The Rosetta Codex (15 page)

After a long silence, Sidonie began to talk, telling her own story. There wasn't much to it, she said. When she couldn't locate Adanka Suttree, she decided to make her home in Morningstar and wait. For the last two years she'd been working in a nursery, growing native plants to produce seeds for offworld shipment. Working and waiting and keeping her eye out for Cale. She'd thought she'd found him the previous summer, but he'd disappeared. Then several weeks ago, she'd picked up hints again of someone named Cale who was the right age. She followed up until she'd eventually found the Resurrectionists.

When she was done, Cale looked up at the stars gleaming weakly above them. “It's surprising we're both alive,” he said. He turned back to her. Then, hesitant but unable to refrain from asking, he said, “Can . . . can surgery . . . ?” He couldn't finish the question.

She nodded. “Someday. But for now, I want the reminder.”

He winced, feeling guilty, though not sure why.

She looked steadily at him and said, “It's time to go home, Cale. Now that you're found, it's time for both of us to go home.”

“Where do you think home is?” he asked, the anger rising once again.

“The Alexandros Estates. On Lagrima.”

Cale shook his head. “My home is
here.
”

“With the Resurrectionists?”

“Yes.”

“That's not a home, Cale. They're not your family.”

“They're more family to me than my own has ever been. Except for you,” he added. Looking at Sidonie, his anger at his own family became washed away by the affection he felt for her, which arose from the scared five-year-old boy that still resided within him. “Why did you wait for me?” he asked. “Why did you keep looking for me? I could have been dead. I
should
have been dead.”

“I knew you were still alive,” she replied.

“How?”

She seemed embarrassed, and gave a slight shrug. “I found a horoscoper here. A genuine horoscoper.”

“You believe in that nonsense?”

“It's not nonsense.
Astrology
is nonsense, and most horoscopers are frauds, astrologers trying to camouflage themselves with respect, but those few horoscopers who are genuine possess great insight into the directions of our lives.”

“You believe they can tell the future?”

Sidonie shook her head. “No. But the authentic ones are great seers of the forces in our lives, the forces that act upon us, and those we produce.”

“And you found an ‘authentic' one.”

“Yes, and he said you were still alive. Influencing the world around you, affecting all of us.”

Which of course was just what she had wanted to hear. It was absurd. “And the family horoscoper who told my father that my presence was needed to ensure his success? What kind of success was that?”

“I don't know, Cale. Stygon was a good horoscoper. Your father had previously ignored his advice and paid a heavy price for it. He was determined not to make that mistake
again.” She breathed deeply once. “I don't know,” she said again. “Perhaps Stygon was mistaken, or your father misunderstood him, or there was something else we just can't understand. I still have faith in the true horoscopers.” She put her hand on his. “Come with me to see the horoscoper I found here in Morningstar. He can help you, help you decide what to do.”

“I can make my own decisions.”

“So you'll stay with the Resurrectionists.”

“Yes.”

“And your family? Your blood family?”

Cale looked away from her. “Go back to them without me,” he said. “You've done more than they could ever have expected from you. Tell them I'm . . .” He didn't finish, but he turned back to her and shook his head. “Tell them whatever you want.”

“I won't go back without you,” she said, gazing intently at him. “
You
are my charge, Cale, no matter what your age, you are still my charge in some way, and I'll stay here in Morningstar until you decide to return.”

“And if I never go back?”

She smiled gently at him. “Then I never will, either. I've made a good life here for myself. I can be content with that.”

He stood up to leave. It was late. Or early. He could see the first pale light of dawn and he shivered, just now feeling the chill in the air.

“I hope you come to see me again, Cale.”

“I will, Sidonie. Often. And you? Will you come see me?”

She shook her head. “No. I'll be here for you, but I won't go back to the Resurrectionists again.”

 

Back to the Resurrectionists. Back to Karimah. Back to the Underneath. Back . . . home?

