Part 18

Quila

By Quila’s counting, she had been sure for eighteen days that she was not going to die. She could tell the wound on her back was healing from constant itching that turned into pain whenever she tried to touch it. She could not yet stand, but she could sit upright for a little at a time and, with care and time, even turn over. She was proud of these markers of her recovery; it showed fortitude, she thought, to have made such progress in circumstances such as this. It was only a pity that there was no one to be impressed.

She had not seen Terise for twelve days, not since their conversation about Mara. Her food was brought occasionally by the Jeba Ihanakan, and more often by a girl with a sullen expression and an overflowing top. She had not learned her name: the girl was so monosyllabic Quila wondered if she even understood her painstaking Terran. She didn’t know why Terise had not come back, she supposed she was not very high on her list of concerns. It was understandable, she knew what it was to be busy, not to have time for the things you would wish. She understood, but the hurt, sharp as an itch, was still there. She missed the company, that was the thing. She thought Terise… well, she had thought she would be more interested in her than that.

It was very dim in the hut. She thought it was probably late in the afternoon, though from the light it could have been earlier or later. The rain pattered steadily on the ground, interspersed with occasional rushing like wind in the trees. Far off, someone shouted something, there was a rattle of blaster fire, then laughter. It was about time for a meal, she thought, and as if she’d called them, she heard footsteps on the other side of the wall. A light tread, too delicate for the girl.

She pulled herself as far up as she could in the bed and watched as the door opened to admit Ihanakan with a tray. He set it down on the table by her bed and retreated back out of her sight. There was a faint scrabble as he sat down on the floor by the door. He would stay for hours sometimes. He didn’t usually say anything; she supposed it was the custom of his people. She respected it, of course she did, but she suddenly felt the need for more comfort than silence.

‘Ihanakan?’

There was a pause, then his answer as if from very far away.

‘Yess?’

‘Talk to me. Tell me about, I don’t know, the world outside this hut. I haven’t been out for so long I could almost forget it exists. Tell me the news.’

‘The newsss…’ He let out a long, sighing breath. She tried to twist over to look at him, but sank back, wincing.

‘I’m sorry, I can’t stay facing that way. I’m still listening.’

‘Yess.’ Another pause, so long this time she wondered if he had slipped out without her hearing. She stared at the wall. His voice came finally, disembodied, whispering over the dark behind her.

‘They ssay that in Airdrossa the Pressident hass died. They ssay he hass been buried with the bodiess of all the dead Pressidentss, in the great cathedral in Airdrossa. The newss ssays that ten thoussand people wept for him.’

The hyperbole gave her the strength to be cynical.

‘I don’t believe that.’

‘Nor do they. They ssay Dessailly will be Pressident now.’

‘Desailly?’ She would have thought once that the failure of the talks would have spoiled his chances, but somehow, she was still not surprised. She had learned that she could not avoid the worst outcome just through wishing. She couldn’t reveal her feelings to Ihanakan; in any case, it felt so far away. She said only, ‘So he gets what he wanted, after all. What else?’

‘Your people have gone.’

He said it so baldly for a moment she could not grasp his meaning.

‘Gone? How do you mean, gone? Has something happened to Chi!me? But no, that couldn’t be, you mean, gone from here? Gone from the north province? Gone from Airdrossa?’ He didn’t make a sound. ‘Gone from the planet?’ Silence in the hut, in the dark. Someone singing splashed past the outside wall. She couldn’t make out the words. ‘That’s it, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘They’ve gone from the planet. They’ve withdrawn their embassy from Benan Ty. Is that what they announced?’

‘There wass no announcement. But the diplomat and the sstaff from the embassy were flown out before the Pressident died.’

‘They didn’t do a press conference? No last words at the spaceport?’

He elaborated, unwillingly. ‘They did not go to the sspaceport. The crowd in Airdrossa wass againsst them, they had ssurrounded the embassy and were beating on the gatess. The flyer landed on the roof.’

She laughed. ‘From the roof! I’m sure Par’Lennan loved that, anyway. I always thought he was one for dramatic events. Was Fairo – Du’Fairosay, my assistant, was he there?’

‘I do not know.’

‘I suppose he must have been, if the whole embassy went.’ Her thoughts were racing. ‘If they all went it means they’ve broken off diplomatic relations. But you only do that if you have the strongest, the most unassailable reason. You do everything you can to avoid it, because to break off relations only really means war…’ She ground to a halt. ‘Why,’ she asked slowly, ‘did they break off relations?’

‘I don’t…’

‘And don’t tell me you don’t know.’

