Fish Tails (102 page)

She awoke, eyes fixed on the sock she had been darning, voicing her vague thoughts. “You sound sort of uninvolved.”

“Well, practically speaking,” the person sitting next to her said in a very familiar voice, “a moment's consideration would establish that should be the case. I don't know what human involvement in Camrathsexipedian reproduction would amount to. I rather think it would not be tolerated.”

She opened her eyes wider, gave up on the dream, and finally came wide-­awake, saying in amazement. “Joshua!?”

The man in the neighboring chair smiled, a much-­loved, well-­known smile. “Greetings, my love. I am told by those who have managed our lives that management has now . . . retired, gone, given up. No more management. We may . . . draw away the veil, as it were. Stop keeping secrets.”

His face shifted, only slightly. She was now looking at a . . . silver-­haired man of enormous charm. She simply stared, forgetting to breathe.

“Take a breath,” he/it/they said. “I am
not
shapeshifting. I do have a gadget in my pocket that creates a kind of visual overlay, an image. Actual variations from reality are minor.”

She gasped. “You're . . . you're Needly's papa. I mean, you're all six of their papas. I mean, the six ones born in Hench Valley.” The darning egg slipped from her lax finger and rolled. He picked it up from between his feet. “You're all six of thems . . . their . . . sires. The silver-­haired ones, I mean, maybe I think . . .”

And maybe I don't, and I'm dreaming and maybe . . .
She pinched herself.
Nope. Awake.

“And Calepta's,” he said. “And Brian's.”

“And the other three? Father to them all?”

“Father to all, yes, in a manner of speaking. Though not in any intimate sense. You, for example, evolved, just as Balytaniwassinot's ­people did. As Feblia's ­people did.”

“Feblia?”

“A character Abasio sometimes dreams of. It annoys him greatly, poor man. He really, really has done a magnificent job of work, hasn't he? Kept his temper, mostly. Hasn't abused anyone. Loves his fishy children. Loves his foreordained and eight-­armed wife.”

“Are you going to tell me you fathered . . . ?”

“Abasio? Xulai? No, no. Not at all. Abasio and Xulai are precisely as represented, the work of a thousand years of Tingawan genetic ingenuity.” His face had shifted again, and his body. He was now someone she had known very well. Galan's father. “And except for the children borne by you, my love, the others were all conceived without any attendant intimacy. I approached the women individually, suggested a drink, provided a drink, they drifted off into dreamland. A small but complicated device was employed—­without the necessity of either party removing clothing—­and the women were left with very nice dreams of how they were impregnated. Even Trudis, though what may constitute a nice dream with her would probably not bear close examination.”

“You were also Trudis's father! It would have been incestuous.”

“Horse breeders would have called it line breeding. In any case, it didn't happen, it wasn't necessary.”

“All of them, the whole dozen of them, mine and the Silverhairs.” She found herself growing angry. “Why?”

“For the sake of bao, love. No, don't argue and
do not
get angry. You have no grounds for anger. NO. Just take one minute to consider
one
question. Will you do that?”

She glared at him angrily. “One and only one!”

“The question has a preface:
Monkey-­brain willy-­wagging man has dominated and ruined his planet. His world asks for help in eliminating monkey-­brain man. Several other worlds cooperate in doing this by helping to drown monkey-­brain man. Monkey-­brain man refuses to be drowned and turns himself into creature who can live in the oceans.

“Now, this is the question
. Given a thousand years or so of mankind living in the sea, what do you think will happen to those seas when they are dominated by monkey-­brained man, who has changed his body so he could live in the water but has done absolutely nothing to change his brain?
”

The idea lay there, like a . . . pile of manure in the road. Suddenly there. Stinking. She saw undersea factories spewing toxic fumes that bubbled darkly upward, breaking at the surface into a thin film of sticky, unpleasant iridescence. She saw slicks of this oily, foul-­smelling substance—­sprawling islands of it. She saw sea creatures lying on the surface, their gills clogged, dying; babies like Gailai wearing breathing masks and goggles. Realization came in a single, overwhelming wave!

