Jary stopped and turned back to look at him. And Corouda realized that the expression on his face was not gratitude, but something closer to hatred.
"All right, you're safely across. I'll wait here for you."
Jary stood alone in the darkness on the far side of the Split, pinned in the beam of Orr's headlamp. He nodded, breathing hard, unsure of his voice.
"You know your way from here, and what to do. Go and do it." Orr's voice was cutting; Orr was angry again, because Etchamendy had supported Soong-Hyacin's complaint.
Jary reached down for the carrying case at his feet. He shut his eyes as he used his hand, twitched the strap hurriedly up onto his shoulder. He turned his back on Orr without answering and started on into the cave.
"Don't come back without them!"
Jary bit down on the taste of unaccustomed fury and kept walking. Orr was sending him into the cave totally alone to bring back more trogs, to complete his penance. As if his stiffened, bandaged hands weren't enough to convince him how much of a fool he'd been. He had lost half his supper on the ground because his hands could barely hold a spoon … he would catch hell for his clumsy lab work tomorrow … he couldn't even have the comfort of touching his stones. Orr didn't give a damn if he broke both his legs, and had to crawl all the way to the cave's heart and back … Orr didn't care if he broke his neck, or drowned in radioactive mud—
Jary stopped suddenly in the blackness. What was wrong with him; why did he feel like this—? He looked back, falling against the wall as the crazy dance of his headlamp made him dizzy. There was no echoing beam of light; Orr was already beyond sight. Deliberately he tightened his hands, startling himself back into reason with a curse. Orr wouldn't have made him do this if he thought it would get him killed; Orr hated waste.
Jary pushed himself away from the wall, looking down at the patches of dried mud that still caked his suit. Most of it had fallen off as he walked; his dosimeters barely registered what was left. He started on, moving more slowly, picking his way across the rubble where the ledge narrowed. After all, he wasn't in any hurry to bring back more trogs; to let Orr prove all over again how futile it had been to turn them loose … how futile his own suffering had been; how futile everything was—
And all at once he understood. It was Corouda. "Corouda—!" He threw the word like a challenge into the blackness. That damned Corouda was doing this to him. Corouda, who had pretended interest to draw him out, and then used false pity like a scalpel on his sanity: telling him that just because he couldn't remember his crimes, he was guiltless; that he was being punished for no reason. Trying to make him believe that he had suffered years of hatred and abuse for nothing. No, he was guilty, guilty! And Corouda had done it to him because Corouda was like all the rest. The whole universe hated him; except for Orr. Orr was all he had. And Orr had told him to bring the trogs, or else. He slipped unexpectedly and fell down, going to his elbows to save his hands. Orr was all he had …
Isthp: We must make the shining mobile understand us. How shall we do it, Mng? They do not sense our communication.
(Thin darkness)
Mng: But they see us. We must show them an artifact … a pressure suit, perhaps; to reveal our level of technology, and our plight, together.
(Mudpools vibrate with escaping gases)
(Patterns of light)
Isthp: Exactly! I will rouse my second Nimble; it is my smallest, perhaps it can still wear a suit … I summon …
(Find the suit, and bear it upward)
(Weave the circle together)
Ahm: We will not allow you to do this. We are the majority; we forbid contact with the alien's mobile. We will stop you if you try it.
(Cold fluid lapping basalt)
Isthp: But its sessile is a creature of good will; even you must admit that, Ahm—it set your mobiles free.
(My patterns are subtle)
(Pulse softly and glow)
Ahm: I saw great shining fingers reaching toward me … fear, hope … to set my mobiles free … But the thing we must communicate is that we wish to be left alone! Let us use the shining mobile as a warning, if the aliens return again. It can make the invisible aliens visible, and let us flee in time.
(Draw in the circle)
(Draw in)
(Strange radiance)
Mng: No, we must ask more! Show it that we are an intelligent life form, however alien. We must seek its help to rescue us from this forsaken place!
