The Braided World (12 page)

She remained silent. His attention was taken by the glowing tank, with its pulses of green and purple photophorics that threw spots of odd color on Oleel's face. The plants might have been kelplike growths, except that they bulged in places.

“Do you like my fish, Venning?” Oleel gestured to her tank.

Nick had not quite seen fish there yet, but there was plenty of room for them to hide amid the plants.

“Very nice colors.”

Oleel walked to the river side of the mezzanine, looking down. ‘And do you like your quarters with the king?”

“He gave us a roof when we needed shelter. Until our job is done and our visit is completed. But we meant no disrespect to—others.”

“Others
are upset.” She sat down on a riser. Because of the rushing stream between them, Nick had to strain to hear her words.

“It is customary,” she said, “when the chief judipon is infirm to allow the judipon to elect a younger man. Vidori does not allow such election. Thus the Third Power is weak, and the Olagong suffers.”

“We know nothing of these things, Lady.”

She went on, “It could be said that Vidori wishes to take another power, and that crippling the judipon with a man weak in pri makes them susceptible to royal commands.”

“You think the king has plans to seize further power.”

“I have not said so, Venning.”

“We have no views on these things, Lady We have our own goals: only to save our people and return to our home.”

“How can you save them by being away from them?”

Nick took a slow breath. She didn't know their story. And she must learn it. It was the only way she could believe they did not come in conquest. “Lady our people are sick and come in search of a promised cure.” There was no Dassa word for
sick
, so he used their term,
weak in pri
, or life currents.

“We made no promises.” Oleel's face was immobile. She had a way of speaking that used few muscles, giving the unsettling impression of ventriloquism. “We do not understand how a whole people can be
weak in
jm. Who can live without life current?”

“Someone did call us, Lady. Across the oceans of the sky. It came from those small moons.” He pointed upward.

“Made from metal,” Oleel murmured.

“Yes.”

“Fashioned by a thinking race,” she said.

“Is it wrong to think so?” But even the palace astronomers had long thought they were metal, not rock.

For a moment Oleel's face took on a gold tincture from the blooming of a biolume. “No, it is no sacrilege to think the Quadi could effect such wonders. They created the Olagong. And the Dassa. So your metal moons would not be so difficult.” She put her hand in the stream running across the porch, trailing her fingers. The stream continued to the edge of the mezzanine and spilled over, forming a waterfall.

“You look for chemicals to save you. Medicinals?”

“No, we think not. But we don't know what form their gifts to us will take.”

“Knowing so little, you chose to travel for years, far from home, perhaps to some disastrous end?”

He didn't like the sound of that last phrase, yet it was a fair summation. “We are that desperate.”

“You would not like to stay and inhabit the Olagong. With all our pri?”

Nick swallowed. “It would not save our people. We don't come for just ourselves. We must go home. We
will
go home.”

“I am glad to hear so.”

“Then I promise.” He thought this conversation was going very well. Oleel had just said she was glad. That was progress. If Anton had only seen how necessary it was to converse with the Dassa. All of the Dassa. Here was a woman concerned with possible expansionist motives of the newcomers. All very predictable.

“You think my pavilions fine, Venning?” Oleel had followed his gaze as he looked at the stone temple.

“I have seen nothing like it in Lolo.”

“It is built in the way of the Quadi. Like their first pavilion.” She rose, bidding him to follow her to the edge of the mezzanine.

Nick followed her lead, walking on his side of the floor stream, and looked down on the square below. No railings, in the customary Dassa building practice.

“See,” Oleel said, pointing. “The streams of our courtyard depict the dry season beds of the great braids. My compound depicts the sacred Olagong, with the highlands over there, and the major islets as quarters for my ladies. All as in the original compound, which the river has claimed.”

He nodded. “A fine layout. Very ingenious.”

She ignored this. “You may notice, my people do not favor building with quarry rock. Yet here is a compound entirely of stone. It is in honor of the Quadi way of stone huts, where the Dassa were brought to life and where the Quadi themselves lived before their efforts were shamed by the manifestation of the degenerates. So you can see how hard it is for us to believe that the Quadi offered to help you when you are degenerates of the same template.”

