Hot Sleep (27 page)

They touched the other shore, and Jason walked unerringly to the public house. Gradually the people came in, filling the large room to overflowing. Jason stood at the long bar, sipping hot beer. When it seemed that all had come who were coming, Jason set down the cup and lifted himself onto the bar, where he sat as he spoke to them.

"I've talked to every one of you," Jason said, "and there are many of you — most of you — who have learned enough from the bitter experiences of this autumn. You're content now to live under the law and under the Warden. But you still want to stay on this side of the river, where you're still independent, where you're still a little lonelier, and therefore a little happier." And then he said the names, all the men and women who felt that way, and told them they could go home. "If I'm wrong, then stay," he warned — but he wasn't wrong. Only about forty people remained in the public house, and Jason waited until the others were all gone before he spoke.

"You are the ones who hate too much. You're the ones who don't want to follow the laws, no matter how it hurts other people; you're the ones who don't want any part of Heaven
City
. If there's anyone here who doesn't feel that way, you can leave."

They all stayed.

"Well then," Jason said. "You're no more responsible for the disaster this city suffered than are those who aren't content unless they force everyone to fit their image of what is right and good. You won't be punished. I think your memories are punishment enough."

No one looked at anyone else, except Stipock, who sat at the back of the room and looked at everyone in turn.

"Stipock," Jason said. "You wanted to lead your own city, didn't you? You wanted to wean some of the people away from believing and trusting in me."

"Damn right," Stipock said.

"Well, then, look around you. These are the people you've won over. You've had four years. I'm sure our bargain is satisfied in four years, isn't it?"

And Dilna looked at Hoom, who sat beside her, holding her hand. Bargain? she asked with her eyes, and he shrugged.

"It may well be," Stipock said.

"You haven't fulfilled your part, you know" Jason said. "I expected a bit more than a tallow lamp and boats on the river."

"I was busy," Stipock said.

"You'll be busier. Because you're all getting what you want — freedom. Separation from Heaven
City
. And I'll even let Stipock choose where you're going. What's the most valuable piece of land on this little planet, Stipock?"

Stipock only half–smiled, and shook his head. But Jason acted as if he had answered. "Do you love steel that much?" Jason asked. "Then that's where I'll send you — to the place where iron ore is close to the surface."

The words were meaningless to them — iron and steel they had never heard of. Jason looked around at them, and smiled. "Oh, the iron is desirable enough," he said. "Have you seen the metal of the Star
Tower
?" They had, of course. "That's steel," Jason told them. "And you make it from iron — if you can."

"When do we leave?" Stipock asked.

"Tomorrow, I'd advise you all to forget your warm clothing. And bring hats. The place you're going is pretty sunny." Then Jason stepped away from the bar, and left the public house.

The next morning those who were leaving gathered in a large cleared field where the wheat had rotted on the stem. They didn't wait long — a roaring sound came from the Star
Tower
, and soon a huge metal object hovered over them. Stipock told the people to stand clear, and when they had shifted back, the metal craft settled to the ground. Many of them were filled right then with doubts — Jason really did fly, and the ship he flew in was bigger than a house.

But the door was open, and Jason was herding them inside, and they had little time to worry about whether Jason was, after all, everything he had been thought to be. Two rows of seats filled the middle section of the craft, and they nearly filled them all. Stipock was the last to enter, and the door closed behind him, though no one touched it. And as soon as Stipock had sat down, the craft lifted gently from the ground, and as the earth receded below them, many were filled with a terrible vertigo, and some vomited.

"Where are we going?" someone asked Stipock, and Stipock turned around and spoke to the group generally. "We're going," he said, "to a very hard place. There aren't many places where fields will grow well. But there are things more precious than fertile soil."

Dilna leaned over closer to Hoom, and said softly, "You'd almost think Stipock wanted us to go to this place from the beginning." Hoom's only answer was a faint smile. He didn't talk much, even though he was virtually healed from his burning in the fire at Noyock's house.

They crossed an endless forest, and then the forest ended, and below them was nothing but blue, striped with white. "The sea," Stipock explained. "Water for kilometers in every direction, so it seems you can never find the end."

But they found the end, and under them was rock and sand, carved into canyons and hostile mountains, plateaus and occasional patches of green. From the air it was impossible to see the details, but it was plain enough to everyone, though they had never seen a desert, that the land below them was dead.

