“I can deny it two ways,” Tedesco said. “First, by logic. Does it seem reasonable to you that any group of men would have spent the time necessary to handcraft a sea of jewels as an offering to their god? The task would have taken centuries.”
“It is not completely beyond the bounds of reason,” Jask insisted.
“That is neither here nor there,” Tedesco said. “I know the real truth behind the jewel sea.'' Fumbling with the concepts as if they were heavy stones, he tried to explain to Jask the nature of biological warfare and the purpose of the bacteria jewels.
When he had finished, Jask shook his head doubtfully, though his response was not nearly so violent as it would have been only a day or two earlier. Jask supposed he had become corrupt without ever taking notice. Tedesco, on the other hand, supposed he was gaining a bit of insight, at last. Jask said, “Even if what you've told me is true — a possibility I reject, you understand — what good will this new theology do us?”
“It is not just another theology,” Tedesco said patiently. “It is the truth; it is history.”
“Still, we are without succor, without friends, without any place we can be safe and call home. One interpretation of events seems little more valuable than the other.” He sat down again, too weary to stand any longer, despite the nagging stiffness in his haunches. “So where do we go from here?”
“To find the Black Presence,” Tedesco said. He spoke as casually as he had during dinner, as if the proposal was not in the least bit mad. But it was, of course: mad, insane, maniacal.
“Chasing a fairy tale?” Jask asked, disgusted.
The bruin, however, remained calm and sure of himself. “It is no fairy tale. When mankind withdrew from interstellar space and fell back on his own world, the telepathic aliens he had encountered dispatched a creature to keep watch over us and to monitor our evolution. When we begin to show signs of acquiring psionic abilities — especially telepathy — this creature is to contact its own kind and lead us into full association with other advanced races. Mankind will then be ready for the stars. In fact, you and I, with our telepathic talents, are evidence that the time has come for mankind to grow up.”
“But we are no longer men,” Jask said. “We're tainted.” He spoke with great sadness, aware that he had at last come to accept his inferior status.
The bruin's patience evaporated in a flame of anger. He scowled, twisting his lips back from sharp teeth. “Perhaps you are no longer a man,” he said. “I would say you never were one. But I've always been a man, am a man, and will face this challenge as a man should.''
After that neither of them spoke for a long while. They watched the bright walls shimmering around them, absorbed the silence of the vault and became, themselves, fragments of quietude. Jask waited for an apology to balance what he considered an outrageous fit of pique on the other's part. Tedesco waited, too, but not for an apology. He waited for some sign that Jask was finally prepared to face the reality of their situation with more than unrelieved pessimism. In the end it was Jask who proved the weaker and who spoke first.
“You said the Black Presence was placed here to wait and watch us.”
Tedesco said, “Yes.”
“If it did exist, it must have been destroyed during the Last War.”
“It would have been well protected against destruction; it would have been impervious to human weapons.”
Jask thought a moment and said, “Even so, it must have died a natural death after all these thousands of years.”
“Perhaps its lifespan is enormous, compared to ours; a thousand years might pass for it as a day passes for you and me. Or maybe it was relieved of its duty by another observer.”
“You have all the answers,'' Jask said. “Yet I doubt you can explain why, if this Black Presence was put here to wait for mankind to develop extrasensory perception, it has not shown itself by now. You and I are not the only espers. Others have been found and executed numerous times in the last few years.''
Tedesco frowned, for this was the most difficult thing to explain. He had wrestled with the problem himself, many times, and had settled on an answer, though it was admittedly a weak one. Replying to Jask, however, he made himself sound doubtless and sure. “You wouldn't expect the Presence to keep a watch on every man and woman alive, would you? It must observe in a selective manner, choosing subjects here and there. It has apparently not yet encountered an esper. And until our numbers become substantial and organized instead of few and scattered, it might continually overlook us. I want to locate the Black Presence and force it to study us and accept us. I want the stars for myself, as well as for my children.”
Somewhat sarcastically, Jask said, “I suppose you have a map to find this mythological observer.''
Tedesco surprised him by saying, “Not just a single map— but three.” He turned and rooted in his rucksack, produced three sheets of yellowed vellum and placed them on the floor in front of him. “I have studied the legends of the Black Presence ever since my own psionic abilities began to grow. I've concluded it must be stationed in one of three places: in the Black Glass craters, in the Glacier of Light, or beneath the waters of Deathpit.”
“And how have you centered the search on these three points?” Jask inquired. “By drawing lots or tossing coins?”
“These three seemed the most reasonable of the hundred places mentioned in the legends. Besides, I have a faint precog ability; using that, I've sensed an aura of success in these three places.”
Jask unfolded the three maps and studied them. Each was richly illuminated with dragons and other netherworld creatures. He said, “Each of these places — the craters, the glacier, the pit — is in another quarter of the continent, and each is terribly far from here. Do you propose to travel through the Wildlands, through kilometers of beast-infested places, and through areas where other Pure enclaves will be looking for us?”
“I do propose it,” Tedesco said. “And I'm pleased to hear you use the plural—'us.' ”
“I may not go along,” Jask said quickly.
