Lucifer Comet (2464 CE)

by Ian Wallace

  Thoughtfully she munched. “That sound interesting. I think about it.”

  “Give me hot fruit!’ he commanded the women. He held some out to her in both his hands: “This very good, you eat!” She queried: “No meat here?”

  “What is meat? Oh, you mean spiders. Tabu for humans to eat spiders, they tough anyway. Only spiders eat spiders.”

  “Humans eat humans?”

  “No. That tabu. Human not learn anything from eat human. Just get bellyache and hate self.”

  Quarfar meant Fore-Thought; Narfar meant After-Thought; Narsua, Dorita gathered, meant After-Learning, or maybe After-Dinner—the two meanings blurred into each other.

  Medzok left her alone that night. She’d half-expected to be seduced or even raped, but he made the matter plain to her before bedtime: “I like you, but you woman to Narfar, so I not take you now, first I have to see Narfar and tell him I take you, then I take you.” He quartered her in the house for his favorite four women; they treated her as an honored guest and were most chic with her. She slept decently well, although more than once that night she dreamed about Narfar sitting cold sentinel up there.

  Next morning they got her up for breakfast at an hour which must have been very early, although the degree of light suggested that the sun (which they never saw in here) may have just risen outside. She breakfasted with the four favorite women on more hot bread and fruit baked in the central oven by today’s duty-women. Then Medzok quite informally came over, followed by Narsua, and invited Dorita to go up the tower; and the four women looked and felt scared, as though this were a most magical honor to which they didn’t dare aspire.

  The king ran up the rocks ahead of her; she clambered up, aware that Narsua behind her was ready to help. At the ten-meters-high flat top, she found Medzok in a prayer-attitude facing across the rocky figure 8; that was when she comprehended, from relative brightnesses of overhead diffuse daylight, that the 8 was oriented east of the tower, presumably signifying what eastward religious orientation has always signified, but meaning also that these people, who since infancy had never seen the sun, had formed some dim concept of its rising.

  If these were the funny children abhorred by Narfar, they were funny indeed: mutants of smoothed appearance, much like Erth’s Caucasians; not necessarily of higher intelligence than the Neanderthaloids, but more keenly motivated to make something good of every chance; not tradition-inclined toward the setting sun, but ambition-attentive to the new sun’s rising. A school-day memory bobbed into her foremind, a text which had told her that Neanderthal man, while uglier and clumsier than Cro-Magnon man, may have been equal to Homo sapiens as to brain power; only, for some reason not understood by the anthropologists of paleontology, the new-appearing Cro-Magnon had rather swiftly crowded Neanderthal out of the living Erth.

  Maybe in Eden there had been Neanderthal first? Maybe Edom and Avé were merely the first mutant Cro-Magnon pair—and maybe no Neanderthal woman would have dreamed of taking the forbidden apple?

  Done with his devotions, Medzok turned to Dorita, seizing both her hands, and began to talk rapidly, frequently freeing a hand for a broad gesture. “We make double stone circle first, for the god; then we think of tower, to stand on and gaze across double circle in direction of god who give us fire. We find places in crater where stones are heaped up, we not know why but there they are, we think maybe god left stones for us to use, we have to think how to use. We try to move stones, but it very hard; then spiders try, and big spiders can do it. Spiders always want to help us, I not know why, but we thank them always, we pet them. Spiders pull away big stones the way we say, put them in double circle the way we say. Then we think of tower, and spiders help again. They lay first circle of stones, then try to pile stones on top, not work so good. Then we think of making bottom stones fiat on top and top stones flat on bottom. How to do? We find out you can do this with fire, you heat stone and throw cold water on it, piece break off, leave stone flat. So that what we do, and you see how tower go. We got one guy, he notice when we heat some stones, dark stuff in stones flow out like water and get harder than stone when cool; he think he find a way to flatten stones even better with hard stuff, he not know how yet but he working on it.

