“Major Davies. Lieutenant Enderby. Cards ready now.”
Louie got his first. He looked at the big blue stamp on the front—FIRST WARNING. He grinned.
“We’ll go out in harness, Joe. Any chance of a third partnership in that flower business?”
I didn’t say anything. I could see my card before the doctor gave it to me. I saw the red star splashed on it, and I’d seen too many of them not to know what it meant. It was the mark of the exile, the outlaw who had waited too long to get out. It was the beginning of such a story as the one whose end, forty years later, I had witnessed in the lee of Kelly’s Crater under the mocking globe of Earth.
“This is my last trip,” I told the doctor. ‘When we hit Antwerp I’m retiring.”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t care if it’s a million-to-one chance, Doc. I’ll take it; and no hard feelings if it doesn’t come off. I’ll sign any disclaimer the company wants.”
“It’s no good, major. You know the regulations. These things are too foolproof now. We’re not allowed to let you commit suicide.”
I knew it was no good, too. Louie had gone. We all knew better than to stick around when someone got the red star. I had time to look at the doctor. He was very young and didn’t look very happy. I guessed he hadn’t handed out a star before.
“It could be worse, major. It could have been Phobos.”
~ * ~
From the top level in Luna City you can see the sky; at night the stars and the softly glowing Earth. Down to the west Sirius blazes over Kelly’s Crater. I’ve been up here for hours watching them.
I keep thinking I can smell roses.
<
~ * ~
The Forgiveness of Tenchu Taen
BY FREDERICK ARNOLD KUMMER, JR.
T
o the casual sight-seeing tourist, Mercis, capital of Mars, is a marble definition of the word “beauty.” Its stately white buildings, its green lawns dotted with clumps of flaming fayeh blossoms, its network of crystal-clear canals, make it a garden spot in the eternal, dusty-red plain. And when you add bottle-lined Terrestrial bars, gondolalike boats manned by soft-singing little native boatmen, and exclusive, highly priced shops, the result is a veritable mecca for the wealthy spacetrotter. Even the bored dilettante, seeking the somewhat nebulous higher things in life, can find a haven in the Tolar Quarter, where appropriately hungry-looking artists, seated in the doorways of appropriately quaint houses, offer endless salmon-colored landscapes to the would-be patrons of art Whatever your inclination, the canny little Martians can cater to it, for they overlook no item, however small, in their eternal game of exchanging cheap articles and pleasant memories for Terrestrial cash.
Yet in addition to this brilliant, gay city, there is another Mercis, unsought by, unknown to tourists. Far from the marble splendor of the big passenger port where the sleek luxury liners glide to the ground, there are the cargo docks, with their battered tramps, their rusty freighters, and plain, blunt-nosed vessels surrounded by a maze of gaunt cranes, cargo lifts, and gray storage tanks. And about the cargo port, like scum on the sides of a bubbling caldron, lies the Olech, dark and shadowy. Rows of drab, huddled houses; worn, grimy glass streets; stinking, rubbish-littered arms of the great canals. Dull, crystaloid walls made all the more hideous by tattered remains of posters; lean slinking molats, the six-legged tailless Martian hounds; tagged urchins and whining beggars, who, for a price, deliver questionable messages or obtain even more questionable information.
Here in the Olech, squat Jovian spacehands rub shoulders with languid Venusian traders; dark Mercurians drink with the dâk-men of Neptune; and tall Terrestrials swagger contemptuously through the crowds of “reddies,” copper-skinned sons of Mars. Above the babel of a hundred polyglot tongues one can hear the sibilant hissing of the Martian dialects. Like flitting shadows the little reddies, clad in their long, loose dust-robes, glide along the crooked streets, mysterious, insctutable.
Within the blank-faced houses of Ki Street, behind the busy stalls of the Space-Market, the old Martian religion carries on its dark and bloody rites, defying alike the Imperial Decree and the Interplanetary Covenant. Among clouds of forbidden, hysteria-provoking incense, the priests, their faces ruddy in the light of the ancient ceremonial lamps, offer the mutilated bodies of their victims to the great hungry black thing which, at the sound of the third bell, appears above the altars. A hypnotic manifestation, Terrestrial skeptics call it; but to the true believers it is Yonan, God of Gods, Lord of Terrors, Master of Magic.
