The Alchemists

by Geary Gravel

  Raille returned to her collecting. From time to time, particularly when March's back was to her, she would turn and shade her eyes westward, in the direction of the Hut. When the sample bag was full, she unobtrusively emptied half its contents beneath a bush with blossoms that opened and closed in the breeze like small blue paper fans, and lingered on in the clearing, once more industriously sorting and gathering.

  After a time there came a soft rustle of vegetation and a dark figure stepped slowly into the clearing.

  "Tcha," March spat with disgust. "What does this one want?"

  The empath approached, his great cloak hanging limply in the still afternoon, the mask of his face a chalky intrusion among the greens and golds of the little clearing.

  Raille looked up finally from her work near the fanpaper bush, her face carefully surprised. She went to the empath. "Hello," she said softly, clutching the sample bag in front of her with both hands. "What a pleasant day. Are you heading out toward the Verres?" i

  The empath looked past her shoulder, scanning the horizon methodically from left to right.

  "I've still some leaves to collect from that area. I was just on my way. If you don't mind, I'll walk with you."

  "You're in my way," March growled. "Both of you. Leave."

  The newcomer glided between Raille and the soldier, drifting to a halt within arm's reach of the kin.

  "Get away from there," March said. "If you want to fall over again, it won't be on my Dance frame—"

  But the empath pivoted abruptly and walked on, passing slowly by the creature.

  "God's great geek!" March cried suddenly. "Look at it!"

  The eyes of the kin had begun to move. As the empath made his way past the gleaming frame, the kin's eyes followed him as if drawn by a tether.

  Ignoring the astonished soldier, the empath continued on his way until he had reached the edge of the clearing and slipped noiselessly into the surrounding forest. Raille glanced back uncertainly, then moved to follow him, the sample bag discarded unnoticed near the base of the fanpaper bush.

  March dropped to his knees at the kin's feet, fumbled in the grass for his calibrator as he reached out to the patterning nodes.

  Above, the kin's dark eyes unfocused slowly and drifted shut.

  CHAPTER 10

  Pleyen: There. The last piece in place.

  Now we may begin. Pelna Pwan: What game is this? You have not

  said.

  Pleyen: Yours is the first move. Pelna Pwan: By what rules do we play? What

  is the game? Pleyen: Come, come. Time runs out for

  you. Pelna Pwan: But...

  FROM SHADOWPLAY. BY DEVIWAK AND CHIME

  From The Belthannis Workbook

  of Cil iya dec yo Haim:

  I am traveling toward winter.

  Tramping in the droshky through these silent places feels awkward and intrusive, but I am closer to the earth than I would have been in an aircar, white still able to cover many kilometers in a relatively short time. It is a compromise, like everything we do on this world.

  Today I am sitting on a stone bluff about halfway down the side of a great valley, looking out over an area of perhaps three miles.

  The valley seems at first deserted: I hear no birdsong, see no large animals. But there is life here in abundance. One has to get used to looking closer at things, for every rock has its lichen: I have seen blacks, browns, greens, oranges, and pink and beige and rust red, all on my recent climb down this slope.

  Everywhere the colors surprise. At first there is only green and silver, gray-green and brown. Look closer and you see twelve new shades, but hidden here and there, in small amounts. And in the distance... behind everything the eye fixes on, there is something else, farther and farther on, folds and valleys, ridges and saddles of silver-green land.

  Rocks here below me: the earth's strong bones. And trees. Trees lying fallen where the earth moved years ago, their splayed roots tall as a man and wild, like sculpted explosions pointing to the indifferent sky. From this vantage point shadow reigns in the lowlands beneath my perch: great clouds cast their silhouettes like black vessels moving slowly, serenely on to the other side of the world.

  The sun rises in the same place every day; the planet rotates with its poles perpendicular to the plane of its orbit, the degree of tilt so slight as to be negligible.

