A Door Into Ocean Read online

  “We have no stone. We weave but do not sell,” Merwen explained. “We carry herbs, but we do not trade.”

  The other asked, “Will coral or raftwood do?”

  Insolent as well as inconsiderate. “You’ve no business at all in the marketplace, then.” Roald raised his firewhip in warning.

  “You are a soldier,” Merwen observed. “We too are soldiers, of a kind.”

  “Moon soldiers?” Behind him his subaltern’s weapon clicked to standby. The Ocean Moon was not officially under Valan authority, although Valan traders had done as they wished there for forty years. His eyes searched the Sharers. Sterilized Valan women often signed into armed service, but these two wore no uniforms. His eyes narrowed. “Show your weapons.”

  Merwen spread her hands like fans. “What more do we need than what is…inside?”

  Roald’s patience snapped. “Enough talk. Pack up, now, or we’ll do it for you, fast.”

  The Sharers both became very still. The guard shot a dull orange flame to the ground at their feet; sparks flew up to leave black pinpoints smoldering on the base of the spinning wheel. Yet the creatures remained, transfixed, a mosaic frieze. Then color began to drain from their limbs and faces, dissolved like a spent wave upon the sand, and faded through lavender to white at last, the ghastly whiteness of a dead squid dredged from the sea. White they were, but not from fear.

  “Sir,” whispered his subaltern, “are they diseased?”

  Roald’s skin crawled, and he shifted his weight back. Disease warfare—he knew its history, from the early days when entire planets could succumb to a single virus, and more than one had done so rather than submit to the rule of the Patriarch of Torr. Such a scourge had never touched Valedon, but who knew what still lurked on the uncharted moon? He thought suddenly of his young wife at home: two children, and her gene quotient would permit a third.

  “Women, who are you? What do you want here? What do you bear inside?”

  No answer. Their bleached faces seemed to stare beyond him to the harbor where the rising tide splashed up at the docks.

  The firewhip fell to his side. Whatever lurked behind those fearless stares, Roald wanted no part of it, even if Rhodochron raged and sent him packing.

  “Remember,” he said curtly, “you’ve been warned.” The two men walked stiffly from the square, their shoulder-tip rubies flashing in the midmorning sun.

  2

  THE SHARERS SOON regained color, but the villagers avoided them like the whitepox. When Spinel came back the next day, he was amazed to see the pair there again, beneath the netleaf tree.

  “Hey, Melas,” he called. “What happened? How come the firemerchant let them alone?”

  Melas grimaced under a bushel of potatoes. “Indians in disguise. Some lord or other protects them, mark my words.”

  “But why?”

  “How should I know? Go run off with the other signless boys. I’ve bread to earn, and tax to pay besides.”

  The remark stung him. Torr knows, he should have earned a stonesign by age eighteen, but could he help it if he was no good for any trade?

  The paradox of the moonwomen; he would get it straight yet and show Melas a thing or two. Among the beaded skirts and baggy trousers of the crowd he spotted a patch of gray, the cowled robe of Uriel the Spirit Caller. Uriel communed miraculously with the Spirit of the Patriarch who ruled from Torr, four light-years out in space. He was supposed to call on all the knowledge of the almighty Patriarch.

  Spinel ran after Uriel and slipped a coin into a deep pocket of his robe. “Uriel, how come those moonwomen don’t get dragged away from that tree?”

  Uriel turned his solemn face, and his starstone winked on his chest. “If I were to sit at the tree, I would not be disturbed either.”

  “That’s no answer.” Sometimes the Spirit got garbled in transmission.

  “For shame,” hissed a neighbor behind him. “Talking back to a Spirit Caller.” But Spinel had already run off to tell Ahn what Uriel had said.

  “It’s more than that,” said Ahn, as her good eye frowned at a customer pinching the tomatoes. “Those guards were scared.”

  “Scared?” His toes twitched. “Why…scared?”

  “They’re as superstitious as Dolomite goatherds. And why not? The moonwomen just stay there, cool as ice—they must have some sort of power in their veins, or they’d have run off like sensible folk.” She sketched a starsign to ward off evil and whispered, “A pair of witches, if you ask me.”

