Pallahaxi

by Michael Coney

  “There’s one possibility I can think of,” said Mister McNeil, “but it’s kind of far out. Just suppose they were all evacuated from the planet for the duration of the Great Freeze in a ship that accelerated to around the speed of light. Relativity would account for them still being young when they got back.”

  He’d discussed this kind of unlikely science with me before, and I was still unconvinced. It went against all commonsense, but I let it go. “Who could have evacuated us?”

  “I told you there are only two space-going races in this part of the galaxy. We humans have the capability, but so far as I know we arrived here long after the Great Freeze. I’m just wondering if there was an earlier expedition, and the records have gotten lost. It’s unlikely, but not impossible. There’s so much stuff in our data bases, it’s easy to overlook something.

  “And as for the kikihuahuas, there’s no way they could achieve the speed of light. They’re the slowest-moving travelers we’ve ever come across. Their space-bats are a thousand kilometers across and they’re propelled by the effect of solar winds.”

  I’d heard all this, but it was new to Charm. “So they must live through an awful lot of generations before they get anywhere.”

  “Actually, they don’t. The space-bat feeds them some kind of soporific fluid and they go into hibernation for the duration of the voyage… .” His voice trailed away.

  “Hibernation,” repeated Charm thoughtfully. “Pity we don’t have a space-bat handy right now.”

  I remembered Smith and Smitha, and Wilt acting as a decoy, and Stance and his hunters pursuing me through the Arrow Forest… .

  “Maybe we do,” I said.

  I told them about my experience in the cave-cow caves that day. “… . and time passed while I was in there. It seemed like a day or so, but when I got back outside the season had moved on, and I’d missed it.”

  “So that’s the answer,” said Mister McNeil. “I told you the kikihuahuas bred the cave-cow from space-bat genes. That’s where the lorin live during a normal freeze — but if there’s an exceptional freeze coming, maybe the cave-cow can be used by everyone.”

  “Unless people are stupid enough to try to go it alone,” I said. “I had a backflash some time ago. I was at the cannery, and now I’m sure I was in Drove’s mind. We get to recognize minds pretty quickly. They’re much more individual than faces. Anyway, some people were inside a fence around the buildings, and some were outside. It was snowing. The people outside were huddled around fires up against the fence, and they wanted to get in. The people inside wouldn’t let them. They said there wasn’t room.”

  “What happened next?”

  “I don’t know. There was a lot of fear in the air, though.”

  “You’ll have to stardream it,” said Charm definitely. “We both will. It’ll lead us to the Great Freeze. We have to save those people in the cannery. Where we went wrong before, is thinking we were looking for a period of forty years in the lives of Drove and Browneyes. But if they were in the cave-cow, the Freeze went by in a flash so far as they’re concerned. They didn’t even age. We slipped right by it in their memories.”

  So Mister McNeil lay back on his heap of furs, occasionally tending to the distil stove, while Charm and I stardreamed… .

  And by the following afternoon everything was clear.

  We took it in turns to tell Mister McNeil the story of the two groups of people; one group inside the cannery once outside. The people inside were the bureaucrats and their families, mostly from inland, known as Parls. Those outside were the Pallahaxi villagers and stragglers from other towns. Drove’s people, from Alika, were inside; Browneyes’ outside.

  “Drove and Browneyes were separated,” said Charm. “They held hands through the fence.”

  “The cannery was divided into levels,” I added. “The Regent and his chiefs were five floors underground. The people on each level were less important than those on the level below. The guards lived on the ground floor. My people were one floor below that. What we didn’t realize at first, was that the floors could be sealed off from one another. And the biggest stocks of food and fuel were the furthest underground.”

  Mister McNeil chuckled grimly. “Cultures may differ, but nature never changes.”

  “One day they locked all the doors.”

  Charm said, “By then, the lorin had come and led the all villagers away.”

  “And they went?” Mister McNeil was surprised. “Somehow I’d have expected them to stay outside the wire until the bitter end, looking in.”

  “The lorin can be very persuasive. They led the people to their cave-cow.”

  “Arrow Forest?”

  “No. It had to be somewhere closer, because the freeze was pretty severe by then. People couldn’t have walked far. It was snowing hard, and Browneyes just followed the lorin blindly.”

  I took up her tale. “Drove found an unlocked door leading directly outside, and he left the cannery that way. He’d decided he’d take his chances outside because Browneyes was there. Then the lorin came for him. The next day the guards deserted and the lorin took them, too.”

  “So that left four levels of people in the cannery,” said Mister McNeil. “What happened to them?”

  “Nobody knows. They’d sealed themselves off.”

  Charm said, “I wonder if they’re still breeding down there.”

  “With no food?”

  “For all we know, there’s a cave-cow down there. They might even be hibernating. What fun it’d be to wake them all up!”

  I said nothing. I had my own ideas as to what had happened to those people. Mister McNeil was silent, too. I knew what he was thinking.

  “So we’d better get over to the cannery and tell everyone, hadn’t we?” said Charm.

  I wished it was so simple. “They won’t believe us, my love. They’re all settled in, nicely organized by my uncle. And we’re asking them to go outside into the freezing cold and find some lorin, and trust them? They’ll laugh at us. And we’re not exactly their favorite people, anyway.”

