Eternity Row (23 page)

“Look at this.” Xonea knelt down beside a stone channel at the base of one of the houses and waved away the mist. Condensate dribbled into the primitive gutter and was funneled toward one of the black structures. As we followed the aqueduct, I saw the water draining into regular-spaced holes in the black rock base. Worms caught in the streams slid into the holes, too.

“Maybe it’s some kind of pest control.” I went to step into the narrow entrance to have a peek inside.

Tadam Ortsac appeared again, this time alone, and wearing a standard League wristcom. “You will not trespass upon the ziggurat that is Sadda’s abode.”

“We will not.” Water ran down my husband’s face like tears. “However, we are ignorant of your boundaries, and request your guidance.”

The official jerked his beak to one side. “Our monitors shall provide instruction.” Tadam pointed behind us to another group of four Taercal. Their toga-robes had silver markings on the sleeves, and were stained purple. They moved to stand beside each of us, and smelled so moldy that I started to mouth-breathe. “Accompany your instructors to the felling circles. Until you are educated, enter no ziggurat.”

“We would like to contact one of your people,” Xonea began to say, but the official only turned and waddled away.

My eyes narrowed as I noticed the official seemed to be hobbling. So far, I hadn’t seen anyone as hefty or as warty as Ortsac. Maybe Big Bird was ill. “Reever, ask them what’s wrong with Ortsac. Aside from obesity and being covered in verrucae.”

Reever relayed my question, but the monitor merely pointed to a narrow alleyway beside the nearest ziggurat. “I believe we must take instruction before we can ask any further questions.”

The felling circles were a group of stones set in a circular pattern on a flat, cleared piece of ground. For some reason, the mist and the mold didn’t trespass beyond the triangular boundary encompassing the circles. Neither did the worms.

If the worms didn’t like it, I didn’t like it. I wasn’t armed, but I knew Duncan was. He was always armed. “Okay.”

As soon as I stepped over the stones and stood inside the circle, I felt very strange-as if something invisible tugged at me. At the same time, my monitor lifted his thin arm and activated a wristcom.

“I am north-seventh monitor.” He pulled back his shroud, showing a thin, worn face. “Address me as ‘monitor’ at all times.”

“Sure, monitor.” I tried to step in another circle, but he stopped me with a hand. “I can’t move around?”

“Stand and receive instruction.”

I spotted some dark stains in the dirt near me. “You know, I’m not really good at taking instructions.”

North-seventh monitor removed a thin stick from his sleeve and slapped it across the back of my hand. “Remain silent.”

“I don’t think so.” I went to grab the stick, and he hit me in the same place again. “Ouch! Knock it off with the stick!”

Xonea’s claws were out, and Reever poised to jump, but it was Hawk who stepped into my circle and blocked a third swat. He said something in the native language that made the monitor shuffle back a step.

Reever took my arm. “Shield the monitor, quickly.”

“I shield this Taercal male,” I said loudly, to stop the Captain from attacking. “Look, friend, you’d better put your little stick away.”

The monitor seemed aghast at our behavior, until Hawk said something else. With great reluctance, he put the stick away.

The
hataali
stepped out of the circle. “Cherijo, he won’t hit you again as long as you don’t talk.”

He wouldn’t be able to do anything if he hit me again, I thought, then nodded.

The monitor folded his hands in his mold-stained sleeves before addressing me again. “Vanity is a sin against Sadda. You will cover your head before you enter the ziggurat that is his abode.”

Terran Catholics and Muslims once required women to do the same. Apparently their gods didn’t like seeing female hair, either. I remembered the no-talking rule and nodded.

“Conversation outside of prayer within Sadda’s abode is a sin against Sadda. You will not speak there unless you have prayer for the ten thousand gods.”

I could respect the sanctity of a church.

“Coitus is unseemly and a sin against Sadda. You will not offer temptation to the gods’ scourges.”

No sex. Possibly the reason why there were only three hundred and forty-two of them. I sent out a mental S.O.S. to my husband.
I don’t know about you, but I think we should go now
.

Look. They are coming out to see us.

Other natives began emerging from the speckled stone buildings. These were not as silent and sober as the monitors, or as fat and warty as Ortsac. Gaunt, careworn faces inspected us as they exchanged low comments. A few kids pushed up to the front to see, and their toga-robes seemed cleaner.

“Cute kids.” I smiled at a little girl about Marel’s size. “Hi, there.”

She cowered back against an older female, who grabbed her and hurried away.

The stick reappeared as my monitor stepped in front of me. “You will not engage the gods’ scourges in idle conversation.”

“Can I ask you something without getting whacked?”

He nodded like a gracious host. “You are permitted questions regarding Sadda.”

I used his metaphors. “Do the gods’ scourges fast for Sadda?”

“To suffer is the price of Sadda’s Promise. The gods’ scourges abandon all pleasures of the flesh and earth for the coming of the great one.”

“Are we”-I indicated myself and the rest of the sojourn team-“expected to do the same while we’re here?”

“All must bend to Sadda’s whip.”

“And if we don’t?”

“You wish to bring down Sadda’s wrath?” Obviously horrified, he stepped out of the felling circle. That acted like a signal, and the crowd abruptly dispersed and vanished.

“No, not at all. I didn’t mean to-” I stopped and swore under my breath as the monitor hobbled away. “Captain?”

