Probability Sun (36 page)

Enli finally said, “Stay here, please, until I’ve gone to Ano’s house. Until I see…” See what? If Ano and the children were all right. If Calin had come back to Gofkit Shamloe and told everyone that it was Terrans who had destroyed shared reality. Calin, the only other Worlder beside Enli who knew that piece of reality. If he had told, Pek Sikorski and Pek Gruber, and maybe Enli as well, might not be welcome here. What if while Enli had been on the road to Gofkit Shamloe, sunflashers had told all of World what Terrans had done? Where could Pek Sikorski and Pek Gruber go?

At least the fence would hide the Terrans from Gofkit Shamloe until Enli saw whatever reality possessed it now.

She rounded the last of the tall upright logs. Her breath rose in her throat, bristled her neckfur.
Ano
 …

Gofkit Shamloe looked unchanged.

No, not completely unchanged. The green, with its hearths for shared cookfires, was deserted, but one would expect that in mid-afternoon. The flowerbeds looked as well-tended as before, a colorful refreshment of trifalitib, allabenirib, mittib. But one house was missing, that of Gostir Pek Nafirif and his family. Where the house had stood was a pile of cold ashes.

Behind the village, its fields stretched to the horizon, gently undulating. Although she strained her eyes, Enli couldn’t see anyone working them. But the hills might hide the workers, or the tall larfruit overshadow them, or everyone might be working in the casir grove in the other direction …

“May your flowers bloom forever,” Enli called, but not very loudly. Afraid, she realized, of any answer, or no answer.

From the other side of the village, where the ground dipped toward the wooded riverbank, came shouting. It drew closer. Enli took a step forward, stopped, waited.

Two men rose slowly above the gentle ridge, their backs to her, dragging something. They shouted to people below, who shouted back. The men kept pulling and shouting, and a large log, most of a tree, scraped up the bank. When enough of it had passed the top of the rise so that the whole thing would not topple back down into the river, the two men stopped dragging and turned, wiping their skull ridges. One of them was Calin.

He saw Enli and stopped dead. The other man saw her, too, and rushed forward. “Enli Pek Brimmidin!” It was Ano’s husband, Sparil Pek Trestin. “You’re back with us! Back from the household of Voratur and the Terrans!” He embraced her and then stepped back, his thin honest face shining with pleasure and sweat.

“Ano…” Enli got out.

“The soil is rich. She will be so happy to see you! She was afraid—so happy to see you!”

“And your children…”

A shadow passed over Sparil’s face, but before he could answer a small shape hurled itself at Enli. “Enli! Enli!”

“Fentil! By the First Flower, how you’ve grown!”

Her nephew drew himself up proudly to his full height. His neckfur, as golden as Enli’s brother’s had been, rippled with health. He smiled even as he spoke. “I’ve been helping haul logs!”

“And a big help he is,” his father said, but the shadow was still there in Sparil’s voice. Was it for her? Had Calin told? “Ano is at harvest. They’ll come back soon.”

Now Calin came forward. He spoke formally. “May your blossoms perfume the world of your ancestors, Enli.”

“May your garden bloom forever, Calin.” Her eyes questioned him. He saw it, and looked away.

Fentil said eagerly, “You must stay now and not go away again, Enli.”

She would have to do it sometime. It might as well be now. “I have visitors with me.”

Sparil said, “Are they good workers? We need good workers?”

“Yes.” Were the Terrans good workers? Pek Gruber, whom she still could not bring herself to call by his childname, was at least very strong. “There are two youngsters and … and two Terrans.”

“Terrans?” said Afri Pek Buctor; she and a man Enli didn’t recognize had climbed up from the riverbank. “Are they good workers? We cannot have anyone here who does not work hard, now that reality has shifted so much. You should know that.”

So Calin had not told. And Afri Pek Buctor was still a scold. Something broke in Enli, and she suddenly felt close to tears.

“There, Enli, you’re tired and hungry,” Sparil said kindly, “and so are your friends, I’m sure. Bring them here. O, but … what do Terrans eat?”

“They’ll manage,” Enli said, not up to explaining the foods Terrans could eat, those they could not, those they could but got no good from, those they carried with them along with seeds that grew at an astonishing rate … She hated to cry. With a huge effort, she made herself stop.

“I’ll get food!” Fentil said, and was off running toward Ano’s house. “And water!”