  “Grubbers and flounders are all together in there, Hardy. Maybe they’re seeing things more sensibly now.”

  “Even if they are, Stance will twist them his way.”

  She hesitated. “You… . You’re going to have to discredit him, my love. It’s the only way. At least if we can get a few people out of there… . I think some of the Noss people might listen to us.”

  My stomach lurched at the thought of it.

  “She’s right,” said Mister McNeil. “It’s the only way. It’s that, or have a few hundred deaths on our conscience for the rest of our lives.”

  “So you’ve come crawling back,” said Stance. “All I can say is, if you want to stay here you’ll have to abide by our rules.”

  “That’s fine, Stance,” I said.

  “Just don’t you forget it.” He eyed me suspiciously. We stood in the room where I’d met with him before; he’d taken it over as his headquarters. There was very little furniture; a few heaps of furs here and there, a cart upended to serve as a table, a couple of benches that had once held pilgrims’ offerings. I’m sure he’d have preferred something more pretentious. And in one corner, a big lumpy heap covered by skins. That would be his private food supply. No doubt a bigger hoard than any other in the cannery, but hardly enough for forty years.

  “Have you explored the lower levels yet?” I asked.

  His eyes flickered. He glanced toward his team: Lonessa, Wand and Cuff. “Did you get around to exploring the lower levels, Cuff?” He picked on the youngest as a target for the question he couldn’t answer himself.

  Cuff handled it well. He’d matured a lot since the death of his father. “Which lower levels are you talking about, Stance?” he asked coolly.

  Stance had no option but to refer the question back to me. “Which lower levels?”

  It was not the time to challenge him; there weren’t enough people
present. If challenging was to be done, it would have to be at a bigger meeting. His downfall had to be complete, and witnessed as such. For the time being I would just play him along. “The levels below this one,” I said innocently.

  “This is ground level. How can there be others below it? They’d have to be pits.”

  I pushed him a bit further. “I take it you haven’t gotten around to stardreaming this place yet.”

  His eyes flashed with a murderous glint. “Stardreaming? We have no time for stardreaming! What matters is the here and now, and our preparations for the future!”

  “Of course. So you know nothing of the lower levels. That’s a pity. I think we should check them out, don’t you?”

  Again I’d limited his options. He fell silent while his team discussed the notion of lower levels and what might be found there. It emerged that there was a door down a distant corridor that had resisted all attempts to pry it open.

  “I’ve stardreamed this place,” I told them. “There were people down there during the Great Freeze, on another four levels below this one. My ancestor Drove was down there for a while.”

  This was too much for Stance. “Sacrilege! You’re claiming the venerable Drove as your ancestor? What next, you presumptuous young freezer?”

  “Charm is descended from Browneyes.”

  “Oh, yes? I suppose she’s stardreamed this place as well!”

  “No. She was outside the fence… .” I hesitated. I was being led into revealing my hand. The time was not ripe, not yet.

  Lonessa broke in. “Is this true, Charm? Are you and I descended from Browneyes?”

  “Yes. I’ve been all the way back, Mom. We’re descended from Drove, too. They had two children, a boy and a girl.”

  Only Charm would have thought of that. Lonessa blinked, puzzled. She couldn’t think of herself as being descended from a man. Memories are so important to us that we tend to forget we each have two parents passing their genes down the line. Genes that — according to Mister McNeil — affect many aspects of our behavior, even our appearance. But Lonessa shrugged off the Drove connection as being of no consequence.

  “Browneyes, our ancestor… .” she murmured.

  “You needn’t be so impressed, Mom. She’s just an ordinary woman.”

  Stance uttered an explosive noise. More sacrilege. “She’s the mother to us all!”

  “Not really. The goatparent is the mother to us all. And the father. But that was long ago, long before the Great Freeze, even. Mister McNeil explained it to us. Maybe he’ll explain it to you some day.”

  “What in the name of the Great Lox does Mister McNeil know about us!”

  “More than we know ourselves, it seems,” I said. “Why don’t we go along to this door and see what’s behind it?”

  He snorted derisively. “We’ve already told you the door can’t be opened. Have you forgotten already?”

  “I’m sure Mister McNeil can open any door.”

  The human smiled and produced his laser pistol.

  Stance held a lamp aloft, Mister McNeil provided additional illumination from a human flashlight. We gathered quite a following as we made our way along the corridors, Noss and Yam people forgetting their differences, drawn together against the common peril. It would have been quite impressive, were it not for the fact that they were drawn together in the wrong place. Mind you, the corridors were splendid; the walls square, sharp-cornered and smooth, with none of the lumpy roughness of our cottages. The old people had known how to build.

  “What’s going on?” Charm’s dad had joined us, giving his daughter a quick hug.

  I explained as we hurried on. There was a murmur of interest from our followers. Other levels? It was a fascinating idea. Drivets scuttled away from our feet, squeaking angrily. They’d had sole possession of this place for generations.

