Annah and the Children of Evohe

by Clay Gilbert

  “We don’t know that you have. In fact, we suspect you haven’t. But we think you may know the names of two traitors who definitely have: a pirate named Turner, and a small-time crook who calls himself the Maestro. They killed a man; a good man loyal to Earth. A man named Piscene. And they stole a weapon designed to keep Earth safe from wholesale offworld infiltration for generationsperhaps even forever.”

  Turner. The Maestro. To the blinded man, the names sounded like words from a vidplay he’d seen as a child; a piece of pretty fantasy, its details now forgotten, surfacing only as fragments in his imagination. They might once have meant something, but now-”I don’t know anyone like that. They criminals or something?”

  “Yes,” said a different voice, a woman’s voice—-but still, he noted, not the one he knew. “They were pirates. They helped to destroy an Earth cruiser in a battle outside a piece of real estate Homesec needs very badly. APortal.”

  A flash of fire detonated behind the blinded man’s eyes. “The Portal. It was destroyed.”

  “It was,” the woman said. “That’s how you came to be here. The man we found with you wasn’t so lucky.”

  “There was someone else?” He remembered little, but in what he did remember, he was alone. “And he died?” “Yes. Apparently, you and he were on a mission together, checking the Portal for charges planted by the pirates. When we found you, he was already dead.”

  The blinded man felt a sudden shock of loss, although he remembered neither the man she spoke of, nor what had happened to him. “Wh—-who was he?”

  “A good man. A hero, really. An Earth loyalist named Gary Holder.”

  * * * After a supper of sweetglobes and fish they caught and cooked over the campfire, Annah and Goodman once again spent the early evening working on the repairs to Holder’s grounded ship. They spoke very little the entire time.

  Finally, it was Goodman who broke the silence. “Annah,” he asked, “are you angry with me?” She looked up from the wires she was soldering together as Goodman had shown her (a process she found fascinating, as it seemed to her yet another form of Shaping), and met Goodman’s gaze with an expression of surprise. “No,” Annah said. “I am not. It is not your fault, Goodman. My blood-time has begun, and I often feel-somewhere between soil and starlight-when it first starts.”

  Goodman smiled. That might be one of the best expressions of such a feeling he’d ever heard. “Are you all right?” Annah smiled, sealing together another pair of sundered wires. “Yes. It is a part of Balance. I do not even feel very tired. But thank you for thinking of me. I did tell you, once, that I might one day grow more comfortable with you, did I not?”

  “You did,” he said, smiling back. “It is just that-I have been thinking of other cycles as well. It has been a cycle of sleep for this world—-sleep, and change, as the not-birds and some other creatures of this world, like my own people, sometimes do. But the sleep is over-or it should be. It is time the awakening began. That is part of what my circle and I learned from Serra today.”

  “Tell me about it?” Goodman asked. “I think we should do a little more work here, but I can listen and work, too.”

  “Very well. I have wanted to talk about it, anyway. It is a thing of joy, but I am troubled, too.”

  * * * When the voices receded, and the men they belonged to (whose faces the blinded man never saw) were gone, he felt an anger and confusion unlike any he had felt in years. How could these aliens-these bugs—have done these things? Terrorist attacks back on Earth-like the Homesec Central bombing, and now destroying a Portal just so Earthers would lose advantage in the interstellar trade markets? And murder—-killing a man like this one who’d tried to stop them-this Gary Holder.

  The voices hadn’t told the blinded man much about who Holder had been, only that he’d been brave; a patriot, a loner with no family, but that had made him even more loyal to Earth, and to Homesec. The blinded man dimly remembered once having had a family: a woman he’d lovedShannon, yes, that had been her name-and a young son, five years old, named-namedwhy can’t I remember my own son’s name? He tried again-still nothing, like a stretch of the black wiped clean by a Duster blast.

