Raising The Stones (39 page)

“Almost a unique find,” said the doctor with enthusiasm. “There are similar growths on two other Belt worlds, similarly dormant. My colleagues will be envious that I have had this opportunity.”

“That’s marvelous,” said Saturday. “All the time we settlers have been here, and you come along and find something completely new!”

Her remark drew Shan’s attention. He turned calculating eyes upon her, recognized that he had seen her before, and said, “I went out for a walk early this morning and saw that while we have been working on the escarpment, the people of CM have built a temple like the one rebuilt in Settlement One. At least, I suppose it is similar. I did not look at it closely. Why was that done, do you suppose?”

Sam responded before Saturday could. “I think it’s because we’re a little starved for history upon Hobbs Land. We have no monuments, no memorials. We’ve adopted this indigenous architectural form as a kind of symbol. Not unlike, perhaps, the ritual dress which your group wears. You bond yourselves together by similar dress. So we bond our various communities together by building in this ancient form. It is Hobbs Landian, like us.”

“You think it will be a persistent symbol then?” Shan asked. “Or a mere fashion?” It was his youth more than his tone that made the question seem arrogant.

“Only time will tell.” Sam shrugged. “When we build a future of our own, perhaps we’ll abandon this relic of the Owlbrit people. Personally, I hope we’ll keep the little temples. We can begin our history with a continuation of the former one.”

“I would have liked something prettier,” said Maire, moved by some impulse she could not identify to argue with Sam. “I wish they had built towers instead of these flattish things.”

“You disagree with your … is it your son?” asked Shan.

“Oh, fairly regularly,” she laughed. “We are not in agreement about a number of things.”

“Tell me,” Shan asked Sam, almost as though he had not been listening. “Do you have a choir at Central Management?”

Sam was caught by surprise. “Not that I know of,” he answered.

Saturday and Maire, who had both helped organize

the choir at CM, kept their mouths shut. Shan had no chance to ask other questions, for Spiggy and Dern Blass came bustling in, bonhomous and full of farewells.

“Came to thank you,” Dern said to the Damzels with a nod to the others of their party, shaking Bombi’s hands between his own, oozing conviviality. “We’ve wanted the survey done for a decade or so now. Good to have it. Will you be making any recommendations?” He looked hard at all three of them. “Any recommendations for preservation or reconstruction?”

Bombi shook his head, responding to the warmth expressed. “We think not at this point,” he said. “There are thousands of village houses, over a thousand temple clusters. Any scholarly work that is done will probably be done from the survey itself.”

“You will recall that there had been some accusations concerning the Departed,” Dern insisted. “Did you find any evidence of malfeasance, misfeasance, naughty doings?”

“As to the matter you raised originally with the Advisory?” asked Volsa. “We found no evidence that there has been anything done which would be of concern to the Advisory. I believe Zilia Makepeace was misled …”

“Though perhaps not totally in error,” interrupted Shan, who was standing close beside his sister.

Dern Blass’s eyebrows went up into his hair and stayed there while he regarded the two young Baidee with astonishment. “You disagree? Perhaps and perhaps not?”

Shan said, “There is no evidence that any settler has ever committed an untoward act toward any of the Departed. There is no evidence that any remnant of the Departed still exist, and we have covered the escarpment thoroughly. However, I agree with the Makepeace woman that some influence of the Departed remains upon Hobbs Land. I can identify it no more clearly than she did. Nonetheless …” His words trailed away as he gave Spiggy a long, weighing look.

Spiggy, correctly interpreting Shan’s stare, returned it with calm indifference. Shan had never approved of Volsa’s liaison with Spiggy. He had obviously considered Spiggy to be a self-indulgent backslider who was, when all was said and done, little better than a Low Baidee. Relationships between them, up on the escarpment, had been strained at best, which did not matter now. Spiggy had come to the departure area this morning for only one reason, to be sure that all of the Baidee went away.

A soft horn sounded, signifying that a scheduled departure was imminent. The board above the gate flashed:
Chowdari upon Thyker
. No one moved. Anticipation of that wrenching, turned-inside-out feeling made it usual for passengers to linger at the gate, shifting from foot to foot, dallying.

