An erotic Celambese mystery play provides the raw material for the first part of this chapter, and a martial chant from Sarbadathian schismatics for the second.
The complete biocybernetic rendition of the Celambese portion of the tale contained thirty nights of sexual acrobatics, pared down by this text's human editors to a hint here and a kiss there.
No moral qualms lie at the root of such censorship: in fact, several of our "censors" are connoisseurs of literary erotica upon whose expert advice more than thirty thousand words of the text were cut.* Consider that both participants are bipedal forms of rigid inflexibility and that all possible variations of "who does what, and with which, and to whom" are limited to a few orifices, a quasi-rigid zygopositor, and four five-digit manipulators. What wonder that discriminating connoisseurs found themselves bored by Benadek's couplings?
Intimations of distant Evil . . . on Sarbadath VII, this tale is propaganda, justification for planetary war; herein one finds only foreboding and muted fear. One begins to suspect that the Biocybes have developed a talent for suspense.
(Kaledrin, Senior Editor)
"I'll bet Saphooth wasn't bored with it." Abrovid snickered.
"Are you kidding? You know who those `several' censors were? Saphooth, Saphooth, andafter he put the pressure onme. I thought some of that stuff was pretty good, myself."
"I wonder if Androsterone is for real," Abrovid said pensively.
Light of pale morning washed across Benadek's eyelids but, for an eternity, he decided not to open them, not to admit whatever reality lay beyond. He savored the soft bedclothes, finding no lingering trace of tent material or mule dung, but instead the sweet freshness of female youth. Only when he had assured himself that he was indeed in a poot's bedroom and that the wondrous events of the night now past had indeed occurred did he open his eyes.
There had been other times when he had awakened to such scents, such sensations, but he adamantly refused to remember that he had once had a motherand that his father must have loved her in such ways. He thrust those thoughts aside, leaving only warmth and diffuse contentment.
Sylfie entered with a tray of sweet rolls and a pitcher of fruit-water from the vendor whose cries even now entered the room through a distant window. Dressed in a light woolen shift, she was every bit as lovely as he remembered her by candle flame and diffuse moonlight. She sat on the edge of the bed, and offered him food. His eyes never left hers. She then poured him a drink.
"I never asked your name," he said. "I'm Benadek."
"I know. You told me that. I'm Sylfie."
"Did you say all this was your father's?" Benadek asked.
"It was. He's dead now. All this will be gone soon."
"I'm sorry. How did he die?"
"He was old."
"He went to the temple?"
"To die? No, he died here. With me. I buried him secretly, under the house, or the magistrate would have confiscated everything."
"And now? What will you do? What about his books?"
"Everything's been sold. I have some coins hidden away. I can get along for a while."
"It's funny that you knew your father, isn't it?" From what Achibol had told him, most fathers were no more than recreated sperm in the temples' banks; only rarely were natural conceptions left alone to fruition; motherspootswere all that counted.
"He was with my mother when she bore me, and he kept me here after she died," she said sharply. "Should I call him `uncle?' "
"I meant only that my friends knew no fathers," he replied. "I'm sorry."
The words came easily, Benadek noticed without surprise. A certain edge had worn off, a touchiness he'd not even noticed before, but which had, he now realized, pervaded his every thought and action. There was a clarity to his thinking, like the surface of a pond no longer disturbed by the tiniest ripple, wherein he could see not only a clear reflection of his own face but the waterlogged twigs and pebbles and minnows that lay beyond . . .
"We apologize too much, you and I," Sylfie murmured.
"Then no more of it. We must assume no harm is meant by each other's words." Dismissing the topic, he raised another. "Can't you keep his books, and become a scribe, since you can read?"
"A scribe? Would you buy a goat to do a horse's work? Has there ever been a poot who was anything but a poot? Impossible. No one would come to melook at you! What chance did I have?" She shook her head sadly. "And besides, I'm not clever like you."
Benadek politely disagreed, but her objections were valid, even if she were not stupid. "Where will you go? Will you live alone?"
"For a while, at least. When the money runs out, perhaps I'll find a manbut the skinner and a temple honch are my only suitors at present. One stinks of blood and the other would beat me. There's an under-priest who would have me, but he's pale as a corpse, and has nowhere to house me except the temple stable. I'll not raise babies there."
"Then come with us!" Benadek blurted. "My master needs a lovely assistant like you. The rubes will love you."
"Rubes?"
" `Respected customers,' my master says. We read their futures, and put on exhibitions of magical things. You'd be perfect for that . . . a pretty girl to draw their eyes."
"Has he said as much?"
"Well . . . not in so many words, but he'll love you. Shall we ask him?"
Sylfie reluctantly agreed. When they approached the tent, she hung back, motioning Benadek to go in alone.
