Notes, coded journal Dr. E. McGee
I made a tentative trip down to the depths. It is, predictably, dark down there. It’s full of calibans and Weirds, either one of which makes me nervous. No. I’m scared. I think–personally afraid in a way I’ve never been afraid of anything. Not even dying. This is being alone with the utterly alien. Vulnerable to it. Isn’t that an odd thing for a xenologist to fear most in all the world? Maybe that’s why I had to go into this work. Or why I got myself into this. Like climbing mountains. Because it’s there. Because I have to know. Maybe that has to do with fear.
Or craziness.
I think they would let me go if I asked. At least back upstairs. But I’ve got myself into one. Elai would say she told me so; but this is a thing–I don’t think there’s any going back from this, having asked for this chance. I can’t just be an outsider now. I just closed the door to that. If I go running now–it’ll be McGee, who failed. McGee, who was afraid. It would mark what Elai is, and where I can’t reach her, and I’d live here as something neither fish nor fowl.
So I don’t see anything else to do.
xxxviii
?
Cloud Tower: the lower section
There was food. McGee went to it by the smell, in the dark, not needing the calibans to guide her. But one was there. She had touched it, knew by the size, guessed by the texture of the skin that it was one of the grays.
Shepherds, she thought of them. She had been terrified at first, of the claws, the hard, bony jaws, the sinuous force of them. They had knocked her down, repeatedly, until she learned to use her ears.
There were other things in the dark: ariels. They skittered here and there and of them she had never been afraid, had kept them close when she could, because they seemed friendly.
There was a big brown hereabouts; she had felt the smoothness on his side. It was Scar, and Elai had lent him. She was grateful, and stayed close to him when she could.
Even of the Weirds she had lost her awe. They were strange, but gentle, and touched her with their spidery fingers, embraced her, held her when she was most afraid.
Once in this fathomless dark, in this waking sleep, she had been intimate with one, and more than once: that was the thing that she had most trouble to reckon with, that the thing she had dreaded most had happened, and that she had (perhaps) been the aggressor in it, having forgotten all she was, with some faceless man, a Weird, a voiceless priest of calibans.
She had lain listless for a long time after, for she had lost her objectivity, and she was compassless in more than the robbery of her senses.
Then: McGee, she thought, you did that. That was you. Not their fault. What if it had been? Get up, McGee.
And in one part of her mind: He’ll know me, outside this place. But I won’t know him.
And in another: You don’t care, McGee. This is real. The dark. This place. It’s a womb for growing in.
So grow, McGee.
She scrambled along the earthen walls, found the food left for her and ate, raw fish, which had become a neutral taste to her, something she had learned to abide. Something light skittered over her knees and she knew it was an ariel begging scraps. She gave it the head and bit by bit, the offal and the bones.
God knows what disease I’ll take, the civilized part of her had thought, of muddy hands and raw fish. I’m stronger than I thought, she reckoned now. She had not reckoned a great deal about herself lately, here in the dark. I’m wiser than I was.
The ariel slithered away with a flick of its tail. That presaged something.
A gray came then. She heard it moving. She drew to the side of the passage in case it wanted through. It arrived with a whispering of its leathery hide against the earth, a caliban in quiet approach. It nosed at her; she patted the huge head and it kept nudging. Move, move. So she must.
She went with it, this caliban‑shepherd, up and up.
This was different. There had been no such ascent in her other wanderings. They were going out to the light. Have I failed? she wondered. Am I being turned out? But no Weird had tutored her, none had been near her in–she had lost track of the time.
Daylight was ahead, a round source of sun. She went more slowly now, to accustom her eyes, and the gray went before her, a sinuous shape moving like a shadow into what proved twilight, a riot of color in the sky.
But we have left the Towers, McGee thought, rubbing at her eyes. The river was before her. Somehow they had come out by the river, where caliban mounds were, beside the fisher nets.
I should find Elai, call the Base. How many days?
Something overshadowed her, on the ridge. She looked about, blinking in the light, with tears running down her face. It was a great brown.
Her gray had stayed. It offered her a stone, laying it near. She saw a nest of ariels, a dozen dragon‑shapes curled up in a niche in the bank, where stones had been laid. It was a strange moment, a stillness in the air. “Here I am,” she said, and the sound of her own voice dismayed her, who had not heard a voice in days. It intruded on the stillness.
An ariel wriggled out and offered her a stone. It stayed, flicking collar fringes, lifting its tiny spines.
She, squatted, took the stone and laid it down again.
It brought another, manic in its haste.
xxxix
204 CR, day 300
Message, R. Genley from transStyx, to Base Director’s office.
I am not receiving McGee’s regular reports. Should I come in?
Message, Base Director to R. Genley
Negative. Dr. McGee is still on special assignment.
Memo, Base Director to Security Chief
Refer all inquiries about Dr. McGee to me.
I am more than a little concerned about this prolonged silence from McGee. Prepare a list of options in this case.
Message, Base Director to Gehenna Station.
Request close surveillance of the Cloud River settlement. Relay materials to this office…
transStyx: Green Tower
“My father,” Jin said, in the sunlight, in the winter sun, when the wide fields of Green Tower lay plowed and vacant. Forest stretched about them to the east, the marsh to the west. The wind lifted Jin’s dark hair, blew it in webs; the light shone on him, on Thorn, lazy beside the downward access. “My father.” His voice was low and warm and his hand that had rested on the walls rested on Genley’s shoulder, drew him close, faced him outward as he pointed, a sweep about the land. “This is mine. This is mine. All the fields. All the people. All they make. And do you know, my father, when I took it into my hands I had one tower. This one. Look at it now. Look, Gen‑ley. Tell me what you see.”
There was a craziness in Jin sometimes. Jin played on its uncertainties, unnerved some men. Genley looked on him with one brow arched, daring to dare him back.
“Would you think,” Jin said, “that a man has tried to kill me today?”
It was not a joke. Genley saw that and the humor fell from his face. “When? Who?”
“Mes Younger sent this man. This was a mistake. Mes will learn.” Jin set both his hands on the rim of the wall, fists clenched. “It’s this woman, Gen‑ley. This woman.”
“Elai.”
“ MaGee.” Jin rounded on him, looked up at him, his face flushed with rage. “This conniving of women. This thing goes on. Jin is a fool, they say; he lets the starmen play with him. He listens to them while they talk to this Elai and this Elai learns anything she wants from MaGee. And if Jin is a fool, then fools can try him, can’t they?”