Capella's Golden Eyes

by Christopher Evans

  We arrived at the agreed time, dressed apprehensively in our best clothes. There was much wine and choice titbits which we nibbled as Theo led us around his luxurious suite, introducing us to theatrefolk, senior public officials, economists, surgeons, militia colonels, antique dealers—the affluent elite of the city. Everybody greeted us with great civility, and the men especially were charmed by Wendi’s youth and gaiety. Soon I felt completely at ease.

  Some time later, when my head was considerably lightened with wine, I noticed that snuff boxes were being passed around. Eventually one turned up in my hand. It contained a bright yellow powder and when I asked what it was, I was told; “Sun-dust.”

  I pretended to take a pinch and sniff it, but there was nothing between my fingers. “Sundust” was the fatuous slang-term for euphorin.

  Within an hour, everyone was stretched out on sofas and cushions, smiling dreamily. All conversation, all social exchange was extinguished: every person had retreated into the private microcosm of their mind, Wendi amongst them.

  The following morning we argued. Why had she, who had always deplored the traffic in the drug, compromised herself? As an experiment, she told me. Just to see what it was like. She claimed that she had taken only a small amount, less than that required for a total hallucinogenic effect, I said that this sounded like waffle to me: how could you have partial hallucinations? She replied that I was being silly, that I had always had a prejudice against any form of imaginative experience. She cited the fact that I had consistently refused to accompany her to a dream parlour. Was I afraid of my own unconscious? I stormed out of the lodge.

  We were reconciled by zenith. Wendi was contrite, and she promised that she had no intention of further experimenting with the drug. I drew from her a further promise that we would not attend any more “gatherings” during our stay. We would socialize publicly, but steer clear of private functions.

  As luck would have it, we received no further invites. We learned to ski (I somewhat more successfully than Wendi), gambled cautiously at the roulette wheels and baccarat tables (she somewhat more successfully than I), and spent the evenings indulging in polite conversation in the muted atmosphere of the cocktail lounge. Wendi was thoroughly enamoured of the lodge by the end of our stay, and we promised one another that we would return there as soon as time and our finances allowed.

  The first rains of Winter visited the city and there was a minor outbreak of fever on the South Bank—a grim echo of the previous epidemic a cycle ago. Wendi and I received notification that our sperm-ova samples had been accepted for incubation. Two children, a boy and a girl, would be conceived some time during the next three seasons (dates were never specified in order to forestall inquisitive donors from seeking out their offspring, genetic parentage being frowned upon).

  Oddly, our success in attaining parentage did not serve to cement our liaison. Since our return from the ski-lodge, Wendi had grown slowly more restless and preoccupied. Although she insisted that nothing was amiss, and made love to me as ferociously as ever as if to emphasize the fact, there was a distinct change in her behaviour. Her job at the hospital demanded that she keep irregular hours, but I soon noticed that she was spending more and more time away from the villa, especially in the evenings. Her distracted manner when she was at home reminded me of the earliest phase of our relationship, when I had been just one of her many bed-partners at the Institute’s residence hall. I tried a gamut of approaches from tenderness to anger in an attempt to discover what was troubling her, but she made light of my attentions, claiming that I was projecting some anxiety of my own upon her. I sensed that a crisis was looming, and felt powerless in the face of it.

  A M’threnni freighter visited Round Island on the second night of fifth month, and soon after dawn the following day the haulage teams moved into the terminus. It was a heavily overcast day and a stiff easterly wind was blowing, threatening rain. The wind died to nothing as we entered the black-walled arena, the familiar deadening of the natural world to which I had grown accustomed but not entirely inured. Capella was visible as a diffuse oval patch of light behind ashen clouds.

  The cargo units were stacked, as ever, at the centre of the terminus. I had an arrangement with Berenice, who drove the lead truck, that she would always pick up the trinket box, for it was easier to complete the detailed itemization of its contents while the other units were being loaded into the transporter.

  I climbed out of the truck and stood on one of the forks, which Berenice then raised until I was able to see over the top of the units. We drove along each row and finally I located the trinket box (its position varied with each shipment) at the near end of the third row. I signalled to Berenice and she began to lower me to the ground.

  Suddenly there was a tremendous roar, as if a massive wave had flung itself over the parapet, and I found myself lying on the glassy floor of the arena with fragments of black rock raining about my head. I stumbled to my feet. Fifty metres to the left of the portal, plumes of smoke were rising into the air from a breached section of the parapet wall.

  The last of the flying rubble skittered away across the arena and the smoke dissipated rapidly in the breeze. The explosive device had evidently been planted under the lip of the parapet for the rent was roughly V-shaped, extending two-thirds of the way down the wall. A flock of seabats, disturbed from their nesting places on the rocks outside the terminus, wheeled about overhead, screeching hoarsely.

  I became aware that Berenice was knocking on the windscreen of the truck. She waved her arms as if calling me back, then pointed towards the tower. The dark portal had opened in its base.

  “Come on!” I heard her cry. “Let’s get out of here!”

  The rest of the trucks were already hurrying towards the exit, their loads forgotten.

