Watson, Ian - Black Current 01 (8 page)

 
          
"Is
that what it's really all about, then?
Emigration?"

 
          
"Oh,
come off it! Diving suits don't exactly come cheap or easily. Will you stop
pulling such gloomy faces? We should be celebrating. For the first time in
history something new has happened. We even know the depth of the black current
now. I'll bet that's something your own guild doesn't know."

 
          
"No
comment, Hasso."

 
          
"No
comment asked for, either. Let's stop fencing, shall we? I
like
you, Yaleen. Those few little queries I raised a year ago were
very much the second thing on my mind then. If not the tenth! And it was
you,
I'll remind you, who came looking.
. . ."

 
          
"Hmm."

 
          
And
presently we did continue on down the stairs together. Though both down in the
town itself and later on when we returned up the Spire, I was careful not to
seem to be sailing in the direction of
his
personal harbour. However, by then the real truth was that I hadn't drunk any
Safe
recently.

 
          
The
next day again dawned bright, as usual at this time of the year; though perhaps
it would cloud over later.

 
 
          
And
the light winked from the same location.

 
          
The
message went:

 
          
Made contact.
Woman alone gathering
wood.
Pretended
am
traveller from afar.
Asked reason for black patch outside town.
River worshippers
burnt recently. Mother caught bathing nude in river.
Burnt.
Later daughter went mad.
Questioned.
Burnt too.
Who by?
Brotherhood.
Query?
Sons of Adam.
Why?
Incomprehension.
Repeated query.
River quote
Satan unquote. Satan query? Woman alarmed.
Tried to flee.
Overtook.
Tell her am Son of Adam.
On
mission.
Keep mouth shut.
Same time tomorrow.
End.

 
          
"So
what's Satan?" asked Hasso, expressing the general puzzlement. "And
who's Adam?"

 
          
"Maybe
Satan is 'sanity', mixed up?" I suggested. "Because the black current
drives men mad. . . ."

 
          
Yosef
nodded.
"Possibly.
And possibly the word Adam has
a negative prefix, as in words like 'abort' and 'apathy'—and dam is a female
parent? Thus: 'sons without a mother'."

 
          
"There
are quite a few of those on this side of the river," commented Hasso,
somewhat acidly.

 
          
"Were
you one of those?" I asked him sharply. "Was your mother a
riverwoman?"

 
          
"Uh?
Oh no.
Not at all.
Please
don't leap to so many conclusions about me, will you not? I thought we'd made
it all up yesterday. Well, maybe not
all.
. .
."

 
          
"Okay,
okay. Sorry. So where does this Satan and Adam business leave us?"

 
          
"The
answer to that," said Yosef, "is: considerably more knowledgeable than
ever before. Plus, we know that some women over there worship the river, as
though it's a God."

 
          
"Out of despair at their lot, presumably."

 
          
"Maybe,"
he went on, "it
is
a God. In the
sense of a very powerful, though rather torpid being. Or perhaps a being which
has other, more interesting things to think about than us. . . ." He
leaned against the guard-rail, surveying the landscape around Verrino.
"Fertile place, isn't it, our habitable zone? With a desert barrier
bordering all of it, and precipices to seal off one end, and the wild ocean
the other end. Rather like," and he smiled, "an ant colony in a very
long trough. How illuminating it might be to watch how two separate ant
colonies developed, supposing they were separated by a glass wall midway . . .
Granting, of course, the vast difference between ants and humans."

 
          
"What
are you getting at?" I asked him.

 
          
"Just
that, if there's a God—or Goddess—around, she doesn't seem particularly worried
whether her worshippers are burned alive . . . But maybe if she interfered,
that would break the rules of her game?" Yosef hesitated. "And of
course, if there were a higher being involved, humans could hardly hope to
understand it—or perhaps even to prove that it
was
a higher being. No more than an ant can hope to understand a
man, however much time it spends crawling along him from head to foot. In which
case, our particular tragedy would be to
suspect
that this was so—because an ant could never suspect anything of the sort in a
million years."

 
          
Hasso
looked impatient, and tried to interrupt.

 
          
Yosef
simply raised his voice. "Yes, we would be conscious of the existence of a
mystery—whenever we bothered to pay attention to it—without ever being able to
solve it. Rather like the mystery of the whole universe of space and stars,
itself.
Why
is it?
How
is it? We're in it, and of it; and
so we've no idea. Perhaps if we could solve the mystery of the river, the
mystery of existence might well come next?"

 
          
"One
thing at a time, for goodness sake!" broke in Hasso. "It's the other
shore we're exploring."

 
          
"And
why is there another shore, so very separated from us? I do sometimes wonder
whether there can be men, who act as Gods to other men—without scruple?"

