Child of Grass: Sea of Grass, Book Two Read online

  “The hailstones? Little balls of ice that fall from the sky?”

  “No, the Hale-Stones—” And then I saw his grin and I knew that he was joking with me. “Yes, the Hale-Stones.”

  Varro’s expression hardened. “Yes, I know of these people.”

  “How do you know . . . that we’re the good guys and they’re not?”

  Varro didn’t even have to think about it. “I am here!” he said instantly. “I am not there. I am here! That is how I know.”

  “But what if you were there?”

  “But I’m not. I’m here.”

  “But—” I had to smile then at the barrier of understanding between us. This was starting to feel like a silly comedy routine, like one of the plays we acted out at home. “But what if you were there and they told you that they were the good guys and we’re the bad guys?”

  “I would know that they were lying.”

  “How? How would you know?”

  “By the lies, of course.”

  “But what about the people who live there in the Mother Land? Why don’t they know?”

  “Because they are castouts. They can’t know. They wouldn’t know. I am not cast out. Neither is Chirl or Popo or Kzam. The Mother speaks to us in our own hearts. We hear her whispering like the wind in the grass and we feel her footsteps in the ground when the boffili thunder by. We smell her perfume in the spring and we wash in her tears every day. How can we not have the Mother in our lives?”

  He was starting to sound angry about it, so I said, “I don’t mean to upset you, Varro—”

  “You don’t upset me, Kaer. But the questions do. The questions do not make sense to me. They hurt my head on the inside. To think about, yes?”

  “Yes. But I have to ask them, you understand? I need to know. Please—?”

  “Yes, please,” he said, touching my fingertips again. A concession. “Please to go on.”

  “I think I see. If it is this frustrating to me, it must be all that much more painful to you. See—the Hale-Stones are making lies so they can change the way that your people will know the Mother. Do you know the stories they tell, the changes?”

  His eyes went dark. “Yes, Kaer. We know the stories. All of us here, we know how the stories change the Mother. We feel the changes here—” He tapped his heart again. “We feel it deeper than anyone. Smiller and Byrne and Jorge talk to us much about the changes. We think they get it. We hope they do. These are bad changes. Very bad. Bad for the Mother and bad for her children.”

  “Why?”

  “Because . . .” He struggled to get the ideas into appropriate words. I could see the frustration creasing his brow. “Because they . . . they . . . how-you-say . . . get things dirty?”

  “Pollute? Contaminate?”

  “Yes! They pollute the Mother’s purity. The Mother doesn’t send messengers.” He suddenly brightened, as he figured out a way to say it. “A messenger suggests that the Mother is . . . away.” He waved his hand. “Out there, somewhere. Not here. But the Mother is here. Everywhere. All over, all the time. So what they say, they make the Mother go away. They take her out of here—our hearts—and move her off somewhere else. And then, if only they can tell us what the Mother wants, then they replace the Mother. If they replace the Mother with her son, and only they can speak for either, the they become the Mother. And my heart says that is wrong, Kaer, because all people—you and me—whether you come from Oerth or I come from Linnea, all people come from the Mother and the Mother loves all her children . . . how-you-say the same? Equally, yes?

  “It doesn’t matter what world. The Mother is the mother of all worlds, yes? And all peoples have the same Mother, so all peoples have the same voice, yes? So why does any peoples need other peoples to speak to the Mother for them? Do you need other peoples to talk to your mother for you? No, you talk to mother yourself, yes? That is how I know they lie. They tell me I can no longer talk to Mother in my heart. I must talk to Mother-son and he will talk to Mother for me. But Mother is already here, so I not need their Mother’s son, yes?”

  “Yes,” I said, finally.

  “You understand now, yes?”

  I nodded, swallowing hard. “Yes, Varro. You were very clear.”

  “Does solve this, your problem?”

  “Only halfway, but it is a big halfway. Thank you.”

  “Is ask me rest, little one?” He smiled broadly. “Yes?”

