A Maze of Stars Read online

  “This is past enduring!” she shouted. “To arrive at Penitenka with only eight baplabaska, when everybody will expect us to have nine! Mother, you’ll have to get another from somewhere! Otherwise we can’t possibly go on!”

  Scowling, Osahima drew her aside. Usko, examining the dead beast in search of clues to its demise, was just able to overhear what they said to each other.

  “Lempi, you’re making a spectacle of yourself, and I won’t tolerate the Household being brought into disrespect before strangers! Everybody’s staring at you, and not because of your finery, either!”

  Sullen, Lempi gave a shrug. “It isn’t fair, though—is it? This is all Usko’s fault! Make him walk the rest of the way, how about that?”

  “It’s your baplabaska that’s dead, not his,” Osahima retorted.

  “Mine?” Lempi withdrew half a step, appalled. “But by rights it ought to be his—oughtn’t it? Anyway, who can tell them apart, the great ugly lumbering brutes?”

  That attracted the attention of Yekko. Horrified, he stumped close.

  “Lempi, if that’s how you regard the benefits bestowed upon us by the Being, no wonder ill luck has struck you and not your brother!”

  Flushing, Lempi snapped, “It must have been him it was really meant for!”

  Usko, still pretending to inspect the dead baplabaska although he had already concluded it had died from a perfectly normal cause—frustrated subdivision—pursed his lips in a soundless whistle. He could imagine how Yekko would react to that.

  And he did. He burst out, “That’s blasphemous! Making out that the Being is unjust and—and incompetent! I’m minded to make you walk the rest of the way!”

  “So am I!” Osahima concurred. “And carry the dozens of bags and boxes you insisted on bringing! Very likely that was what killed your mount— overloading it with so much ridiculous finery!”

  Lempi glanced around as though seeking a way of escape. Even though they couldn’t hear, members of the other Household, watching as they waited for their servants to ready their own mounts, had little difficulty guessing what was going on, and some of them were nudging one another in the ribs and uttering ribald comments.

  Usko decided it was time to intervene. He had no more wish than his mother to bring shame on Household Ishapago. Straightening, he advanced and called out.

  “It’s all right, Lempi. I don’t mind sharing someone else’s baplabaska. You can take mine—you have far more luggage than me. Perhaps Yekko will let me ride with him.”

  “What makes you think so?” Lempi sneered. “You’re the one for heresy and blasphemy, the one who tried to get out of making Pilgrimage! Don’t imagine I don’t know what goes on in that ugly head of yours! Ever since you tried to persuade me Owdi wasn’t spouting wicked nonsense, I’ve distrusted you! Oh, it’ll be an evil day for us when you become our householder—if you ever do!”

  “Lempi,” Osahima said between her teeth, “for the time being I am the householder, and don’t you forget it! Usko has made a very generous offer, and here you are repaying him with insults. Extremely nasty insults, what is more. Apologize!” But Usko was standing thunderstruck. Could that truly be the origin of the breach between him and his sister? Now he thought back, it was not impossible. Having no one else with whom to talk about Owdi’s visit, he had indeed attempted to discuss it with her, only to find himself rebuffed. At the time, however, he had assumed she was simply uninterested and let the matter drop. It had never occurred to him that she suspected him of trying to infect her with heretical notions. That could well explain, though it could scarcely excuse, her present venomous dislike …

  Yekko, after reflection, spoke up. “Lempi, I don’t want to say this, but I’m coming to feel that in spite of all, your brother has a better grasp of ordinary human decency than you do. I advise you to accept his offer with good grace, and no matter what you say about him, I shall be glad to let him share my mount! Now let’s get a move on, shall we? The other Household is moving out on to the road, and we still have to reorganize the luggage.”

  He and Osahima departed, issuing crisp orders for the redistribution of loads, leaving brother and sister alone for a moment. In a low voice Usko ventured, “Lempi, was it really my talking about Owdi that stopped you liking me? I didn’t realize. I’m sorry.”

