The Ghost Sister (11 page)

“What does 'bloodmind'mean?” Bel Zhur asked, sitting down on a nearby chair.

“What makes us real,” Mevennen said, surprised that the ghost did not know such a simple thing. “What I don't have. It is that which sometimes makes us return to the way that we were as children, without thought or speech, and we run wild. Except me,” she added painfully. “I'm land-blind, as I told you. They were surprised I survived my childhood. And I came home from the wild on a black day, a day when there was a great storm; the
satahrach
always said that it meant I had a destiny.”

Mevennen saw Bel Zhur give her companion an odd look, filled with meaning. “Mevennen, what do you mean, 'the way we were as children?' You see, I saw a child, down in the trees by the river. It was in a dreadful state—filthy, dressed in rags. We want to help it. Do you know who that child might belong to, or where it comes from?”

“
Belong
to?” Mevennen asked, puzzled. “Children belong to no one, except themselves.”

“I understand that—of course, children are people, too— but it must have parents somewhere, surely?”

“It will have parents, naturally. But they would have left it out in the wild when it was very small, with the rest of its siblings if it's part of a brood, and it's probably too young to return home.”

Bel Zhur Ushorn was staring at her, and Mevennen could see dawning comprehension in her face, mixed with disgust and a strange, reluctant pity. “You send your children out into the wilds? To live like animals, to fend for themselves? What has happened to you? What kind of people are you?”

“What other way is there?” Mevennen asked, bewildered.

“Mevennen … the transmission was right. You have fallen from grace. This world is cursed,” Bel Zhur whispered.

“But the world is a fair place,” Mevennen said, not understanding. “Once, perhaps not. Once we were not in balance with the world, but then we made a bargain: that we would be aware and unaware, that we could live aside from the world as we do, but in return we would give our children to the world, and sometimes more than children, too. The world is in balance, now.”
Except for those like me
, she thought. But even as she spoke, she thought that perhaps the world looked very different to a ghost; that they did not understand things as humans did.

Shu Gho said, “What did you mean, when you spoke of balance with the world?”

So Mevennen told them the old story, and she began—as all stories begin—with Outreven. As she spoke, she heard her voice grow stronger. And remembering how the
sa-tahrach
spoke, she tried hard to find the right words, so that the story would be more compelling. The women listened, silent and serious.

“They say that the first people who came to this world from the world beyond built a city called Outreven. It lay deep in the mountains of the Great Eastern Waste, and it was difficult to reach. But the first people had boats that could fly through the air and they knew the passages between the mountain walls.They lived in Outreven for many years, serving their
satahrach
, their elder, whose name is no longer known but who was forever young, moving from body to body. And their
satahrach
dreamed. He dreamed that one day people would be in harmony with the world rather than separated from it; that they would live in a world he called the Dreamtime, where people walked conscious and not conscious, aware and unaware, at the same time. He said that consciousness was a disease, that it created too great a separation between ourselves and other living things, but that it was difficult to do without it. He wanted to change this, but not so that we became lost to ourselves, as animals
are. He wanted …” Here she paused, uncertain of how best to phrase things.

Shu gently interrupted. “He wanted the best of both worlds?”

“Yes, that's so. He called upon the dead, and they instructed him. He created a being that was half human and half animal: the Jhuran. The Ancestor. It died soon after, but he made others, and they died, too. So he tried another way. He created a magical book, that told people how to live in harmony with the world, and after many years the children that were born to the people of Outreven were different. They possessed the bloodmind.”

Shu frowned. “What is the bloodmind?”