I turned to see Xonea snatching the stick from his monitor and breaking it in half. White-within-white eyes met mine as the native escaped. “I dislike this world.”

By then all the other monitors except Duncan’s had gone. I wiped my dripping face with my sleeve. “So much for being educated.”

Hawk stepped into my circle to examine the two fading red marks left on my hand by the monitor’s stick. “Are you all right?”

“I’ll live.” I was watching my husband, who had his hand on the Taercal’s shoulder. A few minutes later, Reever released him, and the native stumbled away to disappear into the fog. He looked really worried as he came over to us.

“Xonea, these people are extreme fanatics. They spend most of their time cloistered in prayer.”

Duncan reached over and blotted the eye I was rubbing with the edge of his sleeve. “Their speech, culture, and daily behavior is strictly governed by thousands of complex ritual laws. It would take years to learn simply how to speak to them without giving offense.”

I sighed. “Maybe we should leave.”

“Did that one know of my father?” Hawk asked him.

“He dwells within this city.” Reever nodded toward the western quadrant. “I can take you there, but we should keep our visit brief.”

The
hataali’s
face clouded. “Why?”

“If I am interpreting his warning correctly, a visit to your father could disrupt his daily prayer rituals. For that, he will be beaten. Along with us.”

I heard another of those sporadic, eerie screeches, and heard a faint splash. I walked toward the sound until I came across an open pit filled with water. I wouldn’t have noticed it, but for a single, decomposing object sticking up out of it. Mold had turned it a fuzzy purple, but it was still recognizable.

“Guys.” It was a hand, and something had been gnawing on it. “There’s a body over here.”

When the men came over, their movements scattered the fog and I saw not one but dozens of bodies in the murky, shallow water. I took out my scanner and passed it over the surface before handing it to my husband. Then I rolled up my sleeve and plunged my hand into the water.

It was cold, and thick with sediment. I felt down the arm of the exposed hand, until I found the body. A male, naked except for a heavy belt studded with stones tied around the waist. As I felt along one limb, I realized he was so malnourished the body was literally nothing but skin over bones.

I withdrew my arm and shook off the contaminated water. “Starved or drowned. He’s weighted down with rocks.”

Xonea stood by the edge. “An execution pit?”

The thought that this could have been deliberate made me swallow a surge of bile. “Possibly.”

There was nothing I could do for the victim, so we continued on to Hawk’s father’s home. Fen Yillut lived near the base of a xiggurat, and emerged as soon as we stepped up to the door.

“Greetings from HouseClan Torin,” Xonea said, making a gesture of peace. “You are Fen Yillut?”

“Sadda has seen fit to name me thus. You are the aliens from the ship.” Fen’s expression surpassed Tadam Ortsac’s in the dour department. “Why do you violate my prayer time?”

“They intrude on my behalf.“ Hawk stepped forward.

Fen looked him up and down. “You are?”

“Hawk.” He cleared his throat and tried again. “Hawk Long Knife. I’m your son, Father.”

Fen’s black eyes nearly popped out of his head. “You are Charla’s babe?”

Hawk extended his hand. “Charla was my mother, yes.”

“I had not thought you would have survived your weaning year.” Fen hobbled around Hawk. His obvious pain made me take a scanner out, but as soon as I lifted it, he shied away.

“No! Do not touch me with your alien blasphemy!”

“I’m a doctor,” I told him. ‘This is just a scanner.”

His face wrinkled. “Such things are disgusting to us.”

That was a reaction I’d never gotten before. “I might be able to help you feel more comfortable. It doesn’t hurt.”

“I am Sadda’s scourge back.” Fen went back to the doorway, then paused and said to Hawk, “You may enter, Terran.”

“My companions as well?”

He made an irritable gesture. “If they must pollute an abode, let it be mine.”

We had to walk into the dwelling single file. Mold grew on the inside, too, so thick that it resembled carpeting and wall coverings; but incongruously, there were very few worms around. Above the threshold was the same, horn-headed stick figure.

There were few furnishings inside-two chairs and a table made of spindly wood. No optic emitters, only thin gray light from one window. A small hearth where a miserable little fire burned under

an alloy pot on a hook. Whatever was cooking smelled as vile as everything else on the planet.

Reever sniffed the air. “Perhaps they consume-”

“Don’t even think about it.” I went over to the triangular window. The ziggurat loomed a foot away, effectively blocking any view of the mountains. “Fen Yillut, we saw some bodies left in a ditch of water. What happened to them?”

“They submitted fully to Sadda’s scourge.”

To me, scourge meant disease. “What does that mean?”

“They gave themselves up to Sadda. It is a great honor.” He scraped a couple of worms off one of the walls and went over to dump them in the pot.

I didn’t know whether to be nauseated over the religion or Fen’s dietary choices, but no way was I going into their churches or eating anything until we got back to the ship.

Xonea gave the old man an incredulous look. “Your deity requires lives as tribute?”

“Sadda requires much of the people.” Fen picked up a pail and brought it over to the rickety table. “You may drink if you are thirsty. Food is not gathered until the eleventh hour.”

“Gathered?” I hadn’t seen any gardens, or anything but mold growing inside the city walls. “Where?”

“We take what grows on the mountain steppes.
Tifginni
sustains us otherwise.” He gestured toward the ziggurat. “Gathering is not permitted until dark, after daily prayer has been satisfied.”