AllFreeNovel
Share Us
In that instant, Twisp saw that the man was blind. The eyes were cloud-gray and empty of recognition. Hesitantly, Twisp accepted the cake and sampled it. Rich brown fruit in the cake sweetened his tongue.
Again, Twisp looked at the scene in the bowl of open land. He had seen pictures and holos from the histories but nothing had prepared him for this experience. He felt both attracted and repelled by what he saw. This land would not drift willy-nilly on an uncertain sea. There was a sense of absolute assurance in the firmness underfoot. But there was a loss of freedom in it, too. It was locked down and enclosed … limited. Too much of this could narrow a man’s vision.
“One more cake, Abimael, and then you go home,” the carpenter said.
Twisp stepped back from the carpenter, hoping to escape silently, but his heel encountered a stone and he tumbled backward, sitting sharply on another stone. An involuntary cry of pain escaped him.
“Now, don’t you cry, Abimael!” the carpenter said. Twisp heaved himself to his feet. “I’m not Abimael,” he said.
The carpenter aimed his sightless eyes toward Twisp and sat silent for a moment, then: “I hear that now. Hope you liked the cake. You see Abimael anywhere around?”
“No one in sight but the men with the flamethrowers.”
“Damned fools!” The carpenter swallowed a cake whole and licked the syrupy coating off his fingers. “They’re bringing Islanders onto the land already?”
“I … I think I’m the first.”
“They call me Noah,” the carpenter said. “You can take it as a joke. Say I was the first out here. Are you badly deformed, Islander?”
Twisp swallowed a sudden rise of anger at the man’s bluntness.
“My arms are rather long but they’re perfect for pulling nets.”
“Don’t mind the useful variations,” Noah said. “What’s your name?”
“Twisp … Queets Twisp.”
“Twisp,” Noah said. “I like that name. It has a good sound. Want another cake?”
“No, thank you. It was good, though. I just can’t take too much sweetness. What’re you making here?”
“I’m working with a bit of wood,” Noah said. “Think of that! Wood grown on Pandora! I’m fashioning some pieces that will be made into furniture for the new director of this place. You met him yet? Name’s Gallow.”
“I haven’t had that … pleasure,” Twisp said.
“You will. He sees everybody. Doesn’t like Mutes, though, I’m afraid.”
“How were you … I mean, your eyes?”
“I wasn’t born this way. It was caused by staring at a sun too long. Bet you didn’t know that, did you? If you stand on solid ground so you don’t move around, you can stare right at the sun … but it can blind you.”
“Oh.” Twisp didn’t know what else to say. Noah seemed resigned to his fate, though.
“Abimael!” Noah raised his voice into a loud call.
There was no answer.
“He’ll come,” Noah said. “Saved a cake for him. He knows it.”
Twisp nodded, then felt the foolishness of the gesture. He stared across the enclosed basin. The land glared at him from all sides, everything highlighted by the brightness of Big Sun. The buildings were stark white, shot through with streaks of brown. Water or the illusion of water shimmered in a flat area near the far cliffs. The flamethrowers had been silenced and the Merman workers had gone into a building toward the center of the basin. Noah returned to his woodworking. There was no wind, no sound of seabirds, no sound of Abimael, who was supposed to be coming to his father’s call. Nothing. Twisp had never before heard such silence … not even underwater.
“They call me Noah,” Noah said. “Go to the records and look up the histories. I call my first-born Abimael. Do you dream strange things, Twisp? I used to dream about a big boat, called an ark, in the time when the original Terrahome was flooded. The ark saved lots of humans and animals from the flood … kinda like the hyb tanks in that, you know?”
Twisp found himself fascinated by the carpenter’s voice. The man was a storyteller and knew the trick of flexing his voice to hold a listener’s attention.
“The ones who didn’t get on the ark, they all died,” Noah said. “When the sea went down, they found the stinking carcasses for months. The ark was built so animals and people couldn’t climb aboard unless they were invited and the ramp was lowered.”
