Fish Tails (78 page)

“So, really, you probably were working for someone else all along, not the Oracles at all.” Needly gave Grandma a long, long hug. “I'm glad it was someone else, Grandma. I don't like the Oracles very much, but I still hope they can help Willum.”

“You're very fond of that boy. Be very careful, child. Don't get yourself carried away if you two get older together.”

“If I did, wouldn't you suppose that it was fated, just the way you were, and my real father, and Xulai, and all the rest of us?”

“Ah, doesn't it sound wonderful? Living in an age where all may be left to beneficent fate?”

“Doesn't it?”

“Sweetheart, fate isn't beneficent. Given the size and complexity of the universe, I'd guess it's pretty much random. Humans have a long history of trusting in good fortune, and it hasn't worked out very well. Every human person, tribe, community, nation, has spent millennia trusting in beneficent fortune, burning fossil fuel, sucking aquifers dry, having babies like rabbits, sucking Earth's lifeblood and raising her temperature while denying we were doing it, the whole time trusting in Luck! Good Fortune! God with a small
g
! God with a BIG
G
! Science with a BIG BIG
S
. Science with a sneer. None of which helped solve the problem because we
WERE
the problem.”

“Weren't there any followers of the Great Litany then, when we were despoiling?”

“The litany hadn't been given to us then, and most of the religions were of the ‘God Sits on My Shoulder' variety . . . You don't know of those? Each one of them declares he or she has a personal relationship with God. They are not thinking of the Creator of the universe when they say this. They are not thinking of innumerable galaxies, planets, and stars beyond counting. They are not thinking of an immensity, a miraculous machinery out of which life springs in a trillion forms. No. The picture they have in their minds is of a nice grandfatherly God shaped just like them who made a nice little flat garden world with a sun going around it, into which HE, always HE, inserted our first parents, whom HE challenged to be naughty, already knowing they would be because HE is omniscient. Nice and grandfatherly but tricky and sadistic, setting us up for sin so he can punish us, because, really, he likes punishing things.”

“I do not understand that!”

“I'll tell you a truth, Needly. Men almost always make gods in their own image. If men make a god who likes to punish ­people, it's because the men like to punish ­people. Many men do. They beat their wives, their children. They get in fights. They like punishing things. In one country, the one that used to be here where we are . . . if they had a choice between preventing a misdeed or punishing a misdeed, their usual solution was to build more and bigger prisons.”

“Preventing . . .  ?”

“Oh, child. If ­people like to eat corn and you make eating corn illegal, what happens?”

­“People eat it anyhow.”

“And if ­people like to dance or drink liquor, or take some drug to make them feel better, and you make it a prison offense to drink, dance, or drug, what must you do?”

“Oh, I see! You'll have to build more and bigger prisons. Much bigger, I 'magine.”

“It seems ridiculous, but when ­people are self-righ­teous, they really tend to prefer punishment to prevention. We talked about Mobwows a long time ago, remember?”

“
Monkey-­brain
willy-­waggers.”

“The Mobwows have brought us to this, Needly. They're why Earth got into such terrible shape, and they're why it is being drowned. Somewhere, someone, something has finally taken notice. Maybe the REAL ONE who's REALLY in charge. A Living Planet is too important for fools go on trifling with it. The Oracles have a prediction machine in there. I've asked it. You feed in all the facts you know about a given situation, it asks questions back, you answer them to the best of your ability, and it makes a prediction. That machine is ninety percent certain that someone or something with the power to enforce it has decided to control the number of human babies born on Earth. Even when we are completely aquatic, there will never again be more than two billion of us on this planet. That's less than one-­quarter of the number before the Big Kill. And no person who is not healthy and healthful will cause or have any pregnancies at all. And to keep any
willy-­wagging
revolutionaries from rising up, any man or woman who tries to circumvent those prohibitions will be fixed so he can do no damage.”

“If . . . if the number's set, how could anybody circumvent . . .”

“I didn't say if they
succeed,
I said if
they try
. The Oracles say . . .
And look at what I just said. I'm telling it wrong again.
The
machines,
not the Oracles, gave me the information about the number of humans that will be allowed.”

