Fish Tails (91 page)

­“People keep saying that given talents aren't hereditary, but that
can't
be accurate.” Silkhands made an irritated gesture. “Ganver didn't create an organ in me. One of my parents or grandparents was given the healing talent—­
given
it—­but I inherited it. It became part of the family genetics. So I know that when the talent was given, it was given in a form that transmitted to offspring. Two healers invariably had healer children.”

Mavin, who had almost slipped into a doze, said firmly, “She's right. My son inherited shape-­changing from me. Some, but not all, other families inherited their talents. And when two parents had different talents from each other, the child inherited a mix. Remember the
Index
?”

“Index?” Fixit looked up with sudden interest. “What is index?”

“The Index of Talents Together with a Compendium on Proper Costume and Behavior in Game,”
Silkhands announced, biting off each word as though hating the taste of it. “That was the title of it. A book all properly educated gamesmen were supposed to learn!”

Jinian added, her voice holding a mixture of laughter and frustration, “There were eleven ‘normal' talents, plus the few special ones like mine. There were gradations of the strength of each talent. In the
Index,
it was supposed that there were eight strength variations. If one inherited the same talent from both parents, that was strength eight. If one inherited two different talents, each one was strength four. Four different talents from four different grandparents would be strength two for each one, and eight differently talented great-­grandparents might end up giving a person strength one in each one. It was more complex than that, of course, because one's parents may have inherited half a dozen different talents in different strengths. At any rate, the
Index
listed over a thousand types, some of them completely theoretical, each with its own dress and title. In school we were supposed to learn them all! I suppose some of the teachers actually did.”

Abasio still looked puzzled. Jinian thought a moment before saying, “Let's suppose you inherited one-­quarter seer—­that's seeing the future—­and one-­quarter herald—­that's really just enunciatory yelling except one can be heard miles away—­those two talents would give you the ability to tell when someone was going to die, for instance, and a very loud voice to tell them about it. Then suppose you inherited strength one or two in some combination of dead raising, transporting, and flying. What were you?”

“Wasn't that a Banshee!” Silkhands laughed. “I only saw one, ever, this floating, screaming, skull-­faced creature. We had to learn the costumes, too. Banshees wore floating black-­and-­gray draperies with long black-­and-­gray hair, and a skull mask with their own eyes showing through. And they screamed, of course. Whatever it was that Ganver gave us in the beginning, it definitely included the genetic coding to pass it on.”

Abasio muttered, “If Mavin passed it to her son, that means it's still got that potency. If hers is identically copied, it should become potent in the Griffins. Precious Wind has done a great deal of genetic work in recent years, and she's gone out to use our far-­talker to consult with the laboratories in Tingawa. I imagine she will also consult the library helmets?” He looked questioningly at Arakny, who reached for the notebook she always carried in her pocket.

“Whatever they try to do for the Griffins should be done through the male line,” said Needly. “Please remind Precious Wind of that while she's talking to them, Abasio. There are supposedly sixteen females, but we know of only one new male from a nonlethal sire, Carillon, the baby Bell-sound has. If you can make the change descend through the male line, in his half of the equation—­and he's still a baby—­then it will go on to all of the next generations.”

Xulai said, “But the baby Griffin won't even be grown in two hundred years, Needly.”

“I know,” she replied. “Your son, Bailai, won't be grown for years, but his genetics won't change. They're the same in newborns and mature ­people.”

Abasio said, “Needly, Precious Wind is using the far-­talker just outside. Would you make sure she remembers about the little male?”

As she left, Needly decided on another suggestion she would make to Precious Wind. It would be better if the three hostile Griffins could be taken somewhere else to live. Undoubtedly Mr. Fixit could arrange that. She already had a very good idea what he would do about all the other animals . . . or might have already done. He was going to do a Noa Zarc, one of the old antibao stories that Grandma had told her. Fixit would take breeding stock of every type of living creature to some other world with no mankinds on it, then sterilize the ones on Earth well prior to the final flood so they could live out their lives and not drown.

