Pock's World Page 11

  “You didn’t exactly struggle. Sit down and tell me what I did wrong.” He let himself fall backward straight-legged, braking his landing with outstretched arms. It was easy in the lower gravity. He left his legs straight and patted the grass beside him. “Here.”

  Biting her lip as if to stop a smile, Joy accepted his challenge in turn and sat down elbow-to-elbow. He put his arm around her. She went rigid for a moment, then relaxed when she realized he was not about to do more.

  “You could get beheaded for this, you know?”

  “I charge more than one kiss for beheadings. Now, who are you really?”

  “Monody.”

  He hesitated, then said cautiously, “You said you were taking me to meet Monody.”

  “I am. I was on my way to visit Wisdom when I heard about the off-worlders at Elaterin.” Grin again. “I not supposed to meddle in real business yet, just ceremonial stuff, but the chance was irresistible. I know she’ll want to meet you, and she doesn’t get about much any more.”

  Ratty felt synapses ticking over. “How many of you are there, Monody?”

  “Four: Wisdom, Duty, Love, and Joy.”

  “Incarnations of the Mother?”

  She nodded. He inspected her red and white curls. He looked up at enormous, cloud-swirled Javel. “That’s why you wear your hair like that?”

  “No.” She made an effort to appear serious. “I’d better begin your education, Friend Ratty, because I really wouldn’t like to see your beautiful head chopped off.”

  “You could keep it on your dressing table and kiss it as often as you liked.”

  She sniggered. “You are incredible! Listen! Many centuries ago—roughly ten thousand years standard— the link from Malacostraca was completed and the first settlers began coming through. For a long time life was very hard here. They had to take massive tonic to combat the bad air and the poisons, and most of them died young. The geneticists kept working on the problems, of course, modifying the germ plasm, using in vitro fertilization to maximize genetic diversity.” She looked to see how he was reacting to her recitation.

  “This is true of all frontier worlds.”

  “Yes. And they brought in fertilized ova from the older worlds. That’s standard practice, too, to widen the gene base. The first improvement they devised was the red pigment that keeps Pocosins from dying of skin cancer before they’re twenty. But one of the imported ova rejected the treatment. It developed into a female infant with unchanged skin color. She seemed healthy otherwise, so she was fostered out and grew up into a remarkable young woman.”

  He studied her smirk, almost nose to nose. “An incredibly beautiful one.”

  “I didn’t mean that!” She colored and looked away. “No other man would dare say things like that to me.”

  That explained a lot. At her age she should have learned how to deal with sweet talk from boys on the make. It was wonderful to see the pleasure his ham-fisted flattery was giving her, but now her reaction was starting to interest his hormones, and he had no intention of letting this encounter get out of hand. Human sacrifice or not, raping a juvenile high priestess was likely to be a capital offense. “Why not? It’s true.”

  “Where was I?”

  “You had just grown up.”

  “Yes. Monody—she was the first—was born with this hair of mine, part red, part white.”

  “Mosaicism.”

  “What?”

  “It’s called ‘mosaicism,’” he said, just to prove that he could play the jargon game too. “Women have two X chromosomes and men have only one, so any gene on an X chromosome has to function adequately without a matching partner. Otherwise women would get too much of whatever proteins it produces, or else men would not get enough. Early in its development a fetus suppresses one X, but it isn’t consistent in the one it suppresses, so half your cells use the X you got from your father and half the one you got from your mother.”

  He was quoting a cog-doc he’d done some years ago, but he thought he’d got it right.

  Joy smirked and patted her curls. “I had no father. Do you find that freakish?”

  “Far from it. It excites me. It makes me wonder naughty things.”

  “You mustn’t say things like that! Scrob will flatten you, and Bedel would back him up. Monody truly was remarkable. There are lots of wonderful stories about her. I won’t ask you to believe those, ’cause I know off-worlders don’t accept her miracles. But when she was grown up, about my age, the settlers suddenly began dying off even faster, and the doctors could find no reason. Monody organized a pilgrimage to Quassia. That’s the city of the Old Ones—not Tourist Quassia, but Real Quassia. There she was granted a vision of the Querent. You don’t have to believe it, but when she came back down from Quassia, she spoke of her revelation and announced that all those who prayed to the Mother of Worlds would be cured of the unknown disease.”