  “Is ask you rest, yes.” I sighed while I composed my next question. I wasn’t afraid to ask it now. But still . . . this was hard work, listening through two languages one overlaid on the other. Did anyone ever get used to this? I couldn’t see how. “You know what is planned for me to do. Smiller has talked about this with you?”

  I looked back and forth from Varro to Chirl to Kzam. All three nodded.

  “You agree with it? It’s all right with you?”

  They nodded again. “Yes, we agree with it.”

  “Tell me why, please?”

  “Is very simple, Kaer. Smiller is reclaiming what already belongs to us. You do us big favor here.”

  I shook my head. “But we’re doing the same things the Hale-Stones are doing. We’re going to change the Mother, aren’t we?”

  “No, no, no—” Varro was insistent. “I know what you will do, Kaer. I helped to draw the plan. They are try to change Mother. We change Mother back.”

  “But we’re not exactly changing her back, are we? I mean, Varro—the Hale-Stones have added a holy messenger, the son of God, and angels and . . . and . . . who knows what else by now. And we’re about to—you know.”

  “Yes, yes,” Varro agreed. He hit his head with the flat of his palm. “What is word Smiller used? Ah, I am so stupid sometimes—”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “My head—it is empty. Ah! That is the word. Maybe my head is not so empty, thank you. We are plan to . . . preempt their lie, Kaer. We take their lie and make it work for our truth, yes? We steal their . . . their . . .” He moved his hands in a frustrated forward gesture, searching for another word.

  “Speed? Direction?”

  “Stored speed.”

  “Oh! Momentum. We steal their momentum. Is that what you want to say?”

  “Yes, yes. Momentum. You have so many beautiful words in Anklish. You say things we cannot say in Linnean. I feel stupid to not know words, but when I use all your beautiful new words, I feel smart! I feel sorry for Linneans who not know yet. Someday, my people be as smart as yours, Kaer. That is what I hope to see. Even if it takes many years. And even if we have to tell a lie to save the Mother’s truth, it be a necessary lie, yes.”

  “Is it? Is it really? I mean . . . if we tell ourselves that it’s all right to tell one lie, because our goals are good, then pretty soon, we’ll start telling ourselves that it’s all right to tell a second lie. And a third. And pretty soon, all you have are lies, and you’ve forgotten the truth you set out to preserve. Da says that some people believe that the end justifies the means—do you understand the sentence?”

  “Yes, yes. I understand. That is what we do here.”

  “But—da also says that’s wrong. Because the means become the end. The means determine the end. It’s like taking a wrong path. You won’t end up where you want to go.”

  “Ahhh,” said Varro. “Finally, I understand. I see your dilemma. Ahh, there is another of your beautiful new words. Dilemma. My wife is named Lemma. She is problem sometimes too. No, I joke. I love her and I miss her. I hope she misses me too. Never mind. No problem. I see what troubles you, little angel one. You want to be convinced that we are do the right thing. Am I speak true?”

  “Yes, you speak true.”

  “I give you short answer, Kaer. We do this because we must do this. If we do not do this little evil, we allow a much greater evil to happen. What is that thing that you Oerth people say sometimes? All that is necessary for the triumph of maizlish, is for people of good will to do nothing—yes? So we do something. If Mother cannot s
peak for herself here, then we speak for Mother. And end this sea of trouble, by opposing, yes? Do I speak right?”

  “Yes, you speak right,” I said. I sighed and put my head in my hands in despair. And stared at the rough wood of the table. Popo came by, picking up plates in his brawny arms. He stopped when he got to me. “You feel okey-dokey? Stew not good for you?”

  “Stew good for me,” I said, not looking up. “Stew very good for me. Thank you, Popo.”

  It was just everything else that wasn’t so good. Varro hadn’t cleared up anything. He’d only made the problem more profound.

  Over Herd

  Smiller looked up as I approached. She was talking to the pilots, but she handed her clipboard to Byrne, excused herself, and came over to me.

  “I’ll do it,” I said.

  “And. . . ?”

