Mutants

by Robert Silverberg

  …Except that deep in your core a little pack of humans use you as an ark for their own purposes. You carry them back to a world that once—so staggeringly long ago—belonged to their kind; you carry them back so that they may eventually—who knows?—fill another world with their own kind.

  For remember, there is always plenty of time.

  Ozymundicis

  Terry Carr

  One of Terry Carr’s special intertsts is Egyptology; a book that he turns to again and again is Howan I Carter’s The Tomb of Tut-ankh-amen, the famous account of ihi discovery of the boy-Pharaoh’s tomb in Egypt’s royal graveyard t ear Thebes. Here he transfers the Egyptian past to our future and s wws us a world in which civilization has collapsed, in which mank nd has mutated into many strange forms, in which the treasures of ar tiquity are sought by mutant grave robbers hoping to discover yesterda y’s marvels.

  They came up out of the grounds ars howling and leaping, laughing and pushing, singing into the nig it a strange, tuneless, polyphonal chant. They proceeded past the markers and twice around them, still giggling and chanting, and spread out in a wavering line that went up the hill like a snake. It to< >k them ten minutes to go from the markers to the boundary, a distam e of no more than fifty paces for a walker—but these were not walkei s, they were robbers, and they had the laws to follow.

  Sooleyrah was in the lead, bea use he was the best dancer among them—the most graceful and quick and, even more important, the most inventive. No approach to tl ie vaults could be made in just the same way any had buen made to fore, and if the watcher, who was always second in line, noticed a pattern developing that he thought he might have seen before, it was his job to trip the leader, or shove him, or kick him, or whatever was necessary to shake him into a new rhythm or direction. On those raids when the leader invented enough new variations, and the watcher made sure there were no repeats from the past, then they had a successful raid. When leader and watcher failed, there were explosions, blindings, gases, and sometimes the sound-without-sound, and then there was death.

  But Sooleyrah was in good form tonight, and even Kreech, who was watcher, had to admit that.

  “Go good,” he chanted. “Go good, good, good, go good.” Then he tripped Sooleyrah, but only for the fun of it, and danced in a circle till the leader bounded up and continued.

  “Watchers got easy, yeah easy,” Sooleyrah sang. “Easy trip leader, no reason; damn no reason.” He did a double-back step and whirled, his flying foot narrowly missing Kreech’s mouth.

  “Reason next time,” he sang, and laughed.

  Behind him, Kreech did the whirling step, just missing the next in line, and he too laughed; then the third man followed it, and the kick and laugh traveled back down the hill, undulating in the darkness. Sooleyrah, slim and graceful and dark-bearded, did a slide, three jumps, then roiled on the ground, leading always upward, toward the vaults. They stood black and distant against the night sky at hill-crest, jagged storehouses of darkness.

  “Don’t matter anyway,” Kreech told him. “Don’t matter, Sooleyrah, don’t leader matter. Go good, go bad, no difference.” He rolled, following Sooleyrah up the hill, and the small bells he carried in his tattered shirt pocket tinkled dully. “You heard he said, don’t matter.”

  “Hell damn, yeah,” Sooleyrah sang. “Damn yeah, damn fat boy, damn he knows.” He paused, straining on tiptoe to look back down the line. The fat boy was only a little way behind them, puffing and gasping already as he tried to follow the upward dance; he wasn’t accustomed to it, as anyone could see. His gray-washed tunic was splotching dark with sweat; his hair, cut short at ear-length, fell in sweat-strings down his forehead.

  Kreech paused, turned, looked back, and so did the next man, and the next, and so on until the one in front of the fat boy turned suddenly to stare at him; and the fat boy yipped, startled, then caught on to it and turned to look back himself.

  Sooleyrah laughed again, and returned to his dance. “Damn fat boy no good anyway,” he sang. “No good, know nothing, no good, know nothing.”

  “Hell damn yourself,” Kreech sa id. “Damn fat boy almost a thinker. Damn almost.”

  Sooleyrah snorted, and did a particularly difficult series of jump-steps deliberately for the confouading of the almost-thinker back down the line. “Damn-almost as gc od as nowhere, nowhere,” he sang. “That’s thinkers now anyway, nowhere, nowhere. Nowhere.”

  “Except fat boy,” Kreech said.

