The Book of the Stars

by Ian Watson

Genres: Science Fiction; Alien Contact; Dystopian; Genetic Engineering

Synopsis

Trapped by the evil Edrick in a locked room, Yaleen is cold-bloodedly murdered. But it is not the end of Yaleen's story, for she is given a second life - a reincarnation on Earth as a 'cherub'. Soon she encounters Godmind, the megalomaniac artificial deity which controls life on Earth - and maintains a brutal labour colony on the Moon for any who dare to rebel. Bit by bit, Yaleen comes to understand the horrifying project of the Godmind...

Release date: September 29, 2011

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 230

Sample

 

 

There are always loose ends. Nothing is ever tied up neatly and completely. At times life seems to be one long loose end after another; and if you’ve read The Book of the River by Yaleen of Pecawar (and who hasn’t, I wonder, along the east bank of our river?), then you’ll know how many loose ends there were for me personally at the end of that book – not to mention all the loose ends left over by the war with the west.

I still had to visit my parents in Pecawar – and see my little sister for the first time. And on the way there I had to visit Verrino to find out whether Hasso had survived, and repay him a kiss.

Most of all, I had to keep out of the clutches of the black current, which had plans to send me (somehow) to Eeden, that planet of a distant star from which we all originally came, and where the Godmind ruled. Whatever the Godmind really was!

Ironically, it was something which I thought was all tied up and done with which proved to be quite a ticklish loose end.

You may recall when I was last in Aladalia how I enjoyed a sweet liaison with a boy named Tam. That was in my innocent youth – which wasn’t so very long since! – and back then Tam had seemed quite the young man, though in retrospect I knew he had just been a grown-up boy.

So here was I back in Aladalia once more, busily writing my book whilst lodging in a couple of upper rooms rented to the guild for my use by a weaver called Milian, when who should turn up but Tam?

By then I was well into my writing stint, and was dealing with the Port Barbran fungus drug which would inspire Doctor Edrick to start the war – whilst in the now-world the war itself was really getting under way. (It was Edrick who started it; not I!)

But first, a few words about the progress of the war …

Initially I’d taken to calling at the quaymistress’s office every two or three days to enquire about the latest developments. This, despite the fact that bulletins were posted regularly in town. I fancied that there might be some extra bit of news, which I uniquely was privileged to know – not that I ever learnt any such thing by bothering the woman, and really the bulletins were quite adequate and up to date.

Since the black current had returned to most of the river, women could sail our boats safely again, unmenaced by the Sons of Adam. Thus north-south communications had been restored, on which I rather prided myself.

Had I thought this through properly, I might have realized that yet again, full of good and bold intentions, I had buggered things up!

When I gaily rode the Worm downriver, only the first detachments of junglejack soldiers had actually reached Guineamoy (to guard the town while the factory guild there turned out weapons for them). Oh, and a small advance party of ’jacks had sailed on towards Pecawar. The remainder of the army had been delayed in Jangali, awaiting more boats from other southern towns to ferry them. Though it finally set sail, that part of our army had only just cleared Croakers’ Bayou.

At least I’d thought to tell the crew of the Yaleen to signal ahead to warn our own men off the water, otherwise the situation would have been even more of a mess. It could have been a total disaster. Naively, I’d imagined the sound of applause as I rode the Worm north. In reality there was a mad scramble inshore somewhere between the Bayou and Spanglestream to beach our troops before the current arrived. Rather than cheers I guess there was a barrage of ripe curses from many of the men at the prospect of the long, long walk ahead. And in those parts there wasn’t even much of a road.

What happened then, to recover the situation, was a clever tactical stroke. But it required a poignant sacrifice on the part of many young men.

Plainly, if all the beached soldiers had to walk the remaining distance, the transport fleet would have had their work cut out just ferrying victuals to and fro. So our marooned troops were divided, ashore, into those ’jacks who had already sailed the river once before with the ‘consent’ of the current, to marry into Jangali; and ’jacks who were born in Jangali and who hadn’t yet been wooed away by any husband-hunting girl on her wander-weeks. The latter group, of men who were fresh to the river, accordingly re-embarked to sail all the way directly to Pecawar, using up their ‘one-go’ in the process. These men would drill in Pecawar, awaiting the transport of weapons from Guineamoy and the arrival, on foot, of their comrades. Meanwhile their comrades, who were somewhat the majority, would all have to walk.

