The Ecolog, page 9
At the next intersection she saw the temple. It was nearer than she'd expected. She hurried toward it. Four children were following her now.
She decided to go into the temple through the side entrance, in case there was some sort of religious service in progress. That meant going through the Hall of Mummies, an idea that did not much appeal to her; but it had occurred to her she might find some clue among all her dead sisters, some explanation for the way people stared at her, why long ago they had pampered her and now seemed determined to kill her.
As she mounted the short flight of marble steps at the side of the Temple of the Ecolog, she could not help but notice the group of children had become a small crowd; some were even young men in their teens and early twenties. She stopped at the head of the stairs and looked directly at them, hoping to scare them off, shame them, or at least intimidate them a little, but they met her gaze without blinking, without lowering their gaze, without a trace of an embarrassed smile.
They stopped at the foot of the steps and peered up at her frankly, not trying to conceal their interest. Was it the heat that made her lips feel suddenly dry, made her sway with dizziness, made the faces of the children fade in and out of focus? She turned on her heel and opened the heavy, bronze door, let herself into the Hall of Mummies and closed the door behind her. Was there some way to lock the door? If there was she could not find it.
To her relief she saw that some adults lingered in the hall. Perhaps she could engage them in conversation. Then the children would go away and leave her alone.
She spoke to an old man approaching her.
"Hello. Can you help me?"
The man stopped in his tracks, eyes round, toothless mouth hanging open. "What?" he said inanely. He nervously fingered his dirty, worn tunic.
"I'm a stranger in Arbre," she went on with determination. "Could you give me some information?"
Some of the other old people nearby had begun to stare, squinting at her in the dim light. The old man said, "What kind of information?" He was backing away from her.
She gestured toward the silent figures along the walls. "These mummies. Can you tell me what they mean?"
"What they mean?" he wheezed.
"Yes."
"You know if anybody does, young lady."
Behind her the outside door opened a crack, letting in a brilliant shaft of sunlight. The children began entering, whispering and softly giggling.
"I don't know anything about…" she began, but it was obvious he didn't believe her; even that he was reluctant to talk to her.
She left him and turned her attention to a fat old lady with a baby in her puffy arms.
"Hello. I'm a stranger here and—"
"What do you want?" The old woman's voice was frightened.
"I'm trying to understand the customs of this city. For instance, I see you're holding that baby rather tightly, as if it belonged to you."
"It does. This is my son. Me and my husband don't have but one child."
"Husband? I've heard that word but I don't really understand it. What's a husband?"
"A husband's a father."
"A father? Is a father a tutor or a guard or a servant? I mean, what does a father do?"
The old woman's mouth moved silently. She turned away, as if protecting the baby from some great danger.
An old gentleman with somewhat cleaner and better-mended robes stepped forward. "Perhaps I can help."
Garbage said in a rush of relief, "There's so much I don't understand. For example, you see those bodies along the wall?"
The man's voice was gentle. "I'm sorry. I don't see anything. I'm blind." His eyes were fixed and glassy.
A ragged teenage boy called, "Hey you, how come you ask so many questions?"
Another boy chimed in, "Are you as good at answering them as you are at asking them?"
Garbage stood up straight, chin out. "If you want to ask me something, go ahead."
'The boy shouted, "Why ain't you dead?"
Garbage chewed on her lip, but did not answer. Was there an answer to a question like that?
Some other boys joined in, shouting. "Why ain't you dead? Why ain't you dead?"
The fat woman waved a pudgy paw at the mummies. "The other ones are!"
The gaunt old man added indignantly, "It's indecent, you walking and talking like a regular person."
"Indecent! Indecent!" came echoing voices. The crowd was growing larger. None of the faces, young or old, was friendly. Garbage stepped back a few paces. The crowd advanced, murmuring. Garbage stopped, back to the wall. Her head was level with the narrow shelf that the mummies stood on.
"You should be dead!" called someone.
"Up on the wall with the others!" someone else put in.
The circle shouted agreement.
A huge, black-bearded man shouldered his way through the crowd, grinning, saying, "Yeah, up on the wall. Like all the rest." His big fists were like knobby clubs.
The fists opened, reached for her. The people cheered.
Her slender fingers darted up and grasped the ankle of the nearest mummy. She tugged. The mummy slid off the shelf, began to fall. She swung the corpse like a club, striking the bearded man full in the face. He screamed, fell backward and scrambled away, his face full of revulsion and disgust. The whole mob retreated a few steps amid a chorus of gasps and cries.
Garbage saw an opening appear in the previously solid wall of enemies. She let go of the corpse's ankle and butted her way through the opening. To her surprise, she found herself in the clear, running toward the temple sanctuary.
She laughed with relief, though she could hear the echoing footsteps of the mob running behind her. My sisters, she thought. They'll help me.
She reached out and grasped another dead ankle.
A stiff, white carcass, its feet snatched from under it, toppled out from the wall and fell in the path of the oncoming throng. The leaders tripped over it and sprawled on their faces; the others lost time detouring around them.
She jerked yet another foot off the shelf, then another and another. Like tumbling dominoes her dead selves rained down behind her, spreading obstruction, confusion and chaos.
