Helliconia, page 121
Helliconia was at this period receding towards something like the original conditions which had existed before its parent sun Batalix became locked into the gravitational field of the A-type supergiant. The planet had then carried a remarkable number of phyla, ranging in size from viruses to whales, while being denied the energy levels or the complexity to support beings with that intensity of cellular organisation required as building blocks for higher mental functions – the thinking, deducing, perceiving functions associated with full consciousness. The ancipitals were Helliconia’s supreme effort in this respect.
The ancipitals were a part of the integrated living system of Helliconia’s biosphere. One of the functions of that systemic gestalt – of which, needless to say, its component parts were entirely unaware – was to maintain optimum conditions for the survival of all. As the yellow-striped fly could not live without the flambreg, so ultimately, the flambreg could not live without the yellow-striped fly. All life was interdependent.
The capture of Batalix by the supergiant was only an event of the first magnitude and not a catastrophe for Helliconian life, although it was catastrophic for many phyla and many individuals. The impact of the capture was gradual enough for the biosphere to sustain it. The planet looked after its own. Its moon was lost; its vital processes continued, although through a disruption which brought storms and blizzards raging for hundreds of years.
The fierce output of high-energy radiation from the new sun caused more damage. More phyla were eradicated, while others survived only through genetic mutation. Among the new species were some which were, in evolutionary terms, hastily developed; they survived in the new environment only at some cost to themselves. The assatassi in the sea, which were born as maggots from the decaying bodies of their parents; the yelk and biyelk, necrogenes which resembled mammals but were without wombs; and human stock; these were among the new creatures which rose to abundance under the energy-rich conditions which came about eight million years before the present.
The new creatures were products of the biospheric striving for unity, and cobbled into it at the time of maximum change. Before its capture by Freyr, Helliconia’s atmosphere had contained a large amount of carbon dioxide, protecting its life with a greenhouse effect, and producing a mean temperature of – 7° C. After capture, the atmospheric carbon dioxide was much reduced, combining at periastron with water to form carbonate rocks. Oxygen levels increased to amounts suitable for the new creatures: humans could not live in the oxygen-scarce Nyktryhk, as phagors did. In the seas, greater concentrations of macromolecules led to stepped-up activity all along the food chain. All these new parameters for existence came within the regulatory functions of Helliconia’s biosphere.
The humans, as the most complex life form, were the most vulnerable. However they might rebel against the idea, their corporate lives were never more than part of the equipoise of the planet to which they belonged. In that, they were no different from the fish, the fungi or the phagors.
In order that they might function at optimum efficiency in Helliconia’s extremes, evolutionary pressure had introduced a system for regulating the masses of the humans. The pleomorphic helico virus had as its vector a species of arthropoda, a tick, which transferred itself readily from phagor to human. The virus was endemic during two periods of the Helliconian year, in the Spring and in the late Autumn of the Great Year, with minor epicycles between these cycles. These two pandemics were known as bone fever and the Fat Death.
Sexual dimorphism between the sexes was negligible; but both sexes showed seasonal dimorphism. Male and female could be said to average approximately one hundred and twelve pounds over an entire Great Year. But spring and autumn brought dramatic variations in body weight.
Survivors of the spring scourge of bone fever weighed a lanky ninety-six pounds, and presented a skeletal appearance to those who were brought up to the old way of things. This decreased body weight was an inheritable factor. It persisted throughout the generations as a crucial survival trait during the increasing heat. But the effect slowly became less apparent until populations achieved the median of one hundred and twelve pounds.
Towards winter, the virus returned, partly in obedience to glandular signals. Survivors of these attacks increased in bulk, rather than losing it, generally gaining an average of about fifty percent body weight. For a few generations, the population averaged one hundred and sixty-eight pounds. They had transformed from ectomorph at one extreme to endomorph at the other.
This pathological process performed a vital function in preserving the human stock, with a side effect which benefitted the entire biosphere. As the expanding energy quota of the spring planet demanded a much more variegated biomass for efficient systemic working, so the contracting energy quota of winter required a decrease in total biomass. The virus culled the human population to conform with the total food-chain organisation of the biosphere.