As Needly left them, Silkhands murmured to Wide Mountain Mother, “The plan was for me to create a shape-­changer organ in each of the Griffins, out of their own cells. I understand there are ONLY sixteen of them. At the moment even ONE sounds terribly complicated, and I'm getting too tired to think . . .”

“You've worked your heart out, dear. Of course you're tired. You need a soft bed! All of you do. Arakny can tell me later whatever decisions you reach.”

She murmured to Silkhands as she led her away, with Mavin and Jinian following. Arakny began collecting teacups and plates from all over the room and stacking them on the table. Others of the neighbors bid her good-­bye and left, one or two at a time. Only Fixit, Abasio, Xulai, Arakny, and Grandma were left, to be rejoined a few moments later by Needly.

Grandma tried to speak, choked, cleared her throat, and tried again. She was struggling with the disappearance of her own children. Little Sally and Serena. Golden-­haired Jules. Lilt-­voiced Sarah; Jan and Jacky. “Mr. Fixit. Please, before you all get involved in this Griffin business, can you find out if these Oracles have my children or know where they are. My sons and daughters. I was told the Oracles had devised a genetic program that would be of benefit to the world, and my children were supposedly the result. I was told they would be sent to some destination arranged by the Oracles. I want to know where they are. I want to know if they are happily, productively occupied . . . and I want them back!” She paused, gulped, and went on: “Someone dug me out of that grave in Tuckwhip! Someone brought me to the Oracles. Someone found the antidote and used it. At one time I'd have believed the Oracles did it. Now I don't believe that. I want to know who did it!”

Needly looked at her in horror! Was that it?
Of course it was.
Oh, Grandma. She gritted her teeth and desperately tried to think of some way she could help. She looked up to meet Xulai's eyes, full of understanding. Xulai nodded, shrugged, held her hands open, the meaning clear. There was too much going on, all at once, to deal with this now, but she would help.

Xulai muttered something, and Fixit looked intently at her. “Xulai?”

“It was hearing Grandma use the word ‘children,' Fixit. Since the Edges are responsible for a lot of the trouble going on, and we're considering retaliation, we need to remember it's not just men in there; there are probably women and children, too, perhaps women and children who had nothing to do with giants and mechanical whales and possibly should be removed and given a chance at something else?”

“No reason not to.”

The door opened again as Precious Wind came in from outside to announce triumphantly, “They think it's perfectly possible to copy the organ once we have one to copy from.” She turned toward Fixit. “It seems they can analyze and study it while it's in place, no need for any kind of surgery. Their machines can scan and duplicate. The Griffins aren't identical to one another, but the ones like Sun-­wings are very similar, genetically, and they don't think rejection would be an insurmountable problem once the first one is adapted. We have to take our three visitors to Tingawa, of course.”

Fixit remarked, “We? Our? Including you?”

Precious Wind flushed. “If you don't mind. I'd like to go, too. And, just by the way, we still aren't sure where the Griffins originated, though everyone seems sure it was the Edgers.”

“The nice ones simply seem too nice to have been created by Edgers,” Needly said. “If they did create any, they did the bad ones. Please don't forget what I told you about the bad ones?”

Fixit spoke. “Bad ones? Some are . . . evil?”

Needly explained while Fixit made notes on his memo leaf.

“I will add this to list,” said Fixit. “Where are creatures now?”

“The sixteen females we know about are in Tingawa,” said Precious Wind. “They admit there may be others somewhere in the world, but all those they know of are there.” She turned toward Needly. “Tingawa advised me that all ten of the unnamed Griffins are awaiting the arrival of the Namers. I gave them the news that Willum is recovering.”

Needly shivered at the memory. “I thought . . . maybe the emperor or somebody would do it?”

“Oh, the emperor is quite willing to do so, Needly. After you and Willum come and conduct a ceremony so he will know how to do it in the future.”

Needly cried, “Oh no, but . . .”

