Redworld, page 18
He stammered, “Is this … it?”
“Yes.”
He got up, then looked around in amazement at himself, still sitting on the bench. “Which one is me?” he gasped.
“You are you, Uri. That is merely what you leave behind.”
“Oh Siris,” he groaned. “I’m dead.”
I didn’t reply.
He straightened his shoulders and peered out into the beckoning fog. “Across the Bridge?”
“Yes.”
“I’m afraid. I want you to come with me.”
“All right. Come on.”
“But … can you get back?”
“Good question. Let me worry about that.”
He held my arm fearfully as we walked slowly over the cobblestones between the rails. But when we reached the other side he pulled away, and began to trot, and then to run. Voices were calling to him, and he was answering. I think he turned once, and waved. And then he vanished into the fog. I watched for a time, but I could see nothing. And so I faced about and retraced my steps.
Gil was still there. He watched my re-entry without comment. I gave him a side glance, then I sat down by Uri’s slowly cooling corpse. It was slumped awkwardly to one side. I straightened it up a little.
“Am I dead?” I asked diffidently.
“Hard to say,” he replied. “You crossed the Bridge. But here you are, back again, so what does that make you?”
“Alive, I guess.”
“Is that what you want?”
“I think so. Yes. After Mother dies, maybe I’ll come over again.”
My brother got up, stretched, and walked over to the door. The starlight silhouetted his face. He was exactly as I had known him before his terrible illness. Siris, how handsome and virile he looked!
“Tell me about Josi,” I said.
“You know most of it already. Her story begins with her sun, Brightstar. Very far away. Light requires six of their years to flow from Brightstar to us.
“So long?” I protested. “But in the Treaty everyone agreed that light was instantaneous.”
“And how can science argue with a majority vote?” he said dryly.
“All right, sorry, go on.”
“Well, their great starships are unimaginably fast, yet they need many years to make the journey between suns. Their ships have been here in generations past, and they made certain curious conjectures. They surmised that certain of us here were developing ability to move in four dimensions, possibly with the aid of chymicals.”
“Four dimensions? I don’t understand.”
“Alive, we move in three dimensions. Consider death a fourth. If we move from life into death, and back again, we move in four dimensions.”
“Is this what you have done?”
“Yes.”
“And I?”
“Yes.”
“And that’s why they came?”
“Target again. They wanted to learn how to die, yet not die. There was a very good reason.”
“Go on.”
“For d-douzaine years their world—which they call Earth—teetered on the brink of destruction. The Earth people have frightful weapons. They all knew that the next war would be the last. They would all be dead. At that point their first survey ship returned from our world with the news of possible immortality.”
“So Josi came?”
“Eventually. There was at that time on Earth a strong peace movement, known as the Society of Friends. Josi—Jocelyn Case—was a member. If a race of immortals was generated on Earth, there would be no more war. For the whole purpose of war was to kill. If no one could be killed, there would be no more war.”
“It has a certain logic,” I said.
“So she would come here, get herself properly impregnated, return to Earth, and be the great mother of the new race.”
“But it wasn’t quite that simple.”
“No. Earth people are bigger than we are. Their bodies have to fight a stronger gravity. Their cirurgeons had to perform long and painful procedures on her body to make her look like one of our women. Also, she’s an oxien breather. Our atmosphere, which they call ammonia, would have killed her. Her medics traded her right lung for a converter. Her normal respiratory exhalation, an oxien compound of carbon, is split to recycle the oxien. You may have heard her lung motor.”
I sighed. “They did a superb job.”
Gil grinned. “They sure did. And you tumbled like a lightning-struck brick outhouse.”
“Yes,” I agreed glumly. “That’s so.” I had been used—even as we use a bull borch or a ram shik. Pol Randol—at stud. I ought to hate her. But that was not possible. Whatever she wants, I want for her. “So she carries my child?”
“Quite so.”
“But it’s a long trip back to Earth. Years, you say? She can’t possibly deliver it on board, all by herself. She’ll have to have it here.”
