Sheri Tepper - Grass

Elder Brother Jhamlees summoned Yavi Foosh. “Find out where Ambassador Roderigo Yrarier is now. Arrange for me to visit him.” Yavi shuffled his feet, staring at the floor. “Well?”

“Well, Elder Brother, I think he could be dead.”

“Dead!”

“There was a great set-to at the bon Laupmons’ place. Hippae and riders and all. Lots of them got killed. Hippae, too. This ambassador was in the middle of it. Way I hear it, his servants took him away to the hospital at the port, but he may be dead.”

“Dead.” Elder Brother Jhamlees sat down and frowned at the desktop with a sick, panicky feeling. Cory would not like that. “Well, if he isn’t dead, I need to see him. Find out.”

Yavi scuttled off to find out while Jhamlees thought bleakly how the new Hierarch would react to a message saying, “Dear Brother in Sanctity. The only two people who might know anything at all about this are probably dead.” In his anything but amused contemplation of this possibility, Jhamlees forgot his intention to burn the Hierarch’s letter.

Rigo came to himself among a whisper of machines. He tried to move and found he could not. His arms had been thrust inside two bulky mechanisms, one at either side of the narrow, barely padded bed he lay upon. Heal-alls, he told himself as he fought down panic. Another Heal-all had swallowed his legs. He tried to speak and could not. A mask was fastened over his nose and mouth.

Someone came, however, and peered at his eyes with an expression of gratification. After a moment the same someone took the mask away and demanded, “Do you know where you are?”

“Not sure,” Rigo said in a slushy, bubbling voice. “Hospital, I suppose. At the port. I think I got trampled.”

“Good, good.” The figure turned away and gloated over the dials and flashing lights on the machines. A woman. Not much to look at, but definitely a woman. “Good,” the woman said.

“Who?” Rigo asked. “Who brought me here?”

“Your man,” the woman answered. “Or men. One or several.”

“Is he here?”

“No. Good heavens, no. Had to go back and evacuate your house. Get the people out. He said something about the Hippae retaliating.”

“Marjorie!” Rigo tried to sit upright.

“Now, now.” Rigo was pushed into a recumbent position once more. “You aren’t to worry. They’ll get everyone out.”

They couldn’t get Marjorie out. She hadn’t been there. Not Marjorie, nor Tony, nor Father Sandoval. Nor the two Brothers from the Arbai city, according to Tony’s note; they hadn’t been there either. All of them had gone away together. With Sylvan. At least according to the challenge delivered by bon Haunser for the Hippae, they had gone away with Sylvan.

Rigo groaned, trying to recall what had happened. The last clear memory was of that damned bon Haunser saying something about Marjorie and Sylvan. Sylvan who had gone away with her.

And with Tony, he reminded himself, and with a priest and two Brothers. Hardly a tete-a-tete. No, Marjorie had never had tete-a-tetes. Marjorie had never been unfaithful. Marjorie had never been guilty of any of the things he had accused her of. She had never refused him. Always let him come into her room, into her bed, whenever he’d wanted to. And now Marjorie was — Well, where was she?

“Is there any news of my wife?” he asked as the moment of clarity passed into a morass of threatened pain, great pain somewhere, being held back by a slender dike, a thin wall, a tissue which was fragile and beginning to leak.

“Hush,” said the woman. “You can talk later.” She fiddled with a dial, looking narrowly at Rigo’s face as Rigo felt himself being irresistibly sent into sleep once more, to dream of Marjorie alone with Sylvan.

Marjorie was alone with Sylvan.

Brother Mainoa and Rillibee Chime were asleep. Rillibee had climbed to the top of a tall tree and had then come down again to tell them there was no way through the swamp forest to Commons. Not on the ground. Through the trees the way would be a little slow, but he could get there, he said, if there was any reason to go. Then he had lain down beside Brother Mainoa and fallen into recurrent dreams. From time to time Marjorie could hear his voice, raised in wordless ejaculations, wonder or complaint, perhaps both.

There were no foxen nearby. For a time, earlier, all of the humans had crouched in a house, arms folded protectively around their heads while the foxen disputed something among themselves. The dispute washed over them like waves of fire. After a time, they felt noticed by the foxen, and then there was a sense of departure. Almost as though one of them had said to another, ‘’Oh, we’re killing the little human creatures. We’d better go farther away.” Brother Mainoa had seemed wearier than ever after they left, weighed down by some great burden of care.

“They won’t tell me,” he cried. “They know, but they won’t tell me.”

Marjorie could guess what it was they wouldn’t tell. The foxen knew all about the plague, she was sure of it. They knew, but they wouldn’t tell. And poor old Mainoa was so tired and distraught, she could not suggest that he try to talk to them more.

Tony and Father James had gone to explore the Tree City. Marjorie had thought Sylvan was going with them. She found he hadn’t only when the others were well gone, too long gone for her to join them.

Sylvan had planned to remain behind. Now that Marjorie was away from her family, away from this husband she spoke of as though he were a barrier — now that she was away from that, he wanted to talk of love again. She would probably tell him to go away. He would tell her he had nowhere to go, and he would be charming. So he told himself. So he had been telling himself for some time.

Surprisingly, she didn’t tell him to go away. Instead, she looked at him with a detachment he found almost chilling. “I find you very attractive. Sylvan. I found Rigo attractive, too, before we were married. It was only afterward that I found out we didn’t fit together at all. I wonder if it would be like that with you.”

What was there to say to that? “I don’t know,” he said haltingly. “I really don’t know.”

“He has never once allowed me inside his masculine skin,” she said with a rueful smile. “He doesn’t notice what I am, but only what I am not, which is whatever he may be wanting at any particular time. Eugenie does far better than I. He expects very little from her, and that helps. Then too, she is soft for him, like clay. She takes his impress and accepts it, like a reverse image, suiting herself to him.” She frowned, thinking. “I tried that, at first. It didn’t work at all. I cannot be that to him. I could have been something else, a friend perhaps, but that didn’t fit his notion of what a wife should be, so we are not very good friends, Rigo and I.” She turned to Sylvan, fixing him with a resolute glare. “I will never love anyone who is not first my friend, Sylvan. I wonder if you could be my friend.”

“I would!”

“Well then, let us set about it!” She smiled at him, a humorless bowing of the lips. “First I must find my child. I have no choice but to do that, or kill myself trying. You can help me. If we accomplish that, then there is another task awaiting us. People are dying everywhere. We must try to find a solution. So, if you love me, let us talk with one another of what we have to do, but not of ourselves. We will be careful not to touch one another. Gradually, if we are successful and do not die, our natures will emerge and we may understand one another. Perhaps we could become friends.”

“But… but—”

She shook her head at him warningly. “If you’re unwilling to do that, then you could show the love you claim to have by leaving me alone. I apologize for dragging you along with us, but I needed you to guide us. The apology is all I can offer. Until we find Stella, I can’t spare the time for anything more, not even for argument.”