The Lovers * Dark Is the Sun * Riders of the Purple Wage

by Philip José Farmer

He groaned. Tears of frustration and anger flowed; his hands clenched.

  Above was the crowded sky of blazing stars, broken here and there by dark shapes. On the horizon, coming towards him, was the snout of The Dark Beast.

  Vana said, ‘We’re back in our world!’

  37

  ‘The last time I looked, there were four gateways on or in or above Earth,’ The Shemibob said.

  They were by the vessel, which had been dragged to the edge of the jungle and wedged between two trees. They had slept and hunted and eaten and now were gathered to discuss the situation. They were not cheerful.

  Above them, drifting across the brightness, were the great undecipherable characters.

  When the first of them appeared, Sloosh had said, ‘Well, at least we know we’re on the equator.’

  ‘One of the gateways was around my castle,’ The Shemibob said. ‘Another must have been the one you saw on the island. The third is, like this one, on the equator. And the fourth is this one. What that means is that this gateway is only the other side of the one around my castle. So the other one on the equator may not be an entrance to another universe but an exit from a gateway located halfway across Earth.

  ‘Which means that the other equatorial phenomenon may be on the other side of the one you saw above the island. There is, of course, only one way to find out. Go there and enter it.’

  She paused and smiled. ‘That is, if it’s accessible or hasn’t disappeared entirely.’

  Deyv could not see that there was anything to smile about.

  The Shemibob reached into her bag and pulled out a sphere half the size of Deyv’s head. It seemed to be of cut quartz, a twin of the one Feersh had Iliad in her tharakorm. Jowanarr said something to her mother in witch language that led Deyv to believe that it was a duplicate.

  The snake-centaur put her hands around the globe and closed her eyes. In a short time, the sphere began to glow, the light at first a spark in its centre, then spreading out until it pulsed a milky light. Then four red sparks floated through the whiteness.

  After a while one of the sparks became larger than the others.

  The Shemibob opened her eyes and looked at the globe.

  –The big glow is the gateway nearest us,’ she said, ‘the one below us.’

  A red line crept out from the largest spark, ending finally at another. She placed the globe in the palm of her right hand and stared at it. Presently, the spark at the end of the red line began to move, swinging as if it were a stone tied to a cord. When it ceased oscillating, it was in a different part of the sphere.

  The Shemibob raised the globe to eye-level and sighted along the red line. For a few seconds the spark at its end expanded, becoming three times the size of the one at the other end.

  She sighed and lowered the globe. The sparks and then the milky light faded. After she had put the globe back into the bag, she said, ‘I’m famished. Give me a big piece of meat and a large pile of those crested roots, Deyv. This psycho-electrical manipulation drains me of energy.’

  He hastened to obey her. Before she began eating, she said, ‘We won’t have any trouble locating the fourth gateway, though we might have difficulty reaching it. We only have to follow the red line.’

  The Yawtl said, ‘What other treasures have you in that bag of yours, O Shemibob?’

  ‘You will see them as the occasion to use them arises, O Master Thief. But stop thinking about stealing them. You don’t know how to use them, and so they would be valueless to you.’

  Later, Sloosh took Deyv and Vana aside.

  ‘We won’t need that sphere to find the general location of the gateway. It’s in the same line as that on which the sky figures go. Also, if you wish to go home, all you have to do is to stay beneath the figures and travel as they do. They are, I believe, exactly on the equator.’

  ‘Thanks for the information,’ Deyv said. ‘But I’d already worked that out.’

  ‘And you’re determined to accompany us only as far as the gateway? Then you’ll go on towards your homes?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Vana said, ‘Perhaps our tribes are located between here and the gateway.’

  Sloosh buzzed a sound equivalent to a shake of his head.

  ‘Then you two will settle down with your people and perhaps have a long and possibly good life, by your lights. But your descendants will perish in a horrible manner. I don’t mean those many generations from now. I’ve revised my estimate of how long life can last here. The quakes are increasing in frequency and intensity to a degree not predicted by the scientists of my people. At any time a gateway may form which will suck the air from Earth. Or it may emit a disintegrating heat from a near-by star, either from the surface or the heart of the star.