It was frightening to Dilna, to see so much space with nothing growing in it. It looked endlessly dry. She swallowed convulsively. Hoom's hand closed over hers, and drew her close, and his arm reached around her, and held her.

"Hoom," she whispered, "I've never loved anyone but you."

"And I trust you with my life," he answered; and it occurred to Dilna to wonder whether Hoom had told as great a lie as she had told.

Jason left them near trees, and a shallow stream ran nearby, but the earth underfoot was sand, and the air was hot and dry. They milled around aimlessly, until Jason said a few words wishing them luck, urging them to obey Stipock; then the starpilot climbed back into the flying ship and the door closed behind him.

"Well, everybody," Stipock said. "Let's get moving — up into the trees. We'll follow the stream. Feels warm enough that we probably won't need to build houses tonight — give us all a chance to be lazy!" Stipock laughed, but no one joined him. The sandy soil didn't look like it would be easy to farm. The water trickled over rocks, but a thin film of dust covered its surface even as it moved.

They shouldered their burdens and followed Stipock into the tall, gaunt–looking trees. Dilna and Hoom were among the last, and Dilna turned around to see dust rise under the flying ship.

She stopped and watched as it rose into the air and moved away north over the sandy plain. Wait, she wanted to cry out to him. Wait for me!

Instead, she shifted her pack and smiled at Hoom, who was waiting for her. "Well," she said. "This is more fun than a broken leg." He laughed, and they hurried to catch up with the others.

IN HIS
haste to get back with the good news, Billin slipped on a shale slope and cut his hand severely. Of course he swore; of course he shouted; and then he ripped up his good sleeve (the left) and bound the bleeding cut and walked on.

He still carried his pack, though the food was gone since yesterday — good cloth was far too scarce these days. In the hot gray days of autumn when they first arrived, they had thrown away all the clothing that modesty allowed. Now they knew better. The summer sun burnt, and clothing was the only defense.

The trees were already getting more open, and shorter. The rich loam of the mountains had given way to more sandy soil, loose and sliding and hard to walk on. He was almost there, following the trickling stream that kept Stipock's City alive.

It was late afternoon when Billin finally reached the irrigation ditch and the diversion dam. Wix's idea of course, and brilliant, of course, but only a stopgap in their constant losing battle with the sun and the sand. Although they might have had a chance if Stipock weren't so dead set on getting the iron — no. We'd be losing anyway. But now, Billin thought exultantly as he lurched along down the path of the ditch, now we can live better than we did at Heaven
City
. Just reach out a hand and pick food from the trees. Water everywhere. We have to leave immediately.

A house (new since he had left, but hardly a surprise, and he noticed that they had built it higher, out of the reach of the sand) and Billin went to the door and knocked.

No one. Getting on toward dark — wait here or go on down?

Billin was too hungry to wait, and too eager to tell his news, though his legs were weak enough that he had to think of every step before they would move.

And then he saw Wix and Dilna coming in from the trees. He stopped and waited until they came up to him.

"Billin," they said as soon as they were close enough to see who it was, and they rushed up and embraced him and welcomed him home. Yet Billin was not too tired to wonder what Wix and the bitch had been doing in the woods (as if he and everybody didn't know — a miracle Hoom hadn't murdered them both by now, except that the sweet simple–minded ox didn't notice), and he smiled at them as he said, "How's Hoom doing?"

"Well," Wix said. Was Dilna blushing? Billin doubted it — she wasn't the blushing type. At least Cirith, ugly and foul–tempered as she was, stayed faithful to Billin and loved him desperately.

"You must be tired," Dilna said, and Billin didn't even have to agree. He just stumbled and Wix caught him before he fell, and then the two of them helped him to the nearest house that might be large enough for him to rest awhile before going on to his own home.

It was a struggle between hunger (stay awake until the fish is fried) and sleep. Sleep won.

He woke in his own bed with Cirith leaning over him, smiling.

"Good morning," Billin said.

"Stay in bed," Cirith ordered, losing the smile the moment she knew he was looking. "You're too tired and weak to get up."

"Then bring me something to eat, dammit," Billin said, lying back down.

"It was so good while you were gone," Cirith grumbled as she brought a bowl from the fire. "No one to complain at me."

"How did you make it through the weeks?" Billin said. And then as Cirith set the bowl on his bed and made as if to walk away in a huff, he lunged over (spilling stew) and pinched her.

She whirled on him. "If you're that wide awake, Billin my boy, you'll have no more sympathy from me!" And then she was off to the children's bed room. Billin lay back on his bed and sighed. It was so good to be home.

