Forty Thousand in Gehenna

Come in at once with full accounting.

204 CR, day 323

Message, E. McGee to Base Director

Will transmit when report is complete.

204 CR, day 326

Notes, coded journal Dr. E. McGee

I’ve had trouble starting this again. I’m not the same. I know that. I know–

xli

204 CR, day 328

Cloud Tower

Security had sent him. Kiley. A decent man. McGee had heard about him, or at least that something was astir, and then that it was Outsider; and when she heard that she knew.

She had put on her Outsider‑clothes. Cut her hair. Perfumed herself with Outsider‑smells. She went there, to the hall, where the riders would bring the Outsider.

“Kiley,” she said, when Elai said nothing to this intruder.

He was one of the old hands. Stable. His eyes kept measuring everything because that was the way he was trained. He would know when someone was measuring him.

“Good to see you, doctor,” Kiley said. “The Director’d like to see you. Briefly. Sent me to bring you.”

“I’m in the middle of something. Sorry.”

“Then I’d like to talk to you. Collect your notes, take any requests for supplies.”

“None needed. You don’t have to send me signals. I can say everything I have to say right here. I don’t need supplies and I don’t need rescue. Any trouble at the Base?”

“None.”

“Then go tell them that.”

“Doctor, the Director gave this as an order.”

“I understand that. Go and tell him I have things in progress here.”

“I’m to say that you refused to come in.”

“No. Just what I said.”

“Could you leave if you wanted to?”

“Probably. But I won’t just now.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Kiley said tautly.

“Let someone take him outside the Towers,” McGee said. “This man is all right.”

Elai made a sign that was plain enough to those that knew, and Maet, an older rider, bestirred himself and gave Kiley a nod.

Later:

You stay here, Elai said, not with words, but she made it clear as it had always been.

Notes, coded journal Dr. E. McGee

I can write again. It’s hard. It’s two ways of thinking. I have to do this.

There’s a lot–

No. Maybe I’ll write it someday. Maybe not. No one needs to know that. I’ve talked to calibans. A couple of ideas. Finally.

It’s not too remarkable, talking tocalibans. They pick up a lot of what we do.

But after all that time I was sitting there playing put and take with ariels and making no sense at all–they’re not at all bright, the ariels. You can put and take with them a long time, and then they get to miming your game; and then you don’t know who you’re playing with, yourself or it, because they pick up the way you do things. And the calibans just watching. Until the grays get to moving stones around. And then you know what they’ll do. You know what their body‑moves mean; and that this is a tower, and how they circle that, building it, protecting it. The grays say only simple things. Their minds aren’t much. It’s almost all body language. And a few signs like warningand stop hereand tower. And more I can’t read. This gray shoved dirt around as well as stones. It seemed to play or it was stupider than I thought then; it would come up with dirt sitting on its nose and blink to clear its eyes and dive down again and move more dirt until it built a ridge; and when it would stop, old Scar would come down off that mound and get it moving again, it and others, about three others, I don’t know how many. Maybe more.

And that circle was around me. It wasn’t threatening. It was like protection. It went this way and that, tendrils spiraling off from it, the way the ariels do.

I got brave. I tried putting a stone out in front of Scar, a sun‑warmed one. And that wasn’t remarkable. You can get something out of ariels with that move. But then he came down–stood there staring at me and I stood there staring back into an eye bigger than my head, so big he could hardly see me at that range, and then it dawned on me what his vision is like, that those eyes see in larger scale than I am. I’m movement to him. A hazy shape, maybe.

I got him to say a simple thing to me. He walked round me now that my Place was established; he told me there was trouble toward the northeast: he told me with body language, and then I could see how the spirals were, that the grays had made, that they were mapping the world for me. Conveying their land‑sense to smaller scale‑ Or his land‑sense. Or it was all feeding in, even the ariels.

Calibans write on the world. They write the world in microcosm and they keep changing it, and they don’t have tech. Technology can’t matter to them. Cities can’t. Or civilization. They aren’t men. But that big brain is processing the world and putting it out again; it added me to the Cloud Towers. It stood there staring past me with an eye too big to see me the way I see and all of a sudden I was awed–that’s not a word I use much. Really awed. I wanted to cry because I had gone non‑verbal and I couldn’t get it out and couldn’t take it in because my eyes and my brain aren’t set up for what I was seeing.

And now I’m scared. I’m writing up a report and they’ll think I’m crazy. I can hear what Genley will say: “Now they write. Pull McGee in. She’s been out too long.”

But I get up on the top of the Tower–how calibans must have loved the idea of towers! Their eyes are fit for that. And then I think of the square concrete Base we’ve built and I don’t feel comfortable. We bring our big earthmovers to challenge the grays and we build things with angles.

All over the world calibans build spirals. But here on Cloud and Styx they’ve gone to towers. And human gardens. We’re like the ariels. The grays. Part of the ecumene. Capacity was there. God knows if we touched it off or if we ourselves are an inconsequence to what they’ve been doing all this time, spreading over all the planet, venturing here and there–speaking the same language, writing the same patterns on every rivervalley in the world. But not the same. The spirals vary. They’re saying different things.

Like Styx and Cloud. Like isolate towers and grouped towers.

Two different Words for the world.

xlii

204 CR, day 355

Memo, Director’s office to R. Genley

This office finds it of some concern that reports from your group have become infrequent and much devoted to routine. You are requested to come in for debriefing. There is news concerning Dr. McGee’s effort.

204 CR, day 356

Memo, Base Director to Chief of Field Operations

Genley has failed response to a report. He may be temporarily out of contact, but considering the delicate relations of the two communities and the McGee situation I think we ought to view this silence with alarm. I am transmitting another recall to McGee. I do not think it will produce results, whether she is being held by force or that her refusal is genuine; but it seems one avenue of approach to the Genley matter. I do not consider it wise to inform McGee that Genley’s group is not reporting; we ca

I am furthermore requesting orbiting observation be stepped up.

Advise all observers in the field to observe unusual caution.

Likewise, run a thorough check of all base detection and warning systems. Winter is on us.

205 CR, day 20

Excerpt, Director’s a