  ‘I can think of other possibilities. One of these gateways that leads from one place to another on Earth might form in the bottom of the ocean. In that case, the water could pour out and drown all on land. Then –’

  ‘That’s enough!’ Deyv said. ‘You’re putting too much responsibility on us. And too much pre-guilt. By that I mean we’ll be guilty before we’d even committed the deed.’

  ‘In this situation, it’s not doing the deed that will cause the guilt.’

  ‘Whatever,’ Vana said. ‘Anyway, we’re going to try to talk our tribes into taking us back without our eggs. We can prove that they’re not necessary. Of course, they might refuse to believe us even if we demonstrate that it’s true that eggs aren’t needed. We’re living proof of that. But our people are steadfast in their beliefs, and they might drive us out or even kill us.’

  ‘I have to admire your courage, though I deplore your stupidity,’ the plant-man said. ‘If you hadn’t lost your eggs and stayed with your tribe, would you believe someone in your situation?’

  Deyv and Vana looked at each other, and they said, ‘No.’

  ‘So there you are!’ Sloosh walked off to The Shemibob and began talking to her.

  Deyv said, ‘I wonder what he’s up to now?’

  Presently, the two came to Deyv and Vana. The Arch-kerri’s expression, if any, was hidden under his leaves. The snake-centaur was grinning.

  ‘Sloosh has persuaded me that there’s no need to keep these from you any longer,’ she said.

  She opened her bag, reached in, and withdrew her hand. Opening it, she revealed two soul eggs attached to leather cords.

  Deyv cried, ‘It’s mine!’

  Vana shrieked.

  ‘Not the originals, of course,’ The Shemibob said. ‘Sloosh talked me into charting the electric potentials of your skins and your brain waves while you slept. Hoozisst’s also. From these it was comparatively simple to reconstruct the eggs. But Sloosh wanted me to withhold them until it became evident that you were sticking to your determination to return to your tribes. Of course, Hoozisst couldn’t have his until you got yours. Sloosh just told me that there is no reasoning with you, that I might as well give them to you now.

  ‘You must realize that he hasn’t been hiding them from you for any reason other than your best interests. He has a good heart, even if it is on a different beat from yours.’

  Deyv and Vana felt too happy to reproach the plant-man. They put the cords around their necks and closed a hand around the stones. Deyv’s began to pulse with a red light which shone brightly. Vana’s glowed greenly.

  ‘Now,’ Sloosh said, ‘you two can see whether they match in phase and whether you’re true mates or not.’

  Deyv’s happiness boiled away, and a small panic rushed into its place.

  ‘We don’t need to find that out!’ he said. ‘We already know we’re well matched!’

  ‘Yes,’ Vana said, her voice shaking. ‘We know that. So why bother?’

  The Shemibob was smiling, but whether it was with delight at the unexpectedness of the gift or amusement at their reaction, Deyv could not tell.

  ‘You two sound very much as if you’re afraid to take the test. What would happen if your stones showed that you were mismatched? Would yo
u then refuse to obey what your mind and heart tell you is true?’

  Sloosh said, ‘I very much fear that they would. Despite their wide travel and many experiences, they haven’t learned much.’

  ‘Why couldn’t you have waited?’ Deyv cried.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Sloosh asked. ‘I expected you to be angry because we’d not given you the eggs as soon as they were made. But I certainly didn’t expect this.’

  ‘They’re afraid of being separated,’ The Shemibob said. ’The eggs might tell them that they aren’t to be lifelong mates. But there’s another, perhaps deeper fear. That is, that perhaps the eggs aren’t infallible. Perhaps they don’t tell the truth, perhaps they and their ancestors have been believing a lie. In which case, they know that they, and their ancestors, and their tribespeople have been fools. On the other hand, a part of them would like that.