He vomited the stew, but was able to eat broth later on in the morning.

And after noon, Stipock, Wix, and Hoom came to see him.

"Three out of four," Billin said as they gathered around his bed. "I feel honored."

"Dilna's pregnant again," Hoom said proudly.

"How many does that make — three?" Billin asked.

"No, four, of course — unless it's twins."

Four of hers, Billin kept himself from saying, but only three of yours. Not my place to tell the fool what everybody else knows.

"You were gone three and a half months," Stipock said.

"The days just flew by," Billin said, smiling.

They waited, and Billin loved watching them as they tried not to seem eager. But he was even more eager than they, and he ended the game and told them.

"A swift–flowing river, plenty of water even during the heat of the summer. A bay, and there are trees every inch, except where there are thick berry bushes. While I was there I wasn't hungry for a minute — I would have brought you back some of the fruit, but it started spoiling in the heat this side of the mountains, and so I ate it."

But as Billin described the paradise he had found a hundred miles to the south (or more — who can tell when the distance is covered on foot, scaling cliffs and wasting days hunting for a path through an impassable barrier), he became more and more uneasy. Hoom and Wix kept glancing at Stipock — and Stipock just watched Billin, his face impassive.

"I tell you," Billin said, determined to fire them with the enthusiasm he felt for the place, "that we could leave the plow behind and live forever there by just gathering. It goes on like that for miles. And the ground is as rich as anything in Heaven City, I swear it, except there's plenty of rain — the mountains must catch all the clouds, keep them from coming to us — and it's warmer than Heaven City, and besides — from the mountains I could see another land across the water, not far — we could build a boat and cross to it, and that other land looks even richer than the one I was in."

At last Stipock answered, "Very interesting."

Billin sat up in bed — too abruptly, and his headache immediately punished him for the impetuosity. "The hell it's interesting, Stipock. It's bloody damn perfect, it makes this place look like a desert, which it is, if you had guts enough to admit it. You chose this place — well, fine, you made a mistake, but by damn I've found a place we could get to in two weeks! Two weeks, and our children wouldn't spend half the year crying for food and the other half blistering in the sun and crying out for water!"

"Relax, Billin," Hoom said. "Stipock didn't mean anything bad. It's just hard to believe a place could be that good —"

"If you aren't going to believe me," Billin said, "why the hell did you send me?"

"We believe you," Hoom said. Hoom the peacemaker. Hoom the cuckold. Billin turned away in disgust. What kind of people did he have to deal with? Stipock, who only cared about that damn iron ore which wasn't worth a quart of oxurine, and who always pretended that he was thinking carefully about things when the truth was his mind had been made up about everything a million years ago and he'd never change it come flood or fire. Hoom, so kind that you could almost forget how stupid he was. Wix, always full of bright ideas — the kind of man that could only be trusted by a fellow with an ugly wife (like me, Billin reminded himself). And Dilna? Why the hell was Dilna always involved in decisions? At least she wasn't here now.

"If you believe me," Billin finally said, "you wouldn't be here, you'd be home packing food and getting ready to go."

"Sleep awhile," Wix said. "You're still tired. We'll talk tomorrow."

"What did I do wrong?" Billin shouted, his voice cracking from the weariness still in him. "I'm not a hornet, don't brush me away!"

"You haven't done anything wrong," Stipock said as he went to the door. But it was Hoom who turned around and said, "I'm glad you're back, Billin. I've missed you."

After they left Billin was too angry even to quarrel with Cirith, and she went to bed in a huff, worried about Billin's strange behavior. And Billin kept waking in the night — angry, though it took him a few moments after waking to remember what he was angry about. Why were they so reluctant? Did they actually like the desert?

"No," Cirith said. Billin realized that he had been talking aloud. There was a faint light in the room — early morning.

"Sorry I woke you," he said.

"That's fine. They don't like the desert, Billin," she said. "But about a week after you left, I guess they realized you might find something like what you found, and ever since then Stipock has been telling people how good it is to suffer, how it makes us strong."

"Don't tell me people believe that crap!" Billin's mouth tasted foul. He got out of bed and staggered on aching legs to get a drink.

"I don't know what people believe," Cirith said.

Billin looked at her from the table, where he was dipping water from the jar. "What do you believe?"

"Don't tell me you suddenly, after two years of marriage, want my opinion?"

"I don't want to have your opinion, I only want to hear it."

