Orson Card - Treason

In the morning, I was one of the family, and the children chattered freely in my presence.

"Glain," said the shepherd, and then, glancing at his wife, "Vrran." From then on, though conversation was never lush, what needed to be said could be said.

His dogs had died in the same week nearly a month ago, and since then he had lost nearly a dozen sheep from random strays that he could not pursue. At first, I herded with him while he trained a pup from a neighbor's litter; later I stayed at home and tended his vegetable garden while his wife was sick because the fourth child was coming.

It disturbed me at first to pull so many living stones out of the soil and put them in dead piles; I had gone so long now without killing anything that it even bothered me to know that the plants I planted there would grow only to be killed. In the night I asked the earth, and received only indifference. The billion deaths of plants together made a powerful sound, but that sort of death was necessary for life. For the first time I realized that for all their genius, the Schwartz obsession with avoiding killing was as unproductive, in the long run, as the selfish way the Ku Kuei used their power over time. The Schwartz kept themselves even purer than the earth required, and in doing so, kept all other human beings from becoming pure at all.

What agonized the rock was the cry of unnecessary or unmerciful death, the howls of the murdered. I heard all the sounds, and all hurt, but I decided that in the world outside Schwartz, death was the way of things; even killing, as long as it was done for need, was a part of nature. I had eaten dead plants animals all my life, and yet the sand had accepted me when I plunged from the pinnacle. So no matter what the Schwartzes said, I knew there must be no murder in farming, and I worked hard and did well for Glain and Vran.

Over time the other shepherd families came to visit, and eventually got over their shyness in my presence. I knew that the story of my nights on the hill and my habit of sleeping on the coldest part of the floor were known to everyone, and while they called me Lake-drinker to my face, I overheard references to Man-of-the-Wind, a legendary creature who comes either to kill or cure, brought by the cold wind and taken, eventually, by the sea.

Yet because they were unused to people of prestige or power among them, they did not know how to show me honor, except to treat me as they treated each other. In a place where all men lack equally, the only reward is trust, and I received that. I learned to handle sheep, to shear wool with glass blades without cutting the skin, to help with the foaling, to know when the sheep were nervous and when they were sick. I learned the soil, too, not in the personal way I had known in Schwartz and Ku Kuei, but as a reluctant ally in the war against starvation. Though I never felt hunger myself, I knew the faces of the children when they were hungry, and so I worked hard.

Vran went into labor a week early; it happened when I was alone with her and the children. It soon became clear that the child would not come easily. She was in the house screaming, while the children stayed outside with me. Humping mothers bore their children without help, alone-- it was forbidden for a man to come into the house while they were bearing. But as the children sat by the garden, frightened, I lay on the earth and listened to Vran's screams as the earth heard them, and I knew her death was near.

There are times for tabus and times to ignore them, and at the end of a particularly terrible scream that signaled a new plateau of pain, I got up and went into the house.

Vran was squatting nude over the straw of her bed, the blankets removed. Her hands were buried in the hard sod wall, where she gripped at the clay and roots in her agony. She looked at me with terrified eyes, and I saw the blood coming in a continuous stream, trickling onto the straw.

I came to her and eased her into a lying position and, as I had done with ewes at lambing, I reached in to see what way the baby was presenting. A hand and a foot were in the birth channel.

With a ewe, it would be simply a matter of pushing and pulling. On a woman, that kind of treatment could kill. But no treatment at all would kill, too, and so I forced the child to a different position, breaking its back in the process, and pulled it out. Somewhere in the operation, Vran fainted.

Work on the genetic level was beyond me, but curing wounds and fractures had been simple enough work in Schwartz. It was no great feat for me to restore both Vran and the infant boy, and when the sun was setting, Glain came home to find his wife and child in good condition. Better condition, in fact, than Vran usually was in after a delivery.

What she told him I don't know-- she had slept through the worst of it. But word spread, and I began to be brought sick animals and injured children, and women would ask for my advice. I had no advice. If there was a problem, I had to come and see it for myself. I was uncomfortable with the awe they held me in, but better that than let them suffer pain I could prevent. Thus the Man-of-the-Wind story passed from legend into reality.

It was inevitable, I suppose, that even as close-mouthed as the Humpers were to outsiders, word would eventually get out. One day I was planting in the garden for my second spring in Humping when a man came up on a horse. The mere possession of such an animal made him important; when he identified himself as Lord Barton's servant, Vran immediately rushed out of the house, called for me, urged me to come quickly. "It's a man from the cliff house," she said, afraid. I came.

"My master wishes to see you," said the mounted man.

"When the planting's done," I said.

"Lord Barton is unaccustomed to waiting."

"Then he should rejoice, for he'll learn something new today." I went back to the garden. Soon the servant left.

It was hard to concentrate on gardening that afternoon. For nearly two years I had lived in Humping, and while joy was limited here, so was grief. I had found a place where my talents were useful and where I was accepted. No one regarded me as an enemy; I had hundreds of good people I could count as friends.

But could I to meet this Barton? I felt my good life in Humping slipping away: I couldn't afford not to meet him. If I resisted, it would only cause trouble to the Humpers, particularly to Glain and Vran. If I went, it might lead to trouble for me. Almost certainly would lead to trouble. The only other alternative was to slip off in quicktime and find another place to live.

I didn't want to find another place to live.

And, in fact, as I pushed the wooden spike into the earth and dropped in seeds after it, I realized that I was excited as well as disturbed by the prospect of change. Two years, and what had I done? Saved lives, made some people happier, come to love many, given some of my life to a harsh land. All worthy ways to have spent my time. But I was raised to be the heir of the Mueller, and either that or a drive born with me as my father's son insisted that I must do something that would shake the world or admit that my existence did not matter.

Two days later the planting was done, and, as if he had been watching from a distance, the servant came that afternoon, this time leading a second horse.

"Will you ride?" the man asked, more humbly this time.

I said nothing, but mounted the horse.

The children gathered silently in front of the house. Vran looked at me expressionlessly. I raised a hand in farewell. And Vran, violating every custom I had seen among the Humpers, burst into tears in front of me and fled into the house. It frightened me to see how much such independent people could come to lean on someone who offers even the slightest power linked with kindness.