Sideshow (46 page)

“These are not kin to your beast, are they!” It wasn’t a
question, for he already knew the answer. Jory’s beast had something of the mythical about it, something of the ultimately strange. The dragon shapes that had departed were real beings. Not human at all, but flesh and blood nonetheless. Scales and fangs too, no doubt, but simple flesh for all that.
“No, Curvis, they are not kin to Great Dragon,” she said, looking up at him from brimming eyes.
“These are no doubt what we were sent to investigate,” he said firmly, ignoring her grief. From what he had overheard, the old woman thought something had happened to Fringe. So long as it had not happened to Danivon, Curvis would not allow himself to be upset.
“No doubt,” she said, drying her eyes.
“And you’ve always known who, or what, they are?”
“Always since I came to Elsewhere, yes.” She paused, exchanging a look with Asner. “If you are wise, Curvis, you’ll stop staring after them, stop pointing in their direction, stop behaving like a child at a zoo.”
“I suppose you’ll tell me why I should,” he snarled.
“Because it is not good manners, and the Arbai put a very high value upon good manners.”
He didn’t think he’d heard her correctly. He tried several different words in his mind, other words she might have said, finally muttering, “The Arbai?”
“The Arbai. All who are left of them.”
“What are they doing here?” he blurted, unable to keep his eyes from wandering to the place he had seen them last. “What in hell…. How did they get here?”
“Through an Arbai Door,” said Asner. “When the Brannigans first explored the shores of Panubi, they found an Arbai Door. They took it. It’s now at Tolerance, so I’m told.”
“There is one at Tolerance, yes, the one the twins came through,” agreed Curvis distractedly. “I don’t recall that it was originally found on Panubi.”
“There’s no particular reason you should have known,” Jory said. “At any rate, there was an Arbai Door here, and the Arbai came through it, running from the plague. They shut the Door behind them, or thought they did, though they must have left it open to some linkages because Asner and I came through it. We found the Arbai remnant here on Panubi. They were few, a fragment, believing they were still in danger from the plague, terrified of us for fear we’d brought it with us….”
“We were able to reassure them about that,” said Asner. “The plague was long over by then.”
“As a thank-you gesture, they invited us to stay if we liked. Later, when the first scout ships of the Brannigans were sighted, the Arbai moved into the center of the continent and built the wall to mark their own enclave, theirs by right of prior settlement.”
“But they didn’t take the Door with them?” demanded Curvis.
“They didn’t intend to use it again, so they left it where it was.”
“And you didn’t intend to use it, either?”
They didn’t answer.
“And the people?” Curvis nodded toward the people standing here and there on the hillside, among the buildings. “The humans?”
“Our people. People Asner and I have recruited to help us.”
“Help you do what?”
“Help us find out what was going on out there in Elsewhere. We ourselves were not always … available to travel about, asking questions. We’d become very worried about the people on Elsewhere, and no one else seemed to know what was happening, or care.”
“And you live here, you and the old man?”
“Just over that hill. Asner and I have a house there, and a garden.”
“And a meadow full of horses, and a porch with a rocking chair and a cat,” said Asner in a sarcastic tone. “All of which, though long coveted, are little used.”
“Where did the people come from?” Curvis demanded angrily.
“Either they or their parents were recruited from Elsewhere.”
“Like Cafferty and Latibor.” He gestured toward the two, standing beside them.
“We recruited them, yes. As children. Brought them here, and reared them.”
“For which we have always been thankful …” said Latibor.
“Interfering in the affairs of a province!” interrupted Curvis in a peremptory tone.
Jory shook her head at him. “Oh, Curvis, stop sounding
outraged. Cafferty and Latibor were babies left for dead, so it didn’t make much difference if we took them or not. I fished them out of the Fohm, if you must know! They got their webs removed later. We’ve only recruited children or young people who really wouldn’t be missed very much. People like Fringe.”
“Zasper would have missed Fringe!” Curvis’s words defended Zasper’s affections, though his tone said he thought it a foolishness to miss anyone.
“He would have, yes. We found that out. That’s why we left her in Enarae instead of bringing her here.”
Curvis much desired to be angry. He much desired to have something to be angry about. “If you’re so busy saving people, why didn’t you save Danivon as a baby? Why did Zasper have to do that?”
Jory shrugged. “It was one of those times we weren’t … available. Cafferty and Latibor couldn’t reach us. We didn’t even know they’d had a child—it wasn’t the smartest thing to have done, under the circumstances.”
