Authors: Joan Slonczewski
A Door Into Ocean (41 page)
IN THE EVENING, plantlights cast flickering beams among the sisters gathered for learnsharing. Sheets of clickfly web stood tall, covered with glowing symbols and diagrams.
With help from Lystra, Spinel had programmed one section of clickfly web. The insects spun out some simple crystalline diagrams of the sort that Cyan once made him memorize. Spinel was determined to show the Sharers that there was nothing about “stone” that could not be explained in rational terms, that the “dead atoms” of stone were just the same as the “living atoms” that made up living things, no matter what the traders said.
Lystra looked back over her shoulder. “You've collected quite a crowd tonight.”
Spinel turned to see. Besides Usha and the girls, and the stonesick
ones, there were various neighbors and cousins from other silkhouses of Raia-el. At least they did not all sit in the back, the way Spinel and his classmates used to do in the schoolhouse; that would have been unbearable. Instead they pressed together close, and perfume wafted over from some of them. Spinel found himself wondering who was going to start off the learnsharing; then he remembered there was no one else but him. He cleared his throat and wondered where to begin.
ones, there were various neighbors and cousins from other silkhouses of Raia-el. At least they did not all sit in the back, the way Spinel and his classmates used to do in the schoolhouse; that would have been unbearable. Instead they pressed together close, and perfume wafted over from some of them. Spinel found himself wondering who was going to start off the learnsharing; then he remembered there was no one else but him. He cleared his throat and wondered where to begin.
Then a sharp glint of light caught his eye, and he froze. The light reflected off the firewhip of a soldier who stood back in the shadows with his arms crossed.
Spinel lost his balance and gripped Lystra's arm. “Lystra, why don't we do this tomorrow instead?”
“What? Spinel, you're not going to back out just because there's a craven death-hastener standing behind us all, too shy to come up where he can see.” Lystra jabbed at one of the diagrams that glowed in the clickfly web. “What are all these dots and circles, stacked in a cube? What's that supposed to mean?”
“That's a salt crystal.” Spinel's voice sounded thin and shaky in his own ears. “Like when seawater dries, and salt grows out in little cubes. The atoms pack together, alternating sodium and chloride.” He looked to Usha, hoping he had gotten the names of the atoms right in Sharer.
“Those are the main atoms in seawater,” Usha agreed.
“Well, stone grows up in the same way.”
Someone asked, “Then why don't we have stone here? There's plenty of seawater.”
“You do have stone, but it's heavy and falls to the bottom.” Where the dead dwellâSpinel hurried past this. “Other kinds of stone formed when the planet was young, when it just came from the sun and everything was liquid as water. So stone is just as âalive' as the sun is.”
A few chins lifted at that, and the listeners muttered among themselves. “I don't believe it,” said Ishma. “I've never seen a piece of stone grow or change at all.”
Spinel was disconcerted. How could you run a class if the pupils talked back like that?
Lystra demanded, “Do you accuse an untruth?”
“Of course not.” Ishma was scandalized. “I just can't share the concept of it.”
Spinel said, “It takes high heat and pressure. On Valedon, in a âfactory'
with lots of firecrystals, you can grow stone, even diamond.” He held up the diamond, a sparkling clear gem, one of those he had found that morning outside the silkhouse door. “Diamond is the hardest stone there is. It's just plain carbon packed together in pyramids.” He pointed to another diagram. “Carbon atoms, each glued tight to four others.” Everyone knew carbon, the most basic atom of living things. They had to see, now.
with lots of firecrystals, you can grow stone, even diamond.” He held up the diamond, a sparkling clear gem, one of those he had found that morning outside the silkhouse door. “Diamond is the hardest stone there is. It's just plain carbon packed together in pyramids.” He pointed to another diagram. “Carbon atoms, each glued tight to four others.” Everyone knew carbon, the most basic atom of living things. They had to see, now.
“Where do the colors come from?” someone asked.
“Oh, that's from trace atoms that absorb light in different ways. In my starstone, for instance, a few iron atoms make it blue.”
“But iron makes blood red.”
Usha said, “That's all right, it depends on the oxidation state, and how the electrons swim around. How are the iron atoms arranged, Spinel?”
“Well, the stone is made of oxygen and âaluminum' in hexagons, layered like a sandwich. Here and there, iron takes the place of âaluminum.' And then, if you get tiny needles of âtitanium oxide' mixed in with the hexagons, they reflect light in a sixpoint star; but you have to cut the stone just right for it to come out.” Then Spinel wanted to tell about the cutting and polishing of stone, how gems were shaped to make them sparkle, since this was what he knew best.
