Sideshow

by Sheri S. Tepper

  A boat was sent out to the Dove, and a vizer, encountering Danivon, who had risen early to put together materials for his rescue effort, demanded to see the person who had invaded the towers the day before. With all the rest of the party, Jory came forth, looking old and frail and a little half-witted.

  “You wanted me, my son?” she asked, the words intended to be provocative, which they were. In Thrasis, only men had sons.

  “Where are the women?” the man screamed at her.

  “What women?” she asked innocently. “I have no women here except those who came with me. What women?”

  “Our women! The Prophet’s daughters. Someone has stolen them!”

  “A thief does not steal what is worthless,” Jory said. “The women of Thrasis are worthless, so it is said by all the prophets since earliest times. Why would anyone steal what has no value? Probably they simply ran off.”

  “The guards did not see them go!”

  “Well, the guards watching this ship certainly didn’t see them come out here. Why are you yelling at me? I didn’t take them.”

  Baffled, the officer made certain threats, then forgot them in a momentary fit of confusion during which he seemed to hear the voice of something huge and invisible telling him not to be silly. When he was ashore, he remembered his former concerns, but only foggily. He reported that the people on the ship knew nothing of the disappearance. Certainly the women of Thrasis could not be aboard the little ship.

  “What have you done?” whispered Danivon to Jory. “What have you done, old woman?”

  “I’ve been right here on the ship all night,” she said innocently. “Haven’t I, Cafferty?”

  “Right here,” agreed Cafferty.

  “All the women are really gone?” demanded Danivon.

  “Most all, I should think. It really will make very little difference in Thrasis. Aside from making a few minor adjustments in their sexual habits, the men will hardly notice the difference. No more sons, of course, but that’s the way of things sometimes. The universe is no guarantor of sons. And likely there’d be none anyhow, once those things from Derbeck get here.”

  “Where did the women go!” Danivon demanded.

  Jory shrugged. “What choice did they have. East is Molock, they wouldn’t have gone there. North is the waste, a great desert of stone and sand and predatory serpents running all the way to the sea. South is the river, and I doubt any Thrasian woman ever learned how to swim. West is the Wall….”

  “Which leaves?”

  “What would you say? Underground, perhaps? Unless they flew away.”

  “Boat ho,” cried the lookout. “Boats. Boats ho.”

  In midriver a scattered fleet of tiny boats was using the light breeze to make its way upstream. Turning his glass upon them, Danivon saw they were full of Murrey folk with a few Houm scattered here and there. “Where are they going?” he demanded.

  “Upstream,” Jory commented, her eyes wide with pleased surprise. “Obviously. Away from Derbeck.” She went to the railing and called across the water. “Why have you left Derbeck?”

  “… Chimi-ahm …” came the faint reply. “… eating all the people….”

  “They can’t do that!” shouted Danivon. “They can’t leave their province!”

  “They are doing it,” she cried. “On their own. All by themselves!”

  “Boarmus won’t stand for it!”

  “Boarmus may have other things on his mind.”

  “Council Supervisory will have an army of Enforcers down here at once.”

  “I think not, Danivon. If the things we saw along the river are stealing our folk here in Panubi and eating the people of Derbeck, what may they be doing in Tolerance? Boarmus is probably very busy! Or dead.”

  He had no answer for her. He took no time to think of one, but threw up his hands and started for one of the small boats. “I’m going ashore and taking the flier Zasper came in,” he said.

  “Do you have any idea what you’re going to do?” Jory asked.

  Danivon replied, “I can set down almost on top of the place Fringe was taken. I’ve got weapons that should be able to sterilize the area….”

  “Sterilize?”

  “Well, Boarmus told Zasper it might be a kind of network, and if I melt the surrounding area, the network should melt with it, shouldn’t it?”

  “What if the network is keeping them alive, and we wreck it,” asked Zasper mildly as he came to join them. “What if the cavern they’re in needs air or water, and can’t get it without the network.”

