There are the Weirds. There are always the Weirds. They care for the children and they function somewhere between priesthood and janitorial duties. They keep the burrows clean. The calibans seem to take pleasure in being touched by them. Most Weirds are thin: high activity, a diet more of fish and less of grain, a lack of sunlight. But in general they seem healthy physically. In any human society off Gehenna their sanity would be in question. It is uncertain whether this is a mental aberration peculiar to the 314
Forty Thousand in Gehenna
culture, as certain human cultures historically have spawned certain disorders with more frequency than others, or come up with completely unique maladies.
Hypothesis: this is a mental disorder uniquely produced by Gehennan culture with its reliance on calibans. Humans identify completely with the creatures on whom all humans rely for survival, and receive a certain special status which confirms them in their state.
Hypothesis: this is a specialized and successful adaptation of humankind to Gehenna, growing out of the azi culture which was left here in ignorance.
Hypothesis: Weirds can talk to calibans.
xxxvii
204 CR, day 293
Cloud Towers, the top of First Tower
"You mean you can't say it in words."
"It's not a word thing." Elai laughed strangely and made a scattering gesture. "Oh, MaGee, I could tell it to Din and he'd know. I can't figure how to do it."
"Teach me to Pattern."
"Teach you."
"At least as much as the boy knows."
"So you tell the stone towers? So they know if we got underneath the Wire? There was a time the towers fell. More than once. There was a time the whole Base sank in. We remember too." Scar had stirred, putting himself between them and the ariel, which cleared the wall in a great hurry. Elai scratched the scaly jaw, looked at her beneath her brows.
315
Forty Thousand in Gehenna
"They're building them a new tower this year, the Styxsiders, closer to the Wire."
"You think the Base is in danger?"
"Styx is trouble. Always is. You tell the stone towers that with your com."
She nodded toward the river, up it, toward the forested horizon. "Our riders move up there. They kill a few this year, I think. Maybe next. That's in the Patterns."
"How?" McGee asked. "Elai, how do you mean— in the Patterns?"
Elai stretched out her hand, swept it at all the horizon. "You write on little things. Calibans, they write large, they write mountains and hills and the way things move."
A chill was up McGee's back. "Teach me," she said again. "Teach me."
Elai stroked Scar's jaw again, thoughts passing behind her eyes. "Calibans could make one mouthful of you."
"Human beings?"
"Been known. I send you down with them— you could be in bad trouble."
"I didn't ask to go anywhere with calibans. I asked you to teach me.
Yourself."
"I've showed you all the things I can show. The things you want, MaGee— you got to go down to them. You can talk and talk to me; I can show you up and down and stop and such. But you really want to talk the Patterns, you got to talk to him. " One vast eye stared at her, gold and narrow-pupilled in the light, a round of iris bigger than the sun. Scar was looking at her, sidelong, in his way.
"All right," McGee said, scared enough to fall down where she was, but she put her hands in her pockets and looked casual as she could. "They smell fear?"
316
Forty Thousand in Gehenna
There was humor in Elai's eyes, but it was Elai-Eldest's face, implacable.
"You go down," Elai said. "You go down and down as far as you can. I think Scar will go. I could be wrong."
"How long will I be there? What will I eat?"
"They'll tell you that. There'll be the Weirds. They'll take care of you. Be a child again, MaGee."
204 CR, day 203
Message, E. McGee to Base Director, transmitted from field Expect to be out of touch for a number of days due to rare study opportunity.
Notes, coded journal Dr. E. McGee
I made a tentative trip down to the depths. It is, predictably, dark down there. It's full of calibans and Weirds, either one of which makes me nervous. No. I'm scared. I think— personally afraid in a way I've never been afraid of anything. Not even dying. This is being alone with the utterly alien. Vulnerable to it. Isn't that an odd thing for a xenologist to fear most in all the world? Maybe that's why I had to go into this work. Or why I got myself into this. Like climbing mountains. Because it's there.
Because I have to know. Maybe that has to do with fear.
Or craziness.
I think they would let me go if I asked. At least back upstairs. But I've got myself into one. Elai would say she told me so; but this is a thing— I don't think there's any going back from this, having asked for this chance. I can't just be an outsider now. I just closed the door to that. If I go running now— it'll be McGee, who failed. McGee, who was afraid. It would mark what Elai is, and where I can't reach her, and I'd live here as something neither fish nor fowl.
So I don't see anything else to do.
317
Forty Thousand in Gehenna
xxxviii
?
Cloud Tower: the lower section
There was food. McGee went to it by the smell, in the dark, not needing the calibans to guide her. But one was there. She had touched it, knew by the size, guessed by the texture of the skin that it was one of the grays.
Shepherds, she thought of them. She had been terrified at first, of the claws, the hard, bony jaws, the sinuous force of them. They had knocked her down, repeatedly, until she learned to use her ears.
There were other things in the dark: ariels. They skittered here and there and of them she had never been afraid, had kept them close when she could, because they seemed friendly.
