The Alchemists

by Geary Gravel

  They say—and they are invariably not Scholars—that we of University are made different from the rest of humankind in that we are conscious of the process of learning, and treasure it as if it were a pleasure of the senses. They further say that we can smell out knowledge, that we are aware of its presence like the beginnings of new weather in the air.

  If this is true then I have been through a whole storm today, a battering and a drenching of my brain.

  1 have learned:

  1. That we do not exist here, at least not to those that we have come to judge.

  2. That the kin are not people, are not "kin" to people, save in appearance.

  3. That we have been asked to assist in a lie so great that it could prevent the murder of creatures who would be totally unaware of demolition, completely incapable of experiencing their own extinction.

  4. That if the vote is yes then we must begin at once to build a Man from the manlike thing in the forest and whatever spare parts and wrappings the rest of us can provide.

  The roles are shaping up already:

  March to pull the strings Choss to fill the past Raille to keep the life inside Marysu to speak the words Cil to make a world that could have made a man

  Emrys himself the source, the way,

  the puppetmaster Jefany...

  Jefany to teach him humanity. O gods.

  CHAPTER 8

  ... And blest are those

  Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled

  That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger

  To sound what stop she please.

  Give me that man

  That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him In my heart's core . ..

  FROM HAMLET. PRINCE OF DENMARK, BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  I

  Marysu had named the plant "slevoe" because its branches bore long clusters of tiny translucent seeds and because in Hint, the Middle Tongue of World Hinderlond, slevoe could mean either a shower of ice droplets or a necklace of glass beads, depending largely on the social class of the speaker. To Choss' shame— as Marysu had foreseen—the word meant "necklace" to him, and he flushed with anger during her offhand analysis of the "patterns of linguistic oppression" which existed on his native world. Too preoccupied with his own concerns to notice the hidden tension and resentment when the word was discussed,

  Emrys commented that the name seemed to fit the bush and had it officially recorded with the Hut.

  There was a stand of young slevoe growing in a broad crescent at the far western edge of the Verres. Raille Weldon crouched with her back against the slender trunk of the largest bush, and as she trembled, the branches bobbed gracefully all around her.

  Twenty paces to her right was the creature, drifting gradually in her direction through the high grass. The nearer it came, the more violently she shook, gasping and sobbing, though there were no tears but the frozen jewels hanging from the branches by her head.

  Within the swaying shelter Raille sat huddled with her arms locked around her knees. She looked out through the branches upon a strange double image: kin moving, kin motionless; half the sky soft gray, half glittering silver; the world first sane and ordered, then holding such terror that she began to scream again, hoarsely, even as part of her drew back and watched in wondering silence.

  At length the kin's wanderings took it past her, back out into the Verres, until soon it was no more than a pale-brown blur slipping through the green and silver.

  Raille rose and tried to follow it, slowly at first, then running as she neared it. When she was about ten meters away she lurched and cried out as if she had stumbled, then fell to her knees, her skirts fanning out like a flower head around her.

  When she climbed to her feet again, minutes had passed and the kin was nowhere in sight. She stood for a long moment with her eyes focused on nothing, chest heaving. Then she turned and moved slowly away in the opposite direction.

  "Choss, are you in here?"

  Choss raised his hand, and the room brightened. The Screen grew dim and opaque, blue fire snuffed into memories.

  "I was watching a Netplay," he said to Jefany, who stood blinking in the Hearth Room archway. "A drama, simplistic

  but very engrossing, based on the exclusion of New Asuncion

  from the Darkjumper shipping routes a few years back-----"

  His voice trailed off., "Is something wrong?"

  "We're not sure. The Hut says there's a ship in orbit, but we've had no signal. It may be the empath's going to be dropped. And Raille isn't back from observing the kin yet."

  He got to his feet. "What are you going to do?"

  "We're going out to the drop site. Ernrys and I, at least, and whoever else—"

  "Yes. I'm coming. Hurry."

