Enigma (18 page)

Catching Sebright by the elbow, Thackery protested, “We’ve got to do something for Jael and Mike.”

“Something’s already being done,” he said, pointing.

In the middle of the plaza, Par and Marnet had commandeered a two-wheeled dray. As Thackery watched, they tipped it on its side, spilling its load of foodstuffs across the ground. Each taking one side of the T-shaped drawbar, they dragged the dray toward Broadway at a trot, calling “
Dar mator!
Let us pass!”

Thackery retreated out of the way as the dray rumbled by. As he did, he realized that the crowd had thinned dramatically, and all those around them now wore the stamp of the rurals—make that the Green Lands. The Gnivi who had jeered and taunted them had slunk away in the wake of Par’s arrival.

“
Pan tura! Pan tura!
For the dead,” cried Par as the dray advanced. He held his free arm upraised, his hand open, and Marnet did the same.

There was a grinding sound, and beyond the bodies a block of pavement as wide as the street rose up as though on hinges, forming a waist-high barricade from wall to wall. Several armed men rose up behind it and pointed their crossbowlike weapons directly at Par and Marnet.

“This whole damn city is a fortress,” Thackery exclaimed under his breath. “I know,” Sebright said, tight-lipped. “Tell me why and you’ll have done me a favor.”

“Contact-1, Contact-4,” Guerrieri paged. His voice had lost its impatient edge, lost all expression whatsoever. “Just thought you might like to know.
Descartes
says negative, negative, negative on both Mike and Jael’s vitals.” The next sound might have been a sigh or an instant of interference. “I’ll hold at angels 20 until you need me.”

“Acknowledged, Flight-1,” Thackery said when Sebright was silent. “It shouldn’t be long.”

Par and Marnet took no note of the guards and the barricade except to direct their pleas of “
Pan tura!
” in that direction, and advanced until the dray was within a few steps of where the bodies lay. Then, while Marnet held the dray level, Par bent down and picked up Tyszka, cradling him a gentleness that betokened respect. When Par had placed the corpse on the dray bed, he retraced his steps and gathered up Collins with equal reverence.

As they turned the dray to begin their retreat one of the Gnivian guards raised his weapon to eye level and loosed a deathbird. It flew between Par and Marnet to impale itself in the dashboard of the dray with a
chunk
and the sound of splintering wood. The Gnivian laughed, and Par and Mamet quickened their pace. But the attack ended there. As the dray reached the plaza the guards descended into their warren, the barrier was retracted, and normal traffic resumed, the dust of their passage muddying the blood of the dead.

Thackery rushed to the dray and leaned over Jael, taking her clammy-cool hand in his. The sharp stink of feces, her blank open eyes, the jagged bloody rent in her clothing and chest, set Thackery to retching, and he turned away.

“Thank you,” Sebright was saying to Par. “You are a man of conscience.”

“I cannot say the same of you. What was your purpose there, for which you sacrificed half your party?”

“To speak to those in the Atad. Are no outsiders permitted?”

“But rarely. I have been there, and a few others. That you must ask the question tells me much about you.”

“Then make us equal by telling me something of you.” Par stiffened as though insulted. “I am Par, of the Urmyk. That has always been enough to know.” He nodded sharply toward the dray. “There is no mystery in you. You are Gnivi, and you are mad, though I repeat myself too obviously. Take your dead away,” he said, and moved off to make a settlement with the dray’s owner.

Sebright circled the dray and joined Thackery where he crouched. “I don’t know how far I can carry one of them,” Thackery said pleadingly, the stench of vomit still on his breath. “We need to bring the gig down.”

“This Par has influence. He knows things. I don’t intend to let him get away.”

“What are you thinking?” Thackery demanded shrilly. “We botched the Contact, and Jael and Mike are dead.”

“Hold the postmortems until we’re back on
Descartes
. We can’t help the kids now. But maybe we can still save the Contact. Is there a Gnivan word for priest? Do you remember hearing anything about their funereary rites?”

“No and no. What? Do you think he’s going to get us into the Atad?”