  But he remembered what had happened to them; his wife and small son-they’d been going downtown to tour Homesec’s central office, where Shannon had taken a tech support job. They’d both been killed when that bitch of an ET came through the gate with that dirty bomb. She’d dropped it and run like a coward caught red-handed-but that had been her intention. She’d never meant to go up with the blast. Turned out the bomb was meant only to kill humans, and leave all the offworlders still standing. They’d both bled out on the floor; his Shannon, and their son, with at least a hundred others. He and Shannon had had a fight that morning, and he’d never been able to say he was sorry. That E.T. Bitch would be sorry, though, if I could get my hands on her. That’s right-it had been a woman-well, what passed for one with these bugs. She’d had skin so pale it almost looked sickly, weird blue eyes, an ugly, oddlyshaped head, like a football or an oddly-shaped pumpkin, and the sounds she’d made sounded like a tone-deaf baby trying to sing. They’d given her some kind of code name in the news screeners he’d seen, since they couldn’t possibly have translated her actual name. They’d called her “Annah.”

  He hadn’t stuck around that day. There was Recon work out on the Edge, cleaning up after one of the prospecting runs Homesec did to fund their bug-hunting efforts now and then—and that suited him fine. If only he’d done the hunting, the blinded man thought. He might have been more like this Gary Holder-and who knew, maybe Annah would be gone now, and not his Shannon-and their son.

  * * *

  “Annah, what is it?”

  Goodman caught her arm just as her legs buckled beneath her, and steadied her.

  “First Ones, Goodman. I do not even know. But-I do. I must sit down.” Goodman helped Annah to sit down by the fire, and dipped for her a bowl of the soup they’d been eating a few hours earlier.

  “It was Holder. But he was so-different. He said my name. And he sounded so angry. He said it like—like he hated me.” Her voice broke a little. “I do not understand how this can be.”

  Goodman brushed Annah’s fingers with his own. “You’ve been pretty worried, and busy. And-it’s your blood-time, too. Maybe it was a dream.” Annah glared at him. “Kale Goodman,” she said in a cold tone, “this is not about my blood-time. I am a Shaper. The Balance of my body does not cloud my vision. If anything, it strengthens it. I am certain it was him. Holder is alive, and something has happened to him—changed him, in ways I never thought could be.”

  “All right. All right. Damn HPF. They must have gotten hold of him somehow. Those—people-don’t have any idea what the word ‘human’means.”

  “You believe me?”Annah asked, looking amazed. “I know you don’t lie. And, even if you do have strong emotions about something, I know you have abilities I can’t always understand. If you say he’s alive, I’m willing to take a chance you’re right. I want him to be alive too.”

  Annah couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. She threw her arms around Goodman’s neck and hugged him.

  “Thank you.” Goodman smiled, feeling a little uncomfortable, but glad he’d done something to make her feel better. Even if Holder ends up being dead after all.

  “You’re welcome. But-Annah, we have to be careful.”

  “Why?”

  “If he is out there, and changed like you say, he might be dangerous-to himself, and to us.” “Is that the only way your kind knows to think?” Annah snapped, pushing him away, and sounding both angry and anguished at once. “That someone who has been hurt needs to be stilled because he might—mightdo harm to another? He is your friend, Goodman. And he is my mate. He is lost, and I will find him. And I will bring him home, whether you help me or not.”

  “Annah,” Goodman said, “he may not even be the man we know, anymore.” “People do not change, Goodman. Not at their core. He is lost. And I k
now that were I lost, he would not leave me in the darkness to die, alone.”

  “All right. We’re going to need help.”

  “I will go to my circle and speak with them about it, in the morning.” “I’ll see what I can do, too. He is my friend, Annah. I care about him, too. And I care about you—or I wouldn’t be here right now.”

  The worry in her features softened. “I know you do, Goodman. And I am very glad you are here. Should we work some more on the ship?”

  “The ship’s nearly finished. What’s left will keep until later. It’s almost dark anyway. I’d like to hear about the learningcircle.”

  “Very well,” Annah said. “I am very hungry, though, and it is not yet last-light. If we go down to the stream, we may be able to eat more than spice-grasses and broth for Evenmeal tonight.”

