The D’neeran Factor (67 page)

In a year Nlatee said to his sire, “With fire we might warm ourselves in winter, and the path to the land of the mountains of fire is not long.”

The path was discouraged by the Master of Chaos, however, and Nlatee's sire and all his sire's selfings and all the people sought to dissuade him. They said, “Who knows what will happen to us if you take that path?”

Nlatee on a night therefore broke open the winter stores and took what he needed, and he set out alone on the path to the land of the mountains of fire.

On a day of his journey the Master of Chaos came to him and said, “I see that you travel, Nlatee. Where are you going?”

Nlatee, because the Master had discouraged this path, answered, “I am going to the great river yonder, to steal fish from the persons who live there.”

“That is forbidden by treaty, Nlatee.”

“Then I will take care they do not catch me.”

The Master signified amusement, and disappeared.

Nlatee thought it would be best for the Master to see him no more; yet how could he not be seen? Who knows what the Master sees?

While Nlatee pondered this he saw a beast. He killed it and skinned it and while he ate its meat he said to himself, “This path is not discouraged to beasts. If I were a beast, the Master would not notice me.”

And so he put the skin of the beast on his shoulders and its horn on his head, and went on his way clothed in the hide of the beast.

Nlatee went on his way and the land was warm though it was winter, because he came near to the mountains of fire and they warmed all the land about them, so that green things flourished forever. He came to the mountains of fire and there he kindled a flame, and he returned with it to his land.

When his sire and all his sire's selfings and all the people saw that he had tricked the Master of Chaos and that no evil had come to them as a result, they took the fire and warmed themselves, and would have made Nlatee head huntsman. But Nlatee refused.

“I am going back to the land of the mountains of fire, and there I will bring forth my selfings and rear them,” he said.

“But why?” said all the people.

“It's warmer there,” said Nlatee, “and if the fire goes out you can rekindle it easily. I don't like it here any more.”

So Nlatee returned to the land of the mountains of fire where all was green forever, and in later years his descendants warred with the descendants of his sire's other selfings and with the descendants of all the people, and the descendants of Nlatee won because if their fires went out they could easily be rekindled.

And the Master of Chaos came, and signified amusement.

From her position deep in the interior of the habitat, Hanna could not see Luna or Earth or any stars; yet paradoxically, though she was confined and enclosed, her awareness of infinity outside grew and grew. She did not need to look out to see stars. They were there when she closed her eyes, rank on rank of them, blazing in spinning islands. Always deep space had drawn her, from the first; always her desire had led her there; she had commanded her first Jump at fifteen.
I
am an exopsychologist. That is what I do.
Being an exopsychologist was a fine excuse for straying on the edges of space. Was that the real reason for the paths she had chosen? The knowledge of her connection to the great void expanded daily, hourly it seemed. The universe was in motion, it vibrated, it shouted with joy, thunderous. She stood stock-still in a bare sealed room and listened to it. She was an arrow in the instant before release. She heard a great heart beating, and she would fly to it as to a homecoming.

On the very last day before launch, Starr Jameson came
to see her. It was day where he had come from; in Hanna's chamber, attuned to the rhythms of the
Far-Flying Bird,
it was night. A transparent barrier separated them, and there was dusk on her side of it. Rubee and Awnlee slept; Hanna heard them sleeping. She stood at the barrier and watched Jameson pretend to find her normal. It was hot inside the chamber, as it would be on the
Far-Flying Bird.
Hanna's concessions to Earthly convention were sloughing off one by one; she wore nothing but scraps of fabric molded round her breasts and hips, and her body distracted him. It was something to get a physical reaction from a man futilely desired for so long.

He talked dispassionately enough. He told her about all the precautions Contact and I&S had taken. It did not matter now that there would be no armed escort for the
Bird.
The course program was secure; it was more secure than any other knowledge in human space. All the anxiety had been over a rumor, a wisp, a nothing. He had come to reassure her so she would not be afraid.

That was considerate of him. Hanna listened, and thought that here was someone else who had taken blood from her. The fullness of the freely, generously given self was a memory; her love had gone wrong somehow; it had become thin and acid and if she let it would only leach the life out of her. After tonight she could put it far behind her. She was eager to be gone.

At the very last he said, “I will not see you again until you return. Rubee rejected the idea of a formal leavetaking.”

“I know. He wanted to be alone with Awnlee. They have spent much time in meditation.”

“So I hear. An attitude of prayer, I'm told.”

“Oh, no, it's not that.”

“No? I'm afraid I've never gotten it straight about the Master of Chaos. None of us have yet.”

“I wrote a paper about it.”

“But no one understood it.”

“I'll try again when I get back, or while I'm gone. But you must have understood that they don't worship the Master. They recognize his hand, they beseech him, they curse him—but they do not worship him.”

“That seems very wise of them,” he said.

