Some say that ever ’gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow’d and so gracious is that time.
—Hamlet I.i.
YOU SURE YOU REALLY WANT to hear about all this? I mean, me and Bully weren’t really the main ones.
Okay. Is that thing on?
Hi. My name’s Donnie, and I’m a donkey. My friend’s name is Bully, only he’s not really a bull, you know what I mean? They cut off his—you know. So he wouldn’t get mad. That’s something lots of people don’t understand, they think he can’t. He can, only he hardly ever does. But if he does, watch out, because he’s big and real strong. I’m not big, but I’m strong anyhow. You’d be surprised how much I can carry or how hard I can kick, and I can run a lot faster than you think, too.
As well as I can figure, we were born on Earth, only they didn’t call it that back there, they called it Texas. There was a big school that had farms and ranches all over for trying out new seeds and new ways of growing silage and all that. And before we were ever born they did stuff to us to make us as smart as most people, and worked on our tongues and mouths some, too. Not enough to make us sound like you—we know we don’t—but enough so you could understand us.
The idea was that there’s still a lot of places like this one, where people are poor and use animals where rich people’d use machines. Like carrying firewood. If they’re rich enough to have a donkey, they use him for that, or somebody like Bully to plow or pull a cart that’s too big for me. They do all that here, probably you’ve seen it. And they thought if we could talk to those people and understand what they told us, it might be better.
I guess it didn’t work out too good though, because after a few years they dropped the whole thing and sold us off. I really didn’t know Bully up till then. I guess I’d seen him, but there were a lot around, cows mostly. If I did, I didn’t pay attention. Maybe you’ve talked to him already?
He’s mostly red and white, because there’s some Hereford in him, and black because of other stuff. His hump’s from Santa Gertrudis, which is what his mom was, so there’s Indian cattle and longhorns back there. I’m little, and gray like you see except for this mark on my back.
The way we got together was, the same man bought us both. His name was Mango. Mango the Clown. He taught us a lot of stuff we’d never known about back on the ranch, like various acts and Bully to let people ride on his back. We went to so many foreign worlds with Mango that I lost count after a while. I can count up to ten, usually. It was more than that, so I started counting tens. I know you’d do it different, but that was the only thing I could think of that would work for me, or Bully either. But after a while I sort of forgot, because what difference did it make? Besides, sometimes we went back to one where we’d been before if the tip had been good.
We’re clowns too, and we’re pretty famous now. I guess you’ve seen us.
We’d get painted up and put on ruffs. That’s what you call the big collars, they’re ruffs. Mango’d beat his drum to get us a crowd, and we’d put on one of our clown acts.
Like, Mango would be trying to lead me, only Bully would be lying down and Mango not see him, and he’d back into one of Bully’s horns and jump, and Bully’d beller. We didn’t any of us talk when we did our acts, and that sure was a swell idea of Mango’s, I mean nobody talking, because it would’ve got us killed here on Sidhe. Quick, too. There’s witches here, and the Beautiful Ones don’t like them one little bit.
Then Mango’d put his finger up to his head and have an idea, and wink at everybody. He’d tie me to Bully so Bully’d pull me along, and that way I’d have to go. He’d do it, and Bully wouldn’t get up. Mango’d kick him and poke him and holler at him, but Bully’d just yawn. Finally Mango’d back off and talk to both of us, only without talking, if you know what I mean. Talk with his eyes and face and hands, and his whole body. He’d show how he got us when we were little, and what good care he’d taken of us—we’d shake our heads at that—how he’d fed us and nursed us when we were sick. Then he’d say how all that was over now. He was going to sell us to the butcher—pointing to a butcher’s shop, if there was one on that street—and the butcher’d cut our throats and skin us, and chop us up to sell. He’d say that I was pork, Mango’d say, and he’d say Bully was donkey meat.
That’d get Bully mad. He’d jump up and paw the ground and snort, and then he’d chase Mango around and around in a big circle, with me still tied to him standing in the middle and turning around to watch them. Pretty soon he’d get tired and Mango’d get tired, and they wouldn’t run any more, just walk. Then Bully’d lie down where he’d been lying down before, with Mango panting and mopping up sweat.
That’s when I’d come up behind him and stand on my hind legs, and tap him on the shoulder with one of my front hoofs—that usually got the biggest laugh in the whole act. He’d turn around the wrong way, and I’d be down again. I’d try to get him to get on my back, pulling on his clown coat with my teeth and pushing him with my head, and making regular donkey noises, but he never would get the idea. After a lot of that—as long as it was getting good laughs—I’d get him to standing straddle-legged and then run between his legs and sort of scoop him up. Mango was one of those tall, skinny birds, and he’d have to pull his legs way up to keep his feet from dragging. Then I’d climb up on Bully’s back, and he’d stand up, and the three of us would go ’round in a circle, me on Bully and Mango on me. And after that we’d pass the hat.