  So there are no seasons here, and all large-scale climatic variation is permanent, regionally fixed. The mild equatorial summer is a perpetual one, as are the polar winters. In between is a gradual blending, producing at its midpoints the gentle autumn we experience in the latitude of our Hut.

  This morning I remembered that first night when we fell in the packets and Jefany quoted that bit of Antique poetry to me, something about a "savage place, holy and enchanted." Much more accurate to call Belthannis a static place. Holy, perhaps. Unchanging, for certain.

  And where do the kin fit into all this stillness? There is no living organism known to us which is not continually undergoing change. Can we have found in the kin a creature immune to evolution? Is this whirling dance actually a curb on the kin's evolution, a way of keeping the race precisely homogeneous, avoiding any sort of specialization or differentia—

  tion that might result from generations of individuals confined to a single area of the globe? But why should that be of survival value, or is survival subordinate to nostalgia here? Did they come from Somewhere Else? Was the great circle established to give them back a pattern left behind on another world? Belthannis seems more and more like a huge diorama, or some master craftsman's carefully constructed ecological exercise, rather than a living, breathing world. Yet who could pace the meadows near the Hut as I have, and fail to perceive the pulse of glorious life?

  I have never walked a world of such paradox before. On the one hand are my senses, telling me that all is natural and untouched; on the other is my mind, quietly insistent that nowhere has the smell of intelligent intervention been as sharp.

  I am left with a strange dilemma! Emrys wants me to construct a plausible natural history for the Autumnworld, one that includes a thinking, reasoning kin. But I begin to think my time would be better spent in uncovering the truth of matters here, surely a tale more extravagant than any my poor imagination could concoct.

  Half my life has been spent wandering in a search for order. Here there is nothing but order, door after opening door of it. Why do I find that so disquieting?

  From My Journal, by Raille Weldon:

  He came down to dinner tonight, but he wouldn't join us at the table. I don't think he really knew it was dinnertime. He just got his mug of whatever from the table and downed it all in one swallow, standing there in front of us as if we didn't exist. There was an empty place next to me, and I was all gooseflesh for the few minutes he stood there, thinking he might actually sit down beside me. Fortunately (I suppose), as soon as the table took back his mug, he turned on his black heel

  and drifted out of the room, his eyes on everything but us. Dinner went on, full of talk and jokes about him, but I couldn't help but think how much more interesting the meal might have been....

  Sometimes I pass by his room when I've been working late in the Library, or just downstairs with a glass of tea. I don't really have to go that way, of course, but there's a section of corridor down at the north high end that plays music when you walk through it, and I find it very restful before I go to bed.

  I heard him whispering once, on and on with a low rustling sound, like a mouse hunting food in the grass. But usually he's asleep when I come by, or meditating or something, breathing as a machine would breathe, as the Hut must be breathing somewhere all around us.

  I keep staring at his door, wondering what he's doing in there. One would think I had a lot of absolutely empty time, to be wasting so much so foolishly. But I find myself hoping he'll come out, imagining that face staring at me suddenly in that dark hall at night. Am I trying to frighten myself? This is the same sort of silly f
ascination that had me poking my nose into the hives at halving time, when there was always a good chance of getting badly stung. But there's something compelling about him, something I can't begin to put a name to, not yet. Am I just feeling pity for someone who can't feel? It's true, sometimes he makes me think of Kiri-hero from the old tales, and maybe I feel a little like Beleth, striving to break the spell of silence. But I know the difference between real life and legends, or I used to. At least he hasn't come popping out as I linger there in front of his door, though there's always the chance. But then, I never did get stung, either.

  From The Belthannis Workbook:

  Nowhere is there waste; nowhere is there scarcity. There are no predators. Have I mentioned that before? None

  on this continent, anyway, and the existence of the southern landbridge makes me doubt that Continent Tu will have developed very differently from this one. I have not yet visited the seas, but the animal life I have observed so far on the land has been uniformly herbivorous. I include the kin in that pronouncement, though like Raille I have questions concerning the true nature of the redfruit which swells so obligingly at the tip of the blackbark branch, whenever a hungry kin happens by.

