The Ghost Sister (16 page)

When she stepped out of the biotent, she found Bel waiting for her. Signs of a sleepless night were evident in the girl's face, and it looked to Shu as though she were losing weight. Admittedly, they had now been on rather less than adequate rations for some time, but even so … Bel gripped her by the arm.

“Shu? Sylvian's been doing some comparative analysis and she thinks she knows what the machine might be.”

Immediately, Shu's pensiveness disappeared. “Did she manage to shut it down?”

“No, it's still running, but one of the code sequences had an output that the ship's computer recognized. She thinks the machine in the ruins is a biomorphic generator.”

Shu frowned. “A what?”

Patiently, Bel managed to explain. It was not some ancient and erratic piece of terraforming equipment that they had discovered down in the ruins. It was a device that had rarely been used on Irie in recent centuries because of the distortion effects, but which had once been employed in education and training throughout the Core worlds, a ma-
chine designed to disseminate understanding. As far as Shu understood Bel's careful explanation, the concepts which it generated were rather similar to the very ancient idea of Platonic forms, which then permitted a certain kind of interpretation, and its chief use was in the alteration of behavior. Sylvian was familiar with them in theory if not in practice, as she explained when they hurried to the biotent.

“Originally,” Sylvian said, bending over the unscrolling sequence of algorithms, “biomorphic fields were a natural phenomenon.”

“Natural?” asked Dia, doubtfully. “I've never come across them.”

“That's possibly because creatures on Irie don't have to work so hard to survive these days—we put so much effort into environmental support that they might have lost the need,” Sylvian said, pushing her damp blond hair out of her eyes. The cold weather had passed again, bringing blazing sunshine in its place, and the heat baked up from the stones like a furnace. “I'll give you a simple example. Think of a bird which learns to use a twig to extract insects from bark. Within a couple of generations, even though no explicit teaching has taken place and even though there may have been no contact between the clever bird and others, most birds of the same species will also be using twigs in the same way. This phenomenon used to be a bit of a mystery until the idea of biomorphic fields was proposed way back in ancient times, on Earth. Once an appropriate technology was developed to generate such fields, they were used for training—mainly by the military of the day, and abuse wasn't far behind. The generators could disseminate delusions as well as knowledge, and the military wasn't slow to cotton on to that. When they were used on Irie, of course, they were employed more responsibly, but they had some odd side effects on the neurology of the people who used them and eventually they were phased out.”

“This device must be pretty effective if it's lasted all this time,” Bel said, doubtfully.

“The technology is reflexive: it generates and feeds from its own power,” Sylvian explained. “And since no one appears to have interfered with it, it's obviously been quietly running along ever since the day it was set in motion. That holographic being you saw is probably some kind of defense, an image generated by the field itself.”

“So what are we going to do?” Bel asked.

“Investigate it further,” Sylvian said. “Upload the database into the ship's computer. We'll still have to shut the field generator down to do that, though—it won't upload while it's still activated.” She glanced round at the circle of women. “After all, we might as well try and find out why someone set it up in the first place.”

“It would make sense for Sylvian to handle the generator, since she at least has a passing acquaintance with the technology,” Dia said.

Sylvian nodded. “I'm familiar with the theory, anyway. It'll take a while to figure out how to shut it off, but I'll start working on it right away. I can take one of the aircars out there.”

“But why go to all the trouble of setting up a teaching device and not ReForming technology?” Bel wondered aloud. “If anywhere needs terraforming, it's here.” She glanced out over the wild land and frowned.

“We may just have landed in a particularly inhospitable part of the world,” Shu answered. “Remember, we've only seen a fraction of it.”
Time to do some more exploring
, she thought.

Later, Shu found Bel sitting on the steps of the biotent, staring into space and shredding a strand of grass between her fingers.

“Shu? I've been thinking. About Mevennen.”

Shu sat down beside her, and waited for the young woman to say what was on her mind. After a moment, Bel
murmured, “I'm convinced we should bring Mevennen here. To the camp. I think Sylvian should take a look at her, see if she can figure out what's wrong. Because it might be something really basic, something like epilepsy, that can easily be cured.”

