Gene Wolfe - Return to the Whorl

She went away, and we shut the door and bolted it, and lay down on the beds, Father and me on one and Juganu on the other. After that I stared at the ceiling for a long time and nothing happened. It was about two o'clock and the sunshine in there was pretty bright. It was an interesting ceiling, because somebody had painted it like you were upside-down and looking down at a garden. There was a fountain with Green reflected in it, and those big white flowers that bloom at night, and even a bat. But after a while I got pretty tired of it.

I guess Father did too, because he said, "What are you thinking about Juganu? You're fighting me in some way."

Juganu said he was not, and they talked about that awhile. The bird started to talk, sometimes on its own and sometimes Scylla. I did not like that, and I think Father must have seen it, because he told it to be still. Then he said for Juganu to come over and lie down where I was, and for me to lie down in his bed. I did not like that either, because I was naturally worried about Father. But I did it.

Then he started talking to Juganu about the place we were trying to go to. I never heard him talk like that before, or anybody. I am going to write down all I can remember, but I do not think I can make you hear it the way I did, lying on my back looking at the bat and watching how the room got dark.

"Think of a whorl so old that even its seasons have worn out," Father said, "a whorl on which they had jungles like yours once, with wide-leafed plants and many flowers and huge trees. It is too cold for that in our time, and when the people of that whorl speak of the present they intend five hundred years.

"The sun is red. Shadeup is always cold, and it is cool even when the red sun is at its highest. You can see the stars all day long, unless they are hidden by clouds. Think of a whorl where beggars kill stray dogs for their pelts."

He talked a lot more, and then he said, "What fills your mind's eye, Juganu? Where do your thoughts fly? Be honest with me."

"I was thinking about the whorl you described," Juganu said, "about the whorl we visited, and the boat of the winged woman."

"What else?"

"That I'll be a man like you there, a better man than you, Rajan, because I'll be younger and stronger, as young and strong as your son, and I won't have to feed from him to make me strong. Do you know how we breed, Rajan? We of The People?"

"I know that your eggs must be hatched in sun-warmed water. Nothing beyond that."

The bird said, "Not man. People? Never! No Whorl," and I knew it was Scylla. "No there. Good! Bad things!"

Juganu sat up. "We were there! They brought us! We're everywhere!"

Father made him he back down and told Scylla to be quiet if she wanted to do what the Great Scylla had told her to. She did not say much after that. Maybe not anything.

"How do you breed, Juganu? If it's not too personal, I would be interested to know."

"The man must build a hut for decency's sake," Juganu began in his old, cracked voice. "He selects a good place, a private place where the sun you call short kisses the water. He builds it of little green branches woven together. Weaving is difficult for us but we can do it, and if a man wishes to mate that is what he must do."

Father said, "This is on Green."

"Always on Green. Your waters aren't warm enough for us, and haven't the right life in them. There must be life of the right kind in the water, or the children will starve.

"He builds the hut and trims it with flowers, and he goes away for a day. When he returns there is no one, perhaps, and his flowers have wilted. He takes them far away and throws them into the water, and in the morning he gathers fresh ones, more than before, and trims the hut again. Once again he goes away.

"At evening he returns. The flowers he picked that morning have faded, and the leaves of the green branches from which he built his hut are flaccid and yellow. He destroys it, and carries the withered branches far away to throw in the water. Next morning he begins a new hut, higher and longer and more cunningly woven than the first. Its building requires a day. Next day he trims it with flowers both inside and out. And then he goes away."

I was about ready to go away myself by then, but Father was lying there very quietly waiting to hear more. Their bed was only about two cubits from mine, and he was lying on the side nearest me. So I could see his face pretty good just by turning my head, and he looked like he was hearing something important.

"This time a woman has come," Juganu said. "She is lying in his hut. How does he know? By a thousand signs, and none. Perhaps some small plant that he spared for the beauty of its foliage has been trodden upon. Perhaps she has taken a single blossom from his hut to wear.

"He knows. He reshapes himself then, becoming a man both young and strong. Within-"

I said, "You can't do that." It got me a look from Father.

"She has made herself such a woman as young men dream of. You have told me about your daughter Jahlee, how lovely she was. Your son has told me, too. That is how the woman looks when he sees her in the dimness of the hut he built and made beautiful for her. All these things, you understand, are their promises to each other. Their promises concerning the children they will have. You, Rajan, will understand what I mean by this. Your son will not, and should not."

Father said, "Yes, I understand. Please continue."

"In his hut they love as men and women love. There is a game they play. I think, Rajan, that you can guess what that game is."

His pet said, "Tell bird."

"He is a human man for her, and she is a human woman for him. He tells her that he came to Green on a lander, as human men do, and she tells him that she ran away from her father's house and happened upon his beautiful hut. It is not a lie."

I wanted to say that it was, but Father said, "No, it isn't. I understand. It is a drama."

"Exactly. They are the audience as well as the actors. I have been an actor, Rajan."

Father said, "I understand," again.

"This lasts all night. In the morning, when the sun's hot kisses fall on the water, they say, `We must wash ourselves after so much love.' They swim together, and she releases her eggs and he his sperm, and it is over."

Neither of them said anything after that. The bird talked a little, but it was not Scylla and did not make sense. Finally I said, "Father wanted to know what you're thinking about that keeps us from going where we want to go, Juganu."

Father told me to be quiet, and I said, "Well, I think he ought to. You're going to take him somewhere where he can be a real man. I think he owes it to you to tell you."

"He has," Father said, and that shut me up.

I do not know how long it was before Father started talking again, but it was a long time. I guess he was thinking of what to say. When he started again his voice was so quiet I could hardly hear.

"Soon it will be evening," he said. "If we still haven't gone, we'll go up onto the roof of this house. Standing on the tiles I will point and you will peer until at last you see a certain dim red star. It's a long, long way from here. Think of it now, the sky like black velvet strewn with diamonds in the bottom of a grave, and among the diamonds a minute drop of blood.

"There is a whorl circling that star, an ancient whorl. On that whorl, Juganu, there is an old city you have seen, and through it a river. Its waters are turbid and foul, and seem scarcely to move. You know that river; you have sailed on it. There are women in that river, women who swim up from the sea. I do not speak of the feignings of the sea goddess, but of real women. Some are as tall as towers, some no larger than children. Their hair is green and streams behind them when they swim, their nipples black, and their eyes and lips and nails as red as blood.