Infinity's Shore (67 page)

They claim experience and thoughtfulness are preferable traits in male companions—qualities that make up for declining stamina. But I wonder if it's a wise policy. Wouldn't they be better off keeping a young stallion like Dwer around, instead?

Dwer was far better equipped for this kind of mission. The lad would have brought Dedinger back days ago, all tied up in a neat package.

Well, you don't always have the ideal man on hand for every job. I just hope old Lester and the sages found a good use for Dwer. His gifts are rare.

Fallon had never been quite the “natural” that his apprentice
was. In times past, he used to make up for it with discipline and attention to detail. He had never been one to let his mind wander during a hunt.

But times change, and a man loses his edge. These days, he could not help drifting away to the past. Something always reminded him of other days, his past was so filled with riches.

Oh, the times he used to have, running across the steppe with Ul-ticho, his plains hunting companion whose grand life was heartbreakingly short. Her fellowship meant more to Fallon than any human's, before or since. No one else understood so well the silences within his restless heart.

Ul-ticho, be glad you never saw this year when things fell apart. Those times were better, old friend. Jijo was ours, and even the sky held no threat you and I couldn't handle.

Dedinger's tracks still lay in plain sight, turning the rim of a great dune. The marks grew steadily fresher, and his limp grew worse with every step. The fugitive was near collapse. Assuming he kept going, it would be a half midura, at most, before the mounted party caught him.

And still some distance short of the first shelter well. Not bad. We may pull this off yet.

Assumptions are a luxury that civilized folk can afford. But not warriors or people of the land. In those staggered footprints, Fallon read a reassuring story, and so violated a rule that he used to pound into his apprentice.

They were riding in the same direction as the wind, so no scent warned the animals before they turned, slanting down to the shadowed north side of the dune. Abruptly, a murmur of voices greeted them—shouts, filled with wrath and danger. Before Fallon's blinking eyes could adjust to the changed light, he and the women found themselves staring down the shafts of a dozen or more cocked arbalests, all aimed their way, held by grizzled men wearing cloaks, turbans, and membrane goggles.

Now he made out a structure just ahead, shielded from the elements, made of piled stones. Fallon caught a belated sniff of water.

A new well? Built since I last came here as a young man? Or did I forget this one?

More likely, the desert men never told the visiting chief
scout all their secret sites. Far better, from their point of view, to let the High Sages think their maps complete, while holding something in reserve.

Lifting his hands slowly and carefully away from the pistol at his belt, Fallon now saw Dedinger, sunburned and shaking as he clutched devoted followers—who tenderly poured water over the prophet's broken lips.

We came so close!

The hands holding Dedinger right now should have been Fallon's. They would have been, if only things had gone just a little differently.

I'm sorry
, Fallon thought, turning in silent apology to Reza and Pahna. Their faces looked surprised and bleak.

I'm an old man … and I let you down.

Nelo

T
HE BATTLE FOR DOLO VILLAGE INVOLVED LARGER issues, but the principal thing decided was who would get to sleep indoors that night.

Most of the combatants were quite young, or very old.

In victory, the winners took possession of ashes.

In defeat, the losers marched forth singing.

Aided by a few qheuen allies, the craft workers started the fight evenly matched against the fanatical followers of Jop the Zealot. Both sides were angry, determined, and poorly armed with sticks and cudgels. Every man, woman, and qheuen of fighting age was away on militia duty, taking the swords and other weapons with them.

Even so, it was a wonder no one died in the melee.

Combatants swelled around the village meeting tree in a sweaty, disorderly throng, pushing and flailing at men who had been their neighbors and friends, raising a bedlam that blocked out futile orders by leaders of both sides. It might have gone on till everyone collapsed in hoarse exhaustion,
but the conflict was abruptly decided when one side got unexpected reinforcements.

Brown-clad men dropped from the overhanging branches of the garu forest, where gardens of luscious, protein-rich moss created a rich and unique niche for agile human farmers. Suddenly outflanked and outnumbered, Jop and his followers turned and fled the debris-strewn valley.

“The zealots went too far,” said one gnarled tree farmer, explaining why his people dropped their neutrality to intervene. “Even if they had an excuse to blow up the dam without guidance from the sages … they should've warned the poor qheuens first! A murder committed in the name of reverence is still a crime. It's too high a toll to pay for following the Path.”

Nelo was still catching his breath, so Ariana Foo expressed thanks on the craft workers' behalf. “There has already been enough blood spilled down the Bibur's waters. It is well past time for neighbors to care for one another, and heal these wounds.”

Despite confinement to her wheelchair, Ariana had been worth ten warriors during the brief struggle, without ever aiming or landing a blow. Her renowned status as the former High Sage of human sept meant that no antagonist dared confront her. It was as if a bubble of sanity moved through the mob, interrupting the riot, which resumed again as soon as she had passed. The sight of her helped the majority of farmers decide to come down off the garu heights and assist.