“Out of the question. She will deliver it when she gets back to her world. She will sleep most of the way. All her body processes will cease. It will be all right. In any case she can’t have it here. They rebuilt her bones so narrowly that the child cannot pass through her pelvic girdle. The Earth doctors will have to cut open her belly to take the infant. Don’t worry. They are skilled. They know what to do.”
I frowned. “But the air on Earth. Is it like ours?”
“Totally unlike. Oxien is the vital component.”
I gasped. “But oxien is a poison!”
“Only to us. Their metabolism actually requires it. That’s why their blood is red. Our blood is black because hydroien in our air reacts with our blood clusters.”
Strange, strange. “And her fingers? I suppose all Earth people have but five per hand?”
He laughed. “And their whole numbering system is built up on that fact.”
I thought, how clumsy. Our twelve-integer system is obviously superior! But why go into that? “Why did she choose life in a serail?”
“Where else? The ship was here. She had to hide it. She had to earn a living. She had to meet a lot of men. The whole thing provided beautiful cover.”
“Yes, of course. But this Death Hut … the electricity that kills. Does it have a name?”
“Radiation. It helps, of course, if you want to die.”
It was too much to grasp. “But how can these things be? Our Redworld is so … ordinary. Mostly dirty and miserable, with a few rare decencies. We eat, sleep, work, copulate. Josi looks for miracles here, but there aren’t any. Marvels are for the far past, tucked away in myths and legends, or in the distant future of impossible prophecies. Never for now. Never for today. Don’t you see? It’s all quite impossible!”
Gil laughed. “Impossible? You haven’t seen anything yet!”
I shook my head. “I know what you want. You want a re-birth of science, real science. But that can’t happen. Only the Revenant could make it happen, and he’s just a myth. And even if he were real, he’d have to arrive with all the proper signs and portents. You know, the arrow in his back, the Madonna leaving, the great Revenant bell ringing. You and I know that will never be. And how about the Treaty? It froze science for all time.”
“No problem,” said Gil. “The Revenant simply says, in the name of Siris, I hereby cancel the Treaty.”
“And the war will rekindle.”
“Probably not. The Revenant would issue a proclamation, that anyone taking up arms against his fellow man would be excommunicated, and cast into that dark and horrible hole, where he shall live forever in torment.”
I looked at him, but I couldn’t tell for sure whether he was joking. “But we have only twenty-three elements,” I said. “Even with our best possible technology we could never build a starship.”
“You won’t have to. You’re forgetting your potentials, and why Earth came here to find you. You’ll have to learn how to move at will in four dimensions. You can do it. Consider it as sort of a magnificent overcompensation for a hardware civilization we will never have. It’s mostly a question of math. Plus a modest amount of apparatus. Moving from star to star in big metal ships is doing it the hard way. Really rather primitive, even with nuclear fuel.”
“Nuclear … fuel …?”
“But you will need science. A lot of science. Besides math, you’ll need chymistry. Put Squire Vys in charge of the collegia. Get Rollo Fels to help. It can be done.”
I wanted to cry out, no, no! It’s all beyond me. They won’t let me. Why is he telling me this? None of this is real!
“Not real?” he said. He smiled grimly. “Would you like to see what Earth is facing? What they are trying so desperately to avoid? Do you want to see why Josi has given up everything to come here to Redworld?”
“Well, sure.…”
Once more, something profound was happening. Neither of us seemed to move a muscle, yet—the sensation of falling was so strong that I gasped for breath and my stomach muscles solidified. Suddenly a blinding light shone down from overhead, and I put up my arm to shield my eyes. I squinted and looked about me. We were no longer in the hut. We stood in a street. But no street on Redworld was ever like this.
