Shame of Man (53 page)

“What do you want?” he asked her.

“I led you here,” she said. “When you lost me, I showed myself again, so
you could follow. I did not even kill the mercenary; he will recover in due course.”

Surely true; he should have been suspicious of the easy pursuit. “What do you want?” he repeated.

“I want my boy, and I want you. To be a family, together.”

“I thought you were married.”

“I am free of that now. You were always the one I wanted.”

“You were never the one I wanted,” he replied harshly.

“Then I will take my son from you.”

“No. I have him now.”

“Do you?” She looked at Skev, who now stood between them. “Will you go with your father or your mother?” she asked him.

Skev looked at her, then at him. “With my mother,” he said.

Hu'o was astounded. “You mean Serilda? Not Ann?”

“My real mother,” the boy said, stepping toward Serilda.

“You see, he is mine,” Serilda said. “Come with me, and you will have him and me, and the others you have known will be spared, because I will not tell Taiping of you. Remain behind, and—” She shrugged.

“Unless I kill you now,” he said. He had a knife, and he could throw it before she could throw a brick.

“No!” Skev cried, running to her.

Hu'o realized that he couldn't do it. Not in front of his son, and perhaps not anyway. She was the boy's natural mother, whatever else she was not.

Then Skev tripped on a stone and stumbled toward a hole in the pavement. He was about to fall into one of the cellar pits!

Hu'o lunged for him, but knew he was too far away. He saw his son stepping at the brink, beginning his tumble. Just out of reach, in the time available.

Then he saw Serilda leaping over the wall with the athleticism of her dancing experience. She caught the boy by the shoulder, hauling him back.

Hu'o arrived. He caught Serilda. She writhed within his grasp, turning to face him, her body tight against him, her mouth seeking his. She kissed him with startling passion.

His first impulse was to shove her away. But his second was to hold her close: as a captive. “I have you,” he said.

She did not struggle. Instead she moved her torso so that he could feel its slenderness and its softness. “You always did,” she said, trying to kiss him again.

He turned his face away. “You are a spy for the Taiping Rebellion. You will be confined.”

“I could have gutted you,” she said, drawing away just enough to show him the knife she held in her right hand. “I kissed you instead.”

He realized that she was right, again. She had caught Skev, he had caught
her, but she could have kneed him or stabbed him. He had not truly overpowered her. “Why?”

“How do you kill the man you love?”

She was serious. She had been sent on a mission to execute him, and could have accomplished it, having successfully led him to this isolated spot. But she had not even tried. Still, as long as she was free, the other members of his family were in danger. “You are still a spy.”

Then he saw a figure. “Well spoken,” Wood said. The man had a pistol pointed at Serilda. Mi'in stood behind him; she must have guided him here, using her uncanny awareness. “Commander Ward will interrogate her.” Beside him was the Filipino mercenary, evidently somewhat dazed, but functional.

Serilda did not remove her eyes from Hu'o's face. “You know what they do to female captives?”

“No!” Skev cried. Hu'o had forgotten for the moment that his son was standing close.

Serilda stooped to enfold him. “You will not have to watch,” she said. “Return to your—your other mother. She will be out of danger now.”

“No!” Skev repeated tearfully, hugging her.

“What did you tell him?” Hu'o asked as Wood approached with a length of cord in the hand that did not hold the gun. The gun did not waver; the man was ready to fire at the first sign of trouble.

“That if he did not come with me, you and your woman and the girl would be slain by the Taiping,” she replied without looking at him.

That explained why the boy had so readily gone with her: to protect his family. Yet it was clear that he had not forgotten his first mother.

Wood held out the cord, and Serilda held out her hands. Wood gave Hu'o the rope. Hu'o began to tie her hands together. But her remark clung to his awareness. What was normally done to spies was interrogation by torture, and execution. An attractive female spy would also be raped. Serilda would submit to it all, and die without divulging anything she did not choose to.

Hu'o paused. “I don't think I can do this,” he said.

“You won't have to,” Wood said. “Commander Ward will take care of everything. Your family will be out of danger, and we shall have our information.”

“She—I caught her because she saved my son—her son—from falling in that pit,” Hu'o said. “She could have ambushed me, as she did the mercenary. She could have killed me even then, but she didn't.”

“What are you saying?” Wood asked sharply.