  “By the rules and the covenants, Zasper, you’re infuriating! What if she’s injured? What if she’s sick? What if we wait and wait and don’t get there in time. We can all play at what if!”

  Zasper nodded slowly. He had to admit, Danivon was right. “The flier’s big enough for two,” he said. “I’m going with you.”

  Curvis waited, thinking Danivon would say no, Curvis would go. Curvis didn’t want to go, but he didn’t want Danivon to go off with Zasper, either. Danivon merely nodded at Zasper, however, one short jerk of his head, and stalked off to rummage among the baggage he’d assembled at the rail, looking for something he’d just thought of, or, perhaps, merely doing so to put an end to conversation. Curvis, left behind, found himself angry at being ignored.

  “Can’t contain himself, can he,” said Jory. “Fool kid.”

  “Scarcely that,” admonished Zasper. “He’s over thirty.”

  “I’m over several thousand, and he’s a kid.”

  “We were all kids once,” he said, peering into her eyes. He wanted to talk with her about Fringe. About herself. He wanted to know her, and there might not be time…. This might be the only occasion possible….

  The question he asked, however, surprised even him, for it was drawn out of him by some ageless glimmer in her eyes.

  “What were you like as a girl, Jory?”

  “Oh, I was a dutiful girl, Zasper Ertigon. I obeyed all the rules. I bought into subordination and humility.”

  “You couldn’t have! You didn’t!”

  “Oh, yes, I did. I was a very lovely handmaiden.”

  “I believe that.”

  “I find it hard to believe, sometimes. Actually, I was like a lot of those women in Thrasis, trying to be contented in my bower and a seething mass of rebellion inside. In my country in my time they didn’t go in for surgical chopping on women, though the custom still prevailed some places on Earth, but psychological chopping was quite common. I was taught to believe things no intelligent person could have believed. And eventually I rebelled against believing—perhaps in preparation for what I became.”

  “Which was?”

  “A prophetess, would you believe? Me, a prophetess?”

  “I can believe that. You have that air about you.”

  “Do I? It seems unlikely—looking back.”

  He shook his head slowly. “Perhaps not unlikely. Fringe told me you picked her out, lady.”

  “True.”

  “Since … since we may not have an opportunity to talk again, will you tell me about that?”

  “What do you want to know?” she asked, her head cocked to one side, giving her a sparrowlike look.

  “I suppose … I suppose I want to know why? Why would a prophetess pick Fringe out. And for what?”

  She laughed. It was a quick, uncomfortable little laugh. “Will it comfort you to know?”

  He shook his head slowly. “Only you would know that.”

  She looked at him doubtfully. “Well, perhaps it would. A parable must suffice, however. Will you settle for that?”

  “If I must.”

  “Well then.”

  “Was a farm woman, once, found a miraculous beast eating the flowers in her garden, and they became friends. Trouble was, getting to know the beast unsuited the woman for less marvelous friendships, if you understand me?”

  “Other relationships seemed trivial, perhaps?” he asked, after a moment’s thought.
<
br />   “Not that so much as—irrelevant. Because, knowing the beast well as she did, she became something a great deal more than merely a farm woman with a garden. What she became was not of her own making, you understand, and she wasn’t always sure of its significance, though her innermost self reassured her it was worthy.”

  He nodded. “I see. I think I do.”

  “But an important thing is, what she became she could not have become if she hadn’t been suited for it in the first place.” “Aahh,” said Zasper.

  Jory smiled. “Well, we all get old, and so did she, and the time came she knew she hadn’t much longer, so she looked about for someone to inherit what she had to leave behind. And, of course, what she looked for in her successor could not be what she had become—which was unique, through no virtue of her own—but what had been in her in the first place. The capability.”

  “And what was that?”

  “God knows.” She laughed. “I’ve often wondered.”

  “Stubbornness?” he suggested.

  “Perseverance,” she agreed.

  “Contentiousness.” He smiled. “Rebelliousness.”

  “Indomitability.” She smiled back.

