Sheri Tepper - Grass

“It will be your choice,” Brother Mainoa said in a weak whisper. “Your choice, Father. Whether to stay or go.”

The priest protested “We’re not even sure we can live here! Food, for example. We’re not sure these fruits will sustain our lives.”

Brother Mainoa assured him, “The fruit plus grass seeds will be more than enough. Brother Laeroa has spent years determining the nutrient value of various grass seed combinations. After all, Father, on Terra many men lived on little else than wheat or rice or corn. They, too, are seeds of grass.”

“Harvesting grass seed would mean going out into the prairies,” Father James objected. “The Hippae wouldn’t allow that.”

“You could do it,” said the Brother. “You’d have protection…” He shut his eyes and seemed to drift off as he had been doing ever since they arrived.

“Though, come to think of it,” said Father James, suddenly remembering farms he had visited as a child, “here in the swamp one could have ducks, and geese.” He tried to summon a hearty chuckle, but what came out instead was a tremulous half sigh. The young priest had just remembered that the few humans on Grass might be all the humans there were. Whether one could have ducks or not, there might be nowhere else to go.

“Wipe your chin again,” said Rillibee Chime. “Oh, Stella, that’s such a good smart girl.”

Janetta spun and hummed, then stopped momentarily and said, quite clearly, “Potty!” She hitched up her smock, grasped the railing, and squatted where she was on the bridge, her bottom over the edge in the same pose the shadow Arbai had adopted moments before.

“She can talk,” said Father James unnecessarily, his face pink as he turned it away from Janetta’s bare buttocks.

“She can learn,” Brother Mainoa agreed, suddenly awake once more.

Father James sighed, his face turned resolutely away. “Let’s hope she can learn to be a bit more modest.”

Brother Mainoa smiled. “Or that we can learn to be — as, evidently, the Arbai were — less concerned with the flesh.”

Father James felt a wave of sadness, a wash of emotion so intensely painful that it seemed physical. He suddenly saw Brother Mainoa through some other being’s senses: a fragile friend, an evanescent kinsman who would not be concerned with the flesh at all for very much longer.

Someone was watching him. He looked up to see a pair of glowing, inhuman eyes, clearly fixed on his own. They were brimming with enormous, very human tears.

Shortly following the detention of the Yrariers, the Seraph in command of the Hierarch’s troops took a few of his “saints” in battle dress — more to impress the populace than for any tactical reason — and made a sweep through the town and surrounding farms, searching, so the Seraph said, for someone named Brother Mainoa. Everyone had seen him at one unhelpful time or another. Several people knew where he slept. Others knew where he had been having supper hours before. No one knew where he was at that moment.

“He was depressed,” an informer by the name of Persun Pollut told them with transparent honesty. “About all the Brothers getting burned up out at the Friary. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’d gone down into the swamp forest. There’ve been several people done that recently.” All of which was true. Though he pulled a mournful face and sighed at the Seraph, Persun couldn’t wait to see the Tree City for himself.

The troop made a cursory search along the edge of the trees, sending a patrol some little way into the forest. Troopers returned soaked to the thighs saying they couldn’t quite remember seeing anything. Spy eyes sent into the dim aisles of cloaking vines saw nothing either. Or, those who followed the spy eyes on helmet screens were sure they saw nothing, which amounted to the same thing. It was conceded among those who had inspected the swamp forest close up that if this Brother what’s-his-name had gone in there, he was probably drowned and long gone.

Meantime, the troopers remaining in town were offered cakes and roast goose and flagons of beer and were treated to a good deal of garrulity which had nothing to do with what they were looking for. The search continued with increasing laxness and joviality while the day wandered inconclusively toward evening.

The Seraph was an old hand at appearing Sanctified, one who could and did spew catechetical references at every opportunity. In Commoner Town he found his views listened to with such flattering attention that he actually began to enjoy himself, though — as he told anyone who would listen — he would have felt more secure with a few hundred saints deployed, rather than a scant two score. According to these good people, there were hostiles on the planet, hostiles that had already built themselves one route under the forest.

“Haven’t you any devices to detect digging?” he asked. “Any mechanisms that listen for tremors? That kind of thing?”

“Grass doesn’t have tremors, not like that.” Roald Few told him. “About the worst shaking we get is when the Hippae go dancing.”

The Seraph shook his head, feeling expansive “I’ll bring some detectors down from the ship. Standard issue. We use them to locate sappers coming in under fortifications. They’ll do the job for you here.’

“Where do we put them?” Mayor Bee asked. “Here in the town?”

The Seraph drew a map on the tablecloth with his fingertip, thinking. “Out there, north of town, I’d say two-thirds of the way to the forest. About a dozen, in a semicircle. You can set the receiver up anywhere here in town. The order station’d be a good place. Then if anything starts to dig in, you’ll know it!” He smiled beatifically, proud of himself for being helpful.

Alverd looked at Roald, receiving a look in return. So, they would know. Well and good. What in the hell would they do about it once they knew?

In the Israfel, high above all this confusion, the aged Hierarch fretted himself into a passion. The first time he had questioned the Yrariers he had been convinced the ambassador was misleading him, though the analyzers had said only maybe. The second time, however, the machines had declared Rigo and Marjorie to be truthful. Compared to Highbones and the Maukerden man — both liars (said the machines} from the moment of conception — the Yrariers had been certified honest and doing their best to be helpful. However, they weren’t Sanctity people, and in the Hierarch’s opinion they weren’t terribly bright. This business about the Moldies. That couldn’t be true. Sanctity had been too careful for it to be true. They had kept the plague so very quiet, so very hidden. The Yrariers must have misunderstood whatever this Brother Mainoa had said about Moldies.

The Hierarch considered this. The pair had been chosen by the former Hierarch because they were kin, because they were athletes. Not known for brains, athletes. That’s where old Carlos had gone wrong. He should have sent someone cleverer. Someone slyer. And he should have done it long before instead of waiting until the last possible moment. There was no point in keeping the Yrariers locked up. And he, the Hierarch, would be safe enough in the specially modified isolation shuttle his people had built for him. Once he himself was on the ground, things would happen! Discoveries would occur! He knew it!

As he was about to depart, however, a bulletin arrived from the surface. Danger, the Seraph said. Not only the possibility of plague, but the presence of large, fierce beasts would make it dangerous for the Hierarch to descend. Hostile creatures might be planning to overrun the port.

The additional frustration was enough to send the Hierarch into one of his infrequent fits of screaming temper. Servitors who had barely survived previous such fits were moved to panicky action. After emergency ministrations by the Hierarch’s personal physician, the Hierarch slept and everyone sighed in relief. He went on sleeping for days, and no one noticed or cared that no orders had been given for the Yrariers’ release.