That was rather harsh, but it did not surprise Nick that she thought so—only that she had
said
so. “My lady—”

She cut him off. “You have in your midst a hoda raised up to high position. This would be the hoda Sen, who has, I have been told, a sharp tongue, and too much hair.”

Even though he despised Zhen, Nick didn't like this insult. “We have no concept of
hoda
, Lady We have abandoned slavery Women are not slaves.” He wanted to make that point clear in this society of women.

Oleel turned to watch the glass box of river plants. The ropy plantings were swaying with more agitation, as though nervous under her gaze.

“Sen is born to bear,” Oleel said, her face in profile taking on a green tincture from the water plants, which were in turn infused with sunshine from the open walls. “She may, even now, be growing bodies inside of her. You had permission to bring four humans to the Olagong. But how many did you really bring? How many might Sen bear?”

“Oh, Zhen is not pregnant,” Nick said, growing uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation.

“Do you promise?”

Nick opened his mouth to do so, then thought that it was unseemly for him to promise such a thing about Zhen, about any woman. And after all, he couldn't be absolutely sure of Zhen's sexual practices.

“I am sorry that you find Zhen disturbing. We keep her within the palace because of your wishes.”

“I
do not wish her to be in the palace, thankfully.” Oleel had now turned from her tank and fixed him with a rock-hewn stare.

Oleel nodded to one of her attendants, and the woman came forward with a small bowl. From this, the attendant distributed a powder along the surface water of the tank, then withdrew several paces behind Nick.

As the powder settled into the water, all undulations of the river plants ceased.

“Does it occur to you, Venning, the difference between your people and mine? That we thrive and you do not? That you use your women for incubation and they produce offspring that do not thrive?”

“Well, that's not—”

“Have you considered how flawed is the human practice? Does this thought occur while you rush around looking for the long-departed Quadi to have left gifts for you?”

Nick struggled mightily with his temper. “We hold our women in more honor than you can imagine.”

“You hold your women. That is my point. No one holds women in the Olagong.”

“Except that the hoda are held,” Nick said, locking cold gazes with the woman.

Oleel's mouth flickered with a smile. It was not attractive on such a stern face. But in the next moment, Nick's attention was diverted by the water tank. The bulges in the plants had taken on a blush of pink, faintly phosphorescent. Then the round growths began to split and disgorge a milky fluid. One after another, the pods expelled an effluvium
bearing seeds, small tadpolelike shapes. The dark specks drifted to the surface, collecting in a putrid murk.

Oleel glanced at the tank and its ruined plantings. “In the case of these specimens, their pri was imperfect. It was better that they burst than bear life.”

Nick was galled at her lecture, at her implied threats. He subdued his anger enough to murmur, “I regret we are not to have a proper conversation. Of respect.”

Oleel paused. Perhaps she had not expected him to acknowledge her rudeness. “Do you think, Venning, that the royal pavilion respects you?”

“Under the surface, everyone thinks their own thoughts.”

She nodded. “But few bring anger into a room? Which would you rather have, hidden or open?”

“Open anger can halt conversation, Lady.”

“Hmmm. I had not realized this.”

If she was playing with him again, he would surely leave.

“But now you know my heart,” she said. “I would have nothing come between us, such as hiding of true heart. You know that I abhor what you are. Now we can move to other things.”

“What other things?”

“Oh, whatever things you like.” Oleel's attention drifted back to her tank, and she said in a low tone, “But now we must cleanse this tank. Yes, somehow it has become ruined.”

As a hoda came to clean the tank, Oleel turned to him, saying, “Sometimes, it is possible for a degenerate to rise above shameful beginnings. Are you such a one, Venning?”

“I am what you see, Lady.” It was all he could think of to say.

“Oh yes. I do see.” She waved him away. “You will have more chances to rise. I will send for you.”

