Semiosis Read online

  I visited the lions, who were still restless, but they had been enjoying the old yam field. It would be turned over and ready for planting soon. Best of all, they’d turned up quite a few truffle roots. While I gathered them up, savoring their future use, a female trotted up to offer herself. “Pitman!” I called, but he was already on his way. He’d figured out the advantages of having a non-lion as the alpha male.

  I had lunch with Indira, Beck, and the kids. There’s no bad without some good, and the attack had given Indira the final push out of depression. Her mind was back on her work as a civil engineer. “We need to rethink the water supply,” she said. “We’ve been piping in water from a spring in the hills, but with a rising population we’ll need more water, and we need to protect the source better.”

  Snow was thriving. She hadn’t noticed a thing, not about her mother and not about the scary monsters at the river, although Moon and Lightning were upset and asked a lot of questions.

  “Could they get in the city?”

  “They won’t cross the river,” I said. “And the lions destroyed the bridge.”

  “We won’t rebuild it the way it was,” Indira said. “We’re going to use a rope bridge now, so anyone can destroy it if they have to.” (Eagles lived on our side of the river up in the north mountains, but we weren’t about to mention that.)

  Beck walked me to the door. “She’s doing great again, isn’t she?” His smile and the way he had looked at Indira all during lunch, at Indira and Moon and Lightning and Snow—I’d seen all that and ached to be him, ached from the toes on up.

  “I’m happy for you,” I said. I hadn’t thought about anything while I was on the bridge and the eagles were coming at me, but I knew that if they crossed the bridge, everything I cared about was on the other side. I’d known that without thinking about it. And everything I cared about had stayed safe.

  The next day, the bamboo flower buds opened, smaller and not as showy as the others, half of them white and the other half black. (Pure pigment, not a fake black by a mix of colors or fake white from background tissue or anything; Raja checked.)

  The white flowers pointed up, the black ones pointed down. The thistles at the base of the culms with the black flowers died, white flowers’ thistles lived. Only the black flowers had a scent, although it meant nothing special to anyone, including the kats and Pitman. The nectar tasted different, one acidic and one alkaline. What all this meant and how to respond kept everyone talking. At least they weren’t talking about me.

  We would have had enough to talk about anyway. Some of the children, and some of the adults (especially us killers), had nightmares or insomnia, so we decided to hold the annual spring equinox festival early—the next day. The festival commemorates arriving at the city from the old village, so we ate the traditional travelers’ meal of trilobites, wild onions, and dried rainbow fruit. We walked around on stilts pretending we were Earthlings.

  Finally, at dusk, at the site of the old central tower, we took off our clothes in spite of the cold because being naked showed we were willing to move on. We lit a bonfire to burn images of straw, wood, and paper of what we wanted to leave behind. Hydrogen seeds had been stashed in the images to explode with satisfying bangs and flashes.

  The children and I had worked together all day to build a big eagle out of twigs. It stood at the center of the heap with a smaller beak than it ought to be and not as deadly hooked, which was fine with me. Sylvia had taught the children how to weave the feathers that hung off the eagle, no two alike, different sizes, different skill levels, different grass and leaves used to make them, giving the bird a ragged look. It hardly resembled the beautiful and vicious creatures that still raced in my dreams in deadly choreographed packs, but I was more than eager to see it burn.

  My parents, like a few other older Pacifists, contributed straw figures of tall and skinny humanoids. Sylvia’s always looked spookily lifelike, since she was a master basket-weaver. I used to pester my parents about why they burned Earthlings, and finally, when I was older, they told me everything about leaving the original colony that I had been too little to understand or remember. That year I realized that the festival wasn’t for children, although children had the most fun at it.

  This year, before lighting the fire, Sylvia presented me with an eagle feather as a symbol of courage, and then the children danced for me. I had no suspicion they were going to do that. In the dance, howling and hopping lions chased drumming eagles. The lions caught eagles and turned them into lions, and at the end, all the children were howling and hopping (with kats gliding among them, never ones to miss a good time). From the other side of the wall, our pack howled back their three-tone song, and then, from far, far away, wild lions howled. For a moment we were all hushed, listening.

