Year's Best SF 11, page 23
“Oh, dear God!” Surplus cried.
Darger gaped and, all in an instant, the groping booms and cranes revealed themselves as tentacles. The round blobs they had taken at first for bases became living flesh. Eyes as large as dinner plates clicked open and focused on the two adventurers.
His senses reeled. Squids! And by his quick estimation, there were, at a minimum, several score of the creatures!
The Chief Researcher slid off her feline mount, and waved the inquiring tentacles away. “Remove Experiment One from its crypt,” she commanded, and the creature flowed across the wall to do her bidding. It held itself upon the vertical surface by its suckered tentacles, Darger noted, but scuttled along the stone on short sharp legs like those of a hermit crab’s. He understood now why the Chief Researcher was so interested in chimeras.
In very little time, two squids came skittering across the floor, a stone coffin in their conjoined tentacles. Gracefully, they laid it down. In unison, they raised their tentacles and lowered them in a grotesque imitation of a bow. Their beaks clacked repeatedly.
“They are intelligent creatures,” the Chief Researcher commented. “But no great conversationalists.”
To help regain his equilibrium, Darger fumbled out his pipe from a jacket pocket, and his tobacco pouch and a striking-box as well. But at the sight of this latter device, the squids squealed in alarm. Tentacles thrashing, they retreated several yards.
The Chief Researcher rounded on Darger. “Put that thing away!” Then, in a calmer tone, “We tolerate no open flames. The dome is a glycerol-based organism. It could go up at a spark.”
Darger complied. But, true though the observation about the dome might be, he knew a lie when he heard one. So the creatures feared fire! That might be worth remembering.
“You wanted to meet Dionysus.” The Chief Researcher laid a hand on the coffin. “He is here. Subordinate Researcher Mbutu, open it up.”
Surplus raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.
The scientist pried open the coffin lid. For an instant nothing was visible within but darkness. Then a thousand black beetles poured from the coffin (both Darger and Surplus shuddered at the uncanniness of it) and fled into the shadows, revealing a naked man who sat up, blinking, as if just awakened.
“Behold the god.”
Dionysus was an enormous man, easily seven feet tall when he stood and proportionately built, though he projected no sense of power at all. His head was either bald or shaven but in either case perfectly hairless. The scientist handed him a simple brown robe, and when he tied it up with a length of rope, he looked as if he were indeed a monk.
The panther, Bast, sat licking one enormous paw, ignoring the god entirely.
When Darger introduced himself and Surplus, Dionysus smiled weakly and reached out a trembling hand to shake. “It is very pleasant to meet folks from England,” he said. “I have so few visitors.” His brow was damp with sweat and his skin a pallid gray.
“This man is sick!” Darger said.
“It is but weariness from the other night. He needs more time with the physician scarabs to replenish his physical systems,” the Chief Researcher said impatiently. “Ask your questions.”
Surplus placed a paw on the god’s shoulder. “You look unhappy, my friend.”
“I—”
“Not to him,” the dwarfish woman snapped, “to me! He is a proprietary creation and thus not qualified to comment upon himself.”
“Very well,” Darger said. “To begin, madam—why? You have made a god, I presume by so manipulating his endocrine system that he produces massive amounts of targeted pheromones on demand. But what is the point?”
“If you were in town last night, you must know what the point is. Dionysus will be used by the Scientifically Rational Government to reward its people with festivals in times of peace and prosperity as a reward for their good citizenship, and in times of unrest as a pacifying influence. He may also be useful in quelling riots. We shall see.”
“I note that you referred to this man as Experiment One. May I presume you are building more gods?”
“Our work progresses well. More than that I cannot say.”
“Perhaps you are also building an Athena, goddess of wisdom?”
“Wisdom, as you surely know, being a matter of pure reason, cannot be produced by the application of pheromones.”
“No? Then a Ceres, goddess of the harvest? Or an Hephaestus, god of the forge? Possibly a Hestia, goddess of the hearth?”
