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Quanta - Oct, '90
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** FIRST ANNIVERSARY ISSUE
Volume II Issue 4 October 1990
CONTENTS Quanta is Copyright © 1990 Daniel K.
____________________________________ Appelquist. This magazine may be
archived, reproduced and/or distributed
Volume II Issue 4 October 1990 under the condition that it is left
____________________________________ intact and that no additions or changes
are made to it. The individual works
Articles within this magazine are the sole
property of their respective author(s).
Looking Ahead No further use of their works is
Daniel K. Appelquist permitted without their explicit consent.
All stories in this magazine are fiction.
Serials No actual persons are designated by name
or character. Any similarity is
The Harrison Chapters coincidental.
Jim Vassilakos
All submissions, requests for submission
guidelines, requests for back issues,
Short Fiction queries concerning subscriptions,
letters, comments or other correspondence
should be sent to one of the following
Black Justinian addresses:
Dana Goldblatt
[email protected]
The King's Challenge [email protected]
Cerise Palmer
Back issues are also available from the
anonymous FTP server:
Shifting Sand
Christopher Kempke fed.expres.cs.cmu.edu (128.2.209.58)
Requests to be added to the distribution
The Ultimate Hell list should be sent to one of the
Jeffery Mark De La Noye following addresses. For PostScript
subscriptions, send to:
Poetry [email protected]
[email protected]
Inside a White Dwarf
Bruce Altner For ASCII subscriptions, send to:
____________________________________ [email protected]
[email protected]
Daniel K. Appelquist
Editor/Technical Director Please send mail messages only--no files
or interactive messages. If you can
access the anonymous FTP server then
Norman S. Murray include this fact in your subscription
Editorial Assistant request. All subscription requests are
handled by human beings.
Jay Laefer U.S. Mail correspondance should be sent
Proofreader to:
Quanta Magazine
Karen Fabrizius c/o Daniel K. Appelquist
Additional Proofreading 5440 Fifth Avenue, Apartment 60
Pittsburgh, PA 15232, USA
____________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
Looking Ahead
Daniel K. Appelquist
______________________________________________________________________________
One year ago, the first issue of Quanta was released to about a hundred and
twenty subscribers, after about two months of design, experimentation and
copious blood, sweat and tears. The Quanta of one year ago was really not
much more than an experiment. Was there a place for this sort of network
magazine? Were there enough amateur writers out there to keep Quanta alive?
The fact that this, the sixth issue, is being distributed to over
_twelve hundred_ subscribers in an ever expanding list of countries shows that
Quanta is viable.
Let me see... I'd like to thank Matthew Sorrels for starting the ball
rolling (suggesting LaTeX as a platform, doing the initial work to get that
operational), and doing proofreading on and off. I'd like to thank Jay Laefer
who has spent countless hours proofreading material (and also Todd Williamson
who has also done proofreading for Quanta at times.) I'd certainly like to
thank Norman Murray for his continual support and advice. I have to thank
Will Frank. It was Will who came up with the name ``Quanta,'' which I think
is ``really cool.'' Will has also been a great help in de-mystifying LaTeX
into a useable form.
I really have to include some remarks thanking Christopher Kempke for a
seemingly unending flow of quality prose. Chris has had a story in every
single issue of Quanta since its inception. ``Shifting Sands,'' published in
this issue, is his latest offering.
While I'm thanking people, a big thanks to Tom Roikicki of Radical Eye
Software for all his help by way of getting DVIPS to work correctly. Thanks
to his efforts, this PostScript edition of Quanta will be relatively smaller
in code-size than previous issues and should have no problems printing on any
PostScript printer.
But enough back-patting. We mustn't be complacent. Quanta must continue
to evolve and expand if it is to survive. Right now, I'm exploring options
for making it available to people on disk and/or paper formats. This may
involve a fee for copying costs, but I think people would be willing to pay
it. Of course, all network subscriptions are and will remain without charge.
As a bit of a side note, a very interesting matter caught my attention
recently, and that is the possibility of a solar sail craft race to Mars.
I've only heard sketchy detais on this so unfortunately I can't offer any
information on it. However, if there's someone out there who does know more,
I would encourage you to write an article and submit it. I'm sure this is the
sort of thing Quanta readers would be interested in (I know I am). I'm always
interested in science and science-fiction related articles, by the way. The
fact that there are none in this issue is unfortunate, but I hope to make up
for that in the December issue.
This will be the second issue without an offering from Faye Levine. Faye
is currently involved in writing a sequel to her novel, _Revolution_,
(entitled _Fronterra_). According to Faye, _Revolution_ is being seriously
considered for representation by a successful Minneapolis agent. I certainly
hope to see it on bookstore shelves in the near future. If you have any
words of encouragement for Faye, like ``Write more short fiction for Quanta,''
send them to her at [email protected].
Unfortunately, I also have some bad news with this issue. Athene, the
journal of fiction published by Jim Mccabe ([email protected]) is shortly
going to publish its last issue. According to Jim, he simply doesn't have
enough time to continue publishing Athene. I can certainly see where he's
coming from (Quanta has continued to take up a large chunk of my time, but a
manageable chunk). I certainly hope that someone can take over the Athene
project for Jim. A net without Athene is a depressing thought. Athene has
been around for about as long as Quanta and it was, in fact, the first issue
of Athene that inspired me to attempt to produce a magazine of my own. I owe
a great debt to Jim, and I'd like to take this oppurtunity to thank him for
his efforts. We're sorry to see you go, Jim.
I am constantly impressed with how tight knit a community ``The Net'' is
and yet how easily it accepts new people into itself. It's a constantly
growing and expanding group, and I'm honored to have been able to contribute
in some way to it, as I hopefully will be able to do for years to come. Thank
you. Thank you very much.
______________________________________________________________________________
Black Justinian
by Dana Goldblatt
Copyright ©1990
______________________________________________________________________________
Justin paused. He heard Starkadder's voice a few steps behind and to his
left.
``Keep going,'' it said. ``Chereny has one of the overseers watching you.
He still thinks you were the one who tried to strangle him last week. He
doesn't believe Roge's confession.''
When Justin had programmed Starkadder's voice, he'd decided that if it
seemed to come from behind, it wouldn't seem so disembodied and spooky. He
hadn't thought that he would have an automatic urge to turn around and look
for the source of the voice---he knew it was in his mind---but most times he
barely stopped himself in time. When he didn't, he pretended to be knocking a
bug off his back; still, it might look odd to someone watching. And now there
was someone watching all the time.
He bent to plant another handful of seeds. This time of year the soil was
moist and newly turned; it gave off a scent that embodied everything good
about Nele, the land he'd lived in all his life---the land which was the
greatest in a world he now knew was only a primitive planet, far away from the
mainstream of the developed stars.
Justin was glad he'd met the Chesetians---after all, they had given him
Starkadder---but he wasn't sure he could ever be happy again. Being happy
meant knowing his place in the world; now he wasn't sure if his place _was_ in
the world. He kept thinking he belonged somewhere that wouldn't condemn him
for Starkadder, or any of the other improvements he'd made in his brain with
the Chesetian equipment. The strict laws of Nele would execute a man for
practicing psychotherapy; what would they make of a neural programmer?
At the end of the row, he ran out of seed. Justin walked over to the seed
barrel and, holding his sack below the opening, carefully pulled out the cork.
A golden stream of seed began slowly to fill the sack.
When it was about half-full, a girl whose own sack was empty came up behind
Justin to wait her turn at the seed barrel. Careful not to spill, Justin
turned to speak to her. It was odd that he did not recognize her, since he
knew all the plantation people. Starkadder did not comment.
``Hello,'' he said, not knowing how to address her. ``I'm Justin, Nal. I
am a thousandth planter of this plantation.'' He waited for her answer.
``Hello, Justin. You may call me Deesay, here. I am here for planting, to
help. Lord Chereny has made a call, not having enough planters to put seed
down on his entire plantation before the end of the season.'' She moved
closer to him. In his ear, she whispered, ``There is more. Meet me after
dinner in the transient cabin at Thousan'town---act like you're picking me up.
I was told to say: my regards to Starkadder.''
Justin's sack was full, more than he would usually have allowed. It was
very heavy. He recorked the barrel and allowed Deesay (if that was her name)
to move next to the seed.
In the field Justin's mind was working furiously, but he came up with no
more than he had in the instant the girl spoke her private message: she was
from the Chesetians, or she knew all about them; and she had some way of
suppressing the satellite scans, or Starkadder, or both. If Starkadder had
known who she was, it would have told him. And if the satellites had been
able to track her, as they tracked everyone on Nele, Starkadder should have
known. It hadn't even warned him that someone was coming up behind him.
Starkadder had apparently not been permanently suppressed, because its
voice now spoke, still seeming to come from several steps behind Justin. ``An
overseer is approaching, not the one who has been assigned to watch you.
Tenth Aza Chereny wants to see you.'' Aza! Justin hadn't spoken personally
to him in three years. First a picture of Aza as a boy, helping Justin up as
the two of them climbed a trie, replaced by a memory of a red-faced newly
adult Aza calling insults, in turn replaced by a more mature, calm man (seen
from a distance) who had in him little of the boy.
The overseer was windblown and weatherbeaten; his class spent all day
outdoors guarding the plantation from thieves and small planters.
``Thousandth Justin? Tenth Aza requires you in the manor,'' said the man,
with a pronounced Westernele accent.
Justin replied, ``When does he want me? I have seventeen more rows to
plant. One or two of those is Aza's. He may have to be patient.''
``He requires you instantly. I must take you forcibly if you refuse.''
The overseer, like many who did not speak Southernele from the cradle,
reverted to formality at times of stress.
``All right. If Aza requires me, it must be important.'' Carrying his
sack of seed, Justin followed the Western overseer out of the fields. They
walked into the roomy entrance hall of the manor. The cool air felt clammy to
Justin, who was used to the hot sun and the stuffy interiors of Thousan'town
cabins. The overseer went to tell Aza that Justin had arrived. A maid
wandered through, dusting the tables and cabinets in the hall.
``Could I have a shirt or something? It's chilly in here,'' Justin asked
the maid.
``I'll see if I can get you something,'' the maid said. She was amused by
his discomfort: he was now shivering a little, the bare flesh of shoulders and
arms covered in goosepimples.
She went out and returned moments later, with a light jacket. The sleeves
were a little long for Justin, and the jacket wouldn't fasten around his
chest, but he was warmer. He rolled up one sleeve to a comfortable length.
As he started on the second one, Aza came in.
He looked much older than Justin knew he was: Aza was losing his hair. The
newly high forehead made him look wiser, and even sophisticated. But his
thoughtful look and second-long, gone-before-you-really-saw-it smile were left
over from Aza's childhood and completely familiar to Justin.
``I apologize for bringing you here without notice,'' said Aza. ``But it
was necessary.'' He led Justin through the manor to his private study, called
the _Green Palace_ by the manor staff. Aza had a knack for growing exotic
plants. ``The man who tried to assasinate my father has confessed that he had
an accomplice. You are suspected.''
``Roge said he had an accomplice? I don't believe it,'' Justin said.
``Yes, Roge. That is the man's name. Well, I don't believe it either; at
least, I don't believe the wretched man had an accomplice. But Lord Chereny
does, and the questioner has been ... encouraging him to say you were involved
in the attempt. My father is convinced, for some reason, that you were the
one who tried to strangle him. He will accept no other theory.'' Aza began
to pace. He stopped, fingering the dangling leaf of a golden-green plant
hanging overhead. ``Do you know why he would be so convinced of this? Do you
have any information?''
He looked dismayed when Justin shook his head. ``If you do not, I will be
forced to put you in prison to await trial. I will have no other course to
follow. But I don't want to incarcerate you. I don't think you are guilty,
and I ... I feel some friendship towards you.''
``The only thing I can tell you is that I would doubt Roge's original
confession as much as the accomplice bit. I don't think he is capable of
plotting a murder or cooperating in one. The man isn't a doer,'' Justin said.
Aza told him, ``I would have agreed, but why would he confess if he hadn't
done it? It would be insane.''
``Maybe he has gone insane,'' said Justin. ``Of course, in that case, he
could have murdered, too, I suppose.''
``And I can't release him unless I have proof that he's innocent and just
harmlessly crazy,'' Aza said. ``Even if I do get such proof, you become our
first suspect. You have to know more than that.''
``I don't,'' Justin protested. ``If I knew who did it ...''
``You're lying,'' Aza said. ``You're protecting another Thousandth, or a
servant, or an overseer, someone you think was justified to try to kill my
father. Maybe he hasn't been completely honest with everyone on the
plantation, but murder goes a little beyond fair redress, doesn't it?''
Justin was silent.
``He does have some real reason to suspect you, you know. You did say he
deserved to be punished for cheating on the distribution two years ago. He's
been afraid of you since then, not just this past week,'' Aza said accusingly.
``I said he should try to live in a cabin in Thousan'town for the summer
with a limited ration of fresh water. I said that would be proper punishment
for him. That doesn't make me a murderer---unless he is.'' Justin was
getting angry, a little unfairly. He did have a good idea who had tried to
kill Lord Chereny, just as Aza thought. But he was not refusing to tell
because he was trying to protect the criminal. He simply could not explain
how he knew without revealing damning evidence against himself, and even
giving Aza the information without a source would reveal that he knew more
than any Thousandth planter ever should.
Aza asked, ``Just tell me something ... so I can say you've cooperated.
Give me a hint, come on.'' His voice grew sharper. ``And stop sounding so
bitter! You're exaggerating, and if you keep acting that way, you'll make him
worse. Then I won't be able to help you.''
``Do you really feel that friendly toward me?'' Justin asked with sincere
curiousity. ``I wouldn't have thought so, even an hour ago.''
Aza looked startled. ``Why not? We were good friends, as boys. I think I
spent more time with you than with my family. We haven't been ... recently,
but ...'' he trailed off. ``Why not?'' he repeated.
``Don't you remember how you, well, warned me right before you went North
three years ago? You yelled at me to stay in Thousan'town where I belonged,
not to mix with advanced folk such as yourself, not to presume; by the time
you got back I was presuming quite a bit, investigating your father's practice
of stealing from the poor and selling to the rich. I supposed you would never
want to speak to me again; I certainly didn't care to speak to you.'' Justin
paused, breathing audibly, almost a sigh. ``All right. I can tell you one
thing. After this, please leave me alone---you don't want your father
thinking you are plotting against him with me. This is it, all right? I
don't think it was anyone on this plantation who tried to kill him. And I
don't think he will ever be able to put the criminal in prison, even if he
finds out who it was. Now I have to go. I have seventeen more rows to plant
today.'' Justin stood up.
Aza stood too. ``Let me show you out,'' he said politely. At the door to
the manor, he stopped. ``Good-bye, Justin,'' he said.
``Good-bye.'' Justin picked up his seed sack and his walked back toward
his seventeen rows. He imagined the conversation which might have occurred if
he had told his thoughts to Aza.
``I believe the instigators of the murder attempt are people from another
planet,'' Justin says.
``Another _what_?'' Aza almost yells. ``You mean another plantation, don't
you?''
``Another planet, I said,'' Justin insisted.
``What makes you think there even is such a thing?''
At this point the imaginary conversation breaks down. Justin would not be
able to tell Aza about the Chesetians, and he could think of no other possible
explanation for his theory. Of course, he could say he had heard rumors, but
Aza would question his sanity for believing that kind of rumor with no
evidence. It sounded like wish-fulfillment, since the plantation people were
desperate to be exonerated.
He finished planting around the time Thousan'town would be settling down to
supper---those who had it. He went into his own cabin, where he'd lived alone
since his mother died, and put a half-full pot on the fire, soon to be a quick
meal of boiled grains and vegetables.
He took out the past week's Journal to read while the food cooked. It had
only arrived two days earlier; the Chereny plantation was so far from
Casternor, the city in which the Journal was published, that Justin's copy
always came about ten days late. The Journal was somewhere between a weekly
newspaper and a nonfiction anthology; the writers were given scope to express
their opinions without any attempt at objectivity, but an effort was made to
describe the important events of the week in Nele. The quality varied sharply
between various writers, some of whom wrote regularly and others only once or
twice. Justin himself had had an article published in the Journal, but under
an assumed name. He had called himself Ches Nal Black, in honor of the
Chesetians, his assumed lineage name Nal, and his mother's true lineage name,
Black. Since Justin had never known his father's lineage, he had adopted the
Nal lineage. The Nal had, as far as Justin knew, died out about a hundred
years earlier, leaving only traces of their history. Only one of the Nal had
ever achieved any lasting fame, but that one was Armeny s-Nal, the pioneer
popularizer of the share system which now governed most of the plantations of
Nele. Armeny based his system on traditional ones used long before in very
limited context, but expanded them into a system so flexible and adaptable it
could be suited to feudal- or commune-organized plantations equally well.
After eating his supper, Justin decided to follow Deesay's instructions.
He was too curious to pass up a chance to solve the puzzle she had created,
and felt too threatened by her knowledge to let her continue to pretend she
was an ordinary transient.
He walked over to the transients' cabin. It was a large, wooden building,
capable of housing fifty men and women in need. Twenty or so transients lived
there, fairly comfortably, at most times. During harvest, the building would
hold over eighty, sleeping in rotation. As Justin approached, he saw Deesay
standing outside, looking at rocks she picked up off the paths.
He stepped up beside her, looking at the black and grey stone she held.
``What's so interesting about that rock?'' he asked.
Deesay looked up. ``Oh, hello. It's not this pebble that's interesting,
it's where I found it. This kind of rock is rare on the surface in the South.
In this region, it would have to be imported, or taken from a deep excavation,
or maybe thrown up in an earthquake.''
``How do you know that?'' Justin asked, surprised.
``I know lots of things ...'' Deesay said. ``I've been studying this place,
before I came. Listen, do you have a place here where we can talk
privately?'' She said this with artifical flirtatiousness, then lowered her
voice. ``We have to talk. Thank you for coming over, you did very well.''
He began to walk toward his cabin. Deesay followed. Justin said, ``You
didn't do too well. People here don't know that kind of thing, especially
transients.''
Deesay looked puzzled. ``Don't you get traveling students working in the
fields here? I thought that was common. Supporting themselves as they study
the culture, geology, whatever?''
``I don't know,'' said Justin. ``It sounds reasonable, I guess, but I never
met anyone like that. We don't have students here as transients much, I
suppose, or they pretend not to be---to study the culture better, maybe.''
They arrived at his cabin. Justin opened the door and they walked in.
``I like your furnishings,'' Deesay said.
``No, you don't,'' said Justin. ``I know what you're used to, wherever you
came from. What have you come here for? Why were you told to say---what you
said to me.''
`` `My regards to Starkadder'? When I told a friend I was coming here to
study Nele, he told me he knew a man who was a natural genius at neural
programming, who was living on the Chereny plantation in South Nele. I'd been
learning Easternele, but once you've got that one Southernele isn't so hard.
He asked me to try to persuade you to leave here, and go work for his company.
But I don't think---'' Justin interrupted. ``What company was he talking
about?''
``Chesea Neurnetyx Realcompagne, of course.'' She took a card out of a
concealed pocket.
_________________________
| |
| Ch'entzu Whitesmith |
| Affiliate Partner: Pl. |
| CHESEA Neurnetyx, Rc. |
| ________ |
| |
| XYrr-2522 tty00028 |
|_________________________|
Justin had never heard this name. But the visitors he called Chesetians
had said they were ``from Chesea,'' and he had only assumed they meant their
nation.
``If they wanted me to come work for them, why didn't they ask me before?''
Justin asked.
``How should I know?'' asked Deesay. ``But according to Whitey, your talent
is wasted here. The anti-psychorifling laws prevent any sort of industry
getting started in Nele. There aren't enough natural resources anywhere else
on the planet.''
The implications of this statement hit Justin with the force of ten
gravities. He had thought Nele was the only place on the planet. Or really,
he had not thought about the possibility of other nations.
``Where else on the planet could they go?'' Justin asked.
``Nowhere, I just said there weren't enough natural resources.'' Deesay
asked, ``Well? Are you considering leaving with me? Would you like to be a
professional?''
Justin thought about this. It would solve all his problems: no more chance
of arrest for Lord Chereny's attempted murder; no more need to conceal
Starkadder; no more unfair distribution practices to risk his freedom
protesting. His mother was dead, there was no one he would be leaving behind.
``In a way I can't stay in Nele. A man I had forgotten was my friend, Aza
Chereny, just warned me I may soon be arrested,'' Justin said.
``What? For what crime?'' protested Deesay.
``Someone tried to strangle his father, Lord Chereny, who thinks I'm behind
everything. Aza wanted me to give him some information, so he could say I was
helping with the investigation, but I don't know who did it.''
``Aza sounds like he's really caught between you and his father,'' Deesay
said.
``Well, I don't know. But if I am going to join Chesea, I don't understand
how it works. How would I be allowed to leave Nele?'' asked Justin.
``Simple,'' said Deesay. ``When the _Frame_ comes to take me back, I'll
bring you along.''
``Don't I need a passport, or identification? The Chesetians had those
rainbow coins they said were their equivalent. I thought they didn't think of
taking me with them because they couldn't make me one of those.''
``Absolutely right,'' Deesay said. ``But they will have to take you, and we
will get one of those made for you right away, at the first bordermark we
reach.''
Justin was puzzled. ``Why will they have to take me? That doesn't make
sense.''
She brought a folded paper out of the pocket which had also held the card.
``This,'' she said.
It was ornately decorated and written in a language he did not know.
``What is it?'' Justin asked.
``Well ... it's a unification agreement,'' Deesay said. ``It's something
like a marriage or adoption contract, binding people together into a legal
family.''
``I'm going to marry you? Or adopt you? Or maybe you'll adopt me,''
Justin laughed.
``I said something like,'' said Deesay. ``Ah ... there's something else. I
have to put my real name on it, so you might as well know what that is.
Devise Zar-Leroi. But don't say it in public, or when you aren't near me.''
``Devise?'' Justin asked. ``That's a strange name.''
``It means `invent.' It's better than Deesay: Deesay means `she says.'
I'm more inventive than I am talkative,'' Devise told him.
``When you tell me not to mention you when you're not around, you mean that
gadget that keeps the satellites from seeing you, don't you. If they hear me
talking about you, someone might notice you're invisible,'' Justin said.
``How do you know about that?'' Devise demanded.
Justin explained, ``Starkadder didn't tell me you were coming up behind me.