  Equally softly but with a rasping note beneath the words, she replied, “Don’t imagine you can crawl back into my good graces. You’ve made a fool of me in public now, turned our mother and our priest against me … You’ll pay for that. I promise you: you’re going to pay for that.”

  The exchange left Usko too depressed to carry out his intention of questioning Yekko about the matters that had been preoccupying him; besides, the priest had prayers to recite against the risk of further setbacks. To cap the lot, it soon began to rain. Servants—which, because they wore no clothing, cared nothing about getting wet—made haste to unroll sheets of membrane, mount them on poles at the corners, and nm to carry them above each baplabaska, but when the wind gusted, they offered little protection, and shortly the air was full of Lempi’s loud complaints about the state her best gown was being reduced to. Usko couldn’t help wondering how many “best gowns” she owned. Perhaps the one she was currently wearing automatically became the best.

  Then, at a road junction, they fell in with two more Households, not riding baplabaska but the smaller angabaska common farther south, though each had a score of them. These were not among the groups they usually met on the road; Ishapago had started out late, while they were a trifle ahead of schedule. Each was more numerous than his own Household, and—the rain having lightened—several young men, and even a few girls, had decided to walk for a while. It wasn’t difficult to keep up, since the mounts were making slow progress on the muddy road.

  Tempted by the prospect of talking to strangers even before reaching Penitenka, Usko decided to join them. Sliding cautiously to the ground, choosing a point where there were few puddles, he circulated back and forth, hearing and relaying news, sharing the odd joke (though it saddened him to realize how few of those there had been in his life recently; even Yekko’s seemingly endless stock appeared to have run low), and hoping all the time to meet someone else as interested as he was in the modification of servants. However, the only people he encountered who understood him when he started to grow technical were the other Households’ geneticists and field overseers, and they of course had learned their knowledge by rote. Sometimes he felt no one at all shared his willingness to experiment—and thinking of the way his mother had ordered his latest successful batch to be destroyed, he yielded at last to gloom and resumed his place behind Yekko. He felt so depressed that even at the next inn, when the other young folk started to sing and play instruments after dinner, he sat by himself in a corner, neglecting his food and cherishing dreams of meeting his first off-worlders.

  Contrariwise, Lempi had recovered her spirits, as though her ego were being fed by the admiring glances of these strangers. She gave in with no more than token protest when she was asked to dance, and on a stone platform in the center of the inn’s great hall she swayed and stamped and darted flashing glances from her large dark eyes. There was no doubt she was beautiful, Usko thought. If only her nature matched her looks … !

  Well, perhaps some young heir would be sufficiently dazzled to propose to her. Much cheered by visions of his home rid of her infuriating presence, Usko rediscovered appetite, cleared his dish, and went off to bed.

  Only one more day and night on the road, and then—Penitenka.

  BUT EVEN BEFORE THEY ARRIVED IN SIGHT OF THEIR GOAL. ONE Household now among a hundred-odd that were converging as the road net drew its strands together, due tonight to be one among four times that many, maybe more if there had been new scissions recently, an event occurred that marked this as different from any Pilgrimage before.

  Urging their mahutos to hurry their mounts, for they were ascending the last rise before the vast mountain-ringed bowl at th
e center of which lay Penitenka Abbey, their ears were suddenly afflicted by a roaring noise. At first it was faint and called to mind pebbles grinding in a riverbed in time of spate. It grew louder, then louder yet, until it was more like boulders crashing from a precipice. Uncertain, anxious, the vast procession slowed gradually to a halt, staring upward. It was no longer raining, but much of the sky was still veiled by cloud, especially toward the setting sun.

  Then they saw it. A bright glow, growing larger.

  Usko clutched at Yekko’s arm. “It’s a spaceship, isn’t it?” he whispered.

  “Yes, it must be,” the priest muttered.

  “But I thought they needed special equipment to set down on a planet! Isn’t there some huge construction—?”