“Grandma, you are not the kind of person to get confused about things. Why are you so upset about this machines-­or-­Oracles riddle?”

Grandma frowned, shook her head, rubbing at the two deep wrinkles between her eyes. “Oh, Needly, it's part of that filling-­in-­the-­blanks business. I never got answers from the Oracles, and
I assumed
they didn't answer because they knew I could get the answers from the machines. And
I assumed
the answers were IN the machines because the Oracles PUT them there. I was a
child;
it seemed
logical.
In time, I learned I was wrong. I've met some ­people recently who have what they call ‘library helmets.' Do you know about them? You do!”

“Abasio has one. And Arakny.”

Grandma sighed. “The machines get their information the way the library helmets do. They don't let false information in!”

Needly put her hands to Grandma's cheeks, petting her. “So you're trying to separate the Oracles from the machines, in your mind.”

“Exactly. And it's a hard habit to break.”
Especially since her children, HER children, were supposedly in the custody of the Oracles. Don't think of that. Not now. Not now!
“Now, the machines—­which were not made by or given information by the Oracles—­the
machines
say there will be a limit on humans. Some ­people, those with genetic problems, won't have any children. Some will have one. Most will have two, one for the mother, one for the father. Exceptional ­people may have more and inadequate ­people maybe none, but the total number, worldwide, will never exceed two billion. Once that limit is reached, if any person or laboratory or scientist tries to exceed that limit, that person or laboratory or scientist will cease to exist.”

“What about if a child dies?”

“I gathered the death rate is already built in. That third child some ­people will have makes up for those who die young. I doubt that a death would allow the parent to try again. Too much room for shiftiness there. Too many historic incidents of daughters being killed to make room for a possible son. The quota is per person, not per ­couple. No
willy-­wagging
allowed! Once one's own quota is born, no more.” She gazed into the fire. “How they hope to keep track of it is more than I can imagine. The only thing I can come up with is an automatic genetic response to pregnancies. After so many, a woman would simply become infertile.”

Needly considered this, swinging her legs in time to the music the Artemisians were making. “Is the number they allow larger than the population of mankind now? There aren't many of us.”

“I think it's a little larger, yes. The figure has to be based on balance. Not just how many humans, but also how many elephants, and how many antelope, horses, cows, sheep, goats, field mice, oak trees, coconut trees, miles of grassland. Of course, now all those things will have to be translated into their comparable aquatic equivalent: giant kelp instead of pine forests; scurrying crabs instead of mice; whales instead of elephants; dolphins instead of horses—­unless they come up with an aquatic version of horses. How many of each and every single thing—­all of them in balance.

“It's ironic, but when the world is covered in water, there will actually be more space than there was before, vertical space as well as horizontal space. That disturbed me a little, but the machines said that humans won't be able to live very deep down. There have always been various biomes at various depths. I suppose it'll be pretty much the same, except the bottom ones will be a lot farther down.”

There was a burst of laughter from around the fire. Grandma raised her head, listening, smiled a wry smile, and pointed to the Artemisians who were singing a bawdy song, a very funny one that she had learned from the father of her fourth child. He had been a lovely man. Very . . . skilled. She repeated the words and tune so Needly could learn it. “There, you have some new naughty words to teach Willum.”

Needly smiled a very small smile, then concentrated on making it feel larger. For a little while she would pretend. Willum would be all right, somehow. She would teach Willum the song. She would civilize Willum. She would grow up and love Willum! He would love her. They would each get a sea-­egg and become a ­couple, like Abasio and Xulai. She sat singing softly in the dark, the dream wrapped around her like a blanket, holding fast to the happiness inside it.

Grandma, seeing the child's expression, did not draw her out of her joy. Let her dream while she could. At present, neither Grandma nor the Oracles nor the omniscient machines saw any help for the boy who had given his life for the Griffin's child.

