by Clay Gilbert
“We dreamt many dreams as we slept,” Llew said, in a voice like the rumbling thunder of a summer storm. “You were in nearly all of them. And there were-others. Two that I know: the seed-youths Ardan and Jonan. And one who was a stranger to my eyes. A-a foreigner. Who is this one, Annah? And who is he to you?”
Annah took a deep breath, looked first to Danae, and then to Llew. “His name is Holder. Ga-ry Holder.” She stumbled over Holder’s first name in her nervousness, since she so rarely used it. “And he may be from a foreign world. But he is not foreign to me.”
“ I see that he is not,” Danae said, “from the light in your eyes and your smile when you speak of him. And my dreams have shown me that the two of you have grown close. But dreams can be false, and so, I want to know from you, my daughter.”
Annah did not avert her eyes. “We have grown close. But I have not dishonored you.”
Danae looked at Annah with tenderness. “Did I say you had?”
“No,” Annah admitted. “But there are so many who think even my feelings for him are a dishonor. “
“We are not so many, Annah. We are your parents. But he is very different from you. I am not sure about this. And are you not Promised to Jonan?” “That is why I have awakened you,” Annah said. “This is his way to keep me from Holder. Jonan threatened him, and I said I would Promise myself to him, if he would let Holder be. But I cannot let this happen, Mother. I cannot do this with him.”
“My daughter,” Llew said, “perhaps you should consider Jonan’s offer. You have known him for much of your life, and he is of our Grove. Is he not honorable?”
“It would seem so, to one who does not see what he is doing. He removes his threats only to imprison me. He does not love me. He thinks only of possessing me, and the glory our mingled bloom and seed might bring.”
“Is that so wrong, daughter?” asked Llew. “ It is wrong! I love another,” Annah said. “And I had Promised myself to him before Jonan even asked.” Ritual or not, Annah knew it was true.
“Llew, be silent for now,” Danae said. “Annah, has this Holder ever forced you to do anything against your will?” “He has not,” Annah answered, shaking her head. “He never would. He treats me with respect. He treats me as though I were as dear to him as his own life. Dearer.”
Danae smiled. “That is good, in a mate. Do you trust him?” Annah nodded. “I trust him with my body, with my breath, and with my soul.” She knew the words were ones customarily reserved for the Rite of Choosing, a fact she also knew would not be lost on her parents.
“Daughter, this is a serious matter,” Danae said. “Do not speak the words if you do not mean the bond.”
“That is not how I was raised,” Annah said. “My mother and father raised me from good seed, in good soil.”
“I am still very troubled,” Llew said. “There is no precedent for this.” “Not here, perhaps,” Annah said. “But Holder says it happens on his world, and on others, all the time. The will of Spirit compelled it. How are we to go against the will of Spirit?”
“Be sure, daughter,” said Llew, “that it is truly the will of Spirit, and not merely the desires of a growing body and a restless heart. There are things that can be done to master the body’s desires.”
“I am well aware, Father,”Annah said. “And I do that when there is need. But this is not about my body, or its desires. In fact, Jonan could benefit from your advice about that far more than I.”
Annah was angry now, and she struggled to show the respect she knew she should.
Danae looked troubled. “Has Jonan tried to-to use force with you?” “He knows the law forbids him to Join with me before the ceremony. So far, he has not tried to challenge that. So far. But I do not trust him. He wants me, but he does not care for me.”
Danae brought her hand up, so that Annah could see it clearly. As Annah watched, one of Danae’s fingers changed shape; became sharp, like a talon or claw. “You are not defenseless, daughter,” she said.
“Danae!” Llew said, looking shocked. “She is to be a flower, to bring forth fruitful buds.” “ Llew,” Danae said, in a calm voice, “you do not want your only offspring violated. I know you do not. Annah, remember: the most seeming-delicate flower has thorns, to use at need.”
Annah smiled, reaching up to touch her mother’s face. Then a troubled look came over her.
