I said, “Huh?”
He glanced over, and there was a hurt in his eyes. “Yeah, I suppose I never told you this, probably think it’s a crazy idea; everyone else does. She’s in Heaven.”
“Nothing crazy about that, Sam,” I said, big magnanimous that I was.
“Heaven is out here somewhere.”
That stopped it. I was back to, “Huh?”
He nodded again. “Out here, on one of these, is Heaven. That’s where she is. I’ll find her.” He waved at the stars overhead. I followed his arm. Up here? Heaven? On an alien world? I didn’t say anything.
“Crazy?”
“No, I don’t suppose it’s any crazier than any other idea of Heaven or Hell,” I replied soberly. It gave me the creeps, frankly.
“I’ll find her.”
“I sure hope so, Sam. I sure hope so.”
He fell asleep before I did. Who could sleep with something like that to scare the crap out of you?
We hit Giuliu II on a Thursday, and by the following Friday a week, we had a command performance scheduled for the Giuliun royalty. It was a wonderful deal; once we had performed and pleased the court, our success on Giuliu II was assured. Because they had a real Monarchy Plus set up on that world. And if the court liked us, the high glub–glub or whatever the hell they called the king, would send out a proclamation ordering all his subjects to attend or suffer some penalty. So we’d be all set.
We ran through the acts, in the palace, which was a great mansion, twice as big as our pneumotent, and I’ve got to admit, even washed–out Dolly Blaze and Fritz Bravery and the rest were magnificent. But, of course, Sam stole the show. They had never seen a teleport on Giuliu II, and Sam was at his sparklingest best. He was more daring and unusual than ever. There was even a trick with Felice that had everyone gasping and finally chuckling.
When it was over, the king and his court invited us to a huge banquet, and ceremonial party. It was the greatest. They had huge platters of fried and braised meats, bowls of planetary fruits, tankards of ales and liqueurs that were direct lineal descendants of ambrosia. It was the greatest.
Then they brought on the dancing girls, and they were even better. I spotted one smooth–limbed little number I decided to approach with dalliance in mind, after everyone had settled down a little. The Giuliuns were Homebody type right down to their navels, and I wasn’t worried about picking up any alien equivalents of VD. Besides, she had the cutest little po–po I’d seen in months. Beatrice, the girl who assisted Sam, and who I had been shacking with, was eyeing me, and eyeing a handsome brute, all tanned and wearing bronze armor, who was guarding one of the big doors. I decided to let her cheat on me, thus leaving the road clear for the little dancer.
The party was well under way, when the king stood up and made some big deal announcement about us being just in time to see the Sacred Virgin Ceremony of Giuliu II, which occurred but once every twenty–five years. He even hinted it had been moved up a few weeks to accommodate us in this hour of circus triumph. We all applauded, and watched as they set up a high platform made of ever–smaller gold risers. It was quite a thrill.
We were all gathered around at the one end of the ceremonial hall, with the pyramid of risers at the other. We weren’t interested, in the least, about this ceremony; but to be polite we watched as they set up some sort of chopping block affair, and put two burning braziers beside the block.
It was getting more interesting by the moment. While most of the circus folk were still gorging themselves on the foods and fruits overflowing the table, Sam and I turned full around to watch this. I heard him mumble something about picturesque native ceremonies, and nodded my head.
The king signaled to one of his bully–boys, and the bully–boy swung a long–handled clapper at a tapestry hanging from floor to ceiling beside him. They must have had a gong concealed behind it, because the sound almost deafened me.
Then the king—of his title I’m not sure, but his rank was obvious—spoke for a few minutes on the history and traditions of the Sacred Virgin Ceremony. We didn’t really listen too closely, mainly because he was speaking in similes and the noise from the crowd around us drowned him half out.
But in a little while we got the impression this was very important stuff to the Giuliuns, and when the king clapped his hands, we turned to the gang, and tried to get them to shut up. Those slobs would rather eat than think.
