Tatja Grimm's World

Coronadas Ascuasenya had plenty of contact with the rescued during the next few days. Some recovered from the horror better than others. Janna Kats could laugh with good humor within ten hours of the rescue. The little anthropologist, Tredi Bekjer, was almost as cool, though it would be some time before his body recovered.

But four days out from the village, some of the Science people were still starting at shadows, crying without provocation. And for every survivor, there would always be nightmares.

Cor had never considered herself especially brave, but she hadn’t been trapped in that pit; she hadn’t seen friends tortured and murdered. Once they returned to the barge, and the village was irrevocably behind them, it was easy to put the terror from her mind. She could enjoy the Welcoming Back, the honor given to her and Rey Guille and Brailly Tounse, the greater honor given to Tatja Grimm.

It was as close to an adventure book ending as could be imagined. Thirty-six from the Science had died. But nearly one hundred had survived the adventure and would return with the barge, much to the surprise of their sponsoring universities, who hadn’t expected to see them for two years. When Tarulle sailed into the Osterlais—and later the Tsanarts—everyone would be instant celebrities. It would be the story of the decade, and an immensely profitable affair for the Tarulle Publishing Company. Whatever their normal job slot, every literate participant in the rescue had been ordered to write an account of the operation. There was talk of starting a whole new magazine to report such true adventures.

And management seemed to think that Cor and Rey had masterminded their publishing coup. After all, he had suggested the landing; she had produced Tatja/Hrala. Cor knew how much this bothered Rey. He had tried to convince Svektr Ramsey that he had fallen into things without the least commercial savvy. Of course, Ramsey knew that, but he wasn’t about to let Rey wriggle free. So Guille was stuck with producing the centerpiece account of the rescue.

“Don’t worry about it, Boss. They don’t want the truth.” Cor and the Fantasie editor were standing at the railing of the top editorial deck. Except for the masts and Jespen Tarulle’s penthouse, this was as high as you could get on the barge. It was one of Cor’s favorite places: a third of the barge’s decks were visible from here, and the view of the horizon was not blocked by rigging and sails. It was early and the morning bustle had not begun. A cold salt wind came steadily from the east. That air was so clean; not a trace of tarry smoke. White tops showed across miles of ocean. Nowhere was there any sign of land. It was hard to imagine any place farther from the Village of the Termite People.

Rey didn’t answer immediately. He was watching something on the print deck. He drew his jacket close, and looked at her. “It doesn’t matter. We can write the truth. They won’t understand. Anyone who wasn’t there won’t understand.” Cor had been there. She did understand … but wished she didn’t.

Rey turned back to watch the print deck, and Cor saw the object of his interest: The man wore ordinary fatigues. He wandered slowly along the outer balcony of the deck. He was either lonely, or bored—or fascinated by every detail of the railing and deck. Cor suspected the fellow wasn’t bored: Part of the Hrala fraud had been the demand that the Termiters replace her damaged “property” (the dead from Brailly’s party and the Science). It seemed unwise to retract the demand completely, so five unfortunate villagers were taken aboard.

This was one of them; he had been a Termiter priest, their spokesman/interpreter. Cor had talked to him several times since the rescue; he made very good copy. He turned out to be a real innocent, not one of the maniacs or hard-core cynics. In fact, he had fallen from favor when the cynics pushed for trial by combat. He had never left the village before; all his Sprak came from reading magazines and talking to travelers. What had first seemed a terrible punishment was now turning out to be the experience of his lifetime. “The guy’s a natural scholar, Boss. We drop the others off at the first hospitable landing, but I hope he wants to stay. If he could learn about civilization, return home in a year or so… He could do his people a lot of good. They’ll need to understand the outside world when the petroleum hunters come.”

Rey wasn’t paying attention. He pointed further down the deck.

It was Tatja Grimm. She was looking across the sea, her tall form slumped so her elbows rested on the railing and her hands cupped her chin. The ex-priest must have seen her at that instant. He came to an abrupt halt, and his whole body seemed to shiver.

“Does he know?”

Rey shook his head. “I think he does now.”

In many ways the girl was different from that night at the village. Her hair was short and red. Without the fake bust, she was a skinny pre-teener—and by her bearing, a discouraged one. But she was nearly six feet tall, and her face was something you would never forget after that night. The priest walked slowly toward her, every step a struggle. His hands grasped the railing like a lifeline.

Then the girl glanced at him, and for an instant it seemed the Termiter would run off. Instead, he bowed … and they talked.

From up on the editorial deck. Cor couldn’t hear a word. Besides, they were probably speaking Hurdic. It didn’t matter. She could imagine the conversation.

They were an odd combination: the priest sometimes shaking, sometimes bowing, his life’s beliefs being shot from under him; the girl, still slouched against the railing, paying more attention to the sea than to the conversation. Even during the Welcoming Back she had been like this. The praise had left her untouched; her listless replies had come from far away, punctuated by an occasional calculating look that Cor found more unsettling than the apathy.

After several minutes, the priest gave a final bow, and walked away. Only now, he didn’t need the railing. Cor wondered what it must be like to suddenly learn that supernatural fears were unnecessary. For herself, the turn of belief was in the opposite direction.

Rey said, “There’s a rational explanation for Tatja Grimm. For years we’ve been buying Contrivance Fiction about alien invaders. We were just too blind to see that it’s finally happened.”

“A visitor from the stars, eh?” Cor smiled weakly.

“Well, do you have a better explanation?”

“… No.” But Cor knew Tatja well enough to believe her story. She really was from the Interior. Her tribe’s only weapons were spears and hand axes. Their greatest “technical” skill was sniffing out seasonal springs. She’d run away when she was eight. She moved from tribe to tribe—always toward the more advanced ones. She never found what she was looking for. “… She’s a very quick learner.”

“Yeah. A quick learner. Tredi Bekjer said that, too. It’s the key to everything. I should have caught on the minute I heard how Jimi found her 'praying' to the noontime shadow of her quarter-staff. There she had reproduced one of the great experiments of all time—and I put it down to religion! You’re right; there’s no way she could be from an advanced civilization. She didn’t recognize my telescope. The whole idea of magnification was novel to her. Yet she understood the principle as soon as she saw the mirror.”

Cor looked down at the print deck, at the girl who seemed so sad and ordinary. There had been a time when Cor felt the start of friendship with the girl. It could never be. Tatja Grimm was like a hydrofoil first seen far astern. For a while she had been insignificant, struggling past obstacles Cor scarcely remembered. Then she pulled even. Cor remembered the last day of rehearsals; sympathy had chilled and turned to awe—as Cor realized just how fast Tatja was moving. In the future, she would sweep into a faraway Coronadas Ascuasenya could never imagine. “And now she understands us, and knows we are just as dumb as all the others.”

Rey nodded uncertainly. “I think so. At first she was triumphant; our toys are so much nicer than any tribe’s. Then she realized they were the product of centuries of slow invention. She can search the whole world now, but she won’t find anything better.”

So here she must stop, and make the best of things. “I—I really do have a theory, Boss. Those old stories of fate and gods, the ones you’re so down on? If they were true, she would fit right in, a godling who is just awakened. When she understands this, and sees her place in the world… She talked to me after the Welcoming Back. Her Sprak is good now; there was no mistaking her meaning. She thanked me for the Hrala coaching. She thanked me for showing her the power of fraud, for showing her that people can be used as easy as any other tool.”

For a long while, Rey had no response.