  Raille had been walking for a long time, trying to figure out what was wrong with her.

  She could not understand why she should be different. None of the others had reported any difficulty approaching the kin since that first paralyzing encounter they had all shared. Why had she been affected again?

  She found a place to think where there were flowers on a skein of low vines all along a sloping stream bed, a rippling ribbon of color and reflection stretching for several meters. She sat on a tree stump and cradled her chin in her palm, staring obstinately at the scene.

  / refuse to go mad and miss all of this. It's too beautiful.

  She rose in a few minutes, nothing resolved, and left the spot with reluctance. She began to feel more herself again as she wandered, with papery leaves tangling in her hair until the breeze took them back. She had found a song at the back of her mind that had nothing whatsoever to do with fear or self-pity or bewilderment, and she sang it softly under her breath as she came out once more into meadowland. In Inter the song was merely a lengthy mnemonic used to catalogue the kinds of leaves that distinguished certain herbs:

  needletip, sharpsides, heartshape

  and

  arrowhead, circular, thinflat

  and

  shieldshape, triangle, lancehead

  with

  turned lance, eggshape, beewing

  In Weldonese, however, it rhymed cleverly and each line ended with a homily or warning concerning the proper use of one of the plants:

  Vyi dendau sallifra venoyah mi'kah—sle tammera

  daivyu—ne'en Chilona dolauvis ki, kiniyi passe'rah—

  Raille stopped suddenly in the middle of the verse. She was standing frozen in midstep in a field of shade-dappled silver that seemed no different from all the other fields. What had halted her? She looked wildly up and down the meadow, but there was nothing unusual in sight. She was alone. She waited, ready to—

  (The opalescent seas rushed upward and outward, finally disappearing under the edge of a swelling landmass. The earth gave birth to shadows and light, a suggestion of texture, a patina of color.)

  She didn't know what she was ready to do, only that she was poised for some sort of action, waiting for confirmation. Abruptly she remembered seeing a hand, a face in shadow, an opening mouth. // was here, it was here it was here—

  (The continent blurred for a moment as he passed through a thin layer of clouds, then resolved itself suddenly into ranges of mountains and nets of rivers, forests, and wide meadows.)

  She blinked and saw the empty field of silver grass with here and there a smooth stone, a flowered stalk, clumps of dark brush. Arrowhead, needletip, triangle—What was here? What happened? I refuse to—

  (Mountains became one mountain escaping to the north, while rivers broke into streams which grew quickly into rivers again. The forest rose up, spun to one side, and vanished entirely. Round as a raindrop, a single bright meadow filled the world beneath him.)

  But she felt as if a thread were being pulled slowly from her mind, a gleaming something which she was powerless to

  halt and could only mark by its passing from her memory. She wanted to run. Lancehead, shieldshape, beewing—go on, go on, it's gone.

&nb
sp; (The meadow separated into a billion blades of waving grass, then leaped up all at once with incredible speed. His eyes closed.)

  For a long moment she had a feeling of horrible vertigo— her feet moving swiftly through the grass and the ground firm beneath each step, but falling, falling just the same. She was running through a meadow which was like all the other meadows; then she was out of it and into the next. Go on, there's nothing here. Into another circle of shimmering silver. Or here. Running. Or—

  (Downward in darkness now, the faint sound of wind outside the packet. He was just beginning—)

  Here?

  (—to breathe again—)

  She looked up and dodged to one side, tripped, and half crawled, half dragged herself out of the path of the thing that was falling toward her like a great cloudy bubble of silence.

  (—when something nudged the sole of his foot and his stomach tipped like a gyroscope. He opened his eyes to a swirling landscape of gray and green. His hand found the stud at the back of his neck, and as the packet crumpled around his ankles, he saw her crouched on the ground a few meters away, looking at him. He took a breath and filled his lungs with the new world. Then he sank to his knees in the fragrant grass and became thoroughly sick.)