No, Cale admitted to himself. He was not deluded. This was not yet truly home, the Resurrectionists and Karimah were not yet truly family, but he believed that in time they could be, and that would do for now.

Cale rode in the front of the skiff, while Karimah operated the motor as they set off shortly after dawn. Over the first half hour, the skiff moved from Marlowe Canal out into larger channels until they reached the Grand Canal, then they reversed the process, transferring into smaller and narrower waterways as they moved farther and farther from the city center. Cale had no idea where they were going, and Karimah wouldn't tell him. As they reached the northern outskirts of Morningstar, the city rapidly deteriorated—people and buildings alike. The canals were lined with dwellings of broken concrete, cracked and rotting wood; shanties of metal and planks and brick held together by little more than hope; rusting wheeled carts, scoots, and
planked wagons. An astonishing number of people moved among the ruins, sat by cookfires, or squatted hunched-over on mounds of garbage; a few half-naked children gazed listlessly at the skiff as it motored by. The stench and the misery were both undeniable and truly appalling.

Karimah turned into a narrow, deserted channel, and the skiff slowed, the motor idling quietly. The air seemed heavier, stagnant like the dark water which was scummed over with oil, gray clots of viscous matter, and beads of fluorescent yellow pollen. The bloated carcass of a small brown animal drifted past, the dead creature's head either submerged or missing altogether. Along the banks of the canal was a no-man's land, deserted and crumbling ruins choked and overgrown with diseased vegetation, cloying scented flowers open to the sky above—white and yellow engulfed by deep violets; yellows and oranges spotted with an iridescent brown; wide blue petals so dark they were almost black, spiraling around long creepers that trailed over the concrete banks and lay dying on the oily surface of the water.

Ahead, a wide stone bridge arched across the water. They passed into the shadow of stones, then emerged from under the bridge and into a large, artificial lagoon lined with tall, dark green spider trees; strung between the trees was a network of wire, reflectors, colored strips of fabric, and gruesome figurines, like some shaman's protective fetishes. Or something to scare off the birds and day-bats. At the far end of the lagoon, two canoes and a short, flat barge were moored to a rotting, partially sunken dock heavily canopied by the dense foliage of several trees that had been arched and tied together overhead. A pair of silver ducks waddled along the bank, but the dock was otherwise deserted. The water was
surprisingly clean and clear, somehow kept separate and secured from the foul waters of the canal; it rolled away from them as they traversed the lagoon, reflecting the sun, the spider trees, and Cale's face in rippling patterns.

Karimah tied up the skiff, then led the way into the trees, raising a section of the wire network out of their path. In the shade of the trees, the air oppressed, warmer and heavier, and currents of heat swirled up from the earth, mixing with unexpected tendrils of cold that seemed to curl out from the trees' aboveground roots.

They emerged from the trees and stood before a large, ruined building, several stories of crumbling stonework overgrown with mosses and sprouting ferns. Music played somewhere nearby, quiet string jazz, and smoke rose from the far side of the building.

“Looks like Mom's firing,” Karimah said. “She's got a wood-fired kiln as well as one that runs on fuel cells. She likes to use the wood-fired kiln when she can, even though it's a pain in the ass, because she says it's more basic and natural. Also produces more interesting colors and patterns.” She looked at Cale and laughed. “You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?”

“No.”

“Mom's a potter. She makes just about anything you can imagine—bowls, plates, cups, vases, pots. Anything practical, and lots of just plain beautiful stuff for decoration. Whatever she and Dad don't need she gives away or trades at the markets. That's one of the reasons they live out here—they're within walking distance of a good source of clay.” She gestured to the side of the building. “Let's go around. Day like today, Dad's probably in the garden.”

When they came around to the south side of the building, Cale was taken aback at the size of the “garden.” It was more like a small agricultural field, various shades of green running the length of the building and stretching several hundred paces to the south until it ran up against a dense stand of short, dark blue-violet trees. Rows of plants were divided by footpaths, and deep within the garden a tall, thin gray-bearded man with a wide-brimmed hat waved at them. He bent over to dig at something in the soil, then a few moments later walked toward them.

