On Blue's waters (34 page)

A tap on my shoulder woke me. The face that looked into my own was invisible in the darkness, but I took no note of that, thinking that mine must be equally impossible to see. In much of the account I have written, I have set down my own words or the words others spoke to me. It a few cases I have been quite certain (at the time I wrote, if not subsequently) that I recalled them precisely. In most others, I have merely re-created them as you and I re-created so many of the verbal exchanges we put into our book, relying upon my knowledge of the speakers, and of the gist of what they had said. But we have come to a very different matter.

The tall, shadowed figure before me said, “Get up.” To which I replied, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any harm.” Those are the exact words that he spoke, and the exact words with which I answered him. Everything the Neighbors said to me, and every reply I made, has remained in my memory from that night to this, as fresh as though it had been said only a few seconds ago. I do not know why this should be true, but I know that it is.

As for the reason I answered as I did, I can only say that upon awakening (if I had in fact been sleeping as sleep is generally accounted) I felt in a confused fashion that I had been trespassing, that this flat land with its covering of scrub was his, and that he might be understandably angry at finding I had ventured on it.

“Come with me,” he said, and he helped me to stand up, grasping both my hands while lifting me under the arms. I ought to remember how his hands felt, I am sure-but I do not. My mind was on other things, perhaps.

He strode off through the trees, then turned to me and took my hand again to make certain that I was following him. I trotted after him, and in that way we walked some considerable distance, he always a stride in advance. I am what is ordinarily called a tall man now, and I believe that I must be about as tall as Silk was when you and I were young; but the Neighbor was a good deal taller, and a great deal taller than I was then, taller even than Hammerstone, though far more slender.

I trotted, as I have already written, because I could not keep pace with the Neighbor’s four long legs by walking. But the branches of the twisted trees no longer raked my face, and I am quite certain that there was no place where I was forced to get out Sinew’s knife and cut my way through. If there were anything in the whorl that could have convinced me that the entire episode was a dream, it would be that. It was not a dream however. I knew even then (exactly as I know now) that it was nothing of the kind.

I had hurried after the tall figure of the Neighbor so promptly that I had left my slug gun dangling from the low limb on which I had hung it, but I do not believe I was conscious of that at the time. I would not have been greatly disturbed, I think, if I had been.

By the time we reached their fire, I was panting and sweating despite the cold. There were more shadowy figures seated around it; they wore dark cloaks (or so it seemed to me at the time) and soft-looking hats with wide brims and low crowns. Most were sitting upright, but one lay at full length. He may have been dead; I do not believe he spoke or moved while I was there, and it is conceivable that he was not one of them at all but a fallen log or something of the sort, and that I only imagined that there was a sixth or a seventh who was lying down. If this sounds impossibly vague, you must understand that the fire did not illuminate him, or them, in the way I would have expected.

“Do you know who we are?” the shadowed figure who had come for me asked.

I replied, “My friend He-pen-sheep calls you his Neighbors.”

One of the seated Neighbors inquired, “Who and what do you yourself think we are?”

I said, “I’m from New Viron, a town on the eastern shore of the sea, and I believe that you’re the Vanished People. I mean, I believe that you’re some of the people we call the Vanished People in New Viron.”

Another said, “Then you must tell us who the Vanished People are.” All this was in the Common Tongue.

“You are the people whose whorl this was before our landers came to it,” I said. No one replied, so I continued, fumbling now and then as I tried to find the right words. “The
Whorl
up there,” I pointed, “that was our whorl. This whorl, which we call Blue now, was your whorl. But we thought something had-had happened to you, because we never see you. Sometimes we find things you made, like that place on the island to the south, though I never did until I found that one. My son Sinew says that he and some other young men found an altar of yours in the forest, a stone table on which you used to sacrifice to the gods of this whorl.”

I waited for one of them to speak.

“Since you haven’t really vanished at all, we’re-I’m very glad that you’ve let me live here with my family. Thank you. Thank you very much.”

They said nothing, and after a while the one who had brought me to their fire indicated by a gesture, a motion of his fingers as if he were drawing words from my mouth, that I should go on talking.

