Ammonite (36 page)

“What does she think I can do from down here? And why should I?”

“Cassil demands a return on trata. She helped you, your family, through Marghe.

Now she wants you to help her.”

“You know that we’re not a family, no matter what Cassil thinks.”

“The trata was made in good faith. I was there. So was one of your Mirrors, Lu Wai. She is under your direct command, which makes you responsible.”

Danner chose to ignore that for a moment. “It sounds like a territorial squabble.

Surely Cassil and the others can sort that out themselves.”

“If they could deal with it, they would. That’s the way of trata, to always keep the advantage. They lose it by asking your help.”

Danner set aside trata and its promise of Byzantine complexities and concentrated instead on what she could understand. “These tribes…”

“The Echraidhe and Briogannon.”

“Echraidhe and Briogannon. Yes. Is this something they do a lot? Attack people?

Tell me about them.”

“This has never happened before. It’s new. Something’s changed, but I don’t know what, or why. No one does. It seems that the Echraidhe have some sort of new leader who has bypassed the authority of the Levarch. Her name is Uaithne, but she’s calling herself the Death Spirit, riding at the front of her tribe, and killing, killing, killing. She killed half the Briogannon first, to make them join her, and now she slaughters the flocks and herds of Singing Pastures. The pasture women have fled to Holme Valley, but without the herds the people will die. If Uaithne does not kill them first herself.”

“Just killing? That’s senseless.”

“Not to them. It’s one of their legends, that the Death Spirit will come and destroy the people. Uaithne has proclaimed herself that spirit.”

Danner had been caught in one religious war, on her second tour of duty as a cadet, patrolling Company’s interests in Aotearoa in the Tasman sea. Vicious, bloody, incomprehensible. Not about territory or livelihood, but about ideas she could not begin to grasp. “Dirty business, religion. But you said only the herds of Singing Pastures have been affected. Why does Cassil come to me?”

“Singing Pastures has trata with Holme Valley.”

“And Cassil has trata with me.” Damn Marghe. “Let me think. How about this: I’ll be happy to advise the women of Singing Pastures and Holme Valley on how to organize a militia, but I’m not prepared to make the journey myself, or send any personnel.”

“You must.”

“I can’t, T’orre Na. You’ve no idea of my situation here.”

“I think I do. Bluntly, you’re on your own.”

“Well, that’s not quite how I’d—”

T’orre Na talked right over her. “You need all the help you can get. Allies.

Support. The best way is through trata. You must honor your bargain.” Her voice was low, intense, totally focused on Danner. “You must. For Cassil, for yourselves.

Go to Holme Valley and stop Uaithne.”

In the silence, Danner’s screen bleeped. Glad of the excuse to look away, she swiveled her chair to her terminal and punched accept.

“I hope this is urgent, Vincio.”

“Ma’am, a patrol picked up a native heading for Port Central. She’s here. Calls herself Sehanol, says she’s a messenger, from a place called Scatterdell.”

“Between the Huipil and swamplands, two days south of here,” T’orre Na interjected.

“Ma’am, she says she has a message from Marghe, I assume she means Representative Taishan, who is at Ollfoss. I think. It’s hard to understand her. The bad news is that the vaccine didn’t work. Apparently, Taishan got the vir—”

“Enough, Vincio.” It had taken Danner a second to understand what Vincio was blabbing all over the net. She gathered her wits too late. “Is the messenger still there?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’ll send an escort for her. I want a code five on this, effective immediately.”

The code-five silence was bolting the stable door after the horse had run. Damn T’orre Na, damn Cassil. If she had not been thinking about this trata, she might have stopped Vincio in time. Now the spy would already have the information on its way to the
Kurst
: the vaccine did not work. Already, Company would be making decisions. It was all over now. No more time.

T’orre Na opened her mouth with a question. Danner held up a hand. “A moment. I need to think.” She punched in Lu Wai’s code. “Lu Wai? Detail Kahn to go to my office, to escort a native, Sehanol, to my quarters. I want you to implement start of Operation Ascent. Immediately. It’s happening, Lu Wai.”

