The Best of All Possible Worlds (33 page)

“It’s the settlement’s first funeral,” I murmured.

“Yes. And there will be more, in time. That is the point. These young men must learn
to face death again.”

“But couldn’t they at least have waited till we knew for sure?” I demanded.

She shrugged. “They have no reason to believe in miracles.”

“
I
do,” I said fiercely.

There was, however, a limit to the sympathy Nasiha and I could share. Thank God for
Freyda Mar, because we exchanged a single glance across the crowded room, made our
excuses, then went together to a private corner, fell into each other’s arms, and
wept silently for fifteen minutes or so.

“How did you know?”
I asked her when we had both composed ourselves.

She smiled ruefully. “Lanuri says that when I want a hug but I’m afraid to ask for
it, I clasp my hands behind my back. You’ve been gripping your wrists for the past
hour now.”

I had been trying to avoid even the sight of Dllenahkh, afraid to ask him if he had
any news, afraid to glimpse something in his eyes that might destroy my hope, but
when she said that, I had a yearning to go find him. He seemed to know I wanted him,
because the moment I looked in his direction, he disengaged himself from a knot of
grim-faced councillors and came toward me.

“Delarua,” he said abruptly, “where are you staying?”

“Dr. Lanuri’s residence. I’m going back to the City with Freyda tomorrow, when she’s
finished her rounds,” I replied.

“Come back with me now.”

“Okay,” I said immediately.

On the way there he explained to me what needed to be done. “Naraldi does not wish
to involve himself directly, nor does he wish the Consulate to be implicated in any
way. I have the reassembled comm. He wants you to take it and wait at your apartment.
Someone will come to you at the designated time.”

I looked at him, looked at him
properly
, and dared to allow myself to feel.

“When did you sleep last?” I asked quietly.

He glanced aside in that way he had when he was hesitating to speak the truth. “I—”

How many times had we slept in a groundcar on autopilot? Too many times. I touched
the controls, darkening the windows and adjusting the seating. “Take a nap. We can
talk when we get to the City.”

We lay down side by side. Dllenahkh started to move, hesitated, and then reached out
to place his hand gently on the side of my face, reminding me of the time he had helped
heal me. Instead of the expected delicate brush, a heavy warmth poured into my brain.
It felt like nothing I’d experienced with him before.

“What are you doing?” I asked, holding very still.

“Making sure you won’t forget
anything
,” he replied in a near whisper.

I would have questioned him further, but before I could, I fell into a deep sleep.

And so, the following
day, the eighth day after meeting with the Consul, I nervously waited in my apartment,
holding the comm in my hand. I didn’t know what to expect. Would there be a mundane
buzz at my door? Would the heavens open and the earth shake? I knew neither
who
nor how in this adventure, and the only thing that was keeping me sitting expectantly
in my living room was faith.

The reality was somewhere between the two extremes of my imagination.

First there was a voice, a very ordinary voice except for the fact that it seemed
to be coming out of thin air. It said simply, “Naraldi sent me.”

Then I blinked—and there it was. I jumped out of my chair. It
was too bizarre to inspire awe. I had never seen a Sadiri mindship in real life, but
I knew their look, something like a manta ray, very smooth and dark and naturally
designed to slip through any tear in the fabric of space-time. Not only was this like
nothing I had imagined, I was sure it was like nothing anyone had imagined. It kept
to the oceanic theme, at least, for it resembled the keel of a boat, all carved and
sanded wood in the shape of a high, curving bow. But there was no boat, only a tall
figure wearing a close-fitting metallic jumpsuit and a helmet, with one hand resting
on the wood as if keeping the keel upright.
Was
there an invisible boat attached? I stared.

“Oh, good. You didn’t scream, or fall down, or run away.” The voice was slightly muffled
at the beginning, and then the shining helmet was removed to reveal an equally shining
face and a wide, white cloud of hair.

I quickly revised my interpretation of what I was seeing. “I should,” I said reproachfully
to the gilded stranger. “You’re naked.”

He looked down nervously, then gave me a stern look. “Don’t scare me like that. I
haven’t lost pubic sphincter control since I was twelve.”

“Oh?” I said faintly.

