A bowl of soup was passed through the door flap. The prisoner’s mouth was dry. He needed the liquid but could not order his limbs to move, to drag himself across the floor to the bowl.
Fading in and out of consciousness, he kept imagining he was drinking from the bowl. Then, rousing, he tasted only dust on a swollen tongue.
He swore to himself that in that other world he would not be a victim. That he swore, and swore again, even as they came and hauled him back for a further session of interrogation.
His interrogator this time was a small, weasel-faced man. Under a sharp little nose grew the bristles of a meager ginger mustache, much as a thistle grows in the shade of a rocky outcrop. His weak gray eyes were supplemented by a pair of metal-rimmed spectacles.
His opening statement, made in a thin voice, was not encouraging. “Many of your bastarding friends and conspirators have passed through our hands. Few are now alive. What precisely are your claims to be English?”
The prisoner said that his ID card gave his nationality as English.
“And your father’s nationality?”
“He was born in Uganda. But I was born in England, in Ealing.”
The little mustache twitched. “Your father was a black.”
“No.”
“Liar! Ugandans are black.”
“We came from Hyderabad. We were not Ugandans, we are not blacks.”
“What have you got against blacks?”
“We were immigrants.”
“You’re still a bastarding immigrant. You take advantage. You seek to undermine our culture. You lie, you cheat, you blow things up.”
“Not me.” A guard hit him in the stomach. He doubled up, gasping in pain.
“You blow things up, you shit! You’re a fucking Muslim!”
“Please—please—let me explain…” He was gasping, hardly able to speak. “I do admire your culture, your freedom of speech as it used to be, and above all—”
“You liar! You published a book advocating the assassination of the prime minister.”
Wearily, he wondered what had made this little man into the turd he was. He could hardly speak. He gasped that he had never advocated any such thing. Both guards began to beat him.
“You published a bastarding book about assassinating the prime minister. Do you deny that, you bastard?” Spit issued with the words. The voice was growing shriller.
“I do deny it. Please, please—it was just one silly sentence, a joke…”
The sharp little face darted forward. “You think that killing the PM is a bastarding joke? We’ll show you what a bastarding joke is!”
Again the fists fell upon him, on his face, on other vulnerable areas. He was on the edge of a dark cliff. He fell over.
THE MATRIX OF SPACE was a howling wilderness of elementary particles. It was a fast-moving stew, a prototemporal storm of the lethally tiny. Light permeated it without time or direction: light simply was, in the darkness. This was where God would have lived—in a creative fury, spread like weed over a pond across the universe—had he existed.
For those with eyes that saw all over the electromagnetic spectrum, there would be beauty here. But for those who traveled on the great ship, far from their native habitat, merely as molecular components of the LPR, many things withered: not vocabulary alone.
The dreamself traveled through this chaos harmed, vindictive, destined for the alien planet.
THE INTERSTELLAR SHIP had been brought down—had crash-landed—outside what grew to be Stygia City, where it now stood as a memorial to the unique journey. Because there was more oxygen in the atmosphere than had been the case back on Earth, many parts of the ship were rusting. Nevertheless, work went on in the interior; this was the one place where workshops were set up and still functioning.
Fremant and the other guards accompanied Astaroth on a visit to the ship for one of his irregular inspections. On these occasions, Astaroth acted against his ascetic beliefs. He favored the scientists working here, and brought them a cartload of vegetables, of rydalls, hodgerks, jhamies, and the peppy dirdist, together with such fruits as busk and clammerdumm. Also meat: dacoims, jackrat, and portleg in particular.
The scientists were engaged in Operation Cereb, developing a mind-evaluator. The first phases of this complex scanning device had been researched during the final years of the ship’s journey, in an effort to understand what precisely had gone wrong mentally with those who had lapsed into insanity. It was only here, in the bowels of the old ship, the New Worlds, that computers were allowed.
