‘So,’ said Don. ‘It got angry, and it blew.’
‘It snapped its fingers at you,’ sang Chowdri. ‘And we had only finished cleaning up from last time.’
‘It shouted,’ Tasmin said. ‘It shouted out that after all this time, we ought to be able to get it right.’
‘One half of it sang that,’ agreed Bondri.
‘Then it was the other half that said, ”That was petulant of you.” ’
‘True. The other half is less irritable. It remonstrates with the first half. But it was the first half of the Enigma that said, “I become annoyed when these creatures do not know who I am.” The Enigma said these same things to Lim Terree. The Mad One sometimes says the same things over and over. We believe the Mad One is mad because it has two halves that are partly separate and partly the same.’
‘It was there all the time,’ Tasmin said. ‘I heard those words, but I thought it was Lim who said them.’
‘You could have asked us,’ said Bondri irrationally. The other Great Ones are not mad, most of them. Some are silly, but most of them are not mad. Except that they are very irritated just now, and it must be because of the things the Loudsingers are doing!’
‘But you’ve never spoken to us before,’ Clarin sang. ‘Why?’
‘Because you do not sing the truth,’ Bondri chanted, the troupe joining him to make this manifest. ‘To sing to those who do not sing the truth, this is taboo.’
‘But you broke this taboo!’
‘Because of the debt we owed for Prime Priest Favel, for your brother who released him from captivity in the long ago. A debt of honor takes precedence over taboo.’ He stood up, gathering his troupe around him. ‘Now we go, and the taboo is once again as it should be. I have paid the debt of Prime Priest Favel. Vivian and the child are saved. You, Tasmin Ferrence, are saved. Your almost child is also saved, or will be when it is finished. I have returned good for good.’
Don cried out, a pleading sound of negation. Tasmin thought bleakly of what was in store for Jubal, his mind frantically searching for some way to stop the departure of the viggies.
‘There is still a debt,’ he gasped. ‘A debt owed by Bondri Gesel.’
Bondri drew himself up, fangs exposed. ‘What debt!’
‘When my brother released Prime Priest Favel from captivity, a debt was incurred. Is this not so?’
‘It is so.’
‘And is a song not as important as a Prime Priest?’
Bondri cocked his head. It was not a question he had considered before. A giligee trilled a response, a female took up the refrain, then two males in countermelody. They sang it for some time. Finally Bondri responded. ‘A song is almost as important as a Prime Priest.’
‘Did I not free a song from captivity, Bondri Gesel? Do you not owe me a debt?’
This time the singing went on for the better part of an hour. Tasmin went to the place Jamieson lay, running his hands along the boy’s face and body. ‘Will he live?’ he whispered to the intent giligees.
‘Oh, yes,’ one of them trilled in return. ‘He will live. I think we have him mostly fixed. Tomorrow, maybe, he will walk.’ She sat with her pouch everted, and Tasmin withdrew his gaze from that mass of thin tendrils that had penetrated Jamieson’s body and were busy deep inside, doing incredible things.
He went to sit beside Clarin. The wounds on her face were closed. She lay huddled in a blanket, shivering from time to time. He put his hand under the blanket, on her neck. She jerked away from him.
‘Shhh,’ he said. ‘It’s all right, Clarin. All right.’
She began to cry. He gathered her up in his arms.
‘Shhh.’ His heart turned over at the sound of her weeping.
‘No one ever hurt me before. Not purposely.’
‘He was a machine, Clarin. Pretend it was a machine. Not anyone worth hating. He’s dead.’
‘They ate him!’ she turned her head away, retching.
‘It’s a meat-poor planet, Clarin. According to Vivian, they eat very little meat. They eat fresh fish whenever they get to the seashore, or whenever their fisher kin run inland with a catch, and they dry fish to carry with them. They don’t eat carrion or carrion eaters, which eliminates a lot of the other wildlife.’
‘It just … just takes getting used to. What are we going to do now?’
‘As soon as the viggies quit singing, I’ll let you know.’
When they finished singing, it was to announce that freeing the song had indeed brought a debt with it. Neither of the troupe leaders was happy about this. Tasmin wondered how much of the decision had been brought about by viggy curiosity concerning the Loudsingers. Perhaps the troupes had not wanted to return immediately to the taboo.
He said nothing of this. Instead, he drew Clarin up beside him, held her until she quit shaking, and then said, ‘Bondri Gesel, Troupe leader, great singer. I beg a boon from you. I beg that you listen while I try to sing truth to you. Me, and this person with me here.’ He gestured at Clarin. ‘Jamieson sings more truth than I do, but he cannot sing just now. Will you listen while I try?’
Bondri, annoyed, conferred with the troupe. The troupe was a good deal more compliant than he was.
‘What are we singing?’ whispered Clarin, a trace of color coming back into her cheeks.
‘We’re singing the destruction of Jubal,’ Tasmin said. ‘If we don’t get some help here, everything we feared is still going to come to pass.’
In later years the troupes of viggies who moved from the pillars of the Jammers to the towers of the east, resang on festival occasions the First Truth Singing of the Loudsingers. Not that it was a very polished performance, but it rang with a passionate veracity that the viggies much admired. Of course, there were only two who really sang, plus one who gave them some musical support,
