Aton quickly withdrew the book and found the correct slot. The alarms subsided, but already footsteps beat their heavy tread nearby. Labored breathing paced that sound.
“What’s the matter with you now?”
Aton brought himself under control. “Something—something terrible, just then. A memory.” His face regained its color. “I don’t… seem to be myself, right now.” His whole body was shaking.
A fat, bearded man turned the corner. He wore the emblematic cap of the Sector Library, numbered 14. “Having a little trouble, gentlemen?” There was a curious quality about his accent. Then Aton realized what it was: native Earth English spoken by a man born to it.
“A mistake,” Partner replied. “Sorry to bother you.”
The attendant stayed, obviously not intending to trust any more books to their unsupervised carelessness. He was old, the wrinkles showing through the corpulent mounds of his cheeks, and the backs of his pallid hands were landscapes. “I may help you?”
“Yes,” Aton said. “I’m looking for a planet.”
“In a library?”
Aton smiled dutifully. “Its name is Minion.” Would the man react?
Caretaker 14 lifted his smooth beard thoughtfully. “Mignon. That would be one of the flower planets.”
“I don’t think so,” Aton said, but he looked upon the man with a certain dawning respect. There was a planet of Mignon; he had seen it in the ephemerides when he searched for the other. All the planets of that system had been named for flowers.
“Ah—I knew the term was familiar. Did you know that our standard typeface is Minion? Seven point print, about ten lines to the inch—”
Aton shook his head in negation. “This is a planet. An inhabited one. But I don’t know the name of its primary.”
“We’ll find it. The index, the Cyclopaedia, the ephemerides—oh, never fear, we’ll find it!” Number 14 spoke with subdued excitement and confidence, as though he had forgotten the origin of the request. It had become his own problem, and he would not be satisfied until he ran it down. Aton smiled at the man’s simplicity. “Proscribed, of course?” Aton frowned at the man’s insight.
“It may be. Frankly, I had heard about it, but didn’t seem to find it in the regular lists—”
“Yes. And you could not afford to use the computer, because it records all dubious requests. We get a number of similar cases. But don’t be concerned. Stack personnel are harmless and confidential. Generally.”
Was the man requesting a bribe for silence? Or trying to pry additional information to sate his curiosity? What were his terms? They followed him down interminable passages, ill at ease.
They arrived at somewhat wider halls. Lining one wall was a series of booths, each with a central table and bench. Number 14 settled them in one and began rounding up references.
Aton looked at Partner. “Can we trust him?” his glance inquired. “We have to,” Partner’s expression replied.
Number 14 returned with an armful of books and a small box. He piled them all on the table. “You have to approach a proscribed planet—don’t be alarmed, these booths are sealed private—deviously,” he said cheerfully. The primary has to be listed, of course, since you can hardly hide a star by ignoring it, but there may not be much evidence to link it to the planet you want. Now here we have the index of all the stars in the Earth Sector. If the sun we want is in it—and we’ll have to assume that it is, because there are a hundred thousand sectors in the galaxy, most of them impossibly alien—we can be certain that it is listed here. This reference does not indicate whether there are habitable planets, but they are not hard to spot: the early explorers named the habitables and let numbers do for the others. Unless they had a special interest in the system, in which case they named them all. But the point is that all inhabited planets are named, even though not all named planets are habitable. Are you with me so far?”
Aton and Partner nodded. Had this man ever appeared ignorant or naïve?
“Comes from a lifetime of spot researching,” 14 said in answer to the unspoken comment. “A good library assistant can locate things even the computer balks at.” He smiled, to show that this was a slight exaggeration, and fiddled with the box. It glowed, and the end wall lighted. “I’m going to project a sector map,” he said. “You are familiar with the type, of course—white for the front stars, red shift for the distant ones? And you’ve heard the joke about the color-blind navigator? Too bad. And you understand that only the established navigational beacons can be shown in such a comprehensive illustration. We’ll get on to the detail maps in a moment.” He touched a plate, and intricate networks appeared, linking the stars in curious patterns. Aton was reminded painfully of the Xest painting. Perhaps that was the origin of Xest art.
“This is an overlay showing the routes of exploration,” 14 said. “It does not occur to most people that all inhabited planets have to be discovered by someone, in order to get that way. We have records of all the early explorations. Now we can get a fair idea of the placement of your planet if you will answer a few questions. Is it settled?”
“Yes,” Aton said, fascinated by the dispatch with which the search was moving at last. “For several centuries, I think.”
“Good. That eliminates the recent colonies, which far outnumber the established ones.” The overlay changed and the majority of the threaded patterns disappeared. “This sets the limit at §100—much less complicated, as you see. By using this outline, we can reduce our list of prospects to several thousand. Do you have any navigational data at all?”
“No. It could be anywhere.”
“It can only be where it is. Are the natives modified?”
“They must be. At least, the women have a reputation—”
“Ah. This reduces the number again. Do you happen to know why it is proscribed?”
“Only the legend. The women are reported to be sirens that live forever. It is said to be—to be death to love one.”
