“Nine reports, to be exact. By the time you reach a dozen, you might even tell me just what the phenomenon is.”
She flushed. “You know at least what it's not.”
“But the common folk don't, especially in the rural provinces. A thousand fools believe a lie, and it's good as truth. Wouldn't you agree, General?”
Realgar leaned forward. “The main point as far as Sharers are concerned is discipline. I know they're outside our own law at present, butâ”
“Realgar,” said Berenice reprovingly. “You know how harmless they are.”
“No lawbreaker is harmless,” he said reasonably.
Berenice crossed her arms. Why did Ral have to be here today? she wondered. Their relationship worked best with certain parts of their lives kept apart.
“Sharers are subversive,” Talion told her. “As subversive as you are.”
She sidestepped this reference to her checkered past. “What was that charge of âspying' all about?”
“Your own friends Impatient and Inconsiderate admitted as much. They called themselves âsoldiers' and âspies.'”
She laughed shortly. “A language problem, I'm sure. I'll clear that up.” Privately, she was troubled. Merwen spoke Valan too well to use words loosely. Why exactly had they come here, and why had they declined to stay with Berenice? The city climate did not suit their health, Usha had said.
“Let's hope you do clear it up. And for their own sakes, let them know what the score is, before they join the others in prison.”
“Prison?” Berenice half rose from her seat. “Who's in prison?”
“Another couple, calling themselves Lazy and Absentminded. Picked up for indecent exposure. They not only refused questioning, they turned white and limp to the point of coma. They took no food, and they soon stank like fish. After three nights they were dumped back on the moonferry.”
Berenice shut her eyes and swallowed painfully during this recitation. Whatever happened to Sharers she took personally, as if she were both victim and perpetrator. “You only make my job all the harder. For years I've played up the benefits of free trade for Sharers, how useful our metal gadgets can be, and so on. I've ironed out countless problems with the local traders. But now, with such unwarranted treatment, why should they listen anymore?”
“Your notion of free trade does not always coincide with reality. Your own father is the founder of the Trade Council.”
“Which nowadays fixes prices and milks the planet dry. What will Malachite say to that?”
Realgar was suddenly alert. Talion did not move a muscle. “My lady,” Talion said at last, “you go too far. If you told your friends to expect the Envoy to favor them, you made a serious error.”
Her pulse quickened, for she had in fact told them as much and still believed it. “Forgive me,” she said with drawn-out irony, “I forgot that nonhumans are of no interest to the Patriarch.”
“It's not that simple. Their genetic character allows a possibility that they descended from human stock.”
“More than a possibility,” she corrected with ill-concealed contempt. “But who cares? A thousand fools believe a lie, and it's as good as truth.”
Realgar's face was a taut mask, as always when he hid unseemly emotion. It nettled her to see him embarrassed on her account, but he should have kept out of her business.
A thought occurred to her. “Has the Envoy himself already sent inquiry about Shora? Well, has he?”
Talion flexed his fingers, clasped above the desktop. “Subtle are the ways of Torr.”
Of course; that was what had him worried. Berenice tried to hide her satisfaction. Now was the time to play her trump card. “If Malachite should choose to contact Sharers ⦠you might like to know that I've been asked to take a selfname when I return to Shora.”
Their reactions were gratifyingly swift. No Valan, after all, had ever been known to join a Sharer Gathering before.
“Promotion,” Realgar remarked dryly. “My congratulations.”
Talion leaned intently across his desk. “Then we'll have a direct line on their policymaking.”
“Call it a firsthand view,” Berenice said carefully. “I will tell you and Malachite what you need to know.”
“And what you choose to tell. You would do well to be forthcoming.” The High Protector paused as if weighing a choice. “Malachite will make his own inquiries, of course; his means are far greater than ours. But he won't get started for some time yet, and whatever you can discover before thenâ” He stopped.
Unconsciously Berenice clenched her knees while she focused her attention on Talion. “It would be helpful,” she said slowly, “to know what I am looking for.”
“If this leaks, my lady, you're finished. Malachite believes that these creatures, whatever they are, may have powers that interest him. Forbidden sciences.”
Her eyes widened. Whatever could he be getting at? To be sure, Sharers were not the barbarians that Talion officially took them for.
Their “lifeshaping” skills in particular were advanced, she believed, though incomprehensible to Valan doctors. But their skills could not extend to the forbidden. Forbidden sciences, by definition, were banned because they destroyed their creators. Shora had lived in peace for at least ten thousand years.