But someone wanted to know, “What are these things called âaluminum' and âtitanium'? Are they regular atoms?”
Now he was trapped. Spinel had only the vaguest notion of what distinguished different elements. “Well, those atoms are heavier than carbon; âtitanium' is almost as heavy as iron.” He turned to Lystra and said in Valan, “It's no use; I told you I never learned much.”
Usha asked, “Can you say how many protons they have?”
Spinel squeezed his eyes shut and tried to remember.
“Twenty-two,” called a deep voice. Spinel's eyes flew open. “Titanium has twenty-two protons,” the soldier said, “and aluminum has thirteen.”
Attention shifted, and the learnsharers went still and tense.
“Is that right,” said Usha, unruffled. “I know what aluminum is, then. Some plants need it. But I've never detected the atom of twenty-two protons.”
“It exists all right, lady. I should know; I was a metallurgist in Sardis, before I signed up.” The man sounded casual enough, but all Spinel could think was, What the devil is he here for? Spying?
Usha asked, “Are there other atoms, too, between titanium and iron?”
“Vanadium, chromium, and manganese.” He listed their proton numbers.
“Manganese, yes, that's essential for plants. How very curious.” Usha turned to her sisters to explain in Sharer about these elements and how they fit in.
The soldier turned to Spinel. “You sound like a stonecutter.”
Somehow Spinel found his voice again. “My father was, Cyan of Chrysoport.” He kept glancing at the shiny weapon that hung from the man's belt.
“Well, you can call me Jasper. I don't want my name and rank getting around, see. Listen, can you tell me, are any of those native witch-doctors around? I've had this hell of a back pain, the doc says it's all in my head, but I used to ease it with a moon medicine, before trade collapsed. You still trade gemstones around here? I've got some real pretty ones the gals will like.”
Stonetrade, of all things. Spinel was shocked and embarrassed. Before he could recover, Lystra stepped boldly in front of the soldier. “You'll have whatever medicines you need, if you share with us something equally crucial: you must join our learnsharing every night from now on.”
Jasper blinked at her. “Lady, I risked my neck just to come once.”
“So do I, to talk with you.”
“So what do you want soldiers hanging around for?”
“We like sharing with soldiers,” Lystra said coolly. “It helps us feel âprotected.' Isn't that what soldiers are for?”
Jasper scratched his head. “Maybe I can stop by every week or so.”
“That's not often enough.”
“Twice a week, if my back gets completely better.”
“Done.” Lystra extended her hand to shake on the deal. Not for nothing had she shared with traders for all those years.
REALGAR HAD MERWEN brought to his office again. As usual she had not a stitch on except for Nathan's electrode monitors taped to her scalp. Merwen sat crosslegged on the floor, with all the brazen equanimity of a street beggar. Realgar laced his fingers upon his knee as he faced her, relaxed. “Impatient One, have you any idea of how many Sharers have died at our hands in the past month?”
Merwen considered this. “Even one is too many.”
“Forty thousand, across the globe,” Realgar emphasized. “That's over a thousand a day. You do the arithmetic: how long can that keep up, before no Sharer remains?”
“That depends on how soon soldiers stop trying to share death.”
Realgar laughed shortly. “It's not like you to delude yourself. âKilling' is the proper word, Impatient One. Killing is a soldier's business.”
“So is âprotection.' Clickflies assure me that many have already learned to share protection instead of death.”
So that trollhead of a doctor had let her pick up
clickflies
outdoors. She must know damned well how many natives were dyingâand how many were spared. Realgar wondered in fact what the actual figures were. It was hard to check out the reports of his officers. At any rate, Nathan would suffer for this, and as for Merwen, she had breathed her last fresh air. “Do not expect to brainwash us all, just because you succeeded with a few victims of your terrorist attack. We're on to that trick now.”
clickflies
outdoors. She must know damned well how many natives were dyingâand how many were spared. Realgar wondered in fact what the actual figures were. It was hard to check out the reports of his officers. At any rate, Nathan would suffer for this, and as for Merwen, she had breathed her last fresh air. “Do not expect to brainwash us all, just because you succeeded with a few victims of your terrorist attack. We're on to that trick now.”
“âBrainwash'? What is that?”
“You know very well what it is. The sort of mindbending for which whitetrance is a defense.”
Merwen looked puzzled. “Whitetrance is the most vulnerable state of consciousness. On Shora, with such small rafts to dwell upon, it is hard to find solitude. Whitetrance gives each Sharer one place alone with her soul. And that aloneness is just a whisper away from death. If you learn whitetrance, you will see how it is.”
