John Rackham

by We The Venusians

  The picture was so clear, now, that Anthony could have put a name to the shadowy figure of the "Doctor." But the clarity had brought a new confusion. The mention of machines argued some kind of communication with the Domes. But those people back there had insisted that they knew nothing of educated Greenies, had made it quite clear that they knew the green people as animals, nothing more. He struggled for an answer of some land. Could it be that there were two factions? One the scientific, seeking for reason, and the other the superstitious, shrinking away from these caricature humans? Could that be why the machine had never come back to rescue the lone man? Anthony imagined him stuck here, enduring the heat, waiting and waiting, never knowing what had happened to his wife, and her substitute child, the baby that she had dosed with chemicals to make it white. That would be some variation of anti-tan, of course. A girl-baby, taken back to Earth by a half-demented mother, and allowed to grow up believing

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  herself colored. As she was, but not the way she had believed.

  "What happened to Doctor?" he asked. "To his body, I mean?"

  "Scavenger worms I"

  "And there nothing left, then? Nothing at all to show that a man lived and died here?"

  "Oh yes!" Lovely broke in. "Doctor had a writing. A book. I will get it for you." She scrambled up and stooped to plunge into the cave, returning in just a moment or two with a slimy plastic pouch, smaller than those which held the beans, and clear. As he took it, Anthony could see, dimly, the outline of a black-backed notebook. On opening it he saw, also, that there was a battered briar-wood pipe, gray with fungus, and a plastic lighter. He touched a fiberglas stylus from which the ink had long since departed, and then a very small glassite envelope. It held two spare flints for the lighter, and a coiled lock of golden hair. Anthony touched them all gently. Strange things for a man to treasure and keep in his last moments. He took the notebook and opened It. Only the cover would move, and even it peeled back reluctandy. The rest, the pages of script, were rotted into a solid soggy mass. But the cover was enough. Just inside, the inscription was still legible: T.O. Merrill. Anthony closed the book again.

  "The girl who was with me?" he asked. "Where is she?"

  "She is with our women. She sleeps." The old man frowned very slightly. "There is something wrong with her, in her head. Also with you, but not the same. These are mysteries. You can explain?"

  "I can explain this much. This man"—he indicated the pitiful remains—"sent his woman away with a baby of this people. A female baby, as you have said. The girL she who came with me, is that baby, grown up. Her name, and this name, are the same."

  The old man's face was as expressionless as mossy wood. "This is good. She has come home. But you?"

  Anthony was puzzled. Surely this old man had the wit to put two and two together and find the answer for himself. Then he recalled his colored contact lenses, and smiled wryly. There was no possible point in keeping them in place any longer. He reached for that small envelope, which would

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  serve as well as anything for a place to secure the fragile things. Then he touched a finger-tip to his tongue, and then, delicately, to his eyes. For a few moments he had to sit with his eyes shut until the involuntary tears ceased. Then he was able to lift his head . . . and gasp in astonishment.

  What had been a dim half-light was now pearly radiance, and all colors were startlingly vivid, seemingly imbued with their own flame. It was as if he had been colorblind before, but could now see with new eyes. Then he caught wide-eyed amazement on the faces of the other two. The expression on Lovely's face, in particular, was a glow that made him suddenly warm and uncomfortable. Then, just as before, it gave way to that fleeting look of disappointment, of something he ought to be, but wasn't.

  "Now you are one of us," the old man said. "It is good. You will stay, be with us. This one shall be your woman. She found you."

  "Oh now, wait a bit!" Anthony drew back in instant rejection. He saw the glow on her cheek, a gentle flush of purple, and knew it for what it was, but the swiftness of the decision was too much. "Hold on a bit," he repeated. "There's a lot to be sorted out, first."

  The old face was bleakly calm, and Anthony wondered how he could ever have believed that expression to be one of understanding. He saw it now as absolutely autocratic, a power that expected no argument, nor would bow to any.