Her father's name was Rusk, and he shook Cale's hand with surprising vigor. He was bony and his skin was weathered and wrinkled; he smiled with genuine warmth and looked at Cale with blue eyes that shined.

“Pleased to meet you, Cale,” Rusk said. “It's been years since Karimah's brought anyone to see the family.”

Cale felt himself flush, and didn't quite understand why. The old man just patted him on the shoulder and said, “Let's go see Mama.”

Karimah's mother appeared to be much younger than Rusk, though her long dark hair was heavily streaked with silver. Her name was Zaida and she was stoking the firebox of a brick kiln that had been built on the eastern side of the house. Smoke rose from a chimney that was close to two stories tall. A few paces away were several huge stacks of firewood, sorted by size. Zaida peered into a hole at the red crackling fire, then nodded once. She straightened, brushed her hands on her trousers, and shook Cale's hand.

“Should be okay for a while,” she said. “You two are the first ones here. Let's have some tea, and you can show Cale around the place.”

 

Karimah's parents made Cale feel welcome, an unfamiliar but pleasant sensation. From outside, the house appeared to be in ruins, but the walls were thick and solid, and the interior was well-maintained and secure from the weather—dry and cool and comfortable. The ground floor consisted entirely of one enormous room with a high ceiling, flooded with light from large windows. In addition to dozens of ceramic pieces placed throughout the room, a number of Rusk's watercolor paintings hung on the walls and post supports, realistic still lifes of garden foods, and impressionistic lagoon landscapes, reminding him of the anchorite's art books.

While Rusk made a pot of strong, smoke-scented tea, Karimah took Cale upstairs and showed him the rooms on the second floor, then led the way up a long and narrow flight of stairs to the vast open loft area where Rusk painted. From a small window in the south wall, Cale looked out over the enormous garden, then across the stand of trees and onto the outlying areas of Morningstar, a patchwork of multicolored flowers and greenery and blocks of buildings that gradually became more stone, brick, metal, and concrete, and less green, until the inner city was nothing but artificial structures, taller as they neared the center, broken only by roadways and canals. And at the center of it all, The Island, which from this far away looked much less impressive than it did from close-up.

“My brother and sister will be coming soon,” Karimah said. She stood next to him, her shoulder gently pressing against his. “We try to get together like this every two or three weeks.”

That explained the days she disappeared without saying anything to him. “You've never mentioned your family before,” Cale said.

“Neither have you.”

Cale nodded. He was reluctant to say anything at all to her. Too many years of keeping it to himself, not trusting anyone, not even Feegan or Junko or Terrel. Karimah, though. . . . Here she was bringing him into
her
family. He looked at her, and though he knew he could not tell her his family name, or how he had come to this world, he realized he could share at least some of his past with her.

“My father's dead,” he told her. “He died when I was five. As far as I know, my mother, too.”

“I'm sorry,” Karimah said. “It's not much to say, but I am.”

He shrugged and turned to her. “Let's go have tea with your parents.”

 

They drank the tea outside, sitting beside a small pond shaded by a pair of fountainberry trees, near the kiln so Zaida could keep an eye on the temperature. She was glaze firing two different sets of bowls and cups, along with a number of vases, and explained the process to Cale. Karimah's brother Jemal arrived next, with his wife Katya and daughter Faith. Faith was fourteen years old, and stayed only long enough to give her grandparents and aunt a kiss, be introduced to Cale, then she was off to Zaida's studio to “throw pots,” whatever that meant. Cale imagined her tossing pots across the room and shattering them against the walls, but he was sure the reality wasn't anything like that.

At midday, Karimah's sister Majidah arrived, with
her wife Toya and their thirteen-year-old son Max. Max spoke with a voice little more than a whisper, asked where Faith was, then, after wandering among the adults for a few minutes, said he was going to watch Faith.