  Two figures emerged from the tower, the one human, the other alien.

  “They’re coming!” I called, with a mixture of surprise and glee.

  Berenice swung the truck around and drew up beside me. “Get in.”

  I shook my head, “It’s all right. You go on.”

  For an instant she stared at me as if I was mad. Then she slammed the truck into gear and accelerated off towards the exit.

  The silence which fell when her truck had quitted the terminus was absolute. The seabats still whirled overhead, but I could not hear their cries. I stared towards the tower, watching the two figures who were approaching.

  As they drew near I could see that the Voice was a male and the M’threnni, a good half metre taller than the man, a female. She walked with a curious shuffling stride, her feet invisible under her gilded maroon robe. Her arms rested at her sides, her long fingers splayed spider-like on her garment. She had heavier hips and a thinner waist than the male I had encountered, but she was devoid of breasts and hairless, and possessed the same piercing ebony eyes. Her nostrils dilated rapidly as she moved.

  The Voice walked slightly behind her, his hands dangling loosely at his sides in mimicry of the alien. He wore a copper-coloured tunic exactly like the one the dying female Voice had been wearing. He was lean and hairless, his lack of eyebrows making his forehead seem disproportionately large compared with the rest of his face. His skin was almost as pale as the M’threnni’s and his utter lack of expression gave his countenance the aspect of a china mask. I guessed him to be of middle age.

  The alien and the Voice came within metres of me—I could hear the female’s laboured breathing—but they did not stop or acknowledge my presence. They walked on until they reached the damaged section of the parapet wall. The M’threnni’s fingers wriggled, restlessly at her sides as she regarded the destruction; the Voice stood at her shoulder, motionless and impassive.

  It was, perhaps, ten minutes before they turned away from the wall and began walking back towards me. They stopped about three metres away, the alien riveting me with her black stare. A series of hisses, low-pitched murmurs and throaty clicks began to issue from her half-open mouth. Her lips did no
t move (the inner mouth was wet and purplish) but the grey membranes flashed spasmodically across her eyes as if in punctuation.

  The Voice listened in absolute stillness, his head cocked slightly towards the alien. The susurrus ceased abruptly, and the Voice looked at me and said: “You are a representative of the city authorities.”

  The words were delivered in a bass monotone so that it was impossible to tell whether the sentence was a statement or a question.

  “Yes,” I replied, deciding on the latter.

  “The wall has been breached by explosives.”

  Was this another question? I stared at him, wondering. His face remained as expressionless as his voice. The smooth, pallid skin was like that of a young child, but the deadness of his eyes made his face seem almost unhuman.

  “Why did you not leave the terminus,” the Voice queried.

  I was about to speak when the alien began her sibilant burble again. A rift had appeared in the clouds and a shaft of harsh, wintry sunlight illuminated the terminus; I guessed that it was this which had provoked her outburst. The alien’s fingers moved rapidly as she spoke, while the Voice continued to gaze blankly at me. When she had finished addressing him, he said: “You will accompany us to the tower.”

  A sudden panic surged within me, but I fought it down, reminding myself that the very reason I had stayed behind was in the hope of meeting the aliens. Was this not an additional bonus? But I could not quell my fear for I knew that no human had entered the tower who had not become a Voice.

  The female shuffled off and the Voice followed closely behind. Checking my stride to match their leisurely gait, I fell in at their side.

  As we crossed the terminus, the only sound I was conscious of was the female’s heavy intake and exhalation of air, a sucking and hissing, sucking and hissing, like an asthmatic struggling for breath. Neither the female nor the Voice looked back at me as we approached the tower.

  At close range, this strange, magnificent structure looked even more impressive than when viewed from a distance. It rose over two hundred metres into the air, a gleaming white corkscrew which mocked all human architecture in its exotic splendour. There were no windows, no external features at all; just a tubular ivory coil which curved upwards in ever-decreasing circles until it diminished into a spire.

  The base of the tower was the most substantial part of the building, a squat cylindrical area containing the oval entrance portal at its centre. The oval was deep maroon, almost black in colour, and although I knew that it was “open”, nothing could be seen within. It was like looking into a dark, unwelcoming cave.

  The M’threnni passed through the portal and abruptly vanished from sight. The Voice gently took my arm and led me forward. I felt a strange, not unpleasant tingling on my skin, and a vague tugging in the pit of my stomach, like riding upwards in a fast-moving elevator. Then the darkness ebbed away to reveal an oval corridor lit by a dim reddish light. The air was cool and exhilarating: a high oxygen content, I guessed. As we moved down the corridor I began to realize that normal human perspective was inadequate in the tower; the corridor seemed quite short, yet we appeared to be making no progress towards the dark portal at its further end. And then, suddenly and unexpectedly, we were upon it and stepping through. Again my skin tingled and this time the gut-feeling was one of falling. Again the blackness faded and we were standing in a small, low-ceilinged, oddly-proportioned chamber lit by the same ruddy illumination as the corridor. I felt giddy, and blinked my eyes to clear my vision.

