THE HATE BOMBS
Countless years after Icarus, Mankind did discover the Greataway, and the age of Invisible Spaceships began. The Invisible Spaceships — as fast as thought and as clean as the new moon, powered by the Outer Think. They were much more practical than Icarus’s locomotive — or even the Celestial Steam Locomotive, which came later and which was not a true Invisible Spaceship — because only insubstantial Dream People could ride it.
The secret of the Outer Think was lost after the war with the Red Planet, so the minstrels say. This is not strictly true, because Selena’s vulpids, among others, used a limited version of mind travel. But it makes a good story and gives the minstrels the opportunity to credit the rediscovery of the Outer Think to Manuel and Elizabeth, the Great Lovers.
On that morning, after Starquin had spoken through the mouth of the priest, Manuel and Elizabeth made their way to a pool where axolotls lived, in the shadow of the Dome. Here they held hands.
They materialized on the Skytrain for the last time. Blind Pew was in charge now, tapping his way up and down the aisle, a figure of infinite menace. The fun had gone out of the voyage, and the passengers were scared and silent. The Bale Wolves had been defeated on this particular happentrack and, so far as the passengers could see, further travel was pointless.
“I want to go home,’ Bambi said plaintively.
Pew said, “Hist — there’s stowaways aboard! By the powers, I’ll rummage them out and keelhaul the dogs!”
“It’s only us,” said Manuel. “So shut up and sit down, Pew!”
Pew’s stick made an audible hiss as it swung toward Manuel, and it would surely have killed him if it had not, at the moment of impact, suddenly faded and passed right through him, leaving him unharmed.
“By God!” exclaimed Sir Charles. “The young whippersnap-per has the measure of Pew!”
“Pew’s only a smallwish,” said Beth. “He’s in your power if you have the courage to face him down.”
Silver suddenly bobbed up, hobbling from the direction of the Locomotive. “Don’t be doing anything hasty, now, shipmates! Save your psy. Reckless wishing could send us all to Davy Jones!”
Bambi sat very still, staring at Pew. She said, “If we’re very careful, we can wish away little things on this Train without hurting the composite. I think this horrible blind man is only a little thing that has become blown up in our minds. A tiny man my father once made, he said …” She was beginning to talk quietly to herself, a frequent habit of hers. Her gaze drifted to the window, where a supernova glittered countless light-years away. “Makes no difference where you are, anything your heart desires will come to you …” And her voice became inaudible, but she turned and looked at Pew again.
And suddenly Pew was naked.
He stood there bereft of his shapeless black hat and green eyeshade, and his great swirling stinking cloak was gone, and his shirt and pants, and even his cracked seaboots. He stood there a blind old man, face pointing this way and that in sightless bewilderment, his hands cupped over his groin. He was skinny and wrinkled and defenseless and totally pathetic.
He was a solid smallwish and it would have taken more than Bambi’s psy to remove him entirely, but she had hit upon a way to whittle him down.
With a croak of despair he bolted for the Locomotive, bony shanks pumping.
“Well now, me hearties,” boomed Silver, visibly gaining in stature. “Now here’s a pretty kettle o’ fish. Not that I have any time for the likes o’ Pew, but we must have discipline.” Nevertheless he found it hard to conceal his glee, and after a short oration on the value of teamwork, he shouted, “The Song, shipmates, let me hear the Song!”
And at that moment, the Celestial Steam Locomotive ran into a Hate Bomb.
*
Manuel and Beth were lost in their little world of love at the time, holding hands and planning their future in Pu’este, when a group of images passed through their minds.
First they saw Silver swinging toward them, a smile on his broad face, while from his free hand feathers fell, and a trickle of blood as he crushed the parrot in a clenched fist.
Next came Pew, fully clothed but for his eyeshade, and his eyes were like moons in his pointed face, dull moons that roved about before fixing a blind gaze upon them. Then one eye winked, a slow, grotesque hooding of the orb.
Thirdly the fireman came, and he had no face at all. The cowl of his black cloak contained a head that was featureless but not smooth, composed of ridges and furrows in independent movement, as though a carpet of maggots were devouring a side of meat.
And for the fourth image, Manuel and Beth each saw something different.
Manuel saw Beth, and yet it was not the Beth he knew. This new girl looked like Beth and she was smiling, but it was a smile of false invitation like a prostitute’s, and she thrust her hips forward as she swayed toward him, and her dress fell off one shoulder so that the breast was exposed — not only to him, but to a vast number of eyes that suddenly materialized around them. Then this new Beth spoke, and she said, “Come to me, honey!” and as he stood, hypnotized, she produced a glittering little knife from the pocket at her waist and held it before her, so that he could not help but impale himself as he was drawn irresistibly forward …
Beth saw Manuel smile tenderly at her. He said, “Kiss me, my love,” and as she did so, her tongue probing toward his, he suddenly bit down …
… and they found themselves fighting, somewhere there was a knife, and around them the passengers were fighting, also. Not only were they possessed with hatred for each other, but there was a dreadful fear in them, too, so that they fought with desperate and murderous intent and the knife was a millimeter from flesh …
“I love you, Beth,” said Manuel, trying not to struggle.