The girl-woman shrugged. “By the tone of your questions, you know the answers already. Pheromones cannot compel skills, virtues, or abstractions—only emotions.”
“Then reassure me, madam, that you are not building a Nemesis, goddess of revenge? Nor an Eris, goddess of discord. Nor an Ares, god of war. Nor a Thanatos, god of death. For if you were, the only reason I can imagine for your presence here would be that you did not care to test them out upon your own population.”
The Chief Researcher did not smile. “You are quick on the uptake for a European.”
“Young societies are prone to presume that simply because a culture is old, it must therefore be decadent. Yet it is not we who are running experiments upon innocent people without their knowledge or consent.”
“I do not think of Europeans as people. Which I find takes care of any ethical dilemmas.”
Darger’s hand whitened on the knob of his cane. “Then I fear, madam, that our interview is over.”
On the way out, Surplus accidentally knocked over a beaker. In the attendant confusion, Darger was able to surreptitiously slip a box of the antipheromonal patches under his coat. There was no obvious immediate use for the things. But from long experience, they both knew that such precautions often prove useful.
The journey back to town was slower and more thoughtful than the journey out had been. Surplus broke the silence at last by saying, “The Chief Researcher did not rise to the bait.”
“Indeed. And I could not have been any more obvious. I as good as told her that we knew where the bronzes were, and were amenable to being bribed.”
“It makes one wonder,” Surplus said, “if our chosen profession is not, essentially, sexual in nature.”
“How so?”
“The parallels between cozening and seduction are obvious. One presents oneself as attractively as possible and then seeds the situation with small deceits, strategic retreats, and warm confidences. The desired outcome is never spoken of directly until it has been achieved, though all parties involved are painfully aware of it. Both activities are woven of silences, whispers, and meaningful looks. And—most significantly—the Chief Researcher, artificially maintained in an eternal prepubescence, appears to be immune to both.”
“I think—”
Abruptly, a nymph stepped out into the road before them and stood, hands on hips, blocking their way.
Darger, quick-thinking as ever, swept off his hat and bowed deeply. “My dear Miss! You must think me a dreadful person, but in all the excitement last night, I failed to discover your name. If you would be so merciful as to bestow upon me that knowledge and your forgiveness…and a smile…I would be the happiest man on earth.”
A smile tugged at one corner of the nymph’s mouth, but she scowled it down. “Call me Anya. But I’m not here to talk about myself, but about Theodosia. I’m used to the ways of men, but she is not. You were her first.”
“You mean she was a…?” Darger asked, shocked.
“With my brothers and cousins and uncles around? Not likely! There’s not a girl in Arcadia who keeps her hymen a day longer than she desires it. But you were her first human male. That’s special to a lass.”
“I feel honored, of course. But what is it specifically that you are asking me?”
“Just—” her finger tapped his chest—“watch it! Theodosia is a good friend of mine. I’ll not have her hurt.” And, so saying, she flounced back into the forest and was gone.
“Well!” Surplus said. “Further proof, if any were needed, that women remain beyond the comprehension of men.”
“Interestingly enough, I had exactly this conversation with a woman friend of mine some years ago,” Darger said, staring off into the green shadows, “and she assured me that women find men equally baffling. It may be that the problem lies not in gender but in human nature itself.”
“But surely—” Surplus began.
So discoursing, they wended their way home.
A few days later, Darger and Surplus were making their preparations to leave—and arguing over whether to head straight for Moscow or to make a side-trip to Prague—when Eris, the goddess of discord, came stalking through the center of town, leaving fights and arguments in her wake.
Darger was lying fully clothed atop his bed, savoring the smell of flowers, when he heard the first angry noises. Theodosia had filled the room with vases of hyacinths as an apology because she and Anya had to drive to a nearby duck farm to pick up several new eider-down mattresses for the inn, and as a promise that they would not be over-late coming to him. He jumped up and saw the spreading violence from the window. Making a hasty grab for the box of patches they had purloined from the monastery, he slapped one on his neck.