She got hold of Dogias next. “This is Danner. Top priority. Track and jam any off-world communication, excluding my channel to
Estrade
. Move fast, Letitia. It may already be too late.” She signed off and punched in Sara Hiam’s code, drumming her fingers impatiently.

The doctor looked tousled, sleepy. “What—”

“Sara, it’s happened. I don’t have all the details yet, but I’m setting things in motion at my end. Are you ready?”

Watching Hiam absorb the news was like seeing a slow-motion picture: the doctor’s face seemed to contract muscle by muscle until it was hard and tight.

“There’s no way I could be ready for this. But we’ll manage.”

Danner knew how much it must be costing the doctor to not ask questions; Hiam had worked hard on that vaccine. She must be as full of professional curiosity and disbelief as Danner would have been if she had heard that a fully armed troop had been routed by five-year-olds armed with sticks. Danner could not think of anything comforting to say.

They looked at each other helplessly. Danner cut the connection and stared at nothing. It was really happening.

She lifted her head, saw the quick compassion in T’orre Na’s eyes, and wondered what her face must look like. She felt ravaged, bereft. If only the vaccine had worked. This was it. All over. The full weight of what would happen next fell on Danner like a boulder. She felt as though her world were whirling away out of reach.

“How long will it take Sehanol to get here?” T’orre Na asked.

“What? Oh, twenty minutes.”

“And how long would it take me to find and bring back refreshments?”

“Refreshments?”

“Eating or drinking is good for shock.”

“I’m not hungry. But if you need something”—she waved her arm vaguely—“I can have someone bring it.”

“I would rather go myself.”

“Fine.”

“But I need directions.”

Danner pulled herself together briefly. “Left. About four hundred… paces. Third door. Any argument about payment, have them call me.”

When T’orre Na was gone, Danner sat and stared at nothing. There was so much to do. So much. Later, later. For now, she wanted to grieve but felt nothing, nothing at all. It was as though she were swaddled in cotton wool.

T’orre Na came back with a hot rice dish and four cans.

Danner looked at it incredulously. “Beer?”

“I like Terrene beer.” T’orre Na popped the can efficiently, drank deep. “Here, the rice is for you.”

“I couldn’t.”

“Have some beer, then.”

It suddenly struck Danner as funny. Why not? There was nothing else to do for the moment. They sat in contemplative silence, drinking.

“Try some rice. You might be too busy later.”

T’orre Na was right, of course, it just seemed… inappropriate to eat and drink and make merry as everything threatened to fall to pieces around her. But there was no good reason why she should not.

They both ate. Danner felt better for the food, more in control. “Perhaps when the messenger comes, T’orre Na, she would respond better to questions from you.”

Danner was glad T’orre Na was there. She had a working knowledge of the basic language, but the messenger’s accent or dialect was so thick Danner could barely understand one word in six. She made a mental note to ask Day which would be the most important dialects to learn—yet another thing Marghe could have helped them with.

After several minutes of question and answer, the messenger accepted a beer, tasted it cautiously, and put it down. Danner noticed she did not drink from it again.

Not all natives liked beer, then. She was obscurely glad, though she could not have said why. Perhaps she was already experiencing the faint beginnings of the need to keep her culture separate, like all immigrant peoples on all worlds. For that’s what she and the other Mirrors and technicians were now—immigrants.

She listened harder.

It seemed that the messenger was uncertain about something, and the journeywoman was questioning her hard. Eventually, T’orre Na seemed satisfied, and had the messenger repeat something twice. She nodded and turned to Danner.

“The message goes like this.
Marghe Amun, now of Wenn’s family at Ollfoss, to
Danner, at Port Central. Greetings. I became ill with this world’s sickness during
the Moon of Aches—
that’s the Moon of Rain, as we would reckon it, some sixty or seventy days ago—
and made myself with child thirty days later. The viajera
Thenike and I will bear soestre next spring, I am well and happy. Give my regrets
and apologies to the healer
.” She repeated it while Danner taped it, for the record.

“Sehanol says the message knot came via ship to Pebble Fleet. Message stones were left by the banks of the Huipil by one of their herders and read by her daughter, Puiell. The stones had been disturbed. Sehanol thinks that some of the message may be missing.”

