Mallow (18 page)

There was a prolonged and very cold silence.

Till allowed himself a patient smile, patting both of their heads. Then he looked out at his followers, asking, 'Is he right?'

'No,' they roared.

The siblings winced and tried to vanish.

Till knelt between them, and with a steady, untroubled voice said,'The captains are just the captains. But you and I and all of us here
...
we are built from the stuff of this world, from its flesh and water and air . . . and from the old souls of the Builders, too . . .'

Washen hadn't heard that nonsense in a quarter of a century, and hearing it now, she couldn't decide whether to laugh or explode.

'We are the Builders reborn,'
Till assured everyone. Then he stood, and with his hands fondly draped over the children's slumping shoulders, he hinted at the true scope of this rebellion. 'Whatever our purpose is, it is not to help the captains.
That is the one truth about which I am certain.'

Staring off into the shadowy jungle, he exclaimed, 'The captains only think they have a tight hold on the ship. But friends, if you will . . . think of all the wonders that can happen in a single day . . . !'

Miocene refused to
believe any of it.

'First of all,' she told Washen, and herself, 'I know my own son. What you've described is ridiculous. Ludicrous. And frankly, stupid. Second of all, according to your count, this rally involved more than half of our children—'

Diu interrupted. 'Most of them are adults. With their own homes.'
Then he added,'Madam,'and framed the word with quick nods.

An angry silence descended.

Then Washen admitted, 'I checked. Several dozen children slipped out of the nurseries last night—'

'And I'm not claiming they didn't. And I'm very sure they slipped off somewhere.'
Then with a haughty expression, Miocene asked, 'Will the two of you listen to me? Will you give me that much consideration, please?'

'Of course, madam,' said Diu.

'I kn
ow what's possible. I know exactl
y how my child was raised, and I know his character, and unless you can offer me some credible motivation for this fable . . . this shit . . . then I think we'll just pretend that nothing has been said here . . .'

'What about my motivation?'
asked Washen.
'Why would I tell such a story?'

With a chill delight, Miocene said, 'Greed.'

'Toward who?'

'Believe me, I understand.' The sullen eyes narrowed, silver glints in their corners. 'If Till is insane, your son stands to gain. Status among his peers, at the very least. And eventually, genuine power.'

Washen glanced at Diu.

They hadn't mentioned Locke's role as informant, and they'd keep it secret as long as possible - for a tangle of reasons, most of them selfish.

They were inside the Submaster's one-room house. The place felt small and crowded, its nervous air nearly too hot to breathe. There was a shabbiness here, despite the fact that Miocene kept every surface as clean as possible. A shabbiness, and a deep weariness, and in the darkest corners, there was a cold, living fear. Washen could almost see the fear staring out at her with its dim red eyes.

She couldn't help herself. 'Ask Till about the Builders,' she insisted. 'Ask what he believes.'

'I won't.'

'Why not?'

The woman took a moment, vainly picking at the barbed spores and winged seeds that were trying to root in her sweat-dampened uniform.
Then with a cutting logic, she said, 'If your story is a lie, he will say it's a lie. And if it's true and he lies, then he'll just say that I shouldn't believe you.'

'But what if he admits to it?'

'Then Till wants me to know' She stared at Washen as if she were the worst kind of fool. Her hands had stopped picking at the seeds, and her voice
was angry and sturdy and perfectl
y cold. 'If he confesses, then he wants me to find out, Washen. Darling. And you're just serving as his messenger.'

Washen took a breath and held it tight.

Then Miocene looked through her open door, out into the public round, adding, 'And that isn't a revelation that I want delivered at his convenience.'

There had been
warnings.

A rising chorus of tremors were noted. Little spore storms reminded the captains of blizzards on cold worlds.

The discharge from half a dozen hot springs changed color, a vivid and toxic blueness spreading into the local streams. And a single Hazz tree had wilted, pulling its well-earned fat and water deep underground.

But as warnings went, they were small, and the highest-ranking captains were too distracted to pay attention.

Three ship-days later, while the encampment slept, a great hand lifted the land several meters, then grew bored and flung it down again. Captains and children stumbled into the public rounds. Within moments, the sky was choked with golden balloons and billions of flying insects. Experience said that in another twelve hours, perhaps less, the land would blister and explode, and die. Moving like a drunken woman, Washen began running through the aftershocks, moving from one round to its neighbor, finally reaching a certain tidy home and shouting, 'Locke,' into its empty rooms.

Where was he?

She moved along the edge of the round, finding nothing but empty houses. A tall figure stepped from Tills tiny house and asked, 'Have you seen mine?'

Washen shook her head. 'Mine?'

Miocene said, 'No,' and sighed. Then she strode past Washen, shouting, 'Do you know where he is?'

Diu was standing in the center of the round.

'Help me,' the Submaster promised,
'and you'll help your son, too.'

With a nod and quick bow, Diu agreed.

A dozen captains rushed off into the jungle. Left behind, Washen forced herself to pack their household's essentials and help other worried parents. New quakes came in threes and fours. Hours passed in a well-rehearsed chaos. The crust beneath them had been shattered, fissures breaking up the rounds and a worrisome heat percolating to the surface. The gold balloons had vanished, replaced with clouds of iron dust and the fat-blackened stink of burning jungle. The captains and youngest children stood in the main round, waiting nervously. Sleds and balloon carts had been loaded, but the ranking Submaster, giddy old Daen, wouldn't give the order to leave. 'Another minute,' he kept telling them. Then he would carefully hide his crude clock inside his largest pocket, fight
ing the urge to watch the relentl
ess turning of its tiny mechanical hands.

