The valley rolled in a thousand shades of green, twinkly with irrigation, on and on toward the orchards and ranch buildings. Red-winged blackbirds darted and cried over the pasture, and cattle near the fence line lifted large eyes to watch the horses pass. Leather squeaked, hoofs plopped, riding was oneness in a lazy sweet rhythm.
“I really would like to learn about your religion, Mrs. Tu,” Juanita said. She was a dark, thin girl who walked with a limp. Her father used to beat her, as he did her mother, till at last she put a kitchen knife in his shoulder and ran off. In the saddle she was on her way to centaurhood, and corrective surgery was scheduled for later this year. Meanwhile she did her share of chores, assigned to allow for the handicap. “It must be wonderful if—“ she flushed, glanced aside, dropped her voice—“if it’s got believers like you and Mr. Tu.”
Asagao smiled. “Thank you, love, though we are quite ordinary, you know. I think you had better get back into your own church. Of course we’ll be glad to explain what we can. All our children have been interested. But what we live by can’t actually be put in words. It’s very alien to this country. It might not even be a religion by your standards, but more a way of life, of trying to get in harmony with the universe.”
Juanita gave her a quick, searching regard. “Like the Unity?”
“The what?”
“The Unity. Where I come from. Except they—they couldn’t take me. I asked a guy who belongs, but he said it’s ... a lifeboat as full as it can carry.” A sigh. “Then I got lucky and got found by—for—you. I think prob’ly this is better. You’ll fix me to go live anyplace. The Unity, you stay with it. I think. But I don’t know much about it. They don’t talk, the members.”
“Your friend must have, if you heard about it.”
“Oh, word gets around. The dope dealers, now, they hate it. But I guess it’s only in the New York area. And like I said, the higher you go in it, the less you tell. Manuel, he’s too young. He grew up in it, his parents did too, but they say he’s not ready yet. He doesn’t know much except about the housing and education and—well, members help each other.”
“That sounds good. I have heard of such organizations.”
“Oh, this isn’t a co-op exactly, and it’s not like, uh, the Guardian Angels, except for what they call sentinel stance, and— It’s sort of like a church, except not that either.
Members can believe anything they want, but they do have—services? Retreats? That’s how come I wondered if this was like the Unity.”
“No, can’t be. We’re simply a family. We wouldn’t have any idea how to run anything larger.”
“I guess that’s why the Unity stopped growing,” Juanita said thoughtfully. “Mama-lo can only keep track of so much.”
“Mama-lo?”
“The name I’ve heard. She’s kind of a—a high priestess? Except it isn’t a church. But they say she’s real powerful. They do what she wants, in the Unity.”
“Hm. How long has this been going on?”
“I don’t know. A long time. I heard the first Mama-lo was the mother of this one, or was she the grandmother? A black woman, though I hear she’s got a white woman works close with her, always has had.”
“This is fascinating,” Asagao said. “Do go on.”
Evenings after dinner were usually for being together. Foster parents and children talked, played games, sat quietly reading. Sometimes they watched the single television set, but only by mutual consent, subject to adult overrule. A person who wished to be alone could withdraw to his or her room with a book or pursue a hobby in the little workshop. Thus the hour was late when Tu Shan and Asagao walked out. They ranged widely and were gone long. Nevertheless they spoke in Chinese. To be sure, their dialect of it still came most easily to them of the tongues they had mutually mastered in their centuries.
Night lay cool and still. Land reached shadowy, treetops loomed darkling beneath the extravagant stars of the high West. Once an owl hooted, repeatedly, before ghosting past.
“They could so well be our kind.” Asagao’s tone shivered. “Something built up slowly, over generations, yet centered on one or two individuals, who talk about being mother and child but remain mysterious and work in the same style. We two were chiefs, under one title or another, of different villages; our businesses in the cities were incidental. Hanno made his businesses into his power, protection, and disguise. Here may be a third way. Down among the poor, the rootless, the disinherited. Give them leadership, counsel, purpose, hope. In return they will provide you your little kingdom, or queendom; and there you can Uve safe, hidden, for mortal lifetimes.”
“It may be,” Tu Shan replied in the slow fashion that was his when he thought hard. “Or perhaps not. We will write to Hanno. He will investigate.”
“Or should we do that?”
“What?” He checked his stride, startled. “He knows how. We are countryfolk, you and I.”
“Will he not keep these immortals underground, as he has kept Wanderer and us, as he would keep that Turk did the man not stay aside on his own account?”
“Well, he has explained why.”
“How sure are we that he is right?” Asagao demanded. “You know how I have studied. I have talked with that learned man, Giannotti, whenever he examined us again. Do we truly need to go on beneath our masks? It was not always necessary for us in Asia. It never was for Wanderer among his wild Indians. Is it in America today? Times have changed. If we made ourselves known, it could well mean immortality for everyone within a few years.”
“Maybe it would not. And what then would people do to us?”
“I know. I know. And yet—r Why must we take it for granted that Hanno is right? Why shouldn’t we decide for ourselves whether he is the wisest because he is the oldest, or else has grown set in his ways and now is making a horrible mistake, out of needless fear and ... utter selfishness?”
“M-m-m—”
“At worst we die.” Asagao lifted her head against the stars. “We die like everybody else, except that we have had so many, many years. I am not afraid to. Are you?”
“No.” Tu Shan laughed a bit. “I dislike the thought, yes, I admit that.” Sobering: “We do have to tell him about this Unity thing. He has the means, the knowledge, to find out. We don’t.”
Asagao nodded. “True.” After a moment: “But once we nave learned whether or not these are like us —”
“We owe Hanno much.” Entry to this nation, through Tomek’s influence over a certain Congressman. Help in getting acquainted with it. Establishment here, once they realized that American cities would never be for them.
“We do. We also owe humanity much, I think. And ourselves. Freedom to choose is our right too.”
“Let us see what happens,” Tu Shan proposed.
They walked on a while in silence. A bright rapid star rose in the west and crossed the lower constellations. “Look,” Tu Shan said. “A satellite. This is an age of marvels.”
“I believe that is Mir,” she answered slowly.
“What? ... Oh, yes. The Russian one.”
“The space station. The only space station. And the United States, since Challenger—“ Asagao had no further need to speak. As long as they had lived together, they could each often follow what was in the other’s mind. Dynasties flourish and fall. Empires do, nations, peoples, destinies.
5
“—And may holiness be with your good angels. Let the Fire burn strong and the Rainbow bear peace. Go now toward God. Fare you well.”
Rosa Donau raised her hands in benediction, brought them over her bosom, and bowed to the cross that stood on the altar before her between the red and the black candles in their lily-shaped holders. Opposite, her fellow celebrants did likewise. They were a score, male and female, mostly dark of skin and gray of hair, elders of the families that would be living here. The service had lasted an hour, simple words, chants to a drum-beat, a sacred dance, hypnotic in its very restraint and softness. The gathering departed without speaking, though several