That was just one act, you understand. We had a lot of others, and if the money was good in a certain part of town, we’d go back there again next day and put on a different act. When we’d played out a city, we’d go on to another one, and when we’d played all the cities or Mango could find a way to get to some other world cheap, away we’d go. There were places where we could’ve stayed on and on, if you ask me, just going around five or six towns. But that wasn’t Mango. If he’d wanted to live like that, he’d never have become a clown at all, he said. He told me once he wanted to see new smiles, and maybe that was it.
We’d loop back sometimes, and loop around. But somehow we were always outward bound, out toward the rim and farther every year. He’d meet somebody, some sailor usually, and he’d talk about someplace he’d just been to, what a hellhole it was. And after that, Mango’d always be itching to go there. He’d talk about it and me and Bully’d say it sounded pretty bad, all the killing and storms, bad air, nothing but trouble. And Mango’d say think how much they’d love us there, how they need somebody like us. When Mango looked in a mirror, I don’t think he saw what other people saw, but something a whole lot bigger and nicer. And the longer he’s gone, the more I get to thinking he was right, that was what was there, and not the long skinny bird with the long skinny face that I always saw when I looked at him. Now I like to think he’s gone someplace better, that he’s played out this universe and caught a ship up to a new one where there’s sweet grass and clean water all over. Only Mango’d go down below, if he could. He’d think about how bad it was and how they needed us, and he’d say it was just for a couple weeks and go.
That’s how it was going to be when we came here. Just a couple weeks. We’ve been here close to ten years, I think, me and Bully have now.
There aren’t a lot of worlds with their own intelligent native races, I guess everybody knows that. And the ones that have them, that world’s theirs, and generally they won’t let humans settle on it at all. Sidhe’s different, because the intelligent race here is the Beautiful Ones and there’s nothing else in the galaxy like them. That’s what I hear, and it’s probably a real good thing too. The Beautiful Ones will let people come, only they can’t have children here. Probably you’ve heard about that already.
People need a lot of high-class science to change genes and make something better. You take Bully and me. It was one of the smartest women on Earth that did us, and all the others there that could have done it too could’ve sat down in her living room. The Beautiful Ones don’t have any science and don’t want it, but they’ve got that built in, just like Bully’s got all his stomachs. Whenever one’s fixing to have a child, that child’s going to look a lot like she wanted it to. She doesn’t have to do anything but want, and the more she wants it the closer she gets.
So when the first humans got here, and they had ships and crawlers and all that, the Beautiful Ones thought that stuff was really swell, and every generation got to looking more and more like people until pretty soon it was like it is now, and the Beautiful Ones look a whole lot better than real people do, taller than Mango, most of them, and faces so pretty it sort of hurts to look at them, especially when you know they’re not people at all. You’ve seen some, right?
Well, maybe I do, but I can’t say it very good. I haven’t got all the words. They move around like they’re dancing all the time. And as soon as you see one, you know she’s the best dancer in the whole universe. Or he is. Their hair’s like the gold stuff you see in a jewelry store, and their skin’s the color of bread baking, just starting to get brown. Their teeth are just so, and their eyes are all kinds of funny colors, and change while you’re looking at them. That’s what Mango said. I can’t see most colors very good, but he knew a lot about them. I can’t dance, either, not a lick, but I sing a little. Is that enough about the Beautiful Ones?
Okay. They wanted people to settle here, and they still do. Most won’t, because word’s gotten around. You were pretty brave to come, is what I think.
Well, I sure hope they don’t. They’re not very good at keeping promises. I don’t think it’s forgetting or even badness as much as it’s just that the promising idea doesn’t make much sense to them. They don’t really understand it. If I were you I’d get out quick and not tell anybody I was going till I’d gone.
People still come, though, mostly the ones that are too poor to go anyplace else. You know how it is. If a world thinks you’re probably going to need a lot of help, they won’t let you come. Not even just to stop over. But Sidhe will take all those, and the more kids they’ve got before they get here the better, so they’ll grow up right here. Because on Sidhe nobody’s going to look out for you except maybe your relatives and the folks next door.
We didn’t have any relatives here, and we weren’t living next door to anybody, really. We were going all around the way we always did, so there was just us. People kept telling us the Beautiful Ones wouldn’t ever let us leave, so pretty soon Mango wanted to go and we came here and asked around at the spaceport. That’s when we found out the people had been right. The Beautiful Ones weren’t letting anybody go off world unless there was somebody that had gotten away already that was asking about them, and nobody was asking about us. The sailors were afraid to get off their ships, even, because they figured the Beautiful Ones wouldn’t let them back on. Some Beautiful Ones would go out to the port at night, or when it was dark weather or raining, and dance for them, dance around the ship, mostly, or make a figure-of-eight around two ships, when there was two ships, and sometimes a sailor would come out.