  “Anyhow, we start with little tower, just high enough to see over double circle. Then we think, hey, maybe if tower high enough, we use it to touch sky. If tower touch sky, we get out of crater, see world—”

  “How you know,” Dorita demanded, “that there is a world, outside?” 1

  “We think about it a lot. Here this little world, what we call crater, walls all around it, Narfar put us in here, walls must be to keep us in or keep something else out—why else? We have stories about Narfar, old men say their old men big boys when Narfar put them here, so they know Narfar, he bad god with wings. Narfar not here, must be outside—where else? Then we see sky, sometimes light over there, sometimes light up there, sometimes light over there, then dark: must be some light outside, going across once every day, maybe big fire—what else? We want to go outside and see. Very dangerous, but it there—we want to see it!”

  These were humans, all right; Dorita was thinking prerocket moon-aspiration. She queried: “If god Narfar put you here, he not god you pray to. Who god you pray to?”

  “To god who give us fire.”

  “Who that god?”

  “We not know, but some god.”

  So the name and being of Quarfar was not known to these people who had been immured here as children, or whose ancestors had been. It was long ago indeed that people on Dora had used fire, and Quarfar had nothing to do with it because he hadn’t then reached Dora. But Narfar had made fire tabu here. Nevertheless, doubtless the old tradition had been secretly handed down, particularly among the funny people; and the child-ancestors of these crater-folk had picked up the story about the dangerous flaming stuff before Narfar had put them away. These endlessly curious people had played with the story, and ultimately had begun playing with something like the reality: rain clouds in the crater could be capricious, perhaps they had stayed away from some outer quarter during a long drought period, perhaps trees and vegetation had dangerously dried, perhaps there had been a wind and a dangerous rubbing-together of dry branches, perhaps even within-the-crater lightning. These people had caught on to it, they had learned to tame fire and use it for holy god-stuff and for cooking… . Good God, if those long-ago children (and some not so long ago) had learned how to make babies, why not fire?

  “Well,” Medzok was continuing, “we figure, to make tower higher, it has to be wider. So spiders bring more rocks and we make big bottom, and we come lip from there, you see how high we come, you here. But we know now, not reach sky with this tower, not big enough at bottom. We think later we try bigger, taller tower right beside wall. But we keep on with this one, for good magic. We make good tall tower here, that tell taller tower how to be good. Then we get out of here! No?”

  She tested: “It might be bad outside. You might fall off world, outside, fall through sky forever.”

  “So,” agreed Medzok with composure. “That why I be first to go up big tower, see what outside; and Narsua here go with me. If we not come back, then another man and another spider try—they picked already, and so on. If nobody come back, I guess maybe the ones still here will quit trying. But maybe they won’t. 7 won’t!”

  Nor I! Narsua echoed.

  Then—as they overviewed the village and surveyed, beyond and above the surrounding jungle, the jagged rock-walls of their crater-prison—Medzok (which meant, she comprehended, Eldest Son) put it to her directly. “You decided, Dorita? You get us out of here?”

  No, she had not decided. The concept of getting them out no longer held the allure that it had exercised upon her before she had come in. Then, the combined impossible project, the deliciously wrong project, of getting in herself and getting out with them had been the ultimate goal of her life. But she had now brought off the first part, and she knew how to bring off the s
econd part: that was enough, wasn’t it? Where now was the motive to go through the motions of doing it? She might as well drop the whole idea and save Narfar a lot of headaches….

  An enormous amount of future, clear up to Erth’s year 2464 and beyond, would depend on this decision. But Dorita had no concept of this, it was remote from her concern, her concern was herself.

  He repeated, urgently insistent: “You get us out of here now?”

  Perhaps she should temporize, rather than saying a flat no; she had a feeling that these Medzok-humans, under duress to realize some dream, would be capable of anything, even prolonged torture. She might get by for now by promising to do it, might even get Narsua to conduct her back to her point of arrival under pretext of studying ways and means; might then use the back-spacetiming technique to escape alone, having made her supreme point with herself; and afterward she could decide what greater coup might come next….

