Fires of Nuala

by Katharine Eliska Kimbriel

  This caused the heir to dissolve into giggles, and Darame took the opportunity to move to the stove and pour herself some fresh saffra. Sheel, who was hunched over a drawing of a chart, caught her eye as she rose from her squatting position.

  “I think I might kill for a cup of tea,” Sheel said blandly, his face just as smooth.

  It was Darame’s turn to let a laugh escape. “My sentiments exactly! Perhaps we should return to cocoa for a day or so?”

  Sheel shook his head. “Too rich for me, but as you will.”

  “My Uncle Caleb told me that a shell game was a… an illegal game played to cheat someone,” Tobias said suddenly.

  Pausing, Darame looked over at Sheel for a clue. His face was still impassive, although the odd eyes were now studying her. “How do you answer that?” he asked finally.

  Moving slowly back toward the table, Darame said: “I imagine your uncle said that because many, many people cannot play the shell game properly, and it is an easy game to cheat at. So easy that among outsiders it has become a synonym for something dishonest. Among free-traders, however, the shell concept is used either for a ‘Mirror Game’ or a ‘Bunco Game.’”

  Tobias let out a shout of laughter. “Bunco! What is that?”

  Darame smiled as she reclaimed her seat. “My father told me it was once a card game. You would encourage someone who did not know the rules to play, and then win through their inexperience. A mirror is the oldest game of all: to know that someone is dishonest and would cheat you if they could, and to cheat them first. It is the hardest form of free-trading, because to cheat an honest person these days is easy; the laws are complex, and vary from planet to planet. Since no one can know everything, one must buy the services of others to do business. A good climate for bunco. But to cheat a dishonest person… that takes skill, since a crook is always watching for another crook.”

  Still sliding the cups around on the table, Tobias kept his gaze on the fired clay pebble he was avoiding. “My Uncle Caleb probably knew a lot about all those things. He always needed credit. I suppose that sometimes, when he suddenly became wealthy before the next installment from the trust… he did some bunco to get the increase.”

  “Possibly,” was all Darame allowed herself to say. “But we should not speak ill of the dead.”

  “Why not? It was true. Everyone knew that you could not trust him — even in little things.” This was rather bitter; Darame wondered what Caleb had done to teach a child to be wary of him. The boy piled up the cups and moved them to one side. “How about a crib game? You know, I miss Crystle. She would let me win at crib.”

  “That is not good for you,” Darame told him, pulling the crib board out of a pile of debris. “No one will let you win in real life. Why form bad habits? At least when you play with me, you know when you have really won.”

  “True,” Tobias agreed, grinning wickedly. “Spot me a crib?”

  “Incorrigible.”

  “We will hope for your redemption,” came Sheel’s voice. “Tobias, have you finished all your studies? It will be dinnertime soon.”

  Massive sigh, slumping of shoulders, heartfelt shuffling of feet.… “Can I work in here?”

  “I think the meeting room would be better for your concentration.” Sheel lifted his head, his gaze resting on the boy. Recognizing defeat, Tobias thanked Darame for playing and moved off down the corridor.

  Darame rose and turned to the shelving, looking for the honey pot. It was quiet without Crystle.… With luck, her journey had been uneventful. She had her child, it seemed. Whether she could carry it to term was something else, something the Nualans apparently did not try to control except with rest and diet. If it is meant to survive, it will survive, she had placidly told Darame. And no curiosity about the sex of the child.… Darame could not see herself asking Sheel, when Crystle had resisted the temptation.

  Glancing over her shoulder, Darame saw that Sheel was still staring at the opening to the fire room. “Thank you for cheering him,” the man said abruptly. “The ragäree’s children are too young for him, and the silence makes him… remember.”

  “The father he misses, the mother he idolizes, the friends far away… the family gone beyond,” Darame agreed, finishing his thoughts and lifting the honey pot from the shelf. “Grief is a mysterious thing in children. Like trust…” She paused, wanting to ask Sheel if he thought the boy would ever trust guaard, after this all came out — The sound of a rolling pebble caught her ear. Lifting her voice, Darame went on: “I am looking forward to seeing your essay, Tobias, when you have finished it.”