The rest of the day passed slowly and enjoyably for Cale. He learned that Jemal was an analytics teacher at a small school near the river, that Katya worked as a med-tech in free clinics in the poorer areas of Morningstar, and that Majidah and Toya ran a barge café on the Grand Canal—they drifted up and down the canal, mooring in different districts each day, so that their customers were different every night, then cycled back to the same areas over time so that they got to know people in all parts of the city. Rusk talked about the garden, which provided much of their food, and Zaida talked about the orchids she was growing in a greenhouse sunroom on the second floor of the house—she pointed it out to Cale, at the southwestern corner of the building; through the steamy glass he could see dense patches of green and strings of brilliant colors. Gardening for pleasure was such a strange idea to him, but he thought he was beginning to understand it.

No one asked Cale about his past, or what he was doing now; no one asked Karimah what
she
was doing; no one ever mentioned the Resurrectionists, but Cale sensed that everyone knew. There seemed to be an understanding to avoid the topic.

As the sun set behind the buildings of The Island, Cale joined Rusk out in the garden while the others went inside to start dinner. Rusk opened a valve in a large pipe and water flowed through a system of hoses and pipes and sprayers, watering nearly the entire garden in a slow and controlled
fashion. A few plants, however, needed hand-watering, and Cale helped carry watering cans out to a plot far from the building where several rows of tiny green plants were just beginning to emerge from the ground. Rusk showed him what to do, and they watered the seedlings together, carefully pouring water into the channels of each row, saturating the ground without harming any of the delicate plants. When they were done, they brought the cans back to the faucets and sat together on a bench with their backs against the building, taking in the last of the sun.

Rusk took a strip of cigarettes from his pocket, offered them to Cale, and nodded in approval when Cale shook his head. “It's a bad family trait,” he told Cale. He popped one free from the strip and lit it. He smoked in silence for a time, eyes closed, face turned toward the setting sun. Finally he turned to Cale and spoke.

“We used to live near the center of Morningstar, not far from The Island. For years. Decades. Karimah grew up there, not here.” He smiled. “She's an urban woman to her core. As we grew older, though, it was taking too damn much energy just to live, to get through each day. Too much noise, too many people, too much worrying about our own personal safety. We both realized we weren't appreciating life very much. Some do, in that environment, some people thrive in it.” He shook his head. “Zaida and I don't. Lots of other people don't, either, but many of them can't ever get out. Some of those who
do,
well, they
really
get out, they retreat completely—into the jungles where they live like hermits, or other isolated places far from Morningstar. A few even freely choose to travel over the Divide and live there.”

Cale nodded. “I met someone who did that. She was an anchorite, and she lived by herself in a cabin, and I don't think she's ever going to leave.”

“Well, that's a little extreme for us. We like the comforts of electricity and running water.” He chuckled. “Though I admit we had a hell of a time getting those two things in place here.” He crushed out his cigarette stub in the dirt with his shoe. “And it's important to be near our children and grandchildren. This place has been perfect for us. A lot of work, but we've enjoyed almost every bit of that work, and we're both a lot happier.” He lit another cigarette and looked askance at Cale. “So you've been on the other side of the Divide?” It was barely a question.

Cale nodded, realizing the slip he'd made. “Not by choice,” he replied.

Rusk smiled, then said, “You don't talk much. I noticed that today. I like that in you, though I'm suspicious of it in most people.”

Thinking of Blackburn, Cale said, “Someone else told me that, several years ago.”

Rusk nodded, and went on. “Karimah's our youngest child. We still think of her as the baby of the family, even though she can probably take care of herself better than any of the rest of us. So we worry a little about her.”

“Are you worried about me?”

Smiling, Rusk shook his head. “Not at all, Cale. She's a very good judge of character, and if she likes you and trusts you—which she does, or you wouldn't be here—then we do, too. But we worry about what you all are doing: The Island Security Forces and the Sarakheen and canal pirates and all the other crazy people who don't seem to like what you're
trying to do, even if they don't really know what it is.”