“I—I am not without concern in this matter,” Hu'o said with difficulty. “I do not love this woman, but she may love me, and she is the mother of my son. I can't see her hurt like this.”

“We have to interrogate her,” Wood said. “Lives depend on the information
she has. Perhaps the very success of our mission. We must know what she knows.”

“I won't tell you anything,” Serilda said.

“Oh, I think you will,” Wood replied grimly. “The commander has ways.”

“They won't work on her,” Hu'o said. “I know this woman. What you contemplate is pointless. All you can do is make her death ugly.”

“No!” Skev cried a third time.

“No,” Mi'in echoed, looking directly at Wood. Hu'o knew that she might as well have pointed a gun at him. Hu'o had felt that look himself, and he was no longer a romantic young man. Wood would not be able to go against her.

Wood looked uncomfortable. He wrenched his eyes away from hers and addressed Hu'o. “I realize this puts you in an awkward situation. But we must have that information, and we can't let her go to make more mischief. If there were any other way, I would gladly embrace it.” Then he looked flustered as his gaze crossed Mi'in's face again. “That is, avidly pursue it. I mean, warmly espouse it.” He couldn't find a nonsuggestive phrase. Even Serilda smiled, faintly, recognizing the beauty of the girl. Serilda herself had used her charms many times to befuddle men and school them to her will. How well Hu'o knew!

Hu'o understood the logic of the soldier's position. But there was nothing in this he liked.

More figures approached: Ann, with her soldier. “We have her,” Hu'o told them. “But—”

“Of course,” Ann said, taking in the embrace of boy and woman.

“Come, Skev,” Mi'in said. The boy disengaged from his mother and sought the girl's embrace.

Serilda's eyes widened. Then her face set. She knew she had lost the boy, regardless what else happened. Mi'in's magic was strongest on her little brother.

“We can't let her go,” Wood said, looking more uncomfortable. “We must have that information.”

“Yes you can,” Mi'in said. “She will tell you.”

Serilda's face turned to the girl. Their eyes met. “My, you are something special,” Serilda said, feeling the power herself.

“She will tell you, if you let her go,” Mi'in said, glancing significantly at Wood. The man looked as if he had been struck a body blow, as duty warred with inclination.

Hu'o jumped on that, using the opening the girl made for him. “My daughter can tell when someone speaks a lie,” he said. “Make a deal: let the spy go unharmed, if she tells you all she can. It's the information you want, not her pain or death.”

“This is highly irregular,” Wood said, wavering. It seemed he was not
hard-hearted, despite being a soldier, and Mi'in had surely had impact on him.

“Take her to Commander Ward, and let him make the deal,” Hu'o said. “Then it will be out of your hands.”

“Yes, of course,” Wood said. “But I can't promise—”

Hu'o looked at Serilda. “You have no loyalty to Taiping. You're a mercenary yourself. You signed onto this mission just to recover your son—and perhaps more. If you tell the enemy what you know, you will not be able to return to Taiping; they would execute you. So we will be safe. Exactly as we will be if they kill you. And your son will not have to know you are dead.”

Serilda considered. “Do
you
ask this of me?” She was soliciting his confession of emotion. His agreement would constitute a commitment of some indefinite kind. It seemed that he had effect on her similar to what Mi'in had on Wood.

Hu'o looked at Ann. She nodded, almost imperceptibly. “Yes,” he said.

“Then I will do it,” Serilda said.

“Yes!” Skev cried, returning to her to hug her around her bound hands. There were tears on Serilda's cheeks. Hu'o wasn't sure he had ever seen real tears on her before.

“Then it appears we have an agreement,” Wood said, looking relieved. “Provided the commander accedes.”

“He will agree,” Mi'in said. Then she stepped up and kissed him. This was a very forward act for a Chinese girl, but she was not bound by ordinary rules. “Then we will go our way, and you will go yours, but maybe we will remember each other.”

“Yes, of course,” Wood agreed, dazed.

Now Hu'o was relieved in another way. His daughter had just signaled that the limit of the relationship had been reached. She recognized that there was no future in it. So the two would remember each other with fondness, but marry elsewhere. This was of course the way it had to be.