Human existence was not possible without the virus, just as the flambreg herds would have ceased ultimately to exist without the curse of the yellow-striped fly.
The virus destroyed. But it was a life-giving destruction.
VIII
The Rape of the Mother
The stiff breeze blew off the coast. The clouds parted, revealing Batalix overhead. The sea sparkled, tossing up foam made of finest pearl. The New Season raced west by southwest, with music in her shrouds.
Along the Loraj coast on the north stood the Autumn Palaces, terrace after terrace of them. The dreams of forgotten tyrants were imprisoned in their stone, extending along the shore in distance and time. According to legend, King Denniss had once lived within their hallowed walls. Since the days of their fashioning, the Palaces, like some inconclusive human relationship, had never been entirely occupied or entirely deserted. They had proved too grandiose for those who created them and for those who followed after. Yet they were used still, long after whatever autumn had first seen the rise of their towers above the granite strand. Human beings – whole tribes of beings – lived in them like birds under neglected eaves.
The learned, who are always attracted to the past; lodged also in the Autumn Palaces. For them, the Palaces were the greatest archaeological site in the world, their ruinous cellars taproots to an earlier age of man. And what cellarage! Mazes of almost infinite depth stretched down into the rock, as if to syphon up warmth from the heart of Helliconia. Here were reckonings inscribed on stone and clay, pot shards, skeletons of leaves from vanished forests, skulls to be measured, teeth to be fitted to jawbones, middens, weapons dissolving in rust … the history of a planet patiently awaiting interpretation, yet as tantalisingly beyond complete comprehension as a vanished human life.
The Palaces lay pallid with distance, and the New Season passed them far to starboard.
The depleted crew occasionally saw other ships. As they sailed by the port of Ijivibir, they passed fleets of herring-coaches about their business. Farther out to sea, an occasional warship was sighted, reminding them that the quarrel between Uskutoshk and Bribahr was still active. Nobody molested them or even signalled to them. Ice dolphins sported alongside the vessel.
After Clusit, the captain decided to make a landing on the coast. He was familiar with these waters and determined to stock the ship with food before they made the last part of the run for the Shivenink port of Rivenjk. His passengers were doubtful about the wisdom of going ashore after their recent close encounter with the phagor band, but he reassured them.
This part of Loraj was within the northern tropics and still fertile. Behind the coast lay a glittering country of woods, lakes, rivers, and marshes, scarcely inhabited by mankind. Behind that country stood ancient eldawon and caspiarn forests, stretching all the way to the ice cap.
On the shore, helmeted seals basked, roaring as the passengers and crew of the New Season walked among them. They offered no resistance as they were clubbed to death. This clubbing was done with an oar. The oar had to hit the creature under the jaw in the vulnerable part of its throat. With its air passages blocked, the seal died of suffocation. This took some while. The passengers averted their gaze while the seals rolled in agony. Their mates often tried to help them, whimpering pitifully.
The heads of the seals were covered by something resembling a helmet. The helmet was an adaptation of horns, the seals having been land animals in the distant past, driven back into the oceans by the cold of Weyr-Winter. The adaptation protected the ears and eyes of the creatures, as well as the skull.
As the human party turned away from the seals they were killing, legged fish heaved themselves out of the waves and rushed up the steeply shelving shingle. They began attacking the dying seals, tearing chunks of their blubbery flesh.
‘Hey!’ shouted Shokerandit, and struck out at the fish.
Some scattered and ran under stones. One lay wounded by Shokerandit’s blow. He picked it up and showed it to Odim and Fashnalgid.
The fish was the best part of a metre long. Its six ‘legs’ were finlike. It had a lantern jaw, behind which trailed a number of fleshy whiskers. As its head flicked from side to side, jaw snapping, its filmy grey eyes stared at its captor.