  Too late she remembered that Narsua could read her thoughts. To Narsua they were incomprehensible, but they were mighty suspicious. Narsua demanded of Medzok: Dorita human?

  “Yes,” Medzok told her. “Dorita human.”

  Human get us out of here if human can?

  “Yes, Narsua. She get us out if she can.”

  Dorita was hideously apprehensive. Remorselessly the spider was building up a logic, and Dorita anticipated where it was going.. ;.

  Narsua drove right at target. She not get us out, she not human?

  Medzok stared at Narsua.

  The spider insisted: You king, you say what is human. She human, she get us out of here if she can. And she can. She not get us out, she not human?

  Medzok knelt to scratch the great spider’s ruff, meanwhile looking speculatively up at Dorita. “Good Narsua. I not think of that. Human get us out if she can. And Dorita can. If she not get us out—she not human.”

  Narsua in one hop did an eight-stiff-legged turn and eight-eye stared at Dorita and launched a malevolent challenge: You not get us out, you not human, tabu gone, Narsua eat you and learn all you know. Then Narsua get us out!

  She swung her body between her legs, aiming her tailgun at Dorita.

  Dorita flung a defensive negative. No effect on Narsua: the tailgun quivered….

  34

  Days Thirty-One to Thirty-Six

  So well disciplined were the crater-folk that only five days and nights were required to prepare the entire Medzokian-Narsuan symbiosis for the outmoving. Gone was Medzok’s boast that he and Narsua would be first and alone to try it: his enthusiasm for the venture had swept through the human and spider tribes—they were all going at once, to escape or to die.

  As for humans: the men would carry some firewood, the women some utensils and some bread and an occasional papoose, the walking kids would make it or die on their own legs, and that was nearly it. At Dorita’s insistence, ill comprehended but obeyed, the women worked hard stitching big leaves together with spider-thread for clothing, including unheard-of shoes.

  As for the spiders, they would have no food or furniture to carry. They were all adult females, the males having copulated and been eaten earlier in the year. Each spider would carry her own egg sac, which naturally would include some male eggs, and nothing else.

  During prolonged conferences with Medzok and Narsua, Dorita had warned about the ice-field peril, abandoning words for telepathy in order to convey richer meanings, although Medzok stuck to words….

  Dorita: We travel many days on top of ice, you not know about ice, it cold hard stuff.

  Medzok: What cold mean?”

  Dorita: Cold like … She paused, seeking a simile understandable by these denizens of quasi-equatorial heat. You never get sick so sometimes you feel like fire but sometimes you shiver and wish you could be in fire? Medzok nodded; Narsua stared. Well, then: imagine you very sick, shivering, wish you could be in fire. That what cold mean. Then imagine colder, colder, colder than you ever been. That how ice is.

  “Tell again—what ice mean?”

  Ice is water, water got so cold it get hard like rock. Ice make you cold like worst sick you ever got, and much worse. You get so cold maybe you die first day. All of you.

  “We have to go across that?”

  For days and nights and days and nights.

  “Then maybe we better stay here?”

  Dorita felt a warm spot of hope. Diffidently she responded in speech: “Maybe you better stay here.”

  Ten eyes consulted each other: Medzok’s and Narsua’s. Then Medzok: “After we get across ice—what?”

  Dorita was not a liar. ‘If you get across ice, then more and more trees, more and more food, still cold at night but not so cold—if you get across ice. Then, after many many days, you reach place just like here, only bigger, much bigger.”

  “But first we have to cross cold ice?”

  “That right. For days and nights and days and nights. So cold you all die before you get across, maybe first day. How you get across?”

  After thought, Medzok said: “Got answer. We bring along firewood and fire-sticks, we make big hut of some firewood and all gather inside, we bum fire in middle, all warm. When firewood get low, we burn walls of big hut; by that time maybe we nearly to end of ice. You think, Dorita?”

  “If I not think that, what I do?”

  Narsua, fiercely: You not think that, you stand still, I kill and eat you; you not stand still, you run, I kill and eat you anyway. Then I know what you know. So you better tell.