 

Chapter 13

The Weigh of All Flesh

L
AZILY LATE ON THE FOLLOWING MORNING, THE
A
RTEMISIANS
were readying the wagons to return to Wide Mountain when they were startled by a wild hallooing and the thud-­shudder of many racing hooves. They had barely time to look up before Deer Runner leapt from the lead horse and stumbled into the arms of two friends.

“We got news,” he gasped to Abasio. “Wide Mountain Mother said to catch you before you leave. Something you prob'ly want to see; you and the others. Can you get 'em?”

Arakny was summoned along with Precious Wind, Xulai, and Grandma. Deer Runner, his dust-­dried throat being soothed by a cup of something hot, delivered his message. “Patrol rider came in after dark, last night. He'd been on border rounds south of here, down the river valley. There's been a . . . whaddya call it when the ground falls in? Makes a pit?”

“Sinkhole,” said Abasio.

“Like that, yeah. Well, accordin' to him, there's one heckuva stink hole happened down the river valley, only it's not just a hole. It's like the whole section of river had a seam on its bottom side and somebody pulled the stitches out, and the whole riverbed's dropped and spread out and then filled up with water. Like an arm a' the ocean grabbed up at the mountains here.” He took another swallow, then gargled, “Did somebody see t'the horses?”

Abasio stood aside so Runner could see the horses being watered, wiped down, petted, and praised by ­people from the escort camp.

“That must be what happened the other day!” cried Arakny. “That earthquake that dropped all the chimneys at Wide Mountain. You say an arm of the ocean. You mean, it's salt water flowing in?”

“Not salt water flowin' in, no, but it's sure no water flowin' out. 'Rakny, you used to ride the borders. You know the Wanderin' Lows, the place down across from Cow's Bottom Bluff? Had that big, deep pond in the middle and swampy all around it that spread all to gosh and gone when it rained? Took a long while to dry out and shrink back? An' excep' for the pond, ever' time we thought we had it mapped, it went somewhere else?”

Arakny said she did remember the deep pond and the Wandering Lows, yes, what about it?

“Well, now there's new streams—­not new ones, but old ones running in different directions—­comin' inta that pool, an' it's spreadin' out, and they say at the far south end there's not much high ground between it and how far the ocean's come. Like water's runnin' in from the ocean over a lot of the land south of us.”

Arakny asked, “Anybody drowned, anybody's house sunk, anything like that?”

“No, that's not the trouble! Trouble is, the border riders han't been down that way in six months, so we didn't know
the blasted Edgers've put some kinda camp down there by the Lows pond
—­only now the pond's a regular lake—­and they're buildin' something the Mother-­Most needed to know about. And she said come get you all to go with me because you'll probably be the ones best suited to see to it.”

Grandma said, “I'll tell the Oracles. I imagine they'll want to know.” She went slowly up the path to the hidden door, the sandy path neatening itself behind each footfall, Needly looking after her with troubled eyes. Grandma had been forced to admit that the advice she had been given over the years had emanated from machines
the Oracles had obtained or been given by someone. Someones.
The Oracles could not take credit for the information the machines produced.

They might take credit for obtaining the machines . . . if that acquisition had been an honest one. If not, the Oracles could take no credit at all, and though Grandma said she accepted that, she was having great difficulty breaking old habits of respect for the Oracles themselves. Needly felt no such ambivalence. Her certainty was growing that the Oracles were far from being the omniscient do-­gooders she had come to expect. Far from being do-­gooders at all.

Grandma had intended leaving Willum with the Oracles, safe from danger. Needly had insisted that Willum be returned to Wide Mountain. Even though some of them might now be making a side trip to the south, they would soon return to Wide Mountain, so Willum could as well be taken there with those who were returning. Meantime, she soothingly offered the suggestion that the Oracles undoubtedly had ways of letting Grandma know if they came up with a solution to Willum's condition.

Grandma agreed without argument. How could she not? She was spending a good part of each day regretting those decades of unquestioning trust. Had it been for a good cause? How would she know? She had started to ask the Oracles, several times, about her children, and had found her words blocked. They had not been evasive, they had been . . . deaf. As though they had not heard her. Now she felt foolish, resentful, and unanchored. Since so much of her life had been lived presumably at their direction, nothing of her plans or hopes seemed secure. No event in her life seemed as useful as she had . . . assumed.