“It wasn’t,” agreed Cafferty. “The threat to Danivon happened very suddenly. We did what we thought was best.”
“And it all worked out,” said Asner. “Sometimes things do work out.”
The sailors came down the plank, carrying the last of their baggage. Those ashore scarcely had time to say farewell before the ship had pushed off again and was out in midriver, moving downstream, the men at the sweeps crying their ceaseless “Hauu-lah, hauu-lah.”
“It seems I am to stay awhile,” Curvis muttered.
“As our guest,” said Jory. “Come, be our guest. Everyone be our guest.”
“Do I have a choice?” He stared around him, at the great trees—larger than any he had seen heretofore on Elsewhere—at the simple tile-roofed buildings clustered beneath them, at the grassy slope stretching up to a summit crowned with other structures: temples, perhaps, or monuments. The acropolis had a certain formality about it, a reasoned arrangement that spoke of ritual purposes: flights of wide stairs, pillars, porticos, and domes, each calling to each in a simplicity of completion. Above the building rose trees even larger than those at the riverside, looming giants whose enormous branches stretched over the structures like verdant clouds.
A human person came from the shade of these trees and moved rapidly down the hill toward them.
“What is that?” Curvis gestured toward the buildings on the hilltop.
“That is their center of government,” said Jory. “Such as it is.”
“Ah. Then I suggest we go there now and arrange for reinforcements to be sent to the aid of Danivon and Zasper.”
Jory shook her head slowly, ruefully. “You may ask, if you like, but it will do no good.”
“You mean they’re unfriendly?”
“They’re not at all unfriendly. They just won’t intervene in anything beyond the wall.”
Curvis considered this. Though he couldn’t find it in himself to care greatly about Zasper or Fringe or the twins, he cared a good deal about Danivon.
“I was a fool to let him go with the old man. I should have gone with him!” He turned a suspicious face on the surrounding crowd, receiving untroubled glances in return. It was obvious these people felt no awe for Enforcers, and this merely added to his irritation. “I’ll go to these Arbai and demand …”
The person, reaching the bottom of the hill, came toward them, hugged Jory briefly, then whispered rapidly into her ear.
Jory sighed. “It seems the Arbai are aware of your intent, Curvis, and they wish to forestall it. The current deciders are sending us a formal message.”
“Current deciders?” asked Curvis.
Jory said, “They are not a numerous people, and each of them takes a turn at the duty of deciding things. They’ll send one of our people as messenger.”
“What’s to keep us from going to them?”
“The fact they’ve told us to await a message. It means they don’t want to talk to us. Maybe they’re tired of hearing about it. Or possibly they’re annoyed with me.”
“Because of Thrasis,” said Asner. “Well, you knew they would be. You pushed the limits there, Jory.”
She shrugged, again with that rueful smile. “No doubt. Well, I think Asner and I will go home. You’re welcome to come with us.” She led the way across the open riverside into the trees, through the narrow neck of woodland, and out onto an open meadow where a small brown house crouched low to the ground. It seemed too small to house them all, but as they came closer, they saw a long wing extending from the far side.
“You’ll find rooms in the guest wing,” said Jory. “You, Curvis. And Cafferty and Latibor, and Alouez, of course.”
“In the guest wing,” said Cafferty with a glance at Latibor. “Of course.”
They went in through an open door, across wide-planked floors strewn with woven rugs, through the door in the corner and down a shining corridor where doors stood open into rooms for each of them, as though the house had known how many guests to prepare for.
“We’ll have lunch when you’re ready,” Jory called after them. “Have a wash, or a rest.”
Obediently, they went into their rooms. Curvis paused in the room only long enough to note that it held a bed large enough for even his giant frame. He dropped his baggage and went out the window, telling himself he would not be penned up in any structure until he knew what lay around it, how it could be defended, and how attacked.
Horses raised their heads and whickered at him as he passed, then went back to grazing. Behind the house a small building was home to the flock of birds that clucked and muttered, pecking at invisibilities in the soil. A little farther back, at the top of the rounded hill, he found two carved stones.
He read the inscriptions: “Jory, born Marjorie Westriding, Planet Earth, Sol system, twenty-second century of the common era. Master of the Hunt. Far-traveler. Prophetess emeritus.”