  ‘Of course, they could settle the question at once by trying to phase their eggs. But they’re afraid to know the truth. Which is understandable. They don’t want to lose each other. Or doesn’t your vegetable-heart grasp this?’

  ‘It’s half-protein,’ Sloosh said. ‘But I comprehend you. What I would like to suggest -’

  Vana said, ‘Deyv, I don’t like standing here and being talked about as if I’m a character in a tale or someone on the other side of the mountain. Let’s do it and get it over with.’

  Deyv swallowed and said, ‘Very well. But not here. I want privacy.’

  They walked into the jungle, Vana’s hand in his. It was filmed with sweat. Or was that his? It was both. Her skin felt cold, too.

  He looked back through a break in the foliage. The Shemibob was dipping into the bag again. She was handing something to the plant-man. His prism! Of course, if she had made eggs for them, she could have made a crystal for Sloosh. But that could not be given until after the eggs had gone to the humans.

  Jum and Aejip came through the brush after them. Deyv told them to go back. It was necessary to be as little distracted as possible during the phasing.

  They came to a great tree on the other side of which was a big flat-topped rock. They straddled it, facing each other. They slowly extended the stones until they touched. Each was held by a finger on top and bottom so that they could clearly see the reactions. With the other hand each touched the other’s lips. Deyv felt a tingling in his lips and the finger, and he saw tiny green threads begin to form in the centre of his egg. These were duplicated by threads of the same diameter and configuration in Vana’s, except that they were red in hers.

  The threads, still extending, began to twist in on themselves. They curved round and met other threads and slid alongside them, then twined around them. Deyv felt great joy. It was evident that they would be in complete phase or at least as much as any stones ever were.

  Still, they had to finish the test. Sometimes, though rarely, the threads went no farther than a certain stage. Then it was up to the shamans and the grandmothers to determine whether the match was good enough to permit marriage.

  Now the threads formed a design called, in Deyv’s tongue, shvashavetl. This was the name of a four-winged insect related to the butterfly. Seen from above, the insect looked much like the matching design, a long slim straight body with two oval wings on each side and, at the head, two out-curving antennae.

  Deyv and Vana waited, their fingers trembling but not losing contact with each other or making the eggs separate.

  Suddenly, and startlingly, though it was expected, the tingling became a burning. And the designs in the stones seemed to explode, to become red and green tadpole shapes darting in a frenzy in many different directions.

  Both snatched the eggs back and withdrew their fingers. Tiny lightning leaped between the fingers and lips, crackling. The figures shooting around inside the eggs flashed brightly and were gone. The eggs resumed their normal green and red colours.

  Weeping but smiling, the two leaned over and embraced.

  On the way back to camp, Vana said, dreamily, ‘Deyv, what would you have done if we’d been mismatched?’

  He hugged her.

  ‘I might’ve thrown my egg away. No, I suppose I wouldn’t have. I need mine to be accepted by my tribe. I don’t know, to tell the truth. I’m glad I don’t know. But what would you have done?’

  ‘The same, I suppose. Whatever that might have been.’

  They walked a few paces more. She stopped abruptly, looking alarmed.

  ‘I just had a terrible thought! Supposing The Shemibob made the eggs so that they would phase regardless of our characters? That’d be a fine trick to play on us!’

  ‘You’re as bad as Sloosh,’ he said, ‘Why would she do that?’

  ‘Because she didn’t want us to be outcasts for ever. Still, why should she go to all that trouble? She seems to like us, as we like Jum and Aejip, though not as deeply, of course. So perhaps she did it from affection. Or perhaps from a perverse sense of humour.’

  ‘We don’t know that she did it.’

  They summoned up the courage to ask her.

  She smiled for a while, then broke into a loud flapping laughter. When she had recovered, she said, ‘You two are more suspicious than the Yawtl! Let me ask you, what difference would it make if I had given you two eggs guaranteed to phase even if your souls were not entirely congenial? Your tribes would be fooled, and so would you, and what harm could that be? It might even be that the eggs themselves would be the means of making you well matched just because you think they couldn’t be wrong.’