A worried expression came over his face. “That was a joke. Please don’t take me seriously.
Pubic sphincter. As if there could be such a thing.” He gave a short, awkward laugh,
then shut up and looked at me sheepishly.

The conversation was getting away from me, getting away from any semblance of common
sense, in fact, so I tried to bring it back under control. “I’m Grace Delarua. How
do you do?” I said, stepping forward and holding out my hand.

The stranger eyed my hand, then looked at me doubtfully. He
put his helmet back on, this time with the faceplate open, and reached out to me.
“Well, if you’re sure.”

It was only in the moment when the brass-bright skin touched mine that it struck me
why this would be a bad idea. Too late. The world vanished. I shut my eyes tightly
and tried to scream, but it wasn’t working.

The stranger’s voice rang clearly in my head, sounding disconcertingly like my own
tone and rhythm and idiolect. “You can call me Sayr, by the way. I didn’t think you’d
want to travel with me. I just came to get the comm so I’d have a point of reference,
but this way’s good too.”

“Ahhhhh!” I finally managed to make some noise. It echoed so loudly that I opened
my eyes immediately. There was nothing before me but a pure, rich darkness that made
me welcome the solid feel of rock under my feet, because without it I would have imagined
myself floating in outer space. Suddenly, a glow appeared to my left, making me jump.
Sayr’s entire arm had gone luminescent, and he was studying a faint overlay of lines
on it. For a bemused instant, I wondered why he was looking at his veins, and then
I realized it was a map.

“So this is where you were when you saw the light come through. Hmm. The terrain has
changed quite a bit. Would you like to try calling your friends?”

I hesitated: one second to understand that I was on the other side of the world, once
more underground in the abandoned city; two seconds to wonder whether Sayr was human
or machine or both; and one more second to remember and be grateful for Fergus’s comm
still held tightly in my left hand. I turned it on, fumbled with the lit control panel,
and selected Lian’s ID.

“
Unavailable. Leave a message.”

It wasn’t even Lian’s voice, just the generic recording. I held
the comm out mutely to Sayr. His eyes widened and glittered in the dark, reflecting
the glow of the comm display.

“I’ve found them,” he said.

The comm went dark as the connection cut out, and for a moment I was convinced I was
alone in the dark. Then I told myself not to be silly. As if Sayr would leave me alone
in a derelict mine with an active volcano rumbling nearby. That would be irresponsible.
He was probably in deep thought or something. I tried to be quiet so as not to disturb
him.

His voice rang out so close, so sudden, that I almost fell down in sheer fright. “Sorry
I didn’t take you, but it’s easier when there aren’t any collective memories—”

“What? You
left
me here?” I squeaked. It was too much. I immediately began to hyperventilate.

Bright sunlight seared my vision, and icy air pricked my skin. I gasped and screwed
up my face, but at least the shock put an end to my dry sobbing. When I was finally
able to squint my eyes open again, it was to see Sayr standing close to his keel,
one hand in the usual rest position on his transport and the other patting me reassuringly
on the shoulder.

“Look,” he urged. “There they are. They’re calling Emergency Services now. Everything
will be fine.”

We were on a hill, where exactly I wasn’t sure, but it was cold enough that I knew
we were still near the polar regions. There were indeed two figures, tiny in the distance,
heartwarmingly familiar and blessedly alive. They sat huddled together, arms around
each other. I stopped shivering with cold for a moment to shiver with pure joy.

I had no more time to be sentimental. In another twinkling of an eye, we were back
in my living room.

“Thanks for the experience. Sorry I can’t stay longer.” His
face went from friendly to serious, and I knew what was coming next.

“Wait!” I wailed. “Before you wipe my memory, can’t I ask you some questions? A question?
Just one question, please?”

Sayr paused, eyeing me warily as if suspecting me of employing delaying tactics, which
might have been partly true. “What would be the point if you can’t remember the answer
anyway?”

“I’d have a sense of satisfaction,” I said, guessing wildly. “That would be enough.”

“Let me hear the question,” he said, still wary.

I took a deep breath. This was my chance to find out the meaning of life.

“Is it true that the Caretakers save people who are essential to the human race?”
The words were rushed and inelegant, but I couldn’t risk waiting in case he changed
his mind.

