DESTINY
IS HALF A HORROR-WORLD AWAY
Amara was a puzzle without solution in a timeless,
meaningless system of three suns. And Na-Abiza was a place on Amara, a
place Alexander Sherret had to get to
urgently.
"Have you ever be"en to Na-Abiza?"
"Yes, I have, human,
but I didn't get there."
"Why
not?"
"Because
it wasn't there when I got there."
But on Sherret plunged, despite the warnings,
the dangers and the woman who needed him in order to exist. Perhaps it was all for nothing, for when Sherret got there, would Na-Abiza
still be there?
Turn this Book over for second complete novel
CAST
OF CHARACTERS
THE
EARTHMEN
Alexander
Sherret: He believed that every man had a right to be himself, and he was ready to
fight for that right
Captain Maxton: He landed Alex on Amara—and left him.
Captain Bagshaw:
He landed himself on Amara—and left himself.
THE
NATIVES
Rosala: You could think of her as Circe, but it
wasn't at all accurate.
Lee:
He was trapped immovably between love and terror.
Canato: For him, one was company and two was a crowd.
THE THREE SUNS OF AMARA
by
WILLIAM F. TEMPLE
ace
books
A Division ol
Charter Communications Inc.
1120
Avenue of the Americas New York, N.Y. 10036
the three suns of amara
Copyright ©, 1962, by Ace
Books, Inc. All
Rights reserved
First
Ace printing: April, 1963 Second Ace printing: June, 1973
battle on venus
Copyright ©, 1963, by Ace Books, Inc.
Printed in U.S.A.
CHAPTER
ONE
There
was always something new
under the Three Suns.
Always new and usually inexplicable—if not downright crazy.
On
the astronomers' charts the Three Suns bore dull number-plates: CXY 927340, CXY
927341, CXY 927342. The men from Earth called them
simply by their colors: Blue, Yellow, Red. It seemed
more than coincidence that these were the three primary colors. But if it were
more, who could explain it?
Who
could explain even half of what happened in the everchanging
light of the Three Suns?
For
instance, there was the orbit between them of CXY 927340/2-A. (Men again
ignored the number-plate. To them, it was Amara.) Amara was a coveted only child, a living planet, and the
Three Suns shared it among themselves with scrupulous justice.
Ethically,
that made sense. Physically, it was mad. Mathematicians, who had retained their
sanity after years of grappling with the hoary Problem of the Three Bodies,
would tend to sink into melancholy after attempting to produce on paper proof
of what they indisputably saw in the vicinity of the Three Suns.
And this despite the whole mountain range of
data concerning the vagaries of gravitational fields which had grown into being
since interstellar travel became commonplace.
Blue,
Yellow, and Red were spaced on the comers of an invisible equilateral triangle.
Amara circled each sun in turn, rotating on its own
axis as it went, providing rainbow-colored days for the Amarans,
but never black night. The nearest to night, probably, was when Amara entered upon the passage between Blue and Red. Then
the clouds were empurpled and people's faces seemed dark and strange.
But
soon Yellow's contribution came to dispel the shadows, and when Amara swung around to the far side of Yellow the sky became
bright indeed.
Between
Yellow and Blue, grass-green was the light Between Red and Yellow, a warm
orange.
The
juxtapositions of suns and planets, vaporous clouds and dust-clouds, were
infinite. The skies of Earth seemed in retrospect like faded window drapes to
one who'd seen the glowing, kaleidoscopic heavens of Amara.
One like Alexander Sherret
Sherret remembered Earth with no particular regret It was a place which everyone pretended was highly
significant, if only because it was the cradle of humanity. The significance
evaded Sherret. Amara was
preferable; plainly, starkly, it mirrored the universe as it really was.
It was the Grand Doodle.
The
Grand Doodler's conscious attention had been someplace else—someplace, maybe,
that was significant —the while his subconscious idly
sketched out the pointless pattern of the universe. An enormously intricate
pattern, naturally, from the depths of an enormously intricate mind. But
significance it had not. And men became clowns or bores
when they assumed they knew, and dilated upon, the meaning of it all.
All men are Doodles. Why
argue?
But
when someone tries to thrust Hobson's choice down your gullet, you find
yourself arguing.
Captain
Maxton was doing the thrusting, and for him it was out of character; usually he
had to be pushed.
"Make
up your mind, Sherret. Are you a Goffist
or a Reparist?"
"I'm a Sherretist, sir."
"Cut the whimsy. I've
got to know where I stand."
"You should stand on
your own feet, sir."
The
Captain flushed. He said rapidly, to divert attention from this giveaway,
"I take it, then, that you're still a Reparist?"
"Oh,
damn all 'isms," said Sherret, impatiently.
"Men are men. They're not Goffists, Reparists, Papists, Royalists, Chartists, Communists,
Fascists, Buddhists Methodists, Existentialists, or what you have."
The
Captain looked at him, or nearly. He said, "In any society everyone has to
accept the rules, else that society collapses into anarchism."
"I'm with you that
far, sir."
"Yes,
but under Reparism the rules are too rigid. If you
don't like 'em, you can't do much to change them. But
a Goffist always gets his chance to change things,
and change them as much as he likes. Remold them nearer to the heart's desire
kind of thing. For a time, anyhow. Your turn to be
Captain will come."
"And go, sir."
"Naturally. It's a law of life. Things come, things go. Else—stagnation.
It's like a symphony orchestra, see? One instrument takes over from another.
You've got to know when to stop. You can't blow your own trumpet all the time
when the aim is harmony. Look, Sherret, I'm going to
leave you alone for thirty minutes. Think it over. Then decide finally whether
you're with us or against us. If you're against us, you don't belong here. And
you can get to hell out of it. Go over to Bagshaw and
his crew—if they'll have you. And if you get there.
For if you go, you're going to have to walk all of the way on your two flat
feet. I'm not risking what little transport we have on a dissenter. That's it
I'll be back in a half-hour."
Captain
Maxton strode out decisively. He would have liked to have slammed the door to
show just how decisive he could be. Spaceship doors weren't free swinging,
however. This one sighed benignly shut behind him.
Sherret echoed the sigh. He relaxed on the bunk by
the porthole. He began chewing on a B-stick to help along the relaxation. Like
all spacemen, he'd had to break the smoking habit when he left Earth. If pipes
were substitutes for feeding bottles at moments of regression into infancy,
then a B-stick was a kind of teething ring. It helped when you felt like biting
someone.
Thirty
minutes to decide, and the decision was already made. No Goffism
for him. Goff was a nut, a psy-chosociologist who
advocated absolute rule by each qualified worker in a local community for a month, and absolute obedience by the rest—until their rum
came.
The scheme was to have as many ideas put into
pracrice as possible, instead of their languishing
and dying untried. It was pragmatism plus. If an idea worked, it was true and
good.
"General
common sense will ensure the survival of the fittest ideas," said the
prophet of psychosociology.
Sherret
reflected that Goff was inflated with theory and quite devoid of any real
knowledge of human nature, its basic irrationality, its perversions, manias
and erotic dreams. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. It was the scheme of a simple-minded
crank to uncage innumerable really dangerous cranks.
It
was a pity that the ship had succeeded in re-establishing contact with Earth,
to learn that Goffism was being widely adopted back
there. Maxton had jumped at it, of course. It was his chance to relinquish the
responsibility he realized he should never have accepted.
Bagshaw was
a different kind of man. Sherret couldn't imagine him
handing over his ship to the assistant cook and staying in bed till noon
because the assistant cook didn't believe in early rising.
"It's
time to get me a new ship," said Sherret aloud
to the empty cabin.
There
was an initial difficulty, however, about that Bagshaw's
ship, the Pegasus,
had landed some three hundred
miles away, at a place called by the natives Na-Abiza.
There
was a lot of rough country in between. Largely unknown
country, inhabited by unknown creatures. Maybe many,
maybe few. Maybe hostile, maybe not. Judging
from the samples of life hitherto encountered within a radius of twenty miles
around Maxton's ship, there was the promise of novelty. The road to Na-Abiza should be interesting—so long as one remained alive
and capable of interest.
Thoughtfully Sherret
chewed on his B-stick and through the porthole watched the cyclorama of the sky
as Amara cruised between her parent suns.
Captain
Maxton returned as the chronometer ticked the last seconds of the half-hour.
"Well, Sherret?"
"I
should be grateful if you'd pack me some sandwiches for the trek, sir. Preferably ham. With just a spot of
mustard."
Red and Yellow shared this sky, while Blue
dominated the other side of the world. Sherret shaded
his eyes with an orange hand and stared back into orange distance. He'd come
five miles, maybe, and the ship was becoming difficult to pick out in the
landscape. There were conical rocks around it, and the shape he thought was the
ship's nose was possibly only a rock.
When
it came right down to it, a man felt lonely when he'd left the community he'd
lived in for so long. It was a bitter sort of comfort to know that that
community would presently dissolve into chaos, conflict, and possibly
bloodshed.
But there it was. He must
make his own way.
So
far he had met, to speak to, only two Amarans, although
he had seen others carefully not seeing him in the middle distance. For the
most part, the local Amarans had steered clear of the
humans since the obtuse Brewster had shot a fat and iridescent bird and
brought it home for the cooking pot.
The bird turned out to be a council member in
a colony of a highly intelligent species of Bird-Amarans.
The blunder was, on the surface, forgiven, because there were Birds and birds
on Amara, and the latter were truly bird-brained.
Nevertheless, the Bird-Amarans afterwards made it
plain that they classed humans with the bird-brains so far as intelligence went
And they did not fly within gunshot again.
All
other intelligent Amarans also kept their distance.
The two types of Amarans with whom the humans could
be said to have established any contact were both hu-manoid
and weak-minded.
Humanoid, anyhow. The feeble-mindedness was a spontaneous deduction, but some of the crew
had had occasion to think twice about it
The
Earthmen had named the types the Paddies and the Jacldes.
It
was a Paddy whom Sherret first encountered on his
trek. A hairy, stocky creature with a low gradient forehead
and an apelike shamble. Thick was the adjective applied to him—thick in
build, in speech, in head.
He
greeted Sherret surlily,
"Don't kill me, human, because if you do I shall loll you."
This
typical kind of remark had earned the creature its sobriquet
Sherret smiled. "Don't be afraid, I shan't kill
you. I'm only out for a walk. Have you ever been to Na-Abiza?"
"Yes, I have, human, but I didn't get there." "Why
not?"
"Because it wasn't there when I got there." "But you just said you didn't get
there." "Of course I didn't, human, if it wasn't there."
"Well, is it there now?"
"How can I tell? I'm here, not
there."
Sherret
laughed and abandoned the attempt. Such crosstalk could go on indefinitely. In
trying to learn something of the nature of the flora and fauna of Amara by questioning the dour Paddies, the Earthmen had
achieved a state of utter confusion. Lifeforms here
were weird, certainly. Maybe the Paddies had the right approach in describing
them in terms of Irishisms.
He bade the Paddy good-bye
and walked on.
He
ran into the Jackie a mile further on. When a Jackie stood upright he was, on the average,
eight feet tall. As his spine was rubbery he seldom stood upright Jackies were fleshless and gangling, hinged at every point.
The jaw hinge was particularly notable. When a Jackie laughed, the top half of
his head lifted clear away. And Jackies always
laughed.
Jackie was a diminutive of
jackass.
"Good morning,"
said Sherret.
The
Jackie at once became convulsed with laughter. Jackies
laughed at the slightest thing. At first you thought they were laughing at
nothing at all. Then you tended to re-examine what you'd said. Perhaps you had said something funny. Or, at any rate, foolish.
Come
to think of it Sherret reflected,
it was foolish to wish anyone good morning on Amara,
where there was no morning. Nor afternoon, nor evening, nor night It was always
day—of a kind.
The laugh continued to saw through the still
air, and Sherret reflected further that there was
something disturbing about a Jackie's laugh. It was more than a mere ass bray.
There was a maniacal strain, like the release of the hysteria of a sex-killer at the moment of consummation. And yet there was more irony
than cruelty in it. The laugher knew you were a fool, but knew that he was too.
He was laughing at the nture of things which made
sport of him and of you.
There
was bitterness because he had been formed as he was. But this was
countered by a note of triumph because in some non-human way he knew more
about destiny than you could guess.
It
was a devilishly knowing laugh. When it had died away, the Jackie asked in his
peculiarly twanging voice, as though his vocal cords were of thin steel wire,
"Where are you going, human?"
"Na-Abiza."
Again Sherret
waited patiently for the laugh to end. "Abiza,"
in what seemed to be the common language of Amara
(for even the Bird-Amarans shrilled it) was a verb as
well as a place name. The verb described a bodily function. "Na"
meant, variously, no, negative, or unable.
"Na-Abiza"
could mean constipation. Naturally, the Jackie chose to see it that way. When
he had laughed his fill, and become untwisted and a recognizably humanoid shape
again, the Jackie said, "I wish you an interesting journey. But beware of
those who have only two, of those two become three, of that which becomes
many."
"Well,
thanks a lot," said Sherret "But do you
have to be so cryptic?"
Even on second thought he could see nothing
particularly humorous in this question. But immediately the Jackie was again
overtaken by helpless mirth. With repetition, this sort of reaction could
become irritating.
"One
day you'll die laughing," said Sherret, with a touch of impatience, and strode on.
It
was some time before the unsettling sound was finally lost in the horny- brush
behind him.
Eventually
he left the thorn belt, crossed an ankle-twisting area of loose rock, then climbed the ridge from which the rocks had rolled. It
was there he paused for a parting look back at the ship—if it was the
ship.
He'd
come this far in this direction before, but he had only a rough notion of the
terrain beyond the ridge. Somewhere there was a lake whose western edge he
would have to skirt. He went onto the crest and then along it for some distance
until he came to a high promontory. He scaled it.
From the summit he took survey. A plain
stretched to the horizon. A small section of the horizon was thickened by a
bright orange streak. That was the lake. He took a bearing, then picked
his way down to the plain.
It
was featureless and seemed interminable. Coarse grass matted it. Sometimes he
walked springily over the thick tangle. Sometimes his
foot sank into a loose patch of it and the grass wound itself around his boot
as if it were trying to drag him below ground.
A
breeze sprang up and rapidly strengthened to a wind. The grass stirred like the fur on a
moving beast and the wind extracted a whistling tune from the rough stalks.
From over the ridge behind him came sailing on the
wind a ball of cloud, like an immense balloon. In Amara's
skies the rare clouds almost always formed compact balls. No one could explain
why.
The
twin pools of the cloud's shadows came sliding, far apart, across the plain.
One of them overtook Sherret.
Briefly,
Yellow was eclipsed, and it was as though he had been plunged into a corner of
the Inferno. Everything was fire-red.
The
shadow passed. Later he glimpsed it traversing the lake like a moving patch of
bright arterial blood. Then the other shadow, moving afar off and so seemingly
more slowly, turned the lake water into molten gold as it went.
The cloud sank like a satellite over the
horizon. The wind lost force and became feeble and directionless.
Sherret
resolved to reach the lakeside and there have his first meal and a rest. He
struggled on across the unfriendly grass. On and on, and yet he seemed to get
nowhere. He began to wonder if the lake were a mirage receding before him.
Then,
at last, the grass began to cling damply rather than rightly and he found he
was plowing into the marshy verge. He halted. There was no definite edge to the
lake; he was just walking gradually into it He squelched back and found a
reasonably dry spot. There he spread his waterproof, rested a while, then unfastened his big rucksack.
Captain
Maxton had played fair. There was enough concentrated food to last an Earth
month. Also plenty of more tasty fare, including ham sandwiches—with mustard.
There was whiskey. Assorted utensils. And, in a
shining plastic container, a delicate compass with a map folded within the lid
compartment.
The
magnetic field of Amara being what it was, the
compass needed to be delicate.
The
Captain had also supplied a machete, to double as implement and weapon. Lengths of thin, strong climbing rope, with the comment,
"There may be precipices to negotiate. If not, you can always use
it to hang yourself." A battery-powered, electric needle-pistol and a
case of small but powerful hand grenades, with the comment, "Hope you
won't need these, but you never know what you might bump into. If it's too big
for the pistol, use the grenades."