He was going to bring a patch to Surplus’s room, when the door flew open, and that same worthy rushed in, seized him, and slammed him into the wall.
“You false friend!” Surplus growled. “You smiling, scheming…anthropocentrist!”
Darger could not respond. His friend’s paws were about his neck, choking him. Surplus was in a frenzy, due possibly to his superior olfactory senses, and there was no hope of talking sense into him.
To Darger’s lasting regret, his childhood had not been one of privilege and gentility, but spent in the rough-and-tumble slums of Mayfair. There, perforce, he had learned to defend himself with his fists. Now, for a silver lining, he found those deplorable skills useful.
Quickly, he brought up his forearms, crossed at the wrists, between Surplus’s arms. Then, all in one motion, he thrust his arms outward, to force his friend’s paws from his throat. Simultaneously, he brought up one knee between Surplus’s legs as hard as he could.
Surplus gasped, and reflexively clutched his wounded part.
A shove sent Surplus to the floor. Darger pinned him.
Now, however, a new problem arose. Where to put the patch. Surplus was covered with fur, head to foot. Darger thought back to their first receiving the patches, twisted around one arm, and found a small bald spot just beneath the paw, on his wrist.
A motion, and it was done.
“They’re worse than football hooligans,” Surplus commented. Somebody had dumped a wagon-load of hay in the town square and set it ablaze. By its unsteady light could be seen small knots of townsfolk wandering the streets, looking for trouble and, often enough, finding it. Darger and Surplus had doused their own room’s lights, so they could observe without drawing attention to themselves.
“Not so, dear friend, for such ruffians go to the matches intending trouble, while these poor souls…” His words were cut off by the rattle of a wagon on the street below.
It was Theodosia and Anya, returned from their chore. But before Darger could cry out a warning, several men rushed toward them with threatening shouts and upraised fists. Alarmed, Theodosia gestured menacingly with her whip for them to keep back. But one of their number rushed forward, grabbed the whip, and yanked her off the wagon.
“Theodosia!” Darger cried in horror.
Surplus leaped to the windowsill and gallantly launched himself into space, toward the wagon load of mattresses. Darger, who had a touch of acrophobia and had once broken a leg performing a similar stunt, pounded down the stairs.
There were only five thugs in the attacking group, which explained why they were so perturbed when Darger burst from the inn, shouting and wielding his walking stick as if it were a cudgel and Surplus suddenly popped up from within the wagon, teeth bared and fur all a-hackle. Then Anya regained the whip and laid about her, left and right, with a good will.
The rioters scattered like pigeons.
When they were gone, Anya turned on Darger. “You knew something like this was going to happen!” she cried. “Why didn’t you warn anybody?”
“I did! Repeatedly! You laughed in my face!”
“There is a time for lovers’ spats,” Surplus said firmly, “and this is not it. This young lady is unconscious; help me lift her into the wagon. We must get her out of town immediately.”
The nearest place of haven, Anya decided, was her father’s croft, just outside town. Not ten minutes later, they were unloading Theodosia from the wagon, using one of the feather mattresses as a stretcher. A plump nymph, Anya’s mother, met them at the door.
“She will be fine,” the mother said. “I know these things, I used to be a nurse.” She frowned. “Provided she doesn’t have a concussion.” She looked at Darger shrewdly. “Has this anything to do with the fire?”
But when Darger started to explain, Surplus tugged at his sleeve. “Look outside,” he said. “The locals have formed a fire brigade.”
Indeed, there were figures coming down the road, hurrying toward town. Darger ran out and placed himself in front of the first, a pimply-faced young satyr lugging a leather bucketful of water. “Stop!” he cried. “Go no farther!”