Chowdari upon Thyker
, flashed the sign above the gate repeatedly, then
Final call.

Dern bowed, spreading his arms wide, smiling, as though to say, “Well, we can not postpone this occasion further, or you will miss your destination. Farewell.”

The Damzels bowed in return. Bombi pushed the gate open, and the group straggled across the gravel toward the curtain of fire at the center of the walled circle. Once they had gone through, there would be a brief wait while the next desired destination was programmed, checked, and confirmed.

“So Shan thinks there’s an influence of the Departed,” mused Dern. “Who would have thought it?”

No one in the area made any comment at all. No comment was necessary. All of them were from Hobbs Land. All of them knew, just as Dern did, that despite all the casual indirection the settlers had managed, Shan Damzel had still come up with a fairly accurate assessment of the situation. There was, indeed, an influence of the Departed upon Hobbs Land. Or an influence of the influence which had been upon the Departed. So to speak.

“And now, you people,” said Spiggy, suddenly very interested in what was going on. “What is this business, Maire Girat? I’ve looked you up in the Archives, you know. You were a kind of talisman for Voorstod at one time.” He took her by the arms and smiled at her, urging her to tell him everything.

“At one time I was,” she admitted, responding to his warmth. “At one time I let myself not think about what Voorstod really was. I saw the loveliness of the mists and the aching beauty of the sea and the highlands, and ignored other things …”

Sam moved away to speak to Dern, and Maire followed him with her eyes. “I dreamed of lovers and sang about them. I saw children laughing and sang of them. I didn’t see the Gharm. No one in Voorstod looks at the Gharm, so why should I have done.”

“I’ve been told of the Voorstod Doctrine of Freedom,” said Spiggy, holding her eyes with his own. “Almighty God gave the Gharm to Voorstod, so says doctrine, for freedom’s sake.” He shook himself, as though to shake off some vile residue. “But what of the Gharm themselves?”

“The doctrine of Voorstod says they are nothing. Less than nothing. Consumables. To be bred and used up.”

“It seems to me,” said Spiggy softly, “that when a race of man becomes so anthropocentric it regards other living beings as lesser consumables, it could get to be a habit. It might become easy to include other living creatures with the Gharm. Animals. Children. Women. Entire planets. Perhaps they, too, become consumables, to be used up and thrown away.”

Maire nodded at him. “So they will not teach the girl child anything important, but they will call her stupid when she is grown. So they will force a Gharm to live where there is no water and call him dirty. So they will demand their children seek their permission for any act but then turn upon them as lazy and unenterprising. Such are the imprecations of Voorstod. Such are the words that lie upon Voorstod souls to hide the guilt inside.” She stood rigid, turning her back. “Ire, Iron, and Voorstod: the words I left behind.” Tears were running down her cheeks.

“And you will go back? To that?” asked Spiggy. He was the only one who would have asked. Despite his discovery of the God Horgy Endure, he was not yet accustomed to knowing things as others in Hobbs Land were coming to know them.

The horn sounded again. The lights flashed above the gate, spelling out
“Fenice upon Ahabar.”

Maire wiped her eyes and stepped resolutely toward the gate, without hesitation. Sam’s face showed only interest and expectation. Saturday took a deep breath. The coming time would be hard. Things would not be clear and trustworthy. She would have to depend upon herself, her own memory of the way things should be. She would have to be strong, and careful. “I will,” she promised, promised herself, perhaps, or something larger than herself. “I will.”

Spiggy opened the gate. Outside, across the area of sandy ground, partly fused with the powers that ran into and out of the Door, stood the Door itself, glimmering in pale fire. At the other side of it was Fenice, and the road to Jeramish.

“Go with our blessings,” murmured Dern, patting Maire upon the arm.

Saturday and Maire bowed him farewell and went. Sam had already gone.

•
Shanrandinore Damzel, despite
the fact that his siblings saw things quite otherwise, insisted upon making a minority report to the Circle of Scrutators.

“Do you really think it necessary?” Holorabdabag Reticingh asked. “You won’t do your career any good by poking spears into grinding devices.”

“Spears into what, Uncle Holo?”