  “And it worked?”

  “Oh, yes. Within a fortnight it was obvious that none of her followers were dying but others still were. Everybody lined up to join the Church of the Mother, and Monody was high priestess.

  “One part of her revelation I must tell you, though. She announced that she would bring forth a daughter to be her successor and after the right number of days she did bear a daughter. Some people scoffed, but the geneticists tested mother and child and showed that they were identical.”

  The geneticists in question would have been followers, of course. “Parthenogenetic birth is not uncommon,” Ratty said. “It doesn’t occur naturally among humans, but other species use it. Men are an expensive luxury.”

  That brought back her dimples. “But a nice one!”

  “So ever since then, the high priestesses have followed her example?”

  “Not quite. The first Monody’s quickening was a gift from the Mother, but when her daughter was grown, Monody told her to go and make love to a man.”

  “Ah. Someone like Scrob?”

  “Any man.” From the way she was watching for his reaction again, he could tell that something big was coming. “The man doesn’t father the child. See, our oocytes do not undergo meiosis. That’s when an ovum cell discards half its chromosomes, you know. A sperm does much the same, then sex brings the two halves together and makes a whole, a zygote.” She certainly knew her technical bafflegab. “Ours is a special form of parthenogenesis called pseudogamy. It’s rare, but it does occur in other species. Our ovulation is triggered by the presence of seminal fluid in the uterus. Then my ovaries will release an ovum identical to the ovum that formed me and the ovum that formed my mother and so on, back through every Monody.”

  “Seminal fluid, mm?” Ratty could never recall hearing that mentioned on a first date. So the central dogma was a virgin priestess ever renewed. More likely her bizarre hair coloring was just a dominant gene passed on in orthodox fashion. In that case, what did they do with the male babies?

  Joy sighed. “Now you see why I need someone like Scrob? It’s time I made my choice. Monody keeps nagging me, all of them, especially my mother! She’s Love and anxious to be Duty. I don’t know… Scrob’s nice enough. He’s willing, too!”

  “I don’t doubt he is!” Ratty’s imagination was already in overdrive.

  “It’s an honor to be the Child Giver,” she protested. “He gets to wear the cape all his life and be a gownsman, even an important one if he has any talent. Mother’s Giver, Bedel, is already Duty’s chief advisor on science matters. Givers have special privileges, like a right of appeal directly to Duty herself. Scrob could live off that alone all his days!”

  Oh, she was lovely, and if she were just two years older, or if he didn’t have a conscience… but he did, damn it! “You want my opinion, as an outsider?”

  “No! Yes.”

  “I think you’re being treated very badly.” She obviously did not realize that she was terrified, but she was, and justifiably so. “If you wanted Scrob it would have happened by now. Send Scrob away. There’s no shortage of boys
, with muscles or without. Tell them you need more time. One day something will just go click! and you’ll know. It never needs words, Joy, it just happens.”

  She sighed. “Scrob will be wondering what we’re doing. We’d better go.”

  Her lips were in place to be kissed, so Ratty kissed them. Her arms went around him and he thought she was going to pull him down on the grass. She didn’t—but it was he who ended the kiss.

  She sighed. “A few more minutes and you’d have clicked like mad.”

  “I know. You’re taking quite a risk, Joy. Men can start behaving irrationally when you tease them like this.”

  Walking back to the flyers, she said, “I wonder if Scrob can kiss like that?”

  “Teach him. You do it very well.”

  “Stop that! And behave yourself when we get to the village, or they’ll tear you to pieces.”

  Chapter 5

  Hunches were usually the work of the devil. People who prophesied or thought they heard the Holy Spirit speaking to them were in grave danger of error. Nevertheless, Brother Andre had a strong hunch that whatever message young Braata was so anxious to deliver must be extremely important. He had seemed like a level-headed young man, not one to gamble his life.