Noah mopped sweat from his brow with a purple cloth. “Stinking carcasses everywhere,” he muttered.
A slight breeze came over the cliff walls and wafted the heavy stink of burned things across Twisp. He could almost smell the rotting flesh Noah described.
The carpenter hefted two joined pieces of wood and hung them on a peg in the wall behind him.
“Ship made a promise that Noah would live,” Noah said. “But watching that much death was very bad. When so many die and so few live, think how dead the survivors must feel! They needed the miracle of Lazarus and it was denied them.”
Noah turned away from the wall and his blind eyes glittered in reflected light. Twisp saw that tears rolled unchecked down the man’s cheeks and onto his dark, bare chest.
“I don’t know whether you’ll believe it,” Noah said, “but Ship has talked to me.”
Twisp stared at the tear-stained face, fascinated. For the first time in his life, Twisp felt himself to be in the presence of an authentic mystery.
“Ship spoke to me,” Noah said. “I smelled the stink of death and saw bones on the land still clotted with rotting flesh. Ship said: ‘I will not again curse the ground for mankind’s sake.’”
Twisp shuddered. Noah’s words came with a compelling force that could not be rejected.
Noah paused, then went on: “And Ship said, ‘The imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.’ What do you think of that?”
For mankind’s sake, Twisp thought.
Noah frightened him then by speaking it once more aloud: “For mankind’s sake! As though we begged for it! As though we couldn’t work out something better than all that death!”
Twisp began to feel a deep sympathy for the carpenter. This Noah was a philosopher and a profound thinker. For the first time, Twisp began to feel that Islander and Merman might achieve a common understanding. All Mermen were not Gallows or Nakanos.
“You know what, Twisp?” Noah asked. “I expected better of Ship than slaughter. And to say He does it for mankind’s sake!”
Noah came across the shadowed work area, skirting the bench as though he could see it, and stopped directly in front of Twisp.
“I hear you breathing there,” Noah said. “Ship spoke to me, Twisp. I don’t care whether you believe that. It happened.” Noah reached out and grasped Twisp’s shoulder, moved the hand downward and explored the length of Twisp’s left arm, then returned to trace a finger over Twisp’s face.
“Your arm is long,” Noah said. “Don’t see anything wrong in that if it’s useful. You got a good face. Lots of wrinkles. You live outside a lot. You see any sign of my Abimael yet?”
Twisp swallowed. “No.”
“Don’t you be frightened of me just because I talk to Ship,” Noah said. “This new ark of ours is out on dry land once and for all. We’re going to leave the sea.”
Noah pulled away from Twisp and returned to the workbench.
A hand touched Twisp’s right arm. Startled, he whirled and confronted Nakano. The big Merman had approached without a sound.
“Gallow wants to see you now,” Nakano said.
“Where is that Abimael?” Noah asked.
Chapter 42
And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off.
—Genesis 8:11, The Christian Book of the Dead
Duque ignored the gasps of the watchers ringed around the constant gloom of the Vata Pool. His ears did not register the strangled moan that came clearly from the wide, flaccid throat of the C/P. The heavy fist that Vata clamped to his gen
itals captured Duque’s attention completely. Her fervor hurled him painfully out of pseudosleep, but her touch softened with every blink. The poolside gasps were replaced by sporadic mutterings and a few hushed giggles. When Duque’s hand began its complementary stroking of Vata’s huge body the room stilled. Vata moaned. The poolside watchers were soaked by the wave set up under the rhythmic strokes of her mighty hips.
“They’re going to pair!”
“Her eyes are open,” one said, “and look, they move!”
Vata licked her lips, pinned Duque to the bottom of the pool and straddled him there. Her head and the tops of her shoulders broke the surface and she gasped great, long breaths with her head thrown back.
“Yes!” Vata said, and the C/P’s mind registered, Her first word in almost three hundred years. How could the circumstances of that first word be explained to the faithful?
