Chthon a-1 Read online

  “Ain’t that the little green flower them people wear? I never seen one.”

  “Finally I left her and went home. I told Aurelius that I would marry his daughter of Four if only I could be cured of—of Malice. He was so happy he nearly expired. He was nearly dead from the blight, only holding on until I should return. He shipped me to a famous retreat planet.”

  Aton looked up and saw Garnet listening intently. He had forgotten her entirely. For a moment he had self-doubt. Do I have any right to torture this woman? Don’t I owe her a warning, at least? Malice, Malice—you have made me a monster. You make me implement your name, and there is no escape.

  Yet Garnet did not look disturbed as much as thoughtful, and there was not a sound from any of the others. What had happened?

  A clamor rose above the sound of the wind. Men came running. “It’s time! It’s time! They’ve softened the guard! We got to gather for the revolt! It’s time! The revolt is on. It’s on!”

  * * *

  The passages adjoining the transfer cavern were packed with suppressed excitement. All eyes were fixed on the tiny hole in the ceiling thirty feet above. This was the only known connection between the two worlds. Everywhere else the stone was firm and deep, impossible to attack without heavy tools.

  The upper caverns were sealed off, but the seal had one weak spot, and that was the guard on the “night” shift. Aton didn’t know what they had had to promise him, but Bossman’s given word was good, and the man would be secure for life. He had only to let down the rope and stand aside.

  Slowly, slowly, the heavy slab crunched over. The dark hole lightened invitingly, a green glow from the far side, the doorway to success. No face appeared. No sound came from above except for the too-loud scraping of the stone.

  A pause; then the rope appeared, spinning out from its coil, swinging free of its basket and undulating as it came. The ragged end dropped just clear of the floor and hung in limp invitation.

  Bossman gave a grunt of satisfaction. The selected invasion squad moved to the center, Aton second in the line. The most important thing here was the ability to climb swiftly and silently, with strength left over for immediate combat, if necessary.

  The first man, short and game in the legs but with arms of immense power, stepped up and jerked the rope. It gave slightly, but held; it was anchored. Like a tug on a teenage braid, Aton thought.

  The man took hold and skillfully hauled himself into the air. Aton saw Bossman watching the operation closely, shaking his head. Are you worried, Krell farmer? he thought. You also remember Tally’s intelligence?

  The man climbed swiftly to the top, hoisting himself with both hands and hooking a leg in a bend of rope for occasional pauses. He caught the edge of the hole with his hands and flexed the muscles, raising head and shoulders above it. Aton held the rope, making no motion to follow yet.

  A muffled cry came from above. The high legs kicked; the man struggled and lost his grip just as he seemed about to complete his climb. He slid down, back through the hole, and fell heavily to the floor below.

  Bossman lifted him immediately, but it did not matter. His throat had been neatly slit.

  The rope slackened. A second body fell.

  It was the softened guard. The rope had been knotted around his neck. He had served as the anchor, and the climbing weight of the first invader had throttled the traitor.

  The revolt had come as no surprise to Tally.

  You should have known, Aton thought, that Tally would anticipate such a move. That he is neither sadistic nor a fool, and that he had sufficient reason for his pressure and was prepared for any consequence. You will know, at last, that there had to be a traitor, and you will assume that one of your own crew has been softened. You will suspect, now that you know that Tally’s mind is after all as sharp as ever, that there really is evidence of a blue garnet. You will search and question relentlessly, every man and every woman—and in the bottom of Framy’s water-skin you will find the blue fragment.

  Framy will scream out the entire story of the discovery and loss of the garnet. He will appeal to me for verification, but I will admit only to an affair with Garnet during the time in question. She will agree, telling herself that she will be suspect otherwise, and wanting the black-haired one to be jealous. Framy is known as a great liar, but you will let him take you to the place he says he found it, and there will be nothing there, and he will not know that his proof lies very near at hand.

  “I never done it,” he will cry at last. “I was framed! I was framed!” And you have heard this before.