He announces everyone I don't know or can't see. You fit both categories, but
he didn't say a word. I thought you might be suppressing him, but you
weren't; he just didn't see you, because the satellites didn't.''
``That's some program,'' said Devise. ``No wonder Whitey says you're a
genius.'' She brought the paper to Justin's attention again. ``You can just
sign this,'' she said. ``It's sufficient even if you don't fully understand
the agreement's terms. If I've cheated you, you can sue me for recompense,
but I promise it's all right by our standards.''
Justin had only the vaguest idea what her standards might be like, but he
signed anyway. He was so sure now that he wanted to go, he would sign
anything to insure it.
``Don't change your behavior, act as though nothing has changed. The
_Frame_ is going to show up some time between tomorrow morning and next week.
I'll come over and get you: have everything you want to take assembled and
wrapped to carry. We'll have to leave right away, when they come.'' Devise
left Justin's house.
Justin slept uneasily. He had made the right decision, he thought, but his
life would never again be what he considered normal. He hoped that wouldn't
translate into unhappy.
A commotion outside his door woke him the next morning. He could see
nothing of its cause through his single, narrow window. Justin stood and put
on work clothes.
As he finished dressing, his door was thrust open. The commotion grew
louder, and now Justin could see that half Thousan'town was standing in his
yard. Three overseers had taken the hinges off his door to get it open. Near
the edge of the road, Justin saw Devise in the crowd.
An overseer said, ``I arrest you, Justin, called Nal, left of Black, to
answer the charges of attempted murder and conspiracy against Lord Chereny.
Your property is now in the wardship of justice, and forfeit if you are
guilty. Come with me now.''
As the man spoke, Justin saw Devise moving away, toward the transients'
area.
Starkadder spoke at his back, like a murmur in his ear. ``Roge has finally
been forced to name you as his co-conspirator. You will be imprisoned if you
don't leave the area ... The overseer Lord Chereny sent to arrest you is
arriving now ...'' Justin was frightened. Apparently, whatever it was that
Devise used to block the satellites and Starkadder was ruining Starkadder's
ability to function. Normally it should have warned him of the danger in
plenty of time to escape.
Devise was frightened too. She sent a neuromessage to Chesea Recruitment
officer Sofya Valadiya on _Frame_. The message was somewhat incoherent, but a
translation would be something like: ``The solution has caused more problems.
To remove recruit from habitat, cause trauma in habitat; but trouble captured
recruit and made removal unlikely.''
``What happened? Be calm,'' was Valadiya's reply.
``Two causes: attempt on life of Chereny Senior; interruption of data to
keep my presence unknown. Result: recruit wants to leave, but is imprisoned
and unable.'' Devise sends urgency across neuromessage circuit.
``Calm. Rational. Tranquil. Now, send me a causal chain.'' Valadiya was
used to dealing with field agents under stress; when weren't they having an
emergency?
``Chesea personnel arranged for recruit to be unwanted in Nele. They
arranged he would be suspected of a crime. I arrived. To keep my arrival
secret, I blocked satellite scan. The same blocking transmission interfered
with operation of recruit's neuroprogram. Therefore he was not as well
informed as usual. He was just arrested for the crime Chesea arranged. Now
how can I get him to the _Frame_?''
Devise was ordering her thoughts more clearly under the direct influence of
the neuromessage circuit.
Valadiya told her, ``You have to get him out of prison.''
``How?'' asked Devise.
``That's your job. You're the agent.''
``How much exposure can I allow myself?'' she asked.
``As little as possible/Whatever it takes,'' came an answer loaded with
ambivalence.
Devise said, ``I won't be able to do it. I claim revocation, take me
home.''
``You can't do that,'' Valadiya told her.
``Why not?'' Devise protested.
``You signed that unification agreement, didn't you?'' asked the
recruitment officer.
Devise said, ``Oh. You ... make such plans. I have to get him out of
prison, legally, don't I? Because I signed that unification agreement that
was just supposed to let him off Nele. Now I know why you're in charge of
half of Recruitment.'' She paused, planning her next transmission carefully.
It was an untranslatable joke. Unification agreements were taken seriously,
but their many entanglements made them the subjects of every kind of humor.
Justin was taken into the basement of the manor, where prisoners were kept.
There were six cells, each of which could hold four men. Only two cells were
tenanted. One held three men, the other only one: Roge.
Roge was in bad shape. He looked like a man who had been forced to give
false evidence against his will, Justin thought, which supported what
Starkadder had told him.
The overseer pushed Justin into a cell across from Roge's. The three men
in the cell furthest from Roge were all in their beds, but one raised his
head.
``What's going on?'' he asked.
The overseer said, ``We've got the man Lord Chereny wanted.''
``Justin Black,'' said the man. ``I lose again. Gerd!'' he said loudly,
turning toward the man beside him. ``Gerd! Wake up! You win, I'm only four
up on you now.''
The other prisoner sat up. He was wearing what Justin assumed was a prison
suit, an unusually dirty gray one-piece garment. ``Well, I thought you'd be in
here. Roge is wrong about everything.''
The overseer was locking Justin into his cell. ``Shut your mouths, all of
you,'' he said, leaving them alone.
Roge looked over at Justin. ``Sorry,'' he said hoarsely.
``Did you do it?'' Justin asked. ``I told Aza I didn't think you had tried
to kill his father, but I'm not sure he believed me.''
``Why would I confess to it, if I hadn't done it?'' Roge asked.
``Why would you confess if you had?'' Justin countered.
``Guilt, maybe,'' suggested Roge.
``I suppose. I just can't see you as the kind of man ... '' Justin trailed
off.
Roge said, ``I can't see myself as that kind of person either. I just
don't even know why I tried to strangle him. I don't even know why I
confessed to it. I don't understand anything.''
Justin did not know what to say to answer him. The other prisoners went
back to sleep, now that there was nothing going on.
Soon Justin, with nothing else to do, went to sleep too.
The rescue turned out not to be so difficult. Devise had not realized that
the ``prison'' Justin was being taken to was only Lord Chereny's residence.
She remembered that Aza Chereny had tried to help Justin, and knew he would be
her key into the manor.
She changed her clothing. Devise was now the model of a Lord's daughter
from one of the wealthier Easternele plantations.
``Hello,'' she said to the maid at the door. ``I've come to visit Aza.''
The maid welcomed her in. Devise was led to the plant-filled study, where Aza
was working on a boxed row of spiky flowers. ``Aza Chereny,'' she said.
``I've been told so much about you.'' The maid left. As soon as she had,
Devise stepped over to Aza. ``Listen. I know you've arrested Justin,'' she
began.
Aza said, ``What do you---''
She continued, ignoring his attempt to interrupt. ``You don't want him in
prison, but you can't let him stay free here, right? Well, I'm going to take
him off your hands. You'll never see him again, but he'll be free, and
happier than he could be here. All you have to do is let me have him.''
Aza wanted to believe her, but didn't understand her at all. ``I really
don't know what you're talking about.''
``I'm just going to smuggle him out of here. No one in Nele will ever see
him again. No one but you will know how he escaped.'' Devise waited. There
wasn't much time; the _Frame_ would touch down in less than an hour.
Doubting his own sanity, Aza took her down a back staircase into the
basement. He unlocked all the cell doors, as she directed. Then he took her
on a tour of the manor. He noticed her sprinkling a pale yellow powder on the
floors, everywhere they went.
The yellow powder all over the manor was a neuroerase formula Devise
carried for use in emergencies. The overseers and servants woke the next day
with only traces of memory, unable to explain how their wards had vanished.
The former prisoners woke in the fields, unable to say how they had escaped.
Justin woke in his room on the _Frame_, knowing only that he was no longer
a prisoner of Lord Chereny ... and no longer a prisoner of Nele.
______________________________________________________________________________
Dana Goldblatt never has admitted to preferring science fiction over other
forms of fiction, except when it was cheaper at used bookstores. She started
writing stories for fun in high school, but didn't finish any until after she
graduated. When she was an editor of Brandeis University's literary magazine
Kether, she started writing a lot more often. Dana is currently a graduate
student in computer science, and is still attending Brandeis.
[email protected]
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
The King's Challenge
by Cerise Palmer
Copyright ©1990
______________________________________________________________________________
Sorrille trudged slowly through the gauntlet of curious townsfolk, silently
cursing the guard who had bound his hands so exceptionally snugly behind his
back. What keen satisfaction it would give him to smite these shabby oafs,
with their bulging eyes riveted to his progress and their dirt-smudged faces
predictable masks of cruel delight or stupid pity.
Sorrille, it must be conceded, was a bit of an arrogant bastard.
The townsfolk watched him dumbly at first, too conscious of his former
power to risk their scrawny necks taunting him. But as he neared the city
gates it began to dawn on them that he would like as not never return to repay
their rude treatment of him, and they rose to the occasion accordingly. Women
lifted their aprons to their mouths and tittered as their young brats hurled
scraps of rotten food and clods of dung at his head. A toothless old man
hopped up and down on one leg in a fit of ecstatic mirth, then swung his
balancing stick roundly at Sorrille's shin. One of the guards flanking
Sorrille gave the old gargoyle a friendly shove that toppled him into a mud
puddle.
``Now, now, venerable grandpap, this here's a royal subject and his escort.
Mind yer manners,'' the guard guffawed, giving Sorrille an insultingly
familiar slap on the back. Sorrille curled his lip savagely, unable to decide
who he would thrash to a pulp first---guard or gaffer---were he suddenly given
the opportunity to do so.
``Say there, lordling, send us yer bones from the Charred Lands so's we'll
know yer made yer trip safely,'' called a paunchy shopkeeper, grinning
obscenely as he clapped his hands to his jouncing belly.
``Oi don't know,'' countered a stableboy, clutching at Sorrille's cloak,
``but what he'd do more kerreck to berkweeth us his foinery now. The Children
of the Charred Lands ain't pertickelar on how their victims is dressed.''
Sorrille pulled himself free of the creature's stinking grip and struggled
briefly but earnestly with the rope pretzeled about his wrists. ``Don't tempt
your fate, dropping. I'll see to it that your coffin is fit for Onri
himself.''
The stableboy laughed shrilly. ``Oh, en ain't he a foine one fer threats.
Where he's going there won't even be none to tuck him underground. May the
jeckels foind yer corpse most deloightfully tasty, good me lord.'' His
pseudo-court bow, complete with manual flourishes, sent the guard at
Sorrille's left elbow into convulsions of nasal glee.
``See how respectful we all are,'' he said, between snorts, ``even to
one''---here he preceded his words with the appropriate action---``who's about
to be booted from the city.''
Sorrille rolled up from the ground as the stone gate whined plaintively to
a close behind him. The peepdoor opened just long enough for the guard behind
it to drop a tiny bone dagger and a handkerchief-full of biscuits at
Sorrille's feet. ``Protection and wayfarin' provisions,'' chuckled the guard,
before slamming the door briskly in Sorrille's face.
Muttering under his breath, Sorrille spent the next several minutes
applying the minuscule blade of the dagger to his bonds, which frayed
sufficiently at last for him to work his hands free. He slipped the dagger
into his tunic belt without any real faith in its future utility, then turned
to gather the meager contents of the handkerchief, which had spilled loose on
contact with the ground. ``Sons of dogs,'' he hissed, scraping the dust from
what might well be the last meal he would ever eat.
For the next several hours, as he plodded across the ugly stretch of bare
plain surrounding Renith, Sorrille did little but reflect bitterly on the many
advantages of the royal table. For one thing, one always left it with one's
stomach satiated. For another, its multitudinous delicacies were invariably
accompanied by an endless flow of mildly intoxicating---and thirst-quenching
---potations. Then, last but not least, one was invited to attend it no less
than four times daily, and while a score of musicians and dancers might very
well appear out of nowhere to entertain one, it was inconceivable that either
fanged rodents or fist-sized flies would ever be allowed to join the
festivities.
Flailing his arms furiously at an especially noisy and persistent specimen
of the second category, Sorrille began to regret having exhausted his supply
of biscuits so rapidly. True, he had not eaten for two days prior to being
paraded through and then expelled from the city; the king's henchmen had
tactfully ignored his existence from the moment they thrust him into the
palace dungeons to the moment they returned to execute His Most August and
Senile Majesty Onri's sentence upon poor hotheaded ex-Duke Sorrille.
Unfortunately, though, Sorrille was now entirely without any likely prospects
of obtaining life-sustaining nourishment, and thirsty as a bloodsucker to
boot. Sometime tomorrow, if he kept up a rigorous pace, he might reach the
Ashen Forest's cornucopia of snowberries, bone fruit, and mirkwater. But to
partake of aught of the Forest's tempting bounty would quickly ensure that
Sorrille became not one of the Shadowchildren's victims but rather one of
their numbers.
Sorrille toyed sardonically with the notion that were he in fact
metamorphosed into a deathless and lifeless ghoul, he could probably catch up
with Onri on the next extra-urban hunting expedition and hasten the old boor's
end with an exquisitely nightmarish haunting. Of course, his own existence
thenceforward would hardly be an enviable one. No, he reasoned, with a
forbearance uncharacteristic of him, that manner of revenge would clearly cost
him far too much. Better to meet Onri's insane challenge---to return to Renith
with a tame, captive Shadowchild---and behold the king dumbstruck with
apoplexy when he learned that his challenge had been met. The doddering
bastard's crown would be brusquely removed from his head and set gently on
Sorrille's own, Onri's radiant young Belisa would joyously accept his marriage
proposal, and every courtier who had ever done him an ill turn would be
summarily drawn-and-quartered, or, better yet, driven screaming off a cliff by
his pet Shadowchild. It was no doubt a plan of action with much to recommend
it, provided Sorrille discovered, within the next day, how to avert certain
death and then coax a supernatural nemesis to behave itself.
For the time being, however, he would have to concentrate on such minor
though pressing matters as how to avert pangs of hunger and where to spend the
night. In solution to the first problem, Sorrille seized a handful of scrubby
plains clover and began to chew it greedily; the shepherds and cartdrivers of
Lower Renith did swear by it, after all, as a `rousin' stimulant,'' and while
the stuff surely wouldn't fill his stomach, it might at least hoodwink it into
quiescence. The second problem was considerably larger, as the plains wind was
a wild and ravenous beast by night. Unless Sorrille could find or devise some
sort of shelter by sunset, he was likely to spend the next moonspan being
knocked down and tumbled about till his clothes were tattered and his limbs
bruised and bloody. After surveying the discouragingly level landscape before
him for several minutes, Sorrille concluded that there was nary a tree nor
shrub to hide behind or cling to. Then, with a burst of what felt like forced
and desperate optimism, he spotted a greyish blotch not too far in the
distance which might conceivably be a rock outcrop of some sort. Resigning
himself to the possibility that he was travelling all-too-eagerly toward a
nonexistent haven he reminded himself repeatedly that it was just as good a
destination as any other.
As luck would have it, the blotch was much further off than Sorrille had
guessed. The disc of the sun had turned from hot gold to warm peach to an
ominously cool carmine and begun to slip below the horizon before he felt even
vaguely like he had gotten anywhere. Determined nonetheless to reach his goal,
he quickened his already lively pace in a last-ditch attempt to outrace the
twilight. He was dourly preparing to entertain notions of defeat when a
luminous whorl of milky air came spinning up to greet him.
``Curse the plains and the dog-gods who made them!'' Sorrille bellowed, by
way of greeting, then broke into a thoroughly antisocial run. It wasn't until
the glistening funnel-cloud had enveloped him without so much as flaring his
cloak hem that he realized that being battered by the plains wind was the
least of his current worries. For, standing in a triumphant circle around him,
their diaphanous wings folded, their black nostrils and lips twitching, were
four Shadowchildren. Time froze then, for an unspeakably long moment in which
countless worlds came into and passed out of existence, and Sorrille watched
with helpless fascination as the silver branches of the creatures' hair
crackled and hissed like snow-crusted kindling on a winter fire. A pair of
shimmering claws began to caress his face with an eerie, hypnotic tenderness,
and he found himself sinking pleasantly and endlessly into a deep cavern pool
whose dark waters streamed with phosphorescent tendrils. Lulled nearly to
insensibility, he recollected somehow that he must surface for air. Proud
that his instinct for survival could withstand even the delicious pull of
enchanted slumber, he willed himself alert, blinking hard to bring the blurry
twin red orbs before him into focus. Finally, his vision cleared, and he met
the Shadowchild's blind steady gaze directly. Gods be damned! He had withstood
nothing; while he had been doing the backfloat in his imaginary watering-hole,
the Children had been collectively sucking at his thoughts like a gang of
slithering lampreys. Growing faint with the effort, Sorrille managed to wrench
his head sideways and down until the only thing he saw was an elongated,
insubstantial foot. The Children convulsed with disappointment, and the one
who had been peeping uninvited into the windows of his soul caressed his face
once again, with the insistent frenzy of a newly cast-off lover.
``Do not deny us, Sorrille,'' it coaxed. Its voice was soundless yet
reverberant, rather like wind scraping the barrel of a tongueless bell.
``You meant to seek us,'' another intoned. ``Do not despair if we have
found you first.''
``Are we not wondrous to behold?'' inquired a third. ``As lovely as
Belisa?'' For a fraction of a second, the Child's voice took on Belisa's very
air of well-practiced coquetry, and Sorrille could picture the creature
raising a claw artfully to its scintillant coiffure. He shuddered to realize
how deep a draught of his mind the four had drunk in. He fought not to look
up and meet the Childrens' eyes again, meanwhile wondering whether the fact of
their obvious blindness could not somehow be used to his advantage.
``What is it you want?'' he demanded, as if he were addressing a peasant
rabble and standing in a perfectly upright and authoritative position.
``What is it we want?'' came the mocking reply.
``What is it we want?''
``We want to sup on your heart.'' The caressing claws found their way to
Sorrille's chest. ``Is it a kind heart?''
``Is it a bold heart? or a bitter heart?''
``Or perhaps it is a broken heart. How we savor a broken heart.''
``What is it we want?''
``Only to sup on your mind. Is it a keen mind, or a weak one?'' The claws
brushed Sorrille's temples.
``Perhaps it is a broken mind.''
``How we savor a broken mind.'' The claws tangled longingly in his hair.
``What is it we want?''
``We want to see your eyes, pretty lordling.'' Again the voice was
Belisa's. ``Will you not show us your eyes, pretty, pretty lordling?''
Sorrille rolled over, growling at the overly soft royal bed, then grunted
with satisfaction at the taste of sweet ale on Belisa's lips. He was about to
scold her playfully for cuckolding the king with such wanton frequency when
the unnaturally dark lustre of her mouth roused in him the first full-fledged
panic of his adult life. He began to thrash about wildly, expecting to feel
not one but four pairs of claws groping for his vital organs. Instead, he
discovered himself hurling through the amorous Shadowchild's form as if it
were no more than a pillar of smoke.
He ran without seeing, his arms raised protectively around his head, his
feet pounding the plains with such force that it seemed the whole world was a
vibrating drumskin. Ground and sky alternately flew apart and then collided,
and between them was Sorrille, just barely managing to keep his balance. Fear
roiled in his skull like breakers slamming against a cliff, then spilled over
and over again into the forgotten lagoon beyond it. He gasped for breath as
if he were drowning, or as if there were too little air in the sky. Like the
plains-wind itself, he unsettled feeding vultures, alarmed a pair of rutting
dogs. And all the while, the Shadowchildren kept pace with him effortlessly,
their ghostly feet skimming the ground, their voiced entangling him in a
perpetual litany of taunts and threats which tickled the inside of his ears
like the echo of his own crazed thoughts.
Finally, he could endure no more. He turned to face them with the
wrath-contorted countenance of a hero scourging the infernal regions, raised
his arms prophetically, and cried ``Begone!'' in a tone that fell somewhere
between breathlessness and hysteria. As if to humor, one last time, his
ill-conceived attempt to elude them, the Shadowchildren shrank back a few
yards in mock terror then burst into discordant hilaria and began to approach
him once again. Sorrille backed away from them involuntarily, in the
measured, almost ritual dance of quarry that knows itself doomed. And then he
was falling. And then slipping, with sublime gratitude, into the deepest
midnight of unconsciousness.
Some landscapes are deceptively monochromatic; the eye, drowning in a wash
of the one color that begins to seem like no-color, searches frantically for a
blazing streak of difference, for some brilliant rebel hue. Instead, it
discovers the myriad nuances that reside in even the most economical of
palettes. And so a dismally grey landscape, for example, becomes first a
welter of possibilities and then an intricate tapestry of shadings and
modulations. Steel-grey yields dove's-breast grey and birch grey and the grey
of mute dawn and fog-misted lakes. Then synaesthesia sets in, and grey becomes
the odor of wood-smoke, the chime of plashing water, a morning wind beaded
with dew. The senses unveil themselves to a symphony of grey chords, textures,
glimmering motes, and sometimes the Grey Lady who orchestrates it makes her
feathery descent and presses a goblet of silver-grey wine to one's lips...
Coughing violently as the bitter cold stuff made its way down his throat,
Sorrille hoisted himself into a sitting position on the thatch-bed of dried
balsam beneath him. He studied his surroundings long enough to conclude that
he was in some sort of mountain aerie, disconcertingly higher than he had ever
been before. After reeling with vertigo for a few moments, he turned his
attention to the strange-looking being that had apparently appointed herself
his nursemaid. Draped loosely in some iridescent cloth the indefinite color of
a cloud, she was tall and supple as a young tree, with an oxymoronic
combination of smooth, glowing skin and bone-white hair that made her age
impossible to determine. Her onyx-black eyes were so widely spaced that it was
difficult to look into both of them simultaneously, and her nose was aquiline
in a cruelly graceful way. Altogether, her aspect was unsettlingly predatory.
Sorrille assembled his facial features into an expression of rapt
attentiveness tinged with urbane wit. ``Would you find me presumptuous were I
to ask you where I am?''
``Your manners are those of the court,'' she replied, scrutinizing him as
if he were a puzzle to be solved. ``This is my dwelling-site. Did you wish to
find yourself elsewhere?''
``On the contrary. I am delighted to find myself here, for I had not
expected to survive the night.'' He paused while she tended the small fire
near his bed. ``I was fleeing the bane of the Charred Lands---the
Shadowchildren. Four of them.''
Her face registered neither surprise nor fear. ``So I suspected. Only a
fool or a hunted man would fail to avoid my wolf-trap. The Children must have
lost your scent once you fell. Be glad that they are blind.''
