Collected Tales (Jerry eBooks)

by Leslie F Stone

  Now the butterfly woman motioned for the men to seat themselves on the cushions. Beyond that she made no other move, but seemed to be waiting patiently for the next move, her eyes, big and multifaceted, were colorless, practically void of appearance of life or intelligence. Evidently the High-Priest of the Temple did not care for intelligent females, else perhaps all of the softer sex of the Dadans may have lacked intellect. Aside from her gentle voice, this one appeared to be no more than an animated automaton.

  A stirring at the curtain of the door through which they had entered aroused the creature, who now ushered in two servants carrying pottery bowls filled with perfumed water. These they held out to the two men as they laved their face and hands; then they produced fibrous cloths for towels and retreated as quietly from the room as they had entered. They were followed immediately by two more servants carrying trays on which there were dishes of food. These were placed on two of the low tables and the Abruians were invited to dine.

  In one of the flat round dishes, they found a soft gruel, but no spoon or implement with which to eat it, and remembering how Atun Wei ate their own food, by sucking it up with his proboscis, the two concluded that they were expected to do the same. Moura, however, rummaged in his pocket and found two light strips of metal with a broad surface, that he had dropped in there that day for want of a better place to put them. Now they came in handy and they tasted the food with them. The gruel was sticky, and it was over-sweet, and unlike anything the Abruians had ever tasted. The next dish contained a flat cake that crumbled to the touch, but which was more appetizing to the two who did not have a sweet tooth. The third dish contained water which had been strongly perfumed.

  As soon as they had finished eating, the dishes were cleared away, and their hostess motioned for them to follow her. They passed through the third room identical with the last, except that there were no tables, only the potted flowers that perfumed the air. The carpet under foot was so padded that at each step they sank into it ankle deep. But the room was not unoccupied, it was filled with sleeping butterflies. There were at least two dozen of them in the chamber, sleeping as Atun Wei had slept in the Yodverl, squatting on arms and legs with wings standing stiffly erect and covering the lower part of the abdomen. The wings of the sleepers were all solid green, the same as those of the servants who had been attending them.

  Carefully, so as to avoid the supine forms, they threaded their way through the room to the next where more sleepers were in evidence. None stirred as they moved among them. Two more rooms were the same, but the third held no more than four sleeping creatures, and these had wings marked like those of Atun Wei and their hostess. She indicated now by motioning that they were to recline here, and without ado squatted herself on the floor and resumed the slumber that she had been shaken out of when Atun Wei had summoned her. Moura and Ubca glanced at each other and with shrugs did as they had been bidden. They dropped to the floor and very shortly were fast asleep. Once Moura was awakened during the night by the beat of light wings as the fire-bug on the ceiling left his place to exchange it with another.

  CHAPTER XIV

  The Power of Atun Wei

  THE yellow sun was shining when the two awoke, and after the first surprise at their surroundings got to their feet. Looking about, they found themselves alone except for the light-insect hanging to its fixture above their heads. Pushing aside the curtain of the door through which they had come, they found the next room empty, and so they found each room until they came to the one in which they had dined. Here was the same female creature who had received them before. She spoke a word of greeting at their entrance, and now she seemed different than the night before, more alive and interested in their persons, which she inspected with her big eyes as she inquired whether they had slept well.

  “The master,” she stated, “has given orders that you are to be cared for and fed, and he is to be advised when you awake. I am Rak Atun, Atun Wei’s fourth wife.” The two acknowledged the late introduction and the butterfly woman moved toward the nearest wall, taking a short stick from underneath the white enfolding apron she wore, and tapped with it twice on the wall. Almost immediately she was answered by two females wearing gray aprons, collars and fillets, and having the solid green wing of the servant class. They took the orders she gave, and in a few minutes others came with basins of water, towels and food.

  As they ate, Rak Atun spoke to them. “The master tells us that you have come a long way to reach our world, that you are wizards who not only control the minds of men, but who heal their broken bodies, command the air although you are wingless, and that water and light do your bidding!”

  Moura smiled at the ignorance displayed, not having realized before what effect their ordinary appliances would have upon the butterfly high-priest, but he was not one to play upon ignorance and use it to his own ends as he might have done. “No,” he corrected, “we are not wizards, but ordinary men of another world than yours and we merely use what we have at hand for our own welfare, since they are to be found easily on our own world.

  “Your world must be a wonderful one, but I regret you did not bring your woman with you. Perchance she has much to teach us.”

  “I will bring her.”

  “Have you but one woman?” Rak Atun inquired further and her voice was wistful.

  Moura nodded. “Only one, for so it is on our world; one woman to one man!”

  “How perfect that must be!”

  “Are there more women than men on this world of yours?”

  “Oh, no. On the contrary, there are more men! But we must mate according to the dictate of the Pattern. And when Tel Tel mates with Atun Wei, then must all of us who are his wives die, for the Tel must be the only wife of her mate!” This was said evenly and without emotion as if such a fate for her and her sister wives of Atun Wei was the ordinary thing. Moura had grasped the fact that Tel Tel must be Dada’s Queen, since her name would suggest that, and now he understood fully the High Priest’s aspirations—to wed his Queen and become dictator of all his nation in name as well as in fact.