There were tall buildings on either side: great mountainous monsters that seemed to reach forever up into the skies. And in the merciless glare I could see that they were all dead. The one nearest us had gaping wounds in its sides. All the windows were blown out, and jagged glass remnants were visible in the borders. I looked at my feet. There should be glass on the street, everywhere, but I couldn’t see any. I stepped back, and then I understood. All debris, shards, everything, was covered with a layer of dust several fingers thick. Hypnotized, I looked up the street. A douzaine man-sized lumps had similary been covered by the same merciful blanket. I sensed the silent ghosts of a brilliant, ebullient, quarrelsome people. They had longed for peace, but they had not known how to avoid war. And now they had their peace, final, serene, eternal.
It was beyond horror. As I was standing there, stunned, I caught a glint of light from something moving far overhead. I shaded my eyes and looked up. Something big, shaped like a spearhead, was moving majestically through the stark skies. All was not lost! Here was life! “Look!” I cried.
“That’s the last survey ship from Earth,” said Gil. “They’re making one final circuit of the planet before the captain sends off his report. The report will take eleven Earth years to reach Lunar Center, and it will state that Tau-Ceti-Four had its first and only nuclear war forty thousand years ago and that residual radiation still precludes the recreation of even the simplest life forms. His report will conclude, ‘This was our last hope. Everything now depends on the Mary Dyer.’ “
“Tau … Ceti …?” I stammered. “Nuclear … war …? Mary … Dyer? What do these words mean?”
“Tau-Ceti is Earth’s name for the local sun—blazing down from overhead just now. It’s a third-generation star, and its planets have the full complement of ninety-two elements. All they needed for suicide. We stand on their fourth planet. The former inhabitants called it Vela, which in their tongue meant ‘beauty.’ Nuclear war is a type of general killing made possible by certain terrible explosives. The Tower ship was named for Mary Dyer, a member of the Society of Friends, long ago on Earth. She was hanged in the Earth-town of Boston, because she was against killing. Radiation—you know what that is. The Death Hut sits on it.”
“Are we here?” I said hesitantly. “Or are we in the Death Hut?”
“We’re here on Vela in one projection. A little matter of fourth-dimensional mobility. But mostly we’re still back in the Death Hut.”
“I see.”
“No, you don’t see. But you will. In fact, you’ll be able to do it better than I, because you’re now a citizen of both worlds.”
“Redworld and Vela?”
“No, the world of the living and the world of the dead.” He grinned at me. “You got out alive.” But now he became serious. “We’d better be getting back. I’ll close out the projection.”
Things were going too fast. I needed an official Regulator, like Great-uncle Doke, who (before he died) used to control the pace at Processions. When the parade became too fast he lifted a rope previously laid across the route; sometimes with fascinating consequences if the marchers were not alert. I needed to stretch a rope. I needed to call a halt, so I could look at the situation.
“Too fast?” said Gil.
“Yeah. Slow down.”
“We’re almost done.”
I recognized familiar walls. We were now back in the Hut.
Gil walked over to where the back wall had been before it disappeared. I knew he was getting ready to go. I approached him hesitantly.
He stood at the rear, looking out across the Bridge. He was becoming a wraith, a shadow continuum, a projection without substance. On the other side I saw a host of shifting, flickering light points.
“People?” I asked.
“Everyone … nearly everyone … from worlds everywhere … since the dawn of time.”
“Father?”
“Yes.” The phantom turned back. “Oh, one final little problem.”
“And what is that?”
“When your friend Boogi was released from jail he got his sky-knife and went looking for Dean Gard.”
I should have known it. “I’ve got to stop him!”
“Too late. Two hori ago the acolytes pulled the knife from Gard’s skull. Boogi has already been hunted down and killed. The militia think Josi put him up to it. When time begins again you’ll see a platoon marching up Vys Street to arrest her. The whole damn town is turning out.”
Even in my new form I could sense my hearts pumping wildly. And I had an interesting parenthetical thought: while the vengeful little villein had been tracking down Gard, I had been making violent love to the daughter of the doomed prelate. I said, “Josi will be condemned as a lamia.”
“She meets all the criteria,” said the shadow equably.
“But Gil! She will be electroburned on the public square. Gil? GIL!”
