A DOZEN STRANDS of life now linked Merwen's body to the Valan lifeshaper with his primitive skill. Still she lived, her thoughts dancing about the rim of that dread that blocked her return, a cloud blacker than vacuum.
Come back, Merwen, come back to go home
. A voice called across the vacuum, a child's voice, Nathan's voice. Home ⦠an odd thing to offer, for here she was, at the lip of her own final home.
Was it just possible, though, to shrink that dreadful vacuum, to wear it down to something she could handle again?
The question was, had Spinel in fact shared betrayal or not? Before her own eyes Merwen was convinced he had, yet his denial, and her own knowledge of him, equally convinced her he had not. How could she resolve such a paradox?
Home, Merwen. You will go home, I promise
. Nathan again. Merwen glimpsed that other home now, behind the black void, the place where Usha and Lystra struggled to swim on among the living. Perhaps she could make it backâif only she found the truth first.
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As her eyes opened, they were pierced by a bright light overhead. With an enormous effort Merwen sat up on the mattress and pressed the sheet aside. Long filaments like dead vines adhered to several places on her limbs, but Nathan soon removed them. Merwen stretched her arms and smiled. “Thank you for keeping my life.”
Nathan looked away. “It was you who kept mine.”
“Thanks, too, for that privilege.” Merwen paused. “Nathan, let me see Spinel.”
He turned his white-cloaked back toward her as he fiddled with instruments on the shelf. “There won't be time. You'll be home within minutes, Merwen.”
Alarmed, she sat up straight. “I can't go home; I'm not ready. Let me see Realgar, at least, just for a moment, whether or not he speaksâ”
The wall broke open, the door-piece swung back, and two young soldiers came in. Nathan said, “Your helicopter is waiting.”
Carefully she lowered her feet to the floor. Then she caught Nathan's sleeve and twisted herself around to look up into his face, saying in Sharer, “Can a recorded picture share untruth?”
His lip quivered and a scalpel slipped from his hand to clatter on the floor; his eyes were the very image of terror. Cruel though it was, Merwen could only feel pity for Nathan, and a deeper pity for herself.
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On Raia-el the sun-warmed soil pressed her soles, and so many sisters came to greet her.
“Merwen, you're back at last; oh, everything will be right again.”
“Even airblossoms will grow faster, now that Merwen's home!”
“How you've wasted away ⦠but you'll get better soon.”
“Mother, I know, I know how it was, but you can't just hold it all inside, you have to share it out, it's all right now, everything's fine.”
Only nothing was right yet, and Merwen was not ready to share speech at all.
FATE WAS FICKLE, Lystra thought. Just when Elonwy and Laraisha had been spared to witness at the soldier-place every day, the Valans returned Merwen in such a state that she went alone to a raft offshoot, Unspeaking the Gathering. The thought of what Merwen must have undergone was enough to bring back nightmares of Lystra's own agony in the place of stone.
Now the clickfly missives mingled joy and sympathy, and they whispered, Merwen the Impatient is silent because she is too ashamed to admit she no longer thinks Valans are human. That was sad, but by now too many soldiers had proved themselves human by “not-killing.” After all, who ever heard of a fleshborer that learned not to hasten death?
Spinel had not been seen on Raia-el since the helicopter took him. A visiting soldier said that Spinel had been sent up to the dreaded Satellite Amber.
Lystra's heart felt heavy as a deathweight to drag her under as she swam among the corals. Only the everpresent demand of the starworms kept her up from the floor of the sea.
The first seaswallower was sighted by Flossa, who yelped with glee and dragged every sister within earshot to see. Flossa was beside herself, since she had helped shape one of the microbe strains that now consumed the toxin from the soldier-place and let the swallowers come.
Lystra was not pleased for long; seaswallowers, however essential, were nothing to laugh about. Grimly she peered at the horizon, where the white spiral grew and came near. Raft seedlings were sparse, since fewer than usual had sprouted after the foul blight of the last season. So the starving seaswallowers would nibble away at the rich branches of Raia-el, despite the deterrent of fleshborers. Even the soldier-place, though not a raft, would attract swallowers to its organic effluents, and what would the soldiers do about it? Lystra wondered. Well, they had plenty of warning.
By the end of the week, the churning whirlpools were coming near enough so that an outlying branch strained and broke off. The jolt of it shuddered and quaked across the raft. Lystra, at work on an escape
craft, lost her balance and fell. Dazed, she picked herself up, recalling that Merwen was still out on an offshoot, Unspoken.
Lystra stomped down to the lifeshaping-place to confront Usha. “Enough is enough, Mothersister. When will you share sense with her?”
