The Best of Hal Clement

by Hal Clement

  blood—not much by ordinary skinned-finger standards, but their standards were not ordinary.

  The two women paled visibly, even in the poor light of the cavern. The man showed little facial change, but he acted. He drew a dagger from inside the cloak which still enveloped him and made a small cut in his own finger. The boy did not see this; his mother was still comforting him. Both women saw and understood, however, and both were visibly distracted during the meal which followed. Marc had seated himself so that his own cut was not visible to the boy, and had begun to tell the promised adventures; but the eyes of mother and maid flickered constantly from one injured finger to the other. Twice Elitha spilled food. Several times Judith was unable to answer questions asked by her son, or made random comments which quite failed to fit the situation. Kyros became quite indignant, at last.

  “Mother! Aren’t you listening to what Daddy says?” The shrill, shocked voice did catch her attention. “Didn’t you hear what he told the soldier at—”

  “I’m afraid I was thinking of something else, little one,” she interrupted. “I’m sorry; I’ll be good and listen more carefully. What would you have said to the soldier?” The question turned the youngster’s thoughts back to his father’s account, and saved her from having to explain what she could possibly be thinking about which was more interesting than adventures in the outside world. She tried to listen to Marc’s words, but neither her eyes nor her thoughts could leave the two trifling injuries while the meal lasted, or for the hour or more afterward while Elitha cleared the dishes. She almost hated the man as his talk went on; she wanted to get the child to his bed so that the conversation could turn to the only point which meant a thing to her then. Marc, whatever his failings as a diplomat, could hardly have been entirely ignorant of this; but in spite of his wife’s feelings he focused his entire attention on the boy. He kept the child enthralled with accounts of what had happened—or might have happened—on the six-week walk to Rome, and the stay there, and the return. The tales went on while the little fellow gradually ceased his excited responses and settled at Judith’s side, with his eyes still fixed on his father’s face. They went on while Elitha finished her work and seated herself at Kyros’ other side. They went on until yawns too big to conceal began to appear on the small face; and then the stories ceased abruptly.

  “Time you slept now, son,” Marc said gently.

  “No! You haven’t said what happened after—”

  “But you’re sleepy. If I tell you now, you’ll forget and I’ll just have to tell you all over again next time.”

  “I’m not sleepy!”

  “You are, Kyros. You’re very sleepy. You’ve been yawning all through my story from Rome to Rimini. Elitha will take you to your room, and you will sleep. Perhaps tomorrow we can finish the story.” For a long moment the eyes of the man and his son held each other in silence; then the youngster gave a shrug which he must have acquired from his father’s mannerisms, took Elitha’s proffered hand, and got to his feet. He tried to look reproachfully at Marc, but the gap-toothed grin broke through in spite of his efforts. He finally laughed, gave good-night hugs to his parents, and went off happily with the girl.

  The mother waited until the two were presumably out of hearing along the passage, and then turned to her husband.

  “I told you. He’s going to be all right. The finger has stopped bleeding.”

  “True.” The man’s answer was slow, as though he were trying to find the happy medium between absolute truth and the woman’s peace of mind. “It’s stopped now. It took time, though. Mine had stopped while we were eating, but his was still flowing after we were finished—long after; Elitha had replenished the fire at least twice.”

  “It wasn’t flowing very hard.”

  “It wasn’t much of a cut. The one I gave myself was worse—I made sure of that. No, my dear, the curse is still there; maybe not as badly as with the others; maybe I won’t have to fight as hard as I expected; but if we are to see Kyros grow to manhood I will have to fight.”

  “But how can such a thing be fought? You said it yourself—there is no enemy one can see. There is nothing you can do. It isn’t like the broken bones you mentioned; a person could see what was sensible to do, in something like that.”

  “It is very much like a fever, though, in one way,” her husband pointed out. “There is nothing one can see to fight, but we have learned about medicines which cool the body. I talked to one of Aurelius’ army healers when I was in Rome, and he reminded me of that. I knew it, of course, but I had been feeling as discouraged as you, and he was trying to point out grounds for hope.”

  “But you can’t just try one medicine after another on Kyros.”

  “Of course not. I want to save him, not poison him. I don’t yet know the battle plan, my dearest, but I will fight as a general rather than a soldier who simply slashes at all in his path. I must think and work both; it will take time—probably a long time.”

  “And I cannot help you. That’s the worst part; I can only watch the boy—”

  “Which is the most important of the task.” Judith ignored the interjection.

  “—and will have no idea whether each new day’s play may give him a hurt from which you are not yet armed to save him.”

  He laid a hand on her shoulder, and with the other turned her face toward him.

  “You can help, dear heart, and you will. You are wiser than I in many ways—I learned that before we had known each other a week. We have talked and thought, studied and lived together for twelve years now; how could I doubt your ability to help? You would not have left Rome with me, and come to live in this wilderness, if you had not been so much like me as to value this sort of life more than all Rome could offer. You know why I loved you, and why I still love you.”

  She smiled briefly.

