Courtship Rite

11

BENJIE WAS WHAT THE CLANS called a dobu, in his case, a dobu of machine design. But he was more than a creator of machines; he was a dobu, class eight, and the og’Sieth clan recognized nothing higher than the eighth level. He had the beginning of wrinkles and the easy manner of one who has already made his mistakes.

Within the workshed he held up a thumb-sized slug, fresh from his lathe. Gaet watched Benjie mask the small steel part with wax, readying it for etching.

“This is the first of five etchings,” said the dobu.

He was building a small power supply for the Great Cloister of Kaiel-hontokae. Gesturing for Gaet to follow, he walked across the shed. His apprentice was seated at a desk, working within a spot of sunlight brought in by mirrors. Her eyes and fingers concentrated on a polishing operation.

The girl wore the og’Sieth headband of the unmarried, pinned at her forehead by the brass token of the apprentice. When Benjie was sure of her competence as a machinist, duty would require him to gift her with child in a public temple ceremony and, once the baby was born, release her for marriage. Such were the clan obligations of an eighth-class og’Sieth dobu.

He took the part from his apprentice and held it in the sunbeam for Gaet. “She is almost finished, this piece needing only the furnace to diffuse hardener into its surface.”

Gaet was more interested in the girl than in steam engines. He smiled at her and she turned away.

Benjie spoke out approvingly. “My little one does excellent work; I’ll have to find a husband for her soon.”

“It’s none of your business!” she flashed. “I’m going to marry Mair and Solovan.”

Benjie laughed. “Mair is her best girlfriend. The women are growing more stubborn by the week in imposing their will upon our world’s chaos.” He paused and his look was that of a man who likes to tickle small children. “To the best of my knowledge, Mair and Solovan are not yet married.”

“But they will be. They’re friends! And Mair promised to introduce me to Solovan at the celebration tonight!”

“If you flirt as well as you polish, I suspect their fate is ordained unless poor Solovan has more wits than I’ve noticed.”

Her shyness gone, the apprentice smiled at Gaet. “You see why I don’t get any work done with this flatterer around all the time, talking nonsense in my ear and stopping me to show whatever I do to all the passing visitors because my work is prettier than his work.”

The two men passed from the shed to the hillside trail. “If you’ve been wondering at my visit, I’ve come to inspect my holdings,” explained the priest.

“Ah. You’re our new landowner?” asked the underclansman.

“From here to the sea.”

Benjie laughed. Gaet knew enough not to interrupt, and the chuckling continued until they reached the road. Benjie was a member of Gaet’s constituency and they often laughed together. “So,” said Benjie finally, “the priests fight again. This ownership of land which possesses the priests has always puzzled me. Once you own land, you are not free. You cannot walk beyond the boundary you have set yourself without inviting a fight. You must stay up past the time when any honest clansman is asleep, drawing your maps and coloring them.” He stopped Gaet and pointed out a swarm of bees who had taken up a new home in the rocks beside a cluster of carnivorous fei bushes. “The bees are free. They can go anywhere. Why should they care who owns the land? An og’Sieth is free. I can be anywhere my will chooses and know my clan will receive me.”

“Someone has to worry about the sewage,” Gaet grumbled.

“You always have a problem when you come to see me,” said Benjie. “What is it this time?”

“The sea is too far away. Haulage is the problem. Nothing to discuss while we are sober. The mind is too practical when it is sober.”

“Come to our party tonight. That will remedy your sobriety!”

“I was thinking along the lines of a mechanical Ivieth, a machine that could run day and night harnessed to a wagon, faster than any man can run.”

Benjie began to laugh again. “Wait until you are drunk! Wait!” He held out his palms in a stopping gesture while he choked on his laughter. “Not now!”

Gaet made no further mention of his wild schemes. He bought a keg of mead for the party and helped his friends set up the tables and bring in the food to the village’s small common yard. He forgot his troubles. He wasn’t a man who stayed worried when the whisky was out.

He spent his time listening to those he thought might make useful additions to his constituency, but lost interest in all political matters when he cornered an old og’Sieth woman who had worked metal as far away as the distant Sea of Tears. Like almost every Getan, he was curious about faraway places. The conversation was interrupted by a faint call.

“Gaet maran-Kaiel! Gaet maran-Kaiel…” The voice was resonant enough to echo off the hills and carry along the vales up to the mines and down into the worksheds of the og’Sieth buildings that surrounded the tunnelings. It was an Ivieth runner paging Gaet, probably with a message which had been relayed through the local rayvoice atop Redstone Hill.

He left his conversation to intercept the runner. More work, he thought in resignation. It would be from Hoemei. Hoemei always had work for the family and Gaet knew why they all responded instantly to his call no matter how harassing or trivial the assignment. Long ago they had learned to trust his intuition. The brothers’ bond of unshakable loyalty went back to the creches where quick teamwork was the only road to survival. Their women had absorbed the same loyalty by an osmosis of experience that passes between people who love each other.

