Authors: Joan Slonczewski

A Door Into Ocean (31 page)

BOOK: A Door Into Ocean

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SIDERITE'S WORK SEEMED hopelessly stalled, but the general had planned for that. Not all the native populations were as troublesome as at Per-elion. In fact, one or two company bases reported consistent inspection records and no sign of “witnessers”âin short, their occupied rafts were under control.

The best operation appeared to be run by Captain Theo, a thousand kilometers to the north. So, now that relations at Raia-el had completely soured, Realgar decided to send Siderite out there, where he hoped that the scientist's work might resume.

Captain Theo had her platoons permanently encamped on native rafts, where they could keep an eye on things. She radioed Lieutenant Basil to be ready when the General came out.

“Not
the
General?” From inside the operations tent on Wanli-el raft, Basil stared at his monitor. “Captain, you can't be serious. Why here? Why me?”

“You're just too successful, that's why,” the soprano voice squeaked out.

“Thanks a lot.”

“Come on, Basil, you can talk those catfish into anything. The General will drop off his scientist, then leave, and all's well. You could even get a medal for it.”

“But Captainâ”

The monitor clicked dead.

Basil banged his fist on the table, and one of its legs half folded under. Why
now?
Sure, Nira's Gathering went along with things, but
lately Basil sensed something cooking; something new was up. Something he might not just talk away this time.

There was good reason why Theo's company base never had “witnessers” from Basil's rafts. Natives could find him right here, any time, and he would talk with them round the clock about the Valan army, and why his superiors were inclined to be “sick,” and by the way how were Nira's darling children doing?

Still, his job was no picnic on Trollbone Point. Those medical “inspections” âwhat a waste of time and holocubes. Basil had to spend an hour every time just apologizing and humoring the native kids and all, or else lifeshaping tunnels would mysteriously “disappear”; and Captain Theo could come up with only so many creative explanations for that.

It certainly had nothing to do with anything he had learned at Iridis Academy for the Protectoral Guard of Valedon. And this was only his first tour in the field.

Basil pulled back the tent flap and stepped out into a clearing, where the troops were being drilled. Sergeant Cerite insisted on that stuff, although Basil foresaw no conceivable action in which to put it to use. Still, it helped morale and kept the sergeant happy. It also seemed to impress the natives, or at least entertain them; there were always a few of them watching, seated still as if mesmerized.

Basil signaled to the sergeant, and the shouting and stamping came to a halt. “Listen, the general's coming out tomorrow. I want this place in shape, you hear?” Whatever that meant.

Cerite came over, a thickset man, slightly balding, with shoulders hefty from years of carrying a pack. “General? You don't mean the Sard?”

“You got it.”

Cerite whistled and shook his head. “And these guys can't even hold their guns straight. I'll drill them for the next twelve hoursâ”

“It's not the troops he wants to see, it's the natives.”

“Natives? You mean Nira and her kids?”

“By the way, that's quite a crowd you've got today.” Four or five native watchers were not unusual, but now that he looked, Basil counted over thirty of themâmostly elders, at that.

“I don't think they're watching us today It's you they're waiting for, Lieutenant.”

“Me? What's up?” When Cerite did not answer, Basil walked toward the group of natives until he faced Nira.

“Share the day, Nira.” He spread his hands to show they were empty. This gesture had a great soothing effect on natives. “For what purpose do I share the honor of such esteemed company?”

“A grave problem has arisen.” Nira the Narrowminded was a withered crone, with scars from some seamonster spread across her dusky amethyst skin, and she had as many tricks up her nonexistent sleeve as any village mayor. “A problem to concern all sisters, Sharer and Valan alike. We of Wanli-el shared ignorance of it for some weeks because clickflies were gone.”

A clickfly was sitting on her head now, placidly cleaning its mandibles. Basil felt his skin crawl. Torr be thanked, Nira did not know who had to spread the pesticides. Orders were orders.

“The death-sickness of your Valan sisters at Per-elion has taken a critical turn. It saddens me to share with you what has occurred, not only unprecedented impoliteness and hastening. of death, but also a thing so incredible that we don't have a name for it. It might be best described as a ârape' of the mind.”

The Valan word ârape' was unexpected. “Mind-rape?” Basil shot a questioning glance at the sergeant.

Cerite spat on the raft. “Use your head, Lieutenant. The top brass are Sards.”

