Raising The Stones (31 page)

He recovered himself and made excuses for her. So she was getting old. She was remembering troubled times, and it hit her hard. He should make allowances, but he didn’t need to believe everything she said. “Well, if you’re afraid, or for whatever reason, I’ll go with you to keep you safe.” Her fear made no sense to Sam at all. Still, this might well be the happening he had waited for, the stone under which he’d find his way back to Voorstod, and if she was involved, he would accept that she was afraid and get on with it.

Maire and Sam went up to CM for the meeting, and both of them were surprised to find two persons awaiting them when they arrived.

“Mugal Pye, at your service, Madam,” the older one said, eyes crinkled in his best attempt at a pleasant smile. “Young Ilion here is part of our Archives party, and he did want to say hello to his famous aunt.”

“You’re Domal’s son,” Maire said to the younger man, ignoring the fatuous comments of the older one. She knew men like Mugal Pye all too well. Phaed was one of the kind, and he too had smiled and smiled and said soft words.

“Yes, I’m Domal’s son,” the youngster said, staring at her curiously. “Are you really Maire Manone?”

“They called me that, yes.”

“The Sweet Singer of Scaery?”

“They called me that too, long ago.”

“Mugal Pye,” the older man said again, holding out his hand to Sam. “You’d be Sam Girat.”

“That’s right,” said Sam, wondering why he felt squeamish touching this man’s hand. Squeamish he felt, and he could not say why.

“Do you sing here, in this place?” Ilion asked Maire, looking around himself, as though wondering if anyone could sing in this place. “It seems very bare and open.”

She laughed without humor. “Compared to Scaery? Where the mists make walls and a roof for any homeless man? Where a man may have a dry bed only if he puts his blankets beside the fire?”

“It is damp in the north counties,” he agreed.

“Did you have some special reason for wanting to see me, boy?”

He shook his head. “I just wanted to hear about your life here, Maire Manone. People ask about you, you know. I thought I might carry word of you back.”

“Tell them Mary Manone is no more, that Mary Girat cares for the babies of Settlement One on Hobbs Land, and that she is satisfied. Tell them that, boy.” It seemed innocent enough, and she could not explain why she felt so cold.

Maire and Sam stayed only a little while longer, exchanging compliments and sending messages. Sam took Mugal Pye aside, despite the revulsion he felt for the man, and asked him to convey his best wishes to his dad. “Ask him to write to me,” he said. “I think of him often.”

Mugal Pye only smiled, without promising, for he had no intention that Phaed Girat be told about this, as yet. He asked Sam and Maire only a few more meaningless questions, to cover up the fact Maire had already told him everything he needed to know.

•
The message written
by Shan Damzel upon Hobbs Land was received on Thyker by Holorabdabag Reticingh, Chief of the Circle of Scrutators of the Divine Overmind, who judged it went overfar into the subject of inscrutable “feelings.”

Shan said in his message he felt something was wrong. Shan felt something was happening. Shan didn’t know what. Shan couldn’t prove anything, but Shan was decidedly nervous. He thought whatever-it-was Zilia Makepeace had felt, he too felt. It was inimical. It was threatening. It should be stopped.

Reticingh was at first concerned. about Shan Damzel’s health and welfare. “He may be ill,” he confided to his plump and sad-eyed assistant, one known as Merthal. “I thought he looked fine-drawn before they left. Sometimes I wonder if he ever recovered from his stint among the Porsa, may they rot.”

“Rotting would probably delight them,” suggested Merthal, who was not above an occasional jibe. “When Shan came back, he looked half-rotted himself.”

The two of them stood upon a small balcony which jutted from the living room of the Chief’s apartment, high above a training ground where some of the young Baidee doing their three-years obligatory service were being drilled and redrilled in the close order march and countermarch so useful in parades and processions of all kinds. If anyone ever tried to fool with the heads of the Baidee, the Baidee were ready to defend themselves. Between the brigades and the army, every ablebodied Baidee between the age of puberty and senility was trained for service, and that service was extremely up-to-date, relying heavily upon biological weapons of varying, constantly updated kinds. A well-equipped and trained research branch kept everything on the edge of knowledge, insofar as both offensive and defensive material and tactics were concerned.

