The Summer Queen (13 page)

The Winters embraced most of her proposals with an enthusiasm
that made up for the Summers’ reluctance. Often they were eager to a fault,
vying for the opportunity to exploit the mineral rights of their plantations,
or have new laboratories and prototype manufactories constructed there. Today
they were pressing the Queen for a decision on building a dam and power station
north of the city.

“... that it would allow us to progress much faster if we
have adequate power for the new factories—” Gaddon Overhill was saying,
speaking with staccato urgency, as usual. “And it won’t foul the air or pollute
the seas—”

“But a dam will flood lands—mostly Summer lands—that are
used for farming and herding,” Dal Windward objected.

Overhill waved a hand dismissively. “Those lands are
scarcely fit to support either crops or grazing. Small loss.”

“To you. maybe. Winter!” the Goodventure representative
said. “Someone has to provide food for all you fools while you neglect your own
plantations, to play with your new inventions.”

“Stick to the sea, then, that you Summers love so much,”
Sewa Stormprince answered. “‘The Sea will provide,’ as you always like to say.
And this won’t pollute it.”

“The Sibyl College has consulted the net on the matter.” The
Queen raised her voice to silence them, as she frequently had to do. The
Summers resisted rules of order, and the Winters would not let the Summers
outshout them. “Danaquil Lu Wayaways will give you its findings.”

“Rubbish and lunacy,” Borah Clearwater muttered, to the room
at large.

Danaquil Lu took a deep breath, and a last look at his
prepared notes, before he lifted his eyes to the expectant faces of the Council.
“The data received in Transfer from the sibyl net indicate that such a project
is unfeasible, for a number of reasons—” He pressed on, through suddenly rising
protests. “The primary reason we have for recommending against the dam project
is that it would, as the Summers claim, render a substantial amount of land
unavailable. On top of that, our ability to construct such a dam with complete
safety, even with blueprints and material specifications provided by the net,
is uncertain at this point in our development. It has to function not only
through the relatively mild weather of High Summer, when free-flowing water is
plentiful, but also the intense and extended cold of High Winter, when
everything is frozen. We don’t have a great margin for error, unlike a lot of worlds—”

“Lady and all the gods,” Overhill interrupted. “How are we
ever going to get past ‘this point’ if we don’t take some chances’.”

“The sibyl mind is guiding us.” The Queen cut him off almost
sharply; something she would not have had the confidence to do two or three
years ago. She had become surer in her leadership as she had grown used to
being Queen; and as it became clear to everyone that the sibyl net, which she
relied on as faithfully as if it really were the Sea Mother’s voice, was as
omniscient as any goddess when it came to what was wisdom or folly for her
people. “It has shown us that our world is barely habitable, by the standards
of most worlds human beings live on. We must make technological progress if we
are ever to have an easier, safer life here. But we still have nearly a century
before the Hegemony returns, and the sibyl mind is showing us the straightest.
swiftest course to our future. Without its guidance, we would not have achieved
a tenth of what we have done so far. We have to trust it, or we’ll end up destroying
our world, instead. Therefore, in this matter I support the Summers.”

“Then where will we get a new source of energy for our manufactories?”
Overhill demanded.

“If you will let Danaquil Lu Wayaways finish his report,”
the Queen said, with faint impatience, “then you will see that there are
alternative solutions.” Overhill settled back into his seat, into silence, as
she glanced at Danaquil Lu,

“An alternative method of generating power has been offered
to us,” Danaquil Lu went on, at her nod. “It involves using wind-driven
turbines, which can be put up in the fields and on hillsides without spoiling
them tor grazing or farming. The wind will provide all the energy we’ll need
for the next decade or so, and by then we may be able to construct tide-driven
turbines, and take our power directly from the sea. Carbuncle gets its power
that way, and its system has worked perfectly for centuries, ...”

“You’re talking about windmills?” Abbo Win Graymount said. “I’ve
seen one power a pump once or twice, but they could never produce the kind of
energy we need to run factories—not if you had half a million of them!”