  “Okay.” Caught, the boy gave up and continued toward the back rooms. Darame heard Jude greet him as he approached. At the table, already back at work, Sheel managed a chuckle.

  “Good. Any normal child would be dying to know what was going on,” was his quiet comment. “I hope someday he can be a normal child again.”

  Darame had already put it out of her mind. Walking over to Sheel’s work table, nudging a fire crystal stick closer to the firepit as she passed, Darame sat down across from him. What does he think about when Tobias and I talk about the seven systems? Does he hear us at all? Does he mind what I tell the boy?

  As if he had heard her thoughts, Sheel looked up again, smiling faintly at the sight of the honey pot. Leaning back in the peeled bark chair, he stretched luxuriously. “If he will communicate, he must understand that language is a living thing,” Sheel said suddenly.

  Is that his way of telling me he trusts my judgment? Her gaze drifted to his hands, now resting on the paper chart. The hands of a healer… She had watched him heal with those hands — when? Yesterday? The day before? Old Harald’s youngest grandson had cut himself badly while chopping a bolt-hole through an ancient wall of timber which previously had sealed a crevice to the outside. Fortunately Sheel had been nearby, for the boy had lost a great deal of blood. Working quickly yet appearing unruffled, Sheel had stopped the bleeding and arranged to move the youth into the caves. The healing had taken longer than the last one Darame witnessed — because it was a deeper wound, she wondered? Asking about it still felt too personal. What had startled her was the gentleness in the man. There was no abstraction, no physician’s distance: Sheel was absorbed with the problem and the pain, pushing the latter aside to deal with the former, perhaps, but not denying its existence.

  He had slept long after mending the injury, half-curled beneath one blanket in his own small sleeping area. For once Darame had followed him to bed, for he did not wake for the evening meal. The thought brought a grin to her face. Sheel’s way of finally solving her sleepless nights was still amusing. What she needed, he had explained with little introduction, was body heat. As he was naturally a warm sleeper, all healing talents aside, he was the perfect person for her to curl up next to. “Rather like a large… hot water bottle,” he had suggested, promptly folding down upon her blanketed floor and wrapping himself in a sheet. By the time Darame had stopped laughing and prepared a few questions, Sheel was asleep.

  And in the fifteen days since Crystle’s departure that was all they had done nights… slept. Half-amused, half chagrined, Darame honestly did not know what to do… what she wanted to do. Whatever had caused Sheel’s interlude with Crystle, it was settled and over with the day Sheel realized she was pregnant. Darame would have loved to ask why he had changed his mind about the woman, but the words simply would not come. It was quite odd, sleeping next to a man simply for warmth. Apparently you are not too old for new experiences. Sheel had attracted her from the beginning. Now that there was something forbidden about him, the attraction had actually increased. Are you ready to push the issue a bit?

  Leaning forward, she glanced at the chart. “A new one. You have another theory?”

  Shrugging, Sheel slid the wide sheet over toward her. “It worries me, that we have heard nothing from Mailan and Crow since they reached Atare. I thought I might look to see if I could find the connection to my line that Dirk claims, but the bas
ic encyclopedia lists only name children.”

  Darame studied the names and dates, marveling at the span of time covered. “The Sleep stretches your generations into infinity.”

  “I hope not that far.” His voice was dry and distant, as if reflecting his thoughts.

  “Seven sons and two daughters over thirty years! I get tired just thinking about it.” Her finger paused at a name. “James… died at birth. So you were the seventh son. They have many superstitions on Gavriel about seventh sons and daughters.” Darame looked up; Sheel was still staring off into space.

  “As they do here. Also about third sons and daughters.” It was almost musing. Darame wondered if he had heard her, much less realized his own response.

  “Healers and prophets — “

  “No.” The word sliced into her sentence like a knife, silencing the woman.