``Indeed, I am overjoyed. Unfortunately, I lost consciousness while falling
into your trap, and am consequently ignorant of what has transpired since that
event. Would you be so kind as to share with me any information you may have
gleaned on the subject?''
``A great many circumlocutions,'' she observed, with a trace of what seemed
like amusement. Then, as if it were unnecessary to respond to him, she removed
some strips of cooking meat from the fire and brought them to him. ``You are
no doubt very hungry,'' she said, seeing the flicker of avid interest on his
face. ``Then it is wisest not to eat too quickly.''
Finally, while Sorrille fought to obey her advice, she returned arbitrarily
to his unanswered question. ``Some things I will tell you. Others I will
not.'' She smiled at him vaguely. ``The more you tell me of yourself, the
more I may tell you of myself. But still I will not tell you all.''
Bristling with irritation at her monosyllabic riddling, Sorrille confined
himself to inviting her discretion in such matters. She smiled again, a bit
less vaguely.
``I am Naraya. I found you in my wolf-trap last night, cold but safe in
the absence of lupine companions. The Children had already scattered, as they
would have, in any event, upon my arrival. They do not relish my presence.''
In response to Sorrille's wary, questioning look, she added, ``Calm yourself.
If I am not quite the same as you, neither am I unnatural or dangerous.'' She
smiled yet again, this time with the obvious intention of reassuring her
guest. ``I brought you here,'' she concluded, ``and now I am eager to hear the
tale of your adventures. Few men venture this far from Renith city, and you
seem poorly equipped for a journey.''
``I am not travelling of my own accord.'' As the indignity of his situation
struck him anew, he clenched a fist till the knuckles whitened, then glanced
up with a vehement sullenness to meet Naraya's amused and knowing look. ``But
of course you had already guessed as much.''
She nodded her assent. ``But what I have guessed or failed to guess is
unimportant. Please honor me with the telling of your tale.''
He rose from the thatch-bed, paced himself into a more courteous mood, and
returned to his place by the fire. ``Very well, lady. I shall disclose all to
you, as you have been a most gracious and generous hostess.'' He bowed with
curt but sincere gratitude, then sat.
``I am Sorrille, Duke of Renith, only son of the first of the nine landed
families. I was banished yesterday morning at the order of Onri himself. It
was an astonishingly merciful punishment for the crime of treason, which the
king was most fully aware I had not committed. Were I in fact a traitor to
Renith, my head would be gracing a pike at the city gate this very moment.
Instead, I have been magnanimously sent off to wander about the wastelands,
and hopefully perish in them, while Onri enjoys the talk currently circulating
about his wise, just, and seemingly perpetual reign. My real crime,
incidentally, was dallying with the queen.''
Surprise flickered in Naraya's depthless eyes. ``You risked the king's
wrath for a few hours' pleasure? Was this royal matron so terribly alluring?
Or perhaps she had ensorcelled you?''
``Belisa is young and fair, and we had been lovers for many months. We were
caught when a valet jealous of Belisa's favor spied on us and then brought the
king to keep him company at the keyhole. Had things been otherwise, I might be
in the lady's arms this very moment, bathed in the gilt sunlight of her
person. She is truly glorious.''
``So I would imagine. How came she to be the wife of an aging monarch? Even
I know that Onri has ruled in Renith for many decades.''
``She was one of the many spoils he returned with from a recent campaign in
the Quartz Mountains. She was a princess there; Onri captured her brother
along with her. The poor fellow died in the royal dungeons last year, while
Belisa lingers on as a pampered prisoner of the palace.''
``Apparently she has managed to enjoy a few small liberties.'' Naraya
curled her pale lips mischievously, then caught Sorrille's slightly annoyed
look. ``But forgive me, I have interrupted again. Please continue.''
``To make a long story short, Belisa loathes Onri, and Onri would fain have
his kingdom believe otherwise. He is fond of boasting that he is 'more a man
than any young pup in the city,' as evidenced by his youthful queen's
passionate devotion to him. At nearly every banquet in the palace, he
pretends to grow extravagantly drunk as soon as Belisa retires, then dares any
man at the table to try and divert her favor from him. He laughs uproariously
and says he'll forfeit his crown to the first who succeeds in doing so. It's
not quite senile swaggering, though---more a senile stratagem for luring any
potential cuckolders into making less-than-careful moves. Onri wants to know
who his rivals in love are before they so much as cast a longing look in
Belisa's direction. In my case he found out after the fact, and had me
arrested on grounds of treason rather than let anyone discover I'd added a
pair of horns to the ornamentation on his crown.''
Naraya clicked her tongue and chuckled. ``You were fortunate to escape
with your life, it seems. What possessed the king to be so lenient?''
``Belisa's pleading, no doubt. His compromise was to have me die out of
sight instead of in a public execution. And his last perverse joke was
inviting me to return with a Shadowchild and claim the throne I had 'tried to
gain through most depraved and foul subterfuge.' That was the statement he
made before his court in the most smug and self-righteous tone he could
muster; only I heard the tremor of insane fury in his voice.''
``And what will you do now? Lay siege to Renith, demanding your
lady-love?'' Naraya's voice was gently mocking.
``Actually, I'm planning to take Onri up on his challenge. He did present
it before a score of witnesses, so he can't possibly refuse to honor it. I
think Belisa would enjoy being queen of Renith were there a gout-free and
virile king at her side. And I'm increasingly taken with the prospect of
trying on Onri's crown for size.'' Sorrille grinned as if he were plotting a
schoolboy prank.
``And all you need do is return to Renith with a Shadowchild in tow?''
asked Naraya, pretending amazement.
``That's correct.''
``Simply capture a Child and take it along home with you?''
``Exactly.''
She burst into peals of laughter so infectious that before long Sorrille
was doubled over, and the echoes of their combined amusement were rippling the
chill mountain air.
Sorrille spent the better part of the afternoon exploring Naraya's aerie
like a shepherd on some long-awaited holiday. Shortly after feeding him,
Naraya had taken Sorrille on a brief tour of its points of interest: a
purple-hued hot spring, a rock ledge curtained by the pristine cascade of a
waterfall, several giant birches with foliage so dense they obscured the sun
wholly. Then she had excused herself to rest and left him to his own devices.
After luxuriating in the hot spring, until his body remembered nothing of the
last night's bruising fall, he lay naked on the ledge, sunning in the warm
bright mist the waterfall so obligingly exuded. Feeling his strength return
at last, he shook the dust from his clothes and donned them with arrogant
grace. True enough, his dragon's hide boots were quite scuffed, and a few
rubies were loose in the hem of his cloak. Still, considering the events of
the previous three days, he had done a remarkable job of avoiding
dishevelment. Even the puny bone dagger had finally proved of worth; its
blade turned out to be ideally suited for scraping the stubble off one's
cheek.
Sorrille's feeling of self-satisfaction was somewhat undercut by the fact
that he had no idea whatsoever where he was. When he had asked Naraya, over
breakfast, to give him a geographical update, she had calmly reiterated that
``there were some things she chose not to tell him,'' and then, as if to
reduce his exasperation, added that her aerie ``was where it was.'' So now,
having roamed about the place idly for long enough, Sorrille began to inspect
it diligently for some clue to his whereabouts.
The first conclusion he arrived at, after treading every inch of the aerie
twice, was that it was completely devoid of any visible access. Nearly an
acre broad, it was bordered on three sides by perilously steep slopes and on
the fourth by the mountain's utmost peak. ``How on earth did she bring me
here?'' he muttered repeatedly, more out of dumb wonder than out of any real
hope that his strange hostess would enlighten him upon her return. Next he
devoted himself to identifying whatever he could in the distance, a task
rendered nearly impossible by the mountain's obstructive tiara of clouds.
Finally, he made out the palace spires of Renith in the south, the foothills
of the Quartz Mountains to the west, and the snarled black treetops of the
Ashen Forest appallingly near, in the east. His educated hunch was that in
the north, behind the towering peak of Naraya's mountain, the Forest
proliferated in yet more wild and unsightly abandon; it did, after all, extend
out of sight in that general direction.
With the directness of a homing pigeon, Sorrille's mind returned over and
over again to the problem of how the willowy, less-than-massive Naraya had
transported him to her aerie. He weighed more than she did, certainly,
especially when unconscious, and there were no trails up the mountainside
along which she could have dragged him in a litter or led him on horseback.
Not that he'd even seen any horses grazing, or any empty litters lying about.
He shook his head in bewilderment, staring absently at Renith all the while,
as if it were the source of his confusion. And then it struck him: Renith
looked mournfully remote not so much because of the shroud of mountain- mist
he was forced to view it through, as because of the fact that it was a good
deal further than a day's walk in the distance. Naraya's steel-grey peak was
none other than the rock outcrop he had tried so desperately to reach last
sunset, transformed from mountain to molehill by some weird trick of the
waning light.
``Who is she, and how did she bring me here?'' he muttered once more,
setting off to find the lady and demand that she satisfy his more than idle
curiosity. No longer solicitous of her need for rest, he searched the aerie
with noisy, impatient movements. He was red-faced and panting by the time he
was willing to concede that her present whereabouts were a complete mystery to
him. He sighed the terse sigh of a courtier resummoning his dignity, and
wondered whether he were any less a captive in this uncharted Shangri-la than
he had been in Onri's dungeons.
He had consumed a hearty portion of roasted meat strips and was irritably
poking the fire into a more respectable form of defense against the chilly
starlight when Naraya emerged noiselessly from behind a curtain of night-heavy
foliage. The leaves began to rustle in the wake of her silver-clad form like
children whispering in stealthy fits and starts; no doubt if she turned to
face them, they would lapse again into frozen silence. As she approached
Sorrille, the fire blazed in miniature duplicate in the glossy black disks of
her eyes; he shuddered, disturbed anew by his inability to encompass her
widely-spaced gaze in his own. Smiling, she placed her hands on either side
of his face and bent down to kiss him, rousing in him a dizzying mixture of
primal terror and unmistakable desire. He felt weightless yet lethargic, too
sleepy to resist her will as it enveloped him like the burning glow of a naked
sun. He was perfectly aware he was being enchanted, as he had not been when
the Shadowchild laid similarly caressing hands on him not so long ago. And
yet, beneath his indignance at Naraya's audacity lay a strangely calm
acceptance of it and even amused curiosity about what she would do next.
``I have not had so pleasing a guest as you in some time,'' she said,
stepping back a few paces to study him. Vines of honey-red firelight crept
through her white hair again and again, till it seemed she was wearing one of
the golden hairnets currently fashionable among the ladies of Renith court.
``And is witchery a customary feature of your hospitality?'' inquired
Sorrille with a laugh, as he blinked himself alert.
``I was not aware that it was. Do I seem to require such stratagems?''
She regarded him with an injured expression and stiffened slightly.
``I meant no offense, lady, but your kiss tasted so unlike any I have known
before that I could only explain it in terms of magic.''
``Kisses are among those things that be which require no explanation.''
Apparently Sorrille had soothed her ruffled feathers somewhat; she had resumed
her proud, willowy stance, and a look faintly recognizable as coyness
flickered across her unsettling features. ``Do I seem to require
stratagems?'' she repeated, with eerie self-assurance, and began to unlace the
bodice of her pearlescent gown. Topaz points of firelight glinted in the
fabric as it slid back from her shoulders slowly, slowly, and then dropped
into a silver pool at her ankles, revealing the most spendid female form
Sorrille had ever been privileged to behold. A sculptor, Sorrille thought in
amazement, would kill for the opportunity to immortalize it in marble or
alabaster, and Naraya's flesh, with its unearthly pallor and flawless luster,
did resemble the rarest and most costly specimen of either stone. Moreover,
her ample but firmly-molded curves were nothing if not statuesque, though her
long limbs and the rhythmic sweep to her walk suggested a sensuality not much
inclined toward standing still. Accustomed to the initial modesty and
restraint of Renith's noble women, Sorrille could not repress the chord of
awe-tinged uneasiness her aura of untrammeled wildness struck deep within him.
``I take it you plan to seduce me,'' he said, in an effort to stall her, to
reverse the weights between them so that he had the advantage. But she did not
answer, did not even smile at him in the pertly roguish manner Belisa tended
to employ when she knew she was doing something shockingly out of character.
Before he had the chance to contemplate fully the striking contrasts between
the two women, deft strong fingers were whispering over his chest, unclasping
his cloak, his belt, unlacing his tunic, coaxing his blood to roar in his
temples. For a moment, he thought he heard Naraya's voice in his ear, soothing
and insistent, telling him to ``forget Belisa'' with each husky exhaled
breath. The next he knew, her lips were on his and, wrapped in naught but the
cool night air and her limbs, he was spinning endlessly through a skyful of
bizarre and vivid dreams. The first involved being dragged aloft to go
crashing through a smothering run of treetops with the headlong momentum of a
plains-wind. Then a net of gilded foliage was whirling into a blurry cyclone,
bursting apart, hurling Naraya and him at the stars, where they swooped in
soaring arcs from constellation to constellation. The spheres embroidered
music about them, dazzling improvisations woven of twanging crystalline
threads and liquid silver notes. He tried to see Naraya's face but couldn't;
they were tumbling too rapidly from the precipice they had been poised upon
the instant before. They swung into an upward curve, cast their shadows on the
moon, plummeted down and down and down until they were skimming the
pewter-and-black silk surface of a lake. Then they were rising in whimsical
curlicues, like a tongue of breeze lapping up air, when a low-hanging cloud
suddenly wrapped them in its gauzy cloak of ether, its plumes of
sleep-inducing smoke...
Then it was pearl-pink early dawn and Naraya was gently prodding him
awake...
Sorrille made a drowsy mental note of the fact that he was sprawled naked
on some sort of crop-furred hide blanket, and that Naraya, who was fully
attired and groomed, looked a great deal more dignified than he. He was
fumbling on his clothing with as much haste as he could muster, planning to
ask, when he was properly dressed, about her curious predilection for being up
and about in the wee hours of the morning. He was about to address her with an
expression of wry amusement when she focused her anything-but-crossed eyes on
him and smiled in a disconcertingly self-assured, even patronizing way.
``I am more than a little interested,'' she announced, ``in enjoying nights
such as the last again.''
``Indeed,'' he replied, feeling oddly piqued, ``you seem pleased with what
transpired. By the way, what did transpire? Did you, perhaps, strew some
vision-provoking powder on the fire while my attention was fixed elsewhere?
You could not have tampered with my food or drink, since I had prepared it
myself and finished it before you appeared.''
She tossed back her granite-colored mane and laughed with abandon for
several moments. Then she fell abruptly silent and regarded Sorrille with a
sober look that revealed nothing of what she was thinking or feeling. ``Some
things I will tell you. Others I will not.'' She briefly tended the fire she
had started while he was sleeping, then picked up where she had left off when
he so cavalierly interrupted her. Even the patronizing smile was back in
place. ``I enjoyed last night and am quite anxious for you to prolong your
stay with me. But no doubt you will require more of an incentive to remain
than a simpler reminder of my charms can provide. After all, your memories of
this queen Belisa''---she mispronounced the name in what seemed a calculated
fashion---``are bound to distract you sooner or later, and I will have none
but an attentive lover.''
Sorrille snorted haughtily at her boldness. ``I pay attention only to that
which I find myself interested in.''
``I am sure of it. That is why I have conceived of a proposition I think
you will find most fascinating.''
``Indeed? Do then, by all means, propose it.''
``Agree to be my guest for six more nights, and at the end of that time I
will assist you in snaring a Shadowchild. Then I will see to it that you are
properly provisioned for a triumphant return to Renith.''
Sorrille remained silent for several minutes, torn between the desire to
laugh aloud and the sinking feeling that Naraya was perfectly in earnest, no
matter how mad her proposal sounded. Then he remembered what she had said
about the Children fleeing her approach, like timid birds or squirrels, and
decided he would encourage her to elaborate on her invitation. After all, he
had nothing to lose, and she might unwittingly reveal useful information to
him. Furthermore, he hadn't really resolved the problem of where he would go
next, and even were he to descend safely the near-perpendicular slopes of
Naraya's mountain, he would find himself in constant mortal peril on the
ground below. Accepting the assistance of an expert regional guide was
clearly the wisest thing he could do, even if that guide had both albino
tresses and lusty designs on his person.
``I'd be delighted to extend my visit here. But perhaps, before I change my
travel plans, you ought to tell me more about the rewards that my staying on
would assure me of. I do not like to enter contractual arrangements
half-informed, and what you are proposing is akin to such an arrangement, is
it not?''
``Indeed. I remark upon your judiciousness.'' She smiled drily as he nodded
his acknowledgment of the compliment. ``If you will continue to be my guest,
for the number of nights I have already specified, I will procure for you a
substance which renders the Shadowchildren docile. Then I will help you to
administer this substance, and, finally, you will be free to return to Renith
and unseat its monarch and your rival in love.''
``Most intriguing. And just how is it that this substance affects the
Children as you say it does?''
``The Children are ghouls at present, indeed. But once they were human.
This substance, the exract of a plant named mnisse, wakes a Child's memory of
the human state. In its grip, Children pass quickly through self-horror to a
boundless gratitude towards that saviour who has raised them from evil. Like
once-wild dogs, they lick joyously the hand which breaks their will.''
``This mnisse sounds formidable. Why haven't you simply used it to
encourage the Children to relocate---in Renith, say?''
``The effect of the mnisse is but temporary.''
``Ah.'' Sorrille shuddered to think what might befall him should the stuff
prove more temporary than anticipated.
``And I am quite happy with the Charred Lands as they are. The
Shadowchildren have kept my mountain free of intruders, though I doubt it
would give them pleasure to know they had been of service to me. It is well
for me that I alone know where to find the mnisse.''
``And also that the Children know you have the means to control them.
That's why they run when they see you coming.''
``You are correct. With the help of the mnisse, I brought unpleasant fates
to a score of them, in order to warn their fellows against disturbing me. It
was a successful ploy.''
Much to his own surprise, Sorrille found himself believing her, even subtly
inclining toward enthusiasm for the project she had outlined. ``I don't
suppose,'' he said at last, ``that the length of my stay here is negotiable?''
Naraya laughed at him. ``Such impatience in a would-be monarch. Onri has
devoted a lifetime to Renith's glory, while you, my comely upstart, begrudge
it a mere handful of nights.''
More than a handful, thought Sorrille.
The following six days were uneventful in the usual sense of that word;
Sorrille came before long to anticipate Naraya's comings and goings, and even
to enjoy without undue mistrust her disorienting midnight visits. For not only
did he survive each rendezvous intact, but he also began to develop a taste
for what he consistently perceived as airborne sexual acrobatics. He was
faintly disturbed by the fact that Naraya was so mysteriously nocturnal a
creature; she seemed continually to vanish while he slept and then again for
the bulk of the daylight hours. He spent those hours in solitary idling,
alternately wondering where it was she went and how it was she got there, and
imagining what it would be like to be Renith's king and Belisa's rightful
lover. Even while he soared from pinnacle to pinnacle of ecstasy with Naraya,
he remained residually conscious that his passion for Belisa had in no measure
abated. And, strangely enough, he had the impression that Naraya was perfectly
aware of his feelings and yet completely unperturbed by them. She was a
fascinating being, but somehow a faintly revolting one as well. He looked
forward with no little eagerness to the end of his sojourn with her.
She approached him on the sixth evening not with glittering magic and
seduction in her eyes, but with a vial of crimson liquid. Sorrille, completing
his day's-end repast by the fire, sprung to his feet so hastily that his wine
goblet was upended.
``Yes,'' she said, anticipating his query, ``this is the mnisse. Have done
with your meal and we will pay a call to the Ashen Forest.''
``Never mind the meal. Why keep the Children waiting?'' He dabbed the
corners of his mouth with a deplorably grease-stained silken handkerchief,
then crumpled it into a ball and tossed it in the fire. ``Is anything but that
vial necessary? Weapons? A torch? And just how will we be travelling?''
``The vial is all we require. Weapons are useless against the Children, and
I have excellent night vision.'' It was just as well that she left his last
question unanswered, for what he witnessed next stunned him so utterly he
ceased listening for a reply.
To begin with, Naraya appeared to be encased in some kind of transparent
cloud, more palpable than visible, which distorted her features without
obscuring them, like some clear, vibrant haze of summer heat. And so, although
he could see what was happening to her, moment by moment, he could never be
quite sure he was perceiving it correctly. First her hair began to change
subtly, from a tousled mane of gauzy filaments to something reminiscent of
frozen fountain spray, and then like a wiry, fanned branch of the fabled white
palm. As it slowly compressed itself into a crest-like formation neatly
dividing one half of her skull from the other, her arms began to gravitate
downward in their sockets until they were two stiff, prong-ended affairs
protruding from the middle of her chest, which was no longer a voluptuous,
sheer fabric-sheathed marvel, but a single smooth arc of snow-silver breast
feathers. Next, the train of her gown lengthened into a glorious fan of
tail-plumage, spangled not with sequins but with white-on-ebony markings. And
as her whole body began to tilt forward, balancing on its new center, Sorrille
realized with a start that, with a few seemingly minor exceptions, her face
was clearly recognizable as the one he had been regarding just moments
earlier. He thought dazedly to himself that, if she was rather
peculiar-looking as a woman, she was incomparable as a bird.
``Well? Shall we be on our way?'' Her voice, with its typically mocking
quality, was relatively unchanged, though it was disconcertingly difficult to
locate its present source. Her mica-black beak, opened slightly but immobile,
offered no clue as it refracted the pallid moonlight.
Sorrille nodded, still inarticulate, and she hoisted herself aloft with a
trio of wing-flaps so powerful he had to struggle to remain on his feet. When
she sunk her claws into his cloak-collar, it was all he could do to keep from
screaming like a madman.
``Sleep,'' she told him, ``for the altitude may cause you some discomfort,
and you must be in sound condition when we descend.'' But he had lapsed
already into the utter oblivion of the terrified, and was floating there
impervious both to her magic and to her everlastingly mocking smile.
Sorrille had long been immersed in a most bizarre dream about a series of
well-choreographed swordfights with the wind, in which clusters of stars
assembled themselves into shields now and again, when Naraya, in her human
form, woke and then helped him to his feet. She was wearing the cloud-colored
gown once again, and her hair was in the impressively snarled state Sorrille
had grown used to in the past week.
Awake now, the memory of her metamorphosis staggered him anew, like some
phantom foe come to resume the battle after granting him his paltry respite.
``Who and what are you, Lady?''
``Is it not all but obvious that I am bird as well as woman? And we have
not come to discuss the essence of my nature, but to conduct our business with
the shadow ghouls of Ashen Forest.''
