Which was perfectly true, of course. Mouche wasn"t fixed. He wouldn"t be until he was sold. And of course he would not force himself on Ornery, because if Ornery-the female Ornery-got pregnant, she could be executed for mismothering, and Mouche was not the kind of person to endanger another in that way. So Mouche told himself, ill.u.s.trating his goodwill by leaving the room with the utmost dignity and closing the door gently behind him.
Ornery checked the door. The lock was broken. It seemed to lock, but in fact it did not. So, all right, he hadn"t picked the lock in order to get at her. With some apprehension, she went back to the room they shared, where Mouche attempted once again to explain that he was both honorable and harmless and that Ornery did not need to worry. His friendly overtures were rebuffed. Further, Ornery adopted a new manner toward him, one of nervous shyness, like a young cat only recently made aware of dogs. Her native gregariousness had led them into a friendly and trusting camaraderie, but now her sense of prudence dictated otherwise. Suddenly, she became suspicious and almost preternaturally alert.
Mouche, in turn, could not decide whether he was annoyed with her or not. Given the high status of women on Newholme and the very low status of supernumes-even ones who got jobs as seamen-he could not quite envision a circ.u.mstance which would have led him, had he been female, to pretend otherwise. He would very much have liked to discuss it with Ornery, but she was not of a mood, as yet, for any discussion at all.
38.
The Questioner Arrives.
Questioner arrived without fanfare. Her shuttle set down near Sendoph late at night. Though Questioner had intended to enter the planetary system from the side nearest the moon where the Quaggi had died, the immediacy of the geological problems on the planet had made her change her mind. The Quaggi would wait. She could stop at the outer planet on her way out.
By morning she was ensconced at Mantelby Mansion, her maintenance system unloaded and ready, her reference files properly arranged, Ellin and Bao settled, and the rest of her varied entourage provided with rooms of their own, along with a separate dining salon. The entourage had caused quite a stir. Of the eight persons attached to Questioner, in addition to Ellin and Bao, no two looked anything alike, and some of them looked only remotely mankindly. The peepers from the walls had seen this with a good deal of interest, and had immediately sent messengers off with descriptions of each one of the eight.
By breakfast, Questioner had her people taking scanner views of every street from Naibah south, and inventorying all businesses, agricultural enterprises, and the like, from Sendoph north. The work could have been done automatically, by miniature spy-eyes, but Questioner did not advise her so-called aides of this. The opportunity to be rid of them for some days, if she was lucky, was too good to miss.
Within the hour, Ellin Voy and Gandro Bao were on their way to the Panhagion in a carriage borrowed from the Mantelby stables while another, larger carriage was being modified to carry the Questioner. The ride was neither long nor uncomfortable, and Ellin considerably enjoyed the amus.e.m.e.nt of seeing Bao dressed as a woman. Questioner had approved his doing so, since he would otherwise have to wear veils and his efficiency would be impaired. Ellin had to admit that, within a few moments, she thought of him as a woman, for he acted and looked exactly as a rather grave, pleasant, youngish woman might. He had, so he said, learned women"s ways and women"s wiles over years of study with a Kabuki master of the genre.
Among all these pleasurable details, Ellin could not understand her uneasiness. There was something in the atmosphere of the place, the city, or perhaps the planet, that made her feel queasy. A melancholy in the air. A sadness. A late-autumn, leaf-burning, chill-wind-blowing, inexorable-lifeloss-coming kind of feeling. She felt it like a ghostly hand on her shoulder, and it made no sense at all.
"Do you feel it?" she whispered to Bao, her eyes on the back of the veiled coachman.
Bao stared out at the world, looked up at the sky, across the valley at the long shredded lines of smoke trailing away to the south. "Something," he admitted in his woman"s voice. "The hairs on my neck are standing on end."
When they left the carriage at the foot of the Temple stairs, Ellin stopped a young woman and introduced herself, asking to be taken to someone in charge. She and Bao were escorted into the forecourt of the Temple, where they watched as women placed lighted incense sticks in great sand-filled basins on iron tripods. Smoke rose from hundreds of glowing wands to fill the vault with haze that was lit by vagrant rays of light from high, gem-colored windows. Seen from below, the smoke shone in fragments of ruby and emerald, sapphire, amethyst, and amber, a shifting glory against the gold mosaic tiles of the ceiling.
"It is only the imperfection in the atmosphere that allows us to see the light," said a voice at their shoulders. "So with us, only our own imperfections allowing us to see what perfection might be."
The person addressing them was tall and thin and brown, dressed in a crimson, long-sleeved garment topped by a complicated headdress of striped wine and flame. "I "I am D"Jevier Pa.s.senger," she said. "One of the Temple Hags." am D"Jevier Pa.s.senger," she said. "One of the Temple Hags."
