Sci Fiction Classics Volume 1

by Vol 1 (v1. 2) (epub)

  (Silty currents, growing colder as this one rises)

  (Soft darkness above, we rise toward darkness)

  Mng: But its sessile realized our distress. It released your mobiles. It showed good will. We did not know of the aliens' true nature; perhaps they only begin to grasp our own.

  (Silent absence of neutron flux)

  Ahm: But how do we know they would leave us in peace, even then? We have sent our mobiles into the upper darkness to begin the ritual three times already. And three times they have attacked us viciously. We have only six months left. Our mobiles must complete the ritual in the soft upper reaches, or there will be no new sessiles. We are growing old; it takes time to focus the diffision, the obliqueness of a new young mind. We cannot wait until the next Calling. (It grows softer, colder)

  (The bright world dims around us)

  (Grayed, delayed radiation)

  (Only whispers from the neutron clouds)

  Isthp: That is true. But surely we can make them understand.… We must take the risk, in order to gain anything worthwhile.

  (Cool sandy crosscurrents)

  Scwa: And what is there worth risking our wholeness and sanity for that we do not already have? We set out to colonize a new world—and we have done so.

  (Darkness; dimming, whispering darkness)

  (Soft atmospheric spaces, hard basalt)

  Isthp: But we have not! We are trapped in this pocket of light, with barely room to exercise our mobiles, on a dark and hostile world. Every century our lifespace grows less. The ore concentration is only a fluke, undependable. This is not the world you wanted, one like our own that generates perpetual light. There is no future here.

  (Crackling gusts of prompt neutrons)

  (Swept upward, swept upward)

  (Hold back, Swift One, wait for the rest)

  Ahm: What do you propose, then? That we return to our world, where there is no room for us? That we should depend on these alien monsters to take us there?

  (Darkness, blind darkness on all sides)

  (Dim warm radiance of mud)

  Mng: There are not monsters! They might help us find a better world!

  (*****************)

  Kle: We are content here. We are colonists, not explorers; we ask only to be able to breed our mobiles together … such pride, to feel the quickness of body, or the grace of supple fingers; to know that I have chosen the best to breed with … and to meditate in peace.

  (Mud-pools pulse with dim ruby radiance)

  (Smooth basalt … and the rarefied atmosphere of the upper reaches)

  (I perceive that I shine in all my parts)

  Mng: What is the point of breeding the finest mobiles, if they have no purpose? They build nothing for you, they contribute nothing—you are not a whole being; you are a debased breeder of pets. To breed mobiles that can gaze upon the starry universe, that is truly beautiful. If it were possible to breed mobiles like ours which ran the ship, which could perhaps see the true nature of the aliens from the upper darkness—that would be worthy. But we have no way to create anything worthy here.

  (Crackling gusts grow dim and gentle)

  (Push this mobile; currents slip)

  (Bright depths below us now … they halo the mobiles of my radiant friend Isthp, Gamma-shine-through-Molten-Feldspar)

  Ahm: Worthy—breeding artificial mobiles and building artificial machines? Machines that fail, like all ephemeral, material objects.

  Bllr, Rhm, Tfod: Technician Mng!

  Mng: After five hundred years, still you have not reconciled an accident. You are well named, Ahm, who is Darkness-Absence-of-Radiation.

  (Begin first alignment)

  (How they shine … how I shine)

  (Shine against darkness)

  (Shine)

  Ahm: It was spaceflight that brought true Darkness into our lives. It is the purpose of the body's sessile to remain fixed, to seek the perfection of mind and mobile, not to tumble like a grain of silt through the nothingness between worlds.

  (Cluster)

  (Form first pattern)

  (Gray-ruby gleaming mudpools)

  Isthp: The "nothingness" of space is full of light, if one has mobiles to perceive it. Strange radiation, that trembles in my memory still. Technology frees the sessile as meditation frees the soul. So do sessiles become the mobiles of God.

  (All gather, to form the patterns)

  (Heaviness of solid rock density)

  (Beautiful to behold)

  Ahm: Heresy. Heresy! Blasphemer.

  (All gather, my mobiles)

  (True breeding. Fine breeding)

  Mng: Ahm, you make me lose control—!