I said, “I’m seeing you here tonight, I realize that, and I’m happy that you gave me this chance to express my gratitude. But I’ve never seen any of you before in twenty years, and most of us think that you’re all dead. I’ll try to tell them that’s a mistake when I get back home.”

As I spoke, I was reminded of Patera Remora’s long, foolish face, and the dark and dusty little sellaria in which we had con- versed, and I said, “I think perhaps our Prolocutor has seen you. He seems to know something, anyway. I hadn’t realized it until now.”

They remained silent.

I said, “We think your gods are still here. To tell the truth, we’re afraid that they are. I’ve encountered one myself, your sea goddess. I don’t know what you call her.” As I spoke I looked from shadowy face to shadowy face. That was when I realized that they were not made even slightly more visible by the fire. The fire was there. I could see its light on my hands and feel its heat on my cheeks. I do not doubt that its light was shining on my face, as firelight always does; but it did not light them.

Lamely I finished, “Seawrack calls her the Mother. I mean the girl-the young lady that I call Seawrack. I mean, she used to.”

The Neighbor to my left said, “That is one of her names.” He had not spoken before.

“We’re here now,” I said, “we human men and women and children who came out of the
Whorl
.”

All of them nodded.

“And we’re taking your whorl, or trying to. I don’t blame you for being angry with us for that, but our gods are driving us out, and we have no place else to go. Except for me, I mean. I’m trying to get back to the
Whorl
, but not to stay. To bring back Patera Silk. Would you like me to tell you who Patera Silk is?”

The Neighbor who had awakened me said, “No. Someone you care about.”

I nodded.

“Most of what you have said, we might say. This whorl of yours was ours. We, the remnant of our race, have abandoned it, giving it to no one and making no provision to keep it for ourselves. We found a way to leave and we left, seeking a new and a better home.”

He turned from me, his face lifted to the western stars. “Some of you call the place where we are the Neighbor Whorl. It does not matter what we call it, or what we once called this one. This whorl is yours now. It is called Blue. It belongs to your race.”

I stammered my thanks. I could set down everything I said, but there is really no way to describe how clumsily and haltingly I said it.

“We have brought you here as the representative of your race,” he told me when I had finished. “You, here tonight, must speak for all of you. We have a question to ask. We cannot make you answer it, and if we could we would not. You will oblige us greatly by answering, even so. You say that you are grateful to us.”

“For a whorl? For Blue? It’s a godlike gift, like Pas giving us the Whorl. In a hundred years we couldn’t repay you. Or a thousand. Never.”

“You can. You yourself can repay us tonight, simply by answering. Will you?”

I said, “I’ll try. I will if I can. What is the question?”

He looked around at the others. All those sitting upright nod- ded, I believe, although I cannot be sure. “Let me remind you again,” the Neighbor who had brought me to their fire said, “that you will speak for your entire race. Every man of your blood. Every woman, and every child.”

“I understand.”

“I chose you, and I did so because I hoped to incline your race’s judgment in our favor by choosing someone apt to be well disposed toward us.” By a trifling gesture he indicated the ring that Seawrack had given me before we left the sloop. “If you wish to hold my choosing such a person against us, there is nothing to prevent you.”

I said, “Certainly not.”

“Thank you. Here is our question. Nearly all of us have abandoned this whorl, as I told you. Tonight we give it to you who call yourselves human, as I have also told you. Do you humans, the new possessors, object to our visiting it from time to time, as we are doing tonight?”

“Absolutely not,” I said. Realizing that the words I had used could be understood in a sense opposite to the one that I intended, I added, “We have no objection whatsoever.”

“From this whorl we sprang. You spoke of a hundred years, and of a thousand. There are rocks and rivers, trees and islands here that have been famous among us for many thousands of years. This is one such place. I ask you again, may we visit it, and the others?”

Trying to sound formal, I responded, “Come whenever you wish to, and stay for as long as you wish. Our whorl is your whorl.”

“I ask a third time, and I will not ask again. You must answer for all your human kind. Guests are frequently awkward, embarrassing, and inconvenient. Your ways are not ours, and ours are not yours. They must often seem foreign, barbaric, and irrational to you. May we come?”

