by Various
Mytor had suggested the meeting place, a hulk larger than most, a cruiser once in the fleet of some forgotten power.
Ransome had fought in the ships of half a dozen worlds. Now the ancient cruiser claimed his attention. Martian, by the cut of her rusted braking fins. Ransome tensed, remembering the charge of the Martian cruisers in the Battle of Phoebus. Since then he had called himself an Earthman, because, even if his parentage had not given him claim to that title already, a man who had been in the Earth ships at Phoebus had a right to it.
He was running a hand over the battered plate of a blast tube when Dura-ki found him. She was a smaller shadow moving among the vast, dark hulls. With a curious, dead feeling in him, Ransome stepped away from the side of the cruiser to meet her.
"Ra-sed, I could not let you die alone--"
Because her voice was a ghost from the past, because it stirred things in him that had no right to live after all the long years that had passed, Ransome acted before Dura-ki could finish speaking. He hit her once, hard; caught the crumpling body in his arms, and started back toward Mytor's car. If he remembered another journey in the blackness with this woman in his arms, he drove the memory back with the savage blasphemies of a hundred worlds.
* * * * *
On the rough floor of Mytor's place, Dura-ki stirred and groaned.
Ransome didn't like the way things were going. He hadn't planned to return to the Cafe Yaroto, to wait with Mytor for the arrival of the priests.
"There are a couple of my men outside," Mytor told him. "When the priests are spotted you can slip out through the rear exit."
"Why the devil do I have to be here now?"
"As I have told you, I am a businessman. Until I have turned the girl over to the priests I cannot be sure of my payment. This girl, as you know, is not without friends. If Captain Jareth knew that she was here he would tear this place apart, he and his crew. Those men have rather an impressive reputation as fighters, and while my guard here--"
"You've been drinking too much of your own rotten liquor, Mytor. Why should I try to save her at the eleventh hour? To hand her back to her lover?"
"I never drink my own liquor, Mr. Ransome." He took a sip of his kali in confirmation. "I have seen love take many curious shapes."
Ransome stood up. "Save your memoirs. I want a guard to get me to the ship you promised me. And I want it now."
Mytor did not move. The guards, ranged around the walls, stood silent but alert.
"Mytor."
"Yes, Mr. Ransome?"
"There isn't any ship. There never was."
The Venusian shrugged. "It would have been easier for you if you hadn't guessed. I'm really sorry."
"So you'll make a double profit on this deal. I was the bait for Dura-ki, and Irene was bait for me. You are a good businessman, Mytor."
"You are taking this rather better than I had expected, Mr. Ransome."
Ransome slumped down into his chair again. He felt no fear, no emotion at all. Somewhere, deep inside, he had known from the beginning that there would be no more running away after tonight, that the priests would have their will with him. Perhaps he had been too tired to care. And there had been Irene, planted by Mytor to fill his eyes, to make him careless and distracted.
He wondered if Irene had known of her role, or had been an unconscious tool, like himself. With faint surprise, he found himself hoping that she had not acted against him intentionally.
* * * * *
Dura-ki was unconscious when the priests came. She had looked at Ransome only once, and he had stared down at his hands.
Now she stood quietly between two of the black-robed figures, watching as others counted out gold coins into Mytor's grasping palm. Her eyes betrayed neither hope nor fear, and she did not shrink from the burning, fanatical stares of the priests, nor from their long knives. The pirate's consort was not the girl who had screamed in the dimness of the Temple when the Sacred Lots were cast.
A priest touched Ransome's shoulder and he started in spite of himself. He tried to steady himself against the sudden chill that seized him.
And then Dura-ki, who had called him once to blasphemy, now called him to something else.
"Stand up, Ra-sed. It is the end. The game is played out and we lose at last. It will not be worse than the pit of the Dark One."
Ransome got to his feet and looked at her. He no longer loved this woman but her quiet courage stirred him.
With an incredibly swift lunge he was on the priest who stood nearest Dura-ki. The man reeled backward and struck his skull against the wall. It was a satisfying sound, and Ransome smiled tightly, a half-forgotten oath of Darion on his lips.
He grabbed the man by the throat, spun him around, and sent him crashing into another.
A knife slashed at him, and he broke the arm that held it, then sprang for the door while the world exploded in blaster fire.
Dura-ki moved toward him. He wrenched at the door, felt the cold night air rash in. A hand clawed at the girl's shoulder, but Ransome freed her with a hard, well-aimed blow.
When she was outside, Ransome fought to give her time to get back to the Hawk of Darion. Also, he fought for the sheer joy of it. The air in his lungs was fresh again, and the taste of treachery was out of his mouth.
It took all of Mytor's guards and the priests to overpower him, but they were too late to save Mytor from the knife that left him gasping out his life on the floor.
Ransome did not struggle in the grip of the guards. He stood quietly, waiting.
"Your death will not be made prettier by what you have done," a priest told him. The knife was poised.
"That depends on how you look at it," Ransome answered.
"Does it?"
"Absolutely," a hard, dry voice answered from the doorway.
