And All Between (7 page)

Pomma had stared at her in shocked amazement. “What is the matter? Don’t do that, Teera. Don’t be so—so awful.” It was clear that Pomma was not just sorry for Teera’s grief, but also embarrassed and horrified at her free expression of it.

“They’ll kill me,” Teera had wailed. “The Ol-zhaan will kill me if they find out. They always kill Pash-shan if they can. The only reason they haven’t killed me already is that they think I am a Fallen. If you tell anyone at all, the Ol-zhaan will find out for sure, and they’ll kill me.”

But Pomma had never really believed her. She kept insisting that the Ol-zhaan would never kill anyone—or “dead” them, as Pomma always said, blushing. There was, Teera had discovered, no Kindar word for kill, and the use of dead as a verb to mean the same thing was considered highly indecent. But whatever it was called, Teera felt absolutely certain that the Ol-zhaan would do away with her very quickly if they knew who she really was. At last, Pomma agreed not to tell anyone, but she promised still protesting and obviously not convinced of the necessity, so that Teera was quite sure that it would take very little to make her forget her promise. So Pomma and her promise was one more thing to worry over, and sometimes to cry about while the soft forest darkness hid her tears and her sobs were muffled by the sound of the weeping rain.

Returning to her resting place at the edge of the balcony, Teera sighed and dipped another slice of pan-fruit into the saucer of honey, and the thought of dark, shadowy worries faded in the comfort of sweetness on the tongue. There was comfort, too, in the sight of Haba napping comfortably in the padded sleeping basket of Pomma’s pet, the sima called Baya. The little creatures were cuddled together, and one of the sima’s long thin arms was looped protectingly over the round body of the lapan. Teera sighed again, more happily, but at that moment the door hangings of Pomma’s chamber were pushed aside and the mother, Hearba, entered.

She was carrying two lovely new shubas, a deep, soft red one for Teera and another of blending pinks and golds for Pomma.

Pomma, who had awakened at her mother’s entrance, was still exclaiming delightedly over the new shubas—holding the red one up to Teera and saying how well it suited her, when Hearba interrupted.

“Put them on,” she said. “Put the new shubas on quickly and then come out into the common room. It is time for D’ol Neric to return, and this time he will bring Raamo—D’ol Raamo, with him.”

Pomma squealed with delight, and Teera, too, felt pleasure at the thought of once more seeing the young Ol-zhaan whose deep feelings spoke to her as well and easily as any Erdling’s. But her pleasure was mixed with fear because, although she had pensed him to be gentle and friendly, everything she had ever learned about Ol-zhaan told her that he should be feared and hated.

O
N THE FIRST DAY
, the search for the missing daughter of Kanna and Herd Eld was a massive enterprise, involving more than half the population of Erda. Greatly moved by the sad plight of the Elds, the High Council had taken extreme measures, declaring a first-degree emergency, thus releasing all but the most essential workers from their duties, in order that they might take part in the search. Children had been lost before in the tunnels of Erda, and the Council had acted before to release workers to help in the search. But in most cases the emergency was given a much lower classification, and only selected teams from each industry or institution were sent out to take part. Herd Eld was, of course, grateful for the Council’s response, although it soon became apparent that the reasons behind their decree, as well as its results, were not, perhaps, of the best.

Herd Eld, in his capacity of Health Councilor, was well known in Erda, and most of the members of the High Council knew him personally, or at least knew of him. His passionate advocacy of smaller families and a reduction in the population of Erda was well known to almost all Erdlings; and his advice was widely respected, if not often heeded. To the Erdlings, who were quite accustomed to leaders who spoke eloquently and passionately in support of noble standards that they were seldom able to maintain personally, Herd Eld’s limitation of his own family to one small daughter seemed a sacrifice greatly to be admired. And that that one small daughter might now be lost to him seemed a great injustice. Living, as they did, under the curse of the great injustice of their imprisonment, the Erdlings were highly sensitive to all injustices. Their response to even the smallest and most obscure tended to be quick and unpremeditated.

