'The eleventh century astronomer-poet? Contemporary and friend of Hasan the Assassin, who-'
'Stop it!' she said with flash ferocity. 'I mean the Rubaiyat - the poetry. "A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread - and Thou." '
' "Beside me singing in the Wilderness - Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!" That would be Edward FitzGerald's rendition, third edition, I believe.'
She stared somberly at him. 'You're getting even for all that posturing I made you do. All right, have your fun. What is the difference between editions?'
'According to the literal translation of Heron-Allen, the words are: "I desire a little ruby wine and book of verses/ Just enough to keep me alive, and half a loaf is needful; / And then, that I and thou should sit in a desolate place/ Is better than the kingdom of a sultan." McCarthy had two prose variants. Whinfield an alternate, Graves another, and FitzGerald's own first and second editions differed somewhat. Do you wish them quoted?'
'Why didn't you become an English teacher? You certainly have the touch for ruining something beautiful!' But her desolate mood had been broken.
'There may at some time be occasion to impersonate such a person. But more importantly, familiarity with literature, among other things, can lead to better comprehension of the key aspects of a complex situation. So we are educated rather carefully in this respect.'
'The way my knowledge of anatomy helps me as an artist?'
'Something like that.'
'Well, just don't try that stuff on Cal. He'll stand you on your literary head before you get the whole quotation out.'
'I'll remember,' he said, smiling.
She was on her third unadulterated glass. 'As soon as I saw your face,' she murmured into it, 'I knew what you were and what you wanted. But it isn't as simple as you think. No, I don't suppose you care whether it's simple or not. But this is - well, I just can't tell you what it is. Maybe if I drink enough I'll tell you. Maybe you'll have to make love to me after all to make me tell. You could force yourself, I'm sure. Maybe I'll just kill myself.'
'Are you willing to show me the paintings?'
She looked at him sharply. 'What paintings?'
'The ones you don't have on your bedroom wall.'
'What's the use,' she said, plopping an ice sphere into her gin. 'He was bound to think of that. He's an agent.' She stood up unsteadily and went to a locked closet, rummaging in her purse for the key. 'I haven't shown these to anyone.'
She brought several large canvases to the table, propping them against its leg. She held up the first. 'That's the herbie herd,' she said. 'I repainted from my field notes.'
Subble studied it with interest. Aquilon had great talent, and her heart and soul had gone into this painting.
The landscape presented was dark: the misty world of Nacre, named for its brightness in space and not from the surface denied that light. The bloated fungi Veg had described loomed in the background. In the foreground was the herd: standing blobs like squid with their tentacles fused into fleshy columns. The pink gills were so finely drawn they seemed to wave.
But it was the technique that touched him more than the fidelity to an alien landscape. Somehow Aquilon had put emotion into this painting and made it live. It stirred him far more than her earlier nudity had, for this was genuine and without affectation. He glanced at her with a respect he had not felt before.
She brought up the second item: a smaller sheet glued to a board. 'This is the original,' she said. 'I did it on the mountain ledge after the first day's hike.'
Subble did not remind her that this had not been in the segment Veg had reported. 'You paint when you're tired?'
'I paint because I'm tired,' she said quietly. Her speech was becoming slow as the alcohol reached it. 'How else can I show my feelings?'
She reached for the bottle again, but Subble caught her hand. 'I'd rather you didn't,' he said. 'Alcohol has little effect on me because my subconscious is aligned with my conscious. There are no barriers to break down. But you-'
'What, feelings now? What do you care what I do?'
Subble did not reply immediately. He contemplated the picture, thinking of the circumstances of its creation. They must have been climbing, and Aquilon dead tired, for she had had to help Cal. Unable to relieve her feelings in normal expression, she had turned to her painting. Her eyes had focused on the phantom darkening gray of the sky while her brush formed a scene. The painting, though done on the spot, had to be from memory or imagination, for the haze, formed from the microscopic debris of the helioanimalcules high in the atmosphere - this much he understood about the planet - combined with the closing dusk to obscure everything more than a few feet from the open ledge. But it had taken shape steadily: an image of the trail those three had covered in the last hour, creeping around the corners of the mountain, fungus clinging like stylized puffs of cotton.
The trail over which they had traveled would have been tortuous and ugly, and Aquilon's rendition of it was striking. Her picture was a composite of all the features of the climb. The fatigue of the steep ascent was there, and the hardness of bare rock; the nausea of tired feet skidding on the slime of crushed fungus. There was a hint of the hopelessness of a man who lacked the strength or the will to live, and perhaps also that of a girl who would not, then, smile.
But the painting itself was magnificent.
And had she then set it aside, on that far world, and leaned back against the vertical stone wall rising from the inner ledge? The pale blue rock of the mountain she depicted would have contrasted gently with the dark haze of the sky beyond the drop-off, and here, ringed by the billowing white fungus, the lonely beauty of such a woman might have been at peace.
