3 x T Read online

  "Forgive me, please; I am only an ignorant foreigner," Magda said for the hundredth time. She tried another tack. "Does the earthly vessel holding the goddess's divinity die? If so, how is a new vessel chosen?"

  "The goddess is the goddess," the priest said. Magda spread her hands and gave up. She'd gotten similar answers from others she'd questioned, but kept hoping that as she drew close to the Holy City she could penetrate the mummery surrounding the locals' deity. That she kept failing deterred her only a little.

  Peasants labored in the lush green fields. They turned Archimedean screws to bring water from the Margush into the irrigation canals. Windmills also helped in that effort; Magda saw a crew repairing one. She pointed to them and asked the driver, "How long have your people known that device?"

  The driver obviously had never thought in those terms. At last she said, "As long as anyone can remember."

  "Not what one would call precise, but expressive," Kawar observed. Magda's agreement was strained.

  The road, which paralleled the Margush, bent slightly south. Magda saw what had to be the Holy City ahead. "That's Helmand," she said flatly.

  Irfan Kawar leaned out the window. "It's certainly in the same spot, isn't it?"

  Traffic was heavy. Most of the travelers were pilgrims, seeking a glimpse of the goddess. But there were others. A woman propelled herself past the Terrans' coach on a contraption halfway between a scooter and a pedalless bicycle.

  "I've never seen anything like that before," Magda said to one of the priests in the band of escorts.

  "Nor have I," he said. "Doubtless she plans to present the invention to the goddess in hope of being rewarded for it."

  "Doubtless," Magda agreed sourly. She was starting to wish none of the locals would ever have any more new thoughts; her reports would be a lot easier to write.

  The Holy City was packed with people, beasts, and wagons. Because of the crush, the party took almost as long to find its hostel as they had traveling from Mawsil. Magda and Kawar gulped sour wine while one of their escorts went back out into the heat and crowd to report their arrival. "Poor devil," Kawar said, putting down his mug with a sigh of relief.

  Magda leaned back in her chair. "Now that we're here, I expect we'll be able to relax a while. It'll take days for the word to pass up through the hierarchy?and more days, it looks like, for anyone to get through the jam to do anything about it."

  "Good," Kawar said. "That will let me take a bath. I itch everywhere."

  "Me too. God, I'd kill for a good cold shower."

  "Don't speak of such things. I've been trying to forget they exist."

  The tub was made of caulked wood. Servants hauled bucket after bucket of blood-warm river water to fill it; whatever else it boasted, the Holy City did not have much of a drainage system. The locals also knew nothing of soap?hard scrubbing and perfume made up some for the lack.

  The Terrans flipped a coin to see who would get the tub first. Kawar won. The bathwater, already slightly turbid from the Margush, was even murkier after Magda unbelted the robe that had long since replaced her coveralls and started fighting the grime that coated her.

  There was some sort of commotion down the hall. Magda was doing a good job of ignoring it until a squad of iron-corseleted troops burst into the bathroom. She yelped and grabbed at herself. The locals had no strong modesty taboos, but she did not care to be on display for them, either.

  She shook her head to get the wet hair out of her face and glowered at the soldiers, as well as one can glower from a tub. "What are you armored louts doing here?" Her voice held thirty degrees of frost.

  The squad leader did not leer at her; on the other hand, her hauteur failed to impress him. He said. "Dry and dress yourself as quickly as you may. The eternal goddess requires your presence."

  He folded his arms and waited. Magda did not think he was trying to humiliate her, only to see she did not run. Nevertheless, it rankled. To make him fidget, she dallied as long as she could, until Irfan Kawar called anxiously from the hallway to make sure she was all right. She reassured him and moved faster.

  Outside the hostel, a musician blew a harsh blast on a trumpet made from a seashell. "Clear a path!" she shouted. "Clear a path for the servants of the goddess!" Taa-raaa! "Clear a path!"

  As nothing else had done, the discordant music melted the crowds. "The goddess can work miracles," Kawar said, nodding toward the empty roadway ahead. Despite his flip tone, he sounded worried; the summons was alarmingly abrupt.