  “When is this marriage to occur?” he demanded.

  “With the reading of the Pattern six days from this day!” said Rak Atun.

  They had finished their breakfast and now an interruption came in the conversation in the shape of a butterfly man. To the strangers he looked like Atun Wei, except that his great eyes were kindlier. Rak Atun introduced him as Sem Gu whom Atun Wei had sent to act as their guide about the city and countryside. He also was a priest of the Temple. Now he led them up to the roof of the house where servants waited to bear them down to the ground where their plane waited.

  A CROWD of butterfly people were gathered about the plane, but they drew back as the three approached it. Sem Gu was diffident about entering the flyer, but with a word of encouragement from Moura he crept through the door with some difficulty, but squatting near the window he found the prospect of flying without using his wings an enjoyable one.

  Now as they rose into the air, he told them more about Dada than Atun Wei had vouchsafed. They learned that in all there were four races of butterflies; the Tels, or the first, who comprised the ruling class, the Wei, who were the Priests, the Sem, who served the first two classes, the Rak, who were the laborers and served all. Once they had all been separate nations warring for the common good against the rest of the insect world until at last they alone survived besides the Yadans across the mountains and such species as the Dadans had preserved for their own national good. The Tels had once been the most powerful of all four; it was they who had taught the others that in unity there was might, and they had organized society so that the Dadans could work and live together in peace. Only in those days there was no ruling class, no priesthood, no servant class or laborer. Each had lived his own life, each doing his part in the scheme of things.

  But it was a Wei who had made the change, who saw the need of organizing the priesthood, to make the god-given Pattern the heart of the nati
on.

  In those days there had been other gods to direct their welfare, gods of the grass, the forest, the water, the fields. The Pattern was but the product of the god of the Loom, but the Weis saw greater possibilities in it and gradually, through the ages, they had forced it upon their peoples until it was now Supreme, greater even than the Tels themselves who ruled only at its direction.

  The Tels had been a great race once, but since the Weis had made them the rulers, and permitted them no other occupation than execution of the Pattern’s orders, they had dwindled in number, become lazily indolent, little caring for anything save their own comfort, until now, with their birth-rate decreasing so alarmingly, they numbered but a few hundred, where once they had numbered hundreds of thousands. And on the other hand the Weis had increased, increased until their order was so swollen there was no more room for them to find a means of occupation in their natural calling. Born priests, they could not become artisans, and so the only thing left for them to do was to look covetously upon the offices of the thinning ranks of the ruling house and wish to ursurp their power.

  Once upon a time every Dadan city had housed the Tels by the thousands and every municipal office was filled with them. But now there were scarcely enough of them to place one governor in each city, so that it became necessary to band two and sometimes three cities together under one head while the priests filled the lesser offices.

  But now something even worse was happening to Dada. Over the nation was but a single king and queen, but for several generations they had been hard put to manage to bring forth the heirs to the throne. Still they had clung tenaciously to the throne of their Fathers and bewailed the encroachment of the priests, who were slowly but surely pushing them out of their hereditary seats. It would have been different if the Tels had been tyrants and misguided their peoples, but first of all they were kindly and did all that could be done for the race’s welfare. The priesthood, on the other hand, was different. They were the oppressors, demanding all they could glean from the workers and always insisting on more until more than once the workers had cried out to their monarch to save them from the hard times forced upon them by the priestly body. They, too, feared the time when the Tels should lose entirely their hold and succumb to the power of the Weis. And now Atun Wei, High Priest of the Pattern, was attempting to force Tel Tel, the only survivor of the blood royal, to wed him, while she strove to forbear, even though there was none other in the nation whom she might take to mate.

  Less than a year before her royal father had died and she had taken the throne. Among her race there were a few unmarried males, but because of the traditions of her clan, she could not consort with them, because their social standing did not rank with hers, even though they themselves were the sons of princes. She might wed only a prince of parentage equal to her own, and there was none left among the Tels that could claim her. Atun Wei of the Weis was such a prince, his family being on equal basis with her own. Knowing, however, that to do this would put her people completely in the power of the Weis, Tel Tel had refused the demand of Atun Wei. And yet she knew it was inevitable. In any case the kingship would revert to Atun Wei.

  “IT is only six days before the reading of the Pattern when Atun Wei will produce the evidence before the world that it is fated, that unless Tel Tel obey the god’s promptings she must die!” observed Sem Gu, and his two listeners grasped the fact that he did not approve of the present state of affairs. He had told the whole bitter tale without any glossing over of the bare cold facts, not hesitating to call things by their proper names, even though he was a Wei, one of the hated priesthood. Moura now put the question to him.

  “Why, since you are a Wei, Sem Gu, do you disapprove of matters as they stand? Do you not wish to see your race at the head of your nation?”

  Sem Gu did not answer immediately. He appeared to weigh his words first, staring into the eyes of the Abruians, as though attempting to read their minds.