During the first day of the search for the lost Teera, Kanna and Herd had reason to wish that, in this particular case, the Council had considered a bit longer and had been a little less generous in their response. The workers had been released so quickly and in such great numbers that adequate preparation and organization had been impossible, and the tunnels around the city were packed with searchers, crossing and recrossing the same areas, and occasionally stopping to ask each other exactly whom it was they had been sent to rescue.

On the second day, at Herd’s request, the decree was reclassified, and a smaller number reported for search duty. By now, experienced tunnel workers—miners and plak hunters—had been appointed as organizers, and teams were formed, areas allotted, and path markers issued, so the search became more orderly and much more effective. In teams of three or four, the searchers ranged far into the outlying tunnels and caverns, marking the paths carefully so that they themselves would not become lost in the vast labyrinth that surrounded the city of Erda.

Kanna and Herd, having asked to be assigned to the far reaches, were included in a team led by one of the most experienced tunnel-men in all Erda. Yagg Olf was an old man who had spent most of his life as a hunter of plak and lapan. Since the small creatures of the forest floor rarely entered the Erdling tunnels, it was necessary to set traps above the surface of the earth by reaching out through the Root. Tramping daily through the outlying tunnels, far from the well-hunted areas around Erda, he had set traps from the mouths of ventilation tunnels in areas long since abandoned, and had even dug new surface tunnels in unexplored or forgotten areas. During his lifetime he had, himself, rescued two Fallen infants, and had found and led to Erda three terrified, exhausted Verban, whom he had encountered wandering in the far reaches. Perhaps no one in all Erda was better acquainted with the vast underground wilderness that stretched out apparently endlessly below the Root. But even Yagg Olf’s knowledge was limited and incomplete.

“No one can know the tunnels,” he told Herd, “not all of them. For myself, I wouldn’t try to know them all. It is not meant that they should be known.”

“But I’ve heard that you have led expeditions of the Nekom Society to look for the end of the Root.”

“Yes,” Yagg said, “I led them. I told them that I knew it was useless—a waste of my time and theirs. But they had petitioned the Council for the right to make the expedition and had asked for me as their guide, and the Council had granted their requests. So I led them. But I told them what I thought. I told them that the Root could not be outdistanced any more than it could be cut or burned. The Root, I told them, is not matter but meaning, and meaning is infinite.”

“Are you, then, a believer in the Gystig philosophy?” Kanna asked.

The Gystig faith, once widely held in Erda but now waning in influence, taught that Erdlings were born to the Root as punishment for their sins and the sins of their ancestors, and that humble acceptance of their fate would ensure rebirth to the high forest when their Erdling life was over. It seemed strange to Kanna that Yagg, who was obviously a simple and practical person, would be interested in mystical philosophies.

“You are right,” Yagg said. “I am not a good Gystig. I do not attend their ceremonies or follow their ritual. And I observe the days of fasting only when my food ration is so small that I have no choice. But I was reared in a Gystig cavernclan, and in recent years I have begun to think that someday, when I leave the tunnels, I may return to the faith.”

“I am surprised that the Nekom would accept a guide with Gystig leanings,” Herd said.

Yagg shrugged. “They were not interested in my beliefs, but only in my knowledge of the far tunnels. And I served them well. We did not find what they were seeking, but at least I kept them out of the crevices and rockfalls.”

Kanna’s mind chilled with a sudden fright for Teera, which Yagg, for all his seeming bluntness, appeared to pense quickly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I did not mean to frighten you. There is little chance that your daughter has wandered far enough to reach the unexplored areas. And all such hazards are fenced off wherever they have been found and charted.”

But although Kanna tried to accept Yagg’s assurance, she found herself thinking more and more often of the dark bottomless pits, the narrow crevices, and the caverns where the slightest vibration from a footfall, or even a shout, might bring tons of rock crashing down from the ceiling domes. Not only as she trudged through the endless tunnels, but also at night when she tried to sleep, she was haunted by images of Teera, walking alone and tiny under trembling rock masses, or wandering blindly towards hidden precipices. By the fourth day of the search, Kanna’s hands had begun to tremble constantly and her legs were so weak that she was almost unable to keep up with the other members of her searching party.