For just a moment he was tempted, out of curiosity; then he was furious with himself. “Your sisters are dying by the thousands,” he told her coldly, “and you, Impatient One, are responsible. A word from you could prevent their deaths.”
“Which word is that?”
“A word of submission to the Patriarch.”
“Should I exchange one sort of death for another?”
“You'll have to fight back, then. Is that why your lifeshapers plan to inactivate our seaswallower repellent? To kill my troops?” Swallowers would be a nuisance, all right, but if natives were to blame for it, his troops would would be a lot less softheaded two months from now.
“Seaswallowers threaten us as much as you, except that you do not dwell on proper rafts. You are welcome to share our rafts when the time comes.”
“Yet a few deaths are unavoidable.”
“Without seaswallowers, the entire life web would collapse, and Sharers would starve.”
“That's just the point, Merwen. Unless you kill us, you can't stop us from killing you, all of you, to the last soul. So why should you not âhasten' a few deaths, a brief epidemic? That would give Talion pause for thought. He might pull us out altogether.” Realgar watched her closely.
Merwen shook her head slightly, as if the answer were obvious. “There is a difference between seaswallower and human. A human sees herself in the mirror. I am human, and so, inescapably, are you.”
“But you are desperate. How can you refuse to kill those who threaten to exterminate you?”
“How can I not refuse? I am a selfnamer; that is, I know myself not only in the mirror of ocean, but in the mirror of every living pair of eyes. If I were to kill, my soul would die. If Sharers took to killing, we would surely exterminate ourselves.” Merwen paused. “Our situation may be desperate, but we do not despair. Your, perhaps, are trapped in chronic despair. Berenice pulled out of it, for a while, but she fell back in.”
His muscles knotted, but he kept his voice calm. “Why?” he asked slowly. “What pulled her back after she became ⦠one of you?”
“She shared your love, and your despair.”
Realgar thought he should have hated the Sharer for daring to say such a thing. Oddly, he felt only a numb weight on his chest. Perhaps by now he had exhausted his capacity for hatred of her. “Sharers don't love men,” he observed dryly. “Is that why you are immune to our despair?”
“No one is immune. My own daughter nearly fell into despair, yet
love for another brought her backâlove for a young man from Valedon.”
love for another brought her backâlove for a young man from Valedon.”
“So you might yet become desperate enough. That is why Malachite requires us to control you.”
“Why pull us into despair? Instead, let us help you out. Once you understand our way, you need never share fear with Malachite again.”
Realgar felt his pulse quicken. It was a seductive promise, never again to fear the dreadful power of Torr. But the promise was pitiful illusion. “It is only wise to fear Malachite.”
“And to be feared by him?”
“Impossible. How could any mere Valan threaten the Envoy of the Patriarch?”
“Only in the way that Sharers seem a threat ⦠by immunity to âorders.'”
His voice rose. “Do you think we disobey orders by killing you? Do not depend upon the mercy of Malachite. You are declared Valan subjects, and we may discipline you at will, even wipe you off the planet.” Realgar paused, then reflected in a silken tone, “That would be a pity, for such peaceful people.” At the press of a button, a guard stepped in to take her away.
Afterward the general took a brisk walk out on the deck to clear his head. The sea crashed and sprayed against the side, while in the distance new raft seedlings bobbed upon the sparkling waves. The persistent scent of raft blossoms was depressing, and overhead clickflies chattered as if to mock him.
He should have ignored the issue of Berenice, Realgar told himself, since it betrayed personal weakness. More insidious was Merwen's strain of resistance to the Envoy, a resistance that was quixotic yet startlingly attractive. Realgar himself admitted resentment against the Envoy who had leveled Pyrrhopolis, made the High Protector bow and scrape before him, and left Valedon the subject of a cold-blooded experiment, if Siderite was to be believed. But then, envy of one's superiors was only the natural order of things. Merwen was naive indeed to propose an alliance against Torr.
Â
The three men removed from native care in the lab warren did not fare well. Their “living bandages” grew out of control, rooting parasitic fibers into their flesh, and none of Nathan's skill could save them from a lingering, excruciating death. Realgar expressed official regrets and
laid the blame for the tragedy on the barbaric treatments of native lifeshapers. Like Malachite, Realgar accepted the fact that his duty required decisions painful to his subordinates.
laid the blame for the tragedy on the barbaric treatments of native lifeshapers. Like Malachite, Realgar accepted the fact that his duty required decisions painful to his subordinates.
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