The project appeared to be going well, although never speedily enough for the great Astaroth. The scientists showed him, cringingly, the model-in-progress they had rigged up for the occasion.
After the inspection, a feast was held for the researchers on the M-E, along with their families and those who worked for them. A spirit of jollity prevailed. Astaroth, with Aster close at hand, and his Waabee clan stood to one side, looking on haughtily with barely disguised contempt for human weakness and the pleasures of the flesh.
A middle-aged man, a cleaner, came up with a plate of the golden busk and offered it with smiles to the leader.
“Go away,” said Astaroth. “Give it to the peasants. I do not eat.”
Sports were held. The highlight was billed as the Kontest. In a small rectangular arena two piles of small stones were arranged, no stone bigger than fifty millimeters in diameter. One pile was painted red, one blue. These were the weapons of the two contestants.
On this occasion, the contestants were both black, by name Chankey and Gragge. They fought naked to the death. Each might hurl stones only of their own designated color, blue or red. They might hurl the stones or punch each other. This was Kontesting.
And Fremant was the referee. His main duty was to see that Chankey and Gragge kept within the rectangle, and to announce when one contestant was truly dead.
Dunk! went the flung stones on flesh. Dunk! Dunk! The crowd cheered every stone that found its target. Gragge went down on one knee after a red struck his shin. Before he was up again, another red hit his shoulder. He was swift to recover. He flung a blue that missed and then a second that caught Chankey in the ribs. Chunk! Soon both men were reduced to crawling on the ground, both suffering serious injury. Snarling like wild beasts, they took ahold of each other. Each tried to throttle his opponent or to tear his throat out. Chankey managed to heave Gragge’s upper body onto one of the stones. Grabbing another stone, a red, he began to bash his opponent’s skull in. Crack! Craaack!
The audience cheered and laughed.
Gragge lay dead and broken, his brains spilling on the ground. Fremant waved his flag.
He helped Chankey to his feet. Blood poured down Chankey’s torso. He collapsed, unconscious. A day or two later, Fremant happened to hear that Chankey had not died of his wounds and was making a slow recovery.
As Fremant left the field, Astaroth clapped him on his shoulder.
“You made a good showing, lad. I am keeping my eye on you!”
High praise, Fremant thought. Or was it a warning? He hated Astaroth for encouraging the brutal entertainment of the Kontest.
AS ASTAROTH RODE OFF AHEAD in his chariot, Aster came up to Fremant. She pulled her hood aside, looking up at him from under her eyelashes. “I have decided to forgive you for what you did, you brute.”
“Oh, why’s that?” he asked coldly.
“Because I love you.” She ceased to hold the hood in order to demonstrate with a flutter of hands how like a flame that love was. “Burning, burning love!”
He struggled with his emotions. Stygia City was so full of suspicion and secrets that he wondered if this woman might not be the one who would sink the Clandestine dagger into his heart.
“I’ll buy you a glass of wine, Aster. Then we can talk it over.”
She fell in beside him. He thought, as they walked, that wherever they went, people would see them. Word would get back to Astaroth. Better to take Aster to Bellamia
’s house; the old girl would not mind and could, he believed, be trusted to keep her mouth shut.
Dusk was coming on when he knocked at Bellamia’s door. He was feeling resentful, yet wondering why he should be. The stout lady opened her door with caution, then stood back to let the two of them in.
“This is Aster, Bellamia,” he said, as the girl drew aside her hood.
“I know who it is, right enough,” the woman said, casting an ill look at Aster. He smelled salack on her breath.
They seated themselves at the table as Bellamia poured them each a glass of her buskade. The insect-parrot gave out its stridulous cry, unfolding a kind of watery score which faded as it unwound. Darkness was already gathering in the crowded little room; Fremant and Aster could scarcely see each other’s faces across the table until Bellamia brought a lighted candle to set between them.
Aster stretched out her hand to Fremant. As he took it, he burst into complaint. “This backwater of a planet! No art forms here, no cinema, no discs, no personal computers. Not even paintings to hang on the walls.”
