And Eternity (33 page)

That’s her window to the world
, Jolie thought.
Through it she can see anything in the mortal realm. She can also step through it and be there, if she chooses.

Gee, that’s great! Vita thought.
Can I look and see Roque?

Orlene had other business, however. “
I-I
think I must tell you something else first,” she said. “Because it doesn’t seem to be possible to avoid it.
I-I
am your mortal daughter Orlene, and-”

Gaea was astonished. “I think you must be mistaken! Your body is no product of mine!” The fleecy clouds in the window were abruptly roiling.

“And I am dead,” Orlene continued grimly. “This is a living host, not my own flesh.”

The window went black.

Gaea appeared calm. “You understand, I can hardly take such a statement on faith! Where is Jolie?”

“She is here, with me. She has been all along, ever since I died.
I-I
acted without warning, so she did not know in time.”

The window showed what might well be the worst and least forewarned storm of the century; the globe seemed to be covered by one big hurricane.

Then, abruptly, it cleared, and a somewhat eerie calm developed.

Gaea reached out and took her hand. “Yes, of course. I should have realized. I could have seen it directly, had I thought to. You are my daughter! But, dead?” She seemed stunned.

“I killed myself.” Orlene had intended to explain the circumstances, but was caught by a surge of grief that choked off her voice.

“But Jolie was watching you!”

Orlene nodded.

“One moment.” Gaea’s outline fuzzed. Then she was a young woman, beautiful, very like Orlene herself in her living state, with honey-blond hair and a most appealing figure. “I can handle this better in my natural form,” she said. “My magic is going instead to insulate my emotion. Now you may tell me the story, and I shall relate to it in an objective manner.”

“Oh, you look so much like me, when I lived!” Orlene exclaimed, amazed.

“I retain my appearance at the time I assumed the Office,” Gaea said. “In twenty years I have not aged-but normally I mask it, so as to appear older.”

“Oh, yes, of course! I am glad for you.”

“But why did you do it?”

“My baby died.
I-I
had lived my whole life, to be the best mother it was possible to be, and when-”

“The kind of mother I could not be,” Gaea said.

“Oh, that was not your fault!” Orlene protested. “Chronos showed me, you were deprived of, you did what you had to do!”

“Perhaps. And because of my responsibility to my Office, I wrote you out of my life. But indeed I missed you, my darling child! I compensated by trying to be the best mother to the natural world that I could be: the Green Mother. But I never looked at you, lest that awareness distort my judgment. I felt that if I performed well in my Office, you would do well in your life. Now I see that I failed.”

“You did not fail! I had a good life, an excellent life! I ended it myself. I-”

The window turned dark, with a preternatural glimmer. “I remember an unfortunate case involving a baby. Were you, did you marry a ghost?”

Jolie, knowing what was coming, let no thought escape.

There was nothing she could do to alleviate it.

“Yes. Gawain. I was to bear a child for him, an heir-”

“And I changed that baby, at his behest!” Gaea cried. “And destroyed my daughter!”

Orlene gazed at her with renewed grief. “You did not know.”

“The ghost wanted his son to have his heritage,” Gaea said. “I was busy, and granted the favor without properly checking, and so bequeathed to that baby the fatal regressive family malady. I was horrified at my error of carelessness but now I am appalled. Look what I did to you!”

“No! I did it to myself! I was foolish and nearsighted and secretive, and brought grief to all those who had sustained me!” Orlene cried. “I could have let my baby go, and remained alive, and had another baby, and so fulfilled my commitments to both my ghost husband and myself, and not done the awful thing I did to my lover and my adoptive parents and to you! If I had it to do over again, with the perspective I have now, I would do what I know is right.” Yet she paused, remembering Vita and the rest of it. “At least, I-I’m not sure. But then I did not know, and the blame is mine, and I curse myself for what I did in my ignorance. I know that it is right that I pay with my pain for-”

But Gaea was with her now, holding her. “No, no, my child, it cannot be! I gave you up by choice, knowing it was best, but you had no choice, your baby was dead by my hand, you could not adjust so suddenly! It happens to mortals all too frequently, because they lack the perspective, their lives are so brief and intense. I see it all over the world, all the time, and I cannot mitigate it despite all my power, for it is the human way.”