"Thanks, Captain. Of course, if I don't
meet anything and get bored, I can always use the pistol to shoot myself."
Already that exchange
seemed a long time ago.
Sherret bit
hugely at a sandwich and studied the map. Its lines ran off into the unknown
about ten miles northwest of the lake. On the other side of the blank area the
contours of Na-Abiza were sketched in. By the look of
it, he had only to keep plugging north-northwest until he encountered them.
So
long as the blank area didn't contain any impassable obstacles.
He
replaced the map, such as it was, in the compass box and picked up another
sandwich. At which moment there came, from somewhere in the sky, a terrible scream.
He started, and looked up.
The
scream was coming from a black, winged dot. The dot grew bigger. It was
hurtling down at him. As it came, the scream rose rapidly in intensity. It was
like having skewers pushed into his ears. The short sound waves seemed to pierce
his skull like hard radiation.
He
flung himself face down on the waterproof, pressing the heel of his palm
tightly over each ear. This must be a Tek-bird. The Jackies had cackled about such a species. Its paralyzing
attack cry could split the very sutures of the skull, they said, and thought it
a highly humorous end.
In experience, it was a long way from being a
joke. Sherret found himself screaming with agony.
"Stop, stop, stopl" shrieked his voice
inside his skull, which indeed felt as if it were splitting apart.
There
came a gusty backwash of air. The thing had passed over. The scream was
dropping in pitch—the Dop-pler effect. Then it cut
off abruptly.
It
left his head singing. Slowly, he sat up, feeling bilious. The marshland
seemed to be see-sawing around him.
Apprehensively,
he looked around the sky. The Tek-bird was climbing
after its swoop and beginning to veer. He feared another swoop—and there was no
cover for miles. What was the thing seeking? His eyes?
His food?
He
glanced anxiously over his little scatter of possessions. The food hadn't been
touched. But the compass box was^missing and the
compass with it.
The Tek-bird, sweeping around, in a flat loop, was heading back
in his direction. He cringed. But it continued to fly level. As it neared he
saw it was a huge, leathery creature like a pterodactyl. In its toothed beak
the plastic compass box glinted.
Sherret found himself on his feet, yelling and
waving.
"Drop that, damn youl Drop it, or by—"
He
remembered his needle-pistol and grabbed it. His hands were shaking stupidly.
He took a pot shot at the bird. The needle sang away far off target. The Tek-bird flapped by unconcernedly a hundred feet above him
and headed out over the lake. He shot twice more, ineffectively.
Quite
suddenly the bird went into a steep dive. It plunged like a gannet into the
lake, taking the compass box with it There was hardly
a splash. The bird was a practiced diver.
Cursing, he waited for it
to re-appear. It did not.
He continued
to wait pacing the limits of the small dry area. A tortured hour dragged by.
The lake surface remained unbroken. Tek-birds, it
seemed, nested under water. He supposed the compass box was tucked away down
there together with sundry other shiny objects this sonic menace with the
jackdaw instincts had collected.
Eventually
he lost hope. The map was small loss. But the compass .
Without it, he was disoriented. No stars could ever shine in Amara's glowing skies. The positions of the Three Suns
could offer little reliable guidance; the crazy path of the planet between
them was only confusing.
Of course, he could return
to the ship—and Maxton.
But
Maxton wouldn't give him another of the valuable compasses. In fact, Maxton
might already have relinquished his rank—and the new captain might well deny Sherret his freedom.
To hell with Goffism. At the moment he knew what was roughly the right direction. He would push on and hope.
After all, he might meet an occasional Jackie, or even a Paddy, who might deign
to indicate the way.
He
plodded around the lake to the western side and struck off on a line he
remembered from the map.
The
Jackie's queer warning kept going through his mind.
Beware
of those who have only two, of those who become three, of that which becomes many.
Those who have only two what?
Who were those who became three? Three what?
As
for that which became many. ... It could be almost anything, from fruit flies to the
sorcerer's broomstick.
The
whole rigmarole was as senseless as most of the Jackies'
remarks—and yet seemed somehow different from the usual run. More typical of
the usual run was a saying of the Jackies', "May
you live until the slow bum eats its tail." He'd never been able to get
that allusion. A "slow bum" was archaic English slang, but obviously
there could be no connection.
Merely a kind of meaningless poetry? Speculation was dulled at last by the sheer
muscular fatigue of endless plodding.
CHAPTER
TWO
He
walked for hours, until his
feet were sore, and then he walked some more and the soreness wore off. A pair
of Jackies cackled at him, but gave him a wide berth.
He
saw a high speck which might have been a Tek-* bird, and he hid beneath a smooth-barked tree until the
speck vanished. When he tried to move, he found his jacket was caught. The
smooth bark had put forth a protuberance like the claw of a lobster. The
pincers had met neatly through the hem and were as firm as steel.
He
tore himself away. He felt in no mood to linger and experiment. A presentiment
was forming that this journey was going to prove tougher than he'd ever
imagined. He was content to leave this specimen for some future, and
more leisured explorer to collect for his arboretum.
But
he made a mental note not to sleep under any similar trees. Conceivably, that
claw could close on a man
s throat.
He slept instead on a small
plateau of bare rock.
He
awoke to a predominantly yellow sky and to a sense of confusion about direction. From his
small perch he surveyed his surroundings. Far away on the world's
verge was something peculiar. If it were a tree,
it must be miles high, with a translucent trunk and a great, fuzzy, dark mass
of foliage.
Weighing
things up, he decided that that must be the general direction of Na-Abiza. If he made for the treelike thing, it would at
least keep him headed in a straight line. In strange territory, one tended to
walk in a large circle.
He
set off, walking quickly, and covered several miles. He was becoming aware of a
distant mutter of thunder, as though a shooting war were in progress just over
the horizon.
The peculiar object was even further away
than it had seemed. Although it had grown taller and larger, he still couldn't
make out what it was. The tree (to call it that) appared to have grown from the grown at a windblown angle.
The trunk glimmered with light.
Definitely, the thunder was coming from
it—and loudly now.
Break for lunch. He squatted, chewing,
regarding the enigma which remained so obstinately on the horizon.
Whee-smack\ He rolled away sideways, nearly choking with
a mouthful of dry cracker.
Something,
arriving with the velocity of a rocket, had smacked into the earth beside him.
Gingerly, he peered at it over his shoulder.
It was a rod around eighteen inches long and an inch in diameter sticking
vertically in the ground. It was such a pale yellow that he could see its
color wasn't inherent, but reflection. In a white light, the object would be
white.
It must have come from
directly overhead. He looked up apprehensively. The sky was just an empty
yellow desert
The
thing must have dropped from an immense height. Perhaps from
space? It could have brained him. Was it intended to do so?
He
gathered his courage, reached out and touched the rod gently. He'd anticipated
it would be hot from air friction. Actually, it was unduly cold, almost icy. He
tapped and felt it. It wasn't metal; it seemed more like stone. He wrenched it
from the ground.
As
he handled it, it became warmer and softer. It began to bend in the middle.
Suddenly, it fell apart in his hands and the contents ran. He dropped the
pieces with a cry of disgust Bird lime wasn't anything unusual in itself.
Neither was water vapor, which formed the ball-clouds in the sky. What kept
fooling you on Amara were the shapes and the manner
of presentation of basically familiar substances.
He used much of his drinking water in
cleaning up. He'd lost all taste for his meal and left it
Somewhere near the stratosphere, beyond view,
some species of bird, obviously large from its droppings somehow maintained
flight Either there was a layer of dense air up there,
formed by some meteorologi-tary support. He pictured
a sort of winged gasbag.
Just another doodle, he told himself, and
resumed the journey. For some time he kept discovering himself
tending to cower in anticipation of further gifts from heaven.
Then he lost himself in wonder as he drew
nearer the immense phenomenon that had looked tree-shaped.
It
was no tree. It wasn't even solid. The fuzzy dark mass surmounting it was the
biggest cloud ever—miles in diameter. Roughly globular, its edges were whirling
mist. It was condensing on a great scale at the bottom, and the rain was
pouring torrentiaUy down at an angle in a
concentrated stream, jetting onto the land. Yet the cloud maintained a uniform
density. As fast as it lost water it absorbed more invisible moisture from the
atmosphere.
Such
perpetual clouds did exist on Earth, rare and isolated freaks in the southern
hemisphere. But the confined path of the rain squirting from this one was peculiarly
an Amaran phenomenon. There was a force at work here
probably never before encountered by man.
The yellowy light shone through the jet, straight
as a glass pipe, and clusters of air bubbles glinted in their swift, slanting
passage.
The
thunder was really heavy now, shock waves riding with the sound waves. The
ground vibrated.
The
cloud hung over the land like a foreshadowing of doomsday, but the brightly
shimmering gold shaft sprang from it like a message of hope. A golden mist
enfolded its base.
Sherret
walked on into the mist. It was fine spray and soon soaked him. The tiny
globules danced in the air to the organ roar of the rushing water. Presently he
found himself at the lip of a valley. It's lower
slopes plunged into a sea of heavy spray. They were steep; the valley was
practically a canyon.
He
followed the edge of it for a long way, until the mist thinned enough to give
him a general picture. The cloud must have been spouting for an eternity. This
deep valley had been worn into shape by hurtling water through innumerable
centuries. It was dead straight and, canal-like, ruling a line to the horizon.
Sherret
paused to consider. He had something more than two hundred and fifty miles yet
to cover on the trek to Na-Abiza. This strange river
was rushing pretty much in the direction he believed he must follow. If it kept
headed that way, he might get a free ride.
If
he had a boat . . . But Captain Maxton hadn't thought to supply one.
He
went on his way thoughtfully. A few miles on the valley sides were a bit less
precipitous. Down near the water's edge bushes had begun to make their
appearance. Further along, they were bigger and sturdier; some of the branches
were as thick as his wrist.
He
picked his point, then made a careful way down to it.
He slid here and there but didn't fall. The water glided past very fast over
its smooth bed. It was hard to judge its speed, for there were few ripples and
no flotsam. About twenty miles an hour, maybe.
He
dumped his rucksack on the narrow bank and tested his machete on a nearby bush.
It chopped cleanly. The wood was hard and rather sapless. He began to cut
reasonably straight lengths.
When
he had sufficient planks laid out, he uncoiled the rope he'd brought and began
binding them. The raft consumed it all save for a short length he kept for a
painter. Yet it was quite a small raft
He hunted along the bank for a really big
bush, hewed off and trimmed its longest branch. It was to be his navigating
pole. After a meal, he prepared for the launching. He strapped his rucksack on
his back again; he didn't want it swept away in any mishap. He pushed an edge
of the raft into the water. It was nearly wrenched from him. He'd
underestimated the speed of the torrent. It must be well over thirty miles an
hour.
He
checked the painter by which he'd moored the raft to a firm-rooted bush. He
judged it would hold. Then, straining, he shoved the raft wholly into the
water. It tugged like a wild dog on a leash. The bush was yanked, groaning, almost horizontal.
He
clambered onto the raft, balanced himself, and turned to slice through the
painter with the machete. The rope parted and the raft shot off down river with
an acceleration that laid him flat on his back, feet in the air, his navigating
pole across his chest
He tried
to hold on to everything at once—the pole, the machete, and the cordage of the
raft. He could see the high walls of the valley sliding rapidly by. The air
streamed over him. The yellow sky looked down at him blankly.
He
laughed rather breathlessly, then squirmed around to
bring himself onto his hands and knees. He took stock. It was all right The raft was riding high, buoyantly, straight along the
way, and there were no rocks in sight.
Satisfied,
he settled himself more comfortably, prepared to accept whatever the mystery
tour might bring.
After
some hours, it had brought stiffness to his joints and very little variety. A fast but dull trip. The biggest mystery, to his mind, was
that he'd seen no signs of life beyond occasional birds. There had been several
grassy shelves and banks wide enough to site a village. They were as deserted
as the cliff tops. One would have imagined a fresh body of water like this
would have 'some people dwelling alongside it. Admittedly, it couldn't be
compared with, say, the Nile, because Amara was far
from being a desert and there were plenty of lakes.
Yet,
no single hut, nor even a lone being, in perhaps a hundred and fifty miles
along a direct line.
He
found himself hoping pretty hard that he was heading
for Na-Abiza and human company. Right now he felt so
isolated that the sight of even Captain Maxton wouldn't be unwelcome.
How
far did this water course run? Should he regain the shore now or ride on for a
few more hours? For all he knew, he could be riding to the brink of a waterfall
roaring down into some great pit—the kind of surprise Amara
liked to provide.
He
hoped the river wouldn't do any such foolish thing. From the signs, it was
hardly likely. It was losing its impetuosity. At first, he'd been forced to
half close his eyes against the air stream. Now it scarcely ruffled his hair.
The valley was steadily widening. Its slopes lost height as the water lost
speed.
Greenness
was stealing into the sky as Amara. slowly turned this hemisphere towards Blue. There was still more
of Yellow than Blue as yet, though, and the green was pale and cold and seemed
to Sherret to emphasize his loneliness.
All
right, he told himself, I'm a gregarious misanthrope. Not temperamentally a
polar explorer nor a solitary mountaineer. Nor yet a chronic party-goer. It's
just that I like to have someone around to exchange ideas with. Without some
kind of human relationship I begin to feel lost, that nothing's really real.
The only test of one's actual existence is
the response of another mind. Granted, in the ultimate analysis we're all only
dream fragments.
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a
dream.
All
the same, the company of the crew of Bagshaw's Pegasus—he knew many of them—was becoming a need. If
he were right about its direction, the river would carry him far faster to them
than his feet would. He decided to stick with the raft a few hours longer.
In
the event, the few hours became many. The river, which had sprung so eagerly
from its unusual source, gradually lost spirit after the valley had dwindled
away. Sluggishly, it spread itself thin over flat country and began to sink
into the earth.
Seeing
that the trip was coming to an end, Sherret had been
trying to pole the raft to the nearer bank. It was exhausting work. The now
muddy river bed clung hard to his pole, which finally stuck and snapped off.
The
raft drifted and eventually became bogged down in thick ooze.
Sherret tried to make an assessment. It was hard to
guess with any exactness how far he had come, especially as he'd dozed a couple
of times on the raft. Perhaps some two hundred and fifty miles, all told. Which
left something around fifty miles yet to go.
And
the initial three miles looked like being the worst, for he was all of that
distance from the bank. Three miles of dark, clinging
mud.
He
poked around with the remnant of the broken branch and ascertained that the
ooze was on the average knee deep. He ate, rested, then lowered himself gently
from the raft When he moved, it was as though his legs
were bound in wet sheets. His speed was perhaps a yard a minute. At that rate
it would take eighty-eight hours to reach the bank—he worked it out during one
of his frequent rests.
He
plugged on grimly. As he progressed, the ooze must become shallower and the
going firmer and his speed correspondingly faster. So long as
he didn't step in a hole and be smothered to death.
The sky was bottle-green,
and darkening.
An eternity later, a wet, slimy creature
wriggled on its stomach from the last reaches of the mud swamp and weakly
grasped grass tufts rooted in dry earth. It clung to them as though they
symbolized everything that was most precious. Which they did—safety, an
anchorage, rest.
The
creature, which had once been an erect and confident human being, was now
witless, drained of thought and almost of life. But it could still feel, though
all it felt was pain. Every single leg muscle felt as though its fibers were
torn to shreds by the thousands of fights to free the limb from sucking mud.
The
mud had claimed boots and socks—and manhood, too. But a creature had survived.
The sky was turning an ominous purple.
In the deepest indigo light which Amara could produce, a man-creature was slumped,
half-sitting, against the bole of a solitary fruit tree to which he had dragged
himself. The fruit wasn't the attraction for he was beyond hunger. He was
still following a blind instinct to clutch at firm roots.
The mud had caked hard on his face, though he
was unaware of it. In his mind, he was still battling against liquid mud. His
brain seemed choked with it. His thoughts moved with the greatest difficulty,
too weak to link up.