``Very well. Lead the way. And by the way, I'm almost glad you nearly
turned me into a gibbering fool back there---having done my overreacting for
the evening, I find the prospect of confronting Shadowchildren to be
positively exhilarating.''
Naraya smiled briefly, then led him a few yards towards a brook of
jet-black water which glittered dully in the moonlight. She gave him a
cautionary look. ``Mirkwater,'' she said, confirming his suspicions,
``poisonous as well as fatal to the touch. Keep a safe distance from it,
though we will be following the banks of this brook.'' Sorrille cocked an
eyebrow in reply, then hastened into step behind the swift if stealthy Naraya.
The Ashen Forest was every bit as unsettling as he had imagined it would
be. Only along the brook did the foliage thin enough to reveal even a
tattered black ribbon of sky, and the air, already oppressively thick with
darkness, was suffused here and there with a clammy noxious mist. The muddy
brook-banks oozed mist as well, though not enough to obscure wholly the
occasional snake-tangle disengaging itself for a swim in the unreflecting
water. And yet, notwithstanding, there was a strange beauty to the place as
well. The ivory bulbs he knew to be bone-fruit hung in phosphorescent clusters
above him, their symmetry and pallor like that of priceless sculpture.
Snowberries glittered in the crevices between rocks like fistfuls of mercury
droplets, and the tree-trunks, which burgeoned above into medusan gnarls of
ebony branches and black-crystal top-leaves, were iced below with a kind of
silver glaze. The thought crossed his mind that perhaps the bosom of the
Forest yielded beings such as Naraya in addition to its loathsome Children.
Naraya signalled for him to stop behind her, finally, at a particularly
sinuous curve in the brook. She pointed to the gutted corpses of some dozen
Forest animals and informed Sorrille that there were Shadowchildren near.
``I'm afraid I fail to see the connection.''
``Unlike other scavengers, the Children hoard dead flesh until there is an
abundance of it to dine upon. With all of eternity stretched before them,
there is no reason to devour meager sustenance in a haphazard way. What you
see here are the remains of a recent feast.''
``The Children are scavengers?'' asked Sorrille, the hair rising along his
neck.
The look in Naraya's eyes told him that she was laughing uproariously in
silence. ``You did not know? Yes, the Children are an especially nasty kind of
vulture; they delight in creating carrion as much as they do in eating it.''
``Thank the gods for your wolf trap. And for your succour, lady.''
``Ah, yes, gratitude. But we have other business to concern us now.'' She
extracted the vial of mnisse from a fold in her gown; its vivid ruby hue
disturbed the darkness like a tiny but brilliant lantern. ``You must bend over
the mirkwater as if you were going to drink; the simple probability that death
is imminent will lure our friends closer. Then you must cry out in mimicry of
a death throe. As you fall, unstopper the vial and splatter yourself with its
contents; the Children will arrive in moments to lap them up greedily. I will
be watching from the shadows beyond the curve in the brook, and shall join you
at the appropriate moment.''
``How thoughtful of nature to make mnisse the color of blood,'' quipped
Sorrille.
``The mnisse is not red; the blood I stirred it into, however, is.''
Naraya's eyes glinted with lavish amusement at Sorrille's ignorance. ``Enough
talk. Here is the vial. Do not spill it needlessly; I travelled quite far to
harvest its crucial ingredient.'' And with this final jibe she moved into the
shadows ahead, obscuring herself so well that Sorrille soon had no idea where
she was.
Sorrille began to perform the charade with a feeling of witty
self-satisfaction he would never have expected to experience in such
circumstances. As he knelt by the brook, its aura of evil intensified
perceptibly, and he wondered what kind of dolt would insist on drinking water
that as much as declared itself poisonous. But he forced himself to bring his
face to within inches of the sluggish surface, even panting a little for the
sake of verisimilitude. Then he fell back on one hand and issued a lengthy
croak of pseudo-agony. Unable to restrain a grimace while dousing throat and
chest with the mnisse-laced blood, he was careful to conceal the vial before
he sank and stiffened in a rendition of rigor mortis so subtle he was proud of
it. It wasn't until he heard the Children's gossamer wings rustling behind him
that he felt unmanageable trepidation and even prayed to the gods that the
lady wasn't playing him for a fool.
``Dessert,'' said one, in an utterly timbreless voice which managed to
convey somehow the creature's unsavory sense of humor. It ran its dessicate
trio of fingers along Sorrille's form in a way that made him want to scream
for Naraya.
``And what a very large dessert,'' rejoined a second, contributing its
manual appendages to the less-than-soothing massage effort. Sorrille squeezed
his eyes shut involuntarily. When the third pair of claws began to stroke
him, he fantasized, briefly and horribly, that he was buried underground and
the roots of plants were groping their way past him.
Then, at last, after Sorrille found his capacity for shallow breathing
diminishing with alarming speed, the three Children began to sniff and nibble
tentatively at his bloodsoaked tunic. Hissing with dismay when they
discovered it was not flesh they were tasting, they hastened to rend the
fabric and expose the real delicacy beneath. Sorrille had all but given
himself up for lost when, in a abrupt and unified motion, they recoiled from
their ``dessert'' with a chorus of despairing little shrieks.
Still half-dazed, Sorrille rose to his feet just in time to behold what was
without contest the most hideous sight of his life. The Shadowchildren,
wailing in concert like three of the four winds, were thrashing about
violently, slamming their wings into boulders and clawing at their branch-like
tresses in what was apparently the ghoulish equivalent of tearing out one's
hair Though he was beginning to grow concerned by Naraya's failure to appear,
he was relieved, at least, to learn that the mnisse lived up to her
description of it. He had started to move cautiously in the direction of her
purported hiding-place when he found himself besieged by three unspeakably
contrite monsters. One hung timidly on his sleeve, a second patted his chest
ingratiatingly, and the third rolled eyes as mournful as a hounddog's at him.
He had the distinct impression they were preparing to address him with some
sort of abject plea on their part for mercy and loving kindness on his.
``No,'' he mumbled, ``this is more than I can endure.'' He allowed himself
one convulsive shudder, then, with the wrath- contorted countenance of a hero
scourging the infernal regions, he raised his arms prophetically and roared
``Begone!'' And, for the first time in Renithian history, Shadowchildren
scattered in terror at the sound of a human voice.
``Wait!'' he added hoarsely, appalled at his own stupidity. The slowest of
the three paused in the shadow it was in the midst of vanishing into, one of
its badly dented wings twitching uncertainly in the murky light. ``I have need
of you,'' he continued, controlling the hysteria in his voice. The Child
advanced as if afraid he would change his mind, then halted a few feet before
him and hovered on ghostly feet.
``I see the two of you are fast becoming friends,'' said Naraya, after
executing yet another of her out-of-thin air grand entrances.
Sorrille turned on her. ``Where in the name of the bird-gods have you
been?''
``Did I not make clear that I would return at the appropriate moment? It
seems as though all has proceeded according to plan.''
``A matter of perspective, I suppose. What on earth is that?'' He pointed
to the strange-looking beast she had tethered to her wrist.
``This,'' she replied, moving it closer for him to inspect, ``is how you
will be journeying home. I cannot transport you and the Child together.'' The
Child whimpered at the mention of its name, while Sorrille whistled at what he
saw. Smaller than a steed but larger than a donkey, its head and legs were
covered with greyish-white fur, while its internal organs were plainly visible
through the transparent hide of its midsection. Naraya had caparisoned it
with tasselled reins and a makeshift blanket and saddlebag.
``What is it known as?''
``It is a Forest deer, unprepossessing in appearance but gentle of
temperament and swift for its size---it will easily keep pace with the
Shadowchild's flight, especially in light of the battered state of these
wings.'' She clucked her tongue at the object of her criticism, who drooped
its head in response, in a horrible travesty of shamefacedness.
``I should create quite a sensation in Renith, considering the company I'll
be arriving in. What a shame I'll be doing so in such bedraggled attire.''
He looked regretfully at the blood- stained rents in his clothing.
``You won't be,'' Naraya informed him, extracting from the saddlebag a
tunic and cloak of the same chameleonic silver fabric as her gown. She handed
them to him. ``Did I not say that you would be properly provisioned? There
are winesacks and food in the bag as well, and here, finally, is a supply of
mnisse more than adequate to your purposes.''
He took the pouch she held outstretched. ``Unmixed with blood this time, I
see.''
``The Child will accept additional doses of mnisse quite eagerly in its
present state. But you must be sure to feed it those doses nightly, and expel
it from your city well before your supply runs out.''
``Fear not. I'll send it on its way the first chance I get.''
``And now that you are in hands capable as my own,'' she concluded with a
smile, ``I will bid you adieu.'' And with a ritual flourish, she began to
transform herself once again into a creature of the sky.
``My thanks, lady.'' Sorrille could feel his words unravelling, letter by
letter, inside the cocoon of luminous air she had wrapped herself within. He
swung onto the back of his galloping anatomy lesson and instructed the Child
to lead him to a southbound route out of the Forest as quickly as it damn well
could.
The return trip to Renith, which took nearly three days, was rendered
exceptionally crisis-free by Naraya's abundant forethought. The deer she had
rounded up was a quick and sturdy little mount, and the store of food and wine
she had stashed in its saddlebag seemed virtually inexhaustible. Most
importantly, the nightly pinch of mnisse she had recommended Sorrille give the
Shadowchild made it a surprisingly indispensable travelling companion,
possessed of a flawless sense of direction and protective instincts that would
put a mother slinkah to shame. While they were still in the Forest, it
regularly shooed snarling skeleton-wolves and overly-inquisitive
snake-tangles, and even, on one occasion, discouraged a roving band of its own
species from approaching. Then, on the plains, it circled down from its aerial
guidepost whenever a cloud of the bulbous flies that had annoyed Sorrille so
on his outbound journey required dispersing, and arranged its wings, by night,
in an effective shelter from the wind. Sorrille never quite got over his
distaste for physical proximity to the Child, and he certainly never adjusted
to the way it telepathically second-guessed him. But he was relieved to find
that the mnisse had apparently ruined his macabre squire's appetite for flesh,
cooked or otherwise; through the whole of their trek, he never witnessed the
Child consume anything but the plains-clover he himself had found so
thoroughly unsatisfactory as a means of sustenance.
When the city gates came into view just after sunset on the third day, he
donned the cloak and tunic Naraya had given him and soon discovered with
pleasure that he could feel as well as see the intricate lightplay in its
fabric, rippling over his torso like a mosaic of liquid silver. Assuming a
pose of elegant hauteur, he mentally commanded the Shadowchild to walk
slightly behind him on his left---the traditional position of voluntary
deference---and exultantly advanced until he was standing opposite the
peepdoor. He pummelled it with the tiny but solid hilt of his dagger and
waited for the startled response from within; Renithian sheep and cowherds
were superstitiously careful about requesting readmittance to the city well
before the sun began even to hang low in the sky. Surely enough, the
gateguard flung the peepdoor open and peered through cautiously, his view
limited, fortunately, to Sorrille's face, which, unfortunately, was
suspiciously cleanshaven.
``Yer mightly dapper-lookin' for a herdsman,'' the guard said slowly,
studying Sorrille's eyes for evidence of intent to, perhaps, perpetrate
espionage or commit an assassination. Sorrille quickly scanned his aural
memories for a lower class voice he could do a passable imitation of, and
fixed upon that of the stableboy who had taunted him the day of his
banishment.
``Juice because oi takes some proide in me looks is no reason to keeps me
and the anymals out 'ere in mortal dainger. Ain't it bad enough that oim late
from chasin' a contrary-loike sheep what run away hairs ago?''
Luckily the ruse worked before the guard asked Sorrille to stand back for a
full-length inspection, or before he wondered why the returning shepherd's
``anymals'' were so uniformly silent. Sorrille heaved a sigh of relief and
straightened proudly as the guard shut the peepdoor and began to drag the huge
half-gate groaningly open. When at last he emerged from behind it, wheezing
and panting, Sorrille hesitated just long enough for shock to register on the
man's face before nudging the Forest deer into a dainty canter onto Renithian
soil. Soon a handful of guards, with equally shocked expressions, stood
aghast and silent in a circle around him, clutching their spears, maces, and
unsheathed swords like so many dismayed infants grasping rattles.
``Gentlemen, gentlemen,'' said Sorrille, ``it's most kind of you to all
want to escort me into Onri's presence. However, a two-guard retinue is
really quite sufficient.''
``It's Lord Sorrille, ain't it?'' stammered the nasal-voiced guard who had
found the circumstances of Sorrille's banishment so entertaining. He
scratched under his helmet meditatively. ``By gawm, milord. Are ye returned
from the dead?''
``No, my old friend. Merely back to claim myself a crown. And that is
something, I think, that I would fain have you behold. Come, now, mind my left
flank, as you did once before. And you,'' he commanded a mere boy of a guard,
``mind my right.''
Despite the fact that a lord sent off to certain death rarely came home
astride a see-through quadruped, attended by two trembling king's-guards and a
bonafide Shadowchild, Sorrille's triumphant procession toward the palace was a
curiously lonesome affair. True, the shopkeepers and laborers typically
withdrew for their dinners this time of day, and it was too early for the
bawds and roistabouts to have begun prowling the streets. But it was odd not
to see a single peddler, or street urchin, or stout huswife pursuing her
fugitive chickens. Even the few milling figures Sorrille had noticed upon his
entry were nowhere to be seen, and the curtains of nearly every window were
tightly drawn, though there was still precious daylight to be had. Plus the
streets were preternaturally quiet---no wafts of quarrels or laughter, nothing
save the occasional whimper of a dog presumably being forced to hold its
tongue. Sorrille had the distinct impression that Lower Renith was
collectively holding its breath, and that the residents of every household
were taking turns peeping out at him once his back was safely to them.
Enraged, finally, by the cowardice of those who had, less than two weeks
earlier, found brazen insults so very easy to hurl about, he reined the deer
to a halt and addressed his invisible audience. ``Mark my features well, good
city-folk, so that you will recognize me when Renith's crown sits atop my
head!'' He paused just long enough for the echo of his words to subside, then
coaxed his mount to resume its forward motion.
``Onri is king! Onri is king!'' a feeble, indignant voice sputtered from
behind him. He turned to see the decrepit fool who had used his shin for a
cricket ball, wielding a walking-stick angrily in the air and preparing to
foray off the doorstep to harass Sorrille yet again. Sorrille silently
instructed the Shadowchild to cast a brief look in the daft old goat's
direction, which had the desired effect of sending him scampering indoors for
cover. Sorrille threw back his head and laughed, and the procession continued
to the nearby sound of several audibly suppressed gasps.
When the carnelian walls and golden spires of Renith Palace rose before him
at last, Sorrille dismounted and handed his tiny steed's reins to a
stunned-looking guard who had just risen unsteadily to his feet. The guard's
drinking-and-dicing companions remained seated, openmouthed and seemingly
paralyzed, on the steps to the palace's huge crystal-and-filigree door.
``It's bad enough your disportment adds a rather unaesthestic aspect to the
palace facade.'' Sorrille's tone of voice struck a duke-like balance between
lighthearted mockery and the implicit threat of violence. ``Don't compound the
problem by forcing me to climb over you.''
They scrambled off the steps like petitioners who have misguidedly
approached the king in one of his fouler moods. Sorrille caught one by the
elbow and inquired as to Onri's whereabouts. The guard, despite his valiant
effort not to stare with obvious horror at the Shadowchild, seemed to address
his very reply to it.
``His Majesty dines at this hour, milord.''
``But of course he does, and I'm tactlessly late for the feast. Do lead the
way to the banquet-hall, if you would, and announce that Duke Sorrille is come
to table.''
Too flustered to say more, the fellow pulled the palace door ajar and
proceeded to carry out Sorrille's instructions. As they marched through the
tangle of narrow, poorly-lit corridors, Sorrille was amused to see the palace
servants scattering before him as timidly as the city-folk had. Even the
guards posted at every fourth turning seemed to be resisting the impulse to
turn tail and run. So on and on they went, on their unobstructed way, filling
the quasi-evacuated labyrinth with the percussive echos of four pairs of
booted feet, the gentle whooshing sounds of a pair of large, semi-contracted
wings, and an almost audibly intense sequence of regicidal fantasies.
Sorrille let the palace guard precede him into the banquet- hall and
nervously inform the general public there that he had arrived, along with what
appeared to be a Shadowchild. Then he had the two gate guards go in and
situate themselves on either side of the door, at which point he and his
eyebrow-raising sidekick were ready to make their grand entrance. He observed
with pique that virtually none of the customs of the dinner table had changed,
despite the conspicuous emptiness of his place at it: A dazzling profusion of
colorful platters spread the length of the table; jewelled goblets overflowed
with wine; servingmen wound their way in and out between the exquisitely
costumed dancers; the air, scented with sandalwood, was vibrant with the
intermingled sounds of witty repartee and ribald minstrelsy; and Onri's guests
were uniformly oblivious to the world outside the banquet-hall. Indeed, they
paid scarcely any attention to the palace guard's introduction---after all,
what was one person more or less at table?
Only Onri seemed to have gathered that there was something noteworthy at
the door, and was about to take a good look at it when his queen, attended by
no less than six ladies, emerged from a side door to claim her seat beside
him. For the next several moments, both Sorrille and Onri stood motionless as
men for whom time has stopped, wholly ignoring the gustatory feast upon the
table as they gorged themselves visually on that of Belisa's beauty. The
gold-embroidered chiffon of Belisa's sleeve caught the light like a
butterfly's wing and then spilt down her upraised arm in fold after liquid
fold as she pressed self-conscious fingers to her lacquered red tresses,
wondering why she had the sense that she was being stared at even more
insatiably than usual. As she inclined her chiselled profile in Sorrille's
direction, sensing that the especially passionate eyebeams were emanating from
thence, she issued a trio of musical little gasps---one of surprised pleasure
at Sorrille's appearance, one of ladylike revulsion at the Shadowchild's
grotesque visage, and one of utter terror as Onri noticed Sorrille and began
to rise from his chair with an ominous lack of haste.
The banquet-hall fell completely silent for the first time in decades as
the nobles of Renith looked up to see their monarch on the brink of a wholly
unpredictable confrontation. Sorrille, who everyone knew had died an
unspeakably horrid death, had somehow come back with not only his notoriously
short temper but also with an unspeakably horrid monster for backup. His age-
spotted face white with anger, Onri straightened his fur-trimmed robe on
still-powerful shoulders and placed his massive gold crown on his wisp-haired
head (he disliked wearing it while he ate since it tended to make his bald
spot worse).
``Why have you returned, you treasonous cur... you base scoundrel... you
verminous--?''
``Allow me to interrupt and you shall have your answer, old man.'' Belisa
took this opening exchange of pleasantries as a cue to make herself as
invisible as possible. She sat huddled in her chair, head tilted forward so
that quantities of hair obscured her face on either side.
``You dare address me without an honorific, you pompous dandy... you
ill-mannered whippersnapper... you foul-mouthed--?''
``Enough! An impotent old fool who cannot secure the love of his bride and
who sends those who are capable of doing so into the wilds to die is in no way
deserving of honorifics! But lo! I am not dead, and having survived what I
have survived, I no longer find myself cowed in any way by a senile
foot-stamping monarch.''
``He has spoken treason! Seize the traitor!'' Onri's face was purple now,
and his agitated gesturings had all but knocked his crown from his head. His
uncontrolled rage was so novel a spectacle that dinner guests, servants, and
guards alike were watching him as raptly as they might the lead actor in a
scandalous play. ``I have commanded you! Seize him!''
``Silence, Onri! I have not returned to listen to your ranting drool, but
to claim the throne and the queen that are rightfully mine. I have met your
challenge, and you have no choice but to forfeit both to me!''
``Challenge? What challenge might that be?'' inquired Onri with a
dangerously innocent tone, daring those at the table to supply a single
pertinent detail.
``The challenge, Sire!'' interjected Tirem, the rosy-faced juniormost
member of the court. ``Surely you remember---you had your scribe set it down
on vellum, just a little under two weeks ago. Then your herald read it aloud
the morning Sorrille there was banished, remember? To the crowd that had
gathered in front of the palace.'' Tirem babbled on blithely, so glad to be
of some use that he failed to interpret correctly Onri's ferociously indrawn
breath. ``You know, Sire, the challenge about how anyone who managed to get
hold of a Shadowchild like the one Sorrille there's got was entitled---''
``--to Renith's twin glories---its mighty throne and its jewel-lovely
queen. Thank you, Tirem, I couldn't have refreshed His Highness' memory
better myself.'' Sorrille strode impatiently toward Onri, who had fallen back
into his chair, sputtering soundlessly, his face contorting with hatred as he
regarded Sorrille. ``Will you honor your promise, Onri?'' He hovered over
the seated king like the most determined of inquisitioners, willing to wait
till eternity for the appropriate reply.
``But of course I will,'' began Onri calmly, with rekindled deviousness,
``the instant you return here with a true denizen of the Ashen Forest, not
some inept sorcerer's slapdash concoction! And until you do, I will regard
you as a traitor!'' Onri sprung to his feet, more or less, his fury having
reached a fresh peak of intolerability.
Sorrille pointed to the Shadowchild, who stood near the doorway twitching
its wings as if insulted that its credibility had been called into question.
``Do any of you at this table harbor any doubts as to the creature's
identity?''
``Don't know its name or anything, but it looks like a Child to me!''
ventured Tirem.
``Of course it is a Shadowchild,'' said bewigged Lord Gauntti, clearing his
throat after this pronouncement.
Stout, jovial Roddain moved cautiously toward the door for a closer look.
``Ah'd agree with the both of ye. Now it's true Ah've never been to the
thing's stompin' grounds, and so--''
``There is no way you can possibly verify Sorrille's claim regarding it!''
burst in a triumphant Onri, leaving Roddain puzzling over whether that were
what he'd meant to say. ``None of us knows with any certainty what a
Shadowchild looks like because any man that has encountered one hasn't lived
to tell the tale! All we know about the creature is hearsay and rumor, and a
common thread to every bit of Child-lore is that they are impossible to
escape, much less to overcome or tame! Obviously, then, what we have here is
some manner of impostor---some barbarian Sorrille has induced to stand before
us in his ritual dress, complete with a headdress of branches and black
face-paint---''
``Sorry to disappoint you, Onri.'' Sorrille nodded to the Shadowchild,
telepathically requesting it to demonstrate its clearly supernatural ability
to fly. It had risen but a few inches in the air when Onri backed away from
the table, suddenly unsheathing and then brandishing his sword like a wild
man.