At last the uldia led him away. Nick was in turmoil, not knowing whether to be elated or furious. But, aside from
her bitter words, he had learned important facts today And they would speak again, of
other things.

He passed through a corridor where two uldia were embracing. His escort ignored them, but he frankly stared, as one woman put her mouth to the other's breast. There was no Dassa word for sex between two women, or two men. It was all the same, all sexual contact was sarif—the cordiality that bound them, and released them.

He tried to see it as social cohesion. But he was beginning to think he would never approve of it—not a value-neutral anthropological stance.

And now he was defying Anton. No, not neutral at all.

Anton was surprised at how fast Maypong could descend a steep ladder.

He hurried down corridors and ramps as fast as was seemly in the king's pavilion, and Maypong hurried to catch up. As he strode toward the great river steps forming the entrance to the king's pavilion from the Puldar, he tried to formulate a plan.

The king was boarding a lavish barge. Anton had seen this from a rooftop where he'd chanced to glimpse the preparations. If the king was going out, Anton was going with him. If Vidori wouldn't allow him to go abroad alone, then he'd go in good company, even if it wasn't polite or respectful—words that described the manner in which Vidori was controlling him.

“Anton, you are not dressed for noble company,” Maypong said, finally catching up to him.

“Humans don't wear silk,” he said, using an aphorism he made up on the spot.

“The king has not made us his guests for the river audience.”

“Maybe he will when he sees me.” He was counting on Vidori's unfailing courtesy.

They had entered the huge reception hall that fronted
the king's compound and was open to the river through thick wood columns. A crowd was gathering here—nobles, soldiers, hoda.

Maypong caught at his sleeve, jerking him enough to get his attention. “So what will you do? Stand at the top of the stairs and look lonely?” Still breathing heavily from the chase he'd led her, she fixed him with a dark stare.

“No. I'm going to ask him if I can go along.” He turned and walked toward the porch.

“Which is very disrespectful.”

He kept going. “Which I can't know because I'm a foreigner.”

Anton approached the crowd. The wide expanse of stairs fell seven or eight steps straight into the river, as though made for a river god to ascend. The barge was drawn up, taking nobles on board, assisted by hoda.

As the crowd parted, Shim caught sight of him, eyes widening. She murmured in the king's ear, and Vidori turned to see Anton, who now stood with a considerable amount of empty space around him. Even Maypong had abandoned him.

He hadn't thought about what he would say, since he couldn't imagine what he would
need
to say His only plan was to pretend that he thought he was invited. It was brazen to do so, but for the first time Anton relished the idea of using his ignorance in his favor.

“I'm sorry I'm not dressed for the occasion,” he managed to say.

Vidori's forehead was wrinkled in some consternation. Waiting for some signal as to whether he was to be welcomed aboard or thrown into the river, Anton looked around as though admiring the barge.

Then the king smiled very broadly—his eyes not participating—and climbed a few stairs toward Anton. “You are late, Captain. Thankfully you have not missed us.” He waved Anton forward.

As Anton descended the stairs, he saw that Maypong had
made her way down and was whispering to Shim, no doubt sorting out the protocols involved with this unexpected guest.

The sky was high and stacked with cumulus clouds, a searing white against the soft blue of the morning. Ghosts of the clouds shimmered in the water, magically keeping their position in the swift current.

In another moment Anton was enfolded by guards, nobles, and the general bustle as the congregation crossed a ramp and boarded the barge. The craft bore a tent in the middle, its fabric billowing. A line of soldiers held long poles at the ready.

Maypong was at his side. “Say little. Do nothing,” she spat at him.

But he could hardly stay silent if the king spoke to him. “Think of it as a learning opportunity,” he said. “You've said I need to learn.”

Her face was calm, too calm. He knew he'd have to mend some rifts with the woman. And with Vidori. He needed to make a point, but keep a friend—if an alien monarch could be considered
a friend.
Nick wouldn't like to hear that word, but Nick was no politician. Anton had never realized that aspect of the captaincy, the push/pull of leadership and diplomacy. Well, today was
push.