Campas shook his head; but his fierce eyes never left her. “But you are a witch, you see,” he said. “I’m not saying you have cast a spell over us all — it would have been better if you had: spells wear off. You’ve done something far worse. You’ve changed the world.”
Fiona became aware of the silence from the other chamber, the absence of Tibro’s flute. Well, she thought fiercely, let the girl listen.
“Worlds change every day,” she said.
“Not like this, they don’t,” Campas said. “The people are intoxicated with you. See the star woman. Hear of her wonders. They think of you as this benevolent force, come to improve their lives. They haven’t yet realized what you really mean.
“Now we know there are other worlds,” he said. “Other peoples, peoples who can work wonders. And before long we will begin to measure ourselves against you. What will happen then? We do not build ships that sail between the stars; we cannot fly above the clouds; we are unable to communicate between cities in the blink of an eye. A lady walks among us, offering in her whimsical condescension ‘suggestions,’ little driblets of knowledge from heaven, that can turn us upside-down. Our triumphs are insignificant; our knowledge pointless. It’s all been done before.
“Your spells have taken our souls, witch,” Campas said, his bitterness etched on his words like acid. “You’ve shown us our insignificance. Our dreams have been dreamed before, and better. You’ve shattered us, Ambassador. We were better off before you showed us the stars.”
“I don’t think you’re so fragile as all that, Campas,” Fiona said. “I don’t enjoy being a part of this poetic conceit of yours.” He turned his eyes away as her shaft struck home; and then she stood up, walked briskly to the door, and caught a glimpse of Tibro, flute in hand, perched on a settee, her eyes wide with shock. The maidservant flushed. “Beg pardon, Ambassador,” she stammered.
“Play,” Fiona said, and then expressionlessly closed the door, putting her back against it. Let them think what they damn well please, she thought fiercely, and then, feeling the firmness of the door against her shoulders, she spoke.
“What I’m going to say is not meant to go beyond these walls,” she said. “Can I trust you not to go running off to Necias with this, like that girl out there, who is certainly going to dash off downstairs with the news that I’m a witch after all?”
“I can keep a confidence.” Grudgingly. No woman had ever talked to him like this, Fiona thought. Too bad it hadn’t happened before.
She walked across the room and returned to her seat. “Do you think you’re the first people to have your world turned around?” she asked. “It’s happened before, and it’s happened worse. I’ve seen the history you teach your children. Five hundred years ago the Abessla were conquerors, coming over the passes from the south, weren’t they? They toppled the weak Captilla kingdoms, and then the Sanniscu Empire, and the result has been five hundred years of anarchy as the successors, the barons and the cities, warred among themselves. Do you think the Captilla and Sannisla didn’t have their world changed?”
“They were destroyed,” Campas said. “Wiped out. You serve only to illustrate my point.”
“Hardly destroyed. They still live, Campas,” Fiona said. “Their kingdoms were destroyed, but the people lived under new rulers. And they learned, Campas. They learned from their conquerors, and their conquerors learned from them. And eventually they became a single people. Ideas may shatter, Campas, but the people survive them, if they’re wise. You can’t be afraid of putting aside the ideas of your youth, when you grow older — or can you?”
Campas looked at her balefully. “If these youthful ideas are all I’ve got,” he said. “If these quaint, eccentric little concepts are all that’s holding me together, I damned well resent their supercession.”
“Dramatics.”
He glared up at her sharply, resentful. Fiona settled into her seat, plumping up the pillow behind her, pulling her legs into the chair. “I’m going to tell you a story, Campas,” she said. “Believe it a true one or not, as you please. I’m not an artist such as yourself, so forgive my crudities of phrase.”
Sardonic humor entered Campas’ eyes. “Now who’s being dramatic?”
Fiona grinned. “Conceded,” she said. She sipped her tea — by now it was cold, but it still refreshed.
“I’ll have to ask you to imagine a planet much like your own,” she said. “Its name was Terra, and humans lived there from earliest times — they lived, and boon-re blessed them, such that they learned to travel among the stars. Not slowly, such as my people do it, but swiftly, in an instant. So they traveled among the stars in their fast ships, and they found many planets on which the Terralla could live. Their people came to these planets in great numbers; and they settled there and prospered. They came to my planet, Igara, and they came to yours, Campas; and they settled in both.”
Campas sat up, his eyebrows raised. “You’re making a case for these people as our ancestors?” he asked.
“You’re quick,” Fiona said. “But I’m just telling a story, remember. I don’t want to turn your fragile world upside-down again.”
Campas smiled, his smile this time self-mocking, conscious of Fiona’s elaborate irony. “Very well,” he said, gesturing grandly. “Please go on.”
“Thank you.” The muffled sound of Tibro’s flute sounded through the door. Fiona settled again into her chair, and went on. “But there was a flaw in the knowledge of the Terralla,” she said. “Their method of traveling among the stars was dangerous, and they did not know it.” She paused, trying to choose her words. How could she explain to this man, bright as he was, that the Terran faster-than-light ships, using their vast power to warp the fabric of space-time, had created a monumental instability in the balance of space, matter, time, reality? And that when the balance was at last overturned, the catastrophe had been sudden and swift, destroying entire planets, sending others backward and forward in time, destroying human civilization?
“Imagine that the Arrandalla build a new type of ship to sail upon the sea,” Fiona said. “And that this new type of ship is very fast and successful, so that the Arrandalla expand throughout the world and become very rich, and that their knowledge increases and they become very wise. But that the means by which this ship is driven through the waves injures the ocean, so that ocean is forced to attack the ships in self-defense.” She saw incomprehension in Campas’ eyes and paused. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know this is difficult.”
He waved a hand by his head, mimicking his own confusion. “This ship is injuring the ocean?” he asked. “Is the ocean alive, then, in this story?” Then a light of understanding entered his eyes, and he leaned forward. “Or am I not to take this literally? Is this a metaphor?”
“A metaphor,” Fiona said gratefully, thankful that Campas had made that leap of understanding.
“Very well. Go on.” He leaned back in his chair, his legs still thrust out before him.
“The Terralla did not entirely understand the means by which they traveled among the stars, just as your alchemists do not entirely understand why their compounds work, or do not work,” she said. “Just as the alchemists might accidentally make a compound that is dangerous — that might be poison, or that might cause a fire — the Terralla did not understand that there was great danger created by their ships. They caused a great disaster, and most of the Terralla died. More than ninety-nine in a hundred were killed instantly; all their ships were destroyed: their cities were turned to ruins. Many of the survivors were driven mad by the catastrophe.”
She paused, seeing an intent, intelligent comprehension on Campas’ face, knowing she had him intrigued. “You may be interested to know that my people have a large literature concerning the Terralla,” she said. “Tragedies, many of them — they show the Terralla as wise beings descending, through fatal curiosity, to disaster. The catastrophe is presented as the inevitable result of their meddling with things they should have left alone.