Mary Rosenblum - The Eye of God

Their soul? Their God? Etienne remembered Zynth, her hands weaving worship on the lip of the cliff. The Eye of God. Not just a casual name dubbed onto an alien landmark then. Their God. Their… homeworld. She looked out into the purple darkness and shivered. No wonder Grik had spoken of Zynth’s transgression as a sin. And it occurred to her suddenly that perhaps Grik hadn’t been searching for an empath who would protect a precious breeder.

Perhaps she had been searching for an empath who would kill.

“I wanted… to tell you… how she died.” Duran was losing consciousness as the drugs hit him. “It was my fault. I… tried to stop her fall, but she… had too much rope. She… cut it. So I wouldn’t fall, too. I… tried to tell you. I’m… so sorry, Etienne. I should have stopped her fall. So… sorry… His eyes closed and his hand fell away from her wrist.

So Vilya had fallen, not he. And she had relinquished her last chance of life, in order to save Duran. So that her daughter would have a parent?

And if you had been there, Etienne? To be a parent? That was what Vilya wanted.

The whisper in her head was in her own voice, but she looked up at the Eye. Slowly, she got to her feet. The accident report was public record. She could have looked it up any time in the last twenty years. If she had wanted to know.

Only truth beneath the Eye of God?

Something scraped loudly behind her and she started. It was the stretcher bumping down the face, followed closely by the two Rethe. “He has a broken arm and leg,” she called up to them. “Maybe internal injuries. I’ll help you move him.”

She wasn’t sure how flexible Rethe ethics might be, after all.

But the team was efficient and careful. They helped her strap Duran into the stretcher, and guided him silently up the face of the cliff. The wind eased off again, as if this god was willing to let them depart in peace now. At the top of the cliff, the remaining two Rethe unhooked the stretcher from the ropes, and carried it silently through the Gateway. Grik and Zynth had disappeared. Etienne trudged after them, exhaustion dragging at her. The two Rethe who had climbed with her flanked her. Oh yeah. Operating the Gateway, because she was a mere human. They didn’t realize yet that she had a key. Etienne blinked as they emerged from night into bright day. The same girl was still at the edge of the plaza, playing some game with a ball and bits of empty reed shell.

The girl leaped to her feet as the Rethe set the stretcher down in the dust and went running barefoot across the dusty ground, her shift flapping around her thighs. She was heading for the small medical clinic.

Etienne sighed as her Rethe escort made identical wiping motions with their left hands. Good riddance? Farewell? Still silent, they walked back through the Gateway and vanished. Wanting only to drag herself home and climb into bed, Etienne squatted beside the stretcher. She was already sweating in her thermal suit, and she unsealed it. Duran was still alive. She held his wrist, his pulse faltering beneath her fingertips. “I don’t like you,” she said softly. “I don’t think I can change that.” Three of the squatters came running toward her, dust rising from their feet. “But I don’t blame you anymore,” Etienne said. And she looked up automatically, as if the Eye would be there in the off-blue sky.

It wasn’t, of course. The squatters—two men and a woman in cut-offs and grimy shirts—arrived. “I’m the med-tech,” said one of the women. “Pick up an end and give us a hand,” she snapped at Etienne. “Then you can tell me what’s going on here.”

The reeds swayed and rattled, happy in the morning sun. Etienne kneaded bread dough in her small hands-on kitchen, listening to the familiar susurration. The reed-song soothed her as the dough stretched and flattened beneath her palms. But as she shaped a round loaf, the reeds’ song changed to a scattered rattle. A visitor? Etienne wiped her hands on a towel, scrubbing briefly and vainly at the drying dough on her fingers.

She hoped it wasn’t Duran, come to thank her for saving his life. But it had only been three days since the accident. The med-tech at the squatters’ clinic had told her it would be at least a week before Duran could be released. Medical technology was less than cutting-edge out here.

Tossing the towel onto the counter, she crossed the small living room in three strides and flung the door open. She had tried to hide it from herself—how much she wanted it to he Zynth waiting on the porch. The sight of her actually standing there took Etienne’s breath away, and made her blush, because she felt about as transparent as a teenager in the throes of true love.

“May I come in?” Zynth sounded as uncertain as Etienne felt. Her hand lifted in the direction of her shoulder, and Etienne followed its movement. Ah yes. Grik was hovering. Of course.

“Please do.” Etienne was impressed with the cool graciousness of her tone. What a lie! She backed, held the door open as Zynth walked through, then closed it firmly, before Grik could follow. “Would you care for tea?”

“We began here.” Zynth stood in the middle of the floor, her arms at her sides. “It seems like a long time ago, but it was not.”

“You’re all right,” Etienne said softly.

“Yes.” Zynth’s smile faltered. “If you had not climbed…” She shook her head, her hair sliding forward to hide her expression. “I don’t think Grik believed that… I would climb down. I think it believed that I would be too afraid, that I would humiliate myself in sight of the Eye.”

The Eye. Etienne heard all the nuance now. Maybe you could begin to understand another race once you caught a glimpse of their soul. “Your homeworld,” she said softly.

“Is it such a sin, for you to know?” Her hands lifted in a fragile, pleading gesture. “We hide so much from you. Why?”

“Because I think we are too much alike,” Etienne said softly.

Zynth smiled. “On that ledge, I was not afraid. I knew that you would not let me die.”

The words made her shiver, and Etienne clenched her fists at her sides. She averted her head as Zynth stepped close.

“I will remember you forever.” Her breath tickled Etienne’s throat, warm as summer. “Please realize how much I… care.”

“You’re saying goodbye.” Etienne’s voice was harsh.

“I do not think that we will meet again.” Zynth’s voice trembled. “It is… a tremendous sorrow.”

“Grik won’t let it happen, you mean. Grik is afraid of me.” Etienne clasped her hands behind her back, resisting the urge to grab Zynth by the shoulders and kiss her, or shake her. “I… love you.” And she bit her lip because she hadn’t meant to say those words out loud. Not ever.

“No,” Zynth whispered. She was trembling. “It is my choice, not Grik’s. I am afraid of you. Because I can forget that you are… other.”

“That’s right.” Etienne didn’t try to soften the bitterness in her voice. “You can only love another breeder. I forgot.”

“You do not understand,” Zynth said softly. “Grik says you would not, and I think now, that it is right.” Her fingers were gentle on Etienne’s face.

“I wish you a wonderful life,” Etienne said through clenched teeth. “I hope you find a nice fertile he.”

Zynth’s sigh touched her like the last warm wind of fall. “I am a giver, not the one who nurtures the life within.” She laughed softly, sadly. “A he, as you say.”

Anthropomoiphism, Etienne thought dizzily. Look at a child with the face of a girl you once loved, and what do you see? Not a man. The irony was so wonderful. She laughed.

“I am sorry.” Zynth stepped back, affront in the stiff posture of her body.