by Tanith Lee
Danor looked as pale as I’d designed myself to be, and gorgeous. She said calmly that it had been a mutual decision for us to go away alone together and to have love without marrying. We hadn’t meant to upset anybody. The Committee said hadn’t she spent a lot of time with an Older Person in BAA without marrying, and hadn’t the Committee there advised them to part? I could see her hands trembling when she answered yes, that was so, looking at them straight on and not lowering her voice. The Jang gasped and exclaimed at her daring and obscenity and were gonged into quiet. The Committee said that her actions were curious and showed unusually antisocial tendencies. Danor did not answer, but when she sat down again she shut her eyes as if she were very tired.
Hatta said my first challenge to Hergal had been a joke, and Zirk was a fool. He said Zirk had meant to kill me (other Jang later supported this, recalling Zirk’s threats to me outside Silver Mountain). Hatta said I hadn’t meant to kill Zirk, only incapacitate him, but Zirk fell on my sword. There was an outcry at this.
Doval said I was terrific with a sword and I’d known exactly what I was doing when I went for Zirk. Doval said he hoped the Committee would make dueling a regular pastime in the parks, and a roar of delight drowned even the gong.
Several out-circle Jang girls said I was wonderful, and several out-circle Jang males said I used to be all right when I was female. One male said if I ever came near his circle he’d meet me in Ilex Park and do better than Zirk did.
Altogether, everyone more or less said different things, and nobody really fully agreed with anyone else, either about me or what I had done.
About nine thousand mealtimes had gone by, and the Jang were noisily pleading for food. Even the pompous Older People looked uncomfortable.
At length the gold Q-R announced that if we went next door, we should discover sustenance, but we should come back in an hour when we heard the gong. To begin with I thought I would be left in my hypno-sprayed condition, alone and foodless, but a bee came over and shot me full of something, and I got to my feet all faculties restored.
I took Danor’s hand as the crowd went milling ahead.
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” I said.
“Then don’t tell me,” she answered, softly, smiling, still Danor.
Gray Hatta came up.
“You should have done what they said,” he predictably told me.
We went through into a merry yellow room where the Jang were falling on nut-steak, wine-cakes, and rock-cherries with shrill cries. The Older People had gone off somewhere more peaceful to stuff themselves.
“What would you like, Danor?” asked Hatta politely.
“Oh, nothing, thank you.”
“Nor me,” I said.
“You must eat,” instructed Hatta.
Zirk came floating up then, a couple of males trailing her interestedly. Both bore a distinct resemblance to Zirk’s male bodies, a strange phenomenon I had noted before here and there. Maybe everyone only wants to have love with themselves really.
“Attlevey,” said Zirk to me, lowering her pastel lids. “I do so hope you didn’t mean those drumdik things you said about me, ooma. When this nasty business is over, possibly we could meet and have a talk about everything, um, do you think?”
“Zirk,” I said, “you may be steeped in scent and prisms, with a waist the width of my wrist, but if you don’t beat it, I‘m going to tip the nearest jug of silver-cordial right down your cleavage.”
“Here now,” boomed Zirk’s escort in bass voices. They were waving their ten-ton fists aloft when Mirri thrust between them.
“You!” she yelled at Zirk, “you’re worse than her!” indicating Danor. “I think you’ve got an absolutely farathooming nerve.” And she slung a bowl of rock-cherries in Zirk’s powdered face and began to pull out her curled flaxen hair in handfuls while Zirk screamed pitifully.
Zirk’s two champions tried to rescue her, and someone who fancied Mirri came haring across to rescue her. Presently, chaos reigned.
Danor, Hatta, and I, for once in agreement, shrank to the side as an incredible Jang fight broke out in every direction. Some were siding with Mirri, some with Zirk. Some were just enjoying themselves. Nuts, cakes, and bubbling liquor flew through the air, and shrieks and crashes resounded.
Suddenly a siren tore across the uproar. An amplified Q-R voice bellowed: “Cease fighting at once or you will be sprayed.”