“What other options have you?” the bruin asked.
13
The party in the outer rooms of the General's enormous suite had been a raucous one, leaving much debris in its wake. Originally intended as a celebration of the General's success in apprehending and executing the two espers, it became a means of concealing the lack of that success. Much was eaten, much was drunk, much was spilled and wasted. The guests talked animatedly about the General's ruthlessness in driving the tainted fugitives into the Chen Valley Blight. Rather than permit them a quick death, the assembled guests philosophied, he had forced them into the realm of the Ruiner where they would suffer for untold years, growing constantly more contaminated; this was a far better end for such creatures than a merciful shot from the power rifles.
When the guests had gone, and when the suite lights had been lowered, the sanitation robots rolled out of their wall niches and scurried this way and that, like steel rats, nibbling at the refuse, scraping and scooping and scrubbing and polishing until the great man's home sparkled, fresh and new again. They would feed the collected waste into the central recycler of the fortress, where it would be reprocessed and packaged for reuse. Still, what the guests had enjoyed was original stock, supplied by prewar men — and what would be produced from the salvage was greatly inferior to what had been so carelessly consumed.
When the guests left, the General informed Merka Shanly, the party was still not over. It would be moved to the master bedroom.
At his request she had disrobed. She undressed him, slowly, as he liked. She permitted him — indeed, encouraged him — to fondle her slim and curveless legs, her deliciously flat buttocks, her narrow waist, the swell of her heavy breasts. He had loved the deathly whiteness of her skin in which the veins could be seen like deeply buried wires, and she had let him kiss that skin wherever he found it most pleasing. She had ministered to him in every way she knew, had played the mount to his r
ider and had brought him off. Afterward he rolled away from her, as a man might leave a dinner table where he has gorged himself, ignored her, drew his knees up to his broad chest and fell into a deep, untroubled sleep.
Merka Shanly was disappointed on two counts. First of all, she had expected a General to be a good lover, to know where to touch her and how to move her in order to bring her into her own time of joy. Instead he had been one of the worst lovers she had experienced, cold and aloof, all the heat of him concentrated in his stiffened member, a demanding heat that did nothing to warm her. But beyond that disappointment lay another, more serious. She had never expected to see a General, a man of responsibility to his people, wasting the precious prewar stores of food and other goods as they had been wasted at the party that night. He was less considerate of the future than any of his subjects. This last disappointment became a lingering anxiety that would not permit her sleep.
She slid out of bed.
Nude, she went into the main lounge of the palatial suite, padded across the thick carpet and commanded the shielded windows to become clear.
In moments they changed from mirror-black to clear glass and gave her a panoramic view of the night sky, the brilliant stars and the gibbous moon. Beneath these celestial bodies lay the tainted village where she had been only that morning, the forest and the mutated landscape of the Chen Valley Blight just beyond, the home of the Ruiner.
She, unlike the General and his subordinates, questioned whether the espers would be doomed in that place. They were, after all, already children of the Ruiner What purpose would that evil god have in corrupting them further? Better, he would send them out into other borderlands where his power was incomplete, in hopes they would corrupt other of Lady Nature's creatures.
She sat on the fur-covered couch next to the windows, her bare flesh made more lovely by the bluish light of the moon, and she stared at the stars, trying to decide what she wanted her future to be like. Clearly she could use her desirable body and her willingness to perform with it to hold the General in her influence for years to come; he had repeatedly told her that she was the most uninhibited woman he had ever taken. Yet, if the enclave continued to ignore the need for an austerity program— as they would under this thoughtless General — those few good years would be followed by starvation, degeneration and death. It appeared that if anyone were to stop this waste and make plans for continuation of the enclave once the stores had been depleted, she would have to be that one. That meant, besides bedding the General regularly, she would have to plot against him and, eventually, remove him from office.
Soon she would have to become a General herself.
She felt lonely. Cold.
Looking at the stars, however, she knew, with a sudden and fanatical certainty, that her Lady Nature would favor whatever connivances, lies and acts of violence she might be forced to employ in order to put her enclave onto the holy path again. Lady Nature loved them and did not want to see them wither and perish merely because so many of their leaders were blind fools and self-serving bureaucrats.
Merka rose from the sofa after more than an hour of spiritual self-searching and walked into the bedroom. She stood over the General, aware that she could go find a knife right now and murder him in his sleep, with no opposition. He would not even have an opportunity to scream or throw up his hands to ward off the slashing blade. But the ascendance to power had to be more gradual and more subtle than that. Besides, she would require a power base, sympathizers and assistants in the enclave government who would swear their allegiance to her and ensure her own promotion when this General — passed on. That would take weeks, most likely months, to accomplish. Meanwhile, she would have to worry most about the General's continued lust for her. When the time was ripe for assassination, she would need to be next to him, where she could strike suddenly and cover up the traces of her villainy before the news was made public. The simplest way to keep in his graces was to make him dependent on her favors.
She perfumed herself as he liked.
She stood before the mirror and brushed her luxuriant dark hair.
At the bed she pulled back the covers.
He did not wake.
