waitin’ for sitters on balconies made o’ steel so our foots gonged. Even the Shipwoman was smacked wondersome by all this perfect Smart. She showed her orison ev’rythin’ we seed. The orison glowed ’n’ purred an’ windows came ’n’ went. It’s mem’ryin’ the place, ’splained Meronym, tho’ I din’t und’stand so good an’ I asked what that Smart egg was true-be-telled.
Meronym rested a beat an’ drank a mouth o’ brew from her flask. An orison is a brain an’ a window an’ it’s a mem’ry. Its brain lets you do things like unlock observ’tree doors what you jus’ seen. Its window lets you speak to other orisons in the far-far. Its mem’ry lets you see what orisons in the past seen ’n’ heard, an’ keep what my orison sees ’n’ hears safe from f’gettin’.
Shamed to mem’ry Meronym o’ my sivvyin’ I was, yay, but if I din’t ask then I may not o’ got the chance ever, so I asked it, The shimm’rin ’n’ beautsome girl what I seen in this .?.?. orison b’fore .?.?. was she a mem’ry or a window?
Meronym hes’tated. Mem’ry.
I asked if the girl was livin’ still.
Nay, answered Meronym.
I asked, was she a Prescient?
She hes’tated, an’ said she wanted to tell me a hole true now, but that other Valleysmen’d not be ready for its hearin’. I vowed on Pa’s icon to say nothin’, nay, to no un. Very well. She was Sonmi, Zachry. Sonmi the freakbirthed human what your ancestors b’liefed was your god.
Sonmi was a human like you ’n’ me? I’d never thinked so nor’d Abbess ever speaked such loonsomeness, nay. Sonmi’d been birthed by a god o’ Smart named Darwin, that’s what we b’liefed. Did Meronym b’lief this Sonmi’d lived on Prescience I or on Big I?
She was borned ’n’ died hun’erds o’ years ago ’cross the ocean west-nor’westly, so Meronym speaked, on a pen’sula all deadlanded now but its old-time name was Nea So Copros an’ its ancient one Korea. A short ’n’ judased life Sonmi had, an’ only after she’d died did she find say-so over purebloods ’n’ freakbirths’ thinkin’s.
All this shockin’ newness buzzed ’n’ busted my brain an’ I din’t know what to b’lief. I asked what Sonmi’s mem’ry was doin’ in Meronym’s orison hun’erds o’ years after.
Now I seen Meronym was sorryin’ she’d beginned, yay. Sonmi was killed by Old-Un chiefs what feared her, but b’fore she died she spoke to an orison ’bout her acts ’n’ deedin’s. I’d got her mem’ry in my orison ’cos I was studyin’ her brief life, to und’stand you Valleysmen better.
That’s why that girl’d haunted me so. I seen a sort o’ Smart ghost?
Meronym yayed. Zachry, we got many buildin’s to visit b’fore nighfall.
Now as we were crossin’ the ’closure to the second observ’tree, the boulders began speakin’. Oh, you was right ’bout the dammit Prescients first time, Bro Zachry! She’s fuggin’ your b’liefs ’n’ all up’ndown ’n’ in ’n’ out! I clamped my ears, but yay, them voices went thru these hands. This woman only saved Catkin’s life to cloudy your thinkin’ with debt ’n’ honor! Crampsome was them stones’ shapes ’n’ words. I clamped my jaw shut to stop me answerin’. She’s scavvin ’n’ sivvyin’ Big Isle Smart what truesome b’longs to Valleysmen! Grit devils got under my eyelids. Your pa’d not let no lyin’ offlander worm into his trust, bro, nor use him as a pack mule! Them words was so true I cudn’t argue back none, an’ I stumbled painsome.
Meronym steadied me. I din’t ’fess the boulders was yibber-stinkin’ her, but she seen sumthin’ weren’t right. The air up here is thin ’n’ watery, she speaked, an’ your brain’ll get diresome hungry an’ make this wyrd place wyrdsomer.
We got to the second buildin’ an’ I slumped droozy while the Prescient worked the door open. Oh, that hollerin’ sun hollowed my head. She’s a sly un, no frettin’, Zachry! Truman Napes Third was perched on his boulder. Meronym’d not even heard him. You b’lief her or your own kin? he called me, mournsome. Are your truths jus’ “thin ’n’ watery air”? Am I? Oh, I was reliefed the next beat when the observ’tree door open. Them ghosts ’n’ their spikery truths cudn’t follow us inside, see, I s’pose the Smart kept ’em out.