Here, too, from behind the lattices of the so-called “Amen Alley,” tiny, doll-like Martian girls smile appraisingly at passers-by and hawk-faced dopesters offer sure tips on the monthly space-races. At night, when the twin moons peer like two tiny baleful eyes from the heavens, and the sallow light from the little shops makes orange oblongs on the narrow streets, you can hear the pulse of multiphone music, throbbing, moaning, as though teetering on the borderline between pleasure and pain. And above the music can be heard the excited muttering of the reddies as, crowded about the great glassex globes within which the green fungoid spores struggle for supremacy, they bet with fatalistic recklessness, knowing full well that, by the Law of the Olech, the bodies of welshers are found within twelve hours floating on the dark waters of the Han Canal.
~ * ~
Perhaps there is no more famous place of chance than that belonging to Tenchu Taen. Here, the draperies are pure cellosilk and the tables inlaid with gold; fiery tong and cloudy olo are yours for the asking, since, Tenchu argues, liquor dulls the players’ wits and so increases the house’s profits. Here the air is heavy with the smoke of a dozen narcotics, and the eager voices of the little reddies clash in a harsh cacophony of sound. At the head of the long central table sits Tenchu, sharp-eyed, tense, motionless, a bland god of fortune, droning his monotonous exhortation. “Place your bets! Place your bets! Ai . . . eee! The struggle commences!” And within his round, hairless head he keeps a hundred bets, a hundred shifting odds. Keeps them so unerringly that the most hardened gambler will take Tenchu’s casual word to another man’s oath.
Yet apart from the scores who crowd about the gleaming glassex globes, there are those who, like Johnny Greer, seek the house of Tenchu for another reason. That reason is Eyehla.
Directly behind Tenchu there is a green curtain. And at regular intervals throughout the evening he will pick up his pile of winnings—to leave the money on the table is considered bad taste, boasting—and carry it through the entrance to the room beyond. It is in these brief moments when the curtain is swept aside that those who come to see Eyehla are rewarded. A fleeting glimpse, no more, of an invitingly small mouth, of high cheekbones, of sleek black hair wound tiara-fashion about her head. Her skin, defying the traditional rusty-red, glows like soft rose petals. She is, somehow, like a painted porcelain princess.
It is not so long ago that Eyehla had more than mere beauty. Beneath her placid Martian loveliness there was a young and eager vivacity, a joyousness quite out of keeping with her strict Martian upbringing. Two opposing philosophies, tugging at the girl, created unbalance, a fierce inner tension. In the streets, in the market place, she saw the tall, long-striding Earthmen, voyagers of space who had brought to decadent Mars a new energy, an adventurous, exciting scheme of things. Their vigor and vitality thrilled Eyehla; she wanted to be a part of it, to break the ancient rules and traditions that bound her life. Within the walls of her home there was only ritual, meek servility. Women, her father used to say, were slaves of the three obediences—obedience in childhood to their fathers, in marriage to their husbands, in widowhood to their sons.
At the age of nineteen, by Terrestrial reckoning, Eyehla entered submissively upon the second obedience, to find herself virtually a prisoner in the back room of the gaming house, sorting a heterogeneous harvest of Martian thaels, Terrestrial dollars, Jovian solts, and listening to the dry voice of her husband, Tenchu Tae
n, as he quoted his interminable odds. A dull, un-romantic existence; yet if not happy, Eyehla was still by no means miserable.
~ * ~
It would be difficult to compare Johnny Greer with anything of Mars. There was nothing tender or delicate about him. He was, in fact, as hard as tempered ixite. More, his presence in the Olech seemed something of a mystery to the silent, observant reddies. Crisp-voiced, brittle-eyed young Terrestrials were not in the habit of burying themselves in the stench and squalor of the cargo ports. Naavic, the genial Ki Street spice merchant, remarked that there was a peculiarly shaped bulge beneath Johnny’s left armpit, a bulge which might readily have been made by a shoulder-holstered heat gun. The police, Naavic went on, were looking for the Terrestrial gunman who had recently robbed a Psidian jewel merchant and shot down a bystander in making his getaway. Therefore Johnny-
“A youth should always be regarded with respect. How do we know that his future may not be superior to our present?” Tenchu had answered ponderously. And since Taen was a person of great wealth and authority, the reddies accepted Johnny Greer at his face value.