(Close the net)
(Mobiles draw in)
(A light in the darkness)
Ahm, Scwa, Tfod, Zhek: No. No.
(Radiance, strange light)
Isthp: Yes, beloved friend Mng—we will have our freedom, and the stars: Look, look with all your mobiles; it shows itself! It shines—
(Strange radiance)
(Light flickering like gamma through galena)
(Hurry! Bear the suit upward)
Ahm: The shining one returns! Take care, take care—
(Patches of radiance flowing closer)
Bllr: Break the pattern, prepare to flee. Make its light our warning.
(It shines)
(Prepare for flight)
(Prepare)
Mng: Make it our hope!
(Patches of radiance)
(It shines)
Echoes of his fall came back to Jary from a sudden distance; he guessed that he must be close to the main chamber already. He climbed to his feet, unable to crawl, and eased past the slick patch of metallic ore. It flashed silver in his light as he looked down, making him squint. The red pathmarkers fell away beyond it; he fumbled his way down the rough incline, half sliding, feeling the ceiling arch and the walls withdraw around him.
Here in the main chamber a firm, ore-veined surface of basalt flowed to meet the water surface of the radioactive depths; here they had found the trogs. He passed a slender pillar bristling with spines of rose quartz, touched one with the back of his hand as he passed. In the distance he saw the glimmer of the water's edge, rising tendrils of steam. His stomach tightened, but he was barely aware of it: in the nearer distance the filigree of ore-veins netted light and a cluster of trogs lay together on the shore. He swept the surface with his headlamp, saw another cluster, and another, and another, their blind, helpless forms moving sedately in a bizarre mimicry of ritual dance. He had never had the chance to stand and watch them; and so he did, now. And the frightening conviction began to fill his mind that he was seeing something that went beyond instinct; something beyond his comprehension. But they were just animals! Even if they cared about what happened to their fellow creatures; even though they had risked death to perform a rescue … it was only instinct.
He began to move toward them, trying to flex his bandaged fingers, trying not to imagine the pain when he tried to keep his hold on a squirming trog body.… He stopped again, frowning, as the trogs' rhythmic dance suddenly broke apart. The small clumps of bodies aligned, turning almost as one to face him, as if they could see him. But that was impossible, he knew they couldn't see a human—
A dozen trogs skittered back and disappeared into the pool; the rest milled, uncertain. He stopped, still five meters up the bank. They were staring at him, he was sure of it, except that they seemed to be staring at his knees, as if he were only half there. He risked one step, and then another—and all but two clumps of trogs fled into the pool. He stood still, in the beginnings of desperation, and waited.
His numb body had begun to twitch impatiently before another trog moved. But this time it moved forward. The rest began to creep toward him then, slowly, purposefully. They ringed his feet, staring up at his knees with the moon-eyed reverence of worshippers. He went down carefully onto one knee, and then the other; the trogs slithered back. They came forward again as he made no further motion, their rudderlike hindquarters dripping mud. They came on until they reached his knees, and began to pluck at his muddy suit legs. He held himself like a statue, trying to imagine their purpose with a mind that had gone
uselessly blank. Long, webbed fingers grasped his suit, and two of the trogs began to climb up him, smearing the suit with fresh mud. He did not use his hands to pull them off, even though his body shuddered with his awareness of their clinging forms. The dials inside the helmet began to flicker and climb.
He shut his eyes—"L-leave me alone!"—opened them again, after a long moment.
Almost as if they had heard him, the trogs had let go and dropped away. They all squatted again in front of him, gazing now at his mud-slimed chest. He realized finally that it must be the radioactive mud they saw—that made his suit shine with a light they could see. Were they trying, in some clumsy way, to discover what he was? He laughed softly, raggedly. "I'm P-piper Alvarian Jary!"
