Singer from the Sea (8 page)

And whom might one chit-chat with? One’s friends from school, who could be invited to come visit for a fortnight or a season. One’s parents or siblings, if any. One’s children if one had any and if they and oneself lived to a conversational age. Everyone seemed agreed that women should talk as little as possible, in order not to offend.

Or, Genevieve thought as she stood in her open window staring out at moonlit trees, one might simply have a tower room, above it all, where talking was unnecessary. When she imagined her future, Genevieve equipped it with a tower room, one even higher than this, above the clouds,
where the night music would sound clearly and she could sing at the top of her lungs without being heard. This dream was slightly confusing, for if she wanted to be separated from humanity’s troubles, why did she read the librarian’s periodicals? It was puzzling.

D
URING THE HUMAN DISPERSION FROM
O
LD
E
ARTH, A SUR
prising number of habitable worlds were discovered more or less by accident. Haven was a typical example. Te Ma-tawaka Whetu, the largest ship in the Ark Fleet from Old Earth, blew a modulator while transiting a worm hole and was expelled through an unexpected nexus. The ship emerged too near Haven to avoid discovering the planet rather more violently than the crew would have preferred. Te Matawaka Whetu, which had been headed toward another planet in quite another direction, was pulled into a rapidly decaying planetary orbit that ended with the ship crashing into the worldwide ocean where it soon broke up and eventually sank, though not before the crew escape pod was launched along with the Mayday beacon array.

The site of impact was between two landmasses—the only two landmasses—near an arc-shaped isthmus where the escape pod came to rest with all its emergency supplies intact. Some of the wreckage washed up on the smaller continent to the south, as well as upon a number of islands.

Even under the press of disaster, the experienced captain had included in the Mayday signal the fact that the planet was habitable but uninhabited. This guaranteed the rescue of the survivors, for any habitable world was worth at least one rescue mission. When the rescuers arrived they
found the crew safe and well, through they could find no significant remnant of the ship, which was listed as having sunk together with all cargo and the cargo handlers. The planet was subsequently registered for settlement—along with several others that the rescue ship located in the immediate area—and when it was officially surveyed by the Office of Planetary Settlement it was Usted as having two continents connected by the mountainous isthmus, plus some thousands of islands.

The land area was too small to tempt most investors, though nearby planets discovered by the rescue mission were settíed rather soon: Dephesia by a farming society; Chamis by a group of terraformers; Barlet’s World by a group of militant greens; forested Ares by veterans of the final lebensraum wars among Earth, Luna, Mars, and the Jovian moons that had left all of them uninhabited and uninhabitable. Eventually the exorbitant claim fee for Haven was paid by a small consortium of wealthy men who wished to retire from Urbana-eight, a planetoid which they had much profited from gutting, to something more natural and charming. The group did not care that Haven’s land area was small. They preferred it that way, as it would be more exclusive. Easier, so they said, to keep out the riff-raff.

As many wealthy world-buyers did, they recruited craftsmen, farmers, and skilled workers of all kinds who were willing to immigrate in return for employment and land. Young, healthy candidates for wifehood were also recruited, and the world, named Haven, was thus furnished with useful citizens and several social classes even prior to occupation.

Haven, the world, was profoundly wet. Haven, the larger continent, was a great basalt pillar jutting above the worldwide ocean like a titanic tub, its walls feathered with sea birds whose ancestors had escaped from the sinking Ark ship, its rim raised above the reach of the wildest storms. The western half of the continent cupped to hold a huge freshwater puddle filling what was left of the ancient caldera. This lake, soon named Havenpool, was deep and fertile and full of fish, the extensive swamps and mires
along its eastern edge serving as a nursery for all kinds of water creatures, native and introduced.

Havenpool was ringed about with mountain ranges. A man on the northwesternmost of the Seawall Mountains could stare northeastward across the Great Fall, where Havenpool fell into the sea, to the heights of the Northern Knot and, if he turned clockwise, he would see mountains on every horizon, all of them formed by that ancient mother-of-all-volcanoes that had become the continent itself.

