Singer from the Sea (40 page)

She spent hours watching the sea. The captain, who noticed her boredom, gave her a copy of the chart of islands and suggested she amuse herself by modifying the coastlines as required as they flew over.

“They change a little, all the time, as the ocean rises,” he said.

“Why does everyone say the Inundation is over?” asked Genevieve. “It’s obviously not.”

“For the most part it is. There are no more polar icecaps, not above the ocean, but we believe there is some ice left in caverns at the poles. We don’t expect it to rise much farther, but it’s still useful to modify the charts.”

When they flew low, she could see shadows moving in the water, the shapes of great sea creatures, and sometimes
she even saw them at the surface, though always from afar. When Genevieve searched the sea’s surface through her glasses, she occasionally saw a pool of that same glowing gold she had seen in Merdune Lagoon, and at night she sometimes wakened to the sound of singing, a deep and urgent melody, like the song a mountain might sing. With other persons so close around her, she made no attempt to answer. Aufors, queried, said he didn’t hear it. She didn’t ask anyone else.

One day Genevieve and Aufors were on the tiny deck while one of the men was fishing, his line tied to a strut. Something huge caught hold of the line and pulled. The ship tilted to one side; Genevieve and Aufors also fell across the railing where they clung, hanging over the side, staring down at an enormous creature below, one with shining hide and a huge maw that held the line in its teeth. The ship heeled violently with each twitch.

Genevieve leaned out over the sea, hearing it call to her. She loosed one hand and reached out, rising on tiptoes, feeling herself diving …

The shipman was clinging to a post, yelling. Aufors braced himself against the rail as the deck tipped toward the vertical and slashed at the line with his dagger. The taut line twanged away; the ship righted itself; Aufors grabbed Genevieve as the Captain came raging onto the deck to find out what had happened.

Genevieve was still bent over the railing, still feeling herself plunging through the air, arms extended over her head, diving … diving. There were people in the sea, struggling around the wreckage of a ship, trying to get a huge door open while waves washed around them …

“Jenny, get away from that railing,” Aufors cried, pulling her away. “What is it?”

She shook her head, her vision dimming. “It’s … it was a very big fish, wasn’t it?”

“All this excitement,” said Aufors with a forced smile belied by his extreme pallor. “Come away from there.”

She accompanied him, confusedly trying to sort out her feelings. Twice now she had felt that call from the sea. Twice she had seen the people in the waves, struggling. Something that had happened, or would happen. She said
nothing to Aufors. He was already upset, and her confusion would only make it worse.

“What did the thing look like?” the Tribunal officer wanted to know, at the dinner table, though he asked Aufors, not Genevieve. He made it a point never to speak to Genevieve.

Aufors did his best to describe it. “Like a fish, I think. But very, very large.”

“The seas are full of huge beasts,” said Delganor. “The Frangían sailors have cataloged a great many of them.”

No further incidents of the kind occurred. They woke one morning to find themselves being circled by sea birds, and shortly thereafter they intersected the line of islands, tiny ones, then one larger and greener—the final one in the chain, said the Captain—and beyond it the low dark line upon the sea that marked the edge of Mahahm. They sailed over a flurry of white lace where the ocean surged upon outlying rocks, and then across a bay that stretched deep and blue and empty except for a two-masted ship anchored beside a jetty leading to a small, high-walled enclave.

“The Frangían enclave,” whispered Genevieve to Aufors. “Where the supplies from Haven are delivered.”

Aufors examined the coast. Aside from the Frangían boat, there was nothing on the sea or the coast: no swimmers, no fishermen.

“I should think they would fish that bay,” the Marshal said in a puzzled voice.

“There is no shallow water and the monsters lie just off shore,” Delganor announced. “Not the biggest ones, of course, but even the smaller ones are fearsome.”

The shore itself was barren, pierced here and there with tall, slender watchtowers, like nails fastening the land to the sea. A scattering of black tents marked the tide line, where sheep grazed upon piles of dark seaweed. Beyond the shore stretched a narrow line of dun-gray dunes, then the dun-gray city of Mahahm-qum—ghost-painted here and there with shadow tints of blue and rose—and beyond that nothing but angular rocky hills interrupted by flowing dunes to the limit of their vision. They lowered the ship on a rocky plain a kilometer from the sea, less than half
a kilometer from the low town whose tallest structure, a tower covered with faded blue tile, was perhaps twenty meters tall.