They didn’t shut up till the gong sounded again, but when the gray–hooded man with the gigantic meat cleaver brought the pretty blonde girl out onto the platform, they all signed off like we’d cut their vocal cords.
She was a magnificently beautiful creature. Her hair was long and blonde, and her body was full and straight. Her eyes the deepest and most lustrous brown I’ve ever seen.
The executioner—hell yes! that’s what he was—helped her over to the block, and her face was very calm. Calm, it seemed, the way someone’s face would be if they were dying of cancer, and knew they could do nothing about it. But this young girl wasn’t dying of cancer; she was about to have that gray–hooded man chop off her head.
It was apparent, that was what was about to happen.
A sacrificial ceremony.
The hooded man helped her to kneel before the block, and she lay her head in the notch. The executioner pulled her hair away from her neck, gently, and laid it over her left shoulder in a long blonde streamer.
Then he tested his hatchet’s edge, and stepped back. He planted his feet wide apart, and swung the axe up. Everyone screamed, and it sounded like a million buzz–saws. Before anyone could do anything, the executioner brought the axe down almost touching her neck, to get the proper placement for the real swing.
That was when I heard Sam’s muted gurgle. He had been mumbling, there beside me, for over a minute, and I hadn’t realized it, I was so engrossed in watching the tableau on the chopping block. Then I heard him mutter, “Claire!”
And I knew there was going to be trouble.
I saw him stand up, out of the corner of my eye, and as the executioner swung the axe up in a two–handed whirl, Sam disappeared from beside me, and the next instant, before the blade had a chance to fall on that lovely neck, he was there. His arm snaked around the gray–hooded man’s neck, and his hand shot out to catch the descending handle of the axe.
He wrenched the death tool from the man’s hand, and threw it with a spinning clatter to the floor of the chamber far below the pyramid. Then his fist came back and caught the hatchetman across his hidden face. The executioner stumbled, and Sam doubled him over with a belly–blow that made the face behind the gray hood scream. Sam straightened him with a right to the tip of the jaw, and the hatchetman went caroming off the pyramid. He landed with a sick thump.
The king was on his feet, livid with rage, and the court was screaming, “Profanity! Outrage! Transgression!” The king clapped his hands, and a dozen of the tanned bully–boys (one of whom was the hawg Beatrice had been ogling) raced onto the pyramid and grabbed Sam around the waist, the neck, the legs and of course he teleported out of their grip. He was back beside me. The king was leaping up and down, screeching at the top of his lungs, to get that man. Sam stood impassively, waiting. Then King Groth walked over, and said, “Stand still, Sam. Let’ s find out how much damage you’ve done.”
He went to talk to the other king. Groth was a sharp operator, and if anyone could pour oil on the waters, it was him. We watched as he talked to the king, who was getting more furious and apoplectic by the moment.
“Sam, Sam,” I said quietly, “why did you do it? For Christ’s sake, why?”
He looked at me, and said, “This isn’t much like Heaven, is it.” Then I knew he had found Claire.
The blonde girl still kneeled beside the chopping block. She had not moved, except to raise her head from the notch.
King Groth came back, and his face was gray.
“Sam, they say you have to die.”
Big Sam looked at him, and di
dn’t say a word. I don’t think he cared, really.
“Look, Sam, we’re going to fight this. They can’t do it to a Homebody. We can fight it, don’t worry.”
The king rushed over, and started to screech something. “Listen,” I piped in, just to stop him, “he is a sick man, he didn’t know what he was doing. You have to remember he knows nothing of your local customs.”
It didn’t make a bit of difference. “He must die. That is the reward for interrupting the Sacred Virgin Ceremony.”
We argued and hassled and made a big stink out of it, and I think the only reason we all didn’t gallop out of there and pull up stakes was that we were afraid we’d all be held and executed. And Big Sam was the only teleport in the crowd. And there was something else; something I’m afraid and ashamed, even today, to say.
I think we were all afraid of losing the business.