"Well, boy!" Achibol huffed as Benadek entered. "My magic persisted until noon? I surpassed myself! I've been telling fortunes unaccompanied since sunupand postponed our performance twice. Come! To work!"
"Master? I have a request."
"Are you a fool, boy? Ask me later, when our purse is full."
At that moment Sylfie, who had heard all through the tent wall, peered inside. "Never mind. I can see it won't work." She attempted to withdraw, but Achibol stayed her with an imperious gesture.
"Wait! What is this?" He stared first at her, then at Benadek, who assumed his meekest posture and expression.
"Master, this poor poot's home is about to be taken from her, and we need a pretty face to enliven our magic show. You yourself said as much."
"I did?" Achibol raised his bushy eyebrow and glowered at the poot. "How does a mere apprentice remember his master's words better than the master himself? Or is it that, as I suspect, my magic potion still endures?" He eyed Sylfie. "Go outdoors, young woman *," he ordered, "and don't eavesdrop . . . but remain close at hand, where I can call you."
He turned on Benadek. "Do you think it will last as long as you have ballsthat the vial will be ever full? Indeed, boy, you complicate my elementary life. I find myself first with an apprentice, now with a comely stagehand, and what next? Babies to dandle? What of our clandestine workour visits to the temples? Dare we share our labors with someone who'll follow our path a while, and leave?"
"Never, Master! She'll remain with me always!"
"Always to you, and always to one who has lived a thousand years and more, may not be the same." He shook his head. "Magic is ephemeral, no longer-lasting than the potion drops in my flasks. When the last drops are gone and the spell wanes, what then?" He shook his head ruefully. "As a matter of fact, what if you tire of her? Will you cast her by the wayside?"
"Perhaps the magic is in us, master, not spells and potions. Even if not, I can only do what I can, because I'd sorely regret losing her so soon after I found her."
"You're twice the fool, boy! But call her in here."
"It's settled, then? She can stay?"
"Am I an old fool? Do I take in urchins who importune me and strut visions of grandeur before me? Am I a sucker for a winsome face and a pair of pretty legs? Of course she can stay. Can she cook? Is that too much to hope for?"
"I'm sure she can, Master," Benadek blurted as he rushed for the open doorway.
Sylfie could cook. Her pretty legs provided distraction for sharp-eyed critics of magical shows. She developed a sense of when to show a bit more leg, an inch more shapely bosom, when Achibol attempted a trick that depended less upon gadgetry than innate talent.
On the road, day followed day much as before Sylfie joined them, with certain differences: Benadek took catnaps now where before he might have read or gone swimming, for he got less sleep at night. He and his bedmate slept away from the fire that warmed Achibol's old bones, lest they disturb him with their pleasures; they often emerged from their comforters with snuffly noses and leaves and morning dew in their hair. When opportunity presented, they explored the joys of their differences amid wayside ferns, beside chilly creeks, and half-submerged in warm, sunlit ponds. Endless days, uncounted nights . . . until the reactions of their bodies were familiar and comfortable, predictable and even routine.
But it was not all bliss . . . Stronger loves than theirs have foundered over differences, and different they were. No blame attached to Sylfie; within the limits imposed by streamlined, fourfold redundant genes, she attempted to be part of Benadek's life and of the lessons his master taught; but esoteric concepts glittered in her mind like shiny fish darting forth into clear water, then glided away into the reeds just as swiftlyslippery and ungraspable.
Benadek gave Sylfie the magical writing tablet. She spent long evening hours practicing her hard-earned writing skills. For a while, her ability seemed to increase, but there was a threshold she could not pass. As she learned new things, old ones faded, as if her mind were a vessel of limited capacity that had to be emptied a bit before it could be refilled. That was frustrating for the boy, whose own mind was a vessel of seemingly unlimited volume. But even when his interest in teaching her waned, she practiced indefatigably.
More than limitations of genetically engineered intellect worked against her; she knew, as Benadek refused to know, that all things had their time, and a time of ending would come, whether then or down a long road.
She wished to keep that parting sweet, so she did not enquire what they did in the temples. Secrets were secrets, and the less she heard of them, the less discomfort she would cause her companions when the day came for her departure. She took to walking with the mules while Achibol and his pupil strode ahead. Benadek was content with that; he was frustrated with her inability to comprehend things he absorbed with ease. Achibol curbed his apprentice's sharp tongue as best he could, but he was not in their bed at night nor did he share all their daytime moments. It was better that Benadek be with her only when his mind was upon what she was truly able to give him.
Cor Absiddy was a village much like the last dozena flat spot in rough country, a clearing in the forest, a dry stretch amid marshy expanses. It had, as all towns did, a temple. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that the temple, as temples did, had gathered about itself a town.