Dully,
he became aware of a faint and pale oblong somewhere in the near distance.
Presently he began to concentrate on it, simply to establish a mental focal
point again.
A house? But
it seemed so insubstantial. Maybe it was a trick of this dim light, but the
oblong looked filmy, semitransparent. A house of glass?
But
who could have built a house of glass on Amara, where
building was at a primitive level? So far as was known.
That qualification must always be added; so little of Amara
was known.
In a little while, when he had recovered some
strength, he would go and investigate the pale shape.
Suddenly,
there snapped into being, only a few yards away and plainly solid and real,
another fruit tree. He stared at it. It seemed as firmly rooted as the one he
reclined against
Now his curiosity was engaged and his mind
began to work of its own volition, albeit slowly. About a foot above his head
there jutted a stubby little branch. If he could reach it and
pull himself to his feet. . .
Somehow he did so, through a series of small
deliberate movements. He had achieved the status of pithecanthropus erectus,
at least, and might yet become a man again. He looked around him slowly—and
then clung more tightly to the little branch.
For six more fruit trees, all exactly
similar, had joined the other one, confronting him in a tight arc.
His
brain whirled. Fear stirred in him. He knew he was in serious danger, yet
couldn't define the threat. He had to get away from here.
He
set his teeth and let go of the branch. He stood freely but swaying. Then two
further trees created themselves soundlessly before him.
The
fruit of all of these trees looked like black plums. In another light they
could have been red. For no reason, he felt sure they were poisonous.
Beyond the trees the pale oblong glimmered
indistinctly. The safety he'd sought so desperately didn't he
under this tree. But if he could reach the house.
More trees sprang from nowhere, between him
and that possible sanctuary.
Steadily he was being hemmed in by a small, dense wood.
A
vague memory of the fate of Macbeth floated into his mind. When Birnam Wood came to Dunsinane, it
brought the prophesied doom with it.
He took a shaky pace forward. Ajtree leapt up in his path. He clung to it—to the
seemingly identical branch he had just relinquished. He worked his way around
the bole and tried to walk on.
Another tree barred his way and stopped him
in his tracks.
Beware of
that which becomes many. What was the use of warnings whose meanings you learned only when it was
too late?
These trees springing from
nowhere had a purpose.
They
were deliberately blocking his path to the house. For some reason they didn't
want him to reach it. Okay, he would head away from the house, back along the
margin of the swamp. He turned, intending to go that way.
Almost
as if they'd read his mind, five more trees appeared like a palisade before
him.
That
made it clear that the trees didn't wish him to go any place at all. They were
trying to draw a magic circle around him.
Wearily,
he detached the machete from his belt and swung at the nearest tree. And again. A tiny chip went flying. He had merely nicked the
tree. What little energy he had recovered began already to ebb. Felling the
tree was far beyond him.
The
trees were tall and clasped their branches closely to themselves in the manner
of a poplar. He thought, so long as I stay close to the boles I'll always be
able to sidle between them, however many trees there get to be, because their
branches must keep them a little apart.
He
turned again towards the house, intent upon trying his method.
Cr-runch. Two further trees arrived, their branches groaning and creaking as they
intermeshed. Leaves and broken pieces fell about him.
This
seemed to confirm that his thoughts were being read and his every intention
consciously frustrated. A weak fury spurred him to try to shoulder his way between
these two. latest arrivals. It was impossible. The gap
was too narrow.
He
realized that even if he were physically fit, there could be no escape from the
trap closing about him.
He lost his head, and made
a series of wild dashes in different directions. The air was full of the sound
of the cracking, clashing, and breaking of branches.
Arms
flailing, he rebounded from bole after bole. When one arm was caught between a
pair of them snapping into objectivity simultaneously, he cried aloud in fright
and despair. If this mad multiplication continued, his lease of life was short;
quite soon he would be crushed to death.
Sweating, he wrenched his arm free after a
struggle. The effort bumed away his last drop of
energy. He collapsed from sheer weakness. The side of his head thumped hard
against one of a compact circle of trees.
The purple world darkened
into night.
CHAPTER
THREE
Sherbet
didn't believe in ghosts,
but he had to believe in this one because he saw it. He knew it was a ghost
because it was as transparent as lace and wore a shroud. Although he lay
helpless before it, it didn't scare him because it was the ghost of a friendly
and beautiful woman.
There
was no color to her cheeks, eyes, or lips, but they conveyed expression clearly
enough. The ghost was both concerned and hopeful. Obviously she was concerned
about him. What she was hopeful about was less obvious.
She
had a ghost of a voice—a sweet whisper. She spoke to him and he heard himself
answering. But what either of them said, or in what language, he had no idea.
It was a murmur of voices heard in the distance in an opium dream. He felt
detached from them. Only one thing emerged clearly—her name was Rosala.
He
was lying relaxed and at peace in a purple twilight.
Then
she reached down and laid a finger on his shoulder. He couldn't feel the touch
of it. He seemed unable to make any movement himself. Although he felt as though
he were still reclining on his back, his body
drifted gently upwards. He was floating on air, her
finger still on his shoulder.
So he must be a ghost, too, and this must be the next world. It was strange, but not
frightening. Indeed, it became amusing when Rosala
began to push him along through the air, still using only the one finger, as
though he were some kind of human balloon.
They
came to a garden which even in this murky light looked
lovely. There were wide lawns, and flowers drained of brightness by the dim
illumination, and an ornamental pool which seemed full of black ink. There were
many statues at the pool's edge and spaced about the lawns. It looked odd. Some
of them were plainly as substantial as marble, but the rest were as ghostly and
tenuous as Rosala herself, and as the pale oblong
they were now approaching, which was the side of a many-windowed house.
The
main door was large, open, and flanked by a pair of indubitably solid
sculptures of naked women, life-size and life-like. As he passed between them,
he saw they both had the same face.
It was Rosala's.
Then
he passed into a blinding white light and closed his eyes against the dazzle of
it. Almost at once he fell asleep. He dreamed, and the dreams were confusing,
but seemed very real while they lasted. Intermittently, there came patches of
unconsciousness where there were no dreams.
He was always glad to emerge from them and
find Rosala there. She was the one constant in a
giddy flux. And so she remained unchanging—until he found he could change her.
Within the house she never wore the robe he'd
naively assumed to be a shroud. She was as unadorned as her twin likenesses
guarding the door. Her figure was well rounded and pleasing, but rather too
full for his taste, like the Velasquez Venus.
Watching
her, he let his imagination slim her somewhat at the waist and hips. And, lo,
she became slimmer before his eyes. This was an exciting discovery, especially
as it seemed far more vivid and real than the erotic fantasies of adolescence.
But
he had disproportioned her. So then he had to reduce her bosom, then fine down
her limbs to slim elegance.
Sculpturing
in flesh was a fascinating occupation. She didn't seem to mind it in the least,
and was always smiling at him and talking to him. They had long conversations.
It was queer, but he was never able to recollect what they were about. Indeed,
while they were in progress, he hardly knew what he was saying.
He
was never conscious of eating or drinking, but he supposed he must be absorbing
sustenance for he felt neither hunger nor thirst. Also, he supposed he must now
be capable of movement, for he kept finding himself in different parts of the
house, though he had no memory of having walked to them.
He
had only a vague conception of the house. He knew it was extensive, and that
the biggest room, where they spent most of the time, was a kind of studio.
Paintings hung on the walls and stood on easels. There were several large
blocks of stone, some partially carved.
Rosala was both painter and sculptress, yet he
never saw her handle a brush or chiseL
It was strange that he knew her name, but
couldn't recall his own. He had a suspicion that this was because he hadn't a
full title to a name. He wasn't a complete personality, only a detached
fragment of one. The rest— the bulk—of him was elsewhere.
Who, and where, was the
real he?
It
was a puzzle without solution in a timeless, meaningless existence.
Until suddenly, at some dateless point and without the slightest
warning, full consciousness struck him. There was a sunburst in his mind.
In
the strong white light which permeated Rosala's house
all objects at once became hard, brilliant, colorful, as though he were seeing
them under the influence of mescalin.
He
knew he was Alexander Sherret. He remembered clearly
his adventures on the trek to Na-Abiza up to the
point where he fell and crashed his head against something hard. After that,
things remained hazy.
That
part of him who had had long talks with Rosala was
still absent, things in some blind alley of the memory.
However,
here he stood now in the center of the studio, in slippers and a blue velvety
robe with a golden cord gathering in the waist. He felt vitally alive and
strong. He walked across the glassy floor, which contained intertwining
ribbons of colors, moving slowly like snakes, in its depths, to a wall mirror.
He
looked well too, and had grown an impressive, rust-red beard. He fingered it,
and touched more tenderly the still sore place above his right ear. A slight
lump remained there.
A painting on an easel caught his attention.
It sent a small shock of disquiet through him. In purple monochrome it
stylistically displayed the pattern of a man trapped, grotesquely twisted and
crushed amid a cluster of tall, smooth pillars. Although contorted in pain and
fright, the face was recognizably his. The pillars, presumably, were
simplified versions of the trees.
As
he regarded it, unconsciously he began a new habit —a nervous tugging at his
beard.
A
pair of ivory-white, perfectly molded arms stole around his shoulders from
behind. A honeyed voice whispered in his ear, in Amaran
with an attractive, unfamiliar accent.
"Ah,
my Ulysses, you said you never wanted to look at it again. But it fascinates
you, doesn't it? Art is stronger than our fears or desires. Didn't I always
tell you that?"
He
disengaged himself and turned to look into Rosala's
smiling eyes. They were his favorite shade of blue. She was an ash blonde; hehad a weakness for the Scandinavian type.
He
said in an undertone, "How could anyone so lovely
as you create anything so horrible as that?"
She
pouted childishly. "Create? I didn't create it. An artist only receives
and records impressions."
"Art
is selection, Rosala. You could have selected
worthier impressions than these. This picture is stark, gloating sadism. You
must be a cruel woman."
She stared at him
strangely. "You can believe that?"
"Well, I don't know. I
only know I loathe this painting.'
She
took a deep breath. "Very well, you loathe my work," she said, in a
hard voice startling different from her former tone. She thrust past him and
punched at the canvas with both fists. There was strength in those slim, smooth
arms. They smashed the painting to a torn ruin.
She turned on him with an angrily flushed
face.
"Perhaps
you—" she began, but quite impulsively he seized her, hugged her, and
smothered her with kisses. She didn't resist. She returned his kisses with
passion. He observed, belatedly and with wry amusement, that she was quite
naked. From the assured and easy way he fondled her, it was apparent that this
embrace had happened many times, that his muscles and
nervous system remembered what he did not.
"Ulysses," she
murmured, now tender and full of love.
"Why do you call me
Ulysses?"
She
stood back, holding him at arm's length, and looked searchingly at him.
"Darling,
you are talking strangely. Something has happened. What is it? Have the bad
dreams come back?"
"Bad
dreams?"
"That
painting which you called sadistic didn't come from my mind, you know. Nor from reality. It originated in your imagination. But it
was our picture—your conception, my execution.
Together we were exorcising your bad dreams of the Melas
tree. Once expressed externally, in paint, in art, we hoped they would cease to
haunt you. You don't remember that?"
"No,
Rosala, I don't remember. I don't know what's been
happening to me for some time past—at least, not clearly. YouTl
have to help me to fill in the gaps, the blotted out parts. Perhaps I'd better
tell you what I can remember."
She looked at him for a
moment, then nodded, and pulled hirn^ently to a
nearby couch. They settled among cushions. **
She
watched him wonderingly while he told of the trek, the events which had led to
it, the things seen through a glass darkly since he started wading ashore from
the raft.
When
he finished, she said, "As for me. . It's strange
to have to tell you these things again. I'm Rosala
—yes, that's my real name. When I asked your name, you did not say 'Sherret'" (she pronounced it "Sherry")
"but 'Ulysses.' And at first you called me 'Circe,' I don't know why. But later, 'Rosala.'
"One
day I was walking sadly in my house, knowing that neither it nor I had much
longer to live. I was wondering how much time was left to me, whether it would
be worth starting another painting. Or if, in fact, I could
ever paint again. Then I looked out of the window and saw you being
trapped by the Melas tree.
"Then
you fell and lost your senses. So I went out and brought you here. I felt sorry
for you. And sorry for the Melas tree, too, because I
was depriving it of further companions. Still, it had done very well for itself
from you. I was glad of that. The Melas tree and we Petrans have a bond of sympathy, something in common which
distinguishes us from all other living creatures on Amara."
Sherret raised an eyebrow, and she paused.
"However,"
she resumed, "Melas trees can live together in
a community. The one beyond my garden, by the river, was unfortunate. It was
isolated. Now it isn't any more. It's become a community because by chance you
came. But we Petrans can't live with each other for
long. We have nothing to give one another. We must live alone, and die alone,
unless—"
She
broke off, and stroked his arm gently. Almost possessively, Sherret thought, with a vague alarm.
There
aren't many of us. We live near the river. And the Melas
trees grow only by the river, too. Most Amarans are
afraid to come near us. Lee wasn't afraid. He was a real man, although
sometimes he lost confidence in himself."
"Lee? Who was
Lee?"
"He was the man who
lived with me before you came.
Sherret disengaged his arm and sat up straight. He
frowned down at her. Her beautiful white body lay at careless ease upon the
bright cushions. Her profile, partly his creation, with its high brow, straight
nose, and firm little chin, was upturned as she gazed at the lofty and domed
ceiling. Obviously, she was remembering Lee with affection.
Or
perhaps with more than affection.
"You
were lovers?" Sherret was surprised at the condemnatory note
which rang through the last word. He'd never thought of himself as a puritan.
Perhaps he had inherited a Calvinistic streak from his Scottish ancestors.
"But
of course. I have
loved all of the men who have lived with me."
"Well, I'll be damned! You promiscuous little baggagel"
Unfortunately,
that phrase didn't translate well into Amaran. The
result implied cold, calculating infidelity.
She
sat up abruptly and stared at him with wide, horrified eyes. Then she clawed
at his face with both hands. The beard partly saved him but she scored two bad
scratches under his eyes. The blood welled and dripped.
He swore, jumping to his feet and flinging
her back on the couch. He dabbed at the wounds with the back of one hand.
"You're
a bad-tempered cat, aren't you? You could make a man's life a hell, I reckon.
Is that why none of your men stayed around here with you? Or did you kill 'em all?"
Her eyes shone like blue
fire.
She lifted an arm rigidly and pointed at him.
Then it was as though a cannonball had hit him in the chest He went flying onto
his back on the glacial floor and slid for some feet over the slowly writhing
shapes beneath it.
He
lay still for some moments, whooping for breath. Then he sat
,up slowly, hands pressed to his sore breastbone. From the couch she
regarded him, the fire of hate gone. She looked like a petulant, disappointed
child. The strikingly blue eyes looked big and sad.
"You
win," said Sherret with a gasp. "Technical knockout. I didn't . . see it
coming."
He managed a grin.
At once she ran "over to him, knelt,
held his head tightly agtinst her warm body, rocking
him gently. The blood from his cheek smeared her breasts.
"Sherry, I'm really
sorry. Oh, Sherry—"
"Forget it, pet. I
said the wrong thing the wrong way."
She
said, softly, "Only wicked Petrans live with
more than one man at a time. I always had only the one. So I couldn't be
unfaithful." Between kisses, she went on, "I loved them all . . . but
only some of them loved me. Perhaps none of them did—for they all left me in
the end. I think Lee loved me—and will come back to me— when he has proven
himself."
Sherret felt a stab of jealousy about Lee. He stood
up, picked her up—she was surprisingly light—and carried her back to the couch.
He
said, "You're getting me in a whirl. I just don't understand your way of life. I was angry with you because I
love you, and I was jealous of those other men. Now you talk of Lee coming
back. Is it him you want—or me?"
She
made no answer. Instead, she ripped a piece of cloth from a cushion, licked it
wet, and tenderly cleaned up his face. She ignored the daubs on her own flesh.
He was amused by her method and touched by her concern. Even though he knew she
would have done as much for Lee—and perhaps had done, if they had fought in the
same way.