  I took a breath. “And nothing. We have to do this.”

  “Do you want to tell me why you changed your mind?”

  “I didn’t change my mind. I never changed my mind. I still think the same way I did when we started. We have to do this, whatever it takes. And I still have the same questions—I always will. You taught me how to think like a Linnean. Well, I am Linnean now. As much Linnean as it’s possible for any Earth person to be. And I worry about anything that changes the way we feel the Mother in our hearts—and so do you. So if I have doubts, they’re not just my doubts, Smiller. They’re your doubts too. I’m just speaking them out loud for both of us.”

  Smiller studied me for a moment, her eyes shaded by the orange sun behind her. I squinted up at her, waiting for her reaction. “All right,” she said finally. “I got it. I can’t say I’m pleased with it. But I got it.” She started to turn away, then turned back and pointed to me seriously. “I’ll tell you this much, Kaer. On the one hand, I’m glad you asked these questions. A good Scout asks those kinds of questions. On the other hand, it worries me—because I don’t want you distracted from your job.”

  “I’m here. I’ll get the job done.”

  “All right.” She didn’t sound convinced, but she looked like her attention was elsewhere. In fact, nobody seemed very happy right now, everyone was walking around with grim expressions. Maybe they’d gotten more bad news. Before I could ask, Smiller cut me off with a sharp glance at her watch. “You have just enough time for the latrine. We lift in five minutes.” She ended the conversation with a curt nod and headed back to the others, and I went in search of da.

  A few minutes later, we were airborne again. The choppers lifted off the rock, arranged themselves in a line, turned their jets sideways, and whispered off across the golden plains.

  Beneath us, I could see the swath of the herd. They’d passed through recently, the ground was still dark. And Popo said the stew had been made from fresh boffili hump, so I assumed someone had gone hunting just for us. I wondered how they got the carcass up to the top of the rock. Did they drag it with a couple of horses? Or did they lift it with a chopper? Probably a chopper, one of the heavy-lifting ones. Or maybe they cut it up on the ground and lifted the pieces up one at a time. Whatever they did, keeping invisible was probably the most important part of any decision.

  We flew on a little farther and soon I began to see the first of the great shaggy beasts pushing their way through the razor-grass. Their trails cut through the grass, leaving a woven pattern of meandering lines, each one leading to a looming mound of flesh. A little farther and the trails joined up with others, until only patches of grass remained standing in little golden islands, and the rest was flattened and churned into the dark soil of the Linnean prairie.

  Very shortly I could look out to the horizon, kilometers distant, and see nothing but boffili—the great herd stretched out forever. The animals moved ponderously through the yellow sea of razor-grass. I couldn’t believe there were so many of them. I’d seen pictures, of course, but to actually fly above the herd and see them all beneath us so huge and magnificent . . . it was breathtaking. The great animals all moved at the same ponderous pace, like elephants or dinosaurs or simply elemental forces of nature. Finally, I began to understand why the boffili herds had to be regarded as part of the Linnean weather system. They were as significant as any rainfall, snowstorm, range fire, tornado, or hurricane. Perhaps even more so. The passage of a herd of boffili determined how you would live for the next few months. Or even if you would live.

  Even this far above them, here in the chopper, we could smell their heavy scent. It was as thick as a wall. Down below on the ground, it must have been intolerable. Back in the Dome, that was something we’d never had to worry about. We didn’t have enough boffili to stink this bad. And we probably never would. The Dome wasn’t supposed to be an accurate recreation of Linnea, only a place to train. Now, I wondered what Callo City really smelled like—the real one—when the great herd passed to the north. Well, we’d find out soon enough. I felt even more sorry for Jaxin and the other Scouts.