“Where are your friends?” Sparil said. “O, my manners—this is Morfib Pek Chandor, Afri’s new mate.”

Enli murmured a flower greeting. She had a sudden incongruous hope that Essa would not laugh; “Morfib” was a funny name. If wild Essa giggled, Afri would be affronted.

“Let’s go get your friends,” Sparil said gently, and took Enli’s hand. Calin walked away, toward his house.

Afri said disapprovingly, “I have never seen a Terran before, Enli. Is it true they have neckfur on their heads? Are they very ugly?”

*   *   *

Enli sat with Sparil, Essa, Serlit, and the Terrans on the thick log. Pek Gruber had made himself instantly accepted by dragging it, unassisted, the rest of the way to the new fence. Fentil capered on the green with the few children who had already returned from harvest. The children darted shy looks at the Terrans and giggled among themselves.

So unchanged. So much the shared reality Enli remembered. And so different.

Essa said to Serlit, “Come on! Let’s play with them!”

Serlit, more polite, looked at Enli. Had she then become his mother, until his mother returned from sunflashing? Apparently she had.

“Yes, go play.” Essa bounded off, Serlit following more slowly. When they were gone, Enli said to Sparil, “Tell me what has happened in Gofkit Shamloe since … since shared reality went away.” He was the right person to ask, not Ano. Sparil would tell it honestly and austerely. Ano would add too many details, too much feeling. Enli had had enough feeling.

Sparil looked uncomfortable. But it wouldn’t occur to him not to share reality, no matter how much his skull ridges wrinkled. Pek Sikorski and Pek Gruber twisted their bodies on the rough log to listen.

“At first,” Sparil finally began, “we all stayed inside our houses. Everyone was afraid. And no one spoke much because … because we didn’t know how, without shared reality. People … thought different things. The only one who spoke much was Ano.”

Despite herself, Enli smiled. Nothing could shut up Ano.

“We got hungry,” Sparil said simply, “so people came out. But some … were not right in their brains. They just sat and rocked back and forth. Others were not wrong in their brains, but they wouldn’t go to the fields to harvest. They were too afraid. They ate, but they wouldn’t work, and other people got angry.”

Afri, for one, Ano guessed. No wonder Sparil was anxious that Enli’s visitors be good workers.

“One day we went to the fields, except for a few people, and some unreal people came. They were taking things, burning things, killing things. Gostir Pek Nafirif and his family were in their hut.” His kind, plain face sagged under his agitated skull ridges. “We had the farewell burning for them all, and then Calin said we should build the fence.”

Calin. With effort, Enli kept her skull ridges smooth.

“Two other families left,” Sparil continued, “Udi Pek Giffiliir and Laril Pek Broffir. They went to other relatives. And some other people came, who live now in those houses. Plus Morfib Pek Chandor, who mated with Afri.”

There was that name again. Enli must warn Essa not to laugh.

“That’s all,” Sparil said. But Enli knew that it wasn’t. There was a piece of reality Sparil wasn’t sharing.

“Sparil—”

He said quickly, “O, and Pek Gruber, you and your mate can have Laril Pek Broffir’s house. It’s still empty. Are those youngsters, ah, yours?”

Pek Sikorski smiled at the mannerly absurdity. Enli realized that it was the first time she’d seen her smile since shared reality went away. Pek Sikorski said, “No, Pek Trestin. Essa is in Enli’s care. Serlit is only with us until his mother comes for him. She’s a sunflasher. May I ask, if the petals unfold for your answer…”

Sparil looked slightly bewildered. Pek Sikorski had learned her World in the Household of Voratur, richer and more formal than Gofkit Shamloe. Her elaborate speech scared Sparil a little. But when the silence had stretched on, he seemed to realize what he was supposed to say. “You may ask,”

“Has Gofkit Shamloe received any messages from your sunflasher about how shared reality went away?”

“Our sunflasher left the village,” Sparil said. “He was Gostir Pek Nafirif.”

So no message could reach Gofkit Shamloe, and the chain would be broken. If Ivi Pek Harrilin had sent Pek Sikorski’s explanation sunflashing from the capital, it might not have gotten very far at all. World would not hear about the object that had perfumed the air with shared reality and then rose away into the sky. The villages would have to cope with unshared reality on their own, as Gofkit Shamloe was trying to do.

