Pallahaxi

by Michael Coney

  “They didn’t have to wait long,” said Charm. “The evil folk cast them out into the cold and so they gathered up the other people; the good ones, and led them to the caverns, and the very next day the Great Lox galloped through the sky pulling Phu behind him, and everything was warm again. They didn’t pray in the legend, which is rather surprising.”

  “Maybe the Great Lox came out of the goodness of his heart.”

  “You’ve been to the caverns, haven’t you, Hardy?”

  “Dad and Granddad and Stance were there. It’s supposed to have been a cannery before the Great Freeze, where they put dead fish in metal pots. I stardreamed it.”

  “At least you know the place exists,” said Mister McNeil.

  “Smith knows it better than me. I wonder where he is now. You know what he said once? They’ve built caverns and all sorts at Pallahaxi, and furnished them. A thousand people could sit out the freeze in comfort.”

  We strolled down the harborside street where the cottages rose up the hillside in terraces to our left. Suddenly Charm stopped. We’d been holding hands; she jerked me to a halt too.

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know… . A backflash. A really strong one.” She was staring at a building better preserved than most. A carving of a monstrous grummet hung from above the sagging door.

  I told her, “That’s the Golden Grummet. The birthplace of Browneyes.”

  “I… . I knew that already.”

  “You probably visited it yesterday in your stardream.”

  “Probably.” But she looked doubtful.

  “Where is everybody?” asked Mister McNeil.

  We found them by mid-afternoon, at the cannery.

  The cannery was enormous, unnaturally sharp-edged and rectangular, built of stone blocks hewn from the Pallahaxi hillsides and laid on top of one another by an ancient people of unimaginable industry and persistence.

  “And we’re supposed to wait out the freeze here?” said Charm incredulously.

  “So the legends say,” I said.

  “I think maybe the legends lied.”

  “I’ll second that,” said Mister McNeil.

  A large door was set into the blank wall facing us. As we approached it a man stepped outside, wrapped so heavily in furs he was almost spherical. He squinted into the driving sleet.

  “Stop right there,” he shouted. “What’s your business?” Then he recognized me, and I him. It was one of Stance’s huntsman. “Oh, it’s you, Yam Hardy,” he said. “And Noss Charm too. Come to give yourself up, have you? About time.” Then he caught sight of Mister McNeil, who’d been examining a piece of machinery in the yard. “You’ve brought the human. The troublemaker.”

  “Shut up and take us to Stance,” I said brusquely.

  Startled, and no doubt intimidated by the sight of Mister McNeil, the man nodded rapidly and led us inside. Here, the place had changed since Dad’s visit. The pilgrims’ shrines had all been taken apart. The benches were now mounded with furs and skins, and the little religious artifacts were piled against the far wall. Our guide caught my glance.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he said defensively. “But all the shrines will go back exactly as they were, once we’ve got the clothing and bedding sorted out and distributed.”

  “It’ll take more than a few shrines to make this place holy,” I said.

  “Why are you doing all this sorting out?” asked Charm. “Why don’t people just keep what they brought?”

  “There are no inequalities here.” He led us through a heavy door into a smaller chamber where a few people sat on benches around a flickering fire.

  “Charm!” It was Lonessa, staring at us open-mouthed. She jumped up and ran to us, and threw her arms around her daughter.

  “Mom… . Mom,” muttered Charm, embarrassed. “Take it easy.”

  “We thought you were dead!”

  Meanwhile Spring arrived from another room. She said nothing; just smiled and touched my shoulder. “Good to see you, Hardy.” Her eyes were bright with tears.

  “Didn’t Stance tell you we were with Mister McNeil?” I asked.

  Lonessa swung round on Stance, who was watching me without expression. “You knew they were alive!”

  “They are dead to the Great Lox. They are dead to us. I saw no reason to resurrect them in your minds.”

  She stared at him. “Can’t you tell the difference between fact and religion, for Phu’s sake? Have you gotten totally carried away with your own rhetoric? They’re alive, you fool, just like the rest of us!”