Still laughing, she burst through the doorway into the sanctuary, banging the heavy door open so that it swung back and crashed into the wall.
A ceremony was in progress; the pews were full of solemn worshippers.
Three hundred pairs of astonished eyes shifted their gaze from the statue to focus accusingly upon her.
As soon as Briggs noticed Garbage was missing, he insisted on doubling back to look for her. He strode along so swiftly that short-legged Sewall had to run to keep pace.
Sewall panted, "You'll never find her. She's slipped away, gone into hiding."
Briggs glared down at him. "Nonsense, sir. The girl said she would take me to the Ecolog. She will not leave me until she has kept her promise."
The little man laughed harshly. "She is from the court, Mister Briggs. The people of the court feel no obligation to keep their word to the likes of us."
They had arrived at the intersection where Briggs last remembered seeing the girl, and there they halted. Ignoring the protests of Scout Sewall, the commodore ordered his squad to attention. They were a mere seven men, not including Briggs himself and his second-in-command, Lieutenant Mike Phillips; except for the commodore, they were all unarmed. Sewall's men, who stood nearby, were well-equipped with knives and long curved scimitars.
"At ease, men," barked the commodore, sweating.
The squad stood at ease. In their makeshift rags of scavenged parachute material Briggs's troops did not look particularly impressive, nor did their frightened sunburned faces inspire much confidence. Still, they had come this far without breaking. That was something.
The commodore spoke. "We will be leaving this city before nightfall. That native girl has promised to be our guide on the last leg of our journey. We'll be traveling through completely unfamiliar country, and rather rough country, from the little I've seen of it. I don't need to remind you of the importance of a guide under such circumstances." He paused to cough and spit in the dust at his feet. The air in Arbre was very, very dry. "I'm counting on you to find her. She has probably become lost and is wandering around somewhere close by. Deploy and search the area, but be careful not to get lost yourselves. Check back here at least every ten minutes. I'll stand here as a marker." He had chosen his point well, at the center of the intersection of six streets. "You go along too," he said to Phillips.
Phillips saluted, "Aye, sir."
The squad, on command, began to spread out, calling, "Garbage! Garbage!" It was an absurd spectacle, and Briggs could not repress a smile, particularly when some of the natives laughed outright.
Sewall, however, was perfectly serious. "You lied to your men, Mister Briggs," he said softly.
"Indeed?" said Briggs.
"Yes. You told them you would be leaving this city."
"And so I will."
Sewall shook his head slowly. "No, you're staying here for the rest of your life. Of course, the length of that life is up to you."
Sewall's men were close enough to overhear this remark, and some of them seemed quite amused.
The troops came and went.
Some reported that natives they had questioned had seen the girl, but had been unwilling to help find her or even point out the direction she'd taken. The citizens of Arbre seemed unwilling to say anything about her at all, as if she was something loathsome, frightening or taboo.
Briggs said to Sewall, "Perhaps if your men did the questioning—"
"My men have better things to do," snapped the little brown man.
"Then let me question you."
"I'm at your service."
"What's so special about this girl? Why is everyone acting so strangely toward her?"
"Strangely? No one is acting strangely except you, with your insane fantasies about other planets. It's natural to want things to be as they should be, to want the dead to lie down and be still instead of running around causing trouble among the living."
"This girl is not dead."
Sewall looked up at the Commodore with pity. "Perhaps not technically, but you saw those mummies in the temple."
"Yes."
"Didn't she look exactly like them?"
"Yes." He shrugged.
The little man was triumphant. "Then that's where she belongs, you see!"
Briggs changed his tack. "How did those girls in the temple die?"
"If you'd looked close you would have seen that some had slit throats. Most though, were stabbed through the heart, and of course you couldn't see that through their tunics. We cleaned up the blood."
"Where did they come from?"
Sewall gestured off-handedly toward the mountains. "From Abbutututikan, the palace of the Ecolog."
"Who killed them?"
"The Ecolog."
"Why?"
"I don't know. They say it's because they didn't measure up in some way, but I say it's the whim of the Ecolog. When you're the absolute ruler of everything, you don't need to give reasons for what you do."
"How did they get here?"
"The Ecolog brought them here in her airship. On one visit she may bring one dead girl, on another visit three or four. She says we're supposed to treat them with honor so we line them up in the Hall of Mummies, but everyone knows they're human garbage, no good to the Ecolog or anyone else. Your friend is like that. Even alive you can tell she's no good."
"What do you mean?"
Sewall leaned close, frowning. "Haven't you noticed? She's not like you and me. She doesn't fit in. I take orders. So does everyone else in Arbre. So do you, I imagine. And your crew certainly takes orders from you. But that girl doesn't. If she does something, it's because she wants to, and if she doesn't want to do something, not even the threat of death will make her do it. You see what I mean?"
Briggs nodded slowly. "I think I do."
Sewall was delighted. "Someone like that's always a danger. Your friend is smart and fast on her feet and—have you noticed?—awfully strong for a little slip of a girl. That makes her all the more dangerous! If she has a chance she'll get the better of both of us, of the whole city. But the real trouble begins when there's two of them. Imagine the struggle, the fight between them for superiority, for mastery! And what if there were ten of her, or 100, or 1,000? Chaos! A universal free-for-all!"