"Did
you ever fight with Lee?" he asked, suddenly. She avoided his gaze.
"Yes." "Who won?"
"I lost," she
sighed. "For he left me."
"But that was to prove himself, didn't you say?"
"Yes.
He had to. But he might have stayed with me if I hadn't been so foolish. I
annoyed him so much sometimes that he tried to beat me."
"But
you wouldn't let him. You knocked him down with your pocket thunderbolt, didn't
you? What are you —an electric eel?"
She
didn't understand the reference, and let it pass. "Yes, I was very
foolish. He came here seeking self-respect, and I tried to help him—and I did,
too. And then I would lose my temper and spoil everything, undo all I'd built
up. Maybe he would have gone on his way eventually, all the same. He had a
mission, you see. He said he must face the most dangerous creatures on this
planet, stand up to them and survive. Only then, he said, would he be able to
call himself a man."
"What are these dangerous
creatures?"
"They're
called the Three-people. I've never seen them and I never want to. They live in
the pass between the mountains in the northwest. Only fools or heroes go there.
The fools never return. The heroes return seldom —and when they do, they have
become fools. They've lost their wits and rave wildly about the Three-people.
But nothing they say makes any sense any more. Their minds have gone. Lee said
he would come back to me. I think he meant to. But he has been gone a long
time, far longer than it should take him to reach the mountains and return. So
sometimes I fear he will never return. And sometimes I fear he will—as a poor
crazy man."
Sherret tugged at his beard absently.
"This
planet of yours, Rosala, gets a bit too bizarre for
me at times. I can't get a clear picture of the place. I keep trying to piece
it together, but nothing joins onto anything. I'm beginning to think the pieces
aren't meant to fit. They belong to different jigsaw puzzles. Melas trees and Petrans and
Three-people. . . . Have you ever heard the expression 'Beware of those who
become three'?"
"Yes,
it's a common saying. It relates to the Three-people."
"But how do they become 'three'?"
"I don't know, Sherry. I don't think anybody knows. But they are terrible
monsters of some kind. It frightens me to think about them. Let us forget them.
Let's talk about—oh, the Melas trees."
"It rather frightens me to think about them," said Sherret,
ruefully. "But all right, tell me about them."
Long
ago, she said, the Melas tree was a simple
fruit-bearing tree which flourished in this part of the country in a perfectly
normal way. The birds ate its fruit and carried its seeds far and wide.
Then
the species was attacked by a blight which all but killed it off. Its fruit
became poisonous; only the ignorant devoured it and died. The birds shunned it.
Moreover, the seeds lost the vital reproductive power, except for the
occasional throwback or sport. The lone tree near the house must have sprung
from an odd exception of this kind. Maybe some creature carried the seed
there, maybe at the cost of its life.
But Melas trees didn't give up that easily. They had a
tremendously strong instinct for survival. Paradoxically, the disease caused a
mutation which helped survival. All plants have a primitive awareness, not
exactly a mind and certainly not intelligence. They are simply aware in a
weakly telepathic way.
The
disease caused some chemical change in the sap of the Melas
tree which enormously increased the sensitivity of its awareness, its
telepathic awareness.
"You
mean, gave it reasoning power?" asked Sherret. Bosala shook her head.
The tree hadn't any reasoning power to begin with, so that couldn't be
stimulated. It completely lacked hindsight or foresight. But it was aware that
past and future states existed, because it was aware that humanoid creatures
were conscious of them. And quite unthinkingly it happened upon a way of using
the humanoid brain as a medium for reproducing itself. Literally reproducing itself—not
just producing seedlings.
For
in the humanoid mind there was foreknowledge of the Melas
tree's continued existence tomorrow. And tomorrow and
tomorrow and tomorrow. ... In short, a Melas tree existing in
thousands of future instants of time.
The Melas tree,
able to live only in the present, but aware of this picture in the humanoid
mind, conceived these multitudinous future states of itself as separate other trees, all existing in the same instant—somewhere.
Instinctively, it sought to contact its own kind, and reproduce.
And
contact it did, through any humanoid mind which came within its sphere of
influence. This sphere extended only to the reach of its branches. Any
humanoid who strayed under them became a victim.
Even
so, the tree's control was limited. If the humanoid was contemplating the past
or present or was unconscious, it was useless to the tree. For
the past was unalterable, the present couldn't be duplicated, and an
unconscious mind couldn't be contacted. Only the future was malleable.
Once
the humanoid mind became forward-looking, extrapolating into the fuure, even if for a distance of only a few moments, the
tree would reach through, contact its future self and snatch it into the
present
"For Pete's sake, how?" asked Sherret
"Nobody knows."
Then
how do you know all this other stuff about the Melas
tree?"
"I was told." She added, archly,
"Some very wise men have stayed under this roof."
"H'm. A lot of supposition, but some of it is probably true.
Certainly, every time I contemplated making a movement, or a sequence of
movements, a tree materialized—sometimes in batches. You can't make a movement
without thinking about it first, however fleetingly. But did they have to keep
barring my way?"
"Of course, darling. They didn't want you to escape until they'd used your mind to the
limit."
"But they were trying
to crush me to death."
His
voice became tight, constricted, and at the word "death" broke on an
off-key note. It was as though invisible hands were throttling him. The room
seemed to darken, as though the shadow of death had fallen upon it.
CHAPTER
FOUR
The
black cloud passing
across his mind lasted maybe only seconds, but it left him gasping.
Rosala was watching him concernedly. When he could
breathe again, she said, quietly, "You and I, Sherry, we're both much too
frightened of death."
He
wiped his damp forehead, and muttered, "I'm not afraid of death, but
sometimes I'm afraid of dying."
"For
me, it's the other way about. I'm not frightened of dying, but I'm really
afraid of being—nothing.
Of
becoming non-existent. Once a Petran fades altogether, there's no
returning. And just before you came, I very nearly died."
A short silence. Then Sherret said, "I don't understand.
Perhaps we're not talking about quite the same thing. You're still a mystery to
me, Rosala. I know I love you. That's all I really
know about you. You know far more about me."
"Yes,
Sherry, that's true. I know things about you that you don't even know
yourself—your unconscious fears and conflicts. When you were ill and delirious,
I tried to help you externalize some of the bad things which were living in
your mind like parasites. The strongest of
them was a terror of being trapped in a small
space and there strangled to death."
He stared at her, the choking sensation
returning.
"You
feel it now? Then we failed. 'Difficult Birth' failed."
"Difficult
what?"
She
sighed. "It was the title we gave our symbolic painting. You seemed to
understand it then. Your fear of confined spaces and strangulation was born
when you were born. Obviously, something went wrong. Possibly the umbilical
cord was twisted around your neck. You were nearly suffocated to death."
Nervously,
he rubbed his neck, but he was interested. "That could be so. And when the
Melas trees closed in around me, trying to kill
me—"
"No,
they weren't trying to kill you. Only capture you. They were trying to form a
stockade around you."
"I see. But eventually
I should have starved to death."
"Yes,
I'm afraid so. That's what usually happens. But by then you would have helped
to create a whole forest of Melas trees."
"Well,
that's quite a consolation. How did you manage to save me, Rosala?"
"Partly
you saved yourself, by becoming unconscious. They could no longer enter your
mind, and therefore couldn't complete the barrier around you. So I was able to
reach you and get you out."
"I
owe you plenty for that. But to get at me, you must have walked beneath their
branches. Yet, apparently, they didn't attempt to hook you. Are you immune
from their influence?"
Rosala bit her hp, and was silent for a moment.
Then she said, quietly, "At that time I
was in no condition to be of use to them. I scarcely existed. I was a
shadow."
Sherret glanced at her sharply.
"Then
I didn't dream that part of it. L thought you were a ghost. You were transparent .
He gripped her arm. It was
as solid as his own.
"Yet
now—" he began, but she clung suddenly to him, sobbing, "Sherry,
don't ever leave me. Please. Stay with me. Believe in
me. Stay with me."
He
was surprised, but her intensity touched him. He put his arm about her and
stroked her soft, bright hair. He wanted to reassure her, and the words which
came automatically were tired old cliche.
"Don't
worry about it,, darling. I love you. We'll always be
together after this."
He meant it sincerely
enough.
"But
you said you had to go on—to Na-Abiza. You said you
were Ulysses, and I was the enchantress, Circe, holding you here against your
will . ."
"Remember,
dear, I was delirious. I didn't know what I was saying."
She looked up at him
hopefully, with tear-wet eyes.
"Yes,
you were ill," she said, eagerly. "You kept having nightmares about
the Melas tree, painting that awful picture in your
mind. After this, we shall paint only lovely pictures, Sherry. We shall create
such wonderful things. My mind has the power to change
material things and remold them. And I can let your imagination join onto mine
and work through my mind. Together we shall design and build and make our
dreams reality. For you and I, we are artists"
She emphasized the word,
proudly.
"Much
of this work was created through the minds of men working in unison with
mine," she went on. "And the garden—"
"And
you," Sherret broke in, astonished. "I
remolded you, in dreams, I thought. Are you telling me that actually
happened?"
"I
desired only that my appearance pleased you," she murmured.
"And
you will stay that way—you won't fade into a ghost again?"
He felt her tremble.
"As
long as you wish me here as I am, so long shall I be here."
"Of all the mysterious things on Amara, you are the most mysterious, Rosala.
Of course I wish you here, and just as you are. But
does your existence depend only on my wish?"
She
made no answer for a while, resting her head on his shoulder.
Then,
in a small and muffled voice, Tetrans do not believe
in themselves, as persons. They think of themselves as mirrors, only
reflecting the real people. They can exist only through the belief of the real
people, the people who have faith. Then they seem real, even to themselves . . and
everything in the universe is only a seeming. Even you,
Sherry. But you real people can live together, because you believe. We Petrans can't—we can't support each other by faith. If we
try, we die to nothing. We sympathize with the Melas
trees, because we are like them; we can survive only through the minds of
others."
He held her protectively, but his mind was
spinning.
These
Amaran frames of reference, outside all of his experience,
might end by driving him off his head. They had already caused him one
breakdown.
Only
connect. Only adjust. But the group of associated memories and reflexes forming
a personality called "Sher-ret" hadn't been
all that stable, to begin with. It was rent with conflicts. Under the continued
stress of trying to comprehend the incomprehensible, it could well begin to
break up, become schizophrenic.
And
"Sherret" would be no more than a loose
group of nameless and aimless dreamers wandering in a fog of amnesia.
He
said, "I need you, Rósala, quite
as much as you need me."
She
gave a little sigh of happiness, then pressed her lips
warmly to his. As they kissed, a fragment of conversation echoed somewhere in
his memory.
". . . Have you ever
been to Na-Abiza?"
"Yes, I have, human,
but I didn't get there."
So this was where the trek
to Na-Abiza ended.
The sky shaded from color to color, and
sometimes they sat in the garden and watched it. Sometimes it ran through its
chromatic scale unseen and unheeded, for they remained in the house for long
periods—working, talking, laughing, making love. Also—perhaps too often —quarreling.
And Sherret learned to accept the incredible. On the face of
it, a mature doctrine, but occasionally he had misgivings. It could lead to a
dulling of the sense of wonder. Excess of anything tended toward boredom—even,
strangely enough, excess of novelty.
There was plenty of
novelty.
Just to watch Rosala
paint involved a series of surprises. She needed no brush. She painted with
her fingers.
She
would set a canvas on its back, pour quantities of colors onto it, and let them
ooze sluggishly together. Then she'd run her fingers lightly over the mess,
mixing, separating, arranging with hair-line delicacy. It was as though each
nerve-end at her finger tips was working independently on its own contribution
to the overall design.
Not a speck of paint
adhered to her fingers.
Sherret questioned her about this exquisitely
controllable force flowing from her. She couldn't enlighten him about its
nature. All Petrans had the power at birth.
"Birth?" Sherret echoed. "I've been wondering
about that, too. How do Petrans get to be born if
they never cohabit?"
Rosala said seriously, "There are some
questions you mustn't ask, darling. We're a parasitic race and therefore
vulnerable. To protect ourselves we're sworn to a code of secrecy about certain
fundamental matters. But 111 tell you
this much. You and I could have children."
"Petrans?"
"You
might as well ask "boys or girls?" We shouldn't
know until they were born."
He fingered his beard. "Have you any
children?" "No, Sherry."
"Somehow, I'm glad. Another thing—are
you sworn not to reveal your age?"
"Bodily,
I'm as young or old as you wish me to be. And mental time is merely relative.
Relatively, time is not the same on this planet as on Earth," she answered
evasively.
"Oh, for Pete's sake, I'm not trying to
pry. I'm only trying to learn where I stand."
"You
stand on your own feet, as you told Captain Max-ton. Darling, why do you keep
trying to formalize everything? You must get Reparism
out of your system. It can never work on Amara.
Inflexible things only get broken here."
Another
row was in danger of brewing. He thought it best to keep quiet. But his silence
became sullen.
She
sensed that, and her uncertain temper began to simmer. She started to work it
off on a large block of granite-like stone. She attacked it with her bare
hands, furiously pulling away chunks as though it were wax, indenting it with
a finger-thrust, engraving it with a fingernail. It began to take shape but,
obviously, from her expression, the wrong shape.
Suddenly
her temper boiled over. The whole massive block went hurtling to the far wall.
The crash made the house shake. Hung paintings came toppling to the glassy
floor.
"Think
I'D go for a stroll," said Sherret, with forced
calm. Inwardly, he was shaking. In one of her blind rages, Rosala
could as easily smash him against a wall.
After
the house, the garden was a haven of peace in the subdued green daylight. Rosala never painted by the light of the Three Suns because
they were never together in the sky. But in the house she drew their light together
by soma optical wizardry and fused them into the glaring white light she
demanded for her work.
Sherret, chewing on a B-stick, roamed along the edge
of the pool. Recently he'd noted that the diving plinth was subsiding. He
planned a minor engineering job to reset the thing. When he mentioned it to Rosala, she laughed.
"Sherry, it's so
easy!"
She lifted the weighty plinth with a finger, then rearranged its foundations with little more than a
wave of the hand.
He
applauded, but inside there was an empty feeling. His project had collapsed, his general sense of purpose was weakened. He'd
always thought of himself as good with his hands. Now they seemed like clumsy
paws. He'd always been able to take care of himself in a brawl. Now a woman
could twist him almost literally around her little finger.
He
loved her, no doubt of it. But one thing was becoming painfully clear; so long
as he continued to live with her he would find it increasingly difficult to
live with himself.
He
reckoned he wasn't the only man who'd paced these garden walks feeling this
way. He felt a certain sympathy for Lee.
He
looked at the distant mountains and wondered how Lee had fared on his quest.
He'd had time to reach them—and return. Plenty of time.
Why, then, hadn't he returned?
Dead?
Mad? Or hadn't he really meant to return to Rosala?
Suppose
he did return, now, a conqueror? What then? Where would he, Sherret,
fit in? Or would he? Rosala had never forsworn her
love for Lee.
"The
hell with it—I'd leave them to itl" he
exclaimed, aloud.
He was surprised by his own
vehemence. Am I looking for an excuse to get away? he
asked himself. The adventurer being hampered by the clinging
woman, Ulysses and Circe? He still wanted Rosala—yet
he still wanted to be free to wander on. She was love and security. Also —a trap.
It
was the trap fear again. He recalled the trees which put out claws to grab him,
the grass that clung about his ankles and tried to pull him down. He loathed
their insistent attentions.
Impulsively,
he went back indoors, intending to have it out with her. He found her all
contrition and tenderness, and his resolve melted. If only he didn't love her
so much.
They became very close
again.
And
later, more clashes of temperament. His lone walks in the garden became longer.
One purple day he found himself standing at the edge of the grove of Melas trees, daring himself like a schoolboy to dart in and
out, just out of reach of their branches.
He
began to understand why Lee had gone to prove himself.
Why
wasn't it enough that Rosala was dependent on them
for her very existence? It should have given them a sense of mastery. So far as
he was concerned, it didn't. There was even a mean sense of resentment; he was
being used by a—well, parasite was the word she'd chosen.