``Then it is indeed the forbidden work of some accursed sorcerer! It is
fiendish magic and I will not suffer its presence in my palace!''
Before Sorrille could warn him otherwise, Onri had lurched forward to
attack the Child. Sorrille tried to command it to do nothing but evade Onri's
swordthrusts, but apparently its protective instincts were self-inclusive. It
curled back its black satin lips, baring the elongated teeth within, and,
angrily beating the air with its wings, struck Onri's sword from his hands
with a swiftly downhooking claw. As Onri inspected with speechless horror the
bloody furrows which now ran the length of his forearm, the Child gave vent to
a gale-force battle cry and swung the blackened bronze of its claw again, this
time at Onri's head. Onri staggered sideways as if drunken, clutching a hand
to his face and bellowing in pain. When he removed the hand and held its
crimson palm before him blindly, it became clear that one of his eyes had been
maimed. Belisa, with an unladylike squawk, made her presence felt once more
and, the minstrels and dancers having wisely scattered already, the dinner
guests to either side of her began to stir uneasily, as if preparing to escape
themselves.
Sorrille groaned. Much as he despised Onri, becoming an accomplice to
regicide at this moment would certainly not help legitimize his claim to the
throne. Somehow, he had to restrain the Shadowchild's undeniably murderous
behavior, and then go and comfort his lovely distraught Belisa. As he moved
toward the wrangling pair, he extracted his mnisse pouch and wondered whether
he could distract the Child long enough to administer the stuff. He dangled
the pouch before him hopefully, inwardly suspecting it was hopeless. Then,
before he could properly register what was taking plce, the Child, its hair a
lurid snarl of snaky lightning, was ascending toward the lofty ceiling vaults
like someone's nightmare vision of a bird of prey, with an alternately raving
and whimpering Onri hooked securely in its talons.
``Stop!'' cried Sorrille. ``Stop, I command you!'' But the Child was
looping and circling in the dark central dome with the impossible agility of a
bat, whooping and cawing in harsh depthless tones that were natural neither to
human beings nor to creatures of the air. Finally, with a last hissing cry, it
flung Onri to his death below and continued its airborne figure-eights with
increasingly frenzied speed, in an ecstasy of bloodlust.
``By the gods,'' Sorrille despaired with silent ferocity, ``that thing is
completely out of control! How am I to feed it its last doses of mnisse, or
persuade it to fly away home like a good ghoul, for that matter? And it's no
doubt just a matter of time before it decides it's days overdue for its
carcass imperiale a la Renith!'' For the king of Renith lay, crownless and
mangled, lengthwise on the dinner table in the midst of some half-dozen
platters of sweetbreads and candied meat, surrounded by his former subjects,
all of whom had risen in his presence but none of whom seemed able to remove
themselves from it. Someone was missing from the table, though---Sorrille
tried to rack his addled brain for who it was when he noticed Belisa, pale and
unconscious, gracefully draped on the floor alongside the table. He bolted
toward her, temporarily forgetting every other alarming circumstance
confronting him, and after a fervent series of ministrations, he managed to
rouse her, weak and smiling, to her feet.
``That was silly of me, Sori, I know. But you returning unharmed, and
that thing up there, and Onri all blood-covered--''
``Hardly standard dinner entertainment. Fret not, even I reeled a bit on my
feet, Belisa. Here, sit down.'' He helped her into a chair as far as possible
from her dead husband, stroked her sunset-red hair, and turned his attention
once more to the problem of the Forest-spawn flapping about and setting all
the chandeliers atremble.
``I don't think that's the worst of our troubles, Sorrille,'' young Tirem
suggested politely.
``What's that? What do you--'' Sorrille almost choked on his tongue as he
turned to see Naraya drift into the room with a tidy double-columned
arrangement of mnisse-sedated Shadowchildren to her rear. A general murmur of
distress ran through the room, and any of the servants who had outlasted the
previous episode---either because of their unimpeachable dutifulness or
because it was the best show they'd had in ages---began to inch their way
toward the kitchen exit now.
``And what a lucky usurper am I,'' thought Sorrille to himself. ``Not one
but seven Shadowchildren to contend with as future subjects.''
``Ah,'' said Naraya, halting her troops directly in front of the spot where
Onri lay in state, ``I see you don't require my assistance, Sorrille, in
meting justice to the despot after all.''
``What's all this bother during dinner, anyway?'' demanded irritable old
Baron Merrand. ``Is Sorrille king now or ain't he, and when is he going to do
something about restoring the peace in here?''
``He's right, y'know,'' counselled Roddain, managing a kindly smile. ``This
all seems, indirectly or otherwise, to have some connection t'you, m'boy, and
so everyone's 'specting you to make some sense of it. Ah'd hop to, was Ah you,
'specially if ye want the respect of the court in future.''
Sorrille's blood raced when he realized that his claim to the throne might
well go uncontested henceforward, then again when he realized that a crisis of
some moment was taking place.
``Who's that woman, Sori? Do you know her?'' asked Belisa, catching him by
the elbow. He held up a hand to indicate that she must lend him her
forbearance, and approached Naraya and her retinue.
``Milady Naraya,'' began, bowing, ``though your presence here is most
unexpected, nonetheless is it quite welcome.'' He found regal circumlocution
so much to his taste that he decided to experiment with a royal pronoun or
two. ``But we cannot look kindly on the retainers you have brought with you.
In short, we must ask you to see to it that they vacate the city immediately,
whereupon we would be most pleased to give you a private audience and hear the
purpose of your visit.''
``Though I am ignorant in the ways of great cities, I believe a coronation
is the method by which kings are given their office. Is that not correct?''
``It is,'' conceded Sorrille cautiously, troubled by her amused expression
as well as by her failure to respond directly to him.
``And has there been a coronation here recently?''
``Not for decades,'' put in the ever-helpful Tirem.
``And I have also thought long that a king's public edict is the most
binding of documents. Is that not correct as well?''
``Why, yes, gal,'' said Roddain. ``That's the very line of reasonin'
Sorrille here was tryin' to use on Onri. The stubborn ole fool wouldn't
listen, and lookit the sorry state he's in now.''
``Are you saying that, ipso facto, Sorrille's accession to the throne is a
given thing?'' drawled Gauntti, regarding Roddain over his monocle rim.
``Ipso fact, ergo sum, and all that. Ah can't see whah not. We all know
that edict inside out, what with Onri talkin' 'bout it all through dinner the
day that herald read it to the popylace.''
``In that case,'' resumed Naraya, apparently well-pleased by the content of
this interchange, ``I have come to claim my half of the throne. It was I who
enabled your Sorrille to return with the requisite Shadowchild, whose
acquaintance, I see, you have already made.'' She glanced at Sorrille's Child,
currently cowering in a corner in an effort to hide from her.
``Who _is_, she, Sori?'' asked Belisa plaintively, as if resigned to the
fact that Sori would ignore her question and that the answer would prove
unpleasant anyway.
``Come hither, Child of the Shadows of Ashen Forest. Eat of the nectar I
have brought you.'' Naraya outstretched her hand, with its generous pinch of
mnisse in the palm, to Sorrille's half-reverted Child. The Child approached
her furtively, with a contrite expression, lipped the mnisse from her hand
like some timid hulk of a horse, and then quietly retreated.
Naraya scanned her audience slowly before beginning, failing only to meet
Sorrille's eyes and lingering inexplicably on Belisa's. ``As you can see, I
hold sway over the Forest's Children. Should you choose not to honor the
binding document I have mentioned, these seven will help me to assert my claim
to the throne. Duke Sorrille, I know,''---here she looked at him
significantly---``will support that claim fully.''
Sorrille sought frantically for a resolution to his dilemma. Were he to
reject Naraya outright, as was most certainly his wont, the people of Renith
would come to despise him for having exposed their city to a veritable plague
of demons. No, inciting Naraya to loose seven Children on the city was hardly
a viable means of persuading Renith to gladly award him the sovereignty he so
desired. He would become, if he even survived the fiasco, a hated scapegoat,
and he and Belisa would live under the constant threat of assassination.
On the other hand, if he pretended nonchalance in the face of Naraya's
request---delight would definitely be stretching it---the populace might come
to believe that he, as well as Naraya, held sway over the supernatural. That
would mean a strengthened position on the throne, which was nothing to sneeze
at. Even more importantly, if Naraya felt that he'd been cooperative, she
might decide against feeding him to the Shadowchildren the first opportunity
she got. Of course, cooperating with Naraya pretty effectively displaced
Belisa from the picture. Ah, well, sacrifice _was_ the quintessence of noble
and effective leadership.
``Rest assured that I am your advocate,'' said Sorrille, with a bow.
Naraya nodded and smiled. ``I am glad to hear it spoken, though our nights
together had already helped me to take the true measure of your character.''
``Who _is_ she, Sori?'' repeated Belisa.
______________________________________________________________________________
Cerise Palmer is currently at work on the first book of a fantasy
trilogy. She keeps in good creative shape by telling ``scary
stories,'' nonstop, to her 3-year-old daughter. Electronic
correspondence may be sent c/o [email protected].edu
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
Shifting Sand
by Christopher Kempke
Copyright ©1990
______________________________________________________________________________
Star of wonder,
Star of night,
Star of royal beauty bright.
The explosion was first noticed by a pair of lovers in the great American
desert, but they had other things on their mind and the incident was quickly
forgotten. A few other people noticed it in the next few minutes, and
eventually one of them was curious enough to call the planetarium. After the
phone call, things happened quickly.
The Arizona telescope was appropriated from its mechanical wanderings
across the night sky, and carefully aimed at where a new point of light
billowed in the heavens, near the southern horizon. Aaron Gregory was the
first at the viewplate, and his soft whistle was enough to bring his collegues
to silence. Years of experience allowed him to pull all the details he
required in a moment, he was not long at the telescope. He said nothing as
the rest of the men and women filed by. When they were done, they turned
toward him almost as one, expectant. Gregory shrugged, lifted a coffeepot
next to him, and poured himself a cup.
The pot was finished well before the meeting was.
``Black holes don't explode.''
``Of course not. We're all having a mass hallucination.''
``Maybe something near the hole?''
``It's the same distance away to the precision of our instruments, and
there's no sign of pull on it at all. Nothing to indicate that there's a hole
nearby.''
``Check it with a radioscope?''
``Too much interference from the explosion. But I could tell you what the
results would be. There's no black hole there, only a supernova.''
Gregory cleared his throat, bringing silence to the room. ``So we know
what happened. Anyone care to speculate how?''
The meeting dissolved in chaos once more.
The press the next morning had plenty of ideas. Most prevalent among them
was that the unexplained phenomenon was a sign from God, regardless of its
cause. The tabloids expounded on a number of other options, as well. The
astronomers continued to be perplexed.
``God moves in mysterious ways,'' one of the journalists suggested to
Gregory at the fifth conference in as many hours. Gregory gave him a look
that would melt glass.
``God, my friend, has nothing to do with it. This is a strictly natural
phenomenon.'' His voice carried the strain of many hours without sleep, and
the distinct impression that he did not regard the journalist as his friend.
``All natural phenomena are His work,'' said another voice. Gregory turned
to face a priest. His face remained taut for a moment, then relaxed.
``Perhaps, yes. But that's not the explanation that I'm after.''
``What more explanation do you need? There is, after all, a precedent.
The night of our Saviour's birth, some two thousand years ago.''
``Has been satisfactorily explained without recourse to a divine being.
Are there any more questions of a _scientific_ nature?''
Another reporter raised his hand, and the conference stumbled on.
The first time Gregory got to relax was as his plane lifted into the air en
route to London. He shuffled through the pages of numbers in front of him for
a time, then gave up, put them down, and closed his eyes.
It was fully six hours when he awoke the garbled speech of the plane's
intercom system.
``We are experiencing some navigational difficulties. There is no danger
involved, and no equipment vital to our safety has been damaged. However,
this flight will be some hours longer than previously planned, and we may have
to make an additional stop. Trans-Atlantic airlines and your flight crew
apologize for the inconvenience. We will keep you posted on further
developments. Arrangements are being made for those of you with connecting
flights.''
Gregory smiled. He would miss his meeting, certain to cause consternation
among his international associates. The thought filled him with some glee,
for the invitation had stressed the urgency of the meeting in the typically
British, overzealous way, and without the data he carried, they had nothing to
discuss. They would just have to wait.
He gradually became aware that the man next to him was staring at him, a
look of puzzlement on his face. Gregory turned.
``You, or somebody that looks like you, were in the newspaper this
morning.''
Gregory extended his hand. ``Aaron Gregory. I'm an astronomer, and yes, a
charming image of me was all over the paper today.''
The man nodded sagely. ``I'm Raphael. Pleased to meet you.''
``No last name?''
``In my country, last names are generally considered secret. A bit of a
quaint custom, but it's ingrained.''
Gregory nodded, trying to place Raphael's accent as he continued to speak.
``You're the guy who discovered the supernova, aren't you?''
``Not really `discovered.' I have done the most work on it, though.''
``Why does this supernova get so much attention? The one ten years ago
didn't even cause a stir.''
``Mainly because we think a black hole exploded to form this one. All
scientific rationale says that that's impossible. We're looking for a way of
understanding how it happened, or, if it didn't, what did.''
``And? What do you think?''
``Personally? I'm not sure. We don't really know much about black holes.
My suspicion is that we just had the theory wrong, and that explosions are
possible. Bunches of my collegues, however, are spouting theories that energy
is being `warped' in from other regions of space. That one just doesn't ring
true to me. If it's possible, it should be happening all the time. Of
course, I would once have said the whole thing was impossible.''
``What if it is?''
``Impossible? I don't understand; we saw it happen. In fact, it's bright
enough to be seen in the daytime if you look in the right place. There's no
doubt that it's there.''
``But not everything has an explainable cause.''
``No, but I have to attribute it to nature or God. And I'm quite a devout
athiest.''
``Yes, yes indeed you are. Funny how it works out that way, sometimes.''
Raphael's tone was enigmatic, and Gregory could not make sense of the
statement. He was about to ask, but Raphael spoke first.
``Excuse me a minute, but nature calls.'' He rose and walked toward the
back of the plane. Suddenly tired, Gregory was asleep before Raphael
returned.
A jarring sensation woke him, and apparently a number of the other
passengers as well. The plane lurched heavily to one side, scattering trays,
books, and people. There were a few moments of stunned silence, then a voice
on the intercom.
``The plane has been crippled by some equipment failure. Unfortunately,
this will require our making a forced landing. There is a desert below us
which will offer safe landing areas. However, to minimize the risk of injury,
we request that you all take crash positions. The flight attendents will
review the procedure with you now. Please remain calm, the danger is slight.
We will be landing in roughly ten minutes.''
``Desert?'' The voice, from the man in front of Gregory, was breaking.
``There are no deserts in Europe. We're all going to die!''
``Look out your window,'' Gregory said. ``If that's somebody's flower
garden, I think they need to water it more often. Obviously we're not over
Europe.''
Below was a stark expanse of sand next to the blue of the ocean. Gregory
remembered hearing that there were only a few places on earth where deserts
existed adjacent to the sea, but he could not think where they were. He gave
up the effort and turned to watch the flight attendent. Beside him, Raphael
spoke a prayer in a surprisingly calm voice. Gregory heard his name in it.
However, he didn't get a chance to comment before he had to put his head
between his knees and a pillow between himself and the next seat. The plane
continued its downward descent.
* * *
Westward leading,
Still proceeding,
Guide us to thy perfect light.
The three days following the crash became more and more tense as it became
obvious that no rescue was on the way. Nothing in the wreckage worked,
including the radio, and there was only an occasional plane overhead, much too
high and fast to spot the people in the desert below. The days were hot, the
nights cold, and the food gradually vanished. Gregory remained somewhat
detached from it all, assuming that they would be found eventually, but it
appeared that starvation was a more likely possibility.
Midnight came for the fourth time since the crash. Gregory sat with a
blanket over him, his back against the smooth metal of the plane, staring at
the brilliant supernova that shone high in the heavens here. From this
information and the positions of the stars he had deduced that they lay rather
close to the equator, though probably not as far south as Africa. It
embarrased him not to be able to guess closer, but his specialty,
astrophysics, didn't include much study of the constellations.
Raphael appeared from the night and sat beside him.
``Still fascinated by the star?''
``It seems brighter every night. It should be decreasing in intensity by
now. It's been almost a week.''
``Still think it's a natural phenomenon?''
Gregory sighed. Raphael continued.
``The last time a star shone this brightly in the heavens, people followed
it to Bethlehem.''
``You don't follow stars. Only a very few stars stay in the same place
throughout the night. You'd end up walking straight east for a while, then
straight west. Not a productive evening.''
``Perhaps not, but there's almost no food here, certainly not enough for
another day. And I'm not sure I really want to be around when these folks
start looking for `alternative' food sources.''
``You want to leave?''
``I don't think we have a choice. And night's the best time for travel.''
Gregory shrugged and stood up. ``Let's go meet our deaths, then. Which
direction?''
Raphael shook his head, and fixed Gregory. ``You decide.''
Gregory turned his vision heavenward. ``We'll follow the star, then, for a
while. That ought to be the direction of the sea, anyway. I don't suppose
we're taking anyone with us?''
Raphael simply shook his head again.
Seventy-five dunes later, the night had begun to fade, and the star had
long ago slid over their heads and below the horizon. Gregory was tired, more
a product of the shifting, uncertain footing than the distance.
``We should probably find a place to rest for the day,'' he said, looking
for such a place without much success.
``Not necessary,'' Raphael said. ``Listen.''
Barely audible over the sand was the sound of ringing bells. Gregory
turned his head slowly until he could fix on the sound.
``It's still ahead of us.'' The two men picked up their pace. As they
topped the next dune, they saw the source of the sound and could hear it
clearly. Nestled in a narrow valley between two dunes lay a village, mostly
just a collection of goats and houses, but in one corner stood a church whose
bells were ringing to herald the morning. Two kilometers or so beyond, the
dunes stopped. Though the sea was invisible from this point, it was clearly
there.
They descended toward the village, and were met by a throng of people
bearing food and water, and speaking rapidly in a language that Gregory could
not understand. He turned to Raphael, who grimaced, and responded in a
similar tongue, though very slowly.
``Not similar enough,'' he said at last. ``I still can't understand
them.'' Accepting the water, they followed the party down into the village
itself. There, they were directed by hand signs to one of the larger houses.
Within sat maybe a dozen people, all with wrinkled faces and ancient eyes.
They looked up as the two travellers entered, and one smiled. He spoke in the
same language that the villagers did, softly, and very slowly. Raphael shook
his head and attempted a response. A look of understanding came over the
elder's face, and he said something back to Raphael. The two began to
converse, slowly. Finally, the elder waved to a villager, and began to talk
rapidly to him. Raphael turned to Gregory.
``I told them about the others at the plane. They know the desert, so they
will bring them here. But they also said they were expecting us, and that
tonight would be the last night of our journey. Something about a child being
born, and rambling about the bright star.''
``Guess what religion these people practice? What else would they think
when a bright star shone in the sky for a week? Tell him we are not oriental
kings, and ask him how we can get back to civilization. `Where are we?'
wouldn't be a bad question, either.''
Raphael nodded and began to speak to the elder again. The man listened
impassively, then opened a pouch beside him, handed its contents to Gregory.
Gregory accepted it, and looked down. Sparkling in his hands was a diamond
perhaps eight centimeters in diameter, cut only roughly, but still the most
impressive stone he had ever seen. Raphael, too, was stunned for a moment,
then listened as the elder spoke.
``He says that we need not be ashamed of having no gift. This is from his
people, and we should offer it to the child tonight.''
Gregory tore his gaze away from the stone. ``Where is this child?''
Raphael conversed briefly. ``He says we need only follow the star.'' He
paused briefly. ``He said that if we do not find the child in a single night,
he admits his mistake and we may keep the `pretty rock.' ''
``We can't take their diamond. We will find no child. But if it's that
important to him, I won't begrudge him one night.''
Raphael smiled and relayed this information, then turned back to Gregory.
``In that case, he invites us to take part in a feast tonight. I hope you
like goat,'' he added in an undertone. Gregory smiled and bowed to the elder.
``I'd be delighted,'' he said, and though the language could not be
understood, he hoped the gesture would be universal.
* * *
...bearing gifts, we travel afar,
Field and fountain,
Moor and mountain,
Following yonder star.
Night brought them to the top of another dune, bearing not only the
diamond, but clothes of goatskin made for an infant, water, and Gregory's
Polaroid, which he used to take a picture of the quaint middle east villiage
in the fading light. ``My colleagues aren't going to believe any of this,''
he remarked, and Raphael smiled.
Above them in the sky, the supernova glowed with a brilliant light, the
brightest thing in the clear desert night. Taking their bearings from it, the
two men began a steady stride. An escort from the village followed them for a
time, then bowed once as a group and turned back. Gregory waited until they
were out of sight before he spoke.
``So what do we do now?''
Raphael frowned, and looked at him. ``What do you mean?''
``I mean, if we go back and tell these people we found nothing, they'll be
crushed. On the other hand, I wouldn't feel right leaving their gifts out in
the desert -- it's too likely they'd find them again. And I wouldn't keep
them.''
Raphael shrugged. ``We have all night. Why worry about it now?''
Gregory nodded. ``But we have to worry about it sometime.'' He stopped
speaking, looked quizically at the sky. The supernova hanging there had
suddenly expanded to about twice its previous size, with a corresponding
increase in brightness.
``That's not possible,'' Gregory said.
``It seems to be,'' Raphael countered. They kept walking. An hour passed,
and the star became steadily brighter.
``A double star,'' Gregory said at last. ``There were two stars there, and
the explosion of one made the other unstable. That's why it's getting
bigger.''
``Fascinating. To think it's happening now, in our lifetime.''
``It isn't. It took the light of those stars centuries to get here. The
actual explosion happened ....'' He stopped.
``How long ago?''
``About two thousand years. I was just thinking that it was kind of an odd
coincidence. But it's not really.''
Something on the next ridge caught his attention. Though it was unclear in
the light of the double supernova, there was an obvious imperfection in the
smoothness of the desert. He pointed, and they picked up their pace. As soon
as they could make it out, they ran.
