“What are you going to do with them?” Dora repeated.
Brother Red shook his head slowly. “When Blanche came and told us about them, we hoped they might be of fertile or childbearing age, but we’re afraid they’re too old. So…we could kill them. Or we could turn them loose. Or, we could turn them over to Faros VII. He would probably appreciate that.”
She held out her hand. “I’m Dora. And you are?”
He took her hand and didn’t let it go. “I know.” He stared at her, eating her with his eyes, ignoring Abby who stood next to her. “You might as well just call me Brother…Red.”
Sheba had been waiting for Soaz, and he went to her, rubbing her face with his own. Looking over their heads, I saw the others waiting on the balcony: the onchiki, the armakfatidi, Francis and Blanche.
Brother Red finally tore himself away from Dora. “Did you succeed?” he asked Izzy. “Did you save your tribes?”
“Probably,” said Izzy in a very weary voice.
The countess nodded. “Probably,” she confirmed, more firmly. “Yes, very likely.”
Brother Red fixed his eyes on Dora once again. “Then perhaps we can concentrate on saving ours….”
Over the next hour or so, every Weelian in the place had a few suggestive words with Dora who, obviously, did not know what the Weelians were hinting at. We did not enlighten her, for though Dora was going through the motions of good sense, it was all on the surface. Both she and Abby were in a state of shock. They kept going over it and over it. “Vorn should have had us stand farther back. I thought we were too close. Maybe he didn’t read the field properly.” And so on. Then, when they’d said it once, they said it over again.
The countess sympathized. I sympathized. No matter how much we felt for them, the control was still back in the twenty-first century, and neither Dora nor Abby could accept the implications of that even though they knew it to be true. They couldn’t go back. Until or unless the Korèsans figured out how the thing worked and either sent it or brought it into the future, where we were. When we were. Which could not be until, unless, the thing recharged to the point that was possible. If the Korèsans decided it was a good idea. Which they might not.
They were both full of comments and questions about what had happened, but they were too shaken even to formulate them sensibly. Each of them would start to say something, then grimace, as though the words caught in their throats. I noticed how the two of them clung together, just as Vorn had told them to do, he wearing his bracelet, she her pendant, almost as though they’d been going-away gifts.
We all were ushered up out of that gloomy place into the courtyard where I had played with the onchiki what seemed a lifetime ago. I realized how short a time it had actually been when I saw one of the imperial guards lounging against the wall in the sun, obviously just now recovering from the wounds he had received during the battle on the shore. He saw Brother Red’s unveiled face, and there was a moment’s tension, which was immediately soothed by the countess. The tension passed. Luckily, the guard was phlegmatic and not very bright.
We hadn’t eaten in hours, and we were voraciously hungry, a condition which Dzilobommo’s ministrations greatly eased. After the meal, we went to the dormitory, each of us taking possession of a bed, a place, leaving a corner for Dora and Abby to be together. They could not seem to get out of touching distance, one of the other. I could understand that. They were the only familiar beings to one another. The rest of us, well-intentioned though we might be, were still strangers.
The imperial umminhi were still in the stable, awaiting our return, and when Dora and Abby questioned the strange chattering they heard from the adjoining building, I personally took them to see the creatures.
“My God,” said Dora. “They look like Olympic athletes.”
Now that I had seen humans, I knew what she meant. Indeed, the umminhi were very lean and muscular. Their teeth and bones were good, important in a beast of burden, and their hair was glossy. These creatures had been recently groomed and oiled, so their skins were glossy also, set off by the silver collars and breeders’ tags all umminhi wore. Seen like this, more than a dozen of them, they were almost frightening.
Abby said, “They have to be healthy, of course. No breeder would keep unhealthy ones alive to breed from.”
The umminhi stared at Dora and Abby. Their nostrils flared. Three of them, a gelding and two stallions, came closer to the gate, eyes flashing.
