Sheri Tepper - Grass

A foxen touched her mind with incorporeal hands. She heard a comforting voice saying, “Hush, dear, hush.” She leaned her forehead on a vast shoulder which was nowhere near. The foxen danced in her mind, and she with them.

Abruptly the shoulder was withdrawn. She looked up. The foxen had gone.

In a moment she understood why. She heard human voices ringing over the susurrus of Arbai speech. It was too soon for Tony to be back. They were not voices she recognized.

“Listen,” she said, turning to locate the sound. Not far off in the trees someone saw her and young voices yodeled a paean of anticipation.

There was something threatening in that shout. Marjorie and the two old men retreated across the plaza, watching apprehensively as the three forms flung themselves through the trees, dropping upon the platform like apes.

“Brother Flumzee,” said Brother Mainoa in a calm, weary voice. “I hadn’t expected to see you here.”

Brother Flumzee posed on the railing, one knee up, his arms folded loosely about it. “Call me Highbones,” he chirruped. “Meet my friends. Steeplehands. Long Bridge. There were two more of us, but Little Bridge and Ropeknots got eaten by Hippae out there.” He waved, indicating somewhere else. “Along with Elder Brother Fuasoi and his little friend Shoethai. Not that we’re sure of that. We heard a lot of howling, but maybe they escaped.”

“Why were you out there at all?” Brother Mainoa asked.

“They sent me for you, Brother.” Highbones smiled. “They said you are no longer one of us. You are to be dispensed with.”

“But you said Fuasoi was with you! And Shoethai!”

“We didn’t expect them to come along. They were kind of, what would you say, last-minute additions. They were going to drop us off and then go somewhere else.”

A shadow figure moved among the three climbers. Highbones beat at it, as though it were a swarm of gnats. “What the hell are these things?”

“Only pictures,” said Marjorie. “Pictures of the people who once lived here.”

Highbones turned his head, surveying the city. “Nice,” he said. “A climber’s place. Is there enough to eat so somebody could live here?”

“In summer,” said Brother Mainoa. “Probably. Fruit. And nuts. There may be edible animals, too.”

“Not in winter, hmm? Well, in winter we could go into town, couldn’t we. Probably want to go there anyhow. Pick up some women. Bring them back here.”

“You mean stay here?” Long Bridge asked. “After we do the thing, you mean stay here?”

“Why not?” Highbones asked. “You think of any better place for climbers than this?”

“I don’t like these things.” Long Bridge batted at the shadow forms moving before him. “I don’t like these monsters all over me.”

The two men had been listening and watching, noticing the tense muscles in the climbers’ arms and legs, the strained lines of their necks and jaws. Brother Mainoa thought that all this talk meant nothing. The talk was only to make a space of time, to allow them to size up their opposition. And what was their opposition? An old man, a soft man, and a woman.

Brother Mainoa reached out toward the foxen. Nothing. No pictures. No words.

“Are you hungry?” Marjorie asked. “We have some food we can share with you.”

“Oh, yes, we’re hungry,” leered Highbones. “Not for food, though. We brought enough food of our own.” He ran his tongue along his lips, staring at her, letting his eyes dwell lasciviously on her. She shivered. “You look young and healthy,” Highbones went on. “There was talk back there at the Friary about plague. You don’t have plague, do you, pretty thing?”

“I could have,” she said, struggling to keep her voice calm. “I suppose. There was plague on Terra when we left.”

The two followers turned to Highbones, questions on their lips, but he silenced them with a gesture. “It’s naughty to tell lies. If you got it there, you’d be dead by now. That’s what everybody says.”

“Sometimes it takes years to manifest itself,” said Father James, “but the person still has it.”

“What’re you?” Highbones said with a laugh. “Dressed up like that? Some kind of servant? Mind your manners, servant. Nobody was talking to you.”

“If Fuasoi sent you after me,” Mainoa said thoughtfully, “he could have had only one reason. If he didn’t want knowledge about the cause of the plague disseminated, then he must have been a Moldy.”

Marjorie caught her breath. A Moldy here? Already? Had they been too late!

Highbones ignored the interchange. He put both feet onto the deck, stood up easily, stretching. “You boys ready?” he asked. “Each of you take one of the geezers. I get the woman first—”

“Highbones.” The voice called from above them, from the sun spangle among the high branches. “Highbones the coward. Highbones the liar. Will he climb?”

Marjorie felt the breath go out of her. Rillibee. But only Rillibee. No other voices.

Highbones had turned, neck craning as he searched the high dazzle. “Lourai!” he shouted. “Where are you, you peeper!”

“Here,” the voice called from above. “Where Highbones can’t climb. Where Highbones can’t reach.”

“Keep them quiet,” Highbones snarled, gesturing toward Marjorie and the old men. “Until I get back.” He leapt upon the railing and outward, into the trees “Wait for me, peeper. I’m coming to get you.”

Marjorie’s pack was just inside the door. There was a knife in it. She turned, moving toward it. Steeplehands dashed forward, intercepted her, and knocked her away from the door. She stumbled, reaching out a hand to catch herself. The low railing caught her at the back of her knees, and she went over, falling, seeing the sun-spangled foliage spin around her and hearing her own voice soaring until she suddenly didn’t hear anything anymore.

“A very small being to see you, O God,” the angelic servitor announced. The servitor looked very much like Father Sandoval except that he had wings. Marjorie paused in the vaulted and gauzy doorway to inspect them. They were not swans wings, which she had expected, but translucent insect wings, like those of a giant dragonfly. Anatomically, they made more sense than bird wings, since they were in addition to, rather than in place of, the upper appendages. The angel glared at her.

“Yes, yes,” said God patiently. “Come in.”

God stood before a tall window draped in cloud. Outside were the gardens of Opal Hill, stretching away in vista upon vista. After a moment, Marjorie realized the garden was made of stars.

“How do you do,” Marjorie heard herself saying. He looked like someone she knew. Smaller than she had thought He would be. Very bony about the face, with huge eyes, though the person she knew, whoever he was, had never worn his hair as long as God wore His, a dark curling about his shoulders, a white mane at his temples. “Welcome, very small being,” He said, smiling. Light filled the universe. “Was something bothering you?”

“I can learn to accept that you do not know my name,” Marjorie said. “Though it came as a shock—”

“Wait,” He said. “I know the true names of everything. What do you mean I do not know your name?”

“I mean you don’t know I’m Marjorie.”

“Marjorie,” he mouthed, as though He found the sound unfamiliar. “True, I did not know you were called Marjorie.”

“It seems very harsh. Very cruel. To be a virus.”

“I would not have said virus, but you believe it’s cruel to be something that will spread?” he asked. “Even if that’s what’s needed?”

She nodded, ashamed.

“You must be having a difficult time. Very small beings do have difficult times. That’s what I create them for. If there weren’t difficult concepts to pull out of nothing and build into creation. One wouldn’t need very small beings. The large parts almost make themselves.” He gestured at the universe spinning beneath them. “Elementary chemistry, a little exceptional mathematics, and there it is, working away like a furnace. It’s the details that take time to grow, to evolve, to become. The oil in the bearings, so to speak. What are you working on now?”