“Etaa, no!” I floundered to the doorway, wild with frustration and grief.
“Tam, hurry, help me, a beast—!”
“Etaa!” My voice broke with fury—she froze with the stick in her hand, over the formless bleeding lump of gray still quivering on the floor. Its piteous cries shrilled in the range that only I could hear, fading now as its life faded.
“Etaa”—the words burned my mouth—“what have you done?”
Etaa dropped the stick and backed away from me, frightened and confused. She lifted Alfilere, crying now with his own confusion and fright, and stood staring from me to the bundle of living parts that cowered on their nest, all that remained of my half-finished child. Her lips trembled. “Hywel . . . Hywel crawled into this room. And when I came after, I found—I found—that creeping around him.”
“Etaa, that ... is my child.”
“No!” Revulsion flared in her eyes, against the truth, or against her deed, or both.
“Yes . . .” I moved to the quivering cluster, avoiding the part that lay still and silent now, and the rest gathered close, mewing for comfort and warmth.
An anguished cry tore itself from Etaa; I looked up to see her bury her face against her own child. She sank down on the dusty floor, sobbing her desolation.
I held my little ones close, and groped for the strength, the words, to help us both. “I should have told you ... I should have warned you. They’re helpless, Etaa, they wouldn’t harm your son. Among—among my people, we don’t have children the way you do, all in a finished piece. We form them a part at a time, by duplicating each part of ourselves; the way I was able to grow another hand, when I needed one Some parts serve an extra purpose, protecting the rest, that are more specialized; they might have stung him . . . but it’s harmless.”
She looked up at me, shaking her head, her mouth drawn too tight for words.
“I should have told you, Etaa.”
“They ...” She took a long breath. “... they are—yours?”
“Yes.”
“But, I th-thought . . . ?”
“You thought I was a man? I am. But I’m also a woman. We don’t come together with another to form a child; we form our own and choose someone we love for sharing: a part of our child for a part of theirs, after the birth.”
She groaned again, softly, fighting for acceptance. “Oh, Mother, help me ... Oh, Tam, what have I done to you?” She clutched Alfilere against her so hard that he squalled in protest.
I looked away. She had done what all Humans did, acted from fear, reacted with violence, inflicted pain and death blindly out of ignorance. I had been a Human once, and had despised them; but only now, after I’d lost Human form, had I really learned anything about the Human mind and spirit— and now, in the face of this most terrible act, I found I could only blame it on myself. “It—wasn’t your fault. And this hurt can be mended . . . we’re more fortunate than you that way. It would never have happened, if you’d known all along.”
But she only sat rocking her child, the bell on her ear singing softly with her helpless grief.
Etaa spent long hours alone in the days that followed, gazing out across the sighing, broken world from the doorway of the shelter or walking the rim of the cliffs with her baby at her back. The clouds that filled the sky now were only wind clouds, dark and licked with lightning, never dripping enough moisture to settle the endless dust. The wind had grown hot and parched, shredding the clouds and sweeping the dust high into the upper air, to fade the brazen blue that sometimes broke through into this land of somber hues. She watched the sky with yearning as Midsummer’s Day approached, and when it came she performed makeshift Kotaane rituals; but clouds hid the triumph of the Sun, and she left them unfinished, her eyes haunted and empty.
At dusk she came to me where I crouched in the doorway watching the luminous fantasy-face of billowing Cyclops wink behind the clouds. I heard Alfilere murmur as he slept, somewhere in the firelight behind us. She pushed a dark curl back from her eye, brushed at it irritably as it slipped down again. At last she said, “It’s true, isn’t it, Tam?”
“What?” I waited, knowing there was more troubling her than the secret of my child.
“What you told me: that we’re not on the Earth anymore. That we’re on Laa Merth? And”—she struggled to keep her voice steady—“and that little speck that you see, passing over the face of the Cyclops like a fly ... that’s the Earth? I’ve watched the sky, and it is different; the Cyclops is shrunken, the bands on her robe are twisted . . . everything is different here. I think it must be true.”
“Yes. It’s all true.”
“Our legends tell how Laa Merth once had children of her own, but the Cyclops destroyed them. This must be their town, and so that must be true too.”
“Yes.” I wondered if there was any truth in the Kotaane myths about the source of the Human plague.
“But our legends say that the Mother is the center of all things, She is greater than all things. How can She be a speck on the face of the Cyclops!”
My throat tightened with the pain that shook her voice, and I couldn’t answer.
“Tam.” Her fingers reached down, scraping my rough hide. “I know nothing; it is all lost on the wind. Tell me what is true, Tam.” She sank down beside me, her voice wheedling and her eyes wild. “What shall I believe in now?”
“Etaa, I—can’t ...” Her fingers convulsed on my back, telling me that I had to, now: that my pitiless, self-centered world had torn her world away and thrown her into the darkness of the void. Her faith was her strength against adversity, and without faith she would shatter, we would all shatter. “Etaa, the Mother is—”
“There is no Mother! Tell me the truth!”
I closed my eyes, wondering what truth was. “‘Mother’ and ‘Earth’ ... are the same to you, in your language, in your mind. But the Earth is also the world where you live, and a mother is what you are, and I am, a bearer of life. And those things are both still real, and wonderful. Your Earth looks very small now, but only because it’s far away; like Laa Merth, in your sky at home. When you return you’ll see again how large it is, and beautiful—full of everything you need for life. It’s like a mother, and that will still be true. The Kotaane are very wise to call themselves the children of the Earth, and be grateful for its gifts.”
“But the Cyclops is greater, and stronger.”
“Greater in size. But only another world.” And only a brightness behind the clouds now. “Your myths are right; it doesn’t love your people—it would poison you to live on Cyclops; but the Earth is strong enough to stay out of its reach, and will always care for you. And the sun will always defy its shadow, making the Earth fertile, able to give you life. You see, you’ve known the truth all along, Etaa.”
“But ... the worlds are not alive . . . they do not see all, or choose to interfere in our lives as you do—’’
“No. But really in the end they are more powerful than any of us. All our lives depend on them; even starfolk need air, and water, and food to survive. We’re very mortal, just as you are. Everything we know of is mortal, even worlds . . . even suns.”
“Isn’t there anything else, then? Is there no God, or Goddess, to give us form?”
“We don’t know.”
Etaa gazed out into the growing darkness, silent, and her hands formed signs I didn’t know. And then, slowly, she reached up to her ear and removed the silver bell. She dropped it into a pocket of her jacket as if it burned her fingers.