  And then we lit the fire and everyone howled and hopped as our fears burned and burst into the night, sparks like stars rising and winking out.

  A few of us lingered over a jar of truffle. We had put on our clothes against the night’s chill. The fire had sunk to ash. I had set the feather in a band on my head where it wouldn’t prick anything, the alpha male for another night, not the role I wanted, but the role I had, and I was set to do it right.

  “Did you like the dance?” Raja asked. She and Blas wore nervous smiles. “It was the kids’ doing. They were afraid it wouldn’t be good enough.”

  “It was wonderful. Wonderful.”

  They looked at each other and relaxed.

  “Especially when the lions started howling,” Blas said. “They really like the lions. I have to remind them that the lions aren’t huggable like the kats.”

  “And if there are other lions in the forest,” I said, “that probably means the rest of the eagles have hightailed it out, since eagles and lions seem to be natural enemies. But the bamboo is talking about something else now, and I don’t know what.”

  “Opposites, I think,” Raja said.

  “Could be,” I said. “Then how do we show we understand? And why would opposites be worth talking about?”

  Beck had gone home earlier, but now he was running back and shouting for Blas.

  “Snow is sick, very sick!”

  THE BAMBOO

  No response. Did they fail to understand? Dualism. The universe consists of fundamental and antagonistic entities and forces. Animate and mineral. Plants and animals. Parasites and producers. Creation and destruction. Acids and alkalis. Sickness and health. Sky and soil.

  Day and night are not the same as light and dark. Once I believed they were, but now I know day and night results from an interplay between sphere and sky. In the same way, fire and water result from chemical bonds and changes, from the interplay of positive and negative atomic charges.

  I survive with the help of servant animals and plants, and for the most fruitful relationships, I must help them in return. I could help the foreigners far more if we could share ideas in addition to nutrients. From an interplay and merging of intelligence, all things could result, things that have never existed before, and our world will grow.

  I observed the foreigners’ fire tonight, a large fire I have learned that I need not fear, although I do not like it. Animals are cyclical, and the large fire is an annual event.

  But this year, the fire was not held on the evening of the spring equinox. I believe the eagle attack has disturbed a cycle. I could help them assess the passage of the days and years with accuracy. Repetition is important to animals. I respect their needs. I want to help them.

  Answer me! Dualism is a simple idea. Light, dark. Up, down. Live, dead. Communication, silence.

  Even if you do not understand, show me that you wish to communicate. Night has come, and the morning will follow soon. You can accomplish much in a day. A small action will suffice. Speak to me.

  HIGGINS

  “Here’s your boot.”

  Moon, in her nightgown, sat on my lap, sleepy and confused as I dressed her to go outside. Blas was examining Snow and I wanted to eavesd
rop, but Moon deserved my attention. She and Lightning would spend the night at their grandmother’s house, away from busy doctors and terrified parents.

  “Here’s another boot. And let’s see, you should have some clothes for tomorrow. What would you like to wear?”

  “Can’t I wear this nightgown?”

  “Tonight, sure, but tomorrow morning you’ll need to get dressed. How about the brown sweater and some trousers?”

  “Okay.” She wanted to go back to sleep. I put her coat on, set her back on her bed, and stuffed some clothes in a bag.

  Lightning had gotten himself dressed and packed and was watching the bustle around Snow unhappily. “I want to stay,” he told me as I picked up Moon. “I want to know what’s happening.”

  “Snow is sick and we’re going to take you to Grandma Cynthia so you can get some sleep. When you get up in the morning, you can come back.”

  He didn’t look satisfied. Since the move to the city, the infant mortality rate had dropped considerably, but even a little boy knew that babies who had trouble breathing too often stopped breathing altogether. “She’s my sister.” He pouted.

  “I know.”

  “I want to help.”