"Madam," Ellin bowed. "My name is Ellin Voy and this is ... Gandra Bao. We are uncertain as to the respectful form of address...."
"Ma"am will do," said D"Jevier. "Or, you may call me simply Hag or Oh, Hag, or Revered Hag, though I doubt the latter is always sincere. I am your servant, Ma"am, and that of the Hagions."
"The Hagions?" Ellin c.o.c.ked her head. The Questioner had a.s.sured her that this movement, properly executed, elicited information all by itself. Persons often helped the merely puzzled while they withheld information from the demanding.
"Come," said the Hag. "You will understand better if you see the Temple proper. We close it to men"s eyes. For millennia, mankind was so conditioned to believe that the only possible G.o.d is created in the image of a very large and powerful male, that the mere idea of a G.o.ddess made the entire male gender overwrought. Even here, on Newholme, where the Hagions have reigned for generations, we find it necessary to keep menfolk"s mouths and minds busy with other things."
D"Jevier held aside one of the heavy curtains and they pa.s.sed through into the Temple proper, Bao doing so without hesitation. So far as he was concerned, the moment he put on his wig, he became a woman, and he stayed a woman until he took it off.
The Hagions stood along the far, curved wall, their heads-or what would have been their heads-well above Ellin"s height, even though the floor was much lower where the images stood. The robes expressed a female form and a female head within a vacancy. Here I am Here I am, each statue proclaimed, invisibly existent invisibly existent.
"Have they names?" Bao whispered in a charming and completely womanly voice. Ellin was silent, though she felt both awed and excited by invisible images, so palpably present.
"The G.o.ddess to the left is the maiden, in the center, the woman, to the right, an old woman, a crone. These ages typify differing types of power. There is also present a fourth, without shape or age, a spirit, invisible. The directory of Hagions is there," said D"Jevier, indicating the low lectern at the center of the arc of effigies. "Please feel free to glance at it."
Ellin and Bao did so, turning the pages, finding there name after name they had never heard of. D"Jevier spoke from behind them: "There are many aspects of divinity. Some are useful for occasions of joy. Others when we are troubled...."
Something in her voice led Bao to ask in his sweetly sympathetic voice, "You are troubled? We hope we have not occasioned this feeling."
She shook her head with a fleeting smile. "We all are troubled on Newholme. Vulcanism is increasing to an extent that it may threaten both our food supplies and some of our water sources. The Men of Business are extremely worried about the cities and the farmlands, while we are more concerned with human life...."
"Do you mean mankind life?"
D"Jevier turned her face slightly aside, masking her eyes. "With all due respect to Haraldson, mankind is the only human presence on Newholme."
"Where will you go?"
"If it gets any worse, we"ll have to go into the badlands. Though every tame mountain south and east has turned feral, the canyons west of the city seem to be untroubled. Foodstuffs will be needed, emergency supplies of all kinds ..."
D"Jevier sighed dramatically, attempting to look wearied by her labors, hoping to misdirect her visitors. The recent tremors were indeed worse than others in the records, but the Hags had no real intention of evacuating the city as yet, preferring to delay any decision until the Questioner had departed. If she did not approve them and depart, any decision might prove to have been a waste of time.
Ellin and Bao took note of what had been said, then looked once more at the trio of images.
"Are your rites secret?" asked Bao, gravely, hand to throat, conveying awe.
D"Jevier shook her head. "Private would be a better word. We do not encourage attendance by scoffers, or by the inattentive and the ignorant, but we do not hesitate to inform persons who are interested. Our most popular rite comes at the Tipping of the Year when we concentrate on forgetting the disappointments of the past year, on setting aside events or relationships that have proven troublesome and unhappy, even within families, and on moving on to others that are more kindly, cooperative, and productive. Our rule is to bow, bow again, and get on. Our religion is based upon eschewing human sacrifice in favor of lives that are fulfilling, productive, and joyful."
Startled, Ellin cried, "Human sacrifice! I am surprised you can think of such a thing!"
D"Jevier said with unfeigned weariness, "My dear young woman, our history is made up of millennia of human sacrifice. Well into the twenty-first century, huge armies of young men were sacrificed to tribal or national honor, women were sacrificed to male supremacy, children were sacrificed to brutality, all immolated in flames of painful duty. We try to determine whether the dutiful will suffer and to decide how that suffering may be compensated. We continually redesign our society to provide joy to those who incur pain on our behalf."
"I"m not sure I get that," Ellin said.
D"Jevier smiled. "One example will suffice. On most worlds women have a duty to bear and raise children. Some children are loving and generous; some women enjoy mothering; some families are happy. However, some women are unskilled, or have children who are unloving and selfish. Sometimes they grasp at their children, seeking from their children the joys that instinct tells them they should receive, and there is hurt and annoyance on both sides. Here on Newholme, we try to see that all lives contain appropriate joys, in order that children may grow up without guilt."