  Vexed, Spinel snapped his fingers and turned away. He knew better than that; he had had eight years in the schoolhouse, after all. He would go back and ask his father, Cyan the stonecutter, who had the last word on everything. So he skipped through the cobblestoned streets past houses draped with fishing nets, dodging one-armed beggars and the nodding horses of farmer’s carts and the firecrystal van of the Mayor. In the artisans’ quarter he reached the old shop where his family had lived since before he was born. Behind the counter his sister, Beryl, looked up with a tired smile.

  In the basement was his father’s workshop, hung with round saw-blades for marble and agate and cluttered with tools for the precious gems. The air smelled of wet clay from the polishing.

  Cyan sat hunched over a wooden lap wheel that whined as it spun and spattered beneath the water stream. His face was shadowed harshly by the floodlamp that drained firecrystals so fast. The surface of the wheel was grinding a facet into a yellow-green peridot, until Cyan raised the dop stick to change its angle.

  “Father, listen,” Spinel shouted in his ear.

  The whining stopped, and Cyan looked up through his thick safety glasses. His nose was broad and flat, as if he had held it, too, to the lap wheel for thirty years.

  “Father, why did those guards run away from the moonwomen?”

  Cyan regarded him balefully. “Fool’s luck is the reason. Don’t think it will last, for to cross the firemerchant brings worse luck than fool’s gold. Son, when will you get yourself a decent stonesign like your brother-in-law, instead of running wild in the marketplace and poking your nose in the affairs of strangers? Keep away from them. Now go cut the tesserae for Doctor Bresius’s new wainscoting.”

  The lap wheel whined again. Spinel went to switch on the diamond-edged saw, and as he did so his father’s light dimmed briefly. Vengefully he wished it would go out altogether; but then he himself would only be sent back to recharge the firecrystal, for a sum that made his mother screech every month.

  His mind wandered dangerously from the saw. It was not for him to put in the long tedious hours that produced fine crystals. Those creatures by the tree were the oddest sight he had seen in this sleepy town, one he could not soon forget.

  The Sharers did not turn white again, and they approached no one. Once an exceptionally brave market woman ventured to ask their advice on the use of medicinal herbs from the moontraders. What she learned then amazed even Doctor Bresius from Iridis; and thereafter, knots of villagers gathered at the tree until the guards shooed them off. The tall one, Usha, would examine a sick child and produce bits of dried seaweed or powder for a cure, but she never broke the sign law to take payment. Even on the sly, the Sharers would not sell the fine seasilk they spun and wove into swirling patterns on their handloom. When the mayor’s man came to ask their business, they merely said they were waiting.

  Waiting for what? And what did they eat in the meantime? Some said the pair rose long before dawn to catch their own fish from the sea. Rumors spread of witchcraft practiced at nightfall, before the pair retired to their houseboat. Spinel scoffed at such nonsense, but he was curious enough so that one day he decided to find out for himself.

  That evening, Spinel loitered at the edge of the square until the sun touched the far sea, spreading sparks like quartz dust across the waves. Market vendors were wrapping unsold vegetables and dumping fish refuse over the wharf, while customers haggled wearily for last-minute bargains. The Sharers were intent on their work, as always. The g
reat tree was now denser than ever with plaited masses of leaves that hung like folds of a fishing net. Crickets began chirping, and soon their throbbing chorus drowned out the last of the market sounds.

  Spinel had his eye on a long branch that swooped almost to the ground. He caught hold of it and swung lightly upward, steadying himself amid the leafy fabric. Through a break in the foliage, he could make out the Sharers below. He watched and waited.

  The rest of the square was deserted. The tree’s shadow lengthened until it reached the town hall. Night cloaked the town in velvet, with the stars like tiny jewels strung against it, and the queen of jewels was Shora, the blue moon, whose cold glow ruled the landscape.

  Below, Merwen stood and walked to a crate beside the handloom. There sat a large conch shell, and she poured a liquid from it into a squat potted plant.

  In an instant the plant glowed with golden phosphorescence. Merwen lit two more plants, and the light suffused the lower branches. This looked like magic, Spinel had to admit. He squirmed as if something were creeping up his spine.