“Look,” Pek Sikorski said suddenly, and slowly raised her arm to point at her own face. A lifegiver had perched there, one of the tiny flyers that carried life from blossom to blossom. Sacred to the First Flower, they were revered all over the World. They alit on people’s arms, legs, bodies. But never, until shared reality went away, on their heads.

Pek Gruber said in Terran, “You were right. They are sensitive to the altered brain electricity.”

“Sparil,” Enli said, because it had to be said, “there is a piece of reality you are not sharing with me.”

His skull ridges darkened to a dull red. “Enli…”

“Please.”

Pek Sikorski rose, “We need to control Essa. Come, Dieter.” He looked at her blankly. Finally Pek Sikorski said in Terran, “Private family matters!”

“Oh,” Pek Gruber said, getting to his feet.

Eyen Pek Sikorski did not understand all of World. Family matters were village matters. But Enli let the Terrans go. “Sparil?”

“It’s Obora,” he blurted. “You know how noisy and wild she’s always been, Enli, getting into everything…” He looked bewildered by this oldest daughter, as well he might, so different from obedient Fentil and placid baby Usi. So different from Sparil himself.

“I know,” Enli said. “What has Obora done?”

“She struck Solor Pek Ramul, and he fell into the fire.”

Enli gasped. Solor Pek Ramul was the village’s ancient piper. He had played music for dancing on the green every evening for as long as Enli could remember. Doddering, sometimes unclear in his mind, he nonetheless played music so sweet it was like the scent of flowers. To strike him, to knock him into the fire …

She managed to get out, “Did Pek Ramul join his ancestors?”

“No. In fact, he was only burned a little, on one arm. Calin was there and dragged him right out and threw water on him.”

Calin again. “Why did Obora strike him?”

“She wanted him to pipe some song he didn’t want to pipe. They didn’t … share reality about the song. She didn’t mean to hurt him, Enli. You know how Obora is. She lost her temper and lashed out, but she caught Pek Ramul off balance, and he’s so old … her soul wilts over what she did. But some people in the village don’t … don’t share that reality.”

“Has … has Obora been declared unreal?” If she had, she was now dead.

“That’s just it!” Sparil cried. “No one knows what to do! How can you declare someone unreal when there is no shared reality? No one can agree what to do!”

Relief flooded Enli. Obora was still alive, not dead with her body imprisoned in chemicals to prevent its decay and her joyous return to her ancestors. Still alive.

“Where is she now?”

“With Ano at the harvest. No one knows what to do. But tonight everyone will gather on the green to … to talk about the reality.”

Which always before had needed no talk, had been shared without dissension.

Suddenly Sparil cried, “Everything is different, and no one knows what to do!”

Enli didn’t answer. She didn’t know, either.

She sat watching Essa chase Serlit on the green, and tried to think what to say to comfort Sparil. Before she could find the unimaginable words, the harvesters burst into the village and Enli was in Ano’s arms, and Ano was laughing and crying in that way only Ano had, and Enli was finally home.

*   *   *

The large log had been left on its side near the unfinished fence, and Dieter Pek Gruber, with his enormous strength, had hauled up two more, less large, from the riverbed. The three logs made a loose triangle in the darkness. In the middle was a fire, but it was hardly needed in the night already bright with five of World’s six moons. Enli had heard Pek Gruber say to Pek Sikorski that he wanted to give his powertorch to the village as a present, but Pek Sikorski had said, “Wait on that. Don’t go too fast.”

Everyone in Gofkit Shamloe sat on the logs or stood behind them. Ano held Usi, asleep in her lap, with Fentil huddled beside her and Sparil standing with a protective hand on her shoulder. The new villagers were there, and bad-tempered Afri with her new mate, and Calin, and the girls Enli had played with as a child, now grown with mates from other villages and children of their own. Essa and Serlit crouched, even Essa quiet, on the evening grass. The two Terrans hovered in the background, behind everyone else. At one end of the log, well away from Ano and Sparil, sat old Solor Pek Ramul, his burned arm swaddled in cloth treated with healer’s salve.

Alone in the middle of the circle Obora sat cross-legged on the grass.

She had gone there on her own, uninstructed by anyone because no one knew what to instruct. This had never happened before in living memory, in the passed-down history of Gofkit Shamloe, in the history of World. Always shared reality knew what to do with people who had behaved unreal, as Obora had. Sparil’s despairing cry echoed in Enli’s mind:
“How can you declare someone unreal when there is no shared reality?”