The Devil's Nebula (24 page)

As Carew watched, they eased their burden onto a framework of timber struts erected in a widened area of the pathway. The bearers, relieved, exercised their tired arms, stretched and talked animatedly amongst themselves.

Serving boys and girl circulated with great jugs of liquid, from which first the bearers drank and then the followers. The guests were offered a jug and Leah murmured, “It is customary at this juncture for all gathered to drink to the success of the ceremony.”

Carew took the heavy jug, lifted it to his lips and drank. The fluid was thick, white, and he recognised not so much the sour taste as the slightly chalky texture. He passed the jug to Jed who drank, then lowered the jug and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, frowning at the less than refreshing draft.

“What is it, boss?”

Carew turned to the elder. “Leah?” he asked.

“Fresh phar,” she said, “before it has had time to dry out and solidify. At this stage it’s at its most nutritious.”

“Hear that?” Carew said to an appalled Jed. “The best meal you’ve had in days.”

The others took the jug and drank sparingly, while Lania put a solicitous arm around Jed’s shoulders and lectured him quietly about cultural relativism.

Before the bearers resumed their descent, Carew said to Leah, “You maintain a healthy diet, and no meat?”

“We are vegetarian, Ed Carew. As were our ancestors. We take all the nutrition we need from jungle fruits and phar.”

“It keeps you looking young, or...” He paused. “If you don’t mind my asking, what is the life-expectancy of the settlers on World?”

She regarded him, her gaze level, as if considering what to tell him. At last she said, “We live into our third decade, Ed Carew; fifty years, by your reckoning. Short lives, perhaps, by your standards, but long enough for us to fulfil our purpose.”

With that she walked off and addressed the bearers before Carew could continue his questioning.

He exchanged a look with Gorley and Choudri. Lania said, “‘Fulfil our purpose,’ Now what the hell did she mean by that?”

The descent recommenced. The bearers took their burden and Carew and his colleagues followed at a respectful pace. As he walked, he wondered how old Leah and Rahn themselves might be, and if they were approaching the age where they judged they had fulfilled their purpose?

They worked their way deeper and deeper into the fissure and the temperature dropped appreciably. Soon, a dim twilight maintained. The vegetation, so abundant high above, thinned out so that for the last hour of their journey the steps were hewn from bare earth. There was no birdsong this far down, nor the calls of other life-forms, and an eerie quietude accompanied the last leg of the descent. Even the following crowd was strangely silent.

Carew looked up and saw high above his head a thin strip of roseate sky, darkening towards sunset.

A little later Lania lay a hand on his arm and whispered, “Look.”

She pointed over the edge of the path; perhaps two hundred metres below them, Carew made out a slick of oil-black water. It flowed between the rocky banks without the slightest ripple, silent and eerie. On the riverbank, half a kilometre distant, a wide timber jetty projected into the river.

Journey’s end, he thought. At least for ourselves and the celebrants.

“Strange,” Lania said, at his side.

He smiled at her.

“It makes me wonder at the many other rites and rituals, bizarre and unbelievable, going on across the galaxy,” she said.

“My bet is that there are far stranger things happening out there.”

“But involving human beings? The Expansion is perhaps too sanitised, but this...”

He glanced at her. “It makes you uneasy?”

She nodded. “Yes, it does. These people, for all their outwardly idyllic lifestyle… they seem in thrall to these things. I mean, their lifespans, for one thing. And do they have things like literature, art? The things that make humans... human?” She smiled suddenly.

“What?”

“And there I was, preaching to Jed, and who’s to say that these people are any less human for the life they lead?”

Carew shook his head. “No, I agree with you. The set-up here makes me uneasy, too.”

They had reached the foot of the stairs, and before them, the bearers slowed as the path levelled out. They made a slow, careful turn and carried the Harvester to the end of the jetty. There, they lowered it to the timber boards, stood and retreated to the path.

The mass of settlers remained on the bank of the river, where a flat area had been cleared, as if for the express purpose of providing a vantage point.

Leah and Rahn stepped forward and invited their guests to join them at the very end of the jetty. Carew and the others walked along its length and stood beside the Harvester, staring downriver.

