Joan Vinge - The Summer Queen

He had isolated sequences that signified specific objects or actions to the mers; but those were few and far between in the recordings he had made. What the Tiamatans called mersong was beautiful in the abstract, its interrelationship of tones and sounds incredibly complex and subtle. The mers seemed to spend most of their time repeating passages of songs, as if they were reciting oral history, teaching it to their young, preserving it for their descendants. But the coherent patterns of sound had no symbolic content that he had been able to discover. The mers seemed to have no interest in conversation, in give and take, except to express the most basic aspects of their life…. “But isn’t conversation, communication what language is f or —?” he demanded of the empty water. “Otherwise, what’s the point? Why have such a complex, structured system, if they don’t use it to expand their knowledge, or to change their lives?”

“They are aliens,” she reminded him gently. “Whoever made them, made them something new. Maybe the meaning of it all died with their creators, just like the meaning of Carbuncle.”

He shook his head, looking toward the mers at rest on the distant shore. “If we could only teach them to communicate willingly, we’d have proof of their intelligence that no one could ignore, proof that would force the Hegemony to leave them in peace. If we could even just find how to make a warning clear to them, they could escape the Hunt—” His hands fisted, as memory became obsession.

“Miroe…” she said, taking his arm, trying to lead him away.

“Moon should be doing more to solve this problem.” He freed himself almost unthinkingly from her hold; she stepped back, away from him. “She told me the mers’ survival would be her life’s work, when she became Queen. …”

“She believes that building up Tiamat’s economy before the Hegemony returns will help both us and the mers,” Jerusha said, a little sharply. “You know that. You’re helping her do it. Sparks has been doing studies for her with the data we’ve provided on the mers; maybe you should talk to him about it, get some kind of dialogue going. He might have some fresh insight—”

“Not him,” Miroe said flatly.

She looked at him.

“You know why.” He frowned, glancing away at the shore. “You, of all people. You saw what he did. You know it’s his fault that we had to come out here like this, that we can’t be back at the plantation observing a mer colony.…” Because Sparks Dawntreader had killed them all.

She looked up at the sky, remembering another sky—how she had been certain that any moment it would crack and fall in on them, that day nearly eight years ago at Winter’s end, when they stood on the bloodsoaked beach together, witnesses to Arienrhod’s revenge. They had interfered, unwittingly, with her plans for the Change … and so she had sent her hunters to slaughter the mer colony that made its home on the shores of Miroe’s plantation; the colony he had always believed was safe under his protection.

But her hunters had killed them all. led by a man who bore a ritual name, who wore a ritual mask and dressed in black to protect his real identity; Starbuck, he was called, her henchman, her lover… . And at Winter’s end, the man wearing the ritual mask had been Sparks Dawntreader. Jerusha had never seen a mer before that day. That day she saw nearly a hundred of them, lying on the beach, their throats cut, drained of their precious blood—and then, by a final bitter twist of fate, stripped of their skins by a passing band of Winter nomads. She saw a hundred corpses, mutilated, violated; soulless mounds of flesh left to rot on the beach and be picked bare by scavengers. But she had not really seen a mer that day either, or understood the true impact of the tragedy, the depth of grief felt by the man who stood beside her. It was not until she had seen living mers, in motion, in the sea; until she had heard the siren call of the mersong, or discovered depths of peace in their eyes… Then she had finally understood the hideous reality of the Hunt, the obscenity of the water of life.

And then she had understood why Miroe would not, could not, forgive Sparks Dawntreader—a Summer, a child of the Sea—for becoming Arienrhod’s creature … Arienrhod’s Starbuck. She glanced away from the mers on the beach, facing the emptiness in her husband’s eyes. She released her hands from their unconscious deathgrip on the rail; pressed them against her stomach, which was as barren and empty as the look he gave her. She turned away, starting back toward the cabin’s shadowed womb; feeling suddenly as if Anenrhod’s curse still followed them all, even here, even after so long. She hesitated in the doorway, glancing toward him one last time. He stood motionless at the rail, staring down at the water. She stepped into the cabin’s darkness, listening for his footsteps behind her; feeling only relief when she heard no sound.

TIAMAT: Carbuncle

“Well, Cousin, what a beautiful day it’s going to be!”

Danaquil Lu Wayaways glanced up, startled, as hands settled familiarly on his shoulders. The pressure sent pain down through his arthritic back, making him clench his teeth. His kinsman Kirard Set, the elder of the Wayaways clan, smiled in sublime anticipation, oblivious to his discomfort; Danaquil Lu frowned. “Are you talking about the weather?” he said.

Kirard Set laughed. “The weather. You’re priceless, Dana.” He peered at his cousin. “I can’t tell whether you’re tweaking me, or whether you’ve simply been so long among the fisheaters that you mean that. But either way you’re delightful.”

Danaquil Lu, who had not meant it, said nothing.

“I’m speaking of the upcoming decision about the new foundry, of course.”

“Then you shouldn’t be talking to me about it,” Danaquil Lu said flatly. There were plenty of the Winter nobility who were willing to accuse him of favoritism because he was one of only two Winters in the Sibyl College, and a Wayaways; even though the ultimate decision would be the Queen’s. He leaned heavily on the tabletop, trying to find a position that would make him comfortable. He could not straighten up fully anymore, either sitting or standing.

Kirard Set grunted. “You not only look old, Cousin—you act old. You should never have left the city.” He stopped midway through the motion of sitting down beside Danaquil Lu, and instead moved on around the large, tactfully circular table to find a more congenial seatmate.

“What choice did I have?” Danaquil Lu murmured, to the air. His hand rose. fingering the ridges of scarring down his cheek and jaw. The memory of his casting out from Carbuncle burned behind his eyes, as vivid suddenly as if it had happened yesterday. It was hard to realize now that it had happened half a lifetime ago, to a dumbstruck boy, someone who might as well be a complete stranger to the person he had become in Summer, and almost as hard to believe that he had been back in Carbuncle now for nearly eight years. He shook off the sense of disorientation with a motion that caused him more pain.

Miroe Ngenet, the Queen’s physician, was working with Clavally, consulting the sibyl net, trying to recreate some medicine or .surgical technique that would help him. In the meantime there was nothing he could do but live with it. He moved like an old man, he felt like an old man; some days it was hard not to believe that he was an old man, especially when he looked at Kirard Set. Kirard Set was old enough to be his great-grandfather, but looked more like his son. Kirard Set had been a favorite of the Snow Queen—and she had given him access to the water of life.

But the Snow Queen was gone, and faint age lines were beginning to appear at the corners of Kirard Set’s eyes. Danaquil Lu meditated on that thought, and did not feel so old. At least the physical hardships of life were less severe here in the city. And if they had not come to Carbuncle, Clavally would never have let herself become pregnant, and they would not have their beautiful daughter to delight them, and distract him—and Clavally—from an obsession with his health. Summer had come to the city, and to their lives, at last. It was good to be home.