Being a Green Mother (37 page)

She stood in the rain, holding the baby and the bag of belongings, glad for the moment that the incessant rain masked the tears on her face. What a colossal fool she had been!

The Gypsy team labored on the wheel. They lacked the
proper tools, but were clever with makeshift; in due course the wheel had been jury-rigged into serviceability.

Tinka, bedraggled and dirty, returned to take her baby. “I thank you, Orb,” she said.

“It was my pleasure,” Orb responded miserably. She found that she hated giving up the baby; he had become a symbol of what she had thrown away.

“For everything.”

But if Orb had not yielded to her anger, this hot rain would not have occurred. She was owed no thanks, just condemnation. But she knew that Tinka would not listen to that. “Go uphill,” she said. “Until the rain stops.”

The man nodded.

They boarded the wagon, and the horse resumed hauling. Orb waved, then turned the page back to Jonah.

The Sludge were sleeping, except for Jezebel. She was in her luscious form, evidently having been sharing with the guitarist. Since she never slept, she emerged to join Orb. “What can I fix you?” the succubus inquired.

“Some piece of mind,” Orb said. She found it easy to relate to the demoness, perhaps because she was feeling somewhat damned herself.

“The rain has to stop some time,” Jezebel said.

But it did not stop. It went on and on, and the heat continued. Soon Orb was out in the world again, turning pages from one region to another, helpless to reverse the ongoing disaster.

The coastal cities were being flooded out. The water impeded the exodus of the people; highways had been submerged and roads washed out. Most people seemed to have retreated to the taller buildings, moving to the higher floors as the water rose.

But the heat was causing the air to expand and rise; winds were stiffening and with them the waves. Breakers smashed at the buildings, wearing them down relentlessly. Orb saw some buildings that had collapsed; if there had been people in them, they were there no longer.

The wreckage of boats was being tossed about. This was no safe sea for sailing! But what other way did trapped people have to escape?

Could she take any of them and turn the page to higher
ground? There were so many in trouble that she could help only a few, but she had to try.

She expanded, searching for the need, and found a building that was being overwhelmed by the waves. She coalesced to it. A woman and two children were standing on the roof, hanging on to the aeration pipes as the wind howled through. “I will help you!” Orb cried. “Take my hands!”

Numbly, the woman and children obeyed, clasping their hands about hers. They did not question her arrival.

Orb turned a page—and found herself alone. She had not been able to carry them with her!

She turned the page back. The three were there, staring, not knowing what had happened. “Maybe one at a time,” Orb said, taking the hand of the little girl.

She turned the page—but the child was not with her. She could no longer take people with her! She had done it with Tinka and her baby, but now her magic seemed to have been drained. Maybe the Chaos was absorbing it, drawing on any magic available for its vast effort of demolition.

She turned the page back, determined to find some way to succeed. But this time she found only a massive wave crashing across the top of the building. She expanded and thinned out, so that it did not affect her—but when it receded, the woman and children were gone.

Orb knew that similar tragedies were occurring all over the world. She had merely sampled the horror of it.

What had she wrought?

With fading hope, she turned the page to the water oak in Ireland. The water was now halfway up its trunk, and the hamadryad was perched in the foliage at the top, very much like the woman and children of the building.

Orb joined her. “I can’t move human folk any more, but maybe I can move you,” she said. “Take my hand, and I will try to take you to higher ground.”

“I cannot leave my tree!” the dryad cried, distraught.

Of course that was true. A hamadryad was a creature of her tree, perhaps even the soul of the tree; she could not leave it. “I hope the water stops soon,” Orb said, grief-stricken.

The dryad gazed at her without expression.

Orb turned the page to India.

The wagons were floating, but precariously. The occupants
were bailing them out, but the constant fall of water was refilling them. A stiff wind was carrying the caravan out toward the widening sea.

Would these good folk survive? Orb, ashamed, did not make her presence known.

She returned to Jonah, who remained deep below ground. “The whole world is being flooded,” she reported to the succubus. “I have lost my power to transport other people; I can only watch them perish.”

“It can’t rain forever,” Jezebel said. “There isn’t enough water.”

Orb, helpless, retired to her chamber and lay down, not expecting to sleep. She did not feel tired and concluded that this was because of her new status as an Incarnation. But she dropped off almost immediately.

When she woke, the situation seemed unchanged—but she realized that this was deceptive, because of the ambiance of Jonah. She turned a page to the water oak—and was appalled, for it was gone. Evidently the waves had undermined it and carried it away, hamadryad and all. An old friend had been lost, and what could Orb do?

She went to India. The lowlands had been replaced by a turbulent ocean, and there was no sign of the floating wagons. The winds were so violent that it was obvious that full-fledged ships could have foundered; the wagons had not had any chance. More old friends were gone.

But the mermaid—she should have survived! Where was she?

Orb expanded, spreading throughout the region, questing for the mermaid. She found her, swimming deep down, where the water was quieter. But she could not greet the mermaid down here, and she worried about the threat of large sea creatures. Suppose one decided that the mermaid was prey?

However, no large predators seemed to be feeding now. The rain and melt that was causing the ocean level to rise was also diluting the salinity of the water at the upper reaches, and that seemed to be distracting the creatures. The mermaid had been making do with fresh water for so long that she had no problem. Perhaps she would be all right.

Orb turned the page to southern France, orienting on Tinka. She found the wagon sloughing through muck, ascending
the mountain, its wheel holding. No danger of flooding here, at least.

