Gene Wolfe: On Blue's waters

I feel like Vulpes.

They will have to be paid, of course; but demanding fees from both parties should encourage them to come to agreement, so that may work out well. Besides, there will be fines. I wish I knew more about our Vironese law-these people don’t seem to have had any.

Back to it.

I swore an oath, administered by Remora, with my left hand upon the Chrasmologic Writings and my right extended to the Short Sun. That is the part I wish very fervently that I could forget. I cannot recall the exact words-in all honesty, I am tormented more than enough as it is-but I cannot forget what I swore to do, and not one day passes without my conscience reminding me that I have not done it.

No more letters. What farce!

Gyrfalcon offered to take me to New Viron. While thanking him, I declined for three reasons that I might as well list here to show where my mind was when I left Lizard.

The first was that I wanted to speak to my family privately, and that I did not want to subject them-to subject you, Nettle darling, particularly-to the pressure Marrow, Blazingstar, and Gyrfalcon himself would undoubtedly have brought to bear.

I waited until supper, then longer so that we could dispose of the questions and gossip our five visitors had provoked. As I was carving the roast Sinew had supplied, he asked what had been said when you and I, Remora, and the others, had walked to the tip of the tail.

“You heard us earlier,” I told him, and continued to carve. “You know what they wanted.”

“I wasn’t paying much attention.”

You sighed then, Nettle, and I recalled your listening at the door when Silk conferred with the two councilors. I leaped to the conclusion that you had listened while I talked privately with Marrow and the others, and I was ready for you to explain everything to our sons when you said, “They want us to stop writing. Isn’t that really it?”

I thought it so ludicrously wrong that I could have laughed aloud. When I denied it, you said, “I was sure that was what it really was. I still am. You look so gloomy now, Horn, and you’re always such a cheerful person.”

I have never thought myself one.

Hoof said, “They wanted to get paper on credit. Things are bad in town. Daisy just got back, and she says it’s really terrible.”

And Hide, “Did you give them credit, Father?”

“No,” I told him, “but I would have.”

“Those cardcases.” Sinew sneered. “You’d have had to.”

“You’re wrong,” I told him, and pointed the carving knife at him. “That’s what I have to make clear from the beginning. I don’t have to do what they want. They threatened me, or at least Gyrfalcon did. I ought to say he tried to, since I didn’t feel threatened. He could bring some pressure to bear on us, perhaps. But in less than a year I’d have him eating out of my hand.”

Sinew snorted.

“You think I couldn’t? You think it because I’ve always been gentle with you for your mother’s sake. It wasn’t like that in my family, believe me. Or in hers either. If you find yourself begging me before shadelow tomorrow,” to emphasize my point, I struck the table with the handle of the knife, “will you admit you were wrong? Are you man enough for that?”

He looked surly and said nothing. He is the oldest of our sons, and although I loved him, I did not like him. Not then, although things were different on Green.

Nor did he like me, I feel certain. (Nettle knows these things, naturally.)

She murmured, “This is worse than anything that they said to us.”

Hoof asked, “What did they say, anyhow?”

Hide seconded him, as Hide often did. “What did they want, Mother?”

It was then, I feel certain, that I passed the slice I had been cutting to you, darling. I remember what it looked like, which I find very odd tonight. I must have known that something enormously significant was happening, and associated it with our haunch of greenbuck. “In a way,” I told you, “you’re quite right. It was our book that brought them, though they were very careful not to say it until I got them in a corner. You, Hoof, are right too. Things are getting harder and hungrier for everybody every year. Why do you think that is?”

He shrugged. The twins are handsome, and to my eyes take after your mother more than either one of us, though I know you pretend to think they look like me. “Bad weather and bad crops. Their seed’s giving out.”

Hide said, “That thin one talked about that. I thought it was kind of interesting.”

I gave Sinew, who had always eaten like a fire in good times and bad, a thick slice with plenty of gristle. “Why is the seed yielding a poorer crop each year?”

“Why are you asking me? I didn’t say it was.”

“What difference does it make whether you asked or not? It happens to be true, and you being older than your brothers ought to be wiser. You think you are, so prove it. Why is the seed weakening? Or were you too busy throwing stones at the waves to listen?”

Hoof began, “I still want to know-”

“What those five people wanted. We’re talking about it.”

Sinew said slowly, “The good seed is the seed from the landers. That’s what everybody says. When the farmers save seed, it isn’t as nearly as good. The maize is worse than the others, but none of it’s quite as good.”

You nodded, Nettle darling. “That’s one of the things they said. I knew it already, and I’m sure your father did, too, but Eschar and Blazingstar lectured us about it anyway. Let’s talk about maize, for the present. It’s the most important, and the clearest example. Back home we had ever so many kinds. Do you remember, Horn?”

I nodded, smiling.

“At least four kinds of yellow maize that I can remember, and it wasn’t something I paid much attention to. Then there were black, red, and blue, and several sorts of white. Have any of you boys ever seen maize that wasn’t yellow?”

No one replied.

I had cut more slices while you spoke; I gave them to Hoof and Hide, saying, “I never saw any at home to equal the first crop we got on our farm. Ears a cubit long, packed with big kernels. The ears from the next planting weren’t any longer than my hand.” You said, “I’ve been seeing those here lately, in the market and the village gardens.”

“Yes, and here’s something I hadn’t known-something they explained to us. You get the best maize by crossing two strains. Some crosses are better than others, as you’d expect; but the best ones will yield a lot more than either of the original two, fight off blight, and need less water.”

I sat down and began to cut up the meat I had just given myself. It was clear from their expressions that neither Hoof nor Hide had understood.

You said, “Like crossing red and black maize. Isn’t that right, Horn?”

“Exactly. But according to what we were told, all those good qualities disappear in a year. The crop after the first is liable to be worse than either of the strains you crossed, in fact, and it’s always worse than the parent strain, the one from the crossing.”

Sinew muttered, “It doesn’t come from a pure strain at all. It comes from the good crop, and the good crop was good but it wasn’t pure.” He tilted his chair until its back struck the wall, something that always annoyed me. “The god that stocked the landers put all that mixed seed in them, didn’t he? No pure strains, so we can’t make new mixes ourselves.”

“Pas,” you told him. “Pas prepared the landers for us out of his infinite wisdom. You may not credit him, but Pas is a very great god.”

“Back on the Long Sun Whorl, maybe.” Sinew shrugged. “Not here.”

Hoof said, “All those gods you talk about, they’re only back there. Scylla and her sisters.”