know. But you try. You try to know, you try to balance things out on your own scales. Utility; the best for the most; compromise and surrender. Your smallest weights are a million, a billion, people.
But I tell them something else to go with that.
I tell them . . .
That there may be nothing new under the sun. But there are new suns, and new faces under them. Looking up, looking down . . .
The faces are what matter.
The Floors of His Heart
The little animal went racing up the side of its cage, made a leap to the top, climbed upside-down halfway out—then dropped back onto the floor. It did this over and over, steadily tumbling, becoming each time wilder, more frantic. The last time, it lay still on its back in the litter, panting.
And she was lovely below him, beside him, above him. Was lovely in dark, lovely in shadow, lovely in the glaring door as she fingered the bathroom’s light . . .
(She is sitting on the bed, legs crossed, one elbow cocked on a knee, holding a ruby fang that bites again, again into the dark around her. The window is a black hole punched in the room, and for a moment now when she lifts her arm, light slants in and falls across her belly, sparkling on semen like dew in dark grass; one breast moves against the moving arm.
Light comes again, goes again. It strikes one side of her tilted face and falls away, shadows the other. She looks down, looks up, the small motion goes along her body, her side moves against yours. There are two paths of glowing where light touched her skin, here on her belly, here on the side of her face, a dull glowing orange. Already it is fading.
Her cigarette drops through the window like a burning insect, drops into darkness. It’s this kind of darkness: it can fill a room.)
She came back and sat on the edge of the bed. The light was off, her skin glowing softly orange all over, darker orange for month-old bruises on her breasts and hips. “Strong. He hadn’t been with a woman for three years,” she had said when he touched one of the bruises. “A real man.” He had beaten her severely, then left twice what was necessary.
She struck a match and the spurt of light spiderwebbed the dirty, peeling wall.
“You’re really from Earth . . . (Silence breaking, making sounds. The little animal slowly moving now in his cage.)
“Naturalized. During the Wars.”
“Oh. I see.” She was thinking about ruin, the way it started, the roads it took. Her skin was losing its glow. “Where were you bom?”
“Here. Vega.” (She turned to look at him.)
“In Thule.” (She waited.)
“West Sector.”
She turned back to the window. “I see.”
“I was signed Out. It was a Vegan ship, we were getting the declaration broadcast when communication from Vega stopped. Captain turned us around but before we hit Drive, Earth told us it was too late. We went on into Drive and stayed in till we could find out what happened—Altar had ships jumping in and out all along the rim, grabbing whatever they could, blasting the rest—a big wagon like The Tide was no match for what they had. We came out near Earth. Captain’s decision, and I don’t envy his having to make it. Anyway, the ship was consigned and the Captain pledged to Earth. Most of us went along, enlisted. There wasn’t much to come back to.”
The room was quiet then with the sound of her breathing, the rusde of the animal in its litter. Light from outside crept across the floor, touching her leg on the bed with its palm. She sucked at the cigarette and its fire glowed against her face, against the window.
“You’re not Terran. I thought you were.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t realize—”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“But I didn’t mean to—”
“It doesn’t matter.” She smiled. “Really.”
He lay watching her face above him, a quiet face, still. And the room itself was quiet again, was gray, was graying, was dark . . .
And later: her hand on his shoulder, her lips lightly against his and his eyes opening, something warm for his hand.
“I made coffee. You’ll have to drink it black.”
He stared at the cup, breathed steam and came more awake. The cup was blue ceramic, rounded, shaped into an owl’s head. The eyes extended out at the edges to form handles. “You shouldn’t have. Coffee’s hard to get, I know, you sh—”
“I wanted to. You gave me cigarettes, I gave you coffee.” She tore her cigarette in two, threw the smoking half-inch out the window, dropped the rest into the cage. Her fingers glowed orange where the cigarette had been.
“Thank you. For the coffee,” he said. Then: “You’re beautiful.” She smiled. “You don’t have to say that.”
“I wanted to.”
And she laughed at that.
He got up and walked to the cage, his hands wrapped around the mug. The little animal was leaning down on its front legs, hindquarters up, paws calmly working at the cigarette. It had carefully slit the paper and was removing the tiny lumps of charcoal from the filter one at a time, putting them in its mouth.
“Charcoal,” she said. “There’s charcoal in the filter, I just rememb
ered. He likes it.”
