In the dark shadow that suddenly engulfed them, Bímer and Borles, holding each other tight, awaited the violence that would surely be unleashed upon them.
You’re such an idiot, Noahsark!
II
The Symbol of the Ellipse
1. Teles
There was no longer any doubt; this symbol was the Ellipse.
So these couldn’t be the machines Jalno had talked about. What machines were they, then?
Bímer didn’t understand. To tell the truth, he didn’t want to make the effort to understand. Borles was by his side, very close to him, generally holding onto him, never stepping so much as out of arm’s reach.
Borles was saying that everything was over for him now; no place was any less awful than any other. The valley’s advantages had suddenly vanished, and suddenly everything had grown dark.
Ultimately Jalno had been right: the valley was bad. And if Jalno had said everything was bad, he still would have been totally right.
Borles and Bímer were shut up in that room, with boards and stones piled against the door. The only light that entered came through a tiny pane of violet-colored glass in the roof, and Borles was starting to think it might be a good idea to cover it.
Where had that distressing symbol come from? Neither Borles nor Bímer dared venture out to see. They had a few ideas about what was happening because Teles, Bímer’s son, came and told them things; he had to shout to be heard, because they refused to open the door. Teles told them the ships were on the other side of the valley, peaceful and white, seemingly harmless.
“Like you believe that!” Borles would shout.
Bímer insistently asked, “Are there men on the ships? What do they do?”
Well, the men, those men, hadn’t moved much. Teles sometimes saw them walking around the ships, but they didn’t seem set on going off very far.
“Sure, sure,” Bímer said, “but what do they do?”
“Well, they walk—”
“They must be doing something!”
“How should I know!” Teles shouted. “They’re strange!”
Borles wanted to know in what way they were strange. Besides, he thought, if they were men, how could they be strange? Teles was trying to explain things that he found confusing himself. In spite of it all, Borles came to understand that those men looked, or must have looked, a lot like Bímer’s grandfather, Jalno’s father, that damned Nur B!
And Bímer explained to Teles what his grandparents had been like.
Yes, Teles said, they wore bright clothes like Nur B. They all dressed alike, with slight differences; they never touched the sand; never crawled; never lay down anywhere. They were clean, cleaner than anything in the world.
Borles let go of Bímer’s hands and sat in the darkness. Nur B, he thought. Ideas came to him pretty much in order, but at some point it all got jumbled together. Yes, Jalno had talked about people like that. He had lived with them as a child, and hadn’t suffered, because there had been a common symbol for them all. How could these new men, being men, be ruled by some random symbol—in fact, a symbol that was violent, jarring, overpowering?
Teles remained silent. They listened to his breathing through the cracks in the door. Okay, Teles repeated, they were strange, but not bad. He didn’t understand as much about symbols as Borles and his father did, but getting near them didn’t cause anything bad to happen.… Beres, for example, had gotten very close to them. Once he’d gotten so close that they’d started shouting, calling him, and then they’d laughed. And Beres got scared, and Teles didn’t know where he’d gone and hidden; all he knew was that he hadn’t seen him again. No, it wasn’t bad to get close to them; he himself had decided to go talk with the men. Any moment now, he’d walk across the valley to find out about lots of things and clear up some questions he had.
“What questions?” Borles and Bímer asked, and Teles just said he had a few questions. It wasn’t good to be shut in like this. Were Bímer and Borles, and now Beres too, planning to stay shut inside forever, waiting until the men left? What if they never left? Maybe they liked the place; maybe they’d come to stay. Had they thought of that? Besides, hiding didn’t solve anything. They were already suffering from the symbol anyway, or perhaps they suffered from being shut inside. Take him, for example; the symbol didn’t hurt him. Hadn’t they thought of that?
Bímer and Borles looked at one another in the dim light and each could barely see the other’s face. The darkness was pleasant, soothing. No, they weren’t going to leave.… They couldn’t leave! Borles figured, for his part, that the thing about Teles was that he was younger, so he was farther from the original symbol; most likely he barely even had a symbol anymore. That’s why he wasn’t suffering.
“Hadn’t you thought of that?” said Borles.
Teles tossed a rock into the air.
“Are you there, Teles?” asked his father.
“Yep.”
“Haven’t you thought about what Borles said?”
“Maybe he’s right. Sure, why not.”
But Teles thought that they were simply afraid. And they’d have been afraid even if they were younger.
Borles said it was okay, it was fine for Teles, if he’d set his mind on it, to walk across the valley and go meet those men, and then come back and tell about it. Yes, that was okay. They weren’t going to move.
2. Orna
The ships that had stopped in the sky disappeared one morning; but on the other side of the valley two white ships slept gently under the hot sun.
Larte, Bumis, and little Orna ran out to meet Teles, shouting and screaming. Teles closed his eyes. Those three kids of Borles’s were always hanging out together, always making so much noise.… How had Bímer put up with them for so long, teaching them about his machines? What use could they have been to him? None at all. Nothing in the world mattered to them; just playing and screaming and making fun of everything.
And there they were now, coming his way.
Teles begged them not to follow him, but Orna grabbed hold of one his arms and said she’d never leave him again. Teles’s anger only excited her, and excited the two boys.
Did they know where he was heading? He was going to see the ships, to talk with those men. All sorts of bad things could happen. Larte doubled up with laughter and nudged Bumis with his elbow. Orna said that they were actually coming back from there. They went there and back every day, visiting the green men, and the green men laughed with them. They were good men, always happy; not like him, stupid and dirty.
Teles looked at Orna’s golden head and felt an urge to smash it with a stone, to crack it in two.
Why weren’t they with their father? They should stay with him and take care of him. Bumis let out such an unpleasant laugh that Teles couldn’t resist the desire to kick him, but not even that interrupted his guffaws. Larte threw a stone at him and for a moment Teles stood frozen with his fists upraised, choking with rage.
Orna pointed a finger at him and stuck out her tongue, making all sorts of faces.
What crimes had Teles committed to deserve this sort of punishment? Nothing could stop them now; they were going berserk. They ran circles around him, just out of reach, harassing him nonstop. Teles’s anger turned to distress, then fear. Would they