There was a big brown hereabouts; she had felt the smoothness on his side. It was Scar, and Elai had lent him. She was grateful, and stayed close to him when she could.
Even of the Weirds she had lost her awe. They were strange, but gentle, and touched her with their spidery fingers, embraced her, held her when she was most afraid.
Once in this fathomless dark, in this waking sleep, she had been intimate with one, and more than once: that was the thing that she had most trouble to reckon with, that the thing she had dreaded most had happened, and that she had (perhaps) been the aggressor in it, having forgotten all she was, with some faceless man, a Weird, a voiceless priest of calibans.
She had lain listless for a long time after, for she had lost her objectivity, and she was compassless in more than the robbery of her senses.
Then: McGee, she thought, you did that. That was you. Not their fault.
What if it had been? Get up, McGee.
And in one part of her mind: He'll know me, outside this place. But I won't know him.
318
Forty Thousand in Gehenna
And in another: You don't care, McGee. This is real. The dark. This place.
It's a womb for growing in.
So grow, McGee.
She scrambled along the earthen walls, found the food left for her and ate, raw fish, which had become a neutral taste to her, something she had learned to abide. Something light skittered over her knees and she knew it was an ariel begging scraps. She gave it the head and bit by bit, the offal and the bones.
God knows what disease I'll take, the civilized part of her had thought, of muddy hands and raw fish. I'm stronger than I thought, she reckoned now.
She had not reckoned a great deal about herself lately, here in the dark. I'm wiser than I was.
The ariel slithered away with a flick of its tail. That presaged something.
A gray came then. She heard it moving. She drew to the side of the passage in case it wanted through. It arrived with a whispering of its leathery hide against the earth, a caliban in
quiet approach. It nosed at her; she patted the huge head and it kept nudging. Move, move. So she must.
She went with it, this caliban-shepherd, up and up.
This was different. There had been no such ascent in her other wanderings.
They were going out to the light. Have I failed? she wondered. Am I being turned out? But no Weird had tutored her, none had been near her in— she had lost track of the time.
Daylight was ahead, a round source of sun. She went more slowly now, to accustom her eyes, and the gray went before her, a sinuous shape moving like a shadow into what proved twilight, a riot of color in the sky.
But we have left the Towers, McGee thought, rubbing at her eyes. The river was before her. Somehow they had come out by the river, where caliban mounds were, beside the fisher nets.
319
Forty Thousand in Gehenna
I should find Elai, call the Base. How many days?
Something overshadowed her, on the ridge. She looked about, blinking in the light, with tears running down her face. It was a great brown.
Her gray had stayed. It offered her a stone, laying it near. She saw a nest of ariels, a dozen dragon-shapes curled up in a niche in the bank, where stones had been laid. It was a strange moment, a stillness in the air. "Here I am," she said, and the sound of her own voice dismayed her, who had not heard a voice in days. It intruded on the stillness.
An ariel wriggled out and offered her a stone. It stayed, flicking collar fringes, lifting its tiny spines.
She, squatted, took the stone and laid it down again.
It brought another, manic in its haste.
xxxix
204 CR, day 300
Message, R. Genley from transStyx, to Base Director's office.
I am not receiving McGee's regular reports. Should I come in?
Message, Base Director to R. Genley
Negative. Dr. McGee is still on special assignment.
Memo, Base Director to Security Chief
Refer all inquiries about Dr. McGee to me.
I am more than a little concerned about this prolonged silence from McGee. Prepare a list of options in this case.
320
Forty Thousand in Gehenna
Message, Base Director to Gehenna Station.
Request close surveillance of the Cloud River settlement. Relay materials to this office…
transStyx: Green Tower
"My father," Jin said, in the sunlight, in the winter sun, when the wide fields of Green Tower lay plowed and vacant. Forest stretched about them to the east, the marsh to the west. The wind lifted Jin's dark hair, blew it in webs; the light shone on him, on Thorn, lazy beside the downward access.
"My father." His voice was low and warm and his hand that had rested on the walls rested on Genley's shoulder, drew him close, faced him outward as he pointed, a sweep about the land. "This is mine. This is mine. All the fields. All the people. All they make. And do you know, my father, when I took it into my hands I had one tower. This one. Look at it now. Look, Gen-ley. Tell me what you see."
There was a craziness in Jin sometimes. Jin played on its uncertainties, unnerved some men. Genley looked on him with one brow arched, daring to dare him back.
"Would you think," Jin said, "that a man has tried to kill me today?"
It was not a joke. Genley saw that and the humor fell from his face.
"When? Who?"
"Mes Younger sent this man. This was a mistake. Mes will learn." Jin set both his hands on the rim of the wall, fists clenched. "It's this woman, Gen-ley. This woman."
"Elai."
"MaGee." Jin rounded on him, looked up at him, his face flushed with rage. "This conniving of women. This thing goes on. Jin is a fool, they say; he lets the starmen play with him. He listens to them while they talk to this Elai and this Elai learns anything she wants from MaGee. And if Jin is a fool, then fools can try him, can't they?"