Having finished eating, the little animal rolled the remaining paper into a ball, carried it to one comer and deposited it there.
Then it returned to the front of the cage and sat licking at the orange fur that tufted out around its paws.
“What is it?” he asked after a while. The charcoal pellets were still in its mouth. After sucking at them for several moments, it began to grind them between its teeth.
“A Veltdan.”
“Vegan?”
She nodded.
“I’ve never seen one.”
“There aren’t many left—none around the cities. Dying out. They’re from Lame Valley.”
He thought a moment, remembered: “The telepaths!” The colony of misanthropic sensitives.
“Yes. That’s where the colony is. I was born there, came to Kahlu after the Wars. Not much left, even that far out. The colony was wiped out.”
“Are you—”
She shook her head. “My mother. Mostly I was born without their physical deformity or their talents, though I guess I got a little of both.” She came up to the cage, thumped her fingers against the side. “The telepathy . . . some of it filtered down. I’m an empathist, of sorts.” She grinned. “Makes me good at my work.”
She walked to the bed and lit another cigarette. An insect came in through the window, skittered around the room hitting the ceiling again and again, finally found the window and flew back out. It was neon, electric blue.
“Veltdans are supposed to be the deadliest things in the universe. Four inches from nose to tail, altogether seven pounds— and you can put them up against any animal you want to, any size, any weight.”
He took his hand off the cage and put it back around the mug. The Veltdan was over on its back in the litter, rolling from side to side, square snout making arcs. Watching this prim, almost exquisite little animal, he found it difficult to accept what she was saying; to put the two facts together.
“It registers external emotion. Whatever made the telepaths got into the Veltdan too—as much as they can handle with their brain. You get something coming at it with a mind full of hate and killing, the Veltdan takes it all and turns it back on the attacker—goes into a frenzy, swarms all over it, knows what the attacker is going to do next. It’s small but it’s fast, it has sharp claws and teeth. While the attacker is getting filled back up with its own hate and fury, the Veltdan is tearing it to pieces. They say two of them fighting each other is really something to see, it just goes on and on.”
He looked down at the little orange-cerulean animal. “Why should they fight one another?”
“Because that’s what they like best to eat: each other.”
He grimaced and walked to the window. A shuttleship was lifting. Its light flashed against his face.
Every day just past noon, flat clouds gather like lily pads in the sky, float together, rain hops off to pound on the ground. For an hour the rain comes down, washing the haze of orange from the air, and for that hour people come together in cafes and Catches, group there talking. And waiting.
They were sitting in an outdoor Catch, drinking coffee. Minutes before, clattering and thumping, a canvas roof had been rolled out over them. Around them now the crowd moved and talked. Rain slammed down, slapped like applause on the canvas roof.
“This is where the artists come,” she said, pointing to a comer of the Catch where several young people were grouped around a small table. Two of them—a young man with his head shaved and a girl with long ochre hair—were bent forward out over the table, talking excitedly. The others were listening closely, offering occasional comments. When this happened the young man would tilt his head away from the speaker and watch him closely; the girl would look down at the floor, a distant expression on her face. Then when the speaker had finished they would look at one another and somehow, silently, they would decide: one of them would reply. Cups, saucers, crumpled sheets of paper were piled on the table. One of the girls was sketching. Rain sprinkled and splattered on the backs of those nearest the outside.
“The one talking, that’s Dave,” she went on. “A ceramist, and some say he’s the best in Union. I have a few of his pots at home. Early stuff, functional. He used to do a lot of owls; everything he threw had an owl in it. Now he’s on olms. Salamanders. They’re transparent, live in caves. If you take one out into the sun it bums. Turns black and dies.” She lit one of the cigarettes he’d given her. “They all come here every afternoon. Some work at night, some just wait for the next afternoon. I have a lot of their work.” She seemed quite proud of that.
“You like art quite a lot, then?”
“No.” She grinned, apologizing. “I don’t even understand most of it. But I seem to feel it—what they think, their appreciation. And I like them, the people. They always need money, too.”
She sat quietly for a moment, smoking, watching the group of young people.
“It’s a tradition, coming here. This Catch was built where the Old Union was before the Wars; Samthar Smith always came here when he was on Vega. It’s called Pergamum now.”
“‘All Pergamum is covered with thorn bushes; even its ruins have perished.’ The epigraph for his novel, Pergamum. The eulogy he wrote for his marriage.”
