A Maze of Stars

by John Brunner

  Yekko was grinning broadly. He canceled the expression the moment he realized Usko had noticed, but traces of his amusement lingered. He said, “I deduce that your sister has achieved what I had merely begun to attempt.”

  “Uh—!”

  “Don’t try and argue. I read it on your face, clear as a gene plot. You’re coming, for an unworthy motive maybe, but you’re coming. ‘Mysterious ways’ and all that … Shall we settle for the shorter catechism?”

  “Yes,” Usko blurted. “And hurry!”

  “Very well.” Yekko cleared his throat. “Are we native to this world called Ekatila?”

  “No! We came from far away in space!” Usko clenched his bony fists, eyes following Lempi as she deigned to inspect the baplabaska allotted to her and nod approval. How like their mother she’d become!

  “To what do we owe our survival on this world?”

  “To the Being that consents to make way for us.”

  “Graciously consents!” Yekko snapped, as though Usko were still a lisping toddler.

  “Graciously consents,” came the resentful agreement.

  “In what way does it support and serve us?”

  “By parting with its very flesh—”

  “I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it!” Yekko broke in. “You’ve had this word-perfect for fifteen years, and here you are messing it up!”

  “I thought we were using the short version,” Usko challenged. “Not: ‘By ceding us its shell to use for homes, that which we find convenable in winter storms for warmth, in summer heat for coolness, all this of its own volition, and it thus behooves us to respect and honor it and to make it offerings and go on Pilgrimage to wheresoever its new limit may be found’—and incidentally that’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you about: How come we’ve managed to keep one of its limits at Penitenka for so many years, when within living memory it was retreating almost as fast as we could spread across the planet? That’s by the way, of course. What I meant to point out was that you were wrong, not me. ‘By parting with its very flesh, that which by its generosity has become for us a source of food, of medicines, of servants and of transportation, all freely offered and most gratefully acknowledged.’ Then the next question—”

  Flushing red at his error, Yekko rasped, “Usko! If you know all the answers, why—?”

  Having recovered his normal spirits, Usko cut in.

  “Why do I make mock of you and my mother? Because I spend too much time tampering with the Being’s actual physical material! Where’s the intelligence that has voluntarily made way for us? Not in our servants, whatever kind of chapla they may be! Not in our means of transport, not in any of the other things you say we should give thanks for … Yes, I’m coming to Penitenka. But not to please my mother or put my sister’s nose out of joint or even because you brought me up to believe it was the ‘done thing.’ ”

  “Why, then?” Yekko snapped.

  Turning toward his quarters and a change of clothes, Usko threw over his shoulder, “Because I dare to imagine the priests there may be readier to admit the truth!”

  I SEE THEY’VE ALREADY LEARNED HOW TO PREVENT THE BEING from dying out ahead of them, leaving only lumps and tendrils of its tissue to be worked on and converted into useful forms, in one region at least. Odd! I had the impression that discovery was made much later. Maybe it’s a false start.

  Ship surveyed the planet with its invariable meticulous thoroughness. Even as its inspection was under way, a ship—a Sumbalan ship, naturally—emerged from tachyon space and headed for a landing.

  Tourists come for the spectacle of Pilgrimage Season! That too is earlier than I imagined. Has more damage affected my circuitry?

  That possibility was dreadfully discomforting.

  * * *

  HASTILY RE-DRESSED IN A CLEAN OVERALL, CARRYING A BAGFUL of whatever might be useful on the journey that he could lay hands on in the disorganized clutter of his chamber, Usko ran to join the traveling party. Even when he did so, however, their departure was delayed still a little longer while Yekko recited invocations and threw a symbolic blossom in the direction they were to take, to ensure favorable way and weather. At least that was what he meant to do, but a gust of wind caught the flower and blew it clean away from the path.