  (*****************)

  Isthp: Peace, my beloved Mng, Cloud-Music. I am not offended. As our Nimbles differ from our Swifts, so do our very souls differ, one being's from another's. We were never meant to steep quietly in the depths, you and I.

  (Gently, my Strong One, move with control)

  (Vibration ripples lap the shore; mudpools settle)

  (Pass under, pass through)

  Mng: Ahm, you must think of the future generations—why do our mobiles answer the Calling now, but to create new sessiles, who will soon be breeding new mobiles of their own? Our space here will shrink as our numbers increase, and soon it will become like the homeworld … and then, much worse. We do not have the resources, or the equipment, or the time, to restructure our lifespace here. You are selfish—

  (Stray whisper of the neutron breeze)

  (Pressure shifts the rock)

  (Tendrils brushing)

  Zhek: You are selfish! You only wish to return to space, to inflict more danger and discomfort on us all, for the sake of your perverted mechanical-mobile machines.

  (Subtle flow of color on radiant forms)

  (First movement of receptiveness)

  Scwa: I remember dim blackness and killing cold … anguish in all my mobiles, as they bore my sessile container over the pathless world-crust. We have suffered too much already, from the failure of the ship; we few barely reached here alive. I for one am not ready for more trials. Mind the mobiles! Enter a new phase of the pattern …

  (All circle together)

  (Weave nets of life-shine)

  (The patterns multiply)

  Rhm, Tfod, Zhek, Kle: Agreed, agreed.

  Isthp, Mng: We must contact the shining creature!

  Jary lay back on the examining table while Orr checked his body for broken bones and scanned him with a radiation counter. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the empty specimen box, still lying on the floor where Orr had dumped it when he entered the tent. Orr had kept him waiting while he talked with Corouda outside—but so far he hadn't said anything more about the loss of the trogs. Jary wondered how much Corouda had really seen—or whether he had seen anything. No one had ever looked at him the way Corouda had, at the bottom of the cleft … and so he couldn't be sure what it really meant.

  "There's nothing wrong with you that's worth treating." Orr gestured him up. "Hairline fractures on a couple of your ribs."

  Jary sat up on the table's edge, mildly relieved, pressing his bruised hand down against the cold metal surface. Orr was angry; he knew the way every line settled on that unexpressive face. But Orr might only be angry because he'd lost the specimens.

  "Something else bothering you?"

  "Yes—" he answered the graying back of Orr's head, because Orr had already turned away to the storage chests. "You l-let me fall. Didn't you?" He had found the muddy safety line intact, and the unfastened latch at the end.

  Orr turned around, surprised, and looked at him. "Yes, I did. I had to release the rope or you might have dragged me into the crevice with you."

  Jary laughed sharply.

  Orr nodded, as though he had found an answer, "Is that why you did it?"

  "What?"

  "Turned the specimens loose. Because I let you fall—is that it?"

  "No." He shook his head, enduring Orr's pale scruti
ny.

  "Don't lie to me." Orr's expression changed slightly, as Jary's face stayed stubborn. "Warden Corouda told me he saw you do it."

  No—The word died this time before it reached his mouth. His gaze broke. He looked down at his feet, traced a scar with his eyes.

  "So." The satisfied nod, again. Orr reached out and caught his wrist. "You know how important those animals are. And you know how much trouble and risk is involved in bringing them back." Orr forced Jary's hand down onto the shining tabletop, with the strength that was always a surprise to him. Orr picked up a scalpel.

  Jary's fingers tightened convulsively. "They'll g-g-grow back!"

  Orr didn't look at him. "I need some fresh tissue samples; you'll supply them. Open your fist."

  "Please. Please don't hurt my h-hands."

  Orr used the scalpel. And Jary screamed.

  "What are you doing in here, Orr?"

  A sharp and angry woman's voice filled the tent space. Jary blinked his vision clear, and saw Warden Soong-Hyacin standing inside the entrance, her eyes hard with indignation. She looked at the scalpel Orr still held, at the blood pooling in Jary's hand. She called to someone outside the tent; Corouda appeared beside her in the opening. "Witness this for me."

  Corouda followed her gaze, and he grimaced. "What's going on?"