  “I do, too. Sometimes the best thing we can do is take care of ourselves.” I knew from experience that rest and nutrition were good cushions in case tragedy hit.

  He eyed me coldly. He, Moon, and I left. Outside, the sky was streaked with faint green auroras. He asked, “How is she? Don’t lie to me.”

  I might simplify the truth, but I never lie to children. He didn’t seem to be in a mood even for simplification, so as we walked between dark and quiet houses, I whispered, “I don’t know. It doesn’t look like hyaline membrane disease, so this is probably a fungus. You’ve had coccidioidomycosis twice. It’s serious, but, well, we’ll see.”

  “Are they sure?” he whispered back.

  “Not yet.”

  “Can it kill her?”

  “Maybe. But you survived. Twice. I’ve had it a few times. We’ll know soon.”

  “Why do I have to leave?”

  “So you can get some sleep in a quiet house. There’s no sense in all of us staying up all night.”

  “Are you going to stay up all night?”

  “If I can help, I will.”

  “What can you do?”

  “Keep your parents company. Or get sandwiches for the medics. Run and get people or things if there seems to be a reason.” I can see if my little girl lives.

  “If she’s going to die, will you get me?”

  I looked him straight in the eyes. “Yes.”

  He looked back, steady. “I’m going to sleep with my clothes on so I can come right away.”

  Snow was coughing when I got back, a high-pitched, harsh little cough that exploded from her lungs through phlegm and fluids and turned her face red with exertion. Red was a good color. Blue would mean low blood-oxygen levels, yellow would mean jaundice, gray would be close to the end. (Three of my babies had died. I’d learned a bit of medicine.)

  Indira sat holding Snow. Blas sat nearby, watching the baby intently. Beck hunched on a bench. I sat next to him.

  “She has a fever, and it’s climbing,” Blas said. “The other medic went to get some ice.”

  We took turns sponging the baby with ice water. The cough got worse and she got a bit pale. I fetched an oxygen tank. Blas suspected a fungus or virus, but without the old technology, he couldn’t know which. He gave her an injection of antibiotics and antimycotics. Her lungs were filling with fluid.

  Indira stared at the floor, unseeing, unresponsive, shoulders drooping. Depressed, guilty. I could tell what she was thinking, that she should have noticed the illness earlier, she should have fed Snow better, dressed her more warmly, bathed her more carefully, she shouldn’t have gotten postpartum depression at all, she should have been a better mother. Indira was like that, she felt responsible for things she couldn’t even have done.

  Should Beck have been a better father? He could have been. Should I have visited more? I could have found the time. Would this have warded away microorganisms? No. But if we could have done more, if there was a way to protect babies from coughs and rashes, from hunger and injury, from mistakes and delusions, we would have done it.

  I decided to write a song about that someday soon, a serious song, not something catchy for kids. Something to reflect the aches of a soul that had lived a day too long and knew failure, the worst kind of failure, the kind you couldn’t prevent, a song that would make people cry when they heard it, that would make me cry when I sang it, about the grief that remained green in every season, and that I had to sing about because it hurt more to keep quiet.

  We didn’t cry, we sat there dumbly. Sylvia came and brewed tea. She brought a basket of fruit, but I didn’t want any. It would make me feel better and I didn’t want to feel better. Ivan and Tom came, although they were usually aloof from parental things. They stood like warriors near the door, as if they would kill death itself if it dared try to duck in. Beck’s father and sister came.

  Snow got paler, her breathing got weaker, and Blas looked sadder as he listened to her chest. Finally I went to get Lightning. He leaped out of bed when I whispered his name and followed me, wordlessly, weeping in the street.

  At the door he said, “Wait.” He took some shaky deep breaths and dried his face with his sleeve. With dry red eyes, he entered and stood next to the crib, reached in and touched Snow’s blue lips, and whispered something. He looked at his mother and stiffened at her utter dejection, then went to hug her.

  “Snow is a very good sister,” he said, and wiggled onto the chair beside Indira.