No one came to help them moor the ship. Evidently this was expected, for shovels and sheets of canvas were dropped onto the ground, men slithered down swaying ropes to shovel sand onto the sheets, running ropes through loops around their edges to form sandbags that weighed them down. Solar-powered pumps compressed the gas into cylinders, and the gas bag dwindled in size and buoyancy. Other men went down, other bags were filled, until at last the ship could be winched down upon them, a flaccid fowl upon her eggs. The cargo balloon was similarly diminished and fastened down. A short gangway was dropped. They could clearly see the town and tower baking under the hot, yellow sun. The town, seemingly, did not see them.

They waited. The communications man flashed his mirrors at the walls and, when this drew no response, ran out a line of flags. Neither attempt drew any reaction from the town. The sun made a furnace of the sand. Those who had gone outside came in again, under the shade of the gas bag.

“The best thing to do,” said Delganor, “is simply to wait. Any show of impatience will only gratify them.”

Genevieve sat in her chair and stared at the city she had already seen in a vision or a dream. The actuality was, if anything, less attractive than her preconception. Walls and roofs were built of mud. Most buildings were only one story high with barrel-vaulted roofs, some few with groined roofs, fewer yet with wind burnished walls or domes, covered with faded tiles. The taller buildings had projecting beams at the level of the floors. The beams were of Danian cedar, one of the ship’s men said in answer to Aufors’s query, one of the items purchased by the Mahahmbi from Haven. The towers were laid up in circles of mud brick broken by upward spiraling arches that revealed the steps twining around the inside. At the tops were peaked pavilions of poles and faded fabric, also sand worn and tattered, though the banners flying above them bore blazing yellow suns on fields of utter black.

Genevieve had fallen asleep by the time a group straggled
from the city gate and approached the ship, most of them carrying long, woven mats with handles at the sides. One of them led a huge, wallowing lizard with tall fins on its back. Aufors, masked and gloved, went out to talk with them. When he came back and took off the mask, his expression was grim.

“What?” barked the Marshal.

“Sir, they are laying a mat at the foot of the landing ramp. We are to step down on it. Another will be put in front of that, and as we move forward, the one behind will be picked up and brought front. We are not to soil their country by setting foot on the soil of Mahahm.”

The Marshal stared out the port, calculating. “It’ll take hours for all of us to get into the city that way.”

“We don’t go into the city. The house we arranged for is by the city wall; they’ve cut a door through the wall directly into it. We are not to set foot in the city, not even on mats.”

“It will still take hours for all of us.”

“I think their idea, sir, is both to make our visit inconvenient and to restrict the number who go. Of course, the fewer we are, the more helpless we are.”

“Damn it, Aufors! There are other non-Mahahmbi here. They aren’t outside the walls.”

Delganor had listened to this interchange with an expression of lofty disinterest. He descended from his height to comment, “The Shah has seemingly chosen to take umbrage at us. They don’t like outsiders breaching their conventions.”

“Conventions?” barked the Marshal.

“Of which there are many,” said the Prince, turning to peer out at the clutter of men and mats.

“This is intolerable,” said the Marshal, with an angry glance at the Prince’s back. “What do you think Colonel?”

“I think it’s all hokum, Sir, done for effect. It’s an attempt to set us at a disadvantage, as was their suggestion we hire malghaste servants.”

The Marshal hooted. “Then we shan’t let them get away with it. I think the Prince, the Invigilator, and I should insist on seeing the house, and when we return, if anyone
goes, we’ll all go, including the grav-sleds with our cargo. While we’re gone, all of you get into those suits we brought, the cloaks and the gloves and the metal visors. I don’t want a square centimeter of skin or hair showing on anyone when we get back.” He turned to the Prince with a peremptory expression. “Your Highness, let’s attend to this.”