That’s right. Pretty disgusting, ain’t it? We could have set Dolly Blaze to burning the joint, and we could have escaped. We could have done at least a hundred things to distract the Giuliuns. But we were afraid we’d lose the business, and we were almost willing to let the man die for that.
Finally, though, the king said: “We must leave it to the Sacred Virgin, then. Let her decision be the one.”
That sat okay with us—we wanted a way out so bad then it didn’t matter—and we all looked at Sam. Softly, the hurt came back into his eyes, and a softness surrounded his mouth, and he nodded. “That’s fine,” he said simply.
We all walked up to the pyramid, and looked at her. She was very clean and simple looking. Just the way I’d imagine Sam’s Claire might have looked. We all stared at her, and with a sneer, she snarled, “Let him die!”
And that was that.
They took him up to the block, and they removed her, and they shoved Sam’s head into the notch. Then someone made the motion that he be hung, because the block was reserved for the Sacred Virgin. So they strung up a fiber rope—right there in that beautiful hall—and they put it around Sam’s neck, and ten men got on the other end of the rope that hung over a beam from above.
And we just watched. Can you understand that? We just stood there and watched as Sam was prepared for hanging. I tried to stop them, finally. I suppose I came out of my trance. “Wait, you can’t do this!” But King Groth and two of the performers grabbed me by the arms, and held me.
“This is their world, Johnny, let them do what they have to do.”
And Sam looked at me, and I could see in his eyes that it didn’t matter to him. It was the same hurt, all over again. He had been wrong; he did have a hag riding him about Claire’s death. This was one way to clear it off.
They yanked on the rope, and Sam went up.
He hardly twisted or kicked or twitched.
I couldn’t watch.
Because there were a couple of things that made me ill way deep inside. The first was knowing King Groth and the circus and even myself, had sacrificed this nice, quiet guy with a problem, for the sake of a credit. And the other thing, the thing that really stopped us from trying to help him, I think, was that Sam wanted to die. He could have teeped out of that noose at any moment, but he didn’t. He let them lynch him. He had squared away with Claire.
We finished our tour on Giuliu II. Sam had been right: it wasn’t much like Heaven.
I used to think I was ugly. Well, it wasn’t exactly a vagrant whim on my part; I really was awfully miserable–looking. Short, pale, scrawny, braces, glasses, I sucked my thumb, I had pimples. Yechhh. With the exception of Helen Ralph and Jean Bittner in Painesville, when we were all too young to know what “infant sexuality” was all about, I never even kissed a girl till I was nineteen. I have tried to make up for it since then. Now, today, I am able to get across a mystic impression that I am a handsome devil. It is, of course, an illusion. For those of you out there in paperbackland who also feel grotty, I will pass along my secret. The emmis, the truth, pay attention. Think pretty. Now if you’d rather have some charlatan fleece you of a couple of grand with beauty treatments or plastic surgery or social dancing or how to speak grammatical Urdu, then go ahead, get took. But if you want the easiest way to do it, just heed those two words. Think pretty. Conceive of yourself as dashing, debonair, cool, filled with panache and aplomb. And soon the aura spreads out from inside you, and all them tender juicy items are pausing to reconsider you. Because, friends and neighbors, we live in a Time of Beautiful People. Gorgeous is revered. We can’t stand anything even remotely ordinary; it has to be young and lovely. So you are not where it’s at, if you aren’t pretty. The trend is up, and it’s getting worse. We spend billions more on cosmetics each year than education, and if it continues to spiral, soon enough we will come to a time when we may contemplate
EYES OF DUST
“In the kingdom of the blind, a one–eyed man is God.” Contrariwise, in a world of absolute beauty, who labels ugliness?
It was inevitable they should marry. She with the mole on her right cheek, he blind in the presence of light. There should have been no reason for tolerating them on Topaz; on a world dedicated to beauty, imperfection could not be endured. Yet, they lived, and were avoided, and mated. As it should have been. Beauty seeks its level, as does ugliness. As do pariahs.
So they were married, and they managed to live, and soon, she was with child.
The terrible thing began.
