Orson Card - THE CRYSTAL CITY

"Well, the plan is for me not to be there by the time that stuff happens."

"The ball does not show what will actually happen," said Mary. "It shows the meaning of what might happen. But you will run, yes? And thousands of people will be saved from the fire."

"A fire that wouldn't happen except for this." He held up the bigger charm. "You want to know how scary La Tia is?"

"I have seen my mother ride the back of a shark," said Dead Mary. "I have seen her swim with sharks, and play with them like puppies. I am not afraid of La Tia."

"Why are some people so powerful, and other people barely got a knack at all?" asked Arthur Stuart.

"Why can I see sickness and death, and do nothing about it?" asked Mary. "Why can you speak any language you want, but you don't know what to say? To have a knack is a burden; not to have a knack is a burden; God only cares to see what we do with the burden we have."

"So now you're speaking for God?"

"I'm speaking the truth," said Mary, "and you know it." She got up. "Alvin wants you and I came to bring you."

"I remember," said Arthur Stuart. "But I wasn't coming back till I got this fixed."

"I know," she said. "But now it's fixed, and here we are. What are you waiting for, Arthur Stuart?"

"We was talking is all," he said.

Then, to his surprise, she put her hands on his shoulders, leaned up, and kissed him right on the mouth. "You were waiting for that," she said.

"Reckon I was," he said. "Was I waiting for maybe two of them?"

She kissed him again.

"So you're telling me you're not sweet on Alvin?"

She laughed. "I want him to teach me everything he knows," she said. "But you-I want to teach you everything I know."

Then she ran off ahead of him, toward the red city.

When Arthur Stuart got back to camp, La Tia immediately demanded to see the charms, and though she clucked and straightened a little here and there, she did it as much on the one he had not crushed as on the one he had, so he figured she was just fussing and he had done OK at putting it back together.

Alvin took him out of the city right after supper. "You had your nap," he said, "and anyway, the greensong will sustain you."

"You're going to get me started," said Arthur Stuart, "but I'm gonna have to stop along the way, if only to ask directions, and then how will I get started again?"

"You can stop without losing the greensong," said Alvin. "Just hold on to it, keep hearing it. You'll see. It's easier, though, if you stay away from machinery."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"It's one of the things that makes it hard for me," said Alvin. " 'Cause I love machinery, and I love the greensong, and a lot of the time I just can't have them both at once. Tenskwa-Tawa sneers at the Irrakwa for choosing railroads over the music of the earth, but I tell you, Arthur Stuart, the railroads got a music of their own, and I love it. Steam engines, wheels and gears, pistons and fires and speed over the rails ... sometimes I wish I could settle down and be an engineer."

"Engineers only get to go where the tracks have been laid," said Arthur Stuart.

"There you have it," said Alvin. "I'm a journeyman, and that's the truth."

"That's why you should be making this trip, not me," said Arthur Stuart. "I'm gonna mess this up, and folks are gonna wish it had been you all along."

"Nobody wished it had been me leading that exodus across the delta lands."

"I did."

"You'll do fine," said Alvin. "And now we ought to stop talking, and get your journey started."

They began to run, and soon Arthur Stuart was caught up in the greensong, stronger than he'd ever heard it before. The red farmland wasn't like white men's farms. The maize and the beans grew right up together, all mixed in, and there were other plants and lots of animals living in it, so the song didn't go silent where the ground had been plowed and planted. Maybe there was a way that machines could be made harmonious with the earth the way these farms were. Then Alvin wouldn't have to choose between them.

After a while Arthur Stuart noticed that Alvin wasn't with him, and he fretted for a moment. But he knew that worrying wouldn't change a thing, except maybe to draw him out of the greensong, so he gave himself over to the music of life and ran on and on, steadily southwest, over hills and through copses and splashing through streams, as directly as the land allowed, all living things making way before him or helping him along his path.

It occurred to him that he might move even faster, and then he did. Faster yet, and now he fairly flew. But his feet always found just the right place to step, and when he leapt he cleared every hurdle, and every breath he took in was filled with pleasure, and every breath he let out was a whispery song of joy.

Plow

"Why won't you look in the crystal ball, Alvin?" asked Dead Mary one morning.

"Nothing there that I want to see," said Alvin.

"We look into it and see important things," she said.

"But you can't trust it, can you?" said Alvin.

"It gives us an idea of what's coming."

"No it doesn't," said Alvin. "It gives you an idea of what you already expect is coming. Distorted by what you fear is coming and what you hope is coming. But if you don't already know what you're looking for..."

"For someone who refuses to look," said Dead Mary, "you know a lot about it."

"I don't like what I see there."

"Neither do I," said Dead Mary. "But I think that is not why you refuse to look."

"Oh?"

"I think you do not look because it is your wife who sees the future, not you. And if you ever looked into the ball, then you would not need her any more."

"I think you're talking about things you don't know anything about," said Alvin, and he turned away to leave.

"I also don't like what I don't see," said Dead Mary.

Alvin had to know. He could not leave yet. "What don't you see?"

"A good husband for me, for one thing," she said. "Or children. Or a happy life. Isn't that what crystal balls are supposed to show?"

"It ain't no carnival fortune telling ball."

"No, it's made of water from the swamps of Nueva Barcelona," said Dead Mary. "And it shows me that you love your wife and will never leave her."

He turned around to face her again. "Does it show you that it's wrong of you to toy with Arthur Stuart and lead him to think you're in love with him?"

"It is not wrong," said Dead Mary, "if it's true."

"True that you're toying with him? Or true that you're in love with him?"

"True that I am drawn to him. That I like him. That I wanted to kiss him before he left."

"Why?"

"Because he's a good boy and he shouldn't die Without ever being kissed."

"The crystal ball showed you he was going to die, is that it?"

"Isn't he?"

"The ball tells back to you what you already believe," said Alvin. "That's why I don't look in it."

"Let me tell you what the ball shows me," said Dead Mary. "A city on a hill over a river, and in the center of the city, a great palace of crystal, like the ball, water standing up and shining in the sunlight so you cannot bear to look on it."

"Just one building made of crystal," said Alvin. "And the rest of them are just ordinary city buildings?"

She nodded. "And the name of the city is The City of Makers, and The City Beautiful, and Crystal City."

"That's a lot of names for one dream."

"This is where you are leading us, isn't it?" said Dead Mary.

"So maybe the ball doesn't show you only your own dream," he said.

"Whose dream did I see, then?"

"Mine."

"Let me tell you something, Monsieur Maker," said Dead Mary. "These people don't need some fancy building made of crystal. All they need is some good land where they can set a plow, and build a house, and raise a family, and they'll do just fine."