Aster was defensive. “There were those pretty red and blue stones in the Kontest…”
“Not quite Picasso or Rembrandt, though, were they, eh?”
“Who were they?” Bellamia asked.
Could it be that he was the only person on this whole world who knew the name Rembrandt? Of course, all these people had been for countless years mere elements in the ship’s LPR. He was a being apart. He could not think how he had come here. He had not been born on Stygia. He floundered in a morass of uncertainties, insecurities.
“But we don’t need such things, dear,” said Aster, ignoring Bellamia. “Life is better without them. Simpler! Art forms suggest too much, don’t they? At least we live on a solid surface with the sky overhead. Isn’t that enough?”
“No, it’s not enough. We didn’t create the sky overhead, did we?”
“But I thought art forms were responsible for—oh, I don’t know what. People being—what do you call it? You know, stuck up on crosses, and like that.”
“And music,” said Bellamia, laughing. The room was heavy with the scent of her salack. “Was there music on Earth? It must be deliberate that we remember so little about that place.” She turned and busied herself about her little stove.
“Art in general was once a major human concern,” he said, scowling across at Aster in the candlelight. “Paintings, sculptures, books, music…back on Earth.”
“Earth!” she said contemptuously. “That’s long lost. Astaroth says we were all sent away for safety reasons. You have too much Earthblood in you. Are you forgetting how you were tortured there?”
“Oh, that!” he exclaimed, disconcerted. He had forgotten he had confided in Aster about the torture. A shadow crossed his psyche.
“Yes, that! You don’t claim you have forgotten being tortured, do you? Oh, how you lie! I am surrounded—surrounded—by lies and deception. How can I bear it? I don’t know…”
He shook his head. “Calm down, will you? The nightmares I was suffering—”
“You suffer nightmares! What do you think I suffer? Bringing me here to this low hovel—”
“What’s the matter? Are you mad?”
She banged the palm of her hand on the table. “You were insane! Admit it!”
He stood up. “If you’re going to insult me, why don’t you just disappear—out of my life! You tricked me with the Clandestines, and I won’t forget it.”
With a quick movement Aster produced a knife. Baring her teeth, she pointed it at him. “What’s so insulting about being insane in a mad world? If you attack me again, I swear I shall kill you this time!”
He seated himself, trying to out-stare her.
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“You raped me once and that’s more than enough, you bluggerate.”
“You can talk—it’s certainly more than enough for me, let me tell you.” He gripped the edge of the table, ready to overturn it if she made a move.
“Oh, I’d kill you gladly, gladly! What of your promise to kill Astaroth? Or have you forgotten that already, too?”
“I’ve not forgotten,” he said sullenly.
“You’ve not acted.”
Bellamia came up to the table, saucepan in hand. She tut-tutted. “Now, stop this silliness. Love one another, damn you, if you must! But why all this quarreling? I’m getting you a nice stew of portleg tail to eat, so be quiet. Be quiet!”
“You be quiet,” Aster told her, indignantly turning on her. “You’re forgetting yourself. I am the mistress of the All-Powerful, so behave yourself.”
With lowered brow, Bellamia said, “I know well enough who you are. And what you are.”
The remark seemed to quell the younger woman. She put away her knife. Fremant sat down. They stared at each other, full of hatred and confusion. Then she stared down at the grain of the tabletop.
“This place stinks,” Aster said quietly. “Why did you bring me here?”
Slowly their mood lightened and they began to behave more like friends, despite themselves, as if, in spite of everything, there was a bond between them. When the older woman served up her food, she, too, sat down at the table and ate with them. Aster made no protest. Nor did she complain about the food, flavored as it was with salack. The herb, at once bitter and sweet, was reputed to have a sedative effect on nerves.
“What did you do in your reconstituted years on the ship?” she asked Bellamia.