The Taiping siege of Shanghai in 1862 was foiled largely by the valiant efforts of Ward's tiny force. General Li divided his forces so as to control each of the towns within a thirty-mile radius of Shanghai, driving out the imperial garrisons and cutting the city off from the surrounding territory. This strategy came close to success. But it meant that Li had fewer than 100,000 men remaining to besiege Shanghai itself. Ward's defenders were even more thinly spread, and were strictly defensive. But thanks to determination, boldness, and perhaps special information, they managed to keep the Taiping force at bay until an imperial army arrived to drive it back. The imperials besieged the Taiping capital of Nanking, forcing Li to return in an attempt to save the Heavenly Capital, somewhat in the manner Rome forced Carthage to defend its home city instead of rampaging farther in Italy. Ward himself was wounded in battle
fifteen times, sometimes grievously, but survived until September 1862 when an injury finally killed him. But the tide had turned; in two more years the Taiping Rebellion was crushed.

The devastation of this (to some views) pointless combat over ideology was phenomenal; ten to twenty million people died of slaughter, disease, and starvation, and central China was impoverished for decades. Yet it was just one of many rebellions, of which perhaps only the Boxer uprising of 1900 is well known to Westerners. All of them cost the nation heavily. There is another irony: in 1862 America was hardly paying attention to the enormous grief of China, being preoccupied by its own far smaller concern of the moment: the War of the Rebellion, popularly known as the Civil War, where half a million died.

CHAPTER 19

EARTH FIRST!

Wherever mankind went, destruction of the wilderness followed. New territories flourished, then faded as their natural resources were exhausted. The New World was one of the last bastions of the natural globe, but was relentlessly plundered in the name of jobs, of progress, of civilization. Yet there were those who became conscious of the likely consequence of this sequence, and began to take up arms in defense of the wilderness for its own sake. They faced, however, formidable opposition. The place is Oregon, the time 1989.

Y
OU want to what?” Hugh demanded of his daughter.

“Daddy, it's just a weekend camping trip with Billie,” Minnie protested innocently. “And some of his friends.”

“Billie is seventeen,” he said. “You are fourteen. You hardly know him yet. Does the term age of consent have any meaning for you?”

“Oh, Daddy, don't be a fuddy-duddy! Anyway, he's only sixteen. How well do you expect me to get to know him in only three weeks? And the first two it was his sister Faience I was getting to know. She's my age. It's a nature trip. Didn't you bring us out here to enjoy nature?”

Sixteen. The age Chip would have been, if he had lived. But he couldn't dwell on that. “It's the ‘nature’ of Billie's interest that bothers me. You are one—” He caught himself. “One precious child. We don't want to risk you in the wilderness.”

“You think I'm sneaking off to have sex!” she accused him with a fine emulation of indignity. “You're afraid I'm
not
a child.”

Hugh knew better than to get into that argument with her. She would use all the terms he shied away from. But it was exactly what he feared. “Yes.”

“Then why don't you have it out with Billie, if you don't trust me?”

She was trying to put him in the wrong no matter what. So he trumped her ploy. “I'll do better than that. I'll have it out with his dad.”

“What's his father have to do with it?”

“The same thing I have to do with you.” Hugh picked up the phone, hoping she would lose her nerve and call off the excursion. “It's time I met him, anyway.” He opened the phone book.

But Minnie wouldn't bluff. “Here's his number.” She repeated it slowly from memory. There was nothing Hugh could do but punch it in.

Bill Senior answered. He placed Hugh in a moment. “You're the father of that lovely little girl with the midnight hair and the noon-sun smile my son's seeing.”

“Yes. She's 14, and—”

“I can guess. One look into those huge dark eyes almost knocked
me
for a loop, and I have a daughter her age. No wonder Billie's smitten! Look, Hugh, why don't you come over here, and we'll talk about it? Minnie knows where we live.”

Bemused, Hugh agreed. The man obviously appreciated the problem. He hung up, then went to explain to Anne. “I'll go with you,” she said. She knew the importance of presenting a united front, particularly if they were up against a permissive laissez-faire attitude.

“We'll all go,” Minnie said. “You'll like them. Bill's the smartest man I know.”

Hugh didn't need to exchange a glance with his wife. It was inherent. Minnie was getting to know these people too well, too fast. So they piled into the pickup truck and headed for their neighbor, who lived two miles down the road.

