Exile

by Al Sarrantonio

  Through all this his companion acted in the oddest fashion, kissing the top of Dalin's wigged head, acting drunkenly and loudly proclaiming words of love.

  When the procession had passed, Dalin was set free, and his companion gave him another sharp grin. "Why, you're not so ugly after all!"

  Dalin scowled, but already they were crossing the thoroughfare and continuing their walk.

  Eventually their feet took them into sections of the city where the streets were not so congested and the buildings not at all tall. The smells were even more repugnant herer the lights dimmer, the structures older and less well cared for. And, for the first time, Dalin saw rubble in the streets: an abandoned vehicle, its plastic shell pitted and scored with what appeared to be burn marks, its windows missing; an open container of refuse, giving off a foul tartness which overrode the other smells; pieces of broken furniture piled in front of one building like so many abandoned toys. Looking up, Dalin saw that the sky was lightening; and, off in the distance, there was the constant sound of sirens.

  "We're there," Dalin's companion said, as if reading the question in his mind. They turned abruptly into the doorway of one structure huddled in a line of disreputable hovels. Dalin's escort pushed him into dimness ahead, checking the street up and down before following the king inside-

  --where hands fell on Dalin, pulling him into a deeper gloom.

  "Is this him?" a screeching voice demanded. "Is this really him?"

  "There isn't time to talk," Dalin's chaperon said. "Take him upstairs."

  A handlight was abruptly shone in Dalin's face, whereby the screeching voice began to laugh.

  "Gawd! He looks worse than me, he does! What have you done to him, Erik?"

  "I did what had to be done."

  "Girlied him up, you have! Gawd!"

  The light beam was pulled away from Dalin's face, leaving him blinking; it was shone deliberately by the screeching person up into its own face.

  "What do you think of this, Your Majesty?" The screeching creature laughed.

  Dalin's vision cleared, giving him a start: a face that was not a face at all, but a metal bowl, scored and scorched like the burned vehicle Dalin had seen outside—with holes through which two human eyes protruded whitely, and a mouth whose two red lips pushed out of the bowl altogether.

  "Ho! Surprised, he is! Wait until he sees himself, then!"

  Sighing with impatience, Erik turned on another handlight and said, "I'll take him upstairs myself!"

  "Whatever!" The screeching creature laughed, pushing Dalin toward his erstwhile guide. "I've got to tend to the cooking anyways!"

  Erik took Dalin firmly by the arm and escorted him to a stairwell against the near wall; the steps were planked with wood, and missing in spots.

  "Watch your step," Erik said, urging the king ahead of him, tightening his grip when Dalin sought to step on a place where no stair existed.

  Downstairs, Dalin heard the screeching creature singing to itself and banging metal against metal.

  At the top, Erik held the king in place and shone the light to the right, down a hallway. The planking in the hall, at least, looked sturdy. There were three doors in a row on the left, all with ancient knobs, and Dalin was brought to the first one; Erik knocked lightly.

  "Come in!" a voice called.

  Erik opened the door and nudged Dalin in ahead of him.

  "Ah! Here already! Any problems?"

  There was dim light in this room, courtesy of dawn outside, which shone heroically through a sooted window at the back. In the room was a chair, a bedstand and a bed itself, from which rose a man naked but for a pair of briefs; he had been reading and tossed his hand Screen on the bed as he rose to shake Dalin's hand.

  "Your Majesty! Welcome!"

  He had the overabundant manner of a performer, and Dalin merely nodded, not taking the proffered hand; courtesy dictated that this lowly, undressed fellow had no right to familiarity with anyone such as Dalin Shar.

  "Oh, well," the man said, not losing his smile. Suddenly he bent forward and kissed Dalin hotly on the cheek. "Where are my manners, anyway? A lady needs kissing, not hand-shaking!"

  The undressed man laughed, and Erik suppressed a smile.

  "Don't mind our friend Porto here, Sire," Erik said. "He is crude, boorish, often drunk, and always unchaste, but he will help you to stay alive."

  Porto bowed, sweeping one hand in a gallant gesture. "At your service, my queen."

  A new figured appeared in the doorway; a dour young man with hooded eyes.