  “I know; but even you need to talk with other people sometimes—not just for this, but years ago when you first left this place to visit Rome. We wouldn’t have met, had you been completely satisfied with solitude.”

  “Well, it is good to talk to people who think of something besides boats, nets, and planting. I’m quite glad I went to the city; I’d have stayed there if you had insisted, even with its noise and smells. I still think the silence here is better, though, and I loved the garden up in the pit even before you came. I guess I’m just a hermit at heart.”

  “Not in all ways. Tell me tomorrow how you will fight, and I’ll help. We should sleep now; you walked far today.”

  But Marc did not sleep for a long time. After his wife went, he stood for a long time staring into the fireplace, while the blaze sank to coals and the coals faded. He had not told all about his trip, nor all about his plans—Judith would not have been so emphatic about promising to help, even for Kyros, if he had.

  Abruptly, he turned toward the passage leading to the sinkhole. Out in the starlight, he found the ladder which Elitha used to go up to the plateau for fuel, and made his way up this to the broken surface of the Karst. It extended beyond eyeshot to his left as he faced south, dotted with sinkholes and weak spots in the water-rotted stone where a new hole might be an unwary traveler’s grave. Few people went that way; there was little to attract them. The water vanished from the surface too quickly to do crops much good; the garden in his own sinkhole survived because of water brought by hand from an underground stream to supplement the rain accumulated in the clay catch-basins he had made long before.

  To his right the plateau fell off toward the sea, some two miles away. He went in that direction, rapidly. Much had to be done before morning.

  * * *

  Judith was awakened by Kyros’ voice echoing from the main cave. She rose, cast a fond glance at her soundly sleeping husband, took the lamp from its niche at the entrance of their sleeping cavern, and made her way two hundred yards down a steep passage to the underground stream. Washed and refreshed, she was back in a few minutes, finding the man still asleep. She finished dressing and went out to
greet Kyros and Elitha.

  “Where’s Father?” cried the boy. “Breakfast is ready.”

  “He is still asleep. Remember, he has traveled a long, long way, and could not sleep as quietly or as safely among all those people outside as he can here. He is very tired. We will eat now, but save something for him.”

  “Then I suppose you have to carry water.”

  “Not today, son. There is enough in the basin from the last rain. We will take care of the garden, of course, but there will be time to play.”

  Marc slept until after Elitha and the child had finished eating and gone to the garden. Judith was cleaning the living cavern when he finally appeared. She stopped when she saw him, set out some fruit, and seated herself beside him while he ate. She was silent until he finished, but watched his face closely; and hard as it would have been for most people to read those features, she seemed to see something encouraging in his expression. When he finally stopped eating, she leaned forward and sought confirmation of the hope.

  “You’ve thought of something, Marc. What can I do to help?”

  “The hardest part may be in agreeing with me,” he answered. “In a way, you thought of the same thing; but you didn’t carry the thought to its end, and I’m sure you won’t like it when I do.”

  “Explain, anyway.”

  “You said last night that anyone could see what was the sensible thing to do if a bone were broken. It seems to me that there is something equally sensible to do for someone whose bleeding won’t stop.”

  “We tried. The gods know we tried. Sometimes we stopped it, but sooner or later, for each of them—”

  “I know. I wasn’t thinking of stopping the bleeding with bandages and cords and such things. That’s all right on limbs, but it’s harder on the body and nearly impossible inside the mouth. We don’t know where the curse will strike Kyros.”

  “Not inside the mouth. Remember the teeth!”

  “I remember. I wish I understood that; I keep thinking the gods must have made it happen to tell me something, but I can’t think what it might be. Anyway, that wasn’t what I started to say. If a water jug leaks, and you must keep the jug because you have no other, and you can’t mend it, what is the only thing left?”

  “You let it leak, and refill it whenever—oh, I see. But how can that be done? You or I or Elitha could give blood, but how could we get it into Kyros’ body? Would it be enough for him to drink it?”

  “I—don’t—know. It has been tried, the Roman said, after battles; but the patients sometimes lived and sometimes died anyway, and he wasn’t sure whether it did any good.”

  Judith grimaced. “I don’t like the idea of drinking blood, or of making Kyros do it.”

  “One can do almost anything, if it is for life.” The man frowned thoughtfully as he spoke. “In any case, something else would have to be done before such a test would mean anything.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There would have to be a person who was suffering from lack of blood, before we could tell whether more blood would help.”

  “I see. And if we wait until Kyros—no, Marc! I see what you mean, but you couldn’t do such a thing. You could not do it on yourself, because of the danger; if you die, Kyros’ last hope is gone. I would gladly let you take blood from me until I was sick from it, but I am sure I couldn’t drink any for the test—not even for Kyros. The thought just—” Her face twisted again, and Marc nodded.

  “Likely enough. And Elitha would be the same, no doubt, though we could ask. We would have to find someone who could be made—forced—to do it.”

  “But how—no, Marc! Not even for Kyros! I wouldn’t let you do such a thing to anyone. You must not fight that way!”

  “I was sure you would feel so. I do myself, a little. I have thought of one other thing, but there is a bad point about that, too.”