“He may not have to,” Sebright said, and lift without further explanation. Several long strides caught him up to Par, who had finished his negotiation and was moving off. Sebright planted himself in Par’s path. “If you are a man of conscience, help us.”

Par scowled. “You require more help than I have patience for.”

“A simple matter for Par. We must go to the Atad, for we must speak with the wisest of all men, the exemplar of conscience, he whose domain reaches from one end of the Green Land to the other.”

Par spat at Sebright’s feet. “You will not find such a man in the Atad.”

“Where, then? We have questions for him, and news of places beyond the Green Land.”

“You would pursue this while your dead wait for their release?” Par asked, pointing back toward the dray. Sebright’s face took on a thoughtful expression. “I cannot give them release.”

“You have no
tomen
to say the words over them?”

“None.”

“Do you wish the words said?”

“I wish all to be done as prescribed.”

Par crossed his arms over his chest and studied Sebright. “I will take you to Maija.”

The change in plans meant renegotiation of the settlement over use of the dray. While Par attended to that detail Sebright returned to where Thackery waited.

“Switch your transceiver to local send and receive,” he said to Thackery, walking past without stopping. Thackery slowly complied, raising his hand to his right ear and pressing the short stub projecting from his ear canal.

“We’re going to have an audience from here on out, so I’m not going to be able to hold long discussions with you or stop to explain everything I do,” Sebright said in his ear, taking up position on one end of the crossbar. “Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. Don’t contradict me, don’t question me. I need as much status as I can get with these people, and I’m starting out pretty damn low. If you spot something you think I need to know about, go off by yourself and say it. I’ll hear you fine and we won’t give them a reason to be suspicious. Understand?”

The request was reasonable, even prudent, but somehow still felt like
this time, stay out of my way
. Thackery accepted the reproof as his due but could not stay silent. “Why are you tying yourself to these people? That can’t help us. Sometime we’re going to have to come back here and try to make Contact with the people behind the walls, or at least their bosses.”

Then Par joined them, denying the opportunity for an answer. He circled around the back of the dray, stopping when he reached the deathbird projecting from the dashboard. With a yank and a twist, he pulled it free, then tossed it into the dray with a clatter.

“That way,” he said, taking the free end of the crossbar and nodding toward the gate.

Thackery fell in behind the dray as they passed through the gate and onto the east road. From there, Collins and Tyszka were always in his field of view, the shafts of the deathbirds still projecting obscenely from their bodies. He forced himself to stay there, to look at them, as a kind of self-flagellation.

If I hadn’t been so eager to cozy up to Neale—if I hadn’t helped her pressure Sebright—you would still be laughing, Mike, instead of lying on your face in a bouncing dogcart. Jael’d still be making everyone crazy—and I’d still be the bright kid with a future. If, if, if. What a useless emotion regret is. As if the words “I’m sorry” can banish guilt, or excuse stupidity. I’m sorry all the same—

There were few interruptions to dislodge Thackery from his recriminations, for Par showed no inclination to talk. Sebright took his cue from the Urmyk and did not press him. Then, about an hour out from Gnivi, their guide suddenly became voluble.

“You were never in Gnivi before today,” Par said.

“Yes.”

Par nodded approvingly. “I would have been told. We would have heard of your death.”

“How often do such things happen?”

“From time to time. Rarely in the Atad Corridor, because everyone knows it is forbidden. Even the common Gnivi are barred.”

“Then you can be shot down on other streets as well?”

“There is no public place where you are not watched, where they could not strike at you if they so chose. There are a hundred tunnels and ten thousand watchplaces.” Par paused. “How can you know the Atad and not know things that are taught to children?”

“We have not yet had the chance to learn.”

“You are not Gnivi.”

“Yes.”

“You are not Urmyk.”

“Yes.”

Par banged the palm of one hand hard against the crossbar and shook his head.

“You’re presenting him with a paradox,” Thackery offered. “Using their verb formation, one and only one of those statements can be true. You just told him they both were.”

“Then you do not even understand why you are alive to make this trip,” Par said.

“Is there a reason other than luck?”

“The guardians prefer not to kill all of any party. That way there is someone to carry back the word that Gnivi is strong.”

“I understand.”

