Cirque

by Terry Carr

  “Of course,” Gregorian said. “I offered to change it.”

  “Think as you will about the temples, but we have always respected art. How could we not?—it is an expression of the Elements.”

  Gregorian looked gravely into her eyes. “Let’s agree on something now before we go any further: we won’t talk about religion, and we won’t talk about art. You’re clever with words, but I don’t trust words. I think you know some things I don’t, but you’ll have to show me.”

  Salamander laughed. “Weren’t you shown enough tonight?”

  “Enough to make me wonder,” he said. He paused as they came to the great arch of the Gate, and he saw Alton sitting there. “Well—another survivor!”

  Alton nodded to them and to the millipede as it came forward. To the foreigner he said, “You’re leaving so soon? I hope you weren’t disappointed by our city.”

  “I am never disappointed,” said the millipede.

  “I guess not,” Alton said. “Who else has come to see you off?” He peered past them at two figures who trailed behind in the dark; in a moment he recognized Jamie and Gloriana. “This looks like an official send-off—a priestess and the Guardian too. Why didn’t the monitor come?”

  “Annalie is no longer monitor,” said the millipede. “She has begun the second part of her life.”

  “She’s asleep at the Cathedral,” said Gregorian.

  Jamie and Gloriana came through the Gate and stood a little apart from the group, not talking. Alton was surprised at the moody, dispirited look of the Guardian. Jamie still seemed fresh.

  “I guess rich people are used to staying up all night, carousing or whatever you do,” Alton, said to Jamie. And to Gloriana: “But you had a busy night. In case nobody’s mentioned it, you and your officers handled a difficult situation tonight, and we owe you thanks.”

  Gloriana glanced at him, then looked away. “No,” she said softly.

  “What? What does ‘no’ mean when somebody thanks you?” Alton was feeling more alive now that there were people to talk with. He climbed to his feet, levering himself up with his hands against the stones of the Gate.

  “We handled it badly,” Gloriana said. “Seven people died, and two dozen more were injured. Most of the injuries were caused by the shooting done by my officers.” She shook her head. “Our job was to protect people, but they would have been safer if we hadn’t been there.”

  Alton felt a surge of sympathy for her. “You couldn’t have known that the creature was harmless.”

  “That’s not the point. I lost control of the crowd, of my officers … of everything. I’m disgusted, and I think it’s time I quit the Guard.”

  Jamie looked at her in surprise. “You can’t be serious. You’re not a quitter, Gloriana.”

  “It wouldn’t be that. I need to change the direction of my life; that’s been building up in me for quite a while, you know. Jamie, would you still want to marry me after the things you saw me do tonight?”

  He glanced at the others in embarrassment, then took her hand. “You know I would, even this way. But it wouldn’t work—we should take a two-month contract.”

  She smiled faintly. “I do love you, you know.”

  There was an awkward silence. Then Alton said, “Maybe the millipede has some advice. You see the future, isn’t that right?” he asked the foreigner.

  The millipede blinked once, slowly. Stars gleamed in its large eyes. “I see only my own future,” it said. “I am leaving this planet.”

  “What will you be doing?” Alton asked. He could see that Jamie and Gloriana didn’t want to discuss their life in front of the others. “You haven’t even told us what you do out there in the stars. It must be something important to make you take such a short vacation.”

  The millipede’s thin-lipped smile showed briefly. “Your languages have no word for my position. ‘Poet’ says only part of it. ‘Prophet’ would be misleading.”

  “Prophet?” said Salamander. “I didn’t know the millipedes had a religion.”

  “We have never had one till now,” said the millipede. “I am the first of my race who could tell from experience such a story as the emergence from the Abyss.” Two of its forefeet opened the green leather pouch strapped across its chest; it drew forth a small book written on thin sheets of silicate vellum and held it out to the priestess. “You will need this.”

  Salamander took it and stared for long moments at the title page. “The Book of Causes,” she read aloud.

  “Yes.” The millipede nodded, smiling again. “It tells of what has happened here in Cirque. I translated it myself so that you could understand why so many of my race will be visiting your Cathedral in the years to come. It is the book of our faith; thousands of copies are already in circulation in the worlds of Aldebaran.”

  Salamander read one page, then another, a puzzled frown growing on her face. “There are poems about what happened yesterday. When did you write them?”

  The millipede shrugged furry shoulders as it closed the pouch. “I have been writing them for years. An advantage of temporal vision is that one need not wait for events to occur to write about them.”

  Salamander continued to page through the book. “It’s all here … the monsters coming out of the Abyss, the attack on your boat, the service tonight. …” She stared at the millipede. “You did know everything that was going to happen.”