It was almost a pity that such an effective machine had so little work to do. The Baidee army had been fully committed only once in the years since the prophetess. The beings who had come from Outside and who had attempted to enforce their own opinions upon the Baidee had been fairly well thrashed before they had all “caught cold and died.” At one time, the Scrutators had smiled when they recalled the story of the invasion, though after the Blight came and went, they stopped enjoying the story.

Reticingh regarded the wheeling ranks upon the drill ground with approval as he said, “I’ve known the Damzel clan since well before Shan and Bombi and Volsa were born,” he mused. “The family is rocklike in their objectivity. Though he is very young, I wouldn’t have said Shan was capable of mental disturbance. Unless he was ill, of course.” He meant physically ill. There was no mental illness recognized by the High Baidee.

“He says in the message that he’s well,” offered Merthal.

“He might only think he’s well. I mean, one of the symptoms of being not well is to think one is well when one is not.” Bodily ills could be treated. Sometimes mental “troubles” disappeared when bodily ills were cured.

“Short of bringing him back to Thyker and having him gone over by the temple physicians, what would you suggest?”

Reticingh sighed. Madmen were a constant challenge to the Baidee. Nothing could be done for them unless they had treatable bodily illnesses. There were many homes for the “uncontrolled” scattered around Thyker. Some of the inmates had to be tied up. Some of them had to be restrained to keep them from harming others, though they were allowed to harm themselves if they wished. Some of them expressed themselves, sometimes, much as Shan Damzel was doing.

Reticingh thought it over, slowly, as the High Baidee were taught to do, considering the consequences of each action, the probable outcome of every case. At last, with some satisfaction, he said, “I would suggest, Merthal, that we send one of our temple physicians to Hobbs Land to make quite sure our beloved son is truly well. Young Dr. Feriganeh, I think. He would enjoy it. And you, of course.”

“Me!”

“So that I may have your much valued opinion when you return. Besides, Shan’s mother would eat me alive clad only in my zettle if anything happened to him.”

•
Horgy Endure kept
the peace among his womenfolk by letting each of them know precisely what she could expect in the way of his time and undivided attentions. The fifth, seventh, and ninth nights of each ten-day work schedule were spent with his trainees, one at a time. Ruellin, the blonde, was scheduled for the fifth night, and she arrived at Horgy’s apartments at the appointed time, shortly before the usual supper period. It was Horgy’s custom to drink a little wine, eat a little food, and then engage in sexual sports for several periods of the nightwatch. Horgy was very good at sexual sports, and Ruellin considered herself fortunate to have obtained the trainee position, particularly inasmuch as she was learning something about agricultural production management as well.

On this particular fifth night, Horgy refused a second glass of wine, which was unusual. He also seemed lethargic with respect to his food.

“Not hungry, I guess,” he said apologetically.

“I could go on home,” she whispered, hoping he would not agree. “If you’re not feeling well.”

“No, no,” he smiled at her, the white-toothed smile which warmed her all the way through. “Let’s just sit a while on the terrace. I simply need to relax a bit.”

Horgy’s apartments were on an upper floor of the administrative residence. Only Dern Blass had quarters that were higher up. From the small terrace they could look over the ramified roadways and parklands of CM, out through the surrounding woodlands and plains to the place where the escarpment made a winding line upon the northern horizon.

“I understand they’re finding interesting things up there,” said Ruellin, making conversation as she gestured at the distant escarpment. “The people from Thyker.”

“Interesting things happening everywhere,” he murmured.

“Really?” She lifted a flirtatious eyebrow. “Are there interesting things happening here?”

“In the settlements,” he said, not noticing her expression. “Lakes. Canyons. Water falls that didn’t used to be there. Did you know six of the settlements have Gods now?”

“Gods?”

He put a hand to his arm, as though it ached. “Look it up in the Archives. There was one God when the settlers arrived. Where Settlement One is now. It died. You were there when we discussed it at management meeting.” He sounded slightly pained or impatient, and she was quick to reassess his mood.

“Of course, I remember. And six of the settlements have Gods now? Where did they get them?”