  The upper cavern people will not relent. They must discover for themselves where that first fragment came from, and learn whether there is indeed a mine for it. Because you refused to deal with Tally honestly, he will now starve you out and make the lower caverns safe for exploration from above. And we shall take the Hard Trek.

  Oh, yes, we will!

  §399

  Seven

  Idyllia: sunny planet of retreat. Palms and firs grew side by side as the discreet touch of genetic modification brushed nature and made her smile. Blue waters sparkled beside gray mountains; soft white clouds traced their shadows over rustic villages.

  Aton performed the registration routine mechanically, his thoughts on the woman he had come to forget. He ignored the indoctrination program. The conceits of a self-styled paradise were no concern of his. Thus he came to find himself ensconced in a beautiful villa, a cabin surrounded by flower gardens and labyrinthine hedge, with no clear idea of how it had come about.

  Lovely planet, he thought bitterly. But never as lovely as Malice. Malice—I should have been warned by your name. But I blinded myself to everything but your beauty; I deafened myself to my father’s words. I obsessed myself with a childhood longing. And when I found you…

  He surveyed the gardens. Never strong on the merits of cultivation, aside from the special art of hvee, Aton felt he was off to a poor start. It did not matter; even the best of starts would have had little effect on his destructive passion for the minionette.

  Minionette. When I found you at last, after the games with the Captain, with the Xests… no wonder those amiable aliens were confused. They saw that you were the minionette, that strange offshoot of man, no imitation, while I tried to fix my ignorance on them. And they showed me what they could, and I took you away, to a hidden spotel, and there divined the monstrous evil of your nature.

  Left to his own devices at this resort, he discovered that life did go on. Idly he explored the gardens, solving the simple riddle of the shrubbery, and turning finally to the bright cottage. The descending sun was a raised outline on the floating cloudlets, too round to be natural. The smell of cooking was in the air.

  Then, broken, I listened to you, Aurelius. But you told me nothing, only sent me here to Idyllia, to rest, to forget. To forget Malice.

  Entering the cabin at last, Aton found ancient-type botanic prints along the hall, a floor of pseudopine, and antique turn-type knobs on hinged doors. Such a house must Wordsworth keep! he thought. Cheerful fire blazing in the main-room hearth; shadows from ornamental andirons flickering against the rough stone segment of the floor. Wholesome noises from what he took to be the kitchen. Another person was in the house.

  He stepped through the arch. Arch? This was not, then, intended to be any historic replica. And he saw her: petite, blonde, efficient. “What are you doing here?” he said. What do you care, Aton?

  She turned, sparkling. “I belong.”

  “But they told me this was my house,” he said querulously.

  “Yes.” She came to him and held up her left wrist, showing the silver band on it. “It is the custom of Idyllia to provide slaves for the service of its patrons. For the duration of your stay I belong to you, and in the name of the planet, I welcome you.” She made a little curtsy.

  Aton was not convinced. “Something was mentioned. But I thought it was to be a caretaker. A—a manservant.”

  “They are r
eserved for our female patrons.”

  “Oh.” Too blatant, Idyllia.

  She took his arm and guided him back to the fireplace with that gentle command that is the prerogative of the slave, and settled him for the afternoon meal. Aton accepted the situation with equivocal pleasure. No woman had ever taken care of him in quite this way before, and his attitude was ambiguous before becoming positive. It was, after all, a worthwhile adjustment to make.

  “What would one call a female slave?” he inquired.

  “By her name,” she said pertly. “Coquina.”

  Aton researched in the sturdy intellectual files implanted by his childhood tutor. “The coral building stone? Is that your theme—the hardness and sharpness of—?”

  “On Earth,” she said, “there once were tiny clams with shells so colorful that they became collectors’ items. They were called—”

  “I see. And what would the pretty shell recommend for a troubled heart tonight?” he said. And he thought, She is trying to oblige—why fence with her, Aton?