Violence faltered and petered out. Jang stood staring about, their clothes in ribbons and their faces daubed with bruises and crushed-orange.
“You will return in orderly fashion to the Inquiry Hall. Take your seats, and remain silent.”
It was just like hypno-school. Which, considering the recent antics, was not to be wondered at.
Everybody filed docilely through and sat, surreptitiously brushing off their see-throughs and getting cake out of their jewelry. The Q-Rs were still on the dais, but a look of abject horror had settled on their faces. They were well and truly scared—not for themselves for their programming doesn’t really allow them that, but for us, for what we might do to each other.
When everything was quiet enough to hear the dust-absorbers at work in the ceiling, the gold Q-R rose to his feet and focused on me.
“We have come to a decision,” he said.
Up till that instant, despite my earlier—disregarded—caution, I hadn’t credited the situation with too much importance. It was harrowing only because of its stuffiness. Cities run by robots and androids specifically geared to serve the community didn’t intimidate anyone that much. I hadn’t expected them to take any vital action, beyond another inconvenient black mark against me and some sort of piddling little reprimand, and perhaps a restriction, like putting the parks off limits to me for fifty units or something. Punishments were never used and fines were extinct. The only powers ever exercised were always, however exacerbating, supposed to be for your own good in the end.
But something in the Q-R’s somber tone sent white-hot sparks through my innards.
“We want everyone to understand this,” said the Q-R, glancing about at the Jang witnesses. “The notion of crime was abolished long since, so it has not been easy for us to determine what we should do. We have comprehended that the Jang Zirk was the aggressor in this particular instance, and that, had the circumstances been reversed, he would be sitting now where the Accused is sitting.” A murmur at that “Accused.” The Q-R continued: “Nevertheless, as under the ancient laws which preceded our present data, it is the actual Killer who is to pay the penalty.”
No murmur at that second word. It struck too deep, like the very blade I’d used. Killer. I have killed, therefore I am a—
“Also, by reference to certain zoom-scan pictures recorded in the Flash Center, we have observed the face of the Accused during the combat. Unmistakably, the intent to kill was present.” The Q-R turned again to me. “It is a rare occurrence. Or it was. Since death no longer exists, the desire to kill—founded as it was on the idea of being rid of something—has mainly atrophied. Where it has not, the Dream Rooms and Adventure Palaces have diverted the emotion along harmless channels. Now, however, one of you has killed—not himself, which is his right, but another against his will, and the fancy may well take root in many minds. Look at the violence already unleashed, look at yourselves. Although anyone murdered in the city can be reclaimed immediately at Limbo as with a suicide, this does not detract from the frightfulness of the act of Murder itself, and it is on this premise that we have passed sentence. You had better remain sitting,” he added to me, quite compassionately, so I guess I’d attempted some stab at getting up, but my legs had gone to jelly and I hadn’t made it. “There is a choice,” he said. “Please consider carefully. You will have three units in which to do so. Firstly, you may go to Limbo and experience Personality Dissolution. As you know, this means your consciousness will be darkened and your memory wiped clean. As is usual, you will re-emerge three rorls from now and resume life in the cities,
unhampered by past guilt, or by these antisocial drives which have grown up in you (this last merely the culmination of many suspect misdemeanors, one of which, we remind you, concerned the destruction of your unborn baby due to sheer folly on your part). When you leave PD yours will be an entirely changed ego. You will commence again at the child stage, as is general, with a suitable Q-R guardian, knowing only that you are returning, but recalling nothing, either of this current era, or of your present personality. Normally PD is performed for those who have lived many rorls and feel the urge to slough the mental accumulations of time. In your case, it is considered a cardinal condition, if you are to remain as a citizen of the Fours.”
No noise in the great circular room. I couldn’t even hear my heart beating. If it was.
The Q-R narrowed his eyes as if what he told me hurt him.