Â
From Realgar's helicopter, Berenice watched the massive crystal garden that was Iridis pass slowly back below them. There was the silver dome of the fusion plant that Pyrrhopolis had tried to emulate, and there were the square courtyards of the Academy Iridis, where all permissible ranges of learning were preserved.
“Berenice,” Realgar began, “your loose manner of speech with the Protector surprises me. It's unwise.”
She raised an eyebrow at him, then relaxed in a chuckle. “Do I offend your sense of diplomacy? Ral, I've known Talion far longer than I've known you. He dines with my parents every week.”
“It's not like you to appeal to your parents.”
“You're right, it's not,” she said seriously. “And it's not like you to reopen old wounds.” She leaned into his chest, and the stun gun at his belt pressed into her side. Realgar brought his right arm around her, somewhat stiffly, the hand half closed. His arm had been torn apart in the assassin's blast that had killed his first wife instead of himself. Sardis had settled down since then, but the province still deserved its reputation for intrigue. Berenice wondered at times whether she herself risked a similar fate, though in a place where she rarely looked she knew that she loved him more because of the alluring risk, not despite it.
Realgar said, after an interval, “The Protector thinks that a show of strength might prove instructive for your Sharer friends.”
She pulled away and glared at him. “I knew you had cooked something up together. He wants an invasion, doesn't he, the old troll. âPacification,' you'll call it.”
“Nonsense. An exercise, a demonstration, that's all he proposed. They've never even seen a troop detachment or a directed-energy device; they have no idea of what we can do.”
Berenice leaned back in the cushioned seat and closed her eyes. He must have good reason to tell her this, but she was so tired of the game. “It won't work, you know,” she mused softly, more to convince herself. “The Sharers simply won't understand. And when your invasion
lands, they'll all turn into âghosts.' You'll look rather silly, then.” She believed Realgar's assurance, as far as it went. But the one sure lesson of her life was the fragility of sureness. She had to share some tough learning with Merwen, before it was too late.
THE NIGHT BEFORE Spinel was to leave home, he stared out his window at the sky full of stars that shimmered in the sultry air, among them the blue gem that was Shora. Panic swept him. How could he ever hope to survive on that little moon image, a drowned world millions of kilometers away? Would he turn into a fish and be trapped there forever? He was insane to go along with those moonwomen just because no one wanted him here.
On impulse he fled from the house and ran down the unlit streets, all the way out to the pier where the Sharers' boat was moored. He would tell them the whole deal was off, that already he was homesick for Chrysoport, that his father needed him for the stoneshop ⦠.
His foot caught on a rotten plank, and something splashed in the gloom below. He stopped; the market square was a different place at night, a realm of ghosts and shadows and the mournful clang of chains against the dock posts. He felt slightly foolish as he stared at the hull of the boat, where the name
Hyalite
gleamed in opalescent letters.
That Lady of Hyalite was to join them at the space landing tomorrow. No Iridian lady would go off to let herself turn into a fish, Spinel tried to convince himself.
Â
In the morning, half the village gathered in the market to see him off on his bizarre journey. Spinel could only think of his family, whom he faced for the last time. “But not the very last,” he assured Beryl as he kissed her tearstained cheek. “I'll come back to see your new baby.” He hugged Harran, saying, “You take care of my sister, okay?”
“Take care of yourself, now,” Harran said. “If it's true that fish
grow as big as mountains up there, be sure to hook one for our stew-pot.”
Spinel grinned and felt a little better.
Then Oolite set to wailing, louder than a flock of seagulls; Beryl had to pick her up and soothe her.
His father embraced him awkwardly, with eyes cast down, and pressed a cloth full of agates into his pocket. “Gifts. Help you make friends up there,” Cyan muttered tersely. “May the Sharers make a fine judge of you.”
Galena could barely stand upright, with all the ropes of beads she wore for this momentous occasion, but she threw her arms about him and held him for some time. “Don't forget your lunch,” she said at last. “I packed lots of good things, so those people will know what a Valan boy eats. And remember, Spinel, wherever you're going, and whatever you end up doing, do it right.” Her black eyes exuded shrewdness, though half hidden in her swollen face. Somehow his mother had a glimpse of the unknown that was about to claim him.
Other villagers in their beads and caftans shouted after him and passed the wine jug from hand to hand. Someone even dared to offer it to Merwen, but she refused. Old Ahn pressed through the crowd and thrust some bags at him, though he already had too much to carry. “How can they grow groundnuts and tomatoes up there, without any fresh soil?” Ahn wondered.
Spinel did not know. Suddenly the food parcels became his most precious possessions.
“You'll come back to us rich as a trader, won't you, lad?” called Melas through cupped hands. “What a fish tale you'll bear then!” Or was it “fishtail”?