‘You inssisst that you know thiss?’ he asked. There was a strange note in his voice, not annoyance at her interruption at all. ‘You are ssure?’

‘Tell me!’

‘I will tell you.’ He stopped, as if preparing for some great announcement. ‘They ssay they know that you are dead,’ he said.

There was a silence. ‘Maybe I am dead’, Quila thought, ‘maybe I died all along and here I am just pretending. After all, how do I know I’m alive? I only have my word for it.’

‘They think I’m dead?’ Fairo, Ceronodis, Ai’Amadi think I’m dead?

‘They ssay Dessailly and the government are ressponssible, becausse they did not protect you.’

‘And Desailly says…?’

‘That he did not assk you to come.’

‘Oh, stars above. That’s it then. I suppose I wouldn’t have expected anything less from him.’ She pulled exasperatedly at the edge of the blanket, unpicking the fraying end with nervy fingers.

‘They do know that they can stop this any time they like, don’t they? ViaVera, I mean. All they have to do is let me tell my people I’m alive. Stars above, they could hold me for ransom if they wanted, I’m sure IntPro would pay for me. But if they just told someone I’m not dead they could stop this. They do know that, don’t they?’

Ihanakan said nothing.

‘But they won’t, will they? Because Desailly is their enemy and they don’t care who gets killed along the way as long as in the end he is defeated. They don’t care if UP does it for them, as long as someone does. They don’t care how many people die, just as long as that one man is one of them. After all, death is what they do.’

It was a lonely thought. She knew Terise was ViaVera and she knew what ViaVera was. But she’d met her and talked to her and until now she hadn’t realized that innocent lives were merely something that got in the way.

‘She is a terrorist,’ she said, tasting it sour on her tongue. ‘Is that why she hasn’t come to see me?’

‘She would have to tell you that hersself,’ Ihanakan said. There was a rustle as he got to his feet. She knew he would go now, and suddenly, out of all the unendurable things, that seemed the most unendurable of all.

‘Oh, Ihanakan, don’t be offended. Don’t go, please. I haven’t had anyone to talk to for days. We don’t have to talk about current events if you don’t want to. Tell me more about your people. I know so little about you. Please?’

There was a horrible pause, then she heard another soft scrabble as he slid back down to the floor.

‘I will sstay,’ he pronounced. ‘I will tell you what I can. What would you like to know?’

She considered. It was difficult to be interested, to drag her mind away from her present problems, but she was trained to gather any information that came her way on other cultures. She might be a prisoner, a hostage suspended between death and life, but she was still IntPro and she still had her job to do. She pulled herself up again, twisting round in defiance of the pain until she could see him. You always carried out interviews face to face. It was what you did.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I just want to understand your people.’ Her voice in her own ears sounded different, like a classroom back on Zargras. ‘I’ve heard so much about the Caduca, for example, it’s fascinating but it seems so strange to me. Everyone I’ve asked has told me something, but it’s so confusing. I’ve seen the signs in Airdrossa, the little wire men? I know it’s some kind of leader, and that ViaVera say it’s Issa, but someone told me the name also means emptiness, something thrown away. Is Issa the Caduca? And if she is, what does that mean? What does that mean for your people, when the Caduca is someone from outside?’

‘You wish to know about the Caduca? Why do you wish it?’ His voice was as uninflected as always, but there was something in it nevertheless that made her feel she had trespassed.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said rapidly. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you; I don’t mean to ask anything which is forbidden. I was just interested, that’s all, I didn’t mean to pry.’ She remembered a phrase. ‘I do not ask for anything which it is not licit for me to know.’

‘No. No, it iss allowed. There are no ssecretss about the Caduca, it iss just the thing that everyone knowss but no one sspeakss. Issa, ass you ssay, wass ssisster to Mara and she iss leader of ViaVera in her place. In the villagess, there iss great belief in the Caduca ass a hero who will come and ssave them, like their Chrisst come again, you know? It iss a Terran thing, I think.’

‘Yes, I have heard of it. But I always thought it was a sky god cult. How does that fit with the Caduca? I thought the name meant a worn-out skin?’

‘I do not know. In our tongue, thiss iss not itss meaning.’ If he had been given to gestures, she thought Ihanakan would have shrugged. ‘Terisse ssaid once, their Christ wass god wearing a body, and when the body died he casst it off and left it behind ass a ssign.’

‘Really? I hadn’t read that about it. I know he died and went back to the world of the gods, but I didn’t pick up on the importance of his human body. That’s very interesting, I wonder if it’s a Benan Ty variant. I’ll have to remember to look up if there’s anything similar on Benan, when I…’ get back. The words hung, unforgiving, unsaid, in the air between them. ‘So,’ she went on, as if while she spoke she could maintain the pretense of going home, ‘Issa is the Caduca and the Christ both?’