“Tohwnawaitohwnawaitownahwaeeee,” the gelding muttered. Another umminha replied with a mutter of its own.
“What’s that?” Dora asked, glancing at Abby. He raised his eyebrows at her, then looked back at the umminhi.
“Oh, Dora, they just do it,” I said. “It doesn’t mean anything. They make that kind of chattering, over and over. My little mare, Honey, made the same noises.”
“Ohaeaitgreoraike, owheyonglai,” chattered one of the stallions.
“Owheyonglai, owheyonglai,” the gelding repeated, coming to the barred stable door, where he and the stallions pressed tightly against the barrier, their collars gleaming between the bars, their eyes fixed on Dora and Abby.
Dora actually reached out a hand to touch their collars. I grabbed her wrist and snatched it back. “Careful!”
“There’s no need for this,” Dora said in a half hysterical voice. “If there ever was.”
“There is a need!” I said. “They have to be kept locked up. Sometimes they attack people.”
Dora turned away with a stunned, frantic look on her face. “Really? Have you ever known one to?”
I tried to think. I hadn’t actually known of a case, but I’d heard stories.
“Yswaiaimte,” the stallion whickered. “Aiiii?”
To me the call was unmistakably sexual, and I flushed. Dora, however, turned around and looked at the beast, a long, long look, turning away again with a troubled face. Well, I knew that trouble. I had felt the same when I saw on the television how ponjic people were treated by the humans in Dora’s time. And sea people. And even Onchik-Dau, in circuses. It is sad to put bars around any creature, truly, but the umminhi could not live long if they were not kept. They are too stupid to survive in the wild.
We went back to the dormitory for a few hours sleep. Then we had another meal and drank some of the brothers’ ale, after which Abby and Dora wandered back to the stables again, where I heard their voices and those of the umminhi, almost a conversation. Honey and I used to sound like that, when I was a child. I used to have conversations with her, me talking, her chattering. I could understand Dora and Abby. They thought the umminhi were like themselves. It would take time before they could accept that they were not.
Finally, in the early evening, we met in the courtyard, to tell the assembled brothers about the Great Enigma, about the Korèsans, the trees, everything that had happened. When we came to the end of our story, they had questions to ask of Sahir, who sat against the wall, refusing to say anything except, “Ask Soaz.” He had talked to Soaz, for Soaz had threatened to castrate him if he didn’t.
Yes, Soaz said, Sahir had taken the red leather box without ever looking inside it. He had eavesdropped on our plans, then he’d hidden in one of the vans at Dora’s house, intending to go to the boardinghouse and move the Woputs himself, thereby erasing the many stains to his honor.
“And would you have come back with the Woputs, Prince Sahir?” Brother Red asked him. “And if so, would you have left the control for your friends? Or would you have abandoned them where they were to return to your own time alone? To tell whatever story you would.”
Sahir looked at the sky and did not answer, which led us to believe we already knew the answer.
The countess was much saddened by all this. I knew she had liked Sahir. But then, some males are pleasant in a sexual way when they have nothing else at all to recommend them. I suppose the same is true of females. The following morning, after many surprises, the countess remarked as much to me, over tea.
During all this, I continued to notice the regard which the brothers gave to our human travelers, to Dora particularly. They were so intent upon her that it made her nervous. “It’s like walking through a prison,” she whispered to us. “All those men, eating you up with their eyes!”
“Perhaps it is somewhat similar,” said the countess. “They have been here, without female companionship, for a very long time. And, as I have heard Abby remark, you are very attractive, Dora.”
By this time, the reality of the situation was beginning to sink in on both the humans, and their initial confusion was giving way to a kind of despair. They understood that all of us had lives to go back to or forward to, except themselves. When this was finally said, openly, by Dora herself, Brother Red contradicted her. There was a place for her, he said. She could live among her kind at Chamony.
“At Chamony?”
They described it, the orchards, the fountains, the pleasant leas, the little houses, so cozy. The children…
“Abby and I could go there?”