Usha did not look up from the seed pods that held her microbe cultures. “Am I Shora Herself and the sun and stars besides? I have nothing but patience to share with the Impatient One.”
Lystra stomped back up and shoved a rowboat into the branch channel, as fleshborers snapped and squirmed below. Eerily, this act recalled her last day with Rilwen, the day she had set out to bring her lovesharer home and returned with only Spinel. Rilwen's agony was something Lystra at least understood, but Merwen's was beyond knowing.
Beyond the network of channels, a lonely bit of windscraped raft stuck out of the sea. Lystra pulled her boat up, walked over to her mother, and sat down obstinately beside her. “Mother, I won't leave until you do. And this time, Spinel isn't here to pull me back.”
Merwen sat in silence for a minute or so, calmly gazing past Lystra out to sea. Then the corner of her lip twitched, and her head tossed back with a quick laugh. “Come, let's go.” She rose to her feet.
Dumbfounded, Lystra scrambled up. “That was easy.”
“I knew I had no choice, with you.”
“You were just ready to come, that's all.”
“Perhaps.” Merwen stepped into the boat.
Lystra started to pick up the oars, then she dropped them and turned on her mother. “Mother, what did they do with you at the soldier-place? They hurt Spinelâthat's it, isn't it? Where is he, what be came of him?”
“He became a soldier.”
A chill shocked Lystra and her breath came fast.
“He denied it, but I saw,” Merwen added.
Lystra drew a deep breath. “It's a lie, I tell you, I don't care what they made you see! A lie, like all the traders' lies I ever shared.”
“Why are you shouting so?”
“Because you believe it, don't you?”
“Lystra, you're right, it must be a lie. But you didn't
see
what I saw in the picture cube. That moment when Spinel held the firewhip was totally real, for me. I have to come to terms with that, do you see?”
“I don't.” But Lystra was uneasy. After all, Spinel had tried to share the soldiers' way more than once, before he took his selfname. What would become of him now, in that sky-place with the mind-twisters? “Mother, you have to trust someone.”
“You have to trust everyone, in order to draw out what truth is in them. Even Kyril shared valuable truth with you. Spinel I trust absolutely now, because I have to. It's all right, Lystra; I am content.”
“Content, you say,” Lystra muttered as she picked up the oars again. “Content, when we're all headed for extinction?”
Merwen cocked her head toward the sky. “Oh, I doubt that. Billions of galaxies are out there, and how many planets full of souls?”
“Mother! You can't start thinking like that.”
“I'm tired, Lystra, much too tired.” She looked tired, Lystra realized suddenly, despite the bright words. Merwen had aged a decade in the Valan prison.
REALGAR HAD HEARD traders' tales of the seaswallowers, but he tended to discount them. Certainly he had never imagined anything quite so powerful as those whirlpools that now sucked hungrily on all sides, some broader than the Headquarters itself. And when one fountained, so high that the spray took several minutes to come downâit was breathtaking, as though the whole ocean had turned into a great primeval monster.
To the north, a battalion headquarters was swamped by a fountain.
After that, Realgar suspended everything except attacks on swallowers. The guardbeam hit whirlpools that approached Headquarters, producing masses of steam that the beasts sucked down until they choked. Submarine homing missiles got others. Even so, three more bases were swamped, then a fourth, as the population crested past.
Realgar surveyed the sea with growing apprehension and wondered
what more could be done. At this rate, there would be dozens of bases to clean up by the time the swallowers were through.
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As the crest peaked, Lystra and Merwen were checking the escape craft, where food and medicines were packed and the children were safely ensconced, Weia playing finger games with Elonwy's toddler. To Lystra's astonishment, Elonwy herself emerged from the water, gasping and heaving, while Laraisha clung like a limpet to her neck. “Elonwy! You didn't lose your boat?” Lystra caught up the infant to give her a rest.
“The soldier-placeâit's washed away! I was sitting on the edge, as usual, and a guard had just asked me if Laraisha was teething yet, and the next minute I was swept away.”
“But you got backâ”
“I don't know how, Lystra. I just swam and swam, and Laraisha hung on, and I guess Shora didn't want me lost yet. But Lystra, those Valans: they can't swim at all.”
Lystra drew back, and her heart congealed.
Merwen said, “Take this boat. With four of you pulling oars, you'll manage. Wellen, get the girls out and into the next boat.”
“We can't, Mother,” Lystra protested. “The whole raft could break up, any minute now.”