The message handed to Gaet by the only slightly winded runner was sparse but detailed enough to make Hoemei’s conclusions convincing. It ended on the usual personal note. A kiss from Noe through the fabric of space for his nose. And a worried sentence to mention that there was no news from Joesai or Teenae.

“Bad message? May I carry a reply?”

“God’s Streak, no need for such a hurry. I’ll be spending time on my answer.”

“I will wait here.” An Ivieth would wait in one spot forever if it was asked of him.

“No, no. Come,” Gaet said to the man who towered over him. “I’m inviting you to a revel. When you are drunk enough you can sing for us. What songs do you know?”

The runner grinned. His clan were travellers and they all knew songs of far mysteries. Their tales bound the culture of the planet together. The man’s grin said that he could sing anything, and would do so for a drink.

Gaet escorted him down into the central yard where the party was buzzing like a hive that had located new flowers. They approached the young woman who was in charge of the buckets and bottles. She was slightly woozy from fumes and from sampling her different concoctions. “Give my friend a drink,” said Gaet with the camaraderie of a politician who is always willing to add someone new to his constituency. “Whisky with a mead chaser. He has a lot of waiting to do while I collect my thoughts.”

She pushed a drink into the tall Ivieth’s hand and held on for a moment to keep from toppling. She looked up. “You have a good view of the party. Do you see my number three around? He’s the one with the lines radiating away from his mouth.”

In the meantime, Gaet had walked off across the flagstones with his arms around two wives of Benjie who, his women were boasting, could build steam engines so tiny they crawled through the eye of a needle towing a thread. The triplet found their dobu at the food tables, his mouth full of a red potato salad that had been delicately bittered with profane fruit.

“Benjie, suddenly I have a job for you.”

“Don’t give them both to me at once,” he said admiring his wives.

“Make me a steam engine as big as a silo, say with forty wheels to roll on.”

“Forty wheels! This morning you wanted from me a mechanical man! How will we fire this giant silo, with your ego?”

“I just got a rayvoice briefing from my brother.” The drink was making it difficult for him to think. “A famine is moving up the coast. There will be refugees. He wants me to begin setting up relief stations so they won’t all die in the mountain passes. I thought we might carry food to them instead.”

Benjie had some spice cake and spoke through stuffed mouth. “They won’t starve. The Mnankrei have wheat to sell. The days of the big famines are over.”

Gaet was weighing all the political consequences, running a rapid simulation of alternate futures through his mind. “That’s what I’m afraid of. They’ll sell their wheat and you know the price. The Mnankrei are expanding too fast. Craftwise they can’t begin to match our resources, and yet they are making boots out of us. It is the ships. We can’t keep up with their ships!”

A loud voice, somehow attached to perceptive ears, guffawed from across the courtyard. “Ever seen a Mnankrei sailing in our desert?” His laugh was drunkenly slurred. “They’re going to put wheels on their boats. Sail ’em right up on the beaches.” His laugh went out of control. “Soon they’ll be chasing our asses right across the Itraiel Plain.” The tears were rolling down his cheeks helplessly and all those around him were laughing in resonance. “Ever been chased by a boat across the Itraiel?”

Benjie joined in the game of chewing on Gaet’s leg. “I think it is just that the Mnankrei are more intelligent than the Kaiel.”

“You think it takes brains to stick a wet finger in the breeze?”

“Ya, but Gaet, they have to be smarter. They are the fastest Cullers on Geta. They mow their wheat before it is blade high.”

“Only one out of five go to their temples,” answered Gaet aggressively. “That’s no record. I come from the creche. Don’t talk to me about Culling.”

“I can’t say as I see how that puts you ahead of the Mnankrei,” Benjie continued to tease. “It depends upon what you Cull for. How come they let an oaf like you get through? A silo with forty wheels!”

“They couldn’t resist my smile.”

“See what I mean?”

Gaet’s mind was permuting the conversation. “All right, Benjie, what about sailboats on wheels? Why not?”

Benjie looked him in the eyes.

“I said, ‘Sailboats on wheels.’”

“Silence of God, I do believe you’re serious!”

“Of course I’m serious!”

“No, no, Gaet old friend. You run the world.” Benjie pointed with exaggerated emphasis at the priest. “Let me build the machines.” And he pounded himself on the chest. The drunken dance had begun.

Gaet backtracked along his mental maze knowing he was onto something important. He sensed it. His mind had that wild flavor. “Why not a silo-sized steam engine driving wheels? I’ve seen your little models with wheels. I’ve seen your power engines in the Cloister!”

“Sure, sure, I can build you a big one. We just built a monster for the Palace to run one of those electric pumps.” He was saying yes, but the tone of his voice was saying no.

“How long will it take?”

“Gaet, that’s not the point. Cris, come here.” He nodded to a wise old o’Tghalie who was drinking quietly by himself. “Gaet, I know what you want. Let’s postulate a land-based haulage fleet that can move as much freight at the same speed and over the same distance as the Mnankrei wind fleet. Tell him, Cris. We’ve gone over this backwards and forwards for a couple of thousand sunrises now.”

