Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Novel 19 (41 page)

 
          
Rhu
dashed the tears from his eyes, stood before Vaniya with his head resolutely
erect. He said, "When this is over, go to the Builders at We-were-guided.
They know all things. They will know where Miranda has been taken."

 
          
Vaniya
grimaced and after a moment Cendri realized it was meant for a smile. She said,
heartbrokenly, "Did you not know, Rhu? The Builders have forsaken me. They
now speak only to men."

 
          
Rhu
said steadily, "Then I shall go to We-were-guided and ask them in your
name for guidance to rescue Miranda."

 
          
Vaniya's
face lighted with a momentary hope. She said, "But if she is here—"

 
          
"Then
it is all in the hands of whatever power lies behind man and Builders
alike," Rhu said quietly, "but if she is in this encampment, the work
parties who are exploring the site will surely find her somewhere. Have I your
leave to go, then?"

 
          
"Yes.
Take my car," Vaniya said, "but I cannot spare a driver—"

 
          
"I
can drive your car, Vaniya."

 
          
"I
never knew that," Vaniya said, in surprise. And Rhu said, his lips moving
faintly in a smile, "You never asked me, my dear."

 
          
Cendri
followed him out, caught at his hand. "Wait, Rhu," she said quickly,
"I must go with you, and Dal—there is no time now to explain it—"

 
          
She
ran to the hillside where Dal was standing above the site, looking down at the
busy scene below. Every few minutes some man, coming up from below with
something to be taken to high ground—the more important stores were being moved
by machinery, but there was more manpower than machinery—would stop before Dal,
bow to the ground before him,
say
a few words.

 
          
Cendri
hesitated to interrupt them, but he saw her and came toward her. She caught his
hand, forgetful of the watching eyes and the customs of the Matriarchate.

 
          
"Dal,
come with me to We-were-guided—"

 
          
"At this hour?"

 
          
"Yes—I
have something to say to the Builders—"

 
          
He
said, "They did not build the city, Cendri—"

 
          
Impatiently
she shook her head. "That doesn't matter now! I said Builders because
that's what the people here call them, you know perfectly well what—
who
—I
mean!"

 
          
"Something to
say
to them?"

 
          
"Yes!
Dal, come with me, in case they don't speak to women now—"

 
          
He
said, "I don't mind telling you I'll be glad to get away for a while! I'm
not really any help here..." he moved, uncomfortably, as another man with
a heavy load of lumber on his head came past and made a clumsy bow. "I
know they mean well, and I know I encourage them being here, and God knows the
poor devils need all the encouragement they can get. But still I'll be glad to
get away, it's—
it's
spooky!"

 
          
Rhu
drove Vaniya's car fast and skillfully along the deserted road to Ariadne. It
was a drive of more than half an hour, and none them talked much. Cendri was
remembering how she had been driven here to the Residence the first day,
Miranda at her side, Dal shoved unregarded into the luggage compartment by the
driver.

 
          
The
Residence looked deserted; it was not yet dawn, and Rhu stopped the car and got
out, turning along the shore toward the ruins. A couple of small
children,
nine or ten years old, a girl and a boy, came down
the steps and called to Rhu.

 
          
He
turned back to speak to them, asking, "Is there any news here of the Lady
Miranda?"

 
          
The
little boy shook his head solemnly. The girl asked "
Rhu,
is it true that the—the Builders now speak only to men?"

 
          
Rhu
said, "They spoke to men last night, little one. What they will do in
future I know no more than you."

 
          
The
boy said, "Rhu, does this mean I need not be driven away from my mother's
house some day?"

 
          
Rhu
put his arm for a moment around the boy's shoulder. He said, "I don't
know, Kal. But it does mean that your life there may be very different than
those of older men. It is too soon to tell."

 
          
The
small boy looked up at Dal from the shelter of Rhu's arm. He said, "Are
you truly a Scholar?"

 
          
Dal
nodded, and the boy said, "Can you win at archery or wrestling?"

 
          
Dal
shook his head. "I have never tried any of those things. I have had other
things to learn which seemed more important to me on my world."

 
          
The
child said scornfully to Dal, "You do not really look strong enough to be
a man! Maybe I would rather live in a Men's House after all," and pulled
at the little girl at his side. The children ran away. Dal looked after them,
shaking his head. As the three walked along the shore toward We-were-guided,
Cendri thought, there
is
really no
way to tell what
this
society
will be.
There is only one thing certain;
it will be different'....