“The alternative to loosing your identity and your individuality so soon is this: that you leave the dome four units from today, and exist thereafter in the desert, in exile, denied access to Four BEE, Four BAA, and Four BOO for the indefinite period of your natural human span—which might possible continue anything up to a rorl. You will be supplied, of course, with every life support and commodity you may ask for, within reason. Also you will be permitted, before your departure, one final body choice, so that you can design a body best suited to your needs and your situation. Additionally, your location will be monitored, and, should you require medical or other functional aid, it will be sent you. Otherwise no contact with any city or citizen will be granted you. The disadvantages of this alternative are several, as you can perceive. Loneliness and fear are hazards. And, as your body grows older, it will age, an unpleasant process, not recommended. In the end, provided you do not suicide before, a natural death will terminate your life, after which the city will reclaim you, and PD will be carried out in any case, in order that finally you may be returned into the social structure of Four BEE.”
He folded his hands.
“In either circumstance, every one of your present relationships, intimate or otherwise, is over forever. On your re-emergence, three rorls—or more—from today, your contemporaries may have passed themselves voluntarily into Personality Dissolution, and even if they have not, you will never remember them nor they you in your reawakened form. Not one here with you at this moment will you be likely to call lover or friend again in the future.”
Abruptly the heavy quiet was broken. Some Jang girl was wailing that they couldn’t do it to me, it was ghastly, unspeakable. I think I’d only married her for a unit once, about a vrek before.
“This choice,” our instructor cut in and silenced her, “is the only one you are offered. There is no other way. You must resign yourself, and decide. Rorls in the past, you yourself would have met death—actual and total death. Obliteration—as the punishment for your crime. We have tried to act in your ultimate best interests as well as those of the community at large, and it has cost us a great deal of energy and time. You have three units, no more, no less. Sort out your affairs and consider your plans carefully. As for the rest of the Jang in this room, we hope you will take the warning to heart. Please now, go home.”
They hurried by me as though I had plague.
I had.
Thinta and Mirri were crying, even Kley was crying. Hergal looked as sick as he had in the park. Zirk too. No doubt she was thinking that but for my fencer’s skill, this choice would have been hers to make, not mine.
The Q-Rs also stole away, and the Older People. Eventually I was left with only Hatta and Danor.
I wondered dully if Hatta would say “I told you so.” He didn’t. He stood staring into nothing. I’d forgotten he loved me, or thought he did. It was in some ways almost as shattering a blow for him, for he was going to lose me forever and a unit.
Danor put her face against mine. There were no tears on her cheek, yet the sorrow hung on her like a sad smoky perfume.
“Danor,” I said, “hold me. Don’t let me go.”
9
You bet I had a party. It was the inevitable thing to do. The extreme reaction which extremity forces you into.
Besides, everyone predicted I’d give a party. They also predicted that at the height of the festivity and abandon, I’d leap from a roof or dive into a pool without an oxygen injection and not swimming, or maybe, if their luck was really in, douse myself with Joyousness and strike an igniter in my ear. That was the only way to behave, after all. For there was only one answer to my choice of alternatives—die and let Limbo destroy my soul, or at any rate, wash it spotless and characterless. Three rorls of oblivion, followed by a repeat childhood and permanent amnesia, were a dire fate for a Jang, a crushing blow none of them spoke of, but which you could tell they were considering from the way the color fled their cheeks. But the other thing, exile and despair among the dunes, companionless till the end of my days, growing dry as the sand, creaky and wizened as the cacti, and agoraphobia everywhere—never, never! If, by some master stroke of insanity, I had accepted that, I would put paid to myself inside a quarter vrek anyway. So, glorious, tumultuous suicide now it would have to be. Go out with a bang, show everyone what I was made of …
They were so interested in what I’d do, so fascinated by the notion of my macabre farewell feast, they forgot or mislaid their revulsion at my contaminating doom, and flocked around me from sunrise to sunrise.