  We arrived at a stout metal door; paint peeling, surface pocked with rust but in remarkable condition considering the number of generations it had stood. There were no latches or handles to pull it by; and when Mister McNeil threw his weight against it, it didn’t budge.

  “Intended to keep people out,” he said briefly, and aimed his laser pistol. A glowing thread of molten metal began to creep steadily around the door. People backed away, muttering nervously. A few of them had seen this example of human prowess before, but it was new to most.

  “Sacrilege,” murmured Stance apprehensively. He was very big on sacrilege these days. “This door has stood for generations. Obviously it was never mean to be opened. Now the human is destroying it.”

  “Shut up, you fool,” whispered Wand.

  A circular section of door fell away and hit the floor beyond with a great clang. The onlookers were silent, frightened. By now it had occurred to many of them that some cohort of Rax might have been lurking beyond that door ever since the Great Freeze, waiting to be let out and to wreak havoc on the world. Possibly Ragina, queen of the ice-devils and Rax’s legendary lover.

  But no tentacle came reaching hungrily out of the hole in the door. Instead, we heard a curious droning sound. Mister McNeil shone his flashlight through the hole, playing it on the walls of a short corridor leading into blackness. The walls were pale and they seemed to be rippling.

  I heard Cuff mutter, “What in the name of Phu—?”

  His voice was drowned out by yells of alarm as the rippling walls resolved themselves into countless winged insects, lifting off and heading for us in a vast fizzing cloud. I ducked. People thrashed about, flapping their arms, hitting one another as often as the flies. The lantern was knocked out of Stance’s hand. The earthen base broke open and a pool of distil spread, flaring up with an eerie blue flame. The insects made for it, hovering above the flames in a dense mass as we backed away. They began to fall with singed wings. An odd, cloying stink arose.

  “They’re only buzzflies,” said someone, relieved.

  “When did you ever see a white buzzfly?”

  “Well, they’re the right size and shape.”

  Mister McNeil said, “They’ve been evolving for years in the dark. They don’t need color.”

  “What do they feed on?”

  The human hesitated. “Well, for a long time now I guess they’ve been feeding on one another.”

  More flies emerged. Mister McNeil stepped through the hole in the door. We saw the circle of light playing on walls, now gray and devoid of life. Then the light disappeared; only a faint glow remaining. We heard him shout, “You’d better come through.”

  I followed the glow and found him standing at the entrance of a large chamber, playing his light around the walls. Others joined us, jostling us from behind.

  “Is Stance there?” he asked.

  “Of course,” came the reply.

  “I think you should take a look at this.”

  The circle of light swung down.

  I’ve put it under geas. I think everyone there has. There’s no point in inflicting that dreadful sight on the generations to come.

  In the center of the floor lay a vast pile of ashes. At first glance in the poor light I thought the ashes were surrounded by a circle of clothing, thrown haphazardly down. But then I saw the pale gleam of bones, a skull, a skeletal foot sticking out from a pants leg, and I realized the clothing had once contained people. And I knew why Mister McNeil had hesitated before he’d taken his guess at what the buzzflies had been eating. He’d expected something like this. He’d been around the galaxy and he knew the meaning of time, and he knew how frail life is, and how people invent myths to reassure themselves.

  And now we all knew something else.

  “They burned their books to keep warm,” he said quietly to me. “Their books, their furniture, and anything else that would burn. And when everything was gone, they died.”

  Word traveled. People gathered. A great crowd of people packed into the largest chamber, chattering in frightened speculation as they awaited soothing words from the
ir leaders next door.

  Stance, meanwhile, refused to take advice from his team. “All right, some people died. But it doesn’t alter the facts. The fact is, some people lived, otherwise we wouldn’t be here now.”

  “Then you’d better explain it to them,” said Lonessa, “before they all go running out into the cold. This place has the stink of death in it, in their minds.”

  “The point is,” I said, “which people lived?”

  “Exactly,” said Lonessa.

  “You just shut up, Hardy!” shouted Stance with a classic show of temper. “We have enough problems without you compounding them!”

  The roar of speculation next door resolved itself into a rhythmic shout. “Stance… ! Stance… ! Stance… !”

  Lonessa glanced at me. Surprisingly, she smiled briefly.

  “Time to face up to it all,” she said.

  Lanterns flickered around the walls, lighting up the anxious faces of the crowd as Stance climbed onto a bench to address them. Two-fingered signs stabbed the air as though my uncle were the Great Lox himself. I stood on the floor behind the bench, together with Mister McNeil, Lonessa, Wand, Cuff and Charm.

  Stance was on his own up there.

  “My people!” he shouted. “Good people of Noss and Yam. Today we have learned a lesson. We have seen what happens to ungodly folk who turn their backs on their faith and resort to materialism and an inadequate technology. Did we see one single image of the Great Lox in that dreadful cave? No! Did we see symbols of the sun-god Phu, that might have encouraged him to return to the skies? No! Instead we saw a treacherous and ungodly people putting their trust in thick walls and locked doors. And they paid the price. They died, while the people here on this level survived.”

  “How do you know they survived, Yam Stance?” came a shout.

  “Do you see any bodies on this level?” His gaze raked the crowd. “Did you see buzzflies? No!”