  “There is a country dance this evening,” she said, apparently missing the implication in his question. “If it pleases you—”

  “Nothing pleases me, Coquina.” But he smiled.

  * * *

  The dance was colorful. It happened in a warm brown barn, the smell of hay in the corners, the nests of swallows in the rafters. Tissue banners festooned the hewn beams; soft cider flowed from the central press. People wandered in and out, shepherded by their knowledgeable slaves, smiling desperately. Too often, Aton felt, the striving inner torment shone through the glad masks.

  But he drank of the cider and found it potent. It was not soft, despite the evident freshness; it was turning, pungent—and perhaps the natural fermentation had been artfully augmented. Or the apple-stock itself had been modified. He conjured a picture of tiny trees birthing megalocarpous fruit, each huge apple bearing the legend “80 Proof.” His mind became uncommonly clear and he saw that there was laughter even in sadness.

  “Sets in order!” Two whiskered stereotypes struck up the music, one playing fiddle, the other a magnificent three-deckered accordion. The room was filled with merriment. Couples formed from the fringe melee and eddied toward the main floor and formed into crude squares. Women flounced their full-circle skirts and took the proud elbows of solemn gentlemen.

  Aton spoke aside to Coquina. “How may one obtain a partner for this affair?” The music ascended as busy fingers leaped over white and black accordion keys, strutted against the chord panel, pumped the bellows harder.

  “One crosses the room toward one of the seated ladies, bows gallantly, requests the pleasure of her company for the dance.”

  “How does one make a choice?” he asked, gesturing at the array. White petticoats fluttered above crossed thighs, making interesting shadows.

  Coquina arched an eyebrow. “Unaccustomed as I am to judging the tastes of male clientele… however, I understand that the third damsel from the right is attractive to certain types, and is an excellent dancer—”

  Aton studied the woman as she chatted gaily with a neighbor and leaned to tap one elevated slipper and laugh at some private joke. Her décolletage showed fine cleavage and her feet were small. Her hair was long and loose.

  “No!” he said, more forcefully than he meant. “Red hair is out.”

  Coquina obligingly pointed out an alternate. This time the hair was brown and not too long. She was standing to the side with a cup of cider in her hand, bouncing gently to the music. At the end of the refrain she came down on both heels firmly, breasts and buttocks jumping in sudden sex appeal.

  “No—she has green eyes.” It was a bleak reminder; sorrow struck him heavily, his emotion amplified by the liquor.

  Coquina looked at him, uncertain whether he were serious. Her eyes were blue. “Come,” he said, unable to explain his mood. “I prefer my slave.”

  And so they danced, the girl light on her feet and easy to hold, and for a time the weight upon his mind lightened, retreated half a step. They danced, they swung, they spun, her skirts rising alluringly; but the weight danced with them. The living lines parted and re-formed; men marched to meet their partners in the center, bowed, retreated, marched again, and swung into shuffle-step and grand right-and-left. Right hand to right hand, left to left, meeting each girl with music and a flair of the hip and passing her on to the rear, smiling. Oh, brightening glance! What a miracle such movement makes of the routine figure! What capricious delight, sharpened by irony—for these are smiles and motions only, in the absence of love, intriguing but empty.

  Malice, oh Malice, oh Malice, why did you betray me?

  * * *

  It was midnight at the cottage when Aton, subdued, prepared to retire. The vision had grown, and now it pounded in the shell of his head, tearing his mind apart, dominant in his fatigue. It was the face and form of Malice, smiling, devastating, at once more lovely and more terrible than any spectral phantasm. The flame rippled through her hair, and he wanted her.

  “Coquina!” he called, and she came, clad in nightgown, demure. “I cannot sleep tonight. Will you talk to me?”

  “I understand,” she said.

  “I wonder…” He studied her innocence. But the awful vision was fading as he talked. “Have you ever been in love, Coquina?”

  “No.”