  He was rarely strident; Darame was uncertain what to say. They sat quietly for several moments. Finally: “Then why do your dreams frighten you?”

  Tension; absence of tension, as the knotted muscles ran out of him like flowing water. Sheel closed his eyes, his head tipping back out of sight. “Because my nightmares have a talent for coming true. Not the good dreams, just the bad ones. Sometimes there is no warning at all; the dream – insight — comes almost simultaneously with the incident. One happened during the funeral service. A few minutes later, someone tried to knife me.” Raising his head back to its normal position, he glanced at her shrewdly. “I had that dream your first night on the planet.… I knew that Cort was dead, although I did not want to face it. I saw it happen through the killer’s eyes… and the killer wore the uniform of a guaard. Guaard present, but at the wrong angle, dead or killing…”

  “Have you had any more nightmares lately?” Her voice sounded very quiet to her own ears.

  “No. Just an uneasiness, like a storm cloud shadowing my pyre.” Tension edged his words, and Darame wondered what was bothering him.

  “Almost a personal warning system, yet… to see what you cannot help.” Darame chose her words carefully. “I do not think I would care for that talent, Sheel. It also runs in my family, or so tradition says, and I am grateful I have never felt its presence.”

  Sheel turned slightly toward her, the right eye of pale green thoughtful. “I only hope Ayers did not frighten Avis with any half-formed warnings. She will cooperate with him simply to humor me. I would rather tell her myself about Leah.” The man relaxed again, in his infinitesimal way, a weary peacefulness trickling out of him.

  Content that the problem had passed, Darame bent over the chart once again.

  o0o

  “Such large families,” Darame murmured after awhile, pulling Sheel back from his thoughts. “And yet eighty percent of the population is sterile. Why? With your skill in genetics, why the problem?”

  Sheel gave her a mellow look, trying to decide what she was asking. Such a feeling of calm, that he could not remember feeling.… He had never told anyone about his nightmares. Telling her had been spontaneous, almost belligerent, although he thought he had controlled his anger well. The mere idea did not seem to upset her — that an off-worlder could accept something with more grace than one of the flock! Hard to understand, to believe… but then she had not heard him recount a tale moments before its reality, either. Few had — Sheel had no intention of allowing someone to decide that his dreams were something to aim for genetically, and nipping material from the labs.

  “Human genetic material is very… malleable. It mutates constantly. Most of the time it results in spontaneous abortion: a miscarriage long before the woman knows she is pregnant. But here on Nuala, things have been different. Our genes seem to be trying to adapt to the planet, despite grave problems. Human life has been born that, before Nuala, we would not have thought could survive.”

  “Like Fergus, the Sini who brought me here?” she asked, intent.

  “I find mock-Sinis the oddest of our adaptations to the planet… next to my own talent. How can something become slightly radioactive? Why does the organism not die? Or not become totally Sini, a truly radioactive human? Why do Sinis live?”

  “You mean a person can become a mock-Sini when they were previously normal?” Alarm registered in her face.

  “No, not at all,” Sheel said hastily. “The potential to become Sini is there at birth. In some cases it merely delays in blossoming to fruition. We shield our visitors from what could hurt them — the water, native grown food, excessive starlight, the bad areas — unless they choose to take the pill series. You no longer need fear any Nualan water or food. Did the pills make you queasy?” he asked.

  “Not that I noticed… but I was still weak from the gas, then.”

  “At any rate, Homo sapiens continue to attempt this adaptation. Those who become fertile have adapted completely to Nuala. Only an extremely high dosage of radiation — of any type, apparently — can affect them.” A smile touched his lips. “Do not test your new immunity,” he warned her. “An acquired immunity is good only for Dielaan radiation, unlike those of us who are born here.”

  “So sometimes an organism overcomes the planet and breeds… but not all the children may be fertile?” She frowned as she spoke.