And it didn't matter. The name meant nothing to them. The trogs went on watching him, unmoved. Jary looked away at last as another trog emerged from the pool. He stared as the mud slid from its skin; its skin was like nothing he had ever seen on a trog, luminous silver reflecting his light. The skin bagged and pulled taut in awkward, afunctional ways as it moved, and it moved with difficulty. All the trogs were staring at it now; and as he tried to get to his feet and move closer, they slithered ahead of him to surround the silver one themselves. Then abruptly more trogs swarmed at the edge of the pool; he watched in confusion as the mass of them attacked the silver trog, forcing it back into the mudpool, sweeping the few who resisted with it.
Jary stood waiting in the darkness while seconds became minutes, but the trogs did not return. Bubbles of escaping gas formed ripple-rings to shatter along the empty shore, but nothing else moved the water surface. He crouched down, staring at the tracks of wet mud where the trogs had been, staring down at his own muddy suit.
They weren't coming back; he was sure of that now. But why not? What was the silver trog, and why hadn't he seen one before? Why had the others attacked it? Or had they only been protecting it, from him?
Maybe they had suddenly realized what he was: not Piper Alvarian Jary, but one of the invisible monsters who attacked them without warning.
And he had let them get away. Why, when they had climbed his suit, begging to be plucked off and dropped into his box—? But they had come to him in trust; they had put themselves into his hands, not knowing him for what he was.
Not knowing him.…
And from that moment he knew that he would never tell Orr about the rescue, or the dance, or the silver trog—or the way the trogs had gathered, gazing up at him. Their secret life would be safe with him … all their lives would be safe with him. He touched his muddy suit. Inadvertently they had shown him the way to make sure they could be warned whenever he came again with Orr. Maybe, if he was lucky, Orr would never see another trog.… Jary closed his hands, hardening his resolution. Damn Orr! It would serve him right.
But what if Orr found out what he'd done? Orr might even disown him, for that: abandon him here.… But somehow the thought did not frighten him, now. Nothing they could do to him really mattered, now—because his decision had nothing to do with his life among men, where he lived only to pay and pay on a debt that he could never repay. No matter how much he suffered, in the universe of men he carried the mark of Cain, and he would never stop being Piper Alvarian Jary.
But here in this alien universe his crime did not exist. He could prove what he could never prove in his own world, that he was as free to make the right choice as the wrong one. Whatever happened to him from now on, it could never take away the knowledge that somewhere he had been a savior, and not a devil: a light in the darkness.…
Jary got to his feet and started back up the slope, carrying an empty cage.
The End
© 1977 by Joan D. Vinge. First published in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, summer 1977 issue.
Descending
Thomas M. Disch
Catsup, mustard, pickle, relish, mayonnaise, two kinds of salad dressing, bacon grease, and a lemon. Oh yes, two trays of ice cubes. In the cupboard it wasn't much better: jars and boxes of spices, flour, sugar, salt—and a box of raisins!
An empty box of raisins.
Not even any coffee. Not even tea, which he hated. Nothing in the mailbox but a bill from Underwood's: Unless we receive the arrears on your account.…
$4.75 in change jingled in his coat pocket—the plunder of the Chianti bottle he had promised himself never to break open. He was spared the unpleasantness of having to sell his books. They had all been sold. The letter to Graham had gone out a week ago. If his brother intended to send something this time, it would have come by now.
—I should be desperate, he thought. —Perhaps I am.
He might have looked in the Times. But, no, that was too depressing—applying for jobs at $50 a week and being turned down. Not that he blamed them; he wouldn't have hired himself himself. He had been a grasshopper for years. The ants were on to his tricks.
He shaved without soap and brushed his shoes to a high polish. He whitened the sepulchre of his unwashed torso with a fresh, starched shirt and chose his somberest tie from the rack. He began to feel excited and expressed it, characteristically, by appearing statuesquely, icily calm.
Descending the stairway to the first floor, he encountered Mrs. Beale, who was pretending to sweep the well-swept floor of the entrance.
"Good afternoon—or I s'pose it's good morning for you, eh?"
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Beale."