‘In the villagess, this iss what she ssays.’

‘And the people believe it?’

He snorted softly. ‘Perhapss. Ssometimess.’

‘And what about your people? Is Issa the Caduca to you, too?’

He didn’t reply for so long she thought she had offended him after all.

‘Ihanakan?’

‘The Caduca for my people iss a different thing,’ he said at last. His tone was firmer now, as if he had made a decision. ‘Every year on the appointed day we dance the dance of the Caduca, in every village all at the ssame time, and each village tryss ass it can to be better, bolder, more than all the otherss. Each one wishess to have more honor, you undersstand?’

‘You compete through the ritual.’

‘I do not know “ritual”, but yess. It iss competition. But this iss not Caduca. It iss acting Caduca, but it iss not Caduca. It iss ass if you looked into a clear sstream and tried to catch your reflection. It iss, and iss not. You understand? It iss not Caduca. It iss a picture only. For you cannot make Caduca, you cannot be Caduca jusst by sseeming. The Caduca iss what you are yourself. It iss inside you.’

‘So the Caduca is just a person?’

‘A person and nothing.’

‘Nothing?’

‘Yess. If you are Caduca, you do not lead, do not sspeak, do not tell how thingss should be done. You are empty. You will come to the village that iss mosst worthy, and if they are worthy, they will ssee you and will keep you all your dayss in honor. And you will be nothing.’

Quila spread her hands doubtfully. ‘It seems a strange kind of leader. I’m used to the idea that leaders have to have some quality in them that means they can lead.’

‘Yess,’ Ihanakan said. ‘But of all the thingss that musst be behind you, what better than nothing?’

She would digest that later, she thought. She couldn’t cope with it now.

‘I’m still not clear on how you get a Caduca,’ she said. ‘The ritual every year, that doesn’t make a difference?’

‘The dance, it iss a way of being worthy, that iss all. I can… that iss, anyone can wear the sseeming of Caduca but it iss jusst a sshadow, a reminder that it can be. We ssay, it keepss the place open for the Caduca when it comess, sso that the people do not forget and it knowss there iss a place prepared for it. For it will not come when you are not ready, we ssay.’

‘You have to be worthy for it to come. I can see that. But when does it come? Is it something that happens once every few years, or when a star is in a particular place, or what?’

‘No one can tell. No one can ssay when the Caduca will come, or where. The village that hass a Caduca has great honor, great sstanding among all the other villagess. The people of that village can walk higher, as the Terranss ssay, they will be lisstened to because they have their backs sset against the Caduca. But no one can ssay when it will come. There are dancess that can be done, thingss that we do to call the Caduca, but they do not alwayss work, you undersstand? There has been no Caduca for my people ssince the Terranss came.’

‘Really? But that’s a long time, isn’t it? How have you managed all this time without it? Surely the destruction of your religion…’

‘Iss not desstroyed!’ He had not raised his voice, but she could hear the passion.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…’

‘The coming of the Caduca iss a very great thing. It iss a time of marvelss, of great change and great deedss. We wait and we call for it. We know it hass not been the time, but we wait for our time, we wait as we musst, all through the night for the dawn. We are patient.’

‘I can see you need to be.’ She raised herself up on one elbow, trying to reach the tray. ‘I wish I had something with me to record all this. Back home I’ve always studied religions; I would love to have a proper record of your Caduca. It doesn’t sound like anything else I’ve come across; the whole Terran sky god thing is much more the type I’ve come to expect. Do you think you could pass me the water? I can’t quite get my arm up that far.’

He unfolded himself from his squat by the door and padded over to her bedside. She took the cup from his hand.

‘Thank you.’ The water was warm and had a moldy tang, but she was getting used to it. ‘Were you here when Mara was alive?’ she asked, over the rim.

If he was surprised at the change of subject, he did not show it.

‘Yess.’

‘I just wondered how she fit in with all this. Was she a possible Caduca too?’

He snorted again. ‘Mara wass a good person. She fought for everyone, for the Terranss, for uss. We followed her because we loved her. She wass not god.’

‘Interesting.’ She reached out to put the cup back on the tray. ‘You will come again, won’t you, Ihanakan? This has been so fascinating, I would love to discuss all this with you more. You don’t mind?’

She couldn’t stretch her arm far enough. Gently, he pried the cup from her hand and set it down. ‘I will come,’ he said, ‘and tell you what you need to know.’