“Does this mean you are approving Jonan’s claim to me? What of Holder and I?” “I do not know your foreigner,” Danae said. “I respect the claims of the heart, but I also respect the law. As Jonan has done nothing to dishonor himself or you as yet, you must wait out your time with him in the Temple of Promise. Then, he must come for our approval. We may or may not give it. As for this Holder, I should very much like to meet him. Although I still have very serious misgivings about his dealings with you.”
Annah brightened. “I will send for him to come, if you will see him. Oh, Mother, you will like him, very much.” “I hope so, my daughter. His kind did grave mischief to our world, once.”
Annah frowned. “I know, Mother. But his hand was not in that. He was no more born by then than I was. He hates what was done. Talk to him. He is a good man; you will see!”
“We will speak with him. You must do your duty. But,” Danae added, “Remember the thorn, myAnnah. Remember the thorn.”
Mornings on Erewhon were cold, Goodman thought. All that money Caminos has, you’d think he could afford decent heating. However, on a morning like this, he guessed cold was appropriate.
“So, how is he?” “Bad,” the Vice-Commander answered, and Goodman couldn’t tell whether the disturbance he heard was on the line or in the VC’s voice. “Really bad, Kale.”
Shit . Goodman couldn’t remember the last time the ViceCommander had called him by his first name. “What’re they doing about it?”
“Everything they can.”
“What’s the diplomatic forecast?” “Bad, too. The HPF is gaining a lot of ground from what’s happened to the old man. And all the ET factions are still pissed off about the Embassy. So far, both sides are just hissing at each other, like a couple of coiled-up rattlesnakes. Trick is keeping either of them from deciding to strike. So how’s our boy Caminos?”
“I’m not sure, but I’d keep an eye on the HPF. I think Caminos has something up his sleeve. He told ‘Piscene’ to stay on standby. That can’t mean anything good.” Of course, you may already know this, for all I know.
“All right, Goodman. You stay on standby, too.” Exactly what the hell am I doing here, again? Goodman asked himself. And who am I working for? Everything had started getting confused the moment he’d found out the truth about what had been done to Evohe in the war. Or found out the truth was different from the company line. The truth was never just one thing; it always depended on which side you were standing on, and whose side that was.
Homesec had always been his side. Earth was home; it was where he’d been born, where he grew up. He’d done a few terms of study Offworld during his college years, even before he’d gone into the Academy. But whenever his feet touched Earth again, Goodman had always felt right. Things had started to happen, now, though, to make him think maybe his Earth wasn’t the one Homesec was throwing its weight behind anymore.
Goodman thought about Gary Holder, marooned, adrift, or dead in the system where the dead world Evohe had been, or, perhaps, still was. Maybe Holder hadn’t been such a loser, after all.
What if the old man died? Goodman thought, not for the first time. There’d be war. And who knows how many systems, how many planets would be involved? Goodman believed in Commander Reynolds; saw in him someone better than himself; a team player who nonetheless had enough maverick spirit in him to stand above the powerbrokers and the lobbyists.
The Vice-Commander, Goodman was starting to realize, was a different beast; a lot closer to what Earth was becoming than to what it’d been. Goodman didn’t have any doubt that Reynolds would want him to do whatever he could to stop war
from breaking out again; he wondered, though, if the Vice-Commander hadn’t sent him up here just to get him out of the way. I’m not that easy to get rid of, though. Maybe something else I didn’t realize I had in common with our friend Holder.
Goodman wondered for a moment if he might be able to make contact with Holder, if he was still out there somewhere. That would definitely be something the ViceCommander hadn’t authorized. He hadn’t exactly authorized the ghost-suit, either, but Homesec hadn’t minded when they found out about it. They’d always told him Homesec prized ingenuity and initiative even if, a lot of the time, this proved not to be true.
All right then. Call this ‘initiative.’ Even if I’m still not sure what I’m doing. He punched in the settings for Holder’s shipboard ‘com, and waited. Probably nothing but an echo out there, Goodman thought. But who knows?