  "You are asleep in your head. So, also, is the woman who came with you. This is because you have lived all your life with the humans. This, I know. Doctor, also, was like this. But he was human, an Earth-man. You, and the woman, are of us and like us. We will wake you up."

  There was no menace in the tone or the words, but Anthony cringed, inside, from the implications. Whatever it was the old man meant, he didn't like the sound of it one little bit. He got up from his kneel, took a step back, and then something made him look round. Where the scene had been deserted and quite quiet, the mossy slope down to the water and the distant groves of standing trees barren of people, he now saw a host. They were all at a distance, all merely standing and watching, but they were there. And he had seen nothing in the way of a sign or command, but

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  he knew beyond any doubt that the old man had summoned them. He turned his head back to look at Lovely, and saw her smile, a smile of reassurance.

  "Come and sit again," she said. "There is nothing to be afraid of. We wish to help you. I think you are like a small child which has not yet learned how to live properly."

  "I suppose that's true," he admitted, "but I don't like the sound of that 'wake up' business. I'm not asleep. There's nothing wrong with mel" He squatted, fighting his nervousness. "I'll admit Martha isn't quite right in her head. I can tell you how that happened, because I was there—"

  He broke off, catching his breath as a sudden chill struck him. In the same split-second the old man reached out a long arm to touch him. The peacefully glowing scene dissolved from before his eyes as if a curtain had fallen. He knew that he was under water, several feet down, drowning, gasping for breath, panic-frantic at the knowledge that a myriad needle-toothed carnivorous fishes were within seconds of ripping his flesh to streaming ribbons. He cringed before the first agonizing wave of bites. Strong arms groped and seized him, held firm, lifted. He came up out of the living water, snorting for breath, feeling the scrape and burn of swallowed water, gasping deep and thankful breaths . . . and then, as inexplicably as it had come, the vivid nightmare vanished . . . and he was once again in the tranquility of the little grove, with Lovely on one side, and the old chief on the other.

  Even if that had been no more than an illusion, it had been real enough to leave him gasping for breath now. "What was that?" he panted. "What happened?"

  "You know quite well. You snared and experienced it."

  "But I don't know, damn itl You keep assuming things that just are not true!" He fought to overcome his growing sense of helpless frustration, to make himself calm. "I had the illusion of falling into deep water, of not being able to swim, and then being pulled out. It was a trick of some land. Because I am here. I did not fall into water. I can swim!" He glared at the old man, striving to break that brooding know-all calm. "It was a trick. You did it. I want to know why!"

  "I do not know what you mean by 'trick.' One fell into the water and was in danger. We helped him. You also."

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  "But how? And who was it?"

  "You want a name, I think," Lovely murmured. "This is the way of Earth talk, to have names. We do not have such words. The man who was in danger, which you knew about, if you met him you would know him, I think."

  Anthony caught back the rejection which came to his lips, and frowned. It was true, what she said, now that he thought back. He would know that man beyond all doubt, because, for a brief moment, he had been that man. Again, the implications were enough to spin his mind into stumbling confusion.

  "You understand now," the chief murmured, "that it is true, as I told you. You have
the strength and power of a man, but you are asleep inside your head. You have learned too much of talking with the mouth, and nothing of touching with the inside."

  "That's enough," he muttered, getting to his feet. "Enough. I want to be alone for a bit, to think. You're going too fast for me."

  "You are afraid?"

  "No, not the way I was before. I'm just all mixed up. I need time to sort things out in my mind." He turned away to walk down the slope and Lovely appeared by his side.

  "I will come with you. I am your woman, now."

  "That's another thing that goes a bit too fast for me," he protested. "Don't think I'm objecting to you as a person, mind. It's just the idea."

  "It is not like this, on Earth?"

  "What do you know about Earth? How much did the Doctor tell you? And more than that, how much did you understand?"

  They began walking slowly, and she tilted her head on one side in thought before she replied, "Doctor told us much, but only in words. Earth people have only words, like this? Nothing else?"

