Rift (46 page)

Reeve elbowed his way past the thickening crowd until he could see Loon more clearly.

“Loon!” he called again.

At his side, Brecca said: “We can lower those placards to the floor.”

“No,” Spar said. “She’ll jump before she’ll let you glom onto her.”

“Oh, damn and double damn,” Brecca said. “They’ve got guns.”

Reeve looked up to where Gregor was directing his guards to aim at Loon.

Wheeling around, Brecca stormed up the broad staircase and raised her arms, addressing the crowd. “Beloved! That poor creature up there has special knowledge for the glory of the Labs!”

From across the atrium, Gregor’s voice came: “Brothers and sisters of the Pool! Brecca has a story to tell you, of the journey she made, all in secret, six years ago!”

Brecca’s voice carried effortlessly: “That’s between us, my colleague. And it always has been.”

The gathered Somaformers looked in confusion from ministrator to priest and back again.

“Perhaps it’s time to share it,” Gregor shouted.

Reeve’s eyes were fixed on Loon, and hers on his. In all the commotion, he didn’t think she could hear him, but he called up, “I love you. I love you.”

Meanwhile, Brecca’s expression was stormy behind her bright smile. “My beloved!” She raised her arms to encompass the crowd. “Let us gently bring the placards down, and”—here she looked pointedly at Gregor—“my colleague and I will jointly decide the genetic destiny of this suppliant called Loon.”

“Brecca, Brecca,” the throng chanted. Brecca smiled benevolently on them.

Gregor made no move to call off his guards, who were still aiming at Loon.

“Swing!” Reeve called up to her. “Swing!”

Loon began to dip her body, first to one side, then to the other.

From the mezzanine, rifles followed her, a target now on the move. There was nothing Reeve could do
to protect her except urge her to swing, and he waved to her, shouting, “Higher, higher!”

She swooped wildly, following an ever-wider arc.

The rifles lowered. Defeated for now, Gregor made his way around the mezzanine to join Brecca on the stairway. Together, making a show of unity, they watched as the placard was lowered.

Loon clung to her perch all the way down, watching the ceiling recede as though it had been some hoped-for destination. Within a few feet of the floor, she jumped off. Given a broad circle of space by the confused Somaformers, Loon waited, looking small and vulnerable despite the feat she had just accomplished. She searched the crowd, looking for something. For him. Reeve stepped forward, holding out his hand to her, and she walked forward to join him.

7

Someone was shaking Nerys as she lay in her bed.

“Wake up! Nerys!”

She opened her eyes to find Haval, wild-eyed and disheveled. It was dark, by the skylight.

Nerys raised up on one elbow. “What’s wrong?”

“Pila,” Haval said. “She’s run off.” Haval practically dragged Nerys to a sitting position. “And Salidifor’s here, waiting.” She nodded at the corridor outside.

Nerys had been sleeping deeply and now struggled for coherence. Pila had run off—but couldn’t she leave if she wished? The young woman had given birth two days ago to her pup, and had come back to the berm, subdued and withdrawn. Nerys had tried to draw her out, and wrote off the flat reaction to convalescence.

Haval was pushing her toward the door.

“Let me at least get dressed.”

“Salidifor’s waiting.”

“So let him wait.” She pulled on her drawstring long pants. “Tell me what happened.”

Haval threw her arms wide. “She took the pup! She ran off and took the pup—the Lord only knows how she got ahold of it!”

Nerys stopped, one foot in one pants leg. “Took the pup?”

“They’re tracking her, but Salidifor wants you to intercede. So she won’t harm the pup.” She grabbed Nerys by her arm. “Talk some sense into her, Nerys—she likes you, she’ll listen to you. This has never happened before. It could get bad.”

Nerys hurried outside and down the berm steps to join Salidifor. A thinning of the darkness showed that dawn was near.

She noted Salidifor’s glare.

He headed out of the courtyard directly into the outfold.

Please
?> she signed behind his back.

Proceeding her, Salidifor cleared away the nighttime cobwebs and dew from the rubbery growths of the forest. Nerys, like all the women, stayed on the paths, partly because they were the quickest routes, and partly out of a sense that they were not welcome in the pathless interior spaces. Now, in the midst of a great section of lavender stalks as high as her knees, Nerys quickly became disoriented. So much of the place looked the same, with its unnatural uniformity, until a change of color announced a new set of growths. The purple columns glowed slightly, adding some light to the journey.

Nerys asked.

Salidifor’s face took on a pale lavender cast from the forest growths.

To her surprise, Salidifor answered, is
like a mother.>

Nerys let her blank stare convey the stupidity of his comment. As they continued, they crossed into a bright yellow mass of shoulder-high polyps. Buds studded their sides. They waded across a small stream, and Nerys noticed that the water carved the yellow growths at the bottom, sculpting them like a sandbank. On the other side, an object caught her attention. Protruding from the side of a yellow polyp was what looked like a sleeve, as though a coat had been consumed by the polyp. Then she saw that the growths in this area were full of discarded clothing, partially subsumed by the vegetative matter.