Soon they pulled into the neat log cabin. Bill came out to meet them, hand extended. He was a man of Hugh's age, but thinner, and he wore glasses. There was an odd familiarity about him. “Have we met before?” Hugh asked as the shook hands.

“Could be. I meet so many in my business, I can't remember them all. I'm in computers—AI design. Used to be in upper management for a large corporation, before it got taken over by a corporate raider. I got disgusted, moved to the country, and went native. You?”

That was reasonably close to what Hugh had done. “I'm a musician.”

Bill laughed. “Must've been two other people, then. Come on in and meet the family.”

All this was surprisingly compatible. Hugh found himself liking Bill. It did feel as if they had known each other before.

“Fay, this is our new neighbor Hugh,” Bill said as they encountered a woman in an apron. “And his wife—”

“Anne,” Anne said. “And our seven-year-old son Scevo. I think you know our daughter already.”

“Sure do!” Bill agreed. “And here's Bill Junior, and my daughter Faience. Minnie must have told you about them.”

“Yes,” Hugh agreed as they settled in the living room. He looked at Fay more carefully. She, too, seemed oddly familiar. Not as a casual acquaintance, but almost as a former lover. But of course that hadn't been the case. And though the daughter wasn't familiar, there was something about her name, which meant pretty pottery, that also nagged him. What
was
it about this family?

“So let's cut to the chase,” Bill said affably. “We're going on this weekend camping trip, and Minnie wants to come along. You have social or religions objections?”

“A family trip!” Anne said.

Bill glanced at her. “You thought we'd let the kids go out alone? Nuh-uh! They could get into trouble out there.”

For sure. Hugh was becoming reassured. “It does seem there was a detail she omitted. Still, we are not entirely sanguine about her being with folk we don't know well, no offense.”

“That's readily solved,” Bill said. “Why don't you come along too?”

But Fay glanced warningly at her husband. “That may not—”

“Oh, I forgot.” Bill smiled. “There's a condition. We don't know you well either. You must swear never to tell anyone else what you see.”

“Never to tell?” Anne asked, puzzled. “There are rare birds or something?”

Bill laughed. “Or something! We take nature seriously. Everything is precious. Fauna and flora and minerals in their natural state. We want to leave them all that way. Minnie says you are folk of your word, and we believe her.”

Minnie was right, but Hugh was uncertain of this. “We moved out here to get away from the strife and squalor and politics of the big city. We were overseas for a while, and decided then to get out to the country when we returned. If there are rare animals here, why should this be secret?”

“We can't say,” Bill said. “It may be that you don't approve of what we do. But we want your word.”

“If you're doing something illegal—you're not growing marijuana?” Hugh asked, concerned. “We don't like the drug trade.”

“No drugs!” Bill said. “Nothing like that. I think you'll approve. But if you don't, then go your way in silence. I think that's a fair compromise.”

Hugh looked at Anne, then at Minnie. “Do it, Daddy,” she murmured.

Hugh shrugged. “Okay. I hope we don't regret this.”

“So do we,” Bill agreed. “You have sleeping bags? Come here Friday afternoon, and we'll hike into the forest together. It's not far. There's a river, so water's no problem. We have tents.” He paused. “You're a musician? What instrument?”

“Orchestral clarinet.”

“Can that be played in the forest? If you care to bring it along, we can serenade the sunset. That should be nice.”

“I have spare instruments; I can bring one,” Hugh agreed. This camping trip was becoming quite intriguing.

“Bring the special one!” Scevo cried. Smiling, Hugh nodded. He had several, but the special one was mainly a novelty, though the children loved it.

“See, I knew you'd like them,” Minnie said as they drove home. “When I met Faience it was like I'd known her before, and then Billie.” Her eyes turned dreamy. “Like we were destined for each other.”

“That's odd,” Hugh said. “I felt the same about Bill and Fay.”

“As if you and Fay are destined for each other?” Anne inquired with a lift of a brow.

“Don't tease me, wench. It was more as if I'd been close to them in the past, a long time ago. I remember his intelligence, and her—” The memory took an illicit turn, forcing him to break off.

“No, let's have it,” Anne said. “I know you aren't contemplating anything. This may be important.”

“It's not something I care to discuss in front of the children.”

“Ooooh!” Minnie and Scevo groaned together, perfectly synchronized. Then they went into their routine.