  "What else is there?" His mind refused to make the step that he could see looming ahead. He wanted her to say it for him. "You use words, don't you?"

  "Not like this. Words are not true. Listen, this is a word-water." She pointed to the glossy ripples just ahead. "Water —it is just a noise."

  They went the last few steps over blue sand. She stepped

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  ankle-deep into the small surf and kicked a rainbow splash. "This," she said, "is water!"

  He had caught her arm, urgently, without thinking. "Careful, youll be bitten!"

  "Not here." She put her hand on his, where it was gripping her arm, and glanced a few yards along, where several small children were splashing in the tiny wavelets. "This water is safe."

  He felt foolish, and then acutely aware of the silky skin of her arm, the warm grasp of her hand, and her nearness.

  "Water is a something, a feeling, a touching. Not a word. You feel, inside. Just then, you were afraid for me, and now ashamed, and excited. How do you speak that in words?"

  He eased his hand out from under hers, struggling with his embarrassement. "How do I say what I'm feeling, you mean?"

  "No!" she strode away from him abrupdy, straight into the water, and turned again when she was waist-deep. "Now!" she called. "This is how I feel," and in that instant he had the conviction that he was waist deep in cool water. It was no illusion, but a perfectly valid sensation, complete to the gentle swirl of currents past his ankles and toes. And then it was gone, so abruptly that he almost fell. His face must have betrayed his astonishment, for she laughed. Her teeth were like a white flame against the purple of her lips and the glowing green of her face, and he knew, in that moment, that she was the loveliest, the most desirable woman he had ever seen. My woman, he thought, and the thought was like a fire in his veins, magnifying all his fears and confusions a hundred-fold.

  On the impulse he waded into the water after her and she laughed again, and bobbed down, right under for a moment, then came up and shook the water from herself like a dog.

  As he came near she challenged him gaily, "How do you speak this, in words?"

  "I don't know. Lovely, you shared your feelings with me, then."

  "Yes." She nodded, smiling.

  "Can you also share in my feelings?"

  "Sometimes. Just a little bit. When they are very strong, or simple. Mostly I feel just a mix-up, as if you are not

  101 happy. But now it is not like that. You are feeling good, strong for me, that I am your woman. It is very pleasant. I am glad. . . . She paused, and he forgot her as he saw a small company of green people, men and women, marching steadily by the foot of the rock-wall, going in the general direction of the original cave, and, presumably, the old man, the Chief.

  In their midst was Martha. Catching sight of him she smiled and waved her hand. "Tonyl We're going to play a game. Are you coming with us?"

  "I'm coming," he called back, and turned a hard eye on his companion. "What's this game she's talking about? Do you know?"

  "I think we will go ahead and talk to the old one, that one you call Chief. He will explain."

  She led the way with long rippling strides that took them ahead of the placid marchers. The old man sat exactly as he had been before, as if he was an unchangeable part of the scene.

  "We are going to wake her up," he said, as Anthony threw the question at him. "She is all shut up in her head. You, also, but you have started to open. With the woman, it is different. She has known a great fear."

  Anthony stared at him, and then guessed. "This woman told you?"

  "She let me see. It is almost the same. When you killed the many-snake. There was great fear, and she fled and hid inside her head. Now we will help her to find out that there is no danger any more and she will come out again." If the words were crude and simple, the diagnosis was profound and accurate. Anthony wanted to know how, but the old man shook his head.

  "We spoke much of this with Doctor. It is not possible to speak words for feeling-thinking. Doctor said like this—" The old man stretched out his hand and splayed his fingers. "One person is like a finger, but many fingers together make a hand. Hand joins to arm, to brain. Brain is the focus for all, unites all. I am like such a brain. Many people think, one and one and one. Through me, many can think together. This is what I am for. Every tribe has one person like me. A focus. When I am dead, it will be her," and he nodded to Lovely.

  "Every tribe? There are many tribes like this?" Anthony asked.

