“Meat. Simply that, in the plural. Meat. I met one of the Fourth Degree Talkers at a convocation once. His name was Slooshasill. ‘Meat manager.’ He was responsible for providing bodies for Fifth and Sixth Degree Talkers.”
“So you don’t think they respect us?”
Chiles Medman had shaken his head, lit his pipe, and considered Tharius through the smoke. “Why should they?”
“They’ve borrowed our craftsmen. They’ve learned writing from us.” Why shouldn’t they? His hope had insisted. Why shouldn’t they respect us?
“Well, they don’t. If they didn’t need us for food, they would slaughter us all tomorrow. They would not even keep us for slaves, because we remind them of horgha sloos. We remind them of abasement. They had an oral tradition and adequate housing for thousands of years before we came. Why do they need our writing? Or our craftsmen?”
Tharius had glanced around, assuring himself they were alone, then said softly, “And yet you support the cause? Not, seemingly, because you share my dream of sharing this world in dignity?”
“You know I don’t, Tharius. I support the cause because I believe it’s the only chance for humanity. The track we are on is madness. We’re a flame-bird’s nest, waiting for the spark. Our self-delusion grows greater every generation. We are moving farther and farther from our own truths.”
“We have twenty-four hundred townships. Every township has about forty thousand people in it. There are almost a hundred million of us and fewer than a hundred thousand of them,” Tharius had said in a mild voice.
“There are a hundred million blades of grass, and yet the weehar graze upon them all. The fliers could double their numbers in one year, Tharius. They’re keeping their numbers down by breaking their eggs. They only incubate seven or eight a year in any given township, and they could incubate fifty or more. There’s fifty percent mortality among the chicks. When the population grows too large, the Talkers kill the male chicks. If they could breed as they like, there would be a million of them in four or five years. All young. In fifteen years, when those came to breeding age, there would be hundreds of millions, all at once. The young may not be able to breed, but they can fight. They’re carnivores, for gods’ sake.”
“Necrovores, rather.”
“Not the Talkers. And none of the Thraish like eating dead meat.”
“How do you know all this about them? Their numbers? Their habits?”
“We look, Tharius. We listen. We pay kids to climb rocks and spy on their nests. We send spies into Talons and listen to what they say.”
“In contravention of the Covenant?”
“Oh, shit, Tharius. Come off it. Don’t go all pompous on me. Who else is going to do it? Who except the Jarb Mendicants could be trusted to do it?”
Tharius’s face had reddened. “I get sick, sometimes, of your assumptions of omniscience, Medman. You see everything through the smoke, and that’s supposed to be reality. It is not necessarily my reality, which I tend to believe has an equal right to exist!”
“We’ve never said it was the only reality,” Medman had said, putting away his pipe. “We’ve only said we see without delusion. Without preconception. Without prejudice. The Jarb pipe does that for us. For some of us.”
“But only for you madmen.” It was unkind, and Tharius had repented of it at once.
“Yes.” Softly. “Yes, Tharius Don. Only for us madmen. The smoke only works for those of us who are capable of alternate visions.” Chiles Medman had left him then, a little angry, only to return, speaking in a vehement whisper.
“Tharius Don, you have not been among the people of Northshore for a hundred years. When I am not here in the Chancery—which I am not, most times—I see them every day. I see those who are told to believe in Potipur and Abricor and Viranel. Potipur the Talker. Abricor the young male Thraish. Viranel the female Thraish. Three gods, Tharius Don, made in the likeness of their creators—the Thraish. Who eat humans. And I see mankind trying to believe in that. . . .
“I see them trying valiantly to believe in the Sorters. Virtually every human knows in his heart it’s a lie. They have seen the workers. You think boys don’t sneak into the pits and look at the dead ones, just on a dare? You think people don’t follow the Awakeners out to the pits sometimes, spying on them? You think people don’t know? Aren’t aware? Even those who believe the most, you think they don’t suspect, down deep, that something is awry, that they are being fed on lies?”