“Ah,” 14 said, uncomfortably alert. “You love one of these sirens. I hope for your sake that the legend is not true. Even a normal woman is bad enough. But we shall assume that genetic engineering has granted the inhabitants longevity. Which certainly could be grounds for proscription. Earth is overpopulated, even now, and she long since decreed that colonization should be by export from the home planet; she deplores natural increase in population through longevity.”
“Earth can’t dictate—” Partner began. He had been quietly studying the projection.
Number 14 shrugged. “Have it your way. But the planet is out of circulation nevertheless. And this narrows the range further, because longevity is post-§ by about fifty years. It took a score more before it became commercially feasible—bad side effects, you know—and ten years after that the law cracked down. Or whatever unofficial euphemism did, since as you point out. Earth cannot dictate.”
“Ten years,” Partner said. “§70 to §80.”
The overlay changed again, and now the map enlarged and the routes were replaced by bright colony indicators. “Modified colonies for that period are few. A mere hundred or so, as you can see. We could look each of them up in the index now, if we could be certain that it listed all the planets. But planets, unfortunately, are not the navigational hazards that stars are. I think our time would be wasted.”
“There is no colony record?”
“Not for proscribed efforts. They simply aren’t mentioned, at least not by name, and not in the up-to-date volumes. We simply haven’t the space to preserve annual publications; the old books that predate proscription would list your planet, but they were thrown out centuries ago. We could run it down by elimination—but if there is more than one proscribed planet hidden in the list, we could not be certain which one is yours.”
Partner was busy with the index. “Get me the sector Cyclopaedia volume covering ‘Point’,” he said.
“ ‘Point?’ As you say,” 14 agreed. “But the Cyclop’ doesn’t list stars.”
/>
In a moment they were poring over the text. “ ‘Point, Jonathan R., stellar scout, §41–154,’ ” Partner read. “That should be our man.”
“The discoverer of Point, one of the stars on our list,” 14 said. “Probably his first ‘habitable,’ since he named it after himself. But what makes you think—”
“I followed your advice,” Partner said. “I approached the problem deviously. Your conventional approach can only take you a certain distance, since, as you point out, they could simply number a proscribed planet, as though it were uninhabited, or skip it entirely, leaving you without proof of its identity. But the clue lies in a homonym.” He found his place and read aloud again: “ ‘Point: an ancient unit of type measurement… seventy-two points to the inch…’ ”
“I don’t follow—”
“Get your index and read off the named planets of Point.”
Baffled, 14 opened the book. “The first two are unnamed fireballs; then Excelsior, Diamond, Pearl—why, I recognize these! They’re type sizes!”
“Go on.”
“Pearl, Nonpareil, Brevier, Bourgeois, Elite. That’s all.”
Partner’s gaze was bright. “Sure you aren’t missing one?”
“Why, the type we use here—”
“Minion!” Anton exclaimed. “Seven point! ”
“The seventh planet,” Partner whispered.
“One has to allow for an explorer’s sense of identity,” Partner said. “And his humor. Jonathan R. Point probably had a private contract signed for settlement of the first few good worlds he found, and anticipated trouble when Earth caught on. He had no intention of letting a little thing like a proscription obliterate one of his planets.”
Twelve
Minion reminded him of Hvee, with its gentle green mountains, its absence of industry, its innocence. The ship, nestled in an isolated clearing, seemed an imposition on the virginity of the planet.
Aton cut cross-country until he struck a dusty road that brief aerial reconnaissance indicated led to the nearest native village.
Partner allowed him to travel alone, here—there was no way he could escape a proscribed planet, except the way he came. Minion was backward, of course: the inhabitants would certainly know of galactic technology, but be unable to partake of it themselves. The penalty was cruel.
The first primitive huts came into view. They were fashioned of rustic thatch and clay, but looked comfortable, and the odor characteristic of bucolic habitation was not strong. That meant the natives were clean. People walked about, human rather than humanoid, paying the stranger no attention. Modification, at least, had taken no objectionable turns—not visible ones, at any rate. The men were small, garbed in short cloths and deep frowns; the women were tall, veiled, clad in all-concealing togas.
A couple came toward him, up the road. The man was a full six inches shorter than his companion, but seemed comfortable enough in his loincloth and neatly rounded beard. The woman stumbled under the weight of an enormous parcel that, combined with the meshes of her toga, threatened at any moment to bring her to the ground.
Aton stepped aside to let them pass. It seemed to him that an intolerable heat must be trapped inside the heavy wrappings of the woman, and indeed, she swayed as she walked. Her foot caught on a projecting stone in the rough road and she stumbled and almost fell. The heavy package in her arms brushed the man as she struggled for balance.
The little man spoke sharply in a dialect incomprehensible to Aton, but it was easy for him to identify well-turned invective. The man wheeled in wrath and struck her full in the veil. The woman fell, the package spinning from her arms and rolling across the road almost to Aton’s feet.
As the woman scrambled to get up, the man cursed again and kicked her violently. Aton had never seen so vile a temper. The woman made no sound, but moved quickly on hands and knees to recover the package. Reeling, she stood up, grasping the heavy object once more. From the far side of the road the man spouted a steady stream of monosyllabic vitriol.