“It makes us what we are,” Mevennen said, frowning in turn. How could Shu not know? “It contains the senses that connect us to the world—those of us who are not sick,” she added bitterly. “The animal senses, the ones that drive the hunts, and also the masques at the mating seasons. But like the infants of other creatures before they return to the pack, the children of Outreven ran away into the world, or turned on their parents. Their parents blamed the
satahrach
, and killed him. They stayed in Outreven, but there was a great fire and they died. Their children came home to find nothing, and so they ran away once more. They lived like animals, but gradually they found a balance between consciousness and unconsciousness. They learned how to listen to the world, with the help of the magical book. And they listened to the
satahrachin:
the elders, the few who had never forgotten and who held the best of human and the best of animal. They started to build once more, to live in houses. They built the coastal towns, and the island ports, and left the inner lands, where the tides run strongest, free for
mehed
and children. And so no one lives in Outreven any more, though it is said that if you can find it, it's a place of healing.”

There was a curious expression on the ghost's face, a kind
of eagerness, as though Shu were drinking in her words. “Has anyone—yourself, for example—tried to find it?”

“I can't even walk from the house to the orchard without feeling ill,” Mevennen said, with a rush of frustration. “How am I going to find Outreven?”

“Mevennen, does the name Elshonu Shikiriye mean anything to you?” Bel asked, with that so familiar, irritating note of patience in her voice.

“I know I'm ill,” Mevennen said, as calmly as she could manage, “but please stop speaking to me as though your words would snap me in half. No. I've never heard that name before.” She saw the ghosts exchange glances.

“I'm going to tell a story now,” Shu Gho said. “One of our stories. It is about a man named Elshonu Shikiriye, who was of our people many thousands of years ago. He came from a colony named Irie St Syre, and his ancestors came from lands called Canada and Austral, on a ruined world called Earth. They came to Irie St Syre because they wanted to find a place where they could return to the Dreamtime of their ancestors—a time when people are in harmony with their world and where everything has significance and meaning. They chose to find their path by controlling their environment, by ReForming it with the aid of devices, so that there were no truly wild places any longer and everything lived in harmony with everything else.” She paused, staring intently into Mevennen's face.

“I understand,” Mevennen said, anxious to show that she was not stupid. “It's part of the legend: that the
satahrach
brought with him such a device, a machine that would put the world in balance. But he would not use it. The legend says that he thought it best to put humans in harmony with the world, not the other way around.” The ghosts glanced at one another again, their faces grave. “Tell me the rest of the story,” Mevennen said.

Shu went on. “Over time, the colonists quarreled among themselves, and there were many factions. Elshonu had
ideas, as you say—theories about consciousness, and how it separates people from the environment in which they live. He decided to leave Irie St Syre. He gathered a group of followers—I'm talking about several thousand people. It was during a time called the Diaspora, when a new means of traveling between the stars—a faster way of traveling— was developed. Many people wanted the chance to start again, a new life. Shikiriye was among them. He brought them to another world, to try to put into practice the principles in which he believed. Word came back that a colony had been found, and that it was called Monde D'Isle, a world of many islands. Many years after that, someone picked up a message from Monde D'Isle, saying that the colony was lost and that the world was cursed. Monde D'Isle is your world.”

Bel had been listening with evident impatience. Before Mevennen could say anything, she turned to Shu Gho. “We know Elshonu was prepared to do anything to establish his goal. Including genetic manipulation.”

“The first message spoke of the lack of many large mammals on Monde D'Isle. Maybe Elshonu saw an ecological niche and decided to work with it rather than use the ter-raforming sequence. But it didn't work, according to Mevennen,” Shu mused, and Mevennen listened, trying to make sense of the unfamiliar words. “And remember, we didn't see any trace of it in the … place where we were, did we?”

“But now that we know there was a terraforming device … it might still be here, mightn't it?” Bel spoke with a curiously abstracted air. “If it did survive, it might be possible to ReForm
this
world—a lot sooner than Dia hopes …”

Shu motioned her to be quiet. “We need to speak to the others about this.”

“You may be ghosts,” Mevennen said reproachfully, “but please don't talk as though I weren't here.”

Bel had the grace to blush. Shu gave a rueful smile. “Mevennen—will you think about what we've told you? And I know it's difficult to understand, but we're as real as you are.”

Mevennen couldn't help laughing, though she tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

“Not very real at that, Shu Gho. Without the bloodmind, you can never be really real.”