Then a female or male would hook up with him, depending on what he wanted, and show him how to dance. Or her, if the sailor was a woman, and they’d all dance some more. And finally they’d go off together, with the sailor grinning and waving to his friends on the ship. That sailor’d hardly ever come back, though.
We tried and tried, Mango talking to various ones, only nothing ever came of it. There were days—I remember two—when we went out to the port, Mango thinking we were going to get on a ship sure, only we never quite would. Then one day he said he thought he had a way to do it, but it would only work for him, not for us, so he was going to take it, and when he got off world he’d start in on anybody from Earth that he could find, viewing the ambassador, and letters, and all that, and get us off too. We said fine, because I didn’t believe he’d really get off himself and neither did Bully.
This is something I’d rather I didn’t have to tell about, but I guess I do. The way Mango’d found, or thought he had, was to hide in a cargo canister. The one he picked was full of furs, and the captain wanted it fumigated before he’d take it on board for fear there was fleas in them or something. So they opened it up and sprayed stuff in and Mango coughed, and that was how they found him.
And they killed him. There was two Beautiful Ones there to see nobody got away on that ship, is what we heard, and they chopped him up with their swords.
No, they can’t make swords or much of anything. But they make people make the things for them, swords and lots of other stuff. That’s why they want people here, to make stuff for them and make stuff to trade. Like those furs. It was people who caught the animals and skinned them, and the Beautiful Ones were going to trade them off world and buy stuff they wanted, flitters and blasters and ships of their own. So they want a ton of people to do that.
Sure they want kids. There’s Beautiful Ones on the other worlds around here now to get more people to come, and if it’s a big family they’ll pay passage. But they don’t want any kids born here, because they’re scared of them. They’re afraid that what their mothers will want is somebody that can beat up the Beautiful Ones. The mothers would want it, too, I guess, only wanting doesn’t work for people … .
All right, if you’d really like to hear. I don’t know anything about anything except clowning, I know that, and maybe it’s just being here too long. But sometimes I wonder if the Beautiful Ones aren’t right and the people wrong. Maybe people do get what they want a little, sometimes, or even animals like me and Bully do. Because everybody here kept talking about it. How if ever it happened and the Beautiful Ones didn’t kill it, that’d be one that’d put people on top and the Beautiful Ones on the bottom, or anyhow make them treat people better. That kid would be, when he grew up.
Oh, sure. It happens. It happens a lot. Some woman and her husband get careless, or maybe just a boy and a girl. But the Beautiful Ones always hear. And pretty soon after the baby comes, they come too. What happened this time—
Right. I’m starting off before I’m hitched up, I guess.
With Mango gone, Bully and me figured to go on clowning by ourselves. We worked up a couple of acts for just the two of us, and we could pass the hat like we had before, holding it in our teeth. Only the first time we did it I could see it wasn’t going to work. For one thing, we couldn’t paint our faces the way Mango had, and without paint it didn’t feel right. Another one was somebody was always grabbing us and saying we belonged to him. We had to hurt a couple of those birds pretty bad, and we didn’t like that.
So pretty soon even Bully could see we needed somebody, and we found this boy, Ezry, that hadn’t ever had a father and his mother was gone. We pay him to own us, only he has to do what we say. There’s been some bad times besides the good ones, but it’s worked out pretty well. We’re satisfied, and so’s he. He paints our faces and buttons our ruffs, and beats Mango’s drum to get us a crowd just like Mango used to. Did you catch our act?
It’s really pretty simple. I’m carrying a basket of corn on each side of me, and I come out and try to eat it myself. I circle around this way, only I can’t get it. Then I try it the other way, going faster and faster, and get out of breath and walk around funny like I’m dizzy, and finally I fall down. It gets a big laugh.
Then Bully comes out, and he’s got a basket on each side too, only his are bigger and full of hay. He reaches around as far as he can and gets a few straws, then he reaches around the other way and gets a few more. He’s got this thing where he tries to hook a basket with his horn, and he almost gets it. Maybe he does get it a little, but then it slips off. Then he starts trying to untie the rope around his belly with his back hoofs, first the left one, then the right. Finally he puts his head down and looks between his front legs at his back ones, left then right. And he tries to use them both at the same time, and naturally sits down. About then I get up and try reaching my mouth straight over my back, and that doesn’t work either.
Then Ezry comes out and whispers in our ears, and after that I eat hay out of Bully’s baskets and he eats corn out of mine, and then we pass the hat.
That act gets some good laughs and brings in the cash, but there’s more to it. See, we’re saying to everybody that we’ve got to pull together and look out for each other, and that goes right along with this family you want to know about.
