Annah and the Children of Evohe

by Clay Gilbert

  “I will,” said Annah. “But where?”

  “You will know.”

  * * * Annah lay curled with Holder together in their bed in the Temple of Promise. She smiled to herself, feeling his arms around her, one hand cupping one of her breasts, the other resting on the shallow swell of her belly. It had been difficult, the first night they had spent together here, after what had happened with Jonan. But the shadows had been dispelled now, and now there were only memories. She was learning to manage those—-to master all her Memories.

  So hard to sleep. So excited about tomorrow. She pressed her cheek against Holder’s neck, heard the steady sound of his heartbeat, and the rush of his sleeping breath. This is my life now. A new Becoming. She let him go slowly; rolled onto her back. Where does Serra want me to meet her?

  “Holder.”

  Holder stirred, dreaming of Annah whispering his name. I love that.

  “Holder.” A more insistent whisper now, right at his ear. Not a dream. He turned; caught her in his arms. I hope we get to wake up like this for a long time to come. But with this war out there, who knows?

  “Hiya.” He played with a curl of hair. “You all right?” “Yes. I had to tell you. It’s the heart-place. I don’t know how she even knows about it, but Serra wants me to meet her at the heart-place. Isn’t that-amazing?”

  “I hope so. It could be a problem. I guess we’ll see. Was that it?”

  Yes, I suppose. You look very tired,”Annah teased.

  “I have no idea why,” he said, smiling. “Fine,” Annah said, scooting out of his arms and starting to get up. “I have not been able to sleep, in any case. I will go into the other room, so that you may rest, dearest.”

  He pulled her back into the bed. “You certainly will not.” “If you say so,” Annah said, laughing. Goodman had gotten very used to Piscene’s borrowed skin, but he hoped this was the last time he had to use it. If things can be so bad that someone like Caminos is rattled, it’s time to find somewhere else to be. Caminos was a shitstirrer and a bottom-feeder, though. He was probably just scared that some of what had been on the bottom was on its way up. And Goodman couldn’t help thinking that the Commander back on Earth could use some of that same fear.

  Caminos was waiting for him when he stepped off the elevator. He showed Goodman into a small room that looked to him like the ones cops used to question suspects in a crime. I hope that’s not what’s going on, Goodman thought. “Heard anything from back planetside?” Goodman asked.

  “Which planet?” Caminos laughed. “Whole fuckin’ galaxy’s turned upside down. Makes it a whole lot easier to move around. I’ll say this, though-not much left down there except good ol’ fashioned human bein’s. Less whoever-or whatever-it is wants to die.”

  “Sounds like things are getting pretty cleaned up down there,” Goodman said, because it was what Piscene would have said. The bastard.

  “Just about. Remember I told you I’d have another delivery for you to make soon? Took a little while to get together, with the way things are.” Caminos opened a black satchel and pulled out a small orb filled with some kind of gaseous blue substance. “Looks just like the Earth, doesn’t it?”

  “Earth in the history books, maybe.” Goodman hoped it sounded enough like something Piscene would say. “Earth ain’t looked that blue from space in probably two hundred years. But you know that.”

  “Yeah, well,” Caminos said. “‘History’ is just what all those bugs down there are gonna be, once this baby does its work.”

  Bugs, ET’s-make up your mind, asshole, Goodman thought. “Looks good, boss. What’s it do?” “It’s an ET fumigator,” Caminos said. “Well, it’ll kill about 95% of non-terrestrial species. The bio-engineering on it’s not completely refined, but it’ll work well enough. And once it gets into the atmosphere, nothing that’s not human will want to even think about coming anywhere near Earth.”

  “That ought to push the war away from Earth, anyway,” Goodman said. Unless some other world, or league of worlds, decides to come and bomb us out of existence. Like we tried to do to Evohe. Hell with this, he thought. Enough is enough.

  * * * Annah arrived at the top of the hill the next morning to find Serra waiting for her just outside the gate Annah had made to keep the heart-place from being discovered. To Annah’s surprise, Serra was smiling.