  Raille Kristema Weldon of Auvel's Orchard, only child of Furian Farflight and of Annay his widow, distant kin through the maternal line of the Founder himself, and daughter for nineteen years of that ancient world whose poets styled it the Blue Jewel—Raille barely hesitated before she went over to the man and reached to hold his shoulders as he retched. When it was over she wiped his brow with the hem of her skirt and

  knelt with him while he got his breath back.

  "Feeling better now?"

  His face was turned away from her, and he did not speak. She could feel his body still trembling beneath the long gray cloak.

  "Would you want to try to stand?"

  She put her arm under his, and they swayed upright. His knees buckled, but she held him until he had regained his balance. The hand that clutched her wrist was clammy w:'th sweat.

  "There. Is that all right?"

  Without a word he pulled slowly free of her hands. His feet pushed haltingly through the tall grass.

  "Can I—help?" The words left her lips sluggishly. She felt tired and heavy, and there was an odd pressure growing all around her head, uneven, like wings beating in the air, like a thick cloth flapping. She tried to raise her hand to her forehead, but it grew heavier with each passing second until she had to let it drop back to her side. She was rooted to the ground. Her entire body felt numb or muffled, as if it had been swathed in thick bandages.

  The man continued his slow progress across the meadow. He had reached the place where ribbons of moss and tufts of dark wellhorn separated this meadow from the next. There the man stood motionless for what seemed to Raille to be a very long time, his quiet head turned up to the sky, where sunset was beginning to set out its precious metals above a dim horizon.

  His face stood out white as eggshell against the far mountains' blue and gray, but the hair that fell beneath his high collar was glossy and dark, a black bird's wing to match his raven eyes.

  Minutes passed. The wind was starting to rise from the south, and his cloak moved restlessly, blurring his silhouette. Raille watched him, feeling dulled and drowsy. He looks like some character in a folktale, she thought sleepily. Like poor Kiri-hero under the spell of silence.

  The man at last lowered his eyes from the clouds. Somewhere in the cluster of fields an animal began to chatter noisily, and the pressure, the wings, the thick wrappings, all dropped from Raille's head as abruptly as they had appeared.

  He was moving, walking again, pacing out the border of the field in carefully measured steps. Raille turned to face him as he passed near her.

  "Who are you? Are you from University? Are you the one they were talking about—what was the word? Some kind of path?" She felt a wave of dija vu pass over her, vanish.

  He said nothing, eyes on the ground.

  "You know, I didn't like the packet much either. My poor stomach arrived a few hours after the rest of me had landed."

  He paused in midstep, and she was sure he was going to reply. Then he turned toward the east and cocked his head to one side as if listening for something. After a few moments he returned to his mechanical pacing.

  Raille stood at the center of his circle, slowly turning now like the hub of a wheel, feeling alternately foolish and very frightened. "Please—who are you?"

  Empty silence.

  "Do you speak Inter?"

  He walked on, and she could see that his steps were growing steadily larger and more sure. She shut her eyes and stood still, refusing to turn with him, feeling the pull on her mind like strands of silk. She concentrated on stillness. On darkness. On silence.

  Her skin prickled and she opened her eyes. He was standing at her side.

  He was staring at her.

  At this proximity his eyes reminded her of an animal's, dark and bright at the same time. A bit of the pressure was growing in her head again, and her thoughts started to wander. Memories slid in and out of concealment like fish beneath flat rocks in a pond.

  Oh, faith, not again...

  She began to be angry.

  "My name is Raille Weldon." Each word was bitten from the silence. "Weldon is my world." She took a step toward him. "I am here on Belthannis on University business with a Group Resolvent. Are you expected here? Are you—are you authorized?" She searched for some sign of comprehension in the frozen bone-white features. "Do you understand this language?"

  She heard a sound at her back. She whirled around to see

  movement at the edge of the long stretch of woodland to the northeast. Emrys appeared and called again, waving to her. The other members of the Group came into view behind him. They spilled out of the forest and flowed into the meadow almost at a run, then slowed as they neared the two, faces looking anxiously from Raille to the still figure behind her.

