Larry Niven - The Barsoom Project

… When had they become nine?

Ahk-lut stepped into the circle, set his hands on a man’s shoulders, and pulled him to his feet. Eviane saw that the man’s arms and ankles were bound. He screamed like a bird. She saw, now, the suggestion of a beak in his pointed face.

Quite suddenly, the fire was out. An angular metal shape gleamed harsh blue within it. Shapes moved in the dark. A shadow occluded the glow, and fell into it-man-shaped, a bound man, writhing-and he was gone, and the blue glow was gone, and the firelight was the light of Martin’s qasgiq.

The fire was down to coals, and the smoke was thinning. Some of the refugees began to remember their half-naked state but there were larger matters to consider.

Martin said, “We believe that the Raven’s children’s children tricked their grandfather. They piqued his curiosity until he assumed human form to spy upon them. They cast their spells upon him, then upon the sun. The sun’s death spells the end of your world, and the beginning of theirs.”

“Martin.” Within the smoky dark, who spoke? “What was the metal object that glowed blue?”

“That? A powerful talisman I traced when I was young. The Cabal has stolen it. It was a fragment of a thing that fell from the sky, in Canada.”

“That was no meteor.” Now Eviane recognized the voice of Orson Sands.

“No, it was a machine from Russia that fell before I was born. Talismans gain power from the distance they have traveled. I learned that this object had gone round and round the world until whatever held it up stopped working. So I sought it out. Now the Cabal is using it to throttle the sun.”

Eviane heard herself saying, “They’ll make the whole world into an Eskimo world.” She wondered how she knew. “Cold. No crops, only the animals. We’d have to learn…” Her prescient vision ran far ahead of her tongue.

Martin said, “Yes, you would have to learn. Ahk-lut would teach the white and black and yellow men our ways. Those who will not learn would starve. We have guessed that much. We can even guess why they have barred us from tending Sedna-”

“Sedna,” Orson Sands broke in. “Shouldn’t we know more about Sedna?”

“Ah, I forget. All who live at the rim of the world know Sedna, or Nuliajuk, or the Food Dish. Sedna has the care of the sea life that keeps us alive, fish and seals and plants and the very core of our lifestyle. She is the conscience of all mankind. When the sins of men and women take refuge in her hair, then Sedna becomes sick. If the sea dies, the land dies, and all men starve. Your people are starving now, and will continue to starve until Ahk-lut believes you are few enough.”

“What about this Torngarsoak?” Kevin asked. “He’s her boyfriend? Why doesn’t he help?”

“He is a hunter, and roams the land,” Martin said. “Hunters are often gone for months at a time. He may not know her plight.”

“Okay, sins. It’s a missionary word.” Hippogryph spoke sharply, as if he were questioning a prisoner. “What do you mean by sins?”

Martin’s lips moved, tasting his choice of words. “Abortion is a sin.”

“Were the Eskimos practicing abortion?”

“You don’t understand yet. Abortion of a creature’s soul is also a sin. To kill a whale or a walrus without proper respect, this causes Sedna pain. Such sins breed in her scalp and hair and cause her misery. Then an angakok must visit her and soothe her and comb away the sins. Sedna can’t comb her own hair, you know.”

“But the New People fixed that. You taught the Eskimos the old ways again, right?”

“Yes,” Arctic Fox said bitterly. “Sedna was growing healthy. Then she grew sick again. Our children, they didn’t understand. How could they? We had no answers either! We prayed to the Raven, we tended Sedna, but Ahk-lut’s secret Cabal had a quicker answer. Now their magic prevents us from reaching Sedna at all.

“We left the Cabal alone. Some of us thought their way might be right-”

“What, freezing the world?” Orson was shrill, disbelieving. “How would that help anyone?”

“They hoped to end the sins by forcing you to learn our ways. We couldn’t fight them. They are too powerful, and they had the skyfall talisman. But then Ahk-lut demanded Snow Goose for his own. To take his sister in marriage would give him children who were closer to the blood of the Raven. They would found a new tribe, and rule the world.

“I refused. His forces clashed with mine. Ahk-lut used white man’s guns from the other side of the circle. I was not prepared for that. My… foolishness has killed what remained of our warriors.”

Max Sand leaned forward, hands on knees. “How can we help?”

Martin’s voice was grave. “We have already sent out warriors, our children, beyond the veil of Seelumkadchluk, and none have returned. You are young and strong-and Ahk-lut will not expect to find white men in the world of spirits. Perhaps you can succeed where we have repeatedly failed.

“We can do some of what needs doing, but we cannot do all. Sedna must be tended, but we can no longer reach her with our minds. Ahk-lut has imprisoned the Raven, and we must learn how and whether he can be freed.” Martin’s eyes were on the fire, and he seemed reluctant to speak. Did he have a plan, or was he only reaching out in desperation?

“There is your tribe and my tribe,” he said. “One tribe must spy on the Cabal. One must tend Sedna, remove the parasites, before famine takes all of the people of the white lands and half of us too. Which would you have?”

Hippogryph spoke. “What does tending Sedna involve?”

“You would have to travel to her, in the flesh, through the realm of spirit. Go to her in her home beneath the sea. Soothe her. Comb the parasites from her hair. Learn from her why she is sick, if she will speak, if she knows.”

“Fighting the Cabal sounds like more fun,” Max Sands said.

Eviane’s voice dripped daggers. “Fun? It has to be done, but killing people isn’t entertainment, Max.”

His mouth dropped open, but he didn’t speak. He remembered the Tar Pits Game, and the careful, single-minded way Eviane had gone after the key. She was a Gamer. He’d heard of the type. She had donned her persona like a second skin-like a body condom-and it wouldn’t come off until the Game was over.

Hippogryph was speaking. “We don’t know enough. We’ve learned as much as we’re going to here, haven’t we, Martin? Your skills have reached as far as they can?”

“Unfortunately true.”

“I’d say let’s find out what Sedna knows before we tackle the Cabal. She might know where the Raven went.”

Max shook his head. “But-can’t we follow Ahk-lut? He could take us right to the Raven. Free the Raven, he’ll kick ass! We’ve got guns.. do guns work in the spirit world, Martin?”

“Of course. Why would a tool stop working?”

“Vote!” Bowles cried. “Hands up for Sedna!”

Hippogryph and five others raised hands. Orson’s pudgy face was lined in concentration… and his hand went up to make seven.

“Hands to follow Ahk-lut!” Max’s and Eviane’s hands shot up. And Charlene’s, and three others. Bowles had abstained, and so had Trianna.

They would go to Sedna. Underwater. Claustrophobia and sea monsters…

The sober, round-faced men and women around the sweat lodge nodded their heads as if at a prearranged signal. They rattled segments of bone, seal-hide drums, whittled-ivory percussion instruments, strange musical devices that produced a flow of sound like nothing in the modern world. Rattling, lilting, now strident, now coaxing, but always seething with urgency.

“You,” Martin said, pointing to each of the refugees in turn. “You who are young must go, and right this terrible wrong.”