  “Don’t you call my dad a fool!”

  Trigger’s weak protest was drowned by a bout of oration from Stance. “The facts speak for themselves, Lonessa. We are here in this place, and this place bears out the details of our great religion and proves the truth of the metaphor of the Great Lox.”

  “Aha! So you agree it’s only a metaphor?”

  I got the impression we’d interrupted a long-standing argument. It was good to know the leaders of this farce were at loggerheads.

  “Of course it’s a metaphor. You don’t seriously think I expect to see a gigantic animal up there in the sky, harnessed to the sun? It always was a metaphor — but a telling one, Lonessa. And our people need metaphors to help them understand the truth.”

  “And what exactly is the truth?”

  Mister McNeil spoke for the first time. “The truth is, you’re not well enough prepared for a forty-year freeze.”

  “The truth is,” shouted my uncle, suddenly enraged, “that you don’t know what you’re talking about! You should take a look at the wonders of this place. You should consider the machines in here and outside, built by our people for purposes we can’t begin to understand. Our people, I said — not yours. Our people had a great technology long before you humans arrived. And the truth is all around! Look at this place; look at the walls! Look at the doors! Take a walk through the chambers and see what you’ll find! There are wonders here!”

  His eyes were crazed and he’d sprayed Mister McNeil’s coat with little flecks of foam. He bent down and snatched up a handful of wafery ashes. “Books!” he yelled. “My father brought me here when I was a child and he told me the legends. Our people had advanced beyond the need for such books. The sun-god Phu had bestowed the gift of perfect memory upon them while they were in this holy place, so they sacrificed the books as a thanksgiving. And now we’re here again. Who knows what miracles will fall upon us during our sojourn here! Praise be to Phu! Praise be to Phu!”

  We’d backed away from him, a worried little circle with him ranting in the middle, his face demonic in the firelight.

  “And we shall learn, oh yes, we shall learn. Once this freeze is over we shall learn from the machines our ancestors built. We shall—”

  “Listen to me, Stance,” said Mister McNeil tiredly. “Do you believe me when I say this freeze will last forty years or don’t you? Yes or no?”

  “The duration of the freeze is immaterial. We triumphed before and we shall triumph again! We stand on the threshold of… .”

  And hearing his ranting, people began to drift silently in from other chambers. They didn’t want to miss any of his words. Their expressions were rapt. They were under his spell. My erstwhile friend Caunter’s face was alight with hero-worship.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Charm said to me quietly.

  Lonessa murmured, “Don’t go too far. I’m staying close to Stance and so are Cuff and Wand. He has the people here eating out of his hand, and we’re worried he may get them to do something really stupid.”

  “We have some more stardreaming to do,” I told her. “We’re getting close to some answers.”

  “We need them quickly,” she said. “If Mister McNeil is right.”

  “He’s right,” I assured her.

  “Look after Charm,” she said.

  I got the impression she’d accepted me at last.

 
As we walked through the driving sleet Mister McNeil said, “I can’t understand why you didn’t simply tell people Stance’s memory is faulty and he’s not fit to be a leader. Good grief, it’s straightforward enough!”

  “No. It isn’t. You can’t challenge a chief’s memory in public. Or anybody’s memory, for that matter. It would outrage people, and they wouldn’t listen to any proof you might have.”

  “But surely you could just ask Stance, kind of innocently, to recall something ancient?”

  “Stance is no fool. He’d say ‘Are you doubting my memory?’ and I’d be shouted down.”

  “Sooner or later,” he said, “you’re going to have to do it.”

  We’d decided to move into the Golden Grummet; apart from the cannery it was the only marginally habitable building in Pallahaxi. I pushed the door open and we found ourselves in a large room with a counter running the length of one wall. It was littered with artifacts left by pilgrims; mostly female figures with exaggerated sexual characteristics. I picked one up; it was heavy, about three hands high, crudely made in baked clay with a remarkably ugly face and gigantic globular breasts stuck onto the chest.