They were just country people from some village upriver. He lumbered up there, he said, and had a little sawmill and so on. Well, she was about to have the kid, and where they lived there wasn’t anybody to help her, and you know somebody’s going to tell the Beautiful Ones next time some come through. It’s bound to happen. So they’d come down here trying to get a ship out, and you know how that is. You know what happened to Mango. Then she goes into labor.
It was Ezry that found out about them when the place where they’d been staying wouldn’t let them back in, and I guess if he’d told her husband about Bully and me maybe they wouldn’t have come at all. But maybe they would, because they didn’t have any time to fool around. We bedded her down on clean hay that Bully forked out of our loft, and it could’ve been worse.
People found out, naturally. You can’t hide a thing like that very long here in the city where people are poor and got to live so close together. So they came and stood around and gawked, because most of them hadn’t ever seen a real newborn for years and years, and some that came here as kids never had.
We got witches here. I guess you’ve heard. A lot of the worlds I’ve been on, they don’t think there are any, but we’ve got plenty. If you ask me it’s because somebody has to store up all the stuff people know. On most worlds it’s computers and maybe teachers, and some in books. But on a world like Sidhe, well, they got a little school started here. It’s the first one on Sidhe.
Anyway, this witch comes and tells everybody that this new kid the woman had, he’s going to be the one. When he gets big he’s going to kick the Beautiful Ones’ teeth out and black their eyes, and after that people here are going to get a better shake. They’ll be able to have kids of their own if they want them, and have a say in the way their taxes get spent and all that.
Then somebody laughed, a little skinny bird it was that’d worked his way to the front. This witch starts screeching at him, and he starts hollering back at her, so Bully shuts him up. Bully’s got this big deep voice, you know? He says it’s all true, and if the little bird don’t believe it, he’ll put a horn right through him, and anybody that runs off and tells Beautiful Ones about the new kid is in for a dose of the same.
Well, Bully’s the best friend I’ve got, right? So I chime in. My voice isn’t deep like his, but I can be pretty loud when I want to. The little bird shuts up and sort of stares at us, and after a minute I see they all are. Then he says, like he can’t hardly get it out, he thought we didn’t talk. So I say tonight we do, and Bully chimes in for me and says only tonight, but they better not talk themselves if they know what he means. So that’s how we got to be sort of famous.
Right there’s where we got lucky, too, because it’s when the sheepherders came. There’s a couple horses right beside this place Bully and me rent, and I guess somebody’d come in and got a horse, and when he got out into the country he told everybody. Anyway there was eight or ten sheepherders, and there’s some real bad animals here on Sidhe, so if you’re going to keep sheep you’d better be a real tough bird with some real tough dogs. They all had those big sticks, too, and when they talked folks listened.
So it was quiet, pretty quiet anyhow, for a week or so, and the Beautiful Ones never did catch on. Then three teachers from the new school came by—I guess three was all they had back then. They’d been passing the hat for this country family, and they’d gotten up quite a nice chunk of change.
Oh, sure, me and Bully put in some too, for Mango.
And with that much they were able to get a ship, just like they’d wanted when they came here. Folks say they went to some world called Biladmaser. Only some say Barrmaser, so I guess nobody really knows, or somebody heard somebody else wrong, you know how that is. But I know they really did get on a ship, because I took her and her new kid out to the port and watched her and her husband climb in it, him carrying the kid. Then I watched—we all did, that’s Bully and me and Ezry—till it took off. I don’t know if she waved or anything, except for when she was about to go in, because I couldn’t see for sure. Ezry says she did, and he’s got real good eyes. But I was the one she sat on, her nursing her new kid, all the way out there. Every time Bully reminds me he was the first one to talk to the people the night the new kid was born, I remind him about that.
Really? You think they’re back here? You don’t say!
Out in the boondocks somewhere, I guess. It’d have to be. Only I don’t know anything about it. I never heard a thing about them coming back till you said so, and probably I’ll forget, too, as soon as you’re out of here.
You ever think about how the Beautiful Ones are going to stick your feet in the fire if they hear you know something like that? You better know exactly where they are, and no mistakes, and who’s hiding them and the rest of it. Because they’re going to keep on doing this and that till you tell them all that stuff. You ever see them when they throw them into the street after a little conversation like that? Fingernails torn off, and they can’t stand up or anything. They holler for their friends and relatives, but their friends and relatives know there’s Beautiful Ones watching to see who tries to help. Pretty soon the street dogs come. The ones that got thrown out can generally keep them off at first, but when there gets to be too many to count, it’s all over.
Yeah, I figured you didn’t really know anything about her and her husband and the kid coming back. I figured you were just blowing off, because I do it too, sometimes—smartass is what Bully says. You have a real nice trip back to Earth, and when you get there you tell them I really don’t know much of anything about whatever might be going on out here.
How could I? I’m just a donkey.
