Watson, Ian - Black Current 01 (25 page)

 
          
Tamath
crossed quietly back and resumed her seat. During the next several minutes
while Sharia expounded, Tamath nodded sagely, to convince everyone (except
perhaps Nelliam) that she had made a valuable contribution by midwifing a truly
original idea. . . .

 
          
"1
wonder about the nature of this ship,"
mused
Sharia. "Need it have been built of metal or anything similar? Imagine for
a moment that we could harness a giant fish. Suppose we built a deckhouse on
its back and planted masts and dug holes in its body. Imagine that boats were
like that—not of wood, with a bit of metal.

 
          
"Could
this ship of space somehow have been built from living tissue? Could it have
manufactured our bodies out of itself, and so consumed itself?"

 
          
"You
have an over-active imagination," remarked Nelliam.

 
          
"Yet
the black current is a great living being—of a nature we can't understand.
Subtle and immense! Why not the Ship? Imagine that a ship could be a living
being, which carried
no
crew or
passengers— because it was
its own
crew and passengers.
Something godlike, beyond our
comprehension."
Sharia had whipped up her own enthusiasm now; her
voice was awed, ringing with sincerity.

 
          
"Yet
it was manufactured by people?"

 
          
"Maybe
people made something greater than themselves—which then produced something
even greater: something alive, superbly wise; and it was
this
which built the ship.
Or gave birth to it,
even.
The people who started the process wouldn't be equal to the end
result."

 
          
"And
how could this be, Sharia?"

 
          
"A
baby grows into a girl—who grows into a woman. The woman is entirely changed
from the baby she once was."

 
          
Nelliam
sniffed.
"Whereupon the woman gives birth to another
baby.
Back we are where we began."

 
          
"It's
just a comparison."

 
          
"Perhaps
it's a good one," said Tamath. "Or perhaps: like a leaf- worm
changing into a flutterbye?"

 
          
"I
vote we should concentrate on what is sure," Nelliam said.
"Such as the likely capers of the Observer-men at Verrino,
when Yaleen decides to favour them with an account of her recent
travels."

 
          
"I
wouldn't!" I protested. "Honestly! Why should I? My brother isn't
there any longer."

 
          
"No,
but your lover is.
And other acquaintances."
Nelliam tutted impatiently.
"That's beside the point. I
think we should consider enlisting the support of those Observers. If the
westerners are so sure that we're the Devil's daughters, maybe they'll try to
build bigger pistols to shoot right across the river. Or they may try to take
to the air. I suggest an approach in confidence to the Observers, so that
they'll report any unusual sightings across the water. I'll go further. We
should build observation towers ourselves. Convert the present signal stations.
Erect more, and taller. It'll help communications. I can name several blind
spots where a message can get held up for hours, if a boat isn't in the right
position to relay. A year ago I'd have said no message could be that urgent. .
. ." She brooded.

 
          
"Yes,
but what about the
women
in the
west?" I wanted to know. "The vile lives they lead.
The burnings."

 
          
"Nothing
we can do, Yaleen. Not without wrecking our own world."

 
          
"But—"

 
          
"What
would you suggest?"

 
          
"We
could take to the air!"

 
          
"We
don't wish to. For reasons which I'm sure even you must appreciate."

 
          
"Besides,"
drawled Sharia, now on the "Conserving" side, "supposing we
crossed the river on a wind, how could we be sure of getting back?
If we did cross over, what then?
Do we land, and make
speeches about freedom and happiness? Till they put us on a bonfire. . .
." Sharia, I realized, was one of those who would argue both sides of a
case with enough flair to convince you that she was deeply committed ... to
deciding nothing.

 
          
Nelliam
tapped her finger lightly on the table. "I see a more basic objection
against intervening. Something Yaleen appears not to have realized, despite her
experiences over there.
A vital difference between us and
them.
One which the Sons should surely work out, given all that Yaleen
fed them—if they aren't utterly pigheaded." She looked around the
conclave. "Well?"

 
          
"The forms of social organization?"
It was Marti,
the dusky veteran quaymistress of Guineamoy, who answered. Judging by her tone
and her raised eyebrows she was telling us, not asking.
An
ally of Nelliam's, then.

 
          
"Exactly,"
said Nelliam.

 
          
"How
do you mean?" I asked. "What did I miss?"

 
          
It
was Marti who told me, briskly. "It's like this, Yaleen. Technically
those Sons are more primitive than us. But they possess centralized authority:
this 'secular arm', the Brotherhood. That isn't in the least like our own guild
system. Their two Manhomes, North and
South
, are
obviously twin capitals,
ruling
towns. Here, no town rules any other. Over there they have what might be called
a 'government'."

 
          
"Two, surely?
If there are two . . .
capitals."

 
          
"They
will need twin capitals because of the slower communications. That doesn't
imply two separate countries.
On the contrary— judging by the
names."

