Nightside the Long Sun

She pictured him as he stood in the manteion, as tall as a talus, his smooth limbs carved of some white stone finer grained than shiprock—his grave, unseeing eyes, his noble brows. Have pity on me, Pas, she prayed. Have pity on me, a mortal maid who calls upon you now, but will soon stop forever.

Her right leg had been getting suffer and suffer for years, and at times it seemed that even when she sat so still—

A boy to a girl: “She’s asleep!”

—that when she sat as still as she was sitting here, watching the children take nineteen from twenty-nine and get nine, add seven and seventeen and arrive at twenty-three—that when she sat so still as this, her vision no longer as acute as it Once had been, although she could still see the straying, chalky numerals on their slates when the children wrote large, and all children their age wrote large, though their eyes were better than her own.

It seemed to her that she was always on the point of overheating any more, in hot weather anyway. Pas, Great Pas, God of Sky and Sun and Storm, bring the snow! Bring the cold wind!

This endless summer, without snow, with no autumn rains and the season for them practically past now, the season for snow nearly upon us, and no snow. Heat and dust and clouds that were all empty, yellow haze. What could Pas, Lord Pas, Husband of Grain-bearing Echidna and Father of the Seven, be thinking of?

A girl: “Look—she’s asleep!”

Another: “I didn’t think they slept.”

A knock at the Sun Street door of the palaestra.

“I’ll get it!” That was Asphodella’s voice.

This was Ratel’s. “No, I will!”

Fragrant white blossoms and sharp white teeth. Maytera Marble meditated upon names. Flowers—or plants of some kind, at least—for bio girls; animals or animal products for bio boys. Metals or stones for us.

Both together: “Let me!”

Her old name had been—

Her old name had been …

A crash, as a chair fell. Maytera Marble rose stiffly, one hand gripping the windowsill. “Stop that this instant!”

She could bring up a list of her nonfunctioning and defective parts whenever she chose. She had not chosen to do so for close to a century; but from time to time, most often when the cenoby lay on the night side of the long sun, that list came up of itself.

“Aquifolia! Separate those two before I lose my temper.”

Maytera Marble could remember the short sun, a disk of orange fire; and it seemed to her that the chief virtue of that old sun had been that no list, no menu, ever appeared unbidden beneath its rays.

Both together: “Sib, I wanted—”

“Well, neither of you are going to,” Maytera Marble told them.

Another knock, too loud for knuckles of bone and skin. She must hurry or Maytera Rose might go, might answer that knock herself, an occasion for complaint that would outlast the snow. If the snow ever arrived.

“I am going to go myself. Teasel, you’re in charge of the class until I return. Keep them at their work, every one of them.” To give her final words more weight, Maytera Marble paused as long as she dared. “I shall expect you to name those who misbehaved.”

A good step toward the door. There was an actuator in her right leg that occasionally jammed when it had been idle for an hour or so, but it appeared to be functioning almost acceptably. Another step, and another. Good, good! Praise to you, Great Pas.

She stopped just beyond the doorway, to listen for an immediate disturbance, then limped down the corridor to the door.

A beefy, prosperous-looking man nearly as tall as Patera Silk had been pounding the panels with the carved handle of his walking stick.

“May every god favor you this morning,” Maytera Marble said. “How may I serve you?”

“My name’s Blood,” he announced. “I’m looking at the property. I’ve already seen the garden and so on, but the other buildings are locked. I’d like you to take me through them, and show me this one.”

“I couldn’t possibly admit you to our cenoby,” Maytera Marble said firmly. “Nor could I permit you to enter the manse alone. I’ll be happy to show you through our manteion and this palaestra—provided that you have a valid reason for wishing to see them.”

Blood’s red face became redder still. “I’m checking the condition of the buildings. All of them need a lot of work, from what I’ve seen outside.”

Maytera Marble nodded. “That’s quite true, I’m afraid, although we do everything that we can. Patera Silk’s been repairing the roof of the manteion. That was most urgent. Is it true—”

Blood interrupted her. “The cenoby—is that the little house on Silver Street?”

She nodded.

“The manse is the one where Silver Street and Sun come together? The little three-cornered house at the west end of the garden?”

“That’s correct. Is it true, then, that this entire property is to be sold? That’s what some of the children have been saying.”

Blood eyed her quizzically. “Has Maytera Rose heard about it?”

“I suppose she’s heard the rumor, if that’s what you mean. I haven’t discussed it with her.”