Before he could change his mind again, Spinel hoisted his belongings into the boat, where Usha stowed them away. A wind gusted in from the sea, ruffling loose skirts and trousers. Uriel's cowl slipped back as he raised his arm: “The Patriarch's Spirit has blessed your voyage ⦠.” But his holy words were soon lost. The waving arms, the farewell shouts, Oolite's screamâall receded into the distance and the past.
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They sailed up the jagged coastline, and Usha steered skillfully past Trollbone Point, where vertical cliffs broke into boulders tumbled (it
was said) by the ancient Trolls. Spinel had explored there among fossil bones of the fabled giants, said to have eaten hoards of gems and laid eggs of alabaster. But Trolls had passed away when the godlike Primes came to remodel the planet Valedon to human standards. And where were the Primes today? His sense of melancholy deepened.
“Can Uriel reach his Spirit in an instant, even across the light-years?” Merwen was sitting on the deck with her legs crossed, her arms still except for a finger that waved slightly.
Startled, Spinel shook himself to collect his thoughts. He had asked Uriel something like that himself, once, and got no satisfactory answer. “It's his faith,” Spinel muttered and looked away.
“Then he must be a man of immense power.”
“The High Protector has power, and
he
has no use for faith,” Spinel impertinently observed. “The Protector uses radio and starships.” He jumped up and swung his arm in an arc to mimic the trajectory of a starship. “And he rules
everyone
in Valedon.”
“Then everyone rules him.”
Spinel stopped and stared down at her. “What's that?”
“Each force has an equal and opposite force,” Merwen said. “So who rules without being ruled?”
His mouth hung open, and he pulled at his lip. He knew little of “forces,” except for those that held crystals together, as his father had beat into his head over the years.
“You have to learn more of our tongue. In Sharer speech, my words will explain themselves.”
“Oh, I can talk that stuff.” Spinel repeated some of the words he had picked up, Sharer words for water and sky, as well as the “plant-light” and the splaylegged “clickfly” that sat on her head and emitted perverse noises. Merwen helped, always patient with his stumbling attempts at pronunciation, but Usha would grimace and shake with soundless laughter. Spinel got more and more annoyed, and when Merwen started on verbs his temper broke. “What the devil is
âword-sharing'?
Does the word for âspeak' mean âlisten' just as well? If I said, âListen to me!' you might talk, instead.”
“What use is the one without the other? It took me a long time to see this distinction in Valan speech.”
Spinel thought over the list of “share-forms”: learnsharing, work-sharing, lovesharing. “Do you say âhitsharing,' too? If I hit a rock with a chisel, does the rock hit me?”
“I would think so. Don't you feel it in your arm?”
He frowned and sought a better example; it was so obvious, it was impossible to explain. “I've got it: if Beryl bears a child, does the child bear Beryl? That's ridiculous.”
“A mother is born when her child comes.”
“Or if I swim in the sea, does the sea swim in me?”
“Does it not?”
Helplessly he thought, She can't be that crazy. “Please, you do know the difference, don't you?”
“Of course. What does it matter?”
Â
Buildings clustered and towered ever higher toward Iridis, like the gathered skirts of a trinket peddler whose arms opened wide into the longest spread of docked ships that Spinel had ever seen. Piers jutted out as far as he could see, an endless comb at the coif of the sea.
Merwen steered in among the ships, whose hulls towered above her tiny houseboat. Spinel felt as lost and insignificant here as the bits of flotsam that washed up against the hull. But Merwen must have known her way, for where she docked at last a man waited to greet themâa rich, shiny man, in tight cream satin with a broad opal-studded breastplate. Eagerly Spinel ran forward to the prow; then he stopped and blinked twice.
The man had no face. There was only a pale, blank oval where his face should be. “It's a
servo
!” Spinel was delighted. It was said that mechanical servitors did all the hard work in Iridis, leaving the nobles free for leisure. Even so, that Lady of Hyalite must be exceptionally rich to have such a fine one and clothe it like a Protector, besides.
Merwen said, “Where is Berenice?” Her voice was strained. Puzzled, Spinel squinted back at her and at Usha. Usha sat still, her expression rigid; she gripped the gunwale, and the tendons of her arm stood out.
“Lady Berenice shall join you at the moonferry.” The servo spoke in melodious tones. “If my ladies please, board the hovercraft.” An arm swung back toward the silver dome behind him.
“A
hovercraft!
