Sheri Tepper - Grass

There had been time for only a brief mounted practice with the lances. “Remember, horses are faster on the flat,” Rigo had reminded them. “The Hippae will be faster running uphill. It’s the way they’re made. More like big cats than like horses. Their legs can give more thrusting power going up than going forward. We’ll run on the flat, along the hill, slightly upward, not straight up. If we can make it to the gate at the order station, they’ll let us through.”

The gate seemed an impossible goal as they left the great hay barn and rode across the paved area that separated it from the Port Hotel, around the empty hotel and hospital, to the slope leading down to the marsh. Each of them studied it, finding the route they would take when the Hippae came after them. If they went north they would shortly be trapped against the implacable ridge of Com. Besides, that’s where Alverd’s men were, waiting to move down to the tunnel as soon as the Hippae were decoyed away. So they would go south where they could run for miles in a wide arc, all the way around the grazing land to the ruts south of Portside Road and along Portside Road to Grass Mountain Road and the gate. The ground was the same wherever they would run. A grassy, weedy slope, uncultivated, scattered with rock and the break-leg holes of small migerish creatures. The sun was in their eyes. The marsh lay in shadow at the bottom of the slope, just outside the first fringe of trees. The Hippae were hidden. From time to time, the sound of their howling came up the hill. No one knew what they were waiting for.

“Ready?” asked Rigo.

Silence. He looked to either side to see them nodding, ready, unwilling to break the quiet with words. He kneed El Dia Octavo into a steady walk down the slope.

Marjorie thought: It always comes down to something like this, doesn’t it. No matter what our consciences say, no matter how much doctrine we’ve been taught, no matter how many ethical considerations we’ve chewed and swallowed and tried to digest, it always comes down to us arming ourselves with weapons as deadly as we can manage and going out into combat…

I should be frightened but it doesn’t feel much different from competition, really, a high wall. Always the possibility of a fall, even a bad fall, even getting killed. Not the safest sport in the world. Still, it’s only time and energy and staying on and trusting the horse. Thinking with the horse, not for him…

I really don’t have to think about anything except killing as many of them as I can. Killing them, and not worrying about the ethics until later. Forget that every Hippae at the bottom of the hill has the potential of becoming a foxen. A being more intelligent than I am. Every Hippae I kill or maim means one less like Him. Don’t think about Him. Unthink Him. The whole thing was delirium, that’s all. Imagination.

Where’s the justice in this? If man had never come to Grass, nothing like this would have happened. If man and Arbai had never come. If no one ever went anywhere, nothing like this would happen…

Except that it would. Some wild, malevolent virus would have found its way to us stay-at-homes. Something like the Hippae would come screaming through our windows, breaking down our doors, killing and raping and mutilating us.

Oh, Lord, I have been such a good girl! I have always attended mass, always gone to confession, always done my penance. I’ve done charity work. I’ve loved and cared for my children, no matter how hard they made it. I’ve tried my damnedest to love my husband. I thought about killing myself, but I repented that. I’ve lived a very acceptable, proper life at home, there… Piss on it.

I’d rather be here. Even if I die, I’d rather be here. If there’s anything important for a very small being to do, it’s fighting the plague. That’s first. We’ve got to buy time to find the answer. The only thing that matters now is the plague. We’ve got to find the cure and make sure that Sanctity doesn’t get it before someone else does. And if we do that then… then there’s something else. Oh, God, let Him talk to me. I want Him to talk to me.

Rigo thought: This damned lance doesn’t balance right. It needs to be heavier at the butt so it’ll swing with less strength. Maybe it’s just that I feel lousy. Sick, weak. I should still be back there in a chair letting somebody put a blanket over my legs. Instead, I’m here. Where is here? How the hell did I get here? Well, no one forced me. I’m the only one of us who’s ever fought a Hippae. I’m the only one who knows where to hit them. Legs first, jaws second. Cut their legs out, their jaws off, let the damned, stinking things die.

I’m not healed yet. My legs don’t feel right. My thighs feel soggy, like wet sponges. As though there were no muscle there. Someone may die out here today. Maybe me. Better me than Marjorie or Tony. They haven’t played the fool, the way I have.

But if it’s me, she’ll be free. Free to do whatever she likes, go to whomever she likes. Sylvan. Look at him. Never ridden a horse before, but he looks like he was born riding. Well, it’s not that different. The strengths are the same; legs, back.

If I get killed, will she go to him?

If she does, is it any worse than my having Eugenie? Poor Eugenie. Damn. I wish they’d saved her Lovely Eugenie. Nothing in her head but how to make things pretty and taste good and smell good and feel good. No high aspirations. No high-minded innocence to offend against. No modesty to invade. No expectations to fall short of. No serious thoughts at all. Still, she deserved better than to die like that.

If she died. God. Maybe she didn’t. Maybe the hounds took her, the Hippae took her, the way they took Stella…

Don’t think of that! The only thing that matters now is the plague. We’ve got to save Commons from being overrun, just for a while, until someone can come up with the answer. We will, will come up with an answer. Mankind will come up with an answer! Something always saves, us, just in the nick of time. God will intervene. There’ll be time. Marjorie will turn back to me. She always has. Always, no matter what happens…

Sylvan thought: You have to give him credit. Not a day out of bed, half killed by the mounts, and here he is. He keeps looking at me, letting his eyes slide across me. I know what he’s thinking. If he gets killed, I get Marjorie. Fool. If he gets killed, Marjorie does what she pleases, and that doesn’t include me. I don’t know why. I’ve never had trouble with any woman I’ve ever wanted, but I’m no good with her. I’m the real fool. I thought she was like one of us. What’s the Terran word? Pleasure-seeking. Hedonistic. Well, what else have we had to think of but pleasure? The damned Hippae haven’t let us think of anything else. They’ve tapped into us and enslaved us and kept us right where they wanted us…

Look at Marjorie! Like a queen! Regal and tall and rides that thing as though she were part of it. That thing! Ha-ha. Horse. Horse. They make soft noises when you pat them and they look at you kindly when you get on. This one, Her Majesty, she does what I ask her to. It’s almost like loving a woman. Horse. Not Hippae.

Tony’s watching me, too. He doesn’t like me. I thought at first it was because of Marjorie, but that’s not it. I offend him somehow. My manner. My bon manner. Maybe it was because I didn’t take their plague seriously. I didn’t know. Did I even think it mattered whether there was anything left of humanity, elsewhere? That’s what the Hippae thought. They didn’t care. If they thought it, we thought it How long have they been doing our thinking for us? They don’t want there to be another intelligent race. And they won’t believe that they themselves become another intelligent race. Foxen. What was it Brother Mainoa said? We never believe we’ll get old. The Hippae don’t know what they have in them to be. They’ve stopped themselves, half grown. They’ve stopped themselves at adolescence. Brutal time, that. Hateful time. Not a child. Not grown. Full of strength and fury and no place to put it…