  She took a step backward. What have I done now?

  "Are you all right?" Emrys asked. They had come to a halt at the edge of the meadow.

  Choss pushed forward, trampling the wellhorn. Raille winced. He was out of breath. "Raille—" he managed between gasps. "Why don't you—come over here—"

  Puzzled, she took another step back.

  "It's only a boy," she heard someone say.

  "Why are you here?" Emrys was looking sternly past her shoulder. "What is it you want from us?"

  "He won't answer," Raille said quickly. She moved closer to the pale man in gray. "I don't think he can talk."

  She heard a rustling behind her. The heavy cloak brushed her arm as the man moved past her to stand before Emrys. Then he spoke in a slow dry voice. "I am here to observe the creature that may be a human being."

  "You gave it a room?"

  Coming down from the sundeck, March had encountered Emrys in the upper corridor; they walked briskly toward the central stairwell.

  Emrys nodded. "I told him to take one of the empty ones near the Garden. Cil isn't using hers."

  "Aggh! You really are crazy, old man." March spat on the carpet. "Didn't even lock it in, did you?"

  "No, I didn't. But why 'crazy,' March? He was physically exhausted, and ill from the trip down in the packet. What would you have done?"

  "Stuffed him in another one and shot him back up to ship. Let them find him a bed."

  "You heard the Hut say the ship left orbit almost immediately. It's probably cleared the system and jumped by now. Besides—" He looked sideways at the sandy scowl. "What if he hadn't wanted to leave?"

  March flexed his fingers with a rough laugh. "Had a Dance we used to do on the Maren called Persuasion. Very long and very slow. Breaks every other bone."

  Emrys ignored the predatory grin. "Better be very sure of yourself before going up against one of his kind, sick or well, or it might be you who gets persuaded. At any rate, I see no need to provoke a conf
rontation at this point."

  "No need!" March mimicked scornfully. "You couldn't see a knife if it was stuck in your own belly."

  "Perhaps not." Emrys eyed him calmly. "But I am Group Leader."

  The soldier snorted in disgust.

  "In a day or so, when he's fed and rested, I'll have a talk with him," Emrys said. "Then we can show him the kin and ask him to leave. With luck there'll be no trouble."

  "Isis' rump, if he scares you that much—"

  "Of course he does. I know what he is. It terrifies me. If you had a single properly functioning cell in your brain you'd be frightened, too."

  They had reached the open stairwell. March halted and raised his arm slowly. His expression was poisonous. "Maybe I'll—"

  "Yes?" Emrys held his stare, hand resting lightly on the railing. "Strike me? 'Persuade' me? I don't think so. Not for speaking the truth."

  They faced each other in silence. Then Emrys turned and began to descend the stairs. March followed slowly.

  380.Fer.21, Community time. Day nineteen, Belthannis time. The Hour of Decision.

  The group was gathered in the Hearth Room. Jack, Marysu, Cil, and Jefany sat at the table. Choss was standing by the wall inspecting the current selection of portraits, while actually

  keeping his gaze very close to Raille, who was busy writing. Watching Raille's deft use of inkpen, inkjar, and leaves of wood-paper gathered in a binding, Many suddenly felt very contrived and Techish with her spongepad and stylus. But she continued to record her observations:

  Ernrys has just entered the room.

  Now he is gone again, after getting something to drink from the table, nodding to all of us, exchanging pleasantries.

  Here is March. He has joined us at the table and begun to unwrap a sheaf of transparencies: squares and rectangles limned with minute notations and geometries in many different colors. What are these? They appear to be extremely complex, yet I feel I should recognize them..

  Marysu has gotten up to order something to eat from the other side of the table. Jack takes advantage of the moment to hold up a line drawing of Cil and me. Very good, very accurate. We applaud silently and look away as Marysu returns; Jack blanks his pad and starts to work on something else.