“Not the important part: Marghe got the virus; the vaccine didn’t work.” The end of everything. “
Marghe Amun
,” Danner said slowly. “I wonder why she did that.”

Perhaps the virus had affected the representative’s mind. Danner had heard vague rumors of Company personnel going crazy when they contracted the virus. They were usually the ones who died.

“Marghe Amun. And she’s with child. Soestre to the viajera Thenike.” Danner could not identify T’orre Na’s expression. It looked like something akin to wonder.

Sehanol said something.

“She wants to leave now,” T’orre Na said. “There’s work to be done in Scatterdell.”

Danner looked at Sehanol, whose eyes were very bright and who had obviously been following what they said. Danner spoke clearly and carefully. “Before you leave, Sehanol, I want you to know that you have my personal thanks and gratitude.

If you and yours at Scatterdell need some small favor in the future, ask.”

“We will. You are gracious.”

T’orre Na punched the door lock. It hissed open and the native slipped through and was gone.

“Gracious indeed,” the journeywoman said to Danner, “considering that the message was already paid for.”

“I stressed a
small
service. And I thought it was important to cement good relations.” Now that they were here for good.

“You did right. Perhaps now that your circumstances have changed a little, you’ll be prepared to change your mind with regard to your other obligations in the north.”

“T’orre Na, I can’t, believe me. More than ever, I’ve too much to do here. I have to catch someone, a spy. It’s now or never. If she isn’t caught now, she’ll go underground. We’ll never be sure who we can trust again, I’m responsible for the evacuation of Port Central, just in case the
Kurst
decides to eradicate this position.

Nearly a thousand personnel and our stores and munitions have to go somewhere; and we don’t even know where, yet. I have to…” She pulled herself up with an effort. T’orre Na did not want to hear all her troubles. “There’s enough work here for every woman twice over—work that’s vital for our survival. I can’t, I absolutely cannot, spare anyone at this time. Please tell this to Cassil and the others of Holme Valley.”

“I urge you to reconsider. The Echraidhe are destroying herds and crops and people now. And trata is trata.”

“And if I don’t do all that needs doing here, right now, there won’t
be
any Mirrors to keep trata! Please, try and believe me.”

“Oh, I do,” T’orre Na said sadly, “but that makes no difference. Cassil needs help, you refuse it. You break trata. There is nothing more to be said.”

«
^
»

HILT LEFT FOR North Haven, taking the message with her. The Moon of Rowers came, but Marghe Amun’s monthly bleeding did not. It was then that she realized that what she and Thenike had done would affect her whole life. In a few months—a year, by Jeep standards—she would bear a child. A daughter. It was strange to think that soon she would be responsible for another human being. It made her feel restless, trapped.

Marghe paused, weed in one hand, trowel in the other. The ovum—the
blastosphere
, her enhanced memory whispered to her—was just cells. She could abort them, it, as easily as she had induced cell division. She could be just herself; she did not need to be responsible.

But she was responsible already. The child growing inside Thenike was partially of her doing. They would be soestre. There was already a bond.

Marghe knelt on the damp ground. She had a child growing in her belly. Did she want it?

Yes. She wanted to bear it—her; she wanted to name her, watch her learn to crawl, speak, think. Wanted her to have a home, belong.

She went back to her gardening.

The clear air of Ollfoss grew warmer daily, and Marghe and Gerrel spent their mornings and afternoons, and sometimes early evenings when the sun lay like an amber cloak over the tops of the trees, digging out weeds on their knees, trimming back excessive growth of jaellums and soca and neat’s-foot.

When she was not on her knees in the garden, Marghe was with Thenike. They helped Wenn weave, gathered herbs with old Kenisi, took turns looking after Moss and Otter while Leifin and Namri were choosing a tree to cut to make a new door and Huellis made candles. They ate together, slept together, talked together; and Marghe learned.

When she took up the drums, it was to learn from Thenike how to use them to drive a story deep into the hearts of her listeners. When she took up a rope, she learned how the knots spelled out shorthand versions of concepts and phrases, how the colored threads made the words, or added emphasis. She was not a good singer, she did not have that smoky voice of Thenike’s, but she learned how to give a story rhythm and pacing, how to make it live in the mind’s eye of her listener. She was good at that.