“They want to see fear. If you had not shown it, they would have killed you as well.”

“But they did not try to stop you and Mamet.”

“Because we gave the sign of submission,” Par said exasperatedly. “This is how things are done.” Releasing his grip on the shaft, he threw his hands up in the air and took several long, angry strides that put him well out in front of the procession.

“We’ve got him thinking about us,” Thackery said hopefully.

“They’re not all good thoughts. We put him in a position where he had to humiliate himself to help us,” Sebright said, shifting his grip. “Get on up here and help with this, huh?”

The Urmyk home to which Par took them was less than a village and more than a camp. In a copse of smooth-rinded, waxy-leaved trees was an elevated platform for the storage of food, under which were stowed an array of hand tools, two drays, and a larger four-wheeled farm wagon.

Slung between the surrounding trees in groups of two or three, often one above the other like a multistory house, were some two dozen sleeping hammocks. Some of the hammocks were rolled and tied, as though to keep them from collecting rain and detritus. Other hanging places were empty, as though some of the community were away for an extended time.

Leaving the
Descartes
men to stand by the dray and accept the questioning stares of the Urmyk, Par went into a huddle with a wrinkle-faced gnome of a man whose silver hair was combed straight back into what appeared to be a permanent tangle.

“This is more organized than we had given them credit for,” Sebright said. “They aren’t just gatherers. They’ve got to be doing some farming.”

“They also have to have some ground-living pests. Everything is up.”

The conference over, Par led the older man toward them.

“Maija,” Par said, and walked away, his disgust evident.

The old man reached out to finger the material of Thackery’s allover, then stepped back and squinted at them. “You are not of the Urmyk. Why do you ask our death-customs be followed? Have you none of your own?”

“Our friends died, in your lands and at the hands of your enemies,” Sebright said.

“They died in the city of despair and at the hands of cowards,” Maija said, more a correction of fact than a reproof. “What are the names of the dead?”

“The woman is Jael. The other is Michael.” Maija turned to the others looking on. “Prepare
canuta
,” he ordered.

Because of the difficulty the Urmyk women had with the zippers and stays, Thackery was drafted to help undress and bathe the corpses. It was an exceedingly unpleasant task, the more so since he had from time to time imagined undressing Jael in a far different context and circumstance. Those pleasant fantasies were irrevocably trashed by the sight of her brutally violated death-white skin, and he found it difficult to touch her.

The three Urmyk women, particularly a round-bodied middle-aged woman named Taj, showed no such compunctions. It was Taj who wrestled the barbed heads of the deathbirds from the two corpses and then neatly tucked back in the ragged edges of the wounds. Taj also took the time to take note of every subtle evidence that the Descartans were not-Gnivi, not-Urmyk: their teeth, their smoothly trimmed nails, their thinly calloused feet, the transceivers plugging the left ears, the small strawberry tattoo on Jael’s hip, the appendectomy scar on Michael’s abdomen.

She said nothing about her observations, either to Thackery or to her two assistants, but she absented herself before the preparations were through, disappearing in the direction Maija had gone with Sebright. Meanwhile, the other women produced several lengths of coarse fiber rope, and proceeded to tightly bind each corpse at the ankles, knees, wrists, and elbows.

“Contact-4, got a moment here. Somebody just corralled Maija for a conference. He’s been showing me the fields,” Sebright said in Thackery’s ear. “The Urmyk idea of farming seems to be to keep a natural mix of crops, not in rotation but at the same time. So they don’t really have fields, more like cultivated foraging areas. They prune out the weaker plants and lay them out for the pests. By the way, I got a glimpse of one, and if it wasn’t a mouse, it was something you wouldn’t mind calling one. If you’re free to talk, let me know how things are progressing. Any idea yet whether we’re looking at burial or cremation?”

“Not really,” Thackery said. “Is that person talking to Maija a stocky woman, forty-ish, wearing a vest a couple sizes too small for her?”

“That’s her.”

“Then the conference is about us. She gave Mike and Jael a real close going-over, and she’s probably giving him an earful about just how strange we are.”

“Good,” Sebright said, inexplicably. “Looks like we’re going to head back. See you presently.”