  “What is it?”

  “I could go back to Rome. The healer I knew there would be more than willing to have me go with the emperor’s army; he’s supposed to himself, but doesn’t seem very eager to leave the city. There would be plenty of chance to see and work on men who needed blood.”

  “But you’d be gone from here! What would we do if Kyros—”

  “Precisely.” He nodded agreement with her point. She looked at him, started to speak, bit her lower lip, got to her feet, and took two or three steps toward the garden passage. Then she turned to face him again.

  “There must be some other way.”

  “I would like to believe it. The gods have not seen fit to show me one.”

  “If you killed other people in trying to find a cure for what Kyros has, we would deserve the curse.”

  “Would Kyros?” he countered. She was silent again for several minutes, pacing nervously back and forth the width of the cave. Then she turned suddenly and shifted the line of attack.

  “What if just drinking blood is not enough? What else have you thought of to try? You once said that eating an enemy’s heart to give courage, as some barbarians do, is superstition; why is it any more likely that drinking blood would restore blood?”

  He smiled grimly. It was tempting to point out the glaring flaw in that argument, but seemed unwise.

  “I have thought of other things; but all of them would have to be tried out before I could be sure they were good. All of them.”

  His point was clear. Judith said no more, and walked slowly out of the chamber toward the garden. Marc sat where he was for several more minutes. Then he, too, got to his feet and entered still another small cavern opening from the main one.

  He had not been in this room since returning from his long journey, but took for granted that it would be ready for use—tools clean, writing materials at hand, lamps full. He had come to expect this over the years, and had very seldom been disappointed. Sometimes, but rarely, he was surprised; usually it was his own fault.

  So it was this time. The lamp was full, the few tools ready, the workbench neat—everything which was Elitha’s duty was properly taken care of. The charcoal bin, however, was nearly empty; and charcoal came from the village. It was Marc himself who made the trips there for meat, and oil, and other things the cavern and garden could not supply. Neither of the women ever went far from their home; Kyros had never even been up to the plateau. The cave was home—the finest of homes—to all of them.

  Marc had known it longest. He had found it during his boyhood. Had he been born and raised in any of the nearby villages he would probably have stayed away from the dangerous caverns; but at the time he had not even spoken the local language well. He had been born in a Balkan village, spent much of his childhood in Galati as personal slave to a Roman official of literary inclination, and had survived the wreck of the ship carrying the Roman back to the city. He had come ashore near the village at the edge of the Karst, and by the time he was twenty years old was a well-established citizen of the place. His acquaintance with Roman civilization and literature had fired an imagination which might never otherwise have awakened. Exploring the caverns, which the villagers feared with ample reason, and construction of the garden in the sinkhole had been outlets for a mind which once awakened could not lie idle.

  Twice during the years he had left the village, determined to live in the Rome he had learned about from his former master. Each time he had been back, disillusioned, within a year. The third time he had met Judith and stayed longer; when he finally returned to the village on the Adriatic, she and the child who had been her personal slave had come with him—and he had never again felt the urge to leave. With his caves, his garden, and his family he had been happy.

  That was when he had had four sons.

  He jerked his attention back from the thoughts which had softened his expression for a moment. He had meant to work, but charcoal was needed for what he had in mind. Should he go to the village for it today, or stay and think? Judith’s words, though they had not come as a surprise, had left him much to think about.

  He was spar
ed the choice. Kyros came running in, wondering loudly what was keeping his father in the cave when it was so much better in the garden. That took care of the rest of the day, and the night took care of itself; Marc was not long past the prime of life, but he did need some sleep. It was not until the following morning that he resumed attack on the real problem.

  “I need fuel for the forge,” he announced after Kyros and Elitha had gone to the garden. “I’ll start now, and should be back before evening. Will you come as far as the valley with me?”

  She was surprised, but picked up one of the lamps in answer. An hour and a half later, after a walk through the dimly lit splendors of their “garden of stone,” they reached the entrance Marc usually employed. It was barely noticeable from inside—a lost traveler could have been twenty yards from safety without knowing it. They had to work their way through a narrow space behind a wall of flowstone for perhaps ten yards before daylight was visible; a few more steps brought them, not entirely into the open, but the bottom of a small gully whose walls could easily be climbed. Marc helped the woman to clamber out of this, and as her head rose above the bushes flanking the declivity she found herself able to see farther than she had wanted to for many years. She shrank back against her husband, but made no sound at first as she looked over the landscape.

  The gully was at the edge of a broader valley, which lay between the cliff at their backs and a similar one a quarter of a mile away. To their left it narrowed rapidly; in the other direction it sloped gently downward and grew broader. Its floor was covered with heavy brush, punctuated by an occasional tree. The latter growths, far apart as they were, took on the aspect of a scrubby forest as the eye followed them down the slope. Above them in this direction the eye could just detect a blue-gray line which might have been the sea. Judith turned her eyes from it.

  “It’s ugly!” she exclaimed. “Dry, and brown, and not like the garden at all. Do you want me to go all the way to the village?”