Again,
he'd grown up under Reparism. Reparism
said that the male was the accepted master of the household. Reparism said that there was a place for all persons, and
that all must know their place.
Rosala just wouldn't stay put any place.
To live contentedly with
her, he felt that there must be something that he could do which she couldn't
do better. But why should he be forced to prove himself? In Na-Abiza, he could merely step back into his place in the Reparist system, and be respected for what the was.
He
turned his back on the Melas trees and walked back to
the garden pool. That statuary stood solidly around him. There was more of it
now—some of his own design, but fashioned through Rosala's
peculiar power and therefore not wholly satisfying. It was as if teacher had
helped him.
Yet
he knew that if he were to leave Rosala, that work which had emanated originally from his mind
would endure. As had the work of Lee and of other men.
But all that which was solely of Rosala's design,
including the house itself, would very gradually fade, to nothing as the
designer lost belief in her own existence.
Could he do that to her? Was Wilde right? Did each man have to kill the thing he loved?
Yet
she might not necessarily cease to exist Many men had come this way before him.
More were likely to come after him and give her full life again.
But
he knew—and now tried desperately not to know —that there was a point of no
return. If Rosala did fade to complete non-existence,
then it would be as if she had never lived. And then if all the men in her life
came back to this garden and called aloud for her, they would be crying for the
moon.
She had told him that.
No,
he couldn't risk doing that to her. Yet by remaining he was condemning himself
to at least a partial death.
The suffocating sensation came on him again.
There was no way out.
After the sickness had passed, he slouched depressedly back to the studio.
She
flung herself at him. "Sherry, dearl Oh, what a fool I ami"
He
held her rightly, knowing that he was more of a fool in saying what he was going to say,
because he knew the answer and the attempt was futile. But hope is always
irrational,
"Forget
it, Rosala. But we can't go on like this, tearing
ourselves to pieces. This place is a kind of prison for both of us. Let's break
out and go to Na-Abiza. There are men like myself
there actively learning, exploring, planning, doing a job in life. Let*s join
them. Well still go on with art, but you must understand that although I believe
art is vital it's still not the whole of existence for me. I have to express
myself in my own way, too."
She
went very still in his arms. Then she said, tensely, "But I told you. Each
Petran is born to his or her own area. We are not
permitted to leave it Ifs the law."
"Break
it, then. Is it so inflexible? You yourself said inflexible things only get
broken here."
"Sherry,
you don't know what you're saying. It would mean the end of me."
"In
what way?"
"I
can't tell you. We are forbidden to speak of these things."
"Did
you speak of them to Lee?" "No. Nor to any
man." "Supposing Lee came back for you?" "I still
couldn't go away with him. He would have to remain here." "What do
you mean by that? What about me?" "I'm sorry, Sherry, but you would
have to go. As I
told
you, I can live with only one man at a time. Lee was here before you. He would
take precedence. It's the law."
"Obviously
you think more of your precious law and of Lee than you do of me. Well, that
settles it. I shan't stay around just waiting to be thrown out. I'm walking
out— now."
He thrust her aside and
walked away.
"Sherry, Sherry,
please, you can't . .
Over
his shoulder he said brutally, "Don't worry—I shan't leave you to die.
I'll find dear old Lee and send him back to you, and you can live happily ever
after— under your idiotic law. And if Lee turns out to be dead, I'll find you
another sucker and send him along."
He
chose some stout shoes from the many they'd made together. The barefoot life
was over. While he gathered his other belongings, she hovered around him like a
persistent fly, importuning, poignant. He steeled himself to ignore her. He
walked out into the garden for the last time, hard-faced. Yet there was inward
shame; he knew he'd forced this particular quarrel and the issue.
He
left her crying at the door, between the two naked effigies of herself in her
more full-figured days. Lee had created those, through her, to his taste. Sherret realized now how much he had unconsciously resented
that.
He
walked grimly along the path leading out of the garden. Momentarily, he was
expecting a pulverizing blow between the shoulder blades hurled at him in anger
and despair.
But it never came.
And so he resumed the trek to Na-Abiza, a free man again. He knew that the path led to the
northwest, through the mountain pass where Lee might still be, living or dead.
And where the Three-people were.
If
Lee could face the Three-people, then so could he. It was something Rosala had admitted she would not care to do. It would show
her the stuff he was made of.
He
walked at a furious pace. Maybe this energy was generated by the feeling of
sudden release. He tried to believe that. Maybe he was trying to put enough distance
between himself and Rosala to weaken the temptation
to return to her. He tried not to believe that.
There
was little in the landscape to divert his attention. The distant foothills
were darker than the mountains and appeared to be wooded. Between
him and them, however, stretched leagues of flat and mostly barren land.
Small chance of meeting anyone on the way. Rosala had
explained why the river country was neither popular nor populous.
Under
a cloudless, burning orange sky he marched until he was lurching with fatigue.
He rested, then set off again. At last he reached the
first slopes of the foothills when Red reigned supreme and all
the world was drenched in a crimson sunset glow.
It
made the woods look black and sinister indeed, and by now he had become wary of
trees of any kind. He camped some distance from the woods and slept again. He
awakened to see the high frosted peaks looking like pale green icebergs afloat
on the smooth, greener ocean of the sky.
The sky-sea ran down into a V-shaped bay—the
pass, and the gateway to Na-Abiza. He made his way up
the slopes towards it The woods closed around him. The
trees were all unfamiliar types, hung with blossom, and in this cooler light
they looked not so much threatening as indifferent. All the same, he remained
cautious.
The
undergrowth was so thick in parts that he had to do heavy work with the
machete.
Steadily, he climbed
higher.
After
several hours, every arm and leg muscle was aching. There was another worsening
ache, also—for Ros-ala. Perhaps rest and time would
cure it, too.
He
was looking around for a likely clearing to camp in, when he came across some
further Amaran phenomena.
There
was a dead tree split neatly down the middle, its two halves leaning apart.
Struck by lightning, he thought. But the split was unusually clean. It was as
though some giant, seeking firewood, had taken a swipe at it with a razor-edge
axe, then left it.
Then
he noticed several other trees had been sliced, all cleanly but not all down
the center. Some of the trees had fallen clear apart. Others merely had boughs
lopped off. The giant hadn't bothered to collect any of the kindling; the
ground was cluttered with branches of all sizes.
Some
of the cuts were obviously old and new twigs were sprouting from the stumps.
Others were so recent that the oozing sap was still sticky.
He
shrugged, and continued his ever-slowing climb. Very soon he came upon what he
was looking for—a wide clearing, open to the sky. He wasn't going to sleep under
any trees. He spread his waterproof and tried to get comfortable.
It
was chilly at this altitude. Moreover, a cold north wind was pouring steadily
through the mountain pass and there was no escaping it.
He swore, trudged back down the slope,
returned with a load of the smaller chopped branches. He built and lit a firef rigged the waterproof on a couple of
branches to form a screen against the wind, and settled down between it and
the fire.
He
rested and ate. Life became tolerable. He yawned and lay back. Sleep came fast,
and with it dreams.
Dreams
of Earth, of deep space and the stars, of a garden crowded with statues of Rosala. The dreams took a nightmarish turn. The Melas trees were all around him again, and he had no
strength to run and no breath to scream.
Then,
smashing among the trees, snapping off branches right and left, stamping with
feet of steel, came a giant A blood-drinking ogre from long ago, frightening
nursery nights, all teeth, staring eyes, and black hair, crying as he came,
ridiculously yet chillingly,
Fee,
Fl, Fo, Funu
For
my wood I come.
The ground shook under the nearing feet, and Sherret quivered with it, a terror-stricken child again.
Thump. Thump. THUMP.
At
the last and heaviest thump, Sherret started awake
and stared around, wild-eyed. Beneath a tree at the very edge of the clearing a
massive branch was rocking gently on the scanty grass. It had just fallen, and
had been amputated neatly at a crotch.
He
sat rigid, watching it. It rocked itself to stillness. Now nothing was stirring
anywhere. There was dead silence in the woods.
He
must have slept long, for the light had changed and all things were
blue-washed.
Cautious and trembling, he
got to his feet, peering all around the clearing. He didn't know what he was
looking for, but he felt that something was there. Belatedly, it occurred to
him that he'd seen neither animal nor bird in the woods. Did they shun the
woods because they knew they were dangerous to life?
Was
something hiding behind the trees, watching him covertly? Yet, if the something
had sliced these trees as though they were carrots, it must be huge. Too huge to be able to conceal itself behind any tree.
Something invisible, then? A monstrous vandal, mutilating senselessly?
But anything of that size must surely have left its tracks on the ground, even
if it were itself invisible. He had noticed no tracks.
He
stuck a B-stick between his teeth, gripped his machete and tip-toed over to
the fallen branch. Beyond it, among the trees, he saw other newly severed
branches, mostly large, recently fallen. His dreaming mind had interpreted the
impacts of their landing as the thumps of approaching feet.
That
realization was a relief. He began to clutch at straws. Probably the monster
was all imagination. Could be the trees had some disease which caused them to
rot and fall apart in this peculiar manner.
But
could this happen to a number of individual trees almost simultaneously? The
odds were against that
Common
sense told him to waste no more time in speculation, but to get to hell out of
the woods. He went back to the still smoldering fire, gathered his things, shrugged on his rucksack. Then he quitted the clearing,
intent on making for the pass.
He'd
gone maybe fifty yards when from close behind him came
Thump. Thump. Thump.
And the swishing of leafy boughs and the
crackle of breaking twigs. He spun around.
A
great invisible knife was stalking him, blazing its trail as it came—literally.
Slices of bark were falling from the trees as it cut its way after him, and,
emphatically, whole major limbs. These evidences showed it was pursuing an
implacably straight line—that was aimed directly at Sherret.
Frozen,
he watched it. The very evenness of its pace was unnerving. It threatened an
inevitable doom, as though the unseen wielder of the knife
were thinking, "Run if you like. Run till you drop, But I shall
catch up with you .
. in my own good time."
A tree
just in front of him, not twenty feet away, was suddenly completely bisected.
The halves fell apart and crashed.
He
came to life with a yell of alarm and leaped aside. There was a rapid blur of
movement and a row of saplings beyond the tree were simultaneously uprooted
and flung down.
What
had moved? It had been
lightning quick. In the dull blue light of these
shadowy woods, it had been impossible to discern a definite form.
Now it was a totally
invisible again.
Sherret gulped, turned, and ran.
And met it approaching from the opposite direction. Thump, thump, thump went the slices of
tree-wood, falling steadily along the new path towards him.
He slid to a halt "Oh,
Godl"
He flung himself around,
and began to run back. Almost immediately, there it was again, dead ahead,
cutting its ruthless path to meet him.
Groaning
with fear, he stopped, then looked wildly back over
his shoulder.
The
menace he'd fled was still behind him, still slashing its way after him. There
were two invisible knives, closing on him inexorably
from opposite directions. It was as though he were caught between the blades of
immense shears.
Panic scattered his senses. He heard someone
shouting, but was so confused that he didn't know whether it was himself or another. He began swinging the machete around
him, slashing madly at the seemingly empty air, blindly on the defensive.
Somewhere a shout sounded
again.
Then
his machete jarred against one or other of the closing knife-edges with a flat,
dull sound, as if he were hitting stone. The shock all but jolted it from his
grasp. A thin crack appeared in the blade.
There
came a rush of feet and a loud
clang behind him. A powerful arm caught his shoulder and shoved him headlong
into the undergrowth. Dazed, he scrambled for a few yards on hands and knees, then looked back.
The spectacle was quite fantastic.
Two
enormous shapes, each as wide as a house
and tall as the tallest tree in the woods, seemed to be attempting to make
physical contact with each other. They were curiously flat-looking, resembling a cross section of a sponge.
Between
them a tall, naked man, muscled like a gymnast,
danced a ballet of defiance. He bore a crusader-type shield, thin as pasteboard
and glimmering faintly in the blue underwater light. Deftly, he kept the shapes
apart, slamming alternately at each of them with the shield. It rang like a
gong at every blow.
Amazingly,
the two shapes backed slowly away from him. They began to sink into the ground.
The
man laughed harshly, then came bounding towards Sherret.
"Get
up, you poor fool!" he exclaimed in Amaran.
"Do you want to be sliced up for a Creedo's
dinner? Follow me.
He leaped lightly past. Sherret
picked himself up, annoyed and ashamed. He resented the other's contemptuous
tone, and was ashamed of his resentment. After all, the man had saved his life.
With mixed feelings, he blundered along a path made easy for him by this
stranger smashing down the undergrowth with his shield.
The
man was burning up energy at fourfold Sherret's rate.
But it was Sherret who first began to gasp for
breath, with slack, hanging jaw. At last, after a mile of zig-zagging
among trees across sloping ground, he swallowed his pride and grunted,
"Wait for me."
The
man waited for him to catch up. He was a handsome imperious brute.
"Do you want me to
carry you?" he sneered.
Sherret drew whooping breaths, then
complained, "Easy for you to talk. You're not carrying a load on your
back."
He jerked a thumb at the
bulging rucksack.
The man looked at him
reflectively.
"Hold
that for a moment," he said suddenly, and proffered the thin shield. Sherret took it automatically. The totally unexpected
weight of it dragged him to the ground. The man laughed boomingly.
Sherret sat on the shield and wiped sweat from his
face. Then he smiled wrily. "You're an
objectionable bighead, but let's face it, you do have
something to be conceited about. Thanks for getting me out of that jam, anyhow.
Any chance of those perambulating guillotines catching up
with us?"
"You
mean the Creedos? Don't worry about them. Take it
easy. As long as you're sitting on the shield, you'll be safe enough."
"How d'you mean?"
"They've gone underground. They may
still be after us or they may not. But they could suddenly surface here. It's a
favorite trick of theirs to attack from below, when you can't see them coming.
That way, they could finish me. But the shield would save you; they can't cut
through it."
"H'm," said Sherret, and
studied the big man curiously. His face was a striking as his magnificent body.
He, too, was bearded, but by comparison Sherrefs
beard was a limp wisp. Color was always difficult to name precisely in the
changing light of Amara but this man's beard seemed
jet black and thrust itself from his chin like a rock spur. His nose was
equally forceful; he looked the most imperious of Caesars. His eyes were like Rosala's in her stormiest mood. Power radiated from him.
Shakespeare's lines came to
mind.
"Nature might stand
up,
And say to all the world, 'This was a man.'"
Other
memories and comparisons came to mind also, and gave Sherret
no comfort.
"What's your
name?" he asked flatly.
"Lee-Gaunt-Lias-Nolla. You may have heard of me."
"I
have." Sherret felt spiritless. He got to his
feet, looking down at the shield.
Shakespeare
had another apt comment. "The seven-fold shield of Ajax cannot keep The battery from my heart."
"I think
we have some matters to discuss," said Sherret,
"in another part of the forest. Not here."
Lee
picked up the shield easily with one hand. "I know a place. Come."
CHAPTER
FIVE
As Sherbet
followed Lee through the
woods, he found himself accepting second place as a matter of course. Lee was a
natural leader, and in a Reparist system would hold
office as such. And he would laugh Goffism to scorn.
Soon they came to a fair-sized stream
gurgling down from the mountains. To Sherrefs
surprise, Lee walked into it and, knee-deep, began plowing upstream. Sher-ret shrugged, then followed
the leader.
"No
hurry now, and no danger," said Lee carelessly. "The Creedos can drink only sparingly. Liquid in any
quantity—especially fast running water—tends to choke them. They dare not rise
through this stream which will lead us clear of the wood belt"
It
was a hard slog uphill against the current, but Sher-ret
set his teeth and endured. At long last the woods thinned, and they emerged on
the bare upper slopes. Lee splashed his way to the bank. Relievedly,
Sherret joined him on dry ground. The pass was
clearly visible now, directly ahead.
"My
present home is just at the mouth there," said Lee, pointing. "A quite cozy cave. Think you can make it or want to
rest awhile first?"
"I can make it,"
said Sherret grimly.