The knife was against his throat now and her crazed eyes stared into his.
“I love you, Beth,” said Manuel.
Her eyes widened with the first uncertainty, but it was too late, and the maddened brain gave the signal to the muscles, and the knife slid forward.
“I love you, Beth,” said Manuel, keeping still.
And suddenly the roar of hatred faded, the sulfurous air became sweet and the passengers quieted down, looking at one another in puzzlement, wondering what they were fighting about — and why, a second ago, they’d had every intention of fighting to the last man.
Beth stared incredulously at the knife in her hand, then dropped it to the floor, and the final image — of a sad-faced, dark man who had wanted to rule the world — faded from her mind in a rush of loving psy as she caught hold of Manuel and hugged him, and felt his arms around her, too.
And thus was the first Hate Bomb defused. After that it became easier. The Hate Bombs had served their purpose; they had saved Humanity. It was a pity that Humanity had in the meantime mislaid that special quality of love that would have allowed the Bombs to be nullified earlier — but now Manuel and Beth removed them one by one.
LA BRUJA
Sensed in a dream within life’s clangorous street,
Herself haste-free, a girl beside a monolith
Endless traffic stirred her black-winged cloak —
Not yet her body; she stood impassive as the Rock itself.
Step alive! I took her arm. Her strange calm caused me distress.
Her eyes unveiled, she touched my hand to stone
I saw…
Immensity undreamed, and human haste was meaningless.
—Street Witch, by Edward Luckstream,
52599C–52703C
Ana drew the purple drapes aside and stepped into the pavilion of Shenshi. The ancient Dedo leaned against her Rock, watching her daughter expressionlessly.
“The time has come,” she said.
“That’s good,” said Ana.
“It is not an occasion for satisfaction. It is not an occasion for anything except the knowledge that my Duty is done and my Purpose fulfilled. Satisfaction is a human emotion, Ana.”
&
nbsp; “Please let me experience it just a little longer, Mother. What a pretty girl Elizabeth is! She’s just perfect for Manuel.”
“Naturally. I took a great deal of care over her appearance.”
“But I thought it was just chance. I thought the Bale Wolf’s venom cured the Girl and turned her into Elizabeth.”
“All humans must have a good dose of evil in them, otherwise they’re not truly human. The venom of the Bale Wolf will cure every neotenite on Earth”.
“But Elizabeth’s face”
“I experimented for many thousands of years, using an Everling artist who is a blood relative of Manuel, although the artist never knew what was happening. Finally, I tested Manuel with a portrait, and he reacted favorably. Elizabeth was Manuel’s perfect woman. As the Girl, she loved him already. So the two of them, with powerful emotional ties, were capable of removing the Hate Bombs. Nobody else could have done it. It was all carefully calculated.”
“Well, whatever the reason, they have each other now.” Ana smiled. “I’ve so enjoyed this last century. This is a wonderful way to finish it off.”
“You’ve enjoyed it because I allowed you human emotions for a while. It was necessary to the Purpose that you should appear to be a normal human. You played your part successfully and manipulated the humans to our ends. That is as it should be. However…” Shenshi permitted herself a wintry smile — purely to make herself understood to Ana — and continued, “You may have a few minutes more, until I die.”
“You’re going to die so soon?” Horrified, Ana hurried to Shenshi’s side. She took her mother’s hand, feeling something crackle there, but hardly noticing it. “Why? Don’t leave me now, Mother. Not after all we’ve done.”
“I am old and frail. The Joy will be too much for me.”
“The Joy?”
“The Departure of Starquin.”
“Oh, I see …” Ana stood beside Shenshi for a while, regarding the Rock with some awe. Then she became aware of the paper her mother was holding. “What’s this?”
“It’s nothing. Just a poem a human wrote once.”
Ana read it. After a while she said, “It’s quite nice, I suppose. At least…” Her eyes widened. “Mother! He knew your name!”
“You’re not the only one the human poets wrote about, Ana. I spent my years among them, too, you know. When my mother was alive I was allowed emotions and human contact, just as I’ve allowed you.” She pointed. “There’s a sandy cliff to the south. Millennia ago a group of gentle humans lived there. They didn’t fight, and maybe I thought humans would always be like that. I became more friendly with them than I should have, and they took me into their houses and treated me as one of them. There was little Traveling then, because humans had not yet discovered the Greataway.
“One man in particular — his name was Mijel. He made me feel things that I don’t believe our kind has ever felt. He was kind and gentle, and he held me in his arms often — as I sometimes hold you, only the feelings were different. They were feelings of Earth, not the Greataway. Mijel gave me these feelings, and he wrote me a poem — then, like all humans, he died.
“I used to go and look at his village, but I couldn’t bring myself to talk to the people anymore. Many of their generations went by, and they forgot that once I’d been their friend and they began to regard me as a witch again. Then the ice came, and the earthquakes, and the village was wiped away. And the people were gone.” She fell silent, staring at the Rock as though trying to read the past in its translucent depths.