  The members of the household reacted with alarm. That was a bad omen. Yekko himself was frowning when he mounted his baplabaska, next in line behind Osahima’s and ahead of Usko’s. The latter planned, as soon as the road grew wide enough for two of the beasts abreast, to ride alongside the priest. If he could make no better use of the next few days, he might at least enjoy arguing with him.

  And in spite of everything, he did like the older man. He had great respect for his learning, and if occasionally the priest was inclined to stand on his dignity, he was at least as likely to tell a comic anecdote and ripple with silent laughter after delivering the punch line.

  Now, finally, with the sun almost at the zenith, the line of nine baplabaska stirred into sluggish motion. Trying not to let himself be lulled by the regular rocking of his mount, like that of a small boat on a gentle ocean swell, Usko stared first this way, then that, trying to fix the view in memory—for, against all his rational inclinations, he had been affected by the omen of the wind-tossed blossom. On Ekatila children were taught about such matters almost as soon as they could talk, and every year’s calendar was a maze of anniversaries of past events, fortunate and unfortunate: the birth of an heir, the death of an aged parent, a flood, a storm, the invention of a new and useful variety of servant… Moreover, virtually everyone had private additions to the main list. Often it was nearly impossible to visit elderly relatives with good memories, for something had happened to them on practically all the four hundred days, and when they were not performing a gratitude ceremony, they would be in retreat for meditation or self-reproach. Early in his teens, Usko himself had gone to pay a duty call on his late father’s mother and been kept waiting fifteen days before he was allowed to talk to her, because she was so constantly occupied with personal anniversaries.

  What, Usko sometimes wondered, would happen when not just the private calendars of old folk but the public calendar obeyed by all the Households filled up in the same way? It was a priestly task to keep track of the date; he must ask Yekko as soon as the opportunity arose.

  Like most of the accommodation the Being had bequeathed to humanity—although a few Households were sited on level ground, especially near seas and lakes—Household Ishapago lay pearly-white and gleaming along the ridge of a hill. Its two hundred and ten chambers branched off from eighteen passageways. As children, back when the two of them were on good terms before Lempi started to ape their mother so ridiculously, he and his sister had often raced each other from end to end of it. Although she was the younger, Lempi had also been the fleeter, and by the time she was fourteen and he sixteen, he would find her at the back capdoor sitting composedly and wearing a triumphant grin when he came panting up, feet sore and chest aching.

  “Catch her doing something like that now!” Usko muttered to the air as he cast a glance at the baplabaska behind his. There she was, sitting with a haughty expression on her face, the corners of her mouth turned down as though to signal her displeasure to the world. Was she going to make the fluttering creatures that held up her headdress stay aloft the whole of Pilgrimage? Who did she think she was likely to impress this close to home? There were no other humans in sight, nor would there be until they encountered other Households also bound on Pilgrimage, and that would be, at the earliest, this evening, for the Ishapago estate was a large one and their first few hours of travel would be within its boundary.

  Remembering that he was trying to soak in the scene just in case the bad omen had been aimed at him and this was to be the trip from which he would not return—though in fact so light a matter as a wind-taken flower scarcely implied such a disaster—Usko returned his attention to his surroundings. This section of the road was bordered by fields cro
sshatched with irrigation channels. Here and there tireless, mindless weeders were at work among their root and fruit crops, while along the bank of the river that took its rise just behind the house and whose first function was to furnish its inhabitants with water, he could see lifters endlessly scooping and spilling to keep the channels full. Beyond those, other workers were carefully peeling away the porous serolika membranes that, wind-dried and attractively tinted, would be cut and stitched to make the Household’s winter garments. And, barely visible on the skyline, strands of akolika destined to be spun into everything long and flexible from sewing thread to rope for baplabaska tethers were being gathered by yet more examples of the Being’s munificence.

  Or so people were required to believe.

  Usko felt his mouth turning down like his sister’s. Of late he had become more and more skeptical of the official teachings— no doubt, as he had taunted Yekko, because he had spent so long working with fragments of the Being’s substance. Heretical opinions were burgeoning at the edge of his mind.