  Magda laughed, as much to keep up his spirits as for her own. She had her own reasons for concern, which she did not share with Kawar. The horn call was eerily like the royal flourish the Leeuwenhoek had recorded so long ago. The culture had changed so much in other ways that she wondered at such a strange piece of conservatism.

  She had studied the Leeuwenhoek's map of Helmand until she could have found her way around the town blindfolded. The Holy City's streets, though, were laid out in the same grid pattern that served most towns. It was nothing like the old maze. Nor was the building toward which the squad led the Terrans at all similar to the ancient royal palace. But Magda would have sworn it was in the same part of the city.

  The soldiers hustled their charges along, so they had little chance to admire the goddess's residence. Magda kept her wrist camera busy, and made such notes as she could of the numerous artworks in their niches. A few were in the stiff, ornate style that had prevailed at the time of the first Survey Service visit. Others, newer, had a self-conscious, restrained excellence that reminded her of the work of Greece and Rome. The most recent sculpture and paintings were also fine work, but more lively and vibrant with motion.

  While she was trying to examine the splendor of the palace, Kawar asked the guards, "What ceremony must we observe when we come before your goddess?"

  "Why, everyone knows?" one of them began; then he paused, inspecting his charges. "No, I take it back; you may be from so far away, you do not. A bow before her will suffice. She is no mere king or chieftain, as I hear of in foreign lands, in need of being made great by ceremony. She is the goddess, and great by virtue of what she is."

  The trumpeter blasted the fanfare one last time. The squad leader murmured to an official who stood in the doorway of a large, brightly lit chamber. That worthy dipped his head, turned, and called, "Mistress, the strangers you summoned!"

  A moment later, a priestess escorted out a plump, prosperous matron. The woman glared at these funny-looking foreigners as she passed. Magda felt a twinge of sympathy for her. Who knew how long she had waited for her audience, only to have it cut short?

  At the doorman's nod, the guardsmen led the Terrans into the goddess's chamber. Despite what the trooper had said about her not needing to stand on ceremony, the room was richly furnished. And the throne on which the goddess sat gleamed with gold and precious stones.

  As for the goddess herself, she wore a plain white robe like those of her higher-ranking priests, but a gold circlet rested on her forehead and confined her hair. Rather to Magda's surprise, she closely resembled the countless portraits of her. As in the better images, her eyes were arresting; Magda had the odd feeling she was completely transparent to her. It was a relief to bow.

  "Rise; let me look at you," the goddess said. Her voice was a smooth contralto.

  Irfan Kawar obediently straightened. Magda stayed bowed, rigid with shock. She had not recognized the face; a false mustache worn long ago to counterfeit those of kings was now gone. But she had heard that voice on endless hours of tape, and knew it again at once.

  The goddess was Queen Sabium.

  * * *

  Magda must have said the name out loud, though afterward she did not remember doing so. Kawar did not understand yet; his eyes were questioning but not full of amazement?or horror.

  Queen Sabium… the goddess… whoever she was… gasped. So did her servitors, who likely had never seen her disconcerted. Her guards growled and hefted their weapons, angry without thi
nking at anyone who dared disturb her.

  "Hold!" she said, and the guards froze in their places. Magda heard that sonorous voice address her: "Stranger woman with the copper-colored hair, I pledge you will take no harm here. I ask it of you, I do not command it: look at me."

  Trembling, Magda obeyed. At the same time, she came back to herself enough to point her bracelet-camera at the goddess. It took only moments for stereophonic hell to break loose in the transceiver behind her ear as the people back at the J?ng Ho came to the same realization she had.

  Norma Anderssen caught on first; she had used the tapes of Sabium as often as Magda. "That is the ruler from the Leeuwenhoek's time," she said, her voice stumbling in disbelief.

  Atanasio Pedroza was a split second behind her: "That is Sabium! How can she yet live?" He sounded as much indignant as astonished. After him came a swelling chorus of voices, until Babel rang in Magda's ear.

