Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  That left the hall quite empty. I stepped boldly out and hurried after Falvi, passing a few closed doors. Along the ceiling there were more of the metal cups, pouring out light, a milky flowing glow that dissolved in the air and gave a gentle daylight illumination.

  Several I passed were burned out and another one was flickering wanly. On the doors themselves I noticed symbols engraved—a formalized bird and a trident on each one and Roman numerals—XVI, XVII, and so forth.

  Where Falvi had vanished was an opening in the wall, as large as a doorway. It seemed to be a small elevator shaft, lighted from within. A foreshortened Falvi was twenty feet below, floating down very gently.

  I supposed it was Falvi but all I could see were the headdress and his feet. He resembled a squashed dwarf. He didn’t look up and I laid one hand on the wall to brace myself and stared down at him.

  There seemed to be no cables nor other mechanical elevator devices, though of course Falvi might be standing on a perfectly transparent floor that was slowly sinking beneath him. I noticed his shadow appear on the wall behind him and vanish as he went on down.

  When I looked up I saw part of my own shadow—the deformed head startled me till I remembered the flaps of my headdress—across the shaft, so I understood that Falvi was dropping past similar openings on other floors.

  I leaned farther out and counted the brighter patches of illumination. Falvi went down seven levels before he stepped out. Then the shaft was empty and it seemed to go on down for quite a distance.

  I. was considering the possibility of tossing something into the shaft as a test to see if it would float or plunge when my shadow on the opposite wall blurred slightly and became suddenly double. My state of mind by now was such that I found myself seriously considering whether I could possibly have two heads. In the same instant I turned to see what had cast the shadow.

  I found myself looking into a pair of very bright expectant eyes on a level with mine. Another priest had come up behind me without a sound and was watching me with a look that reminded me uncomfortably of a cat watching a mouse.

  There were extraordinary alertness and anticipation in the face between the flaps of the priestly headdress. He was young and there was a faintly dissipated air about him as though he’d had a big night recently. He wore his robes with a certain negligent elegance that was far from ecclesiastic.

  I went into a state of concealed shock. How long had he been following me? From Falvi’s door? And why? That expectancy on his face was frightening. He was so clearly waiting for me to do something. But what? From the penetrating interest of his eyes I was ready to believe that he was reading my innermost thoughts and finding them, on the whole, rather amusing.

  I had no idea what one priest did when he met another. Before I could come to any decision about how to save my hide, though, he saved it for me by murmuring, “Pardae-se,” in a polite voice and squeezing past me into the shaft, still not taking that ironic gaze from mine.

  I had a strong impression that he knew exactly what had been happening and was simply waiting for me to give myself away. He lifted one eyebrow at me as he slowly sank, a quizzical look that seemed to ask what I was waiting for.

  That decided me. After all, what would John Carter have done? The priest was about ten feet down, his head still tilted back to watch me and a grin was beginning to broaden upon his face. I took a deep breath and stepped out into emptiness, confidently expecting a sort of anti-gravity sky-hook to grip me and lower me gently down the shaft.

  This did not happen. I dropped like bullet, head over basket, with the full velocity and acceleration of a free-falling body. I had a glimpse of the priest floating down calmly beneath me—he seemed to be standing still—and then I hit him and we were in a wild Laocoon group, with me playing the python.

  He grabbed me, not that it was necessary, because I was hanging on to him like a frantic cat. There was a brief, mad scuffle, which subsided gradually. Clinging together, we drifted slowly downward.

  OUR faces were quite close now, naturally enough, and the priest’s was full of triumphant excitement. I had an idea that I had given myself hopelessly away and that this was just what he’d expected. The look on his face said he knew I was from New York, knew I’d come through Falvi’s forbidden Earth-Gates, whatever they were, and the next stop would be the ecclesiastical firing squad.

  Just to clinch the matter he spoke to me. It was, of course, Malescan and it meant nothing at all. My ears were ringing anyhow and I was shaking all over with shock and sheer unheroic fright. The shaft below us looked bottomless.