“Mevennen, tell me more about this 'bloodmind.' I don't think I understand what you mean.”

Mevennen tried to reply, but to her dismay, she could feel the unmistakable signs of a fit approaching: a hot heaviness, like the air before a storm. She did not want that to happen in front of the ghosts, when her weakness would be exposed. She put out a hand to steady herself.

“Mevennen? Are you all right? Is something wrong?”

“I think—I think you should go now,” Mevennen said.

“We have so many things to ask you—” Bel Zhur began, but Shu broke in.

“Which can wait for another day I think we've tired Mevennen enough, Bel. Let's go.”

Bel Zhur rose and dusted off her long blue tunic; it seemed an oddly fastidious thing for a ghost to do.

“Could you meet us again?” Bel asked. “Tomorrow in the orchard?”

“Why? What will you do?” They were chancy things, ghosts. Maybe Mevennen would ask Eleres to come with her; she knew he'd humor her if she wanted.

“Because we might be able to help you,” Bel Zhur said in a rush. “Maybe cure you.”

Shu Gho began to say something, then stopped. Mevennen stared at Bel Zhur. The ghost stood, unsmiling. No question that it lied, but Mevennen was curious and the approaching fit tugged at the edges of her awareness, prompting her to say, “All right. But not tomorrow.” She would
need a day or so to recover from the fit. “Come the day after that, in the evening before it gets dark. I'll be there.”

Back at the camp, Bel and Shu stood peering over Sylvian's shoulder as the output from the machine in the ruins, relayed via the ship, scrolled across the screen.

“You see,” Sylvian murmured, pointing. “This doesn't really
tell
us anything. It's just output. It doesn't look anything like a set of core algorithms. To get those, we'll have to shut the machine down, but the relay keeps mutating all the time … it's always one step ahead of me. They must have set it up like this to avoid interference.” She sighed. “And if what your contact said is correct, Elshonu brought Re-Forming equipment with him, too, but it was never used … I'm sure this machine has something to do with that.”

“Does it look like ReForming code?”

Sylvian frowned. “That's hard to tell. It doesn't look like the biocode we use these days” —she grimaced, obviously remembering that “these days” on Irie St Syre now lay a century past—” and it's almost impossible to say for certain what ancient programming code it represents. But if it
is
ReForming code, then it clearly isn't having any effect on whatever supporting machinery still exists. This planet's still untouched.”

Shu nodded. Wearily, she rubbed her eyes. It had been a long day, spent moving base camp closer to the river valley, but still within the reach of the ruins—which, she thought with that now-familiar twinge of excitement, surely had a name.
Outreven.
She was certain that Mevennen's legendary city and Elshonu Shikiriye's first settlement were one and the same. She gave a small, grim smile as she remembered the discussion they'd had on returning from the tower
“ '
Outreven.
'
It sounds ominous
,”
Bel had said, with a shudder.

“
It means
'
Outworld
'
in Pasque
,”
Shu had answered.
“
As though the colony wanted to look back, not forward; to where they had come from rather than where they were going.
”

If that was right, it was not a good sign. But what about the machine in those ruins? What did that do? And what could Mevennen's “magical book” be, that put people in harmony with the world? Possible connections tugged at her mind, but she was too tired to think properly.

Now, the biotents had been set up in the foothills of those mountains that separated the river valley from the steppe, and despite the tedium of packing up and relocating, Shu was glad they had done so. The air was fresher here, sharpened by the snows of the towering peaks above, and when she stepped out of the tent, she did so onto short blue-gray grass that was redolent with herbs. Shu wondered whether anyone ever made it over the mountains; staring down from the aircar she had realized how high and impenetrable they were. Perhaps, she thought, this was the reason why the ruins seemed so untouched. Belatedly, she realized that Bel and Sylvian were looking at her, expectantly, and that they had been talking quietly for several minutes.

“Shu?” the biologist asked patiently. “What's your view of Bel's contact?”