All My Sins Remembered (6 page)

It was damp and cold and Crowell shivered. “For bringing them closer to stillness,” he said bluntly.

Waldo said nothing. There was a rumble and the elevator came to rest behind them. “Hi, boss; hi, Dr. Crowell. Well, I brought the beasties’ meat. Want I should turn ’em off?”

Waldo looked at his watch. “Sure, go ahead.” The assistant threw a switch mounted on the elevator housing and the vibropicks stopped singing. For a while there was a chorus of ragged chunk-sounds as the workers tried to keep going despite loss of power. Then, by ones and twos, they formed up a line at the elevator. The assistant gave each one a large meatfruit, which he would take back to his work area. The crews would each squat in a circle, munching and talking in low grunts.

“Well, we’re not needed around here,” said Waldo. “How would you like to take a look at the village?”

“Fine, fine. Just let me stop by the billet to pick up my notebook and camera.”

“We’ll go by the lab and get a couple of beers, too. It’s hot upstairs.”

7.

The sun was blistering hot when the cart skidded to a stop outside the village, ending the breeze that had made the trip livable.

Crowell wiped the sweat and caked dust from his face and took a final swig of beer. “What’ll we do with the empties?”

“Oh, just leave ’em in the cart. This is the fellow who tends the beer for me; he’ll drop them off at the lab.”

“God, it’s hot.” Crowell heaved his bulk to the ground.

Waldo squinted at the sun. “It’ll be better in a couple of hours. I suggest we find some shade.”

“Suits me.” They went through the village gate and started walking down the path. They couldn’t see anything but the grass, taller than a man, that surrounded the village in all directions for half a kilometer. Vehicles couldn’t come in closer because of the skittish reptimammals that grazed here.

The beasts didn’t seem to mind people walking through, though; Crowell and Struckheimer saw several of them, placidly gnawing grass, watching the humans with stalked eyes as they walked by. Most of them were over ten feet long, half of that length being unproductive tail and neck. But from their backs lolled strings of the meatfruit that formed the staple of the Bruuchian diet. Every female reptimammal (the males were set loose soon after birth and only let inside the compound for stud) supplied about thirty kilograms of meatfruit per season; every family had at least three or four of the creatures. Tending and harvesting the beasts was the major responsibility of the females.

The reptimammals were considered more than a source of meat, more than pets; they were actually low-status family members. They were “second-class citizens” because they couldn’t speak and, more important, couldn’t aspire to stillness—they just died. But the Bruuchians didn’t eat the flesh of the dead reptimammals. They buried them with ceremony and mourning.

A native came loping down the trail toward them, moving much more slowly than the ones in the Company city did. He stopped in front of them and said in the informal mode:

“You are Crowell-who-jests and you are Struckheimer-who-slows./I am young one called Baluurn/ sent to guide you on this visit.”

His little speech over, the little Bruuchian fell in beside the two humans, trying to match step with Crowell.

“I know this one,” Struckheimer said. “He’s learned quite a bit of English. He’s been my interpreter before.”

“That’s right,” the creature belched in a strange burlesque of human speech. “All time in… creche I hear tapes you-Crowell leave.”

This startled Crowell. He struggled with the informal mode: “The creche is for teaching/ the rituals of life and stillness./ Did you forego the teaching of your ancestors/ in learning to speak with humans?”

“The priest vouchsafed me/ my soul a special path to stillness/ and gave over my role as youngest/ to one of my brothers/ so that my time and mind could/ be used to plumb/ the ways and tongue of humans.”

“What was that all about?”

“Well, he evidently had to use most of his learning year studying English—he said the priest gave him some sort of dispensation from learning the social rites. That usually takes most of their year.”

“What word ‘di-pensa-un’ mean?”

“It’s like ‘permission,’ Baluurn, but from a priest,” Struckheimer said.

“That right. Priest give dipensa’un so I not-like brothers.”