Cirith shrugged. "Stipock's right. It makes us strong."

"Crap."

She held up her arm, flexed a large muscle. "Behold," she said. "Strong."

"So I married an ox," Billin said. "It's still a desert and I found a place where our kids can smile without getting a mouthful of sand."

He came back to Cirith and sat on the floor beside her stool. She put her arms around him.

"Billin, I believe you and I want to go to that place. But I don't think Stipock will ever give up on his iron. He wants to make carts that move without pulling or pushing them. He wants to make a mill that doesn't need a stream. He thinks he can do it with iron."

"And I think he's crazy," Billin said.

"I thought you loved Stipock."

"Like a brother," Billin said. "Like a stupid, bull–headed, lovable, cold–as–a–fish brother. It's morning and I'm already sick of today."

"Let me make it better," she said, and he let her; and even though he was still a wreck from the exertions of the last month, it was wonderful.

"I take it all back," he said afterward. "That place wasn't perfect. It needed you."

"You hurt my thumb," she said, and then it was time to fix breakfast for little Dern, while Blessin pumped away on Cirith's breast. Billin tried getting out of bed, but he couldn't manage it. "Maybe this afternoon," he said.

But that afternoon he slept again, and as the sun set he woke to find Hoom beside his bed.

"Hello, Hoom. How long have you been waiting there?"

"Not long."

"Good."

Long pause. Billin decided that whatever Hoom had come to say must not be very pleasant, or he would have said it by now.

"Say it," Billin urged.

"We've talked about it —"

"We meaning the four Wardens of Stipock City —"

Hoom sat up rigidly. "How can you call us that?"

"You came to tell me," Billin said. "So tell me. You four have talked about it and you decided — or rather, Stipock decided and the three of you chirped back what he wanted to hear — and now you want to warn me not to tell people about what I found in the south."

"You don't have to see it that ugly unless you really want to."

"I should cover my eyes? I see what is."

Hoom smiled. "Does anybody see what is?"

"Least of all you, even when it's in front of your face."

"Sometimes," Hoom answered mildly (he doesn't understand, Billin thought contemptuously), "only the blind pretend to see. If you insist on telling people about what you say you found — what you believe you found — you'll only hurt yourself. No, that's not true — you'll hurt them, too, because they'll want so badly to believe in a place like that."

"Of course they'll want to believe it."

"For your own sake, then," Hoom said. And he left.

Billin felt better than he had since coming back — but even so, he would have stayed in bed if anger hadn't pulled him up and into his clothes and out the door of the house.

"Where are you going?" Cirith snapped as she saw him leaving.

"Visiting."

"At this time of night nobody wants to see you," she said.

"Mind your kitchen, woman," Billin answered. She kept grumbling after he left.

He went first to Serret's and Rebo's house. They were busy with putting children to bed (they had been twinned twice since coming to Stipock
City
), but they greeted Billin kindly.

"Glad to see you up and about already," Serret said, and Rebo smiled and took off her apron (in tatters, Billin noticed, like all the cloth), bringing him a stool to sit on.

He immediately began telling them what he had found on his journey. They listened politely, smiled, nodded, answered his questions, asked a few (though not many). After a half hour of this Billin realized to his fury that they weren't excited about it. And why not? Their children were worse off than most, with bloated bellies that even Stipock said were a sign of a lack of food.

"You don't believe me, do you?" Billin abruptly asked, even while Rebo cooed softly about how wonderful his description of the rainfall sounded.

"Well, of course we believe you," Serret answered. Billin wasn't fooled. He took his leave quickly, went to another house.

It was late, and the lights were blown out in most of the houses when Billin finally gave up and came home. Cirith was waiting for him. She looked worried when he finally came to the door.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

Billin nodded, then shook his head. "Not one of them," he said, and she understood, and for once there was no banter, no complaint, she just came to him and held him and in his weariness and frustration he cried. The tears turned to anger quickly enough.

"How did they do it?" Billin demanded, pulling away from her and tossing a chair across the room. One of the children woke at the noise, cried out.

"Shhh," Cirith said, heading for the children's room.

"Not on your life!" Billin retorted. "I want to know how they did it! How did those damn self appointed gods get everybody to answer the same way — 'Yes, Billin, so glad you had a good time there, Billin, we're so pleased that your journey was successful, now get the hell out and let us get some sleep, Billin' —"

Cirith came to him and took his arms and dug her fingers into them. "You must promise me," she said, "that you won't do anything to them."