I hesitated, suddenly fearful. “Will you come as the inhumi do, to do us harm?”

There was stir among those seated around the fire. I could not be certain whether it was of amusement or disgust. “No,” the Neighbor who had brought me said, “We will not come to do you harm, and we will help you against the inhumi when it lies in our power.” The rest nodded.

I swallowed, although my mouth was as dry as my knees. “You are welcome. I know I’ve said it already, but I don’t know how else to-all I can do is repeat it. You may visit this whorl you have given us whenever you want to, and go back to your own whorl whenever you want to, freely. I say that for every human man and every human woman, and even for our children, as humanity’s representative.”

They relaxed. I know how strange it will be for you to read this, Nettle darling, but they did. It was not anything I saw or heard; I could feel the tension drain away. They seemed a little smaller then, and perhaps they were. I still could not see their faces clearly, but they were not so deeply shadowed as they had been; it was as though they had been wearing veils I could not see, and they had drawn them back.

The Neighbor who had brought me stood up, and I did, too. “You spoke of a companion,” he said, and he sounded almost casual. “Seawrack, you named her. You did not give us your own name, you who have been every being of your kind.”

“My name is Horn.” I offered him my hand.

He took it, and this time I felt his hand and remembered it. It was hard, and seemed to be covered with short, stiff hairs. Beyond that I will not say. “My name is Horn also,” he told me. I felt that I was be- ing paid an immense compliment, and did not know how to reply.

He pointed. He was tall, as I have said, but all his arms were too long even for someone as tall as he was. “Are you going back to your companion? To the fire where she and others lie sleeping?” She-pick-berry’s little fire seemed very near when he pointed it out.

“I was hunting,” I told him, “and I left my slug gun hanging on a tree. I’ll have to get it first.”

“There it is.”

Looking where he pointed, I glimpsed it through the trees, and saw the red reflection of the flames in its polished and oiled steel. It seemed much too near to be mine, but I went to get it anyway, took it down from the broken limb upon which I had hung it, and slung it behind my right shoulder as I usually did. When I turned to wave to him and the others, they were not there.

Nettle, I know that you are going to think it was a dream, not so very different from the dream of you I had when I was in the pit, the dream in which you brought me a dipper of water. It was not. It seemed dreamlike at times, I admit; but I have had a great many dreams, as everyone has, and this was not one of them.

* * *

I was lost when I could no longer see the Neighbors’ fire. I knew that to return to He-pen-sheep’s camp all that I had to do was walk uphill. It should have been easy; but again and again I found myself walking across level ground or down a gentle slope, and so toward the sea, when I felt certain that I had set out in the correct direction.

After two or three hours of this mazed wandering I realized that I ought to have been exhausted, but I was noj even slightly tired. I was thirsty and ravenously hungry, so hungry that my teeth seemed as sharp as knives; but I was not fatigued, or footsore in the least.

Just about then I heard a twig snap, and the rattling and rustling of a big animal in the scrub. I had just warning enough to unsling my slug gun and push down the safety when Babbie snuffled, and I felt the familiar, waist-high probing of his soft snout. It was the second time I had nearly shot him, and it struck me as very funny, like one of those stories the men who sell us wood tell, in which some ridiculous situation occurs and recurs. I dropped to one knee, still laughing, rubbed Babbie’s ears, and told him that I was very glad indeed to see him, as I was.

When I looked up, there was something looming above us so enormous and so dark that in that moment it seemed larger than a thunderhead. I remember (I shall never forget) seeing its long curved horns among the massed stars, and feeling that they were actually there, that when the beast moved they would extinguish stars as they might have poked out eyes. In another moment they vanished as it lowered its head to charge. I fired over Babbie’s back, and pumped the action faster than I would have thought possible, the opening and shutting of the bolt a single sound like the slamming of a door, fired again without bringing the butt to my shoulder properly, and was knocked over in literal earnest, knocked sprawling amid the sand and roots. I remember the angry rattle of Babbie’s tusks, and picking up the slug gun again and jerking the trigger without any idea whether it was pointed at the beast, at Babbie, or at my own foot, and wondering why it did not fire, too dazed to realize that I had not chambered a fresh round.