He sat in the dim light of a single wick-lame, holding but not reading a copy of the Writings. "Key, he said "have you completed your circuit?"
I remembered my five-sleep walk, the people I'd visited, and the vermin I'd dropped on my run toward the lake, then forced myself toward peace, in order to better remember my tour. "Yes, Reverend, all the outlying farms are well. Some vermin and one possible raid from the outcasts are the only discords."
He nodded as if not really interested. "Can we increase our harvests by a factor of ten or more?"
Blood drained from my face. With all the confusion, I hadn't given thought to starving.
Reverend Castell blinked, and I saw tears flowing. "Maybe they've brought extra seed-grain, or implements, despite what the officer said."
I sat heavily, unbidden, on a pallet by the door as the truth sank home like an arrow in my heart: Even if the new arrivals took to farming in a trice, there was not near enough seed-grain to allow planting.
"They must spread through the Shangri-La Valley," Reverend Castell said. "How ironic that name's become. I wonder if the first surveyors foresaw this planet's strife?"
Not fully understanding his references, I remained silent.
"Muslcylopes, perhaps," he said. "Or groundhogs, when we spot them. But we cannot slay them unthinkingly, as, we did the American bison and so many other species."
I let him chatter to himself for a few moments, then said, "Reverend, you've always taught me that a note gains its power when it acts in concert with other notes according to the laws of harmony."
He glanced up at me, surprise on his face. A smile blossomed. "You are a good soul," he told me.
Unsure that he'd understood what I meant, I blushed but forced myself to say, "I mean, we can't abandon our Writings now," and gestured half-heartedly at the book he held. "I must tell you, there's already unrest spreading. Some of the newcomers describe themselves as service merchants. They have harlots, and gambling is on their every word, in their every thought. I have even scented alcohol on the breaths of some of our own, who perhaps shared a secular communion with less-strict brothers in Harmony."
It felt worse than a toothache to presume to tell Reverend Castell anything so crass, and I fidgeted and finally stood to excuse myself, preferring to let him think in solitude than risk being exposed to another of his rantings. Before I could move, however, someone poked his head through the curtain into the room and said, "Castell? That you?"
Aghast at such effrontery, I looked at the reverend, who appeared as amazed as I by such a breach of town etiquette. "I am he," the reverend said, standing. He placed the Writings on a stone shelf and folded his hands in front of his belt-line.
The man had curly brown hair and a dentist smile. He brushed off the dust from the short tunnel, then stretched up to touch the roofing. "Quaint," he said, more or less ignoring us as he surveyed the room's contents. He bent and brushed more dust from his trouser's knees.
Finally he said, "Oh, uh, I'm Julian Anders' secretary, Rollie Tate, and I was asked to bring you to see him right away, so can we get going?"
His words shot through me like high voltage.
Reverend Castell said, "Am I to understand that Anders is a Harmony?"
The little man nodded enthusiastically. "Sure what else? He's our leader, he brought us all to this dump. Now can we get a move on? Reverend Anders doesn't like waiting."
My expression must have betrayed my inner turmoil, because Reverend Castell stepped forward and placed a hand on my shoulder. He leaned close and whispered, "A song always has more notes."
He meant that the notes left unsounded are as important as those we sing, a quotation intended to soothe me.
Did he also mean we should have seen this coming?
V
"A song always has more notes" is also what he told me a month ago when my baby died, and I wondered cynically if it were generic advice.
After three exhausting days my wife, Bren, had birthed a son, but the baby lived barely a moment. Looking up at me, one of the midwives shook her head, eyes wide.
My heart sank, and then my knees weakened. I sat on a stone covered by muskylope hide, gasping as if I'd run kilometers.
Concern for Bren shot through me then, as I caught a glimpse of the blood-smeared belly, still swollen as she struggled with the afterbirth. Standing, I rushed to her side. Her face was agony incarnate and incarnadine, her silken tresses lay matted, her eyes, when they opened, wandered dull and glazed.
"I'm here, Bren-love," I told her, grasping her hand, which squeezed mine hard enough to grind knuckles.
"Take," she said, "the baby," her neck's tendons taut, "to Reverend Castell," and she groaned, fought for control, and added, in a breathless whisper of pain, "blessing."
My throat was too choked by love and sorrow to answer, so I nodded. Leaning down, I kissed her salty cheek, then gathered the still bundle in my arms and trudged across the town square.
I passed the acolytes' quarters on my way, and heard a droning from within. For an instant I regretted ever having left the warm community of bachelor acolytes, but I knew it was a strident disharmony. Besides, marriage was a rock-solid foundation for the soul, and in truth my love for Bren often threatened to overwhelm even my love for Harmony and all things Harmonious.
Spits of snow sent icy darts into my eyes, into my lungs. Haven's winter, although just beginning, featured blizzards to humble even our Russian taiga couple, Iban and Svetalma, who had taught us how to skin muskylopes and who often told tales of snow piled up to the sky.
At Reverend Castell's house I dropped to my knees. Hugging the still-warm bundle to me with my elbows, I clapped thrice and heard a faint, "Enter."
I crawled on threes, holding the bundle against my heart with my weak arm, the left. As my head thrust past the many curtains hung against the chill I said, "Reverend, our baby's dead. And with that the truth came home to me, and my tears flowed in a gush that blinded me like a bucketful of riverwater.
Reverend Castell came to me, stood me upright, and took the bundle. He sang it a short dirge, rocking it as if soothing a living infant to sleep, and then he placed it on a small corner altar, where candles already burned.
Coming back to me, Reverend Castell hugged me and said, "A song always has more notes, and your song is just begun. Our infant mortality rate is exceeding forty-nine percent, so such sacrifices carry little of the discord of surprise, Kev. We must bear the dead on life's shoulders." He squeezed tight, then let go and said, "Return to your wife, comfort her."
It was good advice, giving me something to think of other than my own misery, and the cold air outside revived me.
Only when I passed one of the midwives on her way to Castell's house did I falter. I knew she would take the tiny corpse and bury it in some unguessed farmer's fallow field, after doctors pronounced it pure. Looking down at the ground, I hated its insatiable hunger for babies' bones. A year had aged me ten.
When I got back, the strain was still evident on Bren's face, too, and seeking to soothe her I tried to stroke her forehead. She snarled at me, almost biting my quickly withdrawn hand, then fell into heavy sleep.
"She must rest, but stay by her side, sing her gentle songs," a midwife said, packing shiny things into a leather bag.
It was bad for Bren, I knew. Just looking at her threatened to begin my tears anew, for the effort and loss on her face, even as she slept, was awful in such a young woman. Worse, strain remained on her face even days later, after she was up and around.