  “People think of love as something romantic as delight, wonder. It is supposed to uplift a man, make him strong, make him good. Have you seen this LOE text?” She nodded slightly. “But, oh, they’re wrong. Love is the most awful weapon known to the human race. It can twist a man, wring him up into a tight wad until his blood spills out upon the stone reality, until he shrivels, and is a dry husk. If you ever search for evil, begin with love… I shouldn’t talk this way to a woman.”

  “I am a slave,” she said.

  He studied her once more, speculatively. “You say you are a slave. But how much of a slave? Is there not a little bit of woman in you, too? When you move in the dance, pretty shell… If I were to tell you to strip naked before me here…”

  “Idyllia must protect its property,” she said. “I will not strip.”

  Aton smiled. “It was only an example, a case in point. You are not so much a slave. But tell me, Coquina, are you for sale? Could I purchase you and carry you away with me wherever I wished to roam?”

  “The slaves are not for sale. They are loaned to the patrons, to serve within certain limits.”

  “Certain limits. I see the shell is closed,” said Aton. “Too bad—but only fair. I wish more women were slaves, more slaves were women…”

  Eight

  Aton went to parties, danced, saw wholesome theatrical productions, and flirted with meaningless women. By day he swam, participated in antique group sports, took picnics in the sunshine; at night Coquina took care of him and rubbed his back with oil. He talked to her at such times, easing his mind and finding, to his surprise, surcease from the memory of Malice by talking about—Malice. He told Coquina as much as he could remember, more than he had told any human being before, because he had come to regard her not as human but as slave.

  It was not enough. Malice came back to his mind at every unguarded moment, arousing unquenchable desire, measureless pain. He could hide from her for an hour, but he could not escape.

  “This is getting me frankly nowhere,” he said at last. “I’ve got to find something that will take up my whole attention for more than a tiny span.”

  And Coquina, as always, had a suggestion. “Have you tried mountain climbing?” she asked. “It is a vigorous sport that takes many days and uses a great deal of energy. It is not dangerous, here, and it has special merits.”

  “You are telling me, gentle shell, that the answer to doubt is work,” Aton said. “This is the very finest Victorian sentiment from LOE. But if you recommend it, I’ll try it. You’ve been taking good care of me so far.”

  “I will arrange for a guide,” she said.

  “
You will arrange to be the guide,” he replied. “Do you think I mean to have you corrupted by some other patron in my absence?”

  She smiled, and the following afternoon saw the two of them tramping along the intermittently wooded base of a local mountain. Curling bracken rose on either side, tall as a man already; scented pink lady’s-slipper flowers could have been worn by a lady with an evanescent tread. Volcano-like, the giant puffballs spouted smoky haze at the slightest touch. Farther along, milkweed mixed with dwarf sequoia. Great and small, blooming and fruiting, natural and modified, the plants of Idyllia presented themselves for approval.

  Aton stopped to look at a lizard, slim and red, perched on a boulder. It eyed him with seeming intelligence. “We will meet again, your kind and mine,” it seemed to say, and Aton laughed and slapped at it, making it scramble for safety.

  Coquina, delicate though she might appear, carried a full pack and sleeping bag and kept a man’s pace. Aton was amazed at her stamina.

  They camped early, before the mountainside obscured itself in shadow, and she fixed a meal. Aton stared into the somber water of the stream they washed in, and saw huge red salmon.

  He moved to flick a twig off his arm, stopped just in time: it was an insect, a three inch walking stick, so still it might be dead. He was tempted to drop it in the water to see if the fish would take it; but he saw Coquina glance at him, and felt ashamed. Why did he have this urge to hurt, to torture, an innocent insect? He transferred it to a leaf and watched it tread carefully away.

  No biting creatures infested the night air. They slept side by side in twin bags on an aromatic bed of fern. Aton half-awoke, briefly, to the call of an owl, and saw his slave in slumber, a light strand of hair over her face. The beauty of her features was classic, even so. It struck him that he could appreciate it without untoward thought, and this was new, for him.