'When you tried to seduce me,' he said slowly, 'I was required to resist. That did not mean that I found you unattractive, or that I was indifferent to your welfare, as I tried to advise you. Now that you have shown me what is within you, I ask you not to demean it by - this.' He indicated the bottle, and discovered that he still held her hand.
This was an incidental intimacy more penetrating than all the dialogue and nakedness they had been practicing. She looked at him, realizing this, and gently disengaged herself. 'A jug of gin,' she said. 'I guess we got off on the wrong foot. I'm sorry.' She did not touch the bottle.
The third picture was quite different. Savagery dominated it. A monster glared from a single eye, and behind it rose the head of an incredible snake, all teeth and no eyes or nose. Subble had never seen a combination so menacing.
'The omnivore of Nacre,' Aquilon said.
The last painting showed the manta, immediately recognizable as the creature Veg had described. It was in full motion, probably as seen from the retreating tractor, and strangely beautiful.
'This is my mission,' he said, studying it.
'I know.' She laid her head on the table and cried.
Subble stood up and put the paintings away. He walked around the apartment and looked at the collected works, largely on mundane topics. Few of them had the magic of the four they had just looked at together. Aquilon had hinted that she disliked her present life, and her work proclaimed it. Her heart was on Nacre, with the two men she had known there and the creatures she remembered.
Behind him, she stirred, throwing away the bottle and going into the bathroom. He heard the water splashing wastefully, and knew she was trying to be sick.
He came across the pictures she had made of him: a spaceman staggering over a bleak moonscape, a handsome twentieth-century gentleman, an apeman swinging from a jungle tree, and a diver au naturel. Each likeness was accurate and detailed - and increasingly, from the first to the last, the special touch was there. The spaceman could have been anybody, but the diver was Subble. Not just an agent Subble the individual. And, odd as it was to apply the thought to a picture of a naked man, Aquilon had put herself into it. She was astonishingly quick, for these were not mere sketches, and her skill was natural, not trained; her work really did reflect
what was within her.
Subble was no artist, but interpretation of illustration was one of a number of things he was equipped to do with fair competence. He could learn a great deal about the character and mood of the artist by studying the technique.
He stood for some time contemplating the paintings.
His clothing still lay on the bed. He went to it.
Aquilon lay beside his suit, watching him. 'You're giving up?'
He picked up his clothing, intending to take it to the other room before changing. 'Two men already love you.'
'And now you are modest,' she said. 'You don't want me to see your body again.'
He walked to the door.
'Come here,' she said.
He set his burden upon the chair beside the door and went to her.
Aquilon threw her arms about him and kissed him, drawing him down to lie beside her. 'You know we can't make love now,' she said.
'I know.'
They lay embraced, the bathrobes decorously closed.
'What happened to your invincibility?' she murmured in his ear.
'I saw what you are.'
She nestled her head against his shoulder. 'If only I knew what I am, I wouldn't be here.'
'You are a truly beautiful woman. Your body has nothing to do with it.'
His shoulder became damp from her tears. 'Will you help me?'
'I will try.'
'If only I were beautiful!' she exclaimed. 'But I'm ugly in a way nobody can cure. If only I could choose, one way or the other. Veg and Cal are clean, in their ways, but I'm duty, and I just can't choose which one to - to inflict myself upon. And now I've come between them, because I can't decide. And I can't even-'
She tensed and bit the hard muscles of his shoulder. 'I can't tell you that. It's up to Cal. All I can do is-'
She paused, then rolled onto her back, closed her eyes, took his hand and told him about the omnivore.
* * *
Cal was breathing in pitiful gasps, but he spoke as soon as Veg was gone. 'You shouldn't have done that, 'Quilon.'
Aquilon plumped down beside him and delved into the pack. 'He can handle that sort of thing much better alone,' she said. 'You and I would only be in the way.' She unfolded a survival cup and drew out the container of water. 'You'd better drink some of this.'
'I don't think you understand,' Cal said carefully, waving away the drink. 'How well do you know Veg?'
She looked up in surprise. 'Why, for three months of course. Ever since I joined the expedition. We've gotten along well enough. But I thought you two were old friends.'
'More than that,' he said morosely. 'We are a team: Brains and Brawn ... and now Beauty, of course.' Aquilon flushed gently. 'Didn't you realize-'
Her flush paled all the way. 'I forgot!' She scrambled lithely to her feet. 'I'll go after him. I never meant to-'
'Please.' Cal gestured her back tiredly. 'He would never kill a harmless creature. He will decide it was a joke. Perhaps he will actually bring back a herbivore for you to admire. Perhaps it is just as well.' He looked at the water she still held and turned away. 'We can hardly have come three miles. I can't make it.'
'Of course you can,' Aquilon said. 'I'll help you.' But she was tired already. Twenty-one miles?
Cal shook his head regretfully and tried to smile. 'It's not that, entirely. I could walk the distance, perhaps with your help. But you see, I can't eat, either.'