“I'm certainly not in principle opposed to bringing her here,” Shu said carefully, “if she really wants to come. If she doesn't, then we can't force her.”

“No, of course not.”

“And we don't have any idea what's actually wrong with her. I don't think I understood her explanation of her illness. She could have been talking in spiritual terms.”

“Maybe,” Bel said doubtfully. “But she doesn't look well—she's so thin. And her hands shake. Shu, if I'd met someone on Earth thousands of years ago, and they'd told me they were possessed by some spirit when it was obvious that they were suffering from something physical, then I'd have a duty to try to help them. Dia agrees.”

Shu reached out and put her hand momentarily over Bel's.

“I told you, I'm not opposed to her coming here. I'm not arguing with you, Bel, just giving a gentle hint that we can't force our will on her even if we think it's in her own best interests. Unless she wants to come. And” —she stood up, straightening—” we won't know
that
until we ask her, will we?”

The journey to the tower was undertaken in silence. Evening fell slowly, the sky deepening to viridian, and then to a soft smoky blue. The trees of the orchard were full of the long winged insects, and the evening air was pungent with the smell of the ripening fruit. The fallen ones had burst where they struck the ground. Above, a thin crescent moon hung over the fruit trees, laced with cloud, and the long grass was damp with dew.

“Wait here while I go and see if I can find her,” Bel said, at the edge of the trees. She disappeared into the shadows.

Shu sat down on the fallen remains of a fruit tree and looked up at the moon. In all its elements, the scene could have been one of old Earth, a world that Shu had never seen except in the holovids, but surely someone from that planet would find its essence was indefinably different, a subtlety of place that the mind could detect and appreciate, but not express. It was very quiet. The rosy fruit could almost have been apples in the half-light: a barbed and thorny Eden. Absorbed in her thoughts, Shu failed to hear the light footsteps behind her in the orchard. She turned and saw Mevennen herself. The woman's eyes gleamed in the uncertain light.

“Mevennen?” Shu said. Bel appeared at Mevennen's shoulder, smiling with something that could have been triumph.

“She's coming with us,” Bel said, to Shu's amazement. “She's coming back to the camp.”

Left alone by her brother, Mevennen could not help but blame herself. If she hadn't been so weak, so out of balance with the world, then none of this would have happened. The family would be better off without her, especially Eleres. And behind that thought lay anger. She remembered her brother standing over her in the hills. He would have killed her, and maybe no one would have blamed him because they knew what it was like, to be in the grip of the bloodmind, to be a thing that killed. But Mevennen did not know what that was like, she hadn't been able to use the sword even in her own defense, and suddenly she was angry and afraid all over again.
He would have killed me. Is that how he really feels? They all say it
'
s the bloodmind, but what if it
'
s just an excuse?
She sat up in bed and wrapped her arms miserably about her knees. She could leave, but where could she go, landblind as she was? Ghost as she was? A thought
sparked in her mind and she remembered speaking to Luta, years ago now.

“
If a ghost has chosen you
,”
the old woman said
, “
there is very little you can do to change its mind. Remember the stories ofYr En Lai, who also spoke with ghosts to save his lover Eshay from the wild?
”

Mevennen smiled. She said
, “
Yes, you used to tell me the tales, when I was not long returned.
”

“
Then you will remember too that he had to make a hard bargain: to give up his lands and to make a migration east with Eshay
—
the hardest passage of all
—
to a land the ghosts showed him. The stories say that they found their way to lost Outreven, the first place of all, and there Eshay found healing and peace in the hands of the Ancestor.
”
She and Mevennen looked at one another bleakly, both well aware that Mevennen would never have been able to make such a journey.
“
But then again, Yr En Lai was the greatest of all the Ettic lords, and a famous dowser.
”

“
Whereas I
'
m landblind, and can
'
t do a thing.
”

“
Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Yr En Lai was a cold man whose family schemed against him all his life before he found peace with Eshay.You, at least, are loved.
“
The old woman put a hand on Mevennen
'
s sleeve to soften her words.
“
If you should ever be unlucky enough to meet a ghost, tell it to go back where it came from. Tell it that it has no welcome here.
”

