The Braided World (41 page)

Bailey had to smile at the depth of the insult. This Samwan was skilled.

It was time for a good exit. “That is too bad, Samwan,” she said. “Where I come from, the aged have honor.” Bailey turned and stalked off toward the pier.

As she left, Samwan's voice trailed behind her, “Oh but now, thankfully, you are in the Olagong.”

Bailey felt like a fool.
No fool like an old fool.
Was that why she had been popular from the outset, because she was considered weak and no threat?

Bailey stopped on the dock, looking down at the Puldar. In the distance, a column of smoke rose over the jungle. Something was on fire. These people had to be wary of fire, with everything made of reed and wood.

As Bailey stepped into the skiff, she saw another curdle of smoke from the direction of the Nool River.

Samwan and her sisters rushed onto the pier, staring as well. Samwan murmured, “Best go home, and quickly.”

In the last of the daylight, Bailey saw that the Puldar was completely deserted. She set out paddling as fast as she could, with a line of smoke drifting toward her, casting a shadow on the river.

Coda Eight. Temporal Setting.

All things exist in a natural and impermanent span of time. All species one day perish. All settings degrade. All things alter overtime, complexifying, simplifying, and extinguishing. This is the universal life cycle. A place, life form, setting, or culture has a natural tenure, or interval of existence. The galaxy also has a life-bearing tenure. As the universe ages, radioisotopes necessary for plate tectonics and temperature control of higher life-bearing planets are more uncommon. New worlds likely to develop complex life no longer form in the galaxy. The habit-ability of the galaxy declines. The high golden age has crested in our time. This makes all sentient organisms rare and worthy of recovery.

It was a small thing at first. Afterward, Anton remembered the moment the braided lands began to unravel.

He had been telling Vidori and Shim as much of the codas as he could remember. There were eleven of them, packed tight with information that changed everything for Anton's mission—and just as much for the Dassa. Vidori listened
carefully, gravely, as Anton struggled with the Dassa vocabulary. There were no Dassa words for concepts like
ra-aioisotoipes
and
terraforming.
Some concepts were impossible to convey in a short time:
dark matter and plate tectonics
and
gas giant.
Anton glossed over them, giving a quick translation. He could only guess what this astonishing information sounded like to the king and his chancellor.

Yet the Dassa knew—had always known—that the Quadi created them. In some ways, they lived in a more completely imagined universe than humanity did. The fact of the Quadi was immemorial cultural knowledge, even if only general and hazy. In the Dassa worldview, the universe held another sentient species more advanced than themselves. Humanity had received that same information with far less grace.

Now and then during Anton's narration, Shim glanced at the king, perhaps to assess his position, whether the revelations of the codas boded good or ill. But Vidori's face betrayed only intense concentration.

At one point the king had said, “So then, Anton, we are cousins indeed.”

“Yes, rahi.” It didn't trouble Anton as it had some of his crew. He suspected it had never troubled Vidori.

Then the king's posture changed. He turned in his chair, listening. Or smelling. It was at that moment that war came to the Olagong. But its roots were entwined with the circumstances of power—the fact that Oleel was leader of the uldia when an infirm old man commanded the judipon, and when an ambitious daughter hid under the love of a visionary king.

Shim rose, crossing the room and parting one of the hallway screens. Anton heard her murmuring to someone in the corridor.

But she had gone in the wrong direction. Vidori went to the great porch overlooking the Puldar, drawing open the screens. Anton followed him onto the veranda.

At first all he saw was the black river, defined by lighted huts along the banks.

“Vidori-rah,” Anton said, “is something amiss?”

The king didn't answer at first, merely pointed off to the south. There, through the heavy screen of the forest, a flicker of light emerged, high and bright.

“Fire,” Vidori finally said.

A curve of smoke drifted eastward on the light wind. The king murmured, “I thought she would come with boats and arms. She is bolder than I knew. Fire …”

“What is she burning, rahi?” No need to ask who
she
was.

“The fields,” Vidori said. A noise behind them drew their attention. Standing by an open screen was Romang, and next to him, Shim. “Vidori-rah,” Romang said, his voice deep and gravelly.

The king only said, “How many?”

“Thousands.” Romang strode onto the deck while Shim closed the hall screens. He said, “Many of them are judipon.”

Vidori turned back to the river, as though looking for judipon warriors in the blackness of waters and forest. “So people give belief to the transmissions.”

Anton was losing track of the conversation, but he remained silent, surprised that he was allowed to remain, now that the war chief had come.

From the corridor came the sounds of people running and voices raised. The palace was awake.

Romang said, “They have been saying strangers will come in air ships and take the Olagong. People stranger than the humans. Worse,” he said, as though that was hard to imagine.

Vidori took pity on Anton. Turning to him, he said, “The judipon are much accustomed to using radio to transmit their schedules along the braids. Now Nirimol uses it to transmit his lies.”

Nirimol. Not Homish. Anton jumped to the conclusion that Homish had died—naturally or with a little help.

The king paused, looking back at the darkened river. “We did wonder, when the transmissions began a few hours ago, how they could claim there was danger in the stars.”

“Vidori-rah,” Anton said. “Such beings are not likely to come, nor to bear arms against you if they did.”

The king stopped him with a gesture. “Oh yes, so I believe, too.” He turned to Romang. “I have learned that the Quadi have honored us by leaving in our safekeeping the wisdom of the stars. Just as humans have found that our world contains remedies for their ills, left by the Quadi, so now it is discovered to be the case for several more such worlds without pri. They may seek our favors to help them, and if it is in accordance with the braid, we shall do so.”

Romang nodded. If his king said so, it was so.