  “If that’s meant to be Browneyes,” I said, “I’m surprised Drove ever went near her.”

  “Any port in a storm,” said Mister McNeil.

  Charm inspected the idol. She chuckled. “We have that saying in Noss, too. But according to the legends, there were other people around at the time. He and Browneyes led them to the cavern, remember? Drove could have had his pick. So my belief is, this is the work of a very poor sculptor with unfulfilled lusts.” She glanced at me mischievously. “Hardy would never feel the need to create anything like this.”

  We explored the house. It had been well maintained by pilgrims and we finally settled on an upstairs room with a view of the old harbor. Mister McNeil brought his buggy and parked it outside, and we carried the bedding and supplies up to the room. By the time it was getting dark outside we’d lit a distil stove and warmed the place up, sorted out our belongings, and eaten a simple meal. Mister McNeil settled down with his tablet of moving pictures, and Charm and I composed ourselves for stardreaming… .

  I hopped quickly back to the days when Pallahaxi was a growing village. Through the eyes of an ancestor called Watch I skimmed the grume and survived a battle with a pod of grume-riders who capsized the skimmer and would have eaten Watch, if they hadn’t been even more interested in his catch of glubbs. He swam ashore with flailing arms, buoyed by dense water.

  So one of my ancestors had been a flounder. It made nonsense of the age-old contempt of grubbers for flounders and vice-versa. Watch/I lay panting on the beach. I’d experienced his terror, and now I experienced his relief. I came out of it, exhausted, to find Charm propped up on one elbow, smiling at me.

  “Oh, my love,” she said.

  “What is it?”

  Her eyes were shining. “I’ll let you find out. I won’t spoil it for you.”

  “Something good?” I asked, surprised.

  “You’ll find out soon. Are you back in Pallahaxi?”

  “Yes. It’s heavy going.”

  “Take your time. Don’t try to hop, now. Stay with people a bit. We’re very close.”

  “Where’s Mister McNeil?”

  “He’s gone exploring in the buggy.”

  So I eased my way back into the life of Watch and the people of his time and it became easier. Another grume came, nothing like as bountiful as grumes I’d known, but enough to keep the villagers alive. A colder world meant less evaporation in the Great Shallows, and a thinner grume… . I backtracked to Watch’s coming-of-age, and shifted into the memories of his father.

  Finally, a few generations earlier still, I found myself in the mind of a another fisherman, but one who seemed to be of some stature.

  I/someone lay in a skimmer on the beach, exhausted, soaking up the weak sun. I’d unloaded the fish into baskets, and in a while I’d push the boat off and sail out again. But meanwhile, the sun was very pleasant. Out there on the grume, the skimmers plied their nets. Only a handful of boats but we’d be building some more next spring, and a few more of the village boys would be old enough to go out alone. I experienced a surge of optimism. Things were moving in Pallahaxi. By Phu, in a couple of years time we’d have twice the number of boats out there!

  “Drove?” I heard a voice calling.

  Drove! The legendary figure from the Great Freeze! I’d reached his generation. He was somewhere near! In my awe, the stardream wobbled between past and present.

  “Are you asleep?”

  And a shadow fell over me.

  “Drove? Wake up, sleepyhead! I’ve brought lunch.”

  She was talking to me! I was living in the memories of the legendary Drove! Did this mean I was descended from the great man himself? But some names are borrowed, if they’re good enough. I quickly riffled through my host’s memories. There was no doubt about it; this was the great Drove in person.

  “I was just resting a bit.” I opened my eyes.

  A girl was bending over me. I blinked; the sun was in my eyes. Dark hair hung down, framing her face. She bent closer to kiss me, and I saw her clearly.

  Charm! The girl was Charm, surely? The same heart-shaped face, the same warm brown eyes… . And the same look of love. Something swung from her neck, glinting in the sun.

  Charm’s pendant, her crystal, her charm. Around this girl’s neck.

  I backed out of the stardream, disoriented. Charm was awake, watching me. She saw my expression and smiled. “Now you know it all,” she said. “All right, just go back into that dream, and so will I. We’re together, now.”