Letting this go for now, Nerys pressed her point about Pila: mother
has emotions, Salidifor. We’re emotional beings, not vegetables like your forest.> Here she waved at the outfold.

Salidifor spoke as they hurried on, side by side.

When he was mute on this issue, she pressed on:

This was an odd idea, since the women weren’t allowed so much as a single touch of their issue.

A few birdcalls threaded down from a huge wall of moss-green pillars some twenty yards away. Salidifor turned for a moment toward this deeper forest and paused, scanning for something.

As he tramped on through the purple grass, she ran to catch up with him, fired suddenly by an idea. notice
, don’t they? Inside us. It’s not good for them if we’re upset.>

Salidifor signed.

Nerys laughed. Her merriment echoed off the flat wall of green they were approaching.

The sound stopped Salidifor in his tracks. He looked at her with what seemed some alarm.

Facing him, Nerys grinned.

Salidifor knew the concept
funny
. Or knew it as much as he could. They had spent a couple hours one afternoon trying to define it. They had finally left it at: a sudden sensation of simple happiness over a surprise. Which drained it of every ounce of amusement, but seemed the best they could do. Outright laughter, however, he had apparently never heard, not this close up.

Salidifor asked.

Nerys answered: care
about them.> She signed the word
care
twice for emphasis.

Nerys snorted.

he waved at her.

Salidifor ducked into the stand of green pillars. Nerys paused before following him. She was trembling with anger. The women had always known that if they went to the orthong they would be breeders; if your scruples didn’t allow it, you stayed in your clave. So maybe she was developing scruples. Or maybe it was the subtle manipulation that rancored. The orthong had raised expectations of emotional succor and intimacy, and the self-styled
freewomen
were falling for it like fools.

A soft shuffling noise caught her attention. A garment was wriggling loose of its polyp. It dangled for a moment by a tendril, and then a perfect orthong long coat fell to the forest floor. The polyp sagged as though it had given its all.

Nerys plunged into the looming green wall of the outfold. The taller growths bled off the progress of the dawn, burying her in mossy dimness. An overwhelming smell of sweet spices assaulted her. Here the columnar growths spiked two hundred feet to a tangled top notch. The sides of the trees were covered in small crystals that shed into piles at the bases.

Salidifor waved her forward, and she joined him at the edge of a clearing dominated by a tall rock outcropping. Here a dozen orthong had tracked Pila to her hiding place, a thirty-foot-high monolith where she stood holding a wrapped bundle as she would have a human baby.

Salidifor turned to Nerys, his face crumpled into a furrow that she took for extraordinary displeasure. he said.

Pila’s lord approached them. Nerys struggled to interpret, but he spoke in a different dialect, using his whole upper body in a robust and flowing movement very different from the hand-signing.

Nerys signed to him.

The lord signed this word twice, in consternation.

Nerys looked up at Pila, but the woman didn’t take any note of the gathering below her. She just stood staring into the outfold.

The two orthong were talking. It was a new language, one she couldn’t understand. Salidifor interpreted. The gist of it was that no, she must never visit.

At last Nerys called up to Pila, “Sweet one, listen to me. You don’t want to harm that baby. You know you don’t. Let me come up and we’ll talk.” Pila said nothing, and Nerys began to climb. She lost sight of Pila as she grappled with the rock in finding a route to the top, but after a few minutes she hauled herself onto
the narrow summit where Pila now crouched down, clasping the bundle close to her body.

“My baby,” she said.

“Can I see?”

A look of suspicion crossed Pila’s face, but she drew aside the blanket. The infant’s face was traced over with a network of many lines, the apparent precursor of the more familiar skin ridges. Its eyes were wide open, the color of spring buds of green.

“His father misses him, and we must give him back, Pila.”

She shook her head.

“There are ten strong orthong males down there. They will take the babe, and they will punish us all. Give me the babe, Pila.”

Tears came to the young woman’s eyes, and Nerys moved to embrace her. As the woman wept, Nerys held her and rocked her until the forest grew bright. Light cascaded from the tall canopy, sparkling from the sides of the crusted trees.

Nerys took the pup. She extended her hand to Pila, and they walked to the edge, where Nerys negotiated her way down the first drop. When she found a place with surer footing, she turned back to see that Pila had not followed. “Pila?”

From out of sight, Pila responded, “I’m not coming.”

The pup stirred in Nerys’ arms. To her surprise, it struggled to a position of looking over her shoulder. She had assumed it was as helpless as a human newborn.

“What do you mean, you’re not coming?” This question was answered with silence.

“Come down, hon. I’ll help you get through this. You will get through this, I promise.”

“Did
you
?”

“Did I what?”