At first Teenae had been afraid of the powerful force that was Kathein and what she might do to the comfortable dynamics of their Five. She had one of the greatest minds on all of Geta. And then one day Kathein had simply blocked out the brothers by piling furniture against the door and the three women had spent from noon to noon together, hugging, talking about men, sharing secrets, and now Teenae’s heart ached with longing when she thought of union with “three-wife”.
“You’re thinking,” said Joesai, returning the squeeze of her hand.
“I am thinking that the Kaiel have chosen the path of power and that the logic of power demands self-sacrifice.”
“Life does not always follow logical trails!” snapped Joesai. “The bonds of loyalty take us over mountains, not around them!”
Teenae backed away a little from this fierce attack. She was the youngest and not yet sure that she belonged in this strange clan. She had been brought up to please men who built abstract models and who became upset if those models were found to conform to some reality. Now she was dealing with people who created reality.
“I love Kathein, too, but Aesoe has my respect as a man of formidable reason.”
“His path is not that logical, my little dark-eyed beetle,” said Gaet. “This woman of the coast has many friends, true, but most of them are of low kalothi and will be eaten during the next famine. Some of them are noseless criminals and will be eaten before the next famine. She lives in our deeded land beside the Njarae, true, but that fact does not make her an asset — she is a fanatical heretic.”
“Aesoe knows this?” blurted Teenae.
“Yes, yes.”
“What is her heresy?” asked Joesai, intrigued.
“She’s an atheist.”
“And what is the God of the Sky?”
“A moon like Scowlmoon, like the moons of Nika.”
“He doesn’t look like a moon in my sky-eye. At a magnification of four He still looks like a brass button with a hint of filigree. Still, she’s not far wrong. Is she aware that a moon can be God? What else does she believe? Did we come full blown out of machines in the Wailing Mountains?” He winked. The brothers had been born from machines in the Wailing Mountains and those so brought to life spoke obliquely of their inhuman origin.
Gaet laughed. “No. Worse than that. She proclaims we have insects for ancestors.”
“My God!” exclaimed Noe. “She doesn’t! She can’t believe that!”
“Which insect?” asked Teenae.
“The maelot.”
“Logical. The maelot is the only four-legged insect with fleshy parts on the outside of its exoskeleton.”
“But a maelot is so small!” protested Noe.
“The largest insects are in the maelot class. The ones who have returned to the sea can be as large as your leg. Wrong ammo acids, though. Wrong replication coding. Not logical. We are closer to the bee than to the maelot. We are even closer to wheat than to the maelot.”
“She has no place for God?” asked Joesai.
“None. She cites some impressive evidence for genetic drift and selective pressures, then supposes that the link between us and the maelot is missing because we evolved from a cannibal form of the maelot that ate its inferior offspring and so left no fossils.”
“Absurd biochemistry! Absurd history! We know the day and the sun-height of the day that the God of the Sky brought us here!” stormed the tallest brother.
“Not quite that precisely. Radioactive dating has its flaws.”
“I speak of the Chants. The Outpacing, verse 107, line 4.”
“Which version?” chided Gaet. He paused, ready to put the critical question to a vote. “Who is in favor of continuing the courtship of Kathein?”
“I,” said Joesai.
The two women nodded.
“But can we disobey Aesoe?” asked Gaet, testing their resolve. “I suggest that I journey to the village called Sorrow and court Oelita.” He winked at Noe. “I may bring back new ways of loving.”
Joesai grinned. “You know too much already for the good of Hoemei and myself. I suggest that I slip into the village called Sorrow. I’ve been thinking that Aesoe cannot object if we court this coastal barbarian by Rite of Trial. She must earn her Place, and no Kaiel finds an easy Place.”
“He will not object to the Couth Rite.”
“I had in mind the Death Rite.”
“That would not please Aesoe. Premature death is a sacrilege if it does not take inferior genes with it.”
“If the Rite does not challenge her with Death how can it be a true test of her kalothi?”
“And if she lives? She may. Aesoe claims her kalothi is of the highest.”
“Ho! He hears that from the Stgal. Who takes seriously the kalothi rating of a village temple? If she lives, Gaet, she will be a worthy three-wife for us.”
“But could she love us after we have tried to kill her?” Gaet kept his game face, but his eyes betrayed mischief. “Such mistrust might mar the harmony of our marriage.”
“That cannot be my problem. To survive she will have to kill me.”
“You will never be popular with women,” sighed Gaet.
“Some women love only the men they defeat.” Teenae’s large eyes were sparkling. “I love Joesai because I always beat him at kolgame.”
“Little larva!” He kissed the shaved streak across the top of her head. “For that insult I’m taking you with me to the coast as my shield!”
“A shield you think I am! I would protect this Oelita against your zeal!”
“Ho. What is this? Already the heretic’s kalothi shows itself to guard her? You both must host common barbarian genes. Good. Then with you by my side I will understand her!”
Teenae turned wildly to Gaet. “He’s not serious?”
“Yes. You must go with him. The Council has given us that land, but we must earn it, and neither you nor Joesai have yet mixed its dirt in the cuts of your feet.”
Noe grabbed her tallest husband by the biceps and forced him against the stone, lifting her face to speak to his. “Even after Aesoe’s command, you still think we will marry Kathein?” She was disturbed.
“Of course we’ll marry Kathein!” snarled Joesai.
4
If Death is in front of you, he appears to be behind. A man who runs from Death, runs into the arms of Death. A man who faces Death turns his back on Death, and standing there, proud of his courage, is taken from the rear.
JOESAI’S BULK OVERWHELMED the small stool in the archives of the Temple of Human Destiny while he copied out of the Kaiel Book of Death in the tiny, precise script of a man who has been a genetic surgeon since the time he learned to write. Reddish sunlight diffused from the curved mirrors around the windows cut into the stone. At dusk he continued to work while the shadows deepened, but finally closed the books, unwilling to pen by glowlamp. Evening found him wandering through the city, memorizing what he had copied, fleshing out the dryly recorded rituals with mental images of planned action.
Since Aesoe had disrupted their lives, orange Getasun had dawned fourteen times to the east of Kaiel-hontokae, marking seven high days and seven low days, waking them from seven sleeps. The Constellation of the Amorists had given way to the Constellation of the Ogre and Joesai’s work was nearly done. He needed only one more boy to complete the team he was to take against the heretic — a mature boy, eager to please, a Kaiel, a brave and cunning youth, a boy who was not in a hurry, one who could play games with his opponents. Joesai already had his quota of girls.
At the Creche of the Seven Holy Martyrs he ate supper from the Master’s table above the machine-born children, watching them. They were used to him. He taught here and they thought nothing of his presence while they joked and reached for the steaming food, but he was weighing them against his needs, deciding which one he would reward with life by removing him from the creche as he had been taken as a youth. Only one in four survived the creche-culling and Joesai knew he was selecting an apprentice who, by being selected, would become one of the survivors.