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VIII

Peter Stagg did not awake until the evening of the following day. Yet he was the first of his group to rise, except for one. That was Dr. Calthorp, who sat by his captain's bedside.

"How long have you been here?" Stagg said.

"In Baltimore? I followed right on your heels. I saw you charge that deer into the priestesses—and everything that went on afterwards."

Stagg sat up and moaned. "I feel as if every muscle in my body has been strained."

"Every muscle has been. You didn't go to sleep until about ten in the morning. But you ought to feel more than muscle-ache. Doesn't your back hurt much?"

"A little. Feels like a slight burn in my lower back."

"Is that all?" Calthorp's white brows rose high. "Well, all I can say is that the antlers must be doing more than pouring out philoprogenitive hormones into your bloodstream. They must also be conducive to cell-repair."

"What does all that mean?"

"Why, last night a man stabbed you in the back with a knife. Yet it didn't slow you down much, and the wound seems to be almost healed. Of course, the knife didn't go in more than an inch. You've got some pretty solid muscles."

"I have a vague memory of that," Stagg said. He winced. "And what happened to the man afterwards?"

"The women tore him apart."

"But why did he stab me?"

"It seems he was mentally unbalanced. He resented your intense interest in his wife, and he stuck a knife into you. Of course, he was committing a horrible blasphemy. The women used tooth and nail to punish him."

"Why do you say he was mentally unbalanced?"

"Because he was—at least, from this culture's viewpoint. Nobody in his right mind would object to his wife cohabiting with a Sunhero. In fact, it was a great honor, because Sunheroes usually devote their time to nobody but virgins. However, last night you made an exception . . . of the whole city. Or tried to, anyway."

Stagg sighed and said, "Last night was the worst ever. Weren't there more than the usual number mangled?"

"You can hardly blame the Baltimoreans for that. You started things off on a grand scale when you trampled those priestesses. By the way, whatever inspired that move?"

"I don't know. It just seemed a good idea at the time. But I think it might have been my unconscious directing me to get revenge on the people responsible for these."

He touched his antlers. Then he fixed a stare on Calthorp.

"You Judas! Why have you been holding out on me?"

"Who told you? That girl?"

"Yes. That doesn't matter. Come on, Doc, spill it. If it hurts, spill it, anyway. I won't harm you. My antlers are an index of whether I'm in my right mind or not. You can see how floppy they are."

"I began to suspect the true pattern of events as soon as I started understanding the language," Calthorp said. "I wasn't sure, however, until they grafted those antlers on you. But I didn't want to tell you until I could figure out some way of escape. I thought you might try to make a break and would get shot down. I soon began seeing that even if you ran away in the morning, you'd be back by evening—if not sooner. That biological mechanism on your forehead gives you more than an almost inexhaustible ability to scatter your seed; it also gives you an irresistible compulsion to do so. Takes you over completely—possesses you. You're the biggest case of satyriasis known to history."

"I know how it affects me," Stagg said, impatiently. "I want to know just what kind of a role I am playing? Toward what goal? And why is all this Sunhero routine necessary?"

"Wouldn't you like a drink first?"

"No! I'm not going to drown my sorrow in liquor. I'm going to accomplish something today. I would like a big cold drink of water. And I'm dying to take a bath, get all this sweat and crud off me. But that can wait. Your story, please. And make it damn quick!"

"I haven't time now to go into the myth and history of Deecee," Calthorp said. "We can do that tomorrow. But I can elucidate fairly well what position of dubious honor you hold.

"Briefly, you combine several religious roles, that of the Sunhero and that of the Stag-King. The Sunhero is a man who is chosen every year to enact the passage of the Sun around the Earth in symbolic form. Yes, I know the Earth goes around the Sun, and so do the priestesses of Deecee, and so does the unlettered mass, But for all practical purposes, the Sun circles the Earth, and that is how even the scientist thinks of it when he is not thinking scientifically.

"So, the Sunhero is chosen, and he is symbolically born during a ceremony which takes place around December 21. Why then? Because that is the date of the winter solstice. When the Sun is weakest and has reached the most southerly station.

"That is why you went through the birth scene.

"And that is why you are taking the northern route now. You are destined to travel as the Sun travels after the winter solstice, northward. And like the Sun, you will get stronger and stronger. You have noticed how the antlers' effect has been getting more powerful; proof of that is the crazy stunt you pulled when you subdued that stag and rode down the priestesses."

"And what happens when I reach the most northerly station?" Stagg said. His voice was quiet and well controlled, but the skin under the deep brown tan had turned pale.

"That will be the city we used to know as Albany, New York. It is now the northernmost limit of the country of Deecee, And it is also where Alba, the Sow-Goddess, lives. Alba is Columbia in her aspect of the Goddess of Death. The pig is sacred to her because, like Death, it is omnivorous. Alba is also the White Moon Goddess, another symbol of death."

Calthorp stopped. He looked as if he could not bear to continue the conversation; his eyes were moist.

"Go on," Stagg said. "I can take it."

Calthorp took a deep breath and said, "The north, according to Deecee myth, is the place where the Moon Goddess imprisons the Sunhero. A circuitous way of saying that he . . ."

"Dies," Stagg finished for him.

Calthorp gulped. "Yes. The Sunhero is scheduled to complete the Great Route at the time of the summer solstice—about June 22."

"What about the Great Stag aspect, the Horned King?"

"The Deecee are nothing if not economical. They combine the role of Sunhero with that of the Stag-King. He is a symbol of man. He is born as a weak and helpless infant, he grows to become a lusty, virile male, lover, and father. But he, too, completes the Great Route and must, willy-nilly, face Death. By the time he meets her, he is blind, bald, weak, sexless. And . . . he fights for his last breath, but . . . Alba relentlessly chokes it out of him."

"Don't use symbolic language, Doc," Stagg said. "Give me the facts, in plain English."

"There will be one tremendous ceremony at Albany, the final. There you will take, not the tender young virgins, but the white-haired sag-breasted old priestesses of the Sow-Goddess. And your natural distaste for the old women will be overcome by keeping you restrained in a cage until you are at such a point of lust that you will take any woman, even a hundred-year-old great-grandmother. Afterwards . . ."

"Afterwards?"

"Afterwards, you will be blinded, scalped, castrated, and then hung. There will be a week of national mourning for you. Then you will be buried in the position of a foetus beneath a dolmen, an archway of great slabs of stone. And prayers will be said to you and stags will be sacrificed over your tomb."

"That's quite a consolation," Stagg said. "Tell me, Doc, why was I picked for this role? Isn't it true that the Sunheroes are usually volunteers?"

"Men strive for the honor, just as the virgins strive to become the Bride of the Stag. The man who is chosen is the strongest, most handsome, most virile youth in the nation. It was your misfortune to be not only that, but the captain of men who had actually ascended to the heavens on a fiery steed and then returned. They've a myth about a Sunhero who did that. I think that the government of Deecee decided that if they got rid of you they'd disorganize all of the crew. And so diminish any danger of us bringing back the old and abominated science.

"I see Mary Casey waving at you. I think she wants to speak to you."

 

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