  I breathed hard and stared into the bright triumphant eyes about six inches from mine.

  He repeated himself more slowly and this time I understood.

  “You’re lucky I caught you,” he said. “You might get reported.”

  I had heard enough of the spoken Malescan tongue to catch the right emphasis and accent. But I still wasn’t sure I could speak it naturally. I had to try though. My words came out in a series of gasps—an excellent way of disguising unfamiliarity with a language, by the way.

  “I was thinking of something else,” I said.

  The effect on him was tremendous. I think if I hadn’t been clutching him so tightly he might have let me drop in his surprise. For a moment I wondered if I’d made some astounding error in speech. Then I realized that the fact I’d spoken at all—in Malescan—was what startled him so much. He hadn’t expected it. His face went perfectly blank for a moment.

  When expression came back to it he allowed only the slightest glimmer of what must have been great disappointment to show through before he pulled himself together and spoke again. This time the malicious expectancy and the penetrating intentness of his look had vanished.

  “What did you say?” he asked politely.

  “I said I was thinking of something else.”

  A flicker of the keen suspicion came back into the quick gaze he turned on me. I realized then that I simply didn’t know Malescan well enough to pass as a native.

  “Well, you’d better think of the Hierarch next time,” the priest said, his eyes never swerving from mine. “What are you talking like that for?”

  “I bit my tongue,” I said hastily.

  “Bit your nose?” he asked. “How could you do that? Oh, your tongue.”

  I met his bright stare briefly and then glanced aside at the walls, slipping up slowly around us. Was he simply amusing himself with me? I wasn’t sure and I didn’t think he was either. Certainly he was suspicious but he had nothing definite to go on. The fact that I could speak Malescan even passably seemed to knock the bottom out of whatever theory he had formulated about me. Still—

  “Where do you want out?” he asked, still politely, his tone making a rather insolent contrast to the look on his face.

  “I’m going to the Baths,” I hazarded.

  “Oh, are you? I’ll let you off at the main floor, then. I don’t know you, do I? You must be fresh from the Crucible.”

  I nodded.

  “No?” the priest said. “But—”

  “I mean yes,” I corrected, making a mental note on the permutations of symbolic gestures in various cultures. “I’m still fresh from the Crucible.”

  “A little too fresh,” he told me. “You must be from Ferae. Nothing personal but the Feraen dialect is suitable only for talking to dogs. I’m Dio and I know the best”—he used a word I didn’t catch—“in the city if you need advice.”

  “Thanks,” I said, wondering if I should tell him my name and finding my mind totally blank when it came to choosing a Malescan nom-de-guerre. I didn’t know enough about proper nouns. I might ignorantly call myself the equivalent of Santa Claus or Little Bo Peep.

  I grimaced and said my tongue hurt.

  He seemed to be thinking. “Did I bite your nose?” he asked suddenly. “I don’t remember doing it. But when you fell on me that way—”

  “It’s all right,” I said.

  “Where’s
your pouch?”

  “I forgot it.”

  “Don’t they teach you anything at the Ferae crucible?” He glanced up the shaft. “Here we are.” He lunged forward, carrying me, and we found ourselves standing in a room the size of Grand Central, quite as noisy and crowded and busy. To the left was a great open archway with darkness beyond. The fresh wind blowing in told me it was the open air.

  “No use going back for your pouch now,” the priest Dio said, reaching toward his belt. “I’ll lend you some grain.” He put a few coins into my hand. “Don’t forget to pay it back. I’m Dio, remember, on the twenty-third Goose of Hermogenes at the fifth Cherub.”

  “Well—thanks,” I said. He looked at me blandly. His dissipated young face had lost its brilliant intentness now and was a little sleepy, as if with satisfaction. Sometime during our brief conversation he had come to a decision about me.

  I couldn’t make him out at all. If Falvi’s prognosis were right any priest who recognized me for a newcomer from Earth was pretty certain to shoot first and ask questions later. Why I didn’t know yet.

