7
Dragon
The day Eden and I finally got down to our interview was a day of revelation for me. My first surprise lay in his initial announcement as I was led into the office kept by the Alnese equivalent of a Chief of Police in Lady Ciani’s residence. “Contrary to what you may believe,” he said, “what I am about to ask you has nothing to do with my wife and our problems.”
Thunderstruck that he had surmised my thoughts, I momentarily shrank from him. His deduction, combined with my own complete lack of foresight, added up to an almost unforgivable intellectual lapse for an O’bonne scholar. The domestic intrigues of the Pallases had obviously lulled my brain into near-idiocy, and Eden’s announcements felt like a wake-up call.
I took another look at him. He looked haggard, and his official finery showed traces of ill use that I had completely missed in my initial survey. As I fumed silently at the mounting failures of my vaunted powers of scholarly observation, Eden deigned to tell me the reason for our interview. He began with, “You’ve heard of the island-troubles?”
I nodded, now frantically trying to recall a host of half-ignored hints and dropped comments that had come my way for the past four months. Some murders in a wilder Alnese area, a rare enough event that had nevertheless not roused much spirit because the victims were immigrants. Pallas Eden had been charged with the investigation at the end of spring, just as I was about to leave for my summer vacation, and I had found myself unable to give up my few weeks of warmth.
“Nine Heshtis were found dead on the first day of Holdin, frozen quite solid. They had been ritually murdered and then left to freeze so they could be staked into view on what most likely was the appropriate day, though I cannot tell you what that day represented. Both the manner of their deaths and their display left no doubt as to the crime having been committed by one—or several—of us. In spite of the gravity of this situation, the Island clanspeople did not send for Arthmis, and when word did get around to us, they tried to pass off a ludicrous story of fratricidal fighting and suicide. Even now they’re still hindering me at every step.”
Nine murders! I stopped kicking myself mentally and re-focused my faculties on the present in an effort to make up for lost time, “Which one of the island clans is involved?”
“The bloody Chanticos,” Eden hissed through clenched teeth. Then he added more calmly, “You know I don’t approve of heshti ways any more than the next person, but these wild islanders aren’t much better. I have been knocking myself out flying back and fourth between Zyss and the islands to resolve this matter, and the situation has only worsened. The heshtis have begun to arm themselves. A group of them is willing to be moved, but a hard core is talking some nonsense about taking over an island of their own. Of course we can’t have that, but in a way I understand them. I just wish they weren’t so difficult about integration.”
Integration. For their entire residency on Alnos, the Space Gypsies had devised a simple and ingenious strategy to deal with any and all newcomers: Find a clan willing to add a few new members and make sure all children were fully enculturated into the clan-structure. In the unlikely event that a few lost souls wished to stay together, as some of Eden’s ancestors had stipulated upon arrival, a new clan could be created. This rare and dispreferred option was soon remedied through inter-clan alliances, which spawned the connections between new and old that the Alnese equated with stability.
The new climate had changed everything: No longer did a few dozen stragglers err onto an icy world only a hallucinating space witch could love. Newcomers now numbered into the thousands! They had started building their own communities, and a strange grouping of non-Alnese Alnese was beginning to take form in the cracks of the old society. To make matters worse, one cluster of immigrants stubbornly clung to some imported customs found highly offensive by the old guard, sparking a cycle of mutual hostility that would not abate.
The Alnese called immigrants heshti, “alien” or “outsider,” a word replete with all the negative connotations it had on many other worlds, and they were beginning to talk of a “heshti problem” in terms that could be very disturbing. The word was increasingly reserved for an un-assimilating core of “alien separatists” that refused to enter into most relations with their hosts, presenting the clearest challenge to the old clan-order. I knew the incipient conflict between natives and immigrants had grown worse as I had been sifting through Arthmis records and indulged little side trips into Pallas history, but I had not paid any more attention to it than the vast majority of Alnese. Most of them still couldn’t fathom that a few thousand immigrants could be anything other than a temporary if annoying nuisance that would soon resolve itself through good old-fashioned, if slower-paced integration. The Chantico murders signaled that at least one group of Alnese were no longer complacent enough to wait.
“Good heavens, what a regular massacre!” I exclaimed.
Eden nodded agreement, “Now that you have returned from our summer compound, I assume you’ll be joining me again as I continue this investigation. What I wanted to ask you was . . . would you consider helping? I would like you to help mediate.”
“I don’t understand. Mediate what?”
“I’m sorry, I haven’t explained properly: I’m moving all the heshtis back to the eastern mainland. They cannot stay in the islands, and I have found an appropriate resettlement area. Well, half of them are begging for safe passage, and the other half adamantly oppose moving. I was hoping that you could help me persuade them.”
From the way I looked at him, he knew what I thought.
“You disapprove, of course. But Dragon, I’m not asking you to coerce them. I’m quite capable of doing my job. I would just like to persuade those who can be persuaded. The fewer people I have to drag away against their will, the better.”
“How long have they been there?”
“The first ones have lived there about eighty years, but most of them started their residence more recently, with the development of the new greenhouses. We’ll compensate them for their material losses. They are rather obsessive about such material issues.”
After a few more seconds of hesitation, I proposed, “If you offered to give them some form of title to the new land, they might all go.”
“Only clans can have title. You know that as well as I do.”
I thought it over. Entering into the mediation process would put me in the midst of a delicate situation. The many restrictions and harassments the Alnese had contrived for their more standoffish immigrant population were deeply offensive, and I wanted no part of it. At the same time, my blissful ignorance of the brewing crisis between Alnese and immigrants seemed quite unconscionable in its own right.
“How would you like it if someone asked you to evacuate Eden Hamlet?” I needled him.
He replied with his even voice, “That would depend on who did the asking.”
I should remember never to underestimate Eden.
As I pondered his request, it occurred to me that changing from merely shadowing his work to the more involved role of a participant-observer could represent the next step in a long-term O’bonne research study. A bribe he surely had anticipated. Still, I resisted, “I’m sorry Eden. I’m a researcher, not a mediator.”
He inclined his head slowly, accepting my decision, “I’ll inform my lieutenants that you’ll be along again, in your usual observer role.” He paused, then proposed, “How about consultations?”
“Consultations?”
“I would be in your debt if I could consult with you about our negotiations. We’ve often discussed cases, but you usually ask the questions.”
I smiled, but tried to stay non-committal, “As I’ve said, I’m not a mediator, but if you want to hear the observations of a scientist … You’ve certainly waited patiently for your turn.”
He smiled back briefly, and informed me, “We’ll return to the Islands tomorrow.”
Without actually saying so, he’d concluded this particular interview. I rose, then recalled, “Oh, but what of the new chronicler I’m supposed to be training?”
He shrugged, “Take him with you.”