"I see," murmured Ellin, feeling an abyss open around her. Such a simple idea. Why had she never heard anyone speak of providing appropriate joys?
Bao, with a concerned glance at Ellin, murmured, "Madam, we are only envoys of Questioner. She has sent us to advise you that she herself will be calling upon you, probably rather soon."
"I understand," said D"Jevier, bowing. "Whenever you like."
They went out together, standing for a long moment at the top of the stairs. The city moved before them with a certain intent bustle, people carrying this and that, going hither and yon, none of them sparing even a glance for the visitors.
"Something is wrong, here," said Gandro Bao. "They should be showing curiosity about us, and they are not doing it. Everybody is being oh so very busy. Let us be going separate ways, to see what we can see."
Wordlessly, Ellin agreed, and the two of them went off in opposite directions to get a closer look at Newholmian society.
"n.o.body is dancing," said Gandro Bao, removing his dusty cloak and hanging it neatly by the door of the large and luxurious suite that he, Ellin, and Questioner occupied at Mantelby Mansion. He doffed his wig, also, setting it atop his cloak. "One rumor, about volcanoes, is saying truth, for there is much smoking from the mountains, much agitating among peoples. Other rumor is being unverified. I am seeing no indigenous race."
"Ah," murmured the Questioner. "Where have you been?"
"I am going about in the business section. I am asking Men of Business if mountains are blowing up, and they are saying yes, too many, but it is striking me an oddity that no one is standing about looking at mountains. Or at me! I am being stranger, and mountains are being very dramatic, very threatening, but everyone being very busy, not looking."
"Aah," murmured Questioner. "Perceptive of you, Gandro Bao. They are not looking because ...?"
"Because they are thinking of something else or are avoiding me. Also, I am asking if people dance, and they are saying no, no dancing at all. Streets are being very dirty. Men are wearing very thick veils. Perhaps those are reasons for no dancing. If I am dancing in such a veil, I am falling over my feet."
"You say the streets are dirty," mused Questioner. "Old trash ends up as a kind of sludge in the gutters. You mean dirty like that?"
He shook his head in an effort of memory. "No. No sludge. Just this little trashiness."
"Ah. Then the streets are usually cleaner, but not now, or they are infrequently cleaned. If you see anyone cleaning the streets, let me know." Questioner entered the information on her project file, another in the great number of nagging and interesting data she was acc.u.mulating on Newholme.
"You can ask them about the painted houses, too," said Ellin, entering from the hallway. She yawned enormously and threw herself down on the cushioned seat that stretched beneath a pair of wide windows. "I"m so tired! I feel heavy on this world!"
"Heaviness is suitable. Newholme gravity is slightly greater than Earth. What is this about painted houses?" asked Questioner.
"I found them behind places and off courtyards and down little hidden lanes, brightly painted little houses in a style I see nowhere else. I asked, people said servants" quarters, and there are servants living there, but they don"t fit."
"Don"t fit how?"
"Too tall for the doors, too long for the floors, and too few for all the rooms. The paint"s fresh on the houses. The walls are clean, the floors also. I"d say someone else lived there up until just recently."
"Ah," murmured Gandro Bao, taking a very feminine stance and parading across the floor, fluttering his eyelashes at Ellin, then at Questioner. "So, the people are hiding something." He seized Ellin by the hand and drew her into a whirling encounter, something between a tango and a duel, the two moving like jointed dolls.
Questioner cogitated, much interested and intrigued by this information. So many of her visits were dull and juiceless, with everything laid out like a pattern for a garment: fabric here, shears there, cut here, sew along the dotted line, and what results is a very dull cloak, one size fits n.o.body. Or there were visits where she could find no pattern at all. Cut? What means cut? Sew? What means sew?
How interesting to meet a third variation, a false pattern. Everything seemingly right there in plain sight, sew here, cut there, and what results is a surprise. A three-legged trouser. A four-armed coat!
She said sharply, "Stop twirling, you"re making me dizzy."
Ellin and Bao spun to a stop, drawing apart and bowing to one another, Ellin rather pink and breathing strongly. Obediently, they sat side by side on the windowseat, like two marionettes, awaiting the next twitch on the strings.
Questioner remarked, "Let us a.s.sume some other people were here until just recently. If they swept the streets, if they cleaned the houses, chances are they also minded the children, for this is the usual pattern when a culture has cheap labor. So, you should seek out some children, watch them, see what they do and say. Also, it is time we spoke to more ordinary people.
"What did you find at the Temple?"
Ellin keyed her file, which immediately recreated the sight and sound of the visit. When the record had played itself out, Questioner murmured, "Joys to compensate thankless duty? You didn"t pursue that?"
Ellin flushed. "I was so taken with the idea, I forgot."
"We will ask next time," said Questioner. "Meantime, it seems you can make yourself understood in the local dialect."
