Sheri Tepper - Grass

“Is it ready?” the Elder Brother asked. He stood back and regarded the aircar with disfavor. It was one of the bigger ones, with two cabins, a large one up front and a private one behind, each opening to the outside. One of the smaller cars would have done as well and would have moved faster. Still, if it had been serviced. “Is it?” he repeated.

Shoethai grimaced, giggled, said it was. There was something almost gleeful in his manner, and the Elder Brother assumed that the thought of Mainoa’s destruction pleased Shoethai. Well, and it should. The thought of anyone’s destruction pleased Moldies. The more gone, the fewer left to go, so Moldies said.

“Where’s Flumzee?”

Shoethai gestured to an alleyway from which Highbones was at that moment emerging, closely followed by four of his henchmen. When they saw the Elder Brother they stopped in confusion, tardily remembering to bow.

“I’m going with you,” the Elder Brother announced. Shoethai howled — only briefly, only a moment’s howl, but enough to bring six pairs of eyes toward him. He groveled, curling his misshapen shoulders, so that his voice came from between his knees like bubbles rising in hot mud. “Elder Brother, you should not risk yourself. You have important work—”

“Which I’m about to do,” Fuasoi said firmly. “After Flumzee and the others have found their quarry, you and I will take care of other urgent business.”

“Me!” Shoethai squeaked. “Me!”

“You. You won’t need anything. I’ve brought you an extra robe. Get in.” He turned to Brother Flumzee. “You can drive this thing, I hope.”

Highbones managed to bite down his glee and keep a serious expression on his face. “Certainly, Elder Brother. I am an excellent driver.”

“You know where to go?”

“Shoethai said a place called Darenfeld’s Coppice, northeast of Klive. I have a map. We’re to look for a side trail there.”

Fuasoi grunted assent. “Shoethai and I will take the back cabin.” Shoethai seemed to be having one of his spasms, so Fuasoi took hold of him and thrust him up into the car, following him in and slamming the compartment door behind him.

The others cast quick, eager looks at one another as they assembled themselves in the front cabin, where Highbones sat at the controls with the ease of long imagination, if not actual practice. He had driven aircars now and then since coming to Grass. He had driven them often in his youth. Within moments they had risen high above the towers of the Friary and were on their way south.

“Can they hear us from back there?” Brother Niayop, Steeplehands, asked quietly.

Highbones laughed. “Not over the sound of the engines, Brother. “Isn’t there a speaker?”

Highbones pointed wordlessly. The dial on the console before him was in the off position. Highbones was trying to keep from showing excitement. His cohorts were starting to make enthusiastic noises, but he felt it behooved a leader to behave in a more dignified fashion, at least until it got time for the killing. Then there could be whooping and yelling and incitements of various kinds that they were used to. They’d never killed anybody old before. They’d never killed anybody directly before, not with their hands. Knocking someone off a tower or kicking them off — that didn’t seem like murder. It seemed more like a game He wasn’t quite sure how they would manage killing women, though he knew he couldn’t get the others — or himself — to do it right away. Elder Brother Fuasoi had told Shoethai there might be women. Shoethai had told Highbones, and Highbones and his friends had talked about that most of the night.

Highbones sat very still as he thought of women, not to disturb the hot throbbing that filled all the space in his groin and spilled over into his legs and up across the skin of his belly. He had had a woman before he had been sent to Sanctity. When he was fifteen, before they sent him. None since, but he remembered.

Her name had been Lisian. Lisian Fentrees. Her body had been white. Her hair had curled around her face, like clustered golden leaves. Her breasts had been soft and crowned with pink, with little slits at the tip that turned into nipples if he sucked on them.

They had spent all the time together that they could, all the time away from school or parents or religion.

She had said she loved him. He couldn’t remember what he had said, but sometimes he thought he must have told her he loved her, too. Why would she have said it or gone on saying it, otherwise?

One morning he had wakened to a hand on his shoulder, had looked through half-opened eyes at a sun-blurred someone and had thought for a moment it was Lisian. It had the same whiteness, goldness, the same curve of face. The smell was wrong. It wasn’t Lisian, it was his mother. “Get up, boy,” she’d said. “You’re going on a trip today.” Nothing in her voice at all. no tears. As though it didn’t matter.

They said ten years. The next ten years of his life pledged to Sanctity and no one had ever told him a word about it. Not until that day. Didn’t want us worrying about it. Didn’t want us thinking about it. Didn’t want Dad upset.

And not even a chance to say goodbye to Lisian. Lisian of the soft, warm, ahhhh…

Memory was as strong in him as reality. The throbbing spilled over into a spasm he couldn’t control, and the car dipped and shimmied while the others howled and yelled at him. “Whooee, Highbones must be dankin’ himself, look at that. Dank, dank, Highbones. Do it again, we wanta watch.”

He snarled at them, striking out with one arm to knock Little Bridge off his seat, struggling against tears. “Shut up. I wasn’t dankin’. I was… I was thinking what old Fuasoi said, about women.”

Silence. Highbones had said he had a girl once, even though he wouldn’t talk about her. Steeplehands had had women, so he said. None of the others had. Both the Bridges had been too young when they came to Sanctity, ten or eleven. And Ropeknots liked boys. Well, hell, they all liked boys. When that’s what you had, that’s what you did.

“Tell us about women,” Long Bridge said. “Come on, Bones. Tell us about your girlfriend.”

“Let Steep tell you,” he snarled again, surreptitiously wiping at his face. “I’m busy.” Darenfeld’s Coppice was below them and he had found the side trail. The trail wasn’t easy to follow, though. Long shadows crossed it and hid it from sight, even from above. When he could see it, it wound among grass hillocks and through copses, leading generally westward. Far ahead, a dark line on the horizon, the swamp-forest stretched away to the north and south. The trail led toward it.

Behind him, Steeplehands was describing women in urgent, prurient detail, dwelling upon orifices and the feel and lubrication thereof. Highbones tried not to listen. That wasn’t it. What Steep was saying wasn’t it. It was something else about women. Something he’d lost but wanted to remember.

The swamp forest was not far ahead of them now. Highbones scarcely saw it in his effort to recall what it was he’d lost, among old images, half-forgotten names. Something. He could almost put his mind on it!

The drive sputtered. Highbones frowned, came to himself with a start of panic, eyes darting across the dials in front of him. The car had been serviced just before they left. That monster Shoethai had seen to it. Fuasoi had seen to it.

It sputtered again, then whined. “Grab something,” Highbones shouted. “We’ve got a problem.”

He headed downward, faster than he knew to be safe, but if the thing zizzed out he wanted to be on the ground, near the trail. It sputtered, hissed, whined, then sputtered again. They dropped a hundred feet and Long howled in pain. “I bit my tongue—”