  No one is either killing or being killed by anyone else here, at any rate. Overpopulation is not an issue, seemingly regulated solely by the complicated growth cycles of certain edible grains whose chemical content triggers hormonal activity in the reproductive systems of most of the higher-level animal species—though there may be other, subtler influences as yet undetected, and whether these plants also affect the kin is doubtful, as they have never been observed eating anything but the redfruit.

  Order, balance, everywhere. I have not seen a single example of disease: not among the kin, not among the little tree-climbing marsupials, the black burrowers, the water-nest builders of the rivers, the seldom-seen birds, the several varieties of tiny, lobe-finned fish. And none will come from us. By virtue of living in the Hut we are—physically, at least—guaranteed freedom from any form of contagious malady.

  Two days later:

  Asdla yo veo hamd havd, katve kawa, we say on my homeworld. Shape metal with fire, not ashes.

  I must record this while the memory is strong. Something has happened.

  They are not immortal.

  Like animals, or humans not on Ember, the kin are used up by the passage of time. But I must organize my thoughts, and tell it as it happened.

  It was the hour of little-moon-set last night when I entered the territory of Number Four, a dark-haired male, according to a holo from one of the satellites that was lucky enough to catch him in an open field last year.

  I was quite tired, having spent more time off the droshky than on it yesterday, So I threw out the groundskin beneath a

  great blackbark and slept straight through till dawn. I awoke feeling refreshed after a dreamless night and decided to go in search of my host.

  The lifeseeker led me on a pleasant half-hour's stroll, the mechanical bug-car trotting obediently at my heels, until we reached a steep hillock overlooking a broad river valley framed in the distance by majestic snow-crowned mountains. It was the liveliest stretch of river I've yet seen, quite wild in a few places, and the valley itself was magnificent, filled with flowering grasses and liberally inscribed with loops, rings, and crescents of thimblewort.

  Down near the riverbank was a heavy growth of blue bracken, as well as several of the delicate feathery trees which Raille has named "scented plume." I wandered lazily toward the trees, drawn by the pulse of my instrument, until I saw something I was not prepared for beneath one of the swaying plumes.

  It was like an illustration from one of the silly old books we shuddered at as children. It was a withered, skin-wrinkled, shrunken creature with skin like worn leather and a head topped with sparse white down.

  It was an old man.

  He stood before me under the plume, half-propped against the frail trunk, and blinked at the ground. His whole body trembled continuously.

  I took a measure of his life signs. His heart was failing, his respiration erratic. The whole metabolism was spiraling downward, each element of the system shutting itself off in perfect harmony with its fellows. I took holos of him, my own hands beginning to shake.

  I moved forward when he began to slip away from the tree, when he fell to his knees. I didn't know what to do. He swayed, then pitched forward into the grass. I dared not try to resuscitate him—the balance, the order!

  In a few minutes his heartbeat was gone, his breathing stilled. I took another hole, then threw the camera away from me and sat down cross-legged in the ferns next to him, where I wept like a child.

  He, his, him! For the first time I struggle for objectivity. Yet I have never seen a kin look more like a human being than did this one, dying.

  From My Journal:

  Now that we're really working with the kin, putting him in the Dance frame for long periods and things like that, Emrys has asked us all to spend some time watching him each day.

  I can never get to sleep early anyway, so I said I'd take the Late Watches for the next few weeks. That's from the Twenty-fourth hour to the Twenty-ninth. It's not hard; we don't have to watch him every minute. The idea is to keep the Screen on track and check it visually every few minutes to make sure he hasn't fallen into the river or anything. Emrys is afraid we might be disrupting the kin's daily routine too much with our work. He's probably right—I have the same fears—but so far there's been no sign of any reaction.