Fortunately, the query appeared to interest him. “That’s a complicated question. It
has a complicated answer to go with it.”

“That’s fine,” I said encouragingly. I sat down in a chair and raised my hands hopefully,
trying to project the image of a supplicant who would be grateful for the merest scrap.

His face relaxed, slightly amused at my eagerness. “I’m going to tell you in such
a way that you’ll remember the answer but not the question or the asking of it.”

I suppressed a wriggle of excitement that would have been most unbecoming to my mature
years. He left the keel standing by itself at the edge of the room, settled himself
cross-legged on the floor, and began.

“In the beginning, God created human beings, which is to say God put the ingredients
together, embedded the instructions for building on the template, and put it all into
four separate eggs marked ‘Some Assembly Required.’

“One egg was thrown down to Sadira. There humanity grew to revere and develop the
powers of the mind. Another egg was sent to Ntshune, and the humans who arose there
became adept at dealing with matters of the heart. A third egg arrived at Zhinu, and
there the focus was on the body, both natural and man-made. The last egg came to Terra,
and these humans were unmatched in spirit. Strong in belief, they developed minds
to speculate and debate, hearts to deplore and adore, and bodies to craft and adapt.
Such were their minds, hearts, and bodies that they soon began to rival their elder
siblings.

“When the children of God saw the Terrans and their many ways of being human, they
were both impressed and appalled. Some declared, ‘See how they combine the four aspects
of humanness! Through Terra, all will be transformed—Sadira, Ntshune, and Zhinu—into
one harmonious whole.’ Others predicted, ‘How can any group survive such fragmentation?
They will kill one another, and the rest of humanity will remain forever incomplete.’

“After some discussion, it was decided to seal off Terra from the rest of the galaxy
until Terran civilization reached full maturity. It was also decided to periodically
save them from themselves by placing endangered Terrans where they could flourish
and begin to mix with other humans.”

He smiled as he concluded, “And that, my dear, is five creation myths for the price
of one. Are you satisfied?”

“That’s a child’s bedtime story,” I said, but not too critically, because I’d actually
enjoyed it.

Sayr shrugged. “Doesn’t make it any less true.”

“Are
you
a child of God?” I asked, keeping my tone light and conversational.

He didn’t buy it. “Aren’t we all? One question only, my dear. Now, if you’ll forgive
me, this won’t take a second.”

There was a silence. Sayr began to frown. I looked at him anxiously, baffled at his
growing irritation.

“I see you’ve been memory-protected,” Sayr sniffed. “This is such a difficult time
period to work in. You people know too much already, and you always want to know more.
You’ll have to come with me.”

“No!” I insisted, beginning to panic again. “I’m home and safe, and I’m not going
anywhere else with you and that … thing!”

Frustration edged his voice. “Stop hyperventilating. You know I won’t force you to
come with me. But you leave me with no choice. I’m sorry, but I’ll have to do it the
old-fashioned way.”

He stood up, glaring at me, but the glare transformed once more into that sheepish
expression. “You … you wouldn’t happen to have any alcohol handy, would you?”

I had two bottles. One was a lovely, light, triple-distilled spirit made with honey,
spices, and herbs that I’d picked up on my travels and was saving for a special occasion.
The other was an utterly miserable sherry that someone had given me in one of those
office gift exchange things about two years previously. I punished Sayr by making
him drink one glass of sherry for every two glasses of spirits he had me guzzle. Unfortunately
for my thirst for vengeance, I was only able to force him to endure two glasses. After
that, I was hugging the bottle with one arm and holding him with the other, and I
was far too cheerful to care when he danced us closer to the keel and got his hand
onto it.

The room vanished, to be replaced by another, unfamiliar room, dimly lit and exuding
the stillness of a workplace in after-hours mode. I stumbled forward, unsupported,
my gentle abductor having absconded for parts unknown. To my great relief, there was
another body nearby to lean on. Dllenahkh was there to meet me. He greeted me warmly—yes,
warmly! I know
what the word means! He hugged me! Or helped me stand upright. Maybe. But he was happy!
He was practically burning with it. You can’t mistake something like that. Then I
looked around and was moved to comment.