  Where was the other one, he wondered suddenly: Usha, who gave out the medicines? His foot slipped and kicked a branch; loose bits of bark fell away. As quietly as he could, he swung down and across to get a closer look. Merwen was sitting on a mat away from the handloom, facing past him out over the harbor, where the wavelets flickered in the moonlight. Her head nodded slightly, and with the spidery fingers of one hand she fashioned something out of thread, a sort of laniard which lengthened as he watched.

  She was staring at him.

  Spinel knew this in a flash, and blood pounded in his ears. He lunged backward the way he had come, but he lost his footing in the darkness. A branch gave way, and the leafy seines no longer seemed so strong as he pulled at them in fistfuls. He swayed precariously, then tumbled down in a shower of torn leaves and powdered bark.

  Usha emerged from behind the tree. She crouched and glowered at him, and Spinel wished more than he had ever wished anything that he were elsewhere, anywhere, even in the dreary old schoolroom. Why had he not listened to his father? He wanted to run for it, but his feet stuck as if bewitched.

  “You hurt?” Usha asked.

  He blinked, then vigorously shook his head.

  “You hurt?” she repeated.

  “He is not hurt,” said Merwen from her mat by the handloom. “Spinel stonecutter’s son, come sit here.”

  Shaking all over, he picked himself up and went to sit on a mat of green seasilk. Could he dream up some tale to get himself out of this fix? It would not work this time, he was sure. “What are you going to do with me?” he blurted at last.

  “Share learning,” Merwen said. “Share the ways of stone, and the ways of this.” She held out the woven strand, which had turned into a circlet. Hesitantly Spinel accepted the gift, and it rested on his palm, strong and fine as a silver chain.

  He recovered some nerve. “What are you?” he ventured. “Cloth-workers, or medicine women?”

  “We are what we need to be.”

  Spinel frowned and sucked his tongue. “Even soldiers?”

  Merwen cupped her chin in the scallop between two fingers. “You might call us soldiers of learning.”

  “What’s that?” He leaned forward, hands on his knees. “You mean spies?”

  “Something like that.”

  His thoughts whirled. Hordes of purple fish creatures invading Valedon—the vision came and went. “You wouldn’t tell me the truth, if you were real spies.” Why should he believe them, any more than the moontraders?

  “Truth is a tangled skein, and time ravels it.”

  “When do you plan to invade us?”

  “Valans have invaded Shora for a long while.”

  That was a twist. He had never heard of Protectoral troops invading the moon. Pyrrhopolis kept them busy enough. “Is there really no dry land on Shora? Where do you live, then? Do you hide all your men, even your Protector?”

  “Sea blankets the land. We dwell on living rafts, and our protection-sharer is Shora, the mother of all ocean.”

  No human Protector? The Patriarch would never allow such a thing. Before the rule of Torr, men throughout the galaxy had lived free as gods, with firecrystals more plentiful than grains of sand. But then, men who live as gods die as gods, as the saying goes. They had died by the planetful until those who remained gave up their powers to the Patriarch to keep the peace among them. His Envoy came to Valedon every ten years, and there was no help for those who disobeyed.

  Perhaps the Patriarch did not care about nonhumans. “You’re not human, are you?”

  Merwen paused, and Usha leaned over her shoulder to exchange speech that sounded like ocean laughter. Then Merwen asked, “Will you come to Shora to find out?”

  Terror struck again; they would capture him and steal him away. “I won’t bother you again, I promise: I swear by the Patriarch’s Nine Legions!”

  “You fear us. Why?” Merwen watched him, her face strained as if intent on his answer.

  Spinel thought about it and felt a little silly. “I thought you might…make me come away with you.”

  “We cannot…make you do anything.” She seemed to have trouble with the words. “Remember that. Share our return, if you wish. We’ll go long before the sea swallows again.”

  “Sea swallows?”

  “Twice a year, great seaswallowers migrate from pole to pole. Beasts of the deep, they swallow all in their path. Usha and I must be there to help secure the home raft.”

  “That sounds scary, all right.”

  “It scares me, though I’ve seen forty years of it.”