“Found them. Funny thing. First the children get into this mood to build a temple. I wouldn’t have believed it. Zilia didn’t believe it. She asked me to go out to Settlement Five with her when she heard about it. There they were, gangs of kids, laying stone, singing. Funny kind of singing, zum zum zum, bittle bittle, as though they’d rehearsed it. So, they get a temple finished, and pretty soon, they find a God to put in it.”

“Very … neat,” she offered, not knowing what else to say.

“They’ve all got temples, now. All eleven settlements. I’m sure they’ll all have Gods before long. Strange.”

“Strange,” she agreed, wishing he would quit talking about the Gods.

“They call each God by the name of some settler that’s died recently. Kind of a memorial, I guess.” He grunted and put his right hand under his arm. “I shouldn’t have eaten anything. Now I’ve got a pain.”

“Shall I call a tech?”

“No, no,” he waved impatiently. “I’ve just been tired these last few days. I’m supposed to have a med-check, but I keep putting it off.”

“Perhaps I’d better run along.”

He turned the full splendor of his smile on her. “Sweetheart, no. If there’s any remedy for tiredness on this whole world, it’s right here next to me.” He reached out for her, and she lost herself in their usual and delightful preliminaries.

Later he went into his bedroom while she visited the bathroom. When she came to him, he was sprawled out on the coverlet, face up, the lights dimmed. She was on the bed with him, snuggled against him, before she realized he was no longer breathing.

•
If Horgy had
thought the rapid proliferation of Gods upon Hobbs Land strange, Zilia Makepeace considered it ominous. She wanted very much to talk to the survey team from Thyker, but they were all up on the escarpment, looking at odd formations no one had noticed until recently. From what Zilia was told, once Shan and Bombi and Volsa had started looking for them on the aerial surveys, they found others, a similar formation here, a slightly different one there, some protruding high out of the soil, others barely rounding the surface. Though it was not part of their project, the Damzels had decided to uncover at least one of them, just to see what they were, and the three-man team had been augmented by machine operators, techs, a doctor from Thyker, and even a funny fat Baidee named Merthal who was scrupulously polite but stubbornly insistent upon being supplied immediately with whatever-it-was the Damzels thought they needed. Since the project was being conducted under the aegis of the Native Matters Advisory, as Native Matters person upon the planet, Zilia had to see to all of it without being part of any of it, and her paranoia had given way to sheer annoyance and frustrated curiosity.

She had even sought Spiggy’s company, only to find that he, of all people, had been invited by Volsa Damzel to spend some time up on the escarpment. According to Tandle Wobster, who knew everything, Spiggy was enough of a Baidee to be acceptable as a sex partner even if he did eat eggs and didn’t own a kamrac. Since she had little enough else to speculate about, Zilia speculated as to how Tandle had learned this interesting fact and ended with the suspicion that Tandle had probably illicitly tapped all their private stages.

Ruminations and suspicions were disrupted by the unexpected death of Horgy Endure, who, as anyone might have predicted, died in bed with one of his trainees. Zilia could not remember which one she had been until she saw the blonde girl at the memorial service, supported by female associates and obviously still in shock. Horgy had had a large circle of acquaintances, a few of them men, many of whom came to CM for the service. Zilia dressed herself soberly and sat toward the back of the hall, hoping the eulogies would not take long. A young person took the seat beside her, and other young persons filled the surrounding area.

“I’m Saturday Wilm,” said Zilia’s neighbor, offering her hand. “This is my cousin, Jeopardy. We met out at Settlement One when you came there for the visit. All these others are members of the visitation committee that Horgy Endure sponsored.” Saturday sighed, and a tear slid gently down her face to drip, unnoticed, from her jaw. “He was very nice to us.”

“He was very nice to many people,” said Zilia, drily. She herself was almost the only woman in Central Management Horgy had not been intimately nice to. Herself and, possibly, Tandle, though Zilia would not have bet her life even on that. What had Horgy been up to with this child? “So you’ve come for the service.”

“For the vigil, actually,” said Jep. “Our group does that, you know. We keep vigil the night someone is buried. It’s a sort of symbol of thoughtful remembrance. A kindness.”