  By the time Annah and Goodman had caught three or four fish in the stream-plenty for at least two meals, Goodman thought, since Evoetian fish only seemed to come in two sizes-big, and bigger-the indigo skies had already darkened to black. They cooked their catch over the campfire, and as Goodman watched the orange-gold light play upon Annah’s hair and skin, he saw a light come into her eyes. “Serra wants us to look to our Talents, and find something there to help bring the art of Shaping back into the world, so that everyone may hear the Song of the World as it used to be.” She smiled, and Goodman could not help smiling back at her. She was beautiful, he thought; strange, still, in her way, but beautiful still. And she was changing, in ways he couldn’t quite pinpoint; ways Holder would have been able to tell more precisely. She seemed stronger, more sure of herself. Growing, he thought. Like this whole world. Like me, too. Remembering what we’re meant to be.

  “I know what I am bringing to the Circle tomorrow morning, Goodman,” Annah said, crossing to his side of the fire and sitting down beside him. “It is a song of Memory, for all that is lost. For all those who are lost. I hope to sing it for Holder one day; to help him find his way back to me. But now, if you would like, I will sing it for you.”

  Goodman stumbled over speech; fumbled, found one syllable. “Yes. Yes, Annah, I would like that very much.”

  “Very well,” Annah said. She took a deep breath, and began to sing. I sing of the gifts that are present, sang the first line of the melody, not in the words of the humans’ language, but in the ancient tongue of Annah’s own people. Then she repeated the line, this time in the words she knew Holder and Goodman would use. As she sang, she felt the Shaperteachings, as well as her own Memories, opening inside her; opening much as would the unfolding petals of an aroused seed-maiden’s blossom. There is a reason for that, a voice she recognized as Lilliane’s said inside her mind. This and that, they are both among the Shapers’ Paths.

  Goodman listened to Annah’s song, feeling it was the first music he had ever heard not merely with his ears, but with every sense at once. He must not only hear it, Lilliane’s voice said inside Annah’s mind, but feel it as well.

  Annah let her voice rise with the second line of the melody. I sing of the gifts that are lost, rang the tones in Evoetian, and then, once more, in Standard. She reached out her hand toward Goodman as she sang, and brushed his face with her fingers.

  So warm, Goodman thought, momentarily unable to separate the touch of Annah’s fingertips from the deeper caress of the song she was singing. In his mind, the music peeled back layers of remembrance: his experiences in the Home Guard, fighting in skirmishes on border worlds between Homesec space and the unclaimed black; seas of lasgun fire and blood, both human and non-terrestrial; his days as a Homesec desk-jockey, barely out of his teens and already beyond the battle-glories of only a few years before, feeling as though his life were already over, and wondering what it had all been for. That was why he’d had such contempt for Holder before he’d gotten to know him: Gary Holder was twenty years older than he was, and yet, somehow, had managed to survive that time relatively unscarred.

  He needs healing, Annah thought; as surely as my people do; as surely as my Holder does—if Holder is still truly there for me to heal, and not merely a stranger inside a shell that wears his face. But Goodman is here, and he is divided, like me. As she sang to him, Annah could see Goodman’s sadness at losing Holder—for he still cannot believe Holder could be aliveand his disappointment at finding Irie with childfor he will not believe she could have done it without abandoning him. “I sing of the seeds that are planted,” she continued, first in the melodylanguage of her own people, and then, her lips against his ear, in the words of his.

  Goodman felt himself becoming aroused at the feeling of Annah’s skin against his; at the comforting sounds of the song; at the tenderness with which she treated him.

  Annah herself felt caught somewhere between the flow of the Shaper’s trance and the rise of her body’s own excitement. Her heart was the percussive pounding of the summoning-drum on a Fair Day; her breathing the rush of wind against her ears as she ran through the wood, chasing Evenfall shadows back to her parents’ hearth-fire, and her blossom was slick as the stones in a rain-swelled streambed. Without even thinking, she rubbed her cheek against Goodman’s, startled at its smoothness, since, unlike Holder, Goodman had no beard.

