[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
chinks between stones. It had become part of the ground now, like the shell of a dead snail. The
wall no longer served as armor but as a place for people to walk by and things to grown in. From
the top of the Kassarva, the fortress that circled the summit, he could look down across the town
and port and think with nothing to bother him. Insects buzzed hypnotically through the dried grass
and sparse flowers. A large temple was visible through the trees far below, ceramic domes glinting
at each of its five corners. Inside it, too, looked like a fortress. There was a courtyard and
small buildings within the courtyard arranged in a tomoye. Birds flew above the temple -- gulls,
curlews, and others he hadn't learned the names of. Some resembled hawks but caught fish by the
sea and had red and white feathers in their crests.
He felt singularly ugly and afraid. The predawn unveiling had struck him deeply. What had it
told him, that message for all to see? He didn't know. But it made nun feel as tiny as the ants
beneath him, carrying bits of white stuff in a line under his legs into a hole a few yards away.
All these creatures -- ants, birds, builders of temples -- had been put here by the blessed One,
Who had unveiled the sky that morning.
"I am Barthel," he told the sky with tears in his eyes. "I am small. Did you do all these
things that I might see them, smell them? I've done nothing in return for you, Allah. I haven't
even learned from them." He asked what it was Allah wanted him to do, and Allah told him this:
Survive. He nodded. He would survive. The Bey had taught him how to survive. What else then?
Father and mother and family.
That was all the voice said. Be to them what they would have wished you to be.
His lips curled. He stood up from the grass and gravel and brushed his ragged pants off. "I'll
also find out where your light comes from," he said. "You'll be happy to see I'm clever enough to
figure that out."
Bar-Woten wandered through the closed and confused streets. Kiril followed half-heartedly, not
wanting to be left alone on the beach. No shops were open, and the people who passed them were
solemn and tired. The city was quiet.
"What was it?" Kiril asked after a long silence. "Have you ever seen anything like it where
you've been?"
"No," Bar-Woten answered. 'The sky is the same wherever you go. What we saw last night was
seen everywhere, even on the other side of Hegira."
"Then what was it?"
"You tell me."
"Stars, of course. But the Second-born have no stars over their heads. That's the way it's
always been."
"Do we have stars over our heads now?"
"Not that we see. But something must stop us from seeing them -- a lid, a hatch. And God
opened that lid last night to show us glory."
"He showed us stars. Glory is what you feel when looking at them. Myself, I felt the glory
perhaps. But more important, I learned that we are not so different from the First-born. We are
not cursed. It may be -- " But Bar-Woten stopped and shook his head.
"It was beautiful," Kiril said reverently, walking beside the Ibisian. He almost felt
affection for the older warrior, as if they shared something no others did: their inner thoughts
on an unprecedented act of God.
"It made my heart icy. It looked young out there."
"What do you mean?" Kiril asked.
"It wasn't all stars," he said. "There were a lot of other things out there. The fog. Maybe we
didn't see a starry sky at all. Maybe we saw something else that we haven't read about yet."
They found Barthel wandering by the wharves, where all the moored boats knocked idle and empty
against die pier buffers. They rejoined silently and walked along the lengthy quays, smelling the
sea -- which smelled no differently -- and listening to the cat-cries of the seabirds. The birds
sounded the same.
A five-masted steamer had docked at the end of a pier, three stacks poking jauntily above the
steel hull. Gangs of sailors and stevedores hauled cargo from the holds amidships and scurried
down planks, to a warehouse at the side of the pier. Cranes and winches lifted the heavier crates
onto dollies. It was the only ship so occupied, and it wasn't Lucifan. They had never seen its
flag before nor heard the tongue die men were speaking. Bar-Woten motioned for them to follow.
They boarded unnoticed, or ignored, and watched the proceedings with interest.
file:///F|/rah/Greg%20Bear/Bear,%20Greg%20-%20Hegira.txt (26 of 77) [5/21/03 12:35:57 AM]
file:///F|/rah/Greg%20Bear/Bear,%20Greg%20-%20Hegira.txt
Bar-Woten spotted a man who stood out from the clamor, walking with deliberate speed along the
dock to the gangway. Khaki pantaloons ballooned from his legs, and he wore a tight blue waistcoat
over a white linen shirt. He boarded as if he were long familiar with the swaying rope bridge and
made his way to the forecastle, striding past the three where they leaned on the starboard
railing. Bar-Woten stepped forward and addressed him in Lucifan.
"I'm busy," the man said. "What're you bothering me for?"
"We're looking for work and passage."
"Talk later." He hurried off. The Ibisian raised his eyebrow and winked at his companions.
That was some sort of encouragement -- not an offhand dismissal.
They inspected the ship in the meanwhile. Kuril counted their monies speculatively. "Look,
with the cash from selling the horses -- that and what we've earned -- we can last four, five more
days. Not much time."
"I know nothing about ships," Bar-Woten said, making it seem of small importance to his
judgment. "Nor I," Barthel concurred hopefully.
"We'll have to eat. I'm tired of a sandy bed. Tired of carrying everything I own on my back."
"We've got a long way to go, friend. There'll be a lot more of that ahead."
"We should take any chance we get to board a ship, though," Kiril pursued. Barthel looked at
him with dismay.
"No argument," Bar-Woten said. "What do you think we've been planning? You're the one who's
been reluctant."
"I, too," Barthel said. "The sea is an unpleasant bed, Bey."
"But I mean to say that I'd rather go to sea than live a vagrant."
"You're inconsistent. You were a vagrant on your pilgrimage. I found you in an alley. You have
a sudden taste for comfort?"
"Then let's not discuss it," Kiril said, growing angry.
"Certainly."
They waited until late afternoon. By then, the ship was unloaded, and the sailors and
dockworkers had gone to ship's mess and homes on the land, respectively.
"The captain will take a walk after his meal," Bar-Woten predicted. "We'll talk to him again
when he does."
The man reappeared just before dusk. The deck was deserted except for the three and a sailor
standing watch on the stern. The captain walked over and looked at them sharply. "You want
passage?" he asked. They nodded. "What ships have you sailed on?"
"None," Bar-Woten said.
"You think this is University of the Sea, eh?"
"I think we can learn fast enough not to stumble."
"You been to sea before, for a long time? A year or two?"
The Ibisian shook his head.
"Then what can I use you for? Mops? Who told you I needed hands?"
No one did.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