  The orthodox account stated that upon the arrival of human colonists the Being, recognizing that they were intelligent and not mere animals, had generously done all it could to ensure first their survival, then their comfort, even to the extent of yielding up portions of itself to be exploited by them. It had withdrawn from the protective shells that now served as homes for people, leaving only morsels of its tissue here and there. Very shortly it was discovered that these were ideally suited for alteration into forms capable of performing useful tasks. At first the newcomers’ imagination stretched only to creating the simplest of helpers, like those that pumped water for irrigation. Gradually, however, they became more enterprising and developed tenders for their crops. Next they devised means of transport—and the variety of those was astonishing, as would be amply proved during the great gathering at Penitenka whither they were bound, an event whose fame had spread beyond the sky. Rumor promised that this year, for the first time, tourists from Sumbala would come to witness it, allegedly attracted because on that world also people were accustomed to converting its native life into vehicles and servants. Some, however, counterclaimed that they did not worship their local Being …!

  Usko hoped with all his heart that the rumors would prove true. He wanted almost more than anything to find out what off-worlders thought about the Ekatilans’ version of their early days on this planet. What if they, like he, couldn’t accept that the Being had deliberately and by choice made way for people, even letting parts of itself be exploited by them?

  His eyes were drawn to the mahuto steering his baplabaska, and he found himself shaking his head.

  No. It was far more likely that something about humans— some exudation, perhaps—had made the Being sicken and divide, possibly as a defense mechanism evolved in the far past. He could envisage how, before it attained ascendancy over virtually the entire land surface of Ekatila, it might have been subject to disease, or predators, or some other form of threat. In such circumstances it would be advantageous to sacrifice portions of its tissue in order to resume its expansion when the danger was past.

  Even if the rumor about foreign visitors was baseless, he was on reconsideration glad he hadn’t decided to give Pilgrimage a miss this year. Not only would his mother have made his life unbearable for the foreseeable future; he would have passed up the opportunity of seeking out a progressive young priest whose doubts had not yet been stifled by the discipline that his superiors imposed. He knew such existed. Indeed, only last year he had met one—what was his name? For the moment it escaped him, but that didn’t matter. What counted was that he had come to Household Ishapago no longer as a priest but as a beggar. In the old days, it was said, mendicants were not uncommon, being mainly survivors of failed Households wiped out by disease or crop blight, so although nowadays they were rare, there was a tradition of hospitality toward them and sometimes they even managed to get adopted into another Household. However, when Owdi (yes, that was his name) let slip that he had been expelled from the priesthood, Yekko had issued an ultimatum: Owdi went, or he did.

  Usko had felt very sorry to see the failed priest trudge away. His conversation had been heady for the bright young boy …

  The nature of the countryside changed, became wilder. Now and then nameless creatures scuttled in undergrowth or flitted overhead—nameless, at any rate, to Usko, though no doubt someone had examined and classified them during the general survey of the planet undertaken by the ancestors. However, nowadays few people paid attention to such matters. It was enough that the Being had provided for their survival and would continue to do so as long as they displayed a proper sense of obligation. Other life-forms would no doubt be investigated and perhaps exploited some day. Some day. Not tomorrow, though.

  * * *

  One unusual event punctuated the first portion of their progress.

  During one of the regular halts dictated by the need for the humans to relieve themselves, the Household’s field overseer Immi—who, being regarded as barely more than a servant despite his wide knowledge of botany, was one of a group of ten or twelve sharing the last baplabaska with a heap of bags and baskets—returned to the road in high excitement, announcing that he had found a new Being shell. This was extraordinary. Usko, about to remount, changed his mind and made haste to verify the claim. In an attempt at reconciliation he asked whether Lempi would like to come, too, but was met with a scowl, the very image of their mother’s. Even Yekko, who he had imagined would be eager to inspect it, climbed back into his saddle with a dismissive wave.