So it went all aft’noon long, yay. Most o’ the observ’trees was much like the first. The Prescient opened up, ’splored the place with her orison, an’ mostly forgot I was there. Me, I just sat an’ breathed that Smart air till she was done. But stompin’ b’tween buildin’s, twisted boulders chorused me, Judas! an’ Pack mule! an’ Ship slave! Ghosts o’ Valleysmen pleaded me thru unpartin’ frostbited lips, yay, She ain’t your tribe! Ain’t even your color! an’ then ’n’ there, oh, frightsome sense they made, I ’fess it here ’n’ now.
S’picion rotted me.
No Prescient’d ever been straight with no Valleysman, an’ that day I knowed Meronym was no diff’rent. The boulders’d changed the blue sky to anxin ’n’ flinty gray by the last buildin’. Meronym teached me it weren’t no observ’tree but a gen’rator what made a Smart magic named ’lectric what worked the hole place like a heart works the body. She was whoahin’ at the machines ’n’ all, but I was jus’ feelin’ stoopit ’n’ judased for bein’ blinded by the Shipwoman since she’d come elbowin’ into my dwellin’. I din’t know what to do nor how to stop her plans, but Georgie’d got his plans, cuss him.
This gen’rator’s innards was diff’rent from other buildin’s. The Prescient woman glowed with fass’nation as we stepped into the echoey chambers, but I din’t. See, I knowed we wasn’t alone in there. Shipwoman din’t b’lief me, o’ course, but in the biggest space where a mighty iron heart stood silent was a sort o’ throne s’rounded by tables o’ littl’ windows an’ numbers ’n’ all, an’ on this throne was a died Old-Un priest slumpin’ under an arched window. The Prescient swallowed hard an’ peered close. A chief stron’mer, I reck’n, she spoke hushly, he must o’ soosided here when the Fall came, an’ the sealed air’s saved his body from rottin’. A priest-king not a chief, I reck’ned, in such a wondersome palace. She got to work mem’ryin’ ev’ry inch o’ that doomin’ place on her orison while I ’proached nearer that priest-king from the world o’ perfect Civ’lize. His hair straggled an’ his nails was hooky an’ the years’d shrunk ’n’ sagged his face some sure, but his Smart sky clothes was spiff ’n’ fine, sapphires pierced his ear, an’ he mem’ried me of Unc’ Bees, same hoggy nose, yay.
List’n to me, Valleysman, the soosided priest-king spoke, yay, list’n. We Old Uns was sick with Smart an’ the Fall was our cure. The Prescient don’t know she’s sick, but, oh, real sick she is. Thru that arch o’ glass waves o’ snow was tossin ’n’ turnin’ an’ drownin’ the sun. Put her to sleep, Zachry, or she ’n’ her kind’ll bring all their offland sick to your beautsome Valleys. I’ll minder her soul well in this place, never fear. The Shipwoman was movin’ ’bout with her orison, hummin’ a Prescient babbybie what she’d teached Catkin ’n’ Sussy Tick-tockin’ was my thinkin’. Wasn’t killin’ her barb’ric ’n’ savage?
Ain’t no right or wrong, the ’stron’mer king teached me, jus’ protectin’ your tribe or judasin’ your tribe, yay, jus’ a strong will or a weak un. Kill her, bro. She ain’t no god, she’s only blood ’n’ tubes.
I said I cudn’t, the yibber’d tag me murderer an’ Abbess’d call a gath’rin’ what’d exile me from the Valleys.
Oh, think, Zachry, the king micked me. Think! How’ll the yibber know? Yibber’ll say, “That knowed-all offlander ignored our yarns ’n’ ways an’ went trespyin’ up Mauna Kea an’ brave Zachry went ’long to try ’n’ minder her, but it turned out she weren’t so Smart what she thinked.”
Beats passed. All right, I answered fin’ly ’n’ grim, I’ll spiker her when we step outside. The priest-king smiled, pleased, an’ din’t speak no more. Fin’ly my victim howzitted me. Fine, said I, tho’ I were nervy, see, the biggest thing I ever killed was goats an’ now I’d vowed to kill a Prescient human. She said we should set off ’cos she din’t want to get stranded in no blizzard up here an’ leaded us back out the gen’rator.
Outside, the boulders’d falled silent in the ankle-snow. One snowstorm’d gone but another, bigger un was comin’ so I reck’ned.