No, said the brothers, Abby could not be allowed to stay with her there.
She demanded explanation, of course, which was forthcoming. The brothers explained fully what they had only hinted at previously, in great detail with many statistics and talk of genetics, and how she was still young enough to have ten or twelve children, or even more. During this lecture, Dora fell into a long, twitchy silence which I thought betokened dismay but instead erupted in a seething ire that escalated into pure rage.
“So you’d have me be a slooge!” she screamed at Brother Red. “A brood mare, a bitch dropping a litter, a breeding sow!”
The countess cringed, for this was very dirty language.
Dora plunged on: “Well let me tell you this, you male chauvinist…person! I would rather die!”
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” said Brother Red in a tight, angry voice. “We did prefer that you help us voluntarily.”
Abby turned quite red. “Do you mean to tell me you’ll make her go there whether she wants to or not? Make her…breed? Whether she wants to or not?”
“We have no choice.”
“But that’s quite immoral,” said the countess. “Quite improper. After all she has done for us—”
“For you!” cried Brother Red. “Yes, for you! Not for us! Not for humanity! I’m sorry, but we’ve voted on it. Abby may do as he likes, but Dora must go to Chamony.”
She rose, pale as ashes. “I’ll leave here now.”
“You can’t. The road is guarded. The cliffs are impassible.”
She looked around at the Weelians. So did the rest of us. They all had that peculiar expression, a kind of sickly lustful determination, like a child stealing candy and quite determined to be as bad and make itself as miserable as possible. Even if they were sickly, however, there were too many of them for us to fight. And they probably had weapons, which we had not. After a moment, without a word, Dora and Abby went out of the courtyard in the direction of the stables.
Brother Red was looking at his shoes, his mouth pursed up.
“If Korè rules this world,” said Izzy, “I see why she chooses to let you Weelians go extinct. You’re not fit to live.”
“We have as much right to survive as you do,” said the Weelian stubbornly.
“Survival schmurvival,” Izzy snarled. “Who says you need to survive? Leave it to the rest of us tribes, we’re doing all right. By and large we show more tolerance and acceptance and good sense than humans like you! We don’t force our females to have babies. Go extinct! I quite frankly don’t care! Faros VII will probably do far better with the world than you ever did!”
“Haven’t we suffered enough?” cried Brother Red. “Don’t we deserve a chance?”
“As Korè wills,” cried the countess. “You claim to be Korèsans. Why don’t you put yourself in Her hands and let it be. As Korè wills!” Her voice reverberated in the walled courtyard, sending echoes across the mountain. She had spoken very, very loudly, and from her mouth the name of the goddess seemed to take on a resonance of its own, coming back at us from a great distance. “Korè…ay…ay…ay.”
From outside the courtyard someone else cried that name as well. “Korè…ay…ay…ay.” It must have been an echo, but it silenced us. Or perhaps it was the countess who had silenced us.
After a time, the Weelians left us alone, and we began to talk of helping Dora escape. Or sending a mission to Chamony to rescue her after she’d been taken there. Or getting Faros to send an army to Chamony to conquer it. Or, or, or. Before we knew it, it was night, and we all retreated to the dormitory to whisper to Abby and Dora what we’d been talking of.
“I won’t go to Chamony,” said Dora.
“They’ll force you,” I said.
“I won’t go,” said Dora. “Don’t worry about it.”
I told the countess I was afraid Dora was going to harm herself, so the countess went to talk with her. All she would do was repeat that she wasn’t going to Chamony, and that made us more worried than if she’d cried and yelled. She sounded so very grim and determined.
Most of us went to sleep, but I couldn’t. When Abby and Dora went outside into the night, I sneaked after them, just to be sure nothing bad happened to them.
“I never could have imagined this, not in a thousand years,” said Abby. He put his arms around her tenderly, and she laid her head on his shoulder.