The window had slowly brightened during this dialogue, and now the weather in the mortal realm seemed almost normal. Jolie was relieved; she knew the effect Gaea’s emotions had on natural things. That was one of the reasons she had avoided telling Gaea of this matter directly. Gaea had surely suspected, but even so, the shock of confirmation had been formidable, and the climate of the world had been jolted. Now the worst was over.

“I thank you for your understanding. Mother,” Orlene said after a bit, wiping her face. “But I did not come here to speak this way to you. I came for a favor, which now I cannot ask.”

“You must ask it, daughter, but I may not be able to grant it.”

“It-I saw Nox, who has Gaw-Two, and she told me I had to get something from each Incarnation if I hoped to rid him of his malady.”

“That must be true,” Gaea agreed. “What is done by an Incarnation cannot necessarily be undone by that Incarnation, for things interact. I did the bad deed, but once it involved Thanatos and Fate-”

“And Chronos,” Orlene said. “He was my lover, as a mortal. My death caused him to seek the Office of Time.”

Gaea gazed at her for an extended moment, disconcerted. “Then this seemingly isolated error has had enormous consequence!” she said. “Perhaps only an entity outside the ordinary framework can perceive the full extent of it, and Nox is that entity. She lacks power in our realm, but her influence can be significant. Never before, in my experience, has she involved herself directly in our affairs. I find this more disturbing than reassuring.”

“Surely she does not mean mischief!”

“We cannot be sure. Nox keeps her purpose secret and she is the mistress of secrets.” Gaea took a breath. “What is the thing you need from me, Orlene?”

“It is a tear.”

Again Gaea gazed at her. The clouds swirled in the window. “That is not lightly granted.”

“I know. If I had realized, if I had known what you have told me, I would not have come. It is not right to-”

“You must earn it,” Gaea said abruptly. “As anyone else would. That will not be easy.”

“None of this has been easy,” Orlene murmured. “How may I earn it?”

“I have a problem whose solution may have bearing on the continued existence of the human species,” she said seriously. “But that solution eludes me. I could use an opinion.”

“But I know so little!” Orlene protested. “What could I possibly know about that you have not long since explored?”

Gaea smiled, not pleasantly. “It is a long shot, I agree. But Nox’s involvement in your case suggests that you may have something. I will send you among the mortals on a research mission, and you will observe and form an opinion. For that opinion I will grant your favor.”

Orlene was flustered. “But to provide a thing of such value, for an opinion of such little value, when I am your daughter! Who would believe-”

“I think you will have to weigh your opinion most seriously, to be assured that its value warrants its payment.”

She’s up to something
, Jolie thought.
I know her. Don’t argue, just get on with it.

“What must I do?” Orlene asked. “Leave your mortal host here. For this you must occupy another host, temporarily.”

Don’t leave me here!
Vita protested.
I came to Purgatory with you, I want to go form an opinion with you!

“Indeed, I want you with her. Vita,” Gaea said, startling all three of them. They had for the moment forgotten how the Incarnations could perceive them individually. “You have experience that relates. Jolie does too. I am sending you to a teenage mortal girl who is very likely to get pregnant this day. Here is my concern: overpopulation is perhaps the greatest current problem in the mortal realm. The sheer increasing mass of human flesh is squeezing out all other creatures, rendering a record number of them extinct. It is depleting resources and destroying the environment for all. The competition for resources is generating pressure for war and bringing poverty to the majority of living folk. This is the thing I must deal with if the species is not to suffer grievously. But this problem is rooted in individual attitudes and acts. Responsible reproduction is essential for the perpetuation of the species, but irresponsible reproduction will destroy it. How can I cause all reproduction to be responsible, instead of the consequence of cultural or religious bias, or mere entertainment?”

