Awakeners by Sheri S Tepper

“She is as a member of the crew,” he wrote in his journal, in yet another of those many books he had filled over the years with Thrasne’s Thoughts. “We would not abandon a crew member until all hope was lost; so we may not abandon her.” As he wrote this, he was conscious that it was not quite the truth, but he could find no other words that satisfied him. “It may be,” he continued, “as the sailors say, that it is already hopeless.”

And yet he would not cease searching for the Cheevle. They spent some days tacking, circling, up and down, back and forth, the sailors trying to keep some record of the way they had gone, shaking their heads and snarling at one another from time to time. During the storm several of the great water casks had been broken. Thrasne set the carpenter to repairing the casks, a job that did not take them long, but he either did not notice or did not see the implications of the fact that the casks were now empty. In this he was quite alone. The crew and the Noor saw well enough that the remaining water would not last them long. One could drink the brackish River water for a short time, a day or two, perhaps, the sailors said. Longer than that and people drinking the water doubled in cramps and fits and died.

On the evening of the fifth or sixth day of this aimless searching—during which every available pair of eyes had been stationed at the rail or on the steering deck or even aloft, at the top of the mast, the watchman having been hauled up there in a kind of swing—Taj Noteen made his way to the place Thrasne brooded atop the owner-house.

“Thrasne owner,” he said. “Would you dishonor Medoor Babji?”

Thrasne turned on him, lips drawn back in a snarl. Then, seeing the quiet entreaty on the man’s face, he subsided, wondering what ploy this was. “I would not,” he growled. “As you well know. Medoor Babji is my … friend.” He heard himself saying this, liked the sound of it, and repeated it firmly. “My friend.”

“Then if you would honor your friendship, you should do as Medoor Babji would wish, Thrasne owner.”

“I would presume she would wish to be found,” he growled, becoming angry.

“Any of us would,” agreed Taj Noteen. “Unless we were on a mission to which we would willingly sacrifice our lives. In that case, we might feel our mission more important than being found.” He sweated as he said this, and his mouth closed in a hurt, bitter line, for he revered Queen Fibji, as did most of the Noor. Blame for the loss of the Queen’s daughter would fall on the leader of the group. Who else could be asked to bear it?

“So you say,” Thrasne argued. “You, who lead this group. Perhaps those who follow you feel differently. Perhaps to them the mission is not more important than their lives.”

“We go at the Queen’s command,” Noteen said softly. “You have been told this.”

“I have been told. Yes.” It meant nothing to him.

“Medoor Babji is the Queen’s daughter, her chosen heir. Medoor Babji is the real leader of this expedition, boatman. I speak with her voice when I tell you to give up this fruitless search.”

“How can you?” Thrasne cried. “You know her! How can you?”

“Because there are ten thousand Medoor Babjis among the Noor,” he replied, gesturing wide to include all that world of suffering humanity. “Ten thousand to be killed by Jondarites and taken slave in the mines. Ten thousand daughters to weep, ten thousand sons to die. We do not go to Southshore out of mere curiosity, Thrasne. We go because we must. The Noor are being slaughtered, day by day, week by week. Medoor Babji knows this! How do we honor her death if we perish of thirst here upon this endless water and the mission comes to nothing? Then she will have died for nothing! Would you dishonor her, Thrasne owner?”

Thrasne did not give up easily. Still, Noteen’s words burned in his head. He went below to his airless little cubby and anguished to himself, thinking that everything he cared for was always left from him, surprised at the thought, for it was only then he admitted to himself that he cared for Medoor Babji. Realizing it made his grief the worse, and he spent the night attempting to assign that grief some cause and function or to find some reasons in his own life for his being punished in this way. It was no good. He could not really believe in such punishment, though the priests and Awakeners taught it as a matter of course. It was nothing in his own life which controlled the lives of Pamra or Medoor Babji. They, too, were creatures who moved of their own will. He could only touch their lives a little, share their lives a little, if they would give him leave.