Sardish mindbendersâthey could extract a man's will and not leave a mark on him. That's what they must be doing to the natives at Headquarters. Basil muttered, “No wonder they have riots on their hands.” Then, to Nira, “Listen, I share your distress on this matter. I will send a complaint to the âPalace.'”

“Does that mean you will share restraint with your Valan sisters?”

Basil chewed that one over. Already he was regretting a promise which could only get himself in trouble. “You know how it is, Nira. With the general, I can only share will his way.”

Nira said, “The consensus of many Gatherings is that all Valan sisters, who can fly across sky within hours and share speech within seconds, must be considered as one. We at Wanli-el now share that consensus. Therefore, we must Unspeak all Valans so long as unspeakable acts continue anywhere.”

“Unspeak?
But the general is coming tomorrowâ” Basil broke off, at a loss.

“Then you may share some sense with this âgeneral.' Meanwhile, our Gathering will share Unspeech by sundown. We're sorry, Basil, but there is nothing more to be said.”

“Wait a minute, what about âinspections'?”

“I am sorry, Basil.”

“But âinspections' are essential to our health and well-being. We'll be ill at our Last Door without âinspections.'”

Nira said nothing. That meant it wasn't going to work this time, though she was too polite to say so. Basil began to sweat. If the lab warrens “disappeared” for good, there would be the devil to pay all round.

He crouched down so that he could face her at eye level. “Nira, we've got to work something out here. Haven't we all been good friends? Didn't we rescue your cousin's family in that boat caught in the storm?”

Some of the others stirred as if they might speak. Nira said, “We are very good friends, Basil, and that is why we share this for your own good.”

An idea came to mind. From his pocket Basil pulled out a holocube and showed it to Nira. “Could you conduct the âinspection' yourself, Nira? Just press the red dot on one side and carry the cube throughout the lifeshaping place once a week. Then exchange the cube here, without saying a thing. Then none of us gets into trouble.”

Nira looked down and thought about this awhile. At last she said, “I cannot do this for you. However â¦ I have a granddaughter under twelve who is not yet bound by the Gathering. You may ask her.”

“Thanks, Nira, that's a great help.” Basil stood up and stretched his legs. “That was a close one, Cerite.”

“It still is, Lieutenant. What are you going to tell the general with his scientist tomorrow?”

“I know what I'd like to tell him.” What was the point of this campaign, anyway? All the scary science stuffâthe company medic privately thought it was a con job, cooked up by the Palace as an excuse for invasion. Who could prove where those new purple strains came from? None of Basil's men were affected, and they practically lived with the natives. And now, this “mind-rape.” That Sardish bastard.

“IMPOSSIBLE,” REALGAR SHOUTED when he heard. “We just wiped out the damned insects. And they're
still
complaining about a few mindprobed prisoners â¦ .”

Within days the new clickflies had multiplied in swarms never seen before. Clouds of them darkened the sky, and they got into everything, tangling in bedding and mess kits, dogging helicopter engines, smashing into windows until the glass streamed with their juices. Insecticide sprayed into the dark clouds precipitated dead husks like black snow, but millions more remained in the sky.

Day by day, a wall of deafness crept inexorably from raft system to raft system, cluster to cluster All around the globe, natives were shutting their ears and mouths to Valan troops, Iridian and Dolomite alike. Nothing seemed to break that silence, not shouting, beating, imprisoning.

And then the lifeshaping places began to disappear.

“What do you mean, disappear?” he demanded.

“Just that,” said Jade. “Sometimes the tunnels are filled in; or else the walls remain, stripped to bare raftwood, all sign of lifeshaping vanished, even those devilish twisting vines.”

If entire laboratories were disappearing, they had to be rebuilt somewhere, but where, and how so fast?

“Imprison the lifeshapers.”

“That's fine,” said Jade, “except for those rafts where we never found out who the lifeshapers were.”

“Never found out?”

“Well, they don't wear white coats and stonesigns.”

Realgar slammed the desk. “Stone. What about those stonesick natives you were bribing with gemstones?”

“I was just getting to that. Some informants have let us know where the new hideouts are, and I think thatâ”

A tone sounded from the monitor: an emergency dispatch had just come in from a base in the southwest sector. A squad of divers was digging out a nest of natives hidden beneath the raft's underside, when a shockwraith approached. They blasted the thing, but its arms wriggled
off in all directions and hit several men with acid. One had just died.

The High Protectoral Guard of Valedon had suffered its first casualty on the Ocean Moon.

Realgar called on the Protector. “As you see, my lord,” he told the gray lightshape, “hostilities have escalated. I must have clearance for a full counterattack.”

