“All is well,” said Ivale in the round, almost-musical tones he’d been cultivating since he’d received his contract to the Reclamation. “There is only new work that we ask of you.”
Despite Ivale’s reassurances, the artifacts all looked at her with identical expressions of fear on their faces.
Avir’s anger at the long-dead Aunorante Sangh deepened. How could you condemn your own kind to this? A life without structure or purpose? Where they can’t even recognize the ones you were made to serve?
It was totally irrational, and though she knew it, she couldn’t help herself.
We will restore them. As soon as we understand how the Ancestors structured this world, we will be able to restore their proper functions to them, and then that fear will vanish.
These, at least, seemed fairly docile. They let Ivale and the Beholden direct them toward the analysis area, where Nal and his other three Beholden were dodging each other as they tried to uncrate and set up the last of their equipment.
A juvenile stumbled on the uneven floor. An adult, old enough to be wrinkled and toothless, stuck out her clawed hand to steady it. Even from where she stood, Avir saw the bones in the adult’s wrist.
“Bio-technician,” she called, unable to take her eyes off the skinny artifact. The artifact noticed her regard and lowered herself humbly to the floor, holding her hands in front of her eyes.
Bio-tech Nal disentangled himself from a coil of fiber optic and came to stand beside her. “Yes, Contractor?” There was no disguising the impatience in his voice.
Avir ignored it. “Once you have completed your classification scans on this sampling, take the artifacts down into the basements. We will need to provide food and warmth for them until the committees meet to determine a coherent separation strategy.”
“We’re going to keep them here?” Nal’s face wrinkled with distaste.
Avir’s temper flared. “You are speaking with disrespect of the work of the Ancestors, Bio-tech. Do you want to explain your reluctance to care for it properly to a Witness and have it added to the Memory?” She spoke too loud and too harshly. The Bio-tech was plainly more shocked than chagrined. He dropped quickly into an obeisance that pressed his forehead against the filthy floor.
“I spoke without thought, Contractor,” he said.
So did I, but Avir just gestured for him to get up.
Avir glanced at the Beholden, but they were all properly busy at their tasks. She wished she wasn’t so certain they were all straining their ears to hear what her next outburst would be. Ivale, though, had his dark eyes leveled at her, and, for a moment, she saw the question in them.
I am not supposed to be feeling like this, thought Avir as she turned away. I am walking on the Home Ground. I am working directly for the Reclamation. This should be glorious. I should be joyous. I shouldn’t be petty and scolding and worn like a student on her first assignment. She rubbed her forehead and gazed at the sprinkling of soot that smeared her palm. I just never thought it would be…
“Skyman!” shouted a voice.
Avir’s head jerked toward the doorway. The songs and shouts had dropped away outside, leaving only the sounds of the wind and of feet squelching in the mud.
“I’ll go,” said Ivale.
“No.” He opened his mouth and Avir raised her hand. “We are all Ambassadors to the work of the Ancestors now. I will see what is happening outside and you will calm the artifacts already in our care.”
Ivale hesitated for a moment, as if testing the seriousness of her order. Then he turned away from her and gestured toward the floor. “Sit, sit,” he said to the artifacts. “You are in the hands of the Nameless. What else can touch you here?”
The artifacts did as they were told. They settled themselves next to the wall, wrapping their ragged clothing around them. They set the juveniles on their laps or took them in their arms. One began to croon a soft, wordless song to an infant. Beside them, the analysis tank began a steady humming, indicating that the Beholden had gotten the generators successfully hooked up.
Avir couldn’t work out why she was staring at them.
“Skyman!”
Avir tore her gaze away from the artifacts. Drawing herself up into a properly poised stance, she pushed past the poorly woven blanket that covered the threshold and stepped onto the flagstone veranda.
A new group of artifacts filled the street below the crude, stone steps. Unlike the crowds that had been there earlier, these stood in relatively straight lines. They had hats of beaten metal covering their heads. In their midst, a smallish female who had been tattooed in red around her face and jaw sat on the back of one of the oxen used as beasts of burden. The shadow from the tether fell across her, creating a broad, black stripe over her chest.
Avir remembered her briefing. This was, in all probability, Silver on the Clouds, the King or leader of this area’s social grouping.
“See how they come when called!” Silver on the Clouds shouted, standing in the ox’s stirrups. “They know who they are! Skymen!”
But even from where she stood, Avir could see the fear in the King’s eyes. Just like she saw in all the others. Endless, reasonless fear.
“You doubt we are the Nameless?” Avir let her voice ring across the plaza. “You are alone, King Silver. The Temples and the Teachers know us.”
“The Teachers are fools!” Silver on the Clouds snorted. “They always have been! You are nothing but Skymen with tricks and lies. Narroways is still my city, Skyman! If you do not leave it on your own, we will drive you over the World’s Wall and into the maw of the Aunorante Sangh!
“You have until the next sunshowing!”
Taking her words as their cue, the helmeted artifacts raised their weapons and began to retreat, one step at a time. Silver backed her ox up to stay in the middle of them. No one tried to stop them as they disappeared between the ramshackle buildings.
Avir felt something whither inside her. I should have let Ivale do this. I don’t know how to handle them. I don’t know what to do. This is not what I’m trained for. This is not what anybody here is trained for.
The remaining artifacts stared up at her with their wide eyes. They were waiting for her to do something miraculous to prove that she really was a daughter of the Ancestors. But she had no proof to offer.
Avir glowered at the herd of artifacts, suddenly furious. They all leaned a bit closer together and ducked their heads in the face of her anger. Avir knew they were not to blame for their own ignorance, but knowing that did not help calm her.
Her translator disk beeped. “Contractor,” said Ivale’s voice, “there is a transmission from the Reclamation Assembly that requires your attention.”
Avir touched her disk to acknowledge him, and, with as much dignity as she could muster, she retreated behind the blanket.
Ivale watched her a little too closely as she crossed the chamber. Did he see the hollowness inside her? She thought she had her face properly expressionless, but she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of anything right now.
She reached the active comm screen and faced a single Contractor, immaculate in his seamless black robe. Avir suddenly remembered how rumpled and ash-spattered she was.
“Allow me to hand you my name, Contractor.” He had elected to be as bald as an Ambassador and yet as brown as an artifact. Avir wondered what had motivated the juxtaposition. “I am Contractor Cynleah Laefhur, of the Fust Core, and Senior Contractor to the Reclamation Assembly. We have news that will affect your division.”
His quiet, steady voice went straight through Avir , soothing her instantly. She wanted to lean toward the screen and drink in his voice, as a reminder of what she ought to be.