“Miss, when I was reconstituted out of the LPR, I was put in command of one shift of the laundry section. A hard job it was. Of course I was a younger woman then.” Her eyes were half-closed, enfolded in flesh. “Much younger.”
“Had you no man as partner?”
“He’s long dead,” said Bellamia, in a tone that defied further inquiry. She repeated, “Long dead…”
When Aster took her leave, she and Fremant kissed briefly outside the door. He took some breaths of fresh air before reentering the stuffy room.
BELLAMIA SAID TO FREMANT, “Mayhap I should not tell you this, but that young lady is the mistress of Astaroth, as she tells you. What she does not boast about is that she is his daughter as well.”
“It can’t be!” He was aghast.
With contempt, the old woman replied, “What you mean, ‘It can’t be’? You’re soft in the head, my man. Many things as should not be can be. It’s one of that kind I’m telling you about—one of that kind!”
DAWN, TWO DAYS LATER. High in the southern sky, casting pale shadows, sailed Stygia’s six little broken moons, product of the cosmic collision of which the Shawl was also a result.
Fremant was on his way to report for duty at the Center. As he passed through the echoing empty squares, he began to suspect that someone was following him.
When he turned the next corner, he stopped there, shoulders to the wall, waiting. Sure enough, in a moment, another man turned the corner, a tall, thin man with a stoop. Fremant struck him hard on the side of his skull with his right fist. The man’s jaw fell open. He sank to his knees and collapsed.
Fremant dragged the man into a side alley and sat astride him.
“Okay, you funker, whose side are you on?”
The man muttered something incomprehensible.
“Speak clearly or I’ll poke your eyes out. Who are you?”
“Name’s Webshider. Let me up, dammit!”
“Who’s paying you to tail me?” As he was asking, he was searching in Webshider’s pockets. He found some stigs and pocketed them. From an inner concealment he fished out a bone-handled knife with a curved blade. He flung it far down the alley.
“Come on, who’s paying you?”
“No one. It’s voluntary. Let me up. Please.”
“You were going to kill me, you scum! For the last time, who are you working for?” He shook the man’s throat until his skull rattled against the paving stone.
“The Clandestines. The Clandestines, all right?”
Fremant smacked him across the chops. “Those useless wretches? Look, if I spare your life, you’ll go slinking back to them and their nameless god. Tell them from me they are crap. Tell them they should mingle with the ordinary population to foment discontent, get it? Not just hide out across the lake, get it? Foment discontent, get people to understand they can demonstrate in force, get it? One big demonstration and we can kick Astaroth out, get it?”
Each “get it?” was accompanied by a fist in Webshider’s ribs.
“You’ll never manage to kick Astaroth out, you bully,” the man gasped.
“Try it!”
“You’ll never manage it because the people here are—I dunno—sort of sick after the long journey and Reconstitution.”
He propped the thin man up and rested his back against the wall. “You’re saying there was something the matter with the LPR, the Life Process Reservoir?”
“How do I know?” the other responded. “It’s possible, ain’t it? Or else this planet don’t agree with us. Maybe there’s some sort of germ in the air that—”
“You scum! You’re sick.” He gave the shuddering face another slap.
“We’re all sick, you bluggerate—because we are dumped here to live among aliens and insects.”
The notion struck a chord in Fremant’s mind. “It’s a rule of life—we all have to live among strangers…Get yourself back to that Habander feller and tell him what I’ve said, okay?”
He stood up and watched alertly as Webshider struggled slowly to his feet, gasping and groaning. He was not a fighting man. Fremant gave him a kick in his rear as he slouched off.
He then hurried in the direction of the Center, afraid of reporting in late.
THREE
THE ROSY-FACED STABLE MAID, Breeth, made Fremant and Tunderkin bowls of sweet otz, which she cooked over a little fire in the tack room. After that, they brought out the horses and brushed them down under the pale sky. High above their heads rode one of the six moons.
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