"Your letter come?"
"Not yet."
"The first of the month isn't far off."
"Yes indeed, Mrs. Beale."
At the subway station he considered a moment before answering the attendant: one token or two? Two, he decided. After all, he had no choice but to return to his apartment. The first of the month was still a long way off.
—If Jean Valjean had had a charge account, he would have never gone to prison.
Having thus cheered himself, he settled down to enjoy the ads in the subway car. Smoke. Try. Eat. Give. See. Drink. Use. Buy. He thought of Alice with her mushrooms: Eat me.
At 34th Street he got off and entered Underwood's Department Store directly from the train platform. On the main floor he stopped at the cigar stand and bought a carton of cigarettes.
"Cash or charge?"
"Charge." He handed the clerk the laminated plastic card. The charge was rung up.
Fancy groceries was on 5. He made his selection judiciously. A jar of instant and a 2-pound can of drip-ground coffee, a large tin of corned beef, packaged soups and boxes of pancake mix and condensed milk. Jam, peanut butter, and honey. Six cans of tuna fish. Then, he indulged himself in perishables: English cookies, and Edam cheese, a small frozen pheasant—even fruitcake. He never ate so well as when he was broke. He couldn't afford to.
"$14.87."
This time, after ringing up his charge, the clerk checked the number on his card against her list of closed or doubtful accounts. She smiled apologetically and handed the card back.
"Sorry, but we have to check."
"I understand."
The bag of groceries weighed a good twenty pounds. Carrying it with the exquisite casualness of a burglar passing before a policeman with his loot, he took the escalator to the bookshop on 8. His choice of books was determined by the same principle as his choice of groceries. First, the staples: two Victorian novels he had never read, Vanity Fair and Middlemarch; the Sayers translation of Dante, and a two-volume anthology of German plays, none of which he had read and few he had even heard of. Then the perishables: a sensational novel that had reached the best seller list via the Supreme Court, and two mysteries.
He had begun to feel giddy with self-indulgence. He reached into his jacket pocket for a coin.
—Heads a new suit; tails the Sky Room.
Tails.
The Sky Room on 15 was empty of all but a few women chatting over coffee and cakes. He was able to get a seat by a window. He ordered from the à la carte side of the menu and finished his meal with espresso and baklava. He
handed the waitress his credit card and tipped her fifty cents.
Dawdling over his second cup of coffee, he began Vanity Fair. Rather to his surprise, he found himself enjoying it. The waitress returned with his card and a receipt for the meal.
Since the Sky Room was on the top floor of Underwood's there was only one escalator to take now—Descending. Riding down, he continued to read Vanity Fair. He could read anywhere—in restaurants, on subways, even walking down the street. At each landing he made his way from the foot of one escalator to the head of the next without lifting his eyes from the book. When he came to the Bargain Basement, he would be only a few steps from the subway turnstile.
He was halfway through Chapter VI (on page 55, to be exact) when he began to feel something amiss.
—How long does this damn thing take to reach the basement?
He stopped at the next landing, but there was no sign to indicate on what floor he was, nor any door by which he might re-enter the store. Deducing from this that he was between floors, he took the escalator down one more flight, only to find the same perplexing absence of landmarks.
There was, however, a water fountain, and he stooped to take a drink.
—I must have gone to a sub-basement. But this was not too likely after all. Escalators were seldom provided for janitors and stockboys.
He waited on the landing watching the steps of the escalators slowly descend toward him and, at the end of their journey, telescope in upon themselves and disappear. He waited a long while, and no one else came down the moving steps.
—Perhaps the store had closed. Having no wristwatch and having rather lost track of the time, he had no way of knowing. At last, he reasoned that he had become so engrossed in the Thackeray novel that he had simply stopped on one of the upper landings—say, on 8—to finish a chapter and had read on to page 55 without realizing that he was making no progress on the escalators.
When he read, he could forget everything else.
Sci Fiction Classics Volume 1 Page 19