Genley took in his breath. "I've warned Base about this."
321
Forty Thousand in Gehenna
"They don't listen to you."
"I'll file a complaint with them if you've got something definite I can say to them. I'll make them understand."
Jin stared up at him, a shorter man. His veins swelled; his nostrils were white. "What would they like to hear?"
"What she's doing. They don't know where she is right now. Do you?"
"They don't know where she is. She's with Elai. That's where she is."
"Tell me what she's doing and I'll tell them."
"No!" Jin flung his arm in a gesture half a blow, strode off toward Thorn.
The caliban had risen, his collar erect. Jin turned back again, thrust out his arm. "No more com, Gen-ley. My father, who gives me advice. I'm sending you to Parm. You. This Mannin, this Kim."
"Let's talk about this."
"No talk." He flung the arm northward, an extravagant gesture. "I'm going north to kill this man. This man who thinks I'm a fool. You go to Parm Tower. You think, you think, Genley, what this woman costs."
He disappeared down the access. Thorn delayed, a cold caliban eye turned to the object of the anger, then whipped after Jin.
Genley stood there drawing deep breaths, one after the other.
xl
204 CR, day 321
Cloud Towers
"MaGee," said Elai.
The starman looked at her, met her eyes, and Elai felt the stillness there.
The stillness spread over all the room and into her bones. Her people were there. There were calibans. They brought MaGee to her, this thin, hard 322
Forty Thousand in Gehenna
stranger with loose, tangled hair, who wore robes and not the clothes she had worn, who could have worn nothing and lost none of that force she had.
But MaGee was not MaGee of the seashore, of the summer; and she was not the child.
"Go," Elai said, to the roomful of her people. "All but MaGee. Go."
They went, quietly, excepting Din.
"Out," said Elai, "boy."
Din went out. His caliban followed. Only Scar remained. And the grays.
"A man came from behind the Wire," said Elai. "Four days ago. We sent him away. He asked how you were."
"I'll have to call the Base," MaGee said.
"And tell them about calibans?"
MaGee was silent a long while. It became clear she would not answer.
Elai opened her hand, dismissing the matter, trusting the silence more than assurances.
"No words," said MaGee finally, in a hoarse, strange voice. "You knew that."
Elai gestured yes, a steadiness of the eyes.
And MaGee picked it up. Every tiny movement. Or at least— enough of them.
"I want to go back to my room," MaGee said. "There's too much here."
Go, Elai signed in mercy. In tenderness. MaGee left, quietly, alone.
323
Forty Thousand in Gehenna
204 CR, day 323
Message, E. McGee to Base Director
Call off the dogs. Reports of my death greatly exaggerated. Am writing report on data. Will transmit when complete.
204 CR, day 323
Message, Base Director to E. McGee
Come in at once with full accounting.
204 CR, day 323
Message, E. McGee to Base Director
Will transmit when report is complete.
204 CR, day 326
Notes, coded journal Dr. E. McGee
I've had trouble starting this again. I'm not the same. I know that. I know—
xli
204 CR, day 328
Cloud Tower
Security had sent him. Kiley. A decent man. McGee had heard about him, or at least that something was astir, and then that it was Outsider; and when she heard that she knew.
She had put on her Outsider-clothes. Cut her hair. Perfumed herself with Outsider-smells. She went there, to the hall, where the riders would bring the Outsider.
"
Kiley," she said, when Elai said nothing to this intruder.
324
Forty Thousand in Gehenna
He was one of the old hands. Stable. His eyes kept measuring everything because that was the way he was trained. He would know when someone was measuring him.
"Good to see you, doctor," Kiley said. "The Director'd like to see you.
Briefly. Sent me to bring you."
"I'm in the middle of something. Sorry."
"Then I'd like to talk to you. Collect your notes, take any requests for supplies."
"None needed. You don't have to send me signals. I can say everything I have to say right here. I don't need supplies and I don't need rescue. Any trouble at the Base?"
"None."
"Then go tell them that."
"Doctor, the Director gave this as an order."
"I undertand that. Go and tell him I have things in progress here."
"I'm to say that you refused to come in."
"No. Just what I said."
"Could you leave if you wanted to?"
"Probably. But I won't just now."
"Yes, ma'am," Kiley said tautly.
"Let someone take him outside the Towers," McGee said. "This man is all right."
Elai made a sign that was plain enough to those that knew, and Maet, an older rider, bestirred himself and gave Kiley a nod.
Later:
325
Forty Thousand in Gehenna
You stay here, Elai said, not with words, but she made it clear as it had always been.
Notes, coded journal Dr. E. McGee
I can write again. It's hard. It's two ways of thinking. I have to do this.
There's a lot—
No. Maybe I'll write it someday. Maybe not. No one needs to know that.
I've talked to calibans. A couple of ideas. Finally.