This obviously upset the original war plan, as agreed in Jangali. Still, with the current back in place, Guineamoy was safe from attack, except overland from the north.

But before this division of forces was finalized, one brave ’jack – a settler in Jangali who had sailed once before – volunteered to step back on board a boat. His aim, to see if the Worm might perhaps be with us wholeheartedly. Maybe it would allow passage to all eastern men, irrespective of whether or not they had sailed before?

As if the Worm cared about granting a dispensation to our side!

Of course not. The Worm wanted some dead westerners for its Ka-store. Sons would need to die in the right circumstances for it to harvest their Kas; that’s to say they would have to die in battle very close to the river. Which meant that many Sons would have to be killed, overall. The last thing the Worm wanted was a hasty surrender by the Sons to our superior forces.

If only I’d thought when I had the chance to plant an image deep in the Worm of immunity for all our men. So that they could sail the river as long as the war lasted! But I hadn’t thought. I’d only planted the image of myself, valiantly at the helm.

Perhaps I couldn’t have planted that other image? Perhaps it was too diffuse, too general? Perhaps the Worm would have resisted? Perhaps.

Anyway, the volunteer ’jack went mad and drowned himself.

After that, a volunteer from among the ‘river-virgins’ (who was perhaps even braver) had to see whether the Worm knew or cared that they weren’t really virgins. They had already sailed from Jangali to that area by the Bayou. So would the Worm deal them the same death-card?

No: the river-virgins could sail on.

I’m glad I only learned these details quite a while later. Or I would have had that ’jack’s horrid death on my conscience; not to mention half an army of sore feet.

When I did cotton on to the sore foot aspect, and to how I must have slowed up the liberation of Verrino, I fled from my writing table to the Aladalia quaymistress, full of qualms. By then I was into the last part of my book; much earlier, while I was still getting into my stride and was paying her frequent officious visits, she had reproved me thus (more gently than in exasperation): ‘It isn’t your war, Yaleen. You don’t have to worry about what’s going on. Everything’s under control. Now please do go away, and get on writing that book!’ This time she reassured me (quite falsely, as it turned out!) that I hadn’t messed up anything in particular. Oh no, the run-up to the war had proceeded fine and dandy. Obviously the guild wanted my book written in a not too troubled state of mind; and the quaymistress plainly had me figured as something of a brattish prima donna. But she didn’t betray this. She was a cute psychologist. I must have been a real pain in the ass to the woman; she probably wanted to kick me up the backside.

Which at least goes to explain why no one made me a guildmistress for my heroism in riding the Worm down to Aladalia …

I now humbly apologize to all those who wore their shoes out because of my lack of imagination. And yes, to those families who lost kin unnecessarily. I can only hope they were few. May they forgive me.

And meanwhile the war was gathering momentum, even though forced marches must have been the order of the day; even though the ’jacks would have to wade home afterwards through the swamps around the Bayou; or else detour through the desert, all thanks to me. So much for all the insight I thought I’d gleaned during my travels! At the time I merely thought that whilst I was undoubtedly a heroine, some Aladalia folk must feel ambiguous about me – because I hadn’t ‘dared’ go the whole hog. Because I’d stopped the Worm far short of Umdala, leaving the northern flanks unprotected. ‘That’s the trouble with people,’ I remember reflecting at the time. ‘Never satisfied!’ Hadn’t I made my choice of where to stop most scrupulously (with the aid of that bottle of wine)? Yet a few locals reacted as though I’d built a fine house all with my own two hands, then left the roof off so that the rain could pour in. But at least no one was offensive, not to my face.

Nevertheless, to some in Aladalia I was a heroine indeed. Which brings me back to Tam. And when he turned up, none of the other aspects of my Worm-ride had occurred to me …

Tam of the tousled hair; Tam of the knuckles.

Tam had such big hands, with unusually knobbly joints. These, he seemed to be forever barking on walls and doorposts and the like. Thus he had adopted a funny stiff stride that involved walking without swinging the arms. His hands dangled sheepishly slack by his sides, to keep them out of trouble; when he remembered – which wasn’t always! On my previous sojourn in Aladalia, when I got to know him well, he had told me that strange bone formations ran in his family. The bones didn’t seem to know when to stop growing. According to Tam his granddad had looked like a gnarled, bobbly tree-trunk by the time he died; and Tam’s knees were definitely knobbly, whilst down in the shinbone area there seemed to be altogether too much leg, as if his shanks were turning to wood and about to bud out roots; or as if he wore boots in bed.