  "They're sweeping the nearby streets," he said. He glanced briefly at Dalin, and there was no friendliness in the look. "They found his clothing before it could be retrieved."

  "Damn," Erik said. Quickly he nodded his head. "Very well."

  Suddenly even Porto was all business. "Onto the bed, please, Your Majesty," he demanded.

  "What—"

  "Listen to him," Erik said, the fierce urgency his voice had assumed earlier in their relationship returning, "as you did to me. Your life depends upon it."

  Dalin did as he was told, reclining on the bed as Porto thrust two pillows beneath his head. The performer stood studying the king as if he were a picture, before retrieving a third pillow from beneath the bed and propping Dalin's wigged head on it.

  Porto fussed with the wig, and with Dalin's tunic—and then abruptly yanked the king's boots off, followed by his bloomers.

  "How dare you—"

  The King was given a warning glance from Erik, who had produced further objects from beneath the recliner, including a battered metal case and a protuberant thing with straps.

  The young man with hooded eyes reappeared in the doorway. "I'd hurry," he said. "You have twenty minutes, if we're lucky."

  "And we're never lucky!" Porto said with a flourish, barking a laugh at the end. He was fumbling with the protuberant device, loosening the straps before thrusting the apparatus, which looked like a plastic hump, onto the king's bared belly.

  "Turn on your side, Majesty, and let me tighten the straps," Porto said, not waiting for Dalin to respond, but pushing him roughly over and pulling the straps from underneath to attach them to their counterparts on the other side of the hump.

  "Now onto your back again," he ordered, pulling the king over until he lay bedridden again.

  Dalin's anger at this rough treatment exploded. "What are you doing to me?" he shouted.

  Porto froze in mock surprise. "My God!" he said, standing up straight and putting the back of one hand to his forehead. "She does not know! How can this be?"

  "I repeat! What are you doing to me?"

  Porto ignored the king, bending now to study Dalin's legs, from his ankles up to his thighs.

  "Erik, I'll need that . . . thing from the case," he said, pointing impatiently at an instrument in the opened metal case, which Erik removed and handed to him.

  "Now, this may hurt a bit, Your Majesty," Porto began, turning on the device, which hummed like a happy bee.

  "Wait!" Dalin shouted. He sought to rise, but found that he was floundered, beached like a huge animal, caught under the weight and awkwardness of the hump attached to his stomach.

  Porto switched off the device, just as the hooded-eyed young man's voice called out, "Hurry up, damn you!"

  Erik snapped at Porto, "Give him the short version."

  Porto, dramatically serious now, bent over to glare into the king's face and said, "To put it simply, Sire, you are pregnant. In about five minutes, you will have a baby, and you will make a good show of it or the men who come in here will raser you and us on the spot. When I say push, you will push with all your might, as if this appendage on your belly had a real child within it. You will give a performance worthy of awards. I will now shave your legs."

  Before Dalin could utter a word, Porto had switched on the instrument in his hand back on and turned to use it on the king's ankles.

  "Hold still, Sire!" Porto admonished brightly. "I wouldn't want to cut you
!"

  The razor slid high up the inside of one leg, then the other; Dalin gave two squeals of protest but kept still.

  "That's the way, my liege!" Porto shouted. "We'll make a fine woman of you yet!"

  Finishing, Porto tossed the razor to Erik, who thrust it into the case, from which Porto now pulled a makeup kit; with deft fingers he applied powder to the king's legs, then a touch of rouge and lipstick to his features.

  Porto made a face and said, "Still ugly—but now at least you look female."

  "They're coming!" the voice from the doorway warned.

  Downstairs, Dalin heard a loud knocking on the door and a high-pitched squeal from the thing with the metal face.

  Porto splashed his hands with a red substance and then, as Erick gathered the makeup materials into the case and thrust the case beneath the bed, Porto quickly pulled a gown with bloody sleeves and a high collar from beneath the recliner and climbed into it; placing a bloody cap upon his head, he was instantly transformed into a birth-giver.

  "Give me the baby!" Porto demanded, and as something was placed into his hands he leaned over, pushing up and spreading Dalin's legs and shoving the thing in his hands up against the king's privates, which nearly made him yelp.