  Sheel nodded. “Some lines are more healthy than others. We are all Atares around here: descendants of the crew and passengers of The Atare, one of the three ships stranded on Nuala so long ago. Some lines adapted more quickly, and became sought after, fought over — ultimately, even powerful. They became the royal lines of their tribes, or clans if you prefer. People will eventually fight among themselves politically… so the schisms began. Once there were as many as twelve houses of tremendous authority, and many smaller ones.”

  “Once?… No longer?” She leaned forward on her elbow as she spoke, propping it on the worn table. Studying the firelight reflecting off a stray hair caught on her dark sleeve, Sheel tried to frame an answer.

  “About a thousand Nualan years ago,” he began, “some of our people made a mistake. Our numbers remained small, and we could see little indication that our breeding attempts were working. The Nualan concept has been the same since it began: remove genetic material damaged by radiation, and breed toward our ancestors who were abandoned here, but with the vigor to withstand the planet’s heat. Abruptly, several pockets of people deviated from this plan. They tried to improve the stock while removing defective genes. Unfortunately, such tampering has monstrous side effects.” Sheel let his gaze wander toward the firepit, which was slowly collapsing into embers. “Breeding selectively for traits presumed by humans to be desirable — intelligence, beauty, creativity, physical and emotional strength — carries a darker side. It can be done, but it breaks down in the next few generations, causing medical problems: stillbirths, miscarriage, children born with diseases we had not seen in centuries and thought were eradicated. And of course, there is always the problem of who decides what is desirable in children… and what will be done with the undesirables.” He sighed.

  “Eugenics does not work without constant lab reinforcement,” Darame said dryly. “So history tells us.”

  “It was Nuala which proved that once and for all. The two clans which were most heavily into controlled breeding began showing signs of deterioration. Live births became rare, and other problems cropped up. Some of the planned children, desirable in some ways but warped by other standards, finally assumed power and tried to solidify their control of their clans. One clan went to war and basically annihilated itself through treachery and the retaliation of its neighbors. The other tried to remedy its problem another way… by stealing fertiles from strong tribes.”

  “Atare?” Darame prompted.

  “Atare, Seedar, and Kilgore. They did not take kindly to the future ragärees being stolen. Kilgore has always had a hot-tempered streak, and The Atare during that period was perfectly willing to prove that he was superior to any so-called human constructed piecemeal. By the time it was over, the royal lines of Cantrel and Saunde
r had been destroyed.”

  “But the labs today — “ Darame began.

  “Completely random, after known defectives have been spliced out. We learned a hard lesson. There are some who have tampered, slightly, since then.… I suspect Crystle’s line has controlled some of the physical features of their clan. But as you have seen, it has weakened them.” He let his thoughts drift. “It does not do to say we would not have made the same mistake. We of Atare have never been that desperate.” Until now.

  “Like a bunch of squabbling children,” Darame said, a slight smile crossing her face. “You need a nursemaid, the lot of you. Why not form a council or something to establish some planet-wide rules? I would think mutual distrust would make you willing to concede to some sort of general controls.”

  “It has been tried, several times. All attempts have failed, for various reasons. Sudden war, deterioration, simple paralysis due to suspicions and gerrymandering — even scientific arguments. All have defeated us.” The simple recitation depressed Sheel even more.

  “I take it that force has failed?”

  Straightening in his seat, Sheel reached for his empty mug. “Those with delusions of grandeur have been defeated by several tribes uniting to stop them. No one has ever succeeded in melding several groups with intent to conquer. Most tribes have internal controls to prevent it: the guaard, for example, serves that purpose here. They were partially created to keep the minds of the rulers on improving the lot of their people — especially the genetic situation. So far, the guaard has never been convinced that war improved our lines.”

  “Not unless you were breeding warriors,” Darame agreed thoughtfully. Standing, she moved gracefully to the firepit and knelt to throw on several more sticks, the dusky maroon robe she wore spreading like shadow at her feet. “Or… if war were the lesser of two evils.” She looked thoughtful as she stirred the fragments into life.