I wondered if one or both of my makers—last seen many moons ago—might signal me, to say goodbye, or something. Anything. But they didn’t. Probably they were both in Boo or Baa, and didn’t get to hear of it or even realize it was me, their child, until it was too late.
Under sentence, I felt hollow, pithless. The first and second units of the time they’d allowed me, I woke with a feeling of blind clawing terror. The second unit I wept, and Danor wept with me.
She asked me if she should go, but I said stay. I needed her, or thought I needed her, I don’t know why, because it didn’t really help, though she was steady and tender. The swan wandered about peeing on things and falling on things. The swan saved us a little, but only a little. I made an arrangement for Danor to have my home after I was … no longer in residence.
One excellent fact: everything I bought was free, including the extra novelties for the party. I suppose the Committee understood I was incapable, in the circumstances, of groveling out thank-yous in a pay booth.
Nearly all Four BEE’s Jang must have come to that party, or it seemed like it.
It was my last night in the world, and I’d taken enough ecstasy to launch a small rocket into space. I was absolutely numb with it, couldn’t feel a thing; even the prospect before me seemed unimportant, bearable almost. So what were three rorls? There’d be other Danors. Hypno-school was OK, mainly you didn’t know about it anyhow, and I was going to make an utter promok out of my Q-R guardian. My ego would strike back through the brainwashing and consciousness-darkening, somehow it would. I was incorrigible, wasn’t I? So drink up and swallow the pretty pills, and goodbye Danor, how I’ll miss your beautiful—better forget about that, my friend, if you’re going to be a kiddy all over again in three rorls’ time.
The whole riot took place in the Moon Gardens in Second Sector. Blue and green fireballs of non-hot flame lit the groves of filigree trees. The fountains ran with blue wine, and a dragon or two from BAA glittered here and there, and BAA android females sang in sweet voices, plants growing from their heads and bursting into blossom. The sky was full of Jang riding starry birds, and rainbows, and golden-scented rain.
We also sang at the long tables, most of the vomitous Jang hit songs, delivering them with passion and sincerity. I was toying with the idea of slashing my wrists in an antique style of suiciding princes at feasts, but concluded I was too hazy with ecstasy to get it right, and abandoned the fancy. Then came the Masque of Death—a small entertainment I’d dreamed up that evening to give them all colic.
I designed it via a thought-receptive screen, the sort of effort the Drea
m Rooms and the Picture-Vision places use. The resulting montage was thrown three-dimensionally out into the Moon Gardens, and grim and grand it was.
Six pairs of dancers, three male and three female, in emerald and scarlet velvet with golden-tassel hair. They danced and they embraced, they offered each other gifts and smiled into each other’s eyes. Then came death—the Ego-Death of Limbo’s PD. It was a black-enameled worm and its head was a white skull. It thrust between them and they were smitten in its coils. They lay on the grass like broken flowers and the worm laughed, and sang a brief song of my composing, telling how Ego-Death was best for them and the community. I must already have been fairly ecstatic when I invented that song. It was silly, garbled, and amazingly bitter and terrible, and you could see the Jang blanching at a distance of fifty paces. Then bells rang and the fallen dancers rose. They bowed to the worm, and went on bowing until they shrank down to the size of children. They didn’t know who they were or who the others were, their friends and lovers, but ran off after the worm, kissing its oily tail, with blindfolds obscuring their eyes.
“That’s it,” Hergal said to me. He and Mirri were consoling each other. “That’s absolutely it, old ooma. Blindfolds and thalldrapping worms.”
Thinta lay in a fountain of Joyousness, meowing, and Kley had come as a male, pathetic and inhibited, his eyes red. Hatta kept pouring me wine, wine the color of sapphires. “Drink up,” he said whenever I flagged. “Take another pill.”
If Zirk was there, I never saw him, or her.
Suddenly it was very late, about two hours before dawn, and I’d disappointed the Jang by not suiciding, which dismally cheered me.
“Danor,” I said, “let’s go back home. For the last time.”