Reticingh shook his head. “An old saying. I’m not sure what it means, literally, though the sense is that one ought not to waste energy on imaginary enemies.”

Shan bridled. “Who claims that I merely imagine?”

Reticingh flushed. Such a claim would be blasphemous, and Shan knew it. No Baidee would accuse another of merely imagining, or of being insane, or of not understanding. “Each mind sees reality in its own way,” said the catechism.

“No one makes any such claim,” said Reticingh. “Calm down, Shan. It’s just that no one sees any reason for concern but you. Dr. Feriganeh doesn’t. Merthal doesn’t. Bombi and Volsa don’t. We can’t tell you you’re wrong, any more than we can tell you they’re right. We can say that the weight of opinion …”

“I believe I am more sensitive than any of them,” Shan interrupted. “I believe I was sensitized by my time among the Porsa. I believe Zilia Makepeace sensed the same thing I did.”

“Now she says not, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s revised her report to the Advisory. I got a message from Chairman Rasiel Plum, saying the Makepeace woman had thought it over and decided she was imagining it all. She ascribes it to experiences she had as a child in the Celphian Rings. She was badly treated, and it made her suspicious of everyone.”

Shan scowled hideously. “If she says that, then I believe the danger to be even greater than I had thought previously.”

Reticingh threw up his hands. “What danger, Shan?”

“Something is controlling the minds of those upon Hobbs Land. All of them. Without exception. Including Zilia Makepeace.”

Reticingh sat down carefully, slowly formulating what he would do and say next. There was a convention for times like these. Not, thank the Overmind, one he had often had to use.

“Very well, Shan, let us examine the evidence in the conventional manner.”

Shan settled himself into a chair opposite and relaxed. If Reticingh was content to examine the evidence, so was he.

“One sign of mental interference of the type you suspect would be total agreement on everything by the people on Hobbs Land. Absolute single-mindedness. Was this the case?”

Shan was about to give a qualified yes when he remembered the last conversation he had had with people from the settlement. He recalled Sam Girat’s mother, who had said she and her son disagreed about many things. “No,” he said honestly, flushing. “As a matter of fact, when we were leaving, the mother of one of the Topmen told us she and her son were often in disagreement. I think the people do disagree, quite a lot.” He thought a moment more, still being honest with himself, as Baidee were expected to be. “I heard children fighting among themselves when we visited Settlement One. And people arguing. Though there was what I regard as an unlikely degree of cooperation, I cannot honestly say there was total agreement.”

“Was it considered inappropriate or unacceptable to argue or disagree?”

Shan shook his head, a little angrily. He was as familiar with these questions as Reticingh was, and he knew where they were heading.

Reticingh thought a moment. “Another sign of mental interference might be ardent fanaticism of some kind. Extreme dedication to some system of thought or to some deity. Mind-numbing ritual, for example. Lengthy periods of rote prayer. Did you notice anything of the kind?”

“They built these temple structures,” said Shan. “They built them in all of the settlements, I think.”

“What reason did they give for doing so?”

Shan recalled Sam Girat’s reasoning and quoted it fully.

“Do you find this unbelievable?” asked Reticingh. “On Phansure, virtually every village has a monument to those who died in the great Phansurian brother-war during colonial times. Here on Thyker, we have cenotaphs for those killed by the Blight. Do the settlement people spend inordinate time with this temple construction? Do they spend a lot of time
in
the temples?”

Shan shook his head again. “Not that I could see.”

“Are there great crowds of worshippers being harangued? People spending hours in prayer? Anything like that?”

“Not that I could see. But they sing, Uncle Holo.”

Reticingh paused again. “Though vocal music is not an overwhelming interest here on Thyker, at least not among most Baidee, you have to admit that a great many people sing. Your brother sings! We cannot ascribe mind-control to all who sing. On Phansure and Ahabar, they have large orchestras and pay much attention to music, and even though the conductors seem to have absolute control over the musicians during a performance, we don’t consider that the musicians have had their heads fooled with.” He paused to let that sink in. “They choose to take part in an orchestra, and that implies submitting to the director.” He let Shan chew on that for a moment before continuing.