“Your English is very good, Baluurn. I studied your tongue for ten years and can’t speak it as well as you speak mine.”

Baluurn bounced his head in a nod. “Struckheimer-who-slows says human not-like Bruuchian. Learn more all long life but never so much one year. Must be for Bruuchian go into stillness much sooner than human.”

The grass was thinning out and they could see the village ahead. Crowell immediately saw what Struckheimer meant—only about half of the dwellings were the familiar assymetric mud-and-wattle construction. The newer ones were all almost rectangular and up to ten meters high. “Baluurn, why did your people stop building the old way?”

He looked at the ground and seemed to be concentrating on not getting ahead of the humans. “It new-kind… new part living ritual. Leave still ones near ground. Pass many time each day. Live above so pass still ones many time. Talk to still ones, still ones know more, still ones happier and more useful.”

“I guess it makes sense,” Waldo said with a straight face. “You couldn’t expect them to know what was going on, locked up in a back room.”

“Oh, never locked. Lock human word, no Bruuchian. But you right, still ones more useful.”

Crowell fingered the small camera clipped to his belt. This could get in the way of one of his ideas. “I thought it was forbidden to move a still one; a new family had to be started if you moved one.”

“That true, very true. New house built around old house. Take off old roof, leave hole in living house floor, buy rope Company store, pass by still ones climbing up and down many time every day.”

“Quite so.” Crowell took the camera from his belt and took some-pictures of the buildings. Then he scribbled descriptions of each picture in his notebook. Protective coloration.

“For some reason they must want to have larger families,” Waldo said. “I know they used to split the still ones and the family when it got too crowded and start a new family on the outskirts of the village.”

A native woman walked by, leading two docile reptimammals. The fresh brown ooze on their backs showed they had just been pruned. Crowell snapped a picture.

“Larger families, maybe. But this building up instead of out also preserves grassland; that might be important.” (Baluurn was silent through this exchange—he was used to humans going off in sudden
non sequiturs. He
knew why they were building up, just as he had told them. It was part of the living ritual now.)

“Crowell-who-jests?’

“Yes, Baluurn?”

“One family asked you visit. Old, very old woman remembers you. Would speak you before stillness, very soon.”

“Say, that’s odd.:. I asked them if anyone remembered you and they said all had passed into stillness.”

Crowell smiled. “You used the formal mode, right?”

“Sure, who can handle the other?”

“Well, they probably misunderstood you, then. It’s hard to talk about females in the formal mode, requires a certain amount of circumlocution. They thought you were asking if any
men
who remembered me were still alive.”

“Crowell-who-jests right. Struckheimer-who-slows should sent for me talk. All village know old Shuurna.”

“Well, let’s go see her. Should be interesting.”

Shuurna’s building was one of the new high-rises. The two men and the Bruuchian filed in through the narrow door.

It was a claustrophobic room, filled from floor to ceiling with the old hut, with less than a meter of floor-space between the old door and the new one. It was dark and damp and smelled of mold.

Baluurn called out a ritual of entrance and someone upstairs responded. They entered the old hut and were surrounded by dozens of standing corpses, the family’s still ones, whose open eyes regarded them without expression. Baluurn whispered something in the mode of piety, too fast for Crowell to follow, and said, “I go up first see Shuurna ready speak Crowell-who-jests.”

Baluurn clambered quickly up the rope, looking more monkey-like than ever. “Hope it’ll hold me,” Crowell muttered, taking a Gravitol. He put the pillbox back and took something else from his pocket. Keeping an eye on the hole in the ceiling, he sidled over to one of the still ones resting against the wall.

“What are you doing, Isaac?”

“Just a second,” Isaac whispered, reaching behind the still one. He returned and handed a small plastic envelope to Waldo. He put a small vibroknife back in his pocket. “A scraping from the shoulder,” he whispered.