“Oh, Joshua,” she sobbed. “Oh, we'll do it again! All over again, and our lives will have been all wasted. All of our lives, our work wasted . . .”

He put his arms around her, shaking his head, wondering what vision of the future she had seen among the terrible total he had imagined. “No. We refuse to let it be wasted. We have two centuries and—­”

She cut him off, finding herself badly off balance. “Who is
we,
Joshua?
Who?
”

“Let's say a few children of Earth who came back home to help.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“Do you trust me?”

“Do I trust you to what? To be charming, yes . Amusing, yes. To show up in a new shape every few years . . . I suppose I have to take it on faith that's what happened. I'll assume for the moment what you've just said is all true—­”

Now he cut her off. “Yes, and who or what do you know of who could ‘show up in a new shape every few years'? Hint. You had tea with one of them recently . . .”

“A shapeshifter? You don't mean Mavin . . . ?”

“Not Mavin herself, but definitely her countrymen. Recruited. On Lom. By Fixit. A LONG time ago. Long before Ganver had his temper tantrum and took all the talents away. Long before the earth began to drown. Fixit's ­people are a remarkably long-­lived race.”

“Recruited?”

“Recruited on Lom, and put, so to speak, in cold storage. Just as your children were.”

“Why, that sneaky . . . that sneak!”

“That sneak is an official interferer who believes it easier to fix problems if he gets a head start on them and whose ancestors have believed the same. That official interferer's ancestors had been asking similar questions since the first humans left Earth and were sent to Lom. A race might be allowed to destroy its own planet, but the moment it leaves that planet it becomes an infection. The current official interferer—­one known as Fixit—­asked that terrible question the moment the earth spirit called for help, and it called for help for centuries and centuries and centuries! That interferer then went to Lom, looked about, found a few male shapeshifters who had bao. It then put said shapeshifters into . . . storage; storage interrupted from time to time by educational trips and attendance at meetings and having said shapeshifters' genetics fiddled with. It then built its own mini Massive Fabricator by recruiting several ­people with varying talents and, as I said, putting them in cold storage also. Thereafter, Fixit called upon them as needed.”

“And your talent is . . .”

“Why, charm, of course. Charm and humor and being a generally delightful character. Not a bad carpenter either.”

She stared at him, lost in a weird delight mixed with a terrible confusion. “But that's an intervention, Joshua! It's not bao. It's not fabricky at all, and bao says we're just part of the fabric, you know. We are not the purpose of creation. We are not a creature that has been specially created and anyone would intervene for specially. I do believe that!”

“You're saying ‘anyone.' No, the Creator would not intervene for ‘anyone' of its creatures. But another ‘anyone' might. ‘Anyones' have been interfering with one another since the dawn of time. You are one of the anyones. Xulai is. Abasio is. For example, did you make that sock?” He pointed to the one she had been darning.

She hadn't really looked at the sock before. It didn't look as though it had been hand-­knitted. “No. It's one of Willum's. Needly told me his socks were all holes. Someone back in his village probably made it. Or it was bought from some peddler going through. Someone in my family told me about knitting machines. Maybe there are still places where ­people use machines to make ordinary things like socks and mittens and winter hats . . .”

“Yes, you didn't make it, but you're darning it?”

She looked at the sock in her hands. Not a pretty thing but . . . “There's wear in it yet.”

“It suffers from an absence of part of its substance. And even if one didn't make it, one could still be interested in mending it?”

“Well, of course one mends things. Otherwise one would be spending a fortune on underwear and socks and winter mittens . . .”

“Yes, one would.” He sat back in his chair and stared into the west, where the sunset was beginning to color the horizon over the mountains. “So if one had a race of ­people who were useful in various ways but certainly not the center and purpose of the universe, and if that race of ­people by and large, unfortunately, had an unfortunate absence in part of their substance, anyone might be allowed to darn it. To fix the hole in their nature. One might use various implements to mend it. Perhaps a Lillis-­shaped darning egg, and a Needly, and someone skilled at the job of being a well-­intentioned male hank of yarn.”