“Our conservative parents are at it again,” Minnie said in a hushed tone. She had learned early that “conservative” was a bad word in the political sense.

“Thou shalt not hear a thing about the Forbidden Subject,” Scevo said in the same tone.

“SEX!” all four of them cried, as the parents joined in.

“All right,” Hugh said, with mock bad grace. “It's as if I remember having sex with Fae.” He realized that in his mind the spelling of her name had changed, but that didn't matter. “This weird image suddenly came to me: the two of us in a rocky field in a hilly wilderness, she childlike but also womanlike, frightened, relieved, and very friendly. She clung to me, and kissed me, and we became one. I think we married, but it didn't last. Then I met you, Anne, and that lasted. But it has to be a false memory, because I never had sex with any strange woman in any field.”

“A dream,” Anne said. “An old adolescent wish-fulfillment dream, perhaps.”

“A great one,” Minnie said. “Maybe Billie and I will find a rocky field.”

“Not funny,” Anne said sharply.

“I thought it was,” Scevo said.

“Well, you're a little troglodyte,” Minnie said, smiling, displaying a
new word.

“I'll bet you think I don't know what that means,” he said in a challenging tone.

“Yes.”

“Well, you're right. I don't know it means caveman. But I'm proud to be one. Maybe we'll find a cave with a bear in it.”

The adults had to smile. He had trumped her. But later, when they could talk privately, Anne had more to say. “They seemed familiar to me, too,” she confided. “No memory of sex; you were my first and only, in dream as in reality. I think I came into existence when you found me, existing only for you. But it was as if we knew them as a couple, and their children, a long time ago. We lived in stone houses by a cold sea. A curious image. But in that picture they were good people, as they seem to be now. I suspect Minnie could do worse than Billie. He's Chip's age, you know.”

“I know. That may explain her attraction to him. She hasn't spoken of Chip, really, since he died; she has devoted herself to Scevo. But perhaps it is time for her to look outside the family.”

“None of us have spoken much of Chip. And speaking of losses, I wonder who Minnie's natural parents were?” Anne said musingly. “We adopted her, but got no information. I think she deserves to know her origin.”

“If she chooses, she can sign the registry,” he said. “If her natural mother signs too, they will introduce them. But let's wait for her to decide.”

“Maybe she will have a mysterious dream, too,” she said. “Meanwhile, keep an eye out; she's a sensible girl, but if she suffers anything like the memory flashes we've been having, she may do something with that boy that we'll regret.”

He laughed. “Something like this?” He kissed her and touched her intimately.

“Or even worse,” she agreed, meeting his interest with her own.

“What do you think Bill's secret is, that we must not tell?” he asked as they proceeded to make love.

“Probably a rare species of butterfly they don't want lepidopterists to learn about, because they'd pin it to a board. They seem to be ardent ecologists.”

“That works for me.” Then their passion squeezed out further dialogue.

On Friday they arrived at Bill's house, complete with sleeping bags and other supplies. Bill had a heavy knapsack, which he wore without seeming notice. It didn't contain camping supplies, because Fay and their children were well loaded with those.

They set off for the forest, following a path Bill's family knew. Minnie quickly fell in beside Billie, who seemed more than glad for the company. Soon the way became devious; it seemed that they were looking for a region not reached by any obvious route. There were brambles and prickles; it was a good thing they had boots. But the scenery was interesting; they were making their way into the heart of an increasingly ancient forest. Fortunately they were not trying to scale any high peaks; their route was more or less level, following contours where possible.

The trees near the road were small, but the farther into the backwoods they got, the larger the trees became, until they were among white pines and Douglas firs of truly impressive size. They were so tall as to make normal trees resemble dwarfs, and some of them looked to be six feet or more in diameter at the bases. These were the giants of the wilderness, standing silently in their glory. Hugh almost expected to see elves hiding among them.

At last they reached their campsite: a glade by a trickling brook. The children were delighted. The two girls went first for drinks, giggling as they splashed each other with the icy water. They were like twins, one with bright yellow hair, the other with black hair, worn at similar length. But Faience, despite her pretty name, was an ordinary girl, while Minnie with the ordinary name was a beauty. Their friendship was probably doomed, unless Minnie's relationship with Billie changed the girls’ association.