  Lightning was a very good son.

  Snow died early in the morning, shortly after a baker had come and made a tender fuss of laying out hot bread and nut butter for our breakfast. Lightning had brought a plate of food to his mother, probably knowing that she might not eat but knowing what he ought to do for her. His was a kind of understanding and compassion so true that I knew he was going to be a better man than I was, and that was my comfort that morning. Kind, genuine, natural, that’s what a man should be.…

  I’m not like that. I help, of course, I’m useful, but I’m not the real thing, and that’s why women don’t want me for more than a bit of fun and high-motility sperm. I’m not naturally kind, I’m intentionally kind. I have to figure out what to do, I don’t do it automatically.

  But time never stops breathing and I couldn’t refuse to sing, and death couldn’t stop the sunrise.…

  Blas asked permission for an autopsy. “This might be something new,” he told Beck. “I’d like to—”

  “Of course. Learn what you can,” Beck said. Moon sat on his lap, sobbing, and he held her. Grandma Cynthia sat beside them.

  Lightning stood alongside his mother, who still stared at the floor. People started arriving with condolences and flowers and aromatic herbs, and he greeted them and thanked them on her behalf and tried to rouse her. “Cocklebells! Lemon sage! Don’t they smell good?” Slowly, she began to emerge, if only to notice how good her son was.

  I decided to make my escape by returning the medical equipment to the lab. I was the guy everyone pretended wasn’t there, the useful man, sometimes even a hero, but in the end, an extra person, the guy everyone loved and no one quite wanted, the guy everyone and everything could talk to because he worked so hard to listen. I gathered up the battered old oxygen tank. Blas wrapped Snow in a sheet, a tiny white bundle to take away.

  “Wait,” he whispered as we were about to leave. “You carry her. I can handle the rest. You … She’s yours, after all.”

  She weighed hardly anything. We passed a few people in the street, and without a word they knew what we carried and stood at somber attention. Blas had me place her in the refrigerator. The medical lab always repelled me, not because blood and flesh bothered me (animals get you used to visceral life quickly), but because of the technology.

  A w
indmill outside generated electricity. Batteries collected it and parceled it out to run the refrigerator, an autoclave, fiber optic endoscopes, a dental drill, little flashlights, a radio knife. There were racks of scalpels and curettes, a microscope, thermometers, clocks, needles, and examination tables. The air smelled of pure chemicals, of esters and acids and ammonia. My mother had made some of the equipment, scavenging bits from the broken-down Earth wonders stashed in an alcove, piles of glass and metal components like the skeletons of lizards under a spider colony. I gather roots and bark and clays and rocks and deliver them to chemists, who take the next step, and they can name the chemicals and write the formulas. Our mathematicians can explain special relativity and even work out the math.

  It’s all true, they tell me, the non-Euclidean nature of the universe and the valence of a carbon atom. And yet none of it speaks to me no matter how I listen. I was leaving Snow in a foreign environment, synthetic, unnatural, Earthly. I thanked Blas and left.

  I checked on the lions and kats. The city looked beautiful as I walked around in it. I don’t remember the old village, but I remember arriving at the city, my first sight of it. I had been told it would be colorful, but I hadn’t understood what that meant. Like flowers or rainbows, they said. Exactly. Like living inside flowers and rainbows. I can’t imagine what the Glassmakers could have been like, although I’ve seen all the archaeological evidence. Why would they work so hard to make it so beautiful?

  “Did they want to copy the bamboo?” I asked Sylvia. She was in her workshop weaving a basket to bury Snow in, half-done, and all the strands of wicker sticking out looked like an out-of-control reed patch.

  “Or did the bamboo copy them?” she answered, guiding a reed through the tangle. “I’m not sure. It’s hard to date things. The city and the bamboo are very, very old, hundreds of years. If we could find another city or read their writing, we might know more about what happened here. If we could find another bamboo plant, if we could do more exploring, if we had certain kinds of equipment—”