  Dereliction of duty: Sometimes when I'm down here by myself, bored with the Bloodeyes books, which I must have read end to end a hundred times since I discovered them at twelve; incapable of reading these "sensory" books that involve running your fingers along the page, reading the words and deciphering the colors, all at the same time; and totally unable to get myself interested in what they call a "Vegan-style" novel, then I turn the Screen to up for a little while and just watch the stars.

  There .aren't that many to see out here on the edge of things. Actually, if we were in the southern hemisphere, Cil told me, at the bottom of the other continent, we'd see the galactic disk at night, like a vast, gleaming crescent of light. But to be honest, I think I prefer our view, and I'm getting to know these dim, sparse stars quite well. No familiar constellations, so I've started naming the new ones, even drawing the lines sometimes, wherever I want them, with the aid of the Screen.

  He came down to dinner again.

  This is the third time in a week. Oh, he still acts as if he doesn't know we're there, but it's a start. Everyone else has

  decided to ignore him, but I couldn't keep myself from watching as he stood there, all chalk and charcoal, ivory and jet. He was looking my way at one point and I thought for a second he was starting to smile at me. I almost dropped my fork. But it was just the dinner candles, dancing shadows on his face.

  'From The Belthannis Workbook:

  Incredible. Another portion of this pattern has been made clear to me.

  Five days ago, I left the valley of my last entry, lingering only long enough to record my description of the death of Number Four.

  I was filled with a need to get away, to flee that ancient body lying naked in the grass. When I left him the sun was hot and insects were already beginning to frequent the withered flesh.

  I decided to head for the mountains, wanting only to be up and out and away from there as soon as possible. I had to use the droshky to cross the river. The water was not deep, but the current was very strong. When I reached the far bank, I felt a need for physical activity, so I made the thing wait there for me while I set off on foot. At that moment, I couldn't abide the thought of it stalking after me like a hungry insect.

  It took me about a day and a half to reach the base of the mountains. The following morning I had gained the lowest summit, where I found myself at the base of a wall of sheer cliffs, totally insurmountable from this position. It was just as well; my restlessness had been appeased an
d I felt content to prowl around the area for the rest of the day, taking an occasional holo and poking into caverns. This world is alive with hidden caves and caverns!

  Next day I decided to retrace my steps back to the river. I resolved to make tests on the body. In my mind questions had begun to spring up. What would happen to this territory now? As far as I knew there were at present no other blank spaces in the world-web. I fantasized a huge, rotating beehive with

  one empty cell—or would the territories of the neighboring kin expand gradually now, until Area Number Four had been obliterated? Somehow this seemed to clash with the patterns I had already observed, introducing an element of haphazardness into the ordered stasis.

  By yesterday afternoon I had reached my patient machine, and the two of us danced and glided back across the river. At the site where the kin had expired I left the blue cushions and climbed slowly to the ground.

  The body was gone.

  There was a slight depression in the grass which I felt sure marked the spot where it had lain. I stood frozen for a moment, then set out like a madwoman, searching through the ferns and bushes, my back and shoulders prickling all the while as if someone were watching me. I was ready to give up and go galloping back to the Hut when I saw it.

  On a tongue of rock and sand extending out into the river floated a large water nest, a conglomeration of reeds and ferns that lay partially submerged. I had noticed it earlier when I stood by the stream; it was similar to others I have seen in my travels, the construction and dwelling of an aquatic mammal with great, shy black eyes and a glossy silver-blue pelt.

  The kin's body was lying half underwater, both legs and one of its arms secured to the nest by a thick, untidy harness of tangled reed stems.

  There was no sign of the nest's inhabitants. Perhaps they were inside, waiting for me to leave. But about the body, which bobbed steadily in the current, flesh sun-purpled, face mercifully hidden, there was a cloud of insects, diaphanous as a veil. Sickened, I turned away and scanned the river. Far upstream I glimpsed movement, small flashes of silver at the water's edge.