“And now?” Lania asked.

“Now,” Leah replied, “we wait.”

Carew was perhaps an arm’s length from the Harvester. The slits along its length had parted as its mass spread, and now they resembled nothing so much as open, suppurating wounds. The smell at such close quarters was appalling, as if the flesh of the beast was rotting from within.

Rahn smiled and pointed downriver. “Look.”

Only then, in the dimness and distance, did Carew make out the small shape of a raft making its way up-river towards them, paddled by perhaps twenty settlers. As everyone watched, the raft gained solidity in the twilight, and Carew saw that borne on the surface of the raft was a smaller, slimmer version of the Harvester.

The raft manoeuvred itself alongside the landward end of the jetty, its deck flush with the wooden walkway. The bearers lashed the vessel fast to the timbers, and the rowers laid aside their oars and fell to the task of easing the new Harvester from the raft and onto the jetty. Like the larger creature, this one reposed upon a great timber catafalque, and the rowers lifted it by means of timber handles and moved it little by little onto the jetty.

The watchers on the shore started up a low, monotone chant.

Carew examined the new Harvester. Except in its dimensions, the creature was identical in shape and colouration to the outward-bound Harvester. This one’s flesh was without the indentations made by the timber posts, however, and the lateral slits in its sides were sealed tight and did not ooze fluid.

When the new Harvester was safely placed upon the jetty, the bearers began the delicate task of easing the bloated Harvester onto the raft. It proved to be a laborious process, involving much shouting and yelled commands. The raft wobbled as it took the first of the load and when the entirety of the creature was lowered onto its deck, the vessel sank a metre into the water.

A great sigh went up from the watchers on the riverbank.

The rowers took up their positions on either side of the creature, their elbow room much restricted now, and on the jetty Leah and Rahn stepped forward and took it in turn to recite what sounded like lines of verse, though in a dialect so broad Carew was unable to make out a single word.

The raft cast off and floated serenely down the sable river.

Carew said, “And what happens to the Harvester when it reaches its destination?”

“In two sunsets,” Leah replied, “it will make the transition.”

Carew repeated the last word. “And that is?”

“That, my friend, is the most glorious stage in the life-cycle of the Weird. It is the time of moving from this realm, to the exalted other realm.”

“The Weird equivalent of Heaven?”

Leah smiled. “Not as such. The Harvester will move from this universe to the next one, and it is the duty of one Council Elder, in this case myself, to witness the ultimate transition.” She paused and turned to take in her guests. “I leave at full sun up in the morning, and I would be honoured if you, as our guests, would accompany me on the journey to the home of the Weird.”

Choudri and Gorley conferred, then looked around the group; no one demurred. Choudri said, “We would be privileged to witness the transition.”

Leah beamed at them. “The journey downriver is in itself an experience I am anticipating, a time of meditation for an Elder coming to the end of her tenure.”

Gorley looked at her. “You are stepping down?”

She laughed. “You could put it like that, my friend. Rahn and I have served our people, and the Weird, for ten of our years now, and it is time for younger souls to take on the responsibility.”

She turned and addressed the bearers, who fell to their knees on either side of the catafalque. They rose and bore the new Harvester high, their faces showing none of the strain or contortion they had exhibited on the descent.

They moved from the jetty and began the long ascent up the five thousand stairs.

Carew and his group, led by Leah and Rahn, walked slowly after them.

Lania fell into step beside him and murmured, “There’s something I don’t understand about all this, Ed.”

He smiled. “You’re not alone, Lania, I assure you of that.”

She looked at him. “So you’ve noticed the anomaly?”

“Anomaly?” he said. She looked exasperated, and slowed her pace so that they fell further behind Leah and Rahn.

“So the fat, bloated Harvester gets shipped off home and is replaced by a smaller, slimmer version.”

“I’m following you so far.”

“And the new Harvester is fed the husks of that jungle fruit and shits out phar which the settlers consider a delicacy. You don’t see the anomaly there?”

He thought about it, admitted defeat and said, “Enlighten me.”

“It’s just this, Ed –
how does the Harvester grow so damned fat
?”