It was inevitable, of course, that Johnny should fall a victim of Eyehla’s slim perfection. The wistfulness of her, the childish gravity of her smile, were new to him, filled him with chivalrous —if not altogether altruistic—dreams of rescuing her from the solemn Tenchu. And because Johnny was young, handsome, Eyehla also dreamed—dreams in which he was the central figure. So, although they had spoken hardly a dozen words, tinder-like thoughts filled her mind, ready at any moment to burst into violent flame.
The tinder caught one stifling summer night. It was the Festival of the Two Moons, the most ancient of Martian holidays, and the Olech blazed with lights. Spacemen of every planet, reddies in their finest robes, dark desert men from the burning plains of Psidis, mingling in a kaleidoscope of color. The Space Market echoed with the chatter and laughter of the crowd, the shrieks of children, the raucous shouts of the liquor-venders, the blaring music of an imported Terrestrial band. The shuffle of myriad feet, the purring of canal-cabs, the slap-slap-slap of the waves in their wake. Smells of cheap food, fresh gaahl roots, roasting reth-fowl, tainting the clean, thin air. Faces, dull faces, grinning faces, sad faces, lurid in the greenish light of the radite arc lamps. A torrent of life, caught in the carnival spirit arid swept aimlessly along the twisting streets toward a phantom destination.
In the tiny apartment behind the gambling room, Eyehla bent over the table, sorting a heap of change into small, neat piles. The doorway leading to the street was open to admit a breath of air, and Eyehla, aware of the coarse, blatant crowds that choked the town, shuddered. She felt hemmed in, crushed by the weight of their personalities. Through the thin green curtain that hung in the entrance between the room and the gambling hall, she could hear Tenchu’s unvarying chant: “Place your bets! Place your bets! Ai . . . eee! The struggle commences!” And always the ceaseless jingle of money, the eager shouts of the spectators. Eyehla’s fingers tightened until her nails bit into her palms. If only someone like—
~ * ~
“You are very lovely,” said Johnny Greer softly.
Eyehla glanced up, confused, as one surprised in a secret dream. He was standing in the doorway, slim, carelessly handsome. His eyes, fixed on her face, were like bits of glittering blue thorene.
“Johnny Greer! You must not say that!” Her glance flickered toward the curtain. “I—I have work to do!”
“Work!” he whispered. “Work is not for you. You should be a queen with a thousand slaves to wait upon you.” The liquid Martian syllables came haltingly to Johnny’s Terrestrial lips. “You are a fayeh blossom. The foul breath of the old man will wither you.”
Eyehla stared at him, swaying slightly. A chance to break away from the eternal obedience, to be free like Earth women! They selected the men they wanted, without regard to parental orders. Here was a man, young, good-looking, ready to grant her slightest wish, to live for her pleasure. And so strong, so completely able to protect her from the merciless conventions of Mars. Eyehla thought of Tenchu, solemn, grave, maddeningly deliberate. His emotionless mien, his elaborate rituals, his dull, long-winded discussions. A sudden flare of rebellion gripped her. An opportunity to break those musty laws and traditions that had forced her into this marriage, to know the liberty of the people of Terra! She had the right—
Tenchu’s voice in the gambling room outside resumed its sing-song drone. Eyehla cowered at the sound of it
“Go,” she whispered. “Go away!”