At some time in the last couple of days, a woman and her infant child had
crossed this dune in the other direction on a mule. The beast now lay in the
sand, unmoving, and the woman and her child rested against it. Both showed
signs of dehyration, but both still breathed. Raphael uncorked a flask of
water and held it to the semiconscious woman's lips. Gregory lifted the
infant and gave it some water as well.
Raphael looked at Gregory for a long moment.
``It's a good thing we were here,'' Gregory commented as they helped the
woman to her feet. He still held the child in his arms, sound asleep but
breathing deeply.
``Coincidence, I'm sure.'' Raphael said, but his tone was completely
expressionless.
Gregors laid the Polaroid photograph of a small child on the table in front
of him, where the other men could see it. They gathered around, pushing aside
astronomical maps and sheets of equations to make room for the rest of his
pictures.
``And so there was a child where the star led,'' Gregory finished, pushing
back his chair.
One of the others looked at him strangely. ``I thought you were an
Athiest.''
``I am.'' He lifted the photograph of the child and slid it to his
questioner. ``But does it really matter?''
______________________________________________________________________________
Christopher Kempke is a dangerous, psychopathic Computer Science graduate
student with too much time on his hands. Attempts to lock him up have
resulted only in a temporary confinement at Oregon State University, where he
can be reached as [email protected] on good days, and not at all on
bad.
______________________________________________________________________________
From _Adventures of a Degenerate Electron_ --- Bruce Altner
INSIDE A WHITE DWARF
Oh, now I am a swimmer,
But I don't know how I got here.
There are swimmers by the millions,
Darting through the Fermi Sea.
Through the crush that chokes and smothers
I swim with all my brothers,
Somehow always going faster
In an ever-growing horde.
How I weary of the straining!
(But not to sound complaining),
I yearn to rest my tired nodes
Down in some quiet shell.
But St. Pauli isn't soothing.
He says, ``Best you keep on moving!
There's no such thing as slowing down
When swimming in the Fermi Sea!''
He says:
``You've got to go a little faster,
Push a little harder,
Don't you know that letting up
Might bring the whole thing down?''
But no matter how I struggle,
I'm caught up in this bubble
And I guess that I'll be seeing you
On the other side of Time.
______________________________________________________________________________
The Harrison Chapters
Chapter Two
Jim Vassilakos
Copyright ©1990
______________________________________________________________________________
Faint moonbeams caressed the dark ocean swells as they washed the damp beach
with the gloomy remnants of memories past. Mike laid still along the water's
edge, his bare feet slowly dipping in and out of the quiet tide. An empty
flask rested at arm's length from his tired body as he dreamt about years
past and worlds far across the vast sea of space.
He remembered a gentle Sirian voice warning him of his own impending
assassination just hours before her execution and recalled the words of a
wealthy industrialist, ``People are profits; individuals: losses.'' He dug
out of the past a friend who committed suicide after having found freedom
from an Imperial correctional institute and thought on the immoral techniques
once practiced by a medical research lab on all assortments of
non-volunteers. He remembered a gang of youths beating a elderly man to death
because he was an off-worlder and fought back the recollection of twisted
arms and limbs as all the remains of a Tizarian Foreign Embassy staff after a
terrorist bombing.
Suddenly, he woke. The familiar sickness was there, but the feeling of
being forcibly thrust out of the warmth and safety of Sleep's benign womb was
lost to an insidious fear, as if he had barely escaped from the black pit of
an ancient nightmare.
``You okay?''
Mike jumped, his nerves swinging his head around nearly to the point of
whiplash. It was only Niki, and she promptly began her little giggle at
Mike's initial surprise.
He looked over his research assistant with considerable distaste,
``What're ya doin' here?''
She drew her hands to her mouth trying to control the spasms of hysteria
which only succeeded in making matters worse.
Mike regarded her with a grin, ``Fine.''
He groggily got to his feet as she rolled on the cold sands clenching her
ribs in a coughing fit of laughter.
``C'mon, it wasn't that funny.''
Out of breath, she began slowing down. Mike reached for under her
shoulders and lifted her small frame off the ground. She put up a mock
struggle, laughing all the while.
``Michael... No! Put me down!'' He carried her over his shoulder towards
the house as she whined, squealed, and laughed.
The house was dark and lonely when they finally arrived. Mike walked in
and tumbled Niki on the couch. She rolled herself up around a large pillow
and beamed up at him with a smile. He shook his head in disbelief and
grinned.
``Aren't ya' gonna say hi?'' She was in a playful mood.
``Hi.''
They looked at each other for a moment before he continued.
``So, how's my psyche doin'?''
``Just fine... Boss.''
``Don't call me that.''
She laughed, ``Why not? Is it a dirty word?''
He nodded, ``Yes. And how's Mr. Fork doin'?''
``Okay-fine.''
``Still locked up?''
``Yep, but he's gettin' better.''
Mike laughed, ``That's sayin' nothin'.''
``No, Really. He's a lot better than he was. He's even beginning to talk
now.''
``What have you gotten out of him?''
``Nothin' much so far. It's still too scrambled to tell what he's
thinkin'.''
``Bet that makes for some interesting reading though. Look, I'm gonna get
a beer, ya want one?''
Her smile faded. ``Naw, ya' don't want beer.''
``Yes I do,'' he headed for the kitchen.
``Drink some zardocha instead.'' She sounded hopeful.
Mike thought about it for half a moment, ``Yuchi-foo.''
``How 'bout milk?''
He mimicked, ``How 'bout beer?''
``You'll get drunk.''
He tapped the nozel release, and twisted the setting nob down to Niki's
favorite.
She smiled, ``You're not gonna get drunk.''
He looked at her, mock-seriousness molding his features into a neutral
expression. ``Do I ever?''
She started giggling, ``Tee hee hee... you were so surprised.'' ``Was
not.''
``Hee hee... was too.''
``Was not you little sneak. Besides, you never told me why you were
there.''
She stopped laughing, ``Just came by to see how you were.''
Mike glanced at the clock, ``At ten after midnight? How'd you know where I
was.''
``And I thought ya' had intelligence. Where are ya' always when its dark
outside and you're too lazy to answer the door?''
He gulped down half the glass, ``Excuse the stupid question. I'm a little
buzzed right now.''
``Why do ya' sleep out there?''
Mike wondered whether she was requesting information or making small talk.
``You've asked me that before.''
``Ya' never answered me.''
Mike paused. ``To sleep... perchance to dream.''
``Did ya dream?''
He thought a moment. ``Yeah.''
``What about?''
``I dunno.''
She laughed, ``Liar.''
He sipped his milk. It was as cold as ice but felt strangely good going
down.
``Well?''
``You didn't read me while I was out?''
``Nah. I saw your eyes goin' though. But I still 'member when you said not
to read you.''
``I wonder why...''
``Aw c'mon. Y'know you can tell me.''
He replied laughing, ``I do?''
``Yes.'' For once, her tone was convincing.
He paused, ``Okay. You remember hearing about the Tizarian embassy on
Calanna?''
``Yeah, I heard got blown up. Hey, that wasn't when you were a
correspondent down there, was it?''
Mike nodded, ``I was pulled shortly before that, but I was still...
sightseeing.''
``Of course,'' she was smiling.
``Now... I had nothing to do with...''
``Don't even try lying, Michael.''
``Okay... well anyway, the short of it is that I was there just a cent
before it happened. I went out to make this call... the embassy was a
notoriously bad place to carry on a private conversation. While I was walking
back... I heard the...'' He stretched out his arms to form the visual image.
``Boom?''
``Boom,'' Mike agreed hesitantly. ``I started running to see what
happened.''
Niki watched him sympathetically, ``No one survived.''
They fell silent for a time as Niki let her milk sit scarcely touched.
Mike's dream had shattered her mood.
Her eyes slowly grew glossy in the blue fluorescent light. ``I'm sorry.''
Surprised, he looked up, ``About that?''
``I'm just sorry.''
``It's okay.''
Mike looked into her eyes and then averted his gaze downward toward the
floor. ``Drink your milk.''
``Mike... ?''
Mike awoke stiffly on the floor. Niki sat over him, one hand on his
shoulder, gently shaking him to consciousness.
He squinted groggily in the dim light. ``What time is it?''
``Twenty. Mike, Fork's in trouble.''
Mike was suddenly wide awake. ``What is it?''
``I dunno. I think somebody woke him up in the middle of a nightmare.''
``Enough to wake you?'' Mike asked in hopeful disbelief.
``No. I was still up. I just happened to be open to it.''
``Did he wake up by himself?''
``No. I'm pretty sure somethin's up.''
``Ok, let's go.'' Mike picked himself off the floor grabbing his black
camera bag on the way out the door and headed straight for the back terrace.
He hopped on the fly-cycle, felt under the seat cushion for the key, and
switched on the grav-plates while Niki hopped on behind him and held to his
waist.
The vehicle raced over the shoreline using its natural flat surface to
pick up speed. The crisp ocean waves, remarkably changed in the past few
hours, lashed the coast and pounded the beach crag with an unrelenting fury
as the bright full moon rose to its apex in an otherwise pitch black sky.
Within five minutes they landed just outside the nearby Tizarian medical
center. Only a mile inland, the smell of salt carried by the chilly morning
breeze floated through the air. A cargo shuttle rested on a pad under a
hundred meters from the complex, and two guards in dark night-uniforms stood
outside the entrance in the bleak, morning cold.
Mike dismounted the vehicle and quickly trotted towards the guards.
Niki grabbed Mike's arm cutting short his advance. ``I don't have my
doctor I.D.''
He shrugged, ``Forget it. We'll play it straight.''
Mike stopped short of the guards and drew out his press card. ``Michael
Harrison, Gatherer, Galactic Press, Tizarian Division. I need access to this
facility to see one of the patients.''
The guard in front laughed, ``At twenty in the morning?''
``Yes. This may be an emergency.''
The guard mocked seriousness, ``Well, it must be a pretty big one. What do
ya' think George? Do we let little Mikey in?''
The other guard was older. His grey eyes depicted a sternness not much
impressed by his partner's attitude. He coughed before speaking, perhaps to
be sure he had everyone's attention, ``Nobody's allowed in the medical
center, mister...''
``Harrison. I'm with the Tizarian Division. I have permanent press
clearance to this center. See? It says so right here.'' Mike pointed toward
the card, but neither guard paid any attention.
The first guard laughed again, ``Hey, who's your psych?'' Niki's dark,
Sirian features hinted at her purpose.
Mike talked while getting out his flimsy. ``Didn't you hear what I said? I
have clearance. By the way, I didn't get you guys' service numbers.''
The older guard broke in, ``Look, buddy. We have orders not to let anybody
in. Anybody! Do you understand? Now why don't you just hop back on your
play-scooter with your girly-friend and get your snot-nosed face off our
turf!''
``Orders from who?''
``From our commanding officer. Who do you think?''
``Who is?''
The older guard shouted, ``I just said who!''
``As in a name.''
The guard paused, not quite sure how to phrase his response. ''That's
classified.''
Mike looked up from the flimsy. The guard who spoke reinforced his
position by standing in front of the door, his plain, black uniform blending
nicely with the purple background.
``You guy's aren't even wearing Tizarian badges. Who the hell are you?''
``Starlaw.'' The answer came simultaneously from both.
Mike shot a wary glance at the pair, ``You Imperial police have some sort
of identification?''
They pulled badges from their pockets.
``Why aren't you guy's wearing these things?''
There was no answer. Mike was fairly certain they couldn't arrest him.
``Oh, I guess that's classified too. Look, I'd like to speak with your
commanding officer!''
The young guard pushed Mike backward and began to draw his gun, but the
other held him back, the older guard's stare belying a temptation to let his
partner carry out the threat. Suddenly, Niki gasped as if shocked.
``What is it?''
She paused, regaining her breath. ``He's gone.''
``What?''
``No more signal.''
Mike drew out his camera and backed away from the guards, pulling Niki
back with one hand clenched around her shoulder.
``Smile dudes.'' Mike snapped the shot, and retreated quickly to the
cycle.
The personal office of Charles Linden, copy editor for the Tizarian
Division of Galactican Press, rested near the top of the center section of
Silver Tri-Towers. It was, as Chuck liked to put it, a room with a view. Out
the sky window, if the day was clear enough, the entire expanse of land all
the way to the coast could be surveyed. From well over two kilometers high,
it was a wondrous sight.
Mike sat at the edge of the editor's dark, mahogany desk staring blankly
out the window as the clouds blew by. Niki, leaning against the close, white
wall, quietly watched his profile, collecting his emotions, reading his
worries.
The faint noise of footsteps approached the entrance, Niki turning to look
as the antique, brass doorknob turned clockwise. Linden, stood in the
doorway smiling suspiciously while surveying the duo.
``Well! If it isn't Mik and Nik.''
Mike intentionally suppressed his smile. ``Hi, Chuck.''
``That's Mister Linden to you Harrison. So, how's it going?''
``It sucks.'' The voice was Niki's.
Linden turned his head toward her, leaning his body on the desk toward
Mike.
``Does it really?''
``Yeah, it sure does.''
Linden laughed, ``You teaching her slang, buddy?''
Mike smiled, ``Y'know, Chuck, you really have a way of breaking the
mood.''
``Yeah. I saw your entry this morning; suggested headline: `Imperial
Police Seize Hospital.' Very catchy.''
``You don't like it?''
``First off, it isn't a hospital. It's a medical center. Big difference.
Secondly, they didn't seize it.''
``They refused my clearance.''
``I just got off the phone with a Lieutenant Robertson. He tells me you
tried to assault one of his guards.''
Mike held the smile, ``He's lying.''
Linden confidently continued, ``He also told me you never showed your
press I.D. to the guards.''
``Chuck, he's lying.''
Linden looked Mike in the eyes, ``Prove it.''
``I have a witness.''
``Do you have the encounter on crystal?''
``No.''
``Why not?''
``We were in a hurry when we left. I forgot the recorder.''
``You forgot the recorder; no substantiation. The paper gets sued. I lose
my job. And as for your so-called witness... who has been illegally posing as
a psychotherapist at the medical center for the past doce so that you could
get a story which was never registered with the paper! What the hell are you
trying to pull, Mike!?!''
``The last time I registered a story with the paper my research assistant
got her brains blown out by a firing squad!''
``That's because all your, quote-unquote, research assistants are
unregistered telepaths!!''
Niki winced. Mike shook his head in disbelief as his boss continued.
``Look buddy, it's not like I don't believe you. I do. But you're just
doing everything the wrong way.''
``I'm doin' my best.'' ``I know. That's 'cause you are the best...
usually.''
Mike looked up hopefully, ``So what do I do now?''
``Lieutenant Robertson is coming over. He'll be here in a few minutes. I
suggest you wait around 'til he gets here. Question him. If you can, trap
him.''
Linden reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a small, pocket
recorder. He placed it on the desk in front of Mike. ''You're still on
Tizarian turf. Use the advantage.''
By that last remark, Linden meant that there were several advantages press
gatherers had on Tizar which weren't granted to them on many other worlds.
The right to publish recorded statements without the approval of the speaker,
the right to use registered telepaths to gather information, and the right to
access the non-classified records of any subject were just a few examples.
Mike sat down at the computer terminal in the far corner. Linden, a lover
of antiquities, rarely ever touched it, and the file on Robertson revealed
nothing out of the ordinary. The twenty-seven year old, Starlaw officer
entered the service after attending Duke Marc's College. He earned a degree
in Enforcement of Justice, and served Starlaw in the public relations
department. He'd been promoted during his first four-year hitch and was now
working through his second.
Mike looked up from the file as Linden's secretary knocked at the door to
announce the lieutenant's arrival.
``Send him in, Jo... and tell the floor that I'll be down in a few
minutes.''
``Alrighty, Mr. Linden.''
A tall man with short blond hair and smooth brown eyes entered the office.
His practiced smile was as wide as it was non-deceiving.
Linden returned the smile, ``Lieutenant, please come in.''
``Mr. Linden? How good it is to finally meet you in person. I must
confess, I didn't know who to greet at first.''
``That's quite understandable.''
``You should get a videophone. That's what everyone I know uses.''
``Yes. Well, on an editor's salary, I think I'll just stick to the basics.
This is Michael Harrison, the reporter who spoke with your guards; and this
is Nikita Sen, a research assistant with the Press.''
Mike smiled at the lie as he shook hands with the Lieutenant.
Robertson also shook hands with Niki but avoided her eyes.
``Mr. Linden. You hire Sirians. I am surprised.''
``Why?''
Robertson laughed uncomfortably, ``Have you not heard the Imperial
convention against psionic trespassing?''
``Lieutenant, the Psionics Suppression is a matter for historians.
Besides, this is Tizar. We have been granted freedom in those areas by your
Archduke's grandfather long ago.''
Robertson seemed to physically squirm in his stance, ``Still, editor. I
must insist that my mind... not be... violated.'' He smiled shyly at Niki.
Mike wondered what kind of people the Imperials were hiring, ``You've got
something to hide, Lieutenant Robertson?''
``Of course not. There are just certain classified matters... Unrelated,
you understand.''
Mike smiled, ``No problem. Niki's telepathy is very... weak.'' He decided
to stretch the truth, ``She can only read the answers to yes or no questions,
feel surface emotions, and even for that she has to be looking at the subject
in question.''
``Still Mr. Harrison, I must insist that she at least leave the room.''
Niki broke in, ``I don't mind leaving, but I would like to hear what is
said. After all, I am, to a certain extent, involved. If I turn around, I'll
be largely unable to use my telepathy. Would that be all right Lieutenant?''
Robertson shrugged, ``I guess that'll have to do. Sorry about the
inconvenience.''
Niki smiled, ``That's okay. I'm used to it.''
Robertson looked at Mike and began to grope for a place to begin. ``So,
Mr. Harrison, the guards at the medical center told me they had a little
trouble with you.''
``I suppose they did, Lieutenant. I wanted entrance; they denied it.''
``Well, did you tell them you were a gatherer?''
``Yeah, I showed them my press card.''
``Well... that's not their story. What were you doing out there so early
anyway?''
``Me and Niki suspected that something may be wrong with one of the
patients.''
``Which one was this?''
``John Doe, number eighteen.''
Robertson looked surprised. ``Hmmm... that's quite a coincidence. That
patient died in his sleep at around midnight last night.''
Mike's mouth fell open, ``What?''
``There's nothing you could have done. He was well on his way to the
golden arches when you arrived, or wherever it is that he went. Wasn't he the
insane gentleman who murdered a guard with a carving fork and injured two
civilians?''
Mike tried desperately to regain his wits.
Robertson continued, ``So, Mr. Harrison, what made you suspect that there
was something wrong with the patient.''
Mike looked back up at the Lieutenant. ``Niki, turn around.''
Robertson instinctively withdrew a step.
Mike continued as Niki turned about to face the lieutenant, ''Is he
lying?''
She nodded yes; her eyes burning red with antipathy.
Robertson avoided both her's and Mike's stare and turned to Linden for
support. ``I doubt I'd be the first. Mr. Linden, I protest.''
Mike stood directly in front of Robertson. ``Lieutenant, what was Starlaw
doing there?''
``That's confidential, Mr. Harrison.''
``Can't you at least tell me the branch of personnel, the name of the
commanding officer?''
Robertson shrunk under the direct questions. ``Internal
Counter-Insurgency. ISIS Division. That's all I can say.''
``ISIS?!?'' Mike almost jumped back into Linden's lap. ``The Imperial
Secret Police?''
``Please, Mr. Harrison. You have me at an awkward position. I'm only
regular Starlaw.''
``Then why are you lying!?!''
Lieutenant Robertson withdrew to the door. ``I won't stand to be
interrogated in such a fashion,'' he weakly complained. ``I'm leaving.''
Robertson opened the door and quickly escaped from the hateful stares of
the three people he was sent to pacify. Mike took the recorder out of his
pocket and turned it off. ``Can I publish it now?''
Linden sat down and crossed his legs, a twinkling of a smile lighting his
otherwise sharp countenance. ``No. You can go out there and get some more
facts, and then come back with a real story. I've got a feeling this'll be a
winner once you've got it fully researched, and I won't even make you
register Niki.''
Mike smiled gravely, ``It's a little too late for that; they already know
about her. But thanks anyway. We'll take the offer. We'll also try to get
some more info. I'd also appreciate it if you'd keep quiet about the story.''
``Okay. But I don't see how that's going to help you now either.''
``Trust me, it will. Look, I'll catch you later. Thanks for the help.''
``Ok, I'll see you two later.''
Mike and Niki exited the office. Once in the outer hall, Niki tugged at
the gatherer for attention. ``Hey, ya' really know how to get people t'
listen to ya'.''
He looked her in the eyes, ``I'm sorry.''
She smiled, ``About you or about Fork?''
``I'm just sorry.''
She shrugged, ``Let's get some milk.''
The bar was cool and dimly lit. Several ceiling fans twirled silently above
as Mike drank his milk on the rocks; Niki had her's straight.
``So,'' she began, cutting the solemn mood, ``where do we start this
time?''
Mike sipped thoughtfully, ``I haven't the faintest idea.''
``Liar.'' She was smiling.
He grinned back and took another sip.
She grew impatient, ``Well?''
``Okay. I met this girl a while ago.''
Niki laughed, ``Is this one of your drunk maid stories?''
``No. This happened just yesterday. I don't know whether Chuck told you,
but me and him met Mr. Clay and his daughter for lunch.''
``Boardmember Clay?''
``Uh huh.''
``And the girl's his daughter?''
``Yeah. Anyway, so we talked, and then they had to leave, but that
afternoon she came over to my house.''
``Alone?'' Niki looked concerned.
``Uh huh.''
``And you let her in?''
``Why not?''
She had no reply.
``So anyway, while she was in the bathroom, I found out she was an
android.''
``What were you doing in the bathroom with her?''
``I wasn't in the bathroom. I was in the living room.''
``What was she doing?''
``Taking her ear off, or putting it on. I don't remember, but that's not
important.''
``You saw her take her ear off. Ooh gross.''
``No, Cindy did.''
Niki laughed, ``What? You asked your computer what she was doing in the
bathroom?''
Mike paused, ``Yeah.''
``Why?''
``I was curious?''
``Have you no shame? Guy, ya' won't be seeing me go to the bathroom at
your place no more.''
Mike laughed, ``Oh, c'mon. Just one more time. I want to shoot some
pictures.''
She laughed, ``No way, bud. So what happened then?''
``She had to take off, but I'm sure she was there to check me out.''
Niki nodded, ``I'm sure she was, too.''
``No. I mean for somebody else.''
``Heck, Mike, everybody's after you. Me, an android, your computer, now
somebody else.''