“But you kept the poem,” said Ana, looking at it. Then she said, “Did you show him the Rock? What’s this about a monolith?”
Shenshi said, “I, too, was foolish in my day. But there was no danger. A city stood on this spot, and the Rock was very well disguised. He might have caught some glimmering of it in another happentrack, but that’s all. He was a very perceptive human. What a waste, that their lives should be so short.”
“And ours so long.” Ana regarded her mother with compassion. “What does it feel like, dying?”
“It feels as though Time is coming alive. All the past is dead, because one millennium is much like the next — just a desert of years with a few memories, like oases. But now … I catch hold of each day when the sun rises. I take it in my hands and my heart, and I try to hold it for as long as possible. But suddenly it’s a living thing, and it slips through my fingers and it’s gone and it’s night again, and I lie there in the dark and I mourn for that day gone as if it were a lover.”
“How did this first start happening?”
“It came inside my head, so slowly I didn’t notice at first, because my body was still strong. At first there was just a quick alarm, as when a capybara thinks he hears the jaguar. Then it was gone and I forgot it. Just that once, it had seemed a little harder to send the Traveler on his way. Then it happened again and the jaguar was closer I could smell him — or could I? It might have been the scent of an old den, abandoned and safe. But I remembered what my own mother had told me, and I knew I’d had the first sign — so I gave birth to you, my daughter. Travelers came and went, and my mind was hunted now, the strength of the Essence draining away, just as the legs of the giant rodent weaken — because no animal can escape the jaguar, who is death incarnate. So I ran, hunted, doing my Duty as I must, because I was born to it, as you are born to it, and only one of our kind has ever done anything different, and we carry her shame with us forever. Now my mind runs no more. It is collapsed, waiting, panting. And it hears a rustling in the jungle nearby, very close.”
The daughter shivered because the cold breezes of night were trickling down the hills, and because she was reminded that Starquin, the Five-in-One, is the epitome of logic and would not have created a being that lived on after its purpose was fulfilled.
Impulsively, she said, “You think of death the way a human does. And you kept the poem all this time. I love you, Mother.”
The Rock glowed.
The facets lit up, one by one, covering a quadrant close to Shenshi’s head. She stepped back, the glow lighting her face and smoothing the lines until she looked quite young again. Then she placed the palms of her hands against the facet that shone the brightest. She stood as still as the Rock itself while she accepted the Traveler into her being. Her face filled with a joy that was not a human joy. It transcended all lower emotions, and Ana felt humble as she watched and wondered, and willed her mother to live through this last minute.
Shenshi divined Starquin’s intent, and she touched the facet he required and sped him on his way with her Essence. Now her expression was one of great pride, her eyes fixed on the Rock, her Duty done. Ana, sensing it was over, moved forward and took her mother in her arms, mourning at how light she was, how brittle. She took Shenshi away from the Rock and laid her on the bed. Shenshi lay stiff, consumed, no more sentient than stone, but with that expression of pride still on her face. She was nothing now, merely Earthly material already beginning to decay, but Ana held her and cried. Starquin had gone and life had gone, and now Shenshi was no more than any little old human lady, lying dead, all glory flown.
*
Starquin departed. His going was not attended by any noticeable phenomenon.
Centuries later the inhabitants of the Red Planet discovered that the route to Earth was clear again, and they came screaming through the Greataway with their Weapon. They unleashed it on Humanity.
Humanity never knew it happened.
By this time the Macrobes had spread throughout the genes of Mankind. Everybody could practice the Inner Think. The Red Planet’s weapon was harmless. And the Outer Think? That was in the genes, too, although the source has never been isolated. Some say it is an accidental gift from Starquin, passed on to Humanity by a certain legendary Dedo. But that is another story for another century.
And as for the present story, Manuel and Elizabeth returned to Pu’este and lived their lives among the animals and Wild Humans, just like anyone else. They n
ever spoke of their travels or of the momentous things they had done — except to two people: an old man and a woman who would outlive them all. The four of them used to get together every year or so and talk about old times and drink kuta.
The death of Manuel and Elizabeth is not recorded. One day after a difficult night of snake clouds, both were missing from the shack on the beach. They were never found. There is a story that a sapa scarf said to have belonged to Elizabeth was found near the Dome, beside a pool where axolotls lived. The snake clouds, whistling down from the mountains, had uncovered some kind of smooth rock nearby, and the scarf was wedged against it.
HERE ENDS THAT PART OF
THE SONG OF EARTH KNOWN TO MEN AS
THE OUTER THINK
IN TIME OUR TALE WILL CONTINUE.
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Also by Michael G. Coney
Cat Carina
The Celestial Steam Locomotive
Dedication
For Kevin Coney
with love
Michael G. Coney (1932 – 2005)
Michael G. Coney is the award-winning author of such novels as SYZYGY, MONITOR FOUND IN ORBIT, BRONTOMEK, CAT KARINA, and THE CELESTIAL STEAM LOCOMOTIVE. His short stories have appeared in magazines the world over and are frequently included in anthologies.
Copyright
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © The Estate of Michael G Coney 1984
All rights reserved.
Gods of the Greataway Page 27