  “Excellent work, Annah,” Serra said. “I could not open it. And I have tried, several times. Would you?” “I would be happy to.” Annah took a deep breath, remembering all she had learned, and thinking of the Memories she had seen. She had keyed the building of the Gate to her own heart-song- which was why even someone as skilled in Shaping as she imagined Serra was would still be unable to open it-and she began opening it the same way, lifting each note, each melody, with precision; visualizing the Gate appearing from the air as if it were a structure of stone or glass-or even a stand of trees-emerging from a shroud of mist. Threads of melody were woven, and currents of energy undone, until at last, the heart-place was visible for the first time in months.

  “Very good,” Serra said. “Now, let us see how you did with this.” She walked around the circle’s perimeter, taking note of the placement of rocks and greenery, then made her way to the center, where the heart-stone table stood. “Hmm.”

  I wish she would not do that, Annah thought, shifting her weight from one foot to the other and back again. “This, too, is very good work,” Serra said, coming to a stop beside Annah. “Strictly speaking, if I were someone more severe-or if these were different times-it is work you should not have done. I suspect that is the reason the Gate is here.”

  “It is,” Annah said. “I am sorry. I know that one as young as I, and one who is not trained, should not-I am sorry.” “You apologize too much, child.” Serra gave Annah a reassuring smile. “Yes, you are young. Yes, one does not usually do such things as the construction of a Gate without supervision. But age does not necessarily determine maturity, or skill. And you are not untrained. If you are untrained, I am still a bloomling.”

  This made Annah laugh, and she felt all the tension of the morning flow out of her at once.

  “I do not look so much like a bloomling, do I?” asked Serra.

  “No,” Annah said, still getting control of herself. In fact, she found it hard to imagine that Serra had ever been.

  Of course I was, Serra said in Annah’s mind, startling her. But it was a long time ago. “I can do that,” Annah said. “Talk with my mind, not my mouth. But I do not know anyone else who can, besides you.”

  “I am sure you do,” said Serra. “You just have not heard them do it. There are several among the Elders who can, besides myself. But it is true that not everyone can do it. It is a Shaper talent. And for reasons only the First Ones know, only those born to be Shapers have that gift.”

  “Oh, wait!” Annah said. “I do know someone else who can do it. Holder can do it. We have always been able to talk with our minds, when we want.”

  The expression on Serra’s face looked somewhere between shock and fascination. “Your Offworlder? He can?” “Yes!”Annah said, smiling.

  “He can hear you when you do it? Or he can talk back?”

  “Both. He hears me, and he talks back.” A vivid flash of memory washed over Annah as she remembered lying on the floor of the Temple of Promise, struggling with Jonan, and struggling to reach Holder with her mind.

  “Extraordinary,” said Serra. “Really?”Annah asked.

  “Yes. I have not spent much time Offworld, but I was not aware that Shapers existed beyond this planet.”

  “Holder is a Shaper, too?” Annah was finding it difficult to keep still. “It would, at the very least, seem that he has the ability to be one. Annah, how strong are you with Memory?” “Very strong, sometimes.”

  “Look through your Memories. Listen to what your heartsong tells you. When was the last Shaper-male or femaleborn to this world?”

  Annah looked; felt with her heart, her mind, and her memor
ies. I am not special, she told herself. I am a seedmaiden, like others. I am different, but I am not better.

  “No one is saying you are better than others, child,” Serra said, stroking Annah’s hair. “Now tell me—when was the last Shaper born to this world?”

  Annah sighed. “Eighteen cycles ago.” Serra nodded. “And to whom was that child born?” “To Danae and Llew of Laughing Waters Grove. Oh, First Ones, why?” Annah covered her face with her hands and began to cry.

  Serra knelt beside Annah, putting her arms around the girl. “It is all right,” Serra told her. “It is to be expected, feeling this way.”

  Annah raised her head, took a deep, hitching breath, and wiped her eyes. “I have always been different. Some of the others have hated me for it; laughed at me-” She forced the returning tears back down. “I have never wanted to be better than anyone. I have only wanted to be what I am.”

