“Knock-knock… ”
“Achen!” Luenda set mallet and chisel down atop her
workbench, peeled safety glasses off, hung them on the pegboard and stepped
away from shaping staves for a new drum. “This is a welcome interruption, I
should get up a fire and make tea.” She brushed wood shavings from her leather
apron before giving the visitor a hug.
“Don’t bother. They filled me up at the Hearth.”
She made a silly chuckle: “Thanks, it’s too warm to
light the stove anyway.” She led the way out of her shop and they sat on a log
bench that viewed the little mesa and the Hall.
“Where’s Edzelian?”
“Peter took him up to Taralisa and Suthra’s. He has
his own cabin there. Close to his new babies. Did you go by Branch House? How
is Sunrah?”
“He’s doing great. I’ve moved there—I’m the lead
teacher. That new two room cabin? My billet now: classroom in front, office and
bed in the rear. I have the boy full time, Synoveh drops by for the feedings. I
think Marcus is a little jealous.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. He knows that you aren’t a threat.”
“Not for his wife,” Achen smiled. “Marcus is really
fond of Sunrah, doesn’t want to see him go.”
“Marcus has Luvin. And the boy should be with his
Dad.”
“Yeah—but I’m not his Dad, not anymore. I will
always call Sunrah Gardul’s son—not mine. We mixed the semen, and I never want
a blood test. I don’t want Sunrah to forget his father just because he never
got to know him. I’ll have him call me ‘Uncle’, not ‘Dad’.”
“We’ll teach him about
Gardul. He was a strong man worth being proud of.”
“Sunrah should see the
real picture. By the time we can tell stories our own memories will be
changing. We’ll give him an idealized portrait, not truth.”
“Is that bad? Gardul
will always be a hero.”
“Truth is important.
Gardul is remembered in the fungus—like Mel. I want to use the drug and see
him, I need a partner.”
“Me? Why?”
“I thought of Suthra and
Taralisa before you. But they are preoccupied with their whole family right
now. Other than Jody and Peter you are the most experienced user.”
“Maybe… Lot’s of people
use it—the aphrodisiac is popular.”
Achen nodded: “I should
do it with a woman so I won’t get distracted by sex. I talked with Kaila, I
hoped she wanted to go there and we could share our memories but she said ‘No’.
She isn’t ready yet.”
“But you’ve got a need…
”
“Uh-huh. I’ll keep the
memory, if not the person, alive.”
“I’ll go with you. I
still look for Ediza and Amelia when I’m there. At least this time there is
something to find, we’ve already seen it.”
“You can’t help looking,
they were a part of you.”
“As Gardul was for you.”
“I’d like to do this as
soon as possible, before I take up my new duties.”
Luenda nodded and
crinkled her brow: “That makes sense. I’m not doing much this week. Anytime you
like.”
“I’ve only used it a
couple of times—with Gardul. The encounters were always extremely sexual… We
should go someplace neutral, away from stimuli.”
“My cabin?”
“That sounds right. I’ll
meet you tomorrow?”
“Okay—come up first
thing. I’ll be awake.”
“Thanks Luenda. I need
somebody strong at my side and none are heartier than you.”
“We all feel the loss.
He was a beautiful man. You were lucky to know him as you did.”
“It was a rare
privilege.”
“Is there anything else
I can do?”
“Not right now. I should
let you get back to your work.” Achen stood.
Luenda joined him, the
hug squeezed his face against her throat, she bent her neck and kissed the
whorl at the center of his close mat of black hair.
For some people It
always feels like a trap, a space you enter and find no exit. Even the
intelligent presence can seem a lurking predator watching a web. Such people
should go there with a friend or lover, one never wants to go there with an
enemy. But folks that perceive enemies tend to dislike this sort of drug
experience. It is not for the paranoid nor the psychopath, they have poor
responses to It, often terminal.
Luenda: “I’ve used It at
midnight in the deepest woods. All alone until I crossed inside… the entire
forest was there within It and with my memory of Mel… no words, only the
experience and knowledge of all of life! And death… It showed me their eyes…
what it looks like from my game’s point of view… I’m glad there are no real
words in there, those feelings are primary—untempered. I am an animal then, I
don’t always want to return to being human.”
“And you’ve never found
Amelia?—nor Ediza?”
“Amelia died before It
understood about people and minds. It never knew her. Whatever happened to
Ediza was off-world and It couldn’t receive her. It finds my memories, It’s
tried to conjure images and voices but they don’t work—the experience is false.
I told It that those figures brought me pain and It ceased making them.”
“It wants to be good to
people.”
“It almost wants to be
people, but It senses our limitations and doesn’t want to join them.”
Achen nodded: “What are
It’s limitations?”
“None that I can tell… ”
“Nothing is omnipotent.”
“No, but It has such
total mastery of It’s environment that It almost could be. Everything to be
known about the planet is in there.”
“I’m a little nervous…
not scared, but… ”
“Are you sure you’re
ready?”
“Yes. There’s no better
time.”
“Okay.” The space was in
a garden adjoining the spring, a half-log step edged a patch of grass, weeping
tees drooped above, the hanging runners swayed and rustled.
They shared a flask of
purple syrup with a taste between compost and smelly cheese, a thin film coated
teeth and tongue, tea washed it down.
Achen took up a wooden
flute: “Mel tried to show me, but I’m not very good. I do like to make tones,
but I can’t follow a tune—not much rhythm.”
“Just be comfortable.”
Blowing long notes, he
made random changes, Luenda sat at his side and put her left arm around his
torso.
Stretching out, Achen
dropped the instrument, she went down with him and they lay semi-embraced.
Veins pulsing purple
arose across their skin and tiny hairs grew from them out into the open air.
Deprived of Gardul’s
erotic energy, Achen felt briefly as if he had fallen into a well. There was
nothing to grasp and he sensed growing darkness but when he reached bottom
there were green eyes, happy to find him and Luenda appeared, smiling, naked as
all innocence except she didn’t have a body…
“Let’s find him.”
And a soundless other
voice, familiar and yet strange replied: Find whom?
“Gardul.”
Names are empty, show me
Achen and Luenda each
pulled through their memories: offered Gardul’s face, voice, thoughts, love.
Most of the colonists
had visited with It at least once and there were memories of It’s kind
associated with them.
They came to thoughts of
Sunrah and It saw these, saw the baby’s face from a human’s eye and It
remembered somebody else that knew this child and shared him with It.
A figure gelled from the
space, human, half-formed, faceless, but Achen experienced a feeling he only
had shared with one other man, Gardul. With recognition the figure evolved
features: black hair, brown eyes, a pointed beard.
It didn’t, couldn’t
speak, but hugged Achen and loved him in a new way.
Sunset and they awoke,
returned to her cabin. Luenda built a fire, soon they had tea and a panful of
greens simmered up soup.
Achen: “It was a living
memory. It wasn’t him, but so close… closer than my best dreams.”
“You went with him and
things looked right, so I explored by myself. I want to see how It sees through
our eyes… It is one mind and a communion of all of the users, as well. It needs
to synthesize a psyche from these. Like that body It formed. It can be anything
and anybody, given the model.”
“Learning to be people.”
“Not always getting
appropriate lessons. I’ve looked at memories It has from violence—Bobol and
Hildy brought that, and Leon—he tried but he was drinking alcohol and that’s
poison for It. Leon got very sick and he never went over. It can’t sort these
from good memories—people are all the same.”
“In science, there is no
good or bad, only survival or extinction.”
“We need to be there and
guide It. Teach It these things and help It lose the violent feelings.”
“Like raising a child.”
“The
oldest, biggest and smartest child of all time.”
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