“You’ve never seen one with this design,” Miroe Ngenet broke
in. “I’ve used them on my plantation for years. They’re far more efficient than
anything you’ve ever seen.” Graymount shrugged, dubious.

“We will begin developing detailed plans for the wind-power
project, and discuss location sites and materials at our next meeting. We may
be able to make use of supplies left behind by the offworlders in some of the
city warehouses,” the Queen said, looking relieved as the hubbub of discussion
faded to murmured speculation among the Winters, grudging silence among the
Summers.

Borah Clearwater muttered under his breath as Danaquil Lu
settled into a more comfortable position, relieved to be done with his command
performance. He was content to let the Queen’s other advisors handle all
further topics of discussion and debate. He sat, half-listening, half
preoccupied by his own pain, through a seemingly endless litany of old versus
new.

Kirard Set, who had sat waiting with serene anticipation all
the while Borah Clearwater simmered, spoke up at last, inquiring with subtle
confidence whether the Queen had considered the matter of his bid for the
latest refining operation, and the right-of-way across the Clearwater lands.

The Queen nodded. “Yes, Elder Wayaways,” she said, shuffling
through her sheaf of handwritten notes. “Your site seems ideal for the foundry,
especially since its location is so close to the source of iron ore. Your offer
to fund the initial construction work is very generous. I don’t see any
significant obstacles to granting your request. Does the Clearwater elder have
any objection to granting the needed right of way ... ‘?” She glanced around
the table. Danaquil Lu was not certain that whoever represented the Clearwater
clan was even present.

“I have an objection, damn it!” Borah Clearwater loomed up
suddenly beside him, glaring at Kirard Set. “It’s my plantation, and by all the
gods, 1 won’t have any Wayaways touching so much as a speck of dust on it!” He
turned toward the Queen as he spoke, bellowing as if she were halfway across
the planet, and not almost next to him. Danaquil Lu covered his ears.

The Queen looked up at him with a mixture of alarm and disbelief.
“But all that he requested was an easement—”

“Today! And tomorrow he’ll bribe you into—Get your hands off
me!” The last was directed toward the two city constables who had come in, at
Jerusha PalaThion’s summons, from their post outside the door. They took his
arms and led him forcibly out of the room, still protesting loudly.

Danaquil Lu let his hands fall into his lap. He shook his
head, meeting the Queen’s astonished stare as the room around them rippled with
relieved laughter. She looked away from him again, toward Kirard Set. “Your
request is granted, Elder Wayaways,” she said, with apparent calm and something
like satisfaction.

Kirard Set smiled, nodding his head in what appeared to be
grateful acknowledgment. But Danaquil Lu caught the gleam of knowing amusement
in his eyes as he looked at the Queen, a secret assumption of complicity that
the Queen’s expression did not return, or even seem to register. Danaquil Lu
looked away, glancing toward the empty doorway. It seemed to him that he still
heard Borah Clearwater’s voice echoing through the halls of the Sibyl College.

He pushed to his feet, slowly and awkwardly. Murmuring his
apologies to the Queen, he left the Council chamber by the same exit.

“Motherless blasphemer!” The shout came at her from some
shadowed doorway. A fishhead came with it, thudding against her shoulder.

Moon Dawntreader stopped walking and turned back, her eyes
burning. “Come out!” Her voice echoed along the almost-deserted street. “If you
have a criticism, say it to my face!” But whoever had hurled the insult and the
fishhead stayed hidden.

“Lady—?” Jerusha PalaThion asked the question with her motion
as she unslung the rifle from her shoulder. She glanced toward the silent
buildings gazing back at them with empty eyes.

Moon shook her head, putting her hand on the gun.

“What is it. Moon?” Fate Ravenglass turned toward their
voices, her own empty eyes moving restlessly, blindly.

“Nothing, Fate,” Moon murmured.

“Just some stinking Summer with fish for brains, losing
their mind,” Tor Starhiker, the fourth woman in their party, said sourly. She
took the blind woman’s arm, guiding her steps as they started on again.