 
          
Inside
the gates they walked slowly through the still-shadowed canyons of the dead
city. Around them the enormous structures lay, eternally silent, frozen, and
Cendri could see where she and Dal had been working, their supplies and
recording equipment piled under weatherproof shielding, the tiniest scratch on
the hugeness of the ruins. Had they really been built here by a race which
seeded all life throughout the Galaxy millions of years ago? Or simply by some
society long predating mankind? And the mysterious voices at We-were-Guided—had
they any relationship to the ruins at all? Or had they merely come here,
separately, to live in the alien city, tied to the old starship with their
emotional tie to the women here?

 
          
A disembodied race of aliens, existing in a sphere of pure mind.
Cendri knew that there were supposed to be such races; she had never studied
one. There were so many races; so many that even
University
with its enormous explosion of knowledge had only begun to guess at how many
there were! If Cendri had speculated about a race disembodied, she would have
thought that they would be detached, emotionless, that they would have no
emotions. I
always thought emotions were
something generated fay hormone
reactions and physical conditioning____

 
          
No,
came the answer from all
round
her, and she realized
that they were standing near the spaceship site and that the warmth and
presence of the aliens was all around them. We exist in our thoughts, our
feelings. This
is why we became so close
to your people. We hungered
for
their feelings, their
emotions.

 
          
Cendri
knew that all of their thoughts lay open, now, in the Ruins.
Telepathy,
of course.
How else would a disembodied race communicate? How could
thought exist with no brain to house it? How could emotions exist with no
bodily response to generate them?

 
          
I
can understand
that,
came an answer, and she knew that this time it was
Rhu's thought, Rhu's emotion which stood naked before them all, and Cendri
found herself remembering—as, she knew, Rhu remembered—the day she had found
them in one another's arms here. My Jove for
Miranda has nothing to do with
the body. 1 had
been
taught as a boy that what comes
between man and
women is generated of
the
hormones of mating and has no other existence,
yet I came to
know otherwise.

 
          
Then,
came
the bodiless voices whose feel Cendri could not
identify as the aliens, you understand us indeed. We can only exist when we
are
loved, cared for, welcomed
..
.worshipped....

 
          
And
Cendri felt Dai's thoughts, directed straight at the alien presences, with
anger and something like scorn: Aren't you ashamed
of
yourselves for
pretending to be Gods to these poor gullible women?

 
          
Stranger,
we pretended nothing. We
are what we are, and receiving love, we gave it in
our turn. If their thoughts saw
us as Gods, whatever Gods may be,
if the
nature of a God
is to give and receive Jove, then perhaps
that is what
we are, but 1 can see that in your mind the concept of a God is
one
who
wieJds
power
..
.it is not
so with
these
women.
Is
that,
stranger, because you
are from what these
women call
the
maleworlds?

 
          
Cendri
wondered if this was the most fundamental difference between men's societies
and women's, after all; that in societies founded by men, the concept of a supreme
being was one of Power, and that in women's societies, it was one of Love____

 
          
Dal
said, and Cendri felt his focused thoughts angry in the sunrise,
You
have made
them dependent on you!

 
          
We
need their Jove
to
survive, or we become empty air and die, as we slept
in Jong terrible loneliness
before they came. Why, then,
since they meet
all
our needs, should we deny them
help
in
the meeting of
theirs?

 
          
That,
Cendri thought, was an uncommonly good question.

 
          
Stranger,
only last night did we discover how much
they needed help
which is
simple
for
us to give; knowledge beforetime
of where the
ground
will
tremble, or a great wave
strike
the shore. If we give them this help
they need not
impoverish their
world to buy machinery which can do
this.

 
          
Dal's
answer was quick and wrathful: Thus you
will encourage
them
to cut
themselves off further from the civilized worlds of the Unity, and
persist
in their tyranny
against
men....

 
          
No!
Now that we know their
men
are not what they believed them,
dangerously
weak creatures
..
.we knew their males only through
the
women's minds, the aliens explained, but now we know
that the
women
and
the
men are
very much alike, we shall speak to both
..
.and as for
cutting themselves
off from the
civilized worlds, we do not want that!
We
are lonely
—and curious/ We
want people to come here from everywhere
..
.and
learn
to
know us....

 
          
Standing
close together before the silent, glowing ship, Dal put his arm around Cendri's
waist. She
felt
his
thoughts,
open to her as
never before. He was envisioning a team of scientists here; maybe a hundred to
start; here to explore the Ruins in depth, men and women working together as
equals, to demonstrate to the women, and to the men, of Isis, that there was no
tyranny in the maleworlds
..
.Cendri was surprised to
hear him using* the contemptuous term of the women of Isis
..
.no tyranny from Unity or University, but that the Unity, and the scientists of
University, truly regarded women and men as equals, partners, the inseparable
half of a single completed whole, the human race, mankind. This would do more,
Dal thought, to demonstrate to Isis that they need not fear male equality, than
a thousand years of lectures and teaching and propaganda.

 
          
When
they come to know us, they will understand.