She was beginning to obsess over details, things that had never bothered her before: the fact that she had never really penetrated into the “House” of the Oracles; the fact that she knew none of the Oracles as persons, as friends; the fact that their beneficence had been assumed on her part more than demonstrated on theirs. Oh, they had told her stories of their wanderings, planets they had visited, but they were strangely nonsequential. Scattered. Almost . . . random. She had not blamed them for the lack of clarity. She had blamed herself . . .

Abasio was asking, “How far is it down to the place this whatever-­it-­is happened?”

Deer Runner replied, “Cow's Bottom Bluff is where it happened. That's a
marker
for Artemisia, 'Basio. It's the southwest corner of our territory. We put a corner marker there way back, some hundreds of years. Black Buffalo's one of the border riders, and he's the one who brought word of it. He didn't ride out right when it happened; he took a day or so to ride around the area, see how far the water went, spy out where those Edgers were. He did it without bein' seen. They have weapons, according to Buffalo, and he didn't trust them not to shoot. Then he had a long ride northeast to get to Wide Mountain.

“Since it was full moon last night, we started out directly. Would have taken a lot longer if we hadn't run those poor horses half to death soon as the sun came up. From Wide Mountain to here's brought us a good way south already. So, from here, it shouldn't be more'n a day along the river, almost directly south. I brought Talking Crow and Big Beaver along. They both know the river route and it's been marked for wagons. We can make it with only a few jigger-­jogs where the little canyons feed in from the east.”

Grandma soon returned with Precious Wind and Xulai, all of them ready to depart. Two of the Oracles—­two extremely large ones that they had not seen before—­had followed the three humans without being noticed. Now one of them said, “Let us provide you with some . . . comforts. We have this . . . very nice portable camp that you can put quite near where you will be. If you will take this . . . ?”

“This” was a crystal cube about a hand's width on an edge. The Oracle put it into Grandma's hands. “When you get near, find a place that seems appropriate, speak to it saying you would like to have the camp there, and it will establish itself. It provides whatever you need if you tell it. We wish to see the thing these Edger beings are building also, so take the cube with you when you go closer to observe. It too will see and listen for us.”

“You can see it from here?”

“It will send the image here. We can.” They turned to Xulai and Abasio, who were holding the babies beside their wagon. “You,” said one of them. “We understand you become like the creature we have asked edubot to picture for us: the octopus. You are first generation, is that correct?”

Xulai and Abasio both nodded, it was correct. The Oracles bowed very slightly and returned to their House.
Cave!
Needly said to herself. She had renamed the place. A den, maybe. A lair. So far as she was concerned, it was not a house. And what were these large ones doing? Grandma had seemed as surprised at them as everyone else, so she had not seen them before either. So far as Needly was concerned, “oracle” was merely a misleading word. Perhaps even a kind of disguise. She had not said this to Grandma. Soon she might have to.

“Supplies?” Abasio asked Deer Runner.

“You had enough for the return journey, so you should have plenty to get where we're going. Meantime, Wide Mountain Mother's sending a supply wagon directly to Cow Bluff—­well, to a point far enough north of it the wagons won't run into the Edgers. It'll have enough supplies for all us ­people and horses to get back.”

It was agreed the three weary horses would be given a full day's rest and would go back to Wide Mountain tomorrow along with Talking Crow and half the original escort. The wagon containing Willum would go with them along with Arakny's account of events so far, which she recited to Talking Crow for conveyance to Wide Mountain Mother. Talking Crow, it seemed, was named for having a memory that could hang on to lengthy, detailed accounts and recite them word for word.