"So she's not garbage because she's inferior," Briggs mused.
"Of course not! She's garbage because she's superior!"
The search had been a failure.
Very few of the natives had seen the girl, and none of them knew where she had gone. Valuable time had been lost finding two of Briggs's men who had disappeared looking for her.
Briggs scowled. "We'll have to get help."
Sewall smiled smuggly. "From whom?"
"From Lord Mayor Mano, I suppose."
"I'm afraid that will be impossible. You've had your audience with the Lord Mayor for today. With luck you might get an appointment for tomorrow or the day after."
"I can't wait. By that time your fellow citizens will almost certainly have killed her, if they haven't done so already."
"Nevertheless—"
Angrily Briggs turned to his men and snapped, "Atten-shun!" They hurriedly straightened up their ranks. "Right face! Forward, march! Hup two three four!"
The natives watched with mild curiosity as the troops filed by. Sewall and his men followed with no pretense of discipline, openly contemptuous of the outlanders. Only a madman would march in this heat!
After a few blocks Sewall ran forward to catch up. "Wait a moment!" he called, but Briggs strode grimly on. At Briggs's elbow he pleaded, "Don't make any more trouble. She's not worth it. If you'll forget about her I'll give you one of my men to act as your guide up into the mountains."
Briggs answered, "How do I know I can trust him?"
"I'll guide you myself!"
"How do I know I can trust you?"
They rounded a corner. Ahead Briggs could see the impressive building that housed the Lord Mayor's offices, and beside it the Temple of the Ecolog.
"You have no choice, Mister Briggs," insisted Sewall, trotting along. He was like a puppy yapping at the heels of a shambling bear.
"We'll see," muttered Briggs.
They entered the city's central square. It was wide, covered with paving stones and boasted an occasional statue in the style of the planet's "Golden Age." Ahead was a broad marble staircase leading up to the front entrance of the office building, and on either side of the entrance, stood a guard. Expressionlessly, the guards watched him approach. He started up the stairs. They barred the door with their spears.
"I told you," said Sewall happily.
"Have you been sent for?" demanded the guard on the left.
Wordlessly Briggs continued up the steps, his troops behind him. Sewall's men had fallen almost a block behind, and were strolling along, enjoying the antics of the foreigners.
"Are you deaf?" growled the guard on the right.
Without warning Briggs drew his claymore and, reaching the top of the stairs, chopped the heads off the spears with two vigorous sword strokes. The guards gazed open-mouthed at their suddenly useless weapons, then one of them raised the stump of his spear as if to use it as a club.
Briggs efficiently and unceremoniously kicked him in the stomach. The man dropped his spear stump and, moaning, clutched his stomach. The other guard voluntarily threw down his weapon and backed away fearfully.
Now Sewall was drawing a sword, the long curve-bladed scimitarlike type Briggs had seen so often here in Arbre. Claymore at the ready, Briggs faced him and said softly, "Do you really want to do that?"
Sewall hesitated, then slowly slipped his blade back into its scabbard. "Perhaps not, my friend." The little man's voice betrayed no emotion.
Briggs stepped around the groaning guard and entered the building.
Lord Mayor Mano sat for a moment at the radio table, pale and unhappy; then he reached out and switched off the set. Slowly, with shaking hands, he removed his headphones and laid them on the table. He pushed back his heavy, wooden chair with a rasping scrape and rose unsteadily to his feet. More gaunt and skeletal than ever, his black robes hung from his bony limbs like a shroud.
"I'm not ready," he murmured.
He squared his shoulders and stepped from behind the curtain into his office.
He seated himself in his heavy wooden chair behind the massive desk and glanced toward the window that looked out onto his balcony. Estimating the time of day from the angle of the sun, he decided it was almost suppertime. He could, if he wished, quit work now with a clear conscience, if only it weren't for…
He thought of the radio message he had just received and his hard-won composure almost collapsed. He asked himself, in an effort at self-consolation, Can anything worse happen?
As if in answer to his question, a startled cry came from the other side of his office door. Frowning, he half rose. There was a thud, as of a falling body; then the door burst open, or rather, was kicked open.
"What… ?" Lord Mayor Mano began.
Before he could say another word Commodore Abraham Briggs entered, strode swiftly to his desk, leaned over it and thrust the point of his sword within centimeters of the Lord Mayor's throat.
Briggs boomed, "No more delays, sir! You will radio the dirigible and you will do it now."
Mano shrank back in his chair. "No, I…"
The commodore continued relentlessly, "You will tell the pilot to fly here at once and transport me to the Ecolog."
Mano protested, "There's no need…"
Lieutenant Mike Phillips brandished the scimitar he had taken from Sewall. "That's what you think!"
The outlander's troops were now filing in, together with their shame-faced prisoners. Sewall looked particularly depressed.
Mano was slightly cross-eyed from looking at the sword point next to his throat. "You don't understand. The dirigible radioed me not more than a few minutes ago. It's on its way here to do exactly what you want."
