Moonstar (19 page)

“Release, sweet release—

“I shook my head to clear it—I was somewhere close and stuffy. I wonder if I've lost my soul, it felt like it—part of me, at least, was embedded in that larger thing.. There was a resonance—a recognition—something disjointed here—let me get it straight—while I'd lived—I mean, I lived—within that whirlwind, I was the larger me, I knew who I was meant to be; I touched a truth! It was knowledge inaccessible in day light, it was fragile even in the night—and yet, I'd known it like a beacon! Fulfillment, it was worth it! For one bright and fragile moment, a crystalline and singing instant, we'd each believed we could insert ourselves so far into the magic that it would protect us from the morning doomed to follow. A godling, yes—oh, yes, a godling; a moving pattern of allures—the forbidden knowledge of oneself that can turn one mad with truth—it echoed in my skull; there'd been this pack, they had identity and I had none, I had Enchantment—which I shared with them—we ignited into something larger, that was the godling—and something else as well, I gave them something else—I couldn't quite remember—but—what had happened, it had used us, driven us like hurricanes—? Godlings often do that—I think—but it was the other thing we'd carried, gestating and growing deep inside, until we gave it birth—that something else (what was it?) that was the thing that used us. Something was born last night; a selfish thing, and hungry. We'd tried to ride a soaring dream, each hoping that its ultimate release would be echoed in our own—that thing had cheated us; it gave us neither, not release nor satisfaction—only left our hunger unfulfilled while it fed its own—it couldn't even give us hope without it souring to frustration. This thing, it came from—someone's needs, but it fed on all of us—and when it finished feeding on our souls, when it could feed no more, it let us go; released us to the night as we'd released it to the world.

“A godling is a goodness—this thing wasn't; it had only used the godling for its darker need. A godling is a moment, self-alive, larger than its parts—it happens spontaneously, sparking alive whenever any mass of people all begin to think and move as one, that's a godling—the pack had been one forming. Sometimes a godling happens viciously; more often it's for love or fun; but always as a reflection of its parts, and much more than the sum of all of them. One taste of it is half enough to send one searching for the other members of the mass, as if trying to reassemble all the organs in a body in the hope the spirit it had housed would somehow return and rekindle it to life—as if the next time that it lived, we would succeed and it would take us with it. Godlings are always short-lived beings—but last night's thing had craved for immortality—there'd been a rottenness within it—something small and evil, which began within the pack, grew up within the godling—like a grub inside a rind fruit, growing till it was the only thing alive inside the swollen skin, fat and oily—looking like a godling, but it was a maggot-thing instead—a huuru thing—we had birthed it! A huuru is like something large that passed through the night and breath-space from your bed, uncaring as it moves with purpose of its own—it can kill you or ignore you, it doesn't care—when it gets hungry, it feeds on human souls—that was the thing we'd birthed and turned loose upon the world; it had been born within—myself, I think; a seed within my madness, magnified within the pack. It took the pack, the godling, all my madness, it took me—that huuru thing, it fed on us to grow, and left us all as hollow shells and empty faces. I'd thought the pack had fed on me, but I—the thing that I'd released—had fed on them instead—some year to come, I'd know the fruits of this seed I'd planted—something dreadful growing, a piece of huuru here on Satlin, a whirlwind of the dead. It waited somewhere on the other side of life for the moment when it could return and feed some more—and next time it would be mature and wanting more than just a scattering of children—next time it would take everything—next time the huuru hungered, it would do so in a wild mob of mad and searing anger.

“That was the vision that I saw as the fragments fluttered down, each fiery ember was a piece of something broken, dying—a firework fast fading in a cold light. The darkday was a silver one—just two moonstars lit it lopsidedly, then phased and faded as the light that they reflected turned into the east; darkdays always went from west to east, faint shadows turned in opposition, east to west—and we wound down as the night returned—I've been here before—we ceased our reveries in startlement and wonder, we were a trickling of tributaries, remnants of a headlong torrent, we moved in chilly, bleary, apathetic daze and crawled into a shrouded shelter, a long abandoned humble near the docks. With bodies oiled by sweat in grimy beads, but still perfumed, still painted with the colors of our vacant joys and fading roles, we twined into each other's limbs, hoping still to stretch the night forever, even though we knew it was already gone, and slowly, fitfully, began to fall asleep. Someone fondled me for a while, I might have fondled back, but nothing more occurred. In the corner two young Dakka-blushlings fucked quietly, compulsively—and with that, I knew the pack itself was dying—another victim of the bloody birth. They fucked not so much for pleasure, I suspect, as for the release from consciousness that exhaustion soon would bring. I fell asleep.