  She reached up as if to scratch, pressed the transceiver to shut off reception, but let it keep sending to the J?ng Ho. Sudden silence fell inside her head. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kawar matching her gesture. Now the geologist had grasped the situation, or as much of it as anyone else. His mouth hung open in stunned surprise.

  Magda was only peripherally aware of him. Through her own astonishment, she fought to focus her wits on the goddess. No, on Queen Sabium, she corrected herself, trying by the deliberate change of title to lessen the awe she felt. It did not help.

  The goddess?the queen?waited. The byplay had lasted less than a minute. When Magda still did not speak, Sabium said, "The last person who called me by that name has been dust for more than a thousand years. There are days, there are weeks, when I do not remember I was born with it."

  Any reply might have been wrong, disastrously wrong. Silence stretched. At last Sabium broke it. "In the very beginning of my days, I was ill, ill unto death."

  Magda heard shocked intakes of breath from the locals. The goddess?it was impossible not to think of her as such?ignored them. She went on. "Two men from a far-off land?or so they said they were?cured me, where all hope had failed. Now you know my ancient, forgotten name. One of you"?she pointed toward Kawar?"is of the same sort as one of those. The other man then had skin like dark, polished wood. I had never imagined such a one, nor had I imagined any person with hair like metal."

  Her finger turned toward Magda. "I ask you, then, if the two of you are of the people of those earlier strangers. Tell me, and know I will know if you lie."

  She might, Magda thought, a little wildly. If she had somehow lived a millennium and a half, she must have learned to see through people as through glass. No wonder, then, her eyes had that piercing quality. The anthropologist found herself unable to dissemble. "Yes."

  Sabium's head bent very slowly. She turned to her retinue and gestured peremptorily. "Leave me. Yes, all of you; I would have speech with these strangers alone." Some of the locals were startled enough to protest, even to their goddess. She overrode them. "Go, and close the chamber doors behind you."

  The locals went. The majordomo and other palace attendants scowled over their shoulders at the Terrans. Jealous of having their influence diluted, Magda thought, although what influence could mere mayfly mortals exert on their goddess?

  The hinges of the chamber's doors squealed as they swung shut; they had not been used much or kept oiled. Magda was sure as many eyes as possible were pressed to the crack between the portals.

  Sabium did not seem to care. She descended from her throne and slowly and with immense dignity prostrated herself before the two Terrans. "Along with what was my name, death is a thing I seldom think of, not for me, not for years upon years upon years. But I would have died, I think, had your countrymen not saved me. Is it not so?"

  "It is so," Magda muttered. Usually, doing fieldwork on a pretechnological world, she was conscious of the greater sophistication the Federacy's long history gave her. Now, though, it felt obscenely wrong to have this being on her knees. "Please, your, uh, divinity, get up."

  Irfan Kawar echoed her; she heard the embarrassment she felt in his voice as well.

  "No," Sabium said, still with that same calm self-possession. "I am called a goddess, and I suppose I am, for I do not die. But your people must truly be gods, or gods of greater power than myself, for I received the gift of eternal life from you."

  "Queen?goddess?Sabium?" Magda's tongue was falling all over itself, and no wonder, because she had no idea what to say. Admitting the existence of space-traveling aliens violated every noninterference canon the Federacy had. But she could not see how letting Sabium think she was a god improved matters much.

  "God damn David Ware to hell?this whole fucking mess is his fault," she said bitterly.

  Sabium shook her head in incomprehension; Magda had spoken Federacy Basic, getting no relief from swearing in the local language. But Sabium understood the anger, if not the words. She said, "I have tried every day to deserve the gift your folk gave me, by ruling justly and seeing that my people live as well as they may. If I have not pleased you, spare them and punish me."

  Magda winced. Suddenly she began to see why, fifteen hundred years before, Ware had thought this woman worth saving. She knew that was all he had intended. But what a mess his well-intentioned interference had left in its wake! It had twisted Bilbeis IV's whole historical and religious development out of shape.

  While such dark thoughts filled her head, Irfan Kawar knelt and raised Queen Sabium. "You need have no fear of us," he told her. "We have not come to judge you." Magda winced again, this time in shame. The geologist was doing a better job than she was.