  “This is what you are,” Serra said. “It is what Spirit meant you to be, from the moment you were bloomed and born. The first of the new line of Shapers, and perhaps more than that, as well. There are legends, and whispers in the Memories of our people, of the return of Shaping to our world, and one who would come to Restore what was broken. I believe it could be you.”

  Annah looked around the heart-place. All of this is right. Everything is as it was meant to be. I thought I had no idea what I was doing-but someone did. “What does it mean?” she asked. “What do I mean?”

  Serra laughed. “No one can answer that question for you. I would be afraid to even try. As for the first question-well, Shapers were once very important to our people. In my time, they were healers, leaders, artists-they were the ones who guided our people, who showed them what they could be. But for some reason, fewer and fewer were born before the Breaking of our world. And since the Breaking, you are the first. What it means beyond that fact, I cannot say, not for sure. But there have been stories among our people, for a long time now, of one who would come to heal the broken places in the Memories, the places that once were whole. But it is not enough merely to be able to be that oneto be the Restorer. In the end, you would have to choose to be. Being a Shaper, that is the first step. As for the rest, I cannot tell you.”

  “What about Holder? You said you thought he was a Shaper, too?” Serra smiled. “I will not know until I have spoken with him, but yes, I believe your Holder is also a Shaper-or can be, if he wants to learn.”

  Annah remembered something all at once. “I told him he was, once, when he was playing music for me on his music-maker-his git-arr. I was only teasing, though.”

  “Perhaps you saw it then, and did not realize.” Serra looked into Annah’s shining eyes. “Does it not seem odd to you that you have always felt strange, never found a mate, and that this one man, from across the Sea of Stars, came to our world, seemingly at random, and that you, alone out of all of us, found him and came to love him? Is that not odd to you?”

  Annah was silent for a moment. “It is not strange, or wrong, at all,” she said. “Despite what others might think, or say, it has always felt right.”

  “And I believe it is,” Serra said. “Do you realize that your bloomlings-yours and Holder’s, and their bloomlings in turn-could restore the art of Shaping to this world?”

  Annah felt overwhelmed again, but forced herself to sit up straight, take a deep breath, and look back at Serra. “Yes, I suppose they could. But I do not want him for his seeds.”

  “Of course you do not,” Serra said. She grinned at Annah. “But you do want them, do you not?”

  Annah smiled, and nodded. “I do. Very much, actually.” She blushed. “You and he will do what you were born for,” Serra said. “You will love each other. That is most important. But it may be that you have a second purpose together, too.” Annah nodded. “It seems so.”

  “Will you bring Holder with you, when you come tomorrow? If, that is, you still wish me to be your teacher?”

  “I will,” Annah said. “And I do.” I was so close to him, Goodman thought. We were alone. I should have killed him. That would have done a little good, he imagined--well, a lot of good-but he might never have made it off Erewhon alive. Or with this. He fingered the plasteel container which held Caminos’ latest weapon. Caminos was counting on Piscene to get it back to Earth for him, and Goodman was going to make sure that happened. And then he was going back Offworld, maybe for good, this time.

  “Earth shuttle arrival time: fifteen Standard minutes.” Caminos had a private shuttle, Goodman knew. “Piscene” even had the access codes. But he didn’t need the tail that would come with it. Sure, he was going to have to get his own transport eventually, especially if he was going to make for Evohe, as he planned to do. But he had enough credits from his days with Homesec, days which were probably over, he realized, to finance at least a small craft and some comfort cash to keep him taken care of.

  “Earth shuttle arriving. Please stand clear of the docking platform.” Goodman looked behind him. Kind of a shame, really, giving up my cover like this. It might be harder to shake up the HPF where I’m probably going to end up. But somebody has to get rid of this thing. If I knew what just sending it out into the black would do, I’d do it. But I’m not sure. And I can’t take a gamble on a question mark that big.

  He checked the container; made sure it was secure. Then, he strapped himself into his shuttle seat, and prepared for the g-push of liftoff. Goodbye, Nowhere.

