“I say what comes to me,” she said sharply. “Including this: The problem of men and Arbai is very similar! Both refuse to recognize evil, men in themselves, the Arbai in anyone. That’s why we’re in this mess. The device would save us in a minute, but for that.”
“Can we meet the Arbai?” asked Bertran. “Talk to them?”
Asner laughed. “Everyone wants to talk to the Arbai! They’re too annoyed to let anyone talk to them. We’ve overstepped our bounds, the prophetess and I. They even sent a messenger to tell us so, so we’d have no chance to argue with them.”
“They don’t like argument,” agreed Jory. “They don’t like dissension or being told what they ought to do. I wanted them to use the Arbai Device beyond the wall. Curvis wanted the same. Now you come; they presume you want the same thing, and they don’t want to hear it!”
Nela and Bertran subsided, leaning against one another in their familiar posture, holding one another for comfort.
Asner took in their strangeness, shaking his head. Poor things. “How far beyond the wall had you come when you were attacked?”
“Jory said that too. That we were on this side of the wall. What does it mean?” Bertran asked.
It was Jory who replied, “Who did you think mended you? Was it your God and mine, who we learned of when we were young? Or a guardian angel, perhaps?”
They did not answer.
Asner said, “You were told about the Hobbs Land Gods, weren’t you?”
Silence. The gylph Nela shared a glance with the otter Bertran. They leaned more closely into one another. He pulled her down to him where she snuggled beneath his arm, eyes wary. “What, Asner. What about them?”
“The Arbai Device is the Hobbs Land Gods. They’re the same thing.”
They shuddered. Nela cried out, a tiny, choked cry.
Asner shook his head at them. “Relax,” he demanded. “You’re not hurt. You’re not maimed or diabolically possessed. You’ve just been fixed, that’s all. Given your heart’s desire. So what’s wrong with that?”
“It wasn’t our heart’s desire, not really,” cried Bertran. “This isn’t really … I thought I wanted but … and now I’m enslaved!”
“Enslaved?” said Asner in an offended voice. “What makes you think that?”
“Fringe said….”
“Fringe is no expert,” Asner growled. “Besides, you think you and Nela weren’t enslaved before? You were born enslaved!”
“Now who’s being prophetic,” grumbled Jory.
“No,” cried Nela. “I wasn’t. I was a free person.”
“Free to what?”
“To … to do anything I wanted to.”
Jory laughed, shaking her head. “Weren’t you told as a child that one way was better than another, one belief better than another? Weren’t you told some things were higher and some lower? That some things were suitable for women, others for men? That your God was more powerful? That your religion was truer? That your language was more expressive? That your customs had more heart, or more soul? That your cooking tasted better? That your way of child-rearing was preferable? That all your ways were so much better than others’ ways that you would die to keep yours as they were, or die to destroy others if they seemed threatening? Weren’t you taught not to change, not to adapt, not to become anything different? Weren’t you taught the word ‘loyalty’? The word ‘tradition’? Didn’t they tell you that animals were higher than vegetables, mammals were higher than other animals, man was higher than other mammals, and your kind of man was higher than other men?
“You think you weren’t enslaved by that? You think you had freedom of choice? I have said this to Fringe, I say it to you: A man’s choice becomes his son’s duty and his grandson’s tradition! Thus men assure enslavement of their progeny.”
“But … but … I’ve been taken over!”
“By what? By a communication net that lets you in on how the intelligences around you feel and what they think and know. So?”
“But …”
Asner growled, “But, if you refuse to know what those around you think and know, if the idea of taking other intelligences into consideration offends you, if you don’t want to be part of it, just say so. Say it firmly, and the Arbai Device will leave you strictly alone. If you think you’re better and wiser than those around you, tell it to fuck off. That’s the way Curvis reacted. That’s the way it was designed to be.”
“But …” faltered Bertran, running his webbed hand along his side, along his sleekness, his sinuous body, his fluid shape. “I didn’t really want to be … like this. Inside, I’m the same. Inside, I’m human. I need to be human outside too.”
“Simply wait a little,” sighed Jory. “As soon as it has time to receive your feedback, the device will get it right.”
“But the people here …” Nela faltered. “Even the people on Elsewhere say the Hobbs Land Gods are evil….”
“The people brought to Elsewhere were, every one of them, great tribal egos who have always festered like a boil on the butt of humanity,” said Asner.
“A feverish reminder of old, sorrowful times,” whispered Jory.
“… or one last cause for a notorious do-gooder,” continued Asner in a grumpy tone, with a wry look in Jory’s direction. “One last wrong needing righting. One last ill for the prophetess to fulminate against.”
Said she, “What would you have me do! Dragged up as we were out of …”
“I don’t understand any of this! I don’t understand why any of this is happening!” cried Nela.
“Tell them about it, Asner,” Jory said. “Tell them all about Brannigan. They missed out on Zasper’s lecture, and it’s time they knew.” And she went back to staring at the river while Asner told them about Brannigan.
Just before dawn, Danivon reached both the western borders of Beanfields and the point of exhaustion. He had stayed on the stony spine of the hills, letting it lead him westward. There had been no signs of pursuit, though he had seen fires blooming in the night to speak of sleepers awakened and alarms made in