  On the stairs there came tramping, loud voices, the screeching thing's protest; Dalin glanced quickly over to the doorway to see the young man with the hooded eyes step quickly into the room, his face suddenly filled with mock concern.

  Porto whispered, "Look at me, moan, and push!" For incentive, Porto took a section of Dalin's inner thigh between two fingers and twisted it. "Ohhhhhhhhh!" Dalin said.

  "That's it!" Porto shouted, shoving the thing in his hands hard between Dalin's legs. "I can see the head! Push!"

  Dalin strained, making his face red; suddenly he felt as if he were giving birth, and his moans became loud and real, his pushing genuine.

  In his effort he could see little; but there were sounds in the room, rough voices, and then a slight glimpse from the corner of his eye of a hard face in a dark helmet, peering close.

  "Ugh," the face said, turning away. "Looks the way my old lady did."

  "Nothing for us here," the same voice said a moment later, as Dalin continued to cry out and push, his eyes filled with tears now.

  He continued to strain, even as Porto's voice, filtering through the pain, said, "It's all right! You can stop!"

  The pressure was removed from Dalin's middle; and suddenly he did stop, breathing hard, feeling the flush recede from his face as laughter broke out in the room.

  "Behold!" Porto cried, climbing up from between Dalin's legs and holding up the bloodied head of a child's doll, which he manipulated with his clever fingers, making it look real. "I give you the new king!"

  Even the dour young man with hooded eyes, who had retreated to his post in the doorway, began to laugh.

  Laughing himself, Porto bent back down over Dalin and shoved the severed toy head into the crook of his arm, cradling it there.

  "Your child, Sire! Congratulations!"

  The king's own laughter blossomed with the others'.

  After a moment, Erik approached the bed, smiling his approval, and said, "Congratulations are in order, Your Majesty. You have given birth today. To your own life!"

  Chapter 13

  "It never ceases to amaze me," Prime Cornelian said, "how dank your tastes are."

  Sam-Sei, Machine Master, merely grunted.

  "You realize, of course, that you are the only creature alive on the Four Worlds who can grunt at me and live," Prime Cornelian said.

  Again Sam-Sei grunted, without cognizance of humor.

  Prime Cornelian laughed, and now shook his insect's head.

  "The driest of the Four Worlds," he said, continuing to chuckle, "and you manage to find a damp place in it. I am astounded."

  Prime Cornelian swiveled his head to take in the subterranean chambers where the Machine Master worked. There was almost no light, a bit of natural illumination leaking in through four horizontal slits, one set at the top of each wall, meekly adding to the bare artificial light washing across the high ceiling. This left the damp chamber in levels of shadow. The sandstone walls were driveled with dampness.

  The chamber was filled with equipment from five or six ages; some of it looked like museum relics, collections of old beaten metals, ancient parts and dials and switches mingled with sleek field generators, a wall prognosticator, the remnants of failed new technologies and dreams yet unborn. The floor was a tangle of old optical cables thick as wrists, broken parts, rodent leavings. The quiet scurrying of the small animals was just evident, off in the corners.

  Prime Cornelian tsked. "As I said, astounding."

  "There's nothing astounding about it," Sam-Sei replied after a moment in his gravelly, low, considered, always-serious voice. "It!s merely that one of the Syrtis aquifers happens to run beneath this property. The builders did not know it, I'm sure, when this sandstone monstrosity was built."

  Prime Cornelian ran a thin fingertip across the wall, making a metallic sound and producing a tiny drop of moisture, which hung off the metal nail before falling.

  "And yet you prefer it down here in the bowels of Mars."

  "I prefer the lack of attention," Sam-Sei answered immediately, as if the question had been foolish.

  "Indeed," Prime Cornelian said. He produced another tiny drop of water from the wall, then flicked his long finger to disgorge it. Immediately to his left stood a rank of thickly metaled cabinets, filled with fluid; in one of them, fronted with thick, now-darkened glass, stood suspended Cornelian's former, human body, grotesquely twisted in the last throes of Puppet Death.

  The thought of it made something turn sour deep within the recesses of his mechanical carcass.