  "Very many. Doctor spoke much to us of numbers, and how to count. A tree has many branches, many leaves. All trees spring from the ground and are joined. I am like a tree. I am joined to other trees. But enough, all is ready for the awakening. You will help." He looked round and saw now that Martha stood all alone in the center of a great circle of silent and impassive green people.

  "What do you want me to do?"

  "Speak to her. Help her to remember that part that she has chosen to forget. We will do the rest." He felt a moment of rebellion.

  "You don't know what you're doing. If you wake her up, make her normal again, she'll be worse off than before."

  "What do you want?" the old man asked woodenly. "If she remains like this, who will care for and protect her, find food for her? You?" Again the words were simple and profoundly significant. In that moment Anthony knew that he was in the jaws of a trap from which there was no escape. He could barely hope to survive in this alien environment. It was out of the question for him to support anyone else, let alone someone as helpless as Martha was in her state. But—and it was a great "but" in his mind— if she were restored to normal awareness, and found herself in the midst of a horde of Creenies . . . He shivered at the thought. The old man's stare was as flat as a brick wall. Unwillingly, Anthony made his way into the center of the circle, and took Martha by the hand.

  "Let's sit down, shall wer^ he said. "And let's talk. I want to see how much you can remember. Will you? It's a kind of game." She nodded and squatted on the turf, tucking up her long legs. It was a shocking experience to see her like this, a beautiful mature woman, but with the wide-eyed stare of a child. He mentioned names. Austin Willers. Borden Harper. There was no nicker of recognition at all. Nothing. He shifted in time, tried another approach. Yes, she recalled coming down the cliff-walk, the mist, and a vague something about a boat, a water-tree.

  "That was ever so nice!" she laughed. "I liked that. It was cool!" Over her shoulder Anthony caught the old man's eye, his grave nod. On the instant he could "feel"

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  again the pleasant sensation of the cool shower. He sensed that all the silent crowd were joined with him and Martha. It was an odd feeling. He approached the next effort cautiously.

  "What happened just before that, before we found the water-tree?"

  "I don't know." She wrinkled her pretty brow. "I was asleep, I think."

  "Feel sleepy now. Remember the little frog-liza
rd? And then when I went to wash, with the red cape? And then . . ." In his own mind the hideous memory of that foul crawling thing was very vivid. She seemed to catch it. She jerked upright, like a doll on strings, and screamed mindlessly, senselessly, pointing. Again and again the crazed screams erupted from her throat and the scalding strength of her fear washed over him, hurting, wrenching at his stomach. Much as he ached to reject the pictures which came to his mind, they came nevertheless—the hissing, the crazy slashing and chopping, the evil stench. He seized her hand, felt it clenching and shivering in his, and she went on screaming, over and over, like a mechanical thing. Sweat sprang out all over her body until she glistened. And then the tide began to ebb. The screams weakened, died away, became gasping silence. She sat, staring at nothing, shivering.

  "It's all right," he soothed. "All right. All over. Finished."

  "It was a nightmare. Wasn't it?"

  "No, Martha. It was real. But it's done and finished with. I killed the thing. You're all right now, all safe."

  "Where is it?" She still stared at vacancy, still shivering.

  "All gone. Some of it I threw in the water. The rest, why we just left it. That was a long way back and a long time ago."

  "I can still smell it."

  "No you can't. That's just imagination." Her hand slipped out of his suddenly and she swung to stare at him. Then her stare licked round the circle of silent watchers, and he "felt" her mind snap shut so violently that it was a blow.

  "Greenies!" She came up to her knees and then a crouch. "Greenies! Hundreds of them!" She started to run, so abruptly that he barely managed to catch her arm. She flung off his clutch instantly but staggered into a sprawl and he dived, catching her by the ankle to bring her flat on her face.

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  "Hold still! There's nothing to be afraid of. These are friends!"

  "Let me go!" She kicked her leg and scrabbled at the moss.

  "Don't be a fool! You've been here a long while, perfectly safe. I tell you, these people are our friends!" "Let me go ... 1"