He did, but his legs were trembling with
strain. Almost drained of strength, he flung himself down inside, on a pile of
brush. Even Lee seemed glad to rest now. He laid the shield between them and
reclined at full length.
Presently,
Sherret revived enough to examine the shield
curiously.
He
said, "We use a metal something like this on our planet. The molecules are
gradually compresed by an artificial magnetic field.
It takes years to prepare. We employ it as a cutting tool to shear through the
hardest materials. I didn't realize Amaran science
was this far advanced."
"You're
one of the Earthmen, aren't you?" said Lee, idly regarding the low-hanging
roof. "I've heard about you. An effete species, by all
accounts. You've • some shocks coming your way on this planet, my
friend. You landed on the barbaric side of Amara. You
haven't contacted any real civilization yet. Don't imagine you go un-watched.
My people have long-range instruments. They could kill you Earthmen without
stirring more than a finger, if they chose. But they're tolerant. The variety
of life on Amara teaches one to be tolerant. They
won't harm you so long as you don't do anything foolish."
"Such as?"
"Trying to force your way of life on them, for instance. Accept a hint, friend. Confine your
attentions to the barbarians."
"To the Three-people, say?"
Lee
looked at him sharply. There was a pause. Then Lee said, almost in a whisper,
"Stay away from them . . . if you want to live."
"They live somewhere in these parts,
don't they?"
"Yes—down the valley. You can see them
from here."
"I'd
be interested to take a look at them. You know, somebody warned me to beware of
those who have only two, of those who become three—"
"Of
that which becomes many," Lee finished for him. "Well, I've warned
you again to beware of those who become three. Heed me. They are much more
dangerous than those who have only two—and you've just learned by experience to
beware of them."
"The
Creedos? What do they have only two of?"
"They
have only two dimensions, so the barbarians assume. Strictly speaking, that's
not quite so. They have three dimensions. But their thickness is almost
non-existent. When they present themselves edge on—and they always try to—in a
poorish light you just can't see them. But they can
see you. They have hundreds of microscopic eyes all over their body—some along
the edges. Hundreds of mouths, too—far larger mouths. Greedy, ever-hungry mouths. They live mostly on the juices
of vegetation, but they especially relish a drop of animal blood, if they can
find it, which isn't often."
Sherret licked his hps,
which had become dry.
"I
presume their feeding technique is to slice through you, sucking in blood as
they pass?"
"That's
it—just as they absorb the sap in trees or the juice in roots. They spend most
of their time browsing on roots just below ground. But sometimes they surface
in patches of rich vegetation, particularly forests—for a change of diet."
"But,
damn it, Lee, surely their internal organs must be too
narrow to allow moisture to flow?"
"Why so? 'How
thick is the average tree-leaf? And they're not even as complicated as a leaf.
They're not thinking animals; they're as simple as a sponge. The difference is
that by a quirk of nature the organic matter of their bodies has been
compressed much as the inorganic matter of this shield has been compressed.
That doesn't lessen their mass, and it increases their rigidity. It makes them
one enormous, terribly sharp cutting edge. Of course, their flanks are
vulnerable, to modern weapons. But they won't let you get at their flanks;
they swing around, like lightning, keeping themselves edge on."
"How
do they do that? How do they move at all? They don't seem to have legs."
"Frankly,
Earthman, I don't know. As a boy, I assumed it was some inborn faculty of
balance. It is, I suppose, but it also makes use of the lines of force in the
gravitational field of the Three Suns. Now that is complicated—too much so for my kind of mind. I'm no physicist."
"I
guess they're quite a doodle. Not quite up to the Melas
tree standard, though."
"Ah—that which becomes many. So you've encountered the Melas tree, Earthman?"
"Yes.
We've met. I've yet to make the acquaintance of those who become three. Have
you met any Three-people yet?"
It
was a leading question, and Sherret tried to make it
sound casual.
Lee
made no answer. He brooded. Presently, he said, "Maybe I should never have
met you, Earthman. I could have avoided it. Looking
down from here, I saw the smoke of your fire. I wondered what kind of fool
would camp in the woods where the Creedos roam. I
went down there to save you from your ignorance or your own folly. Maybe I
should have left you to them."
"Why? Merely because I
ask awkward questions?"
Lee
regarded him thoughtfully. "You've come from the south. Meet anyone on the
way?"
"One or two crazy birds, a few crazy
creatures. I'm
on my way to Na-Abiza."
"You know whom I mean."
"Yes,
Lee, I met Rosala. She, too, saved my life. I make a
habit of going around getting my life saved. Only now I'm beginning to wonder
whether it's worth saving. But I was grateful at the time. I lived with her for
a spell. Then I left her. I know why you came here. I guess I came for a pretty
similar reason. But there's another reason, too—I wanted to tell you to go
back to Rosala. She still loves you, and she needs
you desperately."
"What about you,
Earthman? Do you still love her?"
"Damn it, yes. I wish
I didn't."
"I
know what you mean. I still love her, too. But I can't go back to her yet Not until after I've faced the Three-people. Unfortunately,
I'm a coward. I've been skulking in this cave for
longer than I care to remember, trying to rustle up enough courage to walk
through the pass."
"That's
hard to believe. I may be a coward but you're not. Hell, you took on both those
Creedos together-just to help a complete
stranger."
Lee
smiled bitterly. "Maybe I was hoping they'd kill me, Earthman. That would
solve my problem. I've never felt so low. I haven't the courage either to face
the Three-people or to go back to Rosala and so admit
I'm a coward. The Creedos?
They're nothing much. They're not cruel nor malicious—just plain and simple
bundles of survival reflexes. Like the Melas tree. I
was never frightened of them; I've known what they are since I was a child.
No, it's the things you know nothing about—except that they're evil and they
certainly exist—that really scare you. This shield couldn't protect me against
the Three-people. I know that, because it couldn't protect my father."
"Your farherr
"Yes.
This was my father's shield. He brought it with him to this same pass, maybe to
this very cave. And then he brought it back home with him. He had been a brave,
strong man. All right, a bit of an exhibitionist, but he had humor and he was
kind. He come home to us, dragging this useless
shield, broken in spirit, wrecked in mind. I mink he had been frightened nearly
to death. He did die soon afterwards—of melancholia the quacks said."
"I'm
sorry to hear that, Lee. But it shows there's good reason for you to feel
scared."
"Scared,
yes, but not downright paralyzed. Which I am. I've let
myself down, let Rosala down, and—perhaps worst—let
my father down. He promised me he'd leave me his shield, you know. I told him
I'd be proud to bear it. When he died I resolved to bear it to the place where,
in effect, he'd really
died. And there face what
he had faced, and, if possible, destroy it."
Sherret mused, pulling gently at his beard.
Then
he said, "I don't quite get this. You said your people can observe this
side of Amara and destroy its inhabitants without
actually troubling to come here. Then why, for Pete's sake, haven't they
destroyed the evil Three-people?"
Lee said, bitterly, "It may sound
strange to you, Earth-man, but it's a matter of ethics. The Three-people have
never stirred out of this valley. They've never harmed anyone who didn't
intrude on them. For my people tolerance is the chief virtue. The Three-people
had made it clear that they wanted to keep to themselves. Therefore, my people
didn't approve of men like my father, who liked to go banging at the doors of
strangers."
"How did the
Three-people make their position clear?"
Lee
shrugged. "Apparently they resent being observed by our instruments. On
our screens this valley always appears to be in darkness. Our people assumed
that to be a deliberate jamming of reception. But I think it may be only a
local electrical phenomenon. Still, it's clear that visitors are anything but
welcome, for the Three-people either kill them or drive them insane."
"I
see. So what you're seeking to prove is that you're as brave as your father. As
I see it, you're even braver, for you're aware of what could happen to
you."
"You're
mistalcen, Earthman. My father went with his eyes
open—he'd seen what happened to two of his friends. And yet he went all the
way. He didn't lose his confidence, like I have. Oh, he and his friends were
different from the rest of my people. They've become decadent through too
much ease, too much ingrowing philosophizing. They
can reason their way out of making even the smallest decisions. They've lost
all initiative. I know; I'm contaminated by the same spiritual disease. The difference
is that I'm aware of it. I tell you, unless more characters like my father are bom, the true adventurers, my race will presently die away
through sheer inertia."
Sherret nodded, considering.
"And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought."
There's
the danger, he thought. Hamlet's disease. An
intelligent person can think just too much. If he dwelt too long on his own
decision to face the Three-people, he too, would reason himself into a state of
chronic indecision.
So, suddenly and rapidly, he said, "The
way to Na-Abiza lies through this pass. Right?"
"The shortest way, yes. But there's a longer way around the
mountains which you'll have to—"
"I
want to go the shortest way. Listen, Lee, here's a proposition—we face the Three-people
together. I'd be glad to have you at my side—I could use your support. If we
survive, then you'll return to Rosala, a free man.
And I'll go on to Na-Abiza to regain the kind of freedom
I lost."
Without
looking at him, Lee got to his feet and paced the confines of the cave, back
and forth. Absently, he kept knotting and feeling the muscles of his arms, as
though to reassure himself of his strength.
Then
he stopped, looked down at Sherret, and said,
"Pride tells me to face this thing alone. Instinct tells .me that to do so
courts destruction. Wisdom tells me that to have a
friend at my side invites success."
"Let
us be friends, then," said Sherret, extending a hand.
Lee took it. "Until the slow burn eats
its tail" "I've heard that expression before. What does it
mean?"
Lee
laughed, and squatted beside Sherret. He was plainly
much relieved, relaxed, even happy since his decision.
He
said, 'It means, figuratively, until the end of the world. Maybe it could mean
it in truth, too—we don't really know. It's some kind of fire eating its way
around the globe, like a malignant ulcer. It travels hardly faster than a
glacier, but it never ceases to progress—in a mathematically straight line. It
started somewhere in the barbarian lands and so far it remains there. In fact,
I believe it passes through this very mountain range."
"Can't you do anything
to stop it?"
Lee
hunched his shoulders. "My people might attempt to when it reaches their
hemisphere. More likely, they'll continue to talk about it. It may be only a
surface phenomenon. On the other hand, it may run very deep and actually be
severing the planet—though I doubt that. But some barbarians believe that when
at last it completes its circle around the globe, meets itself and begins to
'eat its tail,' then Amara will fall apart in two
halves. Like a cut fruit. Which reminds me—are you hungry?"
"Not very. But it would be advisable to get some food inside us before we start
out. A fully belly increases confidence."
Lee
laughed again. "You're right. I have a reasonable larder."
While
Lee prepared a meal, Sherret stood at the cave mouth
looking down the pass. In the far distance, crouched between the feet of the
steep mountain slopes, was a small settlement of some kind. Houses?
Huts? He couldn't discern details; the blue light was
deepening and visibility was poor.
For
some time he watched. Lee joined him, and said, 'In
brighter light you can see them walking about. They look human enough,
and there seems to be very few of them. And yet I find—inevitably—after I've
been watching them for a while I begin to shake with dread. Dread of I don't
know what. And then I can't look any more."
Sherret felt a cold little shiver pass through him.
"Think
I've got the shakes coming on myself," he said, and turned back into the
cave. "Let's eat."
Over
the meal, they talked again, and the feeling of warmth between them grew. It
was almost as if they were reunited childhood friends.
In time, Rosala came under discussion.
She's
a handful that can become more than a handful," said Lee, with a grin.
"But, by heaven, can she love!"
The
puritan in Sherret stirred restlessly as Lee went
into intimate reminiscences.
".
. after that, I don't believe we eased up all through
the yellow time," ended Lee with a chuckle.
Sherret
laughed awkwardly. "She's just as voluptuous now, I can assure you. But
you might be a bit disappointed when you see her as I've left her. Your tastes
and mine differ a little. Not all that much, but—well, be prepared."
"Ill soon get her back into
shape," smiled Lee. "There, you see, I've got my confidence back.
Maybe I'll be able to do something for Rosala's
confidence. You know, she's not by nature a hell-cat. She only gets that way
when she feels her man may leave her. It's just plain insecurity. It must be
murder on the nerves to know your very life depends from day to day on the
whims and moods of another person."
Sherret said slowly, Tm pretty dumb. Yes, of course
that's the root of it, and I never tumbled to it. She gets as mad and
emotionally upset as a little kid whose mother keeps abandoning it. The crises
must become more acute with repetition. Hell, why did I have
to do that to her—yet again?"
Lee said, "Don't forget; I did it, too.
But 111 make it
up to her—for both of us."
Sherret felt a stab of pain, the sense of
irretrievable loss. He felt he would start yelling if he dwelt too long on
thoughts about Rosala. He swung the conversation back
to an earlier topic, the ethical beliefs of Lee's people, and then began an
exposition of GofBsm and Reparism.
Lee dismissed GofBsm
as lunacy and Reparism as stifling.
Sherret felt his hackles rise at the mere mention of
the word "stifling."
He
objected, Tve never thought of Reparism
as—" He hedged at the word, and substituted another. "Never
thought of it as frustrating. I've always pictured it as an open road,
leading on and up. And you know where you stand on that road, and everyone
recognizes your right to stand there. I don't say there's not the odd ease of
nepotism but, by and large, promotion depends upon fair and just examinations,
merit, length of service, credits awarded for courage and so forth. Not upon
chance, right of birth, intrigue, the fantasies of crackpots. Your self-respect,
and the respect of others, rests solidly on what you've achieved. You know what
you can become. So you have a goal in life, a purpose—"
"Horriblel" Lee exclaimed. "Unnatural Life isn't like that"
"No. But it ought to be. Who wants to be
natural? Nature is merely doodling around pointlessly. It's a man's job to give
it an intelligent working plan, a design with significance."
"Damnation,
Earthman, I don't like
your planl
I don't want it imposed on me. I will not be regimented. You think you're
arguing from reason. You're not You're arguing
emotionally. Fundamentally, you're an insecure personality. Like myself. Like Bosala. You need this system to buttress you because you're
afraid to stand alone. But you don't need just one companion, you want a whole
crowd around you to prop up your self-esteem and cheer you on."
Sherret jumped to his feet, flushed and angry.
"If that's what you think of me, 111 show you. I'm going along
that pass right now—alone."
He turned and made to go, but a steely grip
fastened on his biceps and pinned him to the spot.
"We
made a pact to go together, Earthman," said Lee quietly. "Are you
going to walk out on me, too?"
Sherret was silent
"Sometimes I think politics are more
dangerous than the Three-people," Lee went on.
"Let us go together now—while we're still friends."
He
relaxed his grip. Sherret turned, a little shamefacedly.
They looked each other in the eyes seriously. It was a small moment of truth.
They knew, and admitted wordlessly, that they had both been postponing the big,
vital moment, that the long discussion was largely an excuse for delay.
"Okay," said Sherret "I'm ready. Really."
CHAPTER
SIX
They
walked along the valley side
by side. The blue had passed into the purple time again, and the place looked
unutterably gloomy. Sherret wished the phrase
"the valley of the shadow of death" would cease recurring in his
mind.
He
said, "I don't like the violet hour. Everything bad seems to happen to me
then."
"I
rather like it," said Lee. "It creates a mood of mystery and poetry.
See, the lights are on in the village."
The little houses in the
distance had lighted windows.
The
two men walked on in preoccupied silence. The mountain walls on either side had
become topless in the purple obscurity. Lee was weaponless, but carried the
shield. He knew it was probably useless, but he had made a vow.
Sherret had brought all his traveling gear. He had
private doubts that he would ever see Na-Abiza now,
but he had made a promise.
He
felt empty inside as they reached the outskirts of the village. It had only the
single street, and that was completely deserted. To him it appeared pretty much
like a village one could find in the southern Highlands
of Scotland. Some neat houses
on two floors, some bungalows, a few cottages and shacks. All were
detached. Each had its small cultivated garden. There were trees planted at
regular intervals to form an avenue.
It
was very quiet—but so were Scottish villages. Lights glowed behind window
drapes, but some houses were dark and seemed empty.
It
was the most ordinary-looking place he'd seen on Amara.
The purple was too intense, but apart from that it could be an autumn evening
in the purple mists of the Trossachs.