  "You wish to view it?" Sam-Sei said idly, without malice.

  "No," Cornelian answered. He turned his full attention to Sam-Sei, whose back was still to him. "I'm told you have something to show me."

  "Yes," Sam-Sei said simply.

  "Show it to me now."

  The tone of authority was direct and obvious, and yet Sam-Sei still took his time in turning around. Prime Cornelian had yet to decide if the man, who always acted in this fashion, was entertaining conscious contempt in such gestures, or if his mind was merely not capable of tearing itself from whatever problem was in front of him. Prime Cornelian preferred the latter explanation, though he imagined that at some point in the future he would become truly angry rather than amused, which would, of course, end Sam-Sei's life.

  Prime Cornelian was about to say something when Sam-Sei turned around.

  His appearance was always startling, and it occurred to Prime Cornelian briefly—though inconsequentially, since Prime Cornelian had long ago given up vanity as one of the weaker vices—that the Machine Master might act toward the rest of creation the way he did out of self-loathing of his own image. His thin visage was unnaturally ugly, the forehead grossly high back to a balding pate of lank, long yellow-gray hair which always appeared in need of both cutting and washing. His skin was wan, almost sallow, though more white than yellowish, and deeply pocked, especially around the eyes and in the sunken cheeks, with another nest of pit marks in the hollow of his throat above the Adam's apple. His eyes were sunk in hollows and were a brackish color, the whites bleeding sickly into the irises.

  But it was his mouth, where the lips had been snipped away, that made him most grotesque. In some sense it might also explain his somber tone of voice, which contrasted so vividly with his perpetual, horrid, bad-toothed, uncontrollable smile.

  The rest of his body, now covered with a simple frock coat, was nearly as horribly maimed, acid-burned, and grotesque as his face, Prime Cornelian knew.

  It had led Prime Cornelian once, and only once, to ask the Machine Master why he had not changed his appearance; had not altered it to suit his mood or—that word again—vanity; had not, in short, performed the same sorts of metallic procedures on himself that he had p
erformed on Prime Cornelian. "I have no vanity," Sam-Sei had said, "only humility."

  Understanding neither, Prime Cornelian had let the matter drop. Yes, the Machine Master said now, I do have something to show you."

  Prime Cornelian raised two of his hands and brought them together with anticipated satisfaction. "Well, then?"

  Sam-Sei turned his back once more, which nearly filled Prime Cornelian with the kind of rage that might make him one day tear the Machine Master limb from limb. But the pause was only momentary, as Sam-Sei hit an ancient switch. There was a pause, and then a thin, rodlike shimmer of light in the middle of the room between Prime Cornelian and Sam-Sei, and then—nothing.

  "Well?" Prime Cornelian said. He pointed at the long bar of light, stretching six feet up from the floor. "Is this what you have to show me—a bar of light?"

  Sam-Sei did not turn around. Finally he said, "Hardly that."

  "Then—"

  The rod of light broadened and deepened into three-dimensionality. It took on a soft, fiery outline, indistinct hands, arms, legs, two booted feet. The head was oval and smooth, featureless, hatless.

  "All right, then," Prime Cornelian said, fascinated but still mildly annoyed. "A man of light."

  "Not just a man," the Machine Master said. He turned, giving Prime Cornelian that mild shock at his appearance again. He held a thin wafer of metal, something on which he manipulated.

  Quick as lightning, the pale fiery figure flew across the room, passed Prime Cornelian, and drove itself into a far corner. In a moment there was another streak of light past Prime Cornelian, and the creature of light stood in its original position, calmly holding four rodents by the tail, two in each hand.

  Prime Cornelian clapped his two foremost hands, showing mock joy. "You've done it, Sam-Sei! After centuries of toil by countless thousands, you've built a better mousetrap!"

  Unperturbed, Sam-Sei drew his hand over the metal wafer and the creature of light abruptly dropped the rodents.

  "Perhaps not. . . ." Prime Cornelian said. But now as the long, thin, pinkish gray Martian rodents hit the floor, crouching stunned for a moment before starting to scurry off into the four corners of the room, the light-man, in four successive motions even quicker than those previously shown, moved into the four corners and then stood quietly back in his original spot.