* * *
Dearest, do you hear me? Are you there? It’d been long enough since Holder had heard Annah’s voice-in his mind or anywhere else—that he thought he must be dreaming, or else losing what little grip on his sanity grief had left him.
Annah? he thought. Yes, yes. It is good to talk to you, even like this. I have been afraid to try. I have been afraid Jonan might be able to hear, and that there might be-consequences-for you. But I have news.
Holder willed himself to keep calm; the shock of hope now, when he had been nearly numb, was like a heavy meal on an empty stomach. What news, beloved?
I have awakened my mother and father, Annah said, and they want to see you.
Great, Holder said. More rejection.
Annah’s bright laughter filled his head. Perhaps not, my heart. At least, it is more hope than we have had.
Who needs hope? Holder said. Let’s just take my ship and go.
Your ship is not yet ready, remember? Damn, thought Holder. She’s right. The crash had disabled one of the capacitors and several of the circuits in the navigational computer. It wasn’t going anywhere without those in working order. He’d been working on it, and making some good headway, when all this shit broke loose.
Guess we’d have a fight on our hands getting you out of that Temple anyway, he told Annah. How does all that work, anyway? How long do they want you in there?
Four more days now, she told him, sounding sad. Then the Promising ceremony. Of course, the Ritual of Choosing cannot take place until I am of proper age.
“Kinda backwards, huh? Promising before you choose?” She giggled. I have never thought of it like that. I miss the new things you show me, Holder. I miss your thoughts, your voice-your touch. I miss you.
“I miss you too, Annah. So, when do your parents want to see me?” Tonight, in the Grove, after sunset. Jonan will not come. I will tell him I am doing the ritual of—she sang a low, sensuous melody. It is a thing that seed-maidens sometimes do, when they are to be Promised, and may not yet Join.
“You sure he won’t want to help?”
She giggled again. He cannot.
“Sure I can’t help?” Holder! Annah’s voice exclaimed in his head, in feigned shock. I will not actually be doing anything. My mother and father will be there, remember?
“I was only teasing.”
I am certain you were, Annah said.
“I miss you.”
No more than I miss you, my dearest. No one can take your place, Holder. Trust me.
“I do, Annah. I’ll see you at the Grove, at sunset. “
I will be waiting.
* * * “Her mother and father? “Ardan asked. “Very interesting. They have been asleep a long time.
Are you nervous?”
“A bit, yeah.” There was no use trying to play it cool, Holder thought. He’d be insane not to be nervous. Somehow, this has to change things. It has to make some difference. “Anything you can tell me about them? I could use some help here, man.”
Ardan smiled. “Truthfully, Jonan could tell you more about them than I could. I did not know Annah well when we were bloomlings, but I do know she has always been kind; always been giving of herself, and she has always followed her own heart. Those things must have come from somewhere. My counsel? Show them what Annah means to you.”
Holder sighed. “I can try.” Ardan looked at Holder for a long moment. “You might want to remember what you mean to Annah, too. What her parents think has no bearing on that, and it never will.”
“No matter what else goes on, at least I get to see her again. For that, they can kill me, if they want to.”
“Let us go, then,” Ardan said. “I will go to the Grove with you.” Annah had been surprised at her parents’silence in the time since she had come to join them in the Grove. She had expected them to seek out further details about Holder; more specifics about their relationship. Perhaps they saw everything, she thought, in their dreaming. She knew, though, that if that were the case, they would never have asked her to bring him here. Perhaps they saw just enough to frighten them.
Annah’s apprehensions melted as she heard the sound of footsteps entering the clearing. She leapt up, and rushing past Ardan, threw her arms around Holder, kissing him as though his lips were her last source of air. She broke away from him after a moment, feeling her parents’ eyes on them.
“H-hello, Holder,” she said, looking down at the ground for a moment, and brushing her golden curls back from her face. Annah’s skin, Holder knew, could shine with every color of the rainbow, but right now, she looked mostly flushed. She’s just like any other girl, in so many ways, he thought. But she’s so much more, too. First Ones, God, Spirit-Whoever you are, please look out for us.