  “Dissatisfaction,” he said.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “A lot of that. A certain prickliness, perhaps. Unwillingness to settle for what’s there and obvious when it’s obviously wrong! A mystical sense of purpose. A sense of high duty to perform, without knowing what it may be! A longing for heaven, without knowing what that is, either.”

  “Altogether, an uncomfortable person.”

  She grinned at him. “So I’m told.”

  “So you picked Fringe.” He shook his head sadly. “And now she’s gone.”

  “Yes,” whispered Jory. “She’s the best I’ve found, and now she’s gone. And the prophetess is no longer sure of her prophecy, because it was all such a long time ago.”

  “If no longer a prophetess, what are you now?”

  “You’re full of good questions.” She made a face at him. “Perhaps I am merely a handmaiden again. Perhaps a witch or a ghost, up to no good. When I figure it out, I’ll let you know.”

  “When I bring Fringe back to you, I’ll remember you promised.” He looked toward the railing where Danivon was still fussing with the supplies and dropped his voice. “He’s not right for her, you know. I know her well enough to know that.”

  She shrugged elaborately, not meeting his eyes, then looked up full of sudden intent. “I’m bound to tell you I don’t think this rescue attempt is well thought out,” she said.

  “Danivon’s nose says he won’t die.”

  “Does Danivon’s nose tell you whether he’ll maybe wish he had?” she asked gently.

  Zasper saw something much like pity in her eyes, though he couldn’t say why, for Danivon’s nose had been silent upon that matter.

  When the next summons came from the golden faces, Nela and Bertran could not rise. They made a futile endeavor, but their bodies would not respond. Fringe did her reverence alone, went to the altar alone.

  “What’s the matter with them?” a new voice asked.

  “You damaged them,” Fringe replied. “They need time to recover. If they recover.”

  Silence. Then the new voice, possibly a male voice, said, “They would work better if they were apart.”

  “True,” said Fringe. This voice was worse than either of the others. The others had been … malicious, perhaps. Childish in a nasty way. But this voice had real hatred in it, real malice, real evil.

  “Maybe we’ll take them apart.”

  Fringe swallowed bile. “It would have to be very cleverly done,” she said in as quiet a voice as she could manage. “Otherwise it would kill them. Of course, god could do it without killing them. If they died, we would know it was not god who had done it.”

  “Oh, I could do it,” said the voice with a chuckle. “I’ve been learning how. Very interesting too. Very … educational. If I took your friends apart, they’d work better at the duty we’re assigning you, and since only god could do it, you would then know who god is. Correct?”

  Fringe moistened dry lips and whispered, “What duty is that?”

  “You must answer a question before we let you go,” the voice gulped.

  “If we can.”

  “No matter if you can or not. You must.”

  Anger bested her. “That’s not logical. That’s completely arbitrary. To demand that someone do something he may not be able to do.”

  “We have consulted Files.” The voice bubbled with hideous laughter. “Gods often demand that people do things they cannot do or things that are dangerous or onerous or hateful. And when the people fail, gods punish them. Should I be less a god than they?”

  Fringe swallowed. “Are you a god?”

  “Oh, indeed. I am Chimi-ahm the proud, whom you offended mightily. I am Chimi-ahm the hunter, whom you robbed of his prey. I am Chimi-ahm, monstrous and mighty, all knowing, all seeing.” The voice was swallowed in a great shout of malicious laughter.

  Fringe tried twice before she could get the words out. “What’s the question?”

  The voice sucked and snickered, “You must say, ‘Oh, High Lord Chimi-ahm …’”

  She bit down her rage and hatred, letting only submission show. “Oh, High Lord Chimi-ahm, what is the question we must answer.”

  “No, no. You must say, ‘High Lord Chimi-ahm, I am sorry for having offended you by taking away your sacrifice.’”

  The words stuck in her throat, and a vise closed about her heart.

  “High Lord Chimi-ahm,” she gasped. “I am sorry for having offended you by taking away your sacrifice.””