  While the airship retraced its route over the sea and the passengers studied the forward view screen, the two gownsmen had fallen silent, catching up on cognition, no doubt. When Oxindole suddenly started laughing, everyone looked at him in surprise.

  “We have found your missing commissioner,” he said. “Early this morning a youth wearing a red cape brought two flyers to Elaterin and demanded fuel in the name of the Mother. Of course they were happy to give it to him. Shortly after that he returned on foot in a seriously overheated condition and requisitioned the fastest flyer in the village.”

  Gownsman Skerry cackled and Andre nearly did. Suddenly he was awash in nostalgia, remembering a girl on a flyer.

  Skerry said, “Joy?”

  Joy or Love! It had been fifty years, and Andre had never met this current girl, but he knew her. Everyone else just looked puzzled, even young Solan.

  “A moment,” Oxindole said, eyes unfocussed. Then he chuckled again and told Skerry, “She left Ushabti at first light on her way home to Abietin. She had put a block on calls, but that has been overridden. Love reports that her errant daughter is currently cadging a meal off some unfortunate village named Fanfaronade and has admitted to having an uninvited guest along. Her immediate future looks somewhat clouded, her mother says.”

  “I’m sure it will be!” Andre agreed meaningfully, earning puzzled looks. “I recall a similar incident long ago. Friend Ratty is in no danger.” No physical danger, although his immortal soul might be threatened.

  “But a certain young priestess is!” Oxindole said. “Her mother was just the same at her age.” As Duty’s consort he was the equivalent of Joy’s foster grandfather.

  “Dad!” Solan shouted, pointing at the screen. “There’s the flyer!”

  * * *

  The propellers slowed and stopped. The airship hung motionless, drifting between a steel-blue sea and a sky speckled with miniature clouds. The flyer climbed toward it. The floor hatch was located in the passenger cabin, and soon one of the crewmen came in carrying a roll of dowels and rope.

  “You need us to get out of the way, Captain?” Oxindole asked.

  “If one of you wouldn’t mind? To preserve the trim.”

  Andre opened his mouth to volunteer, but Athena Fimble beat him to it.

  “I must be close to your mass, Captain. And I am not at all sure that I want to watch.” She headed forward, to where the other crewman was presumably handling the controls.

  The captain opened the hatch, and a gale blew in.

  Oxindole said, “We must all try not to fall out. Is this going to be easy or difficult?”

  “It’s tricky,” the man admitted. “Very tricky. Can’t land on water, so we’ll have to do it this way, but the wash from the flyer blows the end of the ladder about, you see.”

  “You can’t weight it with something?”

  “Don’t have anything suitable, Gownsman. Anything heavy enough might hit the flyer or the rider.”

  “Me!” Solan shouted. “Let me! I can do it.”

  His father said, “Shush!”

  “No, Dad! I’ve seen it done on Wild Adventure. You need someone small. It’s always the lightest. Naik did it in Space Boy.”

  Cog dramas, Andre decided, not real life. Everyone waited for the crewman to comment, but he didn’t, and there was sudden tension.

  “What’s involved?” Skerry asked.

  “It’s not really dangerous,” the man said, giving him a steady stare. “The real danger’s to the rider, when he transfers to the ladder. He can slip, or the ladder can tangle in the wings…. The boy could help steady it, see. We’d tie the ladder to these cleats and tie the lad to the ladder, so he isn’t going to fall in the sea or anything. He might get banged on the flyer, or swiped by the wings.”

  “In which case he breaks a few bones,” Skerry said. “But it’s in a good cause. You really dare try this, son?”

  Solan nodded earnestly. “Yes, sir.”

  “Then I’m proud of you. Carry on, Captain.”

  The man trussed the boy to the ladder at waist and ankles. Now the flyer buzzed noisily a few meters below the hatch, but the rider was having trouble holding it there, and his goggled face peered up anxiously.

  “He can’t come any closer than that,” the captain said. “The backwash gets him. All right, lad. Just slide out and we’ll let you down gently.”

  Andre closed his eyes. Holy Mother of God, whose Son taught us that a man could have no greater love than to give up his life for another, I beseech you to succor this boy who risks his for a man he has never met. Pray for him and cherish him for your Son’s sake. Amen.