“Yes.” She stared out at the rain. “I love that book.” Then she looked back at him. “Dave tells me they’ve taken the name as a symbol. The ruin of the old, the growth of a new art.”
A disturbance near the center of the Catch caught his attention. Holding a glass of punjil, a fat middle-aged man was struggling to his feet while the others at his table tried to get him to sit back down. He brushed aside their hands and remarks, came swaying and grinning across the floor. Halfway across, he turned around and went back to put bis drink on the table, spilling it as he did so.
“Hi,” he said, approaching the table, then belched. “Thought I’d come over and say that—Hi, I mean. C’n always spot a fellow Terran.” Another belch. “William Beck Mann, representing United Union Travel, glad to meet you.” He leaned on the table with one hand, shoved the other out across it. “Coming in from Ginh, stuck on this godamn dead rock while the com’pny ship gets its charts revised or somethin’. Nothing going on here at all, eh. You heading home too?”
Others in the Catch, Vegans, were staring toward their table in distaste.
“No . . . I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Mind if I sit ’own?” Which he did, swiveling on the tabled hand, plopping into the chair.
“No, I don’t mind. But we’re about to leave.”
“I see.” He looked at the girl for the first time and grinned. His teeth were yellow. “Guess you got plans. Well. That case s’pose I’ll get on back.” The fat man hauled himself out of the chair and went back toward his own table. Two of the young people were leaving and he tried to walk between them, knocking the girl against a table. Hatred flared in the boy’s face and a knife suddenly appeared in his hand.
“No, Terri, don’t,” the girl said. “He’s drunk, he can’t help himself.”
The boy reached and pulled her to him. Then, just as suddenly as it had come, the hatred vanished from his face. He smiled squarely into the man’s face (the knife, too, had vanished) and spat at him. He and the girl went on out of the Catch, holding hands. The fat man goggled after them, reeling out obscenities till someone from his table came and took him back.
“You know which part I like best?” she said after a while. “In Pergamum?” She turned from the rain and looked at him. “The part where the girl pours coffee and says, This is the universe! Then she holds up two rocks of sugar and says, ‘And this is us, the two of us.’ She drops the sugar in the coffee and it starts dissolving, you can’t see it any more . . .”
“Yes, I know. They say it really happened, that Smith heard of it from one of his friends and later used it in Pergamum. I wonder if the friend felt honored?”
“I would have. He was a great man.”
“He
was also a very lonely man.”
Disheartedly, they began to argue over whether Smith should be called a Terran or Vegan poet. She seemed strangely affected by the previous trouble, and his heart was just not in the discussion. Smith had been born on Earth, had adopted Vega as his home for many years . . .
She had difficulty lighting her next cigarette. The rain was over and the winds were rising now.
A shuttleship was lifting.
Against the darkness, bands of pearl spread in layers and deepened, swelling into rainbow colors. They flashed on his face. When he turned from the window, her skin was glowing rich orange.
“Will you stay here? Have you come home now?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I came. To find out.”
“It would be nice. If you stayed.” She fed the Veltdan another filter; it was making muted, moaning sounds. “That’s one of Dave’s cups,” she said. “He also built the cage for me.” Everything was quiet for a long while.
Finally he said: “Do you remember how Pergamum ends?”
“ ‘Wherever we are content, that is our country.’ ”
He nodded. “That’s what I have to decide. Where I’m content, where my country is.” He put the cup on the cage. “We keep talking about Samthar Smith . . .”
“An Earthman who became Vegan, as you’re a Vegan who became Terran.”
He turned to look at her. The orange glow was fading. He nodded again. “He finally found contentment. On Juhlz.”
“And you?”
He shrugged. The Veltdan was grinding the tiny bits of charcoal between its teeth. It sounded like someone walking over sea-shells far away.
“There’s an insect. On Earth,” he said. “It dies when you pick it up. From the heat in your hand.” He walked toward the bathroom.
A moment later: “The switch isn’t working.”
“There’s a power ration. This area’s cut off for several hours, another gets to use the power. The peak periods are shifted about.” He came back and stared sadly at her.
“You don’t know how ridiculous that is, do you? You don’t realize. There’s enough power on my ship—on one goddamn ship!—to give Vega enough electricity for years. You don’t see how absurd that is, do you? You just accept it.” He picked up the cup. The Veltdan was carrying its rolled-up paper toward the corner of the cage.