  Dio’s behavior was simply confusing the issue still further. If he knew me for a stranger, he ought to report me. If he didn’t, why was he looking so complacent now? He was the cat that had swallowed the canary, and found it more than satisfying.

  “I hope they taught you honesty at the Ferae Crucible,” he said.

  Was he really going to let me go? I could hardly believe it. There might even be time to catch up with Falvi, given a little luck.

  “I’ll pay you back,” I said. “Don’t worry.”

  HE shrugged and I started to turn away, hardly believing my own good fortune. Either Falvi had exaggerated the danger that waited me from the priests or—

  “Just a minute, you,” Dio’s voice hailed me over the half-dozen steps that parted us. I knew by the tone of it, even before I turned, that he was grinning. The bright malice was on his face again as our eyes met.

  “I think there’s something you ought to know,” he said. “There haven’t been any Crucibles in Ferae for thirty years.” He beamed at me. “Well, good night,” he said and stood there, smiling.

  I felt exactly as if he’d kicked me in the stomach. There was danger. If I’d ever seen danger in my life I saw it in his face. He knew all about me or enough about me to get me killed. And yet he was still standing there, still smiling, waiting for me to go.

  I took a tentative backward step as soon as I could breathe again. He was perfectly capable of letting me get to the very door before he raised a shout and set the pack on me. It was open season for Earthmen, all right, and Dio liked the idea.

  I thought, “He’ll give me sixty seconds, then he’ll yell,” and I turned and walked toward the door with long, firm steps. The best I could hope for was to get out into the dark before he started the alarm. It wasn’t much but it offered a better chance than this crowded hall.

  I glanced around nervously at the thronging priests. They were all dressed alike here except that some didn’t wear the outer robes and others were bareheaded. Even in my alarm I noticed the surprisingly atypical haircuts of Malesco.

  One priest had a ruff of red hair rising up like a rooster’s comb, another had the front of his head shaved and long ringlets hanging down the back. A third had a shaved parting down the center, more than an inch wide. They looked funny to me then but if Dio raised the alarm before I got to the door they’d probably cease to look funny and become wholly frightening.

  I was six steps from the door. I was one step from the door. I stepped out under it onto the lighted steps. I couldn’t help glancing back as I hurried down into the darkness. Dio’s glance had flicked away from me as he lifted a hand and nodded casually to a passing priest. As I turned I saw his eyes come back to me and he stroked his jaw in an affectionate way.

  I kept going, heading toward the open archway ahead. I was feeling foolish again in the uncertain letdown. Was there any danger after all? Had Falvi known what he was talking about? Certainly Coriole, whoever he was, seemed to take my danger seriously. If I could find Falvi and follow him to Coriole maybe I could find out the truth.

  Beyond the arch was a formal garden, stretched out into a park that ended at a high wall. But from the threshold itself a paved road ran straight to another gate in the wall and a line had formed there. I hurried in that direction, trying to accustom my eyes to the night.

  Just at the gate was a splash of light from one of the overhead metal cups and there was a priest standing casually behind a tall crystal vase as high as his waist. As the line moved forward and each priest came abreast of the vase he tossed a coin into it. The cashier seemed too bored to pay much attention to his job though he kept one steady eye on the vase.

  I joined the line, looking back. Through the open arch leading into the great hall I could see the moving throngs but I couldn’t see Dio now. That didn’t mean anything. I felt very very anxious to get on the other side of the temple wall. What I would do there I didn’t know yet but—

  There were a dozen priests ahead of me, moving forward slowly. I heard the clink of coins. How much should I contribute? Why had Dio given me the—grain? Most of all, who was he, how much did he know and what was his game?

  Someone pushed me roughly from behind. I started to swing around and one of the flaps of my headdress swung across my face so that I was momentarily blinded. In that second of darkness I heard Falvi’s familiar voice say, “Keep moving, will you?”