Moon raised her hand, pulling down the smile that unexpectedly
tried to turn up the corners of her mouth. “The Summers have every right to
criticize me. Tor.” She felt the smile disappear. “They are my people. Don’t
insult them for it ... at least not in my hearing.” She looked down, fingered
the trefoil pendant that hung like a star against the dappled greens of her
robes. “Even when they deserve it.”

The stench of rotten fish filled her nose, as inescapable as
doubt, or truth. She glanced at the women who surrounded her. There was not a
Summer among them. She was not the Queen her people had expected when she was
chosen at the Change. And she was not the Lady they wanted—a symbolic avatar of
the Sea Mother, who would preside over their sacred rituals and safeguard their
cherished traditions. They had not asked for a Queen who needed and wielded
real power, one who believed that the ways of offworlders were superior to the
ways which had served them for centuries ... a Lady who did not even believe in
the Goddess.

They went on in silence until they reached the mouth of Olivine
Alley, one of the countless labyrinthine ways that branched off the rising
spiral of the Street, honeycombing the ancient shellform city of Carbuncle.
Moon looked down at her feet, shod in soft leather, moving over the smooth
surface of the pavement. The pavement was made from some material that never
seemed to decay, no matter how many footsteps, wheels, treads, or burdens
passed over its uniform surface.

She looked back down the alley, as they turned into the
Street, taking a final look at the Sibyl College, where they studied and labored
day after day to unlock the secrets of technology. She could still see the
alley’s end, where the transparent storm walls let in the sunset, the last
light of another day. The meeting with the Council had made this day run even
longer than most.

One more day was gone in which she had not accomplished all
she had hoped to; but still they were one day further along the path to real
knowledge, the way to her world’s future. She began to walk again, feeling her
weariness grow as they made their way on up the Street.

“This is where we get off. folks.”

Tor Starhiker’s voice startled her out of her reverie, and
she nodded. “Rest well. Fate,” she murmured. “We have a long way to go
tomorrow. Good night, Tor.” Their answers were equally subdued, as if her mood
had spread to them all. She went on with Jerusha at her side, her head still
echoing with the arguments of Winters and Summers, and with doubt.

Tor stood beside Fate with a hand resting on her arm, and
watched the Summer Queen go on her way toward the palace at Street’s End. “Must
have been a rough one,” she said, as much to herself as to the woman beside
her.

“About as usual,” Fate answered, with a sigh. “Council days
are always a trial. The ex-nobility’s eagerness to build a new world is matched
only by their eagerness to be the first and richest in it .... They argue
endlessly with the Summers, as if everything were some court pettiness over who
was the Snow Queen’s favorite this week. They don’t seem to realize that Moon
is not the old Queen—”

“Well, she looks just like her.” Tor said bluntly.

Fate sighed again, as they started on down the alleyway
toward her empty shop. “Yes, I remember ....” Tor looked at her. While the Snow
Queen ruled. Fate had possessed vision of a sort, using imported sensors; she
had been an artist, a professional maskmaker, the one chosen to make the Summer
Queen’s mask for the final Festival , .. the one who had placed it on Moon Dawntreader’s
head. But her vision had gone with the offworlders, like so much else that had
made both their lives bearable. Now at least Fate had found a new life in the
Sibyl College.

And Tor, who had been her acquaintance for many years, had
made a new life of a sort as her assistant. But the vacant trances of sibyls,
the endless questions that were all but meaningless to her, the stupid
wrangling among stupid aristos, still left her feeling cast-adrift. She was
glad enough to go on sharing in the lives of the powerful and important people
whose destiny she had been sucked into during the Change; what they believed
and what they were trying to do awed her, and at least they weren’t dull.

But her own life was dull. The present was still too much
like what she had expected it to be, inconvenient, narrow, stinking of fish.
She had spent her entire life’ before the Change doing the offworlders’ work;
she missed the past, with all its excesses and terrors. She had almost escaped
this future; nearly married an off worlder and gone offplanet with him. But
destiny had stepped into their path—other people’s destiny—sending her lover
Oyarzabal to prison with his employers and stranding her like an empty boat
when the Hegemony’s tide went out.