'You mean you're another-'
'No. It becomes... complicated... to explain. I can't eat off the land, as you might, and I have no supply of my own. I can't survive very long without it. The water might help, but I'll be dead long before we reach camp.'
Aquilon opened her mouth but was unable to speak.
'Don't feel that way,' Cal said softly. 'I brought it on myself when I insisted upon coming along. It was a calculated risk. I knew the moment the tractor failed that it was the end of me. The two of you will have a better chance if you don't wait for me to die.'
'Cal-' She faltered. 'I hardly know you as I thought I did, but-' She waved her hands in the air, characteristically trying to shape a concept that would not fit into words. 'I just can't leave you here, no matter what. The omnivore-'
The little man shrugged. 'I can only tell you that I have wanted to die for some tune. Now fate has given me the opportunity. I'm not being sacrificial. For me, the end is clear - and I want to meet it alone.'
Aquilon stared at him, feeling the pupils of her eyes contracting to black pits in the pallor of her face. She tried to control her physical reactions, but she had been hit too suddenly by too much. Cal's gaze did not falter. He was not an old man, but the narrow lines about his eyes and mouth tokened appalling suffering. No, he was not being sacrificial.
She set down the cup, knowing that he had refused to drink so that he would die more rapidly. 'I'll go get Veg,' she said, unable to face him longer.
'Strange,' Cal said as he watched Aquilon work. If this creature is a true carnivore-'
Aquilon did not look up from the carcass. Veg had dragged it to their 'camp' and this surprising development had postponed discussion of Cal's fate for the time being. 'We really can't tell, can we?' she asked. 'We know the signals for Earth animals - the type of teeth, and so on - but this one doesn't have any teeth. I'm hoping that the lab experts will be able to tell from my pictures. But if it isn't like the herbivore or omnivore-'
'Call it a paleontologist's hunch,' Cal said with animation. 'This has the feel of a carnivore. The sleekness of it, the speed, the armament - look at the cutting edge of that tail! this thing is organized to prey on the run. But what bothers me is, if it is our carnivore, why weren't the herbivores afraid of it? It must have been hiding right inside the herd.'
'You know, he's right,' Veg said, surprised. 'You saw it first 'Quilon. You say it came out of the bunch. But it just isn't natural for herbies not to be afraid of the hunter.'
Aquilon looked up this time. 'Herbies?'
'Well, what would you call them? You named the manta.'
'All right,' she said. 'Herbies.'
'Don't smile, now.'
Aquilon didn't smile.
'Unless they knew it was impossible to get away,' Cal mused. 'Its speed is fantastic.'
'But it only came out when we got there,' Aquilon pointed out. 'Why did it attack us, when the ... herbies ... were so much easier to catch?'
'It wanted to race again,' Veg said. 'Find out how it made out when we didn't have our machine along. Like a dog.' He became sober, for had he believed that, he would not have surmounted his aversion to taking its life. 'But we can't afford that kind of race, with it or the omnivore.'
There was silence for a time. Mention of the omnivore had a tempering effect.
'This eye,' Aquilon said. 'I've never seen anything like it. It's almost as massive as the brain - and that brain is heavily convoluted.'
'That, too, bothers me,' Cal admitted. 'I wish I could focus on the details, but without my glasses-'
Veg looked at the water container and put it aside regretfully. 'Just how well do you figure it sees?'
'The eye is almost nine inches long and three in diameter,' Aquilon said seriously. The sharp knife in her hand flashed as she aimed the spotlight at it and dexterously severed tissues. 'There are so many major nerve trunks connecting it to the brain that it's almost impossible to tell where one leaves off and the other begins. The eye itself is filled with some sort of refractive fluid. It's almost like an electronic tube. There's no guessing its properties - but my estimate is that the manta can see a great deal better than we can.'
'I agree,' Cal said. His whole attitude was different when he had a problem to wrestle with. 'This entire thing is an astonishing-'
'Barely an hour of daylight left, as I make it,' Veg interrupted. 'We have to move. We don't want to be caught in the open plain at night.'
Cal frowned. 'Veg, I want to tell you-'
' 'Quilon, you take the pack, if you can carry it;
I'll handle Cal.' Veg picked up the smaller man and hoisted him over his shoulders with careful strength. 'We lost some tune, here, but we can make it up if we move right along.'
Aquilon silently rolled up her anatomical sketches, plunged the dissection knife into the ground to clean it, and struggled into the straps. Veg set the pace, a good four miles an hour, burden and all. Cal didn't try to speak again.
There was a single half-hearted trail up the side of the mountain ridge, twisting narrowly among the rainbow fungi and over the ledges and slopes. At the foot the fungus was brilliant - horns, spires, skyscrapers of it, layer upon layer like a candy fairyland; but two miles up only tired white blobs clung to the ledges, unable to take firm hold on the outcroppings of rock and unwilling to surrender the slim beach-head that they had. Even the dust seemed sparse and dry.
Of Man and Manta Omnibus Page 7