  "Nothing that concerns you, Wardens." Orr frowned, more in annoyance than embarrassment.

  "Anything that happens on our world concerns us," Soong-Hyacin said. "And that includes your torture—"

  "Xena." Corouda nudged her. "What's he doing to you, Jary?"

  Jary gulped, speechless, and shrugged; not looking at Corouda, not wanting to see his face.

  "I was taking some tissue samples. As you can see." Orr picked up a specimen plate, set it down. "My job, and his function. Nothing to do with 'your world,' as you put it."

  "Why from his hands?"

  "He understands the reason, Warden.… Go outside and wait, Piper. I'll call you when I want you."

  Jary moved around the table, pressing his mouth shut against nausea as he looked down at the instrument tray; he slipped past the wardens and escaped, gratefully, into the fresh air.

  Corouda watched Jary shuffle away in the evening sunlight, pulled his attention back into the tent.

  "If you don't stop interfering with my work, Warden Soong-Hyacin, I'm going to complain to Doctor Etchamendy."

  Xena lifted her head. "Fine. That's your privilege. But don't be surprised when she supports us. You know the laws of domain. Thank you, Juah-u.…" She turned to go, looked back at him questioningly.

  Corouda nodded. "In a minute." He watched Orr treat the specimen plates and begin to clear away the equipment. "What did you mean when you said 'he understands the reason'?"

  Orr pushed the empty carrying case with his foot. "I questioned him about the troglodytes, and he told me that he let them loose, out of spite."

  "Spite?" Corouda remembered the expression behind Jary's mud-splattered faceplate, at the bottom of the crevice. And Jary had told Orr that the lock had broken, after they had pulled him up.… "Is that how you got him to admit it?" He pointed at the table.

  "Of course not"—irritation. Orr wiped the table clean, and wiped off his hands. "I told him that you'd seen him do it."

  "I told you I didn't see anything!"

  Orr smiled sourly. "Whether you told me the truth or not is of no concern. I simply wanted the truth from him. And I got it."

  "You let him think—"

  "Does that matter to you?" Orr leaned on the table and studied him with clinical curiosity. "Frankly, I don't see why any of this should matter to you, Warden. After all, you, and Soong-Hyacin, and the other fifteen billion citizens of the Union were the ones who passed judgment on Piper Alvarian Jary. You're the ones who believe his crimes are so heinous that he deserves to be punished without mercy. You sanctioned his becoming my Catspaw—my property, to use as I see fit. Are you telling me now that you think you were wrong?"

  Corouda turned and left the tent, and left the question unanswered.

  Piper Alvarian Jary sat alone on his rock, as he always did. The evening light threw his shadow at Corouda like an accusing finger; but he did not look up, even when Corouda stood in front of him. Corouda saw that his eyes were shut.

  "Jary?"

  Jary opened his eyes, looked up, and then down at his hands. Corouda kept his own gaze on Jary's pinched face. "I told Orr that I didn't see what happened. That's all I said. He lied to you."

  Jary jerked slightly, and then sighed.

  "Do you believe me?"

  "Why would you b-bother to lie about it?" Jary raised his head finally. "But why should you b-bother to tell me the truth.…" He shrugged. "It doesn't matter."

  "It matters to me."

  Something that was almost envy crossed Jary's face. He leaned forward absently to pick up a stone from the pile between his feet. Corouda saw it was a piece of obsidian: night-black volcanic glass with the smoothness of silk or water, spotted with ashy, snowflake impurities. Jary cupped it for a moment in his lacerated palms, then dropped it like a hot coal, wincing. It fell back into the pile, into a chain reaction, cascading a rainbow of colors and textures. Two quick drops of red from Jary's hand fell into the colors; he shut his eyes again with his hands palm-up on his knees, meditating. This time Corouda watched, forcing himself, and saw the bleeding stop. He wondered with a kind of morbid fascination how many other strange abilities Jary had.

  Jary opened his eyes again; seemed surprised to find Corouda still in front of him. He laughed suddenly, uncomfortably. "You're welcome to play with my rocks, Warden, since you let me play squamish. B-but I won't join you." He pushed a rock forward carefully with his foot.