“One being who?”

“One being a human person selected by Balytaniwassinot to fulfill a certain role and prepared for that role by being given an intensive education on the future of mankind.” He frowned. “Oh, and one who found a certain person named Lillis to be irresistible. The other candidates were enthusiastic, but not nearly as enthusiastic as was
this
candidate. We were allowed to choose; that was part of the deal. The Camrathsexipedes are a remarkably ethical race. Except for occasional jesting, they tell the truth as they breathe, being unable to live without either air or veracity. Fixit would not have allowed me to attempt pretending an enthusiasm I did not feel.”

His face moved as though it were liquid, expression and shape wavering. She put out her hand to touch it, the touch turning into a caress. “An egg and a needle and yarn and a dozen young ones. All of them brothers and sisters?” His face settled into familiarity. “Now you look like Joshua again.”

“Is he your favorite one of me?”

She struggled to remember. “He was . . . the Joshua you was just the only one who . . . who wasn't in Hench Valley. I did hate Hench Valley so. Anything done there was done under a shadow. Not being there made life sunlit. But he wasn't a separate he, was he. What you are saying is that all of you were one you.”

“All were one and one was all. You are correct. Fixit had several candidates, me among them, and I won the job by being several good candidates for it.”

“You mean, by being several ­people I could be very happy with. Each one of you? Who weren't really that different! Which makes a good deal of sense. So much easier to have one all-­purpose man than doing them by dozens.” She tried the thought. It had awkward corners, but . . . but it could be made to fit. It actually could explain . . . rather a lot. “So all of them were you. I'm glad. That way I don't have to mourn for any of them, and I don't have to feel a fool for being foolish over all of them. Did you make up all that business that Abasio was telling us about Fixit's ­people. All that dancing and pibbling and fringe swatting?”

He shook his head slowly and emphatically. “Fixit itself told Abasio all about it. I had no part in the telling, but I will say the Camrathsexipedes breed in exactly that way. I was not in cold storage the whole time. I have had guided tours of some quite remarkable worlds, during one of which I witnessed
from beginning to end
the procreation procedure of Fixit's ­people. Fixit also had to tell Abasio about it so it would be in his log. Nobody knew about all the tours I'd already had . . .”

“You told me his ­people were totally ethical.”

“I did. And Fixit knows that sometimes it is much more ethical to ignore a regulation than to obey it. Especially regulations made by ­people who are in high office because they have used low tactics to get there and are often regulating things for their own profit. Fixit's ­people derive great pleasure from what amounts to a good deal of healthful community exercise. Admittedly, it is strange, and if you knew how it evolved, you would think it even stranger. Each step in it evolved over many millennia in response to a particular environmental danger. When one learns how each step developed, one can only admire and revere the Creator, for relying on evolution makes everything perfectly reasonable. As is everything in the universe, perfectly reasonable—­once you know everything there is to know about it.”

“You're not . . . HIM, are you? Or HER, IT, or THEM?”

“You mean the Creator? Don't let your bao slip, Lillis! Reason should tell you the Creator would not bother with such a matter, truly. Earth is not even a blip in the fabric of the universe. This is simply too small a matter to be of interest. No, I am a human minion, a descendant of ­people who were on the ships that went to Lom, a descendant who inherited shapeshifting as my talent and who was recruited by Fixit to do covert work part-­time for one particular minor branch of the Galactic Affairs Office. Their overview is large, but not universal. There are no records of my recruitment or my equipment.”

“I imagine you're really busy,” she said, the sadness in the words not her intention at all. Nor the tear that dropped onto the sock she had been mending.

“Ah, Lillis. You're lonely.”

Now the tears were a flood, choking her, so the words were drowned. “Well, of course I am! It does somehow make it a great deal easier to know you were all the same you, you know, so I'm not a . . . what did they used to call them in the old books? A loose woman.”