  After a bit, Byrne came over and sat down opposite da and me. She said, “Smiller asked me to talk to you and tell you what has happened. We heard from Jorge. The Magistrates have decided to send our Scouts to Mordren Enclave. Just as we feared. The rail-wagons have already left. Aerial surveillance has identified three useful sites for interception. The advance team will arrive at the first site this afternoon. We should arrive sometime after dark. So will the God-chopper. The boulder will take a little longer. The heavy-lifter can’t fly as fast. We’ll have two days to prepare the site. The other team has already begun turning the herd southward. They could start arriving as early as tomorrow, certainly the day after. We should have everything ready by the time the rail-caravan arrives. But we’ll have to work straight through.”

  “So you won’t really need me, will you?”

  Byrne hesitated. “Um, we might. We might not. Smiller will talk to you about it later.”

  “I thought you only needed me to tell the Linneans, ‘Let my people go.’ If you can rescue Jaxin and the others without an angel appearing in the sky, then you don’t need me at all, do you. . . ?”

  “Well, yes and no. We had originally planned it that way. But even before we brought you through the Gate, the situation had already changed so much that we had to start thinking of a different plan—a better way to use you. I know Smil talked to you about what the Hale-Stones intend. We’ve started thinking about a plan to stop them once and for all.”

  “Oh.”

  Byrne patted my knee gently. “Thank you, Kaer. You’ll do fine.” For some reason, I hated that gesture and what it suggested—that I was just another animal to be groomed and used and then put back in the stable when I wasn’t needed anymore.

  She started to rise.

  “Just one thing—” I said.

  “What’s that, Kaer?”

  “If it involves hurting anyone, I won’t do it.”

  Byrne’s face clouded. “I’ll tell Smiller.” And then she added, “But we don’t want to hurt anyone either. You know that.”

  After she left, da leaned over and patted my leg. When he did it, it meant something else entirely. It meant I love you. I looked at him, a question in my eyes. Did I do right? He answered me with a nod. Yes, you did right. And that was all I needed to know.

  Stopover

  We flew all day and then the day went on for a few more hours so we could keep on flying. The sun was still high in the west when Byrne came back to us and said, “We land at Stopover in fifteen minutes. We’ll have dinner there. The crew will service the choppers, and if they give us the green light, we’ll fly out tonight. We’ll arrive at the target zone after midnight, so you’d better plan on sleeping aboard. If you can sleep during the flight, so much the better. We’ll probably need your help onsite.” She turned to go, then remembered something and turned back. “By the way, you’ll appreciate this. Jorge says that all the Hale-Stones have left Callo. Very fast. And very unexpectedly. I can’t imagine why. You don’t suppose it had anything to do with that, uh . . . little
discussion over breakfast?” She grinned.

  “Oh, yeah. He believed it?”

  “I guess so.” Byrne grinned and headed forward, leaving me alone with my thoughts again.

  I turned back to the window, not because I wanted to look at the endless yellow grass, but because it was something to look at that wasn’t inside. After a moment, da tapped my shoulder. “Want to talk?”

  “No.” I kept my nose pressed to the window.

  “Want to listen?”

  I didn’t answer that, so da assumed yes. “I just want you to think about something for a minute, Kaer. They believed it.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “What does that say about the Hale-Stones’ way of thinking—that they believed we would do such a thing?”

  Still not looking at him, I shrugged.

  Da said slowly, “They think we’d do it because they would.” He waited a moment, I guess he was letting it sink in, then he went on. “People always fear that their enemy will behave as badly as themselves. Remember that. When someone accuses you of something terrible, he really says what he would do if he had the chance—and he needs the accusation to rationalize doing it to you. All the terrible things the Hale-Stones have said about Oerth-people? Mostly, they’ve described their own behavior, their own actions, their own goals—but they project it onto us as a way of justifying and excusing themselves.”

  “But that still doesn’t excuse us!” I snapped at him. “And if we do the same things, then we commit the same sin, so I don’t see any difference. They justify. We justify.” I turned back to the window.

  “I can see why this makes you unhappy.”

  I didn’t answer. I knew he was going to keep going with this until he pried open my upset and forced me to look at it. He was good that way. Sometimes I wished he wouldn’t do it; but even when I wished he wouldn’t, I still wished he would—because I knew I’d feel better afterward.