Talion took his time to respond. “The Envoy wants their science controlled, not destroyed. Even Torr needs their knowledge.”

“Their knowledge could destroy us.”

“Not yet,” Talion reminded him. “Our genetic makeup is foreign to them. It would take them decades to develop a biological threat to us.”

Realgar thought uneasily of the altered breathmicrobe strain, but he was loath to contradict Malachite's dogma. Besides, breathmicrobes were not actually harmful. “We can always leave one or two rafts intact, to preserve their science. With the rest of them neutralized, the few that remain won't dare attack us. And if they do, we can isolate the contagion quickly.”

Talion frowned and drummed his fingers on his desk. “Ral, I just can't understand how those natives manage to cause so much trouble. So many prisoners, for Torr's sake. Don't the women think of their families?”

“Sometimes whole families go to prison. I'm telling you my lord, they don't think like civilized people. They still don't know what orders are. That's why we have to crack down.”

Talion sighed. “Ral, the political fallout from this campaign is getting troublesome. I'd hoped at first it would seize the imagination of Valan citizens to strike out and master an untamed planet, and that this goal in common would help dissolve minor squabbles back home. Instead, the scant news that gets past the censors has only disillusioned the public.”

“I'm sorry to disappoint the public.” Realgar kept his voice flat. “Would they prefer a daily body count?”

“Oh, no, of course not. Believe me, I'm with you there.” Talion smiled apologetically. “You know how people are. What they want and what they think they want are not quite the same. They want heroics, like blowing up those shockwraithsâsend some more cubes of
that, Ral, it helps your image. If you can suggest native scheming behind the monster attacks, so much the better. Did I send you two more divisions just to put women and kids in prison?”

“Insurgents, my lord; they are insurgents, every one of them. The question is simple: Shall we control the natives or not?”

Talion pondered this for a long while. “Those prisoners,” he mused. “They all âwhite out' in captivity, do they?”

“Not always. Some stay conscious until interrogation. They all have mental deathblocks.”

“Suppose you send me a handful of them, give my Palace staff a crack at them.”

Realgar smiled slightly. “Very well, my lord.” He would send the hardcore agitators whom he had held when the others were returned. The High Protector would see what they were like, all right. “One is the daughter of Protector Merwen herself.”

“A hostage, excellent. Now, to answer your question, Ral: yes, we have to control the natives. Do what it takes to achieve that, whatever it takesâso long as you succeed. Do I make myself clear?”

The message was clear enough. Realgar had better succeedâor else Talion would pick another Commander to pacify the Ocean Moon.

When the thunderclap hit Raia-el, Merwen was astounded: the sky held no clouds, and there was no sign of rain. Again the blast struck, and the raft shuddered at her feet. She lost her footing and covered her ears against the ringing.

Beyond the silkhouse, a column of flames reared and licked at the sky. Somehow the raft was on fire.

Usha and Mirri came running outside. “It's burning, all over the lifeshaping place! At this rate the whole raft will break up!”

From everywhere, sisters rushed with buckets splashing. Still the flames and smoke churned from the tunnels, some of which collapsed inward. Too dazed to think, Merwen swung buckets back and forth, stumbling as her eyes streamed and blurred from smoke. The confusion was worse than when seaswallowers crested.

At last the wormrunners managed to get a hose hooked up to the tail of a starworm, and that began to make a dent in the flames. As flames receded, the charred sunken surface of the raft looked even more horrible than the fire itself. Black smoke still twisted up and stretched out
to the horizon, curdling the sky. A few helicopters kept circling with their maddening drone, surveying their deathwork.

Afterward, Usha picked through the charred raftwood, trying to figure what had been lost. “The supplies: the stocks of every strain of medicine plant, every enzyme secretor, thousands of different ones. I'll have to start over from scratch, from the raftwood genes.”

“No, Usha.” Merwen held Usha's arm and squeezed hard. “The other rafts will help us. We'll soon be set up again.” But even as she spoke, her eyes scanned the horizon. There were black clouds rising above other rafts.

The lifeshaping places of Per-elion were all in ruins, a disaster that no one could have imagined. And the return of seaswallowers, though late this season, could only be days away.

“Do you know, Usha,” she mused as she watched the horizon, “I could almost regret the day I brought Spinel home with us.”

“Spinel? Merwen, you don't mean that. You still miss him.”

Merwen half smiled. “Yes. But for his sake, I bless the day that he left.”

BOOK: A Door Into Ocean

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