  * * * “I understand why you are nervous, dearest,” Annah told Holder, as she sat watching him dress for their meeting with Serra. “There is no need to be, though.”

  Holder fumbled over his fourth shirt-button for the fifth time. “That’s what you think.” “Yes, it is what I think,” Annah said, looking at Holder’s reflection, and her own, in the mirror they’d had brought in when they took up residence in the Temple. Such things weren’t much used on Evohe, but the Elders had been glad to oblige the strange Offworlder with the fetish for ‘second skin.’

  “Well, you’re not the ‘foreigner’ here, beloved.” “Please,” Annah said. “ No one calls you that any longer. You are just scared.” She stroked his cheek. “I was too. In some ways, I still am.”

  “I just know how you have something to do now. It’s important, and I don’t want to get in the way. Or mess things up.”

  Annah frowned at him. “Do not talk like that. We have ‘something to do’ together. You do not ‘mess things up.’ And you do not get in my way. You are my way.”

  “Come on, beloved,” Holder said. “Let’s go see a Shaper.” “I don’t understand much about any of this,” Holder told Serra. “I know some of what Annah can do, and I do know that we can talk together in our heads? But her Memories? I don’t have those.”

  Serra laughed. “You would not. That is a gift the First Ones gave our people when They made this world. It is not a Shaper talent-but the art of Connection is.”

  Serra sang the word in her language, and Holder made a mental note to remind Annah he needed to start those Evoetian 101 lessons as soon as possible.

  “Connection, huh?” Holder said. “Yes,” Serra affirmed. “It is said that Shapers were meant to be the—the living tissue—the connection between Spirit and the World. Perhaps a better word is ‘translator,’the way we have learned to translate our language into yours.”

  “Hmm,” said Holder. “I’m not sure I like that. I’ve never really thought people need a translator between themselves and ‘Spirit.’

  “They do not,” Serra said. “But many do not realize this. They do not know how to open their own pathway to Spirit. The gift of the Shaper is that he—or she,” she added, smiling at Annah, “has the ability to show others this pathway; to open that channel of connection for another— so that then, they may do it for themselves.”

  “Hmm,” Holder said. “That does make sense.” He imagined there were a lot of Shapers back on Earth, if they could only know that was what they were-musicians, writers, filmmakers, athletes, teachers
—even laborers or homemakers-anyone who did what they did with a conscious eye toward using their work to open a window in the world somewhere. It was an important thing-there were sure as hell a lot of people who seemed to be trying to shut those same windows, as hard and as fast as they could. “What about these things Shapers can do?” Holder asked. He was still a little uncomfortable thinking of himself as a Shaper. “Like setting up that Gate to protect this place. And Annah’s healing?”

  Serra laughed again. In another place, it might have made Holder angry, but he understood from her manner that there was nothing of malice or ridicule in it. “This world—Evohe, and that is her name—-still knows how to listen to her people, even when they forget how to listen to her. On such a world, the very matter of things will respond to a Shaper’s skills. Again, it is a relationship; a matter of connection. It is not unexplainable. And it is something that you could do here as well. It might be harder on a world such as Earth. But not impossible. No, not that at all.”

  Annah had been quiet the whole time, just watching Serra and Holder as they talked. “Tell him about the Paths of Connection,” she told Serra. “I learned them when I was very small. But I am sure he has never been told.”

  “That is a good point, Annah,” Serra said. “Holder, there are actions that open pathways that Shapers can use. Actually, they’re pathways anyone can use, but it’s generally harder to use them in connection with Spirit unless one is a Shaper, or is shown by one how to use them.”

  Serra exhaled. “Music is one, as you know, Holder. Playing, singing, even listening-it’s an easy channel to open. Sex, or sexual play, is another. Our customs on Evohe in this regard may seem strange to you. We learn from the time we are bloomlings that the body’s sexual urges are really urges toward connection—with ourselves, with others—and, most importantly, with Spirit. Most bloomlings, seed-youths, and seed-maidens share loveplay with a variety of partners for this very reason-they are trying to find the best connection they can--and, of course, it is pleasurable.”