The city of Light on the planet Topaz rose five hundred feet into the pearl sky. Its towers glowed with an aura imprisoned in the matter itself. All pastels: all blues and pinks and soft greens, that blended into one blinding impression of flow and swirl. The towers were of three heights. Sweeping giants that rose five hundred feet to the fraction of an inch; medium–sized towers that were mere pauses at three hundred feet, before the giants hurled past them; and midget towers, delicate and impertinent in their hundred–foot rise.
Glistening, diving, then arching in to a hold at another tower, the flying bridges and roadways were marvels of construction. At the various levels, clear layers of substance provided risers and dividers, giving the city the look of a fairy empire, set away from an ugly world, swathed in its own beauty.
And the people.
Each man, woman, child was a note in a great symphony of perfection. Both simplicity and flamboyance were there, but so intermingled and integrated that nowhere could coarseness be discerned. Their faces were neither blank nor vapid. They held beauty in their eyes, and in the clearness of their complexions, and the rhythm of their stride.
There was nothing but beauty on Topaz. In the city of Light there was nothing but the glorious presentation of perfection and elegance. It was a vital culture, rich in thought, complex in design, but dedicated to the beauty of life, and the reflection of that beauty in all things material.
The blind man and his wife, the moley woman, lived in the small units outside the city, where the farmers tilled their symmetrical fields with equipment that was handsome in its construction, efficient in its operation.
They lived in a split–level home that boasted all modern robotic conveniences. The lights dimmed or shone according to palmed instructions; heat radiated from those walls at the touch of a stud; food was prepared by fail–safe robochefs; snits hummed from wall–cubbies to clean up instantly.
In the machine cellar, where the servomechanisms were housed, where the nerve center of the house was located, the blind man and the moley woman had constructed an extra room, set off from the light, for a special purpose. In the room, soft walls shrouded sound, protected the inhabitant from outside distractions. In the room, no light penetrated, and the bed was a pallet of downiness.
The inhabitant was Person.
Person, for no other name had ever been given him. Not like the blind man, who was Broomall, or the moley woman, who was Ordak. They had names, for they went abroad onto Topaz occasionally, and had to deal with others. But no such intercourse was practiced by Person. He never saw the light, and he never strolled, for the
room was his home, and his parents had insured he would never venture from it.
In the machine cellar of the split–level out beyond the city of Light, Person sat in stolid silence, hands folded delicately in his lap, feet turned inward and at rest.
Eyes of dust filled with—not quite?—colors that moved.
Person could not have been endured on Topaz. On a world of beauty, all beauty, ugliness was a known and despised factor. Broomall and Ordak were malformed…a mole and blindness…but they had been in the community long, and they were intelligent enough to keep to themselves. But their offspring was another matter.
With eyes of dust, who could tolerate such a thing?
Broomall unpalmed the door, and entered.
“Father…” Person murmured in a tongue as sweet as brook water, tones like butterflies’ wings.
“Yes. How are you today? Have you had another vision?”
Person nodded, his gray sockets turning toward the blind man. “It came earlier, Father. Deepest black, with bright shoots of red thrusting up. It reminded me of the mouth of a volcano, Father.”
The blind man felt his way to the pallet, lowered his body, and shook his head slowly. “But you have never seen a volcano, my son.”
Person took a step away from the wall, and his great hands hung loosely below his knees. “I know.”
“Then, how—”
“The way I saw the gulls dipping over the green spit of land. The way I saw the deep river of orange mud that bubbled its way to the swamp. It is all one, Father. I see.”
The blind man shook his head in bewilderment. There were answers here; to questions he had never asked.
“Where is Mother? She has not been to see me in several times.”
The blind man sighed. “She must work, Son, if we wish to fill up our food bins. She has taken labor in the wafting center.”
“Ah.” Person conjured up a vision of the sense centers, where smells and sounds and feelings of beauty were poured out on the air of Topaz, for the inhabitants to enjoy. “She must like it there. So near to the scent of gardenias.”
I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream Page 5