Because he could not touch her to say good-bye, he put his hands against the barrier. She set her own, much smaller, against them. It seemed that a trick of dimension had set him far away. Before he went away finally, he turned to look at her once more. He hesitated. She saw herself just for a moment as he saw her: beautiful, unique, a creature who moved freely through strangeness and somehow always came back to being Hanna. He had known her for a long time, he had watched the shaping of her, and he was so used to her that the fresh perception of the moment surprised him profoundly. It seemed to her that he might come back.

Hanna turned away. She melted into the darkness of her chamber and did not sleep, and waited for the hour when she could come to the
Far-Flying Bird.

“There's the bastard,” Shen said after the last Jump. It brought them out close to Revenge, compensating for the season so that they were at the right place in the planet's orbit and even looking at its dayside. It was still a million klicks away, and they boosted magnification for a better view. Cloud and ice made it nearly all white; it reflected back the light of the determined star and never got warmer, it was ice and ice and ice. A surge in the sun's radiation might make it productive, that or terraforming. But nobody needed it badly enough to bother with terraforming. It was left to the People of the Rose.

“Got something on infrared,” Shen said. “Just vulcanization, though.”

Michael said, “
GeeGee.
Is it day or night at the settlement?”

“Night,” said his ship laconically.

“Check again when it comes around,” Shen said. She got up and stretched.
GeeGee
would handle the final approach. Michael stayed where he was, looking out at the sterile brilliance of Revenge. Presently he began to sing. It was a measured dirge.

Shen made a rude noise and disappeared. Michael sang on.

Lise unpeeled herself from the wall of
GeeGee
's control center. She was pink and gold, the walls and carpeting were the color of a ripe apricot, the light was faintly golden and suited Lise well. She belonged here; Michael and Shen, grim and dark, did not. No wonder he had thought of ravens. She came lightly to the seat Shen had left and dropped into it. She said, “Why doesn't Shen like the song? I like it.”

“It's a sad song.”

He leaned back and put an arm around her thin shoulders. She had gotten it into her head that he preferred grown-up women, and accepted him happily as a kind of older brother; though, “I will be grown up someday,” she had said.

“What are ravens?”

“Big black birds.”

“Like swans?”

“No, and what you're thinking of aren't really swans. They just call them that on Carrollis. Ravens aren't that big.”

“What did they have for breakfast?”

He turned his head and looked at the fresh, pretty face, into the bright blue eyes. He said gently, “They didn't have breakfast that morning.”

“It isn't good to be hungry,” she said seriously.

“I know.”

They sat in companionable silence for a time.
GeeGee
's motion was not perceptible, but Revenge was a little larger. Presently Lise said, “Why didn't Shen want me to come? This is fun.”

“She didn't want you to come because it might be dangerous.
She's right, too. If we hadn't left so fast, if I'd been able to think of anything to do with you, you wouldn't be here. I'm telling you right now that you're not getting off this ship until I tell you you can. Do you hear me?”

She looked rebellious, but she nodded. She said with a startling switch to adulthood, “What's all this about?”

“None of your business, little puss.”

“I will find out,” she said placidly.

“I bet you will.” He grinned, but quit at a vision of Lise in the hands of the man he hunted. She nestled in the crook of his arm, excited by her new status as a traveler. Once upon a time he had taken responsibility for Theo, and once again for Shen. A lump of defeat that could not be called a man. A madwoman who had tried to kill him for a handful of cash. This was different. But probably he would not be on Revenge anyway, Chrome-Maxwell-Pallin-Anyname.

Must have had a thousand names in thirty years. B they called him thirty years ago, just B. Saw him once in Shoreground later. Putting together the stake then. Looking for the chance. Knew it was Tonson, didn't know how. Thought about that, nothing else, wasn't room for more. Coming out of Flora's. Mind's not on your work, she said. Lady had complaints, Mike. Said you were bored. Sorry, won't happen again, pretty boring lady you know what I mean. Walked out and there he was. Looked at me straight. Knew me. Smiled I knew that goddamned smile take it off with his face with a blade if I see it again. Went round the corner, I
got there he was gone. Almost had him in my hands and he was gone.

“Mike? That hurts.” He looked down at Lise and saw pain in her eyes. His fingers clutched her shoulder too hard. He let go quickly.

“Sorry, puss. Didn't mean to do that.”

She said, dismissing it, “Can I watch the landing?”

“Sure you can.”

“When?”

“Later. When it's day there.”

She smiled, the ache in her shoulder forgotten. They watched Revenge come closer.

*   *   *

Michael knew what to expect of Revenge. Theo had not been there before; he began making noises of displeasure as soon as the
Golden Girl
came to a landing outside the
city of The Rose. It was early in autumn, but the red rock jutted in patches from a layer of ice; there were clouds over the city and it brooded bitterly under the gray ceiling. The city was scattered over the rocks instead of the snow-covered fields close by, as if the settlers had chosen to make things difficult for themselves. There were some seven hundred buildings, all low and making no use of the ubiquitous rock; they were premanufactured structures of varying ages and designs, some welded together, badly married. At the end of the descent they had seen people moving in the city, and the
Golden Girl
must have been seen also; in a place like this the ship could only be an object of wonder; yet they landed only half a kilometer from the nearest modules, and nothing moved outside them.