Her expression told me more than her words that I was right to worry. Those small matters would have to be addressed... after I had considered the options through the perceptions of Dzin.
11
If the body is unmastered, the mind will remain unmastered.
I'd taken only one set of nanosprays and pills, but already my mind was filled with information and terms I'd never learned.... adjudication may only be used after demonstrated irresponsibility and must be imposed by a class one adjudicator ... Rykasha is comprised of eight geographic districts ... Amnord logistics for stellar transport is based in Runswi... facilities include ... maintenance suits will be purple ... the Authority will consist of no less than five, and no more than seven members ...
The seemingly unrelated facts tumbled and turned through my skull as if trying to find places, referents, someplace to which they could attach themselves, and all too often failing to find places of adhesion.
Then, too, somewhere deep within me was a coldness, a chill that would not lift, a chill tied to knowing I would not see Foerga again, or my parents, or even my cousin Rhada... but mostly I missed Foerga. She would have handled what I felt far better than I was.
I almost didn't hear the knock on the door to my quarters. Overwhelmed by the continuing flood of information, I tried not to stagger as I stood and made my way to greet the caller who had to be Cerrelle.
'You're having a hard time,' she observed as I opened the door. 'It will get better. I know.'
I nodded, letting her close the door. Even after I sank back into the chair, my head continued to feel as though it were being split apart.
You need to think through the information you're getting, try to talk about it. Talk to me, if it helps,' she suggested.
I shook my head. 'I wouldn't know where to start. There's so much.'
'That's one problem,' Cerrelle replied quietly. 'Human beings are programmed genetically to be hunter-gatherers. We need to tie abstract information to real-world perceptions. That's why it helps to talk, even just to repeat what surfaces in your mind. Then, after you get a grasp on that, try to think where what you're sensing might be helpful in the future.'
'In the future?' I laughed hoarsely. 'I'm having trouble with right now.' My eyes skittered away from her and toward the snowflakes slipping past the window.
'I understand.'
I wondered how she could. She wasn't the one trying to assimilate the flood of random information.
'You're having trouble. That's natural. It's because you're still in the habit of experiencing and reacting. That's necessary for a mite - and deadly for a demon.'
Mites, demons ... what did it matter? So much of what she said, so much of what rattled through my mind, didn't seem to matter much.
You have two problems right now,' she said. 'One is personal shock. You've been torn from everything you know and everyone you love. The second is cultural shock. You're in the middle of a culture you've been conditioned against from birth. You have to accept that those shocks are real, but you also have to go on.'
'Why should I even care?' I asked.
'I could offer you warm words, but that wouldn't help you. You want someone to tell you how bad things are and how much you've been hurt. Well, you have been. We acknowledge that, but sitting and feeling bad won't help you get on with life. That's assuming you want to. And if you do ...'
I couldn't just give up. I owed Foerga that much ... and more. 'You really don't care how I feel, do you?'
'I care because you are an intelligent being, and right now you're confused, and you're upset, and your whole world has been turned inside out.' Cerrelle stood and walked toward the window and the snowflakes that drifted by outside. 'But there's a difference between caring between individuals and caring by society. That was one of the problems the ancients had. They always wanted everyone to feel good. They worried too much about how people felt and not enough about what needed to be done. How you feel and how I feel about you doesn't matter when it comes to society's basic principles. First, a society has to figure out what works. Then it must educate and condition people to accept it.' She laughed softly. 'I shouldn't be preaching, but it's hard to offer sympathy without being misleading. Adjusting to Rykasha is difficult, and dishonesty on my part will only make it harder.'
'... hard enough as it is ...' I said, making an effort not to mumble. 'Hard on anyone not born here.'
Cerrelle turned her green eyes on me, eyes warm but honest, like a green version of Foerga's. I wished Cerrelle were somewhere else and anyone else. 'Tyndel ... every workable society conditions its members. Dorcha conditions its people. You should know that; you were one of the ones doing the conditioning. It's only hard when you have to learn someone else's conditioning.' A tinge of bleakness colored her words, then vanished.
'Making it so cold ... so impersonal ... that's wrong. People aren't just numbers.' I didn't know why I felt so strongly. Was it because I was an outsider, because I hadn't chosen voluntarily to become a demon?
'On the contrary ... people have always been digits in any society. There have been numerous societies - and belief systems - that fostered an illusion of caring, but it was always an illusion, and we're not fond of illusions. We care about whether society works, but on the societal level, no one really cares about how you feel so long as you do what's necessary. We each have to find the individuals who care for us. That's always been true. Do you think that's changed in history? We deal with it more directly than most societies. We try to make honesty something more than lip service, and it isn't easy for us ... for me. It won't be easy for you.'
I just stared at her, not sure I'd heard the words she'd spoken.
'Tyndel ...' For the first time, Cerrelle sighed, actually sighed, as she turned from the glass to face me once more. 'You've spent your whole life learning and believing in Dzin. I don't fault you for that. Now that you have a chance to see more and learn more, you're fighting it. And you're reluctant to use what you learned from Dzin because it would prove that Rykasha is an improvement over mite society, and you can't face that. You want all your comfortable old illusions back.' She shrugged. You can have them back, or not, as you wish. But you're still responsible for yourself and, when you're able, for repaying us for saving you.'
'I didn't ask to be saved.'
'Then why did you flee Dorcha and come to Rykasha? Are you sure that you're not saying that you wanted to be saved on your terms and not ours?'
She was probably right, but I wasn't sure I really wanted to admit anything. Why couldn't things have stayed the way they had been?
'Because they haven't,' she answered gently, 'and nothing will change that.'
I almost wished she hadn't been so gentle with her words. Then I could have lashed out. Instead, I swallowed. By Dzin ... I missed Foerga ... the certainty of the Dzin I had known ... and even crusty old Manwarr.
12
All is equally fair and good and foul and evil; only the individual will claim something is but one.
I went to talk to Sergol's father on sevenday afternoon. Unlike many in Dorcha, fishermen do not rest, or Wolyd did not, and I had to wait in the brisk chill wind until he beached the dingy.
The fisherman and truffler was small and wiry, his head barely above my shoulder. His black beard was trimmed short and square, like my own blond-brown beard, and he paid me no attention until he had turned the boat on its rack to dram and dry, and replaced all his gear in the small barn above the rocky beach.