 
          
"Oh."

 
          
"Our
way of ordering society is invisible and unobtrusive. Theirs is visible and
brutal. Harsh circumstances lead to harsh solutions. The circumstances of those
Sons are tough because they've denied themselves the river—"

 
          
"Which
itself
orders affairs invisibly and
unobtrusively?" I hazarded.

 
          
"You
have more knowledge of that
than us, girl!"

 
          
Nelliam
raised her hand, though rather limply. "Whatever mumbo-jumbo's in the
Chapbook, our guild isn't founded on mystic wisdom. We're rooted in tradition:
practical
tradition. That
Brotherhood is dogmatic. It
is
rooted in mumbo-jumbo—with practicalities playing second fiddle."

 
          
"The
Chapbook is mumbo-jumbo?" I echoed incredulously. Two or three of the
other women, notably Tamath, looked quite shocked.

 
          
"Obviously
I'm exaggerating. I do so to make my point. We pay lip-service to what's in the
Chapbook, because it
works.
If you're
to ply the river for your livelihood, the river must accept you. We drink of
the current. We obey certain codes. Then basically we forget about it. We
don't grovel on our knees on deck every morning and pray to the river-spirit.
We don't make a big deal of the black current, always and ever, remorselessly.
But they do over there. They're obsessed—with denying it. The current is our
background; that's where it belongs. It's
their
foreground, even though they cower away from it."

 
          
Silence
in the cabin, for a while. If a Tamath had said such things, perhaps there
would have been uproar. But then, she wouldn't have.

 
          
"Talking
of practicalities," said I, "what about Doctor Edrick's scheme for
poisoning the current?"

 
          
"May
it fail," said Nelliam tightly. "May he thrash around for ten years,
never finding what he
seeks.
May he fall between those
two stools, of Conserving and Crusading, and get squashed. Really there's
nothing we can do about it."

 
          
"We
could tell everybody, from Umdala to Tambimatu. Put people on their guard.
Tell them about the west."

 
          
"Why?
So that everybody lives in a state of permanent anxiety?
So
that any malcontents have a lever against us?"
Nelliam leaned
towards me.
"So that your fame spreads far and
wide?"
Yet her tone was whimsical rather than mafic
lous
.

 
          
Shortly
afterwards the conclave began to wind up. I was left with the odd sense of
being high in the councils of the land—yet these councils making little
difference. The guild could trim our sails a bit; but could it ever actually
alter course? On a long and rather straight river which leads forever from A to
B is there even any concept of altering course? Any need to?

 
          
After
I was dismissed, the 'mistresses must indeed have come up with some last-minute
practical conclusions: about the building of better signal stations which could
double as spy towers (if equipped with Observer-style telescopes). Some sort of
consensus must have gelled, since I was to see the results before too long. Yet
basically I felt enormously let down.
Once again.
First by the current, now by my guild. . . .

 
          
When
I came to think of it more coolly, what actually could be done?
On any scale corresponding to the size of the problem?
Reacting
prematurely might make it a problem. Once you identify something as a problem,
it tends suddenly to get worse.

 
          
One
of the last things said before I was dismissed came from Tamath:

 
          
"Mumbo-jumbo
or not," and here she glanced at Nelliam, "may the black current show
us our true course." Her look was respectful —but there was a slight edge
of, shall we
say,
ambition in her voice. She was a
handsome, engaging woman, as I say. She must have worked
hard,
and pleased people. And all the while, perhaps, a little frightened of doing
the wrong thing—while needing to speak out, proffer her opinion,
make
decisive choices. She would be admired for it, and she
would never quite dare believe it herself.

 
          
"To
be sure," conceded Nelliam. "Pardon my impieties. Blame them on the
crotchets of an old lady. I was just trying to make a point."

 
          
'May
the current show us our course. . .
.'
Tamath had no
idea how soon and how drastically the current would show us something!

 
          
Oh
yes. One other final thing was that I was assigned a berth and duties on board
Tamath's own command, the
Blue Guitar,
now bound for southern waters.

 
          
As
so I would continue my life as a riverwoman. Just as we would all continue our
lives.

 
          
For a while.

 
          
And
so I did. And so did we all—for the next half year, till New Year's Day came
round again, anniversary of my awakening washed up on a strange shore

 
          
This
particular
new year
found me on no strange shore. The
Blue Guitar
was tied up at the stone
docks of
Jangali. . . .

 
          
On
New Year's Eve I had walked out through the old town to visit Lalo and Kish,
whom I hadn't seen for over a year. The young couple ought to have moved out of
the parental home into a place of their own, though it was to that tree-house
that I went first, to enquire.

 
          
Lalo's
mum turned out to be a portly swarthy woman whose hair was a mass of wiry black
wool and combs and strings of agate beads.