“In the morning, I awoke, half-alone. Some of the group was gone. Some still slumbered. The pack-identity had died sometime during the night—the group-self was gone, we were just a mass of dirty adolescents, embarrassed individuals who knew too much about each other now. I was wide awake and cured of my Enchantment, feeling gritty in the glaring day. Dawning sunday already—? I realized how bad we all must look and smell to one another. We'd shared too much, no wonder godlings were short-lived—they burned out their component souls. I looked for my case and couldn't find it, could not remember where I'd left it, left the shelter mumbling, trying to shake the echoes of the drugs and scents we'd taken.

“Outside, the world felt different, so did I—although everything still seemed the same, rushing and confused—I could not remember where I'd been or what I'd done. My head was filled with darkly whirling thoughts, selfish ones—and pain and terror too—the price of last night's revelry. I wanted to cry, but my eyes refused to flow with tears. I wanted to pray to Reethe, or Dakka even—anyone—I wished for stronger gods to pray to—but I feared the strongest was the huuru thing that I'd imagined in our godling; the thought of it was fading even now—or was that one of its tricks? I wanted to hide in Mother Reethe, but I feared that she would turn her back on me this baleful morning, so appalled at what I'd done. I'd become the single thing I feared the most—a thing whose sex and selfishness stood between her and the Tau—all those bodies that I'd slept with—I'd let my momentary need take precedence above the gods—I felt used and guilty and ashamed—I felt burned out in the acrid light, with no one, not even gods, to turn to. I had not value as a soul now; because of things I'd been and done, any spirit that I'd had was all used up and gone. I doubted I would ever feel anything again. I had no strength with which to heal.

“But I found a shadowed alley, and a step to sit upon. I put my head between my knees, and my arms around myself, and I sat there for a long, long time. Finally, I tried to pray. ‘Please don't hate me, Mother Reethe, I know how wrong I've been. I've been stupid and selfish and I've used my body for pleasure and self-gratification—but please don't turn your back on me. I need you more now than I've ever needed anything. Please—if there is anything left of my soul that has any value, let me escape from this awful place while I still have will to do so. I ask for nothing more than that, just the knowledge that you care enough to let me go home.' I wanted to say, ‘Please give me some support so I may be a part of you again,' but I feared that would be asking for too much—perhaps there wasn't enough of me worthy of her support; perhaps I was so fouled now she could not accept me in herself. No, all I wanted was escape. Redemption was beyond me.

“It's said the Holy Mother hears all prayers; no one's soul is ever too far eaten to be ignored by her. If you have the will to pray, then there is something there worth touching, and she will, in her own way, reach out. Even praying, it is said is enough to make you part of her great flows. I hoped that they were right—what good were gods if they weren't there when you needed them? ‘Mother Reethe, I need your help.'

“Nothing seemed to happen—except I grew a little calmer; that was something anyway. After a while, I moved on. What kind of answer I'd been hoping for, I didn't know—but I heard no answer in that alley. All that came to me was the realization that if the Holy Mother wouldn't help me, I would have to help myself. Somehow.

“Somehow I made it to the docks—they were as frantic as ever. I no longer had a sense of mission, though; I was resigned to my frustration, and I moved in apathy. If escape was possible for me, it would happen; and if it wasn't, then it wouldn't. I went to the docks because it was the only place I knew to go.

“And there I found a clipper, her masts tall against the western sky, her sails furled and waiting. She was anchored just offshore while her shuttles landed for supplies. Her long white hull bulked high above the waves, almost as high as she was wide, and I admired her from a distance without hope. She was one more vessel destined for the east, of course—but when I inquired of her sailors, they told me she was steaming for the south; they were hurrying, a long and treacherous passage lay ahead of them, their destination was the Polar Circle. The clipper was the Swale Friend, her passengers were mostly scientists, but there were some aboard who were both rich and scared, the owners of the vessel and their friends. The scientists wanted to study the effects on certain radiations at the south magnetic core. The others, the wealthy, frightened ones, believed that the inertia of the icecap and its massive weather envelope would protect them from disruptions of heat and wind alike. Polar days are never eclipsed anyway; whatever happened to the global bio-circle, surely the icecaps would remain secure; the temperature might rise a degree or two, or it might plunge a bit, but neither rise nor plunge would be as severe as might be experienced elsewhere. Thus they would escape the heat-storm, so they thought.