Familiar,
harmless.
Nevertheless,
he found himself fingering the handle of the machete depending from his belt.
Lee noticed. "Getting edgy, friend?"
Sherret nodded. "I'm scared green. Or purple,
if you like."
"So
am I. It's all just too innocent, isn't it? I'm glad we came together."
They
reached the end of the street without perceiving a movement of any kind. The
wind which had streamed through this pass not long ago had died to nothing. The
air was oppressively still. The silence itself was unnerving. It was as though
the world was holding its breath in anticipation of some shattering explosion.
But they could hear the
sound of their own breathing.
They turned and looked back
along the empty street.
Sherret felt an unworthy impulse to suggest that
this was enough, honor was satisfied, they could now
leave with dignity. But he knew it wasn't enough.
"Let's
pay a social call," said Lee. "Which house d'you
think might have "Welcome' on the mat?"
Sherrefs secret little shame bred an over-compensating
boldness.
"I like the look of that one." He
pointed to the largest of alL double-fronted, on two
floors. Tm with you there," said Lee.
They
negotiated a front gate and a short path to the door. It was a flat, bare door.
Deliberately, Lee thumped on it thrice with his great fist
They waited.
They
heard faint sounds of movement within the house but no one came to the door.
Lee
banged again, and shouted, "Wake up in there!" No answer.
"No,"
said Sherret finally. "No
Welcome' on the mat here. Probably no mat.
Let's try one of the neighbors."
"I've
a hunch none of them's going to rush out to welcome
us." Lee was beginning to get angry, partly through fear, partly because
of what the inhabitants had done to his father.
"Damned
pack of murderers!" he bit out suddenly, and rammed his shoulder against
the door. Its bolts burst apart and it flew open, revealing a lighted passage.
"We'll root 'em out," Lee snapped. "Come on."
Sherret followed him. They opened doors into two
empty rooms, and then in the third and largest they found one of the
Three-people.
He
was sitting quietly in a deep, hide-covered chair, and looked up as they burst
in. The furniture was of good quality and looked to be handmade. Murals of
mountain scenery covered the walls and the skins of unknown animals covered
the floor. A white spiral of light glowed in the ceiling.
It seemed reasonably normal
and civilized.
So
did the occupant, who wore an elaborately embroidered jacket and comfortable,
fur-topped high boots. He was a frail, oldish man
with gray-white hair and a mild, kind face.
He regarded them
benevolently.
"My
name is Canato," he said, in a pleasantly deep
voice. "It's kind of you to call. But would you mind leaving right away? I
should like to be more hospitable, but you must know of our bad reputation.
Believe me, it's well-founded. You are in mortal danger in this village. Leave
the valley while you can, and please, waste no time."
"I'm sure your warning is well meant, Canato," said Lee, closing the door but watching the
man in the chair warily. "I can assure you we've not come here to waste
time. We just want some information. I, personally, want to know what happened
to various visitors here from my country. Most particularly, what happened to
my father."
"If
your father is not buried in the graveyard just outside of the village, then
he managed to get away."
"He
got away," said Lee savagely, "but at some expense."
"Friend,
you are dangerously angry and vindictive. I implore you to go."
Lee
leant his shield against the wall, strode over and grabbed a handful of the
fancy jacket He lifted Canato by it and growled in
his face, "I don't want advice. As I told you, I want information. Are you
going to talk or must I apply pressure?"
"How can he talk when you're choking him
with his collar?" Sherret protested, disturbed
by a sympathetic choking sensation himself.
Slowly,
reluctantly, Lee let Canato fall back in his chair.
His
face suffused, Canato tried to answer but couldn't
recover his breath.
Lee
snapped, "Earthman, take a look around the house, m keep
guard on this specimen."
"All
right," said Sherret. He wanted free and easy
movement, so he slipped his rucksack off. He started for the door, then paused. Canato had raised his
hands in an imploring gesture, making inarticulate noises, striving to speak.
"He
doesn't want you to search the house," said Lee. "That means he's
hiding something. Go and find what it is—but be careful."
Sherret nodded, unhooking his machete. He stepped
out into the passage. He was glad Lee couldn't see the way his hands were
beginning to shake. He ignored the two unoccupied rooms on this floor, and
began to climb the stairs cautiously. He saw that the lights were on upstairs,
which was some relief. He didn't feel happy and was having to suppress his
imagination. It would have been more difficult in the dark.
Yet,
did the lights upstairs mean that there were people upstairs?
He
reached the top of the stairs and found himself looking along a corridor of
doors. A strip of light gleamed under every one, and there were six of them.
His mouth became dry. Yet again, this was like one of the old nursery
nightmares becoming real. The one which centered around
something nasty hiding behind the door.
Which door? And what was
the something?
He braced himself and
kicked open the nearest door.
The
room appeared to be empty. There was no reaction, no sound. But there was that
hidden space between the door and the wall.
He
made a grand leap into the room, and whirled around, machete poised. There was
nothing behind the door. Although the light was on, this room didn't appear to
be in use. Some odd pieces of furniture, some paintings and general
bric-a-brac were piled against the wall That was all.
He
visited each room in turn. First the screwing up of courage,
the kick, the leap, and the anti-climax of the empty room. Only two of
the rooms showed signs of being lived in. One was a bedroom. The other, the biggest
room of all, was a studio workshop. There was a workbench littered with tools
and wood shavings. There was an easel and a little table bearing a trayful of paints. There were a number of canvases stacked
on shelves.
He
wandered around, picking up and inspecting pieces of carved wood. They looked
like the parts of an ornamental display case.
Then,
shaking him to the core, a scream of awful terror came from the lower floor,
swelled up the stairs, echoed along the corridor outside. It didn't sound like
a man's voice. But he knew it was—and it was Lee's.
A
richly carved strip fell from Sherret's hand. It rattled
loudly on the wooden floor in the silent aftermath of that scream.
Snatching
up the machete, he rushed outside and down the stairs, hearing strange, gasping
sobs. He tore into the room where he had left Lee.
The big man was lying in a comer, sobbing,
arms crossed in front of his face, as if he were trying to ward off a murderous
attacker. But the only other creature in the room was Canato,
slumped in his chair, his face turned away from Lee and expressing infinite
sadness. "Lee, Lee, what is it?"
Sherret
dropped on one knee beside Lee and gently forced his arms apart. Lee's face was
contorted with horror, his eyes bulging glassily. It reminded Sherret of Rosala's painting of
himself in the grip of the Melas tree.
Then
he dropped Lee's arms and started back with a cry. For one side of Lee's throat
had been torn out and the blood was pumping out in spurts.
"Oh, my Godl"
Sherret beat his knuckles together. He didn't know
what to do. Nothing could close that wound or staunch that flow.
He blundered across to Canato.
"You! Did you do that?"
"Partly. Not entirely," said Canato
in a low, tired voice.
"I'll
deal with you later," said Sherret between his
teeth. "Is there ony land of a doctor in this
damned village, anyone who could help?"
"No
one can come here. No one can help. Your friend is dying."
Sherret groaned and rushed back to Lee. The blood
was a rapidly enlarging pooL He knelt in it
regardless. "Lee!"
Lee's
face was deathly white, but much calmer. His eyes were still glassy, but now
half-closed. A shade of recognition appeared in them.
"It's gone," he whispered thickly.
"Go, Earthman . . .
before it
. . . returns ... Co to Rosala . . Give her my love."
The voice became a faint bubbling sound.
There was a final, choked whisper. "Earthman ... I never knew . . .
your name" Then he died.
Although
he'd known him but briefly, this was the only real friend among men whom Sherret had made since he left Earth. He felt desolated.
Gently,
he closed Lee's eyes. He continued to kneel, motionless, praying only for
control over the murderous anger pouring through him.
Then he got up and went over to Canato.
"Now, explain this."
"Do
as your friend told you. Go now, quickly. I shall see that he is decently
buried."
"I shall not leave this house until you
tell me—"
"All
right, but you take a terrible risk. Listen, and don't question, then go."
Then
Canato went on earnestly, urgently, "My kind
have become cursed with a severe mental disorder. A major
split in the psyche—no time to theorize now. The body-mind relationship
has always been inexplicable; it's far more complex than we ever imagined. In
short, the raw antagonistic side of our noture has
split away from us. It exists independently, a disembodied entity. Such things
are possible, believe me.
"And
now, whenever two of us meet, after a short while the two crude entities fuse
and form a third being. This amalgam is real and material, but only in relation
to those from whom it has sprung. It is concentrated antagonism, the killer in
all of us. It tends to attack that one of us whose baser emotions form the
greater part of it . . fear, anger.
"Your
friend was full of hate and revenge at that time. It helped to kill him. He was
terribly frightened, and yet he was brave. He fought the thing with his bare
hands.
"You
didn't see it. You couldn't; it wasn't part of you. The amalgam dissolved when
you came. This sometimes happens when another person joins the' group suddenly
—it's as though he upsets a balance of forces. But usually the larger the
group, the more power the antagonist derives from it.
"We
infect others. Therefore we have voluntarily put ourselves in isolation. My kind are doomed to live and die alone. Each
in his own house, keeping his distance, tending his own garden, trying to make
some kind of bearable life for himself. Painting,
writing, composing, handicrafts. I like making my own furniture.
"But
no two of us dare linger together for more than a few—Ohl
Go. Please go. I have talked too long."
Uneasily,
Sherret turned to go. But something was forming itself
rapidly between him and the door.
"Too
latel" cried Canato in
despair, and turned his face away.
Fear
swept through Sherret like a cold wind. He tried to
outflank the darkening, cloudy shape and reach the door. And then, all at once,
it leapt into shape focus like a stereoscopic moving picture.
But
it was no recorded shadow. It was here, now, real as himself, and pulsing with
energy.
There
were traces of Canato in it, but predominantly it was
a nightmare version of himself. Every feature was
enlarged and distorted as though by some virulent glandular disease. The body
was taller, bulkier, and grotesquely misshapen.
The
thing was mad and blind and had no conscious control over its actions. Somehow
he knew that. It was senseless and without pity. It was an embodied destructive
urge.
There could be no appeal
and no defense.
The
sightless eyes stared at nothing. The mouth hung open like a dead man's. The
teeth were huge. There were spots of blood on them.
The
hands, with fingers spread like claws, were the hands of a strangler.
This
thing had been born in his mind when he was bom. It
had been created out of the stark fear of strangulation. Always it had lived
within him, imprisoned, suppressed, seeking the
opportunity to break out into a form of its own. And then—to stifle that other
which had stifled it for so long.
Now,
in the land of the Three-people, it had escaped at last Now, here, somewhere,
that tyrant was at its mercy.
The sightless eyes turned
this way and that
Then they became still,
seeming to stare straight into
Sherret's eyes. And then, shockingly, they became
sighted.
Sherrot's mind was swimming as, blurrily, he was transformed
into a three-fold personality. He was his fear-stricken, petrified self. He was
also the drained out Canato in the chair, keeping his
head turned away, trying to see nothing, abysmally unhappy, lonely, despairing.
And he was also—it.
It
was just a pair of hands reaching for a throat to throttle to the accompaniment
of an hysterical scream. Kill! Kill!
An
insensate repetition.
The
manifold viewpoint coalesced back to fust
one —the viewpoint of the hunted Sherret. The thing
had used his vision to locate him. And now it was advancing to the attack, its
eager hands outstretched.
Sherret reeled back against the wall. The hysterical
scream still seemed to be going on, but now it was incoherent, wordless. It
was Sherret himself screaming, as Lee had screamed
before him.
He
was grabbing wildly for security, anything to cling to, as he had grabbed at
the grass tufts at the edge of the mud swamp. He clawed uselessly at the smooth
wall. Then his fingers encountered Lee's shield still leaning there. Like a
hunted animal, seeking any sanctuary, however inadequate, he squirmed behind
it.
Dimly,
he was aware he was crouching beside his rucksack on the floor. Then
fear-sharpened memory flung up a wild hope. He scrabbled at the rucksack, found
the little grenades, slid one from its band. His thumb
nail tore off the capsule's nipple.
He
flung the grenade awkwardly, numbing his forearm against the shield's hard
edge.
The
explosion wasn't so much a sound as a sudden and agonizing increase of pressure
against his eardrums. The blast-driven shield rammed him hard against the wall.
Then
the pressure dropped. The shield fell away, clanged on the floor. It had served
its purpose, and for the second time saved his life; not a single splinter had
penetrated it.
Not that Sherret
noted that for some time. It was a long time before he moved his trembling
hands from his face and dared to look at the room.
It had vanished. But the air was still thick
with bitter smoke. The murals were full of ragged holes and cracks, and half
the furniture was just so much smashed wood.
Lee lay in the lake of his
own blood.
Canato still sat in his big hide chair, but looked
smaller. Plastoid splinters were embedded all over
the leather. At least one had passed through his heart.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
Sherbet
never did remember leaving
the house or the valley.
The
next thing he was really aware of was the dirt-grimed face of a savage staring
at him with wild eyes from a tangle of red hair.
Slowly,
he became oriented. The face was looking up at him from a pool of still water,
and was his own.
He
washed the grime from it in the same water, plastered down the shock of hair, combed the beard with his fingers. He noticed that his hands
had become rather thin. He felt very tired, hungry, and confused.
He
squatted by the pool, looking around. The first thing that struck him was the
peculiarity of the light. The sky was a rich yellow, yet he was seeing things
in fairly natural colors—natural to Earth, that was. He shifted to look behind
him, and had to shield his eyes from the glare of what seemed to be a white-hot
cable stretched taut along the ground some distance off.
It
either began or ended at a point maybe a hundred yards from him, and ran off across
flat grass-land for as far as the eye could follow. In that direction the
horizon bore what seemed to be a long, low ridge, until Sherret
recognized the V-shaped nick in it—the pass.
Then memories came back like a rushing multitude.
With them, the anguish of the realization of a double loss.
But
among them were no memories of what had happened since he looked upon a
shattered room containing two dead men, where his experiences had carried him
beyond the verge of sanity.
His witless wandering had brought him to this lozenge-
shaped natural pool in a waste of green grass. He stood
up and made a more careful survey of the area. '
In
the opposite direction to the far-away mountain range there was what appeared
to be another ridge. He looked hard at it and saw that it was, in fact, no more
than a ridge. Although it formed the sky-line it was actually quite near. The
grass carpet rolled up and over it.
His
gaze wandered along the crest, then focused on what looked like a small conical
cairn heaped there. A primitive grave? His eyes
watered as he forced them to gather more detail.
He
divined that it was no cairn, but part of something which stood beyond the
ridge.
He
was staring at the dull nose of a space-ship—and it could only be the Pegasus.
For
all his anxious calculations, detours and misadventures, he had arrived at Na-Abiza at last without realizing it.
The
discovery gave him a real shot in the arm. He even took time out to walk back
and take a closer look at the line of white effulgence. Not too close a look;
its brightness pained the eyes. Moreover, he suspected radioactivity here.
So
this was the "slow bum." It seemed to be a channel of liquid fire,
hardly more than a couple of inches wide. The eye could detect no progress. All
the same, the bum was progressing, as he knew from Lee's description, and must
be heading for the grassy ridge.
He
surveyed its line of march. With a little shock, he
saw that the Pegasus
stood plumb on an
extrapolation of that line. It was a chance in millions. But he wondered if it,
like many other odd freaks on Amara, was due only to
the laws of chance. There seemed no laws of nature here. Why should there be
laws of chance?
He
set off towards the ship. There was a vague sense of something missing. Then,
for the first time, he noticed that he had arrived art
his place minus two old faithfuls—the rucksack and
the machete. They'd accompanied him for so long that it seemed a pity they
wouldn't complete the journey with him. He guessed he'd left them back there in
that room of horror.
He
climbed on to the top of the ridge; the effort sapped a deal of his small bonus
of energy. Now he could see that the ridge had concealed more than the bulk of
the Pegasus. There was an irregular cluster of wattle and
daub huts, the crudest he had seen on Amara. Among
them a few natives were strolling. They were tall and well built. In the yellow
sunlight they looked yellow, which meant that they could be yellow or white.