“Hello, Annah,” he said. “I’ve missed you. Are you all right?” He thought she seemed to have lost a little weight. At least she didn’t look like Jonan was treating her rough. Not visibly, anyway.
“I am-as well as can be expected,” she said. “The air isfresher, by our fire in the camp. The Temple is a fine enough place, but it lacks for warmth.”
Holder smiled. “I have trouble getting the fires to burn as well as they did, since you’ve been gone. Maybe the winds have been higher. I don’t know.”
Annah wanted to put her arms around him again; to close her eyes against his chest and will all of this misunderstanding and wrongness away. But I must do what I must do, for now. “Holder, this is my mother. Call her Danae.”
“Not ‘Mrs. So-and-So’?” Holder asked, hoping that he hadn’t made his first wrong move just a few minutes into the evening.
He sawAnnah grin. God, I’ve missed that, he thought. “We do not have two names, as your kind do, my dearest,” Annah said. “We are all of the same blood, even those from different Groves, and we do not need to use our names as boundaries between us.”
“And what is your name, foreigner?” Danae asked him. “I’m Ga-I’m Holder,” he said. “I want to thank you for wanting to see me, and for letting me see Annah again. It meansshe means so much to me.”
“We have come to see that you mean a great deal to her, as well,” Danae said. She motioned toward Annah’s father. “This is my mate, Llew, Annah’s father. You will find that Annah gets her less-rooted ways from me, and not him. He taught her the traditions of our Grove and our kind quite well.”
Holder felt Annah’s fingers stroking his hand. Always the comforter; always the healer. When will I get to heal you, my beloved?, he thought, and although he had never called her that aloud, it felt right.
“Holder,” Llew said, “I understand that my daughter found you when your ship crashed; that she tended to your wounds, that she fed you, cared for you and kept you warm while you healed. She did all this, knowing what you are and what your kind did to our world. What gift have you to give my Annah, besides the grief of desire for one who cannot help but divide her even further from her Grove and her kind?
“She is already so different. She does not look like others, a fact for which we have no explanation. She looks to the skies, not the soil, as much as she should. She sings, and that is a blessing, but she seeks i
t as a craft. There have been no female Shapers in our people’s history for a hundred cycles. Since before this world was broken.” “From what Annah tells me, this world is still broken-just like mine is,” Holder said. “You should be glad she wants to help fix it. I really think she could, if people would let her try.”
Annah gave Holder a frightened look; gripped his arm for a moment. He ran his fingers along the small of her back for the merest of seconds. It’s all right, he thought to her.
“I am not talking about Annah’s gifts, Holder. I am talking about what you have to offer my daughter.” “I will tell you what he offers me, Father,” Annah said, stepping forward to stand beside Holder. “I am not sure he even knows, for I certainly do not tell him as often as I should. He offered me understanding when I was alone. Few others even tried to understand me, though I am one of their own kind. Many in this Grove have laughed at me; said I have strange ideas; said I am no proper seed-maiden; said any buds I carried would dry up inside me, because I had no nurturing soil to offer them.” Her eyes shone. Holder thought it might be anger, tears, or both; he could not tell.
“What do they know?” Annah asked. “They cannot remember their own hearts’ music, and they do not even care. But this one,” she said, motioning to Holder. “His heart is full of song. I must have looked so strange to him when he first saw me. I was afraid for him to see me, because most of the males of my own grove, and some of the females, too, ridicule me. You know the things they say: I am too slender; I stand too straight, and am not curved enough, like the stream, or the furrows of the field, as many females are. And they say there are so many idle dreams in my head that they have distorted its shape.”
“But he says none of these things. He has listened to me,” Annah went on. “I am not strange to him, neither my body, nor my hunger for knowledge, nor my dreams of the worlds beyond this one. Do not make that face at me, Father, please; I know that you hate them.” She sighed. “Holder has seen all these things about me that my own people are ashamed of. He knows them all, and he says I am beautiful.”