Johnny Greer did not go. He stepped forward, gripped her arm. Eyehla trembled The look in his eyes, the strength of his fingers—
“You will leave with me tonight,” he murmured. “Leave all this. Away from people, from work, from—ugliness. Just we two-”
The sickening reek of cheap tong drifted through the doorway. Harsh voices, drunken laughter. Sand gritted beneath Johnny’s feet. Eyehla tried to think. Earth, so they said, was fresh and green and beautiful. No stinking canals or hot, sandy deserts. But her husband—
Johnny drew her closer. The brave free life of her dreams seemed very near, and Tenchu’s chant suddenly far-away. Her tense body went limp under the Earthman’s gripping fingers.
“Johnny-”
“Tenchu will keep the place open late tonight. He will be too busy to notice if you leave. I’ll wait for you at the old space-beacon on the plain outside the city.” He glanced at the heap of money on the table. “How much is there?”
“Nearly a thousand thaels. This is our biggest night. The Festival of the Two Moons-” Remembering old Naavic’s earlier suspicions, her face went pale.
“Good. Bring it.”
“No. No!” Her throat was suddenly dry. “That’s stealing-” Spots of tarnish were beginning to appear on Johnny’s shining armor.
“Listen, it’s just a loan. I’m short of cash right now. We’ll need it to get away. I can send it back soon—as soon as we reach Terra.” He swept her into his arms, kissed her. “Be at the space-beacon about eleven. We can reach Psidis by dawn, get a ship there for Earth. You’ll come?” The question of money brought an added insistence to Johnny’s pleadings.
Eyehla swayed under the sweet sting of a dream. Nothing was very clear except that she was going to leave the Olech— leave Tenchu and his dry quotations, his stodgy friends, his relentless customs. Tenchu had not loved her—not as she imagined love. Johnny promised all she had hoped for. Love. Romance, instead of obedience. The beauties of the green, verdant Terra.
“At eleven.” She clung to him tightly in a last furious embrace. “Now go. Go!”
~ * ~
In the gambling room outside, Tenchu, his face set in a crinkly automatic smile, raked in a stack of money. “Good fortune attend your future wagers! Ai . . . eee! Place your bets!” That also was automatic. He was not even conscious of having spoken. His back to the curtains, he gazed blandly at the crowd, giving no hint of the cruel talons that tore at his heart. Where an Earthling might have acted impetuously, Tenchu, following the baffling logic of the red planet, began to reason to seek a solution. Eyehla talking to Johnny Greer, believing that he was too busy to listen to what they said. As if, after so many years, the noise of the crowd made any impression on his ears! Johnny Greer touching his wife with eager fingers, holding her in his arms! Someone’s life would have to-
Tenchu changed a ten thael note for a gray-uniformed spaceman. “Try your luck! Place your bets!” He glanced at Johl, his assistant, standing at the other end of the table. Johl could not have heard—nor any of the others, with their attention focused on the writhing, twisting spores. Perhaps, if he acted quickly, no one would learn of his shame. Eyehla should be punished.
But she was so beautiful-It was a difficult matter to decide.
The Terrestrial had spoken of love. So did many of his kind— on Mars. Back on Earth the scorn of their friends quickly made them abandon the red-skinned “natives.”
“Johl!
” Tenchu called, turning toward the green curtain. “Take care of the customers. I shall return later.”
He went into the back room. Eyehla, seated motionless at the table, spun about guiltily as he entered.
“You seem startled, matana,” he murmured impassively. “Is anything wrong?”
“Nothing, my husband.” Her eyes remained fixed on the stacks of money.
“Good.” Tenchu nodded gravely, passed a hand over her sleek black hair. “I must go to see Naavic on business. I shall not return until after midnight.” He took his long dust-robe from the closet, picked up a small black object that lay on the shelf and dropped it into his pocket.
Midnight! Eyehla fought back a wave of exultation. Easy for her to get away, meet Johnny, now! And by the time Tenchu had returned, they would be far away, on the route to Psidis. Yattic, god of good fortune, smiled.
“Watch the money carefully,” Tenchu said, moving toward the door. “Until later, my Eyehla.”
Without turning to note her expression, he strode through the doorway into the narrow side street and along it to the house of Naavic, the spice-merchant. Old Naavic, his round red face gleaming, seemed surprised by this late visit.
Travelers of Space - [Adventures in Science Fiction 03] Page 11