They unloaded their goods in the muddy square. Sylfie had been wan and restless for several turns of the sun, and it did not surprise Achibol when she asked to accompany him to the temple. They left Benadek to set up camp in the marketplace.
When an hour passed and they had not returned, Benadek went looking for them. He was not anxious, only annoyed, and when he spied a voluptuous poot of middle years, he followed her for a minute or two, admiring her ample posterior. When her quick glances turned to glares, he discontinued his pursuit, but not until he had gone beyond his destination, the temple. Thus he approached it from the other side, and he heard sounds of a commotion around the corner. Ever cautious, he peered around it with an eye for possible routes of escape.
His urchin's experience paid off, for there against the wall was a scene that, in broad scope, was straight from his past: Achibol in the massive grip of a black-clad honch, struggling and expostulating. The honch held one of the weapons Benadek's master had called "lasers." But the scene was not exactly the same as that other time: there were no mules, and Sylfie was slumped against the temple wall with her clothes all dusty and awry, a dark spot at the corner of her mouthdirt, or blood?
Benadek's rage gave way to preternatural calm, and he saw more details. Achibol's robe was torn, exposing his black under-suit, and the tools he usually kept there were scattered on the cobble pavement. The "talisman" was there too, beneath the honch's boot toe. Benadek had seen that coarse, scarred face beforein Vilbursiton. The honch knew firsthand what Achibol's magic could do, and had come prepared for it.
"Cease struggling, old fraud," he said. "You'll not reach your toy. YesI know how you took us before. It was the boy, wasn't it? The rat-faced one? But this time, I have your nasty trinket, and the boy is not here."
"Why didn't it work?" Achibol demanded.
"My hat, sorcerer! Don't you like my new hat?" Benadek saw it then, even as did his mastera fine metallic mesh that covered his skull down to his ears and eyebrows.
"A Faraday cage!" Achibol exclaimed. "You've nullified my device. How did you know to do it?"
Confident of his mastery of the situation, the honch responded easily. "My master is as clever as you are, fraud."
"Who is your master? Are you taking us to him? Or will you kill us alongside the Valstock road?"
The question alerted Benadek. Achibol was pumping his captor for a destination! Did he know Benadek was there, behind a crooked wooden staircase, or was he merely hoping?
"Valstock? My master isn't in Valstock." Honches, Benadek observed not for the first time, were not too smart.
Valstock road was a hundred paces away, the way Benadek had come. Only one other road led out of the townthe way they'd come in. Thus the honch and his captives must go around the temple. Benadek backed up the way he'd come.
The honch ordered Sylfie to pick up the scattered tools and carry them slung in her skirt. He let Achibol go, but kept the laser pointed at him. The useless talisman and the staff went to Sylfie, who was having difficulty with her burden. Or was she? Benadek had never seen her be so clumsy before. He hoped that she and Achibol were intentionally stalling the honch. There might be time to get around in front of their path, and find a way to free them.
Once they were in the square where he'd set up the tent, it would be too late. Only the narrow streets and alleys provided close cover for what he hoped to do. That depended on whether the "talisman" was still activated.
His eyes scanned the second stories of the buildings he passed, noting balconies, low roofs and ledges. None seemed right.
There! A projecting sign reached over the narrow way. He jumped, and pulled himself up on the side opposite the trio's approach. He reached out and down. No! He was too high! But there was no time to find another ambush spot. It was the sign, or nothing. Desperately, he scanned the entire street, not knowing exactly what he sought.
Therea broom on the balcony of a shuttered room only a short jump from his perch. He stretched for it, but his arms were too short. He heard the honch's booming laugh and Achibol's scratchy complaints: they were almost upon him! He launched himself from the sign to the balcony, and the broom was in his grasp, slippery with bloodhe'd left skin on the rough, rusty iron balcony rail. Miraculously, his jump had made little noise.
He snapped the broomstick across his knee, near the straw end. It was a splintery break, no good for stabbing. That narrowed his options: he would have to lift the mesh hat from the honch's head as he passed under the sign.
Only when it was too late did he realize the flaw in his plan: if the talisman were on, Sylfie would not be walking. She had no mesh protection. Everything depended on whether Achibol was alert enough to take the device from Sylfie and turn it on as soon as the mesh was lifted from the honch's head.
He heard them approach. Hiding on the far side of the sign, he swung it slightly. There was no breezewould the honch notice it?
He did not. But Achibol did. The old man's expostulations shifted immediately to cries for the gods, the unknown, unknowable gods, to send him a sign. A sign!