‘See this creature? It’s a scupperfish,’ said Shokerandit. ‘Soon these creatures will be coming ashore in the thousands. Most of them get eaten by birds. The others survive and tunnel into the earth for safety. Later, they’ll become longer than snakes, once the Weyr-Winter’s here.’
‘They’re Wutra’s worms, that’s what they’re called,’ said the captain. ‘Best throw it away, sir. They’re not fit even for the sailors to eat.’
‘The Lorajans eat them.’
The captain said, deferentially but firmly, ‘Sir, the Lorajans do eat the worms as a delicacy, that’s true. They are poison nonetheless. The Lorajans cook them with a poisonous lichen, and ’tis said that the two poisons cancel each other out. I’ve eaten the dish myself, sir, when wrecked on this coast some years past. But I still hate the sight and taste of the things, and certainly don’t want my men filling their bellies with them.’
‘Very well.’ Shokerandit flung the still wriggling scupperfish out to sea.
Cowbirds and other sorts of birds were wheeling above them, screaming. The sailors cut up six of the helmeted seals as quickly as possible and carried the chunks of meat over to the jolly boat. The offal was left to the other predators.
Toress Lahl was weeping in silence.
‘Get back in the boat,’ Fashnalgid said. ‘What are you weeping for?’
‘What a horrible place this is,’ the woman said, turning her face away. ‘Where things with legs crawl from the sea and everything eats some other living thing.’
‘That’s how the world is, lady. Jump in.’
They rowed back towards the ship, and the birds followed, crying, crying.
The New Season hoisted sail and began to move over the still water, its bows swinging towards Shivenink. Toress Lahl tried to speak to Shokerandit, but he brushed her to one side; he and Fashnalgid had matters to attend to. She stood by the rail, hand to brow, watching the coastline dwindle.
Odim came up and stood beside her.
‘You need not be sorrowful. We’ll soon reach the safety of the harbour of Rivenjk. There my brother will take us in, and we can rest and recover from our various shocks.’
Her tears burst forth again. ‘Do you believe in a god?’ she asked, turning a tear-stained face towards him. ‘You’ve undergone such sorrow this voyage.’
He was silent before answering. ‘Lady, all my life until now I have lived in Uskutoshk. I behaved like an Uskuti. I believed like an Uskuti. I conformed – which means that I regularly worshipped God the Azoiaxic, the God of Sibornal. Now that I have come away from that place, or have been driven away, as one might say, I can see that I am no Uskuti. What is more, I find I have absolutely no belief in God. At his passing, I felt a weight lifting.’ He patted his chest in illustration, ‘I can say this to you, since you are not an Uskuti.’
She gestured towards the shore they were leaving. ‘This hateful place … those dreadful creatures … all I’ve been through … my husband killed in battle … the gruesomeness of this ship … Everything just gets steadily worse, year by year … Why wasn’t I born in the spring? I’m sorry, Odim – this isn’t like me …’
After a pause, he said gently, ‘I understand. I’ve also undergone bereavement. My wife, my younger children, dear Besi … But I speak to my wife’s gossie in pauk, and she comforts me. Do you not seek out your husband in pauk, lady?’
She said to him in a low voice, ‘Yes, yes, I sink down to his gossie. He is not as I desire to see him. He comforts me and tells me I should find happiness with Luterin Shokerandit. Such forgiveness …’
‘Well? Luterin is a pleasant young man, by all I see and hear.’
‘I can never accept him. I hate him. He killed Bandal Eith. How can I accept him?’ She startled herself by her own antagonism.
Odim shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘If your husband’s gossie so advises you …’
‘I am a woman of principle. Maybe it is easier to forgive when you are dead. All gossies speak with the same voice, sweet like decay. I may cease the habit of pauk … I cannot accept the man who has enslaved me – however tempting the terms he uses to bribe me. Never. It would be hateful.’
He rested a hand on her arm. ‘All is hateful to you, eh? Yet perhaps you should try to think as I do that a new life is being presented to us – us exiles. I am twenty-five and five tenners – no chicken! You are much younger. The Oligarch is supposed to have observed that the world is a torture chamber. That is the case only for those who believe so.