“Somehow I talked my way aboard that ship—I'd learned that I had something I could bargain with—my body. Oh, Mother Reethe; is this the price? Although it is unfashionable to admit is since the Erdik came, children in the glow of blush are considered quite desirable as bedmates—and that was me. There is no shame in sharing joy with younglings in the prime of blush, it is an honor to help one shape her Choice; but the Erdik taught us shame, pretending that children don't feel, and therefore it is wrong to share your feelings with them. So we did it without admitting that we did it.

“I didn't feel shame, though, not then, not later on—after the night before, I couldn't feel shame about anything; I didn't have anything left to feel with anyway, so I don't apologize for what I did. It was escape—whether it was sent by Reethe or impish Dakka, it doesn't matter, it was escape and I took it.

“I had never thought I was attractive, but apparently I was to someone; I was blushing, and there were those who wanted to put their arms around a youngling and hold her and share the mysteries of Choice again. And that was me—I let another sailor use me. I met a young one, not too pretty, and not too considerate either; but she listened to my story and when I begged her please to take me aboard the ship, I'd do anything if she would, she did. They had to stop at Cameron, and from there I could get home. I'd do anything—

“And so, she took me. She used me for two nights, then grew tired of my poor enthusiasm and passed me to another sailor, who was older, Dakkarik, and more tender; and who, for a while, I thought I loved—not in the sense of loving as in lovers, but at least in the sense that we were honest about the ways that we would use each other's bodies. And we both were very thoughtful of each other's needs, as if recognizing that we had not choice; the alternative was to rage within that narrow cabin. But I was on the ship at least.

“There were other sailors who had brought their lovers, both Dakkarik and Rethrik, but the others had their own community and regarded me as an outsider and an interloper, a common harlot who slept her way from port to port, who did not really love the sea. If I was not a harlot yet, then surely that was what I was destined to become. They ridiculed me and gave me pain; I would have hid in the cabin to stay away from them, but we shared it with two others who slept in it when we did not, and so I had to spend my days up on the deck and at the mercy of those scorn-filled, hostile others. How I ached to show them they were wrong—but every word I spoke only served to prove them right. In their eyes I was stupid and naive, idealistic, inexperienced, selfish, and worst of all, I'd come from a better family than theirs—that most of all, they would not forgive. I hid up in the bow and tried to keep apart. I felt despaired and dirty, I felt fouled because they treated me as something loathsome—as if confirming a bitter judgment of my own. Well, I was a thing of ugliness and shame, wasn't I? I cried a lot at night. I tried to tell myself that they were jealous of my more noble breeding and my education and the fact that I would leave this ship while their lives were bound to it forever, but it was a lonely reassurance at the best, and it was too easy to accept their perceptions as the right ones—they'd elected me untouchable, a deviate, a freak, and there was nothing I could do or say that would not prove it more so in their eyes. My sailor, named Dew-Ayne, tried to understand and comfort me—‘You're something special, sweet one,” she'd say. ‘Don't listen to their words.' And then she'd touch my breasts, and I would cry again. She was puzzled by my tears—I cried too easily, it seemed to her; I needed to grow a callus on my soul, as she had done. The others never bothered her, she wasn't worth the teasing, it rolled off her like water off an oilskin; but that protection could not extend to me. Her ways of comforting always led back to the dance of love and lust—its motions are the same no matter what emotions are expressed. I could not blame her; her skills were not of people, but of sails and knots and seas and winds. She was a slow-thinking soul who could not tell the difference between love and lust and sex, to her they were the same. Her life had been a battered one, so she took what joys she could and didn't question, and continued trying to continue. I was an altar on which she longed to worship, little more than that. If the altar would not work, if it cried and seemed distraught, then she would stroke and comfort it until it calmed, became relaxed. Stroking was a prelude anyway—once that altar was no longer crying, then it could be used as Reethe intended, and she did. Except that it was being used that way that so distressed me.