"After all those hours with the sleep teachers on the ship, it isn"t difficult," Ellin replied. "It still cleaves closely to Earth-universal."
"In my family, we were speaking Asia-matrix, not Earth-universal," said Gandro Bao from his place by the window. "But I am coping."
Questioner nodded. "Have you encountered any reference to the first settlement made here? It preceded the second by half a century, at least."
"Of that, I am having word," said Bao, picking up his own project file and keying through it. "Ah, here is note. A man I asked about the Temple building-he would not look at the woman I was being, only at his feet-said building of Temple and the Fortress of Vanished Men in Naibah was being done by first settlers. First colony is disappearing, but fortresses and many other buildings were remaining, mostly along river. There are records in fortress. Are you wanting me to read them?"
Questioner frowned. "No. I"ll send one of my aides to make a copy. I try to keep them as busy as possible with things that don"t matter greatly. The entourage is supposed to be for my help and protection, but they don"t help and I don"t need protection here. The population seems conditioned to respect older women."
"Isn"t that the norm in most worlds?" asked Ellin.
Questioner replied. "Far from it, my dear, especially on nonmember worlds. Surpluses are not much respected, whether of eggs, grain, or women, and elderly women are always surplus."
"Newholme is unique in the scarcity of women, then," remarked Ellin.
Questioner spoke thoughtfully. "At the current time, it is the only planet I know of." She rose and went toward the door, saying over her shoulder: "Dig around a bit more. Talk to some common people. Talk to some children. We will meet again over our evening meal." She departed. In amoment, they heard the door to the room in which the Questioner"s ma.s.sive and complicated reference files had been installed. It opened and, after a long pause, closed.
Ellin stood at the window, using the sill as a barre as she stretched and bent. "Oh, Gandro Bao, let us dance a little more. Just that little bit of dancing worked out some of my kinks! I feel like a wooden doll, all stiff."
"You should be dancing with me more." Bao smiled. "The exercise will be doing us both good." He drew her into the dance once more, looking her up and down as they twirled. "Are you still wondering who you are, Ellin Voy?"
"Not when I"m dancing," she cried breathlessly. "Not then."
She bent, turned, bent again, then stopped, her eyes caught by movement in the gardens below.
"There," she said, pointing. "Gandro Bao, there are two gardeners there below. They"re common people. After we"ve had some lunch, let"s talk to the gardeners."
He looked out the window, noted the gardeners, started to draw her to him once more, then changed his mind. Her eyes were sparkling, and she had just given him a very friendly and intimate look. He did not want her to get the wrong idea. She was a dear companion, with a truly sweet nature, but in the pursuit of certain pleasures, Gandro Bao preferred men. He took her hand, bent over it, then suggested they go into the small salon where their lunch was served.
Behind them, in the walls of the room where they had danced, voices cried: "Dancers! They are dancers! Oh, we must take them!"
"Tim was going to take the other ones! The different ones."
"Take the different ones, but take these, too."
"Now? Shouldn"t we ask Bofusdiaga?"
"Now. We shouldn"t waste time!"
"Ask some-tim," a voice cried. "Find out."
After a moment, the walls were silent, the peepholes hidden, the room quiet. Elsewhere, however, was a bustle of coming and going as the Timmys decided whether and when to take away Ellin and Bao.
39.
Gardeners, Molds, and Intricacies.
On the lawn of Mantelby Mansion, Mouche and Ornery were silently raking up the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs from a hedge; silently because they did not know what to say to one another. They had not spoken since the previous evening when Mouche"s friendly overtures had been rebuffed. He was, in consequence, annoyed, which made him feel guilty. Consorts could be angry at insult or annoyed by too much starch in their frilled shirts, but they could not, ever, be angry or annoyed at women. Mouche had been drilled in that fact, he had been given exercises to do, and he had discussed it with his personal trainer over and over again, none of which was helping him now. He was irritable because though he could now talk intelligibly, it pained him to do so, and he was also feeling symptoms of withdrawal from his addiction. It had been days since he had seen Flowing Green. He had dreamed of her, it, but he had not seen her. All this made him more annoyed at Ornery than he might otherwise have been. He needed a comfortable friend, and now, amid all this confusion, she had stopped being one.
Mouche had discarded the notion that it was because of his face. Ornery was not that kind. Others would be, but not her. When they had been comfortable friends, however, he, Mouche, had thought she, Ornery, was a boy. So, perhaps the key to this tangle was for him to accept that she, he, Ornery was indeed a boy. Well, a chatron. And he, Mouche, should treat him, Ornery, just as he had in the past.
Mouche rehea.r.s.ed these intentions, putting reasonable words to them, fighting the temptation to be spiteful, resolving to sound firm but sensible, and he was readying himself to expound on his resolution when Ellin and Bao came along the walk, full of questions.