When Till stepped into the open, he was grinning.

Washen felt a giddy, incoherent relief.

Relief collapsed into shock, and terror. The young man's chest cavity had been wrenched open with a knife, the first wound healing but a second wound deeper, lying perpendicular to the first. Ripped, desiccated flesh fought to knit itself. Shockingly white ribs lay in plain view. Till wasn't in mortal danger, but he wore his agony well. With an artful moan, he stumbled, then managed to right himself for an instant before collapsing, slamming against the bare iron just as his mother emerged from the black jungle.

Miocene was unhurt, and she was thoroughly, hopelessly trapped.

Numbed and sickened, Washen watched as the Submaster knelt beside her boy, gripping his thick brown hair with one hand while the other hand carefully slipped her blood-drenched knife back into its steel hilt.

What had Till said to her in the jungle?

How had he steered his mother into this murderous rage?

Because that's what he must have done. As each event happened in turn, Washen realized this was no accident. There was an elaborate plan reaching back to the instant when Locke told her about the secret meetings. Her son had promised to take her and Diu to one of the meetings.

But whom had he promised? Till, obviously. Till had conscripted Locke into joining this game, ensuring that Miocene would eventually learn of the meetings, her authority suddenly in question. And it was Till who lay in his mother's arms, knowing exactly what would happen next.

Miocene stared at her son, searching for some trace of apology, some faltering of courage. Or perhaps she was simply giving him a moment to
contemplate her own gaze, relentl
ess and cold.

Then she let go of him, and she picked up a fat wedge of dirty black iron — the quakes had left the round littered with them — and with a calm fury, she rolled Till onto his stomach and shattered the vertebrae in his neck, then swung harder, blood and shredded flesh flying, his head nearly chopped free of his paralyzed body.

Washen grabbed an arm, and yanked.

Captains leaped on Miocene, dragging her away from her son.

'Let me go,' she demanded.

A few backed away, but not Washen.

Then Miocene dropped the lump of bloody iron and raised both arms, shouting, 'If you want to help him, help him. But if you do, you don't belong with us. That's my decree. According to the powers of rank, my office, and my mood . . . !'

Locke had just emerged from the jungle.

He was first to reach Till, but barely. Children were pouring out from the shadows, already in a helpful spring, and even a few of those who hadn't vanished in the first place now joined ranks with them. In a blink, more than two thirds of the captains' offspring had gathered around the limp, helpless figure. Sober faces were full of concern and resolve. A stretcher was found, and their leader was made comfortable. Someone asked which direction the captains would move. Daen stared at the sky, watching a dirty cloud of smoke drifting in from the west. 'South,' he barked.
'We'll go south.'
Then with few possessions and no food, the wayward children began to file away, conspicuously marching toward the north.

Diu was standing next to Washen.

'We can't just let them get away,' he whispered.
‘
Someone needs to stay with them. To talk to them, and listen. And help them, somehow . . .'

She glanced at her lover, her mouth open.

'I'll go,' she meant to say.

But Diu said, 'You shouldn't, no,' before she could make any sound. 'You'd help them more by staying close to Miocene.' He had obviously thought hard on the subject, arguing, 'You have rank. You have authority here. And besides, Miocene listens to you.'

When it suited her, perhaps.

'I'll keep whispering in your ear,' Diu promised. 'Somehow'

Washen nodded, a stubborn piece of her reminding her that all this pain and rage would pass. In a few years or decades, or maybe in a quick century, she would begin to forget how awful this day had been.

Diu kissed her, and they hugged. But Washen found herself looking over his shoulder. Locke was a familiar silhouette standing at the jungles margins. At this distance, through the interlocking shadows, she couldn't tell if her son was facing her or if she was looking at his back. Either way, she smiled and mouthed the words, 'Be good.' Then she took a deep breath and told Diu, 'Be careful.' And she turned away, refusing to watch either man vanish into the gloom and the gathering smoke.

Miocene stood alone, almost forgotten.

While the captains and the loyal children hurried south together, making for the nearest safe ground, the Submaster remained rooted in the center of the round, speaking with a thin, dry, weepy voice.

'We're getting closer,' she declared.

'What do you mean?'Washen asked.

'Closer,' she said again. Then she looked up into the brilliant sky, arms lifting high and the hands reaching for nothing.

With a
gentle
touch, Washen tried to coax her.

'We have to hurry,' she cautioned. 'We should already be gone, madam.'

But Miocene picked herself up on her toes, reaching even higher, fingers straightening, eyes squinting, as she leaked a low, pained laugh.

'But not close enough,' she whimpered. 'No, not quite. Not yet. Not yet.'

Sixteen

One of the
sweet problems about an exceedingly long life was what to do with your head. How do you manage, after many thousands of years, that chaotic mass of remembered facts and superfluous memories?

Just among human animals, different cultures settled on a wide range of solutions. Some believed in carefully removing the redundant and the embarrassing - a medical procedure often dressed up in considerable ceremony. Others believed in sweeping purges, more radical in nature, embracing the notion that a good pruning can free any soul. And there were even a few harsh societies where the mind was damaged intentionally and profoundly, and
when it would heal again, a subtl
y new person would be born.

Captains believed in none of those solutions.

What was best, for their careers and for the well-being of their passengers, was a skilled, consistent mind filled with minute details. 'Forget nothing,' was their impossible ideal. Ruling any ship required mastery over detail and circumstance, and nobody could predict when her trusted mind would have to yank some vital but obscure fact out of its recesses, the captain - if she was any sort of captain - accomplishing her job with the predictable competence that everyone righdy demanded of her.