  “Hell fat boy,” Sooleyrah said, lapsing from song in his disgust. “Fat boy don’t know, but you know, I know. Vaults still there—there!”—he pointed up the hill, still dancing—“so what’s fat boy know? So we dance, we sing, careful, damn careful.”

  They were halfway up the hill now, the luminescent groundstars merging into a bright mist spread over the valley below, where only occasional widely spaced bones of buildings thrust up into the open night air. The rest of the valley, ill the way to the mountains, was groundstars from here.

  Above them, up the hill, blacki ess grew and deepened with each step, and the massive vaults loome I black against the weak, scattered light of the skystars. The vaults overed the crown of the hill, most of them broken or crumbled or e en exploded by now—the result of centuries of raids by the valley rcbbers. Those that still stood were all empty inside, or so the thinkers had said, but Sooleyrah didn’t believe them. There were always moi $ vaults to open—always had been, always would be. Hell damn foe lishness to say there weren’t, or wouldn’t be.

  If the vaults all became empty, there would be no toys, no star-boxes, no tools to replace those m orn and broken or maybe thrown away dull, and no samesongs or ] ictures or any of the other things that had been stored there for the alley people. Which was ridiculous and unthinkable, and Sooleyrah wo lldn’t think it.

  So he danced on upward, daning to right and left, rolling and tumbling, laughing into the empty air, while behind him, one by one, the others pointed after him to th 5 vaults, and danced and tumbled, and echoes of his laugh faded back iown the line, Lasten, the fat boy, was frighte led. He had never been on a raid before, had never been trained for it. He knew he would make some disastrous mistake at any moment, and then the others would turn on him. Or, if they did get to the vaults without trouble, it would be a night for the Immortals, Probably gas or the sound-without-sound, he thought. Not so afraid of a blinding—least you can get back down the hill from that. But it be something killing for me, yeah.

  Well, he was lucky to be alive anyway: all the other thinkers had been killed the night before. Massacred by the robbers—just lined up in the hubsquare and stoned to death. Oh, the screaming and panic, the ones who tried to run with their ankles hobbled, the manic singing and shouting of the robbers… . Lasten shuddered, hating himself for his cowardice, hating the way he had hidden in an unused basement where groundstars were so thick they made a shimmering fog. Hiding, he had heard all of it anyway, had even seen some of the worst scenes, the most vivid ones; they’d invaded his mind in waves of terror from the thinkers or, sometimes, exultation and a kind of crazed kill-frenzy from the robbers. For Lasten, the fat boy, was a weird, one of the 10 percent of human mutations that managed to live in each generation.

  Some were born with extra toes, or no feet at all; these were the common ones, the ones who lived as easily as anyone else, accepting tithes from the market thieves as they rocked back and forth in the dirt and listened for rumors to sell Others were born already dead or dying, with jellied skulls or tiny hearts unable to support life. And a few, a very few, had extra things that no one else had: not just extra hands or grotesquely oversized private parts (like Kreech, like Kreech), but talents. Lasten’s father, for instance, had had a talent for numbers; he could remember how many seasons ago a thing had happened, or how often it had happened during his lifetime, or even put numbers together in his head to make new numbers. And Soo-leyrah claimed he had a place somewhere in his head where everything was always level, and that was why he
was such a good dancer.

  Lasten could hear people’s minds. Not their thoughts, for people don’t have thoughts inside; Lasten heard emotions and mind-pictures, whatever was strongest in the consciousness of those around him. Red hate, boiling and exploding; sometimes pure fear, blue-white, rigid; sex fantasies that echoed disturbingly in Lasten’s own mind. They came at him unbidden; he couldn’t shut them out when they were really strong, as they had been last night. Blood, blood on the ground, dark blood spurting from crushed skulls, a trail of red where one man had tried to drag his battered body away to safety. And screaming: Lasten had heard the screams of both the killers and the dying, and had found himself, when it was over, huddled in a corner and still screaming himself, his throat hoarse and ragged. He was crying, and he had emptied his stDmach and his bowels simultaneously, helpless to stop either.

  And it had all been unnecessary, because they wouldn’t have killed him anyway. He wasn’t yet a thinker.

  Yeah, only thinkers got the death, only official thinkers. Dumb robbers don’t know I’m a thicker too, just not entered yet. Dumb robbers don’t know hell damn thing.