  “Yes. I came to see it, for experience is the foundation of our faith. Now that I have seen these things in life, I can talk of them fully, and that is what I shall be doing for the rest of my life. On my own world, I shall be much like you: I shall preach faith in Cause.”

  Alton moved close to Salamander and read the page to which the book was open. “‘There is coherence in time. River Fundament flows: its unity is change.’” He frowned. “These are mystical teachings to you?” he asked the millipede.

  “Certainly. It has taken us much time, lost as we are in temporal vision, but at last I am able to explain the great principle of causality to my people. I have seen Cause in my own moment, tonight when everyone willed the creature to change. All became clear to me; and at last we understand.”

  The millipede turned again to Salamander. “You must be ready for those of my people who will visit your Cathedral; they are pilgrims come to view the present form of the beast on your altar. There will be many of them, hundreds of thousands. We have never had a religion before.”

  Suddenly Alton understood, and laughter bubbled out of him. He said to the millipede, “That was what you meant when I met you yesterday morning! You said that Cirque was on the verge of new life, that we wouldn’t be ignored and forgotten by people in the stars any longer! You meant that this city was going to become some kind of Mecca. … for millipedes! Not for humans, but for your own people!”

  The millipede made its chittering alien laughter. “Yes. But once we begin to visit Earth, humans and others will follow—our numbers will bring wealth and commerce. Cirque is truly a city of the future.”

  Alton shook his head, still grinning. “Then we’re going to need you more than ever, Gloriana. This city will need an experienced Guardian to make order out of things. You can’t quit now.”

  Gloriana seemed confused, but she said, “I’ll think about it again. At least the job would have some meaning.”

  She looked at Jamie. “You’ll understand if I change my mind?”

  “Not if,” he said. “You’ll stay as Guardian.” His eyes smiled at her. “There are different kinds of marriage. What if I joined you? I could become a member of the Guard, work in your world. I think I’d like that—and I’m not a total incompetent, you know.”

  After a moment she said, “Yes, I do know that.”

  The sky was growing lighter; the angular towers of the spaceport showed black against the glow of dawn. Already the stars near the horizon had faded. Alton looked overhead for a glimpse of the shuttle-ship, but it wasn’t visible yet.

  The millipede, seeing the
direction of his gaze, abruptly lowered its body to the grassy path that led out to the spaceport. “I must leave. I appreciate the welcome you gave me, and I shall remember all of you even more than before I came.”

  “We should thank you,” said Alton. “You’re giving Cirque a new life. You won’t be here so I guess you’ll never know how much you’ve done for us.”

  The millipede curled its head over one shoulder and said, “The changes are not yours alone; they will affect the galaxy. We shall even be able to explain to humans about the problems of controlling stellar inertia.”

  “Stellar inertia?” said Alton.

  “I must not be late for the shuttle,” said the millipede. “Ask Robin.” It began to move along the path more quickly than Alton would have believed it could, and soon the foreigner was only an indistinct form in the distance. The shuttle appeared far above and settled into the dawn.

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  Also By Terry Carr

  Novels

  Warlord Of Kor (1963)

  Invasion from 2500 (1964) (with Ted White) (writing as Norman Edwards)

  Cirque (1977)

  Collections

  The Light At The End Of The Universe (1976)

  Dedication

  For Carol

  Terry Carr (1937 – 1987)

  Terry Gene Carr was born in Oregon in 1937. An enthusiastic publisher of fanzines since his early teens, Carr was nominated for the Hugo for Best Fanzine five times, winning in 1959, and for Best Fan Writer three times, winning in 1973. Despite a distinguished career in professional publishing, he continued to participate in fandom throughout his life. He produced three novels but it is as an editor that he made his reputation – first at Ace and then in a freelance capacity. He initiated the long-running and influential ‘Universe’ series of original anthologies and, from 1972 to 1987, produced The Best Science Fiction of the Year compilations, widely regarded as being the best of the annual showcase collections. He was nominated thirteen times for the Hugo Award for Best Editor, winning twice. Terry Carr died in April 1987 of congestive heart failure.

  Copyright

  A Gollancz eBook

  Copyright © The Estate of Terry Carr 1977

  All rights reserved.

  The right of Terry Carr to be identified as the author

  of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This eBook first published in Great Britain in 2011 by

  Gollancz

  The Orion Publishing Group Ltd

  Orion House

  5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane

  London, WC2H 9EA

  An Hachette UK Company

  A CIP catalogue record for this book

  is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978 0 575 11712 9

  All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real

  persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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