An apothecary had advised a non-milk diet for Tam and his kin; and apparently this was the answer. Now that Tam had eschewed milk and cheese and butter, his bone problem was under control, or at least wasn’t getting worse. In any case, after our first few meetings Tam’s hands had ceased to strike me as coarse or lumpish – they were so gentle and clever. When alone with me, they were never sheepish or awkward.

Tam was an apprentice potter, and sometimes it seemed as though lumps and bumps of clay had dried on him; or as if working with clay had somehow caused wet clay to seep through his skin and harden inside him, baked by the heat of his blood.

So there was I, scribbling away alone in my sitting room, when I heard footsteps on the stairs. Then a muffled thump on the door, as of someone knocking with the flat of their hand. I assumed this was Milian the weaver wanting something, since he tended to pat on my door to call me for meals or whatever, rather than batter on the wood. I didn’t look round, just called, ‘Come on in!’

A discreet cough. Out of the corner of my eye I was aware of somebody standing with arms dangling.

‘Remember me, Yaleen?’

‘Why … Tam!’

Of course I was pleased to see him. Yet I also felt curiously disturbed. I don’t mean disturbed in my writing – for I tossed my pen down at once. I was disturbed because here was I writing a book in which I’d noted down my liaison with sweet Tam in Aladalia – without going into details. I was writing this in Aladalia; where Tam lived. Yet till now I had made no attempt emotionally to connect my last stay in Aladalia with my present stay – any more than I had made an effort to contact Tam himself. I was acting as if the Aladalia of my book, and the Aladalia of Tam, were different towns entirely.

I think I did this so that I could tell the truth.

Yet here now was the living Tam: a character stepping out of the pages of a book where he ought to have stayed.

‘Why didn’t you come round sooner, Tam? If you knew where I was! I mean to say …’

I mean to say: why did you come round at all? Why, in all these weeks, hadn’t I looked up the person who was once my best friend in Aladalia? By accusing Tam, I absolved myself. A bit of dishonesty commenced.

‘Didn’t you know I was here, Tam?’ I stood up, rather too late to seem spontaneous. So though we approached one another, we didn’t embrace.

‘Not know?’ blurted Tam. ‘You must be joking! Everyone knows your name and what you did and where you’re staying. Even little toddlers know! I just didn’t know that you’d stay on here. I thought you’d go away again …’ He peered at my work table. ‘You’re busy. Writing letters?’

‘I’m writing a book. About what happened. For the riverguild: they’ll publish it.’

‘It must take ages to write a whole book. Months and months, eh?’

‘Yes, it keeps me busy.’

We were knee-deep in excuses and evasions by now.

I grinned. ‘It’s thirsty work.’

This was simply another little lie. The truth was, I didn’t want Tam to look at the manuscript. Supposing he happened upon mention of our sweet liaison? That could have been embarrassing; embarrassing because it took up such a tiny number of lines …

‘Thirst, I can fix,’ said he. ‘How about a pot of ale?’

Tam had filled out since the last time I saw him. He’d filled out with muscle, not with extra knobs and spurs of bone. Now he looked sleeker, his skeleton more sheathed; though I still got a distinct impression of an ill-stuffed mattress … Not that there had ever been anything lumpy or hard about sleeping with Tam, save in the most important respect. I found myself edging away from the door which stood half-open to my bedroom.

‘A pot of ale would be wonderful!’

‘Remember the Golden Bugle?’

‘Oh yes! But shall we try somewhere new? A fresh venue for a fresh encounter?’ (Not the old haunts. Please.)

So out we went into Aladalia town, with a haste on my part which I can hardly describe as indecent, given the motive.

We walked along wide cobbled streets. We passed the concert hall with its dome of glazed turquoise tiles which looked like a bowl of sky, but richer and deeper. We crossed the edge of the jewelsmiths’ quarter; at which point naturally Tam had to enquire about my fine diamond ring.

‘No, it isn’t from here,’ said I. ‘I bought this in Tambimatu.’