She was about to return to Jonah, when she paused, noticing something. The mountain slope seemed to have changed its complexion. The ground was furred. So were the trunks of the trees, and even the leaves.

Orb reached out and broke off a twig. She felt a little tug inside her and realized that she was Nature, now, and related intimately to every living thing, including the twig she had just severed from its tree.

She inspected the twig. It seemed to have sprouted new life. It was covered with something like algae.

Algae were growing on everything, and fungus sprouted, too. The humid, hot ambiance was encouraging the growth of such things. It seemed to be one of the harmless consequences of this weather.

She returned to Jonah—and found him in motion, swimming through the rock. “Where to?” she inquired.

“Oh, good,” Lou-Mae exclaimed. “I wanted to say good-bye to you. We—Miami is pretty low, and my folks—I’ve got to be with them now.”

“And I’ve got to be with her,” the drummer said. “So we’re getting off and see what we can do.”

Orb wanted to caution them about the condition of the coastal cities, but realized that they could hardly save themselves while letting friends and relatives be threatened. “Get them to high ground as fast as you can,” she said. But how much high ground was there in Florida?

Not enough, she knew. The entire state would soon be submerged. The relatives would be lost—and Lou-Mae and the drummer.

She had to do something! But what? She had lost her power to transport other people, and in any event, a whole city was threatened, and all the other coastal cities of the world. What could she do to save them?

She was the Incarnation of Nature, wasn’t she? She
should
be able to do something! And she had to!

She turned the page to Purgatory. There was Eros, as if waiting for her. “Just tell me one thing,” she snapped. “What powers can I invoke, as Gaea?”

“Any power of Nature,” he replied. “To any degree. But
you have to know how, and only long experience can make you perfect. I can’t help you there; I only know about love.”

“Where were you when Satan was corrupting me?” she asked fiercely.

“I did not interfere in that; a lesser Incarnation can not affect a greater one. You came to love him on your own, and I had to accede.”

Surely so. “Where can I get the information I need to master my office?” she asked tightly.

“There is no written text, if that’s what you mean. You have to master it on your own.”

“I don’t have time for that! I need instruction! Who can provide it?”

He shrugged. “Only the former Gaea, I suspect.”

“But she’s in Heaven!”

“No, she’s on Earth. She still has some of her natural life to live out.”

So the former Gaea remained among the mortals! Orb expanded, orienting on her, found her, and coalesced beside her.

“Why, hello, Gaea,” the woman said. She looked exactly as she had before—as Satan’s emulation of her had looked.

“Why did you give up your office to me?”

“Nothing lasts forever,” the woman said. “I was becoming fatigued, trying to keep natural order throughout the world. Any error, and such consequences! It is a nervous business. So when I saw one who had the potential to replace me, I encouraged it.”

“You encouraged it? You mean you could have prevented it?”

“Oh, certainly! Not all Incarnations step down involuntarily. When you expanded, I contracted, until finally you expanded all the way and assumed the whole of it, and I let myself slide back into mortality. When you tire of it, and a successor offers, you may do the same and finish out your mortal life in the situation you helped generate.”

“But I am making a mess of it!” Orb protested. “I sang the wrong theme, and now Chaos is loosed upon the land!”

“We all make errors at the outset,” the woman said calmly. “How well I remember the Black Plague! It was all I could do to prevent it from wiping out the remaining population,
but after that I certainly knew more about my office!”

“But I sang the Song of Chaos!”

The woman nodded. “I really didn’t think you were ready for that one. But if you can master it, you will have an extremely powerful tool.”

“That’s why I came to see you! I have no idea how to stop it from destroying the world. If you can tell me—”

“I can and I can’t,” the woman said. “You see, I did not use music for my command process. So I do not know how that applies. I suspect you would not be able to use the command process I am familiar with.”

“What is that?”

“Pseudo gestures.”

“What?”

“Gestures that do not reach the level of performance. Patterns of muscle tension. The body has many muscles and many more combinations.”

“I know nothing about that! I sing the themes—”

“Which I know nothing about. Therefore I can not provide you with specifics. But I can tell you what I would do, if my system remained operative. I would hasten the cycle of the pattern of Chaos you have invoked, hoping to clear it before its havoc was total.”

“Can’t I simply nullify it?”

“If there is a way, I do not know it. Other things can be neutralized, but Chaos is different. It has to complete whatever course it runs—which can not be predicted. But the less time it exists, the less damage it is likely to do. It is a calculated risk—but of course there can be no certainties, with Chaos.”

Orb was hardly reassured. “How can I use my music to hasten the cycle?”

“You should be able to use the same theme that invoked the cycle, and invoke it again, and again. Each invocation should translate it to a new application. Of course that is dangerous, because it is apt to accelerate its power as well as its velocity. It is possible that you would be best off leaving it alone.”

“But people are dying!”

“I realize that. But when you go for double or nothing,
or triple or nothing, the result is not always what you prefer.”

Orb sighed. She knew the former Gaea was right. A gamble was a gamble. “I thank you for your comment,” she said and turned the page back to Jonah.

“I don’t think you will be able to save your folks,” she said to Lou-Mae. “It is my fault; I set in motion a pattern I can not control. But I may be able to change it. The risk is that I will only make it worse. How do you feel?”

Lou-Mae hardly seemed to consider. “Let’s try to save them first. If we can’t, then you gamble.”

“Then I gamble,” Orb agreed, relieved to have the basis for the decision clarified.

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