No one pursued Jop's forces as they retreated on canoes and makeshift rafts to the Bibur's other bank, re-forming on a crest of high ground separating the river from a vast swamp. There the zealots chanted passages from the Sacred Scrolls, still defiant.

Nelo labored for breath. It felt as if his ribs were half torn loose from his side, and he could not tell for some time which pains were temporary, and which were from some fanatic's baton or quarterstaff. At least nothing seemed broken, and he grew more confident that his heart wasn't about to burst out of his chest.

So, Dolo has been won back
, he thought, finding little to rejoice over in the triumph. Log Biter was dead, as well as Jobee and half of Nelo's apprentices. With his paper mill gone, along with the dam and qheuen rookery, the battle had been largely to decide who would take shelter in the remaining dwellings.

A makeshift infirmary was set up surrounding the traeki pharmacist, on a stretch of leaf-covered loam. Nelo spent some time sewing cuts with boiled thread, and laying plaster compresses on bruised comrades and foes alike.

The task of healing and stitching was hardly begun when a messenger dropped down from the skyway of rope bridges that laced the forest in all directions. Nelo recognized the lanky teenager, a local girl whose swiftness along the branch-top ways could not be matched. Still short of breath, she saluted Ariana Foo and recited a message from the commander of the militia base concealed some distance downriver.

“Two squads will get here before nightfall,” she relayed proudly. “They'll send tents and other gear by tomorrow morn … assuming the Jophur don't blow the boats up.”

It was fast action, but a resigned murmur was all the news merited. Any help now was too little, and far too late to save the rich, united community Dolo Village had been. No wonder Jop's people had been less tenacious, more willing to retreat. In their eyes, they had already won.

The Path of Redemption lies before us.

Nelo walked over to sit on a tree stump near the town exploser, whose destructive charges were commandeered and misused by Jop's mob. Henrik's shoulders slumped as he stared over the Bibur, past the shattered ruins of the craft shops, at the zealots chanting on the other side.

Nelo wondered if his own face looked as bleak and haggard as Henrik's.

Probably not. To his own great surprise, Nelo found himself in a mood to be philosophical.

“Never have seen such a mess in all my days,” he said, with a resigned sigh. “I guess we're gonna have our hands full, rebuilding.”

Henrik shook his head, as if to say,
It can't be done.

This, in turn, triggered a flare of resentment from Nelo. What business did
Henrik
have, wallowing in self-pity? As an exploser, his professional needs were small. Assisted by his guild, he could be back in business within a year. But even if Log Biter's family got help from other qheuen hives, and held a dam-raising to end all dam-raisings, it would still be years before a waterwheel, turbine, and power train could convert lake pressure into industrial muscle. And that would just begin the recovery. Nelo figured he would devote the rest of his life to building a papery like his former mill.

Was Henrik ashamed his charges had been misused by a panicky rabble? How could anyone guard against such times as these, when all prophecy went skewed and awry? Galactics had indeed come to Jijo, but not as foreseen. Instead, month after month of ambiguity had mixed with alien malevolence to sow confusion among the Six Races. Jop represented one reaction. Others sought ways to fight the aliens. In the long run, neither policy would make any difference.

We should have followed a third course—wait and see. Go on living normal lives until the universe decides what to do with us.

Nelo wondered at his own attitude. The earlier shocked dismay had given way to a strange feeling. Not numbness. Certainly not elation amid such devastation.

I hate everything that was done here.

 … and yet…

And yet, Nelo found a spirit of
anticipation
rising within. He could already smell fresh-cut timber and the pungency of boiling pitch. He felt the pulselike pounding of hammers driving joining pegs, and saws spewing dust across the ground. In his mind were the beginnings of a sketch for a better workshop. A better mill.

All my life I tended the factory my ancestors left me, making paper in the time-honored way.

It was a prideful place. A noble calling.

But it wasn't mine.

Even if the original design came from settlers who stepped off the
Tabernacle
, still wearing some of their
mantle as star gods, Nelo had always known, deep inside—
I could do a better job.

Now, when his years were ripe, he finally had a chance to prove it. The prospect was sad, daunting … and thrilling. Perhaps the strangest thing of all was how young it made him feel.

“Don't blame yourself, Henrik,” he told the exploser, charitably. “You watch and see. Everything'll be better'n ever.”

But the exploser only shook his head again. He pointed across the river, where Jop's partisans were now streaming toward the northeastern swamp, carrying canoes and other burdens on their backs, still singing as they went.

“They've got my reserve supply of powder. Snatched it from the warehouse. I couldn't stop 'em.”

Nelo frowned.

“What good'll it do 'em? Militia's coming, by land and water. Jop can't reach anywhere else along the river that's worth blowing up.”

“They aren't heading along the river,” Henrik replied, and Nelo saw it was true.

“Then where?” he wondered aloud.

Abruptly, Nelo knew the answer to his own question, even before Henrik spoke. And that same instant he also realized there were far more important matters than rebuilding a paper mill.

“
Biblos
,” the exploser said, echoing Nelo's thought.

The papermaker blinked silently, unable to make his brain fit around the impending catastrophe.