Ransome turned his head and had a glimpse of Irene. With her, a blaster level in his hand, and his crew at his back, was Captain Jareth. It was he who had answered the priest's last question.
Mytor had said that Jareth's crew had an impressive reputation as fighters, and he lived just long enough to see the truth of his words. The priests and the guards went down before the furious attack of the men from the Hawk of Darion. Ransome fought as one of them.
When it was over, it was not to Captain Jareth that he spoke, but to Irene.
"Why did you do this? You didn't know Dura-ki, and you despised me."
"At first I did. That's why I agreed to Mytor's plan. But when I had spoken to you, I felt differently. I--"
Jareth came over then, holstering his blaster. Irene fell silent.
The big spaceman shifted uneasily, then spoke to Ransome.
"I found Dura-ki near here. She told me what you did."
Ransome shrugged.
"I sent her back to the ship with a couple of my men."
Abruptly, Jareth turned and stooped over the still form of Mytor. From the folds of the Venusian's stained tarab he drew a ring of keys. He tossed them to Ransome.
"This will be the first promise that Mytor ever kept."
"What do you mean?"
"Those are the keys to his private ship. I'll see that you get to it."
It was Irene who spoke then. "That wasn't all that Mytor promised him."
The two men looked at her in surprise. Then Ransome understood.
"Will you come with me, Irene?" he asked her.
"Where?" Her eyes were shining, and she looked very young.
Ransome smiled at her. "The Galaxy is full of worlds. And even the Dark One cancels his debts when the night of Bani-tai is over."
"Let's go and look at some of those worlds," Irene said.
* * *
Contents
STEP IV
By Rosel George Brown
The first time Juba saw him, she couldn't help recalling the description of Ariovistus in Julius Caesar: Hominem esse barbarum, iracundum, temerarium.
She unpinned the delicate laesa from her hair, for Terran spacemen are educate
d, and if they have a choice, or seem to have, prefer seduction to rape.
Step. I. A soft answer turneth away wrath, leaving time for making plans.
He caught the flower, pleased with himself, Juba saw, for not fumbling, pleased with his manhood, pleased with his morality in deciding not to rape her.
Rule a--A man pleased with himself is off guard.
* * * * *
He was big, even for a Man, and all hair, and in his heavy arms the veins were knotted and very blue. He had taken off his shirt, letting the air blow shamelessly over him.
It was true he was wonderful to see. And Juba knew that such is the nature of our violences, if she had been born into such a body, she too, would be a thing of wars and cruelty, a burner of cities, a carrier of death and desolation.
His face softened, as though the hand of Juno had passed over it. Softly he gazed at the flower, softly at Juba.
Rule b--This is the only time they are tractable.
"Vene mecum," she bade him, retreating into the glade--what was left of it after his ship burned a scar into it. She ran lightly, so as to give the impression that if he turned, only so far as to pick up the weapon on the ground by his shirt, she would disappear.
"I follow," he said in her own language, and she stopped, surprise tangling her like a net. For she had been taught that Men speak only New-language in our time, all soft tongues having been scorned to death.
She should not have stopped. He looked back toward his gun. "Wait a moment," he said. His "a"'s were flat and harsh, his words awkwardly sequenced.
"Come with me," she said, and ran off again. She had been caught off guard.
Would he follow her? "Wait!" he cried, hesitated, and came after her again. "I want to get my gun." He reached for Juba's hand.
She shrank back from him. "Mulier enim sum." Would he get the force of the particle? What could he fear from a mere woman?
When he had followed her far enough, when he had gone as far as he would, for fear of losing his way from his ship, she let him take her hand.
"Terran sum," he said. And then, with meaning, "Homino sum."
"Then you are, naturally, hungry," Juba said. "You have no need to come armed. Let me take you to my home. There are only my sisters and I and the mother."
"Yes," he said, and took her other hand.
She blushed, because he was strangely attractive, and because the thought came to her that his ways were gentle, and that if he spoke a soft tongue, perhaps he was not like other Men.
Rule c--They are all alike.
"Come," Juba said, turning, "We are not far from the cottages."
* * * * *
She watched, during the meal, to see how he impressed the sisters and the mother. The little sisters--all bouncy blond curls and silly with laughter--their reaction to everything was excitement. And the mother--how could she seem so different from her daughters when they were so completely of her? They had no genes but her genes. And yet, there she sat, so dignified, offering a generous hospitality, but so cold Juba could feel it at the other end of the table. So cold--but the Man would not know, could not read the thin line of her taut lips and the faint lift at the edges of her eyes.
Juba brought him back to the ship that night, knowing he would not leave the planet.
"Mother," Juba said, kneeling before the mother and clasping her knees in supplication. "Mother ... isn't he ... different?"
"Juba," the mother said, "there is blood on his hands. He has killed. Can't you see it in his eyes?"
"Yes. He has a gun and he has used it. But mother--there is a gentleness in him. Could he not change? Perhaps I, myself...."
"Beware," the mother said sternly, "that you do not fall into your own traps."
"But you have never really known a man, have you? I mean, except for servants?"
"I have also," she said, "never had an intimate conversation with a lion, nor shared my noonday thoughts with a spider."
