Sheri Tepper - Grass

He had never really been aware of pain until the camp. His name had been Jorny then, a boy of fifteen dragged into the camp with his uncle Shales. One day he had been living with Uncle Shales in the fishing town, going to school, fishing off the pier, going out in the boat when the weather was right, writing love notes to Gerandra Andraws, cute little Gerry with the perky little bottom, wondering if he was old enough to really do something about her. The next day he had been there in the camp, crowded with fifteen other men and boys in one room with no school, no girls, no fishing, and no Uncle Shales.

The people in the camp either had the disease or were close family members of people with the disease. Uncle Shales was dying, they told him. Jorny had to stay in the camp until they found out whether he was going to die, too.

He wanted to see Uncle Shales, but they wouldn’t let him. He sneaked around until he found what building Uncle was in and where his bed was, and then he got up close to the wall, around back. Uncle Shales would open the window a little bit and they’d talk, at night. Uncle Shales told Jorny not to be afraid. Everything that happened, happened for the best, he said. Jorny sat crouched under the window, tears running down his face, trying to keep Uncle from hearing him cry. Then one night Uncle didn’t answer him and the window wasn’t open, so Jorny waited until everyone was asleep and sneaked in. He couldn’t find Uncle Shales. In the bed where Uncle had been was only this thing, this kind of monster, partly bandages, with one eye peering out and a round, raw hole where its mouth ought to be, leaking all over the place and stinking.

Later, when he asked, they told him Uncle had died. He thought they’d let him go then, but they didn’t. They kept looking all over him for sores, like the sores most of the people in the camp had.

Then one day there was a Moldy preaching in the camp. Preaching how it was near the end of the time for man. How it was time for man to depart, for he was only rotten flesh and decaying bone. How it was time to leave the universe clean for the next generation. How those who died now would rise again in the New Creation, clad in light, beautiful as the dawn.

Jorny knew then what had happened to Uncle Shales. He had shed his flesh so he could come back, dressed all in light, like an angel.

Jorny cried, the first time he’d let himself cry out loud, right there in the dusty street of the camp, half-hidden behind one of the scruffy trees. He had waited until the Moldy was finished and had gone up to him and said who he was and that his uncle had died and he wanted to get out of the camp. The man had patted him on the shoulder and said he could get him out, that Jorny could become a Moldy right then, without even having a toothbrush. He got in a truck with the man and they looked him all over to see if he had any sores on him, and when they saw he didn’t they hid him under some stuff while they smuggled him out to a place where there were lots of people and other kids and nobody had sores on them anywhere. Not that they’d really had to smuggle him. The camp commander had been paid off, the Moldy said. Paid off to let the Moldy preach and bring comfort to the dying.

That night Jorny slept. Whenever he thought about Uncle, he made himself stop thinking. At first he thought maybe he should have gone home to say goodbye to the people he’d known, but then after a while he figured most of them were dead and it didn’t matter. They were all dead and ready to be reborn. The Moldies pointed out people who were already transformed. Before the sun went down, sometimes you could see them, slanting down from the clouds, golden beams of fiery light. Later on, Jorny figured out that was just stories, just sunlight, but it didn’t matter. Later on he realized who that monster on the corner bed had been, too, but by that time he had it all figured out.

When he was seventeen, the Moldies had sent him to Sanctity as an acolyte with instructions to study and work and rise in the hierarchy. He had become a member of the Office of Acceptable Doctrine. It was the Moldies, paying people off, that got Sanctity to send him to Grass. It was time for Grass to join the other homes of man, the Moldies said. Time for Grass to be cleansed.

And now he was here, ready to spread the plague which had killed everything he had cared about. If Uncle Shales had deserved the plague, then there were none who did not deserve it. If Uncle Shales had died, then everybody ought to die.

He opened his eyes, surprised to find them wet, feeling the cramping in his belly wane to its usual dull, wallowing ache. Standing across the desk from him was his superior in Sanctity, Elder Brother Jhamlees Zoe.

“You don’t look well, Fuasoi.”

“No, Elder Brother. A bit of pain is all.”

“Have you seen the doctors in the town recently?”

“Not for several weeks, Elder Brother.”

“What have they said is wrong?”

“The systems transplant isn’t doing as well as they’d like.”

“Perhaps it’s time to ship you back to Sanctity.”

“Oh, no, Elder Brother. Much too much work here.”

Elder Brother Jhamlees fretted, moving his hands, scratching his infinitesimal nose, rising on his toes, then down again. “Fuasoi?”

“Yes, Elder Brother?”

“You haven’t heard of there being any… sickness around, have you?”

Fuasoi stared at him in disbelief. Sickness? Was the man crazy? Of course there was sickness around. “What does the Elder Brother refer to?”

“Oh, any serious sickness. Any. ah… well. Urn. Any, ah… plague?”

“Sanctity teaches us that there is no plague,” said Brother Fuasoi firmly. “Surely the Eider Brother is not questioning Sanctity’s teaching?”

“Not at all. I was thinking more of… something contagious, you know, that might threaten the Friary. Still, good to know there’s nothing. Nothing. Take care of yourself, Fuasoi. Let me know if you’d like to go back…” And he was out the door, hurrying away down the corridor.

Well, well, thought Fuasoi. I wonder what occasioned that?

“Shoethai’s here,” said Yavi, interrupting his thoughts. “I can hear him coming down the hall.” He got up and went to the door, opening it slightly and turning to peer inquiringly back at his superior.

“Let him come in,” Fuasoi said, nodding. The pain in his belly had passed. The other pain, the one that brought him awake in the night, sweating and weeping, that one would pass when everything was all over. He patted his forehead with a throwaway and stared at the door. “I want to speak to him privately.”

Yavi shrugged and went out, passing Shoethai in the door.

“Your Eminence.” Shoethai fell to his knees.

“Get up,” Fuasoi directed impatiently. “Did you get it?”

Shoethai nodded wearily, rising to put the small package on the desk. “Once I found somebody to look for it. Mostly they try to pretend I’m not there.”

The Elder gestured with his fingers to give the package to him. When he had it, he opened it carefully, revealing a fist-sized packet within.

“Is that it?” Shoethai begged, wanting to be reassured once more.

“That’s it — “ His superior smiled, content at last that the work could go forward and his own pain would end. “Plague virus. Packed especially for Grass.”

Brothers Mainoa and Lourai arrived at Opal Hill just in time to interrupt an altercation. When Persun Pollut announced the arrival of an aircar bearing the Green Brothers, Marjorie was for the moment shocked into inaction. She had forgotten they were coming. After the momentary pause, however, she went out to bring them in, hoping their arrival would put an end, however temporary, to the discord between Rigo and Stella.