  “In the Northern Polar Waste,” Yekko cut in. “Yes, a landing grid. I’ve heard about it, though of course I’ve never seen it. I attended a debate about it held by the abbot of Penitenka before I joined Ishapago. Even though it’s on frozen ground that the Being finds uncongenial, just as we do, I was of the party that argued against it being permitted in the first place. Still, the vote went against me and those who shared my views, and I suppose it’s good to know that news of the Being’s kindness to us has been spread abroad to other systems… But the grid is only used for the big long-distance ships. The one we’re looking at must be what they call a dinghy, dropped off in orbit and most likely carrying a mere handful of passengers. Those can set down on any firm level ground.”

  Usko’s heart lurched. Mouth dry, he stared at the light overhead. What had he been doing all his life? Why until this moment—save for dreams of talking to an off-worlder or two—had it not dawned on him how petty all his best endeavors were, fiddling around with bits of the Being in hope of making more useful chapla, when there were people who could visit not just other continents but other planets? All of a sudden his entire existence felt like a waste of time.

  What, after all, was the Being—whether or not the tales recounted of it were correct—compared to all the forms of life out there in space? Compared, indeed, to the rest of humanity!

  The light vanished behind a hilltop. The noise ended, leaving the air curiously empty. The pilgrims roused themselves, and the mahutos goaded their mounts back into motion. Once more the processions advanced on the abbey, the one spot on Ekatila where the Being had “deigned” not to retreat before humanity but remain in constant contact, “accepting” gifts and offerings and the oaths of those wishing to dedicate their lives to its service, whether as priests or nuns or monks or anchorites. Tomorrow the piles of offerings would rise twice as high as a man’s head—

  Have the visitors from space brought offerings? What must they think of the whole risible farce?

  The scene before Usko, familiar since childhood when he had first ridden here with frightened arms locked around his nurse’s waist, blurred to invisibility. His eyes were full of tears.

  But behind him he could hear Lempi whipping her mahuto to be quick, be quick, so they could choose a good place near the abbey for the three days they must spend there camped under awnings.

  Naturally the presence of foreigners at once became the chief topic of conversation, despite the best efforts of priests and monks who darted hither and thither, making sure the major Households secured the best sites, most convenient to water and drainage channels, and with every other breath reminding the pilgrims that their first duty was to make obeisance and offerings to the Being, next to hear the Sacred Scriptures recited aloud—as they would be constantly the next three days, and indeed the first readings were already under way—and only then to waste time on news and gossip and arranging proper matches for their children … and on nonbelievers from elsewhere.

  As though to reassure themselves that everything was going to be normal after all, most of Household Ishapago complied, Osahima going first with Yekko at her side, leaving underlings like Immi to supervise the servants in their customary tasks. Even Lempi set off in their wake toward the abbey, that magnificent arching shell in the very center of the valley where the Being’s original substance could be seen and touched, unaltered by humanity’s arrival. Realizing that she was hurrying after them, Yekko checked Osahima with a touch on the arm and waited until she caught up with them, uttering no doubt some words of welcome. He was at heart a most forgiving man, and Usko was sure it had greatly pained him to issue such harsh reprimands as he’d been obliged to during their trip. He could be seen to pause a little longer, as though hoping Usko too would come dashing up to rejoin his family, then turned away with a regretful air and continued to lead the way.

  For his part Usko had clean forgotten about wanting to track down an independent-minded young priest, perhaps one who had known Owdi during his brief sojourn here. Sight of a space vehicle actually on the way to ground had made real to him what previously had been mere fable, of concern to others—to abbots and to senior priests, naturally, and the heads of the greatest Households, among which Ishapago was a quibiti beside a herd of magalinga—but never to someone in his humble walk of life. Heir to a Household he might be, but as his father had once reproached him not long before he died, he lacked all sense of the pride that fact should have engendered in him. He showed no urge to expand the estate, make the name of his line famous, or do any of the other things a boy in his position was supposed to dream about—unless he expected his tinkering with Ekatilan biology to bring him vast rewards, and that was more properly the province of a lowly geneticist…

  All that now seemed to have as much substance as a waft of otilipi dust puffing out to catch an autumn breeze. He was going to ignore his Pilgrimage obligations. He was going to dodge his family the whole of the three days; if he must, he would leave here as a beggar like Owdi and make shift as best he could for the rest of his life. Just so long as he met, and talked to, and learned from at least one of the foreign visitors!