‘When we walked on the shore, killing off those seals – only six out of thousands, after all! – a feeling overcame me that I was being shaped for the winter season in some wonderful way. I had put on flesh but I had shed the Azoiaxic …’ He sighed. ‘I find difficulty talking profoundly. I’m better at figures. I’m only a merchant, as you know, lady. But this metamorphosis through which we have come – it is so wonderful that we must, must, try to live in accord with nature and her generous accountancy.’
‘And so I’m supposed to yield to Luterin, is that it?’ she said, giving him a straight look.
A smile turned the corner of his mouth. ‘Harbin Fashnalgid has a soft spot for you also, lady.’
As they laughed, Kenigg, Odim’s one surviving son, ran up to him and hugged him. He stooped and kissed the boy on his cheek.
‘You’re a marvellous man, Odim, I really think it,’ Toress Lahl said, patting his hand.
‘You are marvellous too – but try not to be too marvellous for happiness. That’s an old Kuj-Juvec saying.’
As she nodded her head in agreement, a tear shone in her eye.
Worse weather came in as the ship approached the coasts of Shivenink. Shivenink was a narrow country consisting almost entirely of an enormous mountain range – the Shivenink Chain, which had lent its name to the nation. The range divided the territories of Loraj and Bribahr.
The Shiveninki were peaceful, god-fearing people. Their rages had been drained by the original chthonic angers which had built their mountains. In the recesses of their natural fortress, they had built an artifact which embodied their particular brand of holiness and determination, the Great Wheel of Kharnabhar. This wheel had become a symbol, not merely to the rest of Sibornal but to the rest of the globe as well.
Great whales thrust their beaked heads up to observe the New Season as it entered Shiveninki waters. Sudden snow blizzards, battering the ship, almost immediately hid them from sight.
The ship was in difficulties. The wind howled through its rigging, spray dashed across the deck; the brig pitched from side to side as if in fury. In something like darkness – though the hour was Freyr-dawn – the sailors were sent up the ratlines. In their new metamorphosed shape, they were clumsy. To the yardarm they climbed, soaked, drenched, battered. The unwilling sails were furled. Then back down to a deck ceaselessly awash.
With the crew depleted, Shokerandit and Fashnalgid, together with some of Odim’s more able relations, helped to man the pumps. The pumps were amidships, just abaft the mainmast. Eight men could work on each pump, four on either handle. There was scarcely room for the sixteen together in the pump well. Since this part of the main deck caught the worst of the seas breaking inboard, the pumpers were constantly inundated. The men cursed and fought, the pumps wheezed like old grandfathers, the waters smashed against them.
After twenty-five hours the wind abated, the barometer steadied, the sea became less mountainous. The snow fell silently, blowing off the land. Nothing could be seen of the shore, yet its presence could be felt, as if some great thing lay there, about to wake from its ancient sleep of rock. They all sensed it, and fell silent. They looked for it, peering into the muffling snow, and saw nothing.
Next day brought improvement, a calm passage in the orchestration of the elements.
The snow showers fell away across the green water. Batalix shone through overhead. The sleeping thing was slowly revealed. At first only its haunches were visible.
The ship was reduced to toy dimensions by a series of great blue-green bastions whose tops were lost in cloud. The bastions unfolded as the ship, again under full sail, sped westwards. They were immense headlands, each greater than the last. At sea level, pillars of gigantic proportions irresistibly suggested that they had been sculpted by a hand with intent behind it; they supported brows of rock which went almost vertically up. Here and there, trees could be observed, clinging to folds in the rock. White horizontal veins of snow defined the curves of each headland.
Cleft between the headlands were deep bays – pockets in which the mountains kept reserves of murk and storm. Lightning played in these recesses. White birds hovered where the current raced at their mouths. Strange sounds and resonances issued across the waters from the veiled cavities, touching the minds of the humans like the salt that lighted on their lips.