Waldo’s eyes got round. “Do you know…”

Baluurn was sliding back down the rope. Two others followed him. “Shuurna wants speak Crowell-who-jests alone.”

“Well, I’m game,” he said. “If I can make it up that rope.” Crowell got a good grip and heaved himself up, catching the slack end between his feet. With an extra Gravitol in him, it wasn’t really hard, but he huffed and muttered and went up very slowly.

Shuurna was lying on a woven mat. She was the oldest Bruuchian Crowell had ever seen, hair yellowed and falling out in patches, eyes clouded with blindness, shrunken dugs loose gray flaps of flesh. She spoke the informal mode in a weak voice.

“Crowell-who-jests/ I knew you in my year of learning/ so I remember you better than my own children./ You walk differently now/ your steps seem a young man’s steps.”

“The years have been kinder to/ me than to you/ Shuurna who awaits stillness./ This apparent youth though/ is from an herb/ the doctor gave me to/ give me the strength of a younger man.” This was something Crowell hadn’t foreseen.

“My large-eyes are darkened/ but my many-eyes tell me/ that you are taller by two kernels/ Crowell-who-jests/ than you were my lifetime ago.”

“This is so./ It is something that may/ happen to a human as he ages.” You can add centimeters with plastiflesh, but you can’t take them off.

There was a long silence that would have been considered awkward in human society.

“Shuurna/ do you have something to/ tell me or ask me?”

Another long pause. “No./ You who look like Crowell-who-jests/ I waited to see you/ but now you are not here./ I cannot wait longer/ I am ready for stillness./ Please summon the youngest and the new oldest.”

Crowell walked to the rope. “Baluurn!”

“Yes, Crowell-who-jests.”

“Shuurna is ready to… pass into stillness. Can you find the oldest and the youngest?”

The two who had come down with Baluurn scampered back up the rope. They walked by Crowell and stood before Shuurna. Crowell started to leave.

“Crowell-who-jests,” the older one spoke, “/would you help us/ with our joyful burden?/ I am too old and this one is too small/ to carry Shuurna/ to join the other still ones downstairs.”

Other
still ones? Crowell went over to the three and stooped to take Shuurna’s hand. It was solid, unyielding as wood.

“Old man in the family of Shuurna/ I do not understand./ I thought no humans could be present during/ the stillness ritual.”

The old man nodded in that disarmingly human way. “This was so/ until not-long ago/ when the priests told us of the change./ To my poor knowledge/ you are only the second human/ to be so honored.”

Crowell took up Shuurna’s body unceremoniously, a hand under stiff arm and thigh. “To what other human/ befell this honor?”

The old one had his back to Crowell, following the youngster who was scampering to the rope. “I was not there/ but I was told/ it was Malatesta-the-highest.”

Porfiry Malatesta, the last Supervisor of Mines, the first disappearance.

The rope threaded through an iron ring (also purchased at the Company store), and normally hung as a single strand, a stick tied to one end preventing it from slipping through the ring. Crowell balanced Shuurna’s corpse on its feet and the old one passed the rope under her arms, securing it with something that was almost a square knot. They passed the body down to Baluurn, who untied it, and, balancing it with one hand, pulled in slack until the rope was in its original position. Then the two Bruuchians clambered down, hand over hand. Crowell followed with a little less confidence.

During the whole process, Waldo stood to one side, looking rather lost. The old one addressed Crowell in the informal mode, and Crowell replied with what Waldo recognized as a polite refusal. “Uh—what was that all about?”

“We were invited to the wake—you know, recite all the good deeds the old gal was responsible for and help decide where to lean the body. I told them no, thanks. These affairs last all day, and I’ve got an appointment. Besides, I’ve always gotten the feeling that having humans present puts a damper on the festivities. They have to invite you, of course, if you’re anywhere nearby when the thing starts.”

“And we’re about as near as anybody’s ever been. Glad you didn’t accept for us—this whole business has gotten me a little queasy.”