  Rung by rung the ladder clattered over the lip of the hatch, held back by the captain and Oxindole. Solan spun on the end, starting to swing as he drew close to his objective. A flyer’s wings were resilient and not sharp, but they moved at great speed; they could maim—Andre had known a man who had lost an arm to a flyer. The rider freed one hand from the controls and caught the boy’s leg, holding him clear of the wings’ silvery mist. Man and boy transferred grips as Solan descended; he took hold of the handlebars and slid down past the machine’s head. Braata grabbed the ladder and hauled himself up with his hands, seeking to find a foothold without kicking his rescuer. He had barely cleared the saddle when the flyer’s motor coughed and died. In a sudden, awful silence, the machine fell away like a stone, leaving man and boy gyrating wildly.

  Braata came scrambling upward, and willing hands helped him into the gondola. Moments later, Solan was hauled in and the hatch closed. Everyone was cheering. Skerry wept as he hugged his son.

  Braata was still the terra cotta human pylon he had been on Pock’s Station, but now his shorts were green plaid instead of black. His mop of brown hair was a hopeless tangle. He pulled off his goggles and was about to kneel to Brother Andre, but then he saw Oxindole and knelt to him instead.

  “Rise,” the gownsman said. “You have a lot of explaining to do, Friend Braata. That is your name? Did you turn off that motor, or did the flyer really run out of fuel right at the critical moment?”

  “I am Braata, Gownsman, but that is my STARS name. The flyer was rocking, so it may not have been completely out of fuel, but it has been running on fumes for some time.”

  “Well you probably have Solan, here, to thank for your life, so you may do that first.”

  Without rising, Braata pivoted to face the boy and clasped both his hands. “I am evermore in your debt, Young Friend Solan. Every day of my life I will know I owe it to your courage. And no matter how long I live, I will never meet a braver man than you.”

  Reality had just taught the boy how it differed from fiction, and his normally ruddy cheeks were still a pale pink shade. He licked his lips. “I won’t do
it again,” he said solemnly. Everyone laughed.

  Except Andre. The child had not intended to be funny.

  “You’re shivering,” his father said. “Come and sit by me. Oh, how proud your mother would have been!”

  The captain went forward, Athena returned, and the airship started moving. Braata was on his feet, for there were no seats to spare. He looked longingly at Brother Andre.

  “We can have a private chat later,” Andre said, “and I will hear your confession, if that is what you want. But your explanation cannot be kept confidential. What is this urgent message you risked your life to deliver?”

  “I have much to confess when the time comes, father.” He turned back to Oxindole and knelt so that their eyes were more or less level. “Honored Gownsman, my registered name is Zyemindar. As Braata, I hold the rank of engineer second class in STARS. Following normal STARS procedure, in my private life I must conceal my connection with STARS. My family believes I am employed by the General Asteroid Mining Corporation.”

  “So you are giving up a lucrative career and probably breaking oaths by coming to tell Brother Andre something. What is this so—urgent message?”

  “I came to tell him and his companions—and you, Gownsman—that their mission is a sham.”

  A great surge of hope snatched Andre’s breath away. “You mean that there is no Diallelon Abomination? The pirate probe was a fake?”

  But that would not explain the devastation on Braata’s face. “Alas, no, Brother. When I reported to my supervisor this morning, I was told to proceed to Nervine Landing and stand by for evacuation as soon as the current radiation storm abates. Or… ”

  “Or what, Lieutenant?” Oxindole asked.

  The boy drew a deep breath. “Or three days from now, whichever comes sooner.”

  Skerry barked, “No!” and started to cough uncontrollably.

  Others tried to speak, but Linn Lazuline was the loudest. “What’s happening three days from now?”

  “Four days,” Zyemindar said. “You know about the probe. While I was aboard it, STARS set it on an impact trajectory. I didn’t know, I swear! And there’s nothing anyone can do about it now. I made sure of that, may Lord Jesus forgive me. Next Sixtrdy it will sterilize the world.”