  Gently, I stardreamed again.

  “No more fishing this morning,” said the girl who looked like Charm. “You’ve done enough.”

  She took my hand, hauled me into a sitting position and handed me a plate of fried fish. Food tasted so good these days. Life was perfect. I finished my meal, climbed out of the boat onto the shore and took her in my arms. There was a patch of warm, soft sand nearby. I carried her to it, and laid her down tenderly.

  “What, now?” she said, feigning surprise.

  “Now,” I said. “And for ever.”

  So, countless generations ago, Drove and Browneyes made love.

  Charm held me tightly. “I always knew there was something special about us.”

  I was still dazed by the whole thing. “All those generations, both of us, and never a break in memory. I can’t get over it.”

  “It was always a tradition in my family.”

  “Mine, too. But I thought that was just to make us feel good about ourselves… . We can stardream now, together. We can live Drove and Browneyes’ childhoods. We could be there when they met.”

  “We could make love with them.” Charm’s eyes were dreamy. “Four of us, all at the same time. In these bodies and in theirs. Maybe it’s incest or something, but who cares?”

  The theory interested me, but the practice would take an awful lot of coordinating. I was willing to give it a try, however. I moved closer to Charm — if that were possible — and was in the act of kissing her when there was an unwelcome interruption.

  “Isn’t that Mister McNeil’s buggy? Listen!”

  “Rax!” exclaimed Charm. “What rotten timing!”

  She had a delightful sense of priorities. Reluctantly, we rolled out of bed and began to dress. I watched Charm; I could never take my eyes off her when she was dressing; or, for that matter, undressing. “Browneyes was wearing your crystal,” I said.

  “It’s been passed down all those generations like a memory. Do you think she’s prettier than me?” she asked with a touch of anxiety. People have been known to drool over distant ancestor’s lovers. Emotions are a strong factor in our memories, as I’ve told you.

  “She’s very like you. At first I had the weirdest feeling that she was you.”

  “And Drove’s very like
you. But not so handsome.”

  “Browneyes isn’t so pretty as you,” I lied. “Quite disappointing, really.”

  She chuckled and was kissing me when Mister McNeil came in. “Well,” he said, grinning. “Have you found out anything interesting, or have you just been fooling around all this time?”

  “Charm and I are direct descendants of Drove and Browneyes,” I told him.

  “Are you now?” he said thoughtfully. “So you must know how your people survived the last Great Freeze.”

  “Not yet. But it must be in our memories somewhere.” I looked at Charm. “You’ve been further back than me. Did you find anything?”

  “No. And that’s funny, because you’d think it’d be such a big thing that it’d be uppermost in their minds… . “ Suddenly her face paled. “And I’ll tell you something else.”

  It hit me at the same moment. “They’re too young. I was in Drove’s memory after the Great Freeze when they were rebuilding. He and Browneyes were about twenty years old at the time. So they couldn’t have been through a forty year freeze. It’s impossible. They must be a different Drove and Browneyes.”

  “Oh, Rax. They’re not. They’re the real ones, Hardy. I hopped into Browneyes’s childhood and she was living at the Golden Grummet, just like the legends say. I saw her mother and her father. I saw Drove’s parents too… .” She hesitated. “They were rather silly people. And… . Browneyes’ memories started there. At the Golden Grummet, when she was a little girl.”

  “She didn’t inherit her mother’s memories?”

  “No. And Drove didn’t inherit his father’s either. I’m sure of that.”

  Mister McNeil asked, “Does this mean you can’t go any further back?”

  “No, we can’t. Drove and Browneyes were the first generation to pass on their memories, it seems.”

  “So we’re stuck,” said Mister McNeil heavily. He sat down on a pile of furs. “The Great Freeze must have happened before they were born.”

  “Not according to the legends,” I said. “And there’s another thing. The legends say that people received the gift of memory during the Great Freeze. Now that would fit in with Drove and Browneyes not having their parents memories, wouldn’t it? And it suggests they were around during the freeze.”