The three of them were silent. Orlene was reminded of her lost baby. Vita thought of her brief career as a prostitute. Jolie thought of the children she had never had, because she had died too soon. All of them had indulged in sex with abandon. None of them had succeeded in having families. How could they judge?

“In many regions of the world,” Gaea continued, perceiving their doubt, “multiple children are needed to secure the welfare of their parents as they age. No importuning will cause those parents to reduce the size of their families; they would suffer if they did. In other regions, poverty eliminates most forms of entertainment; procreation, it is truly said, becomes recreation. In others, there are religious barriers to contraception or other means of family planning. I need a simple, practical, universal mechanism to make procreation responsible. I believe that a single case may provide the answer, if there is an answer. You will seek an opinion about the existence of such an answer.”

It really was a critical matter! Mars faced the problem of a world-destroying war, and here was one of the roots of that war. Fate struggled with an increasingly tangled skein, and the sheer numbers of mortal folk contributed to that. The problems of the Incarnations were indeed linked. But how could they come up with an answer if the Incarnation of Nature could not? “We’ll try,” Orlene said.

“Lie down,” Gaea said, showing her to the chamber she had used before. “The body will be safe here, and your spirits will not be in danger there.”

Orlene lay down. Then Jolie linked hands, mentally, with Orlene and Vita, and the three of them floated out of the body. They had only vague human semblances, and their spirits overlapped each other, so that they seemed to be a single confused entity. They followed Gaea back to the window, which now showed a young, rather pretty black girl walking toward a building at dusk. She was in what was evidently her best dress for dancing, white pseudo silk with ruffles. The decolletage was low, and she wore a sparkling rose quartz necklace which rested across the slope of her nascent breasts.

“Follow.” Gaea stepped into the window and appeared beside the girl, who took no notice. They followed, and found themselves there too. “Enter her and observe. You may influence her, but that will change her situation and perhaps distort your observation. When you are satisfied, call me, and I will bring you back.”

They floated as a tight group into the girl. Vita was still inexperienced, but Jolie was thoroughly experienced, so helped her get settled in. It was not the same as it had been with Fate on the saucer, or with Mars on the Babylon-Persia frontier; their technique was a magical pseudomergence of physical bodies, while this was actual possession of a mortal host by spirits. In the old days it had been thought to be possession by demons, but usually it had been spiritual, not demonic, habitation. When a demon did it, the demon normally took over completely, and usually destroyed the host before it was through. Spirits were far more gentle, and could not take over unless given leave by the host. They often, in fact, were benign, as in this case. But the popular prejudice against them remained.

That was the case while Jolie and Orlene were with Vita, and now it was the case with the three of them in the present host. They tuned in on the girl’s mind, which was unguarded, and learned that her name was Ilka, and that she was fifteen years old, and that her name meant “hard worker.” She did work hard, living up to it, and made pretty good grades, and did a lot around the house, too, but her mother still put her down as a child. She wasn’t allowed to date, because she was too young, and anyway, all men were evil, her mother said, they just wanted to paw over a girl and put a baby in her and bug off. All her friends had boyfriends, and sure it was true about what those boys wanted, and two of her friends had abortions and a couple more were worried, but it sure proved one thing: they were women. She knew all about it: a girl could get a great good time from a man, if she got it before he managed to get into her pants, and if he liked her, he would be back next day for more, and if she got a baby, well, that was really proof she was a woman. She saw, she knew. She was tired of being dumped on by her mother; she wanted some romance, some independence, some respect. So tonight she had dressed up and sneaked out: she was going to get into the big dance and have herself a time, no matter what!

She has trouble with her mother?
Vita thought.
She doesn’t know what trouble is!

But if she is typical, she’ll get pregnant, and we need to know what would stop her and all those like her, Jolie reminded her.
In my day we needed all the babies we could get, but today there are too many.

I wanted my baby, Orlene thought wistfully.

She’s a fool to want a baby!
Vita thought.
I made sure to wear my charm, always! I mean, a baby would be fine, when I’m older and married and through with fun, but she’s too young. She’s my age!