“The crest is past; we're safe enough. I know Raia-el raft.” Already Ishma and two others were settling into the boat, to hunt for survivors. Merwen leaned on the boat frame as if to test it. “Lystra, with your strong arm you'll all make it.”
Lystra muttered, “I have to tend the starworms.”
Merwen stopped to look at her. “What are you saying?”
“Why should I bring myself to help another one of those creatures ever again? After all the weeks I wasted away, and the months as they hastened our sisters without a thought, and their last gruesome trick with Spinel? Why, Mother? I say, let it be. Let Shora Herself share Her own justice.”
“Have you learned nothing since your selfname?” Merwen's voice held a rare snap. “Never mind, time wastes us all.” She flung the last words over her shoulder as she jumped into the boat herself.
“What? Mother! You can't go, in your conditionâ”
But Merwen had her back turned and of course would not listen.
That was just too much. Lystra picked her up like one of the children, then stomped into the boat herself, sitting down so hard the others jumped. “All right, Mother! I won't have
your
death on my soul, do you hear?” With an oar she gave a furious shove at a raft branch, and the boat slithered out into the channel.
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So the seasilken boats went out, one after another, to pull survivors from the tormented sea. Since the soldier-place was thoroughly swamped, the Valans were brought back to the raft. Some needed quick treatment to live, while others just stretched out on blankets to dry.
Realgar found himself stranded on the raft, left without clothing, weapons, even a radio to summon assistance, as if the natives had seized the last chance they would get to mock him. And it was their last chance, he swore as he watched them saunter shamelessly past the blanketed men; their last, before the satellites got them.
But the first thing was to get back to Headquarters, and how was he to do that without contact? Not a helicopter was in sight; was his whole corps in disarray? Or had his officers mutinied? He felt suddenly cold, and his hair stood on end. Cut off in one instant from the vast machine he ruled, he was alone, as alone as in the Sardish wilderness.
He caught sight of the captain of the perimeter guard, amid a group of blanketed troopers. The familiar face brought him somewhat to his senses. He got up and walked over, wrapping his blanket tighter, swallowing embarrassment. “Captain. Anyone manage to keep a radio?”
The captain pulled her arm out from a fold of seasilk to salute. “Yes, sir, we did.” A noncom was fiddling with a waterlogged instrument, which produced nothing but static.
As the others crowded and swore at the radio, a webbed hand fluttered among them, a youngster of Merwen's household. “I'll send a clickfly for you.” The girl had a clickfly perched on her head which rubbed its lopsided mandibles and clucked with maddening cheeriness.
A man turned to her hopefully. “Sure, kid, why don't youâ”
“Shut up,” said the captain. “You know the rule.”
The man's face turned pale. The rule was still to burn on sight any native who acted “forward,” without exception. He looked at his empty hands as if expecting an order to strangle the girl.
The captain grabbed the girl by the arm, twisting it behind her back, and the startled clickfly flitted up to escape. “Where are our weapons? Bring them back, or it's lights out for you.”
“The death-sticks are on their way to the sea floor,” the girl replied without blinking. “Those toys are too dangerous, even for me.”
The captain shoved the girl away. She seated herself at a distance, with the watchful look of a nanny at a playground.
Realgar tensed with fury, every tendon stretched to breaking. He would rather face torture, interrogation, even a shot in the backâanything rather than the appalling sight of that girl. He hated every inch of her and her web-fingered kind who dared to fish his troops from the sea. Even if he were to strangle them, their faces would show only pity as they died.
Then his hatred subsided, leaving a headache and a weariness that would not vanish even when a helicopter appeared at last in the sky, and he snapped out commands to gather the survivors into some semblance of order. The campaign would be won despite this setback, but Realgar sensed an indefinable loss of spirit that would take him a long while to recover.
Out of the helicopter stepped Jade, smart and trim as ever, with a brisk salute as if it were all in a day's work.
“Jade, you made it! I should have known. You'd live through the flooding of hell itself. What's left of Headquarters?”
“The framework is intact, though it needs a big cleanout. Casualties are uncertain, since we're still picking survivors off the sea. Though by the looks of it, most of them ended up here.” Her gaze took in the scene, the troopers wrapped in ludicrous seasilk, the natives wandering around. “Imagine, those catfish still hope to capture our sympathy. I can't wait to turn on the satellites.”
“Since nothing else worked?”
Jade's mouth snapped shut; then she turned and started spouting orders at the helicopter crew.
Realgar's temper had flared because Jade had no business taking over and telling him what to do next, and also because she had stated his own thought aloud, in front of all the natives, where the mockery of it was obvious. What a hollow triumph it would be to destroy all the rafts just because Sharers could not be ruled.