  The admission surprised him. Perhaps Merwen wanted men to come help her out, men who would not hide away. An attractive adventure, actually. “I wish I could go, but if I don’t choose a stonesign before long I’ll end up a beggar or a cornpicker.”

  “Shora has neither beggars nor corn.”

  No beggars and no corn? What sort of place was this?

  Usha added, “No stonesign, either.”

  Startled, Spinel looked up at her. “You’ve got to have stonesigns.”

  “No stone,” Usha said. “Except on the sea floor, where the dead dwell.”

  Merwen caught Usha’s arm as if in warning or reproof.

  Spinel was thinking that if he went off to Shora he could put off getting signed for months, if not a year, which was as good as forever to him. Still, there had to be a catch somewhere. “How do you get on, without having some sort of sign for what you are?”

  “We are what you see. We share all things,” said Merwen.

  “Could I come right back if I don’t like it?”

  “Whenever you wish.”

  “Then I’ll go!” Spinel held out his hand, and Merwen clasped it. A shock went through him at the touch of the nailless webbed hand, though it was only a hand, after all, and not in the least slimy or scaly. What would his folks say to this?

  Suddenly he realized how late it was. He leaped to his feet. “Hey, catch you later,” he called over his shoulder, and ran all the way home.

  Merwen watched him scamper off and thought, How deftly he swings through those branches despite his stunted fingers. There were so many kinds of in-between humans on this world. “What do you think of him, Usha?”

  A faraway look came into Usha’s eyes. “For all his headfur and fingerclaws, he would make a good daughter.”

  Merwen smiled with a twinge of sadness. Usha would be thinking of their own precious daughters, on the home world that was now a blue disk so unbelievably small in the sky.

  3

  IN THE MORNING Spinel sauntered into the snug kitchen, eager to break the news to his parents. But neither of them was there. Sunlight streamed from the window, making bright diamond shapes on the cleared table.

  His married sister, Beryl, stood over the stove, stirring a pot which gave off a heavy odor of groundnuts. Her apron rode high over her pregnancy. On the floor, pudgy Oolite sat licking a porridge
bowl.

  “Where’s Mother?” Spinel asked.

  “Up in the study,” Beryl drawled to emphasize how late he had risen. Their mother was up at dawn as usual, to spend the day adding up accounts for unlettered farmers. The extra income helped make ends meet. “Hey, Spinny,” Beryl asked, “will you never tire of running errands for Mother?”

  “You’ll soon sing another tune,” Spinel shot back, “when Doctor Bresius knocks on the door by and by.”

  Her complexion deepened, from her neck below the tied-up hair to her nose, which had the same crook in it as his. Spinel regretted his words, a cruel reminder that his sister’s gene quotient allowed no more than two children. He brushed her hair with a conciliatory gesture. Absently he drummed his fingers on the mosaic wainscoting. Then in three strides he crossed to the stairway. “Mother!” he yelled. “Mother, I’m leaving Chrysoport.”

  Beryl gasped behind him. “Who signed you on, a gem trader?”

  “Well, not exactly…”

  The stairs creaked as his mother thumped downstairs with alarming speed for a woman her size. “You what?” she rasped, her double chin shaking. “You have a sponsor for a stonesign?”

  “I’m leaving Chrysoport to see another world.”

  “Leaving Chrysoport? Call your father! Cyan!” she shrieked downstairs toward the workshop, her beads rattling across her voluminous skirts. “Cyan, your son found a sponsor at last.” She flung her arms around Spinel with a strength that knocked his breath away. “Tell me now, which firm is it? The House of Karnak? I always said you’d do well in gem manufacturing.”

  “Well, they’re not really—”

  “Who is it?” Beryl insisted. “Come on, Spinny. What stonesign?”

  “Well…”

  Cyan’s broad shoulders filled the doorway. “Yes, Galena?” He eyed his wife wearily as he clapped the grit from his hands. Then all were still as a frieze, except Oolite, who burbled and turned her bowl upside down over her head.

  “It’s not like that. They don’t have a stonesign.”

  “No stonesign?” Galena lifted her hands in astonishment.