  Vana spoke with some anger, more than she wanted to reveal but far less than what she would have liked to let loose.

  ‘Well, what is the truth?’

  ‘You’ll never know!’

  The Shemibob exploded into laughter again. Sloosh, who had been standing near by, buzzed his equivalent of great amusement. Deyv and Vana, furious, feeling like fools, walked away. After they had cooled off, however, they agreed that the eggs, whether false or genuine, served their purpose. So why should they continue to be angry with The Shemibob? After all, she had done them an invaluable service. If she enjoyed the joke or enjoyed their reaction to what might not be a joke, it was slight repayment. Nevertheless, they could not help wondering about it from time to time.

  They asked Sloosh if he knew the truth. He replied that he knew no more than The Shemibob and could only give the same answers.

  ‘But I must warn you that the eggs have more than one disadvantage. You have to pay for anything good. Or for anything bad, for that matter. Apart from their initial charge, the eggs derive their energy from you. They tap the electricity, the bio-power, of your cells. This is very slight to begin with, and it takes time for the eggs to accumulate it. You know that you can’t use the eggs too much or they won’t operate. Even so, what energy they do use is obtained only by hastening your metabolism. Which means that you have to eat more. Which also means that you age somewhat faster. An egg-bearer’s natural lifespan is shortened by an eleventh or a tenth. If you had continued being eggless, you might’ve been the longest-lived of your tribe.

  ‘I suggest that you stop wearing them until you’re getting close to your homeland. And after that, whenever you’re out of sight of your people, put them in a bag.’

  ‘What about your prism?’ Vana asked.

  ‘I’m wearing it all the time now because I’m charging it. When it’s ready to be used, I’ll put it aside. Unless I have a need at that time to use it.’

  ‘We should tell our people about this,’ Deyv said.

  They won’t believe it. They’re too fixed in their ways.’

  38

  The Dark Beast had gone over four times when they came to a highway of the ancients. After travelling on it for two sleep-times, they came to a junction. This time, the eyes on top of the poles did not flash. They looked dead, and after Feersh and her daughter had tested them, the witch said they had indeed died.

  ‘So,’ Sloosh said, ‘the connection to the power source or the circuit itsel
f has been broken. It’s no wonder. The quakes have been getting worse. After being subjected to so many minor strains, so many cataclysms, even the wonderful work of those wise people has succumbed.’

  ‘The end of our days is approaching,’ Hoozisst said.

  As if to emphasize that, the ground began shaking. They fell to the road and hung on while it rose and fell, swayed and twisted. Trees along the wayside leaned or toppled. Finally, the tremors ceased. They got up and resumed their walk without a word. Phemropit rumbled along behind them. Even it had stopped commenting on the quakes.

  The Beast cast its shadow many many times. Vana’s belly began to grow big. Phemropit inquired about this phenomenon and was staggered by the explanation.

  ‘We know nothing of such fantastic things,’ it said. ‘From the beginning, we just were. We do have a tradition that we were made by some being quite unlike us. But that is something that is quite unlikely to be true. All of us were there at the beginning, that is, when we first became conscious. We had fully developed minds, but they were empty. We ate by what you call instinct, but we didn’t have a language. That we had to invent, and there was quite a lot of disagreement on which system of signals to use.

  ‘Of course, we couldn’t argue much, since we were using different systems – about ten were prevalent then, I believe – and so we often didn’t know what the other was saying. This worked out eventually, however. We are a rational people.

  ‘One of us said that we must have had a maker. We just couldn’t have formed out of the matter of our world. Others said they couldn’t see why not. But by the time our world fell on this one, the school that favoured the maker theory had triumphed.’

  By then, Phemropit said, accidents and some disputes had cut their numbers down a little. It did not matter. If their world had not been destroyed by the fall, it would have become too small to feed everybody.

  ‘Eventually our world would have been a pile of excrement with a nucleus of the rock which makes our food. We’d have been stacked on top of one another trying to fight through those below while the bottom layer ate up what was left.’