Cris generated the relevant numbers from his strange o’Tghalie brain. He showed how fast the desert vegetation would be stripped to fuel the engines and to reduce the iron oxide for the iron roads — and how fast it would grow back and how much labor it would take to collect the fuel.

Benjie summed up the argument: “You want to preside over a nation gone to sand, go ahead. God’s Streak, we could do anything if we had the wood!”

Gaet paused. A Kaiel who made decisions had to register at the Palace what he thought would be the consequences of those decisions both in the short term and the long term. To be proved wrong by time meant that his genes would be purged from the liquid nitrogen sperm banks of the Kaiel creches.

“But there must be ways to move as fast across the land as a Mnankrei ship flies across the sea!”

“There are — and they all gobble fire.”

“I’m not so sure. Think about it. It is said that God moves without effort and He circles the whole of Geta seven times for every sunrise.”

“Have your creches breed Ivieth for gods, then,” said Benjie drunkenly.

Gaet went to bed earlier than he had intended so that he might begin immediately the work Hoemei had thrust upon him. It was chilling to think of losing the coast to the Mnankrei. Failure on the family’s first assignment from Aesoe would be fatal. There were too many other families in line. The five of them would find themselves administering the Kalamani desert. Better to end up as soup and ceremonial vests. He needed to talk to Joesai. But Joesai was not a rayvoice man. Curse the distance. He dreamed about the mythical wings of God.

Artists had visualized the wings of God as if they were the great laced lifting fans of the hoiela, the one insect that could soar halfway around the globe before it died. How the hoiela sparkled on the breezes! The fine tough fabric of the wings was so iridescently beautiful that it was prized by women to sew into their sexual finery. God’s wings, myth said, were even more beautiful but so fragile that they did not float on air but took lift only from the purest blackness, a black so black that even light was eaten without a trace.

In the morning, wild and elated screams were interlaced with Gael’s dreams. They were happy screams but bloodcurdling enough to send all the beetles within a day’s walk scuttling for their burrows. Ah, the revel is still alive, he thought, waking up. The boisterous merrymaking continued while he washed his face and shaved — until his curiosity was tickled enough for him to peek down over the courtyard.

Five grown men and eight children were chasing a contraption about the flagstones that was circling this way and that in mad escape manned by a frantic og’Sieth youth whose feet were pumping up and down but never touching the ground. The “wagon” he was propelling was hardly a wagon. It had only three wheels, two large ones in front and a small “rudder” wheel in the rear. The wheels were so insubstantial that there seemed to be no supporting structure between axle and rim. Even the wagon framework was missing, being replaced by what appeared to be light steel tubing.

Later Gaet examined the machine after it had broken down and been removed to a thatch-roofed shed for extensive rethinking and redesign. The argument of the evening, evidently, had continued to evolve after he went to bed and since it was a party of craftsmen, not all of them articulate, they had settled the matter by building what their drunken imaginations had conceived. Only drunks would start by postulating an unfueled, massless wagon that could keep up with the wind. And only a tribe of sloshed og’Sieth would try to build one during a festival. They were still sleeping under the shed’s tables.

Gaet smiled like a child who has just seen the insides of his first clock. He took a morning walk beneath the mountains to breathe in some of the possibilities. His trained Kaiel mind blocked out new futures. Which to make real? He saw, for one, the breaking of a stalemate.

No priest clan of the sea had ever been able to dominate Geta because the eleven seas were isolated from each other by the land; neither had any landlocked priest clan been able to dominate because land passage was so slow. Now he saw fleets of these three-wheeled ships, pumped by strong Ivieth, racing over mountain and across prairie with the speed of a flung stone. It was a heady image for a politician. Imagine what it might do for tax collection!

Gaet sought out his Ivieth friend to discuss his vision over rolls and tea. The powerful giant only smiled as if the wire-wagon was a mere toy. “Running with the ease of walking is a thrill, but the roads are too rough for such flimsy spider work. It will break every thousand man-lengths! Men are stronger than steel.” And he grinned. He had been bred to outlast steel.

A sober Gaet returned to the shops for still another viewpoint. Benjie lay in stupor but a fresh crew of og’Sieth were at work. They laughed at the idea of men being stronger than steel, and though they did not back up their laughter with convincing words, one rash youth whacked Gaet across the chest with a hammer to illustrate their feeling.

They had little time for Gaet, chattering as they were about the drive rods and gears which jammed repeatedly, brainstorming alternate mass-conserving designs. They could not talk long without hammering or boring or chiseling metal on the lathe, and the talk remained cryptic — phrases about tempered wire and torque and crushing strength. None of the failures seemed to upset these people. They were already calling the massless wagon a skrei-wheel after the twelve tenuous long legs of the rock-skittering skrei, as if their device was worthy of a permanent name.