  The chamber was roughly rectangular in shape, but it held no angles or corners, no individual walls or floors, just a single surface which enclosed us so that it was like being inside an opaque, cuboid bubble. The smooth curves of the room admitted no shadows, and the feeble red light did not seem to originate from any single point. This lack of focus in the geometry and the lighting increased my disorientation and I felt as if I was about to fall over. The Voice must have sensed this, for he moved forward, took my arm and sat me down on a small, rounded plinth which seemed to have grown miraculously out of the floor.

  Another plinth faced me, this one higher than mine to accommodate the extra length of the alien. The female settled herself upon it, her knees pressed tightly together and her arms bent backwards so that her hands rested on her shoulders—a pose which looked as queer as it did uncomfortable. There was no plinth for the Voice, and he took up a position to the female’s right, sitting down on the floor.

  Seconds crept by in silence. My dizziness had abated somewhat now that I was seated, and I peered around the chamber, trying to guess its normal function. But apart from the plinths, there was no other furniture or features, just the pale, smooth contours of the room, insubstantial in the dim light, and the dark portal through which we had entered shimmering faintly off to my left.

  The M’threnni began her sibilant and guttural intonations, an undulating flow of unintelligible syllables, at times oddly reminiscent of a human struggling with a severe stammer, at times wholly exotic. The Voice seemed remote and distracted, as if the sounds came from far away and he had to sit absolutely still and silent in order to apprehend everything. The alien did not look up at him as she spoke; her ebony eyes were fixed firmly and disconcertingly upon my own face.

  Finally she was done and the Voice showed a modicum of animation again.

  “This one would know the purpose of such destruction,” he said in his leaden tones.

  “I do not know,” I replied, my eyes darting nervously between the two of them before finally settling on the Voice’s placid, less disturbing face. “We—I and my fellow workers—were taken by surprise by the explosion.”

  There was a pause while the Voice absorbed this information and formulated his next question.

  “Do you know what persons are responsible,” he said finally.

  I considered, and decided on honesty. “I do not know precisely who they may be. But there are some who oppose the M’threnni presence on Round Island. It is possible that this attack was undertaken by these people.”

  Again several seconds passed before he replied.

  “Do these people wish the tower to be abandoned and that we should come among you,” he asked.

  His question sent a slight chill through me, for he had said “we” almost as if he considered himself a M’threnni.

  “They wish for the M’threnni to leave Gaia,” I said. “They feel that we must manage our world without outside intervention.” I paused, then added: “But these people are few in number and do not represent the wishes of the people at large.”

  This half-truth made me feel nervous as soon as it was out, for I had the sudden, irrational feeling that the M’threnni female was reading my mind. Her eyes had not moved from my face throughout the exchange, and it took a positive effort on my part not to look at her.

  The Voice took even longer than usual to digest this information. Then he rose and said: “It is welcome that you have communicated these facts to us.”

  The “interview” was obviously over, I rose and allowed the Voice to lead me over to the portal. The M’threnni remained seated and the grey membranes now blurred her eyes.

  The Voice directed me to step through the portal. I did so, and this time the falling sensation was so profound I instinctively reached out for something to break my descent. But there was nothing. My skin tingled fiercely and the black air seemed to be rushing past me. Then the darkness vanished abruptly and with it the feeling of motion; I found myself outside the tower, blinded by the sudden bright light of day. I stood still for a moment to reorientate myself, and a shiver passed through me. Rubbing my arms to disperse the chill of the tower, I began walking across the terminus to the exit portal, which was still open.

  A vague feeling of dissatisfaction possessed me as I crossed the deserted landing-strip but I could not pinpoint its source. I checked my watch and discovered to my astonishment that I had been inside the tower for almost an hour, whereas subjectively it had seem
ed only ten or fifteen minutes. I still felt slightly dislocated, as if there was a veil between me and the world, and it was only after I had passed through the exit portal that this dream-like quality of sensation passed away.

  The forecourt was deserted save for a single floater. A militia man got out of the vehicle and motioned to me to climb in, We drove across the bridge to the Complex and he led me up a narrow flight of stairs, along a corridor and into a small elevator which eventually deposited us opposite a dark, wooden door. On this he tapped three times before opening it and indicating that I should enter. Not once had he spoken to me.

  I stepped inside and the door closed immediately behind me. I stood in the office of Helmine Orne, the Mayor of Helixport.

  A luxurious green carpet covered the entire floor and all the furniture was of dark M’threnni wood. Potted plants decorated the window ledge, the bookshelves, the filing cabinets, and the air was redolent of their fragrances. It was like being in a garden.

  Helmine sat at her desk, scribbling something on a pad. “Sit down,” she said without looking up. I settled into the upholstered chair in front of her desk.

  She scribbled on for a minute or so, then put her pen down and took a handkerchief from her pocket. She removed her glasses and began to polish the lenses.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  I blurted out my account, sparing no details. Helmine did not interrupt, nor did she look up from her incessant polishing until I had finished.

  She put her glasses on, pocketed her handkerchief and said: “Is that all?”

  “As well as I can remember.”

  She got up, went over to the window and looked out across the river towards the tower. “It’s not very much, is it?” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You were inside the tower—for how long?”