Now, Mevennen reflected bitterly that those words were all very well for those who weren't sick, but because of her illness a child had died and she herself had been hurt. She would go to the ghosts, and whether they killed her or cured her, it didn't much matter. Carefully, with much thought, she began to write a note. She didn't want Eleres to come after her, not this time, and if she just vanished he wouldn't rest until he found her. But if she could convince him not to follow, somehow get him out of the way … Sereth was going to have to travel to Tetherau for the funeral, and this gave Mevennen an idea. She did not like
ing to Eleres, but perhaps what she was writing might come true after all …

She addressed the finished note to her brother and slipped it inside one of her books. Then, before she had a chance to change her mind, she packed up a robe and her ancestress's sword, and made her way down the stairs. Eleres was in the main hall, with Morrac. Mevennen slid through the door and out of the gate to the orchard. She waited queasily among the trees, hoping and fearing that the ghost would come, but the sun had sunk down into the twilight sky before there was a rustle in the leaves at the orchard's edge and Bel Zhur Ushorn was standing before her. Mevennen studied the ghost, taking her time. Bel Zhur's face seemed paler than usual, and her strange eyes were rimmed with red.

“Bel Zhur?” Mevennen said. “Speak, then.”

Bel said quickly, in a rush of words, “Listen, Mevennen. I know what you think I am, but you're wrong. I'm not a spirit. I'm not something supernatural. I can prove it to you. I can show you our camp. I think, now, that I can even show you Outreven itself. And Mevennen—I want to try to help you. To see if we can find a cure.”

Mevennen thought about the ghost's words, and her earlier resolution, and there was a cold clutch of panic at her heart. She did not believe that the ghost could show her Outreven, but she wanted so much to be healed. And if she did not go with the ghost, she persuaded herself, perhaps she would offend it, and Bel Zhur would latch onto her brother. But at the thought of Eleres, her anger returned.
He would have killed me, and I
'
m tried of blaming myself.
Old resentments and new rage merged into resolution.

“Very well,” Mevennen said quickly, before she had a chance to change her own mind. “I'll go with you. But only on one condition.”

“Tell me, Mevennen.”

“I'll come with you for three days, no more. In three
days'time Elowen will be full, and at that time of the moon the stories say that a ghost has no power. I will give you your chance to cure me, but if it does not work, I am coming home and you are to leave me and my family alone.” She spoke with an authority that she did not feel.

“Mevennen … I don't know if we
can
cure you in so short a time.”

“Then I'm staying here.”

“All right,” Bel Zhur said hastily. “I agree. And I promise, Mevennen, that if you want to come back, then you're free to do so. But you may not want to come back once you've heard what we have to say, and shown you what is to be shown.”

“We'll see,” Mevennen said.

Bel Zhur held out her hand. “Let's go and find Shu,” she said. Mevennen allowed herself to be helped up, and they walked into the orchard to where Shu Gho was sitting on a fallen branch.

“Mevennen?” Shu looked startled. The name, oddly accented, seemed to echo through the quiet air.

“She's coming with us,” Bel said. “She's coming back to the camp.”

Shu Gho did not seem to know quite what to say. She rose, touching Bel's arm in a gesture that Mevennen could not interpret, and the two ghosts moved through the long grass. Mevennen followed the spirits down to the riverbank. There was something there: the strange boat made of metal.

“What is that?”

“Transport.” Bel Zhur helped her over the side. The second ghost followed. Trying to stifle the fear that the thing might disappear as soon as she set foot in it, Mevennen sat down stiffly. The boat began to hum.

“What is it doing?” she asked in alarm.

“I'm starting it up. Don't be afraid.” The boat glided forward, so smoothly that Mevennen barely felt it. The world was taking them, flowing past, and it moved so swiftly that
the tides of the world beneath the land had no time to impinge upon her. She leaned back, enjoying the sensation of motion without disorientation. The feeling was so unfamiliar that she could hardly believe it. The journey to the tower, with herself sagging sedated on the mur's back, had passed in a dull haze. But now she was fully conscious, and able to take note of the world as it passed. Bel Zhur turned round and grinned.