Precious Wind crowed, “I can't wait to witness the ceremony!”

Xulai and Abasio, both of whom remembered Needly's vivid description of soot-­striped faces and bonging and
eeeai, eeeai, ohwa
being chanted, could not hide their grins as they thought of Xulai's very dignified grandfather, emperor of Tingawa, naming Griffins. Oh, they wanted to be there to watch!

Precious Wind went on: “Also, they have a solution for reproduction during the period between now and the little ones' maturity. The variation among all the Griffins is minuscule, except for the sequence that identifies the Despos lineage. Tingawa thinks it possible to use a few cells from the baby male to sequence and build fertile sperm. Interesting?”

“Artificial inseminating?” cried Fixit. “How good if so!”
And of course there's the very nice male Griffin that Self has stashed in the mountains, far to the south. He's been sleeping there about five hundred years, but he can be awakened and introduced to the ladies at any time.
“When Willum is recovered I will take you both to Tingawa so you can teach the emperor how to name Griffins.”

Precious Wind said, “And yes, Needly. They will use cells only from the list of approved donors. And yes, before you ask, the baby male can provide what we would call the Y chromosome in humans, so they won't all hatch girls.”

Needly refused to consider another naming ceremony. Not today. “Precious Wind, how can we find out where the Griffins were made and who made them? We're pretty sure it was done in the Edges, but there must have been at least two locations to have ended up with these two, very different populations.”

“Is it important? Right now?”

”Sun-­wings threatened us with creatures beneath the sea. If inimical Griffins were created in a particular place, is it not likely the sea creatures would have been made in that same place? We haven't put that on our list of problems, but it is a problem for us, isn't it?”

Fixit beamed at her. “So clever, this child. What is parentage of this child?”
As though itself had not been intimately involved in the parenting of the child . . . well, intimate at one remove.

Silence.

Needly was used to hearing silence on that question. She said, “Grandma doesn't know who fathered me; and she is surprised her daughter mothered me because her daughter is . . . not a competent person. At all.”

While it was unlikely that anyone in the universe was more familiar with Trudis's genetics than Fixit, he managed to keep his face in a properly listen-­and-­learn expression as Needly went on.

“Nobody seems to know who fathered me or my siblings. There were at least two other girls and three boys born at the same time, and they all disappeared. ­People talked about a Silverhair being the father, but nobody knows who or where they are! Someone must know! Grandma really is my genetic grandmother, though, and my mother is really her daughter. I know Grandma thought for a while my father might be somebody from the Oracles.”

“Male reproductive human not produced by Oracles,” said the galactic officer. Its face was twisted in a strange expression that conveyed revulsion, annoyance, and fury in about equal proportions. “Oracles not capable of reproducing hair follicle—­not even if given supplies, equipment, set of instructions, and trained assemblers!”

Arakny cried, “Oh, but Fixit, they make wonderful things. When we went to see what the Edgers were doing, trying to make new bodies, the Oracles made us a portable camp, and it even provided for the horses—­”

“DID . . . NOT . . . MAKE,” said the galactic officer with a scowl, or what they interpreted was intended as a scowl. “
Please do not make Self say again!
Oracles incapable of making anything more complicated than dung pile. Oracles are . . . plausible liars, actual idiots. Do you still have item?”

“I do,” confessed Grandma in a choked voice. “We were going to return it to them.”

She offered the crystal cube and Fixit took it from her, turning it about among several arms and hands. It pointed. “See, there, look close at corner, stamped in crystal: it says ‘Manufactured 243/584l7/0999epj1l7/.' That is galactic date. Always galactic date is in numbers used on planet of purchase. It says ‘fct. Oxel 235.' That means produced by Oxel factory 235. Oxel is very large manufacturing concern making very good equipment for interworld travelers, portable housing facilities, any size: factories 202 through 465 are set up on meteor belt of third planet of Ariaxne in the Frad system in this galaxy. One through 201 are in neighboring system.”