‘Oh?’ He sounded sad, and perhaps a mite puzzled.

Actually, Aladalian artisans didn’t go in much for costume jewellery; nor did the locals themselves wear many gems. The jewelsmiths of Aladalia mostly worked with semi-precious stones, and thought a bit bigger than rings. They crafted ornaments, artwork. And that’s what the local connoisseurs who bought their products preferred.

Come to think of it, I hadn’t noticed many Aladalian ornaments when I’d been hunting round the shops in Tambimatu; nor had I spotted any imports of jewellery from Tambimatu on offer here. There’s a lot of trade between our river towns, so the distance could have nothing to do with this (though the war might have contributed). Yes, I think I’d made Tam sad, in his Aladalian heart. How many husbands, I wondered, were ever wooed away from Aladalia to Tambimatu? (Or vice versa?)

Tam glanced down a long avenue towards distant rolling meadows and the bushy hills beyond: a scenery of downy green thighs, with curly bunches of hair … It was as though he was inviting me to roam there with him – as once we had – and perhaps to penetrate even further inland to the cave-pocked mountains where the semiprecious stones were found …

Perhaps, perhaps. Perhaps he was just wondering whether it would rain. My mind was working overtime with images. I was the writer confronting her subject matter, which had strolled around for a second performance, unscheduled, unannounced. At least we weren’t heading towards the potters’ part of town where Tam had his lodgings.

Oh it was quite a walk we took. Yet this was nothing special in Aladalia. The town liked to spread itself – as if all artists (of whom there were many) each needed a zone of free space around themselves. As if music required a vault to soar into; and paintings demanded breezes from afar to dry the varnish; and potters, a whole public square each to set out their wares without clutter. Everywhere I looked there was sky and long perspectives, and sights of the distant countryside with its farms and pastures.

How different the spirit of Aladalia was from that of Tambimatu with its tall houses packed tightly together, their beetling brows almost butting one another! Yet at Tambimatu jewels were truly precious. The pressure of houses, and the massive weight of the precipices, the density of jungle and the stifling tropic heat all conspired to squeeze out rubies and diamonds.

In fact, it was the sheer spread of Aladalia which had made it easy for me to leave the real live Tam out of my emotional calculations. It wasn’t the case that more people dwelled in Aladalia than in other towns. No, there was simply less chance that you would bump into any particular person. If in danger of doing so, you could usually spy them from afar off and change course in good time, casually and naturally.

Though by the same token a native of Aladalia thought nothing of walking close on a league for a jar of ale and a chat. Till now, Tam hadn’t done so …

We eventually turned off the boulevard down a lane. This lane would have been a highway anywhere else; and presently we arrived at the Tapsters’ Delight. The long ancient yellow-brick building wore a red-shingled roof which sagged and rose and sagged again like canvas supported on poles. Orange and crimson zalea bushes grew all round the low-walled ale garden. The very air was intoxicated with sweet smells of brewing mash mingled with the scent of the flowers.

We sat ourselves on a bench by a rough-hewn table. A fat fellow wearing a chequered apron appeared in the doorway accompanied by another who looked like his twin – or perhaps his son, ripely pickled in ale – whom he directed to amble over for our order.

‘That chap’s an artist in ale,’ confided Tam, with a nod at the proprietor.

And it was an excellent sup. Delicious also were the herb-speckled, coarse-cut sausages.

After the second nut-sweet foaming jar, Tam confessed why he hadn’t looked me up till now.

I wish that he hadn’t.

Last time round, Tam and I had been warm and casual in our relationship. We had enjoyed each other’s company, and enjoyed each other; but we hadn’t exactly branded the affair into our hearts. Yet now Tam was madly in love with me. I use the word ‘mad’ advisedly. I suppose love always is irrational, but this was rather different. My return to Aladalia riding in the Worm’s jaws had transfigured me for him. If I’d simply popped into town aboard any old boat, I imagine we could have picked up the threads once again as before. But the manner of my coming! I became his muse, his dream, his star and sun. His inspiration, aspiration. He had hauled out his memories of me from store, rejigged them and gilded them in goldleaf. Now I was his heroine, his living goddess. Also he was afraid that I might depart on the next boat or the one after. Therefore he had stayed away, the better to worship me – and to make things worse for himself meanwhile. Oh, what delir. . .