He
observed with surprise that the base of the spaceship was totally enclosed by
a high fence, also of sticks and clay. None of the crew was visible.
This
was his goal. Alone on his raft, he had yearned to get here. For this he had
walked out on Rosala. Now, with the goal attained, he
felt strangely indifferent. He walked down towards the ship, desiring food more
than human company.
The
natives noticed him. They gathered, whispering. They seemed excited. By now, he
reckoned, they must know—by sight, anyhow—all of the crew members of the Pegasus. So he was a phenomenon; the new Earth-man who
had arrived on Amara somehow without a ship. Maybe he
could fly through space by just waving his arms like the wings of a bird.
As
he neared, without exception they sank to their knees and bowed their heads to
him.
He acknowledged the salutation with weary
amusement. "Well, thanks, folks. But no autographs
today."
They remained silent,
bowed, reverent.
There was a gate in the fence around the
ship. He pushed through.
At
the bottom of the ship's ladder, Captain Bagshaw was
sunning himself in a sagging canvas chair. He wore only bathing trunks, which
had stretched and split. On his left was a big pile of fruit, loaves, and
native dishes. On his right, within reach, a swollen wineskin lay in the shade
of a broad-leaved potted plant.
Sherret stopped short at the sight of him.
Was this
Bagshaw, the immaculate Englishman, sartorial wonder
of the Space Corps, proud of his narrow waist and broad shoulders,
affectionately known as "The Tailor's Dummy?"
Bagshaw was equally surprised at the sight of Sherret
"Who the devil are
you?"
Sherret performed a salute which the Captain ignored.
"Lieutenant Sherret, sir, of the Endeavor.''
"Alex Sherret? Good heavens, so it is. All that face fungus fooled me. You've lost a bit of weight, too. Come and sit down, boy. Have a drink.*'
"I'd rather have something to eat, sir."
"Help yourself from that heap. All fresh—today's offerings."
Bagshaw became all fat buttocks as he reached behind his chair for another which lay there folded. He dragged it back with a grunt, failed to get the rods in the right slots, and let it subside in shapeless disorder. "Damn silly things," he said and abandoned it Again, Sherret found it hard to believe that this flushed, careless drunk, all sweaty paunch and flabby limbs, was Captain Robert Bagshaw, one-time Number One Cadet of the Space Academy, champion middleweight boxer of the Space Corps, Fifth Division, renowned disciplinarian, chess master—and total abstainer.
For that was as Sherret remembered him. His old hero.
"Have a drink, Alex," Bagshaw said again.
Sherret had a mouth full of newly baked bread, but he said, muffledly, "Thanks, I will I need one."
"Don't we all?" said the Captain, heaving the wineskin onto his enormous thighs. He poured two large glasses of orange liquid.
"Damn stuff looks like orangeade in this yellow light,** he said. "Don't let that fool you—it isn't In white light, in the ship, it's red. In the red time, ifs a beautiful dark ruby. Heart's blood, we call it. Native brew. Potent It'll be the death of me. Cheers."
Sherret watched him over the rim of his glass.
"Is the ship—" he began, and choked
as a fireball exploded in his gullet
Captain
Bagshaw guffawed. "You'll get used to that
delayed action in time."
When
Sherret could speak, he tried again, "Is the
ship still being run under Reparism?"
"Good lord, no. Repairism is passé—don't you know?"
There
was more than a trace of bitterness in Bag-shaw's
tone. He took another gulp of the brew.
"Goffism is the bright new hope of Earth," he went on.
"Don't believe in it myself. Don't believe in anything much any more."
"You don't have Goffism here, then?"
"We
do not. We certainly do not. We don't have any Kings for a Day kicking us
around. We all do as we damn well please."
"But-"
"Look,
son, we've had it. The dream days of Reparism are
over for us. Oh, it'll come back. Like the horse. After
we're dead. That won't do us much good, will it? I've no family, so what
the hell does it matter to me? I used to sit here on my then respectable ass
waiting for notification from HQ that I'd been given an award for the success
of this expedition. I lived for those gongs, stars and ribbons, y'know—the eternal fossilized boy scout.
I hoped they'd make me a colonel. But those Goffists
back on Earth—why, they don't even bother themselves to answer our messages.
What does the latest jack-in-office care about us stuck out here on Amara? They're too busy with their private vendettas. Look
at what happened to that poor chump Maxton."
"What, sir?"
"Don't 'sir' me, Alex. I'm Bob to you.
Good old Bob Bagshaw. Maxton?
Oh, they hung him. Chief Engineer's orders—what's his name?—Mackay. He was
sorry afterwards. The Scots get murderous in drink, ylcnow.
They were all blind drunk. Must be a foul native brew in
those parts. This stuff isn't like that. It makes you feel fine, good, benevolent—know what I mean? We Pegasus chaps go like a bomb together here. Happy band of brothers, and all that. The natives worry me,
though. The men, that is. The women are a fine-looking lot, comely wenches. You
saw them?"
Sherret started. His thoughts were far away. He was
thinking about Captain Maxton and his fate, and his own shipmates, and their
likely fate.
"Yes, I saw the natives, sir. They
seemed to imagine I was a little tin god."
Bagshaw shook his head. His fat cheeks wobbled. He
tapped the ship's ladder.
"This
is the little tin god—the Pegasus. At least, it's supposed to be the temple of
the god. And we're the priests of the god, to be respected as such. That's what
the natives made up out of their own little heads when we arrived, and at the
time we saw no reason to disillusion them. For they're a
tough crowd. They'd kill you as soon as look at you if you didn't have
some kind of hold over them. I was a fool. I took the easy, ready-made,
reach-me-down way. Not like me in those days, either. But there you are. And
now it's going to backfire on me—on all of us."
"In
what way, sir?"
"You've seen the slow
burn, as they call it?"
"Yes. It's heading right for the
ship," said Sherret, starting another loaf.
"You're
right, Alex. It's heading for the village, too. When Pegasus landed smack in its path, the natives assumed
a god had descended from Olympus, or thereabouts, to cry, Haiti You shall not
pass. I have come to save Na-Abiza.' Egotistical lot!
Swollen-headed muttsl But it'll burn through poor old
Pegasus like a super blow-torch. In anything from ten
to fifteen years, I reckon. But it's unlikely 111 be around then. Heart's
blood will have taken care of me. But how better to pass the
time than in merry wassail? My men like the women here, too. Most of 'em have gone native to some extent Hang the women, I say. For me—the grape."
"But,
sir—Bob—why don't you get to hell out of it before the showdown? When the
natives see the ship succumb to the slow bum, and their village in danger
again, they'll go hopping mad. If you're still around here, they'll probably
kill you. Get out while the going's good. Amara's
plenty big enough to get lost in."
"Lost?
I'm already lost, Alex. Still, I did plan a move from here, long ago. But I'd
already lost authority through accepting this priesthood
masquerade. The men had become too happy here. They'd never been made such a fuss
of in all their lives. Not a man would come with me. Not one. If only one of 'em had crossed to my side of the line . . . Pity you
weren't drafted to my bunch, Alex. You'd have come with me."
"Sure I would,
Bob."
Bagshaw sighed. "It means everything to have
someone you can count on."
Sherret thought, You're too
right
Aloud, he said, "Well, it's not too
late. Come with me now."
Bagshaw shook his head. "Too
out of condition. Amara's too tough for me
now, I can't take it. I've been out there. You can't rely on a damn thing. You
never know what's going to hit you next, but one thing you can be sure of—it'll
be an unpleasant surprise packet. An unpredictable world.
I can't adapt to it, I'm a product of Reparism.
There's no place for me on this lunatic planet. But if you can take it, then you're a man, my son. Got a B-stick on you? No, I thought
not. Run out of 'em long since.
Know what? I wish we hadn't run right out of fuel when we landed. Wish we had
something left in the drive-box, just enough to blast Pegasus out of here—and I wouldn't care a curse where
we crashed. End with a bang, not a whimper. Where's your glass?"
"Thanks,
I've had enough. Enough of everything. I'm moving on
now, "Bob."
"But
you haven't met any of the boys. Digger, Fritzy, and
Doc Lamont—you know them. Doc's up in the ship. The others ace with their lady
loves in the village. They'd be glad to see you."
"Another
time, maybe," said Sherret. But he knew there
would never be another time. "Good-bye, Captain." He grasped Bagshaw's hand and shook it.
"I'm
sorry you're not staying, Alex. Yet, in another way, I'm glad. You may make
out. The rest of us have made a mess of it."
He
insisted that Sherret take a big plastic bag stuffed
with food from the heap of offerings, and a full wineskin. He saw him off at
the gate, and the natives made obeisance to both of them. Bagshaw
indicated them with good-humored contempt
"If
they could read our minds, within the hour we'd be fatting
all the region kites. Especially me." He thumped
his paunch.
Sherret climbed up and over the ridge, and never
once looked back. There was nothing to look back on. Na-Abiza—the
Na-Abiza of his imagination—just wasn't there.
He
recalled that conversation with the Paddy at the_ outset of the trek. It had
seemed sheer nonsense at the time.
"Have
you ever been to Na-Abiza?" "Yes, I have,
human, but I didn't get there." "Why not?"
"Because
it wasn't there when I got there."
"But you just said you didn't get
there."
"Of course I didn't,
human, if it wasn't there."
"Well, is it there
now?"
"How can I tell? I'm
here, not there."
Yes,
he would always be here, but never there. The paradox was that a man just wasn't
here, was nothing, if he weren't trying to get there. Shakespeare had said it,
as he'd said everything. You had "to shine in use, or rust in monumental
mockery."
But
one didn't learn from books, only from one's own experience. As a youth, he'd
read Stevenson's proclamation that to travel hopefully was a better thing than
to arrive. He agreed, but mental subscription wasn't enough. As a man, he'd
have to leam it the hard way.
He
set his sights on the next goal, the V-shaped notch in the distance
mountains. Once, coming from the other direction, he had thought of it
as the gateway to Na-Abiza. Well, it still could be.
Without Rosala, for him there could be no Na-Abiza.
It was the deep orange time, and he was well
into the pass, almost back to the village. He was sad but not afraid. The
Three-people were not dangerous so long as you didn't consort with them. And,
as he knew, isolated in their separate cells, they wished only to be left
alone.
Then
he saw the graveyard, just off the road. Fleeing from the house, he must have
stumbled mindlessly past it before. It was well tended and there were two new
graves, heaped with fresh earth, with carved wooden boards at the heads of
each.
He picked his way between
other graves to them.
The inscriptions, not long completed by an
unknown villager, said baldly on the one board: Laurel
Canato
And even more baldly on the other: Unknown
There were several other nameless headboards
around, too, but they were old and weathered. This could only be Lee's.
He
stood for a long time looking at it, remembering. But for the accidental death
of Canato breaking up the amalgam, he himself would
probably be filling another nameless grave here.
Just
behind him, someone stepped on a twig and snapped it. He started violently and
spun around.
It
was Rosala. Surprise stunned him. He could only stare
at her. She was wearing a tunic he'd never seen before. It was somewhat
travel-stained.
And she was lovely—lovelier even than he
remembered—in the warm orange light.
She
was smiling, yet on the verge of tears. She could say nothing, but held out her
arms to him.
They embraced with passion.
After
a time, he said, "How did you come to be here? I don't understand. You
said Petrans are forbidden to leave their own area.
The law—"
"I
broke the law, darling. I didn't want to go on living on sufferance any
longer. I decided I'd rather be dead."
"Yet you're alive."
"Yes.
I think more alive than I've ever been. Because I decided not
to wait for my man to come back to me, but to go and seek him."
A
doubt, arising from the old jealousy, came upon him. He held her a little apart
from him.
"Myself? Or Lee?"
He added, a trifle sourly, "As it happens, you've found us both."
"Both? What do you mean?"
Haltingly, he explained, and was as
distressed as she. She knelt over the grave and cried freely. He watched her
with mixed feelings.
He said, awkwardly, "We haven't the
right to be sorry for him. Rather, admire his triumph, for he was not defeated.
He faced and fought the ultimate horror, and kept his sanity. He proved himself
a better man than his father. That was what he wished most to do."
"Even more than . . ."
"Yes.
Honestly, I think so. Even more than living with you."
Abruptly, she stood up, dried her eyes, and
said, "Let us get away from this terrible place." "And go
where?"
"Wherever you want to go, darling." He was still doubtful. "You'll go with
me—as second best?"
"Lee
is dead. I am released from any obligation to Lee. But that doesn't mean that
you were second best. When Lee left me, I could not bring myself to go and look
for him. I stayed in my house, clinging to what I thought was my life. But when
you left me, I realized I had no life. There was no life without you. I came
seeking you, not Lee."
He kissed her.
"Well, now we can go
back."
"There's
no going back, Sherry, once the law has been broken. Anyhow, I don't want to go
back to the house. I'm happier free from it."
"But your pictures,
and all—"
"You said you believed art wasn't the
whole of existence. I believe that, too, now. All I want is you. I can learn
to paint and sculpt again, later, in a more deeply satisfying way. It came all
too easily before. It ,was no credit to me."
He frowned at her, puzzled.
She explained, "It was the Power acting
through me. Petrans are bom
mediums, so long as they act in accordance with the law. But a renegade Petran loses the ability to tap the Power. If he quits his
area, the contact breaks. I can tell you this now—now that I'm outside the
law."
"You renounced the
Power—for me?"
"When
it came to it, there was no choice. I just didn't want to live without you.
Anyhow, I've gained, not lost. My body is my own. Try as you will, you can't
change me now. I exist in my own right, and believe in my own existence. I
shall live and die like any normal hu-manoid. It was
a paradox. If you were content to let the Power act through you, then you had
no faith in your own power to act independently—or even to exist independently.
If you renounce the Power, then you gain faith in yourself. Maybe I'm the first
Petran ever to leam
this."
"I
wonder? Maybe you could be the first of many, Rosala."
"You mean I might persuade other Petrans to follow my example? But they would lack my
motive." She kissed him tenderly.
"Thanks for the compliment,
darling," he said. "But our kind of love isn't unique. A Petran must always love a non-Petran.
There are other Sherrets, other Lees in this wide
world. At least, go and talk to your people. It might lead to something—perhaps
the first worthy stock arising on Amara. Frankly, I
see little other hope.
"Consider.
With very few exceptions, Lee's people are soft, selfish, unenterprising. They've sunk into a
torpor. The first contingent of mankind to reach this planet has failed
to adjust; it's finished. It'll be a long time before we can hope for anything
better from my world, falling to pieces under Goffism.
The Three-people have branched off into a ghastly psycho-biological cul-de-sac. The Paddies and Jackies
seem to be poetic visionaries, inspired, maybe, but as practical as a mad March
hare. You're our only hope, my dear."
She was lost in thought for
a time.
Then
she said, "It's nice to feel I may be important— or, at any rate, be of
some little significance. But, actually, I'm still dependent—on you. Nothing
will mean anything if I can't do it with you."
"Then
well make it a joint enterprise. Well
try to found a new race. What greater adventure could there be? Hell, when I
look back, I see I've been little more than a child crying in the dark. I
thought Reparism was something, but it was only a
refuge. I was frightened of this unpredictable universe. When you get that
scared, when you can't control the circumstances of your existence, you cling
to the proven and familiar. Then you try to kid yourself you've licked life.
You were right, Rosala. I needed a lot of people
around me to hold me up. But not any more.
I know the stuff I'm made of now—good and bad. It's a crazy mixture, like a
witch's brew. But I think I can handle it now, instead of it handling me."
She smiled at him.
"Let's go."
They walked, arm in arm,
along the valley.
He
said, "There's some woods well have to go through beyond the pass."
"Yes,
I know, Sherry. I came through them on the way."
"You
were lucky to get through alive. There's a nasty breed of creatures living in
them called—"
"The Creedos? Lee had told me all about them. I knew what
to do. I came up through the stream, all the way. That's the way we'll have to
go back."
"Damn you, woman, I don't seem able to
tell you anything you don't already know. Oh, well, we live and learn."
"Isn't that what we're here for?"
she asked.
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