A lantern hung in the gateway, and I could see the tears on her face reflecting its light, threads of gold spun out across her cheeks. She rubbed at them with the backs of her hands.
“I wish I hadn’t said no that night,” she said. “I thought I’d have all the time in the world to get to know you. But after that we were never really alone, and now…”
“Now we can’t let it happen,” he said desperately. “There has to be a way out of this….”
They murmured, then, and I crept away, back to my bed. It wasn’t fair to eavesdrop on them. Eventually, I fell asleep. Later in the night I woke to find them gone.
I went out into the night. Afar, up the cliff on the other side of the chasm, there were torches. I heard shouts, a scream. It was Dora’s voice. That roused us all, and we were sitting angrily on the sides of our beds when a group of the Weelians came into the dormitory with Dora and Abby held fast among them. They had tried to climb the chasm and had been caught.
The countess went to them. I heard them murmuring together. After the countess went back to bed, I heard Dora and Abby sneak out once more. I started to go after them, thinking they were going to try another escape, but then I heard their voices in the stable, next door, and realized they only wanted to be alone.
The next morning, Brother Red announced that he was sending Dora away that morning.
“No, you will not,” she cried. Her face looked carved from stone. “You will do nothing of the kind. You will accept your fate as Korè has determined it, and you will stop perpetuating your sickly selves on the face of this earth.”
We had never seen a human in what the countess called a righteous rage. It was very impressive.
“Come,” said Brother Red. “Tie her up.”
Two of the Weelians came from the stable carrying straps with buckles, and I realized they were going to put her in umminhi harness. She began to laugh, chokingly, and Abby picked up a rock from the ground and held it, poised. The rest of us were petrified, unable to think what we could do or say. We didn’t have a chance to decide, for there came a loud shattering sound at the stable, then the shoof shoof of shod feet, then the creak of the gate at the entrance to the courtyard.
There the biggest umminhi stallion stood, with glaring eyes and flowing hair, his teeth bared, mouth open, nostrils flared angrily, completely loose, no bridle, no bit, no hobbles, those deadly forelegs clenched in our direction. Behind him were the other umminhi, a full dozen of them, all their eyes wild as they looked about at the Weelians, their gaze coming at last to rest on Dora….
; We were afraid to move.
“Dora,” the stallion said. “Abby. You were right. The time has come. You in the black skirt! Put down that harness or I’ll make you eat it!”
45
Opalears: A Twig on the Tree
Of all those assembled in the courtyard, it was probably the brothers who were most distressed, disturbed, driven out of countenance and out of control. They screamed and shook, a few tried to fight and several of them peed themselves, but the umminhi simply rushed into the courtyard, knocked some of them down, pushed some others over, took the harness away from the brother who was holding it, then herded all the brothers into the wagon barn and shut the door on them. One of the umminhi stayed there on guard, and when the others left, Abby and Dora rose without a word to any of us and went out to the stable with them. Dora was in tears but seemed very little surprised. Those of us left behind were in a state very much like hysteria.
Even the countess was out of herself. And Sahir? Well, if anyone could have been more upset than the brothers, it was Sahir, who came unhinged and began bouncing off the walls, shrieking at the top of his lungs. I imagine he would have felt less threatened if a veeble had stood upon its hind legs and hit him in the face.
Even though, remembering Honey, I may have felt slightly more kindly toward umminhi than the others did, I knew how they felt. All people in our time felt the same way. Umminhi were dirty. They were treacherous. They were sexually depraved, mating constantly, in any season. They smelled. They were said to attack female riders, or sometimes male ones. They were expensive to breed, expensive to maintain, hard to train.
And they were stupid. So we all said. So we all had said, for generations. Whenever we felt insecure about ourselves, we could look at the difference between ourselves and umminhi and know we were blessed. We, the tribes, were the end result of evolution, but they, the umminhi were merely creatures, prunable twigs from the family tree. Perhaps that is why we kept them, just so we could feel our own superiority.