  Lasten tripped over his feet trying to accomplish a whirling jump-step; he fell gasping to the ground, and for a second he thought he’d lie there, let the line pass him while he caught his breath. But the next in line kicked him sharply, kic ked him again and again, and Lasten moaned and struggled to his f set. He ran weakly to catch up to the line ahead, sweating and whin pering. He knew he’d never get back alive from this raid. Probably n< »ne of them would.

  Should try to get away, roll mt into the dark where they can’t see, maybe they’d go right by. Coul In’t stop to look for me, no; rest of the line has to keep up or the ap noach goes bad, sure it does. Damn dumb robbers.

  But he didn’t have the quid mess to get out of sight before they’d catch him and drag him back i nto line, and he knew it. Yeah, damn dumb robbers were going to g< t themselves killed, blown up, burned—and fat boy thinker Lasten i as going to get killed with them, because he couldn’t get away.

  “Fat boy fell down,” Kreeci laughed, stepping high behind Soo-leyrah’s lead. “Daipell kicked turn, kicked him, kicked him, fat boy got up.”

  Sooleyrah paused, looked ai grily back down the hill. The fat boy was back in line now, clumsily following the steps. Sooleyrah could hardly see him now, they had progressed so far up into the skystar darkness; but the fat boy’s size stood out against the brightness of the valley groundstars below.

  “Fat boy messes up my ap >roach, I’ll kill him, smash him with rocks, rocks,” Sooleyrah cham ed. “Yeah, like the rest, make him a thinker too. No good, any thin cer.” Abruptly he whirled, and did an easy dance-skip straight up the hill. Kreech immediately followed him.

  “Told you leave him back, leave him back,” Kreech sang. “No good dancer, yeah you’re right, damn right. No good for the rest.”

  “Fat boy dances right or I damn smash him with rocks,” Sooleyrah said.

  “We don’t smash nobody if we’re dead too. No good dancer, no good approach, no good at the vaults. Get ourselves dead, because of fat boy.”

  Sooleyrah slowed Ms dancing even more than he already had. He did a waddlestep, then giggled and broke into a tension-high laugh. “Go slow, go easy for fat boy. Go easy so he can follow, so we get into vaults right, no killing tonight. Waddle waddle, kind of dance fat boy does all the time anyway.” He giggled again. “Make sure no killing at vaults, show damn almost-thinker vaults still there. Yeah, let him see for himself, no different from always, always…”

  Kreech leaped forward quickly and tripped him. Their feet tangled together and they both fell, Sooleyrah’s lean form sprawling loosely, Kreech’s bulkier body hitting the sparse grass heavily. Sooleyrah rolled over quickly and was on his feet almost immediately. Kreech grunted and bounded up too.

  “Go bad there,” he sang. “Too much the same, go bad, go lousy. Got to go good, Sooleyrah, go good, go good.”

  The next man in line caught up to them, and he deftly tripped Kreech and fell to the ground beside him, following the lead. Sooleyrah whooped his laughter, whirled and danced on up the hill.

  “Yeah, go good tonight,” he sang. “Just let fat boy thinker see, yeah, then tomorrow we smash him, damn yeah.”

  And it was all so useless, so senseless. Lasten puffed and sweated trying to follow the lead of the man ahead of him in the line, trying to duplicate each movement, each step, every twist or hop or gesture; that was the rule when the robbers went up to the vaults, and if you didn’t follow it they might stop long enough to kill you. Senselessly, uselessly.

  Because it didn’t matter. The whole ritual of the dance-approach, the singsong chanting, the leader and the watcher … all unnecessary. The robbers thought they were conquering taboos by the skill of their dancing whenever they made a successful approach to the vaults, and they thought they’d failed when instead they encountered the vault-fires, the Windings, the deaths … but fat boy Lasten, who had been trained as a thinker, knew better.

  Damn yeah, know better than dumb robbers.

  The robbers could have walked straight up the hill to the vaults, no wandering snakelike line, no jumping and dancing, no chanting. They could have approached any of the vaults, and they would have gotten in without incident … or else they would have been gassed or blinded or killed. Sometimes a raid would get through the Immortals’ defenses, and sometimes it would mean danger and death, but it had nothing to do with the dance or the rituals.