  But there it was, shining bluish-yellow on an outcrop of rock, no longer than the span of a man’s arms. Usko stared at it, marveling, until he was summoned back to the procession by his mother’s raucous order.

  A new Being shell! He resolved to break off on the way back and examine it in detail. There was no telling what use the tissue it contained might be put to.

  At noon the weather had been warm. As the sun declined, the air grew colder. Just before their procession reached a highway broad enough for Usko to consider moving alongside Yekko, as he had earlier planned, he glanced back at his sister. She had finally given up her attempt to keep her headdress aloft, and her traveling chapla had taken it and was now marching stolidly along with it in what would have been its arms if chaplas had had human limbs. She herself appeared to be dozing—or possibly praying; now and then her lips moved. Usko felt a pang of regret. What a shame that she and he had drifted apart! Of course, if they had stayed as close as they had been during childhood, either she would have had to be more like him … or he would have had to be more like her. The latter prospect did not appeal. Indeed, it made him shudder. To picture himself as the kind of arrogant, bossy person Lempi was turning into—no!

  He reached forward and prodded his mahuto, instructing it to bring him level with Yekko. However, when he tentatively addressed the plump priest, he was rebuffed.

  “Don’t talk to me, young fellow! No doubt it was thanks to you that my blossom was blown away! The Being is not fond of being mocked!”

  “But—” Usko began, and was cut short.

  “You know perfectly well what you’ve done! You planned to avoid going on Pilgrimage!”

  “I assure you, I’d simply forgotten—”

  “Forgotten? You, who since childhood have had a memory like the stickiest of shopalika?” Yekko shook his heavy head. “Nonsense! I know, and so does the Being!”

  Stung, Usko retorted, “How?”

  “What do you mean, ‘how?’ ”

  “How does it know?” Usko repeated, greatly daring.

  “It just does, that’s all. One day perhaps we shall be allowed to find out by what means. For the time being it’s enough to be aware of the fact.” Yekko spoke with finality. “If you persist in these heretical questions, I shall have to report you to the abbot at Penitenka. I warn you!”

  Dismayed, for he had no idea he had so offended the priest, Usko said after a moment,
“But surely—”

  “Surely what? ‘Surely I’m allowed to voice this sort of dangerous rubbish’? Oh no you’re not! Our survival depends on acknowledging the support of the Being! Have you never considered what life would be like were it to turn against us? Suppose enough people like you made it angry, and it decided to reclaim its shells, our homes! And reunite itself with all the parts of it that we’ve redesigned, taught skills, taught to understand what humans want and need! It would be the end of us, wouldn’t it? At all costs we must placate it—or become extinct! You saw just now: a new shell! Does that imply that it plans to seize back its former territory from us? It may, you know! It may! Now shut up and let me go on praying! And you had better do the same!”

  Folding his hands, closing his eyes, the priest made it plain that the conversation was over. Then, seconds later, he spoke again, though his eyes did not reopen.

  “Something bad is certain to happen. I can feel it. If you weren’t so disrespectful of the Being, you might feel it too. Instead of asking other people questions about how it knows our thoughts, you could try looking within yourself. I think you may have some of the necessary talent, whatever it is. And I don’t want to see you cast out and ruined. I don’t want you to wind up begging like that failed priest Owdi—who most likely sowed the canker in your brain!”

  Hiding his reaction but privately inclined to scoff, Usko ordered his mahuto to resume their normal position in the line.

  His skepticism, though, was undermined the next morning, when they emerged into the yard of the inn where they had spent the night and discovered that Yekko’s forebodings had proved right. Something bad had indeed happened. Not catastrophically bad, not even extremely bad, but at the least a considerable nuisance.

  One of the baplabaska lay still and flaccid on the paving stones.

  UNDER THE AMUSED EYES OF MEMBERS OF ANOTHER HOUSEHOLD that had also arrived at the inn last night, but later, Lempi—wearing red today and with a headdress made of stiffened membrane that stood up of itself—stamped her foot furiously.