She didn’t believe his stories about danger from God’s Sky. That was an excuse for his ambition. The armies of the kembri-Itraiel would march over Geta with their weapons, uniting the planet for the Kaiel — and Aesoe would say that it was for the best. There was danger from the stars and we must unite now, not tomorrow. Hoemei was going to try to stop him and Hoemei would dissolve in the flash of sunfire.
“My honeycomb,” murmured Aesoe.
57
Be wary of the Death Rite for you become bonded forever to the one you challenge — whether death or survival is the outcome.
ONCE HE KNEW she was alive, he had been able to find her. That was the legend of Joesai. The clues were minor and unrelated but indicated that the Gentle Heretic was re-establishing tenuous contact with the coast.
A group of trackers followed one of her messengers over the hills to the south and east into a land that grew progressively more desolate, the gray and red rock surfaces harsher, bolder. Scrub retreated to shelter, then fought desperately to defend the shabby havens that chance provided. So much of Geta was like this, so much was far worse, yet who dared the really uninhabitable regions? Even the hermits stopped short of total barrenness. The messenger was taken prisoner just before he reached Oelita.
Joesai sat rooted behind a boulder, caught between the dried branches of a dead bush, watching her through the hand spy-eye made for him by his students at the observatory. He had her. The joy welled in him.
“She seems healthy,” he said to Eiemeni and the woman Riea.
“We observed children yesterday before you came up.”
“There can’t be children here!” Joesai exclaimed.
“Two of them. Very young.”
Joesai continued to watch patiently. She was bringing water to her garden patch. Where did she get it? Presently two little figures joined her. “My God, you’re right! Two! Wait until this evening. Kidnap them when it is darkest. She won’t know you are here. I’ll take care of her.”
He moved in silently, avoiding the line of sight. He was standing by her well, admiring it, before she noticed him. When he turned to look at her, she was frozen.
“You found me.” A stricken anguish filled her voice. He remembered that he had felt like that the moment he saw the dead body of his brother Sanan.
“I persist in my goals,” he said.
“Stay in the hut!” she shouted at the twins who were rushing to her for protection.
“The children will not be harmed,” he said.
“Are you going to kill me?”
“The Death Rite is a test, not an execution.”
“You have two more chances at me. That’s an execution,” she replied bitterly.
“One more chance. I read your last book. You believe in God now. You handled the challenge to your mind quite well. I admire you, Oelita.”
“What will happen to my children?” She was crying.
“Who is the father?”
“Hoemei.”
“My brother-husband’s children are safe.” He said that sharply.
“No they aren’t. You’ll take them to a butchery after you’ve killed me. They have Ainokie’s Curse.”
“No they don’t. I’ve seen them.”
“As a recessive.”
He shrugged. “That hardly bothers their kalothi. There’s a half and half chance that they don’t even carry it. When they are grown and wish children, if they have their children at a creche, that gene can be eliminated. The procedure is becoming standard among the Kaiel.” He glanced at the hut. “Go reassure them. They are frightened. They feel your fear.”
She went and he wandered through the small garden, marvelling.
When she returned the twins were quiet. Children who are afraid whine, but once they have felt the strength of their mother they can understand the necessity of silence. “Are you going to destroy my garden and see if we can survive that?”
“No,” he said.
“Tell me why you are here!”
He ignored her. “I’d forget how to talk if I lived in such a bleached place.”
“You learn its beauties. I’ve seen it when there were flowers.”
“Show me the cone. I’ve never climbed one of those.”
“So you can throw me off and see if I bounce?”
“Peace,” he said softly. “Peace, for now.” He found a stone and carried it with him to the hermit’s stairway. She followed him. He fitted it tightly into the new layer among the other stones aud mounted to the top. She climbed behind him but stayed out of pushing range.
“It’s quite a domain you have here.” His eyes swept the desolate hills and the distant mountains and the high whiffs of cloud. Scowlmoon was a broken orange rock on the horizon and Getasun blazed harshly. “I wouldn’t have lasted out here. I would have jumped into the well head first to drown myself.”
“You’d stick before you reached bottom,” she commented acidly. “Your hair wouldn’t even get wet.”
“If I lived out here, I’d be skinny.”
“My children are very good company. I don’t mind this desert, I love it.”
“How long do you plan to stay?”
“I don’t want my girl and boy ever to go near a temple.”
He worked his way down the spiral of the cone. “Do you think your children will ever have any trouble with the temples? With you as a mother and Hoemei as a father? Kalothi is hereditary, more or less.”
“How long are you going to stay? I want you to leave. This is my place.”
“I’m leaving when you come with me.”
“I’m not crazy!”
He laughed. “Yes, you are.”
“Crazy people are sent to the temples for their Contribution.”
“We humor them first.” Joesai let himself smile.
He walked to the hut that was built out from a tiny cave. She followed him, agitated because he was going toward the twins, but he made no move to get close and the little boy and little girl latched onto Oelita’s legs silently. He noticed a weakness in the roof and went to his backpack for materials and repaired the roof so that it might last another generation, barring an earthquake.
“Are you planning to stay?”
“We build for those who come after us so it is wise to build well,” he replied formally.
Joesai offered her his food but she refused, recalling Kaiel wizardry at drugs and potions. Oelita offered him flat cakes but he refused, politely noting the abundance of poisons in the surrounding vegetation. They laughed.
He noticed eyes watching his smile and directed it to the boy who buried his head in Oelita’s arms. The girl began to compete with her brother. Her gestures were wild and she set up a chatter which her mother seemed to understand — but when she succeeded in attracting Joesai away from her small rival, she, too, fell silent and held her hands over her eyes. Only when he ignored her, did she begin to flirt again.
Oelita saw to their urination and put them on their mats for sleeping. They found all manner of excuses to stay awake to observe the stranger but lost the battle with exhaustion and cried themselves to sleep.
As Joesai prepared to leave, he turned, attacking for the first time. “Your children are not as healthy as you think they are. It is a harsh life here. One day it will kill them quickly. Even if you broke a leg, they would die.”