The satyr paused, confused. “But the fires…”
“Worse than fires await you in town,” Darger said. “Anyway, it’s only a hay-rick.”
A second bucket-carrying satyr pulled to a stop. It was Papatragos. “Darger!” he cried. “What are you doing here at my croft? Is Anya with you?”
For an instant, Darger was nonplused. “Anya is your daughter?”
“Aye.” Papatragos grinned. “I gather that makes me practically your father-in-law.”
By now all the satyrs who had been near enough to see the flames and had come with buckets to fight them—some twenty in all—were clustered about the two men. Hurriedly, Surplus told all that they knew of Pan, Eris and the troubles in town.
“Nor is this matter finished,” Darger said. “The Chief Researcher said something about using Dionysus to stop riots. Since he has not appeared to do so tonight, that means they will have to create another set of riots to test that ability as well. More trouble is imminent.”
“That is no concern of ours,” said one stodgy-looking crofter.
“It will be ours,” Darger declared, with his usual highhanded employment of the first person plural pronoun. “As soon as the agent of the riots has left town, she will surely show up here next. Did not Dionysus dance in the fields after he danced in the streets? Then Eris is on her way here to set brother against brother, and father against son.”
Angry mutters passed among the satyrs. Papatragos held up his hands for silence. “Tragopropos!” he said to the pimply-faced satyr. “Run and gather together every adult satyr you can. Tell them to seize whatever weapons they can and advance upon the monastery.”
“What of the townsfolk?”
“Somebody else will be sent for them. Why are you still standing here?”
“I’m gone!”
“The fire in town has gone out,” Papatragos continued. “Which means that Eris has done her work and has left. She will be coming up this very road in not too long.”
“Fortunately,” Darger said, “I have a plan.”
Darger and Surplus stood exposed in the moonlight at the very center of the road, while the satyrs hid in the bushes at its verge. They did not have long to wait.
A shadow moved toward them, grew, solidified, and became a goddess.
Eris stalked up the road, eyes wild and hair in disarray. Her clothes had been ripped to shreds; only a few rags hung from waist and ankles, and they hid nothing of her body at all. She made odd chirping and shrieking noises as she came, with sudden small hops to the side and leaps into the air. Darger had known all manner of madmen in his time. This went far beyond anything he had ever seen for sheer chaotic irrationality.
Spying them, Eris threw back her head and trilled like a bird. Then she came running and dancing toward the two friends, spinning about and beating her arms against her sides. Had she lacked the strength of the frenzied, she would still have been terrifying, for it was clear that she was capable of absolutely anything. As it was, she was enough to make a brave man cringe.
“Now!”
At Darger’s command, every satyr stepped forward onto the road and threw his bucket of water at the goddess. Briefly, she was inundated. All her sweat—and, hopefully, her pheromones as well—was washed clear of her body.
As one, the satyrs dropped their buckets. Ten of them rushed forward with drug patches and slapped them onto her body. Put off her balance by the sudden onslaught, Eris fell to the ground.
“Now stand clear!” Darger cried.
The satyrs danced back. One who had hesitated just a bit in finding a space for his patch stayed just a little too long and was caught by her lingering pheromones. He drew back his foot to kick the prone goddess. But Papatragos darted forward to drag him out of her aura before he could do so.
“Behave yourself,” he said.
Eris convulsed in the dirt, flipped over on her stomach, and vomited. Slowly, then, she stood. She looked around her dimly, wonderingly. Her eyes cleared, and an expression of horror and remorse came over her face.
“Oh, sweet science, what have I done?” she said. Then she wailed, “What has happened to my clothes?”
She tried to cover herself with her hands.
One of the young satyrs snickered, but Papatragos quelled him with a look. Surplus, meanwhile, handed the goddess his jacket. “Pray, madam, don this,” he said courteously and, to the others, “Didn’t one of you bring a blanket for the victims of the fire? Toss that to the lady—it’ll make a fine skirt.”