  Dorita was trapped, and she hated that; on the other hand, they were really asking to be used, forcing her to test her escape plan—and that was good, really, it would complete her triumph. Once outside, they would all perish, so it wouldn’t really hurt Narfar. But she would not be with them.

  They began the escape from the crater at what passed for sunrise in a land without sun. Led by Narsua—who this time was not back-ridden by Dorita, for Narsua had a huge egg sac to carry, but instead was followed immediately by Medzok and Dorita—the procession of heavily laden men and women and children and assorted spiders departed the village, entered’ jungle, and headed for a wall-base point diametrically opposite the place where Narsua had brought Dorita down. Here they would not hazard meeting Narfar at the top. Medzok had suggested: “Narfar might foresee that we would escape at the other side, might be waiting; or he might be watching and see us across crater and fly to kill us.” Dorita reassured him: You are giving Narfar your own thinking ability, he does not have it; he promised he would wait there for me, and he will wait there, and he will not be suspicious.

  Clearing the jungle-edge, they approached the wall-base with its ubiquitous polished hundred-meter bowl-inside. Narsua swung body and shot, achieving a higher anchorage than before; she called upon her sisters to try the same thing, and all the big spiders tried, and about ten more shots hit rough rock although none as loftily as Narsua’s. It was enough.

  In the first operation, all the big spiders ran up the eleven strands and bound their egg sacs to the rocks. They returned to ground, took men and women upon their backs, ran up the strands and scrambled on up the rough rock four kilometers aloft just below the Narfar-roof; here they bound the people to rough rocks and returned to ground for more people including children. Once these were safely bound on high, the spiders ran down to their egg sacs, returned aloft and secured those. Meanwhile the smaller spiders, carrying their eggs, did the uprunning without any problem, and waited.

  Now Narsua bit-free Medzok and Dorita, positioning each of them on a ledge to which they could cling securely. And Narsua launched a command, in Dorita’s mind it felt like a hissing: You do that thing now!

  It was the pre-escape instant, the box-opening instant, the ultima of Dorita’s victory. Just for a hesitant moment before bringing it off, incautiously Dorita allowed her own private escape plan to well into consciousness out of her subconscious where she had kept it hidden from Narsua. Once having brought off the ceiling-cut—if she could bring it off—she would back-s
pacetime, replacing herself on the far side of the rim with Narfar before her descent. She would arm-hook his neck, smiling into his face, and tell him: “Good Narfar, I change mind, I not go down. You take me home now. Don’t forget to close hole in ceiling.”

  She would vault aboard him, and he would fly her homeward over the ice—for his city was home. Perhaps, in some other dimension of this intertiming, she would already have released the Medzok-people and the spiders; but it would be useless to look below for their trekking, they would all have died before the end of the first day, freezing on the ice, and first of all the spiders. Perhaps she felt worst about the spiders… .

  Dorita! you do that thing! It was a snarl from Narsua.

  Obediently, Dorita energized her mind-thrust into a sort of psycho-kinetic laser and cut a hole thirty meters wide in the Narfar-ceiling just at crater’s edge. Cold outside air rushed in, rolling back tropical inside heat. Sensing high hazard. Narsua sent her sisters a-scurry to cut loose and send up all the other humans; while the smaller spiders ran at high speed over the crest and down the outer slope ahead of the others, because their instincts assured them that they were in frigid trouble.

  Atop the whistling rim, Medzok blinked in clear blinding snow-sunlight; Narsua was totally blinded, but her cold-weakened sense of smell held true. Medzok declared: “This awful! What that bright fire in sky?”

  “That sun,” Dorita explained. “That what give you light down there, only you can’t see it down there because of walls. That give you heat, too.”

  Goose-pimpled Medzok objected: “Not feel any heat out here—”

  “Can’t explain,” said Dorita curtly. “Anyhow, sun your guide to warm country. Follow sun at noon, it noon right now, follow where it is. Sun rise over there, set over there; when halfway between, like right now, that where you go.”