Haven’s provinces were Upland, northernmost, atop the high cliffs; south of that was High Haven, the Royal holding that included the seat of the Lord Paramount at Ha-venor, Dania like a fat “J” hung below High Haven, with Langmarsh to the west along the shore of Havenpool, and Merdune to the east. Sealand stretched along the west shore of Havenpool to the cliffs above the world-ocean; Barfezi ran along the south of the continent, with the province of Frangía sticking out below like a rude tongue. Merdune was on the eastern side of Haven, where the land sloped downward from the Eastrange Mountains to the very edge of the sea, as though an enormous tooth-grooved bite had been taken out of the continent. Merdune boasted the only real seashore on Haven, one that stretched the length of shimmering Merdune Lagoon, a saltwater bay almost as large as Havenpool.

Very early after settlement, a dispute had arisen between a particular nobleman and the Covenant Tribunal, the ultimate religious authority of Haven. Though many considered this a minor matter, a question of interpretation, the nobleman had subsequently marched with all his followers down the land bridge to the smaller landmass, which he named Mahahm. As the polar ice continued melting, a process that had been going on at least since the planet was discovered, the isthmus became a widely separated string of rocky islands, the Stone Trail, and regular contact between the two landmasses was lost. Though the Lord Paramount at Havenor was still titled “Ruler of Mahahm,” the Mahahmbi were known to refer to him less cordially.

The thousands of islands scattered singly and in clusters
all around the globe were entirely unexplored by the Ha-venites. The seas were dangerous and there was little reason to go seeking out relatively small specks of dry land, many of which had been covered by the sea since colonization. According to the surveyors, the Inundation should have finished long ago, but seemingly there was still ice to melt, as the rising shorelines of the Stone Trail and the Merdune Lagoon well certified.

All native animals were amphibious. There were no native birds, though the so-called siren-lizard soared and sang, filling a bird’s ecological niche. The only purely land-dwelling creatures—as well as real birds—were exotics brought in by the settlers, everything from cattle to lap dogs to butterflies and peacocks.

The men who purchased Haven desired a world of privilege, culture, and peace. Technology had facilitated the total urbanization of Old Earth, an event which had only briefly preceded its strange demise as a viable world, and technology, the settlers felt, should be eschewed in the interest of tranquility. In tranquil societies, nothing changes very much or moves very fast, if at all, and the buyers yearned for this leisurely pace. They deified tradition. They forbade invention. They adopted an hereditary monarchy and, for the nobility, a state religion: pseudo-Judaeo-Muslim-Christian-monotheism with accretions. The wealthiest man among the settlers became the first Lord Paramount, his colleagues became the lesser lords, the dukes of the seven provinces. Their children became the earls and viscounts of the counties within those provinces, and their children became the barons of the estates within those counties. Each county—some forty of them—was allowed an assembly of citizens, variously constituted, who elected or selected a minister to the provincial council, and the provincial councils elected representatives to the Lord Paramount’s Council of Ministers, a group charged with oversight of interprovincial matters such as the maintenance of roads and bridges or the location and support of schools and medical services for the million or so citizens of Haven.

Preservation of the belief system which supported the tranquil, unchanging culture of Haven was the particular
duty of the scrutators, who reported to the Invigilator, an officer of the Tribunal, the body that assured the continuation of the traditions of Haven. Thus, as Haven had started, it continued: a peaceful, changeless, easy kind of a place, where sound basic education, excellent sanitation, advanced medical care, and adequate diets contributed to long life spans for most of a populace ruled by, so everyone among the ruling class agreed, a conservative but well-intentioned aristocracy.

S
OUTH OF
H
AVEN, ON THE MINOR CONTINENT OF
M
AHAHM
, Shah Arghad rose early on the third morning of the Time-of-Renewal, a thrice-yearly holy time during which aspirants for elevation were examined for their faith. The first two days of the examination had been conducted by trusted associates in the annex. Though the Shah seldom left the comfort of the palace, his presence at the second stage of the examination was obligatory. No candidate brought by an aspirant might go to the place of reward without being individually selected and blessed by the Shah. No sacred substance might be dispensed to the aspirants except from the Shah’s own hand, making the sole source of all such rewards abundantly clear.