On the fifth day, an open Council was held to determine whether the hunt should be continued. The Council was held in the huge central cavern, because all the searchers were expected to attend and, since it happened to fall on a free day, many others would undoubtedly be present. Diversions were scarce in Erda, and any open Council was looked upon as a source of entertainment and attended by many who had little or no involvement in the matter under discussion. The disappearance of Teera Eld was by now general knowledge, and the huge cavern was certain to be packed by sympathetic and curious onlookers.

Kanna and Herd arrived early and were seated on the central platform not far from the seats of the Councilors. The spectators began to gather soon afterwards, arriving, for the most part, singly or in groups of two or three. Now and then, however, a large number of people entered together and made their way to open areas where they could be seated as a group.

Sighing, Kanna pointed to one such group, which entered noisily and was making its way down the central aisle. Stomping their feet in close cadence, they, from time to time, shouted slogans, which were largely unintelligible because of the echoing noises of the crowd, and waved long poles on which were mounted emblems that vaguely resembled the curved knives carried by hunters.

“Look,” Kanna said. “It is the Nekom. We’ll be lucky if the Councilors get around to discussing the search before the free day is over. See there is Axon Befal. If he is allowed to speak, we will be here forever.”

“There are Hax-dok here also,” Herd said. “They, too, will undoubtedly wish to speak.”

“Why? Why?” Kanna said, her voice shaking. “Why would the Hax-dok or the Nekom be interested in the search for a lost child? What has Teera to do with their magic spells or their useless hatreds?”

“Nothing, Kanna,” Herd said, pulling her to him to comfort her. “It is only that they miss no opportunity to get a large audience for their message. It’s quite likely they will scarcely bother to pretend that they are here because of Teera.”

Herd’s prediction proved to be only too true. As soon as Kir Oblan had stated the purpose of the assembly and asked for suggestions or statements from those who had been engaged in the search, Axon Befal, a short, swarthy man with flashing dark eyes, rose to his feet and asked to be allowed to speak. When the Councilor suggested mildly that the leaders of search teams should be heard from first, at least twenty Nekom sprang up and began to shout protests. Immediately, Axon Befal leaped on to the platform and, to the cheers of his followers, began to address the crowd.

“Men and women of Erda,” he shouted in a voice that seemed to be too large and impressive to have issued from his narrow chest, “we are gathered here to extend our sympathy and support to the family of a martyr to our holy cause. Yes, a martyr. A martyr because it was in protest against the deprivations that have been afflicted upon us by our ancient enemy that this child ran away into the tunnels and became one more tragic victim of the unjust persecutions to which all Erdlings are daily subjected.”

Pausing only long enough to allow his followers’ roar of angry approval to subside, Axon Befal’s voice rose again, louder and more hysterical than before.

The organization known as the Nekom, of which Axon Befal was the acknowledged leader, was not officially recognized, nor were its beliefs and tenets widely held among the general population of Erda. But because of its forceful and noisy tactics, it constantly received a great deal of attention. The stated purpose of the Nekom was the return to Green-sky and the elimination of the Ol-zhaan. To this end the Nekom held meetings, laid plans, made preparations and practiced strategies, all of which, in the face of the indestructibility of the Root, as well as the great power of the Ol-zhaan, seemed to most Erdlings to be to little purpose. But to those among the Erdlings whose frustration with the privations of their lives had reached an almost unbearable intensity, the lack of realism in the goals of the Nekom seemed unimportant. It was enough for them to find, in the Nekom, the opportunity to express their feelings of hatred and revenge.

Axon Befal continued his harangue, to the wild enthusiasm of his followers, and the variously interested, indignant, or amused response of the rest of the large audience, until his voice began to falter under the strain. A rasping wheeze became rapidly more severe, and as his voice faded into a hoarse whisper, Axon Begal delivered a final accusation—that the Ol-zhaan, and the Ol-zhaan alone, were responsible for his failing voice—a symptom, no doubt, of a fatal illness brought on by a lifetime of exposure to the fumes of the furnaces of Erda.