  I turned my head back again toward the front, faster than I’d turned it toward Falvi. He was standing right behind me. I hurriedly moved forward, closing the gap between me and the next priest, heard Falvi’s feet scuffle behind me.

  Fine—wonderful! Of course it was a lucky break that I hadn’t lost Falvi after all, that I could still depend on him to lead me to Lorna but my back felt singularly unprotected. I could feel rings being drawn concentrically on the back of my robe, with a bull’s-eye just in the center, where a knife would be most effective. Inevitably I was moving closer to the splash of light by the cashier.

  There were six priests ahead of me—five—four. I looked rigidly ahead, the coins clutched in my hot little palm. Automatically I noted the size and shape of the “grain” being tossed into the vase. Automatically I opened my hand and selected a coin that seemed identical. Then there were two men ahead of me—one—nobody at all.

  I bent my head forward, so that the flaps fell forward too, and hoped my profile wouldn’t be visible to Falvi. I dropped a coin in the vase. The cashier glanced at me sharply, ran his eyes down toward my legs—my shoes and trousers!

  “Wait a bit!” he said, meeting my eyes again. “You’re out of uniform.” That wasn’t his exact phrase but the meaning was identical.

  And then Falvi yelled in my ear,

  “Blast it, Vesto, keep your nose clean! I’m in a hurry! Step it up, step it up.”

  He shoved me through the gate and, as I hastily moved to one side, I heard a violent altercation begin between Vesto and Falvi. It ended in a perfect scream of rage from Falvi and the next thing I knew he was through the gate too and hurrying into the shadows.

  Vesto appeared briefly and swore after him. I moved away in the opposite direction. When Vesto retreated I circled and began to trail Falvi, being doubly careful till we were both past the huge brightly-lit open square that faced the temple.

  CHAPTER VI

  Voice from the Heavens

  IT’S no more difficult than a Chicago M. man suddenly finding himself in Bombay or Lhasa or Moscow, dressed in the appropriate local costume. But the boy from State Street has seen newsreels of those places, he’s read about them and he knows there are French and English in Bombay. And, anyway, there’s not much basic difference between a rickshaw and a Dynaflow.

  All the same he’ll get a queer picture of Bombay, just as I did of this Malescan city. One reason was that I was afraid to try anything new that might unmask me by revealing my ignorance. A Martian might
follow the crowds down a B.M.T. subway entrance and he’d get along fine till he ran up against the coin-operated turnstile. Then he’d start frantically wondering what peculiar ritual was required.

  He might figure out how the change-booths worked but unless he had some U.S. currency, he’d be sunk. Even if he spoke English there’d still be trouble, since nobody in one of those New York subway change-booths has ever been known to speak in human tongues.

  I certainly couldn’t make much of the coins Dio had loaned me. I took them out and examined them as I went along. They all bore Roman numerals—I, II, V, XX—as well as puzzling symbols like those I had seen on the doors in the Temple. But none was of a recent enough mintage for me to make out details. They all had ornamental curlicues on the edges, like our own milled edges, so I guessed that Malesco had its coinshavers too.

  Malesco—oh, it was a rose-red city, all right, but some of the walls had graffiti scrawled on them—words my uncle hadn’t listed in his vocabulary, though it was easy to figure some of them out—and the streets weren’t especially clean.

  The city wasn’t crowded, though. I didn’t see any throngs except once. A gang of people had got a man in gray coveralls backed up against a building and were yelling at him. That should have been my cue to spring to the victim’s aid. He should have been the prince of some neighboring country and have been suitably grateful for my help.

  But when an air-car swooped down and grounded gently not far away I hastily joined the crowd and yelled with them. Men in uniform were getting out of the air-car, which was built like a chariot, ornately decorated with scrolls and gilded curlicues.

  The police dragged their victim away and, from what I overheard, I decided the “prince” was a pickpocket who’d been caught. So that was all right.

  Falvi seemed to know where he was going. I never lost sight of that hurrying figure with its flapping headdress.! had a sense of immediate urgency for I remembered Dio very clearly. He knew who I was. Or did he?