  Yeah, dance it right and you get in, or dance it wrong and you get killed. Stupid, stupid.

  Lasten’s people had been thinkers, the ones who kept the old knowledge, or what remained of it. They knew that the vaults were guarded not by curses or demons, nor by strange magic laws that judged and recorded the dance eps of generations of ignorant vault robbers. No, these vaults had sen protected by the Immortals in ways even the thinkers no lon^ r knew … but it was not magic. There were hidden eyes surrou ling each vault, and they defended against invasion with a variety weapons. Gas was one, explosions were another; that was plain ei ugh. The sound-without-sound was not so simple, nor the blinding 1 hts, but they were all the same, only defenses left to guard the vaults.

  The world that had created lose vaults was gone, destroyed in bombings and explosions and g; es so powerful they had killed most of the Immortals. They scream* and died, screamed and died, until only a handful were left, grubbii among the ruins, their women bearing strange children, and all of rem dazzled by the groundstars that filled the low places everywhere.

  Each spring now, as soon as le thaw was complete, the people of the valley held memorial for th< past and the thinkers told the story.

  The man ahead of Lasten ras waddling now, laughing as he glanced back to see the fat b j follow the lead. Lasten cursed in ragged gasps, but he waddled ter him as the man leaped forward to trip the dancer in front of hi u The two of them fell sprawling to the ground, and giggled and laug ^d as they rose.

  “Hey yeah, fat boy,” the dan t ahead of him sang, “come get me, fat boy, your turn to trip ole S arksey,” and he danced in a circle, waiting, giggling, challenging.

  Lasten sucked harsh air into ds lungs, gathered what strength he had and ran forward to swing leg and trip the man. But his aim was short; he felt himself falling )ff balance, saw Sharksey’s face suddenly angry, and then he was on the ground gasping weakly, and Sharksey muttered “Sisterson!” and leaped upon him.

  The man’s weight was not great, but the impact knocked the rest of Lasten’s wind out of him. He moaned weakly, hardly feeling the elbows Sharksey was wielding freely as he rolled off him and got to his feet. “Damn lousy fat Lasten, should’ve been made a thinker so you’d be killed too. No good dancer, damn no good. Get us all killed, yeah, only maybe we kill you, kill Lasten, hey kill fat boy, yeah? Yeah? Unless you get up, fat boy, up right now, right now!”

  And Lasten struggled to his feet while Sharksey continued to dance aroun
d him cursing and threatening. He stood up shuddering, and Sharksey sang, “Okay, dance it right, dance right… oh yeah, or we kill you, Lasten, and you know it, you know it, don’t you?” He laughed, whirled and danced on upward to follow the others.

  Lasten watched him go, seeing him through a red mist like crimson groundstars swarming around his head. In his mind he still felt the throbbing hatred, the promise of death that was more than just promise; Sharksey really wanted to kill him. He gasped in air, and the mist began to dissipate—and suddenly his legs were cut from beneath him as the next dancer in line leaped forward to trip him in his turn. Again he was on the ground, but this time, driven by fear of the anticipation he’d felt from Sharksey’s mind, he got up quickly and danced, or lurched, or shambled step by step up the hill after the line.

  No more mistakes for Lasten, no, he told himself. Dancing don’t matter to the Immortals, but it does to the filthy robbers, murdering robbers, and they’ll really kill you, won’t make no difference why you die.

  But damn them, damn them forcing me here when I’ve told them the vaults are empty.

  Sooleyrah had reached the gates now. There had once been a strong wall here, he’d heard that, but it was virtually demolished by generations of robbers who had torn it down barehanded, stone by stone, and the stones were littered all around, some scattered back down the hill where they’d rolled or been thrown. Fifteen or twenty yards to the right was a pit where once a bad dancer had caused an explosion. Of the wall only the gates remained, twin steel markers pitted and rust-flaking with age. Night moss had crept up the sides of the gates, half covering them with dark-green fur. Overhead the cold skystars hung silently.

  “Okay, we go in,” Sooleyrah chanted. “We go in, go in—hey we go in now!” And he danced forward, through the gates, as quickly as he could (many robbers had been killed there, though none within Soo-leyrah’s memory), and on the other side, the inside, he paused and did shuffle-steps, humming a high keening song while Kreech and one, two, three more followed him through.