  ‘Please accept my unworthy self in retribution …’”

  “Please accept my unworthy self in retribution.”

  “Ah. Nicely done. Now, the question you must answer is this: ‘What is the ultimate destiny of man?’”

  Fringe’s mouth fell open. Whatever she might have expected, it had not been this.

  “But that’s the Great Question,” she gasped. “The historic one. The diversity of Elsewhere was expected to answer that question in the fullness of time….” So she had been taught. So she had heard every year on Great Question Day.

  “Yes. How clever of you to notice it’s the Great Question.”

  “But, we’re only three people.”

  “A hundred, a dozen, or only three. You must answer it, nonetheless.”

  “Indeed you must,” said the Magna Mater voice sternly.

  “You must,” said the other female voice, almost with indifference. “Man must answer the question, and you are man.”

  Now Fringe’s nervous glances detected at least four separate groups, each centered upon a spokesface.

  “You’re not all Chimi-ahm, are you?” she asked.

  “Lord Breaze!” trumpeted a hard and handsome face, heretofore silent.

  “Gracious Lady Therabas Bland,” whispered another, a sly voice.

  “Magna Mater, Mintier Thob,” another simpered.

  They were separate yet united, speaking the same words from a hundred throats.

  The one calling himself Lord Breaze said in a kindly voice, “Though I am a newcomer to these councils, my fellow deities tell me god must receive the answer to the question. Reason tells me this is so. Man was made by god to love him. Man does god’s will because he loves him. You are man, we are god. Therefore, you will answer the question.”

  Chimi-ahm gurgled menacingly. “And if you will not do it for love, you will do it because otherwise we’ll hurt you and your friends. Then, if you do not answer, we will kill you.” The voice was mechanical and yet lubricious. “Of course, we may kill you anyway.”

  “Gods do this,” said Gracious Lady Therabas Bland, golden faces nodding from the high altar piece. “We have read the words of heroes and prophets and priests. Even in ancient times, this was how gods behaved.”

  • • •

  As soon as Zasper and
Danivon had departed in the flier, the Dove left the tumult of Thrasis and sailed upriver once more, past the great wall that stretched away to the north as far as they could see.

  “Who built the wall?” asked Curvis.

  “It was here when Elsewhere was colonized by the Brannigans,” said Jory.

  “I thought the world was empty when men arrived.”

  “Not totally, no. Certainly not behind the wall.”

  “How far does the wall go?”

  “All the way around Panubi,” said Asner. “A great circle. Separating what is inside from what is outside.”

  More than that they would not or could not tell him, and though Curvis fumed with annoyance and impatience, it did him no good.

  They went past the plains where the women of Thrasis had walked, and into a land of rolling hills. The swamps along the shore became rocky banks, the banks became cliffs, and the river narrowed into a foaming torrent between the looming walls of a gorge. Below the gorge, the tiny boats from Derbeck lay empty all along the shore. Unable to make way against the torrent, their occupants had gone on afoot.

  At the entrance to the gorge, the crew fished a float out of the torrent, heaved it onto the deck, and hauled in a great hawser, dripping with weed and small mollusks. This was clamped to the towing bitts on the bow, while most of the crew went ashore to trudge westward on a narrow footpath, up the gorge and out of sight. Some hours later the line pulled slackly to the surface of the river, and against the full weight of the river the ship was tugged slowly up the narrow gorge whose towering walls seemed within reach of their arms.

  At the far end of the canyon, they came up to the monstrous spool on which the mighty hawser was wound, its huge gears connecting it to the capstan where the Dove’s sailors trudged around a well-worn track in company with three huge beasts with flapping ears. When the Dove had anchored, the hawser was loosed and the great roller turned freely while the current carried the cable-end float downstream.

  The Dove set sail once more, leaving the beasts and their keepers behind. Gentle hills took the place of rocky walls and beyond them rolling prairies stretched to the limit of sight. North of the river the fires of an encampment lit many bright tents against a shadowed carpet of meadows.