  From outside the chamber came an anxious call: "Goddess, is all well?"

  "Yes, of course; leave us be!"

  "Let them in," Magda urged. "We can talk more whenever you want. They must fear for your safety, closeted alone with two such, uh, unusual strangers."

  A ghost of amusement touched Sabium's lips. "Unusual indeed. Nevertheless, you speak rightly." She swept down the aisleway and flung open the doors. Some of her attendants almost fell over her as they rushed in. She said, "I will talk further with these"?it was her turn to hesitate?"people. Quarter them in the suite nearest me, Bagadat, so I may have speech with them whenever I wish."

  "It shall be done," the majordomo said. He bowed to the Terrans. "If you will come with me."

  Apparently, if his goddess accepted the foreigners, Bagadat would do the same… or, Magda thought, he might try to make them quietly disappear, to preserve his own position. No, probably not; not with an immortal looking over his shoulder. She shivered. That was true in the most literal sense of the word.

  The suite Sabium had assigned to them was plainly one reserved for high dignitaries. The furnishings were rich, the sofa and bed upholstered with cushions soft enough to sink into. The portrait bust of Sabium that sat on a table was very fine. Done in what Magda thought of as the classical style, it showed the goddess serenely at peace with herself and her world. She wore her hair long and straight; Magda hoped she would be able one of these days to use the style to date the piece.

  At the moment, she had more urgent things to worry about. She plopped down on the couch with a groan, wishing she could hide under it instead. "Disaster!" she said. She waved her arms in a wild, all-encompassing gesture.

  Irfan Kawar slowly shook his head, still stunned himself. "No one could have expected?this."

  "Of course. But nobody knew what was going to happen, which if you ask me is a good reason for not doing anything."

  As Pedroza had before, Kawar muttered, "Maybe it's coincidence."

  "Oh, horseshit, Irfan; you don't believe that yourself." Magda knew her harshness hurt the geologist and was sorry, because he was a good man?but only somewhat, because she could not refuse to look facts in the face. She went on. "It was the stinking immunological amplifier, nothing else but. It just happened to work a wee bit better on Sabium than on us?a wee bit! I'm sure Atanasio will want to chop her
into bloody bits to find out why."

  That, unfortunately, reminded her she and Kawar had been out of touch with the J?ng Ho for several hours. She turned on the receiver part of her implant and promptly regretted it. Everyone back at the ship must have been going mad with frustration, and everyone started shouting hysterical advice at her at once.

  She listened?or tried to?for only a couple of minutes, then switched off so violently, she hurt herself. "Idiots!" she snarled. "Halfway around the world from us and telling us what to do."

  What with the turmoil in her own head, she had not noticed Kawar also turning on his receiver. He stood the din a few seconds longer before shutting it off again. He did hear one thing she'd missed: "They won't be halfway around the world for long?the J?ng Ho has been on the way here since the moment you recognized who the goddess was."

  Magda only grunted. She liked the independence six thousand kilometers of distance gave her, but the move made sense. The action was here, with Hotofras abruptly a backwater.

  Someone scratched at the door, which had a bar on the Terrans' side. Glad for the interruption, Magda raised the bar. Servants fetched in supper, bowed nervously, and left. The fare was similar to what nobles had eaten when the Leeuwenhoek was there: bread, boiled vegetables and roots, a stew of salt fish, with preserved fruit and sweet wine.

  The Terrans had reached the tooth-picking stage when the scratching sound came again. Expecting more servants to fetch away the dirty dishes, Magda opened the door. Sabium stood there instead, alone.

  "C-come in." Magda stepped aside, as wary as the palace servitors had been with her. She made no move to close the door, being unsure that was proper.

  Sabium shut it. When she began to prostrate herself, Kawar stopped her. With an apologetic glance toward Magda, he said, "You do not need to humble yourself before us. Rather, we are in awe of you, hardly less than your own subjects. And why not? I am but forty-two years old, and my companion is?"

  "Thirty-one," Magda supplied.

  "I do not believe you," Sabium said. Then, studying them with that searching clarity of hers, she changed her mind. "No; I do. Say rather I do not understand."