Infinity's Shore

So, Dolo has been won back, he thought, finding little to rejoice over in the triumph. Log Biter was dead, as well as Jobee and half of Nelo’s apprentices. With his paper mill gone, along with the dam and qheuen rookery, the battle had been largely to decide who would take shelter in the remaining dwellings.

A makeshift infirmary was set up surrounding the traeki pharmacist, on a stretch of leaf-covered loam. Nelo spent some time sewing cuts with boiled thread, and laying plaster compresses on bruised comrades and foes alike.

The task of healing and stitching was hardly begun when a messenger dropped down from the skyway of rope bridges that laced the forest in all directions. Nelo recognized the lanky teenager, a local girl whose swiftness along the branch-top ways could not be matched. Still short of breath, she saluted Ariana Foo and recited a message from the commander of the militia base concealed some distance downriver.

“Two squads will get here before nightfall,” she relayed proudly. “They’ll send tents and other gear by tomorrow morn … assuming the Jophur don’t blow the boats up.”

It was fast action, but a resigned murmur was all the news merited. Any help now was too little, and far too late to save the rich, united community Dolo Village had been. No wonder Jop’s people had been less tenacious, more willing to retreat. In their eyes, they had already won.

The Path of Redemption lies before us.

Nelo walked over to sit on a tree stump near the town exploser, whose destructive charges were commandeered and misused by Jop’s mob. Henrik’s shoulders slumped as he stared over the Bibur, past the shattered ruins of the craft shops, at the zealots chanting on the other side.

Nelo wondered if his own face looked as bleak and haggard as Henrik’s.

Probably not. To his own great surprise, Nelo found himself in a mood to be philosophical.

“Never have seen such a mess in all my days,” he said, with a resigned sigh. “I guess we’re gonna have our hands full, rebuilding.”

Henrik shook his head, as if to say, It can’t be done.

This, in turn, triggered a flare of resentment from Nelo. What business did Henrik have, wallowing in self-pity? As an exploser, his professional needs were small. Assisted by his guild, he could be back in business within a year. But even if Log Biter’s family got help from other qheuen hives, and held a dam-raising to end all dam-raisings, it would still be years before a waterwheel, turbine, and power train could convert lake pressure into industrial muscle. And that would just begin the recovery. Nelo figured he would devote the rest of his life to building a papery like his former mill.

Was Henrik ashamed his charges had been misused by a panicky rabble? How could anyone guard against such times as these, when all prophecy went skewed and awry? Galactics had indeed come to Jijo, but not as foreseen. Instead, month after month of ambiguity had mixed with alien malevolence to sow confusion among the Six Races. Jop represented one reaction. Others sought ways to fight the aliens. In the long run, neither policy would make any difference.

We should have followed a third course — wait and see. Go on living normal lives until the universe decides what to do with us.

Nelo wondered at his own attitude. The earlier shocked dismay had given way to a strange feeling. Not numbness. Certainly not elation amid such devastation.

I hate everything that was done here.

… and yet…

And yet, Nelo found a spirit of anticipation rising within. He could already smell fresh-cut timber and the pungency of boiling pitch. He felt the pulselike pounding of hammers driving joining pegs, and saws spewing dust across the ground. In his mind were the beginnings of a sketch for a better workshop. A better mill.

All my life I tended the factory my ancestors left me, making paper in the time-honored way.

It was a prideful place. A noble calling.

But it wasn’t mine.

Even if the original design came from settlers who stepped off the Tabernacle, still wearing some of their mantle as star gods, Nelo had always known, deep inside—I could do a better job.

Now, when his years were ripe, he finally had a chance to prove it. The prospect was sad, daunting … and thrilling. Perhaps the strangest thing of all was how young it made him feel.

“Don’t blame yourself, Henrik,” he told the exploser, charitably. “You watch and see. Everything’ll be better’n ever.”

But the exploser only shook his head again. He pointed across the river, where Jop’s partisans were now streaming toward the northeastern swamp, carrying canoes and other burdens on their backs, still singing as they went.

“They’ve got my reserve supply of powder. Snatched it from the warehouse. I couldn’t stop ’em.”

Nelo frowned.

“What good’ll it do ’em? Militia’s coming, by land and water. Jop can’t reach anywhere else along the river that’s worth blowing up.”

“They aren’t heading along the river,” Henrik replied, and Nelo saw it was true.

“Then where?” he wondered aloud.