  Corouda leaned over to pick it up: a lavender cobble flecked with clear quartz, worn smooth by eons rolled in the rivers of some other world. He smiled at the even coolness and the solidness of it; the smile stopped when he realized how much more that must mean to Jary.

  "Orr lets me have rocks," Jary was saying. "I started collecting when they sent me to the Institute. If I held still and did what I was told, sometimes somebody would let me go out and walk around the grounds.… I like rocks: They don't d-d-die," his voice cracked unexpectedly. "What did you really see, there in the cave, W-warden?"

  "Enough." Corouda sat down on the ground and tossed the rock back into the pile. "Why did you do it, Jary?"

  Jary's eyes moved aimlessly, searching the woods for the cave mouth. "I d-don't know."

  "I mean—what you did to the people on Angsith. And on Ikeba. Why? How could anyone—"

  Jary's eyes came back to his face, blurred with the desperate pain of a man being forced to stare at the sun. "I don't remember. I don't remember…." He might have laughed.

  Corouda had a sudden, sickening double vision of the strutting, uniformed Jary who had helped to turn worlds into charnel houses … and Jary the Catspaw, who collected stones.

  Jary's hands tightened into fists. "But I did it. I am P-piper Alvarian Jary! I am guilty." He stretched his fingers again with a small gasp; his palms oozed bright blood like a revelation. "Fifteen b-billion people can't be wrong … and I've been lucky."

  "Lucky?" Corouda said, inadequately.

  Jary nodded at his feet. "Lucky they gave me to Orr. Some of the others … I've heard stories … they didn't care who they gave them to." Then, as if he sensed Corouda's unspoken question, "Orr only punishes me when I do something wrong. He's not cruel to me … he didn't have to make sure I wouldn't feel p-pain. He doesn't care what I did; I'm just something he uses. At least I'm useful." His voice rose slightly: "I'm really very grateful that I'm so well off. That I only spend half my time cut up like a f-flatworm, or flat on my back with fever and diarrhea, or vomiting or fed through a tube or cleaning up the guts of d-dead animals—" Jary's hands stopped short of his face. He wiped his face roughly with the sleeve of his coveralls and stood up, scattering rocks.

  "Jary—wait a min
ute." Corouda rose to his knees. "Sit down."

  Jary's face was under control again; Corouda couldn't tell whether he turned his back gladly or only obediently. He sat down hard, without hands to guide him. "You know, if you wanted to be useful …" Corouda struggled with the half-formed idea. "The thing you did for me, testing those plants; the way you can synthesize antidotes and vaccines. You could be very useful, working on a new world like this one."

  Jary gaped at him. "What do you m-m—" he bit his lips. "—mean?"

  "Is there any way Orr would be willing to let you work for some other group?"

  Jary sat silently while his disbelief faded through suspicion into nothing. His mouth formed the imitation of a smile that Corouda had seen before. "It cost too much to make me a b-biochemical miracle, Warden. You couldn't afford me … unless Orr disowned me. Then I'd be nobody's—or anybody's."

  "You mean, he could just let you go? And you'd be free?"

  "Free." Jary's mouth twitched. "If I m-made him mad enough, I guess he would."

  "My God, then why haven't you made him mad enough?"

  Jary pulled his hands up impassively to his chest. "Some people like to l-look at my scars, Warden. If I didn't belong to a research institute, they could do more than just look. They could do anything they wanted to.…"

  Corouda searched for words, and picked a burr from the dark-brown sleeve of his shirt.

  Jary shifted on the rock, shifted again. "Simeu Institute protects me. And Orr n-needs me. I'd have to make him angrier than he ever has been before he'd throw me out." He met Corouda's eyes again, strangely resentful.

  "Piper!"

  Jary stood up in sudden reflex at the sound of Orr's voice. Corouda saw that he looked relieved, and realized that relief was the main emotion in his own mind. Hell, even if Orr would sell Jary, or loan him, or disown him—how did he know the other wardens would accept it? Xena might, if she was willing to act on her rhetoric. But Albe wasn't even apologetic about causing Jary to fall.…

  Jary had gone past him without a word, starting back toward Orr's lab.

  "Jary!" Corouda called after him suddenly. "I still think Piper Alvarian Jary deserved to be punished. But I think they're punishing the wrong man."