 
          
"You
mean those Sons of Adam?
That Brotherhood?"

 
          
"No, not at all.
I was wondering: is the black current
entirely natural?"

 
          
I
just had to laugh. None of these men had any concept of the sheer scope of the
river. It might well be a creature, or at least part of one, a tendril—its
spine or bloodstream or whatever—but that it could be a
made
thing? Oh no.

 
          
The
old imp smiled at me, unoffended, and bobbed his head. "Quite!" he
cried. "Quite! You're right to be amused. Far, far better that the river
is an alien goddess, than the handiwork of men like Gods.
Or
of
women
like Gods."

 
          
And
so we went below to the refectory, for a breakfast of boiled eggs, bread and
hot spiced milk.

 
          
"Perhaps
Yosef's right," said Hasso, intercepting me on my way to the head of the
stairs. "I'm going out to the glassworks and grindery today. Want to
come?"

 
          
"Why
there?"

 
          
"The
first helmet worked a treat, didn't it? So it's only sensible to have another
one on hand.
Just in case."

 
          
"Maybe
Yosef was right about what?" I asked him.

 
          
"About
women like Gods . . . Supposing that was so, mightn't some wise old
guildmistress have an inkling of the truth?"

 
          
So
she might.
If.
And supposing.
But recalling my initiation on board the
Ruby
Piglet,
I suspected not.
Unless the boatmistress of the
Ruby Piglet
knew little and cared less.
. . .

 
          
"Why
ask me?" said I, lightly. "I'm hardly a guildmistress."

 
          
"Who
knows? Some day, Yaleen, some day. . . ."

 
          
Rain
showered down on our way to the glassworks, settling all the dust which had
been oozing out of the cracks of the world, and soaking us both; however this
hardly mattered once we arrived at the sand pits with their sheds housing tank
furnaces. Before long we were both dried as crisp as biscuits. While Hasso
conducted the business of ordering a new diving helmet to specifications—with
no particular appearance of furtiveness on his part—I wandered about the sheds,
peering at the furnace pots and moulds, the drawing hearths, and the
bare-chested glassblowers playing their tubes like fanfare trumpets, arriving
eventually at the grindery where much more delicate work was carried on. The
time passed quickly.

 
          
We
returned to town by one o'clock under a clear sky, for the rain clouds had
passed away upriver and the sun come out again; and slaked our thirst and
filled our bellies with savoury pancakes at a wine-arbour new to me.

 
          
Later,
as drowsy and replete as if we had made love, we toiled back up the spiralling
stairs, pausing every fifty steps or so. I didn't know what was on Hasso's
mind, but personally my heart was set on a siesta.

 
          
And
as we rounded the Spire for the second time, already high above the roofs of
Verrino, I saw the tiny winks of light from the far side of the river. Even as
I pointed, the signal ceased.

 
          
"Something's
wrong. Come on!"

 
          
We
ran all the rest of the way; and I arrived with a stitch in my side.

 
          
The
platform was buzzing.

 
          
Immediately
Yosef saw us he hurried over, brandishing the copied message, his face grave.
He thrust the sheet of paper into my hand.

 
          
"That's
all there is. He broke off in mid-word."

 
          
I
read:

 
          
Men hunting me.
Surrounded.
Worn—

 
          
Without
thinking, I crumpled up the sheet as though the message would go away. Gently
Yosef retrieved the paper from my fist, smoothed it out and handed it to
someone else for safe keeping. To be filed in the archives, of course. Then he
put his arm around my shoulder.

 
          
Three
days passed, and they were days of silly hope for me: hope that another message
would soon blink, boasting how well in Capsi was—as thick as thieves—with the
men over there.

 
          
And
on the evening of the third day, on that twice-burnt sward outside the
settlement, a crowd of tiny figures gathered once more, and a cart was hauled
through their midst, and something black was dragged from the back of the
tumbril as though it had no more bones or volition than a sack of corn; and
presently a bonfire blazed, and smoke rose greasily.

 
          
It
could
have been a woman; could have
been. . . .

 
          
But
I knew that it wasn't.

 
          
And
what could they have been doing during the three previous days, those Sons of
Adam, but tormenting Capsi terribly, for information?

 
          
The
very next evening I signed on a brig, the
Darling
Dog,
bound for Pecawar and home. I had no idea at all what I was going to
tell Mother and Father. And I still hadn't decided this as I walked up the
familiar dusty lane to our door. Contrary to expectation, in spite of all my
travels this lane seemed no shorter or narrower or even dustier than it ever
had before. Pecawar was just as it had always been. The world no more changes
than the river changes; it flows on, and yet stays the same.

 
          
I
banged the door knocker instead of just pushing on in and calling out,
"I'm back." And by this choice I made myself a stranger.