The king's face fell stern. “But it is a weapon in Oleel's hands. It is more of a weapon than I had hoped for her to have.” He glanced back at Romang. “You are ready?”

“Yes, rahi.” He cast a troubled glance at Anton. ‘Another matter, though.” Clearly, he was reluctant to proceed in Anton's presence.

“He stays,” Vidori said. He turned to Anton. “What I know, you will know, just as you have withheld nothing from me regarding the Quadi messages, thankfully.” Implicit was the demand that Anton
not
withhold anything.

Vidori continued, “As you share our plans and goals, my hope is, Anton, that you will stand by me in what is coming.”

Stand by him.
But how?

“As you revealed the hidden messages tonight,” Vidori said, “I was already thinking how to counter what Oleel would do. We can make transmissions of our own, Anton. We can, if you agree, put forward that strangers from outside worlds are no threat.” He pointed up, toward the ceiling, toward the roof, and its collection of telescopes. “Because of your ship's standing in protection.” Vidori
lowered his voice. “That, however, would mean that you would not return home, but stay instead in the Olagong.”

The size of this request stopped Anton cold. But he knew his answer. He hesitated to say it too quickly, lest it sound ill-considered. They would go home; of course they would. Earth was dying. They held remedies in their hands. They must go home.

There was almost a smile on Vidori's face. It hovered around his lips, but it held no humor. Only recognition that he had asked a momentous favor. Then he said, “I will free the hoda.”

Anton was startled. The events of the night and the previous day were spinning around him. He had to juggle the implications of so many things, and now the king had just tossed another ball in the air. A flaming one. He wondered if Vidori was using the hoda's plight as a bargaining chip.

“Whether you stay or not,” the king said, as though knowing what Anton was thinking, “my plan has always been that the hoda must be free. The prosperity of the Olagong comes from all our work, not just those who hold themselves proper Dassa. All are proper Dassa, just different, in ways that the world has made manifest. Just as the universe is differently manifested.”

He turned to Romang. “I have said that the hoda must be free, Romang-rah. There will be no more clipping, nor punishments for hoda bearing children.” That high-minded pronouncement was followed by a cynical one. “If they are spared clipping by us, they will not turn to the Vol. Is that not so?”

Romang nodded stiffly. ‘As you say, rahi.” Here was a man whose vision went as far as king, troops, and strategy for war, but
As you say
would be his answer to all that Vidori ordered, and in that way his vision would be as broad as his king's.

The breeze brought the first hints of smoke to Anton's nostrils. Down the river, toward the confluence with the Sodesh, more fires blazed. Oleel was burning the copses of
langva, to destroy the messages, not understanding that so much more was about to change than having unwelcome visitors. Vidori had planned many changes. His plans were intricate and patient, and all dependent on timing. And whether he was a liberator of hoda because of conviction or convenience, Anton would have to judge after considerably more sleep than he'd had in the last day and a half. For now, there was still the need to answer the king's request.

“Vidori-rah,” Anton said, “one day not so long ago, we stood on this deck and you pointed to the Dassa in their boats. You said that your rule depended not on control, but on devotion.” He faced the man squarely. “It's because of devotion that my crew and I came here. And it's because of devotion that we have to leave.”

Vidori straightened. ‘And the fields will burn, and the wisdom of the Quadi will be lost.”

“No, rahi, some will remain …”

“But you said, did you not, that each foreign world is in a different langva variety?” Seeing Anton nod, he continued, “You must understand, we plant only one variety of langva in the Olagong. The others” —he gestured toward the forest— “are rare. They can be lost, Anton.” When Anton remained silent, he murmured, “But you and I, we are not
devoted
to such worlds.”

Anton felt the sting of the reprimand. This world was, as the Quadi said, a nexus world. Its treasures were unimaginably vast. How could one not be …
devotedì

Romang interrupted, but hesitantly “Rahi, we must speak.”

Vidori nodded to him. He was still struggling to accept Anton's decision. He didn't look at Anton now, but out toward a new and heavy fog on the river. “Speak then, Romang-rah.”

But Romang hesitated, exchanging glances with Shim.

Reluctantly, Shim came forward. “Rahi, the Princess Joon has fled the palace. She took her personal guard and chancellors.”

Vidori's face went blank. After a beat he said, “There were no boats on the Puldar.”

Shim's face contorted a bit. “No, no boats, rahi. They fled on foot, into the forest.”

“Gone,” Vidori whispered. He glanced over at Romang for confirmation.

The man stood silent, giving it.

Vidori said, “Oleel infiltrated her chancellors. My daughter went under compulsion.”

Anton knew that the king was denying what he was hearing, knew how the mind struggles to find alternate explanations for truths too painful to bear. As he himself had with the news of Maypong:
Oleel's lying. She's alive …

Romang had the grace to keep Vidori's gaze. “No, rahi,
Joon
led
them.
So my spies have said.”

There was a very long silence, during which no one dared to speak. Finally Vidori said, “You have good spies, Romang-rah.” His eyes darkened. “Even in my daughter's compound.”

Romang raised his chin, justified by the event of Joon's defection. “Yes, rahi.”

Then Vidori turned his back on all of them, walking to the rim of the deck, his feet on the very edge, his body composed, his tunic filling with wind and smoke. “Pursue them,” he said.

And: “Shim, I will dress for battle.”

She turned to arrange it, grateful for something to do, some service she could perform that was familiar, and proper.

Before Anton took his leave, he asked for, and received, a contingent of guards to accompany him to the shuttle. He would see Vidori once more before he left. Yes, when all was ready, the king allowed, he would say good-bye. There were no recriminations. But Vidori still faced outward, looking at the river.