Why, you can fly higher than a seagull in a hovercraftâ” Spinel stopped. Merwen was whispering with Usha in that crazy Sharer speech. He waited, shifting from one foot to the other. “What's wrong with her, Merwen? We can't keep the lady waiting.”
Merwen said, “Your speech cannot express what Usha thinks of
this ⦠object, the hovercraft. Like the servitor, it is made of âdead,' of ânon-life,' of material that has never known the breath of life.”
“You mean, she's scared to get into a hovercraft? What will she do about the moonferry?”
“We'll see. For now, we will walk.”
Spinel opened his mouth, then shut it again and turned away. While the servo helped Merwen and Usha unload their belongings, which Usha reluctantly consented to stow in the hovercraft, Spinel sullenly kicked at a dock post. “Take that for your stupid âsharer talk,' too.” The dome of the hovercraft whirred and sparkled; wistfully, he watched it take off on its own. Then the servo marched up the pier, and Spinel and the Sharers followed him-or-it into the city.
The streets were a confusion of motley colors and noises that all seemed to call to Spinel at once. It took him awhile to realize that not every blare of a horn was aimed at himself. And the smells, of oil and refuse, mixed with that of fruits and flowers sprawled in the vendors' trays, made an uneasy knot in his stomach. On either side of him buildings rose higher than even the cliffs of Trollbone Point; as he looked upward, he felt that he strolled the depths of a chasm. Yet in an instant that notion was swept away by the throngs of people and costumes, the hovercrafts flitting up and down like fireflies, the storefronts with letters of light that danced in the air.
When the travelers reached Center Way, Spinel was simply dumbfounded. There must have been more people crammed into that one thoroughfare than lived in the whole of Chrysoport. Women passed in brilliant talars, heels clicking sharply. Traders wore gems coiled around their heads as they exhibited bales of seasilk, piled precariously high, or cases of intricate metal implements whose purpose could not be guessed. Spinel craned his neck up; way above him, the buildings rose forever, past the skyway where great silver pencils streaked by, their reflected glare stinging his eyes.
A hand clawed his arm. “A fiver, noble lord,” croaked a stranger. “Oh, a fiver for the sightless.” The stranger was gnarled and hunched over, almost a caricature of Ahn. Irritated, Spinel shrugged him off. Spinel had not expected to find beggars in the city of Iridis.
Where had Merwen got to, and the servo? For a frantic moment he searched. Then he caught sight of Merwen and Usha watching a green monkey that danced to the tune of a fiddler. The street fiddler scraped away to a lively beat, while the monkey capered about and flourished
its cup for coins. When the tune was over, the monkey leaped and scampered up the arm of its master.
Merwen asked, “Is she human?”
“Are you kidding?” said Spinel. “It's a monkey. People eat them, even.”
“How was I to know?
You're
human.”
Spinel blinked in surprise. It was the first time she had snapped at him, that he could recall.
They turned away and walked on after the servo. In the distance ahead, a regular booming sound grew and reverberated beneath Spinel's feet. Parade music floated in above the heads of a crowd that now pressed solidly together. The servo somehow made a path through the crowd, and Spinel followed, until suddenly between two heads he caught a glimpse ofâ
Palace Iridium. The legendary mosaic facade that stared out of a thousand holocubes was now
there
in front of him, real as life. Before it, the courtyard was virtually paved with soldiers, columns upon columns of them marching past in precise crystalline arrays.
“What's going on?” Spinel exclaimed. “Are they off to the Pyrrholite war?”
A man laughed. “Not just now,” he said in a clipped city accent. “Malachite, the Patriarch's Envoy, has only just come. Talion's turned out the Guard to honor him. No, there'll be no war while Malachite is here.” The man pointed; a starship stood by the palace, a green needle that touched the clouds.
Spinel watched, mesmerized. All his strength, and that of legions of marchers, flowed and focused into that slim green starship that held the power of the Patriarch of Torr.
Â
Where was Nisi? Merwen wondered, as Spinel tarried amidst the crowd. This city-place was stifling her. Merwen had gotten used to Chrysoport; indeed, the flat plaster homes of the village appeared sensible enough, for dwellings anchored to the solid floor of earth. But Iridis was a jumble of unintelligible shapes and fetid odors that made her swoon. It was a nightmare where dead things walked on two legs, or preyed above, while the ground bristled with sharp objects more dangerous than the spines of coralfish; for the hundredth time she fingered the soles of her aching feet. Her skin burned, dry as bleached raftwood, and she longed for some more of Usha's protective oil. In the
summer heat, this place was even worse than on the first ghastly day that she and Usha had stepped off the moonferry. Would they never find Nisi again, and the moonferry, and get back to blessed Shora?