With her mouth, but without words, she bent over him and awakened him to the night and to his need.
14
On the morning following their narrow escape from the Pure soldiers, Jask and Tedesco woke in the blue-green room, ate a cold breakfast that lay heavy on their stomachs, and began their trek through the jeweled sea, down corridors of dazzling color, through chambers like melting rainbows. Several times, they came to dead ends or to a narrowing of the way through which the bulky mutant could not pass, and they were forced to retrace their steps, exploring alternate passageways.
Often, they stepped from the end of a corridor into a pocket of open land where scraggly grasses grew and, sometimes, scrawny trees struggled for existence. Why the bacteria jewels, which towered for forty meters and more on all sides, had not closed in, neither Jask nor Tedesco could guess.
In these places Tedesco took compass readings and consulted his maps, chose the direction they would take when leaving the patch of land and returning to the jewels. Here, too, they performed their toilet without feeling as if they were fouling some wondrous artifact.
Shortly after noon, as they sat down in the middle of one of these clearings to rest, Jask said, “I can't go any farther today.''
“Have to,” Tedesco said. “If we don't make good time, we could be in these formations when our supplies run out. And as you've seen, there's precious little to eat around here, except an occasional plot of grass.”
As they progressed through the jeweled tunnels, Jask had carried his cloak over his arm, dressed only in the stretch-fit, neck-to-toe jumpsuit that all the Pures wore. In the clearings, where they rested, he folded the cloak under him like a pillow, to protect his bruised backside. Now, perched upon this pillow, his scrawny legs outstretched before him, he said, “I ache all over, legs and arms and back and neck. I haven't any strength to go on.”
Tedesco said nothing, but stood and used his compass, consulted his various maps, pondered things a while and finally decided on the proper direction for their departure. “Come along,” he said.
Jask did not move.
“Get up, now,” Tedesco said. And there was more than cajolery in his voice; he spoke with a tone of command.
“I really can't,'' Jask protested. “My ankles are swollen. My thighs are knotted like ropes, and my kidneys ache.”
The bruin stalked across the clearing and stood over him. “My own feet are hot and sore,” he told Jask. “But I'm not giving up here.”
“Your discomfort can't match mine,” Jask said. “You're built to take this kind of punishment, clambering through those tunnels and pacing off kilometer after kilometer.”
“You Pures, with all your holy disdain for 'tainted' genes have inbred yourselves to the point of uselessness. I see that. I understand. But I'm not letting you stay behind.”
Jask smiled bitterly.
He continued to massage his swollen legs, and he said, “Then you'll just have to carry me.”
Tedesco did not smile at all. He said. “I won't carry you my friend. I have my own rucksack to worry with.”
“Then—”
Tedesco lifted one of the prewar power rifles he had stolen from the General's men and aimed it dead center at Jask's chest. He said, “I'll kill you before I go.”
Even the bitter smile slid away from the smaller man's face as he stared up into the incredibly large barrel of the power rifle. He said, “You've no reason to kill me.”
“Yes, I have,” the bruin said. “I wouldn't want to leave you here to starve — or to get lost in the jewels and eventually go mad. One does not permit such an end for his friends. If I must leave you behind, I'll kill you and get your suffering over with quickly. Otherwise my conscience would always bother me.”
Jask shifted his gaze from the rifle barrel to
the deep-set, dark eyes under the shelf of the mutant's brow, and he read the truth in those eyes. Painfully he got to his feet, picked up his cloak and said, morosely, “Lead the way.”
Tedesco led the way.
Jask wondered if Lady Nature might not exert at least a little influence in this place — for he could not imagine who else would have such a reason or power to make him suffer.
For more than an hour they climbed the steep corridors, bathed in ethereal flames that were not hot, cooled by green trees that were only illusions without real substance or shadow, crisped orange here, iced blue there. They crossed silver-black chambers where the ceilings were cathedral and the mood was sinister, and they wriggled on their bellies — Tedesco pushing his huge rucksack ahead — down brown and purple corridors barely high enough for them to squeeze through. Cresting up-sloped hallways, they found themselves stumbling down tilted floors while kaleidoscopes crackled into new forms and hues beneath their feet. They tripped and fell, often, but they got up again and went on, holding to the bright walls for support, sweat-dampened fingers slipping from handholds that had seemed safe, grasping uselessly at jeweled projections that might help to break their falls. They came to chasms that separated one arm of the tunnel from the next, looked down into meters and meters of fire, into hellish pits where animals made of light danced in maniacal glee to entertain them, puffing out of existence as new species of animals, new colors, flickered into “life” for a brief moment and were gone in their turn. Sometimes they climbed down these jagged chasms and crossed the unpolished floors where faults lay like traps, concealed by the interplay of color. Once crossed, they climbed the other side and went rapidly forward to meet the next such obstacle — not because they enjoyed the challenge, but because each one put behind them meant one less to face ahead. Other times, if the walls of the gorge were too steep to permit descent, they used ropes and hooks to construct a fragile bridge from the lip of one precipice to the other. But always they went on: Tedesco because he had to; Jask because he was afraid to stop and be shot.
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