There was no time leftthey were passing under him. First Sylfie, close by the sorcerer, then the honch, laser in hand. Benadek stretched his broken broomstick and lashed out at the mesh. He missed. Again he reached out. The honch swatted at his ear, thinking it an insect, but the mesh caught in the splayed broomstick fibers, and Benadek lifted it away. Overbalanced, he fell. Even as he dropped, he could see that he'd failed. The honch was turning angrily toward him, the deadly muzzle of his weapon swinging into line.
* * *
He came back to consciousness slowly. There was no feeling in his limbs. At first he thought himself tightly bound, or that his neck was broken. He smelled Sylfie's light scent.
"I'm sorry," he muttered. Sylfie was holding his head in her arms. He knew it was her, though his eyes were swollen shut. "I tried to save us."
"Benadek, you did save us! Open your eyes." He did. There was Achibol, talisman and staff in hand, and there, sprawled unblinking and motionless, was the honch. The talisman, not his fall, had knocked Benadek out. The talisman, in Achibol's hands.
"Don't sleep now, boy. We must hurry. My little toy is running down, and we must be gone."
"What about him?" Benadek asked, kicking the rigid honch's ribs.
"Stop that! We'll leave him. There won't be time to pack. We'll just take the mules and go."
"And leave the tent? The chests?" Benadek shook his head emphatically. "Let's kill him."
"A life for a tent?"
Benadek forestalled Achibol's morality lecture. "A headache, then!" he exclaimed, and levelled a sharp kick at the honch's head. Even under the waning influence of the talisman, his expression changed from restrained and uncomprehending to the blankness of oblivion. "There. Let's get the tent and be gone." He took Sylfie by the hand and strode off toward the marketplace.
* * *
"How did he find you, Master?" Benadek asked later. It was almost dawn. Bright Vega and the wide summer triangle had risen high overhead and were already swinging northwestward and down. There was no dawn glow to mute its brightness yet, but soon . . .
"He awaited us inside the temple."
"How did he know you'd come?"
"I don't think he did. I suspect he'd stationed himself there on the off chance of my arrival."
"That seems unlikely," Benadek mused. "From Lothamby, last week, we could have gone west into the Fallogun hills, or taken a river-barge, or even crossed the Sera range. What was the chance that we'd come this way?"
"I suspect there are honches in the temples of Fallogun, too, and in the downriver towns, even the mountain hospices. That frightens me for many reasons."
"I'd think one's enough. What reasons?"
"Besides curtailing my work and the usefulness of my handiest tool, I fear this concerted effort is too well organized for ordinary honches. First the lasers, then their determined pursuit when I lost them before Vilbursiton, now Faraday cage hair-nets and an organized blockade of the temples. All to catch menot to kill, but to bring me before some unknown honch-master."
"Who?"
"I have my suspicions, boy. There have been times long past when honches gathered into great armies under the sway of . . . but never mind. We'll know when we know."
"I fail to understand why we've been singled out."
"The temples," Achibol replied. "Our repairs and reprogramming are undesirable to someone. Again, I have glimmers of suspicion, but nothing to back them. But tomorrow is upon us, and we must be far off the usual trails before daylight. We'll discuss means of accomplishing our tasks in spite of this setback as we progress. Perhaps a side-trip, an unpredicted change in our routine, is in order. There too, I have ideas . . ."
"You never told me if my program modifications helpedgetting the biocybes to define their `primary sources,' I mean." Abrovid fondled the furry quadrupedal creature that rode with him everywhere upon his back or tucked beneath a loose-held chitin-plate. He called it his `biocybernetic interface.' Kaledrin was not sure if he was joking.
"Of course I have . . . haven't I? You've seen my chapter introductions, where I use the data, and the reference lists we send out to the data-net subscribers." Kaledrin had submerged himself in the biocybes' "translations." Perhaps he had been remiss. "Your help has been invaluable. Without clear source references, scholars would laugh at us. Even Saphooth appreciates what you've done."
"I should hope so," Abrovid said, mollified. "Especially considering the way he acted at first, as if the odd things the 'cybes were turning out were my fault." He grinned. "He's certainly changed his tune, hasn't he?"
"That he has," Kaledrin agreed. "You'd almost think he believes this tale we're creating."
"Creating? Is that what you think, Kal? Don't you believe in your own work any more?"
"I don't know what I think. I suppose I `believe' the biocybes have either sorted out a tale representing one planet's prehistory, or have synthesized one that applies generally to all the human lines. Old Saphooth's fallen in love with this `human' Achibol, who's just like himtwo-legged, and stuck that way. He and I have been at odds for so long I automatically swing to the opposite point of view. I've even come to like that little shell-parasite Benadek, in spite of his attitude problem." Kaledrin raised the latest data-cube from the biocybes in his hand. It glittered in the waning sunlight. "Especially after what happens to him here."
"Really? I haven't seen it yet. May I?"