But he had already started over the Bridge. He seemed to pause for just a moment. I thought I heard him say something. “… the flashing lever … pull it down!” It made no sense. I couldn’t be sure. He was gone.
The fog rolled in. The lights on the other side disappeared. The back wall of the shack began to rematerialize. Only the dead Uri and I were left.
I listened. Still no chimes from the temple bells. It was still exactly midnight. I had to get out of here. I had to warn my darling. Go, Josi! Get your starship on its way! As soon as I left here, time would begin to flow again.
I went outside, closed the creaky door, and turned back into Vys Street.
Bong! Bong! The bells announced that time had resumed.
I had taken not more than a douzaine steps when a banshee shriek burst from the bowels of the Death Hut. I whirled, horrified. Had Uri returned to claim me? The hair jumped along my neck.
The sound was from the Hut itself. The roof was caving in. Boards were pulling from nails, and the metallic dissolutions were sounding up and down Vys Street.
Having taken the lives of numerous others, the Hut was now taking its own. I just hoped there would be enough left of Uri for his people to bury.
The sides of the little building were now falling in. First the back, then one side, then the other. Politely, and in sequence. (“After you, sir.”) Crunch, crunch, with dust rising in columns that shut out even Brightstar.
29
The Revenant
AND WHAT WAS THIS? Lights coming up the street. Torches. Horrid cries and screeches. A mob gone mad. Where were the militia? I saw then … coming up in the rear.
The good people of Damaskis would not wait for trial. A priest had been foully murdered. We will have instant justice. Drag out the sorceress!
I ran, and leaped up on Josi’s porch. “No! NO!” I cried out.
“Lamia! Lamia! Bring her out!” A plump burgher came up the steps and stuck his torch in my face. Odd, I felt nothing. Was it because I was dead, and the dead cannot be further harmed?
I lifted my arms overhead and tried to speak.
Suddenly there was silence.
But I could take no credit for it. For behind me, Josi’s door had opened, and there she stood, her face taut with terror. Her voice trembled. “Pol! Who are these people? What are they doing to you?”
“Get back inside!” I cried. “Get into your ship! This instant! Go!”
“But they would harm you!”
“Halt!” A stone-carven face emerged from the front line. It was Coronel Dite, and he had lifted his crossbow. I heard the deadly click as he flexed the bow blades. I saw the froom-headed arrow glinting in the groove. “Stand aside, Randol!” he called. “Woman, you are under arrest!”
There was no more time. I whirled, picked Josi up in my arms, and ran for the door.
At that instant something struck me in the back. It passed through my right heart, my lung, and emerged partly from my chest. It knocked me to my knees. I looked down and saw the arrowhead. Josi fainted. And now a curious thing happened. A great strength and vitality surged through me. It burned through my flesh and bones and brain. For a brief instant my body glowed like a great oxien searchlight. And then it was over.
I got to my feet, strode through the door, and into the Main Room. I left gasps behind me. No one followed. No one dared.
And so up the stairs, into her room, and into the Tower chamber. I saw the “flashing lever” right away. She must have been on the verge of launch when she heard me on the porch. Good show, Gil!
As I laid her down on the hard casket cushions I kept my eyes on her face. The eyes were beginning to flutter. They opened, and looked up at me. I smiled down at her as I buckled the straps around her legs and waist. She watched me, in complete trust. Then a sweet-smelling fog began to fill the glass box, and her eyelids grew heavy. I took the half-empty elixir vial from my tunic pocket, made sure the stopper was tight, then wedged it between her arm and side. “You may need it someday,” I said. “Remember me, Josi. And know that one day I will come to Brightstar.” I bent over and kissed her. “Sleep, my darling, sleep.” Her black ringlets clustered her head in a sparkling halo. She had never looked lovelier. I stared down, entranced, englamored, held by her lamia-net, until at last I noted that a bead of blood had collected at the arrow tip and was about to fall on my darling. And so I wrenched away and closed the casket lid. I listened to hidden locks and hasps coming together inside the box.