"But lions and spiders can't talk. That's the difference. They have no understanding."
"Neither have men. They are like your baby sister, Diana, who is reasonable until it no longer suits her, and then the only difference between her and an animal is that she has more cunning."
"Yes," Juba said resignedly, getting to her feet. "If thus it is Written. Thank you, Mother. You are a wellspring of knowledge."
"Juba," Mother said with a smile, pulling the girl's cloak, for she liked to please them, "would you like him for a pet? Or your personal servant?"
"No," she said, and she could feel the breath sharp in her lungs. "I would rather.... He would make a good spectacle in the gladiatorial contests. He would look well with a sword through his heart."
She would not picture him a corpse. She put the picture from her mind. But even less would she picture him unmanned.
He would rather die strong than live weak. And Juba--why should she have this pride for him? For she felt pride, pangs as real as the pangs of childbirth. There are different kinds of pride, but the worst kind of pride is pride in strength, pride in power. And she knew that was what she felt. She was sinning with full knowledge and she could not put her sin from her.
Juba ran straight to the altar of Juno, and made libation with her own tears. "Mother Juno," she prayed, "take from me my pride. For pride is the wellspring whence flow all sins."
But even as she prayed, her reason pricked at her. For she was taught from childhood to be reasonable above all things. And, having spoken with this Man, having found him courteous and educated, she could not believe he was beyond redemption simply because he was a Man. It was true that in many ways he was strange and different. But were they not more alike than different?
And as for his violences--were they much better, with their gladiatorial combats? Supposed to remind them, of course, of the bloodshed they had abhorred and renounced. But who did not secretly enjoy it? And whose thumbs ever went up when the Moment came? And this making of pets and servants out of Men--what was that but the worst pride of all? Glorying that a few incisions in the brain and elsewhere gave them the power to make forever absurd what came to them with the seeds at least of sublimity.
Juba stood up. Who was she to decide what is right and what is wrong?
She faced the world and its ways were too dark for her, so she faced away.
* * * * *
There was a sound in the brush near her, and she wished the stars would wink out, for the sound had the rhythm of her Mother's approach, and Juba wanted to hide her face from her mother.
The mother frowned at Juba, a little wearily. "You have decided to forsake the world and become a Watcher of the Holy Flame. Am I not right?"
"You are right, mother."
"You think that way you avoid decision, is that not right?"
"That is right," Juba answered.
She motioned the girl to the edge of the raised, round stone and sat. "It is impossible to avoid decision. The decision is already made. What you will not do, someone else will do, and all you will have accomplished is your own failure."
"It is true," Juba said. "But why must this be done, Mother? This is a silly ceremony, a thing for children, this symbolic trial. Can we not just say, 'Now Juba is a woman,' without having to humiliate this poor Man, who after all doesn't...."
"Look into your heart, Juba," the mother interrupted. "Are your feelings silly? Is this the play of children?"
"No," she admitted. For never before had she been thus tormented within herself.
"You think that this Man is different, do you not? Or perhaps that all men are not so savage of soul as you have been taught. Well, I tell you that a Man's nature is built into his very chromosomes, and you should know that."
"I know, mother." For Juba was educated.
"There was a reason once, why men should be as they are. Nature is not gentle and if nature is left to herself, the timid do not survive. But if bloodlust was once a virtue, it is no longer a virtue, and if men will end up killing each othe
r off, let us not also be killed."
"No," Juba said. For who would mind the hearths?
"All that," the mother said, rising and dusting off her robe, "is theory, and ideas touch not the heart. Let me but remind you that the choice is yours, and when the choice is made I shall not yea or nay you, but think on this--a woman, too, must have her quiet strength, and you spring of a race of queens. How shall the people look to the Tanaids for strength in times of doubt and trouble, if a Tanaid cannot meet the Trial? The choice is yours. But think on who you are."
* * * * *
The mother slipped away and left Juba alone in the quiet precinct of Juno, watching how the little fire caught at the silver backs of turned leaves when the wind blew.
Yes, Juba knew who she was, though they had never made it an important thing to be a ruler. But ruler or not, she loved her land and her home and her people, and even this ringed space of quiet where the spirit of Juno burned safely. Life somehow had chosen for her to be born and had made room for her in this particular place. Now she must choose it, freely. Otherwise she would never have in her hands the threads of her own life, and there would be no life for her. Only the complete loss of self that comes to the Watchers of the Holy Flame. And that is a holy thing, and an honor to one's house, if it is chosen from the heart. But if it is chosen from fear of crossing the passageways of life--then it is no honor but a shame.
And Juba knew she could not bear such a shame, either for her house or within the depths of her soul.
"Mother Juno," she prayed, "make clear the vision of my soul, and let me not, in my vanity, think I find good what the goddesses see to be evil."
So she rose with a strong and grateful heart, as though she had already faced her trial and had been equal to it.
The rest of the night she slept warmly, so unaware are we of the forces within us.
* * * * *
The first fingers of the sun pulled Juba from her cot, as they pull the dew from the green things of the earth, and she pinned in her hair the first Laesa she saw that the sun's fingers had forced.