``Oh, c'mon.'' ``So where's Clay's real daughter?''
``He doesn't have one.''
``You mean, Mrs. Clay gave birth to an android?''
They both laughed.
``Look, stop it. I want you to check up on her... and on Mr. Clay.''
``I can't read an android.''
``Read Mr. Clay then. No! Wait a mil, it was his niece, not his daughter,
his niece.''
She laughed, ``You've really got your facts straight.''
``I was recovering from a hangover at the time.''
``Excuses. Excuses.''
They laughed and ordered some more milk.
She began again, ``So what about Fork. I mean, this could be a dead end.''
``I'm fairly sure his mind was shot by one of those Imperial mind
scanners. They probably just decided to kill him.''
``Why?''
``I dunno, and that's no lie.''
``What do we do?''
``You do nothing.''
``Aw, c'mon. I wanna help.''
Mike refused, ``No, they already know about you. I want you where you can
do some good. Clay doesn't know about you, and I've got a suspicion he's tied
up in this.''
``How's that?''
``I think I remember seeing Robin, that's his niece's... I mean android's
name... I swear I remember seeing her down at the medical center one of those
times I visited Fork.''
``Then she'd know me.''
``Nope. You're not registered. I am. She wouldn't have any reason to
remember your face unless you spoke to her or something, or unless you were
registered with Galactic Press, and you're not...''
``Ya' don't think Mr. Linden would say anything about me?''
``Nah, Chuck doesn't talk to Boardmembers. You're in the clear.''
``What about you?'' She knew the answer to that without asking.
``I'll manage. Look, I'm gonna go home and grab a quick nap.''
``Liar.''
Mike smiled, ``Look, I'll be okay. I promise. Come see me tonight.''
``You mean next morning?''
``Whenever. I'll see ya' later.'' He got up and headed toward the exit.
Niki put down her milk, ``Be careful.''
``You too.''
Niki stayed at the table as the highbowls slowly rose to the ceiling and
coasted across the bar. From the opposite aisle a burley man in a heavy, tan
coat rubbed a lather of foam from his moustache, his eyes scanning the
morning headlines as they scrolled across the surface of his table. In the
background, she heard a group of people laughing. Michael didn't want to be
followed. She glanced toward the escalator ramp and watched a sprinkling of
people zoom by, the cushion of propelled wind whining where its outskirts met
the stop-off. The bar seemed warm and snug when compared with some of the
other places she had been recently; it was a good place to stay and pout. But
not as good as a Boardmember's house. She smiled at the thought as she threw
on her wrapper.
``Are you family?'' The nurse's eyebrows wrinkled in rehearsed concern as
he scratched down Mike's name and Tizarian I.D. number.
``No, but will this do?'' Mike showed the nurse his Galactican press
clearance. The shiny blue and silver card was nearly identical to his
Tizarian personal identification or his Imperial consumer profile. The three
were hard to tell apart at a glance.
The young man nodded in acknowledgement and hurriedly escorted Mike
through the long white corridors of the medical center. The usually polished
floor tiles showed dirty tread markings where a pair of wet, oversized
starlaw boots had recently stomped. Mike grinned and snapped a picture though
he doubted that analysis of the photo could tell much more than the boot size
and service division of its wearer.
The air felt slightly colder as the nurse pushed aside a set of green
double doors. The word ``Freezers'' was painted in icy blue across their
surface. Mike followed closely.
``So what d'ya want with a 'corpsicle' anyway?'' The nurse smiled at his
own joke. He was being too smooth. Mike guessed that they were giving him
loads of preferential treatment because they were scared silly of the bad
press he could inflict.
``It's a long story.'' Mike bent over the computer and with a few quick
keystrokes he scanned the registry of the dead. Niki had taught him how the
system worked last month and the lesson came back to him as quickly as were
it taught yesterday. Such were the benefits of being lectured by a Siri, Mike
thought as the nurse approached the terminal.
``Hey, wait a second buddy.'' The nurse was visibly surprised, but he
scanned the screen seeing Mike had found his way through the system.
``He's gone.'' Mike closed his eyes in the anticipated frustration. It was
too much too expect that the Imperial police would leave his subject's body
on site. That would make verification of the time of death too simple a
matter.
``I thought you guys held a patient's body for autopsy.''
``We do. At least we're supposed to.'' The nurse hit a few more keys and
scanned the screen for more data.
``Here. The verdict was heart attack due to the stress medication. It
happens occasionally. The body's been taken to Greenflower mortuary.''
The news startled Mike momentarily, and he wondered what the Imp's motives
could be. He pushed himself away from the console and straightened out,
slowly perceiving the implications. The nurse gazed up from the computer and
tried to read Mike's expression.
Mike finally smiled, ``At least Fork's going out in style. Say, you got a
spare hour?''
Surrounded by lush costal woodlands and set around a wild flower garden,
Greenflower easily rated as the prettiest community in Silver-Tri county. It
was small, quiet, nearly perfect in every way. Mike would have lived there,
but it lacked in one crucial respect: no beach.
Mike watched the passing trees and sighed as the nurse suddenly turned
delivery boy drove the white grav-car along the highway. The med-center was
being too kind but totally predictable, loaning him a nurse and a car, all to
straighten out its reputation with one reporter from a very powerful news
syndicate.
``I hope you're enjoying this.'' The nurse sounded slightly irritated.
``Sure am. Watch out for the cat.''
Small rain droplets marched steadily up the windshield and swerved
sideways with every curve in the road as the sun poked between the clouds
with sporadic recess, its rays shattering into a kaleidoscope of colorful,
dancing patterns.
Cruising at a hundred kilometers per hour, the grav-car sped over the
highway at an approximate altitude of one meter. Mike thought that it felt
like they were floating on a current of air though he knew that wasn't the
case. They were floating on the force of gravity which was really the
curvature of space. Mike's mind began to swim with equations learned in a
series of undergraduate science courses he had been dragged into by a friend.
Something about down-vectors and Higgs boson emissions. He couldn't quite
remember who to hate for it. Mike had always liked science, but never enough
to actually understand it.
The nurse pulled up to the mortuary and gently touched earth. Outside the
deep grey building a small service seemed to be taking place. The dark gloomy
afternoon made the mourners looked like an assembly of Draconian diplomats
dressed in sleek black suits huddling together exchanging whispers. Their
somber mood was catching.
Mike climbed from the car and headed warily for the mortuary. A pit of
ashes was exposed to the rain about a hundred feet from the building's
entrance, green clover petals curving in along its red brick walls. The
nurse, genuinely fascinated, stopped to look down. It was archaic. Almost
barbarian.
Mike entered the building's lobby while the nurse ran to catch up.
``What'd you see?''
``Nothing. It was too dark,'' the young man puffed catching his breath.
``May I help you, gentlemen?'' A middle aged woman with a pale complexion
suddenly appeared as if from thin air. She was dressed in a long black gown
and wore a black pearl necklace.
Mike took out his press clearance, ``I hope so. I'm looking for a man, I
mean a body of a man which was brought here this morning.''
The women seemed strangely amused. ``Does this body of a man have a
name.'' Her words sang out like music.
``He was listed as a jay-dee eighteen from Silver-Tri costal med-center.''
``I see,'' She seemed absolutely enthralled.
Mike smiled, ``Great,'' then consciously dropped his smile. ``Where is
he?''
She slipped between Mike and the nurse and crept to the lobby entrance,
opening the large oaken doors and pointing her long slender arm toward the
ash pit. Mike watched the rain fall in disappointment.
The setting sun's amber beams tanned the evening coast, streaming
thoughtlessly past the white water's edge, scattering sullenly across Michael
Harrison's tired features. He watched two gulls, wings outstretched, gliding
peacefully over the shifting blue and crimson waves, hanging precariously
onto the thin salty air. As if beckoning him forth, the sea approached within
inches of his face and then receded into the distance while thoughts twisted
about in his mind like delicate angels on their way to a darktime's meal.
But something was missing; something was overlooked. And for the life of
him, he didn't know what it was. What to do when you're deadended? Go back
and re-examine the facts. But there were no facts. Everything was hidden
behind lies.
Unable to sleep in his only true home, he picked himself up and walked
back toward the house. The huge wooden doors seemed even more menacing when
sober, but he managed them open and headed to the kitchen for a brew.
His soft bed and cold beer summed up the perfect way to spend an evening,
but as he sat on the edge of the covers the camera drew away his attention.
Near the wall, it sat on the rug where he had dropped it less than an hour
ago as if pleading like a child for a trip to the zoo, ``take me a picturing,
I want to have fun.''
Mike smiled and stretched out on the floor beside his toy. He opened the
workset and began to review the pictures in memory. He zipped past a
Telmarian mountain range where strange animals carried supplies across a snow
ridge to the local guerrilla faction, then floated along Tizarian waters as a
shuttle from nearby Aquapolis darted from under the seascape in a beautifully
chaotic conglomeration of white water spray and a rainbow of sunshine, then
noticed a Calannaan temple where the altar priests sacrificed a political
dissident with knives and a chainsaw, but only one picture grabbed his
attention-- that of two starlaw guards scowling outside a medical center
entrance in the wee hours of morning.
Mike pivoted the picture into different corners of the screen and tried to
decide where it would look best hanging from the wall. He reversed the
colors, intensified the light, rotated the picture around, zoomed out for a
wideangle, and suddenly noticed what was missing.
The small distorted numbers mocked him from the far corner of the screen.
He manually zoomed in on them and refocused. How could he be so stupid? The
medical center had no permanent cargo shuttle. The vessel must have belonged
to the Imperials.
He looked toward the controller wall, ``Cindy, load file from Silver-Tri.
Find Imperial shuttle 8372919041.''
She responded within the second, ``That shuttle is found.''
``Where is it now?''
``Docked onto the independent fast-merchant, Nissithiu, which has jumped
out of system fifteen point two centims ago.''
The idea itched like a hunch sent by the devil, ``What was the cargo?''
``It was dropping off pharmaceutics.''
``Departure cargo?''
``None.''
Mike leaned back on the bed, ``That's pretty strange, leaving a world as
wealthy as Tizar.''
Cindy gave no reply.
``Where is the ship headed?''
``Flight orders don't state.''
``They should.''
``They don't.''
``Then read topside nav-data and figure it out.'' Mike hated lazy
computers.
Cindy came back to him after a few seconds, ``This will take me
twenty-four point seven centims to compute.''
``Why so long?''
``I'm not a navigation computer.''
He shrugged, ``Fine, Take your time.''
``Now computing,'' she responded as if more than a little annoyed.
Mike grinned. She'd be working until well past midnight. At least he now
knew how to keep her busy.
As he stepped back outside, beer in paw, he shot the dying sun a victory
smile and sat down on the damp sands under a chilly wind. Then, curling up
next to the surf, Mike closed his eyes and tried not to dream. Songs of water
and birds soothed him with a serenity beyond mere music as he drifted away to
other seas.
Slowly, his soul floated about in black and empty space. Silently, a
touch from above pulled him away from sleep's cherished womb. Sounds of
music, songs from the sea, clustered around him like the players of an opera
theater, sinking in and out of the void with a strange, perhaps arranged
harmony.
She bore no expression as he opened his eyes. He felt himself gripped with
a strange combination of confusion and fear as the black sky above cast a
bold contrast around her disarranged golden blonde hair and deep blue eyes.
She smiled sweetly whispering, ``Good morning.''
For a moment, he felt as if he was dreaming, but the rush of questions was
uncharacteristic of sleepthink. In dreams he could accept that life was death
and good was evil, but on the surface of thought there was only the here and
the now and many, many questions.
``Why are you here?''
``We found your psyche.''
The cold tide washed the tips of Mike's toes as a cool, salty breeze
lifted a few strands of Robin's hair.
``Drop the story, or you'll never see her again.''
Robin walked slowly up the beach as Mike sat still in the sand watching
the ocean horizon curve away into the distance.
Dawn was particularly brilliant along the coast, a primary reason for his
choosing to live there. Mike watched the sunrise with a rueful stare as the
dull, throbbing pain stuck like a stiff arrow in the base of his skull.
Bitterly, he picked his sand encrusted self off the beach and headed wearily
toward the house. Grains of earth fell off him with each dismal step.
The large livingroom reeked of a dreary gloom. Mike glanced toward the
couch and the pillow where her head had rested two nights before. He walked
sullenly into the bedroom. The far curtains remained closed, dimming the
room. The chain locket she'd given him rested on his bed with the camera.
``Hello.''
It beeped compulsively as a point of light danced around the controller
screen.
``Yes?''
``The Nissithiu went to the Calanna star system.''
``Oh.''
Mike tumbled the junk off the bed, all except for the locket. It was in
the shape of a heart with words inscribed along the front: ``Go For It!''
``Place audio connection call to Linden.''
The light danced around the screen.
``Done.''
Mike gathered up his breath.
``Hi, What's up Mike?'' It was Linden's voice.
``Morning, editor.''
``Yes, and a very nice one it is too. Is there anything I can do for
you?''
Mike consciously tried collecting his spirit.
``Why did you tell Clay?''
``What?''
``You heard me.''
``I don't understand, Mike. What happened?''
``They've got Niki.''
``... You think I told Clay about her?''
``I know you did, Chuck. I just wanna know why.''
``Now don't start hurling accusations, buddy. I didn't say a thing to Clay
or anybody else. Now, tell me exactly what happened. Did she screw up or
something?''
``No.''
``Well, how do you know?''
``She's not a screw-up! Okay?!''
``Well, I didn't say anything. Editor's honor, Mike.''
``Bullshit.''
``The honest truth.''
``No, it had to be you.''
``Nope.''
``Chuck, if I find out later...''
``I'm clean.''
``Chuck... stupid question coming up...''
Mike scratched his head with the locket searching for the right words.
``You ready?''
``I love dumb questions. Shoot.''
``When's the last time you had your office checked for bugs?''
Silence.
``Chuck?!?''
The line was dead.
______________________________________________________________________________
Jim is a full-time MBA student at UC Riverside. He recently founded the UCR
Gamers' Guild and co-edited the first issue of its quarterly journal, _The
Guildsman_. These chapters are the first of several he began during the
middle 80's as a prose exercise in description of his Traveller (SF-RPG)
setting. He says he writes exactly the same way he gamemasters: without any
semblance of plan or preconception.
What has been published here as Chapter Two sl is actually chapters two and
three as written originally by Jim. The Harrison Chapters will be continued
next issue.
[email protected]
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
The Ultimate Hell
Jeffrey Mark De La Noye
Copyright ©1990
______________________________________________________________________________
Kyklos Matlock looked up at the pale blue sky of Hygess above him, his long
dark hair blowing in the wind. A snowbird wheeled above, circling over some
prey that had earlier succumbed to the cold. Though many things were adapted
to the harsh environment north of Hygess' equator, there was always a limit to
one's tolerance. The northern hemisphere of Hygess was cold, but to a native
like Matlock, the cold was comforting.
His eyes met the metropolitan community of Icelandia on the horizon, his
destination. He could hear the distant sound of skimobiles as they scudded
off in the distance, and they reminded him of Ford Bedcoe, his friend, who had
taken off on a skimobile several hours before. Matlock regretted the argument
which caused his flight, but he could see nothing that he could have done,
personally, that Ford would not have objected to. Depressed by the fight and
alone in the hotel room, Matlock decided to take a comforting walk across the
wilderness, and it was now time to return.
The wind blew a bit harder and Matlock pulled his hood over his head and
his furskin jacket closer. It was only a few more miles to Icelandia, he kept
reminding himself. Only a few more miles.
The sun set and soon the sky was a murky gray. Matlock's stride became
shorter and his footsteps fell closer together. Only a few more miles.
The cold black sky with its many stars faced Matlock when, exhausted, he
fell over backwards onto the cold snow. He was only a few miles from
Icelandia .
Then he heard the sound of skimobiles, and it was the last thing he heard
until his friend Ford Bedcoe called to him and lifted him up and into Bedcoe's
own skimobile.
``Matlock!'' Bedcoe called, ``Matlock!''
``Matlock!'' Bedcoe called, and at once Matlock woke with a start. He
opened his eyes and instead of the dark night he saw the cold gray
tungsten-steel alloy side of the Total Survival Suit that he lay face down in.
He suddenly realized that he had been dreaming of an event that had happened
some months ago. Now, in the TSS, the extremes of the planet Tartarus once
again revealed themselves to him.
Matlock looked around and realized where he was. He rubbed his eyes and
looked into the viewer, where he saw Bedcoe's concerned face looking at him.
``Oh, hello, Ford.'' he said sleepily.
``Hello indeed! Your EKG was going wild. I thought you were hurt.''
Matlock smiled. ``No, I was just dreaming... about that time I almost
froze out near Icelandia on my home world. Oh, by the way, I don't think I
ever thanked you for that.''
Bedcoe shrugged in modesty and smirked. ``I think you did. Besides, I
couldn't let you die. You were the only transportation I had off that
iceball.''
Matlock tried to reposition himself in the vehicle, only to fail. The TSS
was so low and close to his back that he couldn't stand if he wanted to, and
it restricted his movements considerably. Bedcoe had always complained about
that, and Matlock had to agree. The surface temperature of Tartarus,
thirteenth planet of the solar system, was so cold that it drew heat away from
any source, so the less area needed to heat the better.
Early expeditions on Tartarus had been conducted in actual suits, but it
was discovered that a human's own personal locomotion couldn't handle the cold
of the planet or the distances covered, no matter how well padded and heated
the suit. So H-shaped vehicles were created that crawled along the ground
``on all fours''. Though actually vehicles, they were still called total
survival suits.
The TSS was shaped like a person with outstretched arms and legs, within
which the driver's own extremities fit. Cybernetic controls were placed in
the hand and footpads of the suit to control its various functions. The
suit's own housekeeping chores, such as heating and ventilation, were
controlled by a separate computer independent of the driver.
As can be expected, the total survival suit completely protected its
occupant from the outside. It had to. The atmosphere outside the thick
tungsten-steel suit was -200 degrees Fahrenheit and any exposed part of a
person would freeze solid instantly. Tartarus received 1/1000 the energy from
the sun than the Earth does, and Sirius is brighter in Tartarus' sky than the
sun.
It was, in fact, impossible to tell if it was day or night unless you knew
which dim object in the sky was the sun, for there wasn't enough light coming
to Tartarus to cause any kind of colored sky. Like everything else on
Tartarus, time was frozen.
Matlock lightly tapped his fingers to the cybernetic controls in the
handpads of his TSS and the feeding mechanism revved up. A machine inside the
TSS boiled carbon dioxide out of the rocky surface of Tartarus. It
disassociated the carbon dioxide into carbon and oxygen. The oxygen was
breathable when combined with nitrogen from the waste processor, and when
combined with free hydrogen from the atmosphere created water. The carbon,
when combined with other elements from the rock became a suitable waybread,
high in carbohydrates and some protein, but low in fats. It didn't keep them
healthy, but it kept them alive.
Bedcoe spoke into Matlock's intercom. ``Can't hold out that extra mile,
can you?'' he joked.
Matlock smiled back at him. ``just thought we'd have a picnic. It's a
nice enough view, isn't it? Besides, I didn't notice you fasting back there
at Tyomni Zvezda.''
They had just come from Tyomni Zvezda, an area on Tartarus that was
proposed as a permanent spaceport on the planet. While there, they had set up
a denamit, a device that drilled deep into the planet where there was heat.
The drill brought the heat up to the surface, where it stimulated the growth
of crystals that grew geodetically. As the crystals grew, they formed a dome,
which also held heat in. The denamit was never turned off, because it heated
the dome continually, but the rate at which it drew heat could be slowed so
that the dome didn't continue to expand. The main city of Tartarus, Krasni,
had been created this way. The crystals would take at least a month to grow
to the right size, so in that time Matlock and Bedcoe were heading back to
Krasni, their home on the barren, frozen world. There were only a dozen people
on Tartarus, and ten of them were currently at Krasni.
The food that Matlock was eating was a spherical gray lump that was the
product of the food processor. He looked at it with disdain. ``I can't wait
to get back to Krasni,'' he said solemnly, thinking of the real food both of
them had enjoyed just before they left Krasni. This tour of duty was starting
to get to both of them. The harshness of the environment was one thing.
People had to crawl around in these small boxes with very little extra space,
and there was no real food to speak of. The supply ship to Krasni came once
every two weeks, and so a few days ago he and Bedcoe had eaten actual meat.
It had been delicious, but it gave him the impression of being a last supper.
While Matlock ate, Bedcoe adjusted his camera so that he could see the
distant Ural Montes that they would have to climb over to get to Krasni.
Krasni was tucked away in Grierson Vallis, a small valley in the Ural range.
Above the upper peaks of the mountains was the ever black sky and the dim
stars. A particularly dim star was setting behind the middle peak.
Matlock stuffed the remainder of the waybread into his mouth and touched
the cybernetic contact that moved the tractor skids underneath the machine.
There were four caterpillar tracks, one under each handpad and footpad. By
gently pressing on the steering contact on each side of the machine, Matlock
was able to maneuver the TSS in the direction of the Ural Montes. He touched
the contacts on his TSS and began the trackwork. Slowly at first they turned,
testing the strength of the ``snow'' underneath, making micro-adjustments
until the TSS master computer was sure that the snow underneath the TSS could
support motion. Then, when all the adjustments were completed, the TSS tracks
revved up to full speed. The headlights flashed on and lit a wide patch of
the frozen blackness before them. Soon both TSSs were crawling quickly up the
foothills of the Ural Montes.
Bedcoe spoke into the intercom. ``What's the hurry? Wait for me; I don't
want to be left alone out here.''
Matlock was silent for a moment. Bedcoe sure was getting grumpy; had been
for the past day. ``I want to get home, `` Matlock said. Bedcoe wasn't sure
of his meaning. Home for them now was the city of Krasni, and had been for
the last six months when they had joined the Frontier Corps. Since Matlock
was from Hygess, originally, that could equally have been his meaning.
Hygess, Matlock's home world, was divided politically, geographically, and
culturally into the Frozen North and the Sunny South.
Matlock was from the North, but even he was unused to the mile upon mile of
snow, or whatever this stuff was. Matlock was never sure what to call the
mantle of Tartarus. He had played in the snow on Hygess when he was younger,
but this frozen matter was nothing like that. All he knew was that it was
instant peril to whoever touched it.
Bedcoe quirked. ``Does this place remind you of home?''
Matlock grunted into the microphone. ``Hygess isn't this bad, Bedcoe.