The other half of the escort group, along with Deer Runner and Beaver, would accompany Arakny on the trip to Cow's Bottom Bluff today. The members of the escort decided among themselves which ones would go where, and less than an hour later the group headed south was on its way, food in hand as they went. Since they did not want a confrontation with Edgers who had invaded Artemisian territory, they rode with three outriders: one a mile ahead to the south, others the same distance southeast and southwest. The big river, which had always been named exactly that in whatever language was current . . . the “Big River” wandered deep in its canyon—­one that had preceded the river rather than having been eaten out by it—­as it meandered east or west as the underlying strata directed; Beaver's rock piles along the trail were arranged to indicate both direction and distance to save travel time by cutting across from bend to bend, and there were occasional well-­established wagon tracks indicating that others had followed a suggested shortcut. A few very long diversions were marked with intermediate cairns indicating where changes of direction were needed to take them around the feeder arroyos constantly being shaped by rains and by spring melt from the surrounding hills.

Shortly before noon, the southwest rider came in to guide them to a shallow bend with an easy access down one of those feeder canyons: an often-­used resting or overnighting point for circuit riders, messengers, and supply wagons. Horses and ­people went down, wagons stayed above. Fires were built and water boiled. ­People on private business went up two little side canyons helpfully labeled with chiseled arrows where Artemisians had built little sheds over deep cracks in the stone. Grandma was glad to find someone had provided seats without splinters, the only distraction being the pack-­rat nest in the corner. This particular pack rat was only a novice, and disposing of the nest required only a few minutes' work with the shovel that Grandma asked one of the escort men to get out of a wagon for her. Grandma could remember nests that had taken a dozen men a week to dispose of. When old families of pack rats packed a nest for a hundred successive generations, they did a very solid, smelly, massive, poop-­n'-­pee-­cemented job of it. She had, on occasion, made some remarkable finds in pack-­rat nests. This one had a few items not yet cemented in—­a bracelet, a ring, a strangely shaped little key. She tucked them away in her pack to be displayed on the lost-­and-­found wall she had noticed along one side of the plaza at Wide Mountain.

Needly observed this clearance with great interest. There were bones in the nest, and bits of glass and metal. In addition to the jewelry and the key, someone had lost a knife, several ­people had lost shoes, and in the last shovelful there was the very strange ring with a carved stone that Grandma put aside with the knife, asking Needly to remind her to soak it and clean it.

“Why do they do that, Grandma? Collect all that stuff?”

“Needly, I don't think anyone knows why pack rats pack. Personally, I think they have an insatiable curiosity. Anything different, they have to collect it and look at it and smell it, and decide whether it's edible or not. Especially shiny things. Or different-­looking things.”

“But they poop and pee all over it!”

“That's how they demonstrate ownership. They don't maintain anything or keep it safe or guard it. They don't use it
for
anything, or even intend to. Just the
getting and having
is enough for them, and they
get and
have
it all cemented together. It keeps other critters from robbing them. And when you're in pack-­rat country, you don't want to leave anything you value where they can get at it, especially if it's shiny.”

Horses lunched on a handful of oats, a wisp of hay; ­people ate sandwiches made early that morning along with cups of herb tea often used by riders to prevent dehydration and relieve saddle ache. They were back on the track in less than an hour.

In midafternoon they saw Cow's Bottom Bluff. The whole mountain was called the Cow, and it lay with its back to them, its head to the east with two rock formations making the horns. At this distance, it could be a cow, though the closer they got, the less cowlike it looked. The western end was the Cow's Bottom. It was almost dusk when the south rider came in to report a forested area about half a mile ahead. “There's a low area north of the lake where the river's switched back and forth over the years. There's probably water down just a few feet through the whole area, plenty, for the trees have grown up into quite a little forest. Cottonwoods, aspens, some pines, thick enough we won't be seen from the place the Edgers have set up. The pond's a good-­sized lake by now, and it's still getting bigger. We went through the woods and had a look at it. Edger men have a camp set up a bit further south and east, beyond the dunes at that end. Their usual mess! All kinds a' machines. Stinks of oil and fuel. Empty cans lyin' around.” The rider, who had been schooled to leave a campsite looking as it did before anyone arrived on it, made a gesture of contempt. “The best campsite for us'll be just up ahead, hidden in the trees.”