  Where could they be? Where would they most likely be? Following the abbot around? Scarcely; his duties were the most onerous of all—though since the incumbent was now elderly, he was permitted to depute some of them to his designated successor. No, more likely (Usko strove frantically to put himself into the mind-set of someone who had seen the stars from naked space) they’d be observing from points of vantage, say the nearby hilltops. Conceivably—and this was another leap out of drab reality and into the realm of imagination—they possessed the sort of devices, described in children’s tales, that permitted viewing, hearing, even touching and smelling from afar. There were no such “machines” on Ekatila, for centuries ago they had been decreed anathematical, offensive to the Being … which would naturally have created them had they been necessary.

  Hmm! Usko rubbed his chin, on which wisps of hair were beginning to sprout. All around him, at the spot he had now wandered to, there was a press of people eager to set down their offerings in the appointed place, hear a token recital of scripture, and then get on with the real business of Pilgrimage, whether swapping gossip or seeking a spouse or picking other people’s brains for news of fresh discoveries. Last year Usko had acquired half a dozen useful hints that had led to his new strain of—

  New strain of garbage. May the Being forget my mother!

  The violence of his reaction dismayed him. He had never cursed anyone like that before, not even silently. Some change, some deep and fundamental change, was fermenting in his mind.

  Fearful, he nonetheless could not help being glad of it.

  It was growing dark. Someone carrying a bundle of brilliantly dyed membrane bumped into him, and he almost lost his balance. Spinning half around, he caught sight of a flash on the hillside at right angles from the road his Household had approached by. A late-arriving procession? New groups were still swelling the throng, including far more non-Household folk than usual: poorly clad, poorly nourished independent farming families for the most part, living within walking distance, presumably, because the only servants or mounts their sort could afford were not trained for anything sa
ve cultivation of the land.

  Maybe some day he ought to acquaint himself with a few of them. Maybe, like his childhood nurse, and Lempi’s, they preserved tales excluded from the formal scriptures, passed in secret and by word of mouth, enshrining truths now disapproved of by the priests …

  But that was for later, possibly for never. Something told him that the flash on the hillside was unlike any light he’d ever seen.

  It followed that—

  Before he was conscious of having reached a decision, he was shoving and thrusting his way in that direction.

  And that was how he did not find the foreigners.

  One of them, instead, found him.

  * * *

  “HEY! LOOK WHERE YOU’RE GOING!”

  The voice was a girl’s. So intent was he on not losing sight of the exact spot where he had seen the flash, Usko had trodden heavily on her foot. Now, balancing on one leg and catching at his arm to support herself, she was rubbing her toes with a grimace of pain. As the daylight failed, gleamers of phosfung were being hoisted, and by their wan radiance he could see that she was slim, dark-haired, a little shorter than himself, with an unfamiliar slant to her brow. Also—and this sent a chill down his spine—although what she said was perfectly comprehensible, she had uttered it in an accent he didn’t recognize.

  He blurted incoherent but profuse apologies.

  “Oh, not to worry!” She set her foot to the ground again and, releasing his arm, made a brushing-away gesture. “I’m just glad it wasn’t one of those huge clumsy creatures you use to get about on. What do you call them?”

  Usko clenched his fists. This was, this had to be, a foreigner! Unsteadily he supplied the word and went on in a rush, “How is it that you don’t know?”

  She took half a pace back from him, giving him a chance to realize that although she was clad in a garment similar to his own, it wasn’t made of any membrane he recognized. Moreover—for no rational reason, only by custom—most women preferred robes or gowns at Pilgrimage time. There was some kind of nonsensical argument about allowing the essence of the Being to permeate the flesh via a wider channel… but that was a point in respect of which Yekko had never called for strict observance.