It's a beautiful world. I can't understand why you hate it so. It can't be
because of the cold, or else you wouldn't have come here.''
``There's a difference between these two worlds, Kyklos. On Hygess a
certain amount of discomfort--cold--is physically acceptable. Which is why
you collapsed that day near Icelandia. So long as you were moderately warm
and in no danger of frostbite, it was okay. However, on Tartarus, no amount
of cold is acceptable. Right now it's about 60 degrees farenheight in my TSS.
I feel fine. In a way, Hyges is colder than Tartarus, at least from a certain
point of view.
``Plus, I'm doing some real good here. Earth needs a place to store her
space fleet, one far from Earth. It would do no good to fight the Cygonians
close to Earth. We need room to fight. We need room to grow and expand as an
Empire. There's no room left in this system; it's too close in here.
``I'm getting paid for being here too. I don't get paid for galloping
around on an isolated member world.''
``I know that,'' Matlock said, ``But didn't you enjoy yourself?'' he
asked. ``I thought it would be good to get away, after your brother...''
``Don't say another word about that,'' he said, suddenly becoming intensely
grim, and Matlock could tell from the EKG and common sense that Bedcoe was
sincere about it.
Matlock remembered what Jonas Radcliffe, the Governor of Krasni, had told
him soon after the incident. Ford Bedcoe's brother Urich had just been
killed, and Bedcoe was a bit shaken up by it.
``He needs a vacation, `` Radcliffe had told Matlock, once he had found a
seat in Radcliffe's sparse gray office at Krasni. ``Don't talk to him about
his brother--at least, not much. Not for the first few days. He's in a kind
of waking shock, and there's no telling what could happen to him in that
state.''
Matlock had shifted uneasily. ``So what can I do? Ford's my friend and I
want to help him, but I don't know how.''
``Take him on a vacation. Take him to a place that you think he'll be very
fond of.''
Matlock had smiled. He had known just the place.
Or at least, he had thought he did. He had miscalculated, though. A
Hygean, if he's from the north, is more sensitive to different climates. To
Matlock, Hygess was as different from Tartarus as Tartarus was from Hygess.
But Bedcoe, who was from Earth, saw Tartarus and Hygess as almost the same
place. Being in a place so like where his brother died did Bedcoe more harm
than good. After a week, when Matlock had finally realized his critical
error, he had offered to take Bedcoe to Hygess' warmer southern hemisphere,
but Bedcoe wanted to leave the planet as soon as possible. His need to return
to Tartarus was no doubt spurred by his need to return to work, not to mope
over his brother.
Matlock remembered the night the two of them spent in that small bar in
Icelandia, and hoped the trip hadn't been a total loss.
Bedcoe turned to look at the thermometer. It was very sensitive because
the Sun didn't give off enough heat to register a change on normal
thermometers when night came along. Night, of course, was purely
mathematical; there was never a day on Tartarus that either Bedcoe or Matlock
would recognize. Only endless night and a constantly star-filled sky, with a
faint object in the background known as Sol.
``The outside temperature's gone down a degree'' Bedcoe reported. ``Night
must be falling.''
Matlock nodded sullenly. Night was an ever-present disease that riddled
the sky of Tartarus, threatening to infect them all.
The two vehicles pulled along for miles, steadily and quickly climbing up
the slopes, through the valleys, while their pilots laid face down in
suspension webbing. The TSS required very little human interaction, once its
occupant told it what to do.
As time lagged on, Bedcoe became edgy and began conversation, no matter how
dispirited.
``Hey, Matlock.''
``Yeh?'' Matlock looked up from his private thoughts.
Bedcoe shifted. ``Once I remember that my mother had this speeder, you
know, kind of like the skimobiles they used on Hygess, remember?''
``Yeah. I used to have several skimobiles when I was younger...''
Bedcoe cut him off. ``The speeders my parents had were these gargantuan
things-- they reminded me of the automobiles that Earth used to have in her
past. My parents used to always take me in them to the shopping complex near
Bosn. One day, I decided to drive one myself. I had no trouble getting in,
but I didn't know how to start it. Then, when I tried to get out, I couldn't.
The door automatically locks, you know. It can be opened from inside, but I
didn't know how. I screamed for hours, until my parents found me...''
``Were you injured?''
``No, not at all,'' Bedcoe was quick to add, ``It's just that I had been
stuck in there for so long...''
Matlock thought of the similarity between the TSS and the speeder that
Bedcoe was talking about, and hoped it wouldn't affect him. As Bedcoe had
said, that happened a long time ago. Matlock wondered if it was long enough.
Four hours later, the two TSSs had finally reached the top of Gamma Mensa,
the tallest point in the Ural range. Because of the hard-driving wind of
Tartarus, most mountains tended to be small. Gamma Mensa was more a plateau
than a mountain, and it wasn't much larger than Mt. Washington.
Suddenly the TSSs halted. Matlock's TSS was at the edge of a cliff;
Bedcoe's was perpendicular to a fissure that had opened up about two months
ago, and the opposite side of the fissure was slightly higher than Bedcoe's
side, owing to the fact that some matter had piled up on top of it recently.
The two TSSs instantly acted to remove their pilots from danger. The tracks
wheeled almost subtly so as not to upset the balance of the vehicles, and then
they slowly backed up until the two were out of danger.
Matlock spoke into the intercom. ``There's something wrong,'' he said,
adjusting the TSS tracks so that they would continue in the correct direction.
``This isn't the usual path across the mountains. Where were you leading
us?''
Bedcoe panned his camera back and forth across the ice wall in front of
him. ``Yeah. It looks familiar though. Maybe this is our usual picnic spot.
You know, there's something about this area...''
Matlock had a flashing memory of the area, and remembered that this was
near where Bedcoe had lost his brother. Their being here couldn't be a
coincidence; Bedcoe had led Matlock, subconsciously, to this location, where
his brother and the others had been lost. On Tartarus, bodies were never
recovered; the risk to the living was too great, so markers were carved into
the ice.
Matlock slowly panned the camera around, not wanting to see what he had to
see. But it was there, chiseled in the ice:
Here Urich Bedcoe and his crew of five were
lost when their vehicles exploded from
internal pressure leaks. God have mercy on
their souls.
Urich Bedcoe Shawn Benjamin
Ernie Hardin Elwell Shaw
Uwe Smith Martin Balfour
Matlock was sure he shouldn't say anything; it would be best if Bedcoe
forgot.
Matlock repositioned the camera so that it faced out over the edge of Gamma
Mensa. Bedcoe attempted to do the same thing but his TSS wouldn't let him; it
was still trying to get him safely away from the precipice.
``Kyklos, I can't move. Could you send your image through to my camera?''
``Sure,'' Matlock responded.
Seconds later, the image of the clear ice wall in front of Bedcoe flickered
and was replaced by the image Matlock sent him.
The image they both saw was that of Grierson Vallis, the small area
crouched between Gamma Mensa and Delta Mensa that held Krasni. It was tucked
in the valley because the high-velocity winds of Tartarus would have destroyed
the dome of Krasni had it not had the windshadow of the Ural Montes to protect
it. Beyond that was a terrible white expanse of nothing, an everlasting ice
field that would never melt. All the planets this far out-- Erebus, Hades,
Tartarus-- were all named after the various levels of the Underworld in Greek
mythology. They were named for their desolation, their remoteness.
Right now, here in this spot, was the Land of the Dead.
Matlock noticed that Bedcoe's systems monitor was showing unusually high
perspiration, blood pressure, and heartbeat.
``Are you okay?'' Matlock ventured. A pang of fear struck him when Bedcoe
didn't answer for some time. Finally, Bedcoe answered.
``Hm? Oh, sorry, Matlock. I was lost in thought. Is it warm in here, or
is it me? I was certain I had more footroom before...''
Matlock believed that the Bedcoe was thinking about his brother's death.
It wasn't Ford's fault that the internal pressure systems of six TSSs,
including his brother's, had exploded, leaving only Bedcoe alive. Nonetheless
Bedcoe was convinced that he had done something wrong, that it had been his
fault.
He said, ``Bedcoe, you have your thoughts to yourself. And your privacy.
There's no one else around for miles. No one will see you until you get to
Krasni.''
Bedcoe seemed alarmed. ``Don't remind me,'' he said. ``I'm totally
isolated.'' He turned the TSS around so that it could return back the way
they came, since they had come the wrong way. He tried to stay away from the
fissure directly in front of him.
Matlock became concerned for Bedcoe. He wasn't sure if Bedcoe was being
melodramatic or not. He thought he knew his friend, but the behavior he had
displayed these last few days on Tartarus had been uncharacteristic of him;
Matlock wished they were back in that bar on Hygess now, sipping Hygean skyros
and commenting on the hardy women who often frequented the place.
He knew that Bedcoe did not trust the TSS, and wondered what measures
Bedcoe might take to alleviate this. It seemed that he was beginning to show
symptoms of TSS Syndrome, a condition that often affects people who are unused
to the complete lack of human contact for an extended period of time that the
TSS requires. The sudden thought chilled his mind. Quickly, he maneuvered
the TSS to follow Bedcoe.
Bedcoe did not speak for some time. Instead, from the brain patterns
transmitted to Matlock from Bedcoe, he could tell that he was probably deep in
thought. Matlock knew that he was thinking about his brother. Apparently,
Icelandia was not the best place to take him for vacation.
On top of his self-inflicted guilt, Bedcoe was suffering from TSS Syndrome.
If he should become paranoid that he would never touch a human being again,
then he might become claustrophobic, and then... Matlock had never seen what
a completely frozen human being looked like, but the grisly stories he had
heard frightened him to consider that possibility.
A terrible anxiety came over him. The thought of Bedcoe dying was a
horrible one, but perhaps more horrible was the idea of himself becoming
totally alone. Back in his mind, Matlock knew that he was more worried about
being alone than of Bedcoe dying, but in a burst of self-denial he convinced
himself that it was not so.
Suddenly the loose snow beneath Bedcoe's TSS gave way, and the TSS went
with it. The EKG in Matlock's machine showed an alarming rise in Bedcoe's
blood pressure and heartbeat, but that was to be expected.
Matlock's fears were allayed when the EKG showed a quick, but fairly normal
heartbeat. Matlock turned on his intercom.
``Bedcoe, buddy, how's the weather down there?''
``Rotten, `` Bedcoe returned, ``Next stupid question.'' Matlock smiled.
At least Bedcoe's sense of humor had survived the fall. He surveyed the
situation; Bedcoe's toppled TSS lay in a snow heap twenty feet below Matlock.
From what he could see, Bedcoe's TSS was undamaged. It was designed to take
heavy damage, anyway. Bedcoe's voice returned through the intercom, but had
gained a timbre of anxiety. ``C'mon, Matlock. Get me out of here. It's
spooky.''
Matlock was on the edge of the cliff that Bedcoe had been on a few minutes
ago, twenty feet above Bedcoe's current position. He saw no foreseeable way
to get down to Bedcoe without falling himself, as Bedcoe had done. His TSS
would probably survive, but how would he get out?
None of this, he thought. I'm becoming cynical like Bedcoe.
All TSSs were equipped with winches. The designers assumed such falls
would happen. The difficult part was anchoring his TSS to a fixed position,
so that he wouldn't be pulled into the ditch, too.
With his left foot Matlock activated the Anchor Drill, and it revved up and
drilled deep into the ground underneath Matlock's chest. The vibration made
Matlock's ribs sore. With his right hand he activated the winch in the front
of the TSS. Slowly the winch-line dropped the twenty feet to Bedcoe's TSS.
He hadn't heard from Bedcoe in some time. ``Matlock to Bedcoe. What's
up?''
``You are,'' Bedcoe said. Matlock winced.
``What can you see?'' Matlock asked.
``Not much--hey, there's people down here!''
Matlock gasped. ``You mean, people in TSSs?'' They weren't late; there
was no reason for Radcliffe so send out a search party. If he had, he surely
would have told them.
Bedcoe sounded urgent. ``No, just people. Six of them. They're
reaching out to me. I must help them--''
Suddenly the transmission cut out. Matlock panicked and was able to
attach the winchline to Bedcoe's TSS. He reversed the winch engine and it
started to pull Bedcoe's TSS out. However, in his panic Matlock hadn't
attached the winchline well enough. The snow beneath Matlock's TSS couldn't
take the strain and it gave way, toppling into the ditch, as well.
Matlock was unharmed, and so was his TSS, but he had no idea what delusions
Bedcoe was under. If Bedcoe did see humans, they were surely dead and frozen.
They had to be humans; there was no other life on the planet. Or Bedcoe might
just be hallucinating: another symptom of TSS Syndrome.
Matlock's panic continued to grow. He opened a channel to Krasni, and
secured it.
``Matlock to Radcliffe,'' he called, thumping his hand dully on the side of
the TSS in frustration. ``Come in, please.''
After an eternity Jonas Radcliffe's voice came in. ``This is Radcliffe,
What's the problem?''
Matlock almost dropped the mike. ``Bedcoe's starting to see things. I
hink he's suffering from TSS Syndrome.''
Radcliffe did not speak for some time. When he did, the alarm was evident
in his voice. ``That's not good. I knew it was too early to let him out, so
soon after his brother died. He wanted so much to help, though...''
Matlock interrupted him. ``What do I do now?'
Radcliffe came back. ``What's your position?''
Matlock said slowly, ``Gamma Mensa--right near his brother's grave.''
``Oh, boy,'' Radcliffe uttered, silently. ``Keep him there, keep him safe.
I'm coming out now with a TSS.''
Matlock swallowed. Slowly Matlock's TSS crawled over to Bedcoe's position.
Bedcoe had righted his TSS, and now Matlock saw it moving towards an ice wall
reaching up hundreds of feet. The surface was shiny and reflected the
headlights well.
As Matlock inched along, the surface of the ice wall became muddier.
Distinct shapes appeared in the ice.
Matlock froze, his fingers involuntarily releasing the cybernetic pads. His
face felt hot, when he realized what the shapes were.
Human beings. The humans Bedcoe had mentioned, frozen solid. Every cell
in each of their bodies had instantly crystalized. All the cell membranes had
ruptured, causing the protoplasm within to rush out and swell the body, only
to be instantly frozen.
Their bodies were stretched out in the ice, expanded from the rush of
fluids. Mouths were open with shock, eyes wide with terror.
Matlock aimed his camera at the edge of the fissure behind him that they
had earlier been on. He saw arms alone sticking out of the ice where it had
cracked. One of the bodies in the ice wall in front of him lacked an arm.
Matlock felt sick. His head swam. He reached over to the intercom and
established contact with Bedcoe.
``Bedcoe, they don't need your help. They're too far gone. They're...
frozen stiff.'' A thought crossed his mind, and he dismissed it. He didn't
need his mind cluttered with macabre thoughts. He concentrated on how he was
going to get out of this. He hoped Radcliffe would hurry.
``You're wrong,'' Bedcoe said, with a bit of hope to his voice. ``They're
human, like me. I'm going to greet them.'' He signed off.
Matlock felt a pain in his chest.
All TSSs had hatches, but none of the hatches would open unless the air
above was at least 60 degrees F, or if another TSS was on top, in which case
the temperature of the second TSS would be 60 degrees. TSSs seldom docked,
only so that the two could establish human contact or confer face to face. It
was discouraged, though, since it was dangerous.
Matlock knew that sometimes it had become necessary to override the system
to open the hatch, but this was extremely difficult and only really skilled
people could do it. Matlock had an awful thought that Bedcoe was just so
skilled.
Perhaps, he thought, if I can climb above his TSS, then I can board it, and
rescue him, or at least stop him from leaving. He pressed the single
cybernetic contact that controlled docking, selected ``above'' when it asked
for direction, and tensely waited, hoping that the TSS computer could handle
the operation quickly enough to save Bedcoe, or at least hold him until
Radcliffe came.
While he waited, he thought he might try to persuade Bedcoe not to leave.
``Bedcoe, I'm sure that those people will get help from someone else. You
can't help.'' He was hoping that maybe he could enter Bedcoe's strange world
and help him out of it by going along with him.
Bedcoe sneered into the mike. ``Wrong, Matlock. I have to help. See,
there's my brother there--if only I can get this darn computer to open the
hatch...'' He signed out.
Matlock was certain that Bedcoe was delirious. As of yet Bedcoe had only
seen the outlines of the people in the ice. If he saw the frozen corpse of
his brother up close, there was no telling what he would do. For a chilling
moment, Matlock feared his own life.
The TSS had nearly completed the docking when Matlock heard an odd drilling
sound. For a minute he thought it was Radcliffe, but then he recognized it.
He panned his camera around and saw that Bedcoe had given up trying to get out
of the TSS and was trying to release the frozen bodies using the anchoring
drill. If Bedcoe succeeded, the entire ice wall could fall on them both, in
addition to the falling bodies, and neither of them might escape. The chances
were great that eight people could be buried here.
The docking maneuver was complete. Matlock opened the hatches that
separated him and Bedcoe and climbed through. TSSs are made to fit two, if
uncomfortably. Matlock slid in behind Bedcoe, who turned in his webbing to
look at him. A look of disbelief captured Bedcoe's face. Then anger took it.
``Don't stop me, Matlock! I have to rescue my brother.''
Matlock came closer, all the more aware that Bedcoe was losing it, and that
Matlock himself might be in danger. ``Bedcoe, listen to me...'' Slowly he
reached for the switch that would disengage the drill.
Matlock found himself being pushed away from Bedcoe as Bedcoe wriggled
away in the tight space of the TSS. Bedcoe took a distillation pistol from
the emergency compartment and shot at Matlock.
Matlock ducked and the shot hit the roof, causing the tungsten to become
brittle. Another shot like that and neither of them would have to worry about
anything ever.
The next shot hit the wall near Matlock's arm. He lifted himself up, and
the next beam hit the wall beneath him just as his feet cleared the hatch.
The butt of Bedcoe's distillation pistol almost made it through the hatch
when Matlock closed it.
Matlock retreated into his TSS. Grimly he thought that it might be
possible to leave a crack in Bedcoe's TSS hatch so that cold air would enter
and freeze Bedcoe. He shook his head violently at the thought. Bedcoe was a
friend, after all. At any rate, the drill was automatic and would continue
after Bedcoe's death.
Seconds later the intercom came alive. Matlock thought it might be
Radcliffe, but he was again disapointed. Instead, Bedcoe's exited speech came
through. ``Stay away, Matlock! My brother isn't dead; he's right there, in
front of me. If you try to stop me from saving him, I'll rip your TSS open
like a sardine can!''
Matlock tried reason. ``Bedcoe, if you leave the TSS's protection you'll
freeze solid. No human being can survive out there!'' He spoke these last
words slowly and clearly, hoping they would sink in. They didn't.
With a final sense of defeat, Matlock disengaged from Bedcoe's TSS, making
certain that Bedcoe's hatch was closed. He felt he might never see Bedcoe
alive again. He thought it might be possible to intercept the drill somehow,
stop it from drilling any deeper into the ice.
Matlock decided to try and call Radcliffe. He hadn't heard from him in
some time, and had almost given up hope. ``Matlock to Radcliffe, `` he
called.
There were several seconds of static, and then a voice. ``This is
Radcliffe, Matlock. I'm about two miles from your last known position.
What's the condition?''
Matlock swallowed. ``I don't know what to do... Bedcoe's trying to drill
through the ice to free his brother's body.''
Radcliffe whistled. ``That could cause the whole ice wall to fall. You'd
both be covered.''
``I know,'' Matlock replied.
``Matlock, I think the only thing you can do is hide until I get there. I
don't even know what good I can do.''
``No!'' Matlock shouted, ``I won't abandon my friend!'' Matlock thought how
similar this was to Bedcoe's situation. Bedcoe had refused to listen to
reason, and was endangering others as well as himself. Matlock knew that he
must hear the words of reason, even as the came from his own mouth. ``Okay,
Radcliffe. What do you suggest?''
``There's a cave about 60 degrees to your west. It connects to a tunnel
that leads under Gamma Mensa. Hide there. I'll be coming up that way, to
help.''
``If you can,'' Matlock intoned, after Radcliffe had signed off.
A terrible cracking sound reached Matlock's ears. The ice wall began to
crack up the middle, and the topmost body, that of Urich Bedcoe, came loose.
With a horrible crash, it fell onto Bedcoe's TSS and shattered into slivers of
frozen flesh. Before it did, however, Bedcoe had gotten a fairly good glance
at the face, frozen in a horrible shout of instant terror.
Matlock heard the scream through the intercom. He shook his head and
realized that Bedcoe was beyond help. Now the wall was really beginning to
come apart. Individual blocks of ice that had once held souls were falling
wholesale around him. Remembering that only the TSS protected Matlock from
total oblivion, he maneuvered it away from Bedcoe, wondering how he was ever
going to escape from there. Then he saw the cave that Radcliffe had told him
about. He entered it.
He couldn't look back, but felt inclined to. In a quick motion he aimed
the camera towards Bedcoe's TSS. The systems monitor came alive in a
cacophony of alarm signals. Matlock shut them all off and ignored them,
knowing that he was powerless to help.
Suddenly the systems monitor went flatline. Unwillingly, Matlock glanced
into the camera lens, and saw a thin, stiff hand reaching out of the TSS,
reaching for his brother, who lay shattered about him.
Matlock turned the camera forward, so that he could see which way to
maneuver, but he had trouble seeing through the tears that were welling up in
his eyes. He ignored them. The hole he had entered emerged from Delta Mensa,
and minutes later he was on the open Ice Sea again.
The intercom crackled on again. This time, Matlock was sure who it was.
``Come in, Matlock,'' Radcliffe called. ``Come in! I'm on my way!'' But
Matlock heard little of it. He carelessly switched on his intercom, and
shouted to Radcliffe, insane with fury, ``Tartarus! the lowest part of Hades'
realm and the most horrible! Bedcoe saved me, but he perished and I was
unable to save him, even as he couldn't save his brother. What place can rob
a man of his spirit even before it robs him of his body? I'll tell you!
Tartarus, the Ultimate Hell!''
Radcliffe tried again, but received nothing coherent, except the man's
ravings.
Matlock traveled on through the night, alone.
______________________________________________________________________________
Jeffrey Delano (or De La Noye) has been a SF writer since 1979, when he read
the novelization of _The Black Hole_. Since then, he has conceived of major
plots and ideas. He is a second-semester Junior student at the University of
new Hampshire, majoring in English and minoring in History. He believes all
his writing teachers were idiots.
[email protected]
______________________________________________________________________________
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