He nodded. “You’re right. There can’t be much nourishment in the husks, and Leah did say earlier today that that’s its only foodstuff.” There must, he thought, be a simple explanation, but for the life of him he couldn’t think of one.

“Well done, Lania.”

“I thought there was something odd going on, and I didn’t need my smartsuit to tell me.”

“Any ideas?”

She screwed her lips into a frown and shook her head. “Beats me. I’ll work on it, though.”

They came to the halfway point, where the bearers eased the Harvester onto the timber supports and took a break. This time, to Jed’s evident relief, there was no refreshment in the form of liquid phar.

High overhead, the strip of sky was darkening rapidly. Stars were beginning to appear, bright in the indigo heavens.

Lania was chatting with Jed – joshing him about the phar – when a small figure wormed its way through the crowd of settlers and sidled towards Carew.

“Hahta,” he said, glancing around. The others were facing up the incline, and Leah and Rahn were talking to the bearers.

“Edcarew,” the little girl piped. “Have you decided yet? Can you help me?”

“Hahta, I can’t talk here, okay? Not when so many people...”

She interrupted, “But you are going downriver with Leah, no? To the lair of the Weird? So you can find Maatja, yes?”

“Hahta, we need to talk. But not here. I’ll meet you later. Is that possible?”

She nodded, her blue eyes bright in the light of the stars. “Tonight, at moonup. Where we met before, Edcarew.”

“Very well. I’ll be there.”

She flashed him a grin and ran back into the crowd.

He looked around, nervous that their conversation had been observed. Lania looked at him. “What did she want?”

“She knew we’re accompanying Leah downriver.”

“News travels fast. She asked you to look for her sister?”

“I said I’d talk to her later. I think she knows a lot more than she’s told me so far. It’s just a matter of knowing the right questions to ask. I’m meeting her later tonight.”

She looked at him. “Mind if I come along?”

He thought about it. Why not? Lania might have more insight into the mind of the girl, know which questions to ask. He nodded.

The bearers resumed their burden and the climb recommenced.

T
HAT EVENING, TO
celebrate the success of the Ceremony of Transportation, Leah and Rahn invited their guests to a feast at the long-house where their initial meeting had taken place.

A mat on the ground was stacked with a dozen different fruits and the obligatory dried and sliced phar. Fruit juice was on offer, as well as a special drink called naar which, Rahn announced, was alcoholic. Guttering candles fashioned from vines and tree sap illuminated the gathering, and Leah and Rahn toasted the installation of the new Harvester.

Jed sipped the naar and pronounced it an improvement on the liquid phar, and Carew joined him in a cup. It wasn’t exactly the finest malt whisky – it was fruit-based and more like a liquor – but he found it more than palatable.

They ate and drank and exchanged small-talk. Carew wanted to ask about the anomaly of the Harvester’s diet, but the occasion never arose. Gorley and Choudri were telling the settlers about the Expansion, and Leah and Rahn listened wide-eyed to the stories of the technological wonders described.

Carew had a second cup of naar, feeling his senses become pleasantly muzzy. He placed a hand over the cup when a settler tried to refill it, and Lania smiled at his wisdom. “Well done, Ed. You know you can’t take your drink.” She was drinking fruit juice herself.

A sudden silence descended on the gathering and one of the settlers rose to his feet. He raised his gourd mug.

He spoke, and though his accent was heavy, Carew made out the words, “We drink to the passing of Leah and Rahn.”

At this Leah stood and lifted her mug. “And we, in turn, drink to celebrate the coming of Jarl and Keer.”

“Thus the Great Circularity continues,” Rahn said.

Jed looked up drunkenly and focused on Leah and Rahn. “And you two?”

“We have fulfilled our service and now we make way for younger, fresher minds. Such is the way.”

Carew exchanged a glance with Lania.

Gorley said, “And you, Rahn, won’t be accompanying us to the lair of the Weird?”

Rahn smiled. “The male of the Elders does not witness the transition,” he said. “On the very first occasion an Elder followed a Harvester to its home, over forty of our years ago, the
Procyon’s
captain happened to be a woman. And so it goes. Traditions are what bind society together, they are the warp and weave, if you like, of the fabric of a people. We will not forgo that tradition, not break the thread.”