“Asner, born Samasnier Girat, Planet Ahabar, Bogar system, thirty-seventh century of the common era. Myth-eater. Missionary. Fellow far-traveler. Retired.”
Almost four thousand years had elapsed since Jory’s century and the current one. During most of that time she must have been in stasis between Doors. Like the twins. And Asner too. Curvis ran his fingers across the stones. He had seen such monuments before, prepared by old folks or their families, so the old ones could be assured of their own memorials. It was custom in a dozen provinces he knew of.
He returned to find food set out on a terrace-cum-porch, where Jory rocked slowly in her chair, a large black-and-white cat in her lap and a clutter of kittens at her feet.
Later they all went with Cafferty to pick fruit from the tiny orchard and sat eating it on the sun-warmed wall of the terrace. They drowsed in the peace of the afternoon. And finally they saw the same woman who had spoken to them that
morning come out of the trees at the bottom of the meadow and move slowly up the hill toward them.
“Well, comes the messenger,” said Jory. “To tell us what the Arbai have to say even though we already know what they have to say.”
Her matter-of-fact tone made Curvis simmer. He was still thwarted in his anger, not sure he knew why. Except … except that as an Enforcer he was accustomed to being in charge and he was not in charge. Not here. He wasn’t sure who was in charge. Not Jory, which somewhat surprised him. Not Asner.
“Patience,” said Latibor, noting Curvis’s heightened color. “No point in being annoyed.”
“I’m annoyed because if we’re going to get help for Danivon, we ought to get on with it. We Enforcers have a saying: ‘The right help helps, and enough help helps, but help that’s in time helps most.’”
Latibor shook his head, murmuring, “Curvis, I want to help Danivon as much as you do. Even though he’s a stranger to us, Cafferty and I can see in him the child we loved. We want to save him from harm, but there’s no way we can do it ourselves and we know the Arbai won’t.”
“We haven’t asked yet. At least,
I
haven’t!”
“Oh, yes you have. Believe me, the Arbai are aware of every thought you’ve had since you’ve been here.”
“… And here she is,” Jory said.
The woman held up her scroll and bowed. Jory bowed. They exchanged a few words in a sibilant tongue. Then the woman unrolled the scroll and began reading in the same language.
Cafferty murmured a translation: “The Arbai are aware that you would like to help your friends beyond the wall. The Arbai sympathize with your desires. The Arbai, however, have adopted a philosophical position that prevents the Arbai Device from—”
Curvis blurted, “The Arbai Device! Jory said there was no such thing on Panubi!”
“She really didn’t say that,” Asner corrected him in a hushed voice. “She merely questioned whether such a device could have coexisted with your vaunted diversity. There is such a device, but it is used only on this side of the Great Wall.”
“But….”
“Shhh,” said Cafferty. “Don’t interrupt, Curvis. They’re a patient people. They don’t mind my translating for you, but they’d consider interrupting their messenger to be abysmal bad manners.”
The woman finished her speech, rolled up her scroll, bowed, and departed down the meadow once more.
Cafferty said, “The message concluded thusly:
‘The people of Elsewhere chose to come here, chose to live in the manner of their ancestors, chose their gods, their rites, their way of life and death. We respect their choice and will not interfere with it.’”
Curvis shook his head, baffled.
Jory sighed. “You diplomatically left out the bit about Thrasis, Cafferty. The Arbai are quite annoyed about Thrasis. My argument is, of course, that the
women
of Thrasis had never chosen anything until I gave them a choice.”
“I don’t understand the problem about helping Danivon,” growled Curvis. “We’re not proposing to change anything in the provinces.”
“It should be very clear, Curvis. They won’t interfere anywhere in Elsewhere.”
“Even to save Danivon’s life?” demanded Curvis.
“Listen to yourself,” exploded Jory, her old voice trembling. “What was it you said to Fringe about Alouez? You were ready to turn Fringe in to the powers-that-be for interfering in Derbeck! What was it you and Danivon said about the child in the basket? Just the way things were, right? Nothing to get upset about. What was that argument in Molock about? What have you said repeatedly about diversity and the status quo? Only days ago you were snarling at Fringe for saying what you just said! What of your Enforcer’s oath? Is all that suddenly nothing?”
“But Danivon is one of us,” he cried angrily. “He’s an Enforcer. He belongs to us.”
“Almost without exception,” said Jory, holding on to Asner’s arm with all her strength, “everyone belongs to someone.”