  Goodman turned his face toward Annah’s-there was a flash of bright blue eyes, pale skin and firelight—and an instant later, the whole world melted into the warmth of a kiss. Goodman felt Annah’s tongue stroking his like a creature with its own will, and he was, for a moment, doubly guilty. What would Irie think? Probably nothing. And what about Holder? He’d be pissed, to say the least. But it wasn’t likely he was even alive to have anything to say about it, no matter what Annah had dreamed.

  God, Annahshe had been trilling another line of melody against his ear, and now, as he felt the warmth of her lips on his earlobe, he let his hands move over her arms, across her belly, up to her breasts, feeling her nipples grow hard against his palms as he brushed them. He bent his lips to them, sucking first one, then the other. She was arching her back, pressing up against his mouth, moving her head everso-slightly from side to side, a sound escaping her lips that was part moaning and part music.

  Annah felt her body trembling; her arms and legs shuddering now like the branches of the great trees when a storm shook them, and she wrapped them around Goodman’s, as if by not doing so, she would be lost in a darkness from which there would be no outstretched hand to pull her out. Fingers trembling almost as badly as her legs, she began unbuttoning Goodman’s shirt.

  What the hell am I doing? Goodman thought—as much as he could think now, which wasn’t much. He could feel the cool, smooth skin of Annah’s breasts and belly against his chest—he had helped her take his shirt off almost without thinking, and now—now-”Annah,” he managed, not knowing whether it was an affirmation or a plea. Annah heard Goodman speak her name from somewhere beyond both of their bodies—all of this seemed to be happening both outside of them, and within them as well. She kissed Goodman again, looking down at his strangelybare, strangely-unlined face, not at all like Holder’s, whose years and pains had marked him outside as her own had marked her from within. In a moment of Vision, she remembered the bitter sound of Holder’s voice, speaking her name, in the dark place where he had landed when he fell through fire and starlight—a fall which, it seemed, had burned all of the love from his voice, leaving only the cold tones of hate, so unlike music. So unlike him. Maybe this it was my fault. Maybe I should have gone with him—maybe if I had, I could have saved him. But he is gone, now, and I—I

  Annah felt Goodman’s body fill hers, rising into her like the song of Shaping itself, and for a while, there was nothing else.

  * * *

  “Annah.” Submerged beneath the stream-water, Annah heard Goodman’s voice float to her like Lilliane’s words in one of her Visions, or like a half-clear signal over the speak-box in Holder’s ship. She was no longer sure how long she had been there in the water.

  She had stumbled, half-dreaming, down the path to the strea
m almost as soon as she awakened, her body and Goodman’s still tangled together as they had been when their Joining had ended and they had fallen asleep. The insides of her thighs were slick with sweat and secretions from both of their bodies, and as she bathed, she watched the clear stream-water blush with blood; both the dark of her moon-blood, and a fresher, redder flow-she had heard that seed-maidens often bled when their blossoms were opened for the first time, but the sight of it was still a shock, as was the soreness she felt inside her. It is the way of things. I know he did not mean to hurt me.

  “Annah.” Goodman saw her emerge from the water now, and felt a strange relief—-he’d had a moment’s paranoid thought that she might be trying to drown herself.

  “Hello, Goodman,” she said. She managed a small smile, not because she was entirely happy, but because she did not want him to be worried. Whatever we have done, right or wrong, he did not force me. He did not stop me, either, but I am not sure he could have.

  “Hi, Annah.” Goodman stood at the edge of the stream, just looking at her in the water, and making no attempt to go in and join her. He’d awakened only a few minutes before, surprised not to feel the warmth of her body curled against his next to the fire. He hadn’t even bothered to get dressed before going to look for her. “We need to talk.”

  Goodman went back up the hill to the campsite, and almost as soon as he had kindled the beginnings of a fire, he saw Annah coming to join him.

  “I am sorry, Goodman,” she said, feeling afraid to meet his eyes for the first time since she and Holder had met him on their Promising Day. And what has become of my promise?

  “Don’t be sorry,” Goodman said. “Look at me.”

  Annah did, although it looked to Goodman as though it hurt her to do so.

  “Sit down.”

  Again, she did as he asked.

  “Are you all right? Did I-hurt you?” Goodman felt a moment’s flash of shame.