“What’s the matter with her?” demanded Danivon, who had just come from below.
Asner pointed where the basket had been and explained in a low voice, “A big gaver came up from below and gulped down the child. I think Fringe was upset by it.”
Danivon snarled. Well, he had told her, back in Enarae, that some places on Elsewhere would have disturbing habits. She should have prepared herself then! What did she think he’d been talking about? Table manners? One couldn’t go getting outraged over every child floating down the Fohm, over every skull on the rack at Molock, over every bloody pile of street-corner corpses in Derbeck. And what would she say when she saw the women in Thrasis! Well, she wouldn’t, luckily, since women Enforcers didn’t go into Thrasis, which thought reminded him to fume once more that there was no good use for Enforcers who were unsuited to the work.
So far as Danivon was concerned, that included most women Enforcers. He started to say so, angrily.
Then, noticing the tears running down Nela’s face, the expression on Bertran’s, he decided to say nothing for the time being. Their faces reminded him that Fringe was not the only one being exposed to true diversity for the first time. There were things several of them had to learn about accepting diversity without getting upset. There were things about being a Council Enforcer—or being in an Enforcer’s company—which undoubtedly took a little getting used to.
Night comes on the river, and dark. The people go to their rest, all but one. Jory stands at the railing of the Dove listening to the chuckling water. The voice that speaks inside her head is familiar as her own, dear as a lover, treasured as a friend she has known forever.
“Evil here, woman. Growing day by day. You feel it.” A sigh comes, vast as hurricane winds, and Jory’s hair stirs in the breath.
She can feel the evil. She nods and says tiredly, “The question is the same one I’ve been asking all along, where’s it coming from? Evil comes from unchecked power; only Council Supervisory has power; but this evil is not theirs. Where is the power from which it comes?”
A feeling, as of a frustrated shrug. “Not from outside.”
“Not from outside, no. It’s from here, on the planet. But where? It’s everywhere. There seems to be no focus, no place of origin….”
“Not Tolerance?”
“Well, I thought so at first, but where in Tolerance? Not Boarmus, poor fellow, doing his muddled best. Not Council Supervisory. They parade their cruelty openly, calling it diplomacy, calling it expediency, as governments always have. But still, they have a certain gentle-folkian standard that prevents their being brutes, rather reminding me of the democracies, back in the centuries of my era. Wanting to be good, you know. Wanting to be on the side of the angels. Able, once in a while, to muster the support needed for a brief crusade, but never able to continue in righteousness for long against the demands of opposing constituencies.”
“A good argument for a benevolent despotism.”
“Oh, give me that every time, so long as I can be the despot.” She laughs, then sobers, reflecting. “No, this new horror has no limits on its brutality. When empowered ones sink into the barbarism of torture and indiscriminate death, then not only they themselves but also the society that empowers them are evil, root and branch, twig and leaf. This alone would tell me the horror doesn’t come from Tolerance, for Tolerance still sets itself certain standards of behavior. Besides, the source can’t be anything Danivon has been close to, or he’d have smelled it out.”
“A strange one, this Danivon Luze. Also this Fringe Owldark. Odd ones for you to have picked!”
“I didn’t pick Danivon. I picked his parents, and Danivon sort of happened along. I did pick Fringe, and I hold by my choice, old friend. I look at her and I see myself all over again. Oh, she was differently reared and has different ways of reacting. I was reared on words and she on silences, I on a system of philosophy and she on none at all, but inside…. Well.” She is silent for a long moment, before saying, “She will be the right one, I think. When—”
“We will not speak of that.”
“Not out loud, no. But we must. Eventually.”
“We will not speak of that.”
She sighs. “Danivon’s in love with her, of course. She could be with him, but she refuses to be. She prefers not to be in love with anyone.” Jory laughs with wry amusement. “She prefers not.”
“You felt so once. A familiar response.”
“Oh, hush!”
“And the twins?”
“Also very strange. They have decided opinions, though they aren’t quite sure what they are from moment to moment! I confess that I’m enjoying them, quite selfishly. Hearing them talk of Earth is almost like having my girlhood back again.”
“Do you want it back again?”
She considers this, staring into the black where the rim of the wheel of stars made a vast snowy road across the sky, as though to see some other world, some distant sun. “Not really. I was such a prig. So driven to do good, to fix things, that I didn’t allow myself many enjoyments.”
“You haven’t changed.”
She laughs. “I guess not. Here I am, come to this world totally by chance, trying to save it. I have a perfectly nice rocking chair at home. I could be sitting there with my cat, watching the horses in the meadow, instead of trying to cure all ills, making a swan song of pushing my nose in….”
The voice in her mind sounds offended. “Not just your nose. There are several of us.”
“Well, three. You, me, and Asner.” She sighs. “I’m guilty of hubris. Having come at last to the peace of Panubi—quite by accident, of course—having met them, upriver, I should have let it go at that. For any normal person,