They went on, never acknowledging Aton’s presence at all.
As he passed through the village he noticed that none of the men were doing work of any kind. Only the women labored—and strenuously.
One old man leaned against a tree at the edge of a central square, alone. Aton addressed himself to this man in Galactic sign language. “Where may a stranger stay?”
The oldster eyed him. He gestured lackadaisically. “Have you a woman?” The symbol actually used was “female chattel.”
Aton thought of Malice. “No.”
“You have come at a favorable time, then. You may take Pink Rock’s house and woman this evening.”
Aton hesitated. Customs varied widely in the galaxy, but it was best to understand the situation completely before committing oneself. “Is Pink Rock going somewhere?”
The man gestured at the square. Aton saw what he had overlooked before: a man bound to a great vertical stone, sinister instruments ranged on a platform before him.
“Executed? A criminal?”
“No.”
“A sacrifice?”
“No.”
“Why is he bound, then?”
“He was careless.”
“?” (The signal for perplexity.)
“He fell in love with his woman.”
(Perplexity.) “For that he is to be tortured?”
The old man stared him in the eyes. “It is merciful.”
Aton did not stay to witness the rites for the careless Pink Rock. Instead he promised to return after the ceremony, and wandered around the neighborhood, trying to reason out the mystery of these people. Monsters they might be branded, officially and in folklore—but where was the terror that held the galaxy at bay? Why the inviolate strictures against commerce and communication? All he had seen so far was an incredibly patriarchal society, with the women reduced to such absolute subjugation that it was a crime for a man even to love one.
But doubt remained. Swathed in their drapes and veils as these women of Minion were—he could not think of them as “minionettes”—it was impossible for him to make out face or feature. Still there was a quality about them that was distressingly familiar.
He shrugged it off. Of course there was familiarity. Malice had been generated here.
At the village well a solitary woman was filling a large leather bucket. She closed it with a cord looped around the top and slung it over her shoulder, staggering with the weight.
Aton stepped into her path, offering to take the bucket. He did not do it from any particular chivalry, but because he saw an opportunity to learn more about her. She shied away.
“But I only wish to help,” he signaled. He reached for the bucket, catching the strap, but she arched back so quickly that a corner of her veil was trapped. It slid off her face.
Aton stared. It was Malice.
He let her go. He knew, intellectually, that Malice could not be on the planet. Even if she were, the odds against encountering her in such coincidental fashion were prohibitive—and after the thing he had attempted so long ago, and almost suppressed from memory, she would not again tempt him with a well. He remembered also the seeming change that had come over the face of the daughter of Four, and the picture he had seen later in a huge gas crevasse in Chthon. He could not always trust his vision.
But in case this were not another fevered fragment—
Another woman came down the path. He stepped up to her, offered to assist, and clumsily caught loose her veil. Again the face of Malice. No—the eyes were not so deep, the hair less flamed. This was a faded Malice. What did it mean?
Until this point he had hesitated, careful of native proprieties, but now he had to know. Which was mad—himself or the planet?
Two women walked together down the road, carrying their inevitable burdens. Aton blocked them off and, in an agony of anticipation, tore free both veils.
Identical faces returned his stare. On each the fire hair flowed long, and deep green eyes
looked out. Twin reflections of his love.
“Who are you?” he cried, aloud and with the signs.
Twin smiles of devastating beauty answered him. “I am Torment,” one signaled. “Horror is my name,” signaled the other.
At last Aton understood.
Evening, and the errand of mercy was done. The gutted corpse hung silent now, the stink of burning entrails slowly dissipating. Pink Rock’s empty sockets surveyed the gathered friends sitting in the sweet grass of the square, relaxing after their service to him.
Aton stood at the edge, certain without knowing why that no sadism had been involved. Pink Rock had not been censured—it had merely been necessary to cleanse him of his foul emotion. Certainly the last vestige of his love had been torn bloodily out before he had died. Now the lovely minionettes removed their veils and sang in rapturous chorus, more sweetly than any human group could sing, their hymn of accomplishment. Aton thrilled to the sound. Not since his childhood had he felt such enchantment—though there was an uncomfortable alien bitterness close beneath the surface.
The men of Minion sat in a separate group, washing their hands and scowling. I understand, Aton thought. You performed from necessity, angry that your artistry was required, angry with your beautiful women, angry at your society. You are always angry.
At last the minionettes reset their veils and rejoined their masters. Scowls and curses faded into the dusk. Surely these women would be happy to leave this planet, to serve normal men, when the opportunity presented. Yet Malice’s motives had hardly been that simple.
One woman stood silently before the corpse in an attitude of prayer, Aton came up behind her and took her arm. This was Pink Rock’s widow.
She led him to a hut near the outskirt, and stood aside courteously for him to enter first. She had accepted the change-over without protest or surprise. She had had a man who loved her; now she had one who did not. That was all.
The dark interior smelled of fresh hay. Aton’s eyes adjusted to a room somewhat larger than anticipated, quite clean and well arranged. There was a mattress of soft grasses across the back, wide enough for two. A low table beside it supported several light fiber pillows, a candle, and a whip.
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