Ybon Saelan, the Shah’s most trusted minister, was waiting in the anteroom, already clad in the robe of blessings.

“May your life be extended beneath the everlasting sun,” murmured the minister, presenting the sacred goblet.

Upon the clear water floated a slight haze of fragrant dust, and the Shah drank the ritual draught quickly.

“May we all be so livened,” murmured the Shah, as he returned the goblet.

His serving men helped him into the royal cloak trimmed with the feathers of hunting birds. They pulled the insulated hood over his head. His horse was waiting
in the portico, heat dissipating straps of harpta-hide dangling from its belly-band, its skull protected by a foam helmet much like the one beneath the Shah’s hood. Though it was cool now, in a few hours the desert would be a furnace.

“Are the aspirants assembled?” the Shah asked.

“They await Your Effulgence,” murmured the minister.

The Shah mounted his horse, one of only half a dozen on Mahahm, a symbol of royal authority no less than the golden dome of the palace, the prostrations of his servitors, the length of his reign, all by the will of the Great Sun whose son was the Shah himself. The gates were swung open and he rode at a slow walk into the outer courtyard where the two files of black-robed aspirants were mustered.

Their faces were stern and still, as befitted aspirants. Each pair bowed low as Ybon Saelan pronounced their names and the Shah passed between them. There were fifteen men in each file, and as he reached each pair the Shah inclined his head, intoning, “As the Fire of Heaven wills.”

The outer gate swung open as he led the aspirants into the street, where the procession was arranging itself around seven giant harpta lizards, the last one bearing basket panniers, the other six walking between lines of white-veiled candidates. Each candidate was to be accompanied by one of the aspirants from the courtyard or, if the aspirant was infirm, that aspirant’s delegate. In the half dozen cases where this applied, the aspirants were already placing the hands of their delegates—often a son or younger brother—upon the head of the candidates while reciting the ritual transfer of responsibility to the younger men. When all was orderly, the minister led the black-clad participants in reciting the oath of the ritual masters, the solemn words confirming that each understood his duties.

“How many stops?” the Shah murmured to his minister.

“Fifteen, Effulgent One. The runners have set the flags accordingly.”

“How many candidates?”

“Sixty, Your Effulgence.”

“Not enough.”

“All there are, Great One. We have examined the rolls carefully.”

“And none from elsewhere?”

“None this time, Great One. We anticipate there being several at the next Renewal.”

The Shah settled into his saddle. He knew what was anticipated. He knew what was here and now, as well. From somewhere nearby, a baby cried. He stiffened. The sound was quickly muffled. Very well. He took his place at the head of the procession, raised a hand, and ordered the assembly forward, riding slowly as the minister walked beside him.

Though he was impatient to get through the day’s ritual, it would do no good to spur the horse. At this hour, still chilled by the night, the harpta could move only slowly, their dual dorsal fins folded together, the intaglio tracery of blood vessels sunken within the fin-flesh. When the sun was a bit higher, the fins would separate slightly, allowing the sun to touch both sides, the veins would fill with blood to be warmed by the sun and to carry that warmth deep into the huge bodies of the beasts. Later, when it grew hot, the blood would be diverted from the fins into the moist belly-fringes of the beast, and the fins themselves would be lowered on either side to provide shade for the huge bodies beneath—and for the persons who walked there—while the long rows of evaporating belly-fringe conducted heat away from the bodies, keeping the creatures from overheating.

The first red flag was set just outside the city gate of Mahahm-qum; the next one gleamed along the edge of a dune. As they reached these, others would be seen, marking the way.

An hour’s slow ride from flag to flag brought them to the first patch of holy growth. The Shah raised his hand for a halt, turned and rode silently back along the line. The masters had arranged themselves between couples of candidates, and the Shah pointed randomly at two of the heavily veiled candidate-master trios. Each candidate couple knelt to receive a silent blessing from the Shah before each ritual master guided his candidates to the vegetation and demonstrated how the holy growth was to be sheared
off close to the ground, how every scrap of it was to be placed in the baskets.