The Prince, seeming slightly amused by this usurpation of command, did as was suggested, the Invigilator following along without change of expression. From inside the lock, Genevieve could hear the interchange.

Her father: “Nonsense. Who would bring a woman to a place like this? It is not fit for women. Take us to the house we are to occupy. No, there won’t be any others getting off the ship until we’ve seen the house. If we don’t like it, we’ll go away.”

They went, Prince and Marshal and Rongor looming over the furtive shapes in cloaks and veils, off toward the small gate in the city wall. There was a recently built guardhouse at the gate—the mud bricks darker and rougher than those smoothed by incessant shore winds.

“What’s that lizard thing the man is leading?” Genevieve whispered to one of the cargo handlers.

“According to the envoy, that’s how people move around during the hottest times of the day. The beast is called a harpta. It will lower those fins at command, and you can walk in the shade.”

“That beast is huge! It could easily crush anyone walking beside it,” she whispered. “I think it would serve to discourage travel. Which is no doubt’ the point of the exercise.”

After a time the three Havenites came through the distant gate and stalked arrogantly toward the ship, looking over the heads of the mud-colored mob that gathered and roiled like dirty water. Delganor and Rongor stayed on the sands, speechifying to the Mahahmbi delegation while the Marshal came aboard.

“All right. Now we go out in full array, all masks in place, please, everyone gloved. Aufors, keep your wife with you, and come about fifth in line, heads up, please, and lengthen your strides as much as you can.” He turned

to the others. “Ignore the mats. They’ve made their attempt at embarrassing us, now we ignore it. The grav-sleds come last. Get the cargo inside the walls—there’s a open area there—drop your loads and return to the ship with the empty sleds. Captain, I’m trusting you to keep everything stowed and ready, just in case we have to leave in a hurry.”

When the Marshal gave the word, they poured down the ramp, pointedly ignoring the men with the mats as they marched directly across the sands. The lead men brushed the guards out of the way as they went past the barrier, down a short tunnel cut through the city wall, through a new iron-bound door, and into a scorched courtyard with empty pots around its edges and a dry fountain at its center.

A ground floor and upper story surrounded this vacancy on three sides, the city wall closed it on the fourth. They had been told the place would be furnished. It was not furnished. No matter, said Aufors, there are furnishings among the cargo, all cunningly designed to unfold and expand. Except for being under a roof and among walls, it was just like setting up camp, something most of the men had a long practice at doing.

Aufors spoke to three of the men, and then, so quickly it was almost a miracle, Genevieve had a room of her own upstairs, a bed, a desk, her books, a view through the open door, though only of the seared atrium below. It was done so neatly, with so little fuss, that it made her want to cry. She did cry, with the door shut so no one would hear. This was a terrible place. The only improvement over the airship was that one had more cubic feet of stifling air to oneself.

T
HEY MADE A DESERT CAMP OF THEIR FIRST EVENING IN
Mahahm, with some men snatching sandwiches while others huddled over the dry well, talking on the link to the ship. Several of them went out, past the barricade, returning with one of the grav-sleds and something bulky atop it which they maneuvered over the top of the well. A blinding light erupted from below the device, followed by a rushing sound, then steaming muddy water welled up the shaft, overflowing the housing, running away through the door and tunnel, past the guardhouse and under the barricade, toward the sea, while the Mahahmbi guards danced wildly to escape being boiled about the feet.

“How did you do that?” Genevieve asked Aufors, when he brought his mud-stained self to the door to see if she had survived the geyser. “How did you get water in the well?”

“I modified one of the laser cannons from the ship. Made a decent mining drill out of it, didn’t I?”

“Where’d you learn that?” she asked, astonished.

“Soldiers have access to cannon, Jenny. Once you’ve done field repairs on a few, they lose their mystery, off-planet technology or not. I may not know how all of the parts work, but I know which ones go where. Anyhow, my digging about in the archives told me there’s an underground
river below us. All Mahahmbi towns are on the sites of former oases, and all oases had subsurface water; some of them even had pools at the surface. The subsurface water is still there, and from the long, narrow shape of the town, I’m guessing most buildings are drilled into it.”