  “It is true, Strangers of the Void,” he said slowly, “that to an antenna not attuned to the beat of the heart I appear a traitor, a criminal, a crier against truth and order, against the Pattern. But you are strangers with free minds and souls, untethered by fear and superstition of the Pattern, willing to see the evil or the good alike that grow in this world.

  “It is difficult for me to talk to my fellows as I do to you, and my heart is heavy with the wrong I see about me day after day. But I am thankful that I am not alone in my abhorrence for things as they are. We are a silent crew, well-tried and true to our cause, and we trust that one day we will succeed, will change our world for the better. We are not all as Atun Wei. He is an ambitious man, and he has taught his fellows to be ambitious, just as his ancestor, the Wei of the Pattern, was ambitious. He is without heart or soul, and he will stop at nothing to gain his own ends. His overthrow would change things for our poor people, but who is there who will dare overthrow him?” He ended with a sigh.

  Moura spoke. “No man is so great that he cannot be overthrown,” and his own eyes were reflective.

  “That is well to say, but you are unacquainted with the peoples of Kal! Caste has been too well instilled into our souls for us to dare touch the person born into higher estate than our own. Do you know what fate is?”

  The two had nodded.

  “Well, we are fatalists and we believe that just as a man or a woman is born to his caste, so is he born to carry out the dictates of his being as it was given him at birth, and for us to attempt to fight that fate of either ourselves or our fellow-men brings everlasting damnation! It was so even before the Pattern came to rule us, so you can see what we of the few have to fight.”

  “And you, too, believe this superstition?” demanded Moura.

  The other dropped his antenna low, which was to the Dadan what dropping his head is to the human. “Yes,” he said, slowly, “I do . . . and that is what makes it so hard, for I know in my heart it can not be so.”

  “But tell me . . . does Atun Wei believe so? He appears to be one who will allow nothing to stay his hand. If necessary he would not hesitate to murder the one who came in his way. Is that not against your religion?”

  “It is. Yet, is he not the High Priest?” asked the priestling sarcastically. “Is it not his duty to study the trend of the god, to know his predictions and commandments, to know if this one and that one are following their life’s fate as it was ordained for them, so that each year’s pattern is perfect without a single flaw in its woof or warp? You must know that every city carries a record of the life of each of its inhabitants, and it is expected of the High Priest to track down him, whom he had adjudged a miscreant, and learn whether or not it is the Will that the individual deserve to die! Therefore is death not justifiable if required by the Pattern?”

  “A very convenient religion, but convenient only for the High Priest, eh?”

  The young priest nodded, and he heaved a great sigh.

  In that moment Moura decided just what his course was to be, and he was glad to find that already there were fertile seeds of dissension planted in the soil of Dada. Sem Gu, he was sure, would come gladly when he showed him the way to put Atun Wei down without need of bloodshed. If Moura-weit had only had had the power of mind to see ahead!

  CHAPTER XV

  The Life of a Butterfly

  AS they talked, the flyer, under Ubca-tor’s hands, had slowly been making a circuit of the city, as he, awaiting directions from Sem Gu, took no part in the conversation but listened intently to all that was said. Now the butterfly man became alive to their surroundings, and recognizing his duty, commenced to point out that which he thought would be of interest to Atun Wei’s guests. There was little in the city to hold their attention, for its only buildings of note were the Temple and the Palace Royal, around which clustered the homes of the Weis, more imposing in size but not different from those of the Sems, the servants, and the Raks, the laborers.

  Sem Gu, to be sure, was more interested in the metal and glass of t
he flyer, and its mechanical ingenuity. Since entering the plane he had sat erect and still, afraid to touch any of the wonders about him. Seeing his interest, Ubca tried to explain the mechanics of the flyer, but it was evident that it was all so much magic to the butterfly creature, and what attracted him most was the smooth finish of the metal and glass of the flyer. Moura, who had wondered about the total lack of metal or stone in the houses of the Dadans, now questioned him as to whether such things as metallic ores and glass sands were to be found on the globe, for he could not imagine a world without them. But Sem Gu had no knowledge of these things, and on being questioned, it was found that fire also was unknown to Kal!

  Moura nodded. “That explains it then, for without a means of melting ores or of combustion of any sort, it can be seen that metals would never be discovered. Wood and plant fiber is well enough for its purposes, yet I can not grasp how a people as intelligent as your race appears, could exist this long without metals.”

  “Have you no trees or plants on your world?” Sem Gu wanted to know. Moura explained that there were, but that his race used other resources as well.

  Now they were flying beyond the city, from which the wide cultivated fields spread as far as the eye could see. At the height of five hundred feet it was difficult to make out what type of crops were growing, though they could see that they were plants of from four to six feet in height in even, unbroken rows, sometimes a mile in length. Here and there a butterfly creature flew over the fields, but for the most part they were deserted, though the neatness of the patches showed that they were under good care.

  Sem Gu pointed to their right where five or six buildings were clustered together and